Monthly Archives: January 2010

Avatar the Movie

Sweetie and I saw Avatar the other day. I don’t really know what to say about it except that the Writer, Director, and co-Producer James Cameron has gone from King of the World to King of the Universe. How does one guy do so much.

It is a science fiction action adventure romance flick. It is well over two hours long but doesn’t seem like it. The movie is flawless in my opinion and will probably change the way movies are made in the future. We saw the 3D version and I strongly recommend it. The 3D effects in previous movies were intrusive in a “Wow, look what we can do with 3D!” gimmicky riff. In this movie, its just part of the movie.

As far as taking the kids. There were lots of kids watching the movie but we didn’t take our 11 year old and I think it would be much too intense for him. You know your kids best and use discretion.

Check out the official movie web site. The movie web sites these days have tons and tons of stuff to look at and do and all sorts of information.

I give this movie four stars out of four. You have to see it. I’m not sure that its the next Star Wars but it is a darn good movie.

Official Avatar Movie

Kicking Portugese butt and not winning?

Wow, the annual nerd’s dream has come out, the Statistical Abstract of the United States 2010 has come out. You can buy the book but why would when you can get on the web site and browse all sorts of data to your heart’s content. Its published by the Census Bureau and it is FREE!

What are you going to use it for? Well when the lefty and the righty pundits and politicians are yakking about this and that about our country you come over here and check it out. You can find out the real deal. You can download it into excel and do your own ciphering and graphing. You to can be a pundit but instead of doing it the Oprah method (Just talk about your feelings) and you can use information and data (I love Oprah, so don’t be jacking with me.)

Lets take the big health care debate. Forget about whether you are for or against the plan being hammered out by the House and Senate Democrats. One basic question everybody has is: “How many uninsured people do we have in this country?”

This web site on table 151 says that 45,657,000 people in 2007 did not have health insurance in the United States. So now you are in the know on that fact. That fact is not good or bad. Its just a fact. Its up to each of us decide whether we think that is acceptable or something needs to change.

Isn’t this fun? Lets try something else. Some of the righties say “We have the greatest health system in the world!” (That makes me so proud.) Some of the lefties say “We are way down the list on life expactancy!” (Oh, I am so ashamed!) You know what I say. I say, my copays and deductibles are going up, my coverage is going down.

Well, lets look at the data. Now wouldn’t you think that if we had the greatest health care system in the world that we would could measure that somehow? How about life expectancy at birth? I mean the whole point of medicine is to keep people living long productive lives? Isn’t it. Hey lets look at the data. They have the data for industrialized countries. Lets rank them. (I tried to format this all nice and pretty but it is not happening, sorry) I had to use 2004 data because some of the countries didn’t have up to date data.

Country 2004
Iceland 79.2
Switzerland 78.6
Japan 78.6
Sweden 78.4
Australia 78.1
Italy 77.9
Canada 77.8
Norway 77.6
New Zealand 77.5
Spain 76.9
Netherlands 76.9
United Kingdom 76.8
France 76.7
Greece 76.6
Germany 76.5
Austria 76.4
Ireland 76.4
Belgium 76.0
Luxembourg 75.9
Finland 75.4
Denmark 75.4
United States 75.2
Portugal 75.0
Korea, South 74.5
Mexico 72.7
Czech Republic 72.6
Poland 70.7
Slovakia 70.3
Turkey 68.8
Hungary 68.6

Huh, uh, the United States is number 22, you gotta be kidding me. Hey, don’t worry though, we are kicking some major Portugese butt!!

Well lets look at the list again, United Kingdom, socialist, Canada, socialist, Denmark, ditto, Sweden, ditto, Hey they are all socialists. Socialist you know what that is. Its when they are communist but you are trying to be polite. Here is the deal. Yeah, they have us beat by a few years but all their money goes to health care. That’s it! That is where they are spending all their money. Their economies are being dragged down by health care costs. Not us, we are free!!!

So guess, what, yeah you are catching on, Lets Look at the Data. (I should make this into a board game.) Lets take the same list of countries and rank them by % of Gross Domestic Product. (New Zealand didn’t have the data.)

Country 2004
United States 15.2
Switzerland 11.4
France 11.0
Belgium 10.7
Germany 10.6
Austria 10.3
Portugal 10.0
Iceland 9.9
Canada 9.8
Norway 9.7
Denmark 9.5
Netherlands 9.5
Sweden 9.2
Australia 8.8
Italy 8.7
Greece 8.3
Hungary 8.2
Spain 8.2
Finland 8.1
Luxembourg 8.1
Japan 8.0
United Kingdom 8.0
Ireland 7.5
Czech Republic 7.2
Slovakia 7.2
Mexico 6.5
Poland 6.2
Turkey 5.9
Korea, South 5.4

(New Zealand didn’t have the data)

USA, USA, USA, We’re number one!! Uh, oops, number one is not good! let me see, the USA spends 15% of our GDP on health care and the United Kingdom, where life expectancies are longer, spends just a little over half as much. Wait a minute, they are the socialists. We’re the capitalists. We spend 50% more than Portugal, and get the same results? Or we spend three times what South Korea spends, and gain 0.7 years of life expectancy? What’s up with that?

I don’t know, should we keep doing the same thing or should we look at changing things?

Or, I have a better idea. Lets just keep saying that we have the best health care system in the world! That’s the ticket. Maybe it’ll happen. Or not.

Legally Blonde

Sweetie and I went to see the touring edition of the Broadway musical “Legally Blonde.” It is a lot of fun and is well done and we enjoyed it tremendously. Check out the show’s web site. Lots of good information their as wells as links to Youtube videos of segments of the show.

The lead was played by Becky Gulsvig. She was a ball of fire on stage. Check out her website. It has links to her blog. (She hasn’t posted for months but I bet she is busy.)

Her website linked to this Youtube video that intersperses her performance with an interview with the Chicago Tribune.

It was a lot of fun. I give it 3 stars out of 4.

Matthew 8:23-26

Bear with me a little on this post, I’ll get around to the verse.

Above is the front door to Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Tulsa. A better photograph is posted on the Tulsa Gentleman Blog. I made a comment on his post about what I called a dollar sign to the left of the door above the bench. He responded:

“There are 2 ancient symbols for Jesus Christ, one on each side of the door. The one on the left (that might be mistaken for a dollar sign) consists of the overlaid letters I H S. IHS is the Christogram for the Greek spelling of Jesus (ΙΗΣ- iota-eta-sigma; short for ΙΗΣΟΥΣ)

On the right side of the doors is another ancient symbol for Jesus Christ, consisting of the superimposed Greek letters chi (Χ) and rho (Ρ), often embroidered on altar cloths and clerical vestments. Also called a Christogram.”

Here is a closeup of the superimposed IHS symbol.

Doesn’t look much like a cash symbol when you look at it closely does it. I first saw the symbol years ago and thought it meant that it takes money to run a church. Hey, don’t laugh. It does!

According to religionfacts.com the symbol is simply called the “Chi-Ro” pronounced “ke-roe.” These are the first two letters for Christ in Greek. It is an ancient symbol that goes back before the Emperor Constantine. He started using it widely when he saw the symbol in the sky before an important battle in the year 312. The symbol is also called the Labarum.

Yet another symbol that has intrigued me for a long time was the following ship.

I could not for the life of me figure out what that meant. Well apparently ships are another ancient Christian symbol. It is called the “Bark (or Barque) of Saint Peter. It symbolizes that the Church is the vessel that transports Disciples safely from the stormy earthly realm to the heavenly realm.

So now we get to the verse for today.

²³And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.

²⁴And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.

²⁵And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.

²⁶And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. (Matthew 8:23-26, King James Version)

(from BibleGateway.com)

For other pairings of verse and photographs check out That’s Baloney.

Play On by Carrie Underwood

Sweetie gave me a CD for Christmas. Carrie Underwood’s “Carry On.” It’s the only music I have listened to since. It’s wonderful. All the songs are great.

Cowboy Casanova is what is getting the airplay and is very good but I love “Quitter” the best. I play it over and over. I haven’t been this excited about a song since Metallica’s “Cyanide” from their Death Magnetic CD. The song has a mandolin riff going that I just love. You can listen to it here.

Carrie is at the top of her form in this CD. I give it 3.5 stars out of 4.

Bear Gryllls’ Bad Drinking Water Blues

One of my favorite shows is Man vs Wild with Bear Grylls. Bear is a supposed ex British commando of some sorts who puts himself in situations and shows us how to survive situations.

This season he shows us how to drink bad water in a manner that bypasses the “gag reflex.” It is something you do only as a last resort he tells us. I don’t think this technique has ever been shown on television before.

So, as part of my commitment to public service, here is the video on how to drink really really bad water without throwing up.

His ratings must really be low. I wonder what his camera crew thought of all this?

XX Rated Skywatch

I love Skywatch Friday, the participants are so talented and the commenters are so nice and encouraging. The whole experience has been very uplifting and I never go anywhere without looking at the sky all the time. Skywatch is really a bright spot in cyber space. Just think, without Al Gore we wouldn’t have this. Thanks Al, really.

Well, Tulsa has been pretty drab lately. I have been trying like crazy to get a good skywatch photograph but mother nature hasn’t been there for me. So I decided to spice things up a little bit with the first (to my knowledge) XX Skywatch Photograph. So brace yourselves, here goes, ready …

Please don’t think less of me.

For GOOD photographs of the sky from all over the world check out Skywatch Friday.

Global Warming and Me

I’ve been following the global warming controversy for some time. I think in the early 1980’s I saw my first graph of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere vs time and accompanying graphs of average surface temperatures over time. The trend started up in the late 1800’s following the advent of the industrial age.

(Note the above graphs and all the rest of the images, unless otherwise stated, are from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change web site.)

I was interested but not too concerned. The issue got another lift when former Senator Gore became a spokesman and helped put out the movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” I didn’t really listen to him. Sorry, I didn’t care for him, so I didn’t listen to his message.

Then as the issue developed further Oklahoma’s own Senator Jim Inhofe came out with his message that global warming is just a big hoax. Of course, why scientists would perpetrate the hoax is not explained.

The whole time I was sitting back and just reading and pondering, but I was wasn’t reading and pondering very deeply. My position was that Earth may or may not be warming but it might be due to natural cycles beyond our control. I go to lots of energy industry conferences and stuff and since weather is vitally important to our business for a number of reasons I have many meterologists talk about weather patterns. They all acknowledged that the Earth is warming up, but they also said that they thought it inconclusive about whether humans are causing the warming up by our emissions of greenhouse gasses.

But now we are getting to the point where the USA and the rest of the world are talking about spending some serious money on the issue. Hundred of billions of dollars. Hey that wakes me up.

So I decided that it is time for Yogi to take a stand on this issue. The issue has become so polarizing though that it is hard to find non-biased sources. I’m an engineer and prefer arguments based on science, facts, and logic. I am also not a conspiracy theorist. So where do I start.

As luck would have I received the Winter 2010 Issue of “The Bent” which is an engineering honorary society (Tau Beta Pi) journal. There was an article in it Alan S. Brown who is a science writer. The article is “Climate Models and Their Critics.” (The article is not available online as far as I can tell.)

Climate models are very important because we cannot model the Earth in a laboratory. We have to model the weather. The models are very complex and have to take many factors into account. One simulation can take months to run on the most modern supercomputers. The models have got tremendously better over time but they are still approximate. All models are approximate so criticizing a model because it is not exact doesn’t make sense to me.

Mr. Brown references the Intergovernmenal Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”). It is an international scientific body that that reviews climate research. Check it out I think they are solid. They won a 2007 Nobel Prize for their work on climate change. Their web site is amazing. They summarize findings from lots and lots of research. It is all foot noted and documented.

Here are some of their conclusions from the “Summary for Policymakers” from their last report.

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is

now evident from observations of increases in global

average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting

of snow and ice and rising global average sea level”

Further:

“Observational evidence4 from all continents and most

oceans shows that many natural systems are being

affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature

increases.”

And:

“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures

since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the

observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.

7 It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic

warming over the past 50 years averaged over

each continent (except Antarctica)”

“Continued GHG emissions at or above current rates

would cause further warming and induce many changes

in the global climate system during the 21st century that

would very likely be larger than those observed during

the 20th century”

I could go on and on but I’ll just cut to the chase and say I am now a believer in the concept of human activity causing climate change by causing increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

So what does that mean? Nope I am not jumping over to the Democratic Party. The country still needs to evaluate what needs to be done about the problem. The proposed solutions are very expensive and need to evaluated on their own merit. For example I am totally against giving China 2 cents to help them solve their problems

So what about you, have you taken a stand on this issue yet? What is it?

It’s Complicated – the Movie

Last week Sweetie went off to watch “it’s Complicated” with Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin. Ms. Streep and Mr. Baldwin play a couple who have been divorced for ten years who … It’s complicated and I don’t want to spoil any of it for you.

Lets just say that Meryl Streep steals the show. She is smart and sexy and does a great job in this movie. Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin also do a great job but they are just the supporting cast to the star.

There are some moral predicaments in the movie. They don’t flinch from them. Sometimes the antics of the grownups has consequences on those they love. Consequences that last years.

I loved this movie. It was the perfect date night romantic comedy. I give it four stars out of four.

Check out the web site. Lots of good stuff there!

Hot Club of Cowtown at Cain’s Ballroom

Saturday night Sweetie and I along with our friends Jim and Leanna headed downtown to legendary Cain’s Ballroom to see the western swing trio “Hot Club of Cowtown” play some music.

I have to admit that in 18 years of living in Tulsa I have never stepped inside Cain’s despite blogging about it twice, here and here.

We didn’t know what to expect. I think something like Cain’s I think about people getting drunk and passing out, crowded, expensive. But we went anyway.

Was I surprised. The place is nice, parking is plentiful, the admission at $20 seemed a bargain. The drinks were cheap ($2.50 for a beer), the management very nice and accommodating, and the crowd was very laid back. There were a few children in attendance and everybody seemed pretty chilled and sober. And of course there is no smoking!!!! I was totally relaxed.

The opening act was a charming little outfit with a strange name “Three Penny Upright.” They are two female singers (who have really strong clear voices) a guitar player, drummer, and a bass player. One of the singers had a washboard. I have never seen a washboard actually used as a musical instrument before, I mean if you don’t count “Hee Haw.” They played for a while and were very good. I could hear them again.

Then a pause and Hot Club of Cowtown came on. They were great. They are just three, a guitar player, bass, and a violinist and how they made such a big sound I will never know. I bet Bob Will’s ghost traveled up from Memorial Cemetery at 61st and Memorial (I can get you the GPS coordinates if you are interested in paying your respects) just to hear it. The music is large, and happy, and played and sang very very well.