You better not cry ... you better not pout!

It's beginning to look a lot like...Sinterklaas!



I love the way it looks like the little angel is just about ready to bean the baby-monkey Jesus with her wand.

This is a conglomeration of all our Play Mobile. Somehow we've ended up with four wise men - I'm pretty sure one of them is actually a pirate...but which one?

Yesterday DS had a party at school and today we'll celebrate with the neighbors. For the first time this year DS drew names in his class and had to make a cleverly wrapped present and write a poem.

My favorite birthday message;

When Gloria Steinem turned 50, a reporter told her that she didn't look 50. Her response, yes I do. This is what 50 looks like!

This is what 50 looks like!

And now for something completely different;




Ummm,

I found This while going through last year's Christmas pictures;



Link to Portraits.

How cool is this.

Slideshow of before and after;

Click here to watch.

All PhotoShop. All the Time.

Here's my pathetic attempt at da Vinci's style;



And;


Aaarrr!

Photoshop love affair part deux.

I'm trying to find a home for my before and after shots. Right now I'm using my old Flickr account.



View more here.

My love affair with PhotoShop begins;



Fairies courtesy of www.brushes.obsidiandawn.com
Stars courtesy of http://luciferous-glow.deviantart.com/art/Starry-Night-Brushset-15213768

The Hurrier I go The Behinder I Get

This was taken back in May during 'crazy week' & I just noticed it. Sheesh!

The Asia Photo Book is done!

After many false starts I have finally finished a photobook of our two years in Thailand. The stories in 1998-1999 have been re-edited. And you can find some of the pictures on my SmugMug account.

Here is DS at summer camp;

DS is in the front row 2nd from the left (all in black);



This was a year end school production. Each class performed a different kind of dance, his class's type was break dancing. You can see his two teachers in the lower left hand corner.

Amsterdam - Dim Sum in the Sun

This is what we did today. First we had dim sum with friends at the floating Chinese restaurant in Amsterdam. And then we had coffee at a street side cafè on the Nieuwmarkt.

A 'hut' with a view;


DS at summer camp this week.

The Virtuoso



We are so very proud!

DS took these cat pictures in Greece last year. We decide to make LOL Kats out of them. My apologies for the 9 year old humor.

Click on the picture to view.

Birthday party pictures.

I've upload a few pictures from the party here:

Click for link.

On May 28th Andy played in a guitar concert;



We celebrated his birthday at the climbing wall;



Left to right; Laurens, Andy, Marc.

Birthdays!

Congratulations to Allison and Dustin on the birth of their baby daughter!

Guess who's going to be 9 tomorrow?



So far today we've made 48 cupcakes (I burnt the first batch, I guess I'm still getting used to my oven) and 35 brownies. DS has a guitar recital tonight so it's a very busy week.

LibraryThing.

I've achieved 100 book reviews on My LibraryThing site.

Since I started cataloging the books I've read/am reading at this site I've had an extremely good run of books to read.

The finished garden;

The lights along the path were installed Saturday. Allan filled the pots with annuals Sunday;

Kat's visit;

The first two pictures are from Queen's day.







Cousins giving a good-bye hug before she boarded the bus back to Paris;


Kat with her friend Sarah. On Saturday we had two double (!!!) birthday parties. Nice shades.

Yay! The paving is done!



We have to wait for the grit on top of the bricks to settle before we can move the pots to their final resting places and fill them with potting soil and plants.



Still in the plans are a new mailbox, a fountain and lights to line the path.

Some Lights I like:





Yesterday they didn't work very long but they did finish the two parking spaces;

Wednesday morning.



Yesterday they concentrated on putting the 'puzzle' pieces together on the round top of the East parking space. And preparing the trench to plant the bushes. Which should happen Saturday.

We have dirt.



In the three white bags are the rest of the gravel and the soil to plant the bushes in.



Here is where they'll go.

Monday morning;



(my apologies for the crooked horizon)

Extreme Make-over, Garden Edition.

Saturday they started laying the paving stones;




They ran out of time and tiles by the end of the day. Today (Sunday) they are supposed to put down the membrane and cover it with loose gravel.

Garden Refurbishment.

Before:


They delivered some dumpsters Friday;



Saturday with two back hoes and much elbow grease the garden was cleared;



Sunday the men placed stakes to mark where the hard paving will go.

(Click to enlarge)

What it looks like out my front door (Monday);



Stuff arrives:



Today they delivered the new paving stones and other things. And took away the dumpsters.

DS playing the guitar:

Nine Buddhist monks, eighteen holes and 007

‘9 monks’

This past week I had the pleasure to attend the opening of the new office for Origin Thailand. Origin is a large IT software & services company which operates throughout the world. Origin is also one of the prime subcontractors for the project with I am working on. This is no real surprise as Origin is an 80% owned subsidiary of the Philips Corporation.

Origin decided to open an office in Thailand once they received an outsourcing contract from Philips Semiconductor’s Thailand for all computer operations related activities for the factory. A new office opening in Thailand, as well as much of Southeast Asia, is as much a religious event as it is a business event. The purpose of the religious ceremony is to insure that the spirits which are already located in or that will enter the new premises are only good spirits.

Upon entering the new office facility the first thing I noticed was the podium where nine padded backrests stood adorned with Thai writings and bordered with gold leaf. The number nine is significant as good fortune come in sets of three with nine being the most fortuitous. It is for this reason that arrangements are made for nine monks to preside over the opening ceremony in place of a lesser number. This is true of most religious ceremonies in Thailand, such as weddings, new homes, a new child, etcetera. However, for some of the poorer families there may by only three of six monks, depending on the wealth of the family.

I must admit that some compromises were made for this particular ceremony due to the number of Westerners, (farangs) that were attending. The most noticeable was the fact that we were allowed to sit in chairs instead of kneeling on the floor. I had heard from others that this was quite uncomfortable after the first five or ten minutes.

The ceremony was to begin at 10:30 in the morning. We were all seated as the nine saffron robed monks entered the room and walked up onto the podium. Once seated the ceremony began. With shoes removed the senior staff member from Origin Asia made his way forward to the small shrine on the left-hand side of the stage. Whereupon he kneeled, clasped his hands and bowed three times. Moving on his knees towards his left, he lit three candles and the joss sticks (incense). He then carefully arose and returned to his seat. During this process my Thai colleague sitting next to me instructed me to press my hands together and holds them close to my chest.

The head monk began to chant as he unrolled a ball of white silk thread and passed in on to the monk to his left. This continued down the row of monks until the thread reached the last monk. The thread symbolizes a barrier, which is to prevent evil spirits from entering the premises. With the thread held between the thumbs and forefingers the monk droned several chants. This lasted around 30 minutes. Towards the end of the chanting, the monk on the right began to roll up the ball of thread and pass it onto his right. This concluded the first phase of the ceremony.

It was now time for the monks to eat. The monks always eat first and are served symbolically by those for whom they are performing the service. In this case, once the food had been placed in front of each of the monks, the new management staff went forward - again barefoot and on their knees - to present the food to each of the monks. The audience sat patiently understanding that we were entitled to the ‘leftovers’ once the ceremony was completed. It is interesting that Buddhist monks are only allowed to eat up until noon; Where after they are only allowed water, as this shows that they do not need to give into the temptations or desires of the body.

Having completed their meals the monks were presented with two gifts. The first being a basket of household, everyday goods (detergent, soap, some food, etc.), the second being an envelope containing money. The money is also considered to be a gift to their temple.

This is followed again by a round of prayer where the new management of Origin sat on their haunches in front of the rest of the group. Of course there was another round of chanting which signaled that the ceremony was towards its end. Then the head monk rose and blessed the audience by sprinkling prolific amounts of water around (of which I was sure that I received more than my fair share). I hope that this means that I will be blessed in the future with lots of good fortune, which our project presently needs.

The final piece of the ceremony was the blessing of the entrance to the office. Once again, the head monk performed this, while the other monks and the audience watched. Above the entrance the monk wrote several stylized Thai characters which were intended to allow only the beneficial spirits onto the premises. It is bad luck to remove the writings, which are always left to wear off on their own. The ceremony concluded with a brief prayer and the departure of the monks. Last we were allowed to eat lunch - which there was more than enough despite this being the monks leftovers. The ceremony itself lasted around one and a half hours.

’18 holes’

Thailand is a country where golf can be considered the national sport. There are numerous courses and for the most part fees are inexpensive. It is also one of the key company events within Philips Semiconductor which occur roughly on a monthly basis. Although not having my own clubs yet, (our container is scheduled to be unpacked on April 30^th), I had been yearning to play. Initially, I looked into buying a new set of clubs in Bangkok. However, after some investigation I have found that prices in Bangkok for clubs are about 25% higher than in the US. And since I’ll be visiting there soon enough it seems wiser to make my purchases there instead of here. In the mean time, my secretary Renu was able to loan me an old small set of her husband’s clubs. Initially I planned only a few trips to the driving range in the evening.

The driving range that I visited was also a new experience for me. The ‘Hole in One’ has a lower and an upper deck. So, while you’re practicing on the lower level you see balls flying in the same direction but coming from above. The driving range was also nice as there was also table service for drinks - or a complete meal if you liked - while you are hitting balls. I may try this with Nancy for an evening out once she’s her. On the more extreme side were those practicing with a ball boy. The young Thai was crouched down placing balls on the tee one after another while his employer stood above him swinging away.

In any event, my secretary asked if I would like to join her for a round of 18 holes last Saturday. Even though she waited until the last possible moment to ask, Saturday morning around 10am for a 1:30 tee time, I decided to go ahead and join her. She had planned to play at Muang Ake golf course. This was indeed a good opportunity as this course was one of two, which are in close to our future residence.

Upon arrival my small sack of clubs was immediately whisked away by one of the attentive female caddies. I located the group I would be playing with. There would be two groups in all, a group of four Thai gentlemen, followed by Renu, her friend and myself. The start time had been changed to 2:30, as this reduced the green fees to half price. The green fees were then 750 baht or around 20 USD.

The course itself was well laid out with plenty of water and sand hazards. Palm trees, providing only minimal shade in the strong afternoon sun, sparsely covered the course. My caddy was a diminutive Thai woman. I may have been provided with the smallest caddy, due to the small size of the golf bag that she had to carry. Most of the players had full sized ‘pro’ bags which are quite large and heavy. The other caddies seemed to have no difficulty with this, despite the sun and the heat.

Playing was pleasant enough, even though my performance was far from my expectations. One pleasant surprise was the white circle, which provided a 2 feet perimeter for the home. Once inside you are allowed take a gi’me, which assumes that even the worst of players could make the short put. This was done to help speed play. Strategically placed about every fourth hole was a shaded snack stand that provided cool drinks as well as some food including of all things, fried chicken legs.

The caddies were quite skilled. Mine not only provided valuable course information, ‘left ok, right water’, and ‘wait, too close’ or ‘green go left’, she also provided valuable support such as, ‘ball go in water’ and ‘shot OK’. At the end of the round of 18 the caddy fully deserved the 200 baht fee or about $5. I still always find it a nice touch when the Thai’s wai to you after receiving their payment. The wai is a gesture of thanks, which is performed by pressing the hands together and bowing the head. Returning the wai is not done and a simple smile is more than expected.

‘007’

Another event which is of note, although more brief that the previous two encounter, is that of going to the movies. Movies are very popular in Thailand, which are most of the Hollywood production type. Similar to Europe, the introduction of new films to the marketplace lags the US premiers by 3 to six months. I do think that films tend to however show-up in Thailand somewhat earlier than in Europe. On this occasion I decided on breaking up my routine by going to see the latest James Bond. I chose the MGM theaters at the Emporium shopping complex that is one of the better I have seen. Inside the theatre it is quite modern and large (in any event larger than many in the Netherlands), with comfortable seat with full backrests. The price of a first run film is about 100 baht or USD 2.5. There are also several fast food restaurants in the mall, it is not unusual to have persons eat a meal inside the theater. This seems to be tolerated by the theatre staff. After the previews and commercials, the audience is required to stand during the national anthem while they pay homage to the ruling monarch, Bhumiphol. This may by one of the last democratic monarchies where the sovereign still commands the respect and reverence of the entire population. -Allan

Fountain Gladness

Logistics with my husband are never simple. So after the fiasco of trying to take the train to meet him two years ago, we flew.

DS had school in the morning so I agreed that the neighbor would drive me to the train station immediately after school. Except that she had been delayed at the hairdresser and wasn’t home yet when I returned. Shortly thereafter she appeared and the adventure began.

I managed to check myself in at the automated kiosk. The last time I had tried this it didn’t work so I was directed to a real live person behind a counter. As I was walking towards the first check point a KLM employee said, ‘hello.’ I said hello back and continued on. Well it wasn’t a rhetorical American hello but a European I-want-your-attention-so-I-can-talk-to-you hello. She just wanted to know if I needed any help. What is it with these people? If you need help they’re angry and if you don’t need help they’re angry.

Please note, Troll beads will indeed set off the airport metal detector. And the security guards did not like at all the brick size converter I had in my carry on for DS’s Nintendo DS.

Al was there to meet us at the Munich airport (still in his ski pants by the way) and we climbed in the car for the two hour drive to Neukirchen. DS was puzzled how our own car was there to meet us so we tried to explain that daddy had driven it there a week ago. DS was still skeptical.

Before the trip I’d had an IPOD adapter installed in my car. It was more that worth the outrageous price. We met the others who’d been skiing at a restaurant in town. There was a little dog there named ‘Tin Tin.’ Malous magically transformed a sheet of paper out of my purse into a frog- that really jumped! I enjoyed some venison stew before going to sleep in my lumpy potato sack of a bed. I had weird dreams about a borrowing a Lincoln Continental and falling into a whirling vortex because the brakes failed.

Saturday February 23, 2008 – Sledding is for lugers
In the morning we enjoyed a hearty breakfast including fresh Kaiser rolls, mystery fruit juice and my very own private jug of coffee. There was a dog named Tin Tin. Hmm, are all the dogs in these here parts named that? I apportioned my belongings among the five (!) pockets on my skiing jacket, which is to say they all were as good as lost. Then we were off to go sledding. It was wet. DH and I almost but not quite fit on one sled. The bumps were murder. It was a lot of giggly and roar out loud fun although I questioned the wisdom of starting a one week skiing holiday by getting drenched to the bone soaking wet. This was when DS came up with the travel log’s name.

The whole group had lunch at the Dorfstube. I realized that the dog named Tin Tin belonged to one of our party. Duh. After a prolonged discussion and debate we decided that the mystery juice at the mornings breakfast was maybe surely…pear? Afterwards we said good bye to the group that was returning to Holland while we explored further. The first stop was the mineral store of family Steiner. Andy found a lump of smoky quartz that spoke to him. And after asking about stone discs the lady brought out several trays of them! I confined myself to only 7 – one for each day of the week – with much difficulty. And then we made our way to the Grand Hotel in Zillertal for tea. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon. It was going to be a warm week.

The ski rental was very crowded! We’d left it until too late and had to compete with all the others. I sprung for premium skis and we got twin tips for DS.

I unpacked and put the room in order. DS would have the potato sack bed. DH and I would have our own adjoining room with a much more comfortable bed.

That night we walked in the dark along an icy rushing river to a restaurant in the woods. As we approached the inviting lights cut through the trees and beckoned us welcome. The entire inside of Siggen restaurant is clad in wood (as are most eating establishments in that area) and the warmth radiated from same is incredibly cozy. DH and I shared the mixed grill- which was MORE than enough for two. I couldn’t resist a piece of the Mozart chocolate cake.



Sunday February 23rd
I decided to water down my pear juice to a) increase my hydration and b) because I’m such a good little dieter. DH eschewed the bottle of water I’d brought down from the room and so I slurped down some from a pitcher by the pear juice. Then I poured myself just a glass of ‘water’. It was sweet. Very sweet. Turned out it was sweetened elderflower water.

DH had decided that’s we’d go high and remote for this first day of skiing. His choice, Weissee is on the North side of a mountain so the sun shouldn’t make it too slushy and a bit difficult to access by a road full of winding hairpin turns. It was a wonderful decision. While the area is tiny it is exquisite. It wasn’t terribly crowded. On the first gondola ride up we saw people training dogs to find people in avalanches. I really liked my skis. DS liked his twin tips. Twin tips are turned up a bit in the back so that they are very easy to ski backwards with. After a typical lunch at the top of the mountain I took one more run and I was done.

Back in Neukirchen I enjoyed a cappuccino while sitting in the sunshine. Again that night we walked to dinner- but to a different restaurant- Kerkplatz. The stars were amazingly clear and sparkly. I slept like the dead.

Monday, February 25th
Today we chose to ski Gerlos Platte. DH was worried that it would be too warm but I was secretly pleased that I would be able to wear my white furry gloves. Normally it’s way too cold for these so I wear mittens. If Gerlos Platte didn’t suit us we could just go over to the adjacent resort and ski there.

In the morning we enjoyed virgin groomed slopes. There’d been no new snow but it had been cold enough the night before to keep the slopes from being slushy. Some people might not like the crunchy, icy flat runs but I love them. I learned to ski on an artificial slope so these were perfect conditions for me. After a mid-morning stop for a huge soft Bavarian pretzel the trails had softened slightly. DS enjoyed the bumps. His skiing nickname is ‘Mogul Midget’. He loves the challenge of a mogul field.

We ended up somewhere that we had to take a T-bar. DH went with the little guy. I was alone behind them. It seemed to go on forever and I was thinking it must be terribly painful for DH to have that bar behind his knees. He had to do it that way so that the bar would hit our 8 year old at the top of his thighs. We agreed not to do that again.

It was so sunny that the umbrella bar at the bottom by the parking lot was sans umbrella! On the drive down the mountain we stopped and marveled at a waterfall.

Back in the room DH & DS puzzled over some Sudukos. I listened to Elvis Costello’s ‘Beyond Belief’ over and over again on the IPOD- because I could.

We went down to the common room so we would have a table big enough to play Mexican Train Dominoes. Simon and Laura (grandchildren of the owner) joined in. That night we drove up a scary road to Stockenbaum. We passed masses of teenagers walking up on the way.




Tuesday February 26th
When I woke up it feels like someone has taken a blow torch to my face. I *thought* my facial moisturizer had a sunscreen in it. Alas.

I asked DH if breakfast at the farm was like breastfeeding. You know if the baby sucks and sucks, the next day there is more milk. And if the baby doesn’t take it all there is less the next day. It appears that our breakfast is growing exponentially every day. Is there anything better than a hostess with an inferiority complex? We were staying on a working farm. Complete with small children and the smells of wonderful food being preserved and distilled. After breakfast we’d take our dirty dishes to the kitchen where there was this magnificent huge cast iron stove with uncountable burners and ovens. I still covet that stove.

If it’s Tuesday it must be Kitzbuhel. Half the time it seems I could get into this marvelous rhythm and the other half of the time I couldn’t. It was tiring. Somehow we managed to get way too much food for lunch; half a chicken with French fries, another generous order of French fries and both custard and apple streudel. Oh and soup. I think we could simply point our skis downhill and gravity would pull our oversized girths to the bottom. For some unexplained reason Kitzbuhel made a very bad impression on me. It was crowded with people who didn’t know how to ski. Many, many of them were taking lessons in these enormous groups. At the slushy bottom by a lift a very sweet teenage boy and I slid into each other. It was probably a combination of the too warm snow and the aggressive crowds at the lifts that put me off. I tried to get into a skiing rhythm by singing, ‘Hot! Hot! Hot!’ and fell immediately. I don’t know why but ‘Jeremiah was a Bullfrog’ worked much better. Why is it that some songs like; ‘Iko, Iko’ and ‘Follow the Leader’ work so well? We dined at a non-descript restaurant with very good silverware. The food wasn’t bad but after dinner the other patrols all lit up cigarettes. We skipped dessert.

Wednesday, February 27th
Today we’d go to Zillertal Arena Konigsleiten. I felt like my skis were worth their weight in gold. I could not imagine the agony these slopes would be on highly flexible beginner’s skis. I was so tired I just looked at the tips of my skis and told them to get me home. They obliged.

At one point, at a crossroads I lost DH & DS. Then I remembered that both my cell phone and DH’s Blackberry had been left in the car that day. I took off my skis and went into the nearest Alm. I took out my map and asked (where the heck!) I was. The waiter pointed and I thought, ‘now what?’ I had a vague idea that DH would come back to get me. But we were in the middle of a very long run. I decided to head to the very bottom where I was pretty sure where we’d agreed to go. Did I say it was a very long run? I took some rests and took my time. I stopped at an umbrella bar halfway but eventually the smoke drove me out. As I was approaching the bottom lift DH & DS hollered at me from the lift going up to ‘wait!’ So I did.

We stopped at the far edge of the resort at the Fussalm for lunch. The weather kept getting warmer and warmer. I felt like I was trying to glide through quick setting concrete.

After skiing we browsed the wool store where DH bought his felt hat on an earlier trip. We also stopped at the ham store. Surprisingly they didn’t sell any local jam. The previous week DH had ordered a swinehaxen for the both of us. The road up to the Sahnalm is so treacherous that they pick you up in a van at the town church and drive you up. It was a darling inn. The pork was out of this world. I so didn’t need to order a side salad. As far as I could tell the sauce for the meat consisted of an emulsion of butter, lard and cream. The three of us split a chocolate sundae for dessert.



Thursday, February 28th
Although the chances of it being too warm were high we still wanted to try the local ski area-Wildkogel where we’d sledded on Saturday.

Wildkogel is a very sweet small area. It would have been amazing if there had only been good snow.

DH had it all planned out but missed the turnoff for lunch. Which meant was had to ski all the way down to the bottom and ride the lift back up again. It took awhile to make our way down the sno-cone consistency run. My skis began to talk to me. “Trust me. Put some more weight on my tips.” Honestly the skis really did ALL of the work. I couldn’t because I was too tired. I started singing (to the tune of ‘Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes’) ‘Keep the weight on the tips of your skis’. Before that I was singing ‘Yellow Submarine’ but I guess I just needed something stronger.So we didn’t get to the Berghut with the best kaiserschmarren in the area until 1:30 or so. I was beat. It truly was delicious kaiserschmarren but I’d had enough of skating over the slush and simply went to the middle station and rode down.

That night we had dinner back at the Dorfstube. Our frog folding skills had improved so much that we started to be an attraction for the other tables. DH had reverse engineered the frog from Malous had folded Saturday at lunch. We were in business.

Friday, February 29th
Today we’d ski Gerlos. It was very cold at the top in the morning. What a refreshing change after the warm week! But I had left DH’s gloves outside on the balcony to air out overnight and they hadn’t dried. At the first restroom I alternated blowing hot air into them from the hand dryer and waving them over the radiator. We had every kind of weather. Wet. Windy, Sunny, Gray. The wait-just-5-minutes-and-it-will-change kind of weather. I hadn’t really dressed for it. And after the warm week we didn’t even have mittens or an extra layer in DH’s backpack.

I wavered between being irritated at DH for the very traits for which I love him. His adventurousness. His spontaneity. We stopped early which was a good thing. As we were loading the car it began to rain in earnest. During our drive to the Norhtwest side of Munich it was pretty nasty. We took a detour into the center of Munich for dinner at the Rathskeller and then continued on to our hotel. In 1985 we’d stayed a week at a pension in Obermenzing. We’d passed it several times while driving back and forth and this year DH had noted the name. I had Googled the telephone number and then DH had one of his German speaking friends make a reservation there at Pension Hartl.

We didn’t get there until much later than we had intended. DS was already asleep. I waited in the car thinking, ‘what in the car do I have for a weapon if necessary?’ And, ‘what is the emergency number in Germany?’ I had decided on a ski pole when DH came back to the car with the room key. I plopped the GPS, IPOD and DS’s Nintendo in my purse. DH took the SLR and his laptop in.

It was the best night’s rest I had the whole vacation. We were tucked up the three of us cozy in one little pristine room.

We got an early start after loading up on pastries at the bakery below the hotel. It took us a very long time to get home with all the wind, icy sleet and road works. Thank goodness we had our IPOD’s to entertain us. DH had filled his with ‘Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me’ Podcasts which just made the time fly.

We stopped at Thomas’ return the skis he insist that DH borrow. DH’s own skis are floppy beginner’s ski. I guess it’s time to go shopping.

He was a good cat.

After a long- 18+ years- and full life Vincent van de Ashram drew his last sweet breath yesterday afternoon.




He was a sweetheart. It's going to be very quiet (&clean) around here.

Here is a little video of me skiing;



ta-dah!

The reformation of a technophobe.

What have I been up to? Well, I've been messing around with my SmugMug account. And wasting far too much time at LibraryThing. It really cool to have all my book reviews in one place.

and I've been trying to decide between a PowerShot SD1100 or a Panasonic Lumix FX35.

I'm getting the hang of my IPOD and my TomTom GPS.

We're baaaaaaaaaack! We're back from skiing in Austria. We're all safe and sound. The only casualty was my camera (Canon Powershot A540). May she rest in peace.

Here's a few pictures.

Christmas Photos Update

DH helped me pare down the 600 pictures to a minuscule 190! I'm playing around with a SmugMug account right now for a couple weeks.

I'm wondering. Is this necessary? In my hand bag are;

My mobile phone (has a radio & a camera)
My digital camera
IPOD MP3 player - now that I can use it in the car
TomTom GPS - includes MP3 player and could be used as a hands free phone IF my cell only had Bluetooth.

Who needs to go to the gym when they hauling all that around? This is nuts! I'm waiting to upgrade until there is just one little wallet size electronic box that can perform all these functions. Until then I will keep my weekly appointment with my chiropractor/physical therapist.

I need to budget my online time better. Right now I am assessing photo hosting sites and bouncing between various bulletin boards - fitness (4), books(2) and Cnet for gadget reviews & various Dutch shopping sites. The madness has to stop! LOL. Could someone sit me down to sort out my priorities? Then maybe I could make out a time budget to mete out accordingly.

Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near

I Stumbled upon this book after posting an article about Google (data) Clouds on some internet bulletin boards I frequent.

While I believe it is rather arrogant to think one can come up with a better design than biology that is pretty much the premise of this book.

No one would accuse Kurzweil of being mystical. Maybe I just don’t have a wide enough imagination but I can’t see how you could ever animate the chemical equivalent of a human being. Of course I don’t see how you get from a monkey to man either, without some kind of divine spark that is. But that’s just me. I do find it rather unsettling to think I’m just a handful of salt and a couple buckets of water though. Human conceit, sigh.

At first it appeared that Kurzweil was ignorant of human nature but he does address this at the end of the book. Apparently the progress of technology is so rampant that it will happily steamroller any human objection.

I think I am experiencing cognitive dissonance. On one hand I’m reading this book about how wonderful the future will be because of technology. On the other hand I am dealing with trying to get my kitchen floor heating thermostat repaired. Which is quickly turning into a task that is taking many more steps than I would have thought possible. And I am dealing with having an MP3 player jack installed in my car. Again something that is consuming much more time that I had budgeted for the job. Not to mention the fun (not!) of attempting to return some music CD’s to the (automated – gah!) library. I mean has this guy ever tried to work with a Microsoft software product? Come on!

Kurzweil is a cock eyed, psychotic optimist if he thinks that technology is going to make our future better. Already we are contracting newfangled diseases like adrenal burn out when trying to cope with the exponential pace of modern day life.

Because computation underlies the foundations of everything we care about, from the economy to human intellect and creativity,…

Umm, it does?

Kurzweil reminds me of a boss I used to have - Ian. I was in charge of automating some reporting. Ian would promise his higher ups some pie-in-the-sky unattainable data because he had heard from someone somewhere that it might just be possible -- one day. Or that our competitors had such data about themselves. Of course our database was incomplete, inaccurate and poorly designed. It would never, could never produce such data on our company without a serious overhaul. And then he would expect me to deliver said data according to his unrealistic schedule. I would lie in my bed in the morning in that mystical dawn between slumber and waking and promise that today would be the day I would get along with Ian. We were both professionals and adults, how hard could it be? It never happened. Always within less than a minute of being in a room together we both would be yelling. It was curious. Back to the book.

Kurzweil seems to been a master delegator. He doesn’t quite know how it’s going to be done but he’s confident that some mastermind somewhere will come up with an answer to the problem. Bully for him. I’m just not confident about things unless I understand them fully. Only at that point would I be secure in making any kind of assertion about it.

Recently in the British news there was a story about a sprinter who was born without legs. He was fitted with ‘blades’ which actually help him to run faster than any human with normal legs. If technology is going to ‘make us better than biology’ I just find it really disturbing to think that humans will be redesigned to such a standard.

I see a whole new meaning to the word ‘nostalgia’ if at some point our biology is completely replaced by ‘better’ nano-engineered designed. Scary indeed.

I'm working on sorting, organizing and uploading all the Christmas pictures, honestly, I am! There's just so much other stuff to do!

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller

Mary Doria Russell wrote in the introduction,

"I am sufficiently fed up with my species to share Walter Miller's resigned amusement at this bleeding world, which would surely convince sentient vultures that God created it for them."

The priest kept wondering how it was possible for such a youth (not particularly intelligent insofar as he could determine) to manage to find occasions or near-occasions of sin while completely isolated on barren desert, far from any distraction or apparent source of temptation. There should be very little trouble a boy could get into out here, armed as he was with only a rosary, a flint, a penknife, and a prayerbook.

IT WAS said that God, in order to test mankind which had become swelled with pride as in the time of Noah, had commanded the wise men of that age, among them the Blessed Leibowitz, to devise great engines of war such as had never before been upon the Earth, weapons of such might that they contained the very fires of Hell, and that God had suffered these magi to place the weapons in the hands of princes, and to say to each prince: “Only because the enemies have such a thing have we devised this for thee, in order that they may know that thou hast it also, and fear to strike. See to it m’Lord, that thou fearest them as much as they shall now fear thee, that none may unleash this dread thing which we have wrought.”

But the princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself: If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy those others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back; earth shall be mine.

Historians list nothing but trivia.

When you tire of living, change itself seems evil, does it not? For then any change at all disturbs the deathlike peace of the life-weary.

“Ignorance has been our king. Since the death of empire, he sits unchallenged on the throne of Man. His dynasty is age-old. His right to rule is now considered legitimate. Past sages have affirmed it. They did not unseat him.

“Tomorrow a new prince shall rule. Men of understanding, men of science shall stand behind his throne, and the universe will come to know his might. His name is Truth. His empire shall encompass the Earth. And the mastery of Man over the Earth shall be renewed. A century from now, men will fly through the air in mechanical birds. Metal carriages will race along roads of man-made stone. There will be buildings of thirty stories, ships that go under the sea, machines to perform all works.”

“And how will this come to pass?” He paused and lowered his voice. “In the same way all change comes to pass, I fear.” And I am sorry it is so. It will come to pass by violence and upheaval, by flame and by fury, for no change comes calmly over the world.”

Men must fumble awhile with error to separate it from truth, I think – as long as they don’t seize the error hungrily because it has a pleasanter taste.

They belonged to a race quite capable of admiring its own image in a mirror, and equally capable of cutting its own throat before the altar of some tribal god, such as the deity of Daily Shaving. It was a species which often considered itself to be, basically, a race of divinely inspired toolmakers; …

In was inevitable, it was manifest destiny, they felt (and not for the first time) that such a race go forth to conquer stars. To conquer them several times, if need be, and certainly to make speeches about the conquest. But too, it was inevitable that the race succumb again to the old maladies on new worlds,

The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they seemed to become with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier for them to see that something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow. When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle’s eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn.

Speak up destiny, speak up! Destiny always seems decades away, but suddenly it’s not decades away; it’s right now. But maybe destiny is always right now, right here, right this very instant, maybe.

From a distance, one’s adversaries seemed fiends, but with closer view, one saw the sincerity and it was as great as one’s own.

The trouble with being a priest was that you eventually had to take the advice you gave to others. Nature imposes nothing that Nature hasn’t prepared you to bear.

Ashamed of his fright, he tried to pray, but the prayers seemed somehow unprayerful—like apologies, but not petitions—as if the last prayer had already been said, the last canticle already been sung. The fear persisted. Why? He tried to reason with it. You’ve seen people die, Jeth. Seen many people die. It looks easy. They taper off, and then there’s a little spasm, and it’s over. That inky Dark—gulf between aham—and Asti—blackest Styx, abyss between Lord and Man. Listen, Jeth, you really believe there’s Something on the other side of it, don’t you? Then why are you shaking so?

Holidays 2007

We took 600+ snapshots over the holidays. This is one of my favorites;



Al took this right before sunrise at Big Powderhorn Mountains in the Michigan U.P.

Endymion - Dan Simmons

The past few years have been one improbability after another, each more marvelous and seemingly inevitable than the last.

How could anyone stay sane with entire lifetimes stored in one human mind?

“Meaning no disrespect, sir,” says the other man, “but there’s no way in the Good Lord’s ******* universe that anyone can bar accidents or the unexpected.”

Why am I seeking logic or sanity here? I’d asked myself at the moment. There hasn’t been any so far.

Sounds like and IPhone to me;

All were capable of being used as communicators, of storing massive amounts of data, of tapping into the local datasphere, and – especially with the older ones – of actually hooking into planetary fatline relays via remote so that the megasphere could be accessed.

"..What he wanted -- what he wanted his shepherd to learn -- was how exalted these things could be -- poetry, nature, wisdom, the voices of friends, brave deeds, the glory of strange places, the charm of the opposite sex. But he stopped before he got to the real essence."

"What real essence?" I asked. Our raft rose and fell on the sea's breathing.

"The meanings of all motions, shapes and sounds," whispered the girl. "...all forms and substances/ Straight homeward to their symbol-essences..."

The universe is indifferent to our fates. This was the crushing burden that the character took with him as he struggles through the surf toward survival or extinction. The universe just doesn’t give a sh*t.

On the debate on whether Artificial Intelligence has a soul;

“And what was our DNA designed to do for the first few hundred million years, my son?” Eat? Kill? Procreate? Were we any less ignoble in our beginnings that the pre-Hegira silicon and DNA-based AI? As Teilhard would have it, it is consciousness which God has created to accelerate the universe’s self-awareness as a means to understanding his will.”

How Artificial Intelligence fits into evolution;

Father Glaucus turned his blind eyes in her direction. “Precisely, my dear. But we are not the only avatars of humanity. Once our computing machines achieved self-consciousness, they became part of this design. They may resist it. They may try to undo it for their own complex purposes. But the universe continues to weave it’s own design.”

“I attribute no definitive and absolute value to the various constructs of man. I believe that they will disappear, recast in a new whole that we cannot yet conceive. At the same time I admit that they have an essential provisional role – that they are necessary, inevitable phases which we (we or the race) must pass through in the course of our metamorphosis. What I love in them is not their particular form, but their function, which is to build up, in some mysterious way, first something divinizable – and then through the grace of Christ alighting on our effort, something divine.”

Connectedness;

“In the Cantos,” I said, “the scholar character seems to discover that the thing the AI Core had called the Void Which Binds is love. That love is a basic force of the universe, like gravity and electromagnetism, like strong and weak nuclear force. In the poem Sol sees that the Core Ultimate Intelligence will never be capable of understanding that empathy is inseparable from the source…from love. The old poet described love as ‘the subquantum impossibility that carried information from photon to photon…’”

“So you’re saying that there needs to be another Isaac Newton to explain the physics of love?” I said. “To give us its laws of thermodynamics, its rules of entropy? To show us the calculus of love?”

I was really disappointed when I finished this book. It was just like a chapter in a saga. I wanted to know WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! But when I reread the passages where I had turned down the page corners. I could see that it was a whole book on it's own. And a good one at that. Writing like this makes me think that Dan Simmons is really cool.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre

For Brigham Young and his religion, the haunting consequences of mass murder at Mountain Meadows was undeniable. Like many great crimes of power, the criminals expected to get away with it. Young's confidence was justified, for he was never indicted for any act connected to Mountain Meadows--and the only legal charge ever brought against him for these murders was drawn at his own request. But he could never escape the conviction of most of his contemporaries that he had masterminded an atrocity. Even if he burned every incriminating piece of evidence and persuaded every believing resident in the Utah Territory to swear that he had nothing to do with the horror at Mountain Meadows, Brigham Young could not change the past. He knew the full truth of his complicity in the crime. The Mormon prophet acted with the certainty that he was the instrument of God's will, but he initiated the sequence of events that led to the betrayal and murder of one hundred twenty men, women and children.

-Blood of the Prophets - Will Bagley

Which reminded me of this encounter with the Church of the Latter day Saints by Martha Beck in her book "The Joy Diet";

One day a local religious leader came to my house and told me outright that I had to stop making "inappropriate" statement.

"Here's my position," I told him carefully (I spoke more slowly than usual that year, trying to make sure before it came out of my mouth that everything I said was really true). "I respect the people who run the church. So far as I know, they're very good men. But if one of them told me to do something that I believed in my heart to be wrong, I wouldn't do it."

He sighed uncomfortably. "Well, I understand," he said. "But if you ever say that publicly, we'll have to take action against you. And by the way,terrible things happen to children in this town whose parents aren't in good standing with The Church. We can't control what happens to you."

In retrospect, this seems bizarre and creepy, like being targeted for assassination by the Brady Bunch (actually, come to think of it, that's exactly how it felt at the time).

,The Joy Diet by Martha Beck