Is it worth it?

The first time I ever got to watch a shuttle launch was January 1986, I was in the third grade.  I remember being in Ms. Brightwell’s class and all of us kids turning our desks to watch the old Zenith television on a rolling tray to see the shuttle resting against its tower.  I remember watching the launch and seeing it explode but not really grasping that it had exploded.  The teacher turned off the television and left the room and we could see all of the teachers talking dramatically in the hall way.  She came back in crying, but didn’t explain anything and I didn’t really know what to make of it all.  It wasn’t until later when my parents explained it all that it sort of made sense.  I didn’t watch any other launches until my adult years.

The first time I watched a re-entry was February 2003.  My daughters and I sat on the living room floor with our laundry that Saturday morning, folding and waiting and watching the news.  The reporter interrupted himself with footage from Texas that resembled asteroids falling to earth against the bright blue sky.  It didn’t take long to add two and two together and I sent the girls off to their room to play as I sat dumbfounded with tears as the reality took hold.  It was stunning and heartbreaking and I wished I had never even tuned in.  Somehow seeing news in hindsight as opposed to real time would be more comforting; you already know the outcome, the details, the dirty truths.  But watching this catastrophe occur you can only wait, gnawing your lip anxiously and hoping for the best.

So given my crappy luck, I was a bit hesitant at the idea of going in person to watch a shuttle launch.  It isn’t that I really am superstitious or such, but I don’t really have a successful history in regards to the shuttles.  Statistically speaking, NASA launches shuttles on schedule only 40% of the time; as of July 2009, out of 126 launches, only 47 were launched at the scheduled time, one third of all delays caused by weather.  But there remains only a handful of launches of the shuttle and this was the last scheduled night launch.  If I got to select the perfect first time, it would certainly be a night time launch without the blaring glimmer of the sun to interrupt my visual absorption of the event.

We contacted my mother in law, who can probably count on two hands how many launches she has missed since the realization of space travel.  My husband’s brother and his wife and my mother in law were going to be making the trek across the state to witness the event and we planned our convoy.

We took to the expressway, a toll road and thus began the night.  How many drivers would set off the alarms for failing to have toll money.  You got on the toll road, it was an option.  You have no money.  Really?  Why are you on the toll road if you are broke?  To see still drivers who take more than thirty seconds to find money to pay the toll was too irritating.  No less than three times we waited behind drivers at the toll booth for over a minutes’ time, awaiting them to find the change to pay the toll.  Funnier still was when we rang up my mother in law to say they would need to pull over and wait on us.  Her vehicle is equipped with a device that allows her to fly through the toll booths, ours is not.  We were miles and minutes behind her when we called and asked her to wait up for us.  Why? she asked.  We both kind of looked at each other and chuckled.

We arrived to Titusville around ten at night, making much better time than I thought – taking only about three hours after everyone met up and ate dinner and such.  The entire area of the strip was flooded with cars sporting license tags from Alaska to Maine to Texas to Ohio and about every imaginable place in between.  We finally found a small little area nestled between two large palm trees overlooking the river between the mainland and the sandbar that comprises NASA’s stomping ground.

We initially set up our folding chairs behind a parked car only to have an irate driver hop out and begin her chastising of how we could possibly think to sit on city owned property behind a car.  Didn’t we know it was her spot?  We pointed out that there were no chairs to hold the area and she informed us how she didn’t set them out due to fear of them being stolen.  I laughed at her inwardly, but little did I know she was only a scratch on the surface of the mentality we would witness over the next seven hours.

We settled down to wait and began listening to the conversations around us.  Let me set up the view for you.  We are looking out at the Atlantic Ocean and it is pitch black all around – save for a well lit building piercing brightly into the darkness, complete with flood lights illuminating the building:

I cannot tell you how many times I heard, while looking out at the above image, the question Where is the shuttle? I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to say, I’ll give you two guesses.

Here’s another kicker we overheard: Which way is North? And if we were sitting in a field in the middle of Kansas I could say, good question.  But we were sitting on the Atlantic coastline of Florida, staring out at the Atlantic Ocean.

And as much as I wish I could say this was the climax of idiocy, it was only the beginning.

As of 1 am, the update was that due to the few clouds that had begun to roll in, they were reducing the chance of launch to 60% – they being NASA.  By 2 am, that chance was down to 30% and by 3 am the word was no go.  I asked my mother in law, the undeniable best source of history in regards to the shuttle launchings within probably a two mile radius, how many times have they still launched on schedule after issuing a no go?  Never, she responded.  So should we go ahead and leave while there is no traffic?  No, because they might still launch.  But have they ever, in forty plus years, launched a craft after saying it would be a no go?  No.  Okay.  And by 4:30, nine minutes before scheduled launch time, they issued the scrub announcement.

We packed up and began our walk across the four lanes of traffic back to our car.  It amazed me, it really did, watching people drive their cars within inches of the bumper in front of them to prevent pedestrians from crossing in front of their car.  We finally got the cars repacked and began our attempt to enter the traffic flow.  I should have taken pictures because you probably won’t believe what I about to write.

At a four way intersection, with street lights, cars wormed their way into every imaginable space.  Northbound cars drove onto the bumpers of other northbound cars, closing all possible gaps; southbound cars blockaded two to three lanes of traffic to maneuver a u-turn; east and west bound cars interjected between northbound cars to cut across by any means possible.  And then the horn honking began.  For three hours we moved along a stretch of three miles, staring incredulously at drivers who had the gall to blare their horns repeatedly for the traffic not flowing.  Where they expected drivers to move to, I don’t know.  It took us over four hours to move a span of five miles.  And the sight of city police not trafficking the vehicles but rather flashing their lights and sounding their sirens to somehow attempt to drive through this clusterfuck.

So this brings me to the point of my writing – impatient road warriors.

You know who you are.  You’ll pass a vehicle going one mile under the speed limit, blowing past them at neck breaking speed only to cut in front of them, hit your brakes and stop at the light gaining only a car length.  You’re the risk takers who weave in and out of cars, trying to gauge the fastest moving lane to better your position.  You’re the asshole who will move in front of a car, slam on your brakes at undetermined intervals to pay back the driver who failed to let you in.  Your calling card is a combination of the horn and your middle finger.  I would be embarrassed to glimpse in the rear view or over at other cars if I drove with the haste and hate that so many do.  Is there ever really anything so important to get to that you would risk death to arrive?  What makes your destination so much more urgent than that of anyone else’s?

I have to say this, I am no angel.  Drivers irritate me, driving too slow, too fast, too recklessly, leaving their turning signal on or brights blaring for miles of road.  But ultimately, I have my life and that of my passengers to consider.  The risks you accept behind the wheel of your car at speeds of fifty, sixty, seventy plus miles an hour are so great.  And with that admission I will cease my safe driver drivel.

Perfection is a four lettered word

This week I had the first of my technology exams, specifically covering Microsoft Word 2007.  This is an application that I could pretty much use blindfolded to do most anything required of me.  I’ve used MS Word since the early days of version 95 and while the ribbons have changed and the capabilities have improved, the general technology of it is unchanged.

I sat down to take the exam though patiently and slowly, as you only get two chances at each answer and in my coursework the week prior I found that the my ways that work aren’t necessarily the proper ways that are accepted.  For example, on a homework assignment one had to change the font style and size of a footnote.  My method didn’t include the pilcrow (¶), the accepted method required copying it.  In an actual version of MS Word 2007 you can’t even highlight it to change a font setting, but in their scripted application to mimic the software, you can.  And since I didn’t, twice, I got the answer wrong.  So because of this, I approached the exam slowly, fully reading each question and trying to dismiss my I know this mentality.  On one question though I hovered my mouse too long and whatever I had it over was the selected answer.  Not by me, but by the system.  And it was wrong.  On another I was asked to reformat the size of a Smart Art, however there was only a WordArt on the page – which is not the same as SmartArt.  Thus I clicked the skip this option, figuring as the test was timed I would come back to this one later.  This option then logged me out entirely.  As I logged back in I found that instead of having 36 questions left, I had 30.  My final score was an 87.5% but I contacted my instructor anyhow – I had been prevented from answering 8 questions that I may have gotten right, likely would have gotten right, had I the opportunity to answer them.  Her response, ‘don’t worry about it, you got a B+ on it’.

This angered me, frustrated me, irked me.  I expect perfection of myself or as close as possible that I can get to it.  And to not even be afforded to opportunity to shoot for perfection was wrong.  How dare she be satisfied with my grade if I am not?

I was still sulking about, grumbling over the issue when I got my kids from school and my oldest daughter asked me about it.  As I shared the situation she began laughing and she told me she goes through this all the time – with me.  When she gets a 95, I ask why not a 100.  And when she shares my dismay with her teachers, they tell her that I expect too much.  I’m of the mindset that anything less than perfection means you just didn’t try to the best of your ability and there is room to grow and better yourself.  A 100 for me represents the very best you can do and true success.  This isn’t to say a 95 isn’t good, but rather what did you fail to grasp or accomplish that kept you from getting that other 5%?

My daughter told me it used to hurt her feelings, make her feel inept when I would not praise her for grades less than perfect.  That hurt a little to hear because I’ve never wanted my kids to think I am not proud of their best attempts, but I look at their grades with the knowledge of who they are and know when they could do better.  My oldest daughter reads on a college level and was not intimidated by even Ovid’s Metamorphoses when she and I picked that as a shared reading piece when she was only 12.  So certainly when her reading grade is anything less than a 100, I give her hell.  It isn’t acceptable.  Because I know it is only lack of motivation that kept her from perfection in her grade.  My youngest daughter though hates to read.  It’s a chore to make her pick up a book and she struggles to extract knowledge from books, fumbles over vocabulary used and her comprehension of the big picture is lacking because she has 0 interest in it.  So when she brings home even a B in reading, I am giddy, because I know the investment of attention she had to give to earn that grade.

That’s why for me, less than a perfect score in an application that I know inside and out and have used for fifteen plus years frustrates the hell out of me.

Not where I wanted to be by now

I’ve been so naughty and I said I would be honest so here goes, I have not used my electric cigarette since Saturday.  I’m on my fourth pack of smokes since then – today being Thursday, that’s just under a pack a day.  Back where I started.  Damn that irritates me.  And it all boils down to lack of self control.  I am going to start this again.  I have one unopened pack that I discussed with Glenn about doling me out one cigarette a day from – the rest would be the e-cigarette and my control to not go buy my own damn pack.

Leave Your Civil Rights At The Door

Being previously married to a pedophile and being a survivor of sexual abuse endured as a child, I guess I consider myself able to have an opinion on the subject of pedophile’s rights.

In the latest issue of Time Magazine there is an article on the issue of residency restrictions imposed on sex offenders:

“sex offenders, thrown into homelessness in recent years by draconian residency restrictions that leave them scant available or affordable housing. They live in tents and shacks built from cast-off supplies, clinging to pylons and embankments, with no running water, electricity or bathrooms. Not even during a recent cold spell, when nighttime temperatures dropped into the 30s, could they move into temporary lodging.”

The slant of the article the author chose panders to the sex offenders as victims of the equivalent of a sanctioned hate crime.

A little background here on the issue of discussion.  I moved to Florida February 23, 2005 and the very next day a little girl came up missing just north of where we live.  She had been abducted from her home and there were suspicions about her family members and such, but no real leads.  I remember watching the updates in the media like a hawk and feeling such a connection to the little girl because she looked so much like my oldest daughter.  In fact, she and my oldest daughter were born within a month of each other.  A few weeks after her abduction, they finally found that this little girl had been kidnapped, raped repeatedly and then buried alive by a sex offender living nearby.  Afterwards there was a flurry of changes to lenient state laws and the implementation of the Jessica Lunsford Law, named for that little baby girl.

Jessica’s Law itself increases prison sentences for child sex offenders, requires lifetime probation for those offenders, and can include electronic monitoring of those offenders.  It also makes it a felony to harbor a sex offender and forces schools to follow a screening and identification process of all personnel and visitors.  The law also includes public and local law enforcement notification when a known offender can no longer be located at their address of record.  Other state and county laws were soon added to cover the gaps, including residency restrictions.  The statewide law prohibits living within 1000 feet of a school or other location, including bus stops in residential areas, where children may congregate.  Most counties imposed a harsher enforcement of 2500 feet (which is about half a mile) complete with no loitering laws for the same distance.

Now enter the complaints.  Sex offenders have no where left to live.  Pardon my lack of sympathy.  Perhaps someone should create a tattoo to place on every child at birth that reads:

WARNING: Touching this child in a sexual manner, including but not limited to molestation, lewd demonstrations, penetration of cavaties will result in a sex offense conviction, prison sentence, ostracization from community and family, and difficulty in living a normal life.  Perhaps worse.

This isn’t a situation that any forced them into and I refuse to accept the idea that it’s not taboo in the rest of the world, just that we’re too religiously wound up to accept it.  If you choose to harm a child, from the minor charges of flashing your naked form to touching that child to the worst imaginable sex crimes – you suffer the consequences and I really don’t give a damn that you have a hard time finding work or a place to live.  Sex offense survivors have a difficult time with trust, with intimacy, with flashbacks that are set off by the simplest of everyday things.  We live with your actions for the rest of our lives – why the hell shouldn’t you?

Yet, the Time article alerts us to changes in Florida law, egged on by the ACLU, that only maintains the 2500 feet barrier around schools and creates a 300 foot loitering law around bus stops, daycares, playgrounds and places that harbor children.  What’s next?  Mandating that we invite sex offenders into our homes to help them rehabilitate to society?

For too long sex offender laws have been far too lax.  They have been allowed to work next to us, eat in restaurants with us, work with contractual companies doing business at schools and other places we believe our children our safe, live next door to us and in general, operate undetected in our communities.  They pose a risk to our children who want to enjoy a ride at the amusement park without being touched inappropriately as they are buckled into their seats; they pose risks to our children walking home from the bus stop; and countless other locations our children are at risk in by unknowingly being in the vicinity of a sex offender.

Yet, if the reformationists have their way, which this change in the Florida law is a step towards, we would no longer have a publicly accessible registry of sex offenders in our area; sex offenders would not have to maintain their address and other pertinent information with local law enforcement; and convicted sex offenders would serve lesser sentences or attend counseling in lieu of punishment for their crimes against children.  In fact, one sex offender support organization degrades the severity of sex crimes against children to parallel that of  “poverty, malnutrition, ethnic discrimination, poor education, and inadequate health care”.

The fact is that we deserve to know about the dangers in our society, from asbestos found in a public building to an outbreak of tuberculosis to an inmate on the loose to a convicted sex offender in our midst.  This isn’t the demonization of some innocent individual who through no fault of their own pose a risk to those around them.  This is a sick individual who chose for whatever reason to permanent injure the life of an innocent child through sexual acts.  And there remains the chance for repeat violations, though there are opposing schools of argument on this statistic.  A five year study conducted by the US Department of Justice noted a 25% repeat offence rate for convicted sex offenders, while the Center for Sex Offender Management found over a 25 year study period the recidivism rate for convicted sex offenders was 52%.  (see below)

Given the statistics and the risk, I see no reason why any sex offender should be permitted to have freedoms to walk about without a red flag to alert those around them – including preventing them from residing in areas where children live and play.

Perhaps Ms. Skipp, RSOL supporters and doubters alike should walk a day in the shoes of a person who has been sexually abused as a child.  Then they might better understand the fear to enjoy the freedoms and pleasures of childhood; how the idea of walking to the bus is rife with fears of being followed or watched; how while during the acts of intimacy later in life a survivor must struggle with vivid memories of the pain and assault; how seeing a stranger in a crowd who bears a resemblance to their attacker can stir a panic; and how the guilt of what could I have done differently riddles your thoughts in moments of solace.

Sources:

• Jessica Lunsford Act
• Florida Statute § 947. 1405 (7)(a)(2)
• Time Magazine, February 1, 2010 “A Law For The Sex Offenders Under A Miami Bridge” by Catharine Skipp
• RSOL Mission Statement
• CSOM

Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater

Oh I could kick myself.  Okay so two days ago, day five, at the 36 hour mark, I broke down and bought a pack.  My reasoning was simply that I wanted an actual lungful of smoke instead of the meager mouthful I can get with the e-cigarette.  I told myself just one, but we all know how that turns out.  I paced myself but still smoked one pack spread over the two days, day five and six.  So today becomes day one, again, instead of day seven.  I just really want to hit that 48 hour mark.

I am contemplating twelve stepping this.  It sounds funny I am certain, but I am wondering if breaking it down to the action and impacts around me, if maybe it will help me better.  Maybe that’s just the excessive coffee talking.