Taxiing to the Gate

She is only 19 [plus seven decades].

Ready to have your butts whipped [at Scrabble]?

After a gradual descent on final approach, her plane finally touched down a few days ago.

Nurse: do you have any pain?
Trudy: I don't have pain. I give pain.

Her wit has not been dampened in the least by such a long flight.

Friend discussing her final destination: Are you going to plant a big vegetable garden?
Trudy: Yeah... [several long seconds]... no broccoli!

She is moving across the tarmac, taxiing to the gate.

Contemporary aquaintance: We are free as birds!
Trudy: ...without wings.

At her gate she'll make a quick, luggageless transfer to her high speed underground sleeper train.

She is only 19 [plus seven decades].

RCA had a Vinyl Video Disc?

So fickle... one day it is Starman driving to Mars, now it's this video:

https://youtu.be/GuCdsyCWmt8

Currently the coolest thing in history.

Still trying to grasp what I just watched... a vinyl video disc?

Orbiting Tesla: Starman Drives to Mars

https://youtu.be/aBr2kKAHN6M

If you are not watching live, please do.

The coolest thing in eons.

Star Garbage

This is actually about a movie review:   Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

First however, let me digress, and enjoy some fond memories from the distant past.

Yes, I am old enough to remember when Star Wars was first released.

Television adverts flooded the market, and I clearly remember sitting watching TV with my Dad, and after such a trailer, he pronounced it "Star Garbage".

Not much later, my best friend from High School invited me to go see the opening at a theatre in San Francisco.

If this was 1977, there was no way we could have driven over, so I'm sure we must have taken the bus and then the BART train.

So over in the theatre, as I don't really need to mention we were blown away.

This was a motion picture like no other.

Fast Forward Forty Years

Star Wars: The Last Jedi was released a day or two ago.

Oh how I wish my father was still alive... I would share with him via email or phone call that his original assessment of the first film, later to to re-dubbed Eposide IV, though horrifically inaccurate, was extremely true for this latest installment.

Side note:  my father not long later did see the 1977 Star Wars film, enjoyed it as any normal sane human would, and later recommended it to others, "you'll see things you've never seen before".

Tonight, however.

The Lot at Liberty Station.  Plush, reclining seats.  Refreshments at the push of a button.  3-D glasses.

It could not by any means necessary save this dog of a film.

True, the opening was promising.  The physics of an X-wing fighter in motion.  The excellent acting of Isaac as Poe Dameron.  This looked to be a beautiful film.

It died just after an 8th of the way in.

Who gave up?  Was the script deficient from the beginning?  Did the director just want to get this over as soon as possible and grab his paycheck?  Was Abrams, executive-producing from the heavens, confused or distracted.

Horrible, bad film.

Attempts at humor... at first "I'm holding for the commander" slightly amusing, became incredibly lame, failures with no heart.

IN MY HAUGHTY OPINION:

There were only two Star Wars films:   Star Wars (later dubbed IV), and Rogue One.

For the rest... I quote my father, who in his ignorance once proclaimed:  [see title of this post]

Current Phase

I saw you in the morning sky.

Exuberantly bright as you were about to finish a night of glory.

So beaming, so happy, so full of life.

Yet less than 2 weeks ago you were nearly invisible, lost in the darkness.  Seemingly so sad, so dim, and then just a sliver of light, only peeking at the world, very slowly being restored.

You'll fade again; I know it.  Slowly slipping back into cold, still blackness.

Even then, during the times when you don't seem to be around, I always look up and search among the stars to see where you are.

I saw me this morning, in the sky.

Coqui

11:50pm.  Mountain View, Big Island.

Wendy is asleep, exhausted.  It is nearly 3:00am her time (and mine).

Yet I sit outside, the nearly full moon above fast moving clouds, listening to the non-stop loud chirping of the Coqui frog.

The guidebook warned me of the blight of this invasive species.

Yet this video I just watched changed my viewpoint.  They are beloved in Puerto Rico.

Divide by Zero

There is a common saying: "I'm no mathematician, but… (finishes with some observation about simple numbers)"

Examples:

"I'm no mathematician, but doesn't this car only fit four people?"

"I'm no mathematician, but didn't that used to be a man?" (poor example - disturbingly so -- sorry)

In reality, we're all mathematicians.  To varying degrees of success.

Some of the big brains like Einstein and Hawking and Feynman have attempted to find equations to describe the beauty of the Universe and everything that is in it.

We lesser minds try to solve the equations of smaller, more localized issues.

Have you ever dreamed of a formula, and it is sheer beauty?  Sheer beauty!

Then upon setting it to pen and paper, or typing it into a spreadsheet... "Divide by Zero Error".

The dreaded indication of impossibility.

A solution that must be abandoned.  An expression of numbers that simply cannot be made.

Yet it returns to mind a short time later... and again it does seem work... beautifully…  while dreamily staring out the window of a desert train on the night of a full moon.