Technology Blog

I couldn’t believe it when I opened the box. A Canon EOS 30D?!?!
Time to take a photography class, I think!

source: omg! omg! omg!

Joe McCarthy tagged me with the “five things you don’t know about me” meme, which I thought I’d safely avoided.

The problem, of course, is that depending on who “you” are, there are different things that “you” may or may not know about me. None of this is likely to be a surprise to my mother or my husband, for example. So I guess I’m really writing this for the people who know me mostly through my blog…

1. I hate green vegetables. I never outgrew this aspect of picky eating. I eat a wide variety of meat, fish, dairy, grains, and fruit. I eat a wide range of cuisines. But I don’t eat green vegetables (unless there’s absolutely, positively, no way to avoid them without being rude). No salad. No vegetable soup. There are a few exceptions to this—Linda Stone made it her personal mission to change this while I lived in Seattle, and she pulled it off by roasting asparagus and thin-sliced zucchini. I actually enjoyed those, but not enough to add them to a regular rotation. I do eat potatoes and corn, and in the world of green foods I do like Jalapeno peppers and pesto.
2. I lived in Malta when I was 13. My father, a political scientist, took a sabbatical leave to study the electoral system in Malta, and we all went with him. Thirteen, in case you don’t know, is not an age that takes well to change, and I was not at all happy to leave my friends behind for an isolated Mediterranean island. There was no internet back then, and international phone calls were outrageously expensive, so I was cut off from my friends the whole time we were there. Since the only schools on the island that used English were the Catholic schools, I have the distinction of being one of the few Jews I’ve ever met who can say a Hail Mary or recite the Lord’s Prayer in milliseconds (we had to say one or the other of these each time a nun entered the classroom). After a few months of Catholic School I threw one of the few tantrums of my life, which resulted in my leaving the school and getting a tutor for math (the only subject where I wasn’t already ahead of grade level). In an amusing twist, one of the members of my World of Warcraft guild is Maltese, and knows quite a few young women who attended that same Academy of the Sacred Heart!
3. I met Gerald, my husband, on FidoNet—which gives me Old Skool geek credentials far surpassing that of most current Internet users. The specific “echo” we were on was the New Age echo, which will baffle most people who know us, as neither of us is exactly a stereotypical New Ager. When I asked him early on what on earth he was doing on that Echo, his answer was “Waiting for you.” ‘Nuff said.
4. I didn’t change my name the first time I married, but I did the second time—mostly because there really is a Lawley, Alabama, and it really is named after Gerald’s ancestors. His mom lives just over the border from Lawley, in Randolph. I loved the idea that my kids would be able to point to a place on the map that was named after their family, since so few people in the US have that kind of deep connection to place.
5. In high school, I was a member of the Pantherettes—a dance/pom-pom squad that performed at football games. Senior year I was co-captain of the squad, and the other co-captain’s mother was our coach…which create somewhat of a power imbalance. After a few months of being completely ignored or overridden on all decisions, I finally lost my temper with the whole group, hurled obscenities at them as I left the gym, and went home and burned every single one of the hundreds of stupid white tissue paper flowers that I’d been making for our homecoming float. I look back on that as one of my finer adolescent moments.

So there you have it. Five things you may not have known about me, complete with colorful details.

And….Weez! Kathleen! Dorothea! Jenny! Adam I choose you! (…to carry on the meme, natch)

source: five things you may not know about me

For the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long, I’m not feeling overwhelmed by commitments this week. I’ve said no to some things that I really wanted to do, but knew would add too much stress, and it feels sooooo good to not be struggling with overload now.

It’s finals week here at RIT (we’re on a quarter system). Student projects get turned in today, and I’ve got until Thursday to get them graded. The final exam is Thursday morning, and it’s mostly opscan graded, so I should have that all done by the end of the day. That means starting Friday I’m completely done with this quarter, and have 2.5 full weeks of break time before the winter quarter begins. More importantly, I have no conference travel or presentations until the end of February.

So what will I do with all that free time? I’ve got afghans to finish, and TV episodes to catch up on. And since Weez just started playing WoW, I’ve got lots of collaborative playtime planned for the break.

Oh…and I need (really, really need) to get my flabby flat ass in to the gym.

It’s all good.

source: completely bearable lightness of being

We’re slowly unpacking boxes and watching as items are reabsorbed into the house. It’s quite remarkable. Box after box is emptied out, with no noticeable change in the house’s appearances. Items go into closets, drawers, shelves. They sit on dressers, and on top of the stove, and behind the fridge. Packed into the car and into boxes, the detritus of our daily lives looks overwhelming. Unpacked, it soaks into our surroundings and becomes part of the fabric of daily life.

source: a house is like a sponge

It’s not morning anymore, obviously, but Monday mornings always seem to be “monkey mind” times for me. I’ve gotten pretty good at turning work off on the weekends and simply relaxing. This weekend was particularly nice, because Sunday was my birthday. Gerald and the boys took me to my choice of restaurants, The Crab Pot, where you order a seafood feast and they dump the pot of crabs, shrimp, clams, mussels, potatoes, corn, and sausage out onto your table. Everyone gets a bib, a mallet, a crab-cracker, a fork, and some melted butter. Yum!

But weekends off means that when I wake up on Monday my mind starts racing, jumping around all the projects that I’ve got on the table, all the things I meant to do over the weekend but didn’t, and all the things I’ve got to get done that day. I take loooong showers on Mondays, while I try to organize my thoughts.

Today I had four areas of focus—the upcoming social computing symposium and related communication, the research project I’ve been working on here (and hope to be blogging about this week), the Star Wars: Galaxies “community summit” event that I took Lane to on Saturday night, and whether or not to return to my position at RIT.

The first of those, as you can see by the link, now has information available online. Once I’ve got webcast details, I’ll link them from that site.

The second is something I want to get clearer in my head before I start blogging about it, but I think that will happen this week.

The third I’ve just written up in some detail, but won’t be posting here. Why? Well, I’ve been invited to be a guest author on one of my favorite blogs, TerraNova, so watch for it to be posted there in the near future. (Yes, I know, I need another blog like a hole in the head. But it’s so much more fun to start new projects than to finish old ones, isn’t it?)

The fourth is a sticky subject. It turns out I like MSR. A lot. It’s been wonderful to be in a place that really values the kind of work that I do—without my having to constantly explain and justify it. And it’s not clear yet whether that’s going to be true at RIT. As my end date here grows closer, my angst over this has grown as well. On the flip side, my family and I have strong ties in Rochester, and a strong sense of connection to community. While it’s been nice having a break from teaching this year, I’m starting to miss my students. We also have a house we love in a great neighborhood, at a fraction of the cost of something comparable in Seattle. Life would be easier, I said to Gerald, if only someone would invent a teleporter. If I could live in Rochester and work here at MSR, that would be pretty much perfect. But life’s not perfect, and I’ll have to find a compromise that my family and I can all live with. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not whining. I know how lucky I am to have such great choices. But it’s a big decision with a lot of repercussions, and requires a lot of thought.)

source: monday morning monkey mind

It’s been a whirlwind visit here in Rochester—I thought a week would give us plenty of time, but I still feel rushed, and it’s hard to believe that tomorrow’s our last full day here.

I’ve gotten a chance to see a lot of people I enjoy, and have been reminded of how strong our ties are to the community. Eight years is enough time to put down real roots, and to build real relationships. Lane keeps saying that he’d love to live in Seattle if he could just move all his friends there, and I know exactly how he feels.

I suspect my blogging will be very light over the next few weeks—not only because I’ll be catching up from this trip, but also because I bought myself an early holiday present. I’ve been lured into the World of Warcraft, and I know myself well enough to know that I’m likely to fall hard for this. Since time won’t expand to give me extra hours for gameplay, something has to give—and blogs (both reading and writing) may well be it. The good news is my kids will probably love it, so we can play it together.

(For those already playing, or thinking about starting, I’m currently a Dark Night Elf Druid named Musette, in the Khadgar realm, and have joined Joi’s We Know guild.)

source: not enough hours in the day…

The weather’s getting colder here in the Northwest, but I’ll be spending a cozy Thanksgiving in a warm house surrounded by family and friends.

In the earthquake-damaged areas of Pakistan and Kashmir, however, many people are fighting to stay alive as the temperature drops.

North Face Sporting Goods, in collaboration with one of the relief organizations, is sponsoring a “Gear Drop” where you can drop off your sleeping bags, tents, and other cold weather survival gear at their retail stores through tomorrow—they’ll ship what you bring to Kashmiri victims. (For local readers, the local North Face store is 1023 1st Avenue in Seattle.) They’re also offering a 10% discount for items that you purchase there for the relief effort.

Colleagues of mine at RIT are in the process of organizing a site to coordinate similar initiatives, at QuakeHelp.net—so if you can’t make it to North Face today or tomorrow, take a look at their site over the next few days to check for other opportunities.

I’ll be bringing some items to North Face in Seattle tomorrow. I hope you’ll also do something to help the millions of victims in Asia. It’s easy to feel bad about disasters when they happen—and equally easy to forget about them when they’re not in the headlines anymore. Please don’t forget about these people. You can help.

source: donate a sleeping bag; save a life

I’ve been neglecting my blog lately. Between personal and global events, I’ve had precious few cycles to devote to writing. But I’m determined to make writing a regular activity again, and there’s no better time than the present.

(I’ve made a deliberate decision not to write about what’s going on down in New Orleans—there are plenty of bloggers and news organizations giving you all the information and commentary you could want. I’ll limit my remarks to saying how relieved we are to know that our friends Deborah and Bruce left the city early Saturday with their dogs, and are safe with relatives in Alabama for now.)

Among the many things that I’ve neglected to share with my readers over the past month are the acquisition of several nifty new toys. The first is the first new car I’ve had in over 15 years (the Odyssey doesn’t count, since it’s Gerald’s vehicle). At the end of July I signed a lease on a brand-new 2006 Subaru B9 Tribeca, and I love it. I’m feeling slightly bad about not having gotten something with better mileage, but we’ll be turning the Odyssey in next summer, and will replace it with something much more fuel-efficient—the Tribeca, which has seating for 7, will become our primary family car.

We got the Tribeca with the DVD system for the kids, but not the GPS navigation system, which added nearly $2000 to the price. Instead, we bought a small, portable Garmin Quest GPS unit for less than $400 from Amazon. It’s wonderful. So, so helpful when you’re new to a city and have lots of navigating to do. The only problem is that we keep stealing it from each other’s vehicles, so we’ll probably have to acquire another one to keep the peace. Without a doubt, this is the best gadget purchase in a long, long time.

Today was the first day of school back in Rochester, and also the first day of homeschooling for the boys. They each went to an enrichment class sponsored by the school district (“Grammar Games” for Lane, and “Origami” for Alex). Lane is taking two additional classes that meet later this week—“Origami Math” and an improv acting class, and Alex is taking a cooking class. Early reports from the field (yay for cell phones!) are that the classes got a big “thumbs up.” They’ve also been playing with some online math activities, and some discovery channel tv/worksheet tie-ins.

We’re thinking about acquiring some caged pets (for their scientific educational value, of course), and spent a good bit of time last night reading about the pros and cons of different options. I was unenthusiastic after reading about gerbils, hamsters, and guinea pigs. But then we found out about pygmy hedgehogs. How cute are they? So tomorrow the boys are off to a downtown Seattle pet store to check out some babies for suitability.

Also on the agenda for that all-important “socialization” aspect of homeschooling are a regular Friday afternoon “HomeZone” program at the YMCA that includes gym, swim, and art, as well as a local homeschooling group that sponsors everything from lego clubs to family hikes. And perhaps most surprising to anyone who knows us, we’re going to check out a local Unitarian Universalist church on Sunday and see if it’s a good fit for us.

On the professional front, I’ll be speaking at C2: Connect & Collaborate later this month, participating in a workshop at State of Play III: Social Revolutions in early October, and then speaking at Internet Librarian in late October. If you’ll be at any of those, come say hi!

All that ought to give me plenty of fodder for writing on a regular basis. Plus it’s September now, so my brain is kicking into gear (as befits a well-socialized academic).

I was reading my daily blog doses on Friday when I came across Lilia’s post The Kindness of Strangers. I followed the links. And I cried, too.

When Lane was born, Gerald and I were both students. Lane ended up in the NICU for ten days. It turned out to be a false alarm—he was fine. But we had an enormous hospital bill on our hands—neonatal intensive care ain’t cheap. Luckily, that was 1994, well before the Republicans had gutted our national safety net. We qualified for Medicaid, and escaped financial disaster.

In contrast, here’s how Badger, an ABD with a 12-year-old son (Badger-boy) and terminally ill husband (Mr. Badger), described her “safety net” experience:

I brought him home from the hospital only five days later, so determined was he to make a speedy and full recovery. But between the weight loss from the cancer (he’d lost almost 40 pounds before he finally had surgery) and the trauma of the surgery itself, he was very weak. So I applied for Social Security Disability. Fortunately, like good honest Americans, we had paid self-employment taxes on his art and teaching income, and he qualified for benefits: $590 a month. Although our combined income—my salary as a GTF and his disability check—does not cover all our monthly bills, the Social Security Administration determined that we make too much money to quality for SSI. The maximum income to get SSI: $570 a month. You like that math? That $20 difference? And without SSI, there is no Medicaid coverage (until you’ve been on Social Security for two years), and without Medicaid coverage, there is no assistance with any medical expenses we accrue in his follow-up care.

Cost to date for surgery, CT-scans, hospital stays, doctors’ visits, and labwork: $79,000. Insurance benefit left for year: $21,000. Days left until new benefit year: 145. Response from Social Security Administration when I went down to their office with our 2004 tax returns to prove our lack of income: Priceless.

“There’s nothing I can do for you. Come back in two years.”

Prognosis of someone with stage four liver cancer: 3 months

Read the whole post, entitled “The political gets personal.” Please.

I can’t solve the problem of world hunger. I can’t bring peace to Iraq. And I can’t cure Mr. Badger’s cancer. But I can help Badger and Badger-boy by donating to a fund to help them with medical and living expenses. So can you. I hope you will.