radiation

go check out ghost town a site about chernobyl bike rides.

i remember when chernobyl had it's meltdown inthe 80's. i was living in frankfurt at the time, and everyone was really worried about the increase in radiation. we even had the geiger counter out in chem class to see how much the radiation had increased over normal background radiation, and the answer was we went from 13 to 15 microroentgens/hr. really not that much, but it really freaked everyone out. farmers were covering their crops, and people were eating only imported food, while the rest of the world had stopped buying produce from europe. i wanted to make t-shirts that said chernobyl world tour on the front, and had towns and radiation amounts of the back instead of tour dates(i'm sure this wasn't a unique idea). in retrospect it is amazing how quickly the people who lived in europe forgot about it, or at least just went on living their lives, me included. it became just another thing that we lived with, along with antifreeze poisoned wine, anti-american riots, terrorist attacks, bomb threats, and the cold war. people who lived in the us were appalled that we took casually when we came back to visit during the summer. but if the truth is known, you have to take that stuff casually, or you are unable to live. just like now, we have to take terrorism casually(not the government, but the people) because if you let it control what you do then you aren't living. that's why in israel if there is a bombing in a neighborhood there are people back in that neighborhood as soon as it is cleaned up. you have to go on with life or you aren't living. people often say "if you stop {whatever} then the terrorists have won." and while that's true, i think it's more important to think that if you stop {whatever} then you have quit living, and who wants to do that?

russian comes down to vegas

well i just got back from listening to mikhail gorbachev speak at the thomas and mack arena at unlv. it was an interesting speech, with interesting responses from the crowd. at one point the crowd broke into applause and cheering to a statement by gorby that it looked like democracy was crumbling in many of the new democratic nations of the world. at another point a man in the row in front of me took about 30 seconds to realize that gorby was criticising the us government's handling of the iraq conflict. once he figured it out he started booing very loudly, and then sat grumbling under his breath for the rest of the speech, even staying through the question and answer session right through the honorary doctorate of law that was presented to mikhail. i have to wonder what he thought he would hear from gorby, didn't he know what gorby thought of the us in iraq?

anyhow it was kind of neat to see a person who i remember vividly from the 80s when i was growing up in w. germany. it brought back memories of the fall of the berlin wall, the fall of communism, and the end of the cold war. it's really too bad that we've had to find another war to replace it. as gorby said tonight, it's a shame that the money that had been used for the arms race has not been used for humanitarian good now that the arms race is over. its a bit strange to find my views more in line with an ex-soviet president that with my own country's president. that is not to say that i don't disagree with a lot of gorbachev's policies as well, but i think his grand view of what the world should be is vastly superior to dubya's. maybe that's because dubya's world view barely gets outside of texas.

see what cable can do to your life?

well, it's been about 1 year since i posted, and i'm not quite sure why. lots of things have happened, and i still haven't felt like posting. maybe it's been depression, or maybe lazyness, or maybe cable, or probably all three.

anyhow, my parents have successfully made their first trip w/ their trailer. i couldn't make them post entries, but they do have photos up in their gallery from the trip. it was fun having my parents here, nice to show them where i live, and sort of how i live. now they will understand why i cross the world famous las vegas strip 4 or 6 times a day, and they will know why i eat at pasta mia alot, and love fatburger. unfortunately it rained for the entire week they were here. well, there were a few days w/ out rain, but it was cold and windy on those days. the day they left it was sunny and 70. and it is now in the 90. well maybe next time.

my parents did bring me good equine luck. the whole time i've lived here i haven't ever seen the wild burros in red rock canyon. but with my parents here, i saw not 1, not 2 but 3 wild burros. not only that, but when i took them to see blue diamond we saw 1 of the 4 wild horses that just wander around through the town out there. that was very cool.

the best quote from my parents about vegas was my dad saying, "i didn't know how tacky the casinos would be."

two words: suicide girls. three words: suicide girls live. this was a great time. and for only $12 you just couldn't go wrong. sexy campy fun on stage w/ music from "big spender" to "rappers delight" to "babys got back" and great people watching off stage. mike, emmily, monica and i all went and had a great time. sherry from work(more on her later) cancelled at the last minute due to boy friend problems, freeing up the spot for monica.

i just got back from new mexico where i was doing a laserfiche install for work. i wish i could have seen new mexico, but mostly all i saw was the inside of 2 casinos. at least i took them for $30 in craps. i'm not sure how much i can write about this trip since i don't want work to read my blog and get pissed off at me for ragging on our partners in this venture. let's just say that sales people suck. promising the world without a plan for delivering it.

anyhow, i get back from new mexico and am told that sherry is no longer with my company. sherry was my tech dispatcher, and a friend. i'm not sure what happened as my company hasn't really been very forthcoming with details, and i haven't heard from sherry(and i can't remember her new home number, all i have is her boyfriends cell number). i just sent her email tonight, so hopefully i will hear from her tomorrow. not quite the way i wanted to come back to work after a weird time in new mexico.

oh, one more thing about my parents visit. we have a 3 way bet about weight loss. the first one of us(me, mom, or dad) to lose 20lbs wins $40, and if they keep it off for 6 months the other two have to pay for a plane ticket for that person to fly to visit one or the other. so i have gone back on the atkins diet. it's about time as i had gotten up to 217 in the last few months. that's what eating any and everything while drinking lots of beer will do to you. anyhow, i was down to 213.5 this morning so only 15.5lbs to go. i'm going the atkins route, which has the side effect of me not feeling bloated all the time. i think i must be allergic to something i eat like flour, but i'm too lazy to do the fasting/slow reintroduction of food to find out what it is, i just know that it's not part of the atkins diet. keep an eye out for my forthcoming weightloss graph. i'll get it up when i have a few more points on it.