Stan Taylor

I just completed the unabridged audio edition of Plainsong by Kent Haruf. I have to say, this was one of the very best audio books I’ve listened to. I particularly liked the portrayal of the main characters. Two of the characters, for instance, hardly speak or express any emotion, yet the author makes them deep and very believable.
The novel recounts a few months in the lives of some residents of a small farming town on the high plains in Colorado. I recognized in the characters aspects of my Kansas relatives and people I know from my youth in rural Texas. Haruf does an excellent job of portraying these characters.

An AP Story, via USA Today:

Sparrow knocks over 23,000 dominoes before being shot
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — A sparrow knocked over 23,000 dominoes in the Netherlands, nearly ruining a world record attempt before it was shot to death Monday, the state news agency reported.
The unfortunate bird flew through an open window at an exposition center in the northern city of Leeuwarden where employees of television company Endemol NV have worked for weeks setting up more than 4 million dominoes in an attempt to break the official Guinness World Record for falling dominoes on Friday night.
Only a system of 750 built-in gaps in the chain prevented the bird from knocking most or all of the dominoes over ahead of schedule, “Domino Day” organizers were quoted as saying by the NOS news agency.
The bird was shot by an exterminator with an air rifle while cowering in a corner.
The organizers are out to break their own record of 3,992,397 dominoes set last year with a record of 4,321,000.

The screenshot below (click on the image for a larger version) is from a Microsoft Small Business article titled 8 e-mail mistakes that make you look bad. I think they should add mistake #9: Failing to proofread.

I recently discovered this utility called MapMyRun. It uses Google maps to allow you to map out a run. Pretty cool. Here’s this morning’s run

Yesterday, Texans approved Propsition 2. Unfortunately, that’s no surprise to me. What troubles me, though, is the direct participation of Christian congregations and pastors in the political process: many congregations and pastors publicly endorsed prop 2, and the election-night gathering for supporters in the Austin area was held at Great Hills Baptist Church.
This direct endorsement of political candidates and initiatives contradicts my beliefs. I used to be a member of a United Methodist congregation that is widely recognized as one of the most liberal in Texas, with one of the most politically outspoken pastors. The pastor frequently spoke about issues that were hotly debated politically, but even in that environment it was taboo for the pastor to come out for or against candidates or specific political solutions. Instead, his task was to help his congregants decide what is right and just, but he left it up to them to decide how to act on those decisions in the realm of politics.
I prefer to think globally, but act locally. I’m always inspired by my Christian friend in Germany who was staunchly against abortion. I don’t necessarily agree with her, but I’m inspired by her actions. She believed that the best way to avoid abortion is to avoid unwanted pregnancy, and that she could have a direct impact on this issue. Instead of getting involved in political debate about abortion (granted, the political situation is different in Germany than in the US), she would spend her Saturday afternoons handing out information on birth control in the main square. I remember with a chuckle her explanations of her and her husband trying out each new birth control method so that she would be able to offer experienced advice.

In Wired Magazine, Simson Garfinkel lists History’s Worst Software Bugs. I’d already heard about many of these, but not all. This one is particularly intriguing:

1982 — Soviet gas pipeline. Operatives working for the Central Intelligence Agency allegedly plant a bug in a Canadian computer system purchased to control the trans-Siberian gas pipeline. The Soviets had obtained the system as part of a wide-ranging effort to covertly purchase or steal sensitive U.S. technology. The CIA reportedly found out about the program and decided to make it backfire with equipment that would pass Soviet inspection and then fail once in operation. The resulting event is reportedly the largest non-nuclear explosion in the planet’s history.

We decided to pop some popcorn for Halloween, so I broke out our harvest gold hot air popcorn popper from the 1980s. The kids had never seen such a device and were fascinated by the popcorn popping and coming out the shoot. Next time they complain about being bored, I’m breaking out the Popcorn Pumper again.

I’m a self-identifying English language usage curmudgeon. But I tell you, misuse of apostrophes has become so rampant, it hardly even gets a rise out of me any longer. In just a few minutes of news scanning this morning, I ran across two incidents:

Google envisions a world in which all content is free; and of course, it controls the portal through which Internet user’s access that content.

Web store fails to monitor it’s own reviews board.

I just can’t get outraged any longer. It just makes me sad and tired.

A little juvenile humor for the middle of the week (click on image for larger version):

Our office manager usually keeps individually wrapped wintergreen Life Savers in the candy dish on the reception desk. But last week, she put out a Halloween bucket filled with chocolate. As I was eating more of the chocolate than I should have, I realized that they chocolates all had ‘Fun Size’ on the package. This got me thinking about the marketing team at Mars sitting around discussing this new product.
Marketing drone #1: OK, we’ve got this new product: bags of small mixed chocolates. How do we market them? We can’t market them on using our usual parameters: an increase in something–size, flavor, etc.
Marketing drone #2: I know! How about ‘Fun size!’ It’s devoid of any actual meaning, but it conveys excitement for a product that really has nothing going for it except that you can bag them up.