Good Genes

Once again I missed my Friday date. I guess it's easy to see that I may not be destined to make this a worthwhile task. But I'll keep doing it just because it's a forum I can practice writing thoughts and opinions. If you want to stay involved, give me some ideas or topics that would be worth having discussions about. It will keep it interesting for you too.

On to today's topic.

I think it can be generalized that people migrate towards certain "types" of people. Whether that be strong personalities or tall, dark and handsome, those people have something that others desire.

As a parent, I can't wait to see if my children possess any of those qualities. My daughter Cara has made a new "friend" at preschool. It seems that there is already some sort of "triangle" involved in it as well. I saw a picture of their preschool today, and it appeared that her friend fit into the tall, dark and handsome category. The interesting thing is that Cara seems to be on the good end of the triangle, while another girl in the class is on the unfortunate end.

I have to thank my wife for this fortunate turn of events in my gene pool (insert your sympathy comment here). I know there's still a lot of growing up to do, and a four year old hardly is the end of your development. But at least it's a good start.

Fixing the World

Sorry I'm a couple of days late. I was busy building a shed and bringing my lovely wife on her first ever round of golf on Friday, and I just didn't get to it yesterday. If you've never been golfing, Susan loved it. She didn't hit the ball every time she swung the club, but she did get a few good hits in as well! It's a fun little hobby.


I've hinted before that I feel inadequate to solve the world's problems. I'm not "in the know" enough to know if my opinion is the same as spewing out a bunch of phlegm at a King's feast. But that doesn't (and shouldn't) stop us from forming opinions, but I like to ere on the side of caution when I have the stage.


Now, I would like to ask two questions to my faithful readers, and any new one's who you would like to bring in to this conversation.

1. - Did you approve of the bail out? What would you have done differently?


2. - What is your concept for energy independence.

For the record, I did not approve of the bail out. I don't believe the American people, nor it's government, can work smart enough to avoid the crisis, that is simply just delayed by the bail out. I hope to be wrong. I hope that someone with the right idea can pull the economy out, but I think it would have been best to let America fall, and then force the good ol' American pride to bring the country out of the depths.

As far as energy independence. I'll post my thoughts as responses to your comments. I will be more interactive with each comment this time and will continue to do so as long as my popularity amongst my readers can be controlled :)

Thanks for supporting this experiment.

I can't figure out how to respond to each comment individually, so I'll respond to them here. I really enjoy having this dialogue with friends. It makes me happy.

To Susan:
I agree that it's time to drill again in the United States, but I don't think it will solve all of our problems. Knowing you better than anyone else, I know you already know that. However, I don't know if you realize the congressional ban on drilling oil has lapsed (just recently) and won't be re-addressed until after the election. It is highly possible we will see new drilling soon.

To Leah Marie:
The term "appropriate" is very appropriate when you say "appropriate government oversight." My job deals with "appropriate" government oversight every day and I can't tell you how many regulations and procedures can be optimized, but all that happens is costs keep driving up. I'm frustrated with that in my job. I am very skeptical that "appropriate" can be achieved and I am betting you will see something along the lines of a $0.50 return to the dollar on this investment. I believe the American people hold the power.

I don't know where you're getting your figures of 10 to 15 years of oil resources is all we have within our borders. Obviously, Alaska is completely untapped. And despite the "save the Caribou" cries, most of the primary oil fields would be where it is primarily barren in the area and the impact to the environment is not nearly as bad as we are lead to believe. Also, when it comes to oil shale (here in my lovely back yard), it is estimated there is more resources there if it can ever be harnessed effecively, than there is in the current reserves in the Middle East and Venezuela combined. Now, after that long shpeal, I 100% agree that oil is not the wave of the future, but it will have to be the bridge. I am in awe of all the ideas that are coming out and am looking forward to see which one comes out on top.

To mytee sooperox:
It's good to hear from you and before I respond to your comment, I'd like to say you have a very long memory. I found your insight very interesting. While I've always considered "change of life style" a necessary component to this whole mess, but I've never considered it as the "only" consideration. While I am intrigued, and we have already seen the effects of what small changes can do by a large population (falling price of gas), my first reaction is that if used as the only path moving forward, it only delays the inevitable. I think now is as good as time as any to invest in more efficient AND renewable sources of energy. Without a change of lifestyle and new sources of energy, you simply push the problem to generations beyond our own. I'm all for doing what I can for the world in this generation.

Presidential Debate

So I watched some of the Presidential debate tonight. I was amazed at how often the candidates agreed with each other. They shared their opposing views, but often in the context of agreeing with the fundamental principle the opposing candidate had just espoused. The funny thing is, that many of the points they bring up about their opponents record are not things that I can substantiate without intense research. Also, politicians are very selective about painting a picture with a broad stroke, without telling the whole story. In the end, I am not sure what that debate did for me, as a voter. Espescially since I am in a state that it really doesn't matter how I vote.

I think I'll write in my name for President. Who's with me? (even if I only get one response from a random friend from a past life who is brilliantly supporting this blog, I will have started my campaign career.)

Usefulness of Studies

I read in a local paper this morning about a local display of cadavers. Not just any cadaver, but a display of the anatomy of dead people. In essence, the cadaver is skinned, put through a process called plastination, balanced in an actionable position and put on display. These people volunteered their bodies to this cause (after their natural death of course), and the institute supposedly has paperwork to back up every one of them. The physician's name is Gunther von Hagens, and he looks just like the sort of character that would do this (see his website at http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html).

I can understand the possibilities of the Large Hadron Collider (see last week's post), but I don't know that there is any usefulness in this study. There are plenty of medical professionals that study the human anatomy and how we can regenerate, repair, and utilize the various tissues and componenets or our body. I'm perfectly happy with giving them government or private money to do those studies (depending on the circumstances). But I think I'm more creeped out than anything by this scientific? artistic? display.

Now the study done on cell phones seems more useful to me. Let's just say I've found a new reason to wear shirts with pockets in the front.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/09/small-study-sug.html

Kick Off

I'm not sure how I'm going to do at this blog thing. I want this to be a fun project for me and for any participants. My challenge is that I'm an engineer and have exactly zero skills in capturing an audience. I will try to be creative, spontaneous, and sometimes controversial. I may sometimes take an opposing view (from my own), blog on politics or about the conversation I heard in the hall at work (Today I heard someone offering a customer "water, bottled water, a drink, Coke or pop." If that's the most creative an engineer can be, then I feel this blog will be short lived).

On that note, I hope I don't stem from the same cloth as many of my fellow comrads. If you haven't heard yet, CERN (yes the same CERN from "Angels and Demons", Dan Brown) has just about completed construction on it's new, 17 mile long Hadron Collider. The purpose of this collider is accelerate tiny protons to extreme speeds, where they will meet, and collide, hopefully revealing particals that are smaller than protons and electrons (quarks, or the Higgs-Boson partical).

So what is the usefulness of such a machine? They are fairly confident that they will create anti-matter and black holes. For the most part, they are certain their discoveries will not impact this generation. And they figure that any black holes they create will not have enough power to effect this universe during it's life time.

They also theorize that they may get a better insight into other dimensions. I'm not sure how entering new dimensions will make the world a better place, but I could immagine it might make travelling a little easier. Wouldn't it be cool to discover a dimension that could get you from North America to Europe just by stepping through some particle beam that sends your matter through some sort of space warp?

In the end, I think we'll discover the scientists and engineers are as sterotypical as we make them out to be. At least for this generation. That's why I hope I don't share any of the same common thread, as the Michigan State grad who rapped about CERN's new, 17 mile long, Multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM