My New Time Clock

require "rubygems"
require "rbosa"
require 'ruby-growl'

def make_it_rain
 itunes = OSA.app('iTunes')                     
 itunes.back_track
 track = itunes.current_playlist.search("Let It Rain")[0]
 track.start = 15
 track.finish = 42
 track.play(:once => true)

 g = Growl.new "localhost", "ruby-growl",
             ["ruby-growl Notification"]
 g.notify "ruby-growl Notification", "Make It Rain!",
      "$$$$$$$$$$ "* Integer(@money / 100)
end

print "Hourly Rainfall? " 
rate = Float(gets)    

time = 0
next_hundred = 1

start_time = Time.now

trap("INT") do
 puts "\nYou worked for " +
 "#{'%0.2f' % ((Time.now - start_time) / 60) } minutes"
 exit
end

loop do
 sleep 5
 time += 5
 puts "$ #{'%0.2f' % @money = (time / 60.0 / 60.0) * rate}"
 if @money.to_f / 100 >= next_hundred
   next_hundred += 1
   make_it_rain
 end      
end

Because everyone wants a small celebration complete with hip-hop and dollar signs filling the screen every 100 dollars they make!

El camino del Rey

Anyone want to go with me?

Recursive Dreams are Scary

Last night I had a rather creepy experience. Though I can't be sure, it might have been due to the combination of a late night meal, over tiredness, and doing a short but intense Vipassana session right before bed. Anyway, the scary thing was that I dreamed I couldn't wake up.

I've got really good dream recall, and have been practicing gaining lucidity in dreams for many years now. Realizing I'm dreaming is not a big surprise to me, and it happens maybe once a week or so on average. A common side effect of beginning to influence your dreams once you realize you are dreaming is that you tend to wake up.

This time the problem was every time I realized I was dreaming and started poking around at things, my wakeup was false. I was dreaming that I woke up. This has happened to me before, and usually just means I've lost my lucidity and that leads me back to the normal chaotic realm of dreams. This time I remained fully aware of what was going on.

As this continued to happen, I began to get more panicked, and with it, my dreams become more frightening. The thing more-or-less started when I walked into the hallway of our apartment and found a room that didn't really exist in our building, and my mom suddenly appeared.

From that, I went to waking up in the bed with my girlfriend kneeling over me crying saying "Please don't kill yourself". Then when I started to float, I knew that was a dream, and woke up again, this time wishing to wake her up and make sure what I dreamed wasn't real. When I tried to get her to roll over, she spun in place but her back was always to me. So I woke up again.

This time there is a sickly looking dog laying at the foot of the bed and she's crying again, "You know I love animals!". At this point my mind starts getting so tightened up, I start frantically repeating "I have to wake up".

Thoughts go back to "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and at the time I'm cursing the movie for feeding my imagination, because as powerful of a scene that is to see, it sucks to live through it.

I start thinking more existentially: "Why can't I wake up?". My mind recalls all of the lucidity triggers it can, in an attempt to gain control of the nose-diving jet my brain has been piloting through all of this. Each time I wake up, I try to float. Again and again, it works. Fuck!

I look at the clock and the numbers are all fuzzy. Doesn't matter, I keep falling asleep and waking up and each time things get blurrier and slower and foggier. I feel like the scene around me is melting and that my muscles and arms are mush. I look out the side window ready to resign....

Wait, the side window? Our bed faces the window. Eureka!

Moments later I'm kissing my sleepy girlfriend and rambling on about my scary dreams and I'm sure that even if she was humoring me for the moment, she'd rather get back to bed. After a few minutes I calm down, knowing for sure that I was no longer dreaming.

What a wild ride that was, but I'm glad it's behind me. Oh crap... I'm starting to float again.

Good ol' Kerouac

On Courage, Take Two

Nothing takes more courage than truly loving someone.

I am blessed with that opportunity now.

Judgement of Solomon

From Kings 3:16-28

16 Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 One of them said, "My lord, this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me. 18 The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.

19 "During the night this woman's son died because she lay on him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. 21 The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn't the son I had borne."

22 The other woman said, "No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours."
But the first one insisted, "No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine." And so they argued before the king.

23 The king said, "This one says, 'My son is alive and your son is dead,' while that one says, 'No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.' "

24 Then the king said, "Bring me a sword." So they brought a sword for the king. 25 He then gave an order: "Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other."

26 The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, "Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don't kill him!"
But the other said, "Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!"

27 Then the king gave his ruling: "Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother."

28 When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.

This is a well known story, anyone who's grown up anywhere near a bible will recognize it, and so will many of those who have not. To me, it's a particularly beautiful one, too. It shows the triumph of selfless compassion over jealous attachment, and praises Solomon for his clear and just decision. But like most things biblical, this is just a story, an ideal for us to make room for in our hearts. Reality is often much more harsh.

Not all Kings are as wise as Solomon. A disinterested King may have said '"Fine, if you are willing to give up the baby, problem solved." No blood would be shed, but the damage would still be done. It seems to me that in our society, not many value the kind of selflessness and willingness to sacrifice that this story portrays. Has the world really changed so much since the time of Solomon?

Or maybe the problem is actually a different one. Maybe there just aren't very many kings at all any more. How would this story change if these two women were left to resolve this issue on their own? One thing is for sure, the claim of the first woman would be put to the test. How likely is it that the second woman, after hearing this selfless proclamation, would give up her jealousy and attachment in the name of what was truly right for the child? How likely is it that the first woman, if faced with actually having to give up her child, would actually do it even if she knew that she was the right one to take care of the child? Could her selfless words transform into selfless action? This story gives us no insight into that.

What of the child? Would he know the difference one way or another? If all the baby craved was milk and a warm arm to cuddle in, the two 'mothers' would appear about the same to him. Without preference, without a basis for comparison, the baby would be lost to fate, having no ability to know who he truly belonged with.

When I say that I think the story of Solomon's Judgement is beautiful, I mean it. But most of what makes it beautiful to me is how complicated the situation gets when you take out the wise ruler and the triumph of compassion over selfishness, and you begin to look at what it means to really let go in the name of love. It is a risky road to walk, and doesn't always have a happy ending.

The question is whether it is a path worth taking in the first place, and though I believe in my heart it is, that's a tough hand of cards to play when dealt.

My Own Walden

For the last couple days, I've been daydreaming a lot about my cabin in northern Vermont. It is really way up there, in a tiny town called Lunenburg which is almost in Canada:


This place has no running water, no phone service, and no centralized heating. It has been in my family for generations, as a 'camp' or refuge. My dad is a factory worker and though I know little about his side of the family, I think they too went that route. Our Vermont cabin was a place they could go to forget about the daily grind and be immersed in the beautiful peace and quiet of nature.

The cabin is on a dirt road that is a couple miles long with only two neighbors. Except for our cabin and the two other houses up there, there is nothing but forest surrounding the lands. I always found it amazing that we had a brook running right alongside our property. As a little kid I spent hours upon hours splashing around in the mud, eating raspberries, and keeping an eye out for moose and bear. I didn't usually see them, but sometimes I did.

High up in the mountains, thunder sounds different. Instead of a clap of noise coming down from the sky, the thunder at the cabin sounded like it was rising up out of the ground, like a struck bass drum. The wind was like this too, you could feel the ground breathing.

The morning smelled like morning, and I have no idea how to put that in words. Something about the evaporating dew on leaves and pine needles leaves an unmistakable scent. At night, the air was cool and crisp, even in the warmer months.

My mom always used to say that the mountains were beautiful because they looked different every time she looked at them. This is of course, true. Go there in the fall and you'd be convinced God was a painter, in the winter, that he was a skier. Though you rarely needed to wait for the seasons to change, the mountains wore their emotions on their sleeves, and you could see their darkness in rain, and brightness in the sunshine.

When I think of looking at the stars on a clear night from this tiny cabin, I realize this is where I met God, not in my force-fed religious schooling. When I think about this, it makes me want to show my own kids this some day. I want them to see that beauty and wonder are all around them, not just crammed up in some books to be passed down by holy men.

This tiny little cabin, with barely enough room to fit a family, became a warm place at night. My family didn't usually spend a lot of time together, but when we were there, it was different. My mom and dad would play Setback, my brother and I would play the good old NES on a TV that barely worked because it was used so infrequently. We'd all eat our meals together, and we'd laugh together.

Ever since I was little, I always dreamed about going up there with someone I loved, to spend a quiet weekend and explore together. New Hampshire's White Mountains aren't far, and places like Franconia Notch or Mt. Washington are too amazing to describe. Actually, this almost happened once, with Emily. She got really sick half of the way through the trip though, and we ended up at the hospital and my childhood dreams were somewhat dashed by the cold reality of life. Nevertheless, this is still one of my 'dream vacations' because it seems so romantic.

When things started to go bad between my parents, we stopped going to the cabin so much. It got into disrepair, and really started to fall apart. I think it took a while for my Dad to get his heart back into it after they split, but these days, he's up there working on it most weekends in the summer. Though I'm sure he enjoys the work on its own, I know why he's doing it overall. He wants to pass this down to me and my brother, the way his parents did to him and his brothers. He's the only one who uses it, and I think the same thing will happen with me.

Still, you can bet that even if I end up doing something crazy like trying to raise a family in Boston or NYC, I'll be spending some weekends up there. If for nothing else, to show a new generation a glimpse of more simple times, where high speed internet wasn't as essential as food, water, and basic shelter. How many kids in America these days have ever even used an outdoor toilet? My guess is not so many, but mine will.

We don't need to throw away our creature comforts or renounce the convenience of modern society, but we need to be careful not to forget about what is pure, simple, and natural. My cabin gives me a great opportunity to remember that.