| help them celebrate | 2011.02.28 |
every couple of weeks i get an email from facebook letting me know that i have a “friend” or two with a birthday coming in the next week. it suggests that i help them celebrate by “writing on their wall” – awww, how special is that.
i’m wondering if i updated my profile every month, indicating that my birthday was coming in the next week or two if my “friends” would be notified of my upcoming birthday and would they “help me celebrate” month after month…
| technopoly – the surrender of culture to technology | 2011.02.25 |
i came to this title from the reading list of a course my friend teaches at university. of all the titles on the syllabus i picked this one first because i tend to believe that technology is misapplied to many aspects of our daily lives and suspected that was going to be the thesis here. not only does the author present that case much better than i could, i think the book could have been alternatively titled “a guide to critical thinking” – another skill that seems to be in short supply and little demand in our society.
from the author – an example of the problem: typically, pollsters ask questions that will elicit yes or no answers. is it necessary to point out that such answers do not give a robust meaning t the phrase “public opinion”? were you , for example, to answer “no” to the question “do you think the drug problem can be reduced by government programs?” one would hardly know much of interest or value about your opinion. but allowing you to speak or write at length on the matter would, of course, rule out using statistics. the point is that the use of statistics in polling changes the meaning of “public opinion” as dramatically as television changes the meaning of “political debate”. in the american technopoly, public opinion is a yes or no answer to an unexamined question.
and my favorite indication from the author that one is a “resistance fighter” to technopoly: [people] who take seriously the meaning of family loyalty and honor, and who, when they “reach out and touch someone,” expect that person to be in the same room
| jeepers creepers | 2011.02.22 |
behind a distinguished gentleman’s tidy eye brows is a loving woman who guided him in to trimming them.
for those of you without such a loving woman, let this be the friendly nudge to break out the trimmer…
| first grade spelling test | 2011.02.21 |
ethan brought home a recent spelling test having scored only two out of five correct answers. of course we got on him a bit and asked what he needed to do to be more prepared the next time.
he suggested “can i write the words down and put them in my pocket”
maybe not an academic genius but certainly a diabolic genius…
| black history month | 2011.02.18 |
my observation of black history month will be presented in the way of a quote from the brilliant and entertaining cornel west:
“anytime everyday people straighten their backs up they’re going somewhere ‘cause folk can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.”
who was paraphrasing another brilliant man, martin luther king jr.
| here she comes again | 2011.02.16 |
when i think of my daughter now when she is not around i picture a tiny heel sweeping across my lap.
in place of a greeting she raises a foot and sidles in to your lap. you don’t get to see the satisfied smile that crosses her face unless the foot climbed over your spouse’s lap, but you can feel its there.
she’s just about past the age and size where she will continue climbing up on our laps so seldom is she turned away.
i think about this little heel and intimacy of sharing a chair with her now because i’m storing up armor for the days ahead when i imagine that very same heel will go stomping around the house in dismay at the real or imagined pain we will have caused her…
| please don’t take my man just because you can | 2011.02.15 |
on sunday night we did something unusual – we watched some of the grammys.
here are a few things i learned:
| west side story | 2011.02.14 |
proof we took logan to cleveland.
| if i had been wearing a helmet cam | 2011.02.11 |
ok, i wasn’t on a motorized vehicle, wasn’t wearing a helmet cam, wasn’t on the street, and unfortunately can’t fault a blind middle aged lady – but otherwise this is what my wreck felt like (i know – its time to move on to another topic but my leg hurts and its on my mind a lot)
| partially good news | 2011.02.10 |
so, it appears i avoided the worst case scenario with my leg injury (an achilles tear) and merely have a partial medial gastrocnemius tear. it doesn’t mean i’m jumping up or down right now, but allegedly i will be sooner than i suspected.
the prescription is for 7 days on crutches, then gentle range of motion stretching in 10 days and then stretching after 12 days.
of course my favorite part of the prescription is the “no housework or yardwork” advice, but even with the note from my doctor the wife and kids pretty much scoffed at this.
note: in case you didn’t read the gastroc tear link, all you need to know is under “causes” it reads “the muscle is challenged with a ballistic or explosive force” – which may or may not have been true, but it certainly felt as if it were true…
| ratakim | 2011.02.09 |
ethan with ratakim on superbowl sunday.
| not what i expected | 2011.02.08 |
my leg isn’t getting any better, in fact the drive to cleveland seems to have aggravated it quite a bit, so when natalie went to the store for ingredients for the dish she was taking to the pot luck on saturday night, i stayed behind to take a shower.
i was slow getting to the shower and somewhere between the time i got there and natalie left for the store our friends had come downstairs to find an empty house.
earlier this winter they had a pipe burst in the garage so when they heard water running upstairs they thought another may have broken inside the house.
meanwhile, i’m waiting for the water to warm up and standing completely naked in the middle of the bathroom floor surveying the difference between my normal leg on the left and my elephant leg on the right when the door flies open.
having kids i expected a child was walking in on me but was caught off guard to see a full sized grown adult, and obviously i was not what pete was expecting either (he never said if the sight of me was worse than finding a broken pipe or not)…
a true parent, i spent the rest of the day singing to myself:
“Having heard his lament, the Peach enters the scene. Himself in a towel, both Larry and the Peach are shocked and slightly embarrassed at the sight of each other.”
-veggietales, the hairbrush song
