I’d be celebrating my 25th anniversary today, and probably be in trouble for not having remembered it far enough in advance to have made appropriate plans.
Archive for the ‘It’s all about me’ Category
If it hadn’t been for the divorce …
Tuesday, August 7th, 20071001 Books You Have To Read Before You Die
Sunday, July 22nd, 2007Well, you certainly don’t have to. I found the list here, and was surprised by how many of them I’ve actually read. It seems like a pretty personal list, in the sense that there are books I wouldn’t have put on the list, and other books I would have expected to be there. Then again, the list is promulgated by someone who goes by “booboo,” and not by a publisher’s organization or group of literature critics or professors.
I suspect that it’s actually a compendium of those things that “booboo” has read, because there is no apparent organization, nor does any entry have an actual reason stating why you should read that particular book, as opposed to another. I mean, Philip Roth’s The Breast is on the list, and I can’t think of a reason why, other than the possibility that Philip Roth is presumed to be so important that everyone should read every word he’s written. I mean, I’ve read the damn thing, and I don’t know why anyone should, unless it’s assigned as coursework.
I have similar problems with other entries, but I won’t go into them. I’m sure anyone reading the list will have their own reservations about the “Have To Read”-itness of various entries.
In any case, my annotated copy of the list is after the fold.
Arrogant SOBs
Saturday, July 7th, 2007Jane Galt has been having trouble with Sony VAIO customer service. I’ll admit that they make some interesting products, but I’ve been staying away from purchasing any of them since they hacked their customers’ computers.
My own customer support nightmare involved a sound card/CD drive combo that I purchased as an add-in to my desktop PC, back when it was a Windows 3.1 486/33 box. One morning, the CD drive spontaneously ejected the tray. Putting the tray back into the tracks would cause it to retract fully, then to be spit out again. It was obviously a hardware problem, most likely a limit switch or photosensor.
By that time, however, I’d installed a beta version of Windows 95 on the thing. Every time I called, I was told that I had to wipe my hard drive and reinstall Windows 3.1 before they would help me. It was obvious that they had a script, and weren’t allowed to deviate from it. Finally, I disconnected the hard drive, installed their driver software on a floppy, and booted from it. After going through the front-line support person and script, I got to a supervisor and explained the situation. He said, “We can work with that.” I thought, “Finally!” His next words, though were that I needed to reattach my hard drive and put Windows 3.1 on it, because they not only didn’t support Windows 95, but had no plans to support it.
I’d had it with them by then, and asked to whom I’d send a complaint. He said that I’d have to send it to him. I couldn’t believe that nobody else got to see complaints about him, and told him so before I hung up. I then looked up the company’s info in Dunn & Bradstreet, and sent a letter addressed to the company’s president, explaining the situation, and my shock that complaints about support personnel would be handled by those same people.
The letter was returned – moved, forwarding order expired.
I bought a different CD drive, and stayed with Windows 95. I kept the returned letter for several years, for various reasons. I may still have it, tucked away in a box somewhere, but I’m not certain.
Celebrating the Dean
Saturday, July 7th, 2007Today marks the centennial of Robert Heinlein‘s birth. To mark the occasion, there is a convention in Kansas City this weekend. I’m sorry I’m missing it, but I’m seldom able to attend out-of-town conventions these days.
He’s one of my favorite SF authors, and, though I never met him, we have something in common – besides being graduates of the U. S. Naval Academy (although he predated me by a number of years), we both fenced for Navy. In Starship Troopers, one of the characters shares the last name of Andre Deladrier, who was my coach at Navy.
In his office in the fencing loft, Coach Deladrier kept a rusty antique rapier, which he once told me had belonged to his incarnation in an earlier life. I can’t say I believe in reincarnation, but I think I’d like to know about my earlier lives, if there were any. If there is reincarnation, though, I’m not certain my future incarnations would care to know about this life.
For the Fourth
Wednesday, July 4th, 2007Kim du Toit has an essay on the meaning of the 4th of July, from the perspective of someone who was born American, just not in America.
The essay by Peter Schramm that he links to makes the point that we aren’t passing on the background, the scaffolding, if you will, that was used to build this country. When I was growing up, we had required courses called Civics and Social Studies and American History that passed this knowledge on (or, at least, made the attempt – you know how students are). We don’t seem to have those courses anymore, and there appears to be active hostility to the idea that America is, or even can be, a force for good in the world.
We now neglect teaching American history, replacing it with world history or multicultural studies. There’s nothing wrong with those, but they shouldn’t replace the teaching of our own history and culture. If you don’t value it, and teach your children that it is something of value, then they’ll have less desire to preserve it.
I understand the point of view Mr. du Toit and Mr. Schramm hold, although perhaps not with the same immediacy. I think any experience of living in a foreign country, or even visiting, if you keep your eyes open, will provide perspective on life in America.
In my case, although I am an American citizen from birth, I was born in England, which led to my having to deal with some less-than-usual paperwork in high school. Because of the location of my birth, and the fact that my mother was British, the US considered that I had dual citizenship with Great Britain. Since I had an American father and an English mother, Great Britain said I was 100% American. Had my father been British and my mother American, though, they’d have gone along with the dual citizenship idea. In any case, I applied to the Air Force and Naval Academies when I was in high school, and the dual citizenship thing came up. As a result, I ended up having to swear out an oath renouncing allegiance to any foreign powers before I could be accepted. So, I’ve got non-passport documentation to prove that I’m an American citizen. I presume that naturalized citizens have something similar, although I’ve never bothered to check.
In any case, I’ve lived in other countries, and I’ve visited yet others. Although there are beautiful places around the world, several of which I’d love to spend extended periods visiting, this country is still the only place I really want to live in.
Could be worse
Thursday, June 21st, 2007I finally had my orthopedic consultation this afternoon – for the most part, I figured the pains I’ve got as a result of my bicycle accident would go away eventually, but I lost feeling in part of my thumb, which said “nerve damage” to me, so I wanted someone very competent to take a look at it.
In any case, I have damaged a nerve branch in my thumb, and it will either get better, or it won’t. If it doesn’t, there’s a test they can perform. The jammed finger on my left hand was confirmed as a jammed finger. My wrist is a lot better, but still painful from time to time if I use it a lot. I also injured a finger on my right hand, which didn’t become evident until some time after the accident. That one is a synovial cyst on the end knuckle of my index finger, which is swollen and painful. No treatment; apparently, they used to poke a hole at the location and drain it, but infections were very common when that was done.
My right shoulder turns out to be separated. Not very severely (a grade 2 AC separation), but I’ve now got a prescription for twice-a-week therapy sessions. Just what I need, when I’m behind schedule and on the critical path at work.
Ah, well. When they issued me this body, they neither authorized nor included a spare (other than the spare tire around the middle). I suppose I’d better try to keep it in good working order.
I’ve been better
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007I went on a bicycle ride along the Platte River on Sunday morning with Marion. We rode from Confluence Park down to Littleton. There were some detours – not only was the Platte high with runoff, but there’s some maintenance and development work being done.
Just south of Hampden Avenue, you actually have to take the Bear Creek trail west for a while before cutting back to the Platte River trail on the streets.
The Platte running high has had effects on others besides bicyclists and joggers:
Not to mention the people washed away by flash flooding Monday night.
On the way back to Confluence Park, Marion took a spill. I slammed on my brakes, but apparently couldn’t stop in time. I went over the handlebars, and that’s just about my last coherent memory for about half an hour. I’m told I ran into Marion’s bicycle, but not Marion. That’s a good thing – I outweigh her by a factor of about two. The next thing I recall is sitting beside the trail, with Marion cleaning my face with a wet handkerchief that I’d apparently given her.
She didn’t believe that I’d blacked out, because during the time I was “off-line,” I’d managed to converse intelligibly with her and the people who’d helped us after the accident
Given my injuries (a painful wrist and shoulder on the right, a jammed finger on the left, and a scrape on the right shoulder to go along with the ones on the face and neck), I thought I must have sprawled out on the ground upon landing. According to Marion, though, I’d tucked and rolled. Nice to believe, but I’ll have to take her word for it. After a few more minutes recovering, we rode back to the car. All I remember of that, really, is arriving at the car and putting the bike onto the rack.
I handed my car keys to Marion, because she was in much better shape than I was. After cleaning up and getting something to eat, I went in to the emergency room. I probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t blacked out. I ended up spending pretty much the rest of Sunday lying around waiting to find out how badly I was hurt.
Not too badly, apparently. Because of the injuries I reported, they took X-rays of my shoulder, my right wrist, and my left hand. Because they were concerned about other injuries that often happen with bicycle crashes, they X-rayed my chest. Because I reported short-term memory loss, they did CT scans of my head and neck. The only thing they found was slight dehydration, which they determined from one of the blood samples they took.
They did have me see my doctor for a followup, which I did this morning. She gave me a recommendation for treating the road rash (“Plastic surgeons smear Bacitracin on everything they do – it’ll help this, too.”) and told me that fractures often don’t show up on X-rays taken immediately after an accident, so I should come back and request another X-ray if the pain doesn’t go away.
I did get to invoke the spirit of John Cameron Swayze, though … it’s a cliche that a watch with a cracked crystal will be a key clue, because the time at which it has stopped is the time the murderer attacked the victim. My watch, a Citizen that I received as a birthday present in 1984, puts the lie to that. It’s still running. I’ll post the movie if I can get it transferred successfully; when I tried before, it locked up the browser.
Gotta love that. This watch definitely deserves a new crystal.
Foreign poems, or a reasonable facsimile thereof
Tuesday, May 8th, 2007I ran across this short article, which reminded me of this poem:
Civile, se ergo.
Fortibus es inaro.
Novile, deus trux.
Vatis inem? Causan dux.
While searching for a link that might have that one, I found this list of handy latin phrases. I have a t-shirt with the “Quantum materiae materiatur …” one. I also have a t-shirt that reads,
Catapultum habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.
That translates to “I have a catapult. Give me all the money or I shall hurl an immense rock at your head.” I’d like one with either of the phrases,
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
from the link. The first one reminds me of a date I had some years back. I fixed dinner. She brought her son over. He brought a friend (whom I wasn’t expecting). Son and friend were sullen, hostile, and generally less-than-pleasant the entire time. As they left, he turned to me and said that he would bet that I didn’t want to see him again. I replied that I was ok with it, because I had plenty of rope and duct tape. As it turns out, though, his mother and I stopped dating not long after that. It wasn’t all about him, but he was certainly a factor.
Things that go bump in the day
Monday, April 23rd, 2007I spent some time at work yesterday, and was startled to hear sounds in the office when I knew good and well that I was the only person in the building. After a few minutes of listening, I realized that there was a bird trapped above the ceiling tiles, and I was able to ignore it.
This morning, one of my coworkers got too creeped-out by it, so we ended up removing one of the ceiling tiles so the bird could get out. About half an hour later, a young starling poked its head out, then flew into my office. It quickly found a window to flap against (our windows don’t open). I caught it and took it outside. When I turned it loose, it flew across the street, no doubt to tell its friends about the weekend it spent in durance vile.
Counter-intuitive
Thursday, March 29th, 2007It’s been snowing all day here (non-stop, but not heavily, as far as I was able to tell), and there’s less snow on the ground now than when I woke up this morning.