Adding to the Noise

My nephew Caleb

2006-06-15T16:47:00.000-04:00

My brother Andrew and his wife Bethel were over on Sunday afternoon/evening for some food and company. Naturally, of course, they brought their new son Caleb with them. He's a little over 7 months old, and is getting awful big. He burbles a lot when I see him and he's very good at recognizing people.

It's possible that I am almost as excited to be an uncle as my Mom is to be a grandma (no way, nobody's that bad). Anyways, maybe that's where I get it from. Whatever. But he's a very cute baby, and is starting to get to be lots of fun. He can sort of crawl, although not very well. Caleb gets up on his hands and knees, but his motor control isn't precise enough ... he scoots *backwards* instead of forwards. It's pretty funny.

Interestingly enough, Caleb's actually a lot better at walking than he is crawling. If you hold his hands to help him steady his balance, he will literally walk across the room, and you can totally just let him hang onto the side of the table and he'll stand there. Problem is, he loves to bang on tables & the floor with his hands ... he hasn't figured why that if he lets go of the table to bang on it, he loses his balance and falls to the floor abruptly.

Logging

2006-06-15T12:38:00.000-04:00

My brother Andrew has a wood-burning stove in his house. Although he has a heat pump and central heating, he tries to burn as much wood as possible over a given winter to save on his electric bill costs. His neighbors own a bunch of land right across the street from Andrew ... a whole wooded hill that doesn't have anything built on it. Anyways, they sold a bunch of trees to a logger, so the loggers went in, chopped down a bunch of trees, and took out the good straight thick parts of the trunks that they wanted. They left behind the treetops ... when they log, it's often too much work to get the last 20 feet of the tree ... that part may be too knotty or too small to be worth anything to sell to a lumber mill.

To make a long story short, Andrew, Dan, Metnick, Kendall, (even JD a little bit) and I went in, trimmed off the branches, chopped up the treetop trunks in 18" pieces, and moved it all down the hill and stacked it across the road from Andrew's house. It was a lot of work ... took pretty much two days worth of work to get it all done. Dan and Andrew ran the chainsaws Saturday morning, and stacked the first several piles. Then when JD and I showed up in the afternoon, we helped Andrew load the truck and make the runs down to his house and stack them across the road.

We spent pretty much all Monday evening until dark chopping wood and moving it. Pretty much everybody ran the chainsaw for awhile ... it's a lot of fun but it does start to feel pretty heavy in your hands after you've cut a few trees worth of wood. Even Andrew's dog Cocoa got in on the action (read: pretty much getting in our way and trying to hang out *in* the truck while we were throwing logs into it).

I estimate that we made well over 16 trips with my truck about full up to the bed rail top. Andrew figures that he got about two years worth of wood, which should save him several hundred dollars a year in wood costs. Next step is he's going to rent a power splitter and then we'll split it all in one go, instead of doing it all by hand as needed.

Kendall had fun playing around in the creek with his Land Rover Discovery. This thing is sweet. He's got the lift, and nice mudder tires, and a big old safari rack. He was able to make up the really steep part that my truck couldn't get up, but he needed to get a good healthy running start because it was *very* slick.

A day in Detroit

2006-05-08T01:32:00.000-04:00

Kate and I spent the day in Detroit on Friday. Among other places, we went to Belle Isle, which is a pretty sweet island just north of downtown Detroit. Nearly 1000 acres, it's kinda like Detroit's version of Central Park. I'm actually pretty impressed by Belle island ... it's a lot of fun and it seems like the cops do a pretty good job of keeping sketchy homeless guys and the like out of it. The park is definitely a little too dirty, but there was a big sign on the way out about how Detroit is working to renovate and clean the place up.

The southern point of the park has a heap of concrete boulders right at the waterline; it offers a spectacular view of Windsor, Ontario to the southeast, and downtown Detroit to the southwest. I've been here at night before, and it's really quite pretty. Kate was pretty amused at how excited I got when two large ore carriers passed each other on the river. I've seen plenty of big ships before, but it's still quite a thrill when a 700 foot long cargo ship passes just 200 yards away, sounding its horn with a deafening blast. It's so cool!

Certainly the highlight of the island is the Conservatory; its grounds are kept in fairly good shape. The whole thing is not quite as nice nor nearly as well kept or maintained (or as extensive) as the Franklin Conservatory and grounds in Columbus, Ohio, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. This reminds me that I really need to get myself some books on North American flora and fauna because I'm tired of going places and not knowing how to name the trees and flowers and birds and stuff. It's funny ... I think I'm becoming more and more like my father every day ... now I find myself almost constantly interested in trees and nature and odd stuff on the side of the road. It wasn't very many years ago that I was rolling my eyes every time Dad noticed something interesting and would point it out and muse and ask questions about "why does it look like that?' and "what makes it grow there?".

They have a nice collection of cactus (cacti??), a pretty good tropical collection, and the center room has 4 or 5 really large date palms, as much as 5 feet in diameter and a good 40+ feet tall; these are *inside* the center dome. I was duly impressed.

After the fun afternoon at Belle island and cruising around Detroit, we went out to dinner at Sindbad's, a nice seafood restaurant on the water across the river from Belle Island. We got there early, about 5:30, so it wasn't too crowded. I was a little worried, because the neighborhood that the restaurant is in is a bit sketchy, but the place was nice and the food was good. I was definitely digging the marina/dock attached to the restaurant; someday I want to have a boat set up where I can drive the boat up the river and eat at some sweet place... yeah, that'd be hot. As a result of the dining experience, I have absolutely none of the money that I got back from selling my textbooks back to the bookstore. Yay!

The Snack Bar

2006-05-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

I've been living in the Snack Bar lately. Well, not living like my friends have been living here, but still spending a lot of time here nonetheless. It's Finals Week, and everybody is doing MASSIVE amounts of studying and cramming and freaking out and making late-night McDonalds runs and the like.

For those of you who are not familiar with Hillsdale College culture, the Snack Bar is this dingy eating area in the Student Center. You're allowed to smoke inside, so the tables are all sticky and there's ash all over them and they're all dirty because I swear they never actually wipe them off. The snack bar is shut down at 2:00am all semester, but finals weekend they keep it open 24-7. It's usually populated by the campus smokers: the libertarians, the reprobates, the diletantes, and the revolutionaries. My roommate Ed is definitely beginning to fall into this category these days.

Stephen, my roommate Ed, Joy, Lydia, Krudy ... and many others from the Polis and our friends; we all just kind of congregate in the back corner and assimilate 2-3 tables as our "home". Most everybody leaves a bunch of their crap here all day, just claiming these tables as "ours", and people leave our stuff alone. I'm convinced there's at least 3-4 of the guys that actually live here, including Ethan Lewis who has so many books and so much crap in one booth that people have started to refer to it as his "home".

I'm looking over the table that Stephen and Javonne and various other people have been studying at; there's a laptop, a bunch of pipes, notes, empty bottles, pipe tobacco, tea, tea bags, trash, sunglasses, and textbooks. It's awesome. Mmmm..... I think I've finally found the 'college experience' or whatever passes for it.

I am not actually doing much right now... I already took my Chem final, and my Poli Sci final was canceled. So, English and History are next week, then back home on Wed night after I drop Kate off at the airport.

The Perfect Martini

2006-04-23T15:13:00.000-04:00

Coudal Partners has a great article about the craft of the perfect martini. I truly appreciate this obsessive approach to the crafting of a choice cocktail, because I myself share the obsession. While I truly admire his rhetoric and the lengths he goes to pursuing his craft (and I thought I was picky about my martinis!), I must, as a purist, protest that a Vodka Martini is no true martini at all.

You will need the following:
1 bottle of Bombay Sapphire
1 bottle of Martini & Rossi Dry Vermouth
Santa Barbara Olive Co. Olives Sundried tomato-stuffed
1 martini shaker
1 jigger or graduated cylinder
2 clear glass or crystal long-stemmed martini glasses
1 dinner spoon (the sort you use to eat with)
1 box of toothpicks

At least a half hour before, place your martini glasses & the bottle of Sapphire in the freezer to chill. Ensure that your shaker is cool and dry, clean and clear of any other previous alcohols.

After things are chilled, take your graduated cylinder and measure out 2.5 oz (75 ml) Bombay Sapphire and 0.5 oz (10 ml) Martini and Rossi. Add these to the shaker. Next, take your dinner spoon, and fill it 1/3 to 1/2 full of the olive juice, and add to the shaker. Be careful not to add too much, as it will make the martini too briny and unpleasant.

Before you go farther and begin to add ice, prepare your olive garnish. After first querying your guest as to their preference (“one olive or two, sir?”), take the desired number of olives and carefully blot them with a dry napkin to remove excess olive juice. This is essential; you already have all of the olive juice that you want in the martini mix. Insert the toothpick into the olive’s long side (not the pitted end) at a 30 degree angle and set aside.

Now, once you have the mix and the garnish prepared, fill the shaker with crushed ice to the brim. Stir (do NOT shake!) vigorously. Then, and only then, remove the martini glass from the freezer. Add the olive to the empty glass. Quickly strain the martini into the glass and promptly serve.

As an alternate gin, Tanqueray will also work quite nicely. The botanical mix in the Sapphire is more subtle and complex than the Tanqueray, but I sometimes find that Tanqueray’s stronger juniper flavor is just what I’m craving.

Occasionally, if the mood strikes me, I will substitute the olive for a cocktail onion, shifting this from a Martini to a Gibson. Always remember to blot the onion before adding as a garnish. If blue cheese stuffed olives are desired, blot carefully and do not add any olive juice.

Sushi

2006-04-11T11:46:00.000-04:00

Friday night I had the opportunity to go out for some nice Sushi with Kate for my 23rd birthday. Mom and Dad had sent me some money to go out for dinner (thanks guys!), and I made sure it was well spent. We went to Godaiko, really quite an excellent Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar in Ann Arbor. Mmmm... Hamachi.

Katie had never had "real" sushi before (a few homemade pieces at somebody's house before, I think). Anyways, it was fun explaining to her the etiquette (as best as I understand, anyway -- Wiki was helping brushing up on my etiquette) and ordering different stuff. We shared some Edamame, and some Shrimp Tempura and Seaweed salad as appetizers, and then had some Nigiri – Tuna, Yellowtail, some Unagi, some Fatty Tuna, some King Crab, and some shrimp I think. Anyways, it was all very good ... I've become a big fan of the hamachi (Yellowtail), although this wasn't *quite* as fantastic Hamachi as I had with Joshua in Cleveland over New Years.

After dinner, we went to the campus district in Ann Arbor, and browsed a few book stores. I found a very nice old hardcover copy of Dana's "2 years before the Mast" at a used book store, and then got lost in the travel section at Border's looking at books on New Zealand ... I need to remember to ask Joshua if I can borrow some of his books on New Zealand ... I really want to go....

Spring Break!!!

2006-03-28T11:42:00.000-05:00

It's been over two weeks since Spring Break, so this is a bit of a delayed posting, AND I pretty much haven't posted anything on my blog in 4-5 months or so, but whatever. I've been busy and distracted with school. Problem with school is, especially because I'm doing all of my freshman core requirements, it sucks all of the energy that you have for writing right out of you. Something about all of the English, History, and Political Science papers that kinda eat into your time. :-)

Myself, my cousin James, my girlfriend Katie, and 3 other of my friends (Stephen, Lydia, and Tiara) went to the South Core Island, part of the Cape Lookout National Seashore. The island is part of North Carolina's Outer Banks barrier island chain; the South Core Island is 24 miles long with no fresh water, no campsites, and (this time of year) basically no people.

We took both my truck and James' 4Runner on the ferry over to island loaded down with fishing gear, a canoe, firewood, 20 gallons of freshwater, emergency gas, some beer, 5L of wine, 3 tents, a 19ft canoe, a bunch of duffel and gear, and enough food to last 6 people 5 days.

The weather was brisk, often downright cold. The week before we left, temperatures were highs of 75/ lows 50. The week we were there, the temperature was highs in the high 50s/low 60s, and lows in the high 30s/low 40s. And the water was a pretty consistent 45+ degrees. So pretty dang chilly. Oh, and it was very, very windy; usually winds 20-30 mph often with gusts to 35-40 mph. We were there from a Sunday Afternoon to a Friday morning, and it definitely rained all day Tuesday, which was pretty miserable. Here's our campsite for Thursday night.

Still, everybody had tons of fun, despite being cold, getting soaked, not taking a shower for a week, and generally stinking to high heaven. Most of the time that we were there it was sunny and generally pretty pleasant, if maybe a bit too chilly and windy. Still, taking our trucks over onto the island to off-road and play was a lot of fun; Kate said that pretty much the whole trip was a Toyota add:

The Outer Banks is know as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic"–– they still have major shipwrecks off of both Cape Lookout and Cape Hatteras every so often. So on Monday, we were driving down the beach towards the Cape & Lighthouse at low tide, and spotted about half of the side of an old wooden shipwreck. I don't know how old it was for sure, and we weren't able to find out more information about it, but from what I know about ships and ship construction, I would guess at least 100-120 years old. Pretty cool - Here's Katie sitting on top of my shoulders so we can take a better picture of the whole wreck:

We built huge campfires (almost bonfires, really) every night. We brought over enough wood to have maybe two decent-sized fires, because the Park Service warned us that there would not be firewood available on the island and that. I brought my copy of The Hobbit and Winnie-the-Pooh, and had a good time reading to everybody each night in front of the fire. Here's Katie asleep on my shoulder ... I promise I'm not that boring of a reader!

We brought my parents 19ft canoe; funniest moment of the trip was when Stephen capsized the canoe IN THE OCEAN! Okay, so the island is, on average, several hundred-one thousand yards wide. I thought it intuitively obvious that we had brought the canoe to paddle around in the calm waters of the Pamlico Sound. But first day we were there, all of us but Petrie went and jumped in the 45 degree ocean. We were sitting around trying to warm up from freezing our butts off, when Petrie comes up and asks if we can help him drag the canoe out of the surf because it was full of water and he couldn't tip it over himself. THE SURF? Apparently, he had this bright idea to take the open-top 19ft canoe BY HIMSELF and try and get out past the breakers. After the first two waves completely swamped the canoe, he started having second thoughts, but by then it was too late. I was so incredulous that he had even attempted it -- WHAT were you THINKING??? Anyways, pretty funny stuff

We had a blast the whole time we were there, including the last night where I broke out the gasoline. After I filled up my truck, I started messing around with the half gallon or so of gas that I couldn't' quite pour into the gas tank because of the shape of the can. So, here's me, having poured a ring of gas around myself and torched it off. Ah.... the things you can't even THINK about doing while living in Colorado. :-)

And the best part is ... it only cost $150 / person for the entire trip.

Musings

2005-11-02T01:12:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure that Homestar Runner has become my favorite tv show. And that's funny, because it's not on tv and it's not a show. Strong Mad, "This is my funny voice. This is my Funny Voice!!" . Yup. It's just such weird, dry humor with all of these obscure references that if you haven't seen all of the previous episodes, some episodes just don't make any sense.

It's late-ish. I just finished having this super-geek conversation with two friends about science and chemistry. As all of this unfolds, I realize that I truly enjoy people, I enjoy science, I enjoy history ... but not languages. All of this may be brought upon by my not-so-hot grades in French, but I think that as I get closer to the end of my 1st semester of college, I am more and more impatient to study the things I went to college for (Economics, Business, Chemistry) and less and less interested in studying vague core requirement Humanties that (quite frankly) bore me to tears. It's funny. I love literature. You would think I love English. But I don't, and most of it is due to the fact that the MLA rules and the guidlines on writing papers and suchnot seem more of an end to themselves than a means to an end, at least where the English department is concerned. Also, I feel so rushed ... we barely have time to read one book before we run helter-skelter off to another.

I register for classes for next semester in another few days. Looks like I am going to take another of Dr. Moye's History class. Golly, I like History ... especially Dr. Moye's classes. There is something about the intense interest in the subject matter itself and less of the interest in the over-academicized "write papers because the point of learning is to write good papers!" that makes the study of History, at least with her, much more interesting than my other classes.

Well, I should prolly go to bed. I have *both* a Chemistry and a French exam tomorrow.

B2 Bomber

2005-10-30T19:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I went to Wright Patterson Air Force Base's Museum on Friday with a few friends from college. I've been many times before, but not in at least 4-5 years (or more). A lot has changed; they are in the process of revamping a lot of the planes and exhibits and building a very large hangar to house more planes. There were quite a few planes that I had not seen before, including the aforementioned B2 Bomber.

Wow. What a plane. I have seen one before, but only in mysterious, quick flyovers at airshows. This was my first opportunity to get right up next to one; It is as beautiful in real life as it is in the pictures. My friend Katie remarked to me that it was indicative of our great wealth as a nation that we could afford to have one of these on display in a museum for all to clearly see our military might and power. After all, it is still very much cutting-edge technology, and at $2 billion a pop, you don't exactly leave them lying around. :-)

I enjoyed, as always, standing under a B-52 and just appreciating how massive an aircraft it is. The scene in Strangelove where George C. Scott's character is talking about "...fryin' chickens in the barnyard!" always comes to mind. Gosh. What a beast of an aircraft..

As now a full grown adult male almost 6'4" tall, I sat in both the F-4 Phantom cockpit and the F-16 cockpit. Yeah. Although the F-4 was roomy and comfortable, I don't fit so well in the F-16 ... pretty much confirms the conclusion I came to several years ago: not ever going to be a fighter pilot. Too dang cramped!

A New Toad

2005-10-16T23:41:00.000-04:00

It's hard to form the habit of blogging when you're either behind on school OR sick OR doing homework right before the class its due in. So basically gotta remember to make discussion posts every week for my English class AND remember to blog about stuff. But more than that, I am reborn into a grade-crunching machine; now that the semester's half over, I'm going to get serious and get kick-butt grades for the rest of the sem so it averages out to a B. :-)

I had El Castillo Blanco (for the uneducated that's White Castle) last night with several friends from the West Coast who had never eaten there before ... I am on a mission to convert the unwashed masses to 3am White Castle cravers just like me. My friend Katie remarked that the little Sliders were like a form of food that was an abominaition, but you felt good about them because they taste so good even though you know that they're so bad. I wish I could remember the exact quote ... I would have a plaque engraved with it b/c it was pretty funny.

In other news, I've decided that I want to actively pursue a life full of accomplishment and fortune, so that just like Winston Churchill I can have an official biographer to write books about me when I'm dead. That'd be sweet!

Another random thought is that it's weird how I often write with Boolean Operators, using lots of AND / OR in caps in my writing. Gosh, I just like saying "Boolean Operators". The brother's Chapman get serious mad props for slipping "Boolean Operators" into a SB Email.

All your Base...

2005-09-12T13:38:00.000-04:00

Trolling the net last night, I found few things worth sharing that are sure to waste as much of your time as they did mine:

The ever-handy Universal Grade Change Form ... hopefully I won't have any reason to use one this semester.

Homedistiller.org - a guide to making your own moonshine, at home!

How to take a rag, a can of coke, a piece of chocolate, and a piece of kindling and make a fire.

The definitive guide to the Internet cult phrase, "All your Base are belong to us" (and its sister phrase, "Somebody set us up the bomb!"). Be sure to visit and download Overclocked.org's Dub video of the famous cutscene for max effect hilarity!

Sleeping Bear Dunes

2005-09-12T01:08:00.000-04:00

Steven, my roommate and I drove to the Sleeping Bear Dunes this weekend, trying to get a last camping trip or two out of our systems before the frigid Michigan winter sets in. Forgot the camera (d'oh!), but still had a great time.

It was good. Even had a chance to flail around in my roommate's kayak in Lake Michigan. Made me want one pretty bad. I think the Dunes are going to require a few return trips. Water was brisk, cold, and refreshing.

Noticed that Michigan has several times the amount of water that Ohio does, and it's all mostly pretty clear stuff. Hmmm... if only gas wasn't 3 bucks a gallon, it was summer, and the boat worked. *sigh*

Patriotism

2005-09-12T01:00:00.000-04:00

Read this story, found linked from Smallest Minority (http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/), a story of a man simply recounting how he jumped in his truck and drove down to help out his buddy. It conveys the horror of the level of destruction left by Katrina and the , but more than that it is the simple story of a patriot. This man was a hero.

Here's the link

100 Hundred Billion Dollars

2005-09-07T01:50:00.000-04:00

Kinda sounds like something Dr. Evil would say, right?

It's not. It's an early *conservative* estimate of how much Katrina might cause the American taxpayer.

Almost frightening how well the usually "mired in bias" NY times spells out the situation. Read the article, but I would like to make a few points:

NYTimes notes that:
House and Senate leaders are also grappling with their pre-Katrina plan to propose $35 billion in spending cuts over the next five years for entitlement programs like Medicaid, student loans, food stamps and cash welfare payments to low-income families.

Those spending cuts could suddenly prove politically unpalatable to Mr. Bush and Republican lawmakers, who are trying to rebuff criticism that the federal government shortchanged the hurricane's poorest victims."

WHAT????!!! Let's re-read that again. Okay, because we very unexepectedly had to spend 40 billion dollars (or a whole lot more), we should NOT proceed with our plan to cut funding to save money. This is sheer idiocy, like a husband telling his friend that because he just got laid off, he doesn't know how he's going to tell his wife his previously-formed plan to cut back on their day-to-day spending. Insanity!

The article goes on:
"These are some of the extraordinary costs:
- Providing shelter for as many as 1 million people for months or even a year.
- Assuming a potentially high share of uninsured property losses that stem from flooding, which is not covered by private insurers.

Going back to what i said a few days ago: you, the American taxpayer, and me, the American taxpayer, probably quite unbeknownst to most of you, are going to pay for other people's fiscal foolishness. Why? Because FEMA is going to hand out money to replace the homes that people lost. This is like having to pay not for the monthly auto insurance premiums of your coworker, but to replace his ENTIRE car, after it got wrecked by a tree falling on it, and after he very stupidly forgot to insure it.

This confirms to me the notion that, Dems and Republicans alike, politicians have absolutely no clue what money is, where it comes from, or how much work it takes to make even just a tiny little bit. The Dems are insane. And the Republican party reeks of the stench of a bloated bureaucrat in love with its own power.

The Femtrooper

2005-09-05T23:16:00.000-04:00

Star Wars fans are a weird bunch. And I know, because I am one, and because I to be the sort of rabid fan that had a website devoted to SW & the other scifi disciplines (the long-defunct Myrkr.com). So trust me. I understand these people. I've been to conventions.

Sometimes their weirdness amazes even me.

Sithvixen.com (i know, it sounds like a link for an adult site. it's not) is the website of a twenty something girl that's into all sorts of costuming, including Star Wars. I known forever that there are dozens of fan sites devoted to the craft of Stormtrooper costumes. But this is definitely a step above that plane.

Behold, the the ubergeekness that is the Femtrooper - which brings to mind the Kevin Smith film Chasing Amy, when Jason Lee tells Ben Affleck that "our core audience is the grossly overweight and the grossly underweight". Probably, for pure humor factor, what's best is her massive collection of pictures of her and the other fans at the various DragonCon, SW: Celebration, and the like.

BTW, check out her Quidditch costume. It's actually quite good. I really need to talk my sister into making me a pirate costume.....

Central Hall and the Hillsdale Campus

2005-09-04T15:19:00.000-04:00

Hillsdale College

... is very stately esp. from the air. I should email this picture to admissions and ask if I can get a 100 dollar credit on my tuition or something if they use it in their literature. :-)

So, on Friday, I hitched a ride with my roommate to North Akron where my brother lives, and got a ride with him and his wife to Columbus to attend my cousin's wedding on Saturday morning. Then my father flew me back to the 'Dale Sunday morning.

All-in-all, an outstanding trip. Hillsdale, MI is about 270 miles away by car from Coshocton, OH, or little over a 4-hour trip. Took just over 1hr 35 mins by plane, even had a chance to circle campus and take a few pictures before we landed. It was about 135 nm as the crow flies. The airport adminstrator let us borrow his pickup, and we drove the 3 miles from the airport right into campus and dropped my bags off at the dorm. Fantastic weather and a smooth flight. Thanks Dad!

Le Dorm Room

2005-09-04T15:10:00.000-04:00

Seems like the blog is doomed to get my posts in bursts, not in a steady stream of daily content. Oh well. Anyway, here's my dorm room ... note the all-important Mtn. Dew cans underneath my desk. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say they'll be gone long before finals. :-)

New Orleans is toast

2005-09-04T14:08:00.000-04:00

Is anybody surprised? While I am very sorry that tens of thousands of people lost their homes, I'm not happy about spending Federal money to rebuild the town.

But, "Sam!" you say. "All those poor people are suffering!". Yes, they are. And I'm sorry that they are. But I would like to point out that New Orleans is *below* sea level. Below seal level along the Gulf of Mexico, where they have hurricanes *every* year. It was only a matter of time before this catastrophe happened; the Weather Channel talks about it *every* time a hurricane comes within a few hundred miles of Lousianna. Funny thing about being below sea level, as opposed to to even a few feet above it. After the storm dies down, the waters don't recede.

I'm going to post the following from my brother Dan, a Mechanical Engineer with his P.E.

"Found this on the web last night – it shows what a tough problem pumping the city out really is. It’s approximately 181 sq miles in land area, about 80% of which is under water. Assume that average depth of water in the 80% of the flooded city is about 5 ft (same level as Lake Pontchartrain).

80% of 181 sq miles = 144.8 sq miles = 4.037 billion sq ft.

At a depth of 5ft, that’s 20.18 billion cubic feet of water, which is about 151 billion gallons of water.

Assume that you can pump that out at a rate of 100,000GPM, it will take you 1.51 million minutes, which is about 1048 days, or about three years. If you were to increase the pumping rate to 1,000,000GPM, it would still take about 3-1/2 months to pump the city out.

That’s a lot of water!"

It's going to take years for the city to get back to normal. And while I think it's a wasted effort to rebuild it, at least to the full extent of its former glory, it's their prerogative to rebuild if they want to.

But please don't spend countless billons of Federal dollars doing it. We've seen time and time again, that groups of people will build their houses on flood plains, or in the mountains, or along fault lines, and ignore the fact that a Natural Disaster could wipe out their house! Why must the rest of the American populace pick up the tab of insuring their houses against disasters? If you live on the coast, or in "Tornado Alley", or along the San Andreas, you need to buy extra insurance!

The threat of forest fires in the Colorado mountains has been very high in the last few years. Residents are worried every fire season, and they don't want to lose their homes, but when they do, almost all of them rebuild because they figure that the view and the weather and the moutains are more than worth the risk of fire. I'm fine if New Orleans residents feel the same way, but don't ask me to pay for their losses. It's like if you enjoy gambling in Vegas, but asking the Feds to bail you out after you lose all your money playing Hold 'Em. This is not, or at least should not be, a socialist welfare state that bails you out of financial trouble!

Big city life is pretty sweet; I certainly enjoyed living in metro Denver for several years and had a total blast. But small town life isn't so bad, either. If a hurricane or a flood or a tornado hits a town of 10,000 people, you aren't going to have gangs of looters, hundreds of people trampled to death by crowds, or any of the other insane stuff that's happened in New Orleans over the past week. It's shocking that that the citizens of New Orleans so quickly become base savages, forgetting even the basics of human decency and dignity as they find their way out of the city. They've even shot at National Guard troops, forcing the NG units to go on combat patrols through the city, and leaving SPC. Cliff Ferguson of the 527th Engineer Battallion to muse(Army times article here):

“This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting.” Ferguson said. “You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn’t come here to fight a war. We came here to help.”

Wow.

Breck is putting in a new lift...

2005-09-01T20:34:00.000-04:00

and I am super-jazzed about it. You can read all about it here.

Basically, a high-speed quad straight to the top of Peak 8, replacing that crappy T-Bar. This gives Breck's Imperial Bowl and Horshoe Bowl real, usable access; This brings Breck's backcountry firmly into the likes of such resorts as Vail and Kirkwood.

I for one, am stoked. Man, that T-Bar sucked so bad! Talk about a long, painful ride to the top... well, that was it.

I'm back ....

2005-08-24T12:39:00.000-04:00

... and there are plenty of blog-worthy things to talk about.

I'm now enrolled as a Freshman in a small, private four-year education institution located in Michigan. That's a mouthful of a sentence to be sure ...

The past year and a half, I have worked as a purchasing specialist/ administrative support for the Engineering department of a small family chemical manufacturer. Lots of crazy, hilarious bloggable stuff, but my brother (our VP of Legal Affairs) warned me not to blog about anything in case our big bad competitors (I know you're reading this right now!) get wind of our secret plans to rebuild Dr. Evil's Death Ray (Preparation H, a "La-ser BEAM"). Seriously!

Also, the work schedule was something to the effect of all work and no energy for play, so all I wanted after work was a beer, a nap, and some videogames.

Despite feeling no small amount of trepidation about attending college and being the "weird, old dude in the back" during class, everybody takes me for a fresh-faced 18yr old freshman. Sweet! I'd prefer to keep it that way, too.... easier to ask stupid questions like "uh.... where am i supposed to go next?" and "uhh.... where's Kresge?".

More to follow ...

Chillin' on Spring Break

2005-04-04T00:16:00.000-04:00

Chillin' on Spring Break,

I'm late by over a week, but I've been busy. So sue me. :-) Spring Break in St. Augustine, FL was tight. Not that it was really my spring break to begin with, but that's beside the point. JD, Nate, Jeff, and I had some good times chillin' on the beach. The scene at St. Augustine was mosdef very mellow; just the way I like it. I don't think I would go back, tho; I'm just not a big fan of Florida. Give me the Outer Banks, especially when it's warm.

... but back in BLACK!

2005-04-03T23:07:00.000-04:00

Predictably, just as winter is finally at an end, and ski resorts all over the country are shutting down & closing up shop, this is the month that I most want to get out and get some shredding done -- I was browsing through some pictures of Shon and I in Vail's China Bowl... man! I want to spend so much more time in the backcountry, riding powder. I definitely want to summon the courage and chutzpah to drop some decent-sized cliffs this coming year; I really want to go dropping a nice 12-15ft rock face some day, throwing out a sweet tuck-knee Indy Nosebone and riding away with style.

Let's be honest: I'd settle for rolling down the windows the whole way, barely sticking the landing. :-)

" 'cause you're not hardcore, unless you live HARDCORE!"

Why does the pipe elude me? I need to spend more time in it. A lot more time. I need to take a good week, take some lessons, and focus on just pipe & quarterpipe. Um.... Maybe sometime after I graduate college.

Speaking of which, what am I going to study in college. I'm rather torn between Economics and Chemistry. I'll probably try to major in one, and minor in the other. The question is which? It's pretty apparent to me that I am now facing the same realization that most every college student faces: there is only so much time at college, and not enough time to study everythine you might want to be able to. Man!

Oh, yeah, Metnick lent me his AC/DC Greatest Hits album; totally been rocking out to "Hells Bells" & "Back in Black", and some Van Halen's 1984, esp. "Top Hat Jimmy" .

The Republican Party...

2005-04-03T23:02:00.000-04:00

"The advocacy groups want to take guns away from everyone, and in a perfect world, I'd agree with that," said State Senator Larry Bomke of Illinois, a Republican who is sponsoring the bill there. "Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world. The gangbangers and the criminal element are still going to get guns."

Ding, Dong, the Republican party is dead. Or become the Democrats of the 50s. Or both. Or worse.

There are many good reasons that I am not a registered Republican.

Why would a member of a purportedly conservative party state that in a perfect world, law-abiding citizens would have one of their basic rights restricted? These types of statements are clear indications that our country's leadership is confused, clueless, and dangerous. A counterpoint may point out, after reading the article, that the Sen. Bomke means well, and is sponsoring "pro-gun" legislature to help ease gun restrictions and fight crime. All that is true, however, the above opine is a very slippery slope when articulated by a IL State Senator, sworn to uphold his state Constiution.

B.L.O.A.T.

Bomke is also on record during the election, saying the following about fmr. US Senate Canidate Alan Keyes:
State Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, says that Keyes needs to modify some of his positions to appeal to independents, suburbanites, and women.
"On some issues he needs to come to the center," says Bomke, "although he may be so far out there that he can't."

A question has been burning through me for quite some time: why would a person in a position of leadership, or even one ascribing to a position of leadership, MODIFY their views/positions on key issues? I can see that with careful consideration and long discussion and contemplation, any person might be persuaded to change their viewpoint on an issue, or begin to embrace a different way of thinking. But to change your public position on an issue to merely to trick a voting public into letting you into office smacks of a careless disrespect for the seriousness of office and is an indicator of the wanton corruption in politics. Political office was not meant to be a career full of power, prestige, and pull-brokering, but an opportunity to serve. Somehow we've forgotten that.

I continue to

2005-03-14T23:36:00.000-05:00

work on the boat like a fiend ... I've decided to use blind rivets & an aluminum frame for the seat back. I think I'm over-engineering this sundeck. :-) About half of my stuff has come in, so I just need to get my design nailed down and start cutting.

A mental adjustment...

2005-03-10T00:33:00.000-05:00

...needs to made made in purchasing industrial materials when you want to get stuff for home and not work. For instance, I need to buy some plastic sheeting for working on our Sunbird 19' Runabout, but to have it shipped here from Cleveland or Indianapolis by common carrier could cost 50-80 dollars. So I have to buy from places that are reasonably close & go pick it up in my truck because that's just too much money to have it shipped here.

I hate doing precision CAD drawings. Or even semi-precision. Or meeting a tolerance much better than .250 inch. I'm just not careful enough and something always seems to get screwed up. Of course, now that I'm going to build the sundeck structure for the boat out of aluminum & plastic and not wood, I need to be more careful because now I'm working with expensive materials. *SIGH*

Pistol Grip Pump

2005-03-10T00:29:00.000-05:00

The other day, in a meeting, our Safety Coordinator was asking some questions about site security considerations during construction. He asked how we were going to ensure a certain area was secure during nightshift.

To which I replied, "Pistol Grip Pump!", and everyone laughed.

I'm not sure he got it...

Trap Shooting

2005-03-07T23:02:00.000-05:00

I helped Dan go to the old house, pick up the sectional couch last night, and move it into his basement. On they way there, I just happened to mention I'd brought my shotgun and a bunch of clays, and also just happened to mention that we were also going to shoot a few birds with Metnick until it got dark. "Wait a second. I didn't sign up for that!" Oops.

Dan had fun, I think.

Galyan's ...

2005-03-07T22:26:00.000-05:00

is now

It's really rather depressing. I was in there on Sunday, and purchased some Sporting Clays and a box of 410 ammo for my dad's old Winchester 410 shotgun.. It seemed like the same old Galyan's but with some of it's heart cut out of it. I'll miss the old Galyan's for sure, but unfortunately there's no better place in the metro Columbus area right now, so I guess I'll keep going to Dick's. I sure wish REI would open up a store in Columbus ... crap, I'd settle for an REI store somewhere in Ohio, even Pittsburgh would be great.

REI is mosdef the best outdoors store out there .... for instance, I spent around a few hundred bucks at REI last year; as a member, I got a 10% rebate based on that amount PLUS 20% off on any on regular priced item for when I decide to purchase it. The best part about membership is that it's a one time 15 dollar fee- that's it. The only way I could see REI being any better was if they sold firearms, but as it's an hippie-Seattle based company, it's a fair bet the store leadership is very anti-gun. Oh well.

Bring back the Straight Airs

2005-03-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

... are so tight when tweeked out juuust right, like this Chicken Salad. Sure linked cab 1080s are the penultimate display of steez, but old-school tricks like these more obscure grabs (Suitcase Undercarriage, anyone?) seem as if sometimes they have so much more spirit. Not to bag on contemporaries like Steve Fisher/Ross Powers/T. Rice; got mad respect for them, but there's nothing like Jamie Lynn or Terje boning out a straight method. Oh, and handplants are way dope, too.

Given my druthers, Halfpipe and Slopestyle should be more all around tricks, with due credit given to spins but a little more emphasis put back on the style required by some of the more technical-but-mellow-looking airs. We are obsessed by spins, and spins are cool, but so are straight airs.

Photo Credit to Harvard U. Snowboard Club, a site that doesn't look like it's had an update since before Palmer was trying to win dirtbike competitions.

Ban the scary looking guns...

2005-03-02T23:20:00.000-05:00

John Lott @ FNC's website has a good opinion about (see link above) how law abiding citizens with firearms actually do help in the case of mass public shootings, and how the MSM conveniently forgets to mention these cases.

...more often than not, the press is quick to mention how just *anyone* can walk into a gun store and *gasp* buy a scary looking assault weapon. As if I should be worried about that. As long as nervous liberals are worried about my freedom to purchase firearms, I'm happy. It means I still have 'em. I'm saving up my worriment for the shocked article about how *no one* can buy a scary looking assault weapon anymore.

The vaunted NRA & many other conservative Second Amendment action groups downplay the lethality of firearms far too much for my tastes. News flash for all of y'all. Guns kill people. People kill people. People kill people WITH guns. I do not advocate wanton violence, I do not endorse murder. But a county sherrif, a Army GI in Iraq, a Treasury agent protecting the President, and a Conceal & Carry Permit holder all share at least one thing in common. They carry a gun to protect themselves & their charges against those who would harm them, and if necessary, kill those who would so threaten their life. This is not merely a privilege for the licensed, but a God-given right which is recorded, not granted in Ohio's Constitution and incidentally the US Constitution.

The issue is not whether or not I have a right to guns, or whether or not I can own a specific type of gun, or whatever. The issue is merely that I have a right to protect myself. With a rock, an yew stave & a sheath of arrows, a sword, or a firearm.

******BREATH******

Brrrr... 'scold!

2005-03-02T22:16:00.000-05:00

I think I may need to rethink the Florida trip. The idea is sound, but I'm not so sure about the location. At 10pm this evening, it was 54 degrees F just a few short miles from where we'll be staying on the panhandle/Gulf beach. That's chilly for camping practically right on the beach. Orlando is faring no better, at 69/46 high/low temperatures for today. Perhaps we need to strike farther south.

Trying to balance seclusion with easy access to good beaches & cute girls and yet avoid the Spring Break Savages (I'm in no state of mind to deal with: Dude, let's totally hit all the PCB bars & streak the beach aftewards!) is going to be trickier than I thought. I just hope it's not like the Outer Banks trip where we only saw 2 or 3 genuinely hot available girls the whole trip.

Bringin' Down the House.

2005-03-02T01:33:00.000-05:00

Bringing Down the House

There are days when I really enjoy my job. This was MosDef one of them. This is late; too bad I didn't post it when I took it. Totally a Medal of Honor exploded German house photo.

I think I want to have a short-lived career as a dozer operator. The trackhoe is for sure tight, but I can't imagine introducing myself as a "Track Ho Operator" ...

And it seems so fitting

2005-03-02T00:39:00.000-05:00

Another Drudge linked-doozy- The Springfield, IL State Journal-Register reported that a member of the MMM was arrested on illegal drug & gun charges. It's a distinct irony that someone who has lobbied so hard for the loss of personal freedoms in the name of "protection" would become a victim of the very same losses of personal freedoms that they have wished upon everyone else.

But Friday's discoveries could lead to her being charged with defacing the identification marks on a handgun, manufacture/delivery of a controlled substance and having no valid firearm owner's ID card, police said.

None of these actions should be illegal, most especially having no valid firearm owner's ID card. And as much as I would like to be petty, I believe in her personal freedom rights more than she does. Even if these things are true, I sure hope she doesn't go to jail for "defacing the ID marks on a handgun".

Why is a state agency allowed to tell me what I can do with my hunk of steel?

"And So it begins..."

2005-03-02T00:32:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure a few thousand other geeks started their blog with a Koshism, but oh well.