Vacation

Finally, a week off. Since it's just Jon and myself at Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters, we don't take too many whole weeks off. As a matter of fact, it's been more than a year since I've been gone from work for a whole week. I am ready. Right now it's all bridge collapse all the time, and I am truly weary of all of this. Don't get me wrong, this is, to quote our Governor "a catastrophe of historic proportions for Minnesota," but fer cryin' out loud people, we're going to survive. This is not 9/11. This is not Katrina. Not even close, though I've seen them mentioned in the same breath already. Sure, there are many lives and families that are affected, but this is not something that changes a whole city forever, leaving massive physical damage or deep psychological scars. The media in particular seems hell bent on trying to convince us that we are so wounded as a community that we must reach deep within ourselves to find the strength to overcome this tragic event. Look at us! Look at us! Pity us! We are hurt! Pfffft. We need to take care of the true victims, and frankly that doesn't need to be done through the media. I've long had a problem with media making a public spectacle of people's personal grief. I wish that in an event like this when the teevee, radio or newspaper comes to interview families about their loss, the families would just tell the media to go to hell. Our grief is not to be used to make you money. Maybe the best plea I've heard in the past few days, other than the request to give blood, was Mayor Rybak stating that if you want show compassion and do something about this situation, turn to your co-workers or neighbors and figure out how to carpool to work. Brilliant. Seriously. For the next 2 to 3 years our biggest challenge will be to figure out how we're going to get along without this bridge. 140,000 vehicles a day crossed over it. Supposedly, downtown businesses are stepping up to the plate by staggering start times, deliveries and offering transit passes to employees. I hope that's true. Now can we reach deep within ourselves and find the strength to ride with another human being in a bus or car to work.

Enough of the rant already. I do want to say that I am extremely proud of this city's response to a disaster like this. By all accounts, the first responders, medical personnel and plain old citizens were stellar in their response. No chaos, triage set up on site, command centers set up and functioning, plenty of ambulances from around the metro, people running off the street to pull victims off the slabs and out of the river. My friend and old boss Matthew, who works in the Emergency Department at Fairview Southdale Hospital, was called back into work on that night and he said that when he got there, there were 25 people who came in on their day off or came down from other departments and were milling around, waiting to jump into action. Luckily, they weren't needed. County and University were able to handle all the injured.

Oh, yeah. Vacation. Once again, God is messing with me. Since March, I've been planning with my friend Matthew to ride from St. Joseph to Alexandria. Alex is where we are spending our vacation and I was going to meet the family up there where we stay at a family camp. If you've got nothing else to do, go to the National Weather Service web site and poke around till you find information on drought conditions. The Twin Cities and surrounding areas are in "Severe Drought." Weather forcast for tomorrow: 60% chance of thunderstorms. Not just rain, which I would ride in, but thunderstorms. To the south and west of where we would be riding, an increased risk of tornados. Figures. We've had 2 thunderstorms this summer and the 3rd will probably come on the day that I've been wanting nice weather. I called Matthew and cancelled. I just don't want to deal with the logistics of this with the added weather messiness. I'll just bring my bike up there and ride around during the week.

Breaking news...after the weather report (confirming my not being able to ride tomorrow), the pompous ass Don Shelby came on camera, in his pin-stripe suit looking very important and full of gravitas, and told us that "Success has many fathers and failure is an orphan." Some person or people are responsible for this disaster and "I want to know who knew what, when." Yeah Don. A couple of people are responsible for this. String 'em up Don. It's not a procedural failure. It's not a lack of knowledge about what happens to materials in our extreme weather conditions. It's criminal. There is a cover-up. People were aware that this was about to happen and did nothing about it. Better yet, these awful people can see into the future and laugh maniacally as they foresee the bridge falling down. Wait, I know, it's probably a couple of penny-pinching bureaucrats who have no concern for public safety, hate their jobs and humanity, and are just working toward their gov'mint pension. They just don't care. Human life means nothing to them. Yeah, that's it. Again Don, shut up.