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[side_show]

The poppy is a small velvet flower with a black velvet centre which the majority of Canadians buy and wear from Nov 1st - Nov 11th, as a remembrance of those lost in war.  They're made by veterans, and the money you donate to buy one goes to their care.  They are always held in place by simple seemstress pins, which means they are constantly falling off or stabbing the wearer.  The symbolism comes from this beautiful poem which is read at Remembrance Day events across the country every year, and was written by a poet turned field soldier who died.

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

I was watching the BBC and noticed both reporters were wearing a slightly different variation of the poppy, so I suppose the same tradition holds in London at least.

[pmcd9]

The tradition has kinda gotten lost in America, but it is (or was) a thing here too.  I never knew about the poem though.  John McCrae of the clan McCrae.

[theinevitable]

I do not really get how it can be 67 degrees in here, like the thermometer on my clock says, if it is also INCREDIBLY COLD in here.

I am wearing multiple layers and extra-warm socks, and I'm reading under a blanket... still cold. WHAT?

[Arachno-capitalist]

The tradition has kinda gotten lost in America, but it is (or was) a thing here too.  I never knew about the poem though.  John McCrae of the clan McCrae.

I still see them around in NJ at least.

[littlefallsmets]

Ray would fear it was the diabetes.

[Ruta Bagas]

UK poppies are paper. We also have (much more obscurely) white poppies made by the Peace Pledge Union, which inevitably cause unasked-for controversy wherever they appear.

[wombat]

They are always held in place by simple seemstress pins, which means they are constantly falling off or stabbing the wearer. 

This is the best part. It is so oldfashioned and kind of symbolic, really.

I saw these when I lived in Canada but have absolutely never seen one in the US.

[Doc]

They're paper over here too, and I seem to have totally forgotten to get one because I'm generally not near the city and other places where people stand around selling them.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Ash, you been to the local gun shop lately? Word on the street is that theyve been packed since obama got elected. Getting the assault weapons before theyre banned, I gather.

[jough]

Today I got past the "Let me sort through all of my stuff and throw out a bunch of things that I no longer want or need" phase and just started shoveling my crap into cardboard boxen.  I move next week - it's going to suck, but it'll be awesome once I'm all moved into the new place.

[theinevitable]

oof.

telling friends/co-executive people at the radio station that I want to stop being Music Director next year, and become Training Director. Friends basically say "daniel, you would be absolutely horrible at that job, and here are many reasons:"
Including 2 of my roommates drunkenly saying "plus, your show totally sucks, you do a bad job, why would it be good for you to teach new people."
Plus some things implying that maybe I do a bad job at the job I already do.

dang.

[Carlos del Vaca]

telling friends/co-executive people at the radio station that I want to stop being Music Director next year, and become Training Director.

Are you frickin' crazy?  Music Director is the best job at a college radio station, bar none.  Record industry people kissing your butt, free CDs and T-shirts, concert tickets, and generally being on top of what's cool in music.  Being Music Director for two years was probably the single best part of my entire collegiate experience.

Why do you want to be training director?  So you can meet freshman girls?

[CortJstr]

When I flew to SC at the end of October our flight was delayed for like 20 minutes. Because of that we got to see an Honor Flight deboard a bunch of WWII vets coming to see the memorial. There was a 4 piece brass band and everything.

After work I'm taking my dad out for dinner. He enlisted on his 18th birthday. In 1968.

[theinevitable]

Are you frickin' crazy?  Music Director is the best job at a college radio station, bar none.  Record industry people kissing your butt, free CDs and T-shirts, concert tickets, and generally being on top of what's cool in music.  Being Music Director for two years was probably the single best part of my entire collegiate experience.

Why do you want to be training director?  So you can meet freshman girls?

Man, obviously I am doing something wrong. Very few bands I like ever come to St Louis. When they do, it is to St Louis University, where the concerts are free. I do not get t-shirts. The free CDs we get are for the station, I have gotten maybe 1 or 2 extra copies for myself and felt bad about taking them. 1 record industry person kisses my butt, the rest get pissed off at me because kids aren't playing their CDs. Maybe I'm just too easily freaked out (actually, yes, that is it). Quite frankly, I feel like I have very little interest in keeping up with new music beyond what I keep up with anyway due to working at the station. I would rather spend my music-listening time listening to old albums that I haven't heard than trying to keep up with what the promoters want us to get reviewed.
No matter what kind of policies I enact (not that I am allowed to enact policies, really), people will keep finding every lazy way possible to get around the very, very, very few requirements we have. I feel like training director is something I could do that I would enjoy, where I would be able to influence the next generation of kids, instead of being this guy who people only know through constant emails saying "FILL IN YOUR PLAYLISTS, PLEASE! DON'T LABEL THINGS AS NEW RELEASES THAT CAME OUT A YEAR AGO, PLEASE! REVIEW ALBUMS, PLEASE!" Also, a lot of people seem to have no idea what I actually do, and send me emails berating me for not spending our budget on buying copies of old CDs. Our budget that, you know, doesn't have money in it for fixing equipment if it breaks.

I don't know. Maybe I would enjoy it more if I felt like I was doing a good job. But right now I spend a lot of my time worrying about how I am not. This is a general problem, not specific to radio stuff. It is also possible, based on talking to MDs at other stations, that I have an unrealistic expectation for what an MD should do.

Man, I completely forgot that today was Veteran's Day. My grandfather who I never met was in the army air-force during WWII, I am not entirely sure what he did, as it was last explained to me when I was a small kid. I didn't really think about it until just now, I guess I still have the habit from when I was a kid of thinking I shouldn't ask my dad about his dad, who died when he was a teenager. Most of what I know is because my dad got all of my grandpa's WWII stuff (insignia, creepy nazi insignia/medals and stuff) when my grandma died when I was 10 or so.
He actually also served a second tour (or maybe this is not the right terminology) when he was in his fourties, because of some clerical error. He got a notice saying he was being deployed to Korea, when he reported they realized he was older and had already served, and so they had him work on a base in Nevada. It ended up after a year that they had meant to call up some other Vincent B***** from Salem, MA. I actually don't know very much at all about what any of my family did in the war, but I know that when he went off to Italy he was already married to my grandmother. It breaks my heart that both of my grandparents on that side have passed away, I never got to know either of them, really.
Cort, that is pretty cool about your dad. I am always impressed by people who are willing to enlist, especially in a time of war, and very especially when so many people are conflicted about the war as people were at the time. Good on him for doing what he thought was right to serve his country.

[KeithHernandez]

Lots of people enlisted around that time to avoid getting drafted and becoming shields.

My uncle, for instance, got kicked out of the Air Force Academy for illegally renting cars to Fresh and Soph, since he knew he was going to be drafted, and probably sent to the worst area, he just went ahead and enlisted to a job with a better survivor ratio.