Today is not the day for me to post a movie trailer or obsess over the minutia of a television show.

I have opted to run the same image with this post that I ran for the Aurora, CO shootings because the only images I could find of the tragedy in Newtown, CT showed the children that survived the massacre. They do not need another copy of those images floating around on the Internet for the rest of their lives. I mean no disrespect to the families impacted by these events by associating Batman with this post.

Through out the day I have heard and seen people asking, “Why?” and I can honestly say there is not a word that could come out of this monster’s mouth that would give me any form of comfort. There is nothing he could say that would make me go, “Oh, okay, now I get it.” I would prefer that we never have to hear him speak. Ever.

While every shooting event is senseless and makes you wonder what is wrong with this world, this one has left me numb. How do you even begin to process someone shooting defenseless five-year-olds?

And to the media … how can you live with yourself interviewing the children? How can you say that you had a duty to get their side of things? They have no side. They are hundreds of innocent children that have to process this event in their lives when they haven’t even developed coping mechanisms yet. You disgust me.

My heart and condolences go out to everyone impacted by this horrific event.

Very little in this world leaves me speechless.  The events that happened in Aurora, Colorado last night is one of those times.

As any regular readers of this blog know, I have been beyond excited for the release of The Dark Knight Rises.  To awake this morning to the news that someone had killed 12 people and wounded another 59 at a midnight screening was heart breaking.

What floored me even more was some of the tasteless and vulgar things I have seen through out the day.  From a thoughtless tweet from the NRA (since deleted):

@NRA_Rifleman Good morning, shooters. Happy Friday! Weekend plans?

After a backlash from the Twittersphere, it was removed, but really?

Then a few hours later, some clothing company I have never heard of posted the following (also since removed):

You know, I don’t usually hope for a company to go out of business, but I think I’m willing to make an exception.  They have since apologized in a series of four tweets – 1, 2, 3 and 4 – but it comes off more as spin doctoring than anything.

Today happens to be my 41st birthday, and while I had planned to take the afternoon off from work to see the movie, I just find I have no interest in doing so today.  No. I am not cowering in fear over a copy cat event, nor am I trying to make this all about me, but the idea of sitting in a theater trying to enjoy a film that you know people lost their lives at less than 24 hours ago in such a senseles act of violence just doesn’t appeal to me.

What possible reason could anyone have for an act such as this?  I am sure it will come out that he was mentally unbalanced or some such reason, but you have to go fairly far for me to believe that it could possibly lead to you shooting 71 people.

My heart goes out to everyone impacted by this event.  No one should have to know tragedy like this in their lifetime, and I can’t even begin to imagine the pain you’re feeling.

For me, I will see the film eventually, but I just can’t imagine enjoying it today.  And while I look upon the tasteless comments, “jokes” and random acts of stupidity that surround this event, it makes me want to just punch the collective human race in the face.  And then I have moments where my fait is partially restored by the smallest of acts.

Some of you may know I run the TechnoBuffalo Minecraft server (if you’re a player, come join us at Minecraft.TechnoBuffalo.com).  Since the beginning of the server over a year ago my character has worn a Batman costume.  Today I found the logo in the Spawn area redecorated in honor of my birthday.  (click the image for a larger view.)

My faith in humanity is somewhat restored.

One of the joys when I travel is running into the insanely stupid things people do because they are completely incapable of using their brains.

I did not intend to make The Joys of Travel a series, but things just keep getting my attention during this current trip to California. Upon reaching my hotel last Saturday, I was greeted by a hallway full of equipment like what you see above. There were also multiple workmen running up and down the stairs to various floors. This was the room next to mine, and seemed to have no impact on me, but for the most part I ignored it.

While walking out to my car, however, my curiosity kicked in and I had to ask if they were shampooing the rugs or something. One of the workmen looked at me and just simply said, “Flood.”

Oh goody.

Two days into my stay at this hotel, when the above picture was taken, the equipment was still chugging away 24/7. I had also noticed while I was outside the curtains for the corresponding rooms on floors 2, 3 and 4 were also blowing around in a similar manner. Once again, my natural curiosity kicked in.

I went up front and asked the desk clerk how much longer I’d be listening to the equipment. They weren’t sure how much longer it would be, but they were hoping to be done soon. (To their defense, they offered to turn it off at night for me, but I insisted they had a problem to take care of and I’d live.) I then asked what the heck happened, and the woman manning the counter just shook her head.

You know how every hotel room you have ever been in has big signs about not hanging anything from a fire sprinkler? Well some less than intelligent female decided in the 4th floor room that this rule didn’t apply to her, so she hung her wedding dress from it.  Her act of brilliance flooded not only her room, but the one on the third floor … the one on the second floor … and, yes, the first floor room.  It actually got it the worst since it was at the bottom.

The rooms are now cleaned up and people staying in them again with the exception of the fourth floor one, I’m not sure what the issue is in that one.

This is one of those cases where I really hope this woman has been charged through the nose for the cleanup, and the vindictive side of me hopes her dress was ruined.  There is a point where stupidity just needs to be punished.  If you can’t be considerate enough to read the signs and follow them, then you get what you deserve.

The joys of travel just keep coming.

The license plate you see above is what I happened to notice on my rental car today. I picked it up yesterday when I got to Irvine, and I just happened to glance down at the plate today and thought, “Huh … maybe California does its tags differently.”  I emailed Jon Rettinger, president of TechnoBuffalo, to verify that the place was indeed expired before I yelled at the rental company, and he said it was.  (I was 99.9% sure it was, but on the off chance it worked differently here I just wanted to be sure)

Being Sunday, the location I rented from was closed, so I called the national number, and they arranged for me to swap cars at an airport location.  They were happy to help me, and brought another car around to me.  I jokingly looked down at the plate and …

At least this time the manager that was helping me decided to make sure no one would make the mistake again.

He tells me he’s going to get me another car, and after a few minutes he comes back and goes, “Well, the next two cars I looked at … uh … they also had expired plates.” He finally set me up with a new car with valid plates.

I am not naming the rental company as the people I worked with all tried their best to rectify the situation … and I now have a nice pile of free upgrade coupons.

It was definitely one of the oddest mornings I’ve had in some time.

I have come to a conclusion: Man was not meant to travel.  Period.

Currently I am in a hotel in Kansas City so I can board an 8 AM flight to Dallas, and then another flight to Irvine.  Once there I’ll be spending two weeks at the TechnoBuffalo offices to do some training and have some meetings.

All that is fine and good, but the issues are in getting there.  As I have no major airport in Kirksville, I have to drive three hours to an airport.  That is all on me, I choose to live in the middle of nowhere.  However, back in the 1990′s, while preparing to go to Toy Fair in New York City, our car broke down on the way to the airport.  Luckily we had left the day before the flight and we got there, but that became our rule for all flights: Leave the day before.

Today only proved why my family does this.  After having dinner at Jose Pepper’s – my all time favorite Mexican restaurant - I jumped in my car to drive the 15 remaining miles to my hotel, and I saw the light come on that you see above.  (Yes, my car is dusty, get over it.)  I have no clue what the problem is, but my engine is making strange sounds.  As I’m leaving it here for two weeks my father is coming down to look at it and possibly haul it back home.  How I will get home from KC will be decided later.

It just seems that I can’t go anywhere without some sort of problem cropping up.  During the drive here I came up on a major car accident about 2 or so minutes after it happened; I had to avoid idiotic drivers all day; No one seems to know how to pass.

… Can I just stay in my bedroom?

Sometimes there are roadsigns that you simply won’t find in many places around the country.

During a rare leisure trip this weekend, I finally decided to take a picture of a sign I see quite often around here that I doubt you’ll find in all that many locations.

In case you’re wondering, that’s an Amish buggy. And within a few miles of this sign I passed three Amish families out in their buggies.

For the past week I’ve been in Irvine, CA on business. I’ve had no issues tooling around in my rental car, getting to work, my hotel, the nearby shopping center and so on. I was actually getting fairly impressed with myself when I found my way to the gym I have a guest pass at after having only been there once.

On Friday afternoon I made my first foray deeper into the heart of the city (for reasons I shall discuss further in another post), and while it was somewhat crazy, it wasn’t horrible.

Then came this morning. A good friend of mine was going to have a booth at a comic book show down at the L.A. Convention Center, about a 40 mile drive from me. I haven’t seen him in person since Aug. 2004, so I decided it was worth the jaunt.

… whomever designed the L.A. freeway system should be taken out and summarily executed.

I have driven in a lot of places, and never have I seen a situation like this.  Lets say you have 6 lanes wide, going from left to right:

• lanes 1 & 2 become a different highway than you started on
• lanes 3, 4 and 5 are the highway you want
• lane 6 is the exit lane

Making sense so far?  Lets fast forward two miles:

• lanes 1 & 2 becomes your highway
• lanes 3 & 4 become another highway
• lanes 5 & 6 are another highway

One more mile:

• lanes 1 & 2 become another highway
• lanes 3 & 4 are now your highway
• lane 5 is another highway joining you
• lane 6 is an exit lane

See what happened to your highway?  You had to change lanes three times to stay on what is your highway although you never left the paved area you were on to begin with.  So you end up changing lanes repeatedly which just sucks as L.A. drivers aren’t the friendliest at letting you in.  Perhaps it’s better when you live here and you can anticipate the switches, but when you’re waiting for a GPS to fill you in, its less than fun.

Yes, yes, I know a million people have picked on the L.A. freeway system, but good grief this has to be one of the seven layers of hell.

While Driving to Kansas City today I decided to stop by the Walt Disney Hometown Museum in Marceline, MO. I’ve driven past this town a thousand times, but I’ve always been in too big of a hurry to stop in and take a look. Well, today I decided to build in some time into my schedule to stop by, And it was well worth it.

While the museum itself is interesting, and well worth the $5 admittance fee, what really grabbed me even more was a stop by Walt Disney’s Dreaming Tree.  (Click any of the mages for a larger view)

I had heard about this tree over the years here and there, but I didn’t realize it was still standing.  This was the tree that Walt would sit under with his younger sister while he would draw as a boy, and even after leaving the town early on in life, he would always stop by the tree on his subsequent visits over the years.  Sadly it was struck by lightning a few years ago and it on its way to totally dying off.  While the land is no longer owned by the Disney family, the owners of the property are gracious enough to allow people to come on to their property for free and see it and the barn that inspired Walt as well.

I’ve always been fascinated with what inspires people such as Walt Disney, and it almost always ends up being something simple such as a tree. Imagine you’re a kid in the early 1900′s, living on a farm that isn’t doing that well financially and you are charged with entertaining your younger sister. You don’t have the distractions of today, and all you have is your imagination. Of course it is going to inspire ou to think of things on your own, and we all know where they got Mr. Disney in this world.

As I mentioned, the tree is dying, but luckily the Disney family is in possession of saplings from the tree as there had been ones planted at both Disneyland and Disney World. When they heard that the tree was dying, they offered to plant one of the saplings near the spot so that there could still be something there to inspire others.

And it was only fitting that a part of the parks came along with it.

While it is doubtful that Son of Dreaming Tree will ever inspire anyone as much as the original did, it seems very fitting that its legacy shall live on in the same spot. Could it possibly spawn another Walt Disney? Doubtful, but wouldn’t it be a shame if there wasn’t a tree there just in case?

If you ever find yourself near Marceline, take the time to check out the museum, but definitely take a moment to visit the farm.

Last year I wrote about how expensive it was getting in shape, but I was probably in the best shape of my life.

… and then everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

After recovering from a muscle injury while weight lifting, the gym I belonged to ended up having every single treadmill die for various reasons.  This lead to a ton of issues with getting in my cardio, but I kept trying.

Then January rolled in, and work became a rocketsled ride that started making it difficult to get to the gym. Come May, an Anytime Fitness opened in town, and after checking it out I switched gyms.

Now, mind you, I said I switched in May, and in June my town was rocked by a “straight line wind.”  It blew out the front windows of my new gym and water damaged all of the cardio equipment: Bikes, treadmills, elliptical machines and everything else.  It took over two months for them to get them replaced, and I lost even more time to a proper workout.

Treadmills came in, all seemed good … and then I got really sick and missed three weeks at the gym.

In short, I’ve put back on some of the weight I fought so hard to take off because all I do at work is sit, and then I had no access to the gym equipment I needed.  Essentially I am having to start all over, and I have no clue why it feels like it’s harder than it was the first time.  I think it’s a combination of the anger at everything that went wrong that was outside of my control (no, I couldn’t walk outside, remember I have really bad allergies, hence why I pay for gyms).

So, here I am again, starting all over.  I still weigh far less than I did when I started the first time, but the weight that I’ve put back on makes me less than happy, but here’s hoping it’ll be easier to take off than the first time.

People that don’t take any responsibility when they’re sick drive me insane.

I go to great lengths to keep myself from getting sick.  I am a copious hand washer, I will change aisles in a grocery store if I don’t like someone’s cough and I try my best just to stay healthy.  As someone who spent an insane amount of his childhood being sickly, I despise getting sick.

Well, I made it nearly two-and-a-half years since the last time.

Some inconsiderate person just couldn’t resist attending an anime convention my folks were working last weekend, and said person decided to cough on my mother, who in turn gave it to my father and I.

You know, I know how much it sucks to get sick just before something you were anxious to go do.  It’s disappointing, you debate if you should go ahead and do it, and most logical people decide that they won’t.  All it takes, however, is that one inconsiderate person to ruin the next week or so for several people.  Thanks so much.

You know what kills me, at least in the case of when this happens at anime conventions, is that these are people obsessed with Japanese society.  Have they not caught on to the trend that people in Japan wear face masks when they go out in public while sick?  It’s called being considerate, you might want to try it sometime.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I shall resume coughing up what feels like a lung and cursing the person who brought this into my life.

It’s hard to imagine that it has been a decade since that fateful day, but here we are … ten years gone, and no closer to healing.

We’re waiting for the Freedom Tower to be completed, but will even that be able to fill the hole left in our hearts on that Tuesday morning?  No, it won’t.

While the new tower will be a defiant move, nothing can ever replace all of the people we lost that day, the sense of innocence and being untouchable.  We didn’t just lose lives and buildings that day, the United States was irrevocably changed and no endless streams of speeches and new towers will replace that.

A lot of things ended on September 11th, 2001, and one of them was our sense of security or our place in the world.  We no longer had the illusion of being safe and untouchable here; the enemies of this country can get you anywhere and anytime they want.

While I don’t condone in living in fear, or letting our government just take more and more of our freedoms, but I do fully stand behind the idea that you need to always be vigilant and observant, but then I was that way long before that day.

Today, more than any day, just hug your loved ones and think back to the days when those two towers still stood.

It had to happen eventually, and it has … I turned 40-years-old today.

Despite my disdain for the concept of hitting this age, many people brightened my day with well wishes via Tweets, Facebook posts, a few IMs and a couple of phone calls.  (Be thankful you never pick up the phone to be greeted by TechnoBuffalo Editor-at-Large Noah Kravitz serenading you with a birthday song he is making up on the spot …)  All of the thoughts and well wishes were bright spots to my day, and I thank you all.

However, leave it to the Diabolical Miss M to be the one to get to the guts of things when she called me to wish me a happy birthday, and later ask me, “How does it feel?” in that dead-serious, “I’m not kidding this time” tone of hers.  How does it feel to turn 40?  How do you think it feels?  It feels like you’ve officially passed the mid-point of your life and you know you’re living with a ticking clock somewhere counting down your final minutes.

Many people have tried to tell me how wonderful your 40′s can be: You’re still energetic enough to get things done, you’ve got the BS out of your way and you can still make the world yours.  As I see it, in your 20′s, you know you’re having fun, but also learning your lessons.  In your 30′s your wise enough to not make the same silly mistakes any more.  In your 50′s you are now old enough for people to think of you as wise.  In your 60′s you cross over into that land of being the distinguished & wizened old owl that’s still worth listening to.  Your 40′s?  You’re counting down the clock to your 50′s and trying to figure out what you’ve done that even remotely matters, and do you still have time to change it.

The 40′s, as I see it with me experience that amounts to less than a day, could be the most perplexing decade yet.  I have no delusions that over half my life is gone, and now I’m looking at things sliding downhill from here.  Don’t get me wrong, I am hopeful this is just the birthday talking and my 40′s turn out to be spectacular, but for now, “How does it feel?”  Not so hot.

Of course, I wasn’t too thrilled about turning 30 either, so, eh, who knows.