Brain Drain Blog

Archive for June, 2007

June 26th – Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice

It’s 0′dark hundred. Generally unfamiliar with this part of the day, I’m?making a?trial run for tomorrow’s journey to Washington DC. The bus leaves at 3 a.m.?and I still need to get my sign and tee shirt together.

I’m off to fight for the restoration of Habeus Corpus and the closing of Guantanamo Bay. This administration may think?it has?the power to revise the constitution at will, Bush may think “It’s just a piece of paper,” but I’m not buying it.

Torturing hundreds of terror suspects who have yet to be charged with any viable evidence,?human beings who have been traded to the military for a reward?or who have been turned in falsley by those who want to save themselves, it is unconscionable to keep these people prisoners indefinitely. The families who have suffered without fathers, husbands and brothers, the men who have been released without apology only to be?banished by their own country, the children who were imprisoned at fifteen and are now adults… nothing breeds fruitful terror more than this type of arrogant injustice.?And to think that this has been allowed to continue for?five full years.

It’s time for the citizens of the United States?to make our politicians acknowledge the International Acts of the Geneva Convention, not bow with eyes closed to a president on a crusade just as dangerous as Bin Laden’s. Obviously, Guantanamo is just the tip of the iceburgh, but it also the greatest symbol of our country’s own horror and arrogance.

If you too would?like to fight for the?restoration of?human and?constitutional rights?pulverized by?Resident Bush, those?rights which remain?defenseless in the hands of a gutless Congress,?read the ACLU petition.?Take back the power?as “We the People.” Sign today and I’ll be glad to hand deliver?your sentiment?in person tomorrow… along?side the thousands of concerned citizens from all over the country who will be pouring into our nation’s?Capital.

The ACLU is not alone in this fight.
Visit the following organizations for more info:
Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
And many, many more…

The Executive Office (and Cheney’s too) does?NOT equal unlimited power!

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” — Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820

The Big, Boring Picture
Being an avid genealogist, I have scanned and catalogued every existing photograph, document, and memory, audio tapes of my paternal grandfather and great grandmother, and 1920′s video?of my maternal family. The amount of data has far exceeded the capacity of my computer and required housing on a 300 gig external hard drive. In order to share the wealth and make some space,?many boxes of originals have been packaged up and sent off to the living descendants of ancestral lines. Having nearly completed this treasure chest of family history, a small collection of movie reels were the last remaining, or at least “obvious”?unknown still in my hands.

The Latest Exciting Project
When Tim and I took out a second mortgage for a barn we are no longer going to build (a story I’ll tell later), he asked me what one thing I wanted to do for myself with the money. Eyeing up the set of three 8mm film reels on my desk, I decided it was time to bite the expensive bullet and convert them to DVD.

The Bigger Mystery
The blue reel came from my father and I knew it was my parents’ wedding, but the two gold reels were discovered in my grandfather’s basement among a pile of things stored by an assortment of nearby relatives. The date at the tail end of?one film suggested that?it could be my aunt’s wedding, but the other was unmarked in any way. Could this be footage of my cousins’ childhood? Another wedding? The possibilities were endless and thrilling.

The Big Surprise
Finding?the best deal on frame by frame transfer with film cleaning, I?boxed up my reels, tossing in one?of my husband’s father’s movies for good measure. I shipped them off with my PayPal charge of $341 allowing for the sound transfer option, but since there was no sound, I receive a notification of a partial refund with?this note:

We put 3 reels on 1 DVD. One reel contained adult content and we put that on its own reel. I hope you enjoy your movies once you get them and we look forward to serving you again in the future.

Adult content?!?!?

The Torturous Suspense
Both my cousin and I had been looking forward to seeing our grandparents dancing on the silver screen, not to mention all the great aunts and uncles who have since passed on. But adult content? Our minds raced through the horrific possibilities. Was it her parent’s honeymoon? My parents’? Could it have been on the reel from Tim’s side of the family? I tried to reassure us both that it was probably some harmless mooning or a flip of the bird. We held fast to that thought for a full two weeks.

The Box o’?Goods
Andy, the mailman, hand delivered my box as I was knee deep in staining our new 12 x 24 Dutch barn. The barn, complete with two garage doors, had been delivered and installed that Friday. “Hey, nice building! Is that from the Shedman?”

Normally, I would have loved to socialize with Andy and tell him all about how the Shedman removed two trees, leveled the lot, used a remote controlled hydraulic trailer to ease the pre-made building onto the six inches of gravel surrounded with 6×6 pressure treated beams, and how all this cost 1/4 of what a shell of a barn would cost to build — allowing us to install new heating in the house, get new wood floors, remodel the kitchen, and turn the basement into a studio… but I really just wanted to finish staining my last wall, clean up, and hit the DVD player. “Yep, Andy. It’s from the Shedman. Have a great day!”

The Big Reveal
I fumbled with the phone as I tore the tape from the box with “natural cedar” colored fingers.

My cousin?must have seen my number on the caller ID, answering with the words, “Did you get it?”

“Oh my God. The case says, ‘Kim Clune’s Memories – Contains Extreme Adult Material.’” I opened the case. “No! They did not! They inscribed the actual CD with the same thing! There is no label to peel!?I can’t even?take this to the dump!”

My cousin flat out laughed. Between snorks she told her husband?and I could hear him laugh too. “Is it in the player yet? What IS it?”

“I think it’s from the forties. There’s a nun looking at herself in the mirror with a very classic hairstyle. The image quality is more gray than black and white. It’s grainy, like a film of?a film… yet the framing is artsy. This reminds me of Un Chien Andalou.”

“Un What? A nun? Tell me it’s nobody we know.”

“I can’t tell yet… Um. Okay, she’s a very sensual and disrobed nun now… one with a facial massager… that’s no longer being used on her face. Oh, and she’s not from the forties. This is definitely the fifties.?”

“How do you know?”?

“The guy spying on her has a greased back DA haircut…”

“Tell me we don’t know who he is.”

“No idea, and particularly not from this angle. I’m getting better quality images,?but not of faces. Wow, hairstyles were much different back then, and I don’t mean on top…

This is definitely hard core and professionally done…

…I think I just blew about seventy bucks on bootleg fifties porn.”

Mystery Unsolved
Well, we know one thing for sure. Our familial camera crew had a very bad eye for composition. Comparing the well centered adult material?vs. the?lack of heads on bodies in both of the wedding?and toddler videos, not only were none of our family members in this film, we can rest assured that none of them were behind the camera either.?As for the source of this piece of… art, some things?might be?better left unsolved.

The joy of genealogy.?

The bees are back. To add insult to injury, after the Shock and Awe Campaign had proven impotent, we have been struck on our home turf once more.

Last month, I lifted the cover off the pristine white box of our wedding album and… screamed. There, curled up front and center, snuggled into the cover, was a mouse fully enjoying the Big Sleep. How he got there is a mystery, but one we will never forget.

None of the album’s pages were discolored and only the box, immediately stored in the outside trash, bore a tiny trace of fluids. There was nothing to clean since the critter looked somewhat freeze dried and intact, but I’m pretty sure the reason we didn’t notice the odor of rotting flesh is because the book absorbed every last perfumed ion. Just the day before my discovery, Tim and I had detected something pleasantly aromatic wafting through the house, something like Asiatic lilies, although we had none in bloom inside our out. That scent source was never discovered.

Our photographer gave us the big “SOL” response to our inquiry of remedying the situation, but I refused to give up. It was heart breaking not to try SOMETHING. I?placed the album in a Hefty bag along with tons of coffee filters filled with baking soda. (Tim was sure to tell me that even if this worked, he was never going to touch our pictures again.) Two days later, after a bout?with high heat and humidity, the book smelled far worse than death. I gave in. We took the entire wedding sack to the dump.

Albumless and sad, we are hanging in there. Nearly a month later, we are still awaiting a quote on the replacement. Like we have a spare $G or two hanging around for a reprint…

Happy first anniversary to us.

Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion
-Annie Lennox, David Stewart

I haven’t seen the weather forecast yet, but I can see out the window and across the valley.?Call me old fashioned, but this serves better than television. Distant memory reminds me that when the underside of tree leaves are revealed en mass that a new pressure system is moving through, a very certain indication of rain. Oh, and look at that. Downpour. Memory serves correct.

Cat’s Eye Exterminators should be here at?any moment to murder?our colony of?carpenter bees. The ravaging weather seems fitting. It’s a sad day when these beautiful, physically harmless,?cartoon-like creatures must be destroyed. But alas, they must… before our house is reduced to a pile of sawdust.

We live in a log home where the newest decor includes a set of five egg galleries. This is?in addition to the reactivation of last year’s initial?three. I have since learned that the adults return annually, bringing?their?successive generations along for the ride. Read: “exponential increase in damage year after year.”

Once our logs are penetrated, we can’t simply rent a crane, lift off the roof and pop a new log in. Thankfully, just the mouldings have been breached. Neatly?chewed gallery entrances, complete with a?90 degree turn into a four foot tunnel, are slowly being filled with the reproduction of next year’s carpenter bee labor. Essentially, it’s us or them. Since we have no intention of reproducing, the?odds are not in our favor.

The cost of war is high. Nearly $300?buys us one tour of duty from the Cat’s Eye?brigade. Napalm included. The Shock and Awe Campaign recommends four additional strikes?at $85 each. If that doesn’t make the bees retreat, next year’s Cat’s Eye battalions are on the house.?They mean that literally.

It’s 7:15. The first strike was to take place at 7:00. Our?troops are probably detained by the weather. Or this could be a ploy?to lull the bees into a false sense of security, you know,?in the event that?they tapped in near the phone line and?overheard?our?strategy. I can’t speculate out loud for fear of tipping off the enemy. Either way, the end is near.

It’s a sad, sad, sad day.

Mother Nature went all rock and roll on us yesterday. At about 4:00, she turned off the sun, kicked her wind machine into high gear, and threw sheets of driving rain and hail into the mix. Illuminating her concoction, she?split the dark sky?with the white hot glow of?lightning bolts strobing clear across Rensselaer County. A resounding, thunderous bass shook the foundations of earth, structure and soul.

This morning the sun bathes the earth with little apology, illuminating the moshed and mangled casualties of trees and wires. It’s been 18 hours since we’ve had power. Without power, we have no water. With no water, there is no flushing. Last night’s dinner? Mexican. This, by far, has been our biggest challenge.

At the moment, I’m sitting at Slow Jed’s Mud House. I came here for my morning coffee, the cleanest bathroom within 15 miles, and internet access. I don’t think I fared as well as my husband. He drove 45 minutes to shower at his brother’s before work, but he has internet access?with air conditioning. I am still dirty… in public… with wireless?down. In fact, access is down at every local coffee shop. I know. I just called.

As much as we are hindered by our reliance on technology at its time of failure, it’s interesting how well we (or should I say “the animals”)?adapt. No alarm clock? That’s okay. Kringle, our cat, jumped on the bed at 7:00, meowing his displeasure at the lacking functionality of his auto-feeder. Once we submitted to his breakfast?request, the whole of the animal kingdom took advantage of our powerlessness. Kringle was decadently served by hand?as Bill?hovered to clean out every last kibble that Kringle left behind.

I suppose the musings of a takeover began last night.?For us humans, using a lighter to ignite the electronic-start gas stove was brilliant. Making Mexican?without being able?to wash the dishes? This?was good only for the mouse who has a thing for cheese and sour cream… and for the cat who likes mice. For us, eating the Ben and Jerry’s before it melted was a good thing. Being unable to rinse the residue of dairy from the container? Not so good… unless you’re Bill the Dog. This morning he stole?the empty pint to shred and?savor in the yard. Fortunately, I was able to block that maneuver just as Bill reached the dog door, and this was accomplished without the aid of morning coffee.

Joy! Internet access has just been restored to Jed’s!

Does this offer hope for home? I just called the answering machine… which still won’t pick up. It’s not looking good. If?power?isn’t restored?by tomorrow, we’ll have to rush in a Port-A-Potty for the 29 people coming to our house party.

Wish us all luck.

For now, I’m about to be served?a grilled veggie panini?and the live music is starting.?This is?not a bad way to spend the afternoon.

?PS: After filling the freezer and fridge for tomorrow’s party, we noticed that the things we bought were melting. Calling in a repair man yesterday morning, he saved both?the day and the food by replacing a failing defroster unit. We thought we were in the clear until lightening struck far more than twice. With a projected time of 3:30 for our power restoration, a full 24 hours from when it went out, I think we lost all our food anyway.