Cesar Chavez day

Today I'm enjoying a day off from work because our company is closed for Cesar Chavez Day. If you're interested, there is a great biography of Chavez on the California Department of Education's web site.

The final paragraph of the article says: In 1994, César Estrada Chávez was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United State’s highest honor for nonmilitary personnel. It was accepted by his wife and long time partner, Helen F. Chávez. During the ceremony President Clinton said of Chávez:

“Born into Depression-era poverty in Arizona in 1927, he served in the United States Navy in the Second World War, and rose to become one of our greatest advocates of nonviolent change. He was for his own people a Moses figure. The farm workers who labored in the fields and yearned for respect and self-sufficiency pinned their hopes on this remarkable man, who, with faith and discipline, with soft-spoken humility and amazing inner strength, led a very courageous life. And in so doing, brought dignity to the lives of so many others, and provided for us inspiration for the rest of our nation’s history.”

This is a state holiday for Californians, one of only 7 states that celebrate it and but it isn't even universally celebrated here. It got me thinking about holidays - their history and acceptance. We have holidays (literally HOLY days) for religious purposes like Easter and Christmas (although only Christmas becomes a work holiday even when it falls on Sunday). We have holidays for patriotic reasons like the Fourth of July, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day. And we have those for honoring people like Mother's Day, Father's Day, Lincoln's Birthday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Cesar Chavez Day, and Columbus Day (although that last one is becoming more controversial each year). Of course we have some just for fun such as New Year's Day and St. Patrick's Day.

Do you have a favorite day you think should be recognized and celebrated more? A minor holiday that should be elevated to a major holiday? Do you think we should eliminate one or modify one that we currently have so that it will be more inclusive? What do you think?

Big Love

I was invited recently, through a chain email message, to ask HBO to cancel their brand new series "Big Love" which portrays the faults, foibles, and frustrations of a polygamous family living in Sandy, Utah. The heart of the chain email is that this show defames the Mormon church somehow (even though HBO and the writers have been careful to point out that the family is NOT Mormon). I decided I couldn't handle this email request the way I would normally - completely ignore it. Instead, I replied with the following

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First of all I’d like to thank you for thinking enough of me to send this to me, knowing that I would not automatically respond but would consider the message thoughtfully. Since I am not a subscriber to HBO and have not seen any episode of the series “Big Love” I didn’t feel I can respond as the email requested without doing a little research of my own. This situation is not the same as a sustaining vote in church where it is automatically assumed we will show agreement “by the usual sign”.

A simple Google search of “Big Love” returned dozens of citations including the following two articles I would like to cite – one from the Salt Lake Tribune and another from the National Review Online.

In the National Review Online article, the author Catherine Seipp says:

But the remarkably well-written and engrossing Big Love is no more in favor of polygamy than The Sopranos is in favor of mobsters. Instead, like its lead-in, the new series uses the dynamics of a bizarre but functioning suburban family to underscore tensions inherent in all families. The show opens with a disclaimer that the characters are most certainly not Mormons, who indeed should have no reason to be offended by the series. The Latter-Day Saints — seen by Big Love polygamists as the enemy — come off in this show as in comparison almost actual saints, squarely law-abiding and responsibly monogamous.

I like that. Mormons “should have no reason to be offended by the series” and Mormons “come off.. as.. almost actual saints, squarely law-abiding and responsibly monogamous.”

Seipp continues with “I don't think the show glamorizes or even sanitizes polygamy, except that of course actual polygamists never look as fit and attractive as the Big Love family.”

Remember this is a review by a woman who says that “legalized polygamy is legalized slavery” which seems to echo the (current) official church policy on the practice of polygamy and concern about women and child abuse.

In the Tribune article Series creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer said “they want viewers to know the difference between the polygamists depicted in the show and mainstream Mormons. They have included a disclaimer at the end of each episode that underscores the church's position. “

Olsen and Scheffer were quoted as saying, “When we proposed polygamy [to HBO], we indicated head out we were not interested in the glib, the sensational, the tawdry, the salacious. Our interests went much deeper than that and we also wanted to communicate to HBO - and it was important to us to make this point to have credibility as artists - we had no ax to grind against the Mormon church. That also was not what the show was about, and those remain our guiding principles in this material."

Yes, there will be Mormon references because the setting is Utah where a great many polygamists live and attempt to be a part of the culture. Remember that many, if not most, polygamist sects are apostate churches or descended from apostate churches which split off from the Mormon church when the Church stopped practicing polygamy. Their members revere prophets and read the Book of Mormon. Of course, they’re going to reflect a lot of the LDS culture that is so pervasive in Utah even if they aren’t Mormon.

Often the best way to tackle a problem in society is to have a serious discussion about the problem, not to ignore it or complain when someone produces a show about it. If I were to write HBO a letter based solely on my research, I would thank them for taking on this project in a thoughtful, sensitive manner. But I probably will still wait until I see for myself what sort of a show “Big Love” really is.

Best quote on separation of church and state

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis, Maryland, at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify.

At the end of his testimony, republican state senator Nancy Jacobs said, "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied, "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

The room erupted into applause.

(Checked out and verified as substantially correct at Snopes.com)

Reality Check - book review

What is reality? Can we rely on our brains to tell us what reality is? What about our emotions? Do they come from the brain, some other part of the body, or even from something outside the body such as the soul or spirit? The subtitle of Reality Check is “What your mind knows, but isn’t telling you.” I believe it would be as accurate to say the book is about what your mind knows but can’t tell you because you wouldn’t believe it.

The author David L. Weiner writes in a style that is easy to understand even when the things he writes about are not easily understandable. He covers such topics as the anatomy of the brain, how neurons work, the impact of general relativity, and the marvel of DNA. This is one of those books that has so many good pieces of information in it, that you sort of wish it would just on and on explaining everything.

I liked the book especially in those areas where Weiner puts things into perspective such as describing our DNA as a 6 foot long thread that is so thin you could only see it with a scanning electron microscope. Yet contained in that small thread is the whole blueprint of our minds, bodies, and very existence. The difference between any two humans expressed as a percentage of this DNA is so small as to be meaningless even though we spend our entire lives proving to ourselves and others that we are different. Sometimes proving entails the expression of the best in art, music, science, or even politics while at other times that proving entails torture, killing, war, and enslavement.

Another section I found fascinating dealt with religions of the world. Quoting from the World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, published by the Oxford University Press, Weiner reports that “there are at least 10,000 distinct and different religions across the world, of which 270 have more than 500,000 adherents.” And the single largest component of religion is genetics – at least 99.99% of the time you inherit your religion from your parents. In the United States where religion is considered more changeable than in many parts of the world, Weiner states that fewer than 2% convert from one religion to another in any year. I would venture that that is much too high of an estimate.

Although Reality Check won’t give you all the answers to life’s questions, it will provide you with several hours of interesting reading and dozens of thought provoking questions.

One good turn deserves another...

In front of the Regional Center where I work, there is a sharp 90 degree turn in the road. It should alert drivers to the fact that they need to slow down to negotiate the turn. However, more than one driver has decided to speed up instead of slow down with the result being that he is unable to make the turn within the confines of the road.

After the last time someone did this, we were concerned enough to install concrete filled steel posts along the front of our property. The posts were painted a pleasant light green to blend in with the grass and not be a real eyesore. As you can see, they didn't stop a driver this weekend from plowing ahead. He scraped his car on the right post began pushing over a post on his left,
and ran right over the post in the middle. I can only imagine what that must have sounded like scraping the bottom of the car as he continued over it.
He still had enough momentum to shear off a young tree that we planted a couple of years ago then turn and

mow down the fire department water standpipe. When our security service arrived, the driver, still drunk and dazed was trying to figure out how to get his car back in the street. It took a tow truck to do that. We were all just glad that this occurred at 1:00 am when no one was around. And also glad that the posts and the tree slowed him down enough that he didn't ram into the building.

Until recently my office was located just behind that stone wall you see in the background. I would have had a great view of a car out of control.

Shelf sufficient

Once again I took Carolyn to the Enterprise car rental office this morning so she could pick up her vehicle of the week. She is driving down to Visalia for a week or reviews, audits, observations, and other assistance.

I have assured her that I will do just fine in her absence because I am shelf sufficient: as long as there's enough pastaroni on the pantry shelf, I'll get by.

The anatomy of a birthday party

It's quarter past 11 on a beautiful Saturday morning. The street is calm. The only thing indicating that something is up are three colorful balloons tied to the lamppost in front of the house.



But inside, folks are busy completing preparations such as a "design your own" drinking cup table complete with colored markers, crayons, and a collection of stickers to color and stick on your very own drinking cup.



Bags of play dough have been prepared and stacked together with cookie cutters, wooden rollers, and pattern makers.

Even a clown missing a nose has been hung for the guests (while blindfolded) to try their hand at sticking the nose where it should be. Our birthday boy is checking out all the preparations to be sure he knows what is going to happen. After all, when you're four you worry about these things.

Because the weather could turn damp and cold at any time, the air pumped trampoline has been set up in the family room. This makes a good place for the guests to gather as they arrive in ones and twos. They quickly shed their shoes and pile in. Older brother Tim monitors things to make sure no more than 3 children are on the trampoline at any one time. Grandma and Chuckie also keep a watch on things.

When most of the guests have arrived, Mom announces "Lunch Time!" and everyone sits around the dining room table for beans and franks with chips, dips, and veggies as well. A great lunch for this crowd.

After lunch there is more play time with the toys in the boys bedroom, the trampoline, and even a pinata. Then the birthday boy Jake sits down while each child in turn brings up their wrapped present for him to open.

Tearing off the paper isi one of Jake's specialties. But he also enjoys posing with each of his guests for a special picture.

After all the gifts are unwrapped the children gather around dad for a group picture. Well, it was more fun to cover dad with all the wrapping paper.

The finale is the birthday cake specifically selected by Jacob and representing his favorite movie at this time Madagascar.

Jake takes a big breath and blows out all four cancles at one time. We all cheer.

Yummy chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream make a perfect dessert for a wonderful birthday party.

The blue frosting not only tastes great but makes for a great face.

Jake gives everyone a big hug and a thank you for coming to his birthday party. Now, the hard part, waiting a whole year for the next one.

Everyday observation quiz

A friend passed this on to me through e-mail and since I rarely pass anything along that way (seems too much like spam to me) I decided instead to post it on this blog.

The average person only gets 7 correct. (This statistic is totally made up but it makes most people happy to know they're above average.)

This is based on U.S. info, so use all lobes of your brain. This can be more difficult than it looks - it just shows how little most of us really see!

There are 25 questions about things we see every day or have known about all our lives. How many can you get right? These little simple questions are harder than you think-- it just shows you how little we pay attention to the commonplace things of life.

Put your thinking caps on. No cheating! No looking around! No getting out of your chair! No using anything on or in your desk or computer!

Can you beat 12?? (The average is 7) Write down your answers as you go.
Check answers (in the first comment), AFTER completing all the questions.

REMEMBER - NO CHEATING!!! BE HONEST!!! That means no looking at your phone or anything on your desk....

Then, before you pass this on to your friends, change the number on the subject line to show how many you got correct. Forward to your friends and also back to the one who sent it to you.

LET'S JUST SEE HOW OBSERVANT YOU REALLY ARE.
Here we go!

1. On a standard traffic light, is the green on the top or bottom?

2. How many states are there in the USA? (Don't laugh, some people don't know)

3. In which hand is the Statue of Liberty's torch?

4. What six colors are on the classic Campbell's soup label?

5. What two numbers on the telephone dial don't have letters by them?

6. When you walk does your left arm swing with your right or left leg? (Don't you dare get up to see!)

7. How many matches are in a standard pack?

8. On the United States flag is the top stripe red or white?

9. What is the lowest number on the FM dial?

10. Which way does water go down the drain, counter or clockwise?

11. Which way does a "no smoking" sign's slash run?

12. How many channels on a VHF TV dial?

13 On which side of a women's blouse are the buttons?

14. Which way do fans rotate?

15 How many sides does a stop sign have?

16. Do books have even-numbered pages on the right or left side?

17 How many lug nuts are on a standard car wheel?

18. How many sides are there on a standard pencil?

19. Sleepy, Happy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Dopey, Doc. Who's missing?

20. How many hot dog buns are in a standard package?

21 On which playing card is the card maker's trademark?

22 On which side of a Venetian blind is the cord that adjusts the opening between the slats?

23. There are 12 buttons on a touch-tone phone. What 2 symbols bear no digits?

24. How many curves are there in the standard paper clip?

25. Does a merry-go-round turn counter- or clockwise?

Bear tactics

A friend from work was describing to us over lunch how, on a camping trip, he had been confronted by a bear who appeared to be minding her own business. However, she was too close for comfort for my friend so he decided to follow advice he'd heard that when facing a large, dangerous wild animal, you should make yourself look big and threatening. Holding his jacket above his head with both arms spread out increased his apparent height at least three feet.

The result, however, was not quite what he expected. The bear rather than being frightened was either curious or annoyed. In any case, she started running towards my friend who decided at that point to look small and insignificant or invisible. The bear lost interest and went back to ambling through the forest.

How many of our troubles do we bring on ourselves by looking big and threatening. Is our current war an example? Shouting to the world, "Bring it on!" doesn't seem to have frightened any bears away.

"I'll Get By (As Long as I Have You)" by Harry James

The title of this blog entry was, according to Billboard Magazine, the #1 hit in the nation on the day I was born. I'm fortunate in that I can actually recognize the tune and the words to this song. I probably even have the sheet music for it.

What was the #1 song on the day you were born? Or your wedding day, Philip & Jenny? To find out go to this location.

Wedding Bells

I think I've already mentioned how delighted we are to be looking forward to the addition of another daughter-in-law in our family. I was also delighted to see that Lisa and Steve have used the latest technology to announce their wedding which will take place June 17, 2006. You can see their wedding announcement which also contains a photo of the happy couple. The church is large enough that they can probably accommodate the first 400 people who show up so please plan on it.

What's so hard about obeying the law? - political rant

I'm disgusted with both parties right now. And I'm disgusted that I don't have more real choices.

The object of my disgust is the current administration which seems to feel that it's above the law and the democrats in congress who don't seem to have the courage of their convictions in reminding the president that he is not above the law. I'm referring, of course, to President Bush's deliberate sidestepping of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. There is nothing in that act which would prevent any of the eavesdropping the President wants to do. It just makes him accountable to the judiciary for reporting what has been done either before or after the fact. And, goodness knows, if that was too difficult he has a republican controlled congress which would probably be more than happy to change the law to suit him. That's the way we do things in America, I thought. If we don't like a law, we petition congress to change it.

The other object of my disgust is the democrat side of congress who, when faced with a motion by Senator Feingold to censure the president for breaking the law, sit on their hands and act embarrassed. "Oh dear," they seem to be saying, "how will I explain any sudden act of leadership on my part?" It's enough to make me puke. Enough to make me tear up and throw away the appeal I got in the mail today from Senator Hillary Clinton for help in "electing a democratic senate". With democrats like this, why try?

Why am I happy?

Now I know that some of you will think I’m off my meds. That was the accusation when I happened to mention that I really don’t mind spam because it acted as the fiber in my digital diet. This time I’m turning my attention to happiness – or the lack of it.

Can I make myself happy when I’m miserable? Or vice versa? Without using mood altering drugs, what can or should a person do to change their outlook on life? Why do some people seem always incredibly happy?

In an interview some years ago, Steven Pinker, a psychologist at Harvard University and author of “A Blank Slate”, claimed that people were only happy in comparison to someone else or as he put it “our sense of happiness is always calibrated with respect to other people”. For example, if we found a 5% raise in our paycheck we’d be delighted until we found out that others had received 10%.

Another article on the same web site by Richard Nesbitt, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, suggests that we really don’t know why we feel the way we do. He says:

Does it matter that we often don't know what goes on in our heads and yet believe that we do? Well, for starters, it means that we often can't answer accurately crucial questions about what makes us happy and what makes us unhappy. A social psychologist asked Harvard women to keep a daily record for two months of their mood states and also to record a number of potentially relevant factors in their lives including amount of sleep the night before, the weather, general state of health, sexual activity, and day of the week (Monday blues? TGIF?). At the end of the period, subjects were asked to tell the experimenters how much each of these factors tended to influence their mood over the two month period. The results? Women's reports of what influenced their moods were uncorrelated with what they had reported on a daily basis. If a woman thought that her sexual activity had a big effect, a check of her daily reports was just as likely to show that it had no effect as that it did. To really rub it in, the psychologist asked her subjects to report what influenced the moods of someone they didn't know: She found that accuracy was just as great when a woman was rated by a stranger as when rated by the woman herself!

It seems that for the most part instead of consciously or unconsciously analyzing our situation, surroundings, and activities and coming up with emotions that are appropriate, most of us use our minds to rationalize the way we feel.

At the risk of overanalyzing my own thoughts I certainly find that I disagree to some extent with Pinker and agree with Nesbitt. I don’t rejoice in the unhappiness of others especially if I somehow profit from their misfortune. Nor do I feel left out or falling behind if others are more fortunate – at least up to a point. I often don’t know why I’m happy although I can always find several things to justify the feeling. At the same time, I often wake up in the morning with a vague sense of unhappiness for no reason at all and I wonder what could have caused that.

Do you know what makes you happy or sad? Do you really know?

Pride and Prejudice - a review

We took the opportunity a couple of evenings ago to rent the latest version of Pride and Prejudice to hit the big screen. It is a marvelous chick flick which means that I loved it almost as much as Carolyn did. But I don't know that I could say it is really that much better than previous versions. It seems to be more true to the book or what I envision the book to be (since I've never read it myself) simply because the language seems dated and more appropriate to the time period. The decidedly English accents of all the characters makes it also seem more "authentic". Would I recommend it? Certainly, but be prepared for a movie with no car chases, pyrotechnics, or murder.

On the technical side of things, I struggled through the first five minutes or so and was on the verge of falling asleep when Carolyn suggested that we use the language feature of the DVD to turn on closed captioning. Although I could hear the dialogue, the combination of the accent, the overlapping voices, and my ever diminishing ability to hear higher frequencies made the movie incomprehensible to me. I felt like I was watching a foreign language film. It didn't even help much that I was quite familiar with the plot (who isn't by now?) With the closed captioning, suddenly the dialogue made sense and the movie became fun again. It definitely saved the evening as far as I'm concerned.

Now what is to become of me when the eyes start going so much that I can't read the captions? Edward suggested that when we get a large screen TV it will not be so that we get a bigger picture but rather so we can read the captions.

Here's to correlation

I knew the Mormon Church was very proud of it's correlation program which keeps all the lessons and lesson manuals synchronized throughout the world. Every Sunday, virtaully every class in the church is listening to the same lesson from the same lesson manual. Deviation is strongly discouraged.

Judging from the Young Women's fundraisers this year, it appears that the long arm of correlation has even reached spaghetti dinners. A week ago we had a Young Women's fundraiser in our ward that consisted of a spaghetti dinner accompanied by an auction of deserts and other good things to eat. We invited our son and his family to join in the fun.


Last night they returned thte favor by inviting us to their Young Women's fundraiser which consisted of a spaghetti dinner accompanied by an auction of deserts, services, and other worthwhile things. The only difference was that this time it was a silent auction instead of the live auction at our ward. I thought the entertainment value of the live auction was significantly greater although it did take a lot of time.

I understand that at least one of our daughters also was involved with the Young Women's fundraiser in their ward which consisted of (can you guess?) a spaghetti dinner and an auction. Can anyone tell me if this is a trend? If so, I can't wait for it to extend to other church functions such as the annual beach party (which could be difficult for those in Colinsville, Oklahoma.

Getting close to springtime

With temperatures approaching the mid-60's, a slight breeze, and the enthusiastic serenading of the neighborhood birds, it was just too nice to stay inside today.

We tried out our new Little Giant ladder to check out and clean out the gutters. The recent rain had done a good job of clearing our roof of dirt and debris but it had all gotten into the gutters where the downspout screens had done their job of keeping the downspouts clear at the expense of leaving lots of muck in the gutters. Still, it was good to see that the gutters weren't completely full.


I found the ground where we have been planting tomatoes still too wet to work but the raised flower beds had drained enough that I could get a start on chopping out the grass. However, my aching hands didn't let me complete the job. It's still too early to plant anything there anyway.

Carolyn found the perfect spot to work - listening a backdrop of our fountain and neighborhood birds, she could begin planting the border and ground cover flowers that she bought at Costco last week.

Happy St. Patty's day

African-Americans get the whole month of February to celebrate Black History. The Irish get March 17th to celebrate their history. But what about the Welsh, Scottish, and English?

I was the lucky winner of this beautiful Irish heirloom plastic freezer mug in a drawing at work so I hereby claim to be Irish by adoption - at least for the day.

Have a safe and sane holiday!

It's a cutthroat world

As if Carolyn didn't have enough trouble, one of the things that the doctors picked up on last fall was that her right thyroid gland was swollen about four times the size it should be - about the size of my thumb instead of the tip of my little finger. With all the extra iodine they had pumped into her system for scanning purposes, they weren't sure whether it was permanently enlarged or just a temporary thing. She's been on medication to moderate the thyroid output and also had a biopsy several months ago which was completely negative.

However, Carolyn's endocrinologist feels that an enlarged thyroid is not a good thing and will only get worse if left alone. Since she's feeling really good right now, he feels she should go ahead with surgery to remove the thyroid - both sides. It means that she'll have to take thyroid hormone supplement for the rest of her life instead of thyroid hormone suppressant but apparently the supplement has less complications.

The bottom line is that Carolyn will be going back under the knife later this year. There's no particular hurry so she's going to schedule it for mid- to late summer after the bulk of her travel is out of the way and after Steven and Lisa's wedding which is scheduled for June 17. This surgery is supposedly a piece of cake compared to her chest surgery. Still, surgery is never risk- or pain-free. She'll be in the hospital overnight and be advised to take two weeks off work. And she'll have one more scar to show off.

Microsoft Access lives after all!!

As part of my job, I need to access our company's mainframe computer data and prepare reports and data extract analysis from time to time. To do that I can generally rely on our contract programmer and our in-house talent. But I've wanted for some time to access the data directly thinking it might be a little faster. The problem has been that ever Microsoft Access was installed on my computer 3 years ago, the program has run slower than molasses. It would run local database queries almost instantaneously but then I don't have any local databases the size of our mainframe databases.

Our IT department has looked at everything on my computer and has reinstalled Access as well as checked and rechecked the OBDC connection to the mainframe as well as my network connection. They had searched every Microsoft knowledge base to see what might be slowing things down. It was getting to the point where we even considered giving me a completely different computer just for this one small facet of my job. I didn't do much Access programming because queries that were taking 15 to 20 seconds on others' computers were taking 5, 10, 20 minutes on mine. And the noise my computer made during these queries was surprising considering all the data was on the mainframe.

Finally, two days ago I Googled the web once again and came up with the wonderful site W6 An NPR Mind in an MTV World. There was the headline "Suddenly ODBC Is Very Slow". As I read the article, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Maybe this was the answer!

The amazing thing was that not only did this blog describe my problem, it listed the solution in terms that I could understand and follow. Within seconds, my slow Microsoft Access was cured. I could once again join the real world of Access users.

Not to bore you with the details (too late, you say) my OBDC connection had been set to Tracing Mode On so that every reference to a database, every comparison, every retrieval, was logged. That's why my hard drive was working so hard and that's why everything went so slow. It was as simple as going to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Data Sources, Tracing, Stop Tracing Now. Three years of frustration eliminated in 10 seconds. A little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

Why I don't hate SPAM

Okay, I want to make it clear that I'm no fan of obscene and offensive email and I don't really need to receive dozens of offers to refinance our home or enhance some body part. Urban myths make me question the collective intelligence on our planet. But I really don't mind the cute poems and well wishes from friends and family, or the latest newsletters from organizations I can't remember ever hearing about let alone joining. Even the blatant ads for something I'm not interested in are easy enough to send to digital purgatory. Spam comes with the territory.

Spam reminds me that the mailman came today. Even if (or maybe especially if) there is nothing else in the mail, at least I know that the mailman came today if there is one piece of junk mail in my mailbox.

Likewise, one piece of spam means my internet provider is still sending me email. One piece of spam from a loved one indicates they've still got my email address even if they don't remember that it resides solely on a distribution list they've forgotten how to modify.

Like fiber in my diet, spam lets me know the system is working. Maybe that's one reason why I never get around to notifying the credit card people that I don't want any more offers for their latest and greatest card. As long as I continue to get offers I must be alive.

Titanic

ti·tan·ic1 (tī-tăn'ĭk) adj.
Having great stature or enormous strength; huge or colossal: titanic creatures of the deep. Of enormous scope, power, or influence: “a deepening sense that some titanic event lay just beyond the horizon”

I'm amazed at the courage of little Davis Musical Theater Company to take on the plays they do. Saturday evening we and four of our friends were treated to the DMTC's production of Titanic, the 1997 winner of 5 Tony awards including best musical of that year.

The musical is as different from the movie as one could imagine, especially given that they both have the same historical story based on the appropriately named ship, the Titanic. Of course, the DMTC's version of the musical doesn't have Leonardo DeCaprio or Kate Winslet. In fact, although all the parts were well played, none of them stood out as "the" star of the show. One also got the feeling that the stories portrayed were from actual survivors and their remembrances rather than from a screenwriter.

DMTC made excellent use of their new theater, including a stage that begins to slant in the final act leaving one of the final soloists to apparently claw his way up the stage just to stay in the center. Use of music and choral numbers gave the audience the appropriate suspense and resolution. We wll know the Titanic is going to sink but we don't know who will be saved, who will die, and who will take the whole thing very philosophically.

The picture isn't from DMTC's production - they didn't have any on their web site. But you get the idea.

Rainy day activity

Here is a picture of Carolyn NOT shopping at IKEA. Since the Swedish furniture & furnishings superstore opened in our area 10 days ago, we thought it would be nice to drop in and see how it compared to other IKEA stores we've visited in Souther California. Nice thought. When we got there the parking lot was overflowing with parking attendants who knew only how to wave people on, not give advice or actually direct anyone to a parking space. What few parking spaces were opening up from people exiting the store, had 3 or 4 vehicles in line to fill. We did fine some empty spaces half a mile away only to be told by yet other parking attendants that those spaces were reserved for "employees only".



So instead of actually walking more than half a mile to find out if the crowd inside was as crazy as the parking outside, we took a liesurly drive up Old River Road, the road that is on the Yolo County side of the Sacramento River. We had a great view of the swollen river and the homes along the Garden Highway on the other side of the river. We also saw some wonderful farms on the Yolo County side and virtually no homes. Interesting how developments occur.


We ended up at Costco for our traditional lunch and hors d'oeuvres (free samples in the food aisles) after which we found the flowers just too enticing to pass up. Spring must be in the air.

Modern refrigerator

As our archaeology professor handed back out first assignment for the semester which she had just completed grading, she advised us to continue doing what our mothers had been doing since we first started going to school - putting our "A" work on the refrigerator door so that the world could know of our accomplishments. She said this with tongue firmly implanted in cheek, of course. Our refrigerator door is much too cluttered with recipes, dental appointment notices, and garbage pickup calendars to try to add homework results.

But I thought I'd go the Internet generation way and post it on my blog. You'll note this professor goes the extra mile and not only assigns a numberic score (10 out of 10) but adds a couple of smiley faces for extra incentive.

Saving pictures from my blog

I just discovered that you can save the pictures I have posted on my blog in two different sizes. By right clicking on the blog itself and selecting "Save picture as" you can save a picture with the dimensions of 320 x 240 pixels, and about 10K bytes in size. This is a nice size to send in emails but you can't enlarge it past about 3" x 4" and it wouldn't make a good photo print.



By left clicking on the picture, your browser will show a screen with a much larger picture. By right clicking on this picture and selecting "Save picture as.." you can save a picture with the dimensions of 1024 x 768, and about 80K to 100K in size. This isn't bad for emailing but you wouldn't want to email too many in one message. You can enlarge this picture to 10" x 13" on a computer screen (you can use it for wallpaper or a screensaver, for example) and you could get a good photo print at 4" x 6" with no problem. If you'd like a bigger print, contact me for the original digital photo.

Thanks for reading my blog.

This little light of mine

We've all had the experience of turning on the lights and having an incandescent bulb choose that moment to burn out in a flash of glory. There is a flashbulb effect as the surge of electricity overwhelms the old, ready-to-expire filament, and then relative darkness depending on whether there are other lights in the fixture or room. This time Carolyn wasn't even turning on the lights in the bathroom. They were already on. Luckily, she had bent down to get something out of the bathroom drawer when the light above flashed, popped, and pieces went flying in several directions at once. It sounded like she had dropped a fragile glass onto the ceramic counter from several feet above.

old & new
Fortunately, most of the pieces were large and easy to retrieve because a bathroom isn't a nice place to have little glass slivers on the floor. Also, it was easy enough to remove the old light bulb base to put the replacement bulb in. We're still trying to figure out what would have made the bulb explode like that rather than just die the brilliant death chosen by most light bulbs.

Okay, I spoke too soon

The rains they have been promising us finally arrived. For the past couple of days we've had enough rain to make our backyard truly soggy and make me glad that I got the lawn mowed last Saturday.


Tuesday afternoon we not only got some spectacular rain we also got a hailstorm and some lighting effects making our oak tree look like it was on fire and a double rainbow in our neighbor's yard.

Some of the News That Could Be True

The following comes from Altara Blog:

Google Announces Agreement with Florida Town

March 4, 2006 Google issued today a press release announcing a special agreement with the new Florida town of Ave Maria. This planned community, sponsored mainly by the founder of Domino's Pizza, Thomas S. Monaghan, was founded with the intent that it be governed by the principles of the Roman Catholic Church. It is expected that pornographic materials will be banned, pharmacies will not sell condoms or birth control pills, and cable TV will carry no X-rated channels.

The principal effect of Google agreement is that a search entered with words that could lead to porn websites will result in connection to the Vatican library website. The same will happen for searches for “pro choice”, “evolution” or other words indicating misguided thoughts. In a brief press conference, Google spokesman, Roger Blandon, pointed out that, in the context of this town, the search limitation was in furtherance of the Google principle of not being evil.. He also noted that Yahoo and other search engine companies had reached similar agreements.

The Ave Maria mayor, Mary Major, praised the agreement, noting that the town’s citizens could now use internet search engines without risk of being led to wicked websites. She said that her administration was close to an agreement providing for an exclusive town-wide wireless internet access with similar protection. She also announced the formation of a committee to make recommendations for immigration policy.

The piece is obviously a satirical play on the deal that Google recently struck with China, that some feel has compromised Google's integrity. But I thought it was interesting how well it translates to a moral context. I wish I had thought of something like this back when the online newsletter "The Sugarbeet" was still being published as it certainly would have fit there as well.

We're all up in arms about Google's "caving into" the Chinese but how many of us would be thrilled to have a sanitized Google to offer our families in our own homes. We all want to say to our kids, "You have freedom of choice as long as I get to pick the options you can choose from." Now who's idea was that again?

What's that you say?

I've been helping people with homework ever since I was 6 years old helping my siblings with their math. So it wasn't a surprise that I'd be helping daughter-in-law Tiffany with her audiology homework. Except that this time I was simply a subject for her to practice administering a hearing test using this audiometer.


As I'm sure many of you have figured out by now, my hearing isn't what it used to be. The readings are between 10 and 30 decibels short of what I really would like to have with the more serious problem occuring in the higher ranges of speech frequencies. I had my hearing checked when we first moved to Sacramento almost five years ago. At that time it showed some loss but not enough that our medical plan Kaiser thought I should be fitted with hearing aids. It looks like I need a follow-up visit to see whether my condition has deteriorated enough to qualify.

Games night at church

Even though I warned Carolyn that I would go but she couldn't make me enjoy it, I did have a tolerably good time at the church activity last night. We had all ages there, from young kids

to teens


to older folks like us


Food was a wonderful baked potato bar, tossed green salad, various desserts with everyone bringing something to share for one of the three food tables so there wasn't a lot of work for anyone either in the preparation or servicing. Almost every family also brought one or two of their favorite games. There was everything from Set to chess to Uno to dominoes. As you can tell, dress and decor were casual.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Because of the variety of games, there was something for everyone who wanted to play. You just walked around until you saw a game being played that looked interesting to you or a group that you wanted to join.

They say it's going to rain

but all we've been seing these past few days are blue skies and some magnificent cloud banks like this.




I'm not complaining, mind you, as there is apparently plenty of snow falling up in the mountains building up our snow pack so that it won't be a dry summer. We have had a couple of minor sprinkles and even some hail in the valley which lasted all of 10 minutes. Last Monday or Tuesday evening we even got 1.5 inches in less than an hour but by the next morning you couldn't even tell it had rained.

Now I don't have any excuse for not getting out and mowing the back lawn. I was really hoping I could wait until it looked like a mountain meadow.

Urban myth's truth immaterial

I suppose it had to happen. If you're like me you get lots of email from good friends who want to pass on a warning as good friends are supposed to do. And if you're like me, many of these "warnings" are urban myths that spread through the Internet like their more nefarious cousins - computer viruses. For the past several months, I've taken to replying to these warning messages by letting my concerned friend know that there is a website solely dedicated to debunking phony stories - urban legends.

Now I get a warning from a good friend that starts out "I've checked out the following warning at Snopes.Com and they assure me that it is false. However, one can't be too careful nowadays and something like this COULD happen to you." She then proceeded to pass along the warning which can be found here.

What can I do? My friend already knows the warning is false. But she's right, it COULD be true. Kinda sounds like the helpful warnings we get from Homeland Security - they COULD also be true.

Slogans on license plate holders

These are just a sample of some I've been collecting. Any great words of wisdom you'd like to share?

I do, I DO
I DO Believe

So keep your guns
Just give me all the ammo

Reality is just
a collective hunch

I take my chances
Every chance I get

Life is a
Do-it-yourself kit

Mothers are the
Necessity of invention

Never mistake
motion for action

Normal is just a
setting on your dryer

Nothing I do
is my fault

One test is worth
a thousand opinions

Performance will continue
to outsell promise

Reality continues
to ruin my life

Rigid flexibility
is the key to indecision

Some things must be
believed to be seen

Change is certain
Progress is not

The ultimate "piece work" industry

The Mormon Church was way ahead of this one.

A new phenomenon has made it's way onto the Internet. It is called Turking. The name comes from and 18th century mechanical mannequin which appeared to be capable of playing chess. The mannequin, dressed in exotic garb, was referred to as "The Turk". It did rather well in games of chess with human players but not because of advanced mechanical programming. Instead, there was a human inside the box pulling the levers and making the crucial strategic decisions. It has been described as artificial artificial intelligence.

Now we are in the computer age when many things can really be done by computers but there are still a number of things that (for the time being at least) require humans. For example, taking pictures of businesses for travel directories; transcribing taxes and recording codes from deeds; and extracting names from old handwritten documents. The last is what the church has been doing for the past 10 years with its Name Extraction Program. And the name for this is called Turking. The next time you use Mapquest, you can reasonably assume that most of the data came from human input and may have been updated and verified through the process of Turking.

Amazon.Com through its subsidiary Amazon Turk now offers a way for people throughout the world to work on HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) and get paid anything from a penny a name to $4 a picture. Of course, there is quality control built in. Not just anyone can interpret a name or a tax amount on a deed. A person must pass a qualification test. And sometimes work is done by two different people and accepted only if both give the same result. (This is the way the Name Extraction Program works.)

Is it just me or does this look like computers have figured out a way to subcontract out the messy work to humans?