Scientology®!

Long, long ago, in my relative youth, I decided to pick up Dianetics by L.R. Hubbard and see what the heck it was all about. Entirely out of curiosity, I might add, rather than a desire to improve my teenage life.

Congratulations to Mr. Hubbard because he was the first author who received my chuck-it-out-the-window treatment! What a load of crap, and I only read the introduction! If a teenager of my inexperience could recognize the total load of bullshit that was contained there, then why is Scientology such a big player in popular culture? God only knows, but she’s not telling. My bet is because of their practice of recruiting actors and musicians like Tom Cruise , John Travolta and Beck. (for info on Cruise’s weird Matt Lauer interview recently, try the Friday, June 24, 2005 edition of http://youcantmakeitup.blogspot.com/ )

Note: People find solace and comfort in all sorts of places, and it is not my place to insist on where they should go for it. Scientology is no weirder than some other non-harmful ways of life, but the Church of Scientology is really beyond weird.

Don’t believe me though. Check it out for yourself.

A comprehensive guide to Scientology and the CoS
The official Church of Scientology website
Wikipedia entry on Xenu – I love Wikipedia!

I would add more, but the sites already mentioned can give you plenty of links further.

Exploding Cell Phones! Beware!

I love internet hoaxes. Especially the ones that hang on for so long because there’s no real credible science to hang your skeptical hat on. For example, one of the most procreated hoaxes, both inside the internet and out, is the myth of the cell-phone-cause gas station explosion. This has become so much a part of popular culture that the industry has put warning labels on fuel pumps warning of this non-existent threat.

If you don’t believe me, try snopes.com at http://www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.asp or you can give the Australian Transport Safety Bureau a try, with regards to the Transportation Research Board. http://gulliver.trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=5173

2005 Peachtree Road Race!

Jenn and I ran in the annual Peachtree Road Race 10K yesterday with 54,998 other people, all of whom wanted to park in the same parking lot as we did. It was a great deal of fun, plus almost perfectly in line with our marathon training for later this year.

Jenn finished with a time of approximately 1:09:10 and Bill came in at 1:09:33. Actual clock times were 1:48:10 and 1:48:33, respectively, which tells you how long it took for us to cross the start line after the initial gun. Our race numbers were 60932 and 60933, but those are not consecutive numbers; it placed us in the sixth starting group, about 2/3 of the way from the front.

Another clock at the finish, next to the official time clock, is the T-Shirt clock, which shows whether or not you’ve qualified for the coveted Peachtree T-Shirt. In order to be deserving of the shirt, you have to cross the finish within the 75 minutes allowable by the T-Shirt clock which does not start until the last runner crosses the start line.

Our T-Shirt clock time was 30:30. So, if you do the math, you can see that the entire length of the race, all 10 kilometers of Peachtree and 10th Streets, was full of people for at least 10 minutes of this race. That’s a lot of people. I envied the helicopter pilots with their birds-eye view of the throng.

Speaking of helicopters, it’s amusing to climb off of the MARTA shuttle bus at the Buckhead/Lenox exit at SR 400 (all interior roads were closed due to the race) to the sound of five news choppers whop-whop-whopping their way over the startline of the race. They looked like a bunch of big mosquitos, just hanging out. Either that, or the harbinger of some Hollywood movie-esque disaster thriller, with hovering news choppers to bring it to the world.

Last, but certainly not least, in this story (or first, depending on how you look at it) was the trip in to the race. MARTA provided excellent service to the start line, with trains and buses running to get people there on time. Unfortunately, we underestimated the earliness-factor that we would need in order to get to our nearest MARTA station to aquire parking. I can now attest that the FULL LOT sign at the entrance to the Sandy Springs MARTA parking lot isn’t exactly fool proof, as at least 60 or 70 vehicles were allowed in that did not have parking spaces.

Suffice to say, we got there on time, after parking in a commercial lot next to the MARTA station, right next to a sign that says “NO MARTA PARKING.” Alas.

Flag-o-rama: Treatment of Our National Symbol

Ahhhh, our democratically-elected Congresscritters have once again voted in an attempt to amend our Constitution to outlaw the “physical descecration of the flag of the United States.” Actually to be more accurate, the amendment would only provide congress with “the power to prohibit” physical desecration, etc.

Soon, the Senate will take it up and we’ll see if a Republican majority can force it through with the required 2/3 votes. I don’t really see it happening, but stranger things occur every day!

Flag Laws:
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/Speech/flagburning/topic.aspx?topic=flag_statelaws
Texas Special Exemption to Flag Code:
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/texasflag.asp

Golf by Ear

Yesterday, I watched attentively as Tiger Woods and Peter Hedblom teed off on the last round of the 2005 US Open Golf Tournament. Dad and I paid attention until about the third hole and then we left to go to a Father’s Day dinner. This was immediately after Retief Goosen, the leader at -3 teed off.

After dinner, I got back into my car and traveled home from Birmingham to Marietta, which takes about 2.5 hours. I was curious how the tournament was proceeding, so I found a CBS affiliate on the AM dial and listened as I drove.

Golf by radio is fascinatingly tense! I found myself all hunched up over the wheel, breathless as Tiger tried to make his par on 16. I groaned with the gallery when he missed. I thought, when I turned on the radio, that I’d just find out the leaderboard and then go back to my Killers CD, but I was hooked and listened until Michael Campbell missed penultimate putt (to a soft groan) and then sank his 2.5 foot bogie putt to win the Open.

It was strangely fascinating.

Jesus and his Lungs

There is an AP article today concerning the possible cause of death of Jesus of Nazareth. (acutal title Jesus may have died of a blood clot in his lungs, Israeli doctor says By GAVIN RABINOWITZ, Associated Press, Published on: 06/09/05 )

The gist of this article is that Jesus may not have died from asphyxiation and blood loss, but instead from a pulmonary embolism. The article goes into more detail.

As the husband of an academic, I’m aware of the need to find things to publish, and as a card-carrying geek, I’m additionally aware of the occasional desire to investigate something odd, but in this case I have to ask, “Who really cares?” This was almost 2,000 years ago, and the historical evidence is sketchy at best, when it comes to medically significant details (and, of course, there are those who argue that there are no historical data at all, merely the Bible).

It just goes to show that there are some strange things people will argue about.

GIS for the Common Person

This CNN story shows that geographic information systems (GIS) are reaching deeper into the populace.

Having some experience using GIS for transportation planning and just generally screwing around with maps, this latest trend is specatacular! Many feliciations to Google and Google Maps for coming out with a beautiful map interface.

Of course, the linked CNN story doesn’t quite come out and say that the technical ability to take a list of addresses and turn them into a geocoded graphical layer (i.e. stick them on the map) is not exactly plug-and-play. But it’s getting better!

My job provides me with access to ESRI ArcGIS which is the most powerful GIS program available. Unfortunately, it’s also the most expensive, unaffordable by persons who want to merely tinker. The trend of smaller GIS products coming to the market will make it easier for people to know and understand the power of maps. (it will also teach them how easy it is to manipulate data to represent what you want, with a map. NEVER trust a map on TV)