Harry Chapin: The Rock
The rock is gonna fall on us, he woke with a start
And he ran to his mother, the fear dark in his heart
And he told her of the vision that he was sure he'd seen
She said: "Go back to sleep son, you're having a bad dream!"
Silly child--
Everybody knows the rock leans over the town
Everybody knows that it won't tumble to the ground
Remember Chicken Little said the sky was falling down
Well nothing ever came of that, the world still whirls around
"The rock is gonna fall on us," he stood and told the class
The professor put his chalk down and peered out through his glasses
But he went on and said; "I've seen it, high up on the hill
If it doesn't fall this year then very soon it will!"
Crazy boy--
Everybody knows the rock leans over the town
Everybody knows that it won't tumble to the ground
We've more important studies than your fantasies and fears
You know that rock's been perched up there for a hundred thousand years
"The rock is gonna fall on us." He told the magistrates
"I believe that we can stop it but the time is getting late
You see I've done all the research my plans are all complete."
He was showing them contingencies when they showed him to the street
Just a madman--
Everybody knows the rock leans over the town
Everybody knows that it won't tumble to the ground
Everybody knows of those who say the end is near
Everybody knows that life goes on as usual round here
He went up on the mountain beside the giant stone
They knew he was insane so they left him all alone
He'd given up enlisting help for there was no one else
He spent his days devising ways to stop the rock himself
One night while he was working building braces on the ledge
The ground began to rumble the rock trembled on the edge
"The rock is gonna fall on us! Run or you'll all be crushed!"
And indeed the rock was moving, crumbling all to dust
He ran under it with one last hope that he could add a prop
And as he disappeared the rock came to a stop
The people ran into the street but by then all was still
The rock seemed where it always was or where it always will be
When someone asked where he had gone they said: "Oh he was daft.
Who cares about that crazy fool." And then they'd start to laugh
But high up on the mountain
When the wind is hitting it
If you're watching very closely
The rock slips a little bit
This song came into my head this morning while thinking about the whole Katrina thing with the funding cuts and the fact that people had called this disaster for a while.
-=Russ=-
EXTERIOR: DAGOBAH--DAY
With Yoda strapped to his back, Luke climbs up one of the
many thick vines that grow in the swamp until he reaches the
Dagobah statistics lab. Panting heavily, he continues his
exercises--grepping, installing new packages, logging in as
root, and writing replacements for two-year-old shell scripts
in Python.
YODA: Code! Yes. A programmer's strength flows from code maintainability. But beware of Perl. Terse syntax... more than one way to do it... default variables. The dark side of code maintainability are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you when code you write. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.
LUKE: Is Perl better than Python?
YODA: No... no... no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.
LUKE: But how will I know why Python is better than Perl?
YODA: You will know. When your code you try to read six months from now.
I was in Chicago last weekend to see a band (The Irish Descendants) and visit family. Much excitement was had.
The show was at Ballydoyle - An Irish bar in Downers Grove. Very nice place, and the audio mix was wonderful - not too loud to be able to talk to people, and very clean. It was also not deafening, which was nice.
The music was, as expected, quite good. Contemporary Irish folk rock, or something along those lines. Eclectic, odd, and quite enjoyable.
I ran across two women there more or less my age who were fans of the music type, pointed me in the direction of several other bands to listen to, and were subject to one of the worst pickup attempts I've seen in my life. Remember, I drove Moonlight Express for 3 years. Also, note that I had been talking to these women for a while - they were quite sociable, one was a social worker, and the other was working as a nanny (and had been owned by 3 ferrets for a while). I had no interest in "hooking up", or whatever the current term is, and was just enjoying talking to people my age who enjoyed similar music (most of the people there were a bit older, in their late 30s to early 50s).
Anyway, midway through the night, this other guy decides to attempt to be social.
His first attempt at communication was something along the lines of, "Hi. I don't know any good pickup lines, want to hear what I have?"
It went downhill from there. Shortly after that, he attempted to ask one of the girls (the social woker one) if she was dating anyone. "Um... do you have, like, a guy that you're close to, or.... uh, like, involved with?"
And, it continued to slide from there, followed shortly by him giving up and leaving.
Wow. I was amazed. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite so pathetic. He stumbled over attempting a lame pickup line or two, tried to find out if one of them was dating someone (totally ignoring the other one), and left.
Saturday was similar, though without the random creepy guy. There was much beer consumed by all, and a great time.
I also dismantled a rotary engine with my brothers on Saturday evening. It was the engine I had hauled back from West Virginia, and (*does a happy dance*) it only had a spun bearing on the rear rotor! Both housings were in good shape, and one was in really quite good shape (no chrome flaking on the edges). One rotor was in good shape, but the rear one is scrap - it apparently impacted the rear iron a bit while sliding around on the bearing, and the spun bearing means the inside area is questionable as well. Not worth reusing.
So, that was my weekend. And this is a blog entry.
-=Russ=-