Category: Just Shelley

Categories
Weblogging Writing

Throwing the torch on

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I didn’t quite finish the proofs tonight – shame on me – but should have them to Simon tomorrow morning. I can only do so many pages a day before I start crawling the walls.

I also finished the nameserver for the Wayward Weblogger co-op and if the test domain shows up as scheduled then I’ll be ready to start moving weblogs over to the server this weekend. I’ve already had my first volunteer who’s going to get a shiny new MT weblog from exported blogger entries. The question then remains: will he or won’t he turn on comments?

I can’t wait to move my favorite webloggers off of blogspot and other tempermental and restricted servers to the new one. No more slow downloads, and hopefully few problems with posts. We’re going to roar where before we whimpered, and nothing will stop us now. Best of all, I’m going to be surrounded by people I greatly admire and respect. I am a lucky woman.

Speaking of being a woman and technology, Halley wrote something very interesting today about weblogging and women. She wrote:

Although the three women on the cover of Time Magazine were not bloggers, the women using blogging tools are doing a variation on daily whistle-blowing as they blog. They are using weblogs to tell their truth. Much of their truth has been silenced and not allowed to appear in main stream press which is dominated by men. I honestly don’t believe this is any conspiracy by men, but rather a shocking disconnect from the reality men live in and the reality women live in. Weblogs are not controlled or controllable by any one group. Weblogs are a no-barriers-to-entry publishing phenomenon. Weblogs are giving women a publishing platform unparalleled in history. Women are not self-editing their voices out of existence. With weblogs, women are telling their truth without even noticing. Weblogs are creating a level-playing field for women.

Liz has promised to write about Halley’s post, and my recent difficulties with email lists, and I can’t think of a better person to comment on all of this.

Back to domains, DNS, and nameservers for my literary friends, more stories about adventures in the Missouri Greens, and a Grand Co-op Opening.

Categories
RDF Writing

Inhale

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I went to bed at 3 and got up at 6 so have had 3 hours of sleep, and feel much better. Today was also my last day on the contracted job. The people at the place where I worked were very likable, the consulting company that arranged the gig less so. However, that’s not unusual. Am currently working next chapter of story of life.

I have to finish the proofs for Practical RDF for the editor tomorrow or risk the wrath of a production editor on deadline. Believe me, that’s a not someone you want to antagonize. However, I wanted to clarify that my comment in the last post about the Advice emails isn’t directed at my regular readers. You all can give me any advice you want – as long as you accompany the email with a nude photograph of yourself.

I think that’s a fair deal. Don’t you?

One day after the fooflah yesterday, and lots of good reasons to like wikis, but I still dislike them. The frenzy of activity yesterday accomplished a lot, I will admit – but it was like ants scurrying about an ant hill, as the number of edits headed into the hundreds, and pages were changing by the minute, much less the hour.

ants1.jpg

However, my dislike of wikis has nothing to do with Sam or his decision to use a wiki. I like ants! Ants are good!

Not caring for a technology does not mean that I’m slamming the people who use it, ants analogy aside. That’s equivalent to saying that anyone who doesn’t like RDF must not like me because I wrote about it and promote it’s use. Such silliness.

Speaking of RDF…

Categories
Events of note Just Shelley

These tennies are made for walking

I’m taking a break from my Katy Trail challenge to meet a challenge of a different nature this weekend – participating in the St. Louis Race for the Cure, in support of breast cancer research.

Katy Trail adventures will return next week.

cure2.jpg

Categories
Weblogging Writing

Write Redirect

Nicholas, aka Aquarion is another weblogger going on leave in order to spend time on other things. He writes:

I’ve spent three and a half years this week doing this weblog. That’s two and a half years of diarizing my life, and a year of “Weblogging” propery, discussing stuff with people far better at this than I am. Since I started Weblogging “properly” last year, I’ve written nothing. That is, I have fifteen fragments of four stories, two of which could be novel-length, and I wrote most of those while I was ABEND in Febuary. The Theory runs thusly: If I stop weblogging for a while – and I don’t know what the definition of a while is yet – I might get some writing done, and since writing is the thing that I think I’m good at – far more than any of the stuff I blathered on about for months on here – I have decided that it’s worth the experiment and the number of complaints I’ve had that the site is down.

I hear these words most deeply. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to write just for the sheer joy of writing, myself. But I kick at the screen when another voice goes quiet.

Categories
Just Shelley

The Odds

He was born with the odds against him and the miracle of his birth was accompanied by the miracle of his life. Arms too short and body so weak, they said he would never make it through high school, but he did. And like a weakling at the beach, he kicked sand into the face of his own mortality.

Must not run hard, they would say, and he’d grab tennis racquet, holding it close to his chest because he could hold it no other way and he ran and he hit and he lived. Every time the odds would try to hold him back, he’d look right through them and just continue on.

He’d sneak out at night to join his friends, getting into the mild trouble all teens get into, drinking a bit too much, partying a little too hard. His parents were aghast and scolded him and said to stay away from his Bad Friends. But they weren’t bad — they just saw within him the spirit, the normalness of him.

He grew from a frail kid into an adult, spending too many days looking at white walls. Getting too many cards along the way. Against the odds, in spite of the odds, he thrived. “How are you feeling?”, you’d ask and he’d say, “Heck with that, let’s go ride a horse.”

I remember once when he helped us move, watching him haul boxes into a moving truck, shoving them in so hard I thought something would break and I’d say “Take it easy”, and he just laughed.

The spirit, even the strong spirit can’t work around a leaky heart and he had surgery yet again. And once more, he beat the odds, turning around at the door when he walked out, saluting the hospital good-bye.

But then, a few weeks later, he went for a walk and when he returned he said he felt tired. Wanted a nap. When he didn’t show for dinner, they went to check and found he had died in his sleep.

He was 48, and the odds had finally caught up.