HinesSight

‘Twas the night before Thanksgiving

Yes, it was the night before Thanksgiving, and where else would Laurel and Brian be until 7:30 pm but at a hearing on the proposed Nielsen lot partition that has occupied so much of our time (mainly Laurel’s, for she is the Groundwater Protection Activist of the Year, without question, in Spring Lake Estates at least). Wednesday was the long-awaited remand hearing, remanded, that is, from the state Land Use Board of Appeals and the Marion County Board of Commissioners.

Right off the bat we observed something strange: the Nielsen’s hydrologist, Nick Coffey, was nowhere in sight. And he never did appear, his place being taken by a retiree from the Water Resources Department, Sam Ellison. Sam, refreshingly, was pretty honest and straightforward. He ended up agreeing with our positions more often than not, as an ethical hydrologist should, because this case is about facts and how best to protect groundwater in our neighborhood, simple truths that Nick Coffey never seemed to realize—as was clearly demonstrated by our hydrologists, Malia and Greg Kupillas.

After the hearing I told Malia that her presentation, complete with overhead slides and a laser pointer, was a hydro-geology work of art. I find hydro-geology, which I’ll shorten to hydrology, fairly interesting, but usually not all that compelling. How can you get excited about aquifers, basalt vs. marine sediment formations, static water levels? Well, Malia and Greg are both excellent speakers—Malia particularly—and have a knack for producing exceedingly clear and informative visuals. For the first time, I felt like I understood how groundwater basically works. (Malia’s finest moment was when she made her laser pointer represent a single raindrop, and traced its journey as it falls on the ground and makes its way into an aquifer).

I wished that Coffey could have been there to hear Malia and Greg demolish his flimsy arguments about the adequacy of groundwater in Spring Lake Estates. Repeatedly Malia would comment, “Nick said in the narrative of his report that he was going to base his calculations on X, but when I looked into what he actually did, it was Y. I found it strange that he would claim he was going to do one thing, and in reality end up doing something else.” Laurel and I can’t believe that the hearings officer can do anything but deny, as she did initially, the Nielsen’s lot partitioning request. Malia and Greg, along with the owners of three properties surrounding the Nielsen lot, conclusively proved that static water levels have dropped hundreds of feet over the past few decades, and our area simply can’t tolerate an extra well being drilled.

There are people in the neighborhood who have longstanding plans to build on their vacant lot, perhaps when they retire, and they would be the ones most hurt if the Nielsens were able to move out of the area (as they already have), partition their lot to make some extra bucks, and cause surrounding wells to go dry. Wells have seniority rights, so the first-drilled well gets priority over the second-drilled well when groundwater is depleted. So the person causing the problem doesn’t necessarily suffer the consequences of their selfish action. It often is someone who wants to build on their lot, but now can’t because of a lack of water, who ends up getting hurt.

Well, hopefully Laurel’s passion for this cause has prevented this from occurring. The Nielsens have two weeks to respond to the Kupillas’ report, then the hearings officer will make her decision. We’ll keep you posted. Admittedly, this isn’t the O.J. trial, but this case has a certain fascination—as most legal (or in this instance, quasi-legal) proceedings do. When Laurel testified she was rudely interrupted by Denny Nielsen yelling from the audience to the hearings officer, “Are you going to let her say that? That isn’t relevant!” Laurel kept her cool, and, like the O.J. trial lawyers (we watched almost every minute on Court TV), told the hearings officer/judge that Mr. Nielsen had raised similar issues in his own testimony, at which point the hearings officer said, “I’ll allow this line of testimony.” “Yes!,” I yelled in my mind. Then I thought, “What is the age limit for applying to law school? This is fun.”

I’m a publisher!!!

Oh, man, I’m so excited. I’m a publisher! No, wait, I misspoke, and left off two exclamation marks: I’m a publisher!!! I can prove it. I have my not-really-framable piece of paper from the corporation commissioner that says I’m doing business under an assumed business name: Adrasteia Publishing. If I’d wanted to pay $10 more I could have gotten a rather cheesy only-slightly-more-suitable-for-framing certificate featuring a background photo of the Oregon state capital, but I decided thriftiness was going to be one of the hallmarks of Adrasteia Publishing—along with, hopefully, publishing (my own books, of course).

After much exploring in the dense and dark jungles of Publisher Land, I think I’ve finally hit upon a viable for my four, count them, four, books that either need to get back in print, commercially in print, or just plain in print. Naturally my first choice was to find a publisher who would (a) pay me a princely sum to publish my books; (b) get them in print just the way I had written them, namely, without any significant editorial changes, (c) was committed to keeping them in print for ever and ever, and (d) would promote the living daylights out of them.

Many times I found a firm that met all of these criteria. But then I would wake up and have to go make coffee. I kept hoping that my dream would become reality, but that isn’t the way life usually works. Reality makes reality. Anyway, I’ve finally linked up with a publisher who, by all accounts, has found a way to meld the benefits of print on demand (POD) and traditional publishing approaches: Unlimited Publishing. You can see from their web site that they take a markedly different approach from the run-of-the-mill POD firm. Well, you would be able to see that if you had checked into as many POD web sites as I have. But take my word for it, it’s true.

Or, don’t take my word for it, and contrast Unlimited Publishing with one of the churn-the-books-out-and-take-their-money firms, Trafford Publishing Not that there is anything inherently wrong with Trafford if you just want to get your book on Amazon and sell a hundred copies to friends and family. But I have higher aspirations, for I too am a publisher (albeit with no published books yet, but let’s not quibble with details).

Unlimited will be the distributing publisher of Return to the One and, hopefully, my other books. Adrasteia will be the contributing publisher. While I haven’t yet understood all that distinguishes us, I have already learned enough about the trade to figure out that Unlimited Publishing will distribute my books, and Adrasteia Publishing will contribute the books, hence, our titles. Ah yes, Adrasteia also will contribute some money to Unlimited, as is the case with co-publishing arrangements, but the green stuff theoretically will flow the other way eventually, in the form of royalties.

Adrasteia means “inescapable” in Greek. Plotinus uses the term, once, and I liked the way it sounds. Adrasteia also is a goddess, one of Zeus’ daughters, and I felt that it wouldn’t hurt to form an alliance with the progeny of a powerful Greek god. “Zeus, how about throwing some thunderbolts at the publishers who have sent me rejection letters? I could give you a list of names and addresses, but since you’re a god, I assume you already know who should be thunderbolted. Your buddy, Brian (P.S. Did I mention that I’ve named my publishing company after your daughter?)”

Prius update

I want to reassure those readers who have been anxious about the status of our Prius’ warning light, perhaps suffering through sleepless nights, or engaging in constant prayers to the Higher Hybrid Power on our behalf, that Priey has been returned to health, and we are enjoying the car a lot. As the post below posited, Marcus Aurelius’ advice was well taken, because it turned out that Toyota wasn’t out to drive us crazy by having a “check engine” warning light come on one hour after we bought the car.

No, seemingly Toyota is trying to drive many 2004 Prius buyers crazy, which supports my decision to take a Stoic attitude and not take this problem personally. The service department didn’t sound at all surprised when we called them Monday morning. When I explained what had happened, the guy who answered the phone said, “Oh, yeah. What we’ve been doing is reset the light, then take the car out on the freeway and drive it fast.” Well, that made sense. Why didn’t I think of that?

When we got to the dealership, we learned that some sort of greasy film is placed over some sort of engine sensor attached to some sort of part (sorry for the lack of details; I’m not very mechanical, and we haven’t even opened the hood yet on the Prius—hopefully there is an engine inside, which I suspect there is, since the car has been moving when we start it up and press on the gas/electric pedal). The film burns off when the part heats up, hence, I believe, the need to drive it fast on the freeway.

At any rate, the car is back to normal, and we’re getting more familiar with it. The manual is about an inch thick, what with all the electronic and mechanical gadgetry crammed into this $23,000 car (a bargain, really, particularly with the $1,500 Oregon tax credit and $2,000 federal tax deduction). We haven’t figured everything out, though, especially the security system. I met some people at the Coffee House café in downtown Salem this afternoon, the place where all the street people and alternative types hang out at the sidewalk tables, even on cold days like today.

I was able to park right in front of the café and show off the new blue Prius to my friends/business associates when our meeting was over. I was attempting to demonstrate how cool it is that you can turn the security system on and off, and lock and unlock the car, without using the “key” (buttons, really). But what I actually demonstrated was how quickly a man with a new car, which is parked in front of a café with quite a few people sitting around outside, can fumble around in the bottom of his fanny-pack for a key that he didn’t think he’d need, when the car horn starts blowing in an exceedingly noisy and irritating fashion after he inexplicably manages to set off the security system after sitting down in the driver’s seat.

If Toyota offered me a thousand dollars to recreate what happened, I don’t think I could. The security system worked fine the rest of the day. Probably some malevolent Toyota engineer with a twisted sense of humor somehow managed to surreptitiously design the security system so it only malfunctions when the driver is parked directly in front of a sidewalk café, and is eager to show off the Prius’ cool attributes to a group of people. Well, at least I got to hear, “Wow, that’s a loud horn.”

We had a wonderful experience selling our Honda CRV over the weekend to Emma and Eric from Corvallis. Emma is finishing up a doctorate in neuro-science/zoology at Oregon State University, and we had a great hour long conversation after they told us that they liked the car, and they liked our asking price, which made the monetary negotiations last about five seconds. We covered a lot of ground: are animals conscious? what is consciousness anyway? do animals feel emotions? what is the difference between a “feeling” and an “emotion”? and more besides.

I emailed Emma a chapter from my Plotinus book, “All Is Alive,” to see what she thinks of his philosophical perspective on the nature of life. And when she came to pick up the car (and leave us a cashier’s check), Emma brought a nice note with an artistic abstract photograph captioned, “To Laurel and Brian: a picture of cannabis receptors in the newt brain as a memento of our conversation.” Emma is doing her doctorate research with newts, but she said that even experimenting with newts makes her feel a bit guilty, so she is going to venture further down the evolutionary ladder to crayfish in her next experimental neuroscience work. An intellectual cut above your usual car buying/selling experience, that’s for sure. Best of luck to Emma and Eric when she, hopefully, begins her post-doc life in Wyoming, where the all wheel drive CRV will be a good friend for them.

Marcus Aurelius and Microsoft

Recently I started reading The Inner Citadel by Pierre Hadot, which is a fairly scholarly commentary on Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations—retranslated by Hadot and Michael Chase. Marcus, you may recall, was the Roman Emperor featured in the movie “Gladiator.” He was shown writing (the Meditations, undoubtedly) in his tent during the campaign against the Germanic huns at the beginning of the movie.

I had read Marcus (might as well call an emperor by his first name, since he isn’t around to throw me to the lions for impertinence) directly before, but Hadot provides a lot of meaty background information about the Stoic philosophy in general, of which the Meditations is a specific instance of how one Stoic, Marcus, lived his life in accord with Stoicism. There is a lot to like in Stoicism. Here’s one example.

The Stoics believe—correctly, I’d say—that we can’t control the sensations of the outside world that enter our consciousness. All we can do is control our judgments and interpretations about what those sensations mean. That is, the outside world offers us information, and it is our job to interpret that information, to give it meaning.

So, Marcus says: “He was sent to jail. What happened? He was sent to jail. But ‘He is unhappy’ is added by oneself [i.e., subjectively].” And, “If you are grieving about some exterior thing, then it is not that thing which is troubling you, but your judgment about that thing.” This is just what modern cognitive therapy teaches, having rediscovered what the Stoics knew two thousand years ago.

I read these quotations several days after I had my pissed-off-at-Microsoft experience (a fairly common experience for almost anyone who uses a computer). I wish I had read Marcus earlier, because I might have saved my irritation for a more worthy object of pissed-offness. Outlook had crashed for some reason, and my computer had directed me to a Microsoft web site where I was supposed to check for updates to Office XP, and thereby supposedly reduce my proneness to future crashes.

OK, I was willing to play that game, and complied with Microsoft’s check-for- updates? thing. Microsoft told me that I needed some humongous cumulative download of Office XP patches/security fixes/and what not. It took forever to retrieve on my slow Internet connection, but finally I had all 6 gigs of it, or whatever. The download then tried to install itself, and did fine until a message came on the screen, “To update Word 2002 insert Microsoft Works Disk 1.” What!!!??? It was late. I was tired. I didn’t want to go search for some old CD. And besides, I was sure, absolutely sure, sure beyond a doubt, that I had installed Word 2002 from an Office XP disk, and didn’t even have a Works disk to my name.

So after I tried to assuage the installer with the Office XP disk, it gave up on me, and said “Installation could not be completed. Try again.” Jesus Christ!!! God damn it!!! Screw you, Microsoft!!! and worse, much worse, coursed across my inflamed consciousness. I fired off an email to Microsoft, cursing them for their incompetence, promising that I would never buy another Microsoft product, damning them for their buggy installation programs that ask you for disks you don’t even have. The rest of the night, and into the morning, I was super irritated at Microsoft and how that idiot company had made me waste so much time on trying to install the Office XP fixes.

And then…the next day I calmed down enough to look in the drawer where I keep my original disks that came with my computer. And there…I found a Microsoft Works disk that had “Word 2002” on the face of it. And after that…I tried reinstalling the download and everything went just fine. And after reading Marcus…I realized that what had happened was, “The download did not install.” Period. End of story. The objective indisputable truth. Everything else that I experienced, all the irritation, the cursing, the feeling of being screwed over by an incompetent corporate giant—all that was my subjective illusory imagination, useless crap. Not only wasn’t it true, it didn’t help at all in what I was trying to do, make my computer work better.

Yesterday we got our new 2004 Toyota Prius, another story for another posting. The only point I want to make right now about the Prius is that as soon as Laurel turned onto our road, eight miles from the dealership, half a mile from home, the “check engine” light went on. And it is still on. Nothing crucial, hopefully. Possibly a gas tank/cap emissions alert that went awry. I’m chilling out about it. What has happened? A warning light on our new car came on right after we bought it. That’s it. Toyota isn’t out to drive us crazy or sell us a lemon. A warning light has come on. Thank you, Marcus. Now, maybe I can go read the front page of the Sunday paper with similar detachment. Or, maybe not.

One way you can help save the Earth

Here’s one way you can help save the Earth: buy our 1997 Honda CRV that will soon (tomorrow) be listed for sale in the Salem Stateman-Journal classifieds. By buying our wonderful SUV, with only 44,000 miles, you will be doing a lot to help us pay for the 2004 Toyota Prius that has arrived in the Port of Portland, and shortly will be delivered to the local Toyota dealer. When this happens, we’ve been told that we have 48 hours to cough up the money to pay for the car, or else it goes to the next person in line who wants this desirable vehicle, who now total 38 (we were the 6th in Salem to pre-order a 2004 Prius, which went on sale October 17, I believe).

We are offering a generous 1% discount to HinesSight readers, which makes for a lot of 99s to punch into my calculator. Let’s see, list price of $9,900, times .99, why, that equals a bargain basement HinesSight price of $9,801. Call or email right away! The price may be rising, as I just looked at the Statesman-Journal cars.com listing of Honda CRVs, which must include dealers who don’t advertise in the classifieds, because they’re asking a heck of a lot more for CRVs of a more or less comparable vintage than we are. Well, if the first person who calls about the car pays what we’re asking, we can rejoice in the good karma we’re accumulating by not trying to get more than what the Kelley Blue Book suggests.

Anyway, the new Prius supposedly gets 60 mpg city driving/51 mpg highway driving/55 mpg overall. As compared to the 22 mpg or so the CRV gets, which I hasten to add isn’t bad for a SUV, and shouldn’t deter you from buying our car. As above, you will be doing almost as much to Save the Earth as if you bought a very-low-emission very-high-mileage hybrid car directly, since you will be enabling us to buy the Prius, and get rid of the CRV. If this doesn’t make complete logical sense, don’t think too much about it. Just get a cashier’s check made out to us for the $9,801.

You can learn all about the new Prius at Toyota.com. We are really excited about the car after taking a test drive on Saturday—to be sure we were going to like it, before we put the CRV up for sale. This primarily will be Laurel’s car, but I will be sneaking into it as much as possible to enjoy all the high-tech features. The dash display is way cool, with graphs showing current and historical mileage, how the car is generating power (electric motor vs. gas engine), radio/CD info, temperature controls, all kinds of stuff. You can control the inside temperature and sound system from steering wheel buttons. The keyless entry on the model we’re getting is really keyless, just like on a high-end Mercedes: you leave the “key” in your pocket or purse and simply approach the car; the door unlocks automatically; you then get in, push the “start” button (no key is used to start the car), and you’re off—all with the “key” still in your pocket or purse.

Acceleration 0-60 is about 10.2 seconds, I believe. The 2004 Prius won’t win any stop light drag contests, but it feels just like a normal $22,000 mid-sized Toyota. Inside, the rear seats fold down almost flat, and it has a hatchback. We spent much of our time at the Toyota dealer obsessing about how much headroom (actually, back and head room, given our canine concerns) the rear area had when the seat was folded. Serena likes to stand up much of the time when she is riding in the car, so Laurel was afraid that the steeply sloping, highly aerodynamic Prius would give our dog stoop-shoulder. The salesman kindly walked back to the showroom to get a measuring tape, which enabled us to determine the dog standing room in the car—something which, strangely, isn’t mentioned in the brochure.

As soon as we got home we had Serena stand under a yardstick supported by our “dining room” (actually, living room) table, which conveniently was just about exactly 29 inches tall, the Prius measurement. Our research indicates that Serena will indeed have to bend her head slightly if she stands up. But she would have to do that anyway if people are going to see her through the window, the coolest dog in one of the coolest cars in town—until the next new Great Green Thing comes along, that is. Newsweek recently had a brief review of the new Prius in their weekly auto section near the back of the magazine. The writer drove a Prius around Los Angeles. She ended her piece by noting that when she retrieved the car at valet parking, everyone standing around was interested in her car rather than the Mercedes next in line. We can hardly wait to become the center of Salem’s attention, though we’ll have to look far and wide to find some valet parking around here.

Lust and longing at the dog park

Last weekend Laurel and I took the family pet, Serena, to the dog park at Minto-Brown Island. A “dog park,” for those not educated in canine arcana, is a place where dogs are allowed to run free, leashless, though still theoretically under the owner’s voice or psychic control. This was the third time, I think, that one of us had taken Serena to the dog park for some socializing. But this was the first time that I fully realized that the dog park has much social appeal for humans also.

When we let Serena out of the car, she ran happily into the large grassy dog park field, which, this being a sunny (if cold) day, already was filled with other dog parkers—both of the canine and homo sapiens variety. The dogs have no problem making new friends. Male or female, young or old, purebred or mixed breed, large or small, all it takes is a few sniffs (mostly of private parts) and some sort of mysterious social order is established. Serena knew who she wanted to play/wrestle/chase with, and who she didn’t want to play/wrestle/chase with. Even with all the dogs running around madly every which way, with some being excluded from a play group and some included, there was no fighting, no apparent hurt feelings. One big happy dog family. Which included the owners also.

Normally, if you encounter a few dozen strangers in a large field, you will exchange just a few pleasant words (“Hi,” “How are you?”, “Nice day, isn’t it?”), and that will be the extent of the socializing. But if you put a few dozen dog owners into a field, along with their dogs, even though they have never met each other, extended conversations start up almost instantly—the human equivalent of sniffing private parts, I guess. We learned the names, breeds, favorite activities (such as chasing cats, not a big surprise), and other characteristics of quite a few dogs. Knowing that there was about the same chance of Serena bringing back the tennis ball that I wanted so desperately to throw, as of me winning the lottery, I temporarily adopted retriever-appearing dogs, with the full consent of their owners (who, when the dog refused to bring the ball back to me, would say, “Don’t feel bad, that’s just what she does with me also.”)

Dog parks are one of the few places, other than sporting events, parades, or concerts, where strangers can instantly bond through the glue of a strongly shared interest. I wish there were more places like this in Oregon, and our country. When I spent a college semester in Zadar, Yugoslavia, way back in 1968, I was struck by how Zadarians (or whatever they were called) would “promenade” in the evening along this historic city’s sea wall. Women would walk in one direction, men in the other, providing lots of opportunities for subtle (and not so subtle) flirting. By contrast, where in Salem can you find more than a few people on the street after 6 pm? We have no public meeting places, bars and nightclubs being a pitifully inadequate substitute.

So, thank heavens for dog parks, where canine connoisseurs can commingle comfortably. Even when their dogs are attempting, um, to commingle in a much more intimate sense. It is a great ice-breaker to be exchanging some small talk with another dog owner, and then look down to see that one of your dogs is mounting the other one. This seems to have as much to do with dominance as it does with sex, something that I’m just learning, having moved fairly recently from the cat side of the best pet tracks. Though Serena is female, there was a lot of swinging both ways. A male would try to mount her, then she’d try to mount another female, and so it would go in various and sundry sexual combinations.

At some point I couldn’t help but think of Arnold Swartzenegger. He reportedly engaged in very much the same sorts of animalistic groping of strangers as what goes on in a dog park all the time. But the dogs don’t file sexual harassment suits, nor do their owners. Everyone just smiles and says, “No, Rover, don’t do that to her.” Understand, I’m not excusing Arnold, but maybe we people would be happier and more relaxed if we remembered that we are animals also, and accept that animals instinctively will act like animals—even if they have a Ph.D., or a Rhodes scholarship. The dog park has some lessons for us, perhaps.

Still time to be part of the Elegant Universe

If you didn’t catch the first two hours of PBS’ “The Elegant Universe” with string theorist Brian Greene, the final third hour is coming up from 8-9 pm on Tuesday, November 4. We haven’t finishing watching the initial episode, but what we’ve seen has been great. I’ve read most of Greene’s book by the same name, and am passingly familiar with string theory. Still, there’s no substitute for special effects, and having complex physics/cosmology explained by an expert with a gift for communicating. Greene can write; he can talk; he’s likable and expressive; and he’s also a top-notch scientist—a rare combination of talents.

Superstring theory was prominently featured in the final chapter of my first book, God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder. It’s hard not to get excited about a theory that purports to explain everything in the universe, the long-sought Theory of Everything. Supposedly the foundation of the cosmos actually is ten or eleven dimensions, not the three of space and the one of time with which we are familiar. Whether these extra unseen dimensions are compactified, or folded up, in an extremely small fashion, or whether they truly exist as really real realms of reality is still conjecture—as is all of string theory.

Yet it’s the current best bet for a Theory of Everything, one which posits that a cosmic symphony of vibrations produced by a single simple source results in all the complex matter/energy in the universe. A beautiful idea, entirely compatible with the deepest tenets of mystical spirituality. Watch “The Elegant Universe.”