It's Not How Well the Dog Dances

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Copyright © 2019 Hugh Brock

Cars, Boats, Airplanes

The Moon Landing

25 February, 2019

AS11-40-5927
Aldrin unpacks experiments from LM

I was just reading a bit about a new documentary, Apollo 11, that apparently uses all original NASA footage to document the launch, the landing on the moon, and the return to earth. Apparently the film is quite something — it includes a lot of never-before-seen 70mm footage that has been sitting in archives for the last 50 years. Anyway, the review reminded me of a weird thing I used to always think when I was a kid — that I was born before the moon landing, and therefore experienced it, even though I was too young to remember it. I felt quite some satisfaction that I was around for it.

There are a few other events that fall into that category that loomed large in my childhood mind. I guess the biggest one was the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., which happened in April 1968, three months after I came into the world. Martin Luther King was a towering figure in our household and I think I felt his loss keenly, once I was old enough to realize what that meant.

It seems odd to me, even today, that those two events should be such a part of my personal history, to the exclusion of other major things that happened around the same time. The assassination of Bobby Kennedy, for example, didn’t register, although it was certainly significant. Nor did the riots at the ’68 Democratic convention, the election of Richard Nixon, or the fall of Saigon make any splash in my consciousness (I never thought “Hey I was alive for the election of Richard Nixon!”). In fact, the only positive event I thought of as being part of my early childhood, was the moon landing. Everything else was doom, gloom, and disaster.

I know this must say something about my worldview today. The fact that I am inclined to believe there is an engineering solution to most problems must come from my sense of ownership of Apollo. Maybe my continuing belief in the power of non-violent protest comes similarly from my closeness to MLK’s death. And if this is true, I wonder what my nephews and nieces think about what happened around their birth? Does my niece Nora think to herself “Hey I was alive when Obama was elected!”? Maybe… and that’s a good thing, if it’s true.

What I doubt any of them are thinking about, is technology. We engineers don’t have much to show off since Apollo 11 — nothing so flashy, anyway. Maybe it’s time we put some real effort into flying cars.

Filed Under: Cars, Boats, Airplanes, Other Stuff

The Water

24 February, 2019

Water, with turtle

One of the things I like about living where we live in Boston is that I get to walk over the ocean every day crossing the Summer Street Bridge to Fort Point. No matter how big a hurry I am in I find my eyes wandering to the surface of the water. It is choppy, churning, glassy smooth? Is the tide — without measuring, there must be a ten-foot variation in the Fort Point Channel — going in or out? Can you differentiate the ripples from the tidal flow from the chop the wind is blowing up? What’s under there, can I see the bridge pilings? There’s an endless flow of information — mostly useless, sure — that I can sample, and I find it delightful.

It’s safe to say that I don’t find land nearly as interesting, unless I am viewing it from the water. The interface between land and water is endlessly fascinating (I’m far from unique here I guess judging from all the time we spend at beaches). Even far out at sea, though, water is interesting. It reflects what’s around — the sky, clouds, your boat — while distorting it according to its mood. Occasionally interesting things like turtles pop out of it.

As I think about it, it occurs to me I like the same thing about people. I’d rather have a conversation with someone who is able to absorb, change, color, and reflect the world in interesting ways, than a conversation with someone who is not reflecting, or not changing. Even the music I like — jazz, bluegrass — involves absorbing, coloring, and reflecting back, hopefully in real time. The interplay of light on flow, or chop, or storm surge, is like the reinforcing feedback loop between a great soloist and a great drummer, where the net result is greater than either could achieve alone.

Unfortunately I am afraid reflection is out of fashion these days, at least in the shouting contest of social media and the popular press. I am certain it will come back in one day though, just like the tide.

Filed Under: BVI, Cars, Boats, Airplanes, Music

Avoidable Drama

3 February, 2019

The Moorings, looking west from the north side of A dock. B dock was destroyed in the hurricane and is being replaced, hence the barge and crane. If you look carefully to the left of the barge you will see the mast of a sunken boat sticking out of the water — a Hazard to Navigation.

I was chatting with a friend in the BVI last week who had seen an interview with someone — I don’t recall who, unfortunately — who made the point that there are two kinds of drama to be dealt with in life: Avoidable Drama and Unavoidable Drama. Hurricanes, and interacting with your family, are examples of Unavoidable Drama. There is nothing you can do to mitigate or prevent it, you just have to deal with it as best you can.

Avoidable Drama, on the other hand, can and should be avoided, unless you are a Dramatic Person and thrive on that sort of thing. (Probably worth mentioning that most Dramatic People don’t realize they are inducing Avoidable Drama, rather they believe they are victims of Unavoidable Drama. But that is another blog post.)

Anyway — Avoidable Drama was in full force during our return to The Moorings dock A on Friday afternoon. Total disorganization on the dock was made worse by a few as yet un-dealt-with shipwrecks in the harbor (Unavoidable Drama). This was further aggravated by a whole bunch of catamaran crews with no idea what they were doing (Unavoidable Drama). The combination turned what should have been a straightforward procedure into a stressful interaction with lots of yelling back and forth between us and The Moorings boat handlers that left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth at the end of a really nice trip.

Why was this avoidable, when there are so many unavoidable elements present? Well, all that had to be done to remove the drama and lower everyone’s temperature would have been to tell all the boats coming in to hold in Road Harbor (where there is plenty of sea room) until cleared to enter the marina. This would only have required a single organized person with a radio, a pencil, and a pad of paper. Instead, the standard procedure was to tell every boat that radioed for permission to enter to come to the end of dock A and wait for further instructions. Unfortunately, because of the above-mentioned Unavoidable Drama (shipwrecks), there is only really room for one boat at the end of dock A. Try to put us and 8 clueless catamaran captains there at the same time, and hilarity ensues.

(What did we do when faced with this situation? The only safe thing to do: We entered a random open slip and tied up the boat. We were lambasted by the dock maser for this, but the alternative was crashing into something and endangering people and property, so…)

If there is a moral to this story, it is that the way to avoid Avoidable Drama is by putting a bit of process in place. Of course, if you put too much process, then you create more Drama than you avoid. So be careful…

Filed Under: BVI, Cars, Boats, Airplanes, Work

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Meet Hugh

I'm the Research Director for Red Hat, married to harpist and writer Kimberly Rowe, living in Boston. We lived in Brno, Czechia until pretty recently. Read More…

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