prompt 2

As my gaze falls down on photo fourteen. I am reminded of a youthful time. My arm around my love. My thoughts bogged down in mortal mud. Space pressed in by rocks around. Our time so brief. Our bones so brittle. We the dust of time.

prompt 1

The clear plastic drawer is a gateway into a creative world of mechs and men. Surrounded by a pale blue guardian; they await their freedom. Apart they dream and together they gleam. The master calls and the parts coalesce. A creature is born. A monster is grown.

NBC ruins the opening of the Beijing 2008 Olympics

It is a rare moment in my life when I make a connection with a work of art. So rare, that it has only happened three times in my 29 year existence. This is why it was so tragic last night when I came so close time and again to this elusive experience while watching the Chinese performers during the 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony. Their skills, precision, emotion and humanity is exactly what we relish from Olympic athletes. Every time I felt the connection nearing Bob Costas or Matt Lauer would rudely interrupt with some obvious comment or detailed factoid that could have been explained after the performance. Thank you NBC for ruining what could have been such a memorable connection that I could have shared between my fellow Americans, the Chinese people and the whole of humanity. I should have turned off the TV the second the commenter began with, "we are about to get under way with a countdown."

For you to gain some perspective on the severity of this tragedy, let me detail the three previous experiences. My first was with one of nature's most majestic masterpieces, the Grand Canyon. After hiking through this living art, which portrays such a colorful history, the Grand Canyon helped carve a future path for me for which I am forever grateful. On the same trip I just happened to be reading Hazen's and Trefil's, "Science Matters" , which somehow opened my mind to science, where countless others have fallen short. These two events stirred my curiosity such that when I took James Benbrook's Modern Physics class, I was compelled to switch my major from Computer Science to Physics to gain a better understanding of how the amazing universe works. From, that point on, I have never known boredom.

The information age can make it hard to feel the raw emotions evoked by a work of art. Even as I write this, I have been interrupted twice by telemarketers. So I must also give a big thanks to Comcast, who wanted to charge me $5 dollars a month for an unlisted number. This is why a recent experience watching PBS took me by surprise. As I tuned in to the New York Philharmonic, performing in North Korea I was moved by such an uncommon attempt at diplomacy. For that brief performance, I felt a connection with the North Korean people, made possible not only through the surprising selection of music like 'Arirang', a Korean folk song, but also through the visual images like the American, North Korean flags and the faces of the audience. Note, that while performing, PBS had the decency to let the music speak for itself, so shame on NBC for destroying one of the rarest emotions in my life. It is sad that they interject words into a performance that transcends words connecting groups of people that is almost never achieved. Could you imagine if the PBS commentator came in interrupting the flute solo to tell you how many people were performing. The NBC commentators, not only did this, but they had the gall to also inject political rubbish throughout the performance.

My third and final experience reminds me of how envious I am of the 90,000 or so people that had the privilege of attending the opening ceremony. On what seemed to be a rather normal afternoon with my parents attending the Houston symphony, I was treated to a complete surprise that I can only liken to what a person must have felt when they listened to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on Friday, May 7, 1824, IF they had never heard of Beethoven. I am not one to read about a performance, whether a movie or song before I experience it, so during the standing ovation after one of the works, I was completely stunned by its beauty and wonderful strings that I thought surely it must be one of Beethoven's work, but no, it was Christopher Theofanidis' debut of "Rainbow Body." The sad reality is that I have downloaded "Rainbow Body" in Itunes and it will just never compare to the live experience of bathing in the acoustic vibrations.

Random Peeve 2

Companies have been relentless on forcing marketing down the throats of a captive audience. Most people are familiar with the new campaign of commercials at movie theaters, a tactic that Hitler's propaganda dogs would have drooled over. Although, this is near intolerable, it is not on the same tier as the peeve I wish to discuss.

Simply put, the music is being interrupted. It is not the music company overloads, but every company that has customer support. Waiting on hold, while on the phone, is not that bad, especially if you have a speaker phone. However, interrupting the soothing hold music with advertisements has to be the most painful captive audience torture I've endured. Let me recap my worst experience.

By far the worst hold experience was with Direct TV. Not only was I in a bad mood since my dish was not working properly, but the soothing classical music was interrupted with a man shouting over the phone about the exciting WCW coverage on Direct TV. Just imagine the commercials you see about the ridiculous wrestling soap opera and the vein popping shouting matches and then picture having to hear this ON THE PHONE!!! Pause... Southing music... BLAM! Come on an underwater journey with the crew from the Discovery Channel.

What makes this worse than the movie theater, is the fact that you have to pay attention to the phone or you might miss the customer service representative that is suppose to help you and you do not want to have to call again and relive this unbearable American torture. I could go on and on about the music interruptions from different companies, but it would be pointless. What must be done is simple. Everybody, that feels the same way as I do and still has a functioning ear drum, needs to express their concern to the company that held them captive. There is a reason why people think imprisonment is synonymous with torture.

Random Peeve 1

The incorrect use of the word peruse. I am all for the evolution of words. English majors need jobs too. However, it is unacceptable to have the word evolve into its opposite meaning. Have you ever been told to go peruse a document. This is now a lose-lose situation. If the person uses the word correctly, I should examine the document thoroughly. If the person misused the word and just wanted me to 'skim' the document I will waste my time. Language is to get rid of the ambiguity that grunts and hand waving created.

Observations of Life

This blog is my perception of the world around me. It is a dedication to my dear friend Keith Coleman who wrote down his observations of life before extinguishing it. Keith and our adventures will always remain in my memory. I may never understand the pain he felt, but I respect the life he had.

Our relationship in the later years could be described like the movie Unbreakable, where
Samuel L. Jackson's character searched the world for his polar opposite believing that there must be someone out there to balance his evil. Bruce Willis played that somebody who had a propensity towards doing good. I am not trying to say Keith and I were the good vs. evil people, but we had the opposite perception of the world around us. He saw and felt pain in everything, while my looking glass produced images of happiness and wonder.

Keith was a philosopher and many times our discussions fell on this perception dichotomy. Although we agreed many people can fall into these two categories, we often argued over the ability to switch between the two. I do not believe I ever convinced him that this was possible and our brains were not hard wired upon development. Not everything is black and white, so maybe some people posses the ability to shape the lens they peer through, but I fear this is the exception and not the rule.

A Quick Update

This blog is not an autobiography, so I do not feel the need to write about the past unless it pertains to an observation. However, a quick explanation of my current state could help as a starting point to aid with the flow. Not to mention the wonderful benefit of getting the websites I am working on indexed by google. Go figure, write a blog through www.blogger.com and
there is a better chance of getting posted links indexed by google. So the update begins.

I am happily married to Sheri and we celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary yesterday. I work for General Dynamics and this will be a closed book to the outside world as I wish to keep my job. I am currently working on my master's degree in remote sensing and I hold a BS degree in physics. I thoroughly enjoy my hobbies, which include

• Working on a collaborative virtual physics community, the website is currently in the test phase and can be found at www.planetphysics.org
• Robotics, I am currently working on my mini mac robot named Kit. A detailed description can be found at my miniblog
• Rebuilding a 1958 CJ-5 Jeep Willys, a blog soon to come...
• The never ending maintenance on our 1898 home , including the recent discovery of a wonderful wood floor beneath the upstairs carpet, which will need some love