All Done

As much as I've enjoyed the last 6 months or so of blogging, I'm taking a hiatus. Its become something I think about, but don't really get around to. There's lots of stuff I'd like to share, but its just not happening. So, instead of expending mental energy on it, but just doing a post every-so-often, I'll just enjoy the fruits of other other's blog-labor for now.

Give that chimp a job!

So a chimp escapes from her cage at the Little Rock zoo and decides to use her new-found freedom to... raid the fridge and clean the toilet. Hmm... seems like the zookeepers shouldn't have been so quick to sedate her and get her back in the cage.

But one has to wonder how dirty a toilet needs to be before a chimp feels compelled to escape to clean it....

A less shiny Apple

It seems that the folks over at Apple have gotten then stupids this year. I don't think its infected the creative class yet, but the business types have certainly lost their mind.

Exhibit A: Even though a very large company (Cisco) has already registered the trademark & announced a product using the name, they are are going to call their new phone the iPhone. Guess the lawyers were bored and they didn't think that consumers would be confused by 2 major products carrying the same name (not to mention that there's another company in Canada using the name). There's also the strange decision to attempt to sell a hifalutin $500 device that doesn't support their chosen carrier's highest speed network.

Exhibit B: We're just Apple. Not Apple Computer. Just Apple. Whatever. Wonder if that means the music company gets to try to sue them again.

Exhibit C: Now there is word that the accountants are requiring Apple notebook PC customers to pay to download updated WiFi drivers which enable higher speed operation, because the accountants say they have to. That's the most bizarre thing I've ever heard. At $1.99, I don't know what they are trying to do, but keep the accountants (like they aren't busy enough working on the stock options fiasco) happy seems unlikely.

Sometimes my kids make me think about things that I wouldn't ordinarily think much about. As I was tucking in my kindergarten-age daughter last night, I said something about having so much fun this weekend, that she gets to have another day off! With her best "silly daddy" look, she said, "no, daddy, tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr Day!"

During the course of the conversation that followed, it struck me as to how incredibly hard, 40+ years hence, it is to explain segregation. It never really made sense to me growing up, but I lived in a largely homogeneous place. My kids have had the benefit of living in a more heterogeneous environment - especially in their schools - and it really really doesn't make sense to them. Madelyn understands that segregation means that her "dark skinned" friend couldn't be in her class. And that would make her sad.

So this got me to thinking. I'm sure segregation made at least some sense to somebody several decades ago, even though I can't make sense of it now. But this makes me wonder what social injustice is our current society imposing that won't make any sense to the kids getting tucked in in fifty years?

The good side of global warming?

While folks in the Plains and out west may disagree, for those of us in NC, this global warming thing made for an amazingly nice January weekend!


Seriously though, it really annoys me when "weather" gets confused with "climate". While they are related, the link is not nearly so direct as implied.

Not many posts lately because life has been really really busy ever since Time named me Person of the Year. Its amazing. Here I thought I was just this lowly blogger, whispering my thoughts into the broad ether of the Internet. But wow, the interview requests and the time spent redoing my resume to add Person of the Year to it has been nearly overwhelming...

So what exactly was accomplished there?

Saddam is dead. We hung him. Ok, the Iraqis hung him. Whatever. What good exactly did that do? Show that we can be as vengeful as he could? Somehow it reminds me of the logic my preschooler uses when he hits his big sister.

The silver lining is that I suppose this means that those guards who were busy making sure Saddam didn't make an embarrassing escape are now free to join in the attempt to keep the rest of the violence in Iraq down. May it be so.

On "home"

The first part of our holiday travels have taken us home. Susan's family's home that is, but after better than a dozen years of coming here regularly, it feels quite at home to me as well. There actually isn't one particular home - there's mom's house, dad's house, a sister's house, and the farm. The farm. I remember when Susan first spoke of the farm (then also the home of her grandparents), shortly after I met her; this city-boy-from-Illinois conjured up images straight out of the flatlands of the midwest. But its not at all like that. There hasn't been a crop grown here in decades - just some hay and usually some cows. And hills, ridges, creeks, and valleys with plenty of woods. And the lake. Lake is really more than it deserves - its really a pond, but it is called the lake. Close enough to the house to be easily accessible even on a quick trip on a day where the weather isn't so great, but far enough away to be transforming. Ducking through the woods off the upper field is almost like going thru the Wardrobe. No snow though, at least this time.

Since the house is empty most of the time and we are now four of us, we have been staying at the farm on our longer trips here, which has only served in increase my appreciation. For when one is staying here, sunrise & sunset, the coming and going of the moon, dew (or frost) on the grass, the general stillness; all are more thoroughly experienced. It is good to go home, even if it is an adopted one.