… it just seems like it.

“To our Fans and Friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening.” R.E.M.

I have been a huge fan since the late-80s and got the chance to see R.E.M. in concert in the summer of ’95 (here’s the set list from that show).  Fantastic night, one that I still remember vividly (despite the people a few rows behind us smoking pot).

R.E.M. was one of my ‘Must See’ concerts – the others being Beach Boys (which I have seen) and Tom Petty (which I have not yet).  I believe I have all but their latest album, a situation which shall, of course, be rectified shortly.

Thanks for all the years, guys.

This is a good way to start a day.

The rest of it was spent on a garage roof re-shingling.  I am very tired.

If it’s Labor Day weekend, then it’s time for the Rock Island Grand Prix.  No long post this year (you can check last year’s for more info) but overall it was a fun weekend.  I’m glad it’s over though.  I’m exhausted, tired, and probably going to catch a cold.  The official news story of how the weekend went is available here.  Here’s the highlights from my perspective:

Saturday: Rain.  Big ol’ storm moved in and dumped on us.  We were able to get in morning practice sessions but a little after noon, the skies opened up and we got drenched.  It’s kind of hard to tell in the picture but it’s coming down in sheets.   But the Grand Prix is a Rain Or Shine event, so they kept going.

Racing in the rain is a whole different type of driving and it’s incredible to witness.  The karts were spewing up roster tails ten or twelve feet high, splashing through puddles at 70+ mph.  No one can see more than a few feet because their visors are fogged up or covered in water.  Then you’ve got this idiot corner workers who dart out into the track to recover crashed karts.

Overall though, we had fewer cautions in the rain sessions than when it was dry.  We were only able to get in four qualifying sessions before they had to call the day off.  The rain was so hard that standing water in the corners was causing the Tech Pro Barriers to start floating.  Those are the first line of safety and we just couldn’t have that happen.  Plus the lightning.  That was bad too.

Sunday:  Cool but at least we were dry.

Because qualifying sessions got cancelled on Saturday, they replaced the practice sessions in the morning with qualifying.  This meant the instant people got on a cold, clean track, they were racing for position.  Overall it led to some intense racing and we saw all sorts of action.

Four red flags, a driver being launched over the barriers and breaking his arm, multiple ambulance calls (no serious injuries, all precautionary), several winners being DQ’ed for tech violations, and a scuffle at the end that led to a driver being taken away in handcuffs.  Hint – you can scuffle with drivers after a race, but you go after a spectator and you’re finished.

Over in Corner 4, we were kept pretty busy but managed to keep everyone out of harms way.  Well, except for ourselves …

School is back in session and the sidewalks are filled with college students bouncing from class to class.  And I do mean bouncing.

It appears that the instance class is out, a student is required to text every friend they have.  Even if said friends were just in the class they had attended.  Odd, I know and perhaps I’m showing my age, but I do notice that most students have their heads buried in their phones, tapping away furiously or reading off messages to other friends who are tapping away furiously at their own phones.

While all this is happening, they’re attempting to weave between other students doing the same thing.  Sometimes this works; more often it results in two people suddenly stopping and looking shocked at the other person in front of them.  If this happens during a really busy/crowded time, you have yet another person texting on their phone who runs into the back of the first person.  Then there’s a person behind them that runs into them and another and another and so forth.  Pandemonium ensues and we have to call in the National Guard to clean up the wreckage.

A moment of silence for the victims of the Paideia Pileup of 2010.  *shiver*

Overall though, I have to say this is a tragedy on a couple of levels.

Tragedy One: I help teach a self-defense class over the J-Term semester.  One of our key principles is ‘Awareness’.  If you don’t know what’s going on around you, it doesn’t matter if you have a black belt or you’re packing a .45.  You’re toast.  Granted, you might survive the encounter, but if you’d been paying attention, would there have been an encounter in the first place?  I suppose you could always text your “OMG being attked. Halp!” to your BFF and see what happens.

Tragedy Two: With your head buried in your phone, you’re missing out on a lot.  I mentioned the other day that I was reminded of a scene from The Phantom Tollbooth in which Milo visits the cities of Illusion and Reality.  The short version (long here or buy the book, it’s a classic) is that someone figured out that if you walked as fast as you could and looked at nothing but your shoes, you’d get to your destination faster.  Meanwhile, all the sights around them faded until one day they vanished and there was nothing to see at all.

So I do my best not to bury my head while I’m out on campus and this is what I got to see:

I can only guess that this is what they saw: