bogen.org

Sarah and I went ice skating for an hour or so on Saturday afternoon.  The temperature was pleasant (for January), a light snow was falling, and the ice skating rink was not very crowded.  Sarah is a much better skater than I am, but using hockey skates, instead of figure skates, has significantly reduced the wear and tear on my body.  When I used figure skates, I spent most of my time in one of two states:

1. lying prone on the ice;
2. establishing the fact that gravity is still an active force in our world, immediately followed by a resumption of state number one.

I can’t even look at Doritos any more without being reminded of The Onion headline:  "Doritos adds one millionth ingredient."

New gear added to my winter bicycling arsenal:  ski goggles.  This morning I wore ski goggles, a polypro skull cap, a helmet cover, a neoprene face mask, and a fleece neck gaiter.  My head and neck were very warm.  Now, I just need to get warm below the waist.  I tried winter boots this morning, but they just didn’t have enough insulation and my feet were reasonably chilly when I got to the office.  If I could get my lower half to be a bit warmer, I could bike in weather with wind chills well into the lower -20′s.  Of course, the question is then whether or not it is worth the effort to bike or just take the bus.

Suffice it to say that I don’t have to worry about my lunch getting warm during my commute to work when it is strapped to my bike rack in below zero temperatures.  Often, my lunch is colder when I get to work than it was when I took it out of the fridge at home.  I tried putting a water bottle in my water bottle carrier one morning, an experiment that I won’t repeat.  By the time I got to work, almost all the water in the bottle had become ice.

Yesterday, I set a new personal record.  The wind chill was -13 and I biked to work.  My previous record low wind chill for bicycle commuting was -2.  Surprisingly, I wasn’t cold beyond reason.  I wore GoreTex pants to block out the wind, a helmet cover, a hat, a neck gaiter, a wind breaker, a fleece vest, arm warmers, and two pairs of mittens (one fleece, and one leather).  That was just enough gear to keep me right on the edge of comfortably warm for the whole ride.

A computer science professor has written an interesting analysis of the government’s attempts to use data-mining software to find terrorists hidden in America.

We saw The Count of Monte Cristo last night.  The movie was quite compelling, and the scenery was fabulous.  The movie was filmed largely in Malta.  Sarah and I seriously considered a trip to Malta in the recent past, but discarded the idea in favor of travel to other destinations.  After seeing the movie, both Sarah and I admitted that we were re-thinking our re-thinking of a trip to Malta.

Martin Luther King, Jr. thus spake:

"Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty and say, ' If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy.'

Now that is a strange statement to make because the world is all messed up.  The nation is sick, trouble is in the land, confusion is all around.  That’s a strange statement to make.  But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars."

And he also righteously gave voice to the following:

"And so before we condemn them, let us see that we all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. Alfred Adler, the great psychoanalyst, contends that this is the dominant impulse. Sigmund Freud used to contend that sex was the dominant impulse, and Adler came with a new argument saying that this quest for recognition, this desire for attention, this desire for distinction is the basic impulse, the basic drive of human life, this drum major instinct.

And you know, we begin early to ask life to put us first. Our first cry as a baby was a bid for attention. And all through childhood the drum major impulse or instinct is a major obsession. Children ask life to grant them first place. They are a little bundle of ego. And they have innately the drum major impulse or the drum major instinct.

Now in adult life, we still have it, and we really never get by it. We like to do something good. And you know, we like to be praised for it. Now if you don’t believe that, you just go on living life, and you will discover very soon that you like to be praised. Everybody likes it, as a matter of fact. And somehow this warm glow we feel when we are praised or when our name is in print is something of the vitamin A to our ego. Nobody is unhappy when they are praised, even if they know they don’t deserve it and even if they don’t believe it. The only unhappy people about praise is when that praise is going too much toward somebody else. But everybody likes to be praised because of this real drum major instinct.

Now the presence of the drum major instinct is why so many people are 'joiners.' You know, there are some people who just join everything. And it’s really a quest for attention and recognition and importance. And they get names that give them that impression. So you get your groups, and they become the 'Grand Patron,' and the little fellow who is henpecked at home needs a chance to be the 'Most Worthy of the Most Worthy' of something. It is the drum major impulse and longing that runs the gamut of human life. And so we see it everywhere, this quest for recognition. And we join things, overjoin really, that we think that we will find that recognition in.

Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers. You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion. And they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying. In order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey. In order to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car. (Make it plain) In order to be lovely to love you must wear this kind of lipstick or this kind of perfume. And you know, before you know it, you’re just buying that stuff. That’s the way the advertisers do it.

I got a letter the other day, and it was a new magazine coming out. And it opened up, 'Dear Dr. King: As you know, you are on many mailing lists. And you are categorized as highly intelligent, progressive, a lover of the arts and the sciences, and I know you will want to read what I have to say.' Of course I did. After you said all of that and explained me so exactly, of course I wanted to read it.

But very seriously, it goes through life; the drum major instinct is real. And you know what else it causes to happen? It often causes us to live above our means. It’s nothing but the drum major instinct. Do you ever see people buy cars that they can’t even begin to buy in terms of their income? You’ve seen people riding around in Cadillacs and Chryslers who don’t earn enough to have a good T-Model Ford. But it feeds a repressed ego.

You know, economists tell us that your automobile should not cost more than half of your annual income. So if you make an income of five thousand dollars, your car shouldn’t cost more than about twenty-five hundred. That’s just good economics. And if it’s a family of two, and both members of the family make ten thousand dollars, they would have to make out with one car. That would be good economics, although it’s often inconvenient. But so often, haven’t you seen people making five thousand dollars a year and driving a car that costs six thousand? And they wonder why their ends never meet. That’s a fact.

Now the economists also say that your house shouldn’t cost–if you’re buying a house, it shouldn’t cost more than twice your income. That’s based on the economy and how you would make ends meet. So, if you have an income of five thousand dollars, it’s kind of difficult in this society. But say it’s a family with an income of ten thousand dollars, the house shouldn’t cost much more than twenty thousand. Well, I’ve seen folk making ten thousand dollars, living in a forty- and fifty-thousand-dollar house. And you know they just barely make it. They get a check every month somewhere, and they owe all of that out before it comes in. Never have anything to put away for rainy days.

But now the problem is, it is the drum major instinct. And you know, you see people over and over again with the drum major instinct taking them over. And they just live their lives trying to outdo the Joneses. They got to get this coat because this particular coat is a little better and a little better-looking than Mary’s coat. And I got to drive this car because it’s something about this car that makes my car a little better than my neighbor’s car. I know a man who used to live in a thirty-five-thousand-dollar house. And other people started building thirty-five-thousand-dollar houses, so he built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house. And then somebody else built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house, and he built a hundred-thousand-dollar house. And I don’t know where he’s going to end up if he’s going to live his life trying to keep up with the Joneses.

There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive. And that’s where I want to move now. I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn't harnessed, it causes one’s personality to become distorted. I guess that’s the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality. If it isn’t harnessed, you will end up day in and day out trying to deal with your ego problem by boasting. Have you ever heard people that–you know, and I’m sure you’ve met them–that really become sickening because they just sit up all the time talking about themselves. And they just boast and boast and boast, and that’s the person who has not harnessed the drum major instinct.

And then it does other things to the personality. It causes you to lie about who you know sometimes. There are some people who are influence peddlers. And in their attempt to deal with the drum major instinct, they have to try to identify with the so-called big-name people. And if you’re not careful, they will make you think they know somebody that they don’t really know. They know them well, they sip tea with them, and they this-and-that. That happens to people.

And the other thing is that it causes one to engage ultimately in activities that are merely used to get attention. Criminologists tell us that some people are driven to crime because of this drum major instinct. They don’t feel that they are getting enough attention through the normal channels of social behavior, and so they turn to anti-social behavior in order to get attention, in order to feel important. And so they get that gun, and before they know it they robbed a bank in a quest for recognition, in a quest for importance.

And then the final great tragedy of the distorted personality is the fact that when one fails to harness this instinct, he ends up trying to push others down in order to push himself up. And whenever you do that, you engage in some of the most vicious activities. You will spread evil, vicious, lying gossip on people, because you are trying to pull them down in order to push yourself up. And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct.

Now the other problem is, when you don’t harness the drum major instinct–this uncontrolled aspect of it–is that it leads to snobbish exclusivism. It leads to snobbish exclusivism. And you know, this is the danger of social clubs and fraternities–I’m in a fraternity; I’m in two or three–for sororities and all of these, I’m not talking against them. I’m saying it’s the danger. The danger is that they can become forces of classism and exclusivism where somehow you get a degree of satisfaction because you are in something exclusive. And that’s fulfilling something, you know–that I’m in this fraternity, and it’s the best fraternity in the world, and everybody can’t get in this fraternity. So it ends up, you know, a very exclusive kind of thing….

If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don't want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize–that isn't important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards–that's not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school.

I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others.

I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.

I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question.

I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry.

And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked.

I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.

I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that’s all I want to say."

In case you missed it, a man and his wife were recently jailed for three days because they put a note to airport luggage screeners in their suitcases.  The note made no threats, nor did it make jokes about bombs, hijackings, or other verboten topics in an airport.  After holding the man and his wife for three days, the federal government decided the man had committed no crimes and let him go.  America’s airport security apparatus:  defending the unsuspecting public from notes hidden in checked baggage.

Last night I decided to examine a chart that details exactly how long it takes someone to get frostbite given temperature and wind speed.  Since my commute is about twenty-eight minutes by bicycle, knowing the weather conditions that lead to frostbite in about thirty minutes is very relevant and useful information.  As it turns out, I’ve been right on the cusp of entering the thirty minutes to frostbite zone on the chart several times now.  I’m still tinkering with my winter biking apparel, too.  Tonight, I’m going shopping for a really think, wind-proof pair of mittens, a pair of wind-proof pants, and a good thick scarf.  Once I have those, I should be all set to bike in cold weather.

You can thank the Vice President’s Energy Task Force when you are pumping money into your car this spring.  Even without a war in Iraq, the Energy Department predicts that gasoline prices in the US will rise at least a dime a gallon this spring.  See, the Veep’s energy plan doesn’t reduce the US’ reliance on fossil fuels.  Since we don’t power our cars with coal (or the fabled, clean coal), we are dependent upon foreign nations and the oil they produce to get our SUV’s to Burger King and back.  So, when a bunch of college students and disgruntled, underpaid, exploited workers in Venezuela decide to strike, people in Dubuque, Spokane, and Bangor pay the price.  Now, if the government’s energy plan was to actually reduce fossil fuel use, say through conservation, (a terrible "personal virtue") and efficiency initiatives, the US would actually be less vulnerable to the whims of rioters in foreign nations.  However, the government’s policy of more and bigger SUVs and the gas to power them places your wallet at the mercy of strangers in a strange land.

On a related note, VP Cheney is no longer planning to disturb the general karmic balance of Madison by blanketing the city to the black cloud of his presence and security entourage any time soon.  The VP was planning on coming until someone announced that he was planning a visit.  At that point, the veil of secrecy was lifted, protests were planned, and the Veep suddenly found his calendar very full with engagements elsewhere.  It seems that our almost duly-elected Veep doesn’t like the idea of the American people protesting his policies and decisions.  Go back to your "undisclosed location" Cheney.  You weren’t wanted here by the vast majority of Madisonians in the first place.

Dakota Style Cheesy Cheese Puffs:  Strangely addictive given their unabashed artificial nature.  Fortunately, these little Satan snacks are not sold within several hundred miles of our house.

As if I needed yet another example, the universe always strikes when it is least expected.  The other night, as I was doing the dinner dishes, the thought came to me that I hadn’t had a flat tire on my bike in a really long time.  The universe was listening, of course, and I got a flat tire on my way into work the very next morning.

My bike got new tires this week, and should be getting a rack in the next week or two.  The new tires will hopefully perform better in the snow than my old ones did.  The old ones (Panaracer Paselas) were great road tires, but were terrible in the snow.  They slipped and slid all over the road.  The new tires (Tioga Bloodhounds) are just a hair wider than the Paselas and have a mountain bike-style tread.  After a long time of carrying the world on my back (and in my Timbuktu bag), I decided to get a bike rack when they went on sale recently.  After I get the rack (via the ever-so-slow United States Postal Service), I’ll be able to strap certain parts of my load directly over the rear tire and give my shoulders and back a break.

The curling team on which I play won its fifth game in a row last night.  We started out losing three straight.  However, we somehow managed to turn things around, and our record is now 5-3.  We had to win some really close games (including last night when we were down by one point going into the final end, where we scored two points to pull out the win) to get our record where it is.  Regardless of the win-loss record and the scores, it has been really fun to play the game.

A new billboard has gone up here in Madison advertising a tanning service.  However, the satisfied client depicted on the bulletin board appears to have spent the entire winter indoors, and most assuredly not in a tanning booth.  Would it have been too much trouble to find a picture of a tan person to put on a tanning salon billboard?

The last time I checked, the city of Madison was located in Wisconsin.  Historically, snow falls on Wisconsin during the late fall, winter, and early spring months.  Why, then, does the city of Madison’s street department act completely confused about what exactly it is supposed to do with its fancy, expensive snow removal equipment every time it snows?  I’ve never seen a city that has such a hard time getting the streets plowed.  The sad thing is that the city doesn’t even plow every street.  They only plow certain streets unless there is new snow on the ground that meets or exceeds some arbitrary value.  A major bike lane through the city was not plowed on Monday, even though the three auto lanes, the bike lane running the other direction, and the bus lane (all of which are on the same street) were plowed on Monday.  The City of Shorewood Hills (which for all intents and purposes is a neighborhood of Madison that just happens to elect its own Mayor) doesn’t plow their streets at all.  Apparently, Shorewood Hills residents are wealthy enough to trash their vehicles periodically by sliding down hills and into trees and each other.  Perhaps Madison could take some snow removal lessons from towns and cities in Minnesota and the Dakotas that don’t seem to be flustered by white flakes of frozen water falling from the sky.

Why do I pick on America’s supposed airport security system so much?  Partly because it’s so easy to do so.  Sarah left this morning on a flight to Washington, D.C.  She was worried that she wouldn’t be allowed to take knitting needles on the flight, so I hung around the airport in case she needed to hand the needles off to me when she got to security.  As it turned out, she was allowed to bring knitting needles on the flight.  However, the Transportation Security Administration screener with whom Sarah spoke told her that if a man tried to bring knitting needles on a flight, he would most likely be forced to leave the needles behind.  Apparently, women with almost-sharp pointy objects are non-threatening.  It’s the men we have to worry about.  Before I fly next, I might have to invest in a cheap pair of knitting needles just to test this ridiculous policy.

Capsule movie reviews:

• We Were Soldiers:  Mel Gibson; Vietnam; explosions and gunfire.  If any of these three turn your crank, you’ll like this movie.  Otherwise, I found the movie very superficial and lacking in compelling characters and a storyline.  For instance, we know that the main character wrote the book (in real life) on which the movie is based.  Even if one didn’t know that, simply reading the opening credits would reveal as much.  As such, there is absolutely no suspense about whether or not he is going to survive the battle.  Movies that are a simple matter of how, rather than a matter of if are often less than compelling.
• Monsoon Wedding:  A movie that I initially resisted watching, but ultimately enjoyed.  The characters have some depth, the setting is colorful, and the story line is a nice twist on the "crazy family wedding" plot.

We’ve eaten at a vegetarian restaurant here in Madison, Peacemeal, a few times in the last month or so.  Normally, I don’t make it a point to eat as though I’m a practicing vegetarian.  Sarah and I make vegetarian chili at home, and vegetarian burritos don’t sit so heavily in my stomach, but that’s about the extent of my active vegetarian leanings.  But, in our search for another restaurant to enjoy, we decided to try Peacemeal.  The food there, so far, has been very good.  Their salsa is great.  Their beer selection, while far from extensive, has a little bit of everything.  The ingredients that are put into the main dishes are always fresh and tasty.  The restaurant doesn’t cram huge servings down our throats like almost all other restaurants try to do these days.  The service, while not always timely, is friendly.  My only complaint is the high number of dishes on the menu that contain fake meat.  I don’t necessarily have anything against fake meat (tofu, seitan, and the like), necessarily.  However, if I’m going to eat a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich, I’m going to have it with real meat, and not fake meat.  Why bother with fake meat when I can just eat real meat?  I can understand why others choose not to eat meat, but that does not mean that I’m consigned to eating fake meat, as well.  Rather than eating a meatloaf that doesn’t contain meat or a burger that isn’t made of cow, I’ll just eat meatloaf and cow burger and enjoy them.  These foods did not need to be de-meated.  Fake meat has always been something of a mystery to me.  Why do vegetarians feel the need to take meat dishes, remove the meat, and then replace the meat with something that is like meat, but isn’t?  Is this a secret yearning for the flavor or texture of meat?  Why not start from scratch and try to create new and interesting dishes that don’t need fake meat and taste good?  That’s why I don’t mind vegetarian burritos.  The vegetarian burrito is unapologetically meat-less.  No fake meat necessary.  The same thing can be said for the items I order off the Peacemeal menu.  I try to stick to selections that do not contain fake meat; selections that make no excuses for their lack of meat.

Saturday I went into the bank and purchased $49.64 worth of golden dollars for the bargain price of fifty dollars.  How did I end up with a sum in golden dollars smaller than the sum in paper money it took to purchase the coins?  Simple answer:  exchange rates.  Snuggled into the rolls of golden dollars was a Canadian "loonie" dollar!  Argh!  It’s wonderful that I can now be ripped off when using larger denominations of coins.  Shouldn’t it be illegal for US banks to pawn off their Canadian money on Americans?  How on Earth am I going to get rid of this money?  You can’t hand a golden dollar to someone without them taking a good hard look at it and remarking about it.  Passing off a Canadian dime or nickel is often hard enough, but a loonie?  Beyond that, the bank tried to give me a not insignificant number of Susan B. Anthony dollars, as well.  The teller told me that there would be Susan B. Anthony dollars mixed in with my golden dollars.  So, I tore open the rolls and made them swap out the SBA dollars for golden dollars.  Too bad I didn’t notice the $%$#&%*(^*$% Canadian dollar when I pawed through the coins at the teller’s window.  Apparently, when I said, "I want to purchase fifty golden dollars." the teller heard, " I want to purchase thirty-nine golden dollars, ten Susan B. Anthony dollars, and one Canadian loonie."  That’s US Bank’s five-star service guarantee at work.

In reality, handing out Canadian money is a real money maker for banks.  Imagine if a US bank purchased one thousand loonies from a Canadian bank.  It would cost the US Bank $640.00.  The US bank would then turn around and pawn those Canadian dollars off on unsuspecting Americans purchasing coins in bulk from the US bank.  If the US bank were able to successfully insert just one Canadian dollar into one thousand different coin transactions, the bank would net a tidy $360 profit.  Now that doesn’t sound like much, but since most US banks conduct many more than one thousand coin transactions a day, that $360 would quickly add up.  Heck, the US bank could even pay someone $20/hour to administer the whole program and still clear a tidy $200 profit every day by moving just one thousand loonies.  This may sound far fetched, but when you look at the schemes that other businesses and business people have used to defraud the American public, I refuse to believe that such a scheme is outside the bounds of reality.

One of the most entertaining aspects of maintaining a publicly accessible website is looking through the web server logs.  Whenever you visit a website, your browser tells the web server which page contains the link that sent you to the web site.  This information is then logged in the web servers logs.  Also, when you visit a search engine, the terms for which you searched that led you to a particular page/site are also sent to th web server by your browser and logged by the web server.  So, by looking through the web server logs, I can see what search terms bring people to my site and which pages receive the most hits.  The top search terms that direct people to my site are below in order of frequency:

1. Easily the most popular page on my website is a picture of yours truly standing in the Roman Colosseum.  On particular search engines (AltaVista, especially), a search for either "Colosseum," or "Roman Colosseum," will bring up links to my site in the top twenty or so links.  The interesting thing about that picture is that the picture immediately preceding it in the set has far more information about the Colosseum itself and is a better picture, too.  However the preceding page is only viewed one-sixth as often as the picture of me standing in the Colosseum.
2. The second most often sought out page on my website for the month of December got that ranking for several reasons.  Some people hit that page looking for "UPS INTERNAL ACTIVITY CODE" which is only there because I cut and pasted some tracking text from UPS’ web site (followed by the obligatory rant on how much better our world would be without the bumbling incompetence of UPS).  Someone else hit that page looking for information on "how to split wood."  Well, I do mention splitting wood on that page, but only in the context of the fact that I recently had my first wood splitting experience.  Finally, the text "La Grande Vista CA" also draws people to that page for some reason.  This text is only included, again, as it was part of the UPS tracking information that I mentioned above.
3. The words "Rome mcdonalds" typed into certain search engines will bring people to another picture on my site that shows the interior of a McDonalds near the Spanish steps.  I get a few of these a month.  I will admit that when I put up the pictures from our Italian vacation that I had no idea they would be so universally popular.
4. Other search terms that brought people to my site in December (and other months):
   • Building a monster truck (One of my personal favorites as anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m the last person on Earth who could tell you anything about building a monster truck.  Not only do I know nothing about cars in general, I know, and want to learn, even less about monster trucks.)
   • Bogen pest control
   • Trolling for mountain lions
   • Bogen answer machine
   • ooze OR disassembles OR orators OR seconders OR autocrats (I would like to see what pages do match this one.  Apparently one of mine does…)
   • Sexy chevy (A phrase I use all the time…)
   • Here’s your sign
   • schizocarpous OR subsidist OR hydrosulphuric OR philobotanist (I’m glad the searcher could spell those terms, because I certainly can’t.)

We saw The Lord of the Rings:  The Two Towers yesterday afternoon.  I liked Tolkien’s version of Tolkien’s story better than Peter Jackson’s version of Tolkien’s story.  Jackson’s version is about twenty-five to thirty percent true to Tolkien’s story and the remainder isn’t necessarily better, or even as good.  About the most complimentary thing I can say about the movie is that the visuals were generally well done.  In fact, I’d say that I enjoyed I Spy better than I did LOTR:  The Two Towers.