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Born Brainless

Posted on January 10, 2010 at 12:01 am

by Richard

Now, it’s a well-known fact that little dudes don’t have well-developed frontal lobes and, thus, tend to make really bad decisions. However, I didn’t know the undeveloped frontal lobes of elementary school little dudes and dudettes were actively anti-survival. Until Friday, that is.

I do a lot of volunteer work at Speed Racer’s elementary school. And one of the things I do is chaperone the fifth-grade courtyard reward lunch. Basically that means I have to make sure little dudes and dudettes don’t destroy anything. See, if they go the entire week without getting disciplined by any teacher, they get rewarded by being allowed to eat lunch in an outdoor courtyard with picnic tables and suchlike. They’re able to talk as much as they want and move around and talk. So, yeah, they like to talk.

On normal days I and my fellow chaperones will usually get about forty or so kids out there enjoying their reward. And then came Friday.

As was the case in a lot of places around the good ol’ US of A, it was cold here in Charlotte. Very, very cold. I’m talking not over freezing for the entire day. And for here, dude, that’s extremely cold.

I was pretty sure the courtyard lunch would be cancelled because it was too cold. I showed up at the school anyway, figuring I’d better make sure I was right. When I got there, I was greeted by Speed Racer, four other little dudes and two little dudettes, one of whom was wearing only a shirt. I stared at her in amazement.

“If I get cold, I’ll just get my coat out of the classroom.”

IF? It was 26 degrees out there and she used if?

I asked the little dudes if they were all nuts. They just laughed. So I went along with it, leading the idiots kids out into the barren, frozen wasteland. I immediately headed toward the small sliver of weak sunlight making its way into the enclosed courtyard. I urged the little dudes and dudettes to do the same. Again, they laughed.

For about three minutes. Then the cold really hit. The one little dudette went for her coat and then came back and started eating her lunch.

Which contained an ice cream sandwich. On a day that it was below freezing.

And then came the kid wearing shorts and a hoodie. I just gave up, basically.

I pulled my parka’s hood more tightly over my head, huddled closer to the tiny bit of sunshine I could get and laughed quietly to myself. I just had to hope they’d survive long enough for their frontal lobes — or their ability feel cold and recognize what it means — could kick in.

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Topping Out

Posted on November 29, 2009 at 12:01 am

by Richard

And now for something from the quel surprise file. My family’s dog, Buzz (who’s part labrador, part pit bull, part cow and part beaver) hates squirrels. No really. Well, it’s not that he hates them so much as he wants to get squirrels in his mouth, shake them until all their bones break and then spend as long as possible tearing them apart. Rinse and repeat.

Yes, yes, yes. I know that describes just about every single dog in existence, but I’ve noticed something special about the way Buzz treats squirrels. And I think it gives us all something to think about. I think I used enough thinks in those last couple of sentences, yes?

Okay, here’s the deal. When Buzz first sees a squirrel, he runs at it as if d0g catchers were nipping at his heels. When he’s on a leash, that means the leash catches him up short and then causes him to flip over backwards in the air, land on his feet and then go after the squirrels again. He’s nothing if not determined.

Of course, when Buzz makes his move, the squirrel makes his as well. Like all good prey, the squirrel doesn’t stand and fight. It doesn’t make a defiant gesture. It just turns and runs. As quickly and drastically as possible. Most often up the nearest, tallest tree. Once the squirrel is at the top of the tree, he’ll run along branches and move from tree to tree. Again, not surprising.

What was surprising, I thought, was that Buzz wouldn’t give up when the squirrel disappears up the tree. He’ll stand quietly, his head cocked, listening for squirrel feet to scamper along a branch. Once he’s got that, he’ll locate the squirrel visually and then keep watching, slowly moving along the ground as the squirrel moves along in the trees. He’ll keep watching as long as the squirrel stays visible.

Our doggie dude doesn’t do this out of spite. Well, no more than normal for a dog who’s just lost his intended toy/lunch. He watches just in case. Just in case the squirrel suffers a stroke/heart attack/vertigo/whatever and falls to the ground. Buzz wants to be prepared. Who knows? The branch might break. Lightning might strike. The wind my howl enough to knock the squirrel off.

That’s what I love. Not that the dog is too stupid to know when to give up. That he knows that anything is possible. Anything can happen. He doesn’t let his goal disappear from sight without fighting for it. That’s something I think we should all remember as we go through life, closing our eyes and blinking away our vision of what’s possible.

Remember the dog.

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Public Art

Posted on July 5, 2009 at 12:01 am

Normally I’m not a big fan of public art. I mean, how can you justify spending millions of dollars on a sculpture that looks like a stack of french fries or a lumpy potato? (Hmm, may be a theme there. Maybe I need to get some lunch.) However, there are exceptions.

When I was in Florida last month for vacation, we stopped in Gainesville (home of the NCAA Football Champion Florida Gators) and I got to see my absolute favorite public art installation. I mean, this tops even Chicago’s preponderance of cows and that’s a pretty cool set of bovines.

Along a street to the west and north of the university campus, there’s a mile-long stretch of monuments that shows, in scale, just how big our solar system really is. Hint: It’s really, really big. No, I mean bigger than that even. It’s huge. That’s what space is. And empty, but I’ll get to that.

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As you can see, the first monument is the sun. That’s at the start of the mile-long stretch of NW 8th Avenue. Just beyond that you can see monuments for Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars in quick succession. After Mars, it’s a long, long way to Jupiter’s monument, which just goes to show you how far it is from the sun to Jupiter. Pluto, which was an actual planet when this exhibit was created, is a little less than a mile from the sun monument.

Here’s how far away the actual dwarf planet is from the sun. The monuments are about a mile from each other in Gainesville. Well, the scale of this little project is 4 billion to 1. That’s right: 4 billion to 1. So, if the Pluto monument is a mile from the sun monument, then the real Pluto would be about 4 billion miles from the real sun.

That’s a long, long way.

And that’s why I love this exhibit. I mean, not only does it look cool, but you can also learn a lot about the nature of our local area just by walking a mile or so down a lovely street. Now this was public money well spent.

Are there any public art exhibits you think are particularly great? Let me know in the comments.

– Richard

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