Haven't you ever wished that someone would love you? Someone who would be truly fascinated by you and the unique things you do? Never becoming bored or jaded, never being disappointed. Don't you wish there was someone out there like that?
There is. Adopt a dog.
Otherwise shut the f*ck up you simpering piece of rat shit. Life is tough and full of unpleasant surprises. For most of us, it's a place filled with boredom, disappointment, resentment and lies. The best we can hope for is someone who will put up with us until we die.
Get over it.
Sorry. Feeling really bitter and cranky today.....
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Sunday, May 29, 2005
So, here I am again
I have decided that I need two blogs-- one personal, one professional. My MSN space was becoming a bit schizophrenic, reeling from bitter exboyfriend posts, to chirpy what I plan to do at Tech Ed posts, to dry technical posts about my computers and their foibles. To that end I think my space will remain techy (appropriate, since MS likes it's technical people to use the blogging tool to talk about computers), and this will be my "real" blog. I was considering livejournal, (and if anyone feels that's a better tool, please let me know) but I liked the feel of this one. It seems right somehow. Not too diary or self involved, but not so cutesy and limited as the msn spaces.
We'll see. Thanks for being here either way. BTW, the teched stuff will probably be on the callahansspace, but the more personal reflections of the experience may end up here.
We'll see. Thanks for being here either way. BTW, the teched stuff will probably be on the callahansspace, but the more personal reflections of the experience may end up here.
Memorials. Long past, near past, remember, rinse, repeat.
So tomorrow is memorial day. It is a day to remember those who have lost their lives for the sake of our country, ordered to by those that lead them. Regardless as to whether the leadership was doing the right thing, the smart thing, or the moral thing. For one reason or another, whether willing or not, those people found themselves soldiers and died on foreign soil for our team. They should be remembered, the horrors of war should be remembered. The loss, the tragedy should be remembered so as not to be repeated without realizing the consequences. People die. Not strangers, but friends, neighbors, relatives. Good people, hard working and dedicated. Many of them, maybe naively, believed they fought the good fight. Their bravery, their courage, their last desperate minutes should be remembered.
War is a horrible thing. Not something to be started to cover up issues at home. Not for political or financial gains, not for heroic soundbites or future statue building, not to, mistakenly, help the economy. It is not some distant thing to the parents, wives, husbands, and children of those sent away to risk death. It is not okay to cut their pay, extend their stay, or limit their benefits. War is brutal. For those willing to put their lives on the line, right or wrong, there should be a hero's welcome home, full medical benefits, lifelong, for them and their families, pensions, education, and celebration.
Yes, tomorrow I will remember those who have died, and those that are dying. I will also speak up for those who are out there now, being pushed to their limit without adequate resources, without the respect they deserve. They need us, we need them.
They are willing to die, what are we willing to do?
War is a horrible thing. Not something to be started to cover up issues at home. Not for political or financial gains, not for heroic soundbites or future statue building, not to, mistakenly, help the economy. It is not some distant thing to the parents, wives, husbands, and children of those sent away to risk death. It is not okay to cut their pay, extend their stay, or limit their benefits. War is brutal. For those willing to put their lives on the line, right or wrong, there should be a hero's welcome home, full medical benefits, lifelong, for them and their families, pensions, education, and celebration.
Yes, tomorrow I will remember those who have died, and those that are dying. I will also speak up for those who are out there now, being pushed to their limit without adequate resources, without the respect they deserve. They need us, we need them.
They are willing to die, what are we willing to do?
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Lilly update, continued gratitude
It's been almost a month since I planted the lillies (the entries are sometimes held in draft for a while before posting, it delays the inevitable). I wanted to report, for the sake of Jim, that they are not only not dead, but some are actually blooming already.
An interesting thing though, they are blooming really low to the ground. Normally day lillies grow a stalk that eventually flowers well above the height of the leaves of the plant's summer foliage. My plants are blooming only a few inches above the ground, effectively hiding (heck, cramping and deforming) the flowers deep in the grassy foliage of the plant itself.
I assume that transplanting them so late in the season might be the cause, but I wonder if the unusually cold, cloudy weather could also play a part as well.
Either way, the lillies are not dead. Hurray.
Thank you Jim, for the flowers.
An interesting thing though, they are blooming really low to the ground. Normally day lillies grow a stalk that eventually flowers well above the height of the leaves of the plant's summer foliage. My plants are blooming only a few inches above the ground, effectively hiding (heck, cramping and deforming) the flowers deep in the grassy foliage of the plant itself.
I assume that transplanting them so late in the season might be the cause, but I wonder if the unusually cold, cloudy weather could also play a part as well.
Either way, the lillies are not dead. Hurray.
Thank you Jim, for the flowers.
Friday, May 20, 2005
A bit of a ramble about empty rooms and writing to no one
It's weird to think that anyone reads this stuff. Like a notebook chained to a table somewhere public. Available for perusal and largely untouched (the occasional scribbled phone number, quick arithmatic jotted on the cover, maybe the announcement that Sally was here). Most of the time anyone is online they are there to do something else. Why they would read this is kind of beyond me.
But by the same token, why do I write here? No one is really going to read this, so why write it?
When I started this it was to post fast moving articles, reference links I like, write labs and tech stuff that wouldn't quite be appropriate for my more static website. But as I started writing, I found the temptation to say something more than "if you click here, and select advanced, then a new option will appear, allowing you to..." or some such technical drivel (complete with screenshots, hoo ha) overwhelming. I started playing with the idea that words were more than something to make money with, to inform or instruct.
I feel like someone standing in an empty auditorium in front of a live microphone. Ha Ha, testing, testing. Hello Houston. And the crowd goes wild. La La La Laaa. Me Me Me Meeee. Y-o-d-a, Yodaaaa. And so I said to the guy, screw you? Why I don't even know you...... and then the next thing I know I am doing a brilliant stand up routine in front of a dusty room growing slightly overwarm.
What is it about talking to empty rooms I wonder? Is it just the sense of potential? The room could be full of people, they could be listening. But it isn't, and they aren't. But you are there, and there's a mic, and the chance may never come again.
What is that saying? "Dance, dance as if no one were looking." Or something like that. Well, this is sort of talking, talking as if no one were listening. Singing only when no one is there. I dress up alone in my room, but put on baggy clothes to go downstairs just in case someone might be able to see me. Silence (hard to believe but true) and frumpiness are protective camoflage really. The world is lucky that I am as plucky as I am. Boy, if they could see me when I'm alone, well that would be something. Yessirree. They'd be impressed then, let me tell you.
But instead, really, I think I'll stay here, where most people don't realize I am writing. It's safer. Not just because no one is there to criticise, but no one even knows I can do this. That I might want to. Heck, most people don't realize what I've written even when they read it. You see, I tend to write in someone else's voice. I'm basically a stand in. I write the boring stuff that fills books between the interesting bits. So the real author, the one with their name on the cover, can focus on keynote speeches and being shmoozed by vendors. Essentially, when I stand in front of the microphone, I speak in someone else's voice, I do my best to be someone else. I don't really have a voice of my own. At least not one that would make me money. I am almost afraid to try. I am pretty sure no one will be interested. My claim to fame is my ability to emulate someone else's style, not exhibit my own.
I know that throughout school, the reason I made good grades is because I was good at figuring out what the teachers wanted and then doing just that. C'mon, everyone does it. But somehow, when they grow up, they start writing on their own. Oh, maybe only letters to siblings or friends, the church newsletter, or even reports or speeches for work, but at least they have their own voice. I, for the most part, seem to be a literary schizophrenic, swinging from one style to another, whichever one I've been exposed to most recently. Wildly reeling from T.S. Eliot to Terry Pratchet to Windows help files (eek), and back again. I don't really have an internal compass when it comes to writing what I want to write the way I want to write it.
To make matters worse, the two styles of writing that I have studied extensively are journalistic- who, what, where, when, why, how, and to what extent, and poetic-- especially stuff that is free form and doesn't rhyme. Very urban, very intense.
As you may be aware, neither journalism nor poetry tend to lend themselves to technical writing per se. Yet that's generally all I do. Funny that. But that's most of my days' work. Set up a concept, walk the reader through the details, summarize the concept. If there is a step by step, do so clearly, briefly, stay on topic, smoothly, consistantly until the end. Don't forget the figure callouts for the screenshots. Spellcheck, compress, send away. Keep it humane, introduce new terms gently, when required, reiterate them before ending. keep your word count low, sentences short, words as small as you can. Avoid redundancy but embrace repetition. Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them. It is the mantra of the classroom, and actually translates pretty readily to the technical writing field. Although, and this is where technical writing really veers from journalistic, when doing tech writing, tell them a lot about why. Why the product does what it does, why it was "created" to do what it does. What did the programmers intend, why the windows, buttons, dialog boxes look the way they do. Why the article is being written, who is expected to read it. Why the explanations were chosen. Why, why, why. Why, What, How, to what extent. No real who, except maybe who the reader should be.
I'm not sure how poetry ties in. I'm working on it though. Maybe it lends itself to bulleted lists, powerpoint slides, or anywhere quick, relevant, but unrelated instructions might be found...
..When saving a file
Remember what you named it
And where you put it
If you ever want to open it again...
...Hmmm, actually that one sounds more like a ransom note. But I'll keep trying....
But by the same token, why do I write here? No one is really going to read this, so why write it?
When I started this it was to post fast moving articles, reference links I like, write labs and tech stuff that wouldn't quite be appropriate for my more static website. But as I started writing, I found the temptation to say something more than "if you click here, and select advanced, then a new option will appear, allowing you to..." or some such technical drivel (complete with screenshots, hoo ha) overwhelming. I started playing with the idea that words were more than something to make money with, to inform or instruct.
I feel like someone standing in an empty auditorium in front of a live microphone. Ha Ha, testing, testing. Hello Houston. And the crowd goes wild. La La La Laaa. Me Me Me Meeee. Y-o-d-a, Yodaaaa. And so I said to the guy, screw you? Why I don't even know you...... and then the next thing I know I am doing a brilliant stand up routine in front of a dusty room growing slightly overwarm.
What is it about talking to empty rooms I wonder? Is it just the sense of potential? The room could be full of people, they could be listening. But it isn't, and they aren't. But you are there, and there's a mic, and the chance may never come again.
What is that saying? "Dance, dance as if no one were looking." Or something like that. Well, this is sort of talking, talking as if no one were listening. Singing only when no one is there. I dress up alone in my room, but put on baggy clothes to go downstairs just in case someone might be able to see me. Silence (hard to believe but true) and frumpiness are protective camoflage really. The world is lucky that I am as plucky as I am. Boy, if they could see me when I'm alone, well that would be something. Yessirree. They'd be impressed then, let me tell you.
But instead, really, I think I'll stay here, where most people don't realize I am writing. It's safer. Not just because no one is there to criticise, but no one even knows I can do this. That I might want to. Heck, most people don't realize what I've written even when they read it. You see, I tend to write in someone else's voice. I'm basically a stand in. I write the boring stuff that fills books between the interesting bits. So the real author, the one with their name on the cover, can focus on keynote speeches and being shmoozed by vendors. Essentially, when I stand in front of the microphone, I speak in someone else's voice, I do my best to be someone else. I don't really have a voice of my own. At least not one that would make me money. I am almost afraid to try. I am pretty sure no one will be interested. My claim to fame is my ability to emulate someone else's style, not exhibit my own.
I know that throughout school, the reason I made good grades is because I was good at figuring out what the teachers wanted and then doing just that. C'mon, everyone does it. But somehow, when they grow up, they start writing on their own. Oh, maybe only letters to siblings or friends, the church newsletter, or even reports or speeches for work, but at least they have their own voice. I, for the most part, seem to be a literary schizophrenic, swinging from one style to another, whichever one I've been exposed to most recently. Wildly reeling from T.S. Eliot to Terry Pratchet to Windows help files (eek), and back again. I don't really have an internal compass when it comes to writing what I want to write the way I want to write it.
To make matters worse, the two styles of writing that I have studied extensively are journalistic- who, what, where, when, why, how, and to what extent, and poetic-- especially stuff that is free form and doesn't rhyme. Very urban, very intense.
As you may be aware, neither journalism nor poetry tend to lend themselves to technical writing per se. Yet that's generally all I do. Funny that. But that's most of my days' work. Set up a concept, walk the reader through the details, summarize the concept. If there is a step by step, do so clearly, briefly, stay on topic, smoothly, consistantly until the end. Don't forget the figure callouts for the screenshots. Spellcheck, compress, send away. Keep it humane, introduce new terms gently, when required, reiterate them before ending. keep your word count low, sentences short, words as small as you can. Avoid redundancy but embrace repetition. Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them. It is the mantra of the classroom, and actually translates pretty readily to the technical writing field. Although, and this is where technical writing really veers from journalistic, when doing tech writing, tell them a lot about why. Why the product does what it does, why it was "created" to do what it does. What did the programmers intend, why the windows, buttons, dialog boxes look the way they do. Why the article is being written, who is expected to read it. Why the explanations were chosen. Why, why, why. Why, What, How, to what extent. No real who, except maybe who the reader should be.
I'm not sure how poetry ties in. I'm working on it though. Maybe it lends itself to bulleted lists, powerpoint slides, or anywhere quick, relevant, but unrelated instructions might be found...
..When saving a file
Remember what you named it
And where you put it
If you ever want to open it again...
...Hmmm, actually that one sounds more like a ransom note. But I'll keep trying....
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Gratitude, disappointment and lillies
So I found myself hanging out at my old school today. The weather was beautiful, the trees were in bloom, the air was sweet with the smell of fresh grass and flowers.
I took the 45 minute drive that actually took an hour to give some tshirts I had promised to the tech support staff, and maybe chat a bit. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But unfortunately, like so many things in my life, that didn't happen the way I planned.
You see, it all started with day lillies. Yes, day lillies.
My neighbor, Jim, has these really robust day lillies in his yard. A few years ago I mentioned that they were the inspiration for the front garden I started at my house. He replied that not only do those lillies grow without any effort from him, but he needs to thin them every year or they start to move out of the boundaries of his border garden and try to overtake his yard. This gave logic to his asking me, last year, if I wanted any lillies from his yard. At that time I was doing a travelling gig for Microsoft, and really didn't have time.
This year comes, and at some point, while snow was still thick on the ground, Jim asks if I want any lillies for this spring. I agreed, of course, because they are proven hardy in my region, healthy, and really cheap (ala free).
Well, time passed. I got busy doing the networkworld thing, and didn't have time...until today (well not even today, but Jim didn't know that). Jim was outside working on his truck when I happened to drive into my parking spaceafter returning from some errands. There was no getting around it, as soon as I got out he was going to ask me to take some of his lilly plants. Even though I had other things to do, I was just going to have to deal with the lillies.
I got out of the car, at which time Jim asked me if I wanted help digging out his lillies (of course). He proceeded to get his shovel and give me about (all told) a hundred pounds of lillies (the whole plants, bulbs, and their surrounding dirt). Seriously, about ten big, armload bunches of lillies. I thanked him sincerely for his efforts, grateful for the flowers but worried about timing. Once those bad boys are out of the dirt, then you've got about an hour before they start dying in the sun. So, suddenly I had a big commitment on my hands.
So there I was, standing in the sun (irish, pale, freckles, not good in direct sunlight) having to dig hole after hole in the garden to plant these damn lillies. No planning, no prepping, just dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig....you get the idea, then plant. Then water, the hose leaking everywhere, water pressure oddly intermittent. At that point, it was almost two hours later, I was thirsty, getting hungry, covered in dirt and sweat, and late.
Woo hoo. *Now* it's time to drive for an hour and go visit people. And, feeling both glad that I got the lillies done, and cranky because I had been sweating dirty in the sun for over an hour for *any* reason, I got into my car and headed out.
So I get to B-town, and find my contact deep in a long conference call (I was late getting there, of course, and she couldn't cancel), so I dropped off the tshirts discreetly, and left quietly (no chance to chat and possibly drum up new business). That left me with way too much time on my hands. It was probably going to be an hour's drive back, and I had been there a whopping five minutes. What to do, what to do? (insert jeopardy thinking music here)
Well, I hadn't put much stock in it, but why not call an old friend in the area and see what he was up to? I had mentioned to him in email that I might be stopping by. He hadn't responded to that mention, but hey, wouldn't hurt to email him again.
Mind you, this old friendship has a lot of uneasiness built into it (much, much more about that later, if requested). As a matter of fact, "friendship" is probably the wrong word to describe it, but I like to make believe I am in polite company, so I won't call it anything else for right now.
So, I planned to email him what I intended to be an informative note as to where I was, what I was going to do, when I was going to do it, and how to get in touch with me (since my cell phone was out of range in that godsforsaken town (birthplace of a disciples of christ, but still, no cell phone?!)). Unfortunately, the lab I was typing in comes equipped with MS antispyware (I do really like MSAS and us it on all of my machines). This product is pretty open about announcing any little thing that crosses its digital mind, and popped into the foreground right as I was typing. What happened at that point, from my end, was I was typing the first sentence of the email, then suddenly the email I was writing in disappeared and I ended up back at my web interface inbox. I checked my sent mail, no sign of the message (thinking maybe it sent itself somehow---this was in fact the case, but more on that later), so I thought it must have been deleted/disappeared.
Now as a computer professional, you'd think I'd know better, but this was gmail, and I have had things like this happen before because the interface can be crappy. So I thought nothing more of it (other than to be irritated).
I then decided, before going any further, I would grab a cup of tea, take a little walk around, then try the email thing again. So, that's what I did.
About forty minutes later (the campus is really hilly, and it was a pretty day, so the walk was long, ambling, and slow), I saunter back, tea in hand, to check my email again. No response. I write another post saying that I was going to be at the library, I'd give him a call. I then went there, at which time I received an email from him saying he went to the computer lab, I wasn't there, period ( I find out much later that he was responding to the aborted, completely uninformative disappearing email that did in fact post). No other response, no other ideas.
Hmmm, not taking the hint, I immediately called his home number and office to get in touch, to apologize for ducking out and see if he wanted catch some grub and chat before school let out and we both went our separate ways.
Assuming all was well, we had just humorously missed each other, I hung out at the library like I said I would in my second email. After a few hours-- I was just burned out on reading, studying (for yet another certification test), and generally not taking advantage of the beautiful weather-- I emailed him letting him know that I was leaving.
Once my phone was back in service, I checked my voicemail. No messages (from him anyway). When I got home, checked my email, no messages.
So, I guess, because I wasn't in the computer lab, he's pissed or something.
Moral of the story--
Don't try to visit old friends while hot, sweaty, tired, dirty, and hungry (by that point), without clear plans beforehand. My mistake was, after receiving no response to my warning that I'd be in the area, I should have realized that he didn't really want to hang out to begin with. That meant that the inconvenience of going to the lab and finding me not there was just more than he could bear. He didn't feel up to any more effort.
On the upside, I did get quite a bit of work done at the library, and both the locale and the weather were beautiful. Other than that odd misunderstanding, it was a really nice visit. It's good sometimes to leave home and breathe the air of a different place for a while.
I tell you one thing, now that I think of it, I am really grateful to Jim for those liliies. All things considered, they made my day (who needs to chat really?). I got something nice for free, genuine no strings attached help, and good reason to get something done in my garden that may well last a lifetime.
Yeah.
May I have the microphone please? (ahem)
Jim (who will never read this), Thank you. Thank you for being a good neighbor. Thank you for the lillies.
Second Moral of the story--- Sometimes you find friends in unexpected places, like next door. And just because a friendship is new (I moved in only a few years ago) doesn't mean it is any less real than an old one.
Oh, and sometimes you get lucky with your neighbors. It can be a rare and fleeting thing. Cherish it. For when they move, assholes are almost guaranteed to move in. Avoid regret when you can, appreciate the quiet, kind, inobtrusive people next door before it's too late. Let them help you, thank them when you can, probably as much as you do will not really be enough. Help them back whenever possible. Don't require a thank you. I bet, eventually, they will be grateful and thank you when you least expect it. That's how neighboring goes.
I promise to be sure to thank Jim more for the lillies and try my hardest to not let them die so he won't be disappointed. Amen.
Peaceout,
-callahan
intrepid presenter, human-in-training
I took the 45 minute drive that actually took an hour to give some tshirts I had promised to the tech support staff, and maybe chat a bit. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But unfortunately, like so many things in my life, that didn't happen the way I planned.
You see, it all started with day lillies. Yes, day lillies.
My neighbor, Jim, has these really robust day lillies in his yard. A few years ago I mentioned that they were the inspiration for the front garden I started at my house. He replied that not only do those lillies grow without any effort from him, but he needs to thin them every year or they start to move out of the boundaries of his border garden and try to overtake his yard. This gave logic to his asking me, last year, if I wanted any lillies from his yard. At that time I was doing a travelling gig for Microsoft, and really didn't have time.
This year comes, and at some point, while snow was still thick on the ground, Jim asks if I want any lillies for this spring. I agreed, of course, because they are proven hardy in my region, healthy, and really cheap (ala free).
Well, time passed. I got busy doing the networkworld thing, and didn't have time...until today (well not even today, but Jim didn't know that). Jim was outside working on his truck when I happened to drive into my parking spaceafter returning from some errands. There was no getting around it, as soon as I got out he was going to ask me to take some of his lilly plants. Even though I had other things to do, I was just going to have to deal with the lillies.
I got out of the car, at which time Jim asked me if I wanted help digging out his lillies (of course). He proceeded to get his shovel and give me about (all told) a hundred pounds of lillies (the whole plants, bulbs, and their surrounding dirt). Seriously, about ten big, armload bunches of lillies. I thanked him sincerely for his efforts, grateful for the flowers but worried about timing. Once those bad boys are out of the dirt, then you've got about an hour before they start dying in the sun. So, suddenly I had a big commitment on my hands.
So there I was, standing in the sun (irish, pale, freckles, not good in direct sunlight) having to dig hole after hole in the garden to plant these damn lillies. No planning, no prepping, just dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig....you get the idea, then plant. Then water, the hose leaking everywhere, water pressure oddly intermittent. At that point, it was almost two hours later, I was thirsty, getting hungry, covered in dirt and sweat, and late.
Woo hoo. *Now* it's time to drive for an hour and go visit people. And, feeling both glad that I got the lillies done, and cranky because I had been sweating dirty in the sun for over an hour for *any* reason, I got into my car and headed out.
So I get to B-town, and find my contact deep in a long conference call (I was late getting there, of course, and she couldn't cancel), so I dropped off the tshirts discreetly, and left quietly (no chance to chat and possibly drum up new business). That left me with way too much time on my hands. It was probably going to be an hour's drive back, and I had been there a whopping five minutes. What to do, what to do? (insert jeopardy thinking music here)
Well, I hadn't put much stock in it, but why not call an old friend in the area and see what he was up to? I had mentioned to him in email that I might be stopping by. He hadn't responded to that mention, but hey, wouldn't hurt to email him again.
Mind you, this old friendship has a lot of uneasiness built into it (much, much more about that later, if requested). As a matter of fact, "friendship" is probably the wrong word to describe it, but I like to make believe I am in polite company, so I won't call it anything else for right now.
So, I planned to email him what I intended to be an informative note as to where I was, what I was going to do, when I was going to do it, and how to get in touch with me (since my cell phone was out of range in that godsforsaken town (birthplace of a disciples of christ, but still, no cell phone?!)). Unfortunately, the lab I was typing in comes equipped with MS antispyware (I do really like MSAS and us it on all of my machines). This product is pretty open about announcing any little thing that crosses its digital mind, and popped into the foreground right as I was typing. What happened at that point, from my end, was I was typing the first sentence of the email, then suddenly the email I was writing in disappeared and I ended up back at my web interface inbox. I checked my sent mail, no sign of the message (thinking maybe it sent itself somehow---this was in fact the case, but more on that later), so I thought it must have been deleted/disappeared.
Now as a computer professional, you'd think I'd know better, but this was gmail, and I have had things like this happen before because the interface can be crappy. So I thought nothing more of it (other than to be irritated).
I then decided, before going any further, I would grab a cup of tea, take a little walk around, then try the email thing again. So, that's what I did.
About forty minutes later (the campus is really hilly, and it was a pretty day, so the walk was long, ambling, and slow), I saunter back, tea in hand, to check my email again. No response. I write another post saying that I was going to be at the library, I'd give him a call. I then went there, at which time I received an email from him saying he went to the computer lab, I wasn't there, period ( I find out much later that he was responding to the aborted, completely uninformative disappearing email that did in fact post). No other response, no other ideas.
Hmmm, not taking the hint, I immediately called his home number and office to get in touch, to apologize for ducking out and see if he wanted catch some grub and chat before school let out and we both went our separate ways.
Assuming all was well, we had just humorously missed each other, I hung out at the library like I said I would in my second email. After a few hours-- I was just burned out on reading, studying (for yet another certification test), and generally not taking advantage of the beautiful weather-- I emailed him letting him know that I was leaving.
Once my phone was back in service, I checked my voicemail. No messages (from him anyway). When I got home, checked my email, no messages.
So, I guess, because I wasn't in the computer lab, he's pissed or something.
Moral of the story--
Don't try to visit old friends while hot, sweaty, tired, dirty, and hungry (by that point), without clear plans beforehand. My mistake was, after receiving no response to my warning that I'd be in the area, I should have realized that he didn't really want to hang out to begin with. That meant that the inconvenience of going to the lab and finding me not there was just more than he could bear. He didn't feel up to any more effort.
On the upside, I did get quite a bit of work done at the library, and both the locale and the weather were beautiful. Other than that odd misunderstanding, it was a really nice visit. It's good sometimes to leave home and breathe the air of a different place for a while.
I tell you one thing, now that I think of it, I am really grateful to Jim for those liliies. All things considered, they made my day (who needs to chat really?). I got something nice for free, genuine no strings attached help, and good reason to get something done in my garden that may well last a lifetime.
Yeah.
May I have the microphone please? (ahem)
Jim (who will never read this), Thank you. Thank you for being a good neighbor. Thank you for the lillies.
Second Moral of the story--- Sometimes you find friends in unexpected places, like next door. And just because a friendship is new (I moved in only a few years ago) doesn't mean it is any less real than an old one.
Oh, and sometimes you get lucky with your neighbors. It can be a rare and fleeting thing. Cherish it. For when they move, assholes are almost guaranteed to move in. Avoid regret when you can, appreciate the quiet, kind, inobtrusive people next door before it's too late. Let them help you, thank them when you can, probably as much as you do will not really be enough. Help them back whenever possible. Don't require a thank you. I bet, eventually, they will be grateful and thank you when you least expect it. That's how neighboring goes.
I promise to be sure to thank Jim more for the lillies and try my hardest to not let them die so he won't be disappointed. Amen.
Peaceout,
-callahan
intrepid presenter, human-in-training
Monday, May 16, 2005
My computers: Where they live, work and play.... Part two
Okay, so weeks ago I mentioned that I spend too much time in a little 6x5 room and that I needed to get out a little. To that end I decided I would set up my deck to be an outside office of sorts.
I also mentioned that my backyard has completely no privacy because it is so very close to the neighbors' that everytime I open my backdoor, someone nearby looks up from what they are doing. There just is no way to have a private moment out there.
Well, I did some research online and found a 9' market umbrella for 49.95$, a table for 34.95$, some chairs at about four dollars apiece, and some large plants for about 10 dollars apiece. So I went out to one of the super-mega-mega stores and bought those things, plus a lot of dirt. Never know when you might need some dirt.
When I got home and set the table and umbrella up, I realized that they gave me the 7.5' umbrella. It was pretty, tan, floral, but not the size I wanted (assuming that bigger for the same price is better). So I called the store to be sure they had the umbrella I want in stock. They did, so I had the stock guy put it aside for me to pick up within the hour. I immediately packed up the small umbrella and headed to the store. Arriving there, I found that the stock boy had gone on lunch and no one could find the umbrella with my name on it.... ...finally someone found the umbrella. I asked if I could see the color (I had a bad feeling that turned out to be correct). Unfortunately, the umbrella was in a bag (made of the same material, appropriately the same color as the umbrella) that was sort of green, but couldn't easily be opened right there at the register. They assured me that the umbrella was tan, just as it was advertised. Uh, sure. I really wanted to check it out but finally gave in and decided to just take it home because that place gave me the creeps.
Having brought it home I found that 1) it's huge and dominates my deck (maybe that 7.5' one wasn't so bad after all) and a nasty light khaki green color (that doesn't show up as green as it is on my camera phone for some reason).
Nonetheless, it's still there because it does make it mighty shady on the deck, and it definitely cooler sitting at the table. Ugly but cool. Kinda like volvos.
The day I put up the umbrella, and for the rest of the week, the weather was windy, very windy, cloudy to rainy, and cold (thus proving that the patio is a powerful place to control the weather gods. Beware if your offerings are not pleasing). The bad weather did give me the opportunty to learn a quick but effective lesson that the cheap umbrella stand I bought was in no way heavy enough to keep the umbrella from actually pulling out of the hole in the middle of the table and becoming airbourne, destroying some pretty precious plants, and generally messing things up.
To overcome this issue, in desperation, I tied down the umbrella with the only thing handy, christmas garland that I usually wrap around the stair rails.
-- Yes christmas decorations, and no not because it was still up. Look, it was handy, it's made of pretty thick gauge wire, it's pliable, and well, did I mention it was handy?--
So, I wrapped that badboy around and around the umbrella pole, down between some slats of the deck, and back up. I figured it would suffice.
And suffice it does, except for that drunken list to the side that it has. You see, the poor seven dollar umbrella stand has been battered and loosened to the point where it can't hold the umbrella upright anymore, so it leans and sways at the end of the garland like a sleepy animal in the wind.
Of course, this means that I had to go to the store and buy a new umbrella stand for an additional 20 bucks. And, at this point that leaves me owning it, but I just need to find time to actually go through the process of upboxing, and assembling the darn thing before I wrestle with the umbrella, struggling to force the wild beast, full of wind and sun, to submit to being bound by the metal embrace of the cast iron stand.
--Yeah, yeah, I could close the umbrella and make it easy on myself, but it *is* a 50$ umbrella, and having gotten what I paid for I am not all that confident in it's ability to open again should I close it before the summer season ends.--
In addition to the umbrella, you may remember, I purchased three large (apx. three foot) umbrella palm kind of plants for privacy. You know, victorian parlor kind of plants, indigenous to ubiquitous waiting places. Generally covered in dust, and surviving despite the neglect of its owners. Those plants.
Anyway, I bought a couple of those and stuck them on some fold out benches along the side of the deck closest to the nearest (and most annoying) neighbors. They (the neighbors) didn't seem to like that, truth be told, but as far as I am concerned the plants are a success. A nice, green wall of foliage, swaying in the breeze (or reeling violently in the wind, take your pick). Unfortunately, only hours after purchase, the tall plants had fallen down several times, destroying several smaller plants (namely the bonsai trees I had been nurturing for up to ten years) in the process. I tried (and failed with) several methods to tie the plants down before coming up with my ingeneous wide strip of plastic (otherwise known as bits torn from plastic bags) around the base of the plant itself. This method keeps the plant from falling over, is low enough not to be too noticeable (but not so low, as in around the pot itself, to be ineffective), wide enough not to shear through the plant if the wind is strong enough (think garroting someone one with fishing line), and transparent as well.
Now the deck is a nice, shady, safe place to sit and do work. The outdoor electrical socket makes it possible to run an outdoor extension cord to the table to power my laptop and external harddrive, and I can point the dining room stereo speakers out the sliding screendoor and listen to music.
Ah, yes, this is the life....except for one small problem I somehow managed to overlook. My laptop screen, no matter how high the setting, cannot be bright enough to view outside. Even under the gahdawful umbrella, it is not dark enough. Yup, I can sit on the deck and work, but I can't see the screen.
So after all that work, here I sit, inside, looking at my peaceful plantridden deck. It looks nice, but it's too bright during the day to work out there. Now I guess I will have to have a party to get any use out of the stuff I bought. Bummer.
Stay tuned next time when I try to bring my laptop mountain biking.......
-callahan
I also mentioned that my backyard has completely no privacy because it is so very close to the neighbors' that everytime I open my backdoor, someone nearby looks up from what they are doing. There just is no way to have a private moment out there.
Well, I did some research online and found a 9' market umbrella for 49.95$, a table for 34.95$, some chairs at about four dollars apiece, and some large plants for about 10 dollars apiece. So I went out to one of the super-mega-mega stores and bought those things, plus a lot of dirt. Never know when you might need some dirt.
When I got home and set the table and umbrella up, I realized that they gave me the 7.5' umbrella. It was pretty, tan, floral, but not the size I wanted (assuming that bigger for the same price is better). So I called the store to be sure they had the umbrella I want in stock. They did, so I had the stock guy put it aside for me to pick up within the hour. I immediately packed up the small umbrella and headed to the store. Arriving there, I found that the stock boy had gone on lunch and no one could find the umbrella with my name on it.... ...finally someone found the umbrella. I asked if I could see the color (I had a bad feeling that turned out to be correct). Unfortunately, the umbrella was in a bag (made of the same material, appropriately the same color as the umbrella) that was sort of green, but couldn't easily be opened right there at the register. They assured me that the umbrella was tan, just as it was advertised. Uh, sure. I really wanted to check it out but finally gave in and decided to just take it home because that place gave me the creeps.
Having brought it home I found that 1) it's huge and dominates my deck (maybe that 7.5' one wasn't so bad after all) and a nasty light khaki green color (that doesn't show up as green as it is on my camera phone for some reason).
Nonetheless, it's still there because it does make it mighty shady on the deck, and it definitely cooler sitting at the table. Ugly but cool. Kinda like volvos.
The day I put up the umbrella, and for the rest of the week, the weather was windy, very windy, cloudy to rainy, and cold (thus proving that the patio is a powerful place to control the weather gods. Beware if your offerings are not pleasing). The bad weather did give me the opportunty to learn a quick but effective lesson that the cheap umbrella stand I bought was in no way heavy enough to keep the umbrella from actually pulling out of the hole in the middle of the table and becoming airbourne, destroying some pretty precious plants, and generally messing things up.
To overcome this issue, in desperation, I tied down the umbrella with the only thing handy, christmas garland that I usually wrap around the stair rails.
-- Yes christmas decorations, and no not because it was still up. Look, it was handy, it's made of pretty thick gauge wire, it's pliable, and well, did I mention it was handy?--
So, I wrapped that badboy around and around the umbrella pole, down between some slats of the deck, and back up. I figured it would suffice.
And suffice it does, except for that drunken list to the side that it has. You see, the poor seven dollar umbrella stand has been battered and loosened to the point where it can't hold the umbrella upright anymore, so it leans and sways at the end of the garland like a sleepy animal in the wind.
Of course, this means that I had to go to the store and buy a new umbrella stand for an additional 20 bucks. And, at this point that leaves me owning it, but I just need to find time to actually go through the process of upboxing, and assembling the darn thing before I wrestle with the umbrella, struggling to force the wild beast, full of wind and sun, to submit to being bound by the metal embrace of the cast iron stand.
--Yeah, yeah, I could close the umbrella and make it easy on myself, but it *is* a 50$ umbrella, and having gotten what I paid for I am not all that confident in it's ability to open again should I close it before the summer season ends.--
In addition to the umbrella, you may remember, I purchased three large (apx. three foot) umbrella palm kind of plants for privacy. You know, victorian parlor kind of plants, indigenous to ubiquitous waiting places. Generally covered in dust, and surviving despite the neglect of its owners. Those plants.
Anyway, I bought a couple of those and stuck them on some fold out benches along the side of the deck closest to the nearest (and most annoying) neighbors. They (the neighbors) didn't seem to like that, truth be told, but as far as I am concerned the plants are a success. A nice, green wall of foliage, swaying in the breeze (or reeling violently in the wind, take your pick). Unfortunately, only hours after purchase, the tall plants had fallen down several times, destroying several smaller plants (namely the bonsai trees I had been nurturing for up to ten years) in the process. I tried (and failed with) several methods to tie the plants down before coming up with my ingeneous wide strip of plastic (otherwise known as bits torn from plastic bags) around the base of the plant itself. This method keeps the plant from falling over, is low enough not to be too noticeable (but not so low, as in around the pot itself, to be ineffective), wide enough not to shear through the plant if the wind is strong enough (think garroting someone one with fishing line), and transparent as well.
Now the deck is a nice, shady, safe place to sit and do work. The outdoor electrical socket makes it possible to run an outdoor extension cord to the table to power my laptop and external harddrive, and I can point the dining room stereo speakers out the sliding screendoor and listen to music.
Ah, yes, this is the life....except for one small problem I somehow managed to overlook. My laptop screen, no matter how high the setting, cannot be bright enough to view outside. Even under the gahdawful umbrella, it is not dark enough. Yup, I can sit on the deck and work, but I can't see the screen.
So after all that work, here I sit, inside, looking at my peaceful plantridden deck. It looks nice, but it's too bright during the day to work out there. Now I guess I will have to have a party to get any use out of the stuff I bought. Bummer.
Stay tuned next time when I try to bring my laptop mountain biking.......
-callahan
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Roles real and imagined
I was talking to someone about how we were when we were younger. This person, like myself, had moved quite a few times in her childhood, especially her teen years. This afforded her an opportunity to consciously change who she was several times. An opportunity most of us get to do only once, when we leave home for college, work, or to join the armed forces.
It's funny, but moving a lot kind of lets you practice, lets you realize how flexible a person's self can be, how different places bring out different things in people. It especially lets you see how certain things can actually make you worse, or bring out bad things, then learn how to recover, and how to recognize those things later. A great many people in my life can't seem to see that sort of thing and are baffled when they keep making the same mistake about themselves or other people over and over again. And, oddly enough, these are the same people who grew up where they now live, never moving. Hell, several of them have never really travelled except to see disneyland.
It's kind of weird really, moving a lot as a kid. As if, when you're young, you have a sense of place, a sort of global positioning that can be kind of critical to one's self image. I am this and I am from here and this is what we do. When I am not from there anymore, what am I, where am I from now, what do I do? Set adrift from that collective identity, it sort of isolates and frees the repeatedly new kid from the bonds of locale and lets them see a few things most kids don't see. It also really adds to a kid's sense of loneliness and deepens that sense of being misunderstood.
I, for one, began to see patterns, sort of high school eco-niches. Later, watching teen movies (and then even later, movies that mock teen movies) I saw those sterotypes being pointed out. Everyone around me (in that locale, at that time), was stunned as they recognized certain characteristics in their friends and family. Oh my gahd, that is totally like Jimmy, or Shelly, or Jan. Um, yeah, that's the point. But if you never leave town, you wouldn't realize how similar each small town is. Each with the prerequisite bully that grows up to control the town council, the party guy that grows up to be the town drunk, the charming jock flirt that grows up to be the town philanderer and wildly succesful car salesman, the school slut that grows up to be, well, a slut. Only a slut that's divorced and has pre-pubescent daughters, in beauty pageants, named destinee or porsche. Interersting how the niches created at school have their corresponding postions in adulthood.
It's funny, but I wonder if we, the one's who wandered as children (generally not of our own volition), ever ended up playing any of the sterotypical roles necessary in a small town? I figure that they often didn't, because you generally have to be inside the system to find your role. If you are lucky though you can come into a town and find yourself a niche that no one else is occupying, like class clown, or smart kid. But then, when you move again, you might find that niche that worked for you before is now successfully held by someone who belongs there, who was born and raised inside that system. ( And remember, the system protects its own) Then what do you do? Recognize that and try for something else, or fail, and mope, and be unpopular? It happens.
I lived in a situation that afforded me a chance to move what some might call many times. Eventually I came to realize things that have left me permanently on the outside of most local social ecosystems. At least emotionally. I find myself playing certain roles in certain groups at certain times and realizing, part way through, what's going on. But I always notice it at some point, like I am living in a waking dream. It leaves me cynical, lemme tell you. Also, I can see clear patterns of people getting finished with each other, as one stereotype plays out against another. There is nowhere else for those roles to go, and the people who fill them are left having to deal with the aftermath. They secretly regret it. Heck part way through one or both of them wished they didn't have to do it. But they did. They actually didn't have to, not really. They could have stopped at any time, apologized, mentioned that it was stupid, but to do that would be too "out of character" would be admitting that they were more than their roles. Most people feel they are living "up to everyone's expectations." It's hard to believe that they are really living down to them.
Another thing that is a bummer with that is most people who stay put in their lives can find themselves trapped in a role-- I can't do that. I just can't. How many times have you heard that from someone? They can, you know they can, but they won't because that's not what *they do*. They are their role. They don't realize that that is not all that they are. That they can be something else if they want to. They don't need to move away, or be asked to do something in a time of crisis to change. Most things in their roles boil down to conventions. Conventionally, the shy one never does public speaking. That is too brazen, too confident. They could never do that. The school ditz, the one who is good at cheerleading, (she's been told she's stupid but that's okay because she's pretty) can't be good at math, she just can't. But she's not that stupid. When she was young she didn't pay attention, but it turns out that she scored the highest in her class on the SATs. She didn't tell anyone because she didn't want anyone to think she was a geek. She was too into her role. Then, when she could do a difficult job that took real smarts, she is either told she can't because of her role, or she herself is convinced she can't because she believes she is her role. It happens over and over. The battered wife, the born loser. If they are convinced that's what they are, then that is what they are. Never mind that one is incredibly good at math, can sing like an angel, or is an incredible athlete. Those abilities never get developed because they don't fit the role.
Sometimes people are shocked by unconventional behavior. Fine. Let them be. Sometimes, to get things done, convention must be broken. If it isn't a rule then go ahead, break through that invisible wall and just do it. It's innovative, to think outside the box, right?
Yes, as long as you don't make waves.
And this is a lesson I have learned in my life. -That society is made up of common roles.
-That society can be anything from three people to three million people, as long as they have to commonly interact and/or depend on one another on a regular basis.
-That people need to make assumptions as to where others fit into society in order to be able to work around them.
- That knowing that, circumstances can be analyzed and roles can be assumed that allow others to make assumptions in such a manner that facilitates any success required, mine, their's, ours, whatever. As long as the role does not cause friction amongst others in the society, a great deal of things can be tolerated.
-That societies, although made up of individuals, think like a mob, or a single large animal, and in some situations can be controlled and managed as such. Remember to do nothing unexpected, that falls out of pattern for your role. Society abhors an abberation. Like a large beast, it senses weakness, a flaw in a healthy pattern, and can become anxious, uncertain, or aggressive. Roles, once adopted in a society, generally cannot be changed. Some people who find themselves in a role that doesn't really suit them might seek an outlet that lets them exercise other talents or aspects of their personality. That does possibly lead to someone living compartmented lives though. Shy accountant by day, Riverdancer by night. Someone you met as a quiet, self effacing college student who spends her nights being a bawdy stripper. "If people only knew," you could almost hear them say. It is hard to change roles once everyone sees you in one. People don't really like change.
Which brings me back to kids that move a lot. Kids don't like change either. Not really, not until they are ready for it. It leaves them frayed, lost and shaken. Adults don't like change and often respond with aggression, children tend to respond with submission, with introversion. It's rough and can leave scars on a child if done too early, too often, too abruptly, or too completely.
But change is necessary, you need it to learn to be both flexible and strong. Like tempering a blade in fire, or heating pottery in a kiln. Time and exposure will harden a boy into a man, but if you want real pliable strength, expose children to change as often as possible. Let them learn what they can and can not do without the safety, expectations, and limitations of their childhood roles. Encourage them to step out and try. Believe me, there are those out there who will not believe they can until they do. And they won't do until they have to. Let those children practice being other things-- stronger, weaker, proud or not-- before push comes to shove and lives are on the line. You never know when aspects of an odd role or two will come in handy in the here and now, a million years and miles away from when you first tried them as a child. A skill is a skill, the more you learn, the more you do. The more you do, the more you are. I think, maybe, that roles are temporary, almost imaginary, to be used when necesary to work with a group to get something done. If they don't fit you, don't wear them. It confuses people and chafes too.
-callahan
It's funny, but moving a lot kind of lets you practice, lets you realize how flexible a person's self can be, how different places bring out different things in people. It especially lets you see how certain things can actually make you worse, or bring out bad things, then learn how to recover, and how to recognize those things later. A great many people in my life can't seem to see that sort of thing and are baffled when they keep making the same mistake about themselves or other people over and over again. And, oddly enough, these are the same people who grew up where they now live, never moving. Hell, several of them have never really travelled except to see disneyland.
It's kind of weird really, moving a lot as a kid. As if, when you're young, you have a sense of place, a sort of global positioning that can be kind of critical to one's self image. I am this and I am from here and this is what we do. When I am not from there anymore, what am I, where am I from now, what do I do? Set adrift from that collective identity, it sort of isolates and frees the repeatedly new kid from the bonds of locale and lets them see a few things most kids don't see. It also really adds to a kid's sense of loneliness and deepens that sense of being misunderstood.
I, for one, began to see patterns, sort of high school eco-niches. Later, watching teen movies (and then even later, movies that mock teen movies) I saw those sterotypes being pointed out. Everyone around me (in that locale, at that time), was stunned as they recognized certain characteristics in their friends and family. Oh my gahd, that is totally like Jimmy, or Shelly, or Jan. Um, yeah, that's the point. But if you never leave town, you wouldn't realize how similar each small town is. Each with the prerequisite bully that grows up to control the town council, the party guy that grows up to be the town drunk, the charming jock flirt that grows up to be the town philanderer and wildly succesful car salesman, the school slut that grows up to be, well, a slut. Only a slut that's divorced and has pre-pubescent daughters, in beauty pageants, named destinee or porsche. Interersting how the niches created at school have their corresponding postions in adulthood.
It's funny, but I wonder if we, the one's who wandered as children (generally not of our own volition), ever ended up playing any of the sterotypical roles necessary in a small town? I figure that they often didn't, because you generally have to be inside the system to find your role. If you are lucky though you can come into a town and find yourself a niche that no one else is occupying, like class clown, or smart kid. But then, when you move again, you might find that niche that worked for you before is now successfully held by someone who belongs there, who was born and raised inside that system. ( And remember, the system protects its own) Then what do you do? Recognize that and try for something else, or fail, and mope, and be unpopular? It happens.
I lived in a situation that afforded me a chance to move what some might call many times. Eventually I came to realize things that have left me permanently on the outside of most local social ecosystems. At least emotionally. I find myself playing certain roles in certain groups at certain times and realizing, part way through, what's going on. But I always notice it at some point, like I am living in a waking dream. It leaves me cynical, lemme tell you. Also, I can see clear patterns of people getting finished with each other, as one stereotype plays out against another. There is nowhere else for those roles to go, and the people who fill them are left having to deal with the aftermath. They secretly regret it. Heck part way through one or both of them wished they didn't have to do it. But they did. They actually didn't have to, not really. They could have stopped at any time, apologized, mentioned that it was stupid, but to do that would be too "out of character" would be admitting that they were more than their roles. Most people feel they are living "up to everyone's expectations." It's hard to believe that they are really living down to them.
Another thing that is a bummer with that is most people who stay put in their lives can find themselves trapped in a role-- I can't do that. I just can't. How many times have you heard that from someone? They can, you know they can, but they won't because that's not what *they do*. They are their role. They don't realize that that is not all that they are. That they can be something else if they want to. They don't need to move away, or be asked to do something in a time of crisis to change. Most things in their roles boil down to conventions. Conventionally, the shy one never does public speaking. That is too brazen, too confident. They could never do that. The school ditz, the one who is good at cheerleading, (she's been told she's stupid but that's okay because she's pretty) can't be good at math, she just can't. But she's not that stupid. When she was young she didn't pay attention, but it turns out that she scored the highest in her class on the SATs. She didn't tell anyone because she didn't want anyone to think she was a geek. She was too into her role. Then, when she could do a difficult job that took real smarts, she is either told she can't because of her role, or she herself is convinced she can't because she believes she is her role. It happens over and over. The battered wife, the born loser. If they are convinced that's what they are, then that is what they are. Never mind that one is incredibly good at math, can sing like an angel, or is an incredible athlete. Those abilities never get developed because they don't fit the role.
Sometimes people are shocked by unconventional behavior. Fine. Let them be. Sometimes, to get things done, convention must be broken. If it isn't a rule then go ahead, break through that invisible wall and just do it. It's innovative, to think outside the box, right?
Yes, as long as you don't make waves.
And this is a lesson I have learned in my life. -That society is made up of common roles.
-That society can be anything from three people to three million people, as long as they have to commonly interact and/or depend on one another on a regular basis.
-That people need to make assumptions as to where others fit into society in order to be able to work around them.
- That knowing that, circumstances can be analyzed and roles can be assumed that allow others to make assumptions in such a manner that facilitates any success required, mine, their's, ours, whatever. As long as the role does not cause friction amongst others in the society, a great deal of things can be tolerated.
-That societies, although made up of individuals, think like a mob, or a single large animal, and in some situations can be controlled and managed as such. Remember to do nothing unexpected, that falls out of pattern for your role. Society abhors an abberation. Like a large beast, it senses weakness, a flaw in a healthy pattern, and can become anxious, uncertain, or aggressive. Roles, once adopted in a society, generally cannot be changed. Some people who find themselves in a role that doesn't really suit them might seek an outlet that lets them exercise other talents or aspects of their personality. That does possibly lead to someone living compartmented lives though. Shy accountant by day, Riverdancer by night. Someone you met as a quiet, self effacing college student who spends her nights being a bawdy stripper. "If people only knew," you could almost hear them say. It is hard to change roles once everyone sees you in one. People don't really like change.
Which brings me back to kids that move a lot. Kids don't like change either. Not really, not until they are ready for it. It leaves them frayed, lost and shaken. Adults don't like change and often respond with aggression, children tend to respond with submission, with introversion. It's rough and can leave scars on a child if done too early, too often, too abruptly, or too completely.
But change is necessary, you need it to learn to be both flexible and strong. Like tempering a blade in fire, or heating pottery in a kiln. Time and exposure will harden a boy into a man, but if you want real pliable strength, expose children to change as often as possible. Let them learn what they can and can not do without the safety, expectations, and limitations of their childhood roles. Encourage them to step out and try. Believe me, there are those out there who will not believe they can until they do. And they won't do until they have to. Let those children practice being other things-- stronger, weaker, proud or not-- before push comes to shove and lives are on the line. You never know when aspects of an odd role or two will come in handy in the here and now, a million years and miles away from when you first tried them as a child. A skill is a skill, the more you learn, the more you do. The more you do, the more you are. I think, maybe, that roles are temporary, almost imaginary, to be used when necesary to work with a group to get something done. If they don't fit you, don't wear them. It confuses people and chafes too.
-callahan
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Exercise and escape, stories from the holler
When I was a kid, I used to ride my bike, climb trees, walk in the woods, even go running. I didn't exercise for exercise's sake though. I did it to escape. Outside was somewhere most of my family didn't go.
When I needed to get away, going to another room didn't help. My house was cramped as a kid, three bedrooms, six kids kind of cramped. In order to get away in the rural towns where I lived didn't mean I could go to the Y', or to a coffee house. Those things didn't exist where I lived. No, if I wanted to truly escape, go somewhere my siblings were unlikely to go, I went to the library.
In the small town of Jellico, the library was seven miles away from my home on newcomb pike (at the mouth of brickplant hollow (pronounced "hol-lar")). That meant that I had to ride my POS, single speed bike fourteen miles a day to go to the library and back (over some pretty serious hills I might add). And, this is something I did every day but sunday during the summers I lived there. I literally went through most of that library until we inevitably moved away.
That experience, of pretty extreme exercise without intention sticks with me to this day. I tend toward endurance sports, biking, running (my mountain bike is a piece of sh*t, specialized hotrock version of the one in the background of this blog, even the red and white color). I need to go miles and miles to feel I've gone anywhere at all.
Strangely though, I think my childhood left me sort of addicted to exercise. My work tends to require me to spend most of the hours of the day sitting still, my neck in one position, only moving my hands, barely breathing. Hours of cerebral work at the expense of the body. In addtion, the weather where I live is really pretty crappy most of the time, so it tends to discourage outdoor activities as well (although I can tolerate high heat and humidity pretty well, so summer doesn't bother me too much). This leaves me feeling like crap in about three months of inactivity. I start to get achy, sore, tired. I pull muscles easily, as they seem to sort of deteriorate like recyclable bags left outside for a while. my mind gets fuzzy, groggy, cranky. But, occassionally, work requires me to be more than normally active; long, long hours, running through airports, carrying equipment half my bodyweight for miles, standing on my feet for hours, talking for days, not sleeping, hardly eating. And then, instead of wearing out, I start to feel great. I can handle more and more without noticeable impact, clearer of mind, happier of spirits, lighter of heart.
Why?
Why do I require so much stimulus? Is it because of my childhood? If I had been more sendentary then, could I be more sedentary now? Is it genetic? Why?
Or is it because I equate exhaustion with escape? Could it be I somehow, in the murky way children can, crossed some wires and associate physical exertion with going somewhere, doing something, satisfying? I am not satisfied staying still, working in the same room. I am horrible when I have to be a cubicle person. I need to be exhausted by the end of the day, I need to have given my all. Otherwise I feel a bit uncertain, like part of me is not sure we've arrived satisfactorily. Like it wants to ask, "Are we there yet?"
I find myself dreading the down time between projects. Part of me looks forward to being lazy, to sitting around watching TV, but most of me is already depressed before I get home. I hate the resume circuit, interviews, dead leads, rejection (of course, who actually loves rejection?). I hate, hate, hate the inactivity. I find myself falling into the trap of turning something I am not being paid for into a job. One of the worst, most addictive activity I indulge in is animal rescue stuff. Especially horses. I love going to barns. they are so different from the world in which I live, that no matter how close by there are in drive time, I feel like I've travelled a long way to get there. It is, in effect, a different world. being a kid who moved a lot, I like the contrast of living in two worlds in one day-- high tech, sterile, urban steel, concrete, and broadband, then low tech, leather and sweat, grass, mud, and grain. Flies in my face, bees in the field, birds in the rafters. The ebb and flow of the wind, the smell of contented horses, and the satisfaction of a clean stall before dinner time. I like to see them thrive, to overcome the traumas of the time before they met me. I like the serious physical and emotional labor of rehabilitation these animals before sending them off into the world. I also like the fact that I am a cog in a wheel there. Just one of the volunteers, not certified in anything useful, not a decisionmaker per se. It's hard, it's rewarding, and unfortunately, it's free. I make no money at it, and if I let it, that life could consume me. No pay, no getting ahead, just shovelling shit and hanging out until I starved to death.
Understandably, I think, I tend to avoid the barn now, now that I realize why I am going there. I need to see my weaknesses to overcome them right? So, I try to only allow myself that sort of thing as a reward. Get a certification, go horseback riding. Finish building a slide deck, go visit a barn, maybe shovel out a stall, walk a horse, brush it down. Then back to doing what I have to do.
What I need to do is find a job that is permanent and local, that lets me be, well, me. Lets me do physically and mentally challenging work. That makes me tired after a long hard day. Something I could possibly look forward to, at least from time to time. And most of all, paid me a wage that would make it possible to do that job exclusively for years. That includes conference fees, updating certifications, and home testing equipment for beta testing new products and learning new things. Even, egads, the occassional vacation.
Of course, that won't happen. I have been trying for almost ten years to find a decent job where I live. It doesn't exist. That's why I have grown to dread coming home. I only have work when I leave this place, and I am only happy when I am working. Thus I associate home with downtime, boredom, and misery. I begin, as any thinking human is apt to do, to anticipate the unhappiness before I even get on the plane home. It is a self fulfilling prophesy in that way. Because I am depressed it is hard to find work, but I am depressed before I even get home.
To compensate, when I am home, I go through a phase of depression, where I sleep way too much and can't seem to even unpack my stuff, never mind try to find another job. Then I begin to do small things around the house, then I clear off a space to do some exercising, then I become obsessed with working out, then I start creating lists, then I start making plans, then I start checking out job boards and talking to people, then I start doing research and learning new products, then I get a job offer that is out of state. Then I go through the stress of travelling out or doing conference calls through several interviews. then I get the job, then I go through orientation, then I am on the road again, exhausted and stressed but loving it.
The catch is, if I don't workout during that down time, yoga, treadmill, biking, then I never get to the planning stage. I just become more and more tired, more depressed, and fold into myself. The exercising phase is critical to my recovering from this cyclical process of productivity and depression. I don't know why, but it is.
Maybe it harkens back to my childhood. That the only way to change things was to escape. And maybe that feeling of tiredness, that physical exhaustion is the only way I can be sure that I am okay. That everything is fine. That I did it myself. That I am free. When I was sad, inside that house, with those people, I could leave of my own free will. Run, race, disappear and make my own space, do my own thing, be useful, productive and tired. It's exhausting, this life thing. And I think, if I am not exhausted enough, then I must not be doing it right.
-callahan
When I needed to get away, going to another room didn't help. My house was cramped as a kid, three bedrooms, six kids kind of cramped. In order to get away in the rural towns where I lived didn't mean I could go to the Y', or to a coffee house. Those things didn't exist where I lived. No, if I wanted to truly escape, go somewhere my siblings were unlikely to go, I went to the library.
In the small town of Jellico, the library was seven miles away from my home on newcomb pike (at the mouth of brickplant hollow (pronounced "hol-lar")). That meant that I had to ride my POS, single speed bike fourteen miles a day to go to the library and back (over some pretty serious hills I might add). And, this is something I did every day but sunday during the summers I lived there. I literally went through most of that library until we inevitably moved away.
That experience, of pretty extreme exercise without intention sticks with me to this day. I tend toward endurance sports, biking, running (my mountain bike is a piece of sh*t, specialized hotrock version of the one in the background of this blog, even the red and white color). I need to go miles and miles to feel I've gone anywhere at all.
Strangely though, I think my childhood left me sort of addicted to exercise. My work tends to require me to spend most of the hours of the day sitting still, my neck in one position, only moving my hands, barely breathing. Hours of cerebral work at the expense of the body. In addtion, the weather where I live is really pretty crappy most of the time, so it tends to discourage outdoor activities as well (although I can tolerate high heat and humidity pretty well, so summer doesn't bother me too much). This leaves me feeling like crap in about three months of inactivity. I start to get achy, sore, tired. I pull muscles easily, as they seem to sort of deteriorate like recyclable bags left outside for a while. my mind gets fuzzy, groggy, cranky. But, occassionally, work requires me to be more than normally active; long, long hours, running through airports, carrying equipment half my bodyweight for miles, standing on my feet for hours, talking for days, not sleeping, hardly eating. And then, instead of wearing out, I start to feel great. I can handle more and more without noticeable impact, clearer of mind, happier of spirits, lighter of heart.
Why?
Why do I require so much stimulus? Is it because of my childhood? If I had been more sendentary then, could I be more sedentary now? Is it genetic? Why?
Or is it because I equate exhaustion with escape? Could it be I somehow, in the murky way children can, crossed some wires and associate physical exertion with going somewhere, doing something, satisfying? I am not satisfied staying still, working in the same room. I am horrible when I have to be a cubicle person. I need to be exhausted by the end of the day, I need to have given my all. Otherwise I feel a bit uncertain, like part of me is not sure we've arrived satisfactorily. Like it wants to ask, "Are we there yet?"
I find myself dreading the down time between projects. Part of me looks forward to being lazy, to sitting around watching TV, but most of me is already depressed before I get home. I hate the resume circuit, interviews, dead leads, rejection (of course, who actually loves rejection?). I hate, hate, hate the inactivity. I find myself falling into the trap of turning something I am not being paid for into a job. One of the worst, most addictive activity I indulge in is animal rescue stuff. Especially horses. I love going to barns. they are so different from the world in which I live, that no matter how close by there are in drive time, I feel like I've travelled a long way to get there. It is, in effect, a different world. being a kid who moved a lot, I like the contrast of living in two worlds in one day-- high tech, sterile, urban steel, concrete, and broadband, then low tech, leather and sweat, grass, mud, and grain. Flies in my face, bees in the field, birds in the rafters. The ebb and flow of the wind, the smell of contented horses, and the satisfaction of a clean stall before dinner time. I like to see them thrive, to overcome the traumas of the time before they met me. I like the serious physical and emotional labor of rehabilitation these animals before sending them off into the world. I also like the fact that I am a cog in a wheel there. Just one of the volunteers, not certified in anything useful, not a decisionmaker per se. It's hard, it's rewarding, and unfortunately, it's free. I make no money at it, and if I let it, that life could consume me. No pay, no getting ahead, just shovelling shit and hanging out until I starved to death.
Understandably, I think, I tend to avoid the barn now, now that I realize why I am going there. I need to see my weaknesses to overcome them right? So, I try to only allow myself that sort of thing as a reward. Get a certification, go horseback riding. Finish building a slide deck, go visit a barn, maybe shovel out a stall, walk a horse, brush it down. Then back to doing what I have to do.
What I need to do is find a job that is permanent and local, that lets me be, well, me. Lets me do physically and mentally challenging work. That makes me tired after a long hard day. Something I could possibly look forward to, at least from time to time. And most of all, paid me a wage that would make it possible to do that job exclusively for years. That includes conference fees, updating certifications, and home testing equipment for beta testing new products and learning new things. Even, egads, the occassional vacation.
Of course, that won't happen. I have been trying for almost ten years to find a decent job where I live. It doesn't exist. That's why I have grown to dread coming home. I only have work when I leave this place, and I am only happy when I am working. Thus I associate home with downtime, boredom, and misery. I begin, as any thinking human is apt to do, to anticipate the unhappiness before I even get on the plane home. It is a self fulfilling prophesy in that way. Because I am depressed it is hard to find work, but I am depressed before I even get home.
To compensate, when I am home, I go through a phase of depression, where I sleep way too much and can't seem to even unpack my stuff, never mind try to find another job. Then I begin to do small things around the house, then I clear off a space to do some exercising, then I become obsessed with working out, then I start creating lists, then I start making plans, then I start checking out job boards and talking to people, then I start doing research and learning new products, then I get a job offer that is out of state. Then I go through the stress of travelling out or doing conference calls through several interviews. then I get the job, then I go through orientation, then I am on the road again, exhausted and stressed but loving it.
The catch is, if I don't workout during that down time, yoga, treadmill, biking, then I never get to the planning stage. I just become more and more tired, more depressed, and fold into myself. The exercising phase is critical to my recovering from this cyclical process of productivity and depression. I don't know why, but it is.
Maybe it harkens back to my childhood. That the only way to change things was to escape. And maybe that feeling of tiredness, that physical exhaustion is the only way I can be sure that I am okay. That everything is fine. That I did it myself. That I am free. When I was sad, inside that house, with those people, I could leave of my own free will. Run, race, disappear and make my own space, do my own thing, be useful, productive and tired. It's exhausting, this life thing. And I think, if I am not exhausted enough, then I must not be doing it right.
-callahan
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Google down?
Has the world come to an end? What happened? Is it just my ISP, or is my favorite tool, the keeper of my gmail, offline?
It's weird, but as soon as I woke up my laptop a few minutes, I opened a browser and tried to google something ( Not the second thing after checking my mail, or opening my blog, no it was the very first thing. As simple and essential as breathing) and it came back with the dire "www.google.com could not be found..." An error that strikes fear in the heart of anyone who has a website.
WTF?! Now where will I go? Lycos, yahoo, dogpile (ah, good old dogpile), altavista? Creepy. Especially since Bill Gates is on the cover of Fortune magazine whining about google.
Could it be? Could it be that you killed kenny, you bastard. (I say, on my msn blog..... ; )~)
Google where are you? Hurry home. Timmy's down a well and I don't want to look for anything without you.
It's weird, but as soon as I woke up my laptop a few minutes, I opened a browser and tried to google something ( Not the second thing after checking my mail, or opening my blog, no it was the very first thing. As simple and essential as breathing) and it came back with the dire "www.google.com could not be found..." An error that strikes fear in the heart of anyone who has a website.
WTF?! Now where will I go? Lycos, yahoo, dogpile (ah, good old dogpile), altavista? Creepy. Especially since Bill Gates is on the cover of Fortune magazine whining about google.
Could it be? Could it be that you killed kenny, you bastard. (I say, on my msn blog..... ; )~)
Google where are you? Hurry home. Timmy's down a well and I don't want to look for anything without you.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Under your clothes
May 06
I went to Barnes and Noble this evening after dinner to enjoy my favorite pasttime, reading random books I would never normally buy. Today, not surprisingly, my selections were glossy, photo filled books about decorating patios and decks, how to buy patio furniture, and the obligatory bonsai book (the pictures are purty). While hanging out, drinking a latte, I noticed a gaggle of young ladies glancing my way and laughing. Not really caring, I couldn't help but notice they were, in fact, laughing at me.
Apparently I have no fashion sense. And, unfortunately, they are right. Especially when I am just hanging out. You see, most of the time I do not dress to be seen. Rather I tend to dress to not be seen, to blend in, to fly under the radar. Sometimes I go too far and dress like a bag lady.
This evening was apparently one of those times.
And all I could think of looking at these girls, all caught up in fashion, obsessed with fitting current conventions, was "You know what? Clothes were meant to keep me warm. To protect me from the sun. I don't care about them. Without them I would still look good. Would you?"
And feeling good about thinking things that would shock them, I sat in silence.
Let them laugh, for they are silly and life will very likely chew them up and spit them out. I have much more practice wearing clothes (and being naked, come to think of it. I mean, it stands to reason...) and I know what I am talking about. Nyeah.
I went to Barnes and Noble this evening after dinner to enjoy my favorite pasttime, reading random books I would never normally buy. Today, not surprisingly, my selections were glossy, photo filled books about decorating patios and decks, how to buy patio furniture, and the obligatory bonsai book (the pictures are purty). While hanging out, drinking a latte, I noticed a gaggle of young ladies glancing my way and laughing. Not really caring, I couldn't help but notice they were, in fact, laughing at me.
Apparently I have no fashion sense. And, unfortunately, they are right. Especially when I am just hanging out. You see, most of the time I do not dress to be seen. Rather I tend to dress to not be seen, to blend in, to fly under the radar. Sometimes I go too far and dress like a bag lady.
This evening was apparently one of those times.
And all I could think of looking at these girls, all caught up in fashion, obsessed with fitting current conventions, was "You know what? Clothes were meant to keep me warm. To protect me from the sun. I don't care about them. Without them I would still look good. Would you?"
And feeling good about thinking things that would shock them, I sat in silence.
Let them laugh, for they are silly and life will very likely chew them up and spit them out. I have much more practice wearing clothes (and being naked, come to think of it. I mean, it stands to reason...) and I know what I am talking about. Nyeah.
My computers: Where they live, work and play....
501 own a tablet pc.l thought it would make it easies to write.like wingspan it seems so much more Natural than tipping tome. But, and this is abig but, the damn thing doesn't Really work. ...
Okay, that's enough. I was trying to handwrite the previous paragraph. It said, in neat, printed english "So I own a tablet pc. I thought it would make it easier to write. Handwriting seems so much more natural that typing words. But, and this is a big but, the damn thing doesn't really work...."
You see what I mean. The handwriting recognition not only sucks, but it changes words randomly between the tablet input panel and the typing field. That means, even if you capture what you've written in the text preview pane (a pain in the ass area where you can delay adding your written text to an area until you have error checked it, and good thing too, because it is generally wrong), you have to spend twice as much time fixing the misunderstandings between you and the tablet than you'd take just typing the damn information.
And thus, why I am typing now. This is doubly painful because I have become accustomed to typing on a Mac keyboard (all best buy had in the way of USB keyboards when I needed one most). There is a difference, most noteably the fact that the Mac (emac to be exact) keyboard is sharply slanted toward the user (think stadium seating for letter keys) and the tablet's keyboard, like all laptops, is flat, with some of the more useful keys in odd and unexpected places (why do they do that?).
Nonetheless, I soldier one.
Today's topic is using my computer. Or, more precisely, my computers. They dominate my days (nights, weekends, meal times, basically my whole, and entire life). I have basically two places to I tend use them:
First, my little six by five foot, wood panelled office (formerly, and I am not kidding, a closet). This space houses my desktop computer (a sweet little shuttle mini, powerful as hell and precious to me), who's name is bubbles (as in cobra bubbles, the big FBI guy in Lilo and Stitch), my usb kvm (an anniversary gift from my SO), a Windows 2003 standard domain controller, a Windows 2003 enterprise Virtual Server 2005 machine (with three gigs of ram, 80gig hd 4200rpm and 120gig hd 7200rpm), and a spare server running server 2000 but will soon be my spare 2003 server, technet subscription, virtual server beta box. That maxes out my kvm, the space I have in there, and the temperature. In February it was about fifteen degrees outside and almost ninety degrees in my little room. I have two fans running to cool off the space (running on a different circuit to avoid any messy power issues). That does cause an unexpected problem.
In order to tell what the temp in the space actually was, I have been using a thermometer/hygrometer. For those of you that don't recognize what a hygrometer is, it measures the moisture in the air. About 40% is where I am comfy (having grown up in humid places) and I have all kinds of humidifiers around the house to keep it that way too. Well, it was about 35% in there (I keep a personal humidifier on my desk at all times). Funny thing though, I started using the fans when it got too hot (a little note--- getting really hot is bad for motherboards, hard drives and the like and can destroy them. In earlier days, it was easy to melt a processor if the box itself was too hot. Nowadays, processors deal with heat by slowing down, way down. I don't like slow, I have things to do. Thus the need to cool everything off) and noticed that every time I touched any of my equipment (hard not to do in that space) I would get zapped by static electricity. Hard, visible spark, audible noise. I glanced at the hygrometer and found that the humidity in my space had dropped to below 15% (even though the outside humidity on that day was well over 40%). Yeowzers. Not only was I uncomfortable (the fans kicking up dust and smacking electrons around, my eyes burning and itching) but my nose actually started bleeding by the end of the day (mind you, that day was about eighteen hours of work, no normal hours for me). Now I have a second humidifier in the doorway of the room (again, trying to keep it on a different circuit since it too uses a fan) and still I am barely in the thirties. I find that about 34% is where most of the static stops. Honestly though, without the hygrometer I wouldn't have even given humidity a though and would have begun to suspect a grounding issue with my equipment, testing with my multimeter, fussing with my ups and power cubes. That hygrometer really saved me time. Not to mention helped explain my discomfort and later why my skin started peeling like I had a sunburn.
Now that space is cute, cozy, (obviously warm in the winter) and good for focusing. As a matter of fact, my profile pic is my desktop view of the world in winter. However, after spending months cooped up in there, it does put a bit of a cramp in my creativity. After a while all sitting there elicits is a strong urge to nap. I needed to get out.
Which brings me to my second place to use my computers--- the dining room. Also pictured on my site, this relatively roomy (larger than 6'x5') space is lit by a sliding glass door that opens onto my deck and backyard, and a window that faces southwest. This room is dominated by the plants I keep there to over winter that belong on the deck (complete with lights on timers and a broken automated watering system). It also houses, of course, the dining room table, books, and the stereo system. Unfortunately, it is also conveniently close to the TV, kitchen, and comfy couch, good for wasting time and the occasional nap. When working in the dining room, I use my tablet pc, an Acer 303xmi, with an extra gig of ram and an external 7200rpm, 120gb HD. With the laptop I can remotely control the machines upstairs in my office, so it's like having the kvm. Of course, there are disadvantages, the keyboard I already mentioned, and the fact that the screen quality is a bit off, seeing as the tablet's digitizer screen is a little fuzzy at all times and forces me (during crunch times) to sit with my neck slightly tilted down for hours and hours. On the upside, it is brighter downstairs in my home, more open and airy, gives me a chance to look outside. With the sliding glass door open, it lets me feel the cool breezes and watch the mourning doves hang out in my yard (oh, and poop on my deck).
However, there is one good reason (other than it's too tempting to be distracted) why I don't spend a lot of time in my dining room-- it is a pain in the butt to disconnect all the stuff I have attached to the laptop when I am working with it in my office and drag it downstairs and plug all that stuff back in. Also, as the table is logically in the middle of the room, the cables stretch across the room, ready to hamstring unsuspecting passersby and yank my poor equipment off the table and onto the floor. All to just have a change of scenery. So, more often than not, I just stay in my little room upstairs for days and days on end. Despite the fact that I mourn the seasons passing without my involvement and long to be able to experience the sun (in small, manageable doses of course. Maybe appreciate it up close, but in the shade), I found it easier to stay in my room to get things done. And really, the dining room is nice, it is closer to being outside, but it isn't actually being outside.
Today I have decided to change all that. I am opening a new chapter in convenient places to work at home. One that will let me enjoy the outside world while not either frying to a crisp or becoming a neighborhood attraction (lookee there marge, our neighbor's usin' one of them com-poot-ers, run and get the camera).
Remember how I mentioned that I had a deck outside my dining room? Well, heretofore it has been largely unused. It is blindingly hot during most of the day in the summer, and completely without privacy as my neighborhood was created back when it was great to have your neighbors in your backpocket (pah! Who needs yards they thought, only good if you *like* to use your lawnmower). Thus my poor deck has become neglected, a nice place to hold plants, potting soil and a rusting hibachi. What I'd like to do is get an umbrella to keep me shady, and tall potted plants to create some privacy. Mind you, my pockets are so empty that I'm spending lint, so money is an issue. I'll just have to get creative, that's all.
To that end, I am heading out now. More later and maybe pictures.
Okay, that's enough. I was trying to handwrite the previous paragraph. It said, in neat, printed english "So I own a tablet pc. I thought it would make it easier to write. Handwriting seems so much more natural that typing words. But, and this is a big but, the damn thing doesn't really work...."
You see what I mean. The handwriting recognition not only sucks, but it changes words randomly between the tablet input panel and the typing field. That means, even if you capture what you've written in the text preview pane (a pain in the ass area where you can delay adding your written text to an area until you have error checked it, and good thing too, because it is generally wrong), you have to spend twice as much time fixing the misunderstandings between you and the tablet than you'd take just typing the damn information.
And thus, why I am typing now. This is doubly painful because I have become accustomed to typing on a Mac keyboard (all best buy had in the way of USB keyboards when I needed one most). There is a difference, most noteably the fact that the Mac (emac to be exact) keyboard is sharply slanted toward the user (think stadium seating for letter keys) and the tablet's keyboard, like all laptops, is flat, with some of the more useful keys in odd and unexpected places (why do they do that?).
Nonetheless, I soldier one.
Today's topic is using my computer. Or, more precisely, my computers. They dominate my days (nights, weekends, meal times, basically my whole, and entire life). I have basically two places to I tend use them:
First, my little six by five foot, wood panelled office (formerly, and I am not kidding, a closet). This space houses my desktop computer (a sweet little shuttle mini, powerful as hell and precious to me), who's name is bubbles (as in cobra bubbles, the big FBI guy in Lilo and Stitch), my usb kvm (an anniversary gift from my SO), a Windows 2003 standard domain controller, a Windows 2003 enterprise Virtual Server 2005 machine (with three gigs of ram, 80gig hd 4200rpm and 120gig hd 7200rpm), and a spare server running server 2000 but will soon be my spare 2003 server, technet subscription, virtual server beta box. That maxes out my kvm, the space I have in there, and the temperature. In February it was about fifteen degrees outside and almost ninety degrees in my little room. I have two fans running to cool off the space (running on a different circuit to avoid any messy power issues). That does cause an unexpected problem.
In order to tell what the temp in the space actually was, I have been using a thermometer/hygrometer. For those of you that don't recognize what a hygrometer is, it measures the moisture in the air. About 40% is where I am comfy (having grown up in humid places) and I have all kinds of humidifiers around the house to keep it that way too. Well, it was about 35% in there (I keep a personal humidifier on my desk at all times). Funny thing though, I started using the fans when it got too hot (a little note--- getting really hot is bad for motherboards, hard drives and the like and can destroy them. In earlier days, it was easy to melt a processor if the box itself was too hot. Nowadays, processors deal with heat by slowing down, way down. I don't like slow, I have things to do. Thus the need to cool everything off) and noticed that every time I touched any of my equipment (hard not to do in that space) I would get zapped by static electricity. Hard, visible spark, audible noise. I glanced at the hygrometer and found that the humidity in my space had dropped to below 15% (even though the outside humidity on that day was well over 40%). Yeowzers. Not only was I uncomfortable (the fans kicking up dust and smacking electrons around, my eyes burning and itching) but my nose actually started bleeding by the end of the day (mind you, that day was about eighteen hours of work, no normal hours for me). Now I have a second humidifier in the doorway of the room (again, trying to keep it on a different circuit since it too uses a fan) and still I am barely in the thirties. I find that about 34% is where most of the static stops. Honestly though, without the hygrometer I wouldn't have even given humidity a though and would have begun to suspect a grounding issue with my equipment, testing with my multimeter, fussing with my ups and power cubes. That hygrometer really saved me time. Not to mention helped explain my discomfort and later why my skin started peeling like I had a sunburn.
Now that space is cute, cozy, (obviously warm in the winter) and good for focusing. As a matter of fact, my profile pic is my desktop view of the world in winter. However, after spending months cooped up in there, it does put a bit of a cramp in my creativity. After a while all sitting there elicits is a strong urge to nap. I needed to get out.
Which brings me to my second place to use my computers--- the dining room. Also pictured on my site, this relatively roomy (larger than 6'x5') space is lit by a sliding glass door that opens onto my deck and backyard, and a window that faces southwest. This room is dominated by the plants I keep there to over winter that belong on the deck (complete with lights on timers and a broken automated watering system). It also houses, of course, the dining room table, books, and the stereo system. Unfortunately, it is also conveniently close to the TV, kitchen, and comfy couch, good for wasting time and the occasional nap. When working in the dining room, I use my tablet pc, an Acer 303xmi, with an extra gig of ram and an external 7200rpm, 120gb HD. With the laptop I can remotely control the machines upstairs in my office, so it's like having the kvm. Of course, there are disadvantages, the keyboard I already mentioned, and the fact that the screen quality is a bit off, seeing as the tablet's digitizer screen is a little fuzzy at all times and forces me (during crunch times) to sit with my neck slightly tilted down for hours and hours. On the upside, it is brighter downstairs in my home, more open and airy, gives me a chance to look outside. With the sliding glass door open, it lets me feel the cool breezes and watch the mourning doves hang out in my yard (oh, and poop on my deck).
However, there is one good reason (other than it's too tempting to be distracted) why I don't spend a lot of time in my dining room-- it is a pain in the butt to disconnect all the stuff I have attached to the laptop when I am working with it in my office and drag it downstairs and plug all that stuff back in. Also, as the table is logically in the middle of the room, the cables stretch across the room, ready to hamstring unsuspecting passersby and yank my poor equipment off the table and onto the floor. All to just have a change of scenery. So, more often than not, I just stay in my little room upstairs for days and days on end. Despite the fact that I mourn the seasons passing without my involvement and long to be able to experience the sun (in small, manageable doses of course. Maybe appreciate it up close, but in the shade), I found it easier to stay in my room to get things done. And really, the dining room is nice, it is closer to being outside, but it isn't actually being outside.
Today I have decided to change all that. I am opening a new chapter in convenient places to work at home. One that will let me enjoy the outside world while not either frying to a crisp or becoming a neighborhood attraction (lookee there marge, our neighbor's usin' one of them com-poot-ers, run and get the camera).
Remember how I mentioned that I had a deck outside my dining room? Well, heretofore it has been largely unused. It is blindingly hot during most of the day in the summer, and completely without privacy as my neighborhood was created back when it was great to have your neighbors in your backpocket (pah! Who needs yards they thought, only good if you *like* to use your lawnmower). Thus my poor deck has become neglected, a nice place to hold plants, potting soil and a rusting hibachi. What I'd like to do is get an umbrella to keep me shady, and tall potted plants to create some privacy. Mind you, my pockets are so empty that I'm spending lint, so money is an issue. I'll just have to get creative, that's all.
To that end, I am heading out now. More later and maybe pictures.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Sometimes thank you is a four letter word--[bitter]
May 18
Thank you for neglecting me, for taking me for granted
for not writing, not calling
for leaving me waiting in silence, apparently forgotten
for not giving me the care and attention everyone else seems to deserve
Then coming home, expecting me to crawl into your lap like a cat, and tell you I love you.
Thank you for making me feel that I deserve this special treatment.
Thank you for giving me no choice but to forget about you, to abjure you, to shun you
At the time I didn't realize that when you gave me no choice, I didn't need one.
Thank you for teaching me the error of my ways.
Thank you for essentially disappearing
Before I got too hurt, too close
Before I gave you gifts belonging to someone else
Before I wasted too much time.
I know that just writing this empowers you, gives you attention, immortalizes you in some way
But I felt that it is much crueler to say this behind your back than to your face
So I put it here, out in plain sight
where you will never find it
because you won't bother looking.
Funny how I was so much smarter at 19,
knowing then what has taken me all these years to learn.
Thank you.
Thank you for neglecting me, for taking me for granted
for not writing, not calling
for leaving me waiting in silence, apparently forgotten
for not giving me the care and attention everyone else seems to deserve
Then coming home, expecting me to crawl into your lap like a cat, and tell you I love you.
Thank you for making me feel that I deserve this special treatment.
Thank you for giving me no choice but to forget about you, to abjure you, to shun you
At the time I didn't realize that when you gave me no choice, I didn't need one.
Thank you for teaching me the error of my ways.
Thank you for essentially disappearing
Before I got too hurt, too close
Before I gave you gifts belonging to someone else
Before I wasted too much time.
I know that just writing this empowers you, gives you attention, immortalizes you in some way
But I felt that it is much crueler to say this behind your back than to your face
So I put it here, out in plain sight
where you will never find it
because you won't bother looking.
Funny how I was so much smarter at 19,
knowing then what has taken me all these years to learn.
Thank you.
Blogs, journals, notebooks, and sand
So, I have started a blog. I've basically told no one about it. It's not hit any search engines. No one knows it's here.
Writing anything here is a little like talking to myself while standing in a closet in an empty house. All echos and muffled, awkward silence. Speaking to no one. Explaining things to nobody.
Hello? Hello? Hello? is this thing on?
I remember when I was younger, around second or third grade, I heard someone talk about keeping a journal. Not a diary, a journal. It sounded so intellectual, so sophisticated. As soon as I got home, I rushed to my room, pulled out a notebook intended to hold class notes, and promptly started what I felt was a good approximation of a journal.
(Actually, come to think of it, that's a good depiction of most of what I do in life. A hopeful approximation what I think I am expected to do. No one really told me how I should do the things I do. I mean, who trains the trainer? I'm always, kinda faking it. Acting like a technical writer, then getting asked to do technical writing, then frantically doing the best I can and handing it in. No one seems to have caught on yet. Ha, and don't even get me started on dating. I have to wonder if the person on the other side of the table feels as if they accidentally ended up in a weird game of charades, "um you seem like you're trying to be a movie star, no a wild bird, a hysterical mental patient, no, no, no I think you are telling me you don't like me, no, no....")
Anyway, I found myself writing things that I thought should be in a journal. As if, someday, someone was going to unbury it and feel enlightened by my insightful observations. I wasn't sure I was doing it right, but I didn't give up. It seemed like a good thing to do, even if I wasn't quite on target, style-wise. But that's why, as time passed, I stopped calling it a journal--because I wasn't sure it was-- and just started calling it a notebook.
Mind you, I didn't realize that maybe I was doing it wrong and should give up. No, in true callahan fashion, I just kept doing what seemed right and forged ahead until someone stopped me. After a while, my journalistic writings took on a more personal tone. I had moved from writing for an audience who I wanted to give the impression I knew what I was doing, to writing in the notebook purely for the sake of writing in the notebook.
Mostly what I wrote about was how I felt about things. Kind of therapy (if there is a therapy where one talks to themselves in a closet in an empty house. I have a feeling, if that was a form of therapy, it would at least be one I could afford) really, or maybe a friend that I could talk to. Explain things to. Maybe, when I found someone who wanted to be my friend (yeah, lonely childhood. hard to be a shy, gawky (gangly plus awkward) geek in really, really rural kentucky/west virginia.) I could just give them my notebooks and save some time (unless they couldn't read. wouldn't that be awkward...).
Time passed. My notebooks piled up. Filled with minutiae of a kid's life. Weather, when I got up, what I learned that summer, who did what to whom, when big events happened and how I felt about it. I learned to use words in ways I didn't expect. I learned, accidentally, how to speak better, because I was practicing getting my thoughts in order on paper. Things were making more sense, both written, spoken and just experientially. I was growing as a person (well, inside, outside I stayed tiny). All recorded in my notebooks. I went to college, decided to be an english major (it was a cop out. I could've gone to a different school on a scholarship for computers, but I was afraid of math so I chickened out and decided to do something that I excelled in easily...ha ha ha, time such the joker), and lo and behold, was required to write journals.
Ha, I had had years, and years or practice. *This* I thought I could do.
But no. It turns out that I wasn't actually writing journals all those years. I was, in fact, filling notebooks.
Journals were meant, you see, to be read.
They were meant to be relevant to an audience. Not so filled with the rich tapestry of impressions generated inside my head, but instead, be about the immediate activities that filled life. The books I was reading for the course. The papers I was futilely writing. The deep, philisophical discussions I was supposed to be having. They wanted to know what I was thinking about them, their stuff, the shared experience. They wanted to know if I was *getting it*. Not if I felt fat, or thought someone was looking at me funny. No poignant, intimate stories about how I felt all alone at frat parties. Those uncomfortable silences I can so readily record because they fill my life. (Heck, I watch awkward moments like other people watch birds. Oh look there's one now.......)
They did not want some sad girl's diary. They wanted a journal. What I gave them was neither. Needless to say, I am sure, looking back, that my stuff was not what my professor(s) would call light reading. I wonder if they found it easier to read aloud, over wine, with friends and a fair bit of laughter.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, I *was* getting it. Getting it like a sponge. Lapping it up like a cat's first taste of warm milk. There was a world I was starving to see. Filled with journal writing intellectual sophisticates.
I sat in those hallowed halls, those historical landmarks, completely grateful to be there, with those people. I knew with an innocent, burning certainty that those people were going to be grand. Extraordinary. They were philosophers and poets, deep and thoughtful. They truly wrote journals as they were meant to be written. They got it. As if purpose bred, they prowled the campus, growing in the years into graduates worthy of the expense of their education. If they ended up settling down to lives of offices and school plays, it would in no way dilute their wonder. They did it.
And I knew, sitting there, groggy with lack of sleep in those early classes, that that was what to expect. For them. Meanwhile, as I recorded all these things and more, I waited to see if anyone would realize I was there. A writer of notebooks. Lacking the sophistication of my peers, unable to really be deep without self consciousness. Wondering at the conventionalness of it all, questioning my place in it. I never felt like I was one of the entitled ones.
And I was right. I did get to write journals. I did read enough to see the error of my ways. By the middle of the first semester, I was writing approximations of journals with the best of them. It was so close, few could tell the difference. People would actually ask to see my journal, to see what I thought of something I knew they expected me to write about. I spent hours crafting the stories they expected. I thought I was pretty good at it. Finally, finally, I was writing journals. I was getting it. I was one of them.
But, it was not to be.
My story is not that unique in this fact. I ran out of financial aide. Although there were things I could do, grants I could apply for, scholarships I qualified for, help of all kind, no one raised a voice to mention these options to me, and alone I knew nothing of them. Not my advisor, not my RA, not the financial aide officers, counselors, or any other adults on campus. And so I faded away, became a statistic and never became grand. My classmates did though, I am sure of it.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that I was a college dropout, working odd job--, factory work, waitressing, answering phones, I continued to keep notebooks. My writing became uninspired. Thin, humdrum, whiny drivel. I had grown used to an audience. I had forgotten how to talk to myself. Eventually, I stopped all together.
I did, however, carry all my old notebooks with me. Yes, from third grade on. Every one. I could reach back through time and remember what the weather was like in the summer of 1976, when I was in the marching band, playing my trumpet that was longer than my arm. I could remember the sound of crickets at the baseball field at night and the humid air hitting me like a wet bed sheet as I stood under the mosquito laden lights in little league. It was all there. My lonely childhood, filled with wonder, fear, and delight. All categorized, logical and explained. Mine to comfort me and keep my life in order. No matter where I moved, I managed to keep it with me while losing, piece by piece, practically everything else.
I had a roommate then that had had a lonely life like me, although in a different way. I had regaled her with stories of my time at college. Telling her about the people, their poems, their grace. It was so compelling that she got her church to finance her, and she left to go there one day. On that day I got a new roommate that she had found. A guy from that very same college who had given me problems in the past.
Soon after he moved in, his cat peed all over my carefully preserved box of notebooks. I did not notice right away, and by the time I did, they had been ruined, every one.
I have not written a notebook since. And to this day I feel bereft of my life in some way. I never got to be grand and probably spend most of my time approximating it anyway.
Maybe this will be my notebook. Even if no one else ever, ever reads it.
At least I bet this way what I write will be safe from cat pee.
-callahan
Writing anything here is a little like talking to myself while standing in a closet in an empty house. All echos and muffled, awkward silence. Speaking to no one. Explaining things to nobody.
Hello? Hello? Hello? is this thing on?
I remember when I was younger, around second or third grade, I heard someone talk about keeping a journal. Not a diary, a journal. It sounded so intellectual, so sophisticated. As soon as I got home, I rushed to my room, pulled out a notebook intended to hold class notes, and promptly started what I felt was a good approximation of a journal.
(Actually, come to think of it, that's a good depiction of most of what I do in life. A hopeful approximation what I think I am expected to do. No one really told me how I should do the things I do. I mean, who trains the trainer? I'm always, kinda faking it. Acting like a technical writer, then getting asked to do technical writing, then frantically doing the best I can and handing it in. No one seems to have caught on yet. Ha, and don't even get me started on dating. I have to wonder if the person on the other side of the table feels as if they accidentally ended up in a weird game of charades, "um you seem like you're trying to be a movie star, no a wild bird, a hysterical mental patient, no, no, no I think you are telling me you don't like me, no, no....")
Anyway, I found myself writing things that I thought should be in a journal. As if, someday, someone was going to unbury it and feel enlightened by my insightful observations. I wasn't sure I was doing it right, but I didn't give up. It seemed like a good thing to do, even if I wasn't quite on target, style-wise. But that's why, as time passed, I stopped calling it a journal--because I wasn't sure it was-- and just started calling it a notebook.
Mind you, I didn't realize that maybe I was doing it wrong and should give up. No, in true callahan fashion, I just kept doing what seemed right and forged ahead until someone stopped me. After a while, my journalistic writings took on a more personal tone. I had moved from writing for an audience who I wanted to give the impression I knew what I was doing, to writing in the notebook purely for the sake of writing in the notebook.
Mostly what I wrote about was how I felt about things. Kind of therapy (if there is a therapy where one talks to themselves in a closet in an empty house. I have a feeling, if that was a form of therapy, it would at least be one I could afford) really, or maybe a friend that I could talk to. Explain things to. Maybe, when I found someone who wanted to be my friend (yeah, lonely childhood. hard to be a shy, gawky (gangly plus awkward) geek in really, really rural kentucky/west virginia.) I could just give them my notebooks and save some time (unless they couldn't read. wouldn't that be awkward...).
Time passed. My notebooks piled up. Filled with minutiae of a kid's life. Weather, when I got up, what I learned that summer, who did what to whom, when big events happened and how I felt about it. I learned to use words in ways I didn't expect. I learned, accidentally, how to speak better, because I was practicing getting my thoughts in order on paper. Things were making more sense, both written, spoken and just experientially. I was growing as a person (well, inside, outside I stayed tiny). All recorded in my notebooks. I went to college, decided to be an english major (it was a cop out. I could've gone to a different school on a scholarship for computers, but I was afraid of math so I chickened out and decided to do something that I excelled in easily...ha ha ha, time such the joker), and lo and behold, was required to write journals.
Ha, I had had years, and years or practice. *This* I thought I could do.
But no. It turns out that I wasn't actually writing journals all those years. I was, in fact, filling notebooks.
Journals were meant, you see, to be read.
They were meant to be relevant to an audience. Not so filled with the rich tapestry of impressions generated inside my head, but instead, be about the immediate activities that filled life. The books I was reading for the course. The papers I was futilely writing. The deep, philisophical discussions I was supposed to be having. They wanted to know what I was thinking about them, their stuff, the shared experience. They wanted to know if I was *getting it*. Not if I felt fat, or thought someone was looking at me funny. No poignant, intimate stories about how I felt all alone at frat parties. Those uncomfortable silences I can so readily record because they fill my life. (Heck, I watch awkward moments like other people watch birds. Oh look there's one now.......)
They did not want some sad girl's diary. They wanted a journal. What I gave them was neither. Needless to say, I am sure, looking back, that my stuff was not what my professor(s) would call light reading. I wonder if they found it easier to read aloud, over wine, with friends and a fair bit of laughter.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, I *was* getting it. Getting it like a sponge. Lapping it up like a cat's first taste of warm milk. There was a world I was starving to see. Filled with journal writing intellectual sophisticates.
I sat in those hallowed halls, those historical landmarks, completely grateful to be there, with those people. I knew with an innocent, burning certainty that those people were going to be grand. Extraordinary. They were philosophers and poets, deep and thoughtful. They truly wrote journals as they were meant to be written. They got it. As if purpose bred, they prowled the campus, growing in the years into graduates worthy of the expense of their education. If they ended up settling down to lives of offices and school plays, it would in no way dilute their wonder. They did it.
And I knew, sitting there, groggy with lack of sleep in those early classes, that that was what to expect. For them. Meanwhile, as I recorded all these things and more, I waited to see if anyone would realize I was there. A writer of notebooks. Lacking the sophistication of my peers, unable to really be deep without self consciousness. Wondering at the conventionalness of it all, questioning my place in it. I never felt like I was one of the entitled ones.
And I was right. I did get to write journals. I did read enough to see the error of my ways. By the middle of the first semester, I was writing approximations of journals with the best of them. It was so close, few could tell the difference. People would actually ask to see my journal, to see what I thought of something I knew they expected me to write about. I spent hours crafting the stories they expected. I thought I was pretty good at it. Finally, finally, I was writing journals. I was getting it. I was one of them.
But, it was not to be.
My story is not that unique in this fact. I ran out of financial aide. Although there were things I could do, grants I could apply for, scholarships I qualified for, help of all kind, no one raised a voice to mention these options to me, and alone I knew nothing of them. Not my advisor, not my RA, not the financial aide officers, counselors, or any other adults on campus. And so I faded away, became a statistic and never became grand. My classmates did though, I am sure of it.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that I was a college dropout, working odd job--, factory work, waitressing, answering phones, I continued to keep notebooks. My writing became uninspired. Thin, humdrum, whiny drivel. I had grown used to an audience. I had forgotten how to talk to myself. Eventually, I stopped all together.
I did, however, carry all my old notebooks with me. Yes, from third grade on. Every one. I could reach back through time and remember what the weather was like in the summer of 1976, when I was in the marching band, playing my trumpet that was longer than my arm. I could remember the sound of crickets at the baseball field at night and the humid air hitting me like a wet bed sheet as I stood under the mosquito laden lights in little league. It was all there. My lonely childhood, filled with wonder, fear, and delight. All categorized, logical and explained. Mine to comfort me and keep my life in order. No matter where I moved, I managed to keep it with me while losing, piece by piece, practically everything else.
I had a roommate then that had had a lonely life like me, although in a different way. I had regaled her with stories of my time at college. Telling her about the people, their poems, their grace. It was so compelling that she got her church to finance her, and she left to go there one day. On that day I got a new roommate that she had found. A guy from that very same college who had given me problems in the past.
Soon after he moved in, his cat peed all over my carefully preserved box of notebooks. I did not notice right away, and by the time I did, they had been ruined, every one.
I have not written a notebook since. And to this day I feel bereft of my life in some way. I never got to be grand and probably spend most of my time approximating it anyway.
Maybe this will be my notebook. Even if no one else ever, ever reads it.
At least I bet this way what I write will be safe from cat pee.
-callahan
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