Not just another sailing story

Man fulfilling a dreamI saw this and had to blog it Mom has probably already read this since she is hooked on the Wall Street Journal. All you sailors out there I'm sure will find this quite touching as well as quite tough. This story has got it all, success,failure, love, devotion and one hell of a sailing story. There must be a book in this somewhere.

Easter and the PreEaster break

Kirsti,Danny and myself just returned from a 5 day minivacation at our Oak Island NC getaway where we were able to really enjoy ourselves despite some pretty poor weather. Its no mansion by any stetch of the imagination but each time we go we manage to fix it up a bit and improve on the provisions and comforts it takes to have fun at the beach. We all have bikes and enjoyed the flat terrain and bike paths around the island. There is a great park on our block and we always have some fun there. Kirsti's brother Bobby lives next door so we all enjoy visiting with them and Dan seems to enjoy his younger couisins. I normaly spend some time fishing but this time the weather seemed to be to much to overcome so the fish were spared this time. I'm just starting to get the hang of fishing there so I havn't hurt the population yet but next time they are in trouble. For me to take a vacation is always a matter of doing 2 weeks work in the week before we leave so the week before was hectic at work to say the least, as we began to reach our goal for work complete for the week one of my guys took a terrible fall from the roof, it all ended in a hook and ladder rescue with lots of ems personell and fireman and a local reporter on the job. The guy that fell looked terrible and I felt guilty as hell as they loaded him in the ambulance. I went to the hospital to see him almost immediately and he looked wors there than on the job. After a night of worrying the next day he called me to let me know he will be ok in about 6-8 weeks. Then the day before we started vacation he actualy drove to the job and brought everyone coffee! What a relief to see him up and around even though he is quite banged up he will make a full recovery. So now its back to work with a big blemish on my near perfect safety record and a few days off under my belt. Just a little corner of my world.

Too Cute Not To Post

Happy Easter in Hawaii.

Jest in Time

Snopes is the best web site to go to when trying to find out if something is an urban legend or not. As a result, they get lots of people sending things their way that are actually just jokes, but the recipient is too dense to know. They collected these things in a surprisingly funny web page, complete with the query from the person who sent it in. My favorite is:

I got this in an email. How true is this? Does this mean that we all have to avoid Pepsi now?

Pfizer Corp. (NYSE: PFE) is making the announcement today that Viagra will soon be available in liquid form and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola (Pepsi Bottling Group NYSE: PBG) as a power beverage suitable for use as-is, or as a mixer, under the name 'Mount And Do'.

Pepsi's proposed ad campaign suggests, 'It will now be possible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one.'

Enjoy.

The Iris Lady

Miss Rumphius was always one of Kyla's favorite stories when she was little. It was about the "Lupine Lady" who spread Lupines far and wide. We have our own version of Miss Rumphius here with irises, particularly Pacific Coast Irises. Here are some blooming in our garden this morning.

A Picture Begging for a Caption

I guess we all feel like this sometimes.

Kiteboarding

Okay, I think I have been patient enough. I'm dying to know what happens when a newly minted MBA decides that because she's great at kiteboarding in her mind, she should try the real thing. We need the report. At a minimum, I think Missy needs to say something to let us know if she survived. The silence could be due to her being in a hospital in Aruba.

Plant Fixes Its Flawed Gene

This is kinda interesting. All that stuff you learn in basic biology class about inheritance may have to be rethought based on this discovery that a plant has an ability to fix a flaw in its DNA.

The finding implies that some organisms may contain a cryptic backup copy of their genome that bypasses the usual mechanisms of heredity. If confirmed, it would represent an unprecedented exception to the laws of inheritance discovered by Gregor Mendel in the 19th century. Equally surprising, the cryptic genome appears not to be made of DNA, the standard hereditary material.

The discovery also raises interesting biological questions - including whether it gets in the way of evolution, which depends on mutations changing an organism rather than being put right by a backup system.

What does our resident Bio major think about this one?

Some Book Reviews

I really enjoyed The Master Butcher's Singing Club, by Louise Erdrich. It is the story of a German immigrant family and their life in a small North Dakota town. Great characters with an unpredictable story line that reminded me a little of John Irving without the dancing bear fetish. Maybe the North Dakota connection (from around 1920 to 1950) will inspire certain old North Dakota types to give it a shot.

On a less frivolous front, I think I mentioned in comments one time that I recently read Perfectly Legal, by David Cay Johnston. The subtitle is "The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and CheatEverybody Else" which pretty much sums it up. Depressing reading. I can't say that W comes out looking good in this book, but it's not a book that has much of a political bent. Depressing, but informative.

Close on its heels, I recommend The Coming Generational Storm, by Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Scott Burns. I thought it did a pretty good job of sorting through the upcoming financial stresses that the baby boomers are going to put on our economy in the coming years. It's hard to tell what's going on with all the political FUD surrounding the so-called Social Security crisis, while nobody's worrying about the even larger Medicare and Medicaid issues. Paul Krugman (who may not be your favorite columnist, but who is a pretty damned smart economist himself) in his review of the book wasn't thrilled with the way these guys wrapped all their arguments around the general demographic problem associated with aging, when the problems and programs are really separable. But, I thought it was pretty good. It was a bit off-putting that at the end they recommended using an online service they provide to help you plan around the upcoming issues. However, while it was off-putting, it inspired me to look into some other online financial planning stuff (which I might post about once I'm convinced it helps more than my current plan of financial management by procrastication).

Was that a racoon in my trash or Hogzilla?

Yahoo! News - Top Stories Photos - APAt least once a week I have to clean up the trash scattered around my yard by some nocturnal invaders I rarely see them but sometimes it looks like the work of hogzilla. That 1000 lb weigh in could be reduced by at least 150 by simply cleaning the mud off him. That was one brave hunter to even consider a shot if he was on the ground.

Evidence of Knitting Skills

It was a dark and stormy night out here, so I tried out my new Made By Kyla hat. I've also been enjoying the Kasey Chambers (highly recommended), Blue Rodeo, Martina McBride, and mix CD's Dara brought back from perhaps the one country music fan at Yale.

What was the score?

I saw the pics and read the travel report it sounded and looked like a fantastic trip! It must have been quite a treat to enjoy London as well as the English countryside and even take in a little theatre. I am left wondering how Yale stacked up against Oxford and Caimbridge on the polo field and how the tournament was played. Kyla is back in time for March Madness. Probably not observed at home but will be impossible to escape at school. Steve for your information G W is in so get out your brackets and place your bets.

Practically Perfect In Every Way

Kyla and I just returned from a trip to England (my first). It was so amazing. I met Kyla in London and we spent three days there. I dragged her to St Pauls and she dragged me to London Dungeon. We both were enthralled with the Tower Of London. On our last night we attended the new stage musical Mary Poppins. Such a bizarre mix of the Disney movie and new and jarring songs but memorable nonetheless. From London we toured the countryside for three days hitting Stonehenge and cathedrals and Bath. It was so incredible to see Jane Austen's Bath and of course the old Roman Baths. We also toured the Cotswolds and Oxford and ending in Cambridge, which was the whole reason (excuse) to go to England. We then spent three days in polo mania as there was a big tournament between Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. We ate in many pubs and drank gallons of tea. All in all it was great but next time I am going in warmer weather and hope to actually see the sun. I was so happy to get back to California sunshine!

This Is A Relief

It seems like good news to me:

"Coroners have officially pronounced Michael Jackson dead. From what we can tell, he died between 18 and 20 years ago," forensic investigator Tim Holbrooke said. "We are not certain, at this time, who—or what—has been standing trial in that Santa Maria courthouse."

According to Holbrooke, Jackson's corpse was buried just inches below a stretch of the miniature-train tracks that run throughout Neverland. The largely desiccated corpse wore the remains of a red, zipper-covered leather jacket and a single glove.

"We believe that Neverland served as some sort of freakishly whimsical tomb constructed by Jackson's killer," Holbrooke said.

You can't put one over on those CSI guys.

Love Hurts

After a week long visit here by Jody, she and Garrett left yesterday to Ottawa. The plan appears to be that he will stay up there until June, at which time he will return to take his GED. The good news is that it turns out if he takes the GED within 60 days of scheduled graduation, then it's the same as graduating. So, that is the route he wants to take. I guess in some ways he's going to substitute real life for his required "Life" course in high school. He got his acceptance paperwork from Algonquin College in the General Arts and Sciences program, with the details on what it takes to enroll as an international student. It begins at the end of August. It would be a bit of an understatement to say we've been frustrated with the lack of communication. Maybe the distance might inspire some better communication. We can hope. And hey, there's always the blog.

The Gun Rack Is Extra

I believe these trucks are offered with your own Personal Offshore Oil Platform^TM. The International CXT (Commercial Extreme Truck) is

a seven-ton-plus, 220-horsepower, 70-gallon diesel pickup. The CXT is so large that New York is one of a handful of states that requires a commercial driver's license to operate it.

Scooby Doo, The Reality Show

Kyla wanted to see our latest foster pup, Val. She left today. I'm sure she'll be snapped up in a second at Pets In Need.

The Baths at Bath

Polo Action

There goes the neighborhood

'Koreatown' Image Divides A Changing Annandale (washingtonpost.com) I thought some of you might be interested in this. Its been some time since I had been there but I had to go thru there the other day The words, I know this place like the back of my hand, and these are my old stompin grounds quickly gave way to where the hell am I,and lock the doors. Moving ther from Forestville seemed like 2 different worlds now Annandale is its own country.

Some Blog Improvements

If you're paying close attention, you will see I added some stuff to the sidebar to the right. You can now post something using the "Post Something New!" link. I also added a "Recent Comments" section right below the "Previous Posts" section. It's a little difficult to figure out if someone has commented on a given post, so by looking here you can see if there are new comments, and you can click on the links to see the comments.

Virtual Outdoorsman

Our new high tech bird feeder has yet to host any birds that I've seen, although Dara claims she saw some. Still, we can always keep ourselves occupied by virtual birdwatching at PG&E in downtown San Francisco. The Oracle towers also are home to peregrine falcons. In case watching is not exciting enough for you, you can even sit at the comfort of your computer and take target practice. It seems that people are upset enough about the idea of killing animals from your den that they're trying to outlaw it here. What would Daniel Boone do?

The Harris no child left behind bill

Danny will graduate from elementary school this year I can't believe how quick he is growing up. Warren county schools (which by the way employs Kirsti) is rated somewhere near the bottom of all schools in Va. Kirsti can give exact per-centages of all the meaningfull catagories, and believe me that can be a very lenghty discussion. So far we have both been very satisfied with his education and have liked his schools and teachers,all of which we steered him into with Kirsti's clout as a school administrator. There is no clout that can keep him out of Warren county middle school, the only middle school in the county. With nothing but negative commentary from all directions and hellbent on seeing him prepared for college we began considering private school. Last weekend we attended the open house of a Front Royal Icon in schools Randolph Macon Accademy. Dan had already expressed some interest in RMA and we had both heard some positive things about it so we thought lets have a look. It is a boarding school with a day school program as well, grades 6 thru 12 with a strong emphasis on college prep, sports, and what appears to me to be a bunch of fun learning. Dan was impressed more than we were which means no pitch necessary so it would be an easy transition for him. The introduction to parents looks great considering the accademic record and student teacher ratio. To perspective students it looks even better with electives like flight school and rifle range then throw in the after school activities like Paintball and Indoor pool its as the kids say "pretty tight" We are going to apply and see what happens not everyone gets in and he understands that. Next week is an activity at the county middle school we are going to attend for a little introduction there, In my eyes it pales by comparrison, The annual faculty Donkey Basketball Game. I will not volunteer for cleanup.

More Academics vs. Real Life

New Scientist is occasionally an interesting place for online reading. It's not quite as highbrow as Scientific American, which I find to be pretty much impenetrable. New Scientist is kind of like the People magazine of science, a bit above the Popular Mechanics genre. I used to love Popular Mechanics, though. I still want one of those jet packs, which we were all supposed to be using to get around in these days according to the magazine I read as a kid. However, I remember seeing a guy demonstrate one of those down at the Mall in DC one time, and the deafening noise dampened my enthusiasm a bit.

So here is an interesting article about how economists model income distribution.

While economists' models traditionally regard humans as rational beings who always make intelligent decisions, econophysicists argue that in large systems the behaviour of each individual is influenced by so many factors that the net result is random, so it makes sense to treat people like atoms in a gas.

When it comes to disciplines that like to think they are based on science, there really isn't much more of an unscientific field than Economics in my opinion, unless maybe it's Medicine. I once worked with a marketing guy with a degree in Economics who said he switched to marketing so he could do something more predictable.

You have to think like a scammer

The scam you laid out is pretty crafty, I feel sorry for those that have been had I'm sure it hurts in more ways than one. Having been the reciepient of many bad checks and broken promises I am weary of any tranaction that doesn't involve a proven source. If you think the check is bad or bogus in some way go to one of those "simply cash" or check cashing service first and give them the $10 or so to take the responsibility for cashing it. If that women in your story had just a little more apprehention and some larceny in her blood she would have been $2,900.00 richer. Of course a nigerian cashiers check may raise more than one red flag. I recently did some work for a couple and started to get the inkling they may be overextended when I was knee deep in their job. There is a whole pattern of things that give you that sinking feeling you are about to be screwed in that situation. I have several safegaurds in place that keep me from getting hurt to bad but none of them are as good as getting paid on schedule. After several attempts at collection I recieved a post dated check with several warnings about when and where to take it to the bank. Obviously the check was just a means to get me to leave them alone temporarily. As you might have guessed it bounced, but not quite high enough. I was telling a freind who happens to be branch manager of a bank and he quickly asked if I considered making a small deposit in the account. The thought of giving them money after all this seemed out of the question but he pointed out many bounced checks are reeturned for relatively small overdrafts. As the chances of a lengthy and expensive collection process loomed I thought I would give it a try. A 200.00 deposit in their account at 9:30 AM and a return trip to their bank at 2:00 and their check was good. I know it was a gamble but in the end it was a cheap collection. I guess the customer was doing this intentionaly because he called and left an irate message on my machine about not following his instructions regarding his check and expressed some surprise that I was able to cash it. Thats one job I don't have to worry about the customer service work on and that more than makes up for the 200. I guess the big lesson here was my friend the bank manager thinks like a scammer, A little scary if you bank there.

Scamming At Internet Speed

After that foray into the brave new world of phishing, and knowing that Keith is into EBay, I thought I'd mention the newest scam making the rounds.

Here's how it works:

You advertise an item for sale online and are immediately approached by an eager "buyer," who happens to live in another country. The buyer offers to buy the item and pay for shipping and other related expenses, and ends up sending a check or cashier's check for thousands more than the asking price. The "buyer" then asks you to cash the check and wire the difference back or to a "shipper."

Problem is, the check turns out to be bogus. But by the time you find that out, you've already sent real money abroad and your bank is looking to recover that amount from you because the check was bad.

And lest you think those darn Nigerians aren't innovative:

Joyce, 33, advertised a $500 antique bed, and within three days was contacted by an interested "buyer" in England.

In February, he sent her a cashier's check for $3,500. But he asked that she send $2,900 to a shipper in Lagos, Nigeria, leaving her with $500 for the bed and $100 for her time and trouble.

Joyce said she had her suspicions about the transaction, but felt assured when a local bank cashed the check. With $2,900 in hand, she promptly went to Western Union and wired the money to Nigeria.

Pretty cool, eh? Caveat venditor. (You know, Dad always told me I needed to study Latin, but when I wanted to know what was Latin for "Let the seller beware," all I had to do was type "seller beware latin" into Google).

Blog Navel Gazing

As I have previously confessed, I like reading blogs. You can also guess that my preferred political blog reading is slanted leftward. Okay, it's firmly entrenched on the left, not just slanted. To me, one of the interesting thing about blogs is that they are so incredibly self-referential. If you read one, that person will cite things they read in another blog, and that other blog will often cite things in the first one. It stands to reason, in my experience. Reading blogs is a lot like having a conversation, mostly a one-way conversation. You don't want to have a conversation with people on a subject that will just inflame you, who needs the pain -- after all, the dysfunctional family is founded on such a principle. By the same token, I've found some real people who can still in this day and age talk about politics without entering into a hatefest. Those guys just don't seem to exist in interesting blogs, or if they do, they tend to be right/left wingers who are entertaining to read simply because they are good at trying to represent a more (pun intended) fair and balanced view. Then, in your little righty/lefty world, you can read the blog and feel better about yourself because you have the illusion that you are getting both sides. (Hmm, wait a minute, isn't this the basic premise behind Faux News. But, I digress, which, frankly is hard to do in this rambling post). When you find someone you like to read, though, and you can see from the blogs they link to who they like to read, you often find that you like to read those things as well.

All this was just a lead-in to say that we are starting to get some academic research into the situation. Of course, I read about this on one of those liberal blogs! As with a lot of research, it confirms some of the commonsense things I already talked about above. Still, some of it is interesting, when it comes to just how self-referential lefty blogs are compared to righty ones:

In our study we witnessed a divided blogosphere: liberals and conservatives linking primarily within their separate communities, with far fewer cross-links exchanged between them. This division ex-tended into their discussions, with liberal and conservative blogs focusing on different news articles, topics, and political figures. An interesting pattern that emerged was that conservative bloggers
were more likely to link to other blogs: primarily other conservative blogs, but also some liberal ones. But while the conservative blogosphere was more densely linked, we did not detect a greater uniformity in the news and topics discussed by conservatives.

... and...

Democrats are the ones more often cited by right-leaning bloggers, while Republicans are more often mentioned by left-leaning bloggers. [...] These statistics indicate that our A-list political bloggers, like mainstream journalists (and like most of us) support their positions by criticizing those of the political figures they dislike. An interesting topic for further study would be to compare how balanced bloggers’ presentation of the facts are compared with that of mainstream media journalists.

One day it will mean something to one of those Yale, Harvard, or Princeton profs. Hmm, or maybe the Princeton guy already wrote the book on it.

Promises, Promises

I guess after a while you get jaded to these kinds of things:

British doctors have announced they have cured a man with diabetes by injecting pancreatic cells into his liver.

Even so, I get a brief moment of "oh my god" before I look a little further to find an article with more information:

There are still drawbacks, especially the lifelong reliance on those anti-rejection drugs and the problems caused by a severe shortage of pancreases, with about 800 donated annually in Britain. Few organs are suitable for harvesting cells as many of those donated are needed for full organ transplants or come from diabetic patients whose kidneys have also failed. But scientists hope that the overall drug cocktail will be reduced and they hope that islet cells, perhaps using stem cells, can be taught to trick the body into pro ducing more of its own, thus ekeing out short supplies. Alternatively more islet cells might be grown in the lab. Vaccines could prevent the body from attacking new islet cells.

So let's see how it shakes out:

1. You have a disease that requires daily insulin injections to survive.
2. You get new islet cells injected into your liver, although a source of such cells is not available.
3. You take anti-rejection drugs on a daily basis, which btw screws up your entire immune system.
4. Maybe one day someone will come up with a vaccine to prevent your body from attacking the islet cells.

Don't get me wrong. I am very, very glad people are whacking away at the problem. Stem cells, immunological research, transplantation techniques -- they are all part of a very complex problem. What pisses me off is the complete cluelessness of our headline-a-minute media in summarizing this as "Cell Transplant Cures Diabetes". Yours in frustration...

Garbage Angels

With Dara and Kyla off in London, Garrett and I are left home alone like Homer and Bart Simpson. It hasn't gotten to the stage where we can make garbage angels on the living room floor anyway. Apparently the high today in London was around 40F, and yesterday they were dealing with snow. By this time they have done the London Eye, the British Museum, and the Tower of London. I believe the architecturally inclined Dara is threatening Kyla with St. Paul's for tomorrow. Kyla's request for the War Museum didn't make the cut. On the home front, it's finally behaving like March in Northern California -- 70 degrees and sunny, azaleas and irises blooming, grass growing so fast you can see it happening as it stores up all that fuel for fire season. "Climate Best By Government Test" you know. I am consoling myself in Dara's absence by doing yard work and finally installing Firefox . After being cast as a late adopter by my 70+ mother, I figured I might as well see what it's about. Pretty damned good, actually.

You Get the News First Here

This morning's San Jose Mercury News (the local newspaper of choice for me) has an article this morning about the traffic accident blow-by-blow and the guy who saw it happen.

Six years ago, or so the story goes, Mike Childs left a hilarious commentary on a co-worker's voice mail about witnessing four little old ladies beat the tar out of a guy who hit their car and then tried to blame it on them. But only within the past few weeks has the magic of the Internet, where the recording is now posted, clued in tens of thousands to Childs' infectious laugh and his wonderful eye for detail, all told with his Louisiana drawl.

Princeton On Bullshit

Yale, Harvard... time to move on to Princeton in our non-exhaustive and random investigation of Ivy League obsessions. It seems that a twenty year old essay, On Bullshit, has been resurrected as a small book. This may actually be a valuable academic contribution to society. From the Amazon description:

We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."
Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here.

Telecom Mogul Held in Tax Case (washingtonpost.com)

Telecom Mogul Held in Tax Case (washingtonpost.com)And you thought you were dreading april 15th! I have been known to take a few liberties in stating my income, every year I agonize over a few bucks but this guy was crazy. How could you be so smart and be so stupid all at the same time. Maybe the word crazy explains it

Robotic Restraining Order

The background on another local story... Our friends, the Leibs, have been big robotics types for quite a few years. Jeremy, now at Cal Tech, was one of the big honchos on the Aragon High School robotics team, and Chris is doing the same this year. They build a robot to accomplish a certain task under a set of rules, both of which change every year. For example, one year they had to collect balls and place them in a container that was six feet or so off the ground. Two robots compete to get it done fastest, with the mostest accomplished, while working to stop the other side. It's not one of those battlebot things, where they try to destroy each other -- that's not allowed. The competition is through an organization called FIRST, the brainchild of Dean Kamen. Dean Kamen invented the Segway, but something he invented that is probably closer to our hearts out here is the insulin pump.

One of the main competitors out here is Gunn High School in Palo Alto. This year, two sets of students got in such battles that they ended up with restraining orders in place. This and the stress placed on the high school teacher sponsor has resulted in the school pulling out of the competition. Nothing like good old honest to goodness competition, eh?