Doing It Our Way

I’ve been so busy I actually finished reading A Social History of American Technology by Ruth Schwartz Cowan over a week ago. It’s taken me this long to have the time and the motivation to actually write a review of the book. I’ve actually been attempting to finish the book for some time. This was another one of those books I had to get for a class in college that I wanted to actually read all of later.

Essentially the book covers the growth and change of technology in the US due to its particular social and environmental conditions. It actually does a good job of covering the subject matter in an entertaining and informative matter. I enjoyed it, but those of the engineering bent can have peculiar taste in books like this. The earlier parts of the book are more thorough. Due to the rapid advance of technologies in the past half century, the latter part of the book covers a narrower group of technologies. This is understandable, and I dare say the book would have been too long had it covered much more. For what’s there though it provides a really good perspective on how American technology deviated from technologies originally developed in Europe and how technology altered American society in return.

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Time Capsule Release

August and the beginning of September have been exceedingly busy for me. Work hasn’t been as bad as I suspected it would be, but most of the off work time has be taken up with things. I figured I’d run down a few of them to catch up.

A friend came down from Canada to stay with her parents a couple weeks. We hung out some while she was here. I made her watch “Venture Brothers” on DVD. Had a great time, but it consumed several evenings. I’m looking forward to doing it again next year.

Went to Georgia to the cabin again and had a great time. Went skeet shooting again and did much better. I got 10 more out of 100 this time, but I was given a few mulligans the first time. My shoulder wasn’t nearly as bad this time. I think going to the gym has paid off. Hopefully I can improve my shooting and shoulder damage again next time.

Oh yeah I’ve been meaning to mention that. I’ve been going to the gym for the past 3-4 months now. It sucks getting up early enough to go and still make it to work on time, but it’s the only time that made sense for me. I can’t say I’ve lost more than a couple pounds, but I have noticed a decided shift in weight location and the quality of the material making up the mass. I fully intend to keep up with it. I have a checkup at the beginning of October, so I’m interested to see if it changes anything.

I’ve had two friends that bought a house nearby and they were trying to prepare it for move-in. Since they live out of state, each of them stayed at my place at various times. I did a tiny little bit to help at the house, but not much. I’m just glad it wasn’t me moving. That looked like a pain in the butt.

That’s most of the big stuff. A tornado came through, but all it did was break a branch that was already damaged. We started getting rain finally. The ground has been so dry that it didn’t even run off during the downpours.

And so life keeps going on.

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Vote No For Bizarro

So I've been talking to friends about this strange idea that popped into my head a few weeks ago. Remember I said weeks ago. They were talking about McCain's campaign for the Presidency. About how it seemed to be making stupid attacks that were easily thwarted, and in the countering made the attackers look stupid. We discussed how much of it doesn't seem to make sense, and how he is nothing like the McCain of 2000. I mostly listened and made a couple of small points. Most of the race has been so asinine I can't stomach more that a small amount. They seemed ripe for it, so I shared my crazy idea.

John McCain is trying to throw the Presidential race.

There I said it on the record. He doesn't want to win. He is specifically catering to the extremist elements in the party. The very same elements that hung him out to dry in 2000. He is letting them screw themselves over. I also think he specifically knows the Republicans cannot have a President in office for another 4 or 8 years if the country is to survive and start recovering. He waited until Hillary was assured to be out of the race and then the weird and stupid stuff really started happening.

This thought entered my mind over 2.5 weeks ago. Look back at the past year of politics and see what you think.

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