Category Archives: personal

Mechanistic Apocalypse on the way?

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Even if you are not religious and believe the world runs on fundamentally mechanistic principles you need to fear that current global tensions could in fact lead to the type of destruction envisioned by those who hold that an Apocalypse is coming … soon.

Israel could lay waste to the entire Middle east in minutes and it’s unlikely that a broader war with Iran would not bring in the USA and perhaps Europe.

Pakistan and India continue to threaten nuclear exchanges.   And North Korea?   Yikes.

But rather than *prophetic*, I find it  *ironic* that these tensions are more often than not fueled by the recent and rapid rise of thinking and analysis more in line with what was in vogue in 12th century than even the Renaissance, a curious blend of religious fantasy, zealotry, and denial.

Will we as humans pay the ultimate price for our primal notions of how the world works?   Only your primal brain knows for sure.

Google sucks at Table Tennis?

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I’ve always wanted to play Table Tennis with Sergey Brin at a Google Party because 1) Russians are usually pretty good at Table Tennis and 2) He seems like a cool guy.
But this report, indicating that Google sucks at Table Tennis, came as a surprise to me. Maybe you need to go to Google’s China offices to get a good game on?

OK, here’s my challenge to Sergey Brin via email.   I’m not optimistic about a reply, but it never hurts to ask.

——————————————

Dear Mr. Brin,

I have a hunch you are a good Table Tennis player and I’d like to
challenge you to a game sometime during the Google Party.

If you are a gambling man how about playing for $1000  *per point*
with all proceeds to an international charity of your choice or to
Google.org?

P.S.  Thanks for Google.org, which I hope will become Google’s
greatest contribution to humanity.
——————————–

Ebay vs Yard Sale

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I always get nervous when my wife and kids want to run a yard sale. “Be sure to run things through Ebay before you sell them for nothing”, I say with little effect.

Luckily this morning I intercepted the 1966 Milton Bradley Shenanigans game and Lie Detector games before they were sold for 50 cents. Running them through Ebay’s completed listings via advanced search I learned that they would probably sell online for $25-$45 each.

The challenge is that I don’t like to mess with Ebay sales of small things, and my wife stubbornly refuses to do it despite the fact she’ll spend many more hours setting up the yard sale, taking down the yard sale, trying to get me to help putting up and taking down the yard sale, moving things out of the house, and haggling over nickel and dime items.

“What?  I can’t possibly take under .06 for that item marked .08!”

It’s no wonder Ebay has spawned a community of yard sale resellers who are picking up my old games for a buck and reselling them online for a fifty fold return. Maybe this will be my fallback position if the travel websites fail and I’m forced on to the lonely, dirty streets of Oregon, begging for quarters to buy games to resell on Ebay from free library computers.
It leads one to wonder what people are doing about all this over in the string theorized parallel membrane alternative universes.

Travel Complaint? Tell it to the Donner Party.

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Back in Talent at about midnight last night.

Sure it’s a long trip from the East Coast but I can’t help but … scoff…  at complaints about modern travel.  I like to say to the travel whiners “tell it to the Donner Party“.

Go tell some 1850 pioneers that a mere 100 years in the future their dangerous treks of many months to get from the midwest to Oregon or California will take a few hours as groups of hundreds of people fly six miles above the earth in huge boxes of metal.
To cities all over the American West.
Many, many times each and every day of the year.

Early American travelers would have thought you were simply crazy.

If you’d added that during the flight you’d be served cold drinks and snacks, watch moving picture shows, and listen to music they would have locked you up.

Then you’d explain to them that people will constantly complain about this type of travel.

With that comment, you’d be shot.

and then if you were with the Donner Party you’d be ….

dinner.

Mennonites and Google

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The Mennonites are known for their craftsmanship and honest business dealings.   Today, down at a local planing mill it was interesting to watch how important the social negotiation process was to doing business as my uncle and cousin figured out how to go about getting some raw planks from their tree farm turned into floorboards.  “Are you related to ….?” and “my daughter lives over on your road” mattered more than I’m used to in the west, where few have lived in the area for even a single generation.

I thought how far I was in so many ways from next week’s Google party in Silicon Valley.    Somewhat like the Amish, Old Order Mennonites often travel in horse drawn buggies, foresaking even the most basic technologies the rest of us take for granted.

Thank god I’m a country boy?

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I really cherish my southern roots despite the fact that I’ve never actually *lived* in the south.   We gather every year to celebrate family and prove that blood is thicker than the political, religious, and cultural differences that pop up among the many generations of a big family.    This year only about 75 made it to the reunion but still a good time was had by all.    Mom’s had a good time visiting with her six living brothers and sisters.

We haven’t had a bad meal yet, though our cholesterol is probably … higher.    Steak for dinner, at lunch today I had a fried ham sandwich and fries, and yesterday’s dinner was a very nice … fried chicken in gravy.

Oh, Shenandoah

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Surprised to find that Oh Shenandoah, the beautiful haunting song which is the official song of Virginia, has origins outside of the Shenandoah Valley.

Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you,
Away, you rolling river
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Away, I’m bound away, cross the wide Missouri.

Oh, Shenandoah, I love your daughter,
Away, you rolling river
Oh, Shenandoah, I love your daughter
Away, I’m bound away, cross the wide Missouri.

Oh, Shenandoah, I’m bound to leave you,
Away, you rolling river
Oh, Shenandoah, I’m bound to leave you
Away, I’m bound away, cross the wide Missouri.

Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you,
Away, you rolling river
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you
Away, I’m bound away, cross the wide Missouri.

Southern Hospitality

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Here at the Daily Grind in Harrisonburg, VA I’m enjoying a robust internet connection, sipping some robust coffee, and uploading a few pix to Flickr.    The big reunion starts tomorrow in Bridgewater, but  Mom and I are already enjoying the great hospitality of Aunt Doris and Uncle Joe  who live in  a beautiful  brick house  perched on a  hill near the middle of town.

No post from Chicago’s ORD because despite their HUGE signs promoting WIFI they … charge $6.95 per session.   Unlike Oregon where PDX and MFR have free WIFI, proving that Oregon remains one of the geat states in the union.

I don’t have much information about the economics of Airport WIFI, but I think ad based models are going to prove much stronger since even those of us who can afford to pay usurous wifi fees…won’t do it.

MFR Medford Airport has Free WIFI.

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Here I am waiting for the PDX flight and thanks to some clever visionary I’ve got a good wireless connection that is …. free.     Free wireless airports = pure goodness.  $9.95  wireless Airports = bad badness.

I guess I should thank *myself* and SOVA since we pushed so hard for this when we installed the byways and travel touch kiosk travel info system here a few years ago, but mostly I credit the MFR Airport’s great directory Bern for seeing the need and benefits, and Hunter Communications for setting up the system.

Bound for BWI and on to Virginia

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The house is 99.5% painted and looking really nice.    We even got to some of the spots I missed ten years ago during house paint number one.   4 colors…fancy!

Off to the Virginia Reunion tomorrow with mom.    MFR to PDX to ORD to BWI.    Thanks to hotwire.com I got great deals on rental car (200 for 8 days) and hotel (Ramada near Airport for 55+tax).    I’m so pleased with hotwire results over the past few weeks of travel I think I may shift my booking sites over to them, though it’s not clear to me that most people are comfortable booking without knowing the hotel or even the exact location.   I’m finding that since motels are clustered together anyway you are likely to get a desirable location as I did in Silicon Valley and tomorrow near BWI.