"When a ball dreams, it dreams it is a frisbee." - Stancil Johnson

Every once in a while, it feels really good to get outside and run around as hard as you possibly can. An all out, arms flailin', legs pumpin' sprint for all that you've got. If you feel like giving yourself a reason to do that, try Ultimate Frisbee.

The rules are pretty similar to soccer, except there're endzones instead of goals and the guy with the ball (er, Frisbee) can't move. But in soccer, you can't really outrun the ball -- in Ultimate, you can. So when a pass goes wide, instead of chasing after the ball expecting it to eventually slow down you launch into full-sprint mode to outrun and catch up to the frisbee -- before it hits the ground! Good excercise. And a hell of a lot of fun.

We played it for the first time yesterday with a group called Sacramento Ultimate which I can't say enough good things about. Not only is it great that they're doing a series of beginner clinics (free!), but they just seem to be wonderful people with a focus on having fun. If you're in the Sacramento area, I highly recommend dropping by their website and going to their next Sunday clinic in Grant park.

There's a special sort of "polite" that people reserve for the mentally and physically handicapped.

They pretend they don't exist.

That guy sitting in a wheelchair wearing a plastic helmet, drooling and banging a wooden spoon against his head? He's not really there. As a group of people may wander past, the conversation might falter for a moment - a barely perceptable pause - but no more recognition is given then that. A glance may be taken on the sly, but eye contact is studiously avoided. No outward acknowledgement that the situation even exists is given. No recognition. No mention. Ignore the very possibility of their existance -- it's the polite thing to do.

Apparently unicyclists are mentally handicapped.

I go wobbling past a group of people, in plain sight, right across their path. Arms flailing, fast then slow, every motion an exaggerated paradoy of desperately chasing balance and very much not catching it. It's fucking hilarious looking.

A slightly hushed silence results. Eyes fixed ahead, they pass by. Politely.

"Oh look, a chicken!" one exclaims, slightly too loudly, as they all fix their attention on the neighbor's pet chicken -- a familiar site in the neighborhood. They crowded 'round, firmly fixing their attention on it, grateful for the distraction. They even took pictures.

I swear to god, I think I'm going to buy a little helmet and a wooden spoon.

I spent a fair amount of time this afternoon creating a website for our wedding. It's also done through blogger.com, but this time I'm fiddling with the template a bit more, and as a result I'm finally learning a little something about HTML. A very little something.

HTML strikes me as a neat language, and I imagine that most computer languages are "neat" in the same way. The vocabulary is, relative to a spoken language, quite small. Instead of a big vocab, there's a complex grammar that holds most of the meaning. I've got more ideas swirling around in my head, but I can't really give them voice without learning a bit more first. I'm now more aware than ever that I should take a look at some real code (plenty of open source stuff out there to inspect), and should probably learn at least the basics of C++ at some point. Half of it is an interest in programming, but the other half is a longstanding interest in how information can be encoded and processed. Connections to DNA and how the brain stores, retrieves, and computes all come to mind.

I was staring at the box that my unicycle came in (yes, I'm one of those nerds) when I noticed something interesting. It's the manufacturer's box, stamped with their logo and with their Seattle, WA address, along with a Made in China line. The reseller I bought it from was located in NJ, something I noted because it meant a week long crawl across the country before the cycle finally showed up at my front door.

The path this little unicycle took to get to me was pretty roundabout. Built in China, slowboat to Seattle -- or possibly one of the big ports in California and trucked to Seattle -- warehoused, possibly after some American finishing steps but probably not, sold to a reseller in NJ, pulled out of the warehouse, trucked to NJ, stuck in another warehouse. Finally sold to me, and trucked back to the west coast.

I think an astonished, "Good lord" is in order. Here's an alternative, and it's such a clearly good one that I'm sure it's already being done, somewhere, by somebody. By why aren't they doing it more?

Build a nice big warehouse near one of the major ports, or maybe a couple hundred miles inland if that's the cheaper way to go. Then get companies who are doing all the above described, stupid shipping around to use you as their warehouse/distribution system. FedEx, UPS, DHL? You guys would be perfect to expand into this business because you've already got the distribution network and the logistics knowhow to make it work.

Now, once the box gets off the slowboat, instead of being shipped to the US arm of the manufacturing company to be stuck in a warehouse, it's shipped straight to the mega-distribution center. Now, when the unicycle is sold to a internet retailer, you push a button to change the ownership and the package is shipped out to... hang on. It doesn't have to go anywhere, it can sit there. It's sold to an internet retailer. They're smart, they're savvy, they're focused on growth and don't want the headache of expanding their warehousing system to slow them down. At their option they can just let the package sit there, owned by the retailer now, but still in the same warehouse.

When the unicycle is finally sold to me, no truck has to make a daily pickup at some little store in NJ to pick it up, it just gets shipped straight out of the distribution system and is on it's merry way within hours.

There now, wasn't that effecient? 6000 miles of travel and one whole storage/retrieval cycle just vanished. Now internet retailers have a way to expand their inventories rapidly, and yet aren't reliant on slowpoke manufacturers to do their warehousing and shipping -- they've got UPS/FedEx/DHL in their corner assuring fast shipment times, an can be assured that when they say "In Stock" it really is "In Stock." Plus, manufacturer's have just trimmed the length of their product channel. No longer does it take an extra couple days for the retailer to recieve, warehouse, and then ship the product -- once it's in the mega-warehouse, it's ready for customers to purchase.

Alright, so it's what, four months since my last post? Not bad, not bad at all.

So the "politics" season is over, Bush won (yay?), Kerry, Dean & Edwards all lost. Republican's gained in the House and Senate, and I'm back to not caring near so much about commenting on it all. I'm not one of those yits who profess that all politicians are the same, everyone's corrupt, no sense even trying to follow, etc. but I'm certainly back to being purely an interested observer and no longer looking to stick my foot in my mouth along with the rest of the "pundits." Though I will say this much, if for posterity's sake if none other -- I still like Bush. I still think he's got good character, and that he's a notable exception to most politicians in that he's willing to really get out in front of a position and try to lead, rather than warping his position to the polls. Boy, can he spend money, though.

Enough about politics though, I've got other things to discuss. Such as flowers. Valentine's Day was yesterday (technically the day before that), and though I may inwardly roll my eyes at how unoriginal giving flowers was, I actually enjoyed it. It's sometimes grating to have a holiday where the kind and thoughtful mutates into the expected and stereotypical -- but this year at least, it was no more than a quick roll and a mild shrug. They really are very pretty.

This upcoming weekend we were scheduled to go see many, many more flowers down in Death Valley, along with the rest of my family. Was promising to be a neat family trip (plus Katrina, of course), but it's been unfortunantly cancelled due to someone getting sick. Me, actually. If we're lucky, we'll be able to reschedule quickly, and head down there within a few weeks. If we're unlucky I'll probably die in my sleep tonight. No worries, though -- Google's "I'm feeling Lucky" button has been working flawlessly lately.

See ya in another, oh, four months or so.