A few things on my mind...

1. Well, I know I'm a nerd that works in a lab all day doing science. But this is funny:



Funny thing, I'm not using epMotion, but have been using automated pipetting devices lately, and they are wonderful.

2. Further proof that I am a nerd (as if you need more), this is a pretty great article too. I particularly like the line "Slower falling objects yielded comparatively piddly explosions."

3. What happens when the phrase 'jump the shark' well, you know, jumps the shark?

4. God help me, I live in a city that truly believes that Bon Jovi actually rocks. And now that the Philadelphia Soul (which he co-owns with Ron Jaworski) won the Arena Bowl, him and his music have been everywhere.

5. This is a never ending problem of mine. If you cook burgers and hot dogs over on a grill, THIS IS NOT A BARBEQUE!!! (It's a cookout, or I'll even accept that you are grilling out) Stupid Northeasterners.

6. I know I've mentioned this before, but I love my RSS feed from Geedadelphia. They keep me updated on cool things that people do with LEGOS, and of important things like the Bacon Alarm Clock (WAKE n' BACON).

7. Finally, I miss friends like The TD Maker and t because they keep my witty banter sharp and fresh. I feel like I've worn out my best material with people at work, and they don't seem to enjoy the verbal jousting.

Day/Night Doubleheader

So, I love the fact that j is a sports fan who indulges me on my strange whims, even if I couldn't talk her in to the ultimate day-night doubleheader wedding with my friend since grade school, K and his wife A (instead we had weddings on successive days). Earlier this year, with all the talk about this being the last year of Yankee Stadium, I decided that we should make an effort to go up there before it happens (the same for Shea, but who really cares). I figured the best thing to do was to try and go up for a game during the week, because tickets on the weekend would be very expensive. Part of my scheme involved looking for dates in which both the Mets and Yankees were in town, so we could try and get them done in one shot. Then we just had to make sure j was post-call one of those days.

Wednesday, j got off of work and we drove up to New York to catch the Yankees-Twins game and then the Mets-Phillies game. It was supposed to rain, so I grabbed an umbrella, as we parked in Queens (for free) and took the subway to Yankee Stadium (number 7 to number 4)...

So here we are at Yankee Stadium
View from our seats

Attempted stitched panorama shot (poorly done)

Not that I'm a Yankees fan, but you really can't beat their history. Unfortunately we were never able to actually go down there to see everything, but here is Memorial Park from our seats.
Final score and the view of the fencing and All-Star Game logo.

We were able to see Rivera come in and pitch the final out, so that was pretty cool.
After the game, we hung out, took some more pictures, tried to stowaway onto a tour to see Monument Park, but they then denied us all because it was closed (?). Once the game ended, the stadium PA (btw, their announcer was as dynamic as the guy that does the Tom Shane jewelry commercials) played New York, New York on a continuous loop. By the third time, we were ready to run as far away as possible so I think it had its intended effect.

We took the 4 back to Grand Central Station, where we wandered around and got some dinner. I almost lost my surefire anti-rain device (having an umbrella on me keeps the rain away, without it it will rain), but a nice gentleman caught me as we were leaving. Then we took the number 7 to Shea for the nightcap. Shea was interesting, not as cool/historic as Yankee. Comes from the same mold as Veterans/Riverbend/Busch/3 Rivers. The lower part of each level is set up to be box seating, so that kind of reminded me of Churchill Downs (except with normal seats and not folding chairs).

Shea from the outside (actually on the way out)
Another poor attempt at a panorama shot.

Here we are in Shea.
Above the scoreboard in Shea, cool neon sign.

Thought this was a funny stat line after the first inning due to 4 walks and a fielder's choice, we had the rare 2 runs with no hits, no errors. Couldn't have happened to more of a wife beating douchebag, Brett Myers.
We left a little early (after Jose Reyes hit his decisive 3-run blast). On our way out, Mr Met says goodbye to j.

The rain held off all day until the ride home (even though the hour-by-hour forecast on weather.com was up to an 80% chance of rain by late afternoon). Got back late, but not unreasonably. It was a fun trip, but then again, I wasn't the one who had to be up around 5:30 the next morning. Thanks for going on these adventures with me j.

Funny how your opinions change according to your politics...

Scalia, arguing against granting the writ of habeas corpus argued that this decision:

"...will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."
and
“The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.”

While when you're talking about the DC gun ban, there doesn't seem to be a problem with striking down a popular law (which will also almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed). I just think that Scalia wrote the previous statement to be inflammatory and so that he could rub that in others' faces when an inevitable attack comes; and act he was so smart to predict and if we had done what he wanted, we could have prevented it. Basically I think Scalia is an egomaniacal twit; who, like every other person out there, has an opinion and is able to pick and choose the evidence to support his belief. All the while ignoring evidence (case law and crime statistics), that points to the contrary.

On a side note, I'm not a constitutional scholar/lawyer, I don't care for guns, and never plan to own a gun; but I certainly see where you can end up with the conclusion that there is an individual write to bear arms. My personal favorite logic, which is revolutionary in nature, is that if the people are armed they can rise up to overthrow a government that oppresses the people. Any government with a constitution that incorporates the mechanism for which its people can subvert itself is outstanding in my book. I don't think this is the original intent (most likely has to do with a regulated militia for defense against foreign enemies), but I enjoy that interpretation conceptually. Let's hope that one will never have to be put into action.

Fun with Google Maps Street View...

I don't know about everyone else, but a few months ago, the Street Maps option on Google Maps started to include many streets in Philadelphia. While I do think it is a little helpful for some confusing intersections, I have been frustrated more with it's strangely addictive nature. The other day, I saw this on a website:

and I thought moving away from Louisville would cure my urban cowboy problem.

Also, interestingly, I found this at my neighbor's house:

Nothing funny about that, right? Well, that scooter was stolen sometime last summer, at night, when everyone had their windows open. No one heard a thing. So we have an idea on when this picture was taken.

Anyway, I'm going explore Route 66.

...Obama's refusal of Public Financing

So yesterday, Obama decided to forgo public financing for the general election. The first time ever for a president. Basically, by doing so he's saying he thinks he can easily and less restrictively raise more than the roughly $85M that the government would provide.

Conceptually, I'm pretty annoyed by this. I largely believe that all the money involved politics is part of the problem and this just feeds into that. I know that many (somewhere over 1M donors) and giving less than than $250 a piece. So it's not necessarily a smaller group of politically connected corporations and individuals, but more of an upper middle class grass-roots movement that are more true believers. But still, this will just further damage public financing, although the possible positive outcome it might lead to actual reforms to improve the system. Ideally a bill that actually forces broadcast stations free airtime to candidates (preferably for even minor party candidates, but that will never happen).

In the end, it's not a deal breaker for me (not with the importance of supreme court appointments being so prominent in the recent habeas corpus case that was narrowly, and correctly, decided by a 5-4 margin (Suck it Scalia!)), but it's disappointing. Especially if there are no positive changes as a result.

If only all newspaper reading was like this...

Recently the Washington Post offered buyouts to a lot of their longtime writers, some of which were accepted by such household names as David Broder and Tony Kornheiser. Peter Carlson also took the buyout and wrote his final article here on a column that reviews magazines. I never read the column, but if the old ones offered lines as funny as the quote below from this final column, then he will be sorely missed...

"In the last 12 years, there have been many changes in magazines, but some things never change. For instance, Cosmopolitan and Glamour keep running sex tips and discovering hitherto unknown sex acts pretty much every month. For all those years, I have assiduously studied approximately 2,638,419 sex advice articles, and I believe I can now boil down all their wisdom into two simple rules:

1) Insert tab A into slot B.

2) Season to taste."

“We do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard…”

(warning, this is a stream of consciousness rant composed while on the train to Boston on Wednesday. I also constantly reference 'my generation' mostly meaning people roughly 25-35, I do not claim ownership, and realize that speaking in generalities is pointless)

I will admit to being an Obama supporter ever since I lived in Chicago during his Senate bid in 2004. I like they way he speaks, I like that he is post-baby boomer, and I like his candidacy forces us to address some issues that make us a little uncomfortable. I think Hillary is very capable, and her views are very similar to those of Obama’s which are, admittedly, just left of center. While their small differences in health care have been covered exhaustively, I think that neither of them seems willing to really stand up and start the discussion that John Edwards and Kucinich were driving towards. Which is probably the politically prudent thing to do. But while I have been thinking long about looking for a transcendent leader to challenge my generation to action to solve the hard problems of global warming, inequalities, terrorism; maybe I should be asking my politicians to really discuss the tough questions of the day with the people they represent. All too often we are willing to hear canned, unmeaning answers to placate us rather that demand frank discussion of what our vision truly is for the country and the ever-shrinking world.

The quote at the top I believe is from JFK’s inaugural address. And while it was discussing the race to the moon against the Soviets, I constantly ask that my politicians ask this from me. In many ways, the people in charge of the government for my ‘adult’ life have been largely uninspiring or have often had a combative view towards government in general. Those more active or self-starting have found ways on their own to volunteer their time, money, and skills towards changing their immediate surroundings. While this is reassuring and many ways, very immediately gratifying, it is a lot harder to drive societal change one neighborhood at a time, while government appears to be made for this (albeit somewhat inefficiently if not carefully monitored).

But, in turn we should ask this of our politicians. They seem to treat us as if we can’t handle or shouldn’t be troubled with details or the truth. How come we can only get government officials to speak truthifully to anonymous sources to newspaper officials? Should that be the least of what we expect from our government? How can we ask one segment of the population to risk life and limb in war and give another segment a tax break, while we all go further into debt which my generation and our children will have to deal with. We need to discuss what is the function of government? What should be provided? Who should provide it? How do we control costs to make it feasible? We’ve pretty much determined through our history that there is a right to education, which is why there are free public schools available. Is healthcare a right? I think the popular consensus is yes for children (even if somehow Republicans can find a way to protest SCHIP). Don’t we already have national healthcare in the form of emergency care, and wouldn’t it be cheaper to treat these things before they have irrevocably progressed? What is the roll of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? How can these prices be controlled? There is some evidence that Medicare and Medicaid do a great job at making sure that most of the money goes to patient care and treatment (something like 98-95%) while private insurance has an overhead of 18-30% (Google search, not very scientific). While Obama speech on race was to start of national discussion of race, it isn’t clear that the general public has been willing to continue it.

Politicians must be willing to discuss this with us and the media that covers it should discuss this in a grown up way (although it looks impossible nowadays). You can disagree without being disagreeable. To do a national healthcare program would be expensive, would have many vested interests (doctors, nurses, pharmaceuticals, hospitals), and that could lead to a boondoggle disaster such as the farm bill. But it also needs to compensate enough to attract the best people and spur the innovation that we expect from out doctors and medical industry, but at the same time, can we really afford to redistribute 16% of our GDP that does little or nothing as far as building wealth (ie export to the world)? I hope to discuss such issues with Tony this weekend since my knowledge of macroeconomics is minimal at best.

These things are hard, and I ask that my government challenges me and my colleagues to work towards solving these issues frankly. Failure to do so may be comforting now, but what will it do to our future?

*This might spawn more mini-rants on things that are hard that need to be solved…