Eclipse

I walked in to the neighborhood grocery/health food store to pick up a few veggies for dinner. The checkout counter was abuzz. The moon, it seems, was half gone.

When I arrived outside, I saw this for myself. I drove home, grabbed my digital camera, and headed for the backyard. I subsequently stood outside in the chilly fall weather that suddenly arrived a few days ago and watched the moon drift into the shadow of the earth. (Unfortunately I lack a real telephoto lens, so the photos aren't great.)

While I was waiting, I called my parents. My mom was busy writing a sermon, and I had to convince her to go outside. My dad went outside with no prompting. They stood and watched the eclipse with me. Suddenly the 700 miles between us didn't seem so far.

Just another (birth)day...

And today, with a whimper rather than a bang, I enter the 28th year of my life. It's been a pretty average day so far. Not that I was really expecting all that much out of it. The last birthday I can remember getting really excited about was when I turned 25, because it meant that car rental companies would stop hassling me when I tried to rent a car. (IMHO, just because you're in a demographic group that's statistically inclined toward wrapping cars around telephone poles doesn't mean they should have the right to give you a hard time!)

That may have also been the year that my birthday fell on a Saturday and I went to Boston for the weekend. So I spent my birthday visiting penguins in the Boston Aquarium and doing various other fun things.

But I really just can't get all that excited about it this year. It's too much like just another day.

To be fair, I guess this has been a pretty decent year. The highlights were Italy, New Years (in PA), my brother's graduation in Maine, the 4th of July in DC, and my trip back to Syracuse. Hmm. None of the highlights were in Nashville. That sort of sums up why I want to leave one of these days, I'd say.

the dreaded early morning call

Ring. Wha... Hello? Hi Mom. I was asleep. What? Your network doesn't work? Urk. I don't know. Hang on.... Do you see the lights on the hub? Yeah, that little grey box. Are they on? There's only one? There should be two. Which one has the light? It should be really bright, not just a bit lit up. Well, stop changing your story! You're sure it's Laura's machine that has no light? OK, try plugging that one in to a different number port. Still no light? OK, try unplugging and replugging that wire tightly on the back of the computer. Still nothing? OK. Well, I don't know what to tell you. It could be that the cable is bad or the network card is bad. But neither of those things usually happens all of a sudden on their own. Just as a last ditch effort, have you tried restarting Laura's machine? What do you MEAN it's not turned on? Mom!!! If you're trying to get to a shared folder on her machine, YES, her machine has to be turned on! I'm not laughing at you, but you SO owe me an hour of sleep! [click]

More Engrishes

Bill has posted a new (and perhaps last!) installment of Close, But Not Quite, his homage to mangled English seen in Japan.

You can read more about his adventures in Japan right about here.

Hot stuff

I'm at Bongo, and am drinking a coffee they've named Hair of the Dog. Oddly, the taste is remarkably similar to that of a good cigar.

And I'm still procrastinating on my paper, despite the looming deadline. Last night I cleaned my living room to avoid working on it. When I start house cleaning, that's a good indicator that I really don't want to do something. But I'm about to have a burst of caffeine-induced productivity. I can feel it coming on. Right. Now.

Drat. It didn't happen.

I got those blinkin' sync light blues...

For some reason that eludes me, I've been having major DSL problems for the last week or two. But they're very strange DSL problems. First of all, they seem to be the worst at night. This morning I was able to stay online and connected to my office via VPN for several hours. Yet if I log on at 1:30 AM, as I am wont to do, I can barely keep a connection for two or three minutes without having the modem drop and re-sync.

The only real change I can think of during this time period has to do with the assault on pavement currently being carried out by the good people at Nashville Gas. Part of this involved digging up my front yard and replacing an old-school iron gas pipe with plastic tubing. I'm wondering if perhaps something in the house was improperly grounded to the gas pipe. Now that the pipe is insulated with plastic tubing, perhaps the lack of ground is causing the problem.

My little theory, however, wouldn't explain the curious day/night phenomenon.

This is all quite vexing.

Like all good DSL techies, Mr. Butler was very quick to blame my unfiltered alarm system. But the system has been disconnected from the phone line for several days, and the problem has persisted.

Of course, the phone wiring in this 1920s-vintage house is strung up from the rafters in the dirt cellar, and is quite literally held together by thumbtacks and duct tape. So I suppose at some level it's amazing the thing worked at all. I should probably take the time to crawl around down there and run new wiring, but I have a paper to write this weekend. So maybe I'll just borrow a cup of wireless Internet from everyone's favorite funkadelic neighborhood coffee joint.

In unrelated news...

I saw The Runaway Jury with a friend earlier tonight. A great suspense story, and I got to revel in a bit of New Orleans nostalgia to boot. (Shady dealings are just better when you negotiate them over Beignets at Cafe du Monde.)

I also discovered that Bonhoeffer, which I just missed the last time I was in DC, is playing for the next few days at the Belcourt. I have been fascinated by the German theologian and Nazi resister ever since I read Denise Giardina's haunting historical novel Saints and Villains. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to convince my friend to go see it with me, but I'm going to try to make it over there before the show closes.

They don't do windows

Some VIPs from our company's headquarters are flying in on the corporate jet next week for a bunch of meetings and schmoozing. My boss just sent out an e-mail with their agenda, which I opened on my computer at home. A brief moment of amusement followed. When I double clicked the Word attachment, Word popped to the front. My to-do list from last weekend was still open on the screen.

So for a brief moment, I thought that the corporate honchos had scheduled activities like like "clean bathroom, "get new toilet seat," "get scrapbook supplies," and "directions for Grandpa." Alas, it turns out that they're just doing things like having Operational Discussions about Financial Impact. Too bad.

ding, dong, ratatatatatatatatatata

I was up very late last night. (Blogging, I admit, but also doing some school work and various other things.) My plan had been to sleep until 9:30, which would have still given me, if not a lot of sleep, at least enough to make it through the day. At 7:00 AM, the neighbor's kid persistently starts ringing my doorbell to tell me that the cat was fine when she checked in on her. A week and a half ago, while I was on vacation. Not sure I see the urgency in this, but anyhow.

So then I was awake for a while, checked my e-mail and did a few other things, and could already tell that I was dragging. So around 7:45 I figured that I'd go back to bed for another couple hours. No sooner had I gotten to sleep, the world champion jackhammer team arrives outside my bedroom window. And starts tearing up the part of the street that they hadn't already destroyed.

Maybe I'm an unwitting part of some sort of sleep deprivation experiment.

Luther -- The Man, The Myth, The Movie

Sorry I've been invisible lately. Lots of stress, for a variety of different reasons. Hopefully things will get better soon, but I have a feeling posting may be erratic for a while -- possibly until the end of the semester.

On a non-stressful topic, I saw Luther on Friday night, and was blown away by it. Not that it was necessarily the best movie ever made. But, like Titanic, it gives you a real impression of what people might have seen and heard at a particular point in history.

I think if you've been exposed to something all your life, you sometimes don't really get the point. Growing up Lutheran, I've known about the 95 theses and Luther's wrath over indulgences for as long as I can remember.

The phrase "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise" is stuck in my head, but not because I really comprehended it. Instead, it was part of a church camp chant that we'd repeat every morning before announcements:

Gooood Mooorning, Mister Craig. And what a fine morning it is. Yes, yes, indeed. The sun is peeking through the clouds, and it looks like it's going to be a wonnnderfulll day. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me, Amen. A might fortress is our God. His banner over me is love. Turn, Turn, Turn. Oh, rocka my soul, Baby! A Do Run Run Run, A Do Run Run.

(Or something along those lines -- it was like 20 years ago!)

The point is, that when something is drummed into you in such a relentless and silly way, it loses all meaning. So that's why I was blown away by the scene where Luther stands in front of representatives of the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor (who could easily have him burned at the stake) and refuses to recant his writings.

Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.

This dude is thumbing his nose at the most powerful people in the world, in a time when due process wasn't even a glimmer on the horizon. Not something you realize when the phrase is a prelude to announcements about tonight's big game of capture the flag.

To be sure, the movie is probably a rose-colored look at the life of a complex person. Nothing is said, for example, of Luther's antisemitic writings -- which reflected his time but are incongruous with his otherwise progressive views.

Still, I found the movie to be inspiring. If nothing else, it made me want to revisit Germany. I think we breezed by some Luther-related sites during our whirlwind 3-week stay in high school, but I'd like to see more. So I was also inspired to dust off my German book and order a new set of flash cards.

Nothing new there, I guess. I think my restlessness in Nashville is reaching new heights lately. And that's saying something.�

At the Beach

A cold day in the rust belt

United Technologies, the parent company of the Carrier corporation, has announced that it is shutting down the company's manufacturing facilities in Syracuse. About 1,200 of the company's 2,800 employees in the city will be laid off. The refrigeration equipment manufactured locally will now be made in Singapore and Stone Mountain, Georgia.

This is a huge deal. Carrier is one of the most visible industries in the city -- SU's domed stadium has been known as the Carrier Dome since it was built about 25 years ago.

I don't know what to say...

It appears that California has actually elected Arnold Schwartzenegger Governor. I don't know what this means for Western Civilization As We Know It, but it can't be good.

Keep meaning to...

I keep meaning to blog, and then not quite getting around to it. Same old school/work stuff. Plus I've been trying to do much needed fall cleaning on my house. And I've been sucked into eHarmony, an online dating service that's more time-intensive than the real thing. (More on that one of these days.)

In other news...

What I did this weekend:

• Went to an Italian restaurant with friends and got to listen to a lounge guitarist with really cheesy synthesized background tracks. Then a chunky guy wearing an apron and an "Italian Stallion" t-shirt came out and started crooning. I was endlessly amused.

• Actually read my school reading assignments (on time, for a change.) Listened to an hour long interview with this biotech bigwig. And chatted online with my project team. All sorts of academic fun.

• An assload of laundry. And actually put most of it away when I was done.

• IMed with my friend in Boston about the Yankees, Red Sox, etc.

• e-mailed a professor at said friend's college to try to get in on a trip to India in January. For credit, to study offshore outsourcing of IT. Assuming they'll let me enroll and my school will let me transfer the credit. A lot of ifs, but traveling to India would sure beat another boring online elective.

• Watched The Other Sister with Juliette Lewis and Giovanni Ribisi. This is going to brand me as a total sentimental sap, but I absolutely loved this movie. It is a (debatably realistic) portrayal of a mentally-disabled couple, focusing on the woman's struggle for independence from her domineering Mom. I probably wouldn't have given this a second look in the theater, but I'm glad I happened to stumble into it on cable.

That's about all the excitement. On Wednesday night, I'm flying out to North Carolina for a four-day beach minibreak with my parents and one of my brothers. My parents are nuts, which is why they think that October is ideal beach season. I laughed at them the first year, but every time I've gone it's been warm enough to swim, at least most days. And there are absolutely no crowds. So maybe they've got the right idea.

OK, enough of this. Gotta go finish a group paper that I stupidly volunteered to edit. Gak.

Geek humor

From a RedHat FAQ on software RAIDs:

Q: Why is there no question 13?
A: If you are concerned about RAID, High Availability, and UPS, then its probably a good idea to be superstitious as well. It can't hurt, can it?

(For those of you scratching your heads, a RAID is where a server uses multiple disks with multiple copies of the same data to help guard against data disasters.)

Oh, oobee doo, I wanna be like you...

This is a bit tragic in that two people were hurt, but also a bit funny. A gorilla named Little Joe just made his second successful jailbreak from a Boston zoo. This time he actually escaped zoo grounds and was seen sitting at a bus stop. Evidently trying to catch the express bus out of town. After a high (well, medium) speed chase, he was eventually hit with four tranquilizer darts and recaptured.

Personally, I think the zoo should recognize his effort and just let him go!

Syracuse Pictures!

Haven't had time to write down what I did or even caption the photos, but you can see some pictures from Syracuse and Rochester right here. Will try to write more at some point, but no promises...

Lies, damn lies, and double entendre?

Seen in an upgrade solicitation for SPSS, a computer program used for statistical analysis:

Q. Does the new graphics system improve graph/chart appearance?

A. Get ready to impress your customers and colleagues because you won't be restricted by your variable length any longer....

Hmm. I've always heard that it's not the length of your variable, it's the motion of your probability distribution.

Cocktails, conversation, and other scary C words

I can generally hold my own in a variety of social situations. I have no problem sitting down to dinner and making conversation with people I've never seen before. But there's something about walking into a room filled with strangers holding beverages that gives me the willies. I periodically find myself in these sorts of situations (usually -- but not always -- business related). I usually make an effort, but often end up milling around uncomfortably, talking briefly to a few people, and then taking the first polite opportunity to escape.

There are obvious mitigating factors that make this easier. For example, attending the affair with one or more other people helps. (I think married folks have this easy -- they have a built in conversation partner, and someone who can tag-team with them in case of awkward gaps in conversations.)

Attending an event where you've had enough previous contact with the people to know a few names, faces, and hometowns also helps out. The more people you already know -- even slightly -- the easier it is to meet more folks.

But these factors don't help in situations where you are attending an event alone and know virtually no one. Conference organizers could help somewhat by taking this sort of thing into account -- for example, providing nametags that are very descriptive, or even providing a list of attendees and their backgrounds as part of the conference packet. Sometimes they do, but often you are cast adrift with no lifeboat.

From years of experience with this sort of thing, I have decided that I am simply lousy at this sort of spontaneously-generated "cocktail conversation." You'd think they would teach this sort of thing in school. Maybe they do, and I just skipped class that day. In any case, I think it's a skill I need to develop. Anyone know where I can find an online class?

Back to my old haunts

I'm visiting my alma mater this weekend. I'm here for the 100th anniversary of The Daily Orange. (You can read about some wacky DO traditions -- including the drinking of beer from a shoe -- right here.)

I'm also fighting off a nasty head cold. Gak.

How many schoolteachers does it take to build a nuke?

The National Priorities Project database allows you to find out what tradeoffs are being made to support various government programs. For example, next year Tennessee taxpayers will pay $259.7 million to support the nation's nuclear weapons program. This same money could fund more than 6,000 elementary school teachers. You can use the tool to run your own comparisons for your home state.