It Always is Such Torture, When We Can-not Watch The Show

Wifey, Sweetness, and I watched some episodes of Season 1 of The Muppet Show tonight. This was a thoughtful gift from the in-laws. This show premiered in 1976. The episodes average around 25 minutes of air time each, which I'm assuming was a 1/2 network slot at that time. Meanwhile, contemporary (Blues Clues, Little Einsteins, etc.) children's shows on DVDs time in at about 22 minutes. Shows for grown-ups (The Office, Arrested Development, etc.) are also about 22 minutes.
Let's crunch the numbers. If we assume an American watches an hour of television a night, and many do, that's an extra 6 minutes per hour of mind-rotting commercials. Take that over a year, and you get 2190 minutes of EXTRA commercials over 1976, or 5,840 minutes total commercials. The extra minutes alone are 36.5 hours of commercials.
Meditate on it.

If You're Waiting for Your Ship to Come in, It Had Better Not Be the Yamato

It looks like the U.S. military is batting 0.500 this week. I'm not counting the daily outstanding efforts put in by almost 200,000 soldiers in the Mideast. I'm referring to the big-time hit with a single shot of an anti-aircraft missile on a derelict satellite in orbit. And I'm also referring to the crash of a B-2 bomber in Guam, likely due to a malfunction.
First, the good: I read reports that the anti-satellite missile did not have a warhead, which means a disabling direct hit at extra-atmospheric altitudes and ridiculous intercept speeds. That's like shooting grouse with a .22 rifle, except much harder.
Now, the bad: That bomber cost $1.2 billion dollars. That's 1/2 of a new attack submarine, 1/3 of a new destroyer, or 1/6 of an aircraft carrier. Gone in a cloud of smoke. It is remarkable that such a marvelous (when not crashing) piece of machinery has only a crew of 2, as opposed to the crew of hundreds for a smaller Navy ship or thousands for an aircraft carrier. What an enormous responsibility in the hands of a mere mortal!
I guess this crash was still less of a waste than the battleship Yamato.

There's an Engineer on that Long Black Train

Last night I Tell You What and Wifey attended a Josh Turner/Carrie Underwood concert. I've been to a few concerts, but this one really was special. Wifey and I both really like Josh Turner, we only had to drive about an hour to reach the arena, and it was definitely our first real date since Sarah Joy was born. And it was a riot! You can check out videos here.
Mr. Turner's performance was exceptional, especially considering he missed a concert two days ago with the flu. The most remarkable thing was his voice. Not just singing, but plain old talkin'. If Barry White and Boomhauer had a love child, who then produced a son with the San Andreas Fault, that man would have Josh Turner's voice. The first couple of songs were so flawless that I wasn't sure if he was lip synching, but it became apparent that he was singing, and doing so very well. He did not disappoint, although that part of the concert was a disappointingly short 40 minutes or so.
Carrie Underwood is a good pop/country singer, and neither Wifey or I had a huge affinity for her. But, hey, we were already there, so we stuck around for the 100 minute show she put on. And we were quite thankful we did! It started out a little slow, but she really got rolling towards the end. She's a 105 pound waif, but it's all pipes. I saw Allison Krauss live a few years ago, and nobody has a prettier voice than her, but I've never seen someone sing like Ms. Underwood. I can see why she is so popular. She even pulled off a G'n'R double tribute (Cold November Rain/Paradise City) near the end that was legit.
It may be forever before Wifey and I get out for another evening like that, but we will remember this one till that day and beyond!

Only in America 2

I just took a look in our refrigerator, and there are "milks" from the following sources:

1. cow
2. soy bean
3. rice

This is due to wifey trying to make sure she doesn't drink dairy milk, which seems to offend Sarah Joy's stomach when feeding, but it still seems crazy to me.

Disney Meets Sea Denial

That's right, folks. The military-industrial-congressional complex hearts cute children.

Old Man Strength

As I round the last corner on my race to 30 Years Old, I have to acknowledge that my body isn't as robust as it once was. My joints show wear and tear beyond my college and early professional years, and I haven't been able to maintain the muscle mass I used to carry. This isn't a strictly biological issue. In fact, I don't think biology has much to do with it, yet. Perhaps when I'm 35, but not now. Reorientation of priorities toward family caused me to cancel the gym membership, then slowly whittle away the time that I spend running or lifting weights or whatever at home. This is, I am sure, a healthy thing for all of us, spending over an hour a day working out is kind of an obscene thought and both I and the girls certainly benefit from my time. The unhealthy part of physical decay comes from lack of sleep due to the recent arrival of our young daughter, as well as the desk-jockey nature of my job. Since I'm no longer the new guy, it is increasingly rare that I'm scrambling up & down ladders, or squeezing my way behind pipes, or walking a mile to a meeting in some obscure corner of the property. To add injury to insult, Sweetness inadvertently busted my lower lip opent the other day. Almost getting KO'd by a young child does not boost one's toughness quotient. Fortunately, as I lose actual strength, I can fall back on my reserve of Old Man Strength (OMS). This concept was discussed recently at work (including some involved in the Battle For Domination at the End of the Earth), and we have refined the phenomenon somewhat. It is still difficult to describe. Imagine mixing Old Spice with anabolic steroids, putting it in a shot glass, and taking it down warm with a beer chaser. OMS is the means by which you are certain, as a child and eventually young man, that it is not worth it to mess with your elders. No mere personal feat of strength can convince one that he is ready to take on OMS and come out unscathed. I Tell You What did not overcome OMS until inadvertently almost breaking the basement door with my father during a playful wrestling match. Mind you, though, that this was after falling to countless arm-bars and wrist-locks. The Official Father of I Tell You What was experienced in law enforcement, and extensive knowledge of submission moves is a particularly devilish form of OMS. This life-altering tipping point occurred when I was almost 17 years old, even though I had been for some time bigger, better conditioned, and stronger than the Old Man. At work (motto: We occasionally work) we found a few fundamental forms of OMS that manifest themselves in various fashions:
OMS-E for experience. The aforementioned submission moves, prior exposure to gross pain, and having experienced genuine fear in real circumstances gives one enough perspective to keep cool when whooping on the next generation
OMS-C for confidence. If you haven't been beat up by a teenager since you yourself turned 20, what's to worry about?
OMS-CL for clutch performance. As you age, your ability to perform a feat of strength routinly degrades far more quickly than your ability to dip to the bottom of the well and unleash all you are worth. Therefore, OMS must still be respected, even if the Old Man will need help to get out of bed the following morning.
OMS-F for fear. While OMS-E allows one to keep his head, OMS-F provides an almost subliminal motivation to not fail, BECAUSE YOU WILL LOOK OLD. I think OMS-F is similar to TSS, Toddler Spazz Strength, which is how the little ones move remarkably quickly and strongly with an almost animal strength to weight ratio when they are scared or otherwise excited. It was TSS that my busted lower lip fell victim to.

Extra-orbital Duck Hunt

Imagine you've got a car that is having some serious troubles. In fact, it won't even start. The vehicle was a lemon from the day you drove it off the lot, there's damage to the engine block, and to repair it would be impractically expensive. You could just roll it down a hill, let it be wrecked in the crash, and call it a day. However, you have a slight twitch in your conscience at the potential for that to cause damage and personal injury to innocent folks. So, you decide to use this as an opportunity to test your new guided rocket to demolish the car from a launch pad on your kayak.
That's a ridiculous scenario, except that it is perfectly analogous to what the US Navy is going to be attempting very soon (see here). One of our spy satellites crapped the bed shortly after it was launched, and will soon hurtle earthward. It is packed with two things this nation does not want to see reach the ground intact:

• sensitive spy-type electronics
• hydrazine, which is described like the love child of napalm and mustard gas
  

So, we will utilize ("leverage", in milindustricongressional speak) some of the technology developed for the sea-based antiballistic missile system to drop this satellite like a bad habit. Of course, it is certainly totally unrelated that the Chinese recently shot down a disabled satellite with a land-based missile, and that we would be one-upping them. Totally unrelated...

The Abominable Snowman

I was provoked to wonder tonight, as I zipped along these East Coast suburban streets, if I'm the only man down here who enjoys racing around in a few inches of fresh snow on top of ice with bald tires, and celebrates with a ceremonial power slide around every last corner, right up to the parking spot at Walgreen's.

Sound for Collision

I had one of my most frustrating conversations at work to date this afternoon. When we write technical papers, there is often a review process to ensure that only the highest quality work makes it out the door. This is not a bad idea. Today, that process reached "impediment to progress" status due to a particular individual. I had already been steamed about this fellow's interference in the good work that I'm trying to accomplish. My main feeling was that the paper does not in any way address his area of expertise. In fact, he really shouldn't even be part of the review. This is why none of the comments he's making are technical in nature (i.e. significant). He's making format and grammar comments that are not constrained by company policy. Anyway, I had my little internal moment of anger last week, realized nothing Christian was going to come from any petty frustration. Not to mention that my supervisor went ballistic and handled all the pettiness on my behalf

That aside, I realized after this afternoon's relatively civil follow-up that there was more here than this fellow being an encumbrance. Don't get me wrong, he is a little, little man who is insulting and petty. The biggest part of the problem, though, is that he is small minded. I don't mean of low IQ. I mean that his focus is extremely narrow, and that he cannot divert from that focus. In this case, that small mindedness does become a serious hindrance, because if you only focus on one obstacle and a single way to overcome it, you will be blind to alternatives. Hence the fact that he is completely bewildered by a (well written, if I do say so myself) document because of some (perfectly correct) variations in grammar. By opposition, I wrote the paper from a big minded perspective. Again, that isn't an IQ reference, it's that I feel I often think more in terms of concepts and relationships than reciting rules or sections of documents verbatim. If I make graphics, they are designed for maximum information density, not some parochial format reflecting personal preference. You can call it a car, an automobile, a vehicle, or anything else and I understand it means the same thing. This has its pitfalls, as I occasionally make leaps of logic that are indecipherable to anybody else. It's also exemplified in the scattershot nature of the posts on I Tell You What. In contrast, this guy would write a blog exclusively devoted to '86 Mustangs or fly fishing east of the Continental Divide. Unless you're trying to publish a scientific journal, a court brief, or a GAO report auditing Housing and Urban Development, I'll take big minded writing every time. It gets the idea across to all audiences quickly and efficiently, and will once in a while inspire people.

At least I know where Sweetness stands. I was carrying her home on the final leg of a long walk yesterday, and she blurted out "when I am big, I will do BIG things". Atta' girl.

Closet War Mongers

Recently, I was scraping the mildew-ridden caulk from the Official Bathtub of I Tell You What to prepare for a new bead of sparkling sealant. Through my overly vigorous efforts, I snapped a blade. I went to a new box of single-edge razors for the scraper, and was enamored with what I found. There was a plastic casing, with a channel open to a single side to allow the razors to slide out 1 at a time. On the underside, there were two plastic leaf springs that would automatically slide the next razor into the channel, ready to unload.

For those of you from the military, law enforcement, or a household where there is room for all of God's creatures at the table, this simple casing is known as a "magazine". This is because it reminds one fundamentally of this:

That's right, this principle is how almost every non-revolver repeating firearm cycles fresh rounds into the chamber after the previous round is discharged. Some, like our razor dispenser, require an independent mechanical means (the thumb) like a pump slide, a lever, or a bolt mechanism as shown above. Semi- and fully automatic firearms use the leftover pressurized gases from the previous round (bullet) to do the job, but it's all the same concept. This leaves us with 3 possibilities:

1. The United States is operating a covert weapons design base to support continued growth of the military-industrial-congressional complex.
2. It's really just a convenient way to package razor blades and it minimizes emergency room visits.
3. Mechanical Engineers boil all physical systems and components down to their most fundamental level, which makes everything relate to something else on some level or another.

My vote is Number 1 because, as www.defensetech.org informs us, the US has surpassed THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED for defense expenditures. Wifey would likely vote for Number 3, as she has to endure my little exercises like this on a regular, nay, constant basis. What do you think?

See You On Down the Oregon Trail

My mother and grandmother spent the last week or so at the I Tell You What residence. It was a great visit. We normally drive out to Michigan to visit them, and the simple act of traveling 900+ miles in a car seat leaves our daughter ragged before we even arrive. Then throw in excited relatives, sleeping in unfamiliar beds, and the occasional travel sickness, and it can be wearying. In other words, it was very convenient for us to be the hosts this time around. Sweetness slept well every night, didn't have eat a single happy meal, and got her naps in. Her personality has really developed, and it was great to see her interact with her grandmother and great-grandmother. Except for her pleading with them to stay up later when her evil father was putting her to bed. Of course, it was also the first time anybody from my extended family met Sarah Joy. This was also great, because she's a very happy baby, and looks eerily like my father. My grandmother also had time to tell a lot of stories from when she was younger. I heard a lot of stories about family members who I never even met, and a few about family members that I am familiar with. I was dismayed to discover that my ancestors from that side of the family came from... (sob)... Canada. I'm still not over that one. I like to pretend that they headed straight to Buffalo, NY, from Ellis Island, then marched through Ontario before realizing they had committed a navigational error, and crossing back to Detroit. One thing that was abundantly clear: life in rural places was hard work. If a person lectures you about how easy you've got it, they are simply a scold and you wish they would leave. If you ask them to tell you, it's enriching. These people lived an existence that was a struggle to keep your head above water, but every action toward preparing for the next season was a fruitful one. You busted your tail, hopefully avoided disasters beyond your control, harvested, and prepared for the next planting season. A trivial comparison that keeps coming to mind is Oregon Trail. You get cholera, the kids get dysentery or break legs, and your wagon wheel falls off. Then you spend 3 days hunting and only get some rabbits and squirrels. And all that is just to have the chance... to bust your tail farming on the West Coast instead of in Missouri.
I think there are still plenty of pitfalls in modern life. It's just that those pitfalls can not be avoided or overcome through physical vitality and work ethic. Is your 401K money invested prudently? Is your home worth less than you bought it for? Is the cost of living overwhelming your stagnant wages, in addition to having added children to your family? Do you work year-round, when even a farmer could cool his heels during winter? At times, it can seem preferable to take your chances going to bed exhausted from outdoor work, free from concerns about your child's down-the-road college education, and thankful that nobody has fallen sick that day.