Tagged: women

Name Change Coming Soon

I’ve been thinking it’s time to more accurately entitle this blog of mine. So a name change (just superficial—website will stay the same) from Captain’s Log to something else is coming soon.

The point of this post is to say, “Don’t be alarmed. It is still me. I just feel like I need to admit that I’m hijacking the mood when I drop the lure of being an interesting pilot/Captain who can also write well and has a unique perspective, but, really, I am just a blogger who blogs fearlessly—which means writes well.”

More to follow.

Free Vacuums

Mindlessly, perhaps distractedly, I sat at a stop light, patiently waiting my turn on this December evening. My eyes fell upon a sign over to the right on a building that said, “Free Vacuums”.

Now at work, the vacuum we have is terrible. It is one of those canister kinds that lets you see the dust swirling as evidence that it is working—that is, until it isn’t working and the dust just sits and now the volume seems to loud and you wonder if it always was this loud or has it just gotten louder when it stopped working correctly? I hate the canister kind. I’ve always preferred Oreck and bagged vacuums, myself. Just keep it simple.

Back to the sign, I thought, “How could they possibly have enough vacuums for any and all comers?” I wish, for your sake, you could have seen what I imagined the inside of this store looked like. Just a smorgasbord of refurbished (that’s surely the only type that could be free) vacuums. The old chrome ones, and maybe an Oreck a day was set out for a lucky shopper.

It didn’t seem real, but then who does like vacuuming? And I have been trying to give away a washer and dryer and am resolved that it will simply cost money to have someone pick them up. Maybe the vacuum market is similar? And maybe there is a government program to help encourage clean houses? Who knows?

Let me be clear, I almost re-routed in the direction of the sign.

Then it hit me. I almost couldn’t look again for shame and embarrassment. And I have barely been able to stop laughing long enough to type this out—of which the only reason I type is because the two people I called to share a good laugh with didn’t answer.

It was a car wash! Ha. Free vacuums!

As if someone would just give away vacuums.

Hahahahahahahahaha.

There is No Logic in the Human Heart

I tried. I tried to make it simple. I said, “Given: It is wrong for a man to punch a woman. Period. It’s obvious.” I then went on to say, “If you can understand this fact, then you can understand that I believe that when an ex-wife steals the kids and half the retirement from her retired military ex-husband, it is wrong. Period.”

I didn’t say this to be introducing some new concept. I didn’t say this to emote. I said it to move the conversation forward. My punch-to-stealing kids/money equivocation, so I had intended, was preliminary. I wanted to define terms. It didn’t work.

My only, but lovely, two commentators each offered, if tactfully and empathetically, that they believe there are two sides. There are always two sides.

Well, the place that I was going to go probably just involved me renewing bitter claims that us divorced fellas–robbed daily and without our children–are victims, metaphorical punching bags. But if I step outside myself and view the situation, I would never promote that someone should claim to be a victim, so I will not do so here.

We’re not victims. We’re not. No, we’re not victims; we are the optimists.

We are optimists stuck in the muck of this shitty, shitty world that spends its limitless energy on one goal: “Destroy hope”.

****

H-: You don’t have to read these, and I’d ask you not to if reading them means you won’t talk to me. Proceed at your own risk. In the end, please don’t hurt people.

American Divorce: The Way I See It

I believe in writing. I have been at this blog for a decade now. In the beginning, I liked encouragement. These days, I couldn’t care less when someone encourages me about my writing. It always has this air of “I wouldn’t have thought you were a good writer…” and that kinda bothers me. Why not? What about me sounds like bad writing? My job? My hobbies? The things I like to talk about? My clothes? Seriously, there is no signal that suggests that I wouldn’t be able to hold my own with a pen/keyboard.

Now-13.5 H- has shared that she reads these posts, and that the result of my “woman hater” (which would be “female hater” if I want to encourage the child to learn reading comprehension–I do–it’s “female hater” and I define “female” in contradistinction to “woman” in the post, H-) post from the other day is that she doesn’t want to see me or talk to me (at least for now). In any case, and this is the point of this opening, with encouragement, with discouragement, I maintain that writing is good. The rest of this post, then, the part that pertains to the title, is Exhibit A.

The last two posts have been on the topic of men and women and our relationships. In the background, many more thoughts and conversations have been taking place because of these posts and the events which inspired them. So again, I want to write, to catalog. I want to think on them.

The most important result of writing about my friend’s looming divorce (in which his wife of twenty years is going to steal his military retirement and hold hostage his two children in Europe, all with the blessing of Missouri and general American Culture), is my own wife and I have come to a shocking realization and subsequent clarity of our perspectives. We laid in bed the other night and bickered about whether I was claiming my friend was ‘perfect’ when I asserted that ‘he did nothing to make her steal from him’. In other words, we realized that even the two of us, husband and wife, see the eternal institutions of marriage and divorce TOTALLY different. (Makes ya wonder what any of us are even doing.)

(You with me thus far?)

I believe this woman–er, this female–, E-, is a terrible creature–less than human–worse than Hitler. I wrote as much a few days back. She is terrible, not for crimes committed, but for crimes she is going to commit until one of them dies. And I further maintain that my friend did not and does not have any influence on E-‘s decision to commit these twin crimes (to keep it simple, we’ll just call stealing his money and stealing his children the only two crimes–but there are more).

My wife hears me say this and responds, “Oh yeah! I’m sure he is perfect. All your friends are perfect!”

(The point of this post is to report to you, dear reader, not the entirety of the conversation, but the fruit.)

With this, I finally saw the stumbling block to my wife and I’s communication.

So I began again, in a new vein, “Do you remember that video of the blacks brawling at Disneyland several years ago?”

“Yes.”

“Remember how the dude just punches his girlfriend in the face? He just turns and punches her. It was horrific. I had never seen anything like that ever. That’s why I showed it to you. Do you remember?”

“Yes, I remember!”

“Okay. Did that woman have anything to do with him punching her? Was there anything she did that caused him to punch her? Were any of his needs not met by her and so he punched her? Is there anything she did that alleviates his punch of its evil?”

“That’s totally-“

“-‘No’. The correct answer is, ‘No. She had nothing to do with him punching her. A man punching a woman is wrong. It is always wrong. It is squarely wrong. It is never her fault. It is never something she caused. It is just wrong.’ And I am saying that, for precisely the same reasons, these women who divorce a man and then proceed to steal from him are likewise wrong. They are likewise committing evil. My friend has no more responsibility for E-‘s evil actions (continual actions keep in mind) than that woman did for her boyfriend’s punch (probably plural). And stop with ‘the Law’. The ‘Law’ has no bearing on my opinion, and, in fact, is the reason I am so adamant about this belief of mine. All these wives hide behind the ‘Law’ and comfort themselves with the thought that they are somehow not accountable for the evil they are committing since it is the ‘Law’. The ‘Law’, in this case, is immoral and needs to adapt to the times. Whatever the reasoning that went into ‘woman gets half the retirement’ was, it is now different. The ‘Law’ needs to change. You can’t take a husband and expect him to somehow ‘prevent’ divorce, when all the while, all that is required for a divorce is the wife saying, ‘I want a divorce.’ The way a wife would prove her innocence, would prove she had endured something terrible, is to not take the money. Just divorce him and move on with your life. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ What E- and all the wives are doing is morally wrong–evil.”

****

What do you think, dear reader? Think my wife bought my rant? Have I made a dent in your thinking with this analogy, ex-wife collecting retirement as same ‘obvious’ evil as man punching woman? Or do you need it in codified writing? Is it possible for my friend to have been an unqualified good husband and father and this still be the result of his behavior?

Or is the fairer sex just too pure to sow and reap evil? Too feeble to ever work for a living? Too unstable to ever reach old age without the financial backing of a man?

The Coffee Inspires

One more note to share, while on the unending topic of men and women.

“What’s it really like to be married to a woman who barely speaks English (though she doesn’t know it) and hails from one of the least educated countries on the planet?”

In short, if you can imagine how the first conversation with an alien (on his first—and surprise, think emergency landing—visit to the planet) would go, how you would quickly learn that you could assume no shared context or meaning or any easy place to start, then you may have an idea of how every verbal utterance we have plays out.

Don’t believe me? Try this recent experience.

As you know, I value reading and books. I am with TJ when he said, “Books are my friends.” I have tons and tons of books. And I recently got some great bookshelves upon which to display them in the new Colorado house.

Well, anyhow, as we recently were going through the ritual of shopping for home decor, I couldn’t help but notice they had some fake books to purchase. I dryly—too dryly it seems—picked them up and said, “These would be perfect for your new furniture. Ha.”

A week or so passes and then I see her placing a bunch of this nonsense all throughout the room and the fake books are included. When I comment with a hearty, if not literal, “WTF?,” she earnestly rebuts in kind with, “You said you would like them!”

Did I?

Keep in mind this is four years in. And it is not the first time I have pointed out or commented on the concept of fake books when shopping together.

Never assume, I guess.

Quite the life.

Never Incentivize the Female’s Fantasy—Divorce Must Actually Devastate Her

So I just learned of an old friend’s divorce. Like many other friends of mine this man just retired from the military, and only when this was clear did the evil cunt announce her intentions. To make matters worse, their last duty station was in Europe, and for the common, internationally known reasons, this first grade teacher has decided to keep the kids over there with her.

First, don’t even start if you’re going to take one step towards suggesting that anything about the situation is the natural result of their daily, twenty plus year relationship. This move is so low, and happens so frequently to retired military men that there is never anything about the actual personalities involved, no. The only two factors or variables at play are the fact that divorce is incentivized and the female (no “woman” as such would even consider accepting a dime more or a minute more from her ex), the female, as a creature, is the most depressed and despicable entity on the earth. You will never find another—no murderer, no rapist, no genocidal maniac—who can even tread water next to a female.

Unreal and uncouth, one must never incentivize, these, their fantasies. If this time-honored dictum is ignored, then children, men, and eventually a nation will be destroyed. They will all be destroyed because these mentally incapable females possess unbounded imagination. This results in one of two outcomes. The first possible outcome might best be embodied by the legendary George Washington. The second outcome is best embodied by the current population of the American penal system—fatherless males.

The female—as part of her growth into womanhood—must have her imagination bounded. She must have restrictions. Life cannot possibly appear to keep getting better and better and always improve and never disappoint. These fantasies must remain on the pages and stages.

No, the female must have a very concrete and inescapable situation staring at her to perform. This is how to bring her womanly character to the surface. She must see the limits to her life daily and she must, daily, face the fact that without her man, she will certainly face abject poverty and lose her children. This is the only way.

It seems that the male alone, for reasons known only to the LORD God himself, comes into the world designed to absorb the apparently latent happiness available within each breath of air. The female, on the other hand, hates the air, hates the sun—hates the very day. The female, on the other hand, listens to every lie, believes every instinct, and obeys every passion. I write this in the hopes that someday my two daughters read it.

The Special Psychosis Behind AI Fear Mongering

The “threat” of AI is no more and no less than the threat within the act of “texting while driving”.

I mean to apply this analogy in both the case of you texting while you’re driving—a risky endeavor which can end in tragedy for you and a few others if you cause a wreck—and also in the case of you (not texting and driving) being struck by someone else who was texting and driving.

That’s the “threat”—no more, no less.

Everyone calling for concern at the level of atom bombs and armageddon is suffering from a special psychosis.

In other words, ignore them.

Better yet, put down the phone. Focus on the road.

Two Random, Intriguing Thoughts on Friday

I realized this morning while sitting at the hotel breakfast that all the wonky Dr. Seuss characters (the Zeds, Noothgrushs, Tweetle-Beetles etx.) are actually not wonky but exact replications—in 2D—of people.

Secondly, and more importantly if you’re on a quest for meaning like me, I realized an important fact. Those of us with “guardian” personalities—I’m talking military, police, first responders etc—are frustrated and angered as a rule, almost necessarily so, because we see (from our perches as “guardians”) folks wasting our efforts. As in, “In post-armageddon dystopias, where rule-of-law is only foreign scribbles on the pages of unread books, you’d be able to dye your hair blue, but you choose to do that while I’m on shift? And in response to having to eat oatmeal instead of a smoothie for breakfast as a kid? Ahh. What am I even doing here?!”

My Review of Oppenheimer, by Christopher Nolan

I’ve always heard that the newspaper USA Today was written at a third grade reading level. A reading level is an interesting concept. Try this sentence from USA Today’s The Weather Book by Jack Williams, “A fusion reaction fuses atoms together, creating other kinds of atoms and giving off energy.”

No third grader on earth could understand whatever that means. A few savants may sound smart trying, but keep in mind that they would never actually be explaining that sentence to us.

I also remember that in the 1950s children encyclopedia, so-called The Book of Knowledge, the author of the chapter on “atoms” began by having a child imagine cutting up a candle into smaller parts. And then smaller parts. And then smaller parts. Even then, you could still reform the candle parts back into shape. But, the author went on, there are even smaller parts, which when the candle is cut down to these teeny sizes, it wouldn’t matter what happened, they could not reassemble to build a candle.

Can anyone explain that concept? I feel like I get it. But it’s basically saying that there is something besides the obvious ingredients comprising the obvious objects. And that fact is something I can repeat, but I do not understand it.

The problem, so far as I can tell, is essentially one of “barrier to entry”. Atoms and Fusion Reactions require knowledge of such things as very few of us will ever think it worthwhile to learn and master.

Therefore, allow me to state the obvious: if you leave the theater believing that you now know something about atom bombs, you’re fooling yourself.

Mr. Nolan doesn’t abstain from attempting a layman’s explanation, but he also doesn’t belabor the point. Perhaps he doesn’t get it either.

The reason I open the review with this lengthy aside is because I, as I suspect you, had nursed the idea that maybe Nolan could succeed where others failed when I first heard he was making this movie. But he didn’t really even try. And I was a fool for thinking he might. The film is called, “Oppenheimer,” not, “Atom Bomb.”

Moving to my next hope for the movie.

Does Mr. Nolan satisfy my curiosity about the man Oppenheimer, which is bracketed by the following two questions:

1. What exactly was his role in the “invention”?

2. How would some nerdy academic handle being responsible for such death then and forevermore?

Yes. And no.

The way he accomplishes this paradox is by sticking to purely emotional storytelling where paradox is not forbidden. While there are many moments which caused me to wonder, “Did that really happen?,” there were many more which unexpectedly evoked near tears and kept me deep in contemplation about implications of what Nolan seemed to be trying to say rather than poised to fact check every seeming “they must have a record of this” moment.

On the whole, everything about the movie works. The chosen vessel for storytelling works. The casting works. The psycho-sapio sex scene works. The conveyance of palpable stress works. And, most importantly, the a-bomb test works.