Bovine University

I went grocery shopping with my son, Logan. We were in the meat section looking at steaks, chicken, etc. While I was inspecting a package of steak Logan was inspecting a giant slab of meat, probably a roast. He asked me what all of the “red stuff” in the package was. I told him that it was blood. Then came “Why is there blood in there?” I told him it was blood from when they packaged the meat. Logan then asks, “Where does meat come from?” This threw me off. I thought he new that meat came from animals like cows. Well, this seemed like as good a time as any to inform him. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “Well Logan, this meat here came from cows.”
Logan: (With a confused look on his face) “Cows? Do they take it from the cows stomach?”
Me: “No. They take it from other parts of their body.”
Logan: “Do they hurt the cows?”
Me: “Well Logan, they have to kill the cows for the meat.”
Logan: “They kill cows so we can eat meat?”
Me: “Yes. People raise cows so that we can eat them, so we can have food.”
Logan: “Well, I am never eating meat again!”

He then proceeding down the meat section pointing at the variety of meat and asking what animal they come from and if they are killed. Then proclaiming that he never eat the food from that particular animal, except chicken, he said he still likes chicken.

This all reminded me of a classic clip from the Simpson’s. Enjoy!

Bob, The Stem Cell

I just read this in The Huffington Post and thought it was rather amusing. Because I have been particularly lazy with my blogging lately I decided to just copy and paste this.

An Open Letter to President Bush, From Bob, The Stem Cell
by Steve Young

Dear Mr. President,

Once again you felt necessary to veto the Embryonic Stem Cell Bill, in so the guys in the freezer have asked me to speak for them - though, as you know, we have no mouths. Still, I didn't have the guts of turn them down, which is in itself is quite the trick, as I also have no guts.

I know you that Tony Snow said that your veto was not an attempt to muzzle science, but more an attempt to "respect people's conscience on such an issue." Now a lot of people, cells included, will say that you only are respecting a small percentage of peoples' conscience. Similar to the percentage who think the country's heading in the right direction or find you "popular." But I think we've come up with some legislation that truly both meets with your values and satisfies the other side. And I'm sure you can get that ornery Harry Reid on board for this one.

Keeping in mind that you had Snow say that you believe "strongly that for the purpose of research it's inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder; he's one of them."

We all appreciate your concern for our well-being, but if you consider it murder to use us for research, then what is it called when we're tossed away without be used at all? We're talking about hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of living, breathing - okay, we don't actually breathe, but one day, maybe, strapped up to some sort of tiny-life supporting equipment - who knows?

The point is, no matter veto or sign, you lose.

So a bunch of us stem-cells got together - not physically, that comes later - and came up with an idea, which is amazing in itself as we have no brains to form a thought.

You're a big parents handling their own kid's lives guy. So, if we are lives, why don't you let our parents make the decision as to whether they want us to be used for research or throw us away? That way the only research we're funding is with willing participants. And for the other stem cells who have parents who would rather throw them away, they get to do it. And they don't even have to call it "murder" when they toss us in the trash. They could call it something like "Pro-Ending-Life-In-A-Good-Way." Really. It's a win-win.

A lot of the guys in the freezer wanted to make their "lives" mean something. And then there are those who just want to throw their "lives" away. Adopt our idea and you help us all.

Yours In Freezer,
Bob, The Stem Cell

P.S. And Mr. Reid. Get on the stick and help write up the legislation as me and the guys in Freezer 26 have described above. If not, next year we're backing Bloomberg!

Grad School

Well, for about the past month I have been pretty busy applying to graduate school. I am going to attempt to earn an MBA from Weber State University. I found out about a month ago that I would be receiving funding for this from my work. So I basically started rushing to get my application in.

I just want to take a moment to thank so many of my friends who have helped me out along the way. Without you there is no way in hell that I would have been able to get everything turned in by the deadline.

I am not sure if I will get in. One of the main components of getting into any graduate school or MBA program is the successful taking of a test. The test I had to take was the GMAT (I like to refer to it as "the fucking GMAT"). I studied pretty hard for a couple of weeks, but I have taken a math class in nearly 12 years. I tried to teach myself what I needed to know and received help from some friends as well. Well, when test day arrived, instead of actually taking the math section of the test I just got on my knees and blew it.

Getting into Weber State is definitely not a certainty at this point. If I do not get in I do have other options available to me. One thing is for certain though, if I do get in I owe a lot to the friends around me who helped me with my resume, the essays, and all the other short answer questions that were part of the application. Not only all of that, but just overall support has been helpful, especially after I so successfully blew the fucking GMAT.

Dot Video Goodness

This is the first video I ever saw of the Pale Blue Dot, as promised.





Here is another that I like.

Pale Blue Dot

I have wanted to post this Carl Sagan quote for a while. I initially saw a video with the quote below a few months ago. I will add the video later (the computer that I typically post from has lots of security filters and will not allow access to most videos, especially YouTube). Regardless, it is a great quote.

This picture was taken approximately 4 billion miles away from Earth by the Voyager 1 Satellite.

"Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary master of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is no where else, at least [for the foreseeable] future . . . Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
. . . There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known."
——Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994