http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/index/ en don@digitalquixote.com Copyright 2008 2008-08-11T16:32:01-08:00 http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/mccain_at_sturgis/ http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/mccain_at_sturgis/#When:16:32:01Z “As you may know, not long ago a couple of hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I’ll take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day.  ...  I recognize that sound. It’s the sound of freedom!” - John McCain - Bike Week - Sturgis, South Dakota For those who don’t know, Sturgis, SD is the location of an annual motorcycle rally which ended today. 2008 was the 68th rally. John McCain spoke there to kick off the event. Here’s a link to the event site: Quotable 2008-08-11T16:32:01-08:00 http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/angels/ http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/angels/#When:04:58:00Z Click to enlarge any photo ... Last weekend was Seafair Weekend in Seattle. Among other events, the Blue Angels flew a wonderful show over Lake Washington. Have a look at these pictures and see more in high res versions on my blog by clicking here. Not all the angels at the show were Blue Angels. Click below for the rest of the story ... Planes 2008-08-10T04:58:00-08:00 http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/garden_variety_fireworks/ http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/garden_variety_fireworks/#When:04:13:00Z Click on any image to enlarge ... I returned from an errand today and Nancy’s garden had exploded in pyrotechnic color. Thought I’d share. When we built the house, we had different opinions about what to put in the front yard. My view: grass - doh. Her view: Flowers! Each summer, I am glad her point of view prevailed! Out and About 2008-08-05T04:13:00-08:00 http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/who_are_we/ http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/who_are_we/#When:01:13:00Z “Who are we ... but the stories we tell about ourselves, particularly if we accept them?” - Scott Turow - Ordinary Heroes I recently read Ordinary Heroes and was taken by the notion that we are a product of the stories we tell about ourselves as much as of the experiences which generate the stories. I got to thinking about experiences I’ve had. I remember the stories I tell about them better than I remember the experience itself. For example, I was once on board a DC-10 that was struck by lightening. The lightning bolt blew up one of three engines. We made an emergency landing. No one was hurt. I have told the story so often I can remember the story verbatim. I always use the same words, the same rhythm and cadence when I tell it. I pause for effect in the same places. But I vividly remember very little of the event itself. Another example, my wife and I once swam with a Mahi Mahi, two False Killer Whales, and a Dolphin off the coast of Hawaii. The Mahi sought protection between my wife and me. The whales gradually became aggressive. We pushed the Mahi away and the whales ate it. Again, I remember the story of the event better than aspects of the event itself. A final example, I remember telling the story of someone being shot dead in front of me at a city bus stop in Detroit on my first day of work at Arthur Andersen in 1974. So ... if we are the stories we tell about ourselves ... it seems important to tell the stories of our lives. They fix the events of our lives in our living memories. I think this may be why I publish a website full of travel photos. The act of editing the photos and writing the stories of our travels fix these events in my own memory. I am not so naive as to think I have much of a readership, but if my readership is only me ... maybe that’s enough. Last weekend, I returned to the city of my birth for a high school reunion, and visited the houses I lived in until the age of five, and from age five to 17 when I left home. They are on quiet streets. They remain in good repair. But they seem so much smaller to me. The streets themselves seem shorter and narrower. Only the trees, which are now nearly 80 years old seem bigger. These photos are clickable. 1950 - 1955 1955 - 1968 I just noticed the snow shovel on the porch in the first photo. It reminded me of a freak May snowstorm when I was four. I had a kid-sized shovel and helped my dad shovel snow that was a deep as I was tall. And I was reminded of climbing a high ladder to clean birds nests out of the gutters above the drive in the second photo. But, sadly, I haven’t told these stories often enough to remember very well. Quotable 2008-07-30T01:13:00-08:00 http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/tahoma/ http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/tahoma/#When:04:55:00Z Last Tuesday my son and I did some day-hiking at Mt Rainier. This was also a nostalgia trip for us. When the kids were young, we’d take them to Rainier and this short trip reminded us both of those good times. These photos were taken on our climb to the summit of Mt Borroughs, one of Rainier’s minor sister peaks. On the way down, we saw this neat lenticular cloud. These often form above and downwind of Mt. Rainier when winds aloft are fast and the air is moist. Out and About 2008-07-20T04:55:00-08:00 http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/i_forgive_al_gore/ http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/i_forgive_al_gore/#When:01:36:01Z I swore I would never forgive Al Gore for his claim to have invented the Internet. But today, I do forgive him completely. Not because he in fact invented the Internet, a ridiculous claim, but because of his speech today titled: A Generational Challenge to Repower America. For the first time today, I heard an address that encapsulates my point of view on carbon-based energy. Briefly Al Gore calls for America to switch to an electricity based energy strategy where the electricity is generated from non-carbon-based sources. It recognises that demand for oil is rising much faster than supply. It recognises the political and economic risk of continued dependence on carbon-based fuel. And it calls for a NASA (or Manhattan Project if you prefer) style strategic investment to free ourselves from carbon fuel dependence within 10 years!. It is bold. It is compellingly articulated. It’s profoundly simple to understand. I’ve included his short, readable, articulate address in the “rest of the story” below.  Politics 2008-07-18T01:36:01-08:00 http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/quotable_was_vista_a_mistake/ http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/quotable_was_vista_a_mistake/#When:00:57:00Z Walt Mossberg - “Was Vista a mistake?” Bill Gates - “Not at all. We have a culture that’s very much about ‘We need to do better.’ Vista’s given us more opportunities to exercise our culture.” Wall Street Journal - June 1, 2008 Quotable 2008-07-10T00:57:00-08:00 http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/reflecting_on_a_liquid_lifestyle/ http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/reflecting_on_a_liquid_lifestyle/#When:01:20:00Z Click on any image to enlarge ... A couple of weeks ago we took the boat over to some Lake Washington bays where there are some interesting floating houses. For the most part, these are minimalist houses, with efficient footprints, and due to small moorage, most have eclectic designs. Here are a few for your viewing pleasure. On the way home we went by Gasworks Park and caught it with nice light on the gasworks themselves. This 20 acre point on Lake Union was cleared in 1906 to construct a plant to manufacture gas from coal - later converted to crude oil. Import of natural gas in the 1950’s made the plant obsolete. The city acquired the site for a park in 1962. The park was opened to the public in 1975. The boiler house has been converted to a picnic shelter with tables, fire grills and an open area. The former exhauster-compressor building, now a children’s play barn, features a maze of brightly painted machinery. Fun! Out and About 2008-07-06T01:20:00-08:00 http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/quotable_on_microsoft/ http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/quotable_on_microsoft/#When:18:07:00Z "Watching Microsoft in the company of Google and Facebook is a bit like watching your dad trying to be cool.” - The Economist June 28th 2008 Quotable 2008-07-04T18:07:00-08:00 http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/war_birds_part_ii/ http://www.digitalquixote.com/system/blog.php/site/war_birds_part_ii/#When:06:07:00Z Please, please click on these to enlarge ... A week ago a friend of mine and I took ourselves off to Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Museum. He has collected about 15 WW II aircraft, restored them to flying condition, and displayed them in his new museum. A couple of weekends a month, they are flown to keep them in working order. The photo above is a panorama taken inside the museum. The photos below are of some of the more interesting things you’ll see if you go. One of the things that’s interesting to me is the nose art on these planes. Just below is a caricature of Neville Chamberlin painted on a German Messerschmitt. The German translates roughly to God Punish England. Below Neville is the nose art from a German Rocket plane. It carried only 8 minutes of fuel. It was designed to fly straight up toward bombers overhead firing machine guns. It would race past them on its ascent and then dive past them on the way down again attempting to shoot them down. It had a 50% fatality rate ... which is to say, 50% of its pilots were killed flying it. Below is a Curtis P-40C Tomahawk ... one of the famous Flying Tigers. It’s interesting because Disney designed the flying tiger fuselage art you see here. One of the prettiest things in the museum is the propeller on this Curtis Jenny, below. The Mustang above has 9 kills on its record. But the record for the most bizarre aircraft has to go to the one below. Germany built V-1 “Buzz Bomb” rockets to attack London. These are similar to today’s cruise missiles but without sophisticated guidance. So even though over 9,000 were fired, only about 5,000 landed anywhere near London. Germany’s answer to better guidance was to put a pilot in them, and fly them over the channel under manual control. When the pilot had them lined up with the target, he would bail out (over enemy territory sure to be captured) and let the plane do the rest. One serious problem!  The cockpit is just in front of the jet intake. As soon as the pilot popped the canopy and started to climb out, he’d be sucked into the engine and killed. These were never successfully flown against London. Duh! Planes 2008-06-28T06:07:00-08:00