The Thin Gray Line

In days past, I’ve been prone to developing unrequited crushes. Eventually, you start thinking to yourself, “hmmm – see that look? I think she notices me too.” You have conversations in your head, you run simulations, you start planning for the next, blissful step – if only you can take the first step. And then [...]

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Pictures

I wish these could be better.  But, here’s a small collection from <a href=”http://furstie.smugmug.com/NewPictures/New-Pictures/2094521_MP4pDg#!i=1753033513&k=p6DgJsj”>DC this morning</a>.

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Apple A Day

Is it strange that I tend to finish my lunch before 9 AM (before 8 AM today)? I think it’s strange.

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East Coast Hype

The GFS weather model is hyping a east coast hurricane for ~10 days out. That is longer than those models are accurate, but the point remains – there’s plenty of energy out there for a tropical system, and it seems like some of that energy is headed west. I’ll keep an eye on it, we’ll [...]

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Me Barack Obama, You Tarzan

I don’t know anything about style. But I do know that Michele Obama’s looks like a frilly white tarzan dress. What’s the story with those puffy little nodules? Are they daisies? Mr President, meanwhile, looks about as dapper as someone could look. For the first time in a long time, we have a president that [...]

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Old At Heart

I’ve only listened to the Prairie Home Companion three or four times. If I had to be stuck in a car for 4 hours, it could keep me amused for at least two hours. In fact, one time it did, all the way from Baltimore to the Eastern Shore. I don’t think people my age [...]

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Pictures

The hillsides are gilded this autumn – ablaze with brilliant yellows. They’re burning down to brown, slowly, setting as the sun before my eyes. I’ve missed most of this fall. I haven’t had the camera out nearly enough. I went out a couple of weekends ago to a bridge in Patapsco, and am now mildly [...]

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Fifth

A few minutes after I got out to the lab at 7:15 this morning, a couple of the techs called me over. They were grinning like fools, and I knew someone was going to give me some crap about something – a common occurrence, certainly one that I have earned. “Hey,” one of them directed [...]

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Hype

Apparently Steve gets hype now.

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Marco….Marco….

Tropical Storm Marco is a fascinating example of a midget cyclone. These things are so odd – Tropical Cyclone Tracy is the most notable, reaching 140 mph winds in a little itty bitty package. Unfortunately for Darwin, AU, that package scored a direct hit. Addendum Look at this thing! It’s so cute!

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No Comment

The federal government is planning some sort of $700 billion dollar bailout of financial institutions. People have asked me what I thought about it. I have no opinion. Why? Because I don’t understand any of this stuff well enough to have an opinion. I bet there are less than a million people in this country [...]

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Home Lome

Despite a tactic understanding between the dentist and I that there was nothing really wrong, I allowed for him to jab me with a needle and drill into a molar. Here I am, my first real opportunity to eat actual food in two weeks, and I can’t control my jaw. I decided that I needed [...]

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What the Duck

So there’s the place. Now quit your whining! While we’re at it, there are my men. Jake’s giving the jazz hands while Tommy is emulating his hero George W Bush – “Mission Accomplished.” Johny looks too cool for the room – thinks he’s big man on campus now that he can walk several steps in [...]

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Yes We Can!

I’m going to do live coverage of the Obama speech. Here’s what I think: 9:54 PM: Fox News even has buxom blond sideline reporters! They’ve thought of everything! 9:56 PM: I like how Dick Durbin is adopting Abraham Lincoln for the liberals. Any thought about how Abraham Lincoln would have felt about abortion and so [...]

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So Far So Good

So I passed two old people on bikes on the trail today while running. And I have a ratified contract on a house. Addendeum Last of the Glacier pictures are up. These feature moose among other things.

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Steady States, Punctuated

A rocket blasting through a vacuum feels two main forces. On occasion, a thruster burst makes sizable course corrections. Meanwhile, over time, the inexorable tug of gravity warps the path. The course of one’s life likewise feels two main forces – the sudden impetuses of bifurcation events, black swans if you like, and the effect [...]

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Hey, I Know You!

Unaccustomed to grocery shopping off a list, I arrived at SuperFresh with a list of three items and arrived home with zero of them. I almost got some extra vacuum sealed fruit though. As I was pulling into the last self checkout lane, the woman in the adjacent lane started piling her stuff on my [...]

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Pictures, Other and On the Trail

I will be posting somewhere in the vicinity of 170 pictures in the next few weeks. I’m starting at the worse and moving to the best. This is the miscellaneous pot and the pictures from between Glenns Lake and Stony Indian Pass. The thing about the “On the Trail” pictures is that they are taken [...]

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Alive

I’m in Waterton, Canada – everything went well. Saw some stuff, met a lot of nice people in the woods. All safe and healthy. Will check in eventually.

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Shamful

A few nights ago, roommate Adam, (his) fiancee Bethany, and I were sitting in the living room, as is our tendency. They work on the wedding. I posit stupid suggestions and make myself a general annoyance. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But then a commercial for the ShamWow came on. Though not normally swayed [...]

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They Tell You How To Think, And Then You Oblige

A series of unfortunate events hamstrung any efforts to hold a barbecue this 4th of July. Thinking it rather sad to do nothing at all, a few stragglers and I decided to go watch a movie instead. There are several movies that I want to see this summer. You see, you might not know this [...]

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FARC Off

These are our guys! Good work Colombia.

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On Track 2

You must watch the Men’s 800 final. Crazy stuff. And yes, we’re all amused that the only place this is on the internet is on an Idaho news station’s website. Meanwhile, I found Khadevis Robinson to be more enjoyable to listen to than I thought I would. He wasn’t my favorite. Now he’s at least [...]

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Grow It Back!

When I was roughly 8, we convinced my father to shave his mustache. It was about to be the 90s, for crying out loud; one decade behind the times is enough, thank you very much. He shaved it, and we immediately forced him to grow it back. We probably locked that strange mustache-less man out [...]

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Thought Showers

You might notice that this website is subtitled “A Paradigm of Synergy”. This phrase, if I remember correctly, was coined by Matt several years ago. He made slogans for himself, including “Matt Jankowski: A Paradigm of Synergy”. I then made several dozen slogans for him. I think these were deleted when I purged my computer [...]

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Nationals Open Collector

6/14/08 12 AM CST First off, Steve ran a spectacular race. The meet was fast, very fast, and people came to that final ready to roll. Steve got right where he should have been, then spent 2 miles fighting off challenges and maintaining his position in the middle of the pack with dogged determination. As [...]

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December Words

I’ve been building up a few words of the week for a while now. The first was something that I didn’t recognize in the heady, barely palatable book by David Wells, “Above All Earthly Pow’rs“. Dealing with the church’s place against the backdrop of post modern thought, he mentioned how post modern ideals were ensconcing [...]

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On Vacation

I think I’m going to take a couple day Sabbatical, maybe I’ll maintain this post for spare thoughts. Meanwhile, this guy is actually on vacation. I’ve posted his blog before. I know some people think he’s over-the-top, but I think he’s hilarious. And I don’t care what some people think. You shouldn’t either. Addendum 1: [...]

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Look What I Found

I’m cleaning out my old stories, most of whose existence I can no longer tolerate, when I stumbled upon this: The Best There Ever Was. The Best There Is. The Best There Will Ever Be. Seamus Weir The High School Heartthrob, recently voted ALL-AMERICAN by USA TODAY, will declare his intentions for the NBA Draft [...]

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Thought For The Thinking

Recently someone shared with me her annoyance with those pseudo-philosophers who, in their obnoxiously uninformed way, would dare waste everyone’s time arguing with a philosophy professor. Who are you, oh man, when compared to the boundless wealth of knowledge that is me, a philosophy professor? But what is it that makes one an authority on [...]

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Less Than Six

So Adam’s girlfriend’s friend from home went to high school with Danny Wegman’s son. That’s pretty sweet.

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Shutes and Ladders

Hypothetical situation. You are training for something (meaning you can run, see, hypothetical). It’s 37 degrees and raining buckets. You’re slated for a long run, 12 to 14 miles. You don’t have a ton of time, so you’re going to run from home. Now, I never ever skipped runs for any reason other than I [...]

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Barbarians at the Gates

MovableType, the back end of this site, has been brought to its knees by the recent onslaught of the next generation of ferocious comment spam. Fearless leader Matt, our bulwark against the bloodthirsty tide, has installed a few new plugins that should help combat the hordes of savage spam. One of these plugins will, by [...]

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Pack

The NCSt Men’s Cross Country Team began the season ranked 10th in the pre-season poll. Here are some comments from their fearless leader Coach Geiger, and here’s the brief Cross Country bio of Young Stevie Furst, who now has more respectable hair. Anybody up for traveling to Charlottesville for the ACC meet on October 27th? [...]

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Comments…

…are fixed. Thanks to Matt Jankowski, who took a break from swimming through his pool of gold doubloons to address the issue.

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Authorativity

Statement: “Sports Illustrated Chine was launched in September 2006, and is now the single most authoritative general interest sports magazine in China.” Questions: 1) Is there a central governing body in China that evaluates authoritivity? Can I dispute this claim? 2) Is there a corresponding authoritivity quotient that I can reference to see how Sports [...]

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All The King’s Horses, And All The King’s Men

The parents are coming in tonight, later than I should stay up given my bout of under the weatherness. I’m not sick, as I am never sick and I refuse to break that trend. I do, however, have a head cold, and my head is, as a result, not entire here with me. Last night [...]

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Mountains

The following is the unabridged log that I wrote during last weekend’s camping trip to King’s Canyon NP. The sections in []‘s are later editions or additions. It will take me a very long time to edit the 100+ pictures that I have earmarked as worth my time. That said, in a very rare move, [...]

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California, No Doubt About It

First off, I’d like to welcome everybody to the wild, wild west. Yes, tomorrow after work I will be traveling from BWI to LAX and onward to Fresno. After a brief and disorienting night’s sleep, I’ll head with Stephen to meet his roommate Bobby “The Truck” Mack who is spending the summer as a Forest [...]

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To Start a Fire

Adam, Michael, myself and hopefully Steve got back from our sort of bachelor party camping trip this afternoon. Michael, one month hence, will have returned to Maryland after his wedding in Texas. He’ll be bringing back the long rumored Kelly “Pretzel” Snyder, at which point he’ll be able to seamlessly convert his 2 hours a [...]

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