It's a gaga world, and such has been this week's theme. I had a whole host of links to post today and then I went through the news and found so many more that I just began to rattle and spin on the inside -too much! Yesterday's work day really spent me, and today's does not look particularly promising, so I'm just going to have to let that story of one scientist's theory on the mysterious Tunguska blast of 1908 and how it was caused by a UFO crashing into a meteor in a desperate suicidal attempt to save the earth, go. Could happen.

Lileks' piece today recalls a hilarious series of events and decisions regarding his computer that I have lived almost exactly and again. But do not read it. You will not find it funny, as I do, and you will only find it boring, insipid, pathetic. Unless, of course, you are like us and are obsessed with screws and widgets and parallels and wonder constantly why no one understands you. You would then be our new best friend.

Where does that guy find the time, I wonder? Oh, I know... He doesn't build aluminum patio covers on the side. If he did, his blog would be immensely more interesting to me, but then his skill at the writing craft would diminish and he'd be in a bad mood all the time and his daughter wouldn't talk to him when he came home from a long day up a ladder and then none of it would be worth reading. Eventually, he would silently pass on, like so many other writers throughout history, dissolving into the cultural ephemera like all those labels and ads he saves. (Maybe that's why he saves them!)

Still. If Lileks built aluminum patio covers, I would read it every day.

I almost have Mrs. Ditchman converted over to Mac. She now uses the old Mac downstairs more than her PC upstairs, but I suspect that's due to the location, location, location. Me, I'm a dedicated user regardless of the location. For example, I've been saving up for the summer's new iPhone release and am looking forward to having my Mac with me SIMPLY EVERYWHERE. I am looking forward to not having to endanger the world by pressing a series of 17 keys to plug in my Bluetooth headset while driving. I am looking forward to the power of seamless syncing. I am looking forward to the GPS and the music and the app that will route and track my long runs. Ahhh, techno-bliss!

Mrs. Ditchman could not care less, though sometimes she tries. Nearly all of our business files are on my Mac now, which makes her irascible when she has to email patio cover pics to herself. Her current computer workstation is an old and busted IBM ThinkPad with a dead screen plugged in to a CRT tube the size of a pool inflatable that makes the meter spin and the lights dim in the house when you switch it on. (I can hear it humming as I type.) The new aluminum MacBooks are the perfect thing for her, and would make our Mac-wired household complete, but still she resists. "I think it's smart to have both Mac and Windows in our office," she says. "And all my old files are on the PC." I try and defy the logic, and it's like playing catch with helium balloons.

But there is Parallels. A few weeks ago I was in a Best Buy and saw a little aluminum MacBook hooked up to another screen that was all Windows, while the MacBook screen was all Mac. I moved the cursor from one screen to another and it was suddenly like I had become a pan-dimensional being -like a mermaid, or a Superman, or some clever celestial angel. I was in two worlds at once! I utterly hypnotized myself, moving that cursor back... and forth... back... and forth. I had Windows Vista and Mac Os Jaguar at my fingertips, on two screens! My wife will love this, I thought. Of course, standing there playing with it, I had no idea what to do with the Windows.

Also, I feel I am making headway with Mrs. Ditchman on the other field: homemaking robots. The other day she relented and said that maybe we should break down and get a robot vacuum -it seems one of her Bunco friends has one and has it programmed to go clean every morning. "We would need two," I mentioned, pressing my luck and rationalizing about the two floors of our house. She just nodded and turned. Went to clean the stairs, I presumed. I played it cool, and didn't press her on it. Figured I'd let all the floor-cleaning talk her into it. I'm smart that way.

So robots and Macs may be in our hopeful, idyllic future after all. People who don't like Macs are like New Yorkers who don't like Yosemite, they just can't fit in no matter how beautiful it is. And take a mountain man to The City and his response will be similar to a Mac user: Ugggh. Mac market share is growing, however. Who can say what the future brings, but I fear Mac will always be like Pepsi, playing second fiddle to Coke. I'm a Coke drinker, can't stand Pepsi, so maybe I can understand those tireless Windows users, ever resisting The New Sickly Sweet Other. Interesting how they love their iPods, though. (By the way, the new iPods are rumored to have cameras in them!)

Weekend is coming. Everything leaks, creaks, messes, or needs mowing, don't you know? But keep at it. Be patient. Some day, worlds will marry, and your wife will invest in robots and your iPod will direct them to manage your lawn and garden for you.




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New thing I want:


It's on Amazon for $18.95. Available in various sizes. 790 customer reviews, averaging 4.5 stars. 8,206 of 8,275 people found the following review helpful:

This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to 'howl at the moon' from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called meth. I told them no, because they didn't have enough teeth, and frankly a man with a wolf-shirt shouldn't settle for the first thing that comes to him.

I arrived at Wal-mart, mounted my courtesy-scooter (walking is such a drag!) sitting side saddle so that my wolves would show. While I was browsing tube socks, I could hear aroused asthmatic breathing behind me. I turned around to see a slightly sweaty dream in sweatpants and flip-flops standing there. She told me she liked the wolves on my shirt, I told her I wanted to howl at her moon. She offered me a swig from her mountain dew, and I drove my scooter, with her shuffling along side out the door and into the rest of our lives. Thank you, wolf shirt.

Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women.
Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the 'guns'), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark.

Make sure you check out the customer images. (There's 102 of them.) Here's the rest of the story. They're flying off the shelves! I love this. I love all the irreverent, excitable people out there. I love how there are so many of us, growing swiftly a grassroots movement, just to be entertained. Probably because somewhere, tv failed us.

I also love this. I saw the piece a couple days ago, actually, and my head cocked to one side reflexively like a golden retriever witnessing enthusiastic, mating elephants. It is the perfect merging of science, politics, comedy, and general contracting. There's a future in painting our roofs white! I had so much to say about the notion, but Lileks beat me to it:

Maybe we should paint all our roofs white to forestall the inevitable climate catastrophe. And oil up the barn doors, while we’re at it. I’d be curious to see what percentage of the United States consists of roofs. I think it’s rather small. But it’s an interesting idea, inasmuch as it isn’t going to happen, but will be talked about in serious tones. These things invariably lead to excitable public servants coming back - via jet, of course - from a really exciting convention where there was just a lot of positive energy about change, and then the officials commission a White Roof Study, which leads to someone commissioning a White Roof Commission, which leads to outreach, consciousness raising, and a total of 145 white roofs in town - and this leads to a newspaper story about the Growing Trend towards white roofs. A few city buildings are painted; the mayor is on hand for each. They look filthy after six months. One day in July passersby are treated to the site of city workers hosing down the roof in the middle of a drought.

Lastly, in the same vein, there is this. For those seriously intent on starting the Revolution, there will be one, just as soon as the government tells us to stop drinking beer and Coca-Cola, and no more eating meat and chocolate. The climate Gestapo is coming through town this afternoon to enforce it. Stay starving in your white homes and wolf shirts until the *all clear* sounds.

Up in arms!


~

I have been cynical the last few weeks. Cynical with a weird, latent indignant dementia. Before you stop and remind me that I've always been this way, I stop you -no, I haven't! That was a cheerful cynicism! Anyway, this has been different, and there are myriad reasons for it. I won't go into it. I'll just try and stop now. No, I'm better now.

There is a long haul on the books for today. Hundreds of miles over three or four counties. Our work schedule is a mess from the backlog at the manufacturer, so we've ordered everything all at once for the next month or so, just to get ahead of the game. I have been waiting on one order for so long that I finally gave up and ordered it again from another dealer yesterday. Seems that the world is all out of "white".

Which reminds me. Mrs. Ditchman commented yesterday that our business only employs "whites" and we wondered if the government would force us to take on a minority in hiring. Since we don't have any employees, I would say we are equally prejudiced against all potential employees, but if the government finds out of our intent to coerce our children into labor around the house, we may be legally bound to provide a benefits plan. The way I see it, they've been getting free room and board around here for a few years now, so they owe us! Who knows, with the way things are going these days. We decided it was going to work out all right, since our babysitter is Hispanic and the children are descended from Jewish-Russian immigrants. I don't think I will ever put "white" down on another form again. You just don't get all the advantages like you used to. Anyway, the world is all out of "white".

And North Korea wants war today. Again. Did you know that we have technically been at war with them for over 55 years? There was no peace treaty signed, just a cease fire. A truce. An armistice. North Korea withdrew from the armistice this morning, if you haven't heard. What this will amount to, no one can say. But I suspect it is simple blackmail, and the good nations of the world will unite to send them oil, food, and billions in cash. I'm not saying there's a good alternative, but whatever oil, food, and cash we send them is going to go straight to the DPRK million-man army. If you are born in North Korea, you have no future but in the military -lest you succumb to malnourishment and end up inches shorter than the South Koreans.

Woe, the bad news. See? Remove the cynicism and you're just left with a sullen, hopeless misery. I need a change. A change in attitude, a change in latitude. I need to go camping.

You know what my favorite thing in the world is? Boat camping. Boat camping in the desert -anywhere on the Colorado river. And in the middle of summer when the air is 105 degrees and the water is 80. I love driving the boat across the lake just before sunset, with that warm summer wind in my face. And pulling the boat slowly into the shore, beaching it, and then hopping out across the bow and onto the sand. Shorts and flip-flops for a week, that's what I need. And the only cold around is the beer in my hand.




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After a pleasant and relaxing extended weekend (!) you wake up on Tuesday with every cell in your body crying out that it needs more sleep, your daughter sitting on your bed literally pounding on you to get up, and your head awash with all the work you've fallen behind on, which must be done in order to catch up with the bills you've fallen behind on. So what do you do about it all? Demand a bit more sleep from your daughter, and then eventually get up and get some coffee and sit down with the news, just like every other day.

Well, there's a lot in the news today and, as is typical, none of it is encouraging and even less of it makes much sense. The bad news, and my cynical opinions about it, to follow.

President Obama has selected Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his nomination for the Supreme Court. Does she lean liberal in her decisions? Yes, but that is the president's pleasure, and it comes as no surprise. She is being touted as potentially the third female justice in Supreme Court history, if that is an important and qualifying demarcation, and also she would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the highest court in the land.

Unless you want to count Justice Benjamin Cardozo who was nominated by Herbert Hoover in 1932. Cardozo was descended from Portuguese-Jewish immigrants, but (unlike other U.S. departments) the U.S. Census Bureau does not consider Portuguese to be Hispanic, so there. I have one question: when will all this end? Seriously? When the first Icelandic transsexual descended from handicap Androids is nominated to the Supreme Court, who will celebrate? And for the record, both Cardozo and Sotomayor are Latin American.

The recent constitutional amendment voted on by the people of California is being reviewed by the state's Supreme Court today. They will decide if it is actually constitutional or not. Hold on... Think about it for a second... Does this make sense to you? Our constitutional amendment is not constitutional? Well, if it ain't broke don't fix it, I guess. Anyway, the next time you go in to the polling place to vote for something, anything, say, a judge for example, consider that the judges will decide if the election even matters or not. And then when you try to wave the constitution in their face, they will no doubt advise you that it can only be amended and interpreted through the proper channels -that is, by becoming a judge. [Update: Proposition 8 upheld by court.]

President Obama is still planning on closing the Guantanamo Bay terrorist holding facility, even though congress did not approve the funds for it, interestingly. Closing Gitmo may be good for America's image abroad, if that is important, but if you think moving terrorists into a SuperMax prison is a good idea, read this. You know all those stories about prisoners running gangs, doing drug deals, and ordering hits from prison? Just think about it for a second.

North Korea detonated a second atomic bomb, and then, for good measure, shot off a bunch more missiles to celebrate. Unenforced but strongly-worded U.N. Security Council resolutions are sure to be half-heartedly crafted soon, after it is all discussed in committee. Nothing good can come from North Korea having the bomb, but if Kim Jong-il had at least timed the nuclear explosion with the end of the Lost season finale, well then, that would have been bold. Meanwhile, Iran gets its uranium from Venezuela and Bolivia, in case you were wondering. It's not so much an "axis of evil" anymore, as much as it is "a thousand points of darkness".

20 billion dollars has been given to GM to help them with their impending bankruptcy, it seems. That's about the same amount as the California budget gap, but Obama administration officials say that California needs to solve the financial crisis by itself. I don't really know where to start with this one, except to say that my next car will be an American-made Toyota as I always intended, though I may register it out of state to save a cool grand.

Lastly, the great hope of pop culture, Susan Boyle, started out a bit "shakey" in her performance the other night, but she quickly recovered and was selected to be a finalist anyway. I, for one, hope she wins. If you happened to have been trapped in the cargo hold of the International Space Station for the past month or so and do not yet know who Susan Boyle is, here's the original truly awe-inspiring vid. Watch it again just to get your week started out right.

Before she went onstage on Sunday night, with the world watching, Susan Boyle said:

All my life, I've always striven to prove myself, that I can be accepted, that I'm not the worthless person that people think I am, that I do have something to offer.

There is yet hope for us all.




~

Today we commemorate the fallen American Soldier and all he fought for, all he sacrificed. By extension we celebrate the genius, joy, and power of American Freedom -which becomes so apparent when contrasted with that sacrifice. We have parades and barbecues, we put our flags out. I went running in the park today. No one stopped me. I have every American Soldier, living and dead, to thank for that. It is utterly profound.

The enemies of Freedom can catch you with your pants down, which is fine because our soldiers are prepared to fight under precisely these conditions:


May 11, 2009: Spc. Zachery Boyd, far left, wore 'I love NY' boxer shorts and flip-flops in a fire fight with Taliban militants after rushing out of bed to join his fellow platoon members.


The space shuttle Atlantis, the most advanced human transport vehicle ever invented by mankind (made in America!) landed safely in California yesterday. It was a very dangerous mission of telescope repair, which just goes to show how seriously Americans take their science. They flew 5.3 million miles to do it, and it cost over a billion dollars. Yes, we take our science very seriously. Isn't this country awesome?

I mention it because I was thinking about deceased astronomer Carl Sagan who said: "National boundaries are not evidenced when we view the earth from space. Fanatic ethnic, religious, or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile, blue crescent, fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars."

He was wrong. What a puffed-up, thoughtless overstatement. See if you can find North Korea, probably the least free place in the universe, in this photo taken from space:




[HINT: It's that dark region between China and South Korea.]

Lots of people on the right have been coming down on General Colin Powell lately for this or that. Whatever. Years ago he was on MTV and asked how he felt representing a country commonly perceived as "The Satan of Contemporary Politics."

He replied,

Far from being the Great Satan, I would say that we are the Great Protector. We have sent men and women from the armed forces of the United States to other parts of the world throughout the past century to put down oppression. We defeated Fascism. We defeated Communism. We saved Europe in World War I and World War II. We were willing to do it, glad to do it. We went to Korea. We went to Vietnam. All in the interest of preserving the rights of people.

And when all those conflicts were over, what did we do? Did we stay and conquer? Did we say, "Okay, we defeated Germany. Now Germany belongs to us? We defeated Japan, so Japan belongs to us"? No. What did we do? We built them up. We gave them democratic systems which they have embraced totally to their soul. And did we ask for any land? No, the only land we ever asked for was enough land to bury our dead. And that is the kind of nation we are.

God bless America.

~

Today's reading is Mark Steyn's recent lecture at Hillsdale College, "Live Free or Die". It's a good one, however political, about freedom and the dangers of big government.

I suggest enjoying it out on the patio with a premium domestic microbrew, while the coals are warming.


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Went to a new brewery yesterday! Coronado Brewing Company, just down the road from where I was struggling through a day of unexpected challenges, beckoned and I could not resist. 'Tis a nice place, though the beer is no match for our North County wonders. And the grub was good.

There are signs in the place warning of a 3 beer limit. I found this off-putting, and gave them the benefit of the doubt, assuming that the beer was so good that they were trying to make sure everyone got some. But the beer was a standard set of ales -not bad, mind you, just perfectly acceptable brews that heralded the end of the work week instead of the coming Kingdom of Angels. So I asked. Turns out everything got out of hand in there once. They're going for a nice family brewery, (they have "kid's night") and they need to be amenable to those fascists in the local bureaucracy -Coronado can get strict with the rules, of which I, as a local contractor, am plentifully aware. Anyway, no self-respecting brewery can successfully impose a 3-beer limit. Good luck with that.

It's Friday. Do well. Have a hoppy weekend.


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TODAY'S THE DAY!

Butterfly Garden, 2 months ago:



Butterfly Garden, 1 month ago:



Butterfly Garden, this morning:



Stunning, isn't it?

Truth be told, I suspect much of that is just random weeds. Ho, hum. Sorry for the disappointment. Maybe in another month. I'm doing everything I can. And what else am I going to do besides stand there on the lawn all afternoon screaming, "Grow faster!"

I must have bad dirt, if there is such a thing. And cutting back all my watering times can't have helped either. But there is some growth. And, I swear it's true, I came out to check on it all a few days ago and I saw a butterfly flitting over the fence, come to check it over himself, see if it was ready for move-in. It was your standard lone monarch, looking healthy and focused, and he alighted on some of the plants to analyze their potential. A scout. I think he was mildly impressed, but when he saw me coming, he flew off to places beyond the fence. Luxurious gardens of milkweed and yarrow, proliferating at the neighbors', no doubt.

It's tricky, these bags of unidentifiable seeds. You just bury them in the ground and see what comes up. There's no telling what they'll really look like and whether they'll settle in your climate, in your soil, so you wait and see what green pops out. There were some weeds in there that I recognized right away and yanked, but there are others that I can't be sure about, so I let them go to flower and decide from there -and then it's usually too late, when they've spread like voracious interstellar triffids on the back lawn.

But lean in close... as there is some alien life to be found among it all:


It's amazing that in any pile of greenery, whether on a garden isle, midwestern farm, or weedy lot, you can usually come across some odd beauty, some tiny amazing thing intent on growing in spite of the odds, neither caring about those odds nor feeling sorry for itself. It just follows the blueprint of its DNA and accepts the given set of circumstances. But it doesn't know that it follows any blueprint, and it doesn't know that it accepts any circumstances. It just is. Not like us, who labor and spin.

The pursuit of gardening is really no pursuit at all. It's like chasing a driverless car, parked on the side of the road. You're standing there, waiting for something. Is it that the car has yet to leave the curb? Or were you plotting a chase where there was never one to be had? Eventually the flower blooms, whithers, and dies, all in the span of a week or so, and it is as if God, Himself, has emerged from the house, waved to you as he got in the car, and then has driven off, leaving you standing there on the curb, awestruck. Dumbstruck. And forgetting the chase entirely.


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