Sunday, April 4, 2010
April Foolery and California Foolery too...
Californians are funny!!! And they appear to be mostly blonde too... See the "and more" after the Google-Topeka spoof. Check it out here.
And beware the dreaded dihydrogen monoxide! :D
And beware the dreaded dihydrogen monoxide! :D
Ya gotta be kidding me...
Headlines like this "RNC Says Member Will Return $2,000 Reimbursed for Visit to Bondage Club" are the reason I troll Google News while at work. You can't make @#$% like this up.... and first from FOX news no less. Not sure if this is hypocrisy, their attempt at fair news coverage, or just a really twisted sense of humor...
Monday, March 1, 2010
A deluge of serendipity!!
A Diamond in the Rough | The Wood Whisperer Woodworking Video Podcast and Blog
Ok, just drifted into the blogs I'm following here, and what's tops on the list, this one.
One more for the "it's not what it seems" file I guess :)
Ok, just drifted into the blogs I'm following here, and what's tops on the list, this one.
One more for the "it's not what it seems" file I guess :)
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Hank Gilpin: Exploring the American Forest & Serendipity
Hank Gilpin: Exploring the American Forest - Fine Woodworking
Posted using ShareThis
Serendipity is a word I'd like to use in this sentence (stolen from Dave Barry...). But that's how the idea for this blog post came out...
Ok so I joined the Fine Woodworking website cuz they have some great content, how-to's and gobs of other great stuff, like the link above.
I checked it out and was just floored with what Mr Gilpin does and has done with "plain ole" American hardwoods. I like what he said about any wood; that "there is no bad wood". Any wood is good wood. I also like that he's made his career out of using native woods in his work; that's something I'm going to try to do too. Up here in the Evergreen State, we've Fir and Pine out the ying yang, but I also know there's some sweet hardwoods here. Like the incredible quilt and curly maple I keep getting from this wonderful shop in Port Townsend - Forest Gems. I love rummaging thru the cut-offs and rough cut boards he has there (and had no clue before validating their link that he has ANOTHER cache of wood! No FAIR!!!).
This brings up two points. 1 - I need to find a local sawmill (like that'll be hard here!) and get to know them and what they have. My neighbor works in the forestry biz so I need to pick his brain as to where I can find some local hardwoods. Hemlock, the state tree, is really a soft wood (pretty sure of that, it's a Fir...) but I wouldn't mind making some country pine projects/furniture out of that. Or the Shaker style dressers (from Norm Abram's New Yankee Workshop) I want to make for the boys, that I hope will one day be heirlooms they pass along.
And 2 - Serendipity. After watching Mr Gilpin's slideshow, I went down into the garage to work on some risers for getting projects up off the workbench during assembly. I had this "nasty" 2x4 that was basically missing two of it's 4 corners along the length of the board. So I cut off three 2 ft pieces for the risers (planning on cutting on in half to stack on the other two), shaved a 1/4 in off of each side to take them down to 3 x 1 1/2, but mostly to remove the rounded corners on all dimensional lumber. AND since I just plunked a chunk of my annual bonus from work down on a Rigid planer, I figured I'd try to take the boards down to 1 1/4 in thick. WELL! Got thru the first one and WOW! What beautiful piece of pine that "nasty" 2x4 turned into! I almost don't want to use it for the risers...but I will. Won't paint them tho. I have some Tung Oil left from when I built the workbench, so I'll use that to show off the wood.
So, ya. I'm a Native wood woodworker, and I doubt there will be even a stack of fire wood I won't walk by and see something I want to take home and work :)
Posted using ShareThis
Serendipity is a word I'd like to use in this sentence (stolen from Dave Barry...). But that's how the idea for this blog post came out...
Ok so I joined the Fine Woodworking website cuz they have some great content, how-to's and gobs of other great stuff, like the link above.
I checked it out and was just floored with what Mr Gilpin does and has done with "plain ole" American hardwoods. I like what he said about any wood; that "there is no bad wood". Any wood is good wood. I also like that he's made his career out of using native woods in his work; that's something I'm going to try to do too. Up here in the Evergreen State, we've Fir and Pine out the ying yang, but I also know there's some sweet hardwoods here. Like the incredible quilt and curly maple I keep getting from this wonderful shop in Port Townsend - Forest Gems. I love rummaging thru the cut-offs and rough cut boards he has there (and had no clue before validating their link that he has ANOTHER cache of wood! No FAIR!!!).
This brings up two points. 1 - I need to find a local sawmill (like that'll be hard here!) and get to know them and what they have. My neighbor works in the forestry biz so I need to pick his brain as to where I can find some local hardwoods. Hemlock, the state tree, is really a soft wood (pretty sure of that, it's a Fir...) but I wouldn't mind making some country pine projects/furniture out of that. Or the Shaker style dressers (from Norm Abram's New Yankee Workshop) I want to make for the boys, that I hope will one day be heirlooms they pass along.
And 2 - Serendipity. After watching Mr Gilpin's slideshow, I went down into the garage to work on some risers for getting projects up off the workbench during assembly. I had this "nasty" 2x4 that was basically missing two of it's 4 corners along the length of the board. So I cut off three 2 ft pieces for the risers (planning on cutting on in half to stack on the other two), shaved a 1/4 in off of each side to take them down to 3 x 1 1/2, but mostly to remove the rounded corners on all dimensional lumber. AND since I just plunked a chunk of my annual bonus from work down on a Rigid planer, I figured I'd try to take the boards down to 1 1/4 in thick. WELL! Got thru the first one and WOW! What beautiful piece of pine that "nasty" 2x4 turned into! I almost don't want to use it for the risers...but I will. Won't paint them tho. I have some Tung Oil left from when I built the workbench, so I'll use that to show off the wood.
So, ya. I'm a Native wood woodworker, and I doubt there will be even a stack of fire wood I won't walk by and see something I want to take home and work :)
Thursday, October 8, 2009
First check out the link...
I StumbledUpon this the other day and had to come back to it to finish it off.
I know not everyone is into this "is there life elsewhere in the galaxy and why haven't they stopped by for coffee and muffins?" question, but it's one that I think is incredibly interesting.
I have to agree with the notion that there's nothing particularly special about the Earth's situation, both in the Milky Way and evolutionarily. Special doesn't equate to unique. That's whole different kettle of fish, which is related to this article but which I will conveniently ignore here as an in-depth discussion would truly muck up the epiphany I had earlier today.
If we assume that we are typical of intelligent life in the universe, and that there is indeed intelligent life out there, then I'd have to agree with the author's Option C:
There have been others, but they have all run into some sort of “cosmic roadblock” that eventually destroys them, or at least prevents their expansion beyond a small area.Take a serious look at the human race. I like how the author put it:
What this said to me is that if what is assumed to be true, that we are typical of intelligent life out there, then in the words of Dr Smith "We're dooooooomed!!"
When we consider the chronological history of life on Earth, humans have only existed for a small fragment of time and our existence has always been precarious. The entire time we’ve existed, we been banding into various groups and attempting to kill each other—or at least are constantly in the process of developing more effective ways of killing each other—just in case. The US government, for example, spends on “Defense” (including “preemptive” warfare) and Homeland Security, 8 times what it spends on educating the next generation. There is enough nuclear weaponry in storage around the world to kill every living creature on the planet several times over. Clearly, we’re a species with poor odds of surviving indefinitely.
Our self-destructive natures aside, curiosity may end up killing more than the cats. The faster technology is advancing, the more our “leap now, look later” nature appears to grow as well. If evolution on Earth serves as a somewhat typical template for evolution of other life forms, then becoming a truly advanced civilization must be a very daunting task indeed and a very rare, if not impossible, achievement.
The point I got out of the post is that if we continue along our current technological advnacement path, we will end Matrix-ing or Terminator-ing our race into a cosmic footnote, like the bajillions of other intelligent species before or or maybe those that will follow us.
There are the typical argumentative, supportive, alternative, troll comments to this article but none that hit on what hit me.
And that is, what if there is intelligent life out but it ISN'T technologically advance; either neither went there, or did and some of them made it thru the techno-apocolypse and said FTS (F#ck THAT sh$t)!!! and went anti-tech?
First that might explain why we haven't heard from any of them or had them stop by for a visit. They just don't do that. Maybe their path took them away from technology and trying to master the universe, and decided to become one with it. Maybe they developed their senses and spirits and became uber thought and spirit beings. Hell, they COULD be visiting us right now but because they're on a totally different plane or frequency or whatever we can't see or hear them!!!
There could be billyuns and billyuns of Earth-like planets out there with gigyear Anasazi or other "barbarian" civilizations western "civilization" wiped out in it's quest to possess the Earth. They'd never have developed the advanced technology that would lead to self-destruction and could have or ARE living happily understanding more about the world around them (because they are an integral part of it) than any of our advanced science will ever show us!
Or there's the other option. The survivors or escapees of a super high tech society that nanotech'd itself into nothingness. Maybe there was a colony out in distant reaches of their galaxy that didn't meet that fate, but knew of how the rest of their empire, civilization, whatever perished. Seeing this, they gave technology The Middle Finger Salute (presuming they HAVE middle fingers...) and threw off the yoke of technology and turned back to simpler ways...
This post to me is almost a cautionary tale given my take on it. We can continue down this technological primrose path to a seemingly shiny, bright Star Trekian future, or we can heed this and think about what we're doing and why. And maybe we can look back at simpler ways, ones that keep us in touch with our Mother Earth and become more in tune with the world around us. Balance is everything to me in finding the right path thru anything. And maybe that's the path thru to making it past that road block. Balance our desire to know more and build better with the need to be part of the world around instead of as Agent Smith put it "A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet...".
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
What is Normal?
This is a question that I rolled over in my brain the other weekend when we had just the two little ones, Zachary (11) and Hannah (9) over for a couple of nights so they could go to the new school year ice cream social, meet their teachers, see who's in their classes and for Hannah Boo and Tina to do some girly stuff like back to school shopping and "accessorizzzzzinggggg", as Tina put it. Me and Zack went on a search and destroy mission for new game for his DS (highlighting the differences between girly and guy shopping there; saving that for another post...). Anyways, they spent a couple of nights with us. And I thought to myself and remarked to Tina, "is this what normal is?" as I reflected on a shout-less, fit-less, conflict-less, anger-less, restriction-less couple of days with just Zack and Lil' Boo.
You see "normal" for us includes all the above (minus the -less') on a disturbingly regular basis. There's conflict, fights, arguments, defiance, and lots of loud sharp words ... nearly EVERY evening. Honestly. And as this is all I've known as a parent (and only have what I remember growing up myself as sounding board) I can't believe that this is "normal" for the rest of the parents and families out there.
Now realize that most of that comes from our oldest, and most challenged kid, Tad, and then like ripple reflecting off the edge of your coffee cup, Hannah as she either feeds into, goes along with, or just flat out mimics Tad's negative behaviors.
Like I said he's our most challenging and challenged kid. He's been tagged with all sort of TLD (Three Letter Diagnoses) and is a 14 yr old boy, with all the teen/adolescent issues that come with that, and the emotional development somewhere around (and probably behind) our youngest Hannah. I'm not going to go into a this, that and the other thing description of what drives us to our limits and beyond as parents, but suffice it to say, Job would give this a WTFO rating...
But, DAMN, if two kids sitting quitely together playing at a video game, listening and following directions without getting into each other's shit just cuz they can is what it's like for everyone else (more often than not), one little selfish and self centered part of me says, he and his dad can have each other; after all biodad has put us thru, let us have our shot at something approaching normalcy.
But that is short lived and gets swatted away like any other buzzing pest. Tad's a fanDAMNtastic kid. Kind, giving, sensitive, loving, and when he hits his behavioral stride and we give him the kudos he's due, his smile can light the darkest night! And I want him to be a great man, greater than his dad could ever imagine being. I want him to rise above the delinquent genetic code biodad saddled him with. I want nurture to tromp the living snot out nature!
On the quite of the evening after all the kids are in bed I reflect back on the day. How did I do? What could I have done better or differently to have made it a better day; cuz even on my best days it can always be better, calmer, more patient, more nurturing and loving. Not for me. For them. They deserve that and so much more.
You see "normal" for us includes all the above (minus the -less') on a disturbingly regular basis. There's conflict, fights, arguments, defiance, and lots of loud sharp words ... nearly EVERY evening. Honestly. And as this is all I've known as a parent (and only have what I remember growing up myself as sounding board) I can't believe that this is "normal" for the rest of the parents and families out there.
Now realize that most of that comes from our oldest, and most challenged kid, Tad, and then like ripple reflecting off the edge of your coffee cup, Hannah as she either feeds into, goes along with, or just flat out mimics Tad's negative behaviors.
Like I said he's our most challenging and challenged kid. He's been tagged with all sort of TLD (Three Letter Diagnoses) and is a 14 yr old boy, with all the teen/adolescent issues that come with that, and the emotional development somewhere around (and probably behind) our youngest Hannah. I'm not going to go into a this, that and the other thing description of what drives us to our limits and beyond as parents, but suffice it to say, Job would give this a WTFO rating...
But, DAMN, if two kids sitting quitely together playing at a video game, listening and following directions without getting into each other's shit just cuz they can is what it's like for everyone else (more often than not), one little selfish and self centered part of me says, he and his dad can have each other; after all biodad has put us thru, let us have our shot at something approaching normalcy.
But that is short lived and gets swatted away like any other buzzing pest. Tad's a fanDAMNtastic kid. Kind, giving, sensitive, loving, and when he hits his behavioral stride and we give him the kudos he's due, his smile can light the darkest night! And I want him to be a great man, greater than his dad could ever imagine being. I want him to rise above the delinquent genetic code biodad saddled him with. I want nurture to tromp the living snot out nature!
On the quite of the evening after all the kids are in bed I reflect back on the day. How did I do? What could I have done better or differently to have made it a better day; cuz even on my best days it can always be better, calmer, more patient, more nurturing and loving. Not for me. For them. They deserve that and so much more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)