crawling out of the dinosaur age...

While it is not an area of expertise, I do have a reasonable amount of fascination with technological advancements. I think a lot of it stems from that first trip to Epcot Center when I was child. Being a true child of the 80s, one trip to FutureWorld led me to believe that by the year 2000 we would all be traveling through airlocks and talking on the phone through our TVs. Yet not a whole lot has changed...though I do understand that the teleconference industry is alive an kickin'.

I do remember when hybrid vehicles came out a year or so ago. I even remember having a discussion with family members....the pros and cons. The argument fell that while they were electrical hybrid cars, they still needed gas. Perhaps some people fail to realize how they actually work though....I certainly didn't, and was quite impressed that when the car came to a stop, the engine shut off. Nothing mind blowing, mind you, but can you imagine the impact something like that would have if every car in LA gridlock quit using fuel while at a standstill/near crawl? I'm not saying that even having every car replaced by a hybrid would ever happen...but occasionally it's nice to imagine a better impact of newer technology.

I realize I'm a few years behind on this...forgive me if I'm still impressed by it.

Though more recently I got to try out the latest in games systems, Nintendo's Wii.
Now this is something I really dig. Being a big weather dork, I was impressed by Wii's news/weather part of the menu. Using only gestures by my wrist, extended through the controller, I could rotate, zoom in, and scan a 3D map of the world, and see what the weather was in New Zealand or wherever. Even just as a tool of the map itself,the 3D interaction was simple and somehow easier for someone like me to comprehend.

The games were a whole different matter. Sure, you can plop your rear end on the couch, download a myriad of games, both old-school and non, and game out to your heart's content. But I really enjoyed the Wii sports, which included tennis, golf, boxing, bowling, and baseball.

Imagine being snowed indoors in January, completely cabin-fevered out...want to play a couple of rounds of tennis? Sure! I also couldn't help but think that this is what the kids need these days. They're officially computer-potatoes instead of couch potatoes. And that's happening with adults too. But the Wii sports was fun, active, and parts of it even got the heart rate up.

Perhaps my friend put it best when he said that Nintendo hit the nail on the head: we don't want to be limited to controllers with buttons. The Wii remote is much more intuitive with the arm movements....you feel more "in" the game, and less a puppetmaster. I can't wait to see what they do when they combine the footpad sensor. I foresee some mad martial arts sparring games. Hopefully that'll happen just in time for winter.

I'm still waiting for FutureWorld to fully realize itself, but at least I'm seeing more fun stuff along the way.

color me impressed

Today I drove out to Whole Foods, and I always have to get the tofu dishes at the salad bar. I rarely eat tofu, but I eat it when it's already prepared for me.

And today I noticed something fabulous.
Their take-out containers are biodegradable! I nearly said, "Damn skippy!" to myself as I noticed this. As I was paying for my purchases, the check-out woman gleefully told me that they biodegrade within two weeks, and they were made out of cattails...the plants, of course.

Seeing stuff like this makes me happy.

Now if only every food chain would jump on this....

fascination street

"I love weather. I'm a connoisseur of weather. Wherever my travels take me, the first thing I do is turn on the weather channel and see what's going on, what's coming. I like to know about regional weather patterns, how storms are created in different parts of the country and the world, what's happening at different altitudes, what kinds of clouds are forming or dissipating or blowing through, where the winds are coming from, where they've been. That's not a passion everybody shares, I know, but I don't believe there are any people on Earth who, properly sheltered, don't feel the peace inside a summer rain and the cleansing it brings, the renewal of the earth in its aftermath."

-Johnny Cash

I think that is one of my all-time favorite quotes. I suppose a good reason for that is that I grew up watching the weather. I grew up in tornado alley, and despite the destruction they brought, there was nothing more magical than an afternoon watching thunderheads rising in the southwest, and you knew it was comin'.

I remember watching the sky turn a bizarre dark green as the storm cells approached. The animals, especially birds, would go crazy darting in every which way seeking shelter. There were only a few times that one passed near our house. The first time I was aware of what was going on, a tornado had passed right over our home, though the funnel was not touching ground at the time. As I grew older, I watched with amazement the precision of the doppler radar, watching the tv and the movement of red and yellow squares marking the tornado over a zoomed-in, detailed grid of my neighborhood.

Occasionally out on the east coast we get some creepy storms. Weird ones that come up out of nowhere. Sometimes there's tornadoes and it makes the news like crazy. I think I'm more worried about a tree being knocked over and crashing ontop of me or my car than I am of a tornado out here.

About 6 years ago, I became friends with one of my drawing teachers who was obsessed with tornadoes. Apparently he had dreams about them, painted them, and wanted to drive to see one during tornado season. He asked me to recall everything I could: every story, describe the sky, the smell of the air, the feeling of watching the thunderheads rise in the distance.

I didn't mind. I could understand his fascination.



But then I see something like this....and every piece of me wishes I could have seen THAT. There's more pictures from the link.

I suppose it just peaks my curiosity further....what other freak storms will come forth? Global warming, climate change....whatever the appropriate name for it all is, I'm sure we're going to see more oddities as the years go on.