Julia and Julia

I grew up watching Julia Child cooking. I would either be captivated or flip over to something else. This trailer impressed me with Meryl Streeps portrayal is so perfect. Plus, the concept just seems fun.

Julia Child the person has a colorful history. She worked with the OSS (CIA) helped develop shark repellent, she received the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat.

she attended Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and studied privately with master chefs. With her knowledge she began teaching cooking, translated recipes from French with precise attention to detail and made fine cuisine accessible. With this she co-wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

She was not the first TV cook, but her show was the most widley watched. Her personality trancended the media. Her Second book The French Chef Cookbook, was the recipes she had done on the show. She was on the air in various venues from in 1963 through the 1990's.

She founded the educational American Institute of Wine and Food She received the French Legion of Honor and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. Child also received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, Johnson & Wales University.

Quite a life, quite a lady.

Deserving of tale told

The following is a tale of our adventures in the World of Warcraft.

It was pitiful, these once powerful Ogres milling around, not even taking notice. The one time terror they held was now a distant memory of another time. We ignored them as they did us. We went to this "Dire Maul" to return a book, for which we needed a key, to whit we needed to find a little impish demon.

The Ents packed a punch, though they fell quite easily to our prowess. We have walked on other worlds and honed our skills and craft far above these denizens abilities. It was in no sense a fair fight, or even a battle of note. We skirted many opponents. Then the oddness occurred. Being a bit too secure in his ability the Orc Gorlach attempted a leap across a gap in the suspended walkway. The brittle floor gave way and he plummetted downward into the soft foliage below. Some of the creatures, startled by his appearance attacked only to quickly be dispatched by the Warlock.

His bound demon servant (Thokthang by name) had started to give chase to his master, not by dropping down. Instead the void creature followed some ethereal directions that guided him along the labyrinth. Gorlach besieged sacrificed the void to gather some fortitude and finish off his foes.

High above, Boans and Tuuk pondered how to re-unite with Gorlach and gingerly traversed the less then solid precipice with Orc proven due caution. As they neared an Ent infested hallway and girded for battle, ladylike screams came wafting up from below. Panic, disbelief and laughter ended the life of Gorlach. Tuuk and Boans engaged another Ent, confident the fight would be short.

Little did they know the petulant screams from there companion was an onrushing wave of death. The void walker has an ability for making creatures angry. In its searching for Gorlach it aggravated quite a few denizens then when sacrificed switched their aggravation towards the Warlock. They moblike started the march towards.

Gorlach was taken unprepared for the ocean tide of creatures who promptly beat him about the neck and head until he gave up the ghost. Gorlach was actually bemused by this unlikely suicide he had foisted upon himself.

This group then turned its attention to Boans and Tuuk who were near toppling the Ent as as the group descended. Carefully weighing his options, Boans Hiked up his robes and ran as fast as his undead form could take him. He shouted words of encouragement to his Bovine companion, which faded into the distance. Boans had wispy memories from some long-forgotten past that crept into his undead brain as the pitch of the battle rose. First a bit of wisdom from who-knows-where: an avalanche of small grains will take down the mighty grasshopper. Adding to that, the cryptic phrase from a similarly unknown source: “Run, Forrest, Run!” The seemingly random thoughts nevertheless were enough to set Boans into action following a tactic from a mysterious song floating through his consciousness: “Brave, brave Sir Robin…”.

Even with vast experience and magical power, his undead legs had not gained speed over time. Boans could run no faster now then the last time he was in this structure. Worse yet, the enraged mob behind him was slightly faster than Boans. His only hope was to reach the portal through which he knew the crowd would not pass.

Two key pieces of magic were all that separate Boans from being torn apart by the mob. First, he had the ability to emit a circle of ice to freeze those closest behind him. This ability took time to recharge, but with each blast it bought Boans time by stopping the fastest of the pursuers. Secondly, Boans could teleport very short distances with another magical ability. Just as the hot breath of the chasing mob was upon him and fingers were starting to grasp at his robes, Boans would make a teleportation leap that would open another small gap from the increasingly enraged group in pursuit.

After a few nerve wracking minutes, Boans made his escape through the swirling portal that acted as a solid barrier to the angry denizens that were following. His undead mind quickly forgot the death of his companions behind him as the ghosts of Gorlach and Tuuk arrived for another attempted penetration of the structure.

Responsibility.

There is a news item that seems ridiculous. The California Department of Transportation must pay out 6.3 million for being partially responsible in the wrongful death of two teenage girls.

The driver, Gina Norris, who plead guilty in juvenile court to vehicular manslaughter received no jail time. The 17-year-old girl intentionally sped on a rolling road in the San Bernardino Mountains in a deliberate attempt to get airborne, lost control and killed two passengers. A survivor and mothers of the dead girls sued Caltrans for wrongful death, arguing the road was hazardous. Caltrans argued the road was safe when driven legally.

There is defined right and wrong here that is set aside. Culpability belongs to Gina Norris. She is not an adult so her parents (or guardian) should be held accountable for certain fiscal aspects.

Your average parents would not be able to afford a 6.3 million dollars. Teens dying in a crash is a sad tragic thing. The State of California has a large cash flow, so lets compensate the loss from someone with money... What exactly does that say about this particular jury?

What example does it set when the leader of your country brings about a cutback of charitable giving and states that the government will take up the slack? We hear a lot about government responsibility and quite a bit more of the government blaming the government for what the government did and how only the government can fix this mess the government made.

Responsibility for your actions and choices is not marginalized by your ability to pay. Neither is it mitigated by which direction you point. You are responsible for yourself and your family, your community and your representatives and your fellow human beings. You can not delegate responsibility away, you can only be irresponsible in your choices.

Goverment Responsibility? Harry Truman is rotating in his grave.

Radio Gaga

AM and FM Radio is having a difficult time. It could be they are obsolete.

Or possibly it is the business model that is broken? If I want to start up a radio station today, I need to get the okay to broadcast, get the equipment then the personnel. After a format is decided upon you would have to pay to play the music or some fee for broadcasting someones show. or you have local talent. Next you will need to sell advertising on your station to cover the capital, upkeep, fee's and salaries.

How much would that cost? No clue, but my best guess is considerable.

or

I could use my computer sign up with a web based radio company and pay $10.00 a month or so to be a DJ. Much less capital and expenditure. Probably low to zero return.

I am a radio fan. I love the history the genre. I am fascinated by the old shows and enjoy hearing new personalities.

Just seems to me that the given model for the business is difficult to sustain in the current market. What are the kids listening to? Ipods and Zunes. How do folks get local news? They don't, unless they have cable TV or something big enough locally comes to MSN or Yahoo.

If I want to hear music I have a dozen or so Internet stations I can tune into. If I am in my car, I will play an old fashion CD while the kids sit rocking out in their ear buds.

The more I think about it maybe this is one of those cases where something has to die in order to be reborn.

Michael Jackson

The rumor\innunedo\gossip\slime\sleezeball\speculation\conspirac\culture Stock market has rung the bell. The "company in question?" Michael Jackson.

We hear how tragic he was, how talented he was, what an Icon he was... All hail the king! That all might just be true, there are certainly more then enough known facts justify his talent and his tragedy. He was a flawed human being.

However, I am finding the polarization of one aspect rather curious. That is the allegations of inappropriate behavior. Crime of which he was exonerated. Was that due to him being rich? or being innocent? If you bother to read the various documents from the trial, you will find a lack of any credible evidence.

Add a couple more arguments into the pot and I think you can see my point. First off the McMartin Preschool debacle. That case shows how difficult it is to get accurate eyewitness testimony from kids.

Next in speaking as a parent, I would NEVER settle a case against someone who molested my child. I would NEVER accept payment over a chance at justice. IMHO if you accept money from someone who molests your kid, that makes you vile and the definition of evil.

Cap and Trade

Common Sense

"sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts."

Quiet days

This AM I was greeted to silence, I had to shut the windows due to the cacophony of crickets and early morning birds. The bed was uncomfortably warm and kicking off the covers and cooling with the morning chill was nice. A glance at my clock offer proof that I awaken 15 minutes before my alarm has a chance. I debate waiting for the digital messenger to have a purpose, then I roll out of bed anyways. This was a six hour night, pretty good for me as of late.

Without concious thought I meander to the bathroom and turn the shower on. I have this little test of how tired I actually am. I reach across the shower and turn on the water. If I can pull my arm back and not get hit with the cascade of water, I am hitting on all twelve cylinders.

I do and I am. Good morning so far.

Shower, brush teeth, shave, smellies and pick out a shirt for the day. I like my nice assortment of Polo's a dressy T-shirt is a comfortable thing. I toss yesterdays pants into the laundry, after extracting the much too long belt from its loops. Undies on and clothes are tossed on the floor as I detour to microwave a cup-o-joe. While the whirring noise rotates my tall mug in a countdown dance of caffinated goodness, I am noticing how dead and grey the kitchen feels. Trevor did a good job cleaning up the room last night. He actually showed some pride in the job he did on his and Connors room last night. That gives me the first smile of the day.

A beeping noise, some sugar free hazelnut creamer and it is back to the desk and my morning bloodletting. My sugars are lingering around 100-110, which are good numbers, below 100 is better.

Coffee is nice and strong. The cup is drained much to quickly.

My morning pills packed in a small tin, ear-buds in and the local AM radio news playing in my ears, it is time to hike to work.

Cranius and Legs have been making consistently first rate WoW videos. I am impressed that they can show a cohesive storyline with characters and emotions with the limited animations available to them. Peratus provides the sutible pounding rock music.

Summer Entertainment fare

We saw the new Trek film (liked it). Saw the new Pixar film (liked it).

There is the New Harry Potter film. After that it looks pretty bleak.

GI Joe, may be fun. There is the Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds. Julia and Julia might (long shot) lure me in to buy a ticket.

Usually with economic downturn there is an increase at the box office. I'm guessing that is only if the studio's put something on the screen that people want to see.

I am sure there is some good word of mouth, type film that will capture my $4.50. In the meantime, films I missed that are now on AMC and FX. Burn Notice and Doctor Who specials will have to fill the bill. Maybe its a good time to pick up a sport?

Website review

Redundantly, I am actively loosing weight. Because I live in the real world, and that means going out to eat every so often. Which means finding out, calorically, what I ate after the fact. This is daunting and suprising.

So Mens Health has this nice website. It's based on the book "Eat this not That"

Now you can look up the resturant (national chains), and find out in advance what options you have and the calories, sodium and fats involved are.

I found some of the look ups fun to know as well:

Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake
2,600 calories
135 g fat (59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats)
263 g sugars
1,700 mg sodium

We didn't think anything could be worse than Baskin Robbins' 2008 bombshell, the Heath Bar Shake. After all, it had more sugar (266 grams) than 20 bowls of Froot Loops, more calories (2,310) than 11 actual Heath Bars, and more ingredients (73) than you'll find in most chemist labs.

Experiment

So I am reading that you should cover the clocks in your bedroom and when you feel like falling asleep, do so. When you wake up, assess if your tired or not without benefit of a clock.

So last night around 10:00 I covered up the clocks and proceeded to read. I had cleverly put my wristwatch in a sock and when I got tired. I hit the timer.

I know I laid in bed for a bit before drifting off.

When the morning came, I felt tired so I went back to sleep. I believe this happened two more times. At that point I felt well rested so I got up. When I checked the clock it was 5:45. The timer on my watch showed 3 hours 21 minutes.

Ugh..

"Head!" Pants, NOW!

Today I am wearing 20 year old pants that are brand new. About the same time Sgt. Pepper was teaching the band to play, my wife went to the Broadway and purchased me some Dockers. Unfortunately I had gained too much weight to wear them.

They were nice pants and we opted to put them in the closet till I lost the weight. I guess that was till now. At 218 they fit nicely and despite the fact they hid themselves quite well, Tina was able to wrest them from hiding into viability.

I'm pretty sure this is the longest something of mine has gone from purchase to useage.

Daddys Day story.

When our oldest two were small, I came home from work one day to find my wife, stir crazy. She had not had adult conversation for quite awhile and being stuck in a condo in Long Beach was not helping. The previous weekend while at the mall I had noticed a help wanted sign on a clothing store.

It took little prompting for Tina to apply, she got the position and began working nights. This got her out of the house, made a little extra cash and clothing at bargain prices. More importantly it gave her adult time.

As such I got to spend the evening just me and the kids. After a couple of nights, I came up with a routine for the kids to follow. After Dinner we would play, then watch their TV show. At the conclusion they would get dressed for bed, brush teeth, give kisses and go to bed.

Tina's first few weeks at the new job was fairly busy and she really did not experience the kids routine, which had become ingrained with the consistency. Neither had I explained that I had set up the routine.

One evening off we all were sitting watching the kids Television show. As it ended I said my usual. Okay Kids, time for bed. To which the dutifully got up, got into PJ's, brushed and gave kisses marching off to bed.

Tina shockingly looked at me and said "What did you do to our kids?"

You would think the tale ends there but not quite. Not with Connor.

While in Canada yesterday, They had a very windy evening. Connor spent a lot of it up at the gazebo just looking out over the neighborhood & toward the lake. He'd come in for a while, then go back out to the gazebo. A bit later he came up and said, "Get on the night clothes, melatonin, and brush teeth." He kissed Diana, Omi and then went downstairs with Tina to do just that.

All others Pay Cash!

There is an ongoing question in many scientists' mind around humans ability to formulate understandable mathematical expression of virtually every natural phenomenon. Could this be speaking to a supernatural existence?

In the book, Quantum Questions, Ken Wilber compiled the original writings of thirteen important founders of modern quantum and relativistic physics, to explore their understanding of the relationship of physics and mysticism. Without exception, each one of them believed that modern physics does NOT prove spiritual realities in any fashion. And yet each of them was a mystic, not because of physics, but in spite of it. By pushing to the outer limits of their discipline, a feat of true genius, they found themselves face to face with realities that physics categorically could not explain.

One scientist explained that quantum physics provides us with a precise map of a part of God's creation, and in this respect we get more precise knowledge and understanding of God obliquely, He thinks science can never decisively "prove" the presence or absence of God. He felt God was somebody whom we trust and accept without proof.

DNA may prove my own Pop is my biological father, but I don't care about that. I know my Pop and Mom, love and care for me, and that's more then enough.

Acceptance of God is a matter of faith, not of scientific proof.

There is a professor of brain neurology who has became an Christian because he had been caught by an inexplicable awe when he was examining the mechanism of brain function. He concluded that nobody-else than God could have made the brain in such an orderly and sophisticated manner.

Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo said: "The Church never fears the truth of science, because we are convinced that all truth comes from God"

I think we should examine our "old maps" more seriously and be open-minded to refer to the "new maps" that science provide us. This does not mean that we throw the old away and accept new uncritically. Because an old map is still relevant and a new map can contain false information.

oooh za za

In a quiet town, this time of night has some odd noises. Like the nighbor across the street doing something on his roof...

At least the dog is snoring....

As sayeth the bard Für möglicherweise zu träumen

That probably is a horrid translation. I guess it has been a while since I get to hang around the house by my lonesome. Tina is on vacation, she has Connor and Diana up in Canada with her.

Trevor is busy with a musical and some chores and hopefully finding a job, so I tend not to see him until bedtime. Which is an issue I had almost forgotten.

Sleep eludes me when my family is away. It is the damnedest thing. I was sitting down, getting the nods, last night. I rousted myself to bed, as I laid down. BOOM! wide awake! Some conditioned response? I'm not sure.

So far I am averaging four hours of sleep since Sunday night. I feel fine and I have not noticed an impact on my work. For whatever reason my circadian rhythm believes I am living on Neptune or something. I stared a Novina, last night without much intervention from Saint Joseph (or Saint Jude for that matter).

I guess it is just an odd psychological phenomenon.

Computer Family

I like computers. Going back to 1976 working on a PDP-8 Teletype set up (I even had the awesome yellow, oil impregnated, computer tape).

There is a stark contrast between my siblings degree of computer knowledge. Recently it was brought to my attention how odd my family's Computer to TV ratio was.

We have one Television (there is a second, it is a Wii monitor, more then a TV). Not counting the computers in storage we have seven active systems. One for every member of the family and two laptops. We recently added a second pay-as-you-go, cell phone for Trevor, I myself and Tina have not owned one.

You would think such a high tech family would be sporting the latest in cell phone fashion? Nope.

I actually see cell phones as a bane to my existence. I do not want to be that connected. There are times when it would be handy to have one, I suppose. Still we continue to function fine without one.

About the time I start pondering the acquisition, I observe some hapless fool in the store going aisle by aisle with the phone glued to his ear asking if he should purchase item after item on the shelf. In other words this marvel of modern communication allows him to go to the store while the person on the other side of the conversation is doing the "shopping".

Seems a paper and pencil list would be a better option.

If your a businessman. Understood, thats the nature of business today. I really think having a "turn off time" is paramount. So I remain blissfully unfettered by cellular plague.

Alone again

The house is too quiet. I did not get to hear the customary bathroom door slam as Connor starts his day. There was no listing of "what to do" today.

Last night I really had a tough time trying to find some busy work. At least I got to bed early. It is always a bit uneasy when Tina is driving all day and I am here. I whisper a lot of prayers for an uneventful journey and ask Mr. Christopher to intervene.

They made it to Kelso WA. In good time. They got to eat at one of the family favorite places. Connor had his travelling blanket and pillow, he was ready to go to Canada "No East, just North!" and he was looking forward to the "flying car" through Portland.

I have been popping Ibuprofen like mad due to an exercise injury on my neck. My foot is feeling much better so I am going to try the walk to work thing today (I got an ace bandage on said foot for some extra support).

It is going to be a quiet week while I think about Canada.

At least the news has some items that lift my spirit.

Help save our Healthcare!

There are four arguments for the single-payer system.

Obama says:"it will keep them honest." Because the Government is such an honest entity and above corruption? This is from the same man who's economic assumptions in his 2010 budget is pure fantasy.

Obama says, it will play by the same rules as the private insurers, and therefore, won’t drive them out of business. If the rules of the private insurers are sound enough to be adopted by government, why a government program at all?

Secretary Sebelius says it's necessary to give a choice to the consumer. So 1,300 entities offering health care plans isn't choice? We need one more? Also, many of these will close up shop against the government. so that's LESS options?

Then there’s the argument that the American people are not smart enough to handle something as complicated as health care and have a competitive market. Well that is a liberal theme to be sure. "people aren't smart enough to figure things out, and that's why government needs do it for them."

Do not buy into the 47 million uninsured. Fourteen million of are eligible for government programs and haven’t signed up. Ten million have households with incomes of $75,000 a year. Quite a lot are not American Citizens.

Sixty percent of the uninsured in San Francisco are not citizens.

Thank you Mr. George Will.