What do you think?

Set aside your thoughts on politics and policy for a minute, and give this a look. Then see what you think?

The truth speaks for itself.

Believe it or not, a LOT of people don't understand how fire sprinklers work, or how important they are in saving lives.
And worse yet, there are even people out there who lie about how they work in order to line their own pockets with less effective safety systems rather than tell people the truth. And trust me when I say these things, because this is my industry.

As a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let this one speak for itself.

The New Star Trek

Hi again, its been a while, so I figured I would come back on a high note.

When I herd that J.J. Abrams was doing a prequel for the Star Trek franchise, I was skeptical. When I foud out that it involved time travel, I sword off ever seeing the damned thing. I mean, come on!

Here, lets see. Time travel, we've seen that before how many times?

Star Trek: The Voyage Home AND Star Trek: First Contact were both time travel based. And lets not forget how many times they used that gimmick in the original series. It was handled a little more logically by the time they did The Next Generation series. But, as if they couldn't get enough of it, half of the series Enterprise series included “ The Temporal Cold War”.

Seriously, time travel is so over used in Star Trek, and misused at the same time, that I was seriously thinking that this would be another glorious flop. (Click on the link, I dare you!)

Well, my wife went to see it, and came back raving. Two of my friends had even more high praise for it, so finally, I broke down and decided to see what it had to offer.

Much to my astonishment, this movie captured what I felt was the best of Star Trek in a way that none of the other movies ever did. Personally, my favorite was Generations, and my second favorite was Wrath of Khan. I liked the intellectual and emotional elements of Generations, and the raw action of Khan was just flat entertaining, need I say more?

Surprisingly, the newest movie manages to capture both the intellectual side of the trek story, and the heart stopping action that was always the hallmark of the series for me. As someone who truly is a character centered person, I was worried that some of the characters, being portrayed in their mid twenties, wouldn't be true to their original depictions. But quite to the contrary, each and every character nailed the personality and attitude of the original cast.

I particularly liked Karl Urban's portrayal of Bones. As a man who grew up watching start Trek, I thought the acting for my favorite doctor was spot on; the voice, the mannerisms, the speech patterns, you name it! Well done all around!

None of the crew were left lacking in this one, everyone got their moment in the spotlight, and since all of them are college kids, or there abouts, we get to see the youthful energy that hasn't been seen since the first season of the original series. And a lot of the classic lines that made the characters so memorable.

Something I was also struck by. In the original series, at least according to popular lore, the women on the set, lead in part by Nichelle Nichols ( Lt. Uhura) demanded of Gene Roddenberry the ability to ware the now classic short skirts and go-go boots that helped make the women of the original series so eye catching, despite being in uniform.

Well, the new Uhura is played by Zoe Saldana, and in this film, you see a relatively long shot of her talking with her roommate, and both of them are effectively nothing but their underwear. While hardly a controversial image in today's movie culture, I felt it was a fitting nod to Trek's role in letting women express themselves.

In any event, Trek fan or not, I highly recommend seeing this film.

This is what a little time to reflect will produce.

I'm back, my time in the hospital game me a lot of time to think abut things, and I am hoping to make some changed in my life. Don't ask me why, but this song kind of helped me come to terms with the need for those changes, and helped alleviate the anxiety about it as well.

Medical Leave of Absence

I do not know how long I will be out of commission, but I am scheduled to check into the hospital for surgery on Tuesday the third of March. I am anticipating three to seven days in the hospital for short term recovery, and possibly three to six weeks of recovery at home. The hospital will have internet, so posting will be a possibility, but I can promise nothing, of course.

The Israeli wild card

You know, I really think that a lot of people in the US don't get it when they read about how mad Israel is over Iran's nuclear program. Sure, we read all the statements made by there prime minister, and we sometimes hear a sound byte from him, but how many people in the United Stats remember that Israel was the nation that launched an Operation Opera back in the eighties that took out there French-supplied nuclear reactor program?

Israel doesn't play by other people's rules, and with enemies on three sides (and Hamas making trouble for them from within) I really don't see them being overly diplomatic with the prospect of a nuclear attack looming large in the near future. I'm supremely confident that if you were to ask ten thousand Iranians to name a single city that Iran should attack with a nuclear weapon, Tel aviv would make the short list in a real hurry.

The IDF is a tough military, and they are well equipped and well trained, to be sure. With the lessons learned in the 80s about small facilities and the power of precisions air strikes, what intelligence the public does have points to large and well defended facilities in Iran that wont be taken out by a single squadron of aircraft. As a point of fact, if Israel does make a military play to take Iran's nuclear research capability, it will likely involve a healthy (but still small) fraction of the Israeli Air Force. Not only are we considering the craft needed to get the bombs to the target, but they are going to need fighter escorts, and defense suppression escorts to cut a path to the target.

And that is assuming that they go in from the air. The original draft plan of Operation Opera, before Israel was handed 8 American-made F-16, called for several battalions of infantry to fly into Baghdad and demolish the reactor with demolitions charges and then fight there way to an extraction point. It would have been a bloodbath to be sure, something reminiscent of the British experience during their airborne phase of Market Garden in World War Two.

Under the current circumstances, I honestly can't see the prospect of a high causality mission deterring Israel from action if they think that Iran is within months of activating a nuclear weapon. More to the point, Israel has his own nuclear arsenal, and while I know they would pay dearly for it, one can not dismiss the possibility of a preemptive first strike against Iran.

What a Clock!

Got this from a friend. Totally weird, but totally cool at the same time. Check it out, art meats science, meats... well... yeah... Just check it out.