Cheerful Curmudgeon

Thanks Archie.

Tragedy struck on Monday when 33 people died at Virginia Tech. Flags fly at half mast as we grope through feelings of hurt, anger, helplessness, and grief. President Bush was so moved that he offered personal condolences,

It’s impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they’re gone — and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation.

Why are these deaths so painful for us?

On the same day, about 116 people died in traffic related accidents. President Bush’s words fit here, too.

It’s impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they’re gone — and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates….

…but not a grieving nation. Why not?

One of those 33 victims at Virginia Tech took his own life. On that same day, about 83 other men and women did the same thing. Again, President Bush’s words apply.

It’s impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they’re gone — and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates….

…but not a grieving nation. Again, why not?

Yesterday evening, a 19 year old young man in my congregation took his own life. It is impossible for me to make sense of his suffering. He did nothing to deserve his fate. He is simply gone and he leaves behind a grieving family and grieving classmates…

…but not a grieving nation.

Why do we publicly mourn 33 deaths at Virginia Tech while ignoring the other senseless deaths in our lives? Why do we order investigations and ask tough questions about one situation and not all of the others?

Here’s a suggestion: take your feelings about a recent death and channel it for good. The next time you are angry with a loved one or a friend, remember that you do not know if you will see them tomorrow. Make peace. Love them now. And, God willing, you can love them tomorrow, too.

I continue to find more uses for the wonderful (and $free) LibraryThing. Like so many of us, I have bunches of books that I have never had a good way to keep track of but now I do. Like…

• My wish list — yes, I do accept donations
• My to-be-read list. Most of these books are already at home, piled on bookshelves and waiting for me to remember (or rediscover) them and savor them.
• Books which I find at the library and want to remember have a list of their own.
• And then there are the not-owned books which I enjoyed but have given away.

These last few lists will keep growing as I recall old friends which no longer live with me. For now, I am still simply racing through the books which are still here.

LibraryThing seemed so obviously good that I simply dived in head first and started cataloging all of the books in the house, even though I did not know what I would do with it beyond that initial step. I am even more convinced of LT’s utility because the first opportunity to actually use my on-line catalog surfaced so quickly.

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend on the phone, mentoring her on collaboratively developing web sites using Dreamweaver. LibraryThing made it trivial for me to show her the Dreamweaver-related books that I find most helpful since, not surprisingly, they are the ones in my library.

I have begun to think of LibraryThing as del.icio.us for physical books.

I’m addicted to LibraryThing. It only took a few hours and I only have a start on cataloging my library. This is great stuff!

Must sleep… must sleep… must ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz

What if you could save money and do good by just changing a lightbulb? You can.

Compact fluorescents emit the same light as classic incandescents but use 75% or 80% less electricity.

What that means is that if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.

That is from How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change the World? One. And You’re Looking At It. on FastCompany.com.

We have several of these compact flourescent lightbulbs (CFL) in our house and they… well… they just work: no fuss, no muss. Honestly, sitting here in my chair and typing this, I cannot remember where we put them.

Next time you are at the store, buy one of these things. It’s a no brainer. The bulb will cost you less than $3 and the electricity savings will pay for it in about five months. Take it home and stick it in a light socket. Then forget about it for several years. The next time one of your regular lightbulbs burns out, try to remember where you put the CFL. Then consider whether you want to put an old-fashioned lightbulb back in, or switch another light to a CFL.

Are you sick and tired of being told that you cannot make legitimate copies of your own music? Did you buy a song for your iPod only to later discover that you could not play it on something else that you own? A “little” company, eMusic.com, has the answer: they sell good music for a fair price without DRM. You can make all the copies you that you want.

Ars Technica has a good article about them, Making money selling music without DRM: the rise of eMusic

They’re doing a lot of things right. The site works well, downloads are quick, and it has plenty of tools with which to discover new music. The music itself is high bit rate VBR MP3 files, and it sounds terrific. Still, you’ll need to have a musical taste at least slightly outside the mainstream for the site to interest you in the long term. We’ve talked mainly about indie rock, but eMusic also has massive jazz and classical sections (it recently acquired the entire Naxos catalog, for instance), and is also a good place to go for (of all things) comedy albums.

I have been an eMusic subscriber for over two years and I have found a bunch of good stuff. Give it a listen; I think you will be pleased. If you are interested in signing up, let me know; you will get 25 free downloads (and I will get 50, which I would sure appreciate )

I just upgraded from a Nikon D70 to a Nikon D200 camera: WOW what a difference. I have been too busy taking pictures to write about pictures but here are the things that leaped out at me first:

• Available light image quality is vastly improved. I had been jealous of my son’s D50’s quality and the D200 easily surpasses even that.
• Incredible color accuracy. I shot a swim meet and, expecting performance similar to the D70 and D50, I set the camera accordingly. I overcompensated and should have simply trusted the camera to do it right.
• Amazingly fast shutter; no lag time. I had thought that the D70 and D50 were fast but, when shooting swimmers, I find that I am shooting too early and need to retrain myself. What I had thought was slowness on my part in pushing the shutter button on the D70 was, in fact, shutter lag in the camera.

I also upgraded to the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S VR zoom lens but that is the subject of another rave for another day.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story about The ManKind Project. Men say training has made them better men was written, in large part, from the experiences the reporter had while visiting my I Group (no pride here! ). [Ed. The P-D's on-line version of the article has aged off their web site so I have included it at the end of this posting.]

I have to admit that I was one of the guys mentioned in the article as checking in with fear and nervousness. It was definitely weird holding an I Group meeting with a reporter and a photographer present. But it was well worthwhile since Munz did a beautiful job of conveying some of the benefits of this work. Here is my favorite quote from the article:

He’s been married for 25 years now and has been able to “connect to my wife and kids on a level I was completely unaware even existed.”

When Hargis’ wife, Beckie, was asked how her husband had changed after the training, she said the key word is “joy.”

Hargis’ daughter Sarah, 15, says she feels she has a closer relationship with her father than her friends do with their fathers. Her dad is more emotional, asks more questions, listens and gives good advice, she said.

Woman Within International runs a similar program for women.

Both The ManKind Project International and Woman Within International are not-for-profit organizations.

Links: The ManKind Project International & The ManKind Project – St. Louis

Read the rest of this entry »

For years, I poo pooed the fancy-dancy expensive GPS navigators appearing in people’s cars. I’ll admit it; I was wrong. I got a Garmin Quest GPS a couple of weeks ago and am simply amazed at how useful it is and how accurate the database is.

It is obvious that the Quest has benefited from generations of refinement. Every little detail works nicely and intuitively, from the backet-with-suction-cup that actually sticks to the windshield to the screen which presents the information actually needed by the driver at all times in a font that is large enough to read.

As a driver, my experience is near perfect. First, I pick a place that I want to go and I have quite a few ways to do that, including

• Looking up an address
• Looking up a business by name or type (e.g., restaurant or gas station)
• Point at the destination on the map

Then I select “Route To” and the Quest gets me there. When plugged into the bracket in the car, it vocalizes the instructions with phrases like, “Turn right in point two miles” and “Turn right in three hundred feet” and, eventually, “Arriving at destination on left.”

While driving, the Quest shows a nice map that zooms to the appropriate magnification to always show both my current location and the next turn. The map is always oriented so that I am driving “up,” eliminating the need for me to mentally remember which way I am really going. The screen also contains text telling me what and when the next turn will be, e.g., “I-70 W to Exit 148 Hwy 54 S” and “Time to Next 15:30.” The effect is to remove all of the uncertainty about driving into uncharted territory.

My only complaint is that the database, while extremely accurate (it even knows about the lake roads in Osage Beach, MO), isn’t perfect. I guess I will have to buy the update when it comes out this summer.