Author Archives: bluedepth

LJ – Stress Management

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From 7/22/2003

Stress Management Technique

Just in case you’ve had a rough day, here is a stress management
technique
recommended in all the latest psychological texts.

The funny thing is that it really works.

1. Picture yourself near a stream.

2. Birds are softly chirping in the cool mountain air.

3. No one but you knows your secret place.

4. You are in total seclusion from the hectic place called “the
world,”

5. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a
cascade of
serenity.

6. The water is crystal clear.

7. You can easily make out the face of the person you’re holding
underwater.

LJ – Smirking Chimp

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From 6/26/2003

Saw this on www.smirkingchimp.com, reprinted from America Held Hostile

The facts do not support George Bush’s or Colin Powell’s statements. These two men testified before all of the people of our great country and the representatives of other nations falsely.

The document that purported to show the connection of Iraq seeking enriched uranium had been declared a forgery long before George Walker Bush uttered those words in his State of the Union Address in January 2003. The “intelligence” documents that Colin Powell waved in the air were plagiarized from the thesis of a college student that was more than twelve years old.

The proof of their statements has been shown to be false in the weeks following George Walker Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003.

On June 21, 2003, George Walker Bush said “The intelligence services of many nations concluded that he had illegal weapons and the regime refused to provide evidence they had been destroyed. We are determined to discover the true extent of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs, no matter how long it takes,”

That’s a far cry from his earlier testimonies of quantities of WMDs. Now we are looking for papers and documents of past “programs,” not actual weapons.

The “mobile biological weapons labs” have been found to be units sold to Iraq by Great Britain for the purpose of inflating artillery balloons with hydrogen.

We have found fertilizer factories, swimming pools and vacuum cleaners.

We have sacrificed the lives of almost two hundred of our best and bravest. We have caused the deaths of approximately 10,000 Iraqi civilians.

We have found no weapons of mass destruction.

We, my friends, have been played for fools. We have been lied to.

I feel so patriotically ashamed… but it’s the Shrub at the wheel and I’ve got a good idea about how and why he was selected president and I will never ever vote for any republican candidate, no matter who his rival is. Anything is better than the GOP that drags the nation into Hell.

LJ – Too Much Time

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From 6/23/2003

In Cedarburg, Wisconsin some locals have decided that the local playground, built with donated funds for the enjoyment of children has to be hidden because the colors used in the playground do not mesh properly with the theme of place in which this playground is in. Several other people have arranged a petition and wish the school to erect some sort of visual boundary which hides the “Playground of Atrocious Colors” from peoples sight.

Quote:

“I love children. I love the schoolyard,” said Phyllis Widstrand, who has lived across from Parkview for 33 years and enjoys watching children play there. “(But) the colors are atrocious. They’re McDonald’s colors. They’re bright yellow, bright red, bright blue.”

Widstrand and her husband, John, are among 23 neighbors who signed a petition protesting the brightly colored equipment. The neighbors are asking school officials to screen the swings and slides on two sides with evergreen trees.

The bright primary colors look out of place in the area, according to Widstrand, who said she would have preferred more subtle earth tones.

“It does not fit the Cedarburg type of landscape,” she said. “Maybe the children do like (the bright colors). I think they would be just as happy with brown, beige and green.”

Although she can’t see the playground from her house, Dori Cesario signed the petition because she understood the concerns. Many people wished they had been consulted ahead of time about the equipment’s appearance, Cesario said.

“It looks like McDonald’s with all those colors. It does stand out,” she said. “My grandchildren like it, and it looks cute, but they should have asked us first.”

People with too much time on their hands are always the most fun… 😉

LJ – Bottoms Up!

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From 6/20/2003

I got this message forwarded on to me from the head MD at our local health clinic:

Dear employee:

Alcohol use among college students is a serious and growing public
health problem, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. Their comprehensive report, entitled “Healthy People
2010,” demands a reduction in the prevalence of binge drinking on
campuses. Forty percent of college students have engaged in binge
drinking – defined as consuming five or more drinks in a row for men
and four or more drinks in a row for women – in the past two weeks.

I distinctly remember my freedom to drink myself silly back when I was in College to be one of the best fundamental lessons of my entire life. The freedom that came with College life, and the ability to intoxicate yourself willfully, even dangerously, was the perfect teacher of “Actions have Consequences”. I found the pleasure and pain of that entire part of my life helped me understand many things, including personal limits, unintentional weight gain, and a new appreciation of ultra-intense headache pain. A dry campus, or one for which this message later on urged, that concerned staffers mentor students not to drink, robs these students of the chance to learn from the most effective teacher possible – pain and agony – and the ability to drink until your obnoxious roommate becomes a permanent visual blur.

Drink Up Kids!

LJ – Fun!

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From 4/20/2003

Discovered a new company making workout-style apparel, Under Armour brand. Everything they make is a special kind of Polyester and really works amazingly well on me during my workouts. I got one shirt to use today, but since I like it so much I’m thinking about adding 3 more shirts for variety-sake, depending on what I decide to spend my IRS refund money on. I’ve since put two other UA shirts in my Amazon wishlist, so we’ll see how that turns out. My eyes are getting dry and bleary so I should call it a night.

LJ – Random Musings

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From 3/4/2003

Thoughts are flitting all thru my mind tonight. I heard on the radio that one of the leading causes of child safety seats being improperly installed in automobiles is because the instructions are too difficult to read. They said that the instructions were expressed for people who could read at a 10th grade reading level. What bothers me mostly isn’t anything to do with child safety seats, but rather the sobering statistic that roughly half of the population in the United States only can read to the 5th grade level!

I’m a very strong believer that language is a central component of human sentience, that language is enriched by a vast and capable vocabulary steeped in a language that allows for expression beyond base communication like grunts and peeps. I believe that a rich vocabulary can only spring from three places, reading books, being taught, or engaged with “vocabulary enriched” cohorts and learning from their discussion and wits. I suppose at the root of it I see a rich vocabulary and the ability to use it well as a cornerstone of human thought, that when vocabulary is stunted your ability to express thoughts to others is severely curtailed and that the point of communication and language is not to merely enjoy thoughts in your own head, but to share them with others. I’ve been declared a bit of a lingusitical elitist because I consider the contents and richness of a persons vocabulary to be a direct measure of the complexity of their thoughts, that people with rich, capable speech and understanding are the self-same people with the ability to think beyond food, shelter, and reproduction. When I heard that half of Americans cannot understand written work beyond the 5th grade level I felt alternatively a wave of disgust and a pang of pity, because to me, these people will never be able to forge anything more complicated than “See Spot Run”. The pity comes from all that wasted creativity that obviously exists within each human mind if they only had a toolbox that wasn’t manufactured by Tonka.

LJ – As Man Lay Dying, Witnesses Turned Away

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From 2/19/2003

I found this on Plastic, another blog which got it’s content from a DC newspaper:

“In an unbelieveable display of callousness, several witnesses at a gas station watch and do nothing as Allen E. Price, 43 is shot, point blank. As the man lay bleeding and dying, one witness watches the scene unfold before him, proceeds to finish pumping his kerosene, looks at Price bleeding on the ground and proceeds to pay for his kerosene and drives away. Others drive away from the scene after the shooting. One car even pulls up to the same pump Price’s body is laying next to and also does nothing. It isn’t until 27 minutes after the shooting that the first 911 call is received.” (original story)

Just like what happened to Kitty Genovese in NYC, people apparently are trapped into doing absolutely nothing when there is a chance that someone else could do something, a fallacy is created in each mind saying “Ah, someone else must have heard it and will tell someone” when everyone thinks like this, nothing is done. I can’t help but think if people were not a little conditioned for this behavior from the DC sniper who was moving around DC and VA nicking people left and right.

Human compassion is alive and well, stored neatly in vacuum-sealed jars at home, under our beds.

LJ – At least 21 killed in Chicago nightclub 'stampede'

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From 2/17/2003

I have said it over and over, humanity is 3 meals and 15 minutes away from complete loss of civilized rational behavior. Case in point, this tragedy that happened in Chicago. All it took for rational civilized people to revert to a herd of frightened animals was “perhaps mace or pepper spray being sprayed in the air”. In this day and age when we are supposed to be educated and I dare even suggest somewhat elightened how can it be that people can undergo such a powerful reversion to primitive behaviors in what amounts to a drop of a hat? I suppose the lesson here lies in how easy people are to aggregate, to form a mob. Folk always surprise me, both in their individual brilliance (sometimes) and in their combined stupidity. Now I know why I’m not a bar person. 🙂

Can you hear me now?

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When infrastructure fails, it takes an absurd amount of legwork to compensate. This is my story of this absurd compensation. I’m writing this now because I might as well, it’s not like I have anything I can actually do without this particular infrastructure.

My work computer used to be on the internet, now, not so much. No sites are really accessible so now I have to find another way onto the network, as my employer can’t manage. Although to their credit, they are trying to fix it, but this problem has plagued us for months if not years, so I’m not holding out much hope.

So, Ethernet is a complete loss. What else can we use? I have an unused 4G Verizon Pantech USB card here, so I plugged it in. Turns out I need VZAccess Manager to make it work properly. Still can’t access the network however! What is a geek to do? I set up my iPhone for Personal Hotspot and connect that way. It’s slower but I’m actually on the network now downloading VZAccess Manager from Verizon.

Then once that’s downloaded I’ll close my Personal Hotspot connection, install the software, then get the 4G modem up and running. A part of me laughs bitterly that I have to go to these lengths just for the basics of my job, but that’s the nature of this place. I’m not going to cast any aspersions on Western, I’m done with that. You only complain when there is some glimmer of hope that things may get better.

So that got me thinking, if we’re all having these problems and there are 42 of us, and these 4G cards cost 42 dollars a month, that’s $1,764.00 dollars a month for internet services that are more reliable than the local network at this University. So, do we pay a hefty monthly fee to Verizon to replace our network? Of course not! We’ll continue to struggle and make do with the network we have here, as useful or not as it is.

I just find it hilarious how far I have to go to access the network. I would laugh if I wasn’t crying so hard. Oh well.

Rhum Barbancourt

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Rhum Barbancourt

So today we’re trying a new rum. This one is in the French style from Haiti. It’s Rhum Barbancourt, aged eight years. It definitely is different from the English style found in Trinidad that was obvious on the first sip. While the Trinidadian rum had a hot lead and then quickly mellowed to feature an extended flavor profile post-palate this Haitian rum, in comparison resembles most closely Cognac.

I quite enjoy Cognac so this will be perfectly acceptable. Now that I’ve tried two different rums, I can clearly say that the English style so far has my preference. Perhaps there will be some new notes I can pull out of this Haitian rum, but so far it’s pretty much wrapped in a kind of straightforward Cognac simplicity.

My selection of rums was pretty much a coin toss. It was either going to be this one or one from the Dominican Republic. It’s a learning process, so I’m not going to weep over a rum that isn’t exactly knocking my socks off.

After I perused the label a little bit longer, I discovered to my chagrin that this rum is 86 proof, while the Trinidadian one was a standard 80. That increase in alcohol is definitely a major factor in the taste of this liquor.