Smittie's Ramblings

SOPA – Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge

The unemployment rate among college graduates is 4.1% (source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). We might choose to believe that this provides a case for getting a college degree. However, this overlooks some very important truths. Some people are not good at or happy in the types of jobs that a college degree affords. College is not necessarily the best format for preparing people for all occupations. Society needs the services of many occupations that are not well served by college education.

The thought being that if we give everyone a college education, they will rise to the socio-economic advantage that people with a college education normally have. However, what if it is not the college education that is the key to success? Is it not more likely that success comes out of pursuing that which you are good at, that which you find fulfilling? Is the only difference between an auto mechanic and an economist, the college education of the latter? Is it reasonable to suppose that had the auto mechanic instead gone to college, majored in economics, she would be happy working in economics? The most rudimentary survey of high school students shows that this is clearly not the case. Some people are made to more academic pursuits. Some people are wired to be outside. Some people are only happy when their hands are covered in grease and oil and they are up to their waist in a motor.

As a society we have made it second rate to pursue a career that does not involve going to college. Kitchen tables all across America are the battle ground of kids who are being told that they must go to college even though their passion is to build homes, fix cars, or be a cowboy. Where would today's unemployment rate be if being blue collar were not equated with being second class? If students who sought to pursue vocational careers paths were given equal time and resources as their college bound peers?

Mike Rowe hits the nail on the head his testimony before the Senate.

Bible

It was actually this app that inspired (or maybe persuaded) me to read through the bible in a year. The app popped up a suggest in the end of December.

"A new year is starting, how about starting a reading plan in the new year," says Bible app.
"OK, what have you got?"

Bible has quite a few plans, divided into five categories; devotional, partial bible, topical, whole bible and youth. I was looking for a plan that would get me through the whole bible. At the head of the list is Bible in 90 Days. Now, while I am quite literate, have a fairly respectable vocabulary, I am not a very fast reader. In fact, I am pretty slow. According to the description, it works out to about 12 pages of Bible a day. Next. A plan titled Chronological. Read through the Bible in the historical order in which events occurred, according to current research.

So far, the reading plan has me going through 3 to 4 chapters a day. I started in Genesis, Adam and Eve, beginning of the world, right? Read in Genesis through Noah's boat ride. I am currently reading Job, apparently he was next.

Bible is made available by LifeChurch.tv for free. I have had no problems with the app. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in a good Bible on the iPhone.

The ball has fallen in Times Square. 2012 has begun. If the Mayans are to be believed, we should all make the year a good one, it will be the last. Which is probably good advice in any case. Live each year as if it were your last.

I am not one for resolutions, usually. This year, I thought maybe I would try something new. So, here we go.

• Read the bible, all the way through.
• A blog post every week.
• Run 350 miles (not brave enough to commit to 500).

Hopefully, next week's blog post will not be about how I have abandon these resolutions already. Worse would be no blog post at all which would essentially be the same statement.

To read through the bible in one year I plan to use an iPhone app, Bible. The app offers access to a variety of reading plans. I am going to pick one of the one year plans. I am leaning toward an historical approach, reading events in the order they occurred. But, I have not decided yet.

I already use a Garmin Forerunner 405cx on my runs. Garmin Connect provides the ability to set goals. I have already set an annual goal for 2012 of 350 miles.

To track my blog posts… Watch this space for further developments.

Happy New Year. Welcome 2012.

I spent 6 years working at Apple. Those were the best years of my career.

When the .com bubble burst in late 2000, early 2001, Apple was one of the harbingers of the ensuing stock crash. In one or two days Apple's stock went from $78 a share to less than $20 a share. I believe it was in November. Apple called a meeting of employees. As everyone gathered in Cafe Macs, security personnel started moving through the crowd asking to see badges. Anyone who was not a full time employee of Apple was asked to leave and escorted out. The doors were locked, the shades were pulled.

Finally, Steve came into the cafeteria. He stepped up onto one of the low walls and began to address the crowd. Steve talked about what the senior execs believed was coming. Hard times in the tech industry. Then, he laid out the plan for how Apple would deal with it. No one will get any raises. No one will get any bonuses. And there will be no stock options. And there will also be no lay offs. Focus on your work and let us worry about the business. Do that and we will come through this, together.

Apple laid off a few people that year but nowhere near what the other tech companies were laying off. For the next two years everyone I knew in the tech industry was either looking for a job or worried about losing their job. I wasn't. There were no raises for about two years but there were no lay offs that I knew of either. Apple, under the direction of Steve Jobs, kept us all employed and working on interesting and exciting projects.

Thanks, Steve. It was one hell of a ride.

It seems interesting that the day after the 10 anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks, I begin my annual training as an Army Reservist. This year I am in Fort Dix, New Jersey helping my unit prepare for deployment to Afghanistan. I will not be deploying this time.

Afghanistan. What are our prospects in Afghanistan? Most likely, the current administration will declare victory and leave. The current trajectory does not appear to have the projectile landing anywhere inside the circle of success, no matter your definition.

There is no precedent for centralized government in Afghanistan. There is no established bureaucracy in Afghanistan. There is no history of democracy. In fact, even the process of voting is a new concept in Afghanistan with election results called into question from the very onset. The Karzai administration is fraught with corruption, struggling to maintain any authority even over the district in which it resides. I believe that this summary of the situation in Afghanistan, published in Foreign Affairs magazine, sums up the situation today.

For the past ten years about a half a percent of the population has been fighting two wars. About 70% of the unit has done more than two deployments. One soldier who is about 25 has been in combat zones for more months than he has been in college.

Smittie

As I stood in the parking lot changing out of my wet suit after a morning of surfing, I heard someone say, "hey, the world trade center blew up." What? What are you talking about? As I got home and put the surfing gear away, I mentioned to my wife that something must be happening on the East Coast.

I drove to work. As I walked into the office it was my first sense that something was really wrong. Everyone was quiet, staring at video playing on their computers. I sat down at my desk and started looking at email. One of the first ones that caught my attention was a link to a newsfeed. The newsfeed everyone was watching. For the next six hours, not much got done. We all sat silently watching in horror at the death and destruction and then the acts of heroism.

I was watching the names of the dead scroll by on the screen as they replayed over and over the video of the airplanes flying intentionally into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Up to then I had just been filled with sadness. But then I saw three names scroll by, all with the same last name. Because the ages of the individuals were included I could see that it was a family with a small child. Christine Lee Hanson, two and a half years old. My own son was only six, my daughter 11. The thought went through my head. What do you say to your small child when you realize that death is eminent? For the first time that day, I cried.

I do not remember much of the rest of the day. Around 1500 I decided to go home to my family. Nothing was getting done at work and I really needed to let my family know that I loved them. Driving home I listened to the radio. In an interview with a man on the street he told about watching firefighters joking with each other as they wrote their social security numbers on their limbs and torsos. That was to make identification of their bodies easier. I had to pull over.

In the weeks that followed, security was heightened everywhere. Parking in front of the building at work was no longer permitted. Car that were parked in from the building were towed almost immediately. For at least a day or so there were no aircraft in the sky. None. I saw flags everywhere. On my drive home that day there were flags on almost every overpass on the freeway. And they stayed up for weeks to come.

Congress stood as one for at least a moment. For a while, we were a nation united.

Two years in a row now we have vacationed in Montana. Last year it was an RV road trip through Yellowstone National Park, on up to Missoula, Montana and then over to Spokane, Washington to see Sam Mazzola and the Rockin' B Ranch. Sad news, The Rockin' B is doing its last season. I highly recommend you get up there and see it.

This year three fourths of the family (the daughter didn't think a dude ranch was for her) went to the Lazy E-L Guest Ranch in Roscoe, Montana. I have had a life long love of horses, ranches and cowboy culture. I decided I wanted to try the cowboy life on for size. My own personal City Slickers experience. What an awesome experience it was. First off, I totally missed my calling. I definitely should have been a cattle rancher, or at least a cowboy.

Before we got to Lazy E-L, we spent a day in Cody, Wyoming, supposed capital of the cowboy world. While there were some cool shops, it was mostly tourist central. We had lunch in the Irma Hotel, named after William F Cody's daughter. It was a fun experience but now that I have done it, I probably would not go back for the food. The hotel has gotten a number of good reviews so I might try spending a night there, again largely for the experience of it. There is a rodeo in Cody every night during the summer months. It was fun but a little expensive for the calibre of cowboy that competed. All in all, I am glad we went to see Cody but now that I have seen it, I probably will not make any special effort to go back. I do recommend The Proud Cut steak house. Good food and service, reasonable price. Next year, we will be stopping at Sheridan, Wyoming, the next on my list of American West locations.

We arrived at Lazy E-L at 1400 on Sunday as instructed. We were shown to our cabin and told to be in the cookhouse at 1500 for orientation dressed to ride horses. After about a half hour briefing on food service, basic rules and facilities on the ranch, we were led out to meet our horses. The Lazy E-L wrangler staff starts out with instruction on how they would like horses brushed and saddled. Once the horse is saddled and bridled, you mount up and move off to the arena. Walk around the arena, trot around the arena, the wranglers are looking to see who is comfortable on a horse and gauging the riding ability of the guests. Once they have a basic idea and are sure everyone is going to be able to stay in the saddle outside the arena, the wranglers lead off on a trail ride. That first day at Lazy E-L is the first and only trail ride we did during our stay. The next five days we rode on cattle every day.

We stayed in the Russell cabin. I love rustic, cozy feel of the cabin. The cabin is a single room with a bathroom. A queen bed and one twin. It is filled with lots of items from the era when the ranch was founded which creates the ambiance that I really appreciated. The Russell cabin really feels like you are on a ranch, even transporting you back a few decades. The cabin is very comfortable, the shower is large, modern and really a pleasure. The drawbacks of the Russell cabin are its size and amenities. No kitchen, no frig, no laundry. The cookhouse is right next door where all three are available. Russell cabin is perfect for a couple.

Our week at Lazy EL was exactly what we were looking for. Most days we were up at 0600 in order to have horses saddles before breakfast. When things worked right we were on horses and riding out to the day's work before 0800. Most days cattle work kept us out until lunch time. Three days we had lunch brought out to us because the cattle work was scheduled to take a little longer. The latest we came back to the ranch was 1530. There was cattle work every day. Participation in moving cattle depended on your ability in the saddle. I got to ride a lot of the more difficult terrain, going after cattle that had gotten into the woods. The biggest challenge for me was keeping up with the wranglers on the longer transits. Trotting is the favored gait of the cowboy because it is easy on the horse, hard on the cowboy. Monday I got ridden into the dirt. By midweek, I was able to keep up in most cases.

The remuda at Lazy EL is excellent. These are some of the best trained and well behaved horses I ridden in a very long time. All of the horses I rode did test me to see if I was really willing to be in control. Once that aspect of the relationship was established the horses responded wonderfully. I did have one horse that had an injury the previous season. He was still behaving like he expected some things to hurt him. It was a challenge to push him through things so that he began to see that he was OK, which was a good way to expand my own riding skills. All the riding is under the watchful eye of the wranglers. While they are a young crew, they are very talented horseman. They provided the guidance and oversight to make sure horse and rider did not get into more than they could handle while at the same time pushing riders to improve.

I guess the best review of Lazy El Guest Ranch is this. We have already booked our vacation for next year. We did look at some other options but in the end, we really has such a good time at the Lazy EL that we decided to go back again.

I have been interested in living history ever since I got involved in Civil War Re-enacting in the late '90s when we lived in Iowa. Back then I did the tactical stuff, marching around the field shooting a springfield rifle (sans bullet) in set formation of the Napoleonic style. I quickly discovered that I was really a lot more interested in the sociology than the history. I was more fascinated with understanding how and why Johnny did than what Johnny did.

This past Memorial Day several World War II re-enactors came to the Memorial Day event in Santa Cruz. I thought it was cool so I introduced myself and talked to them for a moment. I met DJ Tom LG and his lovely partner in crime, Rosey Lakos with a small entourage in tow. Their uniforms were excellent and they were, in the parlance of the day, charming.

DJ Tom LG "delicious assortment of original viper jazz, hokum, big-band, Latin swing, Western swing, old-time, rhythm & blues and vocal oddities from the 1920s through the 1940s on LPs, 45s & 78s." He does regular gigs through out the Santa Cruz area. The day I met them, Tom invited me to his Monday gig where they would be celebrating Memorial Day with some serious swing dancing and wartime era music. I had to go check this out. I really love the music and style of the war years.

All of this long story leads to how I ended up out on Los Banos at Eagle Field watch Mitchell B-25s fly in. Tom and his re-enactor friends had WWII field hospital, office and photographers office set up. It was a rather small group but it was fun. The Eagle Field event is really a reunion of the WWII pilots who trained there. Apparently there used to be a large number of aircraft that would come in. On the day I was there, there were 2 B-25s that looked like they were just off the assembly line and several trainer aircraft. We chosen to leave before the festivities really got started. This particular event was more of a local social event and less about the living history.

There is a Keep the Spirit of '45 Alive event in Kelly Park in San Jose the beginning of August. I am looking forward to going to check that event out. According to Tom, the focus there is more on the living history aspect.

US Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Michael J. Pernaselli 27, of Monroe, N.Y
KIA 24 April 2004, Northern Arabian Gulf, Operation Iraqi Freedom

US Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher E. Watts 28, of Knoxville, Tenn
KIA 24 April 2004, Northern Arabian Gulf, Operation Iraqi Freedom

US Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Nathan B. Bruckenthal 24, of Smithtown, N.Y.
KIA 24 April 2004, Northern Arabian Gulf, Operation Iraqi Freedom

I remember these three men because I have a connection to them, albeit a slightly removed one. These men were killed by a suicide bomber who was attempting to attack the Khor Al Amaya Oil Terminal (KAAOT). These men were about to board the dhow when the suicide bomber detonated his weapon killing these three men and wounding many more.

As a result of these actions, I ended up serving on KAAOT in support of security operations to prevent further attacks.

Petty Officer Bruckenthal was the first Coast Guardsman killed in action since the Vietnam war. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery. When I finally make it to Arlington, his is the first grave I would like to visit.

I will never forget.