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by Greg

Thoughts on Barack Obama

I don’t tend to wax political here… mostly because, while fascinated, I think it just gets pretty silly pretty quickly. It’s been an interesting presidential race, though, with two democratic candidates firing shots at each other, and the republican candidate not seeming to have much (real) support from his party. Don’t forget the perpetual third-party candidate, Ralph Nader. He’s in the mix, too. Sorta.

Well, while Hillary is making up stories about dodging bullets, Barack Obama is both drawing praise and criticism for his views on race in America.

I said before what I think about “race”. It should be a non-issue. We are all one race, we just have a few different features, and many different cultures. But we’re all human. End of story. But with various comments from Obama about his “typical white person” grandma, and recently about how “bitter” people cling to religion and guns, as well as the racial comments by the preacher from his church… race is clearly an issue with senator Obama.

I read an opinion piece recently from a local radio talkshow guy because the title caught my attention. “Barack Is Not A Unifier“. I read it, and I don’t think the writer is a supporter of Obama, but the article didn’t come across as a slam, more just a “wake up and smell the coffee” about this guy. It is strange how he is seen as a unifier when he has been quite extreme in his voting record, and the stuff I hear from him only unifies the people who think the same as he does.

I’m not supporting any particular presidential candidate here, nor trying to tear down any in particular. But I do think the national media (or maybe just his own campaign folk) have done a good job of painting Barack Obama in a very rosy light. I definitely shy away from labels, but if you had to pigeonhole me, you’d probably call me a Libertarian. I think that might be 180 degrees opposite of what Obama thinks regarding goverment and it’s role in society.

Will be an interesting year. If the rockstar wins the election, Obama will be our next president. (And I will be very thankful for checks and balances at that point.) I still think Hillary cheated somehow when she won the elections up here in NY. I have never met one Hillary supporter up here in our area. (Though I have seen a few bumper stickers…) 🙂 So… don’t count her out. And McCain… has been strangely silent. He’ll win if the other two divide the voters enough, or even just make them mad enough to “vote for the other guy”.

So, that’s all the politicalness from GregsHead for now. Maybe more in November…

by Greg

UBA

Red Robin: Unbridled Acts of Kindness
I saw a pretty cool thing on the Red Robin website today. We love their food, and celebrate all of our birthdays there, but now I will also be visiting their website.

It’s called UnBridled Acts (of kindness), and just features stories of their employees going way above and beyond their normal duties. I read two, and there was a neat one about a Red Robin employee just paying for the coffee for the car behind him, which started a crazy chain reaction that ended up coming back to that same guy…

Check it out. Always cool to see selflessness in action. Wish that was more the norm than an “amazing story”.

(But then, it wouldn’t make for as cool a web page…) 🙂

by Greg

A Lunch Meeting, And The Bills Won

We headed out the door at 12:45pm, knowing that Character’s Sports Bar was not too far from where we were staying. I had seen on the map where we needed to go, and was confident we could find it.

That confidence was misplaced.

When we got to where I thought we needed to turn, the road that was supposed to be there was not!. I improvised, and ended up in a maze of one-way city streets, going in circles. Argh. It wasn’t really a problem, except that we did not want to be late for kickoff.

Well, we finally found the place, and in time for kickoff, but then found out that the parking spaces out front were 24-minute parking spaces. Off we went to find a parking garage two blocks away. Double argh.

That’s when we met him.

As we were walking out of the garage, in a bit of a hurry to get back to the Bills game that was now two blocks away, we passed a man sitting on the cement planter next to us. When we passed he said, “Can you guys help me out? I’m kinda hungry. I just need some food.” I was intrigued by the request (he didn’t ask for money, that I remember) and so I said, very spontaneously, “Well, we’re headed up to a sports bar right now?” As I said it, I sorta invited him by gesturing.

To my surprise, he got up, and sort of gestured back, making sure I meant it, and I did. So, he followed us up to the restaurant.

We got to know Darren as we went. First names, then where he was from, and how he got to Monterey, CA. We sat down at a table and continued to talk. We don’t have a lot of money, but we had saved some up for a little splurging for our 10th anniversary trip—and we got to share some with a homeless man named Darren.

He has a sad story of lots of broken family relationships. He has slight learning disabilities, and told us a crazy story about waiting for five years for social security benefits or something. Not sure the details, really, but I could tell what we have that he doesn’t are the generous and loving family relationships, as well as close friends.

He stayed for the meal, and then thanked us again and took off. Not exactly how we had planned to spend lunch watching the Bills, but we were glad we could share.

The rest of the afternoon was a bit quieter (except for a rowdy table behind us) with only the occasional outburst from me and/or Jen when the Bills did something good. (It wasn’t that often, so it really was kind of quiet.) 🙂

The Bills did win, so that was awesome! JP Losman got into the game due to an injury to Trent Edwards. That should make for some crazy off-the-field drama this week. That’s pretty annoying, but, that’s just how it is.

We came back to our place and listened to the Bills post-game interviews, and got to talk with our kids (about the Bills game and more!) and then headed out for the rest of the afternoon/evening at the Fisherman’s Wharf back in Monterey.

You never know what’s going to happen when you head out the door. Today, we got to see the Bills win (as we hoped) and we also got to share a meal with Darren.

Very cool.

by Greg

Steve Jobs Sighting!

Holy cow! What amazing timing!!!

We took the short trip over to Cupertino while waiting for the Apple Store in San Jose to open tonight for the big Leopard party (where we plan to get two free t-shirts!) We weren’t sure what we would find, but we had no idea we’d get so lucky 🙂

As we finally pulled into Infinite Loop, I noticed a guy in jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. I said to Jen, “Who’s that Steve Jobs guy??” I was just joking, until as we got closer I noticed – IT WAS STEVE JOBS!!! 🙂

As we got to the main cross walk, Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ives were crossing, heading to their cars to go home! HA! Right in front of our car!! Hilarious.

Jen did not have the camera ready, so we didn’t get a good close up, but we turned around and managed to get a quick shot of him getting into his car. I’ll post here later. 🙂

For now, battery is almost dead… we’re gonna wait in line and get some t-shirts!! Whooohoooo!! 🙂

by Greg

Southwest Alphabet

Well, we made the next leg of the trip, but it feels like barely! We got to Chicago just after 9:15 maybe, local time, and had to get the flight to San Jose, CA at 9:55 local time. Seems like plenty of time right? Jen took a needed pregnancy bathroomo trip, and we headed through the airport to Gate B1 (all the way to the other end of the concourse!) only to find tthat the lines were already completely full!

This is my first time flying Southwest, and overall I would just give it an “average” rating.

Here’s why the lines matter. When you buy a ticket, you are not buying a seat. You get put into one of three groups. A, B, and C. Theoretically, the first people to arrive, get boarding passes in group A, then B, then C. That is also how they board the plane. Since it’s every man (or woman) for himself, you take what you get as far as seating.

We lucked out on the first flight, finding the last pair of seats together. Not so on this flight. Only middle seats left. Not to worry, I told Jen. I trusted in the goodness of humanity. Someone will move to the middle so that the pregnant lady can sit with her husband….

Not so. 🙂

So, Jen is in the row behind me. I am squeezed between two guys… and it’s a four hour flight.

I don’t think we’re going to fly Southwest again. I want to buy seats, not try to “get lucky”.

So, we’ll see what the flight holds. I’m sad for Jen. She’ll have to try to get out to go to the bathroom a time or two! 🙂 We’ll see if we can work the system on the way back so we don’t have to do this on the return flight!

More to come….

by Greg

Cool Lunar Eclipse

Lunar Eclipse Coming SoonI was listening to the Science@NASA podcast last night and heard about an upcoming sky event your folks in the western US might be interested in knowing about. Actually, I guess it will be visible from most everywhere except Europe and Africa. But the Western US will have a fairly good view of the total lunar eclipse.

Here’s what the NASA story says about the event:

The event begins 54 minutes past midnight PDT (0754 UT) on August 28th when the Moon enters Earth’s shadow. At first, there’s little change. The outskirts of Earth’s shadow are as pale as the Moon itself; an onlooker might not even realize anything is happening. But as the Moon penetrates deeper, a startling metamorphosis occurs. Around 2:52 am PDT (0952 UT), the color of the Moon changes from moondust-gray to sunset-red. This is totality, and it lasts for 90 minutes.

So, if you’re feeling like pulling a late night (or all nighter?) seems like a cool reason to do it! And we here on the eastern side of the country will see it too, it will just be cut short by the sun. Oh well. If I can be awake then, I’ll be there!

by Greg

Made It

Perseid Meteor Shower
Well, I made it. After finishing my book, then writing about it a bit here… I did another fun project, and then watched the movie World’s Fastest Indian. Good movie.

Well, all of that took me up to about 4:30am. PERFECT for catching a sky full of meteors! 🙂

I only saw maybe 6 or 7, but they were pretty cool. Unfortunately, there was a bit of cloud cover. But when there were holes, I saw some meteors! And, I did get a nice view of Mars, too.

Well, I suppose I should head to bed now… 🙂

by Greg

Hiroshima: August 6th, 1945

HiroshimaAfter recently watching those two movies about the battle for Iwo Jima, I found it intriguing when I discovered that today is the anniversary of the day the US dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. I clicked on the link in my “This Day In History” widget, and read about this day 62 years ago. I listened to President Truman’s speech following the decision to drop the bomb. I watched some videos from the history channel online. Again, I was fascinated.

What most blew my mind was the position of Harry Truman. How do you actually ever feel you have the authority to make such a decision? How did he actually pull the trigger? I read one article that reminded me that the America of the 1940s was not the same one as today. In many ways that’s really sad. But perhaps in the way of viewing people of various ethnic backgrounds as equals… we are certainly better off today than we were then. So some have suggested it was easier because they were just “Japs”.

I should hope not, but certainly a possible explanation.

Because really, how do you decide to do that? The logic given in his post-dropping speech was that the Japanese would fight to the death. Killing up to “half a million” US soldiers. Dropping the bomb saved lives. While I agree that this is true, I do side with critics who believe that estimate is ridiculously high.

When he gave the order to drop the bomb, I’m sure it was not taken lightly. I’m sure agonizing thought went into it. And, it had been a long war. It was time for it to be over, and this weapon could pretty hastily ensure that it would be.

But at what cost?

I am not sure I could ever make such a decision. In retrospect, you’re glad it ended the war, but as is everything surround a war, it’s just so sad and ugly.

I borrowed a couple books from the library tonight on Hiroshima. One is just named Hiroshima by John Hershey. Supposed to have some eye witness accounts. Was written as the rubble was still smoldering. The second is a series of two books, The Memoirs of Harry Truman. That, too should prove interesting, as the hardest thing about Aug 6th 1945 for me to grasp is what actually was going on in Truman’s mind? How do you make that call??

I’ll likely share some thoughts from the books soon… just thought I’d post this on the day we dropped the bomb.

Happy 62nd anniversary of the first atomic bomb! (Now there’s something to celebrate!) 😉

by Greg

By George, You May Be Right!

Black Holes
Tonight as I listened to a podcast about black holes and the research some folks are doing surrounding the somewhat theoretical existence of such things, I thought, “What if we get to heaven and the guys who work so hard to figure out how stuff got started actually turn out to be more right than wrong? That’d surprise AIG a bit…”

I am certain that once things are no longer seen “through a glass dimly“, many will be shocked at how things really are. Including me. And I really think it would be neat to find out that God in fact did somehow create these super enormous galaxies with black holes inside of them to somehow balance all that needed balancing in them.

And, regarding the billions of years… what if somehow God did take that long… but somehow also did it in a day? The Bible does reference God being unhindered by time (1000 years is like a day is like 1000 years). It’s entirely possible that it is both things simultaneously. I still contend that we just can’t know.

But I do love to see all the stuff we do figure out, or at least… sort of figure out. If you’d care to read the article, click the photo above. Pretty cool stuff. (The piranha thing is a bit strange, though…)