The Fifty-State Quarter program is now nearing an end. 42 states' quarters are out in general circulation. That has made the change in our pockets a lot more interesting than it used to be. When you get change, you could get Massachusetts or Georgia or Oregon or a collection of such states. The designs have turned out to be interesting. They include the horses of Nevada, the branching tree of Connecticut, the spectacular bridge of West Virginia, the Double Buffalo quarters of North Dakota, train vs train of Utah, and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds with Arkansas. All of them say something about the state. Some ancient, such as the Jamestown settlement of Virginia, and some recent, such as the space shuttle of Florida. Some urban, such as the city skyline of Illinois, some rural as in Wisconsin and Iowa, and some wilderness such as Washington State. Some serious struggles as with New Jersey, and some leisure with Rhode Island. Mammals in Delaware and Kansas; birds in Louisiana and Minnesota, fish in Washington, trees in Vermont and Connecticut, flowers in Mississippi and South Carolina, and food in Wisconsin. So there is a wide variety.
What do I think of the coins? I have ranked them below. I have included states htat have not come out yet; 2007's have come out and one can find them on the Internet; 2008's are still to be decided upon and for these, I made a guess as to what the coin will contain. To me Nevada has the best design of all; the horses and sun are spectacular. California is next because it is a good nature scene. The worst are Montana celebrating death, Indiana celebrating a culture that turns me off, and New Hampshire, which just plain looks ugly. Here is the complete list:
1. Nevada. Horses and Sun are spectacular.
2. California. Great nature scene of hiker and condor.
3. Maine. Good shore scene with lighthouse.
4. Utah. The old-fashioned trains make this one interesting.
5. Iowa. Schoolhouse gives this a rural flavor.
6. West Virginia. Spectacular view from this bridge.
7. North Dakota. Our only two-buffalo coin.
8. Nebraska. Sunshine and scenery.
9. Vermont. Attractive scene of maple sapping.
10. [Alaska]. Good if it contains either polar bear or Big Dipper.
11. South Carolina. Attractive elements but a little crowded.
12. Connecticut. Most intricate of the coins.
13. Kansas. Good try at buffalo coin but too much open space.
14. [Arizona]. Cactus seems dreary - need some spark.
15. Georgia. Peach looks nice but otherwise hackneyed.
16. Rhode Island. Good summer scene but little to do with RI.
17. [New Mexico]. Native American design is interesting - nuke cloud would be frightening.
18. Wisconsin. Good elements but a little busy.
19. Texas. Looks plain but star is distinctive.
20. Minnesota. Good wilds scene but other coins have wilds scenes.
21. Arkansas. Diamond makes this one distinctive.
22. [Oklahoma]. Need something more than outline and woman.
23. North Carolina. Good history but plain design.
24. Alabama. Honors great person but design somewhat unattractive.
25. New Jersey. Battle scene interesting but can be confused with Virginia.
26. Washington. Naturalistic but ordinary.
27. South Dakota. Too obvious and pheasant is not native.
28. [Hawaii]. All designs look too obvious.
29. Tennessee. Instruments good but does not give overall good look.
30. Illinois. Too busy but Lincoln and towers give it a good look.
31. Oregon. Too obvious. What more?
32. Kentucky. Horse would be better outside the fence.
33. Virginia. Too ordinary - honors invaders.
34. Missouri. Arch and boat too incongruous.
35. Idaho. Why does this have a peregrine falcon head?
36. Louisiana. Louisiana, not entire US. But pelican is good.
37. New York. Too obvious but formidable symbol anyway.
38. Ohio. Too much empty space; contradicts North Carolina.
39. Colorado. Too ordinary; looks like torn paper instead of mountains.
40. Delaware. Horseman good but there is more to the state than that.
41. Florida. Three haphazard symbols and too much empty space.
42. Pennsylvania. Too ordinary.
43. Mississippi. Too obvious - was not designed by Mississippians.
44. Massachusetts. Too obvious and trite.
45. Wyoming. Too obvious and trite; also represents cowboy mentality.
46. Michigan. Is about Great Lakes not Michigan.
47. New Hampshire. Rock is ugly and formation crumbled in 2003.
48. Maryland. What's there to like about a steeple?
49. Indiana. Honors undesirable culture.
50. Montana. Symbolizes death.
All I ask now of the US Mint is please don't go back to the eagle in 2009! Continue the commemoration in these quarters and keep our change interesting. My idea is to start all over again with Delaware. Have Delaware find a different design for its coins; perhaps the Lewes Ferry. The same with Pennsylvania and all the rest. The mint could use historical events, trees, birds, or one of a number of themes. But select one and go with it. Let's not go back to the eagle.
A Journey through Blogrealm
2007/05/23
2007/01/29
Mendacious Blogger
Here are the results of my posting this blog to the new Blogger. Blogger lied. In their "tour", they say that the dreaded bangangle (my notation for "triangle with an exclamation point in it") won't appear. It sure did appear. And it kept spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning. I knew that Blogtrek had over 500 posts but I did not expect this to happen. Just for fun, I checked out Blogtrek. It came up OK, and with the new blog added. So Blogger also lied about whether it was still publishing or not. And it still keeps coming up with these pink remarks about not being connected to Blogger. So from what I can see, Blogger (and Google, the instigator of all this), you have accomplished a downgrade, not an upgrade.
New Blogger
When I tried to reject a spammy comment to Beyond Opinion today, Blogger threw up this thing about the new Blogger. It is supposed to give me all these new features. OK, Blogger. What is it going to take away from me and what is it going to mess up on me? Huh? You don't explain. You don't say whether you are going to take my blogs and duplicate them on my web site, because if you do that you will mess up my website completely because you will exceed my size limit on my personal website. You say that you will let me use the old Blogger for a while. But then the next time I access your site I can't find anywhere where to get to the old blog that I had. You indicate old and new, but when I click on old, you throw up a site that says I need to upgrade to new. OK. You forced me to convert to your new system. If you mess up my website or my blogs, I will no longer use Blogger.
It converted them but it did not seem to do much. My megabyte usage on Mindspring is still the same. I have this new interface to begin with, but much of it seems like old. That is why I am writing this message. I want to see what happens when I post to the new Blogger. I hope this works out OK. And I hope this ends the spate of spam comments that I have been getting regularly. You won't see them on my blog. I moderate them and have rejected them all.
Oh, yes. One thing I see already that I don't see in the old blog. I get pink messages saying I can't connect to Blogger. I get them only a fraction of a second at a time, almost subliminally. So it looks like the new Blogger is not off to a good start. Here goes.
It converted them but it did not seem to do much. My megabyte usage on Mindspring is still the same. I have this new interface to begin with, but much of it seems like old. That is why I am writing this message. I want to see what happens when I post to the new Blogger. I hope this works out OK. And I hope this ends the spate of spam comments that I have been getting regularly. You won't see them on my blog. I moderate them and have rejected them all.
Oh, yes. One thing I see already that I don't see in the old blog. I get pink messages saying I can't connect to Blogger. I get them only a fraction of a second at a time, almost subliminally. So it looks like the new Blogger is not off to a good start. Here goes.
2006/08/29
Answers.yahoo.com
About a month or two ago I found an interesting site on the Web, part of Yahoo! I happened on it when I read a story on the CNN web site saying how Stephen Hawking displayed a question on the site. The site is answers.yahoo.com , in which people submit questions and other surfers answer them. They can be of any number of subjects. I tried it out and found it a good place to answer other people's questions - sort of like a general purpose tutor.
There is a point system with Answers.yahoo.com . If you visit a site on a day, you get 1 point. If you ask a question, you lose 5 points. Apparently, you pay to have your questions answered with points. If you answer a question, you get 2 points. From what I gather, after some people answer a question, the originator can select a best answer. That person gets 10 points. If he just abandons the question after leaving it there, it goes to a vote, with the most votes getting "best answer". After you get a certain number of points, you can rate questions, answers, and selections as best answer. You can get email notifications of such things as an answer to your question or being selected best answer to a question.
There's a wide variety of types of questions. Some of these are deeply philosophical, such as "Does God exist?" Others are presumptive, such as "If Tel Aviv were bombed, who would George Bush get his orders from?" Some of them are hilarious or whimsical, such as "Do snakes sneeze?" Some questions occur over and over again, such as "What is 2 + 2?" I've been answering that "5", citing as my reference George Orwell's 1984.
The first question I asked was "When mathematicians refer to the square root of -1, which one do they mean?" Many answerers simply said "i", as this is used as a symbol for the square root of -1. The whole point was that there are two such square roots (i and -i) and it is hard to tell them apart because they have identical properties. I was surprised that an answerer named "mathematician" came up with a way of distinguishing these! He said take the polynomial ring R[X] modulo X2 + 1, and take i to be the image of X in this quotient ring.
I asked "Is Jupiter a planet", hoping to get someone arguing that it was a dwarf star or something. Everyone said it was a planet, however. The "demoting" of Pluto to a "dwarf planet" generated a lot of questions, many of them from "Pluto" fans.
I found that many of these questioners use bad English spelling and grammar, to the point sometimes of changing the meaning of their questions. Some of them evidently have some other language as their primary language, and the resulting English constructions sound weird, and in some places the meaning has changed. Some even answer in Spanish. This is not allowed. There is a Spanish language version of Yahoo! they can go to. I answered one such question in Spanish and English, then later I found the question had been removed.
One effect of answers.yahoo.com is that it drew me away from blogging. I am uncertain of getting a response by blogging, but I do get it from answers.yahoo.com . However, I usually don't get a record on my hard drive of my Yahoo! answers.
Many of my answers have been in mathematics and astronomy, but not all, and in general I find it a good place to get answers from people even if they are facetious.
There is a point system with Answers.yahoo.com . If you visit a site on a day, you get 1 point. If you ask a question, you lose 5 points. Apparently, you pay to have your questions answered with points. If you answer a question, you get 2 points. From what I gather, after some people answer a question, the originator can select a best answer. That person gets 10 points. If he just abandons the question after leaving it there, it goes to a vote, with the most votes getting "best answer". After you get a certain number of points, you can rate questions, answers, and selections as best answer. You can get email notifications of such things as an answer to your question or being selected best answer to a question.
There's a wide variety of types of questions. Some of these are deeply philosophical, such as "Does God exist?" Others are presumptive, such as "If Tel Aviv were bombed, who would George Bush get his orders from?" Some of them are hilarious or whimsical, such as "Do snakes sneeze?" Some questions occur over and over again, such as "What is 2 + 2?" I've been answering that "5", citing as my reference George Orwell's 1984.
The first question I asked was "When mathematicians refer to the square root of -1, which one do they mean?" Many answerers simply said "i", as this is used as a symbol for the square root of -1. The whole point was that there are two such square roots (i and -i) and it is hard to tell them apart because they have identical properties. I was surprised that an answerer named "mathematician" came up with a way of distinguishing these! He said take the polynomial ring R[X] modulo X2 + 1, and take i to be the image of X in this quotient ring.
I asked "Is Jupiter a planet", hoping to get someone arguing that it was a dwarf star or something. Everyone said it was a planet, however. The "demoting" of Pluto to a "dwarf planet" generated a lot of questions, many of them from "Pluto" fans.
I found that many of these questioners use bad English spelling and grammar, to the point sometimes of changing the meaning of their questions. Some of them evidently have some other language as their primary language, and the resulting English constructions sound weird, and in some places the meaning has changed. Some even answer in Spanish. This is not allowed. There is a Spanish language version of Yahoo! they can go to. I answered one such question in Spanish and English, then later I found the question had been removed.
One effect of answers.yahoo.com is that it drew me away from blogging. I am uncertain of getting a response by blogging, but I do get it from answers.yahoo.com . However, I usually don't get a record on my hard drive of my Yahoo! answers.
Many of my answers have been in mathematics and astronomy, but not all, and in general I find it a good place to get answers from people even if they are facetious.
2006/06/08
Double Counting
I ran into two instances of double counting in 24 hours. One is in mathematics, and the other pertains to a Toastmasters rating system.
The mathematical one involved this algorithm on numbers. Take the last digit and deduct it from the rest. For example, with the number 4257, take the 7 and subtract it from 425: 425 - 7 = 418. Repeat the process: 41 - 8 = 33; 3 - 3 = 0. The number is divisible by 11 if and only if you get zero at the end. Further, the digits you pull off along the way form the quotient: 387. Someone on Mathnerds wanted help in proving that this algorithm works. I suggested proving by mathematical induction. If the number is 10x + y (in our example, x = 425, y = 7, 10x+y = 4257), then the operation means subtracting y to obtain 10x, then subtracting y from the result (actually 10y since we chopped off a place): 10x - 10y = 10(x - y). By induction, x - y is divisible by 11 and the quotient is, say, the integer z. then 10x + y = 10(x-y) + 10y + y = 110z + 11y = 11(10z+y), so the number is divisible by 11 and the quotient has last digit y. The person who wanted help wanted to know why we subtract y twice. We do so because the first time represents taking the last digit off the number, and the second time represents subtracting the 10y. In fact, that is why 11 is involved: 11 consists of two 1s.
The Toastmasters instance involved discussion of the Distinguished Club Plan. A Toastmaster Club earns one point for each of the following: earning two Competent Toastmaster (CTM) awards, earning two more CTMs, earning an Advanced Toastmaster (ATM) award, earning another one, earning a leadership award, earning another one, getting four more members, getting four more members, getting at least 4/7 of the officers trained, and turning in required reports in on time. But - a Toastmaster club must be over 20 members or have increased by 5 members before it can even be considered for these awards. A Toastmaster in my club found our club had 3 new members in the year, but because of losses, we increased from 11 only to 13 members. We need 3 new members. If we get that, we earn the first membership requirement (four members) and earn two members towards the second four members. The other Toastmaster said that was double counting - first we count the members to qualify; then we count them towards membership points. I didn't think so. There are two separate requirements - the 20 or increase in 5 requirement and the membership points in the Distinguished Club Plan.
It is interesting that two of these double countings came in the same day. What causes these? Apparently there is the underlying assumption in our society that you need to do something only once - we don't sign a million dollar contract twice, we don't try a man twice for the same crime (that is called "double jeopardy"), and we don’t get married twice. So they generalize to other concepts.. For example, a retiree with a job is said to be a "double dipper". In each case, you must look at the conditions. If the first trial never occurred, then to try the person again is not double jeopardy. If the contract is signed, that is enough to bind the two parties to the requirements of the contract. In our number example, the two subtractions mean two different things - taking a digit off the number, and subtracting a number. The two membership requirements are separate - one is an absolute condition for getting Distinguished Club rating, and the other is one of the points that the club can earn.
Still it is confusing and one needs to check the conditions to see if a certain case really is one of double counting.
The mathematical one involved this algorithm on numbers. Take the last digit and deduct it from the rest. For example, with the number 4257, take the 7 and subtract it from 425: 425 - 7 = 418. Repeat the process: 41 - 8 = 33; 3 - 3 = 0. The number is divisible by 11 if and only if you get zero at the end. Further, the digits you pull off along the way form the quotient: 387. Someone on Mathnerds wanted help in proving that this algorithm works. I suggested proving by mathematical induction. If the number is 10x + y (in our example, x = 425, y = 7, 10x+y = 4257), then the operation means subtracting y to obtain 10x, then subtracting y from the result (actually 10y since we chopped off a place): 10x - 10y = 10(x - y). By induction, x - y is divisible by 11 and the quotient is, say, the integer z. then 10x + y = 10(x-y) + 10y + y = 110z + 11y = 11(10z+y), so the number is divisible by 11 and the quotient has last digit y. The person who wanted help wanted to know why we subtract y twice. We do so because the first time represents taking the last digit off the number, and the second time represents subtracting the 10y. In fact, that is why 11 is involved: 11 consists of two 1s.
The Toastmasters instance involved discussion of the Distinguished Club Plan. A Toastmaster Club earns one point for each of the following: earning two Competent Toastmaster (CTM) awards, earning two more CTMs, earning an Advanced Toastmaster (ATM) award, earning another one, earning a leadership award, earning another one, getting four more members, getting four more members, getting at least 4/7 of the officers trained, and turning in required reports in on time. But - a Toastmaster club must be over 20 members or have increased by 5 members before it can even be considered for these awards. A Toastmaster in my club found our club had 3 new members in the year, but because of losses, we increased from 11 only to 13 members. We need 3 new members. If we get that, we earn the first membership requirement (four members) and earn two members towards the second four members. The other Toastmaster said that was double counting - first we count the members to qualify; then we count them towards membership points. I didn't think so. There are two separate requirements - the 20 or increase in 5 requirement and the membership points in the Distinguished Club Plan.
It is interesting that two of these double countings came in the same day. What causes these? Apparently there is the underlying assumption in our society that you need to do something only once - we don't sign a million dollar contract twice, we don't try a man twice for the same crime (that is called "double jeopardy"), and we don’t get married twice. So they generalize to other concepts.. For example, a retiree with a job is said to be a "double dipper". In each case, you must look at the conditions. If the first trial never occurred, then to try the person again is not double jeopardy. If the contract is signed, that is enough to bind the two parties to the requirements of the contract. In our number example, the two subtractions mean two different things - taking a digit off the number, and subtracting a number. The two membership requirements are separate - one is an absolute condition for getting Distinguished Club rating, and the other is one of the points that the club can earn.
Still it is confusing and one needs to check the conditions to see if a certain case really is one of double counting.
2006/05/15
Peace: You Can Get It on eBay
Yesterday (2006 May 14) after my Unitarian Universalist church service, someone came up to me and asked if I wanted to sign a petition to form a Department of Peace, a Cabinet-level position in the United States Government. I didn't sign it, as I believe it would create another bureaucratic agency, and further, it could later be merged with the Department of State or Defense; the latter would create Orwellian overtones. But I thought the idea was good of having the Government take the lead in maintaining peace in the world.
So today I Googled for "Department of Peace". I found a web site devoted to that department. But what struck me the most was an ad in the upper right corner. It said:
Department Of Peace
Whatever you're looking for
you can get it on eBay.
www.eBay.com
So the Department of Peace is available on eBay? Quick, does President Bush know about this? Instead of sending in soldiers to maintain peace in many foreign lands, he could purchase this Department for probably a low bid (who else is going to bid for it?) and use that instead. Peace. You can get it on eBay. Would be nice if it were true.
But then I tried other things in Google. I not only want world peace, I want an end to all war. So I tried Googling for "end to all war". I found that no, you can't get this on eBay:
To End All War at Amazon
Low prices on to end all war.
Qualified orders over $25 ship free
Amazon.com
No, you have to get it on Amazon instead, although you can get it for a low price. And what's this about a war going on at Amazon? Is a managerial shakeup at Amazon imminent? Is this what's going to end that war?
That's not all. I found you can get gamma ray bursts at Amazon. I mentioned this to my astronomy society tonight (2006 May 15). Some asked if it comes bottled.
I Googled "depleted uranium" and couldn't find anywhere to buy it. But when I Googled "enriched uranium", I found that it was available on eBay. That's scary. I hope this Ahmadinejad kook over in Iran gets absolutely nowhere near a mouse. Please, Google. Let's stick to selling Peace over eBay. In fact, let's sell Peace everywhere - it needs to be bought in mega quantities.
So today I Googled for "Department of Peace". I found a web site devoted to that department. But what struck me the most was an ad in the upper right corner. It said:
Department Of Peace
Whatever you're looking for
you can get it on eBay.
www.eBay.com
So the Department of Peace is available on eBay? Quick, does President Bush know about this? Instead of sending in soldiers to maintain peace in many foreign lands, he could purchase this Department for probably a low bid (who else is going to bid for it?) and use that instead. Peace. You can get it on eBay. Would be nice if it were true.
But then I tried other things in Google. I not only want world peace, I want an end to all war. So I tried Googling for "end to all war". I found that no, you can't get this on eBay:
To End All War at Amazon
Low prices on to end all war.
Qualified orders over $25 ship free
Amazon.com
No, you have to get it on Amazon instead, although you can get it for a low price. And what's this about a war going on at Amazon? Is a managerial shakeup at Amazon imminent? Is this what's going to end that war?
That's not all. I found you can get gamma ray bursts at Amazon. I mentioned this to my astronomy society tonight (2006 May 15). Some asked if it comes bottled.
I Googled "depleted uranium" and couldn't find anywhere to buy it. But when I Googled "enriched uranium", I found that it was available on eBay. That's scary. I hope this Ahmadinejad kook over in Iran gets absolutely nowhere near a mouse. Please, Google. Let's stick to selling Peace over eBay. In fact, let's sell Peace everywhere - it needs to be bought in mega quantities.
2006/05/06
It makes me want to leave Richmond
Tonight, when I wanted to listen to the 6:00 pm local news on WWBT Channel 12 in Richmond, they were presenting the Kentucky Derby instead. So I went to Channel 8 instead. But then I wondered, when was this race going to take place? All the time I have a problem watching the local and national news on Sunday because sports events such as football and basketball continually bomb them out. But horse races have got to be one of the shortest sports events around. It only lasts a couple of minutes. So I decided to watch that instead. I had to wait a while before they started the race, but then they did, starting off 20 horses galloping to see which can reach the finish line first.
I watched as two horses known as Keyed Entry and Sinister Minister took the lead, with Keyed Entry first. After a couple of laps, all of a sudden they didn't talk about these two horses anymore. Instead they were talking about Brother Derek and then all at once Barbaro, as the horses rounded the final turn. Barbaro took a huge lead and won the race.
I then turned back to Channel 8. I heard the weather woman there describe the forecast for tomorrow - this nice warm weather we had is going to turn into cold and rainy on Monday. At least put that weather on Monday - not on the weekend. Channel 8 continued with sports. Did they talk about the exciting finish at the Kentucky Derby? No, they yapped about NASCAR. I instantly flipped the channel back to 12 for the wrap-up after the Derby. I wanted to find out how Sinister Minister finished, especially since my church just called a new minister. But I could not find that. After the wrap-up was finished, I turned to Channel 8 again for the news.
To me the Kentucky Derby beats NASCAR any day. Why do Richmonders want to watch all these souped up cars sucking up the world's precious oil race around and crash into each other? To me, a horse beats a car any day. Not for everyday transportation, though, as the horse is slower and it does present the plop cleanup problem. But when we are attending leisure events, let's put the car behind us. Let's watch nature's animal creation, the horse, race in an event that takes only a twinkling of the eye to complete. I don't see why Richmond is so gung ho on NASCAR. It makes me want to pack up my bags, leave Richmond, and move to Louisville.
And these cars come either with no names or with mindless names, like X-3 and the like. Horse names have got to be one of the finest creations of humankind. I don't think I will ever see a sinister minister ever in a church (except possibly my church) but you will see one at the Derby. You key entries in a computer and also on a horse - Keyed Entry. Steppenwulfer is a medieval character, or a horse. And remember Funny Cide last year? I sure don't want to destroy the humor of a party or speech, except when it comes in a horse - then I will want to commit funnycide. And take a look at the other entries today - Showing Up, Bluegrass Cat (only a horse can be a cat, except a cat of course), Storm Treasure, Cause to Believe, Flashy Bull, and Point Determined. My point is determined. Horse races beat car races any day. The action is in Louisville, not in Richmond.
And then I listened to the news. But what if the news stories on ABC were horses? And they're off! Here comes Top Spy coming down the track. And now Fighting Addiction is coming up behind him. He's closing the gap, but wait! Here on the outside is Wigging Out, catching up to Fighting Addition as Fighting Addiction is overtaking Top Spy. He's catching up, he's catching up, and… It's Wigging Out by a hair. And so Wigging Out is the winner of the ABC News Derby for today. So bet on your horse. But bet for sure that horses beat cars any day.
I watched as two horses known as Keyed Entry and Sinister Minister took the lead, with Keyed Entry first. After a couple of laps, all of a sudden they didn't talk about these two horses anymore. Instead they were talking about Brother Derek and then all at once Barbaro, as the horses rounded the final turn. Barbaro took a huge lead and won the race.
I then turned back to Channel 8. I heard the weather woman there describe the forecast for tomorrow - this nice warm weather we had is going to turn into cold and rainy on Monday. At least put that weather on Monday - not on the weekend. Channel 8 continued with sports. Did they talk about the exciting finish at the Kentucky Derby? No, they yapped about NASCAR. I instantly flipped the channel back to 12 for the wrap-up after the Derby. I wanted to find out how Sinister Minister finished, especially since my church just called a new minister. But I could not find that. After the wrap-up was finished, I turned to Channel 8 again for the news.
To me the Kentucky Derby beats NASCAR any day. Why do Richmonders want to watch all these souped up cars sucking up the world's precious oil race around and crash into each other? To me, a horse beats a car any day. Not for everyday transportation, though, as the horse is slower and it does present the plop cleanup problem. But when we are attending leisure events, let's put the car behind us. Let's watch nature's animal creation, the horse, race in an event that takes only a twinkling of the eye to complete. I don't see why Richmond is so gung ho on NASCAR. It makes me want to pack up my bags, leave Richmond, and move to Louisville.
And these cars come either with no names or with mindless names, like X-3 and the like. Horse names have got to be one of the finest creations of humankind. I don't think I will ever see a sinister minister ever in a church (except possibly my church) but you will see one at the Derby. You key entries in a computer and also on a horse - Keyed Entry. Steppenwulfer is a medieval character, or a horse. And remember Funny Cide last year? I sure don't want to destroy the humor of a party or speech, except when it comes in a horse - then I will want to commit funnycide. And take a look at the other entries today - Showing Up, Bluegrass Cat (only a horse can be a cat, except a cat of course), Storm Treasure, Cause to Believe, Flashy Bull, and Point Determined. My point is determined. Horse races beat car races any day. The action is in Louisville, not in Richmond.
And then I listened to the news. But what if the news stories on ABC were horses? And they're off! Here comes Top Spy coming down the track. And now Fighting Addiction is coming up behind him. He's closing the gap, but wait! Here on the outside is Wigging Out, catching up to Fighting Addition as Fighting Addiction is overtaking Top Spy. He's catching up, he's catching up, and… It's Wigging Out by a hair. And so Wigging Out is the winner of the ABC News Derby for today. So bet on your horse. But bet for sure that horses beat cars any day.
2006/04/27
To blog or not to blog
I found an interesting story on Slate. It is by Sarah Hepola who says she is taking down her blog. Since I have been blogging since 2002 and now have seven different blogs, this interested me. Why would she want to shut it down?
I found out from reading the article that it is because blogs tend to make thoughts come out in little dribbles. You blog something every week or every day. You don't have that much time in a day so you tend to come out in little pieces. Sarah said she would start on her novel and come up with five different blogs instead. I have that problem at times, as well. I tend to come up with these little thoughts, so I write up Toastmaster speeches (really these are spoken blogs) or blogs about it. I might write one on fireflies, another on the Defense of Marriage Act ("DUMBA"), still another on a possible hurricane or a skywatch and so forth. So I can't come up with anything substantial, like a novel, book on fireflies, or book on astronomy at skywatches. I'm not a firefly expert at all, for instance. And my blogs started to all get meshed with each other and hard to find or read through. That is why I made up seven blogs, one for each of my interests - religion, astronomy and nature, peak oil, mathematics, weather, my own opinions on things (usually political), and general subjects, which is what this blog, Blogtrek, is about.
So do I come up with substantial things? I used to. I wrote a 60-page thesis to obtain my doctorate at Northwestern in 1972. Right now I am writing a story. I started it last summer and am still writing it - it is now 41 pages long, entitled "The Moving Picture" about a picture of a nude couple that keeps turning up in the wrong place all the time. I would write a little bit at a time, and sometimes my writing drives the story in unforeseen ways; for example, a lovemaking scene all at once turns into one where the man calls another woman to talk about traffic jams. But I have kept at work on the story. I don't know if it is publishable - probably not, right now - but I have kept at it.
Maybe when I blog I feel like I have to have a finished product right away, and so I write something up quick, and it is short. The same with a Toastmaster speech. I usually come up with something on the spur of the moment, and it is only 5-7 minutes in length, the length of a standard Toastmaster speech. In any case I don't think that quitting blogging will help me to write a novel or finish "The Moving Picture".
What it is is that one can't complete a big project in a day so one spends all his time with little projects and so doesn't get anything notable done. I suppose the only way to handle this is to do the big project a little bit at a time. If it is cleaning the attic, sort a box a day. If it's building a house, build a few boards a day. If I want to write a novel, write a scene or a piece of a scene every day. That is what I am doing with "The Moving Picture". And it's the same way with establishing a business, writing a doctoral thesis, or anything big. Big things start from little ones. Has Sarah tried writing part of a novel in a blog every day? Maybe I could write a blognovel. I have been thinking of writing one about a boy's (and later man's) fascination with railroad tracks and trains.
And she remarks that she can keep it secret or make it open, or at least pretend these things. Why blog? One could write a book and get it published, or write a personal diary in a diary book or on the computer without putting it on the web. Maybe blogging revolves around this wondering if someone is going to see it, and if so, what is their reaction to it. It's that sense of the unknown seeing you and appreciating you that puts some of the zest in blogging. Perhaps this gets too much for some, perhaps for Sarah right now. But eventually I will wind up (and probably so will Sarah) blogging again.
Thus endeth my self-referential blogging on blogging.
I found out from reading the article that it is because blogs tend to make thoughts come out in little dribbles. You blog something every week or every day. You don't have that much time in a day so you tend to come out in little pieces. Sarah said she would start on her novel and come up with five different blogs instead. I have that problem at times, as well. I tend to come up with these little thoughts, so I write up Toastmaster speeches (really these are spoken blogs) or blogs about it. I might write one on fireflies, another on the Defense of Marriage Act ("DUMBA"), still another on a possible hurricane or a skywatch and so forth. So I can't come up with anything substantial, like a novel, book on fireflies, or book on astronomy at skywatches. I'm not a firefly expert at all, for instance. And my blogs started to all get meshed with each other and hard to find or read through. That is why I made up seven blogs, one for each of my interests - religion, astronomy and nature, peak oil, mathematics, weather, my own opinions on things (usually political), and general subjects, which is what this blog, Blogtrek, is about.
So do I come up with substantial things? I used to. I wrote a 60-page thesis to obtain my doctorate at Northwestern in 1972. Right now I am writing a story. I started it last summer and am still writing it - it is now 41 pages long, entitled "The Moving Picture" about a picture of a nude couple that keeps turning up in the wrong place all the time. I would write a little bit at a time, and sometimes my writing drives the story in unforeseen ways; for example, a lovemaking scene all at once turns into one where the man calls another woman to talk about traffic jams. But I have kept at work on the story. I don't know if it is publishable - probably not, right now - but I have kept at it.
Maybe when I blog I feel like I have to have a finished product right away, and so I write something up quick, and it is short. The same with a Toastmaster speech. I usually come up with something on the spur of the moment, and it is only 5-7 minutes in length, the length of a standard Toastmaster speech. In any case I don't think that quitting blogging will help me to write a novel or finish "The Moving Picture".
What it is is that one can't complete a big project in a day so one spends all his time with little projects and so doesn't get anything notable done. I suppose the only way to handle this is to do the big project a little bit at a time. If it is cleaning the attic, sort a box a day. If it's building a house, build a few boards a day. If I want to write a novel, write a scene or a piece of a scene every day. That is what I am doing with "The Moving Picture". And it's the same way with establishing a business, writing a doctoral thesis, or anything big. Big things start from little ones. Has Sarah tried writing part of a novel in a blog every day? Maybe I could write a blognovel. I have been thinking of writing one about a boy's (and later man's) fascination with railroad tracks and trains.
And she remarks that she can keep it secret or make it open, or at least pretend these things. Why blog? One could write a book and get it published, or write a personal diary in a diary book or on the computer without putting it on the web. Maybe blogging revolves around this wondering if someone is going to see it, and if so, what is their reaction to it. It's that sense of the unknown seeing you and appreciating you that puts some of the zest in blogging. Perhaps this gets too much for some, perhaps for Sarah right now. But eventually I will wind up (and probably so will Sarah) blogging again.
Thus endeth my self-referential blogging on blogging.
2006/04/19
When It's Out, He's Not Out
An interesting play occurred in a game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Los Angeles Angels on 2006 April 17 at Camden Yards. In the bottom of the second inning, Miguel Tejada hit a single to the shortstop area. Jay Gibbons flied out to the center fielder Darin Erstad. The next batter up was Javy Lopez. Lopez hit a long fly ball way out into center field, and Erstad reached up to try to pick up the ball.
Tejada and Lopez looked all over the place. They looked at and listened to the umpire's call, as to whether it was an out, a long in-the-ballpark hit, or a home run. They also looked at Erstad to see which it was. Erstad fell to the ground. Apparently Tejada heard the third base umpire say "out" and assumed the ball was caught. So he went back to first base. Apparently Lopez thought it was a home run and kept on running. He was called out for passing Tejada on the base paths. The umpires and scorers declared the play a single and an out. Apparently the ball just barely left the ballpark.
How did this happen? This is what Lopez said afterwards: "'Me and Tejada were looking at the umpire the whole time, wondering what kind of call he was going to make. We were wondering if the ball was out or (Erstad) got it in his glove. One umpire called an out, so obviously Tejada went back to first base. Then the other umpire said the ball was out. But by the time he made the call, I had already passed Tejada.''
Note what he says. He says "The ball went out." With all the screaming and commotion at a typical major league baseball game, the words may not all have been heard. Perhaps Lopez heard "out". That is evidently what happened, for Lopez said, "One umpire called an out." Tejada must have heard it that way, for he retreated to first base. On a fly out, runners must hold to their bases and if they don't get back to them in time before the ball or a tag does, they're out. Lopez must have heard differently. He said, "Then the other umpire said the ball was out." That immediately confronted Lopez with a contradiction. If the ball is out of the ball park, it is a home run, and there can be no outs with an ordinary home run. He assumed the ball was out of the ballpark and kept on running. Thereby he passed Tejada and was called out for passing another runner. Why didn't he see Tejada? Well maybe he was concentrating on Erstad and what the umpires were saying.
The whole problem arose because the word "out" was ambiguous. One meaning of "out" says the item was not in the set or the scene of discussion. For example, "The young man was out of the house.", meaning that he was somewhere else other than in the house. That's the meaning in "the ball is out", meaning out of the ballpark. The other meaning is the baseball meaning, which says that a player or the base he is heading to has been tagged and therefore he must leave the base paths and a point called an "out" is recorded; three of these end an inning. That is what Tejada thought the umpire meant when he said "out".
I think this one was the umpires' fault. I think Lopez should have been credited with a home run. This is because I believe that umpires should never say the word "out" unless they mean a baseball out. They should never say the ball is out of the fair playing area, or out of the ballpark, or out of anything. They should not even say "Power is out." Who knows? Maybe there is a player named "Power" or "Powell" (remember Boog) on one of the teams. If there is a power outage, they should say that the ballpark has no power. They should also say that balls are foul, or that they have left the ballpark. Anything except saying they are out. For if they do, they could be creating an out that should not have been an out at all.
Tejada and Lopez looked all over the place. They looked at and listened to the umpire's call, as to whether it was an out, a long in-the-ballpark hit, or a home run. They also looked at Erstad to see which it was. Erstad fell to the ground. Apparently Tejada heard the third base umpire say "out" and assumed the ball was caught. So he went back to first base. Apparently Lopez thought it was a home run and kept on running. He was called out for passing Tejada on the base paths. The umpires and scorers declared the play a single and an out. Apparently the ball just barely left the ballpark.
How did this happen? This is what Lopez said afterwards: "'Me and Tejada were looking at the umpire the whole time, wondering what kind of call he was going to make. We were wondering if the ball was out or (Erstad) got it in his glove. One umpire called an out, so obviously Tejada went back to first base. Then the other umpire said the ball was out. But by the time he made the call, I had already passed Tejada.''
Note what he says. He says "The ball went out." With all the screaming and commotion at a typical major league baseball game, the words may not all have been heard. Perhaps Lopez heard "out". That is evidently what happened, for Lopez said, "One umpire called an out." Tejada must have heard it that way, for he retreated to first base. On a fly out, runners must hold to their bases and if they don't get back to them in time before the ball or a tag does, they're out. Lopez must have heard differently. He said, "Then the other umpire said the ball was out." That immediately confronted Lopez with a contradiction. If the ball is out of the ball park, it is a home run, and there can be no outs with an ordinary home run. He assumed the ball was out of the ballpark and kept on running. Thereby he passed Tejada and was called out for passing another runner. Why didn't he see Tejada? Well maybe he was concentrating on Erstad and what the umpires were saying.
The whole problem arose because the word "out" was ambiguous. One meaning of "out" says the item was not in the set or the scene of discussion. For example, "The young man was out of the house.", meaning that he was somewhere else other than in the house. That's the meaning in "the ball is out", meaning out of the ballpark. The other meaning is the baseball meaning, which says that a player or the base he is heading to has been tagged and therefore he must leave the base paths and a point called an "out" is recorded; three of these end an inning. That is what Tejada thought the umpire meant when he said "out".
I think this one was the umpires' fault. I think Lopez should have been credited with a home run. This is because I believe that umpires should never say the word "out" unless they mean a baseball out. They should never say the ball is out of the fair playing area, or out of the ballpark, or out of anything. They should not even say "Power is out." Who knows? Maybe there is a player named "Power" or "Powell" (remember Boog) on one of the teams. If there is a power outage, they should say that the ballpark has no power. They should also say that balls are foul, or that they have left the ballpark. Anything except saying they are out. For if they do, they could be creating an out that should not have been an out at all.
2006/03/10
Manic March
Much of Alice in Wonderland is weird, including the Tea-Party. Alice was told there was a hatter and a March hare in the area, both mad. Later she met them both and found the experience to be the craziest party she had ever been to. But why did Lewis Carroll select such characters? Why a mad hatter? That one is easy enough. Hats in those days were partially composed of mercury, and exposure to this element causes jitters and other mental ailments. And the March Hare? I hear it is because hares go into rutting season in March. That's why they get so active and mad in March.
I think it is the same for human beings. This is one of the most active, half-crazed Marches I have been through. I knew it was a long march - it's 31 days long. Whoever marches first into it does it on March 1, and by March 4 everyone is marching forth. Literally.
My church had several activities on March 4, including a dining-out party and a potluck at the church. Toastmasters clubs hold their club and area contests, starting a whirlwind of activities for them. Astronomers go out into the boondooks all night long on their Messier marathons - tonight's the best night for it, but that gibbous moon will hinder the marathon this year. Everyone else schedules activities all over the place. The people at my church are running around like banshees. It's bird migrating season, and all sorts of unusual birds appear. Salamanders come out to mate. Tulips and crocuses come out with their lips and cusses. It indeed seems like the whole world is going mad. It has caused me to call this month "Manic March".
This is unusual for me this year, for March to me has been a month of misfortunes. My father died in March 1999, and I caught a bad sinus infection with fevers throughout March 1993. Actually this March is more normal. A long hard (well, this winter has not exactly been the hardest with the warm temperatures) winter is over, and now spring is springing out all over. It reminds me of the Lydia Adams Davis song, "Spring always takes you by surprise".
I think it is the same for human beings. This is one of the most active, half-crazed Marches I have been through. I knew it was a long march - it's 31 days long. Whoever marches first into it does it on March 1, and by March 4 everyone is marching forth. Literally.
My church had several activities on March 4, including a dining-out party and a potluck at the church. Toastmasters clubs hold their club and area contests, starting a whirlwind of activities for them. Astronomers go out into the boondooks all night long on their Messier marathons - tonight's the best night for it, but that gibbous moon will hinder the marathon this year. Everyone else schedules activities all over the place. The people at my church are running around like banshees. It's bird migrating season, and all sorts of unusual birds appear. Salamanders come out to mate. Tulips and crocuses come out with their lips and cusses. It indeed seems like the whole world is going mad. It has caused me to call this month "Manic March".
This is unusual for me this year, for March to me has been a month of misfortunes. My father died in March 1999, and I caught a bad sinus infection with fevers throughout March 1993. Actually this March is more normal. A long hard (well, this winter has not exactly been the hardest with the warm temperatures) winter is over, and now spring is springing out all over. It reminds me of the Lydia Adams Davis song, "Spring always takes you by surprise".
2006/01/25
Detour Which Way?
In sorting out my photographs recently, I happened on a picture I took in late October of some year in the 1980s, near my home. I took it because of the lack of direction it gives. The sign on the left says turn right, and the sign on the right says turn left. So which do I do? And doesn't it remind you of many situations in real life, when someone tells you one thing, and another says the opposite? Take for example, Michael Lynch and Kenneth Deffeyes, who tell you completely different things about whether we are going to run out of cheap oil in a few years. An example is when I went to a conference last July, and the first thing I was greeted with were people saying that the first thing I needed to do was to go to the waiver table to sign waivers for the nature trips I had signed up for. So I did that. Then I went to the registration table, and they told me that I needed to have gone to that table first before going to waivers, contradicting the people at the entrance. The entire thing reminds me of a poem I wrote recently, called "Where's the Way?". And if any time you are stopped by police for going down a wrong road in a construction project, just show them this picture.
2006/01/10
Wonderland vs Oz
I notice that my religious group is having an adult religious education offering entitled "The Zen of Oz". This got me interested. There sure is a lot of religion, especially Zen, in The Wizard of Oz. The yellow brick road is the road of life. The goal you are pursuing is the Emerald City. You think that there is someone who will guide you, such as that humbug Wizard of Oz, but you find out that he is only someone rather like you. And the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion are aspects of yourself.
There is another story around of a voyage of a girl to a far land and back, namely Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (and Through the Looking Glass). This was one of my favorite stories when I was growing up, even though I was a boy instead of a girl. Like Oz's Dorothy, Alice finds herself in a weird land where things are just not the same as back home. So what are the similarities between Oz and Wonderland?
One can pair up characters. Some of these are Dorothy with Alice, The Wicked Witch of the West with the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen, The Good Witch of the North with the White Queen, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion with the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse, and the Mighty Wizard with the King of Hearts. In both stories, Dorothy and Alice try to find their way in their far-off land, and both eventually make it back to where they came from, in the form of waking up from a dream.
The main difference, I see, is a matter of direction. Alice doesn't know where to go. She asks the Cheshire Cat, and the Cat throws the question back at her, saying if she doesn't know where to go, any route is OK. She wanders around trying to find out where to go, and winds up stumbling into one nonsensical scene after another - the Mad Tea Party, the Croquet Game where the Queen of Hearts is all the time threatening the players with beheading, the lobster quadrille, the turtle's woeful stories of his education, and finally, the ridiculous parody of a court proceeding which ends with the Queen ordering Alice's head off. Just at this moment, Alice uses her powers to fend off the entire card deck.
Dorothy definitely knows where she is going. She wants to go home, and she knows that Oz will bring her back home, and there is a yellow brick road leading her to Oz, and a good witch is helping her along the way. She meets characters who share her feelings about what she wants, and she proceeds to her goal, including defeating the evil elements of her kingdom. At the very end, not Oz, nor the Munchkins, or even the Good Witch show Dorothy the way back home. Dorothy herself does it by knowing she never left it to begin with.
The characters and scenes reflect this as well. The Evil Witch has a definite goal in mind, to destroy Dorothy. The Queen of Hearts does not have much of a goal in mind; she goes flailing around shouting "Off with his head" to everyone. The Lion wants to go to Oz to get courage; the Mad Hatter sits around all day aimlessly in a place where time never changes. Oz has good and evil characters; Alice in Wonderland only has silly characters. Dorothy's goal was to go back home to Kansas; Alice simply wanted to make sense of what was happening around her.
So that's how I see the difference between the two. So what is the real world like? Some in power would have us be in Oz, with evil and good witches out there. But I suspect much of it is like Wonderland instead.
There is another story around of a voyage of a girl to a far land and back, namely Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (and Through the Looking Glass). This was one of my favorite stories when I was growing up, even though I was a boy instead of a girl. Like Oz's Dorothy, Alice finds herself in a weird land where things are just not the same as back home. So what are the similarities between Oz and Wonderland?
One can pair up characters. Some of these are Dorothy with Alice, The Wicked Witch of the West with the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen, The Good Witch of the North with the White Queen, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion with the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse, and the Mighty Wizard with the King of Hearts. In both stories, Dorothy and Alice try to find their way in their far-off land, and both eventually make it back to where they came from, in the form of waking up from a dream.
The main difference, I see, is a matter of direction. Alice doesn't know where to go. She asks the Cheshire Cat, and the Cat throws the question back at her, saying if she doesn't know where to go, any route is OK. She wanders around trying to find out where to go, and winds up stumbling into one nonsensical scene after another - the Mad Tea Party, the Croquet Game where the Queen of Hearts is all the time threatening the players with beheading, the lobster quadrille, the turtle's woeful stories of his education, and finally, the ridiculous parody of a court proceeding which ends with the Queen ordering Alice's head off. Just at this moment, Alice uses her powers to fend off the entire card deck.
Dorothy definitely knows where she is going. She wants to go home, and she knows that Oz will bring her back home, and there is a yellow brick road leading her to Oz, and a good witch is helping her along the way. She meets characters who share her feelings about what she wants, and she proceeds to her goal, including defeating the evil elements of her kingdom. At the very end, not Oz, nor the Munchkins, or even the Good Witch show Dorothy the way back home. Dorothy herself does it by knowing she never left it to begin with.
The characters and scenes reflect this as well. The Evil Witch has a definite goal in mind, to destroy Dorothy. The Queen of Hearts does not have much of a goal in mind; she goes flailing around shouting "Off with his head" to everyone. The Lion wants to go to Oz to get courage; the Mad Hatter sits around all day aimlessly in a place where time never changes. Oz has good and evil characters; Alice in Wonderland only has silly characters. Dorothy's goal was to go back home to Kansas; Alice simply wanted to make sense of what was happening around her.
So that's how I see the difference between the two. So what is the real world like? Some in power would have us be in Oz, with evil and good witches out there. But I suspect much of it is like Wonderland instead.
2005/12/31
Leap Second
For the first time in 7 years, it has happened. A leap second has been inserted into our time. I captured it when it happened. It occurred just before 2006 January 1 00:00 Universal Time, and was called 2005 December 31 23:59:60 UT. I was in the Eastern Time Zone, with Eastern Standard Time when this happened. Universal Time is related to Greenwich Mean Time, and is a standard time over the entire world that is the same in all zones. It is supposed to be the time in the United Kingdom, and is five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. So for me it occurred at 2005 December 31 19:00:00, and before that was the time 2005 December 31 18:59:60, which is the time you see in my capturing (click on "captured") above, which was captured from nist.time.gov.
Leap seconds are inserted into the calendar because the Earth is not as accurate as Cesium 133 for telling the time. It used to be that the second was defined as 1/31,556,925.9747 of the tropical year 1900. When atomic clocks were invented, it was redefined as 9,192,631,770 oscillations between two hyperfine levels of Cesium 133 atoms. The calendar year varies in length in comparison to this, so to keep it even with the atomic year, every once in a while an extra second has to be added to the year. It has happened 21 times since 1972. The reason why the Earth is going off time is because tides are slowing down its rotation. The tides are also lengthening the month and making the Moon recede from the Earth. Supposedly in 50 billion years, both month and day will be 47 of our days long, but before that happens, the Sun will become a red giant and evaporate the oceans.
So now I will add in a leap "p" and wish everyone a Happpy New Year!
Leap Second
For the first time in 7 years, it has happened. A leap second has been inserted into our time. I captured it when it happened. It occurred just before 2006 January 1 00:00 Universal Time, and was called 2005 December 31 23:59:60 UT. I was in the Eastern Time Zone, with Eastern Standard Time when this happened. Universal Time is related to Greenwich Mean Time, and is a standard time over the entire world that is the same in all zones. It is supposed to be the time in the United Kingdom, and is five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. So for me it occurred at 2005 December 31 19:00:00, and before that was the time 2005 December 31 18:59:60, which is the time you see in my capturing (click on "captured") above, which was captured from nist.time.gov.
Leap seconds are inserted into the calendar because the Earth is not as accurate as Cesium 133 for telling the time. It used to be that the second was defined as 1/31,556,925.9747 of the tropical year 1900. When atomic clocks were invented, it was redefined as 9,192,631,770 oscillations between two hyperfine levels of Cesium 133 atoms. The calendar year varies in length in comparison to this, so to keep it even with the atomic year, every once in a while an extra second has to be added to the year. It has happened 21 times since 1972. The reason why the Earth is going off time is because tides are slowing down its rotation. The tides are also lengthening the month and making the Moon recede from the Earth. Supposedly in 50 billion years, both month and day will be 47 of our days long, but before that happens, the Sun will become a red giant and evaporate the oceans.
So now I will add in a leap "p" and wish everyone a Happpy New Year!
2005/12/25
Holiday Fantasy Run
I went out on my run this year at night to see all the holiday lights. The lights seem to be something special with me. These lights pierce the darkness and give an atmosphere of fantasy to all that surrounds it. I especially like displays that use no white lights of any kind, especially those that use red, green, and blue lights. These colors seem to lead their own moods to the scene - cool blue, shimmering green and passionate red. I may use only these colors next year. One place where I don't seem to like colored lights now is in windows. I put three red candles in each window each year, but next year I may try white candles and use all red, green, and blue in the yard.
To me the winner was the one that wins every year, with stripes across the yard, a blazing star on the roof with streamers coming down from it, and lights all over the place besides, and a train on the lawn. How do trains relate to Christmas, anyway? I thought Santa used a sleigh. I did find two displays that use only colored bulbs. One had animated snowmen and Santa, and another had a house in the middle of the yard. Still another used mostly candy canes - a Candy Cane Land.
A blaze of brilliance each year, but is all this necessary, especially the gaudy floodlight white displays? There are energy shortages coming up in future years, and I remember that in the 1970s during the Arab oil embargo, use of a lot of holiday lighting was discouraged. Will this happen again? However, I think more could be saved by not leaving your lights on at work when you leave, especially if you work in a mid-city tower. Do all those windows need to be lit up at night?
To me the winner was the one that wins every year, with stripes across the yard, a blazing star on the roof with streamers coming down from it, and lights all over the place besides, and a train on the lawn. How do trains relate to Christmas, anyway? I thought Santa used a sleigh. I did find two displays that use only colored bulbs. One had animated snowmen and Santa, and another had a house in the middle of the yard. Still another used mostly candy canes - a Candy Cane Land.
A blaze of brilliance each year, but is all this necessary, especially the gaudy floodlight white displays? There are energy shortages coming up in future years, and I remember that in the 1970s during the Arab oil embargo, use of a lot of holiday lighting was discouraged. Will this happen again? However, I think more could be saved by not leaving your lights on at work when you leave, especially if you work in a mid-city tower. Do all those windows need to be lit up at night?
2005/07/31
SUUSI 2005
Once again SUUSI has come and gone. This year it started out with a bang (of thunder) at Ingathering, with a rainbow greeting us afterwards, like a foreboding of good times to come. The theme was "Time to Fly", and that worked into the themes of many of the people there. To me the theme means that sometimes one feels too tied down to things, and needs to break out of the rut, and soar into the sky. The problem then is finding somewhere to land. One slogan I remember well from SUUSI: Either you find a place to land, or you learn how to fly. One theme talker, Steve Crump, even said that flying is related to relationships and love - you need somewhere to fly from, and that implies a relationship between the flyer and the land.
I attended the Day at the Improv workshop. This featured many interesting and funny situations, such as the sex shop scene between two people. The next two were supposed to tell it as a Western, and the next pair as if it were from a science fiction movie. This reminds me of Douglas Hofstadter's (Gödel, Escher, Bach) subjunct-TV, which is not one grade lower than a junk TV, as one of Mr. Hofstadter's characters suggested. Instead, one uses it to take a scene and tune it in to various situations. For example, a football game is turned to another channel and we see what it would be like as a baseball game, or as a game played on the moon, or as a game played in four dimensions (the 40-yard plane, the 30-yard plane…).
I gave three workshops, including a new one on Mathematics and Religion, in which I explored the depths of infinity. I went to the Cascades and Dismal Falls, and had fun swimming in those refreshing mountain pools, even though the hike in both places was abridged or changed by recent flooding.
Cabaret featured all the good entertainment, such as Amy Carol Webb and Greg Greenway, and Serendipity featured a hybrid of dancing and volleyball on Thursday night, when we started bopping beach balls all over the place on a night billed as "Down by the SUUSea". Maybe we should have dressed in beach volleyball style - in swimsuits and bikinis.
A good SUUSI, and we are now flying away to SUUSI 2006, where we will Rejoice and Renew.
I attended the Day at the Improv workshop. This featured many interesting and funny situations, such as the sex shop scene between two people. The next two were supposed to tell it as a Western, and the next pair as if it were from a science fiction movie. This reminds me of Douglas Hofstadter's (Gödel, Escher, Bach) subjunct-TV, which is not one grade lower than a junk TV, as one of Mr. Hofstadter's characters suggested. Instead, one uses it to take a scene and tune it in to various situations. For example, a football game is turned to another channel and we see what it would be like as a baseball game, or as a game played on the moon, or as a game played in four dimensions (the 40-yard plane, the 30-yard plane…).
I gave three workshops, including a new one on Mathematics and Religion, in which I explored the depths of infinity. I went to the Cascades and Dismal Falls, and had fun swimming in those refreshing mountain pools, even though the hike in both places was abridged or changed by recent flooding.
Cabaret featured all the good entertainment, such as Amy Carol Webb and Greg Greenway, and Serendipity featured a hybrid of dancing and volleyball on Thursday night, when we started bopping beach balls all over the place on a night billed as "Down by the SUUSea". Maybe we should have dressed in beach volleyball style - in swimsuits and bikinis.
A good SUUSI, and we are now flying away to SUUSI 2006, where we will Rejoice and Renew.
2005/07/05
Fourth of July
It's freedom and firework time again. So what did we do on July 4 this year, the 229th birthday of our nation? Once again we went into the neighborhood to find fireworks, rather than drive into a traffic jam at one of the public displays. The displays were not as good as previous years. There were much fewer rockets that burst in the air. Most of what I saw were firecrackers and a "firework tree", which is a canister that spits off sparklers about 5 feet into the air continuously for a few minutes. One rocket went off behind us while a car passed us in the opposite direction. It startled us, and the driver of the car. We thought the car had crashed. But no, it was a firework. Sometimes these people put fireworks in unreasonable places. For example, some teenagers tried to shoot them off in the middle of an intersection. Fortunately, nothing much happened. Just be careful. If you are going to shoot off fireworks (and this saves oil by deterring people from driving to a faraway site to see them) in your neighborhood, do so in a dead end or cul-de-sac, and make sure the ground is not tinder dry. I noticed that a fireworks display in downtown Richmond was delayed by having to wet down all the mulch in the area. The rest of the evening was listening to distant booms and watching stars (the crashed-in comet, for instance) and fireflies.
And that is Independence Day for this year. We will see what happens next year.
And that is Independence Day for this year. We will see what happens next year.
2005/06/22
The Blue Lights
A short story based on a speech I gave to a Tall Tales Toastmasters Speech Contest a number of years ago. Is this what the present world situation is now like?
I was driving late one Sunday night, at two o'clock in the morning. I had just come from a Toastmaster conference which had some really unusual and good speeches. I had stayed overlong at the Hospitality suite afterwards and was feeling tired and a little out of sorts and I just wanted to get home, which was four hours down a long boring interstate highway. I tried hard to keep awake by playing the radio, by turning on the wipers, even though it was crystal clear with stars brightly shining. Mostly, I was humming along, through barren scenery with no one in sight.
Then I saw it. Behind me. Two blue lights in the mirror. They seem to be racing to me. I instantly looked at my speedometer. 74 mph! I did not realize I was doing that fast. I will have to let up. I wonder if the cop wanted to pull me over for speeding. I kept driving on to see what he would do. The blue lights got closer and closer as I neared an exit. I had an opened bottle of champagne that some woman at the Toastmasters meeting had given me and was afraid that he could charge me with something for that, even though the last drink I had was four hours ago.
I got closer to the exit. Padillo and Cranston, Route 144. Exit 37. I went past the exit and the blue lights kept on coming. My heart pounded as I wondered whether to pull over, when I saw the blue lights go off the main road. Apparently he took the exit. Whew! He was going after something else.
I slowed down to 65 mph and kept on going. I felt now like I had ghosts all over me, that there were spooks in my car, spooks on the road, spooks hanging from every bridge, spooks in the sky. I kept on going. Richmond 194. Still a long way to go. There was very little traffic out. It would be morning when I would get home and I wondered if I should pull off and sleep before then. I had a meeting to go to in the morning so I had to keep on going, and I glanced at the mirror.
YikES!!!!! It's blue lights again! They came towards me at a rapid pace. I looked at my speedometer. 67. Would I be pulled over for going just two mph over the limit? Or maybe I did something else wrong and they were going to catch me and arrest me and send me to the nearest hoosegow. I kept on going for fear of these things. The blue lights kept on coming, although I did not hear much of a sound. I kept on driving. Don't look at the mirror. I got to go somewhere. I kept on driving down a straight stretch of road.
It suddenly got darker. I looked in the mirror. The lights were gone! I guess I got away that time although I did not know what I was being pulled over for. Now I was really frightened. I had run away from two police cars. I know they are out to get me. I felt a jittery sense of security in the black inky starlit moonless night that covered everything, pierced only by my headlights and an occasional lamp at a house or a passing car. There seemed to be nothing around. I kept on going maybe half an hour, until I got past an exit saying, "Paxton Glanding Exit 79" and another one saying Richmond 67. The entire sky seemed to brighten with crystal blue. I looked in the mirror.
Oh, no!! Here they came. I saw four blue lights coming up on me, and another pair of blue lights way back down a highway a ways. The entire police station is out to get me. I got afraid that there may be a roadblock ahead. So I decided to pull over and get this over with. It could not be anything much.
So I pulled over to the side. To my surprise when I looked in the mirror, the blue lights went UP! They went over my head, over the car roof. Then a circular apparition came in front of me as I looked out the windshield. There were blue lights spinning everywhere. A light and door opened up on it, and a strange green being came out. I got out of the car to see what was going on.
I saw two or three creatures wandering around in the darkness, and one of them said, "Jixbo bobuct t'hyacx Pluzz etx Earth bxisto ut!" The other replied, "Ut, Bxisto earthlctx Pluzz". Now I know what happened. All those blue lights were aliens from another planet. I felt so scared that I could feel my feet drop off me, I was shaking so bad. I heard a loudspeaker or something then boom out. "You earthling will go with us to our Planet Pluzz. Please enter this doorway." No way. Then a bright beam shone at me and decided for me otherwise. I felt a pull on my body. I tried to run away but I could not make any progress. I kept slipping. I found my self going up in the misty damp air. "Let me go!!!" I said. But it was no use. Apparently that light was a tractor beam pulling me in their spacecraft. I got worried that these aliens would torture me or maybe humans were their favorite dish.
I looked down the road and saw more blue lights. The ones that were way behind. As they came closer, while I was being pulled, pulled, pulled, I made out that these lights really WERE a police car. The car came up to about two hundred feet away on the road. An officer stepped out and pulled his hand out. Bzingggg!!! He fired his pistol and I could feel the air whoosing by as the bullet raced within inches of my face. It went towards the spacecraft then into nowhere. He fired again. Help! The beam kept pulling me and I was about 10 feet away from the entrance. Bziingg! Bzingg! then all of at once I heard a tremendous CRACK!! and an explosion of purplish intensely bright light and shooting stars like fireworks. The next thing I knew I was lying on top of a haystack in the field, as if I fell. I saw a bunch of blue lights head up into the sky.
I saw what happened. The officer had shot out the tractor beam. I saw the blue lights head into the sky and get fainter. The ship was obviously limping and was apparently flying to a mother ship. The policeman saved my life. I wanted to go to him to thank him for his heroic deed. But when I looked down the road I saw nothing except my car and the inky black night darkness. I crawled back into the car but felt so exhausted that I fell asleep.
When I woke up it was morning. I looked around to see where the aliens were. I saw nothing except a slight indentation in the field. Surely I would see burnt out stuff. But I saw nothing. Someone came up to me and asked if I wanted help. I told him what happened last night. She said, '"you probably were dreaming. I heard nothing". But that officer, I said. I remembered his license number. 57-828. She said, that could not be an officer. All emergency vehicles, she said, had license numbers beginning with LE.
Well, maybe I was dreaming. I got into the car and drove on home. But I still was edgy and worried. If it was going back to have that tractor beam, there's a mother ship and surely that ship would come and that would be the end of…
Copyright 2005 by Jim.
I was driving late one Sunday night, at two o'clock in the morning. I had just come from a Toastmaster conference which had some really unusual and good speeches. I had stayed overlong at the Hospitality suite afterwards and was feeling tired and a little out of sorts and I just wanted to get home, which was four hours down a long boring interstate highway. I tried hard to keep awake by playing the radio, by turning on the wipers, even though it was crystal clear with stars brightly shining. Mostly, I was humming along, through barren scenery with no one in sight.
Then I saw it. Behind me. Two blue lights in the mirror. They seem to be racing to me. I instantly looked at my speedometer. 74 mph! I did not realize I was doing that fast. I will have to let up. I wonder if the cop wanted to pull me over for speeding. I kept driving on to see what he would do. The blue lights got closer and closer as I neared an exit. I had an opened bottle of champagne that some woman at the Toastmasters meeting had given me and was afraid that he could charge me with something for that, even though the last drink I had was four hours ago.
I got closer to the exit. Padillo and Cranston, Route 144. Exit 37. I went past the exit and the blue lights kept on coming. My heart pounded as I wondered whether to pull over, when I saw the blue lights go off the main road. Apparently he took the exit. Whew! He was going after something else.
I slowed down to 65 mph and kept on going. I felt now like I had ghosts all over me, that there were spooks in my car, spooks on the road, spooks hanging from every bridge, spooks in the sky. I kept on going. Richmond 194. Still a long way to go. There was very little traffic out. It would be morning when I would get home and I wondered if I should pull off and sleep before then. I had a meeting to go to in the morning so I had to keep on going, and I glanced at the mirror.
YikES!!!!! It's blue lights again! They came towards me at a rapid pace. I looked at my speedometer. 67. Would I be pulled over for going just two mph over the limit? Or maybe I did something else wrong and they were going to catch me and arrest me and send me to the nearest hoosegow. I kept on going for fear of these things. The blue lights kept on coming, although I did not hear much of a sound. I kept on driving. Don't look at the mirror. I got to go somewhere. I kept on driving down a straight stretch of road.
It suddenly got darker. I looked in the mirror. The lights were gone! I guess I got away that time although I did not know what I was being pulled over for. Now I was really frightened. I had run away from two police cars. I know they are out to get me. I felt a jittery sense of security in the black inky starlit moonless night that covered everything, pierced only by my headlights and an occasional lamp at a house or a passing car. There seemed to be nothing around. I kept on going maybe half an hour, until I got past an exit saying, "Paxton Glanding Exit 79" and another one saying Richmond 67. The entire sky seemed to brighten with crystal blue. I looked in the mirror.
Oh, no!! Here they came. I saw four blue lights coming up on me, and another pair of blue lights way back down a highway a ways. The entire police station is out to get me. I got afraid that there may be a roadblock ahead. So I decided to pull over and get this over with. It could not be anything much.
So I pulled over to the side. To my surprise when I looked in the mirror, the blue lights went UP! They went over my head, over the car roof. Then a circular apparition came in front of me as I looked out the windshield. There were blue lights spinning everywhere. A light and door opened up on it, and a strange green being came out. I got out of the car to see what was going on.
I saw two or three creatures wandering around in the darkness, and one of them said, "Jixbo bobuct t'hyacx Pluzz etx Earth bxisto ut!" The other replied, "Ut, Bxisto earthlctx Pluzz". Now I know what happened. All those blue lights were aliens from another planet. I felt so scared that I could feel my feet drop off me, I was shaking so bad. I heard a loudspeaker or something then boom out. "You earthling will go with us to our Planet Pluzz. Please enter this doorway." No way. Then a bright beam shone at me and decided for me otherwise. I felt a pull on my body. I tried to run away but I could not make any progress. I kept slipping. I found my self going up in the misty damp air. "Let me go!!!" I said. But it was no use. Apparently that light was a tractor beam pulling me in their spacecraft. I got worried that these aliens would torture me or maybe humans were their favorite dish.
I looked down the road and saw more blue lights. The ones that were way behind. As they came closer, while I was being pulled, pulled, pulled, I made out that these lights really WERE a police car. The car came up to about two hundred feet away on the road. An officer stepped out and pulled his hand out. Bzingggg!!! He fired his pistol and I could feel the air whoosing by as the bullet raced within inches of my face. It went towards the spacecraft then into nowhere. He fired again. Help! The beam kept pulling me and I was about 10 feet away from the entrance. Bziingg! Bzingg! then all of at once I heard a tremendous CRACK!! and an explosion of purplish intensely bright light and shooting stars like fireworks. The next thing I knew I was lying on top of a haystack in the field, as if I fell. I saw a bunch of blue lights head up into the sky.
I saw what happened. The officer had shot out the tractor beam. I saw the blue lights head into the sky and get fainter. The ship was obviously limping and was apparently flying to a mother ship. The policeman saved my life. I wanted to go to him to thank him for his heroic deed. But when I looked down the road I saw nothing except my car and the inky black night darkness. I crawled back into the car but felt so exhausted that I fell asleep.
When I woke up it was morning. I looked around to see where the aliens were. I saw nothing except a slight indentation in the field. Surely I would see burnt out stuff. But I saw nothing. Someone came up to me and asked if I wanted help. I told him what happened last night. She said, '"you probably were dreaming. I heard nothing". But that officer, I said. I remembered his license number. 57-828. She said, that could not be an officer. All emergency vehicles, she said, had license numbers beginning with LE.
Well, maybe I was dreaming. I got into the car and drove on home. But I still was edgy and worried. If it was going back to have that tractor beam, there's a mother ship and surely that ship would come and that would be the end of…
Copyright 2005 by Jim.
2005/06/19
Improv
One of the workshops I am taking this year at SUUSI is "Day at the Improv", a five-day workshop on something called Improv. It had a change of leader, and now a popular and respected musician is giving the workshop. But I am wondering, just what is Improv?
I looked at one site, and found that some exercises for it are games of various sorts. For example, one person shows an object and another says what it is not. Then that person picks up another object and so forth. I found a book at the Chesterfield library on "Improvisation" and I briefly glanced at some of the scenarios in it. What I get from it is that you need to make the characters authentic and believable. For example, someone concerned about a house foreclosure who sniggers would not be portraying the character authentically.
I enrolled in the workshop because I am always looking for something new at SUUSI. This one should be interesting.
By the way, I now have seven blogs, one for each day of the week. Blogtrek is my Saturday blog, so I normally will be posting on Saturday, but I may post at other times if something comes up that I want to post. This blog will usually contain items other than religion, astronomy, peak oil and running out of resources, nature and birding, mathematics, weather or opinions that I have, for those are covered by my other blogs.
I looked at one site, and found that some exercises for it are games of various sorts. For example, one person shows an object and another says what it is not. Then that person picks up another object and so forth. I found a book at the Chesterfield library on "Improvisation" and I briefly glanced at some of the scenarios in it. What I get from it is that you need to make the characters authentic and believable. For example, someone concerned about a house foreclosure who sniggers would not be portraying the character authentically.
I enrolled in the workshop because I am always looking for something new at SUUSI. This one should be interesting.
By the way, I now have seven blogs, one for each day of the week. Blogtrek is my Saturday blog, so I normally will be posting on Saturday, but I may post at other times if something comes up that I want to post. This blog will usually contain items other than religion, astronomy, peak oil and running out of resources, nature and birding, mathematics, weather or opinions that I have, for those are covered by my other blogs.
2005/05/02
Richmond and Washington play Water Baseball
I note that the Richmond Braves are not the AAA affiliate of the Washington Nationals, and my assignment of major league teams to AAA minor league teams in my previous post did not pair the Richmond team with the Washington Nationals, either. That's too bad. I think the Hungarian algorithm did not pair them because it saw a better virtue in avoiding the long distance between the Baltimore Orioles and the Durham Bulls. Instead, Richmond wound up with Baltimore. I think it's too bad, because the Richmond Breeze (can't call them Braves any more) and the Washington Nationals would be a perfect match for each other.
Last year, the Richmond Braves ballpark flooded during storms because of poor drainage, and several home games had to be played as road games. They fixed up the park, but there are some people in Richmond who want the Braves in Shockoe Bottom. A serious problem with this is that it could flood. Shockoe Bottom experienced a major flood last year when Tropical Storm Gaston hit. Seems the Braves will be flooded out no matter what happens. But this makes them a perfect match for the Washington Nationals, as a recent game (2005 April 30) there was so badly affected by huge puddles at RFK stadium that both teams protested the game.
Yes, the Richmond and Washington teams would make a perfect match. But then they should be renamed the Washington Ark and the Richmond Noahs.
Last year, the Richmond Braves ballpark flooded during storms because of poor drainage, and several home games had to be played as road games. They fixed up the park, but there are some people in Richmond who want the Braves in Shockoe Bottom. A serious problem with this is that it could flood. Shockoe Bottom experienced a major flood last year when Tropical Storm Gaston hit. Seems the Braves will be flooded out no matter what happens. But this makes them a perfect match for the Washington Nationals, as a recent game (2005 April 30) there was so badly affected by huge puddles at RFK stadium that both teams protested the game.
Yes, the Richmond and Washington teams would make a perfect match. But then they should be renamed the Washington Ark and the Richmond Noahs.
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