rockstar rick

I filled up my car yesterday, and it cost me $54. It hurts, especially because I have memories of gas being less that $0.75 a gallon, but I can’t help but feel a certain sense that the pain is a good thing.

I think it’s good because of who it will affect. There is no doubt the people who can afford to pour money into gas guzzlers will continue to do so. It’s the regular working guy/gal who will feel it the most–and consequently make changes in their habits. If oil prices continue to rise, and gas prices stay high for years, then it’s more likely that the average commuter will start to explore other options.

My point is that if enough people make little changes to their lifestyle and daily routine, i.e. telecommuting one day a week, carpooling, purchasing a hybrid car, etc., then America will be better for it in the long run.

It’s that thought that deadens the pain in my pocketbook.

I don’t know which it is, but I’ve not updated my blog for quite a while. I just keep putting it off. So the primary purpose of this entry is to help with my “momentum deficit.”

The silver lining is that I have been micro-blogging on twitter. It’s great for those times when I have a random thought that needs to get out, but is too short to justify a whole blog entry.

Even shorter than this entry.

My dream last night was that a previous employer of mine was trying to contact me. Initially through instant messaging, but eventually by means of more traditional channels they offered me a job that paid about twice what I currently make. And I would have to relocate to New Zealand.

We weren’t that serious about it, until we found out that Lauren was pregnant, at which point we decided that I should take the job. After all, that makes perfect sense doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you move to New Zealand if you found out you were going to have baby number four?

I recently started reading Chris Watkins blog–primarily because of this post, although I guess I’ve had a loose association with him from the sniderboard for a few years now. His recurring series “If They Were LDS” is what I’m writing about today, though.

My favorites:

Matt Dillon
Carl Sagan
Kenny Rogers
Because Carl Sagan as Hugh Nibley? I can totally see that. Both equally enamoured with the cosmos, each arriving at antithetic worldviews.

In my dream I decided to go to Iran on short notice. Iran isn’t usually the kind of place one goes on a whim–at least I can’t imagine that Americans regularly wake up and think, “Hmmm, I’m running low on oppression. I guess I’ll hop over to Tehran.”

Anyway, I arrived in Iran and went to my hotel. I hadn’t packed anything–I pretty much just had my passport and a credit card. I booked a room at the hotel, which was pretty pricey at $300/night. I didn’t worry too much about it, because I figured that my company would reimburse me for it. (I do travel for business occasionally, and usually get reimbursed for travel expenses.)

I decided to walk around outside, and when I got out of the hotel I came upon a construction site across the street. The building was nearly finished, and I saw that it was an LDS temple. It was the most massive temple I had ever seen (and I’ve been to the temples in Salt Lake, Los Angeles, and Washington DC, which are the the LDS Church’s largest). But this temple was spectacular. It had a domed roof (much like the Hagia Sofia), and was constructed of very fine white marble, and much of the structure was ornate with gold highlights.
It was so large that I looked up and saw a large ringed planet in the daylight sky. I wasn’t sure what to make of this–was the temple so massive as to disrupt gravity in the solar system, and bring Jupiter closer to us? I guess it’s a good thing that the laws of physics don’t necessarily need to apply when you’re dreaming.

I also wondered why the LDS church was building a temple in Iran. I guess it was in anticipation of converting throngs of Muslims. Probably not a good idea given the common interpretation of sharia which proscribes the death penalty for converting to another religion. Not realistic, but it was a dream after all.

…is as easy as posting this, I guess.

Technorati Profile

I’ve been learning about the wonderful world of online advertising. I’ve found that there is a lot of details I didn’t know about how things work, even if I had a vague sense of it all. I mean, I understand that advertisers pay publishers and all–it’s just all of the minutia with which I’m acquainting myself.

So as an experiment, I will post a picture of mine (from flickr.com) using adbrite.com’s BritePic service. Here goes:

Ok, so that didn’t go too well. I’ll mess around more later.

Here’s the pic anyway.

I had a weird dream last night. I dreamt that I was hanging out with the guys from Toad the Wet Sprocket, and we were eating sushi. It wasn’t the kind of sushi I’m used to eating though. It was some kind of pasta dish with salmon, and it seemed that the salmon should have been cooked, but Randy Guss assured me it was sushi, so we all ate it anyway.

Sushi and pasta–that does sound pretty weird.

I’ve been following the progress of the One Laptop per Child (w) program for a while now, and I just heard that for the next 13 days, people can participate in the give one get one program by paying the price of two laptops, a measley $400. I remember getting really excited about it when I heard Nicholas Negroponte’s keynote address at the 30th Internationalization and Unicode Conference last November.

So if you’ve got $400 to spend, do it. They’re pretty cool laptops–even at 400 bucks. And you’re helping the education of third world children! What’s not awesome about that!

I’ve been watching NBC’s new show “Chuck,” and I’ll admit that my disbelief suspender™ was working overtime at first. Once you get past that, the show is just plain fun to watch.

And if you like pretty blondes, that can’t hurt either. And the good people at strahotski.com think so as well. First–the name of the web site? Brilliant. Come for the catchy name, stay for the high-res screen captures and intelligent commentary on the show’s story (with an obvious bias towards Yvonne Strahovski, naturally).

Too much fun.