Our Cabin In The Woods

Our humble cabin in the woods is available for view as part of photo documentation of the north Alabama winter storm of 1988:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hun/events/Jan1988snow/WINTERHS.JPG

Field of Study

On a bus ride back from Saturday night's football game, I talked with an older gentleman who has seen our team's ups and downs over the decades. He said that what he liked best in a quarterback is a person who knows change. ["Change is having no point of reference from the past," as someone once told me long ago.] For both him and me, we have seen great quarterbacks graduate from our university, including a former college player now playing in the pro league, a seasoned signal caller and winner of a championship ring.

Our current college quarterback dreamed of playing college ball at our school. He has survived the past year's change of coaching staff and leads his team during his senior year. I see in him sparks of confidence that the pro player shows week in and week out.

What is the difference between the two? A good point of reference.

The pro player had his father as an older quarterback point of reference and later his brother as a younger point of reference. From that view, as well as a professional approach to all aspects of the game, the pro player has ensured his legacy.

The college player has a different point of reference, matching his dreams against reality. I wish he could see that the coaches, the players, the fans and even the pro player are all standing beside him and willing him to make his dreams a reality. He can take the 2 to 3 seconds of fast-paced game decision making and make it his own, just like a great baseball player can watch the spinning stitches of an incoming ball and decide which one to hit. The field is his to own, to stake his claim on the remaining games of the season and declare victory, melding his ability and the ability of his receivers, backs and blockers into one complete moment.

I take a satirical approach to life so that I can offset reality and look for insight into human behaviour. The college quarterback can use humour to lighten up his mood and loosen up his on-field performance as well as show others his ability to have fun even when the game is rough.

A great leader seizes the moment and shares it with everyone. I'm ready for the college quarterback to make this season shine, leading his whole offensive unit to greatness. His moment is now.

= = =

To the reader asking about the last blog entry, the reference to breath and other fluids traveling through our weather was inspired by this:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/090911-space-water-dump.html

Weather Radar Analysis Results

While setting up the microscope last night, I turned on the supercomputer I built with popsicle sticks and bubble gum wrappers when I was a kid. Instead of the silly straight-line extrapolation charts that global warming alarmists like to shove in my face from the top of scissor lifts, I asked the supercomputer to show me actual data that would, not might, occur. Funny how well a computer works when you ask it for reasonable data.

Turns out that our planetary system has a series of checks and balances that give local residents a false understanding of what the system is doing. Yes, there appears to be whole-scale melting of large chunks of ice in this glass of sweet tea, but the near-term cooling effect from the ice vacillates and gives circulating cool masses a spin.

I don't like terms like "global warming" or "widespread desertification." I like positive-sounding terms like "land-use reclamation" or "sea lane expansion." We'll figure out what's wrong when we're all standing around the shores of the Arctic casting lines to catch the last fish.

Sort of similar to my response when looking at frequencies on my phone line and the way they trigger real or fake caller ID signals - I'll answer the phone when it's someone I know, with whom I'll have an intelligent conversation. The rest are trying and failing to get my attention.

Ground-Up Secrets

I have friends all over the world. Colleagues and acquaintances also have me as a contact point. Occasionally, a stranger will give me information with no motive in mind. Overall, people communicate with people all the time and sometimes I'm one of those people. Like I say, easy and simple living in the moment.

Yesterday afternoon I ran into a person I don't know but with whom I established immediate rapport. The guy had a weathered face that he'd earned while working for an offshore oil rig company, transporting workers back and forth from the company's bayside docks. He called himself Johannsun, a unique spelling he attributed to his mother's sense of humor.

Johannsun told me he drove without an official government-issued driver's license because he believed in the freedom to operate a vehicle on the open road as long as he obeyed traffic laws. He wasn't a free loader, however. He owned a maintenance company that serviced equipment for a line of global speedy-service fried food restaurants.

He and I sat at the bar of a new Cajun restaurant and flirted with the female servers. His favorite server from another bar in town, Chaztutee, had just started at the Cajun place. For two straight hours, she kept both of us waterlogged and rolling on the floor laughing.

Chaztutee excused herself and left the bar. While Johannsun and I sat with our elbows propped up on the shiny, lacquered counter, an old Cambodian woman walked up between us.

"Hello, fellows."

I turned and looked down, drawn into the dark pools that served as the woman's eyes. "Hi there."

The woman grabbed our shoulders and pulled us closer to her head. "My name is Viven. Much is here is not what it seems."

Johannsun let out a big laugh. "You ain't kiddin', old lady. Why don't you set here beside me and share a brew?"

Viven looked at me. "You know what is going on, don't you?"

I searched my thoughts and then searched the Web for "viven cajun." In my vision appeared a set of websites and blogs about "Viven the Powderer." What in the world? I blinked my eyes and cleared the Web browser from my thoughts.

"You're Viven the Powderer."

Viven bowed her head at me. "And you are B the Knowledgeable."

Have I told you that I don't read science fiction, fantasy, children's, mythological, or other books and tales of make-believe? Well, I don't. I did when I was a kid, mainly because I thought that was the only reading source available, my parents having read such books to me in the crib. As an adult, though, I read business philosophy books, medical journals, scientific treatises, PhD theses and other information tied to reality which most humans on the street would agree with. In other words, I don't walk around with titles attached to my name, although I once carried business cards with me that gave my name, work address and the title, "Miracle Worker."

Johannsun punched me on the shoulder. "You're B the Knowledgeable. Well, fuck a duck. Glad to know you really exist."

I smiled and snorted a laugh at Johannsun. I looked around the restaurant and spotted an Asian man leaning against the kitchen door, his face hidden in shadows. He was texting on a cell phone. I turned back to Johannsun and the woman. "Yeah, I guess I do."

A man in his late 20s or early 30s with Chinese features walked across the room. "Are you having a good time?"

We all nodded.

"I'm Frank, the owner of 'Boiled and Cajun Mad,'" his accent a cross between the movie actor, John Wayne, and the basketball player, Yao Ming.

Johannsun stuck out his hand. "I'm Johannsun. This here's Rick, or 'B the Knowledgeable.' And this ol' lady is..."

We looked at the barstool beside Johannsun and no one was there. We snapped quick glances around us and couldn't find Viven.

"Pardon me?"

"Well, Frank, I was going to introduce you to our new friend but seems she had more important business to attend to."

"I see." Frank's cell phone buzzed. "If you need anything, let me know. Otherwise, Chaz will take care of you."

I nodded. "Thanks, Frank."

Frank patted me on the back and I felt a shock as if static electricity had discharged between us. However, on a hot July day it seemed unlikely that static would build up to that extent. He walked back to the kitchen.

Johannsun stood up. "Rick, when a person appears and disappears while you're sittin' at a bar, 's time to call it a day. Plus, them cops are cruisin' the streets extra careful-like this week. Think I'll skip out of here before I start seein' little green leprechauns promising me a pot of gold."

I shook Johannsun's hand. "See you later. I'm going to finish this drink before I go."

I looked around the room. I put my hand against my neck and felt for a pulse. Yes, I was alive and yes, the restaurant appeared normal.

I tilted my head up, eased the last drop of liquid lightning to the edge of the glass tumbler and let it drop onto my tongue. I sighed and slammed the drinking glass on the counter. Looking back at me in the mirror was Viven.

"Hello again."

I nodded, deciding to let my imagination have its way.

Viven scratched her chin and scrunched her face, her tightened eyelids barely revealing the obsidian orbs in her head. "There is no meat in ground beef. Sausage is made of rice."

I shrugged my shoulders, neutrality the very essence of my being.

"Crushed rocks become radio waves."

I scratched my crotch, my scrotum itching from the sweaty heat in the bar.

"You have no leaves without trees."

I felt an itch in the middle of my back and concentrated on it, knowing my fingers could not reach the space between my shoulder blades.

"You believe me but put on a show of indifference for Frank. Very wise."

I closed my eyes and yawned, not having slept well in the past few days.

"I will meet you again soon. Think about what I said. Dangling earrings make a woman's neck look longer. A woman should not powder her nose unless her lips sparkle like jewels."

I opened my wallet and put some money on the counter. I spun around a couple of times on the barstool for fun and stood up. Viven was gone.

Suddenly, in my thoughts I saw the plans for a network of amateur-launched UAVs and microsatellites communicating using the interplanetary Internet standards, bypassing government regulations through the guise of religious research called the UniVerseNet. A set of botnets on the ground controlled and operated the amateur UniVerseNet. Across the amateur network, I watched a computer program calculate the ease with which any ordinary citizen could create new substances using readily-available material like quartz, other rocks/minerals, water and cleaning products sold in internationally distributed general merchandise stores. The new substances turn everyone into their own home-based pharmaceutical suppliers, making expensive drugs no longer marketable. Holistic healing becomes universal. Expertise loses its exclusivity. Research and development moves out of secret corporate/government labs and into the public domain.

I walked out of the restaurant and into the sunlight, momentarily losing my bodily connection to the Internet. I was temporarily free. I took a deep breath and smelled Chinese food. I remembered the dim sum restaurant next door to the Cajun restaurant and realized they were owned by the same person or family, just like the French and German restaurants in town were owned by a different family. Several Mexican restaurants in the area were owned by another family, just like Italian restaurants before them. Probably the same for the Thai restaurants.

Family. That's what it's about it, isn't it? Get behind the "it" and it is us. People. Perhaps now's the time to tell my students about clustering and the value in virtual parallel computing, leading them to the Next Big Thing they carry deep in their thoughts. Let them figure out if they want to overcome the consumerism and retail shopping therapy ingrained in them from childhood and seek life outside the box. Time to close this box and spend time with the rest of the universe, networked long before our species showed up.

A Toy Life

Upon what do you focus your thoughts? This morning I finished reading the Maya Angelou book I bought the other day, having completed E.M. Cioran's book a day or so ago. In the news this morning I saw that Frank McCourt died during the weekend.

Right now, I charge a pack of NiMH batteries to use in a remote-controlled, electric-motor powered, RTF (Ready To Fly) glider that can climb close to 1000 m. I flew the glider often many years ago, letting the winds aloft and the loss of remote control drift the plane far away so I'd have to search for it - something in me wanted to give the plane a life and set it free, I guess. One day, I flew the plane as high as I could get it with the controller and let it go, determined not to look for it. A few weeks later, while flying a second plane, a man returned my plane to me - it just couldn't get free.

At the time that I and others played with these "park flyers," I created a website, Research Park Flyers, which will disappear in October per news from Yahoo that Geocities will close down in the fall.

These days, kids are playing with indoor sport flyers that can hover, twist, make box turns and carve other creative flying patterns that take virtuality out of video gaming and place it in your hands. The military, too, takes RC flying to other playing fields, launching UAVs to observe and participate in wargames, using technology beyond my budgetary dreams.

So, while new development makes hobbies smaller and cheaper, with battery packs changing from NiMH to LiPo to ???, I pull out my old early 21st century flying gear to be a grownup kid again on this relatively cool summer day in mid-July.

I saw a moving picture show a while back in which a man transformed from his humble middle-class life to the life of a wealthy man who owned a collection of rare, vintage automobiles. The man still carried his humble dreams in his head so he built a plastic model of one of the antique cars he owned. His wife and/or his butler didn't understand why he got more pleasure from assembling the scale model than from driving the real thing.

I suppose many of us are made of plastic, aren't we, with our toys and our humble dreams? I've concluded that's what separates me from others, in that the dreams I mold are just as good or even better than reality. My imaginary worlds have more richness, less dirt, more fun, less boredom, easier fixes, fewer ambiguities, and reversible time. I don't have to wait for consensus to be made, committees to form or arguments to be settled. I can be young or old, healthy or sick, everything all at once or nothing. I can be a materialistic, nihilistic futurist and a bifurcating combinationalist, if I want.

I don't know what or if any of that has to do with putting food on the table, perhaps contributing to why I'm as frugal (or cheap) as I tend to be. However, I am a toy man, pliable and poseable, living in a toy world. It's a wonderful toy life. Time to play!

Cul-de-Sac [For Guys Only]

I had fallen into the habit of saying I was teaching classes at ITT Tech but have decided I am not teaching. I am truly leading or coaching the students/ customers - only they can teach themselves. This morning's class, which is all about demonstrating to the students/ customers that they own their own destiny, proved to me once again I know that we are all winners. In my class, a variety of personality types and skill sets show themselves in the collaborative projects the students/customers work on. The students/ customers have learned from each other the primary tenet of social order - constantly adapt and transform through human interaction.

On to a recent subject in my thoughts, the issue of an aging male body, that I've shared with my wife, who thinks I should get used to it.

Outside my window the redbud, shagbark hickory and deciduous holly hold fast in their dance with gravity, balanced against the turbulent downdraft winds of an early evening thunderstorm. A little while ago, I stood in the driveway looking up at my rooted friends, who truly have nowhere to go but up. One does not grow wise with years or trees would pull up stakes and run at the sight of us. I felt the first spits of rain on my face and knew the trees would show their resilience. I see blue skies now at 19:04, with pink-and-gray cloud puffs rolling by, dragging their feet across my wooden friends. Clouds do not exist but some humans would give more joy to see clouds than trees. How dare they! I cannot stop their nonsense. I can only tell my friends they're safe with me, more certain of death by termite, woodpecker or ants than bulldozer and chainsaw. We will share this space during my life with them. In return, they will provide me shade for no cost and entertain me with their seasonal changes, giving squirrels, skinks and vines a place to go.

While I watch the moving picture show out my window, I sit in a chair covered in dried and treated cowskin (a/k/a leather), which holds heat and warms my backside. Age met Gravity and decided to play tricks with my body. To be sure, my ears and nose sag a little. I can sometimes feel my earlobes touch my neck if I turn just right, a sensation new to my list of experiences, but I knew from books, movies and human interaction that such things happen to all of us. However, the heat buildup under my legs tells me of another new sensation I was unprepared to meet.

A sagging sac. You guys know what I mean. The old bag of marbles don't hold up like they used to.

Did I miss the social references in my youth? I have always kept an open eye when it comes to future expectations for my body. I remember when I was a kid seeing an actor/director named Richard Benjamin talking with another actor in a movie about a guy's urine stream losing its distance with time - you go from being able to write your name in a snowdrift 10 feet away to hoping you can stand over a urinal and aim your dribble into the ceramic bowl. I figure that's going to happen to me in my 50s or early 60s.

But the dependable scrotum? Must it swing in the wind like the pine seed pods and sweetgum balls I see in front of me, at the mercy of the elements?

I suppose so.

Now I sit here and feel my testicles heating up like a bag of tea in a microwave oven, forewarning me that my hairy load will itch like that unreachable place in the middle of my back, never completely satisfied by scratching or clawing. I want to cup the family jewels and hold them up in the air to cool and dry but typing would be hindered. Don't get me wrong. I don't have any sexual urges in a moment like this - I feel like the typical over-40 guy standing in the examining room while the doctor rolls my set of dice in his hand, hoping it doesn't come up snake eyes.

In class today, I stood at the podium for a moment while sorting through homework and lab assignment papers. In my head, I heard a gong and realized my hobo pack had decided to take a ride down out of my boxer briefs, apparently attempting to hitch a ride south to my ankles for a meet-and-greet. The thought of a gorilla scratching his crotch or a dog licking between his legs passed by. I wanted to reach down and adjust my manhood but didn't want to look like I was playing around in front of the students/ customers. I made an excuse and stepped out of the lab to rearrange my body to its liking.

I'm telling you all this so you women understand why we older guys walk with a gait. We're using the angular momentum of our swinging nuts to steady us on a sane forward track. This keeps our purpose for existence cool and happy, free of itching and out of range of zippers or elastic bands that look for loose-hanging curly hairs to grab and yank for yelping fun later on.

Some of the guys in my class like to tell a few jokes that the average preacher wouldn't repeat from the pulpit. I let them tell these bits of humor in the hallway or generally out of the way of those who might be sensitive to such balderdash. I wonder how many ministers have focused their sermons on a man's gravity-stricken body parts. Not many or not for long, I suppose.

Patterns, patterns everywhere...

I walked through the woods yesterday and talked to my wild friends (no, not the bikers down the street). "Talk" may be a word you understand but I did not use human words. I used short whistles to let the birds know I was inert.

They, in turn, told me another story. They haven't shared a good story with me in a very long time so you should know that today I am happy. A bird's story is a simple one, involves no morals and keeps it real, if you know what I mean.

Turns out that the mourning doves that hang out in my back yard have been looking at patterns lately. In actuality, that's really all they do but I let them believe their particular pattern matching was unique this time. They had been staring in the window of my house and noticed that I had been looking at pretty pictures. Because the window they chose to view my domestic life also serves as the wall of a sunroom, the doves saw a mirror image of the pictures that obviously fascinated me. Also, the doves are creatures of habit so they know precisely when they look in my window every day, coinciding with the moments I stare at financial data.

Yesterday, after filling the birdfeeders out back, I asked the doves if they were satisfied with the bird seed I'd purchased (using my difficult low-tone whistling technique to mimic dove calls as much as possible). Apparently, I used the wrong intonation and attracted a few doves who thought it was mating season. After clearing up the confusion, the lead dove told me that he wanted me to go back inside and show them the pretty pictures again, except this time to turn them 90 degrees.

I followed the dove's instructions and sure enough saw what they had seen. I posted the picture on this blog entry for you to see it, too. Amazing, isn't it! Now you should have a complete understanding of not only where this economy is headed but what to do with your life. If you can't see what I'm talking about, I wouldn't be able to explain it to you. Just take the dove's word for it. We're in for some beautiful weather ahead, after this storm front passes. Now whether a few tornadoes and flash flooding wipe things out over the next couple of years, that I can't tell you. I assume you have a fallout/tax shelter already set up, right? If not, you better hurry. It's not too late.

Snow - it's more than you know

You know the comment people make about the many words that inhabitants in northern latitudes have for snow? Where I grew up and where I now live, snow is all we know, although we learned a new word, "thundersnow," on the Weather Channel earlier today, to indicate conditions of a cold weather system spinning through Georgia.

White stuff covering any horizontal surface. Crystallized water. A solid. The odd property of a substance that constitutes, dilutes, life. Ice.

Approximately one inch of snow fell in the area around my house. During the night I looked out to see little white dots floating and falling for the law of gravity. Now, at 16:28 in the afternoon, the roads are dry. The grays, browns and greens fill my vision once again, erasing the memory of nearly monotonous white.

A few years ago I witnessed another snowy weather event that prompted my poetic attitude to assert itself journalistically:

Winter Storm Advisory

We’re in the midst
Of what the weather forecasters call
Blizzard conditions;
That is, we have 5-8 inches of snow on the ground
And the wind is gusting up to 50 miles/hour.
The official temperature is 25°F right now.
Some TV stations are calling this
The Storm Of The Century.
I can see why.
Snow fell in Mobile (two inches),
Birmingham (13 inches),
and Montgomery (3 inches).
Over 12 inches fell in the mountains
Around Mentone (the Lookout Mountain area).
Unfortunately for the birds,
I put the last of the birdseed in the bird feeder out back
So I hope they have enough to last them a couple of days.

- 13 March 1993

= == === ==== === == =

Do Bookies Bet On The Weather?

I walked through the woods yesterday
And saw footprints in the snow
Left by many animals including deer, dogs and birds.
Some of the dog-size prints
May have been possum or raccoon since they, too,
Occupy the woods behind my house.
Several cedar trees and limbs had fallen
Or broken off due to snow.
Officially (so to speak),
I measured the snow in our yard on Saturday;
I measured six inches on the driveway
And thirteen and a half inches on the back deck
(An actual snow drift in Huntsville!).
Mount Mitchell in North Carolina recorded 50 inches
While Asheville had around two feet of snow.
Several cities from Alabama to Pennsylvania
Recorded new 24-hour snowfall records.
Therefore, news agencies labeled this storm,
"The storm of the century."
Also, I’ll mention several cities up the East Coast
Recorded new barometric pressure lows.
New low of 12°F on Saturday night.
Janeil and I will try to drive over the mountain
To work this morning.

- 15 March 1993

= == === ==== === == =

Snow - a word - that I know more by reputation than through acquaintance. As a childhood friend of mine noted, during the cold winters of the mid- to late-1970s in east Tennessee, we used to ride sleds and toboggans down a large hill that was part of the Slaughter Farm, a family homestead still not yet subdivided into housing estates, which now belongs to Ken the constable. So, too, when heavy snows and ice fell, we'd sled down a road nicknamed Suicide that dropped sharply off the back of the hill and had no protective guardrails, thus giving some sledders more than they bargained for during their descent (the road's actual name is Shadyside).

As far as I know, kids still sneak onto the farm to sled when there's snow on the ground. Only once was I ever shot at when trespassing - the sound of bullets zinging off of rock outcrops our only indication of danger - and that was because me and a buddy of mine were climbing concrete walls into the family cemetery, before friendly Ken took over the family farm.

I have some great pictures of the farm that I shot for the literary magazine at Walters State Community College in 1985 - the click of a shutter endangering no one. I'll have to find that magazine and scan the photos. The snow drifts that danced that day tickle memories out of my thoughts, their metallic taste and smell lingering a moment before melting away once again.

Just the Facts, not Opinions, Sir

All of us read, hear, and see discussions about the science of global weather patterns, including a phenomenon known as global warming. Political pundits argue for and against the need for the human species to take note of our contribution to changes in weather patterns, including global warming, and change our economic habits. Opinions on the subject of global warming vary like the colors in a paint store. If you don't have an opinion of your own, you can mix and match other opinions as you please.

Although I don't work as a scientist, I can observe the weather at a local level and make an informed opinion. I can research the weather reports and scientific studies available at my local library or those posted on the Internet and come up with a summarized view of global weather changes through history.

My observations at the local level tell me we don't seem to get as much snow in the northern reaches of the southeastern United States as we used to, which may imply the average temperature of storm systems passing through the area is higher than it used to be.

My reading of Internet reports shows that the average annual temperature of the planet is slowly increasing, and with it are increasing amounts of "greenhouse gases."

What I can't prove to myself is the total contribution that one species spread across the globe, Homo sapiens, is causing. To know that, I would have to know the total amount emitted by all species, including plant, animal, eubacteria and the like. I want to know what non-species' influence to include, like volcanoes. I would also have to know how much extraplanetary influence on weather comes from the Sun and the rest of the galaxy/universe.

Some of this information I can gather from the Internet. In my research, what little I've performed, I have come across interesting projections made by scientists who don't seem to be placing blame on the cause of global warming but merely pointing out potential effects. The most interesting effect I've seen so far came from an article titled "Sea level rise may be worse than expected" (accessed on 6 February 2009), with the following points making the most impact on me, especially the highlighted one:

• When an ice sheet melts, its gravitational pull on the ocean is reduced and water moves away from it. That means sea levels could fall near Antarctica and rise more than expected in the northern hemisphere.
• Antarctic bedrock that currently sits under the weight of the ice sheet will rebound from the weight, pushing some water out into the ocean.
• The melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet will cause the Earth's rotation axis to shift, potentially moving water northward.

Of all the reports I've read, none of them have talked about the shift in the Earth's rotation. Instead, they've pointed out that the melting of glaciers will remove weight pushing down on rocks and dirt, changing the dynamics of plate tectonics, and they've mentioned the possible change to the flow of ocean currents and the ocean's rise. All of these I understand and can see the possible effects, including more or less frequent earthquakes, volcano eruptions, flooding and severe weather changes.

I don't understand what the simple fact of the change in Earth's rotation will do. We know from the study of magnetic changes in bedrock that the Earth's magnetic poles have shifted in the past. We have analyzed the slight wobbling of the Earth and seen how it may have led to the periodic rise and fall of previous human civilizations.

But has anyone studied the change in Earth's rotation and fully understand the effects? I'm not an eternal optimist nor a doomsday downer, because in my life I've seen that every up has a down and every low point has a high point in a cycle. Therefore, if Earth's rotation shifts on its axis, there will positive effects for some people on this planet and negative effects for others. The question I want to answer is how soon will the shift start occurring (if it hasn't already) and what should I do to prepare myself and my family to be on the positive side of the shift. On a larger scale, how should we as a global population reduce the negative effects on our species' continued success on this planet (and can we)?