Reflections on the 1st Amendment
In a spirit of solidarity with the burgeoning political process happening throughout our fair country, (which I am never compelled to call 'America,') I plan to write reflections about each of the amendments with some thoughts as to how current events relate. What pray-tell do I call our country? When we lived overseas, with other Americans, we referred to our fine land simply as 'the States' as in, United States. The nice and pithy moniker, USA comes to mind. I guess I'm just tired of hearing political candidates lump everything is as 'America.' That name belies our composition and make up as unique and autonomous states. Does it seem ironic to anyone else that candidates who call for small government use a name which inherently implies a strong, heavy central authority? On to Amendment 1.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There's a lot going on there. I won't even pretend to know anything about the evolution those words have taken through various interpretations by the Supreme Court. I will however look at each line here and offer some thoughts as they relate to current events. Do you think they lumped all these together because they are the most important and they wanted to make sure these got through? Just a thought.
--Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof;--
Do these two items seem to contradict each other to anyone? To me they essentially boil down to this: Congress can't establish a national religion and Congress can't interfere with the free exercise of religion. I guess they don't contradict each other but we look at how 'Separation of Church and State' gets construed it would seem that Congress does in fact make laws that impact the free exercise of religion. School prayer, anyone? Either way, this line does not say that Church and State must be separated, it simply says the State can't have an official church and that the state can't keep anyone from worshiping how they want to. Hence, Congress itself has a chaplain and begins each day with a prayer. If one is religiously inclined it may be worth while to encourage congress to pray a little harder. Just sayin'.
--or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;--
Congress can't keep us from speaking freely...and they can't suppress the press, no matter how much they want to...
--or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.--
Okay, so people have to be allowed to protest peacefully and to call on the Government to step in when things go wrong.
Contextually, I think we all know about free speech and the free press. I think we tend to read more into the religion clauses than are really there. As for peaceful assembly, it would seem that there is a lot of latitude in that interpretation. If there are any Occupy Wall Street people out there I would love to hear your perspective.
Reading Into It
By: Mr. Scientist
I read a recent article in the WAPO and it got me thinking. One idea the article references concerns the way that everyone, kids in particular, gather knowledge in today’s world. In the United States at least, the internet is nearly ubiquitous. If we want to know something we just go to the internet and look it up. Are people even using libraries anymore? I read a separate article that said libraries are trying to get into the digital books arena by “renting” out digital copies of books to people on their E-readers. But I would guess that this market is still limited to older adults. Are kids still reading? How are they consuming information? As someone who hasn’t had cable for the past 3 years I can’t speak to the current level of kids programming on TV, but my general feeling is that shows have gotten to the point where even single camera shots are short lived. The audience is constantly viewing small cut scenes, extreme close-ups and annoying laugh tracks. I had the misfortune of seeing an episode of MTV Cribs and the mansion and 15 cars that I was supposed to be seeing weren’t on screen long enough for me to form any sort of memory, let alone opinion. Constant streams of media. That is where we are at.
What is the current state of literature and how do we read today? More importantly, how are our children learning to read? In this fast-paced media onslaught are kids still sitting down with books for a long read? I can remember taking trips with my family when I was younger which afforded me an endless amount of time in the car with a good book. I loved to read and was encouraged by my parents to do so. We’d go to the library to get books. When we’d go to the mall I was more excited to go into a book store and look for a new book to read. Now I did my fair share of reading comics like Garfield, Sonic the Hedgehog and Calvin and Hobbes, but I also spent a lot of time with more developed stories. My parents always read Berenstain Bears books to me and my brother before we were old enough to independently read. I then read The Boxcar Children series when I started reading on my own. My brother always read the Hardy Boys series but that is one I never got into. Then came the Star Wars expanded universe books. My brother was older than me and I would read these books after he was done. This is where I first started reading 200-300 page books. I could sit and read these cover to cover in a few days (or in a single day on one of our long road trips!). But are kids still doing this? Today cars have video screens in the seats and parents tend to just put a movie on for the kids to watch. Or, if the kids are old enough they’re just playing games on their smart phone, Nintendo DS or Sony handheld. Does this new generation have a passion for sitting down and delving into long books? I guess that is partly yes with the success of Harry Potter, Twilight and the Hunger Games. Of these last three I’ve only read the Harry Potter series and so I can’t comment about the depth of content of the others. Harry Potter progressed nicely in pitting good versus evil. Characters and their motives were laid out relatively clearly yet often there was a twist of intentions. Goodness under the surface –or merely selfishness masquerading as goodness? Well I guess that’s what we are meant to determine for ourselves. Yes there was action and even romance to some extent. But the characters were very well developed. Maybe that’s a beef that I have with the influence of media on literature. Though I’ve been without cable I have made extensive use of my Netflix subscription and so I’ve seen a lot more current movies that I would normally not see in the theaters. I notice a complete lack of character development in this visual media. With the exception of the Harry Potter series and some Terry Brooks sci-fi/fantasy novels the majority of my reading has come from more classic literature. Is this lack of character background in movies bleeding into today’s modern literature? I hope not. We are certainly losing character development in our social interactions. Apparently our Facebook profiles are complete windows into our lives. Why talk to someone and figure out their life story when we can just look at their timeline and get a chronological look at their life through tagged photos and posts? *sigh* I do like technology. But tech that advances knowledge and understanding is good. Tech that abandons the process of learning and forming thoughts is dangerous. I have fond memories of sitting back after reading a good book and just…thinking.
Redbox = Cheap
So the above is true in more ways than 1. And I myself, am pretty peeved about it. I got a movie last night from Redbox. Admittedly I used a promo code but by getting the Blu Ray version they got 30 cents out of me. The process to find a movie was easy, the promo code was welcome and Blu Ray is awesome. Yet I'm still mad, and here's why.
I popped the movie in and looked over the menu items. The first option was Theatrical Release and the next was Director's Cut. I naturally chose to see the extended Director's version. To my surprise and disappointment I was greeted with a glaring note, "This is a rental version and doesn't have all the features. To see them all you must buy a retail copy." BAM! How lame are you Redbox? Totally lame, that's what you are.
So I watched the whole movie and then at the end did what any naturally curious, movie lover would do (especially with a Blu Ray version): I looked at the special features. After scrolling through the list I opted for the making of segment. And then, BAM! Hit again. If you want the goods, go buy the full version. Seriously lame. After that I didn't bother to see if the Director's commentary even worked.
So in the future I may just forego the Blu Ray and stick it to Redbox by not even giving them the satisfaction of my 30 cents.
What is you R2?
I told Mr. Scientist last night that this would be the title of my next post. I didn't have a topic to go with it then but one soon found me. We were talking on the phone as I drove home and soon after stating this as the title I stopped at Walmart to get a Redbox movie. (Such a quick trip but the subject for 2 posts, the 1 you are reading now, and this and 1 comment, quite fruitful I'd say.) Before going on, I should offer a word of introduction to the title. Last year I was reading an article in the Chicago Sun Times on how many perpetrators of gun crimes in Chicago actually are convicted and go to jail. (This article apparently won a Pulitzer, read it in whole here.) Sadly the number is very small. The article featured various victims who had been shot but for one reason or another the shooter in each case was never tried. One of the victims lived not far from our townhouse. While he was walking down the street a man stopped him and said 'What is you?' which apparently is how you ask someone what gang they are affiliated with. This victim in question had given up the gang life and so when he said he had a past with the Vice Lords, the guy shot him in the leg (for not being with the Taliban). After being shot, the victim's mother urged him not to pursue charges... The real kicker in this story is that as they were interviewing this victim, they were sitting in McDonald's and while talking, the man who did the shooting in this case walked in. But hey, they is cool.
If you've read any of my previous posts you'll know that I look for connections, or perhaps more precisely connections find me. When I went into Walmart last night to get a Redbox movie I knew my wallet was sitting on the seat of my car. As I walked through 0 degree temperatures I consciously decided not to go back for my wallet. (If you've ever rented from Redbox you'll know that this was a mistake whose remedy was more time in the cold.) I did manage to get all the way to the checkout process before realizing that without a wallet it would be tough to swipe a credit card to pay the 30 cents needed for the Blu Ray movie I wanted (Gotta love that promo code!). So I canceled the transaction and headed out into the chill. As I walked out the door a yellow suv with ladders was stopping near me. I made eye contact with the driver to make sure she saw me and then made a bee-line for the car. After grabbing my wallet and heading back I noticed the yellow suv was still there and a man was getting a child out of the back seat. What is coming next is very rated R so there's your fair warning should you click through to the rest of this post.
The Modern Mythology By: Mr. Scientist
I was listening to a discussion on NPR recently about the place of mythology in today's society. The Greeks and Romans instantly come to mind in any discussion of myth, but is our modern society just rehashing these old tales with present-day culture? George Lucas has openly said that ancient mythology heavily influenced his writing of the original Star Wars movies. Since then science fiction has exploded not only with an entire Star Wars universe, but also with Star Trek, Babylon 5, Battle Star Galactica and the like. It is interesting the different tones that each of these shows adopts. I recently watched the entire Star Trek Deep Space 9 (DS9) series and I loved it! The bonus features were very insightful and the show creators admitted to giving it a Western feel. They wanted the space station to serve as an old west town. Quark’s bar was like the town saloon. You had a sheriff in Odo and nonstop encounters of good vs. bad. Another noteworthy sci-fi series with a similar Western flare was the cult-classic Firefly. There is just something relatable and appealing about the grime and grit of the old west that comes out in this classic by Joss Whedon as well as the DS9 series. But is this all just a modern take on classic mythology? Good vs. Evil? Dark vs. Light? These battles between forces, either in sci-fi classics or often real life battles, get hyped and passed on until they become myth and legend.
But let’s return to the NPR special. They brought up another interesting point in that even today we are still referencing the ancient Greek and Roman myths! A thousand years from now, will any of our modern mythology still be in our cultural memes? Will Star Wars and Star Trek be as ubiquitous in the modern consciousness? These days we have things like Harry Potter and an endless onslaught of zombies, werewolves and of course, vampires. What is going to stick? What of today’s stories is our modern mythology?
A word to websites
If I visit your site, don't force me to interact with a lightbox before I can do anything else. Seriously, this is more annoying than Urkel.
Word of the Day Rant: Lackadaisical
The word lackadaisical perplexes me. It's so straightforward yet nearly almost all sports announcers I hear get it wrong. When you read it aloud, what do you hear? I hear: Lack-a-days-ick-al. Watch an NBA basketball game sometime. Anytime.
I predict that any NBA game you watch will produce the same result. You won't hear what I wrote above. Instead, you'll hear: Lax-a-days-ick-al.
And when you hear it, like me, you'll cringe. You'll want to reach into the Television or into the Radio, or into the Computer screen, or into your Device of choice and throttle the speaker into linguistic submission. You'll want to scream, "There's no X in that word!" And our tongue tied color man will look at you, probably slightly confused, and utter a simple, 'Huh?' And you'll calmly explain that if he wants to keep saying Lackadaisical he needs to come to terms with the true pronunciation that everyone else learned in 7th grade vocabulary class. And if you do that, the world will be a better place.
Stayed tuned for the next Word of the Day Rant with our good friend: Blog.
laptopscreens.com
Many thanks to latopscreens.com. A few weeks ago I dropped my laptop while setting another person's laptop (safely in a box) down in my office. My laptop (while closed) landed directly on the top/front edge. Visibly there was no damage however when I powered the machine on the damage became clear. There were multiple spider-web cracks flowing from the stricken corner. It almost looked like a river delta and I almost shed a tear. Almost. Thanks to latopscreens.com I received a new screen the next day and had the damaged one swapped out within half an hour.
latopscreens.com offered to pay me $50 to create a video of the swap, ultimately I didn't take them up on the offer though as I didn't want to film myself without any prior knowledge of exactly how this machine would come apart. The process was fairly painless, although not entirely painless. After finishing, I opted not to redo the process to film it despite the allure of the $50 hanging out there. Should you be in a similar situation I'm happy to provide tips and suggestions.
The Story
I've had this machine for a little over two months now. It is an X370 from MSI. It replaced a Dell Inspiron 700M that I purchased in October of 2004. When I bought the Dell, I opted for the 4 year warranty. With about 3 months left on the original warranty I had a hard drive fail and the power port fail. I had lived with no speakers, a dodgy USB port and a few other minor aches and pains for some time. Dell ended up replacing the motherboard, HDD and the LCD screen, giving me an essentially new laptop. This time it lasted 3 years more but the graphics chip from Intel could no longer cut it. I couldn't install Windows 7 and make use of it's full graphical suite. It was slow and under powered.
The Interloper
Enter into the picture the MSI X370. It is slim, white and has a bigger screen than the 700M. The machine is so slim and white that some Mac Fanboys I know mistook it for an Apple product. At half the cost of a macbook, I'll take this machine any day over one of those. Except in that rare instance when you drop the machine and need to rely on a more durable case to absorb the brunt of the force...
If White Castle went away, would anyone notice?
I drive by a fair number of White Castle restaurants each week. Without a doubt these are the most drab, boring and unappealing fast food restaurants out there. If I have a chance I'll take some pictures. But really, I'm not going out of my way.
So the first two sentences and the title naturally lead to a question. If these places are so dull, why do I keep noticing them? Not recently, but often in the now distant past (at least 7 years ago) I ate a fair number of sliders. When the movie White Castle came out I strongly identified with it from a food relationship. The interesting thing about it is that I have never set foot in a White Castle establishment. I've been through the drive through a few times and I suppose there is an outside chance I went into one but the number of times I've purchased food there is less than 5. The reason I ate sliders was they were sold in the grocery store, frozen. The packaging was clean and the sandwiches appealing. I ate a lot.
I'm not really here to critique the food, but suffice it to say there's also a reason I don't eat them anymore. And to be fair, I stopped eating them long before I gave up most forms of gluten last June.
So back to the restaurants. If the food isn't great and the places of business are dull and boring would anyone really notice if they went away? Take a long, hard look at the next White Castle restaurant you drive or walk by. It's got small windows, leaving a largely uninviting, gray and shabby exterior. To be true, they may have started white but at least in the city of Chicago there's a lot of drab gray on their outsides.
To contrast the White Castle experience, I went by both a Taco Bell and a White Castle while leaving Midway Airport a few days ago. Whether you like Taco Bell's food or not, they at least give you a visually stunning appearance when you look at the building (the one on Cicero near Midway anyway). There were large windows, small wisps of neon color on the facade, a fresh looking building and everything that the White Castles aren't. I'll leave the quality of the food debate at Taco Bell for another day.
I don't know if the White Castle restaurants will disappear in the near term, but if they do, I for one will not be surprised.
I want to see a Paul/Santorum Ticket
With the Iowa Caucuses around the corner the political scene in our country finally gets to see some action. The 'debates' to date and other pre-election activities have been many, but now the rubber finally hits the road and we'll see what these candidates are made of, or more precisely what the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire make of them.
I said several weeks ago (or is it months now?) that I liked Jon Huntsman. I heard him speak a few times as broadcast by POTUS Politics on Sirius/XM satellite radio. From those few times I liked what he had to say. His thoughts seemed genuine and well constructed. It was clear then, and more so now, that his campaign lacked something. A spark maybe. I've heard some of his daughters are campaigning with and for him and that there may indeed be sparks coming off of them, but nevertheless, his campaign seems destined to fade away soon.
Ron Paul on the other hand is a different story all together. I have liked Ron Paul for some time now. I recall voting for him at some point 3 years ago and definitely agreed with many of his positions. I am a self-described independent with Libertarian leanings. There are several positions which I hold that don't fit any of the established parties, hence the independent moniker. That said, much of them do align with Dr. Paul and the Libertarians. One area where I probably diverge from him is his strong isolationism. Having grown up in the military and having had an opportunity to live abroad in a military environment my views there are slightly different. I don't know that we need a strong military presence throughout the globe but we certainly need to foster relationships with our allies and that means more than a diplomatic relationship. Fostering real communication and real relationships between cultures offers far more than vanilla bureaucratic functionalism. So while I don't have any lasting relationships with any of the Turks I met while living in Turkey 15 years ago I highly value the relationships we had then and hope that they learned something of the American culture from us.
But we digress. Back to business.
While my affinity for Ron Paul is fairly strong and obvious, Rick Santorum isn't so likely a choice. To be fair, I put him second on my ballot. There are many fundamental differences in his positions as compared to Ron Paul. He is certainly more inclined to spread our military around and confront other nations with force. I haven't heard Ron Paul speak specifically about his Pro-Life stance but the few times I've heard Rick Santorum speak his stance has been firm and clear. I do not use a candidate's pro-life or pro-choice beliefs as a litmus test but it is definitely satisfying to see someone run for high office who shares one of my personal convictions.
The big question of the day though is would a ticket like this work? Are each of these men too conservative to run together or too opposed for the Republican Party to unite around them? The answers will be fleshed out in the next few months. I would love to come back to this post then and point to my foreshadowing prowess but that is admittedly unlikely. For the moment we must wait and see how things shake out. Regardless, my vote is almost always for the person over the party or the politics. When I listen to Paul, Santorum and Huntsman, I hear honesty, truthfulness and integrity. Each comes off as genuine and passionate about their stance. I honestly think that this is more important than actually agreeing with a candidate's views. If the person is good, the decisions will likely be made in good faith and with a firm base. This leads into my lack of faith for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich. Romney just sounds hollow when he talks, as if he forgot to grab his personal convictions off the night stand when leaving his hotel that morning. He strikes me as a fair weather politician, speaking to the moment rather than about how to truly effect a change in our political scene.
In the words of Mike and Mike in the morning on ESPN Radio, a few more predictions sure to go wrong: If Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination, Barak Obama wins re-election.
Because he is hollow, Barak Obama wins in this scenario. Obama has too much charisma and Biden too much off the cuff character for Romney to overcome. Short of a Romney/Trump ticket who would really pay attention to Mitt Romney talk for more than two minutes? Not this writer to be sure. For those protesting that I've gotten off topic here toward the end, keep in mind that this site bears my name in the url...
A second prediction sure to go wrong: I can't think of one right now but when I do I shall return.
Word of the Day Rant: Decadent
Have you ever looked up the word Decadent in the Dictionary? I've looked it up a few times and am continually surprised by the definition. Here's what we get from Merriam-Webster on Decadent.
Definition of Decadent
- marked by decay or decline
- of, relating to, or having the characteristics of the decadents
- characterized by or appealing to self-indulgence
Now, I realize this is rather rigid of me, but if you read through those definitions, which one sounds most like how we use the word Decadent in daily life? Certainly it isn't options 1 or 2. Look at the example sentences Merriam-Webster gives:
Examples of Decadent:
- The book condemns some of society's wealthiest members as decadent fools.
- a wealthy and decadent lifestyle
- a decadent hotel room, complete with a hot tub
- We relaxed in decadent luxury.
They give 4 examples, none of which touches on definitions 1 or 2. How often, when you look up a word in the dictionary, (if you look words up in the dictionary) do you look beyond the 1st definition or 2? I seldom get to number 3. So perhaps Decadent definition 1 was used more in the past, but at some point I think we need to update our order to match usage. If we can add idiotic words like BFF or bromance then surely we can update the ranked order of definitions for words that actually have a strong pedigree.
Coming Next: Lackadaisical
A crazy night or They do say things come in 3s
There are some nights when a confluence of events come together. It is hard to know what it all means at the time or how one's own role will play out.
Tonight brought me into the path of not 1, not 2, but 3 separate tragedies. Along the way I passed a great kid on the street, met with a group of like minded people whose goal is to make our city great and heard a story of self-sacrificing love, ending in death.
There is a lot to be said for irony.
I have been volunteering for Chicago Cares since January of 2006. The projects I've worked on have taken me all across the city from north to south, west to southwest and beyond. 3 of those projects were in Englewood, a part of the city known for drugs and violence. I've joked more than once about needing a flak jacket to go into those neighborhoods. Tonight the meeting I had was at Patrick Henry Elementary School, 4250 N St Louis, which is less than a mile from a close friend's previous address. As we were leaving tonight, I offered to drop a friend off at the Kimball Brown Line station. As we drove north on Kimball, two Chicago Police Department Suburbans wailed past us, turning right onto Montrose. We went another few blocks north and a third CPD Suburban was going south and again onto Montrose.
From there I dropped my friend off at the train and proceeded to drive home. During that drive I came across the 3rd tragedy of the evening (if you are counting, I haven't relayed number 1 yet). As I approached the intersection of Rand Rd (Rt. 12) and Old McHenry Rd in Lake Zurich, I saw many flashing police lights, road flares and (unusually) flood lights. As our flow of north bound traffic was redirected east onto Old McHenry, it was clear that a major accident had happened some time ago. There were at least 4 cars (and probably more) that I could see still left in their accident prone positions. A police officer had survey equipment that he was using. There were no ambulances present. My exposure to the scene lasted all of 2 minutes, after which I didn't see any more of it.
During this time I was on the phone with a close friend, learning about her recently deceased sister who had literally worked herself to death caring for her two children born with Spina Bifida. It was at once a sad tale of hardship and suffering but at the same time a story of loving sacrifice. The essence of a Christian life, the giving of one's self for another's well being. Don't get me wrong, there was as much personal tragedy in this story as in the other 2 lives lost which I came across tonight but here at least there was a point to the suffering.
Revelations
It wasn't until I got home that a picture began to emerge about the different circumstances I had brushed past this evening. It was entirely thanks to Apple and Twitter that I even knew what had happened. I was working on an iPad for the first time and in playing around with it to see what could be done, I setup my twitter account, tried out Flipboard and a number of others programs I regularly use on PCs or my Android powered phone. Whilst perusing the twitter feed I came across a headline about two teens shot in the city; a fairly common occurrence in recent years. When I clicked on the link I didn't think much at the time, like I said, shootings in Chicago seem to be a dime a dozen. Once on the link though my heart sank a little. The caption included the neighborhood, Albany Park. In reading the article, there really wasn't much information known at the time. Two kids shot, one dead. The timing was eerie, about 7:45pm, right when our Chicago Cares training was ending. Both were taken to Illinois Masonic hospital where two of my daughters were born. Again, nothing unusual about that but still brushing uncomfortably close with much of my own personal life.
Reading about this incident lead me directly to information about the accident I came across later. From the article on the shooting, I was scrolling through the headlines of the Chicago Tribune site only to find another ominous title, 10 year old killed in Lake Zurich car accident, or something very close to that. This incident happened at about 5:30pm, right when I was wrapping up work for the day, getting ready to go up to the Volunteer Leader training. According to the article, the 10 year old was killed and his twin brother and father seriously injured when their car collided with a dump truck. There weren't really any more details than those.
As I said, and as the title of this post implies, there was a 3rd incident this evening that I came into contact with. I've intentionally left this one for last, partly because it was minor in relation to the others but mostly because I didn't think much of it at the time. Having lived in the city, and continuing to work there, I come across fender benders, minor accidents, ambulances, work crews, crazy people and who knows what else, all the time. So tonight, as I drove north on Kimball, crossing Elston, I noticed traffic in front of me moving very slowly. I assumed (partly correctly) that we were backed up because of a stop sign. This was true, there was a stop sign, but in the southbound lane at the stop, there was a car stopped with a crowd of people in front of it. It appeared that a person (with unknown amounts of personal stuff) was sitting in front of the car as if having fallen, or gotten hit. Immediately as I approached the scene, a firetruck, ambulance and police car arrived. I was able to navigate around all of those vehicles and get to my destination at Patrick Henry without much delay. The cars trying to go south were however quite backed up. As I passed, many were falling into the typical Chicago driver habit of honking at what they couldn't see in some vain effort to effect nothing more than the irritation of the others waiting in the same predicament.
Concluding thoughts, if there can be any.
I'm not sure what to really think of tonight. For some reason each step of my path home was paralleled with a personal tragedy for someone else. When I was at school in Oregon I saw 2 people on bicycles get hit by cars and a 3rd person get hit by a bus. None were related and all were separated by significant time and distance. As with tonight, there was nothing that I could personally do about any of those events and yet I was connected for some reason. There is a danger here to project my personal ego onto these situations, making my own encounters more significant than they really are. I am aware of this danger and proceeding on just the same.
Also while at school in Oregon I developed the following theory. (I studied philosophy at UIC so don't expect formulas or research to back any of this up...) After coming into contact with someone or something for the first time (or again after a long absence) we are highly likely to encounter that person or thing again within a very small time frame (as compared to how long we lived prior to the first encounter. So for example, while giving blood one day at Oregon State, I sat next to a woman whom I had never met/seen before. We were in close proximity for 15 or 20 minutes whilst our blood was harvested and then we each went our separate ways. Several hours later I was sitting in front of the basketball arena and who should walk by but this same woman. This was not a high traffic time. There were few people around, one of them being her. I had gone 19 years without ever seeing her and then there she was, twice in one day in two very different parts of the campus. OSU is a large campus but still a relatively closed community so I'll grant that this example may not be earth shattering, but it is literally one of several dozens that I have observed in the 10 years since leaving Oregon.
Another example which blows my mind also comes from Oregon. After I was medically disqualified from the Air Force ROTC program I had a hole to fill in my academic schedule and so I opted for an honors class in philosophical writing. We students in the class collaborated with our professor, Kathleen Dean Moore, to write a companion book to a text book Kathleen had written on philosophical arguments. We went along chapter by chapter, using the argumentative principles in our own essays and explanations. In one of those papers I laid out this theory. We had notions of publishing the book but to my knowledge nothing has ever come of it, it was however bound and so we each have a few copies. This endeavor took place in the winter/spring of 2002. After finishing that year at OSU I transferred to UIC and began taking the train in Chicago each day for school. Whilst waiting at the train station one day for the trip home I picked up a copy of the magazine Science at the Borders in the train station. In doing so I did something which I hadn't done much previously and have rarely done since: I read through the bios of the contributors to that issue. It should surprise no one that one of those featured contributors was none other than Kathy Moore, my professor from Oregon State whom I had worked closely with not too many months before. For all I know she wrote the article in that issue while I was studying with her. Mind blowing.
I haven't had much time to figure out if there is any cosmic meaning or significance to this theory. My brother and I trade stories of witnessing the theory in action, only to emphasize how much of a 'stinking genius' I am. Tonight though the theory showed its unpleasant corollary, that tragic events happen together just as easily as surprising or pleasant ones. When I drove by the 1st incident, I was not expecting another, let alone 2 more to come along my path. My own personal faith has seen many ups and downs but has consistently traveled along a constant path. Along the way my commitment to personal prayer has seen similar ups and downs. At the moment I don't pray as much or as often as I would like. There is one time however when I almost always stop and say a prayer and that is when I see or hear an emergency vehicle. A quick 'Our Father' goes out to those impacted by the siren. Intellectually I don't know that my prayers make any difference. I cannot be so presumptive to think that I encountered each of these tragedies tonight so that I could be there to pray for the victims, but in each case, without knowing beforehand what had happened, or why, I said a prayer. My faith maintains that God heard those prayers and some how the suffering of the victims was lessened. I believe in a loving and benevolent God and as such I don't think He needs my imploring to be any more merciful but if my small, insignificant request for intercession helps at all then that is reason enough for me to have intersected tonight's events.
Winter Wonderland
We drove through the Winter Wonderland in Vernon Hills tonight. It wasn't quite what I expected, and we waited over an hour in line to get in, but the girls seemed to like it.
The Details
Winter Wonderland is a Christmas light show done in collaboration with the Cuneo Mansion and Gardens and the Village of Vernon Hills. It runs from November 25th through December 31st, 6pm to 10pm nightly. I would recommend going Monday-Thursday as the cost is only $5 per car. Friday, Saturday or Sunday will cost you $10 per car. They are closed Christmas Eve and Day, but open New Year's Eve.
The Experience
Outside of going on the more expensive night (and waiting in line for more than an hour) the experience was good overall. My only real regret is that there was no snow on the ground. I'm sure the lights really dazzle with a fresh white backdrop to glisten against.
There were so many people tonight and only a single person taking money which resulted in a long delay to get in. Just getting from the main road to the entrance took 35 or 40 minutes. Once on the entrance road I was a little under-whelmed. The entrance road was lined with cartoon characters and lighted archways. Needless to say I couldn't accept this as the 'light show' we had come to see. Once we finally got up to the pay station it became clear that the light show was yet to come. At this point I would say that my expectations were met. As mentioned above, my only wish is that there had been a soft, snowy background for the lights to shine against. There is also an in-house radio station, playing Christmas music and the occasional announcement/welcome to the show message. The station had some static which surprised us. Every so often the Christmas song would be interrupted with a basketball play.
The Final Word
I would take our family back again this year, but only on a $5 week night and only when there was sufficient snow on the ground to justify seeing the show in a new light, pun definitely intended.
USB to Projector
So I'm setting up projectors in the school where I work. And for us, the optimal setup is to use USB cables to connect the PCs and the projectors, however, there is a catch. The distance is such that the USB cables need a signal booster.
Now, in the first few tests I did, full screen video came over very choppy. I don't know if this is because of the hardware running on the host PC, because of the distance running over the USB cables, a fault of the cable or just my plain bad luck.
This is not a hardware forum. I am not posting a request for help therefore I am not going into great detail about the configuration of the machines I was testing. Rather I am writing to lament.
Google doesn't have much to help me in this. I'll admit I'm rather surprised. Usually a good google search will yield at least one or two promising leads, but in trying to find others who have used this setup I came across no answers in google's top results. I find this perplexing.
Now, I could go to Experts Exchange, of which I am a member, and do a similar search and maybe get an answer. More often than not though, if Experts Exchange has something, google will know and point one to it. Also as often, support forums contain advice to 'do a google search' for the described symptoms before posting to the forum.
In this case though such advice would seemingly be null advice. So now I have another question. Am I unique in seeing performance issues with this setup? Or, am I foolish to try this setup? Should I know better than to try a 40' USB cable run for something as data heavy as a full video signal streaming from the likes of Netflix? Hard to say. Time will tell. I have more powerful systems down the line to test. Perhaps one of them will yield better results.
Or, google, you could do a better job of finding this information and having it ready for me at a fraction of a second. By the way, how are you doing regarding my suggestion here? When will I be able to click a link form a search page and actually be taken directly to the result excerpt as shown on the search results page? It does me know good to like a search result only to find that the summary bit I twigged to isn't actually on the page you take me to. Even if it is there, but obscurely buried in a link to follow that doesn't help me either. In the words of Rob Brown as Jamal Wallace, "Come on professor Crawford!"
Dakotah Steakhouse – Rapid City, SD
We ate at Dakotah Steakhouse on Wednesday, June 29th. At the time of our visit the restaurant had been open for about a month.
On the whole I would rate the place as a 7/10.
The experience didn't start off great. The hostess seemed distracted and disinterested in us. When she asked us if we had reservations and got a negative response her attitude somehow got worse. It was not overtly nasty but rather seemed bothered that we hadn't called ahead (which would have been strange to do at 4pm in the afternoon anyway...)
After getting a table the experience got steadily better. The decor was very modernly rustic. It's a steakhouse so there is a western/cowboy flair but in an upscale way.
What the hostess lacked in personality our waitress more than made up for. She was very engaging, especially with our girls. It all did get to be a little much after awhile though.
The food we ordered was on the whole very good. I am glad we got food off of the lunch menu though as the lunch prices looked more like dinner prices. I don't miss not seeing the dinner menu, even though the lunch menus we had said that lunch went until 4pm and we were seated at 4:06pm. A typo, our waitress explained.
Despite it's newness, there were a substantial number of people there. I don't know that we would be compelled to go back but that may be a function of the other great places we like to frequent in the Black Hills. Coming soon some thoughts on the Sylvan Lake Lodge. That meal was fantastic! (Yet even there the host was a little lethargic. First impressions people!)
Sad
This is why I never wanted a driver's license until I could purchase an electric car...
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2011/06/20116227153978324.html
Earthwise 20inch 24-volt 60120
Earthwise 20" 24 volt 60120 Electric Lawn Mower made by American Lawn Mower Company
I purchased this lawn mower at my local Ace Hardware for about $340 with tax. I bought the already assembled one without a box. When I bought it the manager said they would simply take another out of the box and assemble it for the floor. To date I have yet to see another in place of the one I bought.
All reviews are done on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being highest. I plan to give an overall rating with various components broken down within to give a measure of the true product. All ratings are shown below followed by an overall impression and then each of the breakdown ratings followed by specific explanation.
I have decided to write reviews
As much as I enjoy writing about my own thoughts, from a pure perspective of commerce, I acknowledge that they aren't going to draw a large audience up front. And without a large audience, who will be enticed by all of those pithy Ads from Google. (As fair warning, I am in the process of reading In the Plex by Steven Levy, an interesting and unique look into Google's inner sanctum.)
Reviewed products will be items that I actually own and have used at least a dozen times.
Some of the items I plan to review up front:
Earthwise 20" 24 volt 60120 Electric Lawn Mower made by American Lawn Mower Company
Channel Master® VHF/UHF/FM/TV Fringe Antenna (3020TA)
Passport Ultra Lite Grand Touring 2910 BH
Kindle 3
DroidX
Irony of Ironies
I miss computer programs. The App has replaced traditional software to the point that I now want apps available only on my phone also to be usable on my PC.
Ironic, isn't it?
Let's look at some examples.
WordPress for instance. This site is powered by WordPress. A site that I manage at work is now also powered by WordPress. Thanks to the fine talent at Automattic I can put an App on my Android powered smart phone and interact with each of these WordPress powered sites easily and seamlessly. But if I want to do the same thing while sitting at my Dell Inspiron 700m I have to log in to each site individually and navigate through the full on menu structure. For heavy site maintenance this is fine but for the occasional comment approval or post update the Android App is much more efficient.
Or how about Apps like Flipboard or Zite? I really like the niche of these two products. If you are at all familiar with this site (i.e. the one you are reading right now) you'll understand that I would like nothing more than to sit around all day and consume raw information. Without an ipad I am forced to do without the two previously mentioned Apps as they aren't available for Android. Not that I would want to actually use them on my phone but you get the picture.
For some applications, the target website may be sufficient, at least at face value, but I would disagree. With a dedicated App the designers must emphasize the usability and feature set. All of the things a user wants to do must necessarily be easy to get to else the proverbial peloton in this case will give poor reviews and move on to the next easier App to use. It is that direct functionality that I miss when having to use a website rather than a dedicated Application.
Certain Apps get it right and offer both.
Evernote does it right. I can install the program on my laptop and also on my phone giving me direct access either way. They also maintain a web version as well for those needing to access the service without smart phone or personal PC (for future reference I will use the term PC to refer to any full on computer whether it be desktop or laptop, windows, mac or linux). Well played Evernote.
Others similarly come close to hitting the mark. I like Seesmic for my twitter consumption (and some production as well). I love the phone App but am not so crazy about the PC version.
In a perfect world...
I would love to have PC versions of the Smart phone Apps such that if you divided my laptop screen into portions roughly the size of my DroidX I could have 5 to 6 Apps going at once. I could bounce between them at ease and get quite a bit done without having to swype my way through things. (If you have seen an Inspiron 700m you'll know that it isn't large and could easily be mistaken for a netbook except that it first came out in 2004 and predates the netbook devolution. (That's right, I'm not too fond of the netbook, not from a purpose standpoint but rather from a hardware standpoint. I see them as cheap laptop imitations that are being marketed to a Walmart generation. Yes, I like quality. I am my father's son and there's not much to do about that now. And what is wrong with good quality anyway???) Anyway, it has a 12.1 inch screen so isn't large by laptop standards. Just the same I could be really productive leveraging the compact App architecture that has come about with the Smart phone revolution. Imagine each App interface as a portal to the cloud.
Maybe it's the way of the future...way of the future...way of the future.