My brother’s comic/drawing blog

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My brother is an incredibly creative person. For the past half-dozen years or more he has drawn quite a collection of single panel comics. Fortunately, he’s starting to post them on his new website, Distract Comic. Many of the newer comics are in color and draw directly on the computer via his Wacom tablet. The older ones were drawn on paper, scanned in, and then touched up in Photoshop. I hope that eventually he’ll get all his comics up.

There is also a section called “the great drawing experiment” where you can request him to draw things…you should see him work; he’s really fast at sketching even the craziest of things! One time during a car trip he asked me to tell him something to draw. I thought of the strangest thing that I could: “Ross, draw a giraffe in the circus with a monkey juggling bananas and riding it like a horse as it is getting chased by a two-headed fire-breathing flying snail.” Sure enough he sketched something that fit the description perfectly. And now you too, my few readers (maybe one…or two…of you? hello? anyone reading??) can ask him to draw crazy things for you: the great drawing experiment

One thing that I hope he allows on the page is a way to distinguish random things that he draws as part of “the great drawing experiment” and his real comics. Maybe he could implement a category system distinguish the comics from the random drawings…

Hikers’ less than helpful suggestions to the U.S. Forest Service

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The suggestions below were taken from the article, December pittle-paddling, in SilentSports.

“Instead of a permit system for hikers, the Forest Service needs to reduce worldwide population growth to limit the number of visitors to wilderness.”

“Trails need to be wider so people can walk holding hands.”

“Too many bugs and leeches and spider webs. Please spray the wilderness to rid the area of these pests.”

“Please pave the trails so they can be plowed of snow in the winter.”

“The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake. Please medicate these annoying animals.”

“Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill.”

“Chairlifts need to be in some places so that we can get to wonderful views without having to hike to them.”

“Need more signs to keep the area pristine.”

“A deer came into my camp and stole my bag of pickles. Is there any way I can get reimbursed? Please call.”

“A McDonald’s would be nice at the trailhead.”

“The places where trails do not exist are not well marked.”

“Too many rocks in the mountains.”

A Phone Call From Nicaragua

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I just received an incredible phone call this evening. The caller id on my cell phone said “Unknown.” This usually means that someone on Skype is calling me… So I answered, expecting a friend. Instead, I hear: “Hello, Scott? Scott? How are you?” I have no idea who this is, so I ask who is calling and how he knows my name. It is pretty difficult to understand him and the line is crackly. Then I hear, “My name is Jose Manuel.” I could not believe it. This was a guy that I had met over a year ago (same summer when I went on the trip to Cyprus) in the small town of Comunidad El Bonete, Villanueva, Departamento de Chinandega. I had practiced my Spanish with him and he had worked on his English with me. He even had a CD player and had phonetically written out the lyrics to some American songs that he had. At the time, I would say that my Spanish was quite a bit better than his English. It was amazing how far along he had gotten in his English because he did not have an English-Spanish dictionary.

I was in Nicaragua doing a medical mission trip with a bunch of pre-med, med, dental, and vet students. We actually started in Costa Rica and then made our way up to Nicaragua. Staying in El Bonete was one of the highlights of the 2-week trip. The people of the village were very kind to host us in their homes for the 2 nights that we stayed there. It was a very interesting experience. Most of us slept in hammocks over the home’s dirt floor. I was fortunate enough to stay with Jose Manuel’s family…they were quite well off and had wood floors and access to a boombox. (I’m hoping that Jose will eventually have access to a computer because at that time he had not heard of it, the Internet, or email.) Some of our medical team actually slept with chickens running on the floor below their hammock!
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Top 10 U.S. Road Biking Routes

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There’s a place we all want to go when we climb into the saddle of a bicycle.

For some people, it has a name; it is the “there yet” destination that children whine about when hunger, impatience, and nature call. It is the slam of the inside door and whir of the A/C fans and satisfaction of knowing that the hot bath and unplugged phone await. However, for many others, it is the semi-transcendence of just being on the way to wherever “there yet” is; it is the rush of merely being in the saddle, legs spinning, heart pumping and wind catching the grooves and corrugations of a snug Rock-locked helmet. The bath can wait, as can the hug of privacy. There is satisfaction in the groove of consistent motion that makes the trip to point B just as (if not more) exciting than actually B-ing there.

But even for enthusiasts of the latter variety, every way does not lead to the Way (to borrow from a Buddhist axiom). The way along a shoulder on a commercial vehicle access road is a far cry from the way along a scenic and remote county path through the Fall-yellow thick of an aspen grove and the scarlet symphony of a maple swarm. The way through the crush of an urban jungle does not allow for the same introspection that the way along a mountain ridge road of breathless horizons does…

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Stock Spam: Any Hidden Gems?

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I get a lot of spam telling me about the next hot stock pick. It always tell me to act quickly so that I “DON’T MISS Ride this stock rocket.” Below I will analyze how these stocks actually performed compared to what the spam email promised. I doubt the companies themselves send this spam, but who knows. Therefore, do not buy these stocks without doing the proper research! Unfortunately, I only have data back to November 7th, 2006, but I’ll try and keep this updated as I receive new spam. The price listed will be the stock’s price at the close of the business day after I first received the spam (or the opening price of the next business day if the spam-advertised stock was received on a weekend or after market hours). The target price, if given, is the price that is quoted in the spam as the incentive to buy the stock.

Before even looking at the results I’ll make the guess that you will not make money on these stocks. If, for whatever reason, the stock price does go up, the volume on these pink sheet or over-the-counter stocks is so low that it would be difficult to sell (or even buy in the first place!) For example, the amount of money that is exchanged on the average day with these stocks ranges from less than $4,000 to about $500,000 (for WEXE). In comparison, on average over $800 million exchange hands with General Electric, $1.7 billion with Microsoft, and $3.3 billion with Google. It is much, much easier to buy and sell shares with high volume.

My opinion is that these stocks are something that you definitely do not want to buy-and-hold. In the very short-term, it may be possible for a few people (namely the spammers) to make some money…a few of the stocks have a small upswing immediately following the spam-advertisement of a stock.
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Doyle vs. Green: Stem Cell Research

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The Sheboygan Press recently had a Q & A session with gubernatorial candidates Doyle and Green. I thought the answer to the question of stem cell research was particularly interesting. (The italics and bolding within the response are mine.)

What should the state do, if anything, to encourage stem-cell research?

DOYLE — “Stem-cell is only going to get decided once. If I’m elected governor, Wisconsin will move in the direction we’ve been moving, the building of the Institute for Discovery, the largest public-private research institution, off of either coast, we’ve already raised $150 million, $100 million of it private money to build in Wisconsin. Ultimately, it’s a $375 million institute. The scientists will be here, we’re going to continue the momentum.”

“Mark Green opposes embryonic stem-cell research. Now he’ll come in and tell you, ‘I’m for stem-cell research.’ We’re all for adult stem-cell research, nobody’s arguing over that. But you can ask any scientist in the world, it is not a replacement for what is happening with embryonic stem-cell research. It is a much more limited technology, much less applications. What’s happening with embryonic stem-cell research is where the hope for cure is for diabetes and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and spinal cord injuries are.”

“Wisconsin, four years from now, if he (Green) is elected governor, very simply is going to be out of the business. The researchers aren’t going to hang around here for somebody who is calling them killers and who has voted for criminal penalties. These guys have offers to go anywhere in the world all the time, and the private money that’s behind the Institute for Discovery, it’s not going to come here. This issue is going to get decided on Nov. 7, it’s going to get decided one way or another.”

GREEN —”I support stem-cell research, I support medical research as a general matter. Where I disagree with Gov. Doyle is I do not support human cloning, he does. In those nasty ads he ran, every single vote that they list is a cloning vote. I do not support human cloning. I do not believe we should create life for the sole purpose of destroying it. …I also do not support taxpayer funding for research that destroys living human embryos.”

“There’s no law against it (public funding). If Bill Gates wants to write a billion-dollar check … my point is I don’t support the use of public dollars to destroy living human embryos. You can, with this new research, it has not been perfected, but I think we’d all like to see done in Wisconsin … since we’re the national leader, derive new embryonic lines without destroying living human embryos.”

“They do not currently do research by destroying living human embryos (in Wisconsin). It does not take place in Madison. There is not one example of any request of research funding that has been turned down because of lack of public money, anywhere. That’s the actual fact. The difference between Gov. Doyle and I is human cloning, and whether or not public dollars should be used to destroy living human embryos. Again, it can take place. But the question what are you going to use limited public dollars on. That’s the difference between us.”

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Battlestar Galactica Enhanced Podcast (problems)

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Just noticed that the SciFi channel offers an enhanced Battlestar Galactica podcast for use in iTunes/iPod. However, the link provided on the site does not work. (The files do not exist.) This is the link that adds the podcast directly to iTunes: pcast://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/podcast_enhanced.xml. To get the enhanced podcast to download, you must replace the “pcast” portion with “http” and then copy this into the dialog box under “Subscribe to Podcast” from within iTunes. Copy “http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/podcast_enhanced.xml” Voila, the enhanced podcast will now work!
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John Kerry’s “Joke”

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Soldiers hold up sign

From Iraq to a Milwaukee radio talk show host to the Drudge Report to the mainstream media, a photograph of U.S. soldiers responding to a “botched joke” by John Kerry rocketed around the cyber-world.

“Maybe this Internet thing will actually catch on,” joked WTMJ-AM (620) host Charlie Sykes, who first posted the photo Wednesday on his Weblog at www.620wtmj.com. “Who knew?”

The photograph shows members of the U.S. military holding a banner reading, “HALP US JON CARRY – WE R STUK HEAR N IRAK.”
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Google is Amazing

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Google Blogoscoped has a post about “Google’s Internal Company Goals.”

Some of the most amazing stuff is how Google wants to have “the world’s top AI research laboratory. They are also focusing on getting rid of spam in the top 20 user languages.” Also, Google wants to be carbon neutral. To that extent, Google recently announced a corporate policy to go solar. I hope that more companies follow Google’s lead. (Google partnered with El Solutions for this venture.)