February 2005 Archives

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

Gone by his own hand, Hunter S. Thompson's books will live on. If you've read them, you understand. If you haven't, you need to do it.

It has been one of those weeks. I think it is best termed as the mid-term crunch.With papers to do and tests to be taken, I have barely had time to breathe. And when I thought I was actually in control of the pace, my pager would go off and it was off to the races with the fire company. I really am finding that going through Fire Police Training and becoming a part of the volunteer fire service is exciting and a way to give back to the community. I only regret not doing it sooner. As far as school goes, I passed my first Paleo test (hurray!) and I think I did fine on my Structural mid-term. The other classes are going fine and I am actually caught up on my lab work. Now if I could just get caught up with my notes. A good thing is that we have no Paleo next week which means I can spend my spare time, in lab, getting through the taxonomy we have learned so far. My goal is to get 100% up-to-date in the next 10 days. Will I make it? We will see. I also took some time tonight to set up a list of old friends who I have not kept in touch with over the past century (it seems that long). My goal is to work my way through the list, one a week. Started tonight with someone I worked with in drama productions in high school and college (no, I am not Master Thespian, more like Stage Hand :-)). I have a few on the list that I have no clue as to where they are or how to get in touch with them. I'll just work through it, one person at a time. Hopefully, I will get lucky, finding one who know where another one is. Now to sleep - last two classes of Fire Police Training this weekend!

And that is exactly what I did last night when the usually endless stream of ones and zeroes came to an abrupt halt. Earlier in the day, I had been at Barnes and Noble, picking up a Valentine Day treat for Mary and saw Jeremy Leggett's book on global warming. Since I am taking an environmental class and, yes, the main theme is the role of carbon in global warming, I thought I'd pick the book up. Well, let's just say that I was at page ninety-something in no time flat. Formerly a professor who taught students how to find fossil fuels, he has spent the past decade and a half working with Greenpeace and is now the CEO of a solar electric power company. The book will give you an insight into just how much influence the fossil fuel industry has in US economy and government.

The Austrian muscle boy has decided that all of his state's problems are being caused by Democrats who are spenidng fanatics. Described in an article in today's LA Times:

In a fiery speech to Republican faithful Friday evening, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ridiculed Democrats as wasteful spending "addicts" who have been taking "sleeping pills," and he characterized California's problems as stemming from "evil."

It seems to me that his feeling is that if the majority party in California representing the majority of its population does not agree with his programs that they are just plain wrong.

Democratic lawmakers said they would hold their first hearing on the governor's package by the end of the month. Schwarzenegger, who introduced his plan a few weeks ago, asked whether the Legislature was taking "sleeping pills" and said he was running out of patience. The governor has said that if the Legislature did not pass his proposals and put them on the ballot for voters to approve, a series of initiatives written by his allies and endorsed by Schwarzenegger would be readied on the same subjects.

He also took the opportunity to aim further sarcasm against one of the greatest families of the Democrat Party.

Schwarzenegger began his speech with some rhetorical red meat for the conservative crowd, making a joke about the family of his wife, Maria Shriver. He said it was amazing that the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl again, adding: "It's great to see a New England dynasty that is not the Kennedys."

Some Valentine's Day gift for Maria, eh? While there are many immigrants who would be worthy of a Constitutional Amendment to allow them the privledge to become President of the United States, I think we need to qualify it to not include this blockhead.

And not the musical variety, either. MSNBC is reporting a minor earthquake in Arkansas.

The temblor, preliminarily put at magnitude 4.1, shook eastern Arkansas and western Tennessee early in the morning. It was centered 47 miles (75 kilometers) north-northwest of Memphis.

Ok, you say So what, who cares? If you are a geologist or an American historian, you already know why this event is causing a stir. This seismic area is known as New Madrid.

The infamous series of three New Madrid quakes in 1811-1812 occurred a few weeks apart, from Dec. 16 to Feb. 7. They measured 8.1, 8.0 and 7.8 and represent three of the four strongest earthquakes ever recorded in the lower 48.

A harbinger of things to come? You can learn more about New Madrid and seismic activity in this area of the US at the Arkansas Center for Earthquake Education and Technology Transfer web site at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock.

My twenty-four hours of hell are finally over. I gave it my all and I have spent the past week picking up my Paleo notes every second I get and, yesterday and today, I maximized that effort in preparing for my first test today. Up until the minute Steve handed out the test, I was making sure that I remembered that the differences between the Kingdom Fungi and Kingdom Protista as well as why there were no extensive fossil records for Eubacteria in the form of stromatolites (they were tasty little suckers in one reason). I actually think I one, didn't forget much, and two, did well on the test. We don't have lab next week since Steve will be off at a meeting the following week. So, my plan is to start back at the beginning and redo all of the labs and identifications. That way, I can be sure that I remember them. I just hope my memory cooperates. Time to kick back, relax, and look over Mary's Historical Geology lab.

Reading about the crackdown by the King of Nepal in the NY Times and the Baltimore Sun, I went over to the local Nepal newspapers to see what's what. Other than the paper's web site being slow to load, their coverage seems to be one of relief with phone and Internet services returning. Why the tag line on this article? Describing the situation in Nepal, the NY Times says:

Six days ago Nepal's king ended the country's 15-year experiment with democracy and took power for himself, imposing a state of emergency and suspending a host of civil liberties, including freedom of expression. Nepalis have been facing something between fear and a farce since then, adjusting to a combination of royal rule and martial law. Those in politics and the news media feel particularly under siege.

Not that I am saying that we are in a situation of martial law, but the Patriot Act and other actions by the current administration in Washington to use the US Constitution as a rough draft all point to further loss of our personal freedom. Bush's Internet may become our Internet where all you can do is find information that is spun to their liking and find ways to rat out those who don't agree with it. Nepal today, here tomorrow? I hope not.

Tonight, I spent my first evening in Fire Police school. There are just three of us in the class so we can all get personalized attention. We spent most of the time talking about the purpose of Fire Police, what we can and cannot do, and general information about the proper uniform. We also started to learn about how to properly route traffic around a fire or accident scene using flares and traffic cones. Over the next 3 evenings and two weekends, we will learn more about the traffic code and crowd control, as well as emergency driving. Of course, I wanted something to signify what I learned as a part of this post. What better to illustrate it than the orange traffic cone. Not having a picture, I went into Google and found the one pictured here. The funny thing was that I found it on Amazon. Yes, Amazon even sells safety equipment. Need one? Please use the link below to help support this web site. I find it humorous that when you usually get a link box for Amazon, it has a picture or representation of the item being sold. This one doesn't have one. I guess they are embarrassed to be selling them. Now, it is time to go back to studying the more important subject: Paleontology.

This makes my own personal feelings official. Ars Technica has named WordPress the Web application of the year:

We asked forumgoers to choose the best web application or development framework of the year. Web-based applications provide interaction for all users regardless of platform or location. If you can connect to the web, you can use it. Forums, blogs, administration tools, collaboration frameworks; there were many excellent options to choose from in 2004. Winner: WordPress Let's face it. Blogs are in fashion, and why not? Vanity knows no bounds, and there are some people who actually do something productive with theirs. From the influence of blogs on the coverage of the US presidential elections to every random teenager who has problems with their partner/parent/teacher/cat, blogs are out there allowing your most intimate feelings to be shared with random people at wifi hotspots. WordPress is the most prominent rising star of weblog software, completely free and with a large and active community. Styles, plugins and hacks are readily available, with problems such as comment spamming being addressed far more rapidly than competing applications.

A big tip of the hat to Matt and the development crew at WP, as well as the legions of WP users and supporters worldwide.

Feeling much better this morning after my bout with the porcelain gods yesterday. Thinking about some perl code I have to write today seems to have cured me. I have to get this code up fast on a new web site because my major mission for the next week is to study, study, study Paleontology.

A picture is worth a thousand pixels :-) Captured using SCWebcam

I actually thought that I had put this up already. It is important for all Democrats to make sure that the DNC knows loud and clear that this is the only choice that they can make! With Donnie Fowler's endorsement today, the road to victory is even shorter. Go Howard!

No, not as in surveillance devices, but the kind that crawl around your innards and make you feel like soggy toast. I do not think it is related to the chicken salad hoagie Mary brought home from Wawa. I just think that attempting to consume it aggrevated it. So, after a nap and a bowl of plain white rice, I have reached a more human level of existence. What makes me mad is that I should be out with the boys enjoying an evening of billiards and frivolity. Instead, I think I will take it easy, do some web work, and listen to Mike Malloy on AirAmerica. I must be in 100% good shape to begin studying for my first Paleontology test next week.

I actually thought I had licked my brain block with memorizing the strange scientific names used by paleontologists to classify ad nauseum fossils. I had the kingdom, phylum, class, and order for sponges locked away in my brain before tonight's quiz. I went through the specimens, even think I got most of them correct. I walked out of the lab and realized that the phylum for last week and this week both bgan with the letter "p": porifera (for sponges) and protista (for one-celled organisms). The worst thing happened. Yes, I got them backwards. I classified all those wonderful sponge fossils in the correct Kingdom (Animalia) but the wrong phylum. All I can say is crap! Oh, there's always next week...

I cannot believe that my week off from classes is just about over. I do not even know where the time went. I can believe that I am busily finishing up studying for my classes tomorrow. These past seven days went by in a fast-paced blur, one that was filled with a variety of things to do, places to go, and people to meet. I need to put the finishing touches on my Environmental homework and get back to memorizing the paleo specimens of the week. Are we having fun yet? You bet we are!