Temporary Hiatus

I know, you saw it coming. I've never gone eight days without writing. And without wanting to even emit the aura of complaining, the simple fact is, until I get my new schedule figured out, blog writing will be a part of my history and nothing more.

I just started my new Post Office job this week and it eats up the only hours that school and sleep do not. That said, go back and read some old posts if the spirit moves you. I plan to republish some of my favorite previous posts every so often over the next few weeks so the blog doesn't become too stale.

Maybe even a picture now and then. God knows you must love those.

Today is going to be all about this particular DVD set. The best TV show possibly ever made. If you've never seen Lost, you really don't know what you're missing. And I'm not just saying that. Ask Jason. Or Brett. And go rent it or something. 

This is Urquhart Castle at Loch Ness on nothing other than a cloudy day. Some of my best UK pictures ended up being the ones I took at Loch Ness. Or that's what I think. 

Meditation On An Imitation

That Sound You Hear? » Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra
Days Until NHL Opening Night » 31
Big News » Chief Justice William Rehnquist died last night at 80. He had thyroid cancer. He served on the United States Supreme Court for 33 years.

Now, today's story...

From my admittedly limited perspective on life, one of the most fascinating concepts seems to me to be that of the coincidence. Irony, put another way.

I sometimes laugh at fiction writers who choose to take their cues from actual events. Yet obviously art imitating life is the simplest form of coincidence. When "ripped from the headlines" is voiced over a Law & Order spot on NBC, you're not surprised to see a story that strikingly resembles something you just read in the morning paper. (On the other hand, the disclaimer at the end is a little annoying.)

What grabs my interest is life imitating art. Two examples of television entertainment are coming close to being realized in the three-dimensional world. It's really quite strange to me.

One example is the recent hurricane-caused devastation on the Gulf Coast (when compared with this year's FX movie Oil Storm) and the other is the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist (if you saw a 2004 episode of The West Wing).

Oil Storm, which I actually wrote a little about, was a fictional movie shot like an after-the-fact documentary. It was about Hurricane Julia, a massive storm that destroyed Gulf Coast ports and the oil pipeline connecting them to the rest of the country, effectively cutting off the supply of quite a bit fo crude in September 2005 (the movie aired in June). Sound familiar?

I cringed every time they showed gas prices going up to four, five, seven dollars a gallon. And while the movie was on a more extreme scale than Hurricane Katrina, I'm still floored by the number of coincidences. I've listed some of them below (the work of fiction next to the top bullet, the real world beneath).

Storm names, landfall dates:
• Hurricane Julia, Saturday, Sept. 3, 2005 (Category 4);
• Hurricane Katrina, Monday, Aug. 29, 2005 (Category 4).

Human death toll:
• Nearly 1,500 fatalities;
• Predicted to be in the thousands.

Average gas prices days following storms:
• $4.29 per gallon (regular);
• $3.08 per gallon (regular).

Not only are those things true, but other parallels include the evacuation of the city of New Orleans, the opening of the Superdome for those stranded, and a direct hit by the storm on Port Fourchon, a primary hub for oil coming into the United States.

So who thinks FX will be airing that movie again any time in the near future?

Then there is the Supreme Court situation which, while not sharing as many direct parallels, is just as ironic.

In a fifth season episode of The West Wing, entitled "The Supremes," the Bartlet administration is faced with the opportunity of filling a vacant Supreme Court seat when an associate justice has a heart attack. There's a few semi-funny moments dealing with the declining health of the the chief justice and a White House aide sending flowers to the family under that assumption.

But the staff decides to completely overhaul the court if they can get the help they need. As Democrats, they want the most liberal judge they can find, though the Republican Congress will have none of that. So they talk the chief justice into retiring so they can name a liberal female judge as chief and let the Republicans choose their dream candidate as well. And so it was.

By the way, the fictional Bartlet administration filled a seat back in the first season also. But how often does an administration really get to nominate a new justice? Let alone two or three. For those of you who skipped during American Government class, Supreme Court justices are nominated to life-long terms.

Back in the real world, with O'Connor having stepped down several months ago, Rehnquist's passing last night now gives the Bush adminstration the chance to fill two seats, including naming a new chief justice. It's weird, right?

While neither of these situations exactly mirrors the fictional works, they are still striking to me in similarities. It's weird enough when art imitates life.

But this is just absurd.

Watch For Yourself: I cut together a two-minute video of scenes from Oil Storm that I thought related especially to the Hurricane Katrina situation. You can click here to watch it. Remember, this movie first aired June 5, 2005. Feel free to leave your comments below.

I think I'm basically just switching back and forth between landscape photos from Iceland and North Carolina. Can you blame me though? I kind of wish I'd taken more pictures in New Orleans either of the two times I visited. 

Here's an airplane because I went to the airport today. I didn't take the picture today. I took it like five years ago. It was the Tampa to Baltimore leg of my trip to the UK. Tampa to Baltimore. Baltimore to Keflavik. Keflavik to Glasgow. And so on. 

All Clean

That Sound You Hear? » New Orleans by Toby Keith
Days Until I Own Lost On DVD » 4
Big News » Authority figures are predicting gas prices around here to top out at around $4 a gallon. That disgusts me. I'm getting in line for an Insight.

Now, today's story...

That post office job I've been speaking of for several months is inching ever closer. I'm afraid the hype is going to outweigh the thing itself. In fact, I'm sure of it.

But as you may or may not know (or care to know), my interview for the position of mind-numbingly dull data entry person happened last Saturday. At which point I was directed to schedule an eMAP appointment which, to the best of my knowledge at the time, had to do with a drug test.

Well that was this morning. In fact the clinic where this was to take place was in the Tampa International Airport post office. Why the post office at the airport? Why the post office at all? These are questions which no coherent answer could ever satisfy.

So I live in Brandon. So it's a relatively short drive, but consider the state of the roadways in the city of Tampa. For those of you not from around these parts, they are in utter disrepair. And by "utter disrepair," I of course mean "under construction." To say the least, it isn't a smooth drive. Never has been as far as I can tell.

But the important thing was I thought I was getting to go to the airport. I do love airports. It's a logical step up from a love of travel. If I could fly someplace right now, I would. Dammit, I would. Only not New Orleans. I don't care much for boating. (Forgive my poor taste. I honestly do feel for the people there and all along the coast.)

Urine test. Right. Digression is a villain to a narrative writer. So I got off I-275 and took Westshore to Spruce where I discovered the airport post office wasn't exactly where the Google map said it was. I drove in circles around west Tampa before deciding to give the road signs a shot. I followed them into the airport and all the way to the post office. Imagine that. Useful road signs.

My eMAP packet directs me to the second floor, room 202. But there was a problem with that too. For one thing, the elevators were hidden. But more importantly, no one answered the door I was told to knock on. However, a phone number taped to the door suggested who to call in such a situation. I did and Nurse Linda told me to meet her downstairs.

Before even getting around to finding out what my name was, her first question to me was, "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" To which I replied "yes." To which she replied, "Good, because that's the most important question of the day." (Look at that Lindsay, I've taken to stenography. Just like you've always wanted.)

I'd go on, but the dialogue gets even less-interesting (if that's possible). She handed me a cup to fill and away I went. (Details expunged here for obvious reasons.) Then Nurse Linda showed me how this fancy cup she poured my "specimen" into could actually tell if I'd be high recently within minutes.

Having little to no interest in science or anything like it, I couldn't really have cared less. But evidently there are these blue markers on the side of the cup (reminiscent of a pregnancy test — not that I'd know) under abbreviations that spell out jail time should any of them come up positive.

No worries though, I was completely clean. No amphetamines. No cocaine. No PCP. No morphine. No pot. All clean.

So that pretty much spelled my day. Taking a leak in a cup. And watching a few airplanes fly away.

Now if only we could figure out a way to get gas prices to go back down.

It's Almost Here: My number of the day above explains the reason why those who know me should expect, starting next Tuesday, little to no human interaction with me (like that's anything new). I'm stopping at Best Buy on my way to school and picking up the first season of Lost on DVD. The portable DVD player will be physically attached to me until I have viewed every second of every disc.

Today feels like a foggy mountain picture day. It's from a couple years ago when I was in North Carolina. I sure seem to have a lot of those, huh?