Khan's Castle

2009-05-01T14:27:00.003-04:00

It's been a while, but there it is. A couple things on my mind.

First, I am just loving the new—well, to me, anyway—Battlestar Galactica series. I like everything about it and I make one important personal note: This is a series that, like the original, I don't think I would have thought of very highly when I was younger. There are too many things that would bug a hardcore SF fan, which is what I thought myself back in the day. Now, I'm happy to report, I'm quite willing and able to let enough of that rigidity so that I can get to the main point, which is the human drama. I'm still aware of it, but it doesn't ruin things for me. Hallelujah! At any rate, I find it to be a wonderful show.

My car was in the shop earlier this week and I discovered that the city bus works very well for me to get to make my daily commute into the office. It's seems to be a nicely done system with which I look forward to becoming more familiar, to learn and use more of the routes and the like. I've enjoyed it.

2009-03-26T11:55:00.002-04:00

I just re-read L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and found myself loving it as much at age 50 as I did in the 5th grade when our teacher read it to us.

Out of curiosity, I read some reviews of the book in Amazon and was struck by some with a pronounced Christian slant. A couple I read objected to the characterization of Jesus as a "fighter" or the mention of Buddha at all. What almost always strikes me is the blatant presentation of belief as fact, i.e. they seem to confuse believing with knowing, faith with fact. What is the real shame is that they usually seem unaware that of the confusion. Moreover, they often proceed to judge and damn others from their confused stance. And that, is the real rub.

So, for me, my challenge is to not want to change them. That's my spiritual path.

2009-03-23T14:24:00.002-04:00

A movie I really enjoyed: Raise the Red Lantern. A Chinese film set in the 20's about a young woman who becomes a concubine and the intrigues that follow. Thought provoking and beautifully filmed and directed.

Still using the Dvorak keyboard layout—at work, a TypeMatrix keyboard—and my speed and fluidity is coming right along. It's no longer a chore to type although my mind will still sort of lock up when encountering odd key sequences. Common words though, just roll off the fingertips in a way they can't on a QWERTY layout. There is a smoothness there that makes typing feel very different, very nice.

2009-03-17T08:35:00.002-04:00

As I've gotten back into climbing in the last year or so I have clearly seen three weaknesses: Forearm strength, forearm endurance, and footwork. At my age, I have to be careful in training my forearms so that I don't injure myself, my hands in particular. That makes footwork a good candidate for focus right now.

2009-03-11T12:24:00.002-04:00

Letting go of attachments has got to be the hardest thing I've ever tried to do.

I see someone I've known for decades crying over a wrong I committed against them, and the crying is coming after days of them puzzling through their rage at me. I want to try to comfort and care for them because that's what I've tried to do—ever so poorly I now understand—for my entire adult life. I can't though because I destroyed the thing I claimed to love more than anything. I am the reason for the tears.

Sometimes I simply cannot believe the harm I've done and somehow I'm supposed to let go of the past. I understand it intellectually, but I reckon it will be a while before my heart understands and I can forgive myself.

I look and I see the twenty year old that I fell in love with, not the fifty year old who is rightfully filled with rage at me.

What have I done?

I tell myself that if I could have done better, I would have, and now that I can do better, I am. It seems a bitter consolation in light of the human wreckage strewn in my wake.

2009-03-05T11:25:00.002-05:00

A couple good movies of late:

I loved The House of Flying Daggers. Beautiful visuals, wonderful choreography and performances made for a martial arts film that I enjoyed as much as any film I've seen in a while.

In a slightly different vein, The Forbidden Kingdom with Jackie Chan and Jet Li was a lot of fun, perhaps a touch more lighthearted. I confess a real fondness for Chan, his acrobatic talent and his delightful sense of humor.

And my children and I simply laughed our heads off at Get Smart. Fabulous!

On other fronts:

I had gotten to the point where I was not doing my upper body workouts because they were taking almost an hour. And so, I was doing nothing. Non smart. What I've been doing for weeks now is interleaving little sets of levers or pullups into my daily life instead. When I walk past the pullup bar, I see how long I can hold a one-legged lever. Or do 5 pullups. Things like that. If I'm a touch sore, I back off a little for the day. Lo and behold, my strength is coming back up. It may not be the ideal way to train, but it's clearly better than doing nothing. It also makes the time spent working out seem almost imperceptable. It's basically free and so it gets done.

Spiritually, I've been working to increase my awareness of myself. Writings by Anthony De Mello are particularly helpful. I have his The Way to Love and Awareness. Wonderful stuff! The blending of Buddhist and Christian ideas is beautiful and useful in immediate and practical ways.

2009-02-13T15:35:00.002-05:00

I watch the back and forth in politics from the right and left and just think: I'm really sick of all this stuff!

And that's really enough of that for one post. . .

2009-02-03T10:59:00.002-05:00

So the question on the floor is this: Am I even capable of love as opposed to attachment?

I find I don't quite know the answer to that and suspect that most of what I've thought of as love over the years is really just attachment. It's not a particularly happy thought to have been so unaware and unloving over the years, but as they say, awareness is the first step to change.

2009-01-24T16:59:00.001-05:00

Well, Federer is in the Australian final! I'm so pulling for him. I just love the way that guy plays the game.

And on with my typing with the Dvorak layout. I like it more and more the longer I stick with it. It is quite a transition, I'll give it that, but so many words really fly off the fingers when you get acclimated. Many more than with the QWERTY layout. Overall, it's much less stressful and more comfortable on the hands, and I say that being someone that didn't even have issues in that realm.

I can't wait for the TypeMatrix keyboard I ordered at work.

My two younger children have really gotten into Lego's Power Miners. To me, it's simply remarkable the way Lego keeps coming up with such fun creative sets. My hat's off to those guys. In my humble opinion, no home should be without a whole pile of Lego. It's just too cool!

2009-01-21T09:28:00.002-05:00

Just watched the inauguration address on youtube.com. The man is an excellent speaker, for sure. My heart wants to hope for the best while my head is concerned about the reality of his presidency.

I discovered TypeMatrix keyboards while surfing the other day and I'm going to get one at work. It's a little bit of a story. Switching to the Dvorak layout recently forced me into real touch-typing because the labeling on a regular keyboard is, of course, for QWERTY, and therefore useless once the keys are remapped. It's coming along just fine and I find that there are many more words that roll off the fingers nicely. I find a single thing that is a minor irritation: The location of "f" on what is the "y" key on a QWERTY layout. It's a long reach as reaches go on a keyboard and "f'" seems more common than "y". TypeMatrix keyboards have the keys vertically aligned rather than staggered, making the reach to "f" the same as the reach to "b". For the other hand, the reach to "x" and "y" ("b" and "t" on a QWERTY layout) will be the same. At any rate, it will be interesting to see how it feels. Better, I hope.

As an aside, the usual staggering of the keys has its roots in mechanical keyboard design. There is no reason at all for it on a computer except that "it's always been that way", in other words, there's no reason at all.

2009-01-12T16:31:00.005-05:00

I've started to write a post a half dozen times in the last week and got distracted every time and never got anything up here. Now I can't remember what I had on my mind. Sheesh!

I'll ramble a while, then:

Here's a great quote from president-elect Obama that refers to closing the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay: "It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize." The irony is that he himself was "a lot of people" until a short time ago and very likely should say that "it is more difficult than I think I realized". My guess is that every single incoming first-term president could say that about a lot of things. The question is are they big enough to admit it? Or would that be viewed as a confidence-in-the-president killer? Certainly, saying it too often would not be good, but still.

Zelda: Twilight Princess is turning out to be a fabulous game as expected. I'm beginning the third dungeon and have something like 18 hours into the game. Great stuff!

A personal time marker: My upper body workouts had gotten long enough that I had all but quit doing them, so I've changed to grabbing a short set of pullups or lever exercises most times I walk past the pullup bar. This is getting me probably half a dozen sets a day. When I feel a little sore, I back off for a day. I don't know how this will go in the long term, but it seems good for now.

2009-01-04T10:40:00.002-05:00

Chess has always fascinated me, not enough to make me a very good player, mind you, but the elegance and sophistication of the game itself combined with the artistic rendering of the pieces I much admire. (For that matter, I hold a similar affection for a standard pack of 52 playing cards, but that's another blog entry.)

House of Staunton's web site shows some extraordinary pieces and boards, spanning a range from $13,000 down to under $50 and they all look lovely. They include some beautiful pre-Staunton designs (an example here) and as well as themed sets, and perhaps most interesting, they make the two additional Seirawan pieces, with when added to a regular set, form a Seirawan chess set.

Seirawan chess, much like Fischerandom chess, is an attempt to remove opening memorization as a major element of success and return the game to one of skill and reason. I'm not good enough to have actually experienced a need for that, but I know enough to understand how, at a high enough level, the need would arise. I like the idea of new twist on an old game that maintains—and maybe even restores—the spirit of the game.

Moving from a game of logic to the spiritual realm . . .

Fr. Anthony de Mello has some wonderful thoughts about awareness and love, blending Buddhist and Christian ideas and likely others I'm not aware of. My affection for Buddhist spirituality is quite connected to its empiricism, that is, they don't ask that you believe anything, only that you try their way and see for yourself. I did and I did. As well, I find that Buddhism enlightens my understanding of Christ's teaching wonderfully. For this reason alone, de Mello's work is well worth a look.

2008-12-26T18:38:00.002-05:00

These days, if I was asked, I would probably identify myself as a Buddhist. Having said that, I would also say that my Buddhist training has helped me see farther into Jesus' teaching and has made me a better Christian in ways that seem important to me. In light of what I've learned from Shakyamuni and Jesus—the two people in this world that were so different from everyone around them that others asked what they were not just who they were—I wish everyone—and as much as is possible for this unenlightened person, I really mean everyone—the very best of Christmas.

For me, this Christmas is a time of change, renewal, and of acknowledgement of reality. A time of compassion and reconciliation, of struggle and release. A time of giving and receiving, of teaching and learning. A time of thinking and feeling, of compassion and love.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

2008-12-21T12:02:00.002-05:00

Finished the last of Cowboy Bebop the other day thinking, "What a great series!" It has a great combination of elements: Characters, story, setting, artwork, and music. Really good music, written by Yoko Kanno, performed by her band, the Seatbelts, with Mai Yamane often singing lead. I highly recommend it for anime for an teen and up audience.

While out Christmas shopping yesterday, we picked up ThinkFun Rush Hour Deluxe Edition as a game for the house. It's a really fun puzzle type game, all about working your car out of gridlock. Fun for hours.

2008-12-15T13:17:00.002-05:00

My mind has been scattered lately and sitting down to write just wasn't happening. So just that rambling may serve:

Why are mechanical pencils sold in stores in bags of ten? Don't you just replace the lead instead of the pencil?

I think the thing I dislike about the Christmas season the most is The Twelve Days of Christmas. I just hate that song. And of course, that right there is a great thing to work on, that is, letting go of an aversion to a silly song. Yes, a great thing, but a really hard one, too.

It would be very helpful if the beeper on my hp-50g was louder. When using it as a timer for meditation outside, I have to set half a dozen alarms to make sure I hear it. Admittedly, using the thing that way is a touch outside what the designers had in mind. It was available, what can I say?

And writing the code to allow for easy entry of an alarm song for said calculator may not pass a rigid cost/benefit analysis. And besides, it's tedious as all get out programming on a 2" x 3" screen.

During my 40 minute outdoor meditation Sunday morning, I was straffed not once, but twice, by a very low-flying airplane that bore an uncanny resemblence to my twelve year old daughter. On the second pass, I got tapped on the head by a putative wingtip as it swooshed by. Nonplussed as I was, my face knew what to do and simply could not contain the grin that blossomed from a deep paternal love of her, her rascalness, and her gift of a priceless moment in meditation.

At age 50, I still like practicing wheelies on my mountain bike. There's a silly joy there. It's just fun!

My little friend, the crab spider that set up shop in my front yard for the whole summer and fall, has disappeared for the winter, I think. That tiny creature always brought me a smile. I hope to see it again in the spring.

With these odds and ends, I notice that there are some delightful moments there. It's been good to write them down and see them.

2008-12-10T19:38:00.002-05:00

It's a rainy night outside, still life inside.

Life's choices echo in the silence. Grief lingers as images of the past drift in and out of thought. We both did the best we could, didn't we?

2008-12-08T13:36:00.002-05:00

I was at party the other night and at it were a number of people quite different from me. That fact, via a later conversation, made me realize this: Not voicing a judgement about someone or something is not the same thing as not making a judgement in the first place. While controlling our actions is a good thing, if the mind isn't controlled, integrity is compromised. Control the mind and the actions will follow. Freeing the mind from the habit of judgement is, I think, a major step in spiritual growth and part of doing that is ceasing to cling to the desire that things be different than they are.

Less serious stuff:

Finished the first DVD of Outlaw Star. While I don't like the music too much and the quality of the animation is mediocre, I enjoy the characters and the overall story.

2008-12-05T08:12:00.002-05:00

Attachments.

Boy, I can really cause myself some trouble with those things!

I speak with a friend on the phone and joy over the conversation manifests. And then it happens as it has before: I cling. I want a guarantee that I'll have more of it in the future. And then fear and anxiety about it threatens to obliterate the joy that was so obviously present not five minutes prior. The rollercoaster leaves the station!

My prayer is that I can learn to enjoy what comes my way, to accept the good in life, and to be able to trust that more will come, that I'll be OK, that I don't have to try to manipulate people and things to keep me safe, that safety is not in holding on tighter, but in letting go.

2008-12-04T11:14:00.002-05:00

The Tomatometer weighs in at 73% for Wanted, the movie starring, among others, Angelina Jolie. I sure wouldn't be that generous with it. It's the first film in a very long time that I almost turned off. If I hadn't been watching it with a friend, I would have.

2008-12-01T14:04:00.002-05:00

Loss is something that sticks with me, for whatever reason. I have no idea if I'm unusual in the degree to which I feel it. I have no way of knowing, but my guess is that my feelings, both in content and intensity, are as common as leaves on trees. Things that get me sometimes:

My dog that had to be put down in 1990. Such a great companion! I haven't wanted a dog since. It may be odd that this is at the top of this list, but it always is.
Losing a particular climbing partner when I moved away from the area for good. That was hard enough, but after an email argument over politics and the years passing, I only get to talk to him when visiting. Nowadays, he and his wife have a lot on their plate, and so for now, there's legitimately no opportunity.
My first and only marriage. I was and am devastated. Not much else to say about that except that I can now freely admit my share of blame for it.
The .22 rifle that my Dad gave me for Christmas when I was 12. It's not the thing that was important, it was the connection with my Dad that it represented.
Time lost not doing what I really wanted to do because I was afraid of failing or of what people might think.
Aspects of a relationship with one friend are being lost, something I struggle with.

A wise and compassionate friend mentioned that he views some of these things as change, not loss.

And with that advice, I remember that my suffering is all in my state of mind. Things are impermanent and not letting attachments own me is where my work is.

2008-11-29T09:19:00.002-05:00

I've been watching and listening to The Real Folk Blues, written by Yoko Kanno, used as the closing song for Cowboy Bebop. It brings up an interesting subject, which is the turning off of perception so that one can sense what is really there.

The song is sung in Japanese, except, interestingly enough, the first line of the chorus, which is "the real folk blues" sung in English. This anomaly of a line is part of a delicious contrast between not understanding the Japanese and understanding the English. Stated more directly, the contrast is between sensing and perceiving. I can only sense the Japanese and so it's easier to observe nuances in note articulation, that is, to hear the music as performed. With the English part, I have to turn off my interpretation of the words to do the same thing.

A good friend tells me the same thing is in play when drawing. The concept is key in Buddhism, too, where we're taught not to judge things and to let go of preconceived notions about things so that we can accept them as they are.

It's an important idea for me to stay connected with and use.

It's also another great example of how our minds get in our own way.

And the comical item from the morning?

When programmed properly, an hp-48g makes a great waffle timer!

2008-11-26T20:35:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US. How about some things I'm thankful for?

My health.
Three children that I not only love but like, something that I've come to understand is not a given.
A wife that I still love and that still loves me even as we shape a new future much different from the past.
A very dear woman who has helped me know to myself better and to be a better man.
Zen and my meditation practice.
My support group and my sponser.
My job, especially in these times.
Climbing.
Enough money to pay the bills.
Lime sherbet.
Sardines.
Nice guitars and amps.
Orange sherbet.
Nice bowls—for lime sherbet.
A nice little apartment in a great location.
Lime sherbet.
Futons.
My bike.
Did I mention lime sherbet?
The Internet and computers.
The fact that this didn't take all night to write because my typing is coming along.
Lime sherbet.

I could go on and on, really. And there you go.

Pumpkin pie tomorrow, but for now: Where's my spoon?

2008-11-24T08:15:00.002-05:00

Just as a personal marker, the last few days have seen meditation without various muscles in my back knotting up, a most welcome change, and one that brings hope, too, that I can attend another sesshin without it being torturous. My fingers are crossed on that account. As for doing it at all, it's a delicate balance to apply enough force with the right muscles—the inner ones—to sit erect while leaving the other muscles—the outer ones—relaxed, something harder for me than I would have imagined. I find that to get it right I must be calm and well centered. Imagine that.

And while on the subject of meditation, I can't recommend it enough. It doesn't take any money or equipment to speak of and it is helpful, both to oneself and the people one comes into contact with. There are many kinds; I practice shikantaza, a type of meditation closely associated with Zen. With this, as in all things as I'm coming to understand, we all have to find our own path.

And speaking of paths, I could really rip one up on one of these things. Hah! I refuse to age out of this stuff!

2008-11-22T20:18:00.002-05:00

Ah, the typing saga continues...

And isn't awareness the key to all things, really, even typing?

Like:

Where my fingers are when I'm typing because the letters on the keytops, except for 'a' and 'm', don't match reality.
Getting some letter combinations to roll off the fingers by letting go instead of holding on tighter.
Not digging too deep with the pick while practicing scales on guitar.
Paying attention to the speed and volume of air while working on flute.
Watching the tension in various muscles in my back when in meditation and adjusting them without verbalizing a word.
Feeling my emotions arise during difficult conversations and being able to name them, but not let them take me over.
Seeing my behaviors that cause harm and putting a stop to them before they go too far.
Feeling anger flash and looking underneath to examine the primary emotion.

The list could go on and on.

Paying attention, being aware, being awake.

Being in the moment.

Alive.

2008-11-21T14:43:00.003-05:00

My definition of serenity has changed over these months: Instead of thinking of it as pain-free living—clearly incorrect at this point—I see it now as the ability stay centered in the midst of emotional turmoil. The feelings come and go. I—whatever "I" is—stay. I am not my feelings, I experience my feelings.

((Of course, true serenity can be bought at select bike shops across the country...hehe))

2008-11-20T08:07:00.002-05:00

An excerpt from an email to an friend:

My curiosity got the best of me and thinking about keyboard layouts, and since I hadn't written any programs in a while, I figured I'd look into the real differences between Qwerty and Dvorak, without giving any judgment about the results.

A few definitions:

Home row words: All the letters are on row 2, that is, where the home keys are.
One row words: All the letters are the same row.
Stretch: A stretch of 2 key rows between two adjacent letters in a word, e.g. "m" and "o" on a Qwerty keyboard.
Stack: When two adjacent letters in a word are keyed by the same finger, e.g. "e" and "d" on a Qwerty keyboard. I do take into account that the index fingers do double duty with columns 5 and 6. I do not account for a little hand shift that might unstack the letters as for "h" and "u" on a Qwerty keyboard.

I ran the analysis on the first 10 chapters of Joyce's Ulysses (taken from this site: http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/ulysses/) all pasted together in a single file. Non-letter characters were changed to white space, all letters were converted to lower case.

And the counts came out like this:

$ cat ulysses.txt perl keyanal.pl
Dvorak results:
Total words (12984) and chars (388403)
One row words (627) and chars (76495)
Home row words (564) and chars (75442)
Stretch words (1907) and instances (2109)
Stacked words (2202) and instances (2413)

Qwerty results:
Total words (12984) and chars (388403)
One row words (287) and chars (25529)
Home row words (60) and chars (7406)
Stretch words (8095) and instances (14875)
Stacked words (4975) and instances (6333)

The differences in the numbers do seem reflected in the way the typing feels, something subjective for sure.

2008-11-19T10:38:00.002-05:00

You know, doing things like changing one's computer keyboard layout does wonders for one's powers of concentration. I haven't worked this hard in years! And I did it on purpose! I think it might take this time, though. More letter combinations are starting to roll off my fingers without thought. It's an interesting process to revisit—learning how to type, that is—twenty years after doing it the first time.

The holidays are coming and for me and many others, it is a time that can be filled with tension. I have to watch out for feeling a) like I'm being told what to do and b) feeling like someone's trying to take something from me. That's all me feeling ignored and threatened. I also need to be aware of my emotional state, be honest it, and have the courage to make it known when appropriate.

My spiritual training teaches me to let go of pre-conceived notions about how things should be, to let go of the clinging to desires and aversions around wanting or not wanting to do things, and to let go of judgement of things.

Tactically, I may need a time out here and there, but that's OK. Things are what they are. I'm OK.

Zen and the Christian Holidays. Who'd a thunk it?

2008-11-14T10:41:00.002-05:00

I find myself and my engineer's mind lusting after one of those $2000 plus mountain bikes—say, the Trek Fuel Ex 8, for example. I rode one the other day for a few minutes. Big mistake! I must have grown up poor, I guess. It sure seems like a lot of money for a bicycle, but man, what a ride!

2008-11-12T14:50:00.002-05:00

A few old things are continuing still:

Working out yesterday, I held a straddled lever—a little piked, but the best I could manage—for almost 10 seconds three times, proof that regular workouts actually have a positive effect on strength and endurance. Hehe... Imagine that!

Nice bike ride yesterday, too, a touch over an hour, somewhere between 8 and 10 miles. Legs not even sore today. Nice.

Flute and guitar have been active of late, also nice. No real skill progress, just maintenance really.

I can also feel my typing coming along as well. Different from last time, I removed the regular layout so I have no choice. Perhaps it's working.

2008-11-10T09:04:00.002-05:00

Silly blog entry, all about typing...

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2008-11-08T21:04:00.002-05:00

Well, maybe it's time to resurrect this thing, eh?

A couple odds and ends:

Got my keyboard set to Dvorak again. Typing real slow... Hehe... Using it as a sort of awareness tool, to bring my mind into the moment and keep it there. What can I say?

Election over, things such as they are, we'll see how they turn out.

Good anime lately, "Cowboy Bebop" is the latest. Fun stuff.

Once my typing speeds up, I'll like it a lot more. Sheesh!

2008-04-23T09:11:00.002-04:00

Been a while since I've been in here again. What can I say? Busy doing other things, and the front burner issue in the news these days—the election and, in particular, the Democratic primary—is just, well, not exactly inspiring.

So, a few small items:

Here's an article on education from Thomas Sowell. I love it. Lots of good stuff on NRO these days, at least, if you're on that side of things as I tend to be. Still I enjoy the odd article on The New Republic, but I wish they would give access to the whole web site for free.

The Bear Went Over the Mountain was a funny and quick read. It conjures images that I've certainly never entertained and worked beautifully. Fun stuff.

Efforts at personal growth continue: I'm trying to learn to let other people have their own struggles and still be compassionate about it. I'm trying to be more caring to myself and to others. I'm trying to live the three precepts: Cease doing evil, do only good, do good for others.

Meditation helps with that and with self-awareness and calming.

I'm signed up for a retreat at Great Tree Zen Temple soon. A full seven days. I'm a bit nervious about it. I've never remotely attempted anything that sustained. We'll see how it goes.

2008-03-18T09:13:00.002-04:00

I like John Derbyshire's words about ethnicity, Tibet, and Rev. Wright in this column over at NRO. His final statement gives a nod to simply dealing with reality, something that I'm learning to do more and more.

2008-03-17T15:52:00.002-04:00

Check this headline from The New Republic. No pretense of anything except smearing an opposition candidate's image in the effort to win. I keep attempting to find the level-headed decent Liberal op-ed column, and I've enjoyed a number, but these keep popping up. They unfortunately seem more typical than atypical.

I was watching video clips of William F. Buckley debating Noam Chomsky from way back and, while I tend to disagree with Chomsky, I could admire two intelligent people having a civil discussion of ideas and actually debating a point. It stands in marked contrast to what passes for that sort of thing today.

2008-03-14T10:23:00.003-04:00

A question that I keep running across in the press is this: Is waterboarding torture?

Are they kidding?

Of course it's torture. Just read the description. Entertaining a debate on that question at all is nothing more than so much mincing of words so that someone can claim that the US doesn't engage in "torture". It's fundamentally dishonest. Better to simply say that yes, in some cases we do, but we do our best to not let it get out of hand. Better perhaps, but sometimes politically unacceptable.

It would be nice if it wasn't that way.

2008-03-10T08:46:00.001-04:00

South Carolina in the news again. Honestly, has there ever been a more embarrassing state to be from?

And Mark Steyn has one of the funniest columns I've come across yet about the interminable Democratic nomination saga.

2008-02-28T11:44:00.002-05:00

I need to mark this: Yesterday, William F. Buckley, Jr., one of the people I admired most in this world passed away. An important point for me about Buckley was this: Even many of his political adversaries, people who often hated his positions on issues, recount what a fine person he was and that they genuinely liked him and that he always treated them with dignity and respect.

As I've aged, I've come to understand just how uncommon and priceless that sort of thing is.

May he rest in peace.

2008-02-22T08:03:00.003-05:00

I am not, by natural bent, generous or compassionate. I am selfish to the core. The biggest lesson for me to learn in life is to love without thought of return.

I note clearly here that this does not imply martyrdom. In my training I am taught that it is indeed my own greed, hate and delusion that cause my suffering. I find that to be a verifiable fact of my existance when I am able to bring my mind back to center and find serenity in situations that cause me pain. Time and time again, when I take offense at something, upon further consideration it will become clear that I am clinging to a desire for something from someone. When I am able to stop clinging and let go of the desire, I return to a peaceful place and my world is transformed. When I act out love and compassion after letting go of selfish desires, I experience serenity I would have thought not possible.

And so, it is without a doubt the right thing to do, to show love and compassion to the people in my life in all cases.

2008-02-21T11:43:00.004-05:00

Conservative Michael Ledeen writes this piece on a meeting in Denmark. Even as I ackownledge difficulties and realities, my hopes for Iraq rise when I read things like this. And at the point that my path of faith has brought me to, I feel today a more tangible compassion and hope for people's well-being and am glad to not be quite as cold as I had been all my life.

My prayers are with these people struggling for reconciliation.

2008-02-19T08:04:00.005-05:00

Two articles, seemingly unrelated at first glance, share a common thread: Liberals cast people as victims in a way the conservatives often don't understand or agree with.

The first piece, by Thomas Sowell, talks about the liberal media "supporting" the troops, but casting them as victims. The point is made directly and convincingly.

The second, a review of Taxi to the Dark Side, by Roger Ebert, makes a statement that had me wondering: The "conversations with the American torturers themselves are the most heartbreaking". I understand the point and sympathize with the young men that thought they were doing their duty and suffered mental trauma as a result, but can that mental trauma really be equated to the brutal torture of a prisoner? I have not seen the film and so am not commenting on the content of it per se, instead commenting on what seems to be the liberal baby-boomers' propensity for rearranging moral values and priorities via victimization. By way of contrast, in all the World War II documentaries I've ever seen, I never heard any Allied soldier say anything remotely like "those poor Japanese prison guards that tortured us" or "those poor Germans that worked at Auschwitz". Who the real victim was was never in doubt. Any mental trauma that the aggressors suffered would be considered secondary if at all.

Additionally, regarding violent behavior in general, there is a theft that goes on that must be acknowledged: The aggressor steals the victim's right of choice. This provides a clear distinction between the two parties involved. Arguments to the effect that various aggressors, for whatever reason, had no choice are sometimes true, but frankly, overused. If one looks at leaders widely thought of as examples of courage and compassion, we find that they made the moral but difficult choice and accepted the consequences. So much of what I detest in the 60's Liberals is that they won't accept any consequence at all for their actions and thus argue that they have no choice in any difficult matter. Two words spring to mind: selfishness and cowardice.

Let me add this: I am, myself, a late baby boomer. Selfishness and cowardice have cost me dearly in my life. To realize this truth about myself is to realize that I am human after all and that I will always fail, again and again. I must treat myself with compassion so that I can go on training so that I can live better and not fall into despair.

And treating myself with compassion is the first step to treating others with compassion.

Especially those who help me train by showing me my own faults.

2008-02-14T09:06:00.002-05:00

This report from Lebanon is jaw-dropping in its audacity. ". . . outside the natural battlefield. . ."? I read something about the Islamic extremists that went like this: Never has anyone demanded so much from others and expected so little from themselves.

And at the same time, in my practice I am taught—and begin to believe in my heart—this: We all are, at our core, capable of the atrocious things the extremists have done. We either forget it, or don't want to admit it. I, for one, have not wanted to admit it, but in my heart of hearts, I know it's true. So that I don't do those things is why my practice is so important.

2008-02-12T09:58:00.000-05:00

The Archbishop of Canterbury made some comments about Sharia law of late. Does the name Chamberlain ring any bells? Anyone in the West who thinks they want any part of Sharia law should go live in Saudi Arabia a while. I did just that for five years. People like this Archbishop have no idea what they're talking about.

A friend gave me a good laugh when he sent me the following:

Liberalism has been called a mental disorder in some quarters. That label appears appropriate when one considers liberal thinking on several current issues:

* Large profits are obscenely un-American, except when it comes to George Soros, Oprah Winfrey, Hollywood stars, and other liberals.

* Driving without a license is illegal, thus illegal aliens should be licensed to avoid breaking the law.

* The earning power of the average American family is in serious decline, but the United States should grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens who will work for lower wages and no benefits, thereby driving wages into further decline.

* Killing the sale of port security to United Arab Emrates was necessary to protect home land security, but closing the borders with Mexico would unfairly scapegoat Hispanics.

* Bilingualism is essential in a tolerant, diverse society, except when it comes to requiring Hispanics to speak English. In that case, it becomes racism.

* Conservatives who work to preserve American culture and tradition are hate mongers. But immigrants from other nations/cultures must be encouraged to retain their ''cultural identity'' at all costs.

* Execution of a convicted killer is cruel, unusual, and barbaric, whereas a woman's right to abort the life of an innocent child is inalienable.

* Starving an innocent, helpless victim like Terri Schaivo to death is fine, whereas using lethal injection to end the life of a brutal killer is NOT okay.

* Invading a foreign nation is wrong, except when illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin nations invade America.

* Discrimination based on race or gender is wrong, except when waged against Caucasian men, in which case it is mandated by law and called Affirmative Action.

* Masculinity and all things male are the source of all evil, whereas feminism is liberating and spiritual in nature. Jesus was probably female, if truth be known.

* Freedom of speech must never be repressed, except when ''hurtful'' to any constituency of the Democrat Party.

* Tax cuts are wrong if it means returning money to the people who actually paid taxes, but perfectly fine when sent to those who paid none.

* Christmas, the Holy Bible, and other symbols of Christianity must be quashed so as to offend no one, whereas, Ramadan, the Koran, and symbols of Islam must be heavily promoted in the name of religious tolerance.

* Businesses are oppressive, fascist institutions that must not be allowed to grow too large. On the other hand, big government, when run by Democrats, creates wealth and happiness and is very desirable.

* Military force must never be used, except when absolutely needed to advance interests not vital to the United States, or to obscure a Democrat president's sexual misconduct in the Oval Office.

2008-02-08T08:03:00.000-05:00

I find wading through the nonsense from politicians and pundits tiresome, especially in an election year. Some people feel trustworthy when I read them, some don't. If I had to pick a single one that I trust it would be a tossup between Thomas Sowell and Victor Davis Hanson. Both back their arguments with—as far as I can tell—verifiable facts, their reasoning seems direct and sensible and their writing is clear. Both are conservatives and write for National Review Online regularly, as well as other publications. I imagine their equivalents on the liberal side are out there somewhere and I don't know who they are, but would be glad to know and read them.

2008-02-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

Finally, to get back at it. . . .

Roger Scruton writes one of the most interesting pieces I've read in a long time, this one about modernist architecture. In the latter part of the article, he mentions Nikos Salingaros who in his writing mentions Christopher Alexander's thoughts on architecture and how people perceive it. It resonates strongly with how ugly modern buildings seem to me. It's worth a look.

Of course the primary elections are on right now, yesterday having been Super Tuesday. Neither major party is united, but undecided. Articles from the Left on The New Republic and from the Right on National Review Online both observe the phenomonon.

Politically, I am conservative—which, by the way, is not a synonym for Republican—on simple grounds: I believe the less government meddling in people's lives, the better, given that certain basics are covered. I make no claim as to magical cures for thorny problems like health care for people with little money, mind you, but I prefer that solutions come from the private sector, not the public. Stated another way, I believe in personal charity over corporate.

I'll offer exactly one opinion on the candiates today:

Consider the spectrum of principled living. Put Jesus and The Buddha at 10. Put Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin at 0. I would put the average person at maybe a 6 or 7. I'd put most politicians around 5 or 4. I'd put Hillary and Bill Clinton at about a 1. The only reason I wouldn't class them fully with Hitler and Stalin is lack of opportunity.

I hope to post more regularly again, but I guess we'll really only know after the fact.

2007-12-20T07:58:00.000-05:00

This story simply broke my heart. A life mindlessly ended at age 7. If those kids go to prison and the inmates find out why, they are quite likely to find what real Mortal Kombat looks like. I don't expect it will be pretty.

2007-12-13T07:53:00.000-05:00

I was educated as an engineer.

In the invulnerability of youth thought that science would explain everything, that man would understand everything. Let's just say I'm a little older now and know my place in the universe a little better.

Last night, my 8 year old son wept the bitter tears of a child whose pet was dying: His tarantula named Krakatoa—Crackers for short—was flipped over on its back and not moving much. I felt the end was near and tried to comfort my son. My daughter, just 3 years older, overheard us talking, and wept as well. They love creatures of all sizes and shapes and see the wonder in them all. To have one that was dear to them in its death throes was painful.

I woke this morning and went to check on Crackers and there in its cage seemed to be a second spider: Crackers had molted. Joy swept the household for the spider that seemed lost but had then seemingly returned from the dead.

My wife quickly found on YouTube a film of a tarantula molting. In two minutes, she found text that described the behavior before and after the molt and so we took the crickets out of the cage and made sure Crackers was left alone.

And so, the children had their miracle.

And I, the engineer, had mine. Frame what the spider had done as an engineering problem: Build a device that uses an exoskeleton, that when it's time to make the device a little bigger, simply shed the outer skeleton and have the new one automatically constructed and ready to go underneath with only a little time spent drying and hardening to be ready for use. Seeing the requirement written out, I would have said it can't be done.

But wait a minute: It gets done all day, everyday, everywhere. Just go outside and look around.

Miracles everywhere.

2007-12-10T13:33:00.000-05:00

I just finished Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed and I'm not quite sure how to describe my reaction to it: Thoughtful and respectful at the end, distant and skeptical during the read. It's a Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and National Book Award winner; I expected to be riveted by a book so acclaimed, but just wasn't.

One personal observation: The sort of utopia described in the book looks, by the eyes of this 49 year old who was young during the aftermath of the if-it-feels-good-do-it 60's, to be fatally flawed. Having seen what most of that nonsense from back then turned into, it's not plausible, in my mind, that the Utopian society described could remotely work. Such things seem based in a liberal naivete that, by 2007, takes on a tone of irresponsibility that is either criminal or laughable.

Having said all of that, I would still recommend the book. It's well-written and one of the classics in its genre. My disagreement with its ideas may not be yours.

2007-12-06T08:18:00.000-05:00

Thoughts get scattered as the morning gets underway, so I better write now.

I'm about 4/5's of the way done with Le Guin's The Dispossessed and I don't quite know what to make of it. It's kept me reading, obviously, but beyond that I don't feel a lot of sympathy for the characters. I expected to have a different reaction to a book that garnered the awards this one did. I'll finish it, but I'm not that excited about it.

Disk 1 of Ken Burn's The War left quite an impression the other night, mostly of the violence man can perpetrate on man and how horrible it is. Relevant to that was an idea mentioned by some of the soldiers interviewed, to wit, that although, as one of them put it, there is no "good" war, there are in fact some necessary wars, and that World War II was one of them.

Another impression was the sheer scope of that war. That dawned on me as I observed that this first disk of a six disk documentary did nothing more than hit the highlights of what it covered. Nothing was discussed in depth because there's just too much of it.

My mind wanders, linkages made from one topic to the next . . .

The first of the Buddhist Ten Great Precepts concerns killing. The Buddhists I'm affiliated with interpret that to mean killing anything. "Thou shalt not kill" is one of the Ten Commandments from the Judeo-Christian family of faiths; it is often interpreted as "that shalt not murder", something a touch different. It's a difficult thing, sometimes, to reconcile these profound teachings with the reality of survival in the face of a regime like, for example, Nazi Germany. Shall we kill to survive? I think Buddhists I know—they regularly pick up cockroaches and gently take them outside, something I've done myself and see the logic in—would shun even this, while the Christians, for the most part would struggle with it, but likely come down on the side of survival. Both faiths clearly struggle hard to come to grips with the idea. Both would clearly rather not be involved in any killing of other people. I imagine it to be a very ugly thing to confront and am thankful I've never had a personal encounter with it. My heart goes out to the soldiers who have.

2007-12-01T10:12:00.000-05:00

MMOG's fascinate me.

I've had an avatar in Entropia Universe for a couple years now and at one time spent perhaps 10 hours a week in there, which is not a lot by a lot of gamer's standards. Now, Entropia is expensive—for most players, around $1 to $1.50 per hour. That, combined with what feels like the impossibility of progressing via the small number of hours I play, plus life outside, has driven me out of it except for the occasional visit to say "hello" to a couple people.

I decided to sign up for a trial of EVE Online a couple days ago, am very impressed, and have the feeling that it will be my new online diversion of choice. It's very complex and will take a while to learn my way around, even at a novice level. Set in space, it's huge, composed of over 5000 solar systems. The biggest question is whether or not a non-hardcore player can feasibly enjoy a game this complex. I think it's possible and that the secret is in the attitude and approach. We'll see.

2007-11-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

Losing my center to anger the last couple days certainly killed a lot of time and joy. What was it all about? The interesting part is that the difference between my situation today and yesterday is exactly nil. The difference is all in my head. When I'm centered, I can remember that and hold onto it. When I get far away from center, I lose the ability to hang onto truths that keep me sane.

Chaplin's Modern Times made for a good watch the other day. It's easy to admire his work, but I find that from that era, I tend to like Keaton's character better than Chaplin's Tramp. Both are superb and to pick one over the other may be just so much hair splitting. Great stuff that has stood the test of time.

2007-11-18T08:54:00.000-05:00

A couple Buster Keaton movies were in store the last few days: The Cameraman and Spite Marriage. Both silent, both very enjoyable, I liked the former more than the latter. My younger kids—8 and 11—have become great Keaton fans, me along with them. Wonderful to watch, I recommend them highly.

2007-11-15T08:29:00.000-05:00

A time marker—Haven't noted one in a while:

After having a sore left inner elbow for a good eight months, and being on anti-inflammatories for a couple of those, it seems to be healing slowly. I went bouldering a little at the gym the night before last and it felt OK. I think if I'm careful, I'll be able to climb again, and maybe even pursue The Ripper Traverse (look about halfway down the page for it) again. I'm encouraged.

I bought a Zoom G2 guitar effects unit to use as a headphone amp. What a great little item! I could easily gig with it, it has so many sounds. Quite a deal for $100.

I friend turned me on to www.zoho.com the other day. The best way to describe it is that it's a free online office suite, along the same lines of what Google is working on. On a first, brief try, it seems more full featured than Google's. Have a look.

2007-11-13T15:37:00.000-05:00

Talk about head shakers: This and this just boggle the imagination. What else can be said?

2007-11-06T11:37:00.000-05:00

I really enjoyed Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima the other night. As much as any part of the film, I enjoyed the fact that they used Japanese directly and subtitled it. Some may fine the subtitles tedious, but I find that after the first two minutes, I don't notice I'm reading anymore; I just experience the film.

The film illustrates the point that while governments run amock seem to start wars and other governments respond, thus joining the battle, a great number of souls involved are simply people that would rather be left alone to live their lives, raise their kids, and the like. Those people generally don't wish any harm to anyone until taught and/or incited to.

A fine film at any rate, well worth watching.

2007-11-04T09:37:00.000-05:00

Meditation this morning. . .

I had trimmed the tall stuff around the edges of the pond yesterday, the evidence of that destruction lay all around. I sat a few feet from the water looking down on reeds that, having been cut, floated in the edge.

It dawned on me that the small creatures I had affected with all that cutting simply dealt with the change. They didn't complain. I could see none sitting and worrying about it. If they were left alive—for surely I killed some—they just carried on without clinging to the way things were before I showed up, going about their lives in the new reality.

Now, in the pond are a number of good-sized carp, around a foot and a half, put there to eat the weeds. They seem to be thriving and from time to time as I walk along the edge, I would see the swirls of water that meant they were there.

This morming in the quiet, after a lovely moving fog had burned off in the new sun of the day, after I got the lesson from the small folk there, I saw the carp. Three of them swimming along slowly, single file, moving on to the next patch of weeds I suppose, on their own path, as I was on mine.

But this time I saw under the water that wasn't swirling.

I saw the carp.

2007-11-02T21:44:00.000-04:00

I read descriptions of mindfulness and they all mention something like this: Give yourself fully to the task. Do one thing at a time. And so on.

How to live this out?

For me it means things like this: Not surfing and reading email while I eat my breakfast—just eat. Not listening to music while driving in the car—just drive. It's a different way to live and I notice very slowly over time, that on the days when I live that way, my mind is more at peace. I'm happier.

In a very nice writeup of the Eightfold Path from Buddhism, section 7 is on mindfulness. The concepts described in the Eightfold Path are very practical and helpful to me.

2007-10-28T21:45:00.000-04:00

Life continues on quietly.

Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed is the current fare, just started. It certainly has a good reputation. We'll see how it goes.

Playing my acoustic guitar a bit lately. I feel old licks coming back, and some new ones forming. Nice to be back in that space.

Meditation is serving me well, especially in the cool mornings the last two weekends out by the pond. There is a lot going on there that's easy to miss while walking, but that one sees while sitting. It makes for crystalline moments.

Finished watching It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World with the kids. I love that style of humor. Great movie for the children, too.

I note that the Middle East and politics drone on. Blah, blah, blah. I don't have anything else to say about it for now.

Hewlett-Packard put out a new old-style calculator, the hp-35s. Nice little machine for all the geeks out there, of which I am one. My fascination with hp's calculators dates from engineering school and does seem persistant. Those little computers—because that's all they really are—make me smile for some reason.

2007-10-22T09:07:00.000-04:00

I'm going to re-post some things over in Serpentinarium where I think they fit better. I'll also try to use the the two blogs more as I intended when they were created, something I got away from.

2007-10-22T08:38:00.000-04:00

A couple movies:

Flags of Our Fathers is a film that evoked a real meloncholy in me about war. By the end of it, and in light of the present situation, the most I can say about war is that I've never been involved, don't know anything about it, and shouldn't offer any opinion on it. While I may offer some sort of thought on political ideals, situations, and the like, those aren't war. Any time my position on an issue would imply war, I need to think long and hard about what I know and don't know and the people who are affected by people like me.

On a much lighter side, Buster Keaton's The General is a wonderful film from the silent era, a delight from start to finish. I remember watching a much older Keaton in short films when I was a child and only recently have learned how highly regarded he is. Roger Ebert's review of The General works as a great prelude to the film itself. Enjoy!

2007-10-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

The Sound of Music makes me cry every time I watch it and I think I finally know why:

At a critical turning point in the story, a man that, in his grief and loneliness, was cold and harsh with his children and others is made aware of it and realizes the harm that he'd done. He ernestly regrets it and apologizes. The apology is accepted and he's forgiven. Reconciliation occurs and the movie shows the joy that ensues. The process of apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation is something I never saw in my home as a child. Now, I'm fully aware that life cannot and should not always be like the movies, but let's also acknowledge this: Stories in movies are drawn from experiences in life. Ignorance of this process has cost me and people around me and is something to grieve.

It's also something to correct as I grow and learn new ways to live.

2007-10-16T11:33:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I fell into the trap of my own making:

I let someone's suffering create fear in me, fear that got the better of me and pushed my mind out of the moment into the past and future. While in the past, I grieved sins committed by and against me; while in the future, I feared suffering that may come to pass and grieved good things that may not come to pass.

The lesson is this: Stop clinging to what I desire someone to be. Then I can see them as they really are and be compassionate toward them. Then fear won't arise and I'll be able to stay in the present where I have everything I need in this moment.

What seems like a cold thing to do, that is, to let go of that desire regarding someone, will actually let me love them rather than my deluded view of them.

Certainly, this has to be the way to live.

2007-10-10T07:56:00.000-04:00

Nissan's Pivo 2 concept car really sparks my imagination. It has electic motors on each wheel which allows it to drive sideways to facilitate parking. It's symmetrical fore and aft in terms of running gear and the cockpit rotates all the way around. Nicely done.

2007-10-09T15:51:00.000-04:00

An old friend is in the hospital. His health declined over the last 15 years and I wonder if he'll come back out. He's done his best in a very difficult situation for a long time.

In the same vein, my father, now an old man, is fading, too, after seeming so timeless to my eyes. Confusion keeps him dependent now on people to help him get from place to place.

I pray for them and the wisdom to do the right thing by my family and friends.

2007-10-08T19:29:00.000-04:00

Fun with fear:

The spillway of the pond I live by sprung a leak at the very bottom. After the water dropped about five feet, it stabilized, giving me time to think of what to do. Not having a clear idea of the solution, I procrastinated a good month. Dragging out the boat just seemed like too much trouble, so I elected to do what any 10 year old would do: Crawl through the three foot diameter pipe under the dam into the spillway and do the work there.

So be it.

Cutting briars away from the mouth of the pipe for a few minutes opened the way. So I stood there and looked. And looked. After a comforting walk back to the house to fetch a flashlight in a plastic bag, I fidgeted around for a while thinking about that creepy dark conduit. Twenty minutes of arranging and re-arranging my cargo later, I climbed in and made my way to the spillway, itself a little creepy, since I was standing essentially under water that's only kept out by a bunch of boards that close the gap in concrete walls. I figured I wouldn't drown with ten feet of water coming in, but I'd probably get skinned up pretty good going through that pipe at 20 miles an hour. That idea always gives me the creeps, not to say anything about memories from childhood of water moccasins laying around the mouth of the pipe I just cleared. It was shady and cool so I didn't think they'd be waiting for me. Well, probably not.

I arrived at my destination lugging fifty pounds of old pink double bed blanket, totally soaked from its trip through the pipe. I couldn't keep it out of the water because my other hand was occupied carrying a machete. Just in case. I wanted to be able to deal with whatever was in that pipe that I could see while holding the flashlight in my mouth. Of course, I wouldn't drop the light while screaming.

There was the leak, a jet of water at the bottom, shooting into standing water, noisily churning it away.

I climbed up the inside of the boards that cover the gap. Forty-five year old re-bars, set in the concrete and spanning the gap behind the boards, some rusted thin, provided a suspicious ladder. A hunk of brick in folded in one corner of the blanket to make it sink it where I wanted was tied in place with a thin rope. Using the rope, I lowered the blanket into the water in front of the boards, slowly letting it sink down the face toward the leak. The rope payed out slowly and then zip: The churning stopped. I looked down and a wad of blanket was sticking into the now quiet standing water. Presto: Leak fixed.

That took about five minutes.

I wonder what the month and the twenty minutes were for?

2007-10-04T23:04:00.000-04:00

Drinking the waters of the Way today. . .

Lunch with an old friend, soothing words of Christ.
A daughter's birthday, celebrated with song, returned by a radiant countenance.
Cooking for little ones, helping hands with mischievous grins.
Cradling darkness, quiet warmth of the little ones drifting off.
Familiar strings, an old song, callouses found anew, nice notes laughing.
Lao Tzu's wisdom, images of serenity.
A candle, incense, a bell: Quiet sitting, inward looking.
Smiles on a familiar face, decades of affection, quiet and warm.

Simple things.
Life.

Peace to all.

2007-10-01T12:12:00.000-04:00

Ethereal music, lyrics in a language I don't understand, takes me now to a place of quiet reflection at my keyboard.

I saw a comment on Serpentinarium that I had moderated but forgotten about and realized I haven't talked to that person in a while. I treasure the connections in life. This one crosses an ocean. I've missed the little spark that always happened when I saw the words coming to me from thousands of miles away.

Wistful am I, listening still.

2007-10-01T08:17:00.000-04:00

Yesterday,
Morning meditation outside in cool fall.
Bird flittered in trees,
Squirrels scampered branch to branch,
Scrabbled in dry leaves on ground.
Cars on distant road, tires breathed the speed.
Planes a thousand feet in sky, homed to earth,
Air whipping and whistling, followed aluminum wings.
Signs of life outside,
Sang to life inside.

2007-09-25T19:27:00.001-04:00

A couple movies, old and new:

3:10 to Yuma was excellent, as good a western as I've ever seen. Interesting plot, great acting, the works. Ebert's review is here.

And in a completely different vein, we rented Gojira, otherwise known in English as Godzilla. Gojira is the original 1954 Japanese film. A classic monster movie, fun one for the kids, the subtitles didn't bother them at all. I was delighted to see the superb Takashi Shimura from Seven Samurai and Ikiru fame in a nicely done suporting role.

I've taken to renting old movies for the kids and they love them all. It's easy to check the reviews and see which ones have stood the test of time. With Netflix and Blockbuster, you can easily rent nothing but four-star classics if you want. I thought we'd try a couple of the old monster movies just for fun: King Kong and The Creature from the Black Lagoon are next.

Should be fun.

2007-09-24T14:47:00.000-04:00

The UAW just called a nationwide strike against GM. Earlier in the year, Toyota became the biggest car-maker in the world and is not unionized.

Sure, there are other factors, but how many people see the connection?

Have a look at this article about Toyota. These guys are serious. I own one of their cars, and you know what? It never breaks. It's got over 120,000 miles on it, and it's almost as tight as a new one. I drove it on a cross-country trip, 2000 miles one-way last year and didn't think twice about anything but tires. The word I got from an honest local mechanic is that if the Americans made their engines like Toyota—and most of the other Japanese makers—he'd be out of business. And he meant it as a compliment: Do regular maintenance and they're good for 300,000 miles without taking the heads off. The American ones? Not even close.

Now, I have all the confidence in the world that the Americans can compete, the question is will they be allowed to?

2007-09-21T08:53:00.000-04:00

Connections I make with people are important to me.

I traded a couple emails with someone the other day. The person on the other end would have had no way of knowing how I was feeling from unrelated events and how heartened I was to recieve their last message. This morning, from something they wrote, I see that they got something good from me in the exchange.

And so, it helps me understand that in connection and compassion, we—people—feed each other.

2007-09-21T08:48:00.001-04:00

A couple blogs I check almost everyday—everyday zazen and A Small Stone—capture certain moments and thoughts.

2007-09-21T07:57:00.000-04:00

This morning, my irritated wife asked me to stop doing something and as it happened, an old habit from childhood—attention seeking, and the use of it as a control mechanism—popped up into view. After biting back my reaction, a brief talk about it, I was able to see what was going on: Using other people to fill an emptiness inside, and at that, having poor timing about it—in the middle of the kids getting ready for school.

As they say: Another growth opportunity.

It's funny how things go sometimes. I feel peaceful and calm about it, thankful that she brought it to my attention, thankful that I was given the insight that will help me make a change for the good of myself and the people in my life.

It's a good morning.

2007-09-18T08:05:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, a crystalline moment:

Fading sun, about an hour of daylight left, sun riding low above the trees. My broad-brimmed canvas hat shades my eyes as I recline in a chaise lounge by the road in front of the house. Rich golden light touches the high trees and road, painting early fall. Paused in my reading, I look out over the pond, water five feet down from a leak, low and cool in late afternoon shade. Except for a single large patch of sand opposite me, grey mud rings its perimeter, narrow on the steep slopes, wide in the shallows. Two urchins, my two, have dragged a small red and white cooler and a red wagon into the bare and slimy bottom on the other side and are picking golf balls of imprecisely known origin out of the muck. With mud flying, ernest chatter, turned unintelligibly into babbling from the hundred yards distance, narrates the adventure, the joy in which is palpable where I sit smiling in silence.

2007-09-15T19:43:00.000-04:00

Tiger is in the lead in another tournament going into Sunday, while Zach Johnson shot a 60 and set the course record. Amazing stuff, beautiful to watch.

Watching golf and tennis has been a nice escape in the last couple weeks. I'm finally feeling rested again after feeling pretty tired from traveling a number of times over a few weeks.

So, for around six months, tendonitis in my left elbow has put a stop to sports and a slowdown on yardwork. I finally went to a sports medicine practitioner and it looks like I'm in the pipe to get this healed up at last. I hope so. I really want to get back to working out somehow. My age and ability to heal are on my mind: The clock is ticking. I better get moving if I still want to get some things done.

2007-09-11T16:05:00.000-04:00

A nice retrospective writeup of 9/11 from the Right by Hanson, and an account of plain stupidity on the far, far, far, far, far, far, far Left, admittedly written by someone on the Right. But still...

I've enjoyed a number of articles from The New Republic of late and I think I mentioned that I'm trying to read a bit more from the Left, but I was surprised that today there was no mention of 9/11.

From time to time I go by The New Criterion, too, finding intelligent, very nicely written, and—as far as an outsider such as myself can see—informed opinion.

I haven't thought about 9/11 that much so far today. I guess I may stop and do that tonight. It would seem a worthwhile thing.

I keep having a lot of thought rolling around in my head in the mornings in the car on the way to work and by the time I get to sit and write, they're gone. It is what it is, I guess.

2007-09-09T08:27:00.000-04:00

I've always loved the elegant simplicity of tennis: Hit a ball back and forth over a net, the first one that misses loses the point. Of course, the scoring is a bit different from every other game I can think of, but I think that it importantly provides a rhythm that would be otherwise be missed completely.

I played and watched a lot of tennis in the early 80's and I can see how the game has changed. And although I really enjoy watching players like Federer and Henin, one thing that has made the game less interesting to watch is how similar the players' games are now. Twenty five years ago, the various top players had styles that were quite different from one another. For example, Borg played big looping strokes with heavy topspin from the baseline seldom coming to net, Connors used very flat spinless shots with constant agression, McEnroe was superb serve and volley with strokes that looked nothing like anyone else's, Vilas was heavy topspin, onhanded on both sides, Evert was steady baseline play, while Navratilova was super agressive serve and volley, Jaeger was slower baseline play with moon balls, Mandlikova was an all-court game, and on and on. Today, seems to be less difference in style of play, the main difference being that of execution, and sometimes, from a distance it's hard to tell exactly who's playing.

Another interesting point is that serve and volley tennis is almost gone. This link will search YouTube for "borg wimbledon". This link will search YouTube for "federer wimbledon". Both searches will return results from Wimbledon finals of the era. Have a look at the wear pattern on the court in Borg's time versus Federer's time. Nowadays, there's almost no wear near the service line because almost no one is playing serve and volley, even at Wimbledon.

Interesting how the game has changed.

2007-09-05T15:15:00.000-04:00

In traveling lately, I notice my mood is more volatile than when at home. I get lonelier, feel more isolated, feel more keenly the grief of past wrongs both given and received. While engaged in the very act of traveling—waiting or boarding whatever the machine is, be it bus, plane or train—staying in the moment is easier. It's the down times in the room away from home that are hard. In the way that traveling is the metaphor for spiritual quest, acknowledging my difficulties helps me become human.

One day, I hope to be able to stay centered as I move through life on my path.

2007-09-05T10:09:00.000-04:00

I must say, I never thought of sacrificing a goat to fix an airplane. Guess I'm not a very good lateral thinker.

And this article on human-animal embryo research gives me an uneasy feeling. The potential horrors are all but unspeakable, at least in my mind.

2007-09-04T09:26:00.000-04:00

I understand how vague impressions of things aren't always accurate, but this story about "Rock stars more likely to die prematurely" makes me wonder who spent good money to figure this one out. It may be sad, but is it really a surprise? How many of us had party maniac friends who are no longer with us?

2007-08-30T08:49:00.001-04:00

My taste for SF continues to be sated, most recently with Ursula K. Le Guin's Four Ways to Forgiveness, what I found to be a beautiful collection of four novellas. Le Guin writes, among other things, soft SF, where the real subject is humanity and attendant issues. Her treatment of those topics is, itself, unusually compassionate; as much as any writer I've ever read she seems to feel for the people in her stories. Forgiveness is part of the Hainish Cycle, and so I have more to look forward to.

Moving on. . .

If you've never read any of Roger Ebert's zero star reviews, do yourself a favor and have a look at one. His review of September Dawn is the latest. You can easily find them via the advanced search page on his web site. All are very well written. Some of them are really funny.

2007-08-29T10:11:00.000-04:00

An old friend sent me this cake-taking link with the subject line "Proof that governments are insane". No kidding!

I should warn my Buddhist friends about this, huh?

On another note—no pun in tended—a friend enlightened me to the wonders of Vaughan Williams' Mass in G Minor. I was not able to listen to the entire piece, but I hope to hear it performed before I die at a particular church I'm very fond of. The parts I heard are heartbreakingly beautiful, almost unbelievablly so. I don't know which recording is considered best; many show up on an Amazon search.

2007-08-28T16:00:00.000-04:00

New York City.

A good friend—the reason I am here—shared fine meals and congenial company with me and gave me compassion and laughter. We walked and talked for hours.

He also gave me the space to be me.

Thus, in a paradoxical turn, this busiest of locales became a place of solitude and reflection. A number of hours were spent alone sitting, thinking, and praying over events in my life, happenings in my mind. As my thoughts wandered through pain and grief from the past and fears of the future, emotions came and went like the tide. Fingers of loneliness felt through me, blocking my attempts to return to the present, to center.

A talk with a wise person helped me see a way forward.

In truth, my life could have been much worse—countless peoples' are—but I and others of my family share certain hurts, some of which caused me to hurt others, and as I come to a deeper understanding, ignoring them and carrying on as before feels wrong.

Looking deep inside to find my true self will be difficult.

I'm scared.

Pray for me and wish me luck.

2007-08-26T15:50:00.000-04:00

The man in the Panama hat sighed as his martini was served in a sherbet glass.

A girl at the bar read a book while working her way through a plate of something colorful but indistinct. Cocked sideways against the rail she might also have been watching the TV—flittering visions of various sports—or the wait staff gathered in the corner chuckling over who-knows-what. Heat outside was kept as bay by hulking air conditioners in a corner, but the place managed to look sweltering and sweaty even in the cool. Bare wood floor, finish hanging by a thread in the corners, had endured the trampings of countless patrons looking for a drink, perhaps a place out of the weather.

Looking at that odd glass, Panama imagined what perverse turn of events might have precipitated such a choice in tableware: Was someone murdered by the broken stem of the proper item? Any bar that had seen the number of beverages poured that this one obviously had would surely have a martini glass. He looked at his companion, gave a little shake of his now bare head that held sparkling eyes.

"Cheers."

2007-08-24T07:58:00.001-04:00

Here's a type of story I just love: Brian May, the guitarist from Queen, 30 odd years after starting it, finally finished and turned in his thesis in astronomy and was awarded his PhD. In a BBC interview with him, you can see what an intelligent and articulate man he is, one that just happened to be a rock star. My hat's off. Best wishes to Brian.

2007-08-23T14:17:00.000-04:00

Here's a real head-shaker: A reality show that follows someone for whom at least a large part of their job is making another reality show. I'm trying really, really hard to let go of the aversion.

Hehe...

2007-08-22T15:05:00.000-04:00

Last night, I lost my temper with someone very dear to me. I distinctly remember several instances of choosing to escalate my anger at my loved one's expense. I essentially and willingly voilated any number of precepts that I know to follow, things that if lived by bring peace. Issues were on my mind, stresses of life were perhaps greater than normal, but still, my behavior was reprehensible. In retrospect, it was all for no good reason.

Was it understandable? Yes. I'm human.

Forgivable? I hope so. I apologized to this person and I believe it was accepted. I asked their forgiveness and was told that it was given.

The hard part: Can I forgive myself?

Part of what I've learned of late is that in order to love others I must first learn to love myself. I must have compassion for myself before I can have it for others. Now I find in the aftermath of such an incident—self-loathing now quelled with the help of a talk with a friend—here in my middle years, that I scarcely know what "compassion for myself" looks like.

I need to learn, though, for my own sake and for the sake of those around me.

2007-08-20T10:29:00.000-04:00

Hanson has some interesting comments about Military History and its state in American academic institutions. At the bottom of the article is a guide and reading list for studying military history. The old maxim about repeating history because of ignorance of it applies in spades here, as well as an acknowledgement of man's basic nature. Interesting reading.

Related is spiritual life in which killing is taught to be wrong. Rapprochement between Christian or Buddhist teaching and the realities of human life is difficult, sometimes centering on the question: Is survival worth killing for? I know one monk who, I think, would answer "No." I think I would answer "Yes", but then questions of imminent danger, perceptions, and accuracy arise and make the question stickier. One thing is this: I don't want to answer "Yes".

It's an old human problem, but one that makes me think anew from time to time.

2007-08-20T08:11:00.000-04:00

Ever think of music as a mind-altering drug?

I notice it as I ride back and forth to work, almost the only time that I really listen to music anymore. In particular, I notice the contrast between the last few months when I had quit listening to music while driving, the past before that and the present now since I've loaded up my little iPod Shuffle (another story) and have had it with me the last week or so.

I've enjoyed Clannad's music for years—still I only have a couple of their albums—and I put a few of their songs in the iPod the other day. I find Moya Brennon's vocals to be beautifully evocative, reflective, intimate. The songs I chose are sung in Gaelic and so I hear complex sounds, not words that I can assign meaning to. Purely emotional content is communicated. The effect on my mood is more subtle than, say, alcohol but if I watch for it, it's detectable.

The next questions would be: Is the effect just associational, that is, stemming from events at another time when I listened to the piece? Is it addictive? (I would tend to answer in the affirmative on this.) Are there other sources of the effect? When I "watch for it", is that self-fulfilling?

The silliest part of it is that I often chose music that one might think would bring my mood down and, sure enough, it does. Brilliant, huh?

One has to laugh.

2007-08-19T19:47:00.000-04:00

A quiet Sunday afternoon, a relaxing visit with an old friend, a great way to spend a little time. Out of touch with politics and sports just now, in the last few days. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just is.

No reason to judge it, and every reason not to.

Heat has settled on the area for a couple weeks now. Inside and air conditioning is the order of the day. Outside only if playing in water, but sometimes even that's too hot.

The height of summer.

2007-08-17T08:40:00.000-04:00

I just spent a few days in a port city where it's easy to watch cargo ships come and go. I've always found transportation centers fascinating and there is something about ships that I find very romantic beyond all reason. Combine that with cell phone with a browser on it and a little fun is available. The idea only occured to me the last night I was there, but I was able to look online and find information on the last ship I watch ease by, the Maersk Daesan—a picture here—which can haul a cool 5060 TEU's of cargo. A TEU is a "Twenty foot Equivalent Unit", that is, one of those 20 foot containers that you'll see around. On the highways around the port, you constantly see trucks pulling 40 foot containers as a trailer, so that's 2530 of those on that one ship.

So, then my curiosity got the better of me and I googled for "largest container ships". Holy smokes! Check out the Maersk Emma, currently the largest container ship in the world. It can carry 11,000—yes, that's not a typo—TEU's, and at that Maersk is known for under reporting their ships' capacities; some outsiders put the Maersk Emma's capacity at around 14,000 TEU's going off of the ships dimensions. Nice little boat, eh?

2007-08-14T11:14:00.000-04:00

The possiblities that come to mind for virtual worlds are very interesting. Sometimes I don't like where I think things are going, and sometimes I'm all for it. I think intent and focus has a lot to do with it. Check this article about what's happening soon in Second Life. Remarkable. I have an account in there—Mina Christensen. I may just have to log on and see what the event is like.

2007-08-13T08:32:00.000-04:00

Hooray for Tiger's win yesterday at the PGA!

Also in the afternoon, we really enjoyed the Bourne Ultimatum. Great action! Fun romp in the theatre.

And, this morning, I woke up with this realization:

A good friend will often say things and have trouble following through. I get aggravated and feel I've been mislead, eventually thinking, "Why do I have to figure out whether what they say is true or not? Why are they misleading me? Why am I being lied to?" What I have completely missed over the years is that they are suffering and need help. In my self-centeredness, instead of perceiving someone else's pain and suffering, I only perceive my own, and thus, I fail to love them. My self-centeredness causes us both to suffer.

A self-centered focus like that reflects desire for something from the outside, which in itself reflects a belief that I am missing something, when in fact, I have all I need. It's yet another case of letting go of a desire, letting go of a belief that causes suffering. Another component in the situation is that I see that person as I want them to be instead of how they really are. That also is just another desire that, if let go, will let me see them as they are, which then will enable me to show the compassion that they, as human beings, deserve.

Now is the time to break old patterns that have caused much harm.

Now is the time to learn what love and compassion really are.

Now is the time to practice them.

2007-08-12T07:49:00.000-04:00

I've grown to really like watching golf in the last couple years. I have a daughter who loves watching it with me. I've played a bit over the years, but not regularly, not often. I think the game has real beauty on many levels: The course itself, the elegant simplicity of the game—put the ball on the ground here, hit it into the hole over there, count how many hits it takes—and I enjoy the fact that it's a game that is not a metaphor for war. You basically play the course and yourself. Isn't that really a metaphor for life, instead?

And so Tiger has three stroke lead going into the final round of the PGA today; his partner will be Stephen Ames. Tiger will be looking for his 13th major championship, Ames for his first. I love to see Tiger play well and win because of the excellence of his play and because by all accounts he's a good man off the course. I just watched an interview with Ames and was impressed. He's a good man with a sense of humor who's been a contender in a major for the first couple times this year and is excited by that. I wish them both well today and tip my hat to how well they play a very difficult game.

2007-08-11T13:13:00.000-04:00

After a little dispute with someone very dear to me this morning, I had to work to find my center again. The answer seemed to lie in two things: Acting honorably and doing what was the next right thing, and staying in the moment with that. My irritation and aggravation faded, and when I saw the person again a couple hours later, I was at peace. An old habit kicked in, prompting me to offer a one-line apologetic explaination that was likely unnecessary and, I think, would have been better left unsaid.

One lesson from this is that it isn't required I be spoken to a certain way. My pride was basically the source of the dispute. I simply could have taken the request to perform a task at face value, and done it. As it was, my mind flipped into thinking about the bigger picture and my feelings about being left out of the planning popped up. The instant they surfaced, I quit listening which made my partner aggravated as it became apparent. As I consider the coming work this afternoon, I can see that there will be plenty of opportunities to join in the planning once things are underway. What I was asked to do was necessary in all scenarios, and so any dispute over it makes no sense.

A Buddhist way of looking at it: Let go of desires and aversions, take in the situation without judging it, and respond in compassion so that no suffering is caused for myself or others.

A Christian way of looking at it: Don't let pride get in the way, trust God that you'll be OK, serve others in love.

Again, I am tempted to write how I harmonize the two views, but I think it's best to leave it. If one sees the harmony as I do, no description is necessary. If one doesn't, then no description is helpful. We're all on a spiritual path of one sort or another. I have one that works for me today.

2007-08-10T15:45:00.000-04:00

Early this morning, I woke up in the dark with dark thoughts. Meditation by a single candle and a little incense lightened my soul as dawning light outside lightened the day itself.

I see that my misery is self-created and a change in mind is a change in world.

It's late in the day on a Friday. My afternoon here at the office is quiet and serene, work is almost done for the week.

I'm tempted to analyze and comment here about Buddhist and Christian beliefs. But there's no need, but perhaps to note only one thing: Things are what they are. I'm learning to simply accept it.

2007-08-09T16:04:00.000-04:00

Letting go of desires—and aversions, the negative of desires—is such an interesting concept in its pervasiveness. It makes the difference, for example, between trying to preach to a grown child to do what you think is best versus simply passing along one's life experience in the matter and then continuing on. The difference between the two in that example is often the difference between having a chance at being heard or not. Such an old idea, so very relevant still.

Other names for desire, aversion, and delusion might be greed, hatred and lying—in all forms. Three classic causes of suffering. Once you have those clearly in mind, you can see them in action all over the place.

Also interesting is where life is counter intuitive at first blush, as in the previous case where holding tightly almost guarantees loss of opportunity while letting go enhances the chances of keeping it. Most eloquently written of in the Tao Te Ching.

Many opportunities for growth in my life.

2007-08-06T08:19:00.001-04:00

It's hard to balance the ideas of letting go of desires and aversion and exercising proper parental control over children. Perhaps I'm over-controlling at times, but I don't want to live in a house that would look the way it would look if I didn't make them do some of the chores. Can I let go of that? I think if I just look at what the house would turn into if let go, I can say that it wouldn't be helpful to us to allow that, and so rather than judging it, we just do the tasks because they need doing.

Onward I go.

Zazen was good this morning—around 34 minutes—another refuge of calm clarity. A useful way to start the day. I time the sitting, not to control the time, only to measure what it turns out to be. I only have vague intentions when I sit down. On the weekends, I go for 30 minutes or better, on the weekdays before work, usually less, depending on how the morning is going, but at least 10. IF it's short in the morning, I sometime have another short one in the evening.

2007-08-05T07:45:00.000-04:00

Over the last few days we watched a couple movies, both of which were follow-ons to anime series: Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: The Conqueror of Shambala and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society. I enjoyed them both but not as much as I would have expected. After digesting the story arc of an entire series, a 105 minute movie seems long enough to contain a good story, but not long enough, not deep enough. They're as well done as can reasonably be expected. I just think my tastes have changed somewhat.

Nothing like short concise titles, either, eh?

2007-08-05T07:34:00.000-04:00

Soothing, spring quiet
Emptiness not filled, useful
Possibilities

2007-08-04T11:27:00.000-04:00

Zazen this morning turned out to be a full 46 minutes, by far the longest time I've ever sat. It was serene and left me with things I wanted to write about, but now the day has started, I lost my temper for just a minute with my daughter, and so I can't remember what I wanted to write.

Part of the practice is to keep that serenity and mindfulness in daily life. Another part is not to judge it failure or success but simply accept it with compassion for myself and stick with it.

And so, the day continues, and I'll move into it and try to cause no suffering for myself or others and to be a useful part of the whole.