The Lost Symbol

Let me just start by saying that there really isn't anything wrong with this book. It is just as good as The DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons, which were both enjoyable books. As a matter of fact it is not only just as well written as those two books, it follows the same basic formula. I find it unfortunate that writers of series find it necessary (or just too easy) to stick to the same formula that worked for their first book over and over again.

If this is the first book by Dan Brown you've ever read then I think that you may enjoy it. Or, if you thought that Rambo III or the Police Academy movies were good, then you may be able to overlook that blatant use of a cookie-cutter formula and really enjoy this book.

I, however, feel that reading a book is a significant time investment, and I want to get a little better return on my investment than this. Because I've read the other books in the series, I knew from the beginning that our hero was going to solve the puzzle, but just in the knick of time. I knew that some secret society that had been working on the fringes of society for centuries was going to be under attack by a madman bent on exposing their secrets. I knew that the timeline was going to be short and tense. I knew that several characters were going to be killed off throughout the book. I knew that the bad guy was going to have another motive than the one that seemed so apparent. I saw the 'twist' coming twenty pages out, and I wasn't shocked at all. And, the ending was a bit of a let down (formula or not).

All in all I think I have to give this book only 2 STARS. Sorry Dan Brown, you just don't do it for me.

Chatroulette anyone?

I mean, Chat with Anyone.

O.K., this may sound slightly hypocritical, considering the fact that I'm writing this blog for everyone and anyone out there to stumble upon and read, but what kind of people are going to be drawn to this.

Chatroulette will let you talk to people. Random people. Random. People. Is it just me or does this just seem a little weird? Not to mention possibly dangerous and at the very least uncomfortable. I know that I may be a little more Anthrophobic than most, but do people really just want to talk so bad that they're willing to talk to ANYONE?

Just click a button and talk to a total stranger. Where is the upside to this? I mean just take a city bus or ride the subway if you want to talk to some desperately lonely sociopath.

I think I'd rather play with the Killer Whales at SeaWorld thank you very much.

LLBean Boycott

African-American Boycott of L.L. Bean Enters 80th Year

Until theses wrongs have been redressed, I too am now boycotting LLBean.

When Your Life Looks Back

"When your life looks back

as it will, at itself, at you - what will it say?

Inch of colored ribbon cut from the spool.

Flame curl, blue-consuming the log it comes from.

Bay leaf. Oak leaf. Cricket. One among many.

Your life will carry you as it did always,

with ten fingers and both palms,

with horizontal ribs and upright spine,

with its filling and emptying heart,

that wanted only your own heart, emptying, filled, in return.

You gave it. What else could you do?

Immersed in air or in water.

Immersed in hunger or anger.

Curious even when bored.

Longing even when running away.

"What will happen next?"

the question hinged in your knees, your ankles,

in the in-breaths even of weeping.

Strongest of magnets, the future impartial drew you in.

Whatever direction you turned toward was face to face.

No back of the world existed,

no unseen corner, no test. No other earth to prepare for.

This, your life had said, its only pronoun.

Here, your life had said, its only house.

Let, your life had said, its only order.

And did you have a choice in this? You did

Sleeping and waking,

the horses around you, the mountains around you,

the buildings with their tall, hydraulic shafts.

Those of your own kind around you

A few times, you stood on your head.

A few times, you chose not to be frightened.

A few times, you held another beyond any measure.

A few times, you found yourself held beyond any measure.

Mortal, your life will say,

as if tasting something delicious, as if in envy.

Your immortal life will say this, as it is leaving."

-Jane Hirshfield

I know this isn't the usual kind of stuff I put out here, but I heard this poem on the radio the other day (yeah that's right on the radio, I listen to NPR) and it just kind of hit home. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And if not, well, you probably can't help it.

Is Nothing Sacred Anymore?

New Law Would Ban Marriages Between People Who Don't Love Each Other

This is some of the funniest S**t I've seen in a long time.

Ah, More UFO Lore

The British Government just un-classified over 6000 pages of UFO reports from 1994 - 2000. That seems like a lot of pages for little island, over 1000 pages per year. Perhaps they enjoy a pint or two over there a little more than we do on this side of the pond. But still, 6000 pages of reports in six years. What do you think Fox Moulder have to say about that: "I want to believe."

I'm not saying that I believe in an imminent alien invasion or anything. In fact, scientifically I believe two things. First is that the universe is so immeasurably large that it would be extremely arrogant and self-centered to believe that there is no other intelligent life out there, somewhere. Secondly is that the universe is so immeasurably large, nearly (if not) infinite is size, that the chance of intelligent life out there being able to get to us is highly improbable. And lets face it, if you're really going to travel millions of light years to get here, are you going to be satisfied flashing your lights over a couple of drunk longshoremen and then leaving mysteriously without making legitimate contact?

But then again, maybe they're just keeping an eye on us. Checking in from time to time to see how we're progressing as a civilization. I would assume that we are either very amusing to them, or a source of great frustration.

But I digress. The reason I found this story interesting this morning is this: The other day I was riding in a friends car, and she was listening to gospel music. Well, a song comes on (with full choir and everything) about Ezekiel seeing a flaming wheel in the sky. "Hmmm?" I thought, "what in the world is this all about." Not willing to risk offending this friend, I decided to seek answers on the internet (people can be sensitive about their religious views).

You see, I am no Bible Scholar, but there are plenty of them on the Web. Some of them are of the opinion that all of the UFO references in the Bible are referring to the great Heavenly battle between Angels and Fallen Angels. Some even go so far as to say the the word Angel really refers to aliens, who are also created by God and sent to populate the Universe. Some think that aliens are responsible for many of the great accomplishments of early man, and that all of the references in the Bible are simply proof that Extra-Terrestrials have visited us frequently in the past.

Whatever you choose to believe, there are over 730 references in the Old and New Testaments about flying vehicles. But this is what good old Ezekiel saw:

Ezekiel 1:4

"And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.
A rushing, windy, great, thundercloud-like flying craft flew out of the north. The vehicle had the appearance of brilliant, glowing fire all around it. The center of the illumination, the vehicle, was like polished metal."

Finally, A Politician Worth Voting For

What's that old saying? "All the good guys are already taken."

Well I think that sentiment holds especially true in politics. In a manner of thinking anyway. I think that I heard a quote once that said something like: "I wouldn't vote for anyone who WANTED that job." That's exactly the way I feel. Unfortunately, the people that we need in Washington running this country are exactly the ones who don't want to go anywhere near that snake-nest of corruption and deceit.

Obviously this could just be a political ploy by Senator Bayh from Indiana. I'm not so naive as to not see that coming. But wouldn't it be nice if this was not only a genuine act of decency, but if it shook a few people back into seeing things a little more clearly (voters as well as politicians).

The President's Wife vs Fat Kids

Michelle Obama has declared war on Childhood Obesity. Today she is scheduled to release the details of her public service campaign, and evidently it's going to be more than: "Hey kid, put down that Twinkie, turn off the TV and get your chubby little butt outside!"

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and nonpartisan government surveys say that one out of every three children in America is overweight or obese. One out of every three. ONE OUT OF THREE, WOW. Also, that number has more than tripled in the last 30 years. So, when I was a kid only one in nine kids were obese. One in nine seems to high to me. I have three kids now, so statistically speaking one of them should be a little porker.

Another study, which included 8,550 4-year-olds from around the United States, found that children who ate dinner with their families more than five times a week, slept for at least 10.5 hours a night, and watched less than two hours of TV a day were 40 percent less likely to be obese than children who did none of those things. They also found that each of those three things was effective by itself, and that their benefits were cumulative.

Now you see, this is where Mrs. Obama's troubles start. That is just a whole lot to ask of parents. I mean, who has time to actually waste on raising these slobbering heathens? Is it not enough that we took three minutes to conceive them? My wife personally gestated every one of our kids for almost nine whole months. Does our commitment to the little buggers extend past that? Alright, O.K., sure we should put a roof over their head, and throw some Doritos in front of the TV for them to gnaw on while they veg out. I mean most of us parents ARE willing to provide the basics. But past that?

Americans are too busy and important to be bothered with things like Quality Family Time, Structure, or Nutrition. I mean we have much better things to do than to take an interest in our children's well-being.

Cable is expensive, why do you think TV costs so much if it's not a qualified baby sitter?

Football, I Guess It's Not For Everyone

Several years ago we were hanging out with a group of people who were all rather enthusiastic about football. We were not. In fact, we didn't watch football games (this is back when we used to watch TV), we didn't keep up with the season, we didn't even have a favorite team. Basically, we treated football just like every other sport out there. We couldn't care less. Well, our friends told us that this was fundamentally unacceptable. That we simply MUST have a Team. Everyone HAD to have a Team. It seemed that our apathy towards professional sports was poised to upset the delicate balance of the universe.

So, we thought about it. I was born in Indiana so I should obviously be a fan of the Indiana based team, the Indianapolis Colts. Alexis was born in North Carolina, so I suggested that she be a fan of the Carolina team, I believe they are the Panthers or Jaguars or some sort of fierce jungle cat. She chose differently, siting that her dad had always been a Redskins fan, and that she could do whatever she wanted, paying no mind what-so-ever to my logical system for discovering your personal favorite team.

In the end, she chose the Colts because we should be a unified house. She can be sweet like that.

So now that we had our favorite Team things really got rolling for us. This was several years ago, just as the Colts were starting their rise to the top, during the Patriots Dynasty, where it seemed that at every turn we were thwarted by the dastardly Tom Brady. But it was a fun struggle. It was fun to cheer against the Team that everyone knew was going to win, and hope (but never really expect) that your team might beat them and make it to The Big Game (someone told me that I'm not allowed to say Super Bowl without the express written permission of the NFL) (Oh, damn, I said Super Bowl).

Anyway, it seems that everyone is a football fan. We started getting Colts things (hats, shirts, scarves, blankets, pillowcases, Christmas Tree Ornaments, calendars, scented candles, and even dog leashes) for Christmas. In all honesty, our friends and family were bigger fans of us being fans, than we actually were fans at all. It seems some deep mystic bond was opened up that only happened when people got together to cheer for opposing sides as they beat each other senseless in an attempt to get an elongated ball from one end of a field to the other.

Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed it. We got caught up in it. I mean we choose well (sort of), the Colts are good. For the past several years they have had winning seasons. They played in the Super Bowl, oops, I mean the Big Game, last night for Christ's sake. We cheered, we cringed, we hoped, and we sighed that deep sigh of resignation that comes from deep down inside when YOUR team makes it to the Super Bowl, I mean Big Game, and plays like a bunch of Nancy-Boys.

And then I realized that it doesn't matter.

I don't mean that in a 'We'll get 'em next year, kid!' kind of way. I mean it really doesn't matter. When I think about it, the closest friends of mine still don't give a crap about football. We have actually become stand-out sports fans within our little social circle. Where did all of those football fan friends go? As we grew up and grew apart from those people, I guess we still clung to this football thing, as if it were somehow inexorably tied to who we are.

But who are we? We're not Football fans. We don't care who wins the Big Game, I mean Super Bowl. We wouldn't even have watched it if the Colts weren't destined to lose. We didn't watch one, that's right, not one regular season game this year, and only ONE playoff game. We're not Football fans. We're just posers. And the thing is we don't enjoy or benefit from being posers. We showed no interest at all this season. Our friends and acquaintances who know who our favorite team is thrust their projected enthusiasm upon us. "You having a Super Bowl Party?" "You watching the Big Game?" "Want to bet on the Game?"

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm looking for a way out. How does one stop being a Football fan. Obviously it would be bad form to call it quits after the big loss, and Heaven knows I don't want to exhibit bad Sports Fan Etiquette. Do we try to lower our enthusiasm gradually throughout the next season? Do we just quit it cold-turkey like we did when we kicked heroin? Or is there some super-secret-sports-society way out?

I made it twenty-some-odd years without being a sports fan at all. Ah, how I miss the innocence of youth.

Race Day

We've got another race today. This time it's a 5K trail run through an apple orchard. The race starts in about four hours, and I'm up trying to figure out what to eat for breakfast.

I've been having a little difficulty finding the right Fuel formula that will work for me. Two months ago I ran a 10 miler, and not having run much for years, I was nervous about cramping and what-not, so I didn't eat anything. Well, I dragged myself across the finish line in 96 minutes and change totally out of gas. In fact, the last three miles of that race I had no energy.

So, the next race (a 5K street race) I ate a banana before hand. That race was better, but I still didn't feel properly fueled. The next race (the 5K for the Thai Sex Slaves) I fueled with energy gels. Not the result I was hoping for either. I finished that race with a terrible muscle cramp in my side.

This morning I've decided to explore another avenue. I'm eating a fried egg sandwich: that's two fried eggs on toast with mayonnaise and cheese, and a big 'ole cup of Earl Gray. So maybe later I'll be posting pictures of me puking up my fried eggs at the finish line.

Wish us luck.

Get up and VOTE

Even though I don't really like either candidate for Governor of Virginia, even though I don't really know what my local Board of Supervisors even does, even though I'm tired to the point of physical illness of hearing political attack ads, I'm going to vote today.

If you don't try to change the system every time you are offered a chance, then you're wasting you freedom. We still live in a democracy, even though it does usually seem broken down.

I hate our two party system. Democrats and Republicans seem to be working together to polarize every issue. Working together to not work at all it. But still, it is election day. One more chance for me to upset the applecart.

I urge you all to vote every chance you get. And to throw away you Party Registration Cards. And to vote outside of the established parties whenever you get the chance. And you seem to get the chance a little more often in local politics.

And remember, everything starts at the local level. Most of those losers in Washington started in local government, where a few thousand dollars and a couple of influential friends can still pretty much buy you an elected office. I say we make them earn it. Hold 'em accountable. Make them tell us what they mean to do, not just how they assume the other guy is going to try to screw us.

Let's all pay attention and pick better leaders. It's not too late to fix things.

All I want for Christmas

The SPECIALIZED ENDURO!!

LAUNCH DAY

This is some pretty cool footage.

Ran 5K for Sex Slaves this weekend

My wife and I both ran in the Run For Their Lives 5K race on Saturday, from which all the money raised was used to help free Thai Sex Slaves, and help stop human trafficking in general. I thought it was a good cause, most of can agree on that.



A friend of mine (who hates to be mentioned on the Internet in any fashion) thought that we were actually racing for Sex Slaves. You know, like to win one. Well, I'm still not fast enough to win a sex slave, but I am slowly getting my time down to a respectable level. 24:15, which placed me 36th out of 439 runners.

In two weeks we're running a 5K trail run through an apple orchard, and I'm really looking forward to that. Wish us luck.

Bunnies - Not Always As Much Fun As You'd Think

I got an interesting phone call from my sister this evening, asking me to try to dissuade her daughter from pursuing the idea of getting a pet bunny. Evidently my niece has a friend who has a couple of pet rabbits, and what do you know they have some new bunnies or will shortly. Unfortunately rabbits, either because they are totally unaware of the stereotype attached to them or because they really just don't care, are quite the little breeders.

Well I did what any responsible brother and uncle would do, I told her that rabbits are the BEST pets you could ever have. I told her that you can teach them to do all sorts of tricks (like hiding in a hat for a magic show), and that they were super cuddly. I mean what little kid wouldn't love a pet bunny.

I know, I shouldn't have. I should have told her that rabbits look a lot friendlier than they actually are. That they really don't want anything to do with you. That you can't teach them tricks, take them for walks, or expect them to curl up at the foot of the bed and keep your feet warm. That really all they're good for is turning vegetables into organic fertilizer, and making more little bunnies.

But here's the thing. I had a bunny when I was a little kid. I don't even remember why. I think that I won it in some sort of raffle or something. Anyway, it doesn't matter where it came from, it was my first pet, and it was my first real responsibility. Oh yeah, and it was completely boring. It took me about a week to get completely tired of this poor bunny. And then he started spending more and more time in his cage which got cleaned out less and less frequently. And sometimes I would forget to feed it. And one time I forgot to feed it for over a week, and when I did remember to feed it it wasn't hungry anymore. It was dead.

So for some sick reason my sister used this as her rational for getting me to give the Bunny Talk to her daughter. She enjoys torturing me obviously. I mean that's a horrible guilt-ridden memory that I really enjoy reliving. "Remember that time you starved that cute little bunny to death like it was in a Nazi concentration camp? Do me a favor and tell my little girl that rabbits are bad."

Rabbits aren't bad. They just don't make great pets. If anything, that story only shows that I was just a horrible pet owner. Thanks for that stroll down memory lane Sis. Next time just poke me in the eye with a sharp stick, OK.



P.S. Ivy, you don't really want a pet bunny. They're a lot of work and very little pay off. Just get a kitten, or one of those silly little puppy-poo dogs, trust me on this one honey.

The Truth About Facebook

A friend of mine posted this Youtube video on Facebook, ironically enough. And you people think that I'm paranoid.

Sounds Like Someone Needs To Get Off Of The Couch

It's always sad to hear stories about neglected children, so this obviously brought a tear to my eye.

A fourteen year old boy's Mother has been charged with Medical Neglect in South Carolina. Not because she left him in a stifling hot car while she went grocery shopping in July. Not because she locked him in the basement for months at a time. Not because she dressed him in his sisters clothes and forced him to play with Barbie Dolls. But because the fourteen year old boy weighs 555 pounds.

I know what your thinking. 'Did he hit the 5 key one too many times?' No, you read correctly, Five Hundred Fifty pounds. I did the math (with some help from my wife) and our entire family (five people) only add up to about 360 pounds. Thats right, he out weighs our whole family by nearly two hundred pounds.

Her story is that he has gained all of this weight at school. Evidently all of his friends have been donating their lunches to the Lets See How Much Tubbo Can Eat Before He Explodes Foundation, a noble cause indeed. I'm pretty sure that unless something has changed drastically in the past 20 years, school lunches really aren't so good that you'd want to eat a dozen or more of them everyday. Maybe South Carolina Public Schools are the exception to the rule, and if so shame on them for offering those kids such irresistible goodies.

But seriously, is this woman at fault for her child growing to such gargantuan proportions so early in life? Is our society? Is McDonald's? I'm a big believer in Personal Responsibility, but at what point is a child's health not the responsibility of the parent? And lets face it, 555 lbs is a serious health risk.

But what about James?

Yesterday, I was telling my sister that I was done with this whole blogging thing. I mean no one wants to listen to me rant and rave about the idiots who run our government, or hear me go on and on about NASA this and NASA that. I just wasn't feeling it anymore.

"But I want to hear you," she said. I was talking to her on the phone mind you, giving her my opinion on this and that, live with interactive capabilities. So I explained it to her like this: "We can just talk on the phone," I said. "You can get live updates whenever you want them."

"But what about James?" She asked.

'What about James', I thought. I quite enjoy reading his blog. Maybe he stills checks in here every once in a while. Maybe, just maybe I'll give this blog thing another go. If two people out there in cyberland want to here what I have to say, then maybe I should tell them.

We'll see. But I've got a race in the morning, so I need to rest.

Michael Jackson - Thriller
Uploaded by pi-xo. - See the latest featured music videos.

Money well spent.

So, congress just passed a new war funding bill for $80 billion, bringing the grand total spent in the past 8 years in Iraq and Afghanistan to a measly $950 billion. Shall we do some math?

That's $118,750,000,000.00 dollars a year, or

$325,342,400.00 per day, or

$13,555,933.00 per hour.

There are 301,621,157 Americans (according to the census estimates, 2008)

So then, if everyone in this country contributed equally to the tax burden,(which we all know is not the case, less than 50% of Americans pay any federal income taxes) then your personal contribution to the war would be about $3,200.00 so far.

Just for fun, can you think of anything better to do with $13.5 million/hour?