I am a proud American today, because we have entered that stage of peaceful transition of power between two opposing parties.  The candidate I support is victorious, and the candidate I did not support was gracious and fair far beyond the past months of his campaign.  I disagree with Obama on some points, but I feel that he’s honestly keeping an open mind.  I feel that he is smarter than me.  That’s a good feeling.

And then… I look to my older sister.  I had heard about Proposition 8 before she started talking about it.  I dismissed it, thinking ‘Hey, it’s California!  That could never pass.’  And then my older and far wiser sister started to express concern.

I didn’t stay up late watching the presidential election.  The last website I had open was the Los Angelos newspaper.  I was filtering for Proposition 8.  I don’t know the population distribution of California, so I had a naive hope at 11pm my time that there was still a chance for it to fail.  52% voted yes.

To amend the United States constitution, you need a two-thirds majority.  When a vote this important comes through, I can understand why.  

So what now?  My sister has passively warned me of The Pit.  All I can do right now is look to the future.  My mother never thought she’d live to see the day a man of color would be voted into the highest office in the United States.  I hope I live to see the day where marriage is defined by a church, not a state.

• My apartment looks fine from the outside.  A friend of mine checked around my apartment complex, and things look okay.
• The city of Webster, which is basically a hop, skip and a jump away from my apartment, reports that the city has no power.
• The waste treatment facility for Nassau Bay was underwater yesterday, so their sewer system is down, and they have downed power lines in the area.
• Work (Lockheed Martin and Johnson Space Center) is closed at least through Wednesday.

Now, I know my version of messy isn’t the same squalor that some college student’s.  However, I’m sure my mother would be ashamed, and her opinion counts to me more than… pretty much anyone else’s opinion in the world.  How is it that I still can’t make myself take the time?  How can I be so lazy and apathetic?  Even when I was close to home, I didn’t manage to take that thirty minutes of care.

So, now that I’ve taken myself down a few pegs, I probably should point out a few things.  Here are the things I don’t manage to clean:

• my room
• countertops (I fail to just wipe things down, though that’s probably because I hate the way my sponges manage to smell… even after just washing them.)
• Laundry (Really, it’s mostly ironing…)

Everything else is pretty much clean.  Of course, I haven’t vacuumed or dusted or anything…

So… what would help to get things in line?  Should I schedule events like ironing, vacuuming, and dusting to particular days? I’m not sure that will be enough to surmount my laziness. x.x Will guilting myself into cleaning actually help me get the job done, or will I just let myself feel bad without actually doing anything?

How much time and determination will I need to become a fully responsible adult?  Am I just clinging to the what remains of my college life and childhood?  So many questions, not enough easy answers…

Last August, I embarked on a new life in Cleveland, determined to weather the frigid winters of the north and the lake effect snow that terrorizes the drivers of the Midwest.  A new life had just opened for me, in a field about whyx ich I had little to no knowledge.  I learned a lot in that first month, about the field and about myself.

<Pause for the cat to jump in my lap and, subsequently, on my laptop… such a cuddle monster!>

Well, here I am at the first month marker again.  A new journey, upon which I embarked only a half a year since my last big step, begins, heading in a completely different direction.  I’m learning a new field of engineering, but I’m in an old place.  I spent part of my childhood here, but now I see things in a different way.  I have some of the same childhood friends, and we’re all different in subtle ways.  I appreciate,  them more than I could have back then; I regret those I lost along the way.

<Yet another pause for said cat and to just enjoy the outside.>

I’m sure when I began this post, I had some resounding point.  Life is beautiful, and people should try to appreciate these sunny days.  However, I’ve become distracted, much like my cat, with the birds, the turtles, and the children playing across the lake.  So let’s allow the pretty day to just be distracting, because really, the journey is just as important as where you’re trying to go.

Parting thought: only one thing could make this day better, and that will be remedied in 282 days, 18 hours, and 20 minutes.

Getting back to writing, however, I do a lot of start-restart. I start writing on something, realize that I don’t want to post on that particular subject, and delete. Then, I restart with something else… lather, rinse, repeat. The easiest route would be to write what I feel; however, I don’t think that’s fundamentally right. Like everyone, I can be unjust, judgmental, insensitive, selfish, and unkind in my deepest, darkest emotions. When I start to “bare my soul” in the most forthcoming way, these dark crystals shine their way to the top, even though more precious and pure jewels outnumber them. These emotions are hurtful, and I simply wouldn’t feel right letting them loose.

So here I am, writing about writing. What goes in a blog? More to the point, what goes in my blog? The answer comes to me, simple, but not easy:

Something I would be comfortable with my mother reading.

Then the answer expanded, revealing the hidden, fine print:

Something I would be comfortable with my father reading. My family reading. My friends reading. My coworkers reading. My employer reading.

Something I could in no way ever be ashamed of.

That’s a surprisingly tall order. Keep in mind, what shames a person? I find that I want people to see only my best, even if I go through my worst to get there. I don’t want typos. I want the post to look pleasing to the eye if I’m getting creative. I want only the exactly right words, like Mozart wrote only the exactly right notes. I want quality. Not only that, I want the inflection to be there, the introspection. I want to make you think, too. I want to make you think about thinking. Or maybe I want to entertain you! Maybe I want to show you an image my mind sees but my pants cannot interpret.

We’ll just have to see!

Since the death of Michael Kamen, I have mourned for the world of movie music. Would anyone look to the classical style beyond Carl Orff? How long will it take for the next brilliant blend composer to come out of the woodwork and save us from the meaningless muzak? I was both surprised and delighted by the response I found in Aaron Zigman and Alexandre Desplat. Research shows me that neither are really new to the movie music scene, but I have to say, their cooperation for Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium touched my heart and my imagination in a profound way. (Side note: should a movie be underlined or italicized? Will it really depend on the system of citation I use?)

I could talk about how the movie affected me as well, but I really really want y’all to see it first. And listen. Really, it’s easy to just soar on this music.

A mass starts at rest, on the end of a radial. Something bumps it, and swings… into a something that stops it. So what’s the total impulse?

Let’s put down some essential facts and basic equations. Assume anything in bold is a vector, and “x” is the cross product.

L = r x p

I = Δp

where L is angular momentum, r is the radial’s vector, p is the linear momentum, and I is the linear impulse. Yeah, I tripped on that one, too. Really, the angular impulse is going to be the integral of the torque over time…

But here’s the catch. The initial velocity is zero; the final velocity is zero. How can there be a change in momentum period? Therefore, wouldn’t the total impulse be zero? Wouldn’t it make more sense to either talk about impulse maps or the maximum impulse?

Yes, I’m sure my physics professor would be ashamed of me right now. Or at least laughing. ^_^