blivet 2.0

Tomorrow is graduation day and so I will get hooded. My mom is still here and so will get to return home with more special memories… Updates will be late if at all. After September, October, and November, the rest of December will seem almost anti-climatic. Pax!

Actuarial Note No. 139 - 2001 Update “[T]he most frequently used given names for births in the first 8 months of 2001. The data comes from a 1% sample of Social Security card applications for births from January through August 2001.” Probably only of interest if you named a child in 2001. FWIW, Ian ranked 80 in the boy’s category. Hopefully he won’t have too many instances of having to say, “which Ian do you mean?” via MetaFilter

Audrey, Ian, and I watched and listened a couple of hours of VH-1’s tribute to George Harrison…. Well, I don’t think Ian watched it, but he was lying on the bed while it was on. It was really warming to hear Harrison speaking so frankly about meditation, dualistic thinking, the search for meaning, and personal spirituality. Perhaps some will hear what he said in the interviews and feel a tiny bit more supported in their own searching.

Dori comes through clean.

Former Beatle George Harrison has died. Thanks for everything George!

This will be blogged extensively, I just wanted to note it here. The things he did musiically and spiritually were very important to me and opened a lot of possibilities, especially when I was in my teens and twenties. I will remember him fondly.

Craig has a good set of linkage about Mr. Harrison. Thanks so very much for that, Craig.

—–

Happy second anniversary garret
! “i think my first post was ‘does this work?’”

Best wishes tomorrow Dori!

Catching up (I hope) on thank yous: I know those icons slow things down, but I sure like ‘em.

wheee! You are exactly right Martin!

Thanks David! BTW, you’re officially just the right age!

Al, I bow deeply in return…

[Jeff’s Radio Weblog]

Thanks Ken!

Thanks Comm. (Ret.) Dave! Dave also asks me, “What do you do for an encore?” I’m not sure Dave, my aspirations (and energy) are running more along the lines of raiding the left-over bag of Halloween bite-sized Snickers bars. Actually, there is a really prime Archaeologist position I’m going to apply for. Then, … I want to do my part to help Audrey write her thesis. I owe her big time…

Rafé has a great response to Rush Limbaugh …

I have not looked around much for a couple of days. I’ll check blogtracker and my bookmarks and be back in a bit…

A request
On a completely different tack, we are probably going to purchase a digital video camera to make lasting records of this delightful child that has come to live with us. I don’t know my Hitachi from my Cannon, and so I would love to hear your suggestions as to what to get so we are not, as they say, disappointed. We already have an iMac DV and iMovie, so it seems only reasonable to get a FireWire-capable camera. I seem to recall reading on Woz’s site that he liked a Hitachi model, but that was some time ago. So, if you have some suggestions, please post them in the dg or via email. Meanwhile, I’ll be trying to construct a gap in my video camera ignorance. Thanks!

Later thought: Better yet, (as in, more in the spirit of the web) put your thoughts, observations, experiences, recommendations, whatever, on digital video cameras on your web site, send me a link, and I’ll put the pointers here on blivet.

Today is Ian’s original due date. He is almost 21 inches long and nearly 9 pounds (53 cm, 9979 g) now. I hesitate to think what that would have been like for Audrey.

garret recommends a good celebratory howl at the moon. So don’t be alarmed if you hear Bodhidharma and Coyote collaborating in the desert on Thursday evening.

With that, I’m going to go enjoy my extended family… Be well.

It has been quite a year with Ian’s birth and finishing this degree. It has also been wonderful telling you about it and hearing back from so many of you. Thanks for being there. You’re great. I even had the distinct pleasure of meeting Susan and garret this year. Life is pretty darn good.

Just Another Dissertation, by Christina Petersen.

God loosened his tie and hoped the committee would go easy on him. He faced five professors seated in the front row of the biology department conference room.[…] [BioMedNet (registration required)]

Many thanks to Dan Bowman for that. I laughed out loud, Dan. It was definitely worth ‘a moment of my time’.

As of 10:50 PST (-0800 GMT) I am done, Done, DONE! La la la la la! And sing and dance and play! (And go back to work and try to get caught up.)

Do not worry, where is a long list of ‘honey-do’ tasks and some to-do tasks of my own appointing, but they are for our own domain, not the University’s. That is what I mean by ‘guilt˜free leisure’. I may not be leisurely, but there is no more guilt for that undone task.

Yes! This is a great day! I hope it is for you as well!

Off to campus to get the final signature on my thesis approval page. Then I will be through with my degree. I’m looking forward to this. </understatement>

Have a great day.

Spinsanity ˜ Countering rhetoric with reason. [from the site] “Spinsanity exposes and analyzes the increasingly pervasive use of manipulative and subrational rhetoric in American politics.” It seems to be non-partisan as well… via Rafé

Clone the extinct Tasmanian tiger? More questions than answers so far… [slashdot thread]

[The Age (Melbourne)] Some DNA has been extracted from a Tasmanian tiger tooth, and a dice-sized piece of bone cut from a thylacine’s femur ˜ another small step in a controversial plan to clone a species that has been extinct for well over half a century.

Today dawned clear and crisp, washed clean by desert showers.

DangerousBookNotes in Austin, Texas.
Craig and garret get together in Austin. It looks like you caught some pretty nice weather for the end of November.

The first Fall rains come to the northern Mojave.
For over three hours, a soft gentle rain has been falling in the Las Vegas Valley. Very, very nice… It has been about seven months since we had enough to completely wet the pavement.

Ken posted this amazing letter to the editor from today’s (23 Nov) edition of the Eugene Register-Guard.

Susan Kitchens of 2020Hindsight stopped by and got to meet Ian. At one point it got rather recursive (Susan taking a picture of Hal taking a picture of Susan taking a picture…).

It was really good to see her again and hear about some of her projects. Of course Ian was sociable, as always.

The Doonesbury comic strip that has Rush upset. I had already cut it out, I’ll just find a better place to hang it. via wood s lot

Jonas is off to Thailand. I hope you have a great time and that things work out…

I don’t know if I had anything to do with it (it was Thanksgiving in the USA after all), but I really enjoyed reading what people were thankful for yesterday.

catching up a bit…

Have a look at these great interactive maps of Afghanistan at National Geographic.
via Charles at little green footballs who got it from Jon Swenson

This has been happening for several years ˜ today is Buy Nothing Day! via adbusters

Eliot (FMH), thank you for the linkage.

Thanksgiving

This is my favorite holiday. Perhaps because it is largely secular and relatively free of commercial and corporate exploitation.

Thanksgiving is just a day to … give thanks.

What a great idea!

This list is far from exhaustive.

I have much to be thankful for, friends ˜ some of which I see almost every day, others only occasionally, more I have not seen in years, still more I have never met in person. You are likely one of the latter. If you have a weblog, thanks for that too.

A wonderful woman who is my best friend, partner, and wife.

Ian our beautiful new baby boy.

Three doting grandparents.

The completion of my thesis (the last step is Monday), and with it my degree.
a small suggestion: don’t try to work full time and go to graduate school too if you can help it

An excellent job prospect which will also let me use that degree and my skills, knowledge, and intelligence.

A reasonable level of health and a level of peace and happiness I never thought possible for me.

A chance to share this with you via blivet. It means more than I can explain to most people. Thanks!

For all this and more I will give thanks today. Today is a day to be generous, expansive, and cut people slack. We all need a break, why not give that to someone today… I am going to try my best.

I wish you happiness, love, success, and peace. Especially peace with yourself.

What are you thankful for? I’d love to hear about it here, or on your weblog if you have one.

See you Friday.

Thanks!

Breaking silence

Good road garret…

Congratulations Andrea! Guilt free leisure!

I’m almost there as well… just waiting on the signature page to circulate and the archival copies to be made. I had the printing done on campus ˜ it was cheaper per page to have it done than to just buy the paper. That doesn’t include the time and toner to do it myself. Such a deal. Economics influences behavior yet again. I love handing the printers a CD with a fat .pdf file for things like this. The graphics will be crisp avoiding the problems with the grayscale on second generation photocopies.

blivet out…