God, I love this stuff. I remember being a kid and being so excited to work with computers in the future. Check out the huge floppy disk she’s holding!

How It Works…The Computer

Now, I work with computers all day every day. My Zodiac Tapwave is probably more powerful that the monstrocity she is sitting at. I can’t even imagine a day without it. How would I keep track of my food? How would I play my music? How would I tell what time it is?

Via: Boing Boing – Kids book about computers from 1971 scanned and posted

Remember my entry about the Dehumidifier in Bobka’s house? It looks like someone had the same idea as I did as a child.

Air2Water Dolphin Dehumidifier/Water Purifier

I never tasted the water out of the dehumidifier, but I guess it needs purifying. With 25% humidity in Salt Lake, this thing wouldn’t work at all, shucks…

Happy Birthday, USA! I’m sorry about November. I did what I could this year as a citizen, but I only have one vote. The voice of one Democrat is drowned by the Republican majority here in Utah. At least I didn’t let apathy get the best of me. I showed up and placed my mark by my name on the list of your citizens.

I hope you have a better year this year than last. I hope your name is no longer sullied by our actions. I hope your children in the armed forces are brought home soon. I hope you survive another couple centuries. Show the Roman Empire how it’s done and outlive ’em!

I’m sorry I was out of town this weekend. Things have been nuts since Grandpa told us he has cancer. I got laid off at my job and thankfully, I got a new job really quickly, but now, I have no vacation time. I have no way to go up to Billings and see Grandpa before he gets so bad that he won’t even remember seeing me. The only time I have to make that drive up to Billings is when there are holidays. Your birthday is so close to Independence Day. I chose to see Grandpa this time. I hope you understand.

We’ll celebrate your birthday next weekend. You keep saying that you don’t want any presents and this year I’m going to try to respect your wishes. It’s so hard for me because sometimes it’s hard to say, “I love you” and the easiest thing to do is to give a present.

Religion is hard for me. When I threw out the beliefs of my father, I searched for meaning. It seemed like all religions had some good to them, but I was lacking faith. I became an atheist and left it at that. If you are looking for a richer meaning of life with an atheist background, Steve Pavlina might speak to you.

• Personal Development Blog – The Meaning of Life: Intro – by Steve Pavlina

This is the first post of a six-part series. Be forewarned, these are long entries. Don’t expect the meaning of life to be as simple as 42. If Douglas Adams and Aristotle left you a little short, Steve’s got some good ideas for you.

The UPS delivery guy hands me the brown machine. I sign the screen, feeling a little like Captain Kirk.

“She’s out of town this week,” I tell him.

“Yeah, Disneyland.”

“I guess she was so excited about it she told you, too.”

“Yeah. I’m like a traveling bartender. You wouldn’t believe the stuff people tell me.”

I heard about the terrorist attacks a mere four hours after it happened. That’s what happens when I’m on a news-fast. I hear the news; it just takes a little longer. If it’s really important, the news leaks into the daily life and I hear about it.

My first thought was that it was the IRA or some other British-grown terrorist organization. The strange thing is that everyone else’s first thought was al-Queda. I wonder which it will be.

Ironically, that morning, I had passed a newspaper sitting on the table at work. It said that London won the Olympic Bid. I thought to myself, “We should go to London two months before the Olympics come there. They will be excited and setting things up and there won’t be any tourists there because everyone will be waiting for the Olympics before they go. Maybe a month after…” My mind rushed like that.

I remembered the excitement that filled Salt Lake a couple of months before the Olympics and I was happy to see that come to Great Britain. My family has wanted to go there for a long time.

It’s funny, when I’m on a news fast, what pieces of the news filter in through my barriers.

I hate it when websites have hidden (or removed or it never existed in the first place) the “Contact Me” section. When there is no email address or contact form, I am voiceless. I am the reader. I am the person that you are trying to reach, right? Don’t you want to know what I think? How I found you?

If this website, The Hair Transplant Industry is a Disgrace, has a method of contacting the author, I cannot find it. Instead, I’m sitting here, voiceless. Instead, my message to him goes out to the world instead.

This guy had a “life-destroying experience” with hair transplants. He was very angry when he created this website. He estimated that he still had ten to fifteen corrective surgeries to go at a cost of $75,000 to $100,000 in order to regain a “normal” appearance.

I just wanted to pat him on the arm and say, “There, there.” I just want to tell him to save his money and buy a house. Shave his head every day and show his scars to the world proudly. Quite frankly, most people don’t notice that stuff. They look at you, file you in a category and then spend the rest of their time getting to know you and reclassifying as necessary.

After writing for Starling Fitness so much and watching out for false advertising in the weight loss industry, I realized that no one is safe. If you’re fat, the advertisers are going to tell you that you need to be thin. If you’re thin, the advertisers are going to tell you that you need big boobs. If you’re bald, they will tell you that you need hair transplants. If you have too much hair, they’ll tell you that you need laser hair removal. There is no way to please the advertisers because their job is to sell products and services, not to be pleased. No matter how perfect you try to make yourself, there is no way to be perfect enough.

Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if I took all the money I spend on trying to be something that I’m not and just saved it in an interest bearing account. What would happen if I boycotted any product that tried to make me feel like I was less than perfect? Would I be able to buy anything?

I had a dream Friday morning. We were at a thrift shop, but I owned everything in the shop. I could take whatever I wanted, so I looked around for something good. Karen, a woman from my church, was in the shop. We were looking at a small (and ugly) collage of yellowing newspaper. She was reminiscing about the 70’s. I nodded my head, “Yeah, I remember making mobiles out of coat hangers when I was in grade school. I actually thought I was making art.”

She smiled at me and I realized that I didn’t understand her point. She said, “Sometimes it’s so hard to describe The Nothing.”

At that point, I realized that I was in a dream. I handed her the collage and moved on through the store, looking at the junk that I was selling. When I woke up, I still remembered her comment.

I am a child of the 70’s. The television was always on in our house. I spent my teens with a walkman and headphones. I’m bombarded day and night with noise, advertisements and scents. I don’t know much about The Nothing, except it was the enemy in the movie, “The Neverending Story.”

Somehow, I don’t think it’s the enemy, but I am completely unable to describe it. I’ve never met it in person.

I can’t believe that I have been writing for two years and I haven’t written anything about 7-11 Day. It was so important to me when I was a teenager and now it flies by just like any other day.

In the late eighties, I worshipped at the altar of the convenience store. I had a car and the best excuse to leave the house and go driving in the car was, “I’m going to get a Swig.” My favorite convenience store was Holiday Oil because they would refill my 32 ounce Big Swig cup for only $39 cents. I used to save enough money so that I could have a couple of swigs every day. I would dispense a squirt of Cherry Coke and fill the rest with Diet Coke. I loved to go Swigging.

Mike Pinkston was the first person to mention 7-11 Day to me. One year, we drove around until the appointed hour, waiting until exactly 7:11 pm to stop at the nearest convenience store that the gods had lead us to. All we did was buy a swig, though, and I had to count out my pennies to do it.

I never truly celebrated it until I started hanging out with Mike Moncur. We created a whole religion around the Cult of the Convenience Store. July 11^th was the primary holiday, but there was a lesser holiday of November 7^th. One year, the two of us bought a cake at Albertson’s. We had it decorated with the phrase, “Happy 7-11 Day!” We drove around the city until the appointed hour and then entered the nearest 7-11, presenting the unimpressed clerk with the cake. I don’t even think we bought a Big Gulp while we were there.

Recently, 7-11 caught on to the fact that they could celebrate and promote themselves on that day. Two years ago, they gave a free small Slurpee to anyone who came in. When we arrived at 7:11 pm (or so, our devotion isn’t as strong as it used to be), the floor was a sticky mess and the clerk looked miserable and tired. I think I bought a bottled water and we refrained from mentioning anything about 7-11 Day.

Ironically, I rarely drink soda anymore. We still hit the convenience stores several times a week for Mike’s caffeine fix, but they have become a place where I feel like I can’t get anything healthy to eat. I guess I’ve fallen away from the Cult of the Convenience Store. I still celebrate 7-11 Day, though.

This video shows the inevitable conclusion to the iPod Phenomenon.

• The iPod Flea

Of course, if I want only one song playing over and over, I already live in that hell. There is hardly a time when I don’t have a song (or piece of one) playing over and over in my head.

Update: 04-05-09: Now that Apple has released the newest iPod Shuffle, this video doesn’t seem so funny anymore.

It won’t take any time for them to get down to the iPod Flea size.

Of course, by the time they do, it will cost $99 and play my entire music library… and I’ll be able to control it with the power of my MIND!

In Chapter 10 of my book, Looking For Christ, I created something I called Automatic Music, which fed off the moods of the listener and created music based on the people in the room.

• Cure-α – the mood-altering audio player – Engadget – www.engadget.com

It looks like that invention is coming sooner than I thought. Silly me, I thought I was being so inventive…

I speed past him every morning. He’s waiting for the Eastbound 30 bus at the corner of Redwood and 17^th South. He’s usually smoking. He’s always slouching. The curve of his back is a sharp 60° angle right below his shoulder blades.

He was wearing a black t-shirt this morning and he glanced at me as I whizzed by. His thin frame leaned over his thighs. He was taking a drag of his cigarette and I could smell smoke as far as the train tracks.

I’ve never seen him smile.

I am laughing my head off! Despite the security on the new Harry Potter book, there has been a leak. This story tells you the gory details.

• Harry Potter and the Embargo of Doom – by Anna Weinberg

I’m laughing because of how they were found out:

“Suspicions of a leak were first raised back in May when officials from an Internet gambling ring noticed an odd betting pattern coming from a small town in England—a town in which, it appears, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was being printed. Blue Square, a gambling outfit, was running a bet on the character most likely to die in the sixth installment, and noticed a disproportionate number of wagers from Bungay, in Suffolk, all on the same character.”

I won’t tell you who they betted for, but if you don’t want the story spoiled, be careful reading the article.

On a more serious note, just think how much more money they would make if they shipped the books as soon as they were printed and allowed the stores to put them out as soon as they were printed. They could even charge more for the “first batch” if they wanted. I’m sure there are tons of fans out there willing to shell out extra bucks for a chance to read it as soon as possible.

Hey, while we’re dreaming big, just think how great it would be if J. K. Rowling just posted the chapters on her weblog as soon as she was finished writing them.

If you look carefully, you can see me, Mike, Stacey and Dan in the reflection. I’m holding the camera. Mike is to my left, blocking out some of the sun. Stacey is to his left. Dan is holding the shopping bag on the far left.

We were picking up supplies for camping at a tiny grocery store / strip mall in Highland, Utah. This scooter was beaming at us as we walked past.

Jin Wicked writes a webcomic called Crap I Drew on my Lunchbreak. It has been on my comics list since I started this website. This past week, Jin’s pet rat, Yuki, died.

• Picture of Yuki’s Final Days

Mike and I owned pet rats when I worked at UBTL. Perdita had been part of a teratological study, but had been kicked out when they found enough pregnant rats. That would have meant that she would have been a practice animal, but she was pregnant, so she was scheduled for euthanasia unless someone was willing to take her home. I did. She had 17 baby rats. We found homes for most of them. Cory and Kathleen took two of her sons and other friends adopted. We sold the rest to a pet store. We kept Perdita and two of her daughters, Gretchen and Elsie.

Laboratory rats have a life expectancy of two years. They are bred to live exactly two years. Perdita was a really young mother, so we lost all of our rats within the span of six months. It was so hard to lose each of them. Their personalities were so different. They were also bred for intelligence. For an animal with a brain the size of an almond, they were so smart and funny. Each death was like the loss of a beloved pet.

People are so stupid.

“You spent $40 on a vet bill for a RAT?”

“What’s the problem? Just buy another one for two bucks.”

“Yeah, she’s sad because her RAT died? giggle“

When we lost Gretchen, I didn’t even tell anyone. Hearing Jin talk about her loss healed me a little bit…

God, I needed this. When I saw this picture, I laughed out loud!

• Chicken Viking Hat by Sarah @ Aloha Misc. Media House

This knitting pattern is for a baby (6-12 months) Man, I need a pattern for a full grown adult. Nothing like a funny hat to lighten my day!

Via: gadgetgirl – just when you thought the internet was getting boring

Halloween is coming so soon and I don’t have a costume ready or anything. These will come in handy for the party, though.

• Haunted Paper Toys

There’s nothing like the phrase “Free Toys” to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even if the free toys are a little spooky!

Via: STANDING ROOM ONLY – Everything You Need To Know – by Hugh Elliott

Can’t write… busy reading Harry Potter…

I don’t know how I feel about this. I don’t even know if I really understand it. Television broadcasters have agreed to stop broadcasting analog signals in order to free up the crowded airwaves.

• Broadcasters accept new deadline for digital TV signals – Yahoo! News

If I understand correctly, that will mean that people who watch televison using their antennas (instead of cable subscriptions) won’t be able to watch anymore unless they upgrade to digital television. They say that they are doing this to clear up the crowded airwaves, but wasn’t the HDTV Mandate the reason that the airwaves are clogged to begin with?

All of this sounds like enforced upgrading to me. Did television sales slow down or something? As far as I’m concerned, they can keep their digital signals to themselves. I’ve already moved on to getting all my entertainment from other sources. I only turn on the television to play Xbox and DVDs.

It was predicted here: *spark>> media>> *television – the future of television – by Frank Beacham

Via: Engadget – Broadcasters OK 2009 analog TV shutdown

My heart is breaking… James Doohan, the actor who portrayed Scotty on Star Trek, died today.

Via: Boing Boing: James Doohan, RIP

Mike has been working on The Quotations Weblog for a few weeks now. The software and integration of the website has taken longer to set up than it did for Starling Fitness or this weblog. I’ve been writing in anticipation for the site and I’ve been waiting to tell you. Today I can!

• The Quotations Weblog

I’m hoping that this addition to my writing responsibilities won’t make me as tired as adding Starling Fitness was. I’m only writing twice a week for now, so I should be able to write here just as frequently as before.

We also moved the old Quotes of the Week entries from the featured section to the weblog. I wrote those entries way back in 1997 and 1998. I let the Demon of Perfection get to me back then and Quotes of the Week didn’t last too long. My favorite entry was: My Perceptions of Trains. The rest of them felt like school work to me. Writing is much easier now, if only because I don’t have to do much HTML programming anymore.

If you finish reading here and want some more, go ahead and check out The Quotations Weblog. You might enjoy it also.

Sweet Mother of Jesus… If you haven’t checked the names in your zip code, you should. You’ll be shocked at who your neighbors are…

• National Sex Offender Public Registry

Man, I feel like I need to move, but every neighborhood is infested. There is no sanctuary…

I believe in karma. I don’t believe in any mystical explanations for karma; I just believe that we attract what we consciously do in our lives. For example, take gossip. The kind of person who is willing to gossip about others will eventually be on the receiving end of that sharp stick. The reason why? Because that person is willing to talk behind the back of coworkers, they assume it’s acceptable to talk behind the back of the gossiper. There are no spiritual or ethereal workings that bring the gossip back to the gossiper. It’s just a cause and effect.

Believing in karma and living by its practices are two different things, however. When confronted by gossip, it is difficult to say, “Please don’t talk to me about other people. I think it would hurt their feelings if they knew we were talking about them.” It’s so difficult that I have never said it. Me, the one who will say anything. Laura Moncur, the Sayer of Things Best Left Unsaid, has never spoken out against gossip when it lands in her lap.

So it’s no surprise to me when I hear that people talk about me. That doesn’t make it hurt any less. All I can do is hold my head up and resolve to stop gossip before it lands all over me like a sticky serum that attracts the hornets.

Mike and I went to the Farmer’s Market in Sugarhouse last night. It’s early in the season, so there was little there to entice us. I’m thinking I should have bought the apricots, even though they looked a little bruised. They were probably really sweet. They looked like they had just fallen from the tree.

I had to stand uncomfortably close to a man sleeping on a bench in order to take this picture. He wasn’t really sleeping because he was talking with his eyes closed in Spanish to the taco vendor. He was probably saying, “Damn paparazzi…”

Today is Pioneer Day here in Utah. I just read what I wrote about The Days of ’47 last year. Lucky thing because I was about to tell you the same story as I did last year. The only difference this year is that I now work for a Utah-based company, so I have the holiday off.

Tomorrow, when the rest of the country goes back to work, I’ll be sleeping in. After working for companies that didn’t recognize the holiday for years, it feels good to look forward to a three day weekend. I never minded working on Pioneer Day, but I sure enjoy having the day off.

I think I’ll go to K-Mart and get one of their hogi sandwiches. I wonder if they taste the same…

Steve Palina published this entry at the first of this month, but I didn’t get a chance to read it until now. It is so helpful.

• How to Get From a 7 to a 10

If you were to judge your performance in life on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself? If you found yourself at a 7, how can you get to a 10? This is a clear article about getting yourself moving again.

My favorite quote from this entry:

“No matter what fixed position you arrive at in life, it will never be fulfilling. Fulfillment comes from action, not position. If you want to experience deep fulfillment, take lots and lots of action.”

This looks like this is going to be a pretty cool movie. Good computer animation and no uncanny valley problems.

• Laika Animation – Moongirl Preview

Since we can’t depend on Disney to give us good animation until there is a big change, we have Laika to keep us entertained.

My ride into work started out poorly today. At the corner of 7^th East and 21^st South, the chain on my bike came off its gears. I stood in front of Blockbuster Video fussing with the chain while cars passed me. My light came and went until I was finally able to get it situated correctly. I think it would have taken half the time if I had just resigned myself to black fingers from the start. I really need to clean my chain.

Aside from that minor mishap, I had a wonderful ride this morning. The weather has been cooler these last couple of days and I’ve enjoyed it greatly. While I rode on the overpass that rises above the railroad tracks, I scared a pigeon. He flew off to my right in a fluff of white. It’s a good sign when birds fly off to the right.

There was a huge daddy-long-leg spider on the sidewalk between 7^th West and 9^th West. I dodged him and didn’t squish him. He was heading from my left to the right also: another good sign. It was amazing I was able to see him at all.

At 17^th South and Redwood, the Eastbound number 30 bus was a little early this morning. I saw the man with the 60°-angled back straighten up and board, tossing his cigarette aside. He was wearing a baseball cap today. His curly black hair was straining to escape from it. He’s there almost every morning.

Lynn Wilson smelled like garbage again this morning. That factory makes the best frozen bean burritos in the valley, but since the heat of the summer has hit us, the building smells like garbage. The dumpster must be near the front entrance. I wish they would trim their bushes out front. They scratch my arm as I ride by.

The commute to work is so different on a bike. The things I notice are smaller and more intimate than what I notice in my car. My neighbor across the street said, “You can cover an amazing amount of ground on a bike.” She’s right, but the ground that I cover is actually noticed and appreciated. I’m so glad that I finally work and live close enough that riding my bike is feasible. That early morning bike ride is something I look forward to every day.

They lived in Idaho Falls. It’s not halfway between Billings and Salt Lake City, but that’s where we stayed when we took the trip in two days instead of one. We stayed overnight at Aunt Babe’s house, sleeping in the basement, which felt better than any hotel I’ve ever stayed in. Sometimes we would stay there a couple of days, playing with Uncle Wayne’s rabbits (“Girls, they’re food, not pets.”) and Aunt Babe’s supply of toys.

Aunt Babe was my grandma’s sister, so technically, she was my dad’s aunt and my great aunt, but we never called her Great Aunt. Her name wasn’t Babe either. That’s just what the family called her. Her real name was Ann. I have no idea where her nickname came from. I just took it at face value that she had two names, one just as valid as the other.

Aunt Babe had a parrot. He could say lots of phrases. I thought it was strange that he would say, “Polly wants a cracker,” when his name wasn’t Polly. I can’t remember what his name was, but I knew it wasn’t Polly. He also said, “Babe has a nice butt.” Uncle Wayne had taught him that one. Aunt Babe didn’t like it. He would laugh when we laughed.

My favorite memory of Aunt Babe is the day that she played a Yogi Bear board game with me. She let me make up my own rules, even when I did it to win the game. It was the first time I had ever played a game not according to the rules. I felt such a freedom and gratitude to her.

She died suddenly of a stroke when I was about ten years old. She and Uncle Wayne had been loading rocks for their landscaping. Her last words were, “Oh my head.” It was the beginning of summer. We had only spent a couple of weeks in Billings. I remember coming to Grandma when she heard the news. She was sitting on the edge of her bed. I remember trying to comfort her, “Just cry, Grandma, you’ll feel better.” She shook, but tears wouldn’t come out. “I can’t. The medicine Grandma takes makes it so I can’t cry.” That was the moment in time that I hated the pharmaceutical industry. They took away my grandma’s tears when she needed them.

I remember going back to Idaho Falls for the funeral. My parents came up from Salt Lake and there was talk of us going back with them, but my grandma decided she was able to keep us for the rest of the summer. We stayed at the same house, but it was suddenly only Uncle Wayne’s house. Aunt Babe’s parrot was quiet. There was no way to get him to talk or laugh with us. He knew more than we did what had happened. In the end, Uncle Wayne had to send him to the San Diego Zoo.

Uncle Wayne married again to a lovely woman named Lois. She was nice, but she never played the Yogi Bear game with me. She got colon cancer and died soon after the colostomy. He married again to a woman I never met. When Uncle Wayne died, she inherited the house on a living trust, which meant that she could live there for the rest of her life, but she couldn’t sell the home and it would go back to Uncle Wayne’s children when she died. I don’t know why I know this, but it was mentioned to me in whispered voices.

About a month ago, we were reminiscing about Aunt Babe and Uncle Wayne. Stacey asked me, “What was Aunt Babe’s last name?” I drew a blank. I couldn’t remember it for the life of me. It felt like the moment that I realized that I didn’t have the recipe for Rhubarb Crunch after my grandma died. Something that should have been carefully logged in my memory was missing. There was a hole where knowledge should have been.

Two nights ago, it came back in a flash. I was almost asleep, relaxing in the strength of Mike’s arms. I bolted up, looking at him. “Wilcox.” He looked at me like I was dreaming or talking in my sleep. I clarified myself, “Aunt Babe’s last name was Wilcox.” He smiled uneasily at me and I continued, “Stacey asked me Aunt Babe’s last name a couple of weeks ago and I couldn’t remember it. It was Wilcox. Wayne and Ann Wilcox.” Mike nodded and tucked me into bed again. “You have to remember it because I won’t.” He comforted me and I fell back to sleep, dreaming of laughing parrots and Yogi Bear board games.

• Anna Myrtle Lipe – Aunt Babe’s Geneaology Records

• Wayne Wilcox – Uncle Wayne’s Geneaology Records – It hasn’t been updated since his death.

I haven’t watched network television since a few months before Friends finished up. I’m not bragging about this, I just haven’t found anything that I’ve really liked to watch since then. Apparently, I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the Fall lineup because this great show flew right under my radar last season.

• NUMB3RS

The premise of the show focuses on two brothers. Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) is an FBI agent. Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz), Don’s younger brother, is a genius mathematician with a doctorate and tenure at the university. When Don needs help with some sticky crimes, Charlie can jump in with number theory to save the day. Math Man to the rescue!!

Rob Morrow played Joel Fleischman on Northern Exposure. I have several episodes of that series memorized, so I worried that I would only be able to see Joel Fleischman instead of Don Eppes. Not a problem. Within ten minutes of the first episode, Joel was forgotten and Rob Morrow morphed into Don Eppes in front of my eyes. Sabrina Lloyd was in a sci-fi show I liked called Sliders. She’s even better in NUMB3RS as Don’s tough FBI partner and profiler. Best of all, Judd Hirsch (from Taxi fame) plays Don and Charlie’s father. I love how he toes the line between father and disinterested sounding board. They have a great cast!

I have seen eight episodes and I just love this show. It shows me just how rusty my old math degree is. I love the idea of a mathematical sleuth. He’s much more believable than some of the other amateur sleuths that I have loved. Every time I see an episode I am eager to see the next one. I remember what this felt like: loving television. I haven’t had it happen to me in a long time.

I fantasize about winning the lottery, but that doesn’t stop me from working on my financial security. I just can’t depend on Wendover for that big payoff.

• Boing Boing: Get Rich Slowly

I like this article because it condenses some of that common sense that I need sometimes. My Tapwave isn’t an asset because I can carry it in my purse. No matter how expensive it was, it isn’t something that will bring me true wealth.