Maybe you are as shocked to see a new post from me here as I am. Maybe not.
It has been a long time since I even considered posting here on this longest running of all my blog attempts. It’s not worth the time to rehash or go back and try to analyze what was going on. It’s best to see my posting this entry as someone walking in the door and calling out “I’m home.” The only salient fact is that I’m back, not how long I was gone or for what reason.
Life has moved on for me, but I am back here and vocal again. For better, I hope, or worse, if need be.
Why am I home again? If I answer that honestly, I’d say it’s because I took a look at WordPress.com again, and I was delighted by the improvements that the Automattic team has made to the interface for writing a blog. Everything is easier to do than it used to be. I can focus on adding the content and what to say, and pretty much whatever I want to do (at least so far) I have been able to do intuitively and with remarkably little effort. I so liked the interface, I decided to use it for this entry.
Today Nancy Scola introduced me to a delightfully quirky character named Carl Malamud in her June 13, 2010 article entitled “Washinton’s IT Guy” in The American Prospect. So impressed was I by her description that I visited Mr. Malamud’s website Public.Resource.Org where I found a link to this video. In this amusing and informative presentation, Mr. Malamud describes his 10 rules for radicals and relates the story of his mission to make “Government Information More Accessible.”
Oh, by the way, in case you are wondering about the title of this post, it comes from Ms. Scola’s article. Here’s the quote:
Malamud, who has made a career of exploring and developing the transformative technology of the latter 20th and early 21st centuries, was eager to convert the job of public printer, which traces its roots to Benjamin Franklin, into an Internet-age publisher. He started a campaign for an appointment under the slogan “Yes We Scan.”
This presentation at TED is well worth the twenty minutes or so it takes to watch it.
It is refreshing to see an approach to staying healthy that is based on adding something to your diet rather than taking something away from it. Many thanks to my friend Tim Miller for pointing me to this resource.
Here are some other links (one, two) to the American Cancer Society’s discussion of this type of therapy.
I’ve been using this tool for a number of months now and find it incredibly useful.
While the video describes how to add this tool to Firefox, Safari and Chrome, it is quite possible to add it to Internet Explorer too by just making it a Favorite and storing it in your “Favorites Bar.” It is my experience that you may have to remove some of the pre-installed Favorites that Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, have determined to put there so that the Readability link will appear when you are reading a page. Also, you must assure that the Favorites Bar is visible at the top of your browser for this tool to be of any use to you.
Fortunately, Arc90 has created a video to illustrate how to install this bookmarklet into Internet Explorer too.
Though I’m sure there’ll be reservations about this development, I can hardly wait for it to be available. Having already connected my HDTV to my computer via HDMI cable, I already appreciate what the bigger, clearer screen means to using the computer. Being able to use the computer to find and watch TV shows with the power of Internet search technology is a far cry from the days when my father would tell my mother to “change the channel” — and she would do it compliantly.
I only hope I live long enough to see it and that it isn’t so expensive that I can’t afford it.
This Frontline video from 2006 shows the impact of Methamphetamine use in this country.
This additional site was designed to aid in helping family members and loved ones of Meth Addicts understand the effects of Meth and How to Avoid becoming part of the problem. Please take a moment and READ and THINK.
Ever since I came back from New Mexico, I’ve had a running battle with the squirrels that live around here, but it’s their fault. They started it by deciding to set up housekeeping inside the walls between me and my neighbor. They just tunneled in and started reproducing.
Mike has come a long way since I gave him his first digital camera soon after Connor was born on May 1, 2005.
Here is an example of some of his experiments with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. I find them both artistic and pleasing, worthy to me of being made into a coffee table book with absolutely no fatherly bias having entered into this judgment whatsoever!
I believe that for best effect you should watch the video in full screen mode by clicking the icon of the arrows pointing to the four corners of the screen that appears in the lower right corner of the player once you click the PLAY arrow to start the slideshow. (Escape leaves that mode.)
Mike has his own website called Shape Shifter Images and is available for portrait and other photographic work.
I ain’t washing tomorrow. Oh, I’ll take a shower, but I mean I’m not washing clothes. Nope. I’m getting that done today.
Not that I really believe that old legend commonly thought true (audio version by yours truly) by those adults in my world when I was growing up that if you wash on New Year’s day, it’s bad luck and someone in your family will die during that year. Not that I believe that, but at my age, I’m really hoping that none of my relatives feel an urgent need to start the new year out right by cleaning up all their dirty laundry.
It can wait one more day folks. Give it a rest, please!
And maybe you and I both will celebrate next New Year’s Eve.
The visitors have gone. Recycling to do. Stockings no longer hung. Crumpled wrapping paper in plastic bags everywhere. Managed to enjoy ourselves amidst and despite the stresses of the season wrapped as they were in a whirlwind schedule nobody could control. Ate, drank, sang, laughed, talked together. Exchanged gifts as seen on TV. Played with toys. Wasted almost no time on sleep. Wallowed in the pleasures of having visitors whom I love in my home.
Not unexpectedly, acquired three almost-certain-new clients for my tech support help who were no doubt sent by Life to help me learn even more patience.
Thanks All for giving me the gift of your visit to my home.
