CNN put up a five year look back at Hurricane Katrina that struck a cord with me. People hold up pictures from scenes of the aftermath, sumperimposing them over the modern scene of today. It’s a good gimmick, I love this sort of thing, where the passage of time in a specific space is somehow captrued. But what really stuck me was picture #20, you can see it by clicking on the link for the spot in the Upper Ward.

It’s the school across from my grandparents house. A helicopter sits in the field, for unknown reasons. The photographer notes that it wasn’t a common landing field during rescue operations, but one day a helicopters were landing there, who knows why.

I use to play in that field where the helicopters landed for a day. I played in it for years, with cousins, as my grandfather sat on the porch and watched the world go by. Who knew one day the neighborhood would be empty except for helicopters, what child could have imagined that as they chased others around the field playing tag.

Funny the things you can be reminded of and how.

Me responding to Ron’s thoughts on information theory, i.e. matter can be created of destroyed only transformed:

Yeah, but the you that is you is a certain specific mix of energy and matter in X state. Transforming it to something else destroys you. That you that is YOU, the Ron of right now, how was he made? Through a life time of experiences. Are those experiences matter and energy? Did they transform 5 year Ron to 6 year old Ron and so on and so on? Imagine someone that is your same build, same size, weight, shape etc. They’d have roughly the same number of atoms, right, doing the same thing, eating, breathing, walking etc. Yet you’re both different. What’s the difference between that atomic level and human reality that makes us all different, while still being the same carbon based form of life. Yet your memories are different. What is the atomic structure of memories? How does that structure vary from one memory to another? If it can’t be destroyed or transformed, how can one transform matter and energy back into that memory after you are gone? Do we need YOU, the unique Ron and all lifetime of his experiences that created that memory, as some sort of key to unlock the door that allows the building of that memory? Or can it be captured like a fish in a net?

Came across the following question on a website and decided to write out the answers.

If you can’t prove that you exist, why do you try?

Because there’s this movie I want to see later today.

Because it’s beautiful and sunny out.

Because a pretty woman just smiled at me.

Because there’s a game of touch frisbee going on in the park on this beautiful day.

Because I showered with peppermint and rosemary soap and now I’m tingly all over (Note, don’t get it in your eyes!), while smelling of peppermint.

Because I open my eyes and see the world and experience it instead of pondering such meaningless questions of whether I exist or not. Everyone second, my senses are telling me I do, so I’ll proceed with that hypothesis. When the senses stop doing that, then I’ll consider the question.

I had brought my camera and tried a few few shots from my seat in the audience, but my heart wasn’t in it and my hand knew it. It shook badly and the few shoots I took were blurry and out of focus. The sound was too magnificent to concentrate on the visuals.

The Cowboy Junkies were here and doing what they do best, playing music.

It was fantastic. The band is good. Margo, the lead singer has an amazing voice and the Michael, the guitar player is a phenomenal player. They are also the most unpretentious band I’ve ever seen. Margo introduced everyone and thanked their crew and thanked everyone for showing up and as she said that the rest of the band clapped. They literally just walked out on stage (just 10 minutes after they were supposed to start), waved, picked up their instruments and started playing. Margo walked out a minute later, holding a cup of tea and sank into her vocals, getting warmed up, before ripping loose with a fantastic set of pipes for the next hours.

Afterwards, Margo came out into the lobby to make and take with fans, take pictures, etc. Lisa and I got to met her, and I babbled like an insane fan, I just couldn’t believe I was talking to the lead singer in my favorite band, you know? She laughed and we went on our merry way. That was a week ago and I’m still high from that show, it was so fantastically amazing.

There are definitely reasons why I don’t write here more often. Part of it is that it seems silly, part of it I’m off elsewhere writing and part of it is that I can’t stick to any one subject when blogging, if past experience is any guide, and it usually is.

At the moment, I’m laying in bed while the wife is sitting next to me, making a grocery list and and children, excuse me, teenagers, are upstairs doing whatever the teenagers do and I’m not going to think about that too much ‘cause if I do I’ll run upstairs and demand that they stop doing it, whatever it is, even if I don’t know what it is. Such are teenagers.

General thoughts:
It’s cold out, but not as cold as the north east, so I can bear it. How do you know you’re in the South? When the afternoon temperature is around 50 degrees, yet people are “trying to keep warm.” That’s not cold people.

Obama is doing swell things. Yeah, I said swell, so what?

Pigs can fly.

Tacos are tasty.

Superbowl food is aweeome.

Pigs, tacos, food. I should get up and have breakfast.

As you get older, getting by on 5 hours of sleep doesn’t happen.

The local Dunkin’ Donuts shop is now a Title Pawn shop. Instead of getting a piece of delicous fried dough, now you can sell your life at a high interest rate. Such much for progress.

September can you kill, in the south. Having survived the languid, sticky slowness of August, you think September will be different. It is, after all, a month of change, when children return to school. The streets go quiet during the day, the parks and malls are bare in the mornings and stillness settles over the city, a held breath that finally begins to exhale around 2:30. With these shifts and changes, you’d think the weather would also change, that heat leave like an a guest who has over stayed.. You’d think.

But you’d be wrong.

You slowly realize that the heat and humidity has spent the summer making itself comfortable and it has no intention of leaving just yet. It stays on the porch, gently rocking in its chair and staring off into the sky. Occasionally, it will reach down and bring a wet glass to its lips and take a long drink and you’ll feel pieces of yourself melt away and it’ll turn and smile at you, the son of a bitch, and continue rocking. It paid for the full month and it intends to enjoy every moment of it and if you should go mad from the heat and humidity that doesn’t let up and seems like it never will, if you’re wake up everyday on the thin edge of reason praying please, let the heat break today, well, that’s just too bad, but it pay for the entire month, so it’ll be stayin’.

Simply put, it has not been a good summer, hence the silence here. I could list it all out, but really, I’d like to move past it all and instead, dream of flying

Our Facebook accounts have been reinstated, no real explanation given, just this short email:

Hi Brandon,

We have investigated the matter more thoroughly and have reinstated your accounts. I sincerely apologize for our error and the inconvenience you and your wife have gone through. I hope this will not deter you from fully enjoying the site in the future, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you experience any further problems.

Thank you,

Anjali
User Operations
Facebook

Much thanks to the Metafilter posse for their help, both in public and behind the scenes for getting this correction made. It’s great community of people.

and no, I doubt I’ll be spending much time on Facebook.