Up

CAUTION: HERE BE SPOILERS!

I am a huge fan of Pixar and have seen most of their movies multiple times. However, nothing they've done before prepared me for Up. I'm of an age now to truly appreciate what this movie has to say about loss and promises, but I'm not so old that I have forgotten what it has to say about both the yearning for and the sustaining power of a dream.

I never cry over movies, but I almost did during the silent montage that covered Carl and Ellie's life together, when we learned that there would be no babies for them.

I felt like I was living the daily grind with them of slowly building savings for a dream -- going to Paradise Falls in South America for Carl and Ellie, getting a house for Lisa and I -- and suffering through the setbacks the daily grind throws at you, the ones that eat away the savings and postpone the dreams.

I admired Carl every time he crossed his heart to emphasize a promise.

I was delighted at the whimsy of attaching thousands of helium balloons to a house, to fly away in it.

I was astonished at Carl's ingenious mechanism for steering his flying house.

I appreciated his curmudgeonly aggravation with those who simply wouldn't leave him alone with his memories of the dream he and his Ellie shared.

I felt his fear at the thunderstorm (David leaned over and whispered what I was thinking: "The Wizard of Oz"), his impatience with Russell the Wilderness Explorer, his satisfaction at making it to Paradise Falls, his determination to pull his floating house the last few miles to land it right next to the falls, his thrill at meeting his childhood idol Charles Muntz ("Adventure is out there!"), his righteous satisfaction at putting the house within inches of where he intended it would be, his indignation at the betrayal by Muntz, and the incredible shifting of his mental landscape as new dreams came to life.

In the hands of a lesser outfit, these elements of the characters and the story would have, at best, felt both derivative and manipulative. In the hands of Pixar, they meshed into Art, a melding of High Tragedy and Low Comedy and Old Fashioned Adventure Movie.

And I haven't even mentioned the literal aerial dog fight!

No matter the outcome of the Oscars next spring, this is hands down the best movie of the year.

A Belated Farewell to "The Most Trusted Man in America"

Walter Cronkite passed away a couple of weeks ago at the age of 92. We watched Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC when I was a kid, so I didn't know the man the term "anchorman" was coined for from the nightly network news. And even though the Apollo moon missions captured my imagination, I don't remember seeing Cronkite and Arthur C. Clarke on the television coverage of the height of America pushing mankind's frontiers outward.

No, I knew him from his narration of The 21st Century. There was just something in that voice. "And that's the way it was..."

Matrix Ping Pong

via Lying for a Living.

Today's Treat

David has been here for the last week. Tonight, we finally got to see live music together. The Astanza Project was playing at the Tate Street Coffeehouse. They're a flamenco/gypsy/latin/fusion trio, two guitarists and a percussionists. All three are virtuosos on their instruments, and two hours passed like ten minutes.

David critiqued the guitarists -- he has been playing for several years -- with a touch of envy. I believe this evening just might be an inspiration to him.

Quote of the Day

I once thought luck was something that just happens to us-it was a random act of chance or success. But, what I have discovered on this journey is, luck doesn't just happen; we actually create our own luck by looking for the opportunity in our lives to seize the moment. In other words we must create our luck by examining our lives and coming up with a plan to change our direction.

- Nancy Howard on SparkPeople.com

50 - 385: A Blinding Flash Of The Obvious

I was reading Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews today, and I came across this line:  For me, evil is striving for an end without regards for the means. This clarified some of my own moral thinking.

I have never believed in the idea of something being for "the greater good". How can something be good in any way that treats anyone as disposable, as an unwilling or unwitting sacrifice?

I believe absolutely in free will. Nothing in life means a thing without choice. Nothing.

I do not believe in anarchy. Civilization exists so that we can live better, so that we can live together. I believe in choosing to be part of something. I believe in the right to choose actions that cross lines society has set up, but I also believe in taking responsibility for my choices, even when accepting that responsibility means I'll be punished.

What's your choice?

Definition Of The Day

Cross-functional — A hyphenated word everyone starts using when they decide to not fail alone.

Via Rands In Repose.

Office 2010 The Movie

50 - 387: A Rapprochement

I would not have a thing to do with her, nor she with me, but for the fact that we have three children together. It broke both my heart and my self-identity when she told me she preferred a woman to me. It did both again when she took a job 700 miles away and took those three children with her. That was irony for you, since I passed on my chances to look for more lucrative work that would have taken me away from central North Carolina and the children.

I reforged my self-identity over several years, but I held on to a low level rage for a long time. That's not really me, because grudges are just too much work for way too little return. Of the issues that were between us, only the children remain, and the two oldest are adults now. I guess someday there may be grandchildren, but that's another bridge for another time.

For now, I've made my peace with Suzanne. There will likely be conflict between us again, as there often is between divorced couples. That's okay, though, because I have Lisa, who helped me through the last barrier to being whole.

Quote of the Day

Freedom of speech is really about assembly — for us to collectively have an idea. We want to get our point of view out so we can assemble and I can appoint you to be the spokesman. That’s freedom of speech — to be able to collectively speak for a sector of people. But somehow it’s turned into ‘I can be an asshole whenever I feel like, say whatever I like, be disrespectful to people and not be courteous.’ It’s not good for our society. Not being courteous is not really freedom of speech.

-        John Mellencamp

Today Was "Morale In The Toilet" Tuesday...

As he ordered one last round
He said I guess we can't complain
God made life a gamble
And we're still in the game.
  - Joe Diffie, "Ships That Don't Come In"

For the second time in less than four months, we had a layoff at work today. This one was a lot smaller than the last one, 4 co-workers gone compared to 21. I even understand why, but that doesn't help so very much, not when someone from my team is one of those gone. Someone that I had worked closely with during the last month, whose skills I had come to appreciate, respect, and depend on.

This is the third time in 23 years in IT I've weathered a layoff. I'm feeling a bit of survivor's guilt, but I have dependents to provide for, so that suppresses the guilt.

All in all, the quoted lyric seems appropriate.

The Bare Essentials Of Air Safety

Via lying for a living.

A Video Statement

This clip shows one of the best moments ever in a baseball game.



Via Pyle of List.

Terrorism Alert Update

The British.....

The British are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats in
Islamabad and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved."

Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even
"A Bit Cross." Brits have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940
when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized
from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance."

The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was
during the great fire of 1666.


The French.....

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror
alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The only two higher levels in France
are "Collaborate" and "Surrender."

The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white
flag factory, effectively paralysing the country's military capability.

It's not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has
increased the alert level from "Shout loudly and excitedly" to "Elaborate
Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations"
and "Change Sides."


The Germans.....

The Germans also increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to
"Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher
levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose".


The Belgians.....

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only
threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .


The Spanish.....

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy.
These beautifully designed subs have glass
bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old
Spanish navy.


The Americans.....

Americans meanwhile are carrying out pre-emptive strikes, on all of their
allies, just in case.


The New Zealanders.....

New Zealand has also raised its security levels - from "baaa" to "BAAAA!".
Due to continuing defence cutbacks (the
airforce being a squadron of spotty teenagers flying paper aeroplanes and
the navy some toy boats in the Prime
Minister's bath), New Zealand only has one more level of escalation, which
is "Shut, I hope Australia will come end
riscue us".

In the event of invasion, New Zealanders will be asked to gather together in
a strategic defensive position called "Bondi".


The Aussies.....

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to
"She'll be right, mate". Three more escalation
levels remain, "Strewth!', "I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this
weekend" and "The barbie is cancelled". There
has not been a situation yet that has warranted the use of the final
escalation level.

Nicked from alt.books.dean-koontz, with thanks to Bigbazzza

Farewells

In the last week-and-a-half:

Ed McMahon - Pancho Sanza to Johnny Carson's Don Quixote.

Farrah Fawcett - The poster. The year on Charlie's Angels. The incredible acting chops shown in The Burning Bed. The courage to show the world what cancer had done to her.

Karl Malden - The Streets of San Francisco. "American Express. Don't leave home without it."

Billy Mays - The pitchman's pitchman. Without him, we wouldn't know about OxiClean, Orange Glo, or Mighty Putty. Whether that's a good thing is left as an exercise for the attentive reader.

Michael Jackson - I debated saying anything about this strange, strange man, but his influence on pop culture through his music and his dance is undeniable. I divide his life into halves, for the sheer joy of the music he made with his brothers and on his first two solo albums; then, for his increasing weirdness and creepiness. And he was aware of it. I'm almost certainly paraphrasing what I heard in an old interview with him, but he said he was happiest performing on stage and most uneasy trying to interact with the common people. He was, in the end, what his father labored mightily to to create.

50 - 400: Who You'd Be Today

Think about regrets for a moment. Everyone has them, whether for "only wondering what if" or for "my life would have been so much better if" they'd done X. Some regrets are tiny, insignificant; some are huge, life-shaping. Most are somewhere in between.

My biggest regret concerns my children. They moved far away with their mom in 2003, when she got her career job. The separation from them is still very, very sad, but it's not specifically the regret. No, the regret is that I didn't insist that their mother and I amend the custody/visitation stipulations in our separation agreement, which was the basis of our divorce decree.

It would have been smart to have a required structure for when and how long I would have physical custody of the kids each year. The time I have with them gets shorter each year. That's partly to be expected, since as they get older they more surely get their own lives, and that's just the way things are supposed to be. And, as the two oldest are now legally adults, they get to choose when, indeed if, to visit. I'm happy that they still choose to come back to North Carolina. More than that, I'm proud that they do. It speaks volumes to the quality of the relationships we have with each other.

My youngest child is still a minor, but he has a job, he plays in a band, he has friends, he has a life completely outside my influence, completely outside my knowledge. I desperately want to have him here more, but I will not try to force the issue.

I believe I have, and want to keep, the same quality of relationship with him that I do with his sister and brother.

Now, what do regrets and visitation have to do with a Kenny Chesney song, especially one about death? Up until the last line, Who You'd Be Today is one of the saddest, bleakest songs in the world, about loss and sorrowful memories. This fits how I see the part of their childhoods my daughter and sons got to spend with me. It's mostly gone, and many of the memories are touched by, perhaps even charged with, the emotions the song evokes.

But what about that last line? The only thing that gives me hope, Is I know I'll see you again some day.

I'm a sucker for a redemption story, the optimist looking for a rainbow to chase down, a windmill to tilt at. My children are how I look on the sunny side.

----------------
Now playing: Kenny Chesney - Who You'd Be Today
via FoxyTunes

Deadshrinker

Jo Beckett calls herself a "deadshrinker". She's a forensic psychiatrist, the expert who is called in when a death is equivocal, when we don't know if the cause is accident, murder, or suicide. She painstakingly recreates the state of mind of the deceased, to such a degree as to meet the burden of proof in a court of law. She tells the truth for those who no longer can, like Orson Scott Card's Speaker For The Dead.

She's the protagonist of Meg Gardiner's thriller The Dirty Secrets Club. San Francisco's most beautiful people are dying in at least pairs, including a rising star in the federal prosecutor's office -- she drove her BMW off a bridge and crashed into an airport shuttle. Little things at the scene don't add up, and Jo Beckett is asked to consult by the SFPD. Her examination leads to the discovery of the Dirty Secrets Club, a group of rich and powerful people linked by awful things from their separate pasts, things they would rather die than see become common knowledge.

DSC has the combination of snappy one liners, quirky characters -- especially Ferd and Mr. Peebles! -- and suspense that Meg Gardiner is known for. It also has a wonderful sense of place. San Francisco and its close environs are as tangibly rendered as anything I've read, and the ways they shaped Jo are vital to the story.

I like Jo Beckett, and she's one of the few characters in contemporary literature I'd like to know personally.

The Oldest Hall of Famer

This is the sport I love.

Gone Tomorrow

Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all kinds of telltale signs. Mostly because they're nervous. By definition they're all first-timers.

This is how Lee Child's 13th Reacher novel opens, and Jack Reacher, the former Military Policeman and current drifter who is a combination of Sherlock Holmes and focused Viking beserker, remains the best thriller character going today. It's no wonder that "Reacher's Creatures" includes such fans as Stephen King, Hugo and Nebula award winning SF writer John Varley, and new convert SI.com NFL columnist Peter King. Oh, and your humble Babble On scribe. I cannot recommend this entire series highly enough.

A Balanced Equation

A couple of days ago, the Applications group, both maintenance and new development, received a request from our overall boss that we report no more than 40 hours a week. This is another facet of cutting our customers' IT costs; it's a very good thing to make sure that we don't price ourselves out of the customers' affordable range. The flip side to this is that we've also been told not to put in time that's not billed back to the customer.

No problem. If all I can bill is 40 hours per week, then I'll make sure I don't work more than 40 hours per week.

Gattaca

In the near future, your place in life, indeed the very opportunities available to you, are determined by your genetic profile at birth. Or, as Ethan Hawkes' character Vincent, a "de-gene-erate", puts it -- and here I paraphrase -- "We don't need class or race to discriminate anymore. Now, we have science." However, there are still loopholes for those clever, desperate, and determined enough to follow their dreams to crawl through.

I believe this is the most deliberately paced movie I've ever watched. And that's appropriate, for it is a meditation on every theme it touches. Consider this key line of dialog: You want to know how I got this far? I never saved anything for the swim back.

Are Weekends Supposed To Start Like This?

During the first two hours after I got home from work on Friday, I felt as if several days jumped out of a dark alleyway and mugged me.

My company, starting next month, is requiring employees to pay a higher share of health insurance premiums. And that, along with flat salaries this year, means effectively a small pay cut. Well, I find that an acceptable trade to still have a job.

There was a letter informing me that the company has engaged an outside auditing firm to ensure compliance with eligibility requirements for covered dependents. Fine, I can deal with providing a copies of my marriage license and birth certificates for each of the kids. It's a little more of a bother to ask my daughter to get me documentation from her university to show that she's taking enough credit hours to be considered a full-time student and to show her expected graduation date. I'm far less overjoyed to give them a copy of some acceptable joint bank account statement, bill, tax return, or lease for my wife and myself. Even considering that the auditing firm expects all financial details to be redacted.

There was another piece of mail that was even less palatable. My latest credit card bill showed that my interest rate has more than doubled since the last statement. I called the credit card company and learned that I hadn't rejected the rate increase after receiving a letter from them back in April. Now, I'm sure they did send the letter, but I don't remember it at all. Of course, that's no one's fault by mine. They did let me reject the rate increase during the phone call, and I'm locked in to my old APR, as long as I don't use the card.

The weekend has gotten better since then, even though the Braves lost yesterday and today to the Orioles, for goodness sakes. At least the re-read of Watchers lived up to my high expectations.

Comfort Day

Yesterday, I spent my morning reading the first half of Gone Tomorrow, the latest volume in Lee Child's Reacher series. Then, in the afternoon, Lisa and I finally caught the Star Trek reboot and had an early supper at our favorite Mexican restaurant. I then proceeded to fall asleep in my favorite recliner at 8:30, missed the penultimate episode of Pushing Daisies, and woke up just enough to drag my sorry carcass off to bed slightly before 1:00 am.

Sounds nice and comfy, eh? So why was it a "comfort day"? Summer planning, my friends, summer planning.

50 - 426: Sketches of Family

In knowing myself, I think it's illustrative to briefly portray those who mean the most to me.

My father Huston - two Latin phrases: Esse quam videri and Semper fidelis.

My mother Alice Faye - the family Caregiver, the one who has always assumed the task of looking after someone chronically sick or weak. There is someone like this in every family I know, and this is the person with the least amount of control over his or her own life. I conjecture that this is why Mom spends a lot of her energy cleaning where no one else can see a spot.

My wife Lisa - my Everyday Miracle.

My daughter Georgia - Teacher-to-be, nearly ready to tackle the world.

My son Andy - the family Empiricist.

My son David - the family Believer.

My mother-in-law Meki - Survivor and inspiration.

300, Again

For the second time since I started this blog, a major league pitcher has earned his 300th victory. The Big Unit didn't do it as the dominating flamethrower who won five Cy Young awards. He did it with persistence and craft, and by all accounts, he appreciates his own achievement and its place in baseball history more for having to work harder for it than he used to.

Congratulations Randy Johnson, and may the Giants treat you better than the Braves treated Tom Glavine today.

50 - 427: Do you know what your Sin is?

In the movie Serenity, the Parliamentary Operative, a government assassin and a moral monster if ever there was one, asks this question of two people he is about to kill. The first victim, a research scientist whose overconfidence upset a weapons project, never answers, as it's rather difficult to formulate a coherent answer to any question when you're dying around a sword that's been thrust through your chest. The second victim, the rogue hero of the story, is still standing and still fighting.

The Operative answers for the first victim, "It's Pride." The second answers for himself, "Ah Hell, I'm a fan of all seven. But right now, I'd have to go with Wrath."

Like Malcolm Reynolds, I know what my Sin is. Unlike him, I won't claim to be a fan of any or all of the Deadly Sins. However, I must claim ownership of an aspect of Sloth. I'm a procrastinator.

After all, I've been thinking about this post for at least a month.

Procrastination...where did it enter my life? My parents do not suffer from this affliction. My brother doesn't. I'm not following any negative examples there.

On the other hand, I enjoy solitude and a different quality of the life of the mind than anyone else in my family. Call it introspection.

In my career as an IT professional, I have a different rhythm to my programming than my peers. I have always spent a great deal of time contemplating before I write any code, imagining the ways that what I'm about to set down won't work, and then figuring out how to get around it. I'd like to think that there's something rather Zen about this approach.

On the other hand, I also make myself prone to "analysis paralysis" by overthinking what should be simple and easy.

In my personal life, well, procrastination hasn't caused me much but difficulties and heartache. There have been too many instances where I didn't get the girl or the job because I waited too long, where an important decision was taken out of my hands and decided in favor of the other guy because I hesitated too long.

On the other hand, I've been learning how to wrestle this demon, and I can't regret the "not getting the girl" part, because I didn't wait, didn't hesitate when it came to Lisa, and I won the heart of the fair maid.

Recently Read

Unlike Kanye West, I am a proud reader of books. And in the last week, I've finished the latest volume in each of two ongoing fantasy series.

The first was Turncoat, the eleventh volume in The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden, P.I., is Chicago's only publicly practicing wizard. He has gone from being an outcast under a death sentence for using magic to kill the wizard who mentored him -- self-defense was, in the eyes of the White Council, no excuse -- to being a Warden, one of the Council's magical enforcers. He's grown in power and commitment to doing what is right over time, while never coming close to outgrowing his sarcastic, semi-cynical outlook. He's no straw man; he faces temptation, and while he wants to do what's right, he's the first to admit that sometimes he just can't figure out what is right: Is it sticking to his principles? Is it doing what's going to hurt the fewest people and keep the most alive? Is it staying alive to fight another day? This series is unique, in my experience, in that after 11 books, it is still getting richer and deeper with every volume. The mix of humor, action, philosophy (the ongoing discussion of retribution vs. justice is worth the price of admission), and pure fun is fantastic and should not be missed.

The second was MythOS by Kelly McCullough. It's the fourth volume in the saga of Ravirn, descendant of the Fates from Greek mythology and hacker extraordinare. Yes, hacker, for in this series, magic comes from Chaos, which is the primal force in the universe, and Chaos is tamed with...computers. This time, Ravirn (also known as Raven) and his sometimes goblin, sometimes laptop companion Melchior, along with the Fury Tisiphone, are trying to repair damage done in the previous volumes to Necessity, the mainframe that runs the multiverse they inhabit. Unfortunately, they are swept up in a conflict in another universe unconnected to theirs, where the underlying information infrastructure is based on Norse mythology. You know, Odin, Loki, Ragnarok, frost giants, Valhalla, Valkyries, and all that implies. This is another book that is chock full of action, humor, and deep thought. Consider this passage: When we think of memory, we tend to focus on the power of remembering, of how we learn from our past and how that affects our future. But forgetting is just as powerful as remembering. It allow us to move beyond the pains of the past to live in the present. I think that's simply beautiful.

Kanye West Wrote A Book

And in an interview, he says such gems as: I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book’s autograph. Well, me neither, Kanye. I prefer the author's autograph.

Of course, the real kicker is that this self-proclaimed proud non-reader of books wants us to buy his book.

Nope, not feeling it.

2009 Relay Wrap Up

Our 2009 Greensboro Relay For Life was held on the 15th of this month. It was not an easy year at all for fund raising, but I knew this going into our campaign and downgraded my goal accordingly. It turns out that I set my sights too low, as at last check I was at 175% of my goal. We're still, as far as I know, a good bit under the overall goal for the event, but we have a bank night Tuesday to collect offline donations contributed in the last two weeks, and the campaign is still open until the end of August.

So, how about Relay itself? It would still be really nice to have one more person to stay overnight with Lisa and I, but we had done enough up front prep work that we had a fairly good handle on setting up and decorating our campsite. The theme for our event was Rockin' Relay, and we took as our part of the Rock Era the Disco Days of the 1970s (including our Stayin' Alive team banner for the first participant lap; cancer survivors get the very first lap). Party City had a lot of gaudy baubles, including a pinata in the Travolta pose, and we had a hoot decorating the pop-up gazebo with these. Our on-site raffle of donated restaurant gift cards did quite well, but the donated bread from Great Harvest Bread Company didn't do as well as last year. And between the Starbucks team with their product and the Moses Cone Regional Cancer Center team with Caribou Coffee, our own coffee sales were rather anemic this year. No matter, we still had the only fresh-brewed coffee on-site, and we enjoyed it.

Our planning committee is getting better each year at the symbolic aspects of Relay. They did a superb job with both the luminary and closing ceremonies.

We're one of the sites chosen for the CPS-3 study. Lisa and I are both taking part.

What would Relay For Life be without entertainment? Unlike last year, I did not sing at Relay Idol; I was, however, asked to be our "Simon" on the judges' panel. I've never watched a full episode of American Idol, but I'd read and heard enough about the show to give it a try. I didn't try for completely brutal honesty, but I did have to tell the "boy band" From The Bottom Of My Heart, To That Tree, after their massacre rendition of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, "My ears have been assaulted, and I want to press charges".

Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back. I'd say we covered it all.

Firefly (and Fanboy) week on xkcd

05/04/2009

05/05/2009

05/06/2009

05/07/2009

05/08/2009