Ordinary, Not So (stream of consciousness)

Looking at the past, the whole first quarter of my life seems to be as though I was not the person I was supposed to be. It invariably was essential for me to live that portion of my life to become who I am today. Though, it seems I should’ve been able to develop much faster to be me sooner. I know what was holding me back. I know why. It was really something holding me back too. My experiences where indeed limited by my willingness to venture out of the safe cave. When I finally did, it was one wild ride, as though I was being taking along a course to catch me up with where I was supposed to be. I'm living an ordinary life with not so ordinary events that got me here.

Now that I’m well into the second quarter of my life, I am comfortable with who and where I am. Maybe I am too comfortable. I like who I am. I know a lot of people wouldn’t though. I tend to ignore the little things, not taking others seriously when they trip up over them. Little mistakes amount to nothing in my mind, yet for some reason some others hold them over my head. On the other hand, I’m more concerned by the big picture, where others don’t seem to notice or care. I feel limited by my lack of resources to affect the big picture to improve things for everyone. Now that I’ve come this far, it seems I know I have so much farther to go, but can’t seem to find the path. Am I trying? It’s hard when the day-to-day distracts. How does one start something big when the space of time left between the little things is barely enough to recover from having to take care of the little things? Hell, what would I set out to do if I had the resources? I know enough to know I don’t know enough. I do know I’m not into fighting for causes. Too often, those are too focused on too little.

I want to make the world just a little better than how it was when I entered it. Some sort of legacy. Maybe for the time being this is why I write this blog with its articles about so many different topics, from astrophysics to specific details of my own life, from the politically incorrect to religious foolishness, from dreams had to hopes yet to be realized. And yet, there is so much I don’t write about. My words in this site are the tip of the iceberg. There are memories of loss that I dare not pen down. There are experiences that most would not understand that I don’t bother to explain. And there’s mundane details of my daily life that wouldn’t be worth talking about, even on my most bored of days. (I also don’t write about details of my work.)

I’m not asking “is this all there is?”, but I am wondering how I can make more of what I have. It’s almost as though the great adventure is behind me so many years go. I am a better person now, but does that buy me a more difficult task, or a period of reprieve? I don’t ask about the meaning of life. Knowing that doesn’t make life any more meaningful. (What is the meaning of life? To live.) There’s the feeling that perhaps there’s an unfulfilled promise or perhaps some task left undone. Or perhaps I’m impatient. I do have what I want at this point. What is there for me to complain about? Perhaps the choices before me from this point on preclude each other once I take the steps towards one? I want all aspirations to be fulfilled, but feel only one can be pursued at a time.

Atlantis Honeymoon

 

October 8, 2007 to October 2007, Alice and I honeymooned at Atlantis Bahamas, visiting Nassau, New Providence, Powerboat Adventures and Compass Cay, Exuma Islands, Bahamas. (Original post/backup link)

Vacuous

My fiance was vacuuming our room the other day. She accidental sucked up a
shoe lace. Normally, string type things get hung up on the belt drive.
Normally. Well, the string made it past the drive and all the way into the
blower. When the motor stalled, it took out both a secondary house breaker
and one of the main breakers in the box outside our house. Needless to
say, it took a while for us to hunt down that issue.

So yesterday, I set about to repair the dang vacuum. Allie watched as I
methodically took the vacuum apart, piece by piece until I had the blower
in two pieces.

At that point I let Allie have the fun of digging the string out from being
wrapped around the axial with scissors. I hate doing that, and she's
pretty good at it.

So then I reassembled the vacuum, with no left over parts. :) I plugged
it in and it ran great again.

Allie hasn't seen my mechanical skills too much, so she wasn't all that
sure if I could take the vacuum apart. Apparently the fact that I'm an
Engineer and I build devices for a living didn't register. Women are
funny like that. Quick to assume a guy can't do sumfin just cuz they
haven't seen it for themselves. I mean, it's fun to impress a woman, but a
little faith in the first place is nice too. This is a lovingly critical
comment about all the women in my life. :)

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Bad vision

So, I went into the eye doctor the other day to have my eyes checked. I've been noticing that over the past few years, they've degraded a bit. My vision degraded all the way down to 20/20 in one eye and "20/15" in the other. (I used quotes because I think the doctor just used a familiar term, as the normal correct term is 20/16.) Normal uncorrected human vision is actually 20/12 to 20/16. 20/20 is considered the low end of normal, but it is actually slightly off. This is what've been noticing. My eyes being slightly off. So, as it seems, I've just been spoiled with really good vision before, and now I just have good vision.

Superstitious metaphor

I am superstition only to the extent that I know thinking about something contributes to making it real to me. The new goal I set for myself is to focus on what I desire, and discontinue thoughts on that which I spurn. I feel this simple truth is nothing new, however. It was expressed by the ancients through metaphor, in the form of stories about gods. In that, I do not hold any beliefs regarding gods. When I do refer to god, it is simply the knowing use of such as a metaphor. Another metaphoric use of gods employed by the ancients was to plainly explain and understand what was then unknowable. As knowledge increases, that metaphor loses value.

However, this does not mean I deny the spiritual or supernatural experience. Too many people from every realm on Earth, in every known time frame, and walk of life have extraordinary experiences that go beyond simple physical world explanation. Too easy is it when someone who is void of such experiences attributes anecdotal recountings to the devil or imagination. I regard these dismissals as silly.

Even after experiencing something extraordinary, it is hard for some to understand the experience properly because they have been so indoctrinated with a system of beliefs. How much less so can someone who has not experienced a thing judge one who has?

The question is why have beliefs? Why not base everything on the self-quest for knowledge? I find that I seek out what others have learned, and augment that with my own experiences. For example, I know that terrestrial life develops over time through the processes of evolution and natural selection, but I do not hold a belief about these. I simply know that discernable and testable evidence makes knowledge about these processes more clear. I don’t try to fit in a god into my understanding of these processes. Nor do I try to use my limited knowledge of these processes to come up with unsupported conclusions that I then rigidly believe. In other words, I do not hold any beliefs about how life got started, even though I have knowledge about how it develops. I am aware of notions and ideas about the origin of life, but I treat these has just that. I do not need to have a belief regarding the origin of life in order to know that evolution is currently the best description of those processes.

My experience is that Christians and Atheists alike are too easy to judge something based on beliefs they hold, rather than on the human experience itself. To a supernatural event, the Christian will say, “It was God’s will” or “The devil did that”. To that same event, the Atheist will say, “It was your imagination” or “You misinterpreted the event; there must be a logical explanation.” To this I say that’s pretty arrogant to assume that they know the answer outright. In particular, this is the one area with Atheist are hypocrites because the general idea behind atheism is the lack of beliefs without evidence. If they have no evidence one way or another, they normally don’t jump to conclusions, except when something supernatural or spiritual is being questioned. Of course, Christians just make stuff up in their heads as they go along, in order to fit everything into their picture of this world created from their overly literal, under-educated understanding of ancient texts.

It’s expected to develop notions about something, and to test those as hypothesis. Most of us are in the wrong profession and/or will simply not live long enough to have the time to challenge every hypothesis or theory for ourselves. So, some bit of trust has to be placed in the works of others. Just as long as everything is understood as not absolute, it’s ok to accept reasonable margins of error in one’s knowledge.

I am not an atheist. I am not religious either. To me, both are contrary to my experiences and gathered knowledge. Both have had value in the process of developing my current knowledge base. They are not useless. They are both stepping stones to gaining experience and knowledge in one’s life. They both have their place, though neither can be used as reason to end the search for new knowledge and experiences.

Focusing one’s thoughts on a god can make that god real to that person. But each of us has the power to create our own metaphoric god. Judging someone’s metaphor is ultimately a judgment of our own. In this, I am also a little superstitious. Do not judge, lest ye be judged. Of course, I’m not perfect. I judge all the time. It’s the effort that counts; at least in my metaphor.

New England Trip

February 27, 2007 to March 5, 2007 

Alice and I visited New England, including Boston, MA, Providence, RI, Newport, RI, Foxwoods Resort Casino, Faneuil Hall Marketplace and Cheers Boston. (Original post/backup link)

Trouble with Its Trouble

Despite my best intentions, it appears I've only achieved an evil factor of 31% Phoowie!

Lorono

[The following is outdated]

Lorono is one of those surnames that is just hard to figure out. Does it have a meaning? Where is it really from? Anyone remotely famous that can remotely be associated with the name?  Clues are few and far between. 

Family hearsay suggests some origin in the northern area of Spain normally associated with Castile. However, I was contacted a few years ago by someone who had some sort of familiarity with the name Lorono. That person provided a digital copy of an old regional map which showed the location of a little populated area that bore the name. What was interesting is that he associated the name with the Basque population in the area (north central coast of Spain, near France).

More recently, I did some digging online to find another little populated area that also bore the same name, but in Galicia (north western tip of Spain). I found that the name is listed as being of native origin in Galicia. This is kinda stunning. It’s not a commonly known fact that the people of Galicia are Gaelic. At this point, I'm not sure If the name Lorono has its origin in Galicia, there’s a good chance it may have Gaelic origins.

Since the name also appears in the area associated with the Basque peoples in Pias Vasco, the suggestion might be that there is some link between the use of Lorono there and with Galicia.
The Gaelic link intrigues me because I am also part Irish. (Ireland is the only independent Gaelic country in the world.) It means that my heritage has some very interesting twists and turns, and may have yet to reveal some very surprising links across the three continents that my family tree derives from: Europe, Asia and North America.

Other forms: Logroños, Loroños, Loronos, Loroño.
References: Source 1, Source 3, Source 4, and Source 5.

Infant Memories...

I've heard it said that we are blank slates at birth. My own memories from the womb involve self aware thoughts and feelings. I do not have sensory memories per se, just mostly emotional. We've been so conditioned to believe we don't remember anything from our earliest ages that most of us believe it, but it's not true. I even remember having the conversation with my mom at a young age asking her why I didn't remember anything. The answer she gave me lead me to believe it was true. "No body remembers anything from when they are an babies." Well, that was wrong. Most of us just don't recognize what the early memories are. It is true that I don't have may well defined memories from before 3, but I do have some, mostly in the form emotions, without much sensory relationship to them. We don't have much in the way of sensory memories because our brain isn't yet developed enough to fully experience the the physical senses. So how is the brain going to to record such events? It would be like holding your finger over a tape recorder's mic while recording. I think much of the confusion on this topic comes from not understand this simple fact. Yes, we don't have many memories of physical events, but we do have the memories of the emotions that those events caused. We carry those memories our entire lives without realizing them and what they are. My memories of that period are not recovered. I've had them all along. It just took me a long time to realize what they were in the context of my own experience. From what I remember, I most definately had a well developed personality just waiting for a chance to express itself. But that's a different topic.

Homer

Ok, so here's the movies I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the year (and into next year): Click here. I've just noticed that most of the movies on my list are action or thrillers (non-horror) of some sort. It was just a few of years ago when there was a lot of good movies out in other genres, even documentaries. Last year, most movies either completely sucked or just weren't up to par. I've enjoyed movie going this year a bit more, but it does seem that many movies just don't have the same story quality as years past. It is as though fewer people know how to write a movie anymore. Or many that so many movies are being made these days, the quality writers are getting lost in the sea of crappy writers. Producers and directors used to blame the studios are hacking movies up, causing them ruin. These days, I think many movies are just crappy from the start. I think this is why Action movies are still holding their own, for now. There's not much writing involved.