Long Time No See...

So, nobody has posted on this for a while, but I figured I could this is the fastest way of disseminating this information to all of you.

I was recently looking at an old photo of Joseph, Ruth, Richard, Johnny, and I, and Olivia pointed out that it looked like we were not actually there.

And that got me thinking. If we weren't there, where were we? Well, after much research, digging through ancient libraries and dark dungeons, I've found 10 alternate pictures. More analysis is needed to find which one is the original image, but feel free to give your hunches.

Reformatting

So, over the years Santiago, my computer, has performed wonderfully. He's helped me on compose my papers, take notes, study for my exams, listen to music and read my favorite books. He's has played everything from Jeffery R. Holland devotionals to youtube cat videos with efficiency and a non-judgmental attitude. I've dragged him to and fro, slumped in my backpack. The jostling has dented his corners and scraped the silver sheen off, but Santiago has remained faithful as ever.

Unfortunately, although the spirit is willing, the hard drive is weak. The incessant barrage of small installs and uninstalls demanded by different classes and projects have each done their part in eroding Santiago's ability to think. As he grew slower, videos lagged, then skipped. Music would generally play, but if you asked him to open a word doc, he'd start to stutter and stammer uncontrollably. Eventually he became the digital equivalent of a college graduate who would go into a coma if you asked him to hum a ditty and open a briefcase at the same time. Defragmentation helped less and less each time. Clearing up memory, debugs, registry cleaner, and virus scans failed to fix him. His antics were starting to make trouble at work, especially when he got in a fight with the Mac server at the office, and went all blue-screen-of-death on me every single time I tried to transfer files from it (kind of a big deal, since at that particular moment, my entire job was those files on the mac server).

So I decided to reinstall windows.

Backing up all my files in case of failure was expensive (external hard drive) and time consuming. But lo and behold the final product is a lovely newly installed operating system, and Santiago back to his old self again.


I wonder how often we need to reinstall windows?

Sometimes, our set of worries just seem to pile on like an infinite list of registry bugs. Anxiety bubbles constantly on both back burners, and the list of incessant tiny popup demands and programs that we don't really need or want drain our processing power, time and memory. Bad habits hedge us into the same rut, and all we want to do is feel like we used to. Back when you were a kid and the desktop was clean. When the animation was smooth and your backyard was a jungle to explore. Back when the challenges you faced didn't end in an Int32 ERROR_INVALID_OPLOCK_PROTOCOL = 301; and a futile 3 hour forum search for the fix.

Sometimes, we just want life to be simple and clean again.

What are our debuggers? What is our spybot, regclean and virus scanner? And what do we have when those aren't enough?

When a day is going bad, you can go to sleep and maybe wake up better. But that's a restart, not a reformatting.

I think we do have a way to get a clean slate. To pull out the master boot disk and see what the perfect exemplar looks like. And by studying our perfect example, we can model our lives after it, working until we are remade in His image.
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We may need to dump a lot out, delete our hurtful memories, clear the cache, uninstall the useless actions and bad habits, and just go back to the basics.

But as Santiago could attest, it feels good to be born again.

Guess what?!

I had a good weekend!

Andrew was in Chicago for the AWP conference, so he and I hung out on Saturday. We walked around Millennium Park and went to the Cultural Center, where we came in just in time for the beginning of a haiku slam. Then we walked around the center perusing art exhibits. Overall, a rather fun (and free) day!

I went to the library this morning before work to drop off a couple books and pick up a couple more (ok, maybe five or six). Little did I know when I put my books in the drop box, today was Pulaski Day! What does this mean? That we have the chance to celebrate the memory of a Revolutionary War general who died as a result of wounds sustained at the Siege of Savannah! Also, the libraries were all closed. :-/

So I spent my lunch break doing the crossword and the sudoku in the Redeye and the train rides staring wistfully out the windows contemplating the meaning of life.

On a lighter note I had jello for dessert! Strawberry. Mm....

And I know this post has been somewhat short, but it is almost eleven, and I am very tired.

Buona notte e baci a tutti!

Brakes

As a non-car-owner, I use a variety of methods to travel hither and yon from home to work to class. Mostly I bike. It's good exercise, is actually faster than riding the bus, and it's actually pretty fun.  But although bikes are terribly fuel efficient and eco-friendly, they do need repairs and tune-ups in much the same way that a toaster does. That is to say, eventually? Whatever. Due to constant use and an average of 6 miles per day, my bike is getting worn out. My brakes are past worn out. 

Things I have learned from not having brakes:

1. It doesn't matter that the fix is cheap, easy, or readily available, nor does it matter that the risk is life threatening. If the change is gradual,  you don't think it's that big of a deal, and the fix is slightly onerous, you can procrastinate it indefinitely.

Cost of two sets of brake pads: 10$

Distance to nearest bike shop: 0.2 miles

Estimated replacement time: 15 minutes

Amount of time I've biked with worn-out brakes: 4-6 months

Enough said.

2.  The true danger of incremental decay is not always readily apparent. 

Even when day-to-day functioning seems relatively unimpaired, under the right circumstances, it can fail completely and without warning.  

Examples: Dams seem really effective until they burst. Then they're not.

Structure integrity can suffer for a long time before outward symptoms show. In the case of my brakes, they still work, usually. I mean, if you stop pedaling and hold down really hard on both front and back breaks, you'll stop after 20-45 feet. Depending on your initial speed. If you're not going downhill.  But… add water, and viola! Catastrophic brake failure!

I first realized this when I was biking in the rain. I realized I was going down a slick, well-trafficked road a little too fast for comfort. I decided to brake, and then realized that I already was. Or wasn’t. That is, my hands were clenching the brakes, but I wasn't slowing down. While my brakes more or less worked when dry, even a moderate amount of water rendered them slicker then jelly-greased slippers. While riding down that hill, I realized that I really needed to replace my brakes, and resolved to do so. But the next day was sunny. And the day after that I was busy. Once out of the fear-inducing situation, my unease quickly faded. By the time the next rainy day came, I was once again on my way to work, too busy to swing by the bike shop while they were open.

3. If you rapidly zigzag back and forth while braking, you can halve your stopping distance.

It's true. By zigzagging, you take a longer, more circuitous route. You thereby travel a greater distance while achieving the same displacement, which gives friction more time to slow you down. Even a small-amplitude zigzag can help a great deal.

4. Gradual change, even when it is consciously recognized, has diminished psychological impact

In this lies the very real danger of losing reference. If you could compare side by side the before and after health effects of smoking for 10 years (or of overeating, or not exercising, etc.),  the difference would be appallingly stark. But one cigarette? One big mac?  Even when you look back and recognize the difference, "one more dorito chip" doesn't carry much emotional impact, though the accumulated effect is immense. 

For my brakes, I consciously knew they were wearing out, but I could never put my finger on the calendar and say "today was worse than yesterday", or even "this week they're worse than last week". But each imperceptible change accrued until I was dragging both feet on the asphalt to halt my bike at a stop sign.

My post here may sound a little dramatic, (or maybe not dramatic enough, depending on who you are) so let me hasten to tell you that it really wasn't that bad. Yeah, my brakes are worn out and should have been replaced long ago, but I wear a helmet, try to be a conscientious biker, etc. etc. And best of all, I decided not use the zigzag trick to permanently compensate for my burned-out brakes. I stopped procrastinating and bought new brake pads, and now I can install them.

Tomorrow...

This is a Test

This is a test of the Glass Family Blog system. The results of this test are intended to discover if the blog is dead or merely comatose. So... I have been studying Adam Smith and Karl Marx's treatises for Western Civ, and have been quite the agitator on our class discussion board which started out overwhelmingly free market purist capitalist.

Watching the comments on the board has given me hope though. I persisted in bringing up history, talking about current events and asking questions. After several days of this, lots of people are starting to come around to the idea that what we have is not capitalism purely, but a mixed system. And for many the idea is there that maybe some socialism is a good thing (Gasp, maybe even more than we currently have--scandalous!) Well either I have persuaded people to think, or we have a new bandwagon effect starting in the class--if that's the case---I should be despairing.

At any rate, among many other things, I brought up WV coal history and company towns. Which got me thinking about Matewan and CC.

Several things here: 1. Have you seen the movie Matewan? (http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/3675974) Sorry, the only place I could find a current copy was on torrent.

If not, you should.

My summary: C.C. Gillespie, was a West Virginia coal miner at this time and I remember Mama Roxie (his wife) telling us of their part in this history. So basically the events this movie portrays are part of our recent family history.

The movie is very accurate--even down to the names of characters involved. Only major deviations from history--the union leader from outside the county and the preacher boy are fictitious characters added to carry the plot smoothly and child laborers are not shown. Also, while the largest conflagration was in Mingo and Logan counties, this was not an isolated event.

2. This is my recollection of what Mama Roxie told us when I was young. Now.... this was years ago, so I may have some details wrong. The story should be included in the Gillespie Family History that Grandma gave everyone. Homework: How does my memory of an oral telling in the 1970's match with Grandma Mary's account based on notes taken at the time?

C.C. started working as a minor as a six year old orphan (circa 1905). By the time of this movie he was in his early twenties. They lived in Bull Push Hollow (not near Matewan) He supported the miner cause but did not take up arms. He was at the mines the first day that violence broke out. Word went back to the women by word of mouth only--and Mama Roxie wasn't sure if he was alive or had been killed. Since his mine was under siege by company men, he and his fellow workers loaded coal cars with themselves inside and let them down the rails as quickly as they could to get out safely under fire. Grandma Mag and Aunt Arietta used to sing the song Daddy Don't Go to the Mines Today every day when he went to work. He eventually was able to gain safer employment as a trolley worker, then a county clerk/deputy (an elected official at the time--Democrat), and finally went to barber school and cut hair for the rest of his life. The only cut I could ever get at the shop was a buzz cut--no matter what I asked for.

This side of the family was raised with C.C.'s ideas about race: It doesn't matter what color someone is. Everyone's black in the mines.

History for before or after the movie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matewan_Massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_spies#Matewan

3. I'll take the amount of response to that as indicative of the pulse (or lack thereof) of our blog. :)

Sunday in Chicago

Yes, I'm in Chicago again--chasing down job prospects and visiting.

I did see a movie that I think everyone would really enjoy: Midnight in Paris (2011). Sounds a lot like a chick flick, but is really an alternate reality/modern/historical fiction literary comedy. It is hilarious. In other news, I worked infestation, one of my SF stories, over in a completely different fashion at request of my creative writing professor. I'll send anyone who wants a copy....

You'll take to the sky

What do I have to say today?!

I started reading Harry Potter e la Pietra Filosofale! (Three cheers for public libraries!)
It is very slow going. I'm still in the first chapter.
There are a lot of things I've forgotten about the first book. Admittedly, it's been over ten years since I last read it. I'm learning lots of new vocabulary as well ('un gufo', per esempio, is an owl).

Songs for the week:

I'm going to sit right down and write myself a letter, Fats Waller

Summertime, Billie Holiday

Fools rush in, Frank Sinatra

I am now in the 40s. How time flies...

Love and miss you all.