M-V-P

There's been a bunch of talk on sports radio lately here in Denver about who deserves to be the NFL's most Valuable Player. Obviously the sentiment around here is for Mr. Peyton F. Manning. The Broncos are suddenly a top team in the league merely by the addition of Manning. Well, and the defense is also even better than what had been a pretty good team last year.

But have you seen what is going on with Adrian Peterson out in Minnesota? The man is going to single-handedly take the Vikings to the playoffs. Seriously, the Vikings don't have much else going on -- teams KNOW they have to run and AD is STILL putting up 200 yards a week at almost 6.5 yards per carry. (As an aside to the sports radio hosts around here, yes his initials are A.P., but the man's nickname is AD as in All Day.) It's historic. He's already matched Jim Brown for what was probably the best year a running back has ever had, and this is the era of the passing game. There are two games left. It will be great to see what he can do over those two games and if, indeed, he can get the Vikings to the playoffs.

There is the argument, particularly by the homers here, that a quarterback is more important, so that P.F.M. should win over Peterson. Again, I love Manning, but if you make that argument, then you have to cast your vote for Tom Brady, don't you? Brady has put up bigger numbers than Manning on a team that does not have near as good a defense. Broncos are an 8 or 9 win team without Manning. Without Brady I think the Patriots win only 5 or 6 games.

With the historic year that Peterson is putting up though you also have to make mention of Calvin Johnson and the year he is having. He is even closer to breaking Jerry Rice's receiving yards mark than Peterson is to Dickerson's rushing record. Of course, as I said, this is an era that favors passing over rushing, but still what Johnson has done is pretty remarkable given that the Lions don't have a lot of other options on offense. Megatron makes these catches that make your jaw drop like watching a Barry Sanders run. I've never seen a man so routinely beat double coverage. Teams play man defense against him and put two men on him. Teams have put THREE men on him to try and cover him. I've really never seen anything like it.

All this said, if I had a vote for MVP I'd give it to Brian Urlacher every year, if he coudl stay healthy. I know as a Bears fan I'm biased. However, the Bears are a completely different team without Urlacher in there. They are a winning team with him and a losing team without him. It's that simple. Every year though we witness how badly the Bears can play wihtout him because it seems that he is out for at least a handful of games every year.

Killing a Chicken

I had to kill a chicken this morning. I know to most people this doesn't sound like much. Seems like everyone has some tale of watching their grandmother or great-aunt or someone chopping the head off a chicken at the family farm and then watching the thing run and flap around.For me, this was sort of a pet, however, and it's really rather painful to take the life of something that has relied on you for food and shelter.

Last week I noticed the Diva was having trouble moving around her pen, as if her one leg were hurting, though there was nothing visibly wrong with her. Though I purposely did not name our chickens so as not to grow too attached to them (especially after the dogs attacked and ate our first batch of pullets), our bantam golden seabright earned her monikerby acting bigger than she was. I hoped it was a minor injury. The next day she seemed worse, not wanting to leave the nesting box or move much at all. I had to make a decision regarding taking her to the vet. Like I said, to me the chickens are "sort of" pets. They rank somewhere between our dogs and the goldfish in our backyard pond. They don't have names, but I've committed to taking care of them even after it turns out they haven't been the best egg-layers. I've said that I don't want to end up running a retirement home for hens when they stop laying, but my threats of putting them in the stew pot have been pretty empty, not to mention then hens don't lay any better when faced with such threats anyway. So while I had some concern for finding out exactly what was wrong from the vet, I also told myself that if I am going to take care of chickens I will also have to face being able to take care of one, one way or another, when they are sick.

The next day, and perhaps this was only wishful thinking, the Diva seemed better. She was out of her box voluntarily, and while still tottering around sort of hopping on one leg, she was eating and drinking. I really did have hope she was going to get better. Over the next two days, however, I saw it was just an illusion and my hope in her recovering turned to hope that she would pass peacefully. I had to help her out to get to her water, and she stopped eating except for a little leftover cooked corn we had. This morning I found her outside the box laying on her side, unable to get up on her own.

I knew what had to be done. I had read about the quickest, most humane way of killing a chicken that you intend to butcher by wringing its neck. I've seen the debate online of whether an axe is better. I frankly didn't think I could use a hatchet without causing undue stress on us both. Not that I intended to butcher her either, I just mean that I am sure a vet could administer some injection to kill a chicken, but for me and my aspirations of one day actually being a gentleman farmer, that wasn't practical. The Diva had suprisingly been the best layer of the first three hens we got, the other two being Welsummers which started off laying well but have been terribly inconsistent the past year. The little seabright's eggs, too, were surprisingly large in comparison to her little pigeon-sized body. They would probably qualify as USDA 'medium' sized eggs. Well now she was going to provide one last gift: my first lesson on killing an animal I had raised.

I picked her up and held her close to my chest, which calmed her. I held her like that for a moment to say a goodbye then tilted her head-down. Inverting a chicken like this will calm them, and I'd done this before when wanting to check her for disease and injury. I took her whole head in my hand, and she pulled it back away. For that one instant I wasn't sure that I could go through with it, but I couldn't leave her in pain. I grasped her hand a bit more firmly and with a little surge of violence twisted. I felt the bones in her neck break and she gave a quick kick and stopped. I let go of her head and looked at her. Her eyes were open. "Oh please tell me you're dead," I begged in my head. She blinked, but otherwise did not move. "Dammit." I twisted again and pulled down quickly on her head. I had been afraid to really yank before, afraid that the head would come off. This time, though, I felt the spinal column separate, and with her head still on she was dead. She kicked for about 20 seconds then. It was a rhythmic spasm that was obviously simply a nervous reaction, but I still held her against me. It stopped and I looked and all the color and life was gone from her.

She really did look at peace. I felt horrible that her death wasn't as quick as I hoped it was going to be but am convinced it was painless apart from that initial kick. Even writing this account, I didn't want to admit that it took two tries, but I feel like this was the lesson she gifted me with and that it would be better to share the information so that other people wouldn't make this same mistake.

It's sort of an empty feeling to be putting something that was alive moments ago into a body bag of sorts, as in a gallon-sized Ziploc-brand bag, and then into a shoe box to bury. I think that empty feeling is appropriate -- a life has gone out of this world, and I'm the one who took it. In that bag and then in the box she looked like a fake bird, something you'd find at the hobby shop to add to your homemade wreath. I'm glad though she isn't suffering and also that my emotional barometer seems to be calibrated correctly: I'm sad she is gone, glad she didn't needlessly suffer, humiliated that I didn't get it done right, proud I could do it at all and confident that in the future I can... that I can kill a chicken.

A Personal Message from Citicards

A personal message to me from the CEO of Citicards:

	Dear Benjamin,
	I’ve always thought that the best way to show someone you are listening is to really deliver. That’s why we’ve been listening to customers like you, and making changes in response to your feedback.
	For example, you asked for a monthly statement that is easier to read and use.We listened. Over the next few months, you will see a new statement, with a simplified design and a standard paper size so it’s easier to file.
	You also asked for a more timely view into your spending. We heard you. Now, you can see your pending charges online, before they post to your statement.
	You can read more about improvements we’re putting into place at my blog. Please stop by so we can continue the conversation and make your experience with Citi even better.
	All the best, Jud Linville CEO, Citi Cards

My Response:

Dear Jud,
I don't freaking care about a new statement format. Lower my freaking rate or I'll just continue to NOT use your card. We taxpayers bailed out your company and yet you continue to fleece us with your excessive credit card rates. I simply won't carry a balance with you. Don't bother sending me your new and improved statement at all, since I guarantee it will always say $0 regardless of how exorbitant the rate you want me to pay.

Sincerely,
Benjamin Rice
customer since 2003

Ate, ate, ate-ey ate.

Every year on this date I am reminded of a particular moment in my life, one that maybe only seems profound to me now in that it is so memorable. It was the eighth of August, 1988 - 8/8/88. I was attending the Center for Talent Development (CTD) at Northwestern, now affectionately remembered as Nerd Camp, still a few weeks from my 14th birthday.

In this particular moment burned into my memory I am standing outside Scott Hall in this little triangle where Sheridan Road, Chicago Avenue, and University Place come together, across Sheridan from where the Northwestern Arch now stands. It's dark out so must have been after nine at night. It's raining and I'm unfolding a Tribune that I had bought to put over my head. There's an insert that is a special for the Cub's first night game at Wrigley. That's what makes the moment stand out to me - I remember thinking how clever it was for them to have the first night game on 8/8/88. I guess I can't think now why that would be so clever; maybe it's just because then it would be memorable to people like me.

I wanted to go to the game. A group of fellow campers did. I couldn't afford it. I had worked mowing lawns to help pay to be able to go to camp for the second year and spend three weeks outside of Chicago taking basically a high school AP algebra course. I think it must have been around the end of the session, because I know I was down to the last couple of the American Express travelers checks I had gotten with my dad at Wolverine Bank in Frankenmuth. I wanted to have some money left over for souvenirs for my little brothers, not to mention the Charleston Chew bars I'd get each day during break from class. So I passed on the game.

It was rained out anyway. I guess they got a few innings in, but the first official night game at Wrigley wasn't played until the next night. I remember those who did go to the game later describing how the players came out and used the tarp as a big slip-n-slide. In that one moment though with the rain and the paper and the cars going by on Sheridan I was giddy. I literally felt on top of the world. I remember thinking "My parents don't even know that I'm out here at night in the rain." I wanted to stay there. I loved Chicago, loved Evanston and Northwestern and my classmate-campers who were the coolest, smartest people I had ever met.

Everything changes and everything stays the same. There was another profound moment that I remember from that summer. One of the teachers at CTD gave a lecture on the relativity of time and multiple dimensions. Time being the "fourth dimension", as he described it, blew me away. I am now 24 years and 1000 miles removed from that moment in the rain. I have those moments of that summer, along with many others from CTD and millions of other moments including several others in the rain along Sheridan Road at Evanston over these 24 years. It would be sweet to taste just a bit of that feeling of being on top of the world again. You can't turn back the clock. There're lights at Wrigley now. It's for the better, they say, because now they have 28 night home games a year.

More on Aurora

I don't know why this is affecting me so much, why I keep thinking about it. Partly it has to do with being relatively close. I've been to the mall there, though it's been years and the last time I was there I'm not even sure that theater was there.

The way I feel about the shooting has a lot to do with my age, though, I think. Many of those killed were five or ten years younger than I am. Fifteen years even. They were at an age where their job is exciting because they are learning new things and advancing. They were at an age where life in many ways is still an adventure.  At that age you feel like you are making progress each week, if not every day.

Now I am at an age just past that. Each day I'm making an effort to hold on to what I have. I roll out of bed, not for the prospect of something good happening, but to keep the bad things, the bills and failure at work, at bay. I made a joke to my wife that night: "Want to go see the midnight premiere of Batman?" It was a joke because we were both exhausted and I would have to be awake for work only a few hours after it ended. I know that some of those killed also had to be to work the next day. At least the one girl, the sports journalist, basically had a job interview the next day. Oh to be young again.

I have a lot of swirled up thoughts and emotions about the events of the shooting in Aurora early yesterday morning. I described them in an earlier draft of something I had written as a swirl of oily black and grey thoughts. I think that best describes my thoughts now. But I had one little inky thought I wanted to share as it crossed my mind before I over-thought it too much.

There has been some effort, not by politicians themselves, but those connected to politics to make what happened in Aurora into a political issue. Politics by definition should address those issues that we feel are important as a society, and this individual act itself puts a spotlight on difficult issues that we deal with as a society and thus difficult issues that politics and politicians must rightfully address.

However, this singular horrifying act is not defined by being Democratic or Republican, conservative or liberal or if you are seated to the right or left of the aisle. This is about Good versus Evil -- this evil act against what is a good society. I imagine the last thing that a parent thinks about when being told that their child was killed because they went to a movie is just what politician is responsible. We too often take for granted that we Americans truly live in a Good society. Wherever we each fall on the political spectrum, I believe that all of us want to be prosperous and happy, want our neighbor to be prosperous and happy, and want each successive generation to be prosperous and happy and to be able to go to a movie and never feel their life is in jeopardy.

I think it will be good to have a debate about gun control and mental health and violence in society, but if you believe in God or Goodness or even simple morality this act was the born of the exact opposite of those things. This Devil or Evil or immorality is exactly what we need to take a stand against together, rather than each group with their separate agendas.

Bad Precedent

Here's why this the Supreme Court's ruling sets a bad precedent: It opens the door to the following very likely scenario. Let's say I am a city council in Boulder and want to expand public transportation service in and around Boulder as well as allow everyone in Boulder the opportunity to use public transportation whether they can afford it or not. As a council we pass a law requiring that you buy a bus pass if you make over $40,000 per year and those who make under that amount will receive bus passes for free. You can choose to NOT buy a bus pass, but then you will be "fined" $250 per year. This is no different in the Court's eyes than Obamacare.
 
Additionally it puts no bounds on what the government can "mandate/tax" what we buy. Want more affordable housing? The government just mandates that EVERYONE own mortgage insurance regardless of their credit level or what they still owe on their mortgage. With the additional insurance, lenders can feel more secure in lending money to those who are likely to default knowing that there is money coming from those who won't default.

Want to lower polution and increase fuel economy? -- Just mandate that all Americans must purchase a hybrid vehicle and "penalize" them if they don't. While we're at it, let's stimulate American manufacturing and create more jobs by simply mandating that the hybrid you buy must be an American-made car.
We all know that incandescent lightbulbs are evil, but how about those cfl bulbs? Those contain harmful mercury and still aren't as efficient as LED bulbs, so let's just mandate that all Americans buy LED lightbulbs. Can't afford LED lightbulbs? Well, the government will give them to you if you live below the poverty line with the money that is coming in from taxing those who aren't buying LED bulbs.

Where will it end? My hope is that it stops before the government says that we all need to install iPads in our homes with FaceTime continually running, so that they can make sure we are doing our calisthenics each morning.

WCF Federated Security

Service security has been an ongoing issue with these products that we currently have in development. Each inidividual product we have created thus far generally has its own mechanism for authorization and authentication, though we definitely reuse certain components and libraries between them. For some time our vision has been to have a composite application using WPF with Prism with calls to different WCF services. In brief the architecture would be a basic application shell with some intrinsic administration functionality like user management, and each component of our election management system would be a plug-in module to the shell at the interface level along with its own WCF service at the server level. A further issue is whether each module would have its own database or there be a joint election database or series of common databases for all modules. That issue is another series of blog posts in itself.

The issue we are tackling is with shared security amongst the different modules. Once a user logs in to the application, those credentials need to be verified or otherwise trusted by each plug-in's respective service. To date, we have bounced around a number of ideas about how to do this having come to no real decision yet. I would like to explore a federated security model, since it seems to lend itself to this specific issue.
I want to create a spike solution with our basic architecture -- a shell with a couple plug-ins each with a backing WCF service -- and run through different security scenarios with it. I'm starting with reading the MSDN articles on the subject here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms731161.aspx.

So after reviewing the articles there, I have a bit of a chicken-egg problem in creating my spike solution. What component do I try to tackle first? I think that I may start with the Security Token Service, since it seems the other services and client will rely on that existing. Ah - there is a Federation Sample here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa355045.aspx. Looks simple enough. I'll try and implement my own solution as described above, but think I just need the one STS.

Mountains

Every so often I need to break out this quote. Today seems like a good day to do that.

"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow."

Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Marriage and Civil Unions in Colorado

A couple points about this special session of Colorado State Legislature that Governor Hickenlooper has called. First of all the Republicans are saying that it is an expensive and unnecessary session being used to divert public attention from the real issues, particularly the economy. The fact is, the Governor wouldn't have had the opportunity to call the special session if legislators on both sides of the aisle had done their jobs in the first place and gotten the bill to a vote before adjourning. This isn't just the Republicans' fault as the Democrats stalled the issue in the first place knowing they probably didn't have the votes, at the time, to even get this through committee. They waited until they could throw the spotlight on it and force the Republicans to stall until the end of the session in order to not have to vote "No" on it. Furthermore, given the nationl attention the issue has gotten, both with the vote in NC and with VPOTUS and POTUS commenting on it, it seems this very much is an issue that the voters are concerned with now.

Secondly, government should no longer be determining what does or does not constitute a legal marriage. Many of these laws regarding marriage and sexual norms in general stem from the early notions that government should encourage a strong population by encouraging procreation in monogamous relationships between a man and woman. A strong population was a LARGE population. This is an outdated notion. The government's involvement in who should and should not procreate, in my opinion, should have been nullified at some point in history before the Nazi's started saying that blond-haired, blue-eyed citizens made the best babies.

That said, there are certain legal ramifications accorded to married individuals that the government should have some say in to maintain a relatively orderly society. What constitutes a family in regards to shared health care? Who should have hospital visitation rights? Who should get implicit guardianship of children following the death of a parent? How does should legal inheritance of possessions be dealt with? The contract of marriage has been relied up on to deal with many of these issues. However, why shouldn't any two people be able to draw up a similar contract? Why should they need to be married?

For legal purposes, I can see why the contract would necessarily be between two-and-only-two human beings. Of course both would have to be of a legal age to understand and consent to a legal contract. I would propose that the government would stop registering marriages altogether. I think that marriage is inherently religious or spiritual or at the very least a moral issue that the government should not be concerned with. Instead, they register these "civil unions" between any two people who are at least 18 years of age. The government would also need to administer to the dissolution of these contracts as they do divorce currently. A person could not enter into such a contract with more than one person. I frankly don't understand what is so difficult about this.

In the wake of North Korea's "failed" rocket test, I was reminded at how striking it was to learn of all of Robert Goddard's similarly "failed" tests as he was experimenting with his liquid fueled rockets. His first test flight barely made it 40 feet into the air! For every test in which he achieved a new altitude record there seemed to be at least a dozen which came nowhere close to a record, some of which burned up before they left the ground and I'm sure hundreds of designs that never made it out of the laboratory.

Of course Goddard, like Edison, never considered a test a "failure" because he was always learning from those experiments. He'd probably just say that he discovered one more way how NOT to make a rocket! He was obviously a genius, and I'm sort of disappointed that I had not previously learned more about him. As a society it seems that we do not celebrate genius like we once did.

Finally, I really sort of question as to whether we should be condemning North Korea for trying to advance their technology. Of course, I wouldn't want an unstable society gaining nuclear weapons, but I think even us "civilized" countries would be better off without anyone having nukes. But to me, stifling a country's push to gain technological competence is akin to the slave master making sure that his slaves can't read.

My personal belief is that increased knowledge is central to human morality. Ignorance is akin to evil. Knowledge leads to the truth, and the truth is that Communism is not a economic model that is sustainable in a just human society. It seems to me counterintuitive to keep a nation down and ignorant rather than demonstrating to them the power of democracy and the open market.

I'm only suggesting maybe rethinking our policy when it comes to foreign rivals in this respect. North Korea is probably the most extreme case, and our approach maybe shouldn't shift too radically. But you have a country like Iran, that we sanction and Cuba that we have effectively kept mired in the 1950's. I'm sure it's an anathema to suggest we work with the three biggest "foreign rivals" that the U.S. has. Honestly, what I really believe I mean to suggest is taking a different tack to work AGAINST them... lead them to the truth that will show them that communism and religious extremism and non-democratic government does not work. Let them celebrate their inventors, their geniuses. One of those geniuses will break free and lead those nations to the truth.

Prism Module Loading "Incorrect Format"

We ran across this this morning where a colleague was trying to load a module she had built from a DirectoryModuleCatalog into the shell of our Prism application. She was getting an error that the module could not be loaded, an error which included "An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format." We stripped the module down to the bare bones, but still were getting the error. In fact, when we tried debugging, the debugger never even got into the constructor of the module. 


A little research suggested that maybe the Unity dlls being referenced were different, which wouldn't surprise me since VisualStudio seems to go out and add whatever dll might be registered that it thinks fits the bill when you load up a project that another developer had started. After checking and re-checking the references for both the shell and module projects, we determined that probably wasn't it.


Then I found a bit about the build configuration. Her plugin was being built with an X86 target platform and the shell was being built for 'Any CPU' on her x64 machine. Voila. She went into Properties > Build for the Module project and changed the target to x64 (interestingly Any CPU was not available, which is maybe another issue), and the module loads into the shell as expected.

A Letter to Colorado Rep. Laura Bradford

Jan. 31, 2012

Ms. Bradford,

Hugh White, the Senator from Tennessee who succeeded Andrew Jackson, once said, "When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power."

I made the mistake of getting into my car and driving back home to Brighton after enjoying a Rockies game and some beers downtown back in June. It was very irresponsible of me and I am very ashamed for having done it. I was pulled over by Brighton Police less than two miles from home and subsequently was arrested and convicted of a DUI.

I have done everything I have been ordered and advised to do and have finished most of those things early. I have completed 48 hours community service, paid thousands of dollars in fines and fees,attended a MADD victim's panel, done random breathalyzers 3 times per week, completed 24 hours of mandatory alcohol education and another 40 hours of alcohol therapy with another 12 hours left to complete. I went without being able to drive for 30 days mandated by the DMV, about another 30 days because they couldn't find the correct paperwork from my insurance company, and must go the next 2 years with an ignition Interlock system in my vehicle. Not only do I get to face scorn of those around me every time I start my car, but I also cannot travel for work since I cannot rent a car, putting my job in some jeopardy.

It was my first offense.

I impart this to you because you will not have the opportunity to gain the full extent of the implications of driving while intoxicated that my family and I have had the privilege of learning. Luckily I did not have to learn of the more sever consequences that some good people I have had the privilege of meeting have endured - causing damage and going to jail, or even worse hurting or killing another person. So far I have spent at least $3370 on DUI expenses, not including loss of work and vacation time to make scheduled hearings and probation appointments and other unrecorded expenses I paid with cash. The Interlock system is about $70/month and I will have 3 more months of alcohol therapy plus breathalyzers which will add at least another $1500 to that total. It just cash terms the DUI will easily cost me $5000. For that money I could have taken a helicopter home that unfortunate night.

With your position you do not have to deal with that. I am sure the bad press you are getting now is awful. Frankly, I'm sure that most of it is hypocritical coming from many people who have taken drinks and then driven home. As so many of my friends have told me, "That could have been me." But in a few months your bad press will be gone, and me and those without legislative privilege will still be blowing in straws to start our cars. However, with that position you have, you also have a lot of power to take Senator White's full advice and make positive change. Perhaps you will consider donating a portion of that $5000 or so you would have incurred to MADD. I know when I attended the impact panel they could have used more than the $5 I was able to donate. Perhaps you will consider attending an impact panel in your area? I wouldn't expect you to attend the education or therapy sessions that your legislative peers have mandated for anyone who gets caught with alcohol in their systems and isn't in the state legislature, but perhaps you will pick up the materials that every attendee is required to buy?

A few other things that I learned from this experience: Alcohol stays in your system much longer than they say. Your body doesn't process a drink an hour: It's more like a drink every two hours. Carrying a breathalyzer in your car will probably keep you out of more trouble than carrying a gun in your car will get you into. You can purchase breathalyzers on Amazon for around $150. Finally, it's not worth it to EVER get behind the wheel after drinking, even after one drink.

I hope you do not resign from your office, but instead use it to make some positive change in regards to drinking and driving. One thing that personally really bothers me is that a bar patron in Denver cannot hail a cab from the curb, but instead has to make a call or find a designated cab stand. I think more people drink and drive because of this. I've found that the other people I am in classes with generally are all good people who have made a very stupid mistake. There are very harsh consequences of getting caught with that in Colorado. You are really pretty fortunate that you don't have to deal with most of them.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Rice

Brighton, CO