To New Ideas

JWise Moments

Flourescent "OPEN" sign

Open – I am. Are you? New ideas, new cultural information, new sights, sounds, tastes, and smells are filtering into our society – if you choose to seek them out and participate. Truth is, most people are closed. The Pavlovian herd is hardened by a media in the U.S. that appears reluctant to offer America’s diverse population a healthy view of the world.

What we know of Africa: people in Darfur are having problems, um, starving, or maybe they are at war – not sure, but there was something on the news. Elephants are endangered. There are gorillas in Africa. Most Africans have AIDS. Brad and Angelina went to Namibia for a baby. That’s about it.

China: They are stealing our jobs, they make everything that is sold at Walmart, they are evil communists.

India: They are stealing our jobs through outsourcing; there are too many stealing our jobs right here in America; they worship cows, and they have dots on their heads.

Europe: The old country, we came from there. The French suck. What is a Norway? My uncle-sister-brother-cousin-other-extended-family-member was in the Army in Germany. I’d like to visit Europe someday.

South America: The source of all of our big problems, this is where Mexicans come from.

Middle East: War, Terror, Oil, Burkas, Camels, Suicide Bombers, Freedom Haters.

Australia: Ga’day mate, put the shrimps on the barbie.

Japan: Toyota, Sony, PS3, Wii, Anime, raw fish.

That is the extent of the view of the world for many of us Americans. We are not open; we are closed.

Improvements

JWise Photo of the Day

Sonal Patel, owner of Indo-Euro Foods in Phoenix, Arizona

The barcodes, hardware, software, scanner, and training have finally come together and the new cash register and inventory system are working. Sonal Patel, above, is the owner of Indo-Euro Foods at 16th Street and Bell Road in Phoenix, Arizona. She and I have been working the past months to modernize her store with the addition of some automation to help her with inventory, customer support, and allow her to add an employee so she might enjoy some days off. This has been a tough process as none of her suppliers would supply electronic barcode information and so we have been forced to do all of the data entry ourselves. Little did we know when we started that there would be more than 1,700 items in her store. One more training session to learn how reports work and the process should be finished – phew.

Here Comes the Mother-in-Law

JWise Photo of the Day

Screen capture of some of the details that will make up the travels and activities for my mother-in-law's visit from Germany to America this winter.

My mother-in-law is already coming back. A week from today as a matter of fact. That’s right, she was just here last year. But that was almost 18 months ago and she has never spent a winter here in sunny Arizona and we thought it would be nice for her to get away from Germany’s long gloomy winter. I have been planning for weeks her travels and activities that we will share with her during her visit. Above is a sample of what my monitor looks like at any given moment while I work on her itinerary. Not much is left for improvizing as events sell out and good rooms can be hard to come by without some planning.

This visit will take us to Santa Barbara for Christmas, New Mexico on New Years’ for a massive flyout of migrating birds, a trip to San Francisco to see a performance of the Prairie Home Companion, and a visit to Alcatraz. We will stay at the El Tovar at the Grand Canyon, visit the remote western rim of the Canyon, drive parts of old Route 66 through ghost-towns, visit Death Valley, hang out in Los Angeles for a long weekend, go to the Renaissance Festival, take in the Kodo Drummers, and visit a fair share of museums and gardens prior to my mother-in-law’s departure in mid-May….err, I mean February.

Holographic I.D.

JWise Photo of the Day

Resident Alien Card - the backside

Caroline has finally received her new Resident Alien card – a modern new-fangled one! The backside of this I.D. card is amazing. A large metallic strip containing God-knows-what data runs the width of the card. Below that are DVD controls or what looks like controls anyway. Maybe a tunneling electron microscope could identify the myriad symbols down there. Near the top of the card are portraits of all of our United States Presidents, look real close, they are animated, if I could find the right control symbol below, I am certain I could make them talk. Caroline’s photograph from the front has been holographically embedded back here along with her signature. But what I really want to know, is what’s inside all that blank-looking reflective metal surface.

Don’t Forget to Clean Around the Mirrors

JWise Photo of the Day

Car Wash

The twice-a-year bath ritual for the car. It may not really need it, but it’s going to get it. Nothing like having the car squeaky clean inside and out. The car almost seems to run better after a good washing. The worst part about taking the car to the local auto-wash is the preparation phase in the days leading up to the big date when I have to focus on cleaning all the trash, maps, shoes, cups, combs, CDs, kleenex, snacks, stuff bought but never brought into the house, things lost under the seats, loose change, books, and magazines out of the car. Post-washed car, the worst thing is waiting half a day for the fuzzy window things in the door to dry so when I put the windows down, they don’t get all wet spoiling the shiny new appearance.

Mind Control Cacti

JWise Photo of the Day

Two stealth forty foot tall cellular towers disguised as Saguaro cactus in Phoenix, Arizona

Citizens of Phoenix, Arizona, know nothing about the Giant Cactus Robots that control the lives and actions of their conformist drone existence. With great care I secretly photographed one of the mind-control beacons with its head off – fortunately for me, I was wearing my tin-foil body armor and helmet. If anyone tells you these are stealth 40-foot cell towers camouflaged as saguaro cacti, don’t believe them, they are part of the conspiracy.