Stupidity Credit

A long time ago (or so it feels) I used to smoke. I started smoking as a result of peer pressure, some people I wanted to be friends with smoked so I started as well. It was the dumbest thing I ever did, period.

When I tell people I used to smoke but I quit, they tell me 'good for you' or 'that must have been so hard, I'm so proud of you'. This irritates the be-jesus out of me…

See, otter had two parents who smoked yet she never ever lit up even a single cigarette, not one, ever. Nobody says to her 'I am so proud of you because you never started smoking'.

We have created a society where it's considered better to do something stupid and then 'fix' it instead of just doing the right thing all along. You can smoke, drink, use drugs, waste 20 years of your life away as a total zombie and then become the worst president the country has ever seen simply by saying you don't do that stuff anymore (and find Jesus apparently). It's insulting to the truly good and smart people.

 

My values

Here's a short and (very) incomplete list of my values in no particular order:

• Religion
  I don't have one. At least not one that is officially sanctioned and I intend to keep it that way. If you (the reader of this post) are religious expect long discussions why exactly you are an idiot.
• Marriage
  As long as you are of the same species I couldn't care less if you got married or not. I am from a time when gay meant happy and a country that lets gays live just like anybody else and I believe that's the way it should be.
• Death Penalty
  Anything that cannot be reversed is bad, period.
• Drugs
  As long as alcohol and cigarettes are sold legally it simply makes no sense to outlaw almost identical drugs like marijuana.
• Corporations
  Any entity that exists for the sole pursuit of money should be regulated by the government to keep them honest.
• Government
  People should be forced to vote. Not voting should lead to large fines and ineligibility for whatever the voted government would put in place.
• Presidency
  The common vote should determine the president, not this ridiculous system we have today where one state can determine who wins and who loses even though the common vote went the other way.

 

Apple Hill

One of otter's favorite places is Apple Hill, a region near Camino in the Sierra foothills. While she loves it for the food, I love it for the wine.

However there is much to enjoy besides eating and drinking as can be witnessed from this picture:

The best times to visit depend on whether your priority is apple pie or wine.

 

‘Free’ways

Yesterday we drove from Sacramento to the East Bay and as people familiar with this route know, this means you drive mostly over I80.

For at least the last 8 years whoever runs California seems to think that the word 'free' in freeway means that these roads cost no money. Every year the potholes get bigger and wider. When they get a little deeper we can rename it officially "The Greater New York Freeway".

As I5 is in about the same sorry shape, that means that the two most important interstates in California are fast becoming undrivable and very unsafe.

Maybe it's time that taxes drivers pay for the privilege of driving actually goes to, you know, things drivers care about, such as fixing roads.

 

Cleanliness

In our little family cleanliness, or the lack thereof, is an ongoing topic of conversation. Between me (reasonably clean but not fanatic by any stretch of the imagination), Mouse (very clean but he's a cat so that's all relative) and otter (fanatically clean but in a very unpredictable way at least to Mouse and me) there is most days a brittle balance.

Sometimes that balance gets tested such as when the bathroom needs to be cleaned. The bathroom has cleaning duties for both otter and myself and to make matters worse, it's where Mouse's litterbox is located.

Over a period of several years we have worked out a routine that works reasonably well. The trick is that we never ever clean anything together. otter and I cleaning together is like matter and anti-matter colliding and for those without any physics education: that's really, really bad.

Sometimes in order to have a happy marriage you need to do things separately…:-)

 

Commercial Confusion

Whenever a commercial comes on TV, I quickly mute the sound. For some reason the sound is louder during commercials than during regular programming and it grates on my nerves. Maybe I'm imagining this and I just hate commercials…

Besides, lately commercials seem to for the most part have given up on any kind of originality. You see a man and a woman, doing some fun outside activity. Is this an ad for:

• Asthma medication
• Allergy medication
• The latest sport SUV (bonus points if you know which one)
• Anti depression medication
• Genital Herpes medication

This last one always gets me. Since when is genital herpes linked with a diminished capacity to enjoy outdoor activities? I always thought it was the *indoor* activities that were compromised.

 

Slow to post

Because I feel lazy…

I have some posts lined up that require some layout changes and the Rich Text Editor is not working (because WordPress is updating its software) and I don’t feel like handcoding HTML right now…

It’s amazing how quickly you get used to something that makes life a little easier.

 

Collaboration

Lately, I have been researching how as a family we can keep in touch. Considering that there are a lot of us in many different locations, spread out over several continents (OK, 2) and possibly different computer systems, I figured that the best solution would be something web-based.

I wanted originally to build this myself from scratch but I've come to realise that this would be a waste of time as very elegant (and affordable) solutions already exist. Specifically, I have been looking for email, calendar, file-sharing, address-books, offline backup and blog-hosting.

The best solution I have found so far is from a company called Joyent. As an added bonus I know some of these people from previous (email) conversations.

The Joyent part takes care of the email, shared files, calendar & address book. They have two sister products, called TextDrive and StrongSpace that take care of bloghosting and offline filestorage respectively.

Please take a look at their products (especially Joyent). I would be very interested to hear what you think and if this will be flexible enough for us. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me through comments or email.

 

Prisoners

In the ongoing series of interesting Dutch museums to go to, here is another one. The Gevangen Poort is a medieval prison with a collection of torture devices that will make you very happy to live in these (slightly) more enlightened times.

Many famous Dutch people have been imprisoned here. They of course had better cells than the common folks so even then some people were more equal than others… the more things change, the more they stay the same… (I have quite the collection of platitudes, haven't I?) 

The museum is close to several other (government) buildings such as "Het Binnenhof" so make sure to take a look at these also.

In Den Haag (The Hague) there is a lot to see and do. In later posts I will point to some other worthwhile places to visit.

 

Climbing Angel

In 1998, otter and I went on a vacation to the Mohonk House in Upstate New York. If the Shining kept you awake at night make sure you ask for a room in the new part of the hotel as the old part is remarkably like the hotel in the movie… I kept waiting for a kid on a Big Wheel to come around every corner. Creepy…

Anyway, that's not the story I want to tell today. Surrounding the hotel are several hills that make for invigorating climbs or walks. Not one to take the easy road, I opted for the climb.

One day, as I was making my way up the hill, a father and his young son, no older than 7, were following me. As the hills were slippery from some rain that had fallen earlier I kept hanging around and warning them about treacherous passes and helping them to stay on the right path.

All of us eventually made it to the top safely and walked down the winding path back to the hotel. The father approached me a little later and asked for my email address. I asked why and it turned out his son wanted to thank me for helping them along and he was too shy to talk to me because he thought I was an angel.

Maybe other people would be flattered but I was not. To me it means that (religious) Americans seem to think that any act of kindness cannot possibly come from another human being, it has to come from a heavenly creature. I find that almost too sad to even think about.