Life

Trees

/ hsoi

Nebraska City is most famous for being the home of J. Sterling Morton, founder of Arbor Day.

As you can imagine, trees are a big part of the city. Of course, just having lots of trees around, many varieties, parks, orchards, and so on. But trees are also a large part of the city commerce. Without trees, the city would not be what it is. It provides a reason for people to come to the city, a reason for visitors to spend money, thus the trees help to create businesses, to create jobs, which then allow people to care for themselves and their families. Granted, there’s a lot more to Nebraska City than trees and Arbor Day, but certainly trees are the big thing.

What I found interesting to observe was the dynamic in Nebraska City of how they regarded trees. They were not holy objects, they were not held above all, but they were respected and well-regarded because they are an important resource in many regards. They could not waste trees, they could not harm trees, trees had to be cared for and managed because without them there’d be no way to take care of themselves and their families. The people must be good stewards of the trees. They cared for the trees and the trees cared for them.

I contrast this with living in Austin.

Here, trees are holy objects, to be hugged and held above all. A large branch falls and critically injures someone in Zilker Park. The city, concerned with public safety, opts to have the trees in the parks reviewed and anything unsafe trimmed or removed. The response? The huggers freak-out, city back-pedals, call for review, many trees that should have been removed due to safety concerns are not removed; around 30 trees were to be removed, but only 5 were due to the outcry. As a result, many unsafe trees remain, and just a short while later one falls but thankfully no one was hurt.

Austin can sometimes be like this:

Yes, I’m fond of capitalism. Yes I like money. Yes I like trees. I understand the importance of trees. If we do not take care of the trees we are only going to hurt ourselves in the long run. We need to have balance, we need to take care of the trees so that the trees can take care of us. The way J. Sterling Morton works it? That’s a lot more reverence for trees than what I see around Austin.

Whispering Pines Bed & Breakfast

/ hsoi

The main purpose of the trip to Omaha was to allow my Dad some time with his grandchildren. The plan was for him to take the grandkids for a few days of spoiling. 🙂  Thus, Wife and I had to make ourselves scarce. What to do?

We went to a bed & breakfast.

Some years ago I worked at a company and there met Jeanna Stavas. We hit it off due to our common history with Nebraska. About 5 years ago Jeanna opted to leave the high-tech industry and opened up a B&B called Whispering Pines, in Nebraska City, Nebraska (about an hour drive south of Omaha). I figured that would work out great: let my Dad have the grandkids for a few days and Wife and I spend a little together time at a B&B.

We’ve never done the B&B thing before, and after this experience I think we’ll do it a lot more. It was fantastic.

The Roost

We stayed in “The Roost”, which is an old barn converted to a charming room off from the rest of the house. Everything was quiet, private, and quite nice. The pictures on the Whispering Pines website just do not do the rooms justice, and I think that’s really a limitation of the medium… how can you convey the experience in a picture?

Jeanna was a fantastic host, tending to any needs we had. She even took care of a special request I had to have some of Wife’s favorite flowers already in the room. A little wine, a little cheese, some other treats. Nothing was a problem.

Breakfast. Oh my my my my my. Simply delicious. Gourmet, but not pretentious at all. Fresh fruits, local eggs, veggies from her garden. So so so good.  Oh, and let’s not forget the constant supply of home-made cookies. Mmmm.

Nebraska City itself was pretty cool too. Wife and I actually liked just driving through the town looking at the houses… quite a contrast from your modern tract house subdivisions. Local restaurants like the Timber Room at the Lied Lodge were wonderful. Oh, and Parker’s Smokehouse wasn’t Texas BBQ but it was pretty darn good. Frankly, one nice thing was just seeing the wide variety of trees and other plants, because down in our part of Texas it’s just not as diverse. We also took in the Lewis & Clark Museum, which was really well-executed. Of course, we also did a little shopping, and there were some fantastic little shops down there.

So with all this wonderfulness there has to be a downside somewhere, right? Depends how you look at it. 🙂  We didn’t have great coverage out there, so some phone calls didn’t make it through or would drop. If we were lucky we got AT&T’s Edge network (no 3G at all) but most of the time we had the “o” (GPRS) or “Searching…” or “No Service”. Jeanna does have some Wi-Fi, but the signal doesn’t make it down to The Roost (tho you can get it up at the main house). So, lack of connectivity…. good or bad, all depends how you look at it given your reasons for going to a B&B and how badly your “Internet addiction” is. But it did point out how spoiled I am here in Austin. 🙂

All in all, Wife and I had a fantastic little get-away for a few days, and Jeanna @ the Whispering Pines Bed & Breakfast was at the heart of it all. We look forward to going back.

What’s up?

/ hsoi

I spent the past week in Omaha, Nebraska visiting family. Good times. Tiring, but good.

Lots of experiences and observations to share. I’ll type them up over the coming days.

We pulled back into the house around 1 AM. So, I just woke up. Need breakfast. Need to unpack. Got things to tend to.

Back eventually.

D GFOY EWZN YVN YVN

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

I was at the Texas Memorial Museum (also known as the Texas Natural Science Center) and there was a display case.

Inside the display case, as if someone just slipped it in (easter egg? inside joke?), was a little card that had this upon it:

D GFOY EWZN YVN YVN
OLNANQP WA YVN
YVDQS TEWWQ.

I’m pretty sure that’s an encoded message, but I have no idea what it is and I’m not a cryptographer.

Anyone know?

Score!

/ hsoi

We’ve got one of those “under-sink” water filter units. City of Austin water is fine to drink, but a little extra filtration is nice (especially when the water supply gets those algae blooms).

Trouble is, the filters cost $46. Gets expensive to replace them every 6 months. Plus the only place in town I know of that sells them is Home Depot and they’re frequently out of stock. So since it was time to replace them again, I opted to go online.

Found this website: waterfiltersfast.com.

The filters are being sold for $31. That $15 price difference is substantial! Order $99 worth of stuff and shipping is free. And no sales tax. Overall savings was huge… basically 4 sets for the price of 2. I’ll eventually use them all so no harm in stocking up.

And fast is right. I ordered on Saturday and received the “now shipping” invoice a few minutes ago. Happy happy.

How quickly it fades….

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’m always amazed at how hard it is to obtain something, but then how quickly we are able to lose it. I guess it’s a part of how the human body wants to be as efficient as possible, which means it will be hard to take on things until it can be determined worthwhile to take on, and of course the faster we can shed it the better.

Of course, the opposite seems to be the case for the fat around our middles. 😉

But I noticed it while I was very active in empty-hand martial arts. I’d work really hard to gain some skill or some level of endurance, then something caused me to drop off (e.g. injury) and how quickly I’d lose what I gained. I stopped formal empty-hand practice a little while ago and have only loosely been keeping up at home (many reasons), and I can feel it in my body. I’m itching to get back to regular formal classes and have recently started to assess how to rearrange my life to make time for that (still thinking about investigating aikido).

In the July 2010 Rangemaster newsletter, Tom Givens touches upon this in a brief article about skill atrophy:

Many times, I travel somewhere to conduct a 2-3 day handgun course, and have to spend the first half of the first day going over skills the shooters are supposed to already have. Since they have not practiced since their last class, they have lost a great deal of the skill they acquired in the last class. Motor skills involving eye/hand coordination, like shooting, require maintenance (practice). Fortunately, some of the primary skills, such as presenting the pistol from the holster, can be maintained through dry practice at home.

I forget the exact wording Mr. Givens used, but he made a clear point that it wasn’t so much the duration of your practice that mattered as it was the time relation of your practice to the time you need to put those skills into use. That is, an hour-long practice session is well and good, but if you only do it once a month is it really giving you what you need? What’s more important is the relation of your practice session to when you deploy the skills, so if you had to draw your weapon in a self-defense situation a day after that hour-long-once-a-month session, you’d likely perform well. But if it’s been 3 months since your last practice, that won’t bode well for you. Thus Tom recommended something to the effect of practicing at least 2-3 days a week thus you were never more than 2-3 days from your last practice thus things would be fairly fresh in your mind. Even if that session is just 5-10 minutes of draw and present, it was still something fresher in your mind and body than a few hours of draw and present a couple of months ago.

Of course, this is just steps to keep your level of skill from degrading. Increasing your level of skill takes even more work.

Toy Story 3

/ hsoi

Toy Story 3.

Much win.

Movie itself was good. I liked how it brought closure to the series as well. Lots of subtle things they did in the writing. For example, from the get-go you felt how things were falling apart (the “staff meeting”). Or the little jokes, “You’re an accessory!”. Some of the bigger jokes too, be it Ken or the tortilla (that had me rolling with laughter).

Very happy to have seen it. I’m sure it will be out on DVD and Blu-Ray in time for Christmas, and I’m sure all 3 movies will be packaged in some sort of special collectors series. I’m sure I’ll pick it up.

If this was a joke, it might be funny… but this is just sad.

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children,” Stephen Gardner, litigation director for the advocacy group said in a statement. “McDonald’s use of toys undercuts parental authority and exploits young children’s developmental immaturity.”

The group is the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

It undercuts parental authority?

If McDonald’s handing out toys undercuts a parent’s authority, then that parent has no authority (or backbone) to begin with. If you want to help your child develop in a mature manner, learn how to say “No” when Junior whines for a Happy Meal.

Good fucking grief.

I can’t believe shit like this is happening. These people are off their fucking rockers. I’m not saying McDonald’s is some bastion of healthy living (and frankly I think their food is rather bland), but this Stephen Gardner is way out there.

It’s never our fault and always someone else’s, especially if they’re a big corporation;we can’t and won’t take responsibility for ourselves or our children; self-control doesn’t exist.

The pussification of America continues.

BTW, CSPI is fairly well-founded as being full of shit. Witness here, and this whole website devoted to their bullshit.