Christmas Thoughts 2009

So, an... interesting holiday season is almost gone... some random stuff, then.

First, my awesome sister-in-law Liz made me the coolest Christmas present ever: a very good replica of Jayne Cobb's orange and yellow poofball hat from Firefly. If you don't know Firefly, it is quite possibly the greatest television show of all time, and definitely the best show to not make it past one season (stupid Fox... first Futurama, then Firefly, now Dollhouse... lame!). Borrow it on DVD from a friend (I don't think all 14 episodes are on Hulu anymore but it's worth checking), and then watch the movie, Serenity. It's well worth your time. Serenity also works fine if you don't watch the series first, but it's even better if you have. Meanwhile, some context for the hat:

Jayne being hired by the Serenity crew (one of my favorite scenes from the show):

Jayne gets a gift from his mom in the mail:

And some artwork from DeviantART of Jayne looking threatening in his hat:

And now mine, home-made by my sister-in-law Liz. They even put it in a white box with fake straw and a note with roughly the same wordage as the one Jayne got:
And, finally, a picture of me failing to look as menacing as Jayne in the hat:

How's it sit? Pretty cunning, don't ya think?

Another random Christmas thought... usually I like to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas as a Christmas tradition. This year I watched It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart at my parents' house. It really is a good movie until it starts snowing again (if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about). If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. It is much better than I remember from last time I saw it forever ago, very well done for all its tackyness at the beginning and end.

But it brings up an interesting problem... in the movie, the angel assigned to help the main character has to do this good deed to "earn his wings". However, the movie also states "every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings". Well, how does that work? Do you do a good deed, then wait for a bell to ring? Are there enough angels that this really works for every bell ring? Or, when a bell rings, if not enough angels have done good deeds, does an angel compulsively do a spontaneous good deed? Or if there aren't enough angels with good deeds under their belt, and someone tries to ring a bell, does it go silent? What if we run out of angels? Now I have a headache. Thank you, Jimmy Stewart.

Another Semester Done

As I've somewhat vaguely alluded to by the title of this post, I just finished another semester. Academically it was one of the easiest semesters I've had, but overall one of the most difficult and stressful ever (there may or may not be more on that at a future date). A few things of note, I picked up a new musical instrument this semester and performed my first concert (with the BYU-Idaho Symphony Band) on the euphonium, which looks you can see on the left (also, I may do more with pictures than center them from now on, who knows!). "Euphonium" is from Greek, meaning "good sound", which it certainly has, but Trombone is still more fun and no matter how many instruments I learn I will always be first and foremost a Trombone player. Also, Trombone is the only instrument that gets to be capitalized like a proper noun. The concert was fun, and I got to play some of the most challenging music I've ever played on an instrument I've now only played for a semester (though to be fair, I knew the fingerings from a summer with a drum and bugle corps back in 2000, right out of high school, but that's all the experience I brought into this). Next semester, hopefully, I will be in both the symphony orchestra and band on campus.

Also of note, I am now a semester behind posting field camp stuff! I need to get on that, since I've finished my compilation of all 17 students worth of mapping. The geology is suspect, but it's fun to see it all come together, and I'll post it when I get to it. I also plan to post a very cool physics project I did with a couple other geology students for the most useless physics lab class ever.

And now a bit of bragging... my science writing class turned out great this semester, and I got perfect scores on not just one, but two major assignments, both of which the professor plans to use as student examples for future semesters. Part of that may well be that I chose a unique topic, with which you may be familiar if you follow this blogs: "They" want to take away your hot dogs!

Remember, I had an interesting "debate" with another geology student over this supposed conspiracy theory. Well, I did some research, found quite a few sources, and decided to use it as the topic for my persuasive policy paper. Our professor had us actually address our paper to a real policymaker and send it to them, so my letter (which you can download here) has been mailed to the Secretary of Agriculture, and I fully expect not to hear back. But if I do, you'll be sure to read about it here!

That was one perfect score. The other was our "web writing revision", for which we were to take our persuasive paper and adapt it for online consumption, since that's where most reading happens these days. So guess what? I've got another blog now! Unlike this blog, which receives regular, I mean sporadic, updates, this blog is basically "finished". I may add a news link section, but if you want to see a perfect scoring website based on hot dogs and featuring Adam Sandler and Chris Farley at the end, check out Death and Hot Dogs. The name is a play on the two certainties in life: death and taxes. I wanted to call it "Keep Your Hands Off My Wiener!", but decided a bit more professional a title would be better in this case.

Anyway... that's my update for now. One quick note to anyone attending or planning to attend BYU-Idaho: TAKE AS MANY RELIGION CLASSES AS YOU CAN FROM RANDY HAYES! After many semesters of frustration with religion classes I'm required to take but do nothing for me, my last one finally is a winner. Aside from my geology professors, Bro. Hayes is hands-down the best teacher I've ever had, and there wasn't a single day I attended his class that I didn't hear something I needed to hear. His ability to fit the Old Testament into the big picture of history is amazing, and the guy is absolutely hilarious. From three years of dreading another hour wasted in a useless religion class, from the first day my religion class became my number one favorite class of the semester. Just in case I haven't made it clear: Take your religion classes from Randy Hayes whenever possible!

That is all.

The Sleeping Giant Sleeps Again

I got caught up in schoolwork and missed posting on Pearl Harbor Day, but I'm going to post anyway a few hours late. I only have a couple quick thoughts, but highly encourage you to re-visit my post from last year, in remembrance of December 7th, and if nothing else just look at the photos and remember (you don't have to have been alive for the bombing to "remember" it... I wasn't, certainly).

On Friday, November 27th, I attended my grandmother's funeral in Riverside, California. I won't write about that in this post other than to mention that my grandfather who survives her is one of the few remaining WWII veterans, having served in the Marine Corps on Guam, Guadalcanal, Okinawa and Iwo Jima and received four Purple Hearts during the war. It is said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and I'm afraid it is true. The press tries hard to downplay and forget 9/11, and soon I fear that December 7th and September 11th will both just be dates in books that students memorize for a test and don't learn from.

The famous line from Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve" may or may not ever really have been uttered, but its truth was apparent in the complete and total defeat of Japan in World War II. We were filled with resolve, and did all that was necessary to bring a stop to the ability of Imperial Japan to wage oppressive war on the world, and succeeded in spite of their attempt to take us out of the war before we had even joined it. We brought them down completely, and in its place today we have a strong friend and ally, who never again will be a force of evil in the world.

The sleeping giant was again awakened on September 11th, 2001, when terrorists waged war against a completely civilian target and killed thousands of innocent Americans. This time Americas resolve was brief, and if not for strong and determined leadership at the very top, the attack would have carried no consequences for the enemy. However, with a more difficult to define enemy, this war could not be fought on the same terms as World War II. But we have fought it successfully for nearly eight years anyway. Until now.

I won't go into any specifics on Obama's Afghanistan speech, because it has been hashed to death already everywhere, and I don't have the patience to address anything this man is doing to this country. Just think about this: What would the world be like today if, after a wearying and costly campaign of island-hopping in the Pacific, America's leaders had decided that their political careers would be more secure if they had suddenly announced that all troops would be coming home in the next year or two, leaving Japan's war machine wounded but intact? Is there any chance Japan would suddenly have implemented a timetable for withdrawal of their troops in China, who every month of the war killed 100,000 to 200,000 Chinese civilians? Will Al-Qaeda at some point resolve by vote that the war against western civilization is unjust and illegal?

If we don't fight this war completely and totally, it will only result in a less stable middle-east than we began with, and one with greater resolve to destroy America. Is it any wonder Iraqi civilians weren't happy to see us come to liberate them, when the job wasn't finished the last time? The only major drawback to term limits is that it makes other countries justifiably wary to conduct foreign relations with us. How would you feel making a controversial treaty with a country that might change its mind in four years? And if that treaty meant committing military troops to a risky theater of war?

The American giant has decided it's time to go back to sleep, while his enemies are being filled with resolve and courage that if they just wait long enough, their foes will give up. Thank you, Obama, for ending George Bush's "illegal" war, and making the world a safer place for everyone. Also, that last bit was sarcasm.

Velociraptors Are Serious Business

Back in April I wrote a post on Velociraptor Awareness Day to spread word on the increasing danger of velociraptors. I have recently come across a very funny web comic, called xkcd. The author of this web comic (a physicist and former NASA contractor) shares my velociraptor paranoia, and has made raptors the subject of a few of his web comics, which I will share here:

I have decided this is the best web comic ever. Of course, it was already pretty popular before I discovered it, but hey. Here are a couple more I thought were particularly good:

If you've never seen this comic before, I highly encourage you to check it out. I'm not going to embed any more, but here are some links to a few more of my favorites:

Sympathy Tips for Physicists

Movie Narrative Charts

Extrapolating

Alternate Currency (This one is for anyone who has ever used the Romney Computer Lab)

The End Is Not for Awhile

Holy Ghost

Impostor (The Sociology frame is my favorite)

Macgyver Gets Lazy

Babies

Zealous Autoconfig

Nerd Sniping

Brick Archway

Action Movies

Highway Engineer Pranks

Right-Hand Rule

Ninja Turtles

Guitar Hero

Love

Hitler

Okay, that's more than enough. Trust me, there were a lot more I wanted to link to, but it's near overkill already. Enjoy!