The Land of Ozz

A passenger blogs about his experiences as a passenger on Alaska Airlines flight 536. This is the Alaska Airlines flight that did an emergency landing last week after depressurizing at 30 thousand feet. He has been bombarded with comments on his story. The most interesting comments are showing Alaska Airlines IP addresses as the Internet location of the visitors. You can read more about this part of the story here.

Other interesting facts are that this passenger/blogger is a general aviation pilot and used his Treo 650 to take pictures during the emergency.

Virtual reality helps diagnose heart defects by ZDNet’s Roland Piquepaille — Dutch doctors are using a virtual reality system to visualize the heart in three dimensions and detect if it is healthy or not. In a pilot study, ten doctors were able to move around virtual three-dimensional animated images or ‘holograms’ of the heart and to make correct diagnosis after a ten-minute training.

It sounds like a pretty good deal, but how does it compare to current methods of diagnosing heart defects? A standard ultrasound being performed by a technician (not a doctor) found the defect in my son Caden’s heart while my wife was less than five months pregnant. The diagnosis of his Interrupted Aortic Arch (IAA) type B with a ventricular septal defect (VSD) was confirmed with a standard fetal echo cardiogram on July 29, 2004 more than four months prior to Caden’s due date.

The new Treo 700w has been released by Palm and Verizon Wireless. A story by PC Magazine has some pretty good coverage on the subject even though there is a difference between what the article states and what Verizon’s site shows for basic specifications. The big improvements that the Treo 700w is reported to deliver over the Treo 650 are the ability to use the phone to connect your laptop to the Internet using the EV-DO technology, the improved camera resolution, and the ability to access wi-fi (802.11b) networks using an expansion card in the SD slot. The wi-fi SD card is available on the Palm web site for $99. The Treo 700w is also reported to run Microsoft® Windows Mobile 5.0. I will hold my praises on that change until I can get my hands on one of these puppies.

Update: It looks like La Shawn Barber has been waiting on the Treo 700w after being a dedicated Treo 600 user for over a year. I look forward to hearing what she has to say about the new Treo 700.

I want to ski the powder of the Rocky Mountains for the first time in ten years. I skied most of the major ski resorts of Colorado in the late 80s and 90s. I found an old lift ticket in a ski jacket during my recent trip to Alaska. That lift ticket was from my last visit to Vail back in the mid 90s. Seeing that lift ticket made me long for another day in the Rocky Mountains. The Winters in Wyoming and Colorado are what I have missed most since moving back to South Carolina. I have been back to Colorado a couple of times in the last few years, but I have not been able to ski during those visits.

One of my favorite towns in the whole world is Steamboat Springs, CO home of “Ski Town U.S.A.”. Steamboat is a great town in heart of the Rocky Mountains. The town is rich in Western history and has some of the best ski condition I have ever experienced.

Bloggers must consider their potential audience before clicking the publish button because you never know who is going to read your blog post or where they are going to be coming from when they read it. I recently commented on a blog where the J-Walk blogger (aka: John Walkenbach) had posted an “Interview with Jesus”. I thought the posting was a little funny and did show Jesus in a positive light as J-Walk said when responding to my comment. The problem I had with the story was that it was complete fiction and J-Walk never (in the post) acknowledged that fact. J-Walk stood pretty firm against my suggestion for a disclaimer. There was some more direct criticism from other folks leaving more than 70 total comments as of today. J-Walk and some of his faithful followers basically argued that those who know John, know better than to take him serious. The problem is that not everyone who visits a blog is knowledgeable of the blogger’s humor and they may not stick around long enough to learn more about the blogger behind the story.

I was not referring to those who know think they know him better in my comments. Here is part of my other comment on J-Walk’s blog.

“It was not offensive to me, but as you can tell by my original comment I do think a disclaimer might have been in order for this post. You and I alike get much of our traffic from search engine results that land folks from all over the planet directly in individual postings. A unique visitor might leave this article and never know whether you were serious our not depending on how little knowledge of Jesus the person has. There are, to say the least, a few people on this planet who have never heard of Jesus and you might just be the one who introduces Jesus to one of those people for the first time…”

One other visitor took issue with my suggestion by commenting, “Someone surfing the web - reading J-Walk, no less - who has never heard of Jesus??? Like some aborigine with broadband somewhere?” Well, actually that question hit the nail on the head.

The story behind my comments on J-Walk’s blog are from something that Pastor Rick Warren (Best know for his book “The Purpose Driven Life”) shared during his visit to Charleston, SC in November 2005. Pastor Rick told of a village pastor that he met in, I believe it was Africa. The village pastor walked more than an hour one-way to the nearest post office where there was a computer that he could use to listen to Pastor Rick’s sermons over the Internet. The village pastor would then teach the same lesson to his members each week. If a pastor walks an hour one-way to a post office to surf the net then it makes perfect sense to me that other people may be doing the same thing, including those who have never heard of Jesus.

I guess you have to be concerned about whether you might wrongly influence someone about something that is important to you for this story to mean anything to you. As for J-Walk himself, who knows where he really stands on any subject. He jokes about most everything. I have spent an hour or two looking over his site and I can not figure out what he really stands for when it comes to Jesus. J-Walk does say:

“I realize that this blog post won’t change the mind of a single person who reads it. And I fully expect to read comments that attempt to set me straight by quoting from the Bible. But rest assured. I will continue to ridicule religion every chance I get. Sorry, but that’s how God created me.” (Source)

At least he acknowledges that God created him. His about page points to a faked CNN.com article that says “Walkenbach is a devout Catholic”. Then the sentence goes on to say, ” and watches Mass on TV every Sunday.” More jokes? Who knows, but the point is that he writes about Jesus without really taking an open stand on the subject himself. I stand on my original comment on his blog concerning the “Interview with Jesus” except I want to say that I can see how the story could offend someone. Here is what I originally said on his blog:

Jesus happens to be a friend of mine. I spoke to him this morning. I have learned from speaking with him that he never actually accepted your interview invitation and that this entire story should only be considered for its entertainment value.

Did I actually speak with Jesus? Yes. Did he speak back, literally? No. The bottom line is that if you are serious, say you are serious. If you are joking, then say your joking or at least tag the post humor.

A college student in the UK has made one million dollars in under six months selling pixels. He has been selling pixels for a dollar each since August. The MillionDollarHomePage.com web site says there are only 1000 pixels left to sell as seen in the image below.

Those 1000 pixels are as good as gone unless you have at least $21,400. That is what the current bid is on eBay.co.uk for the final 1000 pixels. The auction is scheduled to end on Jan. 11.

The owner of the Million Dollar Homepage says he started the project to raise money to help pay for college. When asked if he is worried about copycats he says, “Not at all. It is bound to happen…” And it already has happened. There are at least two sites using a similar idea. Pixel4Jesus.com has sold over 130,000 pixels in less than two months. It looks like Ads4Jesus.com is rasing money for somethng other than college expenses.

New Year’s celebrations with your family are the best. They are even better when you spend the evening in the comfort of your own home.

This was the New Year’s celebration scene one year ago tonight at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Caden and I spent the night partying with the nurses on 7C. We did not know it at the time of this picture, but Caden was spending his last night in the hospital. Caden had been hospitalized since birth. By the grace of God alone, Caden had endured a very complex open-heart surgery, a re-opening of his chest, an abdominal surgery, and what seemed like a hundred blood transfusions and tests. He probably got more radiation from his daily chest x-rays than all the radiation I got in six years of working on nuclear weapons.

Photo by: Davis Pictures

Here is what Caden looks like now on a typical day in the house of Ozz. He and his Big Brother Riley play and have fun just like we dreamed of before Caden’s birth. Riley loves his brother and does an awesome job of taking care of him.

Tonight was a great celebration. Sherry and I took turns working on our dough for the pizza party we are having later today. We are going to grill pizza and hang out with some friends. Yes, it should be comfortable grilling weather this afternoon in the Charleston area as we expect mid to high 60s today. Where else can you grill anything on New Year’s Day?