Mr. Mostafolese

Before I go see Dark Knight again

This is a cool website that was on www.digg.com . This guy strapped a camera to his cat that takes periodic pictures. It's actually pretty cool.

Redeem

What a scam. What are casinos exactly? They're basically like video games that if you beat the whole game, maybe you get the price you paid to play. Except way faster. So if I sit down at a blackjack table, the dealer's like "No, you didn't beat it. Okay try again? Nope, not this time either. Oh! You did really well this time! Damn, looks like I did better."

This "adult" entertainment is just like a less fun, more expensive version of the arcade. Who was the first person that learned to manipulate people so well? Probably the ancestor of Donald Trump or something. Cause I tell you what, even a crap casino like the one in Council Bluffs has gotta pull in several hundred thousand at least every night. Just get some money to start a casino and you're set. $5 Blackjack tables are like giving out free samples of heroine. What a funny species we are.

Shift

Evolution before our eyes. It's amazing that though concepts like evolution, relativity, and quantum physics are in all of our mind - established parts of science - but we've been studying them such a short time that big discoveries are still very possible. There may even be more big discoveries in front of us than are behind us, so young are our studies of some subjects.

A case of evolution observed.

We've only been "enlightened" so long, and the world is growing and becoming more fascinating before our eyes. I was driving a few days ago and thought about how we now have paved roads that connect the upper reaches of canada with their antarctic counterpart in Argentina and yet 100 years ago, in 1908, cars were still propped up on wagon wheels. Every facet of our universe is touched by this. We move from a view based on tradition to a view based on discovery and learning, and expanding. Our definitions have changed, anthropologists even have a difficult time defining what exactly sets us apart as "humans." It used to be activity, like tool making, but gorillas were found to do that, even birds and insects have been found to do that. We're so much a part of this world and we are so lucky to be living in a time where we're beginning, at such an accelerated rate, to see what we are, and what this universe is.

Dirt

Encountered on my walks around here. Captured with the camera on my cellphone.

The Road Goes Ever On and On...

I'm ready to go on to morning shift. That's 6 am to noon here, and I'll be trying to wake up at 4:30, to leave the house by 5:30, and have some room for sanity before I go.

But I was reading my sister's blog, and she was talking about hiking around Santa Clarita, and was asking about some of the places around there.

I thought back to where I would go, and what I would do, because I realize now that I used to go sort of wilderness romping quite a lot - something I haven't done nearly as much in the military. I keep talking about it but never really bother to plan to do it.

When I was in elementary school my best friend was Mike Lightner, of the lightner clan, and behind their house was a hill that was too sheer for track homes to crawl up, I guess. It was also too sheer for bikes, generally, so we used to walk up around there. I can't imagine it was very big, but we somehow found places to go. I particularly remember there was some sort of naturally enclosed, sort of "secret garden" place, that found once and couldn't find again. There was also a long, deep drain running down one part, I think it was while they were building houses on top. Mike broke his arm or sprained his wrist or something when we were climbing around in there.

During that time, and after, I'd take my bike behind...I think it was Bouquet Park. It was on the other Wellston. There was always a section in the fence that could be pushed thru to get back to the hills back behind there. I almost guarantee there are track homes there now, but it was all sort of chapparell (or however that's spelled) desert when I went. There we tons of jumps on little trails that someone or other had smashed and dug at some point before I got there.

I remember at least once I was riding or walking on this long horseshoe shaped road on top of one of the hills. It was probably a service road. I got back to the very back of it...the portion furthest from the park, probably at least a mile back (as the crow flies, if you will), and I looked out and there were these hills literally as far as I could see, without any sign of people or buildings on them. I compared it to the Lord of the Rings (in my mind), which I'm also rereading right now. I loved having those seemingly endless swathes of "wilderness" outside my door.

I do miss those places and I know of little that's comparable right here. It probably would be difficult to find a comparison to my child's memory anyway, as these places were undoubtedly far less pristine than I remember, and here everything is bound by roads or farms. Just fly over this place and look at the window. Every square mile is covered with farms...quite literally, in some areas.

But I've resolved to do at least one camping trip this summer, somewhere near here, or else I'm sure I'll regret my homebodyness while I was here. This weekend I'm going back up to duck lake, so we'll see if we can't find some buried treasure this time.

Discovery.com

The world is just awesome.

I love how the discovery channel has really come into it's own in the last few years, or maybe I just didn't watch it much before that. It's my default channel whenever the TV turns on in my house.

"Lower" Beings

"As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love"

-Pythagorus

I usually have to turn off articles like this, and videos like this, immediately, when I recognize what they are - and the thought of it usually sits on me for the rest of the day and several days after.

They may be fakes, it doesn't matter. I think that they're the extension on kids shooting birds with BB guns or running over squirrels with cars. At what point in our development do we learn that the suffering of something else is entertainment?

Maybe it's a relic of our carnivorous past, and since the size of our prefrontal lobe still isn't large enough in comparison to our adrenal gland. Because gladiator battles and their modern day U.S. equivalent - violent movies, are no doubt descendants on the same vein. And I'm not condemning violent movies or UFC. The difference there is that all participants are willingly subjecting themselves to such treatment. I'm also not saying that given a choice to save a dog or a baby, you should choose the dog. The capacity for suffering has to be taken into account.

It's when another being that has no capacity to give consent is subjected to suffering for our enjoyment that it becomes sick, and barbaric, and warped. And those that haven't yet, need to reprogram themselves to see it as it is - cruelty in the purest sense of the word.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

When I went out this morning, at 10am, the sky was clear and it was 60 degrees, blue, and bright. After a few hours, clouds had moved in and made everything a still gray. Then the rain began, running off the packs of leftover snow - and just a bit ago, snow began to fall in mix with the rain. Soon the twig snaps of falling rain will stop as it gives way to nothing but the silent snow, spreading over the ground.

You can really see the change in seasons here. It's not an ambiguous slide from below freezing nights until, in august, you realize there are lines of heat seeping out of the asphalt, and you're drinking two gallons of water a day and yet your pee is still the color of autumn leaves (hopefully not the red ones). Spring as pushing against winter here and it's a change you can see and feel and watch as it plays out in front of you.

I see now why the ancient Greeks had stories like Persephone and her pomegranate. Even in a world now that we can understand through science, we see ourselves - our own stories and emotions - mirrored in the world in which we humans are wrapped. And so it's no wonder we see characters all around us, and can feel happy when the sun comes out from behind a cloud, or feel tranquil at the image of a snowy night in the woods.

Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer,
To stop without a farmhouse near,
Between the woods and frozen lake,
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake,
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep,
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

An Interesting Bit of Biology

Females have 2 X chromosomes and males have an X and a Y, right?

Well, those X and Y chromosomes produce "gene products." All that means is that the gene codes for something, that is, it tells the cell it's in to makes something, usually a protein.

Since females have 2 X chromosomes that are identical, their cells go thru a process called lyonization. All it does it makes one of the X chromosomes in each cell inactive, otherwise it would produce twice as much of the gene products - twice as much as males.

In placental animals (most mammals), the X gene that is inactivated is random, it can either be the one the father or the mother contributed. However, in marsupials, it's always the fraternal X chromosome.

I learned that while procrastinating in writing my paper for Biology.

So Delivered

Atop Mt. Evans
At the campsite at the dunes.

Madness
Retribution.
Assertion


The Journey


Some fools in a raft

Swindlers, Crooks, and Liars

Check it out.

The First...

<-- I've seen in years went ambling down the path to my apartment. I think that's the right verb for them...amble.

Beyond

An interesting article about the limits of our knowledge and the possible limits of the knowledge of our successors, if there are any.

Turning

Randy's response (In the comments section).

At First

A benefit to the Air Force is the time you get off. You're "on duty" 24/7, but you get out early some, and usually when there's a three day weekend, it turns into a four day weekend. The downside is getting shot at.

This past weekend was a four dayer and Eric Sward, a friend of mine from back in DLI days, invited/recruited me to drive him (and, sort of unavoidably, myself) to Minnesota and ultimately to an undisclosed location in upper Wisconsin for four days of ski, scrumptiousness, and scruples (nothing starts with "sk").


These are two pictures I took. I'll post more when I go back up there and take more pictures. I took my camera up there, then we'd go out on the boat or drive somewhere and I'd think, I should have brought my camera. These two are from backwoods tour given by the Sward grandpappy that the Sward children often fight over for their turn to go on. I doubt that sentence was grammatically correct. Nevertheless, I thought it was interesting. We checked grandpa's minnow traps, saw that big damn beaver dam in the left one, and learned about the history of the old rail lines that used to haul lumber out of there. I was also scoping out the place for where the holy grail was buried, as it was the Knights Templar Club and you know how those people are with their grails.

In the meantime, between when we got there and left, we did some hot tubbing, some tubing behind the boat, others skied and I oft considered skiing, saw pirates 3, played loads of games, and did all sorts of other things I promised not to disclose (in exchange for which I get treasure). It was much fun. The cast was myself and Eric, Stevo and Carla (the parents, we called them the fantastic 4, which doesn't really make sense), Sarah, Kristen, and Jenna (the girls, who we called the Lone Ranger(s)). It was a time of music and odd nicknames, and I didn't want to go home.

Vs.

Man, that guy on Man Vs. Wild is such a freakin MAN! It's like all the crap I did at survival school, just way more badass.

I need to get those DVDs.