Very late here and I should be asleep, but just a note to say that I was thrilled tonight to be able to attend a benefit dinner for Lydia Home at which the guest speaker was Josh McDowell. Josh is a big part of why I am a Christian today. I first heard him speak at the University of Auckland in 1985 and he was the first person I heard talk about the idea that Christianity could be accepted on the basis of rational intellectual analysis. This was a big turning point for my thinking about God.
I was delighted to be able to chat with him very briefly after the dinner tonight and I was surprised that he actually remembered the meeting I attended 22 years ago and recalled the details of the venue in the university recreation center and remembered being heckled by a young guy, which I also remember. Very cool.
It’s been six months since I mentioned here how impressed I am with Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. I have continued to find him the most impressive candidate I’ve seen. Last week Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball had a couple of segments on him, one a direct interview that included some pretty tough questioning on the significance of Huckabee’s faith, and I thought he handled the whole thing extremely well. The second was an interview with a guy John Neffinger who coaches professional communicators. His conclusion – “This guy looks like the real deal here.”
And today, CNN reports that Huckabee has surged into the lead in polls in Iowa. A really remarkable result for someone who was dismissed as a minor player just a few months ago.
First substantial snow here this afternoon. Here’s what we have to look forward to overnight, courtesy of accuweather (we’ve already had the power go off twice in the last hour) –
A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT CST TONIGHT.
FREEZING RAIN…MIXED AT TIMES WITH SLEET…WILL CONTINUE THIS EVENING. FREEZING RAIN COULD FALL HEAVILY AT TIMES RESULTING IN ICE ACCUMULATIONS OF ONE TO TWO TENTHS OF INCH PER HOUR. PRECIPITATION WILL BEGIN TO TAPER OFF BY LATE EVENING.
TOTAL ICE ACCUMULATIONS OF ONE QUARTER TO ONE HALF INCH ARE LIKELY WITH LOCALLY UP TO THREE QUARTERS OF AN INCH POSSIBLE. THIS ICE WILL ACCUMULATE ON TOP OF THE ONE TO TWO INCHES OF SNOW AND SLEET THAT HAS ALREADY ACCUMULATED.
ROADWAYS ACROSS THE WARNING AREA HAVE BEEN REPORTED TO BE ICE COVERED AND IN MANY CASES QUITE TREACHEROUS. NUMEROUS ACCIDENTS HAVE ALREADY BEEN REPORTED AND LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS ARE ADVISING PEOPLE TO NOT TRAVEL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.
SOUTHEAST WINDS OF 20 TO 30 MPH WITH HIGHER GUSTS WILL ALSO CONTINUE THROUGH THE EVENING. THE STRONG WINDS WILL GREATLY INCREASE THE CHANCE OF DOWNED TREE LIMBS AND POWER LINES AS ICE BEGINS TO ACCUMULATE ON THESE SURFACES…WITH POWER OUTAGES BECOMING INCREASINGLY LIKELY BY THIS EVENING.
A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW… SLEET…AND ICE ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS ARE ALSO POSSIBLE. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.
This is a couple of weeks old, but…
Brian Fallow in the NZ Herald reports that over the past 10 years the share of the average household’s disposable income (combined income if there are multiple earners) required to pay the moprtgage has climbed from 9% to 14%. The corresponding figure in Australia is 12%. The average house price is six times the average household disposable income, compared with 5.7% in Australia. He quotes someone from the Researve Bank as saying “its rapid climb strongly suggests that house prices may be overvalued leading to a correction at some point.”
Full story at- http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
I made a small error in something I said yesterday. Correction in italics…
The Olympic multihull issue continues to simmer. I’ve had an extensive dialog with Leslie Keller, the treasurer of US Sailing, and been in touch with Craig Leweck, the editor of SailingScuttlebutt.com, Peter Montgomery and Murray Deaker from Newstalkzb and Leslie Engot , the Olympic Operations Manager for Yachting NZ…
Capital + Merchant Finance is the 13th NZ finance company to collapse in the past 18 months. Details at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
Yes it’s been a little quiet here lately. The Olympic multihull issue continues to simmer. I’ve had an extensive dialog with Leslie Keller, the treasurer of US Sailing, Craig Leweck, the editor of SailingScuttlebutt.com, Peter Montgomery and Murray Deaker from Newstalkzb and Leslie Engot , the Olympic Operations Manager for Yachting NZ. What everyone seems to be missing is that the YNZ, US Sailing and others have violated ISAF regulations by voting for the Olympic events based on their own national interests, not based on the explicit criteria that the regulations stipulate. It’s a sad commentary on the intellectual and moral integrity of the world we live in.
In other news, I have made good progress on a new website for Full Life Chicago – flchicago.org. It’s not complete yet, but coming along and it’s been a great learning exercise. Separately, I have proposed to develop a new website for NAMSA, the North American Multihulll Sailing Association – once my Full Life commitment is fulfulled. The Olympic multihull situation has motivated me to help resurrect that organization, which has been in a state of dormancy for several years. In the process of exploring the possibility of developing a new website for them I have discovered some nice tools that will allow me to develop the site locally on my own machine, rather than editing files on a remote server. I wish I had had this when I started the Full Life project.
Finally, I had an embarrassing experience this week – I was supposed to fly to Phoenix on Monday morning, but after working late Sunday night I slept through my alarm and ended up missing my flight! Fortunately I was able to get the cost of the flight credited back to Motorola, so the main loss was the fact that I was able to attend the Lab review in Phoenix.
The news from the world of catamaran sailing in the last few days is that the Council of the International Sailing Federation voted on Friday to drop the multihull event from the Olympics after 2008. What’s worse is that the two US delegates both voted against the multihull event, even though US Sailing (an organization I’m a member of – the US equivalent of the NZ Yachting Federation) submitted a recommendation supporting both men’s and women’s multihull events. And the decision on the multihull event was lost by exactly two votes.
I have sent a “please explain” email to the entire Board of Directors of US Sailing. I have so far had one unsatisfactory reply from Leslie Keller, the US Sailing treasurer. I’ve sent her a follow up email.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Many catamaran sailors here are talking very seriously about withdrawing from US Sailing and forming a separate administrative body for the sport. However the anger is spread right around the world, from Australia to Norway.
In the process of downloading the photos from the point and shoot camera I took to San Diego I discovered a few other photos from earlier in the year that I had forgotten about. Back in April (I think) I took a trip to MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachussets. Part of the visit involved a tour of the robotics lab, shown in the photos below -
On a completely different subject, each year a couple of doves build a nest above the lamp on my front porch. This year I’ve probably had about 6 chicks hatch in three different batches. Here are a few photos -
I’ve been in San Diego this week for the Consumer Electronics Association Technology and Standards Forum. It’s a pretty nice place and the meeting turned out to be very successful.
The trip got off to a less than stellar start when I arrived at O’Hare and found the main parking lot was full. I had to head around to the economy lot and catch a shuttle bus and train to get to the United terminal, whereupon I found I was too late to check in for my 12:20pm flight. After about 20 frustrating minutes on a courtesy phone talking to a completely incompetent United agent I managed to get rebooked on a mid-afternoon flight. I eventually got to San Diego about 5:30pm and found my way to the Holiday Inn in National City. Although a pretty old hotel in a fairly scungy part of town, the staff were good and my room service dinner of ribs and apple pie was outstanding.
The meeting the next day was at the far more salubrious (and expensive) Hotel Del Coronado about 15 minutes away across the Coronado Bridge on the other side of San Diego Bay. The last CEA meeting I went to was also at Coronado, although on that occassion I stayed at Chula Vista and drove to Coronado around the southern end of the Bay. However, when I got to the meeting I was a little confused by the fact that the surroundings seemed completely unfamiliar, making me think I was suffering a bout of memory failure. Fortunately in conversation over lunch one of the other guys pointed out to me that the last meeting was actually at another hotel a few miles down the road.
Here are a few photos I took during the trip -
The Hotel Del Coronado -
The Coronado Bridge from my hotel room in National City, the I-5 on-ramp in the foreground -
A couple of shots looking west towards the Naval Base from my hotel room -
