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"Additionally, the passengers on the airplane worked. For years I've said that exactly two things have made us safer since 9/11: reinforcing the cockpit door and convincing passengers that they need to fight back. It was the second of these that, on Christmas Day, quickly subdued Abdulmutallab after he set his pants on fire."
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"Since their hurried and heavily politicized creation, the fact is that neither the priorities nor the spending patterns of the Department of Homeland Security and its junior partner, the Transportation Security Administration, has ever been subject to serious scrutiny. They have never been forced to make hard choices."
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"You can't catch terrorists by casting a broad net. You catch terrorists with good police work. You look at networks, suspicious behavior, clues. Ignoring the desperate plea of a father who goes to the CIA with information about his son being radicalized in Yemen, but then patting down 170 million Nigerians ever after, is brain dead."
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"According to Ben Wallace, a Conservative M.P. who helped develop the scanners for airport use, they are good at revealing dense objects such as guns, knives, and C4 plastic explosive but miss low-density material such as the three ounces of PETN powder Abdulmutallab carried."
I made peace with her mortality, so the only regret I have about my grandma no longer being here is not being able to make a Carnival mask with her. I’ve mentioned that she was an artist in found objects. Hindu- and Indian-themed dioramas, wall hangings and decorative room partitions with strips of shiny and colorful cloth, cardboard and glitter, they all came from that head and tiny body. What I didn’t tell you is that my grandma loved sequins. I mean, LOVED them! So much so that my otherwise proper mother and her siblings sprinkled sequins on Patti’s sari during her wake. And laughed when they showed up in her ashes and again in the water collected from the Mohican River where those ashes were dissolved and dispersed. You know how happy and carefree you feel when you see a sequin? Maybe that was Patti telling us to chill, take a load off.
Early last year, Patti and I decided to make a carnival mask together that I would wear in New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day 2010. Now, I am going to have to make it myself and hope it comes a country mile within the pattern, colors, and charms she would have picked for it. This one’s for you, Patti, wish me luck.
Folks, this year, do everything you’ve wanted to do with someone before it’s too late and they’re gone. This Mardi Gras, go all out, make the coolest and loudest costume your creativity can muster and wear it proud, before it’s too late and you’re gone. Eat every piece of king cake, catch every bead, glue every bead, sew every sequin, and live and love every minute of it all. Just roll in the glitter of life. And why not? It’s Carnival Time, y’all!
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Lucius – 20,000 ft. Jake – 13,500 ft. Good news, but feasible given the completions link below?
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"We are drilling wells now that we can't complete," said Kevin Lacy, VP of drilling and completion in the Gulf of Mexico for BP. Some of the wells are possible because of high-spec drilling equipment, he noted, but the completions equipment is not yet available. "We're starting to see (conditions) in excess of 15,000psi." Other looming challenges include wells beyond 30,000ft, bottomhole pressures exceeding 20,000psi, temperatures over 250° F, hard-to-reach bottomhole locations, complex sand face completions and complex intervention requirements, Lacy said.
It’s as good a time as any to take stock. Thought the 1990s was a crazy decade for me. Guess I’m prone to crazy decades.
2000 – Discovered the wonderful world of computational sciences. Learned that the American electoral process isn’t all that it’s cut out to be. Found academia can be as wretched a hive of scum and villainy as industry; the only difference is the amount of money being fought over.
2001 – Met George Cramer, one of the two best teachers I’ve had the good fortune to learn from. Rediscovered 1990s-era PTSD on September 11th, 2001. Learned a lot about America in the wake of that day, while America learned about the rest of the world.
2002 – Found C and Java programming. Lost sleep. Moved to New Orleans.
2003 – Met Krewe du Vieux, Fahy’s, Wisconsin alumni, and all of my former co-workers, many of whom are good friends to this day. Found some folks can’t tell the difference between Iraq and Iran, much less between Arabs. Visited Jamaica, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, England, and Spain.
2004 – “Met” Sepia Mutiny and the brown blogosphere after amping up the blog and practically doubled my contacts list; some are now part of my virtual extended family. Lost George Cramer. Visited the Netherlands again and Ireland.
2005 – Lost New Orleans on August 29th, 2005 and much confidence in American infrastructure and government. Lost very close relatives to cancer in short order. Found who our real friends are and that the kindness of strangers beats the faux sincerity of known parties any day. Also discovered insomnia.
2006 – Found New Orleans again. Met the great New Orleans bloggers and geeks online and then in person on moving back in time for Mardi Gras. Found love doesn’t know boundaries, distance, age, and time, and that helping gut homes is hard on the back and heart. Lost my paternal grandmother, the inspiration for VatulNet.
2007 – Got married. Marched on City Hall to protest the ridiculous rise in the murder rate. Found Treasurer of Krewe du Vieux is my dream job, even if it doesn’t pay. Lost my aunt to cancer. Traveled once again to the Netherlands and Italy. Found the real meaning of “automotive shock absorption” on emerging unscathed from a rather scary car wreck.
2008 – Stood at Lambeau Field as the Packers won the Snow Bowl. Lost Ashley Morris. Found more wonderful New Orleanians and an intense dislike of city government and NOPD leadership. Helped elect Barack Hussein Obama II president of the USA. Met a number of Indian bloggers after the terrorist attacks on Mumbai. Traveled back to Jamaica and the Netherlands.
2009 – Moved back up north to be closer to my family. Lost my beloved maternal grandmother shortly thereafter and still cry about it. Found some members of my extended family are actually pretty cool. Found the interiors of many, many world airports. Met Thomas Hoffmann in Germany. Rediscovered the lost art of shoveling snow and driving in midwestern winters.
My hope for the 10s is meeting more good people, travel to great new places, and your continued health and safety.
A friend recently complained, “Yeah, I still read your blog, but it’s getting a little too techie for me.” Say it isn’t so! I thought I’d moved a lot of that writing over to VizWorld. It is true that I haven’t written many posts of a general or personal nature lately, but that’s because a LOT has happened in the past year and I am nothing short of overwhelmed. All you would get is garble while I slowly stir the inner oatmeal.
To jazz things up a bit, I’m starting a new VatulBlog sidebar segment called Tweet Of The Day. Twitter is where all the interaction went, it seems, and I am a lot more me over there, almost everyday. And I read some pretty original, bizarre, funny and poignant tweets almost everyday. Share the wealth? So, here goes the first one, from New Orleanian crime watcher @robschafer:
Woman next door moved out but came back with a can of gas to torch her BF. Stood chatting with nabes while NOPD/NOFD sorted it all out.
Wow. You wanted not techie? You got it! With that, ladies and gentlemen, we conclude the inaugural broadcast of Tweet of the Day. Come back for more!
