Newsletter -- Drone Guy

HEADLINING TODAY'S NEWSLETTER, MY SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH FOR A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF WEATHER PHENOMENA. THEY GO TOGETHER LIKE SUGAR AND SPICE, AND THEY'RE AN ALL-TIME FAVORITE OF EVERYONE HERE, THUNDER AND LIGHTNING. BUT WHAT IS THE TRUE LINK BETWEEN THEM?

Being up to date on the latest in everything, I've been out front of everyone else in using drones. They're a lot of fun, in such activities as dropping into people's backyards and taking personal videos of nude people on trampolines, as well as more traditional scientific exploration. I was recently involved in proving once and for all that bears don't spawn, but mate in the normal way on dry land. Flowers, chocolates, the whole bit.

Recently I tackled a scientific question that's vexed me since childhood. I would always ask questions as a child, and sometimes adults were up front with an answer and sometimes they weren't. They filled my head with strange answers about tooth fairies, Christmas elves, and delivery storks. Little did I know everything could be proven one day, simply by having a drone. One of the answers they had for me -- speaking of my grandparents here -- was that thunder was simply potatoes rolling down the cellar stairs. I accepted that, as absurd as it sounds.

Now that I have a drone, I've been thinking, one of these days, when it storms, I ought to get the little guy revved up and put this question to rest, once and for all. It's definitely noisy up there in the sky; obviously something is clunking around up there and with some real force, if I can hear it all the way inside my house. Why should we allow such things to perplex us?

Up to now, I believe I know why no one's given it a go, the high price of drones; no one wants to lose a drone that can be somewhere around $300. And it would almost certainly be threatened. How would you guide the thing up there as it's being battered about, and manage to return it to earth without smashing it to smithereens. On the bright side, when exploring thunder we do have the advantage of being able to see our drone, as it seems that lightning's usually around about the same time.

Well, the day came and I was in the field, a modern day Ben Franklin. Yes, lightning was everywhere, and thunder, not to be outdone, roared all around me just seconds after each bolt. I circled my drone above, for the longest time unable to narrow down my target, the core of the noise. As the lightning came closer, then came so close it was singeing the grass just scant inches from my feet, I discerned that thunder's core was just overhead.

I looked straight up and guided the drone closer, ever closer, to thunder's nucleus. The lightning threatened me, as if to register a complaint, "Who's the star of this show anyway?" But I put off all such questions, being stolid in my determination not to be sidetracked. I shook my fist, as if to proclaim, "I'm the boss here!"

Incredibly, my drone was responsive to my every wish, miraculously dodging lightning's fury, with a single-minded mission that it would find the heart of thunder or be damned. You see that kind of resolution -- the sheer grit and guts -- it takes your breath away. I thought, "What a flight! Lightning bolts everywhere, flashing brightness in a fierce display, but gaining nothing to its own advantage! All the flashes could do was encourage me: O say, I can see that my drone is still there!

Looking back on it now, I know I escaped with my life only by the skin of my teeth. And my drone as well, being worth a little over $300 and deserving every penny. From now on I'll be doing everything by drone, whether it's ordering my Thanksgiving turkey or checking the shingles on the house for wear. The damned thing proved itself, and how!

Working it, I furiously clicked pictures and changed its programming on the fly to get a few videos, all at a lightning pace, so to speak, with my hands aching like hell from manipulating the joystick, buttons, gears, and levers.

Back later at base camp, with the storm passed, I checked the results and studied the various pictures I got of thunder, and, indeed -- God bless my grandparents -- thunder truly is, but on an unimaginably massive scale, huge potatoes rolling down the cellar stairs, the enormous stairs of the heavenly realms above. Eternal life comes with a side of fries.

SUBSCRIPTIONS -- Subscriptions for the newsletter have been temporarily suspended before they could even begin, as I need to resolve various complaints I got yesterday. There's some controversy about my system of unsubscribing with the displayed coupon. I said you could unsubscribe by sending in the coupon, but only if you sent in the original as duplicates won't be accepted. The question came up, "Does printing the coupon constitute a duplicate? In terms of the coupon being on my monitor, is that considered the original? How would I fill it out and get it to you?" I see the point but I haven't yet worked through the dilemma. Yes, it does seem that printing the coupon would be the only way to do it, but I said duplicates won't be accepted. So at this point I'm as stymied as anyone. Here's where I'm stuck: I refuse to change my mind, but I'm not sure what the rule means in practical terms.

A Torrential Hiatus

It's been another period of strange, terrible weather, much like that torrential outpouring with lightning and other assorted phenomena a few weeks ago that struck houses in my neighborhood.

When we get such awesome, terrifying, extreme weather, it comes with its inconveniences of course, but for the most part I like it. It depends on what it is. Even I hate the extremes when it comes to the possibility of freezing to death or losing limbs from frostbite or being sucked up into a screaming vortex of wind, rain, and the debris from people's houses.

But, you know, you have to look at it philosophically, you need to take the bad with the good. Plus, if a few people are sucked up now and then, it points out even more clearly the benevolent side of life for the rest of us when it's nice. My advice to those folks is, Quit being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's better to have the sense that where you are is where you're meant to be. Then you can have a certain calm assurance no matter what the day may bring. That's the way I faced this most recent bout of weather, with a kind of glib cockiness that it would not affect me in any personal way. And I guess it's not too much to say what all this encompasses, that this shield of safety, this penumbra of protection, this guarantee of good extends all the way down to my garbage cans. It's my full expectation that even they won't blow over. And I just looked outside and they're still standing there!

Every time the good comes my way, I take it as vindication for whatever choice I've made theretofore. Now, with my hiatus being such a big deal to so many people, of course I've had moments of self doubt, second guessing, reservation, and qualms. But then something comes along -- like all those houses being destroyed and yet my own garbage cans being unaffected -- and I know that all is well, that the hiatus was destined, is blessed, and shall forever be affirmed.

What If I Took A Hiatus And No One Cared?

I suppose that would be the ultimate feeling of liberation. That I work my way back from notorious fame to blessed obscurity. So that I'm able to step out on a morning and fling a dead mouse to the road without paparazzi and hangers-on worrying whether it was a 10 or just a nine.

There aren't really any paparazzi of course. Just a little joke on my part. I guess that means something, that through it all, in everything I've suffered through here I'm able to laugh again. A chuckle anyway. Who knows? Maybe I'll get everything back and will be able to chuckle everyday. I can almost see myself. Let's say I get everything back. Then I'm smiling, chuckling, laughing.

Just as I stood in the middle of the half acre in proud, fist-shaking defiance, it could happen that I could stand there and laugh myself silly. Picture it with me, if you will. The rain is streaming down. I'm looking toward the west at the deadly lightning. I'm laughing up a storm. Finally I collapse to my knees, laughing, oblivious to everything around, knowing that nothing means anything. I'm just completely lost in this body shaking, lightning-defying laughter.

I think I've got quite a ways to go to get to that. I've never done it in my life yet, to tell the truth. And I have a hard time seeing why I'd do it now precisely. But there's something of liberation, the sense of being totally cut free in it that sounds appealing on the surface. But then what? See, that's always my hang up. So I'm standing there, collapsed, totally laughing. What? Do I just stay there wallowing in the mud? What happens when the laughter stops? Do I keep fake laughing all night? Do I fall asleep laughing? I'm going to wake up sooner or later with mud caked on my face. Maybe I'll drown first. Or do I stop mid-storm, go inside and get dried off, sit in the chair and read movie magazines? Grandma goes, "What you been doin'?" And I'm all muddy faced, going, "Oh, nothin'." That seems like a let down.

Nothing about it sounds right. But I should wait till something remotely like that happens to worry about it.

I've taken the hiatus, that's a fact. And just like laughing in the rain, I wonder what to do with it next? It's true that people did care for a while, but they're all gone. All I have to that phase of my life are the memories. The blog "followers" -- Judases each one -- all left. They kissed me off faster than a boy with his portly aunt with the small whiskers. All my "friends" are off on a tangent somewhere, I don't know. I hope they get stuck in quicksand. If there are any quagmires like that near where they live. Life would be so much better if quicksand had a mind of its own.