Voice of Bruck News Service

An Officer and an Officer

2011-09-19T21:40:00.008-04:00

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you're certainly aware that Libya is in the throes of violent revolution, this in the wake of similar organic protests and revolts having broken out across the Middle East in what is now known as the “Arab Spring.” These protests are purportedly for greater democracy and freedom for the common people, but your faithful editor is skeptical. Notwithstanding my desire for everyone to enjoy the benefits of free, fair, and open elections should they actually result from these movements, I think it’s a bit much to expect people who have known nothing but tyranny and oppression their entire lives to make good choices, assuming they even have good options. I mean really, look at the kind of people we elect, and we’ve had generations of experience with democracy.

Too deep, Bruck, let’s talk about something funner.

Okay, today we'll discuss is an issue tangential to the aforementioned unfolding of history, something that’s been bugging me, and I’m sure you haven’t given it a second’s thought until now: (1) are there any General Officers in the Libyan army, and (2) if so, is Col. Muammar Gaddafi compelled to salute them and obey their orders? And BTW, (3) what about Colonel Sanders?

Col. Gaddafi has ruled Libya since achieving power in a 1969 military coup. Although Libya under Gaddafi has supported, directly or indirectly, numerous acts of terrorism since that time, Gaddafi didn’t show up on my personal radar screen until the mid-80’s when Libya was implicated in a bloody terrorist attack on a nightclub in Berlin, following which the US retaliated with a daisy cutter in his tent. Unfortunately, he survived, having been tipped off (Bruck believes, by the Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys^TM) beforehand. He went on to support several other terrorist acts, most prominently the 1988 bombing of Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

In recent years, Gaddafi morphed into a somewhat more responsible world citizen, forging tenuous diplomatic agreements with western democracies and coughing up restitution for the victims of some of the terrorist acts he sponsored. However, despite his efforts to improve his world image, he must have some shortcomings on the domestic front, as current events in Libya attest.

Meanwhile, you may be wondering, why the title Colonel? And for that matter, how did Harlan Sanders attain that distinction?

Prior to the 1969 coup, Gaddafi had achieved the rank of Captain in the Libyan armed forces. Following the coup, he accepted a ceremonial promotion to Colonel, and retained that rank. In 1976, he is purported to have been promoted to Major General, but accepted this only on paper and continued to use “Colonel” as his title, for tradition's sake.

Harland Sanders, aka Colonel Sanders, in case you were wondering, is a real person. I should say was; he departed for the great fryer tub in the sky in 1980 at age 90. Sanders' white-haired and -goateed, bespectacled visage still adorns the packaging and signage of the restaurant chain he founded, KFC, formerly (and for the most part still) known as Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Sanders' attainment of the title Colonel is entirely honorary; it was originally bestowed upon him by Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon (nephew of US Representative Polk Laffoon) in 1935. Sanders was “re-commissioned” in 1950 by the less absurdly-named Governor Lawrence Wetherby.

Speaking of random Colonels, another one comes to mind: Colonel Tom Parker. Parker is best known for managing Elvis Presley's career, and is largely credited with his commercial success. He also was something of a lightning rod for criticism, for demanding an overly large share of Presley's earnings, and for standing passively by while Elvis drank, drugged, and ate himself to death. To wit: Elvis is purported to have consumed two “Elvis Sandwiches” nightly in his later years. The recipe for said sandwich:

1 medium-sized loaf of white bread

1 jar of peanut butter

1 jar of jelly

1 pound of bacon, cooked.

Cut the bread lengthwise, core out some of the middle of the loaf, evenly distribute peanut butter, jelly, and bacon within.

I get heartburn just thinking about it. But another part of me wants to, just once, make one and see how much of it I can eat. I once watched a video of a fellow on a food/talk show trying to eat one – he could barely even bite off a piece of it, and succeeded in downing less than a quarter of the monstrosity. And Elvis ate two of them. Every night.

Louisiana Governor and country/gospel singer Jimmie Davis honored Parker with the rank of Colonel in the Louisiana State Militia in 1948, in exchange for work on his election campaign. (I wonder how the real Colonels felt about this.) Parker permanently retained this appellation, and was known in later years simply as “The Colonel.” BTW, Parker was a Dutch national who resided illegally in the US, having actually passed up several opportunities to attain legal citizenship, adding a touch of irony to his sobriquet.

So... 3 Colonels (I know, I promised 2, but that last one just sort of slipped in): one fighting for control of his country (and currently losing badly), one a world-renowned fast food icon, and one a somewhat ignominious illegal alien responsible for the career of the most prominent pop star on the planet (at the time – Justin Bieber hadn't been born yet and Madonna was still a virgin). The question for my faithful readers (aside from those who are actively serving in the military and therefore have a formal rank): where do you fit in? To what unofficial rank do you aspire?

Help me out, Bruck!

At your service, sir/madam. First, an overview of the US military ranks:

There are three main categories of service personnel in the various branches of the US military: Enlisted, Warrant Officer, and Commissioned Officer. Most branches have 9 levels of Enlisted rank, 5 ranks of Warrant Officer, and 10 ranks of Commissioned Officer.

The top four ranks of Commissioned Officer are Generals, or in the case of the Navy and Coast Guard, Admirals. Commissioned Officers in the drier branches also include Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel, Major, Captain, and First and Second Lieutenant; corresponding ranks in the salty services are Captain, Commander, Lieutenant Commander, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Junior Grade, and Ensign. The Army/Air Force/Marines rank of Captain being a few notches lower than that of the buoyant branches does produce the occasional moment of confusion and consternation. Likewise, a nontrivial measure of ambigusion is provided by the overloaded term “Lieutenant.”

Warrant officers are a bit less confusing – from the bottom up: Warrant Officer, Chief Warrant Officer 2, Chief Warrant Officer 3, Chief Warrant Officer 4, and Chief Warrant Officer 5.

I won't go into detail the enlisted ranks as things get really complicated, especially in the Navy, where Petty Officers (the briny equivalent of Sergeant) take on a dizzying array of titles based on relative ranks and occupational specialties. I suspect it's a game they play on us – once we figure them out, they change the rules again.

Fortunately, things are a bit simpler when informally addressing holders of these ranks. All four levels of General are referred to verbally as “General,” likewise for Admirals. Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels both answer to “Colonel,” and Major and Ensign, plus the various levels of Lieutenant, Captain, and Commander are referred to as such.

I don't have any experience with referring to Warrant Officers, but in a pinch would simply say, “Warrant Officer [surname].”

References to enlisted ranks are a bit simpler as well – Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Master Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Seaman, Airman, Fireman, Petty Officer, Chief, and Gunny should cover most of your needs.

Of course, we’re not limited to US military ranks – some additional ones, past and present, from other English-speaking countries include Field Marshal, Brigadier, Subaltern, Cadet, Cornet, Commandant, and Commodore. While many such countries also use Lieutenant, they often pronounce it “Leftenant,” causing us immediately to wonder what the “Right-tenant” is up to, haha I slay me.

Okay, Bruck, so basically you've given me a bunch of military designations that I can apply to myself in order to appear more authoritative, intelligent, interesting, and capable, or otherwise try to get some point across. But what do they really say about me? How do I choose?

General: authority, seniority, wisdom, but can also have some negative connotations such as overbearing, or possibly pushing the image a little too hard.

Admiral: similar to General, but with an endearingly archaic, crusty edge – I picture an old English naval officer with an untidy mustache, smoking a huge pipe.

Field Marshal: The grand-daddy of all titles, commanding respect from all comers. Care should be exercised in using this title, however; if you don’t actually merit the implied respect, you’ll come off like a Liberian warlord or a moronic, pot-bellied member of the Michigan Militia.

Colonel: Respectable and genial in a southern US sort of way, with just a hint of tyrannical, bloodthirsty dictator. Seems to be the honorary title of choice for a wide variety of users.

Captain: Similar to Colonel, but a bit saltier, but could possibly indicate mild derision.

Commander: I think a civilian would only use this in specific circumstances of leadership, but it wouldn't make a very good honorary title.

Commandant: A bit too Argentinean Nazi-sounding for my taste.

Commodore: Similar to Admiral, but more English; may invoke images of furniture or toilets.

Brigadier: Strength and authority, no-nonsense leadership, but could also be a good brand name for malt liquor.

Major: Not bad overall, somewhat authoritative and yet down-to-earth with a slight, but discernable flamboyance. Could be used as a superlative for something negative, however, so be careful. I once met a Major Dyke; fortunately at least he was a he.

Lieutenant: Although perfectly respectable in the military world, Lieutenant carries a gangster-like connotation in society at large; therefore I would not suggest using it unless that's what you intend.

Leftenant: Respectable, English-sounding, implying medium-level authority with a degree of wackiness.

Cadet: I don’t recommend the use of this title by non-Girl Scouts.

Subaltern: Don’t use this. It will make people thing you’re lower than an altern, whatever that is.

Cornet: Miniature trumpet. Don’t use.

Ensign: A little too specific and not carrying much import. Brings to mind “Gofer,” the character played by Fred Grandy on the penultimately cheesy Love Boat TV series.

Warrant Officer: Not a very good honorary title. Most people have no idea what they even are, and would assume you’re here to serve them a summons.

Private: Connotes humility, respectful obedience, but with an unfortunate twinge of half-assedness.

Seaman, Airman, Fireman: These can also refer to female soldiers and sailors, but in the civilian world have very specific connotations which render them useless as honorary titles.

Corporal: Not real impressive, and further ruined by association with the fabulous Corporal Klinger on the TV show M-A-S-H. Definitely don't use this if your last name is Punishment (slapping knee).

Petty Officer: This might draw some respect within military circles, particularly among those who swab decks for a living, but outsiders would tend to focus more on the word “petty” than “officer,” and therefore I proscribe its use.

Chief: Short for Chief Petty Officer, so a bit higher than same on the Bruck perceptron, but recommended only for those who sleep in conical tents.

Sergeant: Connotes working-level authority and experience. Instills confidence in a non-threatening way.

Gunny: Short for Gunnery Sergeant; an improved version of Sergeant, but may cause non-Marines to subconsciously append the word “sack.”

Master Sergeant: Although a step above Sergeant on the perceptual ranking structure, it's a bit cumbersome and may convey a bit of conceit.

Sergeant Major: Combines the perceptual effects of Sergeant and Major, but with the slight inconvenience of multiple words.

What's your new title? We can't all be Colonels, you know! Does Sergeant Major Bruck have that certain ring to it? Have some fun, but don’t get carried away like the late Uganda Dictator Idi Amin, who, despite having declared himself King of Scotland, preferred his official title: “His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.”

Amen!

Why Do I Have to Chuse?

2011-07-31T21:42:00.001-04:00

The US national elections in November 2010, which chused the 112^th Congress, resulted in a historic change in the power structure in Congress. The Democrats lost their 236 to 198 seat advantage in the House of Representatives to the Republicans, who claimed 239. Likewise, the Democrats' “veto-proof” majority in the Senate was weakened to a simple majority. But regardless of your political affiliation, I'm sure you found it as gratifying as I did, when new Speaker John Boehner (pronounced BAY-ner), upon receiving the gavel from the gracious former Speaker Nanci Pelosi, summarily pummeled her with it. Don't believe me? I have video evidence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pipyvVQ6nX4

As a gesture symbolic of the new leaders' intent to govern "by the book," representatives kicked off this year's legislative session by reading the entire US Constitution into the record. Predictably, this was met with cheers of approval and howls of derision, depending on the political persuasion of the commentator.

Your faithful editor had another reaction altogether: guilt. I realized that despite my implicit assertion of the primacy of said document as an anchor and guide for national legislation, I had not actually read it since high school, and even then, I don't exactly think I was paying attention.

So I got a copy and read it, cover to cover. Having read, or been otherwise exposed to parts of it over the years like the movie It's a Wonderful Life, I must say that there were few surprises - I pretty much already knew what was in there and what wasn't, but one thing that stuck me for the endearing genuineness: misspellings.

The Constitution was written by hand in 1787 without benefit of even a backspace key, much less cut-and-paste, spellcheck, or the smiling Microsoft paper clip. During that time, English usage was not exactly what you would call consistent either, so misspellings, alternate spellings, and outright innovations were the order of the day. Although the English language, particularly the American version thereof, is constantly evolving, a snapshot of it at any particular time will show a pretty good level of consistency in spelling, grammar, and convention. So the Constitution's malaprops look a little silly today. My favorite example is the word "chuse," which appears in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, and other places in various forms.

To me, even more striking than the writing style, however, was the underlying theme. The Framers were in the process of wrestling themselves out of the tyrannical rule of England, at the same time drawing up the rules for a brand new country, one in which they could impose their loftiest ideals and vision. They could have gone in many directions, but they chused a path of individual freedom under a constrained government. It certainly wasn't perfect (27 amendments passed, out of many thousands proposed), but applying the Costanza rule (do the exact opposite) to that of King George III seemed to be a good start.

But even freedom wasn't exactly spread evenly. Slavery was still legal, or at least not illegal, and of course slaves had no constitutional protections or privileges. Women couldn't vote either, and endured various restrictions to legal and property rights. Fortunately, through amendments and other legal processes and instruments, we've pretty much cleaned up those inequities, at least from the constitutional standpoint.

But are we really free? Comedian Chris Rock avers, with confident assurance reinforced by his audience's hearty agreement, that a man in a relationship "is only as faithful as his options." Of course there are men to whom this axiom does not apply, but none can escape the cruel hand of the Bruck Corollary: a man is only as free as his resources permit.

I don't have $400,000US in liquid assets, and I certainly would have some difficulty convincing a financial institution of my ability to satisfy the terms of a personal loan for anywhere near that amount. Therefore despite its complete and utter legality, I am not free to buy a Lamborghini. There are plenty of things that it is illegal for me to buy at any price, such as Wyoming or Diane Keaton, but for practical purposes, we may as well just add Lamborghinis and the Aaron Speling mansion to that list.

But Bruck, you seem to have no shortage of BBQ meat or radio equipment, and you take lavish whitefish-sodden vacations on the shores of the greatest of the Great Lakes, so what are you complaining about? Not complaining, just making the observation, repeating it actually as it's been made many times before, that even those things that you are free to chuse almost always require you to forgo something else. Those of you who have visited the house of Bruck may have noticed the dearth of large screen TV, or vehicles over $5K in Blue Book value, or furniture that we've actually bought retail. So even though we have a great deal of freedom in the legal sense, resource limitations dictate that we must make decisions.

Speaking of the Constitution, here's something that's not in it: the two-party system. Although it's legal, and for the most part works, it's not actually prescribed in the document. In fact, in the unamended version, the selection of President resulted from the candidate having the largest number of electoral votes, with the runner-up given the office of Vice President. Picture that happening nowadays!

Although I'm not proposing any kind of political overhaul at this juncture, the two-party system does have its drawbacks. What if you don't like either candidate or platform? You can vote for whomever you want, but at least in the national or state contests, if your candidate isn't R or D, you've pretty much wasted a trip to the local schoolhouse. I'm independent myself, so everyone argues with me, but in the spirit of full disclosure, I usually end up voting R due to my opposition to recreational abortion (this unfortunately being a largely symbolic gesture), and the general lack candidates with actual human DNA running on the D ticket. And I'm usually holding my nose while doing so. Some years ago, on the local amateur radio freq. in the Detroit, MI area, a fellow ham asked how I was going to vote in the upcoming elections (we usually stay away from politics and other religions on the air, but this was an exception). I replied that I was planning to vote for the party that's trying to destroy our country more slowly. "Me too," he replied, "straight Democrat!" Not exactly what I was thinking, but I get it.

What's the point, Bruck? No point, really, just exploring the nature of freedom and what we do with it. So please join Willie Nelson and me in the following chorus which pretty much sums it up:

Why do I have to chuse?

And see everybody luse?

Walk around and sing the bluse?

Well darlin', I refuse

The House of the Rising Sun

2011-02-05T23:04:00.005-05:00

The death of Jack LaLanne really caught me by surprise. My first thought: hasn't he been dead for like 30 years? Seriously, I remember his TV show from when I was a child, and he was old then! Nope, he lived to the ripe old age of 95 and finally hung up the gloves on January 23^rd of this year.

Of course the dead fitness guru I was thinking of is Jim Fixx, the running pioneer who died in 1984 at age 52, and who was also a fellow progenitor of the fitness movement. Fixx's untimely death of heart failure produced some controversy, causing many to question the value of jogging and cardio fitness in general. This skepticism was short-lived, however; numerous studies plus common sense upheld the relationship between longevity and fitness. Fixx's premature assumption of room temperature was attributed to genetics—his father suffered a similar demise at age 43.

And of course with Jack LaLanne, who lived a few standard deviations beyond average life expectancy, there was the usual dry humor about how he worked so hard at staying in shape and still died.

So, let's talk about something else then: The House of the Rising Sun. Not the New Orleans whorehouse or casino or women's prison, but the song.

Way back when I was in high school, I had a friend who fancied himself a Rock and Roll historian of sorts, mainly because he had bought and read a large tome on the subject. He regularly shared his arcane knowledge with us; one of his “facts” was that the song “House of the Rising Sun,” popularized by Eric Burdon and The Animals, was based on a poem penned by Beat Generation personality Allen Ginsburg, and first recorded as a song by the Detroit band Frijid Pink, later to be covered and popularized by The Animals.

This proved to be wildly incorrect. Armed with some scant wisdom of age, I no longer associate accuracy of information with the vehemence or confidence with which it is asserted, but as a tender youth of 17, I pretty much believed everything I heard, and probably repeated the incorrect information multiple times over the years.

The authorship of the original poem or song is lost to antiquity, but Alan Price of The Animals claims that it originated in 16^th century England, and was written about a Soho brothel employee. English settlers purportedly imported it to America, where it was adapted to portray a denizen or patron of a New Orleans brothel or prison, depending on the telling. Wikipedia has a fascinating article on the song, which I will not attempt to repeat here; interested readers are encouraged to look it up.

Versions of the song have been recorded since the 1930's; the closest thing to its modern version was recorded by blues legend Leadbelly in the 1940's, and later adapted as a folk song by Bob Dylan in 1962. Until then, it was sung in first person from the perspective of a young woman drawn into a life of prostitution or other crime by her gambling husband. The Animals reworked it as a folk/rock ballad in 1964, and altered the lyrics to reflect the perspective of a self-destructive young gambler following in his father's footsteps, to make it more politically correct (this was the pre-Madonna era after all). They also shortened it considerably to facilitate airplay. It was their biggest commercial success, eclipsing the version by Bob Dylan, who, to his profound chagrin, was himself informally accused of plagiarism, despite the precedence of his recording.

Frijid Pink recorded a rock and roll version in 1969, also a commercial success, in fact their only one. The band wagon being rather large, a survey of YouTube reveals that myriad pop, rock, folk, and even country stars have recorded it, including Dolly Parton. Personally, I like the Dylan version best.

Accordion to his website, Jack LaLanne, at age 45 in 1959, did 1000 pushups and 1000 chinups in 1 hour, 22 minutes. Then at age 60, he swam, handcuffed and shackled and towing a 1000 lb. boat, from Alcatraz to Fisherman's Wharf. Apparently he didn't do any heavy lifting in the intervening 15 years. Well, okay, he was growing his fitness empire (which later evolved into Bally's), writing books on nutrition and exercise, and starring in his own exercise TV show.

As the old saying goes, you can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs. Although the importance of exercise and nutrition for health and well-being are fully understood throughout the civilized world, this is a relatively recent phenomenon. LaLanne spent much of his career at odds with the medical establishment and other so-called experts who claimed that weight training would cause a man to be musclebound and suffer heart attacks, and had even more dire predictions for the women who LaLanne was encouraging to exercise.

LaLanne is dead now, may God have mercy on his soul. But his influence lives on. On the day he died, under the “workout of the day” (WOD) on our CrossFit whiteboard at the Air Force gym, someone posted his WOD for age 45: 1000 pushups and 1000 chinups. Of course, although they fully appreciated his awe-inspiring level of fitness, the under-40 crowd had to be educated on who he even was.

Also dead from today's story, in addition to the genetically-disadvanged Jim Fixx, are Leadbelly, Allen Ginsburg, and Euell Gibbons. Bob Dylan and Eric Burdon supposedly are still alive, but recent pubic appearances might cause one to question this. Maybe they should eat some pine cones and do more WODs before it's too late!

Wrap Your A$$ in Fiberglas™!

2010-12-27T14:34:00.008-05:00

A tribute to power of advertising, I read that phrase once and only once over 30 years ago, and it's stuck with me ever since (the sign used S's rather than dollar signs – just my small concession to maintaining some semblance of family-friendliness in our favorite blog). I was a young teen or pre-teen attending a swap meet or flea market of some kind in the Detroit, MI area, and saw that slogan above a booth. I remember feeling a combination of indignation and pity that the business proprietors would (1) presume to display such an rude, off-color slogan in a “family” venue (I had much higher standards back then), and (2) as full-grown adults—they were in their 20's after all—had so little class as to display same.

A headliner at this venue was one Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman from the 70's), signing autographs. I remember that I should be thrilled but wasn't exactly. Incidentally, Lynda Carter purportedly lives in the next county over from me in northern VA, along with Robert Duvall, and shoots skeet at Bull Run, one of my favorite shooting galleries.

BTW, in case you're one of my 10 or 12 regular readers, mea maxima culpa for the dearth of VOBs lately. I've been home for some weeks now, but for the preceding half year, I was in the middle east, working for Uncle Sam, about 12 hrs/day, 6 or 7 days/wk, with little time for much besides, including writing. “Happy Groundhog Day” was a standard greetings among my co-workers.

I have no idea what they were selling or what aspect of the Fiberglas™ business they were in, so maybe their advertising wasn't all that after all. I assume it was automotive or nautical, given the locality. I also assume it wasn't undershorts, as the most literal interpretation of the slogan would imply, and I'm further assuming it wasn't caskets, but if it were, I might be interested in doing some business with them some time in the future.

The Father of Bruck (FOB) is in pretty good shape for his age, and he's not in any danger of passing on from “natural causes” any time soon, In fact, if not for his sailing proclivities, he might well outlive yours truly. Y'all may recall a couple of previous VOB dispatches: Taming Lake Superior and Sailing Lake Superior, an Update.

But first, since I'm writing this part on Christmas Day, let me share with you some of my early Christmas memories. At the tender age of 3 or 4, old enough for abstract reasoning, but young enough to still “believe,” I had some serious concerns about Santa Claus:

1)How does he fit down the chimney? I knew that the chimney was only about 6” thick (I looked), far too narrow a needle for anyone with a “bowl of jelly” midsection to thread. I also could see that the chimney vents were only about 5” square at the top, but I just assumed he removed the crown before descending and replaced it upon completion of his delivery.

2)A related concern was, if Santa can get into my house via the chimney, wouldn't it also be vulnerable to robbers, thieves and other nefarious characters? We did, after all, once have a raccoon enter the house this way. On the other hand, if we ever locked ourselves out, we'd have a non-destructive way to get back in.

3)For that matter, certainly there were some good children who lived in houses without chimneys – how does Santa deliver presents to them? “He just uses the front door,” answered the Mother of Bruck to my query. Well, thought I, why the F doesn't he just use everyone's front door?

4)I had no problem with the concept of flying reindeer and pulling a sleigh (I sort of equated that with whatever magic airplanes used to stay aloft) , but I was concerned about landing on the roof. Virtually all of the roofs with which I was familiar were sloped, so how would they land there without sliding off, particularly with the standard picture postcard blanket of snow thereupon? I figured that they could achieve equilibrium by straddling the peak, but that also struck me as a rather tedious thing to do on the roof of nearly every single house containing good boys and girls.& like the front door issue, why didn't they just use the driveway?

5)I had my own set of rules about Santa, one of which was that we had to be in bed and asleep for him to come, and in particular, if we came home and surprised him in mid-delivery, this would somehow ruin things.. . somehow. One snowy Christmas Eve, riding home up Woodward Ave. from Aunt Hazel's apartment in Detroit, I remember urging my parents to hurry up and get home so we could be in bed before Santa got there. My folks tried to reassure me by confidently speculating that he was probably doing other rounds right now and would get to our house later. They failed. I didn't relax until I got home and verified for myself that he hadn't gotten there yet.

So, a pretty friggin' neurotic little tyke, wouldn't you say? No wonder I went into engineering.

Back to sailing: this past summer, the FOB and his sailing friends up in the Birch Point region of eastern Lake Superior arranged the first of what they hope to be annual “We Gotta Regatta” wherein local sailors either race or just sail in a cluster across the bay, about 5 miles, and back, and then party down. They didn't really put much thought into liability issues, but probably will next year; one sailor went over and had to be rescued, exhibiting symptoms of advanced hypothermia. He came around soon thereafter.

I had a great idea the other day. At least _I_ thought it was a great idea. I heard that my sister-in-law-in-law (SILILOB) – that would be the fine, upstanding wife of an equally exemplary mountain-climbing brother-in-law of Bruck (FUWOEEMCBILOB) – voluntarily jumped out of a perfectly good airplane not too long ago. A number of my friends and relatives have gone skydiving in the past, but it's appeal is completely lost on me. That is, until an epiphany hit me. I recently netflixed The Fight Club (a strange, strange movie, not recommended for viewers under fifty). It occurred to me that skydiving would be infinitely more interesting if you could stage a fight inside the airplane, both contenders having been fitted with parachutes beforehand. The winner would be the one who succeeded in throwing the other one out the cargo bay door. We'll call our new game “skythrowing.” Then the next contender would enter the ring for similar grappling, and so on until all participants for that flight are exhausted, whereupon the final winner may jump out the cargo door at his or her discretion. Now THAT would be fun! I might even give that a try.

And I think it would be a bit safer than sailing on Lake Superior.

The summer of 2010 witnessed a continuation of the disturbing pattern of mature sailors on eastern Lake Superior not respecting the forces of nature and coincidentally racking up big insurance claims. And in case you were wondering, miraculously, aside from the guy with hypothermia, nobody was injured.

In July, 2010, the FOB and a few friends went sailing in two boats in the eastern end of Lake Superior. The FOB had one passenger and the other pilot also had one. Against Einstein's warnings (you will recall this being a root cause in previous mishaps), the FOB turned the helm over to his inexperienced passenger who promptly upended the craft. Unforch, the architecture of said craft is not conducive to righting after capsizing, therefore they just drifted toward shore. Meanwhile, the other pilot headed back home to call the Coast Guard, who collected the sodden sailors and delivered them to CG station in Sault Ste. Marie, MI, where they were picked up and brought home by the wife of the other pilot.

Once again, the FOB and his passenger escaped injury but the boat's fate wasn't so happy. While they were drinking warm brandy, the wind and current dragged the boat across the rocks in the shallows of the next bay to the east, damaging the hull beyond repair.

Why I recommend not owning and insuring a boat in Michigan: you'll be sharing the risk pool with these guys. The insurance company covered the boat as a total loss, and allowed him to keep the wreckage for spare parts. The other boat in the above misadventure was similarly lost, covered, and scrapped out later in the summer – it was beached and battered in a windstorm.

So, what's this all got to do with wrapping one's a$$ in Fiberglas™, you may ask? Well, I got to thinking: as we discussed previously, the FOB seems to have a penchant for ignoring danger with aforementioned anatomy planted in a Fiberglas™ hull. Well, I'm thinking, when he eventually goes to that great breezy bay in the sky, whether of natural or lake water-induced causes, a suitable and lasting tribute would be to send him on his way in a Fiberglas™ casket – for one last time, wrap his, well I think you get the picture.

And for my former co-workers still toiling away in the cradle of civilization, Happy Groundhog Day!

The Cradle of Civilization

2010-06-09T15:39:00.000-04:00

The famous director Federico Fellini (how come I've never heard of him, Bruck?) once observed that there are two things that always look good on film: trains and snow. He's right of course, and so whenever I see a movie scene with a train muscling through a snowy meadow or cityscape, my first thought is, there's a cheap stunt! Well, along those same lines, a notable blogger once observed that there's one topic that always works well in a VOB column: toilets in a foreign country.

I'm currently stationed in the middle east, the exact location and some of the circumstances which compel my presence to be divulged upon my return to the blue mountains of VA. But for now, here I am toiling away in the hot sun (in the chilly air conditioning, actually) and enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells that this austere corner of the world has to offer.

Those of you with a modicum of cultural awareness probably already know that in Arab cultures, the left hand is considered “unclean,” and all business and personal contact, including eating, is to be conducted with the right hand insofar as possible. There may be some superstitious and/or religious reasons behind this, but the practical reason is that the left hand is used for personal hygiene following the act of dropping friends off at the pool. The exact mechanics of said hygiene I may never learn, but the limited information I have is that outdoors, it involves a flat stone, and indoors, it involves a hose and sprayer attachment. And no toilet paper in either place.

That's right, no toilet paper. Unless you're in an establishment that caters to westerners, you won't find TP in the restroom, so the prepared traveler brings his own. But there's always a water sprayer. Again, I don't know what the actual mechanics of using a sprayer are, but somehow it always results in the entire closet, including the toilet, ending up wet.

Another reason why I may never attain any insight into the process of laying cable and succeeding hygiene is that it appears to be an extremely private affair. Each toilet, even in the most remote camel trough, has its own fully-walled-in closet. So we'll never know – just how does one use a sprayer to clean the nether regions? What do they do about stubborn klingons? And does one just let one's pants soak up the excess water? Enquiring minds, you know!

So Bruck, when are we going to get to the toilets themselves? Any odd configurations or unusual features? Well no, not really, and this is a cultural observation in and of itself. What passes for civilization came late to this part of the world, so the pertinent apparatus pretty much went straight from flat stones to western-style commodes, with no intermediate species. But dig, not American-style ones. No, they had to go with the European style bowl, which does not sink the digestive products beneath a layer of water, preserving a path for activated methane molecules directly from said products to the olfactory nerves.

...which compels a courtesy flush, not so much for courtesy to fellow restroom patrons, but for one's own health and welfare. And this brings an aspect of the solids elimination experience that I'd wager has never mattered to you, or even crossed your mind: the temperature of the water in the bowl.

It's not quite summer yet, but the daily highs are consistently above 105 of late, and often above 110. And since it never gets anywhere near freezing all year, plumbing on the outside of a building is a common construction practice. So... a little science class here – with the hot desert sun beating down on the exposed pipes all afternoon, the water gets much hotter than ambient, which is already pretty toasty. So you're sitting there with the fresh water coursing in beneath your booteus maximus, when you realize, dang, it's really getting hot down there, and not in a good way!

I think it's important that we denizens of the western world endeavor to understand our eastern neighbors, and for those of you who have not already been here, a “hajj” to the middle east would be a highly advisable addition to your bucket list. But unless you plan to bring your own bucket, my recommendation is to consume enough Kaopectate prior to arrival as to ensure that you will never actually complete any digestive processes until you're comfortably back on home ice. As Salamu Alaykum!

Charlie Bit Me

2010-04-29T17:09:00.002-04:00

I didn't feel too bad this morning. Maybe I'm actually getting in shape. Either that, or I've grown so accustomed to waking up in the morning feeling like I've been hit by a train that I don't even notice it anymore.

Here's yesterday's Crossfit “Workout of the Day” (WOD):

1-1-1-1-1-1-1 Clean and Jerk, at or near 1-rep max.

That's it, just seven single reps of Clean and Jerk. As you can see it was a strength workout. Crossfit workouts foster fitness in several areas including: cardio, strength, flexibility, endurance, agility, speed, coordination, and balance, ...but not all at the same time. I did 175#, which puts me at the low end of those in my class who reported their score. The previous WOD was:

5 rounds of:
10 Burpees
10 Kettlebell swings
N Hang Power Cleans, where N=(6-round #) * 5, i.e., 25 in the first round, 20 in the second, etc. Definitions of the exercises are below. Young David, son of Bruck, did it with me at home. We don't have a kettlebell so we improvised.

This was more of a combined endurance, strength, and cardio workout.

To see the typical workouts that Crossfitters do, check out WODs at crossfit.com

Crossfit is a holistic fitness training regimen that merges concepts from Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics, aerobics, and basic calisthenics into short, high-intensity workouts using basic gyms and equipment. It was started in Santa Cruz, CA in 1995 by former gymnasts who at the time were on contract to train police personnel in that city. Over the past few years, Crossfit popularity has exploded; there are now approx. 1700 official affiliates worldwide, and many more unofficial affiliates and household/neighborhood gyms.

Our gym is located on the Air Force Base where your faithful editor works. Three classes meet each weekday, two before work and one at lunchtime, and the student body is comprised of service members and DoD civilians (who else would be there?). I've been doing workouts with this group since September '09, so for about 7 months. I thought I was in pretty good shape prior to that, as I regularly worked out with free weights, exercise machines, and racquetball. My first Crossfit workout informed me otherwise. It was about three days before I could walk upright and raise my arms above my shoulders.

Things have gotten better since then. Just ask the long-suffering Mrs. Bruck. I started out doing, or attempting to do Crossfit on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. My daily whining was at about 70 decibels and lasted for up to an hour at a time. I now do Crossfit every weekday, schedule permitting, and sometimes do some ad hoc workouts on the weekend. My whining is down to under 30 decibels and only last for several minutes. Some days it's barely audible.

Fortunately, there are more objective ways to quantify performance and improvement. Crossfit exercises and workouts are all designed to be measurable in some way, either in reps, duration, weight, or some combination thereof. For example, a workout may be to do as many rounds as possible (AMRAP) within a specified time interval, of a certain sequence of exercises. In this case, your “score” would be the number of rounds you completed. A component of the score may also be how much weight you used, if that applies. A more common workout is to do a set sequence of exercises, in which case your score is your total time required, with a weight dimension where applicable. And in some cases, for strength-only workouts, your score is simply the weight you were able to lift for one, or for a small number of reps.

We've done quite a number of interesting and different exercises over the past half year. Here is a sample – some may be familiar to you and some will be new:

Box Jumps – jump up onto a sturdy stool or box, then jump or clamber back down. The boxes are either 20” (recommended for women) or 24” (men) high.

Pullups – just get your chin over the bar. There are also the more difficult “chest-to-bar” pullups, which are just what they sound like. Crossfit pullups are a bit unconventional; unlike gym class pullups, where most of your body hangs limp during the exercise, in Crossfit you're supposed to kick and swing your way up. The same amount of work is done, thermodynamically speaking, but there's less strain on the pecs and biceps.

Lunges, brought to you by the Ministry of Silly Walks™: Walk, touching your knee to the ground with each step. A challenging but rewarding variation is to do this while holding a weight plate over your head.

Kettlebell Swings – a kettlebell is basically a big iron ball with a loop handle. In this exercise, you hold the ball with both hands and swing it from between your legs up to about eye level in front of you, with most of the lift power coming from your hips. I'm not going to tell you what the coach compares this to. A variation is to do it with one arm at a time.

Situps – the Crossfit variation is to lie on your back with the soles of your feet together, and alternately touch your hands to the ground behind your head and to your feet. It's okay to use the momentum of your arms, unlike the way your phys. ed. teacher probably taught you.

Pushups – regular old chest-to-deck pushups. Sometimes they do pushups with your hands in rings hanging from the chinup bar, but this really messed up my elbows last time I did it, so next time “Ring Pushups” appears in the WOD, I'm going to sit in the bleachers and claim that it's my time of the month.

Burpees (should be named, “Barfees”): From a standing position, squat down and do a pushup, stand back up, and jump, clapping your hands over your head while jumping. Sounds easy? Tell me how you feel after doing 20 of them.

Wall Balls – while standing up from a squat, throw (2-handed) a medicine ball (20# for men, 12# for women) at a target line on the wall 10' up from the floor, catch it while squatting down again, rinse and repeat.

There are several more “calisthenic”-type exercises; a brief perusal of WODs will give you a larger sample.

Then there are the weightlifting exercises. Crossfitters don't use weight machines, per se, or even benches. Sometimes we use racks, but our coach calls us sissies when we do. Generally, the weightlifting exercises consist of all or part of the Olympic weightlifting events, namely the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk. Both of these exercises start with the weighted bar on the ground and end up with same over the head with one's arms straight; the difference is how you get there, and I won't go into that here - other websites can do a far better job of explaining it than I.

We don't actually do a lot of complete Snatches or Clean and Jerks, but we frequently do components of them, such as:

Dead Lift - bar on ground, pull it up to about mid-thigh (arms hanging straight).

Weighted Squats – squat and stand back up while holding the weighted bar, either over your head (Overhead Squat), across your shoulder blades (Back Squat), or across your collar bones (Front Squat).

Cleans – various exercises that end with the weighted bar up at shoulder level.

Jerks / Presses – exercises that take the bar from shoulder level (clean position) to over the head.

+ various similar exercises with other types of weights such as dumbbells or medicine balls.

The workouts: doing Crossfit is like being married to a crackhead – every day it's a different story! The WOD, chosen or designed by the coach, typically combines a number of reps of a number of exercises, configured to work a particular set of muscle groups or emphasize a particular fitness area. Over the course of several weeks, well-chosen WODs will achieve balance over the whole body and across all components of fitness. There's supposedly a lot more to the science of workout selection and physiology, but considering what you're paying me, let's just leave it at that.

Scalability

Sounds hard, Bruck! Well it is, but fortunately, most exercises are scalable, one way or another. For the weightlifting exercises, of course you can choose your weight, or just use the olympic bar (45#), or the women's bar (15#), or the PVC pipe. The calisthenic exercises are often “body weight proportional” but even some of them are scalable. For example, with pushups, you can do them off of your toes or your knees. For pullups, you can hook a foot in a “resistance” band, which is just a big rubber band, to reduce the effort required. Or you could do “jump” pullups, in which you push off of a stool with your feet to reduce the effort. For box jumps, you can do step-ups instead of jumps, plus there are a couple of different height boxes to choose from.

There are big advantages to this scalability. For one thing, it allows a group of people with widely divergent levels of experience and ability to do the same workout together (and believe me, it's hard to conjure up the motivation to do Crossfit alone!). Also, it allows you to build up your strength while exercising through the full range of motion, which is an important concept underlying Crossfit training.

Last September, when I started Crossfit training, I could do maybe one pullup on a good day. So I started with jumping pullups. Then I graduated to the green resistance band (~75# assist), and then to the blue band (~40# assist). By about mid-January, I was doing pullups unassisted. This was actually a pretty big deal – my classmates noticed and congratulated me profusely. I felt like it was some sort of fitness Bar Mitzvah. Colleague and workout buddy Tim “went strapless,” i.e., started doing unassisted pullups, about a month ago, and again, it was a big deal. He says he thinks he might have made the transition prematurely, but you know the old saying, “once you go strapless, you can never go back!”

Notwithstanding the fact that the workouts are eminently scalable to personal abilities, there are some broadly applicable standards. For one thing, it's expected that one does the entire workout if at all possible, and does each exercise properly, operating through the full range of motion as ability permits. Then there are “prescribed” (Rx) workout levels for experienced Crossfitters. The Rx generally takes the form of a recommended weight level (actually two – one for men and one for women). My personal goal, which I met, was to get up to doing at least some Rx-level workouts by the end of January of this year. Right now I do about half the workouts at the Rx level, and for the ones I don't, I try to get as close as possible. As a consequence, since there's generally a tradeoff between speed and effort, I usually finish pretty close to last in my class. That's OK, I'm also the oldest and richest.

So Bruck, that's just great, you're now able to leap over tall buildings and catch bullets in midair, but what of it? Well, being in shape has implicit rewards, particularly in the area of general health. In fact, according to Dr. Ray Strand, while the human body can withstand and even thrive under a wide range of severe stresses and pressures, the one thing it can't sustain is inactivity. As far as my personal health goes, I haven't lost much weight per se, but have redistributed it. I'm down a couple of belt sizes, from 6 months pregnant to about 3, and my suit jackets are all getting kind of tight around the shoulders and chest. My blood chemistry, which has been problematic throughout most of my adult life, is now as good as it's ever been.. And it is occasionally useful to leap over tall buildings and catch bullets in midair.

Okay, you've got my interest, how do I sign up? Well, the downside is this: unless you've got a free deal like mine thru the DoD (thanks, taxpayers, that's very generous of you), it can be a bit pricey. Prices in health clubs around here are in the $200-$300/month range, and that's in addition to your gym membership. But on the other hand, you could do what many “unofficial” affiliates do, which is to look up WODs on the web, or even invent your own WODs, and do them yourself or in a group in someone's basement or garage. But however you do it, I want to see you doing strapless pullups by December, Private!

Life is Beautiful, Let the Bastard Live

2010-03-16T22:48:00.000-04:00

In the book of Isaiah, chapters 2 and 65, is described a world wherein peace prevails- no wars, no bloodshed, no violence. The lion shall lay down with the lamb, swords into plowshares and all that. It must be in the future, as I know of no point in history when this was the case, and it certainly isn't now. Presumably this better world will know no rape, murder, capital punishment, nor any aggrandizement of evil.

Paul Warner Powell is not a household name, at least not for households substantially outside of Prince William County, VA, and for this you should be thankful. Of all death row inmates, Powell is perhaps the least sympathetic character. Have you seen “The Green Mile?” Picture “Wild Bill.” There is no insanity or mental disability defense, nor any mitigating circumstance to reduce or remove culpability. Rather, his crimes represent the embodiment of unqualified evil. I won't glorify his actions any further by offering more detail than necessary, but for the record, what he was convicted of was raping and killing a 16-year old girl, and raping and attempting to kill her 14-year old sister, severely injuring her in the process.

Although appalling on the human side, his case is interesting from the legal perspective. He was initially convicted of the crimes, but the verdict was overturned by the VA Supreme Court. Following this, he wrote a profane, taunting letter to the Commonwealth attorney who initially prosecuted him, in which he basically admitted his guilt for the crimes, believing that his “double jeopardy” rights would protect him from further action. He was wrong; this time the trial went a little better for the people of VA, and he has been awaiting his appointment with “Ol' Sparky” ever since. If things go as planned, this appointment will occur at 9:00 p.m. on Thursday, 18 March. Happy belated St. Patrick's Day!

Like most death row inmates, Powell has applied for clemency from VA Governor Bob McDonnell, who, incidentally, argued for the people of VA during Powell's appeal process. Right now I'm thinking of a letter he wishes he hadn't sent. Although there is still time to change his mind, McDonnell, not surprisingly, has indicated that he does not intend to intervene. Meanwhile, Powell's legal team has been seeking some sort of injunction to move the clemency decision to another authority, citing conflict of interest on the part of the Governor. As for the likelihood of this happening, let's just say I hope Powell paid them in advance. But also, I hope they do fail. But Bruck, I thought you said you wanted him to live! I do, but not on a legal technicality.

Those of you who know me personally or have followed my rantings know that I am adamantly pro-life. I believe that there are just about zero excuses for killing another human, and revenge, punishment, closure, convenience, poverty, and population control are not among them. About the only circumstance in which I favor execution is where a convicted murderer shows a credible threat and propensity to keep killing. An example of this would be Ted Bundy. A counterexample would be Timothy McVeigh. I don't believe Powell rises to this level; in fact, I believe his fellow inmates would be a bigger threat to him.

I would like to clarify a couple of things: (1) I don't support commutation or parole for Powell. In fact, “breakin' rocks in the hot sun” for a few decades would be appropriate IMHO. In any case, he can't ever be free again. (2) I fully support and agree with the verdict and sentence handed down by judge and jury – Powell certainly earned execution.

So Bruck, why do you want the Governor to grant clemency? Well, if you think about it, and if you haven't, I suggest you do so now... okay, done? Mercy is the only productive response to evil. Love is the only way to quench hatred. Returning evil for evil is at best a stop-gap solution, applicable only to desperate, immediate circumstances, and even in such cases, who really wins? Evil begets evil. Where does it end?

In our society, there are very few actual opportunities to show mercy, legally, ethically, and practically. I'm not going to recommend self-destructive behavior, nor any substantial increase in risk or sacrifice on the part of myself or my neighbors. But we have before us just such an opportunity. And what would happen were we to capitalize on it? A life would be preserved, and with it a chance for redemption. I know this seems unlikely, but things could, and probably would, change over the next 20 or 30 years to allow just such a thing. OTOH, if events proceed as planned, another life will be ended, and, as indicated by Powell's lack of convincing remorse, the population of Hell is almost certain to increase by one.

Supposedly the execution will bring about closure for Powell's victims' family. To be sure, I doubt that any of us can imagine the trauma that the victims' family, and particularly the girl who survived, has experienced, and will undoubtedly continue to suffer. Certainly I can't put myself in their shoes, nor do I presume to influence their perspective. I'm just sayin'... I doubt that a dead perp vs. prison for life will make them feel any better.

So... to summarize, we have an opportunity to break one link in the chain of evil by showing mercy where none is deserved or expected, and in doing so, at least one person maintains the opportunity for redemption. Therefore my message to the Governor is:

Let the bastard live!

Northern Barbecue

2010-02-21T20:32:00.009-05:00

It's 7:30 on Sunday morning; I've been up since 5:10. I don't normally get up this early on a weekend, but today I'm smoking. I'll be smoking for the next 15 hours or so, as experience serves. Smoking a couple of pork shoulders, that is. Southern barbecue. Last night I submerged the meat in marinade, prepped the firebox, and started the smoke media soaking. So at 0515 today, after catching up on some minor personal hygiene, I touched off the newspaper under the charcoal, and set about the final preparations on the meat. At this juncture, the smokebox temperature is stabilized, the internal meat temperature has climbed to 75F, and my Occoquan river neighborhood is enjoying the aroma of roasting pork and hickory – the smoking has officially begun!

As I bask in the peaceful universe that is a calm winter Sunday morning, I reflect that I am thankful for many things. I have a good job, a good marriage and family, a nice place to live, and vehicles in the driveway that are functional and not prone to theft; I'm washed in the blood of the Lamb, and when I stumbled into my living room this morning, I did not encounter any naked strangers.

I wish I could say the same for a family (names withheld) in Woodbridge, VA, last Thursday. See “Woman finds naked man in living room” in our local fish wrapper for details. To make a short story short, a woman and her children encountered a naked man, one William Eduardo Avila (William? Must be of Anglo-Norman descent), who has been read various charges and is now contemplating his transgressions in the county correctional facility.

Firebox prep: I lined the firebox with wadded-up newspaper, upon which I assembled a pile of charcoal briquets. I normally use the News & Messenger, newspaper of record for Prince William County, and the Washington Post (motto: All the classified leaks that are fit to print) but any newspaper will do. I recommend not using shiny newsprint or magazines, nor do I recommend lighter fluid. For charcoal, I use just plain old standard Kingsford briquets, with no additives (e.g., Match Light, etc.). BTW, Kingsford Charcoal was originally named Ford Charcoal, after none other than Henry Ford, who helped found the company. Ford and his relative E.G. Kingsford auspiciously started in the 1920's by making charcoal from wood scraps left over from Model T production.

Let's talk about fire for a moment, shall we? There are many opinions on all aspects of smoking technique, and if you want all of them, I invite you to consult the almighty Internet and buttonhole local BBQ chefs as I have, but since you're here on the VOB, what you'll get is my opinion, informed by literally months of experience. Charcoal is the foundation for the fire that will burn for 12 to 15 hours. I use briquets for “baseline” fire, and hardwood (“lump”) charcoal for flavor and heat control. Briquets tend to burn cooler and steadier, while hardwood charcoal is hotter but more subject to extremes (gets hotter faster but burns out and cools faster). You can make a fire completely from hardwood charcoal, but it will require a bit more attention to manage the smokebox temperature. The United States Constitution guarantees protection of your right to make a fire entirely of plain old wood if you're so inclined, but that would be really difficult to control and frankly, I've had substandard BBQ from a pure wood fire.

Speaking of smoke, I use mainly hickory and apple, “tweaked” with pistachio shells and mesquite. Except for the shells, I usually just buy wood chips and chunks from the local Home Depot or Lowe's, but also harvest hardwood from my backyard. Most any hardwood will do, but some are better than others for various applications, and some are completely unsuitable. For example, elm is contraindicated, for reasons I've yet to ascertain, and yellow poplar produces bitter smoke, which is unfortunate, as I have a bunch of it. Don't use any softwood, which is to say pine and other conifers, as it produces creosote which makes the meat taste bad and can increase your risk of contracting a terminal illness. I've used maple, ash, oak, and hickory from the back 40, but alas, my wood supplies of all but pine and yellow poplar are depleted. The technique to make smoke is to soak the media in water, then add it to the fire periodically. Some BBQ chefs say you should only smoke for the first few hours, while others indicate smoking throughout the process; I do the latter, but if your supply of smoke media is limited, concentrate on smoking during the first few hours when it will be more effective. BTW, if you do harvest your own wood for smoking, make sure of two things: (1) it's aged, i.e., not green, and (2) it is not diseased, rotten, or otherwise adulterated. For that matter, lumber is generally not recommended, even if you know what kind of wood it is, as it may have been treated with, or been exposed to, preservatives and other chemicals.

Speaking of naked musicians in the laundromat, several years ago, my uncle in northern MI (cousin actually, but more like an uncle due to generational distance), a state politician with diverse business interests, was contacted by local authorities indicating that they had removed a naked polka band from his laundromat. They, along with the local media and opinion, suspected a publicity stunt, but my uncle claims that he had nothing to do with it. I believe him; his statement to the Mother of Bruck: “They call me every time the change machine runs out of quarters. They call me every time the vending machine is out of detergent. They call me when they run out of paper towels in the restroom. But when naked people are playing polka music in my laundromat, does anyone call? No!”

Apparently, this was not an isolated incident; in another story from the same area, we read:

"Naked musician briefly in trouble,” By Matt Helms, Knight-Ridder News Service: A naked man who played an accordion while four friends danced partially dressed in a Laundromat in Michigan's Upper Peninsula has learned his lesson, authorities said Wednesday, and neither he nor his friends are likely to be charged.

The five, believed to be students at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, had faced disorderly conduct charges. When Hancock, Mich., police responded to a complaint early Saturday morning, two men and two women were dancing in their underwear to the music of the accordionist, who was naked.

Police said the man, a graduate student from Brazil, told them, 'I can't play the accordion unless I'm completely nude.'

Neither can I. Well, I can't play it clothed either.

Anyway, note that the smoking media itself is combustible and therefore has an impact on the temperature of the fire, so take that into account as you add it.

Hardware: There are several different styles of smoker, but “seasoned” professionals advise using the “offset” configuration, which consists of a sideways, barrel-shaped smokebox with a firebox connected to the lower half of one side and a chimney on the top of the other side. This allows cooking by having the smoke evenly traverse the meat in a sideways direction. I place steam/drip pans under the meat to help regulate the internal temperature and keep the meat moist.

Temperature control: The importance of temperature control is paramount; in fact, it's probably the single most important element of good BBQ. I place a cooking thermometer in the middle of the smokebox and try to keep the temperature thereof at about 225F, tolerating fluctuations between about 190F and 240F. So Bruck, why don't you just cook it in the oven at 225F and douse the meat with Liquid Smoke? You could do this, but I can't be held responsible for what might happen afterward.

When it comes to crime and punishment, I generally see things more from the perspective of the victim than the criminal. So I'm always encouraged when I see crime victims take matters into their own hand, as in the following case: Woman, 88, gives naked intruder the ‘squeeze’ The title pretty much summarizes the whole story, but in case you need the details and don't want to trouble yourself to click and read, he did escape her grasp, only to be caught by police later, not far from the scene of the crime.

Marinade: I employ a variation on “Grandma's” (MILOB's, actually) marinade. I use a half gallon of apple juice, a few glugs of soy sauce, half a bottle of red wine (no need to get fancy here; two-buck Chuck will answer the mail), salt, sugar, garlic powder, and minced onions. This time I also poured in a pitcher of iced tea; we'll see if that made a difference. I add water to ensure that the meat is entirely covered with marinade, and let it sit overnight in the fridge. In the morning, before putting the meat on the smoker, I rub the entire surface of it with ground pepper. This time, I also rubbed it with garlic powder and minced onions as I forgot to put them in the marinade last night. Don't throw away the marinade! After removing the meat, I pour the used marinade into the drip trays in the smoke box, for added flavor.

Meat: Today, we're talking about southern BBQ, which is to say smoked pork, or “pulled pork.” Similar techniques may be applied to Texas BBQ (brisket) and other meats, but my main “Northern BBQ” specialty is pulled pork. The cut to use is pork shoulder, which is the shoulder and upper part of a pig's front leg. Normally it would be a tough, chewy hunk of meat, being full of connective tissue, as it's a load-bearing, working muscle, and its price reflects this, at around a dollar a pound, plus or minus. The shoulder is normally cut into two pieces, the lower part being the “picnic ham,” and the upper part sporting the curious moniker, “Boston butt.” Aficionados generally prefer the Boston butt, which is slightly more expensive, but I favor the picnic ham as it has more bone and generally comes with attached skin which makes for great home-made pork rinds. Either cut is fine; in fact, today we're cooking Boston butts as that's all what the tolerant and supportive WOB could find at BJ's last week. I like to get one in the 9- to 10-pound range; larger ones take too long to cook, and smaller ones are, well, smaller. I usually cook two at a time, as my smoker has the room and it's no more effort; the only extra variable cost is the nominal price of the meat itself. BTW, for planning porpoises, after the fat melts off and the bone is removed, you'll get about 50% of the original weight in actual pulled pork.

Technique: Place the meat on the smoke box grate, fat side up, with a drip/steam tray directly underneath. Put your meat thermometer probe into the center of the thickest part of the meat, away from the bone. Cook until the meat reaches 190 to 200F, remove from heat, let it sit about a half-hour to 45 minutes covered in foil, then shred the meat manually, using meat forks and knives. If you've done everything right, it should fall apart easily. If not, it will still taste good, but may require a bit more than perfunctory chewing. The outer surface, or “bark,” will be black or dark reddish-brown, and has a stronger smoke flavor – try to mix the bark and inner meat evenly while shredding.

Here's one thing that will perplex the newbie: the plateau. For the first four to six hours of smoking, the meat temperature will rise, pretty much linearly with time, but once it hits about 160F, it stops rising, and even falls sometimes, for the next four or more hours. What's happening here is the magic of BBQ. During this time, the heat energy is consumed in converting the connective tissue, which is mostly collagen, into nice, tender gelatin and fat (disclaimer: it's a lot more complicated than this and I'm not a biochemist). So be patient and just keep the fire going. At this time, I adjure you to resist the temptation to turn up the heat. The conversion process takes time, necessitating the “low and slow” cooking process. After the collagen conversion process completes, the temperature will start rising again. So pay attention, as you don't rightly know when this will happen.

Inspiration: You can't accomplish anything productive without inspiration. For mine, I'd like to acknowledge three FOBs. Father of Bruck makes a perfect grilled steak. Although I try to recreate his technique, I've never been able to reproduce the outcome. But his example serves to inspire me to excellence in my own forays into manly cooking. Two Friends of Bruck, both named Chris, also serve as inspiration. The local Chris taught me the basics of southern barbecue, and generally enlightened me as to the existence of the technique and products thereof. Another Chris, a former co-worker in MI, probably has no idea that southern BBQ exists, much less his part in my exploration thereof; he's a homebrewer (of beer, not radio equipment, settle down Evan). He's also a scientist, as is his wife, who works in the medical field. Between them, they have substantial laboratory experience, and Chris claims that his ability to make clear, tasty pilsner, as opposed to the yeasty slurry that most neophyte homebrewers produce, is due to his and his wife's strict adherence to process and keeping all tools and equipment clinically sanitary. And of course, much of my inspiration comes from our many dinner guests who provide positive feedback by going for seconds, thirds, and fourths!

So Bruck, why do you call it “Northern Barbecue?” Allow me to illustrate: my last rambling diatribe was written while in the throes of the Snowpocalypse™; in fact, you may recall that I did some smoking on the day after the storm. It's been melting quite a bit, but there's still plenty of global warming all over the place. Meanwhile, last Friday at work, I was making small talk with a co-worker who averred that he was looking forward to warmer weather so he could start barbecuing again. DOES NOT COMPUTE flashed through my brain until I comprehended the implication that southerners don't barbecue in the winter. Then during last night's preparations, it occurred to me, this is probably the first time in history, at least in a southern state, that someone has shoveled snow off of his smoker in preparation for immediate use.

And of course the other question I'm sure you're asking right now is, how can I get me some of that good stuff? Answer: you'll have to come to VA, but be advised, we have a dress code here. Unless you're really good friends with the chef, you'll have to wear clothes.

Shutdown Musings

2010-02-11T21:42:00.007-05:00

I don't miss Michigan quite as much this week. We in the Washington DC / Baltimore / Northern VA region have had 3' +/- of snow dumped on us over the last week. Note - that's feet, not inches. And for the benefit of my readers familiar with different measuring systems, that's about 1 meter, 1/220 of a furlong, or 2/11 of a rod. Where I'm at, which is near Manassas, VA (population 40,000, 2 Walmarts, 3 gun stores, 5 pawn shops), we got about 28” last Friday and Saturday, and another 7” or 8” between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Most services, including the DC region of the Fed. Gov't, have been closed this week (as I write, it's Thursday, 11 Feb., and Friday's kind of iffy at this point. Most people by now have their electricity back, and most driveways are cleared, but as I understand, the major roads just aren't ready for high traffic volumes yet.

We've been lucky, all things considered. We only lost power for one night, and then only momentarily thereafter, just enough to un-set the digital clocks a few times. Shoveling has been a daily chore since last Saturday; I finally decided to concede to my back pain and take today off. Our driveway is clear and we have been gradually taking some of the snow off of our roof to ease the pressure thereupon. I would have been content to just let it melt off (our roof is mostly flat; such is generally rated to handle four feet of snow, believe me, I looked) but the wife and son of Bruck (WASOB) were paranoid following the collapse of the ice rink where said SOB, until recently, was working. He has a few friends from the rink who find themselves abruptly unemployed.

We lost a couple of trees. One was a pine in the front yard that was already listing about 30 degrees off normal, so that was no surprise. Cutting it up was a bit of a challenge though – I have pretty good chainsawing skills, but maneuvering the Husqvarna in 3'+ snowdrifts challenged my inner Finn. Another pine fell from the walking trail next to our backyard onto one of my small maple trees, reducing its size by about half.

So Bruck, what have you been doing with yourself? Sunday, I smoked a turkey and a London Broil (actually a hunk of sirloin something or other for use in the venerable London Broil). Both came out great. I did plan ahead by putting the smoker where it was accessible from under the deck overhang prior to the big storm; that way I only had to knock the snow off the top of it and fire it up.

Did some hunting Tuesday. We use a friend's property in Catlett, which is west of Manassas. It's normally a pretty leisurely stroll, but the couple feet of snow in the woods made it quite a workout. We didn't see a single deer, nor any married ones (haha just seeing if you were asleep), but I did manage to sanction a rabbit (don't tell mom) which now resides in my freezer minus skin, head, feet, and viscera. BTW, I harvested it with my snubnose 38 revolver, not my deer rifle. That would have been unsportsmanlike, IMHO. I've also been doing some blogging, as you may have noticed, and today I've been reading an interesting book: We Almost Lost Detroit by John G. Fuller, 1975.

I sort of inherited this book from a late neighbor of my parents. This neighbor was a singularly interesting character; I'll just leave it at that – anything short of a full blog entry on him would not do him justice. Anyway, the guy to whom the illustrious neighbor bequeathed the house wanted nothing to do with the mountains of junk that said neighbor couldn't take with him, and this interesting book was part of the detritus.

When I picked it up, I thought the book would be about something cultural or historic, perhaps related to the race riots of the late 60's, but it's actually about an accident or potential accident of some kind at the Fermi nuclear plant south of Detroit in 1966. I'm only partway through it, but a few interesting things have popped out at me so far:

The governor of Michigan during the 1950's was named “Soapy.” (From Wikipedia: his name was actually G. Mennen Williams, but he went by “Soapy” as his family was in the personal products business. The “Mennen” part of his name, BTW, is the same as that of Speed Stick fame.)

The population of Detroit in the 50's was at or near 2 million.

They had no idea what they were doing with nuclear power in the 1950's. I mean literally no idea. We're lucky we didn't have a dozen Chernobyls.

A stellar example of realtime engineering (context – how strong do we need to build the containment vessels?): “It was thought that a 35-foot telephone pole weighing 1600 pounds, going 150 miles per hour, could be slammed against a nuclear power plant building by a tornado, and that the containment shell should be designed to withstand this. When it was discovered that it was practically impossible to design for such a contingency, the criteria were relaxed so that the shell would only have to protect against a 4-inch by 12-inch wooden plank.” (p. 40)

And this PR gem (AEC stands for Atomic Energy Commission, which is the precursor for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC); the context was the publicizing of a study of the effects of fallout: “...an exuberant AEC public information man once tried to soften the ugly potential for fallout by defining the radioactive poisons as 'sunshine units,' ...” (p. 58)

So... I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the book, and have a renewed interest in nuclear power in general these days as it appears to be part of the current administration's energy policy, as a viable means of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels imported from countries full of people that harbor sentiments bordering on antipathy toward us. Meanwhile, dramatic as the book is, Detroit has not suffered any significant exposure to radiation from nuclear power plants. So... what did cause Detroit's population to plummet from its peak of nearly 2 million to its current level of about 900,000???

Manly Hobbies

2010-01-10T20:50:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers: today's subject is bound to offend at least some of you, therefore we humbly request that you read it in the lighthearted spirit in which it was intended. We do not presume to turn back decades of cultural feminization, nor do we prescribe anything for the rectification of individual cases of unmanliness; instead, we hope to have a good time and hopefully not at the expense of anyone who doesn't deserve it.

I came across the following gem the other day, in the usual fashion, which is to say accidentally while looking up other topics: 45 Manly Hobbies.

This is from a website called “The Art of Manliness,” which seems to have been created and edited by someone channeling the spirit of a 19th century homosexual, but let's not dwell on that for now. The article provides a list of 45 “manly” hobbies, and gives a description of each, and in some cases a rather anemic attempt at justification.

I copied the list below from that article (excerpted in the spirit of Fair Use; you can go to the website to read the entirety of the article, which, frankly, doesn't give me a great deal of confidence in the author's manliness), and added my own commentary. Disclaimer time! Just because a hobby isn't manly doesn't mean a man shouldn't pursue it, and likewise, pursuing a hobby that's not manly doesn't necessarily raise your estrogen level. Also, ladies, don't take this wrong – if you pursue a manly hobby, more often than not it actually enhances your femininity. Except in the case of Ham Radio.

Please also note that I just copied the list from the article; it's certainly not a comprehensive list of manly hobbies and pursuits. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that you'll think of several others after reading this one.

So, without further ado:

Chess – neutral, and a bit too tedious for my tastes. Sure, more men than women play it, but you don't see too many Charlton Heston types donning their chess helmets for an afternoon at the tables. (0)

Ham Radio – semi-manly (Bruck's a ham, BTW). I would say the manly part is the independence and emergency / survival aspects of it, not so much talking to old men in Kentucky about their latest surgery. (6)

Reading – neutral. I read about one book a year. (1)

Playing the Guitar – semi-manly (one of Bruck's pursuits). There are some pretty wimpy guitar players out there, but OTOH, there is no better way for a poor boy to get some attention from members of the fairer sex. (5)

Ballroom Dancing – not. Why is this even on the list? (-5)

Woodworking - fairly manly. A little too artistic to be extremely manly. I once carved a nice stock for a .22 rifle from a piece of oak, with the help of one of my fine BILOBs. (6)

Gardening – neutral. Key to independent survival, but more women do it, so...? (-1)

Classic Car Restoration – pretty manly, although muscle cars and off-road vehicles are more manlier. (5)

Metalworking – a manly profession, but too esoteric as a hobby to be considered genuinely manly. Plus, there's a huge but unspecified difference between artistic metalworking and forging engine parts. (2)

Marksmanship – manly. And don't forget about skeet shooting and ammo reloading (other Bruck hobbies, thank you very much) (10)

Collecting – neutral. Collecting what? Butterflies? Smith and Wessons? Too tedious in any case to be really manly. (-1)

Camping/Backpacking – manly but also somewhat feminine. (4)

Ship in a Bottle – what? This may have been manly 150 years ago. (0)

Hunting – manly (another Bruck pasttime). Some hunting is manlier than others, generally in proportion to animal size or lethality. (10)

Fishing – manly (Bruck does this too, but not very well) (8)

Whittling – about as manly as whistling. (1)

Geocaching – whatever, dude. From the original article's description, I wouldn't call this so much manly as idiotic. (-2)

Sports – generally manly, but also can be feminine. (4)

Model Building – boyly (1)

Leatherworking – semi-manly; a little too artsy to be completely manly, plus the S&M angle of this medium cancels out some of the manliness. (3)

Bowling – I can never find a ball at the bowling range with big enough finger holes, so how manly could it be? (1)

Archery – semi-manly: bow-hunting definitely, but target archery... get a gun and make some noise! (5)

Letter Writing – not unless you use a really manly stamp for your sealing wax, haha, just seeing if you're still paying attention! (-5)

Martial Arts – fairly manly from the a$$-kicking angle, but it's somewhat mitigated by the extreme discipline and eastern religious themes. (4)

Hiking – manly but also womanly. (5)

Alcohol/Cigar/Pipe Smoking Connoisseur – semi-manly, but can be abused by manly wannabes. (4)

Photography – neutral. (1)

Pool/Billiards – vaguely manly but somewhat seedy. Sort of like chess in polyester. (2)

Mountaineering – manly, but paradoxically seems to be more popular in less-manly locales. (7)

Cooking – most cooking is feminine but it could be manly if done outdoors and not with a gas grill. (3)

Blacksmithing – hey guys, let's grab a few brewskies and do some blacksmithing! What? (0)

Flying – fairly manly, but not exactly within reach of the vast majority of otherwise manly men. (5)

Magic – homo (-7)

Learning a Foreign Language – neutral. Except for continental French, which is exceedingly unmanly. (-1)

Card Playing – context-dependent manly. Poker in a smoky room vs. bridge in the solarium. (5)

Blogging – not particularly manly (another Bruck interest, you may have noticed). (-2)

Paintball – boyly (0)

Fencing – homo (-3)

Beer Brewing – manly. (8)

Drawing and Painting – not. (-2)

Amateur Astronomy – neutral. (1)

Genealogy – neutral (1)

Adventure Races – wannabe manly (2)

Knitting – unless you're talking about knitting a silencer for your 45, get this off the list! (-10)

Computer Programming – neutral (Bruck does this too). (1)

You have probably already figured out that the parenthetical numbers at the end of each line indicate the “manliness” score for that hobby. To compute your score, simply add up the numbers for the hobbies that you pursue on a regular basis. For those which you do, but only rarely, divide the manliness score by two. And if you noted some odd numbers and felt a twinge of fear at having to compute and add fractions, subtract 5 from your total score.

Scoring:
over 60: extremely manly and possibly also severely ADD
30-60: typical American knuckle-dragger
10-30: might want to up your dosage of Viagra
under 10: if you're not already a girl, you might consider a sex change.

Let me know how you did, and I'll tell you my score.

Deconstructing the Teleprompted Bloviator

2009-12-31T18:54:00.002-05:00

A reader asked me to comment on President 0bama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. This was in response to an earlier column in which I explained why I felt that the idiot messiah (did he just say idiot messiah?) should turn it down – not that he hadn't earned it, which he hadn't and certainly never will, but that it was a thinly-disguised bribe. Well guess what, he took the bribe, and now we have to spend the next (dear God please not more than) three years with him living up to his side of the bargain.

I was not too keen to take on this assignment as it would require me to actually read the speech. I can't stand listening to the guy – his voice gives me the same cold, clammy feeling as slick willie's - so naturally I didn't get it the first time around. Here's a link to it if you're inclined to read it for yourself, which I don't recommend doing within an hour following a meal.

It's a somewhat passable speech, as speeches go, IMHO. Were it delivered by a legitimate world leader who actually meant it, some parts of it would actually be pretty good. But to be clear, I don't believe that zero (a) had any idea what was in the speech before it showed up on his teleprompter, (b) meant a word of it (or even knew what it meant – he's no Alfred Einstein you know), except “the great religion of Islam,” while he was reading it, nor (c) remembered a syllable of it after its conclusion.

The good parts:

- The fact that he admits right up front that he doesn't deserve it.
- Observations about the seriousness of war
- Generally optimistic message about how we should strive for peace

The bad parts:

- The fact that, right after admitting he didn't deserve it, he didn't end the speech immediately and hand the medal back to the Nobel committee.
- Page after page of self-righteous navel-gazing, lifted directly from college sophomore humanities textbooks
- His reference to the global warming hoax, which has now morphed into “climate change” as the “globe” quit “warming” quite some time ago.
- Using “the Crusades” to implicitly equate Christians with violent radical Muslims (are those darned crusades ever going to end???).
- His inaccurate assertion that the Golden Rule is at the heart of all major religions. Wrong. It's only in the New Testament. Some similar teachings appear in the Old Testament (“love your neighbor as yourself”), plus some other non-J-C religions, but guess what, not in Islam! The best they can do is prescribe reciprocity to fellow believers.

But don't just take my word for it, read it for yourself. Why should I be the only one around here to suffer?

The most telling thing to me about the speech, and of course it comes as no surprise, nor would it to anyone with a modicum of spiritual awareness, was not what was in the speech, but what wasn't:
1)God's part in mankind's redemption
2)A transcendent moral system
3)America's connection to 1 or 2 above.

1)He did mention God a few times actually, but only in the negative context of contention between adherents of religions with different gods. And of course religion was mentioned a few times as well, mainly in the context of its supposed part in armed conflict.
2)It was a deliberately secular speech, whose only mention of a moral framework was one devised by man – if we would only try harder, so to speak. No mention of any God-inspired moral order that may transcend man's abilities and aspirations, nor for that matter, any mention of transcendent evil. Whether or not the kenyan believes in these things himself, he knows better than to bring it up in front of his taskmasters on the Nobel committee!
3)And of course, the worldwide apology tour goes on unabated. There were a few defenses of America, but purely in the pragmatic context, and certainly with no mention of how our relative power and prosperity might have something to do with our faith and values.

Finally, the one statement whose absence I was dismayed to observe: “I respectfully decline your flagrant bribe disguised as a venerable 'peace' prize. I intend to execute my responsibilities and authorities as President of the United States and Commander in Chief of its armed forces for the remainder of my term in office unshackled by influences from your committee or any other anti-American cabal.”

Oh well, maybe next time.

Never Mix Argyle and Paisley

2009-12-05T14:35:00.004-05:00

Does anyone remember Michael Nifong? If not, I apolgize for dragging his sorry butt back up! He was the District Attorney for Durham County, NC, who in 2006 contrived a case against three Duke University students in order to bolster his own political career. In it, he alleged that the students (all white and from affluent families) raped a (black, poor) exotic dancer (stripper) at a college party. When I first heard about this, my BS detector started deflecting slightly off the lower stop, but for totally subjective reasons – I knew plenty of white, affluent frat boys from my college experience (which, admittedly, was more than five years ago), and that kind of insanely antisocial behavior, or anything else that would affect one’s chances of landing a good position in the financial sector or a prestigious law school, was exceedingly unlikely on their part.

The entire nation watched intently as the case dragged on for over a year, and Mr. Nifong successfully exploited the case to get himself re-elected as prosecutor, meanwhile trashing the reputations, and financially draining the families, of the accused young men. The case was never particularly strong; there were no witnesses other than the accused and accuser, and the scant evidence provided as much argument against the accuser as for her (I won’t go into detail other than to say that if I did, this would no longer be a family-friendly blog). Nonetheless, politics and sensationalism were winning over justice and reason, and things didn’t look too good for the beleaguered students until…

…until it was revealed that Mr. Nifong committed some serious malfeasance by withholding exculpatory evidence, at which point the case failed, and ultimately Mr. Nifong was removed from office, disbarred, penalized, briefly jailed, and was himself driven to bankruptcy. His name lives on in ignominy as a passive verb, i.e., to be “Nifonged” is to be falsely accused in order to benefit the direct or indirect accuser.

Glad we got that over with!

Or did we?

I personally believe… that the entirety of western civilization is being Nifonged right before our very eyes. We are being accused of destroying the Earth by our lifestyles and very existence, and in particular, by our use of various forms of energy. And as penalty or remedy, depending on your perspective, a complete reversal of our economic system is indicated, with a small number of people (including a former VP with a rather large carbon footprint) slated to rake in billion$.

Disclaimer: I think we all agree that conservation and good stewardship of the environment are worthy pursuits, and reduction of pollution and decreasing dependence on foreign oil are laudable causes deserving our attention and effort.

I spent the early part of my professional career deeply buried in data, attempting, through various statistical and computational means, to extract information and knowledge from it. My application was confined to automotive diagnostics and quality control, but the basic scientific method applies to any empirical (data-driven) field of endeavor, including global warming:

1) form a hypothesis

2) test the hypothesis

3) arrive at a conclusion which either proves or disproves the hypothesis

4) write a bunch of papers, get them published, discuss them at conferences in interesting cities, and burn through the rest of your grant money on expense account meals and drinks

The last part of step 4 is optional, BTW, but is never omitted in practice.

Step 2, test the hypothesis, involves several activities, including research of existing knowledge on the subject, physical derivations, experimental design and execution, data collection, modeling (developing mathematical representations of the system being studied), and statistics. Step 2 is by far the most thinking- and labor-intensive, and generally consumes nearly all of the researchers’ attention. In this step, the researcher must employ strict discipline and near pathological open-mindedness in order to form and execute valid tests.

Steps 1 and 3, form a hypothesis and arrive at a conclusion, are generally pretty straightforward, so much so that it may escape notice when they are skipped or executed out of order, as is the case with “climate science.” First, it would appear that no hypothesis has been produced. Second, the conclusion that human activity is causing the Earth’s temperature to rise, and will foretell the end of civilization as we know it, was arrived at well in advance of any study--apparently by the same guy that invented the internet. Tests were then devised and data collected to support this foregone conclusion.

Now if you get all of your news from conventional outlets, you may have missed the latest “climate change” news: a large cache of e-mail and document files from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) was hacked and disseminated, revealing a disturbing pattern of falsifying data and models, stacking the deck on “peer reviews,” and repressing any competing viewpoints in an effort to produce an apparent scientific basis for man-made global warming.

“Never heard of them,” you might say. That would have been true for me too, until a few weeks ago. I’ve since learned that the findings of the “scientists” at the CRU are the ones used almost exclusively by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which informs the Kyoto Protocol and God-only-knows-what they’re going to come up with at the Copenhagen climate summit later this month.

Mind you, inept application of the scientific method does not necessarily invalidate or nullify the conclusion; it just means that we can’t yet prove it via the underlying hypotheses (if there even were any). If scientists at the CRU had stopped there, they would simply be guilty of plying their trade really, really badly. In the community of “climate scientists,” this would put them at about average.

However, the release of these documents, supposedly by a clever hacker, reveals a level of misconduct far beyond sleeping through high school science class. These documents reveal a deliberate attempt to conceal evidence that man-made global warming is not even happening, and to improve upon / cherry pick existing data to support the conclusion that it is.

You may be wondering, how could they get away with this? Isn’t there a peer-review process? Don’t scientists get to criticize each other publicly, and debate the strengths and weaknesses of conclusions before they make their way into public policy? In most fields, yes. This occurs mainly in step 4 (dissemination), during which steps 3 (conclusions), and 2 (methods) are challenged and defended (or not) in the public forum. But not in the field of “climate science.” It would appear from the released documents that not only was evidence tampered with, but the peer-review process was also tainted via selective reviews and deliberate attempts to silence any competing work. Further, any “unfriendly” attempts to obtain data and models via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) were thwarted.

Let’s wind things back to the basics for a moment, with a few fundamental questions for consideration before embarking on the scientific method:

1) is global warming happening?

2) is it the result of human activity?

3) can we do anything about it?

4) should we do anything about it?

5) if so, what?

Questions 3 through 5 depend on the answers to 1 and 2, so let's look at 1 and 2 first.

The answer to question 1, is global warming happening, is assumed by the prevalent media/political/academic establishment to be yes, but in fact many indicators express cooling over the last 10 years. Furthermore the data that purportedly demonstrates a long-term warming trend is pretty spotty at best.

The answer to question 2, is it man-made, also normally assumed also to be yes, is equally inconclusive, as we’ll discuss later in this missive.

The arrogant answer to 3 is yes, with the assumption that if we can turn Earth's thermostat up, we can turn it down as well.

The answer to 4 is yes, "obviously," we have to "save the Earth!" And the real red meat for politicians and other opportunists lies in the answer to 5 - what to do about it. The answer to that is pretty much anything they want to do, which miraculously always takes the form of consolidating power and wealth to themselves and their political allies, and the eradication of freedoms enjoyed by most of the western world, go figure.

Let's take a look again at question 1. If the CRU claims that global warming is indeed happening, it should be easy enough to look at the raw data and verify it for ourselves, right? To be sure, computing the Earth’s average temperature is not like falling out of bed. For one thing, it has a very low signal-to-noise ratio—it’s hard to measure climate with all that weather going on. Also, monitoring locations tend to change over time – for example, weather stations at airports which used to be out in the country are now surrounded by urban sprawl, with its attendant effect on temperatures. And of course, the calibration of any measurements taken before the early 20^th century is suspect. Overcoming these obstacles requires grueling analysis of copious amounts of data, but hey, we can handle it. Just give us the raw data; after all we paid for it, right…?

Well, funny story, IT'S GONE! The CRU disposed of the raw data! (Or at least they claim to have done, who believes anything they say at this point?). But they’re happy to share their improved, processed data, step right up, folks... Now dig, I completed my Master's Thesis in electrical engineering in 1991 on the topic of artificial intelligence applied to engine diagnostics, and guess what, I STILL HAVE THE RAW DATA! I don't ever intend to look at it again, but I do still have it around somewhere.

One function of my current job is teaching classes in business process improvement, which includes some applied statistics. In this class we emphasize that correlation does not imply causation, i.e., if two variables behave similarly, or appear to have some relationship, you can't assume that one is causing the other. When someone observes that crime and ice cream sales in New York tend to be proportional to each other, you wouldn’t conclude that one is causing the other. They may both be responding to an unnamed third variable, e.g., the weather, or the correlation may be entirely coincidental. This little bit of malpractice, that is, using correlation to impute causation, happens all the time, BTW, but lying with statistics doesn’t make it any less lying.

Now let's look more closely at question 2. If you see global temperatures rising or falling in a fashion similar to human activity, in the form of industrialization or fossil fuel use, you might be inclined to assume that the latter is causing the former, but without additional evidence or analysis, this would be irresponsible at best. But don't worry, "climate scientists" are doing nothing of the sort. They are not misreading the relationship between temperature and human activity because THERE IS NO RELATIONSHIP! That’s right, changes in global temperatures are not related, proportionally or otherwise, to industrialization or any other human activity. The only quantity with any discernible correlation to global temperature is solar activity, who'd 'a thunk it? So what "climate scientists" are doing is reading causation into uncorrelated variables, which can only be characterized as blind religious faith.

Okay, fine, a bunch of rogue scientists are pushing an agenda. Who cares? You, that’s who. These shysters have for years been the principal informers of the UN’s IPCC. They’re the ones quoted and cited by our own political leaders and politicians in pursuit of treaties and legislation. One such is the ill-advised “Cap and Trade” bill which would impose paralyzing taxes on all economic activity, meanwhile concentrating even more wealth into the hands of “carbon brokers” such as Mr. Inconvenient himself. Wake up, people, we are being Nifonged!

Tiger, what were you thinking?

The time period between the exposure of Mr. Nifong’s malfeasance and the actual dismissal of the case against the Duke students was particularly interesting and informative. First, there were denials, then explanations, then rationalizations, then the realization that we had all been lied to, and some had even contributed to the ruse. Nifong's supporters, including most of the media and many public figures, gradually went silent and skulked away, and if they apologized, you couldn't hear it over the chirping of the crickets. These included 88 Duke University professors, who had signed a letter condemning the students (I would never, ever let my children attend Duke with this despicable lack of support for its students).

That's the period we're in right now with "climategate," as it’s now called. We've already heard denials, deflections, and obfuscations, and now we're starting to hear explanations: "the e-mails actually represent good scientific criticism" is one gem I’ve read from the remaining global warming faithful. And rationalizations are even coming in from as high as the White House: press secretary Robert Gibbs informs us that the White House believes “climate change is happening.” He further avers, "I don't think that's anything that is, quite frankly, among most people, in dispute anymore," and with a cocksure arrogance borne of utter ignorance of the evidence, “There’s no real scientific basis for disputing it.” (So that’s how science works now?)

As I alluded above, it’s not exactly certain that the leak of documents was the result of a hacker; in fact, there’s widespread speculation that it was an inside job, i.e., someone affiliated with the CRU grew a conscience, or perhaps had a bone to pick with Dr. Phil Jones, the leading scientist at the CRU and author of some of the more revealing e-mails. At any rate, the timing of the leak is so propitious as to appear deliberate: about a month prior to the Copenhagen summit where massive taxes and wealth transfer are to be discussed, and in advance of our own legislature’s debate of “Cap and Trade” laws.

So, what now? Well, I hate to be a pessimist, and I hope I’m wrong, but unfortunately I don’t think much is going to change. Honest scientists and other keen observers of reality have long known that man-made global warming is a fabrication, and so have the “scientists” and opportunists perpetuating the ruse. Meanwhile, most Americans are not equipped to weigh the facts objectively, and therefore must choose their position based on faith and/or political affinity. Now that the fraud has been exposed, how is any of that going to change? Don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of good reasons to take care of our environment; global warming just isn’t one of them. Personally, I feel a slight sense of gratification at having my suspicions confirmed, but while I sit in my northern VA home office watching the thick, white flakes of global warming fall from the sky, what I’m really thinking is:

WHAT ELSE ARE THEY LYING TO US ABOUT?

Give it Back

2009-10-10T15:06:00.001-04:00

Bruck’s message to President 0bama:

Give it back.

My first thought upon hearing that President 0bama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, or, I should say my first rational thought was, “couldn’t they find anybody who’s actually done anything for peace or human rights in the last year?” Well, of course there are many people working on various fronts, in the less sexy places of the world, toiling thanklessly against the ravages of poverty, genocide, human trafficking, and other scourges of the human condition.

Perhaps in a future column I could highlight some of our modern human rights warriors whose efforts are all the more thankless, having been overlooked in favor of a naïve and egotistical politician whose only real accomplishment to date has been to not be George W. Bush, but that’s not my point today.

Today I just want to say, give it back. That’s right, give it back. My curiousity was piqued when I heard that the president claimed to be “humbled” by the award. Humbled? Humble would be to realize that he didn’t deserve it, and that there are probably hundreds or even thousands of people who work actually does merit such an award. But that’s not why I’m suggesting he give it back.

The rationalization from the purportedly unanimous Norwegian committee was that our president has changed the atmosphere of negotiations for world peace blah blah blah to be honest I didn’t catch all of it – my internal BS siren drowned out the rest of their statement. But even the most ardent sycophants in the media concede that the president hasn’t really accomplished anything yet on the world stage, although they unanimously agree that he will someday.

Someday. Things will go as the Nobel Committee wishes someday. But not yet. So they give the prize in order to communicate and reinforce their wishes as to how diplomacy should be carried out, by giving a prestigious and world-reknown prize in advance. To all but the most hardened Chicago politician, this is known as bribery. A group of Norwegians has just bribed the leader of the free world to carry out diplomacy and state affairs according to their worldview. And he took their bribe.

I don’t expect our president to understand this; his grasp of subtlety seems to be profoundly lacking, and he seems to have stopped maturing politically and diplomatically at about his sophomore year of college. So I’m not expecting him to understand why; I’m just simply saying:

Give it back.

Pinch Me

2009-10-06T21:53:00.001-04:00

The difference between dreams and reality is not always clear. Some claim there is no difference, that dreams are just as real as waking reality, and there are still others who claim that what we (normal people) perceive as dreams and reality are actually reversed. They’re wrong of course, but it’s interesting conversation fodder for the weak-minded and the less-endowed in the ambition department.

Today’s discussion is a bit more practical than that. When you’re awake, you generally don’t seriously suspect that you’re dreaming; sometimes in jest you might say, “pinch me” when faced with unusual circumstances, but for the mentally healthy, it’s really not a problem, not knowing if you’re dreaming when you’re awake. On the other hand, when you actually are dreaming, it rarely occurs to you to question whether or not you’re awake, no matter how bizzare or unlikely the scenario your subconscious has concocted.

Before we go too much further, let’s agree on terms. By “dreaming,” I’m only talking about where your mind goes while you’re sleeping – not daydreams, hallucinations, fantasies, or wishful thinking. And BTW, I’ve always cringed at the dictum, “may all your dreams come true.” If all my dreams came true, the world would be one seriously messed up place. Of the dreams I can remember, I’d say only about a quarter of them are actually good. Most are just weird or distorted versions of what I experienced during the previous day. Approximately 5% of them are really bad, like I killed someone, or lost a child in a crowded city, or was getting divorced, and I’m relieved when I wake up. And even of the actually good dreams, if they actually did come true, it would be like the logistical quagmire that was produced in the movie “Bruce Almighty” when Bruce, standing in for God, got lazy and just answered every prayer in the affirmative.

So, my favorite questions to answer being the ones that nobody’s asking, and the question of the day is, how can I tell if I’m dreaming? I don’t think there’s a single good general answer, but here are some specific circumstances I’ve found to indicate that you’re dreaming and not experiencing objective reality:

You can breathe underwater.
You can fly.
You can run extremely fast, or for extremely long distances without getting worn out.
You can jump over wide chasms.
A foreign citizen gets elected president and nobody even checks his ID.
You can walk through fire, or a blizzard, without feeling it.
You fall out of an airplane or off of a large building (this could happen in reality, but then you wouldn’t be around to read this fine discourse).
You find lots of money or other valuables just lying around.
An extremely unlikely member of the opposite sex (or same sex if you swing that way) is attracted to you.
You’re in prison, on in a strange country, or in a singularly dull business conference (see if you can figure out where I’m at while writing this) and you don’t know how you got there.
You can drive underwater.
Your car can fly.
You can drive your car or an other vehicle straight up or straight down a building or a cliff.
You drive all the way from Houston to Orlando without stopping for a restroom break, laboring under the delusion that adult diapers and a BB gun are somehow going to straighten out your love life.
You can communicate with dead people, or animals, or infants, or space aliens.
You can speak unlearned foreign or nonexistent languages
The speaker at the business conference is interesting and ends on time and doesn’t use a lot of tired cliches.
You made it to the end of a VOBNS column and have a vague understanding of what it’s about.

Are any of these things happening right now? Wake up!

That’s Not What I Meant!

2009-09-16T15:44:00.002-04:00

I don’t speak very good German, let me be the first to admit. But I do know enough to get by, and even to have a good time in this very interesting country, where I’m temporarily stationed, and which happens to be full of fine and proud German people. But sometimes communications problems are more fundamental than the simple task of translating words and phrases.

(in the Kaufhof department store, looking for the restroom, speaking in German)
Bruck: Where is the bathroom?
Kaufhof Salesperson: Bathroom?
Bruck: Yes, the bathroom, the toilet, the WC, where is it?
KS: (with other salespeople) Do we have bathroom appliances? (To me) We don’t sell plumbing and bathroom appliances in this store, but you can find (something I didn't understand) on the 3^rd floor toward the back.
Bruck: Okay, thank you very much. (looks like I’ll just have to find it myself, which I did, on the 6^th floor, adjacent to the restaurant)

(at a hotel desk in Stuttgart, trying to get back to Sindelfingen, speaking in English)
Bruck: what is the best way to get to Sindelfingen?
Desk Clerk: will you be going by car or train? (a reasonable question)
Bruck: By car. (actually it was kind of a stupid question, as I had just paid for parking in the underground garage.)
DC: Yes, by car, I think that’s the best way to get there. (nodding agreement with the other desk clerk)
Bruck: No, what I mean is, what road do I take back to Sindelfingen?
DC: Oh, now I understand (laughing, gives directions).

So anyway, not exactly The Rise and Faill of the Third Reich, but a couple of snippets to demonstrate that more than just language barriers separate us. Good oceans make good neighbors!

The Gospel According to Sling Blade

2009-08-13T20:05:00.004-04:00

Let’s see a show of hands – how many of you have seen the movie Sling Blade? OK, how many of you have even heard of the movie? To be fair, neither had I, until last year when my interest was piqued upon reading a tangential reference to it in an unrelated web forum. The movie came out in 1996, so I spent a good 12 years blissfully unaware of its existence. Sling Blade was written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, who plays himself, just kidding, who plays Karl Childers, a gentle, big-hearted mental patient/lawn mower mechanic with a violent streak that spells his undoing.

It’s actually a pretty good movie, touching on many pertinent themes including alcoholism, domestic violence, homosexuality, mental illness, discrimination, single motherhood, abortion, and Christianity, without trying to jam the usual Hollywood agenda down your throat. I suggest that you add it to the top of your Netflix queue, wait patiently by your mailbox, watch it, then read the rest of this column. Warning – there are some rather coarse monologues from a fellow mental patient in the opening and closing scenes, and some rather colorful language from another character, but aside from that it’s pretty family-tolerable. If you read the original screenplay (which I did so you don’t have to), the movie actually tones things down a bit. I do recommend watching the DVD version vs. the streaming version BTW; the streaming version (Netflix instant watch) leaves out some semi-important parts.

Who is Sling Blade?

To really understand the movie, we have to ask the question, who is Sling Blade? We don’t necessarily have to answer it, but we do have to ask. BTW, the main character is named Karl Childers, but he has come to be known as Sling Blade in common parlance, after the name of the movie, which itself is named after the landscaping tool with which Karl ultimately vanquishes evil by killing Doyle Hargraves, …but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Sling Blade is not necessarily a comedy, but it has many tragi-comic elements, the most prominent of which being Karl’s character. His gravelly drawl and odd mannerisms, his overall humble simplicity, and his myriad difficulties communicating with everyday people take the edge off of what would otherwise be a rather dark movie. In fact, the almighty internet has several “soundboards” of Childers’ more notable quips. “I reckon I’ll have me some of the big ‘uns,” - a line from a scene at the Dairy Queen wherein Karl settles on “french fried pertaters” upon learning that they don’t serve biscuits with mustard. John Ritter also provides some comic relief with his portrayal of a paranoid and obsessively introspective small-town homosexual.

At the beginning of the movie, Karl is just being released from a mental institution, or “nervous hospital,” as he calls it, following a 25-year incarceration. As the movie unfolds, details of Karl’s past come to light, including:
- he was in the mental hospital after murdering his mother and her illicit lover
- he had spent all or most of his childhood confined to a tool shed behind his parents’ home
- he was not educated formally, but given regular, inaccurate “Bible lessons”
- his mental condition was the result of early child abuse
- he suffered ongoing guilt from having participated, under duress, in the abortion of his younger brother

Karl initially has trouble finding his place in a society that has left him 25 years behind, in an undefined southern US town that is not particularly open to “different” people. But under friendly pressure from the director of the mental hospital, a Christian businessman takes him in and helps him get his life together. Karl shines as a lawn mower and appliance repairman, a trade he picked up by osmosis during his childhood in the tool shed.

Karl befriends Frank and Linda, a fatherless 12-year old boy and his mother, and is eventually invited to live in their garage. Frank is bedeviled by Linda’s abusive and profane “boyfriend” Doyle, who is masterfully played by country music star Dwight Yoakum (“Guitars, Cadillacs,” “Streets of Bakersfield”). Yoakum provides some “inside” humor, as the leader of an amateur hillbilly rock and roll band comprised of talentless, tonedeaf rednecks with no singer. The main targets for Doyle’s abuse are Linda’s homosexual boss and best friend Vaughn, Frank, and Karl.

After getting on his feet, Karl pays a visit to his elderly and deranged father, played by Robert Duvall, who is living alone in squalor in the old family home. Karl fails to establish meaningful communications due to his father’s mental state, but does get some things off his chest. He expresses an initial intention to kill his father, and believes he would be justified in doing so, but decides to stand by and let nature take its course.

As the story unfolds, numerous subplots develop, including a love interest for Karl, Vaughn’s not-so-secret love life, Karl’s religious pursuits and viewpoints, Frank’s unrequited love of a local rich girl, and the development of a strong brotherly/fatherly relationship between Karl and Frank. Meanwhile, Doyle grows increasingly abusive and violent, driving Frank into a deep, inconsolable funk when he decides to move in with them and live “like a real family.”

At this juncture, Karl takes matters into his own hands. In an almost humorously abrupt and straightforward manner, he kills Doyle with a “Kaiser Blade,” or “Sling Blade.” He then reports himself to the police, having obtained instructions on how to do so from Doyle beforehand. “You might want to send an ambulance, or a ‘hearst’,” Karl artlessly instructs the 911 dispatcher, per Doyle’s sardonic guidance. Karl then sits down at the kitchen table for biscuits with mustard while waiting for the police to arrive.

We don’t see the aftermath, but are left to assume some level of redemption, at least from the immediate straits; prior to sanctioning Doyle, Karl sends Frank and Linda to stay with Vaughn, and gives them his meager savings. Karl may intend for this to be a relatively permanent arrangement; while arranging the immediate logistics, he makes a number of larger points. As if in answer to a previous, long-winded and complex explanation from Vaughn of the internal and external struggles of a homosexual in a small town, Karl starkly declares, “The Bible says two men ought not lay together. But I'll bet you the Good Lord wouldn't send nobody like you to Hades;” also: “you take good care of that boy.”

In the final scene, we witness redemption for Karl as well, at least in a limited sense relative to his baseline, through his resolution of issues, both with Frank’s family, and with his early life. He is back in the mental hospital again, this time, it would appear, for good. The perverted mental patient from the opening scene questions Karl on his experiences outside, and interprets them through his own depraved thought processes. He proceeds to launch into the same kind of lurid, nonsensical diatribe as in the opening scene, whereupon Karl stops him cold – “Don't you say another word to me. I ain't listenin' to you no more.”

So again, the question, who is Sling Blade?

Since you’re probably reading this on a computer, and most computers nowadays have flat screens with non-glossy surfaces, try this: Close all the windows, and set your display to have a black background. If the desktop is full of icons, you may want to push them aside. Now look square into the screen and you should be able to see a shadowy, distorted reflection of yourself.

There’s your answer.

Shoot Your TV

2009-08-05T05:48:00.002-04:00

I don't consider myself a prude, never have been, hopefully never will be. Of those of you who know me personally, can I get a witness? Those of you who don't, well, consider yourselves lucky!

I've never been to a Hooters restaurant, and don't plan to in the future. Why? Not for prude reasons to be sure, but philosopical ones - their business model insults what little intelligence I have, so I don’t play their game. The unassailable Mrs. Bruck might be offended by the overt eye candy, so my choice not to go there is partially out of respect for her sensibilities, but what really offends me is the prospect that by doing business with them I'm tacitly conceding that I'm such a loser that I need to pay a pretty girl to talk to me. And from what I've heard, the food there isn't that great either. By contrast, there's a Polish restaurant in Hamtramck, MI that I absolutely love. The waitresses there all look like porn stars, leading me to wonder if food delivery is just one of the services they offer, but be that as it may, I go there for their fantastic dill pickle soup and other tradtional Polish fare. And I would still go there if their waitresses looked like Helen Thomas with a hangover. But I digress.

When the first child of Bruck was born in the early 90's we made a concious commitment to turn off the TV. We still own one (it’s about as old as the first COB), and watching broadcast or cable TV isn't taboo in our household; we just made TV, or I should say the regular watching thereof, not a part of our lives. Why? Again, a philosophical reason: it's important to pay attention to who gets to put stuff into our kids' (and our, for that matter) brains on a regular basis. We decided that TV producers and executives should not be on the short list.

What have we missed? Not much, I've found. A few clever sitcoms, some history and nature shows on cable TV, lots of commercials. I've had variants of the following conversation more times than I can remember:

"Did you see ______ last night (TV show or commercial)?"
"No."
…more conversation, etc.
"Did you see last week's episode of _______ ?"
"No, I really don't watch much TV, just the occasional sporting event."
"Oh, that's good, yeah, that's a good idea. I should do that."
…more conversation…
"Did you see _______ when so-and-so did such-and-such?"

And what have we gained? A lot more time, and I do mean a lot. Add up the number of hours you spend with your head in the technicolor sewer and you'll see what I mean.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a complete non-TV-user. I watch some sports (go Wings!), and occasionally watch episodes of The Office on the internet. And yes, I do recognize that there is a certain amount of positive programming out there. I'm just saying, think about the average level of enjoyment and fulfillment you get from X hours TV hypnosis vs. the same time spent in a creative, constructive pursuit and I think you'll see where I’m coming from.

Up to this point, I've taken my usual position of hey, it's my decision, my life, not yours; I don't presume to impose my values upon those who hold different ones, go ahead and watch the idiot box till your brain fries to a crisp for all I care.

Well not anymore. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Turn it off now. Better yet, take it out back and shoot it (in accordance with all applicable laws, restrictions, and ordinances), lest anyone else get the bright idea of plugging it in somewhere else and turning it on! Okay, okay, I know, you watch a lot of DVDs on the TV as well, and you just paid $1700.00 for a 49" HD plasma orgasmatron flat panel. At least you could take a BB gun and shoot the cable/antenna jack, is that too much to ask?

Why the change of heart, Bruck? Well, several weeks ago, I was looking for the Wings game and came across a rather sickening show. I don't know what show it was, and I wasn't going to hang around long enough to find out. In the first scene I saw, there was a young, presumably hetero woman at a social event dominated by lesbians, in which she was explaining, in a somewhat apologetic tone that she felt some kind of connection with the female spirit. The smart, sassy lesbian to whom she was explaining this replied, "if you don't [reference to oral sex], you're not a lesbian," at which point the young woman looked stricken and dismayed - obviously she didn't measure up to that standard! In the next scene, hetero sex was being simulated in a bed, with certain body parts strategically hidden, between two adults, the male of which was simultaneously viewing pornography on a bedside TV. The woman got all huffy when he tried to rewind the tape, and forced him to decide between her and the porn, whereupon he chose the latter. And this was during prime time on a broadcast TV channel, not a "premium" cable channel! Gee, Bruck it sounds like you took quite a big sample. Not really - the scenes I described represented about 15 seconds' worth of programming. Again, I don't consider myself to be a prude; it takes a lot to offend my sensibilities, but in 15 seconds, they managed to pull it off.

But they also gave me an epiphany. The writers and producers of these shows, and the executives that decide to air them are not good people. Hear me? They are NOT GOOD PEOPLE. It would be illegal (except in Alaska), but certainly not immoral or unethical to shoot them, therefore I'm recommending that you shoot your TV instead (in accordance with all applicable laws, restrictions, and ordinances). Since we can't stem the filth at the source, we can at least stop it at the output.

Let me digress into a little operational tradecraft for you. People do things based on what they think, and their thinking is based on what they see (/hear, etc.). This is the “See-Think-Do” cycle of human behavior. In order to manipulate a person’s actions and behavior, i.e., get them to “do” something, you have to consider what they would have to be thinking. Then you have to determine what they would need to see or hear (and not see / not hear) in order to motivate that thinking. This is the “Do-Think-See” cycle of behavior manipulation. Now consider who (see above paragraph) is controlling the “See” component of this cycle. Does it make a bit more sense now? And does the argument “I don’t let it affect me” seem just a bit more spurious? Bottom line: I don’t want my family programmed by these diabolical monsters, and frankly, I’m not too keen on having to share precious oxygen with people who are.

The few remaining users of broadcast TV are undoubtedly aware of the changeover from analog to digital TV occuring this year. It's a big topic in my radio club, since everything that goes through the air is some form of radio. When asked if I've made the conversion to digital, my standard answer is, "no." If pressed, I'll offer, "I don't really watch TV. I can get a few channels by patching into the cable modem." But what I'm thinking is, geez, that's like the DEA mandating that all old crack pipes are obsolete and junkies all need to upgrade to the new crack pipe!

And for those of you who don’t own a gun, or live in an area where the 2^nd Amendment does not apply to appliances, I suggest dropping your TV into a barrel of acid – I think that would work just as well.

Cops Zap Naked Intruder

2009-07-27T19:24:00.005-04:00

…blared the title of a front page story in my Thursday News & Messenger, the newspaper of record for central Prince William County, home of two major Civil War battles and Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt. The online version (under a different title, byline, and date) can be found at:

http://www2.insidenova.com/isn/news/local/article/naked_intruder_tased_in_manassas/39917/

The short story is, a guy busts into an apparent stranger’s house in his birthday suit in the wee hours of the morning. He proceeds to awaken a man sleeping on the couch with a disjointed and profane soliloquy, whereupon the formerly sleeping man requests that he leave and summons police. The police arrive to find the scene as described, only with the naked, Tourette’s-suffering orator locked outside on the back porch and still in a pet. The police see fit to tase him into submission, whereupon they arrest him on numerous charges. He is currently lodged in the Prince William County jail, clothed, and being held without bond pending an 8 September hearing.

The print version of the article was more interesting, as it cited other stories of naked intruders and similar capers, introducing the topic expansion with poignant clarity: “It’s not often that law enforcement agencies in the region have had to tase a naked man…” One charming story told of a naked man in Florida (go figure) who defecated in, then slept in, a stolen truck, and was awoken and tased by police. I’m picturing young cadets nearing graduation from Police Academy: “Please, dear God, don’t let them assign me anywhere in Florida!” Another, somewhat more complex situation unfolded in New York, in which a naked man on a ledge 10’ above the ground fell to his death (ten feet?) after being tased by police. Good thing they didn’t shoot him! But it’s okay, the article seems to imply, as the man had exhibited suicidal behavior earlier in the day.

But let’s get back to our local naked intruder. So many questions left unanswered!

Like, which body part did the police tase? And did it cause shrinking or swelling?

What combination of drugs, alcohol, and daytime TV talk shows led him to this behavior?

And where was General Butt Naked? Where is General Butt Naked now, anyway? And what about Neil Patrick Harris?

First the easy one: Neil Patrick Harris (former child TV star who played Doogie Howser, MD in a show by the same name) currently lives in the Los Angeles area. He has been acting in plays and movies of late, and performing as an amateur magician. I last noticed him playing a sleazy party animal in “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle,” a ribald 2004 buddy movie. He hasn’t been in anything real big since “Doogie Howser,” and occasionally makes appearances at various entertainment industry events, his gay lover at his side.

General Butt Naked

Joshua Milton Blahyi was never formally commissioned as a General in any legitimate armed force. Therefore I encourage you to use air quotes when you cite the word General in the psuedonym that he adoped for himself as a militia leader during Liberia’s 1980’s and 90’s civil war.

General Butt Naked led his Butt Naked Brigade of ragtag teenaged mercenaries against various warring factions on behalf of Roosevelt Johnson, one of Liberia’s many warlords vying for power following a coup that ousted President Samuel Doe in 1994. I may be playing somewhat fast and loose with the historical details, but believe me, after the next few paragraphs, that will be the least of your concerns.

Liberia’s coups and civil wars have seen numerous self-appointed Generals, many of whom tended toward extreme behavior and sported colorful names, but none were quite as memorable as Joshua “General Butt Naked” Blahyi. Blahyi applied a combinaiton of African superstition and psy-ops in his battle strategies: He would engage his enemies wearing nothing but tennis shoes, believing that nudity would protect him from harm. Likewise his militia, when not naked themselves, would fight wearing garish and absurd women’s clothing, including bridal gowns and party dresses, sporting colorful wigs and dainty purses which they had looted from recently-attacked villages. They fought fearlessly, believing that this dress would confound the enemy (no kidding!), and even confuse their bullets via their mixed identities.

[note to sensitive readers: it gets ugly at this point]

But this was no powderpuff football cheerleading squad. A hallmark of any successful (i.e., not all dead) African militia is exceptional violence and ruthlessness, and the BN Brigade excelled in these arts. Before a battle they would attempt to appease Satan, under whose protection they believed they were fighting, through human sacrifice and cannibalism, usually of a young person from a nearby village. The Brigade often abused the bodies of their fallen enemies, notably using their heads for soccer balls, and once even placing a human head as the centerpiece of a table set in the middle of a major intersection in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.

Blahyi believes that he was summoned at age 11 by the Devil himself, by telephone, to live a life of violence and bloodshed, including human sacrifice, a ritual in which he purportedly engaged regularly between the ages of 11 and 25. Prior to leading a band of mercenaries in the mid-90’s, Blahyi operated as a tribal priest and armed robber, and claims to have killed more people than he can count.

[okay, you can open your eyes again now]

During a battle in Monrovia, while dressed in full (lack of) battle regalia, the General had a “road-to-Damascus” experience. He claims that God spoke to him directly, informing him that he was a slave to Satan and requesting that he make the switch over to His team. Blahyi is reported to have confessed his sins and repented in a refugee camp in Ghana in 1997, and now preaches the Gospel, clothed, in Monrovia and works with ministries to educate and care for young former soldiers.

I wish I could report a similarly happy ending for our other 3 aforementioned nudists, but, at least for two of them, while there’s life, there’s still time and space for redemption! Perhaps the Prince William County lockup could stand a visit from the former GBN himself next time he’s in town.

Where were you?

2009-06-27T10:04:00.003-04:00

A reader asked me to comment on the Mark Sanford situation, as it blew onto the media scene just as the storm was dying down from a similar incident involving Senator Ensign upon which I bloviated in my last column.

There’s not a whole lot I can say that hasn’t already been said about the sordid affair. When I heard that he had been missing for 5 days and nobody knew where he was, my first thought was, this is not good. There are plenty of bad reasons for a governor to disappear without notice, but no good ones. So when the truth finally came out earlier this week I was actually a little relieved – he was healthy and not, apparently, doing anything or being anywhere against his own will. That is, if the governor and the media are to be believed, neither party having a stellar record of reliability up to this point.

So, based on the info we have so far, my opinion is, hey, boys will be boys, he’s an alpha male, and an alpha has to “put it around.” Love me, love my dog, haha, the loveable cad! You can’t blame him for taking the bait that gets dangled in front of him every day. It’s one of the perks of power. I mean, everybody does it, at least everybody who can. Based on what he’s done for women’s rights, he deserves a little payback anyway. Oh wait, there’s an “R” next to his name. Hang him high!

No, seriously, to me, it’s basically the same deal as with Senator Ensign – he got caught, apologized, expressed a level of obligatory contrition, etc., so let him work it out with those directly affected by it. I would say, for those of you out there who still put your faith in human beings and manmade institutions, here’s yet another reason to rethink your position. I’m personally more concerned about his dereliction of duty. I can’t leave my job for more than half a day without reporting my whereabouts and how to get ahold of me, and I have about a tenth of a percent the responsibility and accountability of a state governor. So my only advice is to the fine voters of South Carolina: if he doesn’t resign, resign him at the ballot box next chance you get. I believe in forgiveness and reconciliation as much as the next guy, but I wouldn’t appoint an arsonist fire safety warden.

Nuff said. Let’s move on to more important things.

Like, where were you when Farrah Fawcett died? I was at a grueling four-day conference in Chicago, toiling away at the buffets and happy hours, and studiously taking notes from contractors trying to sell me on their vision of how businesses should run, and what a good idea it would be to hire them to do it. I’m not sure exactly when Charlie’s Angel numero uno crossed the river, as she had the unfortunate timing to die just a few hours before the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Between the two, I would say Ms. Fawcett had a bigger impact on my early emotional development than did Michael Jackson, although I do admit to having attempted, unsuccessfully, at one point in the 80’s to moonwalk. At the moment MJ died, I’m pretty sure that was when I was working out in the hotel gym, playing hooky from the early afternoon session that day; don’t tell my boss, okay?

As I write I’m on an Amtrak train from Chicago to Royal Oak, MI, my hometown. I love trains, and the idea of taking a train “home” gives me a poignant feeling of solid, nostalgic symmetry. Trains are undoubtedly the mellowest way to travel. It’s about a six-hour trip, which is a lot longer than flying, and a bit longer than driving the same distance, but nothing could be more chillin. Cheaper too. I paid $44, and got a free business class upgrade. Actually I’m not sure if there’s a difference between business class and coach. It was closer to the club car, and there was toilet paper in the restrooms. I got hooked on trains while traveling in Europe in the 90’s, and if not for the time component, would prefer to take them more often for my domestic US travel.

You’re probably thinking, wow, he got through almost an entire page without a single mention of amateur radio or firearms. Here’s the firearms angle: first of all, I don’t have any with me. Second, I do not condone the violation of any laws or ordinances regarding same. But, those of you who have flown with firearms know that it is a HUGE hassle. Amtrak’s rule regarding bringing firearms or ammunition onto their trains is, you can’t. But guess what? They don’t check! Just sayin’…

The radio angle: alert readers learned, then in approximately 13 milliseconds forgot, and are just now being reminded, that I picked up a nice little FM VHF handheld ham radio transceiver a couple weeks ago at our club’s swap meet. It transmits on the 2-meter ham band (144-148 MHz), and receives most of the VHF-HI band, 136-174 MHz. So right now I’m listening to the train radio traffic (with an earphone – I wouldn’t inflict my radiosyncracies on the muggles). It’s semi-interesting; most of the traffic occurs just before stops. While departing Michigan City, IN, I heard the conductor chide the driver for a rough departure. In case you’re wondering, the train staff doesn’t mind being monitored. In fact, when the conductor saw me entering frequencies, he keyed up for me to make sure his channel was on my scan list. As they say, there are two kinds of people in the world. If you don’t find this discussion of train radio scanning interesting, and are not just a tiny bit envious of my little radio forays, you’re the other kind.

So… where were you?

Hypocracy

2009-06-22T11:08:00.002-04:00

I bet you’re thinking, hey, he spelt hypocrisy wrong. Actually I just made up a new word. Like it?

By now you have probably heard about Nevada Senator John Ensign’s marital failures, and have probably already started to hear the overused but effective “H” word and its various derivatives thrown around by the pundits and opinionators. And I would hazard a guess that you’ve already arrived at your own opinion about him and whether or not you would vote for him. “He’s from Nevada, and I don’t live there, how could I vote for him?” you might ask. Well, as I understand, he is, or at least was, on the short list to oppose The Kenyan in 2012 if we’re still having free elections at that point, so if you’re anywhere in the US or territories, you might have actually gotten a chance to vote for or against him, at least in a primary.

But before we get too far into this, let’s pay a visit to the ghost of Noah Webster. Hypocrite: 1: a person who puts on a false impression of virtue or religion. 2: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.

Pretty cut and dried, no? Well, not so fast, sez Bruck. The other side of the coin is good old fashioned human weakness. Let’s put it this way - any dog owners out there? (Note, this illustration categorically does not apply to cat owners.) Your dog thinks the world of you. He or she worships the ground you walk on. Are you nearly as good a person as your dog thinks you are? Notwithstanding your dog’s inability to comprehend your less tangible shortcomings, and likewise his or her relatively low self esteem (we once had to give back a dog who had excessively high self esteem but that’s another story), I’m guessing the answer is no. But I’m also guessing that this doesn’t compel you to embroider a scarlet H on your sweater either.

Those of us whose value systems include some non-zero level of moral/ethical standards always find ourselves in a bit of a quandary. On the one hand, we (hopefully) agree that it’s good to have such standards. If you think about, it’s pretty easy to see that civilized society depends on, and would quickly disintegrate without, at least a certain level of them. Taking this a step further, regardless of our ability to live up to them, I’m going to postulate that for genuine, objective moral and ethical standards, the higher the better for all concerned. But, and here’s the rub, the higher they are, the more difficult they are to live up to, and the more likely we are to fail to meet them. In some corners, and I believe this is a cowardly, despicable position to take, the answer is to simply disclaim any standards, or attempt to modify them after the fact to fit one’s behavior, having been caught with one’s hand in the cookie jar as it were. That way, the offender can be justified in his or her own mind, and avoid the dreaded “H” word. Honest men and women won’t do this, of course, but what is the answer?

Over the past few decades, the Christian world, both Catholic and Protestant in its various expressions, has been rocked with numerous moral scandals among its leadership, some truly revolting, and all of them disappointing. And I can tell you from the insider’s perspective, it’s not just the leadership who commit moral failures. You’re welcome to investigate other religions that claim objective moral guidance, and I think you’ll find much of the same thing. So, what does that make us? A bunch of hypocrites, as our opponents self-righteously claim? I’m going to invoke the “M” word at this point: Maybe. Or, the statistician’s/WOC nurse’s (look it up) favorite answer: it Depends.

How can you say that, Bruck? Isn’t it obvious? They’re saying one thing and doing another! Well, this is the quandary – we have high standards, but we can’t always live up to them, and when we don’t, we find ourselves on the defensive against those with low or no standards. Recognizing the fact that both can be present in a situation, I think that much of what is labeled as hypocrisy these days is just simply human weakness and should be dealt with as such. IMHO, true hypocrisy is actually pretty rare.

So, what makes a hypocrite? I believe it’s a matter of perspective. I heard on the radio that Sen. Ensign is a born-again Christian. My first two thoughts: (1) okay, a weak one, but certainly not the first or hundredth fallen Christian I’ve heard of, and (2) that’s kind of the point of Christianity, to restore one’s relationship with God, having been separated from Him by sin. Next I heard that he was a Promise Keeper. Okay, so he broke his marriage vows and his PK oath. Next I heard that he was one of Slick Willie’s loudest condemners following his intern indiscretions. Hmmm. Now we’re not quite in H-land, but we’re definitely on contact with the tower. And another data point. Apparently Sen. Ensign made his public confession under pressure of extortion from the husband of his erstwhile tango partner. Then I hear that it’s not the first time he drew water from the wrong well. Notwithstanding the fact that our information on the subject is filtered through the unfriendly media, now I feel like I need to take a shower.

The answer: admit your human weakness, seek forgiveness of those affected by it, deal with the consequences, and endeavour to constrain yourself against future opportunities. In Ensign’s case, as with the 42^nd president, public contrition occurred only after an extortionist or a stained dress appeared on the scene, so it’s a little tough to take it seriously.

I’m just telling you how I feel; fortunately, like you, I’ve been relieved of the responsibility to pass moral judgment. So if Ensign is a hypocrite, you won't hear it from me. But I do vote. What do I base my vote on? Character, and by now I think I’m have a pretty good handle on that. A person with strong character can possibly fail as a leader, but there is no such thing as a good leader with weak character.

Bottom line: Would I vote for Ensign, given the opportunity? Well, it depends who he’s running against, but in general I would vote for a person who attempts to meet high standards and fails over a person who lives by no standards and succeeds.

But She Plays One on TV

2009-06-16T22:21:00.001-04:00

I don’t normally take medical advice from pudgy 9-year-old Mexican girls, even ones who speak and read perfect English.

This past weekend our local amateur (“ham”) radio club held its annnual “hamfest” (swap meet / flea market). We were blessed with great weather, good turnout, and good participation from the club members to make it an overall successful venture. And I think we may have even made a little money for the club.

Oh no, you say, not another column on radio, doesn’t he realize…? Well, this one’s only tangentially on radio. What I wanted to talk about today is my trip to the Homo Sapiens zoo. Ham radio, along with its related endeavours, cuts across a wide spectrum of socioeconomic, cultural, ethnic, and political strata, which, IMHO, is a big part of what makes it such a fascinating hobby. This past weekend, about 2000 people converged upon our county fairgrounds in northern VA from near and far. Just how near and far, I’ll know when I do the ticket stub analysis, but last year they came from all over the US, or at least they were from all over. Who knows where they actually came from?

The Humanity: I’ve been to numerous hamfests over the years, and have never been below the median, or for that matter anywhere near it, regarding personal grooming and hygeine. Ours was no exception, but in the interest of full disclosure, there were relatively fewer attendees who smelled like nursing homes, and the overall level of redolence seemed to be below average. This might be partially due to the weather, which was warm but dry, and breezy. And the tattoo-to-tooth ratio was less than 1.0 for most of the festival-goers. Level of dress… well, one guy was wearing a suit; maybe he just came from church, but he was definitely a point off the curve. The rest of the crowd’s sartorial splendor was pretty evenly distributed from the low end of “business casual” to “thrift store reject.”

The Inanimity: Most of the vendors were hawking wares relevant to the high-tech pursuits of radio, computers, electronics, and communications. A few were selling new products and tools, but most were cleaning out their basements, as it were, either on a small scale or large. There was a plethora (I’ve been waiting for years to use that word) of old radios of course, and old computers, old accessories, old things that look like they might have been useful for something in 1965 or 1952, etc., sold by a diverse cast of characters who probably don’t pay much in taxes. For those of us with a sincere appreciation for the anachronistic, it was a brief foray into Paradise.

There were plenty of non-technological goods to be found there as well: leather goods, jewelry, baked goods, butterflies mounted in glass cases. I believe the woman selling gutter filters seriously misunderestimated the level of interest in her products. Had she not been a gracefully aging model, I don’t think anyone would have talked to her at all. One booth was selling health food supplements, and the proprietor had his young daughter passing out advertising literature at the front gate. While I was out there, she handed me a copy, whereupon one of the club members selling tickets joked that I couldn’t read and she’d have to read it to me (this actually isn’t true, I can read; I just don’t…want…to read). So she read it to me, this doughy little Mexican schoolgirl, in perfect English with a kind of singsong lilt typical for the age, read, “You could be suffering from cancer, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, high cholesterol, anemia, heartworm, hoof-and-mouth …” and on she went, rattling off the whole paragraph of hypothetical chronic maladies as if she were reading the breakfast menu to her farsighted grandmother. I was actually pretty impressed with her diction.
To this I replied, “Sounds serious, perhaps I should go see a doctor. What do you think?”
Her sage advice, “My daddy sells these shakes inside that building. You should go get one.”

I didn’t get one, but I thought about it. I also thought, with her level of self-confidence, this girl’s going places. She could even run for higher office, now that we’ve relaxed the citizenship requirement.

The Economy: All right, Bruck, what did you buy? Well, don’t tell Mrs. Bruck, but a few woodcut portraits of Andrew Jackson and other late presidents leaked out of my wallet in exchange for a new handheld VHF transceiver and an antique shortwave receiver, plus a few odds and ends. I also picked up a vintage car radio at no cost. I could have had a lot more free junk - there’s always a certain amount of stuff that vendors simply don’t want to take home. I was prepared to pay up to a dollar for it, so I spent the dollar I saved on a loaf of homemade bread. Mrs. Bruck taught me that trick.

Epilogue: Although a couple of days have passed, I’m still feeling a little worn out – I was on my feet for two 12-hour days in a row, had very little down time, and didn’t sleep very well in between. Right now I feel like I could really use… a health food shake! I mentioned earlier that I don’t normally take medical advice from overweight 9-year-old Mexican girls, but maybe this time I’ll make an exception.

We’re Number 21!

2009-05-29T18:41:00.001-04:00

I opened my News and Messenger today to discover that Virginia ranks 21^st on the “best drivers list.” As a professional number cruncher and data/info geek, and frequent driver in this temperate commonwealth, my first thought was, “what have they been smoking?” You can read the article in its entirety at the N&M website:

http://www.insidenova.com/isn/news/local/article/holiday_deaths_decrease/36445/

Its new title is “Holiday Deaths Decrease,” which is actually what the article is about. It starts with some tedious statistics about traffic deaths, seatbelts, and alcohol, and is blissfully devoid of any explanatory factors (traffic level changes? decrease in # of illegals? harvest moon?).

One item that caught my eye was a preposterous statement from driving instructor Sagair Ayub: “We tell our students every day that there is a 30 percent chance they will get into an accident each time they get behind the wheel." So approximately 1 of every 3 trips taken by Mr. Ayub’s students results in a paint exchange and possible airbag deployment? What are you teaching them, sir???

Forgive the digression, but this reminds me of a hunter safety class I had to take in MI to get my first hunting license a few years ago. The class was geared toward 12 to 14 year old kids, its main audience, and had a sort of “scared straight” approach toward safety education, rather than a logic- and facts-based method which I would have preferred, but would probably not have had the same appeal to the kids’ tiny, hormone-soaked brains. I shouldn’t complain; I was just there to check a box and get a certificate; they actually stood a chance of learning something. Anyway, the sermon on tree stand safety was particularly hyperbolic: “If you fall out of a tree stand 15 feet in the air, how fast do you think you’ll be going when you hit the ground? 120 miles and hour! That’s terminal velocity for a human body!” (Actually you’d be going about 17 miles an hour). And another gem: “If you fall out of a tree stand, YOU WILL DIE!”

So that’s what I was thinking when I read that Mr. Ayub tells his students that for every three trips they make, slightly fewer than one of them will result in higher insurance premiums for his or her coverage pool. Not wishing to belabor a point, but the problem is that when an instructor makes categorically ridiculous claims, why should his students believe anything else he says? Of course there is the possibility that something was lost in translation; neither Mr. Ayub nor the writer of the article appear to be native English speakers.

Meanwhile, I’m slogging through this tedious article with the sole purpose of finding out how VA could have possibly scored in the top half of anything related to driving. Astute VOB readers will remember my rant from last February on the subject. Finally toward the end of the article, it emerges that GMAC conducted a survey designed to assess drivers’ knowledgeability, using questions drawn from DMV tests. VA respondents ranked 21^st of 50 states, “including the District of Columbia,” the article states, so evidently DC is now a state, and some unlucky state apparently has reverted back to territory status. The article states that a similar survey ranked VA 40^th last year, so we charged ahead of 19 states in one year. Explanation in the article? No such luck, leaving the hapless reader to assume that VA drivers’ stellar performance can be attributed to the tutelage of such luminaries as Mr. Ayub, or, and you’d better sit down for this one, the survey is measuring noise and reporting it as fact.

At any rate, actual driving competence was not assessed in the GMAC test. If it were, VA’s ranking certainly would be a lot closer to the frost line. I would like to invite the GMAC investigators to actually spend a few days driving here in VA; I believe they’d think twice about publishing such irrelevant reports in the future. In the meantime, while I’m maneuvering around the random lane changers, getting boxed in by slow drivers in the right and left lanes, waiting for the person ahead of me to realize that the light turned green, getting rear-ended yet again (I’ve been rear-ended twice so far in VA, and have had two prostate checks – coincidence?), being prevented from changing lanes by a driver who has me locked in his tractor beam, and dodging the teenage texters (why can’t they go back to drinking and driving?), I’ll just have to remember that there are 29 states out there whose drivers know even less!

The 75 Mile City

2009-05-17T16:58:00.006-04:00

As most of my eight or nine readers are from Detroit (hi, Mom; hi, Kwame), today's column will have some local color for you. BTW, congrats to the Red Wings and their many fans for sending the Ducks (at least they're no longer called the "Mighty Ducks") back to Anaheim. Today's topic is Muscle Shoals, AL, but unlike most of my geographically oriented dispatches, I haven't taken, nor do I intend to take, a trip there any time soon. And since the closest military installation is the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, a good 70 miles away, my professional services are not likely to be required in Muscle Shoals either. Oh, and in case you're wondering, it is "Muscle" Shoals, not "Mussel" Shoals, which would seem to make more sense. I've read several lame attempts to rationalize the use of the word "muscle" in the town's name, all of which lead me to believe that it was bequeathed by a lousy speller.

General FYI: Muscle Shoals is a small town of about 12,000 in northwest AL, on the banks of the Tennessee River. Its principal industries are blah blah blah who cares, and it was incorporated in 19… just get on with it Bruck. Okay, here we go.

If you're like me, the sum total of your experience with and awareness of Muscle Shoals comes from the verse in the Lynyrd Skynyrd song, "Sweet Home Alabama," wherein the singer waxes reverent about the "Muscle Shoals Swampers," whatever they are. But were you to actually go there, and if you're familiar with Detroit geography, you'd notice something really strange, a "glitch in the matrix," as it were.

Have a look at the map of Muscle Shoals, copied here under terms of fair use (my standard disclaimer) from Google Maps (you'll probably have to click on it to see it full size):

I won't copy a map of Detroit here for comparison porpoises, as anything small enough would be unreadable, but take a look at the Muscle Shoals map - what do you see? Hint - look at the street names. Familiar? Well, it's not an accident. In the early 1920's, Henry Ford concocted the idea of building the town into a metropolis, centered around a manufacturing complex attached to the Wilson Dam there. Ford's plan got some initial traction and attention from investors; Ford himself helped lay the foundation for the new metropolis, as can be seen in the street names.

So… then what happened? I've never heard of a car or truck built in Muscle Shoals…!

The short answer is, Congress put the brakes on Ford's plans, and that was the end of it, the only remaining vestige of which being a crop of street names lifted from the map of Detroit. And what of it? Streets have to have names, right? Why not copy them from one of the most historic and colorful cities in North America? Better than naming them after all the developer's employees' delinquent kids ("my address is 123 Alexiss Street, that's Alexiss with two esses, no, there's an x in the middle and two esses at the end, A-L-E-X-I-S-S"), or underpaid English major excretions like "Heatherdale Thistlebrush Chase." But it does make you wonder, what really happened behind closed doors, in the smoke-filled rooms, as it were?

According to the Almighty Internet, in 1921, Ford, along with his buddy Thomas Edison concocted the idea of creating an industrial metropolis 75 miles long, employing one million workers. Part of Ford's plan was to buy the newly-constructed, and as yet incomplete Wilson Dam for about 10 cents on the dollar. The US government had built two nitrate plants to produce ammunition during WWI, which Ford also attempted to procure as part of the deal, to make fertilizer. Congress put the kibosh on the whole deal, taking the principled position that such grandiose schemes should be mishandled by government, not private industry, and went on to develop the Tenessee Valley Authority. The leader in the fight against Ford's idea was Nebraska Senator George Norris, who quipped, "If the government turned Muscle Shoals over to Ford, it would be the worst real estate deal since Adam and Eve lost title to the Garden of Eden.”

But this was not before news of the plan sparked a speculative frenzy where developers laid out empty streets and people across the country bought lots sight unseen. And of course we can see Ford's hand in laying the foundation of the town in the names of said streets, many of which are copied directly from Detroit, others honoring Ford's friends (Edison, Firestone, Buena Vista).

Is that it? Well, not quite. Big people think big. That's how they get big, I suppose. We remember Henry Ford as the man who brought the automobile to the common people by employing efficient means of mass production in the form of the assembly line. (BTW, he got the idea from a Chicago stockyard when he observed a "disassembly line" in which cuts of beef were systematically removed by butchers from metabolically-challenged cows on a long conveyor belt.) Ford intended to end war. Yep, you heard me right. He also intended to wrest control of the world economy from international bankers. There was even talk of his running for president of the United States. I won't bore you with the tedious details, but the basic gist of Ford's and Edison's reasoning was that rather than issue bonds, and thereby pay silent investors, foreign and domestic, the principal plus copious interest, just print the money and get on with it. The underlying assumption was that the devaluation of the nation's currency would be less painful to the economy than paying out several times the bond's face value in interest over several decades. Of course this was impossible under the gold standard, when you couldn't just print more money on a whim, boy I'm sure glad we got rid of that onerous gold standard, aren't you? Well, that was part of the plan, too--get off the gold standard and instead back the currency with the ethereal concept of "public wealth," and supposedly remove the motivation for countries going to war. That worked real well; any more good ideas, Messrs. Ford and Edison?

What's this business about running for president? I'm not sure how much of this is fact vs. rumor, but supposedly President Coolidge, who took over upon President Harding's death, was up for re-election in 1924, and agreed to back Ford's plan only if he agreed not to challenge him for the nomination. Alas, neither prevailed against the stalwart Senator Norris.

Mind you, I'm not claiming that the Ford/Edison plan made sense; I'm just reporting the facts as I've found them. Supposedly the Muscle Shoals project was going to demonstrate to the world a new way of living, and a new way of managing public and private wealth, with Henry Ford and his industrialist friends at the wheel of a technocratic utopia. Personally I'm with Senator Norris in thinking that it all sounded a little too bad to be true.

Thus ended the saga of Ford's attempt to turn Muscle Shoals into a booming metropolis, end war, wrest control of the world economy from the international bankers, and run for president. Muscle Shoals has grown steadily over the decades and is home to other industries, including the recording industry. The Muscle Shoals Swampers, I've learned, are a group of particularly talented studio musicians.

Jim Hampton

Meanwhile, Detroit continues to be the epicenter of the American auto industry, whose fate is somewhat less than certain at this point, with about as many unemployed auto workers as employed ones these days. Your faithful editor is a former employee of the company that Henry Ford founded, having left it a few years ago to pursue my dreams of serving the public as a bureaucrat in Washington, DC. Now let's be practical for a moment, shall we? If you leave the auto industry, voluntarily or otherwise, and intend to continue working, dollars to donuts says you're also leaving Detroit. When you move, you'll have to relearn a whole bunch of stuff in your new locale, like doctors, schools, stores, where the White Castles and Coney Island places are, etc. etc. Here's what I'm thinking: if destiny guides you to Muscle Shoals, AL, new street names is one less thing you'll have to worry about!

MIPS

2009-05-05T20:57:00.002-04:00

How many of you have moved from one house or apartment to a larger dwelling? Most of us, I assume. And how long did it take to get used to the added space? Conventional wisdom is: ten minutes. That is, unless you've doubled or tripled in size, then it's more like a half hour. You've probably had the same experience upgrading computers as well. The feeling of, "wow, this new computer is really fast" lasts for about the first or second use. The thing about computers, though, is that in real dollars, computing power, for a given investment, approximately doubles every 18 months. This is mostly cancelled out by the Microsoft bloatware most of us are compelled to use, but we're still seeing substantial gains in computing ability for the same or less money, year after year.

Does it bother you that despite the fact that Hawaii and Alaska never ratified the 17^th amendment, it's still the law of the land?

The quality of your computing experience is governed by many factors, most notably the hardware of the computer itself, but also the programs you're running on it, the bandwidth of your network connection, and the competing demands being placed on the network. Most computer users don't, and don't need to, understand every detail of the computing system, how its components interact, how to optimize, etc., but they are keenly aware of variations in performance. And this is fine - most of us are not computer scientists or engineers solely focused on improving the state of the art of computing - we just want to accomplish, learn, and create more and better things faster, and our computer's ability to facilitate or impede this is what matters to us. Even if your only use of computers is numbing your mind with the VOBNS, you don't want to wait ten minutes for the blog engine to return your search results for "Savior God-Scientific Allah Breakfast Nachos."

Speaking of which, who else is hungry? Here's my recipe for scrambled eggs ala Bruck:
Ingredients: eggs, milk, herbs and spices
Combine eggs (~2 per eater), milk (one good glug per 4 or 5 eggs), and herbs and spices in a bowl. Stir virorously. Pour into greased, heated frying pan, and keep the slurry moving so the leafy herbs don't clump together. Continue this until the whole thing solidifies to proper consistency; remove from heat and serve.
Herbs & spices: use what seems like a reasonable amount of: salt, lemon pepper, nutmeg, vanilla cinnamon, sage, oregano, minced onion, liquid smoke, cumin, adobo, cilantro, cayenne pepper, celery seed, thyme, paprika, and garlic (only if you're serving the eggs for lunch or dinner - don't eat garlic for breakfast, that's just wrong). You've probably correctly surmised that (a) I'm not a professionally-trained chef, and (b) it doesn't really much matter what hebs and spices you use.

Computing power is typically measured along dimensions relevant to the supporting hardware, i.e., Megabytes or gigabytes of RAM; gigabytes or terabytes of hard disk space; clock speed, bus width, architecture, number of processors, and network bandwidth. Actual performance is determined by additional factors including the operating system and software you're running.

Has anybody else noticed, there's something .not. .quite. .right. about Shania Twain…?

MIPS = million instructions per second. This is one metric commonly used to assess processor performance in computers. "Instructions" refers to processor instructions, not lines of source code or specific commands that you give the computer. Each time you ask the computer to do something, its software responds by executing thousands or millions of actual processor instructions. Windy disclaimer - for all you CS majors reading this, yes, I know that MIPS is a very rough and somewhat obsolete estimate of processor performance, that I should be talking about whetstones and drhystones and all that, but let's not confuse the muggles, okay?

To be honest with you, I'm not feeling too good about computers right now - my main desktop computer's hard disk failed the other day and I'm in the process of copying off its data files before I turn it into a target. So - a question for you bruckies - should I take it out in one shot with a 30-06, or should I make it die a slow death by peppering it with the 22?

A little history: in the way early days of computing, individual instructions were executed more or less by hand, by moving patch cords around on a huge grid of jacks, like an old-fashioned telephone exchange. So at best, we're talking several seconds per instruction. The first computers that Bruck could find any performance info about, whose developers attempted to rate performance in MIPS (KIPS, actually - thousands), were the 1954 IBM 650, at a stunning 0.06 KIPS, or 60 instructions per second, and the vastly improved 1956 IBM 705, clocking in at 0.5 KIPS. By the late 1970s, computers such as the VAX 11/780 and the IBM System/370 were running at 1 MIPS.

The 17^th amendment basically says that senators are elected by popular vote in a state, not by the state legislature. It has a few other details in it as well, but who has time to read our country's most important founding document?

Personal computers, based on single microprocessors, have experienced similar growth in performance. The original 8086-base IBM PC is estimated to have produced 0.8 MIPS when it came out in 1982; as PC and microprocessor technology improved through the 80's and 90's MIPS grew accordingly: in 1988 the 80386-based computers boasted 54 MIPS, and by the mid-90's, the first Pentium-based machines were offering upwards of 500 MIPS. Yeehah! Don't let go of the handrail!

Young David, son of Bruck, built a computer earlier this year, from components he researched and bought himself. This computer has 4 gigabytes of RAM, a 250 gigabyte hard drive (actually this is a bit of a moving target, as he keeps changing them in and out), and an Intel core-2 quad processor running at 2.3 gigahertz. It's rated at approximately 50,000 MIPs.

Kayak fishing - when you hook one, try to keep the bow pointed at the fish. Otherwise, you may end up fighting the fish on his turf! Personally, I keep my kayaking and fishing separate, but young David has taken a liking to fishing from a kayak.

So what's the point? Well… there's more computing than ever going on these days, aside from your desktop, laptop, peripherals, and public display of affection, I mean personal digital appliance (PDA). If you own a relatively new vehicle (and if not, go buy one you ingrate), you're driving around with a few computers. Most modren appliances do some on-board computing. Even your cell phone has a couple of different processors in it, one for DSP (digital signal processing - converting your voice to bits and bytes & vice-versa) and one for basic operation. The DSP runs at about 40 MIPS, and the main processor runs at about 60 to 80 MIPS. So… while we ask what the Mrs. wants us to forget to pick up on the way home, or gossip about who's taking whom to the prom, or complain about our boss, or set up our golf foursome, we are holding in our sweaty hand more processing power than the entire Department of Defense had in the early 1970s. And are we better off? ANSWER ME!!!

Okay, the 17^th amendment was ratified in 1913, when Hawaii and Alaska were not yet states. Like my new phone?

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

2009-04-09T18:29:00.003-04:00

The ammo shelves at Walmart:

The Cruelest Month… Also the Busiest!

2009-04-02T21:29:00.001-04:00

Did you know that April is Jazz Appreciation Month? Well it is. They said so.

It's also usually the month when we observe/celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord and Savior, Creator, and final Judge of all mankind Jesus Christ by by hiding eggs from children and eating chocolate rabbits and honeybaked ham with cloves and pineapple rings.

And of course if April contains Easter, it usually also contains Good Friday, Palm Sunday, and Holy Thursday (aka Maundy Thursday, Maundy being one of the most awkward-sounding words in the English language: say the word Maundy several times in rapid succession and you'll quickly understand, if not share my contempt for it).

And who could forget the silliest day of the year, April 1^st, the birthday of a lovely little niece of Bruck in Georgia (LLNOBIG) but known to the rest of us as April Fool's Day? For my April Fool's joke this year, I had one of my colleagues in Hawaii convinced, for about 17 milliseconds, that his department was going to be transferred to Alaska.

As I'm sure you'll agree, there's an unmistakeable symmetry to the fact that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, IBS (look it up) Awareness Month, Alcohol Awareness Month, Genocide Prevention Month, and National Welding Month.

April happens to be the month for awareness of quite a lot of things - I hope you don't expect to get much sleep! More things that April has been designated as the month to be aware of:
Autism
Emotional Overeating (sign me up!)
Parkinson's
Rosacea (suffered by an estimate 45 million people worldwide - be aware!)
Cesarean (the birth procedure, not the salad dressing)
Pet First Aid (for or by, they didn't say)
Workplace Conflict (only you can prevent forest fires)
Stress

Not only do we have to do a lot of awareing, we are also compelled to do a fair piece of observing in April as well. In addition to Jazz and Welding, please join me in observing:
International Guitar Month
Amateur Radio Month
Firearms Appreciation Month
(haha just kidding, every month is firearms appreciation month)
National Anxiety Month (as if we need encouragement here)
National Mathematics Month (the other white meat)
National Poetry Month (pronounced poyetry)
National Garden Month
African American Women's Fitness Month (can't blame this one on George Bush)
Women's Eye Health & Safety Month (but you can blame this one on Dick Cheney)
School Library Media Month
National Pecan Month (wonder who came up with that one?)
National Child Abuse Prevention Month
Car Care Month
Fresh Florida Tomatoes Month

And my personal favorite: April is National DNA & Genomics & Stem Cell Education & Awareness Month. Can you imagine sitting in a meeting of the committee of hypersensitive psuedo-intellectual idealogue navel gazers that came up with that one? Can you imagine taking their lunch order?

There are certain events, circumstances, and conditions that require substantially more focus and therefore the observance of same must be condensed to a one-week period. Playground Safety, for example. Since you've probably been wondering, April contains National Playground Safety Week. Other "Weeks" in April:
Sky Awareness (how could you not be, …never mind)
Cowboy Poetry (culminating in a field trip to Brokeback Mountain)
WOC Nurses
(WOC stands for Wound, Ostomy, and Continence
- I bet they wash their hands a lot)
National Paperboard Packaging Week
(not quite sure how to celebrate this - spend a week at Walmart?)
Medication Safety Week
National Window Safety Week
National Women's Nutrition Week
Administrative Professional Week
National Women's Administrative Professional Nutrition Window Safety Week
(just kidding!)
Testicular Cancer Awareness Week
Egg Salad Week

Other phenomena are so singularly important, so moving, so utterly poignant, that to celebrate them for more than one day would cause emotional overload and possible blindness. What are we talking about? We're talking about Children with Alopecia Day. We're talking about Pet Owners' Independence Day. Yes, April has these Days and many more:
World Hemophelia Day
World Book and Copyright Day (that's on the 23^rd - I can't wait!)
Hairstylists Appreciation Day
(which fortunately is not during National Window Safety Week)
Richter Scale Day
DNA Day
Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day (sons grudgingly included)
Malaria Awareness Day
And we won't let Mrs. Bruck forget Husband Appreciation Day!

And you were thinking April was going to be dull. Just look at all the things you have to pay attention to, observe, appreciate, and pay homage to! Better get started right away!

But Bruck, aren't you forgetting something? Isn't there one particular day you're omitting that has taken on a new significance since you started working for Uncle Sam? Au contraire, mein freund, I haven't forgotten anything, just saving the best for last! If you are in the running for a cabinet post in the zero administration, or if you just want to do your civic duty and keep Bruck in steady supply of woodcut portraits of dead presidents, don't forget that April 15^th is Pay Your Taxes Day!

Back, by Popular Demand!

2009-03-22T19:58:00.020-04:00

The previous entry from young David, Son of Bruck, generated rave reviews, so he's back, and IMHO, stronger than ever! Please join me in welcoming young David back to the VOB, as we enjoy another of his high school writing assignments, the current one requiring the students to write "rules" for the "religion" of Transcendentalism.

Survival in
a painfully
oppressive
society

A handbook of life’s rules to maintain a simple existence in accordance with transcendentalist principles.

By David --------
Period 5
February 15, 2009

RULE I

When traveling, take the scenic route to your destination.

It is very important to transcendentalists to take time from the pressures and complexities of life to enjoy the simplicity and comfort that can be found in nature. This is one of the main transcendentalist principles.

RULE II

If it is a matter of life or death, provide an organ transplant to someone you love.

Transcendentalists strongly believe in placing the lives of those you love above yourself. In this example, you are giving life to someone you love at an inconvenience to yourself.

RULE III

Do not create graffiti on the sides of public buildings

For transcendentalists, everything is interconnected. You are everything, you are everyone, you are god. The simple act of defacing a building connects back to you, so you are in fact spraying obscenities on yourself, as well as god.

RULE IV

Never worry about remembering things that you learn in school.

Knowledge and wisdom cannot be gained from a
book. In a book, one learns about knowledge and wisdom, and it has yet to be gained. To really learn, one must experience these things.

RULE V

Park on the wrong side of the road.

People should govern themselves. How can you
demonstrate that the government does not control you? The answer is simple. You should disobey the rules you disagree with. This does not mean that transcendentalists believe you should be able to smuggle serial murdering, drug-dealing, reckless driving illegal immigrants across the border. This only falls under the category of “civil disobedience.”

RULE VI

Avoid winning arguments because you are too prideful to admit a mistake.

Transcendentalists crave simplicity. One should never complicate the truth by being prideful and wrong.

RULE VII

Adopt a dog

If you are one with everything, nature, god, and people, it only make sense that you should be nice to everything. In this example, you are adopting a dog.

RULE VIII

Dress like a homeless person—unless the “homeless look” is in style.

Paying attention to how you dress is a very bad idea. Transcendentalists believe that you should never conform to society’s standards. In this case you are ignoring the standard of how society believes that you should present yourself.

RULE IX

Go camping at least once a year.

There is much beauty and peace to be found in nature, you should take a break every year and visit it for many reasons. In nature you can find peace, happiness, simplicity, and genuine goodness.

RULE X

Shut your eyes as you walk through the city.

For transcendentalists, city life and the complications that arise from it are poison. You should always avoid being influenced by the ways of city life.

RULE XI

Use clothes and style magazines as a template for how you should not live your life.

The one core transcendentalist principle is: CONFORMITY IS POISON.

RULE XII

Don’t bother checking if you received correct change after a transaction.

According to transcendentalists, human beings inherently have good intentions and they are good at the core. It should be assumed that someone did not rip you off.

RULE XIII

NEVER litter.

Littering goes against multiple transcendental beliefs. First of all, you should never destroy nature because it is a sacred thing. You should not litter because you are littering on everything if you litter on the ground.

RULE XIV

Do not become angry if your significant other cheats on you.

You should always put the lives of others you love above yourself. If that person loves someone else, you should support that without any fight and let them move on with their lives.

RULE XV

Learn how to “rough it” and survive on your own without the protective bubble of society.

Living off the land is one skill that most will never need in their lives. Transcendentalists, however, believe that this is important because you can be self-reliant and tougher than wimpy people from the city.

Fire Kills Dog; Goat Lives

2009-03-01T20:58:00.005-05:00

Whatever you do, please don't put anything religious on my gravestone. I really think that honor should go to a very select few whose lives were wholly dedicated to religious pursuits; for the rest of us, it just seems a bit presumptuous, don't you think?

The newspaper article that loans its headline to today's dispatch appeared on the front page of the Friday, 27 February, 2009 issue of the News and Messenger, the newspaper of record for central Prince William County, Virginia. And a pathetic newspaper it is, but that's not the topic of today's missive. Today's topic is what to put on Bruck's gravestone, which of course is germaine only to those of you lucky enough to outlive me. So far we have:

Bruck
1963 - 20xx

The last two digits of the year are blank of course, and assuming the Aztecs simply ran out of space, or perhaps grew tired of writing a calendar for the civilizations that would vastly outlive them, we can hope the last two digits are greater than 12. I figure it's safe to use "20" as the first two digits of my final year; unless some clever foodologist figures out how to make the perfect antioxidant, probiotic, vitamin-enriched pork rind, I'm not expecting to survive this century. In fact, getting halfway through it would certainly beat the odds.

You can read the MJM news article about the lucky goat and not-so-lucky dog at:

http://www.insidenova.com/isn/news/crime/article/one_hurt_in_house_fire/30766/,

that is, as long as they maintain it there, which I doubt will be long once an actual editor reads it.

T'hey changed the title a bit from the printed version. I invite you to slog through the whole article, and if your reading comprehension level is similar to mine, it will take about three readings to get some idea of what actually happened. I will only excerpt the article, partially in deference to "fair use," but also to dispel any impression that I would write such dreck myself.

My favorite line from the article was the opening statement:

Rhonda D. (recall, I don't ID people w/o their permission in the VOBNS - see the actual article for the whole name) said that if her father hadn’t already passed away before Christmas, the Thursday morning fire at his home near Lake Jackson would have killed him.

My first thought was, well, good thing he died before Christmas, otherwise he would have, wait a minute, never mind…

The article goes on to relate how the house started burning at around 9:00 a.m. when Rhonda's daughter was getting on the school bus. Apparently the FD was summoned, as was Rhonda herself from Maryland, and a valiant attempt was made to save the menagerie which included three dogs and a goat. It's not totally clear who made this attempt, although the article did note that an aunt, Rhonda's sister, also named Rhonda, just kidding, but the bus driver was named Rhonda, required treatment for injuries sustained while attempting to save the animals, so we know at least that the aunt was involved.

It then states that, "In the end, the 6-year-old did get on the bus and go to school." What??? So let me get this straight, the girl is waiting for the school bus, it pulls up, opens its doors, the girl looks over her shoulder with dismay as flames and smoke billow from the windows of her house, and during the few seconds it takes to ascend the school bus steps, the FD arrives, her aunt cuts her hands trying to save the housepets, and mom comes screeching in from Maryland, while the last embers of the house float skyward as the three surviving animals look on.

And in the understatement of the year, Rhonda observes, "You can’t just easily fix this."

I guess not. There are more confusing details in the article, like who lived where, etc., but one that caught my eye was, "Smoke continued to billow from a pile of charred debris in the front yard long after the fire was extinguished." A debris pile in the front yard, hmmm. Was it deposited there as a result of the blaze, or as a result of attempting to extinguish the blaze, or was there a debris pile in the front yard prior to the fire (this is Prince William County, and we are talking about a household with a pet goat)? If so, did it catch fire as a result of the house fire, or was it a separate but coincident fire? With no information as to the cause of the house fire, we're left to assume meteor strike, so likely as not there may have been other nearby fires as well.

The first thing to keep in mind, in considering a suitable epitaph, is that whatever you put there is strictly for the benefit of the survivors; the stiff probably won't even get to read it. And Big Guy Upstairs certainly is not going to be fooled or persuaded by any false piety you put there. Jesus Christ Himself exposed the futility of trying to "reach back" from the grave in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, which I'm sure you remember from Sunday School; if not, see the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16.

What would be appropriate to put on one's gravestone anyway? I like to think it should reflect something positive the departed managed to accomplish in life, or at least provide some information that survivors might find useful, like if he/she was a veteran, or a parent, or held some esteemed position in society or business. But not necessarily… it's still (just barely) a free country, you know!

There was a follow-on article the next day, by the same author (!), about the beleagured pet and former home owner. Some more facts come into focus, including that two cats also succumbed, and the mother is now named Dolores (maybe she has always been named Dolores) and has a potentially fatal illness, no wait a minute, two: osteomyelitis and brain cancer. The article clears up the timeline somewhat, but balances this with even more contradictions and inexplicable circumstances for the reader to ponder. This journalistic masterpiece can be found at:

http://www.insidenova.com/isn/news/local/article/after_loss_of_home_woman_faces_serious_diagnosis/30934/.

BTW, I saved a text version of these articles locally in case they disappear from the news site; e-mail me if you need them.

The author states that Delores, whose name will probably change again in the next article, provided information about Denise the goat: "Originally purchased and cared for by her late father, Denise loves to eat Pop-Tarts."

Practically speaking, one can direct one's survivors to write whatever they want on a gravestone. I kind of like the idea of putting something there to make my successors scratch their heads and wonder, kind of like what I did after reading these two articles. So here's what I just decided I want on my gravestone:

Bruck
Fire Kills Dog; Goat Lives
1963 - 20xx

Please Come to Boston

2009-02-21T20:12:00.004-05:00

…is a pop song by David Loggins which some of you might remember from your youth, that is, if your youth and the 1970's intersected at any point. Otherwise your exposure to it is limited to the occasional airing on the oldies station. It was Mr. Loggins' only big hit, and I'm sure he feels not just a little bit overshadowed by his considerably more successful cousin Kenny Loggins. In fact, I would hazard a guess that when I mentioned David Loggins above, your first reaction was, "don't you mean Kenny Loggins?" Nope, David Loggins.

I hadn't given the song much thought over the past few decades, until I heard it emanating from the bedroom of young David, son of Bruck, a few weeks ago. It was being covered by country music bad boy David Allan Coe, to whose music young David has taken a recent liking. BTW, by "bad boy," I'm don't mean to place him in the same strata with the current gaggle of CMA makeup- and ponytail-wearing plush toys, but serious no-class, politically incorrect, offensive, heavily-tattooed, in and out of reform school and prison bad boy. At any rate, DAC did a very respectable cover of Please Come to Boston, at least the studio version. He claims in an interview (CoeFan, September 1997) that it's his favorite non-original song.

A song's lyrics are important to me, even for instrumentals - I can't really like a song if it has bad lyrics, no matter how catchy the tune is. For your edification, below are the lyrics for Please Come to Boston. And for all of you campfire entertainers out there, the chords are pretty simple - I, IV, V, & VIm; you can figure out where they go. I do the song in A; DAC does it in D; the First Amendment to the US Constitution secures your right to play it in whatever key you wish.

Verse:
Please come to Boston for the springtime
I'm stayin' here with some friends
 and they've got lots of room
You can sell you paintings on the sidewalk
By a cafe where I hope to be working soon
Please come to Boston, she said no, boy,
 you come home to me.

Chorus:
She said hey ramblin' boy
  why don't you settle down.
[Boston | Denver | LA] ain't your kind of town.
There ain't no gold and
  there ain't nobody like me.
I'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee.

Verse:
Please come to Denver for the snowfall
We'll move up into the mountains
 so far that we can't be found
& throw I love you echoes down the canyon
And then lie awake at night
  till they come back around.
Please come to Denver, she said no, boy,
 you come home to me.

Bridge:
Now this drifter's world goes round and round
 and I doubt it's ever gonna stop
Out of all the dreams I've lost and found
 and all that I ain't got,
I need to cling to. Somebody I can sing to.

Verse:
Please come to LA, we'll live forever.
The California life alone
  is just too hard to take
I live in a house that looks out over the ocean
And there's some stars that fell from the sky
 livin' up on the hill.
Please come to LA, she said no, baby,
 you come home to me.

So, what's it all about? At first blush, it would appear to be a Mars/Venus song about a man who has an egregious mix of wanderlust and loneliness, in love with an equally lonely woman with a strong homing instinct and interest in family and security. The song ends with the conflict unresolved; we're left to supply the missing puzzle pieces from our own imaginations.

I think there's more to it, however. Whether or not he intended it, I believe Mr. Loggins may have written the Great American Epic. Or at least a pretty good American epic…

Let's do some deconstruction, shall we? First, if we turn up the magnification, we can see that these aren't just disconnected points in place and time, but actually the course of a man's life, and the changes that take place over time.

Verse 1: The singer is in Boston, looking for work, presumably young and idealistic. Staying with friends, offering spurious opportunities, these appear as the hallmarks of adolescence and young adulthood. Meanwhile, he recognizes that he is missing something by not having his loved one with him.

Verse 2: The singer has made it as far as Denver, and presumably is in at least a good enough financial position to choose where he lives, and is not expressedly tied anywhere geographically. He wants to retreat from people, so far up the mountain that he can't be found, but he doesn't want to be alone up there either. To me this indicates themes and emotions of middle adulthood; retreat from the superficial world, having grown weary of chasing the rainbows of one's youth. So basically, he's growing up, but is still lonely.

Verse 3: The singer is now in LA, and is apparently now reaping rewards of a successful, productive life, living in oceanfront property among Hollywood stars. His introversion seems to be replaced by feelings of invincibility, a perspective more often found in successful people in the AARP age range. But still, even in the paradise of the southern California coast, he realizes that his lonely life is incomplete.

Chorus: The singer is always being called back home throughout his life, by his presumably would-be bride who seems to hold the answer that the singer is looking for, that true wealth and happiness lies in being with her, at home in Tennessee. Verse 3 somewhat gives lie to this, however, as the singer seems to have struck it rich to some degree, indicating that perhaps her definition of wealth is larger than just material riches.

Okay, fine, Bruck, nice analysis, but I took high school English too. What's this "epic" business then?

Well, the main thing that tipped me off was the geography. When I first started hearing the song, even as a youngster in the mid-70's, I wondered why would a woman from Tennessee, or at least one with a jones for Tennesseans, be interested in a man from Boston? Or, why would a Tennessee man be in Boston voluntarily (recall, he's not even working yet), and why would he entertain the preposterous expectation that a Tennessee woman would want to follow him there? It's cold in Boston. Southerners don't like cold weather. And they don't serve grits there. And it's chock full of yankees, the kind of yankees that other yankees don't even like.

Answer: Boston represents the American Revolution for independence from British rule, and is also one of the economic mainstays that supported our country in its infancy. Note that two of the three middle lines of the first verse are explicitly economic, and hopeful. Presumably things worked out for the singer in Boston, as they did for the fledgling republic, at least well enough to get him to Denver.

Next question, same as the first: why would a man from Tennessee want to go to Denver, of all places? Again, no grits, lots of yankees, and even in the 70's, when the song was written, Denver was a little more "fruits 'n' nuts" than your typical southern man would be interested in.

Again, the answer is geographic and historical: Denver symbolizes the western expansion of the young United States. Intrepid pioneers pushed west in pursuit of greater opportunity than what the eastern states offered - gold, oil, industry, land, independence. And in these pursuits, they endured great hardship and deprivation, facing the snowfall and mountains without benefit of Thinsulate and Chapstick.

Southern California, where LA is the most prominent city, represents the culmination of American culture, the fulfillment of The American Dream. It's a place where we as a country can enjoy the fruits of our labor, and focus our energies on creative, aesthetic pursuits, rather than war and conquest.

Wait just a minute, now, you may be thinking, what about the girl? What's this business about always being called back to Tennessee? I believe Tennessee represents "home" in the spiritual sense, i.e., the religious foundations of the colonies and young republic. Wherever we go as a country and a nation, we are always being called back to our roots, and our denial of same results in the gnawing emptiness that no amount of physical or material wealth can satisfy.

And note again that the conflict is not resolved; I would hazard a guess that this is a mirror that many of us see ourselves in, both as a nation and individually.

So, what is it, cheesy pop song or Great American Epic? Top 40 fluff or window into the American soul? Like the unfinished story in the song, it's up to the listener to supply the last word!

The Waltonian

2009-01-29T19:42:00.004-05:00

Walter is Walter.

Of the thousands and thousands of people I've met in this world, near home and around the globe, I believe that Walter is one of the very few who simply is who he is.

How many of you have heard of the J-Pole? One at a time, please. Any guesses as to what it is? Alright, I'll break the suspense. It's a vertically-polarized omnidirectional 2-meter antenna. Feel better now? 2 meters is the amateur radio band that covers 144 to 148 Mhz. This band is named after the approximate wavelength for that frequency range, and is used mainly for local communications. For reference porpoises, your FM radio receives in the FM broadcast band which covers approx. 88 to 107 Mhz (3 meters, BTW). The J-Pole is a popular antenna among hams as it is one you can buld yourself, entirely from ½" copper pipe and fittings. It's called the "plumber's dream" for this reason. I'm picturing a plumber waking up in the morning and saying, "Honey, I had that dream again, you know the one about making an antenna out of ½" copper pipe? I've got a meeting with the boss today - do I have any clean lowriders?"

You can also construct a J-Pole from 300 ohm parallel feedline (the kind of wire you used to connect the rabbit ears to the TV back in the Pleistocene era). That version called the hotel room J-Pole because you can use it to call the police when OJ breaks in to try to get his stuff back, I mean you can roll it up and put it in your suitcase for a convenient antenna to use while traveling on business.

There's also the Super J-Pole, which is a variant of the Plumber's Dream. The Super J has an additional element added on to the long leg of the J, connected via a hairpin coupler with a 270 degree curve in it. Just look at the picture, okay? This purportedly adds another couple dB of horizontal gain. In case you're wondering how the concept of "gain" applies to an omnidirectional antenna, think of the antenna as a point in the middle of a round balloon, and the surface of the balloon represents how far the antenna's transmissions can reach. Adding gain is like squashing the balloon vertically to make its sides bulge out. So you can reach further out horizontally at the expense of diminished effectiveness in the vertical direction. No big loss, as the geese and sparrows don't talk on 2 meters anyway. Why this works is a whole nuther story. I hold bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering (go Blue), and have been an amateur radio operator for over 10 years, yet any antenna more complicated than a half-wave dipole is still black magic to me. So really, it's not you.

Walter (or "Valtah" as we occasionally call him in honor of Andy, another local ham who sports a pronounced Austrian accent) has been officially unemployed for as long as I've known him. Prior to my meeting him, he purportedly was a contract engineer doing statistical analysis, so he's no dummy, but for the duration of our acquaintance, he's subsisted on odd jobs, thrift, and self-sufficiency. He lives alone, last I've heard, but he has a daughter, and presumably an ex-wife somewhere as well. But I guess it would not be quite accurate to say he lives alone - actually he has, or at least had, a cat, plus dozens of antique radios.

The Super J-Pole took on a new name among our ham radio buddies in the northern Detroit suburban area. There, it's called the xxJ-Pole (I'm not indicating what xx is, as that would give away his callsign, which would provide means for positively identifying Walter; I studiously avoid identifying my subjects without their permission here in the VOBNS). This came about as a result of an "antenna party" that some of the local radio club fellows had at Walter's house, in which they mass-produced a number of Super J-Poles. I did not attend, but bought one specimen for the price of the parts, which was about $20. I made quite a lot of contacts with it. I gave it away, as I did with most of my antennas prior to moving to the Washington, DO area. "Scratchy" is the current proud owner of same.

So picture this - a relatively modest 3-bedroom ranch house, with every shelf, table, and counter in every room filled with antique radios, most of which actually work. What you're picturing is the ad hoc museum we affectionately call The Waltonian. And Walter can tell you about each one of them. Unfortunately, you'll have to take my word for it, as the Waltonian is not open to the public, particularly that part of the public that's with a collection agency.

We love to categorize people, don't we? We categorize ourselves too, for that matter. Usually we use occupations or professions, but also we tend to use belief systems and sometimes hobbies or sports. He's a dentist, she's a teacher, I'm an engineer, he's a Christian, she's a Hindu, he's a golfer, you get the picture. And for better or worse, our categories tend to drive who we really are, rather than the other way around. Do first grade teachers dress that way because they're first grade teachers, or do people who happen to dress that way generally tend toward the profession of teaching first graders? It's usually only at a funeral when we put all the pieces together, and then what do we have? A well-understood, properly-categorized corpse! Anyway, Walter never explicitly said to me, "Bruck, quit categorizing people; just appreciate them for who they are." But although he probably doesn't even realize it, this is one of the many things he showed me. How? Just by being himself, and perhaps partially by not having the same job for more than six months at a time. He also showed me how to construct a 6-meter beam (unidirectional horizontally-polarized antenna for the 50-54 Mhz amateur radio band) from an old TV antenna. Old TV antennas are log-periodic dipoles, BTW; in case you ever wanted to know how a TV antenna can receive signals over such a wide range of frequencies, there's your answer. It's all a moot point anyway, since by now, most of you who dwell in the TV matrix use cable or satellite for your daily programming.

So, you're probably thinking, okay, that J-Pole is a cool antenna, so much so that I am taking off of work early today to go study for my ham radio license, so I too can use one, but… why 2-meters only? Couldn’t the same concept be scaled up or down to work on 6 meters, or even the 220 or 440 Mhz bands? The answer is yes, but we don't recommend it. Instead, just try to see people for who they really are, and thereby start tearing down the walls of that categorical prison you've spent your life constructing for them and yourself. Freedom!

Salt

2009-01-20T20:03:00.002-05:00

You may remember a VOB column from March of last year, in which we explored the age-old question, how long would it take to consume 400 pounds of salt? It turned out to be a bit less than a lifetime supply for a person with a typical level of sodium consumption, or enough for five people for life, with the minimum consumption level. But, you wonder, how long does that amount of salt last in the water softener. Well, just the other day I poured the last 80-pound bag into the salt hopper, so about 10 months.

A number of VOB readers has suggested that I comment on the inauguration of our new president. I was sitting in my living room a short while before the actual oath of office was administered when a bird hit the window. It didn't die, though; it just flew away.

Good News from the Future!

2009-01-11T14:06:00.002-05:00

Being as how at least eight of my approximately fifteen readers are from the Detroit, MI area, I thought you might be interested in reading the transcript of a WJR news broadcast from Tuesday, December 12th, 2012, which I intercepted on my shortwave receiver (broadcasts from the future come in every evening, pending favorable ionospheric conditions, on 17.145 Mhz, upper sideband, 0200-0300 GMT weekdays, 0200-0400 weekends). In a recent column, I related my insider/outsider perspective on the state of the MI economy, based on observations and conversations I had during my holiday visit there. Hopefully my faithful readers will be encouraged by this brief peek into the future:

…statewide, retail sales figures are up as the holiday season gets into full swing. Governor Bowman's office reports that unemployment in Michigan is at an all-time low, with 22,000 new manufacturing jobs created in November following the opening of the new Chevy Truck plant in Riverview. GM CEO Kirk Maltby projects a 17% increase in vehicle sales for the upcoming model year, and reports a seventh straight profitable quarter. Meanwhile, Ford Motor Company also reports a sales increase, and has regained its position as the world's #2 automaker, according to CEO and president Chris Chelios.

Detroit Mayor Tomas Holmstrom will be delivering his 3^rd state-of-the-city address tomorrow night; we will carry the exclusive broadcast right here on your flagship station WJR. The mayor will announce interim replacements for the four city council members convicted last month on bribery and racketeering charges. His short list is expected to include Henrik Zetterberg and Niklas Kronwall, and possibly Brad Stuart. Detroit Schools Superintendent Chris Osgood will follow the mayor with comments of his own, on the second straight year of double-digit increases in standardized test scores, and steady growth in high school graduation rates.

Police chief Niklas Lidstrom would like to warn city residents against leaving their cars unlocked while Christmas shopping. Overall, crime has been down over the last year since Mr. Lidstrom took office, with only a slight increase in assault and battery.

And in sports news, tailback Johan Franzen led the Lions to a 43-to-17 trouncing of the Tennessee Titans last night, running 137 yards to score three of the Lions' five touchdowns. Quarterback Kris Draper threw 27 for 30, and ran in the last TD himself on the option. Coach Pavel Datsyuk remarked that he is pleased with the Lions efforts to clean up their play, noting that the Lions were penalized for only 57 personal fouls, down from 92 in last week's win over the Giants.

So there you have it, folks - once we get the right people in charge, the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan are on their way back to reclaim their former greatness!

Bruck's (belated) Christmas Letter

2009-01-04T20:03:00.002-05:00

We haven't sent out our Christmas cards yet. So for you VOB readers who are on our Christmas card list, keep checking your mailboxes - any day now! Not there today? Maybe tomorrow!

Meanwhile…

The father of Bruck's maternal grandmother (MGOFOB) and mother (MOFOB) were wonderful southern cooks, as I've noted in at least one prior column. I could list the typical contents (fried chicken, various greens, cornbread with cracklins, green beans cooked with bacon, sugar cookies with about a pound of sugar per, etc. etc.), but that wouldn't do it justice. You'll just have to take my word for it. The closest thing to it that we northerners might experience is the Cracker Barrel restaurants, which adequately capture the content but not the style. So if you know the Cracker Barrel cuisine (I'm not going to tell you what my kids call the CB, as I'm trying to keep this column rated G), try to picture it with a bit less salt and grease, and without the chain restaurant taste (is there some kind of chemical that all chain restaurants use to make their food taste alike?). That would get you in the ballpark. At any rate, Great-Grandma passed away in the late 70's, and her traditions were carried on by Grandma until not long before her death in the late 80's. I do miss them, but you can't live forever, and I think God put them on the Earth at the right time and for the proper duration. To this day, I still indulge in fried chicken when I can, although I realize that trying to find "the good stuff" anywhere besides Grandma's old dining room table in Warren, MI is at best a fool's errand. But that doesn't stop me from trying.

And for the benefit of my dear readers whose only source of news is the objective and unbiased Voice of Bruck News Service, the fine state of Michigan is presently in serious economic straits. We used to say that when the American economy gets a cold, Michigan's economy gets pneumonia. Lately I think it would be more accurate to call it economic pneumonia complicated by jock itch, kidney failure, halitosis, hepatitis, psoriasis-induced heartbreak, AIDS, and cancer. The reality of this situation has been made all the more clear during my recent visit to the Great Lake State over the holidays. The statistics don't lie (9.6% seasonally adjusted unemployment as of November, 113,000 jobs lost so far in 2008, over 14,000 foreclosures in November alone, Lions 0-16, mayor of Detroit in jail), but they tell only part of the story.

We arrived in the Detroit area on the Saturday evening before Christmas. As most normal people do when they return to their hometown, I put out my callsign on the local VHF repeater (the DART, 146.640/040, 100hz PL). Since it's wintertime in MI, I didn't hear crickets, but if there were crickets, that's all I would have heard. After plowing slush for a few miles on the Southfield Freeway, I tried again. This time I got Mark from Royal Oak. His callsign is in the mid KD8's, indicating that he's a relatively recently licensed radio amateur, as I'm sure you're aware. Mark informed me that the repeater has been pretty quiet lately, as just about everybody who used to use it is now laid off. Actually this isn't completely true - most of the people who used to use it are retired, but nonetheless, the normally active repeater has been uncharacteristically quiet.

It was good to see the old crowd at church Sunday. The economy was not a big topic of conversation - I get the feeling they'd rather focus on more upbeat topics during the holiday season - but the lunch they served for the homeless did attract in a large crowd.

I had lunch with my friend PW, who I know from that church, on Monday. We went to a basic family restaurant in Centerline, MI, near his office. PW expressed his hope that that particular restaurant survive the rough economic climate in SE MI. I thought this was a peculiar sentiment, but the twinge of doubt in his voice indicated his real meaning, clarified by his later revelation that the automotive supplier's offices where he worked were going to be consolidating and moving to another city in '09, and all of the local businesses were going to suffer, and many likely fail. PW ordered the cheeseburger; I ordered the fish and chips. This wasn't my first choice; I originally ordered fried chicken but was informed, some time after ordering, that they were out of fried chicken. "We're out of fried chicken," the waitress exclaimed abruptly.
"OK.. then could I have a menu again, please?"
"Oh, yes… let me get you one…"
But I wasn't really there for the quality of the food, nor the service or atmosphere; I was there to catch up on things with PW, one of the few remaining employees of the American automotive industry. PW kind of puts a face on the automotive bailout for me. If the president hadn't overridden congress and guaranteed some loans, PW would have almost certainly lost his contract, and as for 2010, ...?

On Tuesday, I had lunch with CF ("Honey Bunny") and his wife DF, both from my old radio club. CF, DF, and their daughter are all currently on the wrong side of the employment statistics, but at least CF hopes to get back on the job early next year. We dined at one of the Greek-owned family restaurants so prevalent in SE MI. I ordered the fried chicken, having been denied this self-indulgence the day before. No such luck here, either, but at least the waitress was polite about it. I got the chicken strips instead. Should have gone for the salad.

On Wednesday, Christmas Eve, I met DB, a fellow refugee of the failing US automotive industry. DB is gainfully employed by what seems like a viable if somewhat small software company. DB's observations resonated with what I've been thinking. DB is not a native Michigander, but has spent most of his life there, and of course I'm from there myself. Bottom line: DB and I know the people of MI. They will survive.
DB's position: maybe this recession/depression isn't such a bad thing. People need to be shaken up in order to bring out the best in them.
Bruck's position: you can transfer wealth, jobs, and tax base, but you can't transfer inner strength.
Two sides of the same coin I would say.

This reminds me of a conversation I had a few years ago with GC, a young man from Chicago who moved to Detroit in 2001 and moved back to Chicago in '06 or so. One of his contracts placed him near my place of business for a few months, during which we did lunch a few times. As a technical financial type (whose instinctive honesty should have landed him in the engineering profession), he paid close attention to, and expressed consternation over, the state of the economy in Detroit. Mind you, this was a couple of years before the current meltdown. Very logically he explained how the fundamentals don't add up, and how economic disaster was looming. I replied that yes, he was correct, disaster was right around the corner, but I had lived most of 40+ years in the Detroit area and could not remember economic disaster ever not being further away than right around the corner, and yet Detroit and the state of MI still plugged away.

Thursday - Merry Christmas!

Friday young David, son of Bruck, and I got our White Castle fix. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could also pick up some fried chicken there, killing two birds with one stone so to speak, as the White Castle restaurants have some kind of partnership going with Church's Chicken, and sometimes peddle their wares from the same grease pits. But not this time - the branch we visited on the corner of 13 Mile and Coolidge was sliders-only.

Saturday, I took the opportunity to shoot some skeet with JB, one of the numerous brothers-in-law of Bruck (BILOBs), and his father-in-law (FILOBILOB) DN. Actually it would be more accurate to say the in-laws were shooting skeet. I was just shooting little lead pellets into thin air, presumably somewhere near the skeet. Afterwards, I polled them as to their thoughts about the auto company bailout. Against the backdrop of the shuttered Wixom plant (where Ford assembled Lincolns and Jaguars) their sentiments resonated with those of a lot of people who are not directly employed by the US auto industry. Namely, the bailout won't do any good without some major restructuring; otherwise, all it's going to do is postpone the inevitable. I asked them if they thought Detroit will recover, and their unequivocal answer was yes. It might take a while, but certainly yes.

Bruck's perspective: this is what happens. I used to have a desk at the Wixom plant, as I oversaw several quality-improvement projects going on there, just a few short years ago, so believe me when I say, the cold emptiness of the closed plant is something I feel deep in my solar plexus. It used to be a beehive of activity, a very exciting place to work. But... this is what happens when people lose sight of the big picture, take their eye off the ball as it were. There's plenty of blame to go around: greedy unions, short-sighted management, congress, the Sloan School of Management, etc. etc. The various analyses I've read on the current economy add up to a whole lot of tiresome bloviating and finger-pointing. But one thing I've yet to hear is, "I screwed up." Seriously, have you heard anyone, anywhere admit any degree of personal culpability? Even more unlikely: "I'm sorry."

Meanwhile, I did my part to stimulate the MI economy - we did most of our Christmas shopping there, and wore the numbers off our credit cards at the various shooting facilities and restaurants. We're back in VA now, where things aren't quite so desperate economically.

I managed to get some fried chicken from KFC on New Year's Day. According to the mother of Bruck, it's good luck to have fried chicken, black-eyed peas, and stewed tomatoes on NYD. We got the chicken part covered anyway. I hope the good luck cancels out some of the Colonel's starch, grease, and salt. Happy New Year!

So what's the bottom line for MI? Well, there's only one way to go from here. But seriously, I know that MI will recover, and thrive. Might not be next week, or even next year, but MI will bounce back as strong as ever. I can't say how, or by what means, but it will happen. One thing I do know is that things will be different - to paraphrase Albert Einstein, you can't get out of trouble by doing the same things that got you into trouble. Bruck's suggestion: everybody in MI should go have a nice big plate of southern fried chicken. It may not fix the economy, but it's a good start!

AP English Fun

2008-12-17T20:44:00.004-05:00

Young David, Son of Bruck is today's guest editor. He has been trying to make the best of his AP English class, and claims not to be enjoying said class, but I think today's dispatch proves otherwise. The following are a few exerpts of his homework this term.

The first is a travelogue from our trip to New York, captured in this previous VOB entry. David focuses on the part of the trip just prior to boarding the bus for NY. If it seems a bit stilted, that's because he was required to make use of certain vocabulary words, which I've highlighted.

It was July 28 and my father and I were on our way to New York. We were to ride the metro into DC and then get on a bus, which would take us the rest of the way. As we stepped off the subway, we could immediately tell that the streets were going to be packed with people. As we rode the escalator to the surface, didactic signs told us with clarity that we should do our grocery shopping at Wegmans, and that we should join the United States Marine Corps. One sign in particular asserted the importance of purchasing General Dynamics products for all of our large defense contracts, which I disagreed with, because I had always used Lockheed Martin when I needed heavy military equipment. When we finally reached the surface, we found ourselves in Chinatown, surrounded by a fluid crowd of people flowing up and down the escalator. Near the exit of the station, a homeless man with dreadlocks tried to sell me a map of the city, which appeared homemade. When I politely declined, he launched into a cogent argument that made me feel very guilty. The The discourse between us started off normal but soon stopped being coherent, as he could not remember the names of the 3 children he said that he needed to feed. For some strange reason, I thought that he might have been lying to me. The next person to grab my attention was a street evangelist who was standing on the corner. He did not speak with eloquence; he instead shouted the same few phrases over and over. Although he was skilled at rhetorical speaking, his persuasive nature and evidence was not enough to convince people of what he was talking about. His shouting was clearly organized and lucid. He emphasized facts about the 12 tribes of Israel, and from what I could tell, he was quietly making the implication that all people of European descent were evil. At this point, I felt very uncomfortable and told my dad that I thought we should leave. He pulled out his cell phone and took a picture of the man. I started walking away and he followed, which may have saved us from getting beat up.

Another assignment required the use of specific vocabulary words in pertinent situations:

A plausible excuse for not doing my vocabulary work is that I had to go to my great-grandmother's funeral, as she could die any minute.

I did not Kill John Fitzgerald Kennedy. This is substantiated by the fact that I was not alive at the time.

After the car accident, the police listened to both sides of the story, and I was vindicated when the police gave the man a Breathalyzer test.

The next assignment compelled the use of certain vocabulary words in a meaningful dialogue. Young David has concocted a conversation between Ron and Sue, the hapless members of what would appear to be the world's least subtle unhappily married couple.

Ron: I know that you hold me in contempt but I would like to stress the point that I hate you also. I know that we can never come to an agreement but I would very much like to carry this on because I will feel better if you are offended and emotionally hurt when this is over.

Sue: Why must you be so condescending towards me when I have the same abilities as you? I believe that you will walk away from this as the one feeling patronized and made fun of.

Ron: The reason that you speak like that is because you are so haughty. A humble person would be so much nicer, but I got stuck married to you in some strange arranged marriage situation.

Sue: I don't believe that you are such a nice guy either. Last Christmas you called me an imperious control freak, because I asked you to move your indolent behind from the couch and help me decorate the tree. Was it too much to ask?

Ron: Was it really such a bad thing that I didn't want to do your boring, insipid busy work? You never have me do anything worthwhile. All I do is take your dictatorial commands. Slavery was never abolished. They just changed its name to "being a husband."

Sue: How dare you say that? You call me all these names buy I really am doing you a favor. I want to stop you from being so torpid, sitting around and watching TV. If it means being a despotic and controlling ruler then so be it. All you do is listlessly sit around and eat chips and salsa.

Ron: Well I just want you to know that I hold you in complete disdain. There is not another person on this earth that I respect less.

Sue: (Knocks Ron unconscious.)

See? AP English can be fun! Kinda makes you want to go back to high school, doesn't it?

BTW, if you enjoy young David's work let me know - as they say, "there's more where that came from!"

Fairfax County Parkway Take Me Home

2008-12-02T19:26:00.002-05:00

Steel belted radials, one hand on the wheel
Red Bull, STP, and gasoline
Elbow deep in mercury between two walls of pine
Fairfax County Parkway take me home

I've gotten lots of sage advice from geniuses and fools
From them I should have learned a thing or two
Like where the mama bear is waiting with her polaroid
Fairfax County Parkway take me home

License, passport, visa, favorite color, date of birth
Insurance, registration, next of kin
I haven't seen such a pretty face since Thursday afternoon
I was a younger, better man back then.

Refrain:
Fairfax County Parkway, take me home, take me home,
Or take me to a better place than this
Where rivers flow with coffee and the donuts grow on trees
And my new friend in blue might loosen up

I'm hoping you can tell me, as I really couldn't know
The needle broke off seven exits back
Now please don't take this personal, but what's a girl like you…
Fairfax County Parkway take me home

I'm not much good at small talk, never had a silver tongue
I'd sooner navigate as shoot the breeze
Pretty young thing like you shouldn't have to work the graveyard shift
Fairfax County Parkway take me home.

Refrain
Fairfax County Parkway, take me home, take me home,
Or take me to a better place than this
Where blue lights flashing only means that underwear's on sale
Six crew neck tees a dollar ninety nine

I know my rights as dramatized on late p.m. TV
The Constitution guarantees one call
But the only one I want to call is occupied right now
Informing her dispatcher of my case

She's taken darn near everything I've worked for all my life
Wallet, car keys, shoelaces and belt.
I tried to keep my dignity but no, she got that too
Fairfax County Parkway take me home

Refrain
Fairfax County Parkway, take me home, take me home,
Or take me to a better place than this
Where fetching girls with handcuffs and revolvers on their hips
Deliver law enforcement with a smile

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T09:48:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday, the guest preacher at church delivered a sermon on thanksgiving. He summed it up pretty well with the statement, "Thanksgiving isn't a day, it's a lifestyle." Amen to that, bro! I could only add, the lifestyle of thanksgiving is isn't so much about what you say or think as what you do.

Happy Thanksgiving from Bruck!

Bruck's Picks, NFL Week 11

2008-11-14T22:42:00.005-05:00

Weathermen and sports commentators - two occupations where you can be wrong over half the time and not get fired! Where do I apply? Bruck's picks for key games in week 11:

Cowboys vs. Redskins

For those of us born in the Politically Incorrect generation, this game will be the culmination of our perennial childhood game, Cowboys and Indians. The cowboys always won, of course, and will this weekend as well. By at least 7. And for our Idaho readers, "Redskin" is slang for American Indian, not a variety of potato. Here's one for the research department: are there any real Redskins, i.e., card-carrying American Indians, on the Washington Redskins? I bet the answer is no. Not a whole lot of Caucasians either.

Ravens vs. Giants

Giants by 14 or more. I mean really, how can you take a team seriously whose mascot is a carrion bird? Eagles or falcons, now there are a couple of birds that command respect. Even penguins are more intimidating than ravens. What were they thinking?

Titans vs. Jaguars

There's a toughie - I wouldn't want to be caught in a dark alley with either of these. Jaguar is one of the toughest and fastest members of the cat family, while a Titan, well, I don't honestly know what a Titan is, but I'm pretty sure it's some sort of large, powerful mythological creature. Since fear of the unknown always trumps fear of the known, Titans by 5.

Chargers vs. Steelers

A charger could be a battle horse, a credit card purchaser, a device for restoring the juice in a battery, a large platter, or a hockey player who executes a particular form of illegal checking. A bit ambiguous, no? Meanwhile, I've always like the Steelers' uniforms. Steelers by 3.

Bears vs. Packers

Packer in this case means meat packer, red meat being a pillar of the Green Bay economy and local culture. I once met a vegetarian who had previously lived in Green Bay. Finding social acceptance, let alone a good meal, in Green Bay proved a substantial challenge. Bears, on the other hand, are fearsome and voracious omnivores whom people with livestock blood on their sleeves would do well to beware. Bears by 9.

Vikings vs. Buccaneers

If ever a game should be played out on the open sea, it's this one. Here we have a historic, well-organized, and exceedingly brutal naval force battling against wily pirates who honed nautical guerilla warfare to an art form. In a pitched battle, the Vikings would win hands down, but that's not how Buccaneers operate. So I'm flipping a coin… and the winner is… Buccaneers, no margin.

Lions vs. Whoever They Are Playing.

Here's another one for the research department: Why are the Lions' team colors blue and silver? Shouldn't they use some derivative of actual lion colors? Whoever They Are Playing by 21.

Sailing Lake Superior - An Update

2008-11-09T18:13:00.001-05:00

The father of Bruck (FOB) just finished having some fiberglas repair work done on the hull of his CL-16 sailboat, the one used for his nautical exploits highlighted in the spellbinding VOB dispatch Taming Lake Superior. The mother of Bruck (MOB) suggested that he get the hull painted as well, to cover up the unsightly patches. "Why don't get get a message painted on the bottom," I offered, "something that can be read from the air?"

"Yes, how about SOS?" added the MOB.

"Har-de-har-har," his rejoinder.

Anyway, I offer the story below in the interest of full disclosure: the FOB is not the only one who has trouble with the fickle winds of Lake Superior. The story below is from an e-mail from Carolyn, friend of father of Bruck (FOFOB) to the FOB, relating her adventures in a boat piloted by Chris (husband of Chris), a sailing buddy of the FOB. Please note that the FOB had absolutely nothing to do with the following sailing mishap.

I was walking down the beach minding my own business and Chris and Chris were waiting for friends to take sailing. While they were waiting Chris asked me if I would like to go for a quick sail while Chris waited to hear from their friends. I questioned whether or not it was the best sailing conditions, because the wind was coming from the southwest and gusting every which way. Chris said no problem. We were having a pretty good time when Chris noticed people on shore and said we better head back. The wind died as we neared shore so he jumped out to pull us in. Only problem was that the water was too deep and a gust of wind came and shot me out toward the middle of the bay. Chris started yelling "stay with the boat" (like where did he think I would go). Next it was "take down the sails", then "I'll come and get you". He first started out in a kyak. I was waving good bye to everyone at this point. Chris and Chris finally found keys to a jet ski and rescued me. I am determined to learn to sail next summer so I can make it back to shore by myself!

As in the previous dispatch, I would respectfully recommend Chinese Checkers.

Tuesday Morning

2008-10-29T22:26:00.001-04:00

I was a (not so) Big (anymore) 3 automotive engineer, and my principal mandate for drawing a paycheck at that time was figuring out how to make the '04 hybrid-electric mini-SUV battery yield an acceptable service life. Although it was basically a car platform, the mini-SUV was considered a truck, and therefore our design reviews went through the truck chain of command. There we were on Tuesday morning, in the design center conference room taking turns making presentations to the truck division VP and executive leadership in what was to be a 3-hour review. My turn had not yet come, and based on the way the agenda was unfolding, it didn't look like it was going to. I had mixed feelings about this prospect - face time with upper management is generally good career medicine, but the hot seat is rarely the most comfortable in the room.

In one of the first of many things I was going to find unusual this decade, an admin from one of the nearby executive offices interrupted our review with an announcement: "A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center in New York," at which point the meeting facilitator suggested that anyone who had loved ones in NY would be welcome to step out of the meeting and try to call them. A fair percentage of the 30 or 40 meeting attendees stepped out, which I also found unusual. I didn't realize I was surrounded by so many New Yorkers. About that time, the meeting basically ceased to operate, with people milling in and out, providing scattered updates, etc., so I decided to proceed to the other thing I was supposed to be doing that morning, co-teaching a class at the training center on the other side of town.

On the way out of the building, I stopped by a TV screen in the hallway, where CNN was patched in. It was then that the magnitude of the situation became clear to me. A few other engineers and I watched in horror as smoke billowed out of the towers (by that time the second tower had been hit, erasing any possibility that it was a random occurrence). A part of me died when the second tower to be struck fell, right there on live TV. One of the fellows standing with me observed that he suspected the Palestinians. I said no, probably not, the Palestinians are the Keystone Kops of terrorism; it was probably Saudis, or at least Saudi-funded.

The 30-minute drive to the training center took me past the airport, which by then was surrounded by emergency vehicles and police. All air traffic had been grounded, following reports that other planes were being hijacked. Another strange thing for the record books - one of the largest airports in the country, with no air traffic above it.

The scene at the training center was much like that of the design center - grim faces, a mixture of emotions, slow motion chaos. Many people were looking at the video monitors. It was the same inside my classroom, so I dismissed the students and told them I'd send them instructions for completing the class later. Here's another odd thing - there was a group of Malaysian students from our Asia-Pacific marketing team in my class. They appeared to be completely unaffected by the attack. There they were at their table, talking and joking, playing paper wad football. When I approached them to tell them they were dismissed, their main concern was who was going to collect the homework.

By that time, we had been informed that another plane had stuck the Pentagon, and yet another had crashed in rural Pennsylvania. I left the training center and proceeded straight home to be with my wife and children, who had been dismissed early from their grade school.

That was Tuesday morning, seven years ago. I think I'm demonstrating my firm grasp of the obvious by observing that the entire world has undergone considerable changes since then. Politics, the economy, even religion - nothing's the same anymore. Are we better or worse? Well, we're certainly more starkly aware of a lot of things, not the least of which is the persistent presence of evil around us. Not that ignorance is bliss, but I was a lot happier when this kind of thing was confined to places with strange names known only to their hapless denizens and Rand McNally. Aside from a brief uptick in spiritual awareness in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I'd say no, we're not any better as a people. Worse, maybe. Darkness can make light seem brighter by comparison, but can never actually make it so. One thing I do know - the line of demarcation between them is clearer than ever now.

So much for my Tuesday morning; how was yours?

For a Good Time, Dial A-L-T-O-O-N-A

2008-08-31T12:26:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Altoona. Our Motto: "You can Altoona piano but you can't Altoona fish." Hahahahaha just kidding about the motto. My lengthy research (I asked a resident and briefly consulted Wikipedia) reveals no evidence to suggest that Altoona, PA has a motto. They're welcome to use the one above, free of charge!

Last weekend, Bruck and son of Bruck took a few days off from normal life and visited Altoona, PA, a city which, prior to planning the trip, I had only tangentially heard of, and would not have bet good money that even existed. BTW, Kalamazoo, MI does exist; I've been there. I'm not so sure about Walla Walla, WA or French Lick, IN.

We had a smashing time! Everyone we met was friendly, helpful, generous, hospitable, and drove like a maniac (more on this later). Seriously, when you meet someone from Altoona, their reflexive position is, we're getting along. So far, Altoona is the friendliest place I've encountered that doesn't use the pronoun, "y'all."

So Bruck, most people, when they're thinking about where to go to have a good time for a few days, don't enter Altoona, PA as the primary destination in their Garmin. True enough, but they're missing out on a good time. Well okay, ordinarily we wouldn't have gone there either, except to participate in a church-sponsored urban mission trip. Our church sent a team to partner with an Altoona church to help them with an inner-city neighborhood reclamation project.

Altoona is a medium-sized (pop. 125K according to the almighty internet), post-industrial city in central PA. It was a railroad boom town during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and reminders of its colorful history dot the landscape with genteel and gracious houses and blah blah blah etc. etc.

Despite their hospitable impulses, Altoonans don't appear to get a lot of outside visitors, and for that matter, immigration and emigration don't seem to be important factors in the city's population dynamics. As an apparent result, certain distinct cultural idiosyncracies have developed: driving like maniacs and french fries in the salad. I'm sure there are others; these just happened to be two I noticed during the short time we were there.

First the driving: Altoona is situated in the Allegheny mountains, a few clicks east of Pittsburgh. It is quite hilly; in fact, you're pretty much always on a sharp incline or decline - I'm guessing even mediocre brake technicians in Altoona can afford Starbucks. But if you thought this would inform cautious, conservative driving, you'd be wrong. It would appear that the goal is to get at least two wheels off the ground at every intersection. When crossing the street, we discovered that it was a good idea to look both ways, then look both ways again in case someone roared up while you were looking the other way, listen for oncoming traffic, then bolt across.

French fries in the salad: yep, that's what they do, they put french fries in their salads. While perusing the takeout menu for dinner Friday evening, I noted that french fries were listed as ingredients in most of the dinner salads. I assumed they meant fries on the side, but no, when I got my steak salad, there they were, mixed in with all the other stuff, cooled off, and soaked with dressing. Ever the intrepid eater (click here on an empty stomach - Bruck's Japanese eating adventures), I gave it a try. Not so good. I'm not sure what the appeal is. When I observed to the pastor's mother that I found that a curious practice, she replied, "What, you don't put fries in your salad? Where do you put them?" Fortunately, her inflection implied that it was a rhetorical question, as I couldn't begin to conjure up an intelligent response. Ummm, not in salad? BTW, they like melted cheese on their salads, too.

So, Bruck, what did you do there? Glad you asked. I did mostly painting, priming, and wall prep. Son of Bruck did some of that plus helped install a suspended ceiling and did some demolition work. We were mainly working on the "11^th Streen Project" in which the Pleasant Valley Assembly of God church is restoring an abandoned, dilapitated inner-city church building into a functional church and neighborhood family and community service center. We also worked on the "Nehemiah Project," in which abandoned houses are being restored with the hope of providing low-cost housing to people in need of same. Check out these websites for details; hopefully they will inspire you to participate somehow in these projects, or at least raise your awareness of them.

The 11^th Street Project link

Link on the 11th Street Project page discussing the Nehemiah Project

We were also treated to a minor league baseball game. The Altoona Curve manhandled the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. Pop quiz: name your closest AA baseball team - bet you can't! Altoonans can. They love their Curve!

Seasoned Bruckies may be wondering, is Pennsylvania now part of the Bruck Empire? No. Picture me saying, "Pastor, could you please pull over here before we cross the state line? I need to claim Pennsylvania for the sovereign territory of Bruck." Not this trip anyway.

Young David, son of Bruck also had a good time. He's not real effusive, but on the way home from the outing, he asked, "So dad, when can we move to Altoona?" High praise, indeed! Go Curve, and pass the soggy fries!

C Sharp Minor Seventh

2008-08-12T19:29:00.000-04:00

I'll never forget what Cliff told me one fine Wednesday afternoon:

"C sharp minor seventh - if ever a chord could heal the sick, it would be C sharp minor seventh."

I took some guitar lessons from Cliff, whose last name escapes me, a few years ago at the Music Castle in Royal Oak, MI. It didn't work, I'm still lousy at it. This is not for any lack of effort or ability on Cliff's part, but because I didn't practice much between our weekly lessons. It was during a particularly busy period of my life, and I wasn't exactly thinking ahead when I signed up for lessons. I did learn quite a few things from Cliff, some about music theory and the operation of the guitar, and some about life in general.

Cliff didn't make a whole lot of money teaching guitar lessons, not at $15 per half hour, a non-trivial chunk of which went to the Music Castle for room rental. Even if he worked a full schedule, which he certainly didn't, this wouldn't put him anywhere near the front cover of Forbes magazine. He also played in four or five blues/jazz bands, but again, if his near-nightly gigs paid at all, they didn't exactly put him in this year's Cadillac, or last year's for that matter.

But he did what he loved, and he's probably still doing it today. To me, that's real wealth, true prosperity, a successful life. Maybe I'm projecting a little here; I don't actually know how well he has lived, whether he's got a large collection of loving friends and family or a decades-long trail of destruction in his wake, but he was a pretty simple, straightforward guy, so I suspect the former is a more apt depiction. When he dies, his next of kin will probably have a guitar, or some musical notes etched on his gravestone.

I've met quite a number of people during my slow roll toward mature adulthood, and I do make a practice of trying to really get to know them, insofar as circumstances permit. In my observation, what the guidance counselors you ignored in high school said is true - the people who are really happy in life are those who are doing what they love. Granted, as members of civilized society we all have responsibilities, obligations, and expectations to satisfy, and I'm not suggesting that we simply shirk the ones we find objectionable. Likewise, there may be situations where doing what you love comes at someone else's expense; I'm not talking about these either. What I am talking about is, we have choices on how we occupy ourselves, short term and long term, and regardless of our motivation or rewards, happiness follows doing what we love.

You may notice that I've not said anything about getting what you love. Doing what you don't love in order to get what you love is a fool's game, a short-term strategy at best. Think about it - when was the last time you worked and strived to obtain a thing, and then discovered that it satisfies you as much as you anticipated, and was worth the sacrifice you made to obtain it? I had the good fortune to spend a summer during college working as a lifeguard at a very exclusive country club in the northern suburbs of Detroit. This place was swanky. In addition to free golf every Monday, I enjoyed the singularly undemanding job of lifeguarding at a pool in which nearly nobody swam. This afforded me the opportunity to do some serious people-watching, providing ample data for my conclusion that money and possessions do not make you happy. Among the members, I can recall meeting two non-miserable people there. They were an elderly couple, the husband in which kept keeling over due to nerve damage from a recent stroke. The wife would just pick him back up and they'd laugh it off and keep going, bless their unencumbered souls. But aside from this comical pair, pretty much everyone I met at that club was as gloomy as the day is long, even after paying their $35,000.00 membership fee (in 1980s dollars).

So anyway, can the right chord, strummed cleanly on a mellow, resonant, tuned guitar heal the sick? Well, if the sickness you're suffering from is malaise and despair resulting from (1) doing things you don't love, (2) not doing things you do love, (3) doing all kinds of things for reasons other than loving them, or (4) being so far down that road that you can't even remember what you love doing, then I think we'd all agree, the answer is: Yes.

I Heart NY

2008-07-26T11:39:00.000-04:00

What a bunch of geeks.

I've never seen so many misfits in my life. Then you haven't been to downtown Royal Oak lately. Yes I have, I was just there, this is worse.

Hey, check out the guy with the beard over there. No, that guy. Yeah, the guy with the four-foot beard. Wow. Don't these people own mirrors?

What are they doing over here? Lock-picking. Why? Let's check it out. Yep, they're picking locks all right. Why? Who knows?

Will I stick out if I carry my notepad around? Yes, but there's all kinds of people here, and you're going to belong to one demographic or another no matter what you do.

So, what's weirder, the people at the hacker convention, or the ham radio swap meet? There are more weird people at the ham swap, but there are weirder people at the techie convention.

Nothing sadder-looking than a hooker in the morning sun.

There's a certain shorts length on a man below which you just shouldn't go. Well, in case you haven't figured it out… Yes, I figured it out.

World Trade Center: how exactly does one look at something that's not there?

…and on it went, the conversation between Bruck and son of Bruck last weekend in the Big Apple, where we attended the 2600 (hacker) conference along with a couple thousand geeks, nerds, misfits, tools, anarchists, lemmings, bohemians, mods, and rockers. And a few normal, healthy-looking people, just to mix things up.

We both learned quite a lot. For one thing, a hacker is not necessarily a law-breaker. The positive side of their activity is to expose vulnerabilities. And hackers aren't necessarily computer geeks, either. Geeks, to be sure, but there are phone geeks, privacy geeks, communications geeks, even legal geeks. It's not so much a skill set as a mindset.

Of course if you cared what goes on in the mind of a hacker, you'd already know, so for now I won't tire you with my amateur psychological deconstruction. Instead, let's talk about our weekend!

We took a bus to NY and back, between a stop in DC's Chinatown and NY's Penn Station. The bus ride was dirt cheap, $35 round trip for each of us. None of the usual amenities one would find on an airplane or train, such as toilet paper in the latrine, but for that price…! And no worries about traffic, tolls, parking, etc.; it probably won't be the last time I use the DC/NY bus.

NY is pretty much the same as when I used to go there to visit college friends in the '80s; if anything, there's just more of it. Well, less of it if you count the World Trade Center, the site of which we visited on Saturday morning. If I saw nothing else in NY, I had to see the WTC site. Right now there's nothing left of the wreckage of course. The foundation is in place for some new towers that are being erected there, and a lot of construction activity was evident, even on a Saturday morning.

The conference itself was quite entertaining and educational, and I don't mean that in any kind of condescending sense. Well, maybe a little condescending. The attendees were mainly young non-conformists who all managed to look, dress, and think alike. The speakers were a mixed bag, some good, some terrible, but the actual topics - some of the coolest stuff you could imagine. The ones I attended were on privacy, copyright laws, lockpicking, safecracking, surreptitious surveillance, social engineering, and a rather strange one by a group that harasses the Church of Scientology.

Yes, you heard that right, safecracking, as in how to open actual safes without benefit of the combination or dynamite. I've never been offered the opportunity for a primer in safecracking, and probably never will again, so naturally I jumped at the chance. Very informative! It's not like I could go help myself to the contents of Fort Knox based on what I garnered from a one-hour seminar, but it was cool to see how safes work and how their weaknesses can be exploited. As it happens, safes are rated by how quickly an expert safecracker could open them. Your basic hardware store-bought safe will protect your valuables from such a person for 15 to 30 minutes. The state-of-the-art lock, on the other hand, would protect the same from all known methods of attack for 190 days. In this case, it would be easier to exploit other mechanisms for obtaining access, such as:

Social Engineering

Social Engineering, as the hackers define it, is simply using psychological tools to extract information to which one is not entitled. We attended a fascinating panel discussion on this topic, in which several experts discussed their techniques and traded stories. One such expert demonstrated his techniques by calling (and patching the conversation to the PA system) airlines, and through various ruses, extracting information on passengers of certain flights. Pretty tame, all things considered, but a good example of how easy it is to exploit helpful, trusing people. One of the panelists also claimed to make a pasttime of calling various businesses, getting them to voluntarily release sensitive customer information such as credit card numbers, and then informing them what fools they were for doing so.

But the really weird topic was the panel discussion by an anonymous group that calls itself "Anonymous" and harrasses the Church of Scientology. I won't go into too much detail, as I don't think all of their activities are completely above-board, but you're welcome to give yourself a webucation on the subject by googling "anonymous" and "church of scientology" or "scientologist." The Anonymous group stages various protests at Scientology events and attempts to publicize the religions's ludicrous claims and practices that it would rather keep secret. Actually, the panel discussion could have been a lot better - they were not very good public speakers, and were not pretty well prepared, but they still did manage to convey their basic message.

Some of you may be wondering, is NY now part of the Bruck Empire? The answer is no, I didn't really want NY all that badly, so I decided not to challenge the rights of the myriad bums and winos who stake that claim daily.

The High Price of Gasoline

2008-07-13T14:49:00.000-04:00

Mr. & Mrs. I., loyal readers of the VOB and a young couple comprised of the sister-in-law of Bruck and the brother-in-law-in-law of Bruck (SILOB & BILILOB), whom, despite their tenuous association with a deranged blogger, Bruck holds in high esteem, visited Hawaii for their honeymoon several years ago. Running off to the airport, they made a perfect happy, starry-eyed, loving couple whose only real mistake up that point was Mrs. I.'s choice of suitcase.

Grandma H., GOSILOB (& GOWOB of course) was in from out of town for the wedding, and when she opened her suitcase to get dressed on the day after, she noted with alarm that it was filled with the clothes and accoutrements of the newly-appointed Mrs. I., therefore…! We still chuckle at the prospect of Mrs. I. looking for her swimsuit and sunblock and instead finding Grandma's flannels and Noxzema. Hopefully Mrs. I. will be able to laugh about it herself some day.

I was reminded of this comical episode during a recent workation in sunny HI. I managed to fit some R&R in between work, including a pathetic luau to which I referred in a previous dispatch. The irreproachable Mrs. Bruck joined me for about half of the trip and so we were able to enjoy the volcanic paradise together, wearing our own clothes.

Overall, I'd say HI is a nifty place. Not sure I'd go out of my way to live there but if Uncle Sam issued me permanent change of station orders to that locale, only a small number of wild horses would be required to drag me there. The weather is pretty nice all year - sunny, 70's & 80's, it rains occasionally but it's a very polite, unobtrusive rain that you don't even notice unless it's a monsoon. The tropical fruit there is fantastic, including fresh coconut, which is way better than anything you'll find in a grocery store in the midwest or eastern seaboard. BTW, coconuts falling from trees is enough of a public health hazard that they routinely remove the ripe coconuts from the palm trees on the street to prevent it (this according to a tour bus guide, and why would he lie?).

HI is fairly expensive, rivaling New York and southern CA for real estate prices, but it is possible to live decently on a professional salary or two. You'd just have to make certain sacrifices. The people with whom I was working all seemed pretty happy to be there. They do mention the tendency toward "island fever," a malady I started to suffer after about a week.

But that's not what I came here to talk about today. What I wanted to talk about is the price of gasoline.

It's too high.

Or is it?

Just how high is too high?

Does anyone remember the gas crunch of the 70's & early 80's? In 1981, the peak price of gas was $1.66/gallon. In today's (2007 actually) dollars, that's $4.92. So I think you'd have to agree that the media are being a bit disingenuous when they claim that gas prices are at record highs. We're close, but we're not at the record yet. But again, the question, how high is too high?

Let's say gasoline didn't exist. And then someone comes along and offers you a magic potion, a gallon of which, when poured into a certain machine, could move you, a few of your friends, and a fair amount of your personal junk 20 or 30 miles. How much would you pay for this mojo?

But, you say, gasoline does exist, and it has for umpteen years. And we've built our society around its abundance and affordability. This has worked for a long time, so long in fact, that few if any of us can remember a time when it wasn't so. So long, that we consider it our birthright, our heritage as the world's "chosen people." Notwithstanding our surprise to discover that the suppliers of this commodity don't see us in the same light, we're incensed that the standard rules of economics, price=demand/supply, applies in this case in such a way as to not favor us privileged citizens of the United States of Obama. The supply isn't necessarily changed, but demand is way up and therefore so are prices.

So it comes down to a question, not of how much you will pay, but how much will you buy, at these large prices. So far, it seems, about the same amount as before. The way I see it, there's no such thing as too high or too low, but simply a prevailing market price and an amount we're willing to buy at that price.

Meanwhile, to keep it in perspective, I was really thirsty during my layover in the LAX airport on the way back from HI. I paid $2.50 for a 16oz. bottle of water. That's $20.00/gallon. Even at a typical vending machine price it would be about $10.00/gal. For water, in a clear plastic bottle. Speaking of which, let's see a show of hands - how many of you have paid $5.00 for a fancy-pants cup of coffee at Starbucks? Even if it were a 16oz. cup, that would be $40.00 per gallon.

But Bruck, I don't use nearly as much bottled water and frou frou coffee as I do gasoline! True enough, but you also have to admit that these purchases are pretty much completely discretionary. $4.00 for a gallon of anything is starting to look like quite a bargain!

So what's the answer? Do everything in your power to reduce the price of gasoline. For that, you receive my undying gratitude, which, along with $5.00 will buy you a decent cuppa joe.

And one last thing - for those of you keeping track of the ever-expanding Bruck Empire: Hawaii.

How to Play Sudoku

2008-06-12T20:05:00.000-04:00

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone asked me, "Bruck, how do you play Sudoku?" I would be five, perhaps ten cents richer! In case you're too intimidated to ask, I'm happy to share my hard-bought expertise with you and the rest of my faithful readers.

First, the rules of Sudoku: you must fill in the blank cells of a 9x9 grid so that every row, column, and 3x3 box has the numerals 1 thru 9 appearing once and only once.

My strategy is quite simple: fill in the numbers, one at a time, until the puzzle is solved. For example, say you started with the puzzle at left, the "Conceptis Sudoku" by Dave Green, which I gleaned from the 5 June 2008 Honolulu Advertiser.

There are 81 total cells in the grid, and this puzzle comes with 25 clues, leaving 56 for you to provide. Try to remember the last time you thought gas prices were reasonable as you knock off the following easy ones:

First, enter the 4, then the 6, then 7, then at this point the 3 should be obvious. For me it was 1998.

Next, fill in these cells: the 3 in the upper left box, the 7 in the bottom middle box, and the 3 in the middle box. They say that no math is required to solve a Sudoku puzzle but that's not quite true. To get the next clue, you have to subtract the number of presidential candidates that you actually want to vote for from the total remaining after Hitlery's concession. Place the number 2 in the middle box.

Filling out the middle box, enter the 1 and the 4 as shown. This should clear the way for the 2 and 4 in the upper middle box, then the 4 and 8 in the bottom middle box. I recently downloaded a Don Rich video from YouTube, named, "I'll Go Out of My Mind." It's primary refrain is, "If you make me much bluer, I'll go out of my mind," which he sings with his characteristic perpetual broad smile--you've got to love someone who can see the brighter side of depression and insanity! Don Rich was Buck Owens' sidekick, lead guitar player, and backup vocalist in the 60's and early 70's, and an accomplished musician in his own right. He died at age 32 of injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident in California in 1974.

So are we in a recession? Here's the definition: a recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job. Time to fill in the 8 and 5 in the upper middle box, which clears the way for the upper left 8, and the 4 and 7 in the middle left box. The middle right 8 should be obvious to any red-blooded American, at which point only a fool would miss the 1 in the middle left box.

See, Sudoku's not that hard; things are really starting to take shape, are they not? I recently returned to VA from Hawaii, where I was teaching a class on applied statistics and problem solving to our employees stationed here. Like most people who visit a place for the first time, I did some research on the local gun laws. Verdict: pretty restrictive! HI is a "may-issue" state, which means that local law enforcement agencies issue concealed weapon carry permits at their own discretion without regard to qualification or fitness of the applicants. In addition, all firearms must be "registered," i.e., rendered subject to confiscation, and a permit must be obtained to purchase any firearm, with a 14-day waiting period. And the Honolulu Walmart does not carry ammunition.

Therefore, we now know where the 3 and 1 go in the middle right box, which tell us where the 5, 7, and 6 go, completing the whole box. Bang, bang, bang, we now know where to put three ones: the one in the lower right box, the one in the upper right box, and the one in the lower left box, and then three eights: the one in the lower left box, the one in the lower right box, and the one in the middle left box, in that order.

One thing I did discover on "the strip" in Waikiki is that someone already thought of my idea of firearm tourism. As you know, most developed countries restrict their citizens' right to self defense and all other benefits of firearm ownership by complete or virtual bans of same. You may also be aware that most pop culture in the world originates in the US, including TV shows and movies, a great many of which glorify the irresponsible use of firearms and ascribe unrealistic satisfaction and power to their use. So my idea was to give the oppressed foreigners an opportunity to actually play with real guns in a controlled setting when visiting the United States of Smith and Wesson. While walking on the strip one evening last week, I was offered several leaflets advertising the opportunity to do just that. For a price range of $20 (45 shots from various 22s) to $115 (50 shots from various tactical carbines), a tourist can satisfy his or her itchy trigger finger while harmlessly perforating paper targets.

Let's knock the rest of this puzzle out, shall we? The 6 in the upper left box, followed by the 6 in the lower left then lower middle boxes should be obvious at this point, then the 9 in the 3^rd row and the 1 in the top row, at which point the 7, 5, 9, and 2, completing the lower left box, should jump right out at you. You can comlete the lower line with the 7 and 3, then complete the lower middle box with the 2. I bet you wish you had invested in gold when it was trading in the 700s last year!

Time to comlete the lower right box with 5, 2, 3, and 9 in that order, at which point we can complete the top row and upper right box with 2, 5, and 9. When I was previously employed at the company known as "F" on the NYSE, we had a saying, "you don't have to justify going with the lowest bidder." I've learned over the years, however, that there are situations where the lowest bidder isn't the best choice: roofers, for example. Haircuts. Employees. Food. The old saying, "you get what you pay for" is not always true, however, "you don't get what you don't pay for" is a dependable axiom. Another thing we discovered in HI that you don't want to cheap out on is a luau. If you go to HI, you definitely need to round out the experience with a luau. But don't go with the lowest bidder. We did, and spent 5 hours squirming in embarrassed discomfort over its low quality and general lameness.

All right, back to work: 2, 5, and 9 in the upper left box completes it along with the 2^nd row. Home stretch! The 9 and 2 complete row 6, the middle left box, and the entire puzzle!

Epilogue: I would like take a few minutes to honor a young woman of great accomplishment, one Ashley Layfield, Miss Hawaii 2007.

Ms. Layfield is, or at least was, an arts student at the University of Hawaii, is active in dance and other performing arts, and volunteers at the Kapiolani Hospital teaching these arts to children.

While riding the tour bus out to the luau, a few of us on the starboard side of the bus noticed that we were driving next to "Miss Hawaii 2007," according to lettering on the side of her car, and sure enough, the driver we saw is the young woman pictured at right. At the time we were not aware of her significant contributions to society, but we did get to watch her pick her nose while driving. It wasn't just a one time thing, either; it actually went on for a mile or so. That was far more entertaining than the stupid Hawaiianized campfire songs the luau tour guide was trying to lead us in!

Justice for Terry

2008-05-08T20:55:00.000-04:00

Faithful readers: I'm switching gears today - this is a serious one.

I want to bring to your attention a serious situation that has transpired, actually a series of events that has recently culminated in the imprisonment of an innocent man.

Before we delve into the details of this case, let me state for the record that I believe child sexual abuse to be one of the most heinous acts a person can commit. Its pernicious effects can last a lifetime, and even persist for multiple generations. Due to the profound damage that they inflict, and their unlikelihood of rehabilitation, I believe that lifetime imprisonment for the perpretrators of these crimes is far too light a penalty.

However, I've lately come to learn of another side to the story, which in my humble opinion, is equally serious -- false accusations of child sexual abuse. I'm sure you can speculate on the reasons for this as well as I can, but the sad fact is that a very low standard for evidence is applied in these cases, and the accused is in the unenviable position of having to prove his innocence rather than the prosecutor having to prove his guilt. This is a profound failure of our justice system, and I'm coming to learn that it's not altogether uncommon.

Please take a few minutes to read the story of former pastor Terry Passmore on the website www.justiceforterry.org. Be sure to read the page about "why we believe Terry is innocent."

An unexpected side note is that, along with the donations, we have received a number of accounts of other men in similar positions, i.e., in prison due to the inability to defend themselves against false charges of child abuse. Do I know that they are all innocent? Certainly not, but in Terry's case, I have met him and discussed his case with others who know him better than I, and it is absolutely inconceivable to me that he could be guilty.

Please consider joining my family in funding Terry's appeal. There is a paypal link on the website, and an address where checks can be mailed. Any funds not used for Terry's appeal will go to help his family, which is under severe financial distress. Another way you can support this effort is to send the link to your friends and neighbors.

Thanks for your consideration, and hopefully the next VOB will be a little more uplifting!

Confessions of a Hockey Addict

2008-04-27T21:07:00.000-04:00

We hockey fans are really good at holding grudges.

For example, I personally have not forgiven Claude Lemieux, formerly of the Colorado Avalanche, for slamming Red Wing Kris Draper's face into the corner of the players' gate during a shift change in the 1996 playoffs, resulting in considerable injury. Draper may have forgiven him, but I sure haven't.

And from what I've heard, hockey players themselves keep a mental tally of who has hit them, when, how hard, and under what circumstances, and are in a perpetual state of seeking vengeance. One might expect this on a per-game basis, but the particularly vindictive players have memories spanning whole seasons and even multiple seasons.

In addition to the Red Wings-Avalanche feud spawned by the aforementioned infraction, there are numerous other inter-team rivalries to keep the sport interesting; one I would like to illuminate briefly here is between the New York Islanders and the New York Rangers - neighbors make the best enemies, don't they? If you listen closely to the chanting in the stands at an Islanders home game, you'll frequently hear, in the familiar three-beat refrain, " Ran-Gers Suck! Ran-Gers Suck!" --no matter which team the Islanders happen to be hosting.

We're currently in the high holy days of hockey, the playoffs, which last just about as long as the regular season, typically spanning about three months, from April thru June, and give pretty much any average or better team a shot at the venerated Stanley Cup. The two teams I'm following are the Washington Capitals and the Detroit ("Hockeytown") Red Wings. I'm mainly a Wings fan, having lived most of my life in the Detroit area, but am developing an attachment to the Capitals, the nearest NHL team to my new home in northern VA. Plus, the Capitals have a couple of my old favorite Wings playing for them now. Actually I'm only following the Wings now; the Caps were eliminated by the Philadelphia Flyers (with substantial help from the referees) in game 7 of the quarterfinals. I'm not too bummed out about this though - it was a small miracle that the Caps even got into the playoffs this year, and they wouldn't have gone much further than round one. For that matter, I'm not expecting the Flyers to get too far either.

I played hockey a bit as a kid. I wasn't any good at it, but did manage to develop an understanding and love of the sport at a young age. I have fond childhood memories of watching the Wings play at the venerated Olympia stadium in Detroit. For most of my developmental years, the Red Wings were known as the "Dead Things," not putting together much of a team for most of the 70's and 80's. But in the 90's, they got smart about recruiting, put some commies on the rink, and got themselves two Stanley Cups, in 1997 and 1998, then one more time in 2002.

I listened to the winning game in 1997 from my flat in Cologne, Germany, where I was living at the time. It was broadcast from Armed Forces Radio in Frankfurt, and of course it was on in the middle of the night, Germany being 6 hours ahead and 20 years behind the United States of Walmart. I ordinarily would have just waited till the morning for the results, but the wife of Bruck was up sick that night, so I was up too, and had my own quiet celebration of the win.

Needless to say, I'm a big Wings fan. but there are other NHL teams for which I have strong (good or bad) feelings; let's start with the non-Wings teams I like to see win:

- Washington Capitals: team of my new home town, plus they're a young, growing team - expect big things from them in coming seasons.

- Chicago Black Hawks: I have some friends and relatives in Chicago. I've been there several times; it's a good place. I know they're a traditional rival of Detroit, but for me this only applies when the teams happen to be playing each other.

- Toronto Maple Leafs / Montreal Canadiens: a couple of the original 6 NHL teams, plus I like to see Canadian teams thrive vs. getting bought out by American investors and moved to American cities.

Teams I like to see lose:

- Colorado Avalanche: see paragraph 2 above.

- Philadelphia Flyers: for inventing clockwork-orange-style violent hockey.

- Anaheim Ducks: for originally naming themselves the "Mighty Ducks" after a Disney movie.

- Dallas Stars: because they're in the same city as the Dallas Cowboys. Besides, the idea of playing hockey in TX is just plain unnatural.

- New York Islanders and Rangers: I love New York and have several friends there, but the arrogance of the New York Yankees have soured me to any New York sports team. OTOH, providing the exception to prove the rule, I was thrilled when the Giants upset the Patroits in this year's Superbowl.

Teams I'm staunchly ambivalent toward:

- Florida Panthers

- Carolina Hurricanes

- Minnesota Wild (sounds more like a variety of leaf lettuce than a hockey team)

- Columbus Blue Jackets (not a real intimidating team name here, either)

Teams I've never even heard of:

- Atlanta Thrashers

- Phoenix Coyotes

- Tampa Bay Lightning - Florida has two NHL teams now? When did that happen? Why does Michigan, where ice occurs naturally, have only one?

I am also, to a smaller extent, a fan of college hockey. My alma mater, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, is home to the Wolverines, who nearly won the NCAA championship this year. Teams I also favor are the Lake Superior State Lakers and the Michigan Tech Huskies. And of course, as a loyal Wolverine, I like to see any team from Michigan State University or Ohio State University lose. Here in VA, I quit asking about the local college hockey scene after the third person said, "They play hockey in college? I didn't know that."

A couple of weeks ago, I asked a brother-in-law-in-law of Bruck (BILILOB), who moved from the Detroit suburbs to Atlanta ten years ago, if he was still a Wings fan. "Of course," he replied, "how could you not be?" That pretty well resonates with my sentiments. I can't imagine ever not being a Red Wings fan.

…unless they hire Claude Lemieux!

7 Deadly Sins

2008-04-15T20:14:00.000-04:00

For the last one and a half millenia, the "Seven Deadly Sins," in no particular order, have been commonly understood to be:

Lust
Gluttony
Avarice (Greed)
Sloth
Wrath (Anger)
Envy
Pride

These were first recorded by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century and although they are not officially a part of Catholic Church doctrine, they have long been a staple of Christian teaching and the moral code of western culture. According to tradition (note to religious scholars: please bear with the oversimplification), dying with any of these sins on your rap sheet would indicate an asbestos-lined coffin.

We are recently informed by Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti that we now have a new set of deadly sins, intended to complement, not necessarily replace, the original set:

Pollution
Drug Abuse / Sales
Inequitable Distribution of Wealth
Genetic engineering, incl. human experimentation
Abortion
Social Injustice
Pedophelia

It never would have occurred to me that such a fundamental concept of Chrisitian tradition would be open to debate! But apparently it is.

The new list was developed in response to concerns about globalization and the effect we have on others, not just on the individual level but on the societal level. Truth be told, I think the apparent veracity of the new "seven deadly sins" is more a result of a zealous reporter latching onto some off-the-cuff comments from a Vatican bureaucrat and portraying them as doctrine than their actually being such. Plus, the additional list has a fairly clear 21^st century ring to it, and it sounds like the Archbishop cares a bit more about WWBD (What Would Bono Do) than WWJD.

But I'm in a bit of a quandary here: although I try to be a good Christian, and believe me, I'm not bragging, but given the thresholds indicated by Jesus Christ Himself, in the Sermon on the Mount (Gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7), I have committed all of the original seven at one point or another, and commit at least a couple of them on a weekly, if not daily basis. But the new set of sins, some I couldn't commit even if I tried, and yet in our postmodern dystopian intellectual culture, I feel as though I've already been judged guilty, by association, of most of them:

Pollution - you can't not pollute, even if all you're doing is breathing; every time you exhale you emit carbon dioxide, the bogeyman du jour of the global warming hoax.

Drug Abuse / Sales - I assume this implicates the illegal drug trade, although I consider the legal pharmaceutical industry, of which most of us are customers, only about 10% more respectable.

Inequitable Distribution of Wealth - as long as somebody, somewhere has a nickel more than someone else, somebody, somewhere is going to have their shorts in a knot.

Genetic engineering - does this include raising kids?

Abortion - federal grants, which come from your tax dollars, partially support Planned Barrenhood, a major player in the infanticide industry.

Social Injustice - this is a broad indictment of any person or group who you don't like and wish to blame for any event or condition of which you disapprove, in the absence of actual illegal or objectively-defined unethical or immoral activity.

Pedophelia - not guilty, although in the American legal system, this is one crime where the accused is guilty until proven innocent.

So, what have we got? We have the original list of mortal sins which are basically committed by an individual,and mainly affect the individual and some of those unfortunate enough to be in his or her immediate sphere of influence. Then we have the augmented list containing crimes committed by the individual or society, and which impact some individuals but largely the rest of society. So what's missing? A list of sins which individuals or society commit against Bruck, of course! That's right, there is no list of society's sins against your faithful editor, and I intend to rectify that situation.

Bruck's 7 irritating infractions:

Self-righteousness
Walking (slowly) three abreast, oblivious to the growing crowd behind you
Smoking in the car ahead of me
Imputing guilt on me for things I didn't do
Talking loudly on a cell phone anywhere near me
Olfactory offenses
Virginia driving.

Being a reasonable person, I don't personally condemn the violator to an eternal broasting for these violations, but in the spirit of negative reinforcement (which has worked so astoundingly well for fifteen centuries), I issue the following sanction: an unmitigated violation obligates the offender to one day in Bruckatory, which is a crowded elevator with a crying baby in need of a diaper change.

That's not so bad, is it? A darn sight better than being condemned to an eternity of unimaginable torture in Hell, just for leering at your neighbor's new wife or Lexus, wouldn't you say? But, you still might be wondering, "I've already committed several of these infractions, how can I escape this punishment?"

Glad you asked.

Ever hear of "carbon credits?" These are modern-day indulgences which you can pay to organizations that help the environment by selling carbon credits, to offset your personal "carbon footprint," i.e., the marginal impact you inflict on the environment due to your personal consumption of energy and production of carbon-base emissions. Carbon credits are pretty inexpensive - they can be bought for as low as $4.00US per metric ton of carbon-based emissions (some naïve fools pay up to $35.00US per ton, haha, can you believe that?). Your car probably produces three to five metric tons of pollution per year, so we're talking $20, is that so much to ask? Okay, double that to include emissions from heating your home, add half again for the electricity you consume. Wait, add another $20 for the heat in your office, and the electricity you use there. And the Chinese-manufactured merchandise you bought at Walmart this past year, it all took energy to produce, in plants with no emissions control - better cough up some more greenbacks! I think you see where this is going…

Well, I've got a much better deal for you - Peeve Points! I'm only asking for $1.00US per infraction, payable by cash, money order, check, visa, mastercard, paypal, or sliders (3 sliders per peeve point). And for those of you who expect to commit multple infractions, or wish to buy insurance against unwitting offenses against your faithful editor, I'm offering volume discounts - 12 Peeve Points for $10.00US, or, the best value, 25 Peeve Points for $20.00US!

So, stock up on Peeve Points now and you can die in peace, knowing that you will not have to spend an indefinite amount of time in a confined space with a pungent, loud baby in Bruckatory!

Questions for a Dead Guy

2008-03-28T18:50:00.000-04:00

Last week, a fellow employee named James Fresnel (not his real name but he knows who he is) keeled over dead of a heart attack in his office, shortly after arriving at work. It wasn't his first heart attack, as I gather. I never met the man, and he was not a prominent public figure, so I'm not personally in mourning, but some friends of mine knew him, and it's not exactly party time around that office these days.

I would like to give him the opportunity to explain a few things to me and my fellow readers, to give him the chance to get in the last word, as it were. So, Mr. Fresnel, if this survey reaches you, wherever you are, please respond in a suitable fashion from the great beyond - maybe you could come in over my car radio on an unused frequency, or perhaps you could tap out coded messages to me on the water pipes in the middle of the night. Or you could whisper your answers in subtle modulations of the sounds of wind through the trees. I will then share them with my VOB readers and anyone else you like.

Did it come as a surprise? Were you prepared? If you had gotten some advance warning, what would you have done? Did you have any unfinished business? Any project in a state of incompletion? Unsettled scores? Things you meant to do but never got around to?

What were you feeling at the time of your demise? Discomfort? Pain? Melancholy? Rage? Regret? Relief? Victory?

I hear you left some family behind. Is there anything you would have wanted to say to them before your departure? Here's your chance - I'll be sure to print your responses here and bring them to their attention.

Where are you right now? Heaven? Hell? Purgatory? Sheol? Hades? Nirvana? Some afterlife that our religions have not yet conceived of? Or maybe the Hindus are right about reincarnation - are you now the newborn child of a Microsoft help desk operator in Bangalore, or his heifer's new calf? Really, if you can, anything you can tell us about the afterlife, we're dying to know. Sorry, poor choice of words.

Are there dogs in Heaven?

What about friends and relatives who have gone on before? Have you been reunited with any of them? Anyone you didn't want to see, for that matter? I've always sort of wondered - what would a guy do if his first wife _and_ his second wife were waiting for him on the other side?

Did your life flash before your eyes? What was that like? Did it happen instantly or did it take a little time? Anything interesting that you had forgotten about? Anything you wished you weren't reminded of?

They say, "you can't take it with you." Is that really true? Is there anything you wish you had with you now, that we might be able to provide? Bible? Crossword puzzles? A good flashlight and a shovel?

And finally, do you have any advice, specific or general, that you'd like to offer us here in the land of the living?

I realize this is a bit presumptuous on my part, asking you all these questions and we've never even met, but please understand that I am simply offering to you the opportunity to communicate anything you wish to those of us you've left behind. You may answer the above questions, or compose any other messages you'd like to share with us, and I will gladly publish them (providing they meet my relatively low standards of publishability), and otherwise convey them to anyone else you wish. Just another of the many services we offer at the Voice of Bruck News Service.

And even if I don't hear from you, may you rest in peace, and continue to live in the memories of the loved ones you left behind.

Speaking of Salt...

2008-03-22T09:22:00.000-04:00

On my bag of roasted peanuts, the Ingredients section of the Nutritional Statement reads:

Ingredients: Peanuts. If salt added, salt.
Packaged in a facility that processes nuts.

Just thought I'd share that with you. Somewhere in Washington, a bureaucrat is smiling.

BTW, in my prior entry on baseball, reader feedback indicated that my message didn't quite get across. What I was trying to convey through the use of asterisks is my disappointment over baseball's credibility deficit brought on by the widespread use of steriods by many of its star players. I think maybe it was a little too subtle...

The Local Drivers - An Update

2008-03-12T22:19:00.000-04:00

Just thought I'd share this with you; refer to the original entry for background.

While Mrs. Bruck was delivering me to the train station this morning, I pondered aloud, "You know how we get impatient with the drivers around here? I wonder if, and for what reasons, they get impatient with us."

Mrs. Bruck's incisive reply: "How could they? They don't even know we exist!"

Good point.