Tagline

ONE POINT.
ONE LINE.
ONE DESTINY.
TO RULE THEIR OCTANT!

COMING SOON TO A WHITEBOARD NEAR YOU!

fine print: my math instructor said in class, just like a movie announcer (well maybe not quite like a movie announcer), those first two lines, and the first thing to pop into my mind were the next two lines. I think I've got something here...

What America Means To Me

Baseball, beer, hotdogs, cute girls (who like baseball), peanuts, hot tamales, bottleCaps...that's pretty much what America means to me. And I experienced it all this afternoon and evening. There are few things finer than an evening at a baseball park, watching a baseball game, doing things (i.e. beer, hotdogs, hot tamales, peanuts) that you should do at a baseball game. Who cares if your team didn't win? The game itself and the things that went on during it were awesome, and incredible. The beverages and accoutrements were delightful. I even sat next to a couple that was rooting for the opposing team, and we held meaningful conversation about the game and the teams. Ah! A delight to my soul. I thought you all should know that this weekend has been the greatest of my life...in the past several months.

Oh, and btw, my birthday (since this baseball game was my birthday present) is officially completed for this year. Thanks to all and to those six different beers (seven total) that I had this afternoon.

-bri

Call on the Breeze

Something was in the wind today. There wasn't a lot of it either, so the something was quite faint and syrupy. Sweet like Pixie Stixs and Smarties, but rich and filling like Lumberjack Red. It was calling to me and demanding to know why I wasn't taking action. I looked up to the partly cloudy heavens and cried out "I WISH I COULD!!!" But the truth is my friends are all occupied, I was mired in the death throes of higher education, and it's not a solo activity. What was that something you ask?

FRISBEE

It's that time of year! When the discs will fly! Bring forth the summer nights of freedom, delight, and good times! Oh! How I long for them again! Be prepared my friends, be prepared! How's your arm?

Attention Grabber

Yesterday was a bad day. Coming on the heels of a euphoric experience of the American pasttime replete with hotdogs, beers, and garlic fries, it was a much worse bad day than it may have appeared to an outside observer. But then, who cares what the outside observer thinks on my bad day, am I right or am I right? Right. Anyway, this bad day consisted or three very interesting things and it was only on viewing the third that the other two kind of clicked into place.

1. I was up early enough for the sun rise. This may not seem like a big deal, but it was quite lovely. Some clouds were out and about as early as me and they were making some beautiful colors over the Cascades. Lighting up the sky like that made me happy...and wish I was in bed.

2. Mid-afternoon had massive solar halo activity. A thin film of cloud cover allowed the diffraction of light from the sun, making a circle rainbow around it. I'd hardly noticed these but since my recent increase in sciencey thought, I've been eagerly awaiting a prime viewing. Well I had it, and it was really cool.

3. I was out driving when the sun was setting. Now this one rocked the house. The sun going down over the Olympics with some heavy cloud cover right above the point where the clouds would meet the mountains made the sun really red-orange. Moreover, there was a break in the clouds about a thumbs length held at arms length farther up with wispy clouds in this hole. I totally thought I might get to see the so called fire rainbow. Well, it looked like the entire area behind the mountains was on fire and it was the coolest thing I'd seen since #2 and #1.

All this to say I may have had a bad day, but I think God was trying to point out to me that He's still really cool. When I saw 1, 2, and 3, it got me thinking about the technical side of what's happening (i.e. Earth's rotation, water in the atmosphere), but it also made me think that God is saying, "see what I did? I did it for you so could think about me on your bad days. Trust me to get you through it." Huh, I said. That's right. Nice timing. Thanks God. He really is that cool to come up with rainbows and planets rotating and then still love us more than any of that.

π day

Well everyone, today is Pi day, the day that matches the beginning of the mathematical constant Pi, 3.14159... etc., ad infinitum, and what not. My calculus teacher this quarter (a capital fellow if you ask me) said that mathematicians don't really celebrate Pi day, it's the people around math people that think they should be celebrating today. People bake him pies to eat, so he doesn't argue the fact to hard. "Yeah Pi Day!" Who's making me a pie??

If you're at all interested in the amazing number that is the ratio of a the circumference of a circle to its radius, you can go to this link and search the first two hundred million numbers of Pi for any sequence of number you want. For example, my birthday, 3483, starts at the 17,774th digit of Pi. Moreover, if you were to use the full US date format of 03041983, then my birthday doesn't occur in the first 200,000,000 digits. Wow! (or not Wow! depending on how nerdy you are.)

http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery.html

There's other things that could be said about Pi. I could show you an alternate way I learned how to calculate it that use infinite series and stuff like that. It's way cool because every succesive term in the series of numbers you add up tacks 25 digits onto the end of Pi. Holy cow! What does he even mean?! Sorry everyone, but I just had to say something about it. So think about it today at 1:59:26 am and pm. (cause that'll be 3.14 159 26)

Corollary: I add this paragraph on 3/15 and would like to tell about the aftermath of Pi day. Krista Fosse, a veritable anthropomorphized precious gem, actually made me (of all people) a pie yesterday. Apple pie none the less, which is my favorite. And then Jessica Turver, a forest rose of surpassing grace and kindness, made two pies as well, not knowing it was even Pi day. Needless to say, there was much pie consumed last night in the Aerie and there was much rejoicing. Praise Him!

The Multiverse

Regardless of what the masses believe regarding the soon to be mentioned subject (preview: the multiverse theory), I believe I have come to the ultimate justification for any expenditure in proving and utilizing, if proven true, the following theory: the multiverse. Yes, the multiverse. WTF is a multiverse you ask? A brief history (as far as I understand where they [i.e. present day scientists] get their ideas), complete with diagrams.

The multiverse theory seems to me to come from two different ideas and or observations and I think either one is just dandy. Today, there is a debate about whether light is a particle or a wave, or some fancy combination of both. By particle, I mean individual "photons" of light and when I say wave, I mean the electromagnetic wave that propagates all around us allowing us to see. So, which is it? Well if you use what is called the "Double-Slit Experiment," you can demonstrate that light acts like a wave. By shining a laser at a double slit, you set up an interference pattern on a screen beyond the slit like so:
This is produced by overlapping waves. Now, the interesting thing is if you reduce the intensity of the light until only one photon of light is coming at a time through this double slit, then you get something quite interesting and remarkable. This:
Astonishing! I believe the popular opinion among the more extreme thinking branches is that the only way these single, tiny balls of light still make this pattern, even though there is nothing else in the way to hit it or knock it off course, is that in another parallel universe, somebody is running the same experiment, and those photons are interacting with out photons. There's more to say, but this is a blog and nobody cares.

The second idea is much simpler and I don't think there are any proofs yet for this. It is merely that every choice that anybody in any time has ever had to make has spawned a parallel universe; one where you did the alternative to whatever choice you eventually made. One where you went with brown socks and then destroyed the world and one where you stuck with white socks and had a good day at school. Get the drift? Good. It makes for fascinating discussions about science, psychology, morality, and Western civilization. For your viewing pleasure, I have drawn the first four dimensions and then what the multiverse would be like. Think of the sphere as one time unit. (The fourth dimension having popularly been accepted as time.)Theoretically, since there are an infinite number of these universes, there is one where everybody has blue hair naturally, or where the sky is a deep and majestic shade of purple-green, or where most everybody is a comfortable baked clam. Yes, I know. "What a stupid theory," you must be saying. Well, I would postulate that those universes would be infinitely "far away" from us and we don't need to worry about it. If you were to think of all these universes as little beads strung along a wire, then the one where everybody is a baked clam is probably ten to the ten trillion universes away from us. It doesn't matter. I'm concerned with the universes maybe fifty or more away on either side of use. Now we come to the reason for my sharing and the justification.

Somewhere, and most likely not to far away down that imaginary line of universes, is a planet Earth where the sci-fi TV show Firefly did not get canceled. It got signed for five or six or even more seasons and went on to great things. I am going to go to this universe someday and bring back the DVD sets of these seasons, so that this world doesn't have to suffer the stupidity of certain network executives and their shortsightedness by canceling the show before it even had a chance.

(Yes, you read all that sci-babble for that. Sorry)

p.s. Even more astonishing, though I didn't include any numbers in my picture, is that these parallel universes don't necessarily have to be at the same time in...well time. You could go to a universe that is our exact universe except at an earlier or later time frame. How cool would that be?

Segue

Walking down a hill through trees,
Every which way known to me.
I see a path I've not yet tread
And wonder why I've always said
"Every which way's known to me?"

Veering neither left nor right,
It stretches fore and out of sight
'Tween rock and stone and hill-gripped bush.
Advancing forth, I reach and push
Aside a branch that blocks the path
That's not unlike a basket's lath.
And seeing now the way is clear
I gaze and feel and sense and hear
Something strange and almost queer.

Stepping o'er threshold wide,
And glancing not from side to side,
Forth I walk my new found road
That's brightly lit by sun in nodes
And forms the sine from side to side.

Glancing back, I'm stunned to see
Everything the way it should be
For here the world has changed
On my road, ever so strange.
The air is lighter, grass sweeter,
And animals like lotus eaters.
What path do I trod with leg,
Started with so smooth a segue?