Parks, Stories and Interpretation

NPR’s All Things Considered has a series running this summer on National Parks, and today they had two pieces, one about the Everglades National Park and one about Bryce Canyon National Park.  The Bryce Canyon piece had a great story about its rock formations, as imagined in a story told by the Paiute Indians.  It’s striking how strong the human motivation to explain the natural world is, and stories like this one reinforce this strongly for me.  I’m also chuffed that the Parks Service has a job title at Bryce Canyon called “chief of interpretation” – this man did an awesome job of telling this story.  Give it a listen at the links above, and the park’s website is here.

Daily Technology

I’m not an early adopter of technology, and when it comes to gadgets,   I’m actually cheap.  Still, I was thinking about all the technology I use on a daily basis, so I figured I’d make a list.

cellphone – generic, but has a keyboard for texting and can do music in a pinch

laptop – indispensable. Spreadsheets (even some cool VBA stuff for excel), GMail, Outlook for contacts and tasks, Google Reader for feeds, ever present web connection for all kinds of things.

at home – SSH server, file server (soon to be upgraded to a media server), Funambol server, networked printer (on a stand-alone print server), a couple of routers and switches.

at work – Terminal server (converted winxp using XP Unlimited), SSH server yet again, soon moving to a network fax server, and considering running my own email server.

So, what do I do with all this crap? Well, I can automatically capture data and generate patient notes with Excel; I can remotely log on to home/office machines (and transfer files if I need to); Funambol lets me sync contacts/email/tasks/notes ANYWHERE; pay bills online; google maps (and everything else google), copy, scan, fax, email; and just waste time checking out the Dolphins’ dismal draft prospects (Tuna has to be Dolphin safe, right?)

Soon will come the Blackberry/PDA/constant internet connection, and then I can do all of the above from the palm of my hand, while ignoring real humans. If anyone needs a walk-through on how to implement any of these things themselves, let me know, maybe I could post a how-to. A lot of this stuff is no big deal to real geeks, but I’m kind of proud I learned it all myself, and I’m still astounded that I need this much technology to function.  The picture is me being “Simpsonized” – you can try it too, here.

Sunday Afternoon Nap

Sunday, I took a nap with our son.  We had been out in the morning, and his sister was already asleep, so I went with him for naptime.  The curtains in his room were drawn, a darkened, cool, quiet respite from the Florida heat outside.  We had to make sure his Thomas trains were all arranged in a row near his pillow, with Percy hiding under the blanket.  He tossed and turned for a few minutes before settling into sleep, rhythmic breathing keeping time.  Lying there, with his back against me, his head on my outstretched arm, his legs curled up comfortably beneath him, I had a few minutes of unhurried contentment before I fell asleep too.  I am grateful for Sunday afternoon naps with my kids.

Barack Obama’s iPod

Wired’s Listening Post blog has an item about what’s on Barack Obama’s ipod. Now, I think I’m quite rational, and try to weigh a candidates merit based on his interpretation of the issues. But there is an old saw that all politics is personal, and things like this article really reinforce that for me. I’m ok with Barack Obama and his ideas, except for maybe some details of his healthcare plan (pdf download). But somehow knowing that he likes Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm”, and the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” makes this man more appealing as a candidate. I get it, it’s a big sales job, and today I’m buying. Humans are good at investing rational enterprises with emotion, and not so good at the converse. By the way, my favorite Dylan song is “It’s all over now, Baby Blue”. As for the Stones, I’d go with “Gimme Shelter” too.