Keep Your Requirements Close But Your "Crazy Ideas" Closer

One of the courses I teach, which I’m quite proud of, is the capstone course for the CS and IT majors.  In the two semester course, we design, build, and release something to the world.  The projects are based on interests in the various groups, usually 2-4 people per group.  We’ve built robots, network sniffing tools, video games (some better than others ;)), and a variety of web portal kinds of tools.  This cycle, one student team built an existential video game called Unbearable which was impossible to win and whose arcade-style high score tracker published random numbers.  It was a silly game on the surface but had lots of ironic and fun easter egg kinds of behavior.

The other teams collaborated to build what was functionally a tele-presence device.  The intent of the device when they started was to be able to “call home” to see your dogs and make sure they were ok.  They had promised “bark recognition” software that would send you a text if the dog was barking too much and a Pan-Tilt-Zoom functionality for the camera so you could watch the dog.  Early designs had a ball thrower so you could play with the dog remotely but that was simply too complex for the time we had.  There had been some discussion about blowing bubbles for the dog to chase instead or perhaps giving the dog “some kibble” to get it to come to the device.  The “kibble launcher” became the in-joke for the two semesters but was kind of moved to “nice to have” instead of a requirement.

Last night, the team demo’d their product with the intent of showing the customer that the product should be funded to actually be built.  One of the team members brought their dog in to show the reaction to the device.  Generally, the dog was less than impressed J  We joked that they should have included the “kibble launcher” after all to get the dog’s attention.  The student responsible for the case that the telepresence device lived in reached under the desk and pulled out a small box-like object which he hooked onto the side of the device.  You could see there was a place for wires and a motor though they had not actually been installed.  He then reached into his backpack and pulled out a baggie of dry dog food which he loaded into the new add-on.  It was manually activated but the dog was excited to get some “kibble” so at least hung around the device during the demo.  Network issues in the classroom prevented the demo from working well but we had seen the process work in the past. 

The reason I bring this all up is that the “kibble launcher” started as a joke with the team while we were brainstorming the functionality of the product.  In brainstorming, you write down all the ideas that come up, no matter how odd they may seem.  Using Affinity Diagrams and other tools, we pared down the ideas to a manageable number of requirements to build.  The launcher was decided to be a “if we have time” kind of feature and it was shelved.  But, we made so much fun of the idea that the cabinet builder kept thinking about how to actually do it.  He mocked up a prototype which he proudly displayed last night.  It helped their product and would have differentiated it on the market if we had really built it. 

My point is that we often come up with crazy ideas in brainstorming sessions and we filter them out right away because they’re silly/stupid/too expensive.  But sometimes, those ideas live on and we find a way to incorporate them into the product.  And we should.  Those “crazy ideas” are how we sometimes get new, cool products.

Happy Day After!

I have not been good about posting to my blog this last week and I'm not exactly sure why.

A lot of crazy things have been going on but that's not really newsworthy. That is kind of the standard state of things :)

School is still school. The job hunt continues. The house remodeling continues. And to complete the meme, "still single, still not king."

But you know what? I have had to interact with a lot of, well, ignorant people in the last two weeks. People who I would say are "just following orders" or don't stop to think about what they say. The hold message at CenturyLink says "…please tell the operator if you don't want us to use (your private information) to offer you goods and services. This has no bearing on the goods and services we'll offer." What? I challenged the operator that the message didn't make a bit of sense and she said "of course it does" and was annoyed with me for questioning the message. I can't say these people are "stupid" as they appear to be functioning members of society. They appear to have families and friends that love and support them. They appear to go about their daily routines.

But. Many of them seem oblivious to the surrounding world and basic world views which differ from their own like say the scientific method. 19th Century thought suggested that the entire world was knowable, either by observation or experimentation. Much of 21st Century thought seems to be based purely on our own opinions and observations. It's as though social media has taught us that our opinion, even if based on nothing, is so important to share, that we must constantly inform our friends of our merest thoughts. We see each other's thoughts which validate our own merest thoughts and we are reenforced.

The conspiracy shows are all talking about how the MMR vaccine is likely to be the cause of the increase in Autism. This is akin to the folks who earlier were saying, "well, this winter is the worst in recent history, therefore global warming is a hoax." Forgetting of course that our limited experience is not the sum total of all experiences. And I hate to point it out but all of those new autism patients have also breathed air, drank water, and eaten food in this country. I agree that autism rates are skyrocketing but vaccines are not necessarily the culprit. Studies have been done that show they aren't but this "well I just feel this is true" mentality doesn't watch for facts.

It's like we stopped exploring or thinking about the world when we were teens. Having worked with middle school students, so much of world history makes more sense now because the early teen-aged people are very set in black and white thinking and that there can only be one way of thinking. Witness the bullying that kids do to each other, especially that one kid that's different. Joan of Arc was 14 when she became famous.

We bemoan the loss of creativity and STEM knowledge in our society but it seems like we've lost a great deal of common sense and the ability to take a step back and actually look at a situation. Business schools pump out MBAs who have to research White Papers without critiquing the authors. Anyone can write a White Paper. Anyone can publish a study or an OpEd. I can't tell you the number of Dissertations I've read where I thought "wow, these are the wrong questions for this topic" or "that solution has nothing to do with causality." And yet, 100+ pages later the author has proved that there may or may not be a connection between what s/he wanted to prove and what they researched.

And that brings me to my writing. Here I am. I'll likely be a Doctor in Computer Science in the nearish future. I've read study after study. I've read the background material that is relevant to me and my research. I want to see further because I stand on the shoulders of giants. But I also know that it takes a creative spark to make a leap from what is known to what needs to be known. And I know that as I get a better view, I may divert from the course set out by my colleagues. I may have to blaze a new trail but I can't do it without observation and experimentation. I can't blaze it without being able to tell people where I am and how I got there. I can follow my gut and explore but if the data I have doesn't shine on my path, I may need to check my maps. The method I follow, the scientific method, allows for course corrections, it encourages me to find the flaws in my own thinking and correct it as better or more complete knowledge becomes available.

Now, how can I teach the robot that?  And more importantly, "should I?"

There's an App for that!

Today's post may go in a strange direction. To me, what I'm about to say is almost so obvious that it doesn't need to be said. We'll see.

This week I received a new piece of medical technology. It was ordered nearly a month ago by doctors who I had to wait for nearly two months to see. It was supposed to be delivered last week but the company "forgot" then labelled the equipment as patient pick-up even though it had to be installed in my home.

By time I actually received the device, I was beginning to wonder just how important it was to actually have it, a somewhat negative view I admit.

The delivery guy came out with the component and wheeled it in but did not know particularly how to attach it to the other piece of equipment that I had already received as he hadn't been trained on the new model I had. I asked him several questions about what the purpose of the machine was and how it performed its task. The driver wasn't terribly sure and couldn't call back to the office for help because their communication equipment wasn't work (you don't have a phone?). He made some claims about the equipment which I was able to disprove while he watched and it was clear he was reading from a memorized script and didn't know how the machine worked at all. I shoo'd him out and connected the machine myself after signing the waivers that if I died I wouldn't sue the company or the delivery driver.

This whole fiasco reminded me of the washing machine debacle from around Thanksgiving. I had found a screaming deal on a new washer/dryer that could be stacked in my basement. I wasn't going to be home for a few days so I had them deliver them a week later. They forgot even though I took time off to be available. They sent the machines out the next day with a driver who was not authorized to install them because they were gas. I argued with the delivery driver who decided that company policy is to just bring the machines back to the shop if there's any problem. A week later and several calls, the same kid brought the machines back but still did not know how to install them or that they were even stackable. The guys working in my basement helped the kids figure out how to install the machines but in the meantime the kids had accidentally broken off a component of the drainage system for the washer.

So here we go with my questions which are relevant to this article.

1) If you don't know what your job is, eventually a robot is going to replace you doing it. A robot cannot make decisions on its own so it's going to need failover decisions to choose when things go wrong. The robot would have reasonablly taken the washer and dryer back to the shop when confronted with a gas fixture or irate home owner. A human should be able to figure these things out.

2) Conversely, our society seems to be "dumbing things down" to the point where we can off-shore tasks that are technical in nature by defining scripts that people can read to their customers, even if they don't understand the content. If we have to do that, again a robot can take over the task.

3) With the building back-lash against off-shored tech-support and banking and who knows what all, the robots are going to have to make major strides forward to be able to handle what we now seem to consider easily scriptable processes.

Maybe the robots aren't going to come quite as quickly as we have been thinking!

I see I have a "futuring" course in the next year.  I'm curious to see where that class things we may end up...  and what part I have to play in the innovation. 

Testing Our New Robot Overlords!

I was confronted with the scope of what I am talking about recently: The robots will be "self learning" and we will want to stop them from learning things that are not relevant or that we don't want them to know. We might want a robot who makes sandwiches to know about foods and allergies and presentation and cultural items related to food, but we probably don't want it to know about politics or voting or whatever... Whatever we do to "focus" the robot's learning will eventually be applied to our children, which might bring us back to the days of tests that determine your career futures... If the robot makes a "bad decision" based on what it has learned or because it had to choose between two bad choices, who is to blame? The tester? the coder? the building? the owner? the robot? How would we even punish the robot? And how is this really different from blaming the parents or the teachers when kids do dumb things? If the robot is a car and it has to decide which other car to hit because it's going to be in an accident, how does it determine which car is a better target? Will the robot know something about the relative "worth" of the other vehicles? their cargos? Is a car with 4 people in it worth more than a car with 1? The insurance people would argue yes I imagine. If the robot has this worthiness data, how long will it be before an after-market device is sold which tells the robot that this particular vehicle is "high value" in an effort to protect individual property? I realize this is all outside the scope of what I'm doing and that greater minds than mine have to address these issues. Especially on issues which address the human condition! But, it's sobering to see how large this field could become. This is not just testing a new phone app!

Cybernetics in the Real World (per COSine)

I spent this weekend at COSine, a science fiction writer's conference here in Colorado Springs. I participated in several panels about the state of the world, especially for cybernetics. The conversations were quite lively but ended up being debates about "how cool the technology could be" interspersed with discussion on whether we should "require" people to accept the augmentations. I suggested it wasn't terribly different from the Borg (in Star Trek: The Next Generation) meeting new species and immediately implanting them with the technology that makes the Borg hive-mind work. The panelists likened the practice to forcing all deaf children to receive the Cochlear implant. A very spirited discussion ensued. Afterwards, I apologized to the moderator for hi-jacking the discussion like that and she said while that was an interesting discussion, she was more intrigued by my "throw away" question about how the the augmented would be considered in our society: Right now, there's some stigma to people with artificial limbs, pacemakers, insulin pumps and the like. People who augment themselves with drugs for performance are stricken from the record books because they aren't "fair," or more accurately, not purely human. And this leads back to the robot question. How do we determine what is "beneficial" and what is "useful"? How do we differentiate between things that help but pollute for instance? These are tricky questions and I am somewhat concerned about the outcome.

Kitchen's Clean and Quiet

The title today is a line from "Scott and Jamie" which has been stuck in my head all week. The song itself is a bit of a tear jerker as it's about two foster kids being yanked from a gay couple but, I don't think that's why it's been in my head. Instead, I've been counting down to the roommate moving out. I've been counting down since the end of summer more or less.

I don't think the guy knew how to wash a dish which drove me crazy. I told him how much it annoyed ne on several occasions and it just never sunk in. So he moved out today and I cleaned the dishes up and put them away.

The song says, "the kitchen's clean and quiet, we moved the furniture around..." I want to move the furniture but the construction debris is still in the way so it has to wait a bit. Already the house seems bigger without the roommate here. But you know what, I'm not as happy to have him out of the house as I expected to be. I don't feel like that part of my life is now over. And I don't know why. I don't *miss* the roommate or anything but I'm more "meh" about him leaving than I thought I'd be. I'm not sure I like this feeling. I was hoping to be energized to go on with my remodel, but I'm just not feeling it. At least not yet... Maybe soon? :)

This song has been stuck in my head for days! It so fits my mood though. “You can be the expert by picking up a book,” it says. And isn’t that the point of the Literature Review for the Dissertation?

We study the thoughts that came before ours, not just to give us context but, to borrow from Bernard of Chartres, to help us see further. My ideas may turn out to be revolutionary but without the context of the researchers before me, my ideas may never gain traction. Or worse, like the Professor in Rescue From Gilligan’s Island, I may be reinventing a wheel that already exists.

But the song. The song says there are stories “everywhere we look, if we look in the right way.” I’ll take that to mean that when I’m sitting at my computer cussing the ProQuest database for not finding me a good reference, maybe I just need to step back and think of a new keyword to try.

Hmmm… which reminds me, I haven’t tried …

FOOTNOTES (this time)
Bernard of Chartres actually said “Like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, we see farther than they.” In 1159 though we often attribute the quote to Isaac Newton.
The only scene I recall from watching “Rescue From Gilligan’s Island” as a youth was the Professor in a lab somewhere after the Castaways returned to civilization. He had “invented” a Frisbee and was depressed to find out someone had already marketed it, while he was on the Island. He felt he wasn’t really contributing to society and the Castaways eventually returned to the island… Interestingly, today is a year and two days since the actor playing the Professor died.

New Year, New Job, New Beginnings, New Posts...

I came back from the CTU Doctoral Symposium this weekend energized to write. One of the speakers reminded us that, as Doctoral students, we should be writing. Everyday. Even if we have little to say, we should sit before our writing tool of choice and begin writing. By the end of the year, we’ll have come great strides in learning how to communicate our thoughts.

I didn’t start yesterday because I was so worn out from the Symposium that I just couldn’t do it. So here I am today. My plan is to write my entry for the day, then post it to the Blog that is relevant to me. Some will be personal and appear on that blog and others will be focused on Robots or other Tech and posted there.

As a Mason, I have been taught that no great undertaking should be begun without first invoking the Blessings of Deity. It took me a bit to find a Prayer I liked but here goes:

Dear Creator, Give me a few friends who will love me for what I am, and keep ever burning before my vagrant steps the kindly light of hope... And though I come not within sight of the castle of my dreams, teach me to be thankful for life, and for time's olden memories that are good and sweet. And may the evening's twilight find me gentle still.

And because I’m a Doctoral Student,
REFERENCES
Birch, J. (n/d). Celtic Prayers and Blessings retrieved from http://www.faithandworship.com/Celtic_Blessings_and_Prayers.htm

And I will fall in love again

Wow. Today I had to do something that hit me really hard. I had to say goodbye to Frank. I know it was the right thing to do but it was still really hard. I said I wanted to clear out all the roommates but this is not what I meant. If you're not in a good place, you might want to stop reading now...

Frank was a rescue dog. He came from the Mastif Rescue center here. Big fat head, stubby legs, and a tongue that seemed like it was 4 feet long. We think he was about 3 when I got him. He had been abused in his life and really didn't like guys except for a couple of my friends. He didn't like cats or small dogs but larger dogs he was good with. We don't know his real name but the rescue place called him Frank. He didn't answer to Frank well but he knew what leashes were for and how to sit and stay, more or less :). He was all about going for a walk/drag around the neighborhood... He loved to ride in the car. Front seat or backseat, he was happy. The first time I stuffed him through the new dog door he looked at me like he "couldn't believe you would be so mean as to stuff me through... hey wait a minute, I'm outside! This is magic!" then he ran back and forth through the door like a million times.

He was all about guarding me from the "evil" roommates. If the fireman that lived with me got home before I did, Frank would hide in his corner under the stairs. Once I got home, he'd go bark at the fireman three times, then run outside to bark at him three more times under the window to his room, then run back in to do it several more times. At 11pm, midnight, and 1am before I'd put him in his crate and he'd relax. He did that with all the roommates over time!

He had a darling trot that says "I have something that I probably shouldn't but I'm taking it outside now, you can't see me!" He was all about eating things that crunched. Like empty soda bottles. Or train cars. Or noodles. He loved dried noodles. One day he bit into a box that looked like a noodle box. A big cloud of oatmeal formed around his head. He was not pleased. He walked away from the cloud and never ate another noodle box :)

I started taking him for drives over to my buddy's house on the east side of town. We had thought that maybe Frank was bored at my house and needed some friends so I brought him over weekly or so. We stayed there during the Waldo Canyon fire evacuation and when I went to California a couple weeks ago, Frank stayed with them. Monday we went to my buddy's house and Frank ran around with the dogs there in the big back yard. While we were there, he got into the food bin with one of the others and together they ate several days worth of food! I called my buddy the next day to say that Frank had surprisingly not eaten anything that night. We all laughed about "The Lummox" still being full.
The next day he still hadn't eaten or drank anything. And he was walking really strangly. He didn't run out the dogdoor to see me when I got home or jump up on the bed when we went to bed but rather sat on the floor near the bed. His walking deteriorated over the next couple days and I thought wow, I guess we need to visit the vet. I offered him some hot dogs this morning and he scarfed them down which confused me even more because I still thought he wasn't eating cause he was full--or something. I got him a cup of water which he drank from my hand. It was then that I realized he wasn't eating because he couldn't get down to the food bowls on the floor so I but them on a box so he could eat while sitting there. He drank most of the water I offered. (but the yucky dry food was no fun after having hot dogs, and we all know Frank was all about the weiners!)

I tried to carry him out to the car so we could go to the vet but he squirmed and jumped down (kinda). I got his leash out and he was all excited. He drug himself out to the car. I put him in the back seat. He drug himself into the vet's office. She did some tests and then told me that he was likely having a problem common to his breed, a slipped disk. They could send me somewhere for surgery but as fast as he had deteriorated, it was likely he would never walk properly again, or be able to potty by himself.
My little voice had warned me this morning that this was likely but I couldn't believe it. I broke down and cried. Frank had been with me less than a year and I was already being asked to put him down. I called my buddy and while I talked to him, I realized that it would be best for Frank if I let him go. I held him while they injected him with the drug to make him rest. I told him he was the guy I liked sleeping with the most. He was shaking, so was I. He licked me once more, then they injected him with the other drug. Before the plunger completed, he was gone.

When I got to class tonight, I saw this post from a friend who attributed it to Frank. It so looks like my bed does! Thankfully there haven't been many student questions tonight cause they're working on projects and I'm not really in the Now I suppose.

I guess Frank went out doing what he wanted to do, take a walk and go for a drive. We should all be so lucky.
So say we all!

Title reference: LeAnn Rimes "One Way Ticket" This song was the first song on the radio after I got back in my car at the vet's. I turned the radio off :)

Happy Yule everyone

This is something that a close & dear friend shared with me today that touched my heart. I wanted to share it with a couple of my fellow Pagans, Druids, & Christian friends alike, but also with a select few other friends that I knew would appreciate its message. :) I hope you like it, and that it brings meaning & joy to you. :)



Blessed Yule/Alban Arthan, Happy Winter Solstice, & Merry Christmas. :)



" A Midwinter Prayer"

-from The Celtic Wheel of the Year by Tess Ward



From the rising of the midwinter sun to its setting,

Scatter the darkness with the light of your love, O Shining One.

Make me short on mean thoughts, long on offering words of comfort.

Make me short on being driven, long on paying attention.

Make me short on focusing only on my own, long on looking beyond.

Make me short on obsessive lists, long on spontaneous acts of kindness,

Make me short on mindless activity, long on time to reflect.

Make me short on tradition as a habit, long on rediscovery and re-owning.

Make me short on rushing a tiring, long on walking and wondering.

Make me short on false, festive jollity, long on stilling and rooted joy.

Make me short on guilt, long on being merciful to myself.

Make me short on being overwhelmed, long on peaceableness as I set forth this day.

Happy Yule everyone

This is something that a close & dear friend shared with me today that touched my heart. I wanted to share it with a couple of my fellow Pagans, Druids, & Christian friends alike, but also with a select few other friends that I knew would appreciate its message. :) I hope you like it, and that it brings meaning & joy to you. :)



Blessed Yule/Alban Arthan, Happy Winter Solstice, & Merry Christmas. :)



" A Midwinter Prayer"

-from The Celtic Wheel of the Year by Tess Ward



From the rising of the midwinter sun to its setting,

Scatter the darkness with the light of your love, O Shining One.

Make me short on mean thoughts, long on offering words of comfort.

Make me short on being driven, long on paying attention.

Make me short on focusing only on my own, long on looking beyond.

Make me short on obsessive lists, long on spontaneous acts of kindness,

Make me short on mindless activity, long on time to reflect.

Make me short on tradition as a habit, long on rediscovery and re-owning.

Make me short on rushing a tiring, long on walking and wondering.

Make me short on false, festive jollity, long on stilling and rooted joy.

Make me short on guilt, long on being merciful to myself.

Make me short on being overwhelmed, long on peaceableness as I set forth this day.

If I Only Had a Brain...

I don't normally respond to things like the following. But I'll include this mostly intact. I don't care if the details are "true" but rather want to think about what this would mean if it were. I grew up in Los Angeles so having an "earthquake preparedness" bag was something we learned at an early time. Back in the day, we were taught to protect ourselves from potentially falling building material and household goods. We were told by our parents where to meet if "something happened." I don't know if we had good plans. I don't know how much these preparations would have helped since, thankfully, I've never had to survive a large scale disaster.

And nowadays, living in Colorado, I'm way out of practice. And I'm far away from my "family" who I would need to reunite with. If I had a family, what would we do if we had to evacuate the school? Where would we go to make sure everyone was OK?

We had an emergency evacuation drill at work recently. I'm on the safety committee. We got everyone outside in a reasonable amount of time but it was amazing to watch how it worked. The building recently changed our exit doors because they added a new office to ours. Many of the people in my area demanded that we go out the old door even though a "better" door was available. So they waited in queue to go down a set of stairs into the new office area and all the new doorways instead of leaving through the new unobstructed doors. Odd. Think people!

Once outside they wanted to go to their cars and start them, which is technically a violation of our rules because of potential terrorist issues (potential bombs in the parking lot) but do they care? No. Not until something happens and they get hurt. Then they'll complain that they were "victimized" and look for someone to sue. I don't get this mentality. It used to be that Westerners were responsible for their own actions. What happened?

Anyway, let me show you a message I received in my email this morning:

Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ' Munich ' was based. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard, and she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games.
[snip]

Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try and hijack a plane again as they know the people onboard will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke -- that we have been reactionary rather than proactive in developing strategies that are truly effective.

For example:
1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal, and the new explosives are made of plastic.

2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off their shoes. A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives. Now we can't bring liquids on board. He says he's waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security will have us all traveling naked!
Every strategy we have is reactionary.

3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates.

Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times on the front end of the airport when/where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they run to the restroom or get a drink, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved. In Israel , security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport.
Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate.
[snip]
Aviv says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. They like to use suicide as a front-line approach. It's cheap, it's easy, it's effective; and they have an infinite abundance of young militants more than willing to 'meet their destiny'.
He also says the next level of terrorists, over which America should be most concerned, will not be coming from abroad. But will be, instead, 'homegrown', having attended and been educated in our own schools and universities right here in the U.S. He says to look for 'students' who frequently travel back and forth to the Middle East . These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won't know/understand a thing about them.
Aviv says that, as a people, Americans are unaware and uneducated about the terrorist threats we will inevitably face. America still has only a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks, and Aviv says it is critical that we change that fact SOON.
[snip]


Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children here in America who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/11, who were 'lost' without parents being able to pick them up, and about our schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until parents could get there. (In New York City , this was days, in some cases!)
He stresses the importance of having a plan, that's agreed upon within your family, of how to respond in the event of a terrorist emergency. He urges parents to contact their children's schools and demand that the schools too, develop plans of actions, just as they do in Israel .
Does your family know what to do if you can't contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough for even our youngest children to remember and follow.
[snip]

How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event you cannot speak to each other? You need to have a plan.

OK, that was long but... My personal opinion is that we, as Americans, get very caught up in our "trivial pursuits" like American Idol and Survivor and forget to ever look at larger things. Part of this is a testament to how safe it is here in the States that we don't have to worry about the things listed above. But, listening to talk radio for the last couple years has hurt my brain.

It looks like all the Talkers are doing is spouting their "world agenda" without ever looking at what it means. We label things as either Good Ideas (ours) or Terrible Ideas (anyone else's) which means we can never seriously talk about either idea and look for a way to successfully accomplish whatever we want to do. We're now using the same logic we used when talking about the former Soviet Russia (always evil, always dangerous,...) to talk about our neighbors. There's no way to make a system work if you declare that anything that is "not us" is evil and therefore to be ignored/destroyed. Our country was *founded* on the concept of bringing different groups of people together.
Maybe we need a radio talk show that talks about how to combine ideas or refute "dumb" ideas without resorting to name calling. Seriously. The only thing the "haters" can say about the new iPad is that it has a "stupid name"? Really? I don't think that's much of a leap from saying everything our President is doing is "Socialist" or that the "Feminazis" are attempting to do *blah*. What happened to reason? What happened to considered opinion? What happened to actually trying to solve things instead of just making snide comments?
It times like this that I wonder if Terrorists are our biggest problem...
Title Reference: Wizard of Oz - Soundtrack (2009 Remastered Edition)">

The Boys Are Back in Town

OK, I admit it. This is going to be a strange post. But this is the song in my head this morning. And it's all because Supernatural is back from its holiday break finally.



I've been thinking about Sam and Dean quite a bit over the last few months. I even put my hand to writing a couple fanfics. (ack!) And i think the most interesting aspect of the show so far was a throw-away line in one of their own Filk episodes where Sam and Dean met LARPing portrayals of themselves. (As a side note, I never even thought of doing this… who knew!)

In the episode, the LARP Dean tells Dean that Dean has missed the whole point of the "show." That is, the relationship between him and Sam… a person you know you would die to protect, and that he would die to protect you. Dean is clearly thinking about that as the episode ends, reflecting on how far the two have come over the years. Big thoughts for Dean who usually is more of a "in the now", "black and white" kind of guy.

I've been thinking about this, too. One of my beta readers for my fanfic said I was too "smoosh-ie" in my characterization in one of my stories (she said the other was spot-on) yet, this is the kind of relationship I want, so far as I can tell. I'd love to have someone who I could depend on utterly and who could depend on me. Someone I know well enough that we can do smack talk in earnest but not viciously. And on and on.

In fact I even added a line to my wish list for a lover that they be a cross between Dean Winchester and Leo (from Charmed)

My real life Dean, ironically named Sam, is more of the traditional Dean portrayal as opposed to the slash portrayals. He's a lot like Dean and I cherish time we spend together even if there isn't any "slash." We've been on a fair number of adventures over the years. He's caused me to grow in ways I would never have guessed when we started--and I think I've helped him "mature" in some ways he would not have suspected. (so there if you're reading this..) And I wouldn't trade any of our time together.

I haven't seen him much the last few months because I've been slammed at school and work. And now that we're not working together, I miss our drives to Roswell every weekend.

The Jetta may not be the Impala, but we certainly spent a lot of time together on the road. I think it may be time for a road trip…

(as a side note, one of the math joke sites I read happened to have this Venn diagram on it today, a perfect representation of the Supernatural Sam mindset)



image from http://thisisindexed.com/

Title Reference: Thin Lizzy Boys Are Back in Town: Live in Australia

I Will Be Victorious...

Happy 2010 everyone!

Thanks primarily to Wil Wheaton's epic posts concerning the Year in Review, here is mine. WHHHEEAAAATTTOOONNN!!

In the Chinese way of thinking, this has been the Year of the Ox, a year to say, "I Persevere." The past year has certainly offered us chances to persevere… and to come out victorious.

Some things haven't changed much.

The house is being remodeled. Still. There is hope. The new tub (with "swirling bubbles") is in and now the floor needs to be done and the trim. . . There is hope, if I persevere. :)

Beyond-Earth hasn't progressed very much this year. We did find a new CAD artist to fix one of our broken images. Other things are in the works and we'll see how they work out. Sam and I are looking at some energy-related projects to bring us in some money. Then we can fly again!

The house in Roswell still hasn't been repaired so we can sell it but steady progress is being made. And I feel like we're getting somewhere for a change. It's painful talking to the insurance people but I wonder if they do it on purpose so people we settle for whatever they offer. I have time. 'In for a penny, in for a pound' after all. Maybe I should cut my losses but we'll see--I'm making progress. I will be victorious :)

Speaking of that, my Messages From the Gods album (MFG, to the right) has grown dramatically. The most recent song from Muse is the theme for the re-imaging of "V". Uprising's message of "They will not control us/We will be victorious" seems like it's directly in counter-point to Baba O'Reilly (Teenage Wasteland) which says I "don't have to fight/to prove you're right" and yet… I think the Who song is more about picking your battles. I've backed off on a couple of things and refocused on a couple others. If I'm right, I will win :) I'll let you know, right here…

And speaking of "victorious," my quest for a boy friend continues. I have an interesting prospect at the moment (but I don't want to jinx it by mentioning more details yet) and I finally did something this year I've always wanted to do. I slept with someone on my birthday.

Sadly, RJ and I only slept together since his appendix had burst and we spent the night together in the hospital. It was really nice and relaxing and fairly romantic until the nurse came in and asked if I was RJ's Dad! Ack! He's not that young! :)

RJ went off to prison after that night for busting his parole by failing a drug test (sigh) and that was not the nay prison story for me this year. Mike (my stalker from back in the day) called one day just to say "Hi" and that he was thinking about me. Eyes widening, I asked where he was and found out he was still in the prison out east somewhere. And finally found out that he was there because he "accidentally" killed someone.

At Samhain, I got a reading asking about what to do with these people from my past showing up again. The reading was interesting, the cards alternated between male and female and every card had something to do with fertility -- and every one of them was in opposition. No pressure or anything.

But perhaps it was a sign to spend more time on creative endeavors. I've started working on my book again. And the website that will support it. The site isn't published yet though there is a lot of work completed on it and on the Stone Reaches site. And Ashok and I have started developing an iPhone app which we're hoping to release soon.

I have lots of projects going :) Some of them should become "profitable" in the near future--stay tuned…

Title Reference: Muse, Uprising

Yep, I'm a Giver :)

Happy Happy Everyone!

Happy Solstice!

Yawn!
I stayed up last night to harold the sun's return this morning. A coworker and I went up to Red Rocks in Denver to participate in the Drumming Up of the Sun (DUTS). It was a fairly nice morning but a bit windy... Next year I think I'll bring a handwarmer :)

Anyway, I went today because I wanted to be part of the "community." I think next year we should schedule a DUTS in Denver one day and the Springs the other day of the two. (the 21st and 22nd in 2010 are on Tuesday and Wednesday) I went to see omens for the new year that's starting up. And I got one.

As the sun started to peek over the horizon, inflaming the clouds the color of glowing embers, we all cheered. It was a beautiful site. Then the clouds rushed in hiding the sun behind a band of thick black clouds.15 minutes later or so, the sun peeked above the band of clouds on the horizon and entered into the mostly cloud-free sky, smooth sailing for the rest of the morning.

I took that to mean that things are starting to look promising in the world today but there are rough spots ahead and that things may take longer than expected to come to fruition. But once they do, it'll be smooth sailing for us.

So Mote It Be
So Say We All

Blessed Be!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

This morning I woke up from fitful sleep, dreaming of impending doom much like my earlier radio station dream. I 'm taking it to mean that I've got too many balls in the air and that I need to corral some of my projects and finish them. My fortune cookie yesterday said as much ("To Accomplish Big Things You Must Start With Small Victories")

By time I actually got out of bed, the song "It's Beginning to Look alot Like Christmas" was repeating in my head. Then I went to the window to say "good morning" to the day and was surprised to see big fluffy snowflakes outside my window. (Admittedly not as surprised as I would have been to find them *inside* my window but you know what I mean.)

I went outside and quickly shoveled the sidewalk on our block and by time I was done, I was in a great mood. I had completed one task off my list for the day and it wasn't even breakfast time yet.

I brought my breakfast down to the computer and dashed off one of my class assignments then read the news feeds I get. And it occured to me I hadn't downloaded a feed from JazzTrax in ages. I downloaded the two December episodes so far and have been listening to them all day as I work on projects around the house. I feel *wonderful*! and ready to take on the next projects tomorrow at work.

In the meantime, I've got more projects to work on here in the basement so back to work. Hope your season is uplifting to you and allows you to get some much needed and deserved rest and perspective on how your year is going.

Title Reference:

We Are Searching For (a) Clue

Wow, this morning's dream was a long one. It seemed like it went on for hours. In it, I was volunteering at the local college radio/NPR station. I had shown up for my shift a few minutes late and found the NPR programing I usually played wasn't available for the day. Which meant I had to play music. The person on the shift before me had started a *record* for me in a genre I didn't really know.

So my task, which seemed like it happened in real time, was to fill my two (?) hours with music. And stay in the genre I had been started in. Ack! There were frequent stretches of dead air. Someone else was at the station and would periodically help me by throwing *something* on. It took me nearly the whole shift before I got on-air and even did the weather forecast.

Since the song in my head this morning is the opening sting from Blue's Clues, I assume that something important happened here. I'll need to write down my observations in my handy-dandy noteblog! So what does this all mean? Basically, I hate going into situations where I am just filling time with no plan. I hate just adlibbing. But I can do it. In fact, I believe I'm pretty good at it--*if* I have background in the material that I'm to use.

I hate reading scripts cold because I always feel like it sounds like I'm reading. Yet if I know the material, a few words is all I need to fill the time I have. This is how I lecture for example. A couple words on the slide to keep me on track (because I do like the structure and like to be able to confirm I got where I wanted to go)

So what's the message here? Why have I received the dream? Part of it was in response to last night's meeting where I muffed the speaker's intro. I apologized to him afterwards and he said he didn't mind, but I did.

What can I do to move forward? I had brought his intro written in a big font so I could see it easier. A good start. I need to practice more with the intros so I don't flub them. Helen suggested I memorize the gist of the intro and just adlib it. I think I'll try both. I want to appear to be as professional as I believe I am.

Title Reference:

Colorado Springs, 20 and 9

This morning's song is another in a set of depressing songs :) Who knew I knew so many?

The song is based on a series of letters found in an attic between an Irish immigrant and his family back home in Kilkelly in the late 1800's. They're "newsy" and filled with hope and longing, waiting for the immigrant son to return home. But they're conscious of the fact that the son is making money in the West and is helping to save the family.

I woke with the song going round in my head and opened a browser to look up the lyrics since I do not have this song in my collection. While doing that I opened my email box and this image was on the first email I opened.



It's from a very interesting article on the Art of Manliness website, but it troubled me. I do not have a structure like this. My sister and I are the end of the line for our family. While my Dad is still alive and an aunt and uncle, that's about it. And being gay, I'm unlikely to have a child to continue this progression. When my Dad came to visit a couple months ago he reminded me that he wasn't getting any younger and that I needed to get on with it; that he wanted grandkids soon.

I told him that wasn't likely if current trends continued and that my sister was probably a better candidate for this talk. :) She said, "Well, the name goes with you..." I had asked my buddy Joe to borrow one of his kids for the weekend with my dad but figured Dad wouldn't go for it since my sister wouldn't have told him I had kids already. Joe was willing to loan me all three of his kids for the weekend.

So where does this leave me? I'm not sure. I'm certainly not following the paths of my ancestors. And I don't know what to do about it. Part of me, a large part, is very OK with that. And part of me feels like I let down the system and my Dad.

A couple years ago I joined a Fraternity. These men are like Brothers to me on the whole. And many of them are following the man's path as expected more or less. A lot of them have remarried at least once but they all have kids and come to the Lodge to commiserate and explore their accomplishments as men together. I come because I want to commiserate that I don't have these same accomplishments and talk about the ones I have made. My Brothers seem to take me in stride. No one has chastised me for not having gone down the family route and none have praised me for it either. I'm not really sure where I am.

Maybe it's time to call up the family and set up a visit, as soon as I can.

Title Reference Jim Brannigan Kilkelly">

Waking T'Chris Devine

Well that's odd. There have been no songs the last couple mornings. Or maybe it's not odd, I've never tracked them seriously before.

It may be that it's Finals week at school and my brain is occupied with Engineering tasks or the overflow of work. But this morning driving into work, I noticed a quiet song playing in my head. It doesn't have words so I wasn't sure what to do with it. I looked up the album. The song is called "Beyond Spirits and Dreams" and is the lead in to the second most depressing yet romantic song I know, "Hear Me." (the single most depressing song I know is "Hallelujah" by Rufus Wainwright--the first time I heard it on the radio I had to pull over and pull myself together) I had never really noticed that they were seperate songs before. The line in "Hear Me" that gets to me every time I hear it is

like a house deserted I'm roofless and alone... where is your voice? where is your touch? (...) where is the light I miss so much?

I suppose this is a response to this weekend's reading that I took to say that I would be *alone* for this year. But talking to my "guru" yesterday it suddenly gelled to me that the question I had asked was about the four "wierd people" that had shown up in my life again. Maybe the cards were just warning me to clear them out (one card surely said that) and get on with my life.

Another thought hits as I write this is that it's not a lover that's missing (though he is) but the Creator (it)self. Lately I've been pulled to do more in my Spiritual life. This weekend, after Finals are over, I should explore this...

Stay tuned...

Title Reference: Waking Ned Devine: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack"