Things I noticed about 2012

Me and the older two kids were hanging out with my exhusband this weekend. While sitting around having some good dysfunctional family fun, we came across 2012. The kids and I had seen it but the exhub hadn't so we decided to rewatch it since it was an amusing flick and really, who doesn't enjoy some good John Cusack family time?

The first time I watched it, I was busy being enraptured by a. John... Helllooooo! and b. the graphics fest that a good apocalyptic flick entails.

This time around, I was able to look at it more objectivly and see some things that amused me enough to not just gaze gratuitiously at my long time love, John.

Firstly- We really are in a period of solar activity leading into 2012. As a matter of fact, we just had an X class flare on Valentine's Day of this year (now fondly named the Valentine's Day Flare of 2011 in the astronomy/aerospace community... because nicknaming solar eruptions is just fun) which sent aurora as far south as Ireland on 2-18-2011. So this wasn't made up just for the plot. We knew the solar storm was coming and we honestly don't know what to expect from it. With earth in the crosshairs of the newest sunstorm/sunspots, we expect things like electronic disruption and possibly satellite issues. Stretching that to heating the earths core... not nearly that far fetched.

Secondly- The poles really are shifting. Actually, they have moved 45miles already and the north pole, which many of us think of being on top of the world... you know... Santa's house? It's actually now located in Northern Canada. This is great if you are Santa and you always did want to retire to a nice Southern home. What effects does this shifting of the poles have on us? Well, it is messing with GPS. Other than that? We don't know... Dum Dum Daaaahhmmm...

Thirdly- Earth Crust Displacement Theory is introduced as the cause for the biggest and most catacalsmic events in the film. There actually IS an Earth Crust Displacement Theory. Presented in 1958 and it was presented by Charles H. Hapgood. Hapgood was not a geologist but a history teacher who came across his idea because old maps suggested a land mass that we no longer have. Hapgood theorized that the mass was Antartica, pre ice cap, and that it had moved to it's present location during the last ice age. Einstein supported this theory, stating in a forward to Hapgood's book that, "In a polar region there is continual deposition of ice, which is not symmetrically distributed about the pole. The earth’s rotation acts on these unsymmetrically deposited masses, and produces centrifugal momentum that is transmitted to the rigid crust of the earth. The constantly increasing centrifugal momentum produced in this way will, when it has reached a certain point, produce a movement of the earth’s crust over the rest of the earth’s body... "

Although most of the actual theory that Hapgood presented can be disproved by modern geology (The mantle doesn't harden... This doesn't explain things like Yellowstone and the ring of fire... etc) we have never come up with a replacement paradigm to explain the questions that he presented when coming up with crust displacement...
So does the crust move and does that explain the rivers on Antartica...
Or is it pole shift or a change in the tilt of Earth on it's axis??

Which brings us back to polar shifting...
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/29dec_magneticfield.html
Has a great article on this actual scientific theory. In the article, it doesn't sound scary at all... but what effect will a changing magnetic poles have geologically? What will it do to, say the ring of fire, an already unstable geologic mess? And why the sudden increase in high magnitude earthquakes and volcanic activity? And Yellowstone...

Fourth-
There really is a caldera under Yellowstone and it has been veeeeery active lately. Parts of the park have risen as much as ten feet in recent events and earthquake hotspots have popped up around the park. These little cluster storms of quakes and rising is explained away prettily by geologists as the natural cycle of a caldera but since we don't know what the natural cycle is... Are they lying to us to keep the country calm?

Fifth- The government would never lie to us just to stop chaos and a martial law state!!
Okay. I am giggling just writing that. The government (and perhaps this is my paranoid side speaking) will tell us what we need to know/what they feel they have to tell us and if there was an event of catacalysmic proportion...
Yeah. Good luck with that.

So the point of that rant? I love the way the writer of that story took scientific fact and twined it somewhat dramatically with scientific possibility and paranoia and came up with a somewhat viable and visually stunning piece.

Do I think that the world is due to end with the Mayan Calander and save me from Christmas shopping next year?

No.

Do I think that there are things out there that we don't understand and that the government does that they are hiding from us that would freak us out...

Yeah. I really do.

Do I think John Cusack is simply hot simply all the time...

Well, I will let you come up with your own theory there.

Sneak Peek Sunday

Sneak Peek WIP for Super Sunday

Running as fast as my legs could find purchase on the gleaming white sand; I struggled against the impulse to glance over my shoulder to see if anyone was following me. I had to find Bette and I had to find her fast. We had to get off this island, quick.

As I came around a bend of the beach, I saw that the previously well raked sand here was now riddled with the footprints of the hundreds of beach goers who had swarmed this tropical paradise for spring break. White beach chairs and colorful umbrellas dotted the landscape like the rainbow points to an exclamation mark of fun that seemed far removed from what I was dealing with. And there— lying like a gleaming goddess cooking in the bright sun— lay my best friend and the object of my search. Calling on a second or what felt like fifth wind to give me a last burst of speed to get to her, I sprinted to a skidding halt by her lounge chair.

Yeah... I didn't give you any piracy. Sorry... Maybe more later...
Off to enrich my kids minds by dragging them through some museums...

So you think you are ready...

Some of you may have read the posting about having a child. It lists things you should do before deciding... But all of them were for the preschool set.

As my darling children are all in the school ages now, one a full fledged teen and one almost a teen, I figured that people who make it through those lessons might (like most of us who make it through the preschool years) think they are prepared. They may have the assumption that now that they have nailed working and coping with parental demands on zero sleep, that life will be simpler now that the child at least allows you to sleep.

I present these lessons before attempting parenting in your home...

Step One:

Drive to the nearest elementary school. Head straight to the office. Sit in an uncomfortable chair and think of all the reasons that you may have been called to the school. Make sure none of the things you are thinking of are good and the more outrageous the better (bet you never thought you would get called to school because your child clucked like a chicken? Was caught chewing toilet paper? Didn't get in a fight but could have? I have been called for all these reasons. Be creative.) Now hand your paycheck to the office. Advise them that you will be back with the contents of the nearest Office Max. The school will nod and smile. They are used to it. Then ask them to make you feel like you are the worst parent ever and how dare you have thought you were doing a good job parenting. Once you have been thoroughly chastised, get in your car.

Step Two:

Go home and talk to a wall. When the wall doesn't a. clean a room b. answer you about grades c. have an explanation as to why it thought it was a good idea to convince the baby that gummy worms and real worms are the same thing... continue to try to convince the wall to accomplish/answer a. b. and c.

You have now had a conversation with a child.

Step Three:

Get back in your car. Drive in large circles. Pause at museums, schools and random houses. Get more gas while blasting a tape that repeats, "Are we there yet? He is breathing on me again. I'm hungry."

That's all. Just do that. Every spare moment you have.

Step Four:

Go back to the wall. Give it three random directions. (Example: Take off your shoes. Put them by the door. Hang up your coat when you are done.)

Then ask the wall why it only finished one of the directions.

Repeat.

Step Five:

Tape a high pitched shriek that shatters your ear drums and makes your eye twitch. Then go back to the wall. Talk to it. Every time the wall would be expected to reply, play the shriek. To really do this exercise well, you must never raise your voice or lose your patience. Continue to talk to the wall. Do this for an hour. You have now discussed something with a teenage girl.

Step Six:

Assume you are wrong. About everything. All the time. Because between the children, other parents that don't seem to be frayed around the edges and the aforementioned school... You will realize that you are wrong. Always.

Luckily, your kids have an answer for everything. Everything. And they will tell you. At length. Usually when they should be sleeping.

Step Seven:

Once, every so often, fill a bucket with a mixture of rotten potatoes, spoiled milk and kool-aid. Set your alarm for 2:30am. Wake up. Pitch the bucket at your couch or the carpet or even better dump it on you and your bed. If you want realism, have someone else wake you by dumping the bucket, preferably after warming it, on you while you sleep. Wake up. Notice that the smell hits you first. Instead of shrieking in panic and disgust at the mess, grab a pillow covered in vomit. Cuddle it and clean it gently while murmuring soothing things. Then give it a bucket and clean up the rest of the mess. For more realism, have a back-up bucket and have someone dump it when you are almost done cleaning up the first.

You have now experienced projectile vomit. And no... they rarely ever make it to the bathroom.

If you can do all of these steps, continue to smile and never yell at the wall or stinky pillow, you are ready to love an older child.

This is tongue in cheek fun, people. Kids are totally worth it. You will never laugh so hard or be so willing to conquer anything as you are when you are a parent. Kids make you brave. Kids make you learn what love is.

But there is still the projectile vomit...

Hope you enjoyed!

Virg

(Oh and the picture is me as a child... At which point I was far worse than any of the examples listed above. :) )