Reflections from California

Good for goodness sake

2010-12-26T19:35:00.009-07:00

Hope everyone had a great Christmas.

I know I'm a day late, and many dollars short, but it just dawned on me that one of my favorite Christmas Carols has a bit of irony mixed into it that in all my 40 years on the planet I've completely missed...

You know the song...

"...So be good for goodness sake..ohhhh...you better watch out...you better not cry...you better not pout...I'm tellin' you why...Santa Claus is coming to town..."

'Good for goodness sake'...a pretty bold statement to put into a song aimed at kids if you ask me, and ironic because you're pairing goodness for goodness sake with being good because Santa's watching your every move.

Caveat- the phrase 'goodness sake' could actually be just an exclamation meaning "Goodness sake! Be good, or Santa's got it in for you!" If so, please stop reading and move on to better pastures in cyber space.

Assuming that the phrase in the song actually means 'the sake of being good', would a child really buy into just being good for goodness sake? Or would same said child be good because Santa's essentially Robert De Niro's character in 'Meet the Parents' (i.e., I'm watching you Focker!)?

My money's on De Niro.

Spoiler alert...

I don't have any answers per se about why we're good. A website that I follow has though, and here is a link from the site discussing why humans are good:

http://therecoveringchristian.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/entry-8-goodliness-is-not-next-to-god/

Also, a podcast that I love has recently tackled this topic. The folks at WNYC's Radio Lab in New York City, have just uploaded their latest program entitled, "The Good Show" (Click HERE to listen).

I think you will be challenged in whatever assumptions you have about what it means to be "good". Really interested to hear your comments on any or all of the three people profiled. Absolutely remarkable stories!

Best wishes to everyone for a wonderful, and safe New Year's Celeberation!

Thanks for stopping by,
Drew

A reply from the National Day of Prayer 'Scare Mail' Post

2010-12-19T16:22:00.007-07:00

Happy Holidays!

This post is actually a reply to a reply from an anonymous commenter on my last blog post regarding the National Day of Prayer.

Because my reply exceeded 4,096 characters, Blogger.com wouldn't allow it. So, I thought it would be best to just post my reply in its entirety here as an actual blog post.

Here is the link to the anonymous commenter's reply (it's the 7th comment):

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=30665987&postID=3364443166124680683

So...with no further ado, here is my reply to this person's reply:

Thanks, Anonymous, for your reply.

I have to say upfront though that you still haven't addressed my main question of why Christians feel the need to have a National Day of Prayer, and have that day sanctioned by the U.S. Government.

You state in your reply that "no one wants one 'religion' to rule." I appreciate that. I agree with that. Separation of Church and State is something so precious to me that I think if we lose that demarcation we lose a great deal of freedom in this country.

You also state that "Each one of us has some kind of belief system." I agree with this statement. Whether you are a theist or an atheist, there are core belief systems for all humans on the planet. I completely agree with you.

You continue..."The Christian belief and living a Christian life is not distorted like some of yours and others put out there about what Christianity is. Christianity is a relationship with The One True God of The Bible. The Jewish, is a relationship with The One True God of the First Five Books of the Bible..."

I'm unclear as to how I and 'others' have 'distorted' Christianity. Please explain.

You go on to state the following:

"When one chooses to become a Christian, that person individually at his/her point of need comes to a realization that he/she needs help in living this life here on earth".

You also go on to state that "as hard as it may be, the believer knows because Jesus came to earth to help us all; and, because He came to us here where we live & because He could, we could, too, weather many storms that may come --that is to go about doing and living a good life here on earth".

I agree with these statements. Not that I personally hold the same beliefs, but that I believe that this is an accurate portrayal of what Christians think about their God. I would only add to your statements that Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and all the other metaphysical belief systems out there could use those same statements as recruiting tools, if you will, for their own causes.

People often turn to God when they realize that their lives are going in a direction that they don't necessarily like. This isn't always the reason people turn to God, but it's definitely a common reason. I completely understand the psychology behind this 'pull', if you will, towards the supernatural.

You continue with some statements about times in your life when you can't make it on your own strength; that prayers, angels, and God himself have helped you to weather the 'rain storms'.

I can neither prove nor disprove those claims, and would rather just grant you that in your mind and in your experience those things are true.

But what happens next is something that I do want to discuss a bit further.

You state that "God is Good and Just and He Loves us, all of us here on the earth and wishes that no one would perish".

You also start talking about 'Evil' and raise the question to me about whether there is evil in the world?

Let's start with the 'evil' question.

I do believe there is evil in the world in the sense that violent acts against human beings are perpetrated every day on this planet. All you have to do is look at a child who's been abducted, sexually assaulted, and/or killed by an adult. This one act of violence should make every human being saddened and angered that this act ever had to occur and be enough to show that evil exists.

Now, I am not a Christian, and I have granted to you in previous comments here on this website that being an 'atheist/agnostic' could be classified as a religion. I'll go ahead and proceed that my atheism/agnosticism is a religion, if you will grant me that your Christianity is a religion. I know some Christians who are uncomfortable making that concession, but I think it's a fair thing to ask in this case.

I really don't want to digress into a debate about whether my belief system is or isn't a religion, as I don't think it matters so much. Let's just equate religion with a belief system for matters of semantics.

But what DOES matter is that you have raised 4 things that I would like to address:

1. You ask "what is to be done about evil" and "who can destroy it?".

2. You say that there must be 'standards' and you have made a value judgement on my 'standards' compared to your 'standards'. You state that my standards don't "ring true when compared to Christianity, true Christianity".

3. You state that no religion even "comes close to Christianity on many levels."

4. You also ask if the evil that I concede that goes on in this world is not "God's doing"?

Actually #1 and #2 I can address together.

My standard as an atheist/agnostic on the evil act of raping and murdering a child is that it is a completely unacceptable practice in our society, or any society for that matter, and whoever perpetrates such violence should be apprehended, given a fair trial to prove or disprove their innocence, and then if the trial shows that the party involed is indeed guilty of the act, is incarcerated in a maximum security prison for the rest of their natural existence on the planet.

I am very interested to hear how my expressed 'standard' here is 'sub-standard' if you will to yours in 'Christianity, true Christianity'.

And by stating that this is my standard, this is also how one goes about 'destroying' evil. Slowly, but surely, we as a society support the criminal justice systems in place to put all human beings who perpetrate violence against other human beings in facilities that keep them from harming other human beings. Period.

Please explain your 3rd statement. I don't know what you mean by 'coming close' 'on many levels'.

And as for the 4th item, since I don't believe in anything supernatural, yes, I would say that all the evil that goes on in the world is not 'supernatural evil'. Evil comes from human beings in other words.

BUT, since you DO believe in the supernatural, I would like to get your thoughts on a few things related to the existence of evil and your God.

In your words above, "God is Good and Just and He Loves us".

Please explain how this same God who is supposed to be good, just, loving, and I would add omniscient and omnipresent, can look upon even one act of violence against a child such as I've described, and do nothing to save that child from same said egregious act of violence?

Think about what you or any human being would do if they were to see such an act of violence take place in front of them. They might be scared, but I'm pretty sure the majority of persons seeing such an act of violence would do all they could to stop the person or persons perpetrating said act of violence against a child.

If you grant that God created all things, you must grant that He created evil. And since He created evil, I cannot agree with your assessment of Him as Good and Just and Loving. These traits simply don't flow from a being who allows such violence to occur on 'His watch'.

Please remember though, I am not stating that I BELIEVE that your God exists, I'm simply stating that what YOU believe about your God is inconsistent with the violent evidence we see around us.

I know there are arguments out there from Christians that package the whole above scenario I've described as a humans gone astray from what God intended plight, but in the end, the original creation of humans is done by your God, correct?

Why would God even allow such things to happen in the first place? He easily could have created an entire universe full of peace and love where no acts of violence ever occurred and we wouldn't even need to have this conversation at all. But, sadly, your God didn't do that. And BECAUSE your God didn't do that, Anonymous, I must say, and I'm sorry if this comes across antagonistically, it really isn't meant that way...your God in my humble opinion is quite an unsavory and despicable character. Not exactly someone I would choose to have a relationship with, much less even a cup of coffee.

I'm open to hearing any and all defenses of your God. PLEASE feel free to use as much or as little space as possible to defend my accusations against Him. If you need more than 4.096 characters, email me at drew.mather@gmail.com. I'll post your response in another blogpost.

I guess I should stop here myself. I look forward to hearing your reply.

Again, I really do appreciate your comments, and would very much like to get to a better understanding of how you think about what I consider to be pretty big issues.

Thanks for stopping by,
Drew

Halloween Comes Early - A National Day of Prayer 'Scare-Mail'

2010-10-17T20:52:00.013-07:00

I received an Un-Snopes-ified email recently that was another attempt to keep fear alive in this country about our current president.

The email, almost in its entirety, is below...but first, I'd like to share a few comments.

1. Even if the United States was brought into being from bible-believing, evangelical Christians (it wasn't, but even if it was), I would hope we would have the decency and fortitude as a people to resist putting a 'Christian' label on our Republic, and rather, insist that our government proceed in a purely secular manner.

Think about how it feels when you're the odd person out in a game or conversation. Do you really want to be that person that continues to say, "Oh, you wouldn't understand, it's a 'Christian' thing..." when asked by the person who isn't a Christian why they have to support a government that keeps having a 'conversation' or plays a 'game' that excludes other peoples of faith or non-faith not in the majority?

Thankfully the same forefathers that some Christians claim as their own had this aforementioned fortitude, and made sure that the Constitution, our one and only governing document for these United States, was a secular one, and appealed to all peoples regardless of their belief or lack thereof in a supernatural being. It could have easily gone the other way.

2. If you are a Christian, I do not begrudge you your right to practice your religion. I really don't. What I do begrudge is when you, as the practitioner of the dominant religion in this country, Christianity, try to make sure that your religion is represented at the highest levels of government. I am talking most specifically about the 'National Day of Prayer'.

3. If you have a problem with Barack Obama catering to Muslims in his administration (I'm not agreeing that he is doing this, just saying that if you believe that he is), I would ask you to consider that Christians have been the 'catered to' group for quite some time in our republic. And actually, having another religious group 'catered to' should be a wonderful 'wake up call' to any and all people that think Church and State should be brought back together.

The government has no business catering to any religious group, PERIOD. Rather it should be devoted to governing large diverse populations of people from every religious and a-religious walk of life.

4. I often hear that people think our country is going in the 'wrong direction' and we need to return to 'God'. I ask you to reconsider this romantic, in my humble opinion, Urban Legend-esque period when we were 'with God' . Was it during the late 1700's and all through the early part of the 19th century when a black person was still considered just 3/5 of a human being? Was it during the early 1900's when a woman couldn't even vote in this country? How about the 1930's, 40's, and 50's where black people in this country, under the guise of Christianity, were hunted down at night, tortured, and killed (ie. lynched) by cruel people dressed in sheets and brandishing fire crosses?

I thank our collective reasoning abilities as humans that we're not heading in those directions anymore. We're slowly but surely making this world a better place to live in and thrive. The average lifespan of a human being at the time the Declaration of Independence was written was less than 45 years. Today that same statistic is close to 67 years. And while some will claim this longetivity a miracle from God, I put forth that this is a testament to the collective human mind that day in and day out tries to answer questions about how the world works.

Let's all just take a collective deep breath, and realize just how far we've really come as a species on this planet. It's truly an amazing thing to contemplate! Truly amazing!

Let's also forget about all the things that make us think we're so different from one another. We're not. We're all pretty much the same amount of sloshing water mixed in with some minerals, protein, fat, and carbohydrates trying to acquire more of these things to keep us going. And no, that previous sentence doesn't mean life is any less important or meaningful. It's actually just the opposite, it makes living this life right here, right now, all the more prescient and important.

So with no further ado, here's the 'scary' email:

In 1952

President Truman established one day a year as a "National Day of Prayer."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In 1988

President Reagan designated the First Thursday in May of each year as the National Day of Prayer.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In June 2007, (then) Presidential Candidate Barack Obama declared that the USA
"Was no longer a Christian nation."
---------------------------------------------------------------
This year President Obama canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer ceremony
at the White House under the ruse Of "not wanting to offend anyone"
------------------------------------------------------------------------

BUT... on September 25, 2009 from 4 AM until 7 PM, a National Day of Prayer
FOR THE MUSLIM RELIGION was Held on Capitol Hill, Beside the White House.
There were over 50,000 Muslims in D.C. that day.

HE PRAYS WITH THE MUSLIMS!

I guess it Doesn't matter if "Christians" Are offended by this event -
We obviously Don't count as "anyone" Anymore.

The direction this country is headed should strike fear in the heart of every Christian, especially knowing that the Muslim religion believes that if Christians cannot be converted, they should be annihilated.

The words of 2 Chronicles 7:14

"If my people, Who are called by my Name, Will humble themselves And pray, And seek my face, and Turn from their Wicked ways, Then will I hear from Heaven And will forgive their Sin and will heal Their land."

We must pray for Our nation, our communities, Our families, and especially our children. They are the ones who are going to suffer the most.

If we don't PRAY May God have Mercy. IN GOD WE TRUST.

__________________________________________________________________

Snopes has a great write up for these claims in the email. Click HERE if you'd like to read it.

The claims about Obama are patently false, but that usually doesn't stop people from sending out misinformation when it disagrees with what they WANT to believe is true.

The writer of the email puts in a bible verse from II Chronicles for good measure. If only he or she had also put in the verses from Deuteronomy 7:1-2 to counter:

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations…then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.” Deuteronomy 7:1-2 "

The rest of the email is a plea to get people to read to the end of it so that they receive a blessing from God and forward the email on to 10 friends.

Click HERE if you want to read the rest of the email I received. It's stock 'footage' that gets appended to most emails of this sort to get people to read the message in its entirety.

I actually feel sorry for people who write this kind of stuff, and the people who buy into it. I think both types of people REALLY believe both what they are writing, and what they are reading, and I think they WANT to believe it. It's an easy solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist. It's good drama for sure, and it makes Glenn Beck a good living.

However, at the end of the day it's all just scare tactics and noise based on little semblance of reality, fact checking, or reason. Rather emails like this simply appeal to good old fashioned fear; fear of the unknown, fear of policies that aren't the policies of the previous administration, fear. If only all of us could wake up and smell this kind of nonsense for what it really is, and begin to think critically about the claims being put forth in these emails.

Again, I will keep hope alive in this regard and despite the scariness around me, will still enjoy Halloween next week :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Drew

September 11th, "Ground Zero Mosques", and Koran Burnings

2010-09-23T20:57:00.013-07:00

I know I'm running a bit late for a commentary on the 9th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, but I wanted to chime in on a few things that I believe are prescient even two weeks out.

This latest anniversary seemed different to me than ones in the past; alot of divisiveness. I think much of this division had to do with the controversy that is still continuing over a proposed Islamic Cultural Center (aka 'Ground Zero Mosque' if you are into inciteful soundbytes from Fox News) to be constructed a few blocks away from where the World Trade Center once stood. Probably a close second was the book burning (postponed) of Korans planned by a small Protestant Church Congregation in Florida.

Before I comment further on the 'divides' though, let me say this...

The destruction and killing that took place over 9 years ago was of a magnitude and scope that most Americans, myself included, were not used to, and I think, myself included, are apt to forget.

We should never forget the people who perished in these most egregious terrorist acts of 9 years ago. The World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania were in many respects giant torture chambers for the over 2,700 people who lost their lives. Many had to make the horrific choice of jumping from 40 stories up in the air to their death, or being consumed by an unquenchable fire. These were people like you and me reading this right now who, through no fault of their own, found themselves in an impossible situation. People who went to work that day never had a chance against those hateful people who were bent on killing indiscriminately.

Now there are some people I know who would blame the religion of Islam for the lives lost on September 11th. And while I am not a fan of any religion, and think Islam does have alot to answer for in terms of its own idealogies...blaming Islam for the lives lost on September 11th is taking things a bit far in my book. Can we all just take a few deep breaths, step back from this situation, and consider a few things?

1. We have a number of ‘holy’ books that various billions of people on our planet attest to as the one ‘true’ sacred revelation from ‘God’; think Bible, Koran, Talmud, Upanishads, Vedas, etc. If we single out the Bible, surely we can find passages where genocide and retribution toward those who work against ‘God’ and ‘his ways’ are justified. I'll throw a few out...

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations…then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.” Deuteronomy 7:1-2, NIV.

or...

“…do not leave alive anything that breaths. Completely destroy them…as the Lord your God has commanded you…” Deuteronomy 20:16, NIV.

Now just because there are passages in the Christian Bible that approve violence, I don’t know too many Christians who would take these same passages to heart, and actually use them to commit egregious acts against an entire group of people. That's not to say that there aren't some out there who would, just that they would be in the extreme minority of Christians who would consider doing something like that today.

The fact remains though that in the Christians' ‘Holy’ book, there are passages that don’t necessarily paint a glowing picture of an all loving, yet quite peculiarly, jealous and vengeful deity.

So, let’s not just pick on the Bible, how about the Koran, Islam’s sacred text and oral traditions. I’m sure, like we did with the Bible, we can find plenty of examples where violence is sanctioned, possibly even encouraged against people who disobey God.

[3.056]
"As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help."

[8.012]
"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instil terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them."

Taken from the following website: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/k/koran/browse.html at the University of Michigan.

Not exactly the most glowing of reviews for a religion that has been purported by many as a religion of peace.

But wait, would you even guess that there are passages in the Koran that speak to treating others kindly, with dignity and respect?

Look at these passages from the same holy book:

[2.224] And make not Allah because of your swearing (by Him) an obstacle to your doing good and guarding (against evil) and making peace between men, and Allah is Hearing, Knowing.

[20.47] So go you both to him and say: Surely we are two apostles of your Lord; therefore send the children of Israel with us and do not torment them! Indeed we have brought to you a communication from your Lord, and peace is on him who follows the guidance

Obviously these two verses are not exhaustive in terms of laying out evidence that a religion is peaceful. I simply throw these out as counterweights if you will to the verses that speak to violence. You can do this all day with any "holy" text.

So getting back to our deep breaths and considerations of a few things...

2. Islam is practiced by over a billion people on our planet. Let me say that again, Islam is practiced by over a billion people. At last check, I didn’t see over a billion acts of utter carnage flowing from all corners of the world. Sure it might seem like that on a busy news day out of Iraq or Afghanistan, but day in and day out, the vast majority of Muslims just like Christians and Jews go about their daily lives in peace. Like Christians who know which verses to cherry pick and live their lives by, Muslims do the same with their Koran. We should all keep in mind that the small subset of Muslims who practice terrorism and violent tactics in some parts of the world is just that, a small subset of the entire population of people who practice the religion of Islam. And that small subset are most likely in areas of extreme economic upheaval.

Lest we forget too, remember that there were, and still are small subsets of Christians who practice acts of violence against minorities, most noteably blacks and homosexuals.

Do we need to condemn an entire religion for some of its followers who probably would kill and do bad things regardless of their belief in any supernatural being?

I say 'No'.

Rather what we should do is condemn the real threat to our country, and the world, as I see it, uneducated masses of people acting out of fear and irrationality, rather than calm and reasoning.

All religions look to gain a foothold. They all want to spread their “good news”. I’ll take a religious person every day of the week and twice on Tuesday who practices critical thinking, over an areligious person who has knee jerk reactions to stimuli.

If we want to have a better world, we need to teach our children, as well as our adults the importance of a secular democracy where church and state are separate, religious people can practice their faith without reprisal, and all people, religious and areligious, can have civil discourse and debate of ideas using logic and reasoning.

My thoughts (which are incidentally my prayers) are with the families of the people who lost their lives over 9 years ago in New York City, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania. These family members who remain come from all walks of life, and as I’m sure with the loss of any loved one, still ache for that person to return and be with them again. I lost my Dad over 2 years ago to cancer, and while I know it’s a far cry from losing someone in a terrorist attack, losing him is still as fresh today as it was 2 years ago, and I miss him more today than I did yesterday.

Thanks for stopping by,

Drew

Overkill

2010-08-14T08:38:00.007-07:00

If you are old enough to remember 1983, and the release of Men At Work's album, "Cargo", then you're probably familiar with the song, "Overkill".

I was watching 'Scrubs' a few years ago and Colin Hay, former lead singer for Men At Work, did a cameo on the show; singing an acoustic version of this song. If you haven't heard it, click here. It's in a word...beautiful.

I can't say I was a HUGE fan of Men At Work in the 1980's. I did like their songs, and I'm pretty sure there are a few on them on my mix tapes from high school. But this episode of Scrubs woke me up to the importance this song has in dealing with difficulties in life. And in the last 6 months, with moving, buying a house, starting a new job, I have to say this song written by Hay has helped me tremendously.

I'd like to share the first part of the lyrics of Hay's song here, and just comment on a few of the stanzas that I found quite helpful...

OVERKILL Lyrics by Colin Hay

I can't get to sleep
I think about the implications

Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications

Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know will be alright

Perhaps its just my imagination

Day after day it reappears

Night after night my heartbeat, shows the fear

Ghosts appear and fade away

Alone between the sheets
Only brings exasperation

It's time to walk the streets
Smell the desperation

At least there's pretty lights
And though there's little variation

It nullifies the night

From overkill...

The line where he says "It's time to walk the streets" and "Smell the desperation" was particularly poignant for me. I took from these phrases that in the midst of a difficult anxiety prone situation that you find yourself, to take a break from it, go for a walk outside and see that the rest of the world is experiencing probably the same if not worse stressors.

This may seem overly simplistic, but listening to this song over and over again (yes, I realize the irony that by playing "Overkill" repeatedly, I am literally making the song overkill), helped me to push past some difficult stages in the move out to California, and the stresses on our family with my new job.

Am I completely cured of the 'Ghosts' that 'appear and fade away'? No. Probably a bit early for that Mission Accomplished pronouncement. But, the 'ghosts' do appear less, and they tend to obey me when I tell them to "come back another day", as Colin Hay emphatically commands in his song.

To Colin Hay, I really appreciate you writing this song in 1983. Twenty seven years later, the reverberations are still resonating with a very grateful husband and father in California.

Also to my dear friend, Rob, thank you for directing my attention to some of Colin Hay's newer music. I'll be writing about that next. Your friendship means the world to me.

Thanks for stopping by,
Drew

Another Purpose Driven Forum - This Time for California

2010-08-02T22:14:00.011-07:00

Over the weekend, some of California's politicians pandered, I mean, gathered at a faith forum in San Francisco hosted by the California Foundation (click below to listen).

While I don't want to say that I absolutely won't vote for a politician that attends such forums (e.g. Jerry Brown, pictured to the right who did attend), I will say that a politician's attendance at such events greatly diminishes my willingness to vote for them in the future.

In my humble opinion, a politician should do their very best to keep politics and religion separated from their governance.

I realize this isn't always an easy task. There are plenty of examples of public servants who make it their business to let everyone else know what brand of Christianity they follow. And it usually pays off for them at the polls.

But I hope for a day where people will not worry so much about what a politician says about their beliefs in a particular God, rather look at what they actually do in terms of their beliefs in how to help humanity.

It would be such a refreshing change to see a politician simply say to people who are asking about his or her faith in a particular God that it's really none of their business. What is your business is my record of helping people in this community live better lives.

I will keep hoping for such refreshment.

Thanks for stopping by,
Drew

Another interesting obituary from The Economist

2010-07-28T06:06:00.005-07:00

Mau Piaulug

I almost skipped right past the article as I had never heard of this man, but the subtitle, "master navigator" made me pause. This man could navigate on water without a compass or GPS device for thousands of miles at a time. Probably doesn't mean that much to most folks in our world of GPS enabled cell phones and other spatial devices, but as someone who has difficulty finding points on a map every day with a GPS for my job as a soil scientist, reading about someone who does this kind of thing without any device other than his brain definitely sparked my interest.

Apparently Mr. Piaulug had about a 100 constellations memorized, and could refer to these stars as they appeared above the horizon for steering his boat in the right direction. His father taught him as a young child how to do this prodigious memorization task with "cosmic" stones on a beach.

Was a good reminder to me to take some time away from the net and the technology that tethers it to make sure my son, Matthew, gets some quality time out in nature, an incredible teacher in its own right.

Thanks for stopping by,

Drew

Only from the mind of...Humpback Whales?

2010-01-25T06:03:00.003-07:00

Radio Lab has just produced probably one of the most fascinating set of animal stories I've ever heard.

Here's the link to the actual mp3 download: http://audio.wnyc.org/radiolab_podcast/radiolab_podcast701animalminds.mp3

If you like humpback whales, leopard seals, and geese, this show will especially make you smile and cry.

If you just like animals in general, the same will happen.

I hope you enjoy, and would love to hear your comments.

Sincerely,

Drew

A New Foundation to help Haitians

2010-01-17T06:21:00.003-07:00

With the recent events in Haiti, I found a site that may be of interest to some atheists and agnostics out there.

The Haitian people are suffering immeasurably in this latest natural disaster, and I think, regardless of your faith, or the lack thereof, we can all agree that helping these people in their ‘hour of need’, so to speak, is a good thing to do.

I recently read an article in the Huffington Post, published on New Year’s Day by Valerie Tarico, that caught my attention. The article, entitled, “Hey Atheist — Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is” is about a new foundation that attempts to put a nicer ‘face’, if you will, on atheists and agnostics who are concerned about humanity every bit as much as theists and religious people. The foundation is called ‘Foundation Beyond Belief’ at http://foundationbeyondbelief.org/ and offers much information on various charities that are providing help to people in need simply because it’s the right thing to do, not because of any theistic belief system.

While I think in times like these, whatever you give to help to whatever charity is much needed and appreciated.

However, if you are not theistic in your world view, you'd probably want your donation to go to agencies who are helping the needy, and doing so without comparable theistic agendas.

This is not a ’knock’ on religious charities. You do good work, and in the end, sincerely, I am glad you exist.

I just think it’s time for, as Tarico’s article speaks to, the atheists and agnostics of the world to have a more visible 'place' to go to demonstrate that just because there is a NATURAL disaster from what is believed to be NATURAL causes (unless of course you have an insurance company that labels these events as 'Acts of God'), these same atheists and agnostics don’t just turn away from those NATURALLY affected. Atheists and agnostics want to help as much as the theists do, they just don’t ascribe any SUPERNATURAL pretense to the helping, or appeal to a SUPERNATURAL being for relief.

At the end of the day, it's really you and I, human beings of planet Earth, that are the relief. We must do our best to help our fellow human beings on the planet at all times, but especially during the most dire of times for people affected by forces beyond their control.

There should be plenty of ‘room at the table’, so to speak, for people who want to help without religion, and those that want to help with.

Thank you for reading this entry, and I hope you can find time to do something, whatever that something is, to help the Haitian people during this most difficult time.

It's all in the numbers apparently

2009-12-09T20:58:00.005-07:00

Radiolab from WNYC is, in my humble opinion, and in every sense of the word, RADIO GOLD. At just over 31 minutes into their latest podcast, on Numbers, Jad and Robert explore the beautiful, yet odd story of mathematician, Paul Erdös, and how he defied all the odds of succeeding in this life.

His two sisters die on the day he is born. His father is put in a Soviet Concentration camp when he is very young and eventually is killed. His mother, a mathematician, and understandably overprotective about losing her last child, basically locks him away in her home while she goes off to support herself and her son. The only books in the house are mathematics books, and lo and behold, young Paul gets 'lost in the numbers'.

Paul, despite his circumstances, earns a PhD from the University of Budapest in Hungary (his birthplace). He then goes on to steroid-ally social network like nobody's business, and before Facebook was even a twinkle in Zuckerberg's eye. This lends to Erdös authoring more papers in mathematics than any other mathematician to date.

During the segment, the reporter, Paul Hoffman, rhetorically asks how someone like Erdös could have been able to rise above his circumstances, whereas so many others in similar or less adverse situations do not.

I propose that Dr. Erdös was simply one of those special human beings who possesses undefeatable will, determination, and the ability to never give up. I think we all have the ability to gain this kind of tenacity toward life, but most of us (myself included) just are not challenged enough in our daily lives to demonstrate these most precious gifts.

I hope you enjoy this most unlikely, and interesting story on numbers. And, if you aren't there yet, at least learning how to pursue life with the same tenacity as Paul Erdös.

Thanks for stopping by,

Drew

Stomach Flu - urban legend or true medical condition?

2009-08-31T20:38:00.009-07:00

I recently went to the doctor for what I thought was a slam dunk for food poisoning. I had some Chinese food from our favorite local restaurant on Sunday night a week ago, and within about 3 hours I was hugging the main porcelain fixture of our master bath with more gusto than I have since 7th grade when some Italian meatballs didn't want to play nice with my upper GI tract.

I have what I consider quite decent health care coverage from my employer, the U.S. Government. I pay just over $300 a month to cover myself, my wife, and my newborn son with this plan. I don't want to go into the particulars of said health care, but suffice it to say that most things are covered (80%) all the way down to emergency room visits.

Now here is why I write.

When I went to visit my physician after I had this bout with food poisoning, the nurse took my vitals before I saw the doctor. When I showed a temperature of a little over a 100 degrees F, she immediately came to the conclusion that I might have the flu. I was sketical, but didn't say anything. Thought I would just wait to see what the doctor might say.

Doctor came in, looked at my chart, listened to my chest and stomach, looked in my ears, and then made the same diagnosis; flu. He did add that he thought it was viral, not bacterial, and, to his credit, did not prescribe an antibiotic. All he gave me were stronger than Tylenol pain pills that doubled in helping to lower my fever.

I remained skeptical about this "flu" diagnosis though. I called my wife to let her know I had seen the doctor. Apparently everyone at her work thought the same thing as my doctor; flu or even more descriptive "stomach flu".

Now I am not a doctor by any stretch, but I was pretty sure my Chinese meal had something to do with the fact that I was up nearly the entire night vomiting and experiencing the most inopportune times for diahrrhea onset. But, all around me people were saying, "No, it's stomach flu".

So, I thought I would just do a very cursory look on Google for "Stomach Flu" and see if this kind of flu even exists. I thought that this term sounded a bit funny, and as it turns out, it surely is.

On my first pass, I was able to find the following link from the Centers for Disease Control, one of the most trusted sites for medical information:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/gastro/faq.htm

"Viral gastroenteritis", not stomach flu, was the more appropriate term for what I had. "Flu" refers to "Influenza", a condition which affects the lungs and sinuses. I had neither of these problems at the time, just a rapid emptying of my digestive tract from the upper and lower end.

Really, in the grand scheme of things, not a big deal to call something "Stomach Flu" rather than "Viral Gastroenteritis". The main thing that bothered me was that I was led to believe that this kind of illness was going to persist like a normal flu, lasting a week or more. It only lasted about a day.

So, the next time someone tells you you might have a stomach flu, think 'Viral gastroenteritis' instead, and point them to the Centers for Disease Control website.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!

Drew

An amazing letter

2009-06-12T09:05:00.006-07:00

It's been a while I know since I last wrote. Mainly the hiatus has been from taking on some very fun, yet quite exhausting new Daddy tasks. We now have a 3 month old and just when you think you've been given a moment of reprieve to do some geeky stuff like this, lo and behold, the little guy has other ideas for how you spend your time. :)

But, for the time being, I just got the 'memo' that I have about 10 minutes to blog.

Sooo, here goes...

I've finished watching the first of nine episodes of the Ken Burn's series, "The Civil War". It's literally taken me about 3 months to finish just the first DVD of the collection. And my wife has just given me the entire set for my birthday. Can't wait to finish it!

Burns is a master storyteller (see my previous post in February of this year about 'The War'). He knows just how to shrink huge world events down to individual human life sizes, while at the same time giving you reasons to care about these individual human lives.

Case in point is a letter from Sullivan Ballou (Union soldier, lawyer, husband, father, and public servant, to name a few) written to his wife, Sarah, in 1861, before the first battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia. The letter is a beautiful example of both love for another human being, and love for a cause. It is also an amazing entryway into the mindset of someone who was incredibly torn between these two kinds of love.

I think Ballou's letter, and life story, can help those who are struggling with balance in their lives and now to put it in perspective. It certainly has helped me this morning just appreciate what we have here in this country in terms of freedoms, in terms of representative government, and in terms of economic opportunity for those who reside under same said representative government.

I hope you enjoy the letter and the lessons it can teach, as well as the entire Civil War series from Ken Burns.

Drop me a post if you've seen it already or are watching it now. Would love to hear your experiences watching it.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!

Drew

An Obit That Made Me Stop Dead In My Tracks

2009-02-28T11:37:00.006-07:00

I try to read "The Economist" every week, at least a few articles here and there as time allows, and I usually just gloss over the obituaries.

This past week was different.

I was first taken by the humble photograph they printed of a woman with beautiful wrinkles in her forehead and around her eyes. The rest of her face looked smooth. Her eyes appeared compassionate, yet holding back worlds of information that could bring many a world leader to their knees.

I am speaking of Alison Des Forges, a human rights activist and historian, who worked tirelessly in the early 1990's and beyond to bring to light a growing crisis in Rwanda. She died February 12, 2009 in the Buffalo plane crash from Newark where ice build up was a factor.

The thing that really struck me about Mrs. Des Forges was just how early she'd figured out what was happening in Rwanda, while the rest of the world waited.

In 1993, she documented a smaller scale version of Rwanda in neighboring Burundi. She gave a detailed account of what happened and her title, "Leave None to Tell the Story" came from a killer's utterance during the horrors of that event.

Her life was and is an inspiration to telling the story of the human experience, both grotesque and beautiful. The world has lost a wonderful example of how to live your life with meaning; betterring the condition of those humans who are consistently forgotten.

Thank you, Mrs. Des Forges, you will not be forgotten.

An Amazing Documentary

2009-02-11T05:47:00.013-07:00

Chihiro and I just finished up a very long documentary on World War II called "The War" by Ken Burns. It was produced in 2007, and ran on a number of PBS stations.

It's going to take you a while to get through these DVDs for sure, but it is SO well worth it.

Burns tells the story of World War II through the eyes of people directly affected by it, the soldiers, their families, their friends, and townspeople who knew the soldiers. The focus is on people affected by this great conflict living in four U.S. cities; Waterbury, CT, Mobile, AB, Luverne, MN, and Sacramento, CA. Each city has its own unique history of contributing to the war effort during 1939 to 1945.

There is a fair amount of graphic violence (mostly in the way of photographs), but Burns displays these photos with tact, and chooses them carefully to tell the story of how horrible war really is. I'm not sure I would want someone under 12 or 13 watching it without an adult to supervise and answer questions. It is both heart wrenching and elating the stories told in this film. Some are so unbelievable you'd swear Hollywood got to them first. Most of the soldiers interviewed lose best friends in battle, a number lose hope altogether during those battles, and all who survived the brutal conflicts still have to live with the vivid memories of those years.

These stories and the people involved should be known to all, and never be forgotten.

In this day where the U.S. is still involved in international conflicts, the story of World War II as told by Ken Burns has many lessons for our future and current world leaders, as well as you and I who give the power to these leaders to make the choice to go to war.

I hope we never have to repeat what happened between 1939 and 1945, but in small ways it appears that we have: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, the Sudan. People still fight, and fight savagely.

This movie really affected both Chihiro and I.

I hope it will affect you too.

Please share your comments if you have seen or plan to see this documentary.

Chihiro and I would love to hear them.

Re-Reflecting on 'Reflections' and Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T08:55:00.010-07:00

Here's to you and yours on this day of Thanksgiving in the U.S.

I've had some interesting comments and emails from a number of you about my last blog post pertaining to ending this blog.

Seems like the majority of you want it, Reflections from Wyoming, to continue. And for your comments, posted and unposted, I want to sincerely thank you.

I gave it some serious thought and came up with the following...

1. No need to report on things of a personal nature on the blog. As mentioned in my previous post, would like to reserve that for emailing all of you that I am close with.

2. Big need to continue to share, if only for myself, the stories I find interesting on a 'near' daily basis. I realize I haven't been too near that 'near' daily deal, but will edge closer in the coming months (especially since New Year's Resolutions are almost upon us).

So...going forward, my posts will be a blend of stories in science, history, religion, philosophy, technology, education, and the like that I find interesting. Some will key in on Wyoming, others will just be of an international/national approach to things. I hope you will find these new post themes interesting as well.

With no further ado, and in the spirit of bipartisanship, reaching across the aisle-ness, a quirky 'mavericky' feeling, complete 'vetted-tude', and just flat-out pure democratization...here is the return of Reflections from Wyoming.

New posts with the new theme will follow in the days ahead...

Thanks again for checking in and have a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday!

Drew

A Farewell to Reflections, with a nod to a new...

2008-11-17T21:21:00.008-07:00

I've come to the conclusion that my original concept of Reflections has been a bit ill-conceived.

My intent was to "keep in touch" with family and friends through this blog, hoping that discussion and comments would ensue after I posted something.

What I have found though is more of a one-sided conversation.

In retrospect, I think the public nature of blogging scares a certain population away from posting. I wish I had seen that sooner. Thinking it through though now, it's not really all that inviting to have someone share events personal to them, and then expect family and friends to all respond in the public domain as if you were having a friend-to-friend conversation.

So...

...in the aftermath of these past 2 years of blogging, I have not been very good at keeping in touch with the people I care about the most. I left my "keeping in touch" with family and friends in a bit of a "latch-key situation" with the Reflections from Wyoming blog playing the role of inept parent.

Now for those of you who read the blog and posted, I offer up a sincere thanks for letting me know you were out there reading. Some didn't post, and would simply email me that they read one of my blogs. That meant a lot as well. Thank you!

Which brings me to my next conclusion...

Even in this day of blogging and social networking, the best communication tool for me remains sending and receiving emails, phone calls, and face to face meetings from people I deeply care about. Ideas, websites, podcasts, music and the like can all be shared through these mediums, same as I would do in any Facebook page or blog. I just have less hassle and less public displays of display.

Not that I don't like these new avenues...I think they are fine for what they are. I just have decided that for me, at this point in my life, with my goal of keeping in touch with family and friends, that to really have a decent discussion about something, sending an email out and waiting for a response is better than broadcasting it to the world in a blog or on MySpace.

Before you go running for the exits though, let me explain that I am not deleting this site. It will remain Reflections from Wyoming and all the archived blogpostings will stay right where they are. This post will simply be my last post on this particular avenue of cyberspace.

Which brings me to my final point...

As many of you know, I work in the environmental field. I've started up a new blog called The Soil Scientist to speak to some issues that I find interesting in the particular career field I find myself. It's a work in progress at the following link for those interested in checking it out:

http://thesoilscientist.blogspot.com

Many thanks to everyone for checking out my Reflections blog.

I look forward to talking to you all more through emails, phone calls, and hopefully face-to-face meetings.

Don't be surprised if you get a personal one of these from me in the near future.

Cheers!

Drew

Sportswannabes launch new site and podcast!

2008-09-27T04:25:00.005-07:00

My roommate and best bud from undergrad, you know him as the Misanthrope, Rob Archer, has teamed up with his old buddy from Greenville, SC, Dan Watters, to become the Sportswannabes.

Being a closet podcast geek, I agreed to help produce their new podcast and webpage.

It's been alot of fun so far. We just produced our first show last weekend, and I am just now getting around to putting it up on my own page (long week of field work, even have to pull a Saturday today to finish up the fiscal year in stride...ugh!).

Hope you'll check these guys out!

They're at http://sportswannabes.blogspot.com.

There's a link there for downloading the podcast (and on my "Podcasts of Note" links to the left).

Have a great weekend!

Drew

Some great news!

2008-09-14T12:11:00.011-07:00

It's official...Chihiro's pregnant! I know, we still can't believe it.

After nearly 5 years of trying, we are blessed with a little growing kidney bean ;) inside of Chihiro's belly.

Click on the picture above or HERE to view the video.

Enjoy!

Drew

Placing the Placebo Effect on a Pedestal

2008-08-23T08:28:00.015-07:00

Rarely does a podcast shift my focus so dramatically that I talk about it for days with my wife. The podcast "Placebo" from an episode of WNYC's Radio Lab program did just that. You can download it by clicking HERE.

I just started listening to this podcast with hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich about a month ago. They do a fantastic job with the show, setting the bar pretty high for all those podcasting. The show is very much like a This American Life with Ira Glass, just more of a science bent.

I was particularly struck by the Parkinson's disease patients and how they responded to a placebo effect trial. Wait for it...there is a twist at the end of this subfeature of the episode. There was also a boy with warts all over one of his arms who undergoes a particular type of placebo effect trial to amazing results. It's just truly remarkable how much our words and our literal touching of others play in being healthy and happy.

After hearing the show, I can feel myself making more of a concerted effort to use words that convey care and concern (not all the time, but I'm trying). Obviously, and probably like most of us humans, I wish I could take back some words I've used in the past with people I care about deeply.

Would love to hear your comments after listening.

Have a great weekend!

New Book on the Front Lines of Education

2008-08-23T08:22:00.014-07:00

My old roomie from undergrad and best bud, Rob Archer, you know him as The Misanthrope, has just published his first book!

Rob, over the years, has given me some of his chapters to look over, and now, after years of simmering in the crockpot of writes, rewrites, hashes, and rehashes, he's put out his first paperback!

Disclaimer-I'm actually getting Facebook-like advertising coin to blog this today. I report, you decide...

Further disclaimer- Ok, not really, but MySpace is seriously considering giving me my own channel to crank out Youtube-ish videos at the rate of 3 per hour involving skateboard crashes (if I actually skateboarded) on school railings!

Seriously though, I think you won't be disappointed checking out his musings on life behind the lines of public and private secondary education.

Links to his new book and blog are below:

Click HERE for the book.

Click HERE for the blog.

Enjoy!

Obama/McCain - A Purpose Driven Forum

2008-08-16T19:02:00.005-07:00

Just saw the forum held in Lake Forest, CA with John McCain and Barack Obama. My immediate reaction was the huge difference in emotion between the two candidates. McCain was very quick, almost knee-jerk in his answers to Rick Warren's questions. Obama was more contempletive, thoughtful in his responses.

I guess this should have been no surprise to me, seeing how the two have acted on their respective "stumps". But after seeing them answer the same questions at different points in the evening, the contrasts were quite stark.

Interested in your comments.

I did a quick search to see if there was any streaming video available of the debate, but as of yet, haven't found any. Please post if you happen to find a good link. Thanks and looking forward to discussing further your reactions to this poignant moment in the campaign to date.

37 and overweight...details at 11.

2008-06-22T07:48:00.004-07:00

I know it's been quite some time since my last post. I have started and stopped a number of blogposts thinking I'd be able to upload that set of pictures to link to it, or get that science story just right. All to no avail. I have finally, this Sunday morning, gotten up the courage to post one. It's not my usual fare, a bit cheeky, but I thought worthy of some note.

This is the ad I got today in my Facebook left hand column (see picture right).

Thought it was quite telling of the immanent, if not already here in full force, tailored online advertising three ring circus.

My first reaction was…”How in the world did they get a snapshot of my 8 minute abs sans webcam powered up? Har har! If I ever get abs like that, I will have quit my day job and become an infomercial.

Then my next thought was, “They know I’m thirty seven, and because I’ve spent the last hour trying to catch up with folks on Facebook I’m gaining weight.

Third, I bemused about the "kick-ass-ness" of a green tea able to peel off layers of abdominal fat in soon to be middle aged men like myself (my wife already calls me middle aged man, but I hold on to 37 just as John Cougar (aka Mellencamp) instructed us to hold on to 16. But that’s another story altogether.

And, my final thought was, “They are going to let me try it FREE! Wow, how completely generous of them. Now I just have to figure out how to afford the $60 shipping charge (I’m kidding, it’s not that much, but I’m guessing, based on my past eBay forays that THAT is how they make their money…clever.)

Just a short Sunday snippet from a 37 year old with no green tea and little options for even 16 minute abs.

Belated Spring Equinox and Easter Wishes!

2008-03-23T21:22:00.009-07:00

Belated Happy Spring Equinox and Easter Everyone!

Hope you had a nice weekend.

Things are starting to get back to normal since my Dad's passing in February. It's still so surreal to not have your Dad around to call and talk to. I've had a few dreams with him in them, but I can't ever seem to be able to talk to him directly in the dream. Anyone had experiences like this dreaming of lost loved ones?

Really behind at work finishing up all our GIS work and data analysis from the previous field season, as well as preparing for a week long, INCREDIBLY involved, advanced soil correlation course at the National Soil Survey Laboratory in Lincoln, NE.

Chihiro and I worked on taxes all weekend, in between some March Madness basketball games.

If anyone's interested, here's a link to the mp3 file of Barak Obama's speech on March 18th, 2008 from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, PA:

http://sundaygang.com/obama/2008/03/18/speech.mp3

It's 37 minutes and 43 seconds of some of the finest oratory you'll likely hear from a politician in this election or any in the distant future.

Obama addresses all of the concerns surrounding his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and the comments he made that are currently supplying news sources all over the country endless soundbytes.

Regardless of who you are backing for president, I don't think you will be disappointed downloading this one to your iPod.

Have a great week!

Drew

Dad passes away on February 17th, 2008.

2008-03-01T09:43:00.010-07:00

I'm really sad to have to report that my Dad passed away on February 17th, 2008 at approximately 8:00am Eastern Standard Time at his home in Myrtle Beach, SC.

He battled bravely a rare form of lung cancer called mesothelioma. My Dad was with my Mom during the last hours, as well as under the care of good Hospice nurses which made the last transition a comfortable one.

I just returned from South Carolina after being there for two weeks. Chihiro came with me as well.

I had scheduled a flight home that Sunday he passed thinking we would get a chance to spend some time together before things got worse. But he wasn't able to hold on, and I missed seeing him by about 16 hours.

There is a link to his obituary in the local paper in Myrtle Beach, the Sun News, as well as the funeral home that took care of his arrangements, Goldfinch.

By clicking HERE you can go to the Sun News guestbook site.

By clicking HERE you can go to the Goldfinch guestbook site.

Dad and I had some good times together the last year of his life, as well as others. But it was that last year that he really wanted to get out and do some things that he hadn't had a chance to do previously. See the blog posts on Germany and Yellowstone for how those trips went.

I would like to thank everyone who sent cards, flowers, plants, well wishes, and notes of concern regarding my Dad's passing.

We were all deeply touched by these outpourings of the human spirit.

My sister and I spoke at my Dad's funeral service sharing some stories and anecdotes from back in the day. It was probably the hardest, yet most rewarding public speaking I've ever done. My Mom, my sis, and I also had a chance to go through lots of old pictures and letters my Dad wrote. It was really nice to be able to reminisce about his life.

Please feel free to leave a post on this or the obituary links above. The obituary links will stay online for a year I believe.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks again for everything,

Drew

Stopping Animal Cruelty in Wyoming

2008-02-10T16:01:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow starts Wyoming's 59th legislative session and I'd like to just share a few thoughts on the upcoming session.

My wife and I have recently become interested in the animal cruelty laws in this State as they are quite lax. Follow this link to see where our interest peaked.

Also, click HERE to read Wyoming Statute 6-3-203 in its entirety. The torturing and/or killing of animals is still considered a misdemeanor or high misdemeanor in most cases.

Your voice could make a difference by taking the time to send your legislators a simple email stating that you want to see legislation introduced that would make the penalties stiffer for cruelty against animals. Click here for a sample letter to cut and paste into your email.

Let's send a message to Cheyenne that Wyoming won't stand for anything less than a felony offense the first time around for this type of behavior toward defenseless animals like horses, dogs, cats, and the like.

Here is a run down of local legislators who are sponsoring or co-sponsoring legislation that will strengthen the penalties for abusing and cruelly treating animals Statewide:

Senator John Hastert, Dem-Green River

Representative Stan Blake, Dem-Rock Springs

Representative Bernadine Craft, Dem-Rock Springs

Representative Bill Thompson, Dem-Green River

By clicking on the names of these legislators above, you can send them all emails telling them that you support their attempts to get stronger animal cruelty legislation passed this session.

If you didn't get a chance to read Saturday's Rocket Miner (local paper in Rock Springs), there's a great synopsis of all the local legislators and the issues that are important to them on Page 12B (unfortunately, the Rocket Miner doesn't offer free online access to its articles yet, or I'd put the link here as well).

Happy trails from Rock Springs, and I hope you will contact your legislators to let them know about the issues that matter to you.

Drew

P.S. Click HERE for a good link to the history of Wyoming's Legislature.

P.S.S. Dog/Girl photo courtesy of http://www.copyshark.com/HSDC/asdmpostersmall.gif

Sleepless in Rock Springs...Amy Kuney, Pet Health, Cancer Talk, and Geoscopes

2008-01-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

Well, it's an early Saturday morning and I can't sleep.

Wind's a howling, and it's as cold as Absolute Zero meeting Absolut Vodka in my freezer.

Thought I'd use the quiet time to pass along a great song I found on podsafe music a while back.

When I was looking for intro music to use in my little blogcast, I thought, "Hey, I'm in WY, why not find a song about wind." Typed in "wind" in the podsafe search engine, and out popped Amy Kuney's song entitled, "How the Wind Must Feel" released last year. If you like crystal clear vocals and acoustic guitar then Amy's music might appeal to you. Hope you get a chance to check out her stuff. Been putting her as my first workout song for running the track at the 'ole Family Rec Center here in Rock Springs.

On another quick note, heard some great podcasts this week and wanted to share a few of them with you.

First, there was the NY Times Science Times podcast from this past Tuesday. David Corcoran does a brief interview with Denise Grady, a columnist with the NY Times, who's sister had two different kinds of cancer at the same time. Dad, I hope you can check this out. Click HERE to go to the podcast. It's the second story featured at 7 minutes and 12 seconds in. I wish all cancer patients could be treated like Grady's sister.

Second, on the same podcast a few weeks back, Corcoran interviewed a veterinarian based in Decatur, Georgia, Dr. Scott Line, on a new Merck Manual for animal health information. Made me think of my cousin, Dr. Candi Boyd, who has a great veterinary practice in South Carolina. Link to the article via clicking HERE. Candi, would love to hear your comments on this if you have a chance.

Third, in terms of a cool science story, The Economist magazine featured an article in its Science and Technology section dated November 15th, 2007 on geoscopes that have the potential to map the earth's interior using neutrinos.

Wait, come back, don't fall asleep just yet! It's actually quite interesting.

Link to the article by clicking HERE.

The gist is that the possibility of being able to map the entire interior of the earth exists by being able to detect how neutrinos from outer space bounce off various rocks within the earth's crust, mantle, and core.

Fascinating implications for soil mapping as well.

Would love to see this kind of technology work its way into the USDA and the soil survey. We desperately need smart technology like this to make our product better.

Any higher ups in Washington, D.C. with the power to effect positive change in the UDSA NRCS soil survey paying attention to this? Would love to hear from you.

That's all for now.

Thanks for stopping in and have a great weekend.

Winds died down a bit.

Guess, it's time to go back to bed...

Drew

Happy New Year Everyone!

2008-01-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

Chihiro and I went to Austin, TX over Christmas to visit with Mom and Dad, Melissa, Erich, and Miles. Mom and Dad flew over from South Carolina, while we took the puddle jumper from Rock Springs to Denver to Austin. Actually wasn't too bad of a flight at all. I had heard some horror stories of the winds and violent drops during flight, but we had a pretty smooth ride back and forth. All in all it was a great time, and we got to soak up some really mild winter days (65° F) there in the State Capitol.

One of the highlights was going to The Salt Lick, a favorite of Melissa and Erich and Miles, west of town on Christmas Eve. Really good Texas style BBQ. Erich, Melissa, Mom, and I opted for the family style, all you can eat varieties of BBQ, while Dad and Chihiro went for the special plates. It was all very good. Christmas was pretty kicked back with Melissa, Erich, Chihiro, and I fixing tofurkey dinner for Mom and Dad. Had never had this faux turkey concoction, but I have to say it was pretty good stuff.

We also had a chance to check out the flagship Whole Foods store in downtown Austin. Really amazing place full of bakery items, cheeses, meats, beers, gelato (Chihiro loves gelato!), you name it from all over the world. Good times!

The return trip to Rock Springs took a while. Got stranded in the Denver airport for a few days due to weather. The airlines put us up in a good hotel though so we didn't have to sleep in those oh so not comfortable vinyl chairs.

Down side has been being sick since returning. I'm nursing quite the cough and Chihiro's none too much better. Been taking lots of cough medicine and Vitamin C and hoping for the best.

I hope everyone had a great holiday.

Will write more later...Drew

P.S. In case you were wondering, that's Chihiro playing Melissa and Erich's Xbox at their house Christmas day. Love the "Don't bother me, I'm trying to probe a dead body for first aid kits in 'Bioshock'". Priceless. Slink, Melissa and Erich's dog, obviously has better things to do like napping ;)

P.S.S. Will post a link to some of the pictures of the trip soon.

auf Wiedersehen, November! Guten Tag, Snowy December!

2007-12-02T05:40:00.001-07:00

November came and went with wild abandon. Enough apparently to help me abandon any posts last month. Sorry it's taken me a while to get back on the saddle, so to speak.

Today is honestly the first day I can recall being able to compose myself and write since my last post. And today is the first day since I returned from Germany last Tuesday that I've felt like doing anything for that matter. Some kind of stomach bug bit me HARD and I've been nursing oatmeal and chicken soup in odd combinations over the past several days. Here's hoping today I can break into a bagel and cream cheese regimen, at least for the morning.

Three inches of snow fell over the weekend here in good 'ole Rock Springs. Started on Friday night and continued for most of the day Saturday. Kind of nice to have December open with wintry weather.

As I promised in my last post, I was going to address some things my friend, Adam, has shared with me. He and I have been discussing electric cars and hybrids and plug-in hybrids for some time now. I will most definitely get to that, but first, I'd like to sum up the past month of November and what's been happening on my end of things.

Chihiro and I had some medical issues we had to deal with all throughout October and the first part of November. I won't elaborate further, but if you've been in contact with her or me at all over the past 6 months, you know what I'm talking about. Enough said.

My Dad in late October/early November went through his last round of chemotherapy for lung cancer. Subsequently he found out that the chemo wasn't working like the doctors had hoped. It was decided in early November to stop the treatments and just let my Dad recover naturally and see what would happen. If need be, they would perform palliative therapy (to reduce pain), but that would be it. Dad was given some new trial medications by his oncologist to see if they helped with the tumor growths. So far, no report yet on whether these new meds are working. We'll see.

On a brighter note, though, my Dad was able to schedule and carry out a trip to Germany.

I honestly didn't think it would happen, as we were waiting anxiously for a loan to come through for him to do this trip. I was also concerned that his health wouldn't be good enough to cross the Atlantic. Luckily, my skepticism proved unwarranted.

Dad, for the most part, did really well. There was a conference in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse in Southern Germany on Intelligent Design (ID) that he wanted to attend. He made the provisions and asked me if I wanted to go with him. Granted, as you know, from my earlier posts, I am not a big fan of ID, but I felt attending this conference for my Dad superceded all my personal beliefs on the subject. Besides, it was a great way to spend some quality time with him.

I wasn't sure I could get the necessary time off as I'd already taken a lot of time off in October and November for the medical issues mentioned earlier. But, in the end, I was able to get the time off, and on November 22nd, my Dad and I were on a plane to Frankfurt, Germany to attend this conference. Unfortunately, U.S. Airways didn't serve turkey on the plane. Bummer!

All in all, the trip to Germany was a good one. I think my Dad really enjoyed it, and fulfilled a life long dream to get back to the country where he'd served in the U.S. Army for two years. It was a really quick trip and we couldn't see all that we wanted to see, but for the time we had, we made the most of it.

The conference was all in German. I didn't understand a whole lot except there was alot of discussion on trying to show how the earth might fit into a "young age" scenario. Two geologists did the core of the presentations. One was from near Munich, Thomas Herzog, and he offered to translate some of the talks for me in real time. It was an awfully kind gesture, and I took him up on it.

We stayed in a Mutterhaus (Mother house) throughout the conference, which was akin to a convent, with the difference (as explained to me by the nuns there) being nuns in a Mutterhaus are not to be kept away from the community, rather they are expected to be a part of it.

Two nuns in particular, Sisters Iris and Renate, took Dad and I under their wings so to speak, and helped us through the difficult parts of navigating Neustadt. Renate, in particular, took us downtown in her personal vehicle and showed us where the hospital, pharmacies, gas stations and the like were. She even tried to get Dad an oxygen canister for his breathing, but the adapter that we needed for his aparatus was not available. He did fine though even without it.

The Mutterhaus was about 5 miles from the city located near some beautiful vineyards. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to snap up too many pictures (Click HERE for a link to go to the photos I did take).

Wish we'd have had more time to explore these areas, but it just wasn't in the cards. Next time!

So that was Germany. We came back on Monday evening to the U.S. I parted ways with Dad in Charlotte and boarded a plane bound for Salt Lake City. Got back to Rock Springs early Tuesday morning and had my own conference to go to in Lander, WY on soil and water conservation. It was Tuesday evening that I think my whirlwind travels caught up to me and set me back. I was sick pretty much from Wednesday on to today, although today I am feeling much much better.

Ok, so now on to the subject my friend Adam has been discussing with me. He sent me a link a while back (http://www.google.org/recharge/index.html) on plug-in hybrids; electric and gasoline engine cars that can be recharged using 120 volt electric outlets. He also laid out a list of questions he had about these cars and they are as follows:

Do they account for differences in power generation methods across states (hydro power in Washington vs coal power in PA) and calculate pollution accordingly?
What are the driving habits of the people that operate these vehicles?
How much energy is required to manufacture and recycle/dispose of a plug-in vehicle vs a normal hybrid vs a VW Jetta Diesel vs a Honda Civic and what does the overall net energy balance look like?
Do we currently have battery technology that can actually support this?
Do they factor the extra cost of the plug-in equipment in their cost equations?
Can the existing electrical generation capacity (and grid) handle the use of these vehicles?
What is the required time to charge the batteries AND can it be done in such a way people put up with this inconvenience?
How does this compare with the proposed Chevrolet Volt drive system (plug-in electric car with a diesel generator)?
What does the net energy balance look like when using ethanol (E85) instead of gasoline?

All excellent questions, and ones I think anyone who is interested in electric vehicles should ask.

The one question that intrigues me most is the battery one.

Batteries, as much as we would like to believe otherwise, are still one of THE most expensive energy options on the market. Batteries, at their core, are literally and figuratively, chemical reactions taking place between anode and cathode. They eventually, even if they are rechargeable batteries, have to be packed with new materials to start the chemical reactions over again.

The cost of energy from a AAA battery is about $500 a kilowatt hour. The cost of energy from a lithium ion battery is about $20 a kilowatt hour. Much less than the AAA, but still, compared to what you pay on your electric bill per kilowatt hour (probably somewhere between 3 and 10 cents) this is quite expensive technology.

Furthermore, if you look at the energy one gets from a lithium ion battery, the kind in your computers and cell phones, and incidently, yes, the ones in plug-in hybrids, it works out to 0.1 calories per gram or 400 joules. And if you subsequently look at the energy one gets from gasoline (10 calories per gram or 42,000 joules), the contrast is quite stark.

Although a bit simplistic, with said comparison, it should be apparent why we use gasoline rather than batteries to power our vehicles at the current time. Furthermore, the reaction of combusting gasoline leaves only gaseous residue (carbon dioxide and water).

Granted the former gas is causing some major problems in our atmosphere, and affecting the earth's climate, but the fact remains that gasoline is being used today in our cars not because of a government/big oil conspiracy, but because of the physics and the fact that it is a superior product. There is also the added problem of heat build up and combustion problems with lithium ion battery packs that still need to be resolved for use in vehicles.

So I think until we come up with battery packs that can be produced economically, and deliver more energy per unit of mass, we are going to be fighting a very steep uphill battle against fossil fuel use in vehicles.

Do I like that scenario? No.

Do I wish it were different? Absolutely.

I do think plug-in hybrids are a good place for us to put research dollars and for us to be moving toward just such vehicles. I just have to maintain some cautious skepticism as to how "around the corner" this technology is, and just how economically feasible said technology is.

But I will add that if carbon credits or taxation begin to take a footing in our econony and others around the world, the true cost of a gallon of gasoline is absorbed by the public and the companies that supply the product to the public. Then, and only then, do I think that alternative energies can compete in the global market.

Problem is that we don't have governments that operate internationally. If we did, we'd just pass an international law making it illegal to provide gasoline without paying a carbon tax on the production of it. But as it is, India and China's energy industries are growing like weeds in an abandoned city lot, and they are not bound by environmental laws we pass.

We can work with these countries to try and effect some changes from within their respective countries, but in the end, these countries that are developing really do deserve to develop as we were able to develop over the past 300 years into the nation we are.

This, to me, is one of our greatest challenges as a society. How do we get the entire world on the same page in terms of climate change? Guess the solution rests with all of us on this pale blue dot of a planet. I hope we can continue the dialogue.

Thanks for reading this incredibly long post!

Bruce Almighty and Even Stephen!

2007-10-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

Chihiro gave me an iTunes gift card to download the latest Bruce Hornsby album,"Intersections" and Stephen Colbert's new audiobook for my birthday a few weeks back.

I have to say, turning 37 hasn't been all that bad. Well, if you ignore the occassional, ok, the quite regular, "Man, you're freakin' old!" or "Wow, soon you'll be the oldest dude on the block" clever quips. But I guess at my age I should just rejoice regularity. ;)

Finished listening to Colbert's book last week and started getting into Bruce's stuff this past weekend.

First, Colbert's "I am America and So Can You" has got to be one of the funniest pieces of political satire to come along in quite some time. If you can, do yourself a HUGE favor and download it at iTunes by clicking here. His ant and other invertebrate fornication rants almost disrupted the entire running lane "chi" at the indoor track here in Rock Springs. Good stuff!

Secondly, if you haven't listened to the very jazzy "The Way It Is" in Bruce's "Intersections", well, you haven't, how should I put this, you haven't, lived. The intro piano is exquisite and his soul-ful vocals give me reason to pause.

If you'd like to get a taste of this song and others, click here and visit the links under "Songs from the Performance". He was on Talk of the Nation last summer and played an in-studio concert for Lynn Neary. Classic stuff!

I know the lyrics are a bit dated (1986 I think?), but here are a few of my favorite lines from that poignant song that I think hold meaning even 20+ years out:

They say hey little boy you can't go where the others go'cause you don't look like they do
Said hey old man how can you stand to think that way
Did you really think about it before you made the rules?
He said, son that's just the way it is
Some things will never change
That's just the way it is
But don't you believe them

Here's to a year of not believing "them" and being that change I want to see in the world...Jazzy Bruce Hornsby style.

P.S. Adam, next post will be for you! Coming soon!

First Snow, Second Controversial Post, and Third Podcast Plug

2007-10-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

It was inevitable. September had passed in Southwestern WY with not much in the way of the white stuff. This past weekend...things changed.

Snowfall wasn't much in Rock Springs per se, but up on White Mountain and the surrounding higher areas, a good dusting was to be had. Guess I'm kind of looking forward to winter as the summer and fall have just been exhausting work-wise.

Doing 50-hour field season work weeks has finally taken it's toll on my soon to be 37 year old body (yep, can't believe it, October 14th and I move to within 3 years of the big 4-0 milestone).

The past weekend was nice though, and relaxing. Got some much needed organizing of mountains of paperwork that piled up over the summer. Fun fun! Also made it to the gym after many months of procrastination. Chihiro and I are vowing to do some weight training together at least once a week for the foreseeable future. Wish us luck!

Dad made it through his second round of chemo and seems to be holding up pretty well. His voice even sounds better. Thinking of you, Dad, and wishing you a speedy recovery.

On another note...

Mom and Dad this past week both told me about a debate that was to happen on Thursday, the 4th, with Richard Dawkins and John Lennox, both professors at Oxford University in England.

They were going to be discussing the existence of God, the lack thereof, and Dawkins' new book, The God Delusion. I was somewhat intrigued like a person driving by a highway accident feeling the need to rubberneck. So, I whipped my neck around and downloaded the first segment of the debate from Richard Dawkins' website, which by the way, even with broadband, 10 megabits per second download capacity, took FOREVER.

Got through about 30 seconds and promptly hit the stop button on my Quicktime player.

Don't get me wrong, I love Richard Dawkins and his books have enlightened millions on the theory of evolution and science in general. I even liked his The God Delusion book for the most part. But why he feels like he has to debate other Christians on stage and defend his beliefs is beyond me. And why he has to use the same tired verbage as the intelligent design camp does such as "Darwinism" is even further beyond me. I think the "theory of evolution" should do just fine, and gets rid of the "..ism" which sounds so much less like a scientific theory than the "Origin of Species" author I think would have liked. It's a subtle, but I think, necessary distinction.

I can't take credit for the above thought though. I heard it espoused by Dr. Eugenie Scott who spoke on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe's 42nd episode on May 10th, 2006. Check it out, wonderful podcast!

Anyway, the reason I turned off the debate so quickly was that Dawkins started explaining how he came to "Darwinism" and that "Darwinism" helped him come to grips with how life got here on the planet Earth. Now, again, I really appreciate everything Dawkins has done to bring to light how science is such a wonderful explanatory tool for all of us. What I can't so readily appreciate is the insinuation that evolution can in any way explain how life got here in the first place. I think alot of people miss that subtle, yet again, very necessary distinction.

I interpret Darwin's theory as one that explains how things got to be how they are today through incremental changes in organisms over many millions of years through a process of natural selection. The theory never has attempted to explain how the material of life (i.e. the DNA/RNA) got here in the first place. That question is still open for debate, and yes, if one so chooses, can easily be explained by the supernatural (see Book of Genesis in the Christian Bible and Jewish Torah, as well as countless other sacred texts from other religions that portray a metaphysical creation story).

Which brings me to my next thought. Science and religion, as I see it, really do not need to be at odds with one another. The unnecessary animosity generated between religion and science debates today can, I think, go away in an instant with a few nods to some basic facts about the two camps.

I am referring mainly to the ever present evolution versus creationism/intelligent design debate.

Here are a few more thoughts on what I have managed to surmise from discussions, blogs, articles, forums, books, and the like on the subject:

1. As I see it, science is not in the business of explaining supernatural phenomena such as the existence of God or whether or not he/she/it created the world. Those questions are best reserved for religion and philosophy circles to answer. Science aims to explain natural phenomena. If someone wants to believe in the supernatural and still remain a scientist that is completely and utterly open to that person. Anything that science cannot address is fully open to interpretation as supernatural, or not. I fall in the latter camp of the "or nots" and am perfectly happy with this state of unknowingness that comes with basing your worldviews on the latest scientific evidence and prevailing scientific theories. Others are not so comfortable, and need to have definite answers to all of life's nagging questions coming from a sacred text stating that their God is the best and the brightest. That is perfectly OK too. We live in a free country under a constitution that grants one the right to practice their religion without fear of reprisal or harm.

2. Following on 1. and as stated above, the theory of evolution does not attempt to explain how life began. Noone has a firm grasp of that at the current time. Will science in the future? Maybe. Maybe not. The theory of evolution, as explained in Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" (which, by the way, if anyone is interested, is available as a free audio book download from LibriVox. By clicking HERE you can download the entire tome and listen to it at your leisure on your computer or MP3 player) attempts to take life from the point at which it began and explain the complexity of life with which we see around us today.

As far as I can see, conflict with anyone's religious beliefs regarding the theory of evolution is self-inflicted. The concept of "God" is fully capable of jumping into the story at the beginning and creating the necessary tools for evolution to work.

Any account in the book of Genesis of the Christian Bible or Jewish Torah regarding creation should be able to square with the theory of evolution and the current science of the day. Many of these sacred texts have numerous interpretations, and as such there is sure to be one that works for those interested in holding true to science and religion at the same time.

On another somewhat related note, I love reading about science and the history of science.

My friend Steve gave me his copy of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything back in July and I absolutely love it! Bryson's way of describing huge numbers, big concepts, and the vast and important history of how we know what we know gives one reason to pause, as well as chuckle. Steve, if you're out there reading this, hope to finish it this week and get it back to you. Thanks again for a great read!

I'm also reading about the intersection of science and religion via two magazines, Skeptic and Free Inquiry. Both have excellent contributions from the leading scientists and secular humanists of the day. And as an aside, the Free Inquiry magazine also hosts an excellent weekly podcast called Point of Inquiry. If you are in any way interested in these issues as I am, would love to hear your comments on these various alternative media outlets.

Thanks for checking in and I hope to hear from you out here in the blogosphere, a great place to be!

Drew

A "Miles"tone and Yellowstone

2007-09-25T16:16:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

My sister, Melissa, my one year old today nephew, Miles (Happy Birthday, little guy!!!), and my Mom and Dad, just came out for a visit to Wyoming.

The time together was wonderful. Memories were made that will last for as long as I live.

Chihiro and I hosted the "rendevous" at our pad here in Rock Springs.

Sightseeing began after a day and a half of rest from Wednesday evening (arrival). Friday, we drove to Kemmerer (pronounced "Kem-ur"), on Friday, the home of James Cash Penney and the very first J.C. Penney Store.

Interesting side note, and another weird PA/WY connection...

the town of Kemmerer, WY was named for Pennsylvania coal magnate Mahlon S. Kemmerer (1843-1925). Mr. Kemmerer financially backed a Patrick J. Quealy (1857-1930) who founded the town in 1897. Mr. Quealy returned the favor, honoring Mr. Kemmerer with the formation of the Kemmerer Coal Company and the name of the town.

Dad really wanted to see the legendary Penney and get a sweet pair of socks on sale. Just kidding, but he did don an interesting pair of cotton accessories at the airport yesterday. See below.

Yes, those are real hearts, and yes, they are spectacular!

Actually, Kemmerer, and the J.C. Penney "Mother Store and Museum" as they call it in this neck of the sagebrush, was a bit of a bust. Not totally, but a slight disappointment.

There was no museum per se, and the store itself only brandished a large painted portrait of Penney on a side wall, up a flight of stairs. Dad was still glad for the chance to see the store and regaled Penney as a giant for philanthropy, giving to various churches, and tithing a good portion of his earnings.

After Kemmerer on Friday afternoon, we celebrated Miles' 1 year birthday a few days early. Click HERE for the link to the pics. Our friends and neighbors, Sarah and Jeremy stopped by too, but we ran out of battery on the camera and had to recharge.

Melissa and Miles had to leave on Saturday to get back to Austin, TX to prepare for Erich's sister's wedding in Europe.

We missed Erich this time around as he just started a new job at Dell and couldn't get the time off. We avow though to get him and Melissa and Miles all together out here to Wyoming very soon. Best of luck, Erich, at the new job.

Later on that Friday evening, we met up with my friend and co-worker, Teresa, and her family at the Rock Springs Brew Pub, Bittercreek Brewing. Her Dad and step-mom had just arrived in town from Colorado. See blurry photo below...sorry about the quality, must have been the good suds ;)

On Saturday morning, Melissa and Miles took off for Salt Lake City, UT to catch their flight back to TX. As Dad was feeling up for some more traveling, Chihiro and I quickly booked a few nights near Yellowstone National Park at the only available cabins in Flagg Ranch.

We packed hastily and shot north to Jackson Hole, the Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone for a few days of Old West Exploration via the modern day stagecoach (aka Subaru Forrester).

Click HERE for the link to some photos from that trip.

As you can see from the photos it was a bit cloudy and rainy while we were there. No worries though. Both parks delivered in grandeur, beauty, and literally tons of wildlife! We saw bison herds on the fruited plains, heard a male elk bugle through an opening in the forest near the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, even got up close and personal with elk dining on grass before the snow hit on Sunday night in the park.

I think this trip was one that Mom and Dad really got a sense of how vast not only Yellowstone and Teton were, but the entire West. Truly a great experience for us all!

Will keep you posted on how things go with my Dad's second round of chemo starting in a week. Thanks for checking in!

Drew

An Update and My First Controversial Blog Post

2007-09-04T19:12:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all the kind thoughts about my Dad.

Hope everyone had a nice Labor Day Weekend.

I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to respond to alot of the emails I've received as of late.

It's been a bit crazy over here in the Cowboy State with 50-hour work weeks, finishing up the huge time suck that is our front yard, and spending a lot of time on the phone with family back home.

Will hopefully be able to respond to everyone this week.

Thanks again for all the kind thoughts.

Tomorrow my Dad sees another oncologist in Boston and we should receive some definitive word on treatment.

The wait continues.

Now, on to the controversy that I've purposely decided to blog on today.

Many of you have heard about the Dover, PA Trial concerning the teaching of Intelligent Design or ID for short. The official name of the trial was Kitzmiller, et al v. Dover School District, et al.

I can hear the groans already. You're quickly reaching for the mouse, apt to click on to greener pastures in cyberspace.

One groan I imagine goes like this...

"Drew, why even bring this tired topic up, this ID thing in the first place? That issue is so 2005! What's the point? The Dover Trial was a victory for science! Let it lie!"

Well, believe me, I would love to let it lie. I would be more than happy to let it lie if I didn't think science and the scientific method in particular was under attack and being misrepresented yet again since the trial concluded.

Here's my side of the story...

I had a conversation a few weeks back with some very well meaning, cordial, nice, and highly educated people. These people I talked with believe wholeheartedly that the earth is only 6,000 years old based on the book of Genesis in the protestant Bible and geological evidence that proves the validity of the flood described in said book.

And I've been thinking about this conversation for many weeks now, not knowing quite how to deal with the unease I felt at what transpired.

I will refrain from naming any of the people I talked with on this subject. The discussion was civil, and as mentioned the people involved were extremely nice.

I don't have a problem with people believing what they want to believe. I have no more control over that than I do trying to prevent Bose Acoustic Tsunami Car Stereos being sandblasted onto my eardrums at routine traffic stops.

I know, I can just hear my wife over my shoulder saying, "Gettin' old there, Drew! Complaining about loud stereos. What's next? IHOP's not serving you dinner at 3:00pm?"

Har har.

People are for the most part going to believe what they want to believe, plain and simple.

Me included...with the caveat that if scientific data show me that I am wrong on a certain belief, I hope I am open to a reinterpretation of my old belief system. I think that I am.

In a way, that's what Albert Einstein had to do with his struggle to reconcile Newtonian physics with his physics of Special and General Relativity. And then further, he had to come to grips with the very unorthodox and messy world of Quantum Physics, which he hated.

By the way, how Einstein came to publish his results on Special and General Relativity is a fascinating story and one that, in my mind, is on par with any story put forth in the Bible, or any of the great literature books of the past 5,000 years for that matter.

Interested?

There is a wonderful PBS NOVA special on just such a story. It's entitled, Einstein's Big Idea, and it will change the way you view science, if you already don't exhibit wonder and awe each week at how science progresses our understanding of the entire universe.

Sorry, now back to the conversation.

The thing that really bothered me about the whole discussion I had was that science, and more specifically, the scientific method, was being grossly misrepresented and villified. I wasn't sure of this misrepresentation or villification at the time, as I hadn't read any of the papers cited by these individuals as proof that the Earth is of aforementioned date.

I voiced doubts about some of the findings in these papers, but for the most part I just listened.

After the discussion, I went home and looked up some of these papers that were cited during the conversation. None were peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals.

All of the evidence put forth for a 6,000 year old Earth came from mainly two sources, Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research, think tanks for the theory of Intelligent Design.

These sites do a very good job of making it LOOK like the papers they publish are scientific research. But in the end, all of the papers are not subjected to the same kind of scrutiny that a normal scientific paper sent to a respected scientific journal like Science or Nature would be.

One of the most beautiful, yet ruthless aspects of science is having other scientists from other educational institutions get a crack at trying to see whether what you have found actually agrees with the current body of scientific knowledge and whether you carried out your experiments correctly using correct methodology. In essence, peer-review.

Think red ink all over your 10th Grade english essays, but on steroids!

Not going through this process is at best, disingenuous, and worst, deceitful.

In essence, the papers that were cited to me completely circumvented the scientific method.

Not a good thing!

If you have a hypothesis about how a particular observable aspect in nature works, you test that hypothesis with a set of experiments. You collect your data. You analyze your data. You write up a paper describing in detail what you did and the conclusions you derived from the data you collected. Then, if you want to complete the process to make everyone aware of your work, you publish in a peer-reviewed journal like Science or Nature or any one of the 1000’s of other journals out there. It is this last stage where your peers doing research in your area have a chance to critique your work and make sure your conclusions are accurate with the data you present.

An example of this peer-review circumvention is located at the Answers in Genesis site. The article entitled, “Radioactive ‘dating’ failure” by Andrew Snelling appears on the site and can be viewed by clicking here.

Reading through this article, it all looks very scientific; charts, graphs, equations, discussion, conclusions. However, if you look closely at all the references and links to other pages cited within the article, you find no evidence of the research being subjected to peer-review at a respected scientific journal.

PLEASE, and I mean this in all sincerety, if I am wrong on this, Intelligent Design Theorists, show me where I can find peer-reviewed articles of original research done that backs up these claims of radioactive dating failures of the sort purported in the aforementioned Snelling article.

I really would like to see some of these articles if they do exist.

For the record, regarding the claims put forth in the aforementioned article, geologists are well aware of the problems with K/Ar dating of recent volcanic flows.

They acknowledge these problems by using an alternative Argon40/Argon39 (Ar40/Ar39) dating method to account for the excess Argon that is known to exist in these recent volcanic flows. Had the author of this paper submitted his paper for peer-review he might have been able to, at the very least, address this in his discussion, or at best, test his samples using this more reliable dating method.

Now I'm not so shortsighted to think that this lack of peer-review is the case with everything that the Intelligent Design theorists have put out. I could be missing something here in my cursory research of both the Answers in Genesis and ICR sites. I ask with sincerety for those who know of peer-review papers concerning ID that exist to post them to this blog site.

I would very much like to see them.

Think I will end it here for tonight.

Thanks for reading this very long and controversial blog.

Would love to hear any and all comments.

Drew

My Dad's Heading Back to Boston

2007-08-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

Dad finally got a call from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston where we got a second opinion for his mesothelioma diagnosis.

They want him back up there for a second consultation on Tuesday, Sept. 4th.

My Dad's final path report came back with two types of cancers in his lung; sarcoma in both lungs, and mesothelioma in the pleura of the lungs. The finding was in the words of the pathologist writing the report, an uncommon and "extraordinary" result.

We're assuming that the meeting in Boston is a special arrangement to try and work out how best to treat two types of cancer at once in Dad, as the doctors in Myrtle Beach showed no confidence in being able to offer any suitable treatments for such a situation.

Surgery has not been ruled out, but then again, nothing has been ruled in either.

My sister has already made the flight arrangements for both my Mom and Dad to get up to Boston next Tuesday, and she will be meeting them up there.

Thanks so much, Melissa, for doing all that for Mom and Dad!

Here's hoping that the Boston crew will have some more insight into how to handle Dad's case.

Will keep you posted on what happens next week,

Drew

Some good news from the North and the South

2007-08-15T20:03:00.001-07:00

Sorry it's taken me a while to post since my trip back to South Carolina.

It was a tough visit, but one I'm very glad I made when I did.

My Dad was in good spirits and we accompanied him to many doctor appointments.

Overall, things went pretty well. My sis and I were able to "tag team" on a lot of tasks, helping my Mom and Dad out around the house and running errands.

The majority of the time there was spent arranging doctor's appointments, working out a strategy for getting a second opinion, and as a wonderful side note, checking out the cuteness of my new nephew, Miles Lincoln (see photo on the upper right, that's my Dad in the background).

Yeah, I know, lost razor, need to shave ;)

We met with Dad's medical oncologist, Dr. Carol Bogdan, on Thursday, August 2nd. She wasn't very optimistic about Dad's condition and at one point said in a matter of words that she wouldn't bother getting a second opinion.

Probably the look on all of our faces made her at once try to qualify her intractable statement.

I plan to write to the local paper there in Myrtle Beach, The Sun News, to warn people about this doctor.

In fairness, I will say that she was helpful in getting the necessary test results and reports forwarded on to the doctor we eventually went with in Boston, MA (long story), for the second opinion, Dr. Sugarbaker.

Kudos to my sister for finding out about this doctor at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and getting him an appointment there the following Monday afternoon, August 6th.

My Dad was really happy with Dr. Sugarbaker and his whole team of doctors. He was able to meet with some survivors of his type of cancer and given hope that his cancer may be in its beginning stages.

This Cancer Center in Boston is amazing! They have a network of support people to help with lodging as well as flights to and from the facility. Assuming my Dad qualifies for the clinical trial that they are running, he may be able to have his lodging and flights taken care of completely or at the least at a substantial discount. Needless to say, we were all just ecstatic at this development.

We'll know probably Monday or Tuesday of next week what the final verdict on whether Dr. Sugarbaker can treat my Dad. Will keep you posted.

Please keep my Dad in your thoughts and prayers.

And on that note, I will sign off for today.

Again, my apologies for taking so long to update the blog.

I really appreciate the calls and emails of support. They mean so much.

Drew

Going back to South Carolina on the 29th.

2007-07-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

Looks like my Dad's situation has become more serious after his latest biopsy and tissue sample surgery last Friday. My sister and I are going to head to South Carolina this upcoming Sunday to be with him and help out my Mom. Will keep you posted on how things are going on that front.

A bit of an aside, but still related to my Dad's situation, I just started getting into the Science Talk Podcast from Scientific American. Dad, you would totally dig these podcasts. Right up your educational alley.

One of the first episodes I listened to dealt with cancer.

Carl Zimmer was featured and spoke about his Scientific American article Evolved For Cancer? which looks at how natural selection has led to what appears to be an inevitable tendency for human beings to develop the disease.

The ramifications could help scientists further understand cancer's insidious progression in the aging human body and lead to innovative treatments.

I only hope the insights can be gleaned much sooner rather than later.

Please keep my Dad in your thoughts and prayers in the coming weeks and months.

Peace,

Drew

Quick update from life here in WY the past few months

2007-07-16T14:19:00.000-07:00

My Dad has been through a serious cancer scare as of late.

First, it was his thyroid; since ruled out as cancerous, but not definitively (I'm not sure what that means). Then it was his kidney and bladder; as of last week, ruled as again, indefinitive, but most likely benign tumors. Now it's his ribs. He goes in for a final rib biopsy on Wednesday. Each suspected tumor has brought numerous challenges to my Dad's health including paralysis of one of his vocal cords to the point that his speech is seriously compromised and difficult, excision of his entire thyroid, bouts of exhaustion, and pain off the charts in terms of biopsy complications. I am hoping to get home soon to help with his care. Dad, our thoughts and prayers go out to you, as you hopefully are nearing the homestretch of this medical ordeal.

In other news, we had a flash flood on Wednesday here in Rock Springs. Received about 3-4 inches of water in about an hour was the word on the street. And while I'm thankful for the rain in this part of the world (we desperately needed it), the concentration of water just about killed all of Chihiro and I's efforts at amateur landscapers (see below).

Continuing with said flood, seems as if the builders who constructed our house cut a few corners in terms of our roof. We had the sincere pleasure of seeing our ceiling bubble up in the computer room with good 'ole H2O. Verdict was some sections of the shingles of our roof were laid "out of plane" and had to be reworked with the underlying wood caulked.

And then, to add insult to injury, tamping down loose soil in our front yard seems to have been lost on the last bulldozer to leave our premises in November of last year. Significant subsidence of soil on the order of about a foot occurred in areas of our front yard. Our builder is meeting us on Wednesday to go over options on how to fix that. Good times!

Thankfully we are still within our year time frame and the builder assumes all costs on these repairs. As the old cliche goes, every dark cloud has a silver lining, and I guess ours is that the 100 year rain, as the locals are calling it, exposed the deepest flaws in work done on the house. Instead of griping, guess I should be thankful the majority of the kinks in our house hopefully will be fixed because of it. Keep you posted on that one.

On other notes, Chihiro and I have spent most every night after work, and the majority of our weekends for the past few months since Chihiro's parents left in April, trying our hand at landscaping our yard. It's been a HUGE amount of work, and if I had to do it over, may seriously consider hiring a professional (if we could afford it). But I have to admit, the whole experience has been quite an educational one and rewarding to boot. There's just something about digging in your own soil and trying to make the sand, silt, and clay work to produce something of value that makes all the backaches and mental anguish go away. Which, given the aforementioned flash flood, made it all the more painful to deal with losses to some of our soil and plants.

In terms of our jobs, I've been working mandatory overtime instituted as of May. Hopefully this will be the last summer we'll be so shorthanded with soil scientists in the State. While the money is good, I'd love to have my 3 day weekends back. Oh well, next summer. Chihiro's work seems to be going really well with more and more firms in Southwestern Wyoming turning to GIS technology for displaying their spatial data. Chihiro seems to really enjoy what she's doing and we're again, extremely thankful to have both found jobs we like here.

On some other notes, our friends, Steve and Julie, came to visit us over the 4th of July. We made it up to Jackson Hole, the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. It was great to see you guys again. Thanks for making the journey all the way from Champagne, IL!

And finally, I have the luxury (some see it as a burden) of having to drive about an hour and half to my field site every Monday through Friday. The luxury comes from a little gift Chihiro bought me for my birthday last year. It's a radio transmitter and charger to play my iPOD through the car stereo. I can listen to it anytime I want now while driving, even in my work truck. I really love it! I've become quite the science/history/politics/Japanese language learning podcast junky and download as many as I can get a hold of on a weekly basis. It's like having a really interesting college prof at your fingertips to teach you all the stuff you may not have learned because, well, if you were like me, you just weren't paying attention.

I'm going to try and post more often some of these podcasts that I find interesting and hope maybe to get your thoughts on what is currently going on in the fields of science and the like.

One that caught my attention this past week was from The National Constitution Center.

Dad, you'll get a kick out of this one!

The podcast was entitled "Dover Intelligent Design Case" and was originally aired in December of 2005 when the court case was in full swing.

Now, I normally abhor these kinds of discussions because they end up being shouting matches with little to nothing of substance accomplished. However, to my surprise, this was one of the most civilized discourses on the debate that still rages on in forums all across the nation. The major drawback I will go ahead and give you a heads up is the fact that they did not have a scientist on the discussion panel. If you are a scientist, you will both cringe, and most likely, be challenged to form your own responses to some of the questions put forth.

Hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for reading this long post and I hope to hear from some of you soon.

Best wishes for a great summer!

Sincerely,

Drew (and Chihiro and Caesar)

Late Memorial Day Wishes from Yellowstone!

2007-05-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone had a good Memorial Day Weekend.

Chihiro and I just returned from a little trip to Yellowstone National Park to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. Yep, the big 5!

It was our first trip to America's first National Park (1872), and my first time experiencing on a grand scale our planet in a state of flux. As you'll see from the pictures (link below), Yellowstone's geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, and mudpots are evidence that our planet is not static, but rather dynamic and full of surprises. I was just in amazement at the sheer numbers of heat releasing vents (10,000 plus!) present throughout the park.

Here's a link to some pics from the trip:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=i2wrqoj.8dv203j7&Uy=-okpai7&Ux=0

Also, here's a link to a little video I shot seeing Old Faithful blow for the first time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1ZiMoB_Uu4

Enjoy!

Before I forget, in mid-April, Chihiro's parents flew over from Japan and spent some time with us here in Wyoming. We had a great time! Took a trip down to Arches National Park in Southern Utah and up into Northwestern Wyoming to Jackson and the Tetons. Here's a link to pics from those two trips:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=i2wrqoj.9eis83zn&Uy=pz08fw&Ux=0

Enjoy!

In terms of other happenings...

My sis, Erich, and Miles are heading down to Austin, TX from Chicago, IL. Erich got a job at a public policy firm there. My sis will continue with her law practice it looks like once they get there. We wish them all the best.

Chihiro and I are hoping to get back to South Carolina at the end of the summer to see my folks.

My job has recently instituted mandatory overtime as we have lost a considerable number of soil scientists to promotions and laterals to other states in the past few months. Any environmental scientists out there interested in mapping soils in WY should drop me a line.

Chihiro's job has her going to conferences and to neighboring cities to attract clients to utilize GIS technologies.

A special thanks to all our armed services personnel here and abroad who defend this country and ultimately provide the means to enjoy the freedoms we have today. Thank you with all sincerity.

Happy Memorial Day,

Drew

A sobering reminder that our justice system needs attention

2007-03-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

My sister, Melissa Mather, is a lawyer and faculty member at the University of Chicago's Law School in Chicago, IL.

She worked on a case last year involving a Muslim man, Mohammad Hussain, who had been criminally charged with belonging to a terrorist organization in Pakistan. Normally, given the name and religious association, this case is written off as good governmental detective work.

But, as always in life, the devil is in the details and listening and reading further will take you deeper into what could become a travesty of justice.

Less than a week before giving birth to a beautiful baby boy, Miles (click here for the full story on this little guy), my sister had the distinct honor of arguing this case before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. If you would like to hear her oral argument, you can click here or the link below:

http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/fdocs/docs.fwx?submit=showbr&shofile=05-3197_033.mp3

There were, as my sister states, "egregious evidentiary errors committed by the district court".

Yesterday, the Chicago Sun-Times ran an article about this same man and about his predicament. If you click the link below you can read it in its entirety:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/brown/304409,CST-NWS-brown20.article

The case is now in the hands of immigration lawyers and my sister, while not optomistic, does hold out hope that justice will prevail in releasing this man back to his family.

We all have the potential to find ourselves in a similar travail, given the "wrong place at the wrong time" scenario.

If you can, please read this article. I think you will be moved, as well as disturbed by how this man has been treated.

Drew

A Very White and Nerdy March Madness Diversion

2007-03-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone!!!

As all of you know commercials on TV right now are exploiting the fast break and slam dunk like it's manifest destiny for their widget to become synonymous with all facets of the game of basketball. All of this product posturing being a shameful bow to the cash cow that has become one of the greatest losses to worker productivity in the United States, yes, the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

Not that I am complaining or opting out of the spectable. Yes, I will watch the games, I will chart my picks, I will wallow in self-pity as my co-workers repeatedly jibe me for choosing Oral Roberts in a first round upset. But at the same time, I want to offer a bit of a diversion from this mindless marketing shape shift. When those same idiot commercials pop up on the tube, run to your closest web enabled device to discover your inner physics child at the UC Berkeley cyber-campus.

Here's the deal...

As of Fall 2006, a course entitled, Physics for Future Presidents, has been web and podcasted for the entire world to see and listen to for free (click here for a media article). Now granted I don't have any delusions of becoming president, although I was tempted when Barak and Hillary both turned down the public pot of money available to them (you know that little checkbox on your tax return to contribute to the presidential campaign) because they didn't need it, but this podcast is worth a listen even to those who don't aspire to the most dangerous job in the country.

And I've downloaded more educational podcasts than I, or my wife, would like to acknowledge to our family and friends, but none stack up to this one.

Dr. Richard Muller has to be one of the best lecturers I've heard in a long while. He's affable, humourous, patient, and an extremely intelligent teacher. His demos during class are great, as are his examples to explain difficult concepts to non-physics majors(i.e., me). He tries to make physics immediately relevant and interesting, and he succeeds on both counts.

If you have an itch to learn a bit about how the universe works, but were afraid to browse the science and technology section in your downtown Borders Bookstore, check your fear at the portal door and click on this link:

Belgian Waffle Blog is a GREAT read!

2007-03-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

My friend, Adam, is doing a study abroad in Belgium. His blog, The Belgian Waffle, is turning out to be quite the travel log on experiencing Europe first hand. Anyone who hasn't been there, but desires to experience what it might be like, would do themselves a huge favor and read a few of his entries. Truly thorough and well written, Adam is putting out some nice work!

We miss you over here in the States, but glad you are showing us what real living is all about.

Best of luck to you my friend,

Drew

A prophetic novel worthy of a reread

2007-03-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

Rock Springs in Sweetwater County is currently participating in the One Book, One County program to encourage the love of reading books and subsequent community wide book discussions. The book chosen for 2007 was Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" . I couldn't remember if I'd read it back in high school, so I decided to go down to the Sweetwater Library here in town and pick up a free copy. I read and loved it!

The title of the book springs from the fact that pieces of paper burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit. The plot, for those who aren't familiar, ultimately involves a fireman, Montag, who becomes involved in trying to save the human species from intellectual annihilation by commuity lawmakers prescribing burning of books and synthetic appeasements of all that is uncomfortable and unpleasant in life. Bradbury in 1953 makes very striking and prophetic remarks about how society will fare when the titilating sound byte replaces the pursuit of knowledge and truth.

A blog for discussing Bradbury's classic has been created at this link. If you would like to subscribe to the blog or just check out some of the comments, click here.

An excerpt of some of my comments on the Sweetwater County Blog for One Book One County follow:

...Bradbury's commentary on humans was quite intriguing given that he was writing over 50 years ago. I took from the characters of Montag and Beatty, a dichotomy that exists in all of us. We, as humans, have the ability to incessantly learn all that we can while we are here on the planet, while also the disability of letting our brains atrophy with mindless tasks. I believe Montag benefitted greatly from books. It was his learning through books in his past that allowed him to disavow the logic of Beatty in the present ...read more...

Thanks for stopping in to the blog and happy reading!
Drew

Great music for strange moments!

2007-02-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

So I've been in a blog coma. Too much lab and digitizing work and no time to post. But one positive has been my ability to listen to some podcasts while I was shaking up dirt. Radio Three Sixty is one of those 'casts that I really like. Check it out if you like space music with a bit of a twist.

Speaking of space music, I always think about my friend, Maaike, from the Netherlands when I download this Rotterdam podcast, http://spacemusic.libsyn.com/. A guy who goes by "TC" plays tons of amazing tracks for free mostly from Europe, but also from Asia and the U.S. He's also pretty entertaining with his Dutch accent.

Enjoy!

Interesting online (free) book on winning the oil endgame.

2007-02-02T22:17:00.000-07:00

Apologies for how long it took to get this book link up that my friend, Scoot, sent me, "Winning the Oil Endgame - Innovations for Profits, Jobs, and Security". It's a peer-reviewed synthesis of how to "completely, attractively, and profitably" get ourselves weaned off our addiction to petroleum.

Unfortunately, some URLs get chopped when posted in the comments, hence the need to post it here instead of leave it in the comments section.

Please click here or this link to read: https://www.rmi.org/images/other/Energy/WtOEg_InnoForProfit.pdf

Enjoy and thanks again Scoot for the link!

Book on Biodiesel

2007-01-28T11:40:00.000-07:00

Just finished a great book this weekend from my friend, Adam, in Pennsylvania. The book is "Biodiesel - Growing a New Energy Economy" by Greg Pahl (2005); a very readable and non-technical approach to this very promising renewable fuels market. I liked that he gave a concise history of Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, as well as explained in plain english how to make biodiesel. His perspective is global giving examples from many different countries focusing their efforts on using biodiesel. Not sure if I can go the route of biodiesel right now living in Wyoming with subzero temperatures, but as soon as I get to a more temperate climate, I'm down for this very viable energy alternative.

Hope you can check this book out. It's available at Powells Bookstore located in Portland, OR (a must see if you're ever there...takes up a whole city block!). Or you can click here for a link to order it online at the same store.

And thanks again to you, Adam, for giving me this book. I really enjoyed it! Good luck on your thesis defense this week!

Great music to listen to!

2007-01-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

If you've never listened to All Songs Considered Podcasts, you're seriously missing out on some amazing music being produced.

I just started downloading this podcast and wanted to share a few of my recent favorites with you. You can click HERE to learn more about getting this podcast for yourself.

Two bands that I was really impressed with were The Bad Plus and Gomez. You can click HERE to listen to their live concert webcast on NPR June 22, 2006. Some of Gomez's vocals and chords remind me of Oasis, and The Bad Plus are just super talented jazz musicians.

Enjoy, and as always, would love to hear what you think!

Drew

It's -8 degrees F/-34 degrees F windchill in Rock Springs this morning!

2007-01-12T07:07:00.000-07:00

Don't think I need to say any more except...better go make sure the car starts.

Need more proof?

Check out this link: http://www.weather.com/outlook/recreation/outdoors/local/WYBL02:13

Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot

2007-01-02T20:54:00.000-07:00

NPR's Science Friday had Carl Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan (pronounced Dree-yen), on a few weeks ago discussing the life of her late husband. Ira Flatow, the host of the show, ran an audio clip of an interview he'd done with Carl in 1996 just before his death. Carl describes his experiences seeing the "pale blue dot" (aka Earth), from images beamed back to our planet via the Voyager space mission. Carl's thoughts are as profound today as they were 10 years ago.

You can listen to these thoughts by clicking HERE. Carl's comments start around 30 seconds into the broadcast and go for about a minute and a half.

I hope you enjoy them.

Drew

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Wyoming!

2006-12-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone is having a great holiday. Chihiro, Caesar, and I took it easy today here in our new home staying out of the bitter cold.

I realized that I buried the link I put up last month of some updated pictures of the house. If you click HERE, you'll be taken to the Kodak Gallery album of newer house pictures.

Also, in case you missed it, here's the link to the incredibly long slideshow set to Star Wars music. Click HERE if you need a 1977 fix.

The picture above and to the right is of the three of us in our new living room by the fireplace. We're really enjoying our first Christmas here, and extend an open invitation to all to come out and visit.

Missing all of you and wishing you a great 2007,

Drew (Chihiro and Caesar)

Doing a 180 on 80

2006-12-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

This past week has been pretty crazy.

Found out Saturday that my Mom was going to need quadruple bypass surgery. The 5-6 hour operation was set for Monday of this past week. It went well and she's now out of the hospital and recovering at home. Amazing that someone can, on Monday, have their breastbone cracked, ribs fileted, veins snipped and taken from multiple areas of their body, arteries rerouted with those snipped veins, and then on Friday be back at home.

Thanks to everyone, especially my Dad, my Aunt Kathy, my Aunt Deedy, and my Uncle Richard, for burning the midnight oil with my Mom. My Mom's friends, Sandy and Bob Vlasadi, also came by the room to help out. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. I think it worked. She is doing remarkably well and in good spirits following this most amazing of surgeries. Interested in learning more about cardiac bypass surgery or coronary artery bypass graft as it is formally called? Check out this really cool link that explains the ins and outs of the operation. Click here to learn more.

On another note:

the day my Mom was operated on, I had to travel to Casper, WY for GIS training. It was snowing between Wamsutter and Rawlins on I-80. I hit a few icy patches along the way and slowed down to about 40 mph. The third time was a charm. I hit some black ice and next thing I know I am heading for the median on the east bound passing lane. I did the thing I didn't want to do; try to correct my steering. I miraculously missed the pilings on the side of the interstate while somehow maneuvering back into the left hand lane. As soon as I did this though, I found myself spinning completely around on both lanes of traffic. I remember glancing behind me and seeing two semis heading straight for me. I cranked out a full 180 facing incoming traffic. Luckily, those same two semis saw me, and the situation that was unfolding. They slowed down and came to a stop about 50-100 feet away from me. Usually you see the tail end of a semi as it blows by you on the interstate. That day I faced two head on and lived to tell about it. I gave them both a wave of relief and proceeded to pull off the interstate into the median to take a deep breath. My friend and co-worker, Teresa, was with me and gave me some much needed encouragement and suggested that I take a moment and just gather myself. I did. Then I pulled back onto the Interstate and drove for another 20 miles or so before we got to Rawlins. There I passed the keys over to Teresa to finish up the journey. She was a huge help to me that day and I'm grateful for her keeping a calm head throughout the spin cycle. What a day that was. Just lucky to be alive. I will NEVER drive on I-80 in snow conditions ever again. It's pull over or bust.

On another note, the training in Casper went well. Looking forward to trying out some new tricks and tools in GIS this upcoming week. Will keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, have a great rest of your weekend and start to the week before Christmas,
Drew

Interesting article about the acidification of our oceans in the New Yorker.

2006-12-07T22:08:00.000-07:00

My friend, Kirsten, suggested checking out an article from the New Yorker dated 11-20-2006. Click here for the article. Very intesting account of what is happening to corals and other calcifying organisms in the ocean due to increased levels of carbon in the atmosphere.

However you feel about global warming, our stewardship of the planet should involve reducing carbon emissions from power plants and other highly polluting industries.

Learn more about what you can do to help by going to this link:

http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/.

Thanks,
Drew

Interesting book on America's dependence on coal.

2006-12-03T16:51:00.000-07:00

Just finished my buddy Steve's book he loaned me on the coal industry entitled, "Big Coal - The Dirty Little Secret Behind America's Energy Future" by Jeff Goodell. I have to say I was quite skeptical about reading this book. I thought it was going to be an unbalanced approach ranting against the coal industry for its unfair business practices and polluting nature. And really in a lot of respects it was that. But more so, it was an historical account of how the energy industry in this country became such a behomoth with the coal industry riding the coattails. Goodell balanced his displeasure with coal with his scientific fascination of how the organic "rock" got to be the source of 70% of our energy generation in this country in the first place. I was really impressed by Goodell's ability to get interviews with people on both sides of the issue and also his ability to research some difficult political, social, and scientific concepts surrounding energy production. If you get a chance, check this book out. It may forever change the way you think about what the true costs are in getting that 100 watt bulb to turn on in your home.

P.S. Adam, I just found the biodiesel book you gave me this year as a going away present unpacking boxes this weekend. That's on my next to read list! For anyone who wants to check it out click here for a link to the book entitled, "Biodiesel - Growing a New Energy Economy" by Greg Pahl.

Thanksgiving in Chicago photos are up now.

2006-12-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

Finally got the photos and captions done this morning.

Here's the link: http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&amp;Uc=i2wrqoj.53x3wv2j&Uy=jglwru&Ux=0

Hope you enjoy them. Was a great time in Chicago meeting little Miles. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera when we met up with our friends, Steve and Julie, who now live in Champaign-Urbana, IL. Guys, we've got mental pictures in our heads of the great deep dish pizza we all shared at Gino's on Black Friday downtown Chi-town. Thanks again for making the trip into the city for us. Was alot of fun!

Now, back to the swing of things out here in Wyoming. Weather has turned super cold. In the single digits near zero at night and only up around 20 degrees F for highs during the day. Winds haven't been too too bad, but we've been told to brace ourselves.

Out to get some blinds today for the house and take care of a bunch of unpacking and organizing. Rock Springs is having a holiday parade this evening complete with lots of spiced cider and hot chocolate. Should be fun. Thinking of checking out the new Bond film after that.

All our appliances are working for the first time since we moved in November 6th! The range kicked on yesterday when the electrician, who forgot to hook up the 50 amp breaker, came and got us juiced. Chihiro and I are making pancakes right now in honor of not having to do a microwave or crock pot meal. Yeehaw!

Until next time, cheers and have a great weekend!

Drew

Three Men and a Baby!

2006-11-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Chicago on Saturday night. What a trip it was! Got to meet the little guy, Miles Lincoln, hang out with my sis and Erich, my mom and Dad, Erich's family, and spend some QT with my sweetie, Chihiro. We also got to see our friends, Steve and Julie, who now live in Champaign-Urbana, IL. Thanks to you two for making the trip into the city for some great deep dish pizza at Gino's.

For those wondering, Miles is just as cool and cute in person as he is online. Will put all the pics up very soon. Running a bit behind these days with work and getting our fridge and range installed in the new place. Check back tomorrow or the next day for a link to the photos from last week's adventure. A special thanks to Tanya, Erich's sister, and her Mom, Hedy, for cooking such a fantastic feast on Thursday for all of us. It was incredible food and great conversation. Thank you guys again so much for all you did.

Signing off for Monday,

Drew

Leaving today for Chi-town!

2006-11-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

Chihiro and I are traveling to Chicago, IL today to see our new little nephew, Miles, and my sister, and her sweetie, Erich. My mom and dad are flying up too from Myrtle Beach, SC. Erich's sister, Tanya, is fixing a huge feast at their new home. Should be a good time. Hoping too to meet up with our friends, Steve and Julie, in downtown Chicago on Friday.

Will be back on Saturday with, I'm sure, lots of pics.

Hope everyone has a wonderful thanksgiving!

Peace,
Drew

An interesting podcast

2006-11-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

Interested in learning more about the world's religions?

This podcast is amazingly well done and seems to give a pretty balanced account of the major metaphysical thinking that exists on the planet today.

Whatever your thoughts on religion, there is no denying that it is a powerful force.

I'm an agnostic, but I enjoy learning more about the world's religions and what the majority of the population is invested in.

Ck out http://www.thinkingstrings.com/Product/RevWorldReligions.html

for general info about the podcast,

and http://thinkingstrings.com/Product/WR/index.html

for how to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.

Would love to hear your comments.

Enjoy!

Sand surfing in the Red Desert!

2006-11-15T22:03:00.000-07:00

Lots of boxes around still, but managed to get everything moved out of the living room to set up our couch and TV and DVD player for this past weekend(movie watching's a must!).

Had a nice visit with our first house guest, my friend, Keith, from Riverton, WY. We took a trip out to the 2nd largest active sand dunes in the world on Saturday (click here to see more pics). Unfortunately, we got snowed on, but it was fine. Still managed to get in some sand surfing. :)

On Sunday, it was much clearer. We took a drive up on White Mountain where they have a 26 mile long loop for wild horse viewing. Pretty neat up there with the pristine white snow to match the mountain's namesake. Click here to see more pics from that day.

Here's hoping all is well with our family and friends. Miss you all.

Drew

We're back online!

2006-11-10T11:05:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, and thanks for your patience - all 3 of you who read the blog ;)

Well, the past week was quite eventful. Saturday, our friends, Teresa and Jeremy, helped us move out of our old place and into the new (pics of Chihiro and I, and Chihiro and Teresa taking a moving break). Saturday night was our first night in the new home (pic of sunrise from our bedroom window). What a great feeling to be in your first home!

Sunday we spent most of the day just getting ready for Monday. Movers came on Monday to bring all of our stuff out of storage. It was 7 months to the day that we packed up our belongings in State College to be reunited with the cargo in Rock Springs, WY. Chihiro and I took the day off to inventory all of our belongings and make sure everything was still in working order. Pretty much everything was fine except for a few missing plastic totes and a damaged desk roller wheel. Not too bad for a cross country move I must say.

Had a fiasco with Home Depot concerning our appliances on Tuesday. Our fridge and range were damaged en route from Salt Lake City to Rock Springs. No one told the Rock Springs store that the two appliances were being sent back and new ones ordered. Our builder showed up to deliver the appliances and only the washer and dryer were there. After a lengthy discussion with the manager at Home Depot in Rock Springs, we received a "loaner fridge" on Wednesday so that we could move our perishables from our old place to our new place. Range and new fridge should be here next week.

Thursday, we got the washer and dryer hooked up. And this morning, the cable and internet guys came to get us "coaxially" connected. I barely managed to get most of the boxes in the living room put in another room so they could get our faceplates installed. Whew!

Still waaaaaaaay behind (see pic of status of living room). Major project today is to get the dryer exhaust fan installed and the 50 loads of laundry piled up washed. My friend Keith from Penn State who now lives and works in Riverton as a soil scientist (same job I am doing) will be our first official guest in the new pad tonight.

We're so thankful and excited for the new house. More later on further developments from the land that rises from the plains, Wyoming!

Peace,

Drew

It's official!

2006-11-04T07:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked the transfer of title and ownership to Chihiro and I for our new house. After what seemed like an eternity of fine print reading on what would happen if we don't pay our mortgage, we initialed and signed our last page and officially went into "serious debt". But it's good debt I keep telling myself. Debt that has the possibility of being paid off hopefully before the next Ice Age begins.

Seriously though, we're excited and begin the moving in process today. Will be without internet service probably through Monday or Tuesday of next week. Hope to be back on soon.

Thanks for all your well wishes. We've got room now to have our friends and family come stay with us. Consider this an open invitation to experience the beauty of the high desert in Wyoming. Will send out an email very soon on our new digits and address.

Thanks,

Drew

P.S. Pic is of Chihiro with our builder, Tony Tarufelli (right), and his right hand man, Jim Maser (left).

Caesar is alive and kicking!

2006-11-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

This is for our friend, Kirsten, in State College. She asked how Caesar was doing and I totally forgot to give that update on my first post.

Caesar is definitely ready to move. Not alot of wildlife to bring in and "play with" living in our current rental here in Rock Springs.

The new house should prove to be incredibly more fruitful (ie. rabbits spotted on neighbors' lawns, prairie dogs in the sagebrush steppe behind the house, and deer in the foothills).

Disclaimer: no animals have been harmed in the writing of this message.

Closing moved to Friday

2006-11-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

Hey, thanks to everyone who's emailed or put comments up on the blog. Great to hear from all of you!

We were supposed to close tonight on the house, but our builder was a bit behind and we had to postpone to Friday. As soon as the title changes hands to yours truly and Chihiro we'll let you know. The excitement is palpable now!

My sis had a baby September 26th!

2006-10-29T19:29:00.000-07:00

My sis, Melissa, and her sweetie, Erich, had a 6 lb, 10 ounce baby boy named Miles Lincoln Fritzmather on September 26th, 2006.

Check out more photos and details at www.fritzmather.com!

Where to start? (a long reminiscing initial posting to bring you up to speed)

2006-10-29T11:13:00.001-07:00

Life goes by so fast these days. It's been 6 months since we left State College, PA. Chihiro and I and our cat, Caesar, spent nearly 4 years there.

It took me nearly 3 years to get my degree at Penn State and almost another year to get a full time decent paying job. Our going away party there in State College was tons of fun. If you'd like to see the pictures, click the link here (you'll need a Snapfish ID and password to view, sorry. They are from a friend of mine, Ramesh, who took pics at the party. It's free though. Just click the link and sign up). We miss all you guys!

The spring, and summer, and now fall, have definitely flown by living here in Wyoming. I have been meaning to do something like this weblog thing for a while now, chronicling our lives here, but with moving two times since getting out here (long story), the field season for my work demanding 10 hour + days, Chihiro's job demanding the same, and building a house for the first time, I always seem to get sidetracked. Lately, I've been able to put some more things together and make this site happen, so here goes.

We're closing on a house this Wednesday. It's been quite an experience getting to understand fully the central role that Home Depot and Lowes play in our U.S. economy. We still have many "Robert Frost" miles to go before we sleep, but it's manageable now. Will keep you posted.

Here's a link to a little slideshow I created back in August for our house progress to date. Apologies if I didn't send this to you earlier. In case you haven't seen it, it's a good 6 and a half minutes long, click here only if you have time to kill ;). And if you don't want to see the long slideshow, skip to this short one with the latest photos as of this past week. Click here for the short slideshow.

We are living in Rock Springs, WY now about 180 miles to the east of Salt Lake City, UT. The Grand Tetons are about a 3 hour drive north of us. The Uinta Mountains are about a 2 hour drive south of us. Both ranges are breathtaking. The Wasatch Mountains which house Park City, UT are about 2 hours and 45 minutes to the west and are incredibly scenic too. Cheyenne, home to Sierra Trading Post, my all-time favorite store, is about 4 hours to the west of us. Denver and Fort Collins, CO are about 5 hours southeast of us. So we're not too far from some major mountains and some major metropolitan areas which is nice.

The city of Rock Springs is a growing town of about 25,000 people. There is a huge oil and natural gas boom going on in the surrounding areas here in Southwestern WY. Prices for everything are a bit higher than I would have expected, but it's not too terrible. Housing prices are a bit high and climbing. That's one reason we decided to buy right away. Renting was about as expensive as buying and the longer we waited, the more the prices increased. We're really excited about our new house.

In terms of work, Chihiro and I both are liking our jobs pretty much. I never thought that I'd be able to make a living playing in the dirt, but lo and behold, here I am getting a date in the sandbox every business day. Here's a link to some photos from this past summer working out in the high deserts of Wyoming (click here to view). Chihiro is working for an engineering/surveying consulting firm in Rock Springs. She is doing GIS and CAD work for them and really enjoys the people and projects she's been given.

I'll sign off on that note. That should bring you up to speed on our lives out here in the land that is "Rising from the Plains" (a great book by John McPhee), Wyoming.

Thanks for checking in and I'll write more again soon.

Drew