I have written hundreds and hundreds of posts, or as I would call them thought bubbles. I expect nobody to read them all. There is a good possibility that they do not make a whole lot of sense. I do have a tendency to be a bit wordy. Eloquence is the ability to wrap a whole lot of emotions in just a few words. When I speak I can be pithy. Not very often when I write. So unsee what you have seen, and start anew now.

If a thoughts be a bubble, The world would be afroth. Behind the curtain of Oz, the oarmaster stirs the pot. I be like a cork, wondering if the bubblies will ever pop.

Close, yet I am not quite happy with that. Let me try again.

The oarmaster stirs a pot behind the curtain of Oz

The world is afroth with our thought bubbles

Lift a glass of bubbly

Well that completely sucked! Try again.

Behind the curtain Oz an oarmaster stirs the cosmos

A froth of thought bubbles involuntarily fill the voids

Swirling like a cork in the churning froth consciousness is lost

Will these maddening bubblies ever pop?

Maybe I should stick to run on sentences.

It is a belief of mine that machines are the higher life form. Generally it is believed that we make and take care of machines because they make our lives better. That implies the that we are the higher life form, yet things are not always as they seem. Sort of the chicken and the egg conundrum.

What is the relationship between plants and animals? Animals need plants to survive, yet some plants are dependent on animals. How many species of plants would we loose if we lost the Honeybee? In our little galactic universe we have plants animals and machines. It is a matter of evolution.

If machinery is a higher life form machines would have a greater intelligence. Sort of like proving the existence of ghosts and UFOS. You might believe something is there, but be thoroughly unable demonstrate it’s existence.

Sort of like me the cats and fish. I feed the cats and fish, they depend on me. The cats probably know more about me than I know. They sniff me when I come in. This tells them where I have been and done. The fish, not so much. They probably have no idea where the food comes from. Yet I cannot be sure of that, we have never had the conversation. That is reasonable as my brain is so much bigger. I never had the conversation with the cats either. Yet given the chance, they would eat the fish. Higher life forms with bigger brains simply know more, we think.

It could be argued that machines have a massive digital brain. Still, not all machines are digital, some are analog. There has been a digital revolution in my lifetime. Looking at history though it could be argued that machines had become sentient long before the digital revolution.

Me, my memory is not so good. I may be good at figuring things out, but I do not remember things. I like to say I only count to three. Give me four things to do and I will need to write them down. I have never had much of a memory.

Years ago my wife gave me a beautiful grandfather clock. Made of oak brass and glass, it is quite handsome. I wind it weekly. It is a little deal we have, I wind the clock, the clock tells us the time. With just a little care it is quite accurate. Till recently. The weight for the hourly bong had slowed down. I made a couple of attempts to reset the clock without success. Then I realized what had happened, like me, the clock would only count to three. The clock was still keeping perfect time, and would properly chime the hours. Just when it came to the bong, like me, the clock would stop at three.

I would be willing to argue, even a completely analog machine, is sentient.

So I bought a car, an old car. Let me tell you why. After a lifetime of manufacturing I ended up teaching sustainability. It sort of makes sense. I was good at what I did, and life as we know it is dependent upon manufacturing. The thing that has effected manufacturing in my lifetime is the digital revolution.

In my world the pixel defines the unit of measurement. In a life of cameras and vision systems the units of measurement are defined by the pixel. No more no less. Of course I spent a lot of time comparing actual objects with a comparator, a device that uses a system of light and geometry to define form. A comparator is most definitely non-digitial. Still, it is a great tool.

Being new to the game of education I rely on the work of others. They are smarter than I, so I listen. I do what they say. I wonder why things are important. In manufacturing I was a technician, I made machines work. I fixed things and helped people do a better job. The goal was simply to make things. Things that would make life better.

So I was a bit surprised to see an analog focus. For me the pencil is an artifact of the past. For the smart people the pencil is a critical tool. I would think that the stylus is the digital replacement of the pencil, yet the curriculum ignores the digital stylus. I must admit complete astonishment.

The building in which we work is a wonderful example of architecture, one of the best. LEEDS certified platinum. The building alone could be considered a major reason I accepted the job. I thought it would be wonderful to work in such a glorious building. Yet not everyone is enthralled with the building. Seems most everyone has a reaso. They do not like the building. I will admit that not all the systems work as intended, yet I have worked in worse. The building was intended to be a shining example of sustainability.

Inside this wonderful building we seem to be stuck in the past. I believe it is because people are comfortable in their bubbles. What worked for them in the past is expected to work for them in the future. They are the ones in charge. Me I am simply a humble and obedient servant. So I tell myself to embrace the analog.

Old cars are chill. When I was 16 I bought what was later to be considered the most beautiful car in the world, a great collectable. I recently sold it at a tidy profit. Of course the fellow I sold it to made much more money than I. A lot of people made money from that car. So I thought I should replace that car with something special. But what? I certainly could not afford a Duesenburg or Packard. Actually there was nowhere near enough money to buy a cool new car. I even thought of trading one of my cars in with trade for something cool and electric, but the prices of my digital dream cars were rapidly rising. So I. The end I decided I wanted an American land yacht.

My only real criteria was I wanted it to be gold. Like my first car, and the car I had when I met my wife. They were both gold. Might as well have some continuity. I had worked a summer driving a 76 Cadillac limo, so a 76 Coupe Deville or Eldorado would be high on my list. Cars back then came in so many nice colors. I might consider something in another color. When I was in Boy Scouts a friend’s dad had Lincoln Mark III, it was the first car I went over 100 miles an hour in. It was the Mark V that finally got my attention. I had no personal experience with them, yet there were moments from the past that stuck with me. The padded spare, the opera light, the grill. Yes the size. The clincer was the Lincoln was a full frame vehicle and was reported to be quieter and had a better ride.

I started to shop around. I found a pair coming up to auction. One of them was gold. I was going to go for it. It got away. I found out that the prices for these things are all over the place. Nice examples went from 7500 to over 40000. The gold one turned out to be a Diamond Jubilee edition. It was a 8000 thousand dollar option on a 12000 car. They made a few thousand of them. Part of the reason this particular option was so expensive was the digital miles to empty gauge. Push a little button and a digital display would show how many miles to empty. The rest of the car was analog. Carburetor and everything.

The interstate highway system was built for cars like this. It is a closed car with air conditioning. It is my hope that I could waft into my golden years with this automobile. If I am lucky the car may become a desirable collectable.

I bought the best I could afford. It is a fascinating time capsule. Cars today are so much better. My others cars have heated seats an steering wheels. Not this. There are no cameras and sensors to help park. Navigation system? Check the glove box for a map. I am not even going to mention fuel economy. The best at the time quadraphonic eight track sounds awful. The analog world is not aa great place. Yet the car has style. Even if it is as fake as the 70’s. The Zebra Wood trim in the interior is a vinyl decal. The crystal hood ornament is simply molded plastic. The cut glass instruments and opra window are again just molded plastic and glass. I am sure even the diamonds embedded in the windows are simply faux. I can pretty safely assume that no trees were harmed in the production of this automobile.

So is this fine machine sustainable? Under the fancy and fake surface it is a common mans LTD. The basic bits are common and mass produced. The bits that mascurade as bespoke are simply eratz gingerbread. However it is fine piece of history. If nothing else it is a reminder on how well off we have it today. More importantly, the car is also a reminder of what is wrong today. Our cars look all the same in 50 shades of gray and a black interior. We have lost sight of color and live in uniform blandness.

What the land yachts of the era were an experience of style, color and texture. We seem to have lost that bit in the digital age.

Another tempest recedes. Eternally grateful for this new sandy shore. Eyes blinking from the light. Unable to determine light from the day. Everything rearranged, everything new. Work until the day is through.

The watch is gone, unneeded at time. We are working on Island Time. If things work out, it’s all good. Failure doesn’t matter, the party continues, stay happy. It’s Island Time.

Why is there an alarm for island time? Relax, all the time is island time. Earlier to rise and later to bed. It’s just a means to more island time.

Contemplating the sandy shore, I realize it is nothing but more. As I look around I wonder how I arrived. A tempest formed from the calm analysis of the day. I look for a ship, I want to get off.

I need to build a dock, yet all the time is gone. Gone to the island, where nothing really matters. I want my eggs to be sunny side up, yet they are scrambled. I dream of a golden yacht, coming to waft me away.

Long days and crazy people in an unfamiliar environment. How do I cope with the tangles in my brain. I don’t really, it is just brain fog. Sure I know there are things out there, yet I have a coffee in my hand and I keep on going. I wonder if the fog will lift. My navigation radio is analog in a digital world. The music is smooth jazz as I seek my harbor. A breif reprise reveals a glimpse of a beautiful world, wafting in and out of view, yet I am concerned on the dangers hidden from view.

Poorly socialized I seek safety, fjords to nowhere beckon constantly. Enter and the winds will blow aground. The high seas providing unsustainable comfort. Decisions must be made as mind rejects what is reality.

Age is cruel and beautiful. There will always be a future shared by all. We live in our bubbles wafting in the fog. Never knowing when they will pop.

When you surround yourself with people smarter than you are, you become the idiot.

I work with a lot of really smart people. Most of them do not think I am very smart. So they do not pay much attention to my ideas. They have a tendency to ignore me. By doing so I can see what they really think. I am surprised how mean some of them can be. It is how they hold power.

I am simply subservient. It is how I survive. I truly just want them to be happy, that is my nature. My belief is if they are happy we will all be better off. At times my logic is flawed. Life, by nature can be competitive. Yet simple collaboration is probably better.

Most of the time I consider myself to be average, I can learn from half the people I meet, and I can help the other half. That may be an oversimplification yet it is a basic premise. So when I work with so many smart people I can become overwhelmed. Their wheels turn so much faster. Sometimes the results are phenomenal if they have a kind soul. Other times, if people are into control, can be soul crushingly brutal.

Remarkably, recently, my soul was being crushed because of actions of others to others, then in a moment of enlightenment, kindness ensued. My little hart sang. I may not mention it very often, the actions of others to others effect me.

Be kind.

New Hampshire primary tomorrow. I am getting a massive amount of texts telling me who I should vote for. I find that annoying. From what I understand the Democrats are buying ads for some of the Republicans. Who you going to belive? Wife and I are going to try and vote for moderates. Hard to belive what you read these days.

When people get old they sometimes wonder what happened. Facebook is filled with posts like that. That is their problem. Of the course of the years it has become apperant that not everone acts their age. Age is really a mental thing. A child can exhibit extreme maturity. An old person can act completely immature. We do not always act our age.

Me, I am just a sixteen year old hiding in an old body that has the wisdom of the years. This is a conscious decision. There are a number of reasons for this. I work with college students, I look up to, and respect them. My mental age reflects that. Also I am quite inquisitive, the years have not yet jaded me. Very importantly I have just learned to drive, the world is now capable of being explored.

Mentally I am learning, though I am old enough to realize that education has failed. At sixteen I knew the media did not present a realistic view of the world. Though I could not really know who was lying. At sixteen I was young enough that I could still dream, I had not yet been ground down by reality. At sixteen I had just begun to work. The future was bright, I was not yet disappointed with life.

So many of the people my age live in the past, they cannot let go of their past. It is rather sad.

There is another reason I picked sixteen, oh sweet sixteen. I had seen a UFO when I was 16. I was in Boy Scouts troop meeting, the scout master came in and said there was a UFO outside. Naturally inquisitive I went outside to look. In the air there were two silent luminous green rectangles. Perfectly aligned with each other they swooped through the sky. I thought what goes up must come down, so I waited. It did not come down, it began to travel to the east. I had a little red convertible, so I jumped in and gave chase. With the top down I could look up and see it fly through the sky. Surprisingly I was able to keep up with it. Yet I was beginning to think that it was going to go out over the water. There was a really large building on the water where the would build some of the American Cup yachts. There was a way to drive up onto the roof that was not always closed off. I thought I would take a chance and see if I could drive to the top of the building.

I made it to the top of the building and had a great view of the sky, and what was below. Above the craft went across the sky and over the sound towards the island. Below a number of police cars drove towards the shore.

There are a lot of things we do not know, and cannot explain. Yet if I were to guess an explanation it was me from the future coming to check on my past to see if I was real. I would be able prove my own existence by say if I dance above this building long enough a boy would come out and jump into a small red convertible and give chase. The boy would then go to the big building where he could see all. He would then stand next to his car and stare in awe.

I would have proved my own existence whilst swooping about the sky, and time. Life is but a dream.

It is not very often that I am offended by something, Yet the other day I was offended by a slim yellow utensil, a pencil. It’s mere presence was offensive to me. We live in a digital world. I have written hundreds of little bundles of bubbles by simply tapping my fingers. When I actually scribe letters and numbers, I use a stylus on a screen. Yet in front of me in an institution of higher learning was a container filled with yellow number two pencils.

50 years ago yellow pencils were quite common. Most of them had the Indian logo on them. I was told the pencils were manufactured by Indians of the native type. I thought that manufacturing pencils would not be very lucrative, and I probably was right. It did not take long before the Indians got into the casino business. I imagine that was far more lucrative. Probably a good thing they got out of the pencil business when they did, nobody uses pencils any more. Except for schools, they live in the past. The only place students students use pencils is in class. I have to say those that teach, live in the past. I see students are quite proficient in Google documents. I really wonder if using Google documents would be better than a pencil and paper test.

I did not enjoy my schooling. There has to be a better way. I like to say “use the proper tool for the job”. These days is the pencil the right tool for the job, or simply a usless artifact from my past. How necessary is calligraphy in the days of computer generated fonts. What would handwriting analysis provide today, a need for change? If we want to be relevant in today’s society, we need to be relevant in contemporary communications. For me, pencils are just not it.

It is not very often that I find something disturbing. So I started asking people about their opinions on pencils. My first finding was artists still use them. I can understand that. Yet I was recently drawn to an image created by AI that won an art competition. I downloaded the original resolution and spent some time studying it. I was fascinated. We are in a digital transformation. Still I had many people tell me pencils are necessary. In my view they are struggling to hang on to the past.

When I was young I rember Indian pencils. Supposedly they were made by Native American Indians. A Google search showed some Blackfeet Indian pencils, but I don’t think that is what I was thinking of. Anyway Indians went on to operate casinos, much more lucrative than making pencils.

Just a final thought before I get carried away. If you go to teach someone to drive a car, do you make them ride a horse first?

During a pleasant evening a little over a month ago I was sitting around a camp fire with a group of pilots. We were swaping stories. A 747 pilot mentioned that he had worked in the wrong end of the plane. I was perplexed.

I have always found pilots to be aspirational. They have a great view of the world. Pilots can make some good money. They get to play with some very cool machines, and they travel. Yes I am in awe of pilots.

A 747 pilot was close to the top of pilot hierarchy, and it showed. His camp was neat and simple with a touch of sophistication. Me, I bumbled about and muddled by trying to be comfortable. Neighboring campers were amused by my tribulations. Yet in the end I had a comfortable camp.

I have listened to many pilots. I have heard the stories of a Gulfstream G650 pilot, listened to what it is like to fly into Bagdad during war. I have even have chatted with a top gun pilot or two. Even the stories of the pilots of the most simple of ultralights bring me joy. I have always been in awe. When I look up into the sky and see a contrails it matters not the plane. I can check flight aware and see the type of plane. At some point I have chatted with a pilot that has flown one of those.

during all these conversations I have never encountered a conversation where the pilot wished he had a different job. The 747 is an absolutely magnificent aircraft. I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to fly such an aircraft. My mind is boggled.

Not all aircraft are filled with large groups of people or packages. Some time ago I was very surprised to learn some jets had fancy living rooms in the back. I was talking with the pilot of a jet that made a daily trip to California. I had thought It was filled with fresh produce as it was owned by a large grocery company. I was asking the pilot what type of produce was in the back, when he said it was just a living room back there with a couple of people in it. No he did not know what they did.

When people tell me they want to live in Cuba, I ask why would you want to live in Cuba. They will tell me something about free healthcare or free education. I will look at them perplexed and say “Rich people in Cuba will have a 50 year old car, rich people in America have jets” as much as I like a 50 year old car, I would rather know someone with a jet.

So when we were sitting around the campfire and my friend the 747 pilot said he worked in the wrong end of the plane, I had to ask why. He said the real money was made in the back. I was somewhat taken aback, yet to a certain extent I had to agree. But really, if I could afford a jet, I would want to fly it.

Still, there are people out there are just as happy to be in the back of the jet. That is OK, because they are actually paying someone to fly the jet. Additonally, there are many people that build and maintain the jet. For the most of them life is good. Also, for the vast majority of people that fly the planes, they think life is very good.