Toast for brekkie

Sunday Picnic

Posted on January 31st, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Or as the French say, “pique-nique.” Peek neek. I’m not joking.

I’ve been riding this wave of good fortune since somewhere around, oh, December 19th and it hasn’t crested yet. Last week I received a care package in the mail from the happy little smurfs at the USBNC. I’m sitting here right now with their cookies in my tummy and their spirit on my mind. Not only did I receive most of the major Baha’i writings, but a badical “world citizen” t-shirt, some incredible edible treats, and a card signed by everyone that nearly brought me to tears. Thanks you guys. I heart you all.

Then this weekend happened. Friday I went swing dancing again, as promised. It gets better every time. I wasn’t very motivated when taking ballroom and latin dance a couple months ago, but that was probably since I was the youngest student by about 20 years. I look forward to swinging all week, not least because of the great people there.

The same people who invited me to the picnic yesterday. The pictures below should tell the story pretty well. I knew it was going to be a good day when the sun came out and the puffy white clouds accompanied me on the drive to Orlando. At the riverside park it was beautiful, 75 degrees and breezy. We played dance football (crazy, right?), freeze tag, and several other games invented for people a third our age. I’m proud to say I was the winner of the chubby bunny contest, with 12 marshmallows. Sorry, no pictures of that. Not too sure you want to see Rabid George. Get it? Bunny? Rabid? Nevermind.

You all should have been there. This is the kind of fun awaiting you.

6 comments.

Ailleurs

Posted on January 29th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

I could easily devote all my time and the entirety of this blog to music. I must admit that at times I fall prey to lure of hoarding good music to myself in a vain attempt to claim it or make it feel more special via the exclusion of others. If you live long enough, however, you realize that exclusivity is a hollow comfort; the mask eventually begins to itch. It is in this spirit that I would like to introduce you to an artist very dear to my heart–one that in an older frame of mind I might never have shared. Her name is Keren Ann.

To give credit where due, Mandar was the first to introduce me. It used to be difficult to get her albums into the US, ordering either from France or Canada. But she’s released an English album on Blue Note so you should be able to find the first two records as her reputation grows on this side of the pond.

With influences like Françoise Hardy and Serge Gainsbourg, as well as John Lennon, Chet Baker, Nick Drake and Suzanne Vega, it should quickly become evident why I am head over heels for this singer/songwriter. Her lyrics are inspired–poetic in a way that I refuse to mar with my words. Her melodies are timeless; it seems as though you’ve always known them. Every one of her pieces breaks my heart, then mends it. Hers is the voice of an angel.

For a dreamy look into the world of Keren Ann, you should begin here, with the video for Ailleurs. Let me know what you think. I already know I’ll cherish her music as long as I’m alive.

7 comments.

Katie 80

Posted on January 25th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Just a quick one: do yourself a favor and go check out the latest entry from Strongbad, dreamail. I’ve seen ‘em all, and this is one of the best since Trogdor.

4 comments.

Starfruit

Posted on January 24th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

One advantage to living in Florida is the backyard tropical fruit that people bring in to work. I enjoyed this starfruit as an afternoon snack today (not for brekkie). Mild in tropical flavor, fibrous with some celery overtones, very juicy and fun to eat.

1 comment.

I like to move it

Posted on January 23rd, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

I’ve spent the last two nights dancing and I’ve reached a conclusion: I need more moves. Don’t get me wrong, when they play “Hey Ya” or “Stayin’ Alive” or “Billy Jean,” I’m there, I’m down, I can get funky. But when the beat boys start throwin’ down, I’m outclassed. I can’t even do the worm. Is there such a thing as hip hop dance lessons?

Friday night was my first time swing dancing, and those guys and gals are incredible. It’s so smooth it looks choreographed. There’s an interesting vestige of this sort of dancing, though: the man leads, the lady follows. Is this something we should be worried about? How about a feminist perspective on this? When you watch, it looks like the lady is doing all the work; when you try, it quickly becomes obvious that there is great responsibility on the part of the guy giving the commands. Firm but fluid, snappy but not rough. Indeed, given the right lead, many girls can do things they didn’t know beforehand just by following along. Is this really an area that needs change, or can we acknowledge the beauty of two people moving in unison and let it be?

I wish this weekend didn’t have to end. And I owe the last two nights of fun to my new friends Lou and Eric, pictured with me below. I fully intend to learn how to swing dance as well as these guys; I’ll keep you posted as to how it goes. To all of you out there: I encourage you to bust a move today.

3 comments.

“C” is for Cookie

Posted on January 20th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

I meant to add in my anti-Palm entry an argument my mother has always had: you can’t make a sheet of paper disappear. You have to burn or shred or crumple it. Data, on the other hand, are so easily lost that most of us from the information generation take it as an everyday occurence. OS crashing, program hanging, corrupted files, failed hard drives. And the blog entry I just lost when trying to upload a file because I mistakenly hit “create new entry” instead of “show me the html.” How about you show me a computer that logs every entry: an ‘undo’ function for everything. Just to add a little Tao here, that’s something Palm can do. It logs every letter instantaneously; there’s no saving files.

The reason you’re really here, though, is the cookie update. I did in fact follow through on the promise of cookies to the riddle solver, and Doncky Face got his favorite, oatmeal raisin. Except I substituted craisins for raisins and added pecans. I would have a nice rosy picture of the finished product, but it was lost in the Great Memory Wipeout of aught-five. So you’ll have to settle for a pic of the package I sent out last week. And Ben will have to tell you if they were any good.

I also extended the riddle prize to my coworkers, though on a vastly shortened timescale: two minutes. Nonetheless, they prevailed, and white chocolate macadamia was had by all. I found the note below today in the empty container. I guess they were pretty good.

8 comments.

Napoleon goes bowling

Posted on January 18th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

You know that scene in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure where they take the little Corsican to the local bowling alley and it’s nothing but gutterballs? Remember what he said? That was me this morning when I found out my Palm died over the weekend.

“Died?” you say, “Like, just the battery?” Well, yes and no. Yes the battery died. But no, it wasn’t only that. Remember those pictures I promised? Gone. My contacts, calendar, preferences? Gone, but unlike the photos, thankfully backed up. Silly me, I expected some sort of backup battery to bleed current to the memory. Gosh, Palm, is that too much to ask?

Now, I’ve done this before. With this same device. I took a series of photos over a weekend and didn’t bring the charger along. Juiced the battery to the point where it warned me every time I took a new photo. So I powered it off and left it that way, and all was well at work Monday for the HotSync.

Not so today. My best guess is that after I shut it down on Sunday it self-started Monday to remind me that it was a holiday. But rather than shut itself off when I didn’t respond (as I was asleep) it merrily displayed the reminder until 0% power. And all my precious photos were no more.

This wouldn’t be so bad if there had been some warning. I went back and read the fine print of the user’s manual and they say that a loss of data can occur if the battery is fully drained. What kind of crap is that? I routinely use my cellphone to the last drop of power, and it doesn’t erase all my contacts when I recharge it. Lame, Palm, LAME.

So I apologize for the false promises. I’ve already been through the five stages, but I still wanted to vent here. I was going to post a self-portrait with a sad face, but the damn thing is still charging.

5 comments.

Holy Huygens Probe, Batman!

Posted on January 17th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Oh MAN I can’t believe I forgot about this in the steamy nightclubs of Orlando. They did it! The Huygens probe landed on Titan! Go ESA!

There are rocks. Rocks! Pebbles, or methane, or water ice, or something, they’re still analyzing the photos. We couldn’t see through the atmosphere with telescopes, so the probe has shown us some amazing things. Drainage channels, a possible shoreline, and liquid seas of methane and other hydrocarbons?! This is a BIG deal, people. I won’t even go into the aerodynamic complexities of designing parachutes for an atmosphere we could only speculate about. But I’m so excited! Titan is Saturn’s largest moon and the only moon in the solar system with a significant atmosphere (even Mars has less than 1% of Earth’s atmosphere). In fact, of bodies the size of Earth, its only competitor is Venus, whose surface temperature is 900 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt lead (not to mention the intense surface pressure crushed Soviet probes within seconds). Contrast that with Titan’s surface temp of -292 F. Kinda makes you happy to be on Earth, huh? At least here the oceans are water and not supercold “paint thinner.” Still, science fiction springs to mind, with future explorers making pitstops at Titan to refuel their rockets from oceans of cryogenic methane.

Some sites to check out include the Cassini mission homepage at JPL and of course news sites like cnn. There’s even a blog by a cnn reporter. I love it when journalists get as sappy as I do.

And as a post script to my previous entry, check out this study of consciousness and faith…they even talk about world peace, fundamentalism, and the failure to abandon beliefs in the face of irrefutable logic. Awesome!

2 comments.

Duality

Posted on January 16th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Church/State, Science/Religion, Reason/Spirituality

I’ve been with my parents in Orlando (partying, if you can believe it) since Thursday. I should have pictures for you this week. They’ve just introduced me to Boston Legal, and there’s a case this week about creationism vs. evolution. Funny, I ran across an article on this topic last week at cnn.com. We also saw Flight of the Phoenix tonight, in which a character said something to the effect of, “Spirituality is not religion. Religion divides people.” And remember in the previous post I went on about discovering things about our origins in comets?

I must admit I’d be all fired up about this in the past. Like most people get fired up about their beliefs regarding the origins of life. I think people don’t like being confused. And they don’t like change; there is comfort in constancy. So they choose to believe what someone else says about how it really happened, or a few might invent or amalgamate their own story. You would think scientists would be more willing to accept new ideas. But it’s a human trait to get stuck in a rut, to want to believe “things are the way they are” and not have to make your brain hurt anymore.

Mostly now I’m just discouraged. One way that I’ve avoided this sort of confusion (please don’t think that I’m supporting creationism here–I have faith in science) for the past several years is separating myself completely from spirituality and religion. This has not been a good plan. Perhaps it’s just as difficult to hash out these issues in my head as it is for the courts to do so in the case of the separation of church and state. It’s all well and good that I feel a renewed sense of spirituality. But what about the people I encounter everywhere I go with no apparent reason or faith? Or those who forsake one for the other, as I am guilty of doing? Is it arrogant to say that many people don’t seem ready for world peace? Help me out here.

3 comments.

Of Ravens and Writing Desks

Posted on January 11th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Here’s a little something to brighten your Tuesday. I came up with this as I was drifting off last night. First person to give the answer I’m thinking of gets made-from-scratch cookies in the mail. Riddle me this:

Like my instruments, I am both sharp and blunt. Who am I?

12 comments.

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