The Omnigeek

Well most people see geeks and nerds.  Nerds wear pocket protectors, big thick glasses and have Spock Ears and a collection of Star Wars toys.  Geek is about loving something perhaps too passionately.  Generally we like our Star Wars, our computers, or our cell phones and many techies are geeks.  But you can be geek about other things.  Will our Knitting geek’s raise your hand and be counted, for instance!

Two weekends ago a lot of testosterone got together in Phoenix and Pittsburgh with participants coming from New York and Maryland and charted a two week flurry of media hype and attention.  Observers from all over arrived in the Valley of the Sun and Steeltown to take part in these two events which really other than making a lot of money for some people had the single effect of polarizing the country in a rift more serious than any political election.

For the mean, nasty, bruising Pittsburgh Steelers football team would head to Tampa, Florida to meet the unlikely underdog, the Arizona Cardinals a team with a lot of talent and no respect.  The old Underdog cartoon had a mild mannered beagle who had a drug addiction, but when he was high, he was unstoppable to a heroic level.   Much like that beagle, the Cardinals are a quiet mild mannered team that you can’t help but like.  They don’t offend anyone.

This is the Super Bowl.  Super Bowl XLIII to be precise (thats 43 for the non-math and sport-geeks reading this).  Forty-two times before two teams of oversized, over-muscled, armor laden warriors have met on a battlefield to war for three hours and at the end have one victor stand tall.

The Steelers have been to this event more times than people can remember and have come out the victors five times.  For the Cardinals, this is their first trip to the show and Sunday’s game should be a show with their high flying offense against a lot of pain and anguish coming their way from the boys from Western Pennsylvania.

But this isn’t about the 100 or so players or even the 75,000 spectators that will pack the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.  This is much bigger.  Even those Nerds who normally don’t care about sports will be come a sports geek for the day, turning their 60′ plasma TV’s off of the Sci-Fi channel for NBC’s coverage of the game.  Gigapeeps will watch this one event around the world.  It is probably the biggest event on the planet.

But why as this become such a big event, after all its a bunch of brutes pushing themselves around?  Well a good part of it has to be our natural human instinct for conflict and combat.  We are natural warriors and even the most passive person will find a little warrior bubbling up in their soul no matter how hard you put it back.  Maybe you don’t care for the combat, but you will generally cheer for one of the teams.

As I boarded my flight back to Raleigh, the Captain had his Cardinal’s Conference Championship Cap hanging up for the 180 or so passengers to revere.  Needless to say the 5 Steelers fans flying to Tampa for the game had to get their shots in.

Its also about money and its something that money geeks pay very close attention to.  This year, the ads for the game are going for $30 million per 30 second spot, thats a megabuck a second for watching someone hawk their wares.  The economy sucks?  Well there are some people this isn’t a problem for as NBC will no doubtably sell out its inventory of ads for the game.  Of course that money will go to NBC, the NFL, the teams, the players and the rest of the league and their players and staffs, so when its divided out, it should still be a good economic stimulus package.  Perhaps the US Government should consider this model?

Anyway, this geek and his absolutely non-geek wife or the anti-geek (I hate to break it to her, she’s a sports and couponing geek) will be hanging out with some photo geeks around a really high tech audio/video geek’s dream setup to watch those 30 second commercials and a little ass-kicking.

So down a beer, eat some chips, pick a side (this Cowboy’s fan will be cheering for his #2 in their quest for #6, sorry redbird lovers….) and take part in this spectacle that is “Geek to the Core”.

There are various 16 things, 25 things, 40 things lists going about.  In general, someone produces a list then “tags” X number of friends through social networks and posts their list.  The tagged people are supposed to do their 16 things and tag other people including tagging back the person who tagged you.  I’ve been reluctant to play since someone has to break the chain, but I caved.  Here’s mine.  EDITED to bring the total to 25.

1.  I have two personalities that I work hard to blend in to one.  One is  my conscience and cowardice and one is my devious side, brash, dark and confidant.

2.  My last name isn’t really pronounced “miracle” but “Markle” or “Myracal”.  It traces back to 17th century Germany and is derived from “Merkle”.  But it was too hard in college to explain how to spell “markle” when its written “miracle”.  So starting with me and my kids, we are now officially the dreams of saint wannabe’s.

3.  I’m generally disorganized and lazy.

4.  I was born 16 years after my baby sister.  I have a nephew thats a mere 5 months younger than me.

5.  I’m a walking GPS.  Maxing the navigation score on the Air Force Officer Qualification Test should have told me something.  Who needs a Tom-Tom Go when you have a Rob-Rob Go?

6.  I love science.

7.  I don’t smoke.

8.  I pretty much love all sports, but I don’t get people’s fascination watching golf on TV.

9.  I have a passion to share what I know, which is why my job is about training and why I love coaching.

10.  I love puns.  I love to use puns.  This is probably why Monty Python and movies like Airplane are so high on my favorites list.

11.  I’m an admitted geek, but I try hard to not be nerdy.

12.  Related to #6, I’m also a Sci-Fi/Fantasy fan.  No, I don’t play dress up and I don’t go nuts collecting Star Wars toys, but I do love the genre.

13.  Related to #11 and #12, I still play Dungeons & Dragons.  Would you like to play a game?

14.  I lived in Key West, FL for 6 years developing online games.

15.  I’m a Kentucky farm boy.

16.  My favorite meal is pinto beans, cornbread and macaroni all mixed up.

And now for the 9 bonus entries to make the 25 things people happy….

17.  I’ve made my living as a photographer and I want to again.

18.  Related to #5, I went 38 years never being lost then I moved to Raleigh and that record went out the door.  Raleigh is a confusing place.

19.  I’m horrible with video.  I can’t shoot it, I can’t edit it.

20.  I was “Robbie” until about half way through college when I didn’t like my photo byline “Photo by Robbie Miracle” and shortened it to Rob.  Only my family and school buds still call me Robbie (and please don’t start).

21.  I’ve worked on just about every major variant of Unix through the years.

22.  I met my wife via a computer match for a college Halloween Dance.  We were not matched up, she was matched with a friend who couldn’t go, my match was a no show, we’ve been BFF’s since and that was 26 years ago.

23.  We got married 2 years to the minute after we met.

24.  My insistane to be precise with measurments, in particular time drives my wife crazy.  Example:  My son called and asked when we would be home.  I responded “In 97 seconds”.   She asked “Where did you pull that from?”  I said, thats how long it will take.  97 seconds later the truck came to a stop in our drive way.  I’m not sure what bothered her more, my geeky pull-a-number-out-of-my-ass statement or that I was right.

25.  Yea, I said ass.  I cuss like a sailor, but I also believe in being professional so most people will never hear me.  I would have loved to have gotten one of the NC WTFnnnn license plates before they realized what it meant and stopped them.

Geek Cuisine — Oh How I Hate “Fancy” Restaurants

I lied. I’m not the omni-geek. I realized that when it comes to food, I’m far from a geek. I like my food plain and boring. I’ve only been eating plain rice for not even a year and I’ve only started on mac-and-cheese in the past month and I’m 47.

I’ve been a picky eater since I was a child. My mother tried desperately as a child to get me to eat mashed potatoes. I didn’t start eating those until after she passed away several years ago. So needless to say, when I travel, eating can be a challenge.

For those that know me, know I’m rather roundish. I eat and I eat well. I love the foods that I do eat. Being picky is more of a fear to try new things. Its a fear of being embarrassed when you don’t like something and there is a frugal side that you don’t want to pay for something you may not like.

But I realized that part of my issue is growing up a Kentucky Farm Boy I never learned “Fancy”. I don’t know what a “reduction” is. What the hell is “poblano mashed potatoes” or a “tomatillo sauce”? I’m food-ignorant. Being “geek” in something means your passionate about it. Your good at trivia in the subject. You care enough to learn about it. But when it comes to fancy food, I’m stumped.

I joke that “If I can’t pronounce it, I won’t eat it”. But its really not a joke, I’m pretty sure that I won’t eat it.

So I sit in Tacoma, Washington and I’m here for 9 days. I’m staying downtown which means there is not an abundance of fast food in walking distance and what is usually isn’t open for dinner. There are also no “chain” locations like a nice Outback Steak House where I know I can find safety food.

Last night, I ventured out for what should be safe, “bar food”. I headed to the Harmon Brewery, a micro brewery and restaurant. This should be safe right? Not really. While I could pronounce most everything on the menu, most everything was loaded with food I know I don’t like (or am afraid to try. Why is there blue-cheese on everything?). It didn’t help that the beer was bitter and the “Sprite” was flat.

Well I went with safe and got a bacon cheddar burger (I only like cheddar and provolone cheese on things other than motz on pizza.). The claim this place has great hamburgers. It was just kinda blah as far as bacon cheddar burgers go.

So tonight, work went long, so I really didn’t want to drive around a lot, so I went to the restaurant in the same building as the hotel, called the Pacific Grill. This restaurant provides the room service for the hotel I’m staying at. I saw a lovely “Fish and Chips” safety food on the room service menu. So I decided to go down to the hotel restaurant and give it a try. I left without my coat since I expected to access it from the hotel. Nope. Its a completely separate business about a half a block down the street.

When I got there and saw the tables, I knew I was in trouble. Through the window, I saw the white cloth tablecloths. I saw the servers with white dress shirts and black ties. But I had my fish and chips…

I got in and even though I didn’t have reservations they found a table for me near the bar. The wait staff was excellent. But before I even saw the menu, I knew this was going to be pricy and “fancy” and they didn’t disappoint. Issue 1. There was no Fish & Chips on the menu, so I now had to find something else and just about everything was “designer” food.

Since the company is paying for this, I’m on a bit of a budget so I’m not going to abuse them by ordering a $40 Filet Mignon. So how about a nice chicken breast? “sauteed and stuffed with goat cheese, roasted poblano mashed potatoes, tomatillo sauce, and grilled acorn squash”. Perhaps you’re going “Yum” but I’m going “ick”. Goat cheese? Why cant they use a nice cheddar?

I ended up with the safest sounding thing on the menu — pork tenderloin. But it was to be served with braised red cabbage with pear, bacon and blue cheese and sweet potato fires (I’ve tried sweet potatoes. I know I don’t like them. Its a texture thing.). Blue cheese? That stuff is everywhere. So I got my tenderloin with just mashed potatoes. I knew that was even going to be an issue since they would probably be those “roasted poblano” things. What’s wrong with plain potatoes mashed with butter? Thats what I learned to eat 5 years ago.

While waiting for the meal, the waiter brought some bread to the table. It was a cold roll about the size of a computer mouse or a little smaller. I looked at the table and he had put a small plate with butter on it. The butter pad was the same size as the roll. I knew this was going to be a meal that was too much for what I got.

In a fairly timely manner, the meal showed up (I said the staff was good). There was the mashed potatoes, some cooked asparagus sticks and the tenderloins soaking in some cream colored sauce. The amount of food was decent, but it was clearly gourmet and that means me turning my nose up at it.

The potatoes where green and brown from whatever was mixed in them…. It must have been that roasted poblano. I tasted them and if I had to eat them I probably could, but it really wasn’t wetting my palette. You probably would have loved them. I didn’t even try the asparagus. I don’t eat it anyway and I really hate cooked vegetables anyway — slimy. Its a texture thing. So on to the pork.

This was not the expected “de-boned Pork Chop” but rather a port roast sliced into medallions that are around a half-dollar in size and about a half-centimeter thick and there were about 10 of them. I took the first one, an end piece, and scrapped as much of the sauce off of it as I could. It wasn’t bad actually. It was rather sweet but I was concerned about what the black, green and red “floaties” were in the sauce. I took the steak knife they provided, a very fancy looking knife and tried to cut the medallions into smaller bites. This steak knife tore the pork rather than cutting it. It was as sharp as the butter knife on the table. Fancy… who needs it.

By the end of the meal, I had finished the pork and I had stopped scraping the sauce off. It wasn’t bad. I ate about 5 bites of the potatoes and I got my check and headed out.

The meal wasn’t worth the $20 to me. I’m sure other patrons feel that its a good deal. I think I’ll order pizza tomorrow night.

“One point five Million”, “A sea of humanity”, “Love Fest”.  These are terms used to describe the turnout for the Inauguration of President Obama.  No one can deny the historic significance of this day.  150 years from now the denizens of this planet will read about this day and this presidency in the same way we read about Abraham Lincoln’s.   “Historic.”  We were all there to watch it either in the “sea of humanity”, a body so large it could be rendered in a satellite photo from space to the megapeeps watching it on TV.

*megapeep, gigapeep, kilopeep, tetrapeep and petrapeep and their derivatives are Copyright © 2009 Omnigeek Enterprises. All Rights Reserved. Patent Pending.

NOTE:  I sure hope I never have to use the term “petrapeep”. Thats a Million Billion People.  At 5 gigapeep’s the planet is well strained.  Thats a 5 billion peeps for the non-metric people.  You know you are…..

While listening to CNN, they described yesterday’s Inauguration as an “Obama Love Fest” after it was reported that given 1.5 megapeeps there was not a single arrest in the crowd.  Not one. Zilch, Zip, Zero.  That is freaking mind blowing.  That somehow not a single fight broke out among people packed like sardines.

Perhaps it was too early for anger. Perhaps people were too cold and they were huddled together like emperor penguins trying to stay warm in the blistering Antarctica winters.

But any way you cut it, that may be the most amazing story from the day.  Forget about Chief Justice Robert’s messing up the oath.  Forget about Katie Couric of CBS News claiming that John Biden was president for four minutes since the oath was administered late in a obvious lack of research. CNN was prepared for that instant, complete with graphics.

But what really amazed me wasn’t that the cell phone networks in DC collapsed under stress of people beaming their cell phone pix to twitpic or bumbling media heads, oh the cool technology (yea, I’m calling something from Microsoft “cool”) that CNN employed like Photosynth, or their Facebook feed or their specially ordered satellite photo.

No, what amazed me was the President’s first speech.  Of course there are dissenters.  I was originally going to challenge some of the dissenting articles, ones with titles like “Obama’s worst speech”.  But each of us is entitled to our opinion and I would be a hypocrite if I tried to deny someone their opinion.  So I’m going to instead talk about where the speech touched me.

One article said that the speech was not motivating.  For me it was.  Perhaps it wasn’t the 100% rhetoric seen in the President’s speech in the movie “Independence Day”, but the call to action and service touched home.

Service isn’t necessarily joining the peace corps or working a soup kitchen, it could be just lending a helping hand or random acts of kindness.  I’ve noticed that I’ve done things in the 24 hours since the speech that I may not have done before.  For instance I offered my ice scraper/snow brush to a total stranger who using a book to clear the snow from his car.  Today I helped the pilot and wheel chair attendant help someone up the jetway this morning without thinking about it.

The call to service, while only part of the speech is the kind of thing we need to hear.  We should not look at it as rhetoric but as a real truthful need. Its when we help each other that we can start moving forward again.  We as a people can no longer be the “Its all about me generation”.

Over the past eight years, I’ve felt that the administration didn’t want to be a friend to the world but rather be the kid in the school yard who takes their ball and goes home.  The President pledged to be a “friend to all”.  Peace can’t start if you are making people your enemy.  The whole concept of the “Axis of Evil” was nothing more than drawing a line in the sand and creating enemies.

Of course the President even had something just for us geeks.  It was a passing reference, cut he did pledge to bring science back to the forefront.  In my opinion, the Bush administration did not respect Science.  The staff was notorious for editorializing scientific reports to say what they wanted them to say rather than saying the truth for example.  Perhaps with the new transparency pledge, a president who understands technology, and a desire to bring the US back to #1 in the world in many areas, science will now be well funded and not be looked down upon or brushed under the table.

And being more transparent is already showing up.  The White House’s official website http://whitehouse.gov flipped the switch on the new site a few minutes before the swearing in.  People immediately started dissecting the new site.  The old site’s robots.txt file had over 2400 lines in it, many were mechanical – Google doesn’t need to index the cgi-bin folder.  But many were content that the administration did not want to get indexed.  The new site came up with a two line robots.txt.

And he’s going to keep the Blackberry.

For for this geek there was a lot of good news and that’s pretty amazing.

Its nine minutes until 10:00pm on a Friday night.  It may be the nine most antagonizing moments in a geek’s life.  That is because this Friday night is a very special night for geeks around the world.  For in seven minutes now, the final season of Battlestar Galactica will start with the season premier.  For many of us, we are currently watching the last episode of last season.

Its with baited breath that we wait for the beginning of the end of what may very well be the best drama on television that no one watches, except for us geeks.  Ten episodes remain to answer last seasons cliff-hanger and to answer questions that have been nurtured through the entire series.

Many of us grew up with the original series in the 70′s.  It was cheesy TV sci-fi.  The special effects were cutting edge for the time but they reused the same combat sequences over and over.  The characters were ones that we fell in love with.  But it was a show of lightly connected individual shows.  The characters, though we loved them, were shallow and perfect.

When the Sci-Fi Network announced the new series and we got a glimpse of what was to come, we saw a very edgy, updated series that trampled on several pieces of gospel from the original series. The prime example:  “What the frak?  Starbuck’s a girl?” blazoned forums and chat rooms.  It wasn’t just a remake of the one Character.  Major important plot lines were changed.  Cylons now existed in two models, the old tin can’s from the old series and new “Human” like models.

This change turned off a lot of purists, but for many we latched on to the new series with a passion.

Accepting change is hard for many people.  But many times change is good and for those who stayed with the show, they have found a true gem.

Unlike the ’70′s series, the characters in this show are complex and well thought out.  Almost all have major quirks or dark twists.  For instance, the character “Apollo” in the 70′s was a hot shot fighter pilot and an all around “Captain America”.  This version of “Apollo” is a guy name Lee, who’s fighter call-sign is “Apollo” and he’s one angry and torn character.

In addition to these great characters, the cinematography is edgy and as dark as the characters and plot twists.  It is shot in a fashion that has a very editorial / documentary feel to it which helps the viewer tie in to the show even strong.

But more importantly the story has and is intriguing.  Its a show you have to watch from the beginning.  The episodes are so intertwined its very hard to pick it up in the middle.  Luckily for those interested, DVD’s of the previous seasons exist.  There are only a hand full of episodes that stand alone.  The long term questions are not over played but carefully weaved into the short term situations the cast finds themselves.

The problem is this show is never going to be known by the masses.  Sure, its tucked away on the Sci-Fi channel, which most people don’t get unless they have digital cable, DirecTV or Dish, but the fact that its a sci-fi show is an instant reason to turn away.  Science scares people who don’t love it.  Add the fiction twist and its just too much for non-geeks to enjoy.  They will never know how great this series is.

In a way I’m glad that this has stayed on Sci-Fi.  Had NBC tried to bring it to network, we would have ended up with another “Bionic Woman” failure, where “Suits” would micro-manage the show to a total train wreck killing the wonderful freedom the directors have had in creating this dark, deadly, dreary darling of a show.

Battlestar Galactia is an expensive show to produce.  The cast, save a couple are not household names, is large.  There are dozens of main characters and dozens more in supporting roles.  The Special Effects, space scenes, variety of sets all have the feel of a big budget Hollywood production.  No wonder the show is coming to an end.  An expensive show on a station that few people watch can’t go on for ever.

So its with sadness that we know tonight starts the beginning of the end, but for the next 9 episodes now (the 1st show of the season is now over and all I’m going to say is “Wow”) we can loose ourselves in this show that is a much better drama than anything shown on the big 4 networks.  Yes, its better than CSI and better than Desperate Housewives but the masses will never know.

Or never care.

*Sigh*

I went on my walk today and while nearly a week has passed since I pondered the future of the earth worm. Well the sidewalk was clear. I can only assume it made it to its destination. I will never know if that destination was the other side of the sidewalk or dinner for the blue jays or someone’s shoe goo, but it made it. Somewhere….

I’m sitting in the family room, MacBook Pro on my lapboard, tweeting and plurking while I wait on gPartd to repartition the desktop in my office so I can install Windows 7 Beta.  Well we’ve got the Ravens-Titans game on the big screen and about 5 minutes to go in the game.  I’m a sports geek too.

I notice “Spaz”, my Twitter client of choice (http://funkatron.com/spaz) refresh and there was a tweet:  “Oh the Ravens won” from @wandren.  For just a brief moment, I was confused by this.  There was 5 minutes left.  Then it clicked.  I turned to my wife and said “We are not live, are we?”  She responded “No. Why?”.  I sighed.  “I know the outcome”.  We were not “Live” because we have a DVR or Digital Video Recorder.

DVR’s are one of the greatest things since sliced bread, but for me, my DirecTV High Definition DVR is a bane in my life. It’s setup to be able to watch one thing while recording another or record two things at once and its even cool enough to let me watch something already recorded while recording the other two things.

With three people in the house, I will frequently be watching something live when I get a notification that it has to change to another channel to record a program.  I check to see what’s recording and it will be something like “The Bachelor” for my wife and “Ultimate Fighting” for my son, neither of which I want to watch nor do I dare cancel one and face their wrath.  So much for finishing what I was watching…

The constant information stream that is Twitter (http://www.twitter.com) did a great job of informing me of what is happening but at the same time a great close football game that went down to the wire was waiting on me to watch, ignorant of its quantum placement, I was happy watching the delayed game.

My wife wanted to know the result. I told her and we ended up not watching the end of the game.  The battling technology of instant information vs. time shifting went head to head.  This time the instant information won.  We flipped over to the other game and the Carolina Panthers were driving down the field.

Spaz updates.  @nflscore says “NFL score update CAR 7 – ARI 0 (Q1 11:56)” and @RealtorLiz says “TOUCHDOWN #PANTHERS”.  I look at my wife.

“We’re not live, are we?”

Sigh.

A tale of an earth worm’s journey.

My daily lunch-time walk is an opportunity to clear my mind and try to think about nothing, a great chance for my eyes to see something other than multi-colored square pixels 18″ away and see things they do.

And on a quiet office park drive, things don’t change on a large scale.  Its the same curves, the same concrete, the same buildings and trees every day.  But things do change on micro level.  For instance, there are various flora along the way that drop things onto the street, things like broken twigs and berries.  A few wild animals like to leave their “sign”.  My encounter with nature requires that I look down a lot.

In the past, I’ve observed a very angry brown recluse spider who was contemplating biting me through my shoes.  Why he had such hate for me I will never know.  I’ve found several other things that make me think and ask questions like “Why is there a tube of toothpaste laying in the edge of this hedge row?” I even wonder if others notice and think about these things.

Today, I observed earth worms.

A recent rain had brought out several worms out of the ground to end up on the sidewalk where they eventually dried out and became crunchy morsels for the dive-bombing blue-jays.  Today the sidewalk was dry.  The wind was fairly brisk.  Yet a live earth worm, a red worm to be specific in fishin’ terms, was making a trek from its grassy home on the left side of the sidewalk to someplace else, perhaps to the right side.  It was clear that with the wind and the dry concrete and its angle of attack that it would not make it.  The worm was drying out quickly. It was already struggling and it was barely 8 inches away from the grass it departed from.

So I came to moral dilemma.  Do I relocate it?

How would I like for some giant creature from another universe reached down and picked me up and relocated me to another planet?  Yes, its just a worm, but who am I to decide what is right or wrong for this worm?  I wouldn’t want someone making that decision for me.  I’m not God.  I may claim omniscience, but I certainly do not claim to be all-powerful or allpresent.  I have no right to decide what’s right or wrong for this worm.

Those Star Trek fans will remember this as the major plot to Star Trek:Insurrection, a feature movie from 1998 (I’m sure its been the plots to other movies as well, but being a geek, Star Trek brings us most of our life lessons).

It was going to die.  Its life would no doubt be extinguished if I didn’t act.  The worm had no way of knowing what conditions lay ahead for it. Its a simple worm.  Its for the most part brainless, eyeless, slimy, spineless “worm”.  What should I do?  Why should I act?  So should I pick him up and move him?

I’ve gladly terminated the lives of hundreds of red worms and night crawlers in the past; feeding them to large mouth bass and blue gill: all for sport and occasional food without thinking about it And I will again with out thinking about it.

Why should this one be different?  I could scoop up some dirt, give it a nice home until I get a chance to go fishing again at which time I would decide when he died at my pleasure.  But why should I care if it died?  Its just more goo on the sidewalk that I have to avoid on my walk.

But today, the worm’s long and winding road was its to choose.  The sky was gray.  There was the possibility for more rain in which case, the worm might survive.  Sprinklers could kick on and give it the nourishment it needed to complete its journey, so if I interfered I could prevent it from reaching its goal.

I knew not its destination.  Any attempt for me to relocate the worm would interfere with its destiny; a destiny that I had no business interfering with.  When fishing, the worm’s destiny is as bait.  I wasn’t fishing today.

I let the worm go on its own journey.  I don’t know if it made it or not or if it will be something I have to avoid on my next walk.  It did rain later, so I can hope the worm made it to where it was heading.  Maybe it will grow to be a great lure for a crappie or a large mouth bass some day or it will have offspring that will continue to work the soil so our grass can grow scrubbing the air so we can breath.

So the dilemma: save its life so it could benefit us down the road, or not play God and let nature take its course.  I’ll never know if my decision was right or wrong:  Inaction verses action.

But it was its journey, not mine to dictate, so with that thought, I can live with my choice today.

However, I need to go fishing.