A place I never thought I’d be, the presence of the wilderness, the bears fishing in the stream, the hardened faces of the inhabitants who came out to feed the fleshy visitors, the oddly mystical light of the day, all left a lingering impression on my soul.
I won’t say I want go back there, but I can say I’ve been there and for now, that’s enough for me.
Carole Cadwalladr gets one of the better interviews I've read about Mr. Shepard. There's a bit of fluff in the beginning, but it's worth the effort to complete.
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Image by sgtret via Flickr
If the blog entries have been sparse and few between, we are going to pull the cancer card.
Starting with the discovery of a lump in the neck the day before thanksgiving and up to last week I have gone through a roller coaster of emotions. “Could be cancer, could be something else.” This was the phrase that put a damper on getting treatment started. The next was “Could be lymphoma, could be carcinoma.”
Where we are now is it could be only aggressive or it could be aggressive combined with slow growing. To determine that a sample of the bone in my hip needs to be taken tomorrow.
The chemotherapy begins on Thursday. We’re expecting blizzard like conditions on Wednesday. My son was born during a blizzard, so I will take that as a good sign.
Image via Wikipedia
As I recall the 1960’s, they took forever. Starting with Eisenhower still President and ending with his VP, Nixon as the same, everything in between seemed so full of moment, as narrated by Walter Cronkite.
A visit to the Newseum in Washington, D.C. last summer brought to focus how we were and now are presented with what is happening in the world. Back then the filter was huge. The networks had only forty or so minutes to tell us about what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Then we went to the newspapers for details and Time and Life for the color photos.
This morning, before my shower and tea, I knew about a drone attack in Pakistan, bridge curve deaths in San Francisco/Oakland and saw pictures of New Year’s celebration around the world. I heard about the New Years Honours in the UK and New Zealand and the death of a philanthropist phrama heiress.
When I bring up Thunderbird, my email will tell me much more about what the intimate and commercial connections to me think I should know.
And then there is Facebook and Twitter. Before and after midnight last night, I was communicating with friends and acquaintances from Juneau to London, from New Zeeland to Manhattan.
I watched the first day of the year unfold through them from the fireworks on the South Island, to Sydney, New Delhi, Cape Town, Paris, London, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and then went to bed. Midnight is no longer so singular when you watch it happen over and over again.
And now we’re off with the kids to see Avatar. (We already saw Sherlock Holmes and loved it.)
Happy New Year, all!
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Image by sgtret via Flickr
It isn’t quite winter yet. That begins tomorrow at 17:47 UTC. (That’s 5:47 PM in London.)
However, it would appear Winter decided to send a calling card prior to arriving. I look out the second story window of my office down onto the driveway where my car should be parked and see a pile of snow with an antennae protruding from it like a sapling freshly broken from the soil.
To avoid going out to clear the two or so feet of snow atop the car, I thought it would be a good time to make a long neglected blog entry.
If you look out of the other side of the house you can see the relatively useless swimming pool. To this day, I do not understand the logic of having a swimming pool in northern New England.&; They cost a fortune to run and are good for three months, max.
Image by sgtret via Flickr
In my youth I had an image of where I would be so many decades later, meaning at my age now. I saw myself sitting in a high backed easy chair, by a fire, across from the missus, reading a good book.
That vision came to me last night as I sat at my laptop in one room, reading Twitter on Brizzly. The missus was downstairs in her home office reading the New York Times while my son was at his desk, on his Apple reading heaven-knows-what.
This is not the image from the past because none of these things, laptops, NYT.com or Apple Computers existed back then. Okay, way back then.
So, young people, as you sit and envision where you’ll be and what you will be doing in forty or fifty years, fahgetaboutit! It doesn’t exist yet.
Enjoy the now and the stuff that makes the now, time.
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Here in New England there was a report of possible snow tonight into tomorrow morning. I have to give a speech at 1000 tomorrow. I can make it there whatever the weather, but certainly, if the snow does fall, will expect a smaller audience.
Posted via email from grazing's posterous
Posted via email from grazing's posterous
We visited the sister's house for Thanksgiving dinner this year.
If you are a parent, you probably have read the children's book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.
We need to replace a damaged front door, frame and all. For that purpose we rented a dumpster. The door was fixed in a few days but we have the dumpster until Monday.
If you give a homeowner a dumpster, it is amazing how much stuff you suddenly feel needs to be expelled from the house. Stuff you thought you were "storing" for future use.
All the chairs with the broken this and that, the boxes with half used this and that, the pumps that used to work and all of the other stuff that people asked if they could put there, but are no longer around to bring it away.
There is still room in the box and it is only Sunday. Hmmmm.
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Image via Wikipedia
This is the day we remember those who have left us over the past year.
We have Memorial Day and Veterans Day and Pearl Harbor Day and September 11 to remember the monumental tragedies of war and terror. Today we remember the people around us, who lived and died living what some call the normal life.
We visited Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts yesterday. There are monuments to that same Pearl Harbor Day, to the Cuban Missile Crisis and to September 11th as well.
What I found most touching were the looped videos being played at each station showing interviews of those who once sat in the same chair when the ships were in harms way.
Whether these people are alive now or dead, these videos serve as their ghosts.
They don’t speak of heroism, but of their daily attempt to to live normal lives while on a ship where over two thousand men slept stacked deck to overhead and side by side with a volume of explosive death whose job it was for them to deliver to other people who too were attempting to maintain their normal lives living on similar vessels or crunched into lava tunnels defending islands they were commanded to steal only a few years earlier.
When we visited the Alamo, as we walked around the quite church surrounded by highways and warehouses; we saw the room where Jim Bowie was bayoneted. I wondered then how a modern war interview with combatants from both sides would have played. Did the Mexicans see this as a pursuit of terrorists from another country? Did the Texicans see this as their struggle to break free from a greater military power determined to crush the spirit of freedom they so recently won from what they saw as another dictatorial foreign invader?
What would videos of the normal people on both sides, thrust into this short usurpation/revolution say? Would they complain of the close quarters, the long walks, the noise of the cannon, the poor cooking skills on both sides?
Then I think of a the forlorn picture of a Pakistani musician in Boston.com’s recent Big Picture spread of the current conflict. When you look at that sad and confused face, was he thinking of lines of battle, strategy for the supremacy of one mode of living over another? Or was he thinking of the seven children that he needs to feed, of the instruments he needed to earn a living left behind, of the gigs he would miss?
While all of this continues, I hope we can still maintain this illusion of living normal lives. It is the only way to survive.
We let the famousgrazing.com domain name drift back out into the available name pool for a year or so. When it finally came out of the snarled web of the previous host, we were able to recapture it and settle it down in the tried and true Hurricane Katrina surviving Directnic.com.
We will admit pulling a name or two from them over the years in search of bargains and flashy features, but we learned out lesson. All new names, if there will be any, will be registered through them.
FamousGrazing.com is now pointing toward the latest addition to the Famous Grazing blogs hosted at SquareSpace.com - Aptly named "Famous Grazing."
It was almost a year ago when I took this photo in Croton-on-Hudson, NY. The weather was the same, but the country certainly wasn’t.
On that day the ascendant party in power was full of hope and the defeated party was licking the wounds of a sounding defeat.
On this day it feels like 1859 and 1932 combined with the hysterical talking head of the media feeding on the paranoiac or just worrisome feelings of the mob. In both of the years mentioned, journalist did the same touting the people in power were going to bring about the ruin of the nation by not following the policies of the defeated party, the party, when in power, was the real cause of the awful state of things.
It’s like handing a man a half-full bucket of water, pushing him into a burning building and blaming the destruction of the structure on his inability to save it with the water in the bucket.
The prize recently announced in Norway is a reward for despite having been handed that bucket, and that wave of incredibly biased media mumble-jumbo, the man can still smile and say lets build a new, better house on the ruins.
The local governing agencies have established new rule regarding the behavior of bloggers.
“No more Wild West” was one of the comments that drew out attention.
We will be reviewing this information. At the time, being not affiliated much with anyone, we need to review our commenting policy to make sure it is with in the guidelines of the the whims of the powers that be.
Stand by.
. 
Image by sgtret via Flickr
Residing on the East Coast of the United States I can feel the tide of content flow over my head in the morning coming from the east. I monitor my RSS reader, FeedDemon from around 0600 until usually past midnight.
The first flow is always from Europe, reading English as my primary language, mostly from the UK, but certainly other parts of Europe and Africa contribute to the content.
Then, as the sun grows brighter, the Canadians seem to perk up before the pundits from NY and Boston add their morning stretches to the mix. After that, the more civilized who actually sit down to breakfast, get the kids off to school, or settle into their cubicles begin to comment.
During the work week, I don’t go back to reading the feeds until after 1800, but when I do, I find the Midwest and Pacific coasts of Canada, the US and parts of South America have all contributed to the content.
After my own Dinner and the house has settled in, I make my last scan to say good morning to the left side of the Pacific Rim, Japan, China, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and the most vociferous, Australia and New Zealand.
Beside the 600 meters a second scientist are saying we travel through the universe, this gentle wave of information, not intrusive but actively available has become my connection to civilized thought. Without the RSS reader, it would be much more difficult to scan so broad a range of information, opinion and shared wonder.
Image by sgtret via Flickr
The days are getting shorter and the first week of school is done. It’s won’t be long before the leaves turn gold and red and them become so much litter.
Though we all know Summer has a few more weeks to it as the world tilts, but, tilt be damned, we have created this day in September, Labor Day.
It was originally designed to celebrate the working man and later woman. Now it is seen more of seasonal marker.
The fun is over, the business begins. At least in the US of A.
Image by sgtret via Flickr
There never was a summer vacation that I recall that ended while it is still August, but my son is expected at school tomorrow, August 31, 2009.
I know it’s only one day, but it is still August.
I know there is the Swine Flu Thing, but it is still August.
It just doesn’t seem right. To me. My son seems to care less.
He is actually looking forward to going back to school.
What has happened to kids today???
Back in the day we would have organized committees, tacked signs to sticks, prepared safe houses and decided what to do if the police came. Now, they get on the bus, plug in their iPods, put on a happy face and go to school.
But, it’s still August!!!
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A friend in Sonoma just commented on noticing how it isn’t as light now when she gets up at 0530. Why she gets up that early in Sonoma escapes me, but I am sure she has her reasons.
I have a five year plan. I hope it is more successful than those the Soviet Union used to displace people and free will. It really is a seven year plan but that would bring all sorts of jinx issues into play.
This plan gets revised every August. It was a twelve year plan once. I suppose that’s a good sign.
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Because of bad weather we put off an outdoor activity and opted instead to finally see Half Blood Prince. With our son, we have seen all of the other Harry Potter films and went to midnight book release parties for at least the last three or four books.
These comments have little to do with the general reader’s complaint about the movie not being true to the book. Plenty has been said about Harry below the floor and not frozen at the scene. I can allow for artistic license by the film maker.
It is the film making itself that bothers me. As the films progress through the books, the telling of the story seems to become less important so that, is this latest version, the story isn’t told at all.
In a fashion similar to the Dune movie best known for a shirtless Sting, several people near me at the film’s conclusion said “If you didn’t read the book, you wouldn’t have a clue what just happened.” All too true.
Instead of continuity and smooth segue, I felt like I was watching an animated slide show. If you had divided the scenes, numbered them and put them on the web, I would’ve been better entertained. Some scene changes were so painfully artless I was wondering if the theater was showing a pirated version.
And who cast Gollum's cousins for the soul sipping scene on the island in the cave?
This disappointing experience will not stop me from seeing what follows in the series. No matter how poor the snap shots, it’s always good to see the family maturing and coming of age. I just hope they change directors, in mid production if need be.
Please!
After a very long workday, I knew I was coming home to an almost empty house. (see: cat) With no one here, I only turned on the lights I needed to get settled and didn’t notice the square white postal box sitting on the Chinese apothecary in the atrium.
But then Facebook stepped in under the direction of a beloved niece. She was thinking of me, alone at home on the other side of the continent. A home crafter and accomplished artist herself she wanted to send something to lift my spirits.
She remembered a list from a long time ago where I answered the question. “What is your favorite junk food?” with Shortbread.
I know there are many people in the world who would not consider a food of such simple purity junk. But it becomes junk food when you get a can of Dundee shortbread for Christmas, open the can and eat each round in order, like pancakes.
These shortbread squares are from a small scale and very talented baker whose web site is http://www.thehomebaker.etsy.com
The Home Baker’s motto is From My Kitchen to Your Tummy. Homemade Treats by Mimi, Baked & Shipped Same Day.
Let’s all give Mimi a rousing set of applause! Save another for my Niece!
Image via Wikipedia
After a short break on the Rocky Coast of Maine and a rather disconcerting encounter with the dreaded Blue Screen of Death, we came back to find regulations unknown to us were waiting to remove a portion of our collective buttocks without properly filed documentation.
It was one of those things where everything in real time was done correctly but the documents proving that to the future were stuffed in a drawer, left open on a laptop’s desktop and not filed or were sitting in a briefcase in the trunk of car.
The surprise was that none of had every really done any filing. We lived in our laptops and Blackberrys. A chart was drawn i.e.: get file cabinet, find room for it, get the proper size hanging green things and properly colored folders.
Once the receptacle was in place the next step was collection. It took only one very long meeting for everyone to figure out who had what and how to bring it all to one place.
The services of UPS and Federal Express were needed as well as a FAX machine. There’s another blast from the past. We weren’t sure there was a FAX machine until we noticed it was a feature in the mega-wattage printer in the backroom where no-one goes.
The collective angst was soon abated when all the pods were in place and a plan created to prevent its reoccurrence. Part of the humor here is no one is probably every going to look at these files now they’re in place. However, the law of chance says, if they weren’t there, someone would ask about it tomorrow.
As an aside, my constant use of Evernote made my portion of this adventure much easier. I didn’t need the FAX or the overnight couriers. I brought up the program, signed in and, presto-change-o, there were all the files I needed. A quick connection to a color printer and I was sitting pretty.
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Image by sgtret via Flickr
We’ve discovered the cause of the problem we were having with SquareSpace online blog creator and manager and Firefox RC3.
It was the LastPass add-on the Firefox. I inadvertently, meaning clumsily clicked through a pop-up box without reading it. LastPass was filling in fields I had mindlessly instructed it to fill.
Thus, every time I brought up the editor, it filled in the blanks and defaulted to the Fathers Day entry, during the creation of which the offending action on my part took place.
When there is a technical problem we always first ask, “Is it plugged in?” Now when we have Firefox problem, we need to ask, “Is it a plug-in?
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Through use of SquareSpace's excellent trouble ticket service it was determined that the proble was not with their editor but with the way the cache is stored in Firefox 3.5r2.
When we came to the online editor from Chrome or Opera, there was no problem. In fact, we edited the blog entry in Chrome quite easily.
Again, kudos to the support staff at SquareSpace for their insite towards the problem source.
Image by sgtret via Flickr
When Summer began yesterday we were ready to break out the shorts and sandals, check the ferry schedules and decided if we will finally make it to PEI this year.
Then we looked out at the sodden landscape, put on our polar fleece and decided not to open the pool this year.
Seattle has exported its weather to New England. I can recall one full day for the past few weeks that did not involve rain. Even the day we all went to Martha’s Vineyard started with rain. It faded as we approached the Oak Bluff ferry landing.
We were there for a graduation celebration held in the Methodist Camp.. Their magnificent open air meeting room simultaneously gave the feeling of a big-top open to the air and a cathedral dome. The sun this day did its duty.
We could see the storm clouds massing behind Cape Cod as we approached Woods Hole. Sure enough, the next morning, the grass was soaked and the car’s windshield was covered with wet droppings from the overhead red oak.
Image by sgtret via Flickr
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Image by sgtret via Flickr
There was a cartoon back in the nineties of a man sitting at a PC staring at the screen with a look of incredulity. The message on the screen says, “You have reached the end of the internet.”
That’s how I felt this morning when I had no more links on my RSS reader FeedDemon. I had started with 521 pages to view. This seemed an insurmountable task. But, using FeedDemon’s Newspaper View where you can choose between a list of headlines, the headline with a summary or a stripped down version of the entire page, with a steady use of the J & K keys and the spacebar, I bounced through it....
Image via Wikipedia
When I was a kid growing up in Manhattan, the news stands were covered with newspapers, not magazines.
There was the morning Daily News, Mirror and Times
In the afternoon the Journal American, the ...
NOTE: Cross posted from SquareSpace.I will admit it was my intention this morning to join the mob and comment on the brouhaha about the exchange recently on the Gilmore Gang. But apologies from both combatants have been issued. The matter should now be dropped.
So, have you seen the flash games on Owen’s World? The flash based games can be a harmless distraction. However, the ever so simple Tetris posted there brings back memories of my first computer addiction. What this version doesn’t seem to do is increase the intensity, but remains at the level started. This could explain how I got to 1900 rows before I dragged myself away. 
The fact that Tetris didn’t exist before 1984 is very hard to believe. It seems like one of those things that have always been there. Graceland was opened to the public two years before Tetris was invented, almost to the day.
This is all a geeks attempt at changing the subject. It’s something like someone saying, “So what about those<insert sports team>?”
When an icon goes all potty mouth, what else can you do?
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