ChaosEngine

Years ago, after a great deal of soul searching, I finally shed the religious beliefs that had been part of me from my earliest memories.  As much as part of me wants to believe in something else, in some supernatural force beyond the pale of science, I simply do not.  Now this is not a post condemning religion, or emphatically stating that there is no god, no magic, no spirit realm.   The murky view from my insignificant place in the universe does not provide me the scope to make such a sweeping declaration, only that I myself do not believe in such things.

Even so, I still enjoy the trappings associated with many religions and supernatural beliefs, observing holidays and festivals, even giving a nod towards certain superstitious practices.  These things add a bit of color to our lives, and hopefully make us think of things a little beyond our ourselves once in a while.

It also seems that there is something deep inside me that just does not want to stop believing.  Every so often I see something that just should not be there; a gnarled little man crouching by the side of the road, a great beast slumbering on a hillside, the glowing eyes of some creature watching me from the shadows.  Of course a double take always reveals the mundane explanation for such things.  That dwarf of a man was just an old stump, the slumbering beast a fallen log overgrown with moss, and the watching eyes nothing more than a stray reflection off a wet leaf.  There is an easy explanation for this.  Hundreds of thousands of years worth of evolution have produced brains that are very adept at recognizing patterns, even where none exist.  We see faces in the gnarled trunk of a tree, a sleeping dragon in a pile of stones, and the Virgin Mary in a pastrami on rye because we are programmed to recognize elements of our surroundings that might have an effect on our ability to survive.  A few false positives are less detrimental to our survival than missing the cougar waiting in a tree to pounce, or the thief hiding in the shadows with a knife.

This tendency for our brains to fill in the details and make us see things that are not there is likely where many myths and beliefs came from.  Even in our world of scientific understanding, many people still believe in things that there exists no scientific explanation for.  How would people with no understanding of science react to such tricks of the mind.  My guess would be by literal acceptance of what they saw.

I see something that does not exist and after a brief moment of surprise, my rational mind kicks in and gives me the explanation.  In fact, this ability to explain away the unexplainable has become a standard trope in many modern fantasy tales as a way to explain why most people never notice all the supernatural happenings going on around us.  And while I place my faith in reason, I still enjoy those brief moments when my conscious mind bypasses rationality and lets me walk with the spirits.

Tonight is Halloween, and as the parade of trick-or-treaters tapers off I will head out into the night to hike some dark trail through the woods.  Gnarled branches will twist and dance in the fey light of the watching moon, stirred by the chill breath of winter’s approach.  I will know that there is nothing to fear in the darkness, no dark spirits waiting to prey on the living.  Yet I will still feel their ominous presence, and see their faces in the dancing shadows.  And for that, I will be glad.

Today my Windows 7 House Party kit was delivered.  It included a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate signed by Steve Ballmer, a poster, puzzle, deck of cards, balloons, streamers, 10 WIndows 7 Art tote bags, and various special offers for Windows related products.  Windows 7 officially launches October 22nd, and Microsoft has launched a grassroots marketing campaign to get the word out.   They are working with a company called HouseParty.com to sponsor small parties across the nation for people to get together and see Windows 7 in action.  As with most Microsoft Marketing Campaigns, it seems they kind of missed the mark.  They have a series of videos giving advice on how to host the party, and they are laughably bad.

Even so, I think it is cool, in its way, that they are doing this.  No matter what Microsoft tries, they will never be given credit for doing anything right or for being as cool as Apple.  Hating Microsoft has become so fashionable that people pretty much do it reflexively nowadays.  I can understand.  I’ve been a Linux/Open Source proponent for years, and an avid Microsoft hater for a long time.  They’ve given people lots of reasons to dislike them over time.

A bout three years ago though, I had to come to terms with my own dirty little secret.  For all my MS bashing and love of Linux, I still used Windows XP around 75% of time for my own personal use.  The simple truth was, that when it came to playing games, viewing media, and dozens of other simple little tasks, it was just easier to do it on XP than on Linux.  I do not say this to put down Linux, I still love it.  But due to licensing issues, lack of program support, proprietary drivers and codecs that Linux cannot legally use, etc, Linux is just having a heck of a time competing on the desktop.  None of this is Linux’s fault, it’s just a fact of life.  And the truth be told, XP has been a pretty solid OS since SP2.  So rather than coming home from a long day of working in IT to spend hours trying to get something to work for me on Linux, it seemed a lot more efficient to just use Windows and be done with it.  I am not giving up on Linux, but I also am not using it for my main home desktop.

About the time I was coming to grips with the fact that I was a closet Windows user,  I was also working for a company that had a Microsoft based network, which was a first for me.  And you know what, despite everything I had heard, it worked pretty smoothly.   The email functioned, it integrated with messenger nicely, and the network seemed as stable as anyplace else I had worked.

So, I decided to quit hating Microsoft just because.  I now try to judge tech a little more fairly (accept of course Apple) and be more reasonable.   I gave Vista a try, and found it a mixed bag.  Lots of nice features, but some big flaws and annoyances as well.  I think it got treated a bit harshly in the tech press, but in the end, it really wasn’t an improvement over XP.

Now Windows 7 is coming out.  I’ve been running betas and RCs of it for the last year, and overall I’m pretty impressed.  Lots of cosmetic improvements, but a fair number of more substantial changes as well.  The new taskbar is the probably the biggest thing people will notice, but there are some other innovations in there too.  Microsoft is going out on a limb, putting itself out there for people to see, and encouraging folks to get together and have a good time while they do it.  It’s all a bit corny, but it is also something they don’t have to do.  They could drop support for XP, start putting Windows 7 on all new computers, and just pretty much let things take their course.  Even if a lot of people got upset and jumped ship for Mac or Linux, they would still dominate the market.  Instead, they are rewarding a number of people willing to give them a chance with free versions of the Ultimate Version of their OS and some cool swag.  They are inviting people to come check out what they have to offer and make up their mind for themselves.

Ironically Microsoft may end up being their own greatest enemy.  People may laugh at their current marketing campaign, but even if they came out with the coolest product and event ever, the true Mac and Linux devotees would still find some reason to ridicule them.  The people they need to convince are the XP users.  XP has been a solid, stable OS since SP2, and many people simply do not see any reason to change.  It is time to change though.  XP has been around for 8 years now, and while it has matured well, it is now getting a little long in the tooth.  Computers have changed a lot in those 8 years, and the transition to 64 bit, multi-core computers require operating systems designed to take advantage of these features.  XP has served well, but it is not ready for the modern state of computing.  And while Linux and even Mac got to the party a lot earlier than Microsoft, sometimes it’s ok to be fashionably late.

I recently bought a motorcycle.  It’s an old Honda Magna, one of the hot rod bikes I remember from my younger days, not exactly what I was looking for, but a respectable cruiser nonetheless.  Getting a motorcycle may have something of a midlife-crisis feel to it, and perhaps it is.  I am not, however, getting a bad toupee and wearing gold chains, trying to present myself to the world as cool and hip.  That boat sailed quite some time ago, and I wasn’t on it.

It has much more to do with reconnecting with who I once was.  Starting when I was 17, a motorcycle was my preferred mode of transportation for about 10 years.  I loved the sense of freedom.  Shortly after marrying an EMT/Emergency Room nurse and moving to California, I gave up the motorcycle for safer more practical transportation.  It is something I have always regretted doing.

When I put a couple of the main characters in a story I was writing on bikes and began going into great detail about the joys of riding, I knew it was time to get back in the saddle.  I don’t think I fully appreciated how much I really missed riding.   I don’t want to get too pretentious with my Zen-like musings here, a motorcycle is just a machine after all, but there is something very liberating about riding one.

In a car, you are sheltered, protected, and insulated from the outside world.  With the windows up you cruise along in climate controlled comfort, listening the radio, talking on a cell phone, and generally existing in your own little world.  On the bike, things are different.  The wind is in your face, the road is rushing by inches from your feet.  There is no cell phone, no radio.  You are more acutely aware of your surroundings, more immersed in the here and now.  There is an element of being grounded in the present moment that is very lacking from the rest of my life, and it is a deeply satisfying feeling.

Already the weather is turning cool here, and it won’t be long before I have to garage the thing for a while, but for the moment I am enjoying the hell out of taking to the road on two wheels again.  It is a simple pleasure,  but those are often the best kind.

Since I have nothing else terribly interesting to say at the moment I will give a quick update on my previous posts about dieting and the Wii Fit.  The short story is I just reached the 20lb mark.  It took around 3 months, which is a little longer than I hoped, but still not too bad.  I’m still losing at a respectable rate and not feeling terribly deprived.  I’m amazed at how easy it has been for me to give up most of the beef and pork in my diet. I never thought I could do that. In the past though when I’ve tried dieting I’ve always kind of obsessed over how I couldn’t have as much meat as I wanted, but I’ve been replacing it with Boca, chicken, and fish and only occasionally having beef or pork.

Still using the Wii for workouts.  I think the Yoga on the Wii Fit is useful for stretching and just feeling a little better.  I use Gold Gym’s Cardio Boxing for more intensive workouts.

So, now it’s off to park for a good hike with the dog and chicken tacos from Taco Bueno since it is one of the few fast food items I can have without doing serious damage to diet.

I don’t mean honor the abstract concept, though a good argument could be made for that as well, but rather Honor, one of my cats. Honor was five years old, a big friendly tomcat that was at least partially responsible for bringing all sorts of wildlife into my home that I didn’t really want there. His hunting prowess however was respectable and he presented me with a steady stream of frogs (partially eaten, apparently they taste better than mice), mice, snakes (often alive), rats and birds throughout the spring and summer months. He came from a litter of kittens one of my wife’s co-workers rescued from a garbage can moments before it destined from the dump. We took a brother and sister pair from the litter and named them Honor and Glory.

Besides that grisly assortment of hunting trophies he brought home, he was a great cat. He didn’t scratch up the furniture or knock things off tables like his sister Glory. He was always ready to sit in a lap and be scratched, and was just overall a great pet.

This morning I found him laying in the garden under my willow tree, a place where he would often nap. But there were flies all over him and it was immediately obvious something was wrong. I checked him over, but it didn’t appear that he had been hit by a car or bitten by another animal. There was no blood or obvious injuries. He had been active and healthy the night before, so I have no idea what happened to him.

It really doesn’t matter, gone is gone. He had a good life, I just wish it had been longer. I’ll miss ya big guy.

Interesting weekend.

Had a long talk with a co-worker and friend that went from a general bitch session to a very positive discussion of what we could do to make the place better and our jobs more fulfilling. Who knows if anything will come from it, but I definitely want to try and stay on that positive note. Usually when I start to get frustrated with a place I just look elsewhere, the idea that I might actually be able to influence the corporate culture never really crossed my mind. I’m not entertaining any great delusions of grandeur here, just thinking that it may be worth the effort to see what can happen if I try to keep a positive attitude and actively promote a few ideas that I think would improve the place. Of course maintaining a positive attitude isn’t particularly easy for me to do, I have a tendency to see the negative bits of a situation, and mock them sarcastically ad nauseum. So this may require a bit of focus and effort on my part. All the more so since some of the biggest obstacles are likely my direct peers. Despite a history of coming to blows in dog parks, streets, and other public venues, I am as non-confrontational at work as I can be. I just do not like situations that call for confrontation at work, there really should be no need for it. The reality though is that there is.

When I was taking To-Shin-Do, one of the core concepts was that it wasn’t just a martial art for fighting, but a method for living. Much of what I learned should be applicable here; methods of conflict resolution and for achieving goals. I think it’s time to start asserting and applying myself a bit more.

Truth is I’m just tired of feeling like a spectator in my own life. Really feeling the need to start taking a little more control. For the last couple of months I’ve been dieting and exercising which has been successful. Feeling a little better and hope to kind of clean up my image a bit. I’m looking way too grungy these days. I’ve passed the halfway mark on my schooling, less than six months until I finish. Not sure what happens then, but I hope it opens a few doors for me, or at least gives me the tools to pick the lock.

At the end of the week I start a week’s vacation. Nominally it is to participate in the Lilies War, a local SCA event. I’m not really active in the SCA anymore though, but my wife will be camping at it and I will be in and out over the week. I actually hope to use the time to set up a recording studio to better accommodate my podcasting and some other projects I have in mind. I’ve been feeling the need for a dedicated space to work with some sound insulation. Space is at a premium here and I don’t have an ideal solution, but I plan on making it work one way or another.

The subject of torture is something that has been in the news a lot lately. I’m surprised and dismayed by the fact that there is actually a debate on this subject. How can a country that has based itself on liberty and justice (perhaps not always living up to those ideals, but still expounding them) try and make an argument that torture is justified.

The author Michael Stackpole has a good editorial about this on his blog, in which he talks about this far more eloquently than can I, so go give it a read.

One aspect of this he doesn’t really delve into though is the use of extreme measures in a desperate situation vs. condoning them via government fiat. While Mr. Stackpole speaks of the ridiculousness of the ticking bomb argument, and I agree, I could imagine situations where one might be driven to do something horrible. I’m not condoning it, only saying I could understand where the ticking bomb argument could come into play.

The difference between an individual making a decision to use torture in the heat of the moment and doing it as part of government prescribed policy are hugely different things. The individual must make a decision. They must look at the situation and say “Yes, this is worth it, I have to do this”. And once they have taken that action they must answer for it. They cannot hide behind policy or bureaucracy, they must defend what they did and face the consequences. Having a policy that says that it is ok makes it routine, common, and removes responsibility from the individual. Any government that officially condones such action is firmly on the road to evil no matter how noble they think their cause is. I sincerely hope mine can reverse course before it is too late.

A couple of things I thought I would point out about using the Wii Fit as an exercise program.

1. I’m not using this as a replacement for going outdoors and doing stuff. I don’t go out and do much in the first place. I do however still take the dog to park and go hiking around the lake a few times a week.

2. I’m replacing going to the gym with staying home and using the Wii.

In some ways #2 is not a great trade off. I’m sure equal time spent at the gym would produce much better results. However, if I replace an occasional trip to the gym, with three to fours times as much time spent during the week on the Wii, I think I will come out ahead.

One thing that has led to much of the general derision of the Wii fit is the focus on the balance board. In an attempt to justify the cost of the balance board they have created lots of silly exercises that use the balance board, but don’t really need it. Like push-ups and sit-ups. If you only look at what you can do with the balance board, then it is indeed very limited and silly. Wii Fit is not the only exercise title for the Wii though. There are several out there of varying quality. I picked up a couple of others that had received good reviews, My Fitness Coah, and Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout. My Fitness Coach does not use the balance board at all, and Gold’s Gym uses it only in a cursory manner which is completely optional. What these titles become is more of an interactive workout video. They don’t allow you to do anything you couldn’t do on your own or with a traditional video. They do offer a little bit of variety and interactivity that will allow you to tailor your workouts and hopefully not get bored as quickly as you would with a simple static video.

The other side of the fitness coin is of course healthy eating. So I’m am embarking on yet another diet. My history with diets have been rocky, but I have managed to lose in the area of 30 lbs several times before in my life and keep it off for a year or more. True, I eventually always seem to gain it back, but I like to think that if I hadn’t made those attempts in the past I might weigh a lot more than I do now. I may not be winning the war ,but I’m at least executing a formidable holding action.

So this time around I’m trying the Mediterranean Diet. Now, I don’t think there is a dietary magic bullet out there. Diets work on one principle, taking in fewer calories than you expend. Any successful diet works on that concept. In reality a diet shouldn’t even be needed. Just eat less, exercise more, and weight will be lost. Unfortunately, overweight people generally have a history of making bad choices when it comes to food, and sometimes a little guidance is needed to help keep you focused. It is really about putting yourself in the proper frame of mind and setting some limits. The core of the Mediterranean Diet is not radically different than Weight Watchers, South Beach, or any other reasonable diet plan. Eat a diet high in fiber, low in fats, and with lots of fruits and vegetables, and limit your consumption of meats and processed foods. This isn’t rocket science. Each plan has its own slant on things, but they do not differ radically. I am giving this a try because I like the kinds of spices and flavors it uses, and it encourages the idea of really enjoying food and experimenting with different recipes. Keeping the meals tasty and interesting is one way to feel less deprived when cutting back.

So, who knows how far I will get this time around. I’ve lost 4 or 5 lbs in the last week, which is about normal for when starting a new diet. The first couple of weeks usually see a significant drop before leveling off to the 1-2 lb per week rate.  I doubt that I will ever be thin, but I hope to avoid being someone that is so fat they need a handicap license plate so they don’t have to walk so far to the all you can eat buffet.

Back in December I joined a gym. It was a drastic action, for I had no real desire to work out. I did however have a desire to stop growing fatter and to reverse my increasingly sedentary lifestyle before it was too late. Since moving from Maine to Kansas I have been steadily going downhill. I have lots of excuses/reasons as to why this has happened, but in general it has to do with being lazy and not really liking where I live. In Maine I loved the little town I lived in and surrounding countryside. I walked/hiked/canoed/did yardwork/worked out at the dojo, etc on a regular basis. Here in Kansas, I just can’t seem to get motivated to do much. I had some success taking martial arts lessons for awhile, but the dojo I was at moved, moved again, closed down, reopened, then disappeared off the face of the earth. I could try to find another dojo, but truth is my heart really isn’t in it anymore and I would likely just make excuses as to why I couldn’t make it to lessons on a regular basis. I’ve also made some incursions against the battle of the bulge with Weight Watchers and the South Beach Diet. The South Beach Diet was the most successful; I lost 30 lbs and kept it off for over a year. However after changing jobs and starting back to school, I gained it all back, plus a couple more. I am now the fattest I have ever been in my life and find doing a lot of things I use to do difficult or impossible.

So, deciding that I had to do something I joined a gym. I went to it regularly for a couple of months and was feeling pretty good about it. I didn’t lose any weight, but I hadn’t changed my eating habits so that wasn’t a huge surprise. I then got sick for a few days, and used that pathetic excuse to stop going to the gym for about six weeks. I went back last week at a little past 11pm on a Friday night. I had a good workout and there were only a few other people there. This was one of the reasons I had joined a 24 hour fitness center. I’m pretty self conscious about working out. It’s always kind of embarrassing to be the one fat guy in a room full of healthy young attractive people. Just makes me feel really out of place. So I tend to go at times when young healthy attractive people our out enjoying themselves. On Monday however I decided I should try to get over that problem and just stop by on the way home from work rather than having to drive back later. So I stopped in to find the place absurdly crowded with no open cardio machines and about half the weight machines in use. So, once again presented with the flimsiest of excuses, I decided to just skip the workout and go home.

Now, my wife had just bought a Wii Fit that weekend. I wasn’t initially interested in using this, as I didn’t see how it could be that helpful. However, deciding that doing something would be better than nothing, I pulled it out and gave it a try. It starts by doing an assessment of your general health. This involves you telling it your age and height; it then weighs you and has you perform a number of balance exercises. From there it calculates your BMI and your fitness age. I don’t really care about my “Fitness Age”, because I don’t think the silly little tests really mean much, however, weight and BMI are numbers I’m interested in. It cheerfully exclaimed that I was obese, no surprise there. I was actually a little disappointed that it was so happy and polite. I think it would be much funnier, not to mention more productive, if it was much ruder. When I step on the pad it should scream “Get off me you fatass!”. Alas, the Japanese politeness does not seem to permit this. It does however change your Mii, your little cartoon avatar, to a size to reflect your BMI. I now appear as the Michelin Man with a beard.

You then go on to perform a number of different exercises; Yoga, Aerobics, Strength Training, and Balance Games. Some of the exercises have a trainer to help you. This is an extremely generic person with washed out white features and wearing typical health nut spandex gear. You can choose either male or female, but both are rather androgynous and both are irritatingly cheerful. Totally devoid of emotion these spandex albino androids lead you through exercises, telling you that you are doing great as you struggle not to pass out.  I hate them.  A lot of the exercises don’t use the board at all, like running in place. Some use them in a ridiculously tangential fashion, such as resting your feet on the board during sit-ups. It keeps track of how much time you spend working out, and unlocks new exercises and games as you go.

I’ve only been using this for a week now, but I think it may actually be relatively effective for general health and fitness. It shows your workouts on a calendar, and graphs your weight, BMI, Fitness Age, and workouts for you so you can get a good representation of the progress you are making. I tend to think of it more like a Yoga/Tai Chi type of experience than bodybuilding. The strength exercises will undoubtedly work, but I don’t think they will come anywhere close to matching the results from weightlifting. The other exercises all seem to have some benefit as well. If you can get past the silliness of some of the exercises and the cheerleading from the Wii the Fit seems like a solid low impact workout. It has enough variety to keep it from getting too boring, and the graphing of your progress with accompanying praise or admonishment is good for people that like clear feedback on their progress.

I’m thinking I’m going to give this thing about a month and see how I do with it. If I’m showing improvement I may well cancel the gym membership and see how far the Wii can take me.  There are a number of other exercise based games for the Wii, and surely more to come.  This should help with the variety and hopefully keep it from getting boring.  In the end it will be like any other workout plan.  If you do it consistently it will work, if not it won’t.  I’m really just hoping the fact that it can be done at home with no need to go anywhere will remove a number of my excuses.  Not to worry, I’m sure I can come up with more.

Well, I decided that I liked the old theme better than the new one, so I tried to revert back to the old Snoods theme with its Black and Orange simplicity.  However, it turns out that theme seems to have issues with WordPress 2.7 and Internet Explorer.   After quite a bit of rooting around in the html I found the problem was formatting characters that get copied over when I use MS Word 2007 to write my posts.  So, moral of the story, do not use a Microsoft Product to produce content that will be viewed in a Microsoft Browser. I think I have it fixed, though a couple of posts had to be deleted and rewritten and a couple of comments lost.

The switch back to the old theme seems especially apropos since my old pal Yukari sent me this pic:

Apparently she liked the butterfly from the Snoods theme enough to get a tattoo of it.  Very cool.   Wish I could claim to be the artist, but that is not where my talent lies.

In other news:
My wife has been working in a town sixty miles away for the last year. Due to the long hours she often worked and the cost of gas at the time we decided to get her an apartment to stay in during the week rather than having to commute. This arrangement got old pretty fast, as despite my grumblings, I actually do miss the woman when she is gone. She is starting a new job in a few weeks, back in KC, so the last week has been spent getting her moved out of the apartment and back here. It is amazing how much stuff someone can accumulate in a year. We live in a pretty small space, and there simply isn’t room for all of it, so things are still a bit of a mess here until we get it all figured out.

And while I’m happy she is back, I am feeling my style a bit cramped. I’m considerably neater than she is, and I also don’t care much for having the TV on all the time. I find it too distracting when I’m trying to do homework, get some writing done, or do much else that requires any concentration. I’m actually considering following in the footsteps of Scott Sigler and setting up a workspace in a closet. Tonight the need for this was really driven home as I had to record an introduction video as part of a school project. I got started late because there were simply too many distractions, and between random noise and activity from the pets, and multiple coughing fits from the wife, it only took about 50 takes to get it right.

So things are kind of back to normal.  The wife is back home and my sight is mostly back to its old self.  A little cleanup and editing left to do as some things have changed with the more recent versions of Wordpress, but nothing too major.