Saturday Evening

It is Saturday evening, and I have just finished dinner at Zayda Buddy's, and now I am trying to decide what is next. Since I promised the other two pieces I have made so far in my fusing class, here is the second. It started out inspired by Matisse's paper-cuts, and then, as I was messing with the yellow glass, when I managed to place them in an almost dynamic pose, I forgot the Matisse, and stuck with the pose, as it seemed fun. The purple seen in the image is from the scanner and doesn't actually appear on the coaster, for better or worse. I loaded all the images on Facebook, and Mom took a liking to the one that is made of all transparent glass, so it goes back to the kiln for the installation of a loop that will allow it to be used as a sun-catcher, as we both agree that glass coasters are pretty, but impractical if actually under a sweating glass. I am glad that I have affixed the little rubber things on the bottom of that particular piece, as I would relish trying to remove them.

In a really nice change of pace, I must say that I think I have spoken with Mom more since Christmas than in the first 6-8 months of last year. I can't say why, but she is calling more, and when she commented this morning on Facebook that she really liked the green and blue piece, I gave her a call. Though that call was short, as she was in the middle of something as per usual, it was at least the third conversation this year. I am not really sure what changed, but perhaps something finally kicked in there that email and Facebook posts are not the best way to engage me, for whatever reason.

A Picture

I will upload the other two coasters I made last week in my glass fusing class a bit later, but I thought it might be fun to post at least one now. I was lazy and didn't take a picture actually, but put the coasters on my scanner and scanned them, figuring the scan light and the white background would probably yield better image quality. Of the three, if I wanted to turn any into sun catchers, this would be the one, as it is made of all transparent glass, and the others are made from opaque. The class is fun, and we are working on a slumping piece now. I am hoping I kept mine simple enough, but I worry I added too many things. I guess I will find out next week.

One thing I like about this class is that it gives you an idea of how things work in incremental steps, rather than an intensive workshop where you make all of these things, but due to the firing time, you don't really see the first pieces until late in the workshop, when it is very possible you repeated some of the same techniques, but you didn't know they wouldn't yield the results you wanted.

In other news, I did reactivate my Facebook account, and deactivated virtually every notification the idiotic thing can send me. The main reason is I don't have my adobe photo site up quite yet, and I also figured that some of my friends/family would be interested in seeing the images now, rather than when I got around to writing something to accompany them.

Electronic Stasis

As I looked at my blog, I was taken by the fact I haven't updated Library Thing in ages. While I still own the books that it says are on my shelf, there is a distinct lack of anything newly acquired, or, in truth, anything vaguely resembling a complete list. I am not sure if the partial list reflects my disillusion with the project or the tediousness of the project. Once there, I am sure a book will stay there forever, or at least until I remove it, but the process of uploading all those titles is more than a bit tedious--much like the first time one uploads collected discs into I-tunes or something similar, with the major difference being that you can listen to your music without needing to carry all those discs around; whereas, with the books, all you get is a list. I can't see publishers of either sort ever actually making it so that if you buy a physical version, then you can automatically access an electronic copy of the same thing. While music is easy to move to the PC, the thought of trying to type the next chapter you want to read into your Kindle seems a bit silly. I guess the reason this came to mind is that it would be nice to be able to have a selection to read at lunch while at work, but keeping a bookshelf at work seems a bit overkill. As it is, sometimes while eating I read whatever newspaper I can find, then after eating, in the remaining portion of my lunch, I have been reading a chapter or so of a book. Do I really need to combine those two activities (newspapers and books) with one device? Probably not, but I can understand how it could appear desirable using that premise. For me, at least for the time being, I will continue bringing my book to lunch and hoping to find a newspaper, and if no paper is available, there is always a bit of daydreaming that can be done while I eat.

Buying Music

I figure I must still be old school when it comes to this, as I still prefer to go to a music store and buy discs. Considering the number of hard drive failures I have experienced, and how much I dislike constantly needing to download repeatedly that I have downloaded at least once before, my reluctance to buy music electronically can probably be explained. I still need to download a copy of Dragon Age again, as my only electronic copy happened to be on the hard drive that died on me. It isn't as if I don't trust backing up files on a spare hard drive, but that spare hard drive periodically needs to be backed up as well, since it is as likely to die as any hard drive on a computer. While I would guess that it would be extremely rare for all of one's drives to die at the same time, my guess is that it is a possibility, and then one is really stuck trying to put all of one's files back together again. There is the possibility of storing things on the cloud, but it seems silly to pay for more storage online if you have a back-up at home. If I really wanted to be a bit of a conspiracy theorist, I guess I could just believe it is all a big scam so that we store all our information in the cloud, where it can be accessed by us, but where companies can then scan it, and target advertising more effectively, which would boost the bottom line in addition to the storage charges. While I would not put that out of the range of business practices, I doubt there is a currently a company with that sort of business model.

Anyway, the purchases were Balkan Beats Volume 1 and Balkan Grooves from Eastblok Music. After my time in Romania, I still haven't tired of the Balkan sounds.

Sunday Reading

This article in the New York Review of Books reminds me of the something that was going on in Peace Corps as well. The second half of the article deals with the influence of modern business practices on the American university system, but I found some parallels with some of the requests made of volunteers by the program managers during the periodic reviews that occur during service. One of the requests that was made of us was a count of total number of people assisted, which in my case, being a teacher, meant I would just count the number of students in my classes, then add the number of any students I was tutoring outside of class, and present that. I retrospect, from reading this article, I could very well have added any of the Outward Bound programs that I actively assisted with, though I am sure I did not do that, since I thought this exercise was pointless. Again, in the context of the article, I am able to see, that while I thought the exercise a waste of time, there was probably a bean counter somewhere who would compare totals between the various countries and determine budgets based on productivity, and this bean counter is the reason our program managers really pushed for everyone to be included, like those I tutored outside of my primary responsibility of teaching at the high school. Now, while I believe the end result would be of Peace Corps Romania receiving more money if those totals showed, via whatever formulas used, that Romania was a better return for investment than say Bulgaria. Remember, this is all hypothesis and I do not know for a fact that it the way the country budgets are determined, and even if it is, I do not know if after the budgets are set, if it carries down further, and increases the budgets of the various programs proportionally.

What bothers me a bit about this is that just because as a teacher I have a set number of students I assist directly, that doesn't mean others don't help more people by teaching skills to organizations that in turn pass those skills on. Since the volunteer wasn't directly involved in assisting the second generation, for lack of a better phrase, they can't include those numbers, even if those people were assisted while the volunteer was in country working on a different project, perhaps even with the same group they initially taught the skills now being passed along.

While I have no issues with accountability, I do believe that metrics for social service agencies are not going to be as cut and dried as those in the accounting world, or whichever sphere creates these metrics, might wish.

(Simon Head is the author of the article "The Grim Threat to British Universities" linked in the first paragraph, in case that link dies.)

On pictures (and other things)

I think this picture may have surfaced previously in a slightly different form, but I like it, and it is from one the places I have been lucky enough to visit, Ljubljana. At some point I remember being advised to keep adding photos to my blog so people would know when I updated, and while I can say it would make determining updates quite quick, since they would be at a glance, though the real question becomes, if the picture used is not sufficiently interesting, will anyone bother with the words, whether they are new or not? Either way, here is a picture, and some new words, though I can not guarantee the quality.

It is only Saturday morning, and while I have started Lynd Wards' "God's Man", I haven't finished it, and would like to save my opinion on it until I have finished, likely to be this weekend, but one never knows, maybe I will go get a car stereo instead, since that is one thing my new vehicle does need, since I spend at least 40 or so minutes each way, to and from work, it would be nice to listen to something other than the wind and the engine.

That said, I have finished my morning coffee, and read all sorts of news, so I should get going and get away from the computer for a bit. Perhaps I will get lucky and find something to do that involves leaving the house, which seems rare for me on the weekends for some reason (most likely, habit).

First Week

The first week of the new year is done. And even though the work week wasn't a full one for me, I am pleased that tomorrow is a day off. The week at work wasn't anything new, and much to my pleasant surprise, I wasn't as backlogged as I had thought I would be after the break, so work was a pleasant readjusting to the flow, rather than trying not to drown in a deluge.

Today I received my Library of America edition of Lynd Ward's "Graphic Novels." I used quotes because I don't think that term was active when he created them. They are books whose stories are told entirely with wood cuts. In the brief skimming I have done so far, I haven't seen any words cut into the blocks, so it is definitely a visual style of storytelling vastly different from what we are accustomed to in today's graphic novel form, where the story is told in a combination of words & pictures.

That is probably the highlight of my week, though I am working on "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe" by Charles Yu right now as well. It has mostly been my lunchtime reading after I have eaten, but it is proving a satisfactory read thus far, and I hope as I get further into it, that it can remain so. This book was a Christmas gift from a former room mate, and as I was an unexpected guest for the holiday there, I am rather enjoying the thought that it was not picked out for me (perhaps it was purchased for his own use), but that he thought I might like it regardless. I sometimes have a tough time with modern fiction, especially if it is too self-reflexive and draws one constantly out of the story, or worse when they are trying to be too clever, and everything falls flat. Initially, I was thinking this was the latter, but that opinion has changed a bit the further I have read, which is something that pleases me.

Today's Interesting Vehicle

Had I had the patience to wait around in the cold today, I might have asked for a tour of this vehicle. I saw it on my way to the Sunday Market today, and thought it was one of the better looking modern RV's I had seen, though my hunch is it may also be DIY, and if so, kudos to the creator, as it is a nice looking vehicle.

Mixed Bag

While today has been a bit of a mixed bag, with it being another sunny and chilly day, I managed to head out to see if there was anything up at the Ballard Sunday Market. There were people, buskers, and vendors, but I bought nothing, though while there I did stop into the new kitchen-wares store, though nothing caught my interest. I really hadn't planned on buying anything, and my cooking has been so sparse that I wouldn't even know what I might need. I also managed to jot a bit in my journal and play a little Age of Conan (AoC), in the latter more trying to catch up with those who I would team with previously, but whom I haven't seen since my hard drive induced hiatus from the game.

The New Year

Well, the New Year arrived, and I slept soundly through any celebration by the neighbors. I didn't relish the idea of trying to stay awake and spend it in a crowded bar with cheap champagne at midnight, so sleep was my solution. Today hasn't been unpleasant, though it has been uneventful. I got the car out and went to Half-Price Books after meeting someone for lunch. The lamb curry was nice, but I managed to refrain from purchasing anything at the bookstore, as I have a few too many unread books already.

Today's entry is mostly to keep things going, but I am wondering if I came up with some sort of theme rather than random commentary if this might be more interesting as well as easier for me to keep going. Time will tell, and maybe something will show up on the radar that makes a good theme. I don't see enough movies to make a review site, and haven't been reading enough books for it to be much of that either. I am also sure there is more than enough commentary on technology and inter-connectedness (including social media) that other than the occasional mention, it doesn't really deserve another blog. Besides, how many rants and questions regarding its merits does anyone want to read, let alone write.

Beer could be fun, but I honestly enjoy drinking it more than trying to critique it, since it is so much a matter of personal preference--some folks like a northwestern style IPA and others do not.

As it is, I will probably just try and write regularly. Perhaps, I will find a compelling voice, and if that happens, then all my ramblings will have been worth the effort. If that doesn't happen, then at least I will still be able to type in complete sentences, comma faults and all.