The Aerie
Okay, a few quickies since I'm still up against the looming 6/1 deadline for my U of MN application (which is about 25% done).
The smartest guys in the Republican Party (and they're smart - evil, but smart) got together and decided to take down the dumbest guy in the Democratic Party, Willam Jefferson. But while they are smart, it has been proven time and again that they're arrogant and reckless. So they raided his Senate offices (something never done in the history of this nation), and spent eighteen hours alone with all his papers, and took all information and computers out of his office.
Lots has been speculated about what the Republicans may have looked at while they had the papers and documents (before President Bush was told how to put out this brushfire by ordering the documents sealed). But one of the questions I have is, given all this time with his official documents, how much evidence against other Democrats can these neocons have manufactured? C'mon - riddled with corruption like a dead horse in a ditch for three days, the Republicans are hardly above manufacturing evidence of Democratic corruption in order to take the heat off of them. Something to think about, especially come autumn when a slew of accusations are launched against the Democrats.
Not that the Republicans have needed evidence or proof in order to invent accusations.
Had a tiring Memorial Day. The entire attic had to be emptied by today: fifteen years of CRAP had to be dug up, dusted off, sorted through to some extent, then boxed up and transported either two flights down or out to the garage. This following last weekend's migration of the boys' furniture back into their bedroom makes it the third consecutive weekend spent moving stuff. AND on top of everything else, this has been the hottest Memorial Day ever. Or at last till next year when the Global Warming kicks in again...
Today I had to rush over to a client's and on the way back I grabbed a couple of "Juicy Lucy" burgers on the way home. At $4.50 apiece they are a bit expensive, to say nothing of the nutritional question, which I don't even want to think about. On top of that, the wait is 20 minutes for a fresh, hot burger. That's worth waiting for, but the time sure does stretch out when you're hungry.
Today's contracting update is that things are yet again delayed. The carpeting due to arrive Thursday won't be put in til next monday. The painting, for which we labored to empty the upstairs, will not start until tomorrow. Hopefully the upstairs will be finished sometime before we leave for our Big Trip.
Oh, yeah - funny upside. So the attic being empty, we were forced to move the bed somewhere else. I ended up putting it in our basement den, much to the dismay of my kids who have become accustomed to playing their video games down there. Amazingly the sleeping down there is fabulous. It's cool, and the dehumidifier keeps it dry. While I was physically exhausted at bedtime, I found myself sleeping well and long each day. By Monday I actually felt rested when I climbed out of bed.. at 10:00! Normally the light in the attic prevents sleeping in so late, to say nothing of the heat.
So there's a plus to living with my clothing hanging in my office and my underwear in a basket on a shelf normally reserved for boardgames...
On this Memorial Day, let's do our best to remember the soldiers who are fighting right this very moment over in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whatever their reasons for being there, they ARE there, and they are facing dangers and sacrifices which most of us, particularly non-veterans, never will understand.
Let's remember the support personnel, who like the soldiers face risks, and who like the soldiers are apart from their families day after day, month after month.
Let's remember those left behind, who fear daily the loss of their loved one, the knock at the door, and yet day by day continue to work and live and raise children despite the terror.
Let's remember the grieving, who have lost a family member forever.
Let's remember those for whom this has been too much, those whose marriages have failed under the stress, whose minds and hearts have been scarred, maybe forever.
Let's remember those who have transformed their grief into something beautiful, whose grief honors their lost loved ones.
Let's remember those who have transformed their grief into a determination to end this war.
Let's remember the wounded. They will be our colleagues and neighbors and friends in the coming years. They will be scarred, maimed and disabled. They will need our friendship and our respect.
Let's remember the Iraqi and Afghani civilian dead. The people who have died in this war without taking up arms.
Let's remember their families, who will carry grief forever.
Let's remember our soldiers, each and every one lost. Their names are rarely spoken. Their coffins are secreted home and slipped quietly into the ground as if their deaths are something to fear. They continue to sacrifice even after they have given everything in service.
Let's remember who the people are who are responsible for all this grief. Let's remember that they decided to lie to start this war. Let's remember that they who are already vastly wealthy seek to further enrich themselves off this war like vultures. Like maggots. Let's remember that they will seek to divide us, to distract us, to discourage and dismay us with their lies and their power.
Finally, let's remember that this is still a democracy, and that we still have power, each and every one of us, no matter how the more-powerful seek to take it, or to scare you out of using it. Let's remember that we can hold those responsible for this grief and this tragedy accountable, with our words, with our actions, and eventually with our votes.
Let's remember that we're Americans, and that our loved ones have sacrificed and died so that we would remain Americans.
Then let's do our duty as Americans and take our nation back from those who have wrought this tragedy.
I'm here at the new Minneapolis Public Library, which opened to great fanfare last weekend. I'm working on some paperwork best attended to outside the confines of the office.
I haven't taken a tour of the library, but it's basically nice enough. I'm not educated enough to wax loquacious about the architecture, but it IS full of windows. Lots and lots of windows. In fact, this library is MOSTLY windows. Even the walls are semiopaque glass panels, so that I can from where I sit make out the blurry image of a book cart on the other side. The object in the front is a desk lamp, a severe right-angle of brushed aluminum that says "I'm only here to give you light, getcher asthetics someplace else."
I was not surprised but of course annoyed to discover how much they limit their firewall. No access to Instant Messaging was not surprising No SSH was surprising and annoying. I know why they did it, but I don't approve. But the weirdest limitation I hit was when I searched for prongoraphy using the incendiary search phrase, "learning style experiential didactic"...
(By the way, I'm deliberately misspelling some words so that my use of them does not attract search engines. You want to get a bunch of useless hits on your website, use those words spelled correctly a few times and every hroni teenager from around the world will be eating up your bandwidth in search of the elusive nekkid pitchers.)
Anyway, I typed that salacious phrase into Google, and received this link. But when I clicked on it...
| STOP You cannot access the following Web address: http://www.csaeurope.com/index.php?id=experiential
The site you requested is blocked under the following categories: Pornography |
Fortunately for my "research" (yeah, yeah, we all know what I was REALLY after) I was able to hit the Google Cache button, and slate my thirst for didactic deconstructionism using stale information.
So I can't chat, I can't connect to my own server (except of course through my cell phone), and I can't satisfy my urges for experiential exposition. But on the other hand, this place has lots of books!
A weekend of hauling and lifting just past. The remodeling project is reaching the "flooring" stage, meaning that the boys' bedroom and the master bedroom both have to be emptied of all furniture. Having lived in this house for just about fifteen years, there's a lot of crap accumulated in various places.
In the boys' room we had to get all the toys and dirty laundry off the floor, followed by computer desks, dressers, and then the bunk beds. Started some last weekend and Friday night, finished on Sunday. Upstairs in the master bedroom we've only begun by boxing up our library full of books. Tonight will be my wife's office knickknacks, shelves, and eventually desk. After that I get to take apart the bed and haul it out to the garage, and we get to spend some a few nights sleeping on a matress on the basement floor, underneath the octopus-furnace among the spiders. (Just kidding, our basement is actually rather nice.)
I also had to work on my application to the University, due next Thursday. I haven't been thinking like a college academic for a long time, so my draft of my application was returned with a million very pointed comments. Then my spouse, the PBK English major, took her pen to it. What remains now is a densely-scribbled sheet of thorough discouragement: I think there was a "the" on the second page that didn't have any comments or corrections.
Went out last night to work on my application, and decided to have a "Juicy Lucy" for dinner. Matt's Bar is a little hole-in-the-wall of maroon vinyl booths and wobbly tables that benefits greatly from the Minneapolis smoking ban. It's very easy to picture the place blue with smoke. The menu is merely a plaque on the table offering everything ala carte: burger, fries, drinks, etc. After a long wait, the burger is delivered wrapped in wax paper, still sizzling off the grill, with warning to watch out for the cheese. It was, actually, very very good - so good that I ordered a second one. With grilled onions and pickles it was a real treat!
The rest of the week features more of the same, moving, cleaning, preparing for the remodeling to wrap up sometime in the next three weeks. And finishing up my application to see if I'll someday complete my degree.
The remodelling continues this weekend with the unloading of the boys' bedroom. They've never had proper flooring, and have been walking around on crumbling underflooring for most of their young lives. So this Monday and Tuesday they get hardwood laminate. But of course to do that everything has to come out. So that's this weekend's fun.
The following week we will be putting down carpeting in the master bedroom, which being considerably larger and more crowded with junk will be tons more work. Plus everything has to be carried (or tossed) downstairs (or out the window).
Additionally I have been trying to get my workroom cleaned up since I was unable to walk in there. Worked on it some yesterday after work. My spouse brough home pizza to bake for dinner, and I continued to clean while watching the 'Will and Grace' finale on NBC. Then it was off to Professor Barker's for an evening of cards and conversation.
Shortly work will be completed here, and I will hop on my bike and ride home to begin unloading the boys' room into the basement and garage. Fortunately this is the neighborhood garage sale weekend, so maybe I can put some of the stuff I find out in the yard with a $5 sticker!
Back again.
Just weathered a couple of long weeks at work. Under the Morton's Salt Rule of "It never rains but it pours," my job went from idle to overloaded in a single day. I had an all-day class to teach last Thursday, and while I had done some work on it in advance (actually as it turns out I had done a bunch of work on it and forgotten how much), I still had work to do to populate eight hours of time with Powerpoint slides.
Ten days before my class, my boss received news (too complicated to go into) that caused her to provide me with not one, not two, but three projects, any one of which would have kept me busy right up til their deadlines... the day before my class.
Now, usually I'm a total last-minute Charley, and I would have been totally screwed. And to be honest, I thought this was the case. I worked my butt off to try to finish my other jobs early so that I'd have time to plan my class and finish my presentation, which meant that I actually hit the deadlines.
Fortunately when I finally did get around to working on my class, I discovered that I had somehow written a lot more than I had thought I had. I kept advancing through my Powerpoint slides, saying "Huh, this is good, who wrote this?" Fortunately I had enough to get through my class when it finally began, and needed merely to do some editing and rearranging and to write up a couple of forms for participants to use for class exercises. The class went off okay.
Once the class was done the weekend was upon me, and the home remodeling project beckoned. Because we are getting flooring installed, we have to move all our belongings out of the master bedroom and the boys' bedroom. In addition to the usual weekend activities, we've had to begin that process, to be completed this weekend.
It's not that I haven't had time to blog, but I've had a hard time overcoming tiredness to get myself motivated to blog. Instead I've been reading some books I bought at Uncle Hugo's. In addition to blogging, I now need to finish my application for the U of MN, and of course I need to work on one of my many books that I'm writing.
On the upside, my books on Amazon have garnered a positive review. Yay!
Fortunately things at work have calmed down a bit, and hopefully that will allow me to approach my evenings and weekends in something other than a state of blank-eyed exhaustion.
Another positive development, I've been mostly bicycling to and from work, so hopefully I will start to get in somewhat better shape... still not managing to get to the gym, though!
Bah! I've been too busy to blog lately. Recovering from the server crash has proven time consuming on the back end. It's been up for two weeks, but little things keep interfering in progress. For example, I wanted to pull the photos off my digital camera... but the server was behaving differently than it did before. In the past I plugged the camera into the USB cable, and up popped a utiltiy to pull down the images. This time, that doesn't happen. I could run the utility manually.. but I couldn't remember its name because I'd never had to do it manually. So I spent a couple hours on it, chasing the wrong command (gphoto2 instead of gthumb, IYMK).
That adds up. Multiply that times a couple dozen, and there go several evenings returning from 95% functionality to full functionality. Yet to be covered: the update program isn't running, I still can't figure out why my music server only boots halfway up after reboot, and I still can't get my downloads to work right. Among other things.
On the upside, I did find an updated version of my favorite photo slideshow viewer, so I installed that after I got the camera working. I have to go in and customize it with some features I had added to its prior incarnation, but it's a lot nicer than what I was using.
I'm tempted to post now about Microsoft's stupid "Windows Genuine" spyware, which incorrectly identified my factory-installed Windows XP Pro as "not genuine," and about the Mayday parade, and about yardwork. But I'm too busy and must return to work.
Oh, and I think it took me about five or six hours of time spread out across a month, but I think I may have restored my ability to send e-mail to Comcast by getting my ISP to put my address on the Comcast whitelist. !&#^#! morons at Comcast. I have six gazillion things to do, and I have to add this crap to my list. I tellya...