Found this article on Ars. This guy dropped his digital camera in a pond and it takes the most surreal beautiful pictures now. You have to see them.

My DAD ran and finished in the LA Marathon this weekend. Way to go POP! Bulletpoints I watched the very beginning, including the Kenyan team warming up, which was impressive. I was scanning 23,000 faces trying to see my dad. It was trance inducing. My mom hugging my dad saying "You did it honey" Kissing my dad on the head at mile 18 and tasting the sweat on my lips as I drove to the finish line to meet him. At mile 18 (where i moved to after the start so I could give my dad some encouragement) I watched literally 1000's of people move by me in varying degrees of pain. These are people that aren't going to win, that had already been decided. But I was completely overwhelmed by the feeling of determination I was getting from this stream of humanity. Each person slogging on with some dream pushing them. Man, I was moved. Still am.

Ars-technica has a link up today to a bunch of recipes gathered from it's geek membership. With titles like Velveeta chicken and Dorito soup, they HAVE to be good.

Found this great site on the Eastern Mojave desert.

Wow this sucks

Here is Urda

And another link for Kayliena

Some links to friends Everquest characters (until i can make a permanent link) Eryck Dirkafindel Duurk

Who else loves westerns?

Wow, this cool set of links I found on the KCET website is to local arts and culture.

PBS is showing a Mark Twain Biography tonight. I may actually have to have someone tape this one for me.

This was some interesting art Buck turned me on to.

Hey folks since this is the giving season I thought I would remind you that i have a paypal account (ericmilliken@earthlink.net). Feel free to give generously to this needy cause. ;-)

Found this on Ars today, an article with the head of the Mars Society.

Today Connor would have been three.

A Time photo essay focusing on the women of Kabul.

If you guys get a chance check out the following e-stores i set up: Another Milliken Production Logo Xmas watercolor 1 Xmax watercolor 2

I opened up a virtual store for some of Adrienne's items. i only have a couple of things up, but i want to grow it. Let me know what you think, and by all means order something :)

i enjoyed this article on a relatively new form of anti cancer drugs. specifically, how they are creating some of these things is like science fiction

Autumn is here... I have posted a couple new pictures of Conrad and a second part to the poem Adrienne wrote about Connor. Oh, and I bought a truckload of Christmas lights today so the neighbors don't egg our house (although the egg might help our paint job...sheesh)

I found a cool everything you wanted to know about math type of site.

Wired pointed me at this site by and Afghan expatriate. It includes articles by Afghani's, art, poetry, etc... Good Stuff. While politics is frequently filled with lies and people pushing particular positions, I find the art, poetry, and music to be a much more personal perspective and one that frequently makes it impossible to hate.

Flea has a short story up that just cracked me up. Also check the status and excerpts from her novel writing madness.

Got this website from Ed. People are hiding treasures all over the place with GPS coordinates so you can use your handy GPS unit to find them. 91016 had 323 hits. Tempting...

{i've decided to avoid using caps for a while. i figure in my line of work, postponing repetitive hand injuries is prudent} flea turned me on to this poem today by anne bradstreet. last night while eating adrienne's lastest art piece [she rather quaintly refers to it as dinner, but i know better.], i started thinking about the creative process. see, one of the things that drew me to adrienne was the way she seems to be in touch with an inner light that i have always associated with creative people. everything she ,and these, people do is infused with this light. it smells better, looks better, and feels better. i stand mostly in awe. but i stand close hoping to find the secret. it occured to me last night and more this morning in my discussion with flea, that magic, inner light, and troubled boiling cauldrons actually have little to do with the process. it's more fleshy/sweaty/real than that. for me its more about dealing with self doubt. it's probably no good, no-one cares, people won't like me. sheesh. what do you think?

We found this guy trying to auction some of our rivets on Ebay today. Of course it's illegal and they were sold to the government, so I forwarded it to the legal people. So if you want to see them look quickly they may not be there long.

This little program takes your name and asks you some questions. It then tells you what your viking name should be be. Thanks Buck.

Yeah! We have another satellite circling Mars. 1 step closer to a manned mission.

I had never heard of Dave Hickey. Hmmmm. Now i have and I'm going to keep an ear out for the name.

Buck forwarded this comic strip to me today. Politcal humor with a blue streak. You were warned.

Another good article today. This one the text of a speech.

It's this kind of article on the Saudi monarchy that keeps me convinced I really have no idea what is going on in the upper echelon of politics.

Adrienne, Conrad and I went to an opening of a single man show for Steve Huston thanks to the tip from the Zucco crew (next door neighbor). I enjoyed the work. Especially a large one of a guy in a field with giant yellow billowing clouds behind him.

The Journal of American Medical Association has a bunch of articles posted on 5 different bioterrorism agents: Anthrax Smallpox Plague Boutlinum Toxin Tularemia Unpleasant reading, but EXTREMELY informative. I haven't been able to read all the way through them (they are LONG)

ok...those guys at the pentagon are comedians...I'm going to try to collect funny things they say. here are the first two. Donald Rumsfield: we're not running out of targets. the taliban is running out of targets.

Saw this today on MSNBC. About how eye contact stimulates the same portion of the brain as rewards. Make sure you look people in the eye to get your fix.

Hey Steve B.'s website. I've got it. Here

Buck pointed me at this site. Free Lunch I think I'm going to subscribe

Adrienne asked me to post this to the poetry page: The warm weight of you but growing cool head turned away eyes shut tight against this life (what color were they?) delicate skull curved and sculpted proud holding you smelling your sweet hair like peaches your fist curled tight holding our future is now a starfish open and unmoving on my breast they come to take you away

This article appeared in the September Wired Magazine written by William Gibson. He still speaks to me...in it he revisits Tokyo post bubble.

100 Afghan Proverbs

Ok...so I'm having a hard time caring about all this stuff lately...call it depression...I don't really care (heh). Here is a page put up by Wired that has some background on Afghanistan. I've taken to visiting this site every once in a while just to relax...and found this one following links.

This solution to the Bin Laden problem from my boss: If we kill him we make a martyr, if we capture him we encourage them to take hostages, so... We capture him, fly him to John Hopkins, get him a sex change operation, dress him in traditional Taliban female garb and put him back in Afghanistan. What do you think?

This is my favorite graphic so far, and I've seen a bunch.

Dirk forwarded this piece of work to me. It a lego movie of the Knights of the Roundtable scene from Monty Python's The Holy Grail. You have to see it. You may have to setup your player to make it work.

Hey folks the industrious Buck, Pasadena's Enigma, is serving up a daily dose of news on his site Boomtown. Check it out. Also he's got some articles up on hockey! Also some links to his band. HERE and and an enlargement of the pic HERE. The other gentlemen is Dan Leroy.

Joe sent me this link to the CIA site listing Afghanistan...

An appropriate quote I ran across yesterday from John Donne: No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

Amazon has set up a link to make donations to the Red Cross easy. It's a way to do something for our brothers and sisters in New York.

Guy sent me the text of this article and I found it on the Miami Herald website.

I got this today from Guy and posted it to our Haiku page. If you have anything you would like me to add send it to me. It doesn't have to be haiku, it does have to be some kind of poetry though. Let's start the healing process... Debris, smoke, bodies. Symbols of power destroyed. Tears well in my eyes.

anger, sadness, disbelief, rage, frustration, revenge... This photo was taken today by a friend of Ed's, Somsara Rielly who lives close to what was the World Trade Center.

Okay...I started this a while ago with the prodding of Joe and have had a couple of submissions from a few hearty souls. It's our attempt at some Haiku. Please if you want to have me post something, send me an E-mail and I'll show you how it is done. And only constructive criticism please. I can't vouch for the others, but I have a fragile ego.

Check out these swinging "youthful" pictures of my parents. I love these!

Okay! I got some pictures up from the birthday bash this weekend. Check em...

For those of you into this sort of thing the LA Kings schedule can be found in here.

Hey everyone! Thanks for making Conrad's 1st birthday such a success. We had a great time! I'll probably be posting pictures all week of the festivities. If you have any good pictures send me copies so I can share them with the masses.

This is horrible...the struggle for basic human decency continues...'nuff said

Poor Kermit. Before Conrad came into our home, he was the baby and afforded all the associated privileges. Alas no more...

Ah the turtle cat in all her splendor...

Okay...so...there are a bunch of new Conrad pictures up so stop your belly-aching...I do realize that he is earth-shatteringly beautiful...but please...it's embarrassing.

Heh...i'd pay to see this show. This guy can make a 300 foot inverted tornado that he then lights on fire. The tail whips around at over 300 MPH. Did I mention it was on fire?. Yep. I'd pay to see that.

Got this from Joe today. Check out this title: Video Game Character Wondering Why Heartless God Always Chooses 'Continue'. From the Onion of course.

Thought about this poem the other day when I was AIMing Flea. I love the first part of this poem. The Second Coming W.B. Yeats....

Okay. i updated our web site to include the two webcams I set up. One in my office at one at home. Use the buttons on the left to find them...

I took a wonderful hike this weekend up the falls in Monrovia Canyon with Conrad strapped to my chest. It was his first waterfall experience. He was underwhelmed but enjoyed the canyon nonetheless. He even slept on the way back down, obviously exhausted.

I apologize for the silence. I've been less than motivated.

A couple of things today. Joe let me know the name of the author of the Easy Rawlins mysteries...Walter Mosley. And these links from Ed. Movies created using the Quake II game engine...another one And for us Danny Elfman fans...this.

Heard this work by T.S. Eliot referenced this morning on Morning Edition (NPR) by the author of the Easy Rawlins mysteries (Mosley I think). I like this kind of stuff. In Joe's words "No one does the epic poem anymore". I figure people probably do, they just can't be heard above the din.

Flea pointed me to this place online where you can order California Native Wildflowers in bulk. Cool...so if you want to plant some of the local color pick some up, or if you live somewhere else and miss California, pick some up, or you want to introduce some non-native plants where you live...pick some up. Larner Seeds

Mornin'...Jim sent me this link yesterday. I'm not exactly sure if it is a joke or not. I'll let you be the judge. But at any rate it is an interesting perspective and well I had to pass it along, because....well just read it and you'll understand. It's about Memetics. If this concept is intriguing I recommend a book by Neal Stephenson called Snowcrash that is about a thought virus.

I you have ever wondered in to your systems BIOS setup and wondered what all those options meant, here is a series of pages that do a pretty good job of explaining what they are.

Joe sent me this link of the world from space at night...I LOVE these pictures. One of my favorite things growing up was the maps in the National Geographic...

A couple of things today...an article on Salon pointed me to a couple of sites I had heard of but hadn't taken the time to go see. Unfortunately they are on semi-permanent hiatus due to financing problems. Feed and Suck. I enjoyed looking through them. Also the sister site Plastic still appears vibrant.

Kubla Kahn is one of my favorite poems by S.T. Coleridge. Thought about it today and BAM! found it on the web...enjoy...

I'll never forget the scene in Zorba the Greek when the lead says to Anthony Quinn "ZORBA! Teach me to dance". For me it goes to the root of my relationship with Adrienne. ADRIENNE! Teach me to dance (and so she does). Anthony Quinn died over the weekend.

I stumbled across the entire script to Monty Python's The Holy Grail, while looking for something completely different, which is appropriate.

ARRRGGHH...ok how many of you spent a good portion of their high school/college beach days at Huntington. I know I did...well...you know that marsh just inland? The manmade one designed to provide wildlife habitat...it turns out that it is a HUGE fecal bacteria plant that routinely pumped levels of the bacteria to 1000's of times the legal limit in the waters at Huntington Beach...so when you got that mouthful of sea-water......damn that's nasty. Here's the whole article.

Wired swept up this cool article on smart dust. Nanotech rules!

For you home automation freaks. Joe sent me this link. I wish I had more free time...

Ran across this article on CNN that pushed me to this website. If you are worried about the data collected about you while you are surfing the web. This page gives you the option of turning off the tracking of many of the major profilers. Now I don't know how effective this is and it is done by the use of cookies. I completed the form and had to go to about half the advertisers sites to complete the "OPT OUT" process on their individual sites. If you are concerned about privacy this is one step you can take to protect it. Oh, and you will ave to do this on every machine you use to surf the net.

Some other notes. Two new signs on Myrtle Avenue in downtown Monrovia. "The Coldstone Creamery" a wonderful ice cream store and the "Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf" - good for you coffee and tea people. Also at the parade last weekend I noticed several signs that said "Welcome Krispy Kreme" on the corner of Myrtle and Lime. :-) I'm not sure I like the idea of having a Krispy Kreme " this close to my house.

This is a long post from Monrovia's website... Monrovia's Samson the Bear Put Down at Orange County Zoo Samson, the hot tub-loving bear, who became famous when his life was spared after capture in a Monrovia neighborhood in 1994, has been euthanized by the Orange County Zoo where he had lived a pampered life for the past several years. Samson was old and sick when he was captured. His advanced age, six years later, led to his being put down. "Samson was a wonderful symbol of exactly why we are working so hard to save our last remaining hillside wilderness," said Monrovia Mayor Lara Blakely. "Our bears, deer, foxes and other wildlife enrich our lives, and they deserve to live here safely and fully." Monrovia is working to buy up the last few hundred acres of developable hillside land to set aside as a wilderness preserve. Its residents have taxed themselves $10 million to help make it happen. "Samson helped raise the environmental awareness of our community," Mayor Blakely continued. "It is fitting that we are now dedicating ourselves to making those hills safe and secure for other Samsons who call them home." Samson had roamed the hills above Monrovia's northernmost neighborhoods for years, and was no stranger to residents there - rummaging through their garbage cans, feasting on fruit off their trees and taking occasional dips in their swimming pools and hot tubs. Video tape of Samson in just such a tub became well-known nationally, along with the story of his capture and reprieve. Samson had done some garbage-can feasting and hot-tub dipping one evening in September, 1994, but became seriously ill after ingesting a plastic trash bag. He was trapped by the California Department of Fish and Game, but deemed un-releasable because of his age, worn-down teeth and his affinity for human habitat. He was slated for euthanasia. An all-out effort by Monrovia to save Sampson, led by Mr. and Mrs. Gary Potter who had shot the now-famous hot tub video tape, resulted in then-Governor Pete Wilson ordering that the bear's life be spared. Orange County Zoo stepped forward at that point and offered Samson a home. He moved into the zoo in 1996. For the past year, Samson's home has been featured on the zoo's internet site, with a camera trained on his habitat during daylight hours. Samson's story was carried world-wide by the BBC shortly after its national exposure. Samson the Bear dolls, tee shirts and hats have appeared in Monrovia from time to time since 1994, and a book, "Samson the Hot Tub Bear," was published by author Wendy Tokuda. Since news of his death began circulating in Monrovia, residents have called City Hall to suggest tributes to the bear - a statue in one of the city parks, for instance, or a Samson the Bear Day declaration. I personally like the idea of a statue to Samson in Monrovia Library Park

Ed sent me this info on the LA to Pasadena (and ultimately including Monrovia) Blue line.

this is a really cool flash site...warning...this will be demanding on your computer...yugop

Can anyone possibly doubt that hot and spicy cheez-its are divinely inspired?

also added some new pictures to Conrad's page if you are following his growth...

I have update the hockey stats for the Spring season....we kicked everyone's butts except in the playoffs....but you know that. Guess who the goon was?

ok so I have been neglectful lately...we'll see if i can turn it around

This is a blurb about a new movie based on a Nabakov book. I'm not sure if they are advertising it on TV (since I don't watch it). But I'm willing to see the movie just based on the experience of reading Lolita. Here is a guy who learned how to speak English as an adult (I think). Humbling...

I got this site sent to me by one of my co-workers. It's a stick figure fight scene.

Ok...this kind of scared me...apparently there are active female hormones in most sunscreens...

Ok...earth day is coming...in the act locally frame of mind...here is a link of alternatives to commercial cleaning products...

Here are a couple of sites that I don't think I've ever linked to here but are interesting: This one is one I just found that ranks corporations based on their intellectual property (determined by patents) And this one is a great site that debunks pseudo-science and...well...general wackiness

Joey Ramone is no more...lymphoma has taken a punk idol...

Here are some videos from the recent Mars launch. What is cool about these is they are taken from a camera mounted on the Delta II rocket. I could only get the Quicktime links to work. I hate real...

This toaster "prints" the weather forecast on your toast. This is exactly what I need...

...sigh...

Does the current situation with the Chinese bother anyone else? How do cold war scenarios begin? Are you feeling the jingoistic tingle? If you are see the post below... Anyway, am I just paranoid? What do you think would happen if we sold the military items to Taiwan and China invaded and took over Taiwan? AARRGGG! Do you remember air raid drills? China is a nuclear power...

As a post feminist male (what does that mean? not sure but it sounds cool), I have spent much of my life pounding "Male" characteristics like aggressiveness and competition into submission, well, this is a contrarian article that makes me feel better about my rampant checking in our hockey league...heh..."take that you sunofabitch, skate better than me? not while sitting on the concrete" wooohooo...feel the testosterone flow baby!