Monthly Archives: January 2012

They're serious about that No Parking sign.

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must watch a 19-ton truck roll over five other vehicles consecutively. For me, that time came last Saturday, when I went with my wife and two friends to a monster truck rally in Cincinnati.

I am not what you would call a “truck person” in general, and I’d never been to anything like this before. I went because I like trying new things, and I like doing stuff with my friends. Still, I was acutely aware that the demographic at this event was not – how can I put this – “my people.” I am not generally accustomed to seeing that much camo in one place.

Me and my far more attractive wife, Betsy. xkcd in da hizzouse!

But although we didn’t really fit in with the crowd, everyone was very nice to us. Another group even told us we didn’t have to move when we turned out to be in the wrong seats. I was struck by this politeness, not because it was unexpected, but because it flies in the face of what pundits tell us about the supposed culture war in America. In the headlines, tensions are always on the verge of exploding. In real life, people are pretty nice to each other.

Back to the trucks, though.

The pit party.

The point of a monster truck rally is to be big and loud and fun, and to that end, mission accomplished. Four trucks competed: Big Crunch, Outlaw Clydesdale, Defender, and Bigfoot. (The only mental image I can summon for the name “Outlaw Clydesdale” is that of a very naughty horse.)

Between the announcer’s commentary and a little pre-game Wikipedia research, I learned that Bigfoot is the original monster truck, the one that started the whole thing back in 1979. There are lots of trucks called Bigfoot now, all owned by Bob Chandler. This particular Bigfoot was the star of the show, and seemed pretty popular with the crowd.

Unlike the Internet, Bigfoot is, in fact, a big truck.

So what do these trucks actually do? Well, this rally had three main events. First, there was a wheelie contest, where the trucks compete to see how much air time they can get when jumping over a pair of unfortunate cars. (The winner is determined by applause.)

Second, they do a drag race, which is just two trucks going in a straight line from one end of the (rather small) stadium to the other. This was the least interesting.

And third, there’s an event called “freestyle,” which was essentially driving over five cars instead of two, plus some other driving around that appeared (to my untrained eye) rather pointless.

In between these events, they gave the trucks a break and did motocross and four-wheeler racing.

The Defender. What is it defending? The same thing the Avengers are avenging, I guess.

It was a cool show, but unfortunately, the venue was really too small for what they were trying to do. The trucks are huge, and they packed them into a dirt-filled arena the size of a basketball court. They had to back up just to turn around. I felt like a bigger area would’ve given them the freedom to do more stunts, not to mention more interesting races.

Also, as I mentioned, only four trucks competed, and aside from the paint jobs they all looked pretty much the same. But the jumbotron played videos of other monster truck events, highlighting a wide assortment of vehicles of all different designs, from the Grave Digger to a van with tank treads. A little more variety would’ve helped.

Each truck costs a quarter of a million dollars. Hopefully the cars were a little cheaper.

Still, it was fun, and loud, and they crushed things, which – I’ll be honest – is all I really wanted.

And what did you do this weekend?

On November 2, 2010, Oklahoma voters approved 70%-30% a state constitutional amendment that “makes courts rely on federal and state law when deciding cases” and “forbids courts from considering or using Sharia Law.” (Full text of the ballot description here.)

I can barely even wrap my mind around how ridiculous this is.

Think about it for a second. You’re making a state law that says judges have to follow state law.

What conceivable problem are we solving here?

Picture this: a judge comes into work one day, says “Hey, instead of interpreting U.S. law, I think we’ll give the Islamic religious code a whirl.” Nothing at all prevents this – nothing like, say, the entire existing United States legal framework – except, wait! Oklahoma voters to the rescue! Thank God, crisis averted!

Can’t imagine it? Funny, me neither.

This nonsense is back in the news now because a federal appeals court recently ruled the measure unconstitutional. I’ll let the staggering irony of that sink in for a second.

The whole thing is part of a larger wave of anti-Islamic sentiment in the United States. Similar laws have been proposed in twenty other states. Representative Peter King has begun a series of pointless hearings investigating the extent of radicalization in the Muslim community. And Herman Cain – who, for reasons that remain unclear, was briefly the Republican frontrunner for President of the United States of America – warned of the “creeping attempt” to work Sharia law into the government.

Sigh.

The sheer volume of ignorance and stupidity here is depressing. Maybe we can…yeah, let’s see, I think I can find…

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dingo_puppies.jpg

Yay, puppies! Ah, I feel better now.

Puppies.

All right, readers, what do you think about all this? Alternatively: can you tell us something that will cheer us up and/or restore our faith in humanity?

And, go!

Photo quality is directly proportional to amount of coffee consumed.

A lot’s going on in Russia these days, as I’ve mentioned recently. The biggest change, at least in my mind, is the birth of the so-called Russian Winter, Moscow’s answer to the Arab Spring. Protesters are gathering in unprecedented numbers – tens of thousands – to make their voices heard.

They have a lot to protest: an election that many observers say was rigged, shady dealings with North Korea, and a tendency for journalists who criticize the regime to turn up “mysteriously” murdered.

My interest in all this, however, is not just academic.

I am planning a trip to Russia later this year.

Russia is an exciting destination for many reasons. It’s a unique nation with a unique place in history: a European power that sits mostly in Asia, site of the most massive and radical social experiment of all time. A democracy born in the ruins of an empire. Homeland of Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, and Ivan the Terrible.

I’ll be taking pictures.

I’m looking to spend a week in Moscow, then a week in St. Petersburg. I’ll see all the usual tourist destinations: the Kremlin, the Red Square, Arbat Street, the Hermitage Museum. (Cool photo of Arbat Street here.)

But I’d like to do more than just the Tourist Top Ten. I’d like a little adventure – not too much, you understand, but a little. I’d like to see the real Russia, or at least as much of it as I can get in two weeks.

That’s where you come in.

I know I’ve got a wildly diverse group of readers here. Has anyone ever been to Russia? Any suggestions on places I should visit? Tips for traveling? Dire warnings?

Post ’em in the comments!

A print of this xkcd comic hangs on my dining room wall, signed and framed. The second panel says “We’re grown-ups now, and it’s our turn to decide what that means.” One of the perks of being a grown-up (aside from buying whatever Legos you want!) is the freedom to create new traditions.

My wife and I have created a New Year’s tradition. Every January, we write letters to our future selves. This is the second year we’ve done it, meaning it’s the first year we’ve been able to read letters from our past selves.

The idea started with my wife. One of her classes in school asked her to do this same thing – write a letter to herself in the future. The school kept the letters and gave them back years later. She said that looking through that window into her past was very rewarding.

Windows into the past are remarkable. Historians, archaeologists, paleontologists, even astronomers, devote their lives to reconstructing the past in the most precise detail they can. Why?

Sure, there’s useful information to be had. Avoiding the mistakes of history, making scientific progress, etc. These are the reasons typically trotted out, and they’re perfectly valid.

But the most fundamental reason, I think, is that we humans love to make connections. Connecting with others in the present is fascinating enough, but the past is even more tantalizing, because so often the person we’re connecting with is ourselves.

Of course, reading the letters is only half the experience. You also have to write them, and that’s important too. Writing a letter to yourself forces you to examine your life, to think about what’s most important to you right now, where you’ve been recently, where you think you’re headed.

Kind of like blogging, I suppose.

Have you created any new traditions for yourself?

The city of Ushuaia. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/c-greb/4245607907/

Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego (“Land of Fire”) in Argentina, is the southernmost city in the world. Almost 60,000 people live there, which is more than live in my own city. My friend has been there, and he says it’s a nice little place. There’s a cool lighthouse, apparently.

The southernmost city in the world. Places like that – extreme places, remote places – fascinate me for some reason. I love to look at maps, pick out the spots far beyond the rest of civilization (like Svalbard, with its Doomsday Seed Vault) or the tiny specks of land all alone in the Pacific, and imagine what it would be like to go there, to live there.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually been to such a place, but I have to think I’d be disappointed. Ushuaia seems like a nice town, bit of a tourist trap, but I’m sure it would turn out to be much like other small cities. Svalbard, I’m picturing lots of snow and not a lot else. It’s more the idea of it, y’know?

The fascination isn’t limited to land: the Abyss region of the ocean holds a similar appeal for me. It isn’t limited to the Earth, either: I’m in love with Voyager 1, the most distant man-made object in the universe at 16 light-hours away. (Did you know Voyager 2 has a Twitter feed?) And if you want to talk about the Andromeda Galaxy, the Magellan satellite galaxies, or (God help you) intergalactic space, I am your man.

The fascination, in fact, isn’t even limited to reality. Some of my favorite remote places come from fiction:

• The frozen innermost circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno
• The boss chambers in video games (and if it’s a final boss, so much the better)
• The Borg homeworld in Star Trek (no, they’ve never gone there in any episode; yes, that’s part of the appeal)

What is it about these places? Is it the sheer distance? The inaccessibility? The fact that they’re cut off from everything else? Maybe the strangeness of them (even if they turn out to be ordinary when you get there)? I’ve been thinking about it all morning, and I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Maybe that’s part of the appeal, too.

Do you like extremely remote places? Have you ever been to one?