Burningbird

The roots of the gnarly tree run deep

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date April 30, 2003

The roots of the gnarly tree run deep.

The untroubled tree
grows straight and smooth,
beautiful and proud
treetops vanishing into the sky,
towering over lessor beings.

The gnarly tree rests close
to the earth, and twists about
from knocks and blows;
rough skinned from exposure
and bowed with time.

The untroubled tree commands
respect as you sit hand over eyes
trying to see the upper branches.
Wrapping arms around it your
hands fail to touch and the bark
leaves no impression.

But the gnarly tree invites one
to sit beneath its shade
and nestle among its roots;
To rub your cheek against the rough
texture of the bark
and breath in the rich scent;
To lean back among the branches
letting them wrap about you
in an embrace both green and old.

Shelley Powers

Weather

Storm closin’ in

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date April 29, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

They’ve issued a damaging hail warning, but it may not get this far. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before Golden Girl looks like metallic swiss cheese.

But, oh, I love these storms.

Weather

Storm a brewin’

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date April 29, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I will never tire of the storms here. As long as I don’t have to drive through them, watching them, feeling them, smelling them is a wonder. An absolute wonder.

I actually felt and smelled this storm before looking out the window and seeing the clouds. Your hairs stand up on your arms, and you can taste a slightly acrid taste, smell the ozone. They just put out a severe storm watch, and I’m not surprised with the heat and humidity preceding this one. Beautiful. Beautiful.

And much more fun than server stuff. Best of all, photographs! The only photos I could take of me working on the server is an increasingly red face. Not a pretty sight. No sirree.

Burningbird

Canceled move to new server

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date April 29, 2003

I’ve canceled the move to the new server and have renewed the site here at Hosting Matters while I think what best next to do. Hosting Matters responded very quickly to ensure that this site is maintained, so other than some momentary DNS confusion, this weblog shouldn’t be disrupted.

Also apologies for all the grumpiness surrounding Web Intellects. I should have just cut my loses when I saw how much Ensim impacts on the overall system. I’m too used to working directly with Unix to deal well with an application whose sole purpose is to buffer one from Unix.

Web Intellects has been kind enough to refund my money, which is cool.

So, business as usual, at least for now.

Thanks for bearing with me.

Weblogging

Sappy Woof!

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date April 28, 2003

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I am more than a little fuzzy tonight — way too much technology. However, in between tarring, gzipping, ftping, installing, testing, breaking, and re-installing, I’ve had time to keep up with all the linguistics discussions and I have to say how much I’ve enjoyed these.

It started with the now legendary Linguistic Relativism and Korean essay by Stavros, which Tom calls the …Stavrosian linguistic relativism thread. Then Jonathon sat down, joined the discussion, excusing himself momentarily for a quick cuppa, before returning to the talk. Language Hat, a very welcome addition to my blogroll, joins in, not surprising because he is a linguist after all. A New York linguist at that.

Is that an oxymoron?

Jeff joins with Tom in defending Chomsky, who must be tickled pink to be discussed within a linguistic context, rather than the usual “Let’s string the commie Arab loving bastard up” context he’s normally discussed within weblogs. Norm teaches us how to say ‘shit’ in Danish, which will come in handy some day. He also introduces his youngest son to weblogging. Since his son is a chip off the old Jenson liberal block, the conservatives in the audience are probably practicing their Danish right now.

My evil twin’s lover, Happy Tutor joins in, but people still come around.

Dorothea provides a wonderful discussion of Cave linguistics. Now you all know why she was the perfect editor for a book on RDF. Correction: David contributed this gem.

And these are just the more formalized writings. You have to read the comments associated with each to get the full, rich flavor of this discussion. Altogether, grand.

Og like.

I want to go back to school.

Tags linguistics