Posted inHome life

Clearly, a message from God

What other explanation is there? I open up the newspaper this morning, and there in the Saturday “Auto” section is a glowing review of the Mini-Cooper. I got to drive one of the original Mini-Coopers exactly one time, circa 1967, when a college friend much more knowledgeable about cars than I urged me to test drive one, as an alternative to a VW bug that I was thinking of buying. That test drive is still fresh in my mind, or, at least, as fresh as any experience from the 60s can be, for reasons that should be obvious, but which…
No Comments
Posted inFamily Home life

Oh, yeah, vegetarianism is cool

I know it is true, because Time magazine tells me so. Therefore, following some sort of possibly-twisted Aristotelian logic, since Laurel and I are vegetarians, we must be cool too. The article reports that nearly 25% of adolescents polled by Teenage Research Unlimited said vegetarianism is "cool." And college students rated salad eaters more moral, virtuous, and considerate than steak eaters. Well, obviously. Who needs a poll to tell us that? Vegetarians rule! Real vegetarians, at least. Time says that in a survey of 11,000 people, 37% of those who responded "Yes, I am a vegetarian" also reported that in…
3
Posted inPhilosophy Science

Near-death experience and nothingness

Recently an acquaintance forwarded me an email message about a particularly amazing near-death experience. All near-death experiences are amazing, of course, because death is such: amazing, the mother of all mysteries. I've always been interesed in NDE's since I have a bit of a personal interest, as do we all, in what happens after we take our last breath. Death has a way of capturing your attention, thats for sure. But most NDE's bear a distressingly close resemblance to the nature of the person having the experience. Christians tend to see Jesus, New Agers a soul guide, and so on.…
3
Posted inCurrent affairs Home life

“Hey, hey, LBJ, how many babies are you going to kill today?”

On Laurel's instigation, we took part in the worldwide no-war! protests today, joining 1000 or more people at the state Capitol. It had been over 30 years since either of us had been in an antiwar protest march, so we were a bit out of practice. I had the LBJ chant all ready to go, realizing that some acronym substitutions had to be made, but it bothered me that GWB didn't rhyme so nicely with "hey" or "today." Fortunately, the protest was much better organized than protests were in the late 1960s. Probably the organizers weren't nearly as stoned as…
No Comments
Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Backups are beautiful

That's my sentiment at the moment, having just reinstalled the blogging software after more than a week in the deeper depths of upgrade-to-a-larger-hard-disk-hell. Reinstalling, and then posting an "I'm back" message resulted in the disappearance of every single trace of the old HinesSight postings--which, in retrospect, was entirely predictable, since the newly installed software had me starting from scratch. The message, my friends, is to faithfully backup your precious whatever. This is relatively easy to do with computer whatevers; I just had to copy a folder from a backup drive to the new drive. Its a bigger problem with more…
No Comments
Posted inWriting/Weblogs

HinesSight interruptus

My sister recently reminded me that it had been five days since my last posting. Indefensible! I shall punish myself severely, in a fashion that I cannot let myself know, or I would be able to take steps to avoid it. Let the punishment fall when I least expect it, which it will, since it isn't known even to myself. My only defense, and it is a weak one, is that dear Dell 8200 is still suffering from some start-up and performance problems, not unlike yours truly. So I continue to spend more time than usual fussing with computer maintenance…
No Comments
Posted inHome life

So proud of Laurel

I'm so proud of my lovely wife, and if you could have seen her swearing like a longshoreman in front of the bathroom mirror last month, you would be as proud of her as I am. Yes, Laurel finally has learned how to put in a contact lens. Now, it is true that five year old children undoubtedly can do this without any problem, but Laurel, who is a bit older than that, had some unique problems that she had to overcome. To wit, a blink reflex that wouldn't stop. I can't begin to tell you what we (mostly her,…
No Comments
Posted inSustainability

Thanks for feeding PollMonkey

Many thanks to everyone who fed the PollMonkey and expressed their preference for a new name for the old Fairview Training Center property. The online poll will remain up for about another week, until my one-month PollMonkey membership expires. Vote if you haven't done so already. It turns out that the management of Sustainable Fairview Associates (SFA), the group that is making Fairview into a sustainable (i.e. Green) development, has changed course, and now doesn't think the property needs to be renamed right away. That's fine with me. I had advised the management that they needed to slow down and…
No Comments
Posted inPhilosophy

Life and death

What it all comes down to, doesn't it, life and death? Isn't this at the root of the human condition, and our most basic fears, longings, fantasies, desires, dreams, beliefs, everything? I went in to renew a permit this morning that had, um, expired a mere four years ago, and in the process of trying to butter up the clerk who had to decide whether this lapse deserved some sort of bureaucratic slap on the hand, we ended up having a great mini-conversation about the meaning of it all. Noting that my age, 54, was similar to hers, 53, she…
No Comments
Posted inNeighborhood Sustainability

Sustainability in Spring Lake Estates

Laurel and I typed away like demons last week, getting ready Laurel's response to the Oak Drive lot partitioner's response to her response to the partitioner's application. As if that wasn't enough legalese, now the partitioner gets two weeks to prepare a response to Laurel's response to the partitioner's response to Laurel's response to the partitioner's application. (No wonder why people find the legal system so confusing.) We'll keep you posted, neighbors, as the appeal winds closer to a decision. Of course, there is a good chance that no matter how the hearings officer rules, the losing side will appeal…
No Comments
Posted inHome life Philosophy

Positive postscript to hard drive hell

As mentioned in the post below, I'm desperately trying to derive some meaning from last week's attempted hard drive transfer horrors. What good is frustration? Usually we avoid it at all costs. I certainly would have sacrificed almost anything to the Great Computer in the Sky last Thursday if she could have blessed me with a benediction: "Go, Dell Inspiron 8200, and crash no more." But, what would life be like if we never ran up against seemingly insurmountable obstacles? Would we just contentedly sit on our butt, not being driven to try to crash through the barrier that divides…
No Comments
Posted inHome life

In the belly of the beast–a tale of hard drive hell

It's been a strange two days. I hardly know who I am anymore, or what I've been doing. I must seek clues in what I see around me. Empty coffee cup. Paper towel with jelly stains. Shiny anti-static wrapper. Screwdriver. PC card slot placeholders. Two tiny screws. Computer manuals. Receipt from CMS Peripherals, Inc. with "You bastards will die!!!" scrawled on it in red crayon. Hmmm. That's my handwriting. What's been going on? Ah, it all is starting to come back now...my eeensyweensy 20GB notebook hard drive had become filled to overflowing with my verbiage, and those endless Windows XP…
No Comments
Posted inCurrent affairs

God blesses America?

On this eve of Bush's State of the Union speech, it is appropriate to ponder the all-important questions, "Does God bless America?", and "Does America bless God?" Recently there was a letter to the editor in our local newspaper that made a daring suggestion: maybe it is best for us to humbly bless God, rather than make imperious demands on the divine--God bless America!--such as our President is wont to do. Obviously this person was a thinly disguised neo-pagan, or perhaps even an Al-Quaida mole, because the evidence is clear that God truly does put America first among all the…
No Comments
Posted inFamily

30 Reasons for a Father Not to Have a Daughter

In honor of my daughter, Celeste Vos, whose 31st birthday is today, I have reprised in a much more public fashion last year's birthday greeting, tenderly titled "30 Reasons for a Father Not to Have a Daughter." I probably should have updated it to "31...", but the Super Bowl has started, and I really can't think of any new reasons, anyway. Now that she's past 30 (time to have children, don't you think?), Celeste has become wonderfully attentive and sensitive to her father, even when she isn't asking for money. I'm the one, this year, who didn't get a card…
No Comments
Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Almost a fan

I was so thrilled yesterday to get some fan email! Well, almost. I suppose I should have recognized right away from the message that something was wrong, but my desperate need for praise and approval blinded me for a while. Here's the message, with my (almost) fan's name omitted: DEAR MR. HINES, MY NAME IS...AND I AM IN FIRST GRADE. I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO COME TO OLD BETHPAGE GRADE SCHOOL NEXT WEEK. I READ YOUR BOOK, THE MONSTER'S TEST, IN SCHOOL TODAY. I LOVED IT. YOU ARE A VERY GOOD AUTHOR. I CAN'T WAIT TO MEET YOU. YOUR…
No Comments
Posted inCurrent affairs

Iraq irrationality

So tell me, where am I wrong in pointing out this particular piece of Iraq irrationality? Last night I was reading a Time magazine story about Rumsfeld's war plans. Reportedly he plans to emphasize the use of special forces troops, who are to swoop in at the beginning of the war and prevent Hussein from using his chemical, biological, and/or nuclear weapons. Now, one has to assume that this means the special forces will (1) be able to find out where the weapons are stored, and (2) be able to destroy them after they find them. But...isn't this just what…
No Comments
Posted inMiscellany

Marvelous spam compendium

If you aren't getting enough ads for penis enlargement and home business opportunities in your email inbox, Mark Morford has put together a marvelous compendium in his SFGate.com column. At least, I assume these are genuine excerpts from email ads. I've seen some of them, but Mark must get a lot more spam than I do. I also like his earlier piece, "Are Hummer Owners Idiots? More delightful proof positive that most SUVs are, in fact, morally repugnant. Go, America!" Apparently there is solid research to show that large SUV owners are more ego-driven and insecure than drivers of other…
No Comments
Posted inSustainability

Renaming Fairview makes the news

It was both scary and exciting to approach the newspaper box this morning, knowing that an article about the Fairview renaming effort, and my online poll, probably would be in the Statesman-Journal. You never know how a story will come out, after you talk to a reporter. Laurence Cruz, the environment reporter, called me yesterday afternoon after I had written a letter to the editor about the poll, and had been told by the editorial page editor that it really was a press release, not a letter. OK, whatever. I had gotten some resistance from the management of Sustainable Fairview…
No Comments
Posted inEntertainment

Golden Globe awards

Having just seen Adaptation, we were pleased that Chris Cooper and Meryl Streep got supporting actor/actress awards for their roles in this great movie. Not being familiar with Cooper, I was astounded to see a old (meaning, about my age) white-haired guy go up on stage to get his award--never would have recognized him as the largely-toothless good old southern boy orchid hunter he played in Adaptation. One of the best lines in this movie, or at least one of the few lines we remember: "It's what you love that matters, not what loves you." So, pursue your passion, and…
No Comments
Posted inNeighborhood

Thanks, “Stop Densification” supporters

Laurel and I greatly appreciate the donations we've received recently in response to our "help, we need more money for the Stop Densification in Spring Lake Estates Committee" letter. With the help of other concerned neighbors, we're doing our best to overturn the initial approval of the Oak Drive partitioning request. Well, Laurel is doing most of the real work; I mainly help with the typing and other clerical chores. Friday, Laurel went down to the county planning department and picked up the partitioner's response to our appeal. Fortunately, it still looks like we have the facts and the law…
No Comments