Confessions of a Climate Agnostic

There were a lot of pomportant people in Paris and they seemed very self-congratulatory after signing a climate treaty.  Other than the smiles, hand-holding and comments like, "this is historic," it should be noted how little coverage the final agreement actually received.  The day after signing, it wasn't even mentioned on the evening news.  Even NPR had only a tacit story on it.
After learning more about the agreement, the lack of coverage probably makes more sense than should be admitted.  The final agreement has a lot of "shoulds" in place of "shalls" and there are basically no ramifications, other than global shaming, for non-compliance.  No country other than Luxembourg seems to really care about public shaming - there is always someone else to blame.  There is also very little in the way of objective measurements across the globe, making compliance with the suggestion even more doubtful.
The should versus shall should not be downplayed.  I should eat healthier and exercise more.  The law says I shall not walk out of Walmart with Twinkies without paying for them.  The former is a suggestion, the latter has consequences.  While the scale of a global environmental agreement is much bigger, the binding of the language is the same.
Reportedly, some of these "shoulds" were put in place at the urging of the US since the Obama administration was fearful that "shall" would then require Senate approval of the agreement, and this would not be a requirement if the agreement is merely a suggestion.  So rather than face the difficult political work at home, John Kerry pushed for a, largely, vapid agreement.

What the Paris agreement will allow, is for a lot more finger wagging.  Al Gore has been finger wagging for quite some time now.  And, frankly, something does need to be done.  However, even Mr. Gore does not agree that anything drastic needs to be done.  He is quite content living a lavish 1%er lifestyle while earning his living as a professional finger wagger.  He has attempted to address his oppulence, but his response is actually more dangerous than the problem his lifestyle creates.
I could almost admire his honesty if he said some form of, "I'm imperfect, and like everyone else, would like to do better.  But alas, I'm human so do as I say, not as I do."  What his response is really saying is, "I'm very wealthy, so I can live an extravagant lifestyle with only some guilt and an insignificantly small additional expense.  Those of you who are not rich must make real sacrifices."  (and he says this with condescension).  Elsewhere, the referenced "10 geothermal wells" are noted as being under Al Gore's driveway.  Just How friggin' long is his driveway?
I shouldn't pick on Al Gore too much.  It is just too easy to do and if the environmental movement ever does take off for the non-Birkenstock crowd, he would have to find something else to prognosticate on.

Expanding in a minute, I do see climate change as a real and growing threat.  What is almost unbelievable is how little population is discussed as part of the issue and solution.  As soon as procreation is mentioned, eyes get wide and hands are thrown up - having seven children, even if you can't afford three, is a basic human right!  Sadly, in the first world through the third, the people having seven children are too often the ones that can't raise them in a more sustainable manner.  The lack of including population changes as part of any solution, or even any discussion, of the environment in the future is further evidence of the (lack of) real importance of the issue.  As Al Gore has taught us, real sacrifices must always be made by someone else.

The question most of asked around the issue is, "Do you believe in global warming?"  This question itself is wrong and unfortunate.  The branding of the phenomenon as "global warming" was a huge mistake made decades ago.  Branding it as "climate change" allows for more honest discussions without including anecdotal observations of a frigid winter in Dallas.  There should actually be three questions:
So, is the climate changing?
Yes.  This is fact, and there is data to support this.  Denying this is, frankly, wearing blinders.
Is the climate change caused by human activity?
Somewhere between probably and almost for sure.  Scientific fact is hard to come by, but the vast majority of climate scientists are not dumb and while modeling the atmosphere is notoriously difficult, most models together point in generally the same direction.  Even the most conspiracy-minded skeptic must admit that, at best, human activity is not helping since, as above, the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is fact.
What should be done about it?
AAAHHHHHHHHHH, here is the real question.  The difficult one.  The question even Al Gore doesn't want to live by if he really believes what his prophet persona says.
The question of what to do about it must not be based exclusively on hard climate science, since any changes shall take into account economic theory, social changes, etc.

As much as I've spent much of my adult scientific life poopooing the "social sciences," they play a bigger role here than what anybody wants to admit.  Until the Joe and Jane six-pack crowd sees a short term benefit to changes that might improve the climate situation, it will never take hold.
Witness how when gas was $4/gallon a few years ago, the sale of small cars began to noticeably creep up, while in our current oil-glut environment, larger vehicles are again making a strong comeback.

Great, so the answer is to make not being a granola really, really expensive, right?
Wrong, economic theory must also play a role.  As resilient as the atmosphere may or may not be, the global economy is a fragile glass figurine in comparison.  Any attempt to affect a large change quickly will result in catastrophic consequences, even if the long term result is good (and modeling the economy long term is harder than the environment).  Negative changes in the economy moves people, business, and government into preservation mode and the climate will quickly become an even lower priority.
Similarly, it is ludicrous to expect advanced economies to digress - the economy must grow or die and any politician who suggests a decrease in lifestyle for the next generation will be railroaded out on a log.
We also should not expect developing economies to do anything other than pursue the lifestyle that the developed world has.  Suggesting otherwise is borderline evil.  I do sometimes wonder if the developing world is not in a better position to move ahead of the developed world - without the entrenched infrastructure in places like the United States, France and Germany, is it easier to put a different, more sustainable infrastructure in Subsaharan Africa? If environmentally friendly solutions are such a no-brainer and so much better for the long term economy and technologically advanced to the point everyone should have them, how come they are not becoming the norm in places like China, India or Brazil?  Maybe not quite as much of a no-brainer as the solar crowd would hope.

The difficulty of individuals making changes can be illustrated by what I do to help and hurt the globe.  I do this not to flog myself, or to be self-congratulatory, but to illustrate that almost everyone does things that help and hurt.
I recycle nearly everything I can, but I also realize that much of what is recycled does end up in a landfill.
I have a longer-than-average commute, but I chose my truck as the highest mpg open-bedded 4wd vehicle available at the time.
I drive very little on the average weekend, but pursuing mass transportation is not something I have much interest in.
I could buy a more efficient 4-wheeled vehicle, but then I would have yet another vehicle which is not really helping.
In the summer I do most of my commuting on a motorcycle which uses much less fuel than most cars, but my bikes are not really built for fuel efficiency and, frankly, I ride motorcycles because I like motorcycles, with any environmental benefit a tertiary thought at best - do motives matter?
I heat and cool my house with geothermal and keep it at a cool 64F in the winter, but if the house wouldn't have had geothermal when I bought it, I probably wouldn't have put it in myself.
I've looked into solar panels, and even ran full electric to my pole bard with that in the back of my mind, but any payout for solar panels, using realistic estimates, would be at about the anticipated lifetime of them, so I don't think I'll do it anytime soon.  To be clear, it is getting closer to being cost effective if subsidies are maintained, but looking at the actual cost, it is not.  And I can think of better uses environmental or otherwise for that money.
I see water scarcity as a potentially much larger problem in the future, but water use minimization is almost silly living in the Midwest.
I have planted many trees on my property, but they keep dying.

Everyone of these things has a "but" in it.  Nobody wants to destroy the environment or return to the days of burning rivers.  Everyone could be doing more and probably should (even Al Gore), but...
And that is the real answer, there are no easy answers to this.

Dad's Christmas Cookies

For at least the last decade, Dad always sent Christmas Cookies.  These were large cookies decorated with copious amounts of frosting to look like Santa Claus, at least mostly like Santa Claus.  While the gesture was nice, most were never eaten - something I always felt a little guilty about.

Dad was diagnosed early in 2015 with pancreatic cancer.  He had some unusual issues, and after a few misdiagnoses, late stage four pancreatic cancer was confirmed.  I knew pancreatic cancer wasn't "a good one" to get, but until doing some reading, I didn't understand the degree of badness to this, especially at the stage he was at.

Dad was always a rock.  He was never flashy, never flamboyant or loud, or boisterous.  There were prayers for the miracle-cure which wasn't to come; my Dad and his wife said those prayers were answered in thousands of small miracles after his diagnosis, which was yet another lesson I needed to learn from that man.

In the classic sense, I guess we weren't close.  Our interests were very different.  I usually (only) saw him once or twice a year.  I communicated with him 10-20 times a year in addition to our visits - yet his diagnosis and the realization that his life would likely end, and soon, from pancreatic cancer hit me like a boulder.
All of my Dad's kids got together about a month after his diagnosis for a rally-around-Dad weekend.  On one evening, Dad showed a slide show of 35mm slides from our youth on his father's very antique slide projector.  Dad assumed this would be, at best, tolerated.  It was probably one of the highlights of my year.  We all really enjoyed watching the pictures and reliving childhood memories - creating new memories in the process.
We all had a great time that entire weekend - and it wasn't until the drive home that I realized why his diagnosis hit so hard.
Time spent thinking and putting thoughts to paper helped me put into words how with a strong foundation, Dad was able to help raise five interesting kids that were able to develop freely into their own very unique and independent selves.  I ultimately sent this to him for Father's Day - almost too late - and read it at his funeral.

I saw Dad a few more times over the spring and summer, watched the ever-healthy man deteriorate.  He never complained, never lost faith.  Just like his whole life, he was accepting and enjoyed every single positive second.  Early on, there was a lot of communication, but that waned as his condition worsened.  Updates, both good and bad, came mostly from his wife - a woman who showed the strength of Samson and compassion of Mother Teresa.

Dad died on Father's Day.  Maybe because I saw him the day before, I see his death on a day to honor dads as inexplicably non-negative.  His funeral really was a celebration of his life, as well as a roller-coaster of emotions since there were many people there who I hadn't seen in years.

Since Dad's death, I miss him in ways I never could have imagined.
I miss how he would read something I would post on Facebook, and then email me about it.  I'm not sure if his lack of Facebook comments was that he didn't totally get it, or his deference to my being a somewhat private person.
I miss how he would always have some reason to email me after I saw him, and asked if I made it home OK.
I miss how he would always send me a really cheesy online birthday card.
I miss realizing that my habits and mannerisms had grown to match his more than I was comfortable with.
I miss just knowing ... he is there.

And I miss those Christmas Cookies I didn't eat.
To be honest, I have a hard time seeing Dad make and decorate cookies; there is a lot I learned about him in his last few months that is difficult to picture.  But the cookies would come every year, very near, sometimes shortly after, Christmas, when my taste for sweets of any kind was diminishing.  There would always be an email preceding the cookies that "something was coming" for me.  A rumpled box would then show up, with cookies wrapped in cellophane and bubble wrap.
It hurts a little knowing that that box will never show up again, and I will still feel guilty about not eating those cookies.  Maybe this year, I will make some cookies, and I will frost them to look like Santa.  But I will not eat them - because whether it is Christmas, or Father's Day or any time in between, when I think about my Dad, I don't ever want it to be without a little bit of ache.

Nostalgia and Old Photos

I bought my first digital camera in 2008.  I actually bought three that year.  This was shortly before the motorcycle trip to Alaska, and I decided a very small digital camera made a lot of sense given the premium that space was going to be on the trip.  I loved my tank-like Pentax K-1000, but carrying it and a couple lenses was out of the question.  The first camera was a very small Leica that in some ways was form over function.  It broke en route to Alaska and was replaced by the much more capable Nikon CoolPix, purchased in Fairbanks.  The screen on the Nikon camera recently quit while going to The Keys this year, but the camera still functioned.  The Leica should have been discarded long ago; both the Leica and the Nikon were disposed of after the Keys trip, replaced with a new Nikon CoolPix that I can only hope will last as long as the 2008 model.
The third digital camera purchased in 2008 was a Kodak P850 and is still functioning well.  While low resolution by 2015 standards, the optics are actually quite good.

Prior to 2008, all my photography was 35mm.  As a result, I, like many others, have several boxes of developed pictures.  Some of these are semi-organised, but there are two boxes that were just a scattering of photos ranging from my infancy (very few) to sometime around the year 2000 when I got much more organized in photo storage.
Earlier in the year, I had uploaded most of my digital pictures to Google Photos.  The ability to have unlimited storage of pictures at a size that is reasonable for all but the most optimistic artistic uses is quite a valuable service.  Yes, I suppose Google can paw through them and they could get hacked resulting in my fishing pictures from 2009 being exploited, but I'll take the minor risk of that in trade for the service.  After loosing many pictures to a hard drive crash several years ago, I believe strongly in redundant storage.
With time available around Thanksgiving, I recently spent a few hours selectively scanning in older pictures to be uploaded, borrowing a very convenient Go Doxie scanner for the task.

Looking through the pictures brought back a lot of memories - which is I suppose why the pictures are taken in the first place.  What I was struck by, was the nostalgia the pictures brought.  Some negative, but most positive.  Even pictures which came from times that in retrospect were difficult, maybe even unhappy, seemed smoothed over in a way I didn't think was possible - especially looking back at that time.
The most evocative pictures were taken of my first two houses.  I only had a very small number of pictures taken of my first house, with slightly more of my second.  Both of those houses were moved into after stints in apartments which I hated, so the positive memories of being on top of the world on moving into my own building on my own piece of the planet is perhaps understandable.  It is easy to look back on the first house and try to construct a memory of how simple things were then.  But in reality, it was far from simple.  I was working two jobs, basically living paycheck to paycheck.  I was in school with very little time for anything else.  The memory of things being simple is just a mental construct.
Similarly, my financial situation on moving into my second house was far from rosie.  I was unsure of my job choice and there was a general, but intense, unease for the future.
Despite (seemingly) significant financial, work, and personal issues, I remember the energy available to clean, repair, improve, rebuild the first house as something special.  I see that occasionally in other people moving into their first house.  Over the last 25 years, that energy is easy to replace with contentment (not complacency).

There were also several pictures of various vehicles I owned that brought on nostalgic memories.  Digitizing the few pictures of my first car, I know the rose colored glasses were on as I thought about life at the age of 16.  I had to try to put it in a more realistic perspective; I'm somewhat surprised that the pictures are tinted in a red hue, given how awful the mid-teens were.  But I guess that first car was a bright spot, and even quite important to my eventual future.
I was also surprised about some of the things that I could not find any pictures of.  In 2015, there are multiple digital pictures of just about everything, no matter how trivial.  I could not find any pictures of my first motorcycle, something I see as quite depressing now.  I could only find a few images of my favorite truck, a 1994 Ford F-150 purchased as a graduation present to myself after college.  But these images are just in the margins of pictures of other subjects.  Several other vehicles are completely non-existent, seemingly erased forever from photographic memories.

There is probably a genetic reason for the more generally positive view of the more distant past, but I'm not sure why that would be.  It is likely quite dangerous, as it could easily lead to discomfort or discontent with the present.  The Germans have a word for this, weltschmerz:  World weariness or discomfort with the present, especially in relation to an ideal state.

This nostalgic view of the past could also lead to dire atavistic behaviors.  Quitting the job and trading everything for the relive of the college lifestyle would appear, and be, quite reckless.
"Degeneracy can be fun but it’s hard to keep up as a serious lifetime occupation."  -Robert Pirsig
Still, there is that ever present current...

I have the pictures to temporarily relive events like my first house, first car, first deer, but while the pictures are real, the memories will be somewhere between distorted and created.  The rosie nostalgia is evidence of this.
And that ends up being the real reality of the pictures.  The pictures, like the memories, like nostalgia, only show a single snapshot in time.  This snapshot, whether in silver halide/gel form, ink on paper, digital, or grey matter, is edited by the brilliantly feeble brain to be something that never was, even though it seems so real.  The shutter of a camera lasts a fraction of a second and the reality captured is just that brief.

It is easy to look at pictures an assume, maybe even hope, that the memories are just as real, but they are a modern personal mythology.  They are reality completely assimilated with Aesop's Fables, Zeus and Apollo and Harold and the Purple Crayon all combined into one narrative.

“It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past." — Jim Bishop

The Sound of Sleeping Dogs

As I write this, I should be deer hunting.  I'll say I feel guilty about not hunting, only because I can't think of a more relevant term other than guilt - I'm sure there is a long German word to describe it that I don't know about.
Past years have taught me that one deer is a reasonable goal, and usually I'm scraping vacation days by now to get that.  This year is different since I have not used many vacation days productively and I've got time to burn.  Since I can be hunting, I somehow feel I must be hunting - one of the reasons I made the decision to no longer bow hunt several years ago.

After getting a deer opening morning and spending the following day getting him in the freezer, I haven't acquired the energy to go back out.
I'm on the edge of getting sick, or maybe getting better.  While restorative, sitting in a treestand may not help what could be a ferocious cold - and hacking out a lung is counterproductive to waiting for a deer.

I picked up True Story by Michael Finkel from the library.  As I paused early in the morning, putting the book down while reading, I realized part of the reason I was so content to stay indoors.  It is more than just because there is now fresh venison in the freezer, or sickness.  I put the book down and the only sound I could hear was the therapeutic sounds of dogs sleeping.
Many of the books I've read this year have been listened to while in a car.  I do like audiobooks, but I'm not sure that listening and reading are equivalent.  Of the books I've actually read, many have been hurry-up-and-read before something else comes up.  I've read some at work this past year - very likely the worst possible manner to read anything.  All the preparation for uninterrupted deer hunting has created some much needed space.
This year has been more than hectic.  Dad's illness and death.  The cycle of work early and sleep early.  The formerly mentioned misuse of vacation allocation.  Even the vacation time used, while restorative, has seemed somehow rushed.  There have been down times, but much of that has been consumed watching TV - a past time I find simultaneously enjoyable and mind numbingly painful.

True Story is a gripping book.  It tells the story of Christian Longo and the murder of his wife and three children.  But the book is about the author, Michael Finkel, nearly as much as it is Longo, as the critical events take place shortly after Finkel is fired from The New York Times and disgraced from the profession of journalism due to fabrication.
What is terrifying about Longo's story is how absolutely normal it seems at times.  But, for a few poor decisions, things might have turned out very different.  There but for the grace of God go I.  Poor decisions are added to poor decisions and things spiral out of control - a train wreck in slow motion.
I looked up what Finkel is doing now, and it appears he is back in at least tepid relations with the field of journalism (not at The Times).  There is some criticism of this, but at least he fully admits his mistakes, and publicly.  The rarity of admition should be somewhat restorative in itself.
Underneath the book is the magma of half truths and small lies that are easy to rationalize and may help smooth over wrinkles in the short term.

Much like my time deer hunting, I thoroughly enjoyed the time reading True Story.  And I know there will be more time for both reading and hunting before the end of the year.
After pausing to listen to the dogs contented breathing, some appliance fan came on somewhere, ending that serene, brief moment, and I returned to reading.

What Happened?

"At 36, the world is our oyster.  By 44, we’re trapped inside the oyster, gasping for air." - Jacquelyn James

How did I get here?

I think my memory after the age of around 13 is reasonably good.  My preteen memory is a disaster, consisting of a scattered group of semi-organized snapshots and movie shorts.  I remember the sand box in the back yard, I remember finding flash bulbs at the base of the Mexican pyramids, I remember walking with the old lady who always walked her dogs by our house - first Tosse, then Erie (or maybe it was the other way around).  I even have one very early memory, from before I was two years old, of eating in our kitchen while my younger sister was being born.  I probably remember the more tragic events better, or at least more vividly.
After about the age of 13, my memory comes close to approaching a more linear narrative.  But I'm sure there are some very serious flaws.  I recognize that the same events visualized by different people, especially siblings, will be remembered differently.  Both memories will be both wrong and right.
So if memories can be imprecise, is it also possible to have them be completely fabricated?  Almost certainly.

I often wonder how memory works.  How in the organic chemical goo between my ears are memories stored.  Anytime I try to read what is known about this, I get technical answers that, even as a chemist, I don't understand and I think the authors don't either, or I get rehashed:  Short term memory is stored in the frontal lobe, long term memory in the hippocampus.  I guess I really do not like biochemistry now any better than I did in college.

Buy the Ticket and Take the Ride
Jerry: "What did you wanna be?" (when you grew up)
Elaine: "I don't remember , but it certainly wasn't this."

What happens to life goals as we get older?  Our youngest life goals are ludicrous, but the most aspirational.  Becoming a superhero or a princess isn't going to happen, but those are some of the loftiest goals that anyone will ever have.
Things change as we get a little older to something slightly more realistic - cowboy (whatever that is and probably still unrealistic), fireman, principal, race car driver.  If we could all just stick to those goals, there would be a lot less paper pushing bureaucrats and middle managers.  Still, there is a phenomenal amount of us who end up as faceless people doing jobs that, frankly, blend into obscurity.
All this makes this commercial from monster.com appear very funny, when in reality it is scary and absolutely tragic.

As years go by faster, the older I get, the goals change too.  Adolescent goals of "being the boss" or "become and astronaut" seem to evolve into "getting a job in the pharmaceutical industry" or "working in a technology job."  The reality is more likely "working in an office" - a nameless, faceless office where Friday afternoon is anticipated by noon on Monday.
Maybe the problem of demoralized expectations littering the floor lies in their origin in employment.  Little kids get asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  We don't ask them, "Who do you want to be when you grow up?"  That may be because it can be too painful of a question to ask internally.  A waiter at a chain restaurant can always aspire to start his own business.  A person who is financially successful, but is really an asshole, will probably always be an asshole.
And time does seem to pass that much quicker with each year - something I've only recently begun to understand.  At the age of eight, one year is 12% of life, and summer seems to stretch on endlessly.  At 44, one year is just over 2% of life so far; that year goes by much quicker than the eight-year-old's summer.  At 15 years of age, almost everything is new.  Every year older makes it harder to experience anything novel.

Life IS good.  But I'm not sure this is the ride I paid the price of the ticket for...

Thoughts for the Next Year
Tim Kreider wrote something recently in the way that only Tim Kreider can.  There is a small quote in this that resonates deeply:
"...the life I ended up with, much as I complain about it, was pretty much the one I chose."
This might be tough to stomach, but is probably true.  I'm here (we're all here) because of every decision that has been made, both the good and bad.  Some of this is out of personal control, but much of it isn't.  It is a pretty good place, but it is hard not to compare it to some mythical idealized state.  Sitzfleisch.

David Brooks talks about this but not loudly.  He whispers it.  Instead of worrying about whether a tin pot shines or is dented and faded, what is the interesting story, that ends up with a dented and faded tin pot?

As another year has gone by, my hope is that I define myself less and less by what my employment happens to be.
What is important should be what I've done, even things which might seem trivial.

So what will I be when I grow up?  I don't know.

But...
I am a person who loves travel, prefers the company of dogs, loves being outside and living in a rural area, enjoys riding bikes and long contemplative dog walks as well as learning through reading and writing...

Douglas Coupland's Generation X

I resisted reading this book for a long time.  I may have even unfairly disliked it before I picked it up.  There are several reviews of the book which are quite negative, but that alone isn't a reason not to read it since everything has at least some bad reviews.  A bar of gold could probably be offered for free on amazon.com and someone would complain that it was too yellow.
The content of some of the reviews was more troubling.  That and the idea that this book, and the author, was somehow supposed to be speaking for Generation X - a group I fall in the middle of.  This was not the apparent goal of Douglas Coupland, but a role that seems to have been handed to him.  The author was born in 1961, putting him outside of the window of Generation X, or on the raggedy edge between Boomers and Gen-Xers depending on the definition one wants to use.  It is troubling that Mr. Coupland has become "the voice of a generation" he didn't belong to - this is supposed to be a novel, not a documentary.
Perhaps more than anything, I've waited too long to read this, as I may have had different eyes at the age of 22 than I do in 2015.  I wonder if the same situation could be encountered by someone who was a teen in the 1950's, but waited until the late 1970's to read On the Road by Jack Kerouac?

The book is also set in Los Angeles, which is a world away from anything approaching real life.  This is a little unfortunate, since the author is Canadian and hadn't lived in LA very long before writing it.  I actually think the book would have been more interesting if it was set in Toronto.  There is subplot for the book in New York and the last thing the world needs are more books set in LA and NY.  At least a minor portion of the book takes place elsewhere.
While the LA experience probably does not approximate that of most Gen-Xers, I was in Palm Springs for several weeks of the summer before the book was published in 1991.  I was only supposed to go to California and drive a car back, but one thing led to another, as can happen if one is lucky enough as a late teen.  This doesn't bring me closer to the stories of the book, but it actually did help with context.  What I remember most about those weeks, was the absolute dichotomy of the area.  I was staying in a large house in the shadow of Bob Hope's Palm Springs house, while also spending time in a small, poorer, working town called Banning.  This dichotomy is touched on in the book, especially in relation to consumerism and its rejection that the main characters espouse.
Going through some old pictures recently, I've been struggling to envision what my world would possibly have looked like 10 or 15 years ago - or now - if some seemingly minor choices had gone differently in the early 1990's.  Unquestionably, things could be vastly different due to some decisions at the time which seemed minor and almost arbitrary.  But history can only be rewritten once there is a victor.

The book revolves around three main characters, Andy (narrator), Dag and Claire.  A synopsis can be found elsewhere so I won't rehash it here, but the important thing to note is that there really isn't a plot to the book.  This in and of itself is not a good or bad characteristic for a book.  A plot can help push a book along.  Generation X is a very quick read and the book is more about character development than anything else; generic characters to represent a generation.  The lack of a plot does make sense in the context of a book set in the 1980's - there is no plot or narrative that can be distilled from the decade that birthed sport motorcycles, Miami Vice was on TV, Reagan was president, The Breakfast Club was filmed, and big hair bands ruled.

In 2015, the book reads like a conversation with an old acquaintance, possibly a conversation where two people have grown in totally different directions in the ensuing decades.  There are awkward pauses and the discussion is somewhat forced.  The stilted nature of the book isn't totally off putting at times since it allows thoughts to go back to a time of Sony Walkmans, family portraits with awful plastic backgrounds, large shopping malls, and Yuppies.  Do families still take formal portraits anymore?  Is there a 2015 synonym for Yuppies?  The book is completely devoid of cell phones and the internet, let alone Facebook, making the lack of a plot that much more enjoyable.
I wish I had read this book shortly after the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.  Ready Player One isn't a terribly memorable book, but in some ways speaks to and about Generation X in a totally different way than Douglas Coupland's book.  When video games were huge wooden boxes that required quarters, who didn't want all that wasted money and skill to go to saving the earth?

Spoiler Alert!
The book ends with an odd bit about a "cocaine white egret" and a burned farm field with some mentally retarded children.  It is too bad that Mr. Coupland didn't start with this descriptive bird as it may have made him eligible for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.  Despite reading and rereading the ending a few times, it feels like a complete non-sequitur.  I have yet to see any explanation of the ending that I think actually makes sense with the rest of the book.  So if the 1980's didn't have a plot, as the book does not, maybe a nonsense ending out of nowhere is appropriate?  I ... found it lacking.
End Spoiler Alert!

Beyond the end of the text of the book are a series of statistics without context.  They seem to want to imply that Gen-X is screwed compared to the Boomers and the Silent Generation.  But few people I know actually lived these statistics, and then it was most often by choice.  Again, LA is not real life.  Looking at the statistics now, they look frightfully similar to what could be compiled about Millennials right now.
And maybe that is the point - the book rails against consumerism throughout the pages, just as Millennials now attempt to do, stating emphatically that, "Advertising doesn't work on me."  Yet ... once Generation X figured out how to sell to Generation X and Millennials are figuring out how to easily sell to Millennials, "consumerism" really isn't going anywhere.  This is despite every generation since World War II vilifying their parents and arguing consumerism's last gasping breath.  Even the subtitle can be transported between generations, Tales for and Accelerated Culture - "Everything happens so much faster now!" opines the Millennial.

Perhaps what really needs to be understood and taken from the book is that while we can recognize collective deviance in others, deviance is much harder to see in the generational mirror.

"You see, when you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you.  You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your causes and that history will never feel sorry for you.  It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence.  And because of this price, all happinesses are sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied." - Douglas Coupland

Road Trips and the Return to Work

I recently got back from vacation.  It was a (motorcycle) road trip to somewhere tropical.  Late summer/early fall isn't the typical time to go to these places, but the down season is the best time to travel.  Things are cheaper, hotels more empty, roads less crowded, less kids - there is no down side.

I've toured through 49 states and there have been innumerable stops in towns of all shapes, locations and sizes.  My preference is for moderately small towns.  The really small towns rarely have hotels, or at least don't have a couple hotels and restaurants to choose from.  Bigger cities have very little to offer other than higher prices and maybe ... maybe something more interesting to do.  Smaller areas might require more searching, but the reward is unique sites or discovering hidden jewels.  Historic oddities are everywhere.

One of the things I like about road trips are the longer term connections it creates to places I've been.  Even if it is just a short stop for a meal.  These connections can be tenuous at best, but it makes things more personal when I hear about them, often years later.
Flooding in Minot, North Dakota?  I've been there.
Monkey loose in Valdosta, Georgia?  I've been there.
Wildfire in Lolo, Idaho?  I've been there.
Flash floods in Hilldale, Utah?  I've been there.
Yoga and Beer in Farmington, New Mexico?  I've been there.

Some of these things are not necessarily pleasant, but hearing about these events is more real having been there, even if only briefly.  Hearing about these things also brings back memories of the trip.
A meal in a small cafe in Minot while returning home from Alaska.
Overnight in Valdosta, staying a a great motel, which had questionable reviews, and with a surprisingly good sushi place within walking distance.
Lolo pass has to be one of my favorite motorcycle roads and nearby Missoula a granola paradise.
Being leered at while looking for a restaurant in Hilldale - I guess I asked for that one.
Nice conversation with a cashier in a Farmington convenience store while buying soda and Zingers.

Having driven through areas others avoid also brings serendipity.  Northern Nebraska is extremely pretty.  Situated near the black hills and the badlands, it has some character of both in areas without the dreaded RV traffic.  The vacation paradise of Florida, is surprisingly plain outside of the overcrowded coastal beaches.  I still enjoyed it though.

I was able to mentally break away from work on my recent trip.  The week before was somewhat slow, which made this easier.  There have definitely been vacations where thoughts frequently and painfully returned to work.  I have one candid picture from 2012 which was taken when I am both mentally and physically completely removed form the humdrum of day-in, day-out.  It is probably one of my favorite pictures of me.

But the day before returning to work after the recent tropical vacation was one of near dread.  I could almost see the bureaucratic pettiness of work on the horizon and as I watched reruns of Castle, which would normally sequence the end of a weekend; the end of vacation was imminent.

I've been back at work for a full week and it wasn't too bad.  A few issues piled up and a few unreasonable demands were waiting.  Still, it is amazing how many crises were resolved without any of my involvement.  Manufacturing problems does seem to be a way for some people to justify employment.

I haven't effectively used very much vacation this year.  I've got several more days I have to take before December 31, with more to be carried over to 2016 - and if I ever lose any of it, I'll know my life has gone to a place I don't approve.
That ... will not happen.

Ontario, Oregon?  I've been there.