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Back around 250 BC when Archimedes invented the screw pump, he likely never envisioned the modern marvel it would become - the chocolate fountain.

I own a ½ interest in a chocolate fountain.  I did not know this until recently when my lovely wife co-hosted a wedding shower for a neighbor.  When the fountain returned home after the party, I was quick to move in for a chocolate covered snack.  When it was time for clean up, my lovely wife began to disassemble the fountain’s various tiers exposing the simple machine that enables the whole show.  An Archimedes’ screw lifts the molten chocolate from the basin up through a hollow tube where it then flows down over the shaped tiers.  When the fountain is taken apart all that is left is a bowl of liquid chocolate and a vertical screw.

I’m not sure how to explain why I did what I did next.  In my Polish mind I decided to further investigate the still chocolate covered device.  I pressed the on switch.  Okay, I’m not nearly as smart as Archimedes because obviously the whole screw pump mechanics don’t work without the surrounding hollow pipe.  I also failed to fully appreciate the speed at which this machine operates.  What happened next was like turning on a chocolate sprinkler system in the middle of the kitchen.  In about two seconds I splatter painted a very large area = r² • Π of our kitchen.

I don’t know if I’ll ever outgrow my dumb childlike curiosity for how things work.  This lesson only cost my about 30 minutes of wiping up the kitchen.  Delicious.

– steve

Today is earth day.  The radio is all “Al Gore this…” and “carbon footprint that….” so I’m all “what’s a carbon footprint?”  I went to this website to calculate my carbon footprint.  I learned that the average person’s carbon footprint is about 17.8 tons of CO₂ per year.  Using the simple calculator I figured mine to be about 10.5 tons of CO₂ per year.  I drive a “standard pickup truck” so I’m a little high in transportation, however I travel infrequently so I am much lower in travel.

I may not be completely green, but I’m not as bad as a could be either.  I’ll call Earth Day a win this year, since this is probably the first time I’ve spent any considerable time thinking about it.  Baby steps.  Now excuse me, I’m off to trade in the truck for a Toyota Prius.

 – steve

P.S. - I do recycle at home, but it seems that no one is talking about that anymore.  That must be all 1990’s.

The man in this photo isn’t me, but I can tell you what happens next.  I drove to work this morning with my tall styro-foam cup of coffee riding on the toolbox of my truck.  It didn’t take me too long to notice, but by the time I did it was too late.  The cup was on its side rolling around in the wind.  There are now streaks of coffee running down the side of the truck bed - cream and sugar included.  Nice.  I had to drink crumby work coffee today.  It’s the worst.

– steve

Photo Credit:  Thomas Hawk @ Flickr.

Have you ever seen those people on the news scratching their head after they built their home right on the edge of the sea - on a foundation of sand?  They can never quite seem to figure out why their house fell into the ocean one day unexpectedly.

This is the kind of day I’m having at work.  Multiple failures are occurring across many computers affecting hundreds of applications.  Everyone seems befuddled that so much stuff is broken or unavailable.  There is a common denominator at play here.  We trusted a shared disk that supports dozens of computers (maybe hundreds).  This is our version of a sand foundation.  Once it becomes unstable, our whole house of cards starts tumbling down very quickly too.

I now find myself wishing I’d taken two weeks off, not one.

– steve

I saw a show about the Dugger family on the Discovery Health channel last night.  This family has seventeen children.  Can you imagine?  Just think about the enormity of that size family.  Their family’s tax stimulus payment this year will be something like this:

$1,200 - per married couple

$300 - per child under 17 years old (15 Duggers qualify I think, 2 are older)

Totaling $5,700.00 in economic stimulus for that one family.

This amount probably covers only a couple of trips to the grocery store for this crew.  To think I can get overwhelmed with just three kids sometimes.  Just something to reflect on.

– steve