Stylist:Ryan?

“Fantastic” emanated from my adviser’s lips this morning — at the end of a meeting I much anticipated/dreaded.

Probably mistakenly. 

Recent months of anxiety I had all but forgotten for that brief instant.  Validation I felt… as if he were capable of granting it.

Being the lofty idealist I am, my creed has always been: “Truth is your only validation”.

The problem is, the older I get, the more elusive “Truth” becomes.  Perhaps my adviser’s appraisal of It is the only criterion I have left.

Pathetic.

“The next time you decide to heave an overturned shopping cart at the bus, make sure you grab it where it won’t lacerate your fingers.”

A friend of a friend of mine is a jet engine mechanic.  One perk of his vocation involves occasional outings to semi-exotic locations to be wined and dined by engine manufacturers.  At one gathering, the corporate hosts set up a demonstration to tout the durability of their product.  Apparently, a bird can critically damage your average turbine engine if it is unfortunate enough to get sucked into the air intake.  To counter this unlikely, but allegedly serious hazard, the company claimed it built its jets to withstand passage of airborne foul weighing up to 20 lbs, without so much as a hitch in their get along.

To simulate such an event, they aimed a gas-powered cannon directly at the intake of a stereotypical engine.  The cannon was loaded with a ~20 lb. frozen turkey purchased from the supermarket.  The turkey would be propelled at a velocity comparable to that of a commercial airliner in flight.

On this particular day, come scheduled demo time, the presenters noticed the specimen to be propelled had not completely thawed.  The audience agreed to go to lunch and would watch the spectacle on their return.

Back from lunch, the engine was started up and the cannon was carefully aimed and pressurized.  The audience waited eagerly.  On release a loud yowl could be heard over the blast.  It terminated when the somewhat larger- and greyer-than-expected payload impacted the turbine blades.

The engine whined unnaturally and eventually cut out under the abuse.  Smoke and flames began to filter out the exhaust.  Among the remains were teeth, claws, fur and blood.  As best as they could figure, some stray cat smelled the thawing turkey and crawled into the cannon while folks were away at lunch.  As payment for his decadent last supper, the feline then met a dramatic, well-attended and quick end.

Had I been a little less careful stoking the fire this evening, the gem that follows would have been lost to the flames.

Look out New York Times…

Thank goodness for that bulleted list of similarities, otherwise that analysis would have been lost on me.  Tomorrow I plan to go scope out some TEC-9’s and perhaps the occasional AK, be there bars on the windows or not.

With two hours to kill before the next showing of Zombieland, I slayed time in a so-called coffee shop within the U-District’s Metro theater.  I found the place empty; I had to ring a bell for service to materialize from concessions.  The only wall outlet was located next to a larger-than-life cardboard display of the Rock costumed as “the Tooth-Fairy”, complete with angel wings.  The outlet powered my laptop so I could complete exercises to challenge my understanding of material in the book below.  As the cafe’s sole inhabitant for those two hours, I got to enjoy the same progression of three of today’s top 40 hits iterated six or seven times.  Pauses between cycles were filled by Spanish guitar from the tapas restaurant directly below me.

I marveled at the oddity of my surroundings; so much so I felt neither sad nor lonely.   Shortly thereafter, I realized my attitude to be consistent with rule #42 of the movie I had been waiting to see:

Enjoy the little things.

I extracted the following excerpt from the University of Washington Campus Police website.  The internet is full of useful tidbits that can very likely get one killed.

Campus Emergency Procedures – Active Shooter Guide

These situations require law enforcement units to take immediate action to end the danger.

The information below provides guidelines for active
shooter incidents on campus. However, every incident varies, making it
impossible to provide an absolute answer for every situation.

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4. Trapped with the gunman

• If you are trapped, do not do
anything to provoke the gunman. If no shooting is occurring, do what
the gunman says and do not move suddenly. Only you can draw the line on
what you will or will not do to preserve your life and the lives of
others.

• If the gunman does start shooting people, you need
to make a choice (at this point it is your choice): stay still and hope
they do not shoot you; run for an exit while zigzagging; or even attack the shooter. This is very dangerous, but certainly no more so than
doing nothing in some cases. A moving target is much harder to hit than
a stationary one and the last thing the shooter will expect is to be
attacked by an unarmed person. Any option chosen may still result in a
negative consequence.

• Again this is not a recommendation to attack the shooter [unless you happen  to be Steven Seagal, then of course, by all means do] but rather a choice to fight when there is no other option.