Dow 10,000

For the past several weeks or so, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been flirting and dancing with the 10,000 point mark, first approaching it, then backing away. I've been watching this dance with anticipation: Will it make it? Will it fall back down? What's going to happen next? Of course, with the stock market, you never know what will happen next, but like everybody who follows it at all, I like to guess.

A little history: the Dow hit 10,000 points for the first time ever ten years ago, in 1999. I remember hearing about it on the radio; people were partying on Wall Street. Since that point was reached, the Dow went on to surpass 11,000, 12,000, and finally hitting its all-time record high somewhere above 14,000 points. A lot of stuff happened in between those times. Then, last year in October, the market plunged us into a recession (it was a lot more complex then what I'm describing, of course, but this is good enough for the purposes of my blog), hitting 6,000-some odd points, before, in March, the market began slowly but steadily climbing its way back up.

So here we are now. I love reading articles by the bears-- "This doesn't mean anything! We could take another plunge at any time!" --which is of course true, nobody knows what's going to happen next. But for now, I like to be optimistic. We're on our way back up to unprecedented heights.

And I think Wall Street should buy lunch for everyone in America.

Mt. Rainier Part Two

On Saturday, August 22, Nicole and I made our first serious hike on Mt. Rainier, in preparation for our hopeful assent to Camp Muir next July. We hiked up to Panorama Point.

The hike was a lot longer and more difficult then we had been expecting. "Hey, it's only a couple of miles", we told ourselves, not knowing enough to take the elevation change into account. So up we went, with our one bottle of water and some maps. As we began to assent past the treeline, we kept looking back to admire the view and congratulate ourselves on how far we had come. But then we started spotting hikers way up above us, like stratospherically higher then we were. "That's not where we're going to go, is it?", we asked ourselves. "No, I think those are the really hard-core people who are going all the way to Camp Muir. We'll be up there someday, but we're not going up nearly that high today."

Later on, as we looked down from those stratospherically high trails, we wondered how much further we really did have to go.

At one point, a nice older couple saw us refilling our water bottle in a stream, and warned us against the bacteria found in all mountain streams, and they gave us some of their water. We didn't tell them we had already downed one bottle's worth of stream water. Fortunately, we never got sick. We'll prepare better next time.

The trail up split in two; you could take the longer route, which we did, or you could take the shorter route which went over a snowfield. We did see several people hiking on the snowfield; they had ice axes and other equipment necessary for climbing on snow, and we saw them practicing self-arrest. We are looking forward to getting some of that equipment and practicing next year.

Finally, during one of our umteenth rest breaks, a woman coming back down the trail gave us encouragement: "Just a few more minutes and it'll all be over, I promise!" she told us. We were way up on what I called the moonscape by this point: no vegetation or animal life whatsoever, just flat, dead-looking rocks. The lady's encouragement gave us the boost to keep going, and sure enough, a few more minutes brought us to the peak, where the trail turns back down the mountain, or you can take an adjoining trail up to the snowfield and on up to Camp Muir.

We sat and ate our lunch, amongst many other hearty hikers. It had been a beautiful, clear day all morning; now, as we were the closest we'd ever been to Mt. Rainier, banks of fog were rolling in. It was actually pretty cool; the fog covered the peak, but banks of it would cover and uncover different areas of the mountain, giving us thrilling glimpses of the face and glaciers.

The ascent had taken us four hours; it took us one hour to get back down to Paradise. On our way down we passed more and more people hiking up, and we could tell by how they dressed that many were not prepared to go even as high as we did. We congratulated ourselves more on how much of the mountain we had conquered.

Until we got to the visitor's center, and looked at the big 3-d solid map of the mountain: we had travelled perhaps one quarter of the way from Paradise to Camp Muir. I have to admit, that was a little discouraging. However, even if we don't make our goal next summer, we are both adamant that it won't be from lack of trying. We will take every opportunity we can to hike the Skyline Trail again, maybe next time hiking on snow, and getting the gear we need. We will hike to Camp Muir.

And one day, we will hike to the summit.

Precision

Precision

I've come to think of myself as being cut from the same cloth as guys
like George Lucas, Steve Jobs, etc. A friend and fellow Star Wars fan
once observed to me that George Lucas is the kind of man who likes
things to be just so; he's very particular about the kinds of movies
he makes, what goes into his movies, and all the details. In part,
that's what makes him so successful, but it's also earned him a pot of
criticism. This, my friend went on to observe, is because the people
who are fans of his movies have similar drives for precision in what
they want, so that while Mr. Lucas wants the next installment of Star
Wars or Indiana Jones to be thus, the fans want it to be thus. And so
you get a bit of a power struggle between the creator and the consumers.

I think it's the same way with Steve Jobs: very detail-oriented, very
particular about what goes into his products and who he does business
with; while his "fans" want their Macs and iPhones to be the best
possible product they can get their hands on, and they want it right
now, and they want every feature in the book. And you have the same
power struggle as with Star Wars.

I think I am much the same way. I have very certain ideas about how i
want to live my life, and where I want to lead my family. Thus. I want
to build a geodesic dome for our home, seated at the center of it's
own mini-farm; I want our lives to be assisted by Apple computers and
phones, etc., etc. The music I listen to, the sports I enjoy, are all
part of Dan Bothwell, and that's the way I like it.

If you don't like Jar- Jar Binks, you can suck it up, or you can not
watch the movie; George Lucas isn't going to make the Jar-Jar Free
Edition just to satisfy some fickle fans.

Sent from my iPhone

Mt. Rainier

Nicole and I have made the decision: next July, we are going to hike up the mountain to Camp Muir. We decided this over a wonderful conversation by the water on Sunday, and have begun making preliminary plans. We've both been working out a lot the past several months, and we keep getting stronger and more fit. We are now going to start a more rigorous training program to build up our strength and stamina, to the point where next summer we will be able to make the ascent. We;ve also been researching the hike, looking at books, etc. and will continue to do so. I will keep this blog updated on our progress. I can't wait!

The Almighty Dollar

Not to long ago, Nicole and I drove past a church whose sign bore the timely message, "Trust in God, not the bank.". Excellent advice, in these troubled economic times. But it got me to thinking, and I realized that even the dollar, the Almighty U.S. Dollar, tells us to trust in God. People look to money for happiness, knowledge, even coolness, but their money tells them, if they would only listen, In God We Trust. It's almost as if our nation's entire financial system is built upon a belief in God, first of all that He exists, and second, that He is in control of things. Which, of course, is true. So, what of the current financial crisis? I believe that it is only a true crisis for those who have put their trust in money and nothing further. For those of us who can say, "In God We Trust", well, He won't forget us. He has a plan.

Space Exploration

I just want to publically cast my vote for America, or anyone really, putting forth every effort to bring Mankind into space. Land people on Mars, build a colony on the moon, open up the Space Station to tourism, all that. The naysayers who complain that "it costs too much for what it's worth" lack foresight. I realize I'm just one voice in favor of space exploration, but I'm not the only one, and I want to make sure my one voice is heard.

J.P. Morgan Chase sucks

I want to take a minute to talk about our experience so far with Chase, our new bank. Basically, they suck. I monitor our checking acount daily, so I can gauge how much money we have and so plan out our shopping and spending. Unfortunately, at Chase, sometimes dates of checks, etc. being cashed can move around, so when it looks like we have plenty of money in the account for a small grocery trip, suddenly a charge that I thought was already taken out will get taken out that day, and now we're overdrawn. Chase has charged us three overdrawn account fees in the past week or so, where Washington Mutual would maybe have charged us one, if at all. Our plan is now to bail out of Chase and go to a credit union as soon as we get stuff together.

Take down your billboards, J.P. Morgan Chase. As far as my wife and I am concerned, you are not welcome in Washington State.

Tattoo

Nicole and I have decided to go in a bold new direction-- we've been discussing getting tattoos.  We've thought and talked a lot about what to get and where to get them, and I think we've come up with some good ideas for us.  I want a celtic cross tattoo on my left shoulder.  Nicole wants to get something, she's not sure what yet but something feminine and beautiful, on her left hip and upper leg.  We also both want to get a smaller tattoo, something kind of similar that links us together as a couple, and what we both thought would be cool was a Bible reference written in Arabic script.  Mine will read, "I'm my beloved's and she is mine", and hers will read, "I'm my beloved's and he is mine", from the Song of Solomon.  Both phrases look beautiful in Arabic.  I want mine to be tattooed as a band around my right bicep, and she wants hers on the inside of her arm.

We still have kind of a lot to talk about before we go ahead with this, and we want to visit a few parlors and interview the artists, and decide exactly what we want, before we get our tats.  But the more I think about it the more excited I get.  We're at a point in our lives where we feel getting tattoos won't be a stupid mistake, and besides, tattoos are hot.  The pic above of the leg flower tattoo isn't exactly what Nicole has in mind, but it's the closest I could find that I would actually post on my blog.

Virtually Infinite Improbability Generation

In the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe" books, there is a device dreamt of by scientists and ordinary people called the "Infinite Improbability Generator". This magical machine would be able to create anything, no matter how improbable that thing may be-- even if it's infinitely improbable. The scientists who are trying to built this machine find that it is simply to difficult to create--how would it work? What would it be made of?-- but they do manage to create a lesser device, the "Virtually Infinite Improbability Generator", which comes close to having the abilities they seek, but can only create things that are virtually infinitely improbable.

Then, one night, a technician working on the project gets an inspiration (he was half drunk at the time)-- what if the ability to create the Infinite Improbability Generator is only virtually infinitely improbable? Why, then the Virtually Infinite Improbability Generator should be able to create it! He goes over to the machine, inputs the necessary instructions, and voila! The Infinite Improbability Generator is born! The IIG goes on to have an important part in the rest of the story.

I've been thinking about my "Any ideas?" proposal, and it seems more and more like that Virtually Infinite Improbability Generator. If it can be done, my program will get you there. The possibilities are truly endless; I envision future users of it finding ways to go to the stars, improving humanity's condition, ending world hunger, ending tyranny once and for all.... The knowledge to do all these things is there, available on the internet, we just need to be able to obtain this knowledge, put it to use.

Maybe we'll even achieve Infinite Improbability Generation.

Books I can truly say have shaped my life

I would like to begin a series of posts describing my favorite books--books that I don't just love, but that I can truly say have shaped my life. I'll start out by just naming them with their authors, all together in one post, then over time devote one post to each book. I may also add other posts about other books I've read, maybe even my list of every book I've read since I was 17 when I started keeping track. But for now, here are my favorites, in no particular order:

Wild at Heart, by John Eldredge

Mind Children, by Dr. Hans Moravak

Cheap Tricks, by Andy Dappen

What Would Google Do?, by Jeff Jarvis

Operations Manual For Spaceship Earth, by Buckminster Fuller

1984, by George Orwell

Prelude to Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

The Holy Bible, by God

Bio of a Space Tyrant, by Piers Anthony

Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn

At first I was going to write about books that have changed my life, but as I got into it I realized that would constrict my choices considerably. After all, it's a huge thing to change someone's life. So I changed it to books that have shaped my life, because while almost everything you encounter in life affects you in some way, and almost nothing truly changes you, a lot of great things shape you. I hope you enjoy reading about why these books are so important to me, and if you are inspired to read any of them, then great! And if not, that's cool too, I know my tastes are kind of unique. Thanks for reading!

I want a hard-wood computer

Preferably mahogany, or maybe red oak.
I'm serious. Think about an old-fashioned grandfather clock, it's basically a set of delicately made mechanical parts set inside a beautifully crafted wooden housing. Why couldn't somebody take the electronics from a good computer and set it inside a housing, hand crafted according to design, taste, and art? This beautiful machine would look great in somebody's den (somebody like me), and would never go out of style, provided the electronics were properly taken care of, and allowances were made for occasional upgrades.

Blogging

I can't help but notice that I don't blog nearly as often as I have thoughts and experiences to share. The reason for this, of course, is that I simply don't have the time to write down everything that passes through my head. Maybe in the future I'll become more efficient about whipping out Blogger and writing stuff down as it comes to me, so I can move on; I want this blog to be my catch-all for ideas so I can sort them out more easily later. Hmmm, sounds like a pensieve....

Map (con)Quest

Little by little, Nicole and I are covering our map of Washington State with marked lines. Every trip we take we go some place we've never been, expanding our territory. I love our big long road trips, circumnavigating the state. Last weekend we saw Mt. Rainier from the far side for the first time ever, and we were wowed. There's so much cool stuff here to see and experience, and we don't know if we'll ever get enough. I don't know what we'll do when we've seen the entire state; expand to other states, probably, except that it'll will take halve the day just to get to a new highway by then. Oh well, the future and the open road awaits...

What is a Fire Sprinkler Designer?

When I first interviewed for my current job, the man interviewing me told me that being a fire sprinkler designer is about as non-glamorous as a job can get.  He said, "If you're at a party and someone asks you what you do, and you tell them, 'I'm an astronaut', then everybody in the place wants to be your friend, every girl wants to talk to you.  If you tell them, 'I design fire sprinkler systems', you can watch their eyes start to glaze over until they can think of an excuse to walk away."  It's not that what we do is hard to understand.  It's just, you know, boring.

You've probably seen sprinklers go off in movies.  Picture the scene:  the hero is trapped in a building full of enemies and he needs to escape.  He spots a sprinkler head in the ceiling, and is able to get up to it.  He holds his cigarette lighter up to the sprinkler head, and after several seconds, every sprinkler in the building goes off, creating the chaos our hero needs to escape.

In reality only one head goes off at a time, more if needed.  The sprinkler heads are automatic, they're heat sensitive, so when a fire starts below them they activate by themselves, but they don't activate other heads.  If the fire is big, it'll activate multiple heads, which must be strategically placed so that just the right sprinklers will go off.  A huge part of the designer's job is that strategic placement.  They can't be too close to each other, and they can't be to far away from each other.  I could write a book describing all the rules for spacing and placement, but I don't have to; there's already several.  Our primary rule book is the NFPA-13: The Standard for the Installation of Fire Sprinkler Systems, put out by the National Fire Prevention Association, who put out something like one hundred different rule books for different aspects of fire prevention.

The rules for sprinkler design are so stringent because it falls under the heading of Fire Prevention, which falls under Life Safety, which means it's very serious stuff.  Everybody from insurance  agents to the local fire marshal gets a say in any sprinkler design, which makes our job even more difficult.

I love my job, and I'm very proud of the things I know and do.  Oh, and to refer back to my opening paragraph, I've actually had fairly good luck in talking to people about my job, but I think that's because most of my friends have at least some construction background so they're able to put what I say into that context.  My wife Nicole, though, likes hearing me talk sprinklers, and she understands most of what I tell her, which is more than what most of my coworkers and bosses can say.  When we go into buildings and I see an interesting sprinkler feature I point it out to her.  During the six months I spent in training she helped me study every night and got really good at quizzing me.

Anyway, I hope this brief description helps explain a bit about what I do.  As always, thanks for reading.

Internet English

I was thinking recently about the Internet and computers and how new technologies often seem to necessitate changes to our language --abbreviations, new slang terms, etc. How long will it be fore computer keyboards begin changing to better reflect this changing language? Soon there'll be keys for "www", ".com", ".org", and all the rest; not to mention keys for "LOL", "BRB", and other words and phrases commonly used. And why stop there? I believe we are at the beginning of a long process of replacing words made up of the building blocks of letters with conversations made up of pre-made ideas and statements.

As this idea first crossed my mind, I immediately thought, "Oh no! We're dumbing ourselves down, teaching people not to read and write, simplifying the process of thought into a uniform mass of buzzwords!" I envisioned a future nation of people tying on giant keyboards where each key has a picture on it, one for each pre-made thought. A future where we use picture for words --hmmmm, now this is starting to make me think of someting other than "1984".

Consider the Chinese: an ancient people with an ancient language, a complex system of pictograms, a different picture or symbol for each word or idea. It has hundreds of thousands of them, a rich and diverse ecology of communication. This is a far cry from our 101-key keyboards, but what could such a language have developed from? Possibly something similar to what we have now?

Let's talk for a minute about codes. The passwords thatwe use in English are basically strings of letters and numbers that we hope we can remember but that thieves can't. Alphanumeric gibbberish, which only work in an alphanumeric language. When all you have to use are whole words, though, your password needs to be more than just one word, even a long one. It has to be a more complex thought. And thus we get the "passwords" often used in the Orient since antiquity: riddles, puzzles, and mysteries. And thus we have the mysterious culture that is the Far East.

Could that possibly be the direction that our society is going? Instead of constricting the range of thought, maybe the shift in our language from textual to visual is bringing us into a deeper and richer culture than we could ever have imagined. This excites me.

From a historical standpoint, I must point out that the English language is about due for a massive change. For the past two thousand years, the language has changed drastically approximately every five centuries. The last such change occurred just over five hundred years ago, with the invention of the printing press. I suggest that we are in the midst of another change, brought about by the invention of the Internet; we're just not noticing it (these changes take decades or generations to complete themselves).

In fact, I think this change began decades ago, with the invention of recorded sound and imagery. For the first time, young people can hear and see the way people talked in their parents', or even their grandparents', times. This causes turmoil in everyday speech. On the one hand, some pople like the "archaisms" from twenty years ago, and want to preserve them; on the other hand, some people despise them and prefer to invent new words. This accelerates the rate of change while preserving each change to be reexamined later. Throw Internet abbreviations into the mix, and you have the makings for an almost entirely new language another two or three generations down the road.

Another consideration I must bring up: most of the language shifts in the past two millennia have bee nbrough about through invasions of the English speaking people; it's only the last one and the current one that coincided with new technology. Rome conquered the Celtic and Gaelic tribes that occupied england at the time and introduced Latin. Five hundred years later the Romans withdrew and Anglo-Saxon tribes from Germany moved in, bringing their German tongues into the mix which is known as Old English. Another five hundred years later came the Norman invasion, forcing the French language into the Anglo language and forming what we call Middle English. Five hundred years after that saw Gutenberg's invention of the printing press and movable type, which ushered in Modern English and which we've already discussed. And now the Internet is changing things. What else is in store for the future of our language is something I would like to continue to explore.

Dan Bothwell, Sprinkler Designer

I am now beginning my third full job as a sprinkler designer. I have collaborated with several others over the past four or five months, but this will be the third with my name on it. I'm very proud of myself, and of all the cool things I'm learning to do. I can even talk about sprinklers to my wife and my friends and make it interesting for them. Several weeks ago, a friend of mine who's an electrician at a hospital in Tacoma, asked me how much water per minute a sprinkler head puts out, but couldn't tell me why he needed to know (hospital nondisclosure rules). We had a fascinating conversation in which we each taught the other something. This sort of thing happens to me once in a while. Anyway, I just wanted to post something with my job title in it so I can tell people to search for myself.

Really? Is it that hard to make a decent Freecell game?

The one thing I sorely miss now that I'm on Vista is that ubiquitous game of freecell that used to be available. So now I have an iGoogle account, complete with widgets--hey, I know, I'll search for a Freecell widget! Oh boy, lots to choose from. I chose one, add it to my screen, start playing--the window is too narrow to see the entire game, and no way to resize. Frustrated, I delete it and search again. The second game I try doesn't work at all. The third game is again too narrow--plus it makes me sit through a commercial for Febreze or something like that before I can play-- are you kidding me? Maybe I'll try again later.

Throwback

My wife and I got a nice surprise yesterday as we were selecting drinks and snacks for our upcoming road trip. It seems that real sugar is finding it's way back into soft drinks, for the first time in years. I didn't realize this, but pops like Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and others had been using corn syrup in their recipes instead of sugar. For a variety of reasons, they're now all switching back to sugar, which tastes better and is healthier anyway. They're calling these "new" flavors "Throwback". We got a couple and tried them, and I can't believe how good they taste. I didn't think I liked cola; now I know better. I hope this trend is permanent and not just a short-term marketing thing; if that's the case we may have to stock up on the good stuff.

Extra work day

There's a growing concensus around my office that today, Wednesday, feels more like Thursday. I've been noticing that for the last several weeks, Thursdays have been feeling more like Fridays. I think it's clear what's going on here: somehow, all of us have worked an extra day and didn't realize it. I say we make that right immediately.

Googlejuice library

I contend that the public library provides a primitive form of
Googlejuice (if you don't know what Googlejuice is, I recommend
reading the excellent book, "What Would Google Do?" by Jeff Jarvis).
They exist to promote books and information, as much information as
you can handle, all completely free. To an avid reader like myself,
this provides the perfect platform for finding and previewing new
books and then deciding which ones to buy and add to my own library.
The majority of my favorite books that I've purchased for myself are
ones I found at the library. Indeed, I would never have found "What
Would Google Do?" if it hadn't been sitting there in the Business
books section, with it's thought-provoking title and eye-catching
cover. Some authors and publishers might argue that giving away books for free takes away from their sales and profit, but I say it adds to it. This is the essence of Googlejuice, and I think Jarvis would agree with me.

Second Post

I guess I am now an official blogger, I never thought I'd do this but I guess everyone needs an online voice.  Normally I would have made this introduction of myself in my first post, but I wanted that first post to be about something I've been thinking a lot about.  There's much more to come, I'm just getting started here.  Thanks for reading.

Apple vs. PC

I always love it when I hear people complaining about Macs when they haven't used one in years and years.  I always want to say, "Have you not been paying attention?"  In the olden days, yeah, Macs were kind of wimpy computers-- but that's more a question of style then of actual performance.  It's not that they're worse or better, it's that they're different.  A friend once commented that Macs were kind of like European cars versus American cars, and I would agree with that.  When Apple Computer first started, they were billed as the Volkswagon of personal computers.  Nowadays, however, I would say they're more like the Jaquar of personal computers.  And, if I can afford it, I'd rather be driving a Jaguar than a Toyota Camry.