back home again

Jimbo spent most of the week on the road and I just sat around and did nothing yesterday. Our main office is in a small town with no airport so one needs to fly to Chicago and rent a car and drive four hours, or fly to Indianapolis, rent a car and drive for three. The quickest way to get there is to drive. Well, the quickest way is to fly a shuttle flight into Champaign-Urbana, rent a car and drive for an hour, but that is an expensive way to go, and not much faster. So, I drove up and back. It is a seven- to eight-hour drive each way.

In the words of John Denver:

"Hey it’s good to be back home again
Sometimes this old farm feels like a long-lost friend
Yes ‘n hey, it’s good to be back home again."

It’s also good to hear that Bill Frist has come back to his senses. I’m not a smart man, but I know what progress is. Bill Frist appears for all the world to be very intelligent, and it looks like he knows progress, too. Hell, we’re all educated and we all can do and say dumb things from time to time, but to violate your Hippocratic oath just to be able to suck up to the President caused me to lose respect for the intellect of the senate majority leader. I guess the flavor of Bush’s ass on his lips became unpleasant or pretending to be ignorant finally left a bad enough taste in his mouth that his conscience made him fess up to the fact that he wasn’t stupid after all.

Primum non nocere.

That’s Latin for, first, do no harm. Of course, it’s not actually part of the Hippocratic oath, but it is a common code of physicians. Hippocrates, of course, was Greek (or as I say, Greek to me), so he didn’t write in Latin. For a physician to oppose stem cell research is tantamount to a minister preaching atheism. It also goes against the code of doing no harm. The Hippocratic oath says, “I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required…” That is the part of the Hippocratic oath opposition to stem cell research violates.

History is littered with the corpses of victims of ignorance and religious persecution and this history lesson appears to have been lost on the current administration and its constituency of the religious right. When I saw the story about Frist’s conversion on Friday night’s news, they showed a group of guys, for balance, telling us how Frist was wrong. I was struck by their movie-villain eyes. But this is no movie in which their attrition will occur at the end at the hands of some hero, as the hero utters some catchy phrase. These are opponents of progress who may very well succeed.

But, as for now, I’m encouraged that someone on the other side has shown me that they are not all Neanderthals. To paraphrase what Paul Henreid, as Victor Laszlo, said to Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, in the movie Casablanca:

“Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win.”

Or, maybe not, but it is a step in the right direction. At least, that’s the way we feel here in Jimbo’s world.

things humans shouldn't have to see

Jimbo is on the road again this week, doing some computer training on our companies new manufacturing software system. I’m heading back home tomorrow. The rooms where we are doing our training are near the men’s locker room of the manufacturing plant at which we are training. During break yesterday and today, Jimbo saw things civilized humans should not have to see—guys with poor physiques taking showers. I mean, very poor physiques.

I’ll close my eyes tonight and tell myself it was just a bad dream, and when I wake up tomorrow, all memory of this will be gone, along with all thought of "that will be me in a couple of years."

In the motel in which I’m staying, I get a copy of McPaper delivered to my door every day. There was an interesting story about trees at the bottom of page one today, saying that trees help clean up the air. Not an altogether new and radical concept, but I’m glad to see the idea is making a comeback. It appears that someone has discovered that planting trees is a more economical alternative to building machinery to scrub the air. Maybe now that someone has a profit motive, the idea of cleaning air naturally with trees will catch on.

There is nothing like clean air and water to make quality of life better.

At least that is our opinion out here on the road tonight.

this time it's war

Yesterday, my girlfriend and I finished up our vacation by doing some shopping, some dining and some movie viewing. The movie we saw was War of the Worlds. I say it is worth seeing, but it reminded me a lot of the 1953 version of which this movie was a remake. One difference was that Gene Barry portrayed a scientist in the original movie (he portrayed a grandparent in the remake). In the remake Tom Cruise portrayed a longshoreman, Ray Ferrier.

You may recall that Dr. Forrester, played by Gene Barry in the 1953 movie took an active role in trying to repel the aliens, even though all his work went for nothing, basically. He was unable to stop the aliens and, and as in the remake, we were all saved by a deus ex machina when the aliens breathed in a little of those bad bacteria and they all came down with something, got sick and expired. In the present version of the movie Tom Cruise adds a human face to tragedy as he tries to keep his life and family together while these aliens do all kinds of nasty crap to him, our planet and mankind in general. Cruise is the father of two children, but child rearing is not within his core competencies. When it comes time to sing a lullaby, the only one he can sing is Little Deuce Coupe.

You probably also recall that in the Halloween broadcast of War of the Worlds in 1938, the guy who was the protagonist was named Professor Farrell. Those of you around at the time probably remember this broadcast by the Mercury Theatre of the Air nearly scared the living crap out of everyone. I’m too young, of course, to remember it myself. Most of you probably are familiar with H.G. Welles original book, written in 1898. In all four renditions, the main character, whatever name or title, is basically a witness to the story and not the heroic figure who whips the aliens’ asses.

From the moment the aliens showed up on this planet they were doomed. It was just a matter of time. I saw the movie in a theater in Kansas, a state that boasts a state board of education that has members who don’t believe in Darwin and his theory of evolution. I have to believe, without really knowing much about H.G. Welles, that he must have known of Darwin and of natural selection. The actual heroes of this story and movie were bacteria and the God in which the anti-evolutionists do not believe. After millennia of being exposed to bacteria, the human race has evolved into a species that has immunity to these simple bacteria. The aliens showed up here without immunity. Natural selection made the human race superior to the highly advanced aliens.

If you don’t believe in Darwin, natural selection and evolution, then you won’t find this movie believable. Hell, you may not anyway. It was, however, a good couple of hours of entertainment.

At least that’s what we think here in Jimbo’s world.

coming into laughlin

When I saw Hunter Thompson many years ago give a lecture at the University of Kansas, he was not impressed with the crowd, expecting us to be more boisterous than we were. He said, “ I remember when the only way to come into Lawrence was to blow in on a motorcycle.”

Well, the only correct way to come into Laughlin, Nevada, is to blow in on a jet. But since Laughlin has no airport, the only way to blow in is to fly into Bullhead City, Arizona, and limp into Laughlin on a bus, which is what we did last weekend. When we got off the plane at Bullhead City, my girlfriend asked me whether it was always as hot here as it was. I said, yes. It was only later I found out they were having a record string of days in the 120s (Fahrenheit, for those of you on the Pacific rim, who might have been asking at that point, “Wouldn’t temperatures like that cause the Colorado River to boil?”) I told my girlfriend it was a dry heat, but that wasn’t true, either. It was very humid. For those meteorology fans in the group, you are aware that humidity doesn’t allow the air to heat up as much as it can without humidity, so I didn’t know that it was possible to be 120 degrees and humid. It was a good excuse to stay inside. The comfort index was suitable to cook a frozen pizza in about 15 minutes.

Anyway, if you were wondering why you hadn’t heard anything from me the last few days, we were having fun in the sun in Laughlin. Jimbo’s girlfriend spent a lot of time at the pool and now she is brown as a nut. Of course some people would say that spending time out of doors in 120-degree weather would qualify one as a nut, but my girlfriend was careful to stay out of the afternoon sun.

I spent a lot of time at the roulette tables and had a good time. I played a poker tournament and finished in sixth place (but only the top four places paid). I had a good time but made no money.

Sometimes in life one has to get away from the ordinary and do things that are different. It was good to be on vacation, and it’s good to be back.

At least that’s the way we feel in Jimbo’s world.

a lot of bull

Last week the festival of San Fermin began and they ran the bulls through the streets of Pamplona, Spain. You probably are familiar with the description of the festival of San Fermin from Hemingway’s book The Sun Also Rises. Hell, I’m sure most of you can recant that episode of the book verbatim.

One could argue that Hemingway was one of the finest American writers (I won’t be disagreeing), but I question whether he would he would enthusiastically encourage the fixation some people seem to have about going to Spain annually with the goal of avoiding being gored by a bull.

You may recall that the main characters in his book were wandering aimlessly through Europe (and life) in an alcoholic haze, looking for something and not finding it—a group of guys chasing some chick named Brett. I would compare it to a pack of dogs chasing a bitch in heat, except dogs don’t drink. If dogs had a taste for alcohol and liked to get liquored-up, then it would be a good comparison.

“You are all a lost generation,” said Gertrude Stein, and The Sun Also Rises is probably the one novel that best describes what she meant.

Anyway, romantic as the concept is of running ahead of a bunch of angry bulls that would like to get their horns in you, it doesn’t sound like Jimbo’s idea of fun. One could save the airfare by just finding the local heavily traveled interstate and running in front of the cars. In my geographic area there is enough danger driving a car on the aforementioned interstate and surviving, which I do every day routinely, despite the danger rather than because of it.

If you really crave danger, you could go to work for the CIA as an undercover operative and then get your name into the hands of Karl Rove. That could really be dangerous.

But, for me, I think I’ll keep my derriere off the radar screens of angry bulls by not running out in front of them. My idea of romance is not having to explain scars inflicted on my body by bullhorns. I won’t go looking for danger; I’ll let it find me.

And here in Jimbo’s world, we hope it won’t.

the little general

Jimbo was a football fan, once.

While baseball has historically been the barometer, foretelling where America is going, for a brief time football took over. In the late 1960s football led America into a new era and no team better epitomized the change than the Kansas City Chiefs and no one person in that game opened our minds to a new way of thinking and playing football than Hank Stram.

Last week The Little General died at the age of 82.

Jimbo has never been a natty dresser, and I was never all that impressed with Stram’s attire, but other people who probably know better than me believe Stram dressed well.

“Sartorially resplendent,” was Howard Cosell’s comment on Stram’s clothing. Translated into English that means he dressed well. Cosell also referred to him as “the diminutive one,” meaning he wasn’t the tallest man you’ll ever meet.

You may recall that Stram was mic’ed-up in the 1970 super bowl (played January 11, 1970, following the 1969 season). The Chiefs won that game. You probably also recall some of the memorable things he said, like “Just keep matriculating that ball down the field, gentlemen.”

When he had called the play he knew would score the first touchdown of the game he shouted to everyone on the sideline so they would know what to look for:

“65 toss power trap.”

And Mike Garrett went in for six.

“They can’t cover that in a million years. It’s like stealing. We ought to do more of it.”

One of his innovations was the moving pocket, which took the quarterback out of the area where the defensive linemen expected him to be. Prior to Stram, the game of football was to put your big man against my big man to see who was strongest. Stram made it a finesse game, where brains won out over brawn. Years before the west coast offense, Stram was exploiting the short passing game and putting the ball in the hands of his athletic receivers, creating a need for the statistic of yards after catch. The Chiefs’ final touchdown in the super bowl came when Lenny “The Cool” Dawson hit Otis Taylor on a short sideline pattern. With one defender between Taylor and the end zone, Taylor showed him a leg, then took it away and went 46 yards for the score.

For those old enough to remember, during the late sixties the old days gave way to modern times. There were a number of pioneers, who pulled the world over the threshold, and I don’t want to imply that Hank Stram was the man who carried the load. He did translate modern thought into the game of football and he and his game were a proxy for the whole of society.

Hank Stram, 1923-2005.

Here in Jimbo’s world we’ll miss the little feller.

pi, a la mode

There is some pretty exciting news today on the Yahoo! home page. It seems that some Japanese dude recited pi to 83,431 decimal places.

Most of you are probably saying right now, “Jimbo, why can’t you do something important like that instead of wasting your time blogging and spending eight hours a day at work?”

Of course, Jimbo’s first reaction was’ “Ummm, pie.”

That is, until he read the story and then realized that the story wasn’t about dessert at all. Pi, as we all know, is the number we use to calculate the circumference of a circle. The diameter of the circle times pi gives us the circumference. For most of us, pi, expressed as 3.14 is good enough. For example, if you have a circle 100 feet in diameter, the circumference is 314 feet. I used to work for a company that made water tanks and it was my job to calculate how many ¼” X 96” X 480” plates would be required to make a 100-foot diameter tank, so I’d know how many of them to buy. When I used 3.14 it was close enough that the guys who put the tanks together could make the ends meet. But I digress.

The guy in Japan who was able to remember the first 83,000 digits of pi probably has a good memory, but I wonder whether pi is one of those numbers that is necessary to commit to memory. I’m sure someone has it written down, somewhere. For most of the things we do every day, the first two digits after the decimal are good enough. If not, unless you are calculating the circumference of the universe the most you’d need would be one or two more digits. If you were calculating the circumference of a 100-foot circle, the 83,000th decimal place would not be measurable out on the ring.

Of course, I sure the guy is resting up today, having lunch with friends, discussing how some guy in the United States sits around and writes weblogs a few times a week instead of doing something important like reciting pi to infinity.

And one of his friends says something like, “Yeah, those Americans waste a lot of time. What a nerd.”

Only he says it in a language most of us can’t understand, except a couple of you loyal readers on the Pacific Rim.

Anyway, for a guy who sometimes starts giving his home phone number instead of his work number when asked and who has trouble remembering his pin number at the ATM, you can bet I’ll keep pi written down, rather than trying to remember it even to three places. And, I think we’re all better off not keeping it in our heads.

At least that’s the way we feel here in Jimbo’s world.