What Winter SHOULD Be

Update: We're having 5-7 inches of snow here today, so I ran out and took some more pictures. Too many to post here, so just check out the album.


For all you people down in sunny South Carolina, I just wanted to put up some pictures of what winter is supposed to look like ;). And not just for a day, either. This is what winter is supposed to look like until about March, at which point everything will be slushy until mid-April.


So most of this break has been doing Christmas and family stuff. My parent's waited to get a tree and do most of the decorating until I got back, so it's been busy. Plus, we went into Chicago for a night and attended the live recording of "Wait, wait...don't tell me", which is a quiz show in NPR. Very funny, so if you're ever in Chicago on a Thursday night and looking for a cheap date, give it a try.

I was happy when I flew in because there was plenty of snow on the ground. However, since then it's rained, then snowed, then rained again, and so right now there's slightly less snow on the ground than in these pictures, but I'm hoping it will snow again before I have to head back south. From the picture on the right, you can see that we had a few days of ice fog which made driving extra fun, but did allow my nephew, Matt, to run around the tree farm pretending he was in "The Mist".

Now that Robbie's up in Rockford things should be more fun. We've already tried, unsuccessfully so far, so build a replacement Wii sensor bar, since he left his in Peoria, but I think I've tracked down the problem. Once that's fixed there will be plenty of Wii fun to be had.

With that, I will leave everyone to their Christmas-y fun. I hope everyone had a great break and I'll see you all in 2008!

Finally

After many months, I've finally managed to get a short story up on Robbie's blog, Wordy Me. I've been trying to write a long story for a while but, failing at that, a short story will have to do. This one was inspired by some interesting piano/violin music I heard on Echoes (with John Diliberto). For anyone interested, the artist is Ludovico Einaudi and the CD is called Divenire. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story, and be sure to read Robbie's stuff while you're over there. If there's one thing that I will never be good at it's poetry, and he's got some good stuff over there. So enjoy and have a good holiday!

The Latest

So yeah, it's been a long time since I've written here, so I feel somewhat compelled to give those who do occasionally look at this site something new to read. Actually, read is about all I've been doing lately...aside from the usual cycle of research and procrastination that is the spice of graduate student life.

The first book I breezed through was Rich Dad/Poor Dad, by Robert T. Kiyosaki. This book continues the line of non-fiction that I have been reading lately. Although the subject of this book is investing and wealth-creation, Mr. Kiyosaky goes about getting his points across in a different way. Rather than give the reader a how-to in each chapter, he relates his experiences as a child growing up with "two" fathers - one rich and one poor - and what he learned from them regarding money. Mostly, this focuses on the rich dad (actually his best friend's father) and how he taught a young Robert how to think about money properly. This narrative takes up a good part of the beginning of the book, with the last half consisting of Mr. Kiyosaki's discussion of how he currently operates and things about investing and wealth-management, as well as a few hints/tips for people interested in getting started or who are trying to teach these skills to their children.
Overall, this is an excellent motivational book. After reading it, I really wanted to start doing everything the book said. Mr. Kiyosaki focuses his attention on the real-estate market, but that is because that's what he knows. The thought processes in the book could be applied to a vast array of markets. However, this is not a book for the motivated person who is now looking for a how-to guide. But, as consolation, the author provides a list of recommended reading in the back of the book to cover this. All in all, a great read for anyone out there interested in developing wealth-building skills who just needs some motivation.

The second series that I've gotten into is the "His Dark Materials" series - a trilogy by Philip Pullman. The new movie, "The Golden Compass", is adapted from the first book in the series, and the trailer for that movie was what convinced me to pick up the book.
For those unfamiliar with the story, it follows the adventures of 11-year-old Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon (in her world, which is a parallel of ours, everyone has a daemon...essentially a part of their soul in animal form that travels with them at all times). Her earth is identical to ours in most respects, but they are at a 19th century/steampunk level of technology, and there are far more strange creatures and people than we have in reality. It is an adventure/quest story, not unlike the Lord of the Rings (although quite a bit shorter and you don't have to hear about Sam and Frodo for half a book), and although it was obviously written for children and teenagers, it's still a good, quick, exciting read.

Well, that pretty much sums it up - at least as far as reading material. Time to head to bed and dream of the end of the semester!

Mmmmmm....cake

For anyone who hasn't played the new Valve game "Portals", you should play it. It's short (approx. 4 hours) but awesome. The best part, other than some awesome portal-jumping action, is the computer and her dry, dark sense of humor. The computer also sings you a song at the end, which has been stuck in my head since I finished the game two days ago. So go, play it, or at least listen to the song, and delight in the glow of Portals! And remember, keep trying till you run out of cake.
~TheStoph

Yearning to Breath Free

So someone recently sent me an article from CNN.com about a Guatemalan man who has worked illegally in the US for the last 11 years. He saved his money over all those years so that he could take it back to buy land and a home for his family in Guatemala. Unaware of US customs regulations, he attempted to go through airport security with his savings in a suitcase - all $59,000 of it in cash. For anyone who is familiar with US customs, you cannot leave or enter the country with more than $10,000 in cash without declaring it to customs so that it can be taxed. So, in the end the entire sum of this man's savings was confiscated and he is in the process of being deported. He has filed suit against the US, but the likelihood of getting his money back is slim.

This story demonstrates some of the issues that arise with immigration. By all rights, since the man was here illegally, the government is entirely in the right when taking his money and kicking him out of the country. Of course, most people, including myself, believe that this punishment far outweighs the crime. After all, this man did not gain any money through illicit means. He provided a valuable service as a dishwasher for 11 years, and was financially prudent enough to save $59,000 over those 11 years - a feat that most Americans working at the same job would be unable to match. However, because he failed to jump through the hoops we have set up to keep non-Americans out of the workforce he has no right to his earnings. This is the law as it stands.

On the other hand, I do believe that there is a need for boarder and port protection. Not to control immigration, or protect the American workforce, but to keep out possible security threats. As much as I would like to support completely free human movement across international boarders, there are simply too many people who wish us harm currently to safely allow that. Of course, I believe that a change of our foreign policy could change that, but that's another debate.

At any rate, I'd like to get people's opinions about this story and immigration in general. Post your replies and see what people think! I will post a link to the story referenced above if I can find it.

G'night,
TheStoph


I found the story: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/27/immigrant.money/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Free Market Cure

Here is an answer to all the people who tell me Canadians are happy with their health care system and that ours should be just like it: freemarketcure.com

I haven't read through the whole site yet, just watched the videos, but they're very enlightening. Enjoy.

The Best Movie Series Ever

I just started watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for the first time in many months and remembered that Indiana Jones is the best movie series ever. Some may argue that Star Wars should take that spot, but I counter with the fact that Indiana Jones has Harrison Ford AND Nazis. The Empire may be menacing, but at least the Nazis were real. So for now I'm going to sit back and enjoy the exploits of the world's greatest archaeologist.

Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom"

I recently had a conversation with a professor, herself a fellow Libertarian, about the challenges of defending Libertarian philosophies against the more Statist ideas that have come to pervade modern society. On the surface the ideas of Social Security, public housing programs, worker unions, and licensing all sound, not just harmless, but necessary. The fact of the matter is that these and many similar government programs are, at best, ineffective and at worse hurt those they claim to help.

What Milton Friedman offers in his book "Capitalism and Freedom" is an in-depth examination of many such topics in terms of their economic and social impact. Unlike many authors who write in support of capitalism, Friedman examines each topic with no pre-concieved notions. This allows him to weigh each argument and give reasons why, in general, capitalism is the most effective and efficient means, rather than simply talking about how great it is.

Even though it's not exactly a page-turner, and its 202 pages took me quite a while to get through, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in capitalism and the economic justification for it. The book is especially interesting because it was written in 1962. Friedman predicts the expansion of the government into new areas, such as medical care, so it's fun to see how his predictions have come to pass, and whether he was correct or not.

So, my verdict: A good read no matter what your political and economic leanings. At the very least it will get you thinking through why things are they way they are and if there might just be other, better options.

The Sphere Expands

For those readers who might be looking for something more...how you say...abstract, head over to my good friend Berto's page at http://wordyme.blogspot.com/. Enjoy, comment, and be relaxed by his ramblings.

A United Failure

If my recent experiences with a certain airline (United) are any indication of the state of the industry, the glory days of train travel should be returning soon. I say this because I have been flying essentially the same route, from Greenville to Chicago, for the last 6 or 7 years, and the service has gotten progressively worse. At first it was simply that they stopped handing out peanuts and pretzels on their flights, and then that the flight attendants were a bit more surly than usual, but lately it's gotten worse. My experiences on my latest trip attest to problems, not just at the customer level (which have always been there), but at the upper levels of the company.

I should start by saying that up until now I have been remarkably lucky in my travel experiences. I had rarely had a flight delayed, never mind canceled. Well, reality has caught up. My flight up to Chicago went through several stages of disaster. At first it was just that the flight was delayed by some non-weather issue in Chicago. Then our plane arrived, but with no pilot. Then the flight that was supposed to have our pilots arrived, but with only a co-pilot. Finally, out of the goodness of his heart, the pilot on the last flight from Chicago to Greenville agreed to take us back to Chicago rather than head to bed. So 5 hours, and many ups and downs later, we managed to take off.

"Only 5 hours?", you say. True, that's not too bad in the history of flight problems. The issue is that this was all supposedly caused by the original pilot getting lost on the way to O'Hare. Never mind the fact that getting lost on the way to O'Hare is like getting lost on the way to Lake Michigan, the fact that one pilot getting lost caused a 5 hour delay is evidence that the whole operation is operating by the seat of their pants. In most operations, they have these things called "contingency plans" that are put into effect when something doesn't go right. Obviously, this is a foreign concept to United. Then, unlike the restaurant industry, where you can get up and leave if your food is 2 hours late, the airlines feel comfortable letting you sit in the gate for however long without even a hint of compensation. It was only due to the wonderful gate agent, who ordered pizza for the lot of us, that we had any dinner at all.

That brings me to my return flight, which I will try to make short. Last time I flew from Chicago to Greenville my flight had been canceled due to weather. Since we are having thunderstorms AGAIN, I decided to call and move my reservation to an earlier flight, just to be safe. First, I had called earlier and been told that I would be charged a $25 fee for this change. Fine, whatever. When I called again, not 2 hours later, I was told that it was actually $50. I grumbled but paid it anyway. When I got back home 10 minutes later and checked my flight status I found that the NEW flight that I was on had been canceled. I called customer service immediately where I was told that yes, the flight was canceled and that I had been booked on a flight for TOMORROW. Why not tonight? It was full. Apparently the people who just switched flights are the last to be re-booked. I guess I'm lucky that they re-booked me at all. The frosting on the cake is that they informed me that even though mere minutes had passed between being confirmed on a flight for a (higher-than-original) $50, that money could not be refunded. Frustrated, I said 'thank you' to the customer service woman, hung up, and promptly funneled my anger into a long complaint email to their other customer service department. I would have called, but of course they aren't open on weekends.

So, at this point I am dangerously close to becoming one of "those people" who yell at the poor gate agent who can't do a damn thing about it anyway. At the very least I hope to get my $50 back and, if I'm really lucky, they might give me a complimentary bag of pretzels on this flight. So my advice for anyone who's considering investing in the airline industry: save your money and invest in my new railroad. Trust me, it's the wave of the future.

Northern Wilds

So I'm up here enjoying a week of family vacation in the wilds of Northern Wisconsin before starting a new semester. Right now we're up visiting my father's ancestral home of Athens, Wisconsin, which is several hours of endless pine forests north of Madison. It's neat to see where the family came from and all, but I will be happy to get down to the Dells, where we're spending a few days relaxing, playing various board games, and perhaps visiting a few dozen water and adventure golf parks. Anyone who has been to the Dells knows exactly what I'm talking about. Also, for those of you who have never been north of the Mason-Dixon line, it does get hot up here, as I've attested, but it's only about 78, so I'm very happy to get a break from the oven that is South Carolina right now.

Anyway, that's the gist of it. This trip may also give me an excuse to learn the, no doubt insanely easy, task of posting pictures onto this site. Until later, goodnight and good luck.

P.S. I was extra bored, so I decided to make a map showing our location in Wisconsin (red dot). Enjoy!

Ron Paul: The Libertarian's Repbublican

The tough part about being a Libertarian is that it gets really old losing all those presidential elections. Every once in a while it would be great if a candidate appeared that us classical liberals agreed with AND had a snowball's chance in hell of winning.

Well, our day has arrived! Meet Ron Paul. As his website will tell you many, many times "Congressman Ron Paul is the leading advocate for freedom in our nation's capital". The nice things is, unlike most plugs for politicians, this statement actually seems to be true. Although I don't agree with him on all counts, he is, by far, the best candidate for those who have Libertarian leanings but could never quite see the point of voting for a 3rd party or those Libertarians who at least want to make a big step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, all those things that makes him politically attractive also make him unpopular with the Republican mainstream. The strange thing about it is that he represents what the Republicans were and should be, and for that he is hated (or at least strongly disliked) by others in his party. This, of course, gives him a slim chance of gaining his party's ticket for President, but there's always hope. But, after all, I'm a Libertarian, so I'm used to supporting long-shots.

So anyway, go to his website (www.ronpaul2008.com, if you missed it), read what he's about, watch some of the videos, and if you like what you see, let people know. There's actually talk of creating a Students for Ron Paul organization on campus if there is enough support, so you never know what may happen. At the very least you'll come out more informed than when you went in, and that's never a bad thing.

Dawn Breaks

After months and months of having created a site and never written anything there, I decided it was time to have a founding post. Of course, as is usually the case, I had some grand plan in mind when I created this site, on a whim, at 2 a.m. And, of course, that plan immediately went out the window...hence the several month gap between then and now. So, in the interests of at least getting some use out of what I created, I've decided this site will be about whatever the hell I want.

Anyone who knows a bit of German might think that my original idea was to make this some kind of site about photography or some such related topic. It wasn't. I called this site die Dunkelkammer ("The Darkroom" according to BableFish) because it is a cool-sounding German word that happens to have my name in it. Outside of that, there wasn't much thought put into it. When I had the idea to make a site - at 2 a.m. mind you - I believed that somehow having my own space on the Internet would give me this vast audience to which I could rant about various political and social injustices and create righteous indignation amongst my readers. Two things I realized upon waking up the next day: 1. There are enough Blogs on the internet that you could read them from now until the end of time, and 2. I don't have any readers.

Well, the first one I can't do a damn thing about, but the second one I hope to change, at least a little bit. So, to whomever may be reading this, you've taken the first step on what will probably be a not-very-exciting journey into whatever random nonsense I put up here, which, if you know me personally, you're probably sick of anyway. All I can say is enjoy, and for God's sake, whatever you do, don't, under any circumstances...