For a dramatic change of pace, I have actually been busy at work lately. Even enjoying myself and feeling like a real programmer again! I actually worked an hour late yesterday because I was on a roll and didn’t want to end it prematurely (am in a bit of a rut at present, hence this post). Hopefully this is a sign of things to come and not an aberrant blip.
So, Boston Bombing… I haven’t felt a strong urge to write about this beyond Obama’s torturous effort to avoid using the word ‘terrorism’ when describing what is no doubt a terrorist event. However, our great government has chosen to redefine ‘terrorism’ as ‘that which Muslims (or those who look like them) do to Americans or our allies’, so until (if) they have good evidence that the bombs were set off by swarthy Middle Eastern types, they are going to reserve the ‘T’ word. Fucking moron!
Also somewhat interesting to me is the reflexive frustrated sigh from the media types about the new intrusions into our privacy and freedom we will have to endure now (no cooking utensils on any flight! (of course, you already can’t use metal silverware on a plane!)). Americans persist in the delusion that there is perfect security, how else to explain the sheep-like acceptance of the idiot security theater we have to engage in? If Al-Qaeda really wanted to mess us up, they should take out our trains and buses so we become completely paralyzed. Scott Adams just blogged that he estimates we spent ten trillion dollars taking out Bin Laden (adding in the war costs and all the economic costs ancillary to that). While that might be a slight exaggeration, I don’t think he is off by more than 50% (the wars easily cost several trillion dollars _so far_). Imagine what our country could have done with a trillion dollars a year for the past decade. For certain any talks of budget deficit or social safety net cutbacks would be totally absent from our conversations! As a side note, how much do you figure of that $10 trillion was borrowed? I figure 100% myself; I believe this is the first time in US history where taxes actually went _down_ during a war, not up. Now, instead of paying for the wars with increased taxes the oligarchy wants to pay for it by cutting little old lady’s retirement checks and cutting their access to medical care so they die a few years early. Ain’t this a great country?!
So, by dilly dallying for several months I have reluctantly (yea right) decided that the pilot scale aquaponics experiment I was planning in the basement will instead be a larger scale experiment out in the greenhouse as I expect to have at a minimum the roof on in the next 6 weeks or so (I may leave the walls off until fall) and we won’t have to worry about heating things for many months to come. Speaking of the greenhouse, I finally did some work last weekend and man has my body atrophied over the winter. I was so wrecked that I had to leave work early on Monday to take a nap, I was getting cross-eyed trying to make sense of what was on my monitors (I have four, ain’t I so lucky?). Our man Danny and his son-in-law Danny have been making amazing progress. This weekend they should have all the windows and doors installed and might be starting work on the beams for the greenhouse roof (last weekend we were working on putting in the soffit at the top of the pool roof, something almost inaccessible once the greenhouse roof goes up).
My orchard is in bloom, what a dramatic difference a week of 80 degree temps makes! This year I saw a lot of pollinators, so hopefully we will get some fruit (last year they bloomed so early the bugs hadn’t got in gear yet and we had not a single fruit). I planted another 40 plants, I am really starting to run out of space if these all manage to take root. There is almost no place left in my half acre orchard, all that is needed now is some fruits for all that labor.
We are finally putting our boy to use this year: he started mowing the lawn last weekend. He did a pretty good job for his first time, but he does look a little crazy out there wandering around and having to chase back to mow spots he missed. So far he seems to be enjoying himself, I wonder if that will wear off soon or if he will like it for at least a few years.
I remain in limbo regarding my DNA sequencing thing, still hoping to find interested investors. I have some tenuous leads, but nothing that makes me think that my 5+ year investment is in any ‘danger’ of paying off. I think I have come up with a way to generate neutrons that should be substantially more powerful than the current versions, but, in addition to not really having the time to work on it, I am a bit leery of working with neutrons as it is very difficult to shield from them and relatively small doses can have dramatically higher effects than ionizing radiation (i.e., alpha and beta). I think about my fusion idea off and on but don’t want to risk losing it by discussing it with other people and doubt I will have the resources to work on it for at least several years. Probably someone else will come up with the same approach while I sit and twiddle my thumbs.
It is so nice to be done with winter, but I got to say, I liked things without bugs!
