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.
.
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.

It's Sunday Again, and Again

This keeps happening every seven days. I guess I really shouldn't be surprised. I'm keeping the blog post really short this time.... :)

How Not to Save Money

As you all know, I dropped Johnny off at UVA last week and then went to WV for a job interview. As you all also know, grandma and grandad were out of state.

Now my original plan was to call someone and arrange for a place to stay, but between putting it off a little and an unexpected happening which filled my time in UVA, by the time I needed to go to WV, I still hadn't called anyone. Now I wasn't exactly comfortable calling someone up and saying--hey, I know we haven't talked in a while, but can a crash on your couch for the night--I mean I'm giving you three whole hours notice. So I decided to sleep in the car.

Yes it was supposed to get cold and snow. I pulled up into mom and dad's driveway which was about half an hour from where I would interview the next morning, set my phone alarm, curled up under a sleeping bag and started to doze off in the front seat of my car.

Suddenly I thought... wait, do I have enough battery charge left on the phone for it to last till morning? Nope, I don't. It was getting cold, so I started up the car. Don't have a phone charger... Maybe there is a plug on the porch. Sure is. Score! Plug the phone in and let it charge while I warm up in the.....

I never lock my doors. But for some reason, they were all locked. The car is running. I'm in my socks. It's eleven thirty at night and the whole neighborhood is asleep.

I search around for any way to get into the car. No luck. I look for a wire to try to open a door with. Can't find one. Mom and dad really did lock all the windows to the house well too.

The only way I can think of to call the police is 911 and this is NOT a true emergency. It's getting colder, and my feet aren't too happy. I take a walk toward the main road. Everything is closed. No phone books available either. Freezing! On the way back I notice a For Sale By Owner Sign. It's got wire! I can put it back together after I get the car open or not.

I try to jiggle the wire around in the door crack for something short of an eternity before I realize this is NEVER going to work. I have an interview tomorrow, am freezing now, and the car is going to run out of gas because there was only a quarter tank in it in the first place. I have no idea what time it is. What do you know, the phone is charged!

That doesn't help me get into the car though. Break a window. Okay, I know what car windows cost. About 275 plus labor for one of the automatic side windows $450 or so all together. About $250 altogether for a front or back windshield. I don't like either of those options--AT ALL.

Neither do I like hypothermia and a missed job interview. The car has fixed and very small triangular windows right behind the backseat side windows. They have to be cheaper. Right?

How hard could it be? Take a rock about the size of two of my fists and.... Bam, Bam, Bam! BAM, BAM, BAM, bam? Car windows don't break anywhere nearly as easily as movies lead you to believe. I take a break. Two more tries; the glass shatters--my fist goes right on through. No problem. I unlock the door and stuff a coat in the hole. Start to go to sleep.

My hand is wet. REALLY wet. I drive to Walmart and go to the bathroom. I look in the mirror. They let me in the store like this? I look like I just killed someone. Blood streaked down my face and my coat. My hand is dripping and looks like I've been soaking it in a vat of blood for some reason.

No pain. I clean up thoroughly and wrap my hand in paper towels. Head out to the car and break open the first aid kit. Then I bandage up and drive back to the house, stopping to put a sign back together on the way.

I did manage to go to sleep that night. And I got to the interview looking presentable. Even if I did have my shirtsleeves rolled up inside my suit jacket to hide the bloodstains.

By the way, Lowes won't cut plexiglass at anything other than right angles. And Johnny, you don't happen to still have the other key to the car do you?

:)

You bring on the rain

It rained today!
Why is this a good thing?
Because that means it wasn't snowing! Also, all of the rain cleared the snow off of my car for me. And it didn't even ice, because it was almost forty degrees.

Favorites from this past week's musical selection (1928-1933): 
Bolero, Maurice Ravel
When you're smiling, Louis Armstrong
It don’t mean a thing (if it ain’t got that swing), Duke Ellington
You're getting to be a habit with me, Bing Crosby

Notable things about this past week:
     -HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY JOSEPH!! 
     -I finished three books. Don't be too impressed. I started The Handmaid's Tale a while ago, but I just picked it up again recently. TFIOS is a young adult book (so a fast read). And Howl is a book of poems (and was only sixty pages long).
     -Days pass really quickly.

(Debatably) Notable things about today:
I took a shower. (Did you? We might have this is common!)
(As previously stated,) It rained.
I cleaned and organized my shelves (the closet seems much larger now).
Lasagna for dinner!

Love you all.

A Morning Sorrow Song

First of all: sorry everyone if my posts have been naggy of late. This was supposed to be no stress, so I apologize if I have pressured anyone!

In other news, a friend of mine (yes, I do have a couple), started a "100 days project" recently. Basically, the idea is you choose an activity of some sort, then you preform that activity every day for one hundred days. For example, several people involved are taking a picture every day. Some people are drawing every day. Christine is knitting every day. I initially played with the idea of writing every day, but I've never been particularly comfortable sharing unfinished sketches or rough drafts with other people. With the help of lots of external input, I settled on finding a new song every day. To complicate things (cheers for complications!), I decided to limit each day to a year, starting with 1912 and working my consecutively to 2011. So, by the end I will have spanned a hundred years of music!

Sounds great in theory, right? Well, it's actually pretty great in practice! Barring a few minor problems that is...
Starting with, how do you find music from 1912? Because I wanted actual recordings, original if possible. Luckily(!), the library of congress has a "National Jukebox" up online with thousands of historical recordings available for free. Isn't the library of congress amazing?! Seriously, one of us has to become/marry a Senator or something (alternatively, one of us could raise a kid to do so, Skinner style).

Anyway, I figured I'd include a couple of my favorites so far.
I can live without you, Olive Kline
Memphis blues, W.C. Handy
Dardanella, Ben Selvin's Novelty Orchestra

This week I will be breaking into the thirties. Swing jazz here I come!

By the way, it's 2012. What?!!?!
 Lots of new albums coming out this spring though. I'm excited!

Christine and I made a chocolate cake last night. It was delicious.


Good luck to everyone who has recently begun, or will soon begin classes (Dad, Andrew, Adrianna, Olivia, Sarah, Joseph, and Johnny)! Hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Love and miss you all.

New Life...

It was wonderful to see Adri's post up. I enjoyed it.

Ruth, first of all as the prodigal's sister, you have been posting all along, and of course I enjoy it, but like the reprehensible human I am, since I recognize your dependability when it comes to posting, I've come to expect it as a matter of course. :) And I even encroached on your posting day, because I'm a day late. (Please, please, go ahead and double post after me today--the blog is just barely beginning to come out of cardiac arrest.)

Now, all of you other prodigal posters, since I've heard that you can catch more flies with honey than with pixels, I considered including some honey in this post. However, after I visualized all of you licking your monitors in an attempt to taste the honey, I changed my mind. I'll just have to appeal to your.....

I guess if you aren't posting after that, I have no idea what might incentivize you. Socialistically working for the collective good might cut it for Wikipedia, but it isn't working here, and I am sure not going to subject this blog to a series of banners of my middle aged, balding, wild eyed self pleading for your help. Jimmy Wales was scary enough.

I know! Perhaps capitalism...you could each start paying me every time you post on the blog! Or have I gotten something backwards there?

Ideas anyone?

It's my Day to Post... Fancy That!! - Dri

I realize I haven't been the most diligent of bloggers, but I'm back! (at least for today anywhoo :D )

Not too much has been going here, except classes, and work starting back up. I just finished The Fault in our Stars by John Green, and it's the saddest and probably most memorable book I've read in a very long time. I do believe that Mr. Green still has a ways to go when writing from the female perspective, but after a few chapters, you completely forget about that. It was an amazing book. (thanks ruth!!)

Now, I'm sure you're thinking that I was just going to turn my post into a book review, but I'm not! I'm going to upload a bunch of pictures and tell you about them! Yay!!

 

These are some random pictures of some frost. I decided I needed to take them one morning, before heading to class. I was almost late! Alas, that is a price I'd have had to pay for being an artist! 

Oh Hello! Random shot of the back yard!

Yes. It did snow in Arkansas.... WHAT?!?! I know, right!

Best graham cracker house ever.

Best graham cracker house ever being completely destroyed by two triceratops.

(I'd put more pictures up, but I don't think my adorable cousin's parents would appreciate me putting pictures of their children on the internet. Better safe then sorry! Sucks to be you guys! :P )

West Virginia!

And if you aren't on face book, Johnny and I have had some hiking adventures!!

tiny tiny people :D

And that's it for the picture show folks!

The Blog is not Dead

It's just on life support.

Andrew, Olivia, Ella, and Aldona were here last night and this morning. It was good to see everyone. Adrianna and Judi are leaving tomorrow. :( Adrianna is currently visiting Caitlin, Megan, and Dakota. Johnny is asleep on the recliner next to us.

Now that you have the basic news.... I thought you might be interested in some surprising, but not particularly happy neighborhood news.

Just thought I'd pass the information along in case anyone knows anything that may help.

"Dobson NC--Three minors were found unattended without food or water over Christmas week this year. They had apparently been abandoned by their parents and were left in the care of a grandparent who in turn left them completely alone and unattended during the holiday season.

Despite clear neglect all minors are now in good health. No charges have been filed but authorities are seeking to contact the parents."

Please follow this link to pictures of the minors. Any assistance in the ongoing investigation will be appreciated.