Katrina

Some amazing arial shots above the eye of Katrina.

Mariner's Game with Tom

Beer, baseball, peanuts and a pal. What could be more American than that? Last night was the only game I'll catch this season, and man, Tom and I picked a good night. There was nothing about the evening I did not enjoy, from it's beginning (involving a couple of Irish Car Bombs) to it's end (speeding along I-5 with the window down and cool breeze pushing through the car).

Well, actually, there was one little thing. Actually, a little person. A young girl, perhaps 18 years old, with a Yankee's cap on, to be exact. She sat just behind us and two seats to the left. We knew something was wrong right away as she was cheering for the enemy, the NY Yankees. We didn't know what we were in for until Alex Rodriguez stepped up to the plate. From her two little lungs she released a mighty scream of support, in defiance of the sweeping rounds of boos that A-Rod was receiving from his former Seattle fans. The first one caught us off guard, and something rattled loose in my left ear.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOH!!!!"

Tom and I exchanged glances and the game continued on. But the further into the game we got, and the more the Yankees were losing, the louder and more insistent she became. At one point I turned around to address our portly little back-seat sports fanatic. "Wow, that's really loud, are you fin..."

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOH!!!!"

"That's quite a pair of lu...."

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOH!!!!"

"Can you please st......"

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOH!!!!"

My fingers flew to my ears as the barrage continued to rage, and I watched Tom's fist clench and unclench against his thigh. "Wouldn't it just be something to snap, to just go postal on her!" Tom exulted, and I can picture those images of violence filling his mind. I was having a lot of unpastoral thoughts myself. A-Rod was walked and she nearly popped out of her skin with the pure ecstacy of seeing her bat-weilding god trot slowly to first.

How do people get to be that way?

Painted Hands

Bird Brains

Noticed that it's a little quieter in the morning? A lot of the birdsong that we heard throughout the spring and summer seasons is quieted, as many migratory birds have already departed for the winter. But even the resident birds no longer make their charming song. And why, you ask, is that? (... waiting on pins and needles, barely able to contain the bubbling well of curiosity) It's because the size of the birds brain shrinks for the fall and winter, the non-breeding season, giving it a lighter body weight, giving it a greater chance of making it through the winter. Literally, the bird is unable to make the song that it made a month ago. To hear the interesting two-minute blurb about this that I caught this morning on NPR, click here.

Billion

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective:

A billion seconds ago, it was 1959.
A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.
A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it.

Intelligent Design vs. Slime + Time

Recently my brother and I jumped back into our discussion on evolution vs. creation. I think that this whole debate is especially key right now in our day and age, with the stakes being huge. Have you noticed how hotly this is debated among the scientific community? Ever wondered why? I believe the bottom line is the idea that if we are all the product of intelligent design, we are accountable to the Creator who put us here. A lot of people don't like the idea of any other being that is ulimately higher than ourselves, to whom we must give an account. We want to do whatever the heck we want to do. The only way this can work is if we are here by chance, millions of chances, all stacked one on top of the other. This provides no moral framework, with no ultimate accountability, from which to make decisions, and we get to invent our own ideas about what is right and wrong.

Are you read up on the arguments? For pro-evolution viewpoints, check out www.talkorigins.org. To see what creationists have to say, go to the Institute for Creation Research or Answers in Genesis.

It's a Big World

22 million people live in Mexico City. You are not one of them.

What're You Thinking, Pat?

Apparently Pat Robertson recently advocated assassinating the president of Venezuala. Is this the message that we want to be sending to the world?

Not an Easy Task

Today I had the dubious distinction, along with a few of my coworkers, of being chosen for the task of unstacking a bunch of blue anvils (those of you who have worked Microsoft shows know what I speak of) and individually opening them, checking for missing equipment, then latching them closed and restacking them (they're not light). Though the job was less than inspiring, I did get lucky enough to discover a little treat in one of the beastly cases--a wrapped, brand-new Rubik's Cube! Bringing it back to my desk I soon discovered a latent desire that has been buried under the hubris of my years of maturation, and I quickly googled "rubik's cube solutions" to begin becoming just that much more self-actualized as an individual. What I uncovered is that the solution to a Rubik's Cube is "simple," as described by an expert who, in the 1982 World Championships in Budapest, averaged 21.88 seconds in his ten best solution, his single best being 14.87 seconds.

It's taken me 45 minutes to get halfway through the first step of seven.

And videos like this one make me feel retarded.

Ugly Ugly Ugly!!!

Wow, this is by far the ugliest dog that I have ever seen in my life. Be sure to check out the photo albums. Thanks to Michael Finley for walking into my cube today and scrawling this link on my whiteboard.

Time Stops for No Man

Nice to watch. (No pun intended)

Death by Caffeine

Find out how many cups of your favorite caffeinated beverage it would take to kill you. 85.06 cups of drip coffee would put me in the grave, apparently.

Artistic Moments in the Bathroom

Would anybody want to own one of these? Whoever heard of artistic urinals???

Let's Take a Vote

And the vote is... is this font too small? I can change it, if you are having a hard time reading the text. Please post your vote by clicking the 'comments' button below.

Bovines Who Use

Beware of beef that makes you feel "kinda funny."

Airlines Crash

Seems to me that there's been a lot of airline tragedies lately. What is the deal?

Cloning Disasters

What happens when cloning goes terribly wrong:

The British Lion Roars

I think that this guy has it right.

Persuasion

Well, I've finally gone and done it... my very own blog!

Recently I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine, Veronica Minor, and she suggested that I post a calendar online so that people can keep track of where I'm at since I do so much traveling for my job. I coupled this request with another conversation that I had with another delightful friend, Jennifer Staab, who encouraged me to WRITE WRITE WRITE. Writing is something that I both love and hate. I know that I should, ought to, really probably WILL someday, but that fact is that life is too short to play games and procrastinate, so NOW IS THE TIME.

I've also been hooked on caps lately, if you can't tell. It just makes everything so DECLARATIVE. Lord forbid I move into the needless use of italics and bold print... because we all know that the next step after that would be colors. At that point, you may as well just shoot me.