Interwoven

Kindle 2

2009-03-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

I rediscovered pleasure reading recently. I'd never stopped reading, but for a time I had drifted away from reading books for entertainment and had only allowed myself the time for stuff with a practical angle. Mostly, this meant reading books about programming, or robotics, or Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), or what have you.

A few weeks ago, a pair of books arrived in the mail unbidden. Not totally unbidden of course--they were old additions to my wishlist on Bookins--but still, unexpectedly. One of the books was Self-Made Man and looked far too interesting to set aside, even though I didn't really have any of that elusive 'time to spare' stuff lying around. That weekend, when I probably should have been 'doing stuff' (ideally, 'doing useful stuff, productively'), I read it.

I loved it.

More than that, I loved the experience of reading it. It's a fascinating book--you'll enjoy reading it too--but I loved reading it for a couple reasons that really shouldn't contribute, but do. First there was just the joy of procrastination. Never let anyone tell you that they don't enjoy procrastinating, if they didn't, they wouldn't be doing it. Second there is a definite sense of accomplishment when the last page is turned and the book is finished. Placing a just-read book on a shelf in your home is like placing a trophy in a display case. Yes, from now on it will just collect dust, but every time you look at it you'll be reminded of the experience.

When we moved to Santa Cruz, we moved to a smaller apartment, and many of my books were sold in our yard sale. On some level that was easy to do. I'm not materialistic, I'm not a hoarder, and having strangers give me money for the privilege of reducing my clutter is a delightful pairing. On another, more sentimental level, it was hard. Although I rarely reread books, having them line my shelves was a reminder of the books I've read--the works that I've loved (books that I merely 'liked' tend to make their way out of my home rather quickly). Irregardless of the occasional pangs, it was necessary, and I don't have regrets.

Finally, I come to the topic of this post. I bought a Kindle 2. I'm still not sure why, but maybe I'll figure it out as I write. Compared to Book, it's ... well it's really expensive is what it is. But if you can swallow the $360 price tag, then it's pretty nice. Being able to adjust the text size is great, as is the ability to read without either holding the book or wedging it open somehow. The eInk display is very legible in all sorts of lighting, and it's no heavier than most paperbacks. On the downside, it's a little too big to slide into a coat pocket, and way too expensive to not worry about it getting lost, damaged or stolen. Back to the plus-side, it has free (lifetime?) wireless, a web-browser and built in Wikipedia shortcuts. I'll save some money on books, since ebook prices are cheaper than dead-tree versions, but I don't have any delusions about recouping the device's price tag that way. Having books instantly delivered is ridiculously cool. But perhaps its biggest plus side isn't going to be realized for another year or so.

Next time I move, I'll get to keep my books. I think that alone was enough to make me click, "Confirm Purchase."

I also have some hope that it will allow Katrina be more comfortable when reading, thus allowing her to read more. Furthermore, I hope that just owning the Kindle will push me to read more full books, and spend proportionally less time surfing the web. Either of those alone would probably have been enough to seal the deal. As is, I'm considering buying a second one.

But probably won't. $360. Sheesh.

2008-10-22T19:39:00.001-07:00

The past never existed -- it's purely a fantasy of your mind. In fact, you didn't really just read this.

2008-03-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

Time will tell. She's a gossip, really.

2008-03-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

Genetics and natural selection are Nature's programmers and design team, respectively. They're awful at their jobs. After four billion years, they still can't make animals that will reliably flush a toilet in a public restroom.

2008-03-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

I used to think I would stay young and fit forever. I realize that's not possible now, but at least I will always stay young.

Another Craigslist Post

2007-08-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

Face it. Your clothes have been scattered all over your room for the last year -- no matter how many more New Year's resolutions you make, you're not going to start hanging them up now.

So why not break down and just get a cardboard box to shove them all in? Even better, a bunch of boxes! You could put some of the smaller boxes in a bigger box, and the whole thing would start to look pretty slick. Organized, even.

But wait! Instead of cardboard boxes you could do it up right and build the whole thing out of wood... maybe add some little metal handles and paint a wicked flaming skull and crossbones on the side. Bitchin'.

Or you could skip all that carpentry shit (Damn, man, what'd you do to your thumb?) and go straight to airbrushing a half-naked chick on the side of this FREE dresser.

Call 530-750-1000 (or email) to lay claim to this awesome stack of boxes in a bigger box.

Dimensions: 24" x 14" x 41"

I don't have a picture handy for the blog, but did for the Craigslist post and the picture was part of the punchline -- it's a little girl's dresser.

Woot inspired

2007-08-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

Let there be Light!

Now you no longer have to live like a Caveman, squatting in the darkness and groping your way to the fridge by the feeble light of your cellphone. With this powerful 3-bulb floor lamp, you'll take one giant step up the evolutionary ladder and you too will start enjoying the most wondrous invention since fire.

Features:
Three separate switches! Giving you 2^3 = 8 possible lighting configurations!
Swivel heads! Great for chasing cockroaches around your apartment without ever leaving your easy-chair!
Rugged construction! We haven't killed this thing yet, and I doubt you'll be able to, either!

All for the low, low price of absolutely free*!

Call 530-750-1000 or email!

* No, we won't pay for your gas to come out here.

The lamp's already gone, but I enjoyed writing that far too much to just let it wither and die in Craigslist's database.

2006-08-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

"It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch."
-Unknown

The worry that arises when contemplating my own mortality is dwarfed by the true fear that the comes when considering the mortality of those that I love.

2005-11-15T20:49:00.000-08:00

I rediscovered a genre today. Interactive fiction. That is, text-adventures, like the games Infocom used to make. You know, Infocom. Zork.

. . .

If you're seriously trying to tell me you've never even heard of Zork, how the hell did you find my Blog?

What do you mean you don't even know me? Get the hell out of here! Sheesh, can't even blog in private these days.

Anyways, if you already know what I'm talking about, check out this. It's pretty good, and it's online so you don't have to mess around with a downloading an interpreter. If you really don't know what I'm talking about and are still here reading, then still go there. You type what you want to do. Keep your sentences real simple, a couple of words long -- you're dealing with computers and they're dumb as rocks. Think verb noun level of simple and you'll do alright.

The written word is an amazing thing. Play with it.

2005-11-12T22:00:00.000-08:00

It's Veteran's day weekend, and we're spending our three days poking around Yosemite and are spending our two nights at a perfect little hostel called the Yosemite Bug. It's off of highway 140 nearish to the park, and I can't recommend the place enough. It's picturesque, quiet, friendly, and at least in the off season, pretty cheap. Great food and a warm fire at the lodge, complete with a lovable dog and cat wandering the premises. Every so often the dog, Yin Yang, will roll over on his back and patiently wait for his belly to be rubbed. The cat's taken a more direct approach and just hopped straight into our laps. Careful, like Pfeiffer, she drools when she very happy.

Tomorrow, we'll be heading into Yosemite park and doing some day hiking. We haven't chosen a particular trail yet, but last time we were here with my brother we hiked up past Vernal falls on the Mist trail. It's autumn right now, so the waterfalls aren't likely to be so extrodinary as then -- maybe this time we'll see what other bits of spectacular this place can offer up besides flowing or falling rivers. Half dome is an unlikely destination as the ladder has already been taken down for the year. Climbing to the very top isn't necessary to make it an amazing hike, of course, but it's far less climatic to end the trip at the Saddle.

Enough writing for now. Heading to bed and will decide our destination in the morning.

2005-10-28T17:48:00.000-07:00

I've started using Skype for my long distance telephony. Skype's a VoIP service, similar to Vonage except that they're more PC centric, charge per minute instead of monthly, and don't advertise nearly so much. So far, I like it -- good voice quality, and cheap -- which are just about the only things I care about for outgoing long distance calls.

But here's an interesting thought about Skype -- I think it's going to lead to an explosion of Nigerian 419 style scams, except voice-based and coming out of India instead of Nigeria. Like Nigeria, India has an exhange rate that will make any sucessful scammer into a millionaire. Unlike Nigeria, it has a large population with fluency in English and training in how to "close a sale" provided by all the corperate call centers there. Skype's network in particular will be appealing for scammers because of the low cost, excellent sound quality (sounds professional) and virtually untappable network.

Hope I'm wrong.

2005-10-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

There's a great website that I peruse often called Engadget. There's not much to it, they collect and summarize news stories about tech stuff, including about robots. Their schtick for the robot section is that they're trying to warn off the upcoming doom caused by the rise of the machines -- didn'cha see the Terminator movies? Ain't it plain to see that it's comin'? Better treat 'em nice while they're still weak and incapable of dominating us all.

Today I got a firm reminder of just how much power the 'bots on display here have, and just how quickly the reins can be yanked from our hands -- maybe the Engadget schtick isn't such a comedy bit after all. One of the bots, "Tommy" was meekly making its way through the tunnel when it went went stark raving mad. It floored the throttle and kept it there, accelerating out of the tunnel, swerving to miss a stack of tires and finally crashing into the barrier wall at a angle, going somewhere in the range of 45-60 miles per hour. Two people standing one the far side of the wall barely got clear before the 'bot hit it and pushed it inwards by about a meter.

On a more technical level, the people next to me had a good guess as to what had happened -- the inertial navigation system was giving bad or no data, and when the bot lost GPS signal it thought it wasn't moving. It increased the throttle to try to start moving... and increased it some more, and more... confident that it wasn't moving at all as it barrelled towards the wall.

The hardware of a robot senses the world around it -- vision, velocity, position, pressure, whatever. The software tries to mold that data into a coherent and true model of the world around it. When that vision is warped, or when its model is drastically askew, the result isn't what we should call a "bug".

It's lunacy.

2005-10-03T00:15:00.000-07:00

My blurry little friend is back and is running laps around the perimeter of the car's cabin. I'm pretty sure he wants my head

2005-10-02T23:26:00.000-07:00

Yike! As I was tapping away at my previous entry, I saw a white blur come running along the windowsill of the partially opened window beside me. It's now a closed window, and I just saw the blur again go past and heard the patter of it's little feet on the leather of the roof behind me. It is, lest you think I'm about to be abducted by aliens, a rather mouse-sized and distinctly mouse shaped blur which I talking about here. I'm certainly glad I had the back window zipped up. As much as I have no ingrained fear of our rodent kin, I wouldn't care to wake up in the middle of the night with one doing an Irish jig on my head.

...

Not as though there's anything wrong with Irish jigs, mind you.

2005-10-02T23:15:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to sleep in my car for this night. The logic went something along the lines of, "Why pay for a campsite when all I'm using it as is a place to be asleep for 8 hours and then leave?" A bigger cheapskate you'd be hard to find.

So after poking around the Silverlake campground for a few minutes, I drove back out and went looking for a quite place to park and snooze. In this quest I turned off onto a dirt road that's a, what was it again? Forest Adventure Area, I believe it was. There's nothing quite like heading down a bumpy, rocky dirt road in a car with the ground clearance of approximately the width of my pinky. Seeing full sized 4x4 pickups strolling around confidently, I'm never quite sure whether I should puff up with pride at my macho go-anywhere anyhow chutzpah, or whether I should cringe down in my seat with shame at my obviously impotent off-roading smarts. The answer should probably depend on if I'm in the process of asking for help getting unstuck or not.

2005-10-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

Parallel development of different algorithmic strategies. Or, to wring a bit of the geek out and say it straight -- the two bots think different. Rocky, their red colored entry, tries to detect obstacles and then choose the best path to navigate around the obstacles to eventually get from point A to point B. Cliff, which is Virginia Tech's brown colored entry, instead plots a path from point A to B and swerves around the obstacles as they come up. So far Rocky, with it's obstacle based pathing, has seemed to have a better go at it. So much so that I would personally be surprised to see their Cliff entry make it to the main event. (update: Rocky made it to the finals, Cliff didn't.) (update to the update: Okay, so I was wrong. Both made it.)

2005-10-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

Handed a press pass and free reign of the garage bays, I naturally fell to doing what I would've done without the pass, taking pictures and talking to people about their projects. And then writing about it. Except, with the press pass, I'm not near so tempted to write about how awful it is that the spectators don't get to see any of the bots close up. It is awful, it's just that I don't care so much.

Flipping through a pamphlet, looking at the teams and their bots, I just noticed that Virginia Tech has two bots, both built on similar "golf carts". I wonder what's the story behind the two seperate entries? Competing efforts, or fundamentally one team with two mules? Exact same list of sponsors, so it's unlikely that they're really competing. Wonder if it's all the same code for both. Think I'll go ask.

2005-10-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

October 1st, 8:45 pm
I slept on the picnic table. I wasn't drunk, it's that I had only three choices. The other two were the "driveway" of my campsite, or the cleared dirt area. Nothing wrong with dirt except for it being dirty. Nothing wrong with a driveway save for it being asphault -- which is to say, everything.

Clear off the kitchen table, darling, for on the kitchen table I must lie. - TMBG

2005-10-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

I've been saying for years that one of the most amazing, jaw droppingly revolutionary things about the bloom of the Internet is that for the first time in history anyone can publish. The printing press changed the world by allowing anyone to read. The internet is changing the world by allowing anyone to write.

One result of the all the economic barriers to publishing disappearing in a puff of electronic smoke has been to create a whole new strata of media -- or perhaps just the drastic expansion of a very old strata, that of the newsletter writer. This "new" media can, and often does, spurn the mainstream as their target audience, instead covering one niche, one hobby, one passion -- and covering it well. For perhaps the first time since "TV News" became the predominant form of news, 30 years or more, you can trust that someone in the media will get the story right, really understand the details, and properly convey what's important about an event, rather than just covering what's easy or sexy. Unfortunately, you can't count on anyone actually reading it when they're done. Though anyone can publish, not everyone has an audience.

Indeed, the predominance of personal web-logs or "blogs" without any readers, save perhaps for the author's aunt Mary, is the basis of more than a few jokes. The blog you're staring at could certainly be the butt of some of those jokes. I've even been known to be the one telling them.

And oh, Hi Mom.

So on one hand this new, web based media offers up tremendous ability to transmit both ideas and details to the people in the world who are certain to be really interested in them. On the other, there are countless writers out there -- for grins lets just refer to them as "reporters" -- who may be thunking away at their keyboards but to whom not even the crickets respect with a bit of attention. I suspect that this dichotomy has thrown event organizers everywhere for a bit of a loop. I mean, how do you tell them apart? How do you determine who's really part of this exciting "new media" that you want to have pay attention to you, and who's just part of the Aunt Mary crowd?

For DARPA, at least, the answer appears to be that you don't. And thus so it is that I am now the proud holder of a press pass to the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge.

Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much. Check back again in six months when, if history is any indicator, there's a 50% chance that this "reporter" might have updated. Cheers!

Lost Coast, Part III

2005-08-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

Gotta lot of ground to cover, as it's been a while since I've last sat down to write. Convienant as laptops may be, you still don't tend to take them with you when you're stuffing a backpack.

After finishing writing and playing with Kris's dogs Charlie and Amos (good lord, watch out for those teeth!) for a while, we hopped in the truck again and made our way over to a beach and swimming hole owned by a fellow named Chuck, one of Kris's many, many friends in Willits. Joined briefly by Chuck, and the whole time by Kris's mother and her boyfriend we swam, snorkeled, played "watermelon keepaway" and had a really delicious barbeque of chicken, hotdogs, and corn on the cob. On a brief walk, Katrina and I spotted some river otter scat, filled with the crushed remains of crab shells. Moments later we spied the otters themselves, grooming on the shore and swimming in the river -- either four or five of them all told, some juvinile, some adults. Tons of fish in the river too, and the whole time I kept thinking of spearfishing, wondering if it might be possible that it's legal for some freshwater fish. One the way back from the BBQ, I got a chance to drive the big 70's era Chevy truck that Kris has. V8 with 4 on the floor and a gas pedal that felt like you were stepping on a brick. First gear was pretty much optional, as you could just let the clutch out in second gear without touching the gas and she'd be rolling. The most exciting part of it for me was when Kris told me to go straight where we'd normally hang a left. This took us via a different road which at one point gave up being a "road" and went across a gravelly area with a stream running through it and a 3 foot high gravel bank on the far side. Unfamilar truck, in the dark, and a surprise introduction to off-roading. Damn good fun.

At the beginning I mentioned backpacks -- thankfully we had brought the backpacks. I'd been saying since before the trip that doing any "real" backpacking would be unlikely since I had scraped most the skin off the bottom of one of my toes shortly before we left, but we brought mine anyways. Before leaving Kris's place we borrowed Vanessa's backpack so that Katrina could see if it's design was lighter than the one she owns, in the off-chance that we ever got a chance to test it.

The "off-chance" has turned out the be the norm for us this trip. Tuesday afternoon, roundish 4:00 pm we arrived at our destination of a campground called Needle Rock, off of a road called Briceland Thorn road, which was itself off of Highway 101. Anyways, a little campground on the "Lost Coast" with campsites on the bluffs just above the ocean. When we arrived, there was a hint of sunshine, but the air was getting colder and the fog was getting thicker by the moment, and we had just driven about two miles down a dirt road that often required very careful attention. Greeted by a rather, uhm, special camphost with a twangy accent from god-knows-where we were told that the campsites were right over there, take that trail, behind the barn, about a quarter of a mile or so. No water, essentially backpack-only access, and oh, $15 a night. And no, they didn't have change for a twenty. Despite how I'm painting the picture it wasn't all that bad, the campsites themselves were very pretty, the ocean was close, and we hoped that the fog would lift in the morning -- and she eventually found $19 as change for a twenty.

We set up camp in a lush and wonderful campsite whose only drawback we'd realize later -- the spot for the tent wasn't flat enough to keep your bag from slowly slipping to the downhill side of the tent. All night long. Camp set up, we took a hike in the fog northward along the bluffs to the next cluster of campsites which had been our original destination, Jones Beach, which was 0.7 miles away. They were also quite nice, not a soul around, and had a path down to the ocean, which we didn't have daylight enough to take that night. It's neat hiking in the fog, especially as the light starts to fade, as it did on the way back. There's a hush to the world, and the swirling of the fog imparts a sense of motion to everything in it. We were hoping to see some elk in the area, and every bush seemed to harbor the chance of being one.

Early the next morning, the fog seemed gone, and we had a simple and quick oatmeal breakfast. While we were eating, the fog started threatening an imminant return, so we grabbed our coats and set out for a quick trip over to look down at the ocean, which as the fog stayed offshore, got extended into a trip over to Jones beach, which got extended into a quick stroll along the beach, which finally ended up being extended hike south with the intent that we'd reached a different campground that was some unknown distance away, and then walk up the road to return. The campgrounds we were bound for turned out to be unreachable by way of the beach, a realization that didn't come until we were staring at the end of the beach and at the waves crashing directly into the rocks. Walking the whole way back, a couple miles or so, by the same route didn't seem too tempting so I scrambled up one of the more approachable sections of bluff wall. Coming to the top, I found the road we had suspected was up there, but also realized that the scramble up wouldn't be altogether safe for someone scared of heights, and so made my way back down to rejoin Katrina. No other choice at hand, we started back north along the beach, enjoying the sunshine and the ocean view, with only an occassional acknowlegement of the fact that we hadn't brought a drop of fresh water with us, nor did we know what time high tide was or whether there'd be any beach to walk on when it arrived. Neither the lack of water nor the tide ever proved to be a problem, and the walk was an excellent way to spend the morning. We rested a few minutes at Jones beach, then went up the trail and returned to camp for lunch and a siesta.

That afternoon, we set out for Jones beach again, this time carrying a camelback and a backpack full of dirty dishes we intended to wash while we were there. We never quite made it to the beach, as when were were presented with the choice of turning left and decending to the ocean or going straight to follow the trail on to Whale's gulch, we chose the path less travelled. The straight path also turned out to be the narrow path, and the scenery rapidly changed from dry grassy bluffs to a lush and marshy valley sprinkled with white cedar growing tall. We had entered a stream valley, but interestingly we hadn't changed direction to do so. The valley ran parallel to the ocean for a long stretch here, tantalizingly close to it's final destination but seperated from it by a tall, narrow ridge of earth and rock. Eventually we crossed the stream, made our way up the far side, and were soon presented with an ocean view, a beach below us, and the sun setting before us. We dropped down to the sandy shore and found a comfortable spot to watch the sun sink out of sight into the ocean fog. Not quite as dramatic a sunset as some, but the timing was perfect and there was no sense in wasting the opportunity.

Lost Coast, Part II

2005-08-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

Pancakes with peaches in a brandy sauce, plum sauce, and bacon on the side. Delicious breakfast. Spent most of the late morning and miday driving around the hills of Willits, culminating in a tour of the construction project Kris has been working on. An ancient and somewhat sprawling house up in a redwood grove, knocked together from several smaller houses that were moved to the site years and years ago. They're in the process of renovating and improving it -- stripping rooms down and refinishing them. An interesting note about these old houses, instead of being constructed as modern houses are with lumber braces for support and drywall cladding the interior side, they were built completely with redwood planks at a 45 degree angle. The planks made up the whole of the wall, and newspaper was used to keep the wind from blowing through the cracks. Kris had ran across some very old newspaper in the process of stripping it down, but unfortunantly couldn't find dates on 'em.

Lost Coast, Part I

2005-08-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday kicked off a trip to an as yet undecided destination and for an as yet undetermined time. The first leg, at least, is already known -- visiting Kris & Vanessa's place just south of Willits. We left around 6:15 pm on Saturday, after damn near a full day of laundry, packing, and cleaning. Preperations were somewhat delayed by us preparing and eating a full dinner for lunch, pork marinated in a carribean (sp?) sauce, some fancy rice with coconut milk and something else that's already lost to the mists of my memory (corn on the cob, it turns out). Eventually got out the door and arrived in Willits in the vicinity of 9:00 pm. Prepped sleeping arrangements, talked a bit, and crashed out in preparation for the next day's events.

Sunday was a blast. Out the door at first light, bound for the coast and Fort Bragg. Visited the dive shop (cool place!) and got equipped for a) swimming in that damned cold ocean and b) abalone diving and c) spearfishing. Properly prepared for all three, the ocean wasn't the least bit unconfortable -- and harbored surprisingly soft, kelpy rocks, the abalone were quickly caught -- 3 only, as I didn't get tags myself, and the spearfishing was an absolute blast. Float along the surface, staring down at the ocean floor and kelp, and breathing through the snorkel. Fold over and dive down to check under interesting rock shelves, or to just kick along the floor for a while. Surface and blow, clearing your snorkel like a whale clears it's pipes. Repeat until you come across a fish lurking temptingly large and close, or small and too damned convienant to pass on.

A moment to describe the spear itself. We were using a style called an Hawaiian sling, which is a 5 ft long metal pole with a three pronged tip, the tips splayed slightly to form a triangle pattern. On the back of the pole was a thick band of rubber or surgical tubing, which forms a loop, either end of the loop attached to the back end of the pole. To fire the spear, the tubing is held with one hand, while the other graps the shaft and pulls it back until the tubing is stretched nearly to the tip. The shaft is released, and the band propels it forward 4-5 feet... hopefully right through a fish.

I never caught one.

Didn't matter. Not that I didn't try, but I never got a clean shot. Regardless, just stalking the things, watching them close was interesting enough. They'd flick around in the kelp, holding low and moving lazily. Disturbed, they'd swim off at half speed, expending just enough energy to stay at a comfortable range away from you. Only when really disturbed would they kick into high gear, jetting off with a startled (and startling) burst of energy. Where we were, they were mostly big, blue perch (or perch-like, at any rate) fish with maybe a foot in length. Kris spotted (and nailed) a light and dark brown cabazone (again, sp?) lurking under the overhang of a rock.

2005-06-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

I just put a posting up at Craigslist for some kittens my parents are giving away. They're adorable but my parents already have too many cats by far -- hopefully this way the kittens will make their way to a good home and a good life. And why not, I'll include the ad below. After all, is there anything that can't be made just a little bit better by adding some pictures of really cute kittens?

A wild cat had kittens in my parent's backyard. They recently caught and tamed the kittens so that they wouldn't end up wild too.

The kittens are eating solid food and water, and are just entering that adorable stage where they seem to do nothing but purr, play and sleep. They haven't been vaccinated yet, and we're requesting that you promise to do so when they're old enough as a condition of taking them.

If you don't currently have any cats, I would recommend taking not one kitten, but two. Kittens bond very closely with their littermates and will be friends and playmates for life. If you already have a cat, especially a female, it will often serve as a surrogate mother -- depending on it's temparment, of course!

Phone: (916) 681-3871 for details or email jhomeric at jps dot net.

2005-05-23T19:11:00.000-07:00

This'll be a brief entry today. Mostly it's an explanation of what I'm about to do -- post the past few weeks of offline writing onto my blog but instead of dating them all today, I'll backdate them to when they were written. They'll all appear at once, but in the standard reverse chronological order of a web log. If you want to read them in the order most appropriate, start at May 16th.

As for today itself, it was my first day back to work in two weeks. Surprisingly little had changed. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I expected it to have.

2005-05-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

Though the honeymoon may be over the temptation to write, especially with the laptop so handy, still lingers. Doubly so when we've had a full day, and I question my memory's ability to retain all of it that I wish. And so, write I will.

To begin the day, Katrina fixed a very nice breakfast of scrambled eggs and pancakes. Afterwards we spent some time planning and calling around, seeking to achieve two goals -- finding a permenant bed "frame" to go with the Tempur-Pedic mattress we recently bought and to find a gift for Philippe, as today is his 29th birthday. Goal one we achieved at a cost of ~$675 from some going out of business sale at a mall in Woodland, and goal two we achieved by buying an audiocassette version of the book, "A Brief History of Nearly Everything." The bed was pretty much exactly what we'd been looking for, a straightforward pedestal with drawers and storage space built into it. The price was a bit higher than we'd been aiming for, though not too much so, and it's very solid construction and should have no difficulties lasting as long as the mattress is supposed to -- twenty years. Hopefully it'll be a major step towards solving some of the clutter we've been accumulating lately; we have room enough for everything in the apartment, but not enough places to store it all, if that makes any sense at all. The book-on-tape for Philippe was a last minute find, as I was originally going to get him an audio version of "The Game of Thrones" -- at 34 hours long it's perfect for his 100 mile daily commute, but the price at Borders was pretty jaw dropping. Amazon.com was so much cheaper, it would've been hard to justify the extra price just to have it here in time. While checking Amazon's price, I checked out Audible.com and heard a sample of "Brief History" and was extremely impressed with both the style of writing and the vocalization of the reader, and oh, the topic was interesting too. Buying it from Audible.com wouldn't work as a gift because his car doesn't have a CD player, but Borders carried it, and at a more reasonable price than for Game of Thrones.

Bed purchased and gift in hand, we dashed off to Helene's house to participate in a surprise moment for Philippe. Cake lighting, balloons everywhere, cheerful company -- it'd be hard not to enjoy moments like that. We all gave him his gifts, then unexpectedly Katrina & I recieved one from him as a wedding present, a very neat little insulated picnic bag all decked out with a spot for wine, a cutting board for cheese, wine glasses and utensils, and a little roll up blanket. It was literally a romantic picnic in a bag -- the timing of this had me giggling on the inside, as I'll explain in a moment. Can't wait to explain it to him tomorrow.

We wrapped up at Helene's by viewing their photos of our wedding, and everyone made their way over to D.P.'s apartment complex for a BBQ he was throwing in honor of his newborn daughter, Aditi -- she's a touch over a month old now. Splashed in the pool -- actually, spent most of the time nailing each other with a couple little rubber balls -- played air hockey, Foosball, and ate food that was altogether not bad -- had a wonderful time.

As soon as we got home, I started getting ready to leave again, this time packing up the picnic basket with wine, sparkling cider, candles, etc. Katrina quickly noticed and helped pack, and within a few minutes we were out the door again and bound for the greenbelt. Picked a nice grassy spot away from the lights and with a view of the full moon overhead, unrolled the blanket, lit the candles and settled in. Midway through the picnic I pulled one of the "52 Weeks of Romance" cards out of my wallet and showed Katrina what it said:

Moonlit Picnic
Plan a moonlit picnic complete with candle, champagne, and a few romantic nibbles. Be sure to bring an extra large blanket so that the two of you can snuggle up together... (if you can't make it outside, set this up beside an open window)

Thanks Philippe & Anne -- you made it too easy. =)

2005-05-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

This will be the final entry for this log, under it's curent title at least, as the honeymoon is sadly over -- this writing is being done from the couch of our own little apartment, admist the clutter of a tiredly unpacked car. It'll be ending on a good note, though, as today was a very good one. Awaking refreshed and well rested this morning, we hopped in the car and wound up our way up route 236 to Big Basin Redwood State Park again. Bought a day permit, spent a few minutes packing our lunches, and we were soon winding our way past the trunks of trees that were already old when Columbus first set foot in the "New World." A few were likely old enough to have been alive when Christ was born; they towered over us, massive, peaceful things that scraped at the sky. Our hike took us out Sunset trail, down Berry Creek Falls Trail, and returned via Skyline to the Sea Trail, and showed to us three magnificent waterfalls -- Golden Cascade, Silver Falls, and Berry Creek Falls. Each beautiful, and each with its own character. Golden Cascade was a tri-level slide that flowed over what looked to be a golden colored sandstone, the water spread wide and covered the whole face of it, and it had the look of a water wreathed Mayan pyramid about it. Silver falls was a continuation of Golden, except more of a true fall, rather than a slide. The color of the rock beneath was hidden by the white of the falling water, and it's name suited it. Berry Creek Falls was the largest of the three by volume, because another creek had joined by that point -- by height I'd be hard pressed to name the winner between Berry or Silver. Berry had a broad lip, and some of the water ran down in rivulets and some shot out over the edge with vigor. It all ended up at the bottom, but by such different paths that I would think all the droplets must have had much to discuss as they rushed off downstream -- but instead it was a curiously quite and peaceful stream that left the foot of the falls. Come the end of the 11-mile loop, we were both tired and content to be done, especially since we hadn't quite recovered from our hike on the 18th, but were smiling and happy all the same. And thusly went our Honeymoon.

2005-05-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot. This morning, on the way to Monterey, we stopped by the ocean and stared down at it for what must have been an hour. I suspect I've spent more hours doing that this past week then I had in the sum of my life prior. And oh -- we found an official roadsign for a pig crossing. Too cute.

2005-05-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

We've moved from Big Sur up through Monterey and into Boulder Creek. A major point in Monterey was to find a 'net access point so that Katrina could register for a summer Anatomy class at Woodland college. Much to her dismay, not only was the class already full but she couldn't add to the waitlist because the system was demanding that she have the prerequisites done. A B.S. from UC Davis in Biology certainly qualifies as that, but the office will need to see a fax of her transcripts before they can lift the hold. Transcripts which are in Davis, or possibly not even there since they will probably need the Junior College transcripts to see the necessary classes. To double the frustration, she had called the registration office previously, and even went there in person -- transcripts in hand -- to be certain that exactly this sort of bullshit wouldn't impede her registration later. Assured twiceover that everything would be fine, she was lied to twiceover.

That frustration behind us (although merely for the moment, as it will eventually need confronting), we later had lunch at a Whole Foods grocery store deli and bought some chocolate truffles and something called halvah (sp?) for Jesse and Sarain ... and some white chocolate, chocolate peaches and more halvah for us. "Give unto others as you would give unto yourself." That shit ain't in the Bible, but it sure sounds like it should be.

Moving on from there, we drove up to Big Basin Redwoods State Park where we had called ahead to ask about tent cabins. Upon arriving, we found that while the price was as quoted, and the availability was as discussed, the inclusion of linens hadn't been inquired about. They weren't. And while you could rent some for $10, the 2 sheets, 2 blankets and 2 pillows sounded inadequate to fend off the cold and the look of the cots seemed less than back friendly. So we retreated back to the nearest town and rented a hotel room ($85) like a coupla city slickers with money to burn. To complete the money burnin' image, we went to a co-op style grocery and bought fixin's for tomorow's hiking lunch ($23), went to a hippie organic vegetarian dinner ($22 + $5 tip + $5 tip to musicians) and then bought a nicely matted print ($22). Money burnt, an excellent time had by all, and I won't regret a penny of it when I feast on the groceries and leftovers tomorrow and sleep soundly tonight.

2005-05-18T20:30:00.000-07:00

Back at camp in the Big Sur Campground and Cabins, although in a new tent cabin just across the way from the old. We moved this morning because our old one was reserved for tonight -- still no sign of anyone in it, though. No matter, took only a few minutes to do, and it seems the new cabin's bed may even be a bit softer. Katrina's off in the shower again, I opted to wait 'till morning. When she gets back, we'll most likely discuss destinations for tomorrow, but perhaps our real destination will only be determined (or discovered) once we're already on the road. It's Wednesday now, and I have vacation cleared through all the way to Friday, so there's still no time pressure. The only pressures that are starting to build are the need for clean laundry -- not too big of a deal so long as we keep "roughing it" -- and the need to relieve Sarain and Jesse of their Pfeiffer-sitting duty. We definitely owe them for their help, and I'm really hoping to find a nice souvanier from this Julia Pfeiffer Burns area. It should be something regional, something that they'd both like, something useful or practical, and something not too cheap. I figure at a minimum we should give them $50 worth of stuff, and I wouldn't particularly blink at $100 if the stuff wasn't way overpriced. And it shouldn't be the sort of thing where, upon recieving it, you think, "Oh Cute! How cool. Now what?" I hate cute little things which, regardless of how cute they are, are really just clutter-junk. I hate receiving it, and I really hate foisting it off on others. T-Shirts, pullovers, and sweaters come to mind as good gifts, but the heavier stuff is unseasonal and Katrina pointed out that regular T-shirts aren't exactly a staple of most girl's wardrobes. S'pose there's always gift certificates, wines, chocolates, yummy gift baskets, and tickets to events -- we'll have to do something, a simple thanks and a promise to do the same in return just isn't enough.

2005-05-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

Couldn't quite make it down to the beach in the JPB park, as there were no trails down, but the views from above were like a something from a pirate's dream. The beach was tucked back in a cove, with the water churning and mixing as it surged in. The sand was pristine, and the waterfall came cascading down to crash onto the sands below. It's something you expect to see after emerging from a 20 mile hike through the jungle in Hawaii, not by stepping out of your car and walking 200 yards. Even after we'd made up our minds to leave, I couldn't quite take my eyes from the fall and the sand below.

From there we drove to a beach where we could walk along it on the sand. The prior one had no approach as the cliffs were too unstable. This one was called Pfeiffer beach, and it was useless in so many ways -- cold, windy, deadly for swimming -- but it made up for by channelling waves in like a funnel. One wave would come rolling in and the others behind it, too impatient to wait their turn, would come barging in too. One, two, three waves would all be curling over and surging in at the same time, some times stacking up, other times nulling each other out. What's more, in some of the barrier rocks there were large holes, and through these would come a fragment of wave, splashing up the sides of the hole and bearing a resemblence to nothing more than a water ride at Disneyland.

2005-05-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

Ewoldsen trail, 4.5 mile loop, quite steep. Tired? Sure. Worth it? Oh yea. Here, as they seem to be throughout California, the flowers are in full bloom. Ewoldsen took us up via a shady trail to the hilltops high above Highway 1 and the ocean. Majestic views that surely won't be captured on film, but which are too tempting to not try. After we finish our sandwiches we'll be heading in the opposite direction, down to the beaches on another trail that's also part of Julia Pfeiffer Burns state park.

2005-05-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

Slept soundly, as always, though mid-night Katrina woke me up needing to go to the bathroom. She'd just gotten through being chased and chased and chased by lunatic eco-hippies that wanted to kill her for not being ecologically sensitive enough -- so she wasn't exactly in the frame of mind to go walking through the dark of the night by herself.

Oops. She just returned from her shower and caught me sitting in the tent cabin, writing. Jokingly scolded me with something along the lines of, "All locked away in here when there's a beautiful view outside." So true. And so, sitting outside now, my eyes are constantly distracted by the flow of water over rock, and my ears by the sound of mixing, tumbling, flowing water. Our brains must be hardwired to love such sounds and sights, for it seems that everyone, regardless of age or jadedness can happily spend hours entraced by the sound and motion of a flowing stream. Likewise for the dance of a fire -- though I suspect that the thoughts percolating through my head during such an entrancement are a bit different than most. Do other people spend their fire-watching hours pondering the reactions that release the flammable hydrocarbon gases that are really being burnt when you burn "wood" or the convection currents that give flames their shape? Even in the primative pleasures of watching nature's elements -- flame, water, earth and air -- I can't quite purge the science geek that's seeped into my soul.

2005-05-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

We ended up going northbound. There was some debate over whether we should work our way towards home, or if we should head back to Santa Barbara to visit Katrina's grandparents, and especially her grandfather, Dan, who is in gradually declining health. We eventually decided to continue with our pure "honeymooning" and return once we had the wedding photos in hand to share. So from Cambria we went to Hearst Castle, blanched a bit at the price of the tours ($24 each, up from $14) and instead enjoyed the free exhibits/museum at the visitor's center without setting foot in the actual castle.

More northward journeying took us to Big Sur, where we've rented a neat little tent cabin for the night. It's from the bed of that cabin that I now write. Just a hop down the road is the Riverside Inn, where we had a nice dinner -- ribs for me, based on the recommendation of the camp host, and a burger for Katrina. Good food, but an even better view -- just below us ran the same creek that our camp is situated next to. With the thought of renting a DVD and watching it on the laptop in our heads, we set off down the road shortly after dinner. Found a movie (Sideways) and while we were out checked in on the Big Sur state park. No attendent present, free admission. A trailhead to Pfeiffer Falls, and with such a short distance to the top (0.4 miles) I was soon dragging Katrina up the trail... well, okay, it was more the other way 'round. Pretty little waterfall, nicely named, but not spectacularly large or anything -- although there was more hidden upstream that could just barely be caught a glimpse of. Decent, then return to camp. Within a few minutes, the quite roar of our bedside creek will be lulling us to sleep. G'night for now.

2005-05-17T12:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we talked to them, and their math IS screwy, and they're unwilling to fix it. They're going with a much higher nightly rate now than when Rolf first booked the hotel, so that the total only dropped 20 bucks. So be it, not my wallet to argue over, but it's a poor way to cut a deal. (Katrina disagrees, saying that the rate Rolf initially booked it for was already including the 2 for 1 discount in the price.)

2005-05-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

We check out today, and set to wandering whichever way our minds and feet direct us. Hearst Castle is one likely destination, 'though Katrina has seen most all there is to see there already. I've never laid eyes on the place; if we do go, it'll be my job to "reinterpret" the sights in a new and fresh way.

I'm sitting on the balcony at the moment, and it's even more pleasant than before. The wind's dropped to a whisper, and every finch and songbird is letting the world know about their fine discoveries. Unfortunantly, my mind keeps being pulled back to the bill for the hotel. It's fine that it's expensive, but their math for calculating the "2 nights for 1" discount seems entirely too screwy. It's something I'll have to talk to them about to clear my concern, but it's not a conversation I particularly look forward to. On the other hand, I'm looking forward to it being over, so that it need no longer keep knocking at the door to my mind.

Katrina's done with her shower now, and we need check out within the next 10 minutes. Go time.

2005-05-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

A nondescript Mexican restaurant provided dinner tonight, a cemetary provided half an hour's distraction, and a young cat named Hooey provided a soft patch of fur to run our hands through. With the sun threatening to drop off the end of the earth without us around to manage the event, we raced back to our hotel. Camera in hand, we made a beeline for the beach. The sort of beeline that a bee might make if it needed to go potty first, that is. The wind ... oh dear. As I write this, Katrina's trying to hangfromthecanopy framelike a female King Kong -- on a diet. Unsatisfied with her domination of the bed's upper regions, she furiously came at me with pillow in hand, slamming it with vigor into my chest, screaming and pulling her hair all the while. What HAVE I gotten myself into?

Upon reading the above, her only correction? I didn't capitalize Mexican. Easily fixed.

2005-05-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

We just spent the last few hours making a lunch out of a "Wine & Cheese Tasting" downstairs in the lobby and walking along the bluffs of Cambria. The wildflowers have gone mad, abandoned all sense of proper spacing, and are climbing over and on top of each other in their struggle to grab your attention. It's beautiful. The ocean still sends its fingers tapping against the rocks below. Incessent, but patient.

We've brought some of the wedding presents and cards up from the car, and are about to open them. Should be nice.

A sampling, "Congratulations on your most special day!!! Enjoy being a princess. Have a great time and smile til your face hurts. Love Kristina & Bill ... and Andrew & Michael. (accompanied by two wonderful picture frames, one with small blue stones set in it, and a sort of "game" called 52 Weeks of Romance)"

2005-05-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

It's amazing here. We're staying at the Pelican Suites in Cambria and it is hands down the nicest place I've ever set foot in much less stayed at. We've got a room with a balcony overlooking the ocean, and can see the waves crashing into the shore below. I'm thinking of -- and discarding -- adjectives to try to decribe it. They words I'd normally use seem too plain, or too cliche to fit. It's not awe-inspiring, or incredible, but it is incredibly nice.

2005-05-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

I've had robots on the brain for the last few weeks, so when I saw a Radio Controlled "Stunt Vehicle" for $6, I didn't hesitate to buy it. At best I figured it would be a fun little toy to play with, and at worst I could tear it apart and use the RF controller and motors in a home-built toy. There was no way to lose. But little did I know that the instructions would turn out to be by far the most valuable piece -- I'm pretty sure they must have been translated from Chinese to English via Eskimo.

See the link for a (bad) photo of 'em, but here's a sampling, with my comments in [square brackets]. There are no typos, only some rather unique spelling...

1.Is not suitable for the 3 years old and the following child
2.Before beginning uses must hard finish reading this manual
3.Suggestion is under the person's leading usage

[I was really expecting line two to be some unlucky kid's name. Sorry Billy, this toy isn't suitable for the 3 years old and YOU.]

SAFE RULE
1.prohibition against 3 years old below of child usage;
2.play attention,you of finger,hair,clothes...etc.don't touch and car wheel,in order to prevent quilt harm; [QUILT?!]
3.car while driving not want to by hand grasp it;
4.don't let the remote control close to any fire withe car original;(such as electric stove ,stove beside or mightiness of sunlight bottom) [At least they clarified with examples...]
5.not want the place in danger to play; {such as street steep slope...etc.}
6.don't let the wet water of car,and not wnt under the rainy day is open-air usage;
7.not want on the sand ground to play;
8.forbid the child to tear open the remote control with the car; [Damn, and that's just what I was going to do, too. Oh... wait, with the car -- I'll use a screwdriver.]
9.if the car dash to piecesed,and should pass by the per son check or profession personnel maintain the rear can continue to use.

2005-03-16T19:34:00.000-08:00

I've got a handful of pieces that I'd like to write. Lord only knows if I'll ever get 'round to writing them, but here're the core ideas that I'd like to flesh out:

A three part series about treatment of human embryos, including research and abortion of them.

The first article would be an argument against abortion and for strict restrictions on embryo science. It would be based around the idea that a human baby is precious not because of what it is -- a drooling poop factory -- but is instead precious because of what it will become. Since a baby's preciousness is really a recognition of it's future value, it's reasonable to start assigning it value before it's even born. At what point to you start to give significant value to that human life? Fertilization is a very, very important landmark and denotes the point beyond which it can be considered "just some cells."

The second article would require some research on my part. It would be an attempt to summarize some key aspects of embryonic development, with an eye towards establishing a scientifically based landmark in development where "significant value" should begin to accumulate - presumably some time after fertilization. Or several such landmarks. Would tend to shy away from the "a woman's choice" argument for abortion in favor of defining landmarks, because at some point the developing baby will gain significant value that will handily trump a woman's "right" to kill it. Ethically, at least.

The third article would be more personal -- something in the form of an essay talking about my views and about how researching and writing the articles had impacted them.

A seperate piece I'd like to write is pointing out a fundamental flaw in the US Government -- that the Senate and House are self-governing bodies who write their own procedural rules. The Senate in particular has many, many odd rules of procedure that no sensible person would call reasonable. It has these because the Senate rules were crafted, over time, to provide advantages to the primary authors and supporters of each specifict rule. As the U.S. Legislature has aged as an institution, these rules have grown increasingly weedy. They're clubhouse rules for a very old club. Other nations potentially have it even worse, because they've had longer to accumulate weeds. This one would require quite a bit of learning on my part, but I think it'd be an interesting piece and I suspect it's get to the core of why stuff as nutty as a Filibuster even exists.

2005-03-04T21:42:00.000-08:00

I realized today that at some point within the last few years I'd crossed an imaginary threshhold. Now that I've passed through it, it's possible for me to look back and discover something about myself that I hadn't known before, but which has no doubt always been true.

The threshhold involved leaving the economic state where my wants constantly exceeded available money and entering the state where available money frequently exceeds my wants. Or to put it simply, I'm not always broke anymore.

Now that I can afford to buy pretty much whatever I want, I find myself still wanting things but not getting them. I'm not trying to point out that some things in life can't be bought, or that there's more to life than money, or any of the other common truisms. I simply mean that there's stuff out there that I want, can easily afford to buy, and yet don't.

So... why not?

Some other reasons besides money could be coming into play. I live in a small apartment, which is already filled with stuff. Maybe it's just that I don't really want the stuff I think I want. It'd take up too much room, and leave me too crowded. I want the item, but I don't want more crowding, so in the end I don't really want it after all.

That might be true for some big stuff, but -- that doesn't apply to really small stuff, especially really small stuff that fits inside of stuff I already have. Computer parts, for example.

There, an entirely different reason is at work. It turns out that I don't, and this is pretty obvious really, that I don't just see something I want, make sure I have enough money, and then buy it. Instead, I see something I want, make sure I have enough money, make sure I think it's worth the money, and then buy it. That extra step is important.

I'm sure you're all rolling your eyes at this point, if you've even read this far that is, but I swear this is interesting stuff! This means that I could already be well on my way towards being like everyone's ancient grandparent who bitches about how much stuff costs and never prys open his moth-ridden wallet to actually buy anything. I've already built a mental database of how much stuff is "worth" and as inflation pushes the prices of everything up, I'm going to be left with less and less stuff that I think is cheap enough to be "worth" buying. I'm only 25, and I've already got the spending habits of a geriatric old man.

This calls for a mid-life crisis! Where's my credit card?

2005-02-28T18:25:00.000-08:00

"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.

2005-02-22T21:19:00.000-08:00

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.

2005-02-17T22:50:00.000-08:00

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.

2005-02-16T21:31:00.000-08:00

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.

2005-02-16T01:29:00.000-08:00

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.

2004-10-22T23:03:00.000-07:00

This shan't be the norm for this blog, but I'm going to post up an opinion column from the Wall Street Journal. I had to type this fella in, so apologies for any typos.

Capital By David Wessel
Better Answer to Tough Question on Jobs
In the final Bush-Kerry debate, moderator Bob Schieffer asked, "What do you say to someone ... who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here?"

President Bush promised "policies to continue to grow our economy and create jobs of the 21st century," and then talked about improving public schools. Sen. John Kerry pledged "a fair trade playing field" and a tax code that doesn't have "workers subsidizing the loss of their own job." Neither looked into the camera and connected with that worker as Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton might have.

A better answer would have gone like this:
"All over America, there are people who played by the rules yet are losing their jobs --some because workers elsewhere do the same work for less, others because computers do things that once only humans did.

"It is small comfort to tell them, though it's true, that we're richer today than our grandparents imagined because we haven't walled ourselves from the rest of the world nor sought to restrain the advance of technology. It is small comfort, though true, that today's puzzle isn't that we're losing jobs--we're always losing jobs--but that for reasons even experts can't explain we aren't creating enough new ones.

"Those of us who benefit from low cost imports--or who have well-paid export jobs that wouldn't exist if we didn't allow imports and outsourcing--must not ask those who lose jobs to go it alone. But Bill Clinton had it right 10 years ago: 'The resentment of people who keep working harder and falling further behind, and feel like they've played by the rules and have gotten the shaft, will play out in different and unpredictable ways. But our responsibility is to do what is right for those people over the long run. And the only way to do that is to open other markets to American products and services even as we open our markets to them.'"

What does this mean in practice?

Candidates need to confront those who offer slogans, not solutions. Protectionists would block imports of factory goods or outsourcing of service jobs, ignoring the likelihood that interfering with the forces of trade and technology will prevent the creation of more jobs than it will save. Free traders with secure jobs proclaim that the only way to get the benefits from open markets is to tolerate the pain of people they'll never meet. Gene Sperling, a former Clinton adviser, offers this pithy putdown: "Protectionists have nothing to say to the future. Free traders have nothing to say to the present."

If trade and technology make us richer, then we can afford to help pay for health insurance and protect pensions [of those] forced to bear the cost. The hodge-podge of tax credits and "adjustment assistance" for workers who can link their job loss to imports isn't working; it needs an overhaul. And there is merit in what wonks call "wage insurance" that temporarily makes up some, though not all, of the gap between the wages of a lost job and those of a new one.

This will be expensive, and needs to be designed to avoid turning healthy workers into taxpayer-supported couch potatoes. But the alternatives are costly too--able-bodied but unskilled workers finagling their way onto disability rolls, families falling out of middle class, cheering audiences for misguided politicians who shout that the only way for Americans to prosper is to keep Indians and Chinese in poverty.

Such programs are derided as "Band-Aids," and they are. The U.S. government also has to get the big things right. That means pushing China and others to stop bending trade rules or manipulating currencies and pressing Europe and Japan to get their people spending so the U.S. isn't always the consumer of last resort. It means setting U.S. taxes so they cover government spending at least in good times, rewriting perverse tax laws that encourage companies to invest elsewhere and managing the unquenchable American thirst for health care without giving employers new incentives not to hire.

And, finally, comes education. Americans will earn more than foreign workers only if they're more productive, and they can be more productive only with ever-better education and skills. Education can be oversold: A college degree isn't a guarantee against losing a job to trade or technology.

But education remains, as Mr. Sperling puts it, "the best insurance policy for succeeding in the existing and future economy." That means streamlining the creaky system for getting vulnerable workers the skills still in demand in the U.S. and doing better at fixing public schools so the next generation of Americans can compete with what surely will be better-educated workers elsewhere in the world.

I'm not jumping up and down cheering for every last word of that column, but there's a lot of good stuff in there that people don't seem too interested in talking about--and furthermore, there's stuff in there that I find myself agreeing with, though I'd never realized before that I would.

For the moment, I'm going to let my thoughts distill and collect. I'll serve up my commentary sometime late tomorrow.

2004-10-08T22:50:00.000-07:00

When I was still in school, I was a procrastinator of the first degree. I'm no longer in school, but some things--some things never change. The best part about putting things off is, of course, that you get to have fun now instead of later, not to mention that all the work which you would otherwise have to start now can be started... later. But there are a couple of downsides. The obvious one, that you have less time to get the work done in, normally isn't all that bad. You panic a little, you sleep a little less, but mostly you just trim the quality of the project. Condering I tend to lean towards perfectionism given a completely open timeline, the quality trimming isn't altogether that bad. But the other downside is that the impending crunch of work starts hanging over your head and ... nagging, I guess is really the best word. It's tempting to use cliches like, "storm clouds gathering overhead" but an analogy based on nagging seems more appropriate, in that it's not the impending deluge and doom that are so bothersome, it's the inability to have any fun without thinking, "I should really be working on..." It's like having your mother in your head. She's moved in there, settled down, and isn't going to go anywhere until the deluge of work actually starts. In the intervening time you have to drag her along with you everywhere you go... to the beach, the party, and yes--even the porn store. "Shouldn't you really be working on..."

So as one could probably guess by now, I'm avoiding doing something. I need to make a decision, a big huge colossal incredibly important decision that'll affect the rest of my life. So naturally I'm waiting 'till the last minute. I need to choose a topic, a professor, a degree, or a college. Any one of which would get me started, and narrow down my choices enough to make things managable. As is, I'm lost and overwhelmed by the choices and by the magnitude of the choice. I know I want to go to grad school, but I don't know yet what I want to do. So I'm delaying. And delaying some more.

And some more.

Hi Mom. Yea, I know. I really should be working on...

2004-10-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

A while back I wiped out pretty much every important file I had on my computer, which is to say that I wiped two files--my MS Money save file and my Lifelog. More recently I ran across a quote something along the lines of "Data backup is important because it protects you not only from the small but not inconsequential risk of a hard drive failure, but because it also protects you from the rather larger risk that, eventually, no matter how many 'Are you sure?' dialog boxes you have to click through to do it, you're confidently going to destroy all your own files." I winced and almost cried when I read that.

It started out by me trying to fix the Network Connections control panel in Windows XP. Couldn't get the wireless card to work without shaking out the bugs and stomping them. So I tried using the "Repair installation" option from the Win XP install CD. No dice. So, being rather less technically savy than I'd like to believe, I went straight to the more drastic measure of reinstalling Windows in it's entirety. Without backing anything up first. It fixed the network problem, but now I couldn't access anything in my old "Documents and Settings" folder -- basically everything personal and important, the kind of stuff you can't just reinstall. I fought against this for a couple days, trying to find a way to get at the files, all the while doubting that they were even really there. Finally became convinced that they were either already wiped and the old Docs and Settings folder was just a mirage, or just as bad, that the files were there but completely unretrievable. Since my file system was a bit of a mess at this point, with orphan files hanging out everywhere and programs that wouldn't boot since they weren't in the registry, I decided to clean everything up, reformat C: and reinstall. So I confidently clicked through some more "Are you sure?" dialog boxes and erased any last hope of retrieving the lost files.

Clean install, everything's working spiffy. Happily loading tons of music & games back onto my computer, but mourning the loss of my Lifelog and annoyed at the hassle of reconstructing my financial accounts. Sadistic curiosity... still looking for ways I could have rescued the files. A glum face, and an aching feeling of loss deep inside--finally found a solution that would have worked. It was clear, it would have worked with XP Home, and it was too late.

So that's the story of why, after several sporadic years of keeping a Lifelog, I'm now starting completely anew. More determined this time, perhaps, but stung by the loss of a bit of personal history none the less.

I figure that if it's going to have to be new, this lifelog might as well be "new and improved." So this time around I'm scheduling at least one hour a week to write in it, plus I'll be taking advantage of such catch-phrases as "new media formats" and "improved distribution mechanisms" and "backup" to ensure that this project stays "fresh and relevant in today's fast-paced world." In other words, I'm going to try doing an occasional video log as an adjunct to the text log, I'm considering firing up the Blogger.com account again so that anyone who's interested can read it, and am absolutely positively going to make regular backups this time around... eventually.

2003-06-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

I've always felt a bit cheated by college. What I recieved was a solid education in the major of my choice, Chemistry. What I wanted was everything else.

There's a 'game' I occasionally play that shows what I mean. The rules are simple: spot an object, mentally disassemble it, consider the construction methods and sources of each of the parts, mentally disassemble and consider one of the component parts. Repeat as far as I'm able.

As an example, driving along the road, I see a 65 mph freeway sign. The game begins. The sign consists of a squared off wooden post, a rectangular sheet of metal painted with white and black paint, a metal mounting bracket with screws/bolts, and a cement footing for the post. Picking at part more or less at random, dial in on the actual metal "sign" part. The metal is probably aluminum, but the paint I have no idea about. What are the other classes of paint besides Latex, oil, and acrylic anyways? Make a mental note to look up types of paint next time I'm bored. Go back to the aluminum, assuming that's what it really is. Aluminum is, like most metals, mined as an ore (specifically bauxite), and then refined (Bayer process) and smelted (Hall-Héroult method). I cheated a bit here, in that I looked up the exact names of the refining and smelting processes, but were I really playing the game on the road, I recall that aluminum is smelted by way of electrically reducing it -- removing the oxygen and hydroxy groups it's bound to. Takes a lot of electricity, so it tends to be done in areas with plentiful hydroelectric power availabe. From here I can either start considering the details of the power grid, specifics of hydroelectric power, or jump back up a level and consider some other aspect of aluminum or the sign.

It's purposefully getting lost in thought. It's exploring the bredth and depth of what I know, and reminding myself of things I don't know and could find out. And it's not really what I should be doing when behind the wheel, but that's a whole 'nother topic.

Going back to what I've learned (and not learned) in college, I've found myself playing the game in a whole new way lately. Instead of pondering the technological aspects of things, I've been exploring their sociolgical and political aspects. Taking the same road sign as an example, rather than considering it's composition, I'll consider it's function in civilization. Much like with composition, it's a pondering that can follow many different paths, all of which readily diverge. I can start by it's primary and immediate function, to inform the driver of the local speed limit. The speed limit itself can be thought of as a tool for public safety, or as a method of income generation, or as a national gas saving attempt, or as a way of reducing governmental liability in the case of an accident. Or some other way that I can't think of off the top of my head. Following the first, public safety, for a moment I can consider the sign's effectiveness at increasing safety, the necessity of enforcement to encourage compliace, the inherant problem of allowing people to operate vehicles capable of killing others, the role of insurance costs in encouraging compliace, or any of a thousand other things.

Again, it's purposefully getting lost in thought, though this time considering the societal purpose and rules for the object. It's still looking at the object systematically, breaking it down into subsystems, recognizing larger systems that its a component of, and otherwise considering it's position in the world as a whole. But now it's more interested in people. It's trying to understand the rules that people make and follow, rather than just the 'natural' rules that govern the physical sciences and technology.

I started with a point (I think), but now I've lost it. To be edited later.

2003-05-19T23:28:00.000-07:00

Re: Last post
Simple solutions for simple problems. If ya don't want someone to read something, don't make it public. I've been keeping an offline journal for months now; this site will supplement, not substitute for it. Talking about how completely smitten I am with Katrina -- that can go online. Hell, I'd shout it from the rooftops if they didn't keep arresting me for that. Talking about how there's nothing better than a warm apple pie when you're home alone and the blinds are closed? I'll, uh, keep that private, thanks.

2003-05-19T00:31:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that I had started this thing to my girlfriend. She mentioned it to some of our friends over dinner. And naturally, they asked me about it.

And naturally, my face explored some of the deeper versions of red.

I'm perfectly content offering up my letters and words to the nebulously anonymous "Internet." I'm not so content offering them up to my friends and family. The idea of people I actually know reading this thing scares the willys out of me. The idea of them actually talking to me about something I wrote keeps me up at nights. Like... right now.

Part of it is just not having an easy way to explain why it is I'm doing this. It's not like I can look at someone across the table from me and say, "I'm doing it because I feel a need to write and a desire to express my ideas for others to see." Not while keeping a straight face and a normal hue, at any rate. But that's just part of it. Even if I had a nice quick (sane) reason I could rattle off, the thought of someone I know reading this is still... awkward. It makes me feel like I need to censor myself, not because what I'm saying is 'secret' but because it might be a little too relevant if the reader was also the subject.

So why am I writing this? Why am I pushing my journal from simple privacy out into complex publicity?

. . .

I think it's because it's hard to write without an audience. Even if it's nothing more than the potential for audience. There's some level of work involved with any sort of writing and a touch of artistic pride always gets woven into it. I don't think anyone can sit at a keyboard and write and think, and write and think some more, and then not want to share the end results. It's too much work for it to be wasted by going unread, and so I want the potential for audience as a carrot to keep me at it. And it's something I really do want to keep at -- writing down my thoughts not only preserves them against being lost to my Memento-ish memory, it forces me to clarify and support them.

So I like to write because it helps me think, and I like to have an audience because it keeps me writing. Nice, quick, and hopefully sane sounding reason. Except I don't really want an audience, especially if it's going to consist of people I know.

Maybe they'll forget all about this thing, and I can plod on with my comforting 'local' anonymity. Or maybe I'll have a 'real' audience and will just have to use a touch of caution.

Or maybe I'll just stop.

2003-05-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

I just loaned my parents my Miata for a few days. I've often offered for them to use it, but with Dad having retired yesterday, they finally took me up on it.

Two things dominated my thinking as they left. First is how incredibly tiny that car is. I'm used to sitting in it, and I'm used to the view from it, but seeing someone else drive it is a wholly alien to me. Doubly so when it's my parents.

The second is that I finally understand what it must be like for parents to loan the keys to their son for the night. Intimidating. An odd mix of pride and worry as they see him drive away. Though I suppose that real parents are probably more worried about their kid than they are the car. Not exactly the same in my case.

I suppose I sound a bit overzealous when it comes to the damn thing. It stems from it being the car I've always wanted growing up, and from it being my first car. My first car. It's the most expensive thing I own, it's the first thing I turn to work on when an idle weekend comes up, and it's what I jump in whenever I'm feeling bored.

And mostly I'm just glad that they're finally gonna use it -- knowing that someone is going to come back grinning after doing something you do regularly is a neat feeling. It's like introducing someone to windsurfing, or mountain biking when you know they're just gonna love it. Share the love.

The weather should be perfect for cruising 'round the mountains with the top down. Now here's to hoping that they don't get stuck in traffic.

2003-05-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

Never mind the mike tapping and throat clearing. We're live on 3... 2... 1...

Hello world.

Rather than starting from scratch, this page is really just an extension and publication of something I've been doing for months now -- keeping a journal. I don't expect it's focus to shift just because it's gone from offline to on, though I won't protest too much if it does drift. This has always been about providing a reminder of my thoughts, not so much my actions or activities. No sense having a really interesting discussion or insight, only to forget about it days later... and with my memory, that's exactly what I was doing. I've got a mild case of Memento, and this is my strategy for coping.

Since this is the first posting though, I don't mind taking the time to lay out where things stand in the world today.

I'm living in Davis, CA and working at Bio-Rad as a Production Chemist. I'm driving a '94 Miata and am totally in love with my Katrina. Currently, she's in Hawaii, but'll be back in just two short days -- after six long weeks of being away. And yes, 'my Katrina' is my girlfriend, not my car.

On a wider scale, the US is occupying Iraq after ousting the Hussein regime. Extremist muslims are still blowing themselves up. Antiamericanism is on the rise world-wide as we heavily and bluntly utilize the power and influence we've built over the last fifty years. China's government is still afraid of it's own people, and is the epicenter of the flu-like illness SARS. Russia is starting to (quietly) rattle the sabre and dream of it's lost power and independence. North Korea is openly admitting to having nuclear weapons and is clearly developing more. Afganistan is still wartorn, still has a weak government, and is still incredibly poor. The world wide economy can be perfectly summed up by the word, 'Soggy.' Isreal and Palestine are attacking each other regularly, one with suicide bombers, and the other with tanks and bulldozers.

Sound like a lousy time for the world?

Perhaps. But I'm as hopeful for the future as always. More so, even. Despite the breadth and depth of the world's problems, at least we, as Americans, are finally aware of them. The famously inward looking nation has once again been forced to wake up, look around, and take action.

I'm not jingoistic. I hate the very idea of nationalism. But I believe that many of the world's lingering problems deserve attention, and right now America & Britain look to be among the very very few who are willing to bring about change. Kudos to them.

As always, more later.