DNA Genographic Project

Well there it is people. My DNA. I could be re-created, cloned if you will from the tiny molecule contained in that vial. Think about it. Maybe the National Geographic is not really using my DNA to research the journey of humankind's ancestors but to create a clone army that has been subjected to mind control and will uphold the Christian right's skewed sense of values and take over the Earth!!! (insert evil laugh here)

But seriously, I'm looking forward to viewing the anonymous ramblings of my ancestors over the millennia. Truthfully, I know they came from Europe and Great Britain. I am a mutt after all with a lot of European blood in me, but you never know, I could have space alien DNA in me. I'm sure that wouldn't surprise a lot of you readers. Maybe they'll discover some new line or breed of humanoid? I could have been the product of a rape back in 10,000 BCE of my ancient mother by the aliens that built the pyramids. Ya think? Stay tuned for the results and perhaps other neurotic, paranoid delusional ramblings....

Tax Ramblings

There is absolutely nothing more I hate doing in the whole world is preparing for taxes. Well maybe going to the dentist or the Gyno. Years ago I had my own business and it was a horror show. I was twenty something and didn't have the diligence and organization skills required to keep a handle on records all through out the year, so come April it was a nightmare. Now, I work for the "man" and get a W2 in the mail like most taxpaying American middle class poor people. You'd think it'd be easy wouldn't you? I must be scarred for life by the previous tax preparation events as I procrastinate until it hurts. Wouldn't you think I'd be motivated by $$$ After all, I do get $$ back every year.

Scars. Emotional scars last for such a long time. Even if they are self inflicted and/or imagined. Memories, they seem to waiver and morph into something that we think we remember instead of what we really remember. I wonder if the brain is covering for us? Modifying memories, making them look better. Sort of like what a mother remembers of child birth. They say they don't really remember the pain.

SSSSS Selected for Additional Security Screening

Yes, that’s me. I had the magic SSSSS on my boarding pass today. I was on a one-way ticket from Burbank (BUR) to Spokane (GEG). No, it wasn’t a pleasure trip. Who would go from 65 degrees in Los Angeles to 38 degrees in Spokane for pleasure? I had to get a one-way ticket as everything was sold out to/from GEG. Go figure, apparently there are a lot of people needing to go to GEG or more likely, get the hell out.

I bore my cross today at security with patience and disinterest. It’s just one of the many inconveniences we must go thru to travel by air. Does anyone really think that a terrorist is going to buy a one way ticket when they know they’ll get enhanced screening? But that’s another blog…. It was quite a fiasco with the pat down, ripping thru all my bags, the bomb cloth on each item. Good thing I got to the airport early.

Now, on to more important things. I flew Alaska Air up to Spokane, because everyone knows that Alaska Air owns the NorthWest. My flight was run by Horizon Air as big carriers contract the short hauls to little carriers. I haven’t cheated on United Airlines for probably 5 years, maybe more. I’ve been a loyal customer despite their little seats, shitty service, lack of any kind of snack let alone actual food and slow baggage service at LAX. My conclusion…the grass really is greener on the other side.

Horizon Air has free beer and wine. Yes, you heard me right, FREE ALCOHOL. They had a nice Red Hook India Pale Ale (which was exquisite) and a Columbia Crest red. They feature a microbrew a month and a NW winery every month. What a treat. And you know what the snack was? Corn chips and cheese. And dessert was chocolate covered cranberries. Yummy Yummy.

National Geographic Genographic Project

Well, I finally broke down and did it. I ordered the NG Global Genome personal tracking project kit. I've wanted to do this since the first article came out in National Geographic some months ago. As stated on the website this is not a genealogy test and I won't learn about my great grandparents. I will learn, however, of my deep ancestry, the ancient genetic journeys and physical travels of my distant relatives. Kind of a cool project if you ask me. I want to know how far my relative walked or migrated since my little genes came into existence. Where does my bloodline come from? I'm a mutt you see, Irish, English, Cornish, Native Canadian Indian (I can't say Native American, cause I'm not), German and who knows what else.

To read about the project as a whole go here. I'm a sucker for funding research. Perhaps I should have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth so I could be a philanthropist? This little DNA test is supposedly anonymous - I get a # that no one knows is associated with me. Well, I don't really believe that, but, its not like I'm going to murder someone and they are going to use it against me. Of course, you never know. Us women can do unpredictable things....

The $39 Experiment

I was visiting a co-workers blog today and noticed a previous posting that he had made regarding this guy and his $39 experiment. It's quite interesting what he's discovered and the stuff he has gotten back. I particularly like the Mercedes Benz letter and their response. Anyways, check it out at the link above. It's a good read.

My co-worker's link is above as well. Dan is our in house security expert so some of his posts may be over my average reader's head but some of you may find it interesting. For my Canadian readers, he is also a big fan of curling. Dan and I both work for Mitel -- a VoIP company with headquarters in Ottawa.

7-11 Story

Sometime ago I used to go to 7-11 everyday for my Big Gulp in the morning. Some people do coffee, I did diet Coke. Each day I would see a lanky young black fellow who would wash my windows and I'd bring him out a pastry. We had a relationship of sorts. I depended on him, he depended on me. One day I was driving to work and thought "Tomorrow, I should ask him why is he homeless. He's young, in fairly good shape, we've had reasonable conversations before so he's not looney, I want to know how he ended up washing my windows with newspaper."

The day arrived and I asked him what his story was. He was a cable TV installer, went out to a party one weekend, drank too much and got busted DUI on the way home. He lost his license which cost him his job, which cost him his girlfriend & then his apartment. Now after living on the streets and shelters and probably doing god knows what he found out he was HIV +. Occasionally I think about him when I venture into a 7-11. I wonder whatever became of him and hope he's doing ok.

Sedition Act

I was contacted by some students at Nanyang Technological University Singapore regarding a blogger behavior survey. I was quite struck by one of the questions in it. It asked how I felt about the Sedition Act and if I blogged differently because of it. I had no clue what the Sedition Act was and decided I'd better learn.

There was a Sedition Act in the US - 2 actually. The US Sedition act basically stated that anyone "opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States" could be imprisoned for up to two years. It was also illegal to "write, print, utter, or publish" anything critical of the president or Congress. It was notable that the Act did not prohibit criticism of the Vice-President.

I'm sort of led to believe that this act expired with President Adams leaving office in 1800. It's pretty scary though. Why did the supreme court mention it in a 1964 decision? Basically it denies freedom of speech. Hmmm I'll bet there are some members of our government today that would like the Sedition Act alive and well. Let's also remember that what today is known as McCarthyism was a Sedition Act in 1918 -1920.

The true nature of the question stemmed from the fact that this is in effect in Singapore. This Singapore Sedition Act was used against individuals last year for the first time in the past 30+ years and it is in the their Constitution.

We should never take for granted our freedom of speech nor should we ever allow it to be taken away. This right has been infringed upon repeatedly since 9-11 and Americans seem far to complacent.

Water on Saturn's moon?

Nasa's deep spacecraft Cassini has taken pictures of an amazing find. Water on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The picture above shows what must be huge plumes of water shooting from the planet's surface and falling back as snow. In some of the reading I've done the scientists all say it's H20, but seriously, how can that be? It's a hell of a lot colder out by Saturn than it is on our little rock. Articles can be found here and here

But think of it -- water on Saturn. Can you see humankind mining the water? I can. I imagine spacetankers coming back with super frozen water to Earth because we've polluted all our fresh water. I can see mining colonies on Enceladus and a riot breaking out because of inhumane conditions. Really the mine has some terrible gaseous poison that makes humans insane. The mining colony is slowly dissolving into anarchy. Power mining tools being used to dismember the mine management.....staffers running thru darkened shafts with fits of steam hissing all around them. hmmm, I'm digressing here into what could be a cool SciFi movie....

Dirty Little Secrets

Everyone has secrets. Whether they are stashed in the back of a closet in a shoebox, written in a private diary or locked away deep in our mind, everyone has some secret(s) hidden. Remember when you were a kid & whispering a secret into the ear of your friend? How quickly that silly little tidbit made its way across the playground. Perhaps we've taken those playground lessons into adulthood and lock our skeletons safely in the cupboard. When my little niece whispered secrets into my ear I would tell her that if she didn't cover the other ear the secret would leak out. But all secrets leak out eventually.

I know you keep secrets. I know you keep one from your best friend, another from your lover and another from your Mother. It may be a tryst that you are embarrassed of, a moment of underhandedness that you don't want to get out, or some other furtive moment in your life. Suffice it to say, all secrets are kept for only one of two reasons: You don't want anyone to know as it will hurt you or the other person, or you want to seem more important than you think you are.

Thoughts

Things I've learned or thought of during Wednesday the 8th of March---

If Oprah can build 65 houses in a whole neighborhood that was a big dirt field in 3 months, why can't FEMA and the whole US government fix New Orleans? Surely the US Government is more powerful and richer than Oprah.

When you leave a tin of wonderfully delicious and expensive dark chocolate squares in your center console and leave the car in rooftop parking in Riverside in March, chances are it'll be one sticky but yummy tin of liquid when you're done for the day.

Driving to Riverside sucks -- but it sucks much more in the Chevy mommy mobile than it does in my new Dodge Magnum.

2 huge diet cokes for lunch when you're not used to caffiene anymore is kind of like roto rooter for your body. Apparently I need to be reminded of that every 6 months or so. Or perhaps I needed a drain cleanout. Good thing no one cleaned out my trap.

Living your life

The graphic above, although small, represents something big. When we are young we live our lives in the solid oval - focusing on the Present and the Future. A 3 year old answers the question of "How old are you?" with "I'm going to be 4." An adult, when asked how old usually answers with the current age or younger.
This represents how we start our lives working toward the future and living in the present but as we age we relinquish or suppress any future possibilities and dwell in the past and barely live in the present. If you're in the Left handed dashed oval, then you have given up on the possibility of fulfilling your dreams, and essentially decided to mark off your territory and maintain your station.

It's difficult to strive for your dreams. Self doubt, life, & responsibilities can make it challenging to move toward our goals, so we begin to compromise. We settle. We shut down and spend the rest of our lives justifying where we ended up. If someone comes to us with their dream, perhaps we even shoot them down. After all, how dare they have dreams when yours are dead.

Get out of the past and jump into the future!

Hanalei Bay Rains

Hanalei river runs thru the canoe club.
Raging mouth of the Hanalei River. The beach was crumbling at the edge. There is a huge debris field out past the mouth where large trees, etc gathered. They were ferrying people who had to leave in boats over to Princeville.



View from just before Postcards Cafe. The Dolphin is in the background there.

Explanation of Hats -- from Kauai

Yesterday I had to explain to Dena the reason for my hats. I have a small collection of baseball caps. I hadn’t thought of it as a collection really until I had to explain to Dena why I “needed” another one. It’s not that she’d deny me of anything of course, just wondering why in the world I wanted another one. So as I was explaining my little reason for the hats I realized that each holds a special memory of the person, place or event where I bought it.

For example, my Microsoft hat was purchased at the Microsoft store in Redmund, WA after a week of testing a special Baypoint-VPIM --> Microsoft Exchange application. It was a thrill for me to be at Microsoft in general, to walk the hallowed halls, eat in the 24 hour amazing cafeteria, go to the “corner” stores in the campus and finally shop at the famed “employee only” Microsoft store. See, each holds a memory.

So the hat in question yesterday was a Hanalei Dolphin hat. I struggled with buying it, as true, I have a lot of hats. But alas, the memories won. Dena & I have eaten there every time we’ve come for 15 years now. And we were hurried out the night the bridge was closed sans dessert. It has memories, what can I tell ya.

In Kauai today I’ve discovered that there were 20” of rain in 24 hours yesterday. Amazing. We spent the day lounging about the beach, daydreaming about how we could afford to live here. Someday....

Day 4 -- Kauai

I awoke early today, anxious to see what all that rain had done. It didn’t stop raining until about 7 and then it only changed from a steady downpour to a drizzle. I ventured out of our completely flooded driveway and on to the Hanalei Bridge. I didn’t get far. The road was completely flooded starting at Postcards. The Dolphin was reportedly under about 2’ of water.

I then went down to the mouth of the river near the pier, I was stunned. The river was probably 10x the size and was raging. The Hanalei canoe club was now part of the river. The silt from the river had turned the entire bay brown and the fresh water roiled angrily into the salt water, upsetting the bay all the way out to Princeville. I was stunned as were so many locals. We all watched from what was left of the beach as the water continued. Turning toward the mountains I was stunned to see them awash in water falls. I’d never seen so many. The rains had tripled the number of falls cascading down the mountains. I'll post pictures upon our return...

It would be a long, quiet day in Hanalei with all the shops closed. Most people who work in the shops and restaurants don’t live in Hanalei. We snorkled at Ke’e beach where the water was crystal clear and glass like. I’ve never seen Ke’e so calm. It was a joy.

The night was spent visiting with people from all over the world, talking about the storm and ourselves and enjoying a Kauai local brew - Keoko. We stumbled home, happy with our day on the island.

Day 3 -- Kauai

Our day began as much as any other on Kauai, lounging about and wondering which beach we might visit today. We decided on our beach - Hanalei Bay and spent the day frolicking in the waves and having a beach side picnic. We were chased away around 3:30-pm and that’s really when the adventure began. We spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening indoors as the rain continued without letting up.

At 8 we took off over to the Dolphin for dinner and tried to talk as the rain pounded the tin roof. It was a rain cacophony. A little after 9 the check appeared the restaurant all of sudden was empty and no dessert was offered. They were closing the Hanalei River bridge, the water was rising, pay the bill and get out!

Startled we paid and dashed thru the puddles to the car. It rained torrential downpours all through the night, so much so that often we could not sleep for all the racket. My mind wandered with all sorts of thoughts of flash floods, rising water and being trapped in Hanalei.

Day 2 -- Kauai

Sunday we awoke through the night to torrential downpours beating out their song on the tin roof of our Ranch accommodations. I’ll blog about our dwellings later. We ventured off to the south today, having breakfast at Gaylords. Something we’ve always wanted to do as it was a much touted uppidity thing to do -- Sunday Brunch at Gaylords Plantation. Well it appears that marketing is everything. The brunch was mediocre at best, except the purple sweet potato pork hash was phenonmenal. The setting however, was wonderful. Alas, one cannot have everything can they? Of course I can, and I will!

After brunch it was off to Glass Beach near Port Allen. It appears that the book Ultimate Kauai has spoiled most spots on the island. Too many people know about them now. We dug for sea glass and looked out upon the vastness of the sea and wondered.

To make amends with Karma and the Hawaiian gods we went back up to the graveyard where I had foolishly taken a shell in January 2005. I had taken this old large shell from a gravesite back then and put it in my pocket, happy with my newfound treasure. How vengeful the gods can be. What a horrible ride back to Hanalei it was with me smelling unbelievably bad of some old, dead sea creature that apparently hadn’t vacated the shell. With Dena gazing out upon the sea I went to the gravestone I had desecrated 2 years before and placed another shell I had found back where the first was. I asked forgiveness of the gods and Karma and hoped all would be right with the world now.

Day 1 -- Kauai

Today I awoke in Kilauea in a very introspective mood but very much in the Aloha spirit. As we ventured to 3 beaches today I found myself reflecting on my life, past and present. Perhaps Hawaii will do that to you. One thinks of past misteps, past accomplishments, future goals and plans. I was reminded how fleeting life can be as I walked across the sand and my footsteps were washed away as fast as I made them. Is that what my legacy shall be? A life remembered only for a moment....

But enough of that serious stuff....
Our travels today took us to Kilauea Bay Beach. We ran across this one while taking a wrong turn looking for Secret Beach, which apparently still remains a secrect, at least to us. We did discover Larson’s Beach however. A nude/gay/hippie kind of beach on the West shore. There was a hippie couple, she’s pregnant and due any day. She makes lei’s to make a living. She will be giving birth in there makeshift abode on the beach. I find that quite scary considering its a 10 minute up hill hike to the parking area alone.... It was an eclectic beach to be sure with 60’s meeting ancient hawaiian’s fishing with nets to the gay 90’s....

State of the union

For Valentine's Day I will blog about my life partner. She's driving me insane. She's officially unemployed as of Monday the 12th as she awaits the start of her new job. So, she's home, ALL DAY! She's been purging and cleaning and shredding and discarding. It's great that she's starting anew in so many ways, but does she have to shred at Midnight? It was a school night last night. I'm laying there in bed, wishing I could sleep and all I hear is that damn shredder and it's pitiful whine. She's so focused on this whole purging thing that she was up @ 8am shredding. I'm trying to work here.

I'm pretty sure the shredder wasn't happy to see her that early in the morning either. It's 10:30 and she's still standing in front of my desk, cleaning and shredding. It's been 2 and a half hours! The shredder has just given up, I'm sure it's overheated. You can kind of tell when it's going to give up. The whine goes from pitiful to morose to downright exhausted, then silence. She says it's happened to her many times now. I've told her that shredding plastic cards is not a good idea.

She's like a machine. Cleaning out her closet, paying bills, running errands. I'm so amazed. I'm not sure I like this "at home" Dena. Oh well, I'll have to learn to enjoy it as she's going back to work on the 27th......

Google changes their logo...

I love Google. I love that they change their logo for special holidays, events or occasions. One of my favorites was the logo honoring the birthday of a French national hero, Louis Braille. The logo was in braille. Clicking on the logo when it's shape shifted brings one to a poignant URL. For the next two weeks though, go to Google each day, the logo will change with a different Winter Olympic event. They did this for the Greece summer olympics, too.

The logo shape shifting is thanks to the brilliant Dennis Hwang and they are iconic metaphors. The costumes Hwang creates for the logo reflect the world of Google's users, not just the importance of itself. A forward thinking company not obsessed with itself but putting a little fun & education out on the internet. After all, Google does have a huge user community.

As excerpted from the page referenced above Hwang works for Google and his favorite letters to manipulate are the O's and the L. Hwang says, "Google makes a big effort to recognize holidays that aren't necessarily mainstream. The Korean Independence Day logo was seen globally by tens of millions of people. Numerous Korean-Americans wrote to thank us on Aug. 15 last year. Many expressed how proud it made them to see the Korean flag."

My new car!!