Seat of Power

As 1945 was drawing to a close the world wide nightmare was ending - what was to believed - once and for all. The wave of Fascism had gripped Asia and Europe and had been in the subsequent wars been repelled, crushed under the mighty weight of people who demanded to be free. But as Berlin was crumbling and as the Red Army advanced a darkness fell upon the whole of East Europe. An adversary more powerful and more sinister that what lie dying in bunkers of Germany.

Evil never sleeps. When one host grows too weak for usefulness it abandons it in favor of a stronger host and as Hitler lay dead - with it the promise - or threat - of a new world order, in it's wake was the great red tide. A new war started seemlessly as the old was ended. Conflict never ceased as the guns had and in this silence battles raged on - not only across vast oceans but now also on the homefront and with the power of God in missle form behind each super power.

I stood now long ago in front of the Capitol Building in Washington DC, standing in awe of the magnificents of the history that took place inside. The halls were both great men of incredible courage and exemplarly vision and visionless cowards served at the will -and sometimes- discontent of the people through many trying times over the last 207 years. How many millions of lives were directly affected by the desisions made unbeknownst to those sitting in those hallowed halls - and in my mind even more troubling - how many people today walk by not realizing how much of an affect those desisions - both good and bad - have really had on the peoples of this earth. They walk by without thought to what an incredible achievement Jefferson, Madison, Jay, Payne, Franklin and Hamilton to take the ancient philosophies of Plato and Aristotle and Hobbes amonst many others and apply them to a real state - one that frees instead of enslaves in whcih I for one would like to believe has had a net positive effect on the state of man. And the building in which they casually walk by in the epicenter.

Race around the World

I want to do a race around the world.

Difficulty: No Airplanes.

Take the train from LA to New York Central Station.

Take the QM2 from New York to Southampton England

Train to London and then Paris to Istanbul

Take a ship from Istanbul to India or Bankok to Hong Kong to Hawaii back to LA.

That would be incredible.

I would really like to take the Transiberian railroad but I hear it's quite filthy

We could have teams: a team that stays on land and takes trains and automobiles and one that takes waterways.

Something to do when I retire as a captain of industry.

Oh! We need hot air balloons too.

Sinko de Mai-o

So yeah. Cinco de Mayo seems to be a bigger deal here in San Diego than in Pittsburgh.

Flock Upload Test

This is a test. I'm going to try using Flock to update our blog. It this works it may be easier to do this than using the website.

A Topic to consider

With Brians schedule hopefully becoming less crazy I have decided to come up with a few interesting ideas for conversation.

1) What is one aspect of our society you would like to see go away

2) What is one aspect of our society that you think is very good

3) What you had for breakfast and is oatmeal with raisins better than poptarts.

Think. Write. Respond.

old friends

I've been on this planet for 27 years at this point.

I have moved - at this point - 4 major times.

Each time I have moved I have left a significant number of friends behind.

I often times wonder if they ever stop to wonder what ever happened to that strange kid with the hair. I've tried a several times to find some of my good friends long since gone mostly to no avail. Every once in a while I'll find one of them to realize that the person I knew those many years ago is no longer but has evolved into someone I don't quite recognize. I suppose it's the same with me in that case. I suppose that's the way of life.

I am particularly looking for one friend from elementary school who I have not talked to since he moved to Canada in the 6th grade now well over a decade ago. I wonder what happened to him.

My friends from my first high school - few as they may have been and as much as I'm sure no one remembers my departure as a sad thing - I wonder still. So much has happened since then, we've grown up. We have started our adult lives and in the whirlwind of being human caught up in the excitement of new and wondrous things I have found myself an awful long way from home.

Airplanes

In college, freshman year, first semester sometime around thanksgiving we studied basic (very basic) fluid mechanics. We studied Bernoulli and everything that has meant in the last few hundred years. We studied the airfoil and how and why it works. 

It's all quite easy to understand.

Fast moving air exerts less pressure on a surface than slow moving. Fine. That makes sense. Get a big wing and it will exert enough force to lift whatever you need it to.

Not long ago I moved and I flew a very long ways.

I stood there at the airport watching planes take off. 

I understand the physics.

I appreciate how much engineering it took to make the Boeing 767.

It's still magic that it actually flies.

It's so heavy and air is so thin.

Amazing.