Saturday, February 25, 2006

Speaking to Pike

Very depressing experience: speaking to high school students at Pike High School in Indianapolis.

The best education money can buy. 5K students on a sprawling campus. Everything a culture could provide its youth. Except ambition, curiosity. I believe by eliminating fear (of hunger, disease, control, exclusion, etc) we've created a generation of young people who aren't motivated to do anything. Why should they?

Sad to see such potential wasted on such sloth.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Passing through airport security, 2/13/2006

Passing through security, 2/13/2006

Dropped off a deposit, found out i was $19 overdrawn...how can that happen? the OD fee is $35? the stupid Fry's payment didn't get made and is due 2/15...need to mail it somehow from the road or tomorrow overnight.

Can't park in the drop-off area and deliver a box to the ticket counter - terrorists have made that small convenience obsolete. the guard at the door is firm: You can't park here, can't go inside - "better move on" echos in my head from some movie.

All service workers are Mexican immigrants. All service workers wear rubber gloves. It occurs to me that gloves signify an additional separation from each other. irrational - but that's the way it makes me feel.

TSA workers have a nearly impossible job; (maybe Americans are just adjusting?) you take off your shoes, your belt, remove your laptop from it's case, all metal objects larger than a silver dollar and they scan you, blow air on you, x-ray you, carefully check your ID... i'm pretty sure the only ones that don't mind becoming criminal suspects (if only for 10 minutes) are the terrorists.

With my proclivity to lose things, i'm constantly worried that all these excess procedures will cause me to forget something. I observed a courteous TSA agent deliver a forgotten laptop case to a traveller. i saw myself. after patting my pockets for wallet, keys, cell phone, USB thumb drive, tickets and visually checking (and counting) the stuff i'm carrying multiple times, i feel some solidarity with persons suffering from OCD. at least they have drugs.

is it the inconvenience that pisses me off so bad? i know i used to get to the airport minutes before takeoff...this morning i arrived 1:20 early. (paybacks are a bitch.)

i've thought about moving before. not just to another town, but to another world...at least another country. if i make a lot of money i'll start looking. they probably won't speak english there. money will buy convenience. maybe if i find a like minded group it will buy the pleasures of living i seem to have lost.