Mental floss

The Soul Graffiti course has begun. Before I dive into that, I need to clear my slate and share a few things with you before they recede into complete irrelevance. First, on a recent day my spam folder -- usually a vile, foaming cesspool -- was glittering with little gems:

• Unemployed To Be Used For Soup
• Mike Tyson To Fight Michael Jackson
• Laika The Russian Space Dog, Returns To Earth
• Polar Bear Finds Yoga Great For Flexibility, But Murder On The Balls
• Sarah Jessica Parker Arrested For Gross Negligee
• 2008 Presidential Election Results Leaked

The flow of fun Subject-fields quickly stopped, and has never resumed; some sort of glitch in the SpamMatrix I guess. I traced a couple of these to The Onion and elsewhere, but others had more obscure sources. (I don't think spammers sit around thinking up funny headlines.)

Another kind of mental flotsam might be titled "wait, am I laughing with you, or at you?" Recent examples:

• "Gratification so instant, it already happened" (Nestea billboard)
• "Even hotdogs get extreme makeovers" (sign for Auntie Annie's Pretzel Dogs)
• "Fear the turtle" (University of Maryland signs)

OK. Thank you for letting me get that off my chest. Sorry to have wasted 2 minutes of your life. It can only go up from here.

From Draisine to .deciMach

I had it easy for my first stint in homeschooling last week. The "kids' choice" subject of the day was: bicycles. We traced the history of the bicycle, from the Draisine (1817) to the Velocipede (a.k.a. "Bone-Shaker," 1864, pictured at right), the Penny-Farthing (1870), and the breakthrough Safety bicycle (1885).

I found this to be a surprisingly rich story of engineering design, patent and business strategy, and social change (Susan B. Anthony praised the bicycle for emancipating women). As bicycling grew popular in the 1890s, doctors warned people (esp. women) about the risk of "bicycle face" and other maladies resulting from the "unhygienic" exertion of riding a bicycle above 7-1/2 mph.

Then it was on to "unusual" bicycles, including Recumbents and the Human-Powered Speed Challenge. Coincidentally, that very afternoon in the Nevada high desert, a new record was being set -- 82.3 mph -- which also earned the .deciMach prize for going one-tenth the speed of sound under human power. That's asking for some severe bicycle face.

Taking the plunge

Let's ignore that little 6-month hiatus, and start this blog up again, shall we? I don't know whether I can restore some sort of regularity to this space, but I need to try. As they say, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. I think one key to keeping it going will be to write often and quickly -- so, I'll give myself 20 minutes per post. So, reload & refresh... Hello everyone.

Also under the "plunge" rubric, I'm about to take a seminary course -- OK, that's an overstatement; it's just an online four-week study of "Soul Graffiti," with the author, Mark Scandrette, through the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, in Berkeley, CA. I'd been thinking of it as a glorified book club, until I came to the part of the registration form where I had to choose between "Lay" and "Ordained." One clue that this isn't exactly the Applied Math Dept. I have no guarantee that I'll find the time each week to read 4 chapters, write three essays, and conduct a "life experiment", but I can't wait to try.