A positive to being an Orioles fan.

I listened to Cal Ripken give his "send off" speech at Camden Yards the other night before he headed off to Cooperstown to be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame. I started to feel that twinge (in a good way) that comes when thinking about something rather meaningful from my childhood. Cal was the O's when I was growing up. His name was in every box score from the time that I started following baseball. Funny thing though, I kind of thought he was a bit boring when I was younger but now there isn't really a better person for kids to idolize....especially considering the current news coming out of sports today (dog fighting and violent crime in the NFL, steroids in baseball, doping ruining the Tour de France, etc). Cal Ripken was not just an amazing ballplayer but also someone who cares about community and education of children. Those are some very impressive qualities. I no longer think Cal Ripken is boring, in fact, he's a model citizen and a great representative for Baltimore, the O's, and Maryland.

So for this time anyway, it doesn't get any better than being an O's fan.....however, you may want to wait a bit before checking that current box score.

out the door with cup in hand

It's been awhile since I've written about something that was the impetus for starting this blog-my adjustment and education of the South, more specifically, Alabama.....so here is a tidbit.

It is common practice when at a restaurant, to take the cup along home with you. For this reason, many restaurants use Styrofoam cups. I've heard several utterances of "Can I get a to-go cup". In this case the restaurant is using plastic or glass cups and people ask for a paper/Styrofoam cup to be on their way.

The other funny thing about cups at restaurants is that some of them are so large (think 64oz) that make more than a few adults consider using two hands to lift them to their mouths. I guess this is done so they don't have to worry about refills but some servers have come by and asked if I need a refill. Are you kidding me, if anything I may need an empty cup so that I don't pee myself.

I'll try to keep with the idiosyncrasies of the South......till then, could I get a to-go cup?

Boy Colors

A few days ago I was stuck in a training course and I was speaking with the girl next to me and she was trying to describe the instructor who we had seen earlier at a different location. She said "you remember she was the one wearing the "Coral" dress. "Coral?....what the hell is that?" I responded. She said "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to speak in boy colors. She was wearing the orange dress." Of course, this entire exchange could have been avoided by using "orange" to describe the dress. I mean....coral??? Who describes things in those terms, besides Gap, Banana Republic, and the Home Depot paint department?

It is a confusing world in which we live.

Something in the Air??

A truck just drove by the house, making a loud noise, so I looked out the window. It was a pickup truck with a device on the back that was spewing out some kind of mist. The conspiracy theorist in me immediately came up with several possibilities.....1. it is a sedative based spray to keep the population from getting too out of hand, it has been getting hot here and I think statistics show (or at least movies say) that more crimes are committed when people are strained by heat. 2. There has been a toxic spill in the area and they are just spraying an anecdote that will heal all of us and then "they" don't have to say anything to the public. 3. it is a slow killer because "they" know that social security is going to run out.

Actually, it was suggested that it might be a mosquito spray. I guess it could be something helpful, but even if it is for the mosquitoes I don't really trust a random truck driving around spraying crap into the air in front of the house.

Creationism museum opening in Kentucky

This week the Creation Museum opened in Kentucky, you can read about it here. As a geoscientist this news may have affected me more than others, and I believe this is an abhorrent event. Of course, I had heard about the museum before it opened, knew it was going to open, and knew that people would go. The worst thing about the museum is that it uses continuous faulty evidence in trying to explain it's case, and if the teachings at the museum are correct, my entire educational background would be completely wrong. Obviously, I wouldn't have studied for many years if I felt it was a waste of time and therefore think that this museum is an enormous step backwards for American society. There is room in society for religion & science to coexist and I don't believe, in this case, that science is trying to undermine Christianity.

The museum's premise is taken from a mostly Christian fundamentalist literal translation of the Bible (specifically the book of Genesis) where God created the world in seven days and humans were created in their current form at that time and that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. There are several variations of this and all are grouped under some form of creationism. The museum's main objective is to undermine the theory of evolution. Creationism's central tenet is that all living things were created at the same time and in their current form and the classic example is that humans were living at the same time as the dinosaurs. Apparently one of the exhibits even shows that during that time the dinosaurs were vegetarians and therefore did not eat humans.....A truly amazing (and ridiculous) idea!

Creationists have a response for every example I could give but they are ignoring many scientific aspects of how rocks have been and are being deposited. If you wanted you could go sit on a riverbank (of a river that has not been dammed by humans) and see how sand, and gravel, and dead organisms are deposited. It takes a long time....and even if you brought a cooler full of food you'd die there waiting for things to significantly change because it happens so slowly and in spurts (of course, if you were there for a flood you may see a large change, but then you might become a deposit as well). Using observation of the deposition of modern materials (sand, gravel, dirt, etc.) and several radiometric dating techniques geoscientists have determined the earth to be several billion years old and it is rather obvious that not all living organisms were living together at the same time, because of an intensely studied fossil record. Fossils from all over the world show that different organisms lived at different times. It's not a conspiracy.

I don't subscribe to a literal translation of the Bible and I do believe in the theory of evolution. And please, don't say "It's just a theory"......so is the "theory" of gravity....and I don't think too many people question gravity. The "evidence" used in the Creation Museum does not adhere to the scientific method. Science is always revising its results as new evidence is discovered and creationism is always revising any of this newly discovered evidence to fit one result. I encourage you to think about these things, ask questions, and don't just believe what anyone tells you.....creationist, scientist, or worse a creationist who calls them self a scientist.

Did we really win?

Something happened yesterday that probably didn't get much press outside of Alabama and Louisiana but it is quite a big deal here. The German steel company ThyssenKrupp AG "picked" Mobile, Alabama as the site for it's new steel plant. The two finalists were Mobile, AL and a site in Louisiana. You can read a little more here. The financial packages offered by the two states were astronomical. It was all about getting the jobs to come rather than collecting the taxes. It could be an honorable idea to get more jobs in Alabama but I feel the offsetting consequences are going to do more harm than good. You'll have to indulge me in a little naivete and "save the world" ideals for this blog entry.

I gues I take issue with the entire concept. Essentially most manufacturing is moving out of the northeast and Midwest because it's becoming too expensive (to have the desired profits). Detroit has been in a free fall for several years. So, if the manufacturing jobs are staying within the U.S. (which many are not) the Southeast seems to be the "in" area. This is mostly because its cheaper here and (what really bothers me) is that the environmental regulations here are either nonexistent or very minimal. There are already several Superfund sites in Alabama. It is not that I'm against jobs and on top of that, America is hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs that will most likely affect our position in the world in the future. However, this situation has played out so many times in the past. Large company comes into area, pollutes land & water, many people living around area experience much higher than normal rates of cancer, plant & animal populations suffer, company closes up and leaves without having to remediate the site, taxpayers pay to clean up site. I can't really see how this one is going to be any different. Crazy idea....how about holding those companies accountable?.....o wait, that will affect their profits.....we can't have that now, can we? However, those companies will pay lawyers millions of dollars to stave off any lawsuits brought against them by the families who are experiencing all types of odd sicknesses and that they should not be held accountable for gross environmental affects. They will pay the lawyers to prove that it wasn't the company who caused the sicknesses or the environmental hazards. Yeah right.

The other thing that I feel is unfortunate is that this will not increase the need for a higher level education in Alabama. It would be great if Alabama could get some high-tech companies to come into the state who may provide the jobs but not the pollution, but that doesn't seem to be what will happen. It is a chicken or the egg syndrome. You need a lot of educated people to have a company come, but you need to have the jobs to provide a basis for the education.

There are many things to think about in this situation but to me it comes back to: Is it safe to drink the water or plant vegetables in the ground? How many people are going to have to get treatment for cancer and other diseases? Is it worth the "cost"?

House Buying

Becoming a homeowner was a recent and new experience....I'm sure many people have similar stories out there and I really can't add anything to the process but here are a few of my tidbits.

I don't know if it's normal for people to leave things in the house when they sell it, or at least not mentioning that they are going to leave "stuff", but that happened. At first, I felt like I had just gotten a bunch of new goodies. Then, reality set in and I realized that there was probably a reason that most of this stuff had not been thrown onto the moving truck with everything else. Oh well.

It is a slight insight into the life or personality of that person though.....these people were not friends of the penny. In fact, I think they hated the penny....poor little fella, here it is, the only coin of a different color, being mistreated because of its low standing in society....just thrown about with no regard. Maybe this could be a study of society, using coins as a pretext for social classes. That's another day. So I picked up pennies all over the place. My grandmother always said "Save your pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves."....I think that was how it went.

The other thing is trying to figure out all the little things about the house. I think I know where at least sixty percent of the light switches are at the moment. It's the worst time to not know where the lights are located....there are boxes and the like stacked everywhere so it's not uncommon to be either checking to see if that toe still works that got caught on a corner or picking up the stack of things that I smacked over while looking for a light switch.

It's all fun though and its still at the point where I can say (in all seriousness) "It wouldn't be that big of a deal to take out that wall"....I'm sure that the naivete will wear off quickly.