Places to go, people to see, things to do

OCTOBER 31, 2007

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Repo: The Genetic Opera

OCTOBER 27, 2007
The wife's side of the family had a big beach ride and cook out at Surfside. A bunch of family and friends went down with a collection of horses. We took Alice along so she could ride as well.

The weather was beautiful and things mostly went well. The sometimes unreliable middle window on our trailer fell on L~'s head, cutting her forehead, scrapping her cheek and banging her shoulder. She has quite a lump, and being a head wound, it bleed profusely.

Then when I went riding with a couple of the girls after dark (after a nice romantic ride with L~), Blue decided to take a roll in a nice soft patch of sand. Bad Blue. I guess that is where the big bruise on my inner thigh came from, even though I was never trapped. It happened so fast and I have never had a horse roll like that on me before.

The moon was pretty close to full. When it rose over the ocean, it was a wild red. You would have almost thought it was the setting sun but for the dark mare.

We had chili dogs and roasted marshmallows over the fire. Mmm. Crunchy sugar! Folks packed up pretty early it seemed like, and we got home around midnight. We had the usual problems with trailers stuck in the sand and so on, but eventually everyone got out. A fun time was had by all. Photos to come,

We mounted some battery powered LED lights in the trailer and they are really nice.

OCTOBER 24, 2007
At Fry's last week I bought a 10 DVD/20 movie set of science fiction movies. I think I had only heard of one or two of them. These are all Late Show candidates, but the box boasted extraordinary casts. Last night we watched Slipstream from 1989. The cast featured Mark Hamill, Bill Paxton, Robbie Coltrane, Ben Kingsley and F. Murray Abraham. Quite a cast! The movie was not terrible. Perhaps tonight we will watch the next in line.

The parents completed their trip along the entire length of Route 66 in their 1966 Barracuda at the age of 66. They could see smoke from the various wild fires raging in California, but it only slowed them down a little. Congratulations, Mom and Dad!

The weather continues to be wonderful, but I spent half an hour raking pine needles, acorns and leaves and still am not finished. Of course, that is a chore that is never "finished" this time of year.

OCTOBER 23, 2007
It is a fine day. Fine day, indeed. The weather is glorious and to make it even better, I was visited by the book fairy this morning. Thank you, book fairy!

All Work and No Sleep Makes Jack Go Crazy
Sleep or Die!

Well, Fidel Castro gets it in "Bush, Hunger and Death". Fidel Castro has been a world leader for over four decades and has tolerated numerous American presidents and their wacky schemes, but he has outlasted many leaders and governments. Compare that with our Presidente. Castro recognizes that nobody has talked about using nuclear weapons and starting World War III until Bush brought it up. The US government has lived in fear of the tiny island nation since the Communists took over and still have not figured out that opening up full trade with Cuba is the quickest way to turn them into capitalists. It almost makes you believe the theories that the US keeps Cuba at odds in order to have a constant "threat." Very Orwellian.

OCTOBER 20-21, 2007

Then Sunday, we boarded up a couple of stalls to turn into hay storage and Hank and I stacked 75 bales of hay for the winter. That was good hard work

OCTOBER 19, 2007

OCTOBER 18, 2007

I am very opinionated today.

Dinesh D'Souza's comments in CSM (What atheists Kant refute, October 17th, 2007) are accurate if you are still living in 1781 and know nothing of science.

Kant was not wrong, but he misses the point of science. Reality is that which is observable and Kant cannot prove that reality is any different from what we are capable of observing.

Consider D'Souza's mention of a tape recorder recording only sound. The ability to record sound did not exist in Kant's time, nor did the ability to view infrared or ultraviolet light, or detect (and create) other forms of radiation, nor did he have the ability to measure distant stars. Humans have been able to detect things indirectly, then invent the ability to observe them directly. We can observe the minutest particles from which all matter is made and observe stars billions of light years away. Yet with all that ability, we have not observed angels flitting about in the heavens nor demons torturing souls in the magma below our feet.

Science has increased our ability to observe and understand new things about the world around us, yet religion consistently limits its reality to "revelations" from the past.

De-Evolution: More proof that ancient man was smarter than modern man
So scientists have found a 164,000 year old site where humans hung out on the beach, ate shellfish, did not worry about their cholesteral and did not pay taxes, proof that ancient humans were smarter than modern humans. Anyone who thinks our lives today are better than they were 5,000 years ago or more are fools.

When the Goddess Ruled?
Another thing that annoys me on occasion is the use of female figurines to argue that females and goddesses were dominant in the past and that somehow men took over later; the above article suggests that the use of metal to create weapons allowed for male dominance - as if sticks and stones were not sufficient.

However, there is an old axiom: "Any new medium is immediately used for porn." If you look at the internet today, there are a lot of naked women on it. If we were archaeologists, we might assume that these women represent female deities and the leaders of society. Normal people, however, recognize that men like depicting naked women. So to with ancient "Mother Goddess" figurines. No doubt men created them as fetish items - the same way that the Barbie doll was based on a German sex doll called Lilli.

I Love It When I Am Right but
That Is The Way Science Works
A newly measured black hole exceeds the mass predicted by theory, which means either their measurement system is wrong or their theory is wrong or both. I have said for sometime that quantum physicists, astrophysicists and cosmologists are getting way ahead of themselves, creating theories long before sufficient data is in hand. That is what you call job security. Sure, the scientific method is all about modifiy theories as new, better data becomes available, but "scientists" have made some pretty outrageous claims based on the most tentative and pretty obviously flawed data.

Expect some more major shake-ups as time goes by. Just look at Gravity Probe B: Over 40 years of planning, research and development went into the project and it turns out that the final data is crap. The researchers are having to develop complex fudge factors to get the data to come out "right". You have to laugh.

Bush To Go Down Swinging (Wildly)
In a press conference, Bush warned that he will start World War III if Iran is allowed to develop nukular power. Bush, who has consistently shown that he is afraid of everyone, reconfirmed his paranoia that everyone is out to get him and that the only people that should be allowed to have nuclear power and nuclear weapons are those people who already have them.

OCTOBER 17, 2007
Last night I went to Fry's to pick up a few things. Sometime between 5:30 and 6, they had a power fluctuation that crashed their POS system. While the line continued to grow, cashiers were handwriting receipts and all credit card purchases over $75 (at Fry's that has to be most purchases) had to be approved by a supervisor phoning the company. Yikes! It is hard to imagine a world were all transactions were handled that way. Oh wait, I grew up in that world.

Today is Mom's birthday. She turns 66 today. She and Dad (also 66) are touring historical Route 66 in their '66 Baracuda. They are getting their kicks on Route 66. You ought to check out their website and blogs.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

OCTOBER 14, 2007 Cowboy Guide to Physics and Cosmology

There are more people (including physicists) who misunderstand Schoedinger's Cat and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle than understand them. The same is true with the "Observer Effect".

Cosmology and physics becomes a religion when it violates the scientific principle of observable data. Mulitverses, virtual particles, superstrings, membranes, which by definition are unobservable are the equivalent of heaven, hell, angels and demons. The internal consistence of abstruse mathematics is no more valid than the speculation of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica (Aquinas predicted quantum jumps, by the way.)

Time travel (in the science fiction sense) is impossible, despite what Ronald Mallett may think. Time travel exists in the sense that all matter is travelling through time the same way that the universe is constantly expanding. Also, despite what many books, physicists and the Science Channel keep saying, physics is not time-reversible. There is nothing in correct physics that supports the shattered pieces of a teacup leaping up of the floor and reassembling themselves.

The idea that the Universe is "fine-tuned" to create intelligent life is overstated.

Jim Skipper, Cowboy Genius

OCTOBER 12, 2007
Friday, we touristed around Galveston most of the day. We drove up and down the seawall, strolled along the Strand and ran into an acquaintance driving a horse and buggy.

We met a group of Nederalnders. They offered us Heineken while the rest of the group drank Amsterdam brand (the cheaper Dutch beer, they said). We met Natalie from Tershelling. She was the only female on the group, young, tall, blonde, cute and intelligent. We had a nice chat with her. The senior member of the group is a Texas fan and had his cowboy hat and a big belt buckle with the State of Texas on it, but instead of boots he was wearing sandals with black socks - so very European.

After looking at the Tershelling website, I really want to go there. I travelled very briefly in Holland when I was stationed in Germany. I remember it as being pretty flat and rural. We visited Madurodam, the miniature city, drove through The Hague and saw a few other places.

OCTOBER 11, 2007
Today is our eleventh anniversary. We are spending it doing nothing. Very relaxing.

OCTOBER 9, 2007
It turns out horse chiropracty is both as interesting and not as interesting as one might imagine. It does not involve a large padded table, or harnesses and hoists, just some horse tranquilizers and a strong man with a couple of large rubber mallets.

Dr Lewayne Hames first pokes and prods the horse the way any doctor would do any patient , then gives them a shot and when they are dopey, has you position their legs, just so, places a rubber mallet against the bone he wants to a adjust and smacks with the other mallet. It is bizarre to watch.

Missy had some hip and lower spine problems. Dreamy's problems were saddle related.

Horse chiropractors can handle a horses neck much like a spine. He grabbed Missy's head and could bend it all the way back. Imagine touching your ear to your shoulder without raising your shoulder. When Dr. Hames did Dreamy's neck, it gave off a series of cracks like L~'s back on a good day.

OCTOBER 1, 2007
For all my forum users:

Praiseline Peters: We are aware of the issue with MySQL slowness and our engineers are working on it.
Jim Skipper: So basically my websites are going to be down until you guys can get it fixed because nothing is coming up at all now.
Praiseline Peters: I am able to access the Web site, it is loading slowly.
Praiseline Peters: The issue will get resolved as soon as possible.
Praiseline Peters: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?


I have had a FatCow for six years. Recently they upgraded to MySQL5 and nothing has worked right since. GoDaddy offers the same service for less money (and so far the one GoDaddy phpBB forum I set up has not seem to have any problems. But GoDaddy's website is so cluttered. It is a web design catastrophe. I cannot stand to look at their main page.

It has been a busy and expensive week. I had to have the starter replaced on the 4-Runner and L~ had to have both her batteries place and a lot of other minor maintenance on the truck.

This weekend, Hank had his JROTC picnic. They let parents participate in the Pushball game this year and I was the only one who did. It was as much fun as I thought it would watching from the sidelines last year.

I got to chat with AJ bit, then tossed the football with Marissa and Jake. Marissa has a pretty good throwing arm. I did pretty well myself, but now my shoulder is killing me. I think I am going to go buy a football and Hank and I can toss it on the weekends.