Nazrax

Going to the museum
I'm with my parents driving to a museum. We're going to cross a long flat bridge, but the nav software tells us to take a detour. As we're driving around, we pass the seafood store - a boxy building with two huge bright-red garage doors - where we bought fresh seafood at earlier. I'm surprised to see that the doors are closed, but then I see a sign showing it's only open from eleven to three. My first thought is that that's a really short time for a store to be open, but I guess that makes sense for fresh seafood.

Now we're taking a different bridge. Away to our left I can see the bridge we were originally going to be on. Now we're across the bridge winding our way towards the museum. Someone wonders about museum hours and I grab my phone to look them up. I seriously consider using voice input, thinking carefully about my phrasing, but I never actually use it. Instead, I do a normal search, and the first hit goes to the Hours page on their website. Unfortunately, most of the page rambles about other things that have nothing to do with when it's open. Near the bottom is a daily movie schedule, and I assume they're open at least as long as the movies are playing. Unfortunately, that's not the case, as some of the later movies are not public, but I'm able to make a guess at which column in the schedule is the last public showing. Of course, there's some kind of popup that's hiding the actual hours, so I have to drag it around to have a chance to see the listing.

Now I'm inside with my family walking around the large entry hall. It's a wide roundish room with a glass wall which parallels the real wall and has information carved into it. Now we're in a smaller, darker room putting our names in for events later in the day. One of the movies is about Duplos, and only my youngest daughter wants to see it. I'm not sure how that's going to work - I'm sure an adult will need to be in with her, and I can't see it as being interesting. One of the employees laughs at us and says that it's not that bad. The rest of the kids want to pet dogs. I'm surprised that petting dogs is a scheduled activity, but I guess they have lots of people doing it, so ...

Now I'm walking with my parents. A tall, skinny black man - college looking, with an earnest voice and a backpack - asks my step-father a question about the Bible. My step-father is a bit distracted, and it's not a hard question, so I decide to answer in his place. Unfortunately, the guy won't let me get two words together. Any time I try to speak, he just talks on top of me. Eventually I switch from trying to answer the question to saying something like "Hey, just listen to me!" Eventually, he apologizes, saying he thought I meant something else. I tell him that he can either listen to my answer respectfully or just walk away. He considers for a moment and then walks away. I'm kind of disappointed but also relieved that I won't have to put up with him any more.

Now he's back, but he's not talking; he and my step-father have gotten cat coloring pages and are coloring them with fine point markers. Both are doing well, though their styles are completely different. One of them is using long, sweeping lines, while the other is somehow doing a textured look. The black guy leaves before he's finished, leaving his paper on the table. I absently make a couple of filled loops on it, trying to finish it, but I quickly realize that my style is radically different from his and that it doesn't look very good now

Now a couple of employees are saying that he's had his privilege of coming to this area of the museum revoked; they're tired of his coming in here and claiming the kingship (and other things) and of refusing to listen to anyone else, making for a poor learning environment.


The incubator
I'm watching a guy with a lab coat putting a bunch of Petri dishes into what looks like a wall-mounted oven. Once he's put a few stacks in, he closes the door and punches something into a keypad beside it. He explains that he's set it for one pulse every fifteen seconds. The door has a clear window, and we can see bright white flashes, but I assume that the window is doped to block any dangerous energy from reaching us. Oddly, it's flashing once a second, not once every fifteen seconds. At first, I assume that the flashes aren't the "pulses" he spoke of, but then I notice that the blobs in the Petri dishes grow much larger with each flash. I wonder if he misspoke, that maybe he meant that it would pulse for a total of fifteen seconds. I keep watching, and on the last pulse, a bunch of little round red balls appear hanging in the air inside the incubator. He's not surprised and says that they're fish eggs which somehow made their way in, and since the pulses make everything grow the eggs grew along with the samples in the dishes. He opens the door and the 'fish' fall out onto the floor. I take a closer look and can see they're actually a wide variety of animals. I see a number of mice or similar creatures, something that may be cat-like (though it's mouse-sized), and even a tiny elephant! I marvel that they're all walking fairly well since they're all only a few seconds old. I notice one little animal which is basically missing one eye and feel sorry for it, and for them all, knowing how they were brought into the world so unnaturally.


House guests
I'm at 'my house.' I'm inside, trying to communicate with Ben C, but my phone is having issues. I decide to text him to let him know I'm going to reboot my phone. I try to use voice input, but something strange happens and I end up fiddling instead of just sending the message, so I never get around to rebooting the phone. Eventually I see his car pull up outside and realize I've really taken way too long.

Now I'm outside on the driveway. The O's have just pulled up and are getting out of their van. A number I don't recognize calls and I try to answer, but my Bluetooth headset falls apart in my hand. Margaret offers me another one, but I know I don't have time to pair it, so I answer the phone in the normal way. The guy on the other end is from another country - Australia, maybe - and isn't pleased with me and starts lecturing me about something. After a very one-sided conversation, he hangs up.

Now I'm in the garage. There's a huge metal tool case / drawer / shelving unit. It's got wing tables that can fold out, and one of my kids is messing with them. It's making terrible squeak, and another kid asks if I can get the WD-40, but I say no, not this time, since we don't actively use it and I like having the hinges be that little bit stiff so that someone getting whacked on the head by a falling table wing wouldn't get hurt as badly. If we ever start using it, then I'll oil it well.


Mishaps around the house
A man has come to my house to be interviewed for something. After he comes in, I realize that I'm wearing my earbuds and shooting muffs - fantastic for listening while lawn mowing, terrible for talking to someone - and quickly pull them off, not intending to be rude. Later on, I realize that I'm wearing the earbuds again, and again I quickly pull them out. I'm confused - the guy is still here, and I can't think when I would have had an opportunity to put them back in.

Now I'm in another room. Somehow a loop of thread from my collar has gotten wound around the button on my pants. In this awkward position I can't keep balance and end up falling over. I don't want anyone to find me like this and manage to crawl further out of sight. I can't get the thread untangled, so I reach into my pocket in hopes that my multitool is there. To my horror, it's not; but then I realize that it's fallen out only a few inches away. I grab it, open the scissors, and - with the scissors uncomfortably close to my face - cut the thread. I'm standing up just as someone walks by, but they don't notice anything unusual.


Chainsaw workday
At a church workday, I see my wife about to use a chainsaw to cut down a tree. She's not wearing any protective clothing, so I walk over to her to make sure she knows what she's doing. When I mention the protective chaps which normally come with chainsaws, she says she completely forgot about getting a set. I ask where she rented the chainsaw from, thinking that we may be able to swing by to pick some up, and she says the name of a place I've never heard of (something starting with L). Memories of guys who have had their legs chewed up, and of a couple of guys I know who were saved from that fate by their protective gear, come into my mind.

Now I see a couple of guys standing near the end of the driveway cutting a table in half. One is holding it upright while the other chainsaws it. I can't believe how incredibly unsafe that looks, but I just walk the other way.

Now I see my oldest daughter using a baby chainsaw - it's red and probably only about a foot long. Once she finishes her cut she keeps her finger on the trigger, and I tell her that that's a bad idea. She lets her finger off, but it starts sputtering and Bob B comes over and reminds her that that chainsaw has issues and needs to be kept running. I apologize, saying that it was I who told her to let off the trigger.

Now I'm using a small chainsaw to try to slice a watermelon. It's not working very well, and eventually I shut it off and go in search of a nice large knife which I feel will work much better.