Well, this week I purchased an LG Dare. It is not the Iphone, but it works well and now I can check email and web from my cell phone. It actually has saved me time at home as I am using the computer less.

It seems that just yesterday I was a young boy marveling at my brother's fancy slide rule. ;-)

Well, we made the leap from dial-up connection to cable modem. It is much faster and, strangely, we spend less time on the computer. Since we get done so much quicker, we're done and off the machine.

Now the next decision is whether to get a cell phone with internet...

Well, I was recently invited to be a panelist on a podcast. It is probably dry material for most folks, but just in case:

http://atomic.thepodcastnetwork.com/2008/01/14/the-atomic-show-079-ft-st-vrain-energy-comparisons-uk-nuclear-decision/

Don't know if it will make me famous, but it was fun to participate. :-)

It's the first post for literally years... done lots of lerking - and posting elsewhere.

Last night was a Lunar Eclipse... glorious eerie red moon for almost an hour - awesome. I can understand why some ancient cultures would see it as a portent.

Anyways... Hopefully more soon

J

I was surprised yesterday to see that Vanity Fair devoted their July issue to Africa:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/africa

I typically don't read the magazine, but I find it interesting they are covering the continent. Perhaps it shows that the world has truly changed.

My first job in the utility industry was 22 years ago. I was an intern just like many of the younger folks today starting out in their careers. It has been (and hopefull continue to be) a good ride. Hope the young people starting in their career paths have an equally interesting time. :-)

I got married. Even more amazing is I am still married. This IS a day to count my blessings (even our cat who likes to bite me). ;-)

Current mood: calm


the sun is shining

tendering soft skins of young dog walkers

massaging wrinkles of aging lovers

walking across the bridge

lifting myself on the top of my toes with short nails

painted blue inside wool socks

watching water breaking ice

invisibly

the striking force of softness

shattering pieces by pieces that strong icy glass

wandering what's hiding under melting ice

maybe dead green crococile defrosting

maybe jelly balls falling out from tiny grey toad's belly

broken open into tadpoles into the world of tiny grey toads

maybe tiny fishes bleeding their silver tails inside big ones' estomagos

or swept into fisherman's net at the end of their journey

where Ontanabee river run into some blue sea

reincarnated into sushi

maybe a world's sleeping

maybe a world's cracking under the ice so cristalline

I am

in my time on my toes

one foot gave in to the law of gravity

one foot rabelled to flow with serenity

busy watching the beauty

busy wandering the unknown

too busy to hear the cracking, the withering, the blooming, the tide raising, the river flowing inside

me.

delicious red apple of that suckass cafe
Current mood: calm


I don't like the word "hurt" cuz it is so abstract yet so simplified. I can't neither touch nor comprehend sometimes what that word means.It can't neither touch nor express all that messy surreal orginal labrynth of human feelings either. I ate a delicious red apple today. Sweet and crispy to the point of perfection in my simple standard. Everything's turning. I watched water breaking ice. Sky was grey. I punched a hole and threw a piece of circle from my lifescape. It hurt. Metaphorically so, but just like that insane movie eternal sunshine in the spotless mind, i will be missing this piece and it will chase my memory on and off. Season always changes. So do lovers and friends. So do I. Sad and beautiful simultaneously, my life isn't the red apple. But i guess that's ok.

Delicious like red apple we were. I bite into the sweetness. Ate slowly. No matter how you tried to keep munching, i wanted to finish eating the damn apple. It's not that apple isn't perfect. It is just I' m not red apple, not even close to perfection. I keep escaping to... where... I don't even know. But I do it anyway.

Apple's gone, only seed left. I threw the seed. You tasted bitterness. Some sweetness still lingered on my tongue.But soon would be gone. Seed would grow into something beautiful even without me seeing it.

I am writing an exciting essay with wonderful company of mocha and bagels on a not so exciting reality of women and war.

Poetry is good though. Like this one..

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon ,"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will standin the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Sometimes a great idea comes to you out of the blue, but before you can think any further about the idea, you have to dash off and attend to a dozen other things. Afterwards, what remains is only a lingering feeling, a vague awareness that you had a great idea earlier, but you can no longer remember what it was. For thousands of years, creative practical people have probably solved this annoyance by tying knots or scribbling ideas on something, so they could go about their daily business first and revisit those ideas at a more convenient time later.

Continuing with the approach of scribbling ideas down, I made a little web-based tool which basically allows you to fill out a form, roughly categorize the entry, automatically have it date-time stamped and saved for later review. Like a piggy bank that grows with every contribution, you can build a large personal bank of ideas. Then, whenever you want to draw upon the collected knowledge in your personal bank of ideas, simply use the search feature to display and sort ideas.

So if this sounds useful to you, and you don’t mind that it’s still a work in progress, I’ve made this tool available as an Open Source project at SourceForge. Visit the ideasBank project to download and install on your own PHP, MySQL-enabled server.

Additional projects will be released in the future on SourceForge as well.

I'm in shock! Jessica Mauboy just lost Australia Idol to Damien Leith. Damien is a really nice guy, I wouldn't mind listening to him sing from time to time. Actually neither of them have the talent of Bobbly Flynn. But this really should have been Jessica's moment.

Jessica comes from Alice Springs in the centre of Australia, and is half Aboriginal, half Indonesian. She is young, talented, down-to-earth, an amazing singer, and will be (is!) an incredible role model for young Australians. But it really would have been a further fantastic symbol for - and signal to Australia's long marginalised Aboriginal and remote communities, if one of their own had won the top award in this national version of the international phenomenon. As they interviewed her Nanna and cut to Darwin the Northern Territory where it seemed like at least half the town had turned out for the live cross (more like a U2 audience than a fan club) I was almost in tears.

While it's wonderful the Australian voting public are open to choosing an expat Irishman as their Idol, I can't help but wonder why they didn't choose such an obviously inspiring young woman.

Anyway, go Jess! I'll buy your record....

Here is my cardboard dinosaur costume from this week's Fright Night staff party. Other than the individual costume contest event (I just participated - Mona Lisa was the winner followed by the impaled Jesus costume), there was also a group costume contest, the pumpkin carving contest, and a meeting room converted into a haunted house attraction.

This cardboard dinosaur can be made anywhere you can find two cardboard boxes that can fit your head, two shiny CDs or DVDs for the eyes and basic office supplies. No glue is necessary, tape if you want to do this faster. Refer to the numbers in the photo and follow along.

0. Joining and Hinges

This step isn't shown, sorry. Just ensure the two boxes joined and hinged
at the back in some way. What I did was a glue-less approach using tabs and
slots to join the boxes, but you can just use tape to join and make a hinge.

1. Neck

Make a hole and make sure your head can fit easily into the box, without
being too large or the costume head may slide downward. I used a DVD to trace
incrementally larger holes until there was perfect fit.

2. Teeth and Jaws

To help make it consistent, start with one side and put a piece of paper
the area you are cutting, so that you cut both the paper and the cardboard
together. In this way the paper keeps the exact shape of the cut and you can
then use it as a template to make the other side identical. The trick with
the lower jaw is to use the upper jaw to trace a matching teethline for the
lower jaw, so that the jaws will meet and actually close together easily.
The lower jaw should have a much larger section uncut at the back that can
serve to catch and hold the upper jaw open later when you wear the costume.

3. Fitting the eyes

Use the DVDs to trace round holes for the eyes, but the holes should be
just smaller than the DVDs so that it will be a tight fit which holds the
DVDs in place. Otherwise if the hole is not small enough the DVDs may just
drop out of the hole. In my case I had an additional plastic DVD case with
a spine that just happened to hook onto the inside of the hole too - but you
can use tape too. Also, fit the DVDs at an angle so anyone can see the DVDs
from both the front and side views.

4. Carve nostrils

Not shown here, but you can add finishing touches such as nostrils.

5. Go to the party.

You can keep the jaws open all the time to easily eat the Halloween party
food, or close it like a knight's helmet visor for additional protection when
entering the haunted house. Have fun!

Right now I am doing some work in Lynchburg, Virginia. Our team went to a local restaurant and sitting about ten feet from us was none other than Jerry Falwell. When he left, he shook hands with several folks there on the way out. Normally I would jump at a chance to met a celebrity, but this case was an exception. I succeed in not being seen. ;-)

This past weekend our family replaced the old Honda Civic with a Subaru Forester. We got a good deal (and decent mileage) by getting it with a stick shift (i.e., manual transmission). I was thinking though, that this might be my last car with MT as they are getting harder to find in the US and talk is that the continuously variable transmission (CVT) is really going to happen. When it comes time to replace the Subaru, my MT days will be over. :-(

is mail.takingitglobal.org still working?