randyorr.net

I got the chance to go and see body worlds this last weekend in Dallas. The exhibition will be at the Museum of Nature and Science until May 28, 2007. If you get a chance to go, I highly recommend it. Just make sure and buy your tickets online, it’s attracting quite a crowd. We had to wait an hour and a half for our time slot.

Using a process called plastination all of the water and fat is removed and replaced by a polymer. This can be done on a single organ or an entire human body(or even a horse as in one display).

The result is both beautiful and educational. The human body is an amazing piece of machinery when it is given proper care. Seeing side by side the difference between the lungs of a smoker and a non-smoker, the liver of a drinker and non-drinker, what a brain hemorrhage looks like, etc is scary. Not that I do a horrible job of taking care of my body, but if anything this has strengthened my desire to take care of my body with both exercise and diet. I think I’ll end this here and head to the gym now.

This question was posed to me earlier today. It’s really given me some problems. I just don’t know how to answer. I’m not trying to play myself off as some buddhist jedi monk with no attachments to anything, but it’s just stuff. I have a hard time picking one thing that I couldn’t do without. Don’t get me wrong, I have nice stuff. Nice truck, HD tv, speakers, furniture, etc. I’ve never really been into collecting things. The one thing I do tend to save is ticket stubs. Movie tickets, bus tickets, museums, sporting events, zoos, and so on. I throw them all in my nightstand drawer and pull them out to use as bookmarks. If all of these stubs disappeared I really wouldn’t be that upset. I honestly don’t have a valued prized possession, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

I always find it interesting which passages and selections have been highlighted, starred, and underlined in library books. What one person finds relevant or interesting might be something that I would have skipped right over. I stop and take notice though, because it was marked. This makes me stop and rethink, does it have meaning? Am I missing something in this passage that I should be getting? Different people read for different reasons, and this probably explains the differences, but it still makes me stop and think.

Ok, so I sat down for an early dinner with a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a glass of milk. I flipped on the tv and on came Brian Williams with the evening news. In the middle of chewing my third bite I hear the word “peanut butter”. Huh? I look up and hear the word “salmonella”. Whoah, what? At this point I’m running to the pantry to see what kind of pb I have. Well, crap it’s Peter Pan with the infamous serial number beginning with 2111.

No what am I going to do for dinner? I hate throwing food away. The jar of pb is nearly half gone with no problems thus far, so what do I do? Sigh, alright the sandwiches and jar are both in the trash
cnn story

Today is patch Tuesday and I have no machines to update. I still read about the updates, and you should too. I look around my apartment and see mac and linux, but no windows. This is very weird. No packages to push out, no updates to approve, no racks of servers with their endlessly blinking lights.

I did two things today that I should have done long ago.

First, I went downtown to the public library and got a library card. It seems odd that it took me this long, but having access to the university library probably explains this. My office was in the basement of the library for several years, and when I did move to another building I still walked past the library at least twice a day. There is a distinct smell associated with them that for some unknown reason I enjoy. One thing I always enjoy doing in any library or bookstore is looking over the tech book section. It’s interesting to see the choices that have been made. Which technologies they cover and even which books and publishers they tend to carry or display more prominently.

Second, I went to the Buddy Holly Center. This one’s just inexcusable. I really enjoyed this, there is some great stuff down there. It’s easy to forget how brief yet how influential the man was. It’s pretty cool how many big names come up in the story of Buddy Holly. In short, if you’re in Lubbock and haven’t been, go.

Made it through my first week. It’s been interesting.

Why must the west Texas weather play with me? Earlier this week it was in the 70’s, today I woke up to see frost on my windshield. I’m not saying it’s time for spring yet, but can we at least be consistent?

In other news, a copy of my resume can be found online now.

a silly little thing

Just saw The Science of Sleep. I’ve sat in front of the keyboard trying to think of what to say about this movie for about ten minutes. I’ve no idea what to say. I think it needs another viewing, and then the director’s commentary. Bottom line, I liked it very much. Since I can’t figure out what to write I will post a couple of sketches. Sometimes the hand just won’t do what the mind or eyes can see. I’m not giving up though.

Day three.

As promised, I picked two books off of the newly reorganized bookshelf so that I could write mini-reviews of said books. I chose one fiction and one non-fiction to try and keep things balanced.

“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard Feynman

The title nearly says it all. Richard Feynman was certainly a curious character. He was also one of the few people with a legitimate claim to the title “Genius”. The book has almost nothing to do with his work in physics, it is a series of stories that really show the character of the man. The one thing that stood out is his childlike curiosity and sheer desire to learn how the world works. This did not manifest itself only in physics, but in everything Feynman did. This is an excellent book, I can’t recommend it highly enough. You can find it on Amazon.

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

From the guy that wrote Fight Club, this one’s not for everybody. The book tells the life story Tender Branson, the last survivor of a suicide death cult. Palahniuk has the ability to make you laugh and then be completely disgusted in the same sentence. If our celebrity culture drives you insane, you’ll probably enjoy this. You can find the book on Amazon.