April 2007

Monday, April 02, 2007

B'bye

After over a year and a half, this stream of consciousness is coming to an end. You can occasionally catch me over at Repeated Expletives.

Enjoy the Archive below:

March 2007

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Technology comes to rural Minnesota

The farm where I grew up is finally visible on Google Earth. Sorry, no link. You have to know the address to find it, although the pointer shows up on the Holm farm directly to the south.

You can even see the cabin I built in '92. It's the little white speck southeast of the donut ponds in the upper righthand corner.

I know it's boring to you, but humor me.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

BLOODY, BLOODY, BLOODY! I HATE IT!

So I send my son to a very nice preschool for two half-days every week. This is one of those preschools where you have to rush in and get on the waiting list as soon as you get the results from the pregnancy test. I shit you not. And it ain't cheap either. Yes, I am yuppie scum. So anyway, apparently to raise money for art supplies, they've decided to have the kids, or rather, us, because the kids are friggin' two-year-olds, sell candy bars. The fuck they don't have enough money! What the hell kind of art supplies are they buying? Marble and gold leaf?

I refuse. I did my time selling fucking candy bars for band trips and Boy Scouts, thankyouverymuch. No way am I going through that again. I'm sure that many of you lived through the hell of hitting up family and going door-to-door through the neighborhood to trying to sell these damn things. Well, it didn't get much worse than my experience. My family was poor, and my relatives all lived in the cities, so I wasn't getting blood from that stone. As for going door to door, my "neighborhood" was a rural township populated by Scandinavian corn and dairy farmers.

You ever tried tried selling anything to a Swedish farmer? You couldn't sell a Swede two quarters for a nickel, let alone a stale candy bar for a dollar. And even if you could, they've got 15 nieces and nephews who've already hit them up before you could pedal your rusty old Huffy to their door. For-fucking-get it. You ain't getting the ten-speed or even the shitty walkie-talkie. You'll be lucky to sell the bare minimum to get invited to the damn party at the Pizza Factory.

Besides, those fund raisers are a scam anyway. The only ones making real money off them are the con artists who sucker schools and youth organizations into buying their overpriced, repackaged junk-food in the first place. Not a chance in Hades am I going to be a party to this bullshit.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Distracted

Just checking in to let you know that I'm really busy. But I have a good rant in the works.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Sober

I'm back on the wagon again. Last night I went out to celebrate that fact (among other things) with Black & Tans at Capone's. I'll probably go celebrate it again today with Hank's and Kokanee at the Satellite. Nothing takes the edge off clean living like a good beer buzz.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Eleven years

I think I'll knock off early today.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Sorrow

Friday, March 09, 2007

Big Brother

I removed Site Meter. It wasn't working very well, and I figured I really don't have any reason other than ego to keep track of who is visiting. Besides, it's just creepy seeing some of the search terms that lead here. I mean, "Erotic Milking?" What the fuck?!?

Summing it up

Reuters had a caption for this photo, but I thought it entirely superfluous.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Spin

Fnord

After more than 6 years on the job Vice President Cheney vows to "fix the problems at Walter Reed", adding "From the time they leave the battlefield to their return to civilian life, they deserve the very best medical care that our government can possibly provide."

After his speech, Cheney feels pain in his leg and is quickly diagnosed with a blood clot.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Speaking of palm trees...

I'm in the middle of reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I'm enjoying it immensely. Usually, when asked to describe my religious beliefs I generally say "agnostic". The closest thing I've ever had to a "spiritual" experience is standing on top of a mountain or watching trout swimming under my kayak in a still spot in a river. While I enjoy the spectacle of a Spanish mass or a gospel choir, they come nowhere near to inspiring the awe and wonder that I experience in the natural world. As a result, I feel no desire to dwell in a supernatural world. No more than I desire to play video games inside on a warm sunny day.

Looking back I realize that in spite of my religious upbringing I've always been a skeptic. I was the kid in kindergarten who told the other kids that Santa isn't real. When I was a teenager, I took a great interest in reading the Bible. My parents raised us in an evangelical protestant church so I tried to understand the logic behind Christian theology. I excelled in my confirmation class, but the more I learned, the less convinced I became. This distressed me, because frankly I had hoped that God would give me some solace in the living hell that is adolescence. Instead the only peace I found was On the ski slopes or riding by dirt bike out to the abandoned cemetery in the woods behind our farm. Now, this is where some will tell me about Elijah's "still small voice," but unless that voice came in the form of sexual fantasies about the girls at school, I'm more inclined to take my experience at face value.

As I began to build my own life I eventually paid less and less attention to religion for purposes other than amusement or trivia. I stopped bothering to attend church or pray as I got nothing from them. I bookmarked the Skeptic's Annotated Bible in my browser and enjoyed the lyrics of punk rock legend cum college professor, Greg Graffin. However, I have avoided the "A"-word, opting for the more wishy-washy sounding "a"-word. I still had the Jack T. Chick style caricature in my head from childhood of the angry, insensitive Atheist. The word felt dirty. However, with humor and acknowledgment of the wonder of the universe, Dawkins has managed to take the sting out of the term. So I feel like I can honestly say that I am, and have been for many years, an Atheist.

AWPC

With apologies to Jake:

X: There's water damage under the sink in the greenhouse. I need to write up a proposal request to fix the leak, but I don't want to give the plumber a blank check. Can you run up and take a look at it?

Engineer: I'll try and get up there sometime this week.

X: No rush. I'll take care of the cabinet. We'll replace the bottom shelf and re-caulk the perimeter of the room for good measure; caulk is cheap.

Engineer: (snicker)

We may be intelligent highly-educated licensed professionals, but at heart we're still 13-year-olds.

Friday, March 02, 2007

Welcome

I've noticed a few hits coming from Rothman's MCAE '92 page.

So I went to check it out. I don't even recognize most of the people in those pictures. Shit, I didn't even recognize myself at first.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Ever wonder?

What would happen if you took Newt Gingrich,

...Dyed his hair brown,...Let him grow a week's worth of stubble,

...and gave him a baseball cap?

Now you know.

February 2007

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Prognostication

Is was digging through my old posts, and I found this nugget. Looks like I hit the nail on the head, if I may say so myself. Watching these idiots posture and bloviate over non-binding resolutions is freaking hilarious. Why, you'd almost think they were having a real debate.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Hearing

KEN posted this link to an addaptive pitch test. The site also has tests for tonedeafness and sense of rhythm. Here are my results:

Addaptive pitch: 5th percentile.
Tonedeafness: 46th percentile.

But get this,

Rhythm: 97th percentile.

My chronic tinnitus may have fucked me in the pitch department, but I've got more rhythm than any Midwesterner of Scandinavian descent should rightfully have.

Enough

On Wednesday I raked the yard while the kids were napping. Yesterday it snowed maybe an inch. Early this morning I walked outside and looked back at my house to see this:
Sometimes I'm reminded that life is pretty good, and maybe we don't really need to move thousands of miles away. Not for now at least.

Update: Asking price $195,000.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Seriously

Look at this.
Yeah, you know who you are.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Relocation

It's gray and miserable here.

Piriápolis anyone?

They've got surf, sun and wide open spaces.

Update:

Check out this house.


Asking price: $65,000 US.

Who's with me?

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Anticlimax

I'm a little sore, and I'm kicking back on the couch tonight, but other than that I feel fine. I think I'll even go into work tomorrow, maybe for a half day. I had an interesting conversation with my doctor during the op eration comparing the similarities between engineers and specialists versus architects and general practitioners. We both agreed that neither of us could stand doing the same damn thing all day. Even if the money is better.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Unsolicited Advice

"Be your own Valentine."

I don't need a piece of candy to tell me that. I was already planning to be my own Valentine several times today anyway.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Master Race

Ken's comment on my last post reminded me of a funny story from the late '90s when the Ar yan Nations still had their "compound" (ie. a run down farmhouse with a couple trailers on 20 acres) north of town. We were volunteering at the homeless shelter at the time (no, we don't just turn bums into mailboxes here). Since much of their recruiting was done in prison, a lot of ex-cons would come to town after their release. Of course, Butler didn't have the money or facilities to take care of them so he'd direct them to the shelter where we'd provide them with food and help them find jobs regardless of their political views. Still, it was a bad PR move to have a bunch of skinheads hanging around the neighborhood, but it's not like we could force them to leave. So instead we hired a very large Samoan man to be the shelter manager. For some reason the they didn't like reporting to him and left.

Powder

Yesterday I took advantage of what might be my last opportunity to hit the slopes this season. I was nervous driving up to Lookout Pass as the rain was coming down pretty hard. The forecast had called for snow, but with the temperatures well into the thirties, I figured I'd find slush and ice. Which doesn't make for good skiing. Still, bad skiing is like bad sex. It's better than non e at all. Besides, I had an excuse to drive my little 'Ru over two mountain passes at 70 mph. Fortunately as I crested the Bitterroot Range, the drops turned to big fluffy flakes, and within minutes I was carving my edges through powder. As usual the pass was fogged in, although I was hoping that the backside would be clear enough to get some shots of Stevens Peak like the ones I took last year up at Schweitzer. While the snow eventually stopped about 3, the fog never lifted enough to see very far. However, on the way home I did manage to get a decent shot of downtown Wallace draped in wisps of fog. If you're ever passing through on I-90 make sure you check out the Oasis Bordello.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Class

We like to pretend that class distinctions do not exist in America, but I can tell you from personal experience that they indeed do. My parents came from two distinct backgrounds. One grandfather was an ivy league educated architect and professor. The other had a high school education and worked his way up to a low-level white collar position at a large corporation. In the early '70s my parents, much to their families' horror, decided to go back to the land.

As a result I grew up with kids whose parents were farmers, mechanics, construction workers and truck drivers. Our lifestyle was in outward appearances working class. My father and mother had calloused hands and ruddy faces from working outside all day to keep us fed. We rode in old cars that had more rust than paint. Air conditioning and cable television were the stuff of exotic fantasies.

However, beneath the surface a strong middle class sensibility remained. We frequently visited art museums, our bookshelves overflowed with nonfiction and literature, and classical music on Public Radio wafted through my dad's machine shop. We even traveled to Europe once. Education was valued above all, and despite having dropped out in the '60s (or possibly because of that) my parents expected that each of us four kids would get a college educati on. Around the dinner table we discussed not sports or TV shows (even when we had a TV), but religion, politics and physics. Still, my world view on class was small. To me, "poor" meant living in the trailer park or a rental by the tracks, "rich" meant owning a new car and a satellite dish, and I assumed that everyone else was like us, somewhere in the middle.

When I left my small town and found myself in a more ethnically and economically diverse environment, I realized that the notion of class was a whole lot more nuanced. At art school I met trustafarians who wore thrift store clothes and hung out in squats, but drove BMWs and never worried about tuition. In college I dated a blonde Montana princess whose contractor daddy bought her a brand new sports car, but who had sent her to college with the purpose of marrying a rich boy (needless to say, she never introduced me to her father). Some time later I heard that her family's business eventually went bankrupt, she lost her car and had to drop out. While working my way through school I met a lot of immigrants who arrived here with nothing, only to become successful within a few years, and also with native-born Americans who have never known hunger thanks to a generous social safety net, can't seem to escape from poverty.

I do not say any of this to heap scorn or pity any group of people, but simply as an observation. While I'm sure that being born into wealth has its advantages, I think that one's upbringing is equally if not more important. Growing up in a family or social setting where education and ingenuity are encouraged is a far greater indicator of future success. It's no accident that all of my siblings and I have graduated from college, and are successful in our professions. Whereas an environment where anti-intellectualism and grift are held in high regard - be it among the idle rich or the underclass - can be a dead weight attached to one's ankles. I'm sure we could all point out examples of people we know like that. While economic mobility appears greater in modern America than at any other point in history, the issue of class still hangs with us. It's just not so easy to see from outward appearances, but observe the people around you for a while and you'll definitely start to see the distinctions.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Sometimes a guitar is just a guitar

I have an annual tradition of avoiding the Super Bowl. I not only do not watch the game, but I try to see how long I can go without knowing who won. This year I went until Tuesday morning. However, once again I missed out on another half-time show that seems to be scandalizing the neo-Victorians in the media-industrial complex: Mr. Nelson's apparently phallic shadow puppetry. It's times like this when I'm proud to be a Minnesotan.

Oh, and apparently I missed out on comedian Carlos Mencia hocking shitty beer.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Selling Out

Looks like the supplier I mentioned down there likes my drawings that I sent to him, and I've got engineers working up a survey. Now we just need to help the owner put together a proposal to come up with the rest of the money. Which, depending on the scope could be as much as $5 million. If this thing comes together I'll be on track to move up from street-walker to high-class call-girl.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Rant

Occasionally I flip through right-wing blogs or talk radio, and inevitably I hear about the danger of Islamic extremists taking over our the world and imposing Sharia law on everyone. Yet no one has been able to explain exactly how a bunch of people who are struggling to gain and maintain control over their fellow Muslims are going to take over anyone else. It reminds me of the old "Red Dawn" scenarios, except that the Soviets had an actual army. Even then they only managed to take over already teetering dictatorships. In the end it wasn't being beaten on the battlefield that brought them down, but the fact that communism simply doesn't work. In the same way one can look at someone like Iran's Ahmadinejad, who despite all his bluster on the world stage is sitting on top of teetering political support due to a lousy economy not from some outside threat.

Secondly, the only thing that terrorism can do is spread fear. The only success terrorist tactics have ever had is to drive a small minority out on a local level, but never has a movement gained any territory or been able to subdue a larger population with such methods. Consider the numbers: The largest single terrorist strike in the United States' history managed to kill approximately 0.001% of the population, and destroyed a several acres worth of office space. Aside from the horrible psychological impact it had, the actual level of destruction pales in comparison with the amount of death and economic loss that occurs every year as a result of accidents, natural disasters and common crime. Again, this is not to minimize the terrible emotional toll it took on the population and in turn, the economy for several weeks and months.

Certainly, the terrorists know, that toppling a few buildings does not topple a society. However, this is not to assume that they won't try to out-do themselves. I believe that there is a high likelihood of one of these nut-jobs building, buying or stealing a nuke. However, when you consider the actual result of an atomic bomb strike in a heavily populated area, the casualties would be a in the tens or hundreds of thousands, possibly a million. An extremely devastating tragedy to be sure. However, it would provide no territorial gain to the Islamicists, and would likely only strengthen the hand of western nationalist movements.

Even then, the net result would be smaller than the number people killed by stupid drunk drivers over that past few decades. Seriously, using that logic would mean that America is ruled by drunken idiots-- um... Bad example. Never mind.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Lest I Forget

Happy St. Groundhog's Day.

Se Vende

Unintentional humor in advertising pop-ups:

Turning Tricks

So a few days ago I had a meeting with the bosses, and the upshot of it is they wanted to know if I was willing to take on some additional responsibilities. I mulled it over for a few days, and after discussions with some very intelligent people whose opinions I respect (You know who you are) I decided to take on the challenge. This means cutting my hair, wearing a jacket and tie, and learning how to schmooze the old white guys with the money. Anyway this morning I'm talking to a supplier about a project we're wrapping up, and he asked if I wanted to help him put together a proposal for a new outdoor recreation complex. If I had known selling my soul to the Devil was so easy I'd have done it a long time ago.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Union gig

I may have mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again. WE NEED ELECTRICIANS! If you have good dexterity and are good at math, but haven't quite found your professional niche in life, I strongly recommend that you contact your local chapter of the IBEW and ask about their training programs. Seriously, the skilled trades are dying in this country because intelligent people assume that the only way to have a decent income is to get an $80,000 degree and sit in front of a damn computer. Hell, that's what I thought when I was a kid and now I work with contractors who make twice as much as I do. Yes, a liberal arts education is important, and I think everyone should get one, but what the hell are we going to do with a bunch of sociology and com graduates?