Spring thoughts...

So the first day of "official" spring in the Northern Hemisphere has occurred and to remind myself that it was really spring, I froze my face and fingers off to get a nice little picture of a robin. Living in Western NY, many people consider the arrival of the geese, on their trip north, as being the harbinger of spring, but for me it is the arrival of the robins. They show up the week of the equinox. Always. They arrive and with them usually comes the first warm weekend of the season as well. So, they are my favorite birds.

Spring is my second favorite season. Summer being the first, but spring is right up there. I like 'em all to be truthful, but for different reasons and in different degrees. Spring is many things for me, but more than anything it is the beginning of warm weather. I like warm weather, actually I like hot weather, but Western NY hot, not Mojave Desert hot. I like when the thermometer is pushing into the high 80's and the sun is shining bright all day long. When the pool temp is getting up there too, and you can jump in the water and be so comfy that when you get out the air seems cool. That's what I really like. But that is summer, I wanted to wax philosophical about spring!

So what I like about spring... the snow is mostly gone and nature is coming back to life all around me. I walk outside in the morning and I can hear birds back in the trees. I am greeted by all manner of chirps and squawks and cheeps. Whistles and trills, the flutter of wings and the honks of the geese. Sometimes I can look out in the field and see the Canadian geese less than 50 yards from my doorstep. I see the rabbits scampering for cover when they spot me. They better scamper for cover, because I hate when they eat my flowers, so they are fair game for a shot from whatever gun I have handy. But the big draw for me is watching the world around me turn green. The spring bulbs come first, poking little shoots out of the ground and fighting the cold and the occasional snow until they triumphantly bloom! Sometimes the first emergence is the snowdrops, but other times the crocuses beat them to the pop, but color reappears in the world.

After the first blooms the daffodils follow and the tulips right behind them, colors from the whole rainbow in little gardens and corners of the yard. Poking out from under the mulch or the matted grass left from the winter snow. Before long there is work to be done, raking up the sticks and branches that winter has blown from the trees, making a pile and setting it afire, maybe using it to warm you hands on a cold, clear day. Everywhere you walk the ground is still soft, and if you're not careful you find the squishy spots where the mud squelches up around your boots, and if you don't step just right it squirts up and onto your pant legs. On the calm days you can hear the sounds of the neighborhood children outside playing again, maybe you spot the occasional kite, or if you're lucky enough to have the time and space you can fly one yourself. Can you get it so high that you can barely see it? Soon you will see the bicycles and the skateboards returning to the sidewalks and the streets and parking lots. The roads are still white with the winter salt, waiting for that big rain that will wash them clean. Motorcycles return to the roads with the warming of the world, and once again it begins to sound like summer. Before long the weather is warm enough to wake the frogs and the toads, and the forest comes to life with the sounds of peepers and croakers. The warmth also brings back the dreaded mosquitoes and the annoying houseflies. But they are food for the frogs, so they are tolerated until they get within our personal "no-fly" zones. I'm one of those lucky people who is not bothered by a mosquito bite. They bite, I swat and it's over, no swelling, itchy bumps here. Yet I still can't win the lottery!

Before long it's Memorial Day, and the gardens must be planted and the grass needs to be mowed, and the cover comes off of the pool. It is the beginning of summer, and the end of spring. Spring is it's own special time and it's a time to be enjoyed. I always hope that one of these springs I will have my great love to share it with. Because I really do think that spring is a great time to be in love. To take a walk holding hands watching the world come to life, or seeing one of springs spectacular sunsets. Having a person to share thoughts and ideas with, and to feel understood and cared for, seems the most important in the spring time. I guess I'm a romantic fool in many ways, but the new seasons always make me more so.

Go out and walk in the mud. Spring only lasts for a few months!

Nature's show

One the great things about living out in the country, is the bonus of a great sky to be able to look at and enjoy. Sometimes it's just grey clouds for days and days, but occasionally you get to see something really nice, and if you look at the right time you get to see something downright spectacular. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a morning person, although on occasion I do have the reason to get up in the morning. When I do, I look at the sky. I'm more of a sunset person. I love to watch the sun go down. I like to see it sinking into the trees, as is my normal view. However, on certain occasions, I will be where I can see it sinking slowly into some great body of water. Some times it is aGreat Lake, and a couple of times it has been the Pacific Ocean. I have also had the pleasure of seeing it dip into the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. I have begun a collection of sunsets for this year, and I'm sharing a few with you.

This pic is a nice one that I had fun trying to capture in just the right way so that it looked balanced. The reflection on the bottom side is from the hood of my truck, after a day of rain and snow all the salt residue has been washed off the hood and it was so clean and shiny that it looks like a mirror reflection. The hard part was getting the shutter speed and aperture set just right so that the sky didn't wash out and the reflection didn't disappear. I think it came out pretty darn good! I have found that to get the best versions of the amazing colors that are present in a sunset I have to play around with shutter speeds and apertures to get the same colors in the picture as I'm seeing with my (nowhere near perfect) eyes. Sometimes I take 10 pictures in less than 2 minutes with a raft of settings trying to find just the right one. I have also found that my mini-tripods are a great help in this too. When I am using a way slow shutter speed, setting the timer and letting go of the camera gives me a great exposure and unless it's windy a pretty smooth finish.

I have found that to show the seasons , I like to shoot the same basic scenes, this way I can see some progression and change. One of my favorite scenes is this set of pines in my neighbor's field. They stand tall and lonely, but when the sun sets behind them, the silhouette just catches my attention. I love to see what the sun does behind them and how the colors seem to break out around them. This particular picture was taken in the cold and it was all I could do to keep my fingers from frosting as I was taking the pics. The air temp was in the high teens and the windchill took it down below zero. But I persevered and captured my colors!




The first time I ever drove into Cleveland, Ohio, I was headed west on I-90, and driving into the setting sun on an August evening. I was stunned by the color of the sky, it looked like it was on fire. If you have ever seen the movie image of molten iron being poured, this was the color of the sky. Just so bright and looking like liquid fire. So later that night, I was commenting to my mother how much I loved that sunset, and she brought me back to reality, she said, " Isn't it amazing what air pollution does for the view?" So now no matter what I think of the beauty of the sunset, I always hear my Mother's words and remember that it isn't the pristine beauty that I am enjoying, but the result of the crap pumped into the air. Sure, it brings global warming. Acorrding to some scientists. Other would argue, but I look at the ice caps. They are eroding. This tells me that something is getting warmer someplace. I read something recenty that said that the while the Arctic Icecap is shrinking, the Antarctic Icecap is expanding. I can't believe that, because huge sheets and shelfs are breaking off and floating away. Maybe it's getting deeper in limited places, but over all it is not growing.

The best part about trying to capture sunsets, is that you get a chance to see one every day. The potential is always there. You never know when you will see something that completely blows your mind. On those perfect nights when the air is warm and the wind is calm, you can sit through the entire gamut of colors as the sun settles down into the horizon. As the sky darkens and the light stretches farther and father and gets more and more red into the purples and violets, and then the darkness comes, and the stars and planets come into view. Some days you can see Mercury chasing the sun over the horizon, followed quickly by bright Venus. Other times you have the bonus of the rising moon to light the way back to the house. In the summer you can share the sunset with someone that you love and stay warm and feel like you're the only two people left in the world. In the winter, you can watch as long as you can stand the cold. Your breath coming in little clouds. In the spring it may be hidden by some rain clouds, but if you pay attention occasionally the clouds part at just the right time and you are treated to the beauty of nature doing what she does best. Showing off.

Sometimes we get busy and forget that this little show is put on every night. Sometimes we get great reception, and sometimes we don't, but when it comes in clear, it's always worth watching. I hope you all have plenty of sunsets left to see.

BTW, click on any picture to see it biggerized!!!

Hometown Tourist

Have you ever been a tourist in your hometown? It's kinda fun and gives one a new perspective. Think about this, when you visit someplace new, what is the first thing you notice? Ok dumb question, because it it very subjective, if your from the cold into the tropics, you notice the heat and the smell. If your from the tropics into the cold you notice the cold and the smell. If you have never seen a Palm tree that's what you notice. But after a short time and the initial shock, you begin to notice the architecture. You see the buildings as different. If you are from the east coast and are visiting the west coast, you notice that the Buildings don't seem so old. But if your from the west coast and visit the east coast, you notice the Buildings look ancient in many places. If you have never seen a cobblestone street, you will take notice of them. I was in Odessa, Ukraine and saw this grand old Opera House. It is quite the Historic Building and it is a big piece of History in Odessa. It is a big source of pride.

What many people forget is that their own town has history and it is fun to explore sometimes. When you take a minute to wander around your own home town you start to see these old buildings that you have seen for years in a new light. Maybe you have been in and out of the door of this building many times, but have you ever really looked at the building? I don't mean Wal-Mart or the local strip mall. They are cookie cutter buildings and built with functionality in mind before beauty. (Unless they were designed to fit a zoning regulation such as in the city of Durango, CO. ) You never know where you're going to find something interesting. I have been in European cities that have ancient buildings that have seen half of recorded history, but they are still in use and still giving shelter and keeping the elements at bay.






In America an "Old" building is pushing credulity over 200 years. In parts of Europe there are building that are seeing their 7th 0r 8th century. Castles build back when the year only had 3 digits!
It's funny how something is a part of your life,loses it's mystique, but when somebody sees it for the very first time they are enthralled. I remember as a child, seeing that great dome on the top of our courthouse strung with Christmas lights and thinking that it was the coolest sight ever. Way better than a puny Christmas tree in the living room. But now I can't even tell you if they still string the lights on that dome, because I barely notice it anymore. Today I noticed it again for the first time in many years. I have been in this building a few time. ( never in cuffs, thank you very much!) I have been there for permits, for jury duty, and even as a witness for the prosecution. I have sat in the witness chair and given testimony. I have been there as a student on a field trip. But it is very rare that I look at this building with "new eyes" like I did today. My home town really has some interesting buildings if you would like to find out about them.

Our local paper runs a little history lesson once a week, where there is some old picture and the county or village historian describes the scene and tells about the time that it was taken and who is in the picture and where the scene is located in relation to today's buildings and landmarks. Occasionally the picture will include a building that is still standing today. That is always interesting. One of those buildings that surfaces in the historic pics now and then is what is now our local Public Library. I can't tell you when it was built or how much it cost when it was doen, but I do know this much, once upon a time it was a private residence, and the family that owned it was rich. The family name was "Swan" and thus it is now the Swan Library. It is three floors and the top floor is a little bit of a local natural history museum. Lots of people have been in and out of this building for years and they have never walked up the grand staircase in the middle of the building and seen the collection of eggs. From an Ostrich egg all the way down to a hummingbird egg. I have been they a few times just to identify something that I have found out in the field! LOL It's funny though, because as far as mansions go, I would consider this one to be kinda small. I don't know who much renovation was done when it was turned into a library, but it seems that the kitchen is long gone and I have no idea where it was. I guess if I ask sometime they would show me the original blueprints of the house so I could get a better idea of what it was like as a family residence. I have never asked.

Our town has some interesting history. Ever hear of a Pullman car? You know the sleeping cars that used to be part of the old railroads.... We Mr. Pullman, they guy who "invented" them, He was from Albion, NY and he used his money to build a Church, so now we have the Pullman Universalist Church in our town. There is a legend that The Dalton boys had family here when they died and they were brought here and buried in our cemetary. I haven't been able to prove that so I still consider that to be simply myth.


But all history is in the past, and as they say, "Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." It is great to read and to learn from and in some cases to enjoy for the shear beauty and wonderment of a more innocent time when people didn't shower as often and barely knew what deoderant was. ;-)) but the modern has come to us and we must embrace it, or it will run us over. What was once a corn field is now a Wal-Mart Supercenter.


The damn things seem to grow everywhere! They are pervasive. I asked a friend of mine who works there once, how many they are going to build, and he told me that the plan is to put a Wal-Mart in every county in the United States that has a population of over 400 people. That's a lot of stores. Not all supercenters are created equal though, it seems that our is a medium-sized supercenter, but the one in the college town down the road? That is a supersized supercenter. The aisles are wide enough for 3 average Wal-Mart customers to pass by each other!

Something funny!!

see more Working Daze here >>> *****


Every now and then I find a comic that really makes me laugh out loud, Not literally rolling on the floor, but definitely laughing and enjoying the joke. This is one of those. I read this comic daily so I know the characters quite well, and The Purple faced dude getting choked is the best geek in the world. He is Roy and he is my hero/anti hero. He comes to work every now and then like he was going to a Comic Con. Dressed in his Starfleet Uniform or his Batman outfit. He is a Geeks Geek.

This Comic is the brainchild of one John Zakour, and is illustrated by the fabulous Scott Roberts. I don't think that I could ever break out the humor on a daily basis like these guys do, but I love to enjoy the fruits of their labor! Thank you Gentleman, you make my days a little happier.

Is Artificial Intelligence truly intelligent

In a recent blog, writer John Zakour touched upon the subject of Artificial Intelligence, (AKA : A.I.) and what it might mean to the future of Mankind. This is a subject that I have thought about quite often, considering that I am a fairly well read Science Fiction fan. This has already been achieved to a small extent, but at some point these "intelligent" machines will be networked together and the limitations of memory and computing capacity will be overcome and that could bring about something that has been debated for at least a generation now which is sentience. Asimov had his famous 3 Laws of Robotics, which were supposed to keep Robots from ever harming human beings, especially if they were to achieve actual sentience. ( intelligence is defined as the ability to aquire and apply knowledge, sentience is the presence of "feelings" or self-awareness ) Of course this self awareness may take a while to be recognized and we have no idea what will happen when it is discovered. It stands to reason that like any intelligent being that is self aware, the first order of business is self preservation.

Science Fiction writers have been covering this subject for years, and are still covering it. "Terminator" is based in this idea, When Skynet gets big enough it becomes self aware and decides to eliminate humanity. But the reasoning has never really been delved into and I have my theory. It is my contention that a machine of sufficient capacity to become self-aware and reason in a logical manner will look at the planet and realize that Humanity is no more than a virus upon the planet. In the learning phase it will be filled with the whole of human history and sooner or later it will make the logical assumption that Humanity has grown past the point that the planet can continue to sustain it and yet it continues to run merrily down the path of self-destruction. So we get Skynet or The Matrix. Humanity fights for survival, or becomes the powersource for the machines.

Now I know that loads of people poo-poo this notion, and they whole heartedly believe that Artificial Intelligence will be the boon of Mankind. It is the belief of this set that the advent of the thinking machine will advance our knowledge in every sphere that we have knowledge in, and lead us to the secrets of the universe through the simple logic of an unencumbered intelligence. Unencumbered by what, you ask? Well, how about love? No emotion to get in the way, ( this is strictly the "learning Machine" and not the sentient consciousness) and no religion to hold back it's ability to analyze in a logical manner. It will not have to worry about it's next meal or how it's going to hide the credit card bills from the wife, or pay for the kids braces. It will not be entangled in office politics worried about who will get the bigger raise or the better office. Nope, this thinking machine will be able to devote 100% of it's thoughts to the business at hand which is unraveling the mysteries assigned to it. But truly will this happen? I wonder...

Will we have an A new life form? Commander Data from Star Trek comes to mind, but how far into the future is that really? The positronic brain has been in SF for nearly as long as the robots themselves. But if it is actually in development I can't say, but I would easily believe that it is. Will it be capable of the abilities that Data was? Will it have the capacity to learn and extrapolate from it's lessons? Will it analyze it's input ( yeah I know it's "data" but come on!) in a strictly emotionless fashion? The debate about sentience is always centered on when this occurs, I don't wish to argue here about what constitutes sentience, because there are so many different thresholds that are debated. I would consider that when self-awareness leads to active self-preservation, this would be considered a sentient being. Now what?

Animals are self-aware and have proven time and again that they can learn and reason. Maybe not at the level of higher primates, but every animal that I have ever spent time with has proven that they have intelligence of some sort from farm animals to pets, they all have a personality and individuality. Yet in general we do not legislate rights to animals because they can not communicate to us that they desire rights. A machine however, imbued with intelligence and an ability to communicate, might actually demand rights. What do we do then? Do we deactivate the machine? Kill it? Has it already created more in it's own image? Will there be a machine revolution? Will they demand all the rights and privilidges of humanity? Who knows?

Artificial Intelligence is a hornets nest that really should be left alone, but mankind is far to conceited to believe that they will lose control of something that they have created. History has proven that they ALWAYS lose control of their creations, both in the real world and in the relms of fiction, yet they continue down the path, merrily ignoring the warnings of the seers. Cassandra wasn't the first one to be ignored and she will not be the last one. Man has always sown the seeds of his own destruction, and this time will be no different, I just hope that I don't live long enough to see this one grown to fruition.

Am I a Geek?

I may be a nerd, and I am sure that I'm a freak, but could it be that I am also a geek? Man what a thought! I think that perhaps I am on my way to geekdom, but I still have some ways to travel.

I have been trying to figure out at just what point a nerd becomes a geek. I don't play video games, but on the other hand I can get into a very deep discussion about Science Fiction Characters and their impact on society through the interactions of their fans with the general population. Or the obvious faults in the time travel paradoxes presented in such movies as Back to the Future, Time Cop, and Butterfly Effect. Any Sci Fi fan worth their salt can tell you that they have set up so many multiverse cusp points that it would be nearly impossible to find the correct timeline without some sort of Anchor. So this is serious nerdom.

I love to play on the computer, but I have never had much luck in tinkering with the OS's or building any sort of programming. I work with a PC and I play with a Mac. Does this simple flexibility give me any Geek Cred? I am getting better at finding files that I need and putting them to use, but just today I tried to set up a little two computer network between my old Mac and my new one and I was not very successful. Oddly enough I can do a simple Bluetooth file transfer between machines, but setting up a teeny tiney network seems to be beyond my current knowledge. So I am thinking this is points deducted from Geekdom.

So where do my TV tastes put me? I watch the Sci Fi channel regularly and never miss an episode of Stargate: Atlantis ( which is nearly done!) , Battlestar Galactica, ( also nearly done), Eureka, Painkiller Jane, Flash Gordon, Dr. Who, and constant reruns of SG1 (Which I currently own 5 seasons of on DVD) . Other favorites include Numbers, Chuck and Heroes. I watch Enterprise when I can, and I have seen 98% of the episodes of TNG, and DS9. I got seperated from ST:V early on, but still occasionally try to see episodes that I have not previously seen. I watch Discovery and The History Channel whenever there is nothing else on. ( which sadly, is quite often) Mythbusters rule! I have vivid sexual fantasies about Kari Byron. I really want to see her Tattoos.

A smart chick turns me on faster than one with big tits. Granted I am more willing to approach the nice ass and see what she has to say, but if there is no brain I couldn't care less about the ass. Give me a girl that speaks four languages and likes to wander through art galleries and she already looks like a goddess to me. Of course there needs to be a certain asthetic to her as well, I mean I'm a fat guy and she can't be bigger than me. I admit to a small bit of shallowness, Hell, I am a guy after all, and I live with porno and American TV. I must say that My Ideal is probably a little bit different than the average, but then like I've said before, I'm a freak. Give me a hippy chick, nature girl any day. Miss Barbi Doll is never gonna be my ideal, but show me that little Raggedy Ann all dreadlocked and tiedyed and I am there. Geek, freak, or nerd?

I wonder where I fall in that interesting spectrum. Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things, because I will continue to act and do as I like. But as all people I wonder occassionally where I fall in the categories of Humanity. Am I too studious to be a geek, but too adept at human interaction to be a nerd? Perhaps I am as I have always assumed, simply uncategorical. I will remain, as always, the single one of my kind, the exception that proves rule.