I recently put my new CD burner to use and slapped together a CD with tunes that, well, I probably shouldn’t admit I like and that I certainly won’t ever own the full albums from which they were lifted. Anyway, I had to drive over to the hospital last night where a friend was having an emergency appendectomy, and I had the CD playing… man, Public Enemy could jam. Fight the Power is like nothing else. The music, the agenda, the lyrics, the attitude, it all gels into this incredible groove of anger and pride. Now, I’m not saying that everyone out there should like the lyrics/agenda/attitude/music, but it is incredible to behold.
Electronic abacus
What a fun blast from the past. The Economist has posted a 1954 article they published titled Electronic abacus, which examines the possible business uses for these strange new creatures called “computors.” They have some great quotes like, “There are those who do not believe in the desirability of introducing anything as esoteric as electronics into business routine at all,” but they generally demonstrate real insight into the coming revolution.
Russia on the ground
The Russians are now acting like a staunch ally? This is rather incredible, yet I’ve seen nothing in the press admitting bias or error in the early assessments that Bush was stirring up all sorts of trouble with Russia and was doomed on the foreign policy front. Here’s a quote that captures the flavor of what is going on:
Labeling himself “an old Cold Warrior,” one U.S. intelligence source said the transformation of U.S.-Russian cooperation from initial wariness to trusting cooperation “is the most mind-boggling change I’ve seen in my career.”
Earthly tents
I have lots of questions about II Corinthians, but here’s a brief one. Is there some corollary between the earthly tent => eternal house and the tabernacle => temple? As Jesus tabernacled among us, do we ‘tabernacle’ in some sense?
Back from Flagstaff
We had a wonderful time with my folks in Flagstaff for a few days, then on Monday we left the children with them and headed down to Sedona, AZ for a night away. This was a rather momentous trip given that it was only the second night we had ever been without the children, and we were staying at the bed & breakfast in which we had stayed on our honeymoon. We had a wonderful time.
Sadly, we received a call early the next morning informing us my wife’s grandfather had passed away. We immediately began changing plans and headed back to Flagstaff, where we celebrated Thanksgiving early the following day (Wednesday) with my parents. We then got up at 3:45 a.m. Thanksgiving morning and drove back to Dallas, arriving at 11:30 pm. All this to allow my wife and daughter to catch a plane this morning bound for Atlanta for the funeral.
Jonathan (my 11 month old son) and I actually had a great day together, which was surprising given all the travel he’s had to do recently and the nasty cold he’s been fighting. Oddly enough, this is the first time Jonathan and I have spent more than a few hours together alone. I found it very gratifying. He’s a great little guy.
For those of you who were wondering, the minivan performed admirably… once we were coming back to Dallas and it was proving its worth, my wife and I began questioning the prudence of using a used vehicle for a 2000 mile road trip a couple weeks after acquiring it and were thankful it held up.
Drive to Flagstaff
Here’s the basic shape of our trip to Flagstaff this past Thursday.
The Plan: Get to bed by 10:30 pm Wednesday night so we can get several hours of sound sleep before getting up at 4 am
Reality: Up until 12:30 am. Asleep by 1. Awaken by Jonathan bellowing twice during the night. Get up a bit after 4 am, having gotten 2 hours of sleep.
The Plan: Leave at 5 am for long stretch before breakfast with the kids sleeping.
Reality: Got everyone in the minivan by 5:15 am. Turned the ignition. Nothing happens. Turns out I had managed to kill the battery while testing the portable TV/VCR I had set up in the van. Struggle with numerous godly virtues (or lack thereof). Get the jumper cables and hook up the minivan to the other car’s battery. After 15 minutes of trying finally get the minivan started. Leave around 5:40 am with two disgruntled, most definitely not sleeping, children.
The Plan: Zip in and out of McDonald’s for breakfast.
Reality: 90 minutes of food and numerous bathroom visits with disgruntled children.
The Plan: Long stretch to lunch.
Reality: 140 miles into the trip, several minutes after the children had finally fallen asleep, missed the reduced speed limit sign in Wichita Falls, TX. Got a speeding ticket.
The Plan: More humerous goals and aspirations leading to the timely arrival in Flagstaff, AZ, around 10 or 11 pm.
Reality: 500 miles of continuous rain. A couple more very long stops along with a couple shorter ones. Attempting to stay awake by consuming bags of candy and animal crackers, numerous cokes and root beers. Singing along with U2’s The Joshua Tree late at night (answering the question, “What would U2 sound like if Bono stank?”). And finally, amazingly, only around 19 hours later, safe arrival in Flagstaff.
Leaving
Packing never goes as planned. Enough said. It’s after 11:30 pm, the alarm is going to be set for 3:30 or 4 am, and we will be on the road for probably 17 to 19 hours. Until we meet again, cheers.
Nuclear Arsenal
Wow. I find it remarkable that a two-thirds reduction in our nuclear arsenal will leave over 1700 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads. I don’t know the average, but I’d guess it’s between 3 and 5 warheads to delivery vehicle (i.e. missile). That’s still a massive capability.
Growing up on Kwajelein in the Marshall Islands, we used to get up in the middle of the night when there was a mission to watch the warheads blossom from the delivery vehicle (usually an ICBM, I think) upon re-entry and rain down into the lagoon. The missiles were launched from California, about 5k miles away… they reached the atoll in about 25 minutes if I recall correctly.
Now using Greymatter
Okay… I’ve switched over to the Greymatter blog I’ve been putting together behind the scenes. Here’s the caveats: I ported the comments but the dates are goofed up; the comments template is not yet complete… there may be others.
New Format
In case it isn’t obvious, I’m transitioning to a new format. I’ll try to keep it legible while I work out the kinks.