Warren

             This is Warren.  He was an ass hole.  Now, he's dead.  I'm an ass hole, someday, I'll be dead.  I haven't got the foggiest fucking idea what death is but I know a lot of things it isn't.  Not to worry, I'm not going to give you my list.

             Everyone recognizes Jesus when they see him despite the FACT we have no idea what he looked like.  That's OK, we know what he believed and what he taught.  He was a carpenter, and a Jew.  He was a Rabbi.  Me and Warren, aren't Jewish.  In fact, I've thought for a long time,  and after some Bible reading, that one of the worst misfortunes would be to be born one of God's chosen people.  This isn't antisemitic, just one of my thoughts.       

              I've also thought, since the beginning, there's been a shit-load of people.  Some of them are remembered forever.  Most of us are lucky to be remembered for maybe two generations.  Being remembered is part of the key to immortality.  I'm beginning to believe that another part is anarchy.    

               Say what?  Say this:  "take what you need and leave the rest."  When you can and however you can, give back.  The easiest way to do this is to change your focus.  Cooperation and patience before competition and free enterprise. Each of these are useful and necessary, its the sequence that's important.  If I want to give my brother or sister my best, I don't need a competitor to assure quality control.  I need a competitor when I play chess.  

                Warren may have been a fuck-up like me but he had a reason for being here and he has a reason to be remembered.  So, I'll not only remember Warren, I'll tell you a little about him.  If you do the same for someone who has influenced you, someone will do the same for you.  Maybe you'll never know what they did or said, its for damn sure Warren didn't know I was going to  say this,  but whatever, it will be part of what makes you eternal, and that's anarchy and Warren is eternal because his friends remember him.              

Applied Geekery – webs.com

 

In my never-ending quest to find new ways to make myself annoying “on-line”, I’ve made many happy discoveries, one of the best (other than this blog) is webs.com.  My only prerequisites, no matter what the medium: it must be free and easy.  That’s because I’m cheep and lazy.  One of my favorite resources, Wikipedia, describes them as follows:  “Webs, formerly Freewebs, is a free website hosting service founded in 2001. The service allows users to build and manage their own "professional quality" site. Users can use applications, normal pages, and many other features to enhance the quality of their site. It competes with WebStarts, Yola (formerly Synthasite), Jimdo, Weebly, uCoz, Wix, and other web hosting and creation sites.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webs.com

 

Somewhere back in 2008, I started thinking; wouldn’t it be great to have my own web site.  What for?  Hell if I know!  Do I need a web site…no.  Do I have anything to offer that others might be interested in on a web site…no.  Am I egotistical enough to try it anyway?  Yes!!  After all, to paraphrase Meatloaf, “one out of three ain’t bad”, or something like that.

 

Now, digressing to my digression, back to 2008.  After developing my iGoogle home page somewhere close to it’s present “work of art”, I found something called Google Sites.  http://sites.google.com/?hl=en&tab=w3&pli=1  This is where the dream began.  Halleluiah!  I CAN have a web site!  Once again; why?  Who cares!  But after fooling around with it for a while, I wasn’t coming up with anything that even met my admittedly low standards.  Plus, it wasn’t all that easy – the results never quite met my intentions. 

 

I knew about such things as HTML, Java scripts, etc. but as usual, “knowing about” is a whole lot different than having a working knowledge of.  Of course, I wasn’t going to let this stop me.  Hell no!  So I did what every good procrastinator does; shuffled this project to the back burner and let it sit, scorching the bottom of the pot.  Obviously though, not to be forgotten.

 

Zooming back to the present, or at least the early part of 2010.  While researching some Native American topics, I discovered a site called “Native Spirits” (http://nativespirits.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network).  A beautifully formatted, useful and well managed site created with something called “ning”.  (http://www.ning.com/)  During my evaluation process, ning became a pay site which automatically put it out of my category plus it was a little too high powered for my needs.

 

Sometime thereafter, during a session of aimless surfing, I came across webs.com.  My eyes lit up at the prospect of another prospect!  After a little research and setup process, I rolled up my sleeves and got down to some serious work.  In about two weeks of half-assed effort, I had my first incarnation developed somewhat to my own satisfaction.  Since then, I’ve been honing and polishing my creation with all the enthusiasm of Victor Frankenstein busy in his lab.

 

If you’ve bared with me to this point, your probably wondering when I’m going to get to the point.  Well, the time has arrived.

 

As previously stated, I have no use for a personal web site.  However, out there somewhere, are people with genuine talent and ability who could use a site to promote their business.  webs.com provides a vehicle to accomplish this and, after development, one is not trapped in site management just to keep it afloat.  A very good example of this is the following small business site:  http://blackhawkkennels.webs.com/

 

In conclusion, I’ve not written this for the sole purpose of hawking my site:  http://doublekseawa.webs.com.  My experience has been that this is an easy-to-learn and easy-to-maintain vehicle to promote whatever you wish.  I figure if I can can produce something like this with no particular interest in mind, someone else with a legitimate purpose might find it useful.

The Infinite Monkey Theorem or Why the Hell am I Writing a Blog?

“The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

Do I really believe the world needs another blog…no.  Do I believe that I am contributing something of value in way of my opinion to the betterment of the world and/or mankind in general?…no.  Then I must believe that I have something to say that will be of interest to others…not really.  Do I give a rat’s ass about any of these reasons?  Again the answer is no!

Referring back to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog, we can find more information than almost anyone would want to know about what blogging is.  Somewhere in all this, even I should have be able to find a good reason (excuse) to blog, but, I didn’t.  So what, prey tell, am I doing spewing out drivel that not only no one will read but they also don’t give a rat’s ass about?  What’s that?  Well, I’ll tell you anyway.

Looking back over the course of history (I’ll only go back as far as the ancient Greeks), we find what we consider great writers and great thinkers.  But wait, is this really true?  Plato, Aristotle, etc.  Great?  Maybe not!

Referring again to history, another thing we find are raiders, sackers and pillagers.  And what did they do?  Burn everything in sight.  Including libraries, archives and whatever written material they could find.  (I,m sure papyrus made great kindling for burning villages.)  Now, in spite of their best efforts, thy couldn’t get everything.  Example: the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Watergate tapes.

Of course, one of my favorite precursors is; what if!  So, what if the aforementioned Greeks, and others, really weren’t so great but rather were the village idiots or bozos of their day.  The sackers and pillagers ether didn’t find their materials or better yet, didn’t consider them worth burning.
 
Picture this.  Barbarian with horns on his hat says:  “hey Attila!  How’s bout we don’t burn this crap but rather seal um in jars and burry um in the desert.  Then, someday, some knucklehead might dig um up and really think he's found something!”  Moment of silence, then both break out in great belly laughs.  Well, it could have happened. 

Now do you see where I’m going?  Someday, in the distant future, after we finally blew the crap out of ourselves. In some obscure electronic archive, somewhere, some or all of these gems might just survive.  Some futuristic anthropologist screaming: “Eureka!  I’ve found them at last!  Proof of the lost civilization!”  Well, it could happen.                                

Considering the vast majority of us will not be remembered for more than two, maybe three generations into the future and that I in particular, have not contributed anything of worth in way of accomplishment to this world, may still have a shot at greatness!  (I buy lottery tickets too.)  So, stand informed.  Someday, you might be very sorry you didn’t read my blog when you had the chance.  (Oh yes, just to set the record straight, I do know the difference between a monkey and an ape!)

F'n with Fotos or...Goldielocks Photography

Photography is one of those activities that almost all of us mess around with at one time or another.  In the "old days", we had to wait up to two weeks to get our prints back from the drug store to be able to marvel at our own artistry.  My first camera was a Kodak Brownie whose main feature besides a built-in flash was that you could not double expose.  (Lucky for me.)  However, over/under expose or blur were well within my capabilities.  Along the way, I acquired better and more complex cameras but the result was usually the same; crappy photography.

Back in the mid-50's, when I was a kid, one of my neighbors was a photographer for the Seattle Times.  One of my uncles had his own dark room.  They both gave me pointers and recommended reading materials before kicking me in the ass and telling me to quit bothering them but even with all this high level mentoring, my photography was still crappy.

Zooming (notice the photographer terminology) ahead a couple of decades of more crappy photography, digital cameras arrive.  At first, the main difference for me was I could transfer my photos via a USB port rather than scanner to my computer.  Once there, I could mess with them more; organize them into folders and add witty captions but the bottom line was, the photos themselves were still crappy.

A few months ago, a friend gave me his old Lexmark web cam and surprisingly enough, the original driver disk.  After hooking it up and installing the drivers, I discovered something called Lexmark Photo Center included with the software.  Since it was already on my hard drive and ready to go, I started f'n around with it.  It was easy and kind-a fun.  But wait!  If this simple little photo processor is out there, what else may there be?  My only requirement is that it be free.  So, if Lexmark represented the bottom of the line from my point-of-view, why not go straight to the top?  So I down-loaded and tried GIMP.  Way to complicated.  Anyway, I'm not going through each trial so suffice-it to say, some were too hard, some too soft and some, just right!  (For me.)

Nothing I found does everything I want in the way I want so I’ve settled on several tools that allow me to f around with, catalog, display and back-up my photos.  These being my original Lexmark, Zoner Photo Studio 12, Picasa and Flicker.  I know there are others, but so far, these are neither too hard nor too soft, they work fairly well for me.

The last element is my current camera gear.  That would be the camera on my aging T-Mobile Dash.  I'm currently digging around some of Seattle's finer hawk shops for a better digital camera but until then, the T-Mob has the job.  Anyway, below # 1 is a shot straight off the T-Mob.  Below # 2, the same shot after being Lexmarked!  So, all this just goes to show that even a crappy photographer  like me can at least turn out a mediocre end result that I'm not completely embarrassed to show someone else.

                                                    

February in Seattle

As always, the middle of winter. Usually cold, gray clouds and rain. A different beauty than summer. However, this year's starting in a different way. We've had two weeks of sun and warm temperatures here in this northwest corner of the great Pacific Northwest! So, figures I, instead of sitting in the city, why not take advantage of it while it lasts. Get my warm leather and chaps, throw a few things in the saddle bags and the bike and me are ready to go! Heading for Olympia and the top of hwy 101. (Bummer! I forgot my cell phone!!)

Heading south on I5, the only break in the urban sprawl is the Nisqually Basin then right, onto hwy 101, past Mud Bay, the whole world starts to change. Deciduous trees and shrubs bare of leaves, tall furs. Rich colors dominated by green and brown. Visible boarders, fences and walls, further between and the Olympic Mountains on the horizon. On one hand, I'm glad there's hardly anyone else on this part of the road, the solitude is great. On the other, sharing in all this with others is great too. Coming from the other direction, another motorcycle. We exchange the ol biker wave. I know he's enjoying all of this as much as I.

Traveling north now, only a little more than two hours out of Seattle. Passing through little towns: Skokomish, Lilliwaup, Ayock, Hamma Hamma! (Why is it, every time I type a NA name on this here computin' machine, I get a spell check? What's with that?) Hoods Canal on my right, the foot hills of the Olympics on my left. Approaching Discovery Bay. The travel committee, by unanimous vote, decides on a little side trip up to Port Townsend, one of my most favorite places in the world. A day or so, hob-nobbing with old friends, meeting new ones, yah, why not!

The same thing in Sequim and Port Angeles. I have a friend inside at Calallam Bay, but the hard ass's wouldn't let me in for a visit, however, they did let me leave him a note. (I just had to put a stamp on it and drop it in a mail box!) Anyway, the whole trip went like this. Mostly great. It took me five more days to get up around Neah Bay then down to Grays Harbor. I love the Pacific coast this time of year. From Aberdeen, another eight hours of slow rolling, stopping to eat some mollusks and crustaceans along the way, back to Seattle.

Anyway, the point of all of this: This is why I live in Seattle. I do like the city but beyond that, I can pick any direction and in less than two hours and/or two hundred miles, I can be in a whole different world. Mountains, lakes, rivers, salt water, fresh water, farms or forests and mostly combination's of all. Even a whole different country! (Hello to my Canadian brothers and sisters.) I hope that where you live is as beautiful and diverse as where I live and that you are able to find and enjoy the beauty in it.
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Pay facebook?

Does anyone remember, a long time ago, when "pay" TV first appeared? People said; "why would I pay to watch TV?" The cable guys assured us the reason to switch was we would have totally commercial free TV!. Imagine that! Our last cable bill was somewhere around 200 bucks for which we received all that reliable Comcast service, and, we didn't miss a single one of those great Supper Bowl commercials!

The state of Washington will lock me up for 5 years if I play poker online but another of those commercials I'm paying to watch just informed me of the new Power Ball Lottery! When the state lottery first started, wasn't the money generated going to fund education? We got 2, count them, stadiums crammed down our throats in spite of what the voters wanted and now, the viaduct will be closed for 10 years while they shaft us again?

But, I digress! We don't pay for facebook because like Google, they make their money from their advertisers. For this to happen, the ads need to be seen. This is where we may have some influence. The fb group; I'm Quitting Facebook Once We have to Pay $3.99/month on July 9, 2010!, currently has some 90,000+ members. By joining and encouraging your friends to join, even if you don't intend to follow through, may increase this number to a point where it could generate attention from fb and their advertisers.

A second approach is to install the Firefox add-on: Addblock Plus. http://adblockplus.org/en/ This of course requires the use of Firefox, which, I also think is a good thing. With Addblock, you have the choice of allowing, or not, the displaying of ads on sites you visit. Personally, I don't find facebook's ads to be too terribly annoying and are sometimes even informative, and, knowing this is their primary source of revenue, I don't block them. But, I can, and, can make that option known.

Thirdly, I'm building my PC as much as possible, with free-ware. A good number of free-ware providers ask for donations and/or make available a higher level of service for a charge. I actually have, and do, make donations to causes and services I feel are worthwhile irregardless of tax benefits.

While I realize "pay facebook" is only a rumor, its good to be aware. Rumors start somewhere and sometimes are started as a means gathering information. If this be the case, these are a few proactive methods of response.

19th Century Technology

19th Century Technology

Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 2:10pm

Does anyone remember, way back, before Metro, when Seattle Transit ran the buses? All over town: Ballard, the "U" District, Westlake, down town. When they resurface streets, under the pavement your likely to find cobble stones and/or cable car tracks. We've long since abandoned cobble stones as 19th century technology but what about the tracks? Weren't they covered-over because they too were outmoded?

I've used Seattle's new Lite Rail system and for what it is, its ok. It was installed on schedule, at or under budget, had minor impact on property rights (on its current route) and is quiet and fast. When they start pointing the the tracks in other directions, I'm betting the only thing remaining will be 'quiet'. For example, rails cannot cross the floating bridges ,so, east-side access will have to be around the lake. That will probably screw up fast.

I've used Amtrak for trips to Portland and California. Its a leisurely and relaxing mode of travail unless you have to be at your destination on time. Rail transit has been in place for a hundred years or so back east. The Europeans and Japanese have rocket trains. San Francisco and Portland have in place systems. Even Tacoma has joined the party.

Looking again to the past, I think it was back in the 60's when regional thinking was labeled "Greater Seattle". One of my favorite journalists; Emmett Watson reversed the concept to "Lesser Seattle". This was basically an isolationist, exclusionary philosophy - like Oregon; come here to visit and spend your money, but don't stay. Even though ol Emmett is no longer with us, looking to the past for ideas, even ones that may have been good at the time, is still a strong and healthy concept in Seattle.

In conclusion, quoting John Sebastion: "I sure am glad I got a chance to say something about the music and the 'mothers' from Nashville." Hows that for looking to the past?