We’re back from our East Coast trip. Brandi went to the Medical Library Association Conference in Philadelphia this May and I joined her for a quick vacation in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. We’re both completely enamored with Boston, though I’m sure it’s ridiculously expensive. The heat in New York was painful, as was the smell, but it was a nice trip. We were actually celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary. Life has been very good of late. See some photos.

As a bonus, I took a video from The Cyclone, the ancient wooden roller coaster at Coney Island. See the roller coaster video.

We took a three-day weekend and attended the annual meeting of the North Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club. We stayed at the Eastern North Carolina 4H Center on Albemarle Sound. We kayaked in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and in the Scuppernong River Preserve. We think it’s time to buy a couple of flatwater kayaks. Have a look at the photos.

Wishing I was there now…

is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

Well, at least it seems to be the favorite number of the Motion Picture Association of America. They’re issuing DMCA Takedown Notices to people who post this number, I’ve read. I’ve always wanted one of my own! For those readers not ‘in the know’, this number is the decryption key for HD-DVD Processing. DVD encryption is meant to prevent DVD copying, but also makes it a criminal act to watch DVD’s in Linux, among other things. When I pay for a DVD I want to be able to watch it. That’s it. Also, copyright law clearly grants the right to make ‘archival backups’. See Spread this number for more information.

I was just reading a brilliant conversation between Sam Harris, atheist and intellectual, and Rick Warren, Christian. From the article, The God Debate:

WARREN: Why isn’t atheism more appealing if it’s supposedly the most intellectually honest?
HARRIS: Frankly, it has a terrible PR campaign.
WARREN: [Laughs] It’s not a matter of PR.
HARRIS: It is right next to child molester as something you don’t want to be. But that is a product, I would argue, of what religious people tell one another about atheism.

It is my opinion, and I’m not alone, that atheism is the most persecuted religious belief in American today. My own mother has wondered aloud what keeps atheists from murdering and raping innocent people. In the mind of many people of religious faith, ethics are the exclusive domain of the faithful and atheists, having no fear of eternal punishment, are free to do as they please. I left that conversation amazed that fear of damnation is the only thing keeping people of faith from committing horrendous crimes. Of course, the truth is that faith does not prevent those things. Anyway, Harris was right in that the public relations battle is being won mightily by fundamentalists.

Last Christmas I bought Brandi Sirius Satellite Radio from Crutchfield. I bought the Starmate Replay ST2 receiver. It was the cheapest one I could find and it’s been fine. I also bought the home kit and a Terk 50 ft extension kit. We’ve got excellent reception at home now. I ran the cable through the floor to the crawl space, out a vent in the foundation, up a downspout, and up to the roof peak.

We also determined that the FM transmission capability of the receiver was shoddy. We bought a Sony car stereo with an auxiliary input on the front. While there, we had Circuit City hide the cords for the Sirius antenna , power cable, and auxiliary input cable, as well as an iPod power cable behind the dash. It looks pretty clean, but it wasn’t cheap.

The final outlay came out something like this:

• Starmate Replay ST2: $70.00 (after $30 mail-in rebate)
• Sirius STH2 home kit: $39.99
• 50 ft extension: $30.00
• Sony CDXGT510: $104.99
• Installation and wiring: $80 including wired power port, wiring harness, Sirius power cable, iPod power cable
• Monthly Sirius Subscription: $12.95

Pretty expensive. Don’t buy a satellite radio thinking that’s all you’ll need. After the initial investment for a car receiver it start to make sense that you’ll want the home kit. If you get the home kit you’ll probably need the extension to mount the antenna somewhere you can get a clean signal. Then you realize that you really need to plug the receiver in because the FM transmitter is weak. Then you’ll have all these crazy wires everywhere. The next thing you know you’ll have sunk a couple of hundred dollars into it.

All in all, we really like it. We almost never listen to local radio anymore. I do listen to WUNC, our local NPR station when I’m alone. We usually have one of the jazz or 80’s mix stations on when we’re home. In the car, it seems the iPod is more popular than satellite radio, except on long trips. Satellite radio really shines on the road. After spending a little time with radio without commercials, it’s pretty annoying to listen to regular radio. Really annoying. The selection is good, too. I especially like the BBC World News and other talk stations. Brandi seems pleased with the electronica selection.  I understand she uses it as background sound at work, too, via access to the online stream.

It’s especially nice to have the auxiliary input on the front of the stereo. When I drive to work I usually park about a half mile from campus and listen to This American Life or Science Friday on my Zen Nano Plus while I walk. Then, when I get to the car, I just plug the Zen in and continue listening in the car while I drive back to Durham. I recently asked Brandi if she wanted to continue our Sirius subscription and she did so I assume she thinks it’s worth the $13/month.

I’ve posted some photos of the house. There are some other new photos up, too, including the revamped kitchen. We’re installing new flooring in the kitchen next week and will paint the cabinets soon so we’re almost there. Soon I’ll start scraping, painting, and reglazing outside. Haven’t seen any treefrogs yet this spring, but it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit last night.

Brandi and I spent the weekend in Charleston, South Carolina, with her father recently. It’s a lovely city with an obviosly long history. Rainbow Row made us wish we could afford a home there. Well, except for the inevitable hurricanes.

We also visited Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. I’ve never been to a real Southern plantation before and wasn’t disappointed. It had the requisite lovely gardens, impressively large house, and it even had a swamp replete with alligators. The most interesting part, however, was the ’slave talk’. It was really educational. Now I understand why some Southerners aren’t ashamed of the Civil War. It seems the prerogative of the Plantation is that slaves were damned lucky to be so well provisioned and looked after. Slavery was, according to them, a fine lifestyle choice that many white Southerners were jealous of. If only the whites could live as well as slaves, they said! Indeed!

I wanted to smack the orator in the face. I wanted to jump up and scream. Really, I wanted a refund so as not to support that revisionist, racist monstrosity with a single penny of my money. I was left wondering, though, if they feel funny talking that crap in front of black people. Simply amazing! Of course, they also kindly pointed out that Harriet Beecher Stow picked the worst possible example and that she was a Yankee just trying to cause trouble. (!) They also trotted out the tired old refrain about the North instigating a war for economic reasons and abolition being a real burden to blacks. Thanks for the education, racists!

All in all, we really liked Charleston. After my rage turned to nausea, we all had a really nice time. I’d like to pretend that I believe South Carolina hasn’t institutionalized racist propaganda, but it’s hard in light of the evidence. In fact, they were flying the flag over the statehouse as late as 2000. Or, perhaps the confederate flag really is a noble symbol of blah blah blah. Treasonous, seditious, and racist. Whoa. Angry again!

I just migrated some posts from my first blog into this one.  I see they date back to March of 2003.  I had a blog prior to that as an undergraduate but I can’t find the archive now.  Brandi will be pleased.  Otherwise, they aren’t much to look at.  I’m sure many of the links are broken.  Well, that’s life.

I am reminded of the words of e e cummings. I was just sitting on the screen porch reading
The Selfish Gene. The sunset over Northgate Park was lovely. It’s wonderful to be able to work outside a bit in the evenings after work. I’ve said it before, but Spring in North Carolina is sublime.

And now, one of the few things I recall from junior high.

in just-

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame baloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old baloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and

the

goat-footed

baloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

e e cummings

Gee, I almost feel sorry for the people I know (and could be related to) who have their heads stuck in the sand over global warming. I try not to discuss politics since I’m passionate enough to make self look pretty extreme, but I think now seems like a fine time to point something out.

So, not long ago I was pretty disturbed to receive an email extolling the wisdom of the completely untrained, and basically insane, Inhofe and his moronic position on global warming. The point of the email was to share this gem from Inhofe. Some people, mostly Republicans, want to believe some right-wing extremist politicians and a few pseudo-scientists paid to lie about global warming. The email argued that there is no scientific consensus about either global warming or the human factors contributing to it. Gee, I’d trust them over the National Academies of Science. But why trust the National Academies? After all, maybe they’re a bunch of liberal tree-huggers, right? We could ask the Environmental Protection Agency (whom Bush has been silencing), or the the national science academies of the G8 nations and Brazil, China and India. Wait, they could all be lefty, communist sympathizers, right? Well, maybe we should ask an organization we know is pretty far to the right. How about the U.S. Pentagon?

It’s pretty tragic that people are so wrapped up in their political dogma that they cannot or will not consider the gravity of the situation. It makes me really wonder how long life on Earth as we know it can be sustained. We’re all so stupid and selfish and petty.