How Did They Move The Satellite So Quickly?

Over this past weekend, we watched Captain America (colon the first avenger.) I like the movie quite a bit but it does have this one, tiny little detail which grates on my nerves every time I watch it. It goes like this: When Captain America first gets his shield the scientist specifically mentions that the reason it's so amazing is that it's made of a material (from a meteorite!) that absorbs all vibrations. Ok, sure, whatever. You need to explain it's awesomeness, I can roll with this. Then, seconds later he deflects a few bullets with it and the shield rings from the vibrations. This, more than any serum-injected supersolders in S&M gear shooting blue laser beams during World War II, is a detail that drives me absolutely bonkers because THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS.

Then, over the holiday, we watched The Avengers. While in this one they don't mention the magical vibration absorbing powers of the shield, they do have another scene with it ringing. Since we had seen Captain American (colon the first avenger) so recently, it bothered me again. Like, really bothered me. Like, talk about it on the internet bothered me.

There is actually a phrase for this behavior in the marriage code, and that is "How did they move the satellite so quickly?" This derives from my brother's response when we asked him about one of the more recent bond films (either Goldeneye or Die Another Day.) Despite all of the inherent absurdity of these films (Space lasers! Invisible cars! Tank chases through Moscow!) the speed with which the satellite moved was what he could not get past. We laughed about it at the time, but in his defense, we have both found ourselves falling into similar traps since.

I think that as analytically-inclined people with a basic understanding of science, it bothers us to have folks drop details and then not live by them. The blue lasers those supersolders are shooting? Totally alien technology. Ok! I am fine with that. I don't know about aliens, but I can buy that they shoot blue lasers. Why not? But I do know how sound works. And my brother, apparently, knows how satellites work.

So the next time you get hung up on some silly little detail of a film like this, ask yourself, "How did they move the satellite so quickly?" You know Mary and I will be.

Go Mode

Every sufficiently close relationship tends to develop it's own language. Sometimes, I feel like Mary and I speak entirely in code. An example of this is "Go Mode". Go Mode is when one of us gets so focused on doing something that everything else -- no matter how important -- falls by the wayside. An example of usage is "Bill, I know you are in Go Mode, but you still need to eat." One generally uses it to describe the other spouse, and tries to pronounce the capitols.

After quite a while of nothing much at all going on with the move, every imaginable thing was suddenly getting underway at once. In part, we have a handful of related things we wanted to get squared away before leaving (doctors visits, a week-long trip to CT for me for work, Christmas travel) and December seemed like the perfect month to schedule absolutely every one of them. Suddenly, we were both in Go Mode all the time.

Now, we finally feel like we are getting stuff done. As of Thursday our visas have been issued, and those should be getting FedExed to Mary's office as I type. We have appointments with several moving companies, and have selected a storage place for the things we are not bringing. We've picked a travel date, and I have reached out to the travel agent to start getting the ticketing process (more of a process due to the cats) underway. We even have temporary housing almost squared away! I place to live! How novel!

The way to really tell that I am finally out of Go Mode though? I actually slept through an entire night last night, without once waking up to mentally iterate through our many to-do lists. Take that, Go Mode.