The New Road

Another day in rural paradise

Everyone besides Carlos and myself have left to go back home. Scott left yesterday, and Jenny and Marsha left early this morning. That just leaves us two old codgers to talk politics and visit a new local winery.

The trip was all at once horrible, for the obvious reason, and wonderful. I've never felt so connected to Carlos, Scott, Marsha or Jenny. We had great long conversations about life, both in the past, and what we expect will come in the future. And we ate great food, listened to music, and sorted through Mom's stuff to find momentos to keep and pass on.

As I sit here at my mother's desk and write this I look over at the small guide to the Pebble Beach links where I was going to take her in celebration of her recovery. Of course, we never got to play there, though part of her ashes will grace a hole with a beautiful ocean view in tribute to her love of the great game. It's clear to me now how much that all meant to her. Having goals and achieving those goals, especially when it came to her kids was what she lived for.

I'm crying a little now for the first time since I got here. And that's ok. We all greive in our own way. i suppose what saddens me most about all this is that I never really knew my mom as well as I could or should have. I was never able to breach that barrier between parent and friend in any real way.

Pictures from Sharon's cache

Here are some pictures from the planting of Sharon's cache.

It is in a beautiful spot, but, unfortunately we can't register it with GeoCaching.com because it's within 600ft of an existing cache. So we will need to re-locate the box in July when the kids come out for a week of fun in the summer sun.

Sharon

I haven't had much time to think or blog since I got to South Carolina. I arrived late after getting lost out of the Atlanta airport. And unforunately I wasn't able to see my mom, Sharon, the one last time that she would have liked before she died. She died in the loving company of her husband and my sister.

After that I spent most of the first day shuttling people around, followed by lots of cooking and baking. I made the cinammon rolls my mom asked for and everyone enjoyed those.

This morning we spent putting together a geocache and using the boat to take it out to a nice spot overlooking the water. I added this note to the cache:

Welcome to Sharon's Cache. We are glad you found it. We had a lot of fun putting it here.

We started this cache after Sharon Luria was taken from us too young. She loved her hiking, she loved the water and loved going outdoors. And, of course, she loved geocaching with her plentiful grandkids.  In that spirit, we hope the toys in this cache bring some joy to you, your family, your kids. And that you will leave a little something behind for the next person and their family.

As the kids rummage through the box take a little time to look out on the water and reflect on those who have come before, how much they meant to you. And spend a moment to ponder that what's behind you is who you are, but what you do next is what you will become.

- Jenny, Jack, Scott, Carlos and Marsha
 Proud members of Team Sharon

It was fun to put it all together. And it helps provide a little closure for the folks that are here who will leave before Mom's ashes are ready. I'll probably leave on Thursday or so after getting everyone off to their airports, and maybe meeting with my Dad. The ashes will likely be ready by then and I'll take home a small portion to sprinkle somewhere on Pebble Beach. It's clear to me now how much the goal of surviving until she could play in California meant to her, and I would like to give her that even if only as a fleeting impression on a blustery day over a course she had never seen but which hosted on of her heroes, Tiger Woods.

I haven't had an awful lot of time to think about this, but while I miss Mom now, what I miss more is the potential of what she could have brought to Megan. 

My Mom

I haven't talked about my mother all that much on this blog because she wanted to keep her cancer private. I had talked about prepping for a golf game to celebrate her getting over her second bout with cancer, but that turned out to be more hope than reality. I guess about two months ago now her cancer came back with a vengeance. The initial assesment was that she had about two to four months to live. So I went to see her, and my brother and I played a round of golf with her.

It will likely be her last game of golf. When I left South Carolina the last time I had resigned myself to the notion that I would never see her again. As the day approached for my sister to go it was clear that her condition had gotten a lot worse. Having gone through this type of thing before I knew that having more family around to share the load would be beneficial. So I arranged to come out there next week, then hearing more news bumped the flight up to tomorrow. Now, it seems that tomorrow may be too late. And I find myself nervous and wanting to go right now to be with her. I understand that poeple fight to live until they decide it's the right time to go, and I don't want her living in more pain than she has to so that she can see me one last time. Man, it's tough to write this.

Anyway, I certainly wouldn't be the man I am today without all of the love and support my mother has given me. She is a very strong woman who is both pragmatic and effective, while all the while retaining a ceaselessly positive attitude. She sets an example for us all and it will be up to the three of us kids to try and bring that combination of postivity and pragmatism to the world as her legacy. 

Bush's regrets

Bush said yesterday in a press conference with his lap-dog Blair, that he regret his use of the phrase 'bring it on' when he initially learned about the insurgency. Unfortunately, he is not only late, but completely misunderstands the situation both then and now. I used to criticize him for 'bring it on' because it appeared that the insurgency started after that, but now it's clear that the first combatants that were met in Iraq were insurgents and that statement did nothing to impact the situation. They were bringing it from the beginning of the war, and continued to bring it well after his 'mission accomplished' statement.

I'm not just being pedantic here. It's clear that neither Bush nor Blair understand the enemy. They didn't understand them then, and they don't understand them now. Bush and Blair go on and on about how they are fighting against democracy. That's bullshit. They are fighting us and each other in a battle for control. 80% of the poeple in Iraq want us out. 60% think it's ok to attack us. We need to get out and let each side duke it out for control of the country.

Oh, and what's with the TV news bashing? Bush and Blair talk about how the war is on our 'tv screens' all the time. Really? What channel? When? I don't see that at all. Certainly not like it was during Vietnam. I never see wounded our dead soldiers. Ocassionally I see a video of a guy shooting a machine gun or RPG, but that's it. How does this war effect the average American? It doesn't. There is no draft. Pictures of wounded and coffins are withheld from the media. And a lot of this war is being fought by contractors. 

Pat Robertson = Hercules

Pat Robertson says he can leg press 2,000lbs (1 short ton) in a single press. Pat's doctor can even do more... 2,700lbs. Now I've been in a few gyms and done many leg presses myself. I don't know any machine that can handle 2,000lbs of weight. Here is one like many I have used that claimes it can do 1,800, and frankly, I'm not sure if that is right.

Given that you would need twenty 50lb plates on each side to get to 2,000lbs. Since each plate is over an inch wide the bars would need to be well over two feet long. I've never seen that before.

To put this in perspective, the world record holder blew capillaries in his own eyes getting to the current record of around 1,300lbs.

Anyway, as usual; Pat Robertson = Batshit crazy. 

Superweapons

Lori was putting Megan down to bed last night and that left me with a moment to get some boob tube viewing in. So I sat back with a glass of wine, flicked it on and surfed around. I found a show called "Superweapons", which normally would have piqued my interest, so I watched that for a bit. And I found myself being put off by the whole thing. The segment I saw was on the M.O.A.B., known to it's enthusiasts as the 'mother of all bombs'. It can level nine city blocks. The host, and the entire production, were in love with this thing. At one point the host even wraps his arms around of the tip of it and moans 'Mother...' It was sickening.

A couple of observations about this bomb. First, it has to be dropped low and slow by cargo planes. So that means the target has to be lightly defended with no air cover.

Second, think about nine city blocks where you live. Just visualize that. Gone. That's bigger than what was destroyed during 9/11. And that, by the way, is not enough. We are testing something far more powerful than this in Nevada later this year.

I guess I'm changing when it comes to the military buff stuff. I used to like reading books about wars, and going to military museums to check out the hardware. But now it just sickens me. There is nothing glorious about a gun or a bomb. It kills people, horribly, and that's all. What is the correct response to a white sulfur bomb. Shall we look at the sleek case, the fins, the detonation mechanism, the chemical compound. Or shall we look at the result, mummified bodies. Burned in their own clothes. Women and children. Burned beyond recognition. Twisted, wrenching and writhing in pain until their spines snap.

Isn't that what we are talking about? It's killing. It's not something we should glorify. It's something to be detested. What does it say about us as a culture where you have to pay money for restricted channels to watch people having sex, but you can get ten channels or military weapons porn for free? And this was weapons porn for sure. They played the explosions over and over, and the compared blast radii with different weapons, as well as getting interviews with pilots; "It's impressive!" they said. They even had an interview with the bomb maker who was actually seemed put off by the whole idea of glorifying his bomb.

And please, don't try to give me the deterrence bullshit line. They aren't testing the biggest conventional bomb ever made in the Nevada desert because it's an instrument of peace. It's because there is a certain set of people who really get off on big bombs making big explosions and causing copious death and destruction. And it's those type of people who are in control of our military right now, and believe me, they want to use this stuff on Iran big time. Olmert of Israel was literally pleading on the floor of the Congress to use these weapons on Iran; "Our time is now!" He implored.

Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be watching the Military channel again, and I'm going to be very selective with the History Channel.

Immigration debate finds new low

I gotta say, the level of the debate around immigration is disgustingly low. Every time I hear a show where conservatives call in I just shake my head. It's clearly a racial debate for conservatives. It has nothing to do with securing the border. "We were here first.", "They drain our resources." "They are all rapists and murderers." It's foul and the people that espouse this shit should be ashamed of themselves.

Is this something going to have to put up with every two years? Every other year we are going to have to go through the Republicans trying to rally their base playing to the worst of their bigotry and racism. The last time it was bashing gays. Now it's bashing undocumented workers. What will it be next year, an all out religious war against the non-believers?

About this immigration debate. My answer to these bigots is to grow the fuck up. There is no way we are going to ethnically cleanse the country by deporting millions of their hated brown people. This isn't a whites only country and it never will be. Get over it. America has always been a melting pot and that's been a source of greatness.

If you want to tackle something in this area, fix border security. That includes the Canadian border, as well as our border to the Atlantic and Pacific. In fact, the only border crossing Al Qaeda plan we know about was using the lighly monitored Canadian border. So please, don't bullshit me about how your anti-brown bigotry is some genuine plan to secure the border against Al Qaeda.

The DaVinci Code

It's interesting to me that The DaVinci Code is getting as bad reviews as it is. It's certainly not, on it's face, a bad movie. The production values are high. The acting is reasonable. The plot is interesting and twisty enough. So I'm kinda shocked that it's getting panned since, really, while it is a bad movie, it's basically solid entertainment. I thought it was ok, but not great. And a lot of the movie was spoiled for me because of the sense of production dynamics you build up after seeing as many movies as I have. For example, you don't cast Ian McKellan as a buddy character like Sala in Raiders Of The Lost Ark. That ruined one twist. And secondly, unless it's a Bond film important new characters aren't introduced in the third act. So once we learned we were looking for a person and not a thing it wasn't a big jump to figure out who that person would be.

One thing I did find annoying was the double ending. I could take multiple endings in the Lord of the Rings series because he had to save up his endings from the previous two movies. But this was just a single movie. So a single ending would be nice, thank you.

Overall, a good rental movie. In particular because the DVD will be chock full of goodies and games and what not. If you want a really good time in the theatre today, check out Over The Hedge.

Over The Hedge

I took Megan to go see Over The Hedge this afternoon. I loved it and Megan did as well. Dreamworks has another Shrek level hit on it's hands and I can see lots of room for sequels and such. The characters are great. There is enough humor that works for both young and old. In fact, the last few scenes had me doubled over laughing more than I have in any movie in a long time.

The casting was great. The actors really stood out even though most only had a scene or two in the entire movie. With this number of characters it's really an ensemble piece. The standout was certainly Steve Carell as Hammy. That boy has been on a roll lately. 

As with the best CG movies I didn't realize that it was CG after the first ten minutes or so. The quality of the animation was good. I didn't see anything stand out as new or revolutionary. But I did notice at the end that the human character models weren't very good at all. In particular the hair on he evil woman (played by Allison Janney of The West Wing) got a hairdo in the end that was poorly done. But that's a small complaint in what was an awesome movie that should work for everyone. 

Taliban's Spring Offensive

Looks like the Taliban have started their predicted spring offensive. Count on Afghanistan being a much hotter spot over the spring and summer.

Grandma's Boy

I had the misfortune to rent Grandma's Boy. Now I like a good stoner flick as the next guy, but this movie was horrible. The likable stoner guy was just a jerk. I wasn't sold on the love story at all. The bad guy was more pathetic than evil. And the required insane party scene was just lame. The party scene in Batchelor Party with the donkey and the drugs was far better and that was twenty years ago. ("Are you the pimp? Yes. You look like Gandhi. I've got girls to sit on your face.") Anywho, definitely an avoid at all cost time disaster. If you have a jones for the stonage thing try Half Baked, it's a much better movie.

Oh, and if this movie in any way makes you think that a job as game QA is something for you, you need to seek mental care. QA of video games is a living nightmare of a job with no future at all. 

Speaking of getting baked. How is it that the FDA can outlaw the medical marijuana that comes from plants, but approve a THC synthetic in a pill. Big Pharma is safer than mother nature? I don't think so. Not that today's skunk has much to do with mother nature. But that's besides the point.

World Trade Center

The trailer for World Trade Center is really moving. I think this will be a fantastic film.

Comments troubles

I believe the problem with the comments on this blog is that the table that stores the comments has grown too large. The root of the issue is that the comments table is shared between for the four blogs hosted on this system. And the Socks on a Rooster blog has no spam protection and was getting hit hard. It took me about four hours but I reduced the count of comments on that blog from roughly 30,000 down to 184. The nice thing is that now I know that most of the comments on that blog after today are likely spam. Though I would like to get the spam protection turned on so that I don't have to go through this effort again.

On a side note, I took Megan to indoor rock climbing and she loved it. She is pretty courageous for a three year old. At one point she had climbed from the floor to just over my head, which is about four feet off the ground for her. If I know Megan she will internalize the experience and then be twice as excited the next time to go.

Mission Impossible III

I saw Mission Impossible III last night. I thought it was pretty good. It certainly kept me attention for a solid two hours, though I thought the one love-ish kind of scene dragged a little. The action editing was great, if a bit too much at times. I mean, how do I know you spent $200M on special effects if they are blurred most of the time.

The plot was stupid but that doesn't matter. I did like how they took a couple of action cliches and rejiggered them a little. But I do think they could have lightened up a scene or to. For example, the gadget genius was, as usual, the source of a little humor, but they didn't let it go far enough. You really have to let that guy off the chain like they do in Alias or in the first XXX movie with Vin Deisel. 

Anywho, good summer movie fun.

Some random thoughts for the morning

• Coffee tastes like shit. I keep learning and unlearning this. Sure there are a couple of good cups out there now and again, but the majority of coffee tastes like shit. It's not an acquired taste. It's just something we put up with to get the buzz.
• Bush's border plan went from insane to just plain stupid. So now we are sending 6,000 typists and road workers to the border? Huh? Here is a money saving alternative. Hire decent local contractors to build the roads. And pay a $50K signing bonus to new border agents. Hell, gun toting wannabees would jump at that. Certainly as a healthy alternative to expressing their gun-nuttery in Iraq.
• The ID card thing that Bush proposed will never happen. One it will infringe on his business buddies. And second the Republican party is only good at two things, shrinking government programs or inflating existing government programs. They don't know how to implement new programs.
• At the end of the day I can't think of a single person who liked what Bush had to say last night. He particularly smacked down the militant wing of his own base by getting on them about amnesty and their politics of hate, which was of course ironic, since the politics of hate come directly from Karl Rove's office down the hall. Just walk down the hall George... Knock. Knock. "Hey Karl, you got a second? You know the smear the queer and fear monger about undocumented worker stuff that we do all the time? I want you to stop that since it's getting in the way of running the country and all."
  

EPCOT

It occurs to me now that I must have shown up at EPCOT less than a year after it opened since my family moved from Swarthmore to Miami in 1983 and I spent several weeks in Orlando between stops with my grandparents. It seemed kinda fresh when I was there, but now that I read up a little on the place in the Wikipedia it's clear that I was there when they were just working out the kinks. No wonder I thought it was so boring the first time. Actually, I still think it's kinda boring and I'm more looking forward to watching Megan's eyes the first time she goes to the Magic Kingdom.

Speaking of the Magic Kingdom, I knew that there were tunnels at the Magic Kingdom, but I didn't know how extensive they were. Or that the tunnels are actually the ground floor and the park is actually the second floor. Turns out they used the earth from the lagoon to build up for the second floor that is the park. 

Pictures from the weekend

Here are a few pictures from this weekend.

The gardens were very pretty. Though I hear from sources around the office that the Filoli Gardens are really amazing. Maybe next weekend, or Tuesday, as Megan likes to say.

Comparing Iraq and WW II

I had the privilege of spending a substantial amount of time with a WW II vet in South Carolina on my last trip out. During his time in the pacific theatre he spent a year in Japan after the war was over at a naval base. I asked him if he saw a prolonged insurgency similar to Iraq. He said no and that the only activity he remembers was stories of Japanese soldiers on the remote islands fighting because they hadn't heard about the surrender, but that those stories were rare. In fact the biggest battle they had was against amoebic dysentery which was very prevelant on land and was transmitted to the ships. They lost almost one in three on his boat to that.

Why is this important? Because I have heard pundits and pundititions (politicians who are really just right wing pundits) lie about how Germany and Japan were hotbeds of insurgent activity for years after the end of the war. Nothing could be further from the case. None of the history I have read says anything of the sort. And this personal account from a man who was there proves it to me. In fact, just the opposite was the case. In Japan the Emporerer ordered the people to submit, and submit they did. These Republican stooges lie like rugs. 

Sending the guard to the border

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but doesn't calling up the guard require something to have happened? Like a flood, or a hurricane, or a war? What exactly happened along the border which requires sending guard troops down their to reinforce it? The only two events that I can see are the start of Rove's 2006 "smear the alien" campaign, and Bush's poll numbers hitting 29%. There is nothing new happening at the border that hasn't been happening for 50 years.

And what are the guard going to do down there? What is the mission? How and when will they be succesful? My guess is that none of those questions have any more answers than the same questions about Iraq. And what is going to happen is that a bunch of weekend warriors are going to go down there, armed to the teeth, not understanding the situation, and bad things will happen. Someone is going to get killed on either side and the whole thing is just going to blow up. What a nightmare.

And what is all this for anyway? To get back a few points of the Klan portion of his base by reinforcing the Klan, oops Minutemen, already at the border? Oh, I shouldn't say oops since that story about groups leaving the Minutemen becuase it was a thin veil over the KKK. Which was pretty obvious when you see them flying the rebel flag instead of the U.S. flag.

How much longer do we need to suffer with this dipshit in office? Two and a half years of this crap. I'm not sure I can take much more of this scrambly crap. He governs, if you can call it that, like a mouse on a hot plate. Three months ago we were told he was focused like a laser on Iraq. Then they shifted to Iran, apparently we were going to nuke there, and according to some pundits we were already at war with them. Then this month it's all about illegal immigration.

Perhaps that's the good news, right. Some national guard will get called up and sent down there. Then after a week or two Bush will forget about them and they will just give up and drive home.

Unfortunately I think the bad news is that Bush has a history of stepping in it and not knowing how to clean up the mess. We are stuck in Iraq. We are in trouble in Afghanistan. We have backed ourselves into a corner in Iran. And Rove's 'smear the aliens' campaign has drawn ten times as mainy pro-immigrant rallies as anti-immigrant rallies. So this little political stunt of theirs could end up creating a lot more trouble than Rove expects.

Clinton beats Bush

This isn't surprising to me, but according to this poll Americans overwhelmingly prefer Clinton on a whole host of real issues including the economy and even security.

Just back from South Carolina

I got back from South Carolina where I saw my mother and brother last night. The golf was tremendous. The south can be incredible in it's beauty with the sweeping hills and the lush foliage. What a joy. It was great to see Mom and Scott again. And I got a chance to cook together with Scott who is extremely talented and that was fun to see. He has that sense for food where he can just look at a fridge, pick out a few things, then throw something delicious together as if it were no effort.

Anywho, more on that situation in the months to follow I'm sure. 

Got Slashdotted again

Another article that I wrote for Developerworks got Slashdotted.

Mission accomplish by Laura Bush

In what is perhaps the dumbest spin ever Laura Bush said that the 'Mission Accomplished' banner on the aircraft carrier meant 'mission accomplished for this boat'. Ahh.... Riiiight. Is there anyone actually buying any of this?

Apparently they are putting Laura on the campaign trail since she is the only person that is involved with these morons that has anywhere near reasonable polling numbers. But I think that's because she hasn't been out there in front of cameras all that much. If she keeps up spouting the stupidity like this look for those numbers to fall and fall.

Top billing on Developerworks

I've got top billing on Developerworks this morning with an article I wrote on some basic DHTML in PHP. Sweet!

Political outfits

Yeah, yeah, yeah, batshit crazy Katherine Harris, yadda yadda. But my question after viewing her crazy ass campaign video is this.

 

 

This is something that I see on both sides of the aisle. Women in politics always want to dress like Jackie-O from the 50s. Nobody dresses like this anymore. The only place you can find a dress like this is Goodwill. It's nowhere near pretty. It's not even what I would call 'business conservative'. It's just ugly.

Probably broken pinky toe

I probably broke my pinky toe taking out the trash to the curb last night in my bare feet. What a dumb idea that was. But why do we have these things anyway? Does a pinky toe do anything other than get caught in stuff and get broken? I'm thinking about pulling a Ronnie Lott on this thing and solve the problem once and for all.

The fault across the street

A friend of mine sent me a link to an exhibit on the Hayward fault. I was initially excited cuz I was like, "Cool, it's just across the street". But the exhibit is actually just a hole... in the ground... that you walk down into... that shows the fault... the Hayward fault... Which is right across the damn street from my office. Oh, I'm so screwed. I work on a freaking fault line. A fault line that is well overdue for it's pressure release.

12,000 pills in four months

12,000 oxycontin in four months? That doesn't sound like personal use to me. Unless it's normal to take six for every waking hour. 12,000 sounds more like trafficking to me. If it were anyone but Limbaugh the person would be behind bars for possession with intent to sell.

Oh, and who gets a 'plea deal' to plead 'not guilty'?

What a load of crap. For the 'law and order' party it certainly looks like there are two sets of rules, one for cronies, and one for everyone else.

"Oh shit" day for Republicans

I was just on Market street and it was wall to wall protestors for as far as the eye could see. It made the anti-war marches look like a picnic. These people are pissed, and they are mobilized. And that's bad news for Republicans. Clearly this has been a canned issue for the 2006 campaign for some time. And I think they were just expecting these folks to shut up and take it but that isn't happening. And so it should be. These are decent hardworking folks and all I hear from the right is:

• They are rapists, murderers and child molesters
• They take far more from the system than they give back
• We should round up everyone at these rallies and deport them
• We should go to the border and have shooting parties where we sniper them

And that's just the beginning. I was in line for coffee behind a guy who asked why all the shops were closed. He got his news from Fox news. What a surprise. I'm guessing the Fox news will show three protestors with a banner under it that reads; "Immigration protestors; should they be hung or shot?"

The rhetoric from the right on this has been disgraceful. It's bigoted. It's mean. It's over the top. It's un-Christian. it's really disgusting. By and large these are decent, good folks who keep their heads down and do tough jobs for poverty level wages. They deserve better and they certainly don't deserve to be besmirched by the likes of Limbaugh or Hannity. Hannity, by the way, who had nothing but nice things to say about the undocumented workers at his construction company.

I'm not marching today, not because I don't appreciate these folks or what they do, but more because it's not my fight. My fight has been with this administration about the Iraq war, and remains focused on that. But, wow, the anti-war movement has a lot to learn from these folks and how motivated and organized they are. 

Megan and Oso

Here is a picture I took a while of back of Megan using Oso as a sled dog with her tricycle.

 

 

No dog abuse here though. Oso really liked to get out and enjoyed moving Megan around. Megan certainly enjoyed it and now asks for Oso any time she goes triking. 

May 1st shutdowns

The May 1st protests have closed the local Burrito spot.

 

 

And they were setting up a stage and a rally at the end of Market street near the Embarcadero. It's going to be a loud day in downtown SF.