rm -r bin/laden

This is pretty clever: The War on Terror as viewed from the Bourne shell. WARNING: for geeks only ;)

The indoor life

This is sad, and it rings true with what I see my own kids going through:

The fundamental nature of American childhood has changed in a single generation. The unstructured outdoor childhood — days of pick-up baseball games, treehouses and "be home for dinner" — has all but vanished.

Today, childhood is spent mostly indoors, watching television, playing video games and working the Internet. When children do go outside, it tends to be for scheduled events — soccer camp or a fishing derby — held under the watch of adults. In a typical week, 27% of kids ages 9 to 13 play organized baseball, but only 6% play on their own, a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

The shift to an indoor childhood has accelerated in the past decade, with huge declines in spontaneous outdoor activities such as bike riding, swimming and touch football, according to separate studies by the National Sporting Goods Association, a trade group, and American Sports Data, a research firm. Bike riding alone is down 31% since 1995....

"Boundaries for kids used to be measured by blocks or miles. Now, the boundary for most kids is the front yard. A lot of kids are under house arrest," says Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, a book about how children have lost touch with nature.

He says many parents fear the outdoors, whether it's letting a kid climb a tree or hike alone in the woods. "Parents think their kids are safer in front of the Xbox in the next room."

The trouble is multiplied in that all my kids friends have game consoles too. When my kids go to their friends houses it is usually to play video games. It is really tough to get them interested in playing outdoors. (Of course, these "dog days of summer" we've been experienceing don't help.)

I would ride my bike for hours and hours as a kid -- it was one of my favorite things to do. The suburbs were (at least perceived as) safe in the 1970s, and my parents let me go anywhere on my bike. My friend Dave and I would ride trails, go to the store, the local schools, the community pool, just everywhere.

I learned to ride a bike without training wheels when I was six. My seven year old barely rides at all: when I tried to give him some lessons last weekend he quit and said he didn't want to try again until he was eight.

When I came home from work last night he was teaching himself to rollerblade. Perhaps it will work out in the end.

RIP, James Doohan

Scotty beams up for the last time:

James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and movies who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died Wednesday. He was 85.

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said.

Doohan was not only an actor but also a veteran of D-Day in Normandy. In a 1998 interview, Doohan was asked if he ever got tired of hearing the line "Beam me up, Scotty:"

"I'm not tired of it at all," he replied. "Good gracious, it's been said to me for just about 31 years. It's been said to me at 70 miles an hour across four lanes on the freeway. I hear it from just about everybody. It's been fun."

Indeed it has. Thanks for the laughter and the great memories, James!

95% white-trash free

I am 5% White Trash.

I, my friend, have class. I am so not white trash. I am more than likely Democrat, and my place is neat, and there is a good chance I may never drink wine from a box.

Take the
White Trash Test
@ FualiDotCom

Among friends

Nancy and the kids are still at her Mom's, so last night I went to the monthly Charlottesville Java Users Group meeting. Every other month it is a social meeting. Last night most folks didn't make it, but Jamie, Erik, Anoop and I sat around one of Miller's outdoor tables enjoying some good beer and conversation. (By the way, the service at Miller's SUCKS. It was my first visit and I will not go back.)

Strolling by: Rob Beers, then Laura, then Grady, then Sean and Anne O'Brien, then Elizabeth. Jamie's friends Cythia and Carla also came by.

One of the benefits of having a downtown mall is that even on a rainy Tuesday evening it acts as a focal point for the community. In most cities or suburbs the activity is spread out among different locations. Here in Charlottesville it is mostly in one place.

We finished the night with some dinner at Christian's Pizza. Mmmmmm.

My social life is 99% family. Last night was a welcome respite :)