Wednesday, September 17, 2003

I'm tired.
I need my sleep.
The furnace is turned off because the accessory connection is not working.
And then
The flowers bloom
Only to be eaten, by herbivors.
Dumb deer.
Deer dumb.
Walkng prey animals.

Good night Dad, glad you made it okay yesterday.

posted by Nick 1:35:00 AM

Wednesday, September 10, 2003

Its late, the car needs to be parked, the dishwasher emptied, the cat put into the basement, and the house cleaned up. In the day time the furnace is to be replaced, the cat goes to the vet, and soccer practice is in the afternoon. Then we need to have dinner and to get to working on background mathematics - worksheets and all. And perhaps the little guy will deign to eat properly at least once.

Thats why they call it a blog.

posted by Nick 11:57:00 PM

Sunday, September 07, 2003

The summer is more or less over. This was our "North American Tour 2003" summer. Bethany Beach, Delaware; WestPort, Massachussetts; Vancouver, BC; Calgary, Alberta; Creston, BC; Nanimo, BC; BeachComber, BC. Maybe 3000 miles total. Two Vans, three ferries, four airplanes, landing in a thunder storm, driving near a forest fire with dark skies. And visiting old friends in far away towns. Now the nights are finally getting cold enough for the kids to need jackets in the mornings while going to school. Oh boy.

I have learned a couple of things about car travel. First screaming kids don't behave better if you scream at them. Second they can scream a lot. Third they scream and bother each other just for something to do. Fourth, stopping at the side of the road until they shape up might be a better way to go. Fifth, how can they break so many headphones? Sixth, why, with three CD players in the van, are they still fighting over the music? Seventh, what do you mean your batteries ran out?

School has been on for two weeks here. We are earlier than most of the rest of the country this year. The kids get to ride the bus for the first time. They love that. I don't have to drive them. Why doesn't the youngest at home get toilet trained?

I haven't gone through the many hours of DV videos I took this trip. "I need a faster computer" to handle the pictures. Arghhhh.

All the appliances are reaching end of life. Hmmm time for a new car as well.

Our parents are getting old in Vancouver. Dad goes in for some consultation next week.

posted by Nick 4:11:00 AM

----- social commentary -----
"Jarhead", by Anthony Swofford

I used to think that histories told the entire truth and covered all of the important events and issues on a topic. Now I am beginning to see a lot of memoirs - the baby boomers and post boomers strike back? - and am developing a sense of the incompleteness and ambiguity in human experience. It has taken a long time to get to this level. I have enjoyed these books because the people who wrote them are generally serious, and reflective, and have something to say about the life's experiences. I don't get the same gravitas from fiction.

posted by Nick 3:56:00 AM

Sunday, May 18, 2003

The war is over, on to the endless war:

The last shooting war (fish in a barrel?) is near forgotten. The peace was forgotten in advance of the event, but now we play catch up. Hurry up and catch up, I understand a lot of actual people are needed to make things whole. And the bombings across the middle east, and northern Africa speak to the ongoing war. President George W. Bush said that the war is not endless. But his statement of a goal is ephemeral. This 'down payment' on a war machine looks to suck up resources endlessly.

The economy:

The economy sputters. Though the 'market' and 'society' are dependent on psychology to drive entrepreneurial effort, repeating the mantra that 'things are picking up' and 'our program creates jobs' are not in themselves sufficient to change the public sentiment. People need evidence to believe the teller. There is a litany of real problems that are outstanding, and they come to the fore when times get tough. Medical care, housing costs, full time employment, and an atmosphere of hope all suffer. The Roman Empire ran into this as well. At some point it stopped expanding, being able only to try and protect itself, and through corruption and a failure to compete with its neighbors, it fell. Are we as a society and economy able to suppress internal corruption, to be honest with ourselves? As the dollar drops in value our living standards are starting to be constrained. I hear that Porsche sales are down greatly in the last year.

The people are wiser than the politicians infer in their position statements and advertisements. We don't need to accept their force-fed slogans. We are to form our own judgements, and to act upon them without overt permission from a higher authority.

posted by Nick 1:59:00 AM

Monday, April 21, 2003

What drives the economy?

15 years ago I started asking economists I met about what drives the economy. I am beginning to see it a little now. My gut feeling for what drives the economy goes something like this. There are inputs, energy from the sun as bio-matter, an input of petroleum or electricity, raw materials like gold, coal, sand etc. Black box processing and consumption by people and businesses transforms these inputs. The Scientific American used to put out charts with all these factors listed graphically. Things like services cause a lot of spin in the market until all the inputs get consumed a little at a time. (This means the GNP is suspect since it calculates this churn). The real input and output to this economic black box is driven by human perception (why do we buy red jeans?) and modified by the business and technical skills of the people involved. So depressions and recessions are in some way affected by human sentiments. I do not purport to know how to read these sentiments precisely. Right now Bush is trying to buy his market sentiment, for a mere additional U$550 Billion. If it succeeds, it is supposed to whip up public sentiment. I think most people see past this, but not the controlling politicians. John Kenneth Galbraith poo-poos the ability of the president to affect things more than a tiny bit.

posted by Nick 7:58:00 PM

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

I've been home for 5 months. Not as productive as I had hoped. Someone is always sick, or needs attention. There are always external obligations. My littlest 3 year old is a bit of a terror. I have resigned myself to not have delicate things around until he gets older. I can't put stuff up high enough now, because he can climb. And he bites. I have resigned myself to replacing anything delicate after he gets a older.

The older two take homework as a recommendation rather than an obligation. Ouch. But they are all bright.

posted by Nick 2:08:00 AM

Its been several weeks since I posted last. I and mine have gotten a cough, and now we are more or less over it. My beloved wife broke her kneecap, while practicing her figure skating. Ouch. Now she gets driven around. Boy oh boy oh. Two more months till she walks normally.

My youngest siblings turned 40 today. They seem reasonably comfortable with this state of affairs. I found the lead-up more of an issue than the event.

SARS is spreading, and the war seems to have hit a plateau with the latest bombing of the command meeting site. Perhaps the enemy is destroyed. We'll find out soon.

posted by Nick 1:08:00 AM

Wednesday, February 26, 2003

So we dragged - almost literally - ourselves to the van this morning, and I drove Mom to the subway and the older ones to school. Then I set out on the trek home with the little guy. Twenty minutes to school, and 75 back. All the southbound DC traffic was lined up in our way, and we crawled. And there was all of a 1/4 inch of snow on the ground. Along the way I was serenaded with entreaties to "Go to McDonald's". Sorry, just dried Granola bar for us kid. Hope Kat hasn't spent a lot of time reclining on the cutting board and dishes back at home. I'd lock her up before we go out -- if I could find her. Where is that darn belled collar.

Then the school day is curtailed at 1:00 PM to get the kids home without the risk of snowbound travel in the evening. So the turnaround time at home is short. Plus, I'm dragging under the effects of a respiratory bug. I crashed this afternoon and slept more than the little guy. That let the older two watch a big dose of TV. Hmmm.

I've had enough snow, but like a lot of the universe, it is not for me to set the weather schedule.

posted by Nick 11:06:00 PM

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

The universe has coalesced in several stages through primal energy, through fundamental particles, through simple and complex elements, to planets, organic molecules, proteins, simple life forms, complex animals, and finally self-aware primates.

So we can contemplate the universe, and our selves, and the meaning of the nature of existence in the universe. Are there more than 3 physical dimensions? Are they wrapped around in little spirals? What is dark matter? Is there an edge of the universe, or is it defined by the limits of the travel of photons? What is beyond that?

But we come always to the grand questions about why, and how we exist. And I come back from the universe to the mundane.

Corrollary to this is the eternal question about the future of man. In the past the future of man was defined by the current religious beliefs which gave us the Pyramids and StoneHenge. Today's belief is based on the human mind and the science we study. In the future, do we dissappear as the universe ages and the Sun bakes the planet? Or will we dissappear in one of the 'million ice ages' that are expected to occur between now and then? Will even the particles of the universe disintegrate or collapse into a singularity?

Does intelligence increase and grow? Or are we doomed to destruction as a dozen terrorist campaigns reduce us back to rubble and rock throwing? Is the temptation to build and use that super weapon stronger than the need to cooperate? Now that we are able to communicate instantly around the world, should we not be able to recognize our universal humanity, and correct those social injustices and social problems we see? Food goes here, police manpower there, electricity elsewhere, and clean water everywhere. Why don't we have a continuous global discussion going on between people, and not power groups or governments?

I too, have a dream. I have a dream that my small children will grow up to a more peaceful, cooperative, communicative world, in which problems to one are seen as problems to all. And that they will have the chance to contemplate the universe and its purposes rather than scrambling to take care of the crisis of the moment.

posted by Nick 1:20:00 PM

Nick Radonic blog for family pictures and reflective thoughts, although I have gone to my other blogs for heavy thoughts and other diversions. :-)

A link about fields:
http://www.christianhubert.com/writings/field.html

Christmas 2004 Letter

Click on the dates below to see more pictures:

Past
current