The"God" particle

Physicists around the world have something to celebrate this Christmas. Two groups of them, using the particle accelerator in Switzerland, have announced that they are tantalizingly close to bagging the biggest prize in physics (and a possible Nobel): the elusive Higgs particle, which the media have dubbed the "God particle." Perhaps next year, physicists will pop open the champagne bottles and proclaim they have found this particle.

Finding this missing Higgs particle, or boson, is big business. The European machine searching for it, the Large Hadron Collider, has cost many billions so far and is so huge it straddles the French-Swiss border, near Geneva. At 17 miles in circumference, the colossal structure is the largest machine of science ever built and consists of a gigantic ring in which two beams of protons are sent in opposite directions using powerful magnetic fields.

The collider's purpose is to recreate, on a tiny scale, the instant of genesis. It accelerates protons to 99.999999% the speed of light. When the two beams collide, they release a titanic energy of 14 trillion electron volts and a shower of subatomic particles shooting out in all directions. Huge detectors, the size of large apartment buildings, are needed to record the image of this particle spray.

Then supercomputers analyze these subatomic tracks by, in effect, running the video tape backwards. By reassembling the motion of this spray of particles as it emerges from a single point, computers can determine if various exotic subatomic particles were momentarily produced at the instant of the collision.

A Christmas adventure

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma..

I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her. On the way, my big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even dummies know that!"

My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her "world-famous" cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me.

"No Santa Claus?" she snorted..."Ridiculous! Don't you believe it! That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad!!

Now, put on your coat, and let's go."

"Go? Go where Grandma", I asked. I hadn't even finished my second world-famous cinnamon bun.

"Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything.

As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days.

"Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car." Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.

I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself.

The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for..

I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class.

Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out to recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough; he didn't have a good coat.

I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled on a red corduroy
one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.

"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down.

"Yes ma'am," I replied shyly. "It's for Bobby." The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a good winter coat. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag, smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) in Christmas paper and ribbons and wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it..

Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially, one of Santa's helpers.

Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his door and flew back
to the safety of the bushes and Grandma.

Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.

Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes.

That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous.. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside: $19.95.

May you always have LOVE to share, HEALTH to spare and FRIENDS that care...

And may you always believe in the magic of Santa Claus!

Give back - what you can, where you can, whenever you can.

Freedom

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Mahatma Gandhi

John, Paul, George and of course Ringo

I remember the Beatles as nothing short of transformative. I remember hearing them for the first time as kind of a throw away on the Rick Shaw show.

Then of course there was Ed Sullivan's three shows, they filmed one in Miami, my home town.

We were so hip!

I still think the Beatles were a fantastic Rock and Roll Band, Rubber Soul and Revolver are two of my favorite albums of all time.

Fame and fortune seem to be flames many, maybe all of us, seem to be drawn to. For those who have really gotten close to the flame, the heat ... it seems to consume almost everyone.

I haven't read You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup yet but is going on my reading list today. I have attached a wonderful review http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/04/a-hard-day-s-night.print.html

I guess reading it is akin to watching a car crash ... I can't look away.

The Beatles changed my life forever.

I recently had the opportunity to have dinner with some musicians who have achieved a wee bit of success (3 Grammy's). They were talking about a contemporary of theirs who had achieved hyper stardom. They referred to it as "they took the blue pill and went down the rabbit hole, we didn't". That said there lives are different than the average guy and always will be because they have touched the flame.

One of the things I have enjoyed about Face book is that some of the people I lived those times through with are back in my life and for that I feel that I have been truly blessed.

If you haven't listened to Revolver or Rubber Soul in a while do your self a favor on this fabulous Sunday and turn them on, they'll return the favor. JD

Goodbye Coach

One of histories greatest sportsman and philosophers died today at age 99.

the great John Wooden is a legend. His success as the coach of the UCLA basketball program has never been equaled.

His example of how to live your life is more important.

I'm a wrestling fanatic and have always disliked basketball, we had to compete for space, time, recognition and funding with them.

That said, I have always admired and respected John Wooden. He has inspired generations and as the earth will be less with him gone, heaven will have one more great angel today.

Here are some words from the Coach that I have always loved;

"Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books -- especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day."

advice from Coach John Wooden

The Emperor wears no clothes!

Author and blogger Virginia Postrel, in an interview in the June issue of Reason magazine:

"Glamour is a particular form of illusion. It's an illusion that tells a truth about the audience's desires, and it requires mystery and distance. During the campaign people projected onto Barack Obama whatever they wanted in a president or even in a country. Lying is usually a bad thing, but they would project onto him that he was lying about his positions because he secretly agreed with them: 'Anyone that smart has got to be a free trader at heart. He's just saying this to pander to those idiots. He can't really mean it.' . . . There is always this capacity for disillusionment. People have projected so much of what they think, including things that are sort of impossible, onto a glamorous figure, that when any flaw shows up the glamour is dispelled and suddenly he becomes terrible."

Just Breath

Do these seem like crazy times to you?

Maybe it's just that we are so connected, what happens on the other side of the world is instant news to us.

What happens in New York is news in little old Gainesville, not in the time it took for news to be hand delivered but in the instant it happens.

I know that in the investment business it is probably the worst thing that could have happened. We have gone from investors to traders.

In my experience people don't get rich overnight.

The overnight success has been at it for 15 years. there is always the exception, the person who inherits a fortune or wins the lottery (maybe there the same thing?)

As a respected friend recently said to me, "If I were king I would only price stocks once a year and maybe even not that often".

The feedback is causing most of us more problems than it is solving.

Maybe it's time to take a step back and catch our breath.