An article in the newspaper sparked a bit of hope in me today.

Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) said that he might consider running for President in 2008 if the voters want him to.

Sen. Feingold happens to be one of my senators, but that's not the reason that I'm excited about this possibility. I'm excited because he's exactly what the Democratic Party--and this nation--needs. He's a fiscally-conservative, politically-moderate man who isn't afraid to speak up for what's right, regardless of the pressure on the other side. Sen. Feingold was the only member of the US Senate to vote against the USA PATRIOT Act.

I'm not going to try to convince you that he's the right man for the job. I'm going to let his record and his own voice speak for him:

Wikipedia Entry

2004 Election Ads (I especially like "Honor Roll")

Sensei has been rebuilt and opened up to the public. There's still more to add, but it's up and running.

I decided to use my Saturday to rebuild a website. What does this entail?

• Delete about half the old content
• Come up with a new design
• Create custom graphics
• Install WordPress
• Build a whole new theme for WP
• Rebuild the CSS for the main site
• Proof and tweak the layout
• Proof and tweak the content
• Get really frustrated when minor details don't work

I still have to build a theme for phpBB (forums) and get that installed, but that's going to be a lot more complicated than the rest of this stuff, so it's going to wait. Tomorrow, I'll work on more tweaks (WordPress has some *really* annoying CSS heirarchy in the menubar), and add some more content (FAQ and some comments), create a splash page, and hopefully have it ready to go by the end of the day.

I started at 08:00 and it's now 22:00. I took a couple meal breaks, and I installed an electrical outlet in the kitchen, but otherwise, I've been doing this all day.

Yeah. I'm a geek.

20 years ago, I was given perfection. And I chased her away. I allowed her to walk from me when I should have held her bound.

I know that I will spend the rest of my life alone. I have known this. I have accepted this. Once I tried to lie to myself, but the Fates sent that lie back upon me with precision and cruelty.

And now... Now I am fated to spend the rest of my life being presented with beauty and desire, only to have it step back beyond my grasp. Not gone--ever within view--but beyond reach.

What kind of a cruel god sets perfection in front of a child and expects him to understand? What kind of a cruel god cannot forgive ignorance and fear?

What kind of a bastard diety expects a child to understand the implications of forever?

Somewhere, there's a groups of people--serious corporate types--who got together and decided how many holes a shower curtain should have. And what the diameter of a toilet seat should be. And the size of paper napkins.

All these things (as well as many many others) have been standardized across the industry. I can understand hardware, and lumber, and computers, and communications devices. But it's weird thinking about a bunch of guys in suits getting together and seriously negotiating how many holes go into a shower curtain, so that the guys who make the rings that hold them up know how many to put into a package.

Statistics.

When you read about a survey in the newspaper or a magazine, do you ever take a look at the fine print? The data for a survey (or poll) purporting to describe the standing of the entire US population is gathered from about 1,000 people. 1,000 people are, supposedly, enough to represent the entire US. I don't believe it.

Why not? Well, let's look at a few things....

These polls are usually conducted by telephone, and usually during specific hours of the day. The people who answer the questions have to meet the following criteria to even register on the poll:

They have to have a telephone.
They have to be home (and near the phone) when the pollster calls.
They have to answer the phone (and not screen their calls).
They have to care enough about the poll to agree to answer the questions.
They have to give answers that aren't too "wild" (outside the standard deviation).

So, right there you have a self-selecting group of respondants. That's going to skew the results.

Next, there's the sheer number of response combinations. Assume 20 questions with 5 options for each (the standard "strongly disagree to strongly agree" range). That gives you 5^20 possible combinations of answers. That's 95,367,431,640,625 possible outcomes. That's 95 trillion possible outcomes. Even if 99.44% of those combinations don't show up, that's still over 534 billion possible answers. 1,000 people are representing, at a minimum, billions of possible perspectives. Doesn't quite add up for me.

Then there's the whole demographics thing. 1,000 people are going to adequately cover all the pertinent demographics? Color me cynical.

Let's take a look at a few of the simple demographic factors that can reasonably influence a person's responses--especially to political questions (number of factors given in brackets before the line):

[2] Gender: male, female
[3] Age: young, mid-aged, old
[5] Race: white, black, asian, hispanic, native American
[3] Income: low, mid, high
[3] Education: high school, college, post graduate
[4] Employment: unemployed, blue collar, white collar, agrarian
[3] Location: urban, suburban, rural
[2] Family: single, married
[2] Children: yes, no
[5] Religion: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, athiest, other
[3] Politics: liberal, moderate, conservative
[2] Birthplace: native, immigrant

That's 388,800 combinations. I know these things tend to form certain groups, so even if they settle out to 1% of the possible combinations, that's still almost 4,000 variations. And 1,000 people are going to adequately represent them all?

1,000 people are accurately (±3%) depict 4,000 demographics and 500 billion answer combinations?

Yeah.... Okay....

I know about trends and groupings and such, but I still don't see that 1,000 self-selecting people accurately depict the way the nation thinks. It only takes a couple people to skew the "blue-color white male 18-34" results.

Like I said: Color me cynical.

(See, I told you I'd get back to some more serious posts.)

...since the test results say that there's nothing wrong with me. Everything is in the "normal" range, and the x-rays look good.

We'll ignore the fact that I'm in pain 24 hours a day, and it feels like someone's shoved an ice pick under my kneecaps when I walk.

This is like a kick in the teeth; to feel like this and be told that "everything's normal".

The x-rays are being sent off to a specialist, so maybe they'll find out what's causing this pain.

I realize that lately most of my posts are the "How I spent my weekend vacation" kind of stuff. Fluff posts. I admit it; I've been less than deep and intellectual lately. However, in my defense, buying the house (and working on it) has been a major part of what I've been doing for the last month. Things are starting to settle into place again, and I'm going to try to get my head back in the game (so to speak).

I've been staying away from politcs because, quite honestly, I'm so utterly disgusted by current politics that I just can't bring myself to pay much attention to things. That's truely sad. There have been a number of thoughts and situations I've encountered recently that I thought would make good grist for the mill, but I just don't have the energy or focus to sit down and write about them. There's always another box to unpack, another closet to organize, another bazillion leaves to rake.

I am, however, going to try to get back into the swing of things and start with posts that actually have some meat to them (or soy for those vegetarians in the audience).

The weekends seem to go so fast now. I can't remember what I did on Friday night. Probably nothing. I'm pretty sure I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes and then went to bed early.

Saturday I slept in late (`til 7:30, at least) then got up and started cleaning. Oh boy. I still have lots of stuff in boxes and bags (and a bathtub full of electronic componants) but there's no rush to get the all unpacked, so I'm just taking it a little at a time. I'm still in a fair amount of pain, so I'm having to take frequent breaks. That kinda cuts into the work-time. I got the front and side yards raked and the leaves bagged. I was working on that when called. We went out for lunch, I bought her some spices and treats to help counteract the effects of dorm food, and then she stopped by the house before heading out with friends. It's good to see her again. Real conversations are so much better than text messages and IMs.

Today was some shopping for necessities (new phone, shovel, Murphy's Oil Soap, glides for the dining room chairs), a short visit with the parents, more cleaning, then yardwork. I edged part of the sidewalk. I estimate that I now have 10% more sidewalk.

If I think I can handle it, I'll go out and mow the front and side later today.

There's something I learned doing theatre tech that I think applies to yardwork as well: Every time you work, do something that's noticable. It doesn't matter if you spent 12 hours installing support bracing under the platforms if the director and cast can't see it. So before they come in for rehearsal, take 5 minutes to pull the lamp post out of storage and put it on stage.

I need more money and more time. I need to be rich and quit my job so I can spend lots of time working on the house. I like working on the house. I like making it mine. Even Ashlee said I have good taste in decorating (even though there's still a long way to go).

Those of you who have spent any time around me may have noticed that I will, on ocassion, start limping. For about 12 years now, I've had "bad knees" and had sporatic periods where they hurt--sometimes a dull ache, sometimes an excrutiating sharpness. About 5 or 6 years ago, when I was working at "The Valve", it got bad and I had a doctor look at it when I went in for my physical. He had me bend over and touch my toes (something that I've only been able to do maybe twice in my adult life--this being one of them) and boldly stated that I just needed to stretch more. I had been in such pain at times that I actually collapsed inside one of the machines one day, and I just "needed to stretch more."

Over the next few years--after quitting that job--it only came up ocassionally, and I just dealt with it. Over the last year or so, it's been getting worse. And it's been spreading. All my joints ache. They all "crack" without provocation, and my bones hurt. You'll only understand what I mean if you've had it happen to you.

The last month, has brought it to a crisis point. With moving into the new house, I've done a lot of climbing stairs while carrying heavy objects, a lot of bending down to pick up or set down heavy objects, and just a lot of being on my feet. It's gotten to the point that I couldn't walk.

So, today I went to the doctor. I got poked and prodded and bent and twisted and asked all kinds of questions. I have a very high tolerance for pain, but I was honest with him and said that I was, at times, experiencing excrutiating and debilitating pain. Again, if you know me, you'll understand how hard that was for me to say, and just what it says about the situation that I actually said it.

I wasn't able to get any x-rays taken today (the x-ray technician was gone), but I'm going back on Tuesday to get them taken, and the results of the blood tests should be back by then, too. The best guess is that I have one of two forms of arthritis: Rheumatoid Arthritis--an auto-immune disease where (amongst other things) my own body is eating away at the connective tissue of my joints--or Osteo Arthritis--the progressive deterioration and "grinding away" of my bones from over-use.

Neither of them is very pretty. Neither of them can be cured. RA can be slowed or halted through the use of medications (some of which have rather nasty side-effects of their own), and OA can be slowed by simply not using the joints as much. Either way, I'm not going to "get better".

For now, the doc has me taking ibuprofen. Lots and lots of ibuprofen, every day. You may not understand how difficult this is for me. I don't take pain pills. When I ran my hand through a table saw, I took one pain pill. Then I flushed the rest down the toilet. I haven't had so much as a bottle of aspirin in my house ever. To be downing 9 pills a day (yes, 9) makes my skin crawl. But the main reason to take them is their anti-inflamatory quality which will help to lessen the strain on my joints. (To be honest, I've taken 6 so far today, and they really aren't doing a damn thing for the pain).

Why am I going on about this? I don't know. I guess mostly because it's a turning point. For the last 12 years, I've gotten by with saying "I have bad knees". Next week I may find out that I have a dibilitating and incurable disease. Or I may find out that they don't know what's wrong, which is a whole nother situation.

Well, at the very least, I'll be justified in saying I'm an old man.

Who knows... maybe I'll even be able to get permission to use the special blue parking spaces.