Zax

One of my favorite children's books is the Dr. Seuss classic, The Sneetches and Other Stories. This 1961 volume contains such terrific little morality tales as The Sneetches, Too Many Daves, Pale Green Pants, and one of my favorites, the Zax.

The Zax is about two Zaxes, one who always goes north and another who always goes south. Now, that is fine, until one day in the Prairie of Prax, the two Zaxes come face to face. Since one always goes north and the other always south, there is an impass. And since the other quality of the Zaxes is their stubborness, neither will budge an inch to the east or west to let the other pass by. Ultimately, they stood there on the Prairie of Prax while the world moved on around them. There was even a Zax bypass built to allow traffic to get around the obstinate pair.


North Going and South Going Zax on the Prairie of Prax

The point of all this is that there must be other Zaxes, or one of them finally budged or died, since as I was driving around town, I came upon their office. Yes, it is the Zax office. It is too bad it was Sunday morning, as I would have liked to go inside and find a live Zax sitting at his desk, and be able to talk to him in person!


Front door to the Zax office!

These Things I Believe – A Personal Manifesto

Everyone has their own worldview, or weltanschauung, that defines for them their understanding of the world, and humanity's role therein. There are many issues that comprise one's views; issues that morph over time. In addition, the relative importance of those issues also evolve as forces, both internal and external, move them up or down in priority.

This is a brief summary of some of the core issues and beliefs that constitute my perspective on the world, and life here in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

• I believe in the equality of worth of all people, irrespective of gender, race, beliefs, culture, or any of the other things that categorize and separate the members of the human race.

• I believe in the supremacy of democratic forms of government, provided they have checks and balances in place to protect minority rights from the whims of, and oppression by, the majority.

• I believe that while free markets drive innovation and competition, capitalism that is unfettered by regulation ultimately is as harmful as a communist system; in that the ultimate determinant of value becomes the welfare of the corporation rather than the welfare of the people.

• I believe that some things are more efficiently and more equitably provided collectively than individually. To that end, there are certain functions that are better provided as universally available and publicly supported services. Examples include national defense, education, infrastructure for transportation and utilities, and health care. These need not be totally run by a government, but should be regulated to insure fair and universal access.

• I believe that human problems have human solutions. People must work together to solve those issues that plague our species, and threaten its continued existence. Politics should be left out of such issues to the extent possible, so that issues are neither overblown or ignored for political gain.

• I believe that the human mind is always free unless it cedes such liberty. No dictatorship can deny the freedom of thought and conscience that is within each of us. Therefore, it is incumbent upon each person to question authority, to demand evidence to support assertions, and to retain a healthy skepticism in regard to all issues. This is particularly true regarding issues that have no empirical evidential support.

• I believe the greatest divisive issue now, and throughout history, is that of religion. While I fully support the freedom of conscience vis-à-vis religious beliefs of the individual, those rights end where they impact the rights of others. It is my conviction that the sooner humanity frees itself from the enslavement of religion, the sooner we will have a real opportunity for lasting peace and cooperation among all of the world's people. You don't see rationalists flying planes into buildings to get 72 virgins; nor shooting physicians at women's clinics because they oppose abortion. Any god that demands blood and killing is not one worth any consideration.

• I believe that on the volatile issue of abortion, this is not a black or white issue. Religious fundamentalists hold that a human life exists at the moment of conception, a view not supported by either their own scriptures, or science; yet they attempt to legislate that belief on society as a whole. I also believe that abortion is all too commonly used, and far too late term, as a means of family planning. My view is that the procedure should be readily available during the time the fetus has no developed nervous system, and after that, when required for the woman's health and welfare.

• I believe that any two people who have committed their lives to one another should be afforded the legal protections and benefits commonly attributed to marriage. Whether it is called marriage, civil union, or anything else, it infringes on the rights of no one, nor endangers their own marriage, if such recognition is extended to non-traditional or same gender couples.

• I believe that personal behavior is just that, and not the business of government or society at large. Victimless crimes should be decriminalized, including personal use of drugs and, prostitution & other consensual sexual behavior. Of course, statutes against the impaired operation of vehicles on public rights-of-way should be enforced; as drunk or stoned drivers, pilots, and other operators can reasonably be expected to endanger the lives of others. The actual negative outcome should be against the law, not a private behavior and personal choice.

• I believe the only sin is causing unnecessary pain, suffering, or trouble for another person. There is enough of these that occur as a consequence of living. It is unconscionable to cause more needlessly. There is no sin in offending the vanity of some possible deity. Sins are committed against other people. Blasphemy is a victimless crime.

I am sure that I will think of things to add to this list, but it is a good place to start.

Great Commercial, Terrific Special Effects

My new favorite commercial, featuring the 1974 hit single by Andy Kim, Rock Me Gently. Everytime I see this, I have to laugh. Just proof that this is one of the great sing along songs of all time. The wolf is the absolute best.

By the way, Andy Kim's other claim to fame was a co-writer with Jeff Barry of the bubble gum pop hit single Sugar, Sugar, by The Archies. Another bit of pop trivia, the voice of The Archies had another simultaneous hit record in 1969. Ron Dante, the lead singer, was the anonymous voice of The Cufflinks and the hit record Tracy, along with numerous other pop records under various names during the period. He went on to produce records for Barry Manilow.

Old Man Winter Stops By

Thursday afternoon

Autumn is a season of change in Colorado. Sometimes it changes fast. Yesterday was 70 degrees for a high temperature. Even early evening last night was very pleasant. Then the wind started gusting, and this morning we wake up with snow coming down hard and accumulation expected to be in the 4-to-8 inches range. Tomorrow, the sun will return, and by Tuesday, we are expecting a high in the upper 60s. Sometimes the weather here changes drastically in the same day. That is why, particularly this time of year, it is important to dress in layers and take a jacket with you, even when you don't think you will need one.

The mountains have already been getting snow, and the Arapahoe Basin ski area is already open for the winter season. I don't ski or snowboard, as I like my bones just the way they are, thank you very much; but the resorts have got to love this. As for me, I hope we have a bit more autumnal weather for a while, even though this snowfall will likely take a lot of the remaining colorful leaves off the trees.

There may be a little good news for me in this. At work, we have a pool for predicting when we would get the first snow for the season. I think I picked October 21. I'll find out tomorrow, but I could be getting a few bucks. Not much, since it was only $1 per entry, but hey, even if it's ten or twenty bucks, I'll take it.


This morning

Fascination With Aircraft

Cessna 560 corporate jet on landing approach to Centennial Airport (KAPA/APA).
This plane is owned by US Bancorp Equipment Finance of Portland, OR.
CLICK HERE for registration information.

I find airplanes fascinating. The mere fact that a vehicle weighing many tons can actually fly is quite amazing, even though I understand the science behind it. My office is near Centennial Airport, giving me the opportunity to watch at fairly close range, as private jets and small propeller-driven planes come and go.

I took the photo above on my way home from work today. I like the fact that you can clearly see the wings configured for landing, along with the landing gears locked down. Because airplanes are moving at a relatively slow speed when taking off and landing, the pilot alters the shape of the wings to provide more lift at these lower velocities.

On the leading edge of the wings are slats that move forward and down to create a greater curvature on the front of the wing. Flaps are on the rear of the wings, and extend backwards and down. Both flaps and slats are extended during takeoff and landing. Next time you fly in a jetliner, notice this during takeoff, and notice that once the plane is climbing, the flaps and slats are retracted. Of course, the landing gears are pulled up almost as soon as the aircraft leaves the runway in order to reduce the drag of air friction.

On the top of the wings are spoilers. These are panels that extend up from the top surface of the wing. The pilot can use spoilers to slow the plane down after landing, as well as using one or the other to roll the plane toward one direction or the other during flight.

Another control surface on the back of the wings are ailerons, used to help turn the plane during flight. The tail has elevators that move to orient the direction of the nose of the craft, as well as the rudder which helps to steer the plane.

In my younger, less informed days, I actually caused a plane I was on to get out of takeoff queue because of ailerons. This was shortly after Northwest Airlines Flight 255 bound for Phoenix crashed into a freeway overpass in Detroit a short distance from the runway. The crash was caused by the flight crew's failure to extend the slats and flaps, causing the plane to not have enough lift for takeoff. All on board were killed, except for a four-year-old little girl. The crash occurred the evening of August 16, 1987.

Anyway, I was on a Southwest Airlines plane in queue for takeoff from Houston's William P. Hobby Airport, and noticed what I thought was a flap sticking up off the wing. With the Detroit crash in my mind, I thought better to be a living fool than a dead person who kept his dignity. I rang the flight attendant bell, and asked was that "flap" supposed to be sticking up. She didn't know, but called to the flight deck. The captain pulled the plane to the side of the taxiway and came back to ask me if there was a problem. I told him, "I don't know, but I bet you can tell me. Is that a flap that is not down, like the one that caused the crash in Detroit?" He looked out the window and said, "Oh, that. No sir, those are called ailerons, and they are fine. But thanks for letting us know."

When he returned to the flight deck, he came on the PA and announced, "We just pulled over for a visual equipment check, and we will be taking off in just a few minutes." Nice job, Randy!

One new feature you see on many planes nowadays are winglets. These are the vertical extensions you see on the tips of the wings. Aircraft engineers have found that these wing extensions reduce the whirling vortices of air that spin off the wing tips during flight, thus reducing drag and increasing fuel economy. Many airlines use the winglets as billboards to advertise their web sites or airline name to the passengers inside the plane.

If you look at the large version of my picture above, you can also see a wire extending from the top of the tail to the fuselage. This is a communications aerial or antenna. Although the terms are commonly used interchangeably, aerials are usually flexible wire, while an antenna is a rigid device.

My airplane piloting experience is limited to balsa wood gliders as a kid, but that doesn't stop my enjoyment and admiration of airplanes.

Random Thoughts on a Tuesday

A few miscellaneous and totally random thoughts...

First item: Rocktober continues, with the amazing run by the Colorado Rockies baseball club. A month ago, this team was in fourth place in the National League. Since then, they have won 21 out of 22 games. They beat the Padres in a Wildcard Playoff, swept the Phillies in the NLDS, swept the Diamondbacks in the NLCS to win the league championship, and are now headed to the World Series. This has to be the most incredible run I have ever seen in sports. The national media talks about it being a team of no-names that nobody knows. Well, they are about to hear more from Helton, Torrealba, Holliday, Tulowitski, and the rest!

Second item: Once again, the cultural literacy between people of different generations struck home to me. At work, someone told one of the new twenty-something employees that someone called him "Eddie Haskell". His reply? "Who is Eddie Haskell?" Leave it to Beaver is such a part of the collective memory that it amazed me that here is a coworker who was totally clueless about this bit of information. Granted, he was born a couple of decades after the show left the air, but it IS on Nick at Nite, for goodness sakes. Even though I was not born until 1953, I know who the Andrews Sisters were, and that it was FDR who said, "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself". I know of, and appreciate, the music of Benny Goodman. I know the story of John Dillinger and Al Capone. I know about how President Herbert Hoover was blamed for the Great Depression in the wake of the 1929 stock market collapse. I know how Neville Chamberlain tried to appease Adolph Hitler to achieve "peace in our time", and how Winston Churchhill rallied the Brits over the radio during the bombardment of London by Nazi bombs.

This isn't the first time this has happened either. I had coworkers ten years ago who had no idea who said, "Ich bin eine Berliner". By the way, you look lovely today, Mrs. Cleaver! Is that a new dress?

Third item: The weekend storm has put the white snowcaps on the peaks of the Colorado Front Range. From Mount Evans to Long's Peak, the original Colorado Rockies are looking good with their snowy tops looking down on the prairie. Maybe I'll get a chance to take a picture of them soon!

What Are You Gonna Pick? Hot Pockets!

You just have to feel that a burglar in Appleton, Wisconsin was just hungry. Police report that an unknown intruder walked into an unlocked apartment, leaving all valuables behind. What did he take? A chicken and broccoli Hot Pocket, along with:

• A half-dozen eggs
• A pizza
• One can of beef ravioli
• One can of peaches

Someone this hungry obviously needed food for themself and/or their family. My opinion: the police should write the report and let it be. The occupant of the apartment should learn a lesson about locking their door. Anyone hungry enough to eat a Hot Pocket has to be pretty desparate for food!

CLICK HERE for the AP story

Hail!

Hail coming down on the driveway

It's late Saturday and the unusual weather continues. It got real noisy here all of a sudden, as hail started pounding the area, making me glad I got my car back home and safely in the garage before this came in. The picture above shows my driveway being pelted by the hailstones, as well as white streaks of them as they plummet to earth. You can also see little stones bouncing up, looking like small comets.

The hailstones are a bit larger than a large green pea. Still, the way they are pounding out there, this would not be good for any car that is caught in the storm.

As I write this, the hail continues to come in, wave after wave, separated by periods of just rain. All in all, a good evening to stay indoors tonight!


A Colorado hailstone!

Little Deer

One of a trio of baby deer who live nearby - Click photo for large version

Last winter after our back to back blizzards, the deer who live around here were having a tough time of it. They were out looking for food and not finding all that much available. I haven't seen many around for several months. Then this afternoon, there were three of these little guys standing around near the end of the street. I am not a deer expert, but I think the reason these are darker than the ones I usually see, has something to do with the season.

The other two started to leave when they saw me, but this little one stood by long enough for me to snap his portrait before making his departure. I think these creatures live in the nearby woods and ravine, but come out to eat and explore. Today is overcast, cool, and rainy, so I guess they decided it was a good day to come out. They are rather cute, don't you think?

Six Days to Gutsy Gibbon

In 6 days, one of my favorite Linux distributions, Ubuntu Linux, releases its version 7.10, known as "Gutsy Gibbon". I have used Ubuntu for a couple of years, on and off, since it was in the Warty Warthog and Hoary Hedgehog releases. The team at Ubuntu has always done a good job of putting together a nice distro, and I am curious to see what is new in this latest release.

Ubuntu's stability and ease of use are demonstrated by the fact that Dell sells it pre-installed on some of its computers. I actually wish I had bought one of them, rather than this Gateway laptop I purchased at Best Buy last January. This machine comes with Microsoft's worst operating system since Windows Me, the ever bloated and slow Windows Vista. This operating system can take a powerful machine and give you a user experience akin to running Windows 95 on an underpowered 386SX from 15 years ago.

I bought this laptop (Gateway MT3705) with the idea of loading Linux onto it as my primary operating system, but it appears that Gateway has included components that only work well with Vista, at least for now. Notably there are problems getting the sound card and wireless 802.11g internal card to work with either Windows XP or Linux. (Actually, the wifi card doesn't even like Vista all that well). Some brave souls have used a release candidate of the ALSA Linux sound system, patched it, and have successfully gotten the sound to work. The wifi will likely require using NDISwrapper and a Windows driver to work in Linux. Then I have read instances of people having trouble with the CD/DVD drive with Linux. Yeah, the machine is basically a piece of junk. I have already had to replace the keyboard and power supply in the last 2 months.

I am getting close to getting up the courage to risk hosing the system by putting Linux on at least one partition, along with the necessary patches to get it running. This machine should run great if I can get it working. I still want to leave a Vista partition for those things I have to have that won't run on Linux, notably Sim City 4 and Adobe Photoshop.

I do have a desktop system running Linux (Fedora 7), but have no place to put it. Plus, I do like the portability of a laptop. I may actually buy a second hard drive for the laptop, swap it out, and install Linux on that. Then if it just won't work, I can put the Windows drive back in. Or maybe I'll just try an external USB drive for this project. Then if that works, I'll feel more confident in partitioning the internal drive for dual boot purposes.

So here are the distros I have decided to try out on this machine:

• Ubuntu
• Fedora
• Linux Mint
• PCLinuxOS

Its scary, but if I get it working, I should have a better performing machine running a stable, lean, and capable system software. I'll let you all know how it goes once I get into it.

My Interstate Highway Travels

In my perusing of various web sites put up by other highway aficionados, I have seen maps of Interstate Highways they have traveled. There is a very good version out there where you can build a data file that will generate a map for you, but for me, it seemed like too much work for what I would get. Still, I thought it would be nice to get a visual of the Interstates that I have traversed in my travels.

I found a map on the web that is a bit different than what you usually see. This one is not to scale, nor is it geographically precise, but it sets out to show the highways as either vertical, horizontal, or diagonal lines. This seemed to fit the bill.

So, I took this map, used Photoshop to draw semi-transparent overlays to denote my travels, and the result is below. Not too bad, if not as precise as other efforts I have seen. It shows that I need to do some more road trips to cover some territory I have never driven. My coverage is shown in red.


Click the map for an enlarged view

Sports Fan?

Well, maybe I will have to take back my earlier comment about not being a sports fan for at least one weekend. As I write this, I am watching the Red River Shootout on TV. This is the football game between the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners, played at the Cotton Bowl on the grounds of the State Fair of Texas in Dallas (any real Texan knows it is NOT the Texas State Fair). I am always torn in my loyalties in this game, as these are my two favorite college teams. I still am amazed that the CU Buffaloes beat OU last weekend in Boulder. In any case, the Cotton Bowl is the perfect place for the Texas/OU game, as it is almost exactly halfway between Austin and Norman.

Then tonight at Coors Field, the Colorado Rockies have the chance to sweep the Phillies to get to their first National League Championship Series, after winning the first two games in Philadelphia. They have to be the hottest team in baseball right now, and the late season run to the playoffs has to be some kind of record. Although it is a clear, beautiful day today, by game time it is expected that a cold front with rain will move through the Denver area, possibly impacting the game. I imagine it will have to get pretty bad to postpone this one.