Things that annoy me, chapter one

Moles.
Yes, moles.

I hate yard work yet I have a huge yard. If I actually owned the yard, I wouldn't mow much of it. I would plant most of it to native grasses and wildflowers and leave it be. But since I only rent my yard, along with the house that sits smack dab in the middle of it, I have to keep the damn thing looking nice. The colony of moles that have taken up subterranean residence under my yard make that job difficult.

My moles didn't always annoy the hell out of me. At first, they were simply an inconvenience. The occasional little hill would pop up in the yard and I'd rake it down before I mowed over it. But apparently the horny little bastards have spent all summer having babies so now instead of a couple mole holes scattered here and there, I have an entire mole city complete with the Taj Mahal of mole mounds in the center of it - a 3-foot round and 18-inch high soil castle that practically stops the lawn mower blades when I mow it down (I gave up on raking the hills down and just mow over them now).

I've been given numerous remedies for the problem - traps, poison, a Jack Russell terrier, but the one I like the best is hunting them...with a 12-gauge. I was told to go out right at dusk and stand in the middle of the mole city with a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with bird shot and wait to see a mound start to rise up. When it does, simply blast the hell out of it and BAM! - no more moles. I haven't tried it yet but it sounds like a great idea. What better way to get revenge on the little bastards that have dulled the hell out of my mower blades than to blast big craters in my yard with a shotgun? I can just hear it now - my friends will call up with, "what are you doing this weekend?" And my reply will be, "I'm-a huntin' moles! Wanna join me?" Twelve hours and thirty beers later there will be fifteen craters in the yard and not a single damn mole to show for it.

So I guess they'll just keep building little mole cities and I'll keep mowing them down until the grass quits growing and I don't have to mow anymore. Maybe they'll eventually get tired of building new cities and move somewhere else...I'm thinking my landlord's yard would be a nice place.

Gone

Gone...
Is my muse
My reason to write a bunch of senseless shit about nothing in particular.
That burning desire to manipulate words in an effort to legitimize my thoughts.

Gone...
Is my ambition
To study, to learn, to know.
Is it because it seems the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.

Gone...
Is my obsession
With that which I was at one time most passionate about.
That which seemed to consume my every waking moment.

Gone...
Is my hope
For change, for a better tomorrow, for a better...something.

Gone...
Is my...I don't know.
It's gone now.

Vote for Paris

Screw it all. I'm voting for Paris!

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Okay, that's a lie. I'm not going to vote for Paris but I bet if she legitimately ran for president, a lot of people would.

A fresh look at earth

I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about environmental issues. I also have a scientific-based education. Over the years, I have somewhat changed my views on the earth and humans' interaction with it. This is the first in, hopefully, a series of thoughts and essays on the issue. I know there's been entire books written on this subject so if you know of one (Other than Seven Mysteries and Strangeloop, thanks Strangeloop), please let me know. This little snippet of philosophical rambling was inspired by a post I found on Grist. I thought it would make a decent first step into a subject that I wonder if I don't maybe obsess over sometimes....


The earth is a living organism in which we are simply an interacting component of - much like the bacteria in our own digestive tracts, or the flu viruses we pick up in the winter. As a living organism, the earth has an immune system that kicks in when something goes amok. In relation to wildlife species, we refer to the interaction between that 'immune system' and the wildlife population as 'carrying capacity' - a sort of balancing act that keeps things in a perpetual reverberating state of homeostasis. Humans, in all their technological advances, have done everything they can to trump their own carrying capacity. Thus, we see (just as we would with any wildlife species), and overuse and subsequent depletion of life-sustaining natural resources (food shortages, peak oil?, competition for various land uses). When any population, human or otherwise, goes blowing past carrying capacity, the earth's immune system eventually has to counteract with a 'shock-and-awe' campaign to get the system rebalanced as quickly as possible (such as hemorragic fever and CWD in whitetailed deer).

That being the case, would it then not make sense that AIDS, cancer, autism, heart disease, etc...as well as hurricanes, droughts, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and maybe even civil unrest and war are simply population control mechanisms imposed upon us by the organism from which we were all conceived? In a single generation the human population on this earth more than doubled and that growth rate remains unchecked still. If that growth rate was witnessed among cells within our own bodies, wouldn't we call that a cancer?

I know that only brings us back to the question of "so what do we do about it?" but I wanted to throw that out there to see what kind of responses I get. I suppose we can look at it two ways, if climate change is simply an immuno-response by the earth then maybe there's nothing we can do about it. But on the other hand, maybe if we start living more symbiotically with this earth-organism, its immune system won't be triggered. I'm hoping it's the latter.

Caleb

He's quiet
unbalanced
but always smiling.
He tells jokes
in broken speech
from a paperback
joke book
he's memorized.
He walks slow
but seemingly
with a purpose.
He's a brother
a son
an inspiration.
He overcame
a threatened life
through surgeries
and recovery
and rehabilitation.
He conquered
and carried on.
Studied
harder than all.
Graduated.
With a smile.
He's tough
but gentle.
He's a friend
an inspiration
a miracle.
Caleb.

An experiment in poetry

It’s hot.
I sit
in my underwear
in front of a fan.
I have
no A/C.
Actually
I do have A/C.
It’s just
not on.
I’m trying
to save
The world
by sweating
my ass off.
Does it
really matter?
I ask.
I wonder.
Then again
it was
one hundred
and two
earlier today.

Addendum to "One Fewer"

In following the posts at the One Fewer website mentioned in the blog below, my feedback was responded to with this (as posted by one named 'Rog'):

Is it worth mentioning that the 150 MPG SUV achieved it’s impressive score by
creative accounting? In their sums they include 240 miles driven on battery
(charged by plug-in) and 60 miles driven hybrid, using 2 gallons of petrol,
giving, they say, 300 miles for each 2 gallons of petrol. No mention of the coal
that was burned to power the 240 miles!
This is not to say that a conversion
to hybrid might not improve the existing 13 MPG of that guzzler of yours, but
don’t hope for anything near to what AFS Trinity claim.

And, realizing that this was a valid argument, I felt compelled to follow up. After a bit of site searching for legitamate links, I followed up with this:

Yes, Rog, I do agree that we should consider the impact that coal-generated
electricity usage has on the overall picture. Roughly 50% of this nation’s
electricity does come from coal and so there are indirect environmental impacts
to using electricity to fuel our transportation sector.
That being said, let’s take innovation one step further and involve Nanosolar and their nearby San
Jose manufacturing facility (which is already shipping panels). Utilize their technology as charging stations
for the electric-hybrid Rover. Already, solar is looking to be cheaper than
coal, and obviously far more environmentally-friendly.
There is not going to be one silver bullet that will fix everything. To believe so would be ignorant.
Instead, there needs to be a comprehensive renewable-energy transistion strategy
put forth containing diverse efforts catered to each region’s needs and
opportunities. Showing that existing gas-guzzlers can be mass-retrofitted with
green technology and that the alternative energy that technology uses can be
produced economically, locally, and in a way that doesn’t harm the environment
would be one big step in the transition process.

It is worth noting that we need start thinking about this issue not in 'Silver Bullet' scenarios, but in comprehensive, strategic, diversified efforts spread across numerous sectors (i.e. transportation, electricity, fuel, etc.). I'll be sure to follow up on this soon...

One Fewer

I recently came across this nifty effort of one man in California to try to figure out what to do with his gas-guzzling Range Rover Sport. He has offered to leave it up to society to decide the fate of this eco-unfriendly machine. He even put a call out on Youtube asking for comments - the crazier, the better.

Upon reading up on some of the posts, I couldn't help but want to leave my own comment. Here's what I think he ought to do with the vehicle which, in my opinion, is better than flinging it into the Pacific.

As posted on OneFewer.com:
Let me preface this by saying that I have not read all of the comments posted here - that would take a very long time. So if any of this is redundant, I apologize. Redundancy appears to be a rather, well…redundant issue among many of these posts.

The idea here is solid - make a statement by being “One Fewer” inefficient vehicle on the road. We should all note that this is meant to be a ’statement’ to the public, hence the call for the most dramatic, off-the-wall ideas. Yes, donating it to charity, or recycling it, or giving it to a college or high school to figure out a way to make it green are all logical ideas, but do they really make a statement? Things like that occur regularly anymore. Hell, AFS Trinity (http://www.afstrinity.com/) recently unveiled a 150-mpg plug-in hybrid SUV. Yes, I said SUV (I believe it’s actually a retro-fitted Saturn Vue) so the ‘convert-to-green’ thing is being done already.

Don’t get me wrong, greening the vehicle is the best thing to do in my opinion. But I’m also reading posts bemoaning the impact the vehicle’s initial production had environmentally. So, in an effort to ‘make a statement,’ take the greening effort one step further:
Give the Rover to a company, institution, organization, or school and give them one year to develop a way to convert the vehicle to a plug-in hybrid, or fully electric one. But in so doing, mandate that they develop an assembly-line procedure to do the same to every Rover in existence, or even every big SUV out there. Maybe even give several groups the opportunity to do so. Make it a race to see who can get it done first. Film every group’s efforts and make it a “Monster Garage” like competition, with the winner getting a kick-back from the big investment the failing auto-makers would inevitably pay for the new technology in an effort to save their companies. Maybe even throw in the $300 MM John McCain suggests the government offer.

Whatever network agrees to make the reality show out of the effort would have to agree to donate a certain amount of money to future green efforts as part of the filming rights agreement. This effort being launched in California is very convenient since there is an abundance of media/network outlets close by that could pick it up.

Now THAT would make a statement to the millions of viewers that would tune into the new reality show across this country that these efforts can succeed AND would say to the auto makers that we as a country are ready to stop buying their inefficient vehicles that use ridiculous amounts of foreign oil and are ready to help them start showing profits again as soon as they give us legitimate alternatives. Retro-fitting existing vehicles would be a great stepping stone toward transitioning our transportation sector to renewable sources. And by developing assembly-line technology, we would actually be somewhat undoing the initial impact caused by the current vehicles’ production years ago.

Comments?