Another day ... Another God?

Dispelling deity dirt and other illusions. - Todd Springfield

From bondage to repriev-al ... how atheism can set you free. - Todd Springfield

I just wonder as I sit in my corner of the world, in my room, in the house, at the computer ... in my little space of my wandering brain ... how many people out there are thinking in logic. With reason? With their heart? We are all one people no matter what we choose to believe ... higher power, God, or no. We all have a link with humanity. Then why is it suddenly I feel a decisive line?

And I derive this in my head with that of my very close friend, my mother. Somewhere along the line she switched from atheist ... well, perhaps an agnostic despite what she said aloud ... to religious. And now we have a riff leaving us at odds of not understanding one another.

Suddenly proclaiming atheism makes me feel like I am walking on some sort of egg shells. It just leaves me feeling I need to do more. Show more biology, more science ... not leave this big word science as a big scary one.

I got here inch my inch, year by year in school, against all odds. Against what everyone else told me I am natural at. I feel balanced. I feel like I wouldn't be who I am without the education I've gotten. I won't let anyone take this away from me. I won't regress.

And all that is obvious and well, easy.

So why do I feel like I need to educate the world ... so soon and immediately. I once felt this as a very liberal campus student that spoke against the evils of big business like McDonalds cutting down rainforest for cows, and the deep feeling of needing to understand everyone. But this is different.

I see us far into the future traveling the space and time continuum. I see religion fervor working with scientific logic. I see the world progressing. The world being free of so much disease, natural born conditions, cancer, and even everyone knowing and taking for granted music. I consider music part of the connection of the humanity pheromone communication connection.

But more than ever, I just feel really bad that my mother was insulted and feel guilty for any of the other Christians I may have offended after the phone call of my mother and the posting here on facebook.

I genuinely want the world to open up ... there is so much math, logic, decisive action that needs to happen.

A pet peeve of mine as a "scientist" is that serious over play of something has to happen in order for the layman communities of the world to see. Take anti-bacterial for instance ... freakin' soap with lye works just fine to kill all bacteria and such. Bleach will kill a further level, for longer effect. Anti-bacterial just makes the world full of resistant strains. Things are going overboard since the 1990s for anti-bacterial products (not to mention wasteful additions that make it easier to clean up), which are just producing the opposite effect. The companies that sell these products realized they could make a profit by scaring the public into "cleanliness". What they didn't disclose is that high acidity works for many things like cleaning around the home. Try things laced with lemon juice. It works great.

I could list a hundred other things like this. I tell everyone I meet "Just buy a bar of soap. Don't get the anti-bacterial stuff. It contributes to us having strains of bacteria that leave us with no defense."

In the 1930s or so there were 10s of bacteria that we have no defense to. Now there are 100s, if not up in the 1000s now.

When I say "no defense" I mean if you get this bacterial infection your doctor is going to make you as comfortable as possible and let you know "there is no cure, no way to combat it". We make anti-bacterial things out of fungal or mushroom derivatives. Consider it our cheating way to use the fungus defenses against the bacteria to help humans. As scientists out there try to mimic design of fungal defenses we're just not doing it as fast as nature would. There is this natural arms race between fungus and bacteria, with fungus being much more evolved. So we realized as humans, "Hey these spore mushroom guys are really good at beating these other guys that are really annoying and hurtful to us. I know! Let's use them!"

I digress, as one of my many ramblings. I just want the world to know so much.

Another thing blown out of control. Global Warming. Another day.

So as for the title. Another day, another God? The God Complex is so full, delusional, and encompassing it is too much for me to stand to have any response to "He is there. He is with you." as any true factual proof. What scientific proof can walk against something which can not be argued against?

September Quick Update

School has started and lots of studying has commenced.

Trying to get a job: laboratory, winery, administrative, or accounting.

Classes I'm taking: organic chemistry and bookkeeping.

Leaving my schedule open for a job ... which seems to keep eluding me.

Remaking my resume today, perhaps that will help.

Got a call from my college today (the one I'm getting the degree from, not the junior college I

am attending) ... they wanted to know if I passed the chemistry class last year. Nope ... blamed it on a death in the family and an excruciatingly painful high ankle sprain. I'm still feeling the effects of both.

Discovered what to do with all of our peppers in the garden ... the grill! Last year we pickled lots of them which I want to do this year as we ate all of those from last year. We love giardiniera (italian pickled veggies) and chilies en escabeche (mexican pickled veggies). Giardiniera is composed of a hoj poj of veggies with shallots, onions, zucchini, blends of peppers, little tomatoes, carrots, and cauliflower ... pickled with just the right amount of spice. The chilies done Mexican style are the spicy peppers with

shallots and onion with 2 types of vinegar and olive oil. Some people tell me the olive oil is the key.

The poppers made from garden fatter peppers (like jalapeno and lipstick) are flying right into everyone's mouths. We just can't seem to make enough! The last two time we stuffed them we made them with cream cheese, cheddar cheese, proscuitto, and onion bits. Mmmm, this sounds so good I'm ready to make another batch right now! I bought the pepper roaster from Sur La Table as really it has a neat tool for coring the peppers. Ben said it took a little while to get used to making them and in this attached picture he proudly shows them off! We put foil in the rack to coat the holes and make the holes custom sized for each pepper as we were doing a smaller batch than the roaster normally fitted.

I was highly irritated waking up this morning when my Wii decided to not sync or communicate with all my remotes randomly. Is this normal?

At any rate I had to go through the minorly frustrating task of re-syncing them.

I'm in love with playing Twilight Princess, the newish Zelda, however after playing all these other games that have implemented more interaction for the RPGs this one does seem quite lacking. I just keep reminding myself that it was designed in Japan probably over some years starting with an older engine.

Adam and I were in escrow on a house but backed out when we found out the septic, leach lines, and well all had issues and to top it off there was an encroachment. Yikes! An additional 60k would have been needed to fix it all ... too much of a headache with the bank not working with us. You'd think the banks would want to get these properties off their hands! But no, still profit hungry. It would have closed yesterday, sigh. When we will find a house?

Oh well, I don't have a job to help support it so it's probably all for the best.

I'm taking Lotensin for my blood pressure which now in the fourth month seems to work well. It's a beta-blocker which turns a hydroxyl group into a ketone in the liver. I've been meaning to pick up some milk thistle, which is an herbal supplement to clean the liver. I'm also under the impression that drinking water with a slice of lemon in it does the same thing, although I'm not sure how absolutely true that is.

According to a website lemon does the following:

• Lemons are antiseptic
• Lemon water has excellent digestive properties and can ease heartburn, bloating and other digestion problems
• Lemon water cleanses and stimulates the liver and kidneys
• Lemon juice contains calcium, magnesium and potassium
• Lemon juice has been known to relieve asthma
• Lemon water (hot) offers relief from cold and flu symptoms while providing some much needed Vitamin C
• Lemon juice is a great skin cleanser

All I know for sure is that when it's close to the time I need to take my blood pressure medication I get vertigo, it starts on slowly and lightly, but as the time passes by even 15 minutes it gets stronger and stronger, where it's almost made me fall down.

I'm loosely using the Wii active and admittedly not as much as I should. There's something about getting all sweaty and bopping around with a sports bra (or without if it's really hot!) living in a house with 4 other men. It's not to say I'm embarrassed but if any of them are home for long periods of time I avoid the workout in the living room. Maybe I'm not an exhibitionist?

Anyhoo, back to the job hunt. I have some pretty promising things out there with the lower pay so perhaps I can stand a chance! All my skills and I'm back to entry level work again ... oh well, gotta start somewhere in our crappy economy.

Mmmm, more peppers are calling my name. I just hope we have more cheese? This is not good for the diet is it? Well, not if I'm balancing the diet with lots of veggies! And boy is the garden exploding.

So many things on the mind.

Well, I still haven't made it to a drum circle. I really want to but it's usually at the end of a night on the weekend and by the end of any night is the last time I should be moving my ankle. So with my ankle STILL laid up I have to forgo certain activities. Like drumming. Pooh.

I've had a job interview and don't think I've gotten that job because I haven't heard anything. Luckily it was on a day that my ankle was feeling well so I was able to walk in and do the interview with a good foot situation last Monday, I believe. A whole week ago and still it's not 100 per cent.

Later that day I met with Ethan and Sean to go see the Mayor of Yountville. A very nice woman, Cynthia Saucerman. She gave us some phone numbers and some possible location ideas for our business saying Sean and my idea was "unique". She also seemed satisfied with our ideas that when the "kitchy" (as Jaime calls it) and "novelty" wears off that we have a viable business to keep running.

The business idea keeps evolving every day so I won't spoil any of it by writing it here until we have a solid or solid enough business plan. Lest to say my friend Jaime helps people start up companies and has done a project similar to ours recently in Arizona. She seems genuinely excited to help us.

I frustratingly got a doctor's bill for a recent visit in May. I usually pay at the time of service so I was a bit shocked at the bill of 170 dollars. When paying at the time of service the amount is greatly discounted so now I am waiting to see if I can get a discount by phone call "by the end of the day". The reason I'm so frustrated is that no one told me at the time of service there was anything to pay despite asking. The girls at the counter don't seem to give a damn about people with no insurance. With my ankle and my high blood pressure I just had to go in to see the doctor. Coupled with a scare where I almost passed out turned into even more appointments.

In a nutshell, nothing is broken, the time when I almost passed out is a normal occurrence (trip up between major blood vessel and neurological system termed a type of vasovagel response), I'm on blood pressure medication (Lotensin) and I have another appointment in 6 months or so.

Yesterday was a nice father's day. I wish I didn't have to sit the whole time though. I got to spend some time at the Ranch with Adam, my dad, my uncle Pat, Mandy and Ryan and the kids, and of course Uncle Kelly and Grandpa Dave. The guys took the jeep out to check out the ranch. They also went target shooting and we all had a pot luck type lunch; tri-tip, pasta salad, broccoli salad, egg salad, shrimp fettuccine with homemade noodles, and of course lots of munchies like salami and cheese.

I realized my dad may be able to help with certain business aspects and in telling him so I also mentioned if he did help we may not be able to pay him very much. Looking at similar business plans I believe Sean and I will only be making some thing like 2000 a month each. It's what the business start up tutorials mean by "lowering your standard of living". They always prepare you to ask yourself that. But with me being unemployed off and on for like 2 years or longer there really isn't very much to lower it to.

Sean and I are going to look at some rental properties on Wednesday and check out things in Healdsburg. Jaime mentioned for our idea Santa Rosa is most likely the best way to go. So now I"ll be putting feelers out for Santa Rosa too. There are less high traffic available locations at this time compared to Healdsburg though. We're keeping our fingers crossed that a good place will open up closer to when we have our business plan ready and need to get a place to start launching permits.

Currently I'm just working on cataloguing websites for similar products and services we will be providing. My goal has been one website a day and that's saying a lot. Most of these websites seem to be carrying 300+ products, so that takes me up to 10 hours.

Hmmm, I'm getting hungry so I guess I better start thinking about what I want for lunch. I wonder what Adam is up to?

Things are Swinging into Summer!

In a nutshell, here is what has been on my mind.

School finished and no regretfully I did not pass the last class I needed for my degree. I'm sure I've beat myself up long enough for not studying enough, but really I think it came down to the blunders I first made in class over the first two exams. Oh well, what's another year in the long run things?

I've got an interview for Chalk Hill Estates Winery next Monday so I'm desperately hoping I can walk without limping by then. More than likely I will be fine, if I don't push it that is. The bruising is to the least it has ever been and my foot and ankle are no longer swollen. It's not a permanent job, just a crush season job, but that is better than nothing.

The garden is blooming out of control. Now that I can sort of walk I can take some pictures so I'll have some up in Facebook and probably Shutterfly soon.

My blood pressure medication is working wonderfully. Now I just have to cut out my drinking and I'll be set. Not really ready for a total cut out. I mean, I did give up every other vice I've had. I've got to get some credit for that. And something like this can only be done when I'm good and ready. If you don't do something for yourself I've learned it's less likely to stick.

Unemployment has been extended so at least I don't have to worry about that.

I did get depressed for a while, and for all I know I may be still. I do feel fine today, nay even happy! My mom did explain that injuries do that to people. And I imagine being cooped up in a house not being able to go anywhere didn't help.

Makes me feel bad for my chickens all stuck in a tiny coop. We have one older hen who won't come out of the "condo", Adam calls it. She gets pecked nearly to death by the younger hens placing everyone in their pecking order. So she flies up to the top of the coop and she gets left alone. Adam sometimes lets her out, but his last complaint was about her eating his broccoli seedlings, so back up she went.

I'm talking with a friend about seriously opening up an Irish and UK product front. We think it would do very here. I've been working on a business plan and a marketing reserch report. The marketing research report is quite an undertaking so we may just have a professional organization prepare that. Depending on the route of funding we seek will determine who, if not both of us, will be the owner. We trust each other fully and that aside we each have different strengths is complimenting departments. If he pulls out I doubt I'd do this on my own. So we both reassure each other and take it step by step, day by day, by and by.

I've also started picking up my flute again and my friend has some fun drum circle activities. We absolutely love music. Another reason I want to get my foot well! It's hard to get around for such things.

I look forward to a drum circle Friday night, a wine event with my Mom on Sunday as well as a new place to eat: Ad Hoc. Joy, joy! Adam's taking about 10 off for his birthday. My dad's birthday and my mom's birthday are coming up also. And we have a fun family event to meet little Lucy. That same weekend is little Haley's first birthday. I guess with July being so busy I should also start planning for the rib cookoff in August. Not to mention my birthday. Aye, the summer is so full already!

Crunch Time ...

It's getting to crunch time ... the semester is winding down and surprisingly only 40% of my grade is calculated. The other 60% will happen with the exam next week, a report due on the 28th, then in very quick period over the first couple of weeks in May occurs another course exam, lab exam, and then the final exam. Oh and a sprinkling of a few lab reports. Ugh, I have been buckling down as my grade is not all it should be. But I am trying my darndest, organic chemistry is a fast moving subject after all.

I've taken away two interesting facts as of late from the class which do apply to our "real" lives.

One: Nitrites.

Not nitrates, but nitrites.

Nitrites are debatable, as to the level anyway, of HOW bad they are for the human body. See, the body does produce some nitrites (from nitrates) on it's own. But I am hard pressed to be convinced that it is anywhere near the levels that would be similar to ingested amounts, like from processed meats. Hot dogs, bacon, and other processed meats are just laden with nitrites.

A quick run down of this reaction (skip this paragraph if not interested in chemistry): dimethalamine and nitric oxide form a nitrosocompound. When this is broken down by enzymes in the body, as enzymes will break down compounds that are threatening and shouldn't be there, formaldehyde is one result. When the reaction goes even further it produces elemental N2, hyrdoxide ions, and a very very powerful nucleophile by the name of a methyl carbocation.

Now what does all this gibberish mean?

Formaldehyde causes all kinds of biological and toxicological problems.

And to finish with a really bad culprit +CH3 (methyl carbocation), is so bad this stuff randomly and powefully breaks down our DNA. Do you realize what the body goes through to protect the DNA? A lot. When there is break down with DNA, there is a large propensity for weird conditions to start popping up all over the place.

What I got out of this ... it might be wise to start avoiding the nitrites in our meats. They don't really need to be there anyway and plenty of places, like Trader Joe's, sell bacon and other meats WITHOUT nitrites. I promise they don't taste any difference, so why not do yourself a favor and avoid them? Many people have become vegetarians over such a thing.

Two: a preservative by the name of BHT, and others like BHA.

I won't go into too much science mumbo jumbo on these much, exept to say they are a type of radical scavenger. And just that they USED to be in our food to work as a preservative, like floating around in a bag of chips ... it would get broken down instead of the chips, leaving our food "fresh".

Then one day someone came along and said "Why are we eating this? This doesn't seem healthy."

So off it came from the shelves of our food, but has stayed in products like our shampoo and face wash. Seems to be okay there, for now at least.

Today I signed up for Twitter. Not sure what it's all about other than constant updating and such. I have noticed it's straight forward without all the overhead of places like Myspace and Facebook. I'm enjoying it already. ----> friends find me!

In Light of Procrastination

Typically ... I am not a procrastinator. But lately, I have been.

I know part of it is that I am squeezing in small things I enjoy like reading (Salt by Adam Roberts) an hour between things I need to get done like chores or studying; and the other part of it is that like many I'm looking at the depressed recession outlook.

Stores seem to be closing everywhere. There are killer deals for just about anything from cars (no interest for 4 years on loans) to buying houses (zero federal APR, and banks are *only* charging around 5%). But no one really has any money to buy anything. Not anything big like a car or a house at least.

And not like buying anything should matter to me since right now I have no job and my unemployment benefits have been temporarily suspended. I had to float my bills on my credit card. Ah, I digress.

The reason I opened with procrastination is that I should be, absolutely should be, working on my first laboratory report for organic chemistry. 

Well, I couldn't and was stressing about it last night, while studying for my first exam (I'll come back to that in a minute), because I didn't have a cd to install Microsoft Office. Apparently we had a 2003 version. I have a serial number but no cd for the software and can't seem to find it on the internet for download. However there are plenty of things out there if I want to crack Office 2007. 

Not interested when I have a legit serial and hey, I believe the developers should get what they work for. I just also believe they shouldn't charge an eye and leg for home users.

So in light of not having software to even LOOK at my work from last semester I was a little bewildered. Yes, as Adam suggested, I could go to the library. But who knows how long this will take and hey, I like to be at my computer at home snuggled on a cold overcast day like today by a nice fire. Plus, I reiterate, I have NO IDEA how long this will take. I'll cap it at 6 hours, hopefully .... my mind shrieks and collapses at the thought.

The software I stumbled upon was OpenOffice. I vaguely remembered something else out there that was (1) importantly free (2) available for immediate download and (3) compatible with Microsoft Office.

OpenOffice so far is much better than the old software of Microsoft Office we had, so honestly I may stop my search and just use it. The least I can say is that I'm stoked.

Tomorrow I'll be stoked on my copy of Photoshop CS4. I'm a huge fan of editing pictures. I can't wait to see what all these programs with Photoshop do.

Arg, back to organic chemistry. Today I get to write up a synthesis I did with zinc. It's supposed to be a green friendly approach involving a grinard reagent with zinc, an allyl system, by way of a radical reaction. Ah, maybe some poor future organic chemistry may need my reports ... might find a way of posting them.

As for going back to speak a minute about my exam, aye, the two biggest problems I fumbled over. Those were worth over 20 percent of the exam. I guess the best I can hope for is a B, but I may end up with something closer to a C. Ah well, all I need to do is pass to get my degree.

That will be so nice, to finally be done!

New Semester in Mid Recession

It really feels like the recession is hitting a lot of us really hard. 

Myself, I've been mostly unemployed for over a year. I do find odd jobs once in a while and I did get a job I thought would be a lasting one only to see that it didn't.

However this has given me the chance to finish up my college degree and even dream that I would perhaps go back to school.

Having run out of money it seemed my dream of becoming a pharmacist was definitely no longer an option. It is year-round schooling for 2 years, and a year of doctor-like rotations ... all while paying the grand some of forty thousand plus a year.

So I used my degree and experience to launch off a lab orientation career which hasn't been met with the most pay or opportunity ... at least not while I am not living in that major of a city.

I've recently inquired about starting a Master's Program. Options include a computer engineering degree, teaching credential, or bite the bullet and go back for biology. It may open up a few more jobs. I know all seem a little random compared to one another but they are where my strong skills lay.

Ideally, I'd love to just take all kinds of random classes like metal shop, computer programming, ceramics, or travel abroad. But at this point with no income that can't really happen ... well the classes can, but only after this semester.

The up side is that I passed organic  chemistry's first semester. Let's just hope I can hang in this semester. I hadn't been back to school in almost 5 years so it was rough. Organic Chemistry is undeniably the hardest chemistry undergrad class.

Anyhoo, all is well. I've been geeking out on Yelp, Facebook, and sort of recovered from my addiction to Travian.

After I finished my lab today (based on organometals, a more environmental friendly approach) my roommate Ben and I went to a new place that opened up for dim sum in town. God I was sooo stuffed but it's just so good. Now that I've been a few times I'm finding dishes I really really love. For those that don't know ... dim sum is a tradition that evolved in China for passing travelers. The travelers would stop and stay at tea houses and eventually small plates of food were served, hence dim sum. It's sort of like tapas that originated in Spain.

Most dim sum places there will be carts that are moved around the patrons that are filled with all the dim sum small dishes. One can point and ask for a particular plate and a tally mark is penciled in for the table. At the end of the meal the tallies are totaled and a fee is paid.

This place regretably doesn't do the carts, but they do have a splendid sheet that is a menu of sorts that one can mark on and then the food starts to roll out as it is prepared. As is usual I always order too much food, but hey, it is really tasty so we don't mind if we have to bring some home.

My favorite are the pork buns that are baked. I also like steamed pork buns but the baked ones are much smaller and have a lightly sweet coating on the top that blends splendidly with the chinese barbecued pork. 

We also ordered shrimp balls (often compared to sea urchins; the ones this place makes look more like octopuses with crazy extra arms), shrimp dumplings, pot stickers, and soup. Ben really loves shrimp.

After we ate we went to the asian market where I bought up three different types of mushrooms, now on a kick, knowing that mushrooms are really really good for you. Well, I started learning about it the first year I started college but only fairly recently realized just how good many types are.

We also got a bunch of random things like 100 count wonton wrappers, candy, groceries, and some staple sauces. I can not pass the isle with the candy and not get some of my favorite gummies.

Then we made a somewhat disappointing stop to the feed store on River Road. I was disappointed because despite having many top labels that were expensive for wet cat food none of them were actually good for a cat. They either had meat-by-products ... if you don't eat meat-by-products like lips, excess fat, and other things from animals that aren't used for human consumption I don't believe your pet should either. Also almost all of them had a grain derivative. Cats are not omnivores, they are strictly meat eating carnivores. Save the grains for your dog. I've actually taken up to buying Ben's cat dog food since many kinds are all meat. I know ironic feeding a cat dog food but it's actually more nutritious for the cat and slightly not great nutrition for the dog.

However Ben did find a decent cat liter for a good deal.

The people at the feed store offered to have some cat food special ordered. I left my name and number (the girl at the counter misspelled my last name ... who in their right mind doesn't know how to spell Taylor?)  but they said I'd have to buy it by the case. If it's not too incredibly expensive I can probably swing one case. But I was trying to avoid shipping charges and all that so I guess we'll see.

Otherwise, I've just been going to the pub drowning out my sorrows on a pint. A friend has been encouraging me to come with him and he covers. It's nice of him but I feel a little awkward with him paying all the time. Hopefully I'll get another job soon.