Picture Perfect

There was just something about the plume of steam rising up from the smokestack of this freighter that caught my attention. I see freighters traveling through the Round Island Passage all the time, but I'll never get tired of this view.

I'm Going to Sleep Well Tonight

Between walking to and from work, and spending the day cleaning a four story home on the island, I climbed sixty-six floors today and walked a little over 10 miles. I don't expect any issues falling asleep tonight! 

Waiting for Spring

Today is May 13th, and Mackinac Island still has snow. It's not everywhere - mostly in shaded spots in the woods, but it's still there. 

It really hasn't felt like spring much up here; it's been cold! I have yet to wear capris, let alone shorts. And none of my flowers have bloomed yet. You read that right - I don't even have tulips yet!

Today's the Day

Yep, today is the day I need to turn the heat on in my classroom. 65 degrees Fahrenheit is a bit chilly, even for me.

For the record, I did not come into school at 4:16 am today. I get here early, but not that early! The clock is just wrong...

Look No Further

Where's Waldo?

Why, he's on Mackinac Island of course.

I have absolutely no idea who this young man really is, but he was super sweet when I asked to take his picture. I'm choosing to believe that I really did meet the one and only Waldo. 

Happy

I walk over this valve cover every time I go up Grand Hill. Today I realized he's a little pervert who likes looking up ladies' skirts. Good thing I'm more of a shorts kind of girl.

Illegal?

As my husband pulled this bill out of his wallet recently, he noticed the "In SCIENCE we trust" stamp and showed it to me. I always thought it was illegal to deface American money, but he disagreed. Of course, I had to look it up. Title 18, Section 333, of the Unites States Code states: "It is unlawful to mutilate, cut, deface, disfigure, perforate, or otherwise damage drafts, notes, or other evidence of debt that has been issued by a national banking association with the intent to render the bill, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued." 

So, as long as the intent isn't to make the bills unusable, stamping messages on U.S. money is perfectly legal. Looking at the list of no-nos (mutilate, cut, deface, disfigure, perforate, and otherwise damage) it makes me wonder - just how much disfigurement would it take to make a bill no longer fit to be reused? Not that I'm going to try, however. If a person is found guilty of this crime, the punishment is a fine and up to six month in jail, though proving you had intent might be tricky.

Things Could be Worse

I completely agree - trying on swimsuits in a Goodwill that doesn't have changing rooms would be worse than, well, many many things. 

But finding this mug, with two of my 30+ year besties, was an absolute hoot. (We were laughing so hard, people were staring.)

You know what was even better? The one holding the mug took it home! (Yes, she paid for it.) Now we get to laugh all over again every time were having our morning coffee at her cottage.

Derpy?

Here's another critter we found hanging out around Mann Lake (near Sheridan, MI.) There's just something about that little snakey face, isn't there? "Derpy" was the word my daughter used to describe it, which I had to look up. I found several different meanings ranging between foolish or weird to lovingly stupid. And looking at that face, I can see how the word fits. Guess I'm going to have to add derpy to my slang vocabulary, though with my luck it's not "in" anymore.

Um...

While I was waiting for my friend to purchase some fishing supplies the other day, I noticed this little gem for sale. I'm sure it serves an incredibly important fishing purpose, but it didn't get any better when I read the packaging...

Finally

One of my student's parents started a painting company, so we hired him to paint and stain our front porch this summer. (Trust me; it needed it!) It's finally finished, so tomorrow Allen and I can return to our favorite spot for morning coffee. It looks amazing - definitely worth the wait! 

Under Appreciated

Hawkweed can be found all over Mackinac Island. 

Most of the year people barely notice it,

but for a couple of weeks in early July, it's hard to miss.

It lines many of Mackinac's interior roads, and really is

quite pretty when it's in bloom.

I've never noticed a scent from hawkweed and apparently it's not native to North America, but it certainly brightens my walks to and from work each day.

Invasion

I am the proud owner of a tribble. Eric the Tribble spends his days lounging on a bookshelf enjoying listening to NPR and watching Star Trek (of course.) He actually prefers Star Trek Voyager, if you're wondering; he happens to be a big Janeway fan.

I thought all was well, but recently I started noticing little tribbles.

Little tribbles in the entryway,

tribbles on the credenza,

and even more tribbles on the bookshelf.

 They were everywhere. 

Which, if you know anything about tribbles,

makes perfect sense.

Thank you, Allen Burt. This really put a smile on my face!

I Wonder...

Just how much sugar does it take to make a pound of Mackinac Island fudge? (There's 500 pounds (about 225 kg) of it in that picture, and they get deliveries twice a week.)

Creepy

My son raided my sewing room the other day to create...

whatever this is. I know it has something to do with the Dungeons & Dragons game he is playing with his friends, though a tiny part of me still hopes it isn't a Voodoo doll of me.

Nerdy Ponderings

If you've been here for a while, you are probably well aware that I am a complete and total nerd. While I was waiting for the boat the other day, I noticed the new decor in the waiting room.

Two very nice photographs of old Arnold Transit schedules are now hanging on the wall; one including a price. The 1972 schedule doesn't have a price, but the other schedule does - $1.50 for a round trip under the bridge. Then the current price flashed up on the screen - $44.00 for an adult. 

It got me wondering... How does that price increase compare to inflation?

To do that I had to make an assumption as to the year of that schedule. To give Arnold Transit the benefit of the doubt, I assumed it was pre 1972, so I guessed 1970 (a nice round number.) According to this inflation calculator, $1.50 in 1970 would be worth about $12.50 in 2024. So, if the price had gone up the same percentage as inflation, the ticket price should be about $12.50, but instead it costs $44.00. That means the price of a ferry ticket has increased about three and a half times the rate of inflation. Or, to put it another way the price of a ferry ticket has changed 2,833%. (You read that right - two thousand, eight hundred thirty-three precent.) I used the percent of change formula to calculate that, in case you're wondering.

My next question was - why? What could account for an almost 3,000% increase?

Gas prices? Wages? Well...

According to Google's AI, diesel fuel cost $0.36 per gallon in 1970. Today, that same gallon of diesel runs about $3.50 a gallon -  an 872% change in price.

Also according to Google's AI, the minimum wage in Michigan was $1.45 in 1970. It was $10.33 in January of 2024 - a 612% change in price.

Now I need more data!

Please don't get me wrong - I in no way am putting down Arnold Line or suggesting inappropriate pricing practices. I really do appreciate them and their employees! I'm just a nerd who got to thinking, and that can be a dangerous thing. 

Hard Days

I've had some hard days lately. Someone I care very much about is going through some things that, quite frankly, I can't help them with. Other than letting them know how much I care and that I'm here for them, there is not a darn thing I can do, and it's killing me. I'm a take action and solve the problem kind of person, and right now I can't do squat and I hate it. And I know if my days have been hard, their days have been much, much harder.

Then there's the worry. Some days I am physically ill with worry for this person. I tend to be on the anxious side to begin with, so throw in some actual serious concern and my anxiety goes through the roof. 

Logically I know they have to deal with this and it's their issue, but it's still hard not to be able to help. And I'm told that when I get anxious, I come across as angry. Which I'm not. I don't mean to seem angry. I just wish I could help.... I know. I'm sorry.... This is a long rant with very little context, but putting it in print is helping me deal with it.

Perhaps this person might see this and come to realize I am not upset with them, but rather I am upset about their situation and just wish there was some way I could be of help.

Today's Nerdom

I love Star Trek; like love Star Trek; to the point of being slightly annoying to my family. Knowing that you'll understand why I geeked earlier this week. 

In January of 1995, there was a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode where several characters go back in time to San Francisco on August 30, 2024. So, being the gigantic Trek nerd that I am, I had to watch that episode on August 30, 2024. I mean, how could I not do that???

I've seen the episodes (it's actually a two-part episode)  many times before, but something about watching it today was pretty cool. Then I found this article from the San Francisco Chronicle. (I copied the article and posted it on my blog because it won't always be available on their website.) So incredibly interesting. It may be a 100% nerdy thing to think, but I really do hope humanity can someday build the future Gene Roddenberry dreamed of...

Uncanny Accuracy

This 1995 ‘Star Trek’ episode predicted a 2024 San Francisco crisis with uncanny accuracy

By Peter Hartlaub,Culture CriticAug 28, 2024Originally published at:https://www.sfchronicle.com/totalsf/article/star-trek-predicted-sf-2024-crisis-19722416.php?

In a “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” episode called “Past Tense,” commanding officer Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and chief medical officer Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) are detained by authorities in 2024 San Francisco. Paramount Domestic Television

The date is Aug. 30, 2024, in San Francisco, and city leaders have decided it’s time to show tough love.

Unhoused residents are forced into shelters, setting up “Sanctuary Districts” where they’re told they can find a room and apply for jobs. The city’s wealthiest citizens are driving political decisions, supporting police sweeps that clear tents from city streets. And with fewer visible homeless, officials declare the mission accomplished.

What sounds like rhetoric from a recent mayoral debate, or one of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s euphemism-filled plans to tackle poverty, is actually a 29-year-old dystopian plot from “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” In early 1995 the series released a two-part episode called “Past Tense,” predicting what San Francisco would look like … this coming weekend. 

They got it eerily, and alarmingly, correct.

“Star Trek” since its inception in 1966 has used time travel to aid its social commentary, whether it’s Captain Kirk and Spock visiting Depression-era New York City to explore the moral dilemmas of love and duty, or a jaunt to 1986 to save two Bay Area whales and spread a message about environmentalism (while showing punks the right and wrong way to act on a Muni bus).

“Past Tense” was written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Ira Steven Behr, operating with a micro budget compared to modern “Trek.” Both parts of the episode were filmed entirely in Hollywood, with a studio back lot built to resemble New York standing in for S.F. But the ideas age incredibly well, as if Wolfe and Behr had time travel powers of their own. 

“Past Tense” begins on space station Deep Space Nine about 350 years from now. Earth is part of the United Federation of Planets, which has built a post-currency society, wiping out poverty and most illness and crime.

A transporter accident — the form of “Star Trek” time travel least expensive to film — sends three crew members back to San Francisco on Aug. 30, 2024. 

Commanding officer Benjamin Sisko and chief medical officer Julian Bashir, played by actors of color (Avery Brooks and Alexander Siddig), are discovered by police, labeled as destitute “dims” and sent to a walled in Sanctuary District. Science officer Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), a space alien who appears as a white woman, is found by a tech entrepreneur who takes her to his high-rise.

In a “Deep Space Nine” episode called “Past Tense,” science officer Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) sits on a 

subway station stairway with tech entrepreneur Chris Brynner (Jim Metzler).

Paramount Domestic Television
San Francisco geographical references are sparse. Sisko declares, “I caught a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge a few blocks back.” Dax enters aBART-like station called “TransFrancisco” thatadvertises a Transbay Tube. 

But the themes are oddly prescient, strongly reflecting the city’s challenges in 2024. Sisko, a student of 21st century history, provides exposition to Bashir, who is increasingly frustrated by the lack of adequate mental health resources and medical care in the Sanctuary District.

Bashir: Why are these people in here? Are they criminals?

Sisko: (They’re) just people without jobs or places to live.

Bashir: So they get put in here?

Sisko: Welcome to the 21st century, Doctor.

There are wild parallels to 2024 and the past decade throughout. 

The forced relocation of unhoused residents in “Past Tense” mirrors the homeless sweeps ahead of the 2016 Super Bowl and 2023 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The containment zones evoke the state of the Tenderloin District during and immediately after the pandemic shutdown.

And the episode’s dialogue echoes many San Francisco politicians of the past 30 years, advocating for more police, working to make unsightly problems less visible to wealthy residents, and then declaring the tenuous results a political victory. 

(In the episode, a police officer references “Buck Bokai,” an Asian professional baseball player who is setting records. Did Wolfe and Behr predict Shohei Ohtani?)

On the ground in past/present San Francisco, Sisko and Bashir quickly discover they’re one day away from the Bell Riots, “one of the watershed events of the 21st century,” where hundreds of innocent Sanctuary District citizens are slaughtered by authorities, exposing the system’s flaws and hypocrisy.

As the plot thickens, the writers’ predictive abilities show their limitations. Computers are chunky and require a stylus to operate. Dax’s wealthy benefactor is too nice and emotionally stable for an Elon Musk comparison. And perhaps most strangely, the poor people who make up the armed resistance wear fedoras, like out-of-work men in a 1920s soup kitchen. 

But as the story strays into bombast and overacting, it still gets many subtleties right.

Bashir rages when he sees an unhoused citizen having a mental health breakdown, pointing out that effective treatments for schizophrenia exist in a fictional 2024. (“They could cure that man now, today, if they gave a damn.”) Wealthy partygoers in “Past Tense” express self-satisfaction that the poor are being cared for compassionately. In reality, they’re not getting anything close to the housing or services they’ve been promised.

Wolfe in a 2020 interview with Vox suggested the episodes weren’t predictive, but reflective of scenes that existed in 1995. Indeed, housing struggles and wealth disparity were issues in San Francisco 30 years ago; it didn’t take supernatural foresight to assume things might get worse. 

“Past Tense” tries clumsily for moments of lightness and comedy. Some woefully stereotypical 1960s hippies are the worst addition. But the screenwriters manage to land the spaceship in the closing moments.

Society’s apathy toward human suffering leads to armed conflict, misunderstandings and hundreds dead. One of the last things Sisko, Bashir and Dax see before transporting back to their present is a San Francisco street strewn with bodies, as Bashir questions how citizens could let things get so bad. 

“Eventually,” Sisko says, “people in this century will remember how to care."

Happy Birthday Quilted Turtle

Today is The Quilted Turtle's sweet sixteen! It doesn't seem like I've been blogging that long, but my very first post was on February 10, 2008. (And yes, I still have that table runner.) During those 16 years I've written 1,276 posts about just about everything, but mostly Mackinac Island life.

By far my most popular post is Homemade Superhero, in which I shared the pattern I created to make my daughter a cape for Superhero-Princess Day at school. Someone saved it on Pinterest and its now been downloaded thousands of times. 

I've received the most questions regarding my post about my daughter's Captain Underpants costume. I still get emails with questions asking for a more in depth explanation about how I created it.

Most of my posts don't attract much attention, but it makes me happy to journal about my life, so I'll continue. I've actually started getting my blog printed in yearly editions. Just in case Google ever decides to discontinue Blogger, I'll still have a copy. I hope, when my kids are older, they will enjoy leafing though the pages, and remembering long forgotten snippets of their days on Mackinac.