Buddhist monks and poblano...

Buddhist monks and poblano ... but not at the same time, unfortunately.  Debbie and I drove down to Salt Lake City yesterday afternoon, as planned, to meet with my brother Scott's friend, Chook the Buddhist monk.  We drove down and found the temple where we were to meet him without any problem.  But ... Chook wasn't answering his phone, and we had no idea what he looked like!  So I went into the temple, found someone who could speak English, and then we together searched for Chook the monk from Virginia Beach.  Everyone there was amused by my search, but the temple's “abbot” actually managed to find him – in an ongoing ceremony that was running late.  Fifteen minutes or so later, the ceremony finished and Chook came out to meet us.

When I'd called him earlier in the day, we planned to take him out for a meal at the Red Iguana, our favorite Utah Mexican food restaurant that has a great vegetarian menu.  But Chook informed us that there were some celebrations planned for the evening that he had not known about – a surprise party, sort of, where he was the man of the hour.  He couldn't say “no” to that, so unfortunately we only had 20 or 30 minutes to talk with him.  Meeting him and his fellow monks (and their abbot) was interesting.  They were all very friendly, and even jolly – lots of good humor was on display, jokes were cracked, funny stories told.  The two monks there from Virginia Beach both know my brother Scott.  The first thing they said upon meeting me was “But you don’t look anything at all like Scott!”  I explained to them that my siblings and I all had grave doubts about the alleged shared genetic relationship, and they got a good laugh from that.  I had a chance to thank Chook for being a good friend to my brother, which I'd wanted to do.

But then we had to go on to our meal without Chook, something he should regret for the rest of his life.  The food at the Red Iguana is really something extraordinary.  Debbie and I heard about their special yesterday – a steak and shrimp in poblano sauce – and just put down our menus and said “That!”  After we got it, we were very glad we did, for it was food for the gods.  Debbie followed that up with arroz con leche (a milky, cinnamony rice pudding), and I had a chocolate flan (a firm, slightly sweet custard with caramel sauce, fresh strawberries, and whipped cream).  Both were excellent, but I think I like the traditional flan better.  We went home with very happy tummies.

The drive home wasn't so pleasant, though.  As we approached Ogden, the traffic on Interstate 15 came to a complete stop.  We were directed off the highway to a detour through downtown Ogden.  Our assumption was that there was an accident, though we didn't see anything.  Today that was confirmed: there was an accident that killed a man and his daughter, and gravely injured his wife and another child.  Very sad...

Holey rock...

Holey rock ... on Mars...

Cat purring simulator...

Cat purring simulator ... on a web site.  That's it, the Internet is done!

Geek: great debugging stories...

Geek: great debugging stories...  A nice collection of links to great debugging stories, hosted on GitHub.  A couple of my favorites are in here, like the 500 mile email and the JVM having multi-second GC pauses (which we actually had, years earlier, on an electronic stock trading platform).  I haven't read all of these yet, but those I've sampled are all interesting (but geekly!) reads...

Should be an interesting afternoon...

Should be an interesting afternoon...  We're headed down to Salt Lake City to meet up with a good friend of my brother Scott.  He's a Buddhist monk, and he's in Salt Lake City for a conference of Buddhist monks.  Their temple just happens to be a few blocks from the Red Iguana, our favorite Mexican food place in Utah – so we're going to have some great food, and I'm sure an interesting conversation, with this monkly fellow...

This has to be from California...

This has to be from California...  Via my pistol-packing Macified mama:

A man was in his front yard mowing grass when his attractive blonde female neighbor came out of the house and went straight to the mailbox. She opened it then slammed it shut and stormed back in the house..

A little later she came out of her house again went to the mail box and again, opened it, slammed it shut again. Angrily, back into the house she went.

As the man was getting ready to edge the lawn, here she came out again, marched to the mail box, opened it and then slammed it closed harder than ever.

Puzzled by her actions the man asked her, 'Is something wrong?'

To which she replied, 'There certainly is! My stupid computer keeps saying, 'YOU'VE GOT MAIL!'

Veggies in Paradise...

Veggies in Paradise...  A couple days ago our neighbor Tim D. brought over a grocery bag full of treats from his garden: beets, sweet corn, and green peppers.  Debbie ate the corn, and I ate the beets, in an orgy of veggie consumption.  I ate not only the beets themselves, but also the greens – all were young and tender, and oh my they were good.  Debbie made yummy noises the entire time she was consuming four ears of corn.  She had them all down her gullet within about three minutes.  The green peppers contributed to a nice scramble Debbie made for our breakfast, and we still have some left.

I didn't think to take a photo of these until after we ate them :)

It's so nice to live in a part of the world that can grow good veggies!

Wisdumb...

Wisdumb...  Via reader Simi L...

American heroes in France...

American heroes in France...  As usual, all the early reports were wrong.  It wasn't two U.S. Marines who stopped a terrorist on the train, it was three Americans: one civilian, one Air Force, and one National Guardsman; all mutual friends.  Heroes, though, whatever their occupation.  France has, quite understandably, gone all gaga over them – media there is featuring wall-to-wall coverage.  At right is an interview with the father of Anthony Sadler, one of the three.  It's beautiful, just beautiful.  The father's reaction is exquisitely genuine and unaffected, and you can see his mixture of pride, wonder, and relief shining through...

A night at the sleep lab...

A night at the sleep lab...  I spent last night at the sleep lab, inside the main hospital in Logan.  I didn't get a whole lot of sleep there, though.

I arrived at 8 pm dressed in my pajamas, as the instructions asked.  I had to buy a pair of pajamas for this purpose – I can't remember ever sleeping in pajamas before, so even just wearing them was strange.  Walking through the hospital parking lot in pajamas and slippers was also kind of weird.  I got lots of smiles on the way in; one couple asked me if I had just escaped from somewhere :)

Once in the sleep lab, Sage (the sleep technician) showed me into my own little room, like a miniature hotel room – a bed, closet, and private bathroom.  Then she started wiring me up.  This happened in two stages, and involved lots of wires.  She put electrodes all over my head and face, so that they could monitor eye movement, eyelids opening and closing, teeth grinding, mouth position, and brain activity.  Then there were electrodes on my chest for monitoring heart, and two straps around my chest to monitor breathing.  She strapped a microphone to my Adam's apple to record snoring.  Then she stuck an air flow and temperature sensor up my nose.  Finally there were more electrodes on my legs to monitor their movement.  In addition there was an infrared video camera filming my whole night, and a microphone recording any noise in the room.  By the time she was done, at 10:30, I was quite a sight (about like the fellow at right)!  All those wires led into a shoebox-sized junction box that contained a data concentrator; that was in turn connected to a data recorder that had a network interface.  All this stuff allowed Sage to sit in her monitoring room and see a great deal of information about me, all in real time.  All this was being recorded as well.

For the first part of the night, until 1 am, Sage collected data on my sleep.  I was able to go to sleep fairly quickly, and slept well until she had all the data she needed and woke me up for the second part.

That second part involved fitting a CPAP machine to me, and experimenting with different pressures to find the setting that would work best for me.  This is a special CPAP with the ability to have its pressure set remotely by Sage.  For this to work, I had to be asleep – and with this machine strapped to my face, making noises and shoving air into me, that wasn't happening.  I wasn't able to sleep more than 5 minutes for the rest of the night.  Sage was able to collect a small amount of data, but she's pretty sure she did not get enough for the doctor to set a pressure.  That means ... I'm almost certainly going to be told to go back for another night at the sleep lab.  This next visit will be all night with the CPAP machine, most likely on some kind of sleep medication so they can be sure to get their data.  Lovely.  Can't say I'm looking forward to that!

Also, after the not-so-pleasant experience last night with the CPAP machine I'm wondering whether the cure is worse than the problem.  That will be a topic for discussion with my doctor!

Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  Today was Debbie's third physical therapy session, and it's clear she's made big progress.  She used crutches for the first time today, and even walked a bit on a single crutch.  The therapist thinks she's only got two real issues at the moment, both of them perfectly normal for her situation.  The first is that the bones in her joint are still reporting pain when she puts weight on her injured knee.  He says those nerves need to be retrained to understand that putting weight on them is ok.  The second issue is that her quad muscle needs to be built back up; the weeks on “no weight bearing” caused it to atrophy quite a bit.  That's just exercise, and the exercise bicycle and practicing walking are the main routes to success there.

I'm headed up to the hospital in Logan tonight for a sleep study.  My doctor thinks I likely have sleep apnea, but they're going to do some tests tonight to prove that.  Somehow I'm supposed to sleep with electrodes on my head and my chest, a sensor mask over my mouth and nose, and sensors strapped to two fingers.  That ought to be interesting!

Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  Miki (already less resplendent), Race, and I took our usual morning walk, but it was harder than usual.  The air this morning is notably worse than yesterday; the smoke is now thick enough to feel raw on the throat, and it made my eyes water.  When we started out on our walk, the sun was over the Wasatch Mountains, but was a red ball so dim I could look directly at it.  By the time we were done with our walk, it was a bit brighter, but the day still looked like a heavily overcast day.  In the last photo you can't really see the Wellsville Mountains (west of us) at all, whereas normally they are so clearly visible you don't realize they're 15 to 20 miles away.  It will be nice indeed when this smoke clears off...

Wisdumb...

Wisdumb...  Via reader Simi L...

Why we should legalize murder for hire...

Why we should legalize murder for hire...  Excellent piece, but ... you have to read it to the very end to understand why I said that.  Via friend, former colleague, and dogged reader Doug W...

Ladybug takeoff...

Ladybug takeoff...  I never knew their wings folded up like this!

Seen in an ad...

Seen in an ad...  This appears in a free classified ad hosted by a local news web site.  The news site is trying to provide a useful service to its audience, but this kind of leech is taking advantage of it.  What makes me most sad about this is that ads for ludicrous, obviously fraudulent products like this must occasionally work – there's no other reason why anyone would bother to place them.  Most likely the person they do work with is the kind of person you'd least like to be victim to it: the elderly or weak of mind.  I've redacted the contact information, as I don't want to give this despicable parasite any additional exposure...

MAGIC WALLET TO GIVE YOU EVERY DAY
THIS IS A WELL DESIGNED ANCIENT MAGIC WALLET WITH ALL POWERS TO BRING YOU MONEY DAILY OR WEEKLY AND THIS MONEY CAN HELP YOU SOLVE YOUR BAD FINANCIAL SITUATION & INCREASE YOUR WEALTH THUS BECOMING THE HAPPIEST PERSON IN LIFE
CALL +xxxxxxxx
MAGIC RING TO SOLVE ALL YOUR PROBLEMS
THE POWERFUL BLACK MAGIC RING WITH ALL POWERS TO SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS CALL +xxxxxxxx
This is the oldest powerful mystic ring organized by great magicians from the early (150-800BC)and it was made to be for the pharaohs and prophets of Egypt it has got powers from the Angels of the 7th planets . And the following are what this ring can do or has ; ( by ..+xxxxxxx.,profmaaxxxxx@gmail.com It can give success in love , Success in business Make you attractive to people Protects from the journey and home Make you do great miracles as you Protect you from evil powers,,water drawn, and fire won’t be able to harm you; its get promotions in any field you want Remember answers and pass exams Attracted Win lotteries It will move in you and into your blood think with and work with if you have it . Contact, Profmaamaamisa. +xxxxxxxx

Why should you be skeptical of climate models?

Why should you be skeptical of climate models?  One reason might be that a simple model (so simple you can do the math on a calculator or slide rule!) does a better job of predicting temperatures than any of the IPCC models...

Geek: evil code commit...

Geek: evil code commit ... to make before you leave your job.  This assumes, of course, that you're willing to burn a lot of bridges, with geekly napalm.

The closest thing I've ever seen to this was a “code bomb” that an angry employee committed about a week before he left.  This was at an electronic stock trading company, and the code bomb added a random number of shares to an order, intermittently (a few times a day).  So, for instance, a trader might place an order to sell 1,000 shares of IBM, and it would be turned into an order to sell (say) 1,400 shares instead.  Fortunately we caught this during testing, before the software ever got released to a real trader.  That one could have been bad.  We just fixed it and moved on; the company never took any action against the ex-employee.  I don't think we ever even told him that we'd found his bomb...

Turkish is an interesting language in the first place...

Turkish is an interesting language in the first place ... with all sorts of unusual features.  I just ran across another reason why it's interesting: it has a whistled form for communications over long distances.  I've known several Turkish people over the years, and none of them ever mentioned this to me.  I only discovered it when reading a science news story about how the right hemisphere of the brain gets involved in this...

Superconductivity at -70°C!

Superconductivity at -70°C!  I was all excited when I saw that headline – that's a far higher temperature than previously found.  Then I saw this little detail: the superconductivity occurs only at 1.5 million atmospheres of pressure.  Sheesh.  I won't be doing that at home anytime soon!