Archive for November, 2006

When the Gales of November Come Early

Friday, November 10th, 2006
    snowpines2.jpg

  • Worked on Coldfusion homework.
  • Walked downtown before the sun came up. Through the college, along the escarpment, descending down to Portage. The Cort was entering the Poe, downbound. The Montrealais was leaving the MacArthur, downbound. The Voyageur Pioneer and the Gott were hanging out by the Corps of Engineers and Brady Park waiting for locks, upbound.
  • Worked on Coldfusion homework.
  • Went to Frank’s Place for breakfast. The power went out — citywide — and we almost didn’t get our food but it came back on again.
  • Worked on Coldfusion homework.
  • Got home and found that a power surge had tripped a bunch of circuit breakers and burned out two surge protectors. That gave the GG something to do for a while. One more city-wide power outage, now we seem to be back on line for good, knock on wood.
  • Worked on Coldfusion homework.
  • The mystery of how The Commander’s sagging shed was solved when the neighbor reluctantly admitted that he had dispatched the most recent tenant, a veggie-eating groundhog, and filled in its home.
  • Worked on Coldfusion homework.
  • Went Christmas and grocery shopping with The Commander. Christmas shopping? What the heck, it’s snowing to beat the band. Might as well get going.
  • Worked on Coldfusion homework.
  • Went to the cabin to clean the gutters, retrieve curtain rings, test ammo, and walk the beach snow. Heard a ghost ship blow a master salute.
  • Worked on Coldfusion homework.

Wouldn’t Wanna Be Headin’ Up Into Gitchee Gumee Tonight!

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

clouds1.jpgclouds2.jpgclouds3.jpg
Click on pics for larger images

Brrrrring! Hello! Whoooooosh!

I was on The Planet Ann Arbor back in 1989 and Grandroobly was calling me from the cabin. He was holding the phone out the door and that “whoooooooosh!” was the sound of the wind. It was September, not November, because it was still warm enough for Grandroobly to be at the cabin. I wished I could be there! It was cocktail hour and it sounded gorgeous up there and he was having a great time!

Unfortunately, it also turned out to be the night that a vee-hickle went over the side of the Mackinac Bridge for the first time in the 30-something history of the bridge. Here’s a site with a spectacular shot of the bridge. And here’s a short version of what happened to the Yugo.

My parents drove my brother and me over the Big Mac the first night that it was open. That was back in 1957. Before that, we used to take the ferry whenever we went down to Megalopolis to visit our grandparents or cousins or whoever. I remember the ferry. We would park the car and I would walk around the deck with Grandroobly and put my hands in my pockets like Grandroobly did. It was usually dark. We had to leave at about 3 AM to catch the first ferry in order to get to Detroit before noon or whatever.

A lot of people are afraid to cross the Mackinac Bridge. I never have been and I am still not, Yugo or whatever.

Two Hours, Thirty-Eight Minutes, 177 Miles

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

We got just about to Long Point Drive and I was pontificating idly about ways to make html table data (specifically football statistics) more accessible to people with low or no vision. As we turned onto Long Point, we saw a flashing red emergency vee-hickle-type light at the end of Ina Street. What now? We speculated until we pulled into the driveway. When we got out of our vee-hickle, we heard a horrible buzzing noise coming from the lake and, in a minute, the rescue airboat drove by, lights flashing away. This was just too surreal.

Several winters ago, I guess it was 2003 because Liz was a college freshman and Mouse still had her learner’s permit, we drove up here one February evening. When we arrived, there was a huge notice plastered on the garage saying that big holes had opened up in the ice on the lake. This was despite the fact that temperatures had been low enough to already *form* ice capable of supporting the average road vee-hicle. That was when we still had the old cabin and the heat was always turned off in the winter when no one was there. The GG went inside and turned on the heat and Mouse drove us down to the end of the point while the cabin warmed up a bit.

When we got down there, we were horrified to find all kinds of emergency vee-hickles. And they were pulling the airboat out of the lake. We asked someone what was going on and they told us that two snowmobilers (brothers, I think) had unsuspectingly encountered one of the holes and drowned. They were out there looking for them. I’m glad I don’t have that job.

Anyway, tonight we got to the cabin and walked down to the lake and watched the airboat go by and for a little while I felt chilled to the bone. I wondered who they were looking for and what had happened. I felt angry for a few minutes about the foolhardy souls you sometimes encounter around “small water” who think they can do anything and sometimes drown doing it. I grew up on the shores of “big water” and I am very respectful of what any size water can do.

After watching the airboat travel back and forth numerous times over very shallow water and at a high rate of speed, we have convinced ourselves that they are just practicing. Testing. Figuring out what the challenges of the coming winter might be. There’s no ice and hardly anyone is around here. But y’all PLEASE be careful around water and don’t take your snowmobiles out on the ice unless you are sure it’s safe. Siberia tomorrow. G’night.

Voting Twilight Booth

Tuesday, November 7th, 2006

I slodged over to Haisley today and entered the new (and highly over-rated, imho) “multi-purpose room” to do my civic duty and cast my vote against various politicians. This is the procedure for voting here on The Planet Ann Arbor, maybe throughout the Great Lake State, I’m not up on all of that political stuff:

  • You check in with an election volunteer, who gives you a paper ballot and a sleeve to put it in.
  • You take your ballot to a little booth and mark your selections with a black felt-tip pen, filling in little circles, kind of like taking the SAT.
  • You put your ballot into the sleeve, take it over to a machine, and stick the end of the ballot into a mouth that eats it.

Or not. To my horror, that mouth spat my ballot right back out. A cryptic error message in a little digital display box said I had “over-voted.” Say what? A nice election lady carefully began explaining to me that you were usually limited to a specific number of choices for each item and I must have selected more than the maximum somewhere. Well that’s perfectly understandable but I didn’t *select* more than *one* person for *any* office. Anything where there were two or three allowable choices, I left blank because I didn’t know who the heck to vote for (university regents, etc.).

I was told I had two choices. 1) I could get a new ballot and do the whole dern thing again. 2) If I didn’t care about the item I had “over-voted” on, I could feed the ballot back in and they could override the machine so that my vote for that *one* item was not counted. Okay. This story does not have a particularly happy ending. These people were *nice*. They were not threatening. Nobody yelled at me or accused me of anything. But I didn’t know what I had supposedly “over-voted” on and there seemed to be no real procedure or way for me to double-check my ballot without waving it around in the middle of the room in front of everyone in the neighborhood.

So I caved in and said, “okay, I’ll take option 2.” I was flustered and embarrassed. I felt like I’d been caught cheating, trapped in a vortex of swirling chads. I didn’t want to re-vote and have the machine spit my ballot back at me again. I just wanted to get outta there, go back outside and slodge home.

Now I’m a little dumbfounded. What just happened? I’m a champ at reading directions and filling in little circles with a felt-tip pen. I don’t know what I did wrong. Why isn’t there a better way to deal with errors than to say, right out loud, “she over-voted,” and then discuss what to do in the middle of a room full of people. Secret ballot? Yeah, right. I do know I’ll be nervous about going over there to vote the next time. And I wonder about the people who are *not* all that good at reading directions (or even reading, fer Kee-reist) and filling in little circles.

Mooma Duck

Monday, November 6th, 2006

Girl Scouts changing to focus more on leadership. Organization trying to be more relevant to today’s girls.

Another A2 Snooze article

Oh dear. What *do* they mean by “focus more on leadership?” What kind of activities will be devised to teach kids about leadership? Whenever the concept of “leadership” pops up in my poor, overworked, underpaid little brain, it conjures up an image of ducklings parading along behind mama duck.

I know where they’re going with this. A few years ago when I was a girl scout leader, the big buzzword was “careers.” And people were looking down their noses at anything resembling the “crafty stuff” that girl scouts often did when I was a kid. What possible use could sewing and stuff like that be to girls whose parents want them to grow up into doctors and lawyers and CEOs and astronauts and whatever?

A disclaimer: I was a pretty awful girl scout leader. Actually, I don’t generally enjoy being in a room full of screaming, unruly kids unless there is another adult there who’s good at crowd control. I am not good at crowd control. Fortunately, I always managed to make myself secondary to a friend or two who were better at that stuff. It helped. Somewhat. I’m still glad that particular aspect of my life as a moom is long over. Except that I miss seeing those friends…

But what *is* wrong with “crafty” activities? Here’s what I think one of the many pathways to “learning leadership” is:

  • Present girl scouts with a taste of a wide *variety* of activities: crafts and camping and theatre and horseback riding and field trips to the dinosaur museum, etc., etc. Oh, and “careers” and even “leadership” do fit in there too.
  • Most of them will become *interested* enough in their own chosen activities to pursue them further.
  • Some might even begin to gain some expertise in their chosen activities.
  • That should surely increase their sense of self-confidence.
  • And then they can become “experts.”
  • And maybe even teach other people how to do the things they have become proficient in.
  • And, voila!, become leaders.
  • Sometimes in spite of themselves.
  • And having those leadership skills might help those girls down the road when they are establishing actual careers.

Roight? grokGROK!

So, how do you teach “leadership?” What resources are the national Girl Scout council going to provide for “leadership” activities? This article doesn’t say *anything*. It’s just one vaguely-defined term after another. “Mission” and “focus” and “core tenets.” “Discover, connect, and take action.” How? Where? When? Why? What the heck am I missing? And where is the fun?

Whistlin’ t’ Hell inna Han’baskit

Sunday, November 5th, 2006

Grok grok. Wha’ good iza whistlin’ teakettle if a ol’ growler terns it on ‘n’ then goes ou’side where ‘e can’t hear th’ dern thing? Grok grok. Werya tryin’ t’ bern down th’ ol’ lan’fill w’ me ‘n’ Smokie ‘n’ Clammy ‘n’ all o’ us inside? Grok grok.

Political Blahg?

Saturday, November 4th, 2006

Er, probably not. I’ve been sitting around here all day working on a 50-plus page report amidst an eddy of political blather from various participants in an informal, loosely organized friends-and-family type email group. Probably one of the most interesting things posted was a picture of a class of Beltway first-graders smiling for the camera with their cute little Clinton-esque faces. Another shining example of things you can do with Photoshop but probably shouldn’t. 😉 I’d post it here but I don’t know who created it and therefore can’t credit them or obtain their permission.

Y’all do not want to know my political opinions. I am an “independent.” I see issues in 24-bit color, not black and white. It’s those extra rods and cones, y’know? 😉 And people are people. We all have our strong and weak points. If you want to limit the discussion to who should be the next president of the United States — and I *know* that’s not the immediate issue — I believe that somewhere in the universe[s] there is an entity who is eligible for the job. On the planet Zephron III, maybe? ‘course he/she/it/whatever wouldn’t be eligible, having not been born (or whatever) in the USA.

Today, I worked via email all day with a partner in a neighboring town to kluge together a 50-some page report: “User Task Analyses & Storyboards and Style Guide” for a site that I won’t name until we’re finished with the project and have our grade. Tools of choice were Word and Illustrator. At the end of the day, we told each other to quit and have a fun evening. What did y’all do today? And do you know who you’re gonna vote for on Tuesday?

Breakfast, Bank, Gas, Groceries, Post Office

Friday, November 3rd, 2006

restaurantfire.jpgThree out of five ain’t bad. Maybe I’ll get the other two done later today, we’ll see. Right now the bank and the gas station are closed.

I was bumbling around the house this morning, getting a bunch of stuff ready so I could get down to Cafe Zola by 8 for breakfast with Elena. Checks to deposit, grocery list, things to mail, debit card handy so I could get gas. There were a lot of sirens. I didn’t pay much attention. There are always sirens around here. Maybe this was a little more than usual but I didn’t think about it much.

As I drove down the street, I was busy fumbling around with my frozen windows, craning my neck to just the right position to see around the ice on my windshield, and rummaging for the ice scraper that I thought I was too lazy to remove from my vee-hickle last spring. I was about to turn south onto N. Maple. It was awfully dark looking down there. My first thought was “snow squall coming up from the southwest.” Then I saw all the flashing lights and realized that the big dark cloud was SMOKE! In Maple Village. Was it National City? It sure looked that way at first. “There goes my bank,” I thought mournfully.

But it was the Chinese Restaurant next door to the bank. On the other side of the restaurant is my usual gas station. The restaurant now looks like a total loss. It’s a bad picture. That’s about the closest I could get and the fire was out by then. I didn’t have my cam with me earlier. News trucks were also out there, so I bet the Snooze’ll have a pic. Never a dull moment.

Update: no pic but here’s what the Snooze has to say.

Blatant Materialism

Thursday, November 2nd, 2006

You guys are so lucky, you get me twice today. To make up for my failure to post yesterday. Grok grokk. Whaddya mean? We were GLAD ya didn’ post yesterday. We needed a brake. grok grok. Froog, get off my blahg. Anyway, since we seem to have crossed the line into winter, what you are gonna get is my xmas list. Certain people are always asking. You know who you are. So I’m gonna tell you what I need. And since my blasted birthday comes all too soon after xmas, some of this junk could be left for then.

  • Memory for my decrepit old electronical contraption. I am getting sick and tired of watching that ball spin.
  • A new digital camera. There’s nothing wrong with my old one. It’s just old. In fact, I think it’s about as old as my decrepit old electronical contraption. I have another plan for it, if it works out. Don’t go too crazy and spend too much.
  • A backup hard drive for *me* to back up my *own* personal decrepit old electronical contraption. Because if I had my own backup drive and didn’t have to rummage around for one, I’d probably actually back my decrepit old electronic contraption up once in a while. Living dangereuse-ly around here.

I do not want clothing, I like to pick out my own. I have more than enough vacuum cleaners. Gay, do you need one? I do not need kitchen toys. If my kitchen has to absorb one more kitchen toy, it will explode. Well, except for a backup drive, maybe.

down down down

Thursday, November 2nd, 2006

First day I’ve missed since summer ’03. Down down down. Really. I was talking on the phone to The Commander last night. We discussed all the usual subjects that people talk to their mothers about. You know, black holes and universes and the big bang theory and ugly old witches in big old ditches. All that stuff. I got off the phone and was half-way through writing a blahg entry and kaboom. Just my host server this time though. No need for anyone to haunt my house again. To my surprise, I found that times are getting better and web geeks are actually thinking about their customers these days. Novel idea, eh? They had managed to get one page up with — drum roll — a PHONE NUMBER!!! Which I called and got a message saying they were having difficulties. I honestly appreciated that. Back in the old days, you’d just be in limbo and if you did get through on the phone, you’d get some troll. I gave up for the night and went to bed. Homework day. Maybe more later. Maybe not.

Procrastination: For those who daydream of black holes and universes et al, Tomorrowland, which I found via Biblioklept, has an entry today about the fourth dimension. Now, I gottago.