I have not been much of a fan of Halloween since I got to big to solicit candy door to door in our neighborhood when it was relatively safe to do that back in the early 1960’s. It was never a great holiday, but now it just makes me tired and kind of sad for our culture. I have to admit I still enjoy the clever, well-executed costumes some of the kids create and I love giving out candy to the smaller neighborhood kids, but it is soul deadening to watch junior high schoolers to adults exercise their fantasies–some of them, even at the low end of that age group, leaning to well beyond PG-13 ratings. Even at the surface level where the celebration seems to be about death, narcissism and extortion, it has never been, in my mind anyway, a good thing. Oh well. I will endeavor to not be a Halloween Scrooge (excuse the mixed metaphor), hand out candy and keep a smile on my face this evening.
Month: October 2016
I fly to Seattle on Thursday night for a business meeting on Friday. Friday night, Kelly and I plan to drive to Portland to see Grandma Sarah. She is eating very, very little and is getting closer to the end. This is part of the reason I have not written so much. There are lots of things happening and not so much happening. I get up every morning to go to work through the week, then Lorena and I go to the Snooty Pig on Saturday mornings for breakfast and to our church meeting on Sunday morning. In the meantime, Grandpa Milo and especially Grandma Sarah approach the end. This might be the last time I see her if I make it on time, but she might linger for longer than we expect. It is a time for introspection.
In the whole scheme of things, maybe what is going on in our lives is not so eventful. Still, it is important in the trajectory of our lives. There will be changes soon. We are not sure whether they will be a result of momentous geopolitical events or as a result of our desire to make some changes to get closer to our loved ones and/or “do the right thing.” I hope to be able to write more in the coming days about all that is in process.
Note: The picture is in celebration of National Cat Day.
Kiwi continues to help me with my work on the Gaugecam project. We all recevied an email yesterday describing some of the new information that will appear in the next refereed journal article. Some of it will have an impact on my work–we will know what to do to make the system even more accurate under changing conditions. It is slow work since I have so much other stuff going, but my hope is that I can turn this into my retirement project. I hope to have a demo of some of the stuff we are doing to put up here within the next few months.
The shibboleth of Christian fundamentalism is way past its expiration date. It is the go-to straw man for the unthinking pop-culture, pseudo-intellectual intelligentsia that make up the mainstream media, the vast bulk of academia (primary, secondary and post-secondary), the political class, and large swaths of the rest of America. It is almost impossible to talk about objective morality, abortion, traditional marriage, origins, euthanasia or any other topic of moral import without a self-righteous demand to account for the actions and thought of extremists who make up less than one percent of those who call themselves Christian.
I am through with making caveats. I am no more responsible for the abject immoral behavior of people who call themselves Christians but act otherwise than I am for the evils perpetuated on innocents by the likes of Planned Parenthood, New Atheists, Code Pink, PETA and the Democrat Party. Don’t ask me to account for any of that. I have my own sins to account for but these are not them. And do not expect me to just go along either. I hate ALL of this stuff because it is evil. Tolerance of evil is not a virtue.
This rant was partially motivated by my recent reads through Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It does not seem like their situation was a whole lot different from that of thinking Christians today. At any rate, thanks for reading my rant; it was actually quite cathartic.
I have not been so consistent in my writing over the last several weeks, but interesting things are happening. Not so surprisingly, writing in this blog helps me sort through things a bit. Lorena, her mom and I all attended a church convention in Georgetown this weekend. We saw a lot of old friends from North Carolina and Mexico, ate some great food and got refocused on what is truly important. One of the really fun things that happened was a talk I had with an acquaintance who works in the very area of the Quantum Topology where that won a Nobel prize for three physicists who came up with and developed the idea. Microsoft is currently funding a very big effort called Station Q to build a quantum computer using these concepts. It could have huge impact on what it is possible to compute if they can get it to work. It will be fun to watch this, especially now that I know someone directly working on it.
Lorena and I got married twenty-four years ago today. That was two days before the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Lorena’s mother, Conchita–the best mother-in-law in the history of the world arrived in Dallas last night to help us celebrate. We are in a new era now that started a couple of years ago, but now we are really starting to accept that fact that the kids are gone, paying their own way and only really need us for moral support. It is a good place to be and I am thankful to be here with Lorena.
The following image speaks for itself. It shows the graph of water level from GaugeCam‘s camera viewing water level in a body of water near Goldsboro, NC at 6:30 AM yesterday morning in the face of flooding caused by Hurricane Matthew. There is an image that appears as you hover the mouse cursor (arrow) over the dots on the graph. It is an amazing visualization of the flood from which we are working on a video. The spikes in the middle of the curve are anomalies. On the far right side of the graph you can see the water rise dramatically.
This may not sound like such a big deal, but when Kelly sent us pictures of the new glasses she tried on today, it dawned on me that she will get her new prescription and her new glasses with her own insurance that she earns at work at her new job. She starts on Monday. They have all the normal, new employee meetings and paperwork as the obligatory, take the new employee to lunch trip. I love the first day of a new job and this is Kelly’s first, not in internship, not at school job where she plans to be there for a number of years at the very least. How cool is that.
So, my struggles about finding things to write for this blog will get even harder because now she is not only out of homeschool, she is out of school altogether. It is all quite exciting.
This is the semi-momentous announcement that marks an ending and a new beginning for Kelly. Kelly passed her PhD prelims (comprehensive exams) last month. That is a big deal because it moved her to PhD candidacy. She learned a lot in the last two years. She made significant improvements in her data analytics skills, especially with respect to applying them in the specific domain of Marketing. She also learned, though, that she did not want an academic career in Marketing. So she has decided to stop at an MS in Marketing, take a few years off to work, continue to improve here statistical skills (maybe even another Masters degree) and figure out what field might be in alignment with her career goals (probably something to do with Statistics). That is the big news. That and the fact that, after many, many interviews and some good offers, she has accepted a job that is just about perfect for her in downtown Seattle. All good stuff. So, in our homeschool journey, one kid is out of school for the time being and has a stellar “real” job. She might head back toward a PhD someday, but then again she might not. She is in a good place and we are thankful for such a great outcome even though it is not over yet. Gainful employment is always a good thing.
Some really good stuff is happening, some of which has to do with schooling and some with work. Lorena and I are spending most of the day indoors today, not because we want to be here on a beautiful sunny fall day (not to hot for a change), but because we have to work. I have taken on another project to help with a medical device for developing countries and Lorena is studying for her Statistics class. She has two classes this term, so she is pretty busy. That is all good stuff, but not the subject of this post. I just wanted to put up a marker because some good decisions were made to make a change, but the exact direction is not yet established. I think in a couple of days we can celebrate it and talk about it.