Rocketing through

I should be keeping an hour-by-hour diary of symptoms.  This morning I had chills, even though the thermometer said it was a balmy 75 degrees in that room.  My throat was horrible, to the point that I bought two boxes of Cepacol and one of Chloraseptic, neither of which I have ever used before.  (I also bought NyQuil, which is also something I've never used before.)  My nose started running about two hours into the five six-hour odyssey I took with my mom, going from Nanticoke to Scranton to Dickson City (got my free turkey from work and the cough drops) to Moosic to Wilkes-Barre back to Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and Nanticoke again.  My cough became "productive" shortly after we got home.  And now my ability to spell is going away.

Confession:  I have not yet seen Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  I have honestly not liked the movies a fraction as much as the books - I have found them dreary and dull at times when they should have been madcap and fast-paced.  (Compare the Ollivander's scene in the first movie, with John Hurt as an almost comatose Mr. Ollivander, to the Cat in the Hat-level of frenzy in the book's original of that scene.)  But I have owned the DVD of that movie for some time, and would like to see the new film in a theater.  Maybe I'll pop it in and watch it soon.

I'm falling behind on some personal stuff.  I'll have to try to get to it soon.  I had hoped to get together with someone tomorrow, but the way I feel coupled with a high likelihood of infection makes that unlikely.

My beard and moustache trimmer broke some time ago.  It hasn't worked in a while, and I tried replacing the batteries yesterday, and still nothing.  Today I bought a trimmer with multiple heads for under twenty dollars.  Unfortunately it's a rechargeable, and probably needs to charge all night.  Maybe as of tomorrow I can stop looking like an extra from Gettysburg.

Encana Oil & Gas, one of the gas companies seeking to extract natural gas from Luzerne County, has pulled up stakes and left, declaring that gas could not be extracted in sufficient quantities to be commercially viable.  I think WBRE went above and beyond with their report, or at least with the folks interviewed for the report.  (This would be more obvious if the video in the linked article were larger than a postage stamp.)

(Oh, sheesh.  WNEP interviewed the same couple.)

YouTube Weekend: Speaking of videos, someone on another Blogspot blog commented that they were no longer able to post videos to their blog.  Let's see if I can.  I heard this song while grocery shopping the other day, and I remembered how cool it was - and still is:  "Driver's Seat" by Sniff 'n' the Tears:

Sick and sicker

Things haven't gone exactly as expected.  I am sicker than I thought.  My "Barry White" voice stage lasted for only a few hours - by the time I was on my way to work my voice was a hoarse whisper.  The usual isolation of my work station, which I used to justify going in to work at all, was disrupted by staffing issues:  we had a call-off, and the mix or regular and overtime personnel we had available to cover all the things that needed to be done had a mix of skills that required some shuffling of where people were working - placing me right in the thick of things.  While I may have infected everyone I came in contact with, they at least had the benefit of not hearing me scream and shout at my machines all night as I usually do,

After work I got together with my mom to take Homer back down to Allentown for an eight-week follow-up visit.  She drove; I had a breakfast of a mug of Throat Coat tea, made from a packet that had been kicking around for nearly four years, ever since I closed down the Tea Shop in my office when I lost my job in February 2007.  I had a huge collection of teas, and everyone knew to stop over if they needed a Throat Coat or a Breathe Easy or a Gypsy Cold Care (like chicken soup in tea form) just a St. John's Wort.  (St. John's Wort was very popular.)  It took us about an hour to get to within two miles of the vet's, and then over a half hour to go the rest of the way - more infinitely prolonged construction projects being financed by the taxpayers and milked by contractors for as long as they can.

The veterinary technician who took care of us has also lost her voice, though she is not exhibiting any other symptoms.  The doctor gave Homer a clean bill of health, but I am not sure of that.  (We finally finished his antibiotics yesterday, and the doctor assured us that no infection is currently present.  But when I just checked on Homer a few minutes ago, he had thick mucus coming out of both nostrils for the first time in a month.

I came home full of plans but decided to do nothing.  I barely ate anything - some peanuts, a concoction made of equal parts lemon, honey, boiling water, and ginger flavored brandy, and some ice cream to soothe my throat a few hours later.  I turned on the TV and caught a bit of Tosh.0 - enough to determine that he, too, was sick, with what he described as a yeast infection of the throat, which caused him to be quieter and more subdued than usual.  I managed to talk to one of the people I wanted to call, but with my throat and the fact that I haven't slept for more than a few minutes at a time in the car (as my mom was driving) since early Wednesday afternoon, I wasn't exactly the most scintillating conversationalist.

Sword swallower news today that I won't convey in full right now.  Some bad - a death in the family, the husband/manager of someone I saw perform a few years ago - and some good - an article focusing on a dear friend I've never met, which reminded my of why I've been hostile toward the Ig Nobel Prizes for the past few years. 

Maybe I'll explain in more detail sometime.  But now, I have plans for tomorrow morning, and miles to go before I sleep.  I'd better get started getting ready for bed.

Sick, November 2010 edition

I'm sick.  I think.  It's been so long since I've been sick, I'm not really sure.

Yesterday I felt pretty awful.  Worn out.  Light-headed.  Woozy.  Thought that was all just normal stuff, especially after the big huge grocery shopping trip yesterday morning.

But then the specific symptoms started while I was at work.  Burning eyes.  Itching sinuses.  Running nose.  Coughing.  Increased skin sensitivity.  And a sore throat that started at the base of my sinuses and gradually worked its way down my throat.

Now I have the Barry White voice and a sore throat.  I don't feel especially rotten.  I probably shouldn't go in to work tonight, but if I take a sick day instead of working, I'll lose four hours of overtime pay.  Four hours of pay.  I can't afford that.

I'm isolated enough that I probably shouldn't expose too many other people to whatever this is.  And we'll see how I feel for the trip down to the vet's in Allentown tomorrow morning.

Burning out

Even though I'm scheduled to lose my job in a month or so, and even though I'm supposed to be maintaining a blog that reposts all sorts of information for those of us who have lost or will be losing our jibs, I'm feeling remarkably unprepared for what's coming.

Much of that has to do with the work schedule.  Almost since the day my house was robbed, I've been putting in overtime.  One or two days a week, leaving me with, at most, two or three days off at a time.  One of these days immediately follows a night of work, so it's really a "recovery day" - I spend most of it sleeping.  (If my days of overtime are not contiguous with my work days, I may actually have more that one "recovery day" to deal with in and period of days scheduled off.)

This makes it difficult to do anything productive on your days off, in addition to doing all the normal chores that most people who don't work twelve-hour schedules take for granted and do on their afternoons and evenings.  Overtime demands also make it difficult to schedule things (like, say, job interviews) on your off days - how can you commit to a date if you don't know whether or not you'll be required to work on that day?  Add on top of that the fact that every once in a while I just want to do absolutely nothing on my day off.

In a few weeks, I'll have all the time in the world to conduct a job search, and schedule interviews, and do all sorts of stuff.  Heck, I'll even have time to paint and mow my lawn and do yard work and all those concrete projects that I've neglected for so long.

Too bad by then it will be the dead of Winter.

Power shopping

Our local supermarket has been running a promotion:  spend so much over a certain period of time, and get such-and-such a discount on one shopping trip in the weeks before Thanksgiving.  My mom and I managed to structure our shopping so she will get the maximum discount, 20%.  If she makes her purchases on a Tuesday, she will get an additional 5% off. 

To make the most of these savings, she will need me to come along as assistant shopper and heavy-load lifter.  Unfortunately, Tuesday is tomorrow, and I'm working.

We've come up with a work-around.

It takes me about forty-five minutes to get from work to home.  Factoring in the time it takes me to get to my car and get on the road, I'm usually home at 7:00 or just before.  If I call my mom as I'm leaving work, she should be up and ready to head out by the time I get home.  Then we will probably take two cars and head straight down to the grocery store.  Armed with two carts and two lists, I will get the heavy items and she will get the lighter things.  The lists include staples and necessities and things that will be needed for Thanksgiving (like cranberries) and Christmas (like chocolate chips), but I intend to also pick up a few things that we don't need right away, but that we will be using eventually.  Hey, 25% off is 25% off.

I've allocated two hours for this expedition.  I want to be checked out, loaded, and on the way home by 9:00 in the morning.  Bulky freezables that we won't need right away (like cod) I will take to my house for storage.  Perishables and immediate-use things we will unload into my mom's house.  Everything else can sit in her car until I damned well get to it.  I do need to get a few hours of sleep each day, after all.

Back to life, back to unreality

The 2010 Sideshow Gathering is fading in the rearview mirror.  There will continue to be pictures and videos posted, and maybe a few more articles to be written, and my friends and I will continue to bounce around stories (or "cut up jackpots," in the carny vernacular) for the rest of the year.  But almost as soon as the event was over it was time to get back to other things.

I took two days off from work for the Gathering - the only other time off I had taken this year was for my nephew/godson's First Holy Communion, so that should tell you something - and I had to head back to work the next night, Monday.  I called in to work early Sunday morning to have myself put on the overtime schedule for our first two days, but with erratic workloads it wasn't clear if I would or would not be working those days.  Road conditions were also very erratic, so I left for work twenty minutes earlier than usual on Monday afternoon - and got to work more than twenty minutes earlier than usual, too.  I checked the overtime list and saw that I was third on the schedule for each of our first two days off, meaning I would only be going in if at least three people were needed for that day.

Tuesday I left the house five minutes later than I had the day before.  I ran into a traffic jam right at a badly-engineered merge point, and watched in growing anger as fifty or sixty cars came off the exit and forced their way into the front of the jam.  This told me that traffic was moving, at least, though the police car and tow truck that passed me on the shoulder told me that there might be a real issue ahead.  I called in to work and advised them of the situation.  Minutes ticked by as we crawled along at just over zero miles per hour, thanks mostly to the merging vehicles coming off the exit - and the rubberneckers at the very minor accident in the construction zone.  Once I was past the accident, it was like I had the highway to myself.  I accelerated to ludicrous speed and got to work five minutes late.

Wednesday morning I called in to find out that, yes indeedy, I would be working overtime that night.  Ditto on Thursday night.

(I have to squeeze in as much overtime as I can while I'm still working.  In a month or so, I will be losing my job.)

Friday was mostly a recovery day, but I did take my mom out to run some errands.  Saturday I raked leaves, for the first time in over a week.  I gathered two bags from our front yard, two bags from the neighbor's tree lawn, two bags from a pile on her front lawn, and filled four bags from the cans she had filled the day before.  Both her tree and ours have quite a few leaves left, and I haven't even touched the side yard or the other neighbor's yard.

After church yesterday I headed out to my comic book store, which is only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  I got there too late, unfortunately, and backtracked to do a shopping run to Sam's Club and Barnes & Noble.

Now it's time to go back to work.


TITLE REFERENCE:  Soul II Soul, "Back to Life"

The Sideshow Gathering 2010: Video compilation

Here are four videos from the 2010 Inkin' the Valley Tattoo Convention and Sideshow Gathering, posted by YouTube user hotrodchrissy1968.


The first video is of the good folks from Freakshow Deluxe, featuring the world's youngest sideshow performer!




Next up is the Olde City Sideshow, featuring Danny Borneo and Reggie Bugmúncher:




Finally, two from the Lucky Daredevil Thrillshow.  First, Tyler Fyre throws knives at his lovely and charming wife, Thrill Kill Jill:




And then, Jill does a solo act - with two friends!




More videos will be added as they become available...

The Sideshow Gathering 2010: Media compilation

One of the major drawbacks of Facebook - aside from the restricted-access cocktail-party format - is the strictly linear nature of its structure:  what you posted today gets buried beneath what you post tomorrow, and as the days, weeks, months, and years roll by, things get buried deeper and deeper with no real hope of finding them, and no easy way to search for them.

There was lots of great media coverage at the 2010 Inkin' the Valley Tattoo Convention and Sideshow Gathering.  Everyone's been sharing it back and forth.  But my concern is that in time this stuff will get buried and lost, if it doesn't get outright deleted by the content suppliers themselves.  So, in an effort to preserve these things for future reference, I will use this post to collect all past, current, and future media pieces on this year's event.

James Mundie's official press release contains excellent background material on many of the acts, as well as tons of valuable links:

MundieArt.com - press release: WHERE ALL THE FREAKS MEET: ANNUAL SIDESHOW GATHERING at INKIN’ THE VALLEY, NOVEMBER 5TH – 7TH, 2010

The Weekender had a great article ahead of the show.  As part of what was apparently a running gag, Magic Brian was featured prominently in photos throughout, but was never mentioned by name:
Inkin' the Valley and Sideshow Gathering a perfect pairing The Weekender, Northeast PA

The Sunday Times Leader (November 7, 2010) had another great article featuring photos and interviews from the event itself.  And this time Magic Brian (who again was prominently featured in the main photo) was identified...as "the Blockhead":
More than ogling at oddities The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, PA

AOL News was the first national media outlet to put out a story on this year's event.  This story focuses on the record-breaking Mass Human Blockhead event, but includes footage and interviews from throughout the weekend.  I didn't realize when I first saw it that the person reporting is Mark Hartzman, the author of the excellent book American Sideshow (which has significant material contributions by James Mundie!):
AOL News: Human Blockheads Nail World Record

The Associated Press followed up with this article, locally carried in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader:
Sideshow performers unite at weird Pa. convention - Associated Press - The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, PA

Yahoo! News has also done a video post, featuring interviews with the Reverend Tommy Gunn of Freakshow Deluxe, Martin Ling of the Olde City Sideshow, and Della Deadgirl, among others.  (The link may be a little wonky - it has a habit of going to another entry entirely, called "Robot Actor", but the entry I'm talking about is called "Sideshow performers bring wackiness to light"):
Yahoo News: Sideshow performers bring wackiness to light

Coverage from Philadelphia's WPHL, channel 17:
The Sideshow Gathering Pictures from Wilkes Barre, PA - WPHL

A pre-show article on the570.com:
Tattoos, piercings and wild sideshow acts - Features - the570



John Robinson's Sideshow World continues to give excellent coverage to this event.  Here are the postings so far:
http://www.sideshowworld.com/SSG-2010-First-Look-HJ-1.html
http://www.sideshowworld.com/SSG-2010-Prof-Ouch.html
http://www.sideshowworld.com/Articles-by-M-Hartzman-A.html
http://www.sideshowworld.com/SSG-2010-Sideshow-Gathering-MH.html

Walt Hudson's review: http://www.sideshowworld.com/review-WH-2010-SSG.html


If you have any photos from the event, please post them to the official Inkin' the Valley Tattoo Convention and Sideshow Gathering Flickr page (or post a link to one of the sites below):
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sideshowgathering/

And, of course, there are the official sites for Inkin' the Valley Tattoo Convention and Sideshow Gathering:
http://www.inkinthevalley.com/
http://www.myspace.com/inkinthevalley
http://twitter.com/inkinthevalley
http://www.facebook.com/inkinthevalley

Dates for 2011 have just been announced!

The eighteenth annual Inkin' the Valley Tattoo Convention and TENTH ANNUAL Sideshow Gathering will be held November 4th, 5th, and 6th, 2011!

Veterans Day

Once upon a time this day used to be a holiday, a day set aside - in the United States, at least - to recognize and honor our veterans.  In theory, anyway.

But that was long ago.  Gradually Veterans Day fell off the holiday calendars of most businesses until now it is strictly a Federal holiday - a day that employees of the federal government observe, but pretty much no one else.

I got to thinking about Veterans Day parades.  On or around this day, and on or around Memorial Day, some communities still have parades in which veterans squeeze into dress uniforms and march through town.  I remember a vet I knew years back who complained about what a pain in the butt this was:  he was old, he was tired, he was sore, and the last thing he felt like doing on a day intended to honor his years of service was go on a forced march.

So wouldn't it make sense to turn this around?  Maybe set up a grandstand where veterans can sit in warmth and comfort, while all the people of the town march past them and show them some appreciation?

For everyone who has made a promise to serve their country, and kept it, and for everyone who found himself drafted into service, and served honorably:  Thank you. 

And more than just thanks.  Let's make sure even in these tough economic times, our nation keeps its promise to them.

AOL News: Mass Human Blockhead record!

Thanks to the publicity efforts of James Mundie there was plenty of news coverage at the Sideshow Gathering this past weekend.  Here is an excellent piece from AOL News on the record-breaking Mass Human Blockhead - thirty-six people on stage at once with various objects jammed up their noses.  (The previous record of twenty people at once was set at last year's Gathering!)

AOL News: Human Blockheads Nail World Record

This was the ninth annual Sideshow Gathering, held in conjunction with the seventeenth annual Inkin' the Valley Tattoo Convention.  If you missed it this year, plans are already underway for next year's tenth annual Gathering.  Don't miss it!

Overheard at the Sideshow Gathering 2010

As Steve Hyde and Melanie did their death-defying Bag of Death escape on day 3 of the Sideshow Gathering, I overheard a conversation between a woman and a man sitting behind me.

Person 1:  "...and so I ordered ten pizzas for the party and...oh my gosh, that guy is totally trapped in that plastic bag, he's gonna suffocate.  I would never want to suffocate.  Or drown.  I don't want to drown.  Anything that involves not breathing.  I would rather be hit by a car.  Or shot.  Or beaten to death.  Anything but suffocating, or drowning."

Person 2:  "If you get beaten to death, you might drown in your own blood."

Person 1:  "Oh my gosh, no, I wouldn't want that.  I would want them to beat me in the head so I was unconscious when I died.  Anything but suffocating or drowning."


(For the record, Steve Hyde did not die during this escape.)

In the afterglow

The 2010 Sideshow Gathering is over.  But in a sense it's not over, for me at least:  it will provide me with a Happy Place to go to mentally from now until I get recharged by the next one.

I'm a terrible consumer, really.  I consider myself a bibliophile, but I buy many of my books from clearance racks and from remaindered book stores.  In the same sense I consider myself a Johnny-come-lately fan of the Sideshow, but in the past year all I've invested in it financially is $10 for a ticket to this year's Gathering.  (And $5 for a bag of Doc Wilson's Prize Candy, which came with a $1 bill tucked inside...and a dollar for a peep at Thrill Kill Jill in her blade box, and another dollar for the blow-off Cyndora, the half-dog, half-spider, and $20 for a copy of Volume 9 of Shocked and Amazed...but you get my point.)  I've never actually been to a sideshow.  The closest I got was listening to Ward Hall's bally outside of the World of Wonders tent at the Bloomsburg Fair a few years ago.  (It went on and on, and eventually my friends decided to move on.  I have no idea how long he had been going on before we got there, or how long he went after we walked away.)  Someday I will get out and see the Cheeky Monkey Sideshow or the Lucky Daredevil Thrillshow in its natural habitat, in person, for money.  Someday.

Someday I'll also sort through all of my photos from this weekend and distill out the best ones.  For now, check out John Robinson's Sideshow World entry.  He did such a great job punching up (and in one case, animating!) the photos that I had a hard time believing they were actually the ones I took!

I mentioned earlier that there were more cameras going this year than I have ever seen before.  I'm just hoping that some of these photographers post these photos to a place where they can be seen by everyone!  James Mundie pointed out to me that there is a Flickr page for uploading pictures from the Sideshow Gathering - but I don't have a Flickr account and can't get around to making one just now.

One of the people taking pictures asked about how he could share photos with others, and I mentioned the Inkin' the Valley and Sideshow Gathering Facebook page.  I also suggested that he could post them to a Flickr account or something like that with a Sideshow Gathering tag and we would eventually find them through Googling.  I forgot another, obvious route:  Google "sideshow gathering" and contact someone at one of the sites that pop up.  If you do that now you will come across these sites, in this order:

http://www.inkinthevalley.com/
http://www.myspace.com/inkinthevalley
http://anothermonkey.blogspot.com/2010/02/mark-your-calendars-sideshow-gathering.html
http://www.mundieart.com/ssg2010.htm

...which is pretty awesome.  The official site, the official MySpace page, me, and the official press release!

If you have photos and come across my page, follow these links or just get in touch with me and I'll put you in touch with the relevant parties.  And thank you for sharing!

Sideshow Gathering 2010: Awesomeness overload

So.  A few weeks ago I plunked down $10 for an advance ticket to the Sideshow Gathering.  In return for that money I was given three days of the most absolutely amazing live-and-in-person entertainment you can get anywhere.  Ten bucks!  How far will that get you at the movies?  At the ballpark?  (That might get you into the parking lot!)  At pretty much anywhere that isn't the Sideshow Gathering?  The answer is, not very!

This was the ninth annual Sideshow Gathering, held in conjunction with the seventeenth annual Inkin' the Valley Tattoo Convention.  I have only been going for the past four years, but this was by far the biggest and possibly the best Gathering I have been to so far!  Just measured in terms of cameras alone, both professional (thanks to the publicity efforts of James Mundie) and amateur, this may have also been the best-documented Gathering ever!

So much happened, I don't know if I'll be able to tell it all.  I may have gone a bit overboard with my 1,894 photos, though to be fair a few of those are probably imperfect in one way or another.

Everything was amazing and wonderful.  Even the bugs and glitches simply added to the authenticity of the overall experience.  But two individuals stood out and made the weekend that much more perfect.

I had never heard of Freakshow Deluxe before, but was delighted to see the leaders of the troupe, the Reverend Tommy Gunn and Miss Malice Aforethought, make their debut at the Sideshow Gathering as one of the first acts this weekend.  They were accompanied by their two young children, the four (or is he five?) year old Green Monster and his two-year old sister, both of whom got in on the act.

These two stole the show the entire weekend:  watching Thrill Kill Jill fuss over them, watching them interact with Lil' Miss Firefly, and especially watching them watch all the acts in wide-eyed fascination from just offstage or from the floor in front of the stage.

The Reverend Tommy Gunn and Miss Malice Aforethought's two-year-old daughter watches from the floor in front of the stage as Martin Ling the Suicide King of the Olde City Sideshow prepares to lift an iron with hooks jammed into his eye sockets. Coolest. Childhood. Ever.

When living legend Harley Newman took the stage he immediately ordered the assembled audience to move their chairs into a circle with an opening in the middle of the room.  He then selected seven volunteers from the audience to wrap him in Saran Wrap so that his only source of air was a snorkel held in his mouth - and then had a cork placed in the snorkel, cutting off his air until he could free himself from the hundreds of yards of polyethelene wrap.

One of those volunteers was the Reverend Tommy Gunn, in civilian clothes and enjoying the Gathering along with the rest of us.  As chance would have it, his son The Green Monster wound up sitting next to me.  As Harley struggled with the airtight cocoon well beyond the point that brain damage should have set in, I leaned over to the little boy and said, "Your daddy helped kill that man."  He looked up at me, beaming, and said "I know!  I saw!"

If only we all could have had such a childhood!

Carl Sagan Day 2010

Today is the second day of the 2010 Sideshow Gathering, but also the second annual Carl Sagan Day.

I found my entry from last year and, with minor edits, I think it's still appropriate

http://www.carlsaganday.com/

Carl Sagan was a Professor of Astronomy and Space Science and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University. He served as an advisor and consultant to NASA, and played a major role in the establishment of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). He was a Pulitzer Prize winning author and most familiar to the public through his COSMOS series on PBS. In addition to numerous awards, recognitions and honorary degrees for his outstanding contributions, he is acknowledged as one of the most effective public faces of astronomy and space science throughout the world. Sagan died in December 1996.

It hasn't been that long since this made the rounds the first time, but it's worth watching again and again. A Glorious Dawn: Carl Sagan featuring Stephen Hawking, by melodysheep.


The sky calls to us
if we do not destroy ourselves
we will, one day, venture to the stars
Keep the dream and the good works alive.

Sadly, something I've written more recently is also appropriate.  This was written after the death of Jack Horkheimer:

When Carl Sagan's Cosmos premiered in 1980, TIME magazine ran a cover story featuring Sagan in his "On the Shores of the Cosmic Ocean" pose.  Inside many pages were dedicated to the making of the show, the goals of the series, and the audacity of creating and marketing an expensive TV program that amounted to a lengthy science lesson.  Sagan was a celebrity, and was duly celebrated.

When Sagan died in 1996, TIME barely took note.   His obituary was only a few sentences long, and accompanied by a thumbnail version of the cover image from sixteen years earlier.

It seemed back then when Cosmos first aired that we were standing not just on the shores of the cosmic ocean, but at the beginning of a new era where technology was advancing at a remarkable rate and could be used to advance our intellects at a similarly remarkable rate.  By merging technology with the human quest for knowledge, it seemed like there was no limit to where we could go and what we would learn.

That didn't happen.

Instead one of the greatest achievements in technology, a seemingly limitless tool for communication and information sharing, has been perverted into a way for communicating disinformation, for launching vicious attacks, and for keeping the masses slack-jawed with an infinite array of pornography and time-killing diversions.  Intelligence is seen as something to be ridiculed, and science as a waste of money or, better yet, a fraudulent scheme designed to enrich the few while spreading lies and fear.  And after the recent elections things are only going to get worse, while the anti-intellectual, anti-science forces gain strength and numbers.

I wish Carl Sagan were still around to help us to figure out what to do to get out of this mess.  But sometimes I'm glad he didn't live to see where we've gotten to.




See also: Another Monkey: Carl Sagan

At the Sideshow Gathering

If anyone is wondering, this is where I'll be this weekend:

MundieArt.com - press release: WHERE ALL THE FREAKS MEET: ANNUAL SIDESHOW GATHERING at INKIN’ THE VALLEY, NOVEMBER 5TH – 7TH, 2010

 

I'll be doing image dumps to my Facebook account, and trying to write things up as quickly as I can.  I still haven't written about Day 3 from the last Sideshow Gathering, so be patient.

A visitor's guide for people attending the Sideshow Gathering

Please note that this is in no way officially connected to the Sideshow Gathering or its sponsors, or to any of the businesses mentioned herein.  I'm just this guy, you know?

I'm trying to think of things that could be of value to people coming to the Sideshow Gathering.  The Woodlands, while a fine multi-purpose facility that houses a hotel, restaurants, clubs, and (of course) convention facilities, can feel like it's in the middle of nowhere.  Actually, there's quite a bit of stuff just over the next hill...

First things first:  You're not in Wilkes-Barre anymore.  Seriously.  You're in Plains Township.  You may need to know that at some point.

Route 315 is your friend.  It runs parallel to Interstate 81 for several miles.  You can use 315 to pick up 81 in either direction - there is one interchange at Wilkes-Barre to the southwest and another near Pittston to the northeast.  You can also pick up the Pennsylvania Turnpike in either direction:  if you are heading north on the Turnpike, pick it up at Pittston, and if you are heading south, pick up 115 south at Wilkes-Barre and follow it to the Turnpike.  Following 315 south will also take you to Business Route 309, which has some places of interest on it.  Taking 315 north will get you to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport at Avoca, which you can also get to on 81 north.


Starbucks:  We actually have a Starbucks!  It's located at the Wilkes-Barre Township Marketplace, which houses several other places of interest, including a Wal-Mart, a Cracker Barrel, a Liquor Store, and the Super Kings Chinese Buffet.

To get there from the Woodlands:
- Turn left (south/west) on 315
- Take 315 about one mile until it becomes Business 309
- Take Business 309 about one mile
- Make a left on Mundy Street and follow for about a half mile (this is actually the second intersection with Mundy Street; you can actually get there by following the first, but then you will make a left in the next instruction)
- Make a right on Highland Park Boulevard and follow for about half a mile
- Wilkes-Barre Township Marketplace and Starbucks will be on your right

Google Maps address: 2030 wilkes barre twp mkt Place, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702 (Starbucks)


Barnes & Noble:  Sadly, this is the only bookstore left in the area.  Oh, and it also has Starbucks coffee.  This is located at the Arena Hub Plaza, which also houses a Lowes, an Olive Garden, an Outback Steakhouse, a Best Buy, and several other retail stores (including clothing stores - no sales tax on clothing in Pennsylvania!)

To get there from the Woodlands:
- Turn left (south/west) on 315

- Take 315 about one mile until it becomes Business 309
- Take a left at the first intersection with Mundy Street and follow for about half a mile  (stay in leftmost lane)
- Take a left at the traffic light (actually your second or third traffic light) onto Tambur Boulevard into the Arena Hub Plaza
- Barnes & Noble will be on the right

Google Maps address: 421 Arena Hub Plaza, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702 (Barnes & Noble Booksellers Wilkes-Barre)

Note:  When you make the turn onto Highland Park Boulevard or Tambur Boulevard, you will be turning directly opposite an entrance to the Wyoming Valley Mall, which may have some stores of interest.


Hospital: Now, let's say that the light bulb you ate yesterday doesn't agree with you today, or that angle grinder burn is really starting to feel funny, or you've accidentally sawed something off.  There are several hospitals in the area, but the closest is definitely Geisinger Wyoming Valley hospital.

To get there from the Woodlands:
- Turn right (northeast) on 315 about one mile
- Turn right at Jumper Road 0.2 mi
- Take the first right onto East Mountain Drive 0.5 mi
- Turn left



Let's say you're in the mood for unlimited food cheap, but you don't want Chinese for some reason.  There's also the Old Country Buffet in the East End Shopping Center.

 To get there from the Woodlands:

- Turn left (south/west) on 315
- Take 315 about one mile until it becomes Business 309
- Continue along 309 for a few hundred more feet until you see the East End Shopping Center on your left

This shopping center also houses a Red Lobster.

If gambling is your thing, you're in luck!  The Woodlands is a stone's throw from the Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, one of Pennsylvania's first casinos, now featuring table games as well as slot machines, dining and shopping.
To get there from the Woodlands:

- Turn right (northeast) on 315 about 1.3 miles
...and you're there!

These are just some of places along routes 315 and 309.  If you drive around the area, you'll see the place is loaded with shops, restaurants, and little holes-in-the-wall.  I've just listed a few.


Also of interest:

Giant Cow (Three-O-Nina)
As featured on RoadsideAmerica.com
Located along route 309 (hence the name) near the Georgetown Deli and Four Keys Plaza, 720 Wilkes-Barre Township Boulevard.
(For being a giant cow it's surprisingly easy to miss.  It's right behind the STIHL sign  If you find yourself looking at a McDonald's, a Kmart, and a sign for CINEMA 309 XXX, you've gone too far.)

Gallery of Sound
One of a dying breed:  an independent record store.  Stop in and see what they might have that you might need!  Located at 186 Mundy Street.

Gertrude Hawk Chocolates
The finest chocolates around!  Right next to the Gallery of Sound at 174 Mundy Street.

Houdini Museum
http://www.houdini.org/
A bit farther afield, located in Scranton, PA.

From their site:
1433 N. Main, Scranton, PA 18508. Tel. (570) 342-5555

GPS Latitude: 41.432156 Longitude: -75.663338
Take I-81 to Exit 190 the Main Ave Exit, LEFT onto Main exactly 2 miles to 1433 N. Main Ave. Scranton, PA. Free Parking. Enter front or back.


Knotty Pine restaurant
And one last thing, a vanishing bit of Americana.  An old-fashioned diner/restaurant located in Hazleton, PA at 26 North Church Street just off route 309.  It was announced earlier this week that this place will be closing as of November 13.  This place is easy to get to for those traveling south on 81, 309, or picking up Interstate 80 - all of these highways converge at Hazleton.

The liberating sensation of losing

Well.  Yesterday was election day, and a lot of the horses I was betting on lost.

Democrat Paul Kanjorski lost to Republican Lou Barletta to be our Congressional Representative.  More accurately, Paul Kanjorski lost to the wave of anti-incumbent fervor that has gripped the nation and infected this area as well.  After all, Barletta ran against Kanjorski two years ago, and locally things haven't changed that much.  Our economy and employment rates sucked back then, and they suck now.  Barletta hasn't scored any major political victories in that time.  But two years ago Kanjorski beat Barletta fairly easily.  This time Barletta beat Kanjorski.

What does that mean for the area?  In the short term, probably not that much.  Representatives have two-year terms, and if Barletta doesn't do something stunning in those two years, he'll probably be washed away by the next wave of anti-incumbency.  But with all his years in office, Kanjorski did wield a lot of seniority.  Of course, as a member of the new House minority, that might not mean all that much.  With Barletta a member of the new majority party in the House, maybe he'll be given some position that he will be able to use to benefit the area.  Although as a freshman member of the House, I seriously doubt that.

In the Senate race, Republican Pat Toomey beat Democrat Joe Sestak to win the seat currently held by Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter.  This may be a wash, since in any event this area was losing the benefits of Specter's seniority.   But I would have much preferred seeing Sestak in this position.  I believe he was the better candidate.

The biggest loss to me is the one that will affect the state the most:  Republican Tom Corbett defeated Democrat Dan Onorato to become the next governor of Pennsylvania.  I see this as an unmitigated environmental disaster for this state.  Corbett adheres to the Republican party line of less regulation and no new taxes, and extends the benefit of these positions to drillers extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation if Pennsylvania.  The severance tax, which is opposed by the Republicans in the Pennsylvania congress and only stayed in play because of Democratic governor Ed Rendell, isn't a mechanism designed to discourage gas drillers from coming to Pennsylvania; rather, it was designed to generate funds to be used to repair the structural and environmental damage done by gas extraction activities.  Without it, the likelihood is that this damage will simply go unrepaired, much like the scars and damage of Pennsylvania's coal mining past remain long after the industry pulled out of the area.

Corbett was opposed by a broad coalition of people who gave a damn about the environment, including several staunch Republicans of my acquaintance.  Things were already pretty bad here environmentally, and the promise of revenue resulting from Marcellus Shale drilling made opposition based on the fact that, say, drilling activity has poisoned drinking water wells in Dimock and caused the Susquehanna to begin bubbling with methane in Sugar Run made fighting for a responsible approach to natural gas extraction an uphill battle - and one that may have already landed some activists on terrorist watch lists.  With Corbett in the governor's mansion, things are going to get much, much worse.

And you know what?

It's not my fault.

I opposed these guys.  All of them.  Now they've won their elections, and come January, they'll be in office.

Barletta I almost think I can work with.  I'll send him the same message I sent to Specter and Kanjorski, probably with the same results.  (Though now I know enough to use the catchphrase "green jobs.")

Toomey I know little about.  A Senator is almost an abstraction, more involved with events on a national level than with anything on a state level.  We'll see how things go there.

Corbett...well, as I said, this is a disaster.  If you voted for him, or if you failed to vote for Onorato, the blame is as much on your head as it is on his.  For the rest of us, or for anyone wishing to make atonement, there's a long, hard battle ahead.  Most likely a losing battle, too.  But perhaps our efforts will help slow down how quickly we, and the environment, lose.

For now, for the next few days, I will put politics aside.  There's something else that is coming up soon, something that requires my attention, something to which I've made a commitment I have yet to fulfill.  I'm going to get started on that now.

VOTE

Today.

Now.

Oh, and you Democrats?  I hear you're a bunch of spineless yellow-bellied lily-livered fair-weather voters who have given up on the mid-term elections and are content to sit at home and cry into your venti  half-skim soy lattes.  Have I heard that right? Maybe you want to prove to me that that's a load of hogwash?

VOTE TOMORROW

I should be asleep right now.  I'd like to make a persuasive argument for getting everyone out there to vote tomorrow, but honestly, I don't have time.

I will say this:  If you are disappointed with the pace at which things have been taking place in the past twenty months, well...so am I.  So is everyone, I think.  Well, almost everyone.

The thing that you have to ask is:  who is responsible for the sluggish pace?  The answer is:  Congressional Republicans.  They have acted as the agents of the party of delay and deny, the party of "No."  They have set out to make every step of President Obama's plans as slow and difficult as possible, and they have succeeded spectacularly - much to the detriment of our nation.

We haven't seen economic recovery, not at the rate we would like.  But who would that benefit, anyway?  Besides you and me, I mean.  Who would economic recovery benefit politically?  The answer to that is:  the incumbents, the Democrats, and the Obama administration.  So, naturally, Congressional Republicans have done everything possible to keep this from happening.

They are the ones responsible for the sluggish pace at which things have been happening.  And if they win big tomorrow, their plans are clear:  the intend to push the big lever from "SLOW" to "STOP," shutting down the government in a state of gridlock - and then pushing it to "REVERSE."  Rolling back everything that has been accomplished in the last twenty months.  Undoing everything that we elected Barack Obama to get done.

And that's just what they'll do, if you let them.

Vote tomorrow.  It's more important than you realize.
 

Onorato: for the water

If there's one local race where I'm seeing people voting the issues rather than the party, it's the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race.

The choice is simple:  Tom Corbett has received massive contributions from natural gas businesses, and has taken a stand against a "severance tax" - a tax paid by drillers on extracted natural gas.  Taxes are bad, right?  In this case, the tax would help finance the inevitable repairs to environmental damage necessitated by drilling activities. Without that tax...well, the scars from this area's coal mining days still cover the state.  Neither the coal industry nor the respective state or federal agencies have taken any significant action in the past few decades to get the remnants of the coal industry, the culm banks and polluted streams and creeks and the rest of the residual mess cleaned up.

Onorato...does not.

More coherent argument here:

Susquehanna River Sentinel: Onorato for Governor