D-Ray Kenobi

I've been a huge baseball and Braves fan since I was a little kid, so I've been following this from their perspective.

I feel like the executives of that team have been really smart to keep an ongoing dialogue with as many representatives of local native nations as they can. From what I've read, they've basically told the team "thanks for asking, we don't mind."

There is some sensitivity about the chop cheer that was originally adopted from FSU, which I totally understand. It is a bit awkward for a giant stadium full of colonial descendants to appropriate something like that. I was a bit annoyed by the idea of getting rid of it at first, but the more I listened and learned, the more I think it should go.

One cool thing that the team is going to do is put a Native American museum in the stadium in time for next year. If they're going to say that the team name is an honorific, I think helping people to learn more about that culture is a big positive step.

I think modern policing needs more of a rebranding than abolishment.

At this point, the very idea of them has become so problematic that you can't blame anyone for having cynicism and mistrust. So many well publicized incidents have understandably made people consider them to be state-sponsored gangs that can basically do whatever they want and get away with it.

Unless you're just absolutely being a dick and obviously breaking the law enough to put yourself or others in danger, I don't think anyone should ever come in contact with what's traditionally considered law enforcement. Public servants who are involved in supporting their communities should be all anyone sees.

I think we've gotten to the point where most citizens consider the Social Contract to have long been broken already. Focusing way more on that positive involvement as opposed to state sponsored intimidation could do a lot in repairing that trust.

Remember Occupy Wall Street about a decade ago?

If you don't, I can't blame you. They had kind of the same problem. They had attention from the media and the world at large, but they were so disorganized and had no real agenda other than pointing out the disparity in income. It kind of just sputtered out, lost traction, and everyone lost interest.

I'm really hoping the current movement is going to find some organization in the coming week because literally the whole world is watching. There's certainly attention being drawn to institutionalized racism and the need for police oversight, but there's so much peripherally that needs attention as well.

I was partially at one of the demonstrations that hit a bit of national news the other day, I thought I'd give my account.

The event I attended was organized by the NAACP, they had a number of local leaders speaking out on everything. My friends and I stayed in the back because we're still a little anxious about COVID Cooties, and also wanted to be able to make a quick exit in case anything went bad. I can't really speak to the health stuff, but I was so happy to see that the vibe of the crowd was so positive. Upset and passionate, but still welcoming and chill.

It was still so weird to see a cyberpunk dystopia otherwise though. Drones circling the area, snipers on roofs, police in riot gear standing at the sidelines. I've also been to enough music festivals to know what an undercover cop looks like, and there were plenty. They were certainly non-verbally making a threat, but I felt like while the speaking event was going on everyone was more or less tuning them out.

Many of my friends and myself headed home right when the speeches were over, but we had a lot of friends stay behind because there was an impromptu march to the courthouse that was not organized by the NAACP. From what I saw online through sources I trust and what I heard and saw through those friends, everyone stayed out of the road and on the sidewalks to voice their concerns about the Confederate monument that's in front of our county square.

They did that for some time until the cops began to tear gas them and shoot rubber bullets. No directions or warning were given. I heard that one of the cops shouted indistinctly through a megaphone minutes before they began attacking, but no one could make out what was being said.

What's funny to me is that our town has designated the area around that same courthouse square as an "entertainment district," meaning that drunk partiers are allowed to stumble around that area in mass groups every weekend. The fact that the cops targeted one group and not another just proves the points that were being made that day.

My way to combat literally everything since March has been a lot of running. I checked my app the other day and I've ran close to 150 miles since mid-March when everything started. It's a good way to kind of clear your head and get out a lot anxiety. Most of the time I'll listen to podcasts, sometimes I'll go without anything just to think and knock off the anxiety.

It's still tough though, I'm finding myself mentally exhausted on most days. Self-care is extremely difficult when you're torn between staying at home and taking to the streets.

I'm just here to say that this whole thing is an awful idea. Only because it appeased the worst trolls and now teaches them all that their awful behavior will actually get them what they want.

George Floyd was just the straw that broke the camel's back. It could have been Eric Garner, it could have been Breonna Taylor. With everyone already on edge, the iron is hot.

This was pretty much inevitable. I think a lot of people are finally coming to terms with the fact that much of the Western world isn't as free as we'd like to think it is, instead it's handled very closely by a vast ruling class. That ruling class benefits from systematic oppression and weaponized racism. Maybe the racism is just the most visible part. I'm not sure. I want to listen, learn more, and do my part. Because I'm frankly tired of seeing neighbors swept under the rug too.

I'm going to a demonstration in Huntsville tonight, I want to see for myself and hear from those that deserve to have a voice. I very, very seriously doubt it will be anything other than peaceful. We're a sleepy town full of nerds and introverts who think 11PM is a late night.

I've learned that I'm not built to sit still. Not being able to travel anywhere or even reasonably plan future travel has sent me into a spiral.

We've been getting "Do This in Case We All Telework" emails once an hour or so. I expect the whole place to go that way any minute.

Yesterday, the stock market crashed 2,000 points, we got hit with a nasty car repair bill, the virus panic is threatening to cancel some stuff I'm really looking forward to, and there was some family drama happening. Yet somehow I stayed mentally above water.

I don't want to be Aunt Karen sharing it on Facebook, but this quote from Bruce Lee has been sticking with me lately:

“Choose the positive. You have choice, you are master of your attitude, choose the positive, the constructive. Optimism is a faith that leads to success.”

As someone who enjoys Trek, but isn't a Trekkie, I've liked the direction they've gone in. I think Discovery and Picard have kept the basic ethos and the things that make it Trek, but have modernized it enough to make it appealing. If you want old school Trek, there's literally hundreds of episodes of the old shows to go get that fix from.

I live in a geeky town which may skew perception, but I know a ton of people who have been loving the new shows who hadn't really cared that much for Trek in the first place.

We had an agency-wide remote work day this past Friday as a test run. I was off that day anyways at MSFC, but I think we're going to be doing our own test day before too long. Ames in SF had to shut down today because one person had it. It doesn't bode well because tons of people had been traveling from center to center up until a week or so.

As far as the virus itself goes, I'm not personally that worried about it. I think it's worth taking seriously and worth changing some habits, but I'm not anywhere near ready to doomsday prep just yet. For me personally, I'm a little concerned that some big events I'd been planning on going to might be called off. But not going to Bonnaroo or wherever else wouldn't be the end of the world. There's other fun stuff to do.

Seems like it would be pretty easy to change up since it's basically just a giant video game. It would be cool if it would actually let you pick a mission on different planets.

When I heard we were getting this show, I was thinking we'd get Old Picard the way we got Old Kirk in TWOK. Former hero is facing his possible obsolescence, had to go on one more adventure for personal reasons, we'd see he still had it, but it would come at a cost he never paid in his youth...

 

I did NOT want Picard to be a feeble, bumbling old man who constantly acts like he's on a Shakespeare stage. P Stew was ageless for so long, it suddenly caught up with him.

I see why some people are coming away with this, but it just hasn't hit the wrong notes for me personally. To me, it totally make sense why Picard would be a very different character in this stage of life.

Kirk was in his late 40's or early 50's for Wrath of Khan, so that setup makes sense for that movie. Facing Khan and his own personal demons was just a late stage mid-life crisis for him. Picard is in his 80's at least in this, deep into retirement. It's not like he's facing obsolescence, he's long been there already. It's more like he's trying to get his affairs in order before he can't even get off the vineyard anymore.

Dude saved the galaxy a handful of times, helped tons of civilizations, made tons of scientific discoveries, and the Federation still managed to turn into a pretty corrupt and stagnant thing in spite of all of his hard work. After all he's been through, it makes total sense to me why he'd lose the militant side of his personality and become more of an empathetic grandpa.

On the surface, both seem to be kind of the same. They're both simulator rides where you go to different planets and stuff.

Star Tours doesn't feel like you're actually in the universe though. It kind of has a cheezy vibe of being a tourism flight, and a lot of stuff like the goofy droids working the attraction just don't feel as authentic. Threepio and R2 are there trolling each other, which helps. But something about it just feels off and you can't suspend disbelief like you can with Galaxy's Edge rides.

Smuggler's Run was way different. Everything you see are literally things you've seen in the movies a million times, so you kind of already feel like you've been there in a weird way. Once you actually get in the cockpit, it's a lot different than Star Tours because it isn't really a passive ride like it is. You've got to work with the five other people in the cockpit and there's a ton of stuff you need to do to have a good run and change what happens. Sharla and I piloted it, but there was a lot more to do than just use the controls. You had to push buttons to go into turbo, pick up the coaxium, and you also get to pull the levers to go into hyperspace. I freaked out when we did that because you actually feel a jolt in the whole cockpit that responds exactly when you pull the lever.

I'd love to do the resort thing and the whole immersive experience that's been rumored, but the price is just such a roadblock to me.

I did the math based on the projected costs, and I think I'd spend at least $6.5K for both me and the wife and go and do it. In total for our trip last weekend, I just spent around $600 or so. We like to travel and we don't spend a lot of money on much of anything else, but I can spend over a week in Asia for less than $2K for us both. I loved Batuu, but not enough to shell out three times as much to go travel the real world.

The whole thing is wish fulfillment on the grandest scale, so it makes it easy to be that kind of kid. Even if you're a big kid.

I really appreciated the level of detail with absolutely everything. There's all kinds of deep cut easter eggs all over the place that you'd only appreciate if you're a long time nerd for this kind of stuff. Not just the props all over the place, but the immersiveness of the whole cast too. The Resistance and First Order people that direct you through lines or stores are always joking around with visitors and making references to all sorts of things. If you can suspend disbelief for just a little bit, it literally is like you're in one of the movies. It's really hard to understand until you've been in it.

If this is what they can do with one corner of a Disney park, I can't imagine what they'll be able to do with the hotel and other additions in the future.

Up until some point this last year, I was letting myself get too worked up about a lot of things. Some of it was everyday things like being annoyed that stuff didn't work or worrying too much over some responsibility that I thought I had. Other parts of it was stressing out over crazy existential stuff that made me put way too much energy into questioning my place in the universe.

Some of that stuff still gets to me a little every now and then, but not nearly as much as it had. I just choose to be positive and not worry when some of those thoughts or stresses float through. The idea that nothing really matters used to freak me out, but now I think I've turned that idea on its head to be more of a comforting thing. Nothing does matter and that's okay. Everything is kind of like a barge on a river, even something negative happening is barely going to budge it to one side. You've got plenty of time and water to correct course.

I don't really have any complaints about the plot structure of this show itself because it's fine to me, but I think my annoyance is that this is following the same structure as a lot of "Peak TV" these days. With a lot of these shows with a long narrative over a single season, it's more about satisfying checkmarks that don't necessarily support a quality story.

This plot could have been a really great two hour film. Picard comes out of retirement for one last mission with a makeshift crew to wrap up some sentimental history with Data. A little cliche, but it works well enough. When that story is stretched over eight episodes, it just comes across as thin sometimes. You end up getting inessential melodrama with supporting characters, padding with implied history that we never really see fully contextualized, and a lot of meandering around with side quests until we get to the boss level of Hugh and the junkyard Borg Cube.

I think this would have worked way better as a movie, but Paramount / CBS would have never taken the risk on it. It financially makes sense for them to spend a little less and market it as a show that they can piecemeal out and get subscriptions out of.

I still like it a lot, but I recognize that the quality of the product has taken a dent because of all that.

Okay well that was a pretty cool deal.

We really lucked out with a lot. We got group 20 for Rise of the Resistance and rode it around 9:30, the whole thing went off perfectly and was absolutely insane. We got lit at the cantina, got to pilot the Falcon, and then built our little blue R2 towards the end of the day.

I already had high expectations and it still managed to blow past them, that whole thing is mindblowing.

I wonder what kind of batshit conversation TNG would have made for if the internet was more of a thing then.

I've been liking everything aside from the Borg reclamation stuff.

Data's daughter having some fling with Sexy Romulan is something I don't care at all about, it's so cringey. Even with Hugh involved, I just can't bring myself to care about that whole sub-plot.

I'm going to say this as carefully as possible, and I don't mean it the way it may sound, but I don't think diversity in a ticket is as important as it once was.

We had a large part of the population who continually made up things to be upset with Obama about because of you know what, and there was just as large of a portion of voters who would have never voted for Hillary simply because she was a woman. 2016 was supposed to be this grand election in which a woman finally beat the final boss of sexism to break the glass ceiling, but we all collectively failed to make that happen. There just wasn't enough excitement for her specifically, and the push for the Orange Fuhrer contained far more radical excitement.

Obama didn't win twice because of the historic nature of his background, he won because he was able to build a brand and get both his base and a lot of undecided people excited. Both Bernie and Pete have that kind of momentum with their bases, and Pete certainly contains that historic and diverse factor too for his own reasons.

If getting a good candidate in office to oust Tweeto Cheeto is the goal here, I really don't think token gestures should be a motivating factor. It's just a distraction, and if it's put on a pedestal, it's going to turn off a lot of voters. It's got to be about issues that people care about and candidates that people want to get behind, which is why I think Bernie / Pete really is the way to go.

A Bernie and Pete ticket would be like Marty and Doc running against Biff. I'm here for it.

My wife and I don't have kids of our own, but our six year old niece is kind of a part time kid for us.

She's had a wild ride in the past few years. Right before Christmas two years ago, she was in a bad car accident with her family. Everyone else was fine, but the impact happened right where she was sitting in my bro-in-law's truck. She suffered a severe head injury and had to be airlifted to a specialist children's hospital a three hour drive away. The injuries were so severe that she technically flatlined and died twice on the way to that hospital.

There were at least two different times where we thought we'd lost her. When we knew she'd at least make it, there were a lot of times where we weren't so sure that she'd ever walk or talk again. She eventually had to put in a lot of work to basically relearn everything all over again, but now it's as if nothing ever happened at all. I even took her to a concert with me last summer and she had the time of her life.

Some stuff still lingers a little bit. Her vision has never been that great since, and she still has some PTSD issues and sometimes has a lot of trouble focusing. But given the alternative that almost happened, we're all totally okay with continuing to put in the work with her.