I seem to be achieving one of my goals for this house buying process – do as much as possible electronically – at least more than the last time I went through this dance.

I hate FAX machines. I hate the “me use markum stick on dead tree to make decision real!” culture. I can move my life savings with the click of a button – but I have to pass information through paper to (for example) apply for a mortgage.

Anyway, two technologies helped a lot:

* onebox manages my business phone number. They provide a virtual switchboard from which I can control what *real* phone number rings when you dial that business number. I can point my number to my colleagues when I’m on vacation – and perhaps most beautiful – if you send a FAX to that business number, it shows up as a PDF in my email.

* faxzero accepts PDFs and faxes them for me. Under three pages of material is free, but they put an ad on the cover sheet.

Between these two I’m nearly paperless – at the very least I avoid the idiot dance of finding my fax machine, plugging it in, finding a land line phone to connect to it, etc. The remaining problem is that I still need to print, sign, and scan stuff. I could fix that with photoshop and a scanned version of my signature – but that strikes me as a security risk.

Last morning at the Pico Bonito lodge. We got up early this morning for the “early bird” walk. Our guide proceeded to whistle up a pigmy owl, cuckoos, tucans, mot-mots, and a variety of other awesome birds. When I say “whistle up,” I mean that we would walk into an area and he would whistle and sing these insanely realistic bird sounds, listen for who responded, and then walk us right over to the tree where the critter was hanging out. It was amazing. He also had a mini-telescope to die for. Who knew that some birds are furry, while others are hairy?

Yesterday we went to the nature preserve. It was a car ride to the mini-train. The mini-train was built by Dole corporation to help with the pinapple harvest, in the days before tractors. Once upon a time it was pulled by horses, but now it’s got a little diesel motor. This is what the mini-train at Epcott center wishes it could be. This thing was rusty, dangerous, loud, and totally 100% functional. We had to walk perhaps half a kilometer over the part of the track that was being repaired. I had never seen men rebuilding railroad track before … those dudes work hard. First they dig out the old trestles, and then they dig underneath and build the rock bed back up. Then they lay out straight lines, level the dirt, put down railroad ties (8×8 beams) and finally stake the tracks back in place. All of this is done by hand.

Other people who work hard: Pinapple farmers. Weeded by hand, picked by hand, packed by hand. I feel a vague guilt about being the tourist and having my meals cooked and my linens washed … but the alternative jobs here suck a lot more than that. When we came through, there were perhaps a dozen men walking in parallel through the pineapple fields, harvesting the fruit and putting it on a conveyer belt that led up to a tractor. On the tractor, three more men were hauling ass to get the fruit stacked and packed into wagons. All of this in the 45 degree (Centegrade) equatorial sun. We’re told that this system is a big improvement over the backpacks that the pickers wore before they got the conveyer belt. They were exepected to bring in 50 fruits at a trip.

The nature preserve was stunning. We took a guided boat ride through the mangrove forests. attempted to list out the birds we saw. We even saw families of howler monkeys in the trees. Hooogh! Hooogh! Hoooogh!

On our return, after a nice lunch, we visited the butterfly farm and serpantarium … were we learned that baby vipers are more lethal because when they bite, they hit you with their entire venom sack – while adults are more likely to hold some back in case they want to hurt your friend too.

Appropriately enough, we had a snake scare on our walk yesterday afternoon. nearly stepped on a 4′ green snake. Non-venomous, but still quite intimidating. Impressively, she was able to say “BACK!” while levitating about 5 feet away from the thing. I would probably have just gurgled. We agreed that she had earned her “snake name:” “Backs the F* off.” There is still disagreement over mine, but “never would have seen it” is in play as an option.

The other travellers here are nice, but few. Apparently the economy is not being kind to the tourist industry. To this I say: Go! Go and spend those Euro Dollars!

Today we take a trip to Tela to meet up with medyani and continue the adventures!

Amusing anecdote: We were in Copan, hanging out in the hotel in the evening – smoking a cigar and reading a book. A couple of white folks stopped by our table and started a conversation. After a bit of conversation, we realized that this was Rob Davis, of the Whale Shark & Oceanic Research Center … with whom had recently had a meeting! We agreed that the world is indeed small when you strike up a random conversation in the hotel bar and find that you’re one degree of separation apart. Perhaps it’s just that the world of white folks in Honduras is small. That could also be it.

As usual, I’m inordinantly proud when people guess languages other than English to address me, off the cuff. Spanish? French? German? Wait … you’re American? I’m proud of my country, but given the distinguishing characteristics of the average American, I’ll take that as a complement. I interpret it as “but you’re neither loud and obnoxious, nor poorly dressed, nor overweight.

I write from the Pico Bonito lodge / nature reserve / insanely sweet little hotel. Continuing my numerological obsession – we’re in cabin “1”. Yep. Uno.

Woke up early this morning to stroll around Copan Ruinas. Got coffee and watched the women come out of their shops and slosh soapy / bleach water on the cobblestone streets. That’s a work ethic that my grandmother could get in touch with. How do you start the day? By washing the street in front of your shop.

After further coffee and breakfast, we toured the local museum of Mayan culture. The Mayan people were pretty hardcore. You know who else is hardcore? The archeologists who deciphered their glyphs with no related language whatsoever and just a bunch of stone carvings to go on.

3 kidney bruising hours in the van later, we were back at the airport, from which we took a puddle jumper turboprop to Sela, near the coast. I had a small mishap where I tipped the dude who carried our bags, rather than his boss. Oops. My bad. I refuse to feel too terrible about the manner in which I hand out my gratuities.

The place we’re staying the next two nights is The Lodge at Pico Bonito. It’s pretty sweet. We’re signed up to go canoing in the nature preserve tomorrow morning, starting at 6:30am … so for now it’s time to sleep!

Posting from Copan Ruinas, on our second day of the trip.

Day one was pretty exciting. Neither of us bothered to verify the actual departure time of our flight, and we wound up missing it. That’s a first for me, and it didn’t feel as bad as I expected. Fortunately, the nice people at American Air were able to re-book us on a later flight, which had us getting into San Pedro Sula at 7pm rather than our intended 1pm. The flight we actually got on had the number “525,” and we caught an extended interview with the Dalai Lama on the airport TVs … so I’ll take it as an overall win.

Finally landed in S.P.S around 8 (with mechanical delays and the rest) and were treated to a second totally new experience: Disease screening with the very real threat of quarentine. All 200+ of us from the plane were herded into a small hallway prior to customs, and subjected to a thermal imaging of our faces. I imagine that it might have picked up fever or something. Anyway, I’ve never been herded around by men in white coats and TB masks before. It was a little stressful. We checked “no” to all the questions and got on our way.

At around 9pm, we finally emerged from customs and met our driver, who had been waiting for us since around 1pm. Apparently, despite all our attempts to reach various folks, nobody bothered to call him and tell him we were on the later flight.

There followed a dark and twisty three hour van ride through the mountains to the town of Copan Ruinas. Our driver is a hero to me. If he hadn’t been waiting for us, it would have gotten hairy. He got us checked into the hotel around midnight, and we agreed to meet at 10 this morning to start our tours.

Turns out he’s also our tour guide for the first couple of days here. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, at which proceeded to astonish me by casually conversing with the nice man at the next table over – in what sounded like fluent French. That puts her at either three or fur usable languages if you count Haitian creole. Around 10 we finished up breakfast and found our tour guide having breakfast at the same restaurant chatting up the local girls.

We went to the Mayan ruins and wandered around looking at 1500 year old temples and residences, all the while talking biology and birds. Turns out that our guide is also something of a botanist. Cool dude. I can’t do justice to the ruins without the pictures to back up my descriptions – but “wow.” Another of those places with a visceral, spiritual power from having been treated as sacred to so many thousands of people.

We paused for lunch at a restaurant, and then proceeded to the bird preserve which, while it’s a zoo, is a very nice zoo. Macaws and parrots on my arm, that sort of thing.

Our hotel has an old-school sort of elegance, with really heavy beams, wrought iron curtain holders, heavy tile floors, and so on. The people are very friendly, even with my nonexistant limited Spanish. Another good number for the room – 303.

Tonight, the plan is to go out for dinner – and then perhaps sit on one of the verandas smoking a high grade cigar and sipping 12 year old rum – both recommended by that same guide. What a guy. I intend to share his contact info broadly – I think he’s probably capable of setting up a darn nice trip even without the overhead of the the tour company (who are fine, don’t get me wrong, but I like this person we’re dealing with. Next time we come down this way, we plan to cut out the middle man.

This morning I awoke from a dream in which I was eating at a restaurant. The name of the restaurant was the “Snug Dumpling.”

I still think that it’s sort of a cute restaurant name.

And with that – off to bed – and then to Honduras!

Home for a day, with redmed before headed to Honduras for a (well earned) week’s vacation tomorrow.

On a crazy lark, headed to technolope and capital_ls place directly from picking redmed up at the airport last night. We had a fantastic dinner and made an early night of it in support of a massively productive day today.

The week of work went well. I realized that the highest complement I can receive after teaching a class is “oh, that is simple!” If I can show someone that some piece of technology is actually a lot simpler than they imagined it – I’m doing my job well.

And now, off to achieve inbox zero, pay bills, vacuum (because we can’t have people watching our cats in a dirty house, can we?) and so on.

Consensus is that since neither of us slept at home this week, we don’t need to change the sheets. Let’s hear it for small victories.

Once again, I find myself at the bar at The Outback steakhouse.

Why is this weird? I’m a vegetarian and some kinda health / fitness freak. I assure you, it feels sorta weird.

Why does it work? Well first off, Outback has a number of fine non-meat options. It helps that I consider fish to be vegetables … but I can dine quite well on the wedge salad (hold the bacon, please) and the cheese fries. I’ve also, in my eternal travels, learned the virtue of ordering a couple of appetizers rather than any entrees. Eat a whole restaurant entree, especially without exercising, and you’re in for a heavy, bloated, soggy, gut twisting evening. Have a side salad and an appetizer (a crabcake, some fries, whatever) and it’s okay. Plus, the entree almost always drags out into one more beer … which if I’ve got the laptop can become yet one more beer after that. No good. Best to eat and leave the beer dispensing zone if we’re going to do this all week, two weeks a month.

Why does it really work, here in Hampton VA? Because this particular Outback went smoke free as of March 1. That makes it instantly better than every other bar in the area. For clean air, I will be loyal, even if I have to subject myself to the dreaded onion blossom.

Oh sweet onion blossom. Forgive me, but you’re as bad as the entrees … even though you’re on the appetizer list.

In other news, work is making me work. A week-long series of 1.5 hour interactive training sessions to get as many users as possible using the compute cluster is exhausting.

Also fortunately, I’m healed enough to get back to the gym. Went back to the MMA place and got a solid three hour workout yesterday. Their current “prize” warrior who goes by the nom-de-plume “The Juggernaut” took the same jiu-jitsu class as I did. We rolled, briefly, and I felt good for holding my own for a while against a man who fights for a living on TV. It may be a gentle, giving, “use your opponent’s strength against him” style … but when a dude is approximately three times as strong as me and does this for a living, you sort of know how it’s going to end.

We also did an exercise that I’ve always liked. It’s unfair, but in much the same way that real life is unfair. Sort of a modified king of the hill: The four highest belts in the room started off in the middle of the room. The rest of us formed a line in rank order, lowest to highest. The instructor defined a scenario: people in the middle start on their backs, challengers try to hold them down – however you want. If the person on their back escapes, they win and stay in. If the person doing the holding gets a submission, they win. Winner stays in the middle.

We went through the line, perhaps a dozen times with a class of 20 men. Nobody can stay in the middle forever, and the point is to wear down the top of the class until we’re all at the same level. The better you are, the longer you’re going to be out there, challenged by fresh people. Eventually, everyone loses … and gets a break.

Anyway, it was three hours of brutality – I hurt – but I’m going back tomorrow.

We judged the RI Atheist Society essays and picked a winner. I thought that the right thing to do was to write to all the non-winners personally. One guy wrote back, and I responded to him. I think it’s a good conversation, so I’ll share it here.

His question, for me, cuts to the quick of the matter: I consider religious diversity more than a matter of unhappy toleration while we wait for old people to die. I don’t insist that everyone agree with me, merely that we set up our society in a way that we can all live together happily.

Modern atheism is going severely off track when it insists that everyone agree with it. That’s not how the world works. There is one gravitational constant, and one speed of light. There are many ways to live a good and happy life. There are a lot of different sorts of people in the world – and for some of them religion is the best path.

K,

I’m writing to notify you of the results of the RI Atheist Society essay
contest and scholarship.

While you are certainly a strong student and a talented writer, we did not
select your essay for the scholarship this year.

Your emphasis on the balance between individual rights necessary in society
touches on what I consider the heart of the issue: Living in a free and
democratic society requires a balance, and my opinion is that we must err on the
side of personal freedom. Your comments about the freedom to express one’s
faith are well taken. This is a critical point that is all too frequently
neglected … we are free from the imposition of religion, not its existence.

We intend to offer the scholarship in an expanded form next year. I encourage
you to apply again.

Sincerely,

C

This evening I got a response from K, which says:

Mr. C,

Thank you for taking the time to read my essay. With such a personalized response I think it would be foolish not to apply again next year. I appreciate that you actually took my essay into consideration and actually took the time to respond to my own specific essay which is certainly a first in the dozens of essay contests I have applied for and made me feel good knowing that my essay was not simply a chore for a scholarship committee to glance at.

I just have a couple of questions that I would like to ask if you would be so kind to answer. First off, I was wondering if being atheist is a prerequisite to applying for the scholarship. I think based on my essay you have noticed that I am not one but that I agree that there should be a seperation of church and state. Secondly, I was wondering if future essays will be open-ended as this year’s was, meaning that the essay topic could be agreed upon regardless of the applicant’s religion.

Thanks again,

K

I was feeling talkative, so I said this:

K,

Maybe it’s because I’m new to this scholarship / essay thing, but I figured it was only polite to read all of the submissions. Perhaps over time I’ll become jaded and just glance them over looking for something I agree with – but I hope not. It was a hard decision. Given the effort I know all the applicants put in, I felt that a personal response was the least I could do.

Your question came up a couple of times as we were setting this up. My clear and forceful answer is that there is absolutely no requirement that you be an atheist in order to receive our scholarship. If we were looking for a deserving atheist, we would have said that up front. Frankly, I rejected a couple of essays out of hand because they were too cloyingly sycophantic. I didn’t ask for 1,000 words on how cool the RI atheist society is – I asked about the separation of church and state.

One of my professors in school told me that the hallmark of a good ethical question is that you won’t be able to resolve it to everyone’s satisfaction. If it’s that simple, it’s probably not ethics. My dream is that if I do this for a few years, I’ll eventually be convinced enough by one of the applicants to change my opinion about something. That essay would win in an heartbeat. Your essay and this conversation give me hope that I’m on the right track.

I know that I’m an odd duck in modern atheism … but I think that the world’s major spiritual traditions have tremendous value insofar as they provide comfort and strength to billions of people. So long as we can build good fences and good laws … and learn to live without killing each other … I’m a big fan of religious diversity in the world.

Perhaps I’m just a “non” theist rather than an “a” theist.

In any event: Keep up the good work, and I hope to hear from you next year.

-C

I am in Hampton, VA. I have the same hotel room that I’ve had before. I’m pretty sure that’s a sign that I travel too much.

Yesterday, I saw the Dalai Lama. He wore a Patriots ball-cap. It was awesome. Now I have *another* pile of pages to transcribe that I’ll never get around to. Afterwards, there were mighty hangouts with capital_l and technolope. The porch was utilized, and the gorgeous weather exploited.

Last week was Bio-IT World. I talked, as did most of my colleagues. A gluttonous steak dinner was served by us to valued customers. Chris Dagdigian gave the ‘plenary keynote’ to great acclaim. A good time was had by all.

The house purchase approaches. You would not believe the crap I have to do in order to have the opportunity to write a huge check. You’d think I was asking for sweaty snugglebunnies from Cher or something. Sheesh.

This week will be stressful. My saving grace is that I’m once again fit enough to go to the MMA place, and there are several bad movies available for the other evenings.

Lightly edited for content and privacy, I present here a chat on the topic of her notional new charity. Also included is a discussion of whether “getting laid” must always have an integer coefficient – as opposed to the existence of both negative and imaginary lays.

While it was still funny this morning, please keep in mind that this was “beer up the nose” funny last night.

9:38 PM Dude! M. and I just had the most brilliant idea ever!!!!!!!!

9:38 PM That smiley there? That wasn’t supposed to be a smiley. It was supposed to be a parenthetical remark.

9:39 PM It was supposed to be ( drunk ).

10:15 PM What was the goddamn idea?

10:15 You’re killing me here.

10:16 PM Ok… we want to start a charity….

10:16 PM This is an M idea. How does it involve simulated boobies?

10:16 PM for *kids*!

10:16 PM Kids charity. Got it.

10:17 PM Catchy idea.

10:17 PM Kids who are dying.

10:17 PM Like Ronald McDonald house.

10:17 PM A single tear courses down my cheek.

10:17 PM Continue.

10:17 PM Exactly.

10:17 PM Kids who are dying…

10:17 PM Are we killing them?

10:17 PM No. They’re dying anyways.

10:17 PM Okay. At some level we’re all dying.

10:17 PM But I digress.

10:18 PM Right. But these guys are dying, like, right now.

10:18 PM Okay, onward to the charity where we – what – save them?

10:18 PM Pay per view?

10:18 PM They’re dying, but they really want to get laid before they die.

10:18 PM Like, *really*.

10:18 PM How young are these kids?

10:18 PM I think they’ll have to be 16+.

10:18 PM You’re going to have a charity where you bang the underage?

10:19 PM Not me specifically.

10:19 PM Remember the conversation we had about prostitution?

10:19 PM Pity-screw for the kids?

10:19 PM Totally.

10:19 PM Wait, we’re going to pay hookers to do this?

10:19 PM Well, who else would?

10:19 PM I *knew* boobs came into this somehow.

10:19 PM Exactly.

10:19 PM I dunno – charitable people?

10:19 PM Hey, it’s cheaper that way…

10:20 PM Some of ’em, though, will need a professional.

10:20 PM Okay, broadly speaking I support the “get people laid before they die” idea.

10:20 PM I thought you would understand.

10:20 PM Would you be an arm of the “make a wish” foundation?

10:20 PM We were thinking we could pick up where they left off. They have political considerations, after all.

10:20 PM M. wants to call it the “make a dirty wish” foundation.

10:21 PM Are we talking just a quick wham bam, or the full “girlfriend experience”

10:21 PM Do dying people really think about sex all the time? I guess that 16 year olds do.

10:21 PM Whatever $500 gets you at the Mustang Ranch.

10:21 PM I’m *sure* 16 year olds do.

10:21 PM In between chemo.

10:22 PM Yeah.

10:22 PM Hey, *some* of them worry about this. Not all, but some.

10:22 PM And some of their parents will even let them.

10:22 PM What if they’re dying of a transmissible disease?

10:22 PM There’s a larger problem of making prostitution legal.

10:22 PM We’re thinking we’ll be based in Nevada.

10:23 PM Is this an under the radar attempt to get legal prostitution through as a 501c3 charitable organization and then expand from there?

10:23 PM Because that would be sneaky.

10:23 PM And totally unlike me.

10:23 PM “Sure, it’s hooking, but it’s not for profit hooking, for a good cause.”

10:23 PM That’s actually remarkably evil.

10:23 PM It’s not evil!

10:23 PM No one is hurt by this!

10:23 PM True.

10:23 PM Just sneaky then.

10:24 PM Unlawful? maybe.

10:24 PM Chaotic good, all the way.

10:24 PM Chaotic good better have high intelligence, that’s all I’m saying.

10:24 PM A moron level chaotic good is just chaotic.

10:24 PM Ha!

10:24 PM (witness evangelical christians)

10:24 PM Yeah…

10:24 PM So as you can see, M and I split a bottle of wine tonight.

10:27 PM I have just read this whole conversation to J.

10:28 PM She asks “why do dying children need to have sex?”

10:28 PM Ha!!!!!

10:28 PM If they’re actually teenagers, that should be obvious.

10:28 PM There is an implicit suggestion in her voice that we are not really talking about the children here …

10:28 PM Couldn’t we, like, help them not die instead?

10:28 PM That would be better, but probably wouldn’t cost $500.

10:29 PM J does not believe that this was a single bottle of wine you split.

10:29 PM Perhaps it was a large bottle?

10:29 PM Nope. Just one. Sorry to disillusion you.

10:29 PM What if there were children having sex that they did not want to be having.

10:30 PM Perhaps we could provide a negative lay in those situations.

10:30 PM That would be another problem that $500 could not solve.

10:30 PM “negative lay” Wow.

10:30 PM And that would build up – work with me here – a store of negative lays that we could use to offset the positive one.

10:30 PM and thus – net – no sex changed hands.

10:30 PM I am filled with a strong desire to edit this chat and place it on the internet. This is comedy gold.

10:31 PM I think my high school career build up enough “negative lay” for an entire nation of unwilling children.

10:31 PM We know that there are imaginary lays.

10:31 PM That’s just the square root of a negative lay … thus they exist too.

10:34 PM I think that if imaginary lays could really be multiplied together to negate “real” lays, there would be no real lays left and the entire species would be gone. Therefore the vast number of imaginary lays out there must not have any effect on the real ones.

10:34 PM And you should *not* be making me do this kind of math while drunk. Seriously. I’m a *biologist*.

10:35 PM How, exactly, would you bring together two imaginary lays without destroying them and creating a *real* lay?

10:35 PM I think they’re like – antimatter – or something. Positrons.

10:35 PM R. would know.

10:36 PM If they work like imaginary numbers, bringing two imaginary lays together would produce a negative one. That *negative* one would be the danger. So they must always be kept separate. This must be why it’s so difficult to discuss porn with your friends.

10:36 PM I suggest that imaginary lays are also mutually repulsive.

10:36 PM Real lays are as well.

10:37 PM However imaginary lays and real ones attract.

10:37 PM Not enough!

10:37 PM You need a real one available, and the imaginary is attracted to it. Unfortunately the product of a real and an imaginary lay is also imaginary.

10:38 PM You know, that’s probably a good thing.

10:38 PM Not for the kids.

10:39 PM I still think a dying high school senior should be able to get some.

10:39 PM Let’s be blunt: You think that high school seniors in general ought to be able to get some.

10:39 PM Not necessarily…

10:39 PM The dying part just puts a shorter fuse on it.

10:39 PM No?

10:40 PM They should have hope of getting some.

10:40 PM So this should be a lottery.

10:40 PM Usually, that hope is college.

10:40 PM Certainty doesn’t breed hope.

10:40 PM Hmmm… maybe.

10:40 PM I like the idea of spreading hope among the suffering.

10:41 PM Yeah. You’re right that there are more desperate demographics than sick teenagers.

10:41 PM Hooker-con should be co-located with a trek convention.

10:41 PM *boom*

10:41 PM I think that *would* destroy the universe.

10:41 PM R. would know.

10:42 PM Fortunately the universe to be destroyed would be an imaginary one.

10:42 PM I find saying “R would know” insanely funny in this context.

10:42 PM Totally!!!!!

10:42 PM Because we’re talking about the physics, right?

10:42 PM Exactly!!!

10:42 PM Brain said “physics,” but fingers typed “physical.”

10:42 PM Stupid freud.

10:43 PM That’s what the swing dancing is all about, right? Kinetics?

10:43 PM I like your charity idea, but I think I need to make this one of the ones where I just write a check. Not getting my hands dirty on the dying teenagers.

10:43 PM I can’t quite bring myself to associate my name with hookers. It’s sad, I know…

10:43 PM You never answered … I guess you did … about whether there was actual relationship fodder here.

10:44 PM Relationship fodder?

10:44 PM I don’t think that they remember your name for $500 at the mustang ranch.

10:44 PM Though I dunno.

10:44 PM Ah, I see. Yeah, probably not.

10:44 PM *ahem* M and I can take one for the team and do some research.

10:44 PM For SCIENCE.

10:44 PM You guys have fun.

10:44 PM Or we could just ask P.

10:44 PM HA!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

10:58 PM I think I prefer “Screw the children” as a name.

11:00 PM I think that is the best name ever.

11:01 PM So does M.

11:02 PM So, you’re going to put this conversation online, right?

11:03 PM What was it you said? “I’m not sure about associating my name with hookers?”

11:03 PM But yes. I’ll format it right up.

11:03 PM Ha!

11:04 PM I was figuring you would take names out of it.

11:04 PM Maybe leaving just R. and P.

11:04 PM I mean, they’re like proper nouns.

11:04 PM Sngzzzrrrdddd!!!!!!!

11:04 PM Totally.