Flowers

Roots

It hadn't occurred to this Texas boy, but I'm part Nebraskan by heritage. This is Verdigre, Nebraska, home of the finest koloches in all America. Their sign said so. This area is also famous for raising farmer's daughters that become grandmothers to blogging individuals like myself. Fascinating!



Walnut, Nebraska's once thriving educational system still makes for a good photo op.

Platte River State Park

This being an eclectic blog, I figured I'd start posting to occasional random photo set that comes out of my camera.

Last weekend my girlfriend and I headed down to Platte River State Park, a delightful little network of hiking trails along the Platte River, south of Omaha.


It didn't take long to find the local fauna. My girlfriend caught a toad, obviously. The toad was understandably upset, and she got peed on as a result.


Some kind of butterfly minding its own business.



My favorite: we saw four deer in all (all does). Perhaps its the same in other places, but personally I've never lived in a place where the deer are so tame as they are in the Omaha area. I was in a state park, but honestly, I might have gotten this shot a block from my home in the city. The deer in this state have very little fear of people. Its kind of nice.

Zen and the Right Mind

Zen.

I'd picked up a few books on the subject while living in San Antonio, TX and undergoing a stressful time of on the job training. I'd been interested in Japanese culture for quite some time and wanted a bit of relief from thinking about the job.

Didn't understand a word.

Recently, however, I've delved back into the subject by reading a book called The Method of Zen. Its an older book, but I think I've finally figured out a bit of what this whole business is about.

First, a primer for what got me interested again. This nice lady is a neuroscientist who happened to have a stroke. In the video she will explain how parts of her brain switched on and off in a kind of surreal play by play of the event:



All done? Depending on your point of view, by the end of this little talk you're convinced that either she's a blithering idiot or she has had a genuine spiritual experience. Neither matters much to me personally, except that this lady made me realize the connection between the brain and that sort of experience.

Specifically, the bit about the right brain having no sense of self, having a universal consciousness where there is no subject and object, being outside of self and time all reminded me of the experience described as satori in Zen Buddhism. Of course, there are parallels in all religions, but that's what came to mind.

Anyway, the practice of Zen style meditation, of contemplating koans, it makes more sense now. In order to get into your right mind (so to speak), you must exit your left. Satori, the goal of Zen, is the moment when you, in a flash of insight unaided by logic or reasoning, experience the true nature of the universe, the primary and constant state of being of all things. Neurologically, I think, this is akin to the experience the scientist had in her story of experiencing those things her right hemisphere was telling her. And like her, I think that sometimes that just might be a place worth visiting.

Disaster! Or is it? (It is)

I think there are times when a person's dumb@$$ level spikes. A time when sufficient sleep, a healthy diet, and being surrounded by one's friends are just not enough to keep someone from doing something really stupid.

I had previously jailbroken my iPhone (with Ziphone), so maybe that moment came when I first did that little experiment. Don't be too hard on me. I was lured by the promise of apps before apps, and cheap phone calls through VOIP. It was a beautiful dream..

Anyway, feeling I had done enough research to know that most people who jailbroke their phone were fine in the upgrade, I decided to do it. It erased everything. EVERYTHING. I'm just lucky that I downloaded my photos before I did it, because that's all thats left. All my notes (of which I had many) and phone #s...gone. I was, for a brief moment, alone in the dark.

Terrible, right? Well...I've decided this isn't all that bad a thing. In this modern age the Facebooks and Googles of the world are saving me a bit of time in rebuilding that electronic Rolodex. Almost everyone I've ever met under the age of 65 is on one site or another, so I should be mostly up and running in a day or so. I give it 10 years before most of the really important information in a person's life isn't stored in a file cabinet or PC. We're pretty much there already: all the important stuff in your life (banking, friends, SS#, deed to house, tax history, credit report, medical files) is well on its way to being on record with Google or Apple or Facebook, or Myspace, or Microsoft, or whateverisnextorhasthefundstobuyyourdigitalself.

I'm sure everything will be fine, though. At least I can call my brother again. ;)

Serving Days of Yore

Back in the heady times of 2004, I was a waiter at a start up French Bistro.

I figured I had experienced a part of life which I could add to that list I carry around in my head of things that I have done to be a Well Rounded Person. I think this is my way of justifying an adventure which I could only describe as a precursor to hell.

I'm probably not the only one who does this. In fact, I've read studies confirming it: even poor bastards who get thrown in jail for 20 years for a crime they didn't commit can justify the experience in their minds as something beneficial to them. Its a survival trait. Here, see for yourself:



So anyway, I'll get beyond the brain tricks and be logical, cold and hard.

Looking back, having been a waiter might, rather than being a beneficial experience, actually be costing me in the long run. I realized this after having left my 10,000th too generous tip one Sunday morning at a local diner, where the air conditioner had died, the food was on that margin between lukewarm and cold, and late. Having had the aforementioned hellish experience that is food service, I, as so many times before, feel sorry for the plight of the waiter. Good or bad, I without fail leave generous tips.

Over time, this habit will probably even out, then surpass my meager wages at the old restaurant where I was employed (thus making it a wash economically). That, coupled with the horrid mix of Celine Dion and Usher I was subjected to over a 6 month period by the most obnoxious head waiter to exist, makes for a depressing thought indeed.

For the Astronomically Inclined

This being the second post, I've been thinking heavily about whether I'd like this blog to contain any particular theme. Naw...

For right now, I'm serving up a steady mix of your favorite eclectic media and original work. :)

So, without further ado, today I learned about this little guy:

Brought to you by the University of Arizona and Google (among others), its a big telescope called LSST. Basically, its a newfangled thing that has the resolution of the modern big boy telescopes but can scan the entire night sky in a day. The big deal is that this thing could show us a running play by play of every supernova or other big event happening in the universe in near real time, at current high end resolution levels.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSST

Just think, in the future we could go onto Google Sky and see what's going on up there, anywhere, a day after the light reaches earth. I'm geeking out! :)

For all things, a beginning

Consider this a test. I've decided that passively reading articles of interest on the internet is slowly killing me, and thus, like so many before me have done, I've decided to start this blog in an attempt to actively share my own thoughts and perspectives on the day to day. Rest assured, dear Reader, that it will be an interesting ride, but I'm not doing it for you. :)

I'm here to be active, to maintain my own voice, lest I circle the bowl into consumer passive prole oblivion.

Welcome to my attempt to become relevant. Welcome to the crossroads. :)