Tent Rocks

For my annual birthday trip (April/May), Mary and I flew out to New Mexico. We were lucky enough to stay with friends in Albuquerque.

A highlight of the trip was hike through the canyon at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. Some pictures follow. As always, remember to click a pic to see it expanded into a larger view.

Get this: We were in a truly isolated location, miles away from the highway. The road to the canyon itself as a long dirt road, a "washboard" ride. So, pretty remote, eh? No. Three busloads of school kids plus a caravan of parents and/or teachers arrived moments after we did! In mock terror, we bolted for the bathrooms before they were lost to us forever!

Pic	Comments
	The start of our hike into the canyon. I should have zoomed in on this one. At the top is a giant boulder perched precariously on an outcropping.
	Once inside the canyon, we quickly had a camera shootout—these 2 guys shooting us while we shot them.
	I was fascinated by this tree not only framed by the canyon walls but also with its huge trunks exposed. Most likely, the dirt they used to be buried in was washed away during the rare flash floods through the canyon.
	I welcomed seeing man streak across the sky while I inched my way through the canyon.
	I like the contrast of dark and light here combined with proximity and distance.
	Life sprouting up at the first opportunity amidst the immovable.
	Sights like this make me wonder what it'd be like to see nature at her furious work during rare Southwest rain storms. Of course, to be there personally would be dangerous!
	Mary is framed here as we hustle between the canyon walls closing in on us and crowds of loud children catching up with us from the buses.
	Majestic and exotic.
	Fortunately, the temperature was uncharacteristically cool. That made it easier to keep trekking all the way to the top.
	At certain points, I half expected a film crew to pop up amid the rocks shooting a scene for the Star Trek series: "Jim, I'm a doctor, not a geologist! Ask Spock about these rock formations, dammit!"
	So, Spock, what can you tell me about these formations?
	Having covered the canyon floor, we now begin a long, slow ascent. By the way, the canyon floor was often very sandy, like a beach, a gentle reminder of the danger of being in the canyon while it's raining.
	Catching my breath on the way to the top...
	Sometimes it's good to look down...
	It's even better to look out at the distance...
	Here's another look at looking down, at looking at the stairway to heaven; well, to a heavenly view...
	Ahhh...
	I love this shot. It's my laptop's new wallpaper image.
	Drinking in the view...
	On the way out, more jets passing by. Thanks, guys, for bringing me to this wonderful place!

72 Degrees

Obama recently stated the following: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK...."

Break out the charts because we'll need 'em to break down just how much is wrong with this statement. In essence, it boils down to is this: They won't like us. And? What's your point? What's your argument?

Won't like us!? By what standard?

The standard of judgment of "other countries" matters. If you care about what the death-worshippers, the dictators, the statists and their ilk think, if you embrace their standard of judgment, you're doomed spiritually let alone existentially. If you care what the best among them think—i.e., the freest, the bravest, if you embrace their standard of judgment, then you embrace man's life qua rational animal, you value the highest degree of comfort man's reason can afford you—e.g., 72 degrees all the time, all the food you need, etc.

As a contrast to the feeble ideas (or lack thereof) behind Obama's statement, Objectivist philosopher Harry Binswanger reminded me via his email list of the spirit of another era, an era we ought to emulate—the era that gave birth to Cyrano de Bergerac. In particular, he cited Cyrano's famous "No thank you" speech. While I could not find a transcription, I found this excellent rendition of the scene.

Note: I made a point of finding a scene that is based on Brian Hooker's translation. I've never seen another other translation that is anywhere near the poetry of Hooker's fine work. If you know of one, please let me know.

In the meantime, keep the spirit of Cyrano alive in your mind and your heart.

Wedding

This past weekend, I attended my first Jewish wedding. It was wonderful! It was a perfect blending of setting and people.

The setting was the Whispering Pines Conference Center in Rhode Island. The wedding day, Saturday, was awash in perfect May sunshine. It seemed as if the bride and groom had supernatural connections since the day was sandwiched between two rainy storms. Nature itself blessed the day.

The people were all very friendly to me even though I was a stranger among them. That is, Mary is the ex-girlfriend of the father, Ilan, of the bride. I was with Mary, of course. Though I was a stranger, I felt right at home.

While I've always liked Ilan, I like him all the more now. I enjoyed watching him revel in his role as grandfather as well as father of the bride. The genuine affection returned to him spoke volumes about him—all good.

In that lives one of my measures of a man—how good he acts toward those he professes to love speaks far more to me than his explicit ideas. This is consistent with my comments earlier about excellence.

Speaking of excellence, Ilan's toast to the new couple after the ceremony was both outrageously funny and touching at the same time. When he sat down, he positively beamed with happiness. I turned to Mary and told her that I liked him before and liked him all the more now, adding playfully: "What did you ever see in this guy!?"

107 year old light bulb

Now, this is cool. Check it out.

Tips for Older IT Workers

Fellow 50+ IT folks, check this out. While it includes what should be obvious to any good IT worker ("Never stop learning"), it makes some suggestions I hadn't considered ("Teach a course").

This article includes a link to a couple of techie blogs, one of which is adorned with a cute subtitle—"News for nerds".

Food for thought...and action.

Excellence

As my blog's welcome states: "It's not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me." Today, a work colleague had tagged to the end of an e-mail this quote from Aristotle: "Excellence is not an act but a habit." It echoes that line I like so much from the movie Batman Begins.

The full quote follows:

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

This, in turn, is echoed by Ayn Rand's definition of virtue.

The emphasis, then, is on action. To be good one must do good. Pardon the expression, but this perspective cuts through a lot of bullshit. Most people know all too well the types who talk the talk (and talk and talk and talk...) but fail to walk it.

That said, the far more complex issue is this question: what is good?

Contrary to common belief, it's not a question hopelessly lost in a messy mass of subjectivity and/or out-of-context absolutes. Answering that question objectively is possible. Critical to answering it sanely is being cognizant of the fact that before you can answer "what is good?" you must ask yourself "Good? By what standard?"

For details, please see the corpus of the works of Ayn Rand.

Albuquerque Museums

I'm back from a good trip to the Southwest—specifically, Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm happy to report that it has several interesting museums within walking distance of each other. Rather than list them all here, I'll refer you to the town's cultural services site.

However, I didn't notice at that site two museums I found especially interesting...

1. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
2. National Atomic Museum

The latter is moving to the outskirts of town soon. It'll be near the Balloon Museum.

More on these and my trip later. :^)