DragonCon: Out of Context...

"If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college..." Lewis Black

On of my favorite Lewis Black routines describes over hearing a conversation at his local health club, The International House of Pancakes. He describes hearing a part of a conversation that, because it was so far out of context that it seemed farcical, but was also great fodder for a comedy routine. He must have spent 15 minutes debating the meaning of that simple partial sentence... Very funny...

Last year at DragonCon, I caught a number of partial conversations, which when taken out of context, were not only strange, but very amusing. Now, I know you shouldn't listen in on other peoples conversations, but some times people just make it so darn hard not to overhear what their saying... So in honor of a tradition inspired by Lewis Black, I bring you this year's "DragonCon: Out of Context"

"This is my nightmare, this is my nightmare, this is my nightmare..." 8 year old boy writhing on the floor of the Sears store in St Pete while waiting for his mother in the checkout line (we were buying jeans to take with us to Atlanta.)

"Maybe the nipple clamps wouldn't come off." A fellow DCon'er recalling a loud event outside their door at last year's DCon.

"I love jumping out of airplanes, but I hate flying..." - a paratrooper on the plane on the way to Atlanta...

"Religion is the reason we have short, fat people today... and civilization."

"PeachTree Center. It's like the Mall between the convention centers."

"Boobs or Booze?"

"Could you look in my desk drawer, find my checkbook... and pay my rent? Don't worry about the signature, they don't check it... unless I contest it. So how was work?" - Um... the Con started on Sept 4th, how could you forget to pay your rent on the 1st?

"OK, seriously, if last night keeps happening, I'm going to have to buy a second kilt." - Twitterer @ DCon

"Everything's better with Pandas."

"There are Jello Dynamics moving down there..." Watching the crowd in the Marriott Atrium from the 4th floor.

"Spikes? I got Spikes. Move or get Perforated. I love herding people."

"The product costs money. The abuse is free."

"My backpack is heavier then I am."

"Four words: Naked Pregnant Space Kitty." - same Twitterer

"What I really want is teleportation. I don't want to have to walk" (DCon is spread across 4 hotels covering 6 city blocks end to end...)

"Female Peacock..."

"Unfortunately, the genre of cyberpunk, paranormal, romance is almost dead." It was ever alive?!?

"He's a 6th level lawyer with a +1 in technology" - about the GA lawyer in the digital forensics panel.

"My car breaks down... I blame Vista..."

"If you want to take him to the bathroom where you can barely stand, you can change him."

"I think he slept in that mask"

"I don't know... my coffee stopped working." - in the Chili's in the Atlanta airport.


For those of you I quoted... thank you... I promise to keep you anonymous...

Twenty Years.

As I was walking down the stairs to go to the All Hands Meeting this morning, Jack looks up at me from the lobby and says "There's Karen." Sandy says, "I thought she was here today." Uh Oh. That usually means your going to get called out for something at the meeting. Either you've know something they want you to tell everyone about (a project or other event). Or you've done something.

Me? I'd done something...

Hilary had walked in with me... Do you know what's up? Yeah, I had an idea.

Jack started the meeting with it. I was standing on the side with a cup of tea in my hand. "Karreennn" he says, picking up a folder with something small stapled to the front. I put down, my tea, and took one step forward. I paused, "Whhaatt?" It got a good chuckle from everyone. Then I walked up to the front, trying not to blush. Jack looked at me... "Do you know what this is about?" "Yeah, How long I've been here, right?" "Is it two years late?", he said, as these things are usually awarded several years after the fact. No. Keith pipes up "Two years early?" Everyone got a kick out of that, too. It would have been a classic Government move. "Karen has been with the Survey(?) 20 years." Jack continued. "Almost 19" I said, "But yes, just passed 20 years Federal Service." There was a certificate embossed with a seal very similar to the Presidential seal, in silver, with a 20 at the bottom. We are part of the executive branch after all. And a lapel pin. A USGS buffalo with a little banner at the bottom that said '20 years'. In truth, the government always takes about 2 years or more to process these things. Jim got his 10 year pin earlier this year, after being here about 15 years... maybe more. I wasn't expecting to be called out so soon.

It's hard to believe that I've been in this office for 19 years (next month). It's equally as hard to believe I've worked for the government for 20 years, starting with the DOD in Maryland. It really doesn't seem like all that long ago. I'll hang the certificate in my office next to the certificate for 10 years of Federal Service. Have I said I love my job? I do. It's something I consider worth doing, because I serve my country. It's something I'm proud of, and it's something I will, in all probability, do for another 20 years...

Dryer Vent Follies...

Our dryer vent exits on the roof. It goes straight up from the floor of the laundry room, through the attic, to the roof. I guess they thought that was shortest route. Probably the easiest to install, but far from easy when it's comes time to clean it. And we try to do that once a year, or when cloths start to dry more slowly as the case has been in the last few weeks.

To do this, one of us has to get up on the roof. That's usually me. My hands are smaller and can get under and into the vent, which is curved to keep the rain out. The top wasn't that clogged this time, which is good. A few months after the roof was replaced the dryer started taking forever to dry cloths. It seemed odd since while they had the roof off and the dryer pipe open we cleaned the heck out of it. The vent hood was also being replaced and it was the one and only time we had a straight shot down it to clean it. When I got up on the new roof that day, I found that there was a screen on the hood, and that was completely clogged. This after we'd called out service to look at the dryer. "Your vent's clogged... We don't do vents... $40 bucks, pleased". We removed the screen... permanently. Sigh.

I climbed up on the roof that morning. Not the best time to be doing this. It had raining, which meant the roof was still damp, because the sun hadn't risen beyond the trees. It was, to quote one of Edward's more colorful phrases, "slicker then snail snot" up there. I didn't stand, but crawled the 8 feet to the vent. To clean it, besides sticking my hand up under the vent to pull out the caked on lint, we drop a chain tied to a rope down the pipe. This usually knocks off any clumps of lint stuck to the inside of the pipe. It also allows us to tie the vent dryer brush to the rope and pull it through the whole length of the pipe. You see, the pipe is about 15-18 feet long. The brush handle, before we snapped off the last foot was maybe 6 feet long. We tried just using the brush but ended up clogging the pipe about 6 feet up, where the brush pushed all the lint to.

The chain was being difficult that morning. It didn't want to feed into the vent and fall. Once that was done, I fed Edward the rest of the rope. Unfortunately, I was supposed to hang onto one end so that we could tie on the brush and pull it down the pipe. So I had to feed it in again. Then once the brush was tied on it didn't want to feed in to the hood. It is a tight corner. In the process of doing that the handle of the brush first pinched, then caught and stuck the skin on my left arm. Son of a b***... It took a second to free it. It's kind of like slamming your thumb in the car door. First there is the Son of a b*** moment, then the tug... sh** I'm caught moment, then the trying to get yourself free moment, follow (optionally) by the colorful language moment. It left a bruise about the size of silver dollar and a welt about twice as thick on my arm. In a few days, it should be a lovely shade of purple, turning to that even lovelier shade of "jungle rot green" healing bruises always acquire.

At least the vent is clean and the dryer is working. Sometimes we have to fiddle with the hose to get kinks out of it after we're all done. But it seems to be fine at the moment.

And as a bonus... I didn't even fall off the roof...

Mara. Up Close.

Lying in the sun...

Upside down...

Paws at the ready...

Nose in the sun.

An inspiration to us all...

Last night I met a 23 year breast cancer survivor. We had dinner with her family. This wasn't the first time I'd met her, though, her daughter and I have been friends since junior high school, and we'd kept in touch all these years. They had come to Florida on vacation, and she had come with them.

They had gotten to the restaurant before we did, so when we got there and the only table seated started waving at us, we headed over. I recognized my friend as an older woman got up for the table and started over towards us. Maybe it was the lighting, which was a little dim, but I'm embarrassed to say I didn't recognize her at first. I didn't remember that she was also coming. As she opened her arms to give me a hug. "How are you doing?" she said. I knew that voice. That's when it clicked. The last time I'd seen her was sometime not too long after we graduated from high school, now nearly 30 years ago, and many years before her own diagnosis... I don't remember if my friend had told me about it at the time. I don't think she did. But when I got my own diagnosis, she told me about her own mom, and that some 20 years later, she was fine and thriving.

All through the evening, while we talked, I remembered her laugh, the same after all these years. She looked wonderful. About halfway through the evening, she lowered her voice a little and asked how I was doing. It wasn't the same question as before. Nor was she being secretive, but instead, respectful. Her grandchildren were sitting at the other end of the table. We talked about being survivors. About how when she was diagnosed, you didn't talk about it. How the doctors sometimes treated her as if it was somehow her fault. That it was somehow shameful that she had cancer... and breast cancer, oh my, that was taboo even to the doctors. At the time she didn't tell anyone what happened to her either, until one day, a few years after her mastectomy she was training to be a home help care provider. The subject of breast cancer and mastectomies came up. One of the other women said, "Oh, I would rather die then loose my breast. My husband would leave me." That was it. That's when she spoke up and for the first time told her story. She told them what had happened to her... "So what if you loose a breast. You can live. And if you husband doesn't like that, well then good riddance to him. Who needs him anyway. There is life AFTER cancer." We talked more about the women who have made it possible for the rest of us to talk about it. Betty Ford, Susan Komen, and so many others. How now, every direction you turn, you see pink ribbons, and pink hats, and pink... everything. Breast cancer had final come out of the shadows and into the light. And we lamented the fact that 23 years after her diagnosis, women still get breast cancer and we still don't know why and we still don't have a cure.

As we parted ways in the parking lot, I told her how good it was to see her again. How I'd planned to follow in her footsteps. How I plan to be a long term survivor, too. Actually, I wasn't entirely truthful. I plan to beat her record, and I want her to make it hard to beat. She's still adding survivor years to her total... She's going to be adding them for some time to come... And I'll be following behind her, following the light that so many of us, too many of us, hold high to guide those following behind us. To light the way and prove there is life after breast cancer. We'll beat this and maybe one day, the line that follows us will dwindle to nothing. It's what we all hope for. And in the meantime we look to those who have gone before and see hope... Thank you, Beverly, for being an inspiration to us all....

Watching you, Watching me, Watching....

I went out back to clean our porch chairs. They were turning black. Dust, mildew or something. They're vinyl, so it should have been easy to just hose them off, give them a scrub and let them dry in the sun. As I was carrying out the first one, Edward spotted a hawk lift out of the ditch and land in a nearby tree. He'd caught himself some lunch. Time for some green frog tartare... I sent Edward in after the camera and kept an eye on him. Then I watched him for the next 15 minutes as he polished off the frog.

It was a Red Shouldered Hawk. He seemed perfectly comfortable standing there, having his lunch while I clicked away with the camera. Then he cleaned his beak, and looked around. Several times he looked my way. I seemed hardly worth notice. I was after all about 100 feet away, across a ditch and behind a chain link fence.

The classic rock band Jethro Tull had a song that seemed appropriate... and do you ever get that feeling....

"He's watching me watching you watching him watching me
I'm watching you watching him watching me" - "Watching Me Watching You"
-Jethro Tull

Inspiration...

Something really neat happened the other day.

USF has a summer program called "The Oceanography Camp for Girls" every year. It's a program designed to encourage girls who have just finished eighth grade get involved in science and maybe even consider a career in oceanography or some related field. By limiting it to girls, the program hopes to create an environment for girls to learn, participate and "get dirty" without worrying what the boys will think.

The USGS participates by giving the girls a tour of the building and letting the girls interview the scientists. Each summer our public relations coordinator, Ann, request volunteers to talk to the girls. The campers often come armed with questions written on a sheet of note paper, carefully prepared before the interview starts. Ann likes to get the women scientists in the office to volunteer to be interviewed, to serve as positive role models, although the men are welcome to do the interviews as well. Travel permitting, I've volunteered several times. There was always that awkward moment in the interview when the camper doesn't know what else to say after asking all her questions. She's just going through the motions, because that was the assignment given to her for camp that day. And then, once or twice, there has been the girl that seem really interested in knowing what you do each day. She asks more then the rote questions "What to you do?" and "What was you degree?"

This year they didn't need me for interviews. The girl's tour of the office stood outside my door twice this week, listening to Kara explain about the damage Hurricane Ike did to the Bolivar Peninsula in front of the poster we put together for the National Hurricane Conference. They were the usual mix of half bored, half interested girls, who are probably thinking more about starting high school next fall then what's in front of them.

Later in the afternoon there was another knock on my door. Kara was standing there with a young woman whom at first I thought was another camper. Turns out I was only half wrong. This bright young woman was a junior at FSU. In 2002, only the second year that the USGS participated in the camp, she had sat in my office interviewing me. Much to my chagrin, I did not remember her. Not only did she remember me, she said that she had been so interested in hearing what I did, so fascinated by hearing about our hurricane research that it inspired her to go into meteorology. FSU has a very good meteorology program. She actually said I had inspired her to go into science. She asked Kara if I was still there, and Kara brought her by to say hello. Wow.

It's not often you get to see the results of those interviews. It's hard to imagine that a 10 minute conversation could spark that kind of interest. It's gratifying to think that you might in some small way, have help someone choose a path in life. I don't consider myself much of a role model, although there are some that would disagree. I never know what to say to these girls, never know what would inspire them to be their best, even if it isn't science that they choose to pursue. Today, I found out I made a difference in one life. Will I volunteer again? Yeah, I will. And maybe, just maybe, someone else will feel inspired...