John McDaris

Welcome!

Hi! My name is John, and I want to thank you for dropping by my home page. There is a lot of information about me and my interests here. Feel free to look around and let me know what you think.

11 June, 2005

I've decided that keeping this one-sided conversation going on geocities takes too much time. So I've created a blog called Left Wing Nut Job over at blogspot. New posts will go there. This page will stay up as I will probably refer to it from time to time. But it won't be updated very often.

10 June, 2005

Wonderful crazy stuff:
Computer case made entirely of cooling fans. (from boingboing.net")
Sheep urine to fight traffic pollution? (from Yahoo)
Lynx Making a Comeback in Minnesota (from Yahoo)

8 June, 2005

I know, I know. It's been over a month since I wrote. Sue me.

Summer is in full swing now. We topped out at 91 degrees yesterday! So I (singlehandedly) installed our 2 window AC units last night. Jacob's back is still messed up so he couldn't help but it went pretty easy since the brackets are allready in place. So now our household returns to the ranks of the powerhogs of America. *sigh* Well, as soon as thermodynamics allows for low-power AC units we'll get one. Though I think we have a better chance of building a straw bail home sooner than that.

I don't think I've mentioned my softball team lately, but i am in the middle of my 8th season as a member of the Lonestars in the Twin Cities Goodtime Softball League. As I pointed out to the guys the other week, I may not be the _oldest_ Lonestar, but I am the oldest _Loonestar_ and I have the collection of uniforms to prove it. We are now 12 and 2 for the season and kicking some major butt! We took down the #4 and the #8 teams in the league last weekend. Oh and did I mention that we are seated #12. :D We have had essentially the same group of guys now for 3 years or so and things have really gelled now. We have even pounded a team or two when we were down to the minimum of 9 players. We took 3rd place in the C-Competitive division of a tournament over Memorial Day weekend. Being as how we were seated 6th out of 7 in that division, 3rd is nice! I love my guys and can't even imagine playing softball on some other team.

I'll leave you with these little bits.
Abqaiq oilfield running out of oil? (from BoingBoing.net)
DeLay's Grab for NASA (from GlobalSecurity.org)
Welcome to Our World (from TheStranger.com)

4 May, 2005

Current spate of anti-gay laws steal away our humanity - Salt Lake Tribune (via Towle Road): Those of you who were paying some attention to my rants after Black Tuesday (11/2/04) might see some similarities here to what I was trying to say. At least I know that I'm not the only one who saw this one coming.

28 April, 2005

Interesting article. Hope they aren't claustrophobic. Traveling 20 or 40 miles while underneath the Alps would make me think twice.

Anyway, the trip back to NC was good. Although Jacob and I both caught colds and it did SNOW 2 inches on Sunday. What a shock to wake up to that! But it was nice to see my family. We ended up driving with my mom over to Pigeon Forge, TN (as Jacob put it, "the Las Vegas of the South") because my brother and his wife and the Nephew were there on vacation last weekend. They were there along with a gaggle of other friends so it was nice just to hang out and not do much. And we saw an awesome rainbow on the way there. A full rainbow and a full secondary rainbow outside that! That's the first complete set I've ever seen.

Since not everyone was there while we were, I went up by myself to spread some of dad's ashes on the hillside where he wanted them spread. Mom brought me a large pill bottle full of cremains (Jacob's right, they are heavy for the size). So I went up and said some stream-of-consciousness stuff and committed my part of him to the wind and the soil.
An Ancestor is Made.

27 April, 2005

Sorry I've been absent for a while. Been busy, and we just took a trip down to NC to see my family and spread my dad's ashes. I'll have to fill you in on that later. Right now I have time for just one link. I found it on Boing Boing or Towleroad, I can't remember which.

"The end of oil is closer than you think" from the Guardian newspaper in London.

7 April, 2005

On Monday night I went to see my friend Kyler perform at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis. She is on tour with Adrianne and the show rocked! I haven't seen Kyler since she left NCSU to go to Berkley and that was like 10 years ago. But she still looks great and sounds just as fantastic as ever. All the people I emailed about the concert and couldn't/didn't show up to see her really blew it. But she'll be back again and I'll keep you posted.

On another happy note, according to the Death Clock I'll leave the plane on Tuesday, November 5, 2047 giving me roughly 1,343,568,400 seconds left as of posting this. I think I feel a bit jipped. I mean that's only 74 years!! But then they really only deal in average life spans. Ah well. Easy come, easy go. :p

Finally, If you haven't checked out the Political Compass you really should. It's quite fun to see where you fall in comparison to current and past political figures on the two axes of economic (left/right) and social (libertarian/authoritarian). FYI, I'm at -6 (left) on the economic axis and -4.77 (libertarian) on the social axis. Which puts me right near Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. :D And be sure to check out their new section called Iconochasms. Potentially very enlightening.

4 April, 2005

Here's a little religio-political humor that can in over email today. I don't know who wrote it so I can't properly attribute credit. I can only say that I didn't come up with it myself, although I kinda wish I did.

The 23rd Sigh

Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.
He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.
He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war, I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion.
Thou annointest my head with foreign oil. My health insurance runneth out.
Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term and my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.

1 April, 2005

So yesterday the MN House voted in favor of a bill that would allow the majority in MN to determine the rights of a minority group. 77 house members voted for the bill that would put a constitutional ammendment banning gay marriage on the 2006 general election ballot. Most of them were republicans which is to be expected (the vast majority of them were white males BTW). But 13 members of the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party voted with them turning their backs on civil rights and the protection of minorities. These are the ones:

David Dill, Denise Dittrich, Kent Eken, Patti Fritz, Larry Hosch, Al Juhnke, Lyle Koenen, Bernard Lieder, Paul Marquart, Mary Ellen Otremba, Gene Pelowski, Aaron Peterson, Bev Scalze

56 house members voted against this kind of pandering. Most of these were DFLers, again to be expected. But there were a surprising 3 Republicans who decided to stand up against oppressive politics and discrimination. These were:

Ray Cox, Ron Erhardt, Doug Meslow

The only good part of this is that the vote was closer this year than last. The Senate has yet to take up the bill or anything like it. Last year they were able to keep it off the table. With this being an election year for state senators, they had best be watching what they do. Those of us who are concerned about this will be watching.

31 March, 2005

The Pope effectively spoke his Living Will last year and wants life support "to the end." I wonder if he understands how long that end might be in coming if it ever happened. I also wonder how long the church hierarchy would refrain from pulling the plug if he were to be incapacitated. There is no article in Cannon Law that allows him to abdicate and it does not give anyone the ability to make decisions for him. But then we don't really know who's making the decisions in there anyway.

As a funny little extension of that conversation why don't you go take the Dante's Inferno Test if you haven't already. Very funny. Apparently I have some extenuating circumstances which will keep me from spending eternity in the 7th level of hell where all homosexuals are supposed to be consigned. Not for me, no sir. It's the 2nd level of hell for me along with all the other lustful hedonists.

30 March, 2005

You know, I have some very dear friends who vote republican. I have tried pretty hard to convice some of them that this isn't necessarily a good thing. It just seems like they should understand by now. I do understand some of their points, but when you have this kind of hypocracy in the republican leadership, it seems as plain as can be that the party is full of it.

On a happier (?) note check out these bits from boingboing.net.

• Toddlerpedes: doll-torsos and limbs frankensteined together
• Scientific American apologizes for not endorsing creationism and missile-shields

29 March, 2005

Hmmm... Well it looks like there are world bodies that are taking the problem of oil supplies very seriously indeed. Apparently the International Energy Association has some interesting plans that would come into play if there were a large fuel supply disruption. As a signator to the treaty, the US could be obligated to impose some fairly draconian police-enforced driving restrictions (up to 90% reduction!). But never fear!! The US will simply withdraw from this treaty like it does with every other one that becomes inconvenient.

24 March, 2005

Today is the first time I have heard anything about Peak Oil in the mainstream media. MPR's Midmorning program for today is discussing the issue. It just started, so I don't know what kind of coverage it will give. This issue still hasn't gotten much play in the press. For obvious reasons.

While I was travelling from NC back home to MN, I picked up the book Out of Gas a book about Peak Oil. I finished it before I landed at MSP. Quite good. Goodstein takes a very scientific view of this. The evidence lays firmly on the side of an impending peak and he shows why. He really covers a lot of ground and draws together a lot of different lines of evidence to support this. Quite convincing.

23 March, 2005

Well, today is my first day back to work. I got back to Minnesota from NC late Monday night and took yesterday as a rest day (Carleton allows up to 5 days for funeral leave).

The memorial service was done as a part of the worship service at the church on Sunday morning, which was a bit odd to me but it seemed to work well for them. Since dad was bucking the norm and being cremated, there was no revewal and there weren't cremains at the service. He is also bucking the norm by asking to be spread on the hillside between their house and my grandmother's house. He loved that land and wanted that to be place. Anyway, there were somewhere between 400 and 500 people at the service. (!!) The sanctuary at my parents' church holds about 150. Then they set up about 150 chairs in the parish hall. Then they set up about 30 or 40 chairs in a parlor room. Then they put chairs and tables anywhere and everywhere there was room to do so. A small Baptist church up the road decided not to even have their service so that all of their members could come down and attend the service for dad. It was a pretty powerful testament to the respect dad had in the community and how important he was to everyone. There were fire engines and ambulances from the local station and from Asheville (dad worked with those guys for more than 20 years) and they just took care of all the traffic and parking issues using the community center up the street for parking. After the service there was a covered dish lunch (southern terminology for a pot luck, fyi) and of course everyone brought 3 times as much food as necessary so there was plenty to go around.

I was the only one in the family emotionally stable to speak and you can check out the eulogy I gave if you want. Mom, my dad's sister Susan, and Matt's wife Tara each wrote things but didn't try to read them so they had the pastor do it. I think Matt is still in a bit of shock. He is the most like dad of anyone and I don't think he has processed everything yet. Anyway, the pastor spoke nicely of dad as they had become very close. But then, everyone who got to know dad loved him like a brother. It was a little surreal though. Since he was being cremated and wasn't "ready" yet, there wasn't anything at the service to focus on. It was kind of like he simply disappeared.

One of the things that really took the edge for most of the family was my little nephew Logan. He is just so beautiful. He is all smiles from top to bottom and from the moment he wakes up to the moment he can't keep his eyes open anymore. He's 7 months old and he wants to walk so bad! He is skipping that whole crawling thing because it's just too slow. He's got places to go and things to do! I got some pictures of him and me together and I will post them when I get a chance.

16 March, 2005

25 February, 2005

Metaphysical Ramblings - It was really foggy on the way into Northfield this morning. And there wasn't a lot of traffic either. So I slowed down and let the car in front of me disappear into the fog and turned off the radio. I was completely alone for several long stretches of time (broken up by cars coming the other way). I couldn't see more than 2 or 3 car lengths in any direction and the whole world outside disappeared. I understand more fully why the ancient druids revered these kinds of time. One can be transported from the world of "reality" to a liminal place, a place that is completely cut off, a place where reality doesn't exist. You can feel the presence of something on the other side of that white shroud, but who's to say it is or isn't the reality of everyday life. It wouldn't be that surprising for the veil to part and there be a world completely alien, other, unknown.

It seems that for a long time, it seems, people have talked about time like a line.
You can see infinitely well into the past and only vaguely into the future.
A few years ago, I came up with this description. The present is a plateau that includes this exact moment, the small time you can see for sure ahead and the recent past that you can see clearly. Beyond that, the past slopes away from you so that you have to stand on your tiptoes to see it. In front, the future stretches up like a hillside. It is still vague beyond a point, but you can catch more glimpses of it.


So, during my time driving alone through the foggy other-world this morning, I had a thought that the experience felt like this concept of time. But then I thought, "what would happen if one succeeded, for even an instant, at living precisely in the moment?" As the walls of fog close in, as the plateau of the "present" shrinks down to a point, what one is left with is an unbroken view of the past meeting an ubroken view of the future in that one instant that joins the two. Now.

3 February, 2005

Well I have been soundly berated by my highly significant other for not putting any updates up since the middle of November. So here ya go. :D

I found this site the other day. Peak Oil: LIfe After the Oil Crash Definitely not a happy site, but very informative.

And that, friends, is all I have time for. *sigh* I'll write more later. I promise!