A Flat Earth as Motivation.

In my drunken stupor I'd like to state as a matter of fact that I thank the flat earth society. I disagree with you completely but your dissonance to the unmistakable truth has only made me appreciate the awe of the round earth explanation. It is so glorious, our insignificant smallness as a species. Your ying to my yang has made clear my humble humility of humanity's fragility. Your anxiety has encouraged my expedition toward pragmatic motivation. To respect the greatest thinkers and scientists in our history is akin to a healthy diet. To long for personal endeavors of positivism is to reach a plateau of exponential love for our collective futures. I will bask in our insignificance and seek to reach the stars for they are our destiny. Your limits are not in my vocabulary. Your admissions of mankind's inability are not our progress. We will prevail to the edges of galaxies.

Babel

In regards to Douglas Adams' Babel Fish.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."

"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

So the case for the apparent intelligence of design being proof of God is a contradiction on the very basis of  religious faith. In fact proof of a deity in any form crumbles the idea of faith and thereby demolishes the very point of religion. Therefore, there is no God.

Still Solipsizing after all these years.

Actually, I still can only super-rationally/super-skeptically (Solipsistically) say that it only exists in my mind. I can even take that further to say that my perceptions (understandably limited) only seem to present what seems like reality. The reality may not even exist at all. The distraction is sensation, which seems to connect itself to my mind via my senses. Negative sensations such as pain or hunger are great at motivating actions (and this is the pragmatic part of it). If I was to truly be a Solipsist I wouldn't see the point in all of this and might as well convince myself to end it all... but alas, even I must have faith (in my senses, even if it's just a big Hollywood act) to pragmatically carry-on with what seems like a life. If I don't then I will (through my perceptive sensations) feel those aforementioned pains that I seem to so instinctively avoid.

Dawkins bashes religion so easily in his analogy to God's existence not being any more provable than a Tea Kettle orbiting the sun near mars or a Unicorn just a Solipsist can bash that line of thinking as easily by stating that other minds don't exist. Yet Dawkins too carries- on. He eats his breakfast and wears pants just like the rest of us.

Google Voice + Google Plus

Lot of speculation about Google doing a merger of Talk, Google+ Messenger, Hangouts and Google Voice.

Went to Google Voice today and found a newly introduced link to http://www.google.com/contacts.

This contact system is going to replace the Google Voice contact system soon. Google Voice Contacts has long used Google's OLD contact system because it had implementations for doing things like custom voice greetings for different callers and setting up rules to determine which groups of callers would ring which phone.

Delete Facebook

So I did it. After years of posting, sharing, reading about your breakfasts and commenting on your cat pictures, I've deleted Facebook. Along with Facebook, I've also deleted Twitter (without hesitation) but I didn't quit social networking altogether. Over the past couple months I've given Google+ a fair shot after not caring for it much upon it's release last year and I've come to really enjoy it. So much that my activity on other social networking sites came to a halt. My conversations on G+ are much more engaging and enjoyable and the systems used to make those conversations happen are seamless and fun. I don't want to manage three social networking sites and I don't want to pay $7 to promote a post on Facebook.

Kids

With the death's of the children in Newtown, CT I couldn't help but imagine how I may have reacted if I were one of those unfortunate parents who had to wait to find out if their kids had become victims. I doubt I'm the only parent to ponder this.

I told my wife about the news from my desk at work while she was looking after our own children at home. I wondered how she would react and how this might affect her attitude about our future with the kids. She was thinking the same things as me. Why should I even consider sending my kids to a public school? If events as horrific as this are possible then why should we consider such risks?

I've long been opposed to home-schooling. There is value in children being in a public school because we live in a social world and those aspects of life are (to me) almost as important as education itself. Not to mention that public teachers are more qualified to teach than myself. I retained a thing or two from my own studies but a teacher I am not. Can my arguments against home-schooling outweigh my instincts to keep my children away from harm? I'm not so sure one way or the other. One thing I do know is that I have time before these kinds of decisions have to be made.

What I'm left wondering is what can be done from our leadership to prevent this from happening again? How many incidents have to occur before something actually happens? I am not saying I know what the solutions are. I understand the arguments for and against gun-control and I think valid statements can be made from both sides, but I'm not so sure it's safe enough right now to send my own children to school. Is 20 dead kids enough? Something must be done!

An old letter to my wife

My love,

For the past couple years we have been through so much. I love you so much and I really feel so lucky to have crossed paths with you that night in Cheney. I never thought I would ever come to be married and furthermore, I could have never imagined to be with someone who loves and takes such good care of me. You give me so many good reasons to be a better person. If it weren’t for you, then I don’t know where I’d be now but I would probably be as reckless as I used to be and I’m thankful that you give me a reason to avoid being that person anymore. I’m so sorry that I haven’t been able to be your knight in shining armor in the traditional sense of the cliche. As you know I’ve spent our married lives in financial deficiency. I’ve also not always been, as you say, very chivalrous. With that I must say again that I want nothing more than to change this course and steer our ship into a place where you, me and Angelo can be happy. Of course, I must also express how much I love our beautiful son. He is such a wonderful kid and I know that when I leave you’ll be there to teach him things and keep him in check. There would be no better person for him to call a mother and he’s just as lucky as me. So with that... here we go, a new chapter in our crazy but beautiful story. I love you.

Tony

First Deployment

Fifth day out to sea on my first deployment and I think I'm already getting into the swing of things. We were treated to steak and lobster this evening for holiday routine and that made up forthe first part of my day. Nothing bad had happened, I was just thinking too much about how much I miss and expect to miss the things I love. It's hard to imagine how much more difficult it will get when I consider that this is only the fifth day of many more to come. At least it's a special deployment in that a lot of the time isn't spent underway but it will surely still feel like a long time without my wife and son.

Say yes.

"They want you or they don't... say yes."

Out to sea

Underway for the first time and it's not as bad as I imagined. Still, time moved slow even if it was so short for a first time out. I'm not looking forward to the longer ones.

Looking for the west.

Well. My world has changed... and as I write this and attempt to think of things to complain about I remember that I'm not the only one dealing with drastic change. I'm unsure about what I've gotten myself into and I wonder if I can trust this company and my many bosses. I play out the worst in my head and have to convince myself that this will get better... that right now, this is as bad as it gets. The worst of it is the longing to be with my wife and my son. I miss them so much.
In three weeks the second stage of these adventures will end and I hear the next will have me living again with some normalcy which includes the company of my family. Currently however... with unknown destinations and a sense of answers coming any day now I'm insecure and distraught at the possibilities. Please say I'll arrive somewhere we can bare. Please say we'll reside in the west.

Hoping for the best

In a week I will find out if I finally get the chance to live up to all of my promises. I've ironically been burdened by an unlucky condition that I shouldn't have to be embarrassed about. It's ridiculous that the well-being and future of my family depends on trivial things. All I can do is hope for the best...

Oh Charlie Brown...

Barack Obama is Charlie Brown and the Republicans are Lucy. Charlie keeps trusting that Lucy is going to hold the football steady so that he can kick it away but time and time again Lucy takes the ball away at the last second and he falls flat on his face. Charlie, Lucy is not to be trusted. She will disappoint you every single time.

Black Friday!!!

After resting from a doubly thanksgiving with first Alyssa's family and then my own, me and my mom woke up at 4am to head out and check out this years consumer deals for the biggest shopping day of the year. There was an attempt to convince Alyssa to join us but after the experience I'm sure she would have been just as irritated as she told me she would be if she had gone. It was crowded and cold but crowd's don't get to me as much as her so I wasn't really bothered by that. My mom was in awe over her first Black Friday experience and she's a sucker for a good deal so off we went. She went on somewhat of a spending spree but made off with some great deals and I'm thinking she'll be a Black Friday shopper from now on. We hit Wal-mart and Best Buy and I have to say Wal-mart's experience was much worse than the latter. I was just glad to get home afterward and get back to sleep.

A head so clear and lost.

So soon enough all the promises and there there's will be put to the test. I will be watched from afar and my great self-made expectations will, with crossed fingers be nothing short of successful endeavors. I go into these new chapters with reluctant hope and exaggerated strength but I will hold this head high and expect tall challenges. I know there will be times when I want to give up but I must always remember that this time, I can't. There is no panic button anymore and any attempt at pressing it this time would surely mean that I am not worth as much as I or anyone else had ever hoped. I want nothing more in these final months than to forget my journey ahead and entertain myself with the usual tools of distracting things but no longer do I have the ability to remove myself from those thoughts with my new clear head.