42 Ridgefield Drive

An Open Letter to Robert Plant

2009-10-14T21:01:00.007-04:00

"The disappointment that could be there once you commit to that and the comparisons to something that was basically fired by youth and a different kind of exuberance to now, it's very hard to go back and meet that head on and do it justice." - Robert Plant

Dear Robert Plant:

You are right. What you did in your youth was absolutely, stunningly fantastic and, in all likelihood, unsurpassable. And now, with fully a generation of fans and a generation of new fans in the wings, waiting, hoping, the pressure is no doubt overwhelmingly oppressive. And on top of that place a tour. All this, not to mention the interpersonal stress between individuals in the creative process.

Fears abound. You are right to be afraid of Led Zeppelin, source of arguably the greatest rock n' roll music ever produced. It's a monster! I suppose... if all you were going to do was release one album, then god-damn it'd better be perfect, eh? Absolutely, that's a failure waiting to happen.

But face it: you are Led Zeppelin (along with Jimmy and John Paul [and Jason--the only acceptable substitute]). You're still Robert Plant!

Personally, I believe there is a way past the monster. I believe, to do it justice and reduce the failure factor, it will require three things (ah yes, always the magic number):

First: Go into it with the intent to produce multiple albums (not one) with multiple tours. BE Led Zeppelin again, don't just release some music under the name. Put aside all of the past, and reinvent the beast.

Second: Hide. Keep the media away from you while you work; don't even let people know what you're doing; keep it a secret. Issue no statements; issue no rebuttals to rumors; keep all of the media away.

Third: Relax. Relax and listen to what you produce until you hear the sound that is "the sound". You'll know it when you hear it, and if you don't hear it, you're not done.

Now that you have this wonderful advice, there is only one item remaining: your desire to actually do it.

Uh Oh...

2009-08-05T17:27:00.002-04:00

I think my blog is dead. Lots of stuff I'd like to write about and post, but ... just no time to post it.

Annoying Web Sites

2009-05-10T12:15:00.006-04:00

Having been involved in website activities for a long time, I have decided it is time to "clean up" my online accounts. In doing this painful activity, I've come across some really annoying things.

Here are my top three annoying, if not ethically questionable, sleazy things I am finding about web accounts and how well they enable (i.e. allow) you to manage your account information:

1) Some websites store your credit card information and don't let you remove it! Give me your numbers and they're mine forever? Here is the standard with which those sites need to familiarize themselves.

2) Many websites don't let you delete your account; some "pretend" to delete your account but don't really delete it. I'm not sure which is worse!

3) Some websites don't give you the option of logging out of your account once you've logged in. Welcome to the Hotel California!

Google Chrome

2009-03-19T19:45:00.002-04:00

I've become a total convert to Google Chrome. I've been using it for about a month now, with interspersed moments of IE and FireFox as I needed to and as verification test cases to the speed I was experiencing in Chrome.

Chrome wins.

Very cool demos of Chrome's javascript engine can be found here.

My personal favorites:

Google Gravity is fun.

Ball Pool is fun.

The best one is Video & Picture Puzzle. Complete it. Trust me.

p.s.
And more good news about it here.

Bailout! I want some, too!

2009-03-15T08:29:00.000-04:00

These people are just thieves!

Strategy Game Network

2009-03-04T17:30:00.002-05:00

Dear Strategygamenetwork.com:

What do you hope to accomplish?

Site loyalty? If it’s site loyalty you want, there are better ways than punishing your patrons.

To make money? If it’s money you want, you shouldn’t punish your patrons (see above).

I played perhaps six games on your site… might actually be more like four games; in any case, it wasn't many. I was just getting the hang of it and looking forward to playing with my relatives (in particular my son), when all of a sudden: BANG! you block my account.

What did I do?

OK OK, I complained that the dice algorithm wasn’t implemented correctly. It’s a game, it’s going to cause frustration, and people are bound to complain. I’m a person, there it is…

Oh, and that’s right, I also said I was not inclined to pay for a service that comes with the kind of ridiculous draconian policies that would cut someone’s account for no reason.

But what I don’t get is this: what is it that you want?

I created my account, had only one game going. I accessed the site from two computers in my house. My son created an account on the computer he uses (which I have also used), and BANG, I’m locked out! Not even my account, but my IP address and all subs. Can’t get to it from any computer on my network.

What the hell?

This obviously isn’t about customer loyalty or money.

Why would someone create such a cool site if it’s not about customer loyalty and money? Or are you so obtuse that you don’t understand that those two things are related?

If it’s not about customer loyalty and money, then what is it about?

What is the point?

2008 Reading Review

2009-02-14T11:02:00.005-05:00

Well, I only managed ten books in 2008. A little lighter than my usual slow pace, but interesting enough just the same.

I kicked off the year with a classic series by Isaac Asimov, the Foundation series.
Foundation (Asimov)
Foundation and Empire (Asimov)
Second Foundation (Asimov)
Foundation's Edge (Asimov)
Foundation and Earth (Asimov)

I'd give this classic series a rating of 8 out of 10.

Eight might be a stretch, but this is classic material written more than fifty years ago. Absolutely ground-breaking for the time! The series was a little light on technological insight, but certainly a fun read from a socio-technological perspective. I'd recommend the whole series, especially if you want an excellent insight into the beginnings of science fiction.

I did not read the last of the series, which is actually a prelude to the foundation (called Prelude to Foundation) and actually takes place chronologically before the foundation. I'll read it sometime this year, perhaps; might be interesting to read it out of sequence.

Lord of Light (Zelazny)

I'd give this a rating 3 out of 10.

I found the book dense and difficult to keep up with. I felt like I needed to know something prior to reading it, and always felt myself saying "what the hell is going on?" It actually took me awhile to read this book because it was like work trying to get through it.

To Say Nothing of the Dog (Willis)

I'd give this a rating of 7.5 out of 10.

This was a fun read! Lots of fun stuff with time travel, interesting characters, and at times quite funny. I would characterize it as Monty Python meets Science Fiction! You might go "oh..." and not know what to say to that, but the author does a good job and pulls it off. Quite funny. I might caution the purists out there: it ain't about cool technology and the social impacts. This was the hardest part to get used to for me. I was looking for a real science fiction book, and I might say this only barely fits the genre. But still a fun read!

Hyperion (Simmons)

I'd give this a rating of 9 out of 10.

This was a great science fiction read! Absolutely loved the characters, the plot, the premise, the technology, the whole lot! The Shrike is absolutely terrifying. The technological concepts are stunning! The Technocore is a fantastic idea. The concept of farcasters is fabulous. Absolutely made my reading for the year.

The Fall of Hyperion (Simmons)

I'd give this a rating of 7.5 out of 10.

Definitely not as strong a book as the first of the series. It details the war and the fall of the farcasters and the fall of the technocore. I give it a lower rating because it just seemed to drag on for what takes place. Still an interesting read, and lots of tidbits to keep me interested in the series; just wish it got to the point a little quicker.

I started the next in the series late in December, so I'll be writing about the follow-on Endymion series in '09.

Welcome to the Monkey House (Vonnegut)

I'd give this collection of stories a rating of 7 out of 10.

Recommended by my nephew, Mike, I read this in November, prior to Christmas. It was a good read; interesting perspective on the social environment of the time in which they were written. Vonnegut is always good; I don't think these were his best works. But ultimately what can I say: It's Vonnegut.

2008 Reading List

2009-01-01T11:38:00.000-05:00

Foundation (Asimov)
Foundation and Empire (Asimov)
Second Foundation (Asimov)
Foundation's Edge (Asimov)
Foundation and Earth (Asimov)
Lord of Light (Zelazny)
To Say Nothing of the Dog (Willis)
Hyperion (Simmons)
The Fall of Hyperion (Simmons)
Welcome to the Monkey House (Vonnegut)

Emily's Christmas Closet Adventure

2008-12-24T13:11:00.003-05:00

All children who celebrate Christmas can't help but be fill to the brim with excitement. And when they reach a certain age, they can't help but be curious, too.

The master bedroom in our house has two walk-in closets, mine and Barb's. This gave us, we thought, the perfect hiding opportunity for Christmas presents. The kids would know to look in Barb's closet, but would never consider mine!

Also, I hang a sleeping bag in the corner of my closet, behind which all of the presents could be neatly stored. At a glance, you would never know that something might be hidden behind it.

One morning a few weeks before Christmas, I was awakened at the sound of a slight creaking. Just softly, a creaking like wood floor planks, or a door. I opened my eyes and turned my head slightly to hear better.

Barb had gone downstairs to have breakfast with Sean and help him get ready for school. It was early enough that the room was still quite dark.

creak!

What was that sound? Just a short sound, half a second.

creak!

I sat up in bed and looked around the room. Being hard of hearing in one ear has many drawbacks; in this case, it meant it was virtually impossible for me to identify the location and source of the sound.

creak!

'What is that!' I thought to myself!

Just then my closet door opened wide and Emily walked out!

"Emily!" I said. "What are you doing in there?"

"Um," came the embarrassed, and perhaps slightly anxious, reply. "Seany left my sippy cup in there."

"Oooh" I said. "Well, we'll find it later. Go downstairs now, sweetie." Out of the room she trooped.

Ah, to be blessed with a child in whom lying is not a strong suit!

Snow-storm Observation

2008-12-19T20:17:00.003-05:00

Driving home from work tonight, I made the observation that in a snow-storm people tend to pull the same stupid stunts they do while driving under normal conditions...only slower.

My Son Sean

2008-12-04T21:32:00.003-05:00

Is very tired, and he wants to go to bed but he can't because he's doing his math homework.

I asked him for a blog topic; those are his exact words.

I am incredibly impressed and proud of my son Sean. As a sophomore in high school, he is in his fifth year of advanced placement math. To remain in this program, he has maintained a high 80s/low 90s average for the course, and high honor role status overall.

This year, he will complete the regents math requirement. Next year he will be eligible to take college-level math for credit.

We think, in preparation for college-level math, the math teach has significantly altered teaching tactics, perhaps teaching a bit more like a college course. Many students in his course have faltered this year as a result; some have opted out of the advanced placement math program.

Sean, too, struggled initially, bringing home his first ever grade that showed the struggle. He was discouraged by this, understandably.

But we talked to him about changing study strategies. And we talked to him about life, and how you can't just quit when something gets hard, you need to give it your best. Despite our encouragement and words of wisdom, we weren't sure what he would decide.

He persevered and has turned the grade around! WOW! That took guts, courage, strength of character, and smarts!

He's a lot more disciplined than I ever was. And a lot smarter, too.

Excellent job, Sean! Keep up the great work!

Robert Heinlein

2008-11-30T09:53:00.000-05:00

At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that "news" is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different – in the crunch, his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.

–Robert Heinlein
The Number of the Beast

Sad News

2008-11-22T13:22:00.002-05:00

I've been warning him for a year that the day he was taller than me, I'd have to kill him. Well, the day has come. He's been a good boy...up until now.

So everyone wish your farewells to Sean, who is on this day officially taller than his dad.

Bus Ride

2008-11-10T19:36:00.000-05:00

The kids like talking about their bus drivers. Their favorite was Lee, the bus driver for elementary school.

Their least favorite was Karen, the bus driver for middle school. Karen is a bit rigid and unfair.

Emily has her now and is quick to point out how Karen hates her ... because of all the things Sean did. The benefits of being second.

Sean was once punished for saying "weinus", which presumably refers to a piece of skin on your elbow (although I cannot find that definition anywhere). He was made to sit in the front seat for a few days for that.

Sean says she took her job too seriously, like a class, and would punish you as if to say "you're failing Bus Ride."

My Own Brand of Support

2008-10-20T20:02:00.003-04:00

I'm showing my support for McCain/Palin ... sort of.

I play this online game on the PS/2 called Battlefield 2 Modern Combat. Yes, I am a grown man... ok ok. But Sean got me hooked on it a couple years ago and it's the only game I play, and I really am quite hooked!

So here's my support. I created a user ID called "Mcain-Palin" and I play using that ID. But there's a catch. Two catches, actually. First, I only play the map called "Backstab." Interesting enough. But here's the kicker: I only kill my own team members.

Yes, I'm a teamkiller! Everybody hates those! Thus, my support ... of sorts ... for McCain/Palin.

What can I say, every little bit helps.

I also thought about creating an ID called SarahPalin, and then while playing the game, invite people to be friends. Once friends, I can send them messages, like: "I'm new here, how do you shoot?" or "Where are the Russians? I'm good at keepin an eye on them!"

But, alas, I have only so much time...

Puppy Love

2008-10-15T20:16:00.003-04:00

We have a new puppy in our house, a yellow lab. She turned 12 weeks old the day of the Vice Presidential debates.

That afternoon she learned how to go up and down stairs. At the end of the day, I went upstairs to change out of my work clothes and she followed me up. When I went back downstairs, she hopped along down, following behind me. I greeted her at the bottom of the stairs, gave her a treat, petted and praised her: "Good puppy! You went up and down the stairs! You're a big doggie now!"

Later that evening I watched the Vice Presidential debates, hoping they would go the way of the Katie Couric interview. I admit to my disappointment. I was, in the end, impressed ... albeit in a "good puppy" sort of way.

Running for President

2008-09-30T07:11:00.003-04:00

First, let me thank all of my fantastic supporters in this unique quest to be President of the United States of America!

I believe that, regardless of qualification, any American can run this great country. If Sarah can do it, so can I!

Thank you, and God Bless America!

New Puzzler

2008-09-28T09:13:00.007-04:00

Here's a chess puzzle with a different theme. Instead of "what's the best move" puzzle, I'm posing a "what's the worst move" puzzle.

This is a game I played some months ago. I am white and just moved my Queen to H5. The move captured a Knight. The unique arrangement of pieces leaves for a possible game-ending pitfall for black.

Funny. I did not even see it until my opponent commented: "..way too cute.. no chance buddy... woulda been nice tho'...."

So, here's the board. Your job: what is the worst move black can make and why?

Hint: If black makes this move, white's next move is checkmate.

Sugar Lily

2008-09-17T19:51:00.008-04:00

To fill the hole in our hearts and in our family with the absence of our beloved Sadie, we decided not to wait too long before seeking a new companion.

Welcome to our family, Sugar Lily!

Irresistible!

Summer-y (part 2)

2008-09-14T19:55:00.007-04:00

Sadie, We Loved You

This summer brought many changes to our family. This one tops the list of the most unpleasant.

We had to put down our dog, Sadie, this summer. At age eight, she was not an old dog, but not a young dog, either. In her age, she was having an increasingly difficult time controlling some of her more aggressive behaviors, and after much heart-felt (heart-wrenching!) consideration, we decided it was best to put her down.

God bless you, Sadie. You were a good dog and we loved you!

September, 2000 - August 4, 2008

Solving the Problem of Fossil Fuel Reliance

2008-08-30T10:57:00.002-04:00

Where Do We Begin?

I tend to categorize our fossil fuel use into five general buckets: electricity, heat, industry, transportation, and “other.” These are fairly straightforward and obvious, which makes them easy to summarize. I do admit to some complications in my categorizations, which I’ll point out when I come across them. But I think that generally the categories are sound, at least for my purposes, and are supported by the majority of cases. As such, I am inclined to disregard the complications for now.

The three most straightforward categories are these:

Electricity: We burn coal, oil, and natural gas to produce the electricity that we use in our homes and businesses.
Heat: We burn oil, natural gas, and propane gas to heat our homes and businesses.
Industry: We burn coal, oil, and natural gas in industry and fabrication (e.g. steel mills, glass factories, etc.)

There are complications here. For example, a percentage of electricity is used to heat homes and businesses, but its efficiency is so poor that it’s not our preferred heating source. So there is a little overlap between “electricity” and “heat.”

There is also an anomaly in that we use electricity almost exclusively to cool our homes and businesses. We tend to think of heating and cooling in combination, but their energy sources are different. For the purposes of this discussion, “heat” is just that.

The more complex categories are these:

Transportation: We burn gasoline and diesel (refined oil products) in our vehicles.
“Other”: We use the fossil fuel refinery byproducts in all sorts of ways (e.g. plastics, etc.).

These last two categories share a commonality in that the form of their use is very extensive; in fact the form of use for the “other” category is extreme. I won’t list them.

Each of these five buckets has a personal impact on each of us every day. We rely on the activities and byproducts of each of these categories directly or indirectly every instant of every day. We are more than entrenched, we are immersed in fossil fuel use.

Something is always plugged in; your home or place of business is always the right temperature; new stuff is always being made; your vehicle is ready to go and other vehicles are bringing you stuff (food, for example); our homes and businesses are full of plastics. We are immersed. Short of returning to pre-industrial times (say the 1700s, or maybe earlier depending on how severely you define “pre-industrial”), our immersion is complete.

This is the problem.

Aside from the negative side-effects of burning the volume of fossil fuels that we burn, quite simply stated this is a problem because these fossil fuel sources are finite. We are using them up and they will eventually no longer exist, probably in my lifetime, certainly my children’s lifetime. That means, eventually, either dramatically or over time, every aspect of our lives will change. No part of our existence will remain untouched by the disappearance of fossil fuel sources. Not one. Which means every aspect of our lives will have to change.

That’s a tall order. How can we change every aspect of our lives?

I cannot help but view this problem as one that exists on a scale that the human race has never faced before. It’s a problem that will no doubt require the conviction and effort of every human to solve, and survive.

But I believe that this problem is solvable. When I think about fossil fuel reliance from the perspective of the five categories of use (above), the problem becomes a little less intangible, a little less intimidating; manageable, even; solvable. In fact, emerging through these categories is a kind of picture, a kind of roadmap.

I ask myself this question: Which category has the greatest impact on our lives? Probably, its disappearance will impact us to the converse (i.e. negatively). No matter the pace of change, it will not go unnoticed.

I order the categories this way, from greatest to least impact:

Transportation
Electricity
Industry
Heat
“Other”

We could make due without all of the activities and things that fall into the “other” category. We would be disrupted, considerably, maybe even bordering on catastrophic disruption, but we would not die en mass.

Heat would be very difficult, but the fact of the matter is we could turn to wood, electric, solar, or other sources, and we could learn to tolerate rooms that were not exactly 71 degrees through cold winters.

Industrial use is pretty important and entrenched; here we begin to encroach on some dangerous territory. Industrial use means we’re talking about jobs and economic impact, as well as materials availability. It’s likely that the hardest shift (for Americans, anyway) would be changing from their “disposable” mindset. Again, however, I’m confident we could do it.

Electricity spells pretty dramatic economic as well as personal disruption. If we had to curtail our electricity consumption, our disruption would border on extreme and catastrophe. Yet even it can be overcome with increased reliance on other sources, most likely nuclear but it’s worth noting that we are making strides on renewable sources such as solar and wind. And I believe there are untapped renewable sources that we have yet to discover or investigate. The big question is how long would it take to transition from current sources to meet the demand, which are arguably stretching our current fossil fuel production capacities to their limits as it is.

Transportation, now here is an interesting dilemma! Transportation strikes at our hearts and souls. It is the foundation of our personal and national economic well-being and fiscal health. A disruption here is personal, national, and international. Even a limited disruption in transportation has major catastrophe written all over it.

I used to say we have a fossil fuel-based economy, but that is not true. We have a transportation-based economy, and it extends beyond personal use vehicles (your car and mine). Consider all of the types of vehicles we have and on which we rely:

Cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other personal transportation vehicles.
Tractor trailers, step-vans, and other commercial delivery vehicles.
Buses, trains, planes, and other mass-transit vehicles.
Transport ships, fishing boats, and other commercially-oriented aqua vehicles.
Tractors, combines, and other farm equipment.
Bulldozers, cranes, dump trucks, and other construction equipment.
Military vehicles (land and water).
Boats, ATVs, campers, and other recreation vehicles.
Lawn mowers, trimmers, and other common yard equipment.

The scary part is that I’m sure I’m missing some!

Any significant disruption in any but perhaps the last two of these vehicle types means catastrophe. But there is one vehicle type that I believe carries the bulk of the load and is greater than all the others.

I have ordered these categories of vehicles in much the same way as I ordered the impact of the categories of fossil fuel use (greatest to least impact). In that order, I place personal transportation vehicles as having the greatest positive impact on our lives, and with that honor comes the reciprocal: most severe impact if disrupted.

Personal transportation is the ability of an individual to quickly and easily cover any distance that would be too difficult or impossible to traverse on foot, not to mention regularly. Our individual ability to commute to work, for instance, is a fundamental premise of livelihood for the vast, vast majority of us, and contributes collectively to local, national, and world economic environments. Yet, how many of us could traverse our daily commute without a vehicle?

Everything we have and take for granted today is hinged on our ability, as individuals, to contribute and produce, on economic vitality and stability, and that hinge is anchored firmly in our ability to get to and from work every day. If we cannot get to work, then work stops; if work stops, so stops the economy. And therein lies the crux. As soon as we begin to say “I can’t get to work because I have no fuel for my vehicle…”, then no one is safe. No nation, no industry, no person.

We must be able to continue, uninterrupted and without disruption, to get to and from work every day. Yet this would become difficult or impossible for anyone whose place of work is more than perhaps three miles away.

This is what catastrophe looks like before it hits, and this tells us something: It tells us where to start.

It’s not enough to merely improve the fuel efficiency of the existing technology. Hybrids? 50 miles per gallon? Even 100 miles per gallon gets the big “whoop-de-do” from me because it doesn’t solve the problem, it merely prolongs the agony. We need to completely replace that technology with one that does not rely at all on fossil fuels, but yet achieves the same objectives at comparable cost to own and operate.

As a nation and in our private industry, we shouldn’t be pouring our research and development resources into improving fuel efficiency, we should be pouring it into researching, discovering, inventing, and developing a personal transportation vehicle that doesn’t require fossil fuel at all.

This has to happen now. Not in five years. Not in ten or twenty years. Today!

How long will it take to invent such replacement technology and make such a transition? Most experts agree that oil sources will be gone in fifty to seventy years. “We can fix it later.” Yes, that’s true, but that perspective passes some pretty severe conditions onto our children. I am in my mid-forties and am horrified with the awareness that I will likely live long enough to personally observe the turmoil my children will endure as oil runs out, turmoil wrought at my generation’s short-sighted expense.

Replacing the technology behind personal transportation is the first step in solving the fossil fuel use problem. It will pre-empt economic disruption, which we need to do in order to maintain economic vitality and stability. Economic vitaility is required in order to fund efforts and progress toward transitioning the other categories away from these finite, fossil energy sources.

Replacing the technology behind all of the transportation categories will greatly expand the window of operation for all the remaining fossil fuel use categories (electricity, industry, etc.), thereby alleviating a lot of the pressure mounting behind the impending catastrophe.

But be sure, the first step is transitioning personal transportation.

Fook'n

2008-08-23T11:45:00.003-04:00

We watch the movie In Bruges the other night with the kids. It's rated R for language, but we watched it anyway. It's about two Brit hit men who are sent to Bruges, Belgium after a hit goes wrong. It was a good movie!

At the end of the movie, Emily commented about the F-bombs that were dropped. I said, flippantly, that but because of their British accent they were actually saying "fook'n", which means it's not really a swear word.

Barb disagreed. "No, that's not the case."

Sean chimed in: "Maybe it's like a brand name. And they make everything!"

Summer-y (part 1)

2008-08-14T21:22:00.021-04:00

Well, I have not been posting very much lately. Been quite a summer! So, I'm making a series of posts to summarize all that's been happening this summer. Get ready!

This summer began with a landmark decision to sell our camper.

It was a sad day, indeed.

It’s not to say that we are done camping; we may very well do some tent camping. The decision became clear to us when we realized that we would probably not use the camper at all this summer. It would sit unused for more than a year and a half.

Also, given the flat tire (and related) challenges we had the last two years, we felt the signs were upon us.

Ultimately, we concluded that we had accomplished what we set out to accomplish when we bought it: great memories.

In all, wee embarked on 18 camping excursions, starting in April of 2002. Sean was 8 and Emily a mere 5.

We camped in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. We hiked, swam, biked, and had s-mores around many campfires. We caught fish, played with fire, cooked breakfasts outside, rode paddle-boats and canoes, and played cards. We also fell into fire pits (Emily) and threw flaming marshmallows into our eyes (Sean).

OK. So, some memories we'd prefer to forget.

We enjoyed beautiful nights, and weathered some pretty strong rain storms. In fact, my favorite camping trip of all was Labor Day weekend, 2004.

We travelled not far to Lake George Escape campground, one of our favorites. For whatever reason, the campground was not particularly busy that holiday weekend. We had a very nice, wide open site in a new area of the grounds. We had one beautiful day, and one day and night that included torrential downpours.

It was fantastic!

We just holed up in the camper, listened to the (deafening) sound of the rain off the (metal) camper roof, and played cards and games as a family.

As a family.

Camper: thank you.

Boys

2008-07-16T20:28:00.000-04:00

Barb, while watching Sean and cousin Mike play in the pool, said: "Boys don't grow up, they just get different toys."

Oh how true...

Solving Sudoku

2008-06-06T21:27:00.007-04:00

I have been playing sudoku for a couple months. I have solved it, and the solution is interestingly oriental.

If you don't play sudoku, this post is not for you. If you play sudoku, you may find this interesting. For the purposes of this post, I am not going to explain the rules of the game, but I will start with the (seeming) objective: The objective of sudoku is to determine what number belongs in which box.

So you would think.

In sudoku, the solution will not come easily to you by doing what you most likely think you must do. In this, sudoku is like the Chinese finger-trap, whereby to escape you mustn't pull your fingers apart, you must push your fingers together.

In sudoku, the solution is not to figure out which numbers go in which boxes, but which numbers don't go in which boxes.

A very difficult sudoku will start you with about 20 numbers. The game that I play has a level called "insane" that starts you with 22. This is the only level I play anymore, and it's rather easy to win.

To beat the difficult ones, you need to know four strategies. I call them:

1 - cross checking
2 - eliminating trios
3 - eliminating pairs
4 - eliminating singletons

There is also the grunt work of filling in all the possibilities. But I don't consider that a "strategy" unto itself, it's just the grunt work of the game to get you started.

Here is one of the games I played that illustrates each of the four strategies.

This is the opening puzzle. I have drawn lines to demonstrate the value of cross-checking. In this example, I find (first move in the game) that I can place 8 in the lower right corner of block 1:

Cross checking identifies singletons among the crowd. I call them "hidden singletons" because they are obscured by the other possibilities for the cell.

Once this is done, I take some time to fill in all the possibilities. (grunt grunt).

Once all the possibilities are filled in, I look for singletons, pairs, and trios. In this particular game, I found no singletons or pairs, but I did find a trio. Actually, what I found was a variation of a trio, but it's sufficient to explain the concept.

A trio is any three numbers that are the only three numbers that could possibly fit in three cells within a block, row, or column. The yellow cells below show the trio variant. If it were a true trio, each cell would have as their only possibility a 2, 3, and 8. Even with the bottom two cells missing one of the numbers, it's sufficient for its trio purpose.

This trio exists as a column within a block (center column of block 5). What this means is this:
1- the only cells within that block that can possibly be a 2, 3, and 8 are those three cells.
2 - the only cells in that column that can possibly be a 2, 3, and 8 are those three cells.

CONCLUSION: I can safely eliminate all 2s, 3s, and 8s from within the block, and from within the column. (Shown as X out.)

Unfortunately in this particular game, I was still left with no clues from cross checking, or from trios, pairs, or singletons. I was left with one possibility involving 1s in block 5. I had the makings of a trio of 5, 6, 9. My hunch was that the upper right cell contained the 1. This is not a true elimination because I could have been wrong. I was correct, however this was not a true trio, just a suspected one.

With the 1 established, I now have a singleton.

A singleton is when there is only one possibility for a particular number to occupy a cell. Singletons are nice because they are often easy to spot. The real beauty of singletons is that you can eliminate all of the indicated number from the block, row, and column.

In this case, when I eliminate the 1s from block, column, and row, I am left with another singleton, a 2 in block 8.

Eliminate the 2s from block, column, and row, and then we have a nice example of a pair. In this case, it's a 5 and 7.

This pair exists as a column within a block (right column of block 8). What this means is this:
1- the only cells within that block that can possibly be a 5 or 7 are those two cells.
2 - the only cells in that column that can possibly be a 5 or 7 are those three cells.

CONCLUSION: I can safely eliminate all 5s and 7s from within the block, and from within the column. (Shown as X out.)

Trios and pairs can exist in columns or rows. When they exist within blocks, you can eliminate from the block as well as the row or column. If they don't exist within a block, you can only eliminate from their row or column.

I got lucky in this puzzle with an example of a trio and a pair, both of which were within a block.

Once I eliminate the numbers from the pair, I'm left with some more singletons.

After that, I have another singleton, but then must use cross checking to find some hidden singletons:

- hidden singleton of 1 in block 9.

- hidden singleton of 4 in block 7.

- hidden singleton of 4 in block 4.

- hidden singleton of 2 in block 4.

This last step reduces the trio I showed earlier to a pair.

After this, more cross-checking:

- hidden singleton of 7 in block 1.

- hidden singleton of 2 in block 7.

- hidden singleton of 2 in block 9.

- hidden singleton of 2 in row 1.

- hidden singleton of 2 in block 3.

- hidden singleton of 1 in block 3.

At this point, I am left with a true singleton in block 1:

After this singleton is exposed, the rest of the game is easy. Each set of eliminations reveals more singletons.

This has worked perfectly every time. I play only insane anymore.

Optimistic Psychological Momentum

2008-05-06T20:48:00.017-04:00

I have noticed a distinct behavior pattern when I play chess. I call it "optimistic psychological momentum." It's the psychological state of expecting moves that would be to your advantage. As you might imagine, it can be the source of defeat in the game—indeed it has for me, but I am learning to expect the worst from my opponents, not the best.

I have also learned, and observed in my own play, that this factor can be used to one's advantage. Making fine, subtle moves that lull your opponent into this state of optimistic psychological momentum can lead to wins.

I am currently playing a game in which both situations presented themselves. The first was a setup by me; my opponent didn't bite, but the behavior was present.

Here, I am playing white and my opponent has me somewhat pinned in the corner. He is, in fact, (potentially) two moves away from checkmating me: Qg4, followed by Qg2.

Fortunately for me, it's my move. Not only can I escape, but I can use this positioning to my advantage.

Expecting that he sees this potential, I devise a strategy that plays the possibility of my opponent's optimistic psychological momentum.

I have to move to save my King or I will be checkmated.

However, instead of taking an aggressive step, such as Qf4—which would prevent him from moving Qg4—I take a much more passive position and simply move my King to H2. This leaves the door open to the optimistic move of Qg4 with, if nothing else, the possibility of gaining a Knight, if not checkmate with Qg2.

The problem that could be obscured in the height of this optimistic psychological momentum, is the following response to Qg4 of Rg1. The threat is to chase away the Queen, but still more optimism ensues!

The worst case scenario for my opponent is that he has gained a Knight.

Unfortunately, gaining the Knight will lose the game in two moves, for as soon as he takes the Knight, my Rook will take the Pawn before his King.

The King's only response is to evacuate to H8. A slight retreat by my Rook, to G5, and checkmate.

Here:

My opponent in this particular case did not fall into this pattern, but my point was to illustrate how I have learned to play that pattern to my advantage.

In a few days I will show a few moves later in the game where I fell prey to the pattern at the price of a Knight.

Things I Can't Do

2008-05-01T18:53:00.004-04:00

On November 3, 2007, at age 50, my brother Kirk ran the New York City Marathon. He completed the run in 3 hours and 29 minutes: one mile every 8 minutes for 26 miles. One time around a quarter mile track every 2 minutes. His finish time put him in the top ten percent for runners his age, qualifying him to run the Boston Marathon.

On April 21, 2008, at age 50, Kirk ran and completed the Boston Marathon. While his time was not better than New York—his training regimen having been hampered by upstate New York’s winter weather—he did complete this incredible achievement, as witnessed in person by his wife (Lotus), his sister Kim (who flew in from Italy), his brother Kevin, and myself.

It is safe to say that this achievement signifies abilities in physical ability and endurance. But above those things, it signifies something much more powerful, much more meaningful, and much more telling about Kirk, best conveyed this way:

Kevin asked his son, Justin, if he thought Kevin could run a marathon. Justin’s response was this: you could run a marathon; what you could not do is adhere to the training regimen required to prepare to run the marathon.

With Kevin, this is where I fit. I am sure Kevin was a strong athlete in his youth. I know that I was: I ran the 400meter dash in high school track events in ~53 seconds, approaching a school record, and twice finishing in third place in the Genesee County sectionals. For this, I barely practiced, which is the tell.

What Kirk’s achievement signifies, above all other signifiers, is this: intrepid, audacious fortitude and self-discipline, backed by sheer will power, driving to achieve a self-imposed life goal.

If I didn’t think it before, I think it now: my brother Kirk can do anything!

Here is Kirk finishing the marathon. He is in the bright yellow shirt. The finish line is approximately .5 miles away.

More Chess

2008-04-30T21:04:00.001-04:00

One more. You are black, it's your move, check-mate in two moves.

Check Mate

2008-04-24T19:09:00.007-04:00

You are black. It's your move. Check mate in two moves. What are the moves?
How about this one (a bit easier, but my opponent missed it): You are white.It's your move. You take the black queen in two moves.

I love chess...

My Copy Rights

2008-04-02T17:13:00.004-04:00

I love my iPod, but I’m faced with a dilemma concerning some of my music files: I didn’t buy them.

When I purchase copyrighted music, what am I purchasing?

Obviously, I am purchasing the media: a CD, an actual disc, with a case, and artwork, and packaging. In an extended sense, I am also purchasing the effort required to bring it to the store where I buy it. And not to forget the artist, I am purchasing the performance itself from the musicians.

But I am also purchasing the right to play the music, as often as I want, anywhere I want, with anyone else present with whom I want to enjoy it.

When the media changes, such as with the wane of vinyl and the advent of CDs, do I cede my rights to play the music?

In the olden days, I would unfortunately have to repurchase the music if I wanted to play it on the new media. A vinyl record just wouldn’t work in a CD player, and there was nothing I could do to make it work in the CD player. If I wanted to play the music in the CD player, I had to purchase new media.

Tucked into the cost of that new media, however, was a small amount set aside that included a repurchase of my right to play it. It was a nominal amount, so while I grumbled that I had to purchase the music again, I went along.

With CDs, however, there’s a little hiccup to my advantage. I can make my CD media work on my iPod. I can convert the CD into an .mp3 file, rather easily, through a process called “ripping.”

I think this is legal to do, so long as I have a legitimate and legal copy to start from.

But why would this be legal?

Well, because I already have a legal copy. That is to say, I already own the right to play the music. So, I have not ceded my right to play the music just because the media changed.

Now, what if I own a bunch of vinyl records; shouldn’t I, then, be entitled to updated media? Well, no, because there is all that materials and handling cost associated with the media.

Oh yes, I am paying for materials costs when I purchase a CD, that’s right. And arguably the production costs account for the majority of the cost associated with that media.

But what if I don’t want a CD and all of that media and its associated costs? What if all I want is an .mp3 file? Certainly a single .mp3 file—which can be replicated millions and millions of times and delivered to me at almost no cost—should be offered to me at a commensurate fraction of price.

And yet, I am required, once again, to repurchase the music, and my right to play it, at price rates comparable to purchasing CD media.

Seems like someone is being “ripped” here, certainly.

I believe as long as the music industry maintains its “olden days” mentality, which requires you to repurchase your rights along with new media, that there will be a robust underground of ripped music, an underground which represents individual efforts to reclaim rights.

Renewable Energy

2008-03-22T16:32:00.003-04:00

According to the Edison Electric Institute, there are 160,000 miles of high voltage (230 kilo-volts and above) transmission lines in the United States.

Here's an idea, you might think I'm crazy talkin, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway. And please, double-check my math on this, as math is not my particular forté.

There are 5,280 feet in a mile. Each of these high voltage transmission lines cuts a swath of about 100 wide wherever it goes. So let's say we set aside 75 feet for photovoltaic cells. That would be 5,280 x 75 = 396,000 square feet per mile of transmission line.

According to the site National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and a handy tool for calculating solar efficiency, a 2-axis PV array of 377 square feet in the Albany, New York area would produce about 6,133 kWh (kilowatt hours) of electricity annually.

Just for the fun of it, and I know Albany is not the sunniest place in the United States, what if we fill all 160,000 miles (63,360,000,000 square feet) with 377 sq. ft. 2-axis PV arrays. 63,360,000,000 / 377 = 168,063,660 arrays.

If each, annually, produced 6,000 kWh of electricity, let's see, that's: 168,063,660 x 6,000 = 1,008,381,962,865 kWh of electricity annually. I can't imagine it would take much to hook those PV arrays into the grid... it's right there!

Seems like a lot of electricity, but according to the site Energy Information Administration, the united states uses 4,000,000,000,000 annually, so such an array would cover approximately 25% of our electricity demand.

But I'm flying by the seat of my pants here! What do I know! God knows what mistakes I've made in the calculations. Maybe I mis-interpreted the size of each array, or the amount of electricity it generates, or who knows what.

So I say we get the experts on it!

The land is already reserved for electricity use (i.e. transmission), and it's gotta help!

Let's do it!

I bet the only thing we lack is the political will to make it happen.

Sci Fi

2008-03-22T09:39:00.001-04:00

I have dedicated the majority of my reading time over the past few years to science fiction. I've always enjoyed sci-fi and for the past few years I have been catching up to all the sci-fi I've meant to read in my life.

I've been making my way through the Hugo and Nebula award winners, dating back to the some classic authors and works in the 1950's and 1960's. I've been sure to include some more recent works by newer authors, too.

This range of eras offers some interesting contrasts, and provides what I think are two critical sci-fi components, or values, authors must keep in mind when writing. They are:

Social morays
Imaginative technology

All of the attitudes and customs we assume constitute our social morays. It's how we've been taught to act, think, and behave, and the roles we've been taught to accept since birth.

Reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series provides a good example of this. It is, at times, almost unbearable because of the overt "second-class-citizening" of women that saturates the language and story. It's the men who are doing everything and the women getting in the way. There is some of this in Robert Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold as well, but not quite to the extent as in Foundation.

So the first rule for sci-fi authors must be: don't entrench your work in the social morays of our day.

Unto itself, this provides a challenge for writers: how to you recognize today what will be perceived tomorrow as "archaic", especially given that you've been brought up within this emersion of social morays making it all the more difficult to identify them.

It also provides a challenging paradox. In order for the work to be appreciated by today's audience—which I presume they do, or their books won't sell—there must be some degree of social morays embedded in them or the audience won't be able to relate. An unrelated audience is an audience lost.

The second item is a really interesting one: imaginative technology.

Imaginative technology is the ability for an author to present ideas for technologies that don't exist today but that could exist tomorrow. Such technology presumably would alter, possibly dramatically, how we exist, interact, behave. Technology affects social morays.

We see the affect of technology all around us today with cell phones, text messaging, the Internet, and we know just how much it can affect us and how much is possible because we have personal life experience backing us. We remember the days when "Pong" was huge. We remember the days when they were called "car phones" and only rich people had them. It makes it easier for us to project what may be possible.

For me, this is the most exciting part of reading science fiction!

Last year I spent half the year reading Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction series; this year I am reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and it is offering an interesting contrast in imaginative technology.

Not to diminish the stature of Isaac Asimov, but aside from the then ground-breaking notion of a galactic empire with ships traveling from star system to star system and other supernatural phenomena, it is barren in imaginative technology.

This makes sense, really, because he was writing this series in the early 1950s, a time we may characterize as the early, early stages of the technology revolution. It was also a time just after World War II, so much of the imaginative technology content is based in the technology that advanced from the war. Hamilton, in contrast, writing at a time when technology advances are commonplace and their impact on our daily lives prevalent (daily), it offers no surprise that his imaginative technology is so much more alive and thrilling.

Goog-Mortalized

2008-03-08T08:52:00.006-05:00

maps.google.com ... It's amazing, if I may say so. I like it best of the mapping engines that are out there.

I looked up an address this morning and saw the "Street View" link. I have seen the street view links before but I've never checked them out. Today, I decided to click it, and all I can say is, wow!

They have most of the Capital District in street view. So I decided to take a drive down my street and sure enough there is my house.

And oh, look, there's Sean!

He's in the street in front of our house with his little red wagon—I'm sure he's going to appreciate that. And I'm in my car pulling into the garage.

We've been Goog-mortalized!

Night Visitor

2008-03-04T21:21:00.005-05:00

We always see the signs, but seldom do we see them.

This past Sunday night, as we were getting ready for bed, we were paid a rare early visit by a nocturnal guest. We turned on the outside lights, which masked our presence, and for ten minutes we watched, only a few feet away.

The video is a little dark; live was lighter. Enjoy just the same.

Stewart Preserve

2008-02-29T09:42:00.006-05:00

I did a series of geocaches in Stewart Preserve a few weeks ago. The weather forecast was calling for a cold day, with increasing wind and snow. I was in just such a mood, needing a hike, needing to be in the woods [looking for tupperware], that I threw caution aside and trekked out.

It was an enchanting hike. Here are a few photos taken from the day.

Cache Rating System

2008-02-24T14:18:00.012-05:00

Having done a number of geocaches of varying size and difficulty (i.e. varying levels of frustration), I've decided to devise my own cache difficulty rating system.

Currently, many/most caches are rated using ClayJar's rating system. I don't like this sytem because it mostly rates the difficulty of the terrain involved in getting to the cache location. Six of seven characteristics are dedicated to this, while only one actually rates the difficulty of finding the cache container, which often is most of the challenge, and the characteristics of the cache are fairly general and non-specific.

Here is how I rate caches. Finding a cache involves three characteristics:

the type of container
how well it is hidden
the nature of the hints that are provided

The table below shows how this works. Each of the first two characteristics has three levels (1, 3, 5). They are averaged. The third characteristic (hints) provides difficulty subtraction values (0, -.5, -1) because hints (should) make it easier to find the container.

I believe this rating system provides more meaningful guidance to cachers and will help guide them in understanding the difficulty of the caches they are going after. Cachers like myself would be better able to plan their caching day. This is how I will rate my own placed geocaches in the fiture, and it's how I will assess the geocaches I find.

There are some caveats to my system.

First, multi-point caches are not explicitly covered, and my advice is to "average" each of the points but favor rating to the most difficult point.

Puzzle and/or specialized caches are not explicitly covered either. Puzzle or specialized caches typically involve extra effort just to determine the coordinates of the cache. This is quite different than terrain (how to get to it) and the hide (where the container itself is hidden). These caches usually (if not always) include instructions or other information in the cache description indicating that extra effort is required. This, in my opinion, should serve as evidence enough to geocachers that the cache difficulty is on another level altogether. These types of caches come with their own "cacher beware" label.

What is the container like?	How well hidden is it?
	Cache hints make it easier to find the cache; the characteristic of the hint subtracts value from the average of the hide and the container.
	In Plain Sight 1 such as hanging from a tree, attached to a fence,or on another object that is otherwise in plain sight	Well Hidden 3 such as inside an object (e.g. knotch in atree), attached to an object (e.g. between a sign post and a wall), covered	Invisible 5 Purposely and intentionally made to be as difficult to find as possible.
Typical Container 1 for a cache this size (35mm film, decon kit,small ammo can, large ammo can) [nothing special about it]	no/cryptic hints (0) 1	no/cryptic hints (0) 2	no/cryptic hints (0) 3
	good hints (-.5) 1	good hints (-.5) 1.5	good hints (-.5) 2.5
	tells (-1) 1	tells (-1) 1	tells (-1) 2
Atypical Container 3 but not “specialized”	no/cryptic hints (0) 2	no/cryptic hints (0) 3	no/cryptic hints (0) 4
	good hints (-.5) 1.5	good hints (-.5) 2.5	good hints (-.5) 3.5
	tells (-1) 1	tells (-1) 2	tells (-1) 3
Specialized Container 5 designed to look like part of the background (a rock; a stick; deer poop)—likely require help from the cache owner or additional clues	no/cryptic hints (0) 3	no/cryptic hints (0) 4	no/cryptic hints (0) 5
	good hints (-.5) 2.5	good hints (-.5) 3.5	good hints (-.5) 4.5
	tells (-1) 2	tells (-1) 3	tells (-1) 4

Out of the Box!

2008-02-20T17:50:00.000-05:00

I’m certain that I am blind.

The last two weekends of geocaching has proven this to me on three specific occasions. If not blind, at least at times unable to get outside the box.

First proof: Rampant Lion, a multi-point geocache in Stewart Preserve. I ventured out despite the calls for increasing overcast, wind, and snow. It was a beautiful hike and all points on this multi were basically right on the trail. Each point container was a small, green, cylindrical watertight match container. The first two were inside the stumps of trees (easy finds, right on the trail).

The third point stumped me. I looked for literally an hour. My GPS was getting a terribly spotty signal, assuring me only of 175 or 200 foot accuracy (sometimes down to 50 foot, but not the 25 that is common). Finally, just as I was about to give up, I remembered to look at the “additional clues” portion of the caches web-page (downloaded to my PocketPC). Sure enough, a clue that said: leaning tree, eye level, green match container.

DOH!

Two minutes of looking and there it was. Better still, there were my footprints right below it. I am certain I had brushed against it during my earlier search.

Blind.

Second proof: DJs Spirit, a single point geocache on Peebles Island. This one in particular stumped me because my GPS had an awesome signal. I was tracking 8 satellites for 20 foot accuracy; I was right on top of the thing! Couldn’t find it. There were five or six trees that had openings in their stumps, so I scavenged each one for five to fifteen minutes. After about forty-five minutes, I gave up. Later that day I contacted another geocacher (whippintegra and 1irishgirl) who had not been able to complete a difficult multi on Peebles (that I had) and offered a deal: if he’d help me find DJs, I’d help him find Rusty Junk. He accepted. We went to the location of DJs and he pointed at the area where my GPS had placed the cache. When I looked at the ground, he said “You’re doing what we did,” which I took to mean ‘making the same mistake.’ So I looked up.

DOH!

They chuckled at me as I signed the log.

Blind as a bat.

Third proof: Remember Me, a single point geocache in Schodack Island Park in Castleton. This one really screamed “get out of the box” at me. Once again, I had an excellent GPS signal that put me right on the spot. I looked for an hour, but found nothing. This was very frustrating and came at the end of a string of DNFs (did not find) for the day. Adding to it was the fact that the “additional clue” was rather cryptic, if not deceiving: “knot too high, knot too low.” OK, start looking for a knott in a tree that is perhaps knee level. Hmmm, there are no knotts in any trees here… I gave up. Later that day I contacted the cache owner (geosliders) with the thought that perhaps the cache had been taken (this has happened to me before) and asked for an additional clue. Their response: it’s a resin designed to look like a fungus growing on the tree, and the container (35mm film canister) is under it. Ah yes, I remember looking at that fungus.

DOH!

Blind. Box.

1000 Islands Sunset

2008-02-09T16:13:00.001-05:00

iTunes Meme

2008-02-05T17:14:00.000-05:00

Pick up your iPod, select shuffle, press play, post the song it plays.

"I thank You"
ZZ Top

Forest Silhouette

2008-01-31T19:00:00.000-05:00

Album Meme

2008-01-29T17:45:00.001-05:00

OK, now this was kind of fun. I actually got some good stuff!

Here's my first one:
Decoryah is actually a metal band. So, fitting. Effect of habit is good and strange, like a metal band should be.

Here's my second:
It's an interesting juxtoposition. This second one has a "Barry Manilow" kind of feel to it. That "nice" kind of feel. It's anything but metal.

I prefer the metal.

Here's the link to the site that directs you in creating your own album meme.

My Perfect Winter

2008-01-26T21:43:00.000-05:00

This is my perfect winter:

It starts in late November with an inch or two of snow right around Thanksgiving. It doesn't stay around long, but it's enough to get you in the mood, to psyche you into winter.

Next we get a good six to eight inches in mid-December; you got it, right before Christmas. Now we're talking! White Christmas, who doesn't like that? Then a nice even flurry from Christmas through new year's day, not accumulating much, but enough to make the sky a regular white blur.

On about the second week of January, a pummeling. Bring it on! I'm talking consecutive snowstorms of one to two feet landing on us within as many weeks. It's winter, by God, and that should mean snow, so bring it!

Then a breather. Dig ourselves out. Shake ourselves off.

Take a couple weeks out of the fray, maybe even have some forty degree days, melt some of the piles down. But don't let the reprieve last too long. In early February, another dose of the same. Two feet! Let it snow hard all night at least once, bring us that magical morning with snow covering everything, make the world a winter wonderland.

By now, we might be getting a little tired of it, but let's just cycle through it one more time for good measure. We can't let winter slip by without us really being able to say "we had winter." So just at the end of February, say to celebrate a leap year, or the shortest month in the set, bring it down in buckets! It doesn't have to be a record breaker, but we have to know it's there.

By mid March, some snow is fine, but really we should start to seeing more regular forty degree days, even some fifty degree days. By mid April we should be seeing mid and upper fifties and some sixties. By mid May, we should see seventies.

May should be summer.

That is my perfect winter. So come on winter god. Let's see your stuff!

Random Book Meme

2008-01-23T07:15:00.000-05:00

Here are the rules:

1. Grab your nearest book.

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.

5. Tag 5 different people.

"'Fallacious, for your superior has his superior, and that superior is myself, and I am the State. But come, you shall have no cause to complain of this justice of mine that you say is proverbial. State in your own words the nature of the breach in discipline that has brought all this on.'"

-Isaac Asimov
"Foundation and Empire"

(my apologies to Geo; I just caught this post this morning... as opposed to two weeks ago when you posted it)

1089

2008-01-20T09:24:00.000-05:00

This is the number of unique domain (including subdomains) that are included in my MS Outlook spam filter.

And it's growing. They're tricky buggers, that's for sure.

Some context: I have three email accounts: Roadrunner, Gmail, and Yahoo!. Each serves a different purpose.

For instance, I use my Roadrunner account for all of my online website registrations because I know those evil bastards will sell my email address or otherwise make it publicly available, or sneakily decide later to include the "option to opt out" of receiving promotional materials. I.e.: SPAM. So, my Roadrunner account is a graveyard of garbage. If you send me email there, good luck to you!

Gmail I used for sporadically for awhile, but I preferred Yahoo! generally and have been directing people that way. I use Yahoo! for email.

To keep the Roadrunner account from overflowing, I use Outlook and regularly add spam address to the Blocked Senders list. And then periodically I go through the blocked sender list itself to make sure I: 1) didn't inadvertently include someone as spam who is not spam, and 2) reduce the email address to the domain.

For those non-tech types reading along, that would be changing this:

dlroato@deliquation.info

to this:

@deliquation.info

Outlook is smart enough to then capture any email coming from @deliquation.info and throw it in the spam folder. I make this change by exporting the blocked sender list to a text file, then opening that text file in MS Word, and doing a global search and replace. That is, I do it en-mass.

You gotta be careful with this approach sometimes spam comes from someone@hotmail.com, but I have friends who have hotmail addresses. I don't want to lump them in, so after I do my global search and replace, I sort the list and weed out the legit domains.

I just did this task this morning. My evil domain list is not 1089 long.

The tricky ones are the subdomain senders. For those non-tech types reading along, a subdomain adds second name and dot after the @. For example:

@032.mx01.net
@039.mx01.net

Tricky eh? And you see the problem, no doubt. It's further exacerbated by MS Outlook's inability to lump subdomains in with the domains. That means each address that has a subdomain has to be added ... individually.

1089.

Damn!

2008-01-11T08:39:00.001-05:00

And Christmas is over!

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/4244272.html?page=4

2007 Reading Review

2008-01-07T17:22:00.002-05:00

Hamilton's series (6 books)
The Reality Dysfunction: P1 Emergence (Hamilton)
The Reality Dysfunction: P2 Expansion (Hamilton)
The Neutronium Alchemist - Part 1: Consolidation (Hamilton)
The Neutronium Alchemist - Part 2: Conflict (Hamilton)
The Naked God - Part 1: Flight (Hamilton)
The Naked God - Part 2: Faith (Hamilton)

I’d give this a rating of 9 out of 10.

This was, by far, the best of my reading for the year. The series entailed a very captivating storyline (the dead come back to life, with super powers), some very interesting technology ideas (“neural nanonics” being the best of them), and exceptional character development (Quinn Dexter = Pure Evil; every time the storyline returned to him I found myself squirming…but reading on just the same!).

I do have three criticisms, however. First is sexually explicit, graphic description of the main character’s (the hero’s) sexual prowess. I would be reading along and suddenly feel like I should be in the bathroom with the door closed! It really wasn’t necessary and didn’t add anything to the series.

Second is some excessive character development. Every character, even some fairly minor ones, received extensive character development despite their fairly minor roles. I felt at times that I was getting a pretty clear glimpse into the author’s neurosis!

Lastly—and this ties into Hamilton’s neurosis in a way—the ending was a little pat, albeit fascinating! I found myself imagining Hamilton’s spouse or publisher saying flat out, “You have to end it now,” and Hamilton himself capitulating with, “Well, if I have to…”

But for three thousand five hundred pages, these criticisms are minor. This was a fantastic series! Certainly the best sci-fi I’ve read this year, and probably the best (series) I’ve ever read.

The Speed of Dark (Moon)
I’d give this a rating of 7.4 out of 10.

This was overall a very good read. I put it in the category of “a little futuristic” as the story could probably realistically take place ten years from now. Nothing particularly exciting about the technology, and it’s not a space story.

As you might imagine, I have some criticisms, two of them to be exact.

First, the author captures the essence of autism through endless detail about the mundane. There were moments when I felt sure I could skip several pages and miss nothing. Second, and it relates to the first, the story seemed to end abruptly and a just bit pat. I found myself wishing Moon had cut back (by about half) on the autism development (i.e. the mundane detail) and instead extended the story beyond its current ending. I think she missed an outstanding opportunity for contrast and I found myself mildly disappointed as a result.

The Giver (Lowry)
I’d give this a rating of 7.3 out of 10.

This book came highly recommended by Sean; it was on his reading list in middle school.

This was a great story with a fascinating theme! It’s metaphorical and symbolic characteristics reminded me strongly of Fahrenheit 451 (a book Sean had to read over the summer). We had some interesting discussions about both books.

Definitely a worthwhile and fun read!

Treasure Island (Stevens)
I’d give this a rating of 7.1 out of 10.

What can I say: it’s Treasure Island!

This was a fun, short, and easy enough read and I enjoyed reading it (having never read it before). I admit, however, that the 7 includes a “historical value” bias. I’d probably give it a 7 anyway.

Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)
I’d give this a rating of 7 out of 10.

What can I say: it’s Fahrenheit 451!

This, too, was a fun, short, and easy enough read and I enjoyed reading it. Having never read it before, I was actually surprised by its metaphorical and symbolic characteristics. I’d characterize it as a light read, but only on the surface. If you study it, there’s undoubtedly a deep well here.

This book, too, I admit to rating with a “historical value” bias. I’d probably give it a 7 anyway.

Starship Troopers (Heinlein)
I’d give this a rating of 6.5 out of 10.

This was a good read, especially if you like philosophical and socio-civil speculative themes.

The most obvious and pervasive theme—i.e. the main storyline—is life in the military. This is a book about being in the military during a war, and it comes replete with all the details you might expect. The “bugs” really are a metaphor (or euphemism), referring to any enemy. In this regard, “space” and “science fiction” are peripheral, serving only as a backdrop to Heinlein’s other motives.

Which brings me to two other themes that are interesting. First is “History and Moral Philosophy.” This is a course all students are required to take, but none are required to pass. References to it are smattered throughout the book and serve as the avenue for Heinlein’s overt philosophical commentary on a range of things. Heinlein is famous for inserting philosophical notions into his science fiction, so the “smack you in the face with these ideas” nature of the writing is not a problem for me. And some of the ideas expressed certainly are interesting!

A second theme pertains to the notion of social responsibility and the right to vote. In order to become a “citizen” and earn the right to vote, you have to serve in the military. And serving in the military comes with a concerted effort to get rid of you! The notion is that in order to participate in the government, you must be willing to put the value of the greater good of society ahead of your own life; this has the benefit of removing those who seek power for selfish reasons from eligibility.

Reading this as I listen to the debates and banter accommodating the onset of Presidential elections, I think the U.S. could benefit from such a thing!

Overall, the book is a smooth and easy enough read with good character development and interesting enough themes. The movie does it no justice at all! But still, it doesn’t compare to “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” which by far my favorite Heinlein.

Eternity (Bear)
I’d give this a rating of 6 out of 10.

I have to admit to being a little disappointed in this book. This was the second in a series, Eon being the first. Eon was a great read, and I had high hopes for an excellent follow-up. Unfortunately some of the more interesting themes were not developed, or at least not to a depth that would make them “fascinating.” By the end of the book I found myself saying “not enough happened.” Or, perhaps, “not enough of the right stuff happened.” Or maybe both.

The result, unfortunately, is that I’ve decided not to read Legacy (the third book in series); at least not this year.

Farnham’s Freehold (Heinlein)
I’d give this a rating of 5 out of 10.

I have always thought of Heinlein as one of the greats, one of the originals, alongside Asimov and Clarke as the fathers of the sci-fi genre. With that in mind I hate to say this, but I was rather disappointed in Heinlein’s showing here.

The story was interesting enough, and there were some very interesting social themes (whites are slaves and black rule the world—quite the idea for readers in 1964). And there were other interesting themes: from bomb shelters to surviving as the only humans on earth.

What killed it for me was the main character. Aside from 100 pages if dialogue (ugh!), the main character—the hero—was just awfully difficult to like. Much easier to dislike! Which I did! Through the whole book! My distaste of the main character was a total distraction throughout the entire book and I just couldn’t get past it. I could not empathize.

It even distracted me from not liking the pat ending. In fact, I found myself appreciating the pat ending…glad I could get on to something else.

The Witling (Vinge)
I’d give this a rating of 4 out of 10.

I like Vinge as an author, but he’s not an overly prolific writer, which makes for a scarcity of material from him. I picked this one up for that reason. I would characterize this as a teen reader (maybe younger). Generally, there was not enough interesting stuff to really capture me, and I’m sad to say this was sits as my least liked read of the year.

In Vinge’s defense, however, I’d like to point out that his other works are really, really good. Specifically: Marooned in Realtime (one of my all-time favorite reads), and The Peace War (a pseudo sequel/prequel, also very good) [he should expand on this series]; A Deepness in the Sky, and Fire Upon the Deep (also series-like). These others rate very high with me, so don’t let The Witling and my review of it govern your overall opinion of Vinge generally.

2008 Reading List

2008-01-01T17:50:00.000-05:00

Foundation, Isaac Asimov
Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov
Second Foundation, Isaac Asimov
Foundation's Edge, Isaac Asimov
Foundation and Earth, Isaac Asimov
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
Hyperion, Dan Simmons
The Fall of Hyperion, Dan Simmons
Welcome to the Monkey House, Kurt Vonnegut

Carolyn Coats

2007-12-31T11:35:00.000-05:00

The trouble with trouble is it starts out as fun.

- Things Your Mother Always Told you but You Didn't Want to Hear, 1994

Always

2007-12-26T11:28:00.001-05:00

Not always is the road clear
or straight.
Not always is the forest green.
Not always is the sun on your face.
Not always are friends at your side.
Still.
Always the opportunity for peace.

take one minute for peace

peace to you in the new year

Santa’s Upgraded Sleigh(s)

2007-12-18T22:00:00.000-05:00

I saw him! Last night, I swear! It was amazing! Red, and white, and blue, and green, with red and white and yellow lights, and shiny black tires!

At 9p.m. last night, coming home from Sean’s track meet, coming toward us on Best Road in the dark was a set of headlights and the distinctive yellow lights of a step-van. Looking at the oncoming vehicle, I said to Sean, “FedEx or UPS.”

It was UPS. At 9p.m.? This must be the new Santa, I thought, and chuckled to myself.

When we got home, I said to Emily, who was home alone while I was at Sean’s track meet and Barb was out for the evening, “Any phone calls?” “Nope,” she said. Then I said, facetiously, “Any strangers come to the door?” “Yep,” she said. “UPS delivered something. It’s on the porch.”

I was right! It was the new Santa! And he came to my house!

At about 10p.m. that same evening, when Barb had returned home from her evening out, I mentioned this strange UPS delivery schedule to her. She turned to me and said, “Look across the street.” There, pulling into our neighbor’s driveway, was FedEx.

It was 10 p.m. Unbelievable, I thought!

At 10:30 p.m. we went to bed. All the lights were out. Our outdoor Christmas light turned off at 10:39. Nothing stirred. All was quiet.

At 6:30 this morning I reminded Barb that we needed to leave out pre-sign notes for a delivery today. She said, “Look on the porch.”

What the…?

Sure enough, UPSanta visited again sometime in the night leaving yet another package on our doorstep (I am grateful he did not actually try to get into our house to place the box under the tree).

There are two factors behind these late night deliveries: The storms that hit the central states last week surely caused delays and back-logs with FedEx and UPS; they are no doubt making up ground. The other factor is me: 80% of all of my household’s Christmas shopping was done on-line, dependant on UPS and FedEx. (OK, so it’s not me, personally, but it certainly is the demographic in which I sit.)

All I can say is this:

Merry Christmas to you, the drivers of those new sleighs, the new Santas: UPSanta and FedExsanta. And thank you for ensuring my Christmas is merry.

My New Job

2007-12-13T18:34:00.000-05:00

I am excited to report that my new job is going pretty well!

One of the greatest benefits of my new job is that I have direct client interaction, daily. All of the positions I have held previously did not have a direct client interaction component, even though my work was on direct behalf of users (software quality and documentation). I was working in a vacuum. This opportunity is a great benefit to my career, and I am finding that it affords some personal benefit as well. My client is very happy with my contribution and work.

My client is happy with me.

This is personally rewarding. I feel valued, valuable, and competent. I am doing a good job and I can see that by my client’s response to my work.

One thing I miss about my previous work environments is the camaraderie associated with working in an office where many people are contributing to a common goal. This had been my environment for sixteen years. While I work amongst some very nice people, I am working on a project that is ancillary to their main purpose. There are very few people around me who are working at a similar level and doing similar type work as I am doing. There are some, but the interaction I have with them is not daily.

This is clearly a drawback for me, both professionally and personally. But this is OK. I am adapting and learning.

Overall, I am satisfied with my move away from MapInfo. I think I am ending up in an equal place to where I was, and I see good opportunity around me. I am doing work that is more to my skills and preferences; I am being recognized and rewarded for my contribution; I am much, much less stressed; I am happy. I am happier. This is hard for me to admit, but it is true. In retrospect, I had always found MapInfo’s work environment to be challenging but difficult, and I never really felt like I fit in. I don’t miss those things.

I do miss one thing in particular about MapInfo, strangely enough: my chair. I kind of wish I’d taken it with me when I left, but with the video cameras and all… it probably would not have worked out. My new chair is uncomfortable and I leave every day with a back ache. I am going to ask for a new one soon.

If I get it, I just might be ahead.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

2007-12-07T21:36:00.000-05:00

"Hey, whad'ya say we be independent together!"

-Hermie, the Dentist Elf

It Takes a Long Time to See Far Away

2007-12-03T17:42:00.000-05:00

“And the higher the resolution, the further a telescope can see back in time, as light can take millions or billions of years to reach Earth.”
- What Space Telescopes of Tomorrow Will See
NASA expects the James Webb Space Telescope to launch in 2013

I always giggle a little when I hear or read something like this. “Seeing back in time?” Really? Am I to believe, then, that if I had a big enough telescope, I would be able to see myself yesterday?

Somehow I think not.

Of course, the premise is sound. We are seeing light from so far away, and the fact is, while light is fast it is not infinite. That means it takes time to get here; otherwise we would see everything all at once, regardless of origin.

Technically, with the use of larger telescopes they are simply seeing farther away. It’s just that farther away takes longer to see.

This is to our advantage to some extent as we can then rationalize the “age” of the universe. Use properties of light to gauge the distance it has travelled, and then top that off with a grand leap of faith: assume there’s nothing beyond it.

If that’s how big the universe is (i.e. how far away stuff is), then we can calculate how old it is. Of course there is some other stuff in there, too, such as the direction objects are travelling away from us, etc.

But this is where I giggle more. Won’t we be surprised when they put the gigantic James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) into orbit in 2013 (or so) and begin to see stuff … even farther away!

Oh wait, our calculations were wrong, the universe is actually older than we previously thought.

Human beings are very, very small in the grand scheme of things and that despite all we know or think we know, we are really only scratching the surface. Were I a grain of sand at the bottom of the ocean, would I really be able to describe a drop of dew on a leaf in the Amazon?

Now, I am not a particularly “religious” person, but I do consider myself spiritual. I believe in God (whatever that is), and that I am connected to that thing in some way. I can't help but think that statements such as these, that so definitively state something like "the age of the universe," must come from particularly non-spiritual people, believing (arrogantly) that they can accurately perceive God’s grand design.

Somehow I think not.

Here's my take: no matter how large or old we think the universe is, rest assured it’s larger and older still.

Man / Woman (updated)

2007-11-21T07:36:00.000-05:00

Here is a piece of text from the book I am reading. Please read the passage and take the poll to tell me whether you think the character is a male or female, and whether you think the author is a male of female.

"It is hard to drive safely in the hot afternoon, with the wrong music in my head. Light flashes off windshields, bumpers, trim; there are too many flashing lights. By the time I get home, my head hurts and I'm shaking. I take the pillows off my couch into the bedroom, closing all the shades tightly and then the door. I lie down, piling the pillows on top of me, then turn off the light.

"[...] As I lie there in the dark, the gentle, soft pressure gradually eases my tension, and the wrong music in my mind empties out. I float in a soft, dark silence . . . at rest, at peace, uninvaded by the fast-moving photons."

Now, go and vote and don't read any further until you've done so.

UPDATE
Well, I gave some clues in the post, but I hope that the voters didn't use them to find out the answer. However, assuming we played fair, I'm surprised by the answers and my theory is shaken.

Don't read any further if you don't want the answer, because I'm going to give it right now: The author is femail and the character is male. Everyone got the character right, and one got the author right.

Now, here's my take.

When I was in grad school, I read a story that was written by a female author writing under a male pen-name. I did not know this when reading the story. (I don't remember the story or author. ) The main character was a man; the second main character (secondary character?) was a woman, and there were several interactions between them.

Several passages describing these interactions struck me oddly, but I couldn't put my finger on why until after I was told that the author was female. Then it made sense: I was having a difficult time believing that a man would do or say certain things described in the passages; these things seemed more like a female describing what she thought a man would think or do, but they were more like what a female would think or do.

The two paragraphs above struck me the same way. The response to the emotional state being described struck me as feminine, not masculine.

First: A retreat to a bedroom with pillows; when was the last time you heard of a guy retreating, not to mention to a bedroom with pillows because he is emotionally upset. Retreating to a bar, oh yeah! Retreating to a home, sure. Retreating to his bedroom, maybe, but with pillows? I can't suspend my disbelief here.

Second: The intricate description of the emotional connection between the interacting parts of the scene (pillows, tension, music, floating) strike me as feminine, not masculine. My experience is that men aren't really that connected to their emotional states and generally find it difficult (some find it impossible) to describe their motions at all. The first person narrative signals to me that this guy is thus connected, which is counter to my experience and expectations. Men are simpler: I feel x; such and such makes me feel y. My experience with women, on the other hand, is that they are very connected with the intricacies of emotional interactions and are expert at describing them, sometimes at length. The observations in the passage strike me as something a woman would observe and describe; not a man.

Third: The words that are used send me a subconscious signal: "gentle, soft pressure," "the wrong music," "float in a soft, dark silence" "uninvaded . . ." Men are not "invaded," they are the ones who invade. This is a very basic premise of male and female-ness; something we learn of at puberty and spend the rest of our lives coming to terms with. All of this tells me that this is a soft persona; a woman. Men are not soft. Men are the ones who, when pressured, choose fight over flight. It's why we build and/or conquer civilizations; we are not invaded (without a fight, anyway); we do not retreat.

All of these things signal me to think this is a female character; knowing what I knew as I read the passage (i.e. that the author is female), I was left with the distinct sense that this was a female author trying to write a male character but not quite getting it right.

I was curious, then, as to whether other people would pick up on these same subtleties. But, alas, I was proven wrong as the voting got the most important piece of the puzzle correct: that this was a male character.

My first test was with Barb. She didn't help me either! She got them both correct, and said the cues for her were the phrase "Light flashes off windshields, bumpers, trim; there are too many flashing lights." as distinctly male (attention to the vehicles), but used the remaining passage content to determine the author. Fascinating interpretation!

And, of course, the broader topic is whether one gender can truly write another gender character.

David Mamet -- Heist

2007-11-16T17:33:00.000-05:00

Of course everyone wants money, that's why they call it "money"!

- Character: Bergman
Played by Danny DeVito
In the movie Heist

LHUP Homecoming and Geocaching

2007-11-12T08:03:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I took a road trip to to my college alma mater for Homecoming. In setting up the trip, I called around to a half dozen good friends to see who could make it. Top on the list, and most likely to be able to make it, were Dan "Danno" Beeler, James "Wally" Lord, Bruce Rappoport, Mike "Grosie" Gross. I also made calls to Scott "Buzz" Snyder, Charlie "Cip" Cipriano, Mike "Hinch" Hinchaw, and Ed Chatterton. My apologies to anyone I should have called, and to anyone I called but didn't mention above!

The weekend was a blast!

It was great being being back in Lock Haven for the weekend, and better still was seeing the few people who could make it.

Bruce was unable to make it because his wife had recently been hobbled by ankle surgery; coupled with having an infant in the house meant he was not able to make it with us. I managed to swing through New Jersey to have lunch with him just the same. It was great seeing you Bruce!

As a friendly reminder of how much we can trust our best friends, this is what they do with your camera when you step out to use the restroom:

Bruce Rappoport

After arriving in "the haven" and sharing a few beers with Ed Chatterton and Howie Congdon (great seeing you, Howie, sorry I was running late and didn't get to visit with you longer), I hooked up with Danno. Now this is an interesting story, but requires some preface.

Our last weekend in school, about a dozen people piled into various cars and went to a small (perhaps five acre) part about two miles away from our fraternity house. In Danno's car we piled a quarter keg. Now, this is quite illegal. But we weren't going to be roudy and obnoxious, just going to drink a few beers and leave.

Well, as we all sat hovered over the keg, in pulls the local police. Danno, thinking quickly, untaps the keg and hides the tap. The cop is generally friendly, but suspecting what is going on still taps Danno with an open container ticket and a fine. Oh well, better than the fine he'd have received for having a tapped keg.

So on this night, literally twenty years later, Danno and I load up a cooler with some beer, grab cheese steaks sandwiches from the local OIP, and head out for a quiet place to catch up. After driving around for some time, we end up at that same park. It's dark. No one is around. We're safe. We open a couple beers, sit down at the park bench and start eating and ... well, drinking.

As I sat there, looking up at the road to which the entrance to the park is attached, I see a strange colored car. It's like a wierd mix of blue and white. As I look at it through my dry contacts, I said to Danno, "I think the cops are coming." His reply, "What? Oh, don't say that!" Then I see the car's turn signal; he's turning into the park. Quick! Ditch the beers!

Just what we need to celebrate twenty years from graduation!

Fortune was with us! It was a cop, but he pulled in, drove slowly by us as we sat eating our food, turned around and left. We quickly finished what we were doing and left also, figuring that if we were there in thirty minutes when the cop returned (we suspect he would return) then we'd be harrassed. Our preference was to avoid that.

So the next day, after a hearty breakfast, we headed up to see Ed Chatterton. Ed is a college professor and great friend! He has a beautiful log house in a quiet, fairly remote and very private area. Absolutely beautiful setting! We ruined his day... or made his day, depending on how you look at it! Either way, it was great seeing you Ed:

From left: Ed Chatterton, Danno, myself

We left Ed and hooked up with Wally and spent the rest of the day geocaching! This was a blast!

Danno had heard of geocaching, and in fact had set up an ID on geocaching.com several months earlier, but didn’t fully understand what to do or how to do it. Wally had never heard of it so it was a total new introduction. I brought a few hundred caches to choose from and we headed out to find a bunch of remote ones.

Our favorite was a cache called “The Wall”. I a little ways out from Lock Haven, in a pretty remote area, we found Danno and Wally’s first cache ever. Of the five we did that day, it was the best one and our favorite.

From left: myself, Danno, Wally
(The cache is just behind Wally right foot.)

It was great seeing you guys! Sorry that we had some communications breakdowns with Grossie and he missed us. You would have enjoyed it Grossie! And sorry that Bruce could not make it. Next time, both of you!

Yahoogle? A Cyber War Scorecard

2007-10-27T12:06:00.000-04:00

I’m a Yahoo! fan. I’ve used Yahoo! stuff for about ten years, and I think they do a lot of stuff right. I like Yahoo!. There, my bias out in the open and up front for everyone to see.

When Google’s search engine became a household name, I was quite frankly surprised. Yahoo! had been doing that for years! I didn’t, and still don’t, understand or care for that kind of media/marketing hype. I use both engines interchangeably and both deliver comparative, often identical results.

When Google maps came out, however, that was something worth noting. The slick, grab and drag maps, smooth roads, and satellite imagery! How cool was that!

About a year ago I created a Google ID and began to explore more of what Google offered. In more than one instance I found myself saying “wanna-be.” In other cases I found myself saying “that’s cool.”

Last year, Yahoo! provided a beta of an upgraded email interface. I gave it a try, but it was painfully slow loading and after a short time I ditched it in favor of the classic interface. Recently, Yahoo! has been upgrading more of its offerings using new, slickre-looking technology, which has prompted me to check it all out again. I switched back to their new email interface a few days ago and was very, very pleasantly surprised!

In checking out all this new stuff from Yahoo!, it occurred to me that I was actually conducting a low-level comparison between Yahoo! and Google. Just for kicks, I’ve decided to formalize my comparative observations of the two, focusing on the stuff I tend to use, regardless of whether both companies provide it. I’ll also keep score just to make it … well, something.

My first comparison is of email. I’ll make separate posts for other areas later, and I’ll keep a running tally on the score in the sidebar on the right.

Yahoogle!Mail

Disk Space Allotment
Google does a really good job of providing enough space to store the contents of the universe in your Inbox. Unfortunately, I don’t need to store the contents of the universe, so I’m not going to give any points for bragging about providing five terabytes of disk space for every person on the planet. I don’t need it, won’t use it, and am smart enough to recognize BS-hype when I see it. In the end, because I hate when evil marketing hype-masters convince people they need something when they actually don’t, I’m inclined to take away a point from Google. Evil hype-masters! Yahoo! provides plenty of space for all of my email (and then some) without feeling the need to go overboard.
Google: -1
Yahoo!: 1

Email Retention
Google does a really good job of keeping everything I ever owned, ever in my life. Unfortunately, there are lots of things that I just don’t want anymore. So I’m not going to give points here, either. I don’t care that they’ve provided a really, really big garbage can. Plus, there’s just something inherently unsatisfying about not actually deleting something I said to delete. When I say “delete” I really mean “delete,” not “hide this for later.” It’s like, “Hey, what should I do with this old banana peal? I know, I’ll tuck it over here in the corner out of sight just on the off-chance I’ll want it next year sometime.” Better still, it’s like, if you’re an axe murderer, you really want to kill people; you don’t want to play a video game where you’re killing people. It’s just not the same! OK, maybe it’s not like being an axe murderer, but I’m still going to take a point away. Yahoo! does what I want, delete the garbage.
Google: -1
Yahoo!: 1

Email Threads
Google does do a good job of threading emails together. I’m not being facetious on this one. This really is a pretty nice feature. However, I must point out that I found it difficult and confusing when I first started using my Gmail account. It wasn’t until I’d used the interface for awhile before I realized what it was doing and how to read through it (parse the single “email”). It’s a new and different way of reading through an email thread, but I’m not sure I like it more than the traditional view of an email chain. I might call this one a tie and leave it at that, but I keep coming back to the notion that it confused me at first, which makes me want to take a point away. Shame on you, Google … making me feel stupid! Yahoo! never did that.
Google: -1
Yahoo!: 1

Saving/Archiving
Google does a good job of tagging email with labels and hiding them from the “inbox” view. This is particularly useful if you want to tag an email with multiple labels; file and sort in multiple ways. Unfortunately, I have no use for doing this and so find it … well, useless. So basically, for me, it’s the same thing as saving/moving an email to a folder, but a little less intuitive. Seems like it’s just a new way of achieving exactly the same thing but with a little more confusion attached. Given, however, that this falls toward the hype associated with useless features, I’m kind of inclined to take something away, maybe half a point. Yahoo! never made me appreciate useless features.
Google: -.5
Yahoo!: 1

HTML Emails and In-line Images
This is kind of a tricky one. Yahoo!’s classic interface did a really crappy job displaying html emails and in-line images. But the new interface is fantastic and totally blows Google away. Google, on the other hand, does a nice job of providing you with a thumbnail of the image in the body of the message, rather than the entire image. This is a little nicer than displaying the entire in-line image straight away. On this topic, I have to say they probably really are even. So I’ll award null’s to both.
Google: 0
Yahoo!: 0

The Interface
This is a big one. If I were looking over Yahoo!’s classic interface, I might be awarding points to Google. If I were looking at Yahoo!’s new and improved interface a year ago, I would definitely be awarding points to Google because that beta took sooooooo long to load, it really was painful! But looking at Yahoo!’s new interface today, I have to give a total hands down winner to Yahoo! They have nailed it, and they’re continuing to make improvements. If you’re a Yahoo! email user and haven’t checked it out yet, you should. It’s a full-blown web-based email application; loads quickly, full-featured, everything. It’s awesome and makes the Gmail interface look like child’s play. They did such a great job that I’m going to award major points. Nice going Yahoo!!
Google: 0
Yahoo!: 10

First Inning Score:

Google -3.5

Yahoo! 14

It’s not looking good for Google, folks. Stay tuned; maybe they can win some points back in the next round.

A New Home

2007-10-24T22:09:00.000-04:00

I have placed all of my fossil jokes in a new home, located here.

iGotOne

2007-10-15T21:34:00.000-04:00

iCaved and bought an iPod Nano. 4gb, generation three.

I've been thinking about it for awhile, watching Sean and Emily enjoy theirs. And I did it. I broke down and bought one this past weekend. I'm not one to brag of my music collection, but 4gb is full.

It's pretty awesome.

I made this announcement Sunday morning at the breakfast table: "I hereby declare my right to ignore anyone at any time in favor of whatever happens to be playing on my iPod at the moment."

Sean's response: Hey! Welcome to the club! <big smile>

Emily's response: ha ha! I do that!

Barb's response: Oh dear god, that leaves me only the dog to talk to now.

Later that day I was in the kitchen and Sean asked me something. While he was talking, I removed one ear bud, looked at him and said, "Are you talking to me?" He laughed and quickly instructed me on the proper way of the Pod.

"No, no." he said. "You have to look right at them while they're talking to you, wait until they're done talking, and then remove the ear bud and say 'did you say something?'"

I've been trained by an expert. Watch out you all!

Aero-Analogy

2007-10-06T11:16:00.000-04:00

Imagine this: you're on an airplane. A very large airplane, a 747. It's carrying five hundred people. You are very high in the sky, halfway through your flight.

The sound from the engines has diminished, lending to a noticeably quieter flight. You, along with everyone around you, have acknowledged the subtle but sudden change in sound. You wonder if it has to do with the engines. Have they quit working?

It's strange because everything and everyone around you is otherwise normal: people are talking, or reading, or watching outside. There are a few kids on the plane, coloring, crying. Stewards and stewardesses are bring snacks and drinks up and down the isle. Nothing has changed. Surely, if there was some serious problem the Captain would provide information, instructions.

After awhile your ears pop, as if descending. You see the Earth below you through the clouds. Still, the engines are quiet but everyone is carrying on as usual. The captain comes over the radio and relays some mundane facts about the flight: cruising at 35,000 feet, 500 miles per hour, three hours of flight time, arriving at 4p.m. local time.

Still, the engines are quiet and the Earth encroaches.

After awhile, you are not alone in your concern. Other people begin discussing their observations to their partners, quietly at first but eventually openly with people in neighboring seats. Some people even ask the stewards and stewardesses if there is a problem with the engines. They receive a mix of responses:

"I'm sure everything is fine. Certainly the Captain would tell us if there was a problem."

"I noticed the same thing. I'll inquire with our Captain."

"I think we have had a problem with one of the engines. But we have three other engines to see us through the flight."

"We may be landing earlier than planned, which is why we are descending."

The uncertainty and lack of clear information is only more unsettling. You deserve a straight answer, no matter what the news. The Captain has an obligation to be straight with you, and certainly he or she would not hide or neglect such critical information as 'the engines have failed and we are in a reduced-control, unplanned descent, with only a scant idea of where we may land.'

You are not the only one unsettled by the lack of clear information. But still most people around you, the vast majority in fact, carry on as usual. Their complete confidence in this machine and its Captain is unwavering, despite what they observe with their own senses. This is even more unsettling to you. Are you alone in the observation?

A passenger finally stands up in the front of the plane and begins openly stating her observations and concerns: The engines are silent and we're descending. I think we are experiencing serious problems with this flight!

Not wanting a general panic, all of the stewards and stewardesses work quickly to calm and silence the passenger, who will not stop talking of such a horror. "There is nothing wrong with the flight!" they counter, vehemently. "Everything is fine!" they announce over the frantic passenger's rising voice.

The passenger is not dissuaded. "There is something wrong. Listen! You do not hear any engines. Don't you remember how loud they were when we took off? Look! Look out your window. See how close the Earth is below us. We are descending!"

After several riotous minutes of this lunatic passenger's ranting, the Captain comes over the intercom: "Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the disruption and want to personally assure you that everything is fine with the flight. We will be making an unplanned stop because we have experienced a problem with one of the engines. But we have plenty of horse-power in the remaining engines to land safely."

The situation now is beginning to become clear. At least one engine has failed; we are descending under reduced control; our Captain has not been forthcoming with information. Those who have suspected the problem, still a small, small minority among the passengers, are now beginning to fear the worst regarding the competence of our Captain's leadership. He has not been forthright or honest with us, and in doing so has failed to lead us well.

For the first time, the thought clearly enters your mind: we are going to crash, and at best, most of us are going to die.

This is where I am with fossil fuels right now.

It's clear that the fuel is finite and running out; it's clear that we are descending. It's clear that the passengers have not be given the full truth by our leadership, not to mention an intelligible plan for resolution. It's clear that those who have been trying to raise awareness and concern have been, however subtly or overtly, "calmed and silenced." It's clear that the vast, vast majority of people around us are, for whatever reason, unwilling or unable to acknowledge and react to what their own senses are telling them.

Certainly one thing has become crystal clear to me: our leaders have to take the lead in solving the problem,... now.

So I have two questions for you who may be reading this:

First: What kind of Captain do you want? One that leads us quietly and in ignorance to our "landing site"? Or one that includes us in full knowledge of what we face?

Second: What would you do as a passenger on that plane? You can't fix the plane, you can't get out (at least not without other problems). What do you do?

Here is an interesting article.

Ode to the Real Ideal Job

2007-10-02T07:12:00.000-04:00

Given my recent posts about jobs, careers, and work, I thought it fitting to take a moment and recite one of my favorite Raymond Carver poems. Again, without permission and hoping I am not sued.

Shiftless

The people who were better than us were comfortable.
They lived in painted houses with flush toilets.
Drove cars whose year and make were recognizable.
The ones worse off were sorry and didn't work.
Their strange cars sat on blocks in dusty yards.
The years go by and everything and everyone
gets replaced. But this much is still true—
I never liked work. My goal was always
to be shiftless. I saw the merit in that.
I liked the idea of sitting in a chair
in front of your house for hours, doing nothing
but wearing a hat and drinking cola.
What's wrong with that?
Drawing on a cigarette from time to time.
Spitting. Making things out of wood with a knife.
Where's the harm there? Now and then calling
on the dogs to hunt rabbits. Try it sometime.
Once in a while hailing a fat, blond kid like me
and saying, "Don't I know you?"
Not, "What are you going to be when you grow up?"

- Raymond Carver
Ultramarine, 1986

[Just for the record, my ideal job is one that pays me twice what I currently make and requires nothing of me.]

Just How Much Is There?

2007-09-26T20:21:00.000-04:00

I’m Boggled

I’ve been trying to understand how much oil there is (I know there are other fossil fuels, but oil is the one I’m thinking about right now.)

I live in a rural area of a medium-population center (Albany, New York). I have it lucky with a short six mile commute to work that takes me about fifteen minutes. Here are the fossils of my commute:

Exiting my driveway, I see a school bus in our neighborhood. Almost immediately, I am presented with a class of vehicles which pass every house that has a school age child everywhere in America, twice per day. Every town in every county of every state in the United States has a school bus system operating under this rule. What about other countries around the world? Increasingly the same, if not the same already.

I’m already out of my league with trying to understand how much gas that consumes every day. But I’ve not even exited my driveway.

I travel half a mile to the entrance of my housing development where, more often than not, I have to wait for other vehicles coming one way or the other down the road. Living in a rural area, the number of vehicles varies from between none up to perhaps seven. I turn out of my development and by the time I reach the light at the intersection two miles away, I find myself in a line of around ten vehicles.

The road I am turning onto is another story. Some days I am adding myself as one of forty or fifty vehicles, other days one of more than a hundred. I routinely see traffic backed up between this light and the next.

Before I make my turn, I see straight ahead of me the workings of a construction site where they are building a strip mall. In order to do this, they have re-sculpted the landscape using no fewer than a dozen large construction vehicles: massive dump trucks, great big ditch diggers, huge bulldozers, etc. They’re in action when I pass in the morning, and they’re in action when I pass at night.

I make my turn and at the next intersection, a large one, the traffic is backed up in all directions. This is not bad; it usually takes me only a few minutes to navigate through it. In all I may be observing between one and two hundred vehicles here, a number which amazes me because I don’t live in a big city and am arguably still in a rural area.

(This reminds me; I remember once returning from a camping trip to Cape May seeing a traffic jam that stretched from I285 outside New York City all the way to Albany. No lie!)

Heading through this intersection I am on my way toward the major highway: Rt. 90. Every day, the merge lane to Rt.90 is backed up with vehicles. Near as I can tell, it stretches into infinity!

Crossing the Hudson River, almost without fail I see at least one boat, often more (in the summer). Even in the winter the signs are there of the ice-breaker having recently passed through, clearing a channel for the other boats heading to Albany from New York City.

I merge to the next highway and surprise, it’s got lots of cars heading my way. But not as bad as the southbound lane. On more than one occasion I have seen it stalled, choked with vehicles. I take a rather unused exit, one that I had never used before my current job, one that I formerly thought was never used by anyone, and yet: more cars, trucks, motorcycles.

Make a left onto Broadway…more cars. Turn into the parking lot where I work…it’s nearly full with cars, trucks, and motorcycles.

Cars. Cars. Everywhere cars. I can’t go anywhere on any road, almost at any time of night or day, without seeing at least one other vehicle. All burning fossil fuels. I am guesstimating that I, personally, visually observe upwards of 1,000 vehicles before I reach work every day. How much gas is being burned?

Let’s see…

I spend 45 minutes per day, 7 days per week (typical) driving my car. I average ~30 miles per hour (not talking mpg here). I burn about ten gallons of gas per week (maybe a little more). That means I burn approximately 3.5/100ths of a gallon of gas every minute I am in my car driving somewhere. That doesn’t sound too bad, especially considering my vehicle only gets just under twenty miles per gallon.

My six mile, fifteen minute commute to work burns just about half a gallon of gas. One gallon per day commuting. That’s like taking a gallon of milk our of your refrigerator every day to get back and forth to work.

Now let’s assume that I am typical of a per minute burn rate. If I pass 1,000 vehicles all of whom are traveling during the fifteen minutes I am, and all of whom are all burning at the rate I am burning, then we can calculate that in the course of my fifteen minute commute I personally am witnessing the burning of 500 gallons of gasoline.

1,000 gallons of gasoline daily. And that just my commute. Six miles. Fifteen minutes on the road. In a rural to medium-population area.

This is happening all over our country; the same pattern in every town and city everywhere, and at higher levels at that! This is happening in other countries all around the world. It has been going on for sixty years and the experts are saying we’ve got another fifty years left.

Fifty more years of burning at this rate? boiiinnnoing! There goes my mind: boggled.

How long is your commute? How many vehicles do you see? How much burning to you witness every day?

Happy Birthday You Old Fossil

2007-09-15T17:24:00.000-04:00

It is September 2007, and I am turning 43. Six years past half way, according to the Social Security Administration’s actuarial tables.

For my birthday, I’ve asked for an ice cream maker. Why not? I like ice cream. My sister Kim introduced me/us to the idea of homemade ice cream, and the ice cream she made for us this past summer was delicious. I’m betting I get it.

There are times when I think I have been unduly blessed. I was a mediocre student; a smart enough person but undisciplined and misdirected. I have ambled, meandered, stumbled and fallen through a not-unsuccessful career. I’ve no doubt taken many things for granted, including (shamefully) friends. For all this, I materially have everything I want.

Except an ice cream maker.

But it’s not the ice cream maker that I want, it’s the memories the ice cream maker will create for my children. This is what it means to be a dad: I want less for me, and more for them. What I really want for my birthday is a guarantee of my children’s future, their well-being and happiness; a guarantee that they will continue to enjoy the carefree fortune with which I have so serendipitously been blessed.

I will likely see the end of fossil fuels in my lifetime. At the very least, I will see the beginning of the end. I think about this problem every day. It worries and scares me to think that my children will live in the ensuing turmoil of the faces of this change.

It is coming.

It saddens me deeply to know the potential hardship of their future, yet I am unable to change it. And I am unable to change. I get into my car every day and go to work; I can’t not go to work. I heat my house in the winter, turn on lights and the refrigerator (among many, many other things). I contribute to the demand on fossil fuels.

Don’t we all?

For my 43rd birthday I’ve decided to write down my thoughts, ideas, and observations regarding this problem. This will be a series of posts under the label “You Old Fossil.” I doubt these thoughts will change the world or its future, but I have to do something, however small.

My children are counting on me!

What is Your Ideal Job?

2007-09-08T07:04:00.001-04:00

Yes, yes, we all want to be millionaires and not have to work, but the fact of the matter is that is only likely for a very, very small percentage of people. For the rest of us working stiffs, we have to be more realistic.

So what is your ideal job? I think this is a deceptively simple question.

I have flopped around on this question often enough in my life, starting my first career attempt as creative writer and professor. I longed for the college professorial life through a graduate degree; for awhile after completing that degree, I still wanted to teach but my prospects were zero because I had no teaching experience. So I turned to other avenues, specifically technical writing for a software development company, which I found more interesting than I anticipated.

Recently Barb has begun teaching at Hudson Valley Community College. Five sections of composition per semester. She works hard. Her first year brought sixty hour weeks, many many 2a.m. evenings grading papers. I never realized how much work it was. Seeing this and knowing what she makes doing it, I began to be less inclined to be a college professor. However, she certainly enjoyed the summer—as the old saying goes: three reasons to be a college professor: June, July, August.

But seeing this told me something about myself and it's the first step for me to answer the question.

Money.

I don't think there is a job that I would do for little or nothing. Really, it's about money first and foremost. I think this comes from being cash poor my entire life. I don't believe I have ever really felt financially secure. I have worked since I was fourteen, picking fruits and vegetables for local farmers, stocking shelves for the local grocery store, running food at the school cafeteria, running papers and selling advertising for the local paper. That got me through my education, albeit loaded in student loan debt.

I feel today as though I have reached a kind of benchmark. I have made enough money in the past sixteen years of my professional (post education) career to reach a near debt free state. Other than bills (electric, heat, garbage, food, phone, cable, etc.) and miscellaneous spending, my only debt is a mortgage (I'll grant you a large one that I'll be paying until I'm 70). But I am otherwise debt free; to boot, I have everything I want. I actually ask for nothing for my birthday and for Christmas.

This is a peculiar place to be. I have never been here before, ever in my life. It's not to say that I'm rich (rest assured I'm not); it's not to say that I couldn't do something with more money (could you spend a million dollars in a day? YES!). It's to say that there is a fulcrum on which are balanced our decision-making motivations. For most people, like me, those motivations are financial gain/security and personal desire. My personal life experience has heretofore tipped that balance to favor financial gain/security over personal desire. I don't feel guilty or ashamed of this as I believe most people fall in here, and I'm no doubt in good company.

I feel, however, that I have just edged over that tipping point. I feel I can now make decisions based more on personal desire than on financial gain/security. It's not to say that I want to go into financial ruin; I need to be responsible. But it is to say that I have successfully achieved financial security such that with reasonable responsibility I should be able to do what I like.

This is what makes the question so difficult. We spend so much of our lives making decisions based on financial gain/security that we forget, no doubt in some cases never learn, how to make decisions based on personal desire. So when asked questions that point to this issue, such as this one, we kind of shuffle our feet and scratch our heads, and what really is happening inside our brains is we're saying "what the heck does that mean?" More often than not we answer as the first point: it has to pay me a LOT of money.

I am considering pursuing a job that would pay me 20% less than I currently make. This would challenge our current spending habits, but I think I would like the job more. The funny thing is, I have been so long looking at the numbers that I'm having a hard time figuring out whether I would in fact like the job more. A loud voice in my head (the financial gain/security guy) keeps shouting MONEY MONEY MONEY and it's hard to think over his noise.

The whole situation has forced me further into the self analysis that I've been in since leaving my last employer. What is it that I really want? It's kind of funny because my first answer is not surprising, but is another telling piece to my answer: more money less work.

This is the real factor: less work.

I want more time off. More than that, I want more freedom to choose the amount and timing of my free time. Ideally, I want to be out from under the oppression of my time off being governed and controlled by an employer. I increasingly see this as no different than a variant of indentured servitude if not outright ownership (read: slavery).

Try this on for size: ask your employer if you can purchase at your rate of pay (or, given the cost of benefits and facilities ... oh, say 1.5x your rate of pay) one additional week of vacation time. So if you make $1,000 per week, go to them and say "I'll take $1,500 off my salary if you give me one additional week of vacation per year" and I'll bet you that week's salary that nine out of ten (if not more) employers answer NO.

I cannot tell you how much I have come to resent this answer; the rules of simple barter would conclude that because they are not willing to pay you back at the equal rate, that you are in fact worth more than they are paying you. Yet which would you prefer to have?

The ideal for me so far is this: maintain the financial status I have achieved but increase (dare I say dramatically) the freedom to choose the amount and timing of my free time. I want my freedom!

So how likely is this. (Note the rhetorical nature of that last sentence; my version of a guffawing Ha!)

I suppose consulting work may come with some increased degree of this freedom. I think some small business owners, too, may possibly have it. In either case it's not guaranteed—quite possibly they carry less freedom, not to mention their risks. But there are examples out there to prove the point. For example, my brother Kevin. He is a contractor and small business owner who works 4 day weeks all summer long (his busy time) and has slow downs in the winter. He owns two houses, one of them on the water of the St. Lawrence Seaway (1,000 islands).

That's what I'd like: a four day workweek; three day weekends all year around. No compromise to my financial earnings or other opportunities for time off (holidays, vacation accrual, etc.). Unlike the unrestrained nature of the objective in general and as expressed a few paragraphs up, I think this objective is possible, realistic even. Why certainly I am closer to that objective today as I work strictly a forty hour workweek than I was six months ago (or for the past sixteen years) as I worked forty-five to fifty (plus) hour weeks every week of the year. Being home by 5pm every day is almost as strange as the nature of the "ideal job" question itself. I almost feel guilty, can you believe that!?

Still, even this is a compromise and not true achievement of the objective: more money less work. So what is more time off worth? If I am unable to attain, oh let's say, four day workweek, ten paid holidays, and forty days of vacation per year (that's eight weeks) while maintaining my current income, then what can I attain? Being in my current financial situation, having tipped just over to the personal desire side on that lever, I can reasonably conclude that I may compromise financial gain/security in favor of personal desire.

Back to the pursuit of a job that would pay 20% less. It would have to provide something in the personal gain category. This job, while not offering a four day workweek, could come closer even than I am today. That's a plus. Over time, I could earn considerable time off, more than most employers. Another plus. I would not have the total freedom that I seek, but it would be a step in the right direction, albeit with limitations. Is it enough to cover the financial loss? Quite possibly. I think so.

It is in the realm of reasonable possibility. This makes it a viable candidate, although I'd call it roughly an even balance, but certainly tipping to the personal desire side. It's not a no-brainer, and obviously I don't want to tip the scale so far that I end up in financial ruin!

What else might tip the scale?

There are other factors in the mix. The work environment, for example; I don't want to work where I am devalued or despised, that would certainly tip the scale back to the financial side (couldn't pay me enough to tolerate that). As a factor, however, I believe that while most professional environments have an element of this (people are people after all) it is only in a small set of cases where this is the predominant characteristic. It's a factor, but one which only the extreme needs to be watched out for.

This leaves the work itself. It's strange that in my list of priorities for the ideal job that the actual work itself comes so far down the list. This is probably very telling of who I am! I am not a "geologist" or a "programmer" or a "professor". Back to Identity Chapters (an earlier post). The fact of the matter is, I like a wide range of things, tasks, activities. I like change, too. I'm a fair bit of a generalist, rather eclectic, favoring not a specific profession but specific types or characteristics of work. I like a fast pace. I like juggling many things. I like seeing the results of my contribution. I like analyzing complex problems. What motivates me—probably no surprise here—is praise, recognition, and reward for my contribution.

Because I don't see myself as an "x", but rather a set of skills applicable to "x" and "y" and "z", this opens a lot of opportunities.

My current position enables me to exercise some key skills I bring to the table. I'm doing business analyst work (which I really like), project management (which I really like), client management (which is new to me and I am enjoying), and technical writing (which is good enough). And I enjoy the days when the client points out how satisfied they are with my contribution!

But something surprised me in this recent work, a motivator I did not know was there. I am defining requirements, and have an opportunity to oversee the project, for an electronic system that would, in some way, help New York State, and even the United States generally, protect itself from catastrophes related to bio-terrorism or pandemics.

WOW!

Quite frankly, I feel patriotic! I don't know that I've ever felt that way before. It's pretty awesome to think that I could contribute meaningfully to such an endeavor! This makes all of my previous position pale in comparison. In those positions I was challenged, was kept busy and maintained a fast pace, and I was rewarded and praised for my contribution. But it was just... blah. Interesting product in all cases (MapInfo more interesting that BRS; BRS more interesting than Commsoft), but in the end just blah. Really, what difference to the world are any of those products making? I don't mean to be disparaging, and they are making a difference, but it's not on the scale of some other things. I can go from one to the next to the next rather effortlessly ad infinitum and feel the same in each case, but in the end honestly not feel like I have made one damn bit of difference in the world.

This could be the scale tipper: meaningful contribution.

I think I have it now. The answer, that is, to the question where we started. If you're still reading.

My ideal job is one which improves my financial standing while affording me complete freedom and enables me to exercises my best skills for which I am greatly praised and recognized.

OK, I admit that's a tall order. But it is, after all, an ideal.

My realistically ideal job is any position which minimally compromises my financial standing, affords maximum freedom, includes work tasks that exercise my best skills, is conducted in an environment which is respectful, results in ample praise and recognition for my contribution, and is part of a meaningful endeavor.

The rest are details.

Are you still reading? Get back to work, you slacker! ;)

Geocaching VI & VII

2007-09-05T20:33:00.000-04:00

Geocaching VI: Peebles Island and Rusty Junk
Two weeks ago I decided to do some geocaching on Peebles Island. Barb was in the midst of preparing for her fall semester and was unable to accompany me, and the kids were still in the midst of their summer late morning routine. I was hoping to get a reasonably early morning start to the day, perhaps 9a.m. or 9:30. But I decided I really wanted some company and so I waited for them to join me.

Getting on around 11a.m. I roused the boy from bed... and began bugging the girl to get ready.

Feet draggin'. Complainin'. "Do I have to go...?" blah blah blah. "Peebles Island is a really nice hike" I kept saying. "You'll like it." But all I kept getting was that teenage "Why do I have to go..."

So we finally get into the car, make our way to Peebles Island, and start on the hike. It was a beautiful day. Sunny, but not hot. Just perfect for hiking and geocaching. And an interesting and beautiful hike it was.

The geocache we did was called Rusty Junk, placed by a geocacher who goes by the handle of ... RustyOJunk. How surprising. Rusty Junk is a multi-cache of micros placed on ... rusty junk that is littered (unfortunately) around the island. And, of course, it is prefaced with a "is your tetanus up to date?" Here is a shot of us looking for micro number two:

Unfortunately, we weren't able to complete this multi. After finding three of the ? micro caches, we decided we'd prefer to finish hiking the perimeter of the island. I'll go back someday to complete the task. I'd be remiss to point out, too, that we did two other caches while there.

Here are some other pictures from the day:

At about 3o'clock, we completed the trail and headed off to Burger King for lunch. Then came the best part of the day: "That was more fun than I thought it was going to be." From both of them, no less.

Thank you Sean and Emily for accompanying me.

Geocaching VII: Thatcher Park
This past weekend Barb had a great idea: we should geocache at Thatcher Park!

"I've lived here all my life and never been there," she said. Well that sounded like reason enough for me! Commandeering the kids was easier this week. It went something like this: Hey Sean and Em, did you enjoy last week's hike? Well this one is even better.

The prominent feature of Thatcher Park, other than the stunning view, is the Helderberg Escarpment.

We left earlier (around 10a.m.) and began our hike by 11:30 or so. For the geocache, we did the Thatcher Park ILT multi. "ILT" stands for "Indian Ladder Trail." The cache was two micro caches along the trail itself, fairly easy to find and convenient to the hike itself. The cache, while neat and fun, did not compare at all to the hike itself. It was AWESOME! I am only able to tell of it in pictures:

Look closely near the center of the photo and you can see the wooden walkway:

The sheer cliff:

The ULTIMATE

Figuring Out My Feelings

2007-08-24T21:37:00.000-04:00

I'm a slow learner. It takes me a long while to fully process information, and if the information is something that I am indifferent toward, it may take me years, or decades. This is especially the case with emotions.

I was mowing the lawn the other day. Mowing the lawn is a zen-like thing for me. I remember mowing the lawn when I was growing up in Holley. My parents purchased a five acre parcel that was field and we gradually tamed it to lawn, park actually. I would mow for hours every weekend all summer long.

When I mow the lawn, now like then, generally, I find it to be a peaceful activity that allows me time to let my mind wander; to think.

So I was mowing the lawn the other day and something popped into my head quite unexpectedly. A revelation nineteen years in the making, in fact. I was thinking about writing, specifically about writing in the third person omniscient and the effort involved in depicting a character's emotional state; how authors must have an incredible depth of understanding of emotional states in order to do this well.

I was contrasting this with how long it takes me to understand, to fully digest, my own emotional states. I am a logician, always have been. An analyzer of things that can be analyzed. I have often thought I would make a good lawyer, or a good accountant (boring). But emotions are a challenge, so writing a character to an emotional state is particularly difficult for me.

All this thinking about creative writing brought up memories of Indiana University and my creative writing experience there. IU unto itself is a whole other story, but specifically my mind wandered into the emotional state I felt while there. I did not produce particularly good writing at IU; I did much better at Lock Haven. I think this was because I felt particularly insecure and inferior at IU. I was not encouraged or made to feel comfortable.

Trucking along on my new mower, I recalled my first day in IU's creative writing workshop with instructor and poet David Wojahn. We were to submit a poem for group discussion prior to class. I had produced a number of poems over the summer, some of which would have gone well in the class, but I had moved all of my poems onto computer disks and was unable to print them from IU's computer systems (new student and all; also new to the world of computers, I guess). But I did have a paper printout of a very short allegorical piece I had written. Knowing it was quite out of the ordinary for typical workshop fodder, I threw it into the hat to see what I would get.

After reading the piece and receiving the usual non-comments (it's pretty short; it doesn't say much; there's no depth of character; and etc.) Mr. Wojahn spoke up and pointed out to everyone that it was an allegory, and that we wouldn't be writing allegories in this workshop. We would be writing personal narratives [a style common in contemporary American poetry].

I recall several reactions in the class. Several people felt defended, vindicated even, and while not saying anything they gave off an "emotional vibe" strong enough to melt ice cream. Several other people felt squashed and silenced. One student, a PhD candidate (Steve Woodbury, I believe), spoke out and stated his disagreement with the restriction. It was, after all, a creative writing workshop. After some half hearted debate on the topic, it was clear that we all would be submitting personal narrative poems.

At least one person dropped the course.

My insecurity and slow-on-the-uptake brain made me sit quietly and capitulate. I would not write short allegorical pieces. I would later learn that I would not, for Mr. Wojahn, write short pieces of any kind! But in that instance, when it was made clear to me, to all of us actually, what we were to be doing in this particular creative writing class, I did not know how I felt. Awkward. Weird. Uncomfortable. Inferior. All balled up into a single emotional state at odds with Indiana University's creative writing program, to which I was admitted certainly by luck or the goodness of a few people and the merits of the more interesting poetry I produced while at Lock Haven. This was day one.

It occurred to me, while mowing the lawn nineteen years later, that I felt the way Hermey must have felt upon announcing his aspirations. You know Hermey! In fact, I felt exactly like Hermey when the boss elf said "A dentist!? Now you listen, you! You're an elf and elves make toys. Now get to work!!"

OK. Maybe Mr. Wojahn didn't have quite the vigor in his tone, but the intent and the result were one and the same.

I envy Hermey's fortitude! Mostly I wrote what I wanted to write at IU, but also tried my best to fit in. Ultimately, I was different. I was a mis-fit at IU, and it wore on me for a long time. It was sad on a number of levels. I suffered through my tenure at IU from this starting point, feeling uncomfortable enough to not meet my creative potential. Mr. Wojahn suffered, albeit minutely—perhaps as a grain of sand stuck in the heal of his shoe—because I never again cared much for his poetry. To boot, his narrow arrogance made him unapproachable and not a particularly effective teacher. At least for me, the grain of sand.

Oops! Allegory again...

For Hermey, the boss elf eventually accepted him for who he was and let him stay and be a dentist. Of course, it required a tooth extraction to get him there.

Geocaching V: Tory Rock

2007-08-20T19:37:00.000-04:00

On our last camping trip of the season, we ventured to Alpine Lake RV Resort in Corinth, New York. We have been to this campground before, back in 2003. It was a nice trip spent reading, relaxing, biking around the campground, camp-fires, and the usual camping stuff.

Of course it included geocaching!

On Friday, we did a quickie on the way back from dinner out. A micro called TANK You Very Much. Located, quite literally, on a tank in a monument near the campground. No pics; we didn't have the camera with us.

On Saturday, we headed out to do a few geocaches in Corinth and Hadley. Our first stop was a cache called Dean's List located at an out of the way location where you could watch riders go down the Sacandaga River. Very cool. Literally! The water must have been just over 50 degrees. Nothing like our pool. We opted to skip the ride, ourselves.

Our next stop was Tory Rock. This ended up being our favorite cache of the day. We pulled off the road onto a dirt road, parked at the coordinates, and headed up the trail about a half a mile. Sean ran up ahead with Sadie and returned a few minutes later saying "Guys, you gotta see this cool rock up here." My response: "I bet!" Sure enough, Tory Rock was huge!

The "ladder" was around back. Slippery when wet, climb at your own risk. It was a dry, beautiful day for us, though. So we all climbed up.

We did one more cache that day, a quick micro near the campground at an old railroad station. By this point in the day, we were ready to be back at the campground for more lounging and camping stuff.

One last picture of everyone at Dean's List. My caching pals!

But I Gotta Go NOW

2007-08-10T20:10:00.000-04:00

This story takes place when Sean was just about two, well-on in the potty training. We were living in our first house on Oakwood Street in East Greenbush. Our neighborhood was a closed loop that made for nice evening walks of about three quarters of a mile.

One evening we were taking our nightly walk and about three quarters of the way around Sean announced the he had to go pee. "We're almost home, pumpkin, can you make it?" we said. We really were only a couple minutes away. But he said "I gotta go noowwww." That meant he had to go ... now.

We were right next to a brushy/wooded area near a pond, so I said to Barb, "Just let me take him in here. It'll be a guy thing. Bonding ... you know." So I ushered him about fifteen or twenty feet into the tall grass and woods and said, "Here you go, pumpkin. You can go pee here."

He looked at me with a quizzical expression, not sure exactly what I was saying to him. This was all quite extraordinary! Go pee here!? And sure enough he said, "Here?" I decided I'd better go with him to show him that it was alright. So I turned, unzipped, and began peeing. As I did so, I turned to him and said, "See, it's ok."

I finished my job, zipped back up, and turned to him once more. He was still just kind of standing there uncertain, staring into the woods. I gave him a couple patient seconds, then began to walk toward him. It was then that he turned to me and I saw that he had peed his pants.

Alrighty then ... I guess I left out some details there.

Identity Chapters

2007-08-01T19:49:00.000-04:00

We live our lives in chapters. Neatly divided chunks of memory that we refer to with a combination of nostalgia and other feelings inspired by the contents of the chapter itself. Some chapters end like a good ol' American feel good movie; others end like the shocking season-ending cliff-hanger of your favorite T.V. series, leaving you unnerved (although confident) at the uncertain fate of your favorite character.

In each of our books, we are the heroes of the story. The main and favorite characters; the reason the book exists; and the reason someone is reading. The readers are our families and our friends. No doubt the contents of some chapters reveal hidden betrayals, or hidden truths, details that define the hero’s depth of character; details that lead some readers to continue reading but others to set aside the book for some time, or forever.

Of course, some readers just prefer other material: mysteries over science fiction; biographies over non-fiction; novels over short stories. They may read a chapter or two, perhaps feigning interest to others, but ultimately just not interested.

Not to forget, too, that we are only part author of our chapters. While we retain controlling interest, we control the primary themes and general direction of the story, each of the characters in our chapters contributes a line here and there, sometimes a paragraph, sometimes a page, and occasionally more. Some characters contribute honest lines that build upon known character traits and extend an expected direction; but still others contribute distortions which deviate and cast doubt over our heroes.

I view my life in nine chapters. Each chapter varies in length, depth of character development, number of new characters, and etc. They are:

1 Churchville
2 Holley (parts one and two)
3 Lock Haven University
4 A Transition (in-between college and graduate school)
5 Indiana University
6 First Year of Marriage (Lansingburgh, RPI, Lowell)
7 BRS Software Products
8 CommSoft
9 MapInfo Corporation
10 ...

This year, I closed a chapter in my book. Abruptly. Revealed in the closing paragraphs was a tragedy of betrayals, a travesty of inflicted lies and misrepresentations. Yielded from a kangaroo court, no less. [Shame on you.] But in fairness, revealed too was some truth and I accept that, openly and honestly, wishing only that I’d learned of it sooner and been given the chance to prove I could change, prove that I could improve.

Oh well.

But something happened to me upon closing this chapter, something I did not expect. Dominating the myriad of feelings that comes with having lost my job was the sense that I had somehow also lost my identity. How naturally we slip into the fold of employer identity: we are what we do and we do for someone. Take the employer away…

It really begs the question: Are we what we do? Or is what we do just a means to an end?

I found myself re-reading my own chapters, a strange voyeur, asking questions like: “Why did I do that?” “Why was I like that?” “Who was I, really?” And later asking: “What do I like?” “What is important to me?” “What do I want?” And finally: “What do I want to be doing?”

I don’t believe anyone can answer these questions with pure clarity, and life has a way of forcing compromises on you. Life experience, too, makes you view things differently over time. While I cannot say that I have all of the answers to the questions above, I believe I have a clear enough sense of a few things. First among them is this: I retain control over my own identity. I am who I am, not what I do or for whom I do it.

This perspective has inspired a sense of respect and admiration in me for every person who is self employed. To me they embody independence, self-sufficiency, individuality, self-realized identity, and above all freedom…to be who they are.

I have started a new chapter in my book. Fresh, unwrit pages before me anxiously awaiting ink. What shall I call it... yes, what will that be...

Geocaching IV: Nephews and Nieces, too!

2007-07-17T20:06:00.000-04:00

My nephew Nick Baker is after my own heart...

Last weekend we packed up our camper for our first camping trip of the summer: Limekiln Lake campground outside Inlet, New york. This trip was a bit special because it was a coordinated effort with my sister, Katrina, and her two sons (Nick and Chris), along with her fiance Karl and his daughter Kaila.

Being a bit of a geocaching opportunist, I assembled my usual collection of possible caches along the route, plus all caches in a 30 mile radius around the campground. To my fortune, there was a cache on a series of trails at the campground; this made it an easy sell for my family. (Actually, a new cache had been posted the day we left, so there were two we could have done, but I didn't know it until we returned.)

We cancelled our Friday plans to go to Water Safari due to rain threat, but then the day turned out pretty decent. A perfect day for geocaching, in fact!

So I mentioned to everyone that I thought I would go do a geocache and to my utter surprise my nephew Nick jumped at the opportunity. "I'll go! We have a geocache at our school!" he said. His enthusiasm sparked the whole lot of kids to go with me.

We did Limekiln Loot:

In his usual form, Sean found the cache (the boy has eagle eyes!). It is at the base of this stump, just out of sight. From left to right in the picture: Kaila, Chris, Sean, Emily, Nick, me.

In a couple weeks, when we're all together at Kevin and Karen's place at the Thousand Islands, I'm going to take him geocaching in Canada!

Benevolent Dictators

2007-07-06T19:10:00.000-04:00

Parenthood is a peculiar form of dictatorship. We have total and final say over everything our children do until they are adults, but our genuine concern for their health and welfare being our primary concern—above even our own lives!—means the vast, vast majority of us are good dictators.

Benevolent dictators.

But trouble for this benevolent dictatorship arises from the words “until they are adults.” When is that?

Becoming an adult is not tied to a particular birthday (like 18). Rather, becoming an adult is a transition that happens over a period of perhaps ten or twelve years, starting at … oh, I’d say age ten. It is, effectively, the teen years.

I admit to limited knowledge and experience of parenting teens. I was a teen once, but that’s very different than parenting one. Mostly, as my own children traverse this “until they become adults” age, I find myself winging it as I go.

In fairness to myself, however, I give it regular careful thought. Mostly I find myself thinking about these two questions:

- What does it mean for my children?

- What does it mean for me?

For my children, I can’t imagine that becoming an adult is easy. In fact, I believe it to be a hard and painful path. Becoming an adult, like parenthood, does not come with clear instructions, and Mother Nature is quite unforgiving.

They must discover who they are; establish themselves as individuals wholly separate from us; learn the complexities of the world; learn to recognize and avoid its (often very subtle) dangers; become self-sufficient and self-sustaining. They must become our equals.

I might liken this process to being born … conscious. Struggling to break free, struggling to breathe, and adding insult to injury is the prospect of someone yanking on their heads with forceps to hasten them along. Human nature being what it is, it should be no surprise they might view that person with a little more than an ounce of contempt.

So who is it yanking on their heads with forceps? Why, us, of course, the ever present benevolent dictators: do this, don’t do that, behave a certain way. As they stumble through their mistakes, we’re there: that was wrong; I saw that coming; I told you not to do that; you’re going to pay for that one, and etc...

As adults, we know that life is full of shades and colors, and our growing teens learn quickly that it often does not match with our black-and-white benevolent instructions. It makes our dictates harder and harder to accept, especially when our dictates are just that.

For me, I have to determine what it means to be a parent during this age, for certainly it will be different than parenting “children.”

For instance, I should think that I must accept the fact that my children are becoming adults; they are becoming individuals, separate from and increasingly equal to me. This is a good thing, but it brings with it the end—though not abruptly—of my benevolent dictatorship.

I should think, also, that I must increasingly respect them as adults. My own life experience tells me that respect is not de-facto granted, but earned through mutuality. If I want them to respect me, then as the adult I must start the process by respecting them.

These items aside, I mustn’t lose sight of my primary parental objective: their health and welfare. Primary above even my own life!

This presents somewhat of a dilemma: how can I achieve this objective when, as they traverse this age and enter more fully into adulthood and become more independent individuals, I have less and less input, less and less control?

I firmly believe that my continued involvement in their lives is imperative, it is required in order to achieve the goal of their health and welfare. Yet the very nature of becoming adults will make it increasing difficult.

Our relationship must continue, and it will continue, but it must change if I am to succeed. This means, to accommodate the dynamics of this newly developing relationship, I must change, and I must be careful how I behave.

1 – I mustn’t do things that restrict or eliminate open communication.

Guilt, blow-ups, lectures, overly harsh punishments, personal judgments, etc.—these behaviors are all pavings in the road away from me. Making anyone feel bad about honest mistakes is a sure way to lose influence over them, and the farther away they are, the less likely they’ll hear me when they come upon something really dangerous.

And chances are, if they recognize their mistakes, they’ll feel bad enough. They won’t need me to make them feel worse, they’ll need me to help them feel better. I need to make them feel comfortable coming to me for help. If I never offer it, but only condemn instead, they’ll never come. Nor will they learn. And this could be very dangerous, indeed.

2 – I must be realistic about what really is harmful.

Some things will hurt you, and some things will kill you! Not everything falls into the latter category. If I make every issue a five alarm fire, then there are no five alarm fires. This can be extremely dangerous.

Hype doesn’t mean something is inherently harmful or dangerous. Other people’s carelessness, also, does not mean something is inherently harmful or dangerous. The fact of the matter is, I have an obligation to evaluate things for myself and draw my own conclusions about them.

I must think for myself.

Guiding that must be a reasonable perspective about what really is harmful, and I must apply that perspective when governing my reaction to the things my teens do. I’ll consider it a bonus if I’m able to get them to recognize the harm of their actions when no harm is apparent.

3 – I must allow them to become who they are, and accept them unconditionally.

They are not going to become “mini-me’s.” They are not going to become who I want them to become. Such assumptions are completely unfair to them, tantamount to stealing a life.

They are going to become who they are.

My part in this is that I have an ounce of influence to steer their general direction and support them in achieving their own success. For them to become who they are, to cherish them for it, and to be rewarded with their love in return, this is the greatest joy.

Tears for Our Babies

2007-06-27T21:35:00.001-04:00

Three years ago this month, Barb and I attended the first of our children’s “graduation” ceremonies. It was called a “moving up” ceremony and marked Sean’s completion of six years of elementary school (K-5).

We, children and parents of the graduates, assembled in Bell Top School’s gymnasium and listened attentively to Principal Trish Carlton’s words: pride, appreciation, encouragement, hope.

The closing presentation was a multimedia slide show with candid and staged photos of each child through every grade. It also included photos of our babies as infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers.

While we all knew the ceremony itself marked the leap into middle school, the presentation marked something wholly different: it encapsulated and held before us the end of a precious age. I was not the only parent who fought back tears.

Our babies were growing up.

Three years later, Barb and I attended another elementary graduation ceremony, this one marking Emily’s completion of six years of elementary school (K-5).

Similarly, we assembled in Genet School’s auditorium for the event. The opening of the ceremony included a procession of the children to the song "You Are the New Day" traditional by King's Singers. The voices in the song and the words sung resonated and sent a chill to my core.

We listened attentively to Principal Robin Zalob’s words: pride, appreciation, encouragement, hope. We applauded awards and special recognitions and our hearts welled with pride.

This ceremony marked yet another leap into middle school, but this time it was the words of the ceremony’s theme song that so precisely captured emotion: You are the new day. Once again, as the children marched out of the auditorium, I was not the only parent who fought back tears.

We are all done with elementary school now.

Our babies are growing up.

Treasure Island

2007-06-20T20:58:00.000-04:00

I have modified my reading list and added Treasure Island.

Let me state up front that I admit to having completed a BA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing without ever having read it. And quite honestly, were it not for geocaching I would not be reading it now.

I did a cache called Literary Treasure where I had to read a section of the book for a clue. Well, not being able to figure it out in the library—where the cache was located—I resorted to buying a paperback copy ($4.00) at Barnes & Noble to have for reference later. Well, as long as I have the book, I might as well read it!

Fun read so far. Guess that's why it's a classic.

We are not alone...

2007-06-13T20:10:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning, the sun was shining, I was refreshed, it was going to be a beautiful day. I threw open the window and this is what I saw:

I swear, I had nothing to do with this...

The Wearing Down of the Lawn Mower

2007-05-30T17:10:00.000-04:00

When we first moved into our new house, June 1999, about half of our property was "wild" and our initial intention was to keep it that way. As such, the self-propelled walk-behind mower we brought with us was, we thought, going to be adequate.

After two summers, I—the lawn mower—was worn down.

In the height of spring growing, the lawn mowing was taking me upwards of four hours every four or five days. So, I bought a 42" cut riding mower in the spring of '02. This was wonderful! My mowing time was cut to well below two hours.

In '03 I began "trimming back" the "wild" area, just to keep it a little under control. In '04 I was outright mowing the "wild" area, taming it to lawn status. And my mowing time once again increased to the three hour ceiling. In the high-growth time of the year (Spring), mowing was once again taking four hours every week. Not quite as bad as the walk-behind, but still enough to make it worth considering something else: a wider cut, faster reverse, sharper turns, something.

Once again, I—the lawn mower—was being worn down.

Last summer I walked into Home Depot (Barb considers this store to be "pure evil designed for men") and saw it: a 50" cut zero-radius turn mower. These are the mowers that don't have steering wheels, but rather two arms, each of which controls one of the rear drive wheels. You see them in use on commercially maintained lawns.

I immediately felt like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, and it was all I could think about. For the past year, I have been devising ways of convincing Santa to bring me that machine for . . . well, maybe not for Christmas but maybe some kind of early Father's Day. Does Santa do that kind of thing? Yeah, that'll work!

For a year I have dreamed of spinning in zero-radius turn circles of glee on my lawn until I'd worn a track exactly 50" wide. I dreamed of racing my old, slow-mower in a lawn mow-off, speeding through turns, cutting through the thickest grass with ease, and never having to shift into reverse, all the while my old machine would be putting along at half a mile per hour—slower in reverse!—and piling up cuttings for raking later.

But in the back of my head, I kept hearing Santa's evil helpers singing "You'll cut your arm off. You'll cut your arm off." But my resolve did not waver, and at last two weeks ago I went into the store of "evil designed for men" and I bought that mower.

Guys: this is the most awesome machine ever made!

I want two of them! Just kidding, ladies.

Geocaching III

2007-05-16T18:25:00.000-04:00

Each geocache is its own unique adventure.

Aside from the obvious benefits of getting exercise and taking a nice walk in the woods, I have found that geocaching has taught me about ciphers, calculus, as well as brought me to beautiful places near my home that I did not know existed. I will chronicle three interesting caches, culminating in a family activity captured by a stunning photograph.

I call this one "The Math Cache," though it is officially called "I Love Math." The cache itself is a a 50-caliber ammo can, but it has a combination lock on it. Technically, as I learned, they are "permutation" locks. The cache instructions are to solve three increasingly difficult math problems (here), the answers to which are the numbers of the combination lock. I was able to solve the first two, but the third stumped me with the word "parallelepiped."

Yes, that's what I said!

A parallelepiped is a three-dimensional figure formed by six parallelograms. It differs from a cube in that it does not necessarily have right angles. The objective of the problem is to calculate the volume based on the coordinates of the eight corners. This presents two basic problems: first, you have to identify the location of all the vectors based on the coordinates; second, you have to calculate the volume.

You calculate the volume of a cube by multiplying x x y x z. You can trust this equation for a cube because you are assured that the length of the vector terminating at coordinate z is in fact equal to height (or elevation) because of the right angles to its connecting to vectors. With a parallelepiped, you have no such assurance because as the angle to connecting vectors changes to something more or less than 90°, the length of the vector terminating at z increases, thus no longer equaling the z coordinate's elevation.

Calculus. I got this far and was unable to take the last steps to complete the calculation. Thank you Aunt Deb (math professor) for giving me the answer.

Another recent cache led me down the path of learning about ciphers and encryption. I was presented with the challenge of deciphering this encoded message:

GVNHL IULMY WZWVH FWWIF LJOOO AZRGK UJVCX WHVKK TOHEE DQCEZ MSULX XAJRK LYMAA WAXQM HYHBB KMYIV EMLAD CPETR QLUXU EVJXL XGLRT RYMLV KLGWK NLMMK WLXIS CXNXT BYQFB USMEM SABRV PHMVC OGRFP HTNPU GKJLS PLYDT XCSMT JLGLQ WXAEJ HOA

The initial cache, a "micro," provided a clue to the key necessary to decipher the message. The key was somewhere in a select chapter of the book Treasure Island. Aside from reading the particular chapter three or four times, looking for clues like "There's the key...," I spent considerable time learning about symmetric versus asymmetric encryption, plain-text and cipher-text, one time pads, and the whole history of it, and so on. I ultimately figured this: I had the key, and I had the cipher-text, I just needed a tool that would execute the one time pad and decrypt the message.

After some searching the internet for such a tool, I finally sought the help of a fellow geocacher who pointed me in the direction of Rumkin Tools (yet another geocacher) who had just such a decryption tool on his website. After a few tries at different pieces of text, I was finally able to decrypt the message and obtain the coordinates for the final cache.

Thank you "geosliders" for pointing me to Rumkin Tools. I'd still be struggling along without it!

The last cache I'd like to tell you about was a typical cache: find this location. However, "this location" happened to be near a place called Barberville Falls, not far from our home. It was the Saturday before Mother's day, a beautiful sunny day, and the four of us packed the cache coordinates and GPS and headed out to find the location. I will let the photo speak for itself:

May 17, 1952

2007-05-05T08:22:00.000-04:00

My mom and dad will be celebrating fifty-five years of marriage on May 17, 2007. On an impulse, they decided to mark the occasion by booking a short cruise out of Tampa. They depart on their anniversary and return a week later.

Fifty-five years of matrimony is a noble, honorable, and truly noteworthy accomplishment. Such commitment requires a level of effort, sacrifice, and loyalty that can only be wrought from Love. This, in an of itself, is commendable and requiring of great praise and recognition.

But perhaps even greater than this achievement is the product of their marriage. They raised seven children spanning nearly twelve and a half years in age. One may infer, then, that their child-rearing effort spanned more than thirty-five years. Thirty-five years,... it bears repeating. Thirty-five years of child rearing is a path that leads, I have no doubt, to a unique emotional location.

I am only a little bit older than that in my entirety! I cannot imagine, cannot even begin to imagine 85% of my entire existence to date to have been consigned to child rearing. While I am in the throws of raising my own children, the fact that I am raising only two means my path will never lead to their exact emotional location. This fact revokes from me any pretense of a right to critique. Instead, I may attempt only to understand.

In so doing, I imagine two things about the end of thirty-five years of child-rearing:

First, that considerable time and effort must have been required to readjust to life without children and child care responsibilities. I imagine such a transition to have been lengthy and at times painful as the feelings of obligation born of thirty-five years of habit and responsibility gave way to the wholly new and unfamiliar feelings accompanying liberation, independence, and freedom. I imagine a considerable amount of uncertainty, such as would be frightening.

Second, that a process of rediscovery should take place such as to yield one last birth, a rebirth; a new breath of life breathed to consummate rediscovery of who you are, who you can be, and who you want to be. I imagine a new joy born of relief, born of fulfillment, and born of success.

Put all of the circumstances aside—unchanged as they will likely remain and unchanged as they may need to remain—and know this: we all love you and are grateful for all of your sacrifice and effort on our behalf. It is never said enough, but it is felt and wished.

Upon booking the cruise Mom said: "Life is great when you have your health and a little money to go along with it and very few worries or obligations. Only took seventy some years to get here."

Yes, Mom and Dad, you have arrived. God bless you! May you have many more years of freedom, leisure, happiness, health, and above all JOY together.

Geocaching II

2007-05-02T08:13:00.000-04:00

WARNING: The photos in this post are spoilers for any of you geocachers reading this! Sorry!

Our second adventure! This was an effort.

Sean and I set out Sunday early afternoon with the intent of locating as many as five geocaches. Very adventurous! Needless to say, we didn't make five, but we did make three. It was a very nice day for a hike; the threat of rain held to only a threat and gave us only one small sprinkle (more like a drizzle).

The round trip hike was four miles. For half of it we bushwhacked. That means we set our direction based on the GPS waypoint coordinates, aimed, and walked, hacking our way through brush, over streams, and through huge nests of ticks. This is Sean hiking out of a ravine behind me. Notice, no trail.

One nice thing about bushwhacking is that you never know what you'll find. Our bushwhack led us, rather serendipitously, to a pleasant waterfall, which I logged as a waypoint and have marked on my Google geocaching map as a "virtual geocache". Virtual geocaches are usually specific locations but with no actual item to find; basically, you find the place. This place is located at +42° 40' 32.40", -73° 42' 43.62". Something particularly cool about Google maps is that if you paste those numbers into the Search Maps box, it'll put you exactly where we were. Then click on the Satellite option and you'll really get a sense of it.

This virtual cache actually came after our first find: Tech Park Micro #2. A "micro" is a very small geocache, usually something like a 35mm film canister...camouflaged! Here we are at the geocache.

When we reached the coordinates, we searched around for a good twenty minutes before actually finding the cache itself. We literally circled it two or three times before zero-ing in exactly. The GPS gets us to within 30 feet of the actual coordinates; the rest is up to us. Later in the day when we registered our geocache finds on the geocaching website, we received an email from Rugenstein, the geocache owner, who said "You should be happy with finding Tech Park #2. Many have tried and had to go back." I think this qualifies us now as genuine geocachers! Thanks Rugenstein, and glad to meet you.

Our second find was Tech Park #4. This is not a micro but a larger cache, an ammo box (camouflaged) containing many interesting items: a hat, some letter blocks, small toys, and so on. It was fun rifling through all that stuff! I enjoy reading all the posts, too. We took our picture (I really like this photo!) and made a decision to pursue a third geocache for the day, Tech Park #3.

Tech Park #3 is a traditional geocache, larger than a micro but smaller than the ammo can. It was considerably further north from our last geocache find, which added to our overall distance for the day. We headed downhill to the railroad tracks to make the trek north. At least the hike would be flat and easy, unlike our bushwhacking so far.

After a good forty minute walk, we turned off the trail and started heading up a hill to a ridge. We didn't realize it at the time, but we were heading for a very tall radio tower. Once on the ridge, we had a beautiful view over the river and toward Albany. Finding the geocache was an adventure in and of itself. While I had added the coordinates as a waypoint in the GPS, I did not remember to read any "hints" about the cache on the geocaching website.

After twenty minutes of trying to pin down the exact location, and searching under bushes, in trees, etc, we finally decided we needed to call in reinforcements. Trusty cell phone in hand, I called Barb: can you look at the geocaching website for Tech Park #3 and read the description to me?

OK. I admit to being a techno-weenie! Can't even take a nature hike without some connection to silicon!

She read the hint to us: "A magnetic personality will help." Ah, that narrows it down. Sure enough, we want straight to it after that. After finding the cache, signing in, looking over the few items in it, we rested for a moment. My knees were starting to ache, and Sean announced that he was done, too tired even to hike out. Uh oh! In the action, I forgot to take any pictures. Oh well.

We decided to do the last two geocaches at a later time. This was a good thing because the next two on the list are "multi" geocaches; that means the stated coordinates gives you the starting point of multiple points that you have to track down. This could be a single day event for one geocache. We'd never have made it!

Our hike out plan was simple: Sean would go to the road at the bottom of the hill while I would hike back to the car and then drive down to retrieve him. Worked like a charm. Once home, tired and sore, we showered and de-ticked ourselves, and took the rest of the day off.

Next week: Tech Park Multi.

My Blog Visitors

2007-04-30T11:18:00.000-04:00

When I started this blog, I had no idea what to expect. I was unsure how prominent I wanted it to be, which has prompted me to not mention it to too many people. It's not in my email signatures, and not linked to from my professional resume at googlepages. Basically, I began this blog for myself and have been predominantly the primary reader of it.

But still, I was curious about visitors. So I looked into some kind of visitor assessment tools and found that Google Analytics makes this fairly easy and robust. I can see a fair amount of detail about visitors: where they are from, what pages they view, if they repeat visits, etc. For example, the week of April 23 to 29, my blog was visited by people from the following countries:

United States
United Kingdom
Argentina
Malaysia
Turkey
Romania
Canada
Italy

Pretty cool! And I can drill down to see state and town level. For instance, someone from East Greenbush visited my site 36 times last week. Wow! I wonder who that could be! But also someone from Troy, Albany, Schenectady, and Brooklyn. The same goes for other countries.

This is pretty neat to me. After seeing this traffic for a week or so, I've developed a strong inclination to encourage everyone to comment on my posts. But I'm not really writing anything worthy of commentary, except maybe comments from my family. Still, I'd like to capture, somehow unobtrusively, my visitors.

So this past weekend I looked into adding a guestbook to my blog and found a nice one through Bravenet.com. I have successfully added it to my blog.

If you're a new (or returning) visitor, I encourage you to sign my guest book. It's quick and it's easy, and there should be no resulting spam involved as an email address is not required to sign the book.

Thanks!

Chess

2007-04-27T14:17:00.000-04:00

Thank you, Todd Brasel, for pointing me to the website www.redhotpawn.com. I had forgotten just how much I enjoyed chess!

In 1978, when I was fourteen years old, I received a Christmas gift of a choice. I could receive $75 in cash, or I could receive the Chess Challenger 7, a laptop computer chess game from Fidelity Electronics. I picked Chess Challenger.

It had seven levels, one designed for "chess by mail," which for all intensive purposes simply delayed its response for several hours. On almost all levels, response time was almost immediate. This had two effects: it prompted you to hurry up with your move, but more importantly when you lost the game it made you feel completely demoralized!

For a year, I played level one only, losing most of the time. After perhaps a year, I had become good enough to play level two, and after a year or more of playing level two I had reached a point where I could beat the computer two out of three games. Levels three through seven (including the "by mail" level) were considerably beyond my skills.

When I went to college, I did not play chess at all and had, for all intensive purposes, put the game aside. I did play a few games with fraternity brothers, and a few games with a good friend and Economics professor Ed Chatterton. Against my fraternity brothers I tended to win, and against Ed we tended to be evenly matched. But play was sporadic at best, perhaps amounting to a dozen games.

While attending graduate school I happened to notice a posting for a chess tournament. I signed up, played one match and was eliminated. Well, it had been five years since I last played, so what should I expect. But my opponent gave me encouragement, said I played OK but that my opening was weak, and pointed me to a book of openings. I checked the book out from the library and read it. Afterward, and just for kicks, I unpacked my trusty Chess Challenger 7 and cranked it up to level seven...and won. Thinking it was a fluke, I played three more games and won two of them.

I met a few people who liked playing chess and we began playing often. Quite often, in fact. I remember one summer playing two or three games every day. This amounted to three or four hours of play, usually at night at the Runcible Spoon over a cup or two of coffee (looks like it's more of a restaurant now; back then it was just a coffee house.)

There were usually three of us: Ryan Hardesty, Karl (don't recall his last name), and Tom (don't recall his last name, either). Some odd things happened during that summer. We were all fairly evenly matched, but for some reason I was unable to beat Tom. I won the first game we played, but never again. Yet Ryan and Karl could beat him (evenly matched) and I could beat Ryan and Karl (evenly matched). This became so infuriating that at one point I found I was only playing Tom.

Tom also showed me a three move checkmate:

E2E4, F7F5
D2D3, G7G5
D1H5 (mate)

Highly improbable in a real game, but certainly interesting. And, hey, you never know.

I never played against NCF rated players, so I never was rated. I did play once against someone who was 2000 rated and he said (not official) that I was playing around 1700. But, that's just nice here-say!

Then, in the spring of 1991, I became preoccupied with dating my future wife and once again I put chess down, this time for sixteen years. That is, until just recently when my good friend Todd Brasel challenged me to a game of chess on the site redhotpawn.com.

I have since hooked up Jim "Bo" Fissel and Ed Chatterton. We have played numerous games and I have been thoroughly enjoying the play!

I have also been playing other RedHotPawn players and finding some interesting and fun challenges. My rating stands in the 1300's, and quite honestly I've been avoiding playing people whose ratings are higher than the 1400's—I have my ego to tend, you know! And remembering some old advice, I regularly check the website chess-poster to review my openings before embarking too far into a game.

Once again, chess is back in my life, and once again I find myself uncovering some odd things. For example, I have noticed that I sometimes tend to anticipate that my opponent will make mistakes. Such an anticipation says much about the nature of opportunism: being ready to capitalize on the mistakes of others.

Am I such an opportunist? Perhaps.

In some games, against some (perhaps lesser) opponents, this may work in my favor. In other games, against other (equal or greater) opponents, this has been a serious disadvantage; anticipating mistakes (blunders, as they are called in chess) usually means putting myself in awkward or risky positions. Equal or better players recognize those compromises and capitalize on them, usually to my demise.

My lesson in this is simple: respect. Respect your opponent's capabilities and potential; anticipate that they will make a move against you that will be the most devastating to your situation. With this perspective, I find myself playing more carefully and more conservatively, but also winning more often.

Chess is, without any doubt, the best game I have ever learned how to play. I am glad I am capable of playing reasonably well as this adds to my enjoyment of it.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for buying me Chess Challenger 7 in 1978.

For anyone wishing to play me, my redhotpawn.com ID is 1pawn. See you on the board!

Geocaching: Our First Find

2007-04-23T08:25:00.000-04:00

Several years ago I purchased a Garmin eTrex GPS (a precursor to
this one). I used it to create tracks when we went camping, hiking, or embarked on other travel. Perhaps the most interesting set of tracks I created was our flight to Florida in 2004.

I had been aware of geocaching for a few years, and had an internal desire to participate but never was able to find the time or ambition. Last week, I researched geocaching in greater detail through the website www.geocaching.com. There are a lot of geocaches out there!

I identified three geocaches in the property abutting the Rensselaer Technology Park in North Greenbush. I entered the coordinates as waypoints in my GPS and was ready to go. Convincing Sean and Emily to come along was a little work, but they agreed and we trekked out to find three geocaches. It was an absolutely beautiful day for a hike: 75°F and clear skies. The trails were not too muddy, but there were some soft spots to traverse.

There are a myriad of Tech Park trails, mostly travelled by ATVs, and we were able to obtain a map of the trails from the geocaching website. The map was somewhat useful, but there are as many undocumented trails as otherwise, which made reading the map a challenge. Once we were on a main trail heading in the correct direction, we basically stopped consulting the map and watched the GPS intently.

Not knowing what to expect from a geocache, or from a geocacher—was the geocache on the trail, off the trail, how well hidden, etc.—we found ourselves sticking mainly to the trail. Sean was watching the GPS closely and after awhile said "I think we're moving away from it." Sure enough, we had walked past the geocache and had to backtrack, but only a little.

We finally made it to the location where the GPS coordinates matched exactly the geocache coordinates (within 20 feet or so). So we began hunting around for it: under leaves, beside trees, in notches, etc. We finally found it in the crotch of a tree. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the top of the 35mm film canister at the base of the notch.

This photo shows the location of the Tech Park Micro #1 geocache. We approached from the top of the photo, signed in as "No_Peeking" and replaced the geocache. When we returned home, we created an ID on the geocaching website ("No_Peeking") and logged our first find. Our intention is to find a bunch more this summer, and maybe even create a geocache of our own!

Finally, we took a group photo at the location and continued our journey toward the next two geocaches. About half way to the next point, however, Emily decided she couldn't make it, so we enjoyed our hike out and went to McDonald's for lunch. (We had to put back what we just hiked off!)

Our total hike time was 2 hours 15 minutes, and we covered just about 2 miles. Next time, we'll make it to the next two geocaches on the list.

Without a doubt my favorite part of this geocache adventure was spending the afternoon with Sean and Emily, aka "stick man" and "friendly audience."

Vagina

2007-04-20T09:14:00.000-04:00

Anyone who has kids knows of all the various developmental stages they go through: physical, emotional, intellectual, etc.

When Sean and Em were very young (perhaps 7 and 4) and still in the shared bath stage, Emily noticed that Sean had something that she didn't. This inevitably led to the inquiry, which in turn led to our very open discussion about boys and girls: Sean is a boy and boys have penis'; that is a penis.

"What do I have?"

You are a girl, and girls have vaginas.

This revelation sparked a pattern of repetition to solidify her new-found knowledge. Vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina... and on and on. Only she didn't quite have the pronunciation ability to sound it out right, so it kind of came out as "bachina" or "bajina" or something similar. And this became a kind of ongoing mantra for a week or so. Breakfast table; dinner table; daycare; car rides; grocery store: bachina, bachina, bajina...

Our embarrassment of her intellectual development prompted us to take action to stem the extent of her repetition, so we explained that that word can sometimes make people feel uncomfortable and is not a word we say so often or in public. This helped, but she was so young that she really couldn't understand the finer nuances of when it was OK and when it was not OK to say it. It was still blurted out in front of Grandma.

We didn't want to make it a taboo, as our society clearly has this taboo in its past and we find this taboo distasteful. But she was far too young to understand that while we are fine with the word—she can say it in front of us all she wants—other people may not be like us. Certainly the subtlety of perception and sensitivity required to know who would find offense was beyond her at this age.

Finally, we just said: don't say that word anymore. Stop saying that word.

After several iterations of "don't say that word anymore", she became very sensitive to it, such that one afternoon when she and Sean were at the breakfast counter having a snack and Sean pointed to his world map place-mat and said "this is China," Emily immediately called out in protest: Dad!!! Sean said china!

OK. Speech, language, anatomy, and geography lesson coming up...

Google Maps

2007-04-18T15:11:00.000-04:00

I am pretty concerned, now!

It has come to my attention that some votes were completely disregarded in the 2004 Presidential election. As seen in this previously unavailabale visual from Google maps, the votes of the good people of Urbandale, IL (and surrounding area) were never included in the election, certainly swaying the outcome by large margins.

And notice, also, that it appears the votes in a nearby district were counted for both parties.

How will this ever get sorted out...

Raymond Carver

2007-04-12T14:34:00.000-04:00

In all of Carver's work, I like his down to Earth, simple plain-ness. I think my favorite collection of his poems is Ultramarine. Some of my favorite poems from that, and other collections, includes:

Ultramarine: "The Author of Her Misfortune," "Shiftless," "Kafka's Watch," "The River," "Waiting," and "Simple." My favorites in these probably has to be "The River."
Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: "Romanticism" (a response to the Poem "Classicism" by Linda Gregg).
A New Path to the Waterfall: "What the Doctor Said"

"What the Doctor Said" is a great poem that Carver wrote after learning he had cancer and that it was beyond treatment. Several lines in the poem epitomize Carver's voice as simple clarity of perception. For example, not wanting to know how many lumps were on his lungs; also, not wanting the doctor to have to repeat the news. These are things that someone wouldn't necessarily recognize as being the case in the heat of events, but clearly and concisely capture the essence of the exchange. The last three lines of the poem captures neatly the irony of human behavior to act out of habit in the face of extremes: "I may even have thanked him habit being so strong".

But I think my favorite Carver poem is "The River." It is a poem about how imagination can subtly overpower us and turn familiar perceptions into something more.

Without permission, I'll recite this poem here and hope I don't get sued:

The River

I waded, deepening, into the dark water.
Evening, and the push
and swirl of the river as it closed
around my legs and held on.
Young grilse broke water.
Parr darted one way, smolt another.
Gravel turned under my boots as I edged out.
Watched by the furious eyes of king salmon.
Their immense heads turned slowly,
eyes burning with fury, as they hung
in the deep current.
They were there. I felt them there,
and my skin prickled. But
there was something else.
I braced with the wind on my neck.
Felt the hair rise
as something touched my boot.
Grew afraid at what I couldn't see.
Then of everything that filled my eyes—
that other shore heavy with branches,
the dark lip of the mountain range behind.
And this river that had suddenly
grown black and swift.
I drew breath and cast anyway.
Prayed nothing would strike.

- Raymond Carver
Ultramarine, 1986

The GN Saga Continues

2007-04-10T14:25:00.000-04:00

Well, the glossopharyngeal neuralgia saga continues.

I have lived with hearing loss and partial paralysis on the left side of my throat for six and a half years. All of this I have managed pretty well. I have learned to speak acceptably and learned to compensate for compromised ability to swallow.

This past Easter Sunday (4/8) I began to experience a generalized pain in my throat, concentrated on the left side. It was not like the neuralgia pain, but a general muscle soreness when I swallowed, like a cold would feel. It started about 5 p.m. and I thought I was getting a cold. But it lasted through the night, gradually getting worse. By 5:20 a.m., following a completely sleepless night, the pain was bad enough that I decided I needed to go to the hospital. When I got up to tell Barb, I was unable to speak.

Once in the ER (they took me right in), they gave me IV morphine and steroids. At one point, my throat spasmed, similar to what I have experience periodically since the surgery, only this spasm completely closed off my airway and I was completely unable to breathe for several minutes. Scary. I will not forget the image of Barb shaking, watching me, helpless other than yelling for help.

After (finally) seeing an ENT (four hour wait), I learned that I had some kind of infection (viral or bacterial) that inflamed my left vocal chord. I also learned that my left vocal chord is completely paralyzed (rather than partially, which is what I suspected since surgery). I was admitted for the night and this morning was encouraged by the ENT surgeon to make an appointment with him. He seemed to indicate that there is a surgical procedure that would help my vocal chord situation and possibly prevent this type of issue in the future.

So I spent the night in the hospital and just got back. What an ordeal! I hope it's not an indicator of anything to come.

Robert Francis

2007-04-07T10:07:00.000-04:00

Robert Francis is the first of my favorite poets. I like the eloquent and simple lyric tone and often rhymed verse. I was introduced to his work by Professor Larry Lebin in college, who taught several aspects of his Advanced Composition course based on some of Francis' work.

My favorite of Robert Francis' work include these poems from these collections:

The Sound I Listened For: "Excellence" and "Past and Future."
The Orb Weaver: "Pitcher" and "The Base Stealer."
Come Out Into the Sun: "Hogwash."
Like Ghosts of Eagles: "Like Ghosts of Eagles" and "Silent Poem." (These two are my favorites of all of them.)
New Poems: "Yes, What."

Without permission, I'll recite my all-time favorite Francis poem here and hope I don't get sued:

Like Ghosts of Eagles

The Indians have mostly gone
but not before they named the rivers
the rivers flow on
and the names of the rivers flow with them
Susquehanna Shenandoah

The rivers are now polluted plundered
but not the names of the rivers
cool and inviolate as ever
pure as on the morning of creation
Tennessee Tombigbee

If the rivers themselves should ever perish
I think the names will somehow somewhere hover
like ghosts of eagles
those mighty whisperers
Missouri Mississippi.

- Robert Francis
Like Ghosts of Eagles, 1974

Creative Juices

2007-04-05T14:19:00.001-04:00

Incredible! I have not written—or done!—anything of a creative nature in so long that it seems I have forgotten how entirely.

When in school, a time when I was perhaps the most creative in my life, I often had long blocks of uninterrupted free time, time enough to play, be silly, goof off, generally have fun. Waste time. As Calvin said to Hobbes, "...do all the nothing you want." Yet I'm certain this unadulterated floundering was the very fuel of creativity.

For easily ten years, the ten I have been in management, my days have been so filled with an overload of work as to completely devour and exhaust all energy I had. Perhaps the last six and a half particularly so, with the last three being a pinnacle.

Surely there are other factors, physical and psychological alike, that contribute to a decrease in the generation of new ideas, of creativity. For example: children. Tending to small children, infants through, say, age nine, requires a constant flow energy. Unless, of course, you are comfortable being remiss in providing the one thing children value above all: your attention. I wasn't, so when my work days ended my father days resumed until bed time, at which point collapse was usually imminent. I recall, specifically, a time when the days began at 5:30 a.m. and continued non-stop until 9:30 p.m., providing perhaps an hour afterward to breathe before passing out.

But I believe there are other factors that contribute to this entropy of creative capacity. Two, in fact, that come to mind for me: insecurity and self confidence.

I have worked with some very creative people, and more than once I have acknowledged, but not necessarily recognized (labelled) a very distinctive perspective: they didn't care. They were care free. They came to work, they did some stuff, sometimes they openly goofed off. They played table tennis in the hallway; they created AOL mobiles over their cubicles; they made up games using anything that was at hand; they built twenty-foot-high snow men; the list can go on...

They openly snubbed their noses at "the man" and knew they were right. And they were confident and secure in their knowing. This is my envy. Not since a long time ago have I shared the confidence and security to pursue, or even to determine, a creative path. My creative path used to be writing and it used to come naturally and easily, but not for a long time now. Writing this blog is a piece of work, and a sad surprise.

It's no wonder that I should receive feedback, as I have recently, to the effect that I am not a particularly creative person. The days have been so hell bent and tied to trudging through an overwhelming load of work, in what fifteen minute window were the revolutionary ideas to emerge? I'm sure employers still see it this way: if you're not working, you're wasting!

What a terrible mistake.

And my own insecurities and lack of self confidence led me down that path. To all of you, this is my open apology for not recognizing and valuing your need to fuel the creative juice! My bad.

Leaving has been such a relief. Having had time to think, reflect, relax, and regain my composure, I am ready now to take my next steps with confidence in what I know, with a greater awareness of my insecurities, and a rejuvenated determination to play, be silly, goof off, and generally have fun—to be creative.

To be productive!

2007 Reading List

2007-01-01T09:41:00.001-05:00

The Reality Dysfunction: P1 Emergence Peter F. Hamilton
The Reality Dysfunction: P2 Expansion Peter F. Hamilton
The Neutronium Alchemist - Part 1: Consolidation Peter F. Hamilton
The Neutronium Alchemist - Part 2: Conflict Peter F. Hamilton
The Witling Vernor Vinge
Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury
Treasure Island Robert Lewis Stevens
The Naked God - Part 1: Flight Peter F. Hamilton
The Naked God - Part 2: Faith Peter F. Hamilton
Eternity Greg Bear
The Giver Lois Lowry
Farnham's Freehold Robert A. Heinlein
The Speed of Dark Elizabeth Moon
Starship Troopers Robert A. Heinlein

Hearing

2006-01-27T14:12:00.000-05:00

Well, I finally went to a Audiologist to have a hearing exam conducted as a follow up to my MVD complications.

I recently suffered hearing loss in my right ear (non my surgery-affected ear), which is what prompted me to pursue the Audiologist. Regarding that, it turs out I had a viral infection afflicting the right cochlea. Lucky for me, it has recovered 100%; scary for me because this affliction has the potential to be permanent. For me this would have translated into deafness.

Regarding my MVD hearing complication (left ear) this is what I learned. I have suffered an approximate 20% hearing loss in the high pitch range. I can hear low, bass tones fine, mid tones fine, but the upper tones blend in with tinnitus that I have.

2006 Reading List

2006-01-01T13:42:00.001-05:00

American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Eon, Greg Bear
The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown
Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
One Shot, Lee Child
The Peace War, Vernor Vinge
The Terminal Experiment, Robert J. Sawyer
Singularity Sky , Charles Stross
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein

2005 Reading List

2005-01-01T13:38:00.001-05:00

Humans, Robert J. Sawyer
Hybrids, Robert J. Sawyer
A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge
Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card
2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Life, the Universe and Everything, Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams
Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Green Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Marooned in Realtime, Vernor Vinge
Buying Time, Joe Haldeman
Moving Mars, Greg Bear

2004 Reading List

2004-01-01T13:35:00.001-05:00

Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card
Shadow of the Hegemon, Orson Scott Card
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Darwin's Radio, Greg Bear
Darwin's Children, Greg Bear
A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge
Hominids, Robert J. Sawyer

MVD Follow-Up

2001-08-08T13:53:00.000-04:00

Directly after the surgery I lost my hearing, voice, and ability to swallow properly. My voice and swallowing were a direct result of the surgery as those functions are controlled by the cranial nerves that were involved in the surgery (i.e. directly manipulated).

My voice is back to about 80-85% normal, is very weak and hoarse. Improvements at this point are incremental and hard for me to notice. I think it's plateaued, but it may be improving and I don't notice. Some days it's quite good, other days quite hoarse.

Swallowing difficulty was a surprise. Specifically, I lost control of the muscles in the left side of my throat, and I lost soft-palette control. The function of the soft palette is to close off your nasal passages from your throat when you swallow. The net result is that when I swallow, food and drink go up into my sinuses instead of down my throat. Loss of muscle control in my throat means that food (primarily) would make it down to about where my windpipe starts and gets stuck. To correct this problem I had to take a sip of something with every swallow.

As for hearing, this was a total surprise. There is generally less than a 2% chance of this occurring with the procedure I had. I guess someone has to represent that lousy 2%. My surgery was scheduled for 7:30-10:15. When I woke up, the first thing I saw was a clock that said 2:15 and I knew right away that something went wrong. Almost immediately after waking and having that thought go through my mind, a nurse explained to me that I had probably lost hearing in my left ear. She was right, I did. I couldn't hear anything out of that ear. The neurosurgeon said this 100% hearing loss was permanent. This was a bummer.

For the week that I was in the hospital, I had serious doubts about having opted for surgery. Couldn't swallow (eat/drink), couldn't speak, couldn't hear... The surgeon asking me if my neuralgia pain was gone was kind of like asking Lincoln's wife how she enjoyed the play! (He actually said that, too!)

About two weeks after the surgery I put a phone to my ear and could hear a dial tone! Since that time I've regained perhaps 30% of hearing in that ear. This is cool! And a surprise, to my neurosurgeon too. I can hear a normal conversation, although it's quite muffled. Crowds or environments where there is a lot of background noise are difficult to tolerate as I have a hard time picking out a single voice.

Beyond all that, I think I have made the correct decision. The pain Iwas tolerating was, well, intolerable!

MVD Surgery

2001-07-01T17:19:00.000-04:00

This is my account of Microvascular Decompression of cranial nerves 9 and 10 (glossopharyngeal neuralgia). This neuralgia causes stabbing pain in the throat, typically behind the tonsil (right on target for me). Mine was left side, a particular complication in that the 10th nerve on that particular side also controls heartbeat and rate. Also, given complications with the 8th nerve (hearing) during this type of procedure, the 8th nerve was monitored. I had to go for a "baseline" measure several weeks before the surgery.

The surgery was 7:30 a.m. Monday June 25 and was to be completed by 10:15. As I understand, most of the time is "getting to the spot." The time spent decompressing the nerve is usually less than half an hour (15-20 minutes as my neurosurgeon later explained).

I arrived at the hospital at 6 a.m and began my prep work (donning the highly fashionable attire for the event: tux, shoes, you know...that sort of thing).

At 7:10 they wheeled me into the staging area. This is where all the people going in for operations are lined up, one after the other. I was handled kindly by a resident anesthesiologist who couldn't seem to find a vein in my hand. After much poking, prodding, and otherwise rude behavior with my hand, she finally stuck me in the arm.

At 7:15 the neurosurgeon came in and went over the procedure with me again. This was comforting. About that same time the anesthesiologist came in and introduced himself. He was comforting, too.

At 7:20 they stuck me with something they said would make me go to sleep. And it did. I remember about one more minute.

The first thing I remember about coming out of the surgery was the inability to breathe, like something was in my throat. I tried coughing, but couldn't get a good grip on it.

The next thing I remember is looking at the clock and seeing the time: 2:15. I immediately knew there were complications. I should have finished by 10:30, out of the fog by noon at the latest.

Within a minute or two after that a nurse at my left side asked if I could hear her. I couldn't. The probability that there would be hearing loss was small, but it exists. Someone has to represent that minority! That's me. So far, total hearing loss in my left ear.

Each 24 hours for the next 4 days has it's own description.

The first 24 were just excruciating discomfort. Every 2 hours they would wake me up for vitals, neurology checks (touch your nose, push up with your legs, that sort of thing), drugs, and they had this particularly obnoxious air mask blowing moisturized air at my face. I did almost nothing but sleep until the next day.

The next 24 (Tuesday) were for the most part the same routine, with the exception that I was only awakened every 4 hours and didn't have the jet mask in a rainstorm on my face. By late Tuesday afternoon I was becoming coherent, a little. Still very sore. They actually got me out of bed to walk the halls three times that day. The biggest change was the realization that I couldn't swallow or speak very well. The neurosurgeon explained to me that this was due to the 9th and 10th nerves being stretched and a little swollen from the decompression. He said this should return to normal, but may take awhile (up to six months).

The next 24 hours (Wednesday) things cleared up a good bit, but I was still quite fuzzy from taking medications that I'd normally take with food, plus narcotics for pain, plus pain. This was the day that the neurosurgeon sat down with me (again, clear this time) and explained in more detail what he'd found and why it took longer (he may have explained it earlier, but I was pretty well a zombie before Wednesday). First, he explained that I have an unusually large cerebellum, which made it hard to get into the area he needed to get to (i.e. it took up too much room in the hole). Retracting it also put additional stress on the 8th nerve. At the site, he found an artery crossing the 10th nerve, then the 9th, after which was an arterial branch (the Pica?) which looped back and may have coiled a couple times like a garden hose up against my 9th nerve before crossing the 10th again. This was "the worst case he'd ever seen" and explained that the part of the procedure that would have taken 15-20 minutes took him an hour and 15 minutes. He explained that the 8th nerve gave no warning, but just "dropped" and so he'd suspected that I'd have hearing loss. He believes this will be permanent. So Wednesday was depressing. Can't talk. Can't swallow. Can't hear. The upshot is that my neuralgia seems to be taken care of. Still, depressing. (Kind of asking Lincoln's wife "despite everything else, how did you like the show?")

The next 24 hours (Thursday), things cleared up even more. Eating a little (strained soup, yum!). Had meetings with a speech therapist, which included a video esophagram to watch me swallow. Just as I had described to them, they saw: water going everywhere, particularly up my sinus. The good news was that it was not going into my lungs and that the valve that closes off my lungs seems to be working properly, and the fact that I can feel food/water in there was promising. What is happening is a couple things. My soft palette is nonresponsive, which means it doesn't close off my nasal cavity when food/water reaches back there for a swallow; this doesn't provide my throat with the oomph it needs to force food down my throat, and it provides an alleyway for food to go elsewhere, namely up to my nasal cavity. The other thing that's happening is that side of my throat is a little numb and doesn't function properly, which means even when I get food back there, and am able to force it down a bit, things are a little out of synch and so food doesn't go quite right. This also affects my vocal chords, which is why my voice is "out of tune" at this time.

Discharged at 3:30 Thursday.

The week since then (the rest of Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Today) has been steady improvement. Each day is better, stronger, faster (insert your bionic man sounds here). My voice, while weak, is getting better each day. My swallowing is about the same. I actually ate solid food today (well, a couple pieces of sliced ham...but it counts!). Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I slept close to 14 hours each day. Today (Sunday) I actually spent from 8 a.m. until now awake, with perhaps two hours of "rest" (not sleep, just sitting or lying down quietly). When I'm done with this, I'm done for the day. I can feel that. Perhaps my favorite visitor was my brother Kirk who had similar surgery in 1983 to correct an AVM that complicated his 5th nerve. We compared scars. Same side. Same length. Same diet! We're like old war buddies!

On Tuesday, stitches out, and I begin decreasing my tegratol and neurontin doses. Each week thereafter I decrease them more, and by the end of the month (one month from the surgery date) I will be drug free! And if all goes as planned PAIN FREE!!!

All in all, if my voice returns and my ability to swallow returns, I am satisfied with the trade. I will take deafness in one ear in place of the pain in my throat.

Glossopharyngeal Pain

2001-06-01T14:02:00.000-04:00

I classify the pain of glossopharyngeal neuralgia three ways: "speech pain," "icepick pain," and "seizures."

"Speech pain" would affect me when I spoke. Description: If you take your fingernails and claw/grab a chunk of your arm, that's what it would feel like in my throat. The sensation would cut speech mid-word. If I were having a lot of these attacks, I would be unable to speak as every word would be cut off.

"Ice Pick pain" would affect me when I would swallow, yawn, sneeze, and cough. Description: take an ice pick, put it on your tonsil, then hit it with a hammer. It was a combination of a sharp shot/cramp kind of feeling. It might last a few seconds up to a minute.

"Seizures" were the worst. It was a seizure in April 2001 that made me decide to go for the MVD surgery. These come on typically with swallowing, but they're kind of random as to when. Description: Take an ice pick, hook it up to a car battery, place it on your tonsil, whack it with a hammer, leave it there for a couple minutes with the car battery on. The particular problem with these is, being brought on by swallowing, they can (often do) occur when drinking. Immediately, stuff starts going down the wrong way, which seizes your windpipe, which triggers more neuralgia pain. Your body also reacts by trying to cough out what has gone down the wrong way, which triggers more neuralgia pain. As you try to gasp for breath, to cough out what's in your lungs, you have to force open your airway, which triggers more neuralgia pain. Then your gag reflex goes off, and you puke...triggering more neuralgia pain.

Oh, it's a wonderful thing! If I ever have enemies, this is what they get!

The worst of these for me (the "decider" for me to pursue the MVD), occurred in April 2001. I was outside playing street hockey in the driveway with Sean, Emily and some neighborhood kids. Having worked up a thirst, I came into the house and poured myself a glass of cran-raspberry juice cocktail. Being thirsty, I was ready to chug the glass, quench the thirst.

Immediately after the first swallow, I felt the muscles grab and I knew something was going to happen, but it was too late, my body was already in the midst of a second swallow. Immediately after the second swallow, all action stopped as my throat was thrown into convulsions of pain. I began choking on my drink (more pain). I threw up (more pain). I stood motionless over the sink for ten minutes, trying desperately not to move any muscles in my body, drooling, snot running out my nose.

I was so shaken by the event that I called in sick to work the next day. I could not function.

Hyner View, Pennsylvania

1991-05-01T10:44:00.000-04:00

for Richard Cecil and Maura Stanton

Cirrus clouds sweep high, red into the sun-
set just above a distant mountain,
ridges away.

What lovers come? Not I. Alone. Here to witness
mountains confirm distance and separation,
the sun reveal

Earth to be spinning, bound to greater laws
than love. I have never been
a Romantic.

These mountains have always been just mountains,
and this great river only water flowing
to lower land,

but today, I can almost feel remorse at the sight
of houses below that the train,
loaded with lumber,

passes at dusk, or passes empty at dawn, almost believe
in the agony of that sparrow darting
at the hawk that has

robbed its nest, but I'm not convinced anything feels
anything. And what I feel now, loneliness?
Anger? Or simply

the passage of time away from the person I love?
It is fall, and Hyner is beautiful:
colored trees velvet

outlying mountains, sun-glow spills onto the horizon,
cold of night, or winter lifts my skin,
and the Susquehanna

river clear in view two thousand feet below, devoid
of fish, yet another perfection
blemished,

washes stones with water invisibly polluted
by coal mines near Renovo,
Pennsylvania.

© K. John Russell, May 1991

Cirrus Sky

1991-04-04T10:26:00.000-05:00

Richard Pipes

1991-01-01T12:26:00.000-05:00

Such figures are beyond the comprehension of most Americans. But clearly a country that since 1914 has lost, as a result of two world wars, a civil war, famine, and various "purges," perhaps up to 60,000,000 citizens, must define "unacceptable damage" differently from the United States, which has known no famines or purges, and whose deaths from all the wars waged since 1775 are estimated at 650,000, fewer casualties than Russia suffered in the 900 day siege of Leningrad in World War II alone.
- Winning Nuclear War: Why The Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight And Win A Nuclear War

Kurt Vonnegut

1991-01-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.
- Slaughterhouse Five

Robert Heinlein

1991-01-01T09:40:00.000-05:00

War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him. . .but to make him do what you want him to do.
- Starship Troopers