The Other End of Sunset

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Well, it's time to play catch up with David Cowan

Hi folks. It's me. Douglas. Remember me? No? Well, that's ok.

David Cowan started blogging relatively recently. (yeah, it's here, over at http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/). It's a good read, and a bit controversial. But inspiring. Or threatening. Anyway, it inspired me to blog publicly as well -- he's good at it. We'll see if I am.

David and I are on a Board together (Elemental Security -- http://elementalsecurity.com/index.html -- they are really smart, solving the right problem, and in general a great group). In a relatively recent post, he made fun of the place I work, and got all embarrassed when he saw me next. Dude, it's ok. But it got me thinking. Hmm, maybe I can make fun of myself, rather than outsourcing the duty to David!

Ok, let's see.

I am in India at the moment. It's a fascinating place. The Hyderabad airport has lots of employees. Every door has lots of people standing by it. They are all in pseudo-military uniforms. Doing nothing. And many of them have their hats (caps, whatever) folded up and stuck through their epaulettes. I spent a lot of time with US military people over the years (mostly when I was at RAND). I think we should have more hats-thru-epaulettes in the US.

And maybe fewer guns while we're at it.

Let's see, David blogs about Intelligent Design versus Evolution, and I'm talking about hats. Really, this has to get better.

Well, appropriate headwear is very important. One can trace the history of the world through headgear. I had dinner with some friends a few weeks ago, and Boll Weevils came up (I mean, really, don't you talk about parasites with creepy names at your dinners?) (You can read a discussion of BWs at http://entweb.clemson.edu/cuentres/cesheets/cotton/ce144.htm). Boll Weevils are fascinating. They had huge impact on the development of southern culture in this century. My dinner companions didn't agree that bugs are cool. In fact, one put his head down on the table and muttered "Great, now he's going to give us some long boring lecture on weevils."

So, in other words, not only is this blog boring, my dinner companions don't want to hear my thoughts either. Sigh.

BTW, Boll Weevils are socially important. Really. Go learn about them. And I won't have to bore you about them!

I have to go give a talk on our corporate culture now. So, this is it for the first posting. What did you think?