Wow, just wow. Funny and alarming

In addition, the engineering side of me thinks that it is not a good idea to put your words and ideas into what God might or might not think or do.

PITTSBURGH -- Randy Pausch, a former Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose “last lecture” about facing terminal cancer became an international sensation and a best-selling book, died Friday. He was 47.

MSNBC Article announcing that Dr. Randy Pausch has passed away

His last lecture.

I saw an article from BusinessWeek yesterday about “affordable global real estate” and I thought I’d share the link and my observations here.

In The Worlds Most Affordable Housing Markets, writer Maya Roney lays out where the smart money chooses to live based on an index of home prices, cost of goods and services, local stability and quality of life. Keep in mind that the article is from Business Week and explicitly uses a standard based on the needs of a youngish middle manager and his or her average sized household / family, or about — 4 bedrooms.

The top pick is Bogata, Columbia which I admit isn’t a place I normally think of as “stable” but if you enjoy tropical on a Canton Ohio budget there are probably worse places you can wind up in. Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt comes in at number two in affordability, and honestly — looks absolutely gorgeous with a cost of living comparable to Muncie, Indianna.

The top 10 including 3 rather cold but gorgeous locations in Canada, and both Nicaragua and Panama and the top 25 including locations in Malta, Poland and Honduras. Viva!

Each city is compared to a US Market to give the potential home buyer a reference point on which to base their explorations, and each location includes one color picture which is supposed to symbolize that particular environment. The pictures are very “stock” and the article runs over as many pages as possible no doubt to maximize their ad exposure and SEO. The navigation frame for the top 25 locations is easy to use, and that makes comparing the cost of a home in the Carribean to the cost of a similar home in Bozeman nearly painless.

The idea here is that real estate in the US may be flat, but the international market is still bullsih. There may be some truth to that, though for most non-retired folk, such a move might be problematic unless they had recently been offered employment in Cairo.

As for me I have decided to retire in Mexico; surf all morning, sleep all afternoon and play Troubadour all night long for rich touristas. Viva baby!

–Dex

The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a randomized Family Circus cartoon with a randomized Friedrich Nietzsche quote.

Finally, the Family Circus is funny.

Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Visit it here: Nietschze Family Circus

I found this site recently and have been transfixed. He uses long exposure times and turns human existence into ghostly motion. Visit the photographer’s web site here:

Some of my favorites:

I was visiting a blog site of someone I admire earlier today and was reminded of this video again. I watched this video when it first came out, transfixed by someone who is dieing of pancreatic cancer give one of the most powerful and moving speeches of my life. He gave the speech for his three very young children. Dr. Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor, beloved teacher and an important researcher in the virtual reality field.

If you have 70 minutes and want to watch something meaningful, I humbly suggest this:

From New York Times: Keeping Priorities Straight, Even at the End.

The 70-minute talk, at www.cmu.edu/randyslecture, has been translated into seven languages, and this week Hyperion is publishing “The Last Lecture,” a book by Dr. Pausch and a collaborator, Jeff Zaslow, that tells the story behind the story of the lecture.

“The whole thing is very strange,” Dr. Pausch said over lunch at a diner near Norfolk, Va. “I just gave a talk. I gave talks my whole life.”

But of course, this wasn’t just any talk. “Let’s not ignore the obvious,” he said. “If I’d given that lecture but I weren’t dying, it wouldn’t have had the gravitas. Context is everything.”

Dr. Pausch, 47, is dying of pancreatic cancer, a disease that kills 95 percent of its victims, usually within months of diagnosis. Except for a pill bottle on the table in front of him, there were no outward signs of the deadly tumors growing inside him. Though he had just recently recovered from heart and kidney failure, he looked boyish, with a red knit shirt and a head of thick dark-brown hair.

Last fall, after doctors told him that he would probably have no more than six months of good health, Dr. Pausch stepped down from his academic duties and relocated to be closer to his family. But he decided to give one last lecture to a roomful of students and faculty members at Carnegie Mellon.

The lecture was not about cancer. Instead, he says, it was simply a father’s effort to digest a lifetime of advice for his children into one talk — a talk that Dr. Pausch knew he would not be around long enough to deliver in person. The children are Dylan, 6; Logan, 4; and Chloe, almost 2.

Although he could have set it up on a home video, he liked the idea that one day they would watch his last lecture and see their dad at work, in his element.

“I’m speaking only to them,” he said. “I didn’t set out to tell the world about how to live life.”

It’s been almost 6 weeks since the accident, and my wife is still on high alert. She is still having lots of nightmares, and what I can only describe as flashbacks. Every interaction on the road leaps out at her like a high definition instant replay, in a thousand variations. She isn’t driving yet, and is seeing a therapist, who seems sincere. The therapist has her sitting behind the wheel of a safely parked vehicle, and doing breathing exercises, and that seems to help a bit, but it is a slow process. How can I describe to you what she is going through? I barely understand it myself. Her reptile brain has taken over, and she is in a constant state of agitation; the fight or flight reflex that for most comes only in small doses when really needed. For her it has come to stay and this heightened sense of alert magnifies her pain and keeps her in a shadowy half life that I am seemingly powerless to rescue her from. So as you can imagine I am constantly looking for ways to help her through this and get her “back on the horse” as they say.

To that end I discovered and recommended a kind of distraction that allows her to experience horrific car crashes in a safe and dare I say it? — “fun” setting. I turned her on to Grand Theft Auto 4. At first she was mortified by the violence of the car crashes in game, but over the course of a few hours she has definitely begin to enjoy it. I see a smile creep across her face that resembles my wife before the accident. She is learning to enjoy the interaction of twisted metal in first person, from the relative safety of the couch. I am thinking I may be on to something here.

It is probably to early to give a definite answer as we just started playing last night. She slept well though, and seemed to ride well today as we ran around town on several “real-life” errands. She is not behind the wheel herself yet, but the little changes are a welcome difference. She is still tense, to be sure. Tonight she leaned over to hug our daughter and turned her neck in an odd way that caused her to lock up — head and shoulders — for 20 – 30 minutes until we could massage the spasm out. I am certain that her pain was both real and distressing, but it seemed to pass quickly compared to previous days.

“One can only hope, and remain open to new ideas…” has become my only motto.

At the foot of the mountains

Like the spine of a rotting hump backed whale

Jockeying for position

The air a riot of radio waves, horns honking and people shouting

We sip flavored coffee from 55 gallon drums in 4/4

These are the rituals that sustain the great beast as it rises from its slumber

It takes a long time to get the line moving, and even longer to stop

Today it shrieks and drops to all fours

Toothy forced smiles lit amber and ruby glow

Eyes shining ahead through impenetrable terrain

Deep in a Mayan sweat

I cut across Louisianna like the right hand of god

I was thirsty

Yet — there is a kind of beauty here I think

It reveals itself in the half waking state between past and present tension

white knuckles cracking on the wheel at the end of the world

And the beginning of the next one grins and raises a flag

Letting me pass on through the outer gates just as the great beast dips its massive head

And disappears beneath the waves of cream

Rolling in from somewhere beyond this horizon

What does it mean if you sleep in the “Loosely Tethered Sleeping Style” versus “The Honeymoon Hug” or “The Royal Position”? What is the “Zen Style”? Do the “Leg Hug” or the “The Cliffhanger” indicate trouble in paradise? How do you and your spouse and what does that say about your relationship?

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