Sure you're not a racist...

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image by sajbrfem via Flickr"][/caption]

Do you have any idea how hard it is to declare that you are a white guy and not make it sound like you're a racist? I didn't either until I had this recent email exchange:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Mr Terra,

Greetings, and allow me to introduce myself.  I am SFC Michael Sampson¹, an Equal Opportunity Advisor (EOA) from Ft Bragg, NC². I am in search of a guest speaker for the Hispanic Appreciation Festival/Luncheon³ that will be held on the 2nd of Oct. 2011⁴ at Ft Bragg. I was wondering if you would be our guest speaker for this Festival/Luncheon. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yes, the email really did start off with UNCLASSIFIED. Good to know.

Since I make a portion of my income doing public speaking events (and pickings are slim in 2011 thus far on that front), I was intrigued. And a little puzzled. So I sent this missive:

Hi Michael,

I haven't been back to Ft. Bragg since I was born there⁵.

I'd love to come, but am curious as to the content you're looking for and how I might contribute?

Because who knows? Maybe my fame has reached all the way back to my birth place, and they want me for my fine oratory skills rather than the path my ancestors took to the New World.

I awaited his reply with much anticipation and was rewarded with:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Mr Terra,

I thank you for your reply. We are looking for a 25-30 minute speech on the topic of Hispanic culture in America; struggles, personal gains and/or losses. Just a speech of your experiences,  be they either positive or negative. And maybe how those experiences helped you or deterred you thus far in life. I hope that is some help to you.

Now... I'm pretty quick on my feet. And rather resourceful. At this point I'm 100% confident I can nail, NAIL the type of presentation the Army is looking for. I shall take the audience on an emotional roller-coaster in those 25-30 minutes that leaves them weeping at parts and cheering in others. They. Will. Love me.

Just one problem. See if you can figure it out in my reply:

Michael,

It seems to me this information would best be presented by someone of Hispanic lineage. I don't check that box when it's census time. :)

Because how the hell do you say to someone, someone who thinks you are of a particular minority, that you are, instead, a pasty white guy? You can't come right out and say Sorry, but I'm white. Because that is the exact same thing as saying Whaddaya think I am, a Mexican?, which is not at all what I was trying to say!

To say I trembled in anticipation of his reply would not be far from the truth. It arrived:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Mr Terra,

I aplogize if I have in anyway offended you. I thank you for your time.

FUCK! I did it anyhow. Gods dammit, man! Did you not see the smiley-face at the end of my prior email?! How could that have failed to properly convey the levity in my statement?

In a meek frenzy (yeah, picture that), I quickly replied with:

No offense taken, Michael. Honestly, I was more concerned of that going the other way. :)

Great. No other option but to go with the I have plenty of Latino friends line, I suppose. To which I can only assume he's thinking:

... fucking racist.

^{1 - Not his real name. Don't want to Google-bomb the poor fellow.}

^{2 - Not the real military installation. See #1}

^{3 - Not the real name of the event. Though it was Hispanic. See #2}

^{4 - Not the real date. This is the military, people. They have really good weapons.}

^{5 - Not true with  #2. But I was born at the real installation in the real email. From the real guy. Really.}

The ghosts of distant quasars past

I've always considered myself a sort of amateur astronomer. Blame it on Mom, who kept me up late watching the meteor showers from the hood of the car when I was a wee lad.

My friend Dr. Pamela Gay makes it easy for would-be stargazers to do more than simply look up at the stars. She's one of the brains behind Galaxy Zoo. Think SETI@home, if you recall that project, and you've got the basics of this. You, the person reading this because you have nothing better to do with your time, can help forward human-kind's collective intellect by looking at pictures taken by the Hubble telescope and helping classify the astronomical objects shown. No PhD required!

Sound cool? It is cool. Very, very cool.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Hanny & the Mystery of the Voorwerp"][/caption]And sometimes, that cool becomes something even bigger than before. That happened when school teacher Hanny van Arkel discovered a strange blob of glowing gas in one of the images she was analyzing through the Galaxy Zoo interface. She brought this strange blob to the attention of the project scientists, and for the past 3 years astronomers have been using telescopes around and above the Earth to try and find out what it is. They now think Hanny's discovery, which she called a "Voorwerp" (Dutch for Thing), is the first known light echo of a quasar.

The significance of that may be lost on you at first. It was for me. But with the help of smart people like Pam and Phil Plait, I've come to understand why it is, in fact, so cool.

But not everyone has an astronomer in their back pocket. So Pamela and crew decided to take an odd turn in their educational outreach programs: comic books. Her team received funding to write a comic book telling the story of Hanny's discovery and the subsequent adventure in understanding it. That comic book will premier at Dragon*Con on Sep 3, 2010 (10pm Crystal Ballroom of the Hilton), and will be available for digital download on their website.

I can't go to Dragon*con, but I will be watching the event, thanks to the magic of the interwebz. You can too. Either directly from UStream, or from the webcomic's page.

See you there. Don't hog all my bandwidth. And go join Galaxy Zoo. Helping forward the cause of science, reason and understanding seems a might more worthwhile than fertilizing non-existent crops.

Why I'm protesting Liberty Market in August

I'm a huge fanboi of Joe Johnston. He's the mastermind behind Liberty Market, Joe's Real BBQ and other iconic eateries past and present in the Phoenix area. And he's a super nice guy.

But this time, he's gone to far. And I'm registering a formal protest.

You see, I just found out that Joe and crew are launching "Burger Daze" at Liberty Market this Sunday. On that day, and following every day for the month of August, they're putting out one specialty burger. And it's only available on that day. They know how to do burgers right at Liberty Market.

But back to my protest. I'm protesting this on the following grounds:

Exhibit A: Liberty Market is too far from my house to drive there every day.
[caption id="attachment_1500" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="See how far away Liberty Market is from my house?"][/caption]Putting the pressure on me to drive that far each and every day during the month of August to enjoy each tasty burger is simply too much to ask. It goes well beyond reasonable and customary practices and borders on cruel and unusual punishment.



Exhibit 2: Like I need to add any more mass.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Weighting Game or Why My Ass Doesn't Need To Get Bigger"][/caption]I'm over two decades out of high school and am not proud of the fact that I've gained an average of 2 lbs. every year since then. Now with Joe pumping out a burger a day, I fully expect my mass to increase exponentially. Which means I'll weigh 896.4 lbs by September. Good thing I can't wear white after Labor Day.


Exhibit III: What am I made of money?
So there's the burger, the obligatory beer, maybe a coffee and most likely one of those GIANT cinnamon rolls... Now multiply that by 30 and you get just under the Gross National Product of Tuvalu. Dammit, Joe! I've got a kid in college and wife with expensive hobbies, man! One of them will have to be sold off to slavery for me to afford this!

So join me in protesting Liberty Market and their insidious "Burger Daze" next month. I figure the best place to protest is on-site. We'll get our message across that way better. And I hear they have some real tasty burgers in case we get hungry carrying those signs.

Skepchick Party Rock Band Xbox Now On Auction

I don't play Rock Band. I'm convinced of an inverse proportional relationship to your skill as musician with the real world analog of the Rock Band "instruments" and how well your performance is measured by your ability to strike or "strum" the shitty pieces of plastic required in said game.

But get a few beers and shots of Knob Creek in me, and that theory can go screw itself. Sort of. I still won't pick up the "instruments", but I will sing.

And at the Skepchick party at TAM8, sing I did. Here's a shot of me rockin' the house to the smooth groove of Stevie Wonder's Superstition. Prior to this post, you could only live the glory that was me on that night vicariously through photos. But now, you can own a piece of history legend.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Signed XBox on Auction"][/caption]The Skepchics are auctioning off the Xbox, having first acquired the signatures of such luminaries from the party like... me! Oh, and I suppose a few more. Like these fine folks and close, personal friends of mine (to steal from Phil), in no particular order since I'm not first:

• Simon Singh
  
• Phil Plait
  
• Richard Saunders
  
• Rachael “Dr Rachie” Dunlop
  
• Joe Nickell
  
• DJ Grothe
  
• Michael Shermer
  
• Captain Disillusion
  
• Evo Terra (See? Not first.)
  
• Ben Radford
  
• Swoopy
  
• Brian Dunning
  
• Tracy King
  
• Sam Ogden
  
• Surly Amy Davis Roth

And your money just isn't going to support the drunken abandoness of skeptics in Vegas. At least not all of your money. This is part of the Skepchicks "virtual bake sale", which according to Rebecca Watson, will...

... raise the money to get me to ATL! We’ll auction a few items so that you get cool stuff while I get to attend Dragon*Con, do some outreach, and host Maria’s Star Party (a big success last year raising money for the American Cancer Society in honor of Jeff Medkeff, who once named an asteroid after me).

We’ll be using the eBayz to auction off several items through the Women Thinking Free Foundation, which was set up by Skepchick Elyse to do awesome things in Chicago like fighting anti-vaccination misinformation. Your winning bid will go toward a plane ticket and hotel room for me, and if we happen to raise more than we need then the rest will go to the WTFF.

So get a piece of history. With me on it. And good luck getting what you play to match what's on screen to howthe song actually should be played on a real instrument. Or just set it on your coffee table and use it as a conversation piece.

Happy retirement to my Mom!

[caption id="attachment_1474" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Vickie and the most handsome boy in the world"][/caption]This is my mom, Vickie. Today she passed a milestone that I'll never make: she retired from her job with the state of Oklahoma after 387 years^*. With budget cuts looming and just a few years short of her initially planned date, they offered her an out. Which she took. Smart cookie. She takes after her only and most favorite son. He's the devastatingly handsome little boy wondering how the hell her eyelashes got so gigantic.

[caption id="attachment_1475" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Vickie teaches aerobics to my highschool class"][/caption]So while this is by all auspices a congratulatory post, it's also a chance for me to post a bunch of photos of Mom. (Click any to open full-size.) Hey, she mugs for the camera as much as her son. So the first thing you'll notices is that Mom is smoking hot. The first question you'll have is "did she have you when she was eight?" No, she did not have me when she was eight. She had me when she was 20. So if you know how old I am (hint: it's on Wikipedia), you'll know how old Mom is. Never tell a ladies age. But I can't stop you from knowing math. Nor could I stop her from teaching aerobics during my junior year in highschool to all of my friends. Yes. I assure you it was just as much as a treat as you are imagining. But I grew a pretty thick skin as a Lamarckian response.

[caption id="attachment_1476" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Vickie as The Village Person"][/caption]Mom still gets mistaken for for being decades younger than she is. Just a month ago, the lady at the local convenience store referred to her as "my wife". That doesn't mean I look old. No, gods dammit it does not! It means Mom does and always has looked much younger than she really is. And she acts that way too. I recall when she was in her late 30's -- I was in high school -- and she got carded. Carded! She was so grateful, she leaned across and hugged the attendant. And then showed her ID. She was with a friend some 10 years younger than her. Who did not get carded. Hi-larity ensued. Here she is at Halloween in the 70s. She's on the right, you idiot.

[caption id="attachment_1477" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Vickie and NJ"][/caption]She's also the best grandmother you could ask for. I can't speak from personal experience. Instead, I come from this knowledge vicariously through my son. I can't think of a major milestone she wasn't here for -- and that's living about 1,000 miles away from him since he as 4 months old. Talk about dedication. Oh, and he has her good looks too. Not in this picture. This is when he was incredibly fat. He grew into it.

[caption id="attachment_1478" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Vickie and a pig"][/caption]So here's to you, Mom. Congrats on sticking with the same boring, dull and mind-numbing job with the State. Enjoy south Texas or wherever the hell it is you wind up. Or flitter around. Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you retire? I'm looking forward to having you and your band of four loonie girlfriends out here in August. I just hope Phoenix is ready for you and yours. I'll end with a pic of you and a pig. With no explanation. They can just wonder.

Love you!

^{* - It may have been less time than that.}

Talent is more about technique and less about tools

I'm fortunate to have lots of friends with talent. Talents come in many shapes and forms, but it seems a large number of mine are talented in artistic ways. I'm not without skills in this area. I'm just without the drive necessary to hone many of those.

Take video editing. I did some very VERY basic editing back in the late 80s. When it was hard. Well, maybe not hard. Manual might be a better word. But it's all digital now, and things are less-manual. But it still takes talent to go above and beyond. And if you've seen any of the videos I've ever put up, I don't have that talent. Or at least I haven't taken the time to hone it.

But my young friend Brent Weichsel has. For barely existing on the planet two decades, the boy knows what he's doing. And will only get better. Among the projects he's done is a a video for Scott Sigler's Ancestor contest. It's dark. Disturbing. Minimalistic. And really well done.



Did I mention disturbing? Yet I love it. It shows that you don't need a lot of bells and whistles to make something fantastic. You just need... talent.

Trebuchet, by George Hrab

For months, I've been walking around, singing songs aloud that no one has ever heard of. That's not all that unusual, as my musical tastes plunder the eclectic. But recently, there's been an air of exclusivity to my music of choice. I was fortunate enough to get a copy of George Hrab's Trebuchet before it was available. And yes, I gloated. Loudly. And with feeling.

But that time is over. George has asked me -- and a host of others -- to make the .mp3 version of his entire album available as a single download here on my site. An honor to which I am happy to oblige.

What kind of music does George play? Well... that's hard to classify. And why I like him so. So I won't even try. If you're a fan of odd time-signatures like me, Hrab's music will appeal to you on a deep level. If you have no idea what the hell an odd time-signature might be, don't worry. No advanced music appreciation classes are necessary for the enjoyment of this album.

The image associated with this post is a word-cloud of the lyrics. The larger the word, the more often it's used. If you are fortunate enough to know George or his work, you'll immediately know why "know" is so prominent. George's music is smart. You will be, too, after listening.

So enjoy. And go buy the CD from CD baby. It comes with an incredible booklet. And everyone needs a backup. Plus, it supports an amazing (and I don't use that word lightly) artists doing incredible work.

Help me convince Sprint that I need the new HTC EVO 4G... NOW!

Dear Sprint,

I just got off the phone with Monica. She's a great customer service rep of yours. She informed me that I've been a Sprint customer since December 1, 1999. Sure, we've had our ups and downs, but the scales have been tipped more in to positive for most of that time.

I pay you just under $200 a month for our service plans. Three of them. All phones with unlimited data plans -- the big ticket item for you -- because we use the heck out of our phones. My wife and I are both on the Pre, and our son -- 1st year of college -- is on the Rant. In a world where at least 75% of our friends have made the switch to the one that rhymes with "eye-bone", we've not. Primarily because I want a phone first and a device second. But also because I really don't want to switch away from Sprint. We just had our 10 year anniversary, and I'm sentimental.

But enough beating around the bush. I want the new HTC EVO™ 4G, and I'd like it now please. You've already let Engadget play with one. Gizmodo gushed about the 3.7 seconds they had access to it. CNET, Slashgear... you must have employed Santa to get you all over town in a single day doing demos.

I realized I'm not those media outlets. I've got a decent rep in the social and digital sphere. Some say I'm an influencer. But I have one thing that those other places don't, and that one thing makes me the perfect spokesperson for the new HTC EVO™ 4G from Sprint:

My name is Evo!

Who better to be carrying around the EVO than Evo? It's not like you're going to get that guy from Bolivia to make you this offer. He's a little busy. And I don't think 4G coverage works there.

But that's OK. You don't need him. You've got me.

So let's do this thing. It's the least you can do, considering the branding hell you're going to give me with this product. Not like I already have to compete against the above mentioned guy, a car company, tree-huggers¹ and dog food for my name, right? Reach me at 602-325-3045 and I'll give you an address where you can send the phone. We'll take care of the necessary paperwork when you're ready.

Yours in love with the EVO,

Evo.

Note to friends: Help me get this phone first and to be THE spokesperson for it. Or at least just the first part. Tweet it, re-tweet it, facebook it, re-blog it, call your congressman, pressure, pressure PRESSURE! Let's see what happens. :)

Update: I put a plea out on YouTube, recorded with my Palm Pre. You could help spread that, too!

^{1 - OK, OK... I'm a tree-hugger, too.}

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