Phil sent me a link to the article [Appalachian town mining for land] which is talking about the removal of mountains by a coal mining company as a positive thing… to some it may well be – but as coal mining companies are notorious for their environmental horrors, and as we are already starting to “run low” on mountains that have been created (tectonically) for thousands of years — perhaps people ought to think about keeping their mountains around as long as they can (which is basically until a mining company finds something they want in said mountain).
I spent many full and well populated days in Houston. Anita and I spent nights at various family houses, ate some of the best food we had eaten all year, and most importantly – got to spend good time with our family together.
Here are some of the highlights:
Great quality time with family (can’t mention it enough – strange that just spending time is so important, so simple, and so rare) Got to meet Scott’s girlfriend, Ilah (ee-lah) Good but sad visits with my grandmother [Penny][1] (aka Grandma’ Penny) Games played : rummykub, canasta, hearts, pictionary, balderdash, ping pong (I won at ping-pong and sometime I won at canasta, but lost everything else) Food, food, and food (including some [mango salsa][2] I made, which everyone appeared to appreciate) Ikea blitz – a 1 hour run through ikea resulting in a total bill of less than $150 for Anita and myself (incredible for us consumer sheep) One of the important parts which gets a bit of a review is my visit with my grandmother “Penny”, who has [Alzheimer’s][3].
So, when flying to Houston, early on Monday the 19th of December I ran into a slight problem.
I went through security without issue, and my laptop bag had to go through… and I overheard security people being called over, waited, and heard a couple of other security people being called over. About this time I get nervous and soon overhear something I would rather not have heard.
Apparently, I had forgotten that I had put some gifts in my laptop bag, that I got for people at work in Japan… They were very unimpressive, unassuming, decoration-only, ummm, throwing stars.
We are getting our stuff together to leave columbus for a while. We have house-sitters / cat-sitters for the majority of the time we are gone… and we are bringing Nova with us, to Louisville.
We are also bringing Ginni’s queen sized mattress (strapped to the roof of the CRV with ratchet-straps and bungies). That will make for a slightly slower drive, but shouldn’t be too bad (I hope). In addition, it will be Anita, Alan, John, and Nova in the car with a few weeks worth of stuff for all.
The past week (starting at the end of last week actually) Anita and I have been insufferably busy. I’ve been working till midnight or later Sat-Wed… anita has, if anything, been working more… studying for finals and taking finals.
Luckily, the fires at my work seem to be more under control and Anita is, as of today, done with her tests… She of course doesn’t know her results, but I’m sure she’s doing fine…
I got a phone call today, supposedly from DomainRegistry.com.
Unfortunately, though suspicious, I did provide my street address… I resisted, but he read it off to me, and I confirmed it… what are you gonna do? Also, I suppose he knows my phone number, since he called me on it.
Then he gave me the 800 number 800-591-7398 (8005917398) as a number to find out more about what they are offering.
1000th “Death Penalty” murder since reinstating in 1976
Doesn’t it seem strange to be killing people for killing people? I am aware that there are people that are dangerous enough to never let back into the population, but it seems hypocritical to kill them… Aside from the people who are significant dangers to our society, prisons should generally be cleared out a lot. We are a nation built on and ruled by fear.
Anyone else getting a flood of blog comment spam recently?
WordPress is awesome enough to catch all of it as probably spam and put it into a moderation queue for me, but I still had 80+ comments to delete in the past week… and I have to be careful not to delete a non-spam comment… not a good situation.
So I looked into plug-ins for WordPress and found a few, but the one I liked the most is called bad behavior.
Here is my requisite turkeyday post. Anita had to work her last day today, so we are in Columbus still. She plans on not working until this summer. I’ve been encouraging her to do this… though her ~10 hours of work a week doesn’t sound like much, since she does ~60 hours a week of school work – a few extra hours to relax would be welcome.
We will be driving to Louisville tonight after anita is off work.
So – the new template is up on zeroasterisk. Not only does it look different right now – this template is setup to be controlled by CSS, so I’ll be providing options on how to view the site. Until I offer those options (look in the top right hand corner of the page for them) you’ll have to make due with this one.
Also, I’ve updated to gallery 2 and mediawiki… The wiki update means little to any users, but the gallery update may effect anyone who uses my gallery.
So now M$ is releaseing a version meant to cluster computers, you know, like a beowulf cluster. This is one of the worst Ideas I could think of. Why would you use a flaky, high-overhead, and often to crash OS to run distrobuted processing? There is no good reason, in my opinion. If you are willing to dedicate multiple computers to be a “super-computer” – you should be willing to hire a linux geek to setup and run the thing for you… if you wanted to run windows, you don’t need a super-computer.
There is a beta of a site that allows anyone to create a group, and people can add themselves / photos to it, and where they are at… it uses google maps API to plot the photos on a map… really neat stuff in my opinion… so anyone who wants to spend 2 minutes to see if they are even mildly impressed / interested / entertained… go to http://www.frappr.com/zeroasterisk and “add yourself”.
After reading the article: CIA prisons leak ‘to be probed’, I was overcome one specific emotion: unease (fear)… The fact that there are secret prisons and nobody knows about them scares the hell out of me.
Basically, if I was taken to prison for thinking our current government sucks (or for being too cynical or too naive), I would want people to know about it… and hopefully make a fuss… you know… maybe get to talk to a lawyer and not be tortured.
Anyone wanna come march to protest the war in iraq? I’ll be there, and so will phil…
Memorial to be Held in Support of Troop Withdrawal from Iraq
Columbus OH Saturday, November 5 The OSU student peace advocacy group AntiWar Columbus will be demonstrating in support of troop withdrawal from Iraq at the Gallery Hop in the Short North area from 8 PM 11 PM on Saturday November 5th.
Students will assemble at the Gazebo in Goodale Park at 7:30 PM and march to the intersection of Buttles Ave.
My boss just sent me a link to the following article:
PHP catching on at enterprises, vying with Java Not only is it cool my boss sent it to me, but the content of the article is great news for anyone who is a fan of PHP… (and anyone who doesn’t know if they are or not, I very much am… so if you can’t form your own opinion on the topic, you may borrow mine) As more and more businesses realize the power, flexibility, and simplicity of PHP – as it comes into the mainstream more and more – I get more chances to work with it, teach friends about it, get paid to build stuff with it… etc.
So, in August, apparentally, Jeno went to Peru… It looks like she toured the countryside and hiked up mountains… went to the amazon rainforest, boated across pink-dolphin infested waters, and got friendly with sheep and mules alike.
I want the full story… if i get it I will post it somewhere…. perhaps I can convince her to start a blog of her own…
A quick note about techno-passports which are to be common soon (required I believe)… they put an antenna in the passport, to transmit data, and a material on the cover to stop the antenna from transmitting all time… strange? yes. this is of importance to people like April who are always (or at least often) using their passports… I bet it’s a few years yet before anita or I have to think about it.
Pre-Halloween Party : Hell House II
Well, as with pretty much all DJ Foursquare (and hushabye house) parties, this was a great event. Chill people, great crowd, good venue (effective at least), great music, etc… It also benifited from a great collection of costumes and a very moderate and (sorry for this review) disney-land-like bondage show… Honestly, I don’t think the crew was disney-land… I’m sure they had to weak-i-fy their setup/show for the audience invovled.
Spoon has posted some new (depending on when you last looked) photos… here are some of my favorites:
dj spoon, weed airport, an attractive salad, and 40 oz of art.
Now playing: [Tom Waits][5] – [Nighthawks at the Diner – Nighthawk Postcards][6]
[5]: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/advancedSearchResults?artistTerm=Tom Waits [6]: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/advancedSearchResults?songTerm=Nighthawks at the Diner - Nighthawk Postcards&artistTerm=Tom Waits
I played ultimate frisbee today, one of the last evening games of the year. It’s been getting dark earlier every week and now we have to stop playing around 7:15… when you start at 6:00 of after, that’s really frustrating.
What might have been frustrating was that it was cold and rainy today, starting to be really ugly right about the time we started playing… but it wasn’t frustrating at all.
One more quick note:
I was doing the Google “feeling lucky” thing, where you enter a word like “failure” and it gives your it’s best result… Well, for the word “failure” it isn’t random, it’s… well… funny, appropriate, sad… Biography of President George W. Bush.
Anyway, so I tried again, I entered “incompetent” and hit “I’m feeling lucky”… and I got The President as Incompetent Liar. I read this article, BTW, and it is very well done, I think.
Call me a content theif, but I just can’t think of anything better to post here than some recent posts from Brian Sack’s blog www.banterist.com.
Shopping for God Brian’s old leather pants auction (news article) (auction) Backwards Swastika Brand Vegetarian Barbecue Sauce (my eyes are still watery from this one) and more… Now playing: Interpol – [Antics – Not Even Jail][7]
[7]: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/advancedSearchResults?songTerm=Antics - Not Even Jail&artistTerm=Interpol
One of the strangest things I’ve run across… ORNL Mutant Mouse Database. It is litterally a place to find out about and purchase mutant mice… seriously.
I just heard from my good friend (and former employer) Dave Caudill and got up to speed on his recent newsletters. I’m glad to see he’s still making great art and getting it out in the world… It’s also nice to hear the human side of the story, about the places he visits, what he sees, and often what he eats… The most appealing of these recent travels, for me, is the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey (
Chernobyl Accident – Nuclear Reactor Explosion, 1986 April 26 Mohamed ElBaradei – IAEA Directory General, replacing Hans Blix Weapons of Mass Distraction – also see the top 10 from Connie Rice on The Tavis Smiley Show on NPR William Upski Wimsatt – The author of “Bomb the Suburbs”, which I’m currently reading (fantastic, if dated) Now playing: [Mates of State][10] – [Team Boo – Parachutes (Funeral Song)][11]
[10]: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/advancedSearchResults?artistTerm=Mates of State [11]: http://phobos.
I just took a Typology Test and ended up as ENFJ which broke down as the following:
[17%] Extroverted [25%] Intuitive [12%] Feeling [67%] Judging You can read more about the ENFJ type by looking at the following descriptions… one by D.Keirsey and one by J. Butt.
Update – Oct. 11
I found out that according to the Typology tests, the perfect match for ENFJ is ISFJ, and Anita is who got me to take the test… So, I had to find out what her type was… and of coruse, she’s ISFJ.
I recently found out about what appears to be a great group called ApolloAlliance, which is setup in many states including Ohio and Kentucky. There’s a lot of good information there, including how to get invovled in local communities as well as how to become more energy efficient. (they’ve even got job listings)
Since I’m on the topic, I want to recommend anyone interested in energy conservationism (or conservationism in general) in the Louisville Kentucky area to check out the BRKST wiki (breakset resources and knowledge for sustainable thought) run by Jason Smithson.
I feel like a spectator admiring athletes reading things like the this blog post [Semantic Wikipedia - At last one of dreams is at the verge of coming true.], but an excited spectator, none the less.
Wiki is already a fantastic tool for simple (or complex) content management, accessible to anyone within a few minutes… This proposed innovation would add the ability to add, inline, extra relationships which build a more complete (and interoperable) logical structure.
Sporting Events cause a drop in ER visits
Ok, this is kindof rediculous… Apparently, Americans put off their emergency room visits, or just don’t have as many problems, during major sporting events. I can understand being into sports, but that seems unreal.
Helicopters Scour Louisiana Floodwaters (Rita Aftermath)
People checking their hurricane-hit homes and towns returned with stories of flooding to the rooftops, coffins and refrigerators bobbing in the water, and stilts where their houses once stood.
I’ve been working on a comprehensive theme, currently called za1 (very exciting name, eh?). I will be mapping the components of my site into that theme (instead of hacking the themes of the components of my site to look kindof like each other).
The themes are driven primarily by CSS, and done in such a way as to allow simple variations in how things should look… there will be an “options” selector on the top-right and it will allow you to easily choose theme options and it saves your options as a cookie (if you allow the cookie) or session variables if your don’t allow the cookies.
I very briefly talked to mom today and she said her mom (Penny) went back to her home today and things seem normal enough. She was driving so I didn’t get a full report, but judging by tone-of-voice, everything sounds fine. More information when I have it (and remember to post).
Rita Update:
Rita, as a Category 3 hurricane (120 mph) made landfall at 2:30 a.m. CDT today in extreme southwest Louisiana between Sabine Pass and Johnson’s Bayou, La. Port Arthur, Texas, clocked maximum wind gusts of 116 mph, while Beaumont, Texas, measured 105 mph. Cameron, La., reported a gust to 112 mph before the anemometer failed. Storm surge flooding of up to 15 feet probably occured just east of where the eye thundered ashore.
An Email to/from Cathy (my mom) who lives in Houston, in response to the coming hurricane everyone is freaking out about (because of the recent Katrina problems in New Orleans).
From Alan
dear houston clan:
After calling mom 6+ times, and never getting through, anita suggested I email her… and due to the subject matter, I decided to email all of you.
come to columbus if you want to escape the hurricane.
Challenged by Creationists, Museums Answer Back
(sorry, the link requires login)
Apparently, after a few rather agressive (not phiscally) confrontations with creationists, in science museums – docents and volunteers are flocking to training on how to best respond to such challenges.
“The goal is to understand the controversies, so that people are better able to handle them as they come up,” she said. “Museums, as a field, have recognized we need to take a more proactive role in evolution education.
Clinton launches withering attack on Bush on Iraq, Katrina, budget
Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq “virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction.”
…
“What Americans need to understand is that … every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts,” he said.
September 9th, it was ruled that Jose Padilla was still not to be given fair trial, in fact not to be charged with a crime nor to be given legal council. It’s the first time this has ever happened in the US court system (to my knowledge)… Even actual “enemy combatants” in our previous wars, captured on the battlefield all got lawyers and full legal procedings. Our courts were used, to verify and justify and validate.
Saturday Anita had to work, but Phil, Sarah, Jess, and Phil’s friend Tom came over and played Mao [1]2. It’s a great game – and surprisingly effective at bringing about a represive dictatorial feel in the players (who thought that could be so much fun?). We played a variant where after winning 3 rounds you could make up your own rule… my personal favorite was (my rule): you have to use rapper hands whenever you call penalty on someone.
Katrina
It’s a huge disaster. Everyone is probably aware of that. To put it in perspective, it’s [Katrina
It’s a huge disaster. Everyone is probably aware of that. To put it in perspective, it’s]2 many other natural and un-natural disasters other countries or even this country has had to deal with (or cause)… but it’s still really bad. [the worst hurricanes]
So, we use this as an opportunity to blame other people and talk about who should have done what and why we weren’t prepaired and aren’t handling the situation well now [link].
Many new photos of our kittens are now avaialble, including a really cute one of Jess and Io (on the right). Below are some of my favorites:
Thebe’s bath Thebe in a cup Thebe and Io in bowls There are also a few new photos of Nova and some of my Dad’s kittens we brought him, but they will have to be featured in a different posting.
Now playing: [Al Frankin][8] – [Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them][9]
TimeWaster 6000 – The Artsechro Mixer (funded by Red Bull, built by terralever and in part by Chris “ubergeek.tv” Hill)
Create your own “Concerto for Turntable” – Fuse classical and turntable music with the Red Bull Artsehcro Mixer. Here you can create your own songs by mixing various turntable loops and Artsehcro instruments. Once you create a song you can submit it to be rated by your peers and send it to friends.
So – Capture the Flag was a lot of fun. We played at the Park of Roses on August 21 2005 (after sundown). We had 9 people show and had a great time, though we were out classed severely by some “in shape” players. I’m hoping to end up with more people in a bigger area for the next game on September 9th (friday) at an unknown location.
Google is incredible.
Recent News:
Skin Cells Converted to Stem Cells which means we have “starter cells” for transplants and the like and don’t have to worry about the moral issues raised from using the tissues of aborted fetuses (feti?). [Bush’s statement on this]
I’ve heard of this before, though… In fact, in a previous article from the Washing Post. My question really is, what is the quantity we are talking about? If we could produce enough stem cells to generate real tissues, doesn’t that kinda sound like vat grown replacement parts….
IE is horrible, use firefox or Mozilla… or just go to Linux and use the big K.
Yet again… nasty trojans auto-install through IE Security Shortcommings
get firefox
I took the kittens to the vet yesterday. It turns out they’re only 6 weeks old and they are both males. We have also decided on names for them. The black one is henceforth Thebe, and the white and orange one is Io. These are the names of 2 of Jupiter’s moons, so we were able to stick with the science theme afterall!
I took the kittens to the vet yesterday. It turns out they’re only 6 weeks old and they are both males. We have also decided on names for them. The black one is henceforth Thebe, and the white and orange one is Io. These are the names of 2 of Jupiter’s moons, so we were able to stick with the science theme afterall!
We have kittens.
That’s right, it’s cute-fest-2005 in our apartment right now. We got a pair of 8 6 week old kittens on Sunday from Anita’s co-worker who got them dumped on her by her mom. They are a brother (black) and sister (white & orange) and have very quickly bonded with Anita and I… they are ok with Nova, but she’s not yet ok with them. Nova actually submitted to them, belly up and looking away; our guard dog proving her grit once again.
From an email from April:
_However, I did want to let everyone know that I am
safe and perfectly whole after this morning’s earthquake. For those of you
who have no idea what I’m talking about, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit
Japan at 11:46 this morning and I was a mere 60 some-odd kilometers south of
its center of its origin. It’s on the front page of BBC, CNN, MSN-NBC, etc.
I don’t have anything interesting going on right now, so here’s some of the stuff going on in the world today (that I was interested in):
techie stuff
Google snubs tech news outlet CNET – Google CEO got “googled” and is upset about the demonstration of people’s complain at all the personal information readily available… It’s just that the info is so easy to get at… (personally, that doesn’t bother me – information is simply information, not all of it is true but whatever is, should be available… in my ideal world there would be no need to worry about privacy concerns… too bad we’re not there yet.
Well, I’m finally done with updating the backlogged Japan blog entries. It was something I kept putting off, but I’m real glad I did it – the posts are kinda long, but it’s as much for my memory of the trip as anyone else’s (sorry).
I’m impressed that within 45 minutes of uploading the lastest batch of photos, some of them have been looked at 4 times already… I know I’m just getting lucky, but it still nice to know someone is looking.
Anita and I were planning on staying up all Monday night and going to the Tokyo Fish Market at 5 am on Tuesday, but around 3am we crashed. Anita got up at 4:30 and fully intended to get me up, but she saw that a sub-tropical-storm was headed at Tokyo and that it was already raining pretty hard… There’s something about being dog tired and lost in a city that is much worse sounding if you add in the attribute – rain soaked.
After the late night before, we all slept in… Anita and I slept in so much we missed our hotel’s breakfast. We found a snack and took the subway to the Tokyo Aquarium. It was totally disappointing. The animals had very small enclosures, particularly bothersome were the mammals. There were many dead or dirty exhibits and not too much to read in English… We left after (something like) an hour and a half and roamed the “Sunshine 60” shopping complex (basically a big mall like the galleria in Houston without the ice skating rink).
Another morning of repacking, a walk to the station, and a train ride to Tokyo (~3 hours)… most people napped (I read).
We got out at Tokyo and took a subway to the hotel, dropped off our packs, and walked around to find food. Ironically, our hotel was right next to Akihabara, the Electronic Market in Tokyo, and it was Sunday, a day so busy the street is shut down to vehicles and the area is swarmed with geeks of all varieties and the people that feed on/off them.
On our second full day in Kyoto we ate the last of the Fruit and some of the granola bars for breakfast; then we hopped on the #100 bus for the east side of Kyoto to see Ginkakuji-michi (the Silver Temple). The Silver Temple was much better than the Golden Temple because it was less overrun with tourists and also because the surrounding gardens were amazing. The cultivation of moss is, itself, remarkable, but to see the whole garden come together is quite impressive.
We got an early start, showered, dressed, and set out for the train station to buy bus passes before 8:00 am. 2,000 Yen for a 2 day all bus all subway pass is a good deal… also because it means you don’t have to pay attention to which company bus or subway you want to use, because in the city of Kyoto there are at least 3-4 different companies for public transit and most other passes don’t cover them all.
We finished packing for a couple of hours and then took way too much stuff down to the Koori-Machi train station. We caught the 15 minute train to Fukushima and stuffed our packs into lockers at the train station there. (Except my pack, which wouldn’t fit in any of the lockers)
We then went to the 100 Yen store – the Japanese equivalent of the $1.00 store, but much, much cooler.
Wednesday, we went to the elementary school April visits a few times a week. We did a brief tour of the classes and had an audience with the principal and vice-principal. The school seemed wonderful, but we didn’t have as much time to spend there as we did in Jo-Chu. We had to rush through the school, stop for a quick Ramen lunch, and be back at April’s apartment in time for Karen to receive a several wonderful gifts from some of April’s students who were in Elizabethtown last year.
Tuesday 19 July 2005, we dressed in our nice clothes, carried our own house slippers so we didn’t have to use visitor slippers, and walked to Jo-Ho Chugakko Junior High School, known as Jo-Chu. Arriving at school a few minutes early (which was really on time) we met with the principal (Coach O’Sensei). Immediately we were amazed with how generous he was… treating us like honored guests would be putting it mildly.
This morning we ate fruit, cereal, and granola before setting out for Mount Azuma. We took the Aizu Bandi Skyline (highway) for some beautiful but quite frightening driving in the mountains. A couple hours of hair-pin turns and sulfur smelling air later, we ended up at Mount Azuma. It’s a large (dormant?) volcano crater in the midst of a gorgeous mountain range. We walked around the crater, against some very serious winds.
Saturday we took a local train to Fukushima and ate lunch at our first Japanese restaurant… it was spectacular! It was a friend of a friend’s dad’s restaurant and we ended up being there 20 minutes before they opened, but they let us in and sat us by the window looking out onto their wonderful and very small garden. We had pork medallions and miso and cabbage salads and rice – I had a curry dish.
24 hours, is a long time to travel.
We flew to Chicago from Louisville, but got delayed on the runway in Louisville; so we had to run in Chicago to make it to our connecting flight to Tokyo… we made it though, and started our ~11.5 hour flight.
The plane ride was fine, in that really long and tiring kinda way. We were good and stayed awake (mostly) in order to sync our sleep cycle with Japan which is almost exactly the opposite of our timezone.
Anita’s hair is finally long enough to put into psuedo-pig-tails! glory glory…
[Anita’s hair is finally long enough to put into psuedo-pig-tails! glory glory…
]1
Also, while you are looking at that photo, look around the friends 2005 photos – there are finally a few other pictures besides documentation of my various hair styles…
All of the “final” preperations for the trip to Japan are (almost) complete. We are packed and will be going to Louisville on Wednesday night… then flying to japan Thursday morning – flying until sometime friday (Japan time) and the train’ing to April’s town… arriving sometime Friday night…. We are not looking forward to the travel time, but super excited about going. We have packed a hiking backpack apiece and books and music…
I have implemented a blogging system on my site (utilizing WordPress) and modified the display of my wiki to play well with the blog… The basics of the change are making the content fixed width, and moving the “article, discussion, edit, history, etc” tabs to a sidebar component on the wiki… then coming up with a shared header…
I still need to get the old blog entries into this system (very do-able), and I am thinking a homepage not in the wiki, is appropriate… either that or i should get rid of the “home” link in the header… hurumph – i think i’m going to remove the “home” link in the header now (since it’s the same as the wiki link for now).