Back from vacation, Jury Duty Etc..

Check out APC's blog for more detailed info from our trip to HHI for the past weekend.

Things I learned on this trip:

1)Babygirl gets fussy past 8 PM
2)it is waaaaaaaay too hot in the end of August to sit by a pool in coastal South Carolina
3)Georgia's laws against happy hours STINK! half price appetizers and $2 beers at a 4 star resort on the beach in South Carolina? sweeeeet. (Cartman voice)
4)Wild Wing wings at Hilton Head are just as yummy as they are in Atlanta.
5)Hotwire rules. We stayed at a top notch resort with great facilities for a C-note a night.

After we returned I had to report for my civic duty at the Fulton County Courthouse Monday morning. Jury duty. Two words feared the country over, yet noone really knows why. Basically I learned why. You wait way too much, and then listen to lawyers speak, and you can't resume your normal schedule until they're done with you. BUT..this was a murder trial, and it was actually very very interesting. More on this later, but let's just say, I didn't make the jury after TWO DAYS of questions.

*sigh* Finally back at work.

Oh and dayammm....APC's Blog is dominating mine in hits - you go girl!

Family Vacation!

Woohoo!

The first family vacation starts tomorrow morning. APC and I will pack up the Babygirl and head to HIlton Head Island, SC for some fun in the sun. Needless to say we'll be out of commission for a few days.

Be back on Sunday night with sand between our toes!

The latest in Gaza

I can't ignore this story that's going on in Israel any more. I've been hearing about it, but now I saw and read this article regarding the withdrawal of Israeli 'settlers' from the Gaza Strip. Some are being removed forcibly by their own army. This saddens me greatly. There are a couple of dynamics at work here and I have found a couple of quotes in this article which display the bias inherent in the media and also the attitude of the 'Palestinians' (really Israeli and Jordanian Arabs) towards Israelis and Jews in general.

One woman wept and shouted, "I don't want to! I don't want to!" as four female soldiers, each grabbing a limb, carried her out of her home in Neve Dekalim, the largest Gaza settlement.

In one synagogue, radical youths who had slipped into the main settlement bloc sang the haunting melody some Jews sang on their way to Nazi gas chambers.

- Now this is just plain sad.

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli troops dragged settlers screaming and sobbing from homes and synagogues on Wednesday, beginning a forced evacuation of Gaza settlements after nearly four decades of occupation.

- This from the beginning paragraph of the article where Reuters clearly states that the Israelis were occupiers. This displays the obvious media bias against Israelis and Jews in general, by invoking the oft used 'occupier' term to label them. Never mind that it was Egyptian (no such country as Palestine) land ceded to Israel in a cease fire agreement after Israel captured it in the 1967 war. Nope, they're just Jew occupiers. According to this reasoning, Spaniards are occupying Moorish land and Arabs are occupying ancient Bedouin land.

Palestinians, who see settlements as the most hated symbol of occupation, watched and cheered from nearby rooftops.

- and of course, the 'Palestinians' show their true feelings towards the Jews, as if they haven't done so a hundred thousand times previous to this. Now look at this objectively, would you cheer if someone was being forcefully removed from your neighborhood? Just don't seem very Christian to me. Oh wait...never mind...

Now I don't know where this is all going, I'll leave all the prognosticating and theorizing to people who know more about the politics of the conflict over there, but this is my blog and well I just felt like saying something.

From the Center of the biggest Red State

Just saw an amusing article linked through MSN Chat's 'MSN Today'. Apparently some neighbor of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas has had enough and shot off a shotgun while the 'doves', as MSN terms them, were holding some sort of protest-prayer-vigil thingy. When asked by reporters why he shot in the air with a shotgun, Larry Mattlage said 'This is Texas'. I don't really know what that means exactly, but still, it's kind of funny. A few things I find telling about this article:

1) That this is such a big deal that MSN printed an article about it. Of course they were assuredly waiting for something like this to happen so that they could make a big deal out of it. Now if he had shot at the 'doves', then that would be a story. But instead we get 'that evil Texas Red Stater shot a gun in the air'.

2) Mr, Mattlage just wants things to get back to normal. Quote: "Mattlage said he was sympathetic toward the demonstrators at first, but they have blocked roads in the area and caused traffic problems. He said he fired his gun in preparation for dove-hunting season but when asked if he had another motive, he said, “Figure it out for yourself.”" *guilty chuckle*

3)This is the proverbial money line. I don't wanna get too much into these 'doves' down at Crawford wasting everyone's time too much, but this will tell you what Cindy Sheehan thinks of most of America:“I think we knew of the risks when we came down here,” she said. “I’m surprised we haven’t had more of that since we’re in Bush country.” Yup, there you go. Bush supporters or 'Bush Country' = Shotgun totin', mesh hat wearin', violent yokels who just don't understand the progressiveness of a 'peace protest'.

Now I know why Cindy Sheehan is there to protest or meet the President or whatever the hell she wants. The loss of a loved one in a war must be difficult to deal with, but I could think of some other more constructive uses of one's time than badgering the president to admit that he killed her son, even though he didn't. I still have sympathy for the mother in Cindy Sheehan, but not the political activist.

Why do I put the word 'doves' which MSN so eloquently used to describe Cindy Sheehan's ilk in quotes you ask? Well, because doves don't go around squawking and drawing attention to themselves for political causes. Once again I'd like to quote Mr. Mattlage.. "Figure it out for yourself".

The U.N. Springs into action!!!

Hot on the heels of my recent viewing of the movie 'Hotel Rwanda', the U.N. is still living up to its reputation as a organization that gets the job done. (not)

Now that Iran has decided to continue towards creating a nuclear warhead and has violated all of the U.N. agreements it was supposedly abiding by, the U.N. has come out and acted! Looky here, they show 'concern'! That'll show those pesky mullahs in Iran! Even better, maybe they can furrow their collective brows at them about the nuclear thingy! Yeah, that's the ticket!

If anyone has a clue about history they will see what happens when the U.N. shows 'concern'. See Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Ivory Coast, etc. etc. (the U.S. cleans up the mess)

Thoughts on Mortality and Sickness

Ugh.

I came back from San Diego with a sunburn and a sore throat. The sore throat changed into a brief head cold that seemed to go away over the weekend. Then Wednesday afternoon my voice started getting hoarse and by the time I got home from work, I couldn't talk. I basically was making odd hoarse raspy noises that vaguely sounded like the English language, or a frog choking on a freshly caught fly (how's that for simile?), depends on your angle of hearing it I guess. Oh and my throat hurt. I had to call in sick on Thursday and half day Friday because of this 'thing' that invaded my body.

What's my point? I have a point, really I do. You just don't realize how important your voice is until you lose it. I could not do my work and I work with computers most of the day when I wouldn't think I would have to be able to speak. It threw me out of my normal 'comfort zone' and into a realm of the unknown where I had to communicate using hand signals mixed with whispers. Digital communication can only do so much, but face to face is still where we as a species make and break relationships. Now I have an idea of what it would be like to be mute, and it isn't fun. I have since recovered, but the experience will last with me for a while.

Hopefully I won't have spread it to my wife and baby girl. We might have to learn American Sign Language then. Or get a big whiteboard with some dry erase markers.

Don't think I'm getting waaaay too deep here, I mean it's almost football season and I'll have plenty to pontificate upon then that some may deem shallow.

San Diegoooooo....

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I realize that I may be losing many of my loyal fans by my lack of blogactivity (is that a word?). I have been at a conference all last week in San Diego, California.

Wow. What a great place and a great conference.

It was the big ESRI International GIS conference at the San Diego Convention Center. It was my first time going and I couldn't beleive that there were almost 15,000 GeoGeeks all in one place at once! It was incredible, There were hundreds of technical workshops on GIS software, thousands and thousands of map displays, hundreds of GIS demos, User papers, maps, aerial photos, and maps, oh my! It was definitely a great time to network and learn alot about my industry.

My thesis advisor in graduate school at USC, Dr. Cowen, got a lifetime GIS achievement award at the plenary session on Monday in front of thousands of other GIS colleagues. He was moved to tears. It was a great moment for a man I am a big fan of. Congratulations Dr. Cowen! and of course, as he was leaving the stage, after the thunderous applause, someone shouted 'Go Gamecocks!'. and the grand poobah of all things GIS, Jack Dangermond said from the podium 'umm, yes.'

*sniff* it was beautiful.

The keynote address was given by Jane Goodall of Chimpanzees in Africa fame. She gave a really good speech about the Earth and how were destroying it and all and how she got to come to know the chimps in Gombe. Then after her speech, she and Jack Dangermond were on the stage and started chatting about things. He asked her a couple questions and it got pretty liberal, pretty fast. I have alot of respect for Dr. Goodall and the things that she has done for environmentalism and science in general, but some of her views on the world are a bit extreme. But then I suppose if you devote your life to these views, then I guess that's what one should expect to hear. Dr. Goodall proceeded to tell us (I paraphrase a bit, but this is what I remember):

- we are destroying the Earth and we should return to the good old days of
subsistence hunting and gathering (yeah that'll fix it!)
- that many of us buy things we don't need and that is one of the problems with
Western Society (I don't need this house or motor car? Who'd a thunk it?)
- Things would be so much better if we just gave more food and money to the poor in the world (You mean we don't already give BILLIONS of American Taxpayer dollars in aid to the world already?)
- She pushed her 'Giant Peace Doves' as some sort of statement that everyone on Earth really wants peace. She hoped that someday 'a satellite will fly over the planet and see thousands of giant peace doves all over the planet'. As jaded as it sounds, I couldn't help but chuckle at her peace doves. It's just funny. Check out the link - its good fun. I just hope those things come equipped with explosives for the terrorists and murderers in the world.

San Diego is a great town. The weather was unbeleivable, I kept shaking my head thinking to myself 'it's almost August, Pat, almost August..really!' as I was strolling through the Gaslamp District in the middle of the day in sunny, 74 degree temperatures with NO humidity. Being from Atlanta, I KNOW humidity. They don't have it in San Diego, and that is why it is so expensive to live there. Not only is the weather great, but the downtown area is happening with tons of restaurants, bars, shops, etc. that people actually go to at night. Yes I am referring to my own hometown's lack of downtown life, and the reasons are many, but I won't get into them here. Let's just say that SD sure as hell puts on a good nightlife time - whether it be a fancy reataurant, Mexican cantina eating on the sidewalk, or Irish pubs...they got it. Plus beautiful bayside scenery and palm trees.

But I have to be honest with yall, as great as it was to be out there, by the time the third morning dawned, I was reallly missing my wife and daughter. It just isn't the same to travel without them.

awwwwww.