Cappy

Tomorrow I start a new job at AirTight Design, a web development and design company here in Atlanta. Here in Inman Park, actually, the community I live in. In fact, it’s right over there. Seriously, just around the corner, about 4 blocks away. See?

They seem like a really good group. I’ve met the 3 main guys, and will see the rest tomorrow. The office is a beautiful loft with those high ceilings I love so much and no walls within. I’m very excited. Not only about the work and the people, but also the fact that I’ll be making more money than I have in… ever.

There’s already a Chris there, so I’ve been encouraged to use an alias for inter-office purposes, but I’m not sure I’m ready to share the story of “Cappy.” Though it would be cool to see that printed on my checks… Any other possible pseudonym suggestions are requested.

I’ve loved working with Rich this last year, and I certainly couldn’t have landed a full time without the work and coaching he provided me. So I will definitely keep up with him as much I can… And we still need to take that trip to see Penn and Teller we talked about! This summer, Rich?

It is my hope to start taking night classes by next Spring at the latest, and work towards my English degree. Well, the degree itself isn’t really my impetus, but more the chance to become a better writer/copy editor.

Well, that’s pretty much it. You are officially caught up on my life.

Personal

But when it comes to evolution, many people are still as cognitively trapped as this mandrill is by his cage, comfortable and natural though it might seem. Some people look at primates and think that shared ancestry is a slur on mankind. But no fact changes an ever-present identity, and wonderment is not diluted when extended to facts at all scales of time and space. As Darwin so famously concluded, ‘There is grandeur in this view of life, . . . ; from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.’”

Emphasis mine. From Katie’s post on the Darwin Day Photo Contest.

UPDATE: That reminds me. I just ordered this awesome t-shirt. It’s a trifecta: it pokes fun at Che Guevara, promotes evolution, and has a funny picture of a monkey in a Cuban hat! Who could ask for more? I got this one too.

Ideas

I don’t believe that, if you wish it enough, things will work out the way you like. And hope, to me, is pretty useless when there is no evidence that you will achieve the thing you hope for. Especially when you are trying for something that has been proven as failed time and time again. There is nothing wrong with hope, but if it gives you a willingness to evade reality and ignore the proper path, then you’d best find something else to pull you along, like reason.

A while back malignant tumors were removed from my granddad’s gallbladder. A few months later he went in for a checkup, and more tumors had grown in their place. So we can say, without a doubt, that he has cancer, and that it’s bad, though containable. But my granddad has decided that from now on, he will shun conventional medicine in favor of homeopathy.

For those of you unaware, homeopathy is basically the creation of highly expensive tonics that contain substances which, in diluted form, cause symptoms similar to the disease they are supposed to treat. This, in theory, upsets the disease paradigm, or some such nonsense, and makes the bad things go away (it should be noted that the very nature of the treatment requires that the patient get worse before they get better, which is great for the doctors pushing this stuff). I would suggest reading the Wikipedia article on Homeopathy, as well as the corresponding references. It makes the case pretty clear that homeopathy is little more than a placebo. Taking the medicines would hardly harm someone. But rather, the patient becomes convinced that homeopathy will cure them, and traditional medicine is a route left untraveled.

Generally in such cases I would prepare my facts and take my argument to the loved one in question. But here’s the crux kids: my granddad is a homeopathic doctor. He sold his half of a profitably construction company in San Antonio several years ago to become one. There will be no conversion. I suppose all his family can do is voice their disapproval, and I will certainly do so.

I love my granddad, I really do. But there is no way, if the worst happens, that I could bring myself to mourn such a waste.

Random