Back in my college dorm days, my friends and I were all at the mercy of the Madison Metro bus system, our bicycles, or our legs. If you knew a guy who knew a guy who had a car, you were king of the hill. Of course, once you get out of the dorms in your sophomore year on up, a few of your friends bring their cars from home to store at their new places (if they want to pay the often-ludicrous prices of parking), and once we all graduated and started slowly dispersing either out of Madison altogether or at least to off-campus locations, a car just became part of normal adult life.

Of course, as my dear readers already know, some of us tried desperately to escape from adult life and the responsibilities therein by becoming fugitives in foreign countries on the other side of the world. By the time this particular escapee returned in 2010, the transformation was almost wholly complete: everyone in Madison that he knew had cars, and he didn’t. It was like high school all over again, except I lived in a city with an employer-paid unlimited bus pass and dozens of bike routes. Getting a car was never high on my priority list.

However, that’s not to say that I didn’t sometimes long for more readily available transportation. There’s only so many times a guy can get a lift from his girlfriend, or his little brother, or his buddies, before feeling somewhat emasculated. As far as I knew, my buddy David and I were the only folks left in Madison that didn’t have cars.

Ironically enough, it was on a trip to the Wisconsin State 4-H Fair in early August with David that the hands of fate conspired to end my lack of motorized vehicle ownership. I had borrowed Josh’s car to go to the fair, something I like to do every year on the Showcase Singer’s alumni day – I was a chaperone for them, after all – and afterwards David and I were wandering about the Expo Center, killing time and gazing with glassy eyes at various tawdry sales pitches. Suddenly, we happened upon a display of Chinese mopeds, sold by a local distributor – Propel Imports. A large sign hanging over the largest of the mopeds stating that one of them could even go at 60 miles per hour.

Although I’d never given mopeds a second glance before – why would I need to, when I have a bicycle? – this gave me pause. I didn’t know that mopeds could even travel that fast, and this one was being sold for around a grand and a half. I envisioned myself mopeding serenely to Brodhead, or to Florida. “She gets about 110 miles to the gallon, and about 110 miles on a tank of gas,” I’d say to the awe-stricken onlookers as they admired my shiny plastic vehicle. I’ve always prided myself on thrift, and a vehicle that could go 60 mph, get ~100 miles on a gallon gas would solidify my thrifty credits. I got the name of the Madison branch for Propel, and dreamt that night of my glorious new mode of transportation.

State Street Scooters was very helpful, and highly recommended. You have to hand it to the owner of a small store when he’s willing to talk himself out of a $1,500 sale and give an excited, enthusiastic buyer like myself the bottom line – the Daytona 150cc scooter is not what I wanted. In fact, he didn’t carry anything that I wanted. “Sure, you can go at 60 mph for a few minutes,” he told me. “But it sounds like you want to travel long distances on this thing, and at highway speeds, I’d worry that you might damage the engine. It just wasn’t meant to run that fast for that long. You might be fine on it, of course – but I wouldn’t risk it if I were you.”

I will admit to being crestfallen, and I probably looked that way too. The owner said to me, “Have you ever considered a motorcycle instead?” I told him that I had never thought about it; being from the land of Harley-Davidson, I’d always assumed that it was standard procedure for a motorcycle to cost as much as an automobile, on the order of 10-20 thousand. He laughed in disbelief. “No way, man! Check out Englehart’s or online; geez, you can get perfectly good used cycles for 2-6 thousand. If you were ready to drop $1,500 on the Daytona, you should look into going all the way.” Continue reading this post…

Verily, we cannot deny that mobile is the future of computing. So, after hunting through a few different plugins recommended by this page that would automatically display a mobile version of HeiseHeise.com, I decided on this one – the WordPress Mobile Detector. WP-touch, my first pick, seemed 100% broken on my site, but this one works. And has some nice stat tracking to go with it too.

I’ll be taking a trip down to Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park early next month – expect a hiking-related update about that. And if I get around it, maybe a quick story about the saga of the Motorcycle Shopping of August. That was a fun one!

And of course, Windows 8 comes out at the end of this month, and I’ll be looking into getting a Microsoft Surface as soon as possible. Between my Android phones and my Windows main computing systems, I think I’ve covered all the bases for operating systems out there!

This quick post is a followup to a rant of mine from several years ago, in which I talk about the 2009 ruling of the European Union that Microsoft be forced to advertise for other company’s web browsers in Windows 7, and indeed offer a “Browser Selection Screen” (BSS) on all new computers sold within EU countries. I pointed out that this is the equivalent of going into McDonalds and having a smiling employee tell me that they are happy to sell me Burger King’s burgers and fries instead of their own product, if I so choose.

Today, Ars Technica talks about the latest EU idiocy – to summarize: for the past few years, the BSS was working fine, the bureaucrats in the EU were placated, and then Microsoft released Service Pack 1 last year and accidentally stripped out the EU-only code (of course Americans don’t have to put up with this outrageous crap) for the BSS in the update files, and then pushed out the service pack to the world. I’m sure the EU shit its collective pants with delight at the prospect of suing Microsoft again.

Let’s be blunt. The EU is asking for as much as 10% of Microsoft’s EU sales (in the form of total annual turnover) as punishment for this failure. If you do the math, that could add up to about $6-7 billion dollars. All for what is obviously a mistake, not intentional sanction-breaking on Microsoft’s fault. It’s ludicrous for the EU to view it as anything else – the BSS is one of the most obvious things a new computer user could possibly see as soon as they turn on their computer for the first time. This isn’t Microsoft trying to slip the wool over anyone’s eyes, or replace the download links in the other listed browsers in the BSS with links to Internet Explorer. This was a simple mistake probably attributed to a lazy coder copy and pasting the SP1 code from the USA into the SP1 code for the world. Worth a $6-7 billion punishment? On what planet?

This is what you see when you click the "Big Blue Internet Button" for the first time, if you live in the EU. The order is randomized each time the page is loaded.

It’s worth mentioning that the EU total budget is approximately $157 billion dollars this year. A successful (pending) ruling of 10% of Microsoft’s profits this year would be no small chunk of change to them. This isn’t about protecting EU citizens from the big bad Microsoft monopoly. This is about stealing money from an American corporation because it’s part of their annual budgetary requirements. “What do we have lined up in income this year, guys? Well, we haven’t stolen money from Microsoft under the guise of “protecting our citizens” since the measly $1.5 billion sanction against them in 2009, let’s put them on this year’s budgetary agenda for 4 times that amount.”

I’ll say what I said in 2009 – The EU should be banned from selling Microsoft products until their government lowers antitrust penalty fines to reasonable levels. Microsoft is not a governmental cash cow. The EU is supposed to be getting revenue from Microsoft in the form of tax income on copies of the software sold within their borders – although the cynic in me figures that because the EU nations aren’t able to reign in their 13 billion dollar software piracy problem (and therefore not receive sales or import tax on sold products) they’ve decided just to hit the piggybank at the source instead. I’d like to see the EU’s reaction if Microsoft fined the government of Bulgaria for not properly cracking down on their citizens, who pirate 65% of their software, according to the 2011 article I linked to above. Could they do that? Of course not. Microsoft is a corporation, Bulgaria is a country. What they could do is stop selling their software in Bulgaria. Judging by these piracy numbers, it’s not like it’s going to hurt their bottom line much, anyway. What it can do is send a message that they won’t be intimidated by this bullying.

Microsoft has apologized and fixed the issue already – long ago – and they’ve offered to extend the BSS’s visibility on EU computers for another 15 months beyond what the sanction originally called for, which was December 2014.

After the excitement of the Shaver’s Creek theatrical show and the night hike last night, Christine and I deserved to sleep in a bit. But we didn’t dawdle at her cabin for too long; the other purpose of my trip to the east was to meet the Hindu guru, Amma, in Alexandria Virginia. Most Americans have probably never heard of her unless they follow Eastern religions, or mysticism, but the lady is extremely well respected and loved throughout the world (worshipped by some, but we’ll go into that later) and how can anyone dislike a woman whose primary method of spreading her own brand of peace and love is by hugging people?

Yep, Mata Amritanandamayi, or Amma as those of us with weak European tongues usually call her, is a hugger. She probably is the Hugger – the lady has hugged 32 million people and counting. That number goes up by thousands every week, and last weekend in a Hilton conference room for 10 solid hours, she hugged thousands more – Christine and I included.

Not this kind of Hugger, you nerds.

And popular? That too. Even though Christine booked our hotel room in Alexandria a month in advance, we were still unable to get a room in the Hilton itself; it probably has been booked solid for that weekend since Amma’s North American tour schedule went live half a year ago. We contented ourselves with the Marriott, a mere 10 minute walk away. They had a free shuttle, anyway, although Christine warned me that if history was any judge, we probably would be hoofing it for certain trips between hotels.

Christine has seen Amma several times, including at her ashram in India. According to her, wait times for a hug can be as long as Amma herself is sitting in her chair, hugging people – as long as 9-10 hours for most of her visits. There’s never not a line stretching around the block to embrace her (they use a token/ticket system these days for that very reason) She told me that once she hugged people 22 hours straight. The woman probably has arm muscles that could crack a coconut, or at least in her younger days. Amma apparently has been doing this for decades now, ever since she was thrown out of school (and subsequently beaten by her ashamed parents) in primary school for collapsing due to religious hysteria. It was soon after that that she began preaching in her small hometown in India, gaining a small train of followers who thought this little girl with the wise words was really something. These days, those followers number in the million.

And worshiped? Yes, also that. Like I hinted at earlier, there are some people who go farther than just viewing Amma as a kind, wise old Mother Theresa of India. I’ve heard estimates that 15% of Amma’s devotees actually view her as the incarnated spirit of the Hindu goddess Kali. I don’t know how spread around this is; Kali kind of gets a bad rap in America thanks to a somewhat inaccurate portrayal of the goddess in the first Indiana Jones movie, The Temple of Doom.

I don't know how people got a bad vibe from this.

But most importantly – and generous. Amma’s charity system “Embrace the World” is pretty amazing, regardless of religious beliefs. She’s founded free universities, built free housing, and fed millions of India’s poorest children. Here’s a full list from beholders.org (not affiliated with her) of what she’s done, and that’s just the stuff on record. Incarnate goddess or not, she definitely should be officially sainted by someone ASAP so that she gets a little more mainstream publicity in the western world. India and the world at large are better off because of her.

Anyway, Christine and I checked in, and I changed into clothes that were more “conservative” (i.e. long pants) and didn’t smell of mosquito repellent and campfires. Christine herself wore flowing white Indian clothes that she had bought while staying on the Ashram, and after comparing her lovely outfit with my own, and then the similarly-fancy men and women we shared the shuttle bus with, I felt distinctly underdressed. “Khakis and a plaid shirt will be fine” I muttered to myself. “Maybe you’ll be mistaken for a charity case and get an extra hug.”

You are now entering The Amma Zone. This is a "no shoes, get service" area

We got tokens labeled “S-2” in the conference center, and were funneled into a dining room that was referred to by one of the official Amma aids (looking resplendent in similar flowing clothes, except with the addition of green, blue, or red sashes) as “overflow seating.” Christine seemed momentarily disappointed, and she explained to me that when she’d seen her in previous trips to Chicago, they were in exposition centers so large that thousands of people could see Amma meditating, praying, and preaching from the stage. We had to content ourselves with a big-screen HDTV on the wall. Amma herself was in the largest room, the “dance hall” and there was at least one other overflow hall. We were handed small plastic cups of “blessed” water, and instructed not to drink them yet.

On the television, Amma began speaking in her native Malayalam, which was occasionally translated into English by a bearded and bespectacled South Asian man with a deep and resonant voice. I saw several of the younger people around me nod off as his rumbling voice filled the room through the large speakers next to the TV. The sermon preached love, understanding of others, tolerance and peace. This didn’t exactly seem groundbreaking to me, as a Christian, but I’m sure others would disagree. I had to hold in a snort when the man reminded us “You can take this cup of blessed water and add a few drops of it to a larger container of water throughout the year. Then the entire amount of water will become blessed.” But I worship a guy who confused his entire founding religious body when he said “eat my body and drink my blood” (original Catholics had apparently never heard of metaphors or symbolism) so I guess I shouldn’t talk. Then we spun in circles a few times while saying “Ohmmmm” as Amma and her translator watched us silently through the television. I became lighthearted, and also lightheaded.

There's Amma on the screen! And this is the closest I got to photographing her; no pictures were allowed in the ceremony room

Continue reading this post…

I took a mini-vacation up to Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center to visit Christine this past weekend. She’s been working there for awhile as a camp counselor, and it was great to see her in action teaching some little Pennsylvanian kids about nature. I wasn’t able to spend much time with her during her workday, of course (Shaver’s Creek is part of the Penn State university extension office, and Penn State has recently had some sort of problem with adults spending time with children they weren’t supposed to be around, I’ve heard), but I enjoyed a dozen kilometers of hiking around the many trails surrounding the center.

When she picked me up from the airport, I was impressed at a distance with the rolling green hills. Christine told me she’d never seen so many trees in one place before. I haven’t been to Pennsylvania since I was a little boy (I think I was probably most impressed with the Hershey area at that stage in my life) but my appreciation for camping and hiking has obviously increased over the years and this felt like a return to the Appalachian mountains that I saw last fall with my fellow Wadi-hiking American friends. The weather here was cooler and breezier compared with the blasting, sauna-like heat that had struck Madison for the past week. As Christine wasn’t feeling very well, I told her it was a lucky thing she was here in more temperate climes, instead of baking with her fellow Wisconsinites.

Perhaps it’s been hot enough in Wisconsin to kill off most of the biting insects (or standing water pools are evaporating so quickly that mosquito eggs die before hatching) but not so was the case in the lovely hills of Pennsylvania. After Christine and I drove from her cabin to her workplace and she freed me to wander about and amuse myself, I quickly found myself wishing I’d put on more bug spray than the cursory casual layer I’d applied to my bare arms and legs. I must have looked quite the site for the few hikers I came across in the forests, muttering to myself and whacking my head with my hands. I was wearing a Wisconsin Badgers t-shirt, though, so at least the locals were able to write me off as a foreigner.

"hello sir. Yes, I am a barred owl, as the sign says. However, I believe that cutout may be an exaggeration of my size."

About an hour after we arrived, I heard the happy shouts and cavorting sounds of kids enjoying nature. Before arriving, I had thought that was a wildlife retreat for inner-city “potentially troubled” kids to interact with nature in ways that they couldn’t in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia or something, but look down from a trailhead towards the open field in front of the nature center showed that these kids were the exact opposite; there appeared to be only one or two minorities out of a hundred. Judging from the large red text currently on their website as of July 2012, it’s quite popular with the locals – every single camp is booked solid with waitlists extending into next year.

Some of the trails I wandered on alone were quite overgrown, almost no more than a deer trail or less, and I tried to avoid anything that looked too suspiciously like poison ivy (now, a week later, it seems I was successful) and although I didn’t see any wildlife larger than a ground squirrel, the forest’s tinier wildlife gave me a wispy, clinging hug as I blundered headlong through at least a dozen spider web strands stretched across the trail. Nothing says that you’re the first person of the day on a trail than eating spider webs for an hour.

This little guy was lucky his magnificent web was so eye catching that I didn't walk right through it

After stumbling out of the woods onto the road that led to the center, I wandered back, making myself as visible as possible on the side of the road so as  not to be picked off by an SUV-driving soccer mom, departing after dropping off her camping youth. I stopped by the center’s gift shop and briefly enjoyed the air conditioning, but also picked up a massive slab of locally-made garlic bread for $5 that I was told is made daily by a young guy who has a camp counselor as a housemate.

A few more hours of alternating hiking the numerous trails, visiting the raptor cages to watch the birds watch me back, and relaxing, and the campers’ parents were starting to arrive for the final activities of the final day of the weeklong camp. There was ice cream (of which I sampled a few cones at Christine’s urging) and even a show by the counselors and campers for the parents and random ice cream eating strangers. Introductions of the counselors were made, skits from each camper group, and lots of good-natured ribbing of the counselors and youthful camp administrators occurred.

Christine tells the campers how great it was to work with them for the past week

As the afternoon darkened into evening, Christine’s boss, a friendly looking young bearded fellow who looked like he possibly had been born in flannel and jeans, led us to the rear of the camp and taught us all about the bats that used to spread out from the bat boxes they had installed on the back of the raptor cages. “I’ll bet some of you have been bitten by a lot of insects today.” I nodded ruefully. “There’s a terrible disease that has ravaged our bat population the past couple years. You’d used to see them darting all over the place at this time of day. These days, you’re lucky if you see one.” He then turned the campers, parents, and random visitor over to the counselors again, who were to lead us through the trails at twilight for some final activities.

Christine and her colleague, Cedar (Christine’s camp name was Vireo, after the bird) took our little gang through the same trails I had traversed 12 hours earlier, but with the mournful woooorrrp of bullfrogs and chirping crickets around us, and of course the ever-present dotting of fireflies, it seemed very different. The kids were taught wildlife-centric information about how ear shape changes how quickly animals can hear sounds and react to them, and Christine taught the mesmerized group about her Great *7 Grandfather, who was coming to America on an immigrant ship, only to be waylaid by pirates who under duress taught the sailors and immigrants that by keeping one eye covered at all times, they were able to adjust to the dark of a ship’s lower decks faster than anyone else and that’s how they were so successful at pirating. Of course, she had us all try it out by having us stare into a candle with one eye covered as she told her story, then to uncover it and then look into the woods. The kids were mesmerized, and so was I; breathlessly asking her why she’d never told me the amazing history of her pirate-defeating immigrant grandfather. She merely winked and chuckled.

The night was rounded off with Cedar and Christine team-telling the story of a meteorite that crash-landed in the dried-out lake bed behind the camp, and the strange crackling rocks that the two of them (being, of course, the first on the scene) found and subsequently popped into their mouths. “And we’ve got some right here to share with you all!” finished Cedar dramatically. “Find a partner, and watch what happens when they chew on a piece of the rock!” Lo and behold, glowing sparks seemed to appear in the gloom all around us as the kids discovered the magic of sparking mint Lifesavers.

Christine and I headed back to her cabin, but most of the campers and their families had elected to spend the night at the camp – Friday night is the only time during the 5-day summer camp that campers actually “camp.”  Several of Christine’s charges embraced her, weeping openly as they said goodbye to their beloved Vireo, with promises to her that they would be back next year “to camp for 2 whole weeks, I can’t wait!” As she started up her car and we rumbled away, I looked back towards the open lawn where all the tents were set up. For a moment, it seemed like the little lights of their lamps and flashlights were indistinguishable from the dancing fireflies.

A few months ago, a deal popped up on Groupon for Mother’s Day specials. Most were the typical hokey crap that advertising metrics spew out for the “stereotypical” parents (moms get jewlery and spa ads, dads get ridiculously stereotypical levels with power tools, car tweaking deals, or golf – I can almost hear the email grunting to me in a Tim Taylor voice), but one caught my eye. A biplane ride for 2 – advertised as a “mother and child” ride in the nearby town of Middleton, with a local company named Biplane Rides of America. The name seemed familiar, but more importantly, it looked interesting and exciting enough to get for my awesome mom.

You can't help but smile when your face being stretched out by wind currents!

It wasn’t until after I’d already bought the half-price, $80 ticket-for-two that I looked at the website above more closely. Turns out the owner and pilot is my parents’ neighbor, Ted Davis. If my mom couldn’t make it up to Middleton, I joked with her that she should just be able to go up and knock on Ted’s door and ask for the ride there instead! However, Madison/Middleton, with our beautiful twin lakes and capitol on the isthmus, makes for a prettier flight than the pretty-but-bland Brodhead crop fields and pastures.

Ted enthusiastically greeted us when we showed up at the Middleton airfield, and we inspected his gleaming green-and-gold aircraft. “Bought it when it was a rusted out heap, and rebuilt almost every single part in it,” he said proudly, strapping his helmet on and grandly assisting us with stepping over the plane’s fabric sidewall into the narrow-yet-spacious open cabin. It was hard to believe, but these little biplanes can fit five people in them, including the pilot who sits up in what I’d always thought of as the “rear gunnery position” if you’ve seen the old-timey planes in adventure movies. There was a small metal plaque which said “please, no dancing” and as the plane whisked across the dead-grass fields (Madison’s summer drought this year has been legendary) with a loud roar, the pressure pushing us back into our padded seats, I knew that wasn’t going to be an issue with either of us!

Although the ride was only 15 minutes long (any longer and even with my construction-grade hearing protection I would have been getting a headache) it was a smooth, comfortable, and beautiful ride. “It all still looks so green from up here,” my mom commented, shouting over the even-louder roar of the huge engine directly in front of us. I wonder how much irrigation water those fields around Middleton have required over the past couple weeks?

Have a look; maybe your mansion is there!

We also got acquainted with the roofs of Middleton’s financial elite, with massive swimming pools in their backyards and mansions to go with them. My dad chuckled at this when we told him about it later – “Why would anyone want to build such a grand house in the suburbs of Middleton?” and I agreed with him; the houses were quite pretty, but they looked silly when juxtaposed with their environment. We even briefly swung out over the west side of Lake Mendota, and I pointed out my biking routes to my mother. I’ve just recently been out around Lake Mendota again on my bike for the first time in four years (according to my old Excel spreadsheets that I tracked time and mileage); not much has changed except my old water-refill station, a gas station on the north side of the lake, has been closed down so thoroughly that it looks like a vandalized warehouse.

We didn’t get much closer to Madison than that; I imagine because of air traffic restrictions or Ted’s licensing that may require him to stick to Middleton’s airspace, but I got a few good camera shots. My mom and I both loved the flight, and hope that Ted picks up a lot of business with his new flyer.

Happy belated Mother's Day, mom!