New Year's Eve

The dawn of the end of the world, and a fine morning indeed. Being the end of the world, I am having coffee at Stumptown. Again. A fine way to close out the year. It was a cold ride on the bicycle, and I wheeled lazily through the streets, trying to simply take it all in. House prices are up. Yards look good. People still walk their dogs. And during the meandering ride, I didn't think about any New Year's resolutions.

I have made some in the past, and some work. But I think there's a better way to do the whole resolution thing. Instead of resolving to do something specific, I am going to resolve to just try and do more fun things. I want to go bird watching. I want to finish up some household projects. Write more. I want to spend more time playing board games with the family. Stuff like that. So I guess my only resolution is to optimize my time to enjoy it a bit more.

Or something like that.

annum faustum
próspero año nuevo
Godt Nytt År
bonne année
С наступающим Новым Годом

Happy New Year

Red Cross

If you've got a credit card you can donate to the relief fund here. It's tax deductible. And it is, i feel, imperative.

Tsunami Damage

Depending on your point of view, it can be enlightening or horrifying to click through the images coming out of South East Asia. The toll is hellish. I am going to donate some money to the IRC because it's the only thing I can do.

Some photos here, here, here, here, here, here and here and here and here and here

* update: Yahoo keeps cycling their links so none of those point at the pictures I intended. You could start here, which currently has a picture of some super model because, obviously, when tens of thousands of people die, when orphans are created, when men lose their families, and when entire villages of people drown and are rotting in the sun, I want to know if the vacationing super model is ok.

Finally Ribbons for the Rest of Us

Sent from a good friend: ribbons. Go ahead, read some of the ribbons. They're pretty good.

Kids' Review of Classic Video Games

This is awesome. EGM does this "review" every year where they get some kids together to play classic video games. If you've ever played some of those old arcade and atari games, give it a read. It usually makes me bust out laughing.

Snow Bound

Tomorrow morning bright and early we will go snowboarding. We'll head up to Timberline lodge because that seems to be the only place with any snow currently. Old man winter has not been too kind to the skiers. This makes me anxious as I like to go when there is plenty of snow. I want to know that I will have a good day of skiing or boarding. But, the highest lift on the mountain might be open, and since I have never been up there, I hope to take it to the top. If the weather clears, the view from 8500ft should be spectacular.

Speaking of Coffee

I had a conversation with a barista at Stumptown today and found out that the espresso shots they pull are called Ristretto. That means restrict, I think, in italian. What it really means for coffee is what matters, though. A normal espresso shot has a lot of caffeine in it and is made with maybe 30ml of water. A ristretto uses 20-25ml of water, but the same amount of coffee grounds. And the duration of the pull is shorter. What this does is reduce the bitter taste of the coffee. A ristretto shot is sweeter and creamier. That's one of the reasons Stumptown coffee is so good. They also use the best beans, and have the world class espresso machine.

The Eve of Christmas Eve

A morning off, thanks be to Zod! I am sitting at Stumptown, the world's best coffee house. Of course they have wireless to go with their creamy rich brew. And of course, DEVO is playing over the boombox here. Ah, DEVO. What a great, but woefully misunderstood band.

Can I just take a moment to congratulate Stumptown on using the correct names for their drink sizes. I appreciate being able to order a drink and know what size I will get. Starbucks, on the other hand, with their Alice-in-Wonderland drink sizes, gets me all a-fluster on the odd day I am forced to buy from them. Tall, in Starbuckese, is small, and grande is medium, and venti (some perversion of the Italian for twenty?) is a 16 oz large. Follow the rabbit on that one and you'll end up loosing your head to the mock-coffee shop. Yuk yuk yuk.

A word about work before I sign off. We're just finishing off the last touches and everything looks to be working like a charm. I have had the privilege of working on some framework issues for the past few days, and for me this is very rewarding. Currently, the entire team waits in front of their computers because of a bottleneck (that i won't go into on this blog, hehe). I have been working hard on this for a few days, trying to break that problem out and fix it. If successful--and I think I was as of yesterday--the entire team will be able to move much quicker. What a boon. That's what i love about this job. I can dive into very complex, very interesting areas; I can improve them; and it all can provide real, tangible benefits to the group of people I sit next to. Sweet.

Geeking Out Here

This quote from slashdot caused me to nearly rupture my spleen.

"...story running on numerous sites about a study linking cell phone use to DNA Damage. Of course, a recent gammaworld campaign has served to remind me that mutations are almost always beneficial, so there is nothign to fear."

Ah gammaworld. How I miss thee. Gammaworld is (was?) a roleplaying game that took place after a nuclear apocolypse, and you could choose to role play as a Pure Strain Human, or a mutant. Mutants usually had genes spliced from other species, and there were no ill side effects from this. I spent a good deal of time flying about as a half-hawk, or slithering around a a half snake with nary a cell structure change. Clothes were hard to find in my size though.

Argh

This is distressing. You know, I looked long and hard for my current super silm laptop. I waded through the scum of ebay. I prowled backroom websites where vendors would sell me crack cocaine with my laptop. And now, all the sudden, here comes a nice shiny new, lightweight, cheap laptop, and with linux too boot. All from a smiling, reputable home-grown vendor. Pah

No matter where you jump in the great technological river, the next best thing is just around the oxbow.

Recreational Snowflake Watching

Check this out. A fantastic little group of snowflake shots. Check out the corresponding article about snowflakes, as well.

Shadow Squirrel

The shadow of my house crept up the neighbor’s wall this afternoon and while I worked (that word again) on bills and paperwork, another shadow scampered across the neighbor's outside wall. A squirrel had run to the peak of my roof and sat for a moment, its shadow a perfect silhouette on the wall in front of my window. I'm glad I wasn't out xmas shopping, or I woulda missed it.

Work is Work

Saturday morning and there is sunlight in my eyeball. This week was a pain. Four twelve hour days and one nine. Last night I scrounged in the kitchen at work and found a can of soup for dinner. I was so desperate I put pretzels in it. Pathetic. We have a project coming due the end of the year (seems like every year there's one at the end of the year), so we have a big push to try and get everything done. I think we're winding things up. It looks good for xmas and new years. And thankfully, no work for the weekend.

Another Super Gizmo

Dang. Fabric input devices. This leads to having computer input on your clothes. Imagine your phone in your pocket, a plug in your ear, and the dial pad on your sleeve. Imagine, hehe, clothes that changed color with certain motions and you have disco lights 2010. How about a notepad for grocery lists or x-mas lists, or phone numbers all stored in the fabric of your shirt?

Funny though. I say this, and yes, it sounds fantastic, and it's techno-seductive, but there is a big BUT. Just today I saw a headline for a paperless ARMY. IBM will try and clear out the paper from the army. Yeah, sure. The BUT in all this is that paper doesn't break, it doesn't lose data, it doesn't crash, it can be written on with anything at any time. Low tech solutions require no power. They can be read by anyone with knowledge of the language and do not require a specific version of some specific software.

So yes, while all these fancy gizmos are way cool, we have a long way to go. Maybe one day we will have gizmos that have solid state memory (computer memory that takes no power to maintain, so like a light switch, when you flip the switch, you don't have to stand there expending energy to hold the switch up) and that has an extremely low failure rate. And maybe our computer data will be as easy to understand as human languages, and the data can be altered at a whim.

But until then, it's going to be rough.

Road Trip!

I'm going to quit, and go on a road trip in France because of this.

Bush Plans to Shut Down Emergency System in case of Emergency

direct from engadget

Given its widespread commercial use in everything from cellphones to cars, it’s easy to forget that the global positioning system was created as a military application, and the satellites that it depends on are still owned and operated by the U.S. government. In case you need a reminder, President Bush has furnished one, in the form of a plan to shut the whole GPS system down in the event of a national crisis in order to prevent its use by terrorists. The White House has also ordered the Pentagon to put together a plan to block overseas GPS access selectively during military operations, and apply similar jamming to non-U.S. systems, such as the EU’s forthcoming Galileo program. Though administration officials insist that a shutdown would happen under only the most extreme circumstances, you may want to brush up on your map and compass-reading skills and memorize some escape routes if you’ve become wholly dependent on your Navman for getting around.

24 Hours of work in two days

ugh. But here's a good tidbit. Juicy quote: "He didn't check inside the caskets for drugs -- would you?" attorney Donn Baker said.

Word to Know

I love language. I love the English language a lot. English is not unique in its ability to make new words (the french just invented courriel to mean an individual email). Nor is it special when it adopts words from other languages (the Japanese adopted baseboru for baseball). And, the most grammatically complex, it is not. I think german (you gotta read this) gives english a run, and there are plenty of other languages that seem to be as complex as german in my ears.

And speaking of complexity, if you care to hear the truth about that myth that Eskimos have 283 (or whatever) words for snow, check this out. It turns out that the Inuit language builds words with suffixes, a frequent practice in other languages that they carry to the extreme. And in reality, they could have a thousand words for snow. It would be up to the speaker.

And so, blah blah blah, I give you the recently coined word: breastaurant. And for that matter, 2004's most popular (also recently coined) word: blog

Puzzling

After a dark, mesmerizing two hour drive, I am now in Eugene. And having spent a fairly quiet weekend with my son, there's a major shock when I walk through the door: my future step-daughter, Siobhan. I am dead serious when I say that she has more goofy energy than the three stooges put together. She bonks herself on the head and buckles into the chair drooling with laughter. She has minute long monologues consisting entirely of words that rhyme with jingle then rolls on the floor. She dances. She flaps her arms and runs across the room singing "koo-koo, koo-koo." The creature that resembles her the most is the early Daffy Duck, that bouncing, hooting, sputtering, blathering buffoon. It's funny to watch, and really you have to appreciate her "creative spurts." Daffy Duck ain't got nothing on her.

What's worse is my future wife says she only does this when I show up. Using familial math, that makes me a bad influence. Maybe if I painted myself green, bounced around, stood on my head, did moose mating calls while wearing a grass skirt, Siobhan would calm down and be pleasant. Maybe my role here is to be a bad example: a sort of foil. If I transformed into a circus clown on cocaine, she might become an angelic little girl.

Okay: I lie. She's really a fantastic kid. She's just got that ability we all lose as we get older to make yourself drunk on the mere presence of other people. It's a wonderful ability unless you're in a meeting with million dollar stake holders. The tie-and-khakis business world doesn't do Daffy.

Puzzles

My son is stooped over a puzzle again. He has two going right now. No tv on. No video games. Funny, actually, I play more video games than he does. I remember doing activities like that when I was young. I would spend a whole weekend working a puzzle, building a hotwheels track, painting minatures, reading, building rockets, or even watching Godzilla movies. During those times, mine was a strange, fuzzy state of mind. I just remember being totally absorbed and unaware of the time. I wonder now what he is thinking. All I know is he's having a good time, and seems very much at peace. It's a great sight to see.

Eat Less

Ok. I've run into this kind of thing before. When flying to Amsterdam, a captain once said they have to carry more fuel when carrying Americans because they wiegh more. It's a bald fact. My personal point of view, based entirely on scientific data culled while on the pot, is that the automobile discourages walking or riding places. And, the automobile encourages the construction of places that hamper walking and riding. We've built our cages, and now we have to live in them.

Movies Today

I rented the Day After Tomorrow, which I knew was going to be a bad movie. My son wanted to see it, and in some way, I wanted to see it just to corroborate my preconceptions. So I was already eyeing the DVD disc suspiciously when I slid it into the player. First thing to come on was, of course, previews. Agh! I hate this crap. I jammed on the buttons hoping to somehow miraculously strike the magic button that would go directly to the beginning of the movie, but no luck. I am hampered by remote illiteracy, and so had to hand over the wand to my mother. She found the skip, and pressed it only to be thwarted by the disc!

These are the bane of movies these days: commercials, legal statements, previews and, my personal pet peeve, the dreaded menu. How many times have I put in the movie, sat back and prepared for a grand adventure, only to find myself lost in swirling menu options thwacking the remote on the coffee table in an attempt to play the freaking movie.

But I have a solution. Oh yes. What we should do is go to every movie executive and every marketing guru and every lawyer in hollywood and steal their music cds. Then, we give them back, but with a change. Every song on every cd will have an unskippable 20 second commercial, preview of another song or legal statement. See how they like it when they go to listen to JimI Hendrix and find a 20 second preview for Celiene Dion and a statement from some lawyer about not playing this song to groups of 20 or more people,which would count as a rebroadcast. Screw them. Open up the airwaves. Down with copyright!

Or something like that.

Oh, and The Day After Tomorrow sucked.

Oklahoma

Ah, family. I left fat with catfish, pie and spent my time in good company. We visited with numerous relatives, some distant, some close. With only two full days, we spent most of our time with my grandparents, but we saw aunts and uncles, and cousins. I miss them already.

My cousins interest me a great deal, and worry me a bit. The two boys are bright, rock-ribbed young lads with a world of choices in front of them. They both have no particular ties to one location. One's see-sawing between the Air Force and work as a dental assistant. He's undecided and gabs nervously about the subject of employment. The other wants to go back to school and has his eye on a future in athletics. He talks less on the subject, and so seems more resolute. Every door is open for both those boys. Neither has any idea which door to choose and as each day goes by, another door closes.

We visited my great-grandmother's grave. Next to a pile of freshly turned earth, lovely flowers, wet and toppled lay atop the grave. I am sad that I missed seeing my great-grandmother one more time before she passed, but I felt better at being able to say goodbye. My great-grandmother never had the choices I had, even ten years ago, and she never had the choices the boys have right now. Her generation was tied to land and family in a way which we can only imagine now. She got married, ran a farm and raised a passel of kids and grandkids. She survived her husband and continued to live near her family and friends. She lived a strong, fulfilling life and it has culminated now in, among others, these two boys and their world of choices.

I recently read an essay on Edward Abbey, the author of Desert Solitaire as well as several other books. He lived a meteoric life: bright, fiery, focused. He held his passions close to his breast and lived through them, changing people's lives with bold political and environmental opinions. One cannot but admire his attitude, his choices and the fruit that came from them. My response to reading this essay was, how do you impart even some of his motivation, some of his lust, to young people? And I'm not talking about the impassioned youth, the young CEOs if internet boom companies, or other brilliant young prodigies. I am talking about people like me, and people like my cousins: young, ready, able, but completely bogged down in too many choices, and too many distractions. Of course, this is the same question asked by parents and grandparents, uncles and cousins since man first settled in caves and young kids started drawing on the walls. “Drawing on the walls with charcoal! What lazy, senseless behavior. There are so many Mammoths to kill and stone axes to make and be proud of. Why do children these days only want to scribble graffiti?”

As I look back on my short path, I see a bit of luck, a bit of perseverance, and some hard work. But I also see so many places where less dilly-dallying and just a smidge of effort might have provided more doors open for me now. Then again, I am so happy now with a great many things. I just hope the boys make choices they can be proud of, close few doors, and put fire in their hearts, even if it's painting on the walls.

Ex Post Facto

This posted two days after the flight:

It's 7:oo in the morning and we're somewhere over Utah. I am so incredibly tired, but can't go back to sleep. It probably was the coffee. The Portland Airport has free wifi access and we were able to check the weather in Denver and Oklahoma City right before we boarded. That was tres cool. Information really wants to be free, and that's the direction of the future. I bought the tickets online, and we retrieved boarding passes at a little kiosk without having to go through the whole baggage check-in riggamarole. I can check email and weather before I board. All we need now is internet access from the plane (this is happening in Singapore) and I could post this blog right now.

The Future Is Now

Sheesh. I am a little trepidatious about the next couple of decades. It's really starting to progress swiftly. Case in point: Robot cars. No infrastructure improvements required, just put it on existing pavement, in existing towns, interacting with existing traffic and go. Those promises from the fifties about an automated world are coming true. Technology is finally becoming ubiquitous.

Why kids shouldn't drive.

because they think this is fun.

Jedadyea Ray Tyndal

Why is it that names like Jedadyea Ray Tyndal get involved in situations like this? And why don't you see names like Jedadyea Ray Tyndal on books, as senators, as CEOs, as, well, anybody with drive. Seems like one's name drives one's destiny, eh?

Budda wants you to be a monk

For life.. Poor dude shoulda kept with the program.

Working Too Hard

But I have to share. This is ridiculous, but somehow fantastic. The world is infinite, isn't it?