Not only is today Towel Day in honor of Douglas Adams, but also today Memorial Day honors fallen Americans. May 25, always marks the international recognition of the collective works of English writer Douglas Adams. Today Towel Day happens to align with Memorial Day a holiday that occurs yearly on the last Monday of the month of May. The recognition of Memorial Day does not conflict with remembering the collective works of Douglas Adams. Americans are multitalented and fully capable of multitasking. Douglas Adams demonstrated a degree of creativity combined with science fiction that captured readers throughout the world. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (HHGTTG) provides a pitch perfect snapshot of how imagination and prose can combine to demonstrate a world beyond convention.

This post is a placeholder for testing design elemetns…

Panoramic photography looking out over Colorado Springs from the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Will Rogers Shrine View

Garden of the Gods Panoramic Photograph

Garden of the Gods Panoramic

Something has fundamentally changed since September 11, 2001. The need for accurate and timely information suddenly became very real. Everyday people throughout the United States compulsively check online news sources. What is happening? Why is it happening? What is going to happen? National politics suddenly became very real. Constantly knowing what is going on requires individuals to make an effort to understand the world. Side effects exist within the news media industrial complex from people constantly probing news sources for accurate and timely information. Members of the media industrial complex are only beginning to understand how the publics demand for information is changing. Newspapers, magazines, and other publications are inherently behind the schedule demanded by the public. Conscientious consumers of information demand a higher standard of communication from the media industrial complex.

Nels has elected to organize previous weblog entries into a smaller number of categories. As a result of the reorganization process, each of the new categories now holds a large number of loosely related weblog entries. Unfortunately, during the database transition from Movable Type to Word Press a large number of weblog entries were randomly truncated. This problem will probably be corrected at some point, but the online archive could remain incomplete indefinitely. The older weblog entry formatting issue may be related to the database truncation problem. Rest assured, the weblog will eventually function at the highest possible level an interactive online archive possibly can function.

In honor of the wild and exciting April 15, 2009 tax day events, Nels will be enjoying a purchase of six tacos to celebrate. How did tax day start? The day started out with early morning preparations for trash pickup from a private company on tax day April 15, 2009. Taxes are always occurring. Everyday taxes paid by individuals include house, car, electricity, natural gas, water, satellite dish, phone, and internet service. All of these taxes occur perpetually and private companies administer them monthly on behalf of the government. These privately administered taxes occur outside the income taxes requested by the United States Federal Government and the States on April 15, 2009. Every American citizen should take the time to build a list of taxes paid throughout the year. The effective tax rate includes more than just the personal income tax. People are slowly starting to understand the real rate of taxation in the United States. The discrete and separate nature of taxation obfuscates the effective rates. People use personal accounting software and written book keeping. Personal accounting methods generally account for goods and services without separating the taxation from the goods and services.

Earth hour required turning off all of the electricity powered devices except appliances. Nels missed both the internet and television tremendously. The World Wildlife Foundation sponsors and supports Earth Hour. Earth Hour occurs on the last Saturday of March at approximately 8:30 PM. Global participation in this event creates the opportunity for a shared common experience. Anyone had the opportunity to participate in the Earth Hour event. Residents of Colorado frequently share the common experience of significant power outages. Without question, having access to the internet is convenient. For some individuals, having access to the internet becomes addictive. The difficult part of Earth Hour involved knowing access to the internet is possible, but forgoing that access. Perhaps the effect of a globally shared experience will make a difference. A large number of people probably contemplated purchasing a backup power generator.

Over the last few days, using half a dozen tanks of gasoline, and taking way too many trips in and out of a third floor apartment I can now say moving day is complete. Generally, the house looks nice and everything seems to be in working order. Without having access to waste disposal services, I feel that unpacking is out of the question. During the next few days, blogging will be light if blogging occurs at all. Internet access is going to be shaky at best during the trip to Wichita, Kansas.

If you happen to be a fan of the amazing Asian Elephant, then you might want to check out Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) at the Zoological Gardens. Torsten from Germany and Jonas from France have put together a very large collection of Asian Elephant photographs.

If you have a chance before Thursday June 20, 2006 to go vote in the Shoot the Rock’s Commercial Contest, then make sure to vote for Bryan’s #201 video.

Apparently, Andy has become a huge fan if not advocate of the Vancouver Island Marmot Recovery Foundation. Stuffed Animal House out of Langley British Columbia has designed a plush replica Marmot that is currently available for purchase by donating 19.95 Canadian to the Vancouver Island Marmot Recovery Foundation. Andy is truly a friend of the Marmot Recovery Foundation. Today a plush replica marmot arrived thanks to Andy’s somewhat overbearing philanthropic exuberance.

Marmot Recovery Foundation

Originally uploaded by nelslindahl.

For the first time in a long time the database is not working properly if you see any kind of error please report it so the problem can be fixed.

Thanks to a new edition of Movable Type and some additional modifications, the functional journal now supports commenting again for the first time in almost a month. Over the years most readers do not comment, some send emails, and others simply post responses on other venues. Andy says that the comment moderation stifles free speech and is an authoritarian attempt at control; of course, this is true to some degree as a draconian response to the evil that lurks in the darkness on the internet. In any event, with a little moderation, some additional software, and a renewed sense of confidence in the power of software to defeat evil.

Due to a recent comment spammer infestation that has resulted in thousands of terrible and obscene comments being left with a caustic and abusive intent that is despicable a commenting moratorium has been issued by management. For the first time since 1997, this weblog will be without some type of mechanism for reader interaction. Please take the time to send an email nels (at) nelslindahl (dot) net or com if you would like to comment on something that you have read. Perhaps the commenting moratorium will provide enough motivation for completion of a new user authentication script that does not require membership or remembering a complex set of passwords.

I am sorry to announce that while the idea is solid, and it was working it does not work right now. I still have the code up and if you know how to fix it then I will build a shrine to your wisdom. Mr. Borys suggested that I write a little JavaScript that would confuse the bots that wander around the internet like a pack of ravenous dogs treating weblogs like virtual fire hydrants. Therefore, I have finished the code and it is free of course, but I provide no warranty and argue that everyone should debug all code before allowing it to execute. The instructions and code is for Movable Type installations and function only for individual archive pages.

Read more »

I want to point your attention to the new project from
Rhetorica. Two of my all time favorite weblog writers Jay Manifold and Andrew
Cline have put together a new project the details of which can be found at

rhetorica  or

avoyagetoarcturus. The Connections @

411blog (http://411blog.net/)
weblog should be an interesting source of information and targeted information
gathering from the weblog community. I am not sure if I am an expert on anything
except nuclear proliferation (Especially asiatom, euratom, and rogue states),
e-Government, Public Administration, or maybe general technology knowledge. This
project should be interesting and the media reaction to it, might be explosive.

I am attempting to add a Printer-friendly version option for my entries. This is a test of that system.

I have decided to streamline my efforts. Because the world of internet browsers is full of chaos, I have decided to use a content based layout. I have generated several dynamic pages that will allow searching, linking, and of course better content delivery. For those of you who found it difficult to read my weblog. I hope that you enjoy the easy navigation of a standard top level hierarchy navigation system. I hope that it brings you good luck. If for some reason something is not working, please let me know, then pretend that nothing is wrong. I am still getting used to the new layout. Perhaps latter tonight after I go to a wedding additional changes will be possible.

I would like to congratulate two people from the KUMPA class of 2005. Jen and
David now have weblogs. I think this is wonderfully exciting and have decided to
give them links and a little shout out. David is now writing about all sorts of
things related to public service and the government at
The Lessons of Local Government. Jen
is working on starting up a weblog called
Hunka’s World. I have not figured out if Hunka is a penname, the name of the
ferret, or simply a world I do not know. Dictionary Dot Com had not heard of the
word Hunka, and Google did not know much about it either. Google thought it was
the name of a Simpson’s episode. In any event, I wanted to congratulate both Jen
and David. 

I have experienced so much change in my life over the last year. Perhaps that change has had a profound influence on my life and my decisions. Maybe I have broken my cell phone one two many times. Almost everyone takes it for granted that cell phones remember numbers without question. I wish I had learned that lesson years ago.
When you have to rely on people to call you to collect phone numbers, you find out who your real friends are rather quickly. I remember some people

20050912 Update: New Home for Bens Sunday Picks
http://bensfootballpicks.blogspot.com/
Check out the new home of Ben ‘I am smatter than you’ Hickey’s Sunday picks sports.
http://benssundaypicks.blogspot.com/

I have never really had anything against hackers, but these days it seems that people are getting restless on the internet. Who knows? Maybe Nels Lindahl Dot Com has become a major interest to the digital elite. Well comment spammers beware! I have now implemented a system that requires comment approval. Maybe that will solve the problems that I was having, while resolves the problems I am having. In any event, the webpage is backup and running. I will make some changes in the next couple of days to make sure that all of the content is available. Of course, it will be another couple of weeks before all of the writing is back online. I hope that with some database revisions I will be able to get some of the novels fixed. Oh yeah, I am now back from Mexico.

Everything that is written and published bounces around the internet. What makes for good writing, besides, of course having a voice and being an astute grammarian? As a writer, you have to find something that is worth writing about and write about it in a way that is worth reading. This is an incredibly demanding style of writing, transcending simply making journal entries; this is information presentation and borders on entertainment.
Some blogs are simply journal entries of people?s lives that exist in a world of pure transparency on the Internet for everyone to read. These blogs are rare and involve an individual who is willing to say anything, about anybody, making private thoughts very public. Some blogers write fictional stories, theory, philosophy, critical essays, and of course dissenting pieces of literary prose. These are the type of weblogs that I personally like to think I associate with, but I know that this particular weblog is somewhat of a hybrid. I write both theoretical prose and prose about my life almost seamlessly at times. Weblogs that attempt to disseminate pure theory do well with certain groups of readers, but generally do not have as large of audiences of avid readers.
Personally, I like to read weblogs that share both the writer?s thoughts and develops a good understanding of what in the author?s life is influential. Of course, that is simply a note of personal preference. My weblog will be around as long as I am alive. I can honestly say that because it is both a forum of personal expression about my life and an avenue of information dissemination for my theories. Dissent, dissent, and yes more dissent will continue to be published by Nels Lindahl at Nels Lindahl Dot Com. Now back to the point of this some rant about weblogs? Why do some weblogs come and go? The answer is rather simply some people who only write in a pure journal style, will always have something to post about, it just might not be that interesting. Weblog authors who attempt to produce original thoughts and stories will burn out from time to time. Creatively speaking, writers tend to write in spurts.
Writers do not always acclimate to being at the center of an online forum. Being part of an online community is difficult to being with and when that community is full criticism, writing can become rather scary. For example, Mr. Borys says that my critical dissent about the Peoples Republic of China, titled ?Faking Capitalism,? is both long winded and exceptionally full of facts. Mr. Borys contends that a smaller version of the argument should be written for those who do not want to struggle through over 10,000 words on the subject. This is a civil and well articulated objection. Not all suggestions I receive are either well articulated or civil for that matter!

One of the joys of being constantly on the Internet is that you run into people from all over the place recently <a href=”http://www.gjwalberg.com”>GJOE</a> pointed me in the direction of a new weblog called <a href=”http://www.kappagammasigma.com/stories/”>Stories from Tikrit</a>. They have this to say about themselves, ?<a href=”http://www.kappagammasigma.com/stories/”>KappaGammaSigma.com</a> is where 24 select members of the 101st Military Intelligence write about life in the Army, life in Tikrit, and life in wartime. Of course, everything is the “operational security” version of the events, so if you’re looking for inside information about military action in Iraq, you aren’t going to find anything anywhere on KappaGammaSigma.com. What you will find is the true stories of United States Army soldiers in Iraq.? If you have some extra time, then you should check out the page and send them a comment. In times like these, our troops need all the support they can get. Now back to your regularly scheduled surfing?

In a fit of fat rage last night I deleted the old webpage, and have rebuilt a new simplistic shell to run my webpage. I have decided to try to implement my old school zero space fascination with deep purple type fuzz motif. I hope it all works out well I am going to import the older entries at some other time and perhaps start up some of the other sections again. I have decided that I have to streamline the process it was getting to be to much work to keep all the scripts from eating each other.

I have a pulled back muscle and have been trapped in bed for a good majority of the day. The benefit of this is that I picked up what trash my condition allows and I had some time to think about my life and progress in general.
I am back and more motivated than ever. Sometimes you can get into a routine that is destructive and constrains your potential for innovation. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. I will be graduating with my Master?s in Public Administration degree in May. All I have left to do is finish up my reflective essay and reassign my variables to complete my master?s thesis.
I have been really well behaved this semester even with taking nineteen graduate hours. Part of the current problem is that I have not been myself lately, and I have been missing myself, so hopefully I can find myself. It does not take much to focus in and really finish up this semester and I hope that over the summer I will be able to right the ship and get back on track.
One of the major problems could be that I really do enjoy discussions of civil society and community, which are simply not offered at the University of Kansas. I have also decided that I am going to work on some of my futurist papers and some other various policy statements that I have been working on over the last year. I am tired of being intellectually constrained by the confines of academic inquisition in the form of papers that are not transferable to adding value to the community discussion on the topic.
When I am a professor I am only going to assign big topic papers that are about more than getting a grade and might be able to add value to the discussion as a whole. I have a new mantra in the form of a set of logic equitation?s of course.
If my writing is a large intellectual deficit
If my interest in technology, community, and civil society is a deficit
Then I will exploit both of my deficits as advantages
testing link system <a href=”http://www.civichonors.com”>www.civichonors.com</a>

I have been playing with weblog tools today.

Yet again Rhetorica says it best, so much of Weblog management is sticking to it. Several former Weblog managers have told me that they felt an awesome sense of responsibility to be witty and insightful on a daily basis. In fact this sense of reasonability was so gripping that at least one Blogger that I know actually gave up. What makes it difficult for me to keep up with my Weblog is that I have found that the more personal the information I write the more people will comment on it.
It always seems that when I write about philosophy or theory nobody ever comments. What draws my pen to paper is the ability to unlock my imagination and allow my thoughts to spill out of my head and on to paper. I guess it is about not having to remember it all anymore and being able to write it down seems to give me the ability to think about something else. That is what drives me forward the ability to think about issues then set them down and be able to pick them up later to rethink what was going on and address my normative bias. Sartre says, ?A man is involved in life, leaves his impress on it, and outside of that there is nothing.? (Jean-Paul Sartre?s Existentialism and Human Emotions Page 29)
What I have always wanted to do was run a Weblog that was simply my theory and thoughts on anything and everything. I have never figured out a good way to present the various novels that I have written in Weblog form in that way I am not a good Weblog Manager. I guess I have not figured out how to setup a design that will allow presentation of my content. This is a problem that I have been working on for the longest time. I had some time to think about this today in class. Back in 1998 or 1997 I do not remember I ran a News driven Weblog that eventually turned into a press politics type publication, then in 2000 it turned into a repository of my thoughts and ideas that was put simply just static content in no particular order. Then at the beginning of this year or so I decided to go ahead and breakdown and build a Movable Type driven full fledged Weblog. Which has increased my range of hits. I guess it is a good way to go and now I am just trying to deal with the structural problems associated with information delivery.
Well to follow the pattern of a true Nelsian thought I must go rethink what I am doing?

Not having my webpage up caused me to ask a very important question. Why do I get so upset when nothing is going on? Silence, is not what it used to be, I need to have the television going and probably a computer screen sometimes some music and other things to occupy my time. I guess it is maybe, not wanting to get bored or to loose track of time. I am not sure why but I guess I have lost my ability to enjoy peace and quiet. My new serenity is shrouded in chaos and I am more comfortable multitasking than simply working.

So today was interesting I have been working on a new Guest Book. It seems to work ok and it has the ability to comment and then respond to other comments so I guess I enjoy it somewhat. However I hope to get my bulletin board back up and running at some point if it will ever work again.