1. We have reached peak oil production. In spite of the price of oil climbing drastically over the last several years, production remains flat. We can expect to spend more money on oil in the future while production will begin to decline.

2. Demand for energy is going to continue to grow. Currently our biggest energy source by far is petroleum.

3. This will create an increasingly large gap between production and demand, creating shortages and panic.

Those are not opinions. Those are facts. Now the opinion:

4. If we do not do something drastic about the above facts, the resulting panic will be worldwide and catastrophic to every aspect of a modern lifestyle. The resulting catastrophe will be like nothing ever seen by man before. The death toll will make the Holocaust look like a traffic accident.

5. And thus, we MUST use every dollar we can beg, borrow, or steal from any and all other programs to replace petroleum with another energy source. We must start 10 years ago. It is absolutely critical to modern life. We have no choice.

6. Nuclear reactors aren't the solution. They could buy us time, but we're already running out of Uranium.

While resolving the rising costs of health care may be important, this issue is absolutely critical. We do not have a choice. We need to be spending 10s or 100s of billions of dollars annually to replace our petroleum-based infrastructure and we need to do it while we still have the oil to power the replacement.

Natural Parenting (674):

Unreal Tournament and Nachos (654):

Maybe This Would Work For Me (628):

Too Bad No One Who Needs It Would Understand (627):

Icarus (620):

\Adventure (308):

The Eagles:

Phantom of the Opera:

Freddy Mercury's greatest performance:

End of the World:

These ladies do more for classical instruments than anyone:

Although these two do okay too:

And then we have one of the top guitarists ever:

10,000 Maniacs:

My favorite Cyndi Lauper song:

For a good case of giggles:

Nina Conti.

And finally, Achmed, the Dead Terrorist!

In October of 2008, I sent email to the "Contact Us" link at Four Seasons Dance Studio. I basically said, "I want to become competent at the random social situations that come up in life." I used wedding dances or a night out with the Rockin' Hollywoods as my examples. I received a reply from Rebecca Abas, the studio owner and a truly fabulous dance teacher. She basically said, "That means waltz, foxtrot and swing."

Waltz and Foxtrot form the most basic core of ballroom dancing. They are danced in the well-known dance position we all see on TVs and movies -- gentleman's right arm on the lady's back, lady's left hand on the gentleman's shoulder, gentleman's left hand holding lady's right hand. Waltz is danced to 3/4 music and foxtrot to 4/4 music.

For those who aren't musicians, 3/4 music is 1-2-3, 1-2-3. 4/4 music is what we hear much more often and has a four-beat. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. The Norah Jones song, "Come Away With Me" is a fabulous, slow waltz. You would foxtrot to Sinatra.

Swing is also danced to 4/4 music. I can swing dance to almost any rock music. I've also done swing dancing to things as non-swingy as a hip-hop mashup. It feels weird, but hey, I'm a middle-aged white guy -- I'm not going to do that stuff the kids do to hip-hop, that's for sure!

When Rebecca made her suggestions, I was totally on board for waltz and foxtrot. I thought she was insane to suggest swing. That's for young people, I thought -- no way could my body move that way. I was way too big, way too heavy, way too clumsy, way to old.

Rebecca was right, I was wrong. Swing became my favorite style -- by far. If I go out dancing, it's almost always swing.

The thing is, I didn't really know what swing was. Sure, I'd seen it on movies. Lots of throwing the woman around and jumps and stuff, right? Well, sure. If you're a professional performer in a choreographed situation or doing a demonstration, aerials are great. They don't belong on the social dance floor. Do you really want to throw your lady across the floor and knock over five other dancers? I don't think so.

When people first tell me, "I want to learn to dance," the next question becomes, "What style?" Rebecca originally taught me the above dances, but that's just a beginning. New dancers may have an idea of what they want to learn. Choices are:

-Basic ballroom: waltz and foxtrot and go from there
-Swing: start with east coast swing and branch out in a variety of directions after that
-Latin: salsa, cha-cha, rumba, bachata, samba, etc.
-Tango: and I mean Argentine tango, of course.

Okay, there are other choices, but I'm not going near those :-)

What would I recommend? Whatever makes you happy. Okay, want something more specific? I'd take 1 or 2 months of basic ballroom lessons. At the same time, I'd dive completely into swing. Why? It's fabulously fun and there are multiple opportunities to go swing dancing every week, at least here in the Twin Cities. Plus the music rocks!

Don't think you can swing? Ha. If I can do it, you can do it.

The article discusses Google's plans for Chrome OS, due out in 2010. Amongst the features: Chrome OS machines will have no hard drive. All apps will be browser-based and exist on the internet. So will your data. That makes this machine....

WORTHLESS.

I use my machine when I don't have internet access (like on an airplane). Why would I buy a laptop that requires 100% internet access to be useful?

Lunchtime on Monday started to turn things around. I received an email from Rebecca. "I'm teaching salsa tonight at the Centennial Lakes pavilion. Are you available to assist?"

It's good for my ego that she asks me to assist. I don't have a very high opinion of my dancing, but she wouldn't ask me to help if I completely suck. She also encourages me to provide guidance to the new dancers, which is quite a complement as well.

And then of course, I also had fun. It was a beautiful evening, which meant it was great just being outside. Turnout was amazing. In addition to demoing with Rebecca and helping to run sound equipment, I danced with a number of ladies and one young girl (maybe 10 or 12 years old). The girl seemed quite pleased after I lead her through a couple of turns and then said, "You've done this before!"

So, this entire blog entry would just be random babbling if there weren't an important point. I don't know if I have a point exactly, but more of an observation: dancing can be a cure for dark moods.

I hesitate to extend this to any activity we enjoy. I enjoy computer gaming, but it rarely cures dark moods (and sometimes causes them).

But consider dancing... You generally dance in some pleasant environment. You are moving in time to the music. With any luck at all, you have a woman in your arms (or you're the woman in the man's arms). Presumably she's enjoying herself, and you know part of the reason is because she's dancing with you. You specifically, not just some random person. If you're a toucher (I am), you get several days of needed touching in just a short while. And maybe you even meet a few people you wouldn't otherwise have met, and perhaps a goodbye hug from the teacher when the evening is over.

I think the only thing that would have made the evening better was if I'd gotten the name and phone number of that last woman I danced with. She was thin, long dark hair, attractive, and seemed specifically to want to dance with me. If only I'd been a little braver...

Next time, perhaps.

Is there some unit of measurement that can be defined in absolute terms without reference to some other relatively arbitrary unit of measurement?

I'll use some counter examples. The definition of celsius (temperature) is based on the freezing point of water (0 C) and the boiling point (100 C). So, to exactly calibrate a thermometer, you could get some distilled water and observe the thermometer as you freeze the water. You could then heat the water to boiling. Viola! Your thermometer is calibrated.

Except... The boiling point of water varies by atmospheric pressure. The definition is defined "at sea level" - 29.92 inches of mercury. Ug. Inches? And under what gravitational pull?

Let's use another counter-example. You could define a unit of length based as the wavelength of a particular light. Okay, that's fine. Now you need an absolute way to generate the light in question. There are a number of objects that when heated radiate light. Great! We're almost there. Now, do you need the heated object at a specific temperature or pressure to produce the appropriate light?

So, a little homework: can you define a unit of measurement, either mass, length or time, that can be defined by some fixed method -- some method that would be true even under dramatically different conditions (different temperatures, different, atmospheric pressures, different gravitational forces, etc). Basically, a system that would work on Earth or on the dark side of the moon. Answers only work if they're practical. Defining your unit in terms of the mass of a hydrogen atom is worthless unless you can also demonstrate a reasonable means of counting hydrogen atoms.

Gary, SPL requires one Gary available to measure, and said Gary must be able to achieve a standard length under varying circumstances -- which I doubt happens. So please, SPLs will not survive my homework assignment.

Note that I haven't come up with any examples that work. I think the best chance is the wavelength of light produced by some light-emitting object, if there are objects that emit light at a fixed wavelength over a wide variety of temperatures and pressures.

There might be some means that make use of critical point and triple point. However, I question whether these methods would pass the practical use test given the extreme temperature and/or pressure ranges involved. That is, elements that have a relatively low critical vapor-liquid atmospheric value tend to have unreasonably low temperature values. For instance, hydrogen only requires 12.8 atmospheres but neg 240 degrees C.

Anyone have a good answer?

The Guild is the brain child of Felicia Day. Some real geeks amongst you might recognize her name from Buffy fame (final season, I believe), but if you know who she is, you probably are already familiar with Watch The Guild.

I got some amazing photos of people. This is the first time I've really spent serious time with my digital camera. I bought the Nikon D40 last year and have used it, but I think I shot more yesterday than I had since buying it.

For me, photography is a very aesthetic experience. It starts first and foremost with the camera in my hands. I hate point and click cameras. They just feel wrong. They sound wrong. The image is wrong. The focal lengths are always wrong. Then you need the right lenses. Good lenses that you can swap out for the setting. Yesterday I used a fairly short lens -- 35 to 85 mm -- because I was shooting entirely indoors.

Finally, you need people who loosen up. Most people get all tense as soon as you point a camera at them. I'm the worst offender of that, by the way. There are ways to deal with this, but all of them require first and foremost the subject relaxing.

Well yesterday, people relaxed. They had fun. And as soon as I realized that was happening, I really started to have fun. And they let me. I got smiles, I got frowns. I got grimaces and giggles. I got one guy whose mind went deep deep into the gutter and almost died from embarrassment.

Here are some of my favorites:

This first one is Michelle, the organizer for Single in the Cities.



Michele told me in advance that she wouldn't be able to relax. So I decided to push her deep out of her box and grabbed my motorcycle jacket, knowing she'd drown in it. She practically died from embarrassment, saying "no no no no no" for the next several minutes while I continued to shoot photos. This one is a priceless photo of her giggling.

Then we have Deena and Yen Ly.

They're both young and stunning. I took several of the two of them, but this is my favorite. Deena was the first person I really got into though. She has that amazing hair, and she let me play.

Here we have Brooke.



Brooke was a challenge. Young and attractive. Very cute. She was wearing a top that was just the wrong color and shape, and none of the photos were doing her justice. So I handed her one of Lili's backdrops and said, "This is a shawl". We fussed at it a bit, and then I got this photo. I love this shot.

Jennifer was fun to shoot.



Another young and cute lady. Jennifer was a challenge because without the camera, I could see what I wanted, but none of the photos were right. It was the expressions. I was right on the edge of really getting what I wanted. Then we moved to the stairs. This is a very informal, relaxed photo, and I'm quite pleased. Very cute girl next door sort of photo.

Here's Phil.



Yes, I know, 4 photos of cute women and 1 photo of a guy. Hey, what can I say? I like the ladies. I got fabulous photos of several guys, but this is the only one I'm showing you today. I would never have expected Phil's shots to be so amazing. That black shirt he had on was just so amazingly informal, and then to add my black fedora. But I got several shots of Phil that are priceless.

When I was taking shots of Phil, Michelle was standing behind him, heckling him. Thinking that she was deserving a little retribution for her teasing, I told him, "Just imagine what you're going to do to Michelle." Well, his mind (and Michelle's I might point out) went in a completely different direction than mine did. I thought he was about to die from embarrassment. The resulting photos I'm saving for blackmail.

.... you have a dream about one of the characters from the show.

*wanders away whistling quietly*

In the beginning, the only mass communications involved personally talking to people. You stood on a street corner or went house to house.

Then someone invented the postal service. And someone else invented junk mail. Junk mail isn't all bad. At least it costs real money to produce and send. Still, I get far more junk than real mail. Having a low signal to noise ratio when I open my mail contributes to my willingness to be sloppy about reading my mail. Heck, my bank sends me more junk mail than real mail. I wish they would stop.

Then Mr. Bell invented the telephone. And someone else invented telephone solicitors. Great. Just great. No one likes junk calls, so we all demand a stop. The phone company eventually responds with ways (at a cost) to cut back the junk calls. And then Congress even has to spend their time implementing laws and national do not call lists. Which of course, require money to run, money to enforce, etc. Sigh. What a waste.

But even telephone soliciting is expensive. Auto-dialers can do a lot of the work, but ultimately you have one person trying to talk one other person into spending money. There's a cost there. Clearly, it works, or the solicitors wouldn't continue trying, but still, you don't do it on a whim.

Then Al Gore invented the internet and along with it, email. (That's a joke, for the humor disadvantaged.) And 10 seconds later, someone invented spam. The amount of spam on the internet dwarfs the real email. Furthermore, a huge percentage of the spam consists of attempted fraud to boot. We spend hours reviewing it so we can delete it. Then people invent spam filters (not an easy thing to actually get right) but we spend hours reviewing what's been filtered to see whether it's deleting real mail. And of course, it does, so we lose real mail that we should have kept. Sending email is free, so the cost to spammers is nothing beyond a computer and an internet connection (which any 12-year-old in America has). The cost to American business? Enormous.

Someone invented text messaging. And the phone companies, having been burnt badly already, put in some pretty draconian rules to avoid spam. The rules actually work! But those of us with legitimate use of text messaging (speaking from a business perspective -- remember what I do for a living!) have to jump through extremely complex hoops to use a feature our customers want us to use.

Today, I received more spam. 3 copies of the same email. Someone joined a bunch of meetup groups and used their mailing list to send spam. The end result? I turned off the mailing list in my group. A perfectly good feature can't be used because there's always some selfish asshole who is willing to abuse any good tool.

Rot in hell.

When I'm not feeling well, I also get moody. I sat on the couch all night, downloading (from iTunes) and then watching the last several episodes of season 2 of "Saving Grace".

I haven't figured out why I like this show. I think maybe I like the idea of believing in Earl, even though my religious beliefs are really non-beliefs. I understand the allure of believing in angels and a loving god. I understand the desire to believe in miracles and an afterlife. I understand the allure in believing that we'll again see those who have passed ahead of us.

My list of creatures I miss isn't all that long. My grandparents, my parents, and a bunch of dogs.

Ultimately, though, I think what we see is what we get. Which is sad in a way. Kirkegaard referred to that as the sickness unto death.

For me, it's hard to believe in things like angels. There are so many problems in the world that could be solved with one clear cut, angelic visit. A bunch of them could be handled with a visit just to one man: the pope.

Ultimately, rather than heavenly angels, I think we need to find our own. In some ways, we each have the ability to be an angel. We only need to help someone who needs help. I'm certainly not going to be the first person to devote his life strictly to helping others. But simply lending a hug can have such profound effects when someone is down. Or a smile. A kind word. Or just (see the post yesterday) being excited to see someone.

What's too bad -- the number of people in the world who prey upon the helpful. It turns us all cynical. No one wants to be used or cheated. I think most people would help someone who needed help, but we've been taught that naivety will be ill paid. When we lose our innocence, we don't get it back.

But for me, for now, it's bedtime.

Maybe I'll dream of angels. Or dogs.

So, here comes the stroking of the ego part. As I said, Sidney is young and cute. And each week when she sees I'm there to dance with her, her entire face lights up. I'm not accustomed to young ladies being excited to dance with me, so it does a lot for my ego that my presence so clearly makes her happy.

Now, I know that what she likes is the fact that I know what I'm doing. Her abilities improve so much faster when partnered with me because I make fewer mistakes than the other guys in class, I can explain when she's doing something wrong, and I can take her through more complicated patterns when she starts to get bored. She's not held back waiting for a leader who is still learning that he has feet, so she advances faster than the class average.

Let's use an example. First, a little background.

Last month, Rebecca taught waltz and foxtrot box steps. This month she's teaching waltz and foxtrot traveling steps. This example is about foxtrot. The foxtrot box step is a 4-beat step: Slow (2 beats) Quick Quick (1 each). Then repeat. So each full box is exactly 2 measures.

The foxtrot traveling steps are six beats. Slow, Slow, Quick, Quick. 1-2, 3-4, 5, 6. This is a measure and a half. Two of these is 3 measures. Then you have to mix it up to come out to an even 4 measures if you care at all about the timing of the music.

Switching step patterns is tricky. It sounds simple, but your mind gets in a pattern. You're going along doing your slow-slow-quick-quicks, and your muscles remember that. They want to keep that pattern going. But to go into a box, you suddenly have to switch to slow-quick-quick. When you're first learning, that's hard to do.

So last night, we were doing traveling steps. Sidney was getting bored as I was constraining us to what we'd learned so far. She asked me, "Are you going to mix it up on me?" I told her, "I was trying to think what you've been taught so far." "How about a box?"

So, we traveled around the room. And when we got to the corner, I switched us to a box. We boxed around a couple of times, then we started traveling again. And she did it!

It made her night, because once we did it, she understood why it's tricky. I commended her on doing it, and she said, "Well, you did it too." "Yeah, but I was thinking about it along the entire wall ahead of time to make sure I wouldn't screw it up."

So, long story, I know. But the end result is -- she was happy. She was happy she was dancing with *me*.

And that's a big ego stroke.

It's a Chinese restaurant, after all.

As I was leaving, a bitter woman was at the register trying to talk to the elderly Chinese woman. Bitter woman, who throughout the rest of this narrative I will simply refer to as Ugly Bitch, Raving Bitch, or just Bitchy Bigot (I'm sorry, I can't come up with anything more appropriate, was quite confused as to what she wanted. She was asking the wrong questions and asking them poorly. Elderly Chinese Woman's English wasn't up to the task of helping The Bitch. Which is understandable, because I couldn't figure out what BB wanted, either. So the Elderly Woman wandered off and sent Young Man to help.

All very good, right. Except just loud enough for several us to here, BB said with quite a bit of venom, "Bitch!"

I kindly said, "I don't think she speaks much English."

"Then she shouldn't be here!"

At this point, I was quite surprised and puzzled. "But it's a Chinese restaurant."

"I don't care. She should speak English. Most people do."

Well, I guess I should also have referred to BB as Bitchy and Ignorant.

Well, young man came up, determined what it was the woman really wanted (it took a good 30 seconds for her to convey that she wanted a pint of chicken chow mein to go). He then took my receipt and spent 10 seconds giving me my change. Which of course set off Raving Bitch some more about how she was there first and should have been taken care of.

I left a big tip.

I feel bad for her. With an outlook like that, her entire life must suck. Imagine going through the world hating everyone, sure that every person you meet wants to treat you poorly. Imagine deserving to be treated that poorly.