If we had a Marriage,These Would be its Thoughts.

Kyle's Honey-Wheat Pizza Dough

2012-01-14T08:45:00.000-08:00

1 package (2 ¼ tsp.) active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (120-130 degrees F)
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
½ tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. honey
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
¼ cup wheat flour
2 ¼ – 2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

In large mixing bowl, mix 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour, yeast, and salt.
Add warm water and oil.
Mix on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping sides, then on high speed for 3 minutes.
Add honey and Italian seasoning.
Switch to dough hook and mix in wheat flour, then as much of the remaining all-purpose flour as possible.
Turn out onto lightly floured surface and knead 6-8 minutes until moderately stiff (not sticky), adding remaining flour as necessary.
Put dough into medium bowl and lightly coat with oil or cooking spray.
Cover and let rise 20-40 minutes (shorter for thinner crusts, longer for thicker crusts).
Preheat oven and pizza stone to 525 degrees F.
Punch dough down and shape to desired shape.
Remove stone from oven, place dough on heated stone.
Add sauce, cheese, and toppings.
Return to oven and cook for 7-9 minutes until cheese lightly browns.

Gotta love that stepping reflex.

2012-01-13T18:43:00.000-08:00

Because this is pretty much my favorite thing she's ever done:

Dickersons on a Train

2012-01-12T21:04:00.000-08:00

We took the train across the country to get to Connecticut for Christmas. We left from Sacramento, switched trains in Chicago, and ended in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Before we get into the story, we'll cut right to the chase: Would we take the train again? Yes. From both of us. That's not to say we didn't have any annoyances, but overall it was a very enjoyable experience.

Personally, one of the best parts was that at no point in time did our belongings get rifled through. We were never patted down, scanned, or otherwise harassed. We made it from California to Connecticut and back and I never even had to get out my driver's license. It was nice.

Also, this is going to be a very picture-heavy post, so be prepared. If you don't care so much for the narrative, I have some general thoughts on riding the train at the very bottom of the post which you still might enjoy.

Anyway, on to the story. We left Sacramento on December 18. We drove up, parked at the station, and waited for our train to arrive. The trip almost failed before it began though because the train was delayed ~20 minutes (which we knew), but we were waiting for an announcement in the station that it had arrived. But for some reason the station agents weren't making their announcements (or the system was broken or something). Anyway, our train had arrived, but we didn't know until an employee heard some of us waiting for the same train talking about what was going on. The employee informed us the train was outside right now! So we hustled it out there and got on with just a couple of minutes to spare.

So we got on the train just fine. We had a private room in the sleeper car which made the journey very pleasant. We had a private bathroom with shower and a sink with a mirror. There's a top bunk that folds down while the bench seat slides down like a futon. Jess' foot is resting on a fold-up jump-seat across from her offering another sitting location. There was a closet with hangers for us to hang our coats and small luggage fit nicely under the seats. There was also a storage ledge above the jump-seat. The room was actually more spacious than I expected it to be. Once you get all your luggage stowed away it's quite comfortable.

This car was a Superliner which has 2 floors and getting up the stairs was a little tricky with all of our luggage, but it's not so big of a deal if you aren't in such a hurry and take a couple of trips.

Our room provided us with a little pamphlet detailing our trip and providing short paragraphs describing the towns we passed through along the way. This provided a nice way of keeping track of our progress and learning a little something about the areas we went through.

The California Zephyr took us up through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and gave us a great view of Donner Lake:

Here's a short video:

I hopped off for a second in Reno in order to get a picture of our car. The dining car was attached directly to our car which made meals really convenient.

From there it was across Nevada and Utah throughout the night. During the night we looked out our window at the stars and at one point I saw a shooting star. That part was very pleasant.

Unfortunately, our first night was not without issue. Apparently, at some point before we got on the heat had been up high and someone messed with the settings, turning the heat to the lowest setting and separately turning off the heating system completely with another switch. So during the night it got cold, very cold. As we passed through Salt Lake City and down through Provo, the temperature in our room dropped down to around 40F. The car attendant was suffering the same conditions and turned the temperature back up, but neglected to notice the other setting change.

The heat came back on while we were off at an early breakfast (the dining car had plenty of heat). Heather didn't seem to mind the cold, she slept great that night.

So we were awake for the last bits of Utah and watched the sunrise as we ate breakfast. Then we watched the scenery as we headed through Colorado and up into the Rocky Mountains:

Here's a longer video of us just cruising along:

We got out to stretch our legs in Fraser, CO, where it was quite cold:

Heather was enjoying herself for most of the trip. This is her with her head thrown back making all sorts of happy noises (though it kind of looks like she's screaming).

Then it was under the Continental Divide via Moffat Tunnel:

Then it was pretty much dark across Nebraska and Iowa. We watched A Muppet Christmas Carol before going to sleep that night. The next day was our last on the California Zephyr. We crossed the Mississippi River and headed in to Chicago.

Jess decided to take a nap that afternoon:

We had a 6-hour layover in Chicago which we spent hanging out in the Metropolitan Lounge (for us hoity-toity first-class passengers). Despite Heather getting too warm while we made our way from the train to the lounge (and thus screaming) it was nice. Then it was just a matter of trying to ignore the old people criticizing our parenting because it had been just so obvious to them what was wrong with her each time she was upset all the way from Sacramento to Chicago and we were just such terrible parents. (They weren't saying this to us, but they were talking plenty loud enough for us to hear 30 feet away.)

Once we were boarded onto our train (the Lake Shore Limited) we went to bed. I woke up during one of our stops and saw this nice little display at the station:

Unfortunately for us, the Lake Shore Limited splits into 2 in Albany and half of it goes to New York City and the other half heads to Boston. The dining car went to NYC, which meant it was on the complete opposite end of the train from our sleeper car. So when we ate meals we had to trudge through 6 coach cars and the snack car. And, perhaps you haven't noticed, but train cars are pretty long (these were ~85'4"). It was around a tenth of a mile from our room to the dining car (1-2 city blocks, depending on the city).

This car was a Viewliner car which only has one floor (East Coast tunnels are shorter), but the car is still fairly tall which meant we had a higher ceiling in our room and there was lots of luggage space because we had shelving above the bathroom and over the hallway. Overall the room is basically the same.

The next day was our last for our train adventure and Heather spent some time kicking a pretzel bag, which she was really enjoying.

Here's a picture of Jess eating breakfast. I actually took it on our way back to California because I forgot to take any pictures of the dining car on the way to Connecticut. Watching the sunrise while eating a stack of pancakes while cruising across the country at 80mph isn't a terrible way to travel. All of our meals were included with the private sleeping room accommodations. So, at each meal time we'd just head into the dining car and order whatever we wanted. The food was pretty decent, on par with your average sit-down-and-eat restaurant.

We arrived in Springfield and my parents and Mollie picked us up and drove us back home to Connecticut.

-----------
The Return Trip

I'm not going to write a separate post for the trip back or include a bunch of pictures. So I'll just summarize it quickly here:

We got back on the Lake Shore Limited in Springfield on Jan 1. During that ride we had some snow across Ohio and Indiana. This was interesting because in the vestibules between cars it was piling up in places and coating things in ice. This made that 1/10 of a mile trek to and from the dining car particularly interesting. We called it the trek through the steerage rabble and the arctic tundra.

The Lake Shore Limited took us to Chicago where we had a 4-hour layover. I discovered via the Internet that there was a Panda Express about a block away so I walked over there to buy us lunch. It was cold out. Colder than it had been the entire time we were in Connecticut.

We boarded the California Zephyr again for our last train ride of the trip. Unfortunately, our car was hot. Each room has an individual thermostat which allows you to set your room to be some amount warmer or cooler than the car temperature. We had our thermostat all the way down but we were still too warm. So we asked our car attendant to turn down the car's thermostat which helped, but it was still too warm.

Jess and I were able to deal with being too warm just fine, but Heather was not as tolerant. Once she gets too hot she screams and screams until she cools down again (at least we believe that was what was happening). So she spent most of that trip in her diaper trying to stay cool, which mostly worked. We were able to get the attendant to turn down the thermostat 1 or 2 more times I think and by the time we were getting in to California the temperature was fine.

We're not sure what the deal was. The rest of the car didn't seem to be particularly warm, but our room sure was.

Also, as we were making our way across Iowa the horn on our engine failed. You're not really allowed to drive a train without a functioning horn. With no horn the train has to stop at each grade crossing and wait for a conductor to get out and verify that the road is safe before continuing on. This is a real problem.

We only did that 2 or 3 times while they worked on a better solution. They eventually arranged for a freight engine to hook up with us and solve our horn problem. The issue there, though, is that the freight engine is only allowed to go 70mph (whereas the passenger engines usually travel at ~80mph).

So the train was getting further and further behind schedule. It didn't really matter to us, but it would have been a real annoyance if your stop ended up being in the middle of the night instead of the evening because of it. When we finally reached Denver they switched out the freight engine and malfunctioning engine for a working passenger engine. By the time we left Denver we were 5 hours behind schedule. But we managed to make up 1.5 hours across Utah and Nevada so we arrived in Sacramento only 3.5 hours later than we would have.

We got back in the early evening on Jan 4 and packed our vast quantities of stuff into the car and drove home (We went with 1 checked bag and returned with 5, because I filled a few with some of my stuff still kicking around in CT. We also came back with a 3-foot tall kangaroo stuffed animal which took its own duffel bag, but arrived safely.). While the train ride was a fun adventure we were glad to be home. I don't think either of us quite appreciated the space in our small little apartment until we came back to it after so many days on the train.

----------------
General Thoughts on Riding the Train

Don't be in a hurry:
Freight traffic gets priority because the freight companies actually own the tracks that Amtrak operates on. So there will be delays that Amtrak has no control over. However, the schedule has a fair bit of room for slip, which means it is often possible to make up a good chunk of time if you fall behind.

Be willing and able to MacGyver yourself solutions to little annoyances:
Our first room had a cabinet door that would swing open with the movement of the train. So we folded up a tissue and stuck it in the door jamb which kept the door in place.

The air on the train was extremely dry. After showering we would leave the bathroom door open to dry out the bathroom and moisten up our air. We eventually started wetting our towels and hanging them from the top bunk which actually made quite a difference in the moisture content of the air.

One of our faucet handles rattled, so we placed a washcloth against it to keep it silent. A part on the top bunk was rattling at some point and, again, a washcloth slid between it and the mattress helped keep it quiet.

Bring small carry-on luggage:
The sleeper rooms have several places to stash small pieces of luggage, but not larger pieces of luggage (you can leave them in a luggage area outside your room, elsewhere in the car, if you want). So rather than bringing one large piece, it's much more convenient to bring 2 or 3 small items that can be stashed away easily.

I feel sick

2011-12-14T19:59:00.000-08:00

Unnerving many conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, the legislation also would deny suspected terrorists, even U.S. citizens seized within the nation's borders, the right to trial and subject them to indefinite detention. House Republican leaders had to tamp down a small revolt among some rank-and-file who sought to delay a vote on the bill. (NPR: House Passes $662B Defense Bill)

While President Bush already took the liberty of stripping U.S. citizens of their rights and denying them trials (e.g. José Padilla). The government did eventually buckle to public pressure and give Padilla a civilian trial.

This new defense bill officially gives the government/military/president permission to simply disappear U.S. citizens. When it passes the Senate and gets signed by the President (which everyone says it will), you will be able to be arrested by the military, hauled off to a secret prison, denied a writ of habeas corpus, denied a trial, and left to rot.

You won't be considered a U.S. citizen, you won't be a prisoner of war. You won't have the protection of the U.S. Constitution or the Geneva Conventions. You simply won't exist.

This is disturbing on so many levels. This is not what justice looks like.

I'm am stunned at how incredibly far our country has fallen in the last 11 years. The idea that we stand for freedom and justice is now just a joke.

The bill is essentially repealing the Posse Comitatus Act and paving the way for us to see the U.S. Army being deployed against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. It may sound like a far off extreme now, but there were reasons laws were put in place to explicitly forbid this type of stuff.

But most people don't seem to care at all. The complete misplacement of concerns is frustrating. People will scream bloody murder about Netflix charging more, or Apple releasing a new product, or how loud commercials on TV are. But come time for the government to strip you of all judicial protections and the only people complaining are watchdog groups.

It honestly makes me fear for our future as a democratic republic.

Happy Place

2011-11-30T20:00:00.001-08:00

This is how you can tell Heather's doing well: fists up by her face, legs relaxed. She's just chillin'. :D

I made stuff!

2011-11-29T13:25:00.001-08:00

I cross stitched a birth sampler for Heather, but of course couldn't finish it until after she was born. It is now hanging in the nursery, though:

This is something else I did. My mom made it and it hung in my room as a child, but the fabric had become really discolored over the years. So I re-stitched it and gave the wood a fresh coat of paint:

Lastly, here's a picture I took of Heather this morning:

1-Month Video

2011-11-28T18:54:00.001-08:00

I was going to include this in my post earlier, but it wouldn't work. I don't have any new pics of Heather, but Kyle took this video of her this afternoon. It's nothing too exciting—just Heather being Heather.

One Month of Heather

2011-11-28T13:26:00.001-08:00

Heather is one month old today. We "celebrated" by reading to her for the first time—Sometimes It's Turkey, Sometimes It's Feathers; Babes of the Wild; and Stanley & Rhoda. She actually did seem to enjoy it; at least, she sat quietly on my lap while I read to her.

Heather is doing well. I feel like things are starting to settle down a bit; we don't have anything like a reliable routine or schedule yet, but things are gradually becoming more predictable. Like, if she's awake, she's going to want to eat every 2 hours. And at night, she'll usually go down for a long stretch (4-6 hours) between 6 and 8pm, then sleep in 2- to 3-hour increments until morning. Her feedings are going much more smoothly these days (day and night), and she's getting easier, overall, to get back down at night. She still doesn't love sleeping during the day, but she'll at least sleep for short naps (30 minutes to an hour) a couple times a day (only in her bouncer, or the car, or on a walk or something, though; she hates her crib during the day).

She really isn't too fussy overall. She is impatient, though—most of her actual screaming is done between the time she wakes up and the time I actually start feeding her. (Less when her dad gets her up; she likes him better than me.) Other than that, she fusses when she's gassy (which happens frequently, unfortunately, but I think it's improving). We're accumulating a small list of things that work (most of the time) to calm her down. In no particular order:

Vigorous bouncing (the easiest way to do this is to sit on the exercise ball and bounce as hard as you can). If her arms aren't flapping in the air, you're not doing it hard enough.
Singing (the current favorites are "Angel Lullaby," "I Am a Child of God," "Families Can Be Together Forever," "I Love to See the Temple," and whatever Kyle makes up; I particularly like his adaptation of "Little Bunny Foo Foo").
The sound of the hair dryer (Kyle actually recorded this and burned it to a CD so we can play it and adjust the volume easily). Sometimes this works like a magic switch—she can go from fussing to sleep in less than a minute.
Stepping outside the front door (the current theory is that the cold air just snaps her out of her fussing cycle; alternatively, she could just be really sensitive to overheating).
Pushing her legs up to her stomach (not so much bicycling them, but pressing them both up at the same time for a few seconds at a time).
Putting her down (sometimes, apparently, she just wants to be left alone). We stumbled upon this one because she loves lying on her changing table. I think it's her favorite place.
Sucking on her pacifier. We went through 3 different kinds to find one she would like, but the winner is the Nuk. Even that one she won't take all the time, but when she wants to suck, it's a gem. I was going to wait several weeks to give her a binky, but when Mom came out, she told me there was no way Heather really wanted to eat every ten minutes, for 2 minutes, for hours at a time—she just wanted to suck on something. So we started trying when she was a little over a week old, and finding one she liked totally saved me.
Sitting in her bouncy seat with the vibration on. This is actually where she is napping right now.

I keep meaning to try a bath, but I'm scared because she did scream through that once (it was time to eat, and like I said, she can be impatient). She really enjoys her baths in general, though, so I'll have to give it a whirl sometime.

Kyle is back at work now (he started back last week, but only Monday and Tuesday, and he spent the afternoons working from home). It's been a pretty smooth day, though. When she wakes up, I'm going to feed her and then go for a walk that may take me by Dairy Queen to celebrate a successful first day alone with the drgn. Who knows.

Too much to drink

2011-11-25T16:50:00.001-08:00

Possibly my favorite picture from Thanksgiving.

Heather At Home

2011-11-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

We left the hospital late Monday evening and got home around 11:45. We put Heather in the Halloween sleeper we bought her for the ride home. So she still got to wear it on Halloween. We didn't get any pictures then due to being exhausted, but we managed to get a lot of sleep last night (Jess got over 3 hours!).

We've been using the sleeper again today so we did get some pictures:

And, no, I haven't shaved since Friday or Saturday.

Heather Elizabeth Dickerson

2011-10-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

Heather Elizabeth Dickerson

Born Friday 10/28/11 at 5:06pm. 8 pounds 9 ounces. 21 inches.

Jess and Heather are doing great.

I'll leave the detailed story for Jess to write up.

So much for the super-cute Halloween sleeper we bought her.

2011-10-26T17:06:00.000-07:00

I had another doctor's appointment this morning. We started with a non-stress test, which involved an ultrasound to check fluid levels and then monitoring to see how the baby's heart rate changed with her movements. Everything looks good, which is great. (Though I will admit to trying to come up with something they could find that would require a quick induction but not actually be problematic. I couldn't think of anything.) Then I met with the midwife, and while she was glad to hear that I've been having (extremely sporadic) contractions since Saturday and agrees that the baby has definitely dropped, she says I have still not progressed, cervix-wise. I was really hoping those contractions would have accomplished something, but apparently I fail at this.

We scheduled an induction for Monday night (yep, we'll be spending Halloween in the hospital, unless this baby gets a move on). We're to call at 6pm to make sure they're not swamped and then be there at 7 (please note that this is precisely the time of day we had hoped to avoid driving to the hospital because traffic is going to suuuuuuuck). Assuming I'm still not progressed at all, they'll start me with Cytotec and then give me Pitocin in the morning. (Though it sounds like they'll just keep giving me Cytotec until they see good progress, so it may take longer.) She warned me that inductions can take a couple of days, start to finish. So it looks like we'll be having a November baby, which is something I really never even considered. (Technically, I could still go into labor on my own before then, but it's not very likely.)

To make my day even more fun, I discovered that my car, which has been parked under a tree for the last week, is covered in bird poop. It's truly disgusting. Like I'm in any condition to wash my car at this point! Also, when I left the doctor's office, I couldn't get into my nasty car because the car next to me was parked too close (jerk!). I had to get in the passenger's side and clamber over to my seat, which was super fun and easy to do. But it's all okay because in the opinion of Random Guy in the Parking Lot, it's awesome that I'm pregnant because his daughter is flying from an island off Alaska to the mainland to have her baby today. Yes, that makes up for everything. (Actually, he was very nice and even offered to back my car out for me if I couldn't get in. It's just that there's very little in the world I don't resent at this point.)

Lastly, I discovered that the mascara I just bought (a curse on makeup companies who keep changing their product lines so you are continually forced to try new things instead of just sticking with the great one you finally found) needs replacing. Apparently, "water-resistant" is not even close to "waterproof" and will not hold up against tears. Stupid me for thinking it might be good enough.

Blah. If it sounds like I'm in a lousy mood, it's because I am. Hopefully I'll get through the next 5 days and have a blissfully easy labor that does not end in a c-section (I really think I've had enough surgeries) and I can write a happy blog next week. Cross your fingers.

Today is...just another day, apparently.

2011-10-21T15:56:00.000-07:00

Well, today's the due date. Big whoop. I saw the midwife again on Wednesday, and we've still got no progress. Everything looks healthy, though, which is fantastic. I have another appointment this Wednesday, along with a non-stress test (to monitor the baby's heart rate, movements, etc.) and we can schedule an induction then. I'm still really hoping she comes earlier, though! I don't want to do this for another week...

The day won't be a total loss, though: Kyle and I decided we'd go out for dinner tonight if we didn't have a baby yet. I'm betting we'll try out our new local California Pizza Kitchen, which never disappoints. And hey, mebbe we'll require dessert from the Cheesecake Factory next door. Who knows?

Getting close...

2011-10-12T15:08:00.000-07:00

Well, it worked! I am over my cold. Finally. Of course, I had a migraine all last week, just to keep me from getting anything done or being any use to anyone, but that's gone now, too. So now I'm trying to get all the stuff done that I thought I'd be doing a month or so ago, like deep cleaning the apartment. This is tricky because I don't have a lot of energy or ease of mobility at this point, but I'm making progress. And Kyle, of course, is a huge help—he cleaned our carpets over the weekend while I laid on the couch, in addition to doing a lot of the cooking and such lately while I've...well, laid on the couch. I've been really frustrated with my inability to do anything for the last few weeks, but he's helped keep me sane (or as close to it as possible).

I got my very first-ever pedicure on Monday (thanks, Rebecca!) and I've decided I need one of those massage chairs. I sat in it for 40 minutes, and my back didn't hurt the whole time! It was bliss. And it was super nice to get my toenails done, since it's been getting really difficult to do them myself! Hopefully it'll last for a few weeks and I won't have to worry about it until a little while after the baby's born. Using the same logic, I scheduled a haircut for yesterday, but when I tried to leave for it, my car wouldn't start! So that's now been rescheduled for Monday. Kyle looked at the car when he got home (using his nerd tools, which he decided are now cool because now they're car tools) and determined that the battery was, somehow, dead. (We still agree that the noise it was making was weird for a dead battery, but that's what it was.) Kyle couldn't get his car around to jump mine because our neighbor's car was parked in the only accessible spot, but she's a nice lady and we just used her car to jump mine. Then we drove around for a half hour or so to let the battery charge up, but when I turned it off, it wouldn't start again. So we got to buy a new battery, which Kyle replaced with just a few of the skills you wouldn't think he'd have, but does, somehow. So that was fun. [Note from Kyle: "nerd tools" being my multimeter, with which I determined that the battery was dead, but the alternator was working fine.]

Ummmm...what else? I went to see my midwife this morning (my OB is going to be out for the rest of my pregnancy with health issues), and things still look good. Baby's in a good position, and seems to be a good size for me, which is reassuring. Sadly, even though I'm at 38 weeks and 5 days, I'm not making any progress. The baby hasn't even dropped yet, which isn't necessarily bad, but would be nice. I've never thought she would come early, but I'm getting rather anxious about her being really late. Largely because I am so ready for this pregnancy to be over, but also because we have things planned and scheduled for the next weeks/months, and I want her to be as old as possible for them. Fortunately, the midwife told me that she could induce me in two weeks (when I'll be just shy of 41 weeks), so there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, I don't want a failed induction that ends up requiring a c-section, either...I've had enough surgery. It'll all work out though, right? Right?

Oh, and because my mom was complaining that I haven't been posting pictures of my pregnant self (of course not! I feel like a bloated whale), here's me on Sunday, at 38 weeks 2 days:

PaperTrust

2011-10-05T19:10:00.000-07:00

So, a while back I blogged an idea I had about cryptographically signing various documents. I specifically talked about checks, but you can apply the principle anytime you have a fairly small amount of data which is supposed to be issued from a trusted source: cashier's checks, money orders, driver's licenses, event tickets, passports, boarding passes, etc.

Well, I spent some time playing around and put together a working example. It's not fancy, but it does the job. It's been a few months, but it really didn't take that long. Especially since I had to do some reading about QR codes and using them, along with public-key cryptography, from Python. So I had a basic prototype done in about a week. Then back in August I decided to flesh things out a bit more and produce a nice demo application. I'm calling the system "PaperTrust" as it allows you to embed the trust element onto the paper item.

Here's a video demonstration:

(Blogger feels the need to mess with the video quality when you upload things, so the text is less clear than it should be.)

Text description of the demo:
So, in my demo, we generate data for a cashier's check and then sign it using the demo private key. We stick the signed data (which includes a signing-organization ID) and the signature into a QR code and stick that onto the check and print it. Now the check is physical and can be carried around as usual.

Now say you're going to use this check to pay for something from a stranger. This stranger needs to know they can trust the check. So they use their verifier application to scan the QR code from your check. It reads the organization ID, looks up the correct public key for that organization, and verifies that the signature is valid. It also displays the signed data so the person can compare it to what's physically printed on the check. This is a cryptographically secure guarantee that the check is valid (or at worst an exact copy of a real check, which should make tracking down counterfeiters a lot easier). So you would use this in tandem with traditional anti-forgery measures like watermarks, micro-print, thermal ink, etc.

I've put the code up on GitHub: PaperTrust on GitHub.

I declare this week to be...

2011-10-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

...Recovery Week! I have been sick for nearly 3 weeks now, and enough is enough. My eye is all better (praises both to antibiotics and speedy access to them), and the cold is making very slow progress. By next Sunday, I shall be healed! So there!

Also, this is going to be an awesome week because the weather is going to be cool and rainy (fall may finally be here!). I was really starting to worry that I only have long-sleeve clothes for the baby, but the weather may have decided to behave.

If my illness surprises you, it's because you aren't on G+. I've been whining over there for days.

2011-09-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

I have a couple theories about why I am still sick. What say you?

I can't seem to get a good night's sleep.
The baby is stealing my antibodies.
I have chosen a steady diet of Marshmallow Mateys to get me through this.

In good news, I think the cold is improving, if very slowly. And my eye is definitely getting better—antibiotics are a miracle, and I love Kaiser.

Yippee!

2011-09-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

My new birth certificate arrived today! That was completely unexpected—I assumed it would be weeks at least. But it's here. I am once more valid. Huzzay!

Fun fact: It was issued on my birthday (of this year). How very cosmic.

P.S. It lists my name as Jessica Holly Johnson Olsen. That's not a problem, right?

It's my birthday, shout HOORAY!

2011-09-22T14:49:00.000-07:00

Monday was my 31st birthday. It was a pretty good one, too! Kyle hung up the birthday banner for me before he went to work, and when he came home for lunch, he brought me flowers and balloons! I spent a couple hours that afternoon with some friends (one of whom I share a birthday with). When Kyle got home, he finished up my cake (funfetti with cherry frosting*) and we went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was good, but I think they've increased their portion sizes—it was a ton of food! We relaxed at home for a bit, then had cake and opened presents. It was a fun day, and the best kind of birthday—one that made me feel special.

*You may recall that for my first birthday after we got married, I requested a white cake with cherry frosting. And that even though Kyle drove all over Livermore, he couldn't find any, and we had to make do with cream cheese. Well, the next year, he made me a cheesecake, so it wasn't an issue. But this year, Kyle got online and found that the Target in San Ramon carries it! Now, San Ramon isn't super nearby, but I was having my final biofeedback appointment out there in just a couple of days, so I stopped in a picked up 3 cans (you never know when you're going to need some!). Kyle seemed really surprised by just how pink cherry frosting is, and it is his opinion that it smells more like cherries than it tastes like them. I just know it's yummy. OH, and I almost forgot: I talked Kyle into buying these candles that we saw at the grocery store with colored flames. How cool is that? Pretty cool. Granted, the flames are not as vibrant in color as the box indicated, but they still looked awesome.

In other news, I had another ultrasound yesterday to check the baby's growth. I've been getting worried that she's breech or something and huge, so it was good to find out that she's head down and measuring right on schedule. And she kept sticking her tongue out at us! So cute. And her due date is just 4 weeks from tomorrow!

I have had a cold for a little over a week now, and it sucks. I had been feeling a bit better the last few days, but today it is killing me again. My throat hurts, my head is all stuffed up, and I am so tired. I don't like this regression.

Also, in case you were wondering, yes, being pregnant during the summer sucks. I completely realize that it could be lots worse than it is here in California, but it is still true that it has been an unusually warm summer for us. Way too much time spent way too close to 100 degrees (or more). I am not coping well.

Well, this blog post took kind of a nosedive here at the end, didn't it? Don't worry; even though I can barely breathe and feel like I haven't stopped sweating since May, life is pretty awesome. :)

Chrome rocks my socks!

2011-09-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

Apparently the whole I-need-a-new-birth-certificate issue kind of got left out of my blogging. So now I have to fill in backstory before I can tell you the latest developments.

I dutifully got online in July to request my new birth certificate. The main hangup here is that Puerto Rico's government website is largely in Spanish (in a lot of places you can click to an English version, but not all of them). Fortunately, I did it while Josh was visiting (yes, this was back in July 2010) and he helped me get around the Spanish stuff. Basically, I just needed to tell them a bunch of info from my original certificate (like my parents' info) and, oddly enough, stuff that wasn't on the original (like what city the hospital was in). So that involved a few phone calls to my parents, but we got through it. Uploaded a scan of my photo ID, and done!

Except not really. I got an email 8/2/2010 (so a month later) saying that there was an error. Actually, it said a bunch of Spanish stuff, then it had an English version stating that there was an error. The error itself, however, was not translated, so I had to get some help figuring it out. But the gist of it was that the name on my ID didn't match the name on my birth certificate (duh, I got married), so to call them so I could send them a copy of my marriage certificate. I could also check my application's status if I followed this link (which took me to, you guessed it, a webpage all in Spanish).

At this point, I have to admit to being really lame. I've been really scared to call the phone number they gave because what if nobody there speaks English? Or just has too thick an accent for me to understand? So, yeah, I have let that email sit in my inbox for over a year. I know. I suck. But on Monday, while Kyle was home for lunch, I decided that enough was enough and I was just going to suck it up and call the number. I did. And it rang. And rang. And rang. (You get the idea.) So I hung up and, in my frustration, showed Kyle the original email and the Spanish website they sent me. He told me that if I were using Chrome (I was in Firefox), it'd offer to translate the page for me! So I pulled it up in Chrome and, sure enough, it did! And it worked! Brilliantly! And it turns out that I've had the ability to just upload a scan of my marriage certificate, rather than calling and getting an address to mail one to, all this time! So I did that and they now have it and my application is marked as In Process, not Error. Yay! Maybe I'll get a valid birth certificate before my daughter does!

Probably an Unpopular Opinion

2011-09-11T13:42:00.000-07:00

The events of September 11, 2001 were dramatic. The images were powerful. For the families and friends of 2,977 people September 12 would be a tough day to face. I understand that they were feeling pain, grief, anger, and myriad other emotions.

However, I don't understand why the rest of the country felt so strongly. Did the entire country become angry and afraid after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995? After the WTC bombing in 1993? Or when it was still believed that the crash of TWA flight 800 was a terrorist attack in 1996? Or after the USS Cole attack in 2000?

For millions upon millions of us, September 12 was much like September 10. Nothing in particular about our lives had changed. So why were so many people suddenly afraid, angry, and vengeful? I wish I knew. Perhaps it would help me understand why our country vastly overreacted. Compare the sweeping changes that occurred after September 11 with the changes enacted after those other events. Having a tough time? Me too. Now, admittedly I was much younger for the other events I've mentioned. So if you remember drastic legislation changes and invasions occurring after any of those events, please share. But I don't think any such thing did occur.

So why the massive overreaction this time? And subsequent overreactions at every new (and all failed) attack attempts? My best guess is that we, as a country, but in particular government leaders, reacted purely out of fear and anger. And when you make decisions from a place of fear and anger you make bad decisions.

I also think the anger many felt was a actually a desire for vengeance. I think people felt their opportunity for vengeance (and hopefully justice) had been stolen from them because the assailants died in the attacks as well. And not only died, but planned to die and welcomed death. They didn't feel punishment, they felt rewarded! I truly wonder if the course of events over the last decade would have been dramatically different if the attacks had occurred in such a way as to allow the attackers to survive. Then they could have been caught, tried in court, and subjected to sentencing. Perhaps that would have satisfied the bloodlust of our populace.

Our country changed dramatically after 2001. But, the attacks themselves didn't change our country. We changed our country. In response to this nebulous, faceless threat we decided it would be acceptable to treat law-abiding citizens like criminals. We allowed the government to conduct warrant-less wiretaps on U.S. citizens. We gave up our freedoms because we were afraid. We invaded 2 countries because we were angry and desired vengeance. Our anger has resulted in the deaths of over 130,000 civilians in those countries. Our anger and fear pushed our military to use torture and indefinite incarceration (many times on innocent people).

We pounded our chests and talked about how great we are and why "they" hate us for our freedom and liberty. Then we quietly disposed of a slew of those freedoms and liberties in the name of "safety." Our reaction to 9/11 as a country was a complete disaster. And our reaction has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, some of the principles we claim to hold dear, and, so far, 10 years of our nation's focus.

I look around at the absurd paraphernalia being sold everywhere right now that demands we "Never Forget 9/11." And I wonder what that's supposed to mean. Are loved ones supposed to spend their days focusing on the pain they feel from their loss? Are the rest of us supposed to spend our days nursing anger and fear? And I wonder to what end? Is there anything whatsoever to be gained by never forgetting?

After the attacks I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we, as a nation, mostly moved on and got on with life. We didn't pass new laws to violate the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of the citizens (which we claimed were why "they" hated us in the first place) to make some people feel better. We didn't start any wars. We didn't spend trillions of dollars on changes affecting our daily lives in order to keep us "safe." We mourned our losses and pushed forward with life.

Until that happens--until we, as a nation, simply get on with life--we'll continue to sacrifice our rights, freedoms, and liberties for hollow promises of security. We'll continue to respond from places of fear and anger while the world we actually live in crumbles around us from lack of attention.

A Rumination on Science and Education

2011-09-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading a biography of the physicist Richard Feynman (by James Gleick). So far it's excellent. What I'm really fascinated with right now is (at least how Gleick portrays) the progression of science during Feynman's schooling years (the mid to late 1930s). The number of high caliber physicists at the time (and the time just leading up to it) is astounding: Einstein, Bohr, Rutherford, Heisenberg, Dirac, Lorentz, Schrödinger, De Broglie, Fermi, Oppenheimer, and I'm probably missing some still. Those guys are each incredible scientists in their own right and it's no wonder the understanding of physics changed so dramatically during the 1930s. The only comparison I can think of is the progression of art during the European Renaissance.

As I'm reading, I can't help but wonder about what set apart that time period in history from anything since in terms of scientific progression. Computer Science has a similar vein of tumultuous rapid progression during the era of Turing, von Neumann, Dijkstra, Gödel, Church, Cook, Levin, Kleene, Shannon...But as I'm looking at it, most of these pioneers (in fact, all but Dijsktra) were essentially contemporaries of the physics revolution being discussed. They all would have been products of the same time period of schooling (whether in the U.S. or Europe). Which further raises the question of what was so different about the education systems through which these incredible people went?

Sadly, I don't really have an answer. But if we're looking to reform our education system for better results, what better goal than to figure out what was happening in education from about 1910-1935?

But then, maybe it wasn't the education system at all. Maybe it was the societal mindset about learning and discovery. Maybe it was simply that the education system and society didn't inhibit the intense drive for understanding and innovation that these people felt. Quoting from page 63 of the book (Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman):

At MIT in the thirties the nerd did not exist; a penholder worn in the shirt pocket represented no particular gaucherie; a boy could not become a figure of fun merely by studying....America's future scientists and engineers, many of them rising from the working class, valued studiousness without question.

If this is an accurate portrayal of the time period, it certainly helps explain to me why so many incredible scientists were produced during that era. Gleick describes in one passage of how Feynman and many of his contemporaries grew up reading the Encyclopedia Britannica eager to learn more about the world around them.

They tinkered with, broke, and repaired things--something I think is rarely encouraged these days. I know this is one of the ways I developed my own interests in science and computers. I wanted to learn how things worked, so I played with them, changed them, broke them, and attempted to repair them (sometimes successfully).

People are inquisitive by nature. I think we, as a society, are getting far too good at crushing that inquisitiveness with standardized lesson plans which allow no room for deviation to follow student interests, standardized pedagogy which insists all students learn in the same way, and standardized tests which demand that all students regurgitate their "knowledge" in one, simplified fashion.

If there's one thing I learned in the years I worked as a T.A. it's that students assimilate information in incredibly varied ways. Its hard to come up with new approaches to the material on-the-fly in order to try to help the student make the connection. But if you don't, and instead insist on "the one true approach" to the material, the student will fall behind, become discouraged, and lose interest in the subject matter.

We need to encourage the asking of questions and the seeking out of answers by research, experimentation, or otherwise. We need to foster the innate curiosity, creativity, and inquisitiveness that children have.

I'm not so concerned with the mindless consumption of media or playing of games because our minds need downtime to process and assimilate the world around us. However, I think the hours spent watching TV and browsing the Internet are more of a symptom than a cause; in that we still seek out "new" things, just in a manner that parents aren't worried about anyone getting hurt or anything getting broken. But situations where one might get hurt or something might get broken are, by far, the most likely situations where we might actually learn and remember a lesson.

Sadly, blogging is just one of the things I'm behind on...

2011-09-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna try really hard to remember things now. It's hard when you're pregnant.

I finally got my windshield replaced! I got a letter from Babies R Us corporate, asking for two printed estimates to get the work done, so I sent those off and got a check back from them a week or so later. So I got it replaced, about 3 weeks after the damage was done. Not too shabby!

The next day, I went to the dentist and it was not nearly as bad as I feared.

Cub Scouts has started up again for the year. We now have 4 den leaders, which is good because we have a large den and, of course, I'm going to be out for a while. We've got our year all planned, though, and I think it's going to be great! I'm in charge of keeping track of the boys' progress, though, and it's kinda tricky sometimes. The power of spreadsheets will get me through!

I was scheduled for jury duty on Sept. 1 (actually, that was after one 6-month postponement b/c they wanted me to report while we were going to be out of town), and I was really not looking forward to it. I very much did not want to drag my 8-months-pregnant self out to Oakland. But it worked out: I didn't end up having to report at all! Score.

I've had a couple more doctor's appointments since I last blogged, but everything still looks great. The baby is measuring right on schedule, and I'm doing really well (though gaining too much weight—ugh!). I love getting a clean bill of health for both me and the baby! (Which is not to say that she's not causing me a fair amount of pain and discomfort, but if she's healthy, I guess it's worth it. Too late to change my mind now anyway, right?) I have one more ultrasound scheduled for 9/21, and hopefully it'll show that's she's growing just right and is in a good position. I'll be almost 36 weeks then. Oh, but get this: I have an appointment set up for 9/28 (with a midwife, not my OB, since if everything continues to go smoothly, it'll be one of the midwives doing the actual delivery, not an OB), then my next one is 10/17...and then my due date is 10/21! Gah! Only two appointments left before my due date? This is coming up fast!

Our apartment manager called last week to say that a 3-bedroom apartment was coming available! Yay! Except that it's upstairs and facing N Livermore, a very busy street. So my unreliable knees and I would be lugging baby & gear up and down stairs all the time, and we'd never be able to open our windows because of the street noise. And although we really want that additional bedroom, we've decided we don't want it that badly. So we passed on it, which means that...

...we spent our Labor Day holiday doing more work in the nursery-to-be. We got two of the bookcases out of there a few weeks ago, but the other three still needed new homes, and the remaining furniture needed rearranging. For a while there it was a game of musical piles of stuff, but we did it! All the bookcases have been ensconced in various corners of the apartment, the printer now lives atop Kyle's desk (which is still in there), and the crib, changing table, and awesome glider my parents sent are all in their places. We even left room for the dresser we do not yet own (well, sort of—there's currently a pile of miscellany in its place, but we hope to find homes for that stuff soonish). So everything that we have for the nursery is in its place; we just need to get that dresser and figure out where things are going on the walls. Oh, we also did those minor touch-ups on the used furniture we bought and got the crib side all immobilized and stuff. (Kyle also finished repainting our kitchen table and chairs, and they look so much better now!) I feel so relieved to have that room organized. Phew!

I think that's enough for now. Also, I can't think of anything else.

Grails oddity

2011-09-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a bug for most of the day today. From all of my understanding this bug shouldn't have been happening. This is always a pain because it means something is, obviously, wrong with my understanding, but because of that I didn't know where to look.

The issue was that I was getting an unsaved transient object instance error when I tried to save updates to an object from a form. My issue with it was that I wasn't creating any new objects in my Controller code. If I'm not creating any new objects, how can there be a unsaved transient? And thus I spent a few hours learning through fiery trial-and-error, because I couldn't find anything that would actually tell me what object was transient or where it came from.

The solution to this problem was in some of Grails' behind-the-scenes, automagic data-binding. Normally you can data-bind an associated object using a field in your form with a name like "associatedObject.id" and then Grails will automatically setup the relationship for you when you bind the request parameters to your object. What I've now discovered is that Grails will also attempt to look up an associated object if you have a field in your form with a name like "associatedObject" even if you don't use it for anything, and when it fails to find the object it creates a transient for you.

I needed to do something special with that field so I was using "associatedObject" instead of "associatedObject.id" and then in my data binding I was excluding that field from the binding:

bindData(objectInstance, params, [exclude:['associatedObject']])
objectInstance.save(flush:true)
-- unsaved transient exception

Again, the unsaved transient was an automatically created object that Grails created when it failed to lookup a match for the "associatedObject" field--this is regardless of the fact that I never actually tried to use that field for anything yet.

So I had to change the name of the field to something else, let's say 'assocObject'. And once that's done it's perfectly happy to do what I want:

bindData(objectInstance, params)
objectInstance.save(flush:true)
// Saves successfully

Just thought I'd throw this out there since I spent several hours of my life discovering this little nuance and wasn't able to find any useful information on the Internet. I just wouldn't have expected Grails to create a secret object behind the scenes like that when I never actually tried to use the value for anything. Sure, if I attempted to bind it, great, work your magic; but if not, I wouldn't expect it to interfere.

Runnin' and Gunnin'

2011-08-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

Our friend Barry is the gun totin' type. He made a bunch of targets and goes out shooting every so often. He invited me to go with him on Saturday to do some shooting, but also to take some pictures and video. We went with him and some others. We drove out into the Central Valley to some Bureau of Land Management land where it's legal to shoot. So it's pretty much a desolate set of hills and canyons which make nice backstops.

We set up a pistol and rifle course to run through. I had not shot a pistol before this so I was fairly lousy with it, but I was a little better on the rifle. Because of my lack of experience I did the course with a .22 pistol and a .22 rifle. But later on I was able to fire an assault rifle, a .45 pistol, a 9mm pistol, and a .357 magnum revolver. Those are pretty fun guns to shoot--the .357 really packs a punch.

Here are my favorite pictures and the video of my run through the course is at the end, you won't want to miss that, I'm sure.

Barry fires a shot

A box of .22 rounds

Jess particularly appreciates this one

Barry taking advantage of the bipod, notice the shell ejecting across his beard.

Tad lines up his shot

And the aftermath

We were out pretty much the whole day, we left town before sunrise and got back after sunset. It was long and exhausting. The high temperature out there was in the 97-99F range. I did pretty well with the help of my Subway visor and my polarizing sunglasses, but by mid-afternoon I had a pounding headache behind my eyes. I'm just not used to that much intense sunlight.

I also made a rookie mistake of taking ibuprofen (for said headache) on an empty stomach. That made for a rather unpleasant experience of focusing on keeping my stomach calm while riding home, exacerbated by the fact that nausea is a symptom of severe dehydration and it wasn't immediately obvious whether it was the ibuprofen or if the 5L of water / gatorade I drank wasn't enough to keep me hydrated. But the nausea subsided half way home and I haven't experienced any additional issues, so I guess I'm alright.

And now the moment you've been waiting for: Kyle's run-n-gun, with the oh-so-manly .22 pistol and .22 rifle (which I managed to drop the magazine out of while swinging it off my back). I don't think I did too badly having never fired a pistol until this day. I did a lot better later after practicing and learning how to properly fire and suppress the instinct to compensate for kickback before the shot occurs (not that the .22 has much kickback, but those larger ones sure do).

Okay, so I had uploaded the video to Blogger to embed here for you, but Blogger re-encoded it and it looks like garbage. So instead, you'll have to download it to watch it: Kyle's Video. You can try just clicking the link and watching it in your browser or you can "right click -> Save file as..." to download it and watch it in a video player. The file is 86.2 MB so it may take a few of minutes to download (depending on your Internet connection speed).

Chipmunks!

2011-08-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

These are the final chipmunk pictures I ended up with from the hundred or so I took during the campout we went on in July.

Creating Evil Traps for Good People

2011-08-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

This is another post elicited from The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo. First, a word about the book. The first bit of the book is a walk-through of the events that occurred during the Stanford Prison Experiment. He bases it off of the transcripts and recordings that were made and he keeps it accurate and scientific, but the transcripts of interactions between guards and prisoners is riddled with obscenities--just a word of warning to anyone planning to read it. If that bothers you, you can just skip those chapters and move right into the discussion afterwards, but you may not fully appreciate the transformation of the participants.

This post comes from chapter 12, from a subsection entitled "Ten Lessons from the Milgram Studies: Creating Evil Traps for Good People" which begins on page 273.

Stanley Milgram ran a long series of experiments that involve participants believing that they are inducing increasingly powerful electro-shocks to another participant (a confederate acting the part of being shocked). They do so under the guise of a memory-enhancement training program while being watched and ordered about by an official looking "scientist." During the course of the experiment the participants must administer a shock each time the "learner" provides a wrong answer. During the course of the experiment the confederate "learner" screams in pain, demands to be released (he's strapped down), complains about his heart hurting, and eventually stops responding (suggesting to the participant that the learner has become unconscious).

The participants almost always look to the "scientist" for guidance as things get bad, but the scientist always gives them reasons to continue with the experiment unless they simply get up and leave. 65% of participants followed the experiment all the way through the 30 levels of shocks.

Milgram ran this experiment over and over again all around the world making slight variations on the design to try and learn more about what factors contribute to participants' conformity. It's really interesting.

I want to talk about the 10 methods of inducing compliance that are pulled from Milgram's experiments. These techniques are used very successfully in myriad settings including: salespeople, cults, the military, governments, advertising, and others. Each item has its own paragraph, so I'm going to summarize them briefly:

Create a contractual obligation (verbal or written).
Give participants a role to fill ("teacher" in the above).
Dictate a set of rules to be followed which can then be used to coerce behavior.
Replace potential unpleasant descriptions with positive descriptions ("shocking victims" to "helping a person learn").
Tell participants that someone else will take responsibility for what happens.
Use an initial innocuous-appearing step to elicit initial compliance.
Use successive steps towards the end goal, each of which seems like a negligible change from the previous step.
Have the authority figure slowly change from "just and reasonable" to "unjust and demanding."
Make it difficult and expensive (in some form, not necessarily monetary) to exit the situation, but allow verbal dissent while demanding behavioral compliance.
Provide some "greater good" for participants to believe in.

The last one is interesting. Zimbardo elaborates discussing Erich Fromm's 1941 work Escape from Freedom. In this work, Fromm discusses how throughout time the "greater good" used by dictators and tyrants in order to convince citizens to give up their freedoms is a promise of security.

I also can't help but read that list and think of how accurately it fits with how the TSA has operated since its creation. Here's how I think the rules (except 2 and 5) easily apply to the TSA's behavior:

Can't fly unless you agree to be screened.
--
Laptops out, liquids in baggy, shoes off, belts off, coats off, "step over here."
We're not violating your civil rights, we're protecting you from terrorists!
--
Just step through the metal detector, it's quick, easy, and somewhat effective.
Okay, now we just need you to take your shoes off. And your belt. And your coat. And remove your computer. Oh and just put your liquids in a baggy for us. And stand in this chemical sniffer. Also, if you wouldn't mind, just stand here while we bounce radiation off of you to create an image of your body.
Any appeal to reason or logic is met with a stiff reference to the rules and to fall in line or you just might miss your flight.
Don't want to be part of the TSA process? Your only option is to not travel by plane (and soon by bus or rail if the TSA gets its way). Have a complaint? You can file it with headquarters and we'll say "thanks for your concern" and then completely ignore it and tell you to get back in line.
It's for your own protection.

If you're so inclined you can probably turn these around and see how they are used against the TSA agents to convince them that further abuse of passenger's civil rights is acceptable.

It's incredibly effective. Just think of what the national reaction would have been if, when the TSA was instituted, they had rolled out the body imaging scanners and said these are now required for all flights. People would have flipped out. Instead it was one slow addition to the rules after another until people just accepted the new scanners. Those that did complain were told that their comments were appreciated and then nothing changed. Now the TSA talks about how few complaints they get about the scanners / pat-downs (only several hundred per year!) which is a useless figure because it ignores the thousands of people who will no longer fly to avoid the issue (like myself). As of July 2011, Amtrak has had 20 consecutive months of record numbers of passengers, but surely that has nothing to do with how awful and demeaning airports have become.

Kyle says I should document my misadventures.

2011-08-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

So, I've heard that when you're pregnant, you shouldn't wear heels because the hormones that relax your tendons and ligaments all over cause your joints to become less reliable. But I like my heels, and I have a hard time finding flats that I feel are dressy enough for church, so I've still been wearing them. Specifically, today I was wearing these. Now, for the record, these are apparently devil shoes. They were fine the first few times I wore them, but then they started giving me blisters on my toes. I've been determined to either break them in or toughen up my feet, though, so I wore them this morning. They have upped the stakes now, though, by bucking me off.

I twisted my ankle pretty badly. Just walking down the hallway from sacrament meeting to Sunday school, of course—nothing fancy. I even had my arm around Kyle's waist at the time (fortunately), which kept me from actually falling. Well, that and the wall. But I completely rolled my left ankle off that shoe (all 3" of it!), and it's not in fabulous shape now. I haven't hurt my ankles that badly since I was dancing!

Fortunately, like I said, Kyle was there, and my friend Sarah. And then my visiting teacher walked by and hailed her husband to assist Kyle in getting me to the foyer (while Kyle pulled the car around) and then to the car. I iced it for a few hours after we got home, and the pain is a lot better. It's not very swollen, either, which is great. So hopefully I'll be able to walk normally again in a few days? Sarah says I can't wear heels anymore, though.

All too familiar

2011-08-07T13:44:00.000-07:00

I don't remember where I heard about it originally, but I've had the book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (by Philip Zimbardo) on my wishlist for a little while. Yesterday I was able to pick it up at the library and I'm reading it now. I have a feeling there may be several blog posts that come out of this book.

The author is the creator of the infamous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment (wherein students were randomly assigned as prisoners or guards and during which things went terribly wrong). So he has a long and varied history of studying human behavior.

I'm only on page 11 but he already describes something that is all too apropos:

When a power elite wants to destroy an enemy nation, it turns to propaganda experts to fashion a program of hate. What does it take for the citizens of one society to hate the citizens of another society to the degree that they want to segregate them, torment them, even kill them? It requires a "hostile imagination," a psychological construction embedded deeply in their minds by propaganda that transforms those others into "The Enemy." That image is a soldier's most powerful motive, one that loads his rifle with ammunition of hate and fear. The image of a dreaded enemy threatening one's personal well-being and the society's national security emboldens mothers and fathers to send sons to war and empowers governments to rearrange priorities to turn plowshares into swords of destruction.

It is all done with words and images. To modify an old adage: Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names can sometimes kill you. The process begins with creating stereotyped conceptions of the other, dehumanized perceptions of the other, the other as worthless, the other as all-powerful, the other as demonic, the other as an abstract monster, the other as a fundamental threat to our cherished values and beliefs. With public fear notched up and the enemy threat imminent, reasonable people act irrationally, independent people act in mindless conformity, and peaceful people act as warriors. Dramatic visual images of the enemy on posters, television, magazine covers, movies, and the Internet imprint on the recesses of the limbic system, the primitive brain, with the powerful emotions of fear and hate. [The Lucifer Effect p11 - emphasis mine]

I read that and I can't help but think of what's happened in our country since 2001. How much blind hatred has been stirred up against an entire people because of the actions of a few? How many ways have we willingly allowed the feelings of fear, suspicion, and vulnerability be used as reason to change our society without factual basis?

It certainly has happened and is happening against anyone with a Middle-Eastern skin tone or practicing Islam. But it's also spilling over into the rest of our societal interactions as well. Has this not been the exact effect we've been seeing in political debates? It's always how the "other side" is trying to destroy everything we hold near and dear. Political ads are designed to instill fear and anger about what the "other side" is doing. Carefully designed to get you to react emotionally rather than intellectually. Because an intellectual position can be discussed and reconsidered; attempting to discuss an emotional position makes you "one of them."

As a society we're being pitted against each other. It bothers me how much outright propaganda we allow because even when you know it to be nonsense and predatory it still achieves its goal of creating a new baseline of emotion. A new baseline of suspicion, fear, and anger. And making those emotions normal is only going to lead to trouble.

Yes, they're big.

2011-07-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

Oh, and if you wanted to see the cracks in my windshield:

It's hard to tell in the picture, but I estimate those cracks to be about a foot across and 6-8 inches tall. Yipes.

Hopefully, I will hear back from Babies R Us soon. I'm pretty sure the cracks are getting larger.

Catch-up Time

2011-07-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, July 14-16, Kyle and I went on our ward camping trip. We had a lot of fun! It was at Camp Shelly, a campground Livermore maintains up by Lake Tahoe. I think there were about 14 families there, and we got to split a site with the Badgers (which just happened to be near the bathrooms!). There are a lot of trees, so it's mostly shady, and a lot cooler than down here in Livermore. We had a lot of fun, but I got super cold at night. (I think my vascular system overreacts to cold.) We got through it though, and I'm glad we got to go since we probably won't get another chance to camp for a few years at least. (Kyle also took about a million pictures of chipmunks, but I don't have those. Mebbe he'll post some later.)

Last weekend, July 23rd, we went to see Macbeth at the Livermore Shakespeare Festival. It was just as beautiful out there as always, and we were super prepared with blankets and coats, so we didn't get cold. The play was really good, especially Lady Macbeth. She was awesome.

This past week has been full of baby stuff. We attended a breastfeeding class on Tuesday night and toured the Antioch hospital Wednesday night. Kyle kept playing with the plastic doll at the breastfeeding class and making it do weird things, like shake an angry fist at me. The tour was informative (even more so than you might think, due to our guide being a complete nutjob who would bounce from not-at-all-relevant topic to not-at-all-relevant topic) and, bonus, that hospital didn't freak me out! A lot of the medical equipment, tubing, wires, etc., in the birthing suites are behind cabinetry, so it really doesn't feel too hospitally. I think this is the hospital we're going to go with; we just need to make sure I don't need to go between 4 and 7 pm, because the traffic will be a nightmare. It takes 45 minutes to get there anyway! (The other hospital would also be bad at that time of day, but possibly not quite so difficult.) But Antioch is a much smaller, quieter facility and I liked the atmosphere there a bit better. More comfy-like.

I also had an ultrasound done Wednesday afternoon to check our little girl's growth (to make sure the medication I started a few weeks ago for migraines isn't affecting her). Everything looked great; all the measurements were pretty much spot-on (27-28 weeks), except for her legs, which were at 30 weeks. So I guess she'll have long legs! I also got to see her open her mouth, as well as her eyelashes and a lot of skin wrinkles. (Kyle had an important presentation at work, so he missed out. Sucka!)

We spent part of this afternoon rearranging stuff in the apartment to make room for the baby gear we already have. A couple of bookcases moved elsewhere cleared some space in the office for the crib and changing table. We'll need to make more room in there as we get more stuff, but it fits for right now. And we're still hoping a 3-bedroom apartment opens up soon! That would make things so much easier.

A Rollercoaster Day

2011-07-25T19:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've still got some old stuff to fill you in on, but I need to get today off my chest first.

On Saturday, Kyle and I were in Babies R Us, starting a registry. We saw that the travel system we wanted was on sale, but we didn't buy it. We weren't there to buy things. However, talking it over later, we decided that we should have (20% off is almost certainly the best deal we're going to get), so I planned to go back today and get it. First, though, I called the store this morning to make sure the sale was still happening (there had been no dates on the signs we saw). Unfortunately, I was told that the sale had ended on Saturday. Not awesome.

Well, Babies R Us is on the way to my biofeedback place, so I decided to swing by on the way to my appointment and check for myself. It was a whim, okay? Well, I walked in the store and the signs were still up, so I asked at customer service and verified that yes, the sale was still on. (Apparently there was another promotion that just ended...but the one I was thinking of was still going. Whatever.) Awesome.

So I buy the travel system, right? And the guy takes it out to my car and we proceed to try to get it in. Please note that I have a small two-door car ('99 Ford Escort, in case you care). Guy tells me to push the passenger seat all the way back and recline it all the way (in the process of doing which I manage to smack myself in the eye with the headrest, really hard--not awesome) and he finagles the huge box in. This is good, except that it's pressed up against my gear shift, making it impossible to actually drive the car. So he then tries to turn the box for a better fit, and I go around to the driver's side to help from there. When I do this, I see that he is exerting enough pressure on the box to crack my windshield where it is pressed up against it. So very not awesome! I get him to stop what he's doing and we just take everything out of the box and put the parts into my trunk.

At this point, I should have gone inside and gotten a manager, but I was quite upset and a bit flustered, and I had a biofeedback appointment to get to. (I also wasn't really mad—I know it was a complete accident, and it's not even like he dropped it or anything, just pushed too hard—so it's not like I wanted to storm in and get him in trouble and raise hell.) So I head off, crying all the way (I blame hormones!). I go to my appointment, explain what all had just happened (hey, she asked how my day was going!), and get a lot of sympathy and some good advice. Awesome. I also turn out to be a champion breather, as per the results of my biofeedback, which is especially impressive considering the emotional state I was in. More awesome.

On my way back home, I had to stop at the credit union to figure out what was going on with my card. (I'd tried to use it at their ATM on Saturday to withdraw some cash, but it said it couldn't read the card.) Nobody knew what could cause that, but it was eventually determined that there was something wrong with the magnetic strip. Of course, I went in last week to change the PIN on this card to something I could actually remember, and it was only after that that I started having problems. Logic would indicate that when she re-PINed my card, she screwed something up, but no matter. I had to order a replacement card, which will cost us $10. Not awesome.

So I finally get back home and tell Kyle (who was home for lunch) that although he didn't yet realize it, we were having a sucky day. Basically, Kyle is more annoyed about being charged for a new card than my broken windshield. I can't explain this.

Having been informed that a store like Babies R Us would almost certainly have insurance to cover exactly this sort of accident, I called the store and spoke to the store manager. He took my information and asked if I could come back to the store so I could sign a statement and he could take some pictures of the damage. I ate lunch and headed back out there, and although I never did get to see the manager (who was now trapped on a conference call), he had an employee bring me the paperwork and take pictures. I should hear back from him, though, and hopefully this will get resolved soon. Potentially awesome.

I came back home and got the stroller all put together and such. We don't have anywhere to put it and the carseat now, but still awesome.

So for those not keeping count, today's awesome:not awesome ratio is 5:4. Except that Kyle discovered when making dinner that the loaf of bread we just bought on Saturday (which should be good for another 3 days, and which he already used to make his lunch sandwich) has mold or something on it. It's just white, but it's speckled across both sides of every piece, rather as if their slicer was contaminated. [sigh] 5:5.

What we've been up to...

2011-07-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

We went by the Alameda County Fair on Saturday, and that was fun. Some friends had called on Wednesday to ask if we wanted to go with them that afternoon, but it was 99 degrees outside, so I declined. Crazy people. By Saturday, it had cooled down a lot, plus we went in the evening. We mostly just walked around and looked at stuff, but we picked up some more of those fancy caramel apples we found last year and I got my cotton candy fix. The worst part was that we didn't get to ride the swings! I had been wondering how well my belly and I would fit, but then the sign said it was not recommended for pregnant women, which I think is just dumb. I'm still kinda sad about this.

We've been trying to buy a house, but it's not happening. We've put in 5 offers on 3 different houses, but no go. We both really wanted this last one, but they went with another offer for the same amount, but a larger down payment. [sigh] This has been enormously frustrating, and I think we're going to take a break and save up some money for a bit. For right now, we'll just concentrate on making room in our current apartment for the baby and hope a larger apartment opens up soon.

I've had a couple more OB appointments, and everything still looks great. I passed my glucose test (thank goodness!) and the baby is measuring well. I recently started on a medication (propranolol, if you're interested) that should help prevent my headaches. I sure hope it helps, 'cuz it's been kinda rough around here. I also started doing biofeedback, so hopefully that'll help, too. Only time will tell, though. The late-pregnancy aches and pains are starting to set in, so that's awesome. I can only imagine how much fun I'll be having in a couple more months. The good news is that I can feel our little girl moving around pretty consistently now, which actually is awesome.

We're criminals? Or: Our Holiday Weekend

2011-07-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning, Kyle got a phone call from someone in our ward—while out running, he and his wife had passed a yard sale with some nice-looking baby furniture. Since he knows we're expecting our first, he called us to let us know. So Kyle and I head on over, and it's this changing table and crib, about a year old but in very good condition. Also a complete bedding set and mattress, all for $150 (we were told (and completely believe) that it all originally cost them $1,000). We hemmed and hawed for a bit, mostly because we don't currently have room for baby furniture and because it's white (we would have preferred a wood finish), but decided to buy it. I mean, it's cute, it's in good shape, and we saved a ton of money! So we drove to the ATM for some cash and paid for it, which just left getting it home. Of course, nobody we knew had a truck was around, so we rented one from Lowe's (this went much more smoothly than on previous occasions). Of course, unloading at the apartment was tricky, with just Kyle and me to do it, and getting the crib into the office was even trickier: there's a weird corner you have to turn, but we managed it by tipping the crib on end and taking the closet door off its hinges. So now our office is almost unusable due to the baby furniture taking up all the free space, but whatevs.

We spent most of the rest of Saturday recuperating (did I mention that it was 90-something degrees while we did all this?), and Sunday wasn't too exciting, either. Well, except when Kyle told his mom about our find. Of course, being a year old, it's a drop-side crib, so we knew it would have been recalled, but we just got on the manufacturer's website and ordered the kit to convert it to a static-side crib (it's already an extremely safe design, but they're now sending us a couple of brackets that will completely immobilize the moving side)—no biggie, right? Well, Kyle's mom informed us of something we had not even suspected: it is illegal to sell or resell recalled items! I knew retailers could no longer sell these cribs, but I didn't think it applied to garage sales. So maybe we're a little bit criminal. We're still not concerned; this crib seems to have very good workmanship, and we can't even figure out how this particular mechanism would fail anyway. We've decided we're okay with it.

Monday was, of course, Independence Day. We went shopping at the mall for some shirts for Kyle that afternoon, but that still left us with a fireworks dilemma. Sadly, Livermore canceled their fireworks display this year, so we had to find somewhere else to go. We headed up to San Ramon around 7pm, expecting to spend a couple hours walking around their fair-type-thing and be all ready for fireworks at 9:30pm. Well, we got up there and parked and started walking around, only to discover that there was no fair-type-thing, only a row of concessions. So we walked around a bit more, then bought some very tasty kettle corn and found a spot to sit. For an hour and a half. All we'd brought with us was a deck of cards, and we realized we don't know any games to play with a deck of cards except War (dismissed by Kyle as the most pointless game in the history of ever) and various iterations of solitaire. So I played solitaire while Kyle went back to the car for a second blanket (despite being blazing hot that afternoon, it was cooling down fast), and when he got back, Kyle showed me a magic trick. I pretty much guessed the solution right off. [Kyle's Note: "...guessed the solution right off" might be overselling things; I'm not that bad at this simple magic trick.] Anyway, the fireworks finally started, and it was a really good display. We both had a hard time getting comfy, but we still enjoyed it a lot. All in all, it was a great holiday weekend!

Oh, and we've also been informed that I don't look pregnant in the recent pics on this blog. Don't worry, I am:

July 1st, 24 weeks

Anniversary Weekend Part 4 - The Ocean

2011-07-02T22:27:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, breakfast was Eggs Benedict, but we opted to switch out the poached eggs for scrambled instead and to skip the Hollandaise sauce.

After packing up and checking out we headed to the ocean. We stopped on a roadside pullout which was a cliff overlooking a beach. As I mentioned in the Part 2, I like taking long exposure shots. This was my first chance to try it out on the ocean though. I took a whole lot of 'em, here are the best (remember you can click on the images to view them larger).

I got these long exposures by using a neutral density filter and a polarizer to cut down on the light. I also used the smallest apertures I could. Even so, the exposures were a little bright, but I was able to get things worked out pretty well by using RAW images.

15 sec - f/40.0

5 sec - f/16.0

20 sec - f/32.0

10 sec - f/22.0

13 sec - f/32.0

15 sec - f/32.0

Here's that scene with a regular shutter speed:

1/60 sec - f/20.0

I really like these shots. It was sunny, but the wind was blowing and it was a little chilly. So we wrapped up in the blankets I keep in the trunk. We sat on that cliff watching the ocean and taking pictures for about an hour. It was Jess' favorite part of our whole trip.

Once we finished we got back in the car and drove down Highway 1 for a little while. Jess really wanted to get down to a beach so we stopped at Doran Beach. The water was cold. Very cold. But it was sandy, unlike CT beaches. I didn't bring the camera with me so we don't have any pictures, but we walked down the beach for a while before turning around. It was nice, but the constantly blowing wind seems to give Jess a headache.

After that it was time to head home. It was very nice to get out of town and spend time in a more secluded part of the state. A last peaceful hurrah before our world is up-ended by a baby in a few months.

Anniversary Weekend Part 3 - The Horticultural Gardens of Doom

2011-07-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

After lunch in Sebastopol we headed to the Sonoma Horticultural Nursery and Gardens. Sadly, the gardens appear in need of many days hard work by a few dozen people to return them to their (presumably) former glory.

The paths were overgrown. And most of the property was just in disrepair. But that kind of created its own interest. A lost garden disappearing into the wild growth.

We wandered around for a long while being somewhat entranced with the state of the gardens. I eventually thought to get the camera out once we were deep into the property. We found a little picnic table in a small clearing with a fountain. The fountain is overgrown and non-functioning. It probably was a really nice spot to stop for lunch back in the day.

Here's the path away from the fountain. If you look closely, the left-hand side has two stone boxes with a tree in each.

Here's another stone box with a tree in it. There's an old sign next to it which I assume is supposed to identify the species.

As we walked along we found this bench. The ends of the bench are wagon wheels.

Here's another random little table thing with nice lion statues. Again, it seems like at some point it was a really pleasant piece of property to walk around on. However, on several occasions the paths were so overgrown you could barely see them and we had to stop and find new paths due to massive spider webs reaching across.

This tree was actually pretty cool still. The branches hang down to the ground and create a little covered area underneath. Jess is sitting on a nice little bench there.

It's too bad that it's fallen into disrepair. It would probably be a really nice place again if a few dozen people spent a bit of time pruning, cleaning, raking, fixing, etc. Sadly, as it is, it kind of seems like the kind of place where a serial-killing gardener takes his victims and buries them. They should at least be capitalizing on this ambiance with Haunted Gardens during Halloween.

Up Next: Part 4 - The Ocean

Anniversary Weekend Part 2 - Armstrong Redwoods

2011-07-02T17:29:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we slept in, of course. But the Inn at Occidental is prepared for this and serves breakfast until 10. The entree for the day was Pecan Caramel French Toast, very tasty. After breakfast we headed out to the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve. It was, as you might expect, a bunch of trees. But they are, you know, big....and tall....and old.

We only did a fairly short "hike" (let's be honest, it was walking along an almost completely flat and cleared path). It started with a stop at a labeled cross-section of a tree which lived from ~948 until ~1906:

Along the way the path goes through the Burbank Circle. Apparently, when a redwood is damaged, or dies, offshoots from its roots/stump grow. This naturally creates a circle of trees around the base of the dead one. Eventually the dead one decomposes away and leaves a clearing within a circle of trees. There's enough time for this to happen since the trees live to be 1000 years old. So, we rested on the benches in the Burbank Circle. Here's a picture looking up from the center of the circle (it looks more circular if you're really there looking around):

A very large amount of the ground in the woods is covered in redwood sorrell (not to be confused with clover). If it gets too warm (like when the sun is hitting it directly) it folds up. This spot was in the shade so the leaves (I guess they're leaves?) are spread apart.

Here's the two of us standing against the cross-section of a fallen redwood. They're big trees.

As we were heading back along the trail to the parking lot we spotted a banana slug on a post. They're silly-looking things:

One of the things I like to do with our camera is to take either really quick exposures or really long exposures because you get to see things in a way you can't with your eyes. Here's 15 seconds of walking through the woods:

There's something kind of interesting and ethereal about it.

We like the redwood forest. It was quiet and shady. It'd be really fun to go camping up there sometime. Once we finished up we headed into Sebastapol. We stopped for pizza at Mary's Pizza Shack, which was pretty good. The food was needed and Jess needed some time to recover from her first bout with car-sickness. The roads were a bit windy and up-and-downy.

After lunch it was on to see the Sonoma Horticultural Gardens and Nursery. We concluded that they would now be better named the Horticultural Gardens of Doom. So stay tuned.

Up Next: Part 3 - The Horticultural Gardens of Doom, Part 4 - The Ocean

Anniversary Weekend Part 1 - Occidental

2011-07-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we took a little vacation to celebrate our 2-year anniversary. We booked a room at the Inn at Occidental (in Occidental, CA). It's a tiny little town west of Santa Rosa. The town has a population of 1,115. It's up in the "mountains" (for lack of a better term) surrounded by woods--nice and quiet.

There was a fish-eye-view mural on the side of a building, it really does show pretty much the entire town, excluding most of the actual houses:

The Inn was very nice. They have about 20 rooms. When we arrived they had music playing in our room for us (a CD Jess ended up buying). The room had a Jacuzzi tub with some silly rubber ducks in it. The ducks had trouble staying upright when actually in water.

A hot breakfast was included and was served in their dining room on the bottom floor of the main building. They had a fixed menu each day, but were very accommodating to any desired changes.

Coming up next: Part 2 - Armstrong Redwoods, Part 3 - The Horticultural Gardens of Doom, Part 4 - The Ocean

This looks legit

2011-06-17T07:59:00.001-07:00

I know this is legit, he says so right there in the first sentence! Borrow $5 million at 3% interest? Sign me up!

I'm actually a little impressed, the words are correctly spelled!

Coming in October...

2011-05-31T18:42:00.000-07:00

...our baby girl!

That's some good sales prediction tech

2011-05-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

I ordered something from Amazon last night. Take a look at the dates on this order status:

They apparently managed to ship the item before I ordered it! How'd they know! Now, if we lived on the East Coast then, sure, time zones, etc...but we live in California.

Grails Spring Security using PreAuthenticated Authentication Provider

2011-05-26T11:09:00.001-07:00

This was a tricky problem I've been trying to solve for a little while.

If your webserver is providing the authentication service then your application simply needs to read in the `remoteUser` value out of the request header and trust it. In Grails you can do this with the Spring Security Core plugin using a PreAuthenticatedAuthenticationProvider. But it requires some configuration.

Follow the regular Spring Security Core setup process with the following adjustments.

In Config.groovy, define the providers you want available:

grails.plugins.springsecurity.providerNames = ['preAuthenticatedAuthenticationProvider', 'anonymousAuthenticationProvider']

And we need to define that preAuthenticated provider as a bean.

In resources.groovy we need:

beans = {
  userDetailsService(org.codehaus.groovy.grails.plugins.springsecurity.GormUserDetailsService) {
    grailsApplication = ref('grailsApplication')
  }
  
  userDetailsByNameServiceWrapper(org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UserDetailsByNameServiceWrapper) {
    userDetailsService = ref('userDetailsService')
  }
  
  preAuthenticatedAuthenticationProvider(org.springframework.security.web.authentication.preauth.PreAuthenticatedAuthenticationProvider) {
    preAuthenticatedUserDetailsService = userDetailsByNameServiceWrapper
  }

  requestHeaderAuthenticationFilter(org.springframework.security.web.authentication.preauth.RequestHeaderAuthenticationFilter) {
    principalRequestHeader = 'remoteUser'
    authenticationManager = ref('authenticationManager')
  }
}

And finally, in our BootStrap.groovy file we need to register the authentication filter:

import org.codehaus.groovy.grails.plugins.springsecurity.SecurityFilterPosition
import org.codehaus.groovy.grails.plugins.springsecurity.SpringSecurityUtils

class BootStrap {
  def init = { servletContext ->
    SpringSecurityUtils.clientRegisterFilter('requestHeaderAuthenticationFilter', SecurityFilterPosition.PRE_AUTH_FILTER) 
  }
}

While on a hike

2011-05-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I convinced Jess to go for a hike with me up at Del Valle Reservoir. It's a nice area just outside of the Livermore city limits. I haven't done anything outside in awhile beyond driving to/from work (or bicycling the same occasionally) and I wanted to be outside since it has been nice out.

So yesterday we drove out to the reservoir and did a short hike, about 1.2 miles. We stopped about halfway through and rested. While resting I took a bunch of pictures, none of which quite turned out how I had imagined. The wind was blowing rather strongly, so I thought it might be fun to try and get a picture of the tall, dry grass covering the hills blowing in the wind. Kind of like the kind of pictures you can get of water where it looks silky. Well, that didn't quite work out, it mostly looks like a blurry mess, but I was able to adjust one to look kind of nice. I used an oil painting effect to get a somewhat impressionist version of the hillside. It looks okay, but there's nowhere really for your eye to settle.

As we began hiking again we passed a bunch of thistles. We happened upon one that was growing all by itself which presented a nice opportunity to get it isolated from the background. As I mentioned, the wind was blowing so I didn't have much control of the exposure besides cranking the shutter speed up as fast as it would go in order to keep it from blurring. This also meant I needed to bump up the ISO, so the shot came out a little bit grainy, but I think it still looks pretty good:

After the hike we stopped at Wienerschnitzel for some ice-cream. On our way to the reservoir we had seen that they were selling 79-cent soft-serve ice-cream cones. Jess, however, opted for a caramel sundae instead. Regardless, the ice-cream was good. I would be more than happy to make a regular thing of hiking / photographing for 1.5-2 hours and then getting ice-cream.

All tuckered out

2011-05-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

Jess decided she wanted a body pillow. So we picked one up from Target. Jess tossed it on the bed and when she came back a few hours later she discovered that her new pillow had made itself at home and was so tired from the day's excitement that it fell asleep while reading a book:

Kangaroo update!

2011-05-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, remember the sad kangaroo I mentioned in the San Diego Zoo post? Who we postulated was old or arthritic or somesuch? Well, according to my current National Geographic (June 2011), this is actually just how kangaroos walk! They put their weight on their arms and tail, then scooch their legs up behind them. See? Man, I love this magazine.

Melancholy Meerkat

2011-05-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

I submitted a picture from our trip to the San Diego Zoo to the Intermediate Pictorial category of our camera club this week. This year there have been a lot of good photographers in the intermediate group. Some months I disagree with the judge and the pictures that place. However, as we were going through the images this week I was thinking there were many very good pictures and that I wouldn't feel grumpy about them being placed over mine. When my picture was shown the judge didn't have any critiques about it, but also moved along fairly quickly without much comment. So I was actually quite surprised, and very flattered, when it was awarded first place.

I do rather like the photo. But I don't claim to be able to find and take shots like this with any regularity. Of the 328 pictures I took at the zoo this is the only one that I still really liked after I worked with it. So I'd like to show a few of the steps this image took before the finished product.

Top-left: The original image as it came off the camera.
Top-right: The first step was to take out the extra blue. Your eye is very good at making you think the color balance is OK, but when you see the image with the blue removed it looks much better. The only thing done between the original and this image is the removal of the extra blue.
Bottom: Then I cropped in on the face and bumped up the contrast a little, the saturation a little, and removed some distracting blobs in the background.

The final step was to add some selective darkening to tone down overly bright areas and help the eye stay focused on the face. Here is the final image:

An Enjoyable Experience

2011-05-04T16:18:00.000-07:00

There's this fondue place here in town called Simply Fondue, and I recently got it into my head that I really wanted to go have dinner there sometime, having never done a fondue dinner before. Then I realized that the logistics of this would be far easier to work out before the baby comes, so I asked Kyle if we could go sometime before October. Of course he agreed, so then I got on their website and saw that they had a deal running through the end of April, so I made us a reservation for last Friday night!

It was awesome, starting out with the best caesar salad of my life. Then we got a sharp Wisconsin cheddar fondue with bread and veggies to dip. Next was the main course, a selection of meats that we grilled (this part got a li'l bit greasy and smoky). I think that I liked the cheese ravioli even better than the meats, though, and I didn't even think to dip those in the sauce! For dessert, we ordered a swirl of white and milk chocolate, and there was pound cake and brownies and fruits and other tastiness to dip in it. So good. We have decided that we shall be returning for dessert. We want to try their other choices!

We were there for 2.5 hours and it was just really fun. (Though we did come home and shower because our clothes and hair smelled like grease from the meats!) We were also very full!

Star-Toed Sneetches

2011-04-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

Not long after we got married, I realized that Kyle had much cooler socks than me. Not that they're anything terribly exciting, just white athletic socks, but they're lower cut than mine AND HAVE STARS ON THE TOES. So I started wearing his socks.

Of course, I couldn't always wear them because while he had plenty of socks for one person, there were not quite enough for two. But I pretty much always wore his socks.

Then, before we went to San Diego, Kyle realized that his socks were getting kinda worn out. So he bought more. He managed to find 3 packages of star-toed socks! I was/am so stoked about this. Now we have 18 pairs, which is plenty for both of us, and I get to have stars on my toes every day! Bwahahahaha...

I looked for pictures of these socks online, but I couldn't find them (I think they've been discontinued). They're made by Converse, though, so if you know they're logo, you're most of the way there.

Not cool, Dentist.

2011-04-25T11:38:00.001-07:00

Kyle and I had dentist appointments on Friday. Well, I've been very good at flossing for the last several months, so I figured I would be okay. And I was...sort of. The dentist said everything looks good and there was really very little buildup on my teeth. Awesome. And yet, that cleaning was so painful! I am told this can be blamed on the baby. When you're pregnant, your gums get inflamed and bleed easily (and it hurts to have things poked all around them!). But it's also super important to take care of your gums during pregnancy because gum disease can lead to things like preterm labor and low birth weight. So I get to go back in 4 months and do it again! And it's going to hurt even worse! Argh.

In other news, Kyle's teeth are "fantastic." He's rather proud of this.

San Diego day 2: the Zoo

2011-04-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

Saturday was slotted for a visit to the San Diego Zoo. We were all exhausted from Friday, though, so we slept in and didn't leave until about 10:30 am. Things to know about the San Diego Zoo: it's (1) massive and (2) very very hilly. Also, it was again very warm and sunny. Fortunately, my family was very patient with my need to sit down and rest...or go to the bathroom...fairly frequently. And we had sunscreen and water again (plus snacks this time!), so it worked out. Oh, and thanks, Kyle, for making me get new tennis shoes before we went. That also helped a lot.

The first thing we did was to ride the Skyfari out to the other end of the zoo. It was super nice and breezy and cool up there, and there was a great view! And now, a bunch of my favorite animals (with comments as I see fit):Colton and me with the statue of an extinct (and very large) bird:
Okay, the panda baby was super cute! He was just laying back, half covered by this huge pile of bamboo, chowing down. Adorable.
This orangutan was just sitting there, calmly pulling up grass and eating it. Nom nom nom.
This peacock wasn't in an exhibit, just up a tree. And making quite a racket!
Koala bears are [adjective that doesn't include "super cute" or "adorable," since that's how I described the panda baby]! Look at the sleeping one! How does that look so comfy? Awwww...
This kangaroo was so sad. He didn't hop at all, just leaned forward onto his hands, then hunched his tail and rear end up behind him to slide his feet along. We don't know if he was arthritic or old or just tired, but it looked sad. But who knows; all the others were asleep, so mebbe this is normal?
I really liked the giraffes. And this baby was [other "cute" adjective]!
That was basically our day. It was really long and sunny, but we had a lot of fun.

Oh yeah, we went to In-N-Out for dinner because Colton had heard good things and wanted to try it. That was the end of our day. Mom, Dad, and Colton flew back to Dallas on Sunday, and we drove back up here. The end.

San Diego day 1: Boot Camp Graduation

2011-04-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

Kyle and I drove down to San Diego for my younger brother Colton's graduation from boot camp (he's going into the Marine reserves). Mom and Dad flew out from Frisco, too. It was awesome fun, and we're totally exhausted.

Thursday afternoon, Kyle took off work and we drove down, stopping in LA to see Josh and have dinner with him. Thanks again, Josh, for the best hamburger of my life! It was great to catch up with Josh (which was also a nice break in the 8-hour drive).

Friday morning, we were told to be ready to leave the hotel at 6:30 am, which was an even bigger deal since we didn't get into the hotel until 11:30 Thursday night. We actually did manage to get down to breakfast at 6:30, and Mom and Dad were late, so it worked out alright. We headed over to the Marine Corps Recruit Depo (MCRD) in time to see the colors ceremony at 7:30. It was neat, and we got to hear the band!

Uhhh...not pictured: the band.

Then we had an hour or so to knock around the base and its museum before the graduation ceremony. I will just mention this once that it was very hot and we were in full sun the entire time. In good news, though, we had sunscreen. The recruits looked pretty impressive:There was a lot of marching, by both the band and the recruits. Also a lot of flags, music, and ceremony. But they were eventually declared graduates and released!I'm so proud of Colton and what he's accomplished already. I also really enjoyed hearing him call other people "sir." Heehee.

Lessee, after that we headed over to the PX so Colton could do some errandy-type things before leaving the base. (Apparently, the boy cannot pass a store of any kind without going in and looking around, though he rarely buys anything. Go figure.) For a little while I thought I would die, but Kyle and I got some food—right before everyone was ready for lunch. Oh well. We were both still able to eat lunch (we went to the Yard House, the same restaurant Josh had introduced Kyle and me to the night before (only in San Diego, not LA, obviously)) and it was way tasty. I had my second barbecue bacon cheeseburger in 24 hours. This was also when we started to realize how much food Colton can put away. I'm pretty sure he ate 2-3 times as much food as me at every single meal (and more on some occasions!).

After lunch, we went to see the USS Midway aircraft carrier—they've museumed it and it's super cool. My favorite was reading things sailors had said about their experiences (working in the galley or engine room, for example), but it was just really neat to be able to walk all throughout the ship and see how people lived and worked there. They also had a lot of planes in the hangar and on the flight deck that were pretty neat. Colton and I climbed inside a helicopter: This is a shot of the top of the ship:Mercifully, this was almost all indoors, giving us all a break from the sun.

Next we went back to the hotel so Colton could change out of his uniform (we all got free admission to the Midway if he kept his uniform on, so he did) and then headed over to see the Mormon Battalion museum. This was a lot of fun because we learned a lot about the Mormon Battalion (surprise surprise), and I just hadn't known much about it beforehand. And look! We even joined up:After that it was dinner time, so we found a restaurant there in Old Town (the Old Town Mining Co.) and got some grub. Colton again ate a massive amount of food, and when we were all full, we decided we needed dessert, too. So I got cheesecake, Colton got an ice cream sundae thing, and Kyle ordered a slice of chocolate cake that proved to be the largest piece of cake I've ever seen (even bigger than the Great Wall of Chocolate at P.F. Chang's!). It was four layers thick, and each layer was a real layer of cake! OK, that sounds dumb, but just picture a round cake with four full layers. It was an absurd amount of cake, but Kyle managed to finish half of it. Colton, of course, polished off most of the rest.

All that was left that day was an early bedtime. Phew!

And so it begins...

2011-04-12T19:53:00.000-07:00

My head is throbbing, my nose is stuffy, and I'm exhausted. Guess I must be pregnant!

Well, I don't think the stuffy nose has anything to do with the pregnancy--pretty sure I'm just coming down with a cold. And I suppose you could argue that my head is given to throbbing, regardless of pregnancy (though this is slightly different). But I really am pregnant! I'm 12 weeks along, the baby is due October 21st, and we're both very excited. We had an ultrasound yesterday, and it was so fun to see the li'l thing moving around, kicking, and swallowing. It actually looks like a baby now, instead of the peanut it was a month ago.

You can see the baby's head to the left, and its hand up by its nose:This one is more a full-body shot, head on the left, foot out there on the right (that's the umbilical cord coming down from above):
I really don't know what else to say at this point. I'll probably have more to blog when I feel better--goodness knows I spend a lot of time thinking about this baby, so you'd think I'd have more to say. This cold is just really starting to hit me, so I feel pretty lousy. Oh, but I haven't been super sick the past three months. I've been very tired, and frequently nauseous, but I haven't been throwing up, so that's fabulous. There have been a lot of headaches, but I think it's just that I can no longer take my meds, not that they're actually any more frequent than before.

It's been fun to start telling people finally. I had an awful time keeping this a secret, especially when people asked what's new with us, and we just had to keep saying "Nothing, really." Hooray for being through the first trimester!

Check forgery protection using public-key cryptography

2011-04-11T20:31:00.000-07:00

Mom forwarded an email that was attempting to scam her in response to a Craigslist ad she placed for some furniture.

While I was thinking about this I realized we have the ability to essentially stop check forgery, specifically cashier's checks and money orders, but the principle would also apply to personal checks if we could develop a trusted lookup source for public keys.

Public-key cryptography allows you to publish a public key that can be used to either verify that you digitally signed something with your private key or to encrypt something which can only be decrypted with your private key.

The application would be as follows.

First, the banks put together a trusted database of public keys. This part is essential, as it must be possible to lookup a public key for any bank and you need to have a trusted source where at you do the lookup. A central database is mainly a convenience factor, you could simply have each bank publish their public key on their own site, but a more integrated solution is more likely to be used. This is not an insurmountable hurdle.

Second, when a bank creates a cashier's check it uses the data on the check (name, amount, date, etc.) and their private key to produce a digitally signed digital copy (or digitally signed hash) of the data which could be printed directly on the check as a QR code (or set of QR codes depending on size) [QR codes are those square barcodes].

Third, when someone attempts to cash the check the cashing bank scans the QR code(s) and verifies that the data matches what's printed on the check and also looks up the public key of the issuing bank and verifies that the signature is legitimate. In fact the actual printed data would be unnecessary at this point if it was encoded in the QR code, but I imagine we'd want to leave it on for the sake of the humans handling the check.

That's it. If implemented correctly and securely it would guarantee the authenticity of cashier's checks. The same system could be used for money orders as well. The other great thing about it is that individuals could verify a check the same way. They could scan the QR codes themselves with their fancy phones and then lookup the bank's public key (either from a trusted central repository or from the individual bank) and verify the authenticity of the check without any risk.

The biggest hurdles would really be getting a trusted repository set up and having banks securely store their private keys. There are easy extensions making this process even more feasible. You can use a master key to create sub-keys which could be used by individual branches. That would limit the risk if any individual branch's private key were compromised. With a central repository a compromised bank would revoke the published public key and flag it as compromised. Any outstanding checks would need to be brought back to the issuing bank to be reissued using a new key. A hassle, but it should be a world-shattering occurrence for a private key to be compromised.

This system is totally possible with today's technology. It would just be a matter of setting it up and getting banks to participate. Maybe I should go talk to some venture capitalists...

T-Mobile: Problem solved in under 5 minutes

2011-04-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

Jess and I don't have a texting plan for our phones. Therefore, we are particularly annoyed with spam text messages because they cost us $.20 each in order to be annoyed. We don't get them very often, but Jess just got one and I decided I wanted to stop them. To be clear, these aren't just wrong-number texts, these are unsolicited-advertisement texts ("News alerts for your area! Text 'Yes' now to sign up!"). We're OK with humans texting us occasionally but I don't want to be paying to get ads sent to me.

So, I called T-Mobile's customer service. I had to work my way through a voice-prompt menu but it was fairly short and at the end I was actually connected to a person and not put on hold. I told the CSR my problem and he offered two options: turn off texting completely or block 3rd-party texts. 3rd-party texts are advertising services, bulk-messaging services, etc., basically the kind of things you never want to get texts from anyway. So I said that a 3rd-party block sounded great. He said sure, activated a 3rd-party block for both of us and asked if there was anything else he could do. I asked another unrelated question about my account and when I hung up I checked the call time: 5:18. Subtracting out the time spent on the unrelated issue it took less than 5 minutes of my time to get the issue resolved.

Bravo T-Mobile.

No charge, he never tried to sell me something ("While the computer's pulling up your account information let me tell you about our new...." -- that annoys me), and he was polite and competent.

Compare this customer service experience with the previous one from AT&T. That difference is why I will be very sad if the T-Mobile buyout by AT&T goes through.

AT&T, How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways

2011-04-04T16:42:00.001-07:00

Some of you may remember my post from March of last year: Wait. You mean... I... I won?. Turns out I didn't win.

The story then was about calling AT&T to complain about a price increase on my Internet service. By the end of the call I had changed my service agreement to include a phone line and reduce my monthly bill by $5. It didn't make any sense as to how they could add a phone line to my service and reduce my price, but I went with it. To ensure my situation was what I expected, to quote my previous post:

So, she gives me the exact price quote. To be absolutely clear on the matter, I ask directly, "Is this an introductory offer?" - "No." "Is there an activation fee?" - "No." "Will I have the same DSL speeds I have now, 6.0 Mbps down, 768 Kbps up? - "Yes."

It seemed good. I mean, those were the exact words I used and got as answers.

Turns out that Samantha, the CSR of March 2010, straight up lied to me when she answered 2 of those questions. Guess which ones!

I apparently didn't blog it at the time, but that first bill I got with the new service had (can you guess?) a $41.45 activation fee! Way back when, I called and complained and eventually got them to reverse the charge. So that was lie number one from Samantha.

This month we got our bill and I discovered it was $15 higher than it should have been. So I call up to find out what's going on and the CSR, Michelle, tells me that my introductory offer has ended and my price has increased to the regular price. Well, wasn't I surprised since I was explicitly told this was not an introductory price. She, of course, was very sorry, but there was nothing she could do, but she would happily provide me a new introductory offer if I upgraded to a U-verse package. I told her I wasn't interested in that and wanted to know what options I had for adjusting my service.

She transferred me to sales and after 10 minutes on hold Dave picks up. I tell Dave why I'm not happy and that I'm looking for options to adjust my service and reduce the price. He tells me there's not really anything he can do. (Now, I'm signed up with the fastest DSL speed they offer, which is a crappy 6mbs down and 768kbs up, so I know that to reduce my monthly bill he could suggest I drop to a lower service tier.) He says there's not anything he can do, but lets me know about the U-Verse service AT&T is bringing to my neighborhood. He never suggests that I could reduce my bill by lowering service tiers. (I'm not really interested in doing this as the service is marginal at times for Netflix as it is, but it is a possibility.)

So I assert that I'm still very unhappy that I was lied to by the CSR in 2010 and really want to find a solution. He offers a special discount of $10 a month for the next 12 months, so my bill would only be increasing by $5 per month. He tries to sell me on how this is such a great deal. I'm not impressed considering that in Provo I had a 15mbs up/down fiber-optic connection for $39.99 a month for 2 years without a contract and without a single price increase and without any installation fee.

Now, last year before we added the phone line we had just a bare DSL line (known as a dry loop). We were paying ~$40 per month before they tried to raise our price. So I asked Dave what the current options were for a dry loop. He told me they no longer offered dry loops in my area because they were phasing out their DSL service for the new U-verse service which he'd be happy to tell me more about.

I verify with him that he's telling me that bare DSL service is no longer available for me. He says this is the case. So I ask him why AT&T is still advertising dry loop service on their website? And why, when I click on that, it says to call to set up service? He doesn't have an answer.

So then I ask what's going to happen to my current service if they phase out DSL? He says they're grandfathering in existing DSL lines and will still allow you to get DSL if you also get a phone line (for now I suppose). This is rather preposterous to me.

So I ask him, if I were to move in the next few months would I still be able to get my current DSL service at the new location? He says probably not. I'd have to sign up for U-Verse.

Clearly, all signs point to U-verse. Figuring I may as well find out what he had to say on the matter, I asked about it. He tells me that the Internet-only U-verse package to match my current speeds has a ~$140 installation fee, a ~$75 equipment fee, and monthly prices starting at $45. Yah, that sounds like a great deal AT&T, I can't imagine why I wouldn't want to switch.

This is also disregarding the fact that I find it unlikely the apartment complex is going to want AT&T running around drilling holes and running fiber-optic connections all over the place. So it's likely not going to happen here for a while even if I did want it.

So at this point I'm just cranky. They're jacking up my rate (for the third time in the less than 2 years we've lived here) and pushing their overpriced fiber-optic service. But I've apparently managed to stay on the phone long enough to unlock another customer appeasement. Now Dave is willing to give me a $40 credit on this month's bill along with the $10 per month discount (for 12 months). So over the next 12 months I'd only end up paying an extra $20 for my service instead of $180, so I guess we're getting somewhere-ish.

Of course, since the last CSR I worked with blatantly lied to me I don't have much reason to trust what he's saying anyway.

So at this point in the call I pull up Comcast's website because it is the only other Internet service provider in Livermore. Everything I've heard about them in Livermore lives up fully to their having won the award for Worst Company in America 2010. Sadly, their prices are all just as high (surprise!) so even contemplating switching would only, in effect, be cutting off my nose to spite my face.

Out of options and needing to get back to work I agree to the $40 credit and the $10/month discount. But I'm still not happy.

Cars and gas

2011-03-25T21:24:00.000-07:00

I just got around to putting gas receipts from the last two years into my spreadsheet so I could look at trends in fuel efficiency and gas prices.

My fuel efficiency seems to have leveled out at about 30 miles per gallon. I seem to no longer have a seasonal swing due to cold weather like I did while in Utah. The little peaks are road trips where we get better mileage while driving long stretches on the highway.

Gas prices were pretty level for awhile at the $3/gallon mark. I'm still astounded at the massive collapse in prices in 2008. Prices were down to $1.50/gallon! But we seem to have put a stop to that. Gas prices are back up to $4/gallon here. Hopefully the rain will stop for the season soon so I can try riding my bike a few times a week to save some money and get some exercise.

Pizza the Next!

2011-03-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

Here's this week's pizza. It came out much more circular. I added some whole wheat flour too to make it a little healthier. I'm getting better at this!

Pizza

2011-03-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

This was our second attempt at pizza. Last week didn't go so well, the crust had trouble. But this week was a lot better. I overstretched it so I kind of had to flop it over on itself to get it to fit on the pizza stone, but it still tasted pretty good. I'm still working on the whole making it circular thing too. The crust we used had some reviews saying it was bland, so I added some honey and Italian seasoning which worked out great.

On the subject of nuclear power

2011-03-14T09:41:00.001-07:00

There is, of course, a lot of media coverage of the Fukushima nuclear power station in Japan which is suffering failures following the earthquake and tsunami there. I'd like to make a couple of points on the matter. First, nuclear power plants don't explode like nuclear weapons. It doesn't happen, it can't happen. While nuclear explosions are simple in principle they're actually quite difficult to make happen (You basically need perfectly symmetric pressure and exact radiation densities or you'll only get partial explosions). So people need to stop tossing around this idea that the "worst case scenario" is a nuclear explosion. It's not.

Second, I've seen media reports claiming that this event shows the "fragility" and "danger" of nuclear power plants and why they need to be avoided. This is a rather disingenuous statement. Let's look at the plant and what happened. (Note that some of the details are still sketchy, so I don't claim to be perfectly accurate in event descriptions. I'm getting most of my information from the Wikipedia article.)

Construction on the facility began in 1966. It's old. The reactor designs are old (installed in the 70's) and designs and safety systems have vastly improved in the intervening 45 years. So any failures at this facility really has no bearing on the safety of modern designs.

From my understanding the power plant in Japan was designed to handle a 7.9 magnitude quake. So the fact that it was still standing after an 8.9 magnitude quake shows the robustness of the design. Japan's advanced earthquake warning system automatically shut down the 3 active reactors. Because the reactors shut down, they weren't producing any electricity and the active cooling-system required outside power to continue operating (modern designs use passive cooling-systems that don't require power to keep the reactor safe). The massive damage to the region's power grid put them in a more vulnerable state and prevented external grid power from being used to power the cooling systems, but on-site backup generators kicked in as designed. Things would have been fine at this point, but then a massive tsunami hit the facility knocking out the backup generators. There was a protective sea wall in place, but the tsunami wiped it out.

At this point the next backup in the design took effect (this is 3rd-level backup) and batteries began supplying the necessary power. They had enough capacity to power the facility for 8 hours, but further supplies took up to 13 hours to arrive due to the extensive damage in the region. The effort was hampered by the fact that the planned location for external backup power generators was flooded by the tsunami.

Yet, despite all this, no major exposure of radiation has occurred. Some radioactive steam was vented from two of the reactors in order to reduce pressure in the cooling systems and prevent further damage. The most recent reported levels of radiation exposure that I've seen have been ~1000 microsieverts. Approximately the amount of exposure you'd receive in one year from normal background radiation. And, of course, this only applies if you are exposed. So while a lot of media is discussing the "dangerous" radiation levels, I've seen nothing showing which people might actually be exposed.

Yes, any exposure to radiation is bad because it will increase your lifetime cancer risk. I've stated this about the TSA back-scatter devices and it's true of exposure from any other source as well. The important thing to consider in this case, though, is the larger context in terms of power sources. We're going to generate our electricity somehow, so let's look at one of the most popular choices: coal.

During the normal operation of a nuclear power plant there is zero radiation release or exposure to employees, the environment, or neighbors. However, coal power plants exhaust radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere as part of their regular operation. According to an article published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory a typical coal power plant releases 5.2 tons of uranium and 12.8 tons of thorium per year! By contrast, the atmospheric release of radioactive particles by the Chernobyl accident (1986) was ~6 tons.

To be clear on the matter, there is almost no risk of a Chernobyl style exposure at the Fukushima power station. And even if there were such a disaster, the release of radioactive particles would still be far below the annual release of a single coal power plant.

I still assert that nuclear power is the answer to the next 100 years of our world's energy needs. The fact that this 40-year-old facility is still under control after the massive beating it has taken is a testament to the safety of nuclear power, not the fragility.

Walking down the street

2011-03-12T11:42:00.000-08:00

While Jess was at Cub Scouts on Wednesday I took a walk down the street with our camera seeing what there was to see. The lighting wasn't particularly good, but I got a few decent shots.

Something is still bothering me about this shot, but I can't put my finger on it. There is some chromatic aberration towards the edges, but I don't think that's the main thing bothering me. I usually don't notice chromatic aberration very much because my glasses have always had substantial chromatic aberration, so it's basically how I see the world.

The depth of field was too short on this one, so I applied an oil-painting effect which I think came out pretty well.

This image had some depth-of-field issues as well. The main line of 4 blossoms is slightly out of focus. You can't really tell scaled down to this small size though. Regardless, I applied the oil painting effect (on the right), but I think scaled down I like them both. The one on the right has a calmer mood though. The one on the left might actually work well enough for a nature category but I think I would enjoy having the one on the right hanging on my wall more.

The Squeeze

2011-03-07T09:29:00.001-08:00

I keep hearing on the radio and Internet about how the economy is recovering from the recession. The stock market is back up and high-end retail sales are up and unemployment numbers may, possibly, perhaps, might be starting to turn around. But I haven't seen any evidence that things are actually getting any better. In fact, all the evidence I've seen suggests things will only be getting worse.

For instance, in December 2010 the Secretary of Energy announced that DOE employees and DOE contractors (which I fall into) will have a pay freeze in effect until January 2013. That means my income is not likely to change. However, since December 2010 all of our expenses have gone up not insignificantly.

Gas prices here are nearing $4 a gallon and all expectations suggest that they will continue to rise. In December, they were around the $3 per gallon mark. So we have to absorb a 33% (and possibly higher) increase in gas prices with no possibility of wage increases.

We don't have cable or satellite television, but we do have a Netflix subscription. The price of the same Netflix plan increased from $9 to $11 per month—a 22% increase for the same service.

Our Internet connection increased by $5 per month with no upgrade in service—a 14% increase.

Food prices have been steadily increasing over the last several months. For instance, a head of lettuce used to be about $1.50. This week I decided not to buy it because the lettuce was up to $3 a head and the heads were probably about 2/3 the previous size. I understand there is apparently a nationwide lettuce problem, but in a more general nature we used to get by on about $80 per week in groceries, but the last several weeks have been closer to $100.

Now, this isn't to say that we're struggling. We're still very blessed to be able to put the same amount of money into savings each paycheck and contribute to our retirement account at the same level we have been. But we are having to make some adjustments to maintain the balance. We've been doing a lot better about not eating at Panda Express as often as we used to (within walking distance, so tasty, so hard to resist). And the Social Security payroll tax reduction that went into effect in January has also helped soften the blow of rising prices.

But all the pundits that keep pretending things are getting better don't seem to be living in the same world as us. We're not going to be increasing our spending on non-essentials so long as necessities keep going up in price. Of course, Netflix is a luxury we can live without (and we're paying for it out of our luxury spending), but Internet access is very close to essential these days, and I don't like having to sacrifice fresh produce (I like lettuce on my sandwiches and tacos!).

Book Reports - Non-Fiction

2011-03-06T14:46:00.000-08:00

I've been on another non-fiction kick lately. Here are the most recent books I've read:

The Man Who Lied to His Laptop - Clifford Nass:
I really enjoyed this one. Nass has spent his career studying human-computer interactions and then using computers to help him study human-human interactions. Very well written. One area he and his team researched was why everyone hates Clippy so much (that stupid paper clip in Microsoft Office that tries to help you). He also worked on a project to improve Clippy's image. He found the most effective way to get people to like Clippy was to have Clippy insult Microsoft anytime something went wrong. This put Clippy on the same side as the user instead of against the user. Users loved it, but Microsoft didn't end up using that idea. There are many other fascinating insights all backed up with extensive research.

Raving Fans - Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles:
This one I didn't enjoy nearly as much. I was hoping for a similarly data-driven approach but was disappointed. Instead it's written as a matter-of-fact narrative. There are no cited studies to back up their claims. I like the ideas they present, but they simply provided no evidence that they're legit. It's about improving customer service but they never address the fact that all of their suggestions cost money and unless the better customer service brings in enough additional money to cover the costs it's not going to work. I can see it as the kind of book your stereotypical MBA would get excited over.

For Better - Tara Parker-Pope:
This book was recommended on the GeekDad Blog. I found it quite interesting. It follows my preferred model of heavily citing studies that back up the claims being made. It begins with an overview of current trends in marriage success. Namely, marriages are far more successful today than many people believe. People like to kick around "50% of marriages end in divorce," which ostensibly is still mostly true, but not nearly true for all demographics. When broken down by demographics you see that many common groups have a greatly reduced risk of divorce compared to others. The book goes over risk factors and warning signs and provides evidence-backed suggestions on changes that can improve your relationship.

One interesting point is that a lot of the troubles they cover stem from husbands and wives who expect to maintain the same life they had before marriage afterwards and when raising children. They both want to keep working full-time and going out at night and such and for a lot of people things completely fall apart when they have children and realize that they might have to adjust their lifestyles.

Another major trouble for many people is financial arguments. But the authors point out that financial arguments are rarely about finances and almost always about overall values and the financial arguments are just a symptom. You probably wouldn't be arguing about how money is spent if you both had the same goals in life.

How Risky is it, Really? - David Ropeik
I enjoyed this one too. Ropeik does a great job covering the neuroscience behind threat response. I found the discussion fascinating, though frustrating. He talks about the things that contribute to threat responses, but mainly admits defeat when people over/under-react. Ropeik suggests that once it comes down to it, someone who has over/under-reacted to a threat won't change their opinion unless they are honestly interested in adjusting their attitude to more closely match reality. Regardless, it still provided interesting insight into why Americans are still afraid of nuclear power despite the long safety history and other improvements compared to other fuel sources (and many other society-wide issues). He also provides some guidelines of steps you can take to better understand a threat to prevent yourself from over/under-reacting.

NurtureShock - Po Bronson & Ashely Merryman
This is probably my favorite out of this bunch of books. I also found it via the GeekDad Blog. It discusses a whole slew of aspects of the current understanding of child development. With 62 pages of citations at the end of the book, it's well documented and based on empirical studies. I definitely recommend it for anyone interested in the subject matter. I'll just go over a couple of the most interesting things.

One of the most interesting things was the studies of the effect of praise on children's motivation. It basically boils down to the idea that children who are unconditionally praised for being smart (or other inherent qualities) have their internal motivation destroyed. Because when they fail at a task it must be because they weren't smart enough (or other inherent quality). However, children who are praised on their effort and work ethic are far more likely to continue working on difficult (even impossible) tasks. They believe that their lack of success is due to a lack of effort rather than inherent failings which they can't control. This discussion all occurs in the context of the self-esteem society that was so popular in the 90's. An entire generation of children being told unconditionally how special and great they were, basically resulting in an entire generation of adults who don't like working on things that are hard. I guess growing up with a bunch of siblings who made sure you never thought too much of yourself has some benefits.

Another chapter that I found really interesting was about teenage sleep patterns. So, melatonin buildup is a big factor in what makes us feel sleepy. When it gets dark outside melatonin begins building up in our brains and we get sleepy. However, for teenagers, the melatonin buildup doesn't start until 90 minutes after it begins for adults and children. Meaning, chemically speaking, teenagers aren't tired until 90 minutes after adults. This is a major factor in why teenagers stay up later at night. The flip side is that the melatonin production continues later in the morning and is a factor in teenagers feeling sleepy in the mornings more than adults.

Here's where it gets more interesting. Several school districts in the country have used this information to guide their school start times. They've pushed back the high school start times by 90 minutes and the results were incredible. Truancy rates dropped, grades went up, SAT scores went up, the number of fights dropped, and aggressive behavior dropped. Basically, everything got better and has remained at those elevated rates ever since the start time change. Yet, most school districts still haven't adopted these changes.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested.

The Smart Swarm - Peter Miller
I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as I could have, but it still had a bunch of interesting things in it. The author makes a couple of dubious conclusions in some places, but overall it's a great discussion. I learned about how ants cooperate, how bees find new hives, how termites build their complicated mounds, why starling flocks and schools of fish move the ways they do. Those were all really interesting. The other aspect of the book is applying those studies to human behavior, computer/robot designs, and other places where large complex systems interact. It's interesting to read about how scientists and engineers have used these studies to improve telephone networks, industrial chemical production systems, delivery systems, traffic flow, and other complex problems.

Grails war error: codecOut.print(())

2011-02-28T11:44:00.001-08:00

Just stumbled upon this after upgrading to Grails 1.3.7. One of our gsp pages had an empty code block in it "${}" which was causing this error when trying to build the war. Running the app locally had no problems and Grails 1.3.4 had no errors when building a war with this empty code block, but Grails 1.3.7 did. Since there's nothing on the Internet about this little annoyance I'm putting it here so someone else seeing that error in their console knows what to look for.

Just to put the information in one clean place:

When trying to build a war, I got an error pointing to "codecOut.print(())" as failing. The culprit was an empty code block in one of the gsp files. That is, in one of the gsp files this occured: "${}". Clearly, someone forgot to fill in a value. I filled in the correct value and the war built without issue.

The Hunger Games Trilogy

2011-02-22T19:54:00.000-08:00

Jess got The Hunger Games trilogy for Christmas. She read them sometime last month and I read them this past week. I was quite impressed. I was a little skeptical at first since the series has been getting a lot of attention. And it seems that oftentimes things that are highly popular tend to pander or don't have any depth. For instance, the Harry Potter series was highly overrated in my opinion, especially since the writing was only mediocre until book 4 (when it improved dramatically).

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the Hunger Games series. It definitely was not formulaic. The analogy I thought of was that the Hunger Games is to Harry Potter as the Daniel Craig Bond movies are to the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies. That is, when Pierce Brosnan was Bond he was basically untouchable. The perfect hero who can get through anything without so much as a scratch. While the Daniel Craig version takes a lot of damage. Sure, in Harry Potter there's plenty of trouble for side characters, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione all end up basically undamaged and triumphant in the end.

The characters in the Hunger Games series are definitely worse for wear by the end.

The storyline is excellent and really drew me in. I had no problem reading for several hours at at a time.

In short, I really enjoyed the series. So I recommend them to anyone who likes stories based in future dystopian societies.

Valentine's Day

2011-02-21T22:17:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day this year was fairly standard. I always find it humorous to see the guys dressed like thugs trying to act tough while they're waiting in line with a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates at the grocery store.

Surprisingly, Livermore has more than 1 (and at least 3!) gourmet cupcake stores. I decided to give one of them a shot and ordered a half-dozen gourmet cupcakes for Jess. I brought them home at lunch, along with some flowers. There were 3 vanilla and 3 chocolate cupcakes. The chocolate ones had a cream filling. They were very tasty. Jess happened to like the vanilla more than chocolate and I liked the chocolate more than vanilla, so it worked out well.

For dinner we went to the Cheesecake Factory. We knew it was going to be busy, but it was busier than I expected. We got there around 6 and there was already a 2-hour wait. But, it's located at the mall, so we just spent the time wandering around the mall. The food was good and we, of course, each ordered a slice of cheesecake to take home and eat once we weren't completely full.

Presenting... GIMP

2011-02-21T22:16:00.000-08:00

The Monday following our adventure in Utah, Feb 7th, I gave a presentation about GIMP to our camera club. A few weeks back the presidency sent out a survey about club interests to help find topics for presentations. On the survey they asked if there was anything you'd be interested in presenting. So I volunteered to give a presentation about GIMP (free photo editing software). Pretty much everyone there uses some version of Photoshop so I wasn't sure what their response would be, but it went quite well. A lot of people were very interested in being able to do the same things they've been doing, but not having to pay several hundred dollars every few years to do it. Hopefully at least some of them like it and end up saving themselves some money.

Recruiting again

2011-02-21T21:32:00.001-08:00

Jess claims I'm the one who's supposed to be blogging at the moment. So here are some updates about our last month.

At the beginning of February we went to Provo for another Career Fair. We were looking for Computer Science students but didn't have much luck. We got a total of 5 resumes from BYU CS students. There were probably over 30 Mechanical Engineering students and a bunch of Chemical Engineering students. Which is fine, the Lab hires those people, but we (the two recruiters that went) are from Computations. So we don't really know a whole lot about what Engineering needs or is looking for.

We did have a whole bunch of CS students from BYU-Idaho show up though. Now, no offense intended, but, if we wanted students from BYU-Idaho....we'd....you know....go to Idaho to recruit them. I don't know anything about their CS program and it's probably fine. The two main issues are that 1) BYU has a good reputation at the Lab; BYU-I has no reputation. And 2) When we come to the Career Fair we stay an extra day to do preliminary interviews with students. BYU-I students leave at the end of the day and we don't get a chance to interview them. So at that point they're really not any better off than just submitting a resume through the website cold like anyone else. From my point of view (in terms of immediate employment opportunities) it's kind of a waste of their time and our time when they drive down and talk to us.

We drove out to Provo on the 1st. The Career Fair was on the 2nd. We had interviews and lunch with professors one the 3rd. And we drove back on the 4th. So it was a very quick trip. But we did get to see Erin and Co. And Mom was in town and we saw her. Jess got to see some friends while I was working and we got to bring back another stock of Jess' favorite bread.

So from a business standpoint it was slightly disappointing, but socially it worked out well.

The travel had its own special fiascoes.

We didn't have any weather problems, so that was nice. Clear skies there and back. Though, when we left Livermore it was ~50 degrees and when we arrived in Provo that night it was 6. It felt very cold comparatively.

Anyway, back to the travel fiascoes. On travel days Jess and I like to swing by McDonald's in the morning for breakfast-on-the-go. Now, for years, my go-to breakfast item at McDonald's as been their bacon-egg-and-cheese bagel. I've ordered this in Connecticut (my SAT breakfast), and several times in Utah, and several times in California. When we drove to Texas for Christmas I ordered it in Texas too. But Arizona and New Mexico knew nothing of this "bagel" I asked for. I wrote it off as a strange regional variation in the menu.

BUT! Sadly, McDonald's has apparently discontinued the bagel breakfast sandwiches nationwide. When I tried to order one in Livermore when we left I was told they don't have them anymore. And we saw signs to that effect posted in a McDonald's we stopped at during our journey. I'm quite annoyed by this.

However, the McDonald's betrayal doesn't end there. Oh no. Halfway across Nevada Jess decides she wants some ice-cream, a McFlurry to be precise. Figuring this shouldn't be too hard we pull off in Battle Mountain (sounds like it's straight out of a video game) and into the McDonald's parking lot. We walk inside and ask for a McFlurry and they say they're out of ice-cream. But they're kind enough to suggest a place down the street that has ice-cream (really it was the only other place that looked like it served food in a 25-mile radius). Fine, so we went in there, which was a little coffee shop place, and looked at the menu. We discover they don't offer what Jess is looking for. So we leave Battle Mountain dejected.

An hour later and we're going through Elko. We figure we'll try again. So we pull off the highway again and into the McDonald's parking lot. We go in and order a McFlurry for Jess and a hot chocolate for me. I know McDonald's redid their hot beverages in an attempt to be fancier or something, and I've tried their hot chocolate once since then and didn't like it; but I thought I'd give it another chance. We get our items and get back in the car. We fill up the gas tank before getting back on the highway. As we're pulling out of the gas station and on to the main road towards the highway I take a sip of my hot chocolate and gag. Not hot chocolate. It's some disgusting coffee disaster.

So I manage to get turned around and back to the McDonald's. The teenager behind the counter who took my order, made my drink, and handed it to me looks at me with a blank stare. I hand him the cup and say, "This is not hot chocolate." He look at the cup and then back at me and says, "It's not? sorry..." and wanders off to remake the drink. OK, no big deal, but it wasn't like the place was busy! We had ordered our food and he walked over, made the drink, and handed it to me. But apparently in the 8 seconds it took to walk to the beverage area he forgot he was making hot chocolate. Sigh.

Anyway, this time it is hot chocolate, but it's still pretty crappy. I guess in order to be "fancy" hot chocolate they also had to make it taste bad. But I guess that's what I get for growing up with the sophisticated taste of Swiss Miss. McDonald's is --this-- close to being on my blacklist. But Jess says I'm not allowed to blacklist McDonald's because she still really likes their biscuit breakfast sandwiches.

On our way back from Utah we decided we'd stop off in Sacramento and grab some Panda Express for dinner. So we find a Panda Express on the GPS which should be just off the highway and start working our way through Sacramento. But, turns out that Sacramento has changed their streets since the GPS maps were updated. It asks us to drive through a set of steel bollards and onto the sidewalk. We decline that option and try to work our own way around to the address, but after 10 minutes of getting stuck at one-way streets and not getting any closer we give up on Sacramento and just get back on the highway. I'd be ready to swear off Sacramento too, but our train is going to leave from there next Christmas.

Playing in the Dark

2011-01-22T11:02:00.001-08:00

While Jess was off at Cub Scouts last week I took the camera outside to play around.

I ended up with two images I rather like. I started by taking long exposure shots of the intersection near our apartment complex. I tried some really long exposures like 3-4 minute, but I wasn't particularly interested in the results. As I was messing with settings I heard an ambulance approaching, so I took a guess at how long it would take the ambulance to clear the intersection and snapped this 30-second exposure:

Once I was done with the intersection I moved into the patio area next to the shopping center. I took some shots of the fountain there and some of the moon rising, but didn't like any of the results. I thought the lamps looked kind of interesting though so I took a bracketed exposure and blended the three frames into this shot:

I believe it is a high-pressure, mercury-vapor lamp which is why it's so green.

Also, the camera club reconsiders everyone's competition levels at the start of each year. In the "Pictorial" category I've moved up from "Basic" to "Intermediate." A fairly large number of other members did the same though, so Pictorial Intermediate is now a pretty large group of people. I submitted two images this past week, but neither placed in the top 4 out of the 23 entries.

Victory for the Dickersons!

2011-01-20T19:53:00.000-08:00

As many of you probably recall, Jess and I drove to Texas in protest of the TSA grope-a-thon required to fly these days. Before the new, creepier security screening processes were put in place we had purchased airplane tickets with Southwest. When the change occurred I was particularly unhappy. I called Southwest and asked for a refund, which they refused to provide because "we don't control the TSA; it's not our fault."

So I moved to plan B: I filed a charge dispute with my credit card company (CitiBank) and carefully detailed why I considered the scenario to be a breach of contract. They conditionally refunded the money and sent the dispute to Southwest which had 60 days to reply. The reply just came through and my refund has been made permanent! Hooray!

--------------------

On a related note, an update about the letters we sent to the airlines and government officials. Every airline responded with a written answer. Most were along the lines of "it's not our fault, we can't do anything about it." But the response from American Airlines was very simple and direct:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us about the recent changes that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has made to checkpoint security screening procedures. We are monitoring our customers' feedback on this issue very closely, and we thank you for providing us with your impressions.

They're the only airline that didn't simply deflect the issue away from themselves. I appreciate that. The airlines claim they have no control over the matter and, ostensibly, they don't. However, they do have rather influential lobbying efforts which could certainly be brought to bear on the situation. And that's the goal I'm going for. If they get enough pressure and begin losing enough customers they will find a way to reign in the TSA.

Now for the responses I got back from the government officials. We wrote letters, (physical letters!), to our two Senators, our House Representative, the TSA, the FAA, and the President. We received exactly zero replies. In over two months not a single person, organization, or office responded to our concerns. No form letters, no acknowledgement of any kind. That really kind of bothers me.

The fact that no part of the government could be bothered to even acknowledge our concerns is why I have very little faith that anything will change until the airlines start lobbying for it. I've now learned very poignantly how little my opinion matters to the people who are elected to represent my interests.

Thanks America, you're really doing a bang-up job with that democratic republic business.

----------------

So the scores are:
-1 to Southwest for denying me the refund when I asked for it on the phone.
+1 to Southwest for not denying the charge dispute when I filed it with my credit card company.
+1 to CitiBank for taking care of this for me (using a credit card does have some great benefits).
-100 to the TSA for implementing stupid "security" rules.
+2 to the Dickersons who successfully received a refund from a large company.
+5 to airlines for acknowledging my complaint.
-20 to government officials/organizations for not acknowledging my existence.

Holidays are awesome.

2011-01-17T20:48:00.001-08:00

Kyle had today off, so we started out the way all holidays should begin: sleeping in. Then we went to the new Denny's Cafe up the road to see what that's all about. I was happy because I got a tasty breakfast for lunch. While we were out, we stopped at Home Depot for some supplies: a new pot, a set of drill bits, and a hook. Our goal for the afternoon was to hang the windchimes my parents got us for Christmas and to re-pot the rose bush. It had fallen victim to some idiotic vandals (isn't knocking a potted plant off its ledge and onto a cement patio where it will shatter into a million pieces just about the funniest thing you can think of to do on a Saturday night at 11:30?). Anyway, we got the chimes hung (with the help of a ladder we borrowed from friends, though w/o using the drill or hook) and the plant re-potted. Hopefully it's not too shocked to live.It looks nice, right? I'm not sure how much wind the chimes will get in there, but we'll see. They sound amazing! And here's my handyman:

I'm Alive!

2011-01-17T20:09:00.000-08:00

It's been two years since my surgeries, and I really think that everyone should get to celebrate that they're alive every year. It's so much fun! (It has been argued that this is what birthdays are for, but I think it's different. Feels different to me, anyway.)

So the anniversary of the second surgery was on Saturday, and we decided to go out to dinner to commemorate the occasion. There's a local Italian place called Strizzi's that I've been wanting to try, plus Kyle won a gift card at a work party last month. It was decided! We walked around downtown Livermore while we waited and then got to sit at a tall table (I love tall tables!). The food was really good and we sat around saying things like, "Two years ago I couldn't have eaten this food, since it's definitely not a clear liquid diet," and remembering how my awesome friends and family got me through.

It was a good evening.

I...fail at bacon.

2011-01-16T15:33:00.000-08:00

Can you guess which was cooked by me and which was the replacement bacon cooked by Kyle?

It's a Christmas blog!

2011-01-16T14:15:00.000-08:00

Kyle and I went to my family's, in Frisco, TX, for Christmas this year. It was awesome! We played a lot of games, including Guitar Hero...
...Mario Kart...
...and the New Super Mario Bros. (Colton and Christopher had a great deal of fun throwing each other off of cliffs.)We got to meet Miles, Christopher and Jenny's 8-month-old son. He's freaking adorable!On Christmas Eve, we played a Christmas Family Feud game that was a ton of fun. I only wish I could remember what had just happened to make them all look like that:Now, a couple of pics from Christmas Day: I'm wearing the robe Kyle's mom made for me (now I can stop stealing Kyle's!) and switching out my old, dying watch for the new one Kyle got me.Here's Kyle with his new apron!We're still trying to figure out how best to hang the set of windchimes my parents got us, but I'm totally stoked about them.

While we were home, I also got to see Melanie, which was great (even if the picture isn't)......as well as go through all the stuff my parents had of mine and sort out what to keep and what to trash. Kyle had a lot of fun reading from my journal from when I was 10 or so and making us all laugh at the silliness therein, but this is me tying on an old pair of pointe shoes.
The holiday was also the occasion for new family pictures. We weren't sure what we were going to do, since the original plan was to do them outside in the park, but it was raining and freezing that day. The family ended up setting up a really nice area in our kitchen, using brown sheets as a backdrop. I don't have the ones taken by the photographer yet, but here's a cute one of Miles and Maddox, taken the next day.
We got to spend a wonderful 9 days there with family before driving back here again. We took 3 days to drive out, but we were racing a storm on our way home, so we did the return trip in 2 days. That second day was crazy: we had sunshine, fog, snow, rain, and hail! Obviously, though, we made it home safely. It was so good to see everyone while we could, though.

Baby Burro

2010-12-18T14:36:00.000-08:00

We're crossing Arizona today. We detoured across Route 66, taking the scenic route through Oatman. Just before town we came across some Christmas trees:

I include the car and surrounding area just to provide a proper sense of the middle-of-nowhere-ness of the location.

Then when we got into Oatman we had to wait for the daily gunfight to clear the road. So while we waited we got out and bought some kettle corn and watched the baby burro:

That basically made the scenic route worth it.

If you ever get bored, or just have 5 minutes to spare...

2010-12-08T10:21:00.001-08:00

I've been getting a ridiculous amount of enjoyment out of watching clips of How It's Made on YouTube. Seriously.

Freedom of the Press

2010-12-07T07:12:00.000-08:00

President Obama while in China - November 16, 2009:

But I am a big believer in technology and I'm a big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity. (emphasis mine)

Hillary Clinton - January 1, 2010:

[President Obama] spoke about how access to information helps citizens hold their own governments accountable, generates new ideas, encourages creativity and entrepreneurship. The United States belief in that ground truth is what brings me here today.

Hillary Clinton about WikiLeaks - November 29, 2010:

It is an attack on the international community...

Sarah Palin about Julian Assange - November 30, 2010:

Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders?

Senator Joe Lieberman - December 7, 2010:

It sure looks to me that Assange and WikiLeaks have violated the Espionage Act.

Philip Crowley (State Department Spokesman) - December 7, 2010:

What WikiLeaks has done is a crime under US law.

So much for Freedom of the Press and holding our own governments accountable. Also, as much as people are clamoring to charge Assange with a crime there's the small problem of him not being a U.S. citizen. Seems rather extraordinary to charge someone with a crime under a law in a country in which they neither live nor have citizenship. But Palin apparently has the answer to that, just call him a terrorist and kill him where he stands.

Regardless of how you feel about the leaked information WikiLeaks needs to be protected the same way any other news organization would be, including the New York Times which collaborated with WikiLeaks in processing the documents and deciding what to publish.

Christmas time is here

2010-12-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

Per Jess' traditions we needed to decorate the tree today (today being the first Saturday in December). This, of course, necessitates having a tree to decorate. So we had to go and get a tree. Per Dickerson traditions this requires cutting our tree down ourselves after trudging around in the snow at least until you can't feel your toes, preferably until someone is crying. Unfortunately, California weather doesn't really cooperate with those requirements (though I suppose we could drive into the mountains far enough if necessary).

So instead we headed out to the Christmas tree farm that we went to last year in the 50 degree sunshine. We found a fairly decent looking tree and I cut it down. And yes, it's on the side of a hill, which is why the fence is crooked.

In no time at all we had Beatrice (last year's tree was named Albert, this year's is Beatrice) tied onto Chloe and ready to travel.

The main difference from last year being that we actually went during the day and not as the sun was setting. Easier to work when you have light. We got the tree home and set it up. TADA!

Check out that spotlight work on the angel.

Jess cheated and slipped some new ornaments into the ornament box as presents for me. Then tried to make me feel stupid for not recognizing them at all. But they are pretty neat. She used a Linux program which will convert a picture into a cross-stitch pattern for you. This one is my Mii from the Wii:

And this is the Linux Penguin, named Tux:

Since I had the camera out and on the tripod already (since I needed the tripod to get decent shots) I started playing with things. Here's my abstract art of our tree:

And this is what happens when you zoom in on the tree while the exposure is being taken:

We spent some time watching the Livermore Christmas Parade (I suppose it's probably called the "Holiday Parade" or "Winter Parade" or something, but it does end with Santa). And we watched The Muppet Christmas Carol while decorating.

Oh! And we hung up our stockings! Jess' mom made her children stockings and last year made one for me too, so Jess and I have matching stockings. They're quite lovely.

Flamingos!

2010-12-03T20:24:00.001-08:00

It's a pre-Christmas MIRACLE! We were at the grocery store tonight and when we were checking out, I forgot to hand the cashier my coupons until we'd already started the payment part of the transaction. She said no big deal, she'd send me over to customer service, where'd they'd give me money back for the coupons. After we got done there, we happened to glance at the little display of Toy Story 3 DVD's next to us. And do you know what we saw? A single copy of Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 on the stand! It's been unavailable for sale for years, and Kyle had just told me 10 minutes beforehand about how they were now apparently selling Blu-Rays, but no DVD's. AND HERE IT WAS! No idea where it came from, either, or where it was actually supposed to be. But we turned right back around and bought it.

So now I'm going to show Kyle the yo-yoing flamingos! Eeep!

Thanksgiving Trip

2010-12-02T09:49:00.000-08:00

For Thanksgiving this year, we drove to Provo to celebrate with Erin, Bryce, Will, and Sawyer. We didn't decide until Tuesday that we were for sure going to go; weather was looking not good and we were concerned about driving through the mountains. But it cleared up a bit, and traffic cameras showed dry roads and moving traffic, so we decided to go. It was a very long drive, due to traffic where people were pulling off to put on chains, as the signs dictated. We got one tire chained before a highway patrol officer drove by saying that we didn't actually need chains. And, it turns out, chains are just as hard to remove as they are to put on. Who knew?

We made it into Provo around 10 pm, after 13 hours of driving or so. The good part was when we got to sleep in Thanksgiving morning. So nice. Anyway, then we headed over to Erin's. Kyle took a bunch of pictures of us hanging around and the feast being prepared. I'm including just a few.

Kyle's favorite part of any meal, before...
...and after. They were super tasty, too.
Horsing around with the kiddos:
After all that playing (and more with Kyle, too, though there aren't any pictures of it), the boys were ready for some quiet time. We made hand turkeys!
Lastly, some individual shots. (Nothing of Kyle, though, or Erin even. Blame Kyle!)
Dinner was great, and we spent the rest of the evening there. Included in the festivities was a showing of James and the Giant Peach, which is, I must say, a very odd movie.

On Friday, we ran some errands (including stocking up on Grandma Sycamore's bread and getting fudge from the Bookstore) and then headed up to Riverton to see Tianna and BJ. And Kessa, of course. It was fun to see them and play some games, and then it was back to Erin's for dinner: Papa John's pizza—my favorite!

Saturday was back-on-the-road day. Weather forecasts indicated that we would hit snow almost as soon as we got out of Utah, and it would be snowing all day in the mountains (which we wouldn't reach until after dark). Given this, we thought it best to abandon I-80 and head south on I-15 through Las Vegas, then, once we got into CA, north on I-5. This route had no snow forecasts, and we figured the extra time for the longer route would be balanced (if not exceeded) by the extra time for bad weather (not to mention being a lot safer).

We opted for a last-minute stop in Vegas, since I'd never been there (and our only planned trip to see it had been derailed by my stay in the hospital). Mostly, we planned to drive the Strip and then stop to see the fountains at the Bellagio. This was a great plan, but it ended up taking quite a while to implement. We parked at the Monte Carlo, 'cuz we couldn't find the Bellagio's parking. I didn't realize it at the time, but this would significantly add to the time spent. We wandered around inside the Monte Carlo for a while, trying to find the out, then finally located the tram that would take us to the Bellagio. Once there, we stopped at the Jean-Phillippe Patisserie to view the super cool chocolate fountain and share a Napoleon. Mmm, good. Then we wandered out through the conservatory and to the fountains. I had no idea that lake was so large! Lucky for us, a show was starting in just a few minutes, so we hung around and watched. It was awesome! Then we had to wend our way back to the Monte Carlo. (All this without our coats; I guess we figured that since St. George had been warm, Vegas would be too? So wrong!) All told, we spent about 3 hours in Las Vegas, and if we had known what was awaiting us, we would have skipped it altogether.

Right outside Vegas, traffic was backed up clear to the CA Agricultural Checkpoint, well over 100 miles! It was insane. Of course, the checkpoint was just waving everybody through, but we all still had to slow down, and traffic was a nightmare. Fortunately for me, Kyle was driving. :)

We eventually made it home at 1:30 am, after 15 hours of driving and 18 hours after we left Provo. Oy.

The Quest for a Refund

2010-11-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

Jess and I have decided we will travel by land for our Christmas travel in order to not be subjected to the invasive, demeaning, and/or cancer-causing security requirements of flying. Luckily my work schedule is such that we can spend the extra time traveling to and from Texas without cutting into the time we planned to actually be there. Regardless, as part of this decision I've been seeking a refund for the tickets we purchased in September.

My opinion is that when I purchased the tickets on September 25 I did so with the understanding that passing through security was required in order to receive the service I paid for (namely, being flown from A to B). At the time there was a security screening option which I considered tolerable. Therefore I accepted that screening requirement as an implied condition of the transaction.

On October 28, more than a full month after my purchase, the TSA changed the requirements of the security process and all the options became intolerable. To me it seems fair to say that the implied condition of my transaction with the airline changed without my consent. Since the terms of our contract changed without my consent I should be entitled to a refund because I reject the new terms of the agreement.

Of course, the Southwest customer service representative didn't agree with my position. While she agreed that passing through security was a requirement to receiving the service I paid for, her position was that because Southwest doesn't control the TSA I wasn't entitled to a refund from Southwest because of something that the TSA did.

I think this is entirely bogus. Southwest's contract of carriage makes no mention of security screening requirements, however I think it's fairly obvious that they must be included in any discussion of the contract as an implied condition—refusing to comply will result in you being denied boarding, being removed from the airport, and potentially being arrested and fined up to $11,000. I've also checked the contracts of carriage for Delta, American Airlines, and US Airways. None of which make mention of requiring conformity with security screening requirements except to say it is the passenger's responsibility to arrive with enough time to undergo any such requirements. JetBlue's, however, explicitly says "Passengers and their baggage are subject to inspection with or without the Passenger's consent or knowledge." So if you fly JetBlue you should be aware that you've agreed to be inspected without your consent or knowledge. Not cool JetBlue.

In contrast. Amtrak's conditions of transportation explicitly state "Passengers failing to consent to security procedures will be denied access to trains and refused carriage, and a refund will be offered." So it is clearly not unreasonable to suggest that the carrier should refund the ticket when the passenger refuses to comply with security procedures.

After getting nowhere with the Southwest CSR I asked to speak with a supervisor and was told that she was a supervisor. So I told her I'd be pursuing this further, which she, of course, didn't care about.

[INTERMISSION]

My next step was to log on to my credit card company (Citi Bank)'s website and file a charge dispute. I explained my position, why I felt I was entitled to a refund, and how Southwest responded to my request. As I was about halfway through the form I got a popup suggesting I could chat with a CSR about my dispute. So I did that which got me nowhere. I know why they have that option because they want to nip disputes in the bud when it's someone making a fruitless claim. But I explained to that CSR what my dispute was about and was directed to submit the online dispute form. And I did so.

I've since received notification that the dispute has been supported by Citi Bank which means that they provided a conditional refund on the charge and have sent the dispute to Southwest. So now I'm waiting to hear Southwest's response.

If Southwest denies the refund I'm planning to send what's known as an Executive Email Carpet Bomb. Which is essentially sending an email of complaint to any and all executives for which an email address can be found. This is a fairly popular move with the Consumerist.org website and can be successful when other methods fail.

If that does fail, however, I am fully grumpy enough and ready to take the matter to small claims court. I don't see how anyone could reasonably consider this to amount to anything but a change in the terms of our contract.

The truth of the matter is this:
Southwest: If you buy this ticket, in order to use it you have to be cleared by the TSA.
Me: TSA, what do I have to do to be allowed on the plane?
TSA: You have to do X.
Me: OK.
[33 days later]
TSA: Oh, by the way you now have to do Y to board your plane. We don't allow X anymore.
Me: No way.
Southwest: Too bad, thanks for the money.

So much for the "Southwest Difference."

The Solution

2010-11-19T14:46:00.000-08:00

I just realized the solution to all this security stupidity. A solution so simple, rational, and agreeable that it's basically guaranteed to never happen.

Let the people choose. A lot of people, including the TSA head, have claimed that if you let people choose they'd choose the invasive security measures. So let's let people choose. Just not between no security and invasive security. Let people choose between the invasive security and the metal detector + luggage X-ray that we've used for years.

It's quite easy. Allow airlines to fly low-security and high-security flights. Allow the employees of the airline to choose which flights they'd like to fly. Run them out of separate terminals at the airports to keep security areas separate. For small airports designate the far-end as high-security and the closer end as low-security. You pass through low-security first, then high-security passengers continue through the enhanced screening to their gates.

Logically the low-security flights would cost less since all that screening costs a lot of money. Then we'd see how the American people really feel. For $10 more each way you can fly high-security. Problem solved.

If people really don't mind the added cost and hassle of the high-security flights then we can realistically expect the low-security flights to be empty. And if that happens, cancel the flights and reduce their frequency. I doubt that would be the case though. I imagine you'd find many people would be happy to take the cost reduction (and supposed security reduction) and get on the low-security flights while enjoying a greater level of freedom.

Sadly this solution is so simple, logical, and un-divisive that it will probably never happen. I'd happily fly again with such a setup.

Now that the cockpit doors are reinforced and locked from the inside hijacking is not a credible threat. The only remaining risk is almost entirely limited to those on board, so let them choose what level of security they want.

No, you may not put your hands in my pants

2010-11-19T10:51:00.000-08:00

From KMOV 4 in St. Louis. Even if you are okay with the X-ray backscatter devices, you're not safe from the groping:

Business traveler, Penny Moroney, was flying home from St. Louis to Chicago. Like all other airline passengers, she had to go through security first. When the metal in her artificial knees set off the detectors, she had to undergo more screening. When Moroney asked if she could go through a body scanner, she was told none were available.

Moroney explains “Her gloved hands touched my breasts...went between them. Then she went into the top of my slacks, inserted her hands between my underwear and my skin... then put her hands up on outside of slacks, and patted my genitals.”

Why are there so many people that think this kind of screening is acceptable in order to board a plane? Why are people so afraid that everyone around them is a terrorist just waiting for an opportunity to kill them? Why do so many people say things like, "Anything that makes the plane safer is OK with me."? Yet these same people will happily walk into a grocery store, or mall, or church without any fear of the supposed terrorist threat. Do they really believe that terrorists only blow up planes and if no planes are available they'll simply stay home and take a nap?

The ability to travel is a Constitutionally guaranteed right. From Wikipedia's article on Freedom of Movement:

As far back as the circuit court ruling in Corfield v. Coryell, 6 Fed. Cas. 546 (1823), the Supreme Court recognized freedom of movement as a fundamental Constitutional right.

It is not a privilege. You shouldn't have to be either rich (private planes have no security) or willing to compromise other rights. We shouldn't have to choose between the right to freedom of movement and the right to be protected from unreasonable search. And yes, freedom of movement applies to all forms of transportation:

For much of American history, the right to travel included the right to travel by the vehicle of one's choice, and courts occasionally struck down regional regulations that required licenses or government permission to travel on public roadways. With the advent of the automobile, however, courts began upholding laws and regulations requiring licenses to operate vehicles on roadways. Constitutional scholar Roger Roots has referred to the forgotten right to travel without license as "the orphaned right."

Don't misunderstand me. I accept requiring driver's licenses as a matter of public safety. I accept requiring a reasonable measure of security for air travel. A metal detector resulted in no invasion of my personal privacy. It's a device which simply detects magnetic substances. I'd be perfectly happy to use a device that somehow detected explosive substances. And we had devices that supposed did exactly that. Remember the chemical sniffer devices that cost millions of dollars? What happened to them? They're gone with no reason or explanation given. Yet now we're spending a few hundred million more dollars on these new machines.

And this leads to another of the many problems with airport security. To use a favorite phrase of one of the CS Department professors: How do you know when you've won? That is, what's your metric for success? How do you know that the actions you've taken made a difference? Without a metric you have no evidence.

So what's the metric used to gauge whether new security procedures are working? The number of successful terrorist attacks carried out against planes? Well, that's been zero since 9/12/2001. So by that metric the security we had last year was perfectly safe. The number of deterred terrorist plots against planes? There's no way to measure that so it can't be used as a metric. The number of terrorists stopped because of airport security? That's also 0. The number of attempted terrorist attacks? This one sounds legitimate but is highly dependent on factors which can't be controlled (a priori efforts of law enforcement, terrorist recruitment levels, etc.) and thus you can't meaningfully compare the value from last year to value for next year.

I'd love to hear an admissible metric. Without one you may as well believe that my terrorist repellent works and just spray each passenger with it before they board the plane. Terrorists will break out in hives! 99.99999% accurate! Prove me wrong!

The American Traveler Dignity Act

2010-11-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

Hooray for Ron Paul, Congressman from Texas' 14th District. Today Paul introduced the American Traveler Dignity Act. (I haven't been able to find the text of the bill.)

Some quotes from his speech:

In one recent well-publicized case, a TSA official is recorded during an attempted body search saying, “By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights.” I strongly disagree and am sure I am not alone in believing that we Americans should never give up our rights in order to travel. As our Declaration of Independence states, our rights are inalienable. This TSA version of our rights looks more like the “rights” granted in the old Soviet Constitutions, where freedoms were granted to Soviet citizens -- right up to the moment the state decided to remove those freedoms.

My legislation is simple. It establishes that airport security screeners are not immune from any US law regarding physical contact with another person, making images of another person, or causing physical harm through the use of radiation-emitting machinery on another person. It means they are subject to the same laws as the rest of us.

Fly With Dignity

2010-11-17T15:27:00.001-08:00

A new grassroots campaign has started the website FlyWithDignity.org to continue to raise awareness on the issue of airport security.

They are collecting "signatures" in their online petition. Now, I'm not naive. I don't expect the online petition to be used for anything particularly meaningful. However, they do verify email addresses and it at least represents a set of unique email addresses that have at least cared enough to voice their opinion on the matter. At a minimum it stands to contradict the news sources that claim very few people actually care about this problem.

In other news, the TSA head, John Pistole, was in front of a Senate Oversight committee today. From the Consumerist website:

He used the analogy that if passengers had the option of getting on two planes to the same destination -- one which had been fully screened but which took a little longer and required scanners or pat-downs, and the other with no screening -- "I think everyone will want to opt for the screening with the assurance that everything is safe and secure."

I'd like to point out how he carefully constructs a false dichotomy and uses that to defend the invasive screening procedures. In reality our choices are not limited to invasive screening or no security. I'd be perfectly happy to invoke choice C, returning to the level of security we had 9 months ago. Total number of successful terrorist attacks involving planes from October 2001 to 2010 before the new procedures: 0.

The Letters

2010-11-16T20:40:00.000-08:00

Here are the letters I've written and will be mailing out tomorrow.

At the end of this post I've included the contact information for the major airlines in the United States as well as of the FAA and the TSA. I also recommend looking up the contact information for your Congressional Representatives. If you care about this matter please use those addresses and send your own letter.

This first letter is for the airlines:

To Whom it May Concern,
We regret to inform you that we will no longer be customers of your airline.
We think it is only fair to explain why this is the case, because it is not a reason for which your company is directly at fault. The reason we will no longer be customers of your airline is because of the actions of the Transportation Security Administration. We consider the advanced imaging technology equipment to be invasive and demeaning. When these devices were initially deployed we tolerated opting out of their use and being subjected to a cursory pat-down. However, the changes put in place by the TSA on October 28 (which require a more invasive pat-down procedure for those opting out of the advanced imaging technology) are unacceptable to us. Given that we no longer have a security screening option which we find tolerable we are forced to no longer fly until the security requirements change.
We're not writing to argue about the efficacy of the equipment or any purported necessity of the screening. We are simply informing your company that we will not participate in these invasive and demeaning security checks.
We are not very frequent air travelers and we realize you probably won't notice any change to your company's profits because of our decision. Nevertheless, the airline industry in general will now receive a few thousand dollars less income next year than it did this year because of our decision.
The actions of the TSA are costing your corporation money and customers. We hope you and the other airlines appreciate this fact and do everything within your power to try to change the problem. We would be happy to return as customers if the security screening requirements returned to a level we consider tolerable. We are law-abiding citizens and refuse to be treated like imprisoned criminals just to travel within our own country.
Sincerely,
Kyle & Jessica Dickerson

This second one is for the FAA, TSA, and political representatives:

[Addressee],
We have decided that it is not worth sacrificing our personal privacy and Fourth Amendment rights to travel by plane. When the Transportation Security Administration originally began deploying the advanced imaging technology we chose to continue flying while opting out of the AIT devices. We considered the cursory pat-down to be a nuisance but tolerable for occasional travel. At that time we also decided we wouldn't bother if we could drive to our destination within 12 hours.
The new changes put into effect on October 28, however, are unacceptable. We will not subject ourselves to an invasive and demeaning security procedure for the right to fly on a plane. As law-abiding citizens we refuse to be treated like imprisoned criminals.
We refuse to live in fear. We accept the risk that we are exposed to in a free society. We do not accept trading our freedom for an unmeasurable potential reduction in that risk. Until the security requirements are returned to a level we consider tolerable we will not fly.
We hope to see changes to the current policies. We plan to only vote for representatives who have shown a commitment to protecting our personal rights and our ability to travel within our country without abusive treatment.
Sincerely,
Kyle & Jessica Dickerson

Delta Air Lines, Inc.
P.O. Box 20706
Atlanta, Georgia 30320-6001

Southwest Airlines
P.O. Box 36647-1CR
Dallas, Texas 75235

United Airlines
Customer Relations
PO Box 66100
Chicago, IL 60666

American Airlines Customer Relations
P.O. Box 619612 MD 2400
DFW Airport, TX 75261-9612

US Airways
Attention: Customer Relations
4000 E. Sky Harbor Blvd.
Phoenix, AZ 85034

JetBlue Airways Corporation
Att'n: Customer Relations
P.O. Box 17435
Salt Lake City, UT 84117-0435

Federal Aviation Administration
800 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20591

Transportation Security Administration
Office of Civil Rights and Liberties (TSA-6)
External Compliance Division
601 S. 12th Street
Arlington, VA 20598

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

I refuse to participate

2010-11-13T19:30:00.000-08:00

I was going to wait to write this post until I'd written the letters I intend to send, but I want to write this now while there is some media attention on the matter.

I refuse to participate in the TSA's X-ray backscatter devices. I refuse to participate in the TSA's "enhanced" (read: extra-invasive) pat-downs.

Given that we purchased our plane tickets for Christmas many weeks ago before the TSA changed its pat-down procedure, December will be the last time I fly on a plane until some semblance of rationality is restored to the screening process.

I put up with the normal pat-down; it was an inconvenience but no worse than being frisked at a concert. However, I won't put up with the new pat-downs.

I don't consider a full-body scan a reasonable condition for boarding a plane. I don't consider a full-body pat-down a reasonable condition for boarding a plane. I will travel by means that have sane security checks or I will not travel.

I plan to write a letter explaining my position and sending it to all the major airlines, the FAA, the TSA, and my congressional representatives. It will be sad if the only way to get this to change is to destroy the air travel industry. But apparently we need to convince some large corporations that the TSA is hurting their business.

Yes, not traveling by air will be inconvenient. But there are options. I've been looking into long-distance travel with Amtrak. You can book private bedrooms. They're not amazingly cheap, but I'm willing to travel less often and spend more if it means maintaining some semblance of my civil rights. I've already written to Amtrak explaining why they have a perfect opportunity to make me happy to travel again. I really hope they don't disappoint me.

I hope more people will join me in refusing to participate in the TSA's invasive and demeaning security checks. We are law-abiding citizens. We shouldn't be treated like criminals just to travel within our own country.

I felt completely safe boarding planes with an X-ray scan of luggage and a simple metal detector. I will feel perfectly safe returning to that level of security.

At laaaaaaaaaast...

2010-11-10T16:27:00.000-08:00

Our dresser came on Monday! We're both so excited to finally have a dresser. No more piles of clothes in the closet! Anyway, here's a pic:And with that, we finally have a complete bedroom! Huzzay!

Disaster Averted!

2010-11-07T17:19:00.001-08:00

Kyle made hot chocolate this afternoon (it's rainy and dreary and wonderful today), and I was just washing the Cocoa Latte machine. (Christopher and Jenny gave it to us last year for Christmas, and we love it!) Well, the spigot comes apart into several tiny pieces for washing, and I totally dropped one down the garbage disposal. I got it back out, but then I realized I was missing the spring, too, so I kept looking in the disposal (I've never had to have my hand down one of those for so long!), but it was NOT THERE. Kyle came over to help look, though he was admittedly unsure what else he could do, but when I turned to him, I saw the spring on the counter, between the sink and myself, where I couldn't see it. HUZZAY! I didn't want to be the one responsible for breaking the hot chocolate machine. That would be sad. :(
But it's okay! Happy! :D

A Warning

2010-11-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

Don't freeze your Jell-O.

Sorry if the facts contradict your propaganda

2010-11-04T21:44:00.001-07:00

Apparently a lot of people believe that everything wrong with the economy right now is the fault of the Democrats. In particular many people believe that the economic stimulus plan was entirely the Democrats' (and President Obama's) idea. And that if we could just get all the Democrats out of office things would be better. And if Republicans had been in control the bailout would never have happened.

As much as I enjoy bashing politicians, unfortunately this issue needs some factual correction. I now refer you to H.R. 1424, better known as the law that created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the main body of the economic stimulus plan, a.k.a. the bailout. Most importantly I'd like to draw your attention to the votes in both the House and the Senate, as well as the signature of the president who signed the bill into law.

Senate Vote On Passage: H.R. 1424 [110th]: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008:
Democrats: 40 Y - 9 N
Republicans: 33 Y - 15 N

On Motion to Concur in Senate Amendments: H R 1424 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008:
Democrats: 172 Y - 63 N
Republicans: 91 Y - 108 N

President Signs H.R. 1424 into law:
George H. W. Bush

Also important to note to those that believe the Democrats are to blame is that the Democrats didn't have even a chance of overriding a presidential veto. You need 2/3 in both the House and Senate. In the House Democrats had 172 yes votes of 435 seats (less than 40%). In the Senate Democrats had 40 yes votes of 100 (exactly 40%). President Bush could have vetoed the bill and then it would have simply died.

Now, to be clear. The idea of bailing out the major financial institutions that created the housing mess didn't sit well with me either. But I'm under no delusion that it was the Democrats' fault.

(I promise I'll try to be done with political posts for awhile.)

Good Times for All!

2010-11-04T17:11:00.000-07:00

Kyle and I went to see Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy play last night. It was billed as "Masters of the Fiddle: Two of the World's Most Celebrated Fiddlers," and it was right here in Livermore. And it was excellent! They're a married couple that both play the fiddle (though normally they tour with their own separate bands) and they were accompanied by two awesome pianists whose names I can't remember. It was so much fun! They do a lot of hopping and stomping and dancing while they play, and the audience was clapping along for a good portion of the show. I found it particularly amazing that she does all this while 7 months pregnant with their fourth child! They have their kids on tour with them, and at one point, while Donnell was talking about something or other, we heard one of them call out to her daddy from the wings. It was cute.

If you want to hear some of their music, click here to watch a TED talk they gave several years ago.

Anyway. We had a great time, so I'm glad we went!

Next to the washing machine

2010-11-02T17:18:00.001-07:00

OK, I'll be honest. I didn't vote for positions like Secretary of State, Controller, Treasurer, or Livermore Area Recreation & Park District Directors. I'd already spent hours trying to make informed decisions about all the other items on the ballot and I just couldn't bring myself to care about those positions.

Anyway. I went to my polling location to vote. Turns out my polling location for this election was some person's garage. Yup, like attached to their house. I found it kind of strange to be filling out a ballot next to a washing machine, and below a shelf holding sleeping bags.

And now, I've voted, participated in the democratic process, and ready to be annoyed at all the screw-ups awaiting us in the next 2 years.

CA Election 2010 - U.S. Senate

2010-11-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

There is no voluntary spending limit for U.S. Senate seats, so I can't use that as an easy way to rule out candidates, however the VoteSmart.org Political Courage Test still applies and thus the Democratic, Republican, and American Independent candidates are tossed for not bothering to state their positions.

The remaining candidates include:

Marsha Feinland (Peace and Freedom) - I find myself agreeing with many of her positions. Though I have a problem with her support for eliminating funding for intelligence operations within the defense budget. When we do successfully stop terrorist plots it's through the efforts of intelligence operations (evidence). Eliminating all funding for intelligence gathering would most likely actually increase our risk of being attacked (returning airport security checks to pre-9/11/01 levels would be just fine though). She also opposes nuclear energy, which is unfortunate.

Gail Lightfoot (Libertarian) - Sorry, not going to be voting for this one. She supports eliminating all federal funding for agriculture, arts, education, environment, international aid, medical research, scientific research, and welfare. She believes privatizing each of those areas would be better. She does, however support nuclear energy, but lives in a fantasy world where the private sector will build these facilities without government backing or indemnity.

Duane Roberts (Green) - I like the vast majority of his stated positions. Unfortunately, he doesn't support nuclear power; but I can live with that and the other issues I don't entirely agree on.

I'll probably be voting for Roberts.

CA Election 2010 - Governor

2010-11-02T09:33:00.000-07:00

I've decided it's time to start taking stands on issues that I'm concerned about and stop playing the games of who's "electable". To that end I've decided the amount of money spent on political campaigns is obscene. With that in mind I've decided I'll only be supporting candidates who have agreed to the voluntary spending limits. In the gubernatorial race this eliminates the Democrat and Republican candidates as neither agreed to the voluntary spending limits, with Whitman (R) spending over $140 million of her personal fortune (the voluntary limit is just under $13 million). I'm tired of politicians that simply buy their way in to office by out-spending the opposition. Politics should be about policy not wealth.

Also on this subject, I've decided I'm only going to vote for candidates with the guts to fill out the VoteSmart.org Political Courage Test. It's an unbiased (as much as possible) questionnaire designed to elicit direct responses of positions on important issues. If you won't answer a non-partisan survey about your political positions I will assume it is because you want to play political games and tell different groups different things based on what they want to hear.

So let's look at the candidates that still remain in my race.
Carlos Alvarez (Peace and Freedom) - I disagree with his plans to increase spending on pretty much everything but also reducing taxes on pretty much everything. There's just no rational way that this works. You get increased funding or decreased taxes, not both. He's against merit-based pay for teachers which I'm in favor of (I get evaluated on my job performance, shouldn't teachers?). However he does support putting money into infrastructure upgrades, which I agree with.

Chelene Nightingale (American Independent) - Goal is to decrease all taxes and eliminate all income taxes. I don't see this as remotely rational. However, some of her responses actually show thought and consideration. Unfortunately, she also seems to believe the government shouldn't enact any regulations (environmental in particular) over businesses, and I think that would lead to epic abuses.

Dale F. Ogden (Libertarian) - Well, I can at least say he couples his slashing of funding with slashing of taxes as well. However, "greatly reducing" funding of K-12 education is not a step in the right direction in my opinion. He also believes that SWAT teams shouldn't exist. Now, you can argue all day about if SWAT teams are over-used, but I think their existence is necessary (sadly). He also seems to believe that the government shouldn't be regulating industries (environmentally in particular) and I've already responded to that in Nightingale's writeup.

So, those are the primary-winning candidates who agreed to voluntary spending limits and filled out the Political Courage Test. And this is what annoys me about politics, it always seems to be about trying to pick the person who will cause the least amount of damage (in one's own opinion, of course) than picking the person who could do the most good.

I don't know who I'll vote for in this race. I will probably end up purposefully not voting for anyone.

CA Election 2010 - Proposition 26

2010-11-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

Last proposition (since I covered 27 with 20).

This one changes which things can be considered "fees" (subject to simple majority votes) and which things can be considered "taxes" (subject to 2/3 majority votes). It's rather nuanced and highly detailed. It's not entirely clear how this change would affect things. So, let's follow the money again.

(The following information is from Ballotpedia.org)

Donors in favor of proposition 26 (requiring certain fees be approved by 2/3 majority rather than simple majority):
Chevron ($3.75 m), Philip Morris ($1.75 m), Anheuser-Busch, Conoco Phillips, MillerCoors, Shell Oil, etc. A bunch of alcohol and oil companies—not exactly selfless saints.

Donors against proposition 26:
California Public Securities Association ($150 k), California School Employees Association ($30 k), California Association of Professional Scientists, California Association of Highway Patrolmen, California Professional Firefighters, California Federation of Teachers, etc.

I believe I'll be voting against proposition 26.

CA Election 2010 - Proposition 25

2010-11-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

Hoooo-weee. I better get on this since today is Election Day.

Proposition 25 changes the majority needed to pass a budget from 2/3 to simple. I think this is easily summed up with a quote from the provided analysis, "Given the current composition of each house, this would allow members of the Legislature's majority political party to approve a budget bill without the support of any members of the minority party."

The entire bill is centered around letting whichever party holds a simple majority do whatever the heck they want with the budget. That's a big fat "NO" from me.

Boo!

2010-10-31T18:22:00.001-07:00

It's Halloween! So we finally got around to carving our pumpkin. Well, okay, Kyle did the carving—while talking on the phone, no less. But I took pictures! So here ya go:Spooky, am I right?

CA Election 2010 - Proposition 24

2010-10-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

This one had me stumped at first. Certain tax changes were agreed upon between the legislature and the governor in 2008. These changes included various ways for corporations to finagle their tax burdens. One method being to shift net-operating-losses to previous tax years and get refunds, another being to choose which formula gets used to calculate their taxes (however they want from year to year). Proposition 24 is to repeal those changes before they go into effect and keep the tax law as it was in 2009.

The analysis provided by the state didn't give me any obvious arguments for or against. It ends up in the realm of nuanced business accounting. So I was having a hard time trying to form an opinion on the matter. The paid-for arguments were both sensationalist and lacking any real foundational evidence, so they were of no help.

The next step then, is to follow the money. And here is where the decision became easy.

The following data comes from ballotpedia.org.

In favor of proposition 24 means repealing the new tax laws which created more flexibility in corporations' tax burden. This side has raised over $13 million with donations from such groups as the California Teachers Association, America's Families First, National Education Association, Alliance for a Better California, and the California School Employees Association.

Against proposition 24 means keeping the new tax laws. This side has raised over $14 million with donations from such groups as Viacom, Cisco, Time Warner, Disney, Genentech, FOX, CBS, General Electric, DirecTV, and Pfizer. <sarcasm>All groups respected for their selfless dedication to helping the average joe.</sarcasm>

That pretty much sealed my vote. If it's worth over $1 million a piece to these companies then I can only assume it's because they each intend to benefit by more than that. And my experience is that the companies on that list (and pretty much all companies) have never sought to reduce their prices and help out their customers simply because they ended up with extra cash in their pockets.

CA Election 2010 - Proposition 23

2010-10-30T14:25:00.000-07:00

I need to get moving on finishing up these posts. 4 more propositions to do, and then I still need to actually look at candidates.

Prop 23 is an attempt to indefinitely postpone implementing the air pollution control law enacted in 2006. The idea is that companies won't need to worry about changing their environmental impact until unemployment drops below 5.5% for at least 4 straight quarters.

At face value it might seem like a reasonable position if you believe that allowing companies to pollute is an effective way to create jobs. However, the secret exposed by the state-provided analysis is that since 1970 there has only been ~30 quarters of unemployment below 5.5% which occurred during 3 separate time periods separated by several years each (cumulatively, ~18% of the quarters since 1970).

Since 1970, the record low of unemployment looks to have been about 5% according to the graph. So this proposition basically says, "We'll promise to stop polluting the next time things are going absolutely perfect—as good as the peak of the dot-com bubble, and as good as the peak of the housing bubble." I don't really see that as an acceptable compromise.

Had they put forth the idea of postponing until unemployment dropped below the average of the last 40 years (which appears to be around 7.5-8.0%) maybe we'd have something to talk about. But this just looks like big companies trying to make an end run around the law.

It seems like every time there are new regulations on an industry companies within that industry cry about how it's going to destroy them. Yet, every time, they seem to find a new way to make record profits within 5 years. I'm not buying the idea that these air pollution control laws are going to destroy any industries. I'm quite confident they'll find ways of abiding by the new regulations and still be profitable. Not only keeping the companies wealthy, but also providing cleaner air for everyone.

I plan to vote against proposition 23.

We throw big parties and write bills for them, but we swear it's not lobbying

2010-10-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

NPR has an exclusive article about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and how it shapes legislation across the nation. ALEC is a membership organization. Legislators pay $50 per year, corporations pay upwards of $20,000 per year (totaling ~$6 billion a year). They hold all-expenses-paid conferences where corporations and legislators get together and "discuss" laws. While ALEC is paying for the conferences you can see from the membership fee distribution that it's really corporations footing the bill.

Part 1 talks about how the text of the AZ immigration law was essentially identical to a bill written during an ALEC conference in association with private prison industry representatives.

Part 2 goes more in-depth about ALEC itself.

You may be thinking, okay it's a lobbying group, nothing particularly unusual about that. But that's exactly the catch. ALEC and its members are incredibly careful to make sure you don't call it a lobbying group. Because lobbyists have all sorts of regulations they have to follow.

Here are some priceless quotes:

From Part 1:

[Michael] Hough works for ALEC, but he's also running for state delegate in Maryland, and if elected says he plans to support a similar bill to Arizona's law.
Asked if the private companies usually get to write model bills for the legislators, Hough said, "Yeah, that's the way it's set up. It's a public-private partnership. We believe both sides, businesses and lawmakers should be at the same table, together."

From Part 2:

Is it lobbying when private corporations pay money to sit in a room with state lawmakers to draft legislation that they then introduce back home? [Michael] Bowman, a former lobbyist, says, "No, because we're not advocating any positions. We don't tell members to take these bills. We just expose best practices. All we're really doing is developing policies that are in model bill form."

So, one representative from ALEC, Hough, says it's normal for corporations to write the bills. But another ALEC rep, Bowman, says they don't advocate any particular position. The corporations just present their viewpoints in the form of bills that could be passed.

These corporations, out of the goodness of their hearts, are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to get together with legislators just to have neutral discussions of policy. Surely they wouldn't dare push for a particular position or law that might benefit their company.

ALEC holds conferences which include baseball games, golf tournaments, parties, and entertainment for children. None of which has to be reported by the legislators as corporate gifts. And indeed, not a single participating legislator in Arizona reported any of these as corporate gifts, they reported receiving benefits in excess of $500 from ALEC.

Why not? Well, they're not being paid for by corporations, they're being paid for by ALEC. And, ALEC isn't really paying for it, the legislators are being charged, but they all, conveniently, receive so-called "scholarships" to cover their costs.

The whole thing stinks.

"It's not lobbying, it's education!" is the claim from ALEC. Well guess what. In computer science we have educational conferences too. Who pays for them? All the people that want to attend and learn. We pay for our own lodging, food, transportation, and registration fees. And if Microsoft were to come along and say "we're holding a conference, all expenses paid, here's your plane ticket, see you next week" I could only assume that what I was about to attend was an advertising platform for Microsoft.