So, I’ve wanted to make some changes to my WordPress theme for awhile.  The biggest one was to add my del.icio.us tags to the page.  I’m not sure why I wanted to do this, but I did.  A few months ago Dave posted about his switchover to sandbox and some other tweaks he had done.  He also talked about it on irc.

I made the switch this morning.  The ability to drag and drop the sidebar widgets is a killer feature and what will keep me on sandbox for awhile.  If you’re visiting the page, you can see i still need to tweak the CSS to be less ugly.  Its not a big deal and it can certainly wait.  Tweaking CSS always causes my brain to bleed.  However, this looks straight forward.  I made the big hurdle which was switching themes.

Recently, I took a trip to middle IL, and found a physical clue to the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  Much like the Shroud of Turin, this simple linen cloth bears the image of the FSM.  It shows appendages similar to his Noodly Appendage, and a where The Meatera rested above them.

I am certain it will be the subject of intense debate among some scientists, believers, historians and writers regarding where, when and how the shroud and its image were created.

(Click on the image for a bigger view.) 

blog/biblecan

I’m not sure why I took this picture. Something about the Bible word-finds hanging on a garbage can like that said I should take it. I didn’t stage this photo in any way, I found this layout at lower Michigan and Hubbard when I got off the bus this morning.

The camera in the hiptop is not the best, but I at least have a camera on me. Its pretty terrible in low light situations. I fixed up the photo as much as possible in gimp, but its still not hot. I need to get a better small camera I can carry with me at all times.

Stephen Drone: right wing on politics, left wing on porn. What’s up with that?

In my reading of the Trib this morning, I came across two articles that blew my mind.

On the front page was: For sale: Trailer w/ocean vu, $1 million obo

So wonderfully Californian, Marsha Weidman’s home has it all–along the beach, far from noisy traffic, with a Jacuzzi used to watch sunsets over the Pacific.

For this, she and her husband recently paid $1.05 million.

For that, they got a trailer, built in 1971, without any land.

Plus, the family must pay “space rent,” which at two Malibu parks dotted with seven-figure trailers ranges from $800 to $2,500 monthly.

The nation’s frenzied housing boom has come to this: Even trailer parks, long the butt of jokes about tornado targets and redneck living, are enjoying fat greenback prices.

My mind started to melt at that, but then I read on…

The seven-digit prices, touching only those trailers parked permanently beside the sea, have made for giddy moments with neighbors such as George Keossaian, 46, who with his wife and two children moved five years ago into the gated Point Dume Club mobile park, where Weidman also lives.

The mobile home he bought for $140,000 then will be worth $950,000 once he completes an 800-foot addition, Keossaian says. A reappraisal this year assigned a $750,000 value to his home, which has no ocean view.

My mind asplode…

The other article was: Bush backs teaching of intelligent design along with evolution

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Bush said Monday that he thinks schools should discuss “intelligent design” alongside evolution when teaching students about creation.

During a round-table interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers, Bush declined to detail his views on the origin of the universe. But he said students should learn about both theories.

“I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought,” Bush said. “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.”

I shouldn’t really be suprised by this, but I am. At the same time, he didn’t really say (at least as quoted) what the headline says. However, given his background, I’m sure he feels that way.

Last Friday, Sarah and I went to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry to see the Body Worlds and Game On exhibits. Read about Game On in Part II

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Body Worlds was pretty interesting. There have been some pretty in-depth discussions about Body Worlds on some of the mailing lists I’m on. There were people who questioned the ethics of such a display as well as the taste. Now that I’ve experienced it and had a few days to reflect, I think I can comment on it.

I have to say it was one of the most educational things, outside of my profession, that I’ve done in years. I found the side by side displays of healthy organs next to diseased/cancered/etc to be informative. Also, after looking at the black lungs on some of the pieces, I don’t know why you’d continue to smoke. The other thing is that all the bodies used in the display either donated their bodies or had them donated by their next of kin with a very good release form that asks many reasonable questions including “Why are you doing this?” It looks like they would reject donations if they felt the people weren’t fully understanding or believing in what they were doing.

For the most part, I thought all the displays were tasteful and put in positions that emphasized a part of physiology they were trying to show. There was only one or two that I turned me off. For example, there is a piece called “the wingman” where the bodies muscles are fanned out, but I forget now what it was demonstrating. I think maybe it was the thickness of muscles in certain parts of the body. That part was fine, but he was wearing a straw hat with the caption of the display saying something akin to “He’s wearing a hate to further blur the line between life and death.” In any case, that kinda turned me off and made it less educational and more silly. Sarah pointed out that maybe it was a request of the person who donated their body or a reflection of someone he was known for.

One section of the display that was difficult for me to view was separated off in a curtained area, probably for just that reason. It was displays of mothers and fetuses in various stages of pregnancy. Previous to having a daughter, I don’t think it would have affected me, but I know that’s why it bothered me now. I couldn’t help but think of how sad it was for them to have lost the baby and/or for a husband/father to lose his wife and potential child. One of the things about the display is that they don’t share with you the reason for death of the donated bodies, they say its to focus on the body and their life and not to dwell on their deaths. I agree and understand why they did it, but for this section I wanted to know, if only for selfish reasons of feeling lucky about how well everything went for us. That being said, I think I also got more out of this part of the display post-fatherhood as I had more of an interest and could remember back to how we were and what we were thinking about at that time.

Another interesting part of the display was they had a horse they had put through the plastination process and displayed with a man. They invited you to compare and contrast between the human body and the horses and really examine how we were similar and different. For most of the display I had only been thinking about myself or people I knew when looking at the bodies. The horse display forced me to put humans in context with the rest of the animal kingdom and I liked its inclusion for that. However, part of me knows that this piece was there for the sensationalism of it that its size brought to it.

Here are two observations from last night based on the phrase: “Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?”

“I’m not going to buy the cow if I can’t at least sample the milk to make sure its okay.”

“I’m not going to buy the cow if its FUCKING CRAZY”