Southern Man

Harry Potter Marathon

2012-02-17T15:04:00.005-06:00

Teen Daughter is ill (a cold, with the aches and fevers and headache and all that goes along with it) so she is curled up on the futon for our favorite family cure: the movie marathon. Unfortunately we did it backwards, starting with Deathly Hallows Part 2 and then put in the first one. It was a little disconcerting.

They were such babies! And now they're all grown up!

Libertarians

2012-02-15T10:35:00.000-06:00

Boring

2012-02-14T09:42:00.008-06:00

Teen daughter leaves her iPod jacked into the stereo in The Hyundai so over the last month Southern Man has listened to pretty much her entire music library. It's an eclectic mix with everything from classical piano (she plays well, and how much Scarlatti and Mozart and Chopin do your teens have on their iPods?) to Broadway to rock from old to classic to new (Beach Boys, Queen, Green Day) and grrl bands (Bangles, Ting Tings) and former Disney starlets (Hillary Duff and Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus) and dance pop and pop rap (Kei$ha and others) and above all her beloved Lady Gaga. And that is but a small sampling and Southern Man appreciates the continuing education in modern music. But one tune by a girl band called The Pierces really jumped out at him the other day.

Nothing thrills us anymore
Nothing kills us anymore
Life is such a chore
When it's boring...

Ah, yes, the ennui of modern youth who believe that life is over before it even begins. Southern Man sees a lot of that in Teen Daughter. But they continue...

Sexy boy
Girl on girl
Menage a troi
Boring...

Whoa. That's boring? What else do these girls think is boring?

Caviar
Escargot
Dom Perignon
Boring...

Beats what's in Southern Man's kitchen, which is more along the lines of canned chicken and cheap Mexican beer; the most exotic treat in his pantry is chocolate peanut butter. But the most telling is yet to come.

Love of my life
Bear your child
Everything I've ever wanted
Boring...

In a rare moment of candor some months after the separation the former Mrs. Southern Man stood on the porch of our brand new mini-mansion and said "I left you because I was bored and unhappy and my friends said that being single would be more exciting."

Well, that's all water under the bridge and Southern Man, while amused by the truth unwittingly revealed by The Pierces, tries not to take pop lyrics too seriously. But then at work this morning one of the first articles to appear on the morning blog-read reports a distraught wife saying (all italicized text is quoted, more or less, from the article)

Help! I hate my husband!

Well, please describe this knave.

Well, he's a gentle man and a hands-on father. I have never been suspicious of him being with another woman. He makes a good living that enables me to stay at home with the kids. I find him sexy and enjoy sex with him.

The problem?

My husband chews his food too loudly.

This is not a woman who hates her husband. A woman who says she hates her husband but then describes him in glowing terms but picks on a minor behavioral issue doesn't hate her husband; there's something else brewing in her head. This is a woman who has everything she ever wanted and is still unhappy. And now life has become such a chore that her marriage is disintegrating around her. All she can see is that things aren't right and it must be his fault.

Now let's put ourselves in the husband's shoes.

I'm a good husband, a good father, a good provider, but my wife is never satisfied. It's as if she hates me!

Oh, yeah. Been there, done that, thought that, for sixteen long years.

Some women (and Southern Man's ex was certainly one of them) go into marriage expecting that The Prince will carry them off into the sunset and they will live Happily Ever After...

When we got married I imagined this great life we would have together and instead we seem to be always fighting, about the kids, about the fact that he is so remote, about the stupidest things.

Been there and done that, too, and carry plenty of the blame for it as we had lots of (in hindsight) really poor church-based counseling in which it was claimed that the husband is responsible for keeping his wife happy and that her emotional issues were his fault, not hers - and, unspoken, that his happiness was irrelevant. Needless to say, this "counseling" was no help and actually did a lot of harm. Neither of us had any idea what the other really needed and didn't provide it and what Eggerich calls the "crazy cycle" took hold early (Southern Man's response was to withdraw, just as the woman above complains) and we never recovered. And it took a lot of post-divorce counseling before Southern Man began to understand that, just maybe, it wasn't entirely his fault that his ex wasn't happy.

But that's not an excuse. The bottom line is, had Southern Man known twenty years ago what he knows now we would have a rock-solid, very happy marriage. But he didn't. And the sad part is that most of what he needed to know was right in front of him and he was just to young or stupid or stubborn to understand or accept it. No, you can't be responsible for another person's happiness, but you can affect it. Southern Man knew we were both unhappy and didn't know how to counter it and thus did (mostly) the wrong things. And we stayed unhappy and the marriage ended. Sadly, it's not uncommon; Southern Man knows lots of men who were good husbands and fathers and providers whose wives left because they were "unhappy."

With age comes wisdom, and regret, and longing for what might have been. And determination to learn from error, to put the past behind and move on. Lord, I'm so sorry for my past failures and for those who were hurt because of me. Let me grow in Your wisdom and Your love, that the future will be brighter. Amen.

Diet Week Six

2012-02-13T20:32:00.003-06:00

The lapses of the previous week were overcome and more and Southern Man is within a whisker of the first goal weight. Sadly he plugged his height and weight into one of those online BMI calculators and it claims that he still needs to drop a good twenty pounds before he's not "overweight." Southern Man does not believe this but he would like to lose ten and redistribute ten. With courage and discipline, on to Week Six!

Sunday Evening

2012-02-12T23:20:00.006-06:00

Southern Man and Teen Daughter have made it a habit to join the rest of the extended family at the Ancestral Manor on Sunday evenings for home-made pizza and fun and games and when Southern Sister (who generally acts as host) let all know that "Sunday evening was cancelled" because she was engaged elsewhere we were determined to carry on without her so we picked up a large bag of Chinese take-out and headed west.

It was only the four of us tonight so we enjoyed our meal and broke out the Scrabble.

Southern Father makes his move as Teen Daughter keeps score.

Southern Mother always complains about her tiles but she always wins.

Teen Daughter is perpetually annoyed by Southern Man's desire to photograph her but he managed to snap a few candids anyway.

Teen Daughter by the fireplace. Coffee, iPhone, and a warm fire - who could wish for anything more?

Hard to believe that Southern Father built that house nearly forty years ago. That's about forty Christmas Eves in the fireplace room. Southern Man treasures the time he spends with his parents and hopes for forty more.

No Regrets

2012-02-11T21:46:00.002-06:00

This article in The Guardian in which a British nurse relates the five most common regrets expressed by the dying struck a nerve with Southern Man, who is struggling with minor issues like the meaning of life and the inevitability of death and all the dreams that he's surrendered and all that he wishes to accomplish in his remaining years. So in response to the five regrets Southern Man proposes five goals for a life without regrets. Happily, he's already gotten a good start at most of them in the last few years.

To thine own self be true.

Southern Man has spent much of his life doing (and being) what others expected of him rather than what he wanted to do or be. One does not abandon ones responsibilities but it's not selfish to devote at least part of your energy to following your own dreams.

Work hard, but not too hard.

According to the nurse these first two regrets were expressed by every patient for whom she cared. Southern Man missed enough of his children's lives by working two and three jobs at a time and is determined to make up for that in the future. Making time to be with your family and friends is worth the effort.

Have the courage to express your feelings.

Southern Man spent years bending over backwards to protect the feelings of others at the expense of his own but over the last few years has had the courage to let others know what he thinks and feels as well. And he has a lot of difficulty expressing his deep love for his family and tries not to let chances to do so slip by.

Stay in touch with your friends.

There's one dear high school friend in particular for whom Southern Man has searched for years, to no avail; he deeply regrets letting our friendship fade away when circumstances sent us in different directions. There are others, as well. And Southern Man is very protective of the friendships he has today and works hard to cultivate new ones.

Let yourself be happy.

This is the hardest of all. Southern Man has on occasion achieved contentment; he's not sure that he's ever actually been happy. Is it selfish to make your own happiness a priority? Southern Man has never really let himself do so. He's going to try it and see if he can.

More Brick

2012-02-11T14:25:00.002-06:00

Let's face it, Southern Man has a weakness for free building materials. And so when a truckload of free brick popped up on Craigslist yesterday he jumped right on it and yesterday afternoon and evening was spent loading brick and hauling it out to The Land and unceremoniously dumping it, twice. It took three trips (it's good red brick, very pretty and a good match to the red shale that's about the only native rock out there, but very heavy; filling the bed half way had The Titan plenty low on his springs) but the last load (OK, half-load) didn't make it out until this afternoon. And it was just too cold to do much of anything else out there but there is now probably six hundred bricks that need to be cleaned and stacked and allocated to whatever upcoming project calls for lots of red brick. Plus there's a fair stack of white brick from the last outing. What can one do with red and white brick?

Sex and Civilization

2012-02-10T20:09:00.008-06:00

Something that women just do not understand about us men is our sex drive. Our brains are hard-wired for sex and marinated in testosterone. Sex is on our minds all the time. Believe me, you think you understand but you don't. You can't. Your genetic prime directive is babies. Ours is procreation. Once you've had your babies your sex drive dwindles to nothing. Ours never fades. The flesh may become weak but the spirit is always willing.

So what do men do with all that passion and drive when there's no sexual outlet? They design, they build, they achieve. Go outside and look around. Everything you see was designed and built by men, from the car you drive to the gasoline that powers it to the garage it's parked in to the road upon which it travels. And don't get all hot and bothered and post that women achieve as well. For every woman who achieves something of note there are a hundred men. And every job that is devoted to actual construction of actual stuff is utterly dominated by men. Women sit behind desks and push paper and gossip.

What would happen if men had the same sex drive as women? The answer is - nothing. No cars, no buildings, no battleships, no jet planes, no moon rockets. No Ninth Symphony or First Concerto or Rhapsody in Blue. No Principia Mathematica or Harmonices Mundi or Almagest. No plays of Shakespeare or King James Bible or Iliad. No Great Pyramids at Giza or Colosseum in Rome or Great Library in Alexandria. No Star Wars or Citizen Kane or Metropolis. Not even whatever crap you watch on TV at night. Or TVs. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

The male sex drive built civilization. If not for the male sex drive we'd have never come down from the trees.

But look what we've achieved. By erecting the most prosperous society in the history of mankind, where poverty is virtually unknown and almost every need of every citizen is met, we've built a world where women no longer need men. The State is surrogate provider and husband and father. Men, having constructed the State, are now superfluous. Even worse, men are actively excluded as not just unwanted but undesirable or even dangerous - from schools, from playgrounds, from HR departments. Exiles from the world they created.

And thus the West falls, not with a nuclear bang but a feminist chortle. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Diets

2012-02-07T10:50:00.019-06:00

As regular readers know Southern Man has adopted Taube's diet advice of low carbs and starches, which is consistent with the increasingly-popular "paleo" diets (eat anything that grows or that you can hunt). And yesterday he dropped in on a diet support group at work to see what they were up to (and to see if there were any cute dieting co-workers to co-opt into his own private support group) and found that the USDA has adopted a new eating guideline called MyPlate.

It's interesting to compare this to the old Food Pyramid...

...and for once it looks like the government's advice is actually moving in the right direction by reducing grains (and the accompanying carbs and starches) from nearly half the recommended diet to less than a quarter. Note that some (including Southern Man) argue that even that is too much and grains ought to be dispensed with about the same rarity as dessert. MyPlate is also a testament to the tireless work of the dairy special interests. One also notices that fats, once deemed evil, are not mentioned at all in the new scheme, but neither are sweets. Yes, dear readers, "added sugar" was once included as a part of the government's recommended diet.

So Southern Man is pleased to introduced Southern Man's Platter^TM which is the only diet advice you really need.

In Southern Man's Platter^TM whole-grain products and starchy veggies, like dessert, may be consumed in small quantities. Processed foods are permitted as occasional snacks; heck, anything you want (even grits!) is permitted, on occasion and in small quantities, as long as the majority of your diet is as above. Recommended drinks are water, milk, fruit juice (but be wary of the source), and (occasionally) diet sodas or adult beverages. Or diet sodas and adult beverages, as Diet Sprite and Triple Sec make a fine inexpensive mixed drink (Diet Sprite and Grand Marnier is much better, but much pricier). Eat like Southern Man and be healthy, wealthy (as you're not spending all your hard-earned cash on processed foods and eating out), and wise (for following Southern Man's advice, like the fear of the Lord, is the beginning of wisdom).

Diet Week Five

2012-02-06T08:57:00.003-06:00

Well let's just say that no progress was made this week. In fact if truth be told the progress was slightly negative. Southern Man blames the vast quantities of off-diet foods at the Ancestral Manor last night. Well, and a week of moderate cheating. So this week it is back on a strict regime of protein shakes and one meal per day and no cheating and see if we can't drop a few pounds.

Robots and Geocaching

2012-02-04T10:47:00.002-06:00

After a relaxing morning Southern Man headed to a small city about an hour southwest to help a friend who's mentoring a high-school robotics team that wanted to branch out into geocaching as a means of advertising their program.

The students hard at work on their robot.

Having taught a bit of robotics from time to time Southern Man was impressed by both the facilities and the enthusiasm of the students who were eager to demonstrate some of the various modules they were constructing for the upcoming competition. But after a bit the geocaching group broke off and we planted a cache near City Hall.

The students suggest a hiding place.

The sponsor's husband appeared after a bit with a travel bug and a few additions to the cache.

"Hey, you can't do that here!"

Well, yes we can; he's one of the city managers and formally gave permission for the hides earlier.

Southern Man and the team sponsor establish GPS coordinates and finalize the cache contents.

Then we headed back to the school and the students got to work on publishing their cache.

The geocaching web site on a very cool SmartBoard.

The students craft their web page.

And after this most enjoyable afternoon Southern Man headed back towards town but as is his custom hit several geocaches on the way...

...one of which was hidden on this fine old bridge.

Then it was dinner with friends and a movie for the guys. Quite a pleasant way to spend a Saturday!

Movie Review: Red Tails

2012-02-03T10:09:00.007-06:00

Upon seeing the first few seconds of the trailer for Red Tails Southern Man proclaimed that it would be both good and bad "for all the same reasons that Pearl Harbor was good and bad" and he was pretty much right. It didn't help that those first few seconds incorporated more historical and logistical inaccuracies than one could quickly count. If that annoys you too much the HBO production of The Tuskegee Airmen (which features the younger version of Cuba Gooding Jr as a pilot rather than a commander) is a fine film and reasonably accurate portrayal of the history and deeds of the justifiably famous 332nd Fighter Group. But a friend pointed out that viewed as a live-action comic book Red Tails is a fine film, at least while in the air where you have lots of CGI airplanes shooting slow-motion bullets and performing variously impossible maneuvers while flying far too close to one another (and everything else) which is a lot of fun to watch. There's even a German arch-enemy ace clearly meant to stand in for Galland. The ground sequences are entirely forgettable and include a couple of subplots that could have been dispensed with entirely. I doubt that George will make his money back on this one but it's enough fun to be worthy of addition to the DVD collection when it comes out, shelved in the "movies about a parallel Earth in a conflict similar to WWII" section where it will have plenty of company.

Choice

2012-02-02T23:01:00.005-06:00

If a woman is pregnant and doesn't want the child but the father does, does the father have a choice?

If a woman is pregnant and does want the child but the father does not, does the father have a choice?

Rush Day

2012-02-01T15:45:00.006-06:00

Unless anti-aging technology evolves pretty quickly Southern Man won't be around for the real thing but as it's 2-1-12...

Happy Rush Day!

Diet Week Four

2012-01-30T08:23:00.002-06:00

That Phase One target weight is tantalizingly close but not quite there yet so Southern Man will continue with the protein shakes and one meal a day regime for at least another week before continuing to Phase Two. Hopefully all that rock moving will make up for the fact that he's not working out at all.

Southern Man Got Mail

2012-01-29T20:32:00.010-06:00

Well, more like the potential to get mail.

Last weekend the fellow offering that load of brick also had a mailbox but when Southern Man arranged to pick up the brick said mailbox had already been spoken for. Well, when Southern Man went back the second day for another load the mailbox was on the trash-heap; whoever had asked for it was a no-show and did Southern Man want it? So we tossed it in the truck on top of the brick and left it along the front of The Land (it was a box and post with a big blob of concrete on the bottom and very heavy). Well, today Southern Man went out and put up more sheetrock and mined a few more rocks out of the common-lot rock vein and put that mailbox in the ground.

The Land, looking west; in the background that's The Barn, The Workshop, and between them the north end of The Trailer.

So Southern Man finally has a mailbox up with his name and (hopefully) future box number (derived from looking at the pattern of numbers up and down the road) and a nice note inside to the mail carrier asking what he has to do to make it official. Given the rather casual attitude in that county he's guessing not a whole lot and that's the way he likes it.

Beautiful Day

2012-01-28T19:05:00.011-06:00

It looks like Old Man Winter has forgotten about us and that is just fine with Southern Man. It was a beautiful calm day, a little chilly (well, it is late January) but not bad at all. He spent most of that beautiful day out at The Land putting up sheetrock and working on the wood piles and scrap piles and generally puttering about and enjoying himself. The Trailer was surprisingly free of evidence of mouse incursions with only one little one caught in a glue trap. Southern Man left a radio on last weekend; he'd read somewhere that mice don't like it when there's enough background noise to mask the sound of a predator. He'd also read that hip-hop works better as rodent repellant than does classical but classical it was. Then it was back to La Casa where we are more or less out of food (well, not really, but more or less out of food that picky Teen Daughter will eat) so at her suggestion picked up a Papa Murphy's take-n-bake pizza that was absolutely amazing and they even tossed in a free batch of cookie dough so our diets are on moratorium for the evening as we feast on pizza and salad and cookies. Cookies!

More Rocks

2012-01-27T19:48:00.015-06:00

In preparation for the upcoming three-day weekend Southern Man got online last night and did his usual perusal of his favorite cornucopia of free stuff and lucked into a pile of landscaping boulders. "Very heavy!" waned the ad. "Bring several men!" So Southern Man arranged a time to go take a look and this morning he headed out to The Land and after a few chores tossed a dolly and a couple of 2x4s into The Titan and headed 'way up northeast figuring that if they the rocks weren't too big he and some unsuspecting friend could get them later.

Well as it turned out the rocks weren't too big and Southern Man managed to wrestle most of them into the truck before the homeowner appeared and gave him a much-needed hand with the last three.

But Southern Man loaded these all by himself. Why, yes, they were heavy. They're big rocks. What did you think?

It was another full load and The Titan was sitting pretty low on his springs but he's a big tough truck so Southern Man headed back to The Land but stopped for half-a-dozen geocaches and a little sightseeing along the way.

You know you're in Southern Man country when you see signs like this!

Back at the land the rocks were unloaded and stacked by backing the Titan up to a pallet and dumping them off the tailgate...

That's a big pallet of rocks! Or a pallet of big rocks. Whatever.

...and all that took Southern Man until dark so he headed back to La Casa to shower and fix dinner and watch over her shoulder as Teen Daughter efiled her taxes and played Guitar Hero and had a delicious meal of veggies and rice and lemon chicken and began to plot tomorrow's fun!

Southern Man Takes A Test

2012-01-26T20:15:00.008-06:00

The BlogFather linked to a Volokh Conspiracy article on what he called the "elite ignorance of ordinary Americans" - that is, how completely out of touch our ruling class is with us ordinary working folk. The article had a link to a 25-question quiz to assess just how in (or out) of touch the quiz-taker is with mainstream America. Southern Man took it, read the comments, and found that he had scored higher (that is, more in touch with middle America) than almost anyone who posted a score.

This was surprising as Southern Man's background isn't that unusual; the well-educated son of middle-class white-collar professionals whose mothers stayed at home and whose blue-collar fathers worked as butchers and union laborers and made sure their children had a chance to go to college. Southern Man missed a lot of points for not watching TV and his almost complete ignorance of (or indifference to) staple Southern activities such as smoking and sports and NASCAR but made up ground for having grown up in a small town and going to movies and owning a pickup and having worked in an actual warehouse and frequent fishing. Southern Man's take on this is that he lives in the best of both worlds: a white-collar professional job during the week and tooling around the country on weekends.

So take the quiz and post your score. Southern Man's was a 54. What was yours?

System Administration

2012-01-23T14:47:00.010-06:00

A cooling fan went out on our LittleFe mini-supercomputer so our crack team of experts went right to work:

Southern Man could use a more different kind of screwdriver right about now...

Inspecting a troubled board...

A job well done!

All photos by Dr. A, who was laughing so hard throughout this circus that he could barely hold the camera.

Diet Week Three

2012-01-23T10:43:00.007-06:00

Well, Southern Man cheated too much last week and there's been little change since last weigh-in so he's going to continue the protein shake regime for another week. It is entirely not his fault that Teen Daughter and Gay Boyfriend made a devil's food cake and then refused to eat it (citing some nonsense about dry cake mixes being "expired") and who is Southern Man to let perfectly good food go to waste? But as promised he did have to punch a fresh hole in his belt to keep his pants up.

Weekend Update

2012-01-22T21:36:00.009-06:00

Well, that went by all too quickly. Southern Man had a three-day weekend so he started out by heading to a town a bit south of the city for some free brick (construction leftovers) and a little out-of-town geocaching, then met with the church single's group that evening for our monthly bowling outing. Southern Man was paired with a friend who is really the better bowler but beat him three games out of five - and two of those by one pin. There was plenty of brick left so Saturday morning he rounded up a friend (well, the same friend), went to men's breakfast at the church, and headed out to pick up another load and we did more out-of-town geocaching. We got it all back to The Land and unloaded and sorted and stacked and headed back to La Casa where friend's car refused to start - a balky starter that had been acting up for about a month - so we had to call for a tow truck and have it hauled to the nearby dealership that services it. A new starter will be nearly six hundred bucks (a far cry from the days when a starter was forty bucks plus the old core and could be installed in an afternoon with a flat-head screwdriver and one wrench and little fuss other than the inevitable bloody knuckles - not to mention that when our cars broke down we pulled them home or to the shop with another car and a rope) so Southern Man is glad that his vehicles haven't acted up lately. Southern Man drove his friend home and stayed for dinner (crackers and home-made chili) and conversation. Sunday morning proved chilly and blustery but he headed out to The Land anyway (geocaching on the way, of course) and cleaned up The Trailer after the latest mouse incursion (they did take three casualties but Southern Man still hasn't found how they're getting in so all he can do right now is make sure there's no food out and set more traps) and stacked more construction material and firewood, then came home and showered and headed out to the ancestral manor for Sunday evening dinner with parents and brother and sister and both older kids and son's girlfriend and a couple of nephews. Brother has a new job and Teen Daughter finally got her car back and starts her new job tomorrow. And tomorrow it is back to work for Southern Man as well but if the deans refrain from scheduling any meetings on Friday it will be another four-day workweek.

[added later]: friend's problem wasn't the starter but a malfunctioning anti-theft system, which turned out to be a lot less expensive to...well, disable. I think they put a underdash switch on it for him. The same thing used to happen all the time to a former gf's Jeep and we'd be stuck wherever until it decided to recognize the key again.

SOPA and PIPA Blackout

2012-01-18T09:33:00.010-06:00

No, Southern Man is not joining the rest of the 'net in the blackout (after all it would affect only his three readers and no one else) but he'll tell you why he agrees with it. SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) have nothing to do with online piracy or intellectual property and everything to do with deep-pocket lobbyists (in this case, former D-CT Chris Dodd) and and their bought-and-paid-for congressmen on both sides of the aisle (including Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT)) who ram through legislation (which is as often as not written by the corporation) to benefit them at the expense of everyone else, and Southern Man hates that with a burning passion. But SOPA and PIPA aren't the problems - they're the symptoms of a deeply corrupt government. If you knew - really knew - how your government operated there'd be elected officials hanging in every tree from here to Washington.

The Land

2012-01-17T12:19:00.020-06:00

Since Google Earth has new imagery (from October 12, 2011, to be precise) it is time for an update on The Land. This post supersedes this older post with the same name. For a much larger and clearer image, click on the photo.

Points of interest, clockwise from upper left, are The Cove (a small portion of the much larger lake), the firepit where many burgers and brats and steaks and s'mores have been grilled and roasted and washed down with copious quantities of beer and where a small boat dock is currently under construction, a small grove of redbud trees and proposed site of a not-yet-built gazebo, The Workshop, a large depression that Southern Man has always had marked for a fish pond, The Barn (followers will see that the south roof has been repaired), The Trailer, a washout that will one day make a lovely goldfish pond and water garden, and the Grassy Knoll, which is Southern Man's favorite fishing spot (The Cove is shallow, but just off the Knoll there's a ten-foot dropoff). And scattered throughout are many piles and stacks and pallets of building materials that is slowly becoming more organized.

That's most of the interesting terrain. To the northwest the spit of land with the firepit juts well out into the lake. North of that is the "Common Lot" with a boat ramp and picnic area shared by all landowners in the division; no one uses it and Southern Man's two five-acre lots border it on two sides so it's really part of his back yard. To the north is another depression that will be the northern part of the future fish pond; just east of that is a pretty solid hackberry treeline that grew up around an old fence. And to the east of that is five or so acres of flat land on which some day, God willing, Southern Man will build a proper Victorian farmhouse.

Science

2012-01-17T05:33:00.014-06:00

Southern Man always kicks off his gen-ed science classes with a lecture on what science is and what it isn't. He figures that his Astronomy and Physical Science courses are the last college-level science these kids will ever see (for many, it's the only college-level science they'll ever see) and so the given subject occasionally takes a back seat to what one might call Intro to Philosophy of Science with excursions into How Things Really Work and the inherent fallacy of the term "scientifically proven" and the difference between science and pseudoscience and why understanding what's really going on in the world of global warming "science" is important for them to understand.

To warm up he's been reading an interesting list of "elegant explanations" on a wide variety of subjects. It's well worth reading, but pace yourself, it'll take you several sessions. And some of the physical-science ones had wording that, well, annoys Southern Man. So he'll pick on Roger Highfield who opens his essay on Einstein's Theory of Relativity with this:

"General relativity is one example of a beautiful explanation of the way nature works."

Now try these on for size:

"Ptolemy's geocentric model of the heavens is one example of a beautiful explanation of the way nature works."

"The Five Classical Elements (earth, water, air, fire, aether) is one example of a beautiful explanation of the way nature works."

Do you begin to see Southern Man's issue? None of these are explanations; they are descriptions. And they're all good descriptions. Socrates would have no problem explaining a Space Shuttle launch in terms of the Five Elements. And of these three Ptolemy's is probably the most remarkable; a mathematical model of the heavens so accurate and so precise that stood for two millennia. And that is one thing that Southern Man pounds into his gen-ed science students over and over and over again: the role of the physical sciences is to describe what we see. Southern Man would much rather write

"General relativity is one example of a beautiful description of the way nature works."

Which it is, and it's beautiful in many ways. But it's not an explanation any more than Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation or Plato and Aristotle's understanding of Levity and Gravity were explanations; they were and are descriptions of what nature does, not explanations of how nature does it. The former we do with increasing skill; the latter may be ever beyond our understanding. And it is the role of science to provide the former but never the latter. As one of Southern Man's favorite professors used to say:

"I can use the tools and descriptions of physical science to plot the trajectory of this thrown ball to whatever accuracy and precision your budget will allow. But I cannot tell you why it moves the way it does. For an answer to that question you must go to the Department of Philosophy; they are just across the mall. Science can tell us what will happen; it cannot tell us why it happened."

Diet Week Two

2012-01-16T20:09:00.003-06:00

The current phase of The Diet is three or four protein shakes per day with one small meal (and no caffeine, no alcohol, no sweets) and Southern Man is doing well. He's not using the recipes in the book but he did look them over to get a feel for the content and his own cooking is pretty close to the plan; in fact many of the recipes were higher carb and higher starch than he cares for. The protein shakes are actually fairly bearable if hot so winter is definitely the time to be trying this and if the scale in the bathroom is to be trusted he weighs less now than at any time since the birth of his twenty-year-old son. And although his middle-aged middle still looks hideous in the mirror all of his pants are noticeably looser and he may have to take an awl to his belts fairly soon. These are all Good Things. Onward to Week Two!

Four Day Weekend Day 4

2012-01-16T19:39:00.013-06:00

Another bright and beautiful Southern Winter day; cold and a bit blustery but by no means unpleasant and as it is the last day of the holiday Southern Man will get out and enjoy it. Southern Man spent the morning chasing after clues in a multi-cache in which you go to a location, which contains the GPS coordinates for another location, and so on until you find the final treasure. This proved more adventurous than usual. First off, today's location appeared to be private property with barbed wire on three sides and signs on the fourth:

Southern Man is a hypocrite: he hates it when people trespass on his property (well, he doesn't mind that as much as he hates people who trespass on his property and break or steal his stuff) but since his own heart is pure he went in anyway only to find the path guarded by a sleeping troll.

That's all his food trash strewn around him; looks like he's been there for at least a week.

Perhaps that's unkind. Southern Man hope he finds a better home soon. But after slipping around him and finding the cache Southern Man emulated the Three Wise Men and returned by a different route.

Then it was out to The Land and another battle in the endless war against the trailer mice. Southern Man still can't figure out how they're getting in and this last batch must have been tougher than the last as they managed to escape the glue traps. So Southern Man will get the larger variety of glue trap next time he's at the store and in the interim set a couple of snap traps as well. He does not like mice in his trailer, especially having just washed all that bedding that he doesn't want soiled again.

Tomorrow it is back to work and the start of fourteen-hour days but only for four days a week. That's not bad considering that it includes two evening classes on the side as an adjunct. And this week it's only a three-day week unless some dean or committee head schedules a meeting on Friday.

Four Day Weekend Day 3

2012-01-15T21:13:00.007-06:00

A lovely day (although not quite as nice as yesterday or Friday) that Southern Man began with a little geocaching (he's chasing a trail of clues on what's called a "multi-cache") and then out to The Land (just as the day became a bit overcast and blustery) and did a few outdoor chores and then back to La Casa to shower and pick up Teen Daughter and head out to the Ancestral Manor for our traditional Sunday evening gathering with Southern Parents and Southern Sister and (as it turned out tonight) Southern Son and his girlfriend for home-made pizza and salad and games (tonight it was Quiddler). But that broke up promptly at eight as three of the ladies present are addicted to some new British mini-series so we headed back home to plan tomorrow's outings. Planning is required as we are to some extend a one-car family on weekends as Teen Daughter was traumatized by her earlier lessons and won't drive The Hyundai so we compete for The Nissan. With any luck her car will be out of the shop in a week or so. For tomorrow Southern Man has little planned other than a little caching and an afternoon out at The Land.

Four Day Weekend Day 2

2012-01-14T20:01:00.016-06:00

An even more beautiful crisp Saturday began with a meet with good friend RCJ at his older sister's house (and, yes, Southern Man did have a terrible crush on her way, way back in the day) for a few repairs: a dislocated dishwasher and a busted kitchen-drawer rail mount. We re-located the dishwasher and took the broken mount with us but stopped for a late breakfast and a little geocaching first...

Southern Man had searched for this cache on three previous visits and the rookie found it. He found the next one as well making him two for two on the day.

After a quick stop at Wal-Mart for Gorilla Glue we headed out for The Land where we unloaded all those windows and repaired the busted drawer-rail mount (and very cleverly, too!) and did a few easy chores and fished and talked and generally relaxed for a few hours and then went back to sister's house to finish the drawer-rail repair and then parted company briefly (during which Southern Man picked up Teen Daughter and Gay Boyfriend from the friend's house where they'd spent the night and brought them home) only to meet up with good old friend again that evening at his place where his fiancée had prepared a delicious dinner for all of us after which Southern Man spent another pleasant hour in conversation and half-watching The Big Bang Theory and helping resolve a wireless printer issue and playing with their cat. And now he is at La Casa planning tomorrows adventures!

Four Day Weekend Day 1

2012-01-13T17:39:00.007-06:00

A beautiful crisp Friday began with a leisurely drive to a town about an hour southwest to pick up the aforementioned windows, which turned out to be a very full pickup load of various size single pane house windows (the homeowner had just replaced all of her windows). They are earmarked for the future greenhouse but some may be good enough for the addition planned for The Barn. Then as is Southern Man's habit he geocached for a bit on the way home until he got back into cell phone coverage range (yes, it was that far off the beaten path) and became aware that Teen Daughter was rather annoyed by his absence and lack of communication. Or, rather, annoyed by the lack of available transportation as her car is still in the shop and she is not yet comfortable with The Hyundai. So Southern Man reluctantly let the rest of the caches on his list slide and came on in to La Casa and he and Teen Daughter and Teen Daughter's Gay Boyfriend (we'll refer to them as TD and GB from here on out) went out in The Hyundai for stick-shift lessons, which was quite funny. In all honesty she had only a few hiccups and did fine and in Southern Man's estimation needs only a few more trips before she can solo but TD was quite shaken that other drivers had honked and yelled at her and was afraid to try so Southern Man took her and GB by Starbucks (she's hopelessly addicted and during which time kept us amused with a running commentary on the shortcomings of the drivers around us) and then to another friend's house. Since by then it was dark Southern Man decided to wait to run the windows on out to The Land tomorrow and went home and plans to spend the evening tidying up and doing laundry and surfing the 'web and playing games and blogging and generally relaxing. Tomorrow is another day!

Four Day Weekend Day 0

2012-01-12T21:58:00.010-06:00

Well the Spring semester kicked off with more of a whimper than a bang; enrollment is way down and Southern Man fears for the future of his job. But probably not for a year or two anyway so he'll put that particular worry on the back burner and move on to more relevant issues, the first being that the students in his oddly-scheduled Tuesday-Thursday-Friday class all have conflicts on Friday and voted to meet an hour earlier on the other two days and therefore Southern Man ought to have most Fridays off this semester, which he will not spend conducting academic research or enhancing his soon-to-be-needed real-world job skills. What's hilarious is if the class had been originally scheduled that way they'd have screamed bloody murder but since they cooked it up themselves it's just fine. And don't think that Southern Man is slacking off; with his adjunct work he goes in at eight like most people but doesn't get home 'till eight four days a week. And he likes it that way. And this week (and this week only) Monday is a national holiday, thus the four-day weekend. And the weather forecast says cold but slightly warming, not much wind, and no rain for the long weekend.

So Southern Man is plotting his weekend, hampered a bit (well, a lot) by a fairly acute shortage of cash (a problem that will be largely remedied at the end of the month and completely so shortly after taxes are filed) but there's enough to keep gas in The Titan and that will have to do. Tomorrow morning he's driving down to a little town about an hour south to pick up a load of free windows (a Craigslist find) and will geocache on his way home (he spent a productive hour at work today plotting them out and printing maps) then run the windows out to The Land and that's about as far as he's planned. Well, Saturday evening he has an invite to dinner with a friend and his fiancée. It's going to depend a lot on whether the weather allows a lot of outside activity or not. But at any rate four-day weekends are a rare treat and Southern Man plans to enjoy this one to the fullest. At least to the extent that he can while on this diet (which by the way is going well and thanks for asking). One advantage: for the first time in his adult life he doesn't think about sex all the time.

Diet Week One

2012-01-09T08:38:00.009-06:00

This is all about accountability: Southern Man is bound and determined to lose that "last twenty pounds" and get rid of the roll around his middle and blogging about it every Monday will at the very least make him feel guilty about not doing what he should. So today was Day One of the six-week diet proposed in The Six-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle by Micheal and Mary Eades. The theory they espouse follows Gary Taubes' recommendation of a low-carb, low-starch, low-sweets diet. It was his book Why We Get Fat that got Southern Man started on this particular regime.

So here's the back story. In graduate school Southern Man's metabolism burned everything he consumed with the greatest of ease. He ate and drank what he wanted (which included tons of sweets and liters and liters and liters of sugary cola every day) but also ran regularly and even competitively (thanks, Wayne!) and couldn't top 140 lbs soaking wet. Then he married a girl who was probably the best country cook in three states and she put a hundred pounds on him the first year and it stayed. After the divorce he lost about forty pounds fairly quickly but was still at least forty overweight.

Then a year ago he read Taubes' book and did nothing more than cut 'way back on the carbs and starches - only one piece of garlic toast with a meal instead of ten, no more toast and jelly and pancakes for breakfast, no more massive plates of homemade nachos three times a week, more meat and veggies, and no watching portions or counting calories or any of that nonsense - and twenty pounds just melted away.

The theory is that our bodies evolved for both feast and famine. Most of the time we got by on lean protein, nuts, and the occasional berry; starches and carbs and sugars were rare treats. That's famine mode; your body burns what it gets and supplements with body fat as it can. But when on a steady diet of the good stuff our body goes into "feast" mode and packs as much of that nutrition away as it possibly can to get us through the next famine. What our bodies never expected was today's land of plenty where good food is abundant and cheap so your body tends to be in "feast" mode all the time. Thus, Eades proposes that to shed that curse of the middle-aged male you must put your body in famine mode for a while, reduce your fat store to the desired level, and then go on a maintenance diet that's not too different from what Southern Man eats now - plenty of meat and veggies and taking it easy on the pasta and breads and sweets. In other words, the traditional food pyramid turned upside down and with sweets still on the bottom.

The other idea Southern Man finally learned is that you don't control your weight with exercise. You control your fitness with exercise. You control your weight with diet.

Southern Man knows so many overweight women who watch (and even weigh) their portions and count their calories and drink only diet soda and spend hours on the treadmill every week and can't lose weight. Well, women have it tougher as their feast-and-famine modes also pack fat away to feed the babies. But Southern Man now observes what they eat and it's all small portions of carbs and starches which is the worst thing you can do to lose weight as your body thinks "feast and small portions, must pack as much away as possible for tomorrow which may be famine." One woman he knows that constantly moans about the failures of her rigorous diet actually picks the meat out of her pasta and won't eat it because "meat makes you fat." And the diet sodas make it even worse; there's lots of evidence that fake sugar increases cravings for the real thing. Ladies - stop kidding yourself with the Diet Cokes and the calorie counting and the portion weighing and just cut back on pasta and bread and eat your meat and veggies.

The first two weeks of this diet are fairly radical from Southern Man's point of view: one small meal and three or four protein shakes per day, and that's all. No caffeine (no problem, Southern Man kicked caffeine a decade ago), no sweets (damn), no alcohol (damn!), all intended to convince your body (and particularly your liver, which is lord and master of your food metabolism) to go into famine mode and start shedding fat. At least the meals are pretty much what Southern Man eats anyway. And (interestingly enough) at the end of the two weeks Eades says give blood to dump 20% of the newly-liberated fat that is now in the bloodstream. Southern Man is a regular donor anyway so that will be no problem at all.

We'll see how it goes. Southern Man is counting on all three of his readers to comment and encourage him to keep on the straight and narrow!

Five Conjectures Of Socialism

2012-01-08T10:36:00.007-06:00

Five statements attributed to various folks including the great late Ronald Reagan, whose vision for our country ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity:

That last one reminds Southern Man of the tale of the college professor who failed an entire class by grading according to socialist principles. Like Aesop's fables, it's probably not true but teaches a memorable lesson.

According to this article at american.com:

Now, if you ask Southern Man, that sounds about right; our tax system is progressive enough and perhaps even too progressive (especially when you consider the tax-to-wealth ratio carried by the top .1%). The problem is twofold. First, the government always outspends revenue. Second, a big chunk of the population has no skin in the game and therefore doesn't care. To solve both, Southern Man proposes that the Earned Income Credit (which he despises but isn't going away anytime soon) be indexed to the annual deficit. When the government overspends, your EIC goes down. Of course that will never happen as the EIC's main purpose is to buy Democrat votes and neither party has any desire to be accountable to the public but Southern Man can dream.

Disclaimer: even after his finances were shattered by divorce and crippled by debt Southern Man is comfortably perched just inside the top 1% worldwide and in the top 5% USA. And in about four years his finances will have recovered and that debt will be paid!

Teaching CS1 With Processing Workshop Day 3

2012-01-07T19:01:00.005-06:00

As is usually the case the last day is little more than a brief morning session. We all showed off what we had developed yesterday and the instructors showed us some really remarkable art projects that had been done at least in part with Processing. Southern Man is convinced that this will be the way to go in his Programming I course next fall and he'll probably have his Programming II kids do something with it this spring as a warm up. The funniest moment was at the very end as we were breaking up and one of the other participants asked the room if anyone knew who [Southern Man's geocaching name] was! A fellow cacher, he'd seen a comment from someone attending a workshop at SMU and wondered if it was one of us. Although he began this blog and that hobby at about the same time, for various reasons Southern Man doesn't geocache as Southern Man.

Then it was back home and Southern Man again took his time and did a fair amount of geocaching (again upping his personal one-day record by one) and finally arrived at La Casa at about dark-thirty where he will be more than happy to spend the night in his own oh so comfortable bed.

Teaching CS1 With Processing Workshop Day 2

2012-01-06T20:49:00.007-06:00

The sessions were pretty interesting today, with the main focus on graphics. They finally dug up a loaner laptop so Southern Man had a computer to play with.

Conference attendees at play.

The highlight of the afternoon was a tour of the computational music lab and demos of some pretty cool computer art and music. Afterwards Southern Man did a little geocaching and had steak and 'ritas at the Rockfish Cafe.

Teaching CS1 WIth Processing Workshop Day 1

2012-01-05T18:41:00.008-06:00

The workshop is about teaching the introductory programming course with Processing, which is an open-source language that's used for visual programming such as images and animations. It basically sits on top of Java,a popular language in which it's already fairly easy to do graphics, and makes those graphics even easier. In particular, hides the complexities of threads and allows the programmer to easily create simple animations. Southern Man will consider using it for his CS1 course as the visual feedback will help students quickly understand the use of loops and branches.

That said, Southern Man will now fuss about the workshop itself as he has high (well, high-ish) standards for such things. In particular:

One

pathetic

OK, so that last item isn't their fault but the organizers get low marks for, well, their organization. But they mean well and other than the above it's been a lot of fun.

Teaching CS1 With Processing Workshop Day 0

2012-01-04T18:35:00.010-06:00

Southern Man kicked off the Spring 2011 semester with a drive to Dallas for a two-and-a-half day workshop. Normally a four-hour trip, Southern Man took about eight and did a lot of geocaching along the way, edging (by one) his previous personal one-day record. It would have been even more but the geocaching website went down for maintainence at a critical moment.

Two monuments, in two different states. The first was near a physical cache; the second was a "virtual" cache.

As always the most frustrating part of such a trip is battling Dallas traffic, which was at even more of a standstill than usual due to an accident. But Southern Man finally arrived at the Radison and checked out his luxurious accomodations and relaxed in front of the massive flat screen TV for a while and then took a long walk around the block to see what was around and then treated himself to salad and steak and 'ritas at the hotel restaurant.

SMU (where the workshop is actually held) is only half a mile away. Indeed, one purpose of the walk was to make sure that Southern Man could get there from here, as a major interstate cuts between the hotel and the campus, but it looks like an easy stroll. Southern Man is looking forward to picking up the few caches on campus and learning new stuff tomorrow!

Astronomy

2012-01-03T07:20:00.007-06:00

One of the nicest things about evenings out at The Land is the spectacular night sky, often dark enough that one can see 6th-magnitude stars and orbiting satellites with the unaided eye. And this month all five of the visible planets are available for your viewing pleasure!

Images borrowed from EarthSky.org.

In the evening The Moon, Jupiter and Venus dominate the southwestern sky. Uranus and Neptune could be seen through a small telescope or even a good pair of field glasses; Galileo himself recorded sightings of Neptune in his journals without realizing that he'd spied a new planet. And in the morning one can get a glimpse of elusive Mercury as well as Saturn and Mars.

So find yourself a partner and go lay out under the cool crisp night sky and cuddle and talk and admire the splendor of the night sky.

Resolutions

2012-01-02T18:14:00.005-06:00

Southern Man resolves to cherish every moment with his children and his parents and his other family and friends; to be more disciplined in diet and exercise; to maintain a strict budget and be out of debt in three years; to take roads less traveled; to learn and think and read and draw and sing and dance and play and pray some every day!

Oh, yes, and get laid. 2011 was the first dry year since high school. That has got to change.

New Years Day

2012-01-01T21:30:00.002-06:00

What a beautiful way to kick off a new year especially remembering that last Christmas was cancelled (well, delayed) due to a blizzard. Geocaching in the morning, lunch with Southern Parents and Teen Daughter, and then a phone call that sent Southern Man to the south side of the city to help a friend fix his car. That took 'till nearly dark but now we are home relaxing and pretending to tidy the place up and eating and watching videos.

Southern Man is taking tomorrow off; he'll check in at the office on Tuesday, drive four hours south on Wednesday for a conference that will run Thursday through Saturday, drive back Saturday evening, relax on Sunday, and then we're off and running with the new semester on Monday.

New Years Eve

2011-12-31T23:59:00.006-06:00

After a lazy morning (neither of us were up at a single-digit hour) Southern Man ran a few errands and did a little shopping, then headed out to an industrial park northeast of the city for a truckload of pallets found on Craigslist, that cornucopia of free stuff. There was a big undeveloped field nearby with three geocaches hidden within so Southern Man spent a pleasant hour stomping through the brush and scrub pines to find them, then delivered the truckload of booty out to The Land and fooled around out their for a while, then headed back to La Casa for dinner and videos with Teen Daughter as we prepared for the evening's festivities at the ancestral manor.

Southern Man noticed that a couple of brand-new caches popped up on his map right on the route from La Casa to the manor so we tried for them on the way out. Southern Man held the flashlight while Teen Daughter braved the cold and wind and climbed a tree for her very first geocache and Southern Man's very first "FTF" or "First To Find." She kept the dollar coin left as a prize and we then went on to Southern Parents' home for snacks and puzzles and good clean family fun.

The party never stops at the ancestral manor.

Happy New Year!

Countdown to New Years 1

2011-12-30T19:52:00.011-06:00

Another beautiful day spent outdoors geocaching and fooling around out at The Land. All of the trailer bedding was a little suspect due to the recent mouse problem so it is all currently spinning round and round in seven (yes, seven) laundromat washing machines (the little stackable at La Casa can barely handle blue jeans so bedspreads are out of the question) so tomorrow Southern Man will have crisp clean bedding and may very well stay out there to ring in the New Year. And tonight no one was in the mood to cook so Southern Man and Teen Daughter are feasting on Domino's pizza and chocolate lava cakes.

Teen Daughter would like for everyone to know how clever and witty and beautiful and amazing and fabulous she is. And modest. Let's not forget modest. And angry, because she ordered Southern Man to not publish these pics but he did it anyway.

Countdown to New Years 2

2011-12-29T23:45:00.004-06:00

Southern Man hates working with sheetrock with the white hot fury of a thousand exploding suns.

OK, so the little room that Southern Man has been working on now has all the sheetrock up on the ceiling and the light fixture installed, meaning that there is now plenty of light and no more excuses to not work on that room after dark. Actually both floors of The Workshop are now adequately illuminated. He also did a number of outdoor chores including a fair bit of mowing and hogging (there's still lots of places at The Land that have never felt a blade and the shrubs and five-foot-tall Johnson grass comes down a lot easier in December than in June) and re-organizing of woodpiles, which are slowly but surely getting moved further back as part of a general cleanup of the various stacks of stuff around the structures. He also finally figured out where the mice were getting into the trailer and has hopefully dealt with that particular annoyance. And it wasn't really work as it was a beautiful day. Tomorrow promises to be the same.

Countdown to New Years 3

2011-12-28T18:33:00.020-06:00

A day that began not with a bang, but with a whimper: on the way to an early AM chiropractor's appointment Southern Man was happily contemplating what he might buy with his Christmas Benjamins when the "check engine" light came on. It didn't return for the rest of the day but the CBs are now tucked away in the emergency fund, just in case. Modern automobiles seldom break down but when they do it's seldom cheap.

Southern Man then got a call from his favorite partner in crime: "I'm on your side of town, wanna do something?" Oh, boy, did Southern Man have an answer to that.

We grabbed a snack and headed out to The Land and got a few pieces of sheetrock up on the ceiling in The Workshop, a task that Southern Man had begun a few times but just couldn't manage by himself. Well, we played around a bit as well. Then he had to get home to his ~~girlfriend~~ fiancée (apparently she was recently upgraded) so Southern Man did a little shopping and got a few supplies for tomorrow and returned to La Casa only to find Teen Daughter headed out the door so Southern Man has the place to himself for a while for a long hot shower and movies and the rest of twelve-year-old daughter's homemade lasagna and salad and an Italian 'rita. That little six-pack of 'rita mixes Southern Man found in his stocking is coming in right handy. And tomorrow there is nothing on the schedule so Southern Man is looking forward to a productive and fun day outside after not waking up to an alarm clock.

Countdown to New Years 4

2011-12-27T19:49:00.009-06:00

Southern Man isn't sure what happened to that "not much will happen this week" plan. He had an appointment to give blood this morning (his German-Irish A+ blood has miraculous restorative properties and is therefore in high demand) and then dropped by a friend's mother's house just in time to not help chisel a couple of tiles out of the shower to prepare for the plumber so we went to lunch instead. And then Southern Man switched to The Titan and headed out to the ancestral manor to pick up Southern Father so we could go into town, rent a tow dolly, go back to the manor, coax Southern Daughter's disabled vehicle onto said dolly (we ended up pushing it onto the dolly with Southern Father's pickup), tow the car to a repair shop in town, return the dolly, go back to the manor, and then (since we were on a roll) use the truck to pull one of Southern Father's numerous restoration projects (this one's an early 60s Bel-Air) up near his workshop. And upon returning home Southern Man was about to dig into his leftover lunch when he was reminded by Southern Daughter that he'd promised to actually cook that night so we had baked lemon chicken breasts and rice and Southern Man made himself a delicious strawberry 'rita and we watched Tangled, which is surprisingly good. It was a beautiful day, cool but not at all windy, and the forecast calls for much of the same all week so Southern Man hopes to get out to The Land later this week and both get some chores done and just plain relax before the new semester kicks off next week and Old Man Winter finally makes his appearance.

Countdown to New Years 5

2011-12-26T22:45:00.002-06:00

Yes, another countdown for no other reason than to give Southern Man an excuse to blog every day this week. Not that much happened today, or will happen this week. Which is entirely according to plan. About all Southern Man got done today was to get both vehicles serviced and do a little light geocaching. But then we got an invite to Southern Parents for dinner where we ate delicious homemade cornbread and stew...

...and then Southern Mother schooled us all in Scrabble.

Is there a more pleasant way to spend an evening?

Christmas Day

2011-12-25T18:51:00.004-06:00

The plan was to meet at Furr's, a cafeteria chain favored by Southern Parents, but the line was reported to be "out the door and around the block" so Plan B was a nearby Chinese buffet.

Unlimited crab legs. Mmmmmm.

Southern Man picked up a few Christmas geocaches and meandered home, where Teen Daughter arrived a bit later. We relaxed and played more chess and watched more Lord Of The Rings and ate (leftovers, to her chagrin; Southern Man wlil not cook new meals until the old ones are gone). Then she retired to her room not long after dusk, leaving Southern Man to contemplate Christmas past, present and future.

Tomorrow begins the real week off: no schedule (well, hardly any schedule) until New Year's Eve, so he hopes to get a lot done. But it's cold outside so less may happen out at The Land than he has planned. First on the agenda tomorrow: long-overdue oil changes and fluid checks on both vehicles.

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T23:58:00.017-06:00

After a relaxing morning and afternoon with Teen Daughter (the younger one stayed with Southern Parents after last night's gathering) and we spent a quiet afternoon playing chess and watching The Lord Of The Rings until it was time to load up the sleigh and set out over the river and through the woods.

Our long-standing family tradition is for Southern Man and his siblings and our families to gather at the ancestral manor and spend Christmas Eve with our parents. They set up a magnificent tree in the Atrium and the gifts accumulate all week. With such a large group we have a gift lottery; Southern Man drew one of his computer-geek nephews this year and had a good time shopping for an appropriate gift. Another tradition is to fill everyone's stockings with presents from "Santa" and Southern Man takes great delight in choosing gifts that the recipient will like but won't necessarily be traced back to him. This also gives us ample opportunity to break the one-gift rule and load our parent's stockings with tokens of love and affection. Other stocking stuffers (like Southern Man's sodas and Southern Sister's framed photos) have run for so long that the secret is out but we continue to give them anyway.

Stockings under the tree. Those tall bags are for the gifts; the "stocking" stockings usually hold Benjamins.

There is always a table of finger food and cookies and candy and treats of every kind...

Sister-in-law and eldest nephew in the Dining Room examine the Christmas Eve feast.

...and we always gather in the Library for a reading of the Christmas Story from Luke Chapter 2...

"And, lo, an angel of the Lord appeared before them..."

...and then move to the Living Room and the Kitchen (this is beginning to sound like a live game of Clue) for food and conversation...

Teen Daughter and her cousins occupy the kitchen nook.

...and finally the opening of the gifts.

Teen daughter's gift came in one of those puzzle boxes where you have to complete a maze to open it.

It took her a while but eventually the box was defeated and the gift was in hand!

Teen daughter really likes puzzles.

Twelve-year-old daughter and a new video camera.

Southern Man shopped for computer-geek nephew at the XKCD store. Nephew is in the background; Southern Brother admiring the shirt.

Southern Parents smooch in front of the fireplace. The podium in the foreground was hand-crafted for Southern Mother by Southern Father.

Southern Son was the last to arrive - he had to work late - so he was the center of attention for a while. Which suits him just fine!

And while waiting on Teen Son we played a rousing game of Taboo. The girls won, as the always do; Southern Man holds that they have some sort of ESP when it comes to games like this. "You know, that actor!" "Richard Gere!" "Yes!"

Twelve-year-old daughter racks up another point for the girls.

And then Southern Sister always takes over and poses us for family photos. She's a much better photographer than Southern Man so when he gets his copies he may add a few here.

The festivities didn't end until nearly eleven and then only because Southern Man's children needed to get on the road for a two-hour drive to join their mother. And that was the only sad moment of the evening. Five years ago Southern Man thought his life was over and that his children would hate him forever. Yet here we are, gathered as always for a joyous family Christmas. Life does go on after divorce. It sometimes even gets better! Lord, we thank you for your countless blessings on all of us and ask you to continue to bless us all in the coming year. Amen.

Countdown to Christmas 1

2011-12-23T23:00:00.003-06:00

Another relaxing morning, then out and about to buy the rest of the stocking stuffers, to the bank for Christmas Benjamins, and to pick up teen daughter from her extended stay with a friend. Then that evening, a family gathering at a cousin's home.

Everyone's favorite room is the kitchen!

Some sort of Wii Sports tourney always breaks out at these gatherings.

There was even live music! We're pretty sure it was "Jingle Bells."

Countdown to Christmas 2

2011-12-22T19:41:00.002-06:00

Teen daughter is off with friends so it was just younger daughter and Southern Man today. Since we didn't make it to the movies yesterday we did so today, starting with a mid-morning showing of Mission: Impossible and then (having carefully studied the schedule) slipped in to The Muppets (no review; it was OK but no Muppet Treasure Island). That took us until mid-afternoon when we picked up a geocache near the theatre (Southern Man is getting a little compulsive about his streak) and headed back to La Casa for dinner and more movies. We just started a Matrix marathon; should be fun.

Movie Review: Mission: Impossible franchise (so far)

2011-12-22T16:52:00.016-06:00

The first Mission: Impossible film with Tom Cruise as IMF agent Ethan Hunt was a good action-adventure movie with impressive stunts and an interesting plot which stands up well today. It gets plenty of spin time in the Casa DVD player.

Mission: Impossible II was so bad as to be unwatchable. Southern Man saw it once in the theatre and has had no desire at all to repeat the experience.

Mission: Impossible III was an improvement over II but not by a whole lot. The DVD is somewhere in La Casa gathering dust.

And that brings us to Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, produced by J.J. Abrams and directed by Brad Bird. And this fourth entry in a tired franchise starring a fifty-year-old actor and directed by a cartoonist is way better than its two predecessors and perhaps even surpasses the original. It's a lot of fun, with a clever and witty script that's serious but not too serious, excellent acting performances by all, plenty of Q-worthy gadgets that don't always quite work, hair-raising stunts, and lots of intense physical action. Bird's stylish direction provides the same flair to MI IV as he gave The Incredibles, and it works well. Given the mess that was Quantum of Solace the Bond team would do well to give Bird a turn in the director's chair of that series as well. Southern Man gives this one two enthusiastic thumbs up and hopes that Bird brings us many more action films. Like MI V!

Countdown To Christmas 3

2011-12-21T20:16:00.008-06:00

Ah, Christmas Vacation. No schedule, no deadlines, no worries. A few errands (ran out to The Land to grab a few things, to the grocery store for a few other necessities (having three children in the house (yes, three; one of teen daughter's friends has more or less taken up residence) runs through food at a remarkable rate)) and then went to a nearby park with twelve-year-old daughter for an afternoon of geocaching. She found them all! Then she insisted that we stop at a grocery store on the way home where she selected all the materials and then at La Casa made lasagna from scratch all by herself and served it up with French toast and salad. And it was all delicious!

Countdown To Christmas 4

2011-12-20T23:18:00.007-06:00

A relaxed morning followed by a few errands, a little work in the office (including dealing with below-average students demanding above-average grades) and a post-surgery visit to the back surgeon (and even though it was a bitterly cold day made an easy grab to keep his geocaching streak alive) and then went to the movies with twelve-year-old daughter (Alvin And The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, which was every bit as bad as the reviews said unless you have a thing for Chipmunks and Chipettes singing Lady Gaga), and then back to La Casa for an intense game of Monopoly (teen daughter eventually wiped us out but it took a while as all four players had immunity agreements with each other) and baked-potato soup. Tomorrow will probably be another movie day (twelve-year-old daughter picked (and paid for) today; Southern Man will pick (and pay for) the next choice, which is currently a tossup between The Muppets and Mission: Impossible 4 or perhaps even both) so it should be another fun day.

Countdown To Christmas 5

2011-12-19T17:54:00.007-06:00

Southern Man finished his grading over the weekend and turned everything in today so it is now officially Christmas Break! The dress shirts and slacks are at the dry cleaners and the ties have been hung on the tie rack with care, not to be disturbed until 2012. And no alarm clock for two weeks!

Teen Daughter flew in Friday evening and was so excited to be back that she chattered nonstop all the way home. But Southern Man hasn't seen much of her since as all of her friends here miss her as well and have dragged her away at every opportunity. The only sour note was that when at a party that night someone got into the closet where all the girls had put their purses and stole all their cash and phones so teen daughter is out nearly two hundred bucks (painful) and her iPhone (very painful). There is a special place in hell for thieves like that and Southern Man hope he roasts for eternity. How's that for holiday spirit?

Twelve-year-old daughter flew in Saturday noon and has been having a grand time ever since. She finally settled on her Christmas present and it has been ordered so now it is up to the minions of Amazon and the Post Office to get it here on time. She spent last night with Southern Parents but couldn't wait to return to Casa Southern Man where we cooked spaghetti and sauce and French bread for dinner, which we are eating while having a Tremors marathon. Why, yes, we do have all four. Later it was popcorn and hot chocolate with whipped cream and chess and Clue with both girls and one of teen daughter's friends. What a life! And the best part is that after a mid-afternoon doctor's appointment tomorrow Southern Man has nothing on the schedule until Christmas Eve!

A little good-natured catfight at the Dirty Santa party Saturday night.

Finals Week Day 5

2011-12-16T11:46:00.006-06:00

And another busy one - in to the office early for a couple of meetings, met with students desperate to get some kind of credit on their projects, a working lunch with the Deans and other assorted strategic planners (Southern Man has little strategy to contribute but he's on the committee and it's a free lunch) - and then Southern Man plans to ditch the afternoon commencement ceremony, race home, and do a little more cleaning. Then bowling with the gang this evening and then to the airport to pick up teen daughter to officially kick off the holiday break.

Finals Week Day 4

2011-12-15T14:56:00.003-06:00

A long, long day: at work before seven for an extra-early-morning "final exam" (a class presenting their final project reports; we elected to meet early to ensure that we'd get out on time as many of them had a difficult theory exam later this morning), lots of individual student appointments for their project presentations (and as the deadline approaches the panic becomes more apparent and the plagiarism more blatant), the final at the evening Astronomy class, and then (sadly) to a funeral home south of the metro to visit family for a while (a loved great-aunt passed away a few days ago). So Southern Man will be home at eleven or so this evening and will no doubt pour himself a drink and ponder mortality, both his own and that of his loved ones. Lord, you promised us our days would be three score and ten but we can never know what time we have. Please grant us the wisdom to use that time well. Amen.

Ten Myths About Southern Man

2011-12-14T22:31:00.027-06:00

Surfing the 'net this afternoon led Southern Man to this post on The Anchoress (who in turn references this post at Carl Kingdom (as you can see Southern Man is most fastidious with his references (as well as with his deeply nested parentheses))) which was entitled (in case you haven't tired of this very long sentence and clicked it already) "Ten Myths About Introverts." And what caught Southern Man's attention was the very first comment in that first post in which "Jenny" laments that she always tested as INTJ or "as my professor strongly implied, all the wrong types." After picking himself up the floor from laughing Southern Man (who almost always tests as INTJ with a soft N but with I, T, and J hard against the wall) took pause to reflect on the Ten Myths and how they applied to his own life.

Now Southern Man has long known that he was quite introverted (or "reserved," as he prefers to say) which means, in a nutshell, that he is drained by social interaction and energized by solitude. That doesn't mean he doesn't like to socialize - quite the opposite - but he prefers his socialization in small doses and with relatively small groups, and the solitude of The Land always leaves him refreshed. Southern Man has also long known that he was more rational and considerably less emotional than most folks. In post-divorce reconciliation counseling with the incomparable Dr. Jim Talley Southern Man and his ex-wife took some fairly comprehensive personality tests that showed (among other things) that Southern Man was about three standard deviations off the norm on the objective side and his ex was something like 99% subjective (a combination which explained a lot of our communications issues) and we talked quite a bit about how our different personality types had contributed to our marital difficulties. Introverted, rational, unemotional - is it any surprise that Southern Man found himself in careers that emphasize structure and order and inflexible rules and logic? Or from the age of ten or so began a lifelong fascination with Mr. Spock? But the qualities that make him a terrific computer science professor and Star Trek trivia expert are rather a hindrance when it comes to social interaction and relationships.

So Southern Man will imitate The Anchoress and riff off (not "rip off") the Ten Myths as posted by Carl Kingdom.

Myth #1 – Southern Man doesn't like to talk.
This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. And Southern Man hates small talk; he does not do phone chit-chat well at all (just ask teen daughter). But get Southern Man talking about something he's interested in (Star Trek, or geocaching, or politics, or his dreams for The Land...) and you can hardly get him to shut up.

Myth #2 – Southern Man is shy.
Shyness has nothing to do with being introverted, but Southern Man needs a reason to interact. If you want to talk to Southern Man, just start talking. And don’t worry about being polite; he'd be so focused on content that he probably wouldn't notice anyway.

Myth #3 – Southern Man is rude and uncaring and cold and unfeeling.
Southern Man doesn't see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries so people whose communication is more emotion-based (Southern Sister comes to mind) finds Southern Man to be downright heartless. Indeed, she has mentioned Southern Man and Asberger's Syndrome in the same sentence many a time. And Southern Man admits that his preferred mode of communication is not the best choice in many settings and he often feels a lot of pressure change the way he communicates so that he can better fit in, which is one reason that he finds social interaction so exhausting. So this one occasionally seems to be true but he's working on it. But the truth is while introverts may seem this way their love and emotions run very deep and very strong; they just struggle to express them.

Myth #4 – Southern Man doesn't like people.
On the contrary, introverts intensely value the few friends they have; however, they can usually count their close friends on the fingers of one hand. If you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend then you probably have a friend for life. When it comes to relationships introverts (and Southern Man) are serially monogamous; they focus (often intently) on one person at a time, which makes the ending of relationships particularly painful. Another downside of his introverted nature is that Southern Man's social circle is fairly thin. He's working on it.

Myth #5 – Southern Man doesn't like to go out in public.
Nonsense. Southern Man just doesn't like to go out in public for as long as extroverts. Twelve-year-old daughter knows this well; by the end of an outing she's just warming up when Southern Man is ready to return home and recharge. Introverts also like to avoid the complications that are involved in public activities; they take in data and experiences very quickly and as a result, don’t need to be there for long to “get it” - they’re ready to go home, recharge, and process it all. In fact, recharging is absolutely crucial for introverts like Southern Man.

Myth #6 – Southern Man always wants to be alone.
Southern Man is content with his own company and comfortable with his own thoughts. He thinks (and plans, and daydreams) a lot and he loves to have problems to work on or programs to write or puzzles to solve. But introverts can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. While Southern Man considers himself off the dating market at this time a part of him craves an authentic and sincere connection with the one person with whom he can share his thoughts and dreams. And he would love that person with a depth that few extroverts could match. Sadly, at his age this will probably not happen and he's working to accept it and move on. That's quite a challenge for someone who's been in long-term relationships almost continuously since high school.

Myth #7 – Southern Man is weird.
Introverts are often individualists. They don’t follow the crowd and prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living. They think for themselves and because of that they often challenge the norm and they don’t make decisions based on what is popular or trendy. Southern Man's plan for the next five years, which involve improvements to The Land and living out there to the greatest extent possible, are not what most men think about. And Southern Man doesn't care one whit.

Myth #8 – Southern Man is an aloof nerd.
Geek, perhaps, but not nerd. Introverts are people who primarily look inward and paying close attention to their thoughts and emotions. It’s not that they are incapable of paying attention to what is going on around them, it’s just that their inner world is much more stimulating and rewarding to them. Southern Man often catches himself lost in that inner world (particularly when dreaming of what he wants The Land to become someday) and must work hard to bring himself back to reality - and then do something in the real world to bring that dream closer to reality.

Myth #9 – Southern Man doesn't know how to relax and have fun.
Southern Man typically relaxes at home or outdoors or at The Land rather than in busy public venues. And like many introverts Southern Man can spend an hour at a big party standing in a corner talking to a few people and be having a great time. And Southern Man is getting better and better at relaxing and enjoying himself during the day; he's rarely as stressed out as he once was, and that's a Good Thing.

Myth #10 – With therapy and medication Southern Man could become a perfectly normal person.
Why? Southern Man is content with the way he is!

And there you have it - ten myths about Southern Man, dispelled for your pleasure. Read them carefully; to know him is to love him!

Finals Week Day 3

2011-12-14T19:51:00.007-06:00

Ah, the rigors of university life. Breakfast with a candidate for an open business-school position, a handful of appointments with students to check their semester projects, lunch (off-campus!) with the same candidate, an easy drive home (yes, Southern Man only put in half a day today as tomorrow and Friday will both be extra long) geocaching along the way (five for five today!) and some light grocery shopping and now the afternoon and evening spent...well, not cleaning La Casa. For that matter, not doing anything constructive at all, unless experimenting with new mixed drinks could be considered constructive. Everyone should try that every now and then. Next up - a new post written while mildly intoxicated!

Finals Week Day 2

2011-12-13T19:01:00.006-06:00

Another very busy day; student appointments all morning (including one with a student who tried to pass off an openly copied program as her own, and yes, she did leave the office in tears), administered a final early afternoon, and then headed for the evening Astronomy class. But still managed to work in a few geocaches along the way. The geocaching website now shows various statistics like "longest streak" and to someone with a touch of CDO that's like waving a red flag in front of a bull. The streak must not be broken!

CDO? Oh, that's like OCD, but the letters are in alphabetical order, just like they should be.

And now Southern Man is home and it's time to follow up last night's entertainment with The Return Of The King. Yes, the high-fantasy film that was nominated for eleven - count' em, eleven - Academy Awards and won every one of them. Even though the extended cut of The Fellowship Of The Ring is the best of the three. Southern Man pays little attention to the Academy but even those knuckleheads couldn't withstand the pure awesome that was twelve hours of Tolkien on film.

Finals Week Day 1

2011-12-12T19:36:00.009-06:00

In keeping with Southern Man's tradition of post sequences and since there are no other events on the calendar for a while, Finals Week it is. If nothing else it gives him an excuse to post every day.

Today started with a visit to the chiropractor (Southern Man is down to one visit a week now and yes his back is feeling much better now, thanks) and a trip by the public library for movies and CDs and then to the office to contemplate the horror that is the week's schedule and then sigh and get to work. The next eight hours were consumed by grading and evaluating student projects (by appointment) and writing finals and giving finals and grading finals. But then Southern Man met up with friends for dinner (Chinese buffet) and that was a lot of fun even though for a pack of guys we are extremely boring. And now he is home trying not to think about the vast number of calories consumed at the Chinese buffet and trying to work up enough will-power to continue the cleanup. But he may end up on the futon watching The Two Towers and consuming even more calories in the form of popcorn and beer instead. Yeah, that's the ticket, right there. You...shall not..pass!

And as a special treat for those who choose to emulate Southern Man's choice of entertainment tonight - Disk 1 (extended version), scene selection, chapter 30, and arrow down until you see a gold ring.

One More Deep Breath

2011-12-11T10:52:00.019-06:00

Tomorrow we plunge into Finals Exam Week at Southern Man's university so it will be a busy time of writing and administering and grading exams as well as taking care of the thirty-odd appointments students have made to demonstrate their final programming projects. That goes clear through Friday, which is packed from morn 'till night: breakfast with a candidate for an open Dean spot, academic meetings later in the morning and early afternoon, Winter Commencement, and various receptions afterwards. There is an hour that evening when Southern Man needs to be in three places at once and that doesn't count the airport as teen daughter flies in that day; it is not yet determined who is free to pick her up. Twelve-year-old daughter arrives on Saturday. And that means that during the week before Christmas Southern Man will have both girls at home and the usually quiet Casa will be filled with chattering and laughing and music and cooking and (occasionally) fussing. It Will Be Good.

Yesterday Southern Man dropped by our monthly "Coffee Talk" which is usually at the singles director's home but he is down for knee replacement surgery so we met at Panera Bread instead, which Southern Man usually avoids but made an exception this time. There was a geocache in the parking lot so he dragged a couple of the girls out to find it...

Two happy cachers and proof that Southern Man has a social life. A small one, to be sure, but it is there.

It was a cold but beautiful day so Southern Man was determined to spend a good deal of it outside. He went after another cache that had been nagging him for a while and couldn't find it on the third try but he knows it's there somewhere (this is what they call an "extreme" cache out in a wooded area) so he will hit it again later. Then he went out to The Land and fooled around a bit but it was too cold to do anything really productive and he decided to come back into town instead of spending the night in the (cold) trailer. He either needs to fix the trailer's gas heater or pick up a couple of electric heaters pretty soon now. And get an electric blanket. Today will be much of the same - it's cold but not too windy so it will be another outside day.

The evening's entertainment was...well, let's say that no one throws a Christmas party quite like a charismatic megachurch. It was big and crowded and loud and while Southern Man is and will always be Nazarene he can't quite imagine any of his former pastors standing in front of a high-octane rock band and dance troupe proclaiming that "Santa is in the house!" and then witness the Merry One himself zoom overhead to the platform on a zip line. So that was great fun and Southern Man was in such high spirits that he even did a little night caching on the way home. And in an hour or so a delicious pot roast will come out of the oven (his secret broth recipe includes a beef bullion cube and a bottle of beer) and Southern Man will have his own private feast. It's not too early to say "Merry Christmas!"

Windows

2011-12-09T23:00:00.034-06:00

Earlier this evening Southern Man was installing an operating system (in an effort to get that last busted PC up and running) and chatting with a friend on the phone who asked "What are you installing?" and upon hearing that it was Windows XP responded with (more or less) "WTF?" So here is a brief history of operating systems and why Southern Man uses what he does.

The earliest desktops had their OS burned right into the hardware but pretty early in the game they gained the ability to load enhancements to their built-in OS from a disk drive - thus the "Disk Operating System," an OS loaded from external media and including the ability to manage that media. Southern Man's very first computer, a TRS-80, originally loaded programs from cassette tape (!) but eventually gained an external floppy-disk drive and the TRS-DOS operating system; the TRS-80 Model III that replaced it had a couple of built-in drives and could run both TRS-DOS and CP/M. When Southern Man was running his beloved Amiga 1000 and the marvelous AmigaOS operating system at home Microsoft was up to MS-DOS 3.3 or so and Southern Man ran that on PC-XT and PC-AT computers in grad school (where he spent most of his computing time on PDP-11 and VAX 11/780 mainframes playing Empire and Moria and (in his spare time) writing and using data-analysis software in FORTRAN and where he even got to play with the little-known PC-RT and IBM's Academic Operating System while working with a professor that had one) and in his first years teaching. The Amiga was eventually replaced by a fairly decent no-name Windows 3 386 box. It cost about $1000 at a local warehouse store and was Southern Man's first personal computer that had a hard drive. His introduction to working on and eventually building PCs was when he purchased and installed a CD-ROM drive all by himself.

DOS and early versions of Windows were what we tech-heads called real mode, flat-memory, single-tasking operating systems. They could do one thing at a time and that one thing owned the entire computer. Exceptions were things like print spoolers and TSR programs like SideKick which let you do two or even three things at a time, sometimes. The DOS user interface was initially a simple command prompt like older operating systems but eventually evolved into something of a Graphics User Interface or GUI; DOS Shell was a DOS GUI. Windows 3.1 with 386 Enhanced Mode introduced protected mode, virtual memory, and multitasking and could (to some extent) do many things "at the same time" and keep those many things more or less isolated from one another. This was vastly improved in Windows 95 and had been tweaked considerably by Windows 98 2nd Edition, which is Southern Man's choice for old programs that just won't run on a modern OS. Windows ME was a step backwards and Southern Man never used it, but he always keeps a Windows 98 2nd Ed (along with DOS 7 for the really old games) box up and running. No, it never even touches the 'net.

In parallel with the Windows 9x line Microsoft was developing an entirely new OS line called "NT" that was (more or less) built from scratch (or, given that Microsoft had hired a lot of DEC employees, built on VMS) to be a protected-mode, virtual-memory, pre-emptive multitasking OS from the outset. The first version was NT 3 (an advertising gimmick, as "regular" Windows was also in version 3) and was fairly well recieved even though the more advanced OS couldn't run a lot of earlier Windows software that required direct access to resources that the OS now controlled (such as the aforementioned SideKick; later versions of NT gained "compatibility modes" to deal with such older and ill-behaved software). NT 4 was well regarded for its stability as a workstation and server. NT 5 was released under the name Windows 2000 and got an upgrade to Windows 95's look and feel instead of the somewhat clunkier Windows 3 GUI. Invoke "version" on Windows XP and it says "5.1" and Vista claims to be version 6. You can guess where Windows 7 gets its name. Of these the high-water mark is XP with Service Pack 2. Vista was so full of suck that many establishments (including everywhere that Southern Man worked and taught) refused to use it at all. Windows 7 is Vista with much of the suck removed but with some entirely new suck added. Southern Man uses it at work because he doesn't have a choice; all of his (admittedly older) PCs at home run XP SP 2 and good old Office 2003. Don't get him started on the steaming pile of suck that is Office 2010. But it is a tribute to Microsoft's dedication to "backwards compatibility" that Southern Man's copy of Empire, with a compile date of 1988, runs just fine in a Win 7 command-line session. Do not tell the people at work how he knows this.

So Southern Man has one machine running Windows 98 2nd Edition with DOS 7 and a bunch with XP SP2. If he builds a new machine this summer (he hasn't built a new computer in over six years so it's about time) he'll grit his teeth and put Windows 7 on it, but then he gets to run XP in virtual machines which is really the best way to safely touch the 'net. And given that he's hardly a Microsoft fanboy he's kind of chomping at the bit for a Windows 8 touchscreen laptop in a year or so; the iPad has really gotten him hooked on large touchscreens but he'll be happy to replace the Apple toy with an actual computer. Given that his most recent laptop is a Celeron 300 running Windows 95 it's probably about time for that as well. But it is a safe prediction that Casa Southern Man will always house more computers than any one person really needs.

Airplanes in the Day Sky

2011-12-08T14:12:00.014-06:00

While ~~working~~ scouting for geocaches to try on an upcoming drive to Dallas Southern Man stumbled across the following...

There's a cache marker in the lower-right corner, but what is that at the upper left?

Why, yes, that is a commercial jet photographed in mid-flight from outer space. Anyone care to identify it for us?

This also betrays how satellite photography works: four images taken in rapid succession using a black-and-white CCD: first through a blue filter, then through a green filter, then through a red filter (note how green plus red = yellow, just like we learned in primary school), and unfiltered for luminosity. The four images are then combined to form a full-color picture.

Posted because Southern Man thought it was cool. That is all.

[added later] SR (consulted by email) points out some details that make it a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 and that's good enough for Southern Man.

Remembering Pearl Harbor

2011-12-07T20:45:00.008-06:00

Two of the battleships lost at Pearl Harbor that never returned to service were named after the states Southern Man loves best.

One might expect more on the seventieth anniversary of the attack that finally pulled our nation into the cauldron of WWII but Southern Man has seen or heard little. And perhaps it is time. The Pacific War always had a nasty racist overtone; cartoons of the era made it clear that our war in Europe was against Hitler and Mussolini but in the Pacific the enemy was almost always depicted as a generic yellow monkey-man rather than Emperor Hirohito or (more appropriately) Prime Minister Tojo. The Japanese paid dearly with the loss of a generation of young men and the incineration of dozens of cities, the final two by atomic hellfire. But in her wisdom the United States transformed her shattered enemy into a valued partner and staunch ally. Japanese tourists shower the waters of the Arizona memorial with flowers; Japanese navy ships were quick to adopt the custom of "manning the rails" when passing her hallowed grave. War was followed not just by peace, but by civility and even friendship. And Pearl Harbor is slowly but surely receding into history.

But one lesson of Pearl Harbor should never have been forgotten: when the United States rises in righteous wrath her enemies should tremble. Too bad we have.

Southern Man Fixes A PC

2011-12-05T16:30:00.013-06:00

Given that he's something of a tech-head Southern Man's broken computers seem to stay broken for an inordinately long time. Anyway, this one locks up after a while and it's obviously a bad video-card fan but Southern Man just hadn't gotten a round tuit until today when he opened it up and verified that the fan was stuck and unstuck it. Southern Man picks up a surprising number of giveway PCs that can be fully repaired with a 99¢ fan.

The tragedy was that when he moved the PC he found a Christmas list from last year under it. The irony is that he needs it again this year (it's the list of everyone's preferred drinks for stocking stuffers).

So now that he's on a roll he may try to fix the other broken PC (which may have a bad hard drive) today as well and that would give him four operational machines at home. Does he need that many? Apparently not; he's been limping along with two for months now, hasn't he? One of which was a cast-off from work that had (ta da!) a bad video-card fan and now does yeoman work as the main multimedia PC. But the one he just fixed is the fastest machine in La Casa and the other one was the main web-browsing PC so it will be good to have them back. Don't get him started on the half-dozen (half operational, half not) he moved out to The Land last week.

Everything's Amazing And Nobody's Happy

2011-12-04T17:32:00.007-06:00

Everyone should watch this video. Hat tip to Instapundit.

Planet Earth in the Year Of Our Lord 2011 is an amazing place!

And, yes, Southern Man cursed at slow load times while publishing a video on his blog that anyone can read across a world-wide communications network using a computer that's thousands of times more powerful than the ones used to guide the Apollo 11 astronauts on their journey to a landing on another planet.

Watch Party

2011-12-03T23:38:00.006-06:00

After a relaxed day half-watching movies and net-surfing and game-playing and cleaning (yes, cleaning) Southern Man headed to the south side for the watch party where he had a great time with his friends. Southern Man is usually bad luck for the home team when he deigns to watch and tonight was no exception as they found themselves on the wrong end of a truly epic ass-kicking. But he doesn't even care about sports so he laughs while the faithful suffer the sting of losses courtesy of two nobodies (earlier in the season) and the hated in-state rival (who no doubt tasted blood in the water and came after 'em tonight with everything they had). There will be no goalposts standing in that field tomorrow morning!

Office Party

2011-12-02T23:58:00.005-06:00

Tonight was the School of Business Christmas party, hosted at the home of one of the long-time professors. The address was in the most upscale neighborhood of the city and on arrival Southern Man was impressed; a mansion designed for entertainment in which the fifty or so of us were not at all crowded. Turns out that the professor's husband is a successful architect and builder. All of the deans were there so Southern Man was on his best behavior and hopefully performed the appropriate amount of elbow-rubbing and schmoozing with his various bosses. Much food and drink were consumed (a hostess and bartender were on hand to keep us well supplied) and then the main event was a rousing game of Bad Santa, a party game at which Southern Man and his ex once excelled. Without a capable partner it was tougher but Southern Man drew a good position and ended up with one of the best gifts - a bottle of locally homemade green-apple wine (the label is "Red Neck" in French and has a picture of two - well, rednecks in a pickup-truck swimming pool), a loaf of summer sausage, and a big slab of chocolate. Much hilarity ensued when he revealed that the Red Neck and summer sausage would be consumed in a FEMA trailer out in the sticks. To tell the truth Southern Man isn't much of a wine drinker but it will make a nice addition to the wine rack as a conversation piece. A surprise was what turned out to be a roll of George W. Bush toilet paper which was quickly stolen twice by two female professors who were evidently both proud and unashamed to show their disdain for #43.

But the best moment was when Southern Man spotted the Dean enter with a striking young woman that he didn't know and the following conversation ensued with one of his colleagues:

Southern Man: Who is that with the Dean? His wife?
Colleague: I don't know if it's his wife or his girlfriend.

It turned out to be less scandalous than we thought (it was his fiancée) but that wasn't surprising; we're really a fairly boring bunch. But we had such a good time that the party ran nearly two hours past schedule.

Two Weeks To Go

2011-12-02T16:51:00.005-06:00

The weekend is here, with only two weeks remaining of the semester - and the second of those is final exams week with no lecturing required. Southern Man can assure you that the only people more excited than the students about semester's end are the professors.

And it is going to be a full weekend - office party tonight, singles party tomorrow night, Sunday School on Sunday - and since the weather forecast for the entire weekend is "don't go outside unless you want to die" Southern Man will grit his teeth and stay indoors and start the long-delayed massive cleanup of La Casa.

There, he wrote it in the blog for all three of his readers to see. That's accountability in action; now he has to actually do it. Maybe. We'll see how it goes.

A Day In The Life

2011-12-01T23:00:00.027-06:00

Teen daughter has asked Southern Man a couple of times "Just what do you do?" She seems to be under the impression that Southern Man has no life, which is more or less true at this particular time. But at any rate here is a typical Working Thursday in the Life of Southern Man.

6:00 - Got up, showered, had breakfast (two eggs, bacon, juice), tuned in a classical-music radio station and browsed the 'net for morning news and entertainment.

8:00 - Arrived at the office (often picking up a geocache or two along the way; just got one this morning) and "worked" as defined below for an hour.

"Work" is more or less evenly divided into five chunks:

(1) Course-related routine work; lecture prep, grading, writing proof-of-concept code, writing and copying handouts and worksheets, record-keeping, posting to the course web sites, syllabus updates, and so on.

(2) Administration-related routine work (Southern Man is both a department chair and member of the Dean's leadership team, so there's plenty of that!); writing and editing assessment and accreditation reports, book orders, course scheduling, catalog updates, writing recommendation letters for students, various committee duties and meetings, and so on.

(3) Putting-out-fires work; work that pops up out of nowhere (usually initiated by a phone call or email from one of the deans or other administrators) that has to be dealt with right then. Varies from routine ("Can you come over and evaluate this transcript?" or "Can you help Student X with his schedule?" or "Can you review this press release about your new supercomputer?") to urgent ("We need to meet because Student X has a complaint about Professor Y" or "We have an honors code violation and the Student Affairs Committee (of which Southern Man is a member) needs to meet today" or "Can you install this program for me? Campus Tech tried and couldn't do it!").

(4) Professional development; reading and studying to keep current in the field (no small task in computer science!), working on whatever research paper is currently at the top of the pile, developing and writing learning modules, and working on one of a couple of large-ish software projects.

(5) And about a fifth of Southern Man's office time is spent in meditation, listening to music (orchestral Christmas music is the current selection), browsing the 'net, dealing with personal issues (such as posting allowance to teen daughter's checking account and scowling at a weather forecast which predicts "no outside fun this weekend"), walking the building (offices of friends or to listen to the pianist - yes, we have paid pianists performing for a few hours each day) or the campus (the library, bookstore, and coffee shop are frequent destinations) and writing blog posts.

And now on with the day...

9:00 - 10:40 - Taught the Advanced Object-Oriented Programming class. Today they gave progress reports on their projects so it was mostly them talking and Southern Man listening and asking questions.

10:40 - 11:30 - Worked.

11:30 - 12:00 - Had lunch at the cafeteria (very inexpensive for faculty, and quite good; today it was spaghetti (cooked to order) and garlic bread sticks and Caesar salad and ice cream for dessert.

12:00 - 1:00 - Worked.

1:00 - 1:30 - Had a staff meeting with other faculty about our new LittleFe supercomputer.

1:30 - 2:30 - Worked.

2:30 - 3:45 - Taught the Logic class. Today we finished a series on fuzzy-logic controllers and reviewed for their upcoming midterm exam. Yes, Southern Man is that evil - midterm next week, comprehensive final exam the week after.

4:00 - 4:30 - Drove to evening job at the local community college, geocaching along the way (got one today that's part of a geo-chess series that Southern Man is slowly working through).

4:30 - 5:30 - Held office hours at evening job, which is usually spent on last-minute course prep, chatting with early arrivers, and surfing the 'net; tonight one of the handouts had about twenty URLs to photos so Southern Man had twenty browser tabs loaded and ready to show.

5:30 - 7:20 - Taught the Astronomy class; opened with a lecture on galaxies and cosmology (with lots of pretty pictures on the projection screen) and finished with a video on active galaxies.

7:30 - 8:00 - Drove home. No geocaching; it's dark and cold and Southern Man is tired after all that "work."

8:00 - 11:00 - Had dinner (homemade beef stew and a beer), took care of dishes and laundry, generally tidied up a bit and relaxed with books and music and movies and video games.

11:00 - Went to bed, continued to read and play simple games on the iPad (the current addiction is Jumbline 2) for half an hour or so, then went to sleep. Or tried to; insomnia is still a problem.

Yes, Thursdays are mostly work due to that evening class, and mostly indoors since it gets dark so early this time of year. But it's not terribly difficult work and Southern Man has plenty of free moments during the day to relax. And the lack of social life isn't much of a concern; he'll have plenty of friend time on the weekend (Christmas party Friday night, football watch party Saturday night, Sunday School on Sunday) to make up for it.

Holiday Weekend Day 5

2011-11-27T20:01:00.002-06:00

Sadly, it's almost over. A fine discussion at Sunday School this morning, an hour at the office, a little geocaching on the way home, and then an afternoon of grading and grading and more grading (mixed with more than a little 'net browsing and movie watching and game playing and frankly it's too damn cold and windy to be outside anyway). Then two more weeks of class, a week of finals, and semester number 49 (not counting summers) can be put to rest. Has it really been that many?

Holiday Weekend Day 4

2011-11-26T13:33:00.003-06:00

The cold and rain did not deter Southern Man from running some errands in the morning, then coercing a friend to brave the weather and help him pick up a couple of geocaches (including one that had baffled him the day before, but we found it today). And on the way we encountered a cute girl who had managed to get her big 4x4 truck stuck in the mud but the mighty (but merely two-wheel-drive) Titan had no problem pulling her out.

Photo by Southern Man, after she'd knocked the stop sign down but before noticing us. We had her take a few pics of us in mid-rescue with Southern Man's camera as well; they were of her feet, of her fingers, and of empty sky. Go figure.

Then we headed back to Casa Southern Man for a few hours of Guitar Hero and then to a Sunday School class post-Thanksgiving feast. The Southern Man came home and sighed and got to work on the huge box of papers and exams he'd brought home to grade but ignored until now. Oh, well, Sprite and Triple Sec makes the grading go smoother...

Holiday Weekend Day 3

2011-11-25T14:25:00.002-06:00

A lazy day spent doing a whole lot of nothing - relaxed at home in the morning, wandered out towards The Land (geocaching on the way) at eleven-ish, worked and played around out there until the threatened rains arrived, then came back into the city where no homework or exams were graded. That will have to get done sometime before Monday but today was not the day.

Holiday Weekend Day 2

2011-11-24T18:07:00.004-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Southern Man cannot list but a tiny fraction of all that he's thankful for.

So after a lazy morning Southern Man headed out for more geocaching, worked his way towards Wal-Mart (open on Thanksgiving!) for a veggie tray, cached his way towards 7-Eleven (open on Thanksgiving!), gassed up the car, cached his way towards Southern Parents, had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, and cached his way back home where he relaxed and surfed the 'net and watched movies (Mr. and Mrs. Smith is in right now) and played video games and generally did nothing productive at all. The planned trip out to The Land didn't happen; perhaps tomorrow. And perhaps not. And he hopes you had a similarly unproductive day as well.

Holiday Weekend Day 1

2011-11-23T12:25:00.011-06:00

Five glorious days with very little structure and few scheduled events. Now that's Southern Man's kind of holiday, as he is still decompressing from SC11. So, here's the schedule:

Today: doctor's appointment at 8:00, free the rest of the day.
Tomorrow: morning free, then lunch at Southern Parents and evening free.
Friday: nothing!
Saturday: free until mid-afternoon, then dinner with friends.
Sunday: Sunday School in the morning, then free for the rest of the day.

So after this morning's appointment Southern Man meandered home and did a little geocaching on the way and picked up a few groceries. And the afternoon developed into such a stunningly beautiful day - crisp and cool and clear skies and no wind - that Southern Man decided to head out to The Land but did so much 'caching along the way that it was dark when he arrived - where he stepped out of the truck and was greeted by a beautiful turquoise sky with Jupiter and Venus glittering like jewels overhead. It was a stunning sight and Southern Man just sat down in wonder for a while. The pond was dead calm and about thirty inches up, enough that the three-cinderblock-high dock pilings he'd finished at the water's edge a few weeks ago were now entirely submerged. Looks like he needs to go up one or two more.

And then Southern Man discovered that he'd forgotten the bag of food and supplies and faced a night without supper and a morning without breakfast. Not to mention that the entertainment options in the trailer are still pretty thin - a VCR (but no DVD player; that half of the VCR/DVD combo died a day after it went to the trailer) and a little TV, a portable AM/FM/CD player, and that's about it. And there was no dark chocolate at all in the trailer. So he piddled around for a while and then bowed to the inevitable and came back to the apartment and put that bag right in front of the door so after Thanksgiving lunch tomorrow he'll go back out properly supplied for a planned two-night stay. Sadly, the forecast calls for rain on those two days...

Two To Remember

2011-11-22T11:34:00.001-06:00

Southern Man notes with sorrow the passing of two fine people. One, a popular writer of fantasy and science fiction, is known to many across the world; the other, only to the many who knew and loved him.

Ann McCaffrey's fantasy books captivated the young Southern Man when he was first starting to explore those strange new worlds and even if he finds them a bit juvenile for his tastes today they (along with certain equally juvenile works of Asimov and Heinlein and many others) hold a special place in his heart. Southern Man met her once at a sci-fi convention; she was beautiful and charming and took a few moments to talk to a couple of starry-eyed teens and Southern Man has been a fan ever since. She will be missed but her work will live on.

As a young police officer HH stumbled across a certain couple from the nearby university "stargazing" in the park and sent them scurrying red-faced back to their dorms. Years later he and Southern Parents became fast friends and he (along with LF and RJ and a few others) formed the core of Southern Father's posse of friends. After retirement they were free to cause all manner of mischief, which they often did. As a locksmith no door was an obstacle to HH and he passed some of these skills (along with an impressive collection of master keys) to Southern Father. Widowed for many years, he was finally taken by age and disease. He was loved and he will be missed.

LittleFe Is Up And Running

2011-11-18T11:37:00.002-06:00

I threatened Dr. S that I would publish this photo with this caption, so here it is...

LittleFe System Administrator At Work

Supercomputing Conference Day 4

2011-11-15T10:48:00.017-06:00

Today was a half-day at the conference, sort of - we dropped in on part of the plenary session then spent the rest of the morning checking in our laptops and exploring the exhibition hall one last time, where Southern Man took on IBM's Watson in Jeopardy! and after gaining a small opening lead got pretty much taken to school...

Dr. S hard at "work"

The three of us in one of the exhibition halls.

Southern Man vs Watson

...then we had to get back to the hotel, finish packing, and check out. But that left a couple of hours of freedom so after stashing our stuff in Dr. A's room (he stayed an extra day) Southern Man headed down to the waterfront for more geocaching...

One cache was at this statue of "Ivar Feeding The Seagulls"

Had lunch at the nearby Ivar's Seafood Bar where the seagulls got the leftover french fries

A few more finds put the final score at ten new smiley faces in Seattle.

So after a few hours of this it was time to head back to the hotel for a cab ride to the airport where LittleFe was three pounds overweight but the ticket agent let us check it for $25 anyway. We had burgers at the Runway Grill while waiting for our first flight, then were swept across two time zones in just a few hours to arrive home again.

Delta Airlines expresses their opinion of LittleFe.

Supercomputing Conference Day 3

2011-11-14T10:09:00.020-06:00

The opening plenary session was right here in the Red Lion, which made for a lazy morning and an opportunity to hit another geocache...

...which was just outside this coffee shop and named in honor of a free local newspaper. Photo by another kind customer.

And with the LittleFe buildout behind us, this afternoon Southern Man went to a session on BCCD (the bootable-cluster software which manages the computer) and another on making effective use of our GP/GPU chips.

During that session a fellow SC11 geocacher made contact through email fishing for hints on that Gum Wall cache and we arranged to meet and do a little caching before the evening festivities. We headed out to the Seattle waterfront, picked up the Gum Wall, then did a few more out on the docks (in an unspoken competition between his GPS and Southern Man's iPad), then swung back by the aforementioned Seattle Weekly cache that he'd also tried for earlier and couldn't find. So Southern Man ended up looking pretty good tonight; usually he's the one looking for hints.

At a couple of caches with juc_cacher. Photos taken from his camera.

The main event tonight was the much-anticipated opening of the exhibitor hall. We were warned to pack light and leave plenty of room in our luggage for the immense mountain of swag that will be thrust upon us and this turned out to be prudent advice. Southern Man collected a fair number of bags and t-shirts and pens and such and generally had a great time. But by some tragic oversight Southern Man neglected to pull his two drink tickets out of the bundle of paperwork we were issued at registration but he is a resourceful fellow and managed to score not the designated two but three "free" adult beverages at the opening. Southern Man takes a perverse amount of pride in this accomplishment.

And then the other main event was the Beowulf Bash at the Seattle Aquarium with a live band and food and more drinks!

Yes, that poster is in with the fishes. Those Beowulf people are pretty crazy.

So Southern Man ate and drank and chatted and explored the aquarium and generally had a grand time until alcohol and exhaustion finally overcame him and he limped back home for a much-needed night's sleep.

And the next day as he was editing this post Southern Man googled for more info on the Bash and got this result...

That's right - five minutes after typing "Beowulf party" into the blog he's the fourth hit on Google. Epic Win!

Supercomputing Conference Day 2

2011-11-13T10:30:00.029-06:00

Our SC11 sessions kicked off with talks about the Undergraduate Computational Engineering and Sciences (UCES) program finalists. Or, in other words, work by undergrads who are way smarter than Southern Man was at that age. One of the talks was by LittleFe guru Charlie Peck and he was followed by the ever-dynamic master of supercomputing Henry Neeman, which took us to lunchtime.

Now comes the real purpose of our trip. As Charlie pointed out in his talk, single-core is dead. In a year you won't be able to buy a single-core phone, much less a single-core computer. Thus, we should be teaching multicore programming from the outset. But teaching on a production supercomputer isn't easy - you submit your job, you wait ten minutes to ten hours, you get an email stating what you did wrong, and repeat until you figure things out. And you don't want to teach on a production machine anyway; it's too busy doing weather models and physics and chemistry. And on top of that production machines are high maintenance and are not quite as reliable as one would hope - our local supercomputer goes down all the time (usually with cooling problems; it sits under enough air conditioning for a small city and that's barely enough). And teachers should be teaching, not administering a computer. Thus, LittleFe - a portable, lightweight, low-maintenance mini-supercomputer designed for classroom teaching that you program just the way you would the real thing - and if you screw up, you can just reboot without a dozen production-machine scientists screaming and sending you hate mail.

Beginning construction...photo by one of our assistants, who spent as much time juggling cameras as actually assisting. Not that we needed that much help...

Building the chassis. Photo by an assistant using Dr. S's camera.

Dr. S and Dr. A mounting the mainboards...photo by Southern Man.

Done! Photo by an assistant using Dr.A's camera. It was about this time that Charlie came by and claimed that we were the first team in the history of LittleFe to do a buildout in jackets and ties.

LittleFe buildout assistant Mobeen manages the head node first boot...photo by Southern Man.

All nodes up and running! Photo by Southern Man.

A little historical perspective: in the early 1990s the SX-3 was the fastest computer on the planet. LitteFe blows it away, costs less than $2500, and has wheels.

After the buildout we hauled the beast back to our hotel room and after a bit of rest Southern Man returned to the Gum Wall and found that damn cache! He'd also slipped out during a break and picked up one in an elevated park just a few minutes from the conference center. He's now three for three in Seattle and will try for a couple more before we have to leave.

Caching in Skyline Park. Photo by a kind stranger.

At the Gum Wall. Photo by one of a zillion passers-by. Pike Alley is a busy place!

And to celebrate our fine achievements the three of us enjoyed dinner and drinks at the Elephant and Castle...

That's right, we built a supercomputer today. Yeah, baby! Photo credit - our server.

Supercomputing Conference Day 1

2011-11-12T10:44:00.025-06:00

SC11 is a huge conference - one of the largest technical conferences in the world, with over ten thousand in attendance - and our little "Education" section of three hundred or so is just a tiny part of the proceedings. But we're at the front end and have the facilities more or less to ourselves until Monday when the teeming hordes arrive.

The opening plenary session was dominated by Henry Neeman (who is the SC11 Education Chair and also manages the enormous-state-university top-500 supercomputer just down the road from Southern Man's school) and Bob Panoff (founder of Shodor and host of the parallel-thinking conference attended by Southern Man earlier this year), two of the smartest (and funniest) people on the planet. Henry in particular is famous for his turns of speech, generally known as "Henryisms." Both of them could do science stand-up comedy, and often do. The plenary session ended with a panel that included our very own Dr. S.

Dr. S holds the audience spellbound with his words of wisdom.

The next morning session was with Bob Panoff and was a refresher of the material covered at the aforementioned conference but it is always a pleasure to observe a master teacher like Bob in action. Then lunch (time was short so we hit a sandwich shop right there in the convention center) followed by a couple more sessions - Southern Man chose a pair on computational physics and physics demos in Java.

After the afternoon sessions was a de rigueur orientation session and then finally was the big reception with lots of food and drink. Southern Man managed to score a couple of free beers and was thus able to redeem his two drink tickets for tequila shots, which left him with a pleasant buzz. But he couldn't hold a candle to the students who somehow anticipated what tickets were to be used (they were just plain old Office Depot "Admit One" tickets) and brought an entire roll and were putting down a seemingly endless array of Long Island Iced Teas for which the bartender was demanding four tickets per. So much hilarity ensued and after a couple of hours of fun Southern Man ended up at a piano with a girl he'd met earlier and we entertained a small crowd with a little blues and jazz.

And then Southern Man headed out into the night to clear his head and picked up the geocache he'd tried for yesterday and tried for a second one at the famous Gum Wall in Post Alley but much to his disappointment had to give up. Another SC11 cacher had already posted a DNF on that one so Southern Man hopes to hit it again during daylight tomorrow and make the find. Tomorrow we're scheduled to build our LittleFe!

Supercomputing Conference Day 0

2011-11-11T09:06:00.019-06:00

Today Southern Man and two fellow professors embark for Seattle and SC11, a three-and-a-half-day supercomputing conference. We'll return with a LittleFe cluster which we'll build on Monday afternoon. It's going to be fun, except for the unhappy forecast of 40 degrees and raining all week which may put a bit of a damper on geocaching.

Southern Man with his friend and mentor Dr. S at the airport. Photo taken by Dr. A at 11:11 on 11/11/11.

The trip was relatively uneventful as modern transportation technology swept us halfway across the country with its usual tedious efficiency. We ended up on the wrong shuttle from SeaTac and ended up taking a pricy cab ride into Seattle instead of the much less expensive light rail. We're staying at the Red Lion on 5th Avenue in downtown Seattle, which is very nice. Having traveled all day long we decided to treat ourselves to dinner and ended up at The Brooklyn, a very upscale eatery near the hotel. As is his habit, Southern Man sampled a local ale - a Laurelwood Pale Ale in this case - but didn't much care for it. However, his steak was excellent.

Dr. A, Southern Man, and Dr. S. Photo by a young man at the next table.

After dinner Southern Man made a try for a nearby geocache but didn't find it. Not to worry, there will be time for more geocaching later. But the conference schedule is pretty packed, starting at seven sharp tomorrow morning...

11-11-11

2011-11-11T08:56:00.005-06:00

In a convergence of cosmic proportions it is both Veterans Day and Nigel Tufnel Day.

Our Veterans Go To Eleven!

Monday

2011-11-07T21:04:00.002-06:00

OK, the earthquakes can stop any time now. Especially the earthquakes during the thunderstorms and tornado watches.

Workin' For The Weekend

2011-11-05T20:11:00.006-06:00

After a routine workweek (well, there was a mild earthquake...actually a whole swarm of 'em) Southern Man was looking forward to getting out to The Land and making a little more progress on his endless list of projects and tasks and chores (which by the way he finds most relaxing so it's not really work at all). On Friday he lucked into a batch of free 55-gallon plastic drums on Craigslist and managed to nab a pickup-load of those - they are designated for future rainwater-recovery systems and water management in the future greenhouse - and ran those out and did a few odd jobs and grilled steak at the firepit for dinner and then today he spent the day on various chores (but not the painting and roofing that are at the top of the to-do list - much too windy for that!) and even made more progress on the future dock. Tomorrow is Sunday School and the weatherman says "not quite so windy tomorrow afternoon" so perhaps he'll get some shingles up and paint on tomorrow afternoon. And that's about it. The next excitement in Southern Man's life is late next week when he and two of his fellow professors head out to the SC11 conference in Seattle where we'll build a small cluster computer and bring it home for the kids to play with. And that will mark a personal first in Southern Man's traveling life - both coasts in a single semester. He's looking forward to a bit of geocaching and hopes to have time to make fun of the losers at Occupy Seattle.

[added later] And then we got an even bigger earthquake! How exciting! And so of course instead of running outside in panic everyone just got on FaceBook...

Dark Chocolate

2011-10-31T16:12:00.022-06:00

In celebration of Hallowe'en (which Southern Man will observe by grading astronomy papers, eating candy, and drinking heavily) this blog is pleased to bring to you the 2011 Candy Hierarchy from Boing Boing.

This is just a low-resolution teaser so click on the link above to view the real thing. We'll wait for you.

Now this hierarchy contains numerous errors (plain Hershey chocolate bars ranked above Nestlé's Crunch? Starburst and ordinary candy corn on the same level? 100,000 Dollar Bar on the second tier? What were they thinking?) but the one upon which Southern Man will focus is (a) the questionable positioning of Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate and (b) the omission of any other mention of dark chocolate.

We begin with four hierarchical statements. First, Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate is superior to all other Hershey products. Second, all non-Hershey dark chocolate is superior to Hershey dark chocolate. Third, any chocolate product is improved by changing from milk chocolate to dark chocolate. And fourth, any chocolate product is improved by adding nuts.

The first of these statements identifies yet another error in the hierarchy: the Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Bar is at the same level as the regular Hershey Bar. While both products probably deserve lower rankings than they have, this is a grievous error; the Special Dark Chocolate is manifestly superior to ordinary milk chocolate. However, the second statement notes that in the sub-hierarchy of dark chocolate Hershey resides at the bottom. Dark Chocolate Lindor Balls and Dark Chocolate M&Ms and Godiva Dark Chocolate and Ferrero Rondnoir and even plain old Dove Dark Chocolate Bars all reign supreme over the pale excuse for dark chocolate that is provided by Hershey. The third statement codifies what everyone knows: Dark Chocolate Snickers and Milky Way Midnight bars and Dark Chocolate Kit-Kats and Dark Chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are a giant leap beyond their milk-chocolate counterparts. And the fourth statement asserts that Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms reign supreme over all of these, even as the addition of a little almond sliver elevates ordinary Hershey Dark Chocolate Kisses to a higher plane. And of course dark chocolate covered almonds are gifts of the gods themselves.

Therefore Southern Man submits that there ought to be a level above top tier - call it the 1-Percent or Gifts Of The Gods or whatever. Most of the "pure" dark chocolate products mentioned in the above paragraph go there. Hershey's regular bar goes down a level, leaving Hershey's Special Dark as the only dark chocolate in Post-Tertiary. Most of the products in Top Tier get bumped down a level and are replaced by their dark-chocolate counterparts. We can continue to argue about the relative positioning of Crunch Bars and such. But that fixes most of the problems. We'll see if these improvements are incorporated into the 2012 version.

But at the end of the day if any of these make their way into your trick-or-treat bag consider yourself truly blessed, for dark chocolate is proof that there is a God and that he loves us and wants us to be happy. Lord, thank you for dark chocolate! Amen.

Reflections On Relationships

2011-10-30T19:39:00.011-06:00

The teacher of Southern Man's Sunday School Class often confesses how back in her younger and wilder days she was a relationship junkie who traded "affection" (we'll put it that way) for a man's love and commitment.

It occurs to Southern Man that this is really what everyone wants. Most men would gladly provide commitment and love and "all their worldly goods" for genuine respect and, ahem, "affection." Indeed, the dream of most men is to build a world and put their woman and children in the center of that world and come home after a long day of dragon-slaying to enjoy the fruits of their labor and their love. Southern Man is convinced that the happiest women are those who are loved by a man they respect. Read Eggerichs' Love and Respect; he lays it all out there and Southern Man dearly wishes he'd understood these truths twenty-five years ago. But the balance of power works one way when dating and quite another after marriage.

When dating the woman gives her respect and affection in return for love and commitment. The man can bask in the pleasure of her "affection" for a time but is free to withdraw his love and commitment and end the relationship without suffering much in the way of consequences, leaving the woman devastated and alone. When dating, men have the upper hand.

After marriage and children the woman can enjoy the security of a man's love and commitment and possessions but can withdraw her respect and affection without suffering much in the way of consequences, leaving the man trapped in an unhappy marriage that he dares not leave, for if he ends the relationship (or have it severed against his will, which is usually the case) the world he's built is shattered and he's also bankrupt and alone and usually without much access to his children. When married, women can, if they desire, parcel out respect and affection to control the relationship.

Many of Southern Man's male acquaintances have trod this broken road: a marriage in which the wife withdrew her respect and affection, then wondered why she didn't "feel loved" (Eggerich calls this death spiral the "crazy cycle") and ended the marriage, cashed in on half (or more!) of the family assets and court-ordered alimony and child support, took the children, and moved on to another man. Southern Man himself is slowly edging away from the pit of bankruptcy - no, he didn't fall in but it was a closer call than anyone realizes - and faces four or five more years with only occasional weekends with his youngest and the frustrating inability to provide much in the way of assistance to his college-bound daughter (he had to move money around to send her a mere $20 last week!) The planned move to the FEMA trailer at The Land is, plain and simple, an admission that he can no longer afford the rent at Casa Southern Man and the only reason he's not out there right now is because he can't afford to break his lease. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise - divorce is harsh and life after divorce is, at least for a while, no fun at all. For men, the exciting post-divorce single life consists mainly of being broke and alone and wondering if you'll ever love or be loved again.

Southern Man's son is in a serious relationship (as in shopping-for-a-trailer-together serious); teen daughter is on the cusp of her dating life. Southern Man doubts that they have yet experienced the agonies of genuine heartbreak and figures that they will learn the truths of relationships the hard way, as Southern Man did. He certainly didn't pay much attention to his elders at that age, so this post will probably be of little help to them. Heck, Southern Man has read the words of the Apostle Paul about husbands and wives and love and respect for most of his life and didn't really begin to actually understand them until a few years ago. It's true - Southern Man can be a very slow learner. But perhaps they and others will read this and take a bit of care as to how they explore uncharted territory. And here are ten more books that Southern Man has found helpful over the last few years when dealing with relationship and their occasionally bitter ending. Lord, teach my children to guard their hearts and chose carefully who they love, but not to be so guarded that they don't love fully when they find the right one. Amen.

Movie Day

2011-10-29T19:26:00.002-06:00

Well Southern Man and twelve-year-old daughter lazed around the apartment all morning and ran around all afternoon but the bookend events were Paranormal Activity in the DVD player at Casa Southern Man in the morning and Paranormal Activity 3 at the afternoon movies (with Spy Kids 4 in between). So it has been a movie day. Spy Kids 4 was actually pretty good (the original Spy Kids are young adults and the new Spy Kids save the day, as expected) and was surprisingly touching in places. Both Paranormal Activity movies scared the living daylights out of both of us and daughter spent most of the movie hiding under Southern Man's jacket. And later in a stellar exhibition of raw mental prowess we spent an hour looking for a "fall fest" at a nearby church without success until we finally figured out that the advertised event wasn't until Monday night. So Southern Man feels rather foolish right now. But we are home and dinner (homemade chili and beer for Southern Man, canned ravioli for daughter - hey, that's what she buys for her weekend meals) is in the microwave and Southern Man had a long conversation with teen daughter who is up north at college and all is well with the world.

What the Tea Party and OWS Have In Common

2011-10-28T11:42:00.010-06:00

This brilliant Venn diagram was posted on a friend's FaceBook. The source of the idea (if not this particular diagram) is this post at a blog called "How Conservatives Drove Me Away" which turns out to be quite an interesting read.

An excerpt from one of the best comments on that post, by blogger Larry Garfield, is worth repeating (edited for profanity):

Tea Party: government/corporate collusion is ruining the country. F*cking government. Let's get rid of it.

OWS: government/corporate collusion is ruining the country. F*cking corporations. Let's get rid of them.

Everyone is so focused on which villain to blame that they totally miss the first sentence. Instead, what should be happening is this:

Americans: government/corporate collusion is ruining the country. F*cking collusion. Let's get rid of it.

Only a clueless moron anarchist actually thinks that government is the root of all evil. Only a clueless moron hippie actually thinks that a modern economy could exist without corporations.

Note that Southern Man says much the same thing (although not nearly so succinctly or elegantly as either author above) in this earlier post. But read it anyway.

In other news Southern Man had an outpatient procedure on his back early this morning and is relaxing at home on an ice pack planning to waste the rest of the afternoon watching movies (currently in the player - Source Code and Eagle Eye) and surfing the 'net. This evening he'll drive to former father-in-law's (about two hours out) to nab twelve-year-old daughter for the rest of the weekend!

Richard Epstein on Wealth

2011-10-27T04:11:00.013-06:00

Richard Epstein argues that transfer payments from rich to poor don't make the poor any richer and that income inequality gives rise to increased incentives and opportunity which increases wealth for everyone. Hat tips to Instapundit, who linked to Coalition Of The Willing (where Southern Man first saw the video), and original video source PBS (who provided the embed code)...

Watch Does U.S. Economic Inequality Have a Good Side? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Warning: if you're a liberal listening to this video might make your head explode. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Southern Man teaches (among other things) mobile application development - that is, programs for Apple and Android devices. The students put an astonishing amount of work into these projects. Many of them never make it to an app store, and the vast majority of those that do don't earn the students a dime. Why do they work so hard? Because of the compelling possibility that they might write the next must-have million-download app and the wealth that will flow from that work. If that opportunity wasn't there, they wouldn't bother to try.

The Euro And The Dollar

2011-10-26T13:19:00.008-06:00

Two economies at the top of the world; populous, productive, and wealthy almost beyond belief. And two currencies, each used and accepted across the globe. One will fall and one will stand. Why? This post at VodkaPundit puts it in terms of labor mobility and Southern Man paraphrases that argument here.

In the USA regional differences have endured to a surprising degree given our remarkable mobility; the very name of this blog is a nod to regional affiliation. And mobile we are: a Californian out of work has no problem moving to Texas and becoming a Texan (or taking the more humorous road and holding out as a California ex-pat; Southern Man knows many California Girls-in-exile). But these regional and cultural differences and our division into fifty states are, in the big picture, relatively unimportant; in the big picture, we are all Americans and our current region of necessity or choice is secondary to that essential national identity.

The seventeen nations of the European Union share a common currency but not a common identity. There is really no such thing as a European. Nationality really matters in Europe, in ways far deeper than Americans can really understand. And this means that even if there are no jobs in France and employers are begging for workers across the river in Germany, few French will cross the Rhine and become Germans.

And thus the argument that a common currency can extend only so far as labor is mobile. In spite of their best efforts and intentions, labor is not mobile across Europe because the denizens of Europe are not Europeans; they are French and German and British and they choose to adhere to those identities and those boundaries. And this will ultimately mean an end to their common currency and a return to francs and deutchmarks and pounds.

And dollars.

Birthday Dinner

2011-10-25T09:25:00.005-06:00

Southern Man enjoyed a nice dinner with no-longer-teen son and son's girlfriend to celebrate his recent birthday.

Southern Man needs a haircut. Photo by son's girlfriend.

He and girlfriend are talking about getting an apartment or a trailer together, which is a little scary but at least that'll get him out of Southern Father's barn loft where he lives now. But Southern Man is not yet ready to be a grandfather!

Ron Paul!

2011-10-24T09:31:00.007-06:00

As you’d expect, Senator Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate addressing real issues using clear language. Here he is on “Meet the Press” last week (hat tip to Gucci Little Piggy, from whom the imbed code was shamelessly stolen)...

And as GLP says (emphasis mine): "At the 2:40 mark, Paul opens up dialogue on the student debt debacle, pointing out that anytime the federal government sticks their grimy paws into markets, prices distort, bubbles inflate, the debt cycle speeds up and becomes more entrenched. And after all of the mess that the government makes, a clean-up squad comes in, backed by a propaganda machine that blames everything on the free market and capitalism." That is a terrific summary of the root cause of many of our current woes, right there. And if you've only heard about Ron Paul but never heard him speak, this is a fairly representative sample. As a candidate I don't think he'll get the nomination but will hopefully continue to have a lot of influence in Washington.

Weekend Update

2011-10-23T10:43:00.014-06:00

Well it has been a full and busy week. Monday and Tuesday were Fall Break so Southern Man spent a fair amount of time out at The Land working on The Barn, cutting away the rotten sheathing on the south side and re-sheathing and re-shingling. That chore was finished Saturday morning and for the first time in many years The Barn is now leak free - and then it rained Saturday evening! The drought has taken The Lake to the lowest level Southern Man's ever seen so he collected some materials during the week and then Saturday morning started work on a fishing dock, setting some cinderblocks at the current water's edge (which should be about ten feet out into The Cove after the rains return) as the beginning of that project. The plan is to get the block pilings done this fall while the water is low, then the dock can be finished pretty much any time.

With part of the rotten decking cut away Southern Man finds that the damage is more extensive than previously thought...

Some new decking is in place; rotten decking is cut away all the way to the west end and for a few feet into the upper roof...

Bad decking replaced and shingles on! Next chore - finish shingling the lower south roof (an easy one-day job) and get to work on the damaged and missing siding on the west end.

And it has been a very social weekend. Thursday night Southern Man headed to his graduate alma mater for a most interesting talk by Don Lincoln (a senior scientist at Fermilab) on some current topics in astronomy and had a nice chat with several of his former professors, including his thesis adviser.

The reception was kind of a bust. When grad students are around you must be quick if you want cookies.

Friday night was our monthly outing to the bowling lanes where Southern Man again set a personal high score with which he is quite pleased. Saturday night was game night with the singles group and this afternoon after Sunday School was a luncheon / cookout at the singles director's home - fresh grilled chicken, mmm.

Next week should be routine until Friday, when Southern Man gets an outpatient procedure that will hopefully relieve the stress on that pinched nerve and relieve the constant pain in his leg and perhaps even allow him to sleep for more than a hour at a time. Lord, guide the surgeon's hand that I might be healed of this affliction and be free of pain. Amen.

Coexist

2011-10-15T17:28:00.001-06:00

Hat tip to The Clue Batting Cage.

Movie Review: Starship Troopers

2011-10-14T10:08:00.021-06:00

This post is really "What Southern Man Likes About Starship Troopers" and was inspired by a comment from a friend on an earlier post. Now for fans of the book there's plenty not to like about this particular film. And eldest son still claims that it gave him nightmares as a child. But here's what good:

The frequent government news flashes scattered throughout the film (a style Verhoeven also uses to great effect in Robocop) don't pretend to be anything other than nationalistic propaganda. They are all delicious. The film score (by Basil Poledouris, who also did the music for The Hunt For Red October and the wonderful Conan scores) has echos of nationalistic marches; it's excellent.

While everyone appears to have equal rights, the franchise (that is, the right to vote) is reserved only for veterans of government service. Numerous government ads end with the words "Service guarantees citizenship!"

Justice moves swiftly. "A murderer was captured this morning and tried today. Execution tonight on all channels..." Punishment includes lashes, administered in public. In one scene Rico is sentenced to "administrative punishment" (for, among other things, "incompetence of command") and takes lashes expertly delivered by a black officer. Sergeant Zim slips Rico a handmade mouthpiece with the words "Use this, it helps. I know." indicated that Zim had also erred in the past, and in both the book and movie Rico (and, apparently, Zim) return to duty and the punishment is never mentioned again.

As noted above, competence is demanded. The only Mobile Infantry officer who is depicted as even remotely incompetent was the badly-shaken sole survivor of a Bug trap; when asked by another officer to calm himself he says "I can't! Maybe you should just shoot me!" And the other officer almost does! In one view the "shaken" officer demonstrates supreme competency by recognizing his weakness in a combat situation (there had been evidence of mind control by the Bugs) and requesting that he be eliminated for the greater good. The Bugs get him later. That second officer, who earlier shot a teammate who had been taken by a flying Bug and could not be rescued ("And I'd expect anyone here to do the same for me!") was himself killed by Rico (on his own order: "Rico, you know what to do!") when mortally injured by a Bug. Commanders are responsible for the performance of their teams. On the Navy side Zander tells trainee Carmen "don't exceed port speed...or they revoke your flight status. And mine." During the first Klendathu invasion the captain of the dropship holds course as ships are destroyed all around them until their drop is complete (in the opening chapter of the book her captain takes extreme risks and demonstrates extraordinary skill to save "her" troops during a botched retrieval). After the failure of that invasion the "Sky Marshall" who designed the battle plan voluntarily steps down, yielding her position to another.

And speaking of the Navy, all of the pilots are women (as in the book), and all of the starship and space-station FX are terrific.

The Bugs aren't just mindless monsters; they're intelligent and curious, willing to do what it takes to learn more about their opponents. In the third film it's revealed that the Brain Bug allowed itself to be captured, to that end. They managed to arrange a trap in which Rico's squad was nearly wiped out. In the book the Federation is actually able to communicate with them and negotiate a truce.

They're serious about education and reject this touchy-feely "everyone's a winner" attitude that pervades our own system. Carl mocks Rico's poor math scores in front of his friends and (more importantly) a teacher is openly derisive of another student in class when she doesn't meet expectations. Furthermore, there's a course (in the book it's called "History and Moral Philosophy") that vigorously expresses political views that are compatible with Southern Man's own (in which students clearly feel free to speak openly even when the teacher shoots their ideas down). In the novel, failure of officer candidates to pass the military version of this course results in dismissal not just from officer training but from the military itself.

That education - and everything else - is not only co-ed but both sexes are treated as equals and judged solely on ability. The quarterback of Rico's football team (and, later, his military teammate) is Dizzy Flores, a girl. In Basic Training the men and women eat together, train together, are housed together, and even shower together (a scene the cast agreed to do only if Verhoeven consented to direct in the nude, which he did). And of course men and women fight side by side as equals. But gender roles aren't entirely ignored; Rico (guided by a psychic suggestion from Carl, which he later denies with a simple "Well, that's classified") takes great risks to rescue their female friend Carmen. Of course Carl can argue that he is simply sending Rico to where the Brain Bug can be found...

The military espouses an "everyone fights" attitude. Even Navy pilots Zander and Carmen and Intelligence Officer Carl (an asset far to valuable to risk in the field) demonstrate their competence with assault rifles. Carmen turns out to be fairly handy with a knife as well.

The government doesn't pretend that service is anything other than dangerous. A recruiting officer ("The Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today!") is shown to be missing both legs and one arm. At least one recruit dies in a training accident. Both incidents are true to the novel. The training officers don't hesitate to inflict pain on the recruits, including broken bones and knives through the hand ("Pain is in your mind!") and continually urge the recruits to "take a walk down Washout Lane" if they think they don't have what it takes. (Modern SEAL training is similar; the trainees are often urged and even bribed to quit).

The Peter Principle is openly acknowledged. Field promotion is often qualified with "until you get killed or I find someone better." If a soldier's performance after promotion isn't satisfactory he (or she) is simply returned to their previous duty without penalty. Ace mentions in passing that he failed as a squad leader and was restored to his previous assignment and rank, and Sergeant Zim, by means unknown, forces his own demotion ("The only way you're gonna see combat is if you bust yourself to private!") so that he can leave the training camp and serve on the front lines.

They do what has to be done. Rico attempts to rescind his resignation after Beunos Ares is destroyed; although granting that request is illegal his commanders bend the rules to let it happen. Later in the film Rico's commander makes sure his troops have entertainment and beer in the field. Carl, as a commander in Military Intelligence, knowingly sends his friend's unit on a mission with a "very low probability of survival" because he needed the information that the mission could provide. As already mentioned, dropship captains would rather lose their ship and crew than abandon their duties to the infantry they carry.

Verhoeven claims to have not finished the novel but much of Heinlein's philosophy (while in places distorted almost beyond recognition) still made it into the script. And that is probably Southern Man's favorite aspect of the film, right there. If Verhoeven ever makes The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress Southern Man will be first in line to see it.

Makes you want to pop it in your DVD player, doesn't it? Go right ahead. Southern Man is watching it again right now. And then he's going to watch Robocop and both Conan movies. It's a popcorn movie day! And the only thing that beats a popcorn movie day is popcorn movie day with beer and hydrocodone!

There Were Giants In Those Days

2011-10-13T19:13:00.026-06:00

Much of the technological world has mourned the passing of Steve Jobs, who more than anyone made computing more accessible and gave us generations of cool toys that "just plain worked." But a few days later another giant left us; Dennis Ritchie, a principle author of the C programming language and the UNIX operating system. As The Blog That Nobody Reads notes, his passing is equally worthy of our remembrance, if not more so. Jobs spent much of his career making operating systems (and thus computers) easier to use (and this was no small accomplishment); Ritchie created the tools with which you build operating systems and used then to construct one of the most important. And in an interesting convergence a direct descendant of Ritchie's UNIX powers Apple products today from the iMac to the iPhone, and Objective C is the primary programming language for both.

Who do we hold in higher esteem, the man who made technology easier to use, or the man who created what was necessary to enable that technology in the first place? While the public is far more familiar with the fruits of the first, they could not exist without the second. And while few will know who Dennis Ritchie was or what he accomplished, we honor his achievements and note with sorrow his passing here.

#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char * argv[]){
printf("Goodbye, Dennis...");
return 0;
}

[Added 31 October 2011] O'Reilly suggests that October 30 be designated as Dennis Ritchie Day. Spread the word!

Rocks

2011-10-12T19:57:00.013-06:00

Southern Man has lots of plans for The Land and usually keeps an eye on Craigslist for anything he might make use of and this morning had the good fortune to be the first to call on a bunch of rock that had been used in a koi pond - highly desirable as The Land has a little washout that has always been designated as the future garden pond and the native rock out there is soft red shale that's not much good for rockscaping. Warned that some were large and he ought to "bring help" Southern Man tossed a couple of long 4x4s and a two-wheel hand truck in the back of The Titan and headed out after work to pick them up. Some were indeed quite large but Southern Man is fairly adept at moving and loading heavy things by himself and once he got started the rock-owner came out to help. He had a large back yard that was clearly in the middle of several projects (including a half-completed swimming pool where that koi pond used to be) and the back of the house was in the middle of a major remodel as well so we chatted about landscaping and remodeling and such while moving big rocks on the two-wheeler and flipping the biggest ones up the 4x4 ramps. The rock pretty much filled The Titan's bed and he was crouching perilously low on the springs but he's a big tough truck and Southern Man wasn't too concerned about breaking anything...

...and then while looking things over one last time before departing the rock-owner's wife came out and Southern Man overheard one of the highest compliments a man can earn:

"How did you get all that loaded so quickly?"
"Honey, that guy really knew what he was doing."

So Southern Man was pretty happy on the slow and careful drive to The Land where he spent an hour or so unloading and stacking the rock on pallets (he'd nabbed a truckload of those last month) and looking the place over as he hadn't been out there (other than a quick errand last week) since the pinched nerve flared up two weekends ago. Curiously, it didn't bother him at all while loading and unloading all that rock (it's really bad when lying down and trying to sleep). He had inadvertently left the AC on in the trailer and it was still cycling just fine so he pronounces that breaker problem solved but has a mild feeling of dread about what the next electric bill might look like.

And now he is home and had breakfast-for-dinner (bacon and eggs and chocolate milk and a hydrocodone in the hopes of getting some sleep tonight) and has a favorite movie in the DVD player and in a bit will take a shower and go to bed in happy anticipation of a long weekend - next Monday and Tuesday are Fall Break and he probably won't work the kids too hard on Friday either.

Style

2011-10-11T20:37:00.002-06:00

A deliberate style choice on this blog is to write in the third person and to avoid the use of commas if at all possible and to write very very long sentences that never seem to end but have this ephemeral Mark Twain-ish (or anti John Steinbeck-ish) feel about them and he also tends to put side comments between em-dashes — which are different from en-dashes — or in parenthesis (like this). But Southern Man was so annoyed at recent events that he discovered that he had lapsed into standard first-person writing on this recent rant which tells you how passionate Southern Man is about this subject. So he has re-edited that post a bit and is mentioning it here for no other reason than to have a post for today and to let you know that if you catch him deviating from his self-imposed style feel free to call him on it. That is all.

We Are The 1%

2011-10-10T23:51:00.016-06:00

This cheeky response to the Occupy Wherever movement is all over the net...

Photo taken from Google Images; original source may be this twitter account.

And on a slightly different note the thread on Southern Sister's Facebook account (from which Southern Man has been banned) has this juicy tidbit from none other than Southern Sister's SO:

The wealth of some has grown greatly in the last 40 years yet our calculation/definition of poor has not: poor is a family of four making less than $22,350/year...that's not poor that's starvation.

Southern Man suspected that this actually makes a point he's been hammering at for some time (that the "poor" in the USA are middle class in Europe and wealthy compared to most of the world) so he typed "world income" into Google and the top hit was the Global Rich List into which you enter your income and it tells you your rank for the entire planet. Two results of interest are:

USA Poverty Level of $22,350 - just inside 10%.
Southern Man - just inside 1%.

So someone explain how an intelligent, college-educated person can call a top-ten-percent income - and, mind you, people at this income level in the USA live in constructed homes with indoor plumbing and clean running water and have refrigerators and televisions and air conditioners and cable television and cell phones and iPods and pay other people to prepare their meals for them on a regular basis and otherwise live like kings compared to much of the world - "starvation." Does she really believe that 90% of the people on the planet are starving to death? And consider that any family of four who actually earns $22,350 as income is almost certainly drawing another half that in direct government aid (for example, in addition to a variety of assistance programs they'll pick up about 4K in Earned Income Credit alone) - and that puts them in the top 5% of global incomes, right there. Witness the power of capitalism and the free market, which has created a nation of such wealth that our poor are in the very highest echelons of world income. To be poor in the USA today is to be richer than 99% of the humans who ever lived. And no other nation is as generous about sharing that wealth. Southern Man can't count the number of times he's been in line behind someone at a convenience store who's got iPod earbuds hanging around their neck and is chatting on a smartphone while buying beer and cigarettes along with their food-stamp-subsidized groceries. That's what we call "poor" around here.

And Southern Man is pleased to join the Chicago Board of Trade as part of the 1%. It's good to be on top. Lord, you have blessed this nation beyond measure. Let us not forget the source of our blessings. Amen.