Naturally, since the Weatherman predicted scattered showers

and thunderstorms, it's been simply raining cats and dogs all day. If these are scattered, they must be huge.

I can't hear any rain on the glass spires of the roof of the atrium because there are too many jovial people greeting and joking and laughing out there.

We're expecting In-laws tonight. The house is a mess. Somebody I know keeps saying that if I'll get the children out of her way, she'll clean up. I think her method is to sit in her chair and brood about how she never gets any help. Then she does laundry until her aches and pains drive her into bed. I don't know how we produce that much laundry, but we do. We always have clean clothes to wear anyway.

I play with the kids until story time, get them ready for bed and put them there. Neither of them ever gives us any trouble about bed-time.

Then, I suppose, Somebody expects me to start house-cleaning, but there's no way I'm going to begin any physical work after nine. OK, I'll fold a basket or two of laundry if you ask me to, or make a bed so we can get in it...

Oh, whine, whine, whine...

Did I mention that it's raining?

Steve reminded me of something.

We had a few difficulties of our own at easter. And I've got pictures.

Who's the first to show up when the camera comes out?


Easter Ham!


So we finally get the whole family together and what do I get?


To be fair, neither The Accountant nor I have any idea how that last picture came about, but it was too effin' hilarious not to post. Of course, the kids, who are obviously hanging their heads in shame (or embarassment for us), might have a different story (that they're not telling us).

Couldn't have had a nicer early spring day!

We went out to Wagner's Drive In for dinner this evening. The wife and I had Double California Burgers and a family-size order of onion rings. She had a chocolate malt and I had a blueberry shake. The kids had identical orders of hamburgers with Rootbeer Floats. And, of course, they shared the rings.

There were several classic cars, and a couple of those kit pseudo-classic hot-rods (that are still pretty cool), there--a black and cream '54 Chevy and purple '49 Ford...some kinda souped-up Willys (I didn't get over to that one).

Then we popped into Walmart & bought grilling supplies for the month. We do charcoal on a Weber Kettle. I have no idea why anyone would spend a thousand dollars on a gas grill. The best tasting thing I ever ate was Johnsonville Brats grilled on a Weber.

Might be why I married the wife, come to think of it.

I'll be darned!

"Canadian diamonds are the best quality diamonds in the world… even better than African diamonds."

Peter was referring to the physical characteristics of the diamond. But he also mentioned that buyers prefer Canadian diamonds for another reason: they don't want to support civil war in Africa and will pay a premium for a clear conscience.

I didn't know they had any.

I've been saying, since my first daughter was born, that I'm movin' to Northern Saskatchewan. Now I find that there's money to be made there.

I should run up there this summer and ask 'em if they've got some hard work they need help with for a week. While the wife and kids check out the local Mennonite, Hutterite and/or Amish communities to see if they have room for another family.

Crazy, man!

[Teach you to follow a blind link, eh?]

Actually, I like this image a little better.

This one would be great as an insult!

Want to call somebody a Nazi? These are pre-nazi helmets, but, hey: Bismarck - Hitler, what's the difference? The Prussians were national socialists before Hitler coined the term.

What idiot titled this picture?! It's "grazing"!

I'm just collecting up some images for future use.

Correction-4/14/06: I just noticed I'd forgotten the pre-Nazi helmet link. Sorry.

Don't Make Me Assume Leadership of All the Bourgeois Philistines of the World!

Do I have to write a manifesto?

Huh?

I'd be happy to take up the challenge. But I gotta tell ya: I'm a capitalist. It's a free competition. And there is no end.

AND... The Market determines the winner... The Market can change its mind.

And The Market is a better aggregator of human wisdom than any government has ever been, and is less fickle than any polity has ever been

AND... let me emphasize that I do not accept that the status quo is the best that The Market can do. I think that it will do better, and the freer it is allowed to be the faster it will pay off in greater freedoms.

WOD: pol·i·ty (pl-t)

n. pl. pol·i·ties
1. The form of government of a nation, state, church, or organization.
2. An organized society, such as a nation, having a specific form of government: "His alien philosophy found no roots in the American polity" New York Times.

I mean the second definition, of course - although, I suspect that debate may continue through The Millenium.

[I almost said The MNlenium. Texans are known as braggarts, but let me just spill the beans on Minnesotans: We (or they-I'm originally a Cheesehead-are certain that we're better than everyone else--hence the term "MNlenium" would be taken amiss by few Minnesota churches. I welcome a survey on the matter.)

Check out this goofball's review of a Wiggles DVD

Wiggling into Deeper Truths, October 17, 2005
Reviewer: viktor_57 "viktor_57" (Fairview, Your Favorite State, USA) - See all my reviews

After much pleading and prodding by my five-year-old son, I finally gave in and bought him "The Wiggles - Wiggle Time."

At first, I thought, "Oh no, another glibly tuneful romp through cartoonish juvenilia." But how wrong I was!

"The Wiggles" just may represent the only active, truly original modern art form practised by today's desiccated, so-called "artists". When one compares the underlying harmonic and polyphonic structure of a representative tune such as "hot potato dance," one realizes that such complexity and daring have never been heard since Strauss shocked even the jaded Parisians with "Salome"!

This is to take nothing away from the dance, however, which rivals anything ever choreographed by Balanchine. The dancers, eschewing the ambits of classical forms and steps, create their own pleitropic vocabulary of movements which bewilder the viewer with their genetic pregnancy.

Were this all that the "Wiggles" offered, one could easily imagine that their lack of immediate recognition for the geniuses that they are was due to the subtleties of their art and the jealousies of less talented peers. But only after viewing the disk repeatedly and incessantly (I had to purchase a second copy for myself) did I realize the entirety and awful enormity of the "Wiggles" experience. Such was my shock of insensing comprehension that I felt the universe close around me into a point of awareness centered on one sublime, beautiful, yet terrible truth. I struggled mightily to force order into the epiphany which the "Wiggles" graced upon me. But I could not.

Therefore, gentle reader, take heart from my woe. No measure of wisdom or beauty should cost a man his soul.

I like the Wiggles, too, man, but Good Gravy!

Update: don't miss his review of the Philips HeartStart Home Automated External Defibrillator (AED)

Some family stuff

Thought I would show you some of what's been going on around here.

It's sunny and 38° F here today and with all the fresh snow, Rosie and I thought it would be a good idea to spend Lena's naptime making a snowman.


Here's a pic of Lena from the other night:


Here's my dungeon:


And one more look at the weather:


The younger son (the responsible one) spent a week here with us, and now he's off to Des Moines on a new business venture. He was pretty good company. He's interested in a lot of the things I've been studying for the last couple years. I suppose, in a way, I've developed those interests due to his and his brother's [more mature] activities since they left home.

They do pretty well when they buckle down. But this isn't their blog, so I don't feel free to discuss what their up to. Sorry.

I'd give 'im "an eye for an eye."

Execution, as we practice it, is too good for him. I'd want to make sure he felt every ounce of terror that I thought she might have felt.

I'd use an auger bit for the more unspeakable parts, though.

Want to read about a Randian hero?

Check out Dr. J. Phillip London's CV.

Dr. J. Phillip London is Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer of CACI International Inc, an information technology and network services company with fiscal 2004 revenue of $1.146 billion. Under Dr. London's leadership, CACI has grown from a small professional services consulting firm to become a pacesetter in information technology (IT) and communications solutions across markets throughout North America and Western Europe. CACI operations today are worldwide and global in nature.

There's more. It's too long to reproduce here, but I like this bit:

Dr. London is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (1959) and the Naval Postgraduate School (1967), where he earned, respectively, a bachelor of science in naval engineering and a master of science in operations research. He holds a doctorate in business administration conferred "with distinction" from The George Washington University (1971).

During his 12 years of active duty as a regular officer (1959-1971) during the Cold War, Dr. London initially served as a naval aviator and carrier pilot, serving with U.S. Navy "hunter-killer" task forces arrayed against the Soviet Union's strategic nuclear submarine threat. He saw service in the Cuban Missile Crisis (the "thirteen days") of October 1962, and his numerous at-sea deployments included the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean. He was with the airborne recovery team for Col. John Glenn's Mercury Program space flight in Freedom 7 in the Caribbean, on February 20, 1962, on the U.S.S. Randolph (CVS-15). Later, at the height of the Vietnam War, he served as Aide and Administrative Assistant to the Vice Chief of the Naval Material Command, Department of the Navy (1969-70). Dr. London left active duty in 1971 and joined the U.S. Navy Reserve, retiring as a captain in 1983, having served as commanding officer of aeronautical engineering units with the Naval Air Systems Command, Washington, D.C.

I don't know how to introduce this piece by Tom McMahon

He calls it, "What I Have Learned In 15 Years."

This may not be the greatest bit of genius in the post, but try this bit:

You never anticipate the really bad stuff

Think of all the old Twilight Zone episodes that had a post-World War III theme. Now think of all the episodes with a big-jetliner-smashing-into-a-skyscraper theme. We tend to worry about a lot of things that never happen, and let ourselves get blindsided by reality.

Thank you, Tom. It helps.

Our '97Dodge Caravan is in my wife's name.

That's fine with me. It ain't a manly vehicle.

But I'm happy enough to have it; it has it's uses.

I've mentioned that I had an accident a while back with the '99 Ford F-150.

Well, since she hasn't been paid off, the lien-holder insisted that she be properly restored to new condition. Well, the insurance company talks like this is all my fault, the opposing insurance company wants to prove that it's all my fault and the auto-body shop talks like it is all the insurance companies' fault... Well, let's just say my premiums are soon to hit the level of my car payments.

They had the SOB for the entire month of January.

But it sure is a pretty truck!

I ain't s***in' ya! The @*&^er's beautiful!

Did I mention that it has a Waldoch-customized interior? That's real wood, real leather... Dude! I own the Rolls-Royce of Pick-up trucks!

I'd pay any price for that.

Babysat tonight while the wife argued about Girl Scout cookies with the troup leader.

I finally found some batteries with a charge in 'em for the digicam, so Nina posed for some cute pix.

I call this one, "Yes, Father?"


She sees I've got the camera out, so she indulges me with this pose:

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!"

Here's where she realizes she's having a bad hair day:

When she saw it later, she was in denial. She wanted to call it, "Baby's Sleeping." Yeah, right, kid! "Baby Butchering Pose" more like.

When Rosie got home, she spent her free moments while I was reading to her from Anne of Green Gables expressing her artistic...muse or whatever...with blocks:


Thanks to ImageShack for [URL=http://imageshack.us]Free Image Hosting[/URL]

That goalpost lookin' thing reminds me of somethin'. How about them Steelers, eh? Now I think the Seahawks got screwed on a couple calls (the called-back TD on the tiniest of push-offs and Hasselbeck getting called for a low block on a tackle{?!!})... But those weren't enough to stop a great team. The fact is, that even though it was a bit frustrating to watch, the Steelers were the better team. They just had too many weapons.

I'm a fan of Mike Holmgren, I like Hasselbeck, but I found myself rooting for the Steelers. The Steelers had more, personable characters to like.

I'm sad somebody had to lose, but I'm glad "The Bus" won. And Heinz Ward deserved the MVP Award.

We're gonna hold you to that, John.

"I've taken no pork since the day I got here," Boehner declared, and for several years he's favored changing the rules about hiding pork for special interests.

"I have no illusions we're going to eliminate that or we're going to eliminate all these projects" – or should we, he said. "But there ought to be a process where we can distinguish worthy projects from worthless pork."

He suggests making public the names of members tied to specific spending earmarks because "sunlight is the best disinfectant."

This is how Republicans have become embroiled in the latest lobbying scandal involving Abramoff, Boehner said.

He notes that lobbying scandals crop up from time to time, but the real problem is the overall size of the federal government.

"We're going to spend $2.6 trillion of people's money. And when you have a pot of money that large it's going to attract unsavory characters who will want to be selfish.

I'd prefer to call that stupidly short-sighted.

"The mere size of government is a problem ... And the burgeoning use of earmarks [is] the dynamic that's going to produce an Abramoff or a Duke Cunningham." The latter refers to former California Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who pleaded guilty last November to a variety of crimes including bribery.

To Boehner's thinking, while proposals from his party and Democrats to clean up real or perceived corruption are worthy goals, "I think that more transparency in the relationship between lobbyists and members would be more helpful."

He pointed out what he considers to have been bad law – the McCain/Feingold campaign reform law, which he voted against because of its fundamental flaw in attempting to put more rules into place without being honest with the American people.

Most important thing a politician has said since 1995.

Prediction: Fame and Fortune will precipitate

on Dave Cloud if he keeps up this kind of analysis [hope he can handle it]:

In an early December Wall Street Journal opinion page article General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner...tosses in the obligatory call for a "level playing field." The term is cliché, but it is an extremely misleading one. The sports analogy implies that everyone should be required to play by the same rules; that all competitors should have approximately the same equipment for the contest. Who could object to that? Well, anyone who understands that this is simply not how the world works.
...
When a business leader, politician or pundit calls for a 'level playing field', he or she is exposing either a startling ignorance of real world economics or, more likely, displaying a truly disingenuous attitude toward the facts. My home state of Indiana is at a terrible disadvantage to Hawaii in attracting tourists. Should Hoosiers insist that Uncle Sam provide a level playing field? We could limit the number of people who can go to Hawaii each year or make airlines charge more to fly people there. It sounds stupid, but then so do quotas and tariffs.

Oh, but GM is special.

Mr. Cloud may get famous and rich, but it won't be due to the favor of multi-national corporations who belly up to Uncle Sam's trough.

Can you see why Ayn Rand wanted to see the word "religion" replaced with "commerce" in the First Amendment?

Al wants to handle your dog doo!

All right, maybe that didn't come out right.

Check out these two posts at my other blog: one, two.

I'd consider buying into a franchise opportunity once I establish myself. As long as it was of benefit to my customers and myself.

Merry Christmas everyone!

We've got the inlaws here and we're listening to a latin-looking guy sing German Christmas carols on the CD player.

My father-in-law celebrated Christmas Eve by fixing a leaky faucet. I got to make the annual Holiday run to Menard's for plumbing parts.

Of course, before that came up, I was festively cleaning cat-boxes and scraping ice and slush off the driveway.

I had to save David's story about modern technology,

and here seemed to be the place. Links below.

On Friday I try to get hold of my future-ex-wife (telephonically that is, the death-grip days are over.) The idea is that I drive over to see the kids, and I want to make sure that they'd be in, because it's over an hour away. Anyway, I call the house phone - no reply. Her mobile - no reply. My daughter's mobile - no reply. My younger son's mobile - no reply. My older son's mobile - I bet you've guessed that one already. No? No reply.

Now in the years B.C. (Before Cellphones) I'd have thought "They must be out. I'll call later." But no, these days I'm used to talking to people when I want to talk to people. I get irritable. I try them all again. No reply. I fly into a rage. I phone them all again leaving increasingly frenzied messages. By the time I get to Matt's voicemail for the third time I'm shrieking "What's the fucking point of having a mobile phone, if you don't take it with you and keep it turned on, you stupid little bastard?! And I'm not your father. And we adopted you! From the leper colony! And you're a crap guitar player! AAAAARRGGH!"

And so on.

Then I calm down.

Then I start to worry. I know that my future-ex-father-in-law is staying with them at the moment, and I know he has heart trouble. The only scenario that makes sense to me by now is that he's had a heart attack and they're all down at Intensive Care with their phones turned off in case they interfere with the equipment. Either that or a plane has crashed on the house and my family's mobiles are ringing plaintively amidst the lifejackets, pieces of people and little tinfoil containers.

I decide to face down my demons and go over there. I'm ready for the worst. Then my phone rings. It's my F.E.W. She and my daughter were at the gym. My younger son's on the way back from Prague (I'd forgotten about that one.) My older son had a real good night out and is still asleep.

I decide I need to change my medication.
David | Homepage | 12.07.05 - 12:31 pm | #

I haven't made a real sales pitch for Robert Ringer.

The article linked above uses his experience at mastering batting in fast-pitch softball to show the value of what he calls "active visualization":

I started practicing in the backyard every evening after I got home from work, but I went way beyond just swinging the bat. To merely swing a bat is the epitome of action without purpose or strategy - action just for the sake of taking action.

Instead, I got down in my batting crouch hundreds of times each evening and, with intense concentration, visualized the pitcher going through his windup and letting go of the ball. Everything I did from that point on was in slow motion for the first half-hour or so of each practice.

As I pictured the windup, I focused on stepping directly toward the pitcher with my left foot. This was an important first step, because psychologically it was a bold statement that I intended to meet the pitch head on. It was the step that set everything else in motion for me.

He's building on an article of his own and an intervening post by Michael Masterson, in Masterson's newsletter Early to Rise, which focuses on using careful, slow repetitions - "Never practice a mistake" - when you're serious about mastering any activity.

Masterson learned it's value from his Jiu Jitsu instructor. I learned some of the same things in football practice... and from my brother's tutoring in the value of proper "form" in football--a little guy will always get killed by a big guy unless the little guys moves are perfect.

Ron's official weight was 163#.

He played defensive end.

I never saw him get burned. Or miss a tackle. Or look like a Viking (c. 2005) when he hit a guy.

When I went to ball-games in those days, I didn't really know anything about football... but I knew my brother, and I knew where the line of scrimmage was. I learned to judge a defender's play by how close to the line of scrimmage (or how far behind it) they tackled the ball-carrier.

At 163, opposing teams generally considered Ron to be the weak link. By the second quarter, they decided Dave Minor was the weak link. Unfortunately for them, Dave was pretty damn good as well.

You can't imagine what I'd give to have Ron's defense replace ours in the 1980 WIAA Championships. (Our "O" was KICKASS. No matter that our QB had an inferiority complex. The blocking was good. That's what really counts.)

WHOOPS!! Got off topic a bit there.

My dumb brother was such a jerk that he made me spend hours in our front yard practicing proper form. We didn't have pads, so everything we did had to be careful and slow, but as such Ron taught me that I had to be aware of the forces that would be involved at full speed. I don't know how, but I got it.

I know that as an offensive lineman I never got beat by anybody but my own mistakes. Tactical mistakes, not technical mistakes. I had technique down cold, but sometimes I'd glitch and act on the wrong set of instructions.

Strategy? That was the coach's problem.

Here's my addition to the discussion: how do you apply brilliance at learning technique to learning tactics and strategy?

What The Hell's Wrong With Globalism?!

I expect to update this more than once, but my emotional reaction right off the bat, upon seeing this Blog Ad is:

[FOOLISHNESS DELETED]

Whoa!! Was I off base!

I finally got around to reading some of their stuff, and I have to say that I disagree with very little of it.

I agree that Big Government, Big Business, Big Labor and anybody else who's to Big for his Britches are too often entwined. I agree that nations should preserve their sovereignty. I don't like the UN, the IMF or the World Bank, but it's mostly because they misallocate capital [forcibly extracted tax money] in directions people would not choose on their own in a free market.

I don't believe in "market failure". In a free market people spend their money and give it away to causes they care about. When people hear about a problem, they try to help; that's why governments, businesses and charities are founded in the first place--I wouldn't even mind if governments were bossy about telling businesses and charities what to do about helping others, if they didn't have a tendency to send the cops and the army out to make it happen. Leaders don't hurt people, enforcers do. (It's been a while since I came up with a bumper sticker slogan.)

It's true that the problem most businesses are founded to solve is "I don't have enough money," but they have to fulfill somebody's desires in order to get that money.

Anyway, I agree that money ought to be gold or gold-backed. I think worries about deflation are overblown (inflated - ha ha) and central banks are unnecessary and somewhat harmful. Simply put, it's important to have money, and it's important that it's value be fairly stable, but it's not so important as to need a controlling authority. I should say "controlling" authority. Their control is weak at best, unless they want bubbles and recessions.

On the other hand, they've been doing a better job of stabilizing the money supply and inflation lately, though there are serious questions about that. The Tech Bubble and subsequent recession and our current housing bubble are the Fed's fault, pretty much, yet if you didn't lose your job life hasn't been all that bad. Of course you could say that about the Great Depression too.

The conspiracy angle? Not much of a secret. Everybody who cares knows about the Trilateral Commission and those other guys. This Bank for International Settlements? Is anybody surprised? They have a charter that says they will have "no oversight or knowledge of operations by any government authority" and a bunch of other things that sound pretty egregious, but even the author of the article says, "Of course, a corporate charter can say anything it wants to say and still be subject to outside authorities." But he continues, "Nevertheless, these were the immunities practiced and enjoyed from 1930 onward." All at the pleasure of the government.

So, who's dying over this? Bernie Sanders, quoted in the article, says Latin Americans are, and I suspect that IMF and World Bank actions there haven't been as helpful as they expected, but then, the governments of Latin America spent the money on liabilities rather than assets. Most people and businesses and governments do that when you hand them a wad of cash.

That's why most people aren't rich.