Plans for August

I've decided to try something new for the month of August. I will challenge myself to exercise outside for one hour a day through the end of the month. I've always responded well to challenges and I desperately need to step up my exercise routine to prepare for a hike on the Appalachian Trail in September. I thought I'd add the outside part simply to see if being outside has any positive impact on me. Currently I spend at most an hour a week outside. I guess it wouldn't hurt in regards to preparing for the Appalachian hike either. So there you have it, a challenge for 30 days of outdoor exercise. I'll start off a day early with a hike to "The Crevices" tomorrow.

Code Freeze

Well, the code freeze crunch time is upon me. I have lots of late nights finishing up the more troublesome code in store for me the next few weeks. Part of the flow of work as a computer programmer. I played hard the last couple months with trips to Minneapolis, Roanoke, Las Vegas, and Charlotte, and now it's time to work hard for a bit.

In other news, it appears my E solenoid is having problems in our older camry's transmissions. It has been serenading us with a constant stream of cheak engine warnings today. I'm hoping I don't need a new transmission and can just replace the solenoid(apparently not terribly difficult and possible doable by myself).

Chevelle in Charlotte

I went to Charlotte, NC with my friend Byron to see Chevelle.  They were great, but not in the league with the concerts I've seen from Tool, NIN, and Muse.  

It was sad to see them opening for a newer band(Shinedown).  Am I getting old?  NIN stopped touring, Tool only plays a couple shows, and Chevelle is opening for new bands.  It seems most of my favorite bands are retiring or barely playing anymore.  

Sen. Mark Warner

Mark Warner visited Lebanon today and held a Town Hall conference.  He briefly discussed rural broadband, a topic I'm very concerned with as I'm in the process of trying to bring high speed internet to my home, as well as a myriad of other topics ranging from partisanship in the senate to the fine print of the medical bill.  

Mark and I agree on many topics, but I was disappointed to hear him say he wanted to see increased use of coal and natural gas and that natural gas was key to our energy future.  Okay, I understand I live in South West Virgina and no politician can stop by without praising coal, but I was really hoping for a little more.

Hopefully it will all be a moot point and we'll have fusion to grant us cheap and abundant power in the near future.  Carl Sagan and a few other scientists have said we'll likely see fusion over the next century.  Hopefully we can hold out until then.

What do you think is the future of our energy production?

Pink for Zoya

Last year at this time I was on my way to Duluth, Minnesota, having just heard the news my sister Zoya had passed away. Zoya was adopted from Russia when I was about 14 years old. She loved the color pink. Her room was pink. Her phone was pink. Even her hair was usually pink. As such, I'll dedicate this pink post to her memory.

Zoya was legally blind, yet through dedicated perseverance was able to accomplish anything she set her mind to. She was a straight A student. She studied for hours to make sure she was always at the top of the class. She even won a state sewing competition with a Pink business dress she made. The little girl that I helped teach English, responsibility, and life to taught me a lot in return.

After college we grew apart. We talked once a month or so and only saw each other on vacations. We failed each other I supposed. Today I'm exceptionally vulnerable as I'm reminded of my time with her.

I hope you found peace Zoya. You're deeply missed.

Home Sweet Home

Our trip has concluded. We arrived home safe and sound, ready to pick up life as usual. This weekend I head to Charlotte North Carolina for a Chevelle concert.

Day Five: Finale

On day 5 we ventured out to explore several of the other famous hotels we were hoping to see.

We saw Ceasers Palace

Flamingos at The Flamingo

A little taste of Venice at The Venetian. Here we catch a glimpse of the rare Skirted Lauren. Skirted Laurens are very rare in nature, and can only be found at night in far away cities.

And the Grande Finale of our trip, Love by Cirque Du Soleil.

Love was amazing. It's definitely worth seeing if you find yourself in Vegas. We roamed the strip a little after the show, and got back to our hotel room around 2:00 am. Tomorrow we head home bright and early. It's been a great trip.

Day Four: Roaming the strip.

We discovered the Tram today. There are trains between many of the hotels that makes traveling the strip during the day much easier. I wish we had discovered it on Friday and prevented a two mile hike across town in 117 degree heat.

We ate at the Buffet Bellagio, it was amazing. All you can eat Creme Brulee nearly did me in. On the way we stopped at the largest chocolate fountain in the world.

And a crazy botanical garden:

We got lost in MGM, and eventually saw both the gold lion:

And the real ones:

We tried an Oxygen bar, and explored several of the nearby mega hotels.

Monday will be our last real day in Vegas. We leave early Tuesday morning. Our stay will climax with the Cirque Du Soleil presentation of Love. Thanks to all of you for your suggestions on things to see and do in Vegas. This has been a wonderful trip.

Day Three: A Lazy Day.

We spent day 3 indoors, hopping around the different bars and gambling on slot machines and black jack. A fun relaxing day. The only solid plans we have for the rest of the week are to eat at the Bellagio's buffet tomorrow night(it came highly recommended by a couple folks) and then Cirque Du Soleil Love, their show on the Beatles, on Monday.

Day Two: TOOL!

Think for yourself.

Question authority.

Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities, the political, the religious, the educational authorities who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open-mindedness; chaotic, confused, vulnerability to inform yourself.

The words echoed through the Planet Hollywood theater as Tool opened with Third Eye. The concert was unbelievable. Amazing. I can't manage the words to do it justice. Their live songs all have a little bit of their newer albums style worked in, and they were amazing. The effects were brilliant. If you get the chance to see Tool, definitely go. Hands down the best concert I have seen to date.

Day Two: The Strip

Lauren and I ventured out on the strip during the afternoon. It was about 115 degrees.

Here we passed by Excalibur.

We took refuge from the heat in the Miracle Mile mall. One part of the mall had a giant domed roof painted like the sky with small buildings built within it. Yo Dawg, I hear you like buildings.

At night it's still very hot, but nothing like the extreme temperatures during the day. We went out at night to explore some more. Here's Paris:

The Bellagio fountains were awesome.

Vegas Lessons learned:

1. 115 degrees is ridiculously hot

2. It's impossible to keep track of time in a casino.

3. Black jack dealers deal way too fast for me to count cards.

Vegas Day 2: Our Room

We checked in late last night. They were out of pyrmaid rooms, which we were suppose to get, so we have a room in the tower. We got upgraded to a bigger room, and our rooms location is the closest room to the casino floor.

Here's a little taste of the view from our room.

Stay tuned and follow along with our adventure in Las Vegas! Tonight: Tool.

Vegas Day 1

I don't know what it is about airplanes, but they always bring out a primal fear in me. I know it's much safer than driving in a car, and that it's virtually impossible for anything to go wrong, but there's something about being utterly out of control, a mile up in the air in a little metal box. A beer before the flight really helped :)

We chased the sunset all the way across the country

There were a couple storms on the way. It's pretty awesome, albeit terrifying, watching the lightening from above.

Finally we arrived in Las Vegas and took a shuttle to the Luxor hotel where we'll be staying. We have Tool tomorrow, the Beatles show, and I think a David Copperfield show Saturday and Sunday.

All the lights and statues... Man this place is wild. Let's hope I don't blow all our money!

Starcraft

Three days 'til Vegas. I must say I'm getting excited. I figured as soon as I picked up tickets to see Tool in Vegas that they'd announce an east coast concert nearby. So far it hasn't happened and the trip to Vegas seems justified.

I've been playing a lot of the Starcraft II Beta. It's one of those games where I'll sit down to play a match or two and before I realize it it's 5:00 AM and Lauren has to get up for work in an hour. It's nice to forget your sense of time in the passion of an intense Starcraft battle. To throw away responsibility, rules and order and lose yourself into a world of imagination.

Pale Blue Dot

I just finished reading Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. It's an incredibly humbling and enlightening work, and I highly recommend reading it.

From the very beginning he illustrates how small and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of the universe.  Sagan vigorously talks about our successes so far.  Some highlights, the Voyager spacecrafts launched to explore our galaxy contain large samples of our culture, and will carry them for 600 billion years to the center of the Milky Way.  The Voyagers will last far passed the time when our solar system is destroyed and all traces of us from this day and age will be gone.

He goes on to talk about the horrific problems we face.  We currently face three potentially self inflected environmental disasters that could end life on our world.  First is the destruction of our Ozone due to CFCs.  As a species we have made remarkable effort to prevent any further creation of CFCs, but what we've already done will continue to destroy our ozone layer for roughly 100 years.  Whether we stopped in time has yet to be determined.

Secondly we face global warming.  With slight increases in global temperatures due to an increased presence of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, the oceans will evaporate at a faster rate than it can precipitate, which in tern will trap more heat.  This vicious irreversible cycle will eventually leave our planet a charred volcanic crisp just like Venus.

Lastly we face a potential nuclear winter if we find ourselves in the unfortunate state of nuclear war.  The nuclear winter will freeze life, leaving our planet like Mars.

Which do you think is the most dangerous of the self inflicted apocalypses?

Certainty any other life that comes across our voyagers will be wondering if we made it through these trying times.  If we do come across any sort of life in our solar system, I wonder if it can survive with our interference.

We, who cannot even put our own planetary home in order, riven with rivalries and hatreds, despoiling our environment, murdering one another through irritation and inattention as well as on deadly purpose, and moreover a species that until only recently was convinced that the Universe was made for its sole benefit- are we to venture out into space, move worlds, re-engineer planets, spread to neighboring star systems?

We seem to have overcome our first stepping stone where a group of people has the means to destroy us all.  There are certainty problems we face; large scale environmental disasters to overcome, but we're still progressing forward.  Assuming we can overcome our current crises, I believe there will be a point in technology where any Individual has the means to destroy the world. Will we be prepared for that?  There will likely be a new species in the near future, a species that evolves at will through genetic and artificial manipulation.  Hawking's mentions it in his book The Universe in a Nutshell  and in his lecture discussed here.  Hopefully we will seek wisdom over power with superior intellect.  These are certainty exciting times.

Sagan's finishing words are uplifting:

If we have been locked and bolted into a prison of the self, here is an escape hatch-something worthy, something vastly larger than ourselves, a crucial act on behalf of humanity.  Peopling other worlds unifies nations and ethnic groups, binds the generations, and requires us to be both smart and wise.  It liberates our nature and, in part, returns us to our beginnings.

Here's to hoping we can find peace and unification.  That we can put our differences aside and achieve the unimaginable.

2-Dimensional Politics

Driving home from work I passed this sign.

"CLOSED DUE TO OBAMANOMICS."

Obama seems to have it out for these poor bakeries, if we take their word for it.  I've been to this bakery twice and was dissapointed both times, but maybe Obama is sabatoging their ovens and recipes?

I've been asked a lot about where I lie on the political spectrum lately.  People call me a "lefty", but I try to explain that summarizing the political spectrum into a single line is a terribly difficult thing to do.

I think that at worst there needs to be two dimension, with up and down representing government authority, and left to right representing fiscal policy.  

*Image from Political Compass

The term's "left" and "right" seem to have been rooted deeply in our two party system.  They try to establish that there are two base sets of beliefs, and that either someone is in line with your ideals or not.  It's hard to label people if they're spread out across a two dimensional map.  As such, I try to spread the idea whenever these conversations come up: "I'm a lower left".  Where do you stand?

http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis

I did my fair share of complaining when Bush was in office, I guess it's my turn to patiently listen to the realistic problems Obama will introduce/has introduced.  And to do so without a "us" and "them" mentality, but realizing we're all different and hopefully through everyone's conflicting ideals we manage to come up with an optimal solution.  I hope that one day we have a political system that can more realistically represent people's positions and be less focused on opposing a single group of "opposite" minded people.

Indendence Day

I enjoy most things in life. Mowing is not one of them. My friend Nick came over and helped me clean up a terribly neglected yard.

We struggled through the heat to keep the tall grass at bay. I'll have to bring my mower over to his place and return the favor.

After some yard work, several of us gathered at Nick's place for a BBQ 4th of July celebration. With many varieties of beers, burgers, and hot dogs, a good time was had by all. We finished off with a fireworks display in Abingdon. My town postponed the Independence Day celebration until Monday, May 5th. Silly as it may be, I'm not complaining as I get to see two firework shows.


Happy Independence Day everyone!

A Glimpse of the Past.

While organizing my room, I came across several old photographs. These first three were given to me by my grandmother a month before she passed away. I thought I’d share a glimpse of my childhood that she passed on to me.

In this first picture, I was less than a year old and was presently the only grandchild. My grandpa and grandma sit in front surrounded by their children and grandchild.

Three years later, both my parents have cut their hair. Notice the mullet!

It seems my parent’s styles have their toll on me, as later that year I also sport a mullet. I believe this yellow truck was one of my favorite toys, as I still have vague memories of fondness towards it.

Lastly we finish with a picture from college of Lauren and me shortly after we started dating nearly 8 years ago.

It’s fun to look back and see how far we've come.