It hasn't been a really exciting couple of months. The boys are doing well in school. Josh makes friends as easy as breathing so he is always over at someones house or has someone over at ours. I wish Curtis had it as easy but he doesn't seem to have anyone he hangs out with. I know a lot of it is because there are a million kids Josh's age around here but just not many Curtis' age. I'm not sure what to do about that. He seems fine and says he is but still. He is doing well in classes but missed to cutoff day to try out for football so he wasn't able to do that. I want to sign him up for Tai Kwan Do or something. We will see.
Josh is playing football on post and is playing pretty well. Aaron is coaching and has decided football is a lot harder to coach than baaseball. Especially dealing with the parents. But I told him you just have to realize that that there will always be unhappy parents, just do what you do. As soon as I get his pictures back I will post some.
Aaron is just doing the Army thing. Which turns out to be a lot more standing around and boring breifings that I thought it would be. They all feel that there is a serious lack of training going on. They still dont have their weapons yet and that is worrisome. They deploy in March and they really need their own weapons to train and qualify with before they go. He goes home next week for 11 days so that will be good for him. Also, he will be in Fort Hood in November for 2 weeks to meet the Brigade they are deploying with. That will be a good thing I hope.
And I'm just plugging along. I am working, which is a good thing. My bosses like me and its an interesting place to be. I work at a Nissan dealership as a receptionist. And I sit on my butt all day so I have gained back 20 pounds. I am very dissapointed about that! I need to do something but it is so hard to get up at 5 in the morning to excercise and I just dont have time at night between football, and laundry and dinner etc. I know these are just excuses but still. *sigh*
Georgia is...Georgia. Hot, muggy, and green. We have in the hundreds with out heat index every day for the last couple of months. 95 is hot at home but its almost unbearable here when the heat index goes up to 111 because of the humidity. Blech. But the wildlife is interesting. Daily you see something running around by the house - armadillos, turkeys, foxes, snakes, raccoons,turtles, vultures, and more squirrels than a disney movie. It's all right here - but I would give a lot right now to see my mountains and fish the UM.
Love to all my family out there!
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
I don't Care How It's Made
Have you ever been scrolling the channels on T.V. and you get sucked into a show you really don't care about but find strangely compelling so you end up watching the whole thing anyway? Like the show How It's Made. I really don't care how they make chain link or wodden barrels, and yet here I am wasting an hour my life finding out how. In spite of myself, there are a couple of episodes that really were interesting. You quietly say to yourself - huh, how about that? Sometimes it happens with less informative shows like Say Yess to the Dress (now that really IS a waste of 30 minutes)but mostly with shows from the Discovery Networks. Not to be confused with other shows on Discovery that me and my family love like Deadliest Catch and Mythbusters.
Anyway, I am a big fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy novels. Im an escapist-type reader. With some horror and the occasional biography and history thrown in. But I found myself looking at a book the other day that I have walked past several times, mostly because I liked the sound of the title. Cryptonomicon just sounds cool. But its a complicated book dealing with a lot of math. (Crypography is actually a lot of wierd math and probablities and things I really dont understand.) Math has never been my strong point and is not a subject I look for in the topic of my reading material. But I picked it up anyway, and in the bonus materials there is an article the author (Neal Stephenson) wrote for the magazine Wired in 1999. He talks about...well, wires. The original cables that were laid down for morse code - and later used for telephone wire and the evolution of cables for internet and phone and how and where they have to be placed and made to hold all the data, the poltical power struggle of who owns the cables and how precarious the internet (and long distance telephone calls) really are. And of course - how they are made, from then to now.
In spite of myself, it was really fascinating. Things I had never thought of, and if anyone had asked I would have said I really didn't care. It's something we all take for granted, that this whole world wide web is something that is "out there in the ether" and can't be stopped. But destroying one major connection point (like in Alexandria) could be devastaing to any number of countries. Huh, how about that? The best part of it was the author though. He wrote it humor - knowing his audience is a bunch of techno nerds who are way smarter than I am. Here are some of my favorite excerpts.
About one of the early men who tried to solve the problem of seding information along a wire.
About where one line was being installed outside of Hong Kong:
Now there were a lot of fun and interesting things in this article that I would normally never have read. Now I think I need to read the book. Cryptography could be just as fascinating.
Anyway, I am a big fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy novels. Im an escapist-type reader. With some horror and the occasional biography and history thrown in. But I found myself looking at a book the other day that I have walked past several times, mostly because I liked the sound of the title. Cryptonomicon just sounds cool. But its a complicated book dealing with a lot of math. (Crypography is actually a lot of wierd math and probablities and things I really dont understand.) Math has never been my strong point and is not a subject I look for in the topic of my reading material. But I picked it up anyway, and in the bonus materials there is an article the author (Neal Stephenson) wrote for the magazine Wired in 1999. He talks about...well, wires. The original cables that were laid down for morse code - and later used for telephone wire and the evolution of cables for internet and phone and how and where they have to be placed and made to hold all the data, the poltical power struggle of who owns the cables and how precarious the internet (and long distance telephone calls) really are. And of course - how they are made, from then to now.
In spite of myself, it was really fascinating. Things I had never thought of, and if anyone had asked I would have said I really didn't care. It's something we all take for granted, that this whole world wide web is something that is "out there in the ether" and can't be stopped. But destroying one major connection point (like in Alexandria) could be devastaing to any number of countries. Huh, how about that? The best part of it was the author though. He wrote it humor - knowing his audience is a bunch of techno nerds who are way smarter than I am. Here are some of my favorite excerpts.
According to legend,in 1876 the first sounds transmitted down a wire were Alexander Graham Bell saying “Mr. Watson,come here.I want you.”Compared with Morse’s “What hath God wrought!’’this is disappointingly banal— as if Neil Armstrong,setting foot on the moon,had uttered the words:“Buzz,could you toss me that rock hammer?’’It’s as though during the 32 years following Morse’s message,people had become inured to the amazing powers of wire.
About one of the early men who tried to solve the problem of seding information along a wire.
In the Victorian era was an age of superlatives and largerthan-life characters,and as far as that goes,Dr.Wildman Whitehouse fit right in:what Victoria was to monarchs, Dickens to novelists,Burton to explorers,Robert E.Lee to generals,Dr.Wildman Whitehouse was to assholes.He achieved a level of pure accomplishment in this field that the Alfonse D’Amatos of our time can only dream of.The only 19th-century figure who even comes close to him in this department is Custer.
About where one line was being installed outside of Hong Kong:
It’s a hot day,and kids are swimming on the public beach,prudently staying within the line of red buoys marking the antishark net.Handley remarks,offhandedly, that five people have been eaten so far this year.A bulletin board,in English and Chinese,offers advice:“If schooling fish start to congregate in large numbers, please leave the water."
Now there were a lot of fun and interesting things in this article that I would normally never have read. Now I think I need to read the book. Cryptography could be just as fascinating.
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