Month: May 2003

Baggage

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date May 19, 2003

You spend the first half of your life accumulating baggage and the second half of your life getting rid of it.

I’m heading over to San Francisco this week, and I’m taking things with me to leave in the storage unit for later disposal. Among these items is the traffic light you see to your right.

I picked up this traffic light years and years ago at a charity auction. It is a genuine stoplight that’s been converted to a lamp, with a separate switch for each light. When I got the lamp, it had regulation traffic light bulbs in it but they were so bright I had to pull them and put in regular bulbs.

Why the stoplight? I don’t know. It seemed the thing to do at the time. However, it has been useful. I used it for some of my indoor photography years ago, to add a tri-color effect as shown in the photo below.

Of course I picked up the light at the height of what I call my acquisitive period, that peak time when ‘stuff’ meant a lot to me. We had a large multi-room house, and I proceeded to fill it with as many things as I could — large couches, books, entertainment systems, curios, collectables, paintings, and of course, oddities like my stoplight. It was during this time that I bought most of my lava lights, which probably doesn’t surprise you.

This was all before criss-crossing the country twice, as well as getting divorced, and with each move I’d drop more items like a bird shedding feathers. Now, with the knowledge of yet more moves ahead of me I’m paring down to the core. This means the lava lights, the traffic light, many of the pictures, all the furniture, most of the books, and the mineral collection I held on to with the tenaciousness of a child holding its mother’s breast — they’re all going.

No regrets either. These items, they’re just stuff. Baggage. Dropping it all is like dropping anchors.

Stream of Consciousness

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date May 19, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Today the humidity was high but the weather was cool, creating that clammy effect you normally associate with damp basements or old moss. The type of weather where people say, “You could cut the air with a knife, it’s so thick”. Not surprising for a land that isn’t much more than a very stable swamp, necklaced in by America’s largest rivers.

I visited the Chain of Rocks Bridge again, and walked in the cool air over the Mississippi, looking at beaver paw prints in the mud in the Missouri side that must have been made by one huge creature, the prints were so big. They were scattered about a spot at the river where something large had been dragged from the water. Drift wood for a dam? Catfish? Boat?

I’ve always lived on or near water, and couldn’t imagine living in any place that didn’t have water close by. My first home was in a farm house overlooking the Roosevelt river, and I learned how to swim when my Dad took me to the river and dumped me in. “Swim, dear”, he’d say, as I frantically dog paddled, floating over a drop off that turned the water from comforting sandy blue to deep unknown green black.

Once I learned to swim I lived in the water every summer, spending most of my time at a cove formed by a small hill cut off from the main land by the higher river waters. When I was in town, I lived at the pool, though I never have cared for the chlorinated waters.

After we moved to Seattle, I would hang around at Golden Gardens or at Green Lake, swimming or walking along the beaches, sunning in the grass. As an adult, I lived in apartments near or overlooking Lake Union.

Now that I think back on it, my earliest romantic relationships had some association with the water. There was the boat mechanic who lived on the water and taught me how to drive large fast cruisers. And there was Bryan, the hydroplane racer, who taught me how to drive small fast boats. The relationships didn’t last, but the love of water did.

When I started college in Yakima, I would spend lazy summer afternoons inner tubing with friends on the Yakima River, all of us tied to a small boat that contained our drinks. We had beer among the beverages, but most of us drank water or juice or pop — there was something about floating peacefully along, butt in the cool water, sun on your face, and good company that precluded the need for anything more. I thought I could just stay in the water and float away and down until meeting up with the Columbia and hence to the Ocean and one day wash up in Hawaii. Or Japan.

When I met my husband Rob, he talked me into moving to Phoenix, not difficult because I was always game for a lark. Still, I was a little reluctant to move into a land which I assumed was nothing but dry desert and no water to speak of. However, when I got there I found no such thing, not while people insist on piping water where water has no right to be. Artificial water spots abounded, and even our apartment complex had a stream running through it, home to ducks we would adopt every winter.

One of our favorite places in Phoenix was the Phoenix Zoo with its natural habitats specializing in the Southwest, and the man made lake full of water fowl wintering in this hospitable home. We would grab some popcorn and munch it, sitting at a table, looking out over the lake at the birds. One time, we dropped some of the popcorn to some ducks near our table, which really wasn’t a good idea as birds from all over the lake converged on our table. We beat a hasty retreat, throwing popcorn down behind us to distract the flocks.

We ended up moving back to the northwest, first Ellensburg, then Seattle and Portland. In Portland, our home was over a creek that would over flow its banks in rainy weather, but was far enough away not to be a threat. What was a threat is how the water loosened the roots of the big firs, which the winds would knock over. During one bad storm we heard a monsterous crash and ran outside to find that an uprooted fir tree had cut a large van in half. I have photos of the van, if I ever find them, I’ll show them to you.

From Portland, we moved to Grand Isle, Vermont, a perfect home for a water baby like me. We were surrounded by water and I would spend hours looking over the lake, watching the play of weather on the hills in New York. It was with sadness that we had to leave this home I loved and move to Boston, but we lived in apartment overlooking the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, so I was content.

Of course, when I moved to San Francisco, I had a home on the Bay, which is what one would expect. And this brings me back to here, St. Louis, and my home among the rivers and the humidity, and walks on bridges looking at beaver prints in the mud along the banks.

Not that my relationship with water was always smooth. When I was probably about 6 or 7, we visited some people that had a home on a small, weedy lake. They had a wooden dock next to their house and we were out sitting in the sun, enjoying the heat and the buzzing dragonflies, sitting in the warmth of the late afternoon green-gold light.

I’m not sure how, or by who, but I was pushed into the water, which would be no big thing except that somehow when I came to the surface, I hit the bottom of the raft. The water was thick with weeds and dark from the raft and I became confused and quickly panicked, choking in the still warm waters, clawing at the bottom of the raft, trying to find the end. Just as suddenly as I found myself in the water, I was grabbed by one arm and dragged out from under the raft. If I can’t remember who pushed me in, I can’t remember who pulled me out, either. But I do remember the warm green gold of the afternoon, and the cold green black of the shadow of the raft.

Later, when I was in Seattle, I was invited to watch the Lake Union hydroplane races from a large boat tied up to the floats around the track. There was large group of us, and we partied and watched the races and drank. And drank. And drank. With the sun and the fun, by the time the races were over, I was feeling no pain. I probably wasn’t feeling the boat, either.

Some of the people decided to swim in the cold Lake Union water, and I was at the edge of the boat watching and laughing when someone pushed me in. I landed in the water and felt the shock of the cold, surfacing to yell and laugh at the same time. I was wearing tennis shoes and jeans and gauzy blue shirt, all of which dragged me a bit, but I didn’t get out of the water right away. I wasn’t really feeling the cold or the drag of the clothes, and I drifted by the boat, laying on my back, feeling the sun on my face.

Except I wasn’t by the boat. The water lapped against the floats and pushed back from them, and took me with it.

I don’t really know exactly what happened at that point. I remember floating in the water, and the sun sparkling on the waves, until it looked like I was surrounded by a pool of gold light. That was all I could see, and all I could feel, the golden color, the soft coolness surrounding me. But into this idyllic scene, there were glimpses of another reality that intruded, harshly — of frantic shouting and being grabbed, of a boat and people ripping my shirt open. Of hands on my chest. A voice calling out, “She’s not breathing”. The sound of a helicopter.

From one moment to the next I was yanked from the peace and tranquility of the water and into the harsh glare of an overhead light, with a strange man yelling at me, slapping me in the face.

How rude.

My parents were there at the hospital and my Dad looked worse than I, having made a four hour trip in two from Yakima. Because of the association of the race, the story was in the evening news, which made a mistake and reported that I was still dead. I remember with a grin — I can’t help it — recuperating at my Mom’s when someone called to give their sympathy and I answered the phone.

Technology Weblogging

Returning to Business

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date May 18, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

It was interesting to read Evan William’s carefully written essay about weblogging APIs this morning, and watch his writing as it slowly revolves around to the need for standards, particularly in the chaotic and competitive world of weblogging technology. As he, and others, are discovering, they have to be prepared to take the steps necessary to work effectively in an environment in which no one person has, or should have, control:

The only way there will be a universal blogging API is if everyone who needs to has input and sign-off on it, and it cannot be controlled by any one vendor.

I perhaps now understand the need for standards bodies more than I ever have before—even though the term gives me willies.

I have spent too much time lately on technology, poetry, and photography, and need to return to the roots of this weblog, which is writing. But at the same time, I want to applaud Ev for taking a step in the right direction — acknowledging that there is problem in weblogging and that problem is that there are too many specifications and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.

It started with RSS, it’s continued somewhat with Trackback, and now the lack of a standards body is impacting on weblogging APIs. For the non-technical, this may seem as if the issue doesn’t impact on you, but it does. When weblogging tools have to accomodate multiple APIs and multiple RSS specifications and so on, the tools get bloated, their performance suffers, and you, the weblogger, get hammered with demands that you support this RSS and that weblogging API by upgrading your installation and so on.

In addition, the energy that should be directed to new innovations or faster applications, or better security is being bled out to writing code that parses five different flavors of RSS, and three different flavors of weblogging APIs. This doesn’t even include recent discussions about what format to use for porting data from one weblogging tool to another, something that’s going to become more critical over time.

This is a no win situation. By what stick do you measure that continuing chaos is ‘good’ for us all?

Dave Winer wrote today today:

This morning I came up with a new app that that integrates weblogs like Scripting News with search engines like Google in a new way. It’s very exciting. I’m jumping up and down and giggling I like it so much. Now if I wanted to really be a bastard I’d hire one of your grad students to patent it, and make sure everyone who implemented it would have to pay me a royalty. But I’m a fool. I think people’s brains will explode when they get to use this. It’ll be an incredible research tool for busting patents, believe it or not. In that way it’s perfectly appropriate to give it to the world for free. Now can you come up with something Creative Commons-like so that when the poopy little wiener boys at the W3C claim I didn’t invent it (they think Microsoft or Guha invented everything) I can show them a record in some database that gives me appropriate credit for the invention. How about some middle ground for people who want credit for their work, but don’t care to erect a tollbooth?

Without knowing what Dave’s ‘new application’ is, we don’t know if he really did invent something that will withstand the patent process, but he has a right to patent any new technology he invents. However, he’ll also have to withstand the challenges to his claim that come with this process. Dave has a right to claim something as his own that he has invented, but he doesn’t have the right to claim something as his invention when there is prior art showing otherwise. He doesn’t have the right to rewrite history.

Issues of who invented what aside, the biggest problem with the current state of business in weblogging technology is that a few ‘giants’ in the weblogging industry, such as Userland, or Blogger, or Six Apart (Movable Type) can force decisions on what approaches are best, when the better quality effort may come from a much smaller company or even a single person. An independent standards body would allow all voices to be heard, and the best, not the biggest, would float to the top.

As I write this, I can already tell you, guarantee it even, who will now come out writing ‘in favor’ of Dave Winer and who will write ‘in favor’ of Ev (or against Dave), both sides not realizing that weblogging should be growing beyond dominance by any one person by now. We had our time in the sandbox and it’s time to grow up.

Unless that’s what people want — all of us in the sandbox, playing with our pails and our sand, and arguing about who has the bigger shovel.

(Thanks to Sam for the link to Ev’s post.)

Update

The thread that led to Evan’s essay is here. It demonstrates why a standards body is needed, why there will never be one, and why I need to stop writing about weblogging technology in my weblog.

Weblogging

Threads II

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date May 18, 2003

Neighborhood items.

Steve is back from his travels abroad.

Frank Paynter has interviewed Ryan Irelan, including a very nice photo of Ryan and his wife.

Jeff Ward started a category for Margaret Bourke-White photos. I am a fan of her work, and if you ask me why I would answer because of her unique perspective, which sounds lame. Since I have no idea how to describe photographs, this and a link to a gallery of her photographs will have to do.

Dorothea’s Electronic index idea is gaining detail.

Halley is finishing her Alpha Male Series, advancing the cause of the New Femininity while making the guys in the audience Feel Real Good.

Mark got married. Congrats, Mark and Dora. Photos were nice.

…and that’s the way the blog turns.

PS These items were meant to be in fun, or in comradery. Sorry if the effect was otherwise.

Just Shelley

Memory Games

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date May 17, 2003

While applying for a job, I was asked for a list of references and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the first name of the manager of one of my contracts. Lee? Les? Lenny? Lou? I knew it started with an ‘L’, and was a common name, but that’s it. I drew a complete blank. Pretty embarrassing, really.

Memory can play such games on us at times. I can’t remember the name of someone I worked with in the last few years, but can still remember my childhood on the farm, even though we moved to town before I was seven. The memories crowd in every time a certain word is said, or I smell a specific scent, or come upon a scene that matches a certain pattern in my brain.

Just the sight of a cherry tree in bloom and I’m reminded of the old cherry tree that grew alongside the road to our house. We could only reach the fruit by putting a ladder over the poison ivy bushes underneath; bushes left in a hope of discouraging easy access to greedy little children who didn’t have the sense to know when to stop eating. However, I have this vivid memory of being in the tree, alone, eating fistfuls of fruit by the light of a late golden afternoon, so at some point I must have either figured out how to drag the ladder over to the tree, found another approach, or (more likely), took a running leap through the bushes in the youthful hope that by moving very fast, I would avoid the plants effects.

Picturing that tree in my mind, with the dirt road to the left, I look to the right to the green/gold weed and dirt field where we kept our cows. Gentle creatures that provided milk for our table and family in town. I remember a milk pail and my Mom spooning cream off to be used for butter or cooking, Dad working on a wooden fence. My mind wonders dreamily from one placid cow to the next, until it runs, hard, into the bony, broad bulk of the bull. Maxine’s George. Now, why can I remember the name of that bull, but not my manager’s?

Some bulls have the sweetest of dispositions and a child can walk around them without fear. Others don’t care for human company, but will ignore you more than anything else. Then there’s the born hateful kind, of which George was a prime example.

George would charge any human who invaded his domain, and his intent was pain, copious amounts of pain. Tromping, goring, crushing, stomping pain with great huffs and puffs of bull virility and dominion. That sonabitch also developed a fondness for my red jacket, and one of his great pleasures in life was to take a bite out of that jacket every chance he got. A piece of my arm was a bonus. He was just a plain old mean sucker, and don’t let anyone tell you that bulls aren’t smart, because that bastard was devious. George would stand a distance away from the fence, butt turned towards you, eyes half closed as he contentedly munched hay. As soon as I or my brother would climb the fence to pet the calves, flash! That black wrath of God would come tearing across at us, death and mayhem in its cold brown eyes.

When we finally butchered George, we found his meat to be tough and stringy, which only proved what we knew all along: that bull was onery to the bone.

Memories.

Mom said that when we were young, none of us was all that good with animals. She was mean to them, and I do remember this for a fact. However, I was confused about her inclusion of Mike and me in this assessment. It’s true, Mike didn’t like the cats or the dogs, but he liked twin calves we had, once. He would watch them play about, and scratch their knobby heads when they came close to the fence. He named them, but I can’t quite remember the names. I can actually visualize Mike in the kitchen talking about the calves, saying their names, but the sound doesn’t reach me. However, I do clearly remember Mike’s face when we came home and found that the calves had been taken away to be butchered. Stoic, not even the hint of an expression as he walked away, not returning until later that day.

I, myself, was partial to the cats, particularly a black and white cat named Sylvester and a dirty white cat I called Snoball. Farm cats, but I got on well with them, unlike the cats that lived at my grandparent’s farm down the road. Those cats were wild, living on the mice and rats that farms attract. You try and pet one of them, you’ll get clawed but good, scratches that will get septic.

Mom was okay with Sylvester, and she was an indoor cat. However, Mom and Snoball hated each other. There wasn’t a week that went by that Mom didn’t load Snoball into the car for a long ride into the country, from which Mom would return alone. However, Snoball would always show up in a couple of days, or a week. That cat was loyal, though I don’t know why.

Eventually, though, he got the point and didn’t return home. I did run into him once, scrabbling for a living down by the river. He growled at me at first until I talked softly to him, held out my small hand. He sniffed it, and then began to rub against it, emitting rusty, unused purrs. We just sat there for a while, enjoying the contact. Never did see him again after that day.

We had dogs, too. My Dad’s German Shepard scared me, but we had an old, stupid, lovable hound that I thought needed looking after, especially when it tussled with the porcupine. The sight of that dog with quills in its snout is a very vivid memory. It took Mom and the neighbors and a pair of pliers and a lot of work to get that dog fixed up. I can’t remember the hounds name, but he was one miserable creature by the time they were finished.

And then there was EB.

My brother and I met EB when we returned from a trip to my Aunt’s. My Dad said to go out into the garage, he had a surprise for us. When we entered it, a wiggly mess and loud voice greeted us, making both of us scream and run for the house. After this inauspicious first meeting, though, Mike learned to tolerate EB, while she and I became friends.

EB and I would run about the yard together, barking at each other, sometimes playing ball (me throwing, her trying to chew into pieces). Since all the dogs stayed out at night (my Mom wouldn’t tolerate a dog in the house) there were no quiet evenings curled up together, but there were happy reunions in the morning.

EB was a good-natured dog, though a bit barky at times; still, there was no harm in her. If there was a problem with EB it was that she would take off any chance she got, visiting all the neighbors for miles around. They would call my Mom to tell her EB was visiting again, an event I could deduce because my Mom’s lips would get white from controlled anger as she grabbed the car keys to drag EB home. We’d tie her up, but she’d always get lose.

Back home, a dog running lose was a pretty serious matter. They could easily get killed by cars, or by the wild animals that lived in the area. A big raccoon can kill a dog and so can a bear or cougar. Loose dogs could also harass other farmer’s livestock, chasing and killing chickens and domestic rabbits, or barking at cows and putting them off their milk. The biggest fear, though, with a loose dog is that they could get bitten by a rabid skunk or other creature, eventually putting the farmer’s family into great risk. Rural dwellers in that time had a very real and very valid fear of rabies. A loose dog just wasn’t welcome anywhere.

When EB was about two years old, we were at yet another relative for a visit. When we came home, Mom greeted us with the news that EB had been hit and killed by a car. I can’t remember if I cried, I didn’t cry much in those days. I do know that I never did get close to any of the farm dogs after that.

I reminded Mom about EB when she said that Mike and I weren’t good with the dogs. Oh, no, she said. Neither Mike nor I cared for the dogs. No one cared for the dogs but my Dad and he was never home. Since I recognized another case of my Mother’s selective memory, I didn’t push it. She continued talking about how badly we all treated the dogs. Rambled on an on about it, and among the reminisces was the day that day EB died.

The dog, Mom said, had gotten lose again, and the neighbors called to have her pick it up. They were getting pretty annoyed at having to call, which only made my mother angrier. When she picked EB up, instead of bringing her home she took her into a field far away from other homes. There, she led EB out of the car and tied her up to a tree. While EB frisked about, wondering at this new game, Mom got one of my Dad’s rifles out of the car, took aim, and shot EB through the head.

Tags memories