Have you guys heard about this? A 10,000 car traffic jam that has lasted for a dozen days and at one point stretched bumper-to-bumper for over 70 miles! Now that is a traffic jam!

This is considered the world’s longest traffic jam ever, and the third such traffic backup on the Beijing-Xinjiang highway this month. The expressway has been packed with trucks loaded with coal and other vehicles since mid-august and was originally caused from road repairs and increased trucking. This traffic jam has created a coal shortage in Beijing, since much of the supply of coal headed there is loaded in idle trucks. It has also adversely affected the income of drivers who are stuck on the highway spending their time by playing cards and sleeping until traffic begins to move again days later.

There has been no reports of road rage or crimes among motorists, but there has been complaints of price-gouging by locals offering food and other goods to stuck drivers.

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Ella got her cut yesterday and it is unbelievably cute. The photos don’t even come close to doing the cuteness justice. She told the stylist that she wanted “short hair like my daddy.” (I wish my hair was that long!)

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As you may recall from an earlier post, I excitedly dove into reading Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse. Well, it has been struggle ever since chapter 1 when the excitement and nostalgia wore off. But now that I am halfway through this 600+ page book it has dawned on me – this is a formula I remember from other Hesse books.

He spends the first half of the book, very carefully developing the character through their daily life, very detailed and even mundane at times. But what he is doing is establishing the reality of the world the character lives in. Then halfway through the book, he tilts that reality askew with something fantastical, supernatural or transcendently spiritual. It is like a rollercoaster and the first half of the book the car is slowly ascending the first hill. Click, click, click. But if you are patient enough to stick with it to the peak, you can now ride the rollercoaster down with great speed through exciting twists and turns. The ride down makes the long climb up worthwhile. I think this is deliberate.

Of course, I will now have to finish the book to see if my theory proves true. I hope so, because to this point I have been underwhelmed compared to his other books, and yet this is supposed to be his magnum opus that pulls together all his previous writings. So, if it doesn’t deliver I will not know what to think of my abilities to comprehend his vision, a vision that I once thought I fully understood and deeply appreciated. I guess I could always take the graduate level philosophy course at the American University of London that is based on this book, yeah right.

Here are some quotes from Hermann Hesse (July 2, 1877 – August 9, 1962) whose books explored an individual’s search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality.

Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it.

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

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Had a great Martini at Bonefish Grill in Knoxville. It’s called a Watermelon Tiki or Fresh Watermelon Martini.

The drink is hand-muddled fresh watermelon, fresh sour and house-made cucumber vodka infusion.

Here is the mixology, that the waitress was kind enough to share:

• 2 pieces watermelon muddled
• 2 ounces FRÏS Vodka infused with cucumber
• Splash sweet sour
• Pump of simple syrup

The cucumber and watermelon combination is fantastic. But perhaps my favorite part was the ice cubes were in fact two frozen chunks of watermelon on toothpicks. Outstanding drink! I think I will try to serve this at our next campfire.

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How is this possible? Erin and I dropped Ella off for her first day of preschool. She was very excited to see her teacher Miss Elizabeth and did not seem scared at all, unlike one little boy that was screaming and crying “I want to go home!” over and over! We were nervous that his crying would be contagious and the whole class would bust into tears at any moment. But Ella did not cry and only once said she wanted us to stay to play with her, but she was over it within seconds and playing with her new classmates. Mom’s eyes did well up a bit though as we were leaving. I can’t wait to go pick her up after school and hear her talk all about her first day!

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Huffington Post puts together a series of stories where social media has lead to arrests and firings:

Arrested Over Twitter: 8 Tweets That Got People SNAGGED Twitterers and non-Twitterers alike often grumble that the many tweets are fluffy nonsense–posts about what we ate for breakfast, complaints about the weather, and other…

Arrested Over Facebook: 19 Posts That Got Suspects Snagged (PHOTOS) Forget wiretaps and paper trails: more and more frequently, mischief and malfeasance on Facebook in photos, posts, pages, and chats is helping police track down…

Fired Over Facebook: 13 Posts That Got People CANNED Facebook’s mission is to make the world a “more open and connected” place. But the site’s users can sometimes be a bit too open, posting…

Fired Over Twitter: 13 Tweets That Got People CANNED To your employer, you are what you tweet. While most of your Twitter updates may be harmless–whether it’s the latest viral video or what you…

Pasqual Manfredi Facebook FAIL: Mafia Hitman Arrested For Facebook Stupidity (VIDEO) Memo to Mafia hitmen on the run: don’t chat with friends on Facebook while holed up in your secret hideout. One of Italy’s most wanted…

Shannon D. Jackson: Woman Arrested For Facebook “Poke” “Poking” someone on Facebook may sound like a naughty double-entendre, but generally speaking it’s a perfectly harmless (and totally G-rated) way of getting in touch…

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If you’re a dinosaur, all of your friends are dead. If you’re a pirate, all of your friends have scurvy. If you’re a tree, all of your friends are end tables. Each page of this laugh-out-loud illustrated humor book showcases the downside of being everything from a clown to a cassette tape to a zombie. Cute and dark all at once, this hilarious children’s book for adults teaches valuable lessons about life while exploring each cartoon character’s unique grievance and wide-eyed predicament. From the sock whose only friends have gone missing to the houseplant whose friends are being slowly killed by irresponsible plant owners (like you), All My Friends Are Dead presents a delightful primer for laughing at the inevitable.

Avery Monsen is an actor, artist, and writer.

Jory John is a writer, editor, and journalist.

They are friends, and neither is dead. Yet.

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I had seen the image a few times, but had never seen this timelapse video of its creation – very cool. I love the “Did I do that?” pose.

Here is more personal artwork done by San Francisco artist Alex Pardee »

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