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A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and does what he wants to do. - Dylan |
Carbonboy's Web Log June 2004 |
Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them. - Einstein |
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June 12, 2004 California - Forever Exiled?
Point Vicente, Palos Verdes, CA, June 9 2004 I get back to California a few times every year -- often on business. I should make the most of those trips and lookup old friends, but as I'm usually there only briefly, I get selfish and just cruise around all the places I loved when I lived there in the 1980's and 1990's. The traffic really is no worse than places like DC or Florida. I'm sometimes amazed how easy it is to get around LA. In Southern California, the Palos Verdes Peninsula is about my favorite place. I could climb down a steep trail and sit on a comfortable rock watching the surf perpetually slam against an infinite variety of rock formations for hours. And oh the smell of that great salt air -- west coast salt air, fresh from traveling thousands of miles across the mighty Pacific. Experiencing that stiff breeze amongst endless tidal pool varieties makes the Atlantic look and feel like a big pond, to use the old English cliché. However those living in coastal Maine might take issue. Like some parts of LA, much of the PV Peninsula has not changed since my first visit to Marineland in 1971. Of course the attraction has long since gone and some decadent developers built a few acres of condos that really destroyed a big part of the peninsula, but much of the ruggedness remains in tact. Portuguese Bend, a no-man's strip of land, perpetually shall remain wilderness as no California architect has figured out how to build on its continuously moving landscape (thanks to a very active fault line). Yet development continues, but at a slow, regulated pace. Donald Trump is building a new golf course which he touts as the new Pebble Beach. That's a big stretch but I bet the weather will be nicer than up in Monterey for the golfers who can afford Donald's fees. Mandalay Bay (no not the Las Vegas Hotel) is a place I could be content to live forever, but I have one problem: I'd need about two million dollars just to buy a modest house with a view. California again is the trend setter in real estate prices with the median home running at $427,000, at least last month. Areas along the coast are now and forever the domain of the wealthy and that trend has migrated to just about everywhere. So I guess I should be content with my house on the Potomac and maybe a condo here in Clearwater, but neither feel really like the perfect home. When I'm back in California, I feel immediately at home, regardless of where I am in the state. The poor fools I encounter across the rest of the country often consider it the land of "fruits, nuts and flakes" or the "left coast" as pundits liked to call it. I say let them live with their misconceptions and stay exactly where they are -- anything to reduce the influx of people to California is a good thing. I'm sure all the current residences of California would agree. I'm hoping they have room for at least one more -- me. In spite of a half dozen jobs I have been offered since I left, I still haven't figured out how to return. No one's come up with the quarter million dollar signup fee I'd need to just to maintain my modestly comfortable lifestyle! I'm not expecting they ever will so I guess it's up to me. Maybe another California real estate crash is just on the horizon?
A near-deserted South Redondo Beach with the PV Peninsula Beckoning -- 06-09-04 June 5, 2004 Air Travel Security -- Some Good and Bad News
I haven't been home to Piney Point since February and I figured it was about time, just to see if the house was still standing and everything was still there. It was, and the weather on the Potomac was perfect for most of my five day stay. I had a great relaxing time and I did not want to leave. I had no complaints about the $98 round trip fare I got from AirTran except that it really cost $118 when all the other stuff was tacked on. Same with the car rental -- it seemed like a bargain until they added all the add-ons. Since I have everything I need both here in Florida and at home, I could travel light -- real light as just the clothes on my back. What a novel and wonderful sensation that was -- to whisk through security with only the minute inconvenience of having to take my shoes off before going through the metal detector. I was happy to see they were checking for shoe bombs in spite of the fact that the X-ray machines were good for metal only (to the best of my knowledge). Before I left I was considering renting my house out to a student who I somewhat knew and would be interning for a 2nd year at NAVAIR. He seemed like a nice, quiet, smart kid, so what's the harm? Sure he might have a few wild parties, but at least the house would look occupied for a time. Everything in the house was working except the cable, which I had turned off in February to save 50 bucks a month. I did have a DirecTV satellite dish and two receivers with me from my last assignment and I brought them down to Florida as I was paying for a one year contract anyway. As my condo here includes cable, the dish and hardware sat in a closet. So I figured since I'm paying for the service, why not set up the dish in Piney Point so the kid has something to entertain him other than the Piney Point Pond bullfrogs and my 500 watt AV system. So I packed the dish, the two receivers and about 100 feet of that good coaxial cable into the largest suitcase I could find. I put one of those little useless locks on the suitcase just in case one of those baggage guys got curious over the contents of such a heavy bag. When I got to the AirTran ticket counter to check the bag, I very politely told them that I'm carrying a DirecTV satellite dish and two receivers and ask if that's OK. "I think so" was the only response I got, and my bag was on its way. I had a great flight and a nice dialog with a young woman who was starting law school. I didn't dare mention what I really thought of lawyers and wished her the best as we left the plane in Baltimore. When it came to picking up my luggage, I became a bit concerned as my big bag showed up as about the last bag, but it did, and I felt relived. I noticed my little lock was gone. My first thought is that my sat dish receivers were gone, in spite of the fact that I took out their "smart cards" and they were useless to everyone else. Some of the bags had big stickers on them that said "inspected." As mine did not, I figured I just got ripped off. I didn't care as I just wanted to get home and I still had a 90 minute drive from the airport. When I finally did get home, I opened the bag and, to my amazement, everything was there -- including the lock that had be sheared off by airport security. Hey, I thought, this is great -- someone actually caught the fact that I was shipping a big metallic sat dish with a bunch of wire and two electronic devices AND assessed that they were just a harmless DirecTV setup. I slept really well that night thinking we, as a country, have made good progress in airport security. Well, sleeping in my own bed, in my own home helped. *** The next day the plan was to hook up the sat dish just in case I'd rent my house out to the intern for the summer. So after coffee, I was getting this task organized for a trip to the roof. I was fibbing a bit when I said I was traveling with only the clothes on my back. I actually brought along a little insulated bag that was designed to keep a lunch cool. I bought it when my mom and sisters were visiting to keep water cool in the car while we were seeing the sites. I brought it with me so I could pack my camera, some water and a book on the flight to Piney Point. I also wanted to bring a few books back with me and I knew that the big suitcase was not coming back. So when I was ready to mount that sat dish on the roof I needed something to carry all the tools to the roof: a cordless drill, two wenches, two screw drivers, a compass and a level to position the dish and some silicone caulking to seal the holes I'd be drilling into the roof. That insulated bag was just sitting there and seemed to make the perfect little temporary tool tote for roof climbing -- so all the tools were loaded. To get the tube of caulking open, one has to cut the tip off of the tube. I couldn't find a utility knife in my haste, so I grabbed a fresh knife blade and tossed it into the the bag. I opened a window and turned on the TV and set the sat dish receiver to the "antenna pointing" mode. It kinda beeps until you get a signal and then turns to a solid tone with the pitch getting progressively higher until you "lock in" to the satellite at the highest strength. All worked well, and that evening I watched two good movies on the Independent Film Channel and felt happy that I successfully dragged all that satellite stuff back from Florida. I spent the balance of my stay doing chores, relaxing and thinking how great it was to have a house on the Potomac even though I rarely get to live there. I was "at peace" as they say. When it came time to return to Florida, all I had to pack was my little insulated lunch bag. I packed my camera, some water and two small reference books that I had planned to take back as I would later need them. My trip back was uneventful except for a spectacular sunset and more spectacular thunder storms off in the distance. The pilot, thankfully, kept them off in the distance. Next morning I packed some water, a banana and some yogurt into that very same insulated lunch bag. Yes it was back to reality but I felt refreshed and relived that my house can function just fine without me for a few months at a time. So. . . comes lunch time and I'm fishing around for a plastic spoon to go with the yogurt and I get this sharp jab to my thumb and draw a little blood. It becomes painfully obvious that I failed to remove that utility knife blade that I used to cut open that caulking tube to seal the satellite dish that I effortlessly transported on my first flight home -- thinking airport security has really improved.
My first reaction was "thank God" airport security did not catch this as I'd still be sitting in some holding tank explaining that this was simply an oversight -- a stupid mistake on my part because I wanted to set up my satellite dish so an intern had something to watch if he rented my house for the summer. I'd be a security risk forever -- branded on the TSA computer as a terrorist sympathizer. Then I thought "how the hell could they miss this" -- the quintessential "business end" of the "box cutters" that brought down the twin towers. How could they miss a dense steel standard utility knife blade laying flat on the bottom of my insulated lunch bag? The reality is that box cutters are no longer a threat to us. The terrorist are too smart to exploit that weakness again -- even if that weakness STILL exists today. Yet I saw the cockpit door open for a good minute or two on my flight back while I was unknowingly carrying that blade. Hmmm. Well, that was two paradoxical incidents of millions that occur everyday. Since that odd occurrence, Ronald Reagan has died. I'm glad his suffering is over and to live to 93 is to live a good life, in spite of the last ten years. He, at least, was fortunate enough to get the very best of care -- unlike so many suffering like him. I can't say that I ever liked him, but I certainly did not dislike him. He had that quality. I will give him part credit for ending the cold war, but never as much as the NeoCon's are touting in the countless tributes to him this week. His partner in the Kremlin gets some credit, as does the Pope in his historic visit home which set it all off, and the countless masses that really bought it all about. The irony is that even though the fall of the Soviet Union was perceived as a good thing (and I'm sure it was), the iron clad control over their nuclear weapons has been lost. I can't help thinking why that is not the greatest priority in homeland security today? Is it even on the list? Why must I take off my shoes to fly on an airplane, when an unemployed nuclear scientist in the former Soviet Union may have the "keys" for sale to the highest bidder simply to feed his children? History will tell if ending the cold war without destroying all of the weapons that came with it was a good thing. I fear there are chapters yet to be written. It turns out the young intern found a cheaper place for the summer and sent me a real nice email thanking my for the offer. I was somewhat relieved as I really didn't want to rent out my house -- it's fine all by itself. When I go back for the 4th of July, my DirecTV will be up and running and I'll have forgotten most of this past travel experience. Yet if I do pack a bag, I will be checking it carefully. I expect I'll head to DC for the big celebration at the capital mall again. I may even bring that insulated lunch bag, as it has proved so versatile. It will be a very secure event no doubt. *** *** ***
© 2000-2004 Michael Milauskas - Composites-By-Design Corporation |
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