Ruffled Feathers

Walking between buildings on campus today, the squawking of several crows in a large tree, already being observed by two other people, gave me a reason to stop and investigate as well. It turns out there was a large hawk on one of the branches, and according to the other bystanders, it had been chased by the crows into the tree shortly before they stopped to check it out. It was amazing. I'd guess its size to have been roughly 18" tall. I watched for several minutes while other's came to do the same, and one of the bystanders indicated that the hawk has actually been on campus for a couple of weeks, flying between two trees, upsetting the crows and living off the land.

Which explains the recent absence of squirrels running around the grounds.

As I walked away, it flew low across the campus, chased by the crows, and into a tree near the cafe. It was a spectacular sight.

A Side Thought: Having once had a ground floor window office by a tree, I had a front row seat to the activities of the squirrel population. Every time I see the squirrels, I can't help but think of the character Milton, in the film Office Space, muttering about having his desk moved and making a veiled reference to mating squirrels.

"I, I don't care if they, if they lay me off either, because I, I told Bill that if he moves my desk one more time, then, then I'm quitting. I'm going to quit. And I told Dom too because they've moved my desk four times. I used to be by the window, where I could see the squirrels, and they were married."

;But We In It Shall Be Remember'd

Some time around 1998, my wife and I travelled to Denver, Colorado from San Jose, California by train. We were fortunate enough to have met a much older couple over dinner, and learned that the husband was a World War II veteran. We had a couple of meals together during the trip, and some interesting discussions about his having been in the war. It gave both of us a chance to refresh an understanding and appreciation for what has been referred to as "The Greatest Generation", and what going to war meant in that day and age. We established a brief routine of correspondence for the following years, including a letter we wrote after having seen "Saving Private Ryan", expressing our gratitude for his having served during that time. The correspondence faded over time, but we've never forgotten the Schlegels, and we've never forgotten the sacrifices.

Memorial Day was first established to honor and remember the dead from the Civil War, and has since grown to encompass all casualties of war. Some articles I've read recently indicate a continued trend of lessening attendance at Memorial Day services, or general consciousness or awareness of the meaning behind the day. I don't necessarily agree, and my own awareness has only increased over the years.

There was a time in my 20's where the day simply meant a paid holiday and a chance to go hit the beach in Santa Cruz and usher in the summer with friends. I never gave a second thought to the meaning behind the day, it's history, the lives, or the impact of those that fought to protect our freedoms. I would occasionally come across war documentaries on TV and wonder who had the interest to spend time watching footage of something that happened so long ago. Now, I am in earnest to learn about and be aware of these events in our history, and I can't imagine turning a blind eye to the gesture of devoting time, once a year at an absolute minimum, to reflect deeply on and remember the people who gave their lives because they believed it was the right thing to do.

I've wanted to watch "Band of Brothers" for at least 6 years now. And tonight, I started doing so, specifically for the purpose of putting my thoughts squarely into Memorial Day. I'm several hours into it, and will complete it tonight and tomorrow. In addition, as we've tried to do every year, we'll be attending the Memorial Day ceremonies in Saratoga, at the cemetery where some 700 veterans of wars or military service are buried, including my wife's father and grandfather. The kids are intentionally being exposed to this, with the hopes that they'll gain an understanding and appreciation for the history and purpose behind the day, and that they'll carry on the tradition and recognition so that in another 40 years, the day will continue to have meaning, and be cause for remembrance.

Counter Proposal

Can't the people who make decisions about bathrooms in businesses give some consideration to the choice of materials used for the counter? Why must they install a sink countertop that does not easily and immediately indicate the presence of water? Those at our offices are a glossy grey, white, and black granite pattern, which appear to have been designed to specifically camouflage any presence of water, which just happens to get splashed about throughout the day. Eventually, somebody sets a computer or laptop into the water, or worse, leans up against the counter and has their clothing absorb the liquid before they can react. It happened once to me some time back, and now I have to constantly be on the lookout.

It seems that some forethought would prevent the likelihood of such things occurring.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Fire On The Mountain

As you know, there's been some massive fires in the nearby mountain range. You must have heard about it. Unless you live in a cave. Except if that cave is on the burning mountain, in which case, the prior "cave" reference is negated. In any event, there's hills-a-burnin' in the vicinity. So this morning, as I walked out with the kids for our weekly "bringing in the trash-cans" parade, the strong smell of dense smoke filled air filled my nose, and the sky was startlingly and surrealistically gray. It was an eerie vision, while the smell was oddly comforting and reminiscent of a fireplace on a winter's dawn.



I drove up highway 280 last night to meet up with my good friend Tom, who was up from Santa Monica on some business. We had a great time catching up over a couple of beers, and while driving home at about 11.30pm, through the dark rolling hills between there and the Santa Clara valley, I caught sight of a spectacular "Harvest Moon". You know how the moon typically looks like a distant penny, while there's occasions it'll appear as a massive planet almost within reach? Well, the latter was the case last night and the moon itself was a stunning yellow hue, unlike anything I've seen before. As I thought through the possible causes for the "moon illusion" I was observing, I wondered about the unique yellow color, and if it was due to the fires and the smoke in the air.



This was one of those moments that you wish you had a camera, but my iPhone did not suffice.

My iPhone Is Filled to the Rim

Every once in awhile I post some complete "nerd" related tidbit and lose 70% of my readers for a day. This is that day. Because something really unique has cropped up, and as banal and pointless as it is, i just had to note it here. I filled up my iPhone. No... I mean, to the brim. To the brink. To the edge. So much so that if it were a glass of water you'd not be able to pick it up without spilling it. And that's just something I've never seen happen.

The way things work with iTunes and the iPhone is that you select what you want on it; Photos, Movies, Music, Addresses, Email, etc. Then when you connect, it syncs the data over and will either advise you in advance that you haven't enough room for everything you're loading on it, or it'll load it up but you'll always end up with some amount of unused space left over.

Except today. As the image above shows, for the first time that I can recall ever seeing, it's completely full, with no free space, and it didn't warn me in advance that I was trying to load too much stuff. And this never happens. There's no option to simply say "fill it to the brink" as there are on an iPod Shuffle, and even then, those end up with some free space as well. No, this is a complete random fluke occurrence, one I can't imagine I could reproduce if I tried.

You'd think I'd have better things to write about. I do, actually, I just don't have time right now to focus on the more personal posts, so I'm throwing this out.

I know... I'm such a geek.

But then again, perhaps not so much.

I was recently watching the Ricky Gervais HBO show "Extras" on DVD, and a specific scene had me rolling on the floor laughing my ass off, because it seemed to be completely directed at me. I am a geek, yes, but I never really got into watching "Star Trek" as much as some of my far more "uber geek" friends. I've sat with them on numerous occasions and just glazed over while the sound of their voices echoed on about some TNG or Firefly or Battlestar Glattica related topic. So imagine my surprise and amusement at this scene with Patrick Stewart. Pay particular attention to the exchange in the very end.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IURfntimnlA&hl=en]

Swabbing The Decks

Our San Diego trip included a day-and-a-half visit to Legoland. We went there last year for their birthdays, and the kids were quite excited to go again, with a strong interest in their water park setup, which was ideal in the 80-degree weather. I have to say that I've never seen a water park setup as well designed as this. Most water parks seem to have water slides, and areas with water spraying out of the ground or from surrounding pipes, but these guys have raised the bar well beyond reach of my [admittedly limited] knowledge of any others. They've erected a massive pirate ship, with textured rubberized flooring on all surfaces. There's water spraying from all sorts of places. There's water gun "Cannons". There's a couple of short slides, and there are steps, rope-stairs and winding walkways all over, encompassing the structure. On top of the ship sit two massive "buckets" that continuously fill with water until they reach a tipping point.... and then they tip. The flood of water is immense and engulfs the ship and all occupants every 5 minutes or so. (Click the image to see a larger example I found on somebody's flicker page.)

On day one, I ventured up a few steps in my street shorts and shirt, staying relatively dry, to accompany my daughter to a higher point, forgetting about the second of the two buckets. As I was unexpectedly enveloped in a steady stream of cascading water, I watched my wife, my brother-in-law (who surprised us by showing up unexpectedly), and a cluster of sheltered adults all laughing at the situation. They laughed, my daughter laughed uncontrollably, and I laughed too. The next day, I returned with more appropriate attire and a change of clothes, and joined them as we scrambled about for a good chunk of the day.

Back To The Future

We travelled to San Diego last Wednesday for a vacation and a medical visit. My daughter has scoliosis, and unlike the "typical" kind where there's a curvature to an otherwise complete spine, she's actually missing one of two bones on one side of her spine, causing the moderate bend. We've been talking to numerous doctors over the course of the last couple of years as we've been monitoring it, and we've found a specialist that comes highly recommended, only his practice is in San Diego. So we took her down for an examination and a visit and we came away with some very optimistic news.

There does remain a possibility of needing surgery, but at this point, the angle has not really moved or increased as she has grown. There's some factors related to bones and tissue, and the way she is developing is not causing the angle to increase. There's a chance it will as she goes through growth periods, and we'll be monitoring it closely so we'll be able to take the appropriate actions should any be needed. But there's also a chance she'll never need anything surgical. It's not a guarantee and there's a stronger potential that there will be a need for something to be done, but it's a welcome relief to know that, for the time being, she'll be able to avoid surgery, and if she does have to face that at some time, she'll likely be doing so when she's older then 5 and more capable of understanding the need and reasoning behind it.

We're Not So Brain Dead After All

When I learn something that disproves a long-held belief or assumption, I like to share the findings with my friends and family here. Something I heard today gave me cause to do a bit of quick research, the result of which was a pleasant surprise. It actually makes perfect sense, but because it's something that had been presented as fact and asserted for many years from various sources, I just took at face value. But it's not. It turns out that human's actually do use ALL of their brain, not just 10%.

Current administration aside, of course

Human brain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blessed Are The Children (subject to creator's discretion)

While watching a documentary this week about WWII, an aging fighter pilot who had dropped massive amounts of bombs on the city of Tokyo, killing up to 200,000+ civilians, more than those killed in Hiroshima, was reflecting on the conflicting feelings he had at the time regarding his role in the taking of the lives of innocent men, women, and children. He had sought advice from his church, and with a detached resolved, he relayed how the pastor simply said that he knew God had a plan, that although we might not understand it, it was clear to him that they were doing Gods work.

My daughter was born with Nystagmus, a neurological based eye condition. She also has a spinal deviation that'll likely require surgery, as well as a few other issues she's had to or will have to face. Yet she's actually quite fortunate when compared with the severity and degree of complications that many children contend with. Through my own internet searching, as I researched and grew to understand her own conditions, I would occasionally follow a meandering chain of links and find myself reading about or seeing images of far more severe and horrible conditions that afflict newborns. Disfiguring, disabling and life altering conditions. The kind of things that break one's heart to imagine what struggles lie ahead.

One of my strongest memories of time spent with my late mother-in-law is the last Halloween we spent together. She had come down from Roseville and was staying with us during a time at which my daughter's "special needs" school had a field trip to a popular Pumpkin Patch. I joined them at the event during my lunch break, and as Nicole and I wandered about, observing many of the innocent children struggling with various, severely debilitating diseases, we talked about how horrific it was. She stated then and several times following that she could not believe there was a God, and would not believe any greater being would subject an innocent child to such extreme adversity and suffering.

I could not agree with her more. Yet from experience, I know that those unwavering in their faith or devotion might be inclined to rationalize away these occurrences as being a part of God's plan. They might suggest there's a lesson the child and the parent have the opportunity to learn, that any suffering of the child will be rewarded in Heaven or another world, or most abhorrently, that there's something related to justice or punishment associated with the situation.

To all of those ignorant assertions, as to the suggestion that God might have a plan through which 100,000+ innocent victims would be justifiably sacrificed, I say "bullshit". No, that's not strong enough... I scream, shout and cry out loud, "bullshit!"

No higher power sets forth the edict that any of these acts should happen. This is the chaos and randomness that is life. Nothing more. Shit happens, much of it by complete chance, and some of it, the most awful stuff IMHO, at the hands of man, in the name of greed, money, and religion.

Yet there are many people that need to belief there's a reasons for these things, and need to attribute them to fate, karma, God, and any other number of imaginary causes. In fact, there is a spectacular documentary from 1988 by Joseph Campbell entitled "The Power Of Myth" that covers this very human need and condition in great detail. A wonderful article about this show can be found here, and I've included the text in this post for posterity. And for local friends, I have it if you'd like to borrow it.

It's the 21st century, people. Believing in myths has no more place in an evolved society then do witch burnings, slavery, or long distance commercial featuring Carrot-Top. I can only hope that the trends to question, re-examine, challenge and ultimately discard such antiquated beliefs and practices continue. I like to think that the world my children become adults in will be a world guided not by myth, mysticism or blind faith, but one guided by knowledge, research, facts and evidence.

A Time Lapsed Photograph

This image has come up a couple of times in as many days, and I wanted to take a minute to share it with the world. I decided to annotate it and publish it here for posterity.

It's a personal favorite for many reasons. One being that just looking at it transports me to a place in my memory, filling it with sounds, smells, textures and reminisce of a days long gone. But it also captures an era and an array of objects that are not only familiar to me, but to many people who grew up in an engineering environment in the same era.

When the topic of "Punch Cards" came up in a conversation at work, I brought this image up and it was a huge hit. Then, this morning, while my son was scrolling through photos on my iPhone and asked about this one, it struck me how dramatic a contrast it was to be looking at an image representing so many things that are now contained within the object displaying the image itself.

I've said it before... It's amazing to see what advances have been made in technology in 10 years, let alone 30. And as I look around my desk at my iPhone, stacks of DVD media, several MacBook Pro's and this MacBook Air, pens on a whiteboard, some laptop batteries, a USB thumb-drive, and s small scale laser printer, I can't help but imagine what my son might think of all this, and how antiquated it will be, when he'd look back at it in another 30-40 years.

Nor can I imagine how he'll be viewing it.

I do know that I'd be as amazed as I expect my own father would, could he see the things on my own desk today.