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.

So yesterday's isn't all alone

Just a little something to bring my blog total up to two for the year. I don't really have much to say, as today is bright and cold, at least right now the sun is shining but I don't think the temp is above freezing.

As of yet, I don't have any resolutions or plans for the New Year, except stay with my contract job until it ends, currently that date is April First, which my manager thought was a fun day to make it after all the other false end dates I have experienced. Since no one knows what March will hold, I am not making plans for afterwards, as if the offer is there to continue a bit longer, I don't see a reason not to, though something could grab my attention prior, and make that date seem an attractive end point--too much can happen between now and then. Planning is something that should be done, but to do it at the cost of not seeing other opportunities is also a bad idea.

I keep watching my little wireless icon move up and down, as it seems my signal is inconsistent, though I am in my living room with the modem maybe fifteen feet away on the other side of the wall. So I don't lose this, I am going to go ahead and publish, perhaps I will have a motivated streak later and add another post today, though better would be to think of something interesting to write tomorrow.

Almost the new year

Honestly, I am not sure if this will get a bit more play now, but I deactivated my rather pointless Facebook account. It seems I have been as unable to keep that timely as my voicemail messages. If you ever happen to call and leave a voicemail for me, it will be better for me if I recognize your phone number, as the messages, unless I am job hunting, don't actually get a hearing. I have been told my voicemail is full, and my guess it is from election season, but perhaps as a New Year's gift to those who want to leave messages, which includes my insurance agent, as he couldn't when quoting auto insurance, I will go in and delete everything -- most likely unheard, as if memory serves, "7" is the magic number. I did actually think about disabling voicemail, but when I did chat with my phone service about voicemail, they gave me three more service I won't use and reduced my bill in the bargain, so it seemed silly to try and get them to remove voicemail and then charge me more for the privilege. Now I have a full range of useless stuff on my phone, but I pay less, which I guess makes it progress.

New Art

I think I may have finally come to agreement with the notion of there being nothing new in art. This doesn't mean that new art cannot be provocative or inspiring, but that I highly doubt there will be any new ways to apply paint to canvas, words to paper, or chisels to stone. Most, if not all, art will likely be derivative of something, whether that something be comic books, religious icons, or Greek pottery, doesn't really matter. What will matter is creating something that still speaks to the current age and hopefully to future ages. I am also fairly certain that this notion stretches across all disciplines, from poetry to painting to sculpture to music.

Ephemeral Reading

The recent shuttering of Geocities brings something up which I don't think many people have truthfully considered in the grand realm of "free" Internet services. If Geocities managed to last ten years or so after its heyday, what sort of lifespan will blogs experience. The Geocities article points out that cost probably wasn't the reason for the shuttering, but rather that there was no profit in keeping it open. How far back will Blogger, Blogspot, and other sites decide to store data, and at some point, will they charge for maintaining it? I think the same article mentions the average audience size for blogs is one person, which would indicate little ad revenue from the majority of pages maintained. Considering many, if not most, are like this blogger in the their frequency of updates, and you have the reason for so few readers of any given blog. Why go back if nothing changes? The odd thing, from the writer's perspective, is why keep writing if there isn't anyone reading, so you have your vicious circle. There may be an answer here, if one considers some of the successful blogs, they tend to be quite focused (DailyKos) or project driven (like the one that became Julie & Julia), meaning their audience is fairly specific. Then again, if you turn your blogging into a business or a novel, you no longer are concerned with what the free service's corporate parent will do years down the line with your material. Perhaps some bloggers have already considered this issue and are keeping their own copies of what they write on personal hard drives, and then backing those up appropriately, but with the recent removal of geocites from the web, perhaps now isn't a bad time to consider if you want to keep your old entries, and if so, how you will go about doing it.

Marriage, Gay or Otherwise

In reading the linked article I was disappointed. As a gay resident of Washington the fact that our state government will recognize a committed relationship regardless of if the partners are of the opposite sex is a big deal. Now if we can get the state out of the marriage business altogether, life would be so much better. If marriage is a sacrament, then our government, with its theoretical division between church and state should have no role in declaring what is and isn't a marriage, but if it needs to define relationships and families for legal purposes, then by all means, there are a plethora of non emotionally charged legalistic phrases they could use, and let the church keep marriage. By letting individual churches decide what constitutes marriage, most couples are likely to find a sympathetic pastor who will perform the ceremony.

Personally, I don't see gay marriage leading to anything but gay divorce, and while I am sure to be pilloried, I doubt I am the only person who has ever proposed this.

I found it peculiar

I should still be thinking about roughly the same things I was thinking about four months ago. If the problem had resolved itself, I probably wouldn't still be thinking about it, but I doubt the problem will solve itself outside of the foreseeable future, and when it does resolve itself, there will be a moderate-right party. I am not saying there won't be a far right party, but there are too many socially liberal fiscally conservative folks out there with no real representation, as the party of Lincoln is no longer functioning in that respect.

Thoughts on media and rationality

I have been wondering lately, if Fox News didn't make loads of money by being right leaning, would they actually balance things out, or perhaps lean left if that brought them the cash? Honestly, I would bet they would go where the money is, as after all, they are good free market capitalists, or so they claim. That being said, I doubt there will ever be good money on the left, generally because the left is willing to debate rationally rather than emotionally. From what I have seen of Fox, they do not look at things from a rational right wing perspective, but from an emotional right wing perspective. My guess is that rational Republicans tend to be far too moderate, but this is only a hypothesis.

Air America was/is an attempt at a successful left-wing talk radio business model. It hasn't made money, but how do you make money trying to discuss issues when you aren't yelling and creating a commotion. Of course, many of Air America's target audience probably already get their news from NPR, and if you have the news, in a relatively straight forward format, one can come to one's own opinion of its effects. Not to say that on something complex like regulatory legislation, some expert commentary isn't appreciated to help decipher the complexities, but in most cases people figure things out on their own, and aren't put out by creating their own opinions.

Maybe I am wrong, but I also doubt the left looks for talk radio to be strictly entertainment, and would prefer if it is going to attempt to be info-tainment, then it should fall heavier on the info part of that portmanteau.

Getting bent out of shape happens on both sides of the fence, hence overkill with political correctness on the left and equating public health care with death camps on the right. When either side reaches the ridiculous, one might as well give up any hope of rational debate, though one doesn't necessarily need to concede. Oddly, when dealing with someone far to the emotional side, they don't even want to allow you to settle with an agreement to disagree, and without this nod, civility becomes strained.

Meaningless Fascism

Because I was reading a newspaper, and because I am lazy and don't feel like looking up the article online to link it, my word will just have to be taken on this. There was a book review in today's Seattle Times that roughly said that using fascism as an argument point in any discussion on the current state of things is a pointless end to the argument because the word fascism is not longer used in its historical context. Actually, it said something more akin to the word having been misused that it no longer carries with it anything, though I would add it still has emotional cachet. Everyone knows arguments based on emotions are rather pointless.

The book in question was something about the political right and the difference between traditional conservatives (perhaps not a bad thing) and those who would prefer to scream and shout and engage people at a visceral level for changes in the government that may not even be constitutional. Regardless, the article gave me a something to think about on the way home from Taco Time. What I wondered about, aside from how the word fascism is fanged but without fangs, was how it seems that in this country the Republicans seem to scream more when they are out of power than the Democrats. Let's just grab Rush, since he is an easy target. I don't recall hearing of him prior to the Clinton administration, but I am guessing he has been doing this since longer than '92, though at some point after the election his frothy style of talk radio just took off. Now he numbers seem to be up again, at least his press coverage is, now that the Republicans are out of office. On the Democrat's side, there really is no one that fills the same shoes, and that could be because Democrat's don't like being told what to do, but more likely because even when out of power, the Democratic party does not feel threatened. You lose, get up, brush off your knees, and start all over. Rush (or any other "name" Republican, until enmeshed in a scandal) is basically a rallying point for people who don't know how to work within the system because for too long they have been fed instructions, just like Rush is doing now. The party of small government isn't really that at all, just different government. President Bush told everyone to be scared and they were, and he said I need to violate the constitution in order to protect you, and the people let him, and now the current administration needs to clean it up, which isn't something that can be done easily, even less so when former administration muckity-mucks decide to bray.

While President Obama is doing little to discourage the stereotype that the Democrats are something other than the tax and spend politicians they have been painted as, the times are extra-ordinary, and perhaps they will manage to bring the spending back into the responsible realm shortly. Unfortunately, the situation was damned if you do, damned if you don't, but I do believe it is better to try something based on historical precedent than do nothing, which also has a precedent. Now, if we could only get everyone on board as to the necessity of action rather than knocking the action but not offering an alternative.

from Rilke, a book bought today at Epilogue

Why I started readying "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge" today, as opposed to some book that has been languishing on the shelves for ages is hard to say, but I did find, on page 15, this passage: "What's the use of telling anyone that I am changing? If I am changing, then surely I am no longer the person I was, and if I am something else than heretofore, then it is clear that I have no acquaintances. And to strange people, to people who do not know me, I cannot possibly write."

The reason the passage struck me is that is resembled a phone conversation with my sister regarding our relationship with various other members of the family. For both of us, our mother has sort of morphed into a person we no longer really know (and who no longer knows us), though the odd kicker is that neither of us really want to apply the effort to know this person. Certain family functions will still bring us together, but there is little really to talk about. My life experience is so far removed from theirs, I might as well speak Greek around them, and personally I have very little interest in activities at Mom's church, which is not one of the many I attended growing up. With that said, there is very little common ground, and very little to make a smooth conversation, which makes getting reacquainted rather cumbersome. The pauses in a recent phone conversation had me wonder if there was much of anything we could talk about, though she was on her cell phone and there were other things causing distraction, so maybe I am wrong. For the sake of things, I did mention I wouldn't be able to see the fireworks from my balcony, and the response was of the "well, I haven't seen your balcony" sort of comments, to which I should add, that after living here for three years, it isn't my fault you haven't chosen to visit. Family always supplies one with interesting observations on life, and if one thinks about it, observations regarding that most basic and complex of relationships.

On a different note, there have been people who I have kept in contact with, who have changed as I have changed, and who make a constant effort to relate, and to those people, I will likely never be "strange" in the sense used by Rilke, though I may be odd.

Lament for Ballard

The brutality of the climate is becoming apparent on the commercial streets of my neighborhood. Every week another store seems to be closing up. From consignment shops, to camera shops (likely on its last legs for a couple of years), to book stores. Abraxus and Epilogue, both used books shops (with a limited selection of new), are closing. I am told the former is moving, which is what I was told about the latter as well, but that was a false rumor, as they wanted to stay in Ballard. While I didn't ask, I can only surmise that some increase in rent must've been their death knell, as a year or two ago they were forced to shrink the size of their space. Perhaps another pet shop will open up, making three within a year to open up, though I didn't realize we had enough pets in the area to support more than a single shop (which we have had on Ballard Ave for at least 3 years), the new-comers being big and bright and chains.

More than anything, I think the lament is for the variety, as now, we will have but a single bookstore in Ballard to complement the library, and that bookstore's focus is children. I see no reason for them to expand, as they have worked ever so hard to specialize and build that audience. If there is something good to say, it is that at least at one point they took special orders.

It was a grey day today, so grim news like another book shop closing wasn't perhaps unusual. I now have another book to read, and will have to stop in again as they reduce their inventory.