22Jul11 The Tree of Life

This is a tough one. Look at a site like Rotten Tomatoes and you will see very high ratings from critics coupled with very low ratings by the general public. This definitely falls into the “love it or hate it” category.

We see a scene of a family in the 1950’s. The film then goes back to the beginning to show how we arrived at this point. I’m not talking “beginning” in the sense of boy-meets-girl when the husband and wife first meet. I mean “beginning” as in watching dust clouds form into planets.

I am not kidding.

It takes a while to get back to the family. We watch planets collide, volcanoes erupt, and water in various settings as life grows from self-replicating cells all the way through dinosaurs and mammals.

From there the film alternates between showing various scenes from the history of the family and scenes from the history of the universe. This film isn’t driven by a plot or story so much as an attempt to show us how the smallest of things and the biggest of things are all related.

The pacing is very slow and deliberate. Everything is given time to sink in. This is good when a scene resonates with the viewer, but very tedious otherwise. The film has many beautiful moments. Many scenes of the family life are very touching. Scenes of the natural world are visually stunning. The problem is that they keep interrupting one another. As pretty as some of the natural scenes were, they resulted in long stretches of the film passing by without me having anything to care about. Despite the many beautiful moments contained in the film, I found myself thinking at several points “this is pretty, but I am not enjoying myself.”

This film tried to do a lot. There are gems contained within and some of them will stick with me for a while. It is a beautiful film in many ways, but not necessarily an entertaining one. It would have been a fantastic 20-minute short, but as a 2-1/2 hour film I can’t recommend it.

Posted by in movies
5Jul11 Eureka (Springs)

So we wanted to go out and have a picnic on the 4th of July weekend, but we didn’t want to fight the crowds at Fort Desoto or Aldermans Ford Park. That’s when we came across Eureka Springs Park in Tampa. I’d never heard of it before, and it’s not far from my house, so we decided to head there with our pic-a-nic basket and check it out.

What a hidden gem. We would have never found it without the internet. Apparently not many other people have heard of it either. We were there for probably a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon and we were the only people in the park the entire time.

It’s a small park. You can’t walk far, but there is a wetlands boardwalk, a small greenhouse with some orchids, a garden area, and a picnic area. Traffic from I-4 and I-75 was on the edge of hearing, but other than that it was a very quiet place to spend an afternoon.

Spread the word. As much as I’d like to keep it a secret I don’t want the county to decide that it’s not worth the effort because it can’t support a concession stand.

Posted by in Uncategorized
4Apr11 Brown, Part II

A couple of years ago I went through hell trying to get a package delivered via UPS. It was an overnight package and it took me two weeks to get it. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I do remember that it was something relatively inexpensive and I wouldn’t have minded if it sat outside all day, but they refused to leave it at my door since it was an overnight package that required my signature.

Fast forward to this year. Last week I was waiting for a package to arrive via UPS (shipper’s selection, not mine) and hoping I wouldn’t have to go through the same hassle. This time it WAS something that I didn’t want left in front of my door all day. To their credit they did manage to get the package to me this time, but they did leave it in front of my door all day. At least they cleverly concealed it:

Hidden Package

It took me a while to get in my door I was laughing so hard.

Posted by in rants
11Mar11 Change of Terms

Dear Bank who holds my MasterCard account,
20 years ago you loaned me money at a 12% interest rate. This allowed me to quickly furnish a new apartment. For that, I thank you.

I understand that our agreement allowed you (the lender) to change the terms of the agreement for me (the debtor). It was my understanding that this was an option for you to enact if you needed to based on market forces, bank interest rates, or the risk involved in my debt. I did not know that this would be used primarily as a method to enhance your revenue stream, and was totally disconnected from market forces or my ability to pay you.

I came to you with no credit history beyond a student loan. I had no savings, and a job less than 6 months old. You gave me a rate of 12%. Although I may have been a few days late a couple of times in the last 20 years I never missed a payment.

Over the last 20 years I have:

  • Been continually employed, in one case for 13 years at the same company.
  • Purchased a house.
  • Built up savings.
  • Increased my salary to 3 times what it was when I originally borrowed money from you.

In every measurable respect, my ability to repay you has grown substantially since I borrowed money from you.

In that same time, your conditions have changed as well:

  • You saw your interest rate drop to essentially 0%.
  • You stayed in business with the help of my tax dollars.
  • You also went through several mergers, becoming much larger, which you claimed would allow you to provide me better service at a more competitive rate.

It would seem that since our agreement began, the cost of my debt has gone down for you while my ability to pay has gone up. Given these conditions, I find it troubling that every time I got a raise or was somehow able to increase the amount of my monthly payments, you raised my interest rate or changed my agreement and added new fees. As I made progress on repaying that loan, you took money that I borrowed at 12% and eventually raised the interest rate on it to over 22%. Although I have not borrowed any more money from you in well over 10 years, you have been receiving monthly payments from me that included finance charges of almost double what the terms were when you originally gave me the money.

You will notice on my account that I have repaid it in full. Actually, I paid about $50 too much, so you now owe me $50. This changes the basic nature of our relationship. As you are now the debtor and I am the lender, I am making the following changes to our agreement:

  • Your interest rate is now 24,000%. This will result in a minimum monthly payment of $1000, and that will just cover the interest.
  • Any month that ends with you still having a balance will result in a $50 service charge.
  • Any payment sent to me will be subject to a $50 processing fee.
  • Any payment that is late or below the minimum will result in a $100 penalty. This is in addition to the $50 charge for maintaining a balance.
  • Any overpayment to me will be subject to a service charge equal to the amount of overpayment, and will be considered an immediate termination of our financial relationship.

As our agreement states that the leader can change the terms without reason and without consent of the debtor, I am within my rights to do this. I’ll go one step further and spell out the consequences of this to you, which you only recently started to do as a result of federal law:
Based on today’s balance, you can settle your account by getting a payment of $1050 to me by the end of the month ($1000 finance charge + $50 processing fee).
If you make the minimum monthly payment of $1000 every month you will bee making that payment forever since that payment only covers the interest and not my $50 processing fee.
To help you, I will inform you that if you miss your first payment, your balance will go from $50 to $1200 ($50 principal + monthly rate of 24,000% finance charge + $100 penalty + $50 balance maintenance fee). If you miss a second consecutive payment, your balance will be $1,201,350. If you miss a third payment you will be bankrupt, but due to the favorable laws you got passed through congress you will not be able to write off your debt to me and will instead have to liquidate the company.

Thank you for doing business with me!

p.s. Stop sending me crap in the mail about the great offers that you have for me and how willing you are to help me.

Posted by in rants, thoughts
16Dec10 2010 Photos

In 2009 I didn’t get out to shoot pictures as much as I would have liked. I resolved to get out more in 2010. I failed. On the plus side, I think I did a better job of coming away with decent shots when I did break out the camera. You tell me. 2011 may be a bit tougher as I now work in a completely uninspiring part of town. I’ll just have to make a point of getting out to shoot more.

Here are some of my favorite shots of 2010.

1/19/2010 – Motorcycle Engine
Motorcycle Engine

1/23/2010 – Dry Dock
Dry Dock

3/26/2010 – Nissan GT-R
Nissan

3/31/2010 – My best bug picture yet
Bee on Green

4/1/2010 – Dead Tree
Dead Tree

4/1/2010 – Falcons at Twilight
Falcons At Twilight

4/2/2010 – Don’t ask how close I got to the alligators in the Everglades.
Smile for the Camera

5/30/2010 – Georgia Guidestones
Georgia Guidestones

5/30/2010 – The trestle from the back cover of R.E.M.’s album Murmur.
Bridge Out

8/20/2010 – Tampa Bay Lightning
Reaching Up

8/20/2010 – More Lightning
Blue Lightning 2

10/13/2010 – Flaming Lips
Laser Lips

10/23/2010 – Berries
Berries

10/23/2010 – Extreme close-up of a flower
Business End of a Flower

10/28/2010 – One of my favorite shots of the year.
Zen Garden

10/28/2010 – Mill near Stone Mountain, Georgia
Grist Mill B+W

11/27/2010 – Timing is everything.
Cannon Fire

12/5/2010 – Mojo
Domestic Hunter

Posted by in Florida Life, outdoors, photography, travel
15Dec10 Another Year Gone By

As the year winds down it’s that time once again for reflection on the year past. Time to mentally catalog the past year and look forward to the upcoming year.

Travel-wise it was a mixed year. This was a year of small weekend getaways instead of big trips. This is the first year in the last six or seven that I did not make it to Tennessee. I miss my friends there. I did make a couple of quick trips to Atlanta, where I have two friends now. I went on a mini-adventure of camping in the Everglades, which was a lot of fun, and I spent a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend in St. Augustine. I think this was the first time I ever did St. Augustine “right” by staying downtown in the old city. We parked the car and didn’t need it again until we left a few days later. Not bad considering I started off the weekend by dropping my car keys down a storm drain just as we arrived at the hotel.

Speaking of which, if you’re ever looking for a place in St. Augustine I definitely recommend The Inn on Charlotte. I looked at a lot of places online before settling on this one, but after walking around and actually seeing some of the places I considered, I think we got the best of the bunch by far.

On and off through the year I continued reading Neil Gaiman and loved both Neverwhere and Anansi Boys. The man definitely knows how to tell a story.

Besides Mr. Gaiman, two titles stick out for me that I picked up on someone’s recommendation. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi is a fantastic story set in a near future that is very reminiscent of Blade Runner. It makes a couple of overt nods to Blade Runner and asks some of the same questions about what it means to be human, but the story stands on its own and is one of the best SF stories I’ve read in a long time.

The other title is The City & The City by China Miéville. It’s unlike anything I’ve read before; A murder mystery in a very soft SF setting that illustrates the way we percieve our world, or more importantly, the ways in which we don’t percieve the bits we don’t want to.

In movies, Touching Home and A Single Man were good. Inception was enjoyable. I found it funny to hear people say it was confusing since following deeply recursive computer code is what I do for a living. For me the best movie of the year was easily Winter’s Bone. It’s a dark movie that’s not meant to be happy or uplifting at all, but it was fantastic. Of course, Tron Legacy comes out in just a couple of days. Princess Bride and Casablanca at the Tampa Theatre were high points as well.

Musically, there were some real gems in 2010. Not many shows, but most of the ones I did see were fantastic. I FINALLY made it to the WMNF Tropical Heatwave. Despite the heat, the insane crowds, and the fact that it’s impossible to catch more than a few songs from any one band, it was an awesome show.

I finally got to see Assemblage 23 in Orlando, which was a real treat. Tom Shear writes songs that I wish I could have written. Vampire Weekend put on a good show at Jannus Landing Live but it was overshadowed by the fact that I saw my first Flaming Lips show there the very next day. I never paid much attention to the Lips, but a few people told me they put on a great show so I figured I’d go check it out. After seeing literally hundreds of shows it’s hard to impress me. I was impressed. There was more confetti than I’ve seen (including at Blue Man Group shows), dozens of huge balloons, streamers, and the singer rolling around the crowd in a huge hamster ball. That was just the first song!

The other big highlight was seeing Roger Waters play The Wall. I’ll probably never get to see that show again. I had chills through most of it. Of course the year wouldn’t be complete without another trip to Atlanta to see Metric.

So that was 2010. As always, the thing I’m most grateful for is YOU who take the time to read this and keep in touch. Let’s all make 2011 a better year!

Posted by in books, movies, music, thoughts
9Dec10 The Starbucks Dribble Cup

Coffee Cup

For three years I worked a block away from a Fourbucks Starbucks. It was an occasional indulgence when I didn’t feel like dealing with the office coffee machine. Now I work in a place with no coffee machine and no good options nearby. If I want to partake of the evil bean at work my only choice is to bring it there, and this has illustrated a point I was only dimly aware of when coffee was little more than an elevator ride away:

Starbucks cup lids suck.

Those lids turn every cup of coffee into a dribble cup. I noticed when I walked for coffee that I always seemed to spill some, but now that I’m driving it’s practically impossible to transport coffee without making a mess. I can rarely drink these things while standing still without at least some small amount of coffee escaping through some portion of the lid that is not the suck hole.

I think what really made me notice was a trip to Dunkin Donuts. Whoever makes those lids has it right. The roads are broken up around my work and I can still drive them fairly aggressively and be absolutely confident that not a single drop will escape the cup. Contrast that to Starbucks where I can’t even get out the door without licking coffee off of my hand.

As successful as Starbucks has been you’d think they could do a better job on something so fundamental to serving beverages.

Posted by in rants, thoughts
24Sep10 The Great Moose Conspiracy

A post about my distaste for contributing to the mindless drivel on the internet naturally has to be followed with a post full of mindless drivel.

We love our conspiracy theories. Some people think our current president is secretly a Muslim Marxist. Others think the previous one somehow masterminded 9/11. People in groups fascinate me, mostly for how they can abandon all common sense in certain circumstances and believe things that are completely nonsensical and/or demonstrably false. To carry on the great tradition of conspiracy theories, I offer one of my own.

Several years ago, I uncovered the Great Moose Conspiracy. “Uncovered” in this case means “made up” and “conspiracy” means “coincidence” but that is the underpinning of many of our conspiracy theories so stick with me here.

I have cats. A simple statement to make, but it conveys information about how many cats there are. You know I have more than one because I used the plural form.

I have moose. Ok, I don’t really have any moose due to association restrictions, but here you have less information. Would I have one moose or several moose? Yes I realize that you could often figure it out by noticing if I said “a” moose or noting the difference between “moose is” and “moose are” but remember this is a conspiracy, so we have to discard information that doesn’t support our theory. Anyone who points to this information is probably a part of the cover-up.

Now you see our problem with moose: The singular is the same as the plural, so when I say “moose” you don’t know if I’m talking about one moose, several moose, or all moose.

Why is the singular the same as the plural? Who is it that doesn’t want us to know how many moose there are? Why don’t they want us to know?

It was a chilling discovery, but then I realized that it went much deeper. Deer, Elk, Bison. With so many animals involved, it’s just too much evidence to be a coincidence. There’s no telling how deep this rabbit (moose?) hole goes. When I pieced it together it was like a veil had been lifted and I could see clearly for the first time. Who’s behind it? Why are they doing it? I don’t know yet, but I suspect Satanic Canadiens are building an army of ungulates for some purpose that is both sinister and polite (they are Canadian after all).

The theory might not catch on since it doesn’t involve a figure that’s in the news every day. I’m missing that presidential link, and I know if I can tie it to him I’ll get a few million people to believe it. Right now I’m hoping it can stand on it’s own. As conspiracy theories go it’s not the most fleshed-out yet, but it’s at least as plausible as many of the others I’ve heard on TV.

Who’s with me?

Posted by in thoughts
20Sep10 (In)frequency

“I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry”
-John Cage

I have had some sort of website for as long as I can remember now. I’m getting older and my memory isn’t what it used to be, so “as long as I can remember” may not mean much. I’d say that’s a topic for another day, but I know I’ll forget to write about it. I never really held the illusion that I would post updates on a daily basis. I don’t think I ever thought it would be as infrequent as once a month or so, but that seems to be the rate that I’ve maintained.

Why so infrequent then? There are a few reasons for that:

I’m generally a private person. While this has changed a lot over the last few years, I’m still not going to post a lot of the little details of who / what / when regarding my daily life. If you want to know, ask. I try to respect the privacy of other people as well, so I don’t generally mention anyone else in this space. Some stories just don’t get told here. I have a handwritten journal for those stories. You won’t be reading them here. You won’t be reading them at all unless you’re the person cleaning out my house after I die. If you are, I apologize in advance for the melodramatic crap you will wade through.

Politics and religion. I have a great deal to say about both. You won’t read it here. Those are two subjects that I doubt I will change anyone’s mind on. I’d like to think that my mind is still open, but the way that public discourse has deteriorated lately it’s difficult to have a respectful conversation about those subjects. Because feelings are easily trampled without context and body language, I think it’s something best discussed in person.

I think there’s too much chatter already. I created a Twitter account to follow a friend who was on vacation. I’ve never posted anything to it. I don’t see the point in constantly talking if I don’t have anything to say. Obviously not everyone on the internet feels this way, but I’m smart enough to realize that nobody cares if I had a ham sandwich today.

Speaking of mindless chatter, there’s the subject of Facebook. Love it or hate it, it does have that critical mass of users that makes it the go-to website for maintaining contact with my friends. Many of my friends had my website address and email address but it took the constant visibility of Facebook to get them engaged in conversation. Since that’s where their eyeballs tend to be, that’s where most of the daily small talk and chit-chat goes. This space gets the more (I hope) thoughtful musings that don’t fit into the confines of a Facebook status message.

It’s deceptively easy to get caught up in the world of social media. Check email, check Facebook, check Flickr, go back to see if any new emails came in while checking other stuff. It’s a never-ending cycle of self-importance, and of waiting for something to happen instead of making things happen. I spend enough time as it is keeping up with my friends on Facebook, reading various blogs, and surfing the intertubes for things of interest. It could take up every bit of my free time if I let it. I don’t. If that means that I drop off of social media sites for a week or two at a time, I’m ok with that. If it means that I don’t update this site but once a month or so, that’s ok too.

I have no illusions of being the next celebrated blogger. This is a small site for myself and for any friends or family that want to read my occasional ramblings. I try to edit myself and keep it to things that are worth reading. We all need to get out and live our lives while we can. I don’t want to let the constant voyeurism of the online life prevent me from living my life.

That means that if you’re one of the people that checks this space, more often than not it will be the same as it was the last time you stopped by. I’d rather you spend 5 seconds checking if it’s changed than 2 minutes reading some mindless drivel about the Great Moose Conspiracy.

Thoughts?

Next up: The Great Moose Conspiracy.

Posted by in philosophy, thoughts
20Sep10 New Photo Gallery

What a month. With a crazy work schedule, another death of a loved one, and the faint glimmer of what may be a social life, I haven’t had much time for anything else. I usually take my camera everywhere, but for this last month I left it home most of the time. I just knew that I wouldn’t have any time to shoot pictures.

I did manage to set up a new online photo gallery. Hit the photos link up on the menu, or go to http://photos.blueronin.com to see my new gallery. This one can handle sales of prints, so if you’re one of the people who always told me that you’d love to have one of my prints hanging on your wall, here’s your chance 😉

This won’t be as all-encompassing as my Flickr site. I’m only going to publish things that I feel are print-worthy, and available sizes will be roughly limited based on the size of the source image. I’m dipping my toes into the water, so I’m curious to find out what (if anything) sells.

Posted by in photography
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