The Claw

This weekend I discovered that spiders really can get caught in their own webs.

Apparently, they produce several different kinds of silk. Some are sticky and others are not. Once they’ve built their intricate fly-catchers, they know where to tread. Each one of their legs has a couple of claws on the end that spiders use to grasp fine web threads and maneuver along their willowy highways.

Should they take a miscalculated misstep, another claw quickly saws through the sticky material and the spider is free to move about the cabin once more.

Some spiders, like the orb spider, like to get out and stretch those legs a bit. Check things out at the neighbors. Despite having eight eyes, they are as blind as bats, and that can lead to problems in spiderdom.

Once in a while, whether they mean to or not, one spider might just wander into another spider’s web. Not knowing the layout of the new domicile, visiting spiders end up in the sticky stuff.

But before the uninvited house guest gets a chance to whip out the old saw claw, the owner of the place is on him. In no time at all, the visitor is wrapped up like a cookie in a two-year old’s fist.

Then the owner of the web has a decision to make. He’ll either eat his guest or pull out his own little saw claw and cut the offender loose, letting the silky package fall to the ground and ignoring it. Either way, its curtains for the wandering araneae.

That special saw spiders carry seems quite handy to me, and something I wish I could get a hold of, somehow. Imagine: any problem that wanders into my little space and I’m on it! Grab it, package it, cut it loose and it falls away without causing any harm or damage. And my world is quickly returned to normal.

Loafing on Father's Day

I usually write an entry to this blog every Sunday. But last Sunday was Father's Day and I decided to take the day off. I played golf instead. Eighteen holes. Had a blast. Then I just got lazy for the rest of the day, especially after a double serving of lasagna and a huge piece of coconut cake.

Anyway, I will get back to my regular schedule this week. Even if the weather's nice and I play golf again. I'll still write.

Sydnee, our editor at freshare, is a photographer, and a good one. She said it just amazes her to be able to see life in action and have the ability to freeze that image for all time.

For me, it's in the words. Always has been. I like being able to take a mass of letters, cajole them into words and combine them into a meaningful piece. And with those humble little letters, arranged just so, a writer can tweak an emotion, draw a tear or caress a smile.

How could I not love to write?

Changing and Choosing

What did you want to be when you grew up? Do you remember? I do. With every fiber of my young boyhood, I wanted to be an astronaut. Sail the stars in a high-tech tin can, watch the sun rise and set every twenty minutes or so, speed around the globe at 17,000 miles an hour! I knew I would probably miss being the first man on the moon, seeing as I would end up being just thirteen when it happened, but I thought I would certainly be the guy NASA tapped to lay the first tracks on the Martian surface.

What a passion I had for the space program in those days. I knew the names of every astronaut, what branch of service they were in and which ones were on which missions. I watched every launch and each splashdown that didn't interfere with my school attendance. And I wrote the NASA information center in Cleveland about every month or so and they would send me reams of interesting materials that I would absorb every chance I got. Astronaut bios, flight medical records, detailed spacecraft data and tons of photos - I had it all and read it all.

I was going to be one of those magnificent men in their flying machines.

Then came the carnival in town. Hot dogs, cotton candy, sweet soft drinks. And rides. A visit to the Tilt-A-Whirl changed everything for me that day. One spin on that contraption and I experienced a rerun of all the stuff I had just eaten. If I couldn't take the spinning of a mere Tilt-A-Whirl, how could I expect to survive the rigors of space flight? The realization almost made me experience a re-rerun, but I managed to hold it back.

Life was not the same for after that little encounter. But that's not the point of this essay. Dreams sometimes crumble and fiery passions turn to embers. That's just the way things are. I'm not sorry I didn't become an astronaut in those heady days of fly boys in space, and I'll take my ride sometime after space flights become commercialized. The only thing we can count on is that things are going to change. Ambitions falter, doors close, opportunities pass us by. And we have to choose. Hang on to something we may never have had or follow a new path.

Sometimes it takes a Tilt-A-Whirl to get you to see the next opportunity.

Debating the Debate

Thanks to Dick Cheney, this is one of the most unusual presidential election seasons we have ever witnessed. It isn’t often a sitting vice-president leaves office with no ambition to run for the top job.

So we end up with eighteen or twenty Democrats and Republicans tossing their political hats into the ring nearly two years before the presidential election will even be held. I mean, think about it, we are in the spring of 2007 and the debate season has already kicked off. Are you looking forward to seventeen more months of televised debates?

And aren’t debates sort of old news anyway? Since the presidential elections of the 19th century, debates have changed very little in substance. Sure, we have the media frenzy, cameras pointed at the candidates to record every raised eyebrow and each head shake, the morning after criticism of every word uttered. But it’s still a sales job, same as it always has been.

Each candidate uses all the rhetoric and puffery necessary to convince us they are the right person for the job while simultaneously staying as close as possible to their core beliefs, and while convincing us that their counterparts are mere show ponies.

I can’t argue that being president doesn’t require a certain amount of finesse and salesmanship, but wouldn’t it be better to see that than to just hear about it? Besides, what kind of debate can we really be having by lining up eight or ten candidates on a stage?

I think it’s time for something completely different.

Why not have two envelopes for each candidate. One is labeled “Domestic Policy” and the other, “Foreign Policy.” No one knows the contents of any envelope except for the handful of people who devised them (and they are locked away in a sound-proof room until Election Day – sorry guys).

Live and televised on the air, a candidate is handed one of the two envelopes. He or she unseals the package and reads the contents. Now realize, neither the candidates nor any of us in the audience knows what the message says until the moment it is opened. Inside is a weighty, real life problem scenario of immense importance. Like, Iran blasts a nuclear missile into the Mediterranean, or gasoline prices surge and the economy is at risk of a meltdown.

The candidate now has twenty-four hours to solve the issue at hand, or at least come up with a workable action plan to get the problem resolved.

The candidate can bring in any advisor he or she would normally have appointed if that candidate were actually the president. Consult, debate, use charts – whatever. Just solve the problem.

Oh, and the entire twenty-four hour period is televised so we get to see everything.

Kind of a cross between “Survivor” and “24” except without jungles, Jack Bauer or commercial interruptions. Each person who wants to be elected president has to work through one critical domestic issue and one equally critical foreign policy issue. What better way to see the candidates acting as president than to let them, well, act as presidents. For a couple of days anyway. Then we decide who gets the job for real. After all, it’s a four year commitment we voters are making. Shouldn’t we get a chance to take our pres for a test drive? I wouldn’t mind kicking the tires of a few candidates.

Go ahead and have a debate or two so voters can determine if a favorite candidate has the chops to hang in there with political savvy. After that, it’s the ultimate in reality television.

Set Phasers to Stun

Dr. Theodore Maiman passed away on May 5 of this year. I learned of his passing from an article I discovered while reading an online news site. Dr. Maiman’s name was, perhaps, not widely known and certainly could not be called a household word.

But his invention is one that we all see in use at sometime during the week, and the same invention actually struck fear in the hearts of many a few decades ago. Dr. Maiman was credited with developing the first operable laser, the same sort of device found in every CD player and many once believed would be harnessed as a kind of “death ray.”

Dr. Maiman built his laser back in 1960 with a pink ruby rod as a medium for focusing light. He worked for Hughes Research at the time. By 1962, Dr. Maiman had started his own laser company with backing from Union Carbide Corporation.

Which brings me to the reason why Dr. Maiman’s work is important to me. My father worked for Union Carbide pretty much all his adult life. By the early 60’s, Dad was celebrating his tenth anniversary with the company and he happened to be working for Carbide’s Linde division, which produced oxygen and other gasses as well as synthetic rubies.

Dad was employed in a small plant filled with ovens, powder delivery systems and annealers that manufactured Linde star sapphires and ruby rods. Most of the sapphires went to exquisite jewelry pieces and many of the rubies were used in lasers of one kind or another.

It is possible that Dad may have met Dr. Maiman along the way. I remember him talking about a very intelligent engineer who came through the plant at one time. The details of that memory are fuzzy but I recall Dad saying the gentleman headed up a division that was developing lasers.

At any rate, I will never forget an open house held at the plant when I was a young boy. I was in awe as I watched powdered crystals drop in super hot ovens, turn to liquid and grow into what was called a “boule.” Later, these boules were hardened, then cut into whatever shape was desired.

But what held my fascination even more was the laser Union Carbide had set up near the end of the tour to show how one of their products could be used. I was small then, so my proportions may be off, but I felt like that laser was big enough to fill an average sized room.

When the operator turned the machine on, it whined like a turbine as it powered up. What happened next was nothing short of amazing.

Light sped through the ruby rod producing a barely perceptible beam that was concentrated in the center of a one inch thick steel plate. Beyond the plate were two balloons – a black one inside of a white one.

Almost immediately, the steel plate began to glow red hot at the point where it met the laser beam. Soon, chunks of glowing steel fell to the ground.

In an instant, the beam finished cutting through the plate and a loud pop could be heard as the operator shut down the laser. The pop was the black balloon bursting inside of the white one. The white balloon remained in tact as if nothing had happened.

My twelve year old jaw must have hit the ground. I could scarcely breathe. It was the best show I had ever seen up to that point in my life. I could not help but recount what I had just seen. The same single beam of light that cut right through solid steel went harmlessly past a white balloon only to burst a black one.

I didn’t want the tour to be over. I know I must have made Dad take me to the laser at least half a dozen times that day. Each time I was just as thrilled to watch the awesome power and selective gentleness of that red beam.

Lasers are much smaller today. They can fit into a store’s scanner to ring up the price of food items and, with the aid of a computer, track inventory and trigger purchasing points. We’ve used them to measure the distance from the earth to the moon, accurate to less than an inch. They can repair eyes and perform other medical miracles. They can be used as pointers in presentations and to produce annoying dots on people’s foreheads courtesy of sophomoric humorists. I even have a green one I can use to point out stars and other objects in the night sky.

But one thing they have never become is anything close to a death ray. Dr. Maiman predicted as much. He said he did not think it likely the laser could ever be developed as a weapon despite the fears of his time.

In a name recognition competition, he may not be able to hold his own with the likes of Alexander Graham Bell, Louis Pasteur or Ron Popeill, but as far as a meaningful contribution to society with far reaching applications, Dr. Theodore Maiman has to be a top vote getter.

Can't Beat 'Em? Blog 'Em!

Springfieldians are some of the nicest, friendliest people you'll ever want to meet. Until they get behind the wheel of an automobile.

Case in point: last week, while driving home from work, I came up behind a lady going fifty while driving in the left lane. She had a small child in the front seat and one in the back as well. Since the speed limit in this particular stretch of highway was sixty and this driver made no effort to move into the right lane, I did. I signaled, checked my side view, and eased my truck to the right.

As I sped up to pass, she inexplicably increased her speed. I tried going a little faster, but she kept pace. Since we were quickly approaching a slow moving vehicle in my lane, I decided to slow down, move back to the left lane and pass that vehicle.I signaled, and scooted over.

Now behind this lady who felt the sudden urge to accelerate past the posted speed limit, I was both shocked and miffed when she pulled up even to the slow moving right lane vehicle and decelerated to match its speed. The only apparent purpose in this maneuver was to irritate me and any drivers behind me.

There is a little bypass I like to take around Republic when the traffic gets too thick to make the drive enjoyable. It's not really a time saver as much as it is a sanity saver. I decided this was a good time to take that road.

As I entered the turn lane, I looked up to see the lady flip a cigarette out the window and give me a long-lasted, one-fingered salute in the process. I couldn't believe it. My anger turned to hurt. I didn't do anything wrong, but I got flipped off anyway. And that while she had two small children aboard. A fine example for those tykes.

The problem is, this is not any isolated incident in Springfield. I see it happen to others all the time and I have had it happen to me before. Usually, it results when someone else is doing some incredibly stupid driving and they lash out at you when you simply try to avoid them.

Springfield is noted for an unusually high incidence of road rage. I wonder why? These are people who'll strike up a conversation with a stranger in the mall and act as if they've been friends for years. Do motorized chunks of steel and vinyl have some kind of mystical powers over our residents?

I think it's a power thing. Traffic in Springfield is awful and traffic lights hinder the process more than help it. There is a stretch of road near I-44 and in front of a Wal-Mart superstore that has - count 'em - three stop lights in a span of about one city block. And none of them are coordinated with one another. You should try getting through there on a Friday night about 5:00 pm.

I digress. There is little any of us can do about the traffic or the lights for which our burg is noted. So we tend to take out our frustrations on one another. When someone has control over little else, they exercise control on whatever they can. Like somebody who tries to pass them on the highway. It's a reaction to a perceived threat to one's dignity, I presume.

So lady in the beat up, paint-peeling Chevy Cavalier headed to Republic at 5:15pm last Thursday night, I forgive you. I understand your need to have control over some small part of your life. I just wish you hadn't dragged your kids into all this.

Pretzel Logic

I understand the theory of supply and demand. Pretty much all of us do. I used to teach it to fifth and sixth graders when my daughters were in school. I brought in donuts, gave each class member an envelope stuffed with Monopoly money and auctioned off the donuts.

To simulate real life conditions, not everyone had the same amount of Monopoly money in their envelope. Some students were relatively rich, others were relatively poor. There also were not enough donuts available for all the students. That illustrated too many people chasing too few goods and services.

The first donut auctioned off for a measly sum – maybe five dollars. I’d hand over the iced confection to one smiling student while the others salivated. Invariably, everyone wanted the next donut for the same price the first sold for. But alas, there were even fewer goods now, so I said I wanted more money for the next one. That made a lot of the “poorer” students drop out of the bidding. I’d sell the second donut for a princely sum and thereby demonstrate the forces of supply and demand. As the supply of donuts dwindled, prices rose.

I would eat a donut myself and watch the student’s eyes widen as they understood the impact on supply. I gave one to the teacher as “payment” to my supplier for use of her classroom. The students got creative. One group, working as a team, pooled their funds, bid for and won a donut then shared it, each taking one bite. Another time, I auctioned off the empty box just for the crumbs it contained.

But now I’m getting off track. My point is this: while supply and demand pressures are simple with donuts in a classroom full of hungry elementary students, it’s not quite so easy with gasoline prices and thirsty vehicles.

I just spent $75 to fill up my truck with gasoline valued at $3.14 a gallon (should have done that three days ago when it was “only” $2.99). As gasoline prices rose for the summer driving season, I also read that oil prices decreased about three bucks a barrel.
I was confused. How could that be? Raw material prices fall, finished product prices increase. Oil prices go up, gas goes up. Oil prices go down, gas goes up. Heads I win, tails you lose.

Since oil prices are speculative of future demand, it seemed that a drop in oil should equal an automatic and noticeable drop in gasoline prices. But, not so.

That’s where the complications arise. Oil is not gasoline. It has to be refined. Apparently, several refineries are offline as a result of fires and other problems. And that during the start of peak driving time for vacations. In fact, raw oil prices could be dropping because of the shutdown refineries since speculation may be that less convertible oil will be needed in the next several weeks.

So, we have a diminished supply of gasoline at a time when the demand for the precious fluid is on the rise. And prices rise. Just like they did for my donuts.

The thing is, I didn’t really have just one box of donuts. I brought in enough for everybody. I just chose not to disclose that or my supply and demand illustration would have been useless.

So, oil companies: we get it. Now bring out the donuts for all of us.