otoh

By the time you read this he may have met his goal. I read about it yesterday. Twenty-one-year-old Alex Tew dreamed up a way to pay for attending University: create a web page and sell a million pixels at $1 each. He says that if he only sold a small percentage of that, it would be worth it. But a funny thing happened on the way. The story got picked up by news agencies. A few big companies bought space. More and more people visited the site and clicked through to the advertisers web sites. And in a few months time — probably before New Years Day according to his blog entry for today — he will have sold all one million pixels. His stat counter and link is below.

You know, I still don’t understand why I could never get anybody to buy Pet Mud. But that’s another story.

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The house reflected in my glasses is where my parents live, where they have lived for about 45 years, where I grew up, the only home I knew until I went off to college and then moved out on my own. I took five shots and this is the one I like best. I probably would never have tried this with my film camera; I really needed the immediate feedback from the digital to get the angle and exposure close to what I wanted. I had planned to get a shot where you can’t see my hands holding the camera, but I decided I like it better this way. Click on the image for a larger version.

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I think it’s always a good idea to get the family together in the kitchen. Food is a primal need and sharing it’s preparation may be more important than sharing its consumption. Kids learn to respect the power of hot surfaces, the importance of followng instructions, concepts of measurement and time, and cooperation. And cooking has the built-in incentive of something to eat when you finish.

In my family we have always made spritz cookies around this time of year. We aren’t sure where we first got the recipe; we all have hand-written copies of it now. I’ve seen recipes that use almond extract in addition to or instead of the vanilla. And sometimes they add 1/4 teaspoon baking powder to the flour. The mixing is the most difficult part; the butter has to be slightly softened but if it gets too soft you’ll have a sticky mess. You need a cookies press and kids find that a lot of fun. (Okay. I think it’s fun too.)

Spritz Cookies

Ingredients:
(Makes 6 dozen cookies)

• 1 cup butter
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2-1/2 cups flour
• food coloring (optional)

Instructions:

• Set oven at 400°
• Mix butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla
• Mix in flour gradually
• Add food coloring a few drops at a time
• Press onto ungreased baking sheets
• Bake for 7-10 minutes

Keep an eye on the cookies and remove them as soon as the edges start to brown. You may need to lower the oven temp to 375°. I like the cookies to stay soft so I tend to undercook them a little. Actually, one of my favorite things is to skip the baking altogether. Keep the raw dough in the refrigerator and eat a spoonful of that with a cup of hot tea or coffee. Mmmmmhhh. Yes. I know the danger of eating uncooked egg yolks. Some things are worth the risk.

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My brother is a year and a half younger than I am. My sisters are six, eight, and nine years older than I am. I grew up thinking my sisters could do just about anything and that my brother was a spoiled brat. My sisters, I’m sure, thought that both my brother and I were spoiled. At any rate, the gender/age divison made for some interesting dynamics that I know continue to shape who I am.

I don’t remember exactly what year it was, but my middle sister had moved out of the house so I was probably 10 or 11 years old. My brother and I were anxious to get up early and start opening presents. But before we went to bed Christmas Eve, my mother told us that we had to wait until my sister got there the next morning.

Mom got drunk and Dad got drunk at our Christmas party
We were drinking champagne punch and homemade eggnog
Little sister brought her new boyfriend
He was a Mexican
We didn’t know what to think of him until he sang
Felis Navidad, Felis Navidad

Brother Ken brought his kids with him
The three from his first wife Lynn
And the two identical twins from his second wife Mary Nell
Of course he brought his new wife Kay
Who talks all about AA
Chain smoking while the stereo plays Noel, Noel
The First Noel

Carve the Turkey
Turn the ball game on
Mix margaritas when the eggnog’s gone
Send somebody to the Quickpak Store
We need some ice and an extension chord
A can of bean dip and some Diet Rites
A box of tampons, Marlboro Lights
Haleluja everybody say Cheese
Merry Christmas from the family

All of our memories are a little fuzzy on the details, but I think it was around 6am when my sister let herslf in thinking she could sleep on the couch for a couple hours before all the activity started. She didn’t know about our deal: she was back home and Mom had told us we could get up and open presents! So in short order we had roused everyone out of bed and dragged them to the living room. Let the festivities begin!

Fred and Rita drove from Harlingen
I can’t remember how I’m kin to them
But when they tried to plug their motor home in
They blew our Christmas lights
Cousin David knew just what went wrong
So we all waited out on our front lawn
He threw a breaker and the lights came on
And we sang Silent Night, Oh Silent Night, Oh Holy Night

Carve the turkey turn the ball game on
Make Bloody Mary’s
Cause We All Want One!
Send somebody to the Stop ‘N Go
We need some celery and a can of fake snow
A bag of lemons and some Diet Sprites
A box of tampons, some Salem Lights
Haleluja, everybody say cheese
Merry Christmas from the Family

I always thought that was a pretty funny story. I didn’t find out until many years later that my sister had been out partying Christmas Eve. She decided to come home and sleep on the couch rather than go back to her apartment. So she didn’t get any sleep at all. Maybe my sisters were right about us being spoiled, but I think that makes a funny story freakin’ hilarious!

Merry Christmas from the Family by Robert Earl Keen

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The drive between my two homes usually takes about 14 hours. Even though I always have tunes blasting the whole way and listen to a CB radio part of the way, driving that long can get pretty boring. And when I get bored I get even more weird than usual. Somewhere in Georgia this trip I was behind one of the new Volkswagen Beetles for a few miles. I started to feel like I was being watched. I didn’t have my camera within reach so I… um “borrowed” this image:

Do you see it? Can you hear it? It’s the Beatles! I’ve Just Seen a Face. And it’s on the Help! soundtrack. Maybe this will help:

Or maybe I’m way beyond help….

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I grew up in Louisville and most of my immediate family is still there. I have lived in Florida since 1984, but every year I go home for Christmas. “Home,” it seems, is a relative and elastic term. I have my home and job and friends in Florida. I have my home and family and some old friends (and lots of memories) in Louisville. It’s not the same as those people (in a MUCH higher tax bracket) that have a weekend home at the beach or a summer home in the mountains, but still I know it makes me more fortunate than many.

Amber called her uncle, said “We’re up here for the holiday
Jane and I were having Solstice, now we need a place to stay”
And her Christ-loving uncle watched his wife hang Mary on a tree
He watched his son hang candy canes all made with red dye number three
He told his niece, “It’s Christmas eve, I know our life is not your style”
She said, “Christmas is like Solstice, and we miss you and it’s been awhile”

So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table
Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able
And just before the meal was served, hands were held and prayers were said
Sending hope for peace on earth to all their gods and goddesses

My parents still live in the house they bought when I was about a year old. I always stay with one of my sisters when I go back home though. Going back home is one thing, going back home would be quite another.

The food was great, the tree plugged in, the meal had gone without a hitch
Till Timmy turned to Amber and said, “Is it true that you’re a witch?”
His mom jumped up and said, “The pies are burning,” and she hit the kitchen
And it was Jane who spoke, she said, “It’s true, your cousin’s not a Christian”
“But we love trees, we love the snow, the friends we have, the world we share
And you find magic from your God, and we find magic everywhere”

So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table
Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able
And where does magic come from, I think magic’s in the learning
Cause now when Christians sit with Pagans only pumpkin pies are burning

I started a tradition some years ago of giving games for Christmas — board games, card games, party games. In the week between Christmas and New Year my parents, siblings, niblings*, and I get together and play games and eat. We have the big dinner on Christmas day, of course, but we also get together for dinner and games just about every night.

When Amber tried to do the dishes, her aunt said, “Really, no, don’t bother”
Amber’s uncle saw how Amber looked like Tim and like her father
He thought about his brother, how they hadn’t spoken in a year
He thought he’d call him up and say, “It’s Christmas and your daughter’s here”
He thought of fathers, sons and brothers, saw his own son tug his sleeve saying
“Can I be a Pagan?” Dad said, “We’ll discuss it when they leave”

So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table
Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able
Lighting trees in darkness, learning new ways from the old, and
Making sense of history and drawing warmth out of the cold

Soon enough — I’m sure it will feel too soon — I’ll be back home in Florida, back at work. But for now, for a while, I’m going to enjoy being back home in Louisville.

The Christians and the Pagans by Dar Williams

*The word “niblings” comes from the book Family Words by Paul Dickson and means neices and nephews. Since brothers and sisters are siblings….

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I was going to ask a question yesterday. But then I remembered that I try never to ask a question unless I really want to know the answer. And I decided I didn’t want to know.

I was going to have another quote to go along with the HNT photo and it completely slipped my mind. Here it is:

Come back when you have an idea in your head instead of a nail.

That was from my brother and I’ll spare you the backstory for now.

The computer I’m using at home is a five-year-old notebook. It still does fine with internet access, blogging, email, and some word processing. I can’t run some of the software that I use at work, but I’d rather do that at work anyway. It has a 30GB hard drive (about 25 GB useable storage after partitioning, formatting, OS, etc.) But I happened to check last week and had only about 700MB free space left. WTF!?

So I deleted a couple apps I don’t use and got about 1.5GB free. Then I realized why it was so full. I bought an mp3 player (Archos Jukebox) about four years ago that is a 20GB hard drive. For the last four years I’ve been ripping my CDs to load up the player, but I’ve been keeping everything on my hard drive too. Thing is, I almost never listen to the songs on my computer. So I made sure that everything had been transferred to the player and deleted about 12GB of songs from my hard drive. (I’m leaving the X-mas music on it for a couple more weeks.)

So now my Jukebox is about 3/4 full and I have lots of free space on my hard drive that I can start filling up with photos from the new digital camera (Canon SD400) that I bought a couple weeks ago! The experience made me think (dontcha HATE when that happens?) about this:

• The first computers I used were dumb terminals connected to a mainframe — no local processor, memory, or storage.
• The first computers I had in my classroom were Apple IIe machines — 1MHz processor, 64KB RAM, floppy disk storage (no hard drive).
• The first computer I bought was an Amiga 1000 — 7MHz processor, 512KB RAM (that I later expanded to 1MB RAM with a board that I had to plug DIN chips into), and floppy disk storage (still no hard drive).
• My next computer was an Amiga 2000HD — the first one I owned that had a hard drive, 50MB that I never filled up.
• Ten years ago I was a network administrator and we could get 500MB hard drives for our IBM PCs for $500 each.
• My mp3 player is a 20GB hard drive.
• My Palm Pilot has 32MB RAM and I can put data on a 1GB SD card.
• My new camera also uses SD cards.
• For a while last week I had more free storage space on my camera than I had on my notebook.

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I like men who wear earrings. They’ve bought jewelry and they’ve experienced pain. ~Rita Rudner

Can You Ear Me Now? [sorry]

Never trust a man with an earring. ~Tim

Two things I heard today:

• It lights up… or so I hear.
• Do you want to come in here and be naughty?

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So can I. [hee hee]

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<rant>
Sometimes when the phone rings, I don’t answer it. You know what? It stops ringing anyway. Admittedly, I’m a bit of a phonophobe, but I am not an idiot that stops everything no matter where or when to respond to a freakin’ bell (or song clip or whatever the hell you have programmed into your tin can). Nor am I an inconsiderate dolt that assumes everyone wants to hear my private phone conversations in public places.

We didn’t have an answering machine when I was growing up. We weren’t allowed to answer the phone during dinner time or after 10 pm. People generally knew it was impolite to call during those times. If I missed a call and it was important (even if it wasn’t) they could call back. I’m not ancient, but those seem like such quaint old-fashioned rules today.

Students are not allowed to use their cell phones during the school day. That’s the policy. But every single day I see students checking messages and making calls. Every single day. STFU. You’re not needed in surgery. You’re not going to die if you get the message this afternoon. And I’ll wager, neither will the person on the other end. If you checked your homework half as faithfully, your GPA would probably double.

For a while, I thought having to listen to some moron on a cell phone when I’m in a public place (even if it’s just a burger joint) was about as annoying as anything I might be expected to endure. You know, you don’t have to talk so loudly that they could hear you even if the phone is turned off. But then, we got phones that can also be walkie-talkies. OMG! Now I have to hear BOTH sides of the conversation! It should be legal (and expected) for me to break that moron’s phone and slap them silly. STFU!!!

I have voice-mail now at home and work and on my cell. Missing calls isn’t an issue any more. I still don’t answer the phone when I’m eating. I turn my cell phone off or to silent when I enter a restaurant and most other public places and I let calls go to voice-mail. My phone at work is in a small work area adjacent to my classroom. My voice-mail message there states that I will not answer the phone during class. If the phone rings, I know it will go to voice-mail and if it’s important they can leave a message. Almost without fail though, one or more students will tell me that it’s ringing (as if I can’t hear it). “That’s okay,” I tell them, “it will stop.”

Pavlov must be spinning in his grave.
</rant>

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