Category: Just Shelley

Categories
History Photography Writing

Let ‘er come

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’m back on track with the RDF book, though slowly. I want to write, frequently, strongly, and to cover the screen with pixels, but, lately, my thoughts have not been on technology. I think my new office location has something to do with it — my desk faces towards a window overlooking the housing complex and there is so much interesting scurrying about that I find myself easily distracted.

At this moment, exactly at this moment, I’m watching a wild rabbit hop around the bushes across the street. And one of the women that shares the townhouse where the bunny is foraging left just a bit ago, every hair in place, dressed perfectly. As always.

(Rather than be envious of her, though, she makes me feel oddly thankful to be so comfortable with my own rumpled condition. If she and I were cars, she would be a BMW, and I would be one of those volkswagon buses that has been around — you know the kind I’m talking about.)

I have also been spending time getting the web site for my online book (Coming of Age in John Birch Country) organized. I’m using pictures from the University of Washington Digital Collections to annotate the site, thanks to the school’s open copyright policy. One of my favorite photos is titled “Let ‘er come” and features a farmer and his wife talking to a reporter about the oncoming flood caused by the Grand Coulee Dam.

It’s easy to be sanguine when you know your home is above the water line.

letercome

Categories
Writing

More words than five

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’m seeing a metamorphosis in many of the weblogs I visit lately — people not only moving their weblogs to new servers or new weblogging tools, but also looking to redefine what their weblogs mean to them. Why am I here?

I wrote the following in an email to a good friend yesterday:

Today, I stopped weblogging and started writing using weblogging tools.

It’s just a sentence. It’s just words. But it changes my view of why I’m here.

Categories
Just Shelley

Da train! Da Train

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I was woken up in the middle of the night last night by a loud sound. As I lay in bed, confused, wondering if the neighbor was partying I heard what sounded like the train. For a very, very long time.

Finally, I drifted back to sleep.

Just watched local news — the train derailed right next to our housing complex. Luckily, no one was hurt. Also luckily, this trip they weren’t carrying nuclear waste or dangerous chemicals. Guess the Bird isn’t going to be glowing in the dark after all.

But now I have to find a back way to get to my library.

Categories
Weblogging Writing

Browsin’ them links, written’ them postings

Loren wrote a wonderful essay about To Kill a Mockingbird for the Banned Books project that’s a must read. For the record, I am also quite fond of this book, as well as the movie based on the book starring Gregory Peck.

I am aware that the book does use racially explosive and derogatory terms, the primary reason it appeared on the banned books list. However, the tight integration into the material makes the phrases/words an integral part of the story — they add to the richness of the scenes and provide defining nuances for both the time and the place.

In addition to the essay, following my earlier discussion about trying to write a weblog posting or two based on the style of writing demonstrated in whatever book just finished reading, Loren uses the style of writing from To Kill a Mockingbird in a new posting that, well, tripped me into a full throated, from the belly, rip-roarin’ guffaw.

Thankfully I work on home.

(Loren is packin’ his weblog and movin’ it over to that there Movable Type. This means that we’in these parts can comment and use these new fangled permalink things. That’s a rought smart move, boy.)

Categories
Just Shelley

Parting is such sweet sorrow

Well a bit of good news and a bit of other news: which do you want first? Okay, the good news it it.

I had an email from an editor at a major publishing company (not O’Reilly) about using excerpts from one of my online articles for their 2003 edition Social Studies text book. If this works out, this will be the first time I’ve had any of my non-computer related material incorporated into a book.

This email not only put a smile on my face, it drew forth a giggle. There, you heard it here: The Bird giggles.

If you’re interested, you can access the article online. It’s called Remembering Mount St. Helen’s. It recounts my experiences living in Yakima when Mount St. Helen’s blew up. You’ll find that it’s smaller than many of my weblog posts.

Now, on to the other news. As I hinted in the last post, I am closing down the Burningbird weblog. I may only shut down until I find a job. Or I may shut down for a few months, take a nice break, come back refreshed.

Regardless of the period of time, I did want to say that these weblog pages are going to be pulled in about a week. I’m in the process of looking for a job, and a search in Google on my name brings up these pages. Unfortunately, some of the things I’ve written about could potentially impact on me finding work. I know that free speech is guaranteed in this country, but let’s get real — if some HR person doesn’t like what I write, they won’t call about a job. I have to be practical.

When the pages are pulled my handy dandy RDF content management system will kick in and you’ll get a nice page saying something to the effect that I’m molting and I’ll be back when I’ve risen from the ashes.

In the meantime, I’ll miss you all. I once told someone that you can’t feel warmth through the wires, but that was a lie — you can.