Thankful for the simple but wonderful nights with my family, when we're home together and all the windows are open, and the weather's perfect, and we eat dinner together and talk a little, and then the kids do homework at the dining room table while we clean up the kitchen.

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

"Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable." — Arthur Conan Doyle

"Gird yourself about with philosophy, an impregnable wall. Though it be assaulted by many engines, Fortune can find no passage into it." — Seneca The Younger

"Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man." — David Hume

A picture is worth a thousand words, and an action is worth ten times that again.

If you're angry all the time, you're probably not getting much done.

Family Trip to Japan 2019

 

 

Our second trip to Japan as a family.

Visited some old friends, saw some new faces,

Revisited a few favorites, discovered some new places.

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams; —
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

Computer Spec Evolution

If you know me, you know I'm a tech junkie, and you know I love fiddling with things. To that end—if you happen to be interested—below is the evolution of our household's main PC specs since February 1, 2007 (updated 5/27/19). Bold indicates current status: 

Processor	1. Intel Core2 Duo (2-Core) E6600 2.4 GHz (original to system 2/1/07) 2. Intel Core2 Quad (4-Core) Q6600 2.4 GHz (upgrade 9/13/11) 3. AMD FX 8350 (8-Core; 2 logical x 4 physical) 4.0 GHz (upgrade 12/29/12); upgraded stock CPU cooler to Zalman CNPS8900 on 12/27/13 4. Intel Core i5-9400F Coffee Lake 6-Core 2.9 GHz (5/27/19)
Memory	1. 2 GB (2x 1 GB) OCZ Gold DDR2-800 SDRAM 2. 4 GB (4x 1 GB) OCZ Gold DDR2-800 SDRAM (upgrade 1/7/09) 3. 16 GB (2x 8 GB) Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3-1333 SDRAM (12/29/12) 4. 16 GB (2x 8 GB) 2666 DDR4-RAM (5/27/19)
Graphics	1. Sapphire Radeon X1950XT 256 MB  2. Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 512 MB (upgrade 12/26/08) 3. MSi Radeon HD 7870 2 GB (upgrade 3/31/13) - card went bad 4. XFX Radeon R9 380 2GB (upgrade 8/13/15) 5. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6 (5/27/19)
Hard Disk	1. 1.0 TB: 2x Maxtor 500 GB, 3.0 Gb/s, 7,200-RPM, 16 MB cache (now repurposed as external media & backup drives) 2. 5.75 TB: Seagate Barracuda 2.0 TB Toshiba DT01ACA300 3TB + Hitachi Deskstar 1.5 TB, 6.0 Gb/s, 7,200 RPM, 64 MB Cache + 64 256 GB Samsung (2011) Sandisk (2014) Solid State Boot Drive + 2x Toshiba 1TB external media & backup drives 3. 6.0 TB: Toshiba DT01ACA300 3TB + Hitachi Deskstar 1.5 TB, 6.0 Gb/s, 7,200 RPM, 64 MB Cache + 500 GB Western Digital Blue SSD Boot Drive + 2x Toshiba 1TB external media & backup drives (5/27/19)
Optical	1. Lite-On 20x DVD±RW Dual-Layer, LightScribe 2. LG 12x Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Burner, LightScribe (upgrade 10/12/11)
Motherboard	1. Asus P5B-VM Intel LGA775  2. Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 AMD AM3+ (upgrade 12/29/12)  3. ASRock B360 Pro 4 (5/27/19)
Networking	1. 802.11n + Ethernet (2/1/2007) 2. 802.11ac + Ethernet (5/27/19)
Display	1. 2x Sony SDM-S73 17" SXGA (1280x1024) 16 ms TN panel LCDs, 2.6 MP  2. 2x HP LP2465 24" WUXGA (1920x1200) 6 ms S-PVA panel LCDs, 4.6 MP (upgrade 01/13/10)
Case/PSU	1. Thermaltake Lanbox with 550W Rosewill PSU 2. Upgraded PSU to Thermaltake 850W (12/29/12) 3. ATX Mid-Tower Case with Corsair 600W PSU (5/27/19)
OS	1. Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit  2. Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (upgrade 01/09/10) 3. Windows 8 Professional 64-bit (upgrade 12/29/12) 4. Windows 10 (upgrade 6/2015)
Input	1. Logitech wireless keyboard, mouse 2. Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Keyboard, Razer Naga Epic Mouse (upgrade 1/3/11) 3. Razer BlackWidow Chroma, Razer Naga Chroma (upgrade 11/24/2016)

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." — Martin Buber

Five Stories

Collage I made from newspaper images.

I'm an optimist, but I walk through life with the recognition that there are usually more ways for things to go wrong than to go right. It's just the way things are—entropy.

"Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it." — Bruce Lee

"I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead." — Kurt Vonnegut

There is no "meaning of life". Meaning is a result of life.