For the Holidays: BreatheRight Nasal Plugs

1. Gwen Stefani
2. Antonio Banderas
3. Hillary Duff
4. Mariah Carey
5. Usher
6. Britney Spears

Each has a new fabulous fragrance for Christmas. As Kristen says, “it’s going to be a smelly Christmas.”

Discovery

The shuttle Discovery landed successfully today. While watching it on local news and CNN I couldn’t help feeling proud to be part of a species that’s capable of such things. One day I hope to contribute something towards that effort even though it’s too late for me to become an astronaut. That job wouldn’t fit well with where I am in life, but I’d love be involved somehow. Maybe it’ll be through embedded software development for robotic devices … who knows.

Qualifications aside, if I had no surviving family or loved ones I’d go into space in a heartbeat.

Doing One’s Job

“I was just doing my job” is a cop-out, used by weak and worthless individuals. Side-stepping blame under the guise of duty/dedication is disgusting. The guards that dealt with Martin Lee Anderson were adhering to their training, but doing so to the point that one ignores the chance to second-guess the appropriateness of an action is a frightening thing. The world is not so black-and-white. Full dedication to duty should never have become an honorable trait.

The Purpose of Elections

The purpose of having elections is for individuals to specify who they want to win a given race, not who they think will win.

Voting for a candidate you think will win does absolutely no good. Nor does it make sense. (If you’ve a desire to do that, there is something called a Poll that you should look into.) It also gives an incorrect view of how much support a candidate/party really has. So don’t follow the herd. Use the voice you’ve been given to chose the best person for the job.

In Reality

No election is so dire that you shouldn’t vote with your heart (Heart? Did I just say that?). The country won’t fall apart in 4 or 8 years. It’ll just get mildly flubbed. So don’t get caught on an emotional wave. Keep your head and be rational yet realistic.

Untheoretical

Discrete Mathematics and Physics: two subjects that assure me that I’m untheoretical, unscientific and probably only mildly cerebral. I prefer poking and prodding to thinking and nodding any day.

This is why part of my tagline is Learning by doing. Sure, I’ll acknowledge that others have solved a problem before me, but only after:

1. I’ve solved it for myself OR
2. I’ve bloodied my head against a wall in attempts to solve it myself