Sometimes people wonder at my ideas on conservation and ecology, and I find that telling a story helps to relate my ideas best. There is an apocryphal story in Archeology, that took place about 100 years ago in the Fayum Basin of Egypt. A team of Archaeologists were excavating in the region, and came across what seemed to be a cemetery of mummified crocodiles. They were considered all but worthless, and as they dug up hundreds and hundreds of them they treated each as more worthless than the last, even to the extent of using them as kindling for fires. Eventually they broke through into some kind of main chamber and, expecting a human mummy of some kind, they were disappointed to find only more mummified crocodiles. Some versions of the story say that the lead worker in a rage picked up one of the crocodiles and threw it against a wall, it broke open to reveal that it contained a papyrus scroll, with valuable written data, poetry, philosophy, laws, edicts, accounting records and such, truly a treasure of ancient knowledge, and they had used a good chunk of it to fuel their fires. This story is central to my ideas on ecology and conservation, as our technology grows and our understanding of the world becomes more complex, we will finally be in a position to understand the true value of what it is we have around us. Those Archaeologists didn’t understand what they had until it was too late, and we are poised to make the same mistake when it concerns our natural world. As our technology and electronics becomes more sophisticated via methods of super conductor research and nano-technology it is entirely possible that some day we will have computers and machines that operate on micro-voltage, like our brains, rather than ordinary voltage. if this is possible, then in the future all the electronics in a city will be able to run off of the energy stored in a modern AAA battery, possibly even from the voltage left inside one that has been used up, and in such a future, excavating in a landfill would be worth while, just to find ancient run down batteries. We cannot pretend to understand the true value of the natural world yet. All the ecological experts agree that the world oil resources are a one time only gift of solar energy stored in the ground, something like a trust fund, and we as humans, are acting like an irresponsible teenager with a trust fund, whose strategy in life is to figure out how to burn through his trust fund faster, rather than more wisely. Chances are that no technology will be as expedient to us as burning fossil fuels, but even if they aren’t, they are still worth while, solar and wind, electric cars, all seem to be pale imitations of the power and ease of just burning up our crocodiles, but they are our only chance to reach for a sane strategy before our moment of realization comes.

I have to admit, I thought he was gonna suck, and that the folks at the BBC were going to give Doctor Who a quiet send off with a lame actor, but the new season shows stronger than ever, and Matt Smith is awesome as the new doctor. He is very handsome, and his new companion is smoking hot.

I just got back from our worship groups hike at Red Rock Canyon National Park, we all met at the visitors center, hiked around a bit on the Moenkopi trail, and then went to Calico picnic area to have our potluck, the wind was insane, and several of us had to cut our meeting short due to wind, but it was a lot of fun.
[caption id=”attachment_365” align=”alignleft” width=”300” caption=”Las Vegas Quakers Hiking on Moenkopi Trail, Easter Sunday, 2010”][/caption]

I went to my very first “First Friday” event in downtown Las Vegas yesterday, it was great fun, with a lot of cool art, and I got to meet some old friends that I did not know were exhibiting there. I was planning to go see a fellow church members band at the Box Office, but that was way downtown and I got stuck right around the Charleston and Strip area where all my friends were exhibiting, mainly I was at PeaceNArt Studio of Alex Huerta who is rapidly becoming a major mover and shaker in the downtown art scene, it was good to see him again after so long, then we had a Mexican food dinner, and met for drinks beforehand at Frankie’s Tiki Room, which was just awesome, it really looks like something right out of Gilligan’s island in there, and I had my first Thurston Howell drink, it was tasty, and a lot stronger than it looked.

over the past few months I have been seriously addicted to the game Plants versus Zombies, it is a really great game where you plant defensive plants and they prtect you from an onsluaght of zombies, if you have never played it, you need to to, its the best game  out there right now.

I heard good things about the straight to DVD release thriller movie Carriers, so I rented it from redbox, and was not dissappointed, this is not a typical virus apocalypse movie, it is full of intense drama, much in the fashion of Max Brooks World War Z, where the writers take the approach of exploring the impact of what survival means in a post-apocalyptic world, and how it affects you, and your relationship to other people. This approach proved to be genius in World War Z, and it looks like the writers of Carriers took note, because this is a very good movie, even though it is low budget, it is excellently acted, I give it an 8.2/10.

This is my favorite dog ever, Courtney:

I competed yesterday in a Magic the Gathering Worldwake pre-release tournament here in Las Vegas at The Little Shop of Magic.