Today my blog celebrates its second birthday. Yeah! Now, on to weightier things:
Today I strolled down to Barnes & Noble to pick up a book for my boss. She can get a little stressed out and I feel for her sometimes. I decided to get her a book for the next time she has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. The book I got her was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. This was a book that I had when I was a kid. For some reason, it always stuck with me. I am sometimes surprised with the things I cherish from my childhood. Now that my kids are reaching the same age as I was when these things were important, I try to pay special attention to what they are doing and experiencing.
My sister is a children’s librarian and she has introduced us to several series of books. The series that know will have an indelible place in my children’s life is a series of book about a Pigeon by Mo Williams. I am eagerly awaiting his next book, Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed. (Actually, it is already out. I just found out about it tonight).
MS SUNBM seems to have taken a vacation. Perhaps a summer vacation.
Over the last few weeks, I have had three vehicle related markers to look for in the morning. The first was at 7:08(ish) when a school bus would drive past the house Northbound. Then at 7:15(ish) MS SUNBM would honk. Finally, at about 7:25(ish), the Northbound school bus had completed its route and would pass the house Southbound. This past week marked the end of the summer school season and, as you may expect, the buses stopped running. And apparently so has MS SUNBM. I’ve been keeping an eye out for her, and she is conspicuous by her absence.
So now I have a working theory that she is an employee of the school district. I’ll post a follow up after the school year starts to see how accurate my observation is.
And so it goes.
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p.s. The road that she drives by on is on the West side of house.
Today marks the 64th anniversary of the start of the atomic age. At 05:29 on July 16, 1945, the very first atomic weapon was detonated in the Jornada del Muerto in New Mexico under the code name Trinity.
I have always been fascinated by this event. Several years ago I started to learn what I could about the origin, development, testing and use of nuclear technology. I collected videos and articles from the very scientists who developed the methods that made nuclear fission possible. It was clear from their writings that they both loved and hated what they were doing. The end result of their labor could only have one possible outcome, yet they pressed on. From some, it was the thrill of finding the answer first. For others it was a very strong feeling that this secret was going to be cracked sooner or later. Better it be ‘us’ than ‘them’.
The single most fascinating item I learned was that this whole race was essentially kicked off in Germany, where scientists there had split a Uranium atom. The implications of that discovery were obvious to a few key scientists. Given the aggression of Germany, they felt that action needed to be taken in order defeat Germany before they created the weapon above. In the long run, it was discovered that Germany was nowhere near developing a bomb. Where have I heard that before?
The single most frightening thing I learned was just how easy it is to build a bomb like the one featured above, at least on a conceptual level. Given enough time and enough leeway, any country could develop the technology and means to produce a crude atomic weapon. The plutonium implosion weapon featured above would be considered highly primitive and it still has the explosive power of twenty thousand tons of TNT. (Just to put that size into perspective, the largest weapon detonated by the US was Castle-Bravo. It came in at fifteen megatons, or fifteen million tons of TNT.)
There is a family story about my Pop, my maternal grandfather, who owned a saw mill in northern Kentucky. During the War, materials were very scare and he needed some parts to keep his mill operational. A friend of his told him to go do the dealer and tell him the parts were for the Manhanttan Project. The next day he had the parts.
I withhold judgement on whether or not the United States should have gone down the nuclear path. I leave that question for people far smarter that myself. It is of little difference to me what we did or did not do. The history of the development and use of this weapon is far, far more complex than most people realize. The players who brought this scene to life were both egotistical and humble, both madmen and saints. I do not envy the leaders who were faced with the decisions leading up to this event. I can only say that I hope that I am never in a place where I would be faced with such a terrible choice.
The title of this post is from the Hindu scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita. Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific leader of the Manhattan project, later said during an interview that this quote went through his head as the bomb detonated. The director of the Trinity test, Kenneth Bainbridge, had a more colorful remark: ‘Now we are all sons of bitches’.
So every weekday for the last six weeks or so, this car has been driving by the house and honking twice. It happened for about a week before I really started to look for it. Each morning, right about 7:15, a golden colored sedan drives by and honks.
This morning, put a chair into the driveway, right behind the van and waited. After about five minutes, I could see her rounding the corner and then she honked.
As it turns out, my mystery honker has a personalized license plate: MS SUNBM. Now that I have a name (of sorts), I am going to make a sign for the front yard asking MS SUNBM to kindly stop honking.
It is possible that she is honking at the neighbors, I don’t know. I suppose I really don’t care if she wants to honk as she goes by, but I would like to know why.
I saw this on woot today. Great song. Great reason.
I’ve have been busy studying for the CFA exam that happens in about 11 months. I have been trying (and succeeding) in doing study blitz to get a lot of work done in a short time. Just trying to make it a habit. It is working so far. Once that is down pat I will hit the blogging trail again.
Props to my sister Joy who finished her first triathlon last weekend. Visit her blog for the not so gory details. Good job Joy. Leela Joy says she is proud to be named after you.
For those of you who know me, you know that I have a particular affinity for the band Rush. I first heard about Rush when I was a sophmore in high school. I was dating a flute player at the time, so I started hanging out in the band room. All of the drummers listened to this band called Rush. I started listen to the group and I really liked them. I got to know one of the drummer pertty well, Jim, and he lent me a video of a Rush concert called A Show Of Hands.
I took the video out to my car and started reading the back of the VCR box. That was when I read that Rush was comprised of just three guys. I was really impressed that three guys could make such complex music. The more I listened to them, the more I liked them. Their first album, self-title Rush was relased when I was four months old. They relased their 19th original album, Snakes and Arrows last year. The style of music has changed through the years, but it all carries the same spirit that makes it fun to listen to.
Of all the people I know who have heard Rush, I can put them all into one of two camps: I Love Rush or I Hate Rush. (I am sure that I have met some people who are luke warm, that doesn’t make for a good blog post. So I’ll follow the general example set by the government (all of them, not just the current) and pretend that they don’t exist so I can make my point much, much more dramatic that it really is.) There is also a nearly perfect correlation bewteen love and hate and musician, not musican. I think you have to be a musician to really appreciate what they do. Just like being a writer enhances your ablity to discern great writing.
This year marks the 20th year that I have been a Rush fan. I hope to teach my kids how neat Rush is. I don’t care if they don’t like Rush, but I will teach them to appreciate Rush.
Sorry for the long absence, but I have not been feeling particularly inspired lately so I took a break. It would be a shame if I were to pump out poor quality posts just to fill pages. My loyal readers are used to only the highest quality posts. On that note, did you hear that the ghost of Elvis married another ghost?
Personally, I was shocked. How could he do that to all of us loyal, living fans. Whatever.
Noelle was in a her annual talent show at school. Here is the video.
It is really neat to see Noelle perform like that. The best part is that she does not even seem nervous. There were other kids who did similar acts, but none of them did it with her verve.
Tonight we are enjoying a rare Sacramento thunderstorm. The kids think it is great. I don’t ever remember having these storms when I was growing up. Curse you global warming!
I am will be continuing my ‘This is my life’ section, with 1980-83 on deck. Highlights include a six week trip to Kentucky, my first grade graduation and the time I boiled water to make tea and managed to trip while holding the pan and scaled myself. All this and more, next time, on Fermatd.
Sorry for the extended break. I have been doing a lot of developing over the last few weeks. For starters, I am working on a series for the blog that is like a life story. I have been reading Tim Russert’s book, Big Russ and Me, and I am inspired to do a little writing about myself.
Second, I am in the process of moving my WordPress account from the basic web-based to a domain-based platform. That will allow me to pay less for my e-mail and play around with some ads to play for the thing. I am hoping to have that rolled out in mid to late April.
Today is Saint Patrick’s Day. I remember when I was working at Wyndham Consumer Finance some folks in accounting were throwing a Saint Patrick’s Day party. They were looking for trivia questions, so I gave them a few that were Catholic based. The primary organizer got a somewhat distasteful look and and stated, ‘I think we should leave Catholicism out of this.’ To which I replied, ‘Then you shouldn’t be celebrating ‘Saint Patrick’s Day, should you…’
It’s somewhat comical to me, that in our increasingly secular society, we loose sight of the fact that so much of our history is based on religous ideas and people. The two largest cities in California, as well as its capitol, are named in honor of Mary, St. Francis of Assisi and the Blessed Sacrament.
Los Angeles: El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula (The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porziuncola). ’Our Lady’ being the Blessed Virgin Mary.
As you enjoy your beer and beef (or in my case, beer and yummy raw food something. I don’t know yet), try to give some thought to those who went before you and try to consider the impact you will have on others.
When I am not busy at work or rearing four kids, I like to take some time to play Fantastic Contraption. Here is the idea:
You are given five objects. A wheel that rotates clock-wise, one that rotates counter-clockwise, and one that is neutral. You also have a solid rod and a liquid rod. Nothing can pass through the solid rod while most objects can pass through the liquid rod. You also have a construction area, a goal area and a goal object. You simply try to get the goal object (a ball or square or combinations) into the goal.
Observe:
or
and
The best part is that you can pay a one-time $10 fee and design your own levels and play other people designs.
Hope this wastes a lot of time for you, because this is pretty fantastic.
