s n a p p e r h e a d

four concentric circles

(To view the circles clearly, just look at your screen from an edge, or an extreme oblique angle)

Devote today to something so daring even you can't believe you're doing it. — Oprah Winfrey

I'm rarely aware of current events until they're brought to my attention in a hey did you hear about... kind-of-way. I have, however, been following the Nidal Hasan spree-killing at Fort Hood Texas.

Although I know none of the soldiers or civilians involved in this incident, I still have some good friends on active duty. And, crimes of this nature still push my long-unused investigator buttons (I wonder if it will ever completely go away). Though I was in the Army for 20 years, and retired as a senior CID Agent, I realize my insights aren't very much. But, hey, what's a blog for, if not someplace to scrawl my current thoughts?

Fact: A 6 November news article reported that the day prior to the incident, the shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, gave his furniture to a neighbor and paid her to clean his apartment.

Observation: This is a textbook example of things a person who has decided to commit suicide does.

Fact: Major Nidal Hasan's performance as a psychiatrist has been questioned by members of the press. The military has responded vaguely about his performance.

Observation: Above the rank of Captain, the number of quality active-duty Army doctors quickly diminishes to zero. You see, most doctors join for the training and leave once they finish their service commitments (which happens to coincide with how long it normally takes to be promoted to Captain). For obvious financial reasons, good doctors leave the military as soon as permitted. An average psychiatrist (in most medium-large US cities) can easily earn $250,000 a year.

Major Hasan has already served twelve years (he joined in 1997). He must have completed his initial service commitment (normally 4 years after completing all training) years ago. Even with all of the specialty medical incentive pays, Major Hasan's military pay could not be much above $100,000 a year. The vast majority of doctors (and lawyers, and dentists, and pilots, and air traffic controllers...you get the picture) who remain in the Army after completing their commitments, do so because they are fully aware that earning a living in "the real world" requires more than they are capable of. Major Hasan was most certainly one of these highly-trained-incompetents.

Fact: The senior military officer's who supervised Major Hasan have not said much of anything, positive or negative, about his job performance.

Observation: What can they—the more-senior, more-highly-trained, incompetent doctors who have stayed in the Army long enough to attain the rank of Colonel because they could never earn a living as a medical supervisor in "the real world"—say? He was a terrible therapist? We knew he was a fucktard-zealot? We were deploying him to the sand box wishing and hoping that he'd step on a land mine?

I know that you cannot hate other people without hating yourself. — Oprah Winfrey

Autumn Zonk Hikes

This year's hiking season is officially over for Zonkey and I. We completed some great hikes this year—a total of thirteen. Zonk hiked 28 miles and rode in-pack or on-shoulder an additional seven. A six-mile out-n-back (with a 1,200' change in elevation), was the longest; but the most difficult ones taught me that he doesn't prefer to walk out in the open, on soft sunny beaches, nor in the forest on very soggy paths.

The primary reason our hiking is over until next Spring isn't foul weather, but because of hunting season (both furry and fowl). Although I'm apprehensive of either of us being shot accidentally-on-purpose, more importantly, any walk in the woods with a constant staccato of gunfire echoing around you is a foul hike.

I spend a lot of time by myself, and I consciously do that to strengthen myself and to stay centered. — Oprah Winfrey

This is where I was at ten years ago — You (.1)?

Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. — Oprah Winfrey

And the winner is...

So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground. — Oprah Winfrey

Open letter to Crazy (or do you spell it with an i?)

Dearest Crazy,

You say you've read one of my posts or this, that or even a mass market other thing or two, and now you actually believe the world is going to end on the 21st of December 2012?

No, you sweet-idiot, the world is not going to end on our watch.

And, to be perfectly honest, I don't know. But I do have reasonable and logical reasons to think so. If I distill these reasons into a List of Facts will it be easier for you?

1. The 21st of December is the Winter Solstice (day with the least amount of daylight) in the Northern Hemisphere.

2. In the Southern Hemisphere the 21st of December is the Summer Solstice (day with the most amount of daylight).

3. The Ancient Maya lived in Mesoamerica, which was in the Northern Hemisphere.

4. These Mayans kept track of time with a large quantity of different calendars.

5. One of their long calendars kept track of time for a little more than five thousand years.

6. Many people have "matched up" this long calendar with our current (Gregorian) calendar. There are almost as many different "match up" solutions as there are people who have tried to match them up.

7. There is a small consensus of people who think the "correct match" is the one that lines up the last day of the Maya long calendar (when it clicks over to all zeros) with the last day of the solar year.

8. Which is the first day of the solar year in 1/2 the world.

My point is that even if the calendars have been matched correctly (volumes of books have been written to refute or proclaim the calculations) it is only a calendar coming to an end.

On the 22d of December 2012, the new Mayan calendar begins and, for the entire modern world, the first of January 2013 will be just another new year.

But I waste my time, don't I crazi? You don't want logic; you want to witness the end. Your strangelovian-dream has always been to be Slim Pickens hasn't it?

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. — Oprah Winfrey

Disturbing Eavesdropping

Conversation between two female bookstore clerks:

That's disturbing. Just disturbing.

I knooow. Can you imagine?

You should call and complain.

What?

I think you should call them and say something.

I think I will.

(20 seconds of silence)

There's no answer. I bet they're away from the desk. I'll call them later. Teach them to say disturbing shit about us.

What's the most disturbing thing you've ever seen?

I don't know; I've seen some pretty sick shit. What about you?

Me? I. Well. There was this little baby rabbit. And it had this gross kinda open sore in it's side about this big and, and you could see . . . well, there were things moving around in it . . . inside the guts and stuff. And it was panting, you know, breathing real heavy and. . . Well, then my fiancé-at-the-time just goes up and stomps on it's head and. It was. Well. I still get upset thinking about it.

(At about this point a customer is waited on; they stop talking until the customer is gone. I think her distress was caused—more—by learning that some guy who she contemplated marrying was capable of euthanizing an injured bunny with his boot, than by the maggoty wound.)

What about you?

I think it would probably be this guy I saw on the train. He didn't have any arms or legs and he was duct-taped to a skateboard. (breathy giggles spread between them) And he had this little red swiss army knife sticking out the corner of his mouth, and it bobbled up and down when he talked—like a cigarette does—you know? . . . And whenever someone would get to close to him he'd say 'I wouldn't do it'. That was all I ever heard him say...(in a Burgess-Meridth-as-The-Penguin voice, she repeats—amid more giggles) I wouldn't do it.

Your stories! I always have difficulty believing your stories.

I wouldn't do it.

Where was this? Was he flat out... how. How'd he get around?

I assume he had some caretaker-handler or someone. He'd be in the isle of the train near the door. This was when I lived in New York, but he was always near or around Brooklyn I think. I saw him more than once. Couple times.

Duct-taped? I mean it must have . . .

Right to the board. It was a long board, or at least it was longer than a regular one. There was, like, a piece of foam under his head; but other than that: he was taped flat... I wouldn't do it.

Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together. — Oprah Winfrey

Clackers, Creepy Crawlers & Jarts

My parents were the Howard-n-Marion-Cunningham of the neighborhood. They based their parenting ground rules on how something affected their own comfort, or (if their comfort was not in play) their decisions fell into two categories: either they approved in a clueless and over-trusting manner or they were groundlessly and adamantly opposed. Determining which way they'd decide, or why, was never simple or obvious.

Although I played with my friend's Clackers, and whacked myself on the head a time or seven, I never witnessed them shatter or break (as they were alleged to). Mom wouldn't allow us to own them because she heard the noise from three yards away and didn't want that ruckus in her house.

The bubbling plastic and smoky molds which heated my day-glow worms and spiders . . . oh, I recall those smells and burns with fondness . . . (even now) a car sitting in an unshaded parking lot for hours can bring those memories wafting back. Mom restricted Creepy Crawlers to our basement; next to my wood-burning, and chemistry sets.

No one in our family or neighborhood got hurt by Jarts (even though we tossed them in each other's general direction). Playing with them was no different than playing with horseshoes, you watched where they were being arced and didn't play when smaller kids were running around.

Which reminds me of the worst Halloween injury I was involved with:

My little sister eagerly rode around me in a circle as I tried to arc a utility-pole anchor spike (tied to a string) through the back of her tricycle. The tricycle-lariat-king was off his game that day, I'll tell you. After over a half-dozen misses, I eventually hit her in the face with the pointy end, which punctured her left cheek and chipped her tooth.

It looked traumatic.

Of course I was sorry.

Only, at the time, I was actually feeling sorry for these things, in this order:

that I'd, again, missed hooking the back-rung of the tricycle

her screaming was, obviously, going to put a stop to the game

now I probably won't be able to convince her to play driveway rodeo with me

maybe ever again

getting really screamed at (what were you thinking!?) and grounded, by my parents, felt scarier than the blood and histrionics

saying "but she didn't mind playing the rodeo calf"

realizing the answer to my parent's shouted question was that I wasn't, but was old enough to (and that I could only blame my stupidity)

that in my imagination (as I waited in my room for them to return from the hospital) worse luck added an inch of arc to my throw, which punctured her left eye and stopped in her brain

2D Map of the 4th Dimension

It is now possible (thank you Google Earth) to collect and compile footprint-shots of every place one's ever lived. This collage reflects four decades of places I've rested my head; beginning at the top left—my parent's home when I was in high school—to the bottom right: my current abode.

The overlap of my 4th dimension (movements through time) with other people's, intrigues me. In almost every location, I've overlapped the life-prints of prior residents, and in every location someone has lived-slept in my life-print once I moved. Exceptions are few: I did not overlap anyone's 4th dimension in 1972, because my parents built that home, and the Quonset hut in which I slept from January to May of 1983 (green smudge under my parent's old house) has been torn down.

Although I limited my shots to locations where I slept for more than 3 months, obviously I could broaden my scope and increase my footprint-shots exponentially, by including sites/locations/hotels where I resided for shorter periods. My memory would be the only limiting factor. When I was three, where was that little pink house we lived in? When I was training in the California desert for 30 days (at Ft. Irwin) where did we set up camp?

I shall stay the way I am
because I do not give a damn. — Dorothy Parker

My Ten Favorite Films of the Last Decade

Everyone has their own favorites and nobody shares the same ten (and what a borin place it'd be if t'were). I hope to "discover" some I've missed by sculpting my list now (with the world ending on 21 Dec 2012 — I guess this December 21st is the last day of the 00h's — and it's not too much of a strain to suspect that no films coming out in the next month-and-a-half will be good enough to alter this list...even though I'd love that to be wrong).

To make it easier yet more complicated on myself, I picked ten categories (omitting documentary and some others), then broadened the scope to include films from all over the world, and then re-narrowed it, to insure there were not too many films from any one year.

Mystery — Memento (2000) [runner-up: Donnie Darko, 2001]
Teen — Almost Famous (2000) [runner-up: Superbad, 2007]
Musical — Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) [runner-up: Across The Universe, 2007]
Romantic Comedy — Amélie (2001) [runner-up: High Fidelity, 2000]
Suspense/Thriller — Oldboy (2003) [runner-up: Sin City, 2005]
Action/Adventure — Kill Bill (03 & 04) [runner-up: Hero, 2004]
Drama/Crime — Brick (2005) [runner-up: O Brother Where Art Thou?, 2000]
SF/Fantasy — Children of Men (2007) [runner-up: Minority Report, 2002]
Horror/Monster — Let the Right One In (2008) [runner-up: The Host, 2006]
Animation/Animé — Up (2009) [runner-up: Metropolis, 2001]

Authors and actors and artists and such, never know nothing, and never know much. — Dorothy Parker