Random Thoughts on the Old/New Year

Two years ago, as we bid farewell to 2008, Marsha and I added a heart-felt "Good riddance" to the traditional toast. After all, 2008 was the year that brought us breast cancer and Parkinson's Disease. As we looked ahead to 2009 and beyond, we anticipated better times, or at least not worse times. And certainly not "The Great Recession." Anyway, here we are preparing to bid another not-so-fond farewell to 2010 and wondering what 2011 has in store for us.

Is this the last New Year my mom will see? Certainly the odds are in favor of that, given her increasing frailty. The good news is that she's 99 and ready for whatever comes her way. Or doesn't.

Will 2011 be the year of my retirement? And if so, what will I do with my days that's worthwhile? Will our savings and investments be sufficient to keep us living as we like to live?

Will we move from Hillsdale to an expanded Last Run in the Catskills, or is something entirely different in the cards for us? Will our kids and grandkids continue to live in South Bend and Atlanta? I'd say so, but who knows?

In 2011 Cris will be 13, Emma Kate will be 11, Jack will turn 4, and his little sister ( apparently) will be born. And those four young people will make 2011 a wonderful year, regardless of whatever else may happen.

Back to where I started this entry, Marsha has been free of cancer for 2 years now, and the new drug trial I'm in has virtually eliminated the symptoms of my Parkinson's. Looking back, it seems to me, we spend too much time worrying about what may happen in the future and not enough time enjoying the moment. My only resolution is that I will try to tip that balance for myself and as many other people I can affect. Happy New Year to all!

Christmas Shopping Scam

I was in Best Buy today and had the opportunity to watch a couple of semi-pros almost get away with a couple of unpaid-for items. They were a man and woman in their 50s, well-dressed and well-spoken. They were directly ahead of me at the checkout nearest the door, right next to the security guy who checks your packages. When I arrived, they were in a deep discussion with the cashier, about whether one of the items they were purchasing would work for them. They had multiple bags which were swished around, things removed and returned to one bag or another. After deciding that the item in question would not work for them they headed for the door... with the unpaid-for item in the bag. "Wait," says the clerk, "that needs to be scanned." "Oh, silly me. Of course it does," says she. The security guard and I are both watching closely by now. She returns to the register, lets the clerk scan the item, and heads for the door again. This time the security guy is blocking the door, as the clerk, now not about to be distracted, says "You haven't paid for that." "I'm such a goose," she says as her disappointed partner pulls out a credit card and pays. I didn't see the first couple of minutes of the operation, so I don't know for sure if there were other items unpaid-for, but it sure seems possible , maybe likely, that all their distractions and sleight of hand earned them some stocking stuffers. Ho, ho, ho.

So Spake The Cynic

Let's do what Albert Einstein called a "thought experiment." In the experiment, I'm going to make believe I'm Tiger Woods' attorney. I'm meeting with my client a couple of months before the present day, discussing strategy. Tiger says, "I just gotta get back to golf!" To which I thoughtfullly respond, "You know, Tiger, it could help us in the settlement process if your game just turned to crap until we get this thing finalized." Well, this is just an innocent fiction, but Tiger's game did turn into an amazing pile of crap, as he became as bad as he was good. Bad club selection had him hitting short into water hazards and airmailing greens. Putts were going every way but in the cup. Hell, he finished next to last in one tournament!

Fast forward a couple of months to today. First day of the Barclay's tournament around the corner at Ridgewood. The settlement is signed, sealed, and delivered and Tiger cards a 65, six under, to share the lead! It's a Christmas miracle! Well, we'll see what happens over the next three days, but I think I'd be a helluva divorce attorney; almost as good as Tiger's attorney. At least that's the way it seems to me.

The Obsession That Is Apple (continued)

About 6 weeks ago I wrote of the (then) impending introduction of the Apple iPad, noting that I would not be in line to get one; at least, not right away. And I wasn't; at least, not right away. In truth, I folded after 3 or 4 weeks. What can I tell you? I'm hooked on Apple, and now, I am definitely hooked on iPad.

First the bad news: I am one of the "few" (according to Apple) people having WiFi connectivity issues. This is a problem since WiFi is the only kind of connectivity I have, since I didn't spend the extra $129 for a 3G model. Curiously, my daughter is also one of the "few." Perhaps it's just coincidence that both of us run our home networks off a Verizon cable modem/router. (Conspiracy theorists take note.) In any case neither of us has any problems with our office WiFi network, and Apple promises a software fix soon, but not now.

Here's the good news: I love my iPad! Since I don't own a laptop, the iPad is the first opportunity I've had to sit in front of the TV and multi-task, iPad in hand. And the reading experience is excellent. Cautious again, I downloaded only one of the free classics that I had never read in school when I should have, Moby Dick. Fifty pages into it, the metaphor was so real that I found myself about to wet my finger to turn the page. So I bought a book, a science fiction by Spinrad. It was a totally iTunes experience. Took less than 30 seconds to download. My second book was a pre-order of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest from Amazon. They've promised to download it to my iPad on May 25. Here's the great part: On May 25, the hardcover is being published. What's that going to cost? Maybe $19.95 from Barnes & Noble. Six months or a year later, the paperback will arrive for probably $14.95. My e-copy is only $9.99.

Certainly there will be times and places not conducive to the use of my iPad: The beach, for one. And I don't know if I'll have to turn it off for take-offs and landings, but who cares? I don't fly that much anymore. It seems to me that Apple has hit the bullseye one more time. At least they've hit MY bullseye!

TV Review: Most Daring

The by-product of an evening of ennui is often the serendipitous discovery of a previously unexplored cable channel. For me last night, it was a channel called TruTV. If it's on your cable system, you should check out this seemingly endless source of train-wreck TV, most of it amateur, hand-held fuzziness.

This particular show, subtitled Loonies in the Boonies, is dedicated to the certifiable insanity of rednecks and mullet-men (and women). As one might expect, there's a lot of beer consumed and a lot of automatic weapons fired (often at the same time). Also in abundance are pick-up trucks, ATVs, mud, obese men and women, fist-fights, and unimaginable combinations of the above.

The games that these cretins entertain themselves (and us) with are mind-boggling in their stupidity. One of my favorites was Cowboy Pinball. Here's how it works. In a fenced-in area, 6-foot circles are outlined on the ground with lime. Into each circle goes a redneck, and into the enclosure goes an angry bull. The object of the game is to be the last cowboy standing. For the bull, the object is to mutilate as many cowboys as it can. If the bull's not really into it, an angrier bull is invited into the enclosure. And there's the train-wreck!

Here's another one. Using a garden hose (!), tie an office chair to the back of a pick-up truck, place one brain-damaged redneck on the chair and see how fast he can be towed before he's bounced out. A variation on this theme is to put the moron on snow-skis and tow him on a dirt road until he wipes out. If things start to slow down a bit, the producers pump it up with a fight between two trailer park denizens, male/male, female/female, or co-ed. And apparently it's always fun to show hunters, so drunk they can barely stand, trying to load and fire shotguns without killing each other.

So this summer, when you're tired of re-runs, take a look for TruTV. Or you can just wait for the networks to come up with Celebrity Loonies in the Boonies. It seems to me it's bound to happen.

The Obsession That Is Apple

As I write this, the world is less than 72 hours away from the introduction of yet another blockbuster product from Apple, Inc. Of course I refer to the iPad, which promises to be as much of a game-changer as sliced bread or beer in cans. I suspect that the malls on Saturday will see lines of drooling Apple fanboys snaking past the Gaps, Starbucks, and Macys, and ending at the front doors of the Apple Stores. The lucky ones will have pre-ordered their iPads and will actually dance out of the stores with iPad in hand. The rest will wait their turn to touch the iPads that are chained to the tables, but most won't walk out with them. The initial supply has already been virtually exhausted. And I, to the amazement of all who know me, will be nowhere to be found.

Journey back through time with me to Super Bowl XVIII, in 1984. The iconic Macintosh commercial had its one and only airing during that game. I think it could be argued that this was the most impactful single commercial ever created. At the very least it's up there with the Lyndon Johnson campaign commercial called Daisy that ran in 1964. Anyway, it was just after the 1984 commercial aired that I bought the first Mac for our company. We had already been through a couple of IIe and IIgGS Apples. Since then, at work and at home, I've gone through something like twenty Mac desktops and laptops. As new ones have arrived, the old ones went to our daughters and their children, a couple of young people who couldn't afford one on their own, and my mother. Mom, by the way is approaching 99 years of age and credits her laptop with keeping her mind sharp as she plays solitaire and other games daily. The first iPod came along in 2001. Since then, I'm on my 4th or 5th iPod. I'm also on my 2nd iPhone (3rd if you count the one that Apple replaced on warranty. And now there's the iPad.

What is it about Apple products that creates this kind of brand loyalty? Well, first there's design. No other manufacturer seems to understand that people like having something that looks and acts cool. And Apple, more often than not, is in the technological vanguard. Think of this, a subject that I discussed at lunch today. The iPad is the third new product category in a row in which Apple is defining the form factor: the mp3 player, the smart phone, and the personal media player/reader. iPod, iPhone, iPad. And don't forget how Apple has rewritten the rules for music sales with iTunes, how it's changed software development and sales with the App Store. And now it seems likely the entire media business is going to feel the force of Apple's innovation.

And yet I'm not there, in line for an iPad. Fear not. I can't imagine that I won't have an iPad, and sooner rather than later. I'm just waiting until I've got a good feel for how this new magic fits into my life. Will I stop buying newspapers and subscribe instead to electronic versions? Science fiction writers have been predicting that for decades. Will I miss having a real book in my hands? Will I really use it to look at live timing and scoring while I watch sports on TV? So I'm waiting a bit while some of these questions are answered. Or I could just be truthful and admit that the most important reason for buying an iPad is that it's way cool?

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Whilst finishing my lunch, I renewed my acquaintance with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I had forgotten what a great piece of satire it is, although its founder swears with a straight face that it's not satire, but is an actual religion. He points out that there is every bit as much scientific evidence for the existence of the FSM as there is for any other claimed deity. Point well taken. As you might expect, he has the same respect, or lack thereof, for Intelligent Design, at least for intelligent design by a deity other than his Noodly Goodness, the FSM.

If you're killing a few minutes and need a chuckle or two, I suggest you Google Flying Spaghetti Monster and visit the web-site. I get the biggest kick out of reading the hate e-mail. It's amazingly vituperative and equally amazingly misspelled. And it led me to the quote of the day: “ The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. ”

-Bertrand Russell

It seems to me that if that's not a basic truth, there probably isn't one. As FSM believers are wont to say, "May the sauce be with you."

Space and The Obama Budget

Dateline Washington, February 2. From the Washington Post News Service:

Obama nixes back-to-the-moon program

The Obama administration is killing Constellation, NASA’s ambitious back-to-the-moon program. …Instead…the administration wants to invest $6 billion over five years in a commercial space taxi to carry astronauts into low Earth orbit…

Well, as far as I’m concerned, that’s good news and bad news… and more good news and more bad news. Here’s what I’m talking about.

Good News: We won’t be continuing the work on a new rocket, Ares 1, and a new crew capsule, Orion.

Bad News: We’ve already spent $9 billion on Ares and Orion. To make matters worse, Obama’s budget includes another $2.5 billion to shut the project down!

Good News: Without the new rocket and crew capsule, there’s no way for us to get to the International Space Station (ISS), which is another spectacularly bottomless money pit. The shuttle fleet is being decommissioned and disposed of through a gigantic yard sale, so nobody will be using that to get to the ISS either.

Bad News: In yet another example of backward thinking, the $6 billion commercial space taxi will be good only to do exactly what the shuttle fleet had done: give rides back and forth to low Earth orbit, i.e. the ISS.

The Worst News: There is not a thin dime in the budget for exploration. $17 billion wasted, to go nowhere but to the Hubble and the ISS. Not a single dramatic piece of science has been done in the ISS, the Hubble is on its last legs, and there won’t be any more Mars rovers, unmanned visits to the rest of our solar system, or colonists on the moon or Mars.

Unmanned exploration is the best thing we can do right now. It’s cost-effective, relatively quick, and completely safe. But that won't happen. Clearly, though, our government is on a different page. It seems to me that we’ve somehow decided that our destiny lies here on Earth and nowhere else, and that’s sad. I had hoped for more.

The Law

Herewith, the promised enlightenment on the Law of Unintended Consequences. It’s a “Law” like Murphy’s Law, rather than a real law like Boyle’s Law. (Extra credit for anyone who can quote the latter without reference to Wikipedia or Google. Shockingly, I managed to dredge up an acceptable approximation.) While there’s no official statement of the Law of Unintended Consequences—let’s just call it The Law—the function of it is this: For every action taken, there will be consequences, both the expected consequences and the unexpected ones which will be, more often than not, negative in nature.

Take as an example Kudzu, also known as the vine that ate the South. It was first introduced to the U.S. from the Orient in the last part of the nineteenth century. Because it was hardy, with a strong and extensive root system, the thought was that it would prevent soil erosion. Besides, it was a nice looking vine that could be used decoratively. Eventually someone with the best of intentions thought it would be worth a try to prevent the erosion of the soil beside highway interchanges and on medians. And it didn’t even need mowing. Bonus!

Enter The Law. It certainly did the intended job, but something else happened. Kudzu loved the climate in the Southeast U.S. And just like Topsy, it just growed. And growed. And growed. Anyone who has driven the highways and byways of the region has seen it, covering anything that doesn’t move for more than 15 minutes in a row. And nothing seems to deter it, although we can be sure that when something is found to fight the Kudzu, it will also cause birth defects, or black holes. It’s The Law.

I was reminded to write about this by a recent article from the Associated Press under the lead “Asian carp a hungry threat.” “[They] can reach 4 feet long and weigh up to 100 pounds.” Not surprisingly, they are starving out the native varieties of fish and are threatening Great Lakes fishing. They also tend to leap out of the water in response to motors, turning themselves into 100-pound unguided missiles ready to KO the unwary boater.

But from whence did the Asian carp come, and why? From Asia, of course, “to cleanse fish ponds and sewage lagoons” in—you guessed it—the deep South. From there into the Mississippi and who knows… Tomorrow the Great Lakes, and then on to Canada! It’s The Law again.

One more example that is—it seems to me—a whole lot less humorous. It’s the military version of The Law, also known euphemistically as Collateral Damages. This is what it means in English: People we didn’t mean to kill, but did anyway.