Random Picture of the Day

Hannah and big 'sis', Yanyu... Hannah getting her nails painted!

Construction Workers' Hieroglyphics

When Annie and I stopped by our new house to check the progress last Saturday, I was surprised to see the amount of work that was accomplished in the short amount of time following the pouring of the foundation.

Once the foundation is poured, the frame goes up extremely quickly and the rest of the house follows.

I wasn't as surprised, however, as I was to discover that there is some sort of unspoken tradition among construction workers who like to leave their 'mark' in your home without you ever knowing about it.

I noticed several crude illustrations on the sheets of drywall that were about to go up in this or the next phase of construction. Once these sheets of drywall are erected - no pun intended - and then plastered into place, you will never see these construction workers' hieroglyphics again...

I suppose the idiom, some things are better left unknown (or is it 'unsaid'?), comes into play here.

Check out the crude drawings:
(btw, if you're wondering what the difference between "rude" and "crude" is, the old school yard defintion seems fitting: "'Rude' is when you throw your underwear against the wall out of anger. 'Crude' is when it sticks.)

Pretty funny, actually.

Oh yeah: NSFW, sorta.

VBS Day One

This Old House

Just last Saturday, Annie and I headed over to the site of our new home in San Ramon. It's just about to get drywall installed, I think. I'll post some pictures shortly.

But walking around the sawdust-covered, 2x4-exposed skeleton of a building made me nostalgic of when our current 'old' house was first being built. It seemed like just yesterday!

I dug up the hold 'before and after' comparison pictures we took nine years ago.
Here they are:




It's kind of hard to believe we're moving! We had all of our memories as a couple and as a family here in this house. Zach came home to this house and took his first baths in the sink pictured above. Hannah got her first CAT scan as a result of schplocking her head on the tiled floor of the kitchen you see above. Oh, the memories!

We also had innumerable fond memories of Christmas gift exchanges, Independence Day barbeques, Sunday School classes, and various game nights and movie nights here in this old house. I will definitely miss her!

Do you have any specific memories of things that happened in this house? Please share them!

171 Starbucks in 24 hours

Dude named Mark Malkoff.
Challenge: go to every Starbucks in Manhattan in 24 hours.

Here's the video:

World's First Muslim Christian (!?)

Excerpted from FirstThings.com

This part seems totally logical:
As a matter of simple logic, the idea that Redding could be both Christian and Muslim is untenable. Boston College philosophy professor Peter Kreeft has described the doctrine of Jesus’ divinity as “the central Christian doctrine.” And Frank Spina, an Episcopal priest and professor of Old Testament and biblical theology at Seattle Pacific University, was correct when he told the Seattle Times in response to Redding’s conversion: “The essence of Christianity was not that Jesus was a great rabbi or even a great prophet, but that he is the very incarnation of the God that created the world. . . . Christianity stands or falls on who Jesus is.”
On the other hand, the idea that Jesus is not divine is equally central to Islam. The Qur’an, which Muslims believe is the direct word of God, denies Jesus’ divinity multiple times. Sura 4:171 warns People of the Book (Christians and Jews) to “believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not ‘Three’—Cease! (it is) better for you!—Allah is only One God. Far is it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son.” Going beyond that, Sura 5:17 declares that “they indeed have disbelieved who say: Lo! Allah is the Messiah, son of Mary.” And Sura 5:73 denounces adherence to the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity as a form of disbelief.
This conflicting view of Jesus’ divinity is all one needs to know to understand that it is impossible to be Christian and Muslim at the same time. This doctrinal difference is anything but incidental: It goes to the two faiths’ very conceptions of the deity. A necessary part of being Christian is accepting that Jesus was divine. This is enshrined in the catechism of the Episcopal Church, which teaches that God the Son is part of the Holy Trinity. Likewise, a necessary part of being Muslim is denying Jesus’ divinity: The idea that Christ was God violates the tenet of tawhid (the oneness of God) that is central to both the Qur’an and Muhammad’s teachings.

What seems perfectly logical and reasonable to you is a point of near mockery to other more "tolerant" and "evolved" sensibilities of the absurd:
The Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, who was ordained in 1984 and has been affiliated with St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle for the past six years, became Muslim in early 2006. Redding first became intrigued by Islam in the fall of 2005, when a local Muslim leader spoke at her cathedral. Her interest deepened after an interfaith class the following spring. Redding told the Seattle Times that her mother died around that time, and she could not cope with that death except by “total surrender to God.” In March 2006 she recited the shahada, the declaration of faith that makes one a Muslim.
When Redding went public with her conversion fifteen months later, in June 2007, she felt that she did not need to relinquish her position at St. Mark’s. “I am both Muslim and Christian,” Redding said. “I’m 100 percent both.”
Perhaps the true punchline to the joke ScappleFace made four years ago is how the Diocese of Olympia reacted. The diocese’s newspaper was actually the first to announce that Redding had become Muslim, and its bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, said that “he accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, and that he finds the interfaith possibilities exciting.”

This kind of soft theology will get people nowhere. Neither true Muslims nor true Christians are likely to learn anything from this sort of interfaith mingling.
The question is whether such doctrinal compromise actually creates interfaith opportunities. Not only is this approach unlikely to bolster interfaith activities, but it may actually undermine them. The available evidence suggests that interfaith dialogue is least effective when those engaging in it do not have their feet firmly planted in their own faith traditions. The point of interfaith dialogue is to learn about religions that are foreign to us—and an integral part of accomplishing this is being upfront about theological differences. When a church involved in interfaith dialogue soft-pedals Christian doctrine in the interest of painting a picture that appeals to its dialogue partners, its credibility can be undermined. A couple of years ago, I spoke with a member of a conservative church that had recently begun interfaith dialogue with a mosque. Before that, the mosque had dialogued with a more liberal church. Mosque leaders were pleased to have more conservative dialogue partners: They expressed satisfaction that “now we’ll get to see what Christians really think.”

So what's the point?
The highest purpose of interfaith dialogue is not to create some strange hybrid religion that reconciles two faiths that make competing truth claims. Rather, at its best, interfaith dialogue can help people build relationships of understanding, respect, and cooperation even though they adhere to faiths that cannot simultaneously be true.

Bill Clinton's Legacy

From WSJ Opinion Journal (emphasis mine)

The Clinton Defense"A 28-year-old Beeville [Texas] man accused of molesting a 6-year-old girl last summer was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday," reports the Beeville Bee-Picayune:

Ten of the jurors wanted to give Edward Lee Robinson more time behind bars but one juror didn't believe oral sex constituted sex. "We really wanted him to get more time but I guess we have to be satisfied with 10 years because one juror insisted on no more than five years," said Assistant District Attorney Deborah Branch. "She didn't think oral sex was sex."

It seems Bill Clinton's legacy is secure.

The Sun Makes Things Hot

Excerpt from the Telegraph.

Looking at annual global temperatures, it is apparent that the last decade shows no warming trend and recent successive annual global temperatures are well within each year's measurement errors. Statistically the world's temperature is flat.

The world certainly warmed between 1975 and 1998, but in the past 10 years it has not been increasing at the rate it did. No scientist could honestly look at global temperatures over the past decade and see a rising curve.

It is undisputed that the sun of the later part of the 20th century was behaving differently from that of the beginning. Its sunspot cycle is stronger and shorter and, technically speaking, its magnetic field leakage is weaker and its cosmic ray shielding effect stronger.

So we see that when the sun's activity was rising, the world warmed. When it peaked in activity in the late 1980s, within a few years global warming stalled. A coincid-ence, certainly: a connection, possibly.

My own view on the theory that greenhouse gases are driving climate change is that it is a good working hypothesis - but, because I have studied the sun, I am not completely convinced.

The sun is by far the single most powerful driving force on our climate, and the fact is we do not understand how it affects us as much as some think we do.

So look on the BBC and Al Gore with scepticism. A scientist's first allegiance should not be to computer models or political spin but to the data: that shows the science is not settled.

Dr David Whitehouse is an astronomer, former BBC science correspondent, and the author of The Sun: A Biography (John Wiley & Sons)

Driving is Fun

Some of you may know that I do some work for a company called eHometours. I film real estate properties up here in northern California for the Torrance-based, SoCal firm.

Most of the time it's kind of a hassle to drive all over the Bay Area to these properties, but every once in a while the house is amazing and well worth the drive.

And sometimes, the drive itself is what makes it enjoyable.

The last two tours that I shot were both fun to drive to and from. One was in Stinson Beach where I had to follow the coast on Highway 1 and the other in Nacasio, sandwiched in the mountains between Point Reyes and San Rafael.

On the Stinson Beach tour, (see the video here), I was stuck behind a Wisconsin-plated Ford Edge that poked around slower than melted Limburger on a sesame rye. The lady kept gazing westward at -- what was probably her first encounter with -- the Pacific Ocean. On the drive home, however, I was challenged by a white BMW 328i convertible (late E36 model) that was in front of me. The drive that got me home was way more fun than the drive that got me there.

I followed effectively - screeching tires and high revs aplenty - without losing ground to the better-handling coupe for most of the drive. But on the second leg of our trip away from the coast, after a slower car that had given us and our engines a breather pulled off to a turnout, the local 328i driver, obviously familiar with the roads, started pulling away steadily. I just couldn't keep up.

My engine was plenty willing to rev and pulled hard out of every banked curve, but my stock tires, soft suspension, and over-zealous traction control played the foil. After amicably driving through city streets, one behind another (in full obedience of traffic laws) I waved goodbye to my impromptu driving partner while passing him on the 101.

I like it when drivers enjoy a good jaunt without getting all pissed off and competitive. At no point did this guy feel like I was attacking his masculinity or saying "I'm better than you!" We just drove and enjoyed it.

The second, more recent, drive happened today when I went to Nacasio in Marin County.

This was a much shorter drive and much less aggressive because there was no 'driving partner'. But it was still just as much fun on the banked hairpins and sweeping chicanes. I do need to get stickier tires though.

Pictured:

1) part of the Stinson Beach drive down beautiful Highway 1. Filled with banked turns and brightly lit roads, this highway is a driving enthusiasts dream! (Except for the sheer cliff drops, slow traffic, speed traps, and blind turns.)

2) a portion of the heavily shaded Lucas Valley Road that is mildly reminiscent of a better-paved version of the backwoods passes you expect find in Hazzard County.

3) the view from the front of the house I shot at the Nicario location.

4) my IS itching to get back to work.

Random Picture of the Day

super nasty men's bathroom, third stall, Dave & Busters, Milpitas. Sunday night, 7/15/07.

Random Picture of the Day

Our house is into its next phase of completion!

Am I the Only One...?

Who thinks THIS is wrong?
It's the sexualization of young girls (and even babies, in this case!) that lead to news stories like THESE.

What's Cooler Than Transformers?

In hindsight, the coolest thing about going to see Transformers was the J.J. Abrams Project trailer that preceeded it.

So far, its only been known as "1-18-08", the U.S. release date, or "The J.J. Abrams Project". Presumably there hasn't been a title picked yet.

You can see the trailer HERE (or copy paste this:http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/11808/) and get an idea about why I think this deserves to be the most anticipated movie of the new year.

Transformers The Movie - a dialogue review

"Love it or hate it?", my cousin asked me via Y!
My answer was "yes."
Without going through all the tedium of my usual movie review (I can do that at a later date), here is the transcript of my cousin and me discussing our thoughts about the new Michael Bay blockbuster.

Session Start (maddrewler:duts_1963): Wed Jul 11 14:51:57 2007

[14:51] duts_1963: you see transformers?
[14:52] maddrewler: yeah.
[14:52] maddrewler: last night
[14:52] duts_1963: love it? hate it?
[14:52] maddrewler: hrm.
[14:52] maddrewler: yes.
[14:53] maddrewler: i thought they kind of cheated too much with the transforming.
[14:53] maddrewler: i expect a little cheating, but I don't think those gears and gadgets were really going anyplace but disappearing. not like the toys which actually transform
[14:53] duts_1963: as in.... too complicated, u couldnt see wtf was goin on?
[14:53] duts_1963: yeah. i agree.
[14:54] maddrewler: the story was a little too basic, too.
[14:54] maddrewler: but bumblee was gay as usual. he always was.
[14:54] maddrewler: optimus was nails.
[14:54] duts_1963: i was hopeful of some energon cubes
[14:54] duts_1963: haha
[14:54] duts_1963: yeah, optimus was boss
[14:54] duts_1963: =P
[14:54] duts_1963: i actually like bb
[14:54] maddrewler: megan fox was SOOO not in highschool.
[14:54] duts_1963: minus the end where he developed an english accent
[14:55] maddrewler: yeah, that english accent thing was stupid. kind of anticlimactic.
[14:55] maddrewler: also, the way they killed megatron was lame and the battle between prime and megatron was weak
[14:55] duts_1963: she is only 21.
[14:55] duts_1963: 20 at time of filming
[14:55] duts_1963: =)
[14:55] maddrewler: she looks way too old to be a high schooler.
[14:56] maddrewler: but then, these days... who knows.
[14:56] duts_1963: i kept wondering why they focused on the army dudes when optimus was fighting megatron. "pan back to the robots, dammit!!!"
[14:56] duts_1963: yeah, they do make 'em older lookin these days.
[14:56] duts_1963: she looks older than i look. :-\
[14:56] duts_1963: not sayin much, but still...
[14:57] maddrewler: pretty good casting overall. I did also really hate those lame spy robots that transformed into stereos and crap.
[14:57] duts_1963: heh
[14:58] duts_1963: i thot it was OVERcast
[14:58] duts_1963: lots of pointless characters
[14:58] maddrewler: i love turtoro, usually, but he was really annoying in this one.
[14:58] duts_1963: and john turturro was lame.
[14:58] duts_1963: yup
[14:58] duts_1963: ditto
[14:59] maddrewler: also, optimus prime's mouth makes him look retarded. his battle shield mask is way cooler.
[14:59] duts_1963: tyrese was useless. as were the teenage superhackers
[14:59] maddrewler: totally
[14:59] duts_1963: and yes. prime w/lips is very very disturbing
[14:59] maddrewler: ha ha ha
[15:00] duts_1963: and jazz was super black
[15:00] duts_1963: even break dancing
[15:00] duts_1963: haha
[15:00] maddrewler: racists killed him off super quick.
[15:00] duts_1963: haha
[15:00] duts_1963: they made megatron HUGE
[15:00] maddrewler: yeah.
[15:00] maddrewler: it's kinda cool.
[15:01] maddrewler: everyone was like, 'it;'s megatron! F*! ReTREAT!"
[15:01] maddrewler: starscream was pretty awesome too
[15:01] duts_1963: yeah
[15:01] duts_1963: i loved the line from the cartoon movie
[15:01] duts_1963: =P
[15:02] duts_1963: one will stand, one will fall
[15:02] duts_1963: ha
[15:02] maddrewler: i didn;t remmeber that
[15:02] duts_1963: its when they fought to the death in the cartoon movie
[15:02] duts_1963: exactly the same
[15:02] maddrewler: i barely remember it.
[15:02] maddrewler: i did remember bumblebee dying in the first ten minutes. (didn't he?) that was the best.
[15:03] duts_1963: ha
[15:03] duts_1963: lots guys died in the first 10 min
[15:03] duts_1963: afk
[15:03] duts_1963: meeting...
[15:04] maddrewler: late.

Session Close (duts_1963): Wed Jul 11 15:10:36 2007

Al Gore's Live Earth Concerts are Hypocritical

Some recent headlines regarding Live Earth...

Madonna loves/hates pollution/the Earth/money.
Excerpts From FoxNews.com
Madonna, who seems to be on top of all her many business endeavors, has actually invested about $2.7 million dollars in companies that are creating the destruction that Live Earth is trying to raise awareness about. She has invested in several companies named as the biggest corporate polluters in the world.
The companies include Alcoa, Ingersoll Rand, Weyerhaeuser, and several others associated with oil exploration, digging, and refining including British Petroleum, Schlumberger (a chief competitor of Halliburton), Devon Energy, Peabody Energy, Emerson Electric, Kimberly Clark and Weatherford International.
In 2002, the University of Massachusetts' Political Research Institute ranked Alcoa No. 9 on a list of all-time toxic American companies. And I don't mean toxic as in toxic bachelor. This is toxic as in air pollution.
Take Weyerhaeuser Corporation, a "forest products" company that is basically in the business of killing trees for paper and wood for housing. In 2005, Madonna owed roughly 1,100 shares valued at an average price of $63. Since then, the share price is up to around $80. If her number of shares remained constant, she's made a nice profit over the last two years.

Concert Jitterbuggers are Big Fat Litterbuggers
Excerpt From CSM
But despite the overtly green theme of the concert, Gore's message of doing one's part in the fight against climate change fell on many deaf ears, at least in Giants Stadium.
"There are people at this event who are not picking up their trash," said Clive Hall, a bartender and deejay from Brooklyn, N.Y.
Cassie Toner, another attendee, was disappointed that there weren't more efforts to inform concertgoers. "I thought that there were going to be more educational and NGO booths set up outside," but instead, she said, companies gave away useless materials, which were strewn around the grounds.
Some of the singers also openly admitted to being relatively uninformed. Akon, a singer who has spent much of the year at the top of the charts, admitted to not knowing what "green" meant until the day of the show, but said that he had decided to perform because he "wanted to be more educated about it."

Arctic Monkeys Not Afraid of Arctic Melting
Excerpts from BreitBart.com
Rock group Arctic Monkeys have become the latest music industry stars to question whether the performers taking part in Live Earth on Saturday are suitable climate change activists. "It's a bit patronising for us 21 year olds to try to start to change the world," said Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders, explaining why the group is not on the bill at any of Al Gore's charity concerts.
"Especially when we're using enough power for 10 houses just for (stage) lighting. It'd be a bit hypocritical," he told AFP in an interview before a concert in Paris.
Bass player Nick O'Malley chimes in: "And we're always jetting off on aeroplanes!"

"There's more important people who can have an opinion. Why does it make us have an opinion because we're in a band?"

Roger Daltrey, singer from 1970s British rock band The Who, told British newspaper The Sun in May that "the last thing the planet needs is a rock concert."
And the singer from 80s pop sensations The Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant, attacked the arrogance of pop stars who put themselves forward as role-models.
"I've always been against the idea of rock stars lecturing people as if they know something the rest of us don't," he was reported as saying by British music magazine NME.

Daniel Pearl's Dad Doesn't Like A Mighty Heart

Here is Judea Pearl's article from The New Republic:

I used to believe that the world essentially divided into two types of people: those who were broadly tolerant; and those who felt threatened by differences. If only the forces of tolerance could win out over the forces of intolerance, I reasoned, the world might finally know some measure of peace.

But there was a problem with my theory, and it was never clearer than in a conversation I once had with a Pakistani friend who told me that he loathed people like President Bush who insisted on dividing the world into "us" and "them." My friend, of course, was taking an innocent stand against intolerance, and did not realize that, in so doing, he was in fact dividing the world into "us" and "them," falling straight into the camp of people he loathed.

This is a political version of a famous paradox formulated by Bertrand Russell in 1901, which shook the logical foundations of mathematics. Any person who claims to be tolerant naturally defines himself in opposition to those who are intolerant. But that makes him intolerant of certain people--which invalidates his claim to be tolerant. The political lesson of Russell's paradox is that there is no such thing as unqualified tolerance. Ultimately, one must be able to expound intolerance of certain groups or ideologies without surrendering the moral high ground normally linked to tolerance and inclusivity. One should, in fact, condemn and resist political doctrines that advocate the murder of innocents, that undermine the basic norms of civilization, or that seek to make pluralism impossible. There can be no moral equivalence between those who seek--however clumsily--to build a more liberal, tolerant world and those who advocate the annihilation of other faiths, cultures, or states.

Which brings me to my son, Daniel Pearl. Thanks to the release of A Mighty Heart, the movie based on Mariane Pearl's book of the same title, Danny's legacy is once again receiving attention. Of course, no movie could ever capture exactly what made Danny special--his humor, his integrity, his love of humanity--or why he was admired by so many. For journalists, Danny represents the courage and nobility inherent in their profession. For Americans, Danny is a symbol of one of our very best national instincts: the desire to extend a warm hand of friendship and dialogue to faraway lands and peoples. And for anyone who is proud of their heritage or faith, Danny's last words, "I am Jewish," showed that it is possible to find dignity in one's identity even in the darkest of moments. Traces of these ideas are certainly evident in A Mighty Heart, and I hope viewers will leave the theater inspired by them.

At the same time, I am worried that A Mighty Heart falls into a trap Bertrand Russell would have recognized: the paradox of moral equivalence, of seeking to extend the logic of tolerance a step too far. You can see traces of this logic in the film's comparison of Danny's abduction with Guantánamo--it opens with pictures from the prison--and its comparison of Al Qaeda militants with CIA agents. You can also see it in the comments of the movie's director, Michael Winterbottom, who wrote on The Washington Post's website that A Mighty Heart and his previous film The Road to Guantánamo "are very similar. Both are stories about people who are victims of increasing violence on both sides. There are extremists on both sides who want to ratchet up the levels of violence and hundreds of thousands of people have died because of this."

Drawing a comparison between Danny's murder and the detainment of suspects in Guantánamo is precisely what the killers wanted, as expressed in both their e-mails and the murder video. Obviously Winterbottom did not mean to echo their sentiments, and certainly not to justify their demands or actions. Still, I am concerned that aspects of his movie will play into the hands of professional obscurers of moral clarity.
Indeed, following an advance screening of A Mighty Heart, a panelist representing the Council on American-Islamic Relations reportedly said, "We need to end the culture of bombs, torture, occupation, and violence. This is the message to take from the film." The message that angry youngsters are hearing is unfortunate: All forms of violence are equally evil; therefore, as long as one persists, others should not be ruled out. This is precisely the logic used by Mohammed Siddiqui Khan, one of the London suicide bombers, in his videotape on Al Jazeera. "Your democratically elected government," he told his British countrymen, "continues to perpetrate atrocities against my people ... . [W]e will not stop."

Danny's tragedy demands an end to this logic. There can be no comparison between those who take pride in the killing of an unarmed journalist and those who vow to end such acts--no ifs, ands, or buts. Moral relativism died with Daniel Pearl, in Karachi, on January 31, 2002.

There was a time when drawing moral symmetries between two sides of every conflict was a mark of original thinking. Today, with Western intellectuals overextending two-sidedness to reckless absurdities, it reflects nothing but lazy conformity. What is needed now is for intellectuals, filmmakers, and the rest of us to resist this dangerous trend and draw legitimate distinctions where such distinctions are warranted.
My son Danny had the courage to examine all sides. He was a genuine listener and a champion of dialogue. Yet he also had principles and red lines. He was tolerant but not mindlessly so. I hope viewers will remember this when they see A Mighty Heart.

Whatever Happened to Soundwave?

Remember Soundwave (and Ravage)? Have you ever wondered what happened to him?


Here's the tale (NSFW, language. Don't show to your kids.)

Alex and Marcia

Highlights from Sunday
=================
- I found out Joe is a ping pong camp attendee.
- Sunday was Alex and Marcia's wedding.
- The slideshow movie Alex made was cool but marred by an audio soundboard debacle.
- Jachin and Winston dressed alike.
- Miranda and Annie dressed alike
- Madalyn and Michelle were smiling at the reception. - I lieu of a wedding favor, someone somewhere is getting a goat for their village via World Vision.
- Flew in from LA to only experience the wedding ceremony and a drive up a windy road to the reception site, Vicki said hi to three people and was driven to Oakland Airport by Jachin in order to catch her flight. Then her flight was delayed until 10pm. Oh, ironies!