Brave New World...No, Scared New World.

Over the last couple years science, esteemed and legitimate science, has discovered new planets, heretofore unknown species of flora and fauna on this planet, and now, caves on Mars.

Just today scientists announced discovery of 11 new species of plants and animals in Vietnam, including a snake, two butterflies and five orchid varieties.

In the Phillipines, a new species of bat was confirmed last week. It's not a little bat, it's about the size of your cat with leathery wings...and it's orange. How has "science" been missing that critter all this time?

Then there's those pesky caves on Mars.

Surely science would like to just ignore them, wish them away, pretend they ain't there. Yep, that would be nice and neat and tidy.

They are there.

Some planet we never saw before is recently spotted in our solar system...and there could be more.

One day, I suspect, we'll be told Earth has another small moon, only 75 miles away, just a bit due North of Larksville Mountain, that we just haven't seen before.

Heck, I could easily line up a half dozen sane and sober individuals who would gladly sign affidavits swearing to the existence of the mountain lion in Pennsylvania. The Game Commission would likewise issue an affidavit denying their existence here.

About those caves. Those caves just might fit nicely with the face on Mars, which I'm going to guess most are aware exists. It looks human. Very big and human.

Very big, decidedly human, and quite visible from a great long distance. There is no small number of learned and intelligent scientists who are completely convinced that life either presently exists on Mars, or at the very least, that it once existed on Mars, and it wasn't all that long ago that it did.

So, what does it all mean?

To me, it means we have zero idea about a lot of things. We think we know it all.
We don't. Not even close.

Among the things we don't know, and in no particular order, would be...


Who we are. No, we have no idea who we are. We think we do, but we don't. Each year brings more questions about our origins. Most of the questions do not have answers. My very strong belief is that the human animal has yet to evolve to a sufficient intellectual level where it knows how to ask the right questions. Therefore, how could we possibly seek the right answers, let alone think we already have them.

What we are. We are mammals, apparently at the top of some order of mammals. What we don't know is this; might there be another and higher order of mammals of which we are completely unaware? I say, maybe, maybe there is.

Is there life elsewhere? The big shocker would be if there wasn't life elsewhere. Get your hands on a decent astronomy book, or maybe even do it on-line.

There are several astronomers out there who have taken the time to devise a step-by-step illustrated explanation of just how big the known universe is, and please do underscore known. Our neighborhood, The Milky Way, is Pixley compared to other galaxies. We're the runt of the litter. To say that we are but one tiny bit of fly feces within 7 tons of black pepper is not hyperbole.

I happen to believe there is lots of intelligent life out there. While that's my belief, that darned White House litmus test always gets in the way. We must always ask; why haven't they landed on The White House lawn?

Why would they?

Look, if they can get here from there, millions of light-years away, yet we can't get our kids to school if it snows a half inch, wouldn't you think that whoever they are view us as primitive at best?

They might look upon us as we look upon the bacteria we try and sanitize from our kitchen counters daily. To them, we might be no more than that mold, a living and breathing entity, that lurks in the far back dark corner of the bottom shelf of our refrigerator. Could be that, to them, we don't even rise to the level of how we view fleas, ticks, houseflies.

Should that be the way they see us, what would compel them to open a dialog with us?

If you're out there, hello. I bid you peace, so when you come, please come in peace. I can get you the t-shirt in small, medium and up to XXX-large. Let me know...

What Was It Like, Daddy?

We're quickly running out of generations who can recall Pre-Internet Life(PIL). Don't waste your time googling PIL, you won't find it, at least not as it pertains to Pre-Internet Life. I had to come up with something, I type lazy. An acronym works fine. If there was an acronym for acronym, I'd use it.

I do remember PIL, but will confess that my view of PIL gets fuzzier and muddier with each passing month. My year of entry, my immersion into the waters of the worldwide web, was 1996, July of that year, during the Olympics.

Traditionally, among the worst times to be a teevee type are Olympics, and any and all play-offs/series, etc., if your network carries the coverage. I was affiliated with an affiliate of NBC that Summer. NBC had Olympic coverage. It meant late nights. Really late nights, with us oftentimes not getting on the air until close to 1:00 AM. Not getting home until almost 2:00 AM ain't fun. We all hated it. We all had ways of coping with it.

Mine, at least that Summer of 1996, was to do a free test-drive of AOL. Admittedly, I had zero idea of what this internet thing even looked like. I'd never so much as seen the on-ramp to The Information Superhighway. I was a virgin. I was a total greenhorn. I'd call myself a geek, but geeks knew about this thing. Not me.

My test-drive awaited...on a floppy. The CD was not yet in widespread use except for music, and I mean go-out-and-buy-a-recorded CD. Most computers didn't even have an optical drive. And in those that did, it was strictly for playback, not recording. Ripping and burning had yet to enter our vocabularies.

Next, find a computer.

You'd think that in 1996, in a television station, a place all about technology and electronics, you'd think computers would be abundant. Such was not the case in my place. Running a decade behind the times was typical there. Our news room didn't have one single computer. I went in search of another, finding one in our sales department on the third floor. It was in a corner. It was shared by all members of the sales department. Sales had gone hi-tech, news had not. Again, typical.

It's evening, the sales department is empty. In goes the floppy. I followed each command like Mary's Little Lamb. In short order, I was there.

For the first time ever I heard that sweet music, that ger-bangy-bangy of a modem dialing and pinging, followed by the shshshshshsh of it connecting.

It was love at first sound and sight. My life had changed. No sense over dramatizing the event; if it didn't happen that night in that place, it would have happened elsewhere, and it would have happened sooner than later. It was inevitable.

My very own PIL was now over, it ended the second I hit my first search on Lycos. Lycos was big then, so was Alta Vista, and WebCrawler. Does anyone still use them?

I strolled without hesitation through the gate and have really never looked back. I doubt there's a day since that I've been completely clean, completely internet-free.

And I don't much see that day coming any time soon, either.

So, what was it like? What did we do PIL?

Lots of things, really. Lots of things I don't do much at all these days. Things like tie flies, flies for fly fishing.

Down in a dark corner of our basement there hangs a shop lamp, beneath which sits a fly tying bench, built it myself. It was there where I'd spend hours whipping up my favorite patterns, then box them, stuff them in my vest, and take them out on the stream.

The bench looks like scene from a sci-fi movie, one where everyone inexplicably leaves the planet in a heartbeat, followed years later by one lone survivor stumbling around in search of shelter, or food...or flies. As I sit here typing, it occurs to me that it's really like a Twilight Zone.

The bench, and all on it, is covered with roughly eight or so years of dust. Everything is like I last left it, everything in the exact place I put it all those years ago. Yeah, I did tie for a time post PIL, but my heart wasn't in it.

I also fly fished a couple years post PIL, but that soon ended, too.

Next, let's come on up to the first floor of our modest home. Books. Books. Books. Bookcases full of books. Used to be I'd read three, oftentimes four books a week. A week. I'd read every night after snugging into bed alongside wifey. She'd drift off to the Land of Nod, and I'd read. Read for several hours sometimes, depending on the book and how it captivated me.

No book has captivated me in years and years, and only because I haven't opened one in years and years. I still read several newspapers a day, and a number of boards, newsgroups, blogs, etc. They're not books.

Books are magical.

I miss them a lot.

In fact, that's what this is all about; it's about what I miss.

And what I miss often is the life I had had before the internet. PIL was a good life. It was a productive and rich life.

I miss it. I'd like to go back. There are honest to God times when I honest to God ache for what it was like way back there.

Is going back possible? Barring a planet-wide loss of electricity, with no hope for restoration, my guess is, no, no it's not.

Working In The Real World...

After 33 years in the broadcasting industry, I now feel emboldened to say that it's not part of the real world. For those wanting to get into the business, and for those wanting to get out, let me assure you that it is not the real world.

All it took was one year away from the biz for me to feel like I was on completely safe and solid ground in making the statement, but I'm right, and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong.

Broadcasting, for all its magic and wonder, ain't the real world.

It's a fantasy land.

It's also the Land of Nightmares for many.

I had a fair mix of the two during my time spent. More laughs than tears, more better years than bad, more fulfillment than not. The real baffler is that being in broadcasting means having your eyes, ears, and nose on and into everybody else's business 24/7. Which means you should know what's going on, right? You don't.

Life in the news room is insular. Somehow, and despite your relentless digging in the news dirt, you managed a disconnect from your friends in the real world, if you have friends there.

You know who they are, they're the people you see doing nothing while you trudge off to work on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Memorial Day, all those days they always have off when you don't. Some of those same people think you have the greatest job in the world. On holidays, you know you don't. You really don't know what holidays are.

Here is what's going on out here in the real world, my world, the world within which I now dwell...

Monday...No one does anything on Monday. At the most, minimal effort is required to get through Monday. You'll never get stares, glares, or clucking tongues on Monday for being a slacker. No, sirs and mams, you never will. And the reason is right there in front of you, or at the desk right next to yours. The reason you get a pass on Monday is that no one else is doing anything either. It's like Free-Pass Day. You can't call anyone on Monday; they don't won't to be bothered. Generally, no one will call you for the very same reason. Blow off Monday, it's a waste. Actually, it's like that study period a lot of us had in high school. You didn't study then. You don't work now.

Tuesday...This is ramp-up day. Tuesday you get some work done, maybe even a lot of work. That day before that you pretended wasn't there somehow energized you to a level where, by God, you will make those calls. Then by noon, well, for crying out loud, you realize how much you got done. Time to back off a bit, take a breather, slow it down, leave some work for Wednesday.

Wednesday...Traditionally known as Hump Day, the day you need to get over in order to start sliding towards the weekend. You get up and over the hump. Hump is a railroading term, at least in this context. You probably ignored some semi-important matters on Tuesday, so on Wednesday morning you need to go back and check yourself, see what you just have to get done before Hump Day ends.

Thursday...This day has a certain feel to it, one that carries a hint of relief, that your work is nearly done. It also serves as ramp-down day. Your morning may be bountifully productive, but by early afternoon you can already feel the weight lifting from your shoulders and back. You know that whatever needs to be done, whatever may be on the desk in front of you, can likely wait until the next day. Could be it can wait until next week, because the weekend is about to begin, and in the real world, nobody works weekends. Ain't life beautiful?

Friday...Let's figure, oh, a half day today. You'll serve your eight hours or more, sure. Noon, though, is about the time that you look around and realize that most everyone else has dialed it back to "snooze and cruise." Although they may be grounded in the physical plane of "work," their minds and spirits are elsewhere. All one need now do is wait it out.

And there you have it; the workweek in the real world.

Of course, there are caveats, exceptions, additions, deletions, etc.

For instance, the week before vacation. Skip it. You'll do nothing above and beyond.

Then there's the week after vacation. Same deal, nothing doing.

The week prior to a long holiday weekend is likewise a charade. You're really not there.

After that holiday, Tuesday becomes your Monday, then Wednesday your Tuesday. By the time you get to "Thursday," you realize it's Friday. And all is well with the world. God bless The USA...

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Here's one I completely forgot...The Holidays. We can say that The Holidays are roughly Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, right? Or we might be able to get away with, say, mid-November through the end of the first week in January, right? The Holidays are one big old stretch of time during which no one wants to do anything, and for the most part they succeed in doing(not doing?)just that. Again, God bless The USA!