DawgDays

My beloved Mariners are tanking. They've lost eight of their last ten, and are now second in the AL West to Oakland, which has won eight of its last ten.

It's not unusual to see the M's slide in August, but to tank two years in a row, when they did effectively nothing at the trading deadline either year, is getting a little discouraging.

I hope they can pull themselves out of this slump. Until then, the Cubs and the Sox are at or near the top of their respective divisions. The Chicago fans must be excited by this turn of events.

Found this image on another blog.

I realize that the Gene Robinson vote is old news. Several in the blogoverse have posted the pastoral letter from their bishop.

An Anglicans Online reader has compiled a list of links to the pastoral letters from the various bishops in the Episcopal Church. it's interesting to compare them.

Should they stay? Should they go? What do YOU say? I don't know.

I filter/delete the spam, and I install the security updates, and auto-update the virus scanner. But now one of the email worms is running on some other system, using my Hotmail as the return address.

This ticks me off for a purely selfish reason. Someone out there is wondering, "who is this idiot who opened the infected attachment?", and it isn't me.

I don't even want to hear from the Mac folks.

Grrr!

Hot and sweaty last night. Achy today. Comes from helping new folks move in by, among other things, hauling a sofa up the stairs, then back down the stairs (seeing as how it wouldn't fit), then up and in through the second-floor balcony. Phew! Good thing I had my cardiac stress test last week.

Colorado University was ranked as the #1 party school by the Princeton Review. This is getting a lot of news coverage today.

What the news doesn't mention is that the #2-4 schools are Wisconsin at Madison, Indiana at Bloomington and Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I wonder if there is some significance to the geographical proximity of these schools.

It's fun watching the aftermath of the power outage in the Northeast. All of the clamor about preventing this from happening in the future. While the power distribution system could be somewhat more robust, there's no practical way to prevent all power outages of this kind.

(Treatise on power distribution follows. You may skip to "later" if you choose.)

There are two sides to power distribution - generation and load. Generation is the power plants. Load is the customers. When a plant unexpectedly goes off the grid (because the plant shuts down or a line fails) and extra power is not available elsewhere on the grid, then load must be shed - i.e., a lot of customers lose power.

Then what can happen is that too much load is shed, and a plant can be generating TOO MUCH power, and start getting out of sync with the rest of the system. If it can't slow itself down quickly enough, then it takes itself offline.

This would be easy to handle if each utility had its own generating capacity sufficient for its own customers. If a plant went offline, that plant's customers would lose power. However, this isn't how it works. Power is "transported" to where it is needed. This is done through the power "grid" which is made up of the generating plants and utilities in a large area.

The grid interconnections improve system's resiliency. A plant shutdown can be handled by increasing the generation at other plants, especially if there is advance notice. Also, small plant outages, or short-term increases in load, can be absorbed by small shifts in the grid.

However, because of the links between plants and utilties, generation disruptions and load shedding can cascade through the grid. While the triggering event in the latest outage may have occurred in Ohio, similar patterns occurred in 1977 and 1965, with the trigger occurring elsewhere. (In 1965, the trigger was the shutdown of a Canadian plant.)

I'm sure this is more than anyone wants to read about this. Especially the seminarians who are most likely to be reading this blog. But hey, this is the first time I've gotten to use the power engineering course I took in college.

(Later)

If you got this far, or skipped to here...

The press focuses on the most contentious part of an issue, without really understanding what is happening. The media coverage of the power outage reminds me of the coverage of the Gene Robinson decision. Find the bluster, play up the controversy. That's what makes it "newsworthy" isn't it?

After two weeks of vacation and a week with a business trip, it's back to the regular work schedule.

Oh joy.

Now don't get me wrong, I like the work I do, I like the people I work with, and it pays the bills. At this time of year, I especially appreciate the air conditioning to, from and at the office.

However, I'm a "reverse telecommuter". I commute an hour each way to my office, but none of the people I work with work there. They're in CA ahd UT. I'm supposed to get a voice-over-IP phone that will make it feasible to work from home (regular telecommuting). I'm looking forward to this, I think. Cutting two hours out of the work day will make life much easier.

The block is starting to come to life. New students are starting to arrive, and current students are starting to return. In a couple of weeks, kids head back to school, and a month after that, the students on the block start up again.

Back to the old grind.

During the investigation into seminaries, we came across Random Theology.

(The LiveJournal Haiku reminded me of this.)

(OK, so I wait for the paperbacks to come out. Call me cheap, if you must.)

Shelters of Stone - Jean Auel

Reading this book was like putting on an old coat - very familiar, very comfortable. As always, Auel's work is well-researched, well-written, with well-developed characters. The feel of the writing is just like the rest of the Earth's Children series.

However, this fifth installment feels like an intermezzo. It's the story of Ayla and Jondalar's new life with Jondalar's people. But there's clearly something more to come. The conflicts in this book pale compared to those in the earlier books, and hints presage a major conflict to come.

Ayla seems too good to be true. It's become more and more implausible just how much she knows. And I can't imagine Darryl Hannah having played the role in the "Clan of the Cave Bear" movie. What utterly hideous casting.

All in all, I enjoyed the book, though. Don't start with this book, though. Work your way through the series, otherwise this book will be hard to understand.

Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy

In a word - flat.

I'm a Clancy fan. I like the "insider" feel of his books. However, this book is not a techno-thriller. Plenty of techno and tradecraft, but not many thrills. It is pedestrian. It is dull.

There were a number of inside references that were repeated several times, almost verbatim. I found this quite irritating. The thoughts espoused by the characters, especially the "Rabbit" were dogmatic drivel as opposed to character development. While the references to historical timelines and actual events are decoration, as the timelines don't match up. The references to individuals are interesting - I could see Reagan, the Walkers, Aldrich Ames, and others.

If you know the name Mehmet Ali Agca, the climax isn't much of a surprise.

I'm glad I waited for the paperback.

We just finished our two-part vacation for the summer.

Phase I

We spent a week back in Seattle. It was good to see family, friends, and all the familiar places.

We did some touristy stuff - Snoqualmie Falls and the Pike Place Market. We also went to Golden Gardens Park to dip our toes in salt water.

We also attended a bunch of parties - birthdays, beach, friendly get-togethers, family dinners. We even got to do a walk-through of our house (which we're renting out while we're here.) We were fearing the worst, but the place was immaculate.

It's good to go on these trips, but there are so many expectations, and so many reminders of the things we miss.

Phase II

We were in Evanston long enough to do laundry before heading out on a Midwest road trip. We figure that since we're here, we ought to see some of it. We had planned to head up the west side of Michigan, but never made it there. A last minute decision sent us eastward.

On the way out of Evanston, we were caught in a hail-filled deluge. The hail wasn't very big, but it was more than I had ever seen before. We stopped at Indiana Dunes, but the storm had followed us from Chicago, so the lightning and accompanying rain put a damper on exploring.

We stopped in South Bend and saw the College Football Hall of Fame. It's OK if you're already there, but don't make a special trip.

It surprised us that the highlight of the trip was Cleveland. We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Most of the memorabilia isn't much of a draw for me, but it was cool to be sipping my Frappucino, listening to Frampton doing "Do You Feel Like We Do." (Almost as good as listening to it while driving around with peanut butter soft serve.)

We went to Jacobs Field and saw the Mariners beat the Indians. (Go M's!) We also stopped at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, another place to see if you're already there.

We headed up to the Erie shore just west of Cedar Point. (No, we didn't go to the park. We're not much into thrill rides.) We went to Put-In-Bay on South Bass Island. It's quaint, but touristy.


So, all in all, fun, but not great.

Try out the gender test. I answered the questions, and it guessed my gender wrong. According to the test, I was a borderline case. Maybe it's because I'm a Gemini, or maybe it has something to do with the time I got two Xs in my Meyers-Briggs.

Of course, one time I did one of these personality profiles for work, and when someone asked me what I was, I said, "inscrutable oriental." That was good for a chuckle.

Comments are alive again after a short hiatus.

OK, got Belief-o-matic from Susie, who got it from Tripp.

Here's my top ten:

1. Liberal Quakers (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (99%)
3. Neo-Pagan (96%)
4. New Age (89%)
5. Mahayana Buddhism (87%)
6. Reform Judaism (80%)
7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (78%)
8. Bahá'í Faith (72%)
9. Sikhism (67%)
10. Secular Humanism (66%)

And I'm not even one of Julie's students.