Happy Thanksgiving, 1999

 

      Occasionally, a bright thought flits thought my head, especially late at night when I should be pounding the pillow. Usually I let the novelty of it all ricochet through my spinning gears, to wind down into an empty promise which sputters into nothing on the morrow. This time, however, my bright though to piqued my interest so much that I roused from my slumber just to share it with you: How about a Thanksgiving letter to give thanks for the fact that I have late – night internet access. Blessed am I with the holiest of holies! I can molest, bother, and inconvenience people all over the globe, just by sending them a little spam. I can peek at their phone numbers, even find out their addresses. I can surf their governments' databases and nose about their use group posts. Even read all their bombastic bull and try to pontificate and scandalize them to death. Gee isn't technology a grace. We are all so graced with the tools to make absolute simians out of ourselves. Glory be and hallelujah! At any rate, I thought I would write to everyone I know with this cheery refrain: Happy Thanksgiving!!! Amos has blessed internet access and can't sleep! Let the 11th beatitude read, "Blessed be the spam-makers, for they shall show the world its stupidity and boorishness.”  

 

      All kidding aside, I hope that this Thanksgiving finds you well and in good spirits. I am doing well, except for the fact that less oxygen is reaching my brain here in Colorado Springs. Perhaps you noticed I seem to have a few more dead brain cells than normal. Between living at 6,000 feet above the rest of the sane world and staring at a glowing cathode ray tube all day, I am occasionally shocked that I can even connect two neuron pathways a day. I say occasionally, because usually I can't muster the profundity to even consider the idiocy of my simple-minded thoughts. Generally, I am too busy squinting my eyes and scratching my head as the computer screen grows blurry and fuzzy. Little time is left for fecund ideas to ferment when you have to reduce all your thought patterns down to little sequences of zeros and ones. It is difficult to think at a higher level when your logic is reduced to true or false. I spent years in college learning to include greys in my spectrum, only to assiduously beat every shade out but black or white, true or false, one or zero.  

 

      The thin air here in Colorado Springs attracts similar bone-heads who need to reduce their thought waves to a primordial level. Any thought in the Springs must become absolute truth or the absolute obverse. This fundamental truth is clearly apparent by the appearance of the Fundamentalists who rule this mecca of suburbian Christendom. Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition set up shop here to proclaim their truths to the rest of the world who do not live in such rarefied air. Just as Moses went up on the mountain, so they too have come to Pike's Peak to find revelation. They set up the printing presses and TV antennas to proselytize the rest of the world. They reduce all our doubts and ruminations to simple true or false with no more than 10 simple rules to follow. Yes, we in the Springs have much to be thankful for this time of year. If we can't find inspiration from the fundamentalists, we at least can take pride in the growing number of denizens of dorkdom congregating under the altar of Zebulon Pike's peak. The snow covered mount has blocked out all view of the outside world, so that the techies can hunker down and concentrate on wires, gears, and of course little glowing screens. The burgeoning tech companies are flocking to the Springs in hopes that they too will find inspiration in the rarefied air at the foot of the Rockies. Likewise, their ponderings have morphed to the simple-minded muses of positive and negative, power and no-power, profit and loss. Occasionally, they do see a few colors beside black and white. They might ask themselves, "If we connect this red wire with this green wire, will we get a positive or negative charge?" Still everything is a question of reducing all down to little positives and negatives, whether in their computer programs or their balances sheets. Finally, the Springs attracts a 3rd group, the retirees. The lower gravity here makes it easier to get out of bed every morning. Not only are their bodies slowing down, but also their brains are atrophying. The lower oxygen helps them avoid thinking disturbing thoughts such as who will fight over their inheritance after they expire. As their thoughts slow down to simple questions of when do I turn on the TV today, inevitably the elderly grow happier. They too find peace staring at beautiful Pikes Peak. Although they cannot climb to the summit like the fundamentalists who seek revelation, they are still are inspired by its purple mounted majesty. Like the techies, they are glad that the peak obscures all view of the frenetic west coast where they once had to slave away saving for the day when they could retire to the comfort of the Springs. Needless to say, Colorado Springs is growing by leaps and bounds. Who wouldn't want to live here in "God's Country?"

 

      Patently, I do not fall in the former or the latter category of newcomers to the Springs. I have too much trouble reading in this thin air to find the literal words of God in the Good Book. When you can't even remember the digits to your own phone number, it is difficult to quote verbatim a couple of biblical passages in the middle of a vituperative diatribe against the eeeeeevil of homosexuality, liberalism, feminism, Pokeman, abortion clinics, and tattoos. On the other hand, I do have help remembering that I am not in my golden years, because I can't see anything but my long hair hanging in front of my eyes. My ponytail is incontrovertible proof that I am not yet bald. Besides, I am squinting at a computer screen right now. If I was a kid or retiree I would be staring at a TV screen instead. Therefore, I find myself disqualified from every category except the middle group of pointy heads devoting their lives to the further proliferation of ones and zeros in the world. There are no stringent hurdles to jump to get in this special crowd, except an extreme desire to devote your life to utterly meaningless intricacies. I work for my cousin Mike who designs circuit boards. He specializes in firewire connections and a special video chip made by Divio. Somehow he manages to include both these components in all his schematics in new and intricate ways for which other utterly foolish people will pay him lots of money.

 

      My job is to play with a neat software program which draws pretty little lines connecting all these infinitely complex chips. After making lots of labyrinthine diagrams of twisting wires, I am given the task of filling the little microcontroller chips on these diagrams with lots of ones and zeros. These ones and zeros then cause more ones and zeros to be sent over all the pretty little lines so that the other chips can play with more ones and zeros. Fortunately, I get to create all these ones and zeros with more than just two letters. I write in a language called "C" which allows me to "see" all these ones and zeros. As you can "see," I haven't gotten too far in the alphabet yet. For this asinine task, I am paid more than the minimum wage. Mike also give me a place to stay in a bedroom as close as possible to the computer. The closer I sleep to the computer every night, the more ones and zeros I absorb in my dreams, so that I wake up eager to pour more ones and zeros into the little 8051 microcontrollers.

 

      Of course, there are other benefits to my job. It gave me the funds to finally pay off my student loans on the week of my birthday. (Did you know that I am now over a quarter century old.) I am even caching a nest egg for a planned year long hiatus in Brazil starting next summer. Don't ask me what I am going to do there in the land of samba and carnival. Possibly pick up some African Candomble religion so I can come back to the Springs and provoke the wrath of the Fundamentalists. I have found several language schools were I plan to spent one or two months learning Portuguese, so that I can unlearn my Spanish. Then I plan to spend a year there so that I can thoroughly forget the modicum of Spanish slang I have mastered. After which I will probably apply for graduate school so that I can devote my life to studying dead people and things from Latin America. At any rate, I figure studying history must be more inspiring than pondering ones and zeros all day.

 

      Besides enjoying my job here in Colorado Springs, I also have the fringe benefit of enjoying my cousins and their 3 kids. John is a senior in high school, and he spends his days planning ways to be constantly gone from the house. Whether breaking peoples arms in football practice, attending school functions, or simply going to dances that last past the midnight oil supply, John is hardly home. Nonetheless, I see lots of his younger siblings Matthew (14) and Amanda(9). Matthew's favorite hobbies consist of acquiring a stockpile of military hardware and ridiculing people and movies. Amanda, on the other hand, likes to fill the air with directives and questions which the rest of the family either ignore or avoid. Add in an attention starved, spastic dog named Coal, and you have a regular family circus.  Since I work and live at my cousins' house, I don't get out to see Colorado Springs much. However, I must say that I do like the city. I live next to a 400 acre park packed with trails and jutting sandstone hills which in Indiana would be called mountains. The nearest supermarket is within 5 minutes bike ride and University of Colorado at Colorado Springs is situated a convenient 10 minutes away. The only down side is there is not a single straight street in the whole city. Every residential street is a curving cul de sac winding around the foothills of the Rockies. I wish I knew more people here and the air wasn't quite so thin, but otherwise I have no complaints.

 

      I spend my evenings exhausting my attention span listening to the rantings and laughter of my cousin- once-removed, Matthew. When I am done marveling at his sheer gusto for life, I avoid reality by reading about dead Latin Americans or studying up on mind-deadening computer languages such as Verilog. This evening I popped one of the tapes from "Barons Learn Portuguese While Picking Your Nose" 1200 minute tape set. I sat and listened to a soothing voice make funny little nasal sibilants. Soon, as the title suggests, I began to explore the orifices of my head. My attention immediately wandered as I discovered the joys of ear wax. At this rate, it might take me a while to learn Portuguese. It is close enough to Spanish so that I can read it, yet I find it utterly ineluctable when listening.

  

      As you might guess, my life here in Colorado is quite different from working at Casa Marianella in Austin. Sometimes I have trouble believing that a 3rd World exists and that its peoples hop trains and swim rivers to earn enough to survive. Here in suburbia, I never see poverty or migrant workers. It is so easy to insulate yourself from the rest of the world when you don't have to see its problems on a day to day basis. Nonetheless my thoughts are with those who do have to see and live in need every day.  For the blessing that we do not have to be faced with deprivation and in thanks giving that we can find humor in our lives, I want to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving.

  

                  Cheers, Amos.