Happy Halloween

Carved from Drew's own design, featuring spider eyes, a heart for a nose, and a Spongebob Squarepants smile

For the only time in my life, this vote matters

We went to the library today to find that they had booths set up for early voting. It was the same as regular voting, except I basically filled out and turned in an absentee ballot. I marked my preferences with a number two pencil. No chads, no black box touch screen computers. Kerry was the top choice on the ballot, which I figure is probably good for a fraction of a percent. (If Bush had been listed second on the infamous Florida butterfly ballot, we wouldn't be at war in Iraq.)

I like the idea of voting on election day, but I thought I'd avoid all the Republican obstructionists.

I can't imagine that I will ever vote in a swing state again.

"Feels like the world's at stake..."

Knowledge out of chaos

This picture of Monument Valley (looking southward) was taken on my flight from Las Vegas to Cedar Rapids.



Last night when we were looking at the picture, we went to the Wikipedia to find out more about Monument Valley. We found this handy illustration there (click to enlarge, as always):



This picture is rotated about 45 degrees counterclockwise because the photographer was flying from San Francisco to Houston and the view is looking more westward. I thought it was cool.

Anyway, we spent another half-hour just randomly looking up whatever came into our heads. I'm adding the Wikipedia to my links (on the right) because I find it totally fascinating. Here is how it describes itself:

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) is a multilingual "copyleft"
encyclopedia that is editable by anyone. It is collaboratively edited and maintained by thousands of users via wiki software, and is hosted and suported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. In addition to typical encyclopedia entries, Wikipedia includes information more often associated with almanacs, gazetteers, and specialist magazines; and coverage of current events.

I could go there right now and add my knowledge of TiVo or whatever.

This is democracy (or anarchy?) applied to product development. It is the same philosophy that gave birth to Mozilla Firefox and Linux, which gave birth to TiVo!

Happy Sixth, Drewbie

The Iowa Luge

Bad hair morning

We call her Electra

You look half your age...

What do adult brothers do when confronted with a child's play thing?

The Fog of War

I just finished watching a most fascinating movie called The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. The title refers to the Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Only the greatest authors in history could dream up such a hero/villain as ambivalent and ambiguous as real life. To me, he is everything that is great and wrong about America at the same time.

A couple of quotes that hit me:

Referring to this country's unilateral action in Vietnam, he said, "If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we better reexamine our reasoning." Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Regarding his dealings with the press: "Never answer the question that is asked of you; answer the question that you wish had been asked of you." Clearly, this has become one of politic's ten commandments.

There is a whole lot more. You should watch it.

Our next home

Hint: Zion National Park is in the background (right side)


The view looking north from our property