For the past few weeks, I've been seeing this old limo, the bottom edges rusted out, all over town. I've been calling it RustyLimo™ when talking about it, which has been happening more and more as it seems to be everywhere I go. I see it downtown the most often, but last night I saw it at the gas station near my house. For once, I had a quick second to take the picture of it.

This thing and what it represents intrigue me. From what I've seen, it's just driven by a guy, no one in back or anything. It's just his car. While we usually put limo's in pretty high esteem, I'm wondering if we think of a beat up limo worse than a cheap car in good shape.

Of course, now I want to know more about what the deal is with this thing and the guy who drives it. Hopefully I can get a better shot next time before someone pulls in front of it and he leaves.

You may have seen ads for or read about the new movie: "End of the Spear". IMDB's plot summary describes the movie this way:

"End of the Spear" is the story of Mincayani, a Waorani tribesman from the jungles of Ecuador. When five young missionaries, among them Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, are speared to death by the Waorani in 1956, a series of events unfold to change the lives of not only the slain missionaries' families, but also Mincayani and his people.

When I first saw that this movie was coming out, I was surprised. That's because Nate Saint's son, Philip, was my 4th grade teacher. For those paying attention, that's the same teacher who is pretty much responsible for me turning out the way I did. He's the one who first put a monitor and keyboard in front of me (in 1984? with TRS-80's and TI), gave me "adult" responsibilities by tending to the school icerink, put himself at our level by math competitions that *he* competed in (and we sometimes won, legitimately), got us drawing with Mark Kistler's materials and otherwise pushed every kid in that class to do their personal best. In short, the kind of teacher that every kid should have the chance to see up in front of the classroom for a year.

So, I'm pretty excited to see his family's story told on the big screen. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to the theater any time soon, but I did add it to my Netflix queue as soon as I had the title.

Curt Rosengren over at the Occupational Adventure has a great post on one of my favorite topics: cramming new information and skills into your head. I've never been drawn to alcohol or drugs, but could probably screw up every relationship and work opportunity in my life in the quest for new information if I indulged every time I feel the cravings.

I am an information junkie.

Not just trivia and fact kind of stuff. Oh no. Sure, I've got my share of useless facts, dates and figures. However, those things are just the gateway to the kind of information addiction I have. I'm not just a junkie. I'm an information glutton too.

I spent last night investigating aquaponics, hydroponics and sustainable microfarming of tilapia. In depth. I read World Bank reports and booklets, detailed analysis of how it works, reports from different states on pros and cons, long articles on growing and drying duckweed and a lot of hippie-commune kind of stuff on living off the land.

Do I plan to set it up next week? No. OK, well I might start growing some duckweed for my aquariums and possibly talk to a local high school about trying some of this stuff out, but it's on the VERY long "someday" list.

However, I feel extremely enriched for the experience. I learned something new and don't think I could go through a day if I didn't.

Ideas come to us as our brains make connections between things. We see parallels, patterns and ways things relate and are wired to have a momentary spark in our heads when it happens. Actually, the same thing happens with humor. When we're surprised by the connection a good joke makes, we actually use the same terminology that we do when a good idea or concept "clicks" with us: we "get it". That's also why a joke we already know isn't nearly as enjoyable. We already have made that connection and it doesn't cause that spark.

The more things you learn, the more possible points of connection you have in your head and the more likely you are to be able to come up with links between things. I personally also feel that the wider the diversity in these things the better. Too often, people in one field are completely reinventing what is common knowledge in another field.

If good information is out there, regardless of source, steal it. To me, there is no stigmatized source of information. In many cases, the lessons to be learned are added to by seeing the source for what it is (when you learn about human suffering through reading about horrible incidents), but there is good information all over the place to be learned from.

A prime example is a DIY project I've got in the works. See, I have a sensitive nose. I'm the guy in a car full of people who will be drooling because I smell barbeque and 10 minutes later, 3 other people in the car will go, "Do you smell something? Is that barbeque?". Meanwhile, I've figured out they're having pork shoulder with cornbread.

This can be a curse when you have 2 basset hounds that spend all of their time in your home theater. No one else seems to notice (I've specifically asked some people), but the odors in my house bug me. I've used candles, etc., but I want to just get rid of the scent. And, I'm not paying $300 for an air purifier.

So, I went looking. Turns out that the forefront of DIY odor elimination is populated almost entirely by potheads. This is a fact that seems obvious in retrospect, but was an initial surprise to me. After all, who has more incentive to make sure that the smells aren't noticed than someone who can go to prison if someone catches a whiff?

Article after article and forum post after forum post was filled with information on how to completely eliminate the odors using fan-based, activated carbon filtration. Because I know how well activated carbon works to remove impurities and scents from aquarium water, I had the "click" moment and will likely be building a pothead designed air scrubber to get rid of the dog stink in my basement.

I ignored the bad spelling, the bad grammar and the felonious intent of the authors of the information because it was obvious to me that they had motivation to get the information itself right and the information was all I was after. Now, you wouldn't want to do this kind of research at your job or where someone might misconstrue it, but these kinds of sources are all around you.

And, I'm pretty sure they're not taught in formal settings. Mark Twain said something to the effect of, "Never let school get in the way of your education." I'm a big believer, not necessarily in home schooling, but in self-education. Now, go learn something.

Photo: alan taylor

I've got a bunch of stuff that should go on eBay. The pile includes my Canon Digital Rebel, which, while a fantastic camera, is just too big for daily use and sits unused for months on end. It also includes a bunch of suits and sportcoats that fit a much larger J that no longer exists, my unlocked Sony GSM phone, etc. In short, a big pile of eBay fodder.

The problem is that I hate selling on eBay.

1. I hate boxing items up to ship out.
2. I hate estimating shipping costs.
3. I'll never use Paypal again, even if they would let me.
4. I hate managing the auctions themselves.

Which leads me to the "I'll sell your stuff on eBay" businesses that are around. The idea sounds great to me. I hand over the pile of junk, with notes and reserve prices, etc. and they take care of the tedious eBay bit for a portion of the sale price.

I'm curious if anyone has used one of these? I'd especially be interested in any in the Twin Cities that people have used.

I got a note from This American Life that they're joining Penn and Teller and the rest of the fine programming on Showtime with a TV version of their hard-to-classify radio show.

NEW BEGINNINGS, PART TWO: Last week Showtime made it official: we're going to produce a series for them, a television version of This American Life. We shot a pilot last year, and the full series will begin broadcasting in the fall or winter of 2006. We'll continue making the radio show while we do the TV show. Again: the radio show will stay on the air.

What we can say about the series: It doesn't look a TV newsmagazine. It's shot to look like a movie. Widescreen. Beautiful lighting. And the stories feel just like the stories on the radio show. When we started the pilot, we weren't sure that'd be possible. Now we're convinced it is. We'll give more details — and hopefully some previews — in the coming months.

We subscribe to both HBO and Showtime (Cinemax and Starz and company come along for the ride in the package price) pretty much exclusively for the original programming and NOT for the movies that have been on DVD for 9 months. When Showtime cancelled Dead Like Me, I was pretty disappointed, but this is a good move for them.

They also say they're going to be converting their archives to streaming MP3 (which I'll gladly capture to file) instead of that RealAudio only setup they've had for years. I love their show, but can't listen very often because I either have to listen at the appointed time or deal with the inconvenience of streaming-only audio.