blivet 2.0

I’m still head-down getting ready for Friday.

That little animated gif cracks me up.

Just a page flip on the way to bed… I hope everyone is OK out there.
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Lie of the Land: The Secret Life of Maps. via wood s lot

This is how I feel:

It has likely been evident from the ups and downs of late in the mood and tone here that I’m riding an emotional roller-coaster as my defense date approaches. For that I apologize. As Dave has mentioned, fear is at the root of so many of our behaviors and reactions. Fear of change, fear of closure (what now?), fear of failure (argh! what now?), fear of success (alright! what now?), fear. Still it is just ‘mind’, blowing around in the wind, and when that is realized (and re-realized) it can be examined like the phenomonea it is. The trick is to ride the tiger when it is time, rather than fall off and be eaten. Fear can be dealt with when the roots are recognized and followed to their source.

Is it the potential for embarassment that sets the mind to tweaking? Then practice or rewrite. Seek another opinion you trust, then act accordingly. Is it fear of ridicule from peers? Well, you have no control over that, besides being prepared and rehearsed. Some will criticize no matter what. Their turn will come in the dock. Is it fear of not being sufficiently wonderful? Well…, perhaps a bit of contemplation of one’s place in the Universe is in order. Or is it just the fear that comes from knowing a career passage is nigh? These are all the tracks of ego (lowercase so as not to evoke the Vieneese who gave that term so much noteriety), and ego is not your friend. It manipulates, deceives, cajoles, all to remain in primacy. Something can only be so puffed up when it knows the real boss is distracted elsewhere.

But is it? The chaos the ego creates through (in this case) fear, merely creates so much noise that all you can hear is it. Merely look (listen) the other way, the faint murmerings will lead you away from this frothing idiot who claims to be running the show. Follow that trail, however faint, for it leads to a place where fear does not exist.

Be humble, for you are made of dung,
be noble, for you are made of stars.
attributed to a Serbian proverb
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Whee! Clean bill of health for garret!. it’s *party time* tonight at dangerousmeta.

It took some time to bring this back to some level of reasonablemess. Rochmis really torqued me off. Twit.

Rant alert:

[Wired] In Order to Have Your Advice. “The most clueless people in the world are those who click on attachments in their e-mails, sent to them by people they don’t know. Or even from people they do know.” Excuse me?
Wow. Jon Rochmis of Wired Magazine, I think you are the clueless one to paint all computer users with such a tarred brush. To avoid this horrible state of fear you assume all of us are in, because we are so clueless, is to stop using Microsoft products. Don’t use Outlook for your email. Just find something else. Better yet, don’t use Windows at all. I send and receive email attatchments all the time and I don’t suffer from this horrible mess of not even being able to find the application to open them, much less keep from becoming infecting my system with the virus de jour. Oh wait, maybe I am clueless, I don’t operate my machines as they come out of the box, I download security patches when they’re released, and I don’t open attatchments that come from people I don’t know. Further, I don’t use Outlook for my email at all and since I no choice about using Word since my colleagues do, I have all the scripting and autoexecute options turned off. But maybe I’m clueless because I’m not you and I don’t write from Wired, a magazine I used to enjoy reading until Conde-Nast took over. Unless, of course, the story is a troll for site hits. </rant>

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Dave Rogers has some great observations about fear ˆ how it permeates our lives, motivates us, manipulates us, keeps us off balance, off the track.

I can’t post at all from work. Most of the time I can’t reach many of the sites I frequent including this one. The solution? Don’t post from work…

That means I won’t post much in the next week or so, just occasional hit and runs. My thesis is completely in Pagemaker now so that is occupying much of the evenings. That and spending time wirh my wife and our unborn child.

I talk to the baby in Audrey’s tummy. I never thought about doing something like that before. Now I look forward to it.

In many ways my world is becoming both smaller and larger. Smaller because my focus is truly being drawn into making every effort to make sure we become a family. Larger because I’m starting to look at the world through the eyes of a parent and father. I’m noticing many things that I never did before, at any level you might wish to take it. It is interesting. Sometimes it is sobering. It is certainly going to be interesting. In the best of ways.

Perhaps I can add something from work if I flip the page from home first.
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The sociology of religion - how religious beliefs propagate and maintain themselves within social groups. via wood s lot,
My favorite line is attributed to Susan Blackmore:

…if a meditational system such as Buddhism is a meme, then it is actually a very peculiar one -  a meme-clearing meme. 

Brent dreams in sci-fi. I like it. And I agree, we could have if we had wanted to. Sadly, I fear we are the generation that fell back to Earth. Perhaps our child that will be born in November will go to the Moon, Mars, and perhaps beyond. I hope s/he will look back towards this pale blue dot and say, “Hey Dad! I made it!”

Great news from garret. It sounds promising that his heart is OK. We already knew he had the strength of 10.

It seems I need to get rid of the greatergood.com links. Another good one gone.
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Mothers Against Peeing Standing Up via wood s lot:

Today’s strange referral log entry: miss+universe+2000+nipple. I bet they were disappointed…

Wow, I had no idea that so many people delete every attachment. For those of you here in town who wrote back, “I deleted that email attachment you sent me, what was it?”, the answer is ˆ my thesis defense announcement (48k graphic). I guess I should have just put it up here and pointed to it in the first place. Oh well…

And Dan is exactly right. I’m …sorta’. …kinda.

Two from today’s Got Caliche?:

Inland Empire ˆ National Park Service historians and others nationwide have suggested recognizing the Gram Parsons legend in the context of the counterculture era. Around the country, historic sites are updating their official chronologies as they ask the question: When does the past become history?

North Country TImes ˆ Antiquated farm equipment will be sold July 29. The Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum will be packed with thousands of items for an auction which the museum uses to raise money to support its collections.

I’ve been to the monument for Gram at Joshua Tree. It’s a nice place, You could do the same thing for me when my time comes.

And an old farm machinery auction! I’d need a place like John’s to keep such beasts. Still, I’d love to have a 20-horse Rumley Oil Pull or a 25-horse Avery. Those are both internal combustion tractors (kerosene and gasoline respectively). I think finding a steam engine would be even harder. I don’t even want to think about the care and feeding of a dinosaur like that.

Speaking of Kansas, I wonder how Jeff is doing? It sure gets lonely out here on the plains…

Happy eighth anniversary to John and Laura!

How is everybody out there?

I really don’t have anything to say ˆ insightfull, witty, or profound. Except that I feel drained and quite frankly, more relaxed than I’ve felt in what may be years… I guess turning in a thesis will do that to you. There is still a lot to be done here and there, some more maps, graphs and charts, and perhaps five or six pages of expanding some things like the physiographic setting, some previous work from the early 1960s that came to light, and a bit of tying things together at the end. But, I have every confidence that my committee will let me know about those things…

Next stop is constructing yet another PowerPoint presentation. But not for a couple of days.

Sorry for the empty update for 12 hours. After I flipped the page at work (yes, I was taking a break ) the flipped page wouldn’t load. I didn’t get near Hayduke until I had been home for several hours. Me thinks I have the NT problem Doug Miller (sorry I haven’t replied yet Doug!) mentioned to me the other day via email. Essentially, some NT user accounts (as opposed to admin) develop caching problems and won’t refresh pages for some reason.

Thesis turned in, defense announcements posted, we are now in the end game… I have my queen, a rook, a knight, and both bishops. I should be fine.

And back to the thesis…

Short break. Some show reports from Warren Zevon’s 2001 Trigger Happy Tour are trickling in. Diane has them posted here.

Andrea has some nice sunset pictures up… Best of luck on your upcoming tests!

I’m in the eleventh hour for the thesis to go to committee on Monday, so I’ll be offline.

Have a great day.

Everyone got famous, everyone got rich

Everyone went off the rails and ended in the ditch

But we had to take that long, hard road to see where it would go

We took that holy ride ourselves to know

We took that holy ride ourselves to know

Now if you make a pilgrimage I hope you find your grail

Be loyal to the ones you leave with even if you fail

Be chivalrous to strangers you meet along the road

As you take that holy ride yourselves to know

You take that holy ride yourselves to know

Warren Zevon

[Kansas City Star] Moving remains is part archaeology, part reunion

The first grave from the Holloway family plot dating to the 1850s had been exhumed. Eight others remained.

Construction workers had discovered the unplatted cemetery in April when a headstone was found during work on the new Missouri 150. The family plot, about halfway between U.S. 71 and Holmes Road, blocked crews from laying water and fiberoptic lines.

On Thursday, a Jackson County Circuit Court judge granted state officials permission to move the graves. Descendants of John G. Holloway, who farmed the land before the Civil War, supported the decision.

Soon after the ruling, workers arrived at the site. Archaeologists carried small trowels, special shovels and whisk brooms.

Family members came with lawn chairs, coolers and umbrellas. They ate lunch in the shade.

Temperature Up 3-9 Degrees Over Next Century: NCAR. There’s a nine out of ten chance that global average temperatures will rise 3-9 degrees Fahrenheit over the coming century, with a 4-7 degree increase most likely, according to a new probability analysis by scientists in the United States and Europe. via UniSci

Food for thought and pointers on Globalism and the G8 from Craig at BookNotes.

Perhaps the Europeans (while thinking about balistic missles) should ask a Native American how the American government keeps its treaties… via garret

Dan, I like your plan for the day.

Go Lance! Armstrong is wearing the yellow jersey again.

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Susan muses on what’s in a name, Voldemort or Microsoft? today. Or Sauron or Vlad…

I missed noting earlier that on this day in 1969 two humans landed on the Moon. Later they exited the LEM and walked on the surface of another world. I stayed up all night to watch Walter Cronkite anchor the coverage on TV. I am still in awe of that feat on many levels.

Back from seeing Zevon. What a great show. I’m not hoarse either, I am a bit suprised… I can imagine the eye-rolling that will take place when we tell our teenager that they saw Warren Zevon when s/he was minus four months old. He’s another one of those old guys like you, right?

On deck for tonight, a little emotional release:

And then back at the thesis Saturday morning.

I might be a little hoarse though…

Be well.
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