Posts // Kestrel's Nest

Thursday we drove down the

Thursday we drove down the east coast of Florida. I’d never been to Florida before, but I was looking forward to the drive. Florida has always been an enigma to me. So many contradictory images floating around in my head, all from TV, movies, and other media. Probably the same images you have – huge expanses of cities. Lots of orange groves (Florida Oranges: A Colorful Story). Produce farms. Theme parks. Beaches. Resorts. Swamps (and swamp-apes). Kidnapped Cuban boys. (Sorry. That was uncalled for.) More cities. A billion retired people living the good life. Also, the odd fact that Florida is the number one cattle producing state in the nation, growing more cows than even Texas (and they’ve joined the ranks of the cattle mutilation mystery). Don’t ask why I just happened to know that last fact. I know things like that for no good reason. It’s part of what makes me who I am (read: “A dork.”). But you see why Florida confused me. Those images just don’t go together, and on the map, Florida looks like too small of a place to have all that. On the map, it looks like a long curved beach with swamp in the middle. Where do the cows live? As it turns out, Florida’s much bigger than the maps let on. That long bit that sticks out into the ocean is really quite long. And filled with cows. And orange groves. And cities. And swamp. Usually, all within sight of each other. And there’s something that don’t show on the movies or TV (well, maybe on Dateline or 20/20 , but I don’t watch them): landfills. Big mountainous stinky landfills. Up and down the interstate, with condo subdivisions build right in their shadows. And they’re tall enough to have shadows, too (take a virtual tour here). I guess they can’t bury their trash in Florida, because they might poke a hole in the bottom and sink the whole state. I guess I’ll research that some and get back to you.

May 23, 2000 - 2 min read

The wedding was on a

The wedding was on a pier jutting out into the bay.

The view from the pulpit.

The text of the ceremony. It was a fine wedding.

May 23, 2000 - 1 min read

Well, shiver me timbers! (I

Well, shiver me timbers! (I drove on the “Buccaneer Trail” yesterday, so now my head’s full of pirate talk). The Amazing Randi has a weekly internet column, where he talks about all sorts of Amazing Randi skeptical-about-the-paranormal stuff. Yo ho ho!

May 23, 2000 - 1 min read

I'm off in the morning

I’m off in the morning to Key Largo to marry my college friends Jeff and Melissa. To each other. Because I’m an ordained minister. So I’ll be gone until Tuesday, making things mighty quiet around here until then. Just in case you find youself in the same situation I’m in – writing a wedding service – there’s a number of web sites to help: the alt.wedding resources (starring the wedding fairy!), religious humanist ceremonies, Bill Schulz’s secular wedding ceremonies, more secular weddings, and examples of non-standard weddings are a few places that caught my eye.

May 17, 2000 - 1 min read

Hey! You put your Björk

Hey! You put your Björk in my Shuttlecocks!
No, you put your Shuttlecocks in my Björk!
<…listens to the MP3 or realaudio…>
Not bad! It’s a quantum physics love song! “If only she’d let me, her love I would hork. Oh Björk, oh Björk, oh Björk! "

May 16, 2000 - 1 min read

What with the rash of

What with the rash of “last page of the internet” things going around, it was nice to see an actual study on web page connectivity. This study, done by researchers from IBM, Compaq, and Altavista, contradicts the study released last year claiming that any two web pages were separated by at most 19 clicks. Among the interesting result: 46% of all the web pages go nowhere (that’s 700 million “last pages of the internet”) and “about 30% of the unique documents on the web are rubbish.” Weblogs seem to fit squarely in what they called the “giant strongly connected component” – the 30% of web pages that are strongly interconnected and most useful for search engine indexing.

May 16, 2000 - 1 min read

England's Civil Aviation Authority has

England’s Civil Aviation Authority has again shown that mobile phones ‘a danger to aircraft’, as reported in this BBC story. Effects included triggering false cockpit warnings and malfunctioning of other systems. The story also mentions a man who was sentenced to a year in prison after refusing to turn off his mobile phone. He made no calls, but just having the phone on was danger enough.

May 16, 2000 - 1 min read

I don't know why I

I don’t know why I was suprised to find out there’s a whole genre of music called “Right Wing Rock.” An example: Poker Face – Political Protest Rock. I couldn’t bring myself to listen to the music. Who knows… it may actually be good.

May 15, 2000 - 1 min read

I just heard the the

I just heard the the Supreme Court has struck down the Violence Against Women Act , or at least the portion of the act that lets women victims of violence sue their attackers in federal court. I imagine that there’s going to be an uproar over this, and most of the uproar will miss the point of the decision, I predict. The US Constitution clearly defines what the federal government has the power to legistate, and really, it isn’t much. Much less, in fact, than what Congress actually passes laws over. One thing the government can regulate is interstate commerce, and the federal attorneys argued that beaten, demoralized women must have a negative effect on commerce. If people are happy, there’s a positive impact on “employment, production, transit or consumption”, no? Not the sturdiest of connections, and so the law’s overturned. Even with the best of intentions, the federal government can’t overstep its bounds. The next step, of course, is to get the states to pass their own tough laws. Or overturn the tenth amendment. Whichever you prefer. Here’s CNN’s story, and here’s the full text of the opinion.

May 15, 2000 - 1 min read

Clever, clever! "...there is a

Clever, clever! “…there is a new and ominous danger facing our families. It is a danger facing every man, woman and child. And only a handful of Americans even know it’s out there. It hides behind the face of your co-worker, your bowling buddy, even your trusted family physician. It’s sitting on your PTA board. It’s waiting in the hallways of your neighborhood parish. It may even be watching your children as they sleep. What menace am I speaking of? The greatest scourge of the twenty-first century. My friends,I’m talking about mutants.”

May 13, 2000 - 1 min read