Kite Flying

20 years ago I lived across the street from dog beach. During that time, my neighbor was a semi professional kite flyer. Before I met him I didn't know there was such a thing. He flew with a group of guys who call themselves the Killer B's. He said the name came from the fact that at first they were considered the second best team to be sponsored by a kite company named North Shore Kites. I bought an old kite from him and flew it at the beach where I would tease dogs....and sometimes their owners. The dogs go crazy over the sound and the movement of the kite in the wind.

Follow the link below to see a video of a kite team in a contest. Remember that each kite has Four strings. For each revolution in one direction you must remember to return in the opposite direction...or you will have a big mess. Flying with five other people makes it only that much more difficult. One mistake means you may have 20 different lines to untangle from each other.

Watch "I Quad trick kite flying" on YouTube

New Gate

Michelle and I were relaxing in our back yard today and we decided to install our new redwood gate. Our friend Patrick help us build the gate last week. We left the gate in the sun for a week to give it a nice golden color. Yesterday I treated the redwood with a sealer to help it withstand the weather. This afternoon michelle helped me hang the gate. Besides a little bit of sawdust that was shot into Michelle's hair by my plainer, we had no problems with the installation. This evening we are going to chill in the backyard and enjoy the new feature.

10 Years Together!

Michelle and I recently returned from a trip to Sonoma, California to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. Please follow this link to view photos (and captions) from our trip.

July Summer

Our neighbors had a yard sale yesterday. Lots of toys for sale.Michele and I made about 30 bucks! I contacted Steve Pendarvis about a new surfboard. I'll have to keep you posted but I included some photos of an old one. Patrick and I built a new back gate for our yard. I think it turned out nice. Went out to eat with old friends from Dana and saw this Chairman Meow poster. Obey the kitty. Watching hurricane Fabio off the coast of Baja....may bring us some surf.

University Club

Went to an end of the year celebration at the University Club downtown and enjoyed a beautiful view of the city. Dad helped me hook a relay up to the offroad lights on the Jeep. Watched Jesse as Amy took care of some business for their new rental. As usual Jack took a nap. Going for a swim in 30 minutes.Summer time.

Pusillanimity

Just finished reading  "Civilization - The West and the Rest" by Niall Ferguson. I heard of the book while watching the author being interviewed on the Colbert Report. I'm a fan of non-fiction, I enjoy comparing different cultures, and I found the author to be an entertaining guest/speaker so I decided to give the book a try and bought it on Amazon.com.

Civilization was the author's attempt to describe why western cultures appeared to dominate world culture/economics/politics during the last 400 years and if/how this might change.

It took me months to finish it partly because parts of the book dragged on forever. I felt the author could have shared the same message (with depth and meaning) in less than half the time it took for him to do it. On the up side, there was a very interesting chapter describing colonial development in North American and South American by comparing George Washington to Simon Bolivar.

Bottom line...there are six inventions or "killer apps" that allowed western civilizations to prosper and succeed:

1. Competition - European nations were fragmented and this resulted in multiple competing economies and corporations
2. The Scientific Revolution - breakthroughs in math and science
3. The Rule of Law and Representative Government - laws were based upon property rights and land owners had a say in their government
4. Modern Medicine - increased length and quality of living
5. The Consumer Society - allowed economies to grow - connected to the Industrial Revolution
6. Work Ethic - western society combined intensive labour with higher savings rates

Today China has four basic goals they want to accomplish:

1. Consume more
2. Import more
3. Invest abroad more
4. Innovate more

Will China take the lead in world government/economy/influence/prosperity or will they follow Japan, who showed promise but has recently stagnated? The author claims there are four pitfalls China needs to look out for:

1. Are there economy/real estate/stock markets truly competitive?
2. Will they fall to internal social unrest - will the one child policy create a generation of older people who cannot be sustained by the younger generation?
3. Will the rising middle class demand more political say then they currently have?
4. Will they upset their neighbors to the point other nations decide to form alliances with the west?

Ferguson has faith in western civilization and believes success is tied to the ability for its citizens to believe in it

"Today....the biggest threat to Western civilization is posed not by other civilizations, but by our own pusillanimity - and by the historical ignorance that feeds it.

I had to look up "pusillanimity". Follow this link for the definition.

Please Don't Take Us Literally...

My last post from the middle of the day on the 4th of July was titled "Go Big On The 4th" but apparently the city of San Diego took this literally. The fireworks show scheduled for San Diego Bay suffered a malfunction that resulted in all of the fireworks being launched at once. We witnessed the event indirectly.

Our group of friends had migrated to the top of Mike and Anja's house to watch the OB fireworks show. From the roof of their house you can also see shows at Sea World and La Jolla. We were waiting for the OB show to start when we noticed the sky to the east of us (towards San Diego Bay) dramatically light up. We were on the west side of Point Loma so we couldn't see the fireworks directly. The event only lasted for five seconds and I don't remember hearing any sound....but the brightness was similar to the dawn immediately before a sunrise. We knew something must have gone wrong because the brightness was very unusual for a fireworks show.

We didn't know what had happened until we arrived at home after the OB show and saw the announcement on TV. I am sure it was interesting to watch! The video below is the best I could find at this time.

 

Go Big On The 4th

Its the 4th of July. Here is what I've done during the last 24 hours...

Took Michelle's car in to have the windows tinted. Looking like a "sweet ride" now...

Went to a shooting range in El Cajon with Henry. Shot a 38 caliber revolver. It was the first time I had tried shooting a handgun. Pretty exciting but loud and smelly...I was surprised at the amount of debris that would fly out of the chamber with every shot. Eye protection was mandatory.

Took a ride with Michelle in a convertible as part of the Scripps Ranch 4th of July Parade. This has become an annual tradition.

Downloaded a copy of "The Grey Album" onto my iPod (the first time I've put any new music on my iPod since I started using Pandora and Spotify). Never heard of the Grey Album? Danger Mouse released the album in 2004 as part of an artist project. He decided to create an album consisting entirely of music mixed together from Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles White Album. Very interesting - unless you hate rap music and then you should probabily skip the link below.

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Apparently both Jay-Z and Paul McCartney supported the artistic project - the only people complaining were the record executives. Go figure.....

Happy 4th!