Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in dancar's LiveJournal:

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Monday, October 5th, 2009
2:01 pm	I'm not sure if this clip is from a 70 year-old movie or a Fox News commentary on a Barack Obama proposal: (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
1:24 pm	The Cause of our Problems Here's the best explanation I've found yet on why same sex couples should not be allowed to get married... (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
8:43 pm	Forms of Government Last week my mother sent me a link to a video promising to explain different forms of government and how they compare & contrast with ours. "Oh Gawd!" I thought, what kind of weird conspiracy-theory thing will this be? But I watched it and it was actually pretty good: My review: I've been telling people for years that the linear political spectrum is too simplistic. For one thing, Nazi means "National Socialism," so why would National Socialism be the opposite of regular socialism? And as for free-market Libertarians, I would refer them to Somalia, the Libertarian/Anarchist paradise: No government regulation (no government), no taxes, and a free market economy based on hard currencies, gold, diamonds and US Dollars (hard in Somalia because no one in Somalia prints dollars). The other point is that we in the US have a wide variety of different issues we debate about: Gun control Abortion Capital punishment Same sex couples getting married The Iraq war/"War on Terror" Which income brackets should be taxed at which rates Whether religious as well as scientific ideas on the origin of humans should be taught in public schools To what degree should the government intervene in the private sector at this time What do these issues have to do with each other? NOTHING! They are all completely separate issues that have little or no connection to one another. Yet we have this idea that if you are a Republican you're supposed to have one set of opinions on all these things, and if you're Democrat you're supposed to have the opposite set of opinions. Times are scary but I feel they are hopeful, the Bush/Cheney would-be oligarchy is out and the man in now still seems more interested in what works rather than what fits an ideology. What makes his job more complex is that he still has to work in within a system where most of the power belongs to those political games between two sides who still see out-flanking the other side as more important than the needs of the people they're supposed to represent. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
9:06 pm	2009 Chilly Hilly Once again, I completed the annual Bainbridge Island Chilly Hill ride over the weekend. It seems like I do this every other year. Between it being flu season, bad weather season, and just-not-riding-much season, it's easy find excuses to not go out, but when I do I'm glad I did. This Years Stats Total Pedal Time: 2:39:05 This is my best time yet. However, instead of starting in my driveway, I drove to Winslow, parked, and then reset my bike computer at Winslow Way & 305. I know from commuting to the ferry that this spot is about a 13-14 minute ride from home, so this still beats my 2007 time of 3 hours, one minute, but comes out a minute or two behind my 2006 time of 2 hours 50 minutes. Average Speed: 12.2 mph As expected from the time stats. I rode 11.9 mph in 2007 and 12.7 mph in 2006 (when I was about 20 pounds lighter than I am now). Interestingly, I weighed in almost 10 pounds heavier than 2007, yet had a faster time. Distance: 32.49 miles From Winslow & 305 around to Waterfront Park. This does not count the quarter mile to get to the truck & back. Maximum Speed: 42 mph Once again, I thought it was 41 until I finished the ride and checked the bike computer. But it's best not to be looking at your speedometer when you're flying down Arrow Point road at 40+ anyway. Slowest sustained speed: when trudging up the other side of the big Arrow Point dip, I really wasn't paying attention, but I don't remember seeing anything lower than a 3. Granny Gear use: I wimped out a little this year by using it on Head of Harbor, in addition to Arrow Point, Baker and Halls Hills. By the way, I did not shoot the video, but it provides an idea of what it was like. I did not find it to be very cold - we had a high in the 50s that day - and none of the predicted rain fell while I was riding, although I was protected in my new rain pants. Maybe next year I'll be thinner again, and hopefully have an actual road bike! EDIT: The morning after I posted this, there was two inches of snow on the Brainbridge Island ground. Fortunate timing, as that would have put a damper on the event! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
4:30 pm	Real Equality I LOL'd on the ferry this morning when I read this quote from comedian Chris Rock, commented on Obama's inauguration. "Excellent black people are always rewarded for their excellence. Real equality will be when we can have a black president as dumb as George Bush... That is the dream." I see where you're coming from Chris, but I'd prefer NO more presidents like Bush, regardless of race or party. Let's keep Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho in the movies. (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
10:05 pm	What Happened? Last Week, Dan Westneat of the Seattle Times wrote a column about former presidential press secretary Scott McClellan's appearance in Seattle the previous evening: The most remarkable thing about Scott McClellan's book tour to Seattle — really the only remarkable thing — is that 800 people showed up to see it. McClellan is the former flack who turned on his boss, President Bush. His new book "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," details how Bush heads a secretive, polarizing operation that plays loose with the truth. OK. But didn't we know that already? As I'm currently reading McClellan's book, I've been wondering about the question lately. ( Here's the response I emailed to Dan: ) (Comment on this)
Monday, June 23rd, 2008
9:16 pm	Gas Tracking For nearly 10 years now, I've been keeping a spreadsheet of where & when I've bought gasoline. These days at $4.30+ per gallon, it's interesting to look back at what we've paid, when & where. Here are my landmarks in gas prices for the past 10 years: First recorded $20 tank: April 19, 1999 at $1.67 per gallon. I wasn't recording locations at that time, but it was probably in the west San Jose area of California. First gas at more than $2/gallon: $2.14 on August 12, 1999 in Lee Vining, a small remote town east of Yosemite National Park in California. My family used to travel through Lee Vining each summer on the way to Yosemite, and I remember Lee Vining always having the most expensive gas. Current events don't always raise the price: Surprisingly, 9/11 and the start of the war in Afghanistan appears to have had little or no effect on gasoline prices. I paid $1.50 at the Chevron in Silverdale Washington on September 1, 2001 and $1.56 at the same station on September 23. By that winter prices were down below a dollar some places. Last gas for less than a buck: February 24, 2002 at the Arco in East Bremerton, WA: 96 cents a gallon, believe it or not. First $30 tank: On May 30, 2004, we were driving back from the beach near Forks, WA with less than a quarter tank, thinking we'd fill up somewhere along the way back. Well, apparently they roll the sidewalks (what sidewalks?) in that part of the state around 5 pm because all of the gas stations was saw were closed. Realizing we were in potential trouble, I put set the cruise control on 50 mph and did the "hyper-mileage" thing with the needle below E all the way back to Port Angeles, where I pumped in 13.5 gallons at $2.35 for at total of $31.75. Last Gas at less than $2 per gallon: $1.85 at the Costco in Silverdale on March 3, 2005. First gas at more than $3: In May of 2005 we took a vacation in British Columbia. after converting liters to gallons and loonies to dollars, I calculated BC gas at $3.57 to 3.70. First $3 gas in the USA: $3.09 at the Island Center Texaco on Bainbridge Island, May 6, 2006. First $40 tank: May 20, 2007. $3.41 at a 76 in Edmunds, WA. Last gas at less than $3: $2.92 at February 8, 2008 at the Silverdale Costco. First $4 gas: $4.07 at the Silverdale Costco, June 6, 2008. First $50 tank: June 13, 2008 at the Exxon in Bend, Oregon, at $4.16. Most ever per gallon (so far...): $4.42 on the way back from Oregon at a Shell off of Interstate 5 in Chehalis, WA. Most ever to fill a tank: $53.48 to fill at the Bainbridge Island Chevron at $4.38. Yuck. Well, it shouldn't be so bad now... Current Mood: hopeful (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 12th, 2008
8:05 pm	Mach a GoGoGo! While I'm not really a big fan of anime & such, I am fascinated by the way entertainment from one culture can be recycled and repackaged for another. For example, the original Japanese monster film Godzilla was heavily edited and new scenes were added for the American audience. I'll reserve my analysis of these changes under I've seen the movie, which will happen soon as it is coming up on my Netflix list (along with the most recent film of this genre, Cloverfield). Back to anime, America's first look at this animation style was a series of cartoons imported to the US in the 1960s: Astroboy, Kimba the White Lion (remade by Disney without credit as the Lion King), and the king of them, MachGoGoGo, known to me at age 10 as Speed Racer. All of these shows were heavily edited and rewritten for the US audience, which makes me wonder what they were actually like in the original Japanese. I haven't yet found a place to see the original, but here's a teaser: (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 30th, 2008
6:02 pm	V for Vendetta A few months back someone made a comment here about what a great movie this was. Now that I've seen it this weekend, I don't remember who it was. If it was you, or if you saw it and want to exchange some comments about it, please come forward. (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
8:22 pm	Golden Compass I've been hearing more about this movie recently. Apparently the film, and the series of books on which it's based, are stirring up come controversy. And this makes it appealing to me. Is this a movie/book I would enjoy? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
8:21 pm	Enough Weather It's been an adventurous few days. On Thursday or Friday Sonya noticed a bunch of water in the backyard near where we had a leaky pipe a few years before. On Saturday morning I dug to the pipe and found a pretty good leak. It was on the other side of the water meter, so the company our neighborhood water association contracts out to came to fix it free of charge. By the time he arrived it was snowing pretty hard and starting to accumulate. Sonya way up in Poulsbo doing a dog thing, while I was in the back helping the water guy bail water out of the hole and watching the snow accumulate. By the time Sonya left Poulsbo the roads were totally snowy and she was sliding around. They weren't as bad in Bainbridge but you still need to drive slowly & carefully. By the time she got home there was snow all over the truck. Sonya had another dog appointment on the north side of the Island and was nervous about driving, so leaving the water guy to finish the job by himself, I drove her out and we walked through the woods with a pair of someone else's dogs. When we god home the snow had mostly turned to rain, and by the next morning most of the snow was gone. BUT, by 9 am Sunday it was snowing hard again, and by Noon we had another good inch. In the afternoon it turned to heavy rain and continued to rain heavily non-stop into Sunday evening, over night (we could hear it in the house with the windows closed), and through Monday mid-afternoon. Between 12 and 1 Sunday called me at work to tell me part of our downstairs was flooded. There was at least a quarter-inch of water on the laundry room floor and it was running in the garage too, She blocked off the room with towels and I came home early. When I got home I could see in the corner of the garage, looking through the gap in the drywall where it doesn't quite come into contact with the foundation (the dirt under our backyard would be on the other side), a good sized trickle appearing and running down the wall. I stuck a piece of spare metal screen frame into the gap to try to draw most of the water to drain through the garage instead. Then I went back into the laundry room to clean up the standing water. By early evening the trickle had stopped. The carpet in the short hallway at the bottom of the stairs was completely saturated. Now it's in the dumpster and we have to decide what kind of flooring to replace it with. This this is something we have to watch for when the back yard gets too saturated. I read today that Bainbridge Island got between 4 and 5 inches of rain Sunday & Monday, and there was a surprising amount of flooding, considering we're an Island so the creeks don't drain a huge area. But what we're dealing with is nothing compared to what's happening south of us. Centralia from the air looks like New Orleans after Katrina. Several miles of Interstate 5 is still closed tonight. There's no estimate when it will re-open because parts are still under up to 10 feet of water so they don't know yet how much repair is needed. The drive between Seattle & Portland now requires a 300 mile detour through Yakima & Tri-Cities! Well, that's enough weather excitement for one season. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 12th, 2007
9:23 pm	Been Everywhere? There's a Johnny Cash song called "I've Been Everywhere" where he lists all the places he's been on the sort of endless tours musicians do.    So how many of these places have you been?  Put an asterick after every place you've been.  Air travel layovers don't count if you didn't leave the airport.  In some cases, there are more than one place with a name.  Count it if the place you been is an actual state or incorpated city or township. Reno * Chicago * Fargo Minnesota * Buffalo Toronto * Winslow (I'm sure this refers to Arizona, not part of Bainbridge Island, so I won't count it.) Sarasota Wichita Tulsa Ottawa Oklahoma Tampa Panama Mattawa LaPaloma Bangor Baltimore Salvador Amarillo Tocapillo Barranquilla And Padilla Boston * Charleston Dayton Louisiana Washington (DC or State?  I'm going to accept State) * Houston Kingston (He probably doesn't mean Kingston, WA, but it is a real city) *  Texarkana (Is this a real place???) Monterey * Ferriday Santa Fe Tallapoosa Glen Rock Black Rock Little Rock Oskaloosa Tennessee Tinnesay Chicopee Spirit Lake (WA, near Mt St. Helens) * Grand Lake Devil's Lake Crater Lake Louisville Nashville Knoxville Ombabika Schefferville Jacksonville Waterville Costa Rica Pittsfield Springfield (Oregon) * Bakersfield * Shreveport Hackensack Cadillac Fond du Lac Davenport Idaho * Jellico Argentina Diamantina Pasadena *  Catalina * Pittsburgh Parkersburg Gravelbourg Colorado * Ellensburg * Rexburg Vicksburg Eldorado Larimore Atmore Haverstraw Chatanika Chaska Nebraska Alaska Opelika Baraboo Waterloo Kalamazoo Kansas City Sioux City Cedar City (Utah)* Dodge City SCORE: 17 I need to get out more. (Comment on this)
8:48 am	Life Changes There are some decisions we make that have major effects on the direction of our lives. Whether or not to take a particular job, where to move, and sometimes who date or pursue a relationship with. Once you get 15-20 years into adulthood, sometimes you look back and wonder where your life would have gone if you made different choices. What if I stuck with computer science instead of switching majors to public relations? Since my career drifted from PR back to IT, I'd probably be farther along in IT. What if I went law school instead of being scared off by the prospect of a huge student loan debt? What if I didn't take jobs I spent 5-8 years at, and worked somewhere else instead? That would have led to living in different places and having sets of friends. What if I took more initiative to ask out girls I liked but assumed were "out of my league"? I think it's hyperbole to say there are infinite possibilities. For example, I don't think playing football in the NFL or singing with Insync were possibilities for me. But - true story here - a long time ago I knew Grant Heslov (nominated for Best Screenplay for "Good Luck and Good Night") from acting class in Hollywood. If I had continued to hang out socially with Grant, I might have later hung out socially with George Clooney. I may have had a career in Hollywood connected to the film industry. That was conceivable possibility. But Hollywood didn't seem to hold promise for me so I went other places. I don't think I've made the worst possible choices in my life. After all, I'm not a homeless meth addict with $100,000 of credit card debt. But looking back, I might of done better. The problem is that at the time, it can be difficult to tell which is best, so all we can do is make the best decisions with the information we have at the time.   It is also important that these decisions are based on good information and an emotional position of confidence, not from fears and insecurities.  I'm at such a juncture now. This week I'm leaving my old job where I've been comfortable for 6 years and starting a new, bigger, better job next week. It's going to take my new places and introduce me to new people. It's a little difficult leaving a comfortable situation I don't really have to leave right now. But looking at the big picture of my life, it looks like the best decision right now. Current Mood: hopeful (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007
2:43 pm	Thoughts on ..... Each year on this date I feel torn. On one hand I feel I should keep positive energy around me and not get all caught in the negative emotion the media stirs up. On the other hand, it unalterably part of our culture and something no one will forget or should forget. This radio commentary expresses some thoughts I find poignant. Current Mood: melancholy (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
7:10 am	Prescient Words Behind the cut is a video of a man who in 1994 accurately predicted what would happen if the US were to invade Baghdad and remove Saddam Hussein by force. Maybe George W. should have listened to him. Maybe the man should have been elected to high office himself. ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 18th, 2007
8:17 am	Movie Trailer This movie better be good, or else I'll be really ticked off at being enticed by this compelling trailer.... (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
9:01 pm	Bay Area Flashbacks This seems to be the place to vent about stupid tech company practices, so here it is ( Flashback to the Bay Area dealing with Stupid Tech Support people with high-speed Internet issues ) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
8:33 am	Is this my Daemon? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, March 12th, 2007
11:03 am	R.I.P. Brad Delp You probably don't know the name or the face, but if you're between 30 and 50 years old, you know the voice. Brad Delp, the singer for the 1970s rock group Boston passed away this past weekend. When I first heard his name on the news, I thought "Who's that?" After all, everything I've read about Boston over the years focused primarily on Tom Scholz, who wrote all of the songs and performed nearly all the instruments on the albums. In fact, the group we know as Boston was really just Delp singing and Scholz doing Everything Else. Those other guys on the album cover and musicians in the concerts were just other guys they brought in to justify calling Boston a group. When "More Than a Feeling" came up randomly in my iTunes this morning, I googled Delp and found this picture. Looking at this while hearing the music, I thought about how Delp's fluid voice has been an occasional audio backdrop for most of my life, and I sense the loss that everyone who listened to radio in the 1970s must feel. Current Mood: melancholy (Comment on this)
Monday, February 26th, 2007
7:55 am	Chillier Hilly Seattle PI Yesterday I rode my third Chilly Hilly, an annual 33 mile ride around Bainbridge Island. For the first time in several years, it was a wet Chilly, starting with a light drizzle early, drying a little in mid-ride, to rain in the last 10 miles. I was a little concerned coming into the ride because I'm not in the same shape I was last year. A year ago I had more of the skinny cyclist physique at about 167-168 pounds. Now after several months of lifting weights, downing protein drinks and eating relatively healthy food like a pig, I weighed on Sunday morning at 184.5, about 15 pounds heavier, but hopefully most of that is the good kind of weight rather than the bad kind. So without further ado, the stats: Time: Three hours, one minute and 17 seconds. This is down from two hours and 50 minutes last year. Average Speed: 11.9 mph, down from 12.7 last year. I'm not sure if my slower times are from extra weight, fitness level, or extra drag from wet pavement, probably a combination of all three. Distance: 35.97 miles This includes about 3 miles from home to Winslow where everyone else starts, but not the ride home from Winslow. This makes all these stats comparable to last year. Curiously, I recorded 36.2 miles last year. So not only did I ride faster last year, I somehow rode two tenths of a mile farther. (Although if I add my ride home, it comes out at 38.95 miles.) Maximum Speed: 43 mph. This is up from 42 last year. It looks like that extra 15 pounds makes a difference on the Arrow Point downhill. Also, weaving in and out of the opposing lane at 40 mph to pass slower riders was my adrenalin rush for the ride. Minimum sustained speed: 3 mph Not quite as slow as last year's 2.5 climbing out of the Arrow Point Road dip. Granny gear use: Arrow Point Road Baker Hill Halls Hill NOT Head of the Harbor this year! I should note that I did not drop below the next-to-lowest gear on Baker Hill, and I felt like I could have done Halls Hill without the granny gear but I wanted to same my legs for the remaining climbs. It looks like all those squats this past year have paid off. Overall, I felt pretty good during & after the ride, except for my feet, which were pretty much soaked much of the way from the rain and water flying off tires. Many thanks to Sonya for providing me with clean dry socks with three miles to go. I've had no signs of bonking or cramping, and no need of a massage this year. It was good afternoon & evening for making lasagna, smoking a cigar and later watching the Academy Awards while sipping a Francis Coppola pinot noir. Current Mood: accomplished (Comment on this)