Three things for your casual perusal …
Most of my day was spent in remarkable practical and interesting corporate training, so I’m a little late on the Atlanta Blogger Trivia Recap … Jen and Tony have the highlights covered … but I have to say something …
When a pack of remarkably brilliant people put their minds to … I mean … you know, a little confidence (or just sheer bravado) can go a hell of a long way, and … :sigh: … what I’m tying to say is that radar came before diapers, diapers came before drip coffee makers, and drip coffee makers came before microprocessors. Damn it.
(We’ll get ‘em next time.)
While we sat on the couch, sipping our morning coffee, I looked over toward the foyer. Sunlight was angling in low and through our glassed front door, placing a pattern of panes across the hardwood floor. Daksha noticed. Though not a stranger to the front door, he approached the reflection on the floor slowly, tracking the inanimate light, then carefully tested the brightness with a paw. Twice. I’m not sure just what he was expecting, but the test proved positive enough for him to step on in for a morning’s basking.
A talented pastor could find a sermon there. I just see the joy of a warm cat.
I slept in this morning. (But not really. I was awake and in the kitchen before 8:00am.)
I’m playing hooky today. (Technically, no. They know where I am. And I made sure that I wasn’t going to miss any meetings or deadlines.)
I’m another year older. (Though it didn’t happen just now. Yesterday, I was 365 days older than a year ago today. Leap years do that.)
I am 33 years old. Today. I believe this is traditionally where I unleash an essay on the progression of time. But instead, I feel drawn to that sunshining world outside my window. The weatherman says it will be a good thirty degrees warmer today than dreary yesterday. If there is a lesson to be offered, it’s in this light that is spreading across the limbs and leaves, the grass and eaves, and the steps of our neighbor’s back porch.
Simply because I can, I will use this post to spread the good word and say that as of tomorrow, there will be a new Over The Rhine album. Their 13th. What’s embarrassing is that I didn’t find out about this until I got my handy email from Amazon, suggesting that since I’d bought items from Over The Rhine in the past, that maybe I’d like this one …
Anyway. Drunkard’s Prayer. I’m buying it. After being a fan for this long, I don’t think I have much choice …
The office is full of candy and I’m eating espresso cupcakes for breakfast. They were brought in just for me, because tomorrow is my birthday.
So I’ve transplanted photos from the 2002 London excursion to the newish gallery. Feel free to take a look, if you haven’t already. And once you’ve flipped around, come back here and leave some suggestions for our next Trans-Atlantic vacation. We’re heading over in November with tentative plans to stick to just the British Isles, though we haven’t completely discounted a side-trip onto the Continent. If you know of any out of the way spots in the UK that are worth a visit, say so.
Speaking of … the Simple PHP Gallery is a reasonable solution for displaying my photos. It has been remarkably stable (though a bit slow) since I got my cache issues solved. The only real problems come when I need to upload a lot of photos. Since it is on the free space I got from 1and1.com a few years ago — it was a promotional deal where giving them your name and email address scored you 2GB for “life” — the transfer is very slow and tends to falter or time out about halfway through. And if your pushing up really high-res photos … well, it just chokes. At those times, I start thinking again about going Pro with my Flickr account. But free is free and Flickr is … not free.
And lastly, but most annoyingly … it looks like Grabbingsand is going to move again. LogJamming has been a rather good host for a little over two years, but I am thinking I can find a better deal elsewhere. Also, they’ve just caught up with their long overdue accounting, so the decision to stay or go is far more immediate. Right now, I’m looking at DreamHost, because they offer a metric ton of storage, high bandwidth, multiple MySQL databases and the option of running three domains under one account. This would allow for some bill consolidation for mine and Nikki’s hosting. So if nothing else, leave a comment or two about your own hosting recommendations, experiences, revelations or nightmares.
I’ve made a point of avoiding my typical news-streams today. If something very important blew up, is on fire, was stolen, or got squished unceremoniously by a giant flaming cabbage … I don’t know a thing about it.
This has proven to be very productive in the at-work arena. Not only have I done much of that which is officially tasked, I’ve also done some spring cleaning on my Amazon Wishlist. Going from a sprawling 93 items to a manageable 50 is not bad, if I do say so myself.
And since I am absolutely unaware of anything awry in the local or national scope, I wish a lovely ?as?a (or Pascha or Easter or Festival of Eostremonat) to any and all who observe, either with sunrise service or chocolate bunnies.
The most depressing place in any airport is the smoking lounge. This rule applies to our own Hartsfield-Jackson as much as it does to Chattanooga’s Metropolitan at Lovell Field. Without fail, these designated areas are built much like an aquarium, glassed-in on four of three sides. They’re painted the same colors as the rest of the terminal, but the walls are dimmed from the constant and confined smoke. The same goes for the drop-ceiling tiles, giving the room an overall hue of dead yellow. And not a single person in an airport smoking lounge looks the least be happy. For that matter, they barely look alive. Nobody talks to anyone else, even if they know them. The flourescent lights passively discourage conversation with the odd shadows they cast and the pallorous complexions they give. When Sartre penned No Exit, this is the setting he had in mind. “Hell is other people … particularly in an airport smoking lounge.”
So isn’t it just wonderful that one of the few remaining places to take a drag in this state might just be the airport smoking lounge?
(more…)
There is a new feature up at JIVE. I wrote it. As I was cooking breakfast this morning, it dawned on me that I’ve never written another article quite like it — at least not recently. The subject matter is certainly unique …
What’s it about, you ask? A game. An online role-playing game. Of sorts. You see, there’s this Bar and … well … maybe you should just read about Milliway’s yourself.
It looks like the case — pardon me, The Case — is moving to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. When I think of this fact, I shake my head slowly and start to imagine what this means for 56 Forsyth Street in Downtown Atlanta. Pretty soon, the protestors parked in Pinellas Park will divide and conquer, sending a representative contingent north to the front steps of the Tuttle Building. I wonder who will stand as an ambassador for the family. Will it be Colonel “Bo” Gritz and his Fellowship of Eternal Warriors, or Randall Terry and select operatives from Operation Rescue? Regardless, there will be prayers and fasts and vigils and signs, all of them incredibly emotional with concern that is visible from 5,000 feet, because that’s what all of these upstanding folks are called to do.
I’m not going to debate the issue at hand. I have my opinion. You have yours. I’m not even going to mention the woman’s name, because I believe far too many people are using her already to wind their way into the spotlight. Instead, I’m going to say what I expect of Col Gritz, Mr Terry, Congressman Delay and anyone else who has gone out of their way to voice their strong objection to a decision made in a courtroom years ago.
Should the woman in question persist beyond this week or the next, either through the reapplication of medically-applied sustenance or some miracle here-to-fore unseen, I want to see all of you taking your turn. When it comes time for her to be bathed, I expect each of you to step up and offer your personal assistance. When her sanitary needs must be met, I want to read of your diligence and attention to detail. When her linens must be turned, when her monitors must be checked, one or more of you should be only a silent wish away, possibly sleeping in the waiting room or covering a shift at the nurse’s station. When it looks like her medical trust or even Medicaid is just not going to cover the entireity of her care, I would like to know that your wallets are ready and open, your pens are poised over your checkbooks. If the therapy she has been somehow missing is three or four states overs or a world away, I want you on the phone to the airline with your credit card in hand.
That is going the full measure. That is taking the ball and running. That is barely scratching the surface of commitment that your declared compassion rightly deserves. Making a sign, standing in the grass and praying under the hot lights of a television camera is one thing, but refining those printed words into sustained actions is quite another.
Wedding Accomplished
Finally. Five months later … after much quality time with the almighty proof book, picking which ones would go into the wedding allbum and making sure that both sets of in-laws had ample opportunity to pick and choose, we’ve got the finished products back. The album is lovely, the photos are to order and we ended up with not only the proof book to keep, but a CD-ROM of the original images in all of their glory. This means I can start sharing some of the better photos on the gallery or on Flickr.
(Fans of the mighty Zipman — who makes for a great groomsman, you know — will want to click this photo immediately: The Dance.)
