alisawilhelm.com/blog » 2006

Playing Around With My New A100

Photography — alisa on September 29, 2006 at 8:06 am

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National Debt in Perspective

Crumbs — alisa on September 19, 2006 at 11:49 am

One of the problems in trying to comprehend federal spending is that the units involved–billions of dollars–are so large as to be almost meaningless to many citizens. To visualize what a billion dollars means, imagine that some organization had been spending a thousand dollars a day every day since the birth of Christ. They would not yet have spent a billion dollars. In the year 2000 they would still be more than 250 million dollars short of one billion dollars. Government agencies of course spend not one but many billions of dollars annually. HEW alone spends about 82 billion dollars annually. To get a figure comparable to what the entire federal government spends annually, change the one thousand dollars per day to half a million dollars per day, every day since the birth of Christ. At the end of two thousand years the grand total would amount to less than three quarters of what the federal government spent in 1978 alone.

–Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions, p. 306

That’s a lot of money. And to think that the National Debt is 8 trillion dollars right now.

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Through the Viewfinder Photoset

Photography — alisa on September 16, 2006 at 4:21 pm

This photoset was taken Through the Viewfinder of another camera. I used the viewfinder of a Canon Z155 for these photos. I also used an Imperial Mark 27, but those pictures didn’t turn out so well.

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The Stroke Judge Who is Just Pretending

Arizona, Swimming — alisa on September 14, 2006 at 8:36 pm

This high school swimming season we’ve had a stroke judge at our home meets. This is a little abnormal for us, considering we haven’t had a stroke judge for the past couple years. No one knows anything about this man except that he is narcoleptic, and he used to be the principal of the high school.

Having a stroke judge is usually a good thing, because it stops people from cheating on starts and turns (and etc). Having a narcoleptic stroke judge is a different matter altogether.

Not only did he randomly fall asleep, but when he was awake the only thing he did was threaten to disqualify swimmers based on how close their team mates stood to the edge of the pool.

When I was counting someone’s 500, Antonio volunteered to replace me half-way through (I had to race immediately afterwards). The stroke judge hobbled over (he uses a cane) and started hitting Antonio with his cane.

Antonio: [winces a little] Yes?

Judge: Young man, if you don’t want your team mate to be disqualified, I suggest you go stand somewhere else.

A: But I’m replacing Alisa so that she can go get ready for her race.

J: He who starts the counting must finish the counting.

A: Whaa?

J: How long have you been swimming?

A: Uh, about two years or so…

J: Then you should know better. Get along.

Poor Antonio was by now very upset. I told him to go tell Coach Jack. Jack’s response?

“Don’t worry about it. Look, he’s asleep again! This means that you can start your leg of the relay a little early.”