Category Archives: Signs o’ the Times

Utah or Bust? Busted.

By lytspeed Posted in Signs o' the Times Leave a reply

Today, a couple of ‘chutes on the Genesis landing capsule failed to deploy, which resulted in a new hole in the Utah desert floor. You can read all about it here, at least until someone realizes that the HTML file name is a little optimistic. (Currently, it says “genesis_captured_040908.html”. I’m not sure “captured” is a good euphemism for “slammed into Utah.”)

This makes two NASA return missions in a row that have failed: Columbia in February 2003 and now Genesis. It’s possible they may still recover some usable material from Genesis, but the fact remains that a simple parachute deployment mechanism seems to have failed. My guess is that this is another part that NASA had to order on the cheap because of budget constraints. (We had to send another soldier to Iraq, you know.)

The “better, faster, cheaper” mantra that NASA has been forced to recite for the last couple of decades is clearly affecting the quality of our space missions. Yes, we were able to get all three Mars landers successfully to their destinations, and that is no small feat. But we also lost a space shuttle, its payload, and the lives of the people aboard in that same time period. Genesis was a relatively inexpensive mission; it only cost $236 million, cheap compared to the $131 billion (and counting) that the War in Iraq has cost us so far.

There are advantages to the BFC mantra, though. More and more often, “cheaper” means “unmanned.” Though I’m all for manned space exploration, I think it’s smart to pave the way with unmanned missions. The research and technology required for the unmanned missions advances robotics and computer science research, and being a technogeek, I think that’s good. But the best part about unmanned missions is that they don’t cost us of human lives.

Space, like any new frontier, carries inherent risk to human life, and the people who sign up for the missions know that going in, just as our American ancestors did when they packed up the conestogas and headed west along the Santa Fe Trail. However, we do have an advantage that our ancestors did not: robotics. Why throw away lives senselessly when we can build robotic missions first?

(Of course, this leads to Asimovian ideas of the rights of machines vs. humans, and touches on a story I wrote in the late ’80s, in which an intelligent computer named Sara (after Alan Turing’s mother) feels discriminated against. But for the purposes of this blog entry, we don’t need to go there.)

Suffice it to say that the loss of research and equipment in the failure of the Genesis mission is sad, but not tragic. Had there been lives lost, it would have been tragic. As it is, we still stand to learn some things about the mission, the particles collected, parachute deployment, and our own ingenuity, and at a monetary cost about a tenth of a percent of the monetary cost of the War in Iraq. That’s quite a bit to learn, I think. It’s too bad that ratio won’t hold for the War, or for the 1,000+ coalition servicemen and uncounted Iraqis who have died as a result of it.

Brother Falls after 20 years

By lytspeed Posted in Family, Signs o' the Times, Writing 7 Replies

I mentioned yesterday that I had taken a business trip to Phoenix.  I drove, and on the way back I stopped in the town where I grew up, Durango, Colorado.  I’ll be going there again next month for my twenty year high school reunion.

One of the things I wanted to do while in Durango was visit my favorite spot on Earth, a pair of waterfalls in La Plata Canyon.  I don’t know if these falls have a real name, but I refer to them as Brother Falls.  (If they do have a real name, I don’t want to know it.)  They are located up on the mountainside, away from the road, and that’s about as detailed as I want to get.  Perhaps I’m selfish, but this spot is sacred enough to me that I don’t want to give away its specific location.  There are other, more spectacular views in the San Juan mountains; let people visit those.  But I claim this spot as my own, however deluded that may be.

That said, I would like to recreate an event that happened twenty years ago, and take you with me on that little journey.  The photos below are from a month ago, but not much has changed except that the spring runoff was heavier then than it was this year.

(Please allow all photos to load completely.  All photos © Stace Johnson, 2003)

Heading up the deer trail.  It’s steeper than it looks!

Twenty years ago, just before I graduated high school, my brother and I found a couple of waterfalls while hiking on a family picnic.  He was twenty-seven and I was seventeen.  He had driven up from Phoenix to attend my graduation, and I was fortunate to have the time to spend with him.  We hiked the steep deer trails up the mountainside and, through the trees, saw a small waterfall.

If you look carefully, you can see the lower waterfall in the distance,
between the aspen trunks.

We continued up the deer trail, hoping it would curve back toward the falls.  It did, and crossed over the tailings of an abandoned mine.  My brother, being older and somewhat wiser than me, convinced me that we shouldn’t get too close to the mine, so we moved on.  Unfortunately, the deer trail switched back again, and didn’t seem to be heading the direction we wanted to go.


Two shots of the abandoned mine.  The flash washed out some of the detail in the second photo,
and probably angered some woodland creature inside the mine.

We left the trail and started working our way across to the falls, only to find that there was another, larger waterfall above the first.  We rested on a large rock at the top of the lower falls, watching the water flow beneath us.  A snow bank hung in the shadows, under the trees across from us.  Water disappeared under one side of the bank and emerged from the other, then cascaded over the lip of the lower falls.

The upper waterfall of Brother Falls.

The rock shelf between the falls.
Shot is looking up the mountain from the top of the lower falls.

The runoff was strong that year, and my brother and I just sat, not talking, enjoying the sound of the falls crashing above and below us, smelling the mix of evergreens and water.  I don’t remember ever feeling more centered than at that moment.

The lower falls.

After a while, we squeezed ourselves through the brush to the base of the upper waterfall.  It roared at us, challenging us to climb the slippery cliff next to it.  We took the challenge and climbed up the cliff face, occasionally putting a hand or foot into the water to get enough purchase to move upward.  (I didn’t say we were wise, just that he was somewhat wiser than me.)

Looking up from the base of the upper falls, just prior to climbing the small cliff
to the right.  The first time I did this, there was a LOT more water.

Looking down from the top of the upper falls.

We did make it to the top, and were rewarded with a beautiful, misty vista.  The canyon glowed with sunlight reflected from the aspen leaves.

La Plata Canyon as viewed from atop Brother Falls.

We rested there again until we heard our father’s voice calling from the aspens, wondering if we were okay.  We cut across the cliff top until we found a way down, and were soon following the switchbacks of the deer trail past the old mine again.  We met our father, out of breath and a bit worried, on the trail and told him about the waterfalls while he rested.  Then we all hiked back to the road at the bottom of the canyon, thinking the trail wasn’t nearly as steep as it had seemed going up.  I felt as if I had been in the presence of a deity for those couple of hours.

The La Plata River, looking up La Plata Canyon.

Thirteen years later, my brother passed away due to complications of lymphoma.  He ran a high risk of contracting lymphoma because he also had Sjögren’s Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder with symptoms similar to both lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.  Before he died, we discussed how he wanted his affairs to be handled.  He was adamant that he wanted to be cremated, and that he wanted his ashes spread in the mountains.  I could think of no better place to put his spirit to rest than Brother Falls in La Plata Canyon.

Now you know why I consider this spot to be sacred, and why I don’t want to know the actual name of these falls.  I always considered the spot to be powerful and replenishing, and I consider it even more sacred now that my brother’s spirit resides there.

A small riverside meadow in La Plata Canyon.

Let it Snow

By lytspeed Posted in General, Signs o' the Times Leave a reply

At this point, with the war coverage dominating the airwaves, perhaps half of the U.S. has heard that Denver got its worst snowstorm in nearly a century during the past week. It started on Monday night, the 17th, and continued in earnest on Tuesday. My work released us early on Tuesday, and I got home at about 3:00 to find 18″ of snow in the common driveway of our town home complex. I drove the car in as far as I could, then dug myself into the garage from there, as well as digging two neighbors into their garages.

The next morning, we had a fresh 24″ of snow, with a 48″ drift behind my garage door. The pictures below offer a roughly chronological document of the period from Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning. (Apologies for the capabilities of my cheap digital camera.)

“Doot-doot-doo looking out my front door …”

The mess I made Tuesday getting into the garage.

Wednesday morning at about 5:00 AM.  The snowflakes reflected the flash.

Wednesday morning again, snow is about 30″ at this point.

Split branch on the tree in my neighbor’s front yard.  This branch hangs over my side of the fence, and is about 6″ in diameter.

The view from my garage Wednesday morning.  The drift behind the car is about 4 feet high.  Remember, I had already shoveled this the day before.

This is the same driveway as above, with the ruts from my car covered in fresh snow.

Wednesday afternoon, after I had shoveled out my driveway and my neighbor’s.

A neighbor attempting to negotiate the narrow path we cut to the street.

Some neighbors and I cut this path so we could get out late Wednesday.  No one showed up to plow the driveways until very early Friday morning.

Poetry, Batting Cages, and Moss

By lytspeed Posted in Poetry, Signs o' the Times, Writing Leave a reply

I read poetry tonight at Coffee on the Lowell. The event had a modest turnout, though from what I understand, it was better than the last meeting. I didn’t think it was too bad for only their third outing. I did find out, however, that I listed the cross streets incorrectly on the West Side Books website. Coffee on the Lowell is at the corner of 50th and Lowell (or Regis and Lowell, depending on how you look at it) but I had listed it as 58th and Lowell on the website. It’s fixed now.

Ira Slotkin hosted the open mic, and Seth from the Mercury Cafe Jam Before the Slam was there as well. Zach, a counterpart of Seth’s, accompanied many of the poems on keyboard. (Sorry I didn’t get all the names, guys. I’ll get them next time.) Ira read several of his Spam haiku, the humor highlight of the evening. One woman read for the first time — and read well — choosing Wordsworth as her initiation. Another woman, a friend, read a poem that she said “scared her.” I can see why, after hearing it. It was disturbingly effective, and I think it took guts for her to air it. I read a few of my own poems, and closed with Hopkins’ “(Carrion Comfort).”

Afterward, I was finally able to deliver a critique of a story for my friend, the “scared poem” woman. I’ve had the critique for months, and have been wanting to get it to her, but our schedules haven’t allowed it until tonight. She appreciated the critique, despite all the green pen marks on it.

As for my own writing, I jotted down few more paragraphs of “Chesterfield Gray” at lunch. I hope to finish the story’s first draft Sunday and revise it the same day. I noticed that the new Writers of the Future Vol. XVIII is out, and Kim bought it for me as another early birthday present. (Thanks, Babe.) I’m officially getting behind. I still haven’t read last year’s volume, and I still have to read the second Harry Potter book and re-read The Two Towers before those movies come out.

I want to rant a bit about a couple of news stories that came to my attention. The first is fairly minor; it has to do with the lawsuit settlement between John Cage’s estate and a British composer name Mike Batt. The upshot is that Batt included a piece called A One Minute Silence on a CD by his band, The Planets. Cage is famous for his avant-garde piece 4′ 33″, a four minute, thirty-three second piece of silence which Cage used to perform live by sitting and looking at his piano as the audience fidgeted. Cage’s estate sued Batt for plagiarism, which seems ludicrous until you learn that Batt credited the piece to “Batt/Cage” on the CD. Oops. I’m guessing that if he hadn’t credited Cage as a collaborator, he would not have been hit with a lawsuit. Then again, he knew the piece was inspired by Cage, and acknowledged that. For that, he has to pay a six-figure sum to the John Cage Trust? Isn’t this a bit out of hand?

Speaking of “out of hand,” let’s talk about Randy Moss and the NFL. Specifically, let’s talk about Randy Moss getting his wrist slapped. This is a man who, intentionally and methodically, pushed a traffic officer half a block with the nose of his Lexus. He was charged with two misdemeanors, for which he will only be fined a maximum of $2000 by law. He is not likely to spend any more jail time because of the nature of his occupation and because of his celebrity status. The NFL has not suspended Moss for his actions, though he will be up for evaluation after his arraignment on October 2nd.

Compare this to the NFL’s denial of Peyton Manning’s request to wear black hightop shoes in tribute to Johnny Unitas. Manning is quarterback of the same team that Unitas helmed (or at least the team with the same name) and most of the news that I’ve read states that people in general think this was a classy move by Manning. However, the NFL denied the request, saying that if Manning wore the hightops, he could face up to a $25,000 fine.

One man commits a near-felony (some say it should have been a full-blown felony) and will probably get away with a slap on the wrist. Another asks if he can break uniform dress code — not breaking any laws, mind you, just a dress code rule — to pay tribute to one of his heroes, and is told that he will get a large fine if he does so. He decides not to, in order to keep from creating a distraction for his team. This says volumes, not only about the NFL’s priorities, but about the differences between how Peyton Manning and Randy Moss look at their positions on their respective teams.

A Year Later

By lytspeed Posted in Signs o' the Times, Writing Leave a reply

For many U.S. citizens, the most tragic news to report on September 11, 2002 is that Johnny Unitas has died of a heart attack at age 69. However, I think many more U.S. citizens are breathing a collective sigh of relief that the anniversary date has come and gone without a significant terrorist event taking place. At work today, a few people with ties to the east coast were understandably emotional. Aside from that, it was a pretty normal day for me, and I’m thankful.

The Writer’s Circle group met this evening at a member’s home in the mountains. Rain fell the entire time, and a significant thunderstorm developed; it was wonderful. It was also a bit synchronistic; two of the stories we critiqued dealt with rain and lightning themes. I committed to having a story ready for next month’s meeting, which means I need to finish “Chesterfield Gray” in the next couple of weeks. It’s not a genre story, but the group is willing to read it anyway. As Ed jokes, “Sure, you can submit a non-genre story. It just has to be twice as good!”

One of our members is making significant strides in publishing, with several different white-hot irons in the fire. I won’t go into more detail than that, because it’s not my place to do so, as Brian Plante has ably demonstrated with his Chronicles of the Garden Variety Writers. But I will say that it is inspiring to see one of our own climbing the rungs. It’s also clear that he’s working very hard at it — much harder than I am. It’s probably not fair to compare our situations, because we have completely different schedules and family requirements, but it does make me look at my time and efficiency, as well as my commitment level.

Yes, I think it’s safe to say that I will be a published writer someday. But the examples have made it clear that this won’t happen at my current level of quality or output. I need more practice, and I need to lick some stamps.