The Rambling Hermit

It was a great week in New Orleans. But sad. There is still so, so,  much to do. And it mostly just takes people.  I took way too long to lend a hand. This fall will be the 7th year since the hurricane, and yet many sections of New Orleans will not be functional for another 5 – 10 years.

Yet, the 14th is upon us….
I have linked this before, but it is too good not too do it again. Eivør Pálsdóttir with The Faroese Symphony Orchestra, is way better than a saint singing….

Paws shredding moss,
tail pointing to the past,
none martyred,
none lost,
only the love of an oak’s growing reach.

Balsam on the air,
sirens on the wind.

Love is a cruel mistress.

Mother is old,
but you can tell her your love story over and over again…

–PJE

BTW: The above ramblings are not the official words, just my  oral vomit. The official “Troll Platform” lyrics are quite something more.

Ironically, it has nothing to do with age in 2012, but also is not simply “1.” In this context it is 10′s of thousands. Every so often I have a dollar left over, from the weekly shopping trip to stock up on rice and beans. Those special Fridays ( happened to be a Saturday this time), I buy a cup coffee on the way home and occasionally splurge the left over dollar on a lottery ticket. If I buy the ticket rather than the candy bar, which actually being way more than $1 and requires going back out to the car to search for loose change under the seat, I usually go for the smaller paying games as they have better odds. Hey, a free play or $2 win makes you feel better than winning nothing.

Sunday morning I woke up and got ready for a second 6 hour round of mind numbing alphabet soup, yet critically important, training in Disaster Services Technology, only to remember the random chance ticket from the night before. I have always been good at seeing patterns without being able to say what they are. I can quickly look at two things and tell you they are the same, but I cannot tell you anything about them, i.e., if they are purple, numbers, squares, triangles or dancing monkeys. Objects are either the same or different; but I am also still able to tell you when things are almost close enough to be considered the same, which in the template matching paradigm is logically impossible as it approaches ambiguity.

You could also argue that templates are, by design, expected to be expanded upon as they are only a starting phase; thus template matching as an approach for understanding similarity is flawed from the beginning. But never being able to gain insight by focusing on a template is not the point today. The point is that the goal of the game played was to match 5 numbers. On my chance ticket, four of the five numbers matched, the first four to be exact. The fifth number I had was 38, the fifth number drawn was 39.  So when I remembered to look at my ticket again on Sunday, I knew it was very close. So close in fact that it can only make you smile. While not $35k+, $500 _IS_ wildly different from nothing to throw away.

It bought the code pit a much needed printer ( and I got $75 off for recycling an old printer that only cost $80) and there is still plenty left over to supplement heading down to New Orleans to build houses next week. I though the windfall may have something to do with karma, but then I was reminded you don’t actually get rewarded for just thinking about it. A strange part of me needs a deployment, another disaster, after all of the recent training. It is not about wishing harm on anyone, quite the opposite. It is just about being part of something bigger. Doing  and not just being a rotting vampire in an Ivory Tower of Perceived Goodness.

Saturday morning started far too early after far to long of a week. It was a long, cold and snowy drive down to Albany for a weekend full of training at the regional Red Cross office. Couple of base courses out of the way that I have been waiting for and a key one under my belt, ERV. I can now drive the chapter’s or any national Emergency Response Vehicle. Combined with the Disaster Services Technology track, that I will start right after returning from building houses in New Orleans, and a couple of local deployments I should be very desirable for national deployment.

There is almost a bit of irony in that the Solstice this year basically coincided with the new moon. Seems fitting. Though there will be theme songs playing while running up mountains in the morning….and this may just be a recovery song while dreaming of deep snow and dancing trees.