Done! (Well, almost)

My wife and I went shopping this past weekend, hoping to make a serious dent in our lists, thereby reducing our stress in the weeks leading up to Festivus. Judging by the traffic, we weren't the only ones.

The most amazing thing is that we are 1 gift away from being done! And we should be able to bag that today!

Slightly less amazing, but amazing nonetheless, is that only one of our purchases was on the internet. We made a determined effort to buy locally, and especially in our city. We weren't, however, willing to pay significantly higher prices just to support our local merchants and fill the city coffers. And we didn't have to! Prices locally were very close to internet prices, often identical and sometimes even less (and, yes, sometimes slightly more). Additionally, I think sales tax and shipping would have been about the same, overall.

Aside #8.25%: I continue to be amazed that small merchants haven't setup kiosks in their stores to allow them to special order from a wider stock, taking advantage of the same middlemen that allow internet sites to carry a wide selection with no actual warehouse. Instead they carry a small selection and sigh at lost sales when people ask for an item they don't stock, even though they carry other items by the same manufacturer! And then they blame Wal-Mart for driving them out of business!

Oh, and I'm proud to say that none of my purchases came from Wal-Mart. The pink-slip that comes a week later as a result of my choice of merchants may be my own.

Great American Smoke-Out

Today is the Great American Smoke-Out. I'm not sure why it's so late in the year. The weather-guesser on the local news said that the average date of the first freeze of the fall/winter is November 17 (in Dallas). Sure enough, we had our first freeze of the season this morning.

But the GASO is a national event and other areas probably get their first cooler weather before this. So why do they hold the annual turn-on-the-furnace-to-burn-off-the-dust-and-set-off-the-smoke-alarm (sending everyone in the house scurrying outside) event so late? I ran my furnace a couple of weeks ago when the weather was nice and we could have the windows open (and the kids were playing outside already).

But I'm a good, patriotic Merkin, so I turned on the gas fireplace as a substitute. Didn't do much. Probably because the glass doors keep out most of the dust. The smoke alarms didn't even go off. And judging from the lack of people fleeing their houses to get away from shrieking smoke alarms, no one else waited this long either.

Sync Schmink

In a previous life I was a FORTRAN jock. Yes, it's supposed to be spelled in all capital letters.

Round about the mid '80's the big deal in the number crunching world was the so-called device independent graphics library. This meant that you could display your graph on a graphics terminal, work out all the kinks, and then re-run your program to print on a pen plotter, all without having to re-write, let alone re-compile, your program.

My boss at the time (who was Bard from everywhere he'd ever been) never passed up the opportunity to ask about the blackboard driver, pointing out that until these libraries could display on a blackboard they weren't truly device independent.

The blackboard driver popped onto my stack — er — popped into my brain — this morning as I entered an appointment on the calendar hanging in the kitchen. It was my third entry of this appointment in as many devices.

I am stuck in this duplicate entry purgatory because of the twin sins of being in a mixed marriage (my wife is not a geek) and of not running a Microsoft™ operating system on my computer. Well, and my employer doesn't use Exchange™.

So I write things down on the wall calendar, and in my PDA, and finally in my corporate calendar. Scheduling the dentist is almost as unpleasant as going to the dentist. By the way, it's on Monday, the 21st.

Cargo Cults

Some South Pacific Islanders (e.g. in Papua New Guinea) believe that western goods (called "cargo") are produced by ancestral gods. They build airstrips in the jungles to entice the gods to send them airplanes full of cargo. These religious groups are known as "cargo cults". Several members were arrested recently, which is how I heard about them.

This makes me wonder. Do the cargo cults consider the cargo planes to be religious artifacts? Are the pilot and crew considered gods, or angels, or priests, or ... ?

And what about the cargo itself? Is it considered sacred or special in some way because it came from the gods, or is it just stuff that the gods give to the people in fulfillment of some sort of provider role?

Further, is it possible to infer anything about the gods' state of mind from the contents of the cargo? For example, if the cargo is food does that mean the gods are happy with the people, but a shipment of schoolbooks means they're angry? (Schoolbooks could be like extra homework assigned by an angry teacher.) Or is any cargo a sign of the gods' pleasure and its absence an indicator of displeasure?

Similarly, does the contents of the cargo signal the desires of the gods? Or an omen? How do you tell the difference? I mean, what does a shipment of guns mean? Is it a gift to help the people hunt for food? Weapons to help defend themselves from an imminent attack? Weapons to help them get revenge on a neighboring village? Or a suggestion to kill themselves? Or would that be a shipment of Cool-Aid™? :-)

Gotta go, I think I hear a plane coming.

I'm Gonna Miss Her

If you are a registered voter and have a telephone (POTS) in Texas then you've probably gotten a call from one or more parties interested in your vote on Proposition 2 on November 8.

Article I, Texas Constitution, (The Bill of Rights) is amended by adding Section 32 to read as follows:

(a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.

(b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

Proponents of this amendment say that it defends marriage by preventing homosexuals from getting married. Putting aside the fact that Texas law already prohibits marriage between members of the same sex, I'm not sure how, exactly, my marriage is threatened by a couple getting married, no matter what their gender, race, religion, national origin, etc.

Opposing Proposition 2 we have many groups, including one called, interestingly enough, Save Texas Marriage, which makes an interesting observation: clause (a) of the proposition defines marriage, and clause (b) outlaws it.

In other words, Proposition 2 completely abolishes the institution of marriage! It is expected to pass by wide margins.

I'm gonna miss her.

Still Here

Haven't posted in a while. Nothin' to say, really. Not that what I normally write about is significant.

Family was sick last week. Mom and 2 of 2 had strep throat and are on antibiotics. 1 of 2 and I are feeling kind of down, but not quite sick.

We made it through Halloween. Rain stopped in time to go out and shake down the neighbors for candy. Didn't seem like as many folks decorated this year. Back at home I used the 5-foot tall inflatable T-Rex to answer the door (ROAR!) — didn't scare anyone. :-( And hardly anyone came by to get candy.

Unrelated, Texas continues to surprise me by remaining undefeated. Will be rooting for Miami this weekend.