The Age of the Essay: “You don’t know yet. And so you can’t begin with a thesis, because you don’t have one, and may never have one. An essay doesn’t begin with a statement, but with a question. In a real essay, you don’t take a position and defend it. You notice a door that’s ajar, and you open it and walk in to see what’s inside.”

Paul Graham is a hero of mine, not for his hacker-hero-worship, but because he’s a THINKER first, and a programmer second. His “essay on essays” should be given to every freshman in college.

Prediction for the day: Lots of people driving convertibles, motorcycles, etc. It’s BEAUTIFUL outside…65 degrees, no humidity. Really feels like Fall.

* * *

One cup of coffee, and I’m still totally zonked. I know I slept, but it feels like I didn’t sleep at all.

Bummed that Katerina is leaving the company, but I’m kinda glad for her, too.

I guess my point is that I don’t like suburbia. I want to move back to a town where everybody has at least an acre or two of land. Good fences don’t make good neighbors. Good acreage makes good neighbors. And beer. Beer always helps.

Agreed, on both counts.

link

Yep…this guy’s going on the RSS reader…

I’m jealous. Straight-up, seeing red jealous. There was something that was mine that someone else is doing a bang-up job on after it got taken away from me. So, hard thing is, are my misgivings about it real, or are they just a manifestation of that jealousy?

I thought jealousy was the green-eyed monster….n…

Whitney - Aug 1, 2006

I thought jealousy was the green-eyed monster….not the red-eyed…..unless he’s jealous about all the ppl out there who DON’T have allergies - while clawing his own eyes out….

The Bag of Holding: “Got your top 5? Good. Now find out who made each of them. Send the creator a letter of thanks, and make it sincere. If appropriate, send a small cash donation, anything you can afford.”

My list:

• BMW

• Timex

• Sage

• Firefox

• Ruby

Yup…nothing like the proper tool.

Bella’s car won’t last forever, and I keep wondering what we’ll look at next. Things that matter to me:

• Small-sized person compatibility: Some cars (including my E30!), Bella just can’t drive. She needs power-adjusting seats (and pedals, preferably!) and a tilt/telescoping steering column.

• Safety: I don’t want my family in a death trap. In this I include active safety: A vehicle must be stable and maneuverable enough to avoid problems, with positive driver feedback. It must also have enough power to get out of its own way.

It CANT be any GM?! I LOVE BUICK!! I LOVE OLDS!!…

Whitney - Aug 5, 2006

It CANT be any GM?! I LOVE BUICK!! I LOVE OLDS!!! WHY CANT IT BE A FREAKIN GM??? except chevy? Kick me in the crotch and spit on my neck - UGH!! We are SOOOOOOOOOO not having a chevy. ugh.

My bad: Typo…should’ve said it CAN be any GM except Chevy.

Joey passes into an icing-induced sugar coma.

* * *

After the non-practice Soccer practice (lightning, thunder, oh my!), we were able to make it to David’s surprise party, which was awesome for me in many ways:

- Got to introduce Whitney + Joey to most of my ‘work family’
- Took whitney to a GOOD thai restaurant, for a change.
- It counted as date night. (j/k, dear!)

At Bella’s request, I removed all geographic and visual references to where I now abide.

For all those crazies out there on the ’net: I live alone atop a high, craggy mountain surrounded by piles of gas-inducing bean burritos and buckets of ammunition for my many sub-machine guns. The approximate location of my hermitage is East of Noah’s Ark, and north of Shangri-La.

Please feel free to not drop by.

Would you say you have a plethora of gas-inducing …

JarvoSpeaks - Aug 4, 2006

Would you say you have a plethora of gas-inducing bean burritos?

Funny, that sounds like the town where I grew up!

Nice try, but STILL I will hunt you down and force you to accept a baby gift!

So, on the news today this story:

BP said that it would have to shut down a segment of the pipeline for a period of up to six months to replace 16 miles of the structure.

Okay, why does BRITISH PETROLEUM own the Alaska pipeline? Why doesn’t an American company (or better yet, the federal gov’t!) own it?

Shhhh….Mayor Isaacs may be listening…

Jeff Roberts - Aug 2, 2006

Shhhh….Mayor Isaacs may be listening…

Maybe it’s part of a plot to take back the colonies?

I also heard that they hadn’t run the “pig” (not Arnold, some kind of device) through the pipeline to do routine testing for over a decade. (And here’s a prediction the pundits will seize “pig” as a metaphor soon.)

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable: “It doesn’t matter what you tell yourself, or what slogans you memorize about how everyone is special. You’ll think of yourself as special when you do something special. If you think of yourself as special prior to actually doing something special, you’re not healthy and well-balanced. You’re a narcissist, disconnected from reality. "

Okay, this is a LITTLE over the top, but taken as a whole, this article describes why post-modernist Cyberspace and human beings don’t mesh, past a point. We need people. (By extension, I’d assert we need God, too!)

“No, thank you.” (Kidding.)

Interesting sit… JarvoSpeaks - Aug 4, 2006

“No, thank you.” (Kidding.)

Interesting site. I always enjoy reading others who are saying what I have since I was, oh, 10: that our society is going to Dante’s favorite vacation spot, in a small purse.

Yeah, so this was supposed to be the weekend where I relaxed all Saturday, staying in bed all day if I wished…

…so, naturally, we reorganized the house and Rug Doctor’d the carpets. In between doing that, I found time to change the oil in the Beamer. All this, while Joey lived la dolce vita down at Dale Hollow Lake.

The lowpoint was probably when the Purolator filter in the E30 decided to get stuck, at the same time my left shoulder had a heat cramp. I finally crawled under the car and got it unstuck with my StrapWrench from beneath.

Washington Post Article

Rarely has our system produced a more naked exercise in opportunism than this measure. Most conservatives oppose the minimum wage on principle as a form of government meddling in the marketplace. But moderate Republicans in jeopardy this fall desperately wanted an increase in the minimum wage.

So the seemingly ingenious Republican leadership, which dearly wants deep cuts in the estate tax, proposed offering nickels and dimes to the working class to secure billions for the rich. Fortunately, though not surprisingly, the bill failed.

The Republicans in congress don’t feel that it is …

Bryan - Aug 5, 2006

The Republicans in congress don’t feel that it is necessary to raise minimum wage, however they do feel it’s OK to give themselves a $30,000 a year “cost of living” raise. What a joke!

The Republicans in congress don’t feel that it is necessary to raise minimum wage, however they do feel it’s OK to give themselves a $30,000 a year “cost of living” raise. What a joke!

Caterpillars run amok

“HEEELLLP ……. MMMMMEEEEEEEEE”

JarvoSpeaks - Aug 4, 2006

“HEEELLLP ……. MMMMMEEEEEEEEE”