Daily Writing

Now that I’ve established the expectation for myself to write every day…it’s a chore! Gah! I hate this feeling. When I’m not typing, I’m thinking. I’m always thinking. But isn’t everybody? Don’t you think about what you did, what you’re doing, or what you’re going to do all of the time?

Ok, so maybe not all of the time. That’s why we like good books, movies, or tv shows. They take us away from our lives. We stop thinking about ourselves and get sucked into the drama, we get inspired by beauty, love, or some virtue, or we go through a roller coaster of emotions because we’re empathizing with characters in the story. Sometimes, we escape because we don’t want to think about the past, present, or future.

I was asked why I want to blog. I want to be understood. But there’s more than that. I want to be appreciated for my uniqueness. I’m a man with unpopular opinions. I don’t choose to believe the things I believe because they are unpopular. I feel like I’ve arrived at these opinions because I am willing to explore uncomfortable truths. Or at least uncomfortable for the majority of people I interact with.

Over the decades, I’ve felt like I’m on a mission to find the truth. What truth? Reality. The cold hard facts of life.

So anyway, I’ve got these opinions see. I want to write about the things I think about. I want to write about science, philosophy, religion, politics, and many other things that pop into my head. Believe me, they’re popping in and out ALL of the time!

Which is part of the frustration of sitting down to write. Thoughts have been going through my head all day, but now that I’m here behind my keyboard I can’t think of any of them! So frustrating. Hours ago when I had some good thinking going on, I didn’t want to stop what I was watching to write.

I was watching a documentary on Netflix called Everything and Nothing. It was a very well produced science program about the Universe (Everything) and what “empty” space is like at the sub-atomic level (Nothing). Now, if I was going to write about that, how would I go about it? Am I going to try to rehash the whole show? I feel like I have to in order to provide context for what I was thinking while I was watching it. But that would be exhausting and I couldn’t do as good of a job as the production team that put the show together.

Ok, so I looked back at the beginning of this page. Daily Writing was my title. I didn’t sit down prepared to write about anything. I just had put off writing all day, knowing that I was “supposed” to write something, and then decided to quit putting it off. So I sat down, got out the keyboard, and started writing whatever was in my head at that moment.

I should probably take some writing classes. I should watch YouTube videos on how to create a “successful” blog. I should read other blogs to see how they do it. But I won’t. Or I might start to watch a video and then get bored and quit.

So here’s where I feel like I want to explain why I’m like this. But to be honest, I’m not exactly sure. Trying to figure out why I am the way I am has been my life preoccupation. When I’m not thinking about other things, I’m thinking about myself. ADHD, PTSD, OCPD, Anxiety, Self-Esteem and Depression. These different diagnoses, both self-diagnosed and doctor diagnosed, have filled my life. There’s something fundamentally wrong with me. I go back and forth between trying to “fix” or at least improve myself, or trying to just accept the way I am and move on.

I don’t want to plan, but then again I want a plan. I want my life to be more organized so I can accomplish the things I want to do with the time left. But I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do. Apparently that includes myself. I can’t make myself do what I want to do. I want the dishes done every day. But I don’t want to do the dishes. I want to eat healthy meals, but I don’t want to prepare and cook food. I want to be in shape, but I don’t want to work out. I want more money, but I don’t want to work for it.

It’s not laziness. That’s what I’ve called it, along with my parents when I was younger, all of my life. Occasionally, I’ll get super motivated and finish most of the things I’ve put off. But I won’t finish everything and then dishes will sit, clothes will stay on the floor where I dropped them, and I’ll leave any other lingering tasks for the next time I feel like doing them.

I say it’s not laziness because I’ve seen a lot of YouTube videos and Facebook posts about Executive Function. People like me have a mental problem, not a personality defect. Even though that’s what I was brought up to believe about myself. I know intellectually that I have a complex personality disorder. I know that I’ve gone through trauma as an adult and as a child. But I feel like any attempts to explain the causes of my behavior are just finding excuses for being lazy.

Fake it ’till you make it. I hope that by just powering through and writing something everyday, I’ll be able to improve. If I try to plan what I’m going to do, I often don’t even get started. I quit during the planning part. But I know that if I don’t at least write, if I don’t at least get something down, I’ll just lose interest in the attempt at having a blog. I have so much I want to say it’s often hard to choose one thing. Look at this page. There’s no planning. There’s no real topic. But I’m tired of writing now, so this will have to do.

One last thing. I started writing about my thoughts about the Starship launch last night. I know I need to finish it. I hate the thought that it’s not done and I have to go back to it. Isn’t that nuts?

Starship (finally) flies

My first visit to Boca Chica was in April 2021. As a lifelong NASA nerd I was eager to see what SpaceX was up to. I couldn’t believe how close I could get to the launch site! You could drive down Hwy 4 and the rocket was right there on the other side of the fence! If you drove all the way to the beach and parked, you could climb over the sand dunes and have an unobstructed view of the facility. At that time only the first of the 8 huge ground support tanks had been installed. The orbital launch mount was just some big 3′ diameter cylinders sticking up out of the ground. SN15 (Starship serial number 15) was sitting on the suboribital pad.

It was scheduled to launch soon. It was going to fly up to about 10,000 feet. Then it would shut off it’s engines and pivot so it was parallel to the ground. This was to simulate a re-entry. It would fall back to Earth using it’s flaps to guide it back to the landing area. Then just before it was to hit the ground it would relight an engine, pivot back to an upright position, and land (as gently as possible). Hopefully without blowing up like it’s predecessors had.

It would eventually be successful, but not while I was there. SpaceX would spend the next two years getting ready for the main event. While Starship itself was impressive, it was never meant to fly by itself. It was 30 ft in diameter and 164 ft tall. But it would be stacked on a booster. While Starship has 6 engines, 3 for normal atmosphere and 3 for the vacuum of space, the booster would have 33! When stacked, the world’s most powerful rocket would stand nearly 400′!

First fully stacked Starship, with Booster 4 and Ship 20. They wouldn’t actually fly (Getty images)

During those 2 years, I watched the progress on YouTube. They had static fires of engines. They redesigned the piping for the fuel tanks. They pressurized tanks until they blew up. They just kept improving by trying new things to see if they’d work. Some things did, those that didn’t were redesigned. It was fascinating watching the process in real-time.

After several launch dates were announced and then rescheduled, by the beginning of April 2023, it looked like all the forms had been filed, all of the tests had been completed, and they were really going to “light this candle”! It was announced that April 17, 2023 at 8:20am Starship would make it’s first orbital flight attempt. After years of waiting, I was going to get my chance to see it live!

I got into my hotel on South Padre Island, TX around 3:30am on the 16th. I slept until noon. I knew they were going to close the road leading to the site at midnight, so I drove over to Boca Chica to see it up close.

I was eager to drive down hwy 4 and see the changes in person that I had seen on YouTube. Of course there were many more people that Sunday than 2 years before. The traffic was pretty bad. They already had the beach closed off, so I didn’t try to get on the dunes. In fact, I didn’t really see a place to park, so I just drove down, turned around, and drove back. It was disappointing that I couldn’t hang out and take some pictures, but what I saw was still impressive!

SN15 only had a band of black heat resistant tiles wrapped around it’s waist back in 2021. SN24 which was stacked on Booster 7 was nearly completely covered in the black octagonal tiles it would rely on to protect it during the fiery re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. It contrasted starkly with the smooth silver sides of the booster. It was thrilling to think that soon that huge monster of a rocket was going to fly. I couldn’t wait!

It was hard to get to sleep that night, but I immediately got up when the alarm went off! I didn’t want to pay the $20 for parking at Isla Blanca Park, so my plan was to walk there. It was the closest unobstructed view of the launch that I knew of. I headed off with my binoculars and folding chair to find a place to watch from.

It was a 2 mile walk. I thought that wouldn’t be a problem. It wasn’t! Walking there, that is. It was walking back that was the Bataan Death March for me. Man am I out of shape!

Anyway I got there about an hour before scheduled liftoff. I found a nice place just off the path with just a few people in front of me. It wouldn’t matter once the countdown got to zero. We were about 5 miles from the rocket. It was clearly visible in my binoculars. It looked different from the day before. Now it had a nice frosty coat of ice around the tanks full of super-cooled liquid methane and liquid oxygen. It had billowing clouds of white vapor venting from the sides as it waited like a chained dragon to leap into the sky.

One thing I hadn’t counted on was the lousy 5G cell service. Thousands of people were all trying to stream the coverage at the same time. I couldn’t get any updates. I could hear some of the coverage from other people’s phones who had better luck than I did. It got to about T -40 seconds, when they had to scrub the launch. Dang it! Here we go again!

The walk back was excruciating. I had to stop several times to rest. My legs were just aching all the way up to my back. By the time I got back to my room, I just collapsed on the bed and slept for a few hours.

One of the positive outcomes of pushing the launch to the 20th was that my brother in law David would be able to come down to south Texas and join me. I got us a room at a different hotel than I’d stayed in earlier. It was closer (and nicer!).

When he got there we drove over to Boca Chica to see the construction area and launch pad. Unfortunately it was past dark and they didn’t have a lot of light. It was hard to see anything. Bummer!

After we got back to the hotel we made our plans for the following morning’s launch. Since David was a disabled veteran, I knew he’d be able to park for $5 instead of $20. So we wouldn’t have to walk nearly as far as I had on Monday.

The next morning we got up early and headed over to Isla Blanca park. We were early enough that we got a decent parking place. We then grabbed our chairs and headed for the beach.

We took our chairs and set up on the beach with a mostly unobstructed view of the rocket. It was a little foggy, but really, not too bad. Through the binoculars I could see the clouds of vapor as they fueled the rocket.

Once again, I couldn’t stream the coverage of the launch so I wasn’t sure what the status was. I caught some of the chatter around me and knew that everything was going smoothly. It must’ve been about T-40 seconds or so when they had a pause in the countdown. I was afraid we were going to have another scrub.

But the hold lasted only a few minutes and they started the countdown back up again. A loud cheer erupted from the crowd and I got my binoculars out and started to record on my phone.

As I write this it’s been more than a month since the launch. I’m trying to remember details but that’s a hard task for someone with the memory I’m cursed with. But I’ll give it my best shot.

I remember looking through the binoculars and seeing an orange glow illuminating the Starship from below. Huge billowing clouds of exhaust rolled out and grew as 30 of its 33 engines tried to lift 6 million pounds of rocket and fuel off the launch pad.

I remember watching Saturn V launches and how slow the rocket would rise as it began its journey to the moon. I knew from watching previous videos that it would take 8 seconds from when the first engines were ignited to when they were all at full power and the hold down clamps would be released. But it was strange watching all of that fire and fury, but no movement.

Then the sound arrived. The crowd was cheering wildly, but I don’t remember hearing them after the wall of sound hit us. If you’ve ever seen a rocket launch on video, there’s a kind of crackling sound that rockets produce. But nothing compares to being there. Because you FEEL IT! It hits your chest and you’re just in a state of awe. So much power!

As the rocket finally started to climb, I tracked with my binoculars in my left hand and braced my phone against them with my right. Although it started slow (and a little tilted?) it quickly gained speed and altitude. I noticed an occasional green streak of exhaust as it climbed. This meant that some of the engines were failing. I started to become concerned that it wasn’t going to make it. I was almost looking straight up at it, my body bending and twisting to keep it in view. Was it going to fall out of the sky?

After a few minutes it was hard to see what it was doing. Something was wrong. It was tumbling. The Starship was supposed to separate from the booster and ignite its own engines. That never happened. It remained stubbornly connected. Eventually they triggered the destruct mechanism and it exploded. I don’t know if I actually saw it explode. It was pretty high up and it was hard to make out what was going on.

Lift off!

I’d been waiting for this launch for quite awhile. I’ve been following the development of Starship for years now. While it was definitely exciting, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that it was a let down.

You see I’ve spent the last year planning to get an RV so I could travel between Florida, California, & Texas. I thought I would spend my retirement chasing launches of Starships and Falcon Heavy(s). Maybe I still will. After all, this was not a very successful test, so maybe a successful one would be twice as awesome? Also, one of the greatest things about SpaceX is the booster comes back and lands to be refurbished and reused. However, with the Starship booster there’s going to be a twist. They’re not going to return with landing legs. They’re going to catch it with huge mechanical arms! Now that will be a show!

The reason I’m so excited for this particular rocket is what they’re planning to do with it. First, it’s going to be the lander for the next moon mission Artemis. That’s pretty cool. But that’s just the start.

They’re building a factory to produce Starships on an assembly line. When they’ve finished developing it with prototypes, they’re going to make hundreds of these monsters! The factory will be able to crank out 1 new Starship every three days! Why do they need that many? Because we’re going to Mars! Not just to plant a flag and collect some rocks. This is to colonize Mars. Millions of tons of supplies and thousands of people! If I’m still alive I’m volunteering to go. I don’t know if they’ll want old people up there, but it couldn’t hurt to ask!

Effectively Homeless

I woke up at 5:30. I forgot to take my Bipolar Meds so I had a buzz in my head. I took my meds and fell back asleep and woke up about an hour later to the sound of Bro stomping up and down the RV. BA spent the morning yelling at him until it was time to go to school. When she got back she cried by herself in her room.

I’ve spent the morning in my shade tents watching INSP, drinking coffee, and vaping THC. It’s 78F heading to 100+. I’ll spend the day out here with a fan.

I’ve lost most of my motivation to do anything productive. I work because I have to so that we can stay here. This is the best I could do, to get BA into her own place. This is what she asked for, but it isn’t going to work. Bro’s behavior is worse not better. We hope that medication will help, but I think the problem is beyond her ability to cope with.

It’s 6:30pm, Thursday, July 14, 2022. It’s 101F. I am effectively homeless. I live next to the RV, not in it. I take a shower every 3 or 4 days, using wet wipes for daily maintenance. I have an ice chest now, so I have cold milk, sodas, and mayo. I couldn’t keep it in the fridge, because Bro gets into the fridge dumps out things, drinks from the milk container….

Bro won’t keep his clothes on. I can’t do anything about it. I can’t even babysit. BA doesn’t trust me. She’s afraid my anger will have an adverse effect on him. Even though she yells and slaps him (gently). It’s ok. I don’t think there’s anything she can do. Well, not until she allows someone to help. Maybe CVRC?

He sleeps in the front, she sleeps in the back, and I sleep outside. I live outside. But it’s ok. I could drive every day and sleep in a hotel. I don’t want to work that hard. This is where I belong. If I wasn’t supporting BA & Bro, I would be in an apartment, or trailer, in Florida.

Sunday 4/30/23

He woke up from the dream confused. He had been in a passionate argument about religion with someone, an older man that he couldn’t now recognize. The funny thing was, he had been arguing for Christianity with this man instead of against. He had been in the middle of a rant about how important his personal testimony was to his faith. He could still feel that surety and certainty, even as it faded as he regained consciousness.

It was as if he had been a devout Christian instead of the Atheist he had been for most of his life. In the dream he had been arguing from personal experience. Bringing up memories of religious experiences that he couldn’t recall now, but that had been core to the person he had been in his dream. Transitioning from the dreamer to the awake was always a little confusing.

So this is me trying to write. I had the idea and started exploring it. Now, I’m a little stuck because I don’t know how much time I want to invest in this story. However, I’m going to call it a successful day. Thanks to My Best Friend in the World, I have actually started writing. I spent about 2 hours today working on things, so that’s enough. I can see that I may need to have several different hosts for my thoughts.

A new beginning

I’ve wanted to have a blog for many years. What I’ve wanted to blog about has changed over the years. I think what I want to do is tell my story. I want to write about what I’m thinking about. Lately, that’s been the past a lot more than the future.

Superstition Ain’t the Way

“When you believe in things you don’t understand, you suffer. Superstition ain’t the way.”

-Stevie Wonder

For tens of thousands of years, superstition was an inefficient but useful way for humans to stay alive. Being the most intelligent animals on the planet, we learned that effects followed causes even if we didn’t understand why. Eventually we came up with our own explanations that made sense to us. These became superstitions.

However, superstitions were different for different groups because they were isolated from one another. They were also different because they weren’t true. A true explanation is true for everyone. As groups intermingled, their competing superstitions would change over time as old superstitions fell out of favor and new ones rose up to take their place. Over millennia, superstitions were propagated and became “the Truth” for the believers of their superstitions.

For a brave few, superstitious explanations weren’t good enough. While comforting in their own way, they didn’t always work. They couldn’t be relied on to predict what was coming. They conflicted with others, so how were you to know which were true? Gradually, over generations, other ways of explaining why things happened began to appear. Culminating eventually into the Scientific Method.

The Scientific Method has revealed the Universe that used to be hidden from us. What used to be considered vengeful or beneficial acts of mysterious superior beings, are now understood as the consequences of fundamental discoverable natural forces and laws. We are essentially identical to those intelligent, but ignorant and superstitious first humans who cowered in caves when the earth shook or lightning crashed. What is different? Our scientific understanding of the world around us.

Science is the most reliable path to truth humans have ever discovered. The improvements in health, standard of living, and knowledge that we enjoy today are due almost exclusively to the application of the Scientific Method to what used to be the inscrutable mysteries that surrounded us.

This progress in understanding has had to fight against superstition every step of the way. That struggle continues, and the forces of ignorance show no signs of giving up gracefully. The leaders of Superstition owe their positions, power, and prestige to the ignorance they promote. The followers of Superstition face the loss of community and harmony if they dare stray from established dogma and question core Beliefs.

Today we are on the brink of a new age of scientific exploration and discovery. We are also at the brink of a planetary societal collapse brought on by climate change, overpopulation, and the wars of ignorance between believers of different Superstitions. The anti-science war waged by the leaders of ignorance will doom us to return to cowering in our caves if we don’t stand up and fight for Truth. I beg you to let go of your ignorance and superstition. It makes us all suffer. There’s a way to overcome the challenges of the future, and superstition ain’t it.

Inspired by Derek

Well I’ve finally entered the 21st century, 11 years late. I feel like I need an outlet for my thoughts. I don’t get to talk to people about politics, religion, and such. I don’t have much experience with blogs. I know of them, but haven’t followed any.

I plan on writing about what I think and feel. Sort of treating this as a diary that I’m sharing with the world.

At this moment I’m at one of my son’s chess tournaments. He loves playing in these, but doesn’t really practice much. He likes the competition and camaraderie of being on a team. If I was more focused on my children’s success I would spend more time coaching and making him practice. But I let my kids find their own way. If I was more convinced that I knew what was best for them I’d take a firmer stand.

I spend a lot of time looking for news, photos or videos of my dead son-in-law Derek. He died Dec. 6th, 2010 a day before his first son was born. He was shot in the head by a sniper in Sangin, Afghanistan. It’s the worst tragedy I’ve had to deal with. I hope that he didn’t suffer. But his absence has left a huge hole in the fabric of the lives of the people that new him. The background picture of my phone is of him and my daughter smiling at the camera. What every father wants for his daughter is for her to meet and marry someone who makes them happy. Someone that they can build a life with and share themselves with. Someone who helps them become a better person. He was all of that and more for Kait. The sense of loss I have for what should have been has been debilitating for me.

Derek is the inspiration for this. One night after talking with him, I can’t remember the details of the conversation, he said, “You should write a book!” At first I thought he was pulling my leg, but he insisted I should. For months after that I wondered what would I write? What about our conversations did he enjoy? Was he saying it just to make points with his father-in-law? But after his death, I read a quote of his. I don’t know if it originated with him but he said, “Don’t look down on a man unless you’re offering your hand to help him up.” He was a natural leader by all accounts of the people that new him. He inspired people to do more. So I trust that he wanted me to do something with these thoughts that rattle inside my head. I don’t think he would agree with a lot of what I want to say, but as the saying goes, he’d fight to death for my right to say it. And as is typical of Derek, he didn’t just say it, he did it.