News and other happenings

Sorry for the loooooooong lapse in blogging. The camera broke and recently got fixed. They'll be another update soon.

Spent a couple days in New york this passed week and it was a wee bit expensive. I parked the car in a bus lane and it got towed. I rode Vincentine's bike to the pound to retrieve the car but when I got there I realized I had forgotten the key. So I rode back, got the key and retrieved the car for $185. I then spent an hour stuck in traffic looking for a parking space to contest the $115 fine that went on top of the $185 impound fee. I finally found a space but had to go up 20 blocks. Good thing I took the seats out of the minivan for easy transport of the bike. They reduced the fine by $25 to $90. I then parked the car in a meter spot to see Damian at his bike shop in the village. But I couldn't find the car again because I forgot to note the streets I had parked at. When I finally got back to the car it had gotten another ticket good for $65.

I started painting houses for Doug Schmolze so I'll have money to pay all the fines. Joy! Had my first day on the job on Friday and it was surprisingly not so bad. Today was pretty okie dokie too. Stained a bunch of beam girder thingies--the thin pieces of wood that act as trim. Oh for a radio at work tho. Or an iPod. Music would make work wonderful. And now peekshures from the last few weeks.

My Mom is moving!She is moving to a quaint little house on Hulburt Road near Route 71 direclty across the cornfield facing the airport.

Four Generations. (if you include the pic of mom)

Something taboo about going in the left lane?
Ana Sophia came to help mom move.
Ana Sophia reaches up to grab at the big wide world.
Is Ana Sophia's aunt as cute as Ana Sophia?

We think not. Not all that glitters is gold. Aww, that was mean (if you can ascertain the reference)
Nora powers the canoe while I study
for last assignment for English
Uhh... last of the Mohecans?

G.B. in full bloom.

the Fight Club Philosophy

Paper I wrote for my Philosophy class of Self and Identity. They'll be a proper blog update soon... prolly before the weekend.






Struggling to find oneself in a pervasive culture of consumerism as seen through the lens of the film Fight Club


IN ANY GIVEN generation, in any given time period in human history, a study of the self, of who we are, of what we are, of how we define ourselves, of how our culture defines us, is always an interesting and fundamentally important study and will reveal something unique about ourselves. We may never get to the definitive truth, to concrete answers, but nevertheless, a deeper understanding that stimulates in us different perspectives of who we are. The current time in history is particularly interesting to look at in my generation with so many historically unprecedented factors influencing people. The bombardment of advertising, chiefly carried out by television, perpetuating a consumeristic Mr. Hyde mentality of gorging ourselves on stuff we’re told we want. The film Fight Club based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk offers a rather dire and sad way of looking at our lives; but one with some truth to it. How we buy into the corporate, consumer, slave to advertising culture of acquiring materialistic possessions that ultimately define who we are and keep us from truly living.

Tyler Durden: “An entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives.”
Jack, though a 30 year old adult, struggles to come of age in a world of Ikea furniture and the meaningless, monotonous Dilbertesque routine of his white collar office job that leaves him feeling alone and isolated by a world that seems to have betrayed him. As a result, he suffers from insomnia and goes to support groups for people with life threatening illnesses that he has no business going to where he becomes addicted to unleashing his tears into various different people from different support groups such as a big boobed man named Bob. In a sort of post adolescence initiation into a quasi eastern form of enlightenment, he boldly breaks away from the half-sleep waking purgatory existence that is his life defined by material attachment. He does so with the help of his alter-ego, the counter-side of his psyche to his shadow self, a character that is actually a fabrication of his own mind: Tyler Durden, who is confident, capable, smart, good looking and already free from the prison of a society of people hypnotized by advertising, who identify themselves with brand names, and approaches life with the kind of fearless verve Jack wishes he possessed.

Before Jack meets Tyler, while he is still support group hopping, he meets a girl at one of the support groups doing the same thing he is because, like Jack, she has hit bottom. But he is reticent to open up to her despite what they share in common. He does manage to exchange phone numbers with her, though, but when she calls him he avoids talking to her, afraid to show her he is attracted to her. He deals with his lonely, isolated self by nurturing his “nesting instinct”: filling his house with Ikea furniture and the other materialistic junk he buys and identifies himself with. If he can satisfy his perfect ideal of his apartment, then he will be happy and satisfied, so he thinks. While I can relate to this a little, I was a bit surprised to learn to what extent some people actually do.

Tyler begins to show Jack how his life is holding him back. Jack comes home from a business trip one day to see his apartment has been bombed. “It wasn’t just a bunch of stuff that got destroyed. It was me!” he tells Tyler. Tyler tells Jack: “The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything.” Jack slowly starts to switch how he identifies himself from the meaningless, lifeless connection he has to his material possessions that represents the epitome of the western mentality to liberating himself by a more eastern “zen” mentality of letting go of the wheel that is driving his life down a narrow, dead end road… and to approach life in a more… non-linear way. When Jack literally lets go of the steering wheel of the car and crashes, Tyler exalts: “we just had a near life experience, man!” Jack has to resort to letting go completely in order to sort of shock himself to waking life. The film and book are sort of symptomatic of a culture that is starving for something to meaningful to identify itself with—a way to break free from the cultural enslavement, from the limiting and limited materialistic meaning of their lives. Instead of leading spiritually fulfilling lives with meaningful human connections, the mass consumerism machine led by the constant bombardment of messages in the form of television and magazine ads blindsights us into thinking our happiness and fulfillment is to be found in the things we’re told to want, and the things we’re told to identify ourselves with; that these things will make us happy and complete. Tyler tells Jack: “What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with five hundred cannels and a designer name on my underwear.” These are not the things that should be defining how an entire generation shapes its view on who and how to be and live. These are not the things that should be shaping the future leaders of tomorrow who will only continue to perpetuate this spiritually bankrupt materialistic mentality.

I went into a Myspace group dedicated to the film and book of Fight Club to see what others thought about the film. Most of the members are teenagers and clearly can identify with the film’s premise. People with name’s like “Your Broken God”, “Zen Master” and “In Tyler We Trust.” While one person was willing to share their constructive insight into the film, most people’s form of communication is to verbally attack others with colorful language. If not attacking someone, judging something in a similar fashion. For example:
This IS the fight club group, do you expect normal people who are just going to be kind and nice to everyone, who will just give out happy opinions? this is life, it ain't about sunshine and rainbows, fight club was a great idea that I personally think is getting more lost every day by assholes like yourself, so quit crying, and why don't you do something with your life, and stop trying to bother people who've been in this group much longer then you have, because honestly, we all like them more then you.
I postulated some topics and questions to see how people who apparently identify with the film and book feel and think about it:

I'm asking fans of the film to give their opinions on what they liked about the film, what about the film (or book, but I haven't read the book) resonates with them. What things about it they identify with. What the author or the film director is trying to say. What do people think about the many notions postulated in the film? Do you agree that losing all hope equates to freedom? why? Do you agree with Tyler that you can't know very much about yourself until you've been in a fight? Has anyone tested this theory? Any thoughts from your own experiences? What do you think of the idea that "it wasn't just my stuff that was destroyed, it was me!"? Jack says this to Tyler shortly after his apartment gets destroyed. Can you relate to this statement?

One fifteen year old girl replied without berating me. I thought her response was rather perceptive and profound. I was surprised that a young girl would have such insightful things to say about being in a fight; reminding me of unconscious stereotypes in my mind like weeds needing to be uprooted.

I do believe that you learn more about yourself after you've been in a fight. It tests how you would react without really thinking about it. I've known people who thought they had everything in life figured out; then they got in a fight and didn't know who they were anymore. Being in a fight unleashes everything, and suddenly when you’re fighting someone you stop fighting them for whatever reason you started, and fight them for everything you haven't fought for in the past. After a while you think “If I kick this person’s ass all of those other problems will be solved.”

"It wasn't just my stuff that was destroyed, it was me!"
I sadly related to this. Earlier in the film at the bar with Tyler, Jack says "I was almost complete." I think that way all the time. I say to myself when I get my own house I'll fix it perfect and everything will be organized and right, and if my house, clothes, etc. is all perfect I will be perfect. I am my material possessions and if that was all destroyed I would be destroyed. I can't help but think that once I'm "complete" that "no matter what happens I'll have that couch problem handled." [Quote from the movie]

Honestly, this movie has made me curious about what I would learn about myself by getting into a fight. My older sister was telling me how in a class she took in school the professor would have the students watch classic pop-culture films such as “Pretty Woman” and ask how these films influence people. My sister then asked me if a film ever made me want to be like the people in the film or do things from the film. I couldn’t think of any examples and at first thought it was silly when she said Pretty Woman had a negative impact on young girls because it gave them the idea that being a prostitute could be an appealing thing in order to be saved by a nice, wealthy man. This sort of ties into a quote from Fight Club: “We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t.” But when I was watching Fight Club I found myself becoming curious about whether there was something to this fight club mentality—if being in a fight might challenge my fears—things I have been avoiding in life might rise up to the surface, and might bring to the surface of my consciousness latent interests and desires that have, in Tyler Durgen’s eyes, been suppressed and dumbed down by a consumer culture. Who knows, maybe it would wake me up to have a “near life experience.”

I’d like to close with a quote that basically sums up the film: “You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.”

THE END.

Mainely Mountains

At the end of March, Nori and I picked up Dan in Worcester and checked out Clark University where Nori and I had a rather... strange welcome upon setting foot on campus. What was it that the old lady said? Oh yeah: "Hello Martians. How's the motherfucking bloodsucking going?" And the library looked like those big robot things in the snowy part of Starwars: The Empire Strikes Back:




After the warm welcome at Clark University in Worcester, we drove up to Maine where we spent two days hiking non stop. At one point we had to hitchhike because we came out on the road so far away from the car.
Considering we were three, we got a ride fairly easily. There weren't too many people hiking for good reason. It was cold and the trails still had a lot of ice on them. I nearly broke my neck about two dozen times surfing down the ice. Having the mountains to ourselves was worth it though. And it wasn't as cold as it has been here the passed few days.



We decided this trail (yes, below all that ice somewhere is what is called "The Waterfall Trail") was not passable.






An ice chasm


Oh! Exclaims Dan. Suggest your best caption:


Champaigne on ice.




on top of the mountain


Nori pretending to mind being photographed.


Steve and Isabel join us on the last day.


Isabel is photographed from both sides as the sun burns red through the trees.


Brother and Sister at the top of Cadillac mountain.


A nice picture of the 3 of us, would't ya say?


Still frozen over.


All in all it was an extraordinarily nice time. Mostly because we had the trails and mountains to ourselves, but also the adventurous nature of slip sliding down the trails added to the fun. Unfortunately I forgot my camera cable and couldn't make more room for any videos. But if you wanna see more photos of the weekend, visit Dan's blog update: http://schmolze.com/scalpel/ His website is now password protected because the content of his blog is apparently a threat to the school and to Dan's future prospects as a doctor, so just email him for the password. There are some nice pics up there. dan@schmolze.com

One Last Winter hoorrah--please don't leave so many comments.

Please don't leave so many comments on the blog. I am seriously getting bogged down trying to keep up with them all.

Nori shoots down Sidewinder at Catamount.


It's too warm for gloves


Nori and I get lost cross country skiing.


But the brook is pretty


Icy finger bones


Shifting gears.. My house looks pretty from Blue Rider Stables where Doug and I get to go horseback riding.


Horse eats snow. (I think it was actually trying to get a stray strand of straw.)


My house and Jug End framed nicely by the shadow of the barn. Does the hill behind my house really look like a jug end?


This horse is huge. It's a draft horse. You know, the ones in the Budweiser commercials?


Janine tries to get a reaction out of the cat but it is too lazy to move.


Janine then resorts to strangling the cat in an effort to get some sort of response.


Frustrated and fed up, Janine finally gives up. Feeling abused and dejected, the cat slinks off.


Janine, do you think you could be a little nicer to the cat? It was a gift from a very good friend.

liar liar pants on fire

Why the towers fell: Two theories

By William Rice

Posted March 1, 2007

Having worked on structural steel buildings as a civil engineer in the era when the Twin Towers were designed and constructed, I found some disturbing discrepancies and omissions concerning their collapse on 9/11.

I was particularly interested in the two PBS documentaries that explained the prevailing theories as determined by two government agencies, FEMA and NIST (National Institute of Science and Technology). The first (2002) PBS documentary, Why the Towers Fell, discussed how the floor truss connectors failed and caused a “progressive pancake collapse.”

The subsequent 2006 repackaged documentary Building on Ground Zero explained that the connectors held, but that the columns failed, which is also unlikely. Without mentioning the word “concrete,” the latter documentary compared the three-second collapse of the concrete Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building with that of the Twin Towers that were of structural steel. The collapse of a concrete-framed building cannot be compared with that of a structural steel-framed building.

Since neither documentary addressed many of the pertinent facts, I took the time to review available material, combine it with scientific and historic facts, and submit the following two theories for consideration.

The prevailing theory

The prevailing theory for the collapse of the 110-story, award-winning Twin Towers is that when jetliners flew into the 95th and 80th floors of the North and South Towers respectively, they severed several of each building’s columns and weakened other columns with the burning of jet fuel/kerosene (and office combustibles).

However, unlike concrete buildings, structural steel buildings redistribute the stress when several columns are removed and the undamaged structural framework acts as a truss network to bridge over the missing columns.

After the 1993 car bomb explosion destroyed columns in the North Tower, John Skilling, the head structural engineer for the Twin Towers, was asked about an airplane strike. He explained that the Twin Towers were originally designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 (similar in size to the Boeing 767). He went on to say that there would be a horrendous fire from the jet fuel, but “the building structure would still be there.”

The 10,000 gallons of jet fuel (half capacity) in each jetliner did cause horrendous fires over several floors, but it would not cause the steel members to melt or even lose sufficient strength to cause a collapse. This is because the short-duration jet fuel fires and office combustible fires cannot create (or transmit to the steel) temperatures hot enough. If a structural steel building could collapse because of fire, it would do so slowly as the various steel members gradually relinquished their structural strength. However, in the 100-year history of structural-steel framed buildings, there is no evidence of any structural steel framed building having collapsed because of fire.

Let’s assume the unlikelihood that these fires could weaken all of the columns to the same degree of heat intensity and thus remove their structural strength equally over the entire floor, or floors, in order to cause the top 30-floor building segment (South Tower WTC #2) to drop vertically and evenly onto the supporting 79th floor. The 30 floors from above would then combine with the 79th floor and fall onto the next level down (78th floor) crushing its columns evenly and so on down into the seven levels below the street level.

The interesting fact is that each of these 110-story Twin Towers fell upon itself in about ten seconds at nearly free-fall speed. This violates Newton’s Law of Conservation of Momentum that would require that as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit, the mass (weight) increases and the free-fall speed decreases.

Even if Newton’s Law is ignored, the prevailing theory would have us believe that each of the Twin Towers inexplicably collapsed upon itself crushing all 287 massive columns on each floor while maintaining a free-fall speed as if the 100,000, or more, tons of supporting structural-steel framework underneath didn’t exist.

The politically unthinkable theory

Controlled demolition is so politically unthinkable that the media not only demeans the messenger but also ridicules and “debunks” the message rather than provide investigative reporting. Curiously, it took 441 days for the president’s 9/11 Commission to start an “investigation” into a tragedy where more than 2,500 WTC lives were taken. The Commission’s investigation also didn’t include the possibility of controlled-demolition, nor did it include an investigation into the “unusual and unprecedented” manner in which WTC Building #7 collapsed.

The media has basically kept the collapse of WTC Building #7 hidden from public view. However, instead of the Twin Towers, let’s consider this building now. Building #7 was a 47-story structural steel World Trade Center Building that also collapsed onto itself at free-fall speed on 9/11. This structural steel building was not hit by a jetliner, and collapsed seven hours after the Twin Towers collapsed and five hours after the firemen had been ordered to vacate the building and a collapse safety zone had been cordoned off. Both of the landmark buildings on either side received relatively little structural damage and both continue in use today.

Contrary to the sudden collapse of the Twin Towers and Building #7, the four other smaller World Trade Center buildings #3, #4, #5, and #6, which were severely damaged and engulfed in flames on 9/11, still remained standing. There were no reports of multiple explosions. The buildings had no pools of molten metal (a byproduct of explosives) at the base of their elevator shafts. They created no huge caustic concrete/cement and asbestos dust clouds (only explosives will pulverize concrete into a fine dust cloud), and they propelled no heavy steel beams horizontally for three hundred feet or more.

The collapse of WTC building #7, which housed the offices of the CIA, the Secret Service, and the Department of Defense, among others, was omitted from the government’s 9/11 Commission Report, and its collapse has yet to be investigated.
Perhaps it is time for these and other unanswered questions surrounding 9/11 to be thoroughly investigated. Let’s start by contacting our congressional delegation.

William Rice, P.E., is a registered professional civil engineer who worked on structural steel (and concrete) buildings in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. He was also a professor at Vermont Technical College where he taught engineering materials, structures lab, and other building related courses.

He is not being commissioned by the '9/11 Truth Movement' to write this article. He is not gaining in any way by putting his reputation at risk by venturing his honest opinion on what actually happened that fateful day. Although he is from Vermont, so I guess that automatically reveals his bias.... As always, look forward to your rebuttals.

Little Quiz-- Leave a comment!

One of following 5 images is NOT Osama bin Laden. Can you tell which one is the imposter? Leave a comment with your answer!

Catamount Video Blogging!

Well, Janine and I hit the slopes and then Clemens joined us a little later. The snow was a little heavy but otherwise we couldn't really complain. It made a for a good workout.


A picturesque chalet.


Janine in perfect form.

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Zooming along Ridge Run at Catamount ski area.

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Janine tearing up Glade. It is her first season snowboarding.

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Clemens shreds the snowboard park.

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First person perspective as I ski through the woods. Will I make it through without colliding into a tree? Even more fun than tree sledding, but only slightly safer.

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more tree skiing, but this one's a little smoother going.

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Let's do it again!

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My favorite part "Uhh---Uhh!" More tree skiing fun, except this time I have trouble staying in the tracks.

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Clemens jumps out of the woods.