Looks like we are going to be the proud owners of a mini van

Well, looks like we will be buying a “pre-owned” mini van on Monday. We would like to own something like a Honda Odessy, but they are usually expensive and go fast. So we have been looking at a Chevy Venture. We got to take it home this weekend to test it out with Kaleb and Karlie. We got two thumbs up from them and our mechanic. We have been tracking the gas milage and it looks like it does as well as Mary’s car, which is on its last legs. We have been good at not incurring debt since we took our Crown Financial course, but we will have to go back into the payment process as we can’t pay cash for a car, yet. Maybe in the future. We are plugging away at our budget and saving money, however, this is something that we need to do before Mary’s car dies. Oh, the one we are getting is blue.

When it comes to Global Warming are we focusing on the wrong thing?

I’m starting to see the problems of the two sides of the global warming issue. I’m not talking about the technical issues per se, but the human issues. As I have looked at it, I’m not a firm believer in human beings cause global warming, but I’m not a firm believer that we don’t cause it. I still maintain that we do a poor job at taking care of this planet that God put us on and that it is our stewardship of this planet and the inherently sinful (i.e. we are separated from God) nature that leads us into being blinded by our own ambitions. I read a few blogs recently and came upon these two groups:

1. Dr. William Gray, who developed the seasonal forecasting technique for hurricanes, that NOAA uses. An interesting fact that since he was a global warming skeptical and decidedly old school (observationally and conceptually model driven)
2. Real Climate scientists – This is a group of climate change scientists who have studied this in depth, using computer models that emulate the atmosphere.

Both think they are right. I think both are blinded by ego. They won’t admit the flaws in their arguments to actually get at the truth, and if you add the other skeptics of global warming, you can see the consumerism rears it ugly head. Consumerism is easy to see on the Skeptic side with the money that the oil companies have poured into funding research about how fossil fuels don’t contribute to global warming. It is a little harder to see on the pro-anthropogenic side, but people and institutions get paid to do their research and if something is the “thing” to study the money will flow. I’ve seen this happen while working as a contractor for the government years ago.

The flaws on both sides are these:

1. Dr. Gray’s observationally and conceptual ideas may be right, but if he ignores the some of the data that the modeling groups have been doing then he runs the risk of being wrong due to the help and guidance that models can give.
2. The Real Climate scientists seem to rely so heavily on the models that they have forgotten the thing that I deal with day in and day out in operational meteorology, the farther out in time that you are prognosticating into the future the more that the model succumbs to chaos (more about chaos here) and the inherent low confidence of predictability.

Either side could be right, but like I said, we are focusing on the wrong thing. To me, global warming is immaterial. It’s the fact that we are to take care of the planet. We know that too much of one thing can be bad. Addictions take all sorts of forms, and when President Bush said in his state of the union address that America is addicted to oil wasn’t off the mark. Most of the world’s economy is based on petroleum, but should it be? With most of the oil in politically unstable areas of the world, and there is only a finite amount of oil there has to be cleaner fuels, and energy sources that we can use to develop economically.

Again, it’s a consumer mentality that most of the world has. I get tired of hearing from conservatives that it will cost too much to convert to something else. I ask why should it or so what? When new technologies come out to help out the situation we need to share it with the developing nations. To me that’s why Kyoto was doomed to fail. The developed countries that need to cut back wouldn’t because the undeveloped countries got a free ride to use. How was that to help the environment? As Christians, we are taught to meet each other’s need no matter who the person is, so why not in trying to take care of the planet?

Google, Gmail and new stuff

Recently, I was exploring Google and the new extras that are available. This has been pretty cool. I was add some cool gadgets to my personalized Google page. While doing that, I was exploring Google personal pages (i.e. Web space) and found out I needed a Gmail account. I looked at Gmail and found out that I didn’t need anyone to send me an invite anymore, but I could invite myself. So I signed up. I now have a Gmail account. That has taken a little to get used to. The one thing I really like about it is the IM on it. I don’t have to download software. I just have to add Gmail Contacts and they appear. This will be good for when Mary need’s to ask me something at work. So I have been playing with it the last couple of days. The nice thing is that some of this carries over to the Google PDA page. So I can check email, look at my RSS feeds, and my personal Google page with my wireless connection, whether at home or on the road. Very nice.

Mary’s almost Home!

I’ve been tracking Mary’s progress home on www.flightaware.com Very cool. If you know the flight number and airline, it gives you an almost real time track of where they are. In fact, if you know a pilot that is coming to see you and files a flight plan, you can track them as well. Mary’s plane just landed in Detroit. I will be leaving soon so pick her up in Traverse City. The only set back will be I have to leave before she does. However, once I get to TVC, I can check on her progress with my PDA and the TVC airport WiFi. (I’m such a geek!)

New Electronic Gadgets

Recently, we upgraded a few things, or maybe we should say added to our gadgets.

One was an inexpensive mp3 player for Mary. She used to use an old CD player that I had, until it finally died. She has been going on radio for probably 6 months. She recently asked about a new CD player and I said mp3. After I told her at that there are inexpensive mp3 players (we got one for $40) and she can update it pretty easily she was sold. The high point with it so far was when the four of us (Kaleb, Karlie, Mary, and I) were coming back from the Cherry Festival on Monday night, singing at the top of our lungs to Delirious.

The Second was partly for Mary’s new job, but this is something I’ve wanted get for a while; a new router. We picked up a Belkin wireless G at Wal-mart for $40 bucks as well. I finally got the wireless to work with my PDA. We thought Mary’s Laptop that Wells Fargo gave here was wireless, but it isn’t, no problem. There are 4 wired ports on the router, so we both can be on the computers at the same time. I’ve asked her to check to see if we can buy a PC card for the laptop to make it wireless so we don’t have string the ethernet cable.

In a related thing, I’ve been getting into Google’s products as of late. I’ve been using their RSS reader for a while now, and their personalized home page. Now they have added the RSS reader and personalized page to the mobile/wireless. Yahoo, has also updated their mobile page for their mail and news access, so I can do a fair amount of things online with my PDA.