Author: Shelley Powers

Categories
Critters

Walking among the dog people part 2

First published in summer, 2002 and moved to the now defunct Dynamic Earth

Yesterday I talked about my walk among the dog people, and my observations of the dogs as they enjoyed the beach, the water, and the company (canine and human).

I talked about the black lab that would bring me her ball to throw and then take it away before I could grasp it. In this process she was inviting me to share her wonder, her special moment, her fun, as we invite others to share ours, in our weblogs and in our lives. I tease the world to laugh with me, to play with me, as this dog teases her owner and willing participants such as myself with her ball.

The Jack Russell barked at the mighty ocean with all the confidence in the world that it could move those waters back and return his friends to him. There are no impossible challenges to a dog, just as there are no impossible challenges to those who are determined on a course that they must and will follow.

The moutain climber climbs the peaks because they are there. The singers sings because the melody must be heard. The writer writes because the words demand to be read. There is a need in our lives to find our unique challenge within each of us, and then meet it. When we are successful, when the waves roll back, then we throw our arms open and embrace the air. And it is fun – the highest peak of the roller coaster.

The Boxer would dash into the water again and again in its quest to capture the stick thrown by its master. Left unchecked the dog would literally drown in its drive to find what was thrown. A simple goal for the dog, but no less intense than the drive that leads us to find cures for illness, the secrets of the Rosetta stone, whether there is life on other planets, the meaning of God, the meaning of Life.

Is it too much of a stretch to call these purposeful and intense actions fun? Perhaps. But if the roller coaster’s intensity is one factor leading to the fun of the ride, than would I be wrong in equating the intensity of purpose and drive to one aspect of the fun of living? Is that a trivialization? Or is it really more of a simplification?

My favorite of the dogs was and will always be the red doberman. That she singled me out on the beach to approach. That she sat beside me. That she leaned into me with such open trust. When we reach out to others, in person, or via the threaded void that is the weblogging and the Internet, we also put a measure of trust in those who receive the message. Will they shy away? Will they reach back? Will real affection result, or is the contact as ephemeral as the medium used to transmit the message.

When I write this, I am very much like that red doberman, except that I’m approaching 2 people, 10 people, 100 people asking them to let me sit beside them at this moment, to lean against them, to share a moment together. And in that moment is companionship and contentment, perhaps the smoothest and most velvet form of fun there is.

Categories
Critters

Walking among the dog people part 1

First published in summer, 2002 and moved to the now defunct Dynamic Earth

I walk, almost daily, along the beach next to the Golden Gate Bridge. This beach also happens to be one of the few areas in San Francisco where dogs are allowed off their leashes, to run along the sand and play among the waves.

There’s a particular black lab I know that comes up to you and drops her ball just out of your reach. When you reach for it to throw it for her, she lunges in and grabs it out of your grasp and then dances around in delight at her own cleaverness. Then back again with the ball, dropping it down, expecting me to make another attempt.

One of the Jack Russell tries to keep up with the bigger dogs, running as hard as it can on its short stubby legs among the labs and the dobermans and the shepherds…until the other dogs run into the water.

The waves along the beach aren’t that small or that gentle and a small dog is not going to be able to swim in these waters. All that poor little Jack Russell can do when his larger friends jump into the water is to stand at the edge and bark for all its might. Wave rolls out, he runs forward; wave rolls in, he runs back. That cute little bugger barking at the ocean, in his mind having brief moments of triumph when the waves recede, setbacks when the waves return. He only stops when his friends exit the water, at this point having achieved a state of truce with the water.

One of my favorite dogs is a beautiful Boxer who loves to play in the water so much that his owner has to restrict him because the dog would exhaust himself and drown – the play means that much to him.

Once, a large red doberman came out of no where, walked right up to me, circled behind me, and then sat down beside me as if we were in a dog show demonstrating obedience. She then leaned for all she was worth against my leg, and just stayed there, looking out a the water. I was astonished at first, and then just started laughing. It was a moment of crystalline pure delight; the kind of moment you can’t buy, build, borrow, or create.

Absolute joy at simple gifts. I define this as fun, and it is my greatest meaning in life. And creating a little of that joy in others is my greatest purpose.

Categories
Stuff

End goal

I have some things I want to publish by the end of the month – long delayed LAMP essays, not to mention some older material on domains I’ve let lapse that I want to duplicate here so the work is not lost.

I am surrounded by half-started projects and half written essays and good intentions and now I’m choking on them. Now is the time to finish, and be done.

I want to end this month on a good note. If there are any comments to these new posts, they’ll be related to what I write, or they’ll be gone. And under no circumstances can my space be used by people wanting to get a message to someone else, or to fight battles that originated elsewhere–abusing the privilege I accord my readers, not to mention the hospitality of my home.

I would rather have comment spam then webloggers who use my space to hit and run. At least there is a form of honesty associated with the spam.

Additionally, I am taking great care in my writing to make sure there is no flint to spark against, no flames to fan–unless the flint is of imagination, and the resulting fire is the same flame I hoped to spark when I created my first weblog page, back in 1995. No battles will be fought, no dragons to be slain–all I see now are windmills.

Which means that my space will probably become very quiet.

Categories
Photography

Good stuff

Ahem. Announcement.

The August Edition of Missouri Life will feature a photo essay of Missouri rivers, lakes, and ponds by writer/photographer Shelley Powers.

Subdued dancing and prancing about occurs, punctuated with an occasional raw, primal scream of delight. Cat hides, rabbits run, small children begin to cry.

Categories
Weblogging

Black and white

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Another site design I’m working on is called Black & White, and I’d like to be able to hard-code this one for use when reading anything to do with either politics, or discussions of RSS and other weblogging hoorah that seems to have such ‘cut at the dotted line’ mentality.

However, I’ve only had 3 hours of sleep in the last 48, and I’m too tired to muck up what is now a lovely system of interchangeable stylesheets, so I’ll get a good night’s sleep before returning to the designs. And Black & White is becoming too fun to reserve it just for hoorah writing.

Speaking of hoorah and becoming mental,Dave Winer seems to have dipped his oar into too deep a waters too many times because he’s recently initiated actions that seem about guaranteed to lose him friends and, well, lose him friends.

He just pulled weblogs that were hosted at weblogs.com, without any warning I gather. I wondered what was going on when I visited a couple of weblogs.com sites and then saw this note at Halley’s. In addition, if you access one of the old sites, you get the following:

This site is for people with sites that used to be hosted at weblogs.com.

1. I can’t afford to host these sites. I don’t want to start a site hosting business. These are firm, non-negotiable statements.

2. There are several commercial Manila hosting companies, including weblogger.com. Thomas Creedon maintains a list of commercial and free hosting services. If you want to have your site hosted more cheaply, consider the possibility of forming a co-op of some kind.

3. If you want a copy of your weblogs.com-hosted website, post a comment here, include the URL of the site. Sometime after July 1, 2004, I will export all the requested sites, without their membership groups. You can then download them and do with them as you wish. I won’t export them before July 1, and this is a one-time offer.

Does anyone have a copy of the original weblogs.com statement? It would seem that the weblogs.com hosted folks weren’t aware that this was going to happen, and to have these weblogs pulled without some warning, and then this abrasive note placed in its place – that’s about the most graceless thing I have seen since I’ve dipped toes into these waters. And I’ve been out to some pretty nasty political weblogs.

If the folks at weblogs.com did have notice this was happening, and there has been clearly defined time limits to the hosting, no harm for Winer deciding to longer host. I recently disbanded the co-op I’d started because I also wasn’t sure of my future directions and didn’t want to leave people hanging if I had to make sudden changes. However, if you may have noticed, none of the co-op members have vanished without a trace-t-hey’ve been taken over by their cats, but haven’t vanished.

From what I’m reading in the comments associated with the weblogs.com sites, though people are appreciative of the free hosting (and this was a generous act, and they should be appreciative of past kindness), abruptly kicking everyone off without a word, and holding access to the sites until after July 1, well, it sucks.

And to salt them paper thin cuts to the skin, the first comment in the weblogs.com post is from Winer and reads:

Groundrules: Personal comments, ad hominems, will be deleted. And no negotiating or whining. Just post the url of your site.

Hmm.

There you go boys and girls: the number one reason why you don’t want to go with a hosted solution, and if you do, backup. Frequently. No matter how nice or cuddly or professional the host – back your material up at least weekly. Never give anyone control over what happens to your writing. Never.

(In fact, if I remember correctly, I once mentioned the evils of centralization, and actually used weblogs.com as an example of ‘what if…’ something like this were to happen. Maybe I need a Psychic Bird stylesheet, too.)

In the meantime, if you have a weblogs.com weblog and have a new location, if you send me an email or drop a comment with your new location, we’ll see if we can’t start circulating the changes– to get folks up and running more quickly. But this time, may I recommend hosting your weblog in your own space?

If you have questions about how to port from your Manila site to other weblogging tools, holler.

Dave Winer came out with an audio blog on this move, and evidentally, there was no warning to the people who have weblogs on weblogs.com that this was going to happen. I don’t think anyone begrudges Winer’s not wanting to host the sites for free, but pulling the plug without warning? Na ah.

Jeneane’s take. Curious, though – Robert Scoble and Doc are still on weblogs.com.

David Weinberger goes what a shock, but at least Dave explained it all, so it’s all understandable, and poor Dave. At least the people were appreciative of the service they had in the past.

I don’t get this place, sometimes. I really don’t.

Last update of this post, but this Time article on weblogging came out yesterday, too. This might explain the magazine reference Dave Winer made in his audioblog, transcript of which Jeneane posted.

Now, moving on…