Nazrax

Bed @ 2215.
Woke @ 0240

Fragment: Something about a British boarding school.


BTB @ 0250 /w SSILD
Woke @ 0340


Going to the doctor
I "wake up." I have an appointment in Atlanta with Dr. Carson at 9:30. I check the time and decide that I have another fifteen minutes before I need to get up. My wife comes into the bedroom, seemingly also having trouble sleeping, and recommends getting up now - Atlanta traffic is very unpredictable, and I don't want to be late. I go ahead and get up. I check some mapping software on my phone, but I don't understand what it's telling me - it's showing me two curved arrows going from my house to the destination, almost forming an eye shape; both arrows fade from <a color> to red, and both fan off into many more arrows. I assume it's trying to tell me that there are many routes and that they're all bad. I zoom in and see that every street is colored red. Great.

Now on my way, and I'm riding a motorcycle. I know how much my wife hates motorcycles, but they're very effective. I'm trying to psych myself up for driving between cars which are stopped in gridlock, but thankfully I never actually need to; despite the lanes around me being stopped, my lane is moving well.

Now I'm driving downtown (I may be in my car now, but I'm not sure). Traffic in all lanes is jammed, and I'm trying to merge a couple of lanes to my left. Up ahead, I can see barriers across the two rightmost lanes of traffic - no wonder everyone is merging left and traffic is so bad.

Now I'm in a tasteful office building, at a reception desk that's at the intersection of a number of hallways. I'm talking to the receptionist, and I'm really suspicious that this is all some kind of conspiracy. She's very polite and answers my questions well, and I'm not concerned any more.

Now I'm in the parking deck at the doctor's, talking to Pete A, a friend I haven't seen for many years. I'm holding a pile of pipes and fabric, amazed at modern technology - this is the first time I've tried my car's 'fold' function, and I had no idea it could fold up so small or so light. Even so, I have a hard time keeping hold of it all and wish they could have automatically put the whole thing in a bag with handles. I realize I've got a bag - a big gray one made out of a tarp-like material - and start to put it in, wondering if this bag came with the car; but then I see it already has camping stuff in it from over the summer and remember that, no, this is just my bag. Now I'm talking to Pete again and notice my sunroof. I didn't know my car had a sunroof, and I certainly never opened it myself, so I assume it must have opened automatically when I parked to reduce heat. Unlike a normal one which slides back, this one has folded open three 'petals.' I reach over and wiggle a petal, then realize that this isn't actually my car. Whoops. Mine is one over, but I see that it, too, has a sunroof - a more traditional one that slides back on rails. I push a button on a panel on the roof and it closes. I wonder if there's a button inside the car that controls it too - if there is, I've never noticed it.

Now it's time for me to head home. I consider giving Pete a quick kiss (it seems that I'm a girl now?), but I decide that that wouldn't be appropriate and just make my goodbyes and get in my car.


An unusual landing strip
I'm watching planes landing. In turn, each one approaches what looks like a toll plaza, touches down just in front of the toll booths, and rolls forwards under the roof, out of sight. So far, all of the planes have been small, but now I see a larger one coming in. Not only is it large, but it's coming in really quickly, and I'm afraid it's going to crash. Amazingly, the moment its wheels touch down, it's going at the same slow speed as the others and taxies away safely. As it passes, I look at its tail and see the American Airlines logo. Even though everything worked out OK, I'm still rather horrified at how the pilot handled things, and American has lost some credibility in my mind.


BTB @ 0400 /w SSILD
Woke at 0645

The new water park
I'm reading about a new place opening up - a weird hybrid indoor swimming pool / game. It's small enough to be in a store in a shopping center. I see pictures of people in it - a deep pool filled with pipes about 3' in diameter - and I think it looks neat but scary - not only is the pool deep, but I think it would be far to easy to run out of breath while in the middle of one of the pipes and not be able to surface. Now I'm actually there, climbing out of the water (yet fully clothed). Now I'm talking to a woman about the cost of playing and the size of the prize for the winner - it seems to be a game of elimination, with the last player left taking the prize. The floor is glass, and the pool is under us, so I can see a couple of families swimming around having a great time.

Now I'm walking through a large restaurant area (much larger than the pool) filled with circular tables. I see the owner, an Asian man, and decide to go up to him and congratulate him on making something really unique. He's really excited about it and talks to me for a few minutes, eventually asking if I'll be bringing my family. I have to decline, saying that we live in the US and wouldn't be able to make it. He understands but still says he hopes that one day it'll work out.

Now I'm walking across a parking lot away from the shopping center with the pool place. I've just come to a gas station on the corner when I remember that I have my car, and it's back next to the stores. I turn around and start walking back to it, surprised by how large the parking lot is and how far I need to walk, and - by extension - how far I've already walked.

Now I'm driving around the shopping center. I realize that my stomach is grumbling and am tempted to look for something to eat. I don't want anything too sweet, ice cream or any real dessert like that; then I remember there's a store that sells some kind of frozen orange juice dessert, and I'm really tempted to try to search it out.


An odd gathering
I'm in a small apartment with a family I don't know well. We're all in the living room. Most of the family is seated on a couple of sofas, and I'm walking around, looking at things. I come across a water massager and fiddle with its controls for a minute, trying to figure out the different settings, but eventually I give up - they don't make a lot of sense. Eventually I give up and notice the I notice that the wallpaper, which at first glance just seems to be of mythical scenes, is actually rather ... risque. I consider asking my host about it but decide not to.

Now we're talking about watching a movie, but someone else has to go in a couple of minutes. Our host and another guy head off to get a quick nightcap before he heads out, leaving me with the kids (early to mid teens) and another adult. At first, I just keep to myself, but eventually the other adult comes over and we start talking. He tells me that AI is much farther along than anyone thinks and starts describing its progress.


AI apocalypse
Now I see a post-apocalyptic scene with a hunch of people standing in a derelict building, visible from the outside through a hole that's been blasted in the wall. A firing squad kills most of them, and the rest flee deeper into the building. I know it's the government killing off people it doesn't need since AIs are able to do most of the work now. Now I see the survivors of the first firing squad being executed by machines who have decided they don't need humanity at all. Only a couple of people escape. I watch them fleeing through more derelict buildings, grabbing what they can. Now I see some strange creatures - something like huge anteaters - moving along roads in the falling-down city, spraying themselves with water from their long trunks. They see something that looks like a huge cube of pizza and hurry over to it, and it somehow traps them. Now I see that the trap has been moved elsewhere and they're being freed from it to face ... something.


Security notice
I've received a security notice from my company's security team telling everyone to stop using instant messaging built into OpenOffice. I'm reading it on my new, pretty monitor. As with all the security 'training' they send out it's very pretty and totally useless. I flip through it, thinking they've probably sent it out because the official IM client is so terrible and they don't want people to have the option of bailing to one that works.

Now I'm looking at another security communication. This one is telling everyone that we need to install some new security software which will make sure we don't have any unauthorized files on our machines. I wonder how I can get around it - I have lots of useful third party software, plus a couple of games, and I'd hate for all that to get wiped, or to get me in trouble.


Space trip mix-up
I'm watching a couple of people - a woman (dressed in leatherish pants and a solid-colored long-sleeved shirt) and someone else - talking to a guy (who looks like the mission controller from The Martian). It seems he's running a new experimental service to get to and from orbit, and the woman was supposed to be on the latest flight - in fact, she'd already paid for the trip, but some kind of paperwork snafu lost her records. Behind them are weird stretcher-looking things, which are what people are attached to to protect them from the g-forces. Someone is saying it's a good thing she didn't go, because they've since found out that if she did go, she would have been fatally injured, and their cryo-preservation facilities aren't yet set up, so she couldn't have been frozen while she waited for them to find a way to heal her.