Here goes nothing

I was a Good Samaritan

2010-05-09T00:06:00.000-07:00

I gave $20 to a stranger on Friday night. I happened to not be in a hurry, so I decided to hear him out on why he needed money for the bus. The last time this happened was in the bus station. Guy showed me $12 and said he just needed $8 more to get a ticket. So I said, OK, I don't have any cash, but you give me the $12, and let's go to the ticket booth and I'll put your ticket on my credit card. Guy didn't expect that, but worked out in his head that it didn't end with him having my cash, so he backed out. Obvious fraud. So I was expecting the same thing. This guy looked pretty clean-shaven and clothes were clean, so I stopped. He had a bus ticket. He had ID. His ticket was in his name, leaving Cleveland the night before. He had missed his bus. He said he was discharged from the Army for mental issues. He had his military ID and a huge bag of prescription meds. He said there was a $15 fee to transfer his ticket. I called Greyhound. He was right about the fee. He said he was going to a mental institute in Michigan. I said that was a good idea. He said he had been asking for help all day and everyone passed him by, including a Pharisee and a Teacher of the Law. I said that was too bad, maybe they were in a hurry to get to a prayer meeting. I said I would call and put his ticket on my credit card. He seemed enthusiastic. I was sold. I couldn't get through to the ticket agent, so I took him to the ATM and gave him the $20. I felt great! $20 was no great loss for me, but was a huge help for him. My satisfaction was entirely vicarious. I imagined him sitting on the bus, taking his mental disturbances out of Cleveland and to a safe place.

Some strange coincidences coincided to allow this fateful meeting.
1. My friend had just texted me to say he would be late, so I was willing to give this guy 30 seconds.
2. I was out of cash, and already planning to stop at an ATM.
3. His name was Robert.

Now, if this had happened when I was a believer, I would have seen the unmistakable hand of God at work, cleverly nudging things behind the scenes to unfold his Plan. And I think I could have been forgiven for thinking so. In any case, lacking any expectation of eternal reward for my kindness, I was forced to take all my reward in this life.

I then met up with my Catholic friend, and he asked why I would help someone, as an atheist. I explained that I didn't need God or eternal reward to feel good about being good. I explained that it was similar to the way sports fans take pleasure in the victories of their team, even though their loyalty is mostly arbitrary and they don't even know any of the people on the teams they cheer for, or have any reason to prefer their team over any other. In my case, I actually had an interaction with the person I derived vicarious satisfaction from, so it wasn't that hard to explain.

Mogadore Lake

2008-07-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

So, in classic Bob Allen form, I showed up to an event on the wrong day yesterday, bringing my brother and his wife. How could that happen? I know, it's ridiculous. The Canoe Orienteering event is actually today, and the date was clearly posted. But as usual, everything worked out fine. Better than fine actually. Did you know that the islands on Mogadore Lake are covered in delicious blueberry bushes?? Or that blueberry season is still very much in full swing? Well, they are, and it is.

The smell check

2008-07-20T06:52:00.000-07:00

It looks like Ask.com has sided with me on the issue of milk expiration dates. Believe it or not, there are people out there who will throw their milk away if it is past the date printed on the jug. I have tried to reason with these people, to no avail. The truth is, your milk will probably be fine for up to a week after the date. Simply use the smell check, now endorsed by What's Cooking America (.net).

Breakthrough

2008-07-13T19:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had a culinary breakthrough. I was munching some strawberries, and had just bitten one in half, when I noticed that strawberries are actually hollow. Duh. I did know this already, but it really hit me tonight as something significant, and I immediately scavenged the leftover s'more materials on top of the fridge for a chocolate bar. Ok ok, so if the stem is the strawberry's hat, you'd cut him in half around the waistline. You can enlarge the cavity with a paring knife, then fill both sides with melted chocolate, and scrape off any excess so the chocolate is flush with the cut surface. Now carefully put the 2 halves back together and put in an empty egg carton to keep the berry upright, preferably stem-down. This keeps the halves from sliding apart. Put in the freezer for 1o minutes or so, and you are good to go. The solidified chocolate holds the berry together. If you are careful, it will be hard to tell that the strawberry was even cut. So now you have all the tastiness of a chocolate covered strawberry without getting melted chocolate all over your fingers.
I think the next step here will be to use a large needle to inject the chocolate directly. I'll keep you posted on that.

salsa

2008-07-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

Week 4 or 5 of salsa lessons and I still can't find the beat and dance at the same time. Counting out the steps, I dance fine. Turn on the music, and it all goes to crap. So last week at Salsa Pam and I are watching this instructor dance with this amazing woman wearing an amazing salsa dress. Both of us are completely captivated, her more by the instructor's mad skills and me more by the twirling embodiment of grace and sensuality. She was very vigorous, and totally in her element. I tell Pam I am totally not ready for that girl, definitely need several more months of practice before even approaching her. Well of course she ends up coming over and asking me to dance, seriously throwing off my inner balance. It turns out I was right, I was totally not ready for her. My poise was... lacking. Also, she seemed to want to talk to me, which put attempting any actual dancing completely out of the question for me.
So now I view my inability to dance as a major hurdle in my path of personal growth, not to mention my ability to inspire confidence in women. I feel like there is some inner sexiness that is trying to come out on the dance floor, but so far has been stymied by my rhythm issues. Seriously stymied, to the point of being totally imperceptible. This is a problem.
And drastic measures have been taken. Dance websites have been pored over, gigabytes of salsa music have been downloaded and burned to CDs, and NPR on my drive to work has been replaced by my newly download tunes and 1 2 3, 5 6 7, tap tap tap, tap tap tap as I strain to pick up the beat. 3 days later, it already feels more natural. I'm improving!

Why am I doing this? Well, I'm good at other things, like more thinking type things. I have no natural ability here tho, that I know of. So I think I need balance. Too much thinking lately, not enough dancing. And Salsa is actually really fun when I am feeling it. I haven't quite fleshed it out yet, but this also somehow ties into becoming a person that can face and accept his own mortality, and still enjoy life. Still working on how that ties in.

girlfriend

2007-10-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend has moved to Manhattan to start her career with Deloitte. I am trapped in Cleveland until I can get out of debt. My brother thinks it's a hopeless situation. I've only really known this girl for a couple months. He thinks I should find a new girlfriend that lives in the same city as me, but I'm not interested in that. I'm way too happy with this girl to even consider looking for someone else. Even if I can only see her every 2 weeks, I'd consider myself very lucky. So I guess I'm going to be visiting New York on a regular basis, and working my ass off here to get myself to where I have some more options. That, and hoping she doesn't catch the eye of too many exciting international businessmen, investment bankers, or other wildly successful New Yorkers with a mind to seduce a beautiful young woman. More on this later.

arabs, part 1

2007-09-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my brother and I drove all over the greater Detroit area with G, our new business partner. We stopped at a Mediterranean eatery for lunch and to sit in on a sales meeting with one of G's client's brothers. The floors and walls were real marble tiled. The tables were real polished marble slabs. And the lamb was so delicious because, we later learned, it had been soaked in yogurt the night before. Apparently that's halal (kosher).

After lunch the owner took us back to his office. The door was held open by a small length of dirty cotton string tied to one of the many file cabinets. A TV on top of the cabinet was tuned to the Lebanese news channel, which was hosting a very impassioned discussion in Arabic about Hamas and Fatah. Between deep draws on his hookah, the owner poured us all tiny Styrofoam cups of Turkish coffee from a large silver pot on his very messy desk. He smokes all-natural tobacco, which he cuts himself.

G and the owner soon got down to discussing business. In Arabic. I tried to pick up as much as I could about G's sales technique, but soon realized they were just chatting. I tried to figure out what the ads were about on the TV. It seemed like they were switching back and forth between a car commercial and something to do with banking. G stopped to explain that you could get a free car when you opened a large enough CD at one of the Lebanese banks. It all made sense.

The owner got a call finally, from his brother, who was apparently on his way. I stared at my empty Styrofoam cup, and listened to the constant chatter of Arabic, punctuated periodically by the vigorous bubbling of the hookah. I yawned. The owner laughed and offered more Turkish coffee.

the vandal

2007-08-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

one of our workers, whom we affectionately refer to as "the vandal," has just referred me to one of her favorite websites. http://www.cryingwhileeating.com/ the first one is kinda lame, try some others. ridiculous. she thinks it's the funniest thing ever. i guess it might be.

harley cart

2007-08-11T23:48:00.000-07:00

my brother and i got the harley davidson golf cart running today, with a little cleverness and WD40. it's really fast and incredibly awesome, way cooler than your standard golf cart. made in 1965, still runs great. oh ya. it's baby blue. pictures and videos up on facebook soon. we had to replace the starter belt because it shredded itself on the governor control wire that we saw fit to disattach. well, the drive belt is farther out than the starter belt, so it looked like replacing the starter belt might be really hard. so, classic blunder style, i decided we needed to remove the centrifugal clutch mechanism in order to remove the belt. now, the thing about the clutch mechanism is that it's spring loaded, so once you loosen it to a certain point, the whole thing basically explodes, and the clutch oil drains irretrievably onto the pavement along with any near-future hope of cart-driving. it was at about this point that we realized that disassembling the clutch is not even necessary to replace the belt, and a small amount of clever maneuvering and dexterity is all we needed, without having to unscrew anything.

bikini massage

2007-07-25T00:24:00.000-07:00

i'm done with subsistence living working for a startup company. my brother needs help expanding his bikini massage business in cleveland, so i'm out. that's right. bikini massage. things are looking very good for me getting an engineering job out there too. the recruiter i talked to was very excited about finding me and loved my resume. i may also be working part time for realmware remotely, as well as some other part time remote software jobs, so i will be busy making money for cindy, martha, matt, and all my other good friends at various debt collection call centers all over the world.

home dentistry

2007-06-30T03:58:00.000-07:00

this may be more an indication of relative fun and excitement levels around the realmware house than a truly interesting story, but here goes. for the first time in my life, i removed the tartar from my teeth with my own sheer determination, willpower, and cheap dentist tools from walmart. total cost: $2.75, and an hour of my time. years of ugly discolored tartar buildup has been replaced by empty space between my front teeth. i even used the little mirror and scraped the backsides of my teeth. why would i do this? well, besides sheer boredom, i'm a little embarrassed to say, it's for a girl i'll be seeing in 19 days. i end up smiling when i'm around her, and so my teeth will be showing a lot. i'm even thinking about getting whitening strips...

high dive

2007-05-13T01:02:00.000-07:00

i saw that girl again tonight at high dive and she danced with me a lot and asked me to wait for her. she kissed me goodbye. this is just ridiculous. i like her so much. i hope i see her before she leaves. i really don't like the idea of waiting for a month, but this girl is completely worth it. so anyway, i'm actually excited about a girl for once, and she's not a psycho bitch. is it too good to be true? in other news, the high dive needs to work on their music selection, because really, i can't dance to hip-hop. i was dancing to every other song. it got better toward the end, when i couldn't really hear anything besides the beat. now i have to try to get some work done. somehow i'm going to focus and wrap my mind around this collision algorithm for the physics engine, the code for which is completely sans comments.

the office 2

2007-05-12T17:28:00.000-07:00

untold miracles of jesus. "i'm never going to get this fishing net untangled." ok, that's not that funny. dan has finally untangled the huge mass of wires under mike's desk.
"and we are go for necrophilia." um...
anime time.
oh dear god.
thanks for sharing that with us.
is he saying "peniscakes"? yes, and now he's searching for it online.
alright, time to get back to work.
a joke about cookies of mass destruction.
that was random.
words like cockmonger and ass pirate carry true gravity, that's why you have to have them for a comedy show. um...
ok i have to just stop listening to everyone.
now the headphones go on.

the office

2007-05-10T17:31:00.000-07:00

right now, at 3:15AM, dan is standing next to the fridge on the 3rd floor. he's wearing a dark blue bath robe. his arms are crossed as he paces slowly back and forth, discussing with david whether or not to make objects grounded by default when they are placed onto a scene in our software. dan hates the drop-to-ground feature. it's so tedious. david laughs, and agrees. i'm still a little bit too inebriated to contribute to the conversation. dan thanks david for his input and steps into the bathroom. i stare at my monitor, thinking about the enchanting woman i met last night at esquire, and how beautiful it was to fall asleep with her arm across my chest. i need to figure out why continuous collision detection is not working in the physics engine, because brian will call me superman if i do. dan returns to his chair. he turns to ask me how to set light intensity in the engine. i make something up. he thanks me. i put on my headphones. mike is still next door, talking to our neighbors, who are sitting on their porch smoking some sort of vanilla flavored tobacco. dan suddenly bursts out with another question about camera orientation. i turn on some world music. this job is really not so bad.

music

2007-05-07T23:27:00.000-07:00

just listening to the right album actually makes me feel good. it only works with music that has emotion. happy emotion. well, but not sappy. now, i like a good depressing emo social commentary album every now and again, but it doesn't have the same effect. i sprained my finger throwing the punching bag back and forth with brad and now it is stiffening and starting to interfere with my typing a bit. anyway, i think i just like to hear women sing who can sing well. this reminds me of a study i read about a year or so ago in which researchers discovered that men process female voices with the same part of the brain that is used for music.

release party

2007-05-07T14:42:00.000-07:00

so, the release party went ok actually, what with the party lights, great music, and plentiful alcohol. we even had a fire outside. wasn't quite as crowded as we were hoping for, but good times were had by all. we even managed to incorporate a software demo into the mix, which has gotta be a first for champaign house parties.
i don't really get hungover with a headache or anything, but sunday just totally sucked. tired, depressed, couldn't concentrate. sat on my ass all day. and today i feel absolutely fantastic. i haven't felt this good in weeks, and i'm not sure why.

stuff

2007-04-26T21:49:00.000-07:00

this is the kind of ridiculous discussion i get into with my old roommate from knox.
http://mysonabsalom.wordpress.com/2007/04/25/a-pretty-healthy-swing/
i mean, i will argue about absolutely anything, just for the hell of it. the mental sparring really gets me going. similar to physical sparring i guess, which reminds me, i need to fix the pugil sticks.

twist of fate

2007-04-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

so my friend bernard and this chick. i just shake my head and laugh, between sobs. he loves her but she doesn't love him. she has sex with him but she likes someone else. he feels used. he never planned for karma obviously.

pugil sticks

2007-04-23T01:03:00.000-07:00

so, my 3 hours of careful gluing and wrapping has only served to demonstrate that elmer's glue requires ventilation to dry. trapped between pvc pipe and 3 inches of closed-cell foam is just not a well-ventilated area. wet elmer's glue actually acts more like a lubricant than an adhesive, so it's just want you don't want for holding your pugil stick together when you're trying to launch a vicious attack. next time it's going to be the double-sided industrial sticky tape all the way.

laptop dj

2007-04-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

mike turner has clued me in to laptop dj (laptopdj.net) and i gotta say it is really hitting the spot for me when i am in a techno mood.

run

2007-04-21T03:06:00.000-07:00

brad and i ran to the highway tonight. it was about time, we've been slacking. on the way back we walked past this huge house with a gate, tall hedges, and narrow walkway that could totally have been haunted. the house looked like it had about 50 rooms and lots of little nooks and hiding places.
in other news, version 2 of the pugil stick is ready for testing tomorrow. i'm pretty excited to try it out, but if it falls apart like the last one i'm giving up on engineering forever. not really. there will be pictures soon.
we've been hanging out with this girl april recently, and she is totally awesome. she really wants to ride a freight train, just jump on and ride it for a while. besides legal technicalities, i can't see anything but positives with that plan, so we're going to make it happen just as soon as we can.

If you look at it the right way, it's funny

2007-04-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

We've all been in this situation. One of your friends wants to be more than friends, but you don't. Here are some of the ways that women can deal with the situation, drawn from my vast experience over the years.

Tell him clearly that you do not want to date him. You now have a delicate balance to maintain: letting him know that you care, but also sending a clear message that he is not special to you like you are to him. Also realize that you can use this situation to your advantage. Here are some suggestions.

Kiss him for 10-15 seconds every time you see him, and be sure to kiss him goodbye (don't let your other friends see this though, as they may not understand). He will really appreciate this because for a few moments he will feel that wonderful emotional intimacy that he craves with you. If he sees this as a mixed signal, explain that you are "friends with benefits."

Invite him over to take a nap with with you. Wear only your underwear, and maybe ever take your top off. He's not one of those sleazy guys that just wants to get in your pants, so don't worry that he will feel teased. Just like with kissing, he will derive great satisfaction from the illusion of intimacy, but make sure your intentions are clear by pushing him away if he tries to cuddle. Lying on the other side of the bed should be enough for him.

Make plans to spend time together. He will love looking forward to it, but don't lead him on, so decide to do something else and don't answer when he calls to see what's going on. The next day, apologize briefly and then excitedly explain how much fun you had the night before without him. He cares about you, so it will make him happy to hear that you had a good time.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, the guy in this situation will start to get the wrong idea about your lack of feelings for him. You might need to be more obvious about your feelings.

When he calls, tell him you can't spend time with him because you need to spend more time with your dog. He still might not get the hint, so show him clearly the difference between what he wants and what you want. He wants to eat dinner, cuddle, watch a movie, give you a massage, and then fall asleep in your arms. Tell him this is a great idea. Enjoy cuddling and kissing during the movie, but then show him how much his plan differ from yours. When the movie ends, explain that you really need to get started on your taxes because the deadline is less than a week away. Keep a straight face. He'll slowly realize how different your feelings are than his, and that you want him to leave. He might express some confusion and disappointment that causes you to feel guilty, so make yourself feel better by saying you'll come over to spend the night when you are done. After he's gone, go ahead and go out or do whatever you wanted to do. Call 3 hours later and say it's not going to work. The next day, make a point of mentioning how you still haven't done your taxes.

Now, sometimes, even after all this, a guy will still not understand that you just want to kiss him occasionally, and that's all. At this point, you've done everything you can to say that you just want to be friends (with benefits). Any further emotional pain on his part is out of your hands, so you might as well get what you can from the situation. For example, let's say you wanted to go out with some friends Friday night, hit the bars, maybe smoke with one of the other guys that likes you. But this isn't starting until 11 or 12 Friday night. Meanwhile, your roommate is gone for the weekend and you'll be home alone with boring errands to run. Now's your chance to leverage that guy. Tell him that you're home alone the whole weekend and that it will be a good time for him to sleep over and spend time with you. Invite him over for dinner, and to make sure he shows up, tell him you want to get a couple bottles of wine to drink together after dinner and "see what happens." It will work for sure. Just make sure you don't mention your plans. When he shows up, explain that you have some errands to run and invite him along. He loves spending time with you, and you hate standing in line at circuit city all by yourself to get your camera fixed. A win-win situation. Grocery shopping is also way more fun with two. You also need to get a cute new shirt to wear when you go out later, and some sexy new underwear. He's happy to help you pick something out. Buy him some boxers. He'll love it. When you finally get home, model your new underwear for him. He'll tell you how sexy you look in it, which means you'll be glowing with confidence when you go out later. Break out the wine, pop in a movie, and cuddle up on the couch until it's time to go out. Trade back massages, those are always relaxing. Your friends might call to ask when you're meeting them. Be discrete so the guy doesn't catch on. Tell him right after the movie that you're going out. He's going to be upset, so play it like you just need to have some face time with some people and that you'd like to get together later. He'll believe you. An added bonus of this plan is that now you'll already be a little drunk when you meet up with your friends. Now go out there in your sexy new outfit and have a blast.

meat

2007-02-13T01:12:00.000-08:00

so, i was thinking about meat the other day, and how some meat is good cold, but other meat you really need to heat up, and why that is. there was a brief flurry of meat temperature related conversation in the office before everyone sheepishly got back to work. so here's the deal: the Realmware house needs to get out of here. we're thinking... backpacking trip over spring break, and we're looking for brave souls to join us on our ridiculous journey. possible destinations include red river gorge, kentucky, or any relatively nearby state forest or wilderness area. this trip will not be for the faint of heart, but probably less than 10 miles per day. so, if you want to get out of town and have a bit of an adventure, just let me know.

new job

2007-01-23T18:43:00.000-08:00

At the behest of my friend Mike, I am now working for a small startup for little or no pay. However, food and beer is free! The best part is 6 of us are living in the company house. It's huge. And the office area has a full kitchen and bath, and a bed for power naps, so I never have to leave the office basically. Incredible. The company rotisserie oven is just one of the many food-related perks. Did I mention free beer?

Logical Death

2007-01-22T01:54:00.000-08:00

This book is fantastic so far.

Who can concentrate on all this technology shit anyway because I should be hunting a rabbit and rutting a virgin, thus loss of thinking ability is probably only technology contrived proving our lack of an illness if you take the human's side, but because I rarely can hunt and rarely can rut, I get restless and caught in a circle with a lonn of concentration applied.

old crush + rant

2006-08-16T21:50:00.000-07:00

Today an old crush let me read her journal entries she had written about me. Back when I was at Knox and an ultra-conservative Christian and totally missing out. We never got together because I didn't think God wanted me to have a girlfriend. Other than that, we would have been totally awesome together. Man I was such an idiot. Reading her journal made me pissed at myself for missing out, but also made me very happy to know how much she was thinking and stressing out about me. It's been awhile since I've thought of myself as quite a catch. So now I am happier than I have been in some time. It was really great to talk to her.

I can't help but contrast this to a call I got the other day from another friend from Knox. He called at a really awkward time, just as we were leaving someone's house and starting to say goodbye and everything. Called to say that it was on his conscience to tell me that God loved me and had great plans for me. It totally was not helpful and even disrespectful, arrogant, and insulting (here I go...) and here's why, I realized upon further thought: He believes in God. I don't. He knows this. So when he makes a statement that is only meaningful in his worldview, he is refusing to recognize and respect mine, or believes that I really do believe in God, "deep down inside." This type of behavior is a symptom of an intellectually lazy and irresponsibly closed mindset. By this I refer to complete confidence in a belief that doesn't correspond to any completely compelling evidence. A person with this mindset easily infuriates any open-minded, critically thinking person. Your well-reasoned objections are seen as evidence that supernatural evil powers are confusing and blinding you. Seriously, that is what Christians believe. I would know. How insulting is that?!

Fire!

2006-08-06T22:52:00.000-07:00

we totally lit this huge wooden spool on fire. we dragged it out of the back woods with the pickup and put it in the big dirt patch. s'mores followed shortly, along with good times and general well-being.

3rd wheel

2006-08-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

dude, seriously, be all kissy kissy mmm mmm i love you baby voice with your girl in private, not when the 3 of us are sitting around the table. it's just awkward. i know, married only a year ago and all that, but restraint would be appreciated. what do i do, just kinda look the other way and wait for it to be over. not cool at all. to muntion that it reminds me of how few girls i know around here (zero). that will all change soon.

watermelon

2006-07-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

Improvisation is using your nasal passages, normally reserved for breathing and snorting Pixi Stix, as a channel through which to expel watermelon chunks from the stomach. This typically happens when the primary route, the mouth, is already operating at maximum capacity.

2006-04-17T14:42:00.000-07:00

I think this picture captures something of my essense. Yes, those are bright green shorts I'm wearing.

I did... nothing.

2006-04-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

For once in a long long time, I did nothing this weekend. Didn't drive down to Champaign for a business team meeting. Didn't leave the house at all. I did a few productive things, like building some improved sensors for our glove project and waxing my car, but mostly just sat on my ass, playing Oblivion, Prince of Persia, or FEAR. All excellent games. Also watched some 24 with the roommate. After I slept through three days of work last week, it occurred to me I needed to "recharge." I think it worked. I actually feel like I might wake up in 6 hours and feel ready to go to work, instead of the crushing apathy/i-hit-snooze-25-times-i-think-i-need-help that has been typical of late. Not kidding about the snooze either. Not that I was counting, but snooze lasts like 8 minutes, didn't wake up until... it's pretty simple math. Amazingly i woke up early Saturday, but that was because of an exciting Oblivion quest. I'm really getting good use out of my new graphics card.

Firefly

2006-04-06T15:19:00.000-07:00

I recently introduced the Firefly series to a friend of mine. We have a lot in common so I hoped he would be into it. Not so much. He criticized some of the dialogue, didn't laugh at the funny parts, and wasn't at all intrigued by the idea of a registered companion. So why do some people just not get the show? Is it because there's no canned laughter to help them know when something is funny?

After doing some serious thinking on this important issue, I have to conclude lack of imagination is most people's problem. From Kaylee's excitement over fresh strawberries, to the respectability of Inara's profession, to the scenes of spaceships landing near crowded open markets, people are either intrigued or confused, depending on how much thought they put into watching the show, and how much imagination they have. There are also people who are so conditioned by sci-fi movies that they think something is wrong when explosions in space don't make any noise. I give huge props to the producers for this point. I hope to eventually nail down exactly what makes Firefly so captivating, but for now, go watch it yourself. Hollywood has it, Blockbuster doesn't.

huzzah!!

2006-03-02T19:10:00.000-08:00

i have to wear ear protection at work, and those little foam ear plugs are so friggin annoying. so i bought some ear muff style protection on mcmaster for $14 and glued in some relatively crappy old headphones i had. with all the outside sound blocked out, they actually sound decent because i don't have to turn them up very loud. i'm thinking they can't be that much worse than the really expensive bose noise cancelling ones. except they aren't really the most stylish. heh. i'm using them right now to block out computer noise and jordan practicing his dj skills in the basement. amazing!

of photo booths and busty women

2006-02-24T23:16:00.000-08:00

ok kids, working security at six flags may be boring and hard on your feet, but you learn all kinds of neat stuff, like those little photo booths can actually fit 4 people quite comfortably. so here's a flashback of when i was 18. no, i don't know if those are real.

california girl

2006-02-24T22:26:00.000-08:00

the girl in the bay has been in my thoughts of late. the other night i had a dream that i was chasing her and she suddenly turned around and kissed me. it was incredible. then i woke up. doh! i'm not really sure why i can't forget about her. i remember my senior year of high school (i think), she was in this musical and i was in the orchestra for it. she was in makeup getting ready and she drew a heart on my cheek with lipstick. twyla just looked at me and shook her head. but i was ridiculously happy. not sure what she meant by that. maybe i'll ask her sometime. well, needless to say, nothing happened there, probably because i had no balls and plus it was faith academy, you didn't just go ask girls out. it was a very serious thing. so that was like 6 years ago. why do i still feel the same about her? she's dating someone now, of course. next time i'm in the area, i'm sure i'll be hapless enough to stop by.

freakin girls man...

2006-02-23T22:17:00.000-08:00

so there's this absolutely smokin hot chick that works at home depot. my boss is trying to help me out. well, of course she has a boyfriend. so my coworkers and my boss tell me that just means it's time to up the ante and be aggressive. ya, well, if you steal a girl by being an aggressive guy, you'll be stuck with a girl who can be stolen by an aggressive guy. put that in your pipe and smoke it.

depressing thought for the day

2006-02-22T20:11:00.000-08:00

in the final analysis, all your hopes, dreams, and thoughts are nothing more than the means of processing sensory input that was selected by nature to most likely result in reproduction. any further purpose is a construct of your imagination, perhaps useful to survival, perhaps not. so go out there, achieve! strive for excellence! and if you're feeling down, cheer up! your troubles are nothing compared to the inky black pit of despair that will engulf humanity during the final stages of the inevitable heat death of the universe. the star in our last habitable planetary system will eventually burn out, and our last remnants will turn on each other like savages in the desperate fight for food and heat. the last living human will look through frost covered windows at the wreckage of our civilization, eat his last candy bar, and wait for the bitter end.

hunting

2006-02-20T21:08:00.000-08:00

and now a free mini-sermon.
so, i had another talk about the moral evil of hunting with a couple of my christian friends. my point is basically that, IF you are aspiring to be morally perfect in the christian sense, you shouldn't enjoy killing things. this is not to say there's anything wrong with killing in order to eat, only that you shouldn't enjoy it, or do it for sport. you should enjoy watching animals being alive, and it should make you sad to see them die. why you might ask? because death is the mark of the fall from grace, from perfection, into evil. when you see something die, you are seing something that was never meant to be. so what exactly is the pleasure derived from hunting? is it not the carnal exhilaration of domination, a pleasure of the flesh? compare a hunter to a nature photographer. they both enjoy sneaking up on beautiful animals, getting as close as they can, even looking at them through a scope. the only difference is that the photographer is happy to merely watch, while the hunter is not satisfied until he has killed whatever creature he's looking at. so, which person is more like jesus? i think the answer is pretty obvious, but a lot of my friends still try to rationalize it.

X-Files weekend

2005-10-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

I managed to do nothing school-related the entire weekend. I did get a new nylon poncho, new boots, and some rope. So the first pair of boots I got I noticed had a couple cracks in the heal in the rubber. I looked closer and realized I knew exactly what the cracks were, that they were a molding defect caused when the flow of melted rubber gets separated and then fails to remix, resulting in a gap. I also knew that this was almost certainly caused by premature cooling and that Altama was apparently trying to save a few bucks by lowering their melt temperature. I briefly contemplated calling them up and asking to talk to the process engineer, but instead I just returned them for a new pair. My design for manufacturability class has really taught me a lot I guess.

2005-09-13T22:47:00.000-07:00

Nice guys finish last, but is that so bad?

I started to lament my actionless status as a nice guy the other day when I realized, there has to be an up side. But, I don't think I'll see it until I'm over 30. At that point, some nice girl will realize that the cocks she was dating in college are really not what she's looking for and she'll remember me, the nice guy, who always resigned himself to the friend zone, dutifully offering advice on how to feel good about her current asshat boyfriend, and she'll think wow, he'd be really great to settle down with. By that time, the beauty of her youth will be mostly gone, wasted on jackasses. Even so, I'll have a woman that loves me and makes me happy. Because I'm a nice guy, she'll actually be able to live with me.

Meanwhile, 30-something jerk will still be banging drunken 20-somethings, all the while feeling more and more alone. He might eventually get married, but no woman can live with a jerk for very long, so she cheats on him and leaves him and he ends up a bitter old man.

So to all the nice guys out there, your day is coming. And to all the ladies, what the fuck?

2005-08-30T22:03:00.000-07:00

My new goal is to make myself a decent machete. You just can't buy one in this country. You either get a hunting knife (too small) or a bushwhacking machete that is too long and thin to do anything but cut tall grass. And if I could find a nice strong steel blade 16 inches long, I'm sure it would cost too much. A piece or spring steel from the junkyard, a few hours with a bandsaw and a grinder, and some tempering goodness with the grill should do it.

2005-08-30T19:01:00.000-07:00

Desperate Housewives

Sunday:
MySonAnonymous (11:40:28 PM): Why do you watch Desperate Houswives?
MySonAnonymous (11:40:35 PM): Seems a little, I don't know, gay.
Monday:
MySonAnonymous(9:00:22 AM): Dude, this show sucks so much ass.
MySonAnonymous(9:00:27 AM): What's wrong with you?
MySonAnonymous(9:00:32 AM): Did ou lose your balls?
desperado1725 (9:07:32 AM): which episode did you watch?
MySonAnonymous(9:07:40 AM): The first one.
MySonAnonymous(9:07:55 AM): Oh wait, she just started the curtains on fire.
MySonAnonymous(9:08:01 AM): Now that is funny.
Tuesday:
MySonAnonymous (7:45:40 PM): Bob, do you have episode six of DH?
MySonAnonymous (7:45:42 PM): I'm missing it.
...
desperado1725 (7:46:33 PM): you are on 6?
MySonAnonymous (7:46:38 PM): Yeah.
desperado1725 (7:46:40 PM): hahahahahah
...
MySonAnonymous (7:47:01 PM): What's so funny, asshat.

2005-08-28T21:18:00.000-07:00

Why is there urine on the toilet seat? How hard can it be to aim that thing? Women are often tormented by these questions, and even men sometimes are at a loss to explain why their urine sprays out of control. It's quite simple really. First of all, forceful urination, coupled with a high water level, is often enough to cause splashes that reach the seat. There's not much to be done about this, except trying to hit the back of the bowl just above the water level.

The more disturbing source of toilet seat urine is unexpected urine exit angle and/or multiple simultaneous trajectories, i.e. spray. These phenomena are typically short-lived, reverting to normal operation in less than a second, but not before leaving urine on the seat, tank, floor, or wall. It was after a particularly spectacular such incident that I finally realized the cause of this bane of civilized urination. The tip of the male urinary system can get fully or partially dried shut sometimes, for various reasons. Imagine a garden hose that is partially pinched shut at the end. The stream exits at a different angle or even in a spray. The solution is simply to make sure everything is opened up at the end before urinating. It has kept me incident-free for years now, and I hope it can help men everywhere to pee straight the first time, every time.

2005-08-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I got my new "full spectrum" bulb today. It's on right now and it does actually look like daylight in my room. For $22 including shipping, I'm not sure how worth it it will be. Yet. Supposedly it makes you happier. Also today I tried the sun dried tomato flavor of alfredo sauce. There was mold under the lid, so I had to scoop the top layer into the trash, but the rest was good. My chicken brocolli alfredo is second to none.

2005-08-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about dreams the other day, and this article I read which basically says that dreams aren't experienced as they happen, but are merely the result of our consciousness, upon waking up, interpretting the jumbled state of our short term memory resulting from REM sleep. This made me think of this one time when my brothers and I were helping each other to pass out by hyperventillating and then standing up really fast. Ya, stupid, but it worked for me, and when I woke up, I rememberred having this dream that lasted for hours, but I was only out for a few seconds. So, either our consciousness is capable of operating much faster when we're asleep, or it's not really operating at all. The latter makes more sense, seeing that sleep is, by definition, unconscious. I've also had lucid dreams though, where I know that I'm dreaming and can control my dreams. Of course that be the same thing, that I'm just interpretting my memory space that way.

This brings up a very interesting question about our memory "file formats." Most methods we have devised for representing information, take divx for instance, have strict rules that define "legal" files. If you scramble a divx file, it probably won't play, and if it does, won't be meaningful. But we can always make some kind of sense of our dreams. Our short term memory must use a language where every possible combination of the symbols is at least parsible, and usually meaningful. This would be very compact, unlike spoken languages or computer languages, which have many possible but meaningless combinations of symbols. And, the symbols of the representation must be very high level, more on the level of sentences or concepts. I think our sensory processing networks produce a kind of hash code for everything we encounter and "remember." When we see something, it gets processed and the result compared with the hashes in memory. That would explain why recognition is so much easier than recall, and why we have to look at a word written to tell how to spell it sometimes. That's my thoughts on that, but I'd welcome any input.

2005-08-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

Texas Cops. You gotta love 'em. Disclaimer: the following account is not intended to describe real events. So I'm driving through Texas on my way back from California, I-40 is 2 lanes at this point, and sure enough, I see him too late, hiding in the tall Texas grass in the median. 85 in a 70, not too bad, but there he was with his lights on several cars behind me. When he got closer, I got in front of a big line of trucks and slipped him at a convenient exit. I hopped on the on-ramp only to see that the cop was heading back for me, going the wrong way. So he eventually pulled me over, but because he had lost sight of me, couldn't get me for speeding.
I got a warning for "unsafe lane change," written under a crossed out "speeding over 70." Ridiculous. The cop asked me all these questions, even checked my Student ID to make sure I wasn't lying about where I go to school. Then "Have you ever been arrested?" "No, I don't think so." "Really, because you have a record." "A what?" "Ya, receiving stolen property. You were charged but never arrested." "Excuse me? When was this?" "Well I don't know." "Well can you find out?" Radio traffic, then "2001, in New Hampshire." "Well Sir, I've never been in New Hampshire. " More Radio traffic, then "Umm, sorry, ya, that wasn't you." Ya, nice try officer. Well, OK, he did have me a bit worried for a minute.

2005-08-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

Well, paragliding is the coolest thing ever. And San Francisco is one of the best places. To save cash I slept in my car near the launch site Friday and Saturday night. This was illegal, as a friendly officer was kind enough to point out at 3am Sunday morning. He then asked if I had any outstanding warrants. I said I didn't think so, but he should probably check. Seeing that I was obviously not from around there, he decided to let my violation of the city ordinance slide.
Here are the paragliding pics.

After paragliding on Sunday, I hit up Yosemite for a couple nights. It was beautiful. I saw 2 rattlesnakes, a deer, and lots of really friendly squirrels.

Here's the lovely granite scenery:

Here's the pool I swam in. The smooth rock above the pool was slippery enough with the water to allow sliding into the pool. Way too exciting.

Here I am relaxing in my hammock:

And here I am after my sunset one-way conversation with Almighty God, who pretended not to exist. Sure fooled me.

2005-07-27T22:07:00.000-07:00

I now delve into the pressing issues on my mind. I've heard people talk about their "relationship" with God my whole life. I've even talked about mine in front of crowds of encouraging, wishful thinking friends, and describing how God had "answered" my prayers. If concepts were software, this one would be vaporware. Enter the cold hard voice of reason. I will attempt to distill the various ramblings of people I have tried to talk to about this.

Let's say you pray that God would help you find a better job, or whatever. Most Christians would hold that all of the following could constitute an answer to that prayer.
a. You hear a voice that says Yes or No.
b. You hear and sense nothing.
c. Absolutely any one of the items in the very large set called "all possible events" happens, including losing your job and getting crushed by truck or becoming a Satanist.

"God will answer my prayer" means "Anything at all might happen." Conversely, the set of circumstances most Christians would describe as non-answers to prayer is actually the null set. A friend of mine recently admitted
--
I agree with your points that there is no way to know whether God answered a prayer or it just occurred through "circumstances."
--
This is like a pen pal that you've never seen and never receive a response from. Maybe their letters are getting lost in the mail, maybe they aren't writing, or maybe they don't even exist. Either way, what you have is definitely not communication.

Let's understand something very basic. Meaningful statements about reality must exclude certain possibilities (they must define a non-empty partial subset of all conceivable possibilities.) A statement that is true in any imaginable state of affairs is meaningless. This of course is the beauty of so many religious concepts. As long as you don't think too hard, you can believe them no matter what, and that is a comforting thought.

2005-07-26T18:40:00.000-07:00

What's my age again? I have to ask myself. In SoCal, Tom Leykis commands an impressive listening base of 18-35 year old males on 97.1 the FM talk station. Embittered by failed marriages, he now instructs his listeners in the art of getting laid in 3 dates or less. A purely fictional epitome of the type of guy Tom makes fun of:
--
Dear Tom,
I had a crush on a girl in high school, but never made anything of it. I haven't been able to forget about her. I've called her sporadically since high school, and every time it reminded me how amazingly intriguing she is. Now I'm 23, and being in SoCal for the summer I'm finally within 2000 miles of her. I have visited her a couple of times in San Francisco, and we talked late into the night and she was amazing. Absolutely fascinating. She's also the most beatiful woman I have and will ever lay eyes on. No close seconds. Perfect. Literally takes my breath away Tom. Time stands still when she smiles at me. She makes me want to curl up and cry. If there was a 1 in a million chance she feels anything for me, I'd drop everything to take it. What should I do Tom?
-Pathetic Loser in LA
--
And Tom would say something like "man, you are one pathetic loser. You should either kill yourself right now or grow up and forget about this girl."

On a completely unrelated note, I plan on learning to paraglide this weekend in San Francisco. People kill themselves all the time doing that. And yes, if you bring a friend, you can save almost 50% on the lessons.

2005-07-16T23:54:00.000-07:00

I went to the Getty Museum today with Alisa, John, Bihn, Arun and Paul. Turns out it was mostly just a bunch of art. John was the only truly interested person there, which i found strange because he is supposedly an engineer like the rest of us, who were content to wander aimlessly past priceless masterpiece after priceless masterpiece, pausing only occasionally to half-heartedly read the first few lines of one of the little placards under the paintings. Waiting around for John to finish actually looking at all the paintings was slightly annoying, but as the climate control in those galleries is second to none, there was no rush to get back outside and start sweating again in the sun.

2005-06-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

A number of people have told me I think too hard. Usually after I ask a difficult question that they never bothered to ask themselves. But I think most people don't think hard enough. These types will probably be frustrated or bored with my blog, on which I plan to unravel all the idiotic ramblings and speech impediments, and get down to the chewy caramel center of the pressing issues I think too hard about. I might also make occasional pithy commentary on noteworthy events in my life or in the world at large.

Right now I'm interning at Flowserve Corp in LA. Despite what you might think, industrial pump engineering is not particularly exciting. Even in the R&D department. Working at Flowserve has made me acutely aware of the need for a more sophisticated version of minesweeper that never requires you to guess. There's nothing quite like cleverly finding mines for hundres of heartpounding seconds only to realize at the end that you have no choice but to guess, and guessing wrong. I think it would make a slightly tricky programming challenge that I'll probably never get around to. Now it's time to watch another X-Files episode. I just started season 2, and hope to get through 8 by the end of the summer. It's all about the torrent.