Good Stuff! The future, Service Depot, Bear Lake ice cream shops

ByJohn Brown

Huge changes are coming to our world soon.

They’re going to affect your health, wealth, and job. They’re going to take us back into space and make us live longer. They are changes that almost blow the mind. And they’ve already begun.

Michio Kaku is a world-renowned physicist that has always been fascinated with all sorts of science. And in Physics of the Future, he looks at what’s currently happening in computing, robotics, biotechnology, medicine, energy, and engineering, and explains how it’s going to affect our daily life between now and 2030, 2030 to 2070, and 2070 to 2100.

The insights are awesome. The book’s a feast. Page after page.

Did you know, for example, that there are parts of our DNA that have genes for certain traits, but those genes are turned off? For example, humans have genes for growing fur all over our bodies, but they’re turned off. Snakes have genes for legs that have been turned off. Chickens, one of the distant progeny of the dinosaurs, have genes for growing tooth buds in their beaks (imagine the grandchildren being chased by one of those bad boys). There are many more such dormant genes, and in the not too distant future, we’ll be able to turn them on.

Did you know that today we can regrow organs? So far scientists can grow skin, blood, blood vessels, heart valves, cartilage, bone, noses, and ears from your own cells. They’ve be able to grow windpipes and bladders. Imagine damaging your eye and being able to grow a new one that your body won’t reject.

Did you know that we’ve already been able to hook people up so they can move objects with their minds?

And what about computers and robots? Many futurists fear the robots will become smarter than us and take over the world. Will they? Kaku explains why this isn’t likely with the technology we currently have and what really makes up intelligence.

These are just a couple of the dozens of thrilling topics Kaku explores. And he makes it all so easy to understand and entertaining.

A new world is coming, full of perils and exciting opportunities. An Kaku gives us an intelligent sneak peek.

If you wonder what our world will be like in the near future, if you enjoy science and technology, if you want to be informed, then you will love this book. When you finish it, you can then move onto his book The Future of Humanity, which delves deeper into what we can expect in the near future in space. You can then move to The Future of the Mind, in which he explores in more detail what we can expect in understanding, enhancing, and empowering our minds.

*

I’m not a handy man. I’d like to be one. I respect folks who know how to fix things immensely. But I have a million other things on my plate and don’t have the time to learn how to be one. And so when our oven and gas range started having problems, I was staring at spending around $2,000 to replace it.

But then I found Service Depot in Logan, Utah. They do handyman, appliance, HVAC, and plumbing repairs. I called them. They send out someone all the way to Bear Lake to look at the issue and give me a bid. He was clean-cut and smiling. When I invited him in, he stopped to put booties on to make sure he didn’t track dirt into my house. We arranged an appointment, and a few days later another fellow who was equally clean-cut and pleasant to deal with showed up and fixed the range for about one-fourth of what it would have cost to replace it.

These folks were prompt to respond, friendly, and bootied. If you need repairs done around your house, my experience with them was great.

*

If you enjoy ice cream and are in the Utah Bear Lake area, I have two recommendations. For soft-serve shakes and cones, you can’t do better than Zipz in Garden City. Some soft-serve is icy and thin. Not enjoyable at all. But Zips uses a soft-serve ice cream with a higher fat content, which makes it deliciously smooth and creamy. And when you add flavors—oh baby! We recently went there as a family and got shakes. They have a lot of different flavors, but I got the Nutella and pretzel mix and floated up a bit toward heaven. If you like chocolate at all, you have to try that shake.

The other place is in Laketown. The Sinclair gas station turned their old car wash into a hard ice cream shop called, ta-dum, The Car Wash Ice Cream Shop. It’s bright and clean. The youth scooping the ice cream there are smiling and friendly. And they have a flavor called Coconut Castaway that’s scrumptious. Think of a Mounds chocolate bar, but in ice cream. More heavenly floating. What makes it even better are the reasonable prices.

If you’re in the mood for ice cream, if you want to get a bit closer to heaven, then do yourself a favor and get yourself to one of these shops.

Share

Similar Posts

  • Donald Rumsfeld, The King’s Speech, Aquatic Ancestor Apes & Talking Bacteria

    ByJohn Brown

    Donald Rumsfeld

    I just finished Known and Unknown, a fat memoir by Donald Rumsfeld, and enjoyed every page.  Rumsfeld served as the Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush.  But Rumsfeld’s service didn’t start there. He was a Navy pilot, an assistant to a congressman during the Eisenhower days, and, in the early 60’s, a four-term congressman from Illinois.  He held various positions in the Nixon White House in the late 60’s and early 70’s, including ambassador to NATO.  He was Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense when Ford took over from Nixon.  Reagan tapped him to be a special envoy to both the Middle East after the Beirut bombing and to the Law of the Sea treaty discussions.  He was the president of Searle, a pharmaceutical, as well as General Instrument, the company that pioneered HDTV.  Only after all that, did George W. Bush bring him on as Secretary of Defense.

    When writing novels, I try to create characters worth knowing, either because of their interesting personality or skills or because of the events they take part in. Donald Rumsfeld is just such a character, except he’s no fiction.

    In his memoir he shares insider information on everything from Watergate to 9/11 to the war in Iraq. What emerges is a fascinating look into many of the most important events in the last forty years.  You’ll get insight into some of the issues experienced in various White House administrations and see what really was going on with waterboarding, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, hurricane Katrina and many other of the hot button issues in the Bush years. There are some laugh out loud moments where his understated humor shines through. There are also parts where he reveals some of his differences with others that worked with him in the various administrations, including issues with Nelson Rockerfeller, Colin Powell and Andy Card. But in everything he writes he’s fair and restrained and attempts to present the facts accurately. This is no attempt to settle scores.  Just a wonderful read.

    If you are interested in politics at all, I think you’ll enjoy this book. Moreover, I think you’ll come out a little wiser, maybe a little better person, for having spent a few hours with Donald Rumsfeld.  

    The King’s Speech

    I do not watch many r-rated movies.  They are usually too vulgar or pornographic for my prissy tastes. However, I did my research on The King’s Speech, and having heard so many glowing reviews, Nellie and I rented it.

    It was wonderful.

    The movie tells the story of prince Albert Frederick Arthur George of Britain who did not ever expect to inherit the throne and did not want to, in part because of his stammer. Can you imagine having to be a public figure like a king and have to deal with something like that? Most of us dread the thought of public speaking. Can you imagine having to try with a stammer?

    But Albert’s lot was not to live the sheltered life. He became king when his brother abdicated the throne because of improprieties in his personal life. The day before the abdication, Albert went to London to see his mother, Queen Mary. He wrote in his diary, “When I told her what had happened, I broke down and sobbed like a child.” That is not the entry of a power-hungry man.

    He assumed the throne in 1936, when England ruled over almost a quarter of the world’s population. Three years later in 1939 WW2 broke out and Britain’s king needed to be able to address the people.

    In the movie, Colin Firth plays Price Albert. Geoffery Rush (Captain Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean) plays Lionel Logue, the unorthodox Australian speech therapist to whom Albert’s wife turns for help. The script is wonderful and the star-studded cast is spot on. There are moments of humor and poignancy and triumph. I was caught up in this movie as much as any I’ve seen.

    If you like English dramas, you’ll enjoy this one. And the profanity, the reason for the r-rating, is not there to depict casual vulgarity. It was part of a technique used by the therapist. In the end, you’ll overlook it and find yourself on pins and needles, rooting for this fine man.

    Aquatic Ancestor Apes & Talking Bacteria

    I’ve written about TED before. The annual TED (technology, entertainment, design) conferences, in Long Beach/Palm Springs and Edinburgh, bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less). The folks at TED record these speeches and put them up for free on their site for the rest of us to watch. And I just watched two dandies.

    The first is by Elaine Morgan who says we evolved from aquatic apes (sigh, just when you think you’ve found grandpa Eddy hanging out in the trees, you learn he’s an imposter). Morgan is a Welsh writer for television and also the author of several books on evolutionary anthropology. In the speech she describes the reasons why it makes sense that humans had aquatic ancestors. Along the way, she illustrates key principles of science, including why science by consensus is no science at all. Her manner is so delightful and engaging I think I could listen to her for hours, preferably around the dinner table. Watch her right now. She just might convince you.

    The second speech was given by Bonnie Bassler, an American molecular biologist, who has been part of the team that discovered key insights into how bacteria talk. It appears that bacteria do not invade a host and start doing damage. No, they wait until their numbers are sufficient that they have a chance of surviving. They coordinate defense and mount attacks as a group. Who would have thought? Knowing how this works is not only interesting all by itself, but it has stunning implications for medicine and fighting infection. Bassler is a fascinating and enthusiastic presenter. Among other things, you’ll end up seeing that humans are more bacteria than you could imagine. Watch her.

    Share

  • Good Stuff! Operation Underground Railroad

    ByJohn Brown

    WeSaveChildrenFromSlavery

    I blogged about this before.

    On February 28th, Operation Underground Railroad freed 20 kids from slavery and brought 5 slavers to justice. They are continually running operations.

    Oskar Schindler didn’t stop the killing of all Jews. But he did what he could. One of the most poignant moments of Schindler’s List was when he pulled out his pen and realized he could have saved someone with his pen. We all have a pen opportunity in front of us. Join me and my family. Become an abolitionist.

    We’ve set up a monthly amount, but even a one-time donation puts you on the team.

    I know you want more information. Here’s an awesome video where the founder explains what’s happening and what they’re doing.

    In this one, Glenn Beck interviews Cliff Graham about the organization. It’s a must-see interview.

    See how you can help.

    JumpTeamImage1-350x175

    Share

  • Interview with Edmund Schubert, editor of IGMS

    ByJohn Brown

    I recently had the wonderful opportunity to interview Edmund Schubert, the editor for Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, about How To Write Magical Works: A Writer’s Companion, a collection of essays about the craft and the business of writing that he edited. Ed’s someone to listen to. But so are the authors whose essays fill the book: Faith Hunter, David Coe, C.E. Murphy, Misty Massey, A.J. Hartley, and Stuart Jaffe. Here’s what he had to say about this book.

    John: Edmund, you recently edited How To Write Magical Words: A Writer’s Companion. It’s chock full of advice from some pretty successful fiction authors, and an editor who, having purchased one of my stories, has shown exceptional taste (grin). But there are a lot of how-to’s by successful authors out there. What makes this book different, do you think? What’s the special value this book brings to the table?

    Edmund: I think the biggest thing that differentiates this book from others on the subject is its diversity of opinions. Most how-to books are written by one person, giving on perspective, but the truth is that there are many paths to success in this business. The Magical Words book was intentionally designed to replicate the give-and-take that exists on the MW blog. Sometime the MW writers agree, sometimes they don’t. The other thing that makes this book different is that it also includes some of the follow-up questions asked by readers of the blog, and the accompanying reply. That makes this book feel/read more like a writer’s conference than your basic info-dump book.

    John: I think the concept is great. And the contributors have quite a bit of experience. I know you can’t comment on every essay in the collection, but are there one or two that stood out to you while editing?

    Edmund: There were a few that stood out to me. One by Catie and one by David, both on the subject of money/advances. Those stood out to me because of how very blunt and honest they were about finances, and it’s information I think more people need to be aware of.

    The other one that stood out for me did so for personal reason. Catie’s essay about Visualizing The Story made me feel so much better about myself as a writer and my chances of success, because for years I’ve been hearing all these other writers at conventions talk about how their stories are like movies in their heads and all they have to do is record the action and the dialogue, and I used to hear that really worry because at best I might see a slide show of of bits and pieces of the action, but I’m totally making the rest up. Hearing Catie say that she didn’t/couldn’t visualize the story that way either gave me hope.

    John: I’m sure aspiring authors are going to be very interested in what Catie and David say about money. It’s also interesting that sometimes we writers hear other successful writers talk about how the invention process works for them, compare our process with theirs, and assume we’re lacking. In reality, the way we approach it might be just as effective. That’s one of the things I like about this book—it has multiple contributors. Let me ask one more question. You see a lot of stories as editor of Intergalactic Medicine Show. What are some of the topics addressed in this book that, based on the biggest issues you encounter in submissions, authors would be wise to carefully consider?

    Edmund: Magical Words as a group have two mantras: the first is that there is no one right way to do this crazy thing called writing, and the second is the exception that proves the rule: the one and only true answer to everything is BIC. Butt In Chair. You put your butt in the chair and you write. You figure it out as you go along. And the more you write, the more the other advice you hear will make sense. You want to be a writer? Write. The rest is details.

    ***

    John sez, amen to that. And amen to this book. I really enjoyed the format and the insights shared. I never tire talking about craft and business with other writers. With over 100 essays and 313 pages, this book has lots to share. If you want to hear what some very smart and a few very published authors have to say about writing, you’ll want to pick up your own copy.

    Share
  • |

    Buffett’s Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders on 2008

    ByJohn Brown

    I got my masters degree in accounting and information systems. While going to school I started an investment club and learned about a man named Warren Buffett.

    Warren Buffett is humble, full of folksy humor, and trades places with Bill Gates as the richest man in the world, depending on the year you’re counting. His annual letters to his shareholders are a delight to read. This year’s is full of wisdom about the current financial crisis. Moreover, within a few minutes of reading you will be able to get some key insights that can help as you evaluate the plans being hatched in Washington and how to prevent this particular type of crisis from happening again. 

    If you’re not that into finance, I recommend reading:

     

    1. The introduction starting on page 2 and ending on page 3
    2. The “Finance and Financial Products” section starting on page 10 and running through page 12

    Once you’ve read those, if you want to laugh and see Buffet’s humor, skip to page 21 where Buffett talks about the annual meeting of shareholders. Tell me you wouldn’t want to attend.

    The Berkshire Hathaway homepage

    This year’s letter to shareholders (you will click on 2008 because he’s discussing the results of that year)

    Share

  • The Avengers & The Paris Grill

    ByJohn Brown

    Edit: I wrote this like a month ago and thought I posted it. But there is was in my drafts. Somebody give me some Ginko extract.

    The Avengers

    The Avengers is Marvel’s latest installment of the films in the Avenger world—Iron Man (2008), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). 

    Iron Man is, by far, the BEST of all of them.  I thought Captain America might be just as good, but the movie lost its way about half way through.  The others are okay, not anything to jump up and down on the couch about. So while I was looking forward to seeing The Avengers, I wasn’t expecting anything special. I’m happy to tell you that The Avengers is good. Not as good as Iron Man, but much better than all the others.  And certainly well-worth the price of admission.

    The earth is in possession of an artifact of immense power called the Tesseract, which isn’t a made-up name. In geometry a tesseract is a cubic prism—some four-dimensional thing which boggles the mind. But in this movie and Captain America, the tesseract is a blue cube that can open portals to different parts of the universe or run Nazi war machines.  The problem is that there are other beings in the universe.  Some of these would like to be able to run their own Nazi machines and subjugate all species on every planet.  So they get Loki, Thor’s adopted brother, to lead an army to raze the earth and retrieve the artifact.   

    Of course, earth’s forces aren’t strong enough to repel this alien force. That is, unless you call upon the Avengers—Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America. As well as Avengers who haven’t had their own movies yet like Black Widow, Hawk, and Nick Fury.

    It all sounds a bit much, and in the hands of a lesser writer it might have been. But Joss Whedon (Serenity, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) wrote the script and directed the movie. And he did a fantastic job. Instead of thinking we came for a barrage of special effects, he takes time to build the characters and relationships so we care about the action when it arrives. He does use the idiot chaos cinema technique for some of the action, but not nearly as much as was in Hunger Games. More importantly, he makes up for the error of his ways with a number of laugh-out-loud moments. Hilarious moments.  In fact, the humor is one of the main reasons why this movie was so good.

    If you like super hero movies, you’ll love The Avengers. Maybe not as much as you like Iron Man or Spider Man 2 or the Nolan Batman series. But close enough to have a great night out.

    The Paris Grill

    The Paris (Idaho) Grill has opened another restaurant in what used to be the Bear Lake Motor Lodge Cafe.  The cafe was okay. Nothing to write home about.  So I didn’t know what to expect with the new grill.  However, I took two of my daughters out last night for dinner.

    The Paris Grill has four menus. I don’t know why they keep them separate, but they do. One for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and another for their pizzas.  We opted for the “Burgers n Pastas n Salads” menu which I guess is the lunch menu, but was what we ordered our dinner off of.

    Confused yet?

    Luckily, the food’s good enough that the menu business doesn’t matter. The lunch menu features a number of regular sandwiches—BLT, chicken cordon bleu, French dip.  But it also offers some signature sandwiches like a kielbasa and pepper sandwich, something called the Hobo Deli (which is tasty sounding combo of sour dough bread with pepper cheese, roasted turkey, bacon, grilled tomatoes, and cilantro dressing), as well as the Monster Grill—roast beef topped with caramelized onions and peppers, mushrooms, and provolone cheese.  I opted for the Monster Grill. My girls skipped the salads and ordered a hamburger and the chicken cordon bleu with mashed potatoes.

    The first words out of my daughters’ mouth when eating the mashed potatoes were “ooh” and “yum.”  That was followed by another “ooh” and “yum.”  The potatoes were good.  And they were made from scratch.  The sandwiches were tasty as well.  Good enough that I’m going to go back to the grill to try their dinner menu with my wife.  

    We topped the dinner off by splitting one of the grill’s big, hot cinnamon rolls.  The prices for the lunch items were reasonable—around seven or eight bucks—and they were big enough that the girls took half their meal home.  

    If you’re in Garden City, Utah and looking for something besides burgers and shakes, try the grill.  I think you’ll be quite satisfied when you walk out the door.

    Share

2 Comments

  1. I wasn’t super excited about my family’s reunion to be held at Bear lake next year, now I feel like I have to go. Here’s to a year of anticipation.

  2. 🙂 I do hope you have a wonderful time. Have you ever been to the Jaunito Bandito plays at the Pickleville playhouse? If not, it’s a mix of play and improv comedy, and they’re fun. A great family time for kids and adults. You might want to go to Minnetonka cave. Take a tour of the old pioneer tabernacle in Paris, ID. While you’re up that way, eat pizza at Studebaker’s in Montpelier. It’s some of the best pizza I’ve eaten. There’s horse back riding. Limber Pine trail is a must. And then the lake.

Comments are closed.