Da Bears

Denali in Alaska.  Yellowstone.  Svalbard in Norway.  Stokes in New Jersey.  Wait, one of those doesn't sound quite so exotic or remote.  Yet all are locations of recent bear attacks (or, at least, alleged bear attacks).  The truth is, when we venture into the domain of some of the most powerful predators (who are actually omnivores), we have to accept that an encounter with a Black, Grizzly or Polar bear may not end favourably for us.

It is a shame that lives have been lost, on both sides.  As hikers, campers and picnickers, we need to follow the advice and rules of those who have experience.  Keep your food out of your tent.  Ladies, if it is that time of the month, stay off the trails and out of the woods.  Make noise.  As for Polar bears, cute as they may seem, humans are as easy a meal as a seal (maybe easier), so be forewarned and armed.  A polar bear has no conviction or fear in hunting humans.  They are the pinnacle predator of the Arctic north, as much as the Great White is the top predator of the sea.

As "civilisation" encroaches upon the habitat of the Ursids, we can be assured of further deadly encounters, which, of course, will be hopelessly sensationalised in the media.  I can't wait for the new Syfy movie, Bearwolf, about a pack of mutant bears, created by a cynical scientist, terrorizing a major metropolitan area, like Burlington, Vermont or Aberdeen, Scotland (more shock value if set in Scotland, I think).  Of course, the cast will include an attractive female park ranger/zoologist/reporter and the handsome police officer/soldier/drifter/custodian who together will save the day and fall in love.  And the scientist will end up, finally realizing his mistake, as human steak tartar.  Oh, I forgot the super-genius kid who will keep needing to be saved because he/she doesn't understand the word  "obedience."

Yeah, that's it.  That's the ticket.

At least somebody is reading these posts

Last week, I posted my own dire view of the current state of the world.  It was really meant no more than an exposition of my own misgivings and the seeming harbingers of imminent doom; truly enlightened and uplifting thoughts.  But, I have since read that the end of the world has been given a date and time:  May 21, 2011 at 6:00pm, by none other than noted televangelist Harold Camping.  Mind you, Mr. Camping doesn't note the time zone, but one can assume he meant his local Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-8) zone.

I wish this were a joke, but it isn't an April Fools Day bit.  It can be verified via searches of a number of news (BBC) and pseudo-news services (Fox News).  His own credibility, unfortunately, has to be called into question, especially in light of Matthew 24, esp. v36-51.

Part of me prays he'll live to see the error of his own prediction, and that those who follow him will then seek a greater understanding of their own about the source of his prophecy.  If he is correct, well then, the question for each of us needs to be, "Am I ready?"

Living in the end times...

Disasters abound across the globe.  It's Friday, and that simple sentence is a viral hit on YouTube by some girl named after a Biblical character and the absence of light.  My mother-in-law, whom I greatly respect and love, is now the proud owner of an iPad 2, yet she doesn't know how to use her cell phone.  My son said it, quoting R.E.M., "It's the end of the world as we know it; and I feel fine."

OK, it's easy to think that the end is near.  Must have felt that way in the Middle Ages, in the midst of the Black Death, with citywide conflagrations in several places in Western Europe, or when the Conquistadors arrived in Central America.  For all our accomplishments, we have managed to hasten the pace of destruction; be it conflict or contagion, disaster or dereliction of duty to man, vice or virus; we cannot defeat death.  In fact, we seem to be hastening to embrace it's cold hands.

2012, a popular myth if the end of time, or is it prophetic.  Or, is mankind simply working to fulfill a prophecy...

The new iPad 2 is announced today

What?  Seriously?  I was still hoping to get the original, and they go and launch a new one.  Now I have to scrap all my plans, machinations, ploys and schemes and start over.  What; their not available yet, and ship March 11th?  And Motorola has the Android "Honeycomb"-based XOOM.

The decisions one must make...


... or not.  I liked the first, but wasn't ready to plunk down the bucks to get in the game.

And it is likely another new version hits shelves before year's end.  Maybe then, it'll be time to get in the game.  I'll just have to suffer with my laptops, my Android 2.2 phone, and iPod Classic a little longer.  That should suffice.  Unless, of course, Oracle Clinical RDC could be made to run on iOS or Android.  To me, that would be a real game changer.  Larry, you listening?

What good is an unread blog?

Ouch.  Entering Humility, population 1.  There is nobody here.  No one.  It is a ghost town.  Devoid of readership, a blog is nothing more than a collection of the binary representation of characters, magnetized bits of data on disk drives (OK, more likely, drive arrays), stored away in the dim hope that they would be retrieved from the deluge of useless data that relentlessly assaults the eyes and ears of humanity.  


Is there anybody out there?  Is there anyone home?

What would you do?

It is the fantasy of tens of millions of Americans; to win the big Mega Millions lottery jackpot.  The next drawing has an annuity value of over $150M USD.  That is a huge sum of money for one person to potentially win.  I recently replied, albeit jokingly, to the question What do you want for Christmas? with "A winning lottery ticket."


My friend then challenged me, and asked, "What would you do with all that money?"


I was gobsmacked.  My first inclination was to answer in the standard, selfish method "Get out of debt, buy a big house, greed, blah, blah, blah.  But, I would like to be able to teach."  Thankfully, one of the kids ran into the room and interrupted the exchange.  But my mind has not let go of the answer; my visceral, self-focused response really troubled me.


I realized, what I want, and really need, is not things, so much, but the experiences that a life unhindered by debt and physical attachments/confinements could bring.  For example, I am not truly happy with where I live.  Not that it isn't nice, more so, it is not right for me, my family, our interests and our ambitions.  I think there are many in a similar state of mind.  Hw can we be freed from our worldly bondage?


So, in thinking about it, I decided I'd leave a permanent record, so to speak, of my top 10 ways I'd manage such a windfall.  Of course, I would need to bring my family in line with these goals, but this is my fantasy right now.  And unlike a certain late-night talk show host, we are starting with number 1...

1. Get out of debt.  I cannot help anyone else until I clean up my own affairs.
2. Buy a home on a large piece of land, preferably farmland, that I could ensure remains farmland, but allow for us to use it for other purposes, too.  Key point is to what those purposes are is good and right.
3. Help our church find a permanent home.  It seems incongruous with my other objectives, but the current transient state creates some unique challenges.
4. Ensure my children's future; spiritually, financially, academically, artistically.
5. Help our family, where we can.  We have a big family.  Really big.  We're quite blessed that way.
6. Support specific causes, rewarding those who do much with little.  We have some very specific groups we've worked with that do great things with minimal resources, bring HOPE, and impact lives now by serving, and help people to be prepared for the future.
7. Travel to see the important places in world and natural history; to discover and learn.  That includes the seeing the great works.
8. Go back to school for a graduate degree.
9. Get a new car (no, not an exotic).  Given number 2, I'm more inclined to get a pickup truck.  And a couple of trailers to haul the other four-wheel or four-legged accessories.
10. Invest in the future.  Read into that what you will, I have some ideas that may surprise you, but I'll keep those to myself for now.

A long time ago, I was asked what were my dreams, my ambitions.  I struggled, not because I didn't have them.  No, it was because I could not find a clip art photo to stick on my fridge, to remind me daily.  For the most part, the things I wanted, and still want, are pictures in the mind (OK, the car is tangible but subject, like all things, to rust and decay, as is the property, but I am not going into specifics).  How do you picture the smell of a campfire the next day?  The tracks of wildlife in the fresh snow?  The moist air of the forest on a spring morning?  The inquisitive look of awe of a child seeing an eagle in flight or a bear and her cubs?  The sight of your daughter, confident and glowing, in the saddle of a mare, reins in hand?  These are not things; these are indelible memories etched into our minds and souls by divine providence.


In the end, I can only imagine; perhaps dream; I can't expect to get what I want. But I know if i try sometime, I just might find, I'll get what I need.  Not that two are always disharmonious.  On the eve of the Christmas holidays, I struggle both with what I want, and what I want to give.  Being able to give much more is what I really want.  Now, I need to find the methods and means to make this happen.  That is my dream.

Can we teach people how to write before we give them jobs, please?

I am in the midst of reviewing a document from a colleague.  It purports to be a user guide for a Quality Control process.  Sadly, it is lacking quality itself.  Microsoft Word thinks it is written on a fifth grade level (my third grade daughter is producing writings at a higher level); it is fraught with grammatical errors (yeah, I make them as well, but that is why we use a draft-review-edit life-cycle.  Thank you Writing in the Arts and Sciences and the Writing Center at Beaver College/Arcadia University). I digress (or was it the ADD, I'm not sure).  If there is a style in use, that too, is elusive.  Maybe it is hiding with the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and Elvis.

Today's business writings, be it technical manuals, inter-office communiques, CEO blogs, scientific articles, etc., seem to have moved from carefully crafted literary experiences to SMS messages (uh, text messages, my bad!) or Facebook posts.  I cringe when I read many of these documents.  The use of monosyllabic words and lack of vocabulary represented by these educated authors is appalling.  Maybe a technology-only education is not as all encompassing as advertised.  The failure to be able to effectively communicate ideas, decisions, and information can make even the most technically elegant advancement ineffective.

Apple, for years, failed to communicate effectively the efficacy of it's systems, how the ease-of-use could translate into increased productivity and a higher return on investment (or ROI, for you jargon jockeys).  Now,  Apple has found a new voice in communicating this, be it in the iPod, iPhone, iPad or MacOS, and as a result, sales are up, as is market share.  Despite offering technically superior products for most of the past 25 years, Apple could never communicate beyond the simplest levels these advantages.

Before anyone accuses me of being a Mac fanatic, I must confess an affinity to Apple's products.  Most of the time, they really have the best products, but there have been innovations Apple failed to exploit, and still does (can you say camera on the iPad?).  At one point, the Amiga was actually a superior product to the Mac, but Commodore (the NY Mets of personal computing) managed to under communicate the advantages.  Android is no slouch (I use an Android phone, and love it), Ubuntu is a great OS, WinAmp and Pandora are great music sources, etc.

Yet again, the point is about effective communications, not a soapbox to praise Apple.  If we are to effectively communicate, we need to make it easy for our reader to capture the ideas we implant with our words, to draw mental images of the scenarios we relate, and replicate the steps we follow to build towards our goals.  Go, Dog, Go! is great when we are learning to read, but we eventually need to head to the tree, and climb into a world of new ideas, creating a more vivid picture of what we imagine, so our readers may come away with useful information for the task at hand.  It could be an alien landscape, a relationship on the verge of collapse, or the set of instructions on how to run a program to check data quality.  If the words we choose are effective, then the possibility of success is increased.

Success, ultimately, is dependent on the reader.  If the brain bank is unable to handle the deposit, there is no amount of eloquence or clarity that will make the endeavor a success.