The Problem

One quart equals 32 ounces. One pint equals 16 ounces. We have a 1-quart bottle filled with 1 pint of scotch, and an empty 8-ounce glass. We want to finish with 1 pint of liquid, made up of 1 part scotch and 5 parts water.

My Solution

Top off the bottle of scotch with water. Mix. It is now equal parts scotch and water.

Two times, pour from the bottle into the glass, and dump the glass. There are now 16 ounces of drink in the bottle, still half and half.

Fill the glass from the tap, then pour that into the bottle. Mix. There are now 24 ounces in the bottle, mixed as 1/3 scotch, 2/3 water.

Fill the glass from the bottle once, dump the glass. There are now 16 ounces in the bottle, still 1/3 scotch.

Top off the bottle from the tap again. Mix. It is now 1/6 scotch, 5/6 water.

Two more times, pour from the bottle into the glass and empty the glass. Now, finally, the bottle contains 16 ounces (one pint), composed of 1/6 scotch and 5/6 water.

We moved up over this past weekend. This time we rented a truck, but hired movers to load it for us, then unloaded it ourselves at the other end (with the help of local family and friends). I think it worked out very well. We saved money over getting movers to do the whole thing, but it wasn’t too terribly bad on us since we did get them to do the worst part — the furniture Tetris that ensures you don’t have to make a second trip.

So here we are, 72 hours later, with everything moved, everything in the right room, and even a lot of stuff completely set up. We have a working living room and bedroom and dining room, a stocked fridge, and I was able to sit out and smoke a celebratory cigar on our deck last night. Fantastic.

The big deal for me is that we finally have a garage. This is a first for us. We did have an old detached carriage-style garage at our first house, but that was next to useless. Now, though, we can actually park the car inside, or even better, I have covered space for PROJECTS. Project number one is to build myself a workbench so I can do other projects. I am so excited!

Now I just have to get used to bad drivers, worse roads, and state-run liquor stores…

There you have it: experimental proof that a civilization-ending apocalypse occurs between now and the invention of time travel, erasing all record of Hawking’s bash. You may start your doomsday prepping now.

I love fountain pens. Like love love. Fountain pens are great. A few years ago, Lauren gave me a Lamy Safari, and I was hooked. I can’t stand using ballpoints now. I tolerate a Marvy Le Pen for my pocket notebook since it’s a bit easier to manage for quick notes on the go, but otherwise it’s fountain pens all the way.

I write in my journal with some semblance of regularity. I write letters on occasion. Always fountain pens. I have several now, and a few different inks. The variety of inks is one of the nice things — you can get a bottle of ink you like, and just refill the pen from that. A twelve-dollar bottle of quality ink will last for dozens of refills (I’ve had my most-used bottle for at least four years and it’s still more than three-quarters full); I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes out cheaper than using crappy disposable ballpoints.

On top of that, you are writing with a quality instrument, with poise and power and history behind it. You are in touch with the great writers in history (and some modern ones), you have the satisfaction of using a fine tool, and you likely have less writer’s cramp: fountain pens take far less pressure than ballpoints to put ink on the page, due to the physics of how they work. With a bit of practice, your penmanship will likely improve, too.

I regularly use two or three pens. I have five inked right now; I should probably empty and clean a couple of those. If you leave ink for months in a pen without using it, it can dry out and gunk up, so it’s better to only have a few inked at a time.

Depending on the paper (the smoothness affects the way the pen lays down ink), I do most of my writing with a vintage Parker 45 loaded with Noodler’s Bulletproof Black ink, or a new Kaweco Sport with the sepia ink cartridges they sell. These are my workhorses. For shorter stuff I want to stand out (like poetry or quotes), I use my Lamy Safari with Noodler’s Antietam (a nice shaded red) or an italic-nibbed Pilot Plumix with Noodler’s Navajoe Turquoise. Side note: can you tell what brand of ink I favor?

So, anyway, most people don’t seem to understand my preference for (obsession with?) fountain pens. Of the strange things I like (nerdy card games, pipe-smoking, what have you), this is the one that seems to draw the most attention and fascinated questions when it comes up.

(This post is part of a series of more personal posts. Thanks to Lauren for starting it, and you should go leave her a comment if you join in!)

1. What age did you learn to ride a bike?
2. Do you remember your first day of kindergarten? What was it like?
3. What was your first car? What did you love/hate about it?
4. Who is/are your hero(es)?
5. What is one of your favorite memories from your childhood?
6. Do you play an instrument? If not, what would you want to play if you could?
7. What’s something that’s on your “bucket list”?
8. What were you like in middle school? What were your clothing/music choices? (Around 12 years old.)
9. What is something adventurous you’d like to do someday?
10. Do you believe in anything “odd” – UFOs, ghosts, horoscopes, superstitions, etc.?
11. What’s something you’re interested in that no one really knows about or no one would really understand?
12. What’s your favorite nostalgic song? What does it remind you of?
13. If you could learn one new skill or pick up a new hobby, what would you like to do?
14. What’s your favorite book? Magazine?
15. What’s your religion/religious beliefs?
16. What are you going to name your children? Or, what are your favorite names in general?
17. Who was your childhood best friend? Do you still keep in touch?
18. Tell us your life philosophy?
19. Tell us a secret talent!
20. Create your own question and answer it!

The trip was good. We drove (nineteen hours from Maryland to Missouri…), two days each way. Four days for visiting in the middle. We saw my parents and (local) siblings, and spent a lot of time just driving around Joplin seeing what had changed and what hadn’t. The tornado last year is still very evident — central Joplin is a wasteland, though with most of the debris removed it looks more desolate than destroyed.

New construction is going up. My parents say its impossible to find contractors to work small jobs because they are all booked full just building new houses to replace the thousands that were destroyed.

We took some photos while we were there, which will probably be posted when I ever get around to going through them. In the meantime, expect 20 Questions to resume on Monday!

I do believe, however (and this should come as no surprise to you, dear reader), in libertarianism. I think that probably is still odd. Most Americans seem to believe in government interference in personal lives as a net good (whether they are attempting to influence my morals, tell me how my earned paycheck ought to be spent, or killing thousands of innocent people on the far side of the world in my name). As long as their guy is in charge, they don’t much care what he does.

I believe that power corrupts, and governmental power is a cancer that corrupts inexorably. The more aspects of society and the market government takes as its own, the more it will take, to no good end.

Aside from my theology and ethical/political philosophy, most things I “believe in” are more like plausibilities (I think I just made up a word). For instance, UFOs/aliens: I don’t believe or disbelieve in the existence of them. I would simply be unsurprised in either case — excited if we found them, sure, but not surprised. In the same way, I’m fascinated by futurist concepts like the technological singularity, but I would be unwilling to say, “Yes, I think this will happen,” or, “Nope, not possible.”

That’s how I approach most conceptual things in life — I evaluate whether I find it plausible, and then wait for evidence to confirm or disprove my logic.

(This post is part of a series of more personal posts. Thanks to Lauren for starting it, and you should go leave her a comment if you join in!)

1. What age did you learn to ride a bike?
2. Do you remember your first day of kindergarten? What was it like?
3. What was your first car? What did you love/hate about it?
4. Who is/are your hero(es)?
5. What is one of your favorite memories from your childhood?
6. Do you play an instrument? If not, what would you want to play if you could?
7. What’s something that’s on your “bucket list”?
8. What were you like in middle school? What were your clothing/music choices? (Around 12 years old.)
9. What is something adventurous you’d like to do someday?
10. Do you believe in anything “odd” – UFOs, ghosts, horoscopes, superstitions, etc.?
11. What’s something you’re interested in that no one really knows about or no one would really understand?
12. What’s your favorite nostalgic song? What does it remind you of?
13. If you could learn one new skill or pick up a new hobby, what would you like to do?
14. What’s your favorite book? Magazine?
15. What’s your religion/religious beliefs?
16. What are you going to name your children? Or, what are your favorite names in general?
17. Who was your childhood best friend? Do you still keep in touch?
18. Tell us your life philosophy?
19. Tell us a secret talent!
20. Create your own question and answer it!

I would be happy to live for two or three years in London, or Hawaii, or somewhere in Germany. Living where I am (Baltimore/DC) is different from where I grew up (small-town midwest), but those are still the same culture at their root. Getting geographically away from this would be a proper adventure. I would want to come back eventually, but… eventually.

(This post is part of a series of more personal posts. Thanks to Lauren for starting it, and you should go leave her a comment if you join in!)

1. What age did you learn to ride a bike?
2. Do you remember your first day of kindergarten? What was it like?
3. What was your first car? What did you love/hate about it?
4. Who is/are your hero(es)?
5. What is one of your favorite memories from your childhood?
6. Do you play an instrument? If not, what would you want to play if you could?
7. What’s something that’s on your “bucket list”?
8. What were you like in middle school? What were your clothing/music choices? (Around 12 years old.)
9. What is something adventurous you’d like to do someday?
10. Do you believe in anything “odd” – UFOs, ghosts, horoscopes, superstitions, etc.?
11. What’s something you’re interested in that no one really knows about or no one would really understand?
12. What’s your favorite nostalgic song? What does it remind you of?
13. If you could learn one new skill or pick up a new hobby, what would you like to do?
14. What’s your favorite book? Magazine?
15. What’s your religion/religious beliefs?
16. What are you going to name your children? Or, what are your favorite names in general?
17. Who was your childhood best friend? Do you still keep in touch?
18. Tell us your life philosophy?
19. Tell us a secret talent!
20. Create your own question and answer it!

You know, this description just does not do me justice. Here’s a picture of me from sixth grade:

Look at the socks. Look at them.

I listened to oldies and country. Those bastions of badassery.

(This post is part of a series of more personal posts. Thanks to Lauren for starting it, and you should go leave her a comment if you join in!)

1. What age did you learn to ride a bike?
2. Do you remember your first day of kindergarten? What was it like?
3. What was your first car? What did you love/hate about it?
4. Who is/are your hero(es)?
5. What is one of your favorite memories from your childhood?
6. Do you play an instrument? If not, what would you want to play if you could?
7. What’s something that’s on your “bucket list”?
8. What were you like in middle school? What were your clothing/music choices? (Around 12 years old.)
9. What is something adventurous you’d like to do someday?
10. Do you believe in anything “odd” – UFOs, ghosts, horoscopes, superstitions, etc.?
11. What’s something you’re interested in that no one really knows about or no one would really understand?
12. What’s your favorite nostalgic song? What does it remind you of?
13. If you could learn one new skill or pick up a new hobby, what would you like to do?
14. What’s your favorite book? Magazine?
15. What’s your religion/religious beliefs?
16. What are you going to name your children? Or, what are your favorite names in general?
17. Who was your childhood best friend? Do you still keep in touch?
18. Tell us your life philosophy?
19. Tell us a secret talent!
20. Create your own question and answer it!

I have some beliefs and philosophies that may seem contradictory. I have a day job as a programmer, and my current primary hobby is the creative work you see here on this blog. My main source of current and future income is the sale of copyright-protected works.

At the same time, I read the news. I read how the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and other copyright law firms and lobbying groups are behaving. I see them filing (and winning) lawsuits against everyday normal people for hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars. These are judgments that destroy lives – no normal person can ever pay these down. And these are punishments for simply sharing a few dozen music tracks. There is no victim. There is no provable damage. Yet juries and judges hand out these verdicts anyway.

These are just the lawsuits that make it to court. First, the copyright lawyers send out extortion letters to anyone they think might maybe have infringed on their copyrights. These usually take the form of “pay us $3000 or we’ll take you to court.” Other media is not immune. Many authors and publishers take a similar stance. Photographers get pretty bad as well.

I have no desire to take part in this carnival. Many, many creators have shown that a living can be earned without going to these absurd extremes. To that end, I have decided that I shall contribute to the other side of the coin. You’ll see at the bottom of the site I have added a license:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

From now on, and retroactive to cover all previous entries, everything I post on this site is Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licensed. This means that you can do anything you like with my work, including republishing, provided that you 1) inform your audience that I am the creator, 2) use it only for non-commercial purposes, and 3) pass along any changes you may make, in the same spirit that I have made my own work available.

I have no publicly-available creative work outside of what I have posted here, but I hope to have some in the coming months. My plan for the moment is to license them the same as I have this blog.

For more information, please visit Creative Commons, or read any book by Cory Doctorow. All of his work is available for free on his website under a CC license, and each one has an explanation of the license and his justifications in the front. He also sells his books, and makes a living despite giving them away for free at the same time. I recommend Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Little Brother as my favorites.

I have written a fair amount of poetry, of which maybe two poems are actually publishable. I’ve written quite a bit of prose, too, far more than has ended up online here. I intend to just keep writing until I can gather enough good stuff together to make it worthwhile. If I can keep going at a decent pace (I have hit 1000 words per day at times), I think I could do it soon. It’s those two-month chunks of no writing at all that throw a wrench in the works.

Since this is a bit short, here’s a bonus bucket list item: physically go into space. Given my relative youth and the rise of commercial space pioneers such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, I think this is entirely possible. Maybe I’ll conduct a reading from my book while I’m up there!

(This post is part of a series of more personal posts. Thanks to Lauren for starting it, and you should go leave her a comment if you join in!)

1. What age did you learn to ride a bike?
2. Do you remember your first day of kindergarten? What was it like?
3. What was your first car? What did you love/hate about it?
4. Who is/are your hero(es)?
5. What is one of your favorite memories from your childhood?
6. Do you play an instrument? If not, what would you want to play if you could?
7. What’s something that’s on your “bucket list”?
8. What were you like in middle school? What were your clothing/music choices? (Around 12 years old.)
9. What is something adventurous you’d like to do someday?
10. Do you believe in anything “odd” – UFOs, ghosts, horoscopes, superstitions, etc.?
11. What’s something you’re interested in that no one really knows about or no one would really understand?
12. What’s your favorite nostalgic song? What does it remind you of?
13. If you could learn one new skill or pick up a new hobby, what would you like to do?
14. What’s your favorite book? Magazine?
15. What’s your religion/religious beliefs?
16. What are you going to name your children? Or, what are your favorite names in general?
17. Who was your childhood best friend? Do you still keep in touch?
18. Tell us your life philosophy?
19. Tell us a secret talent!
20. Create your own question and answer it!