Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #237 - Personal, a book review
Hi Mom,
It's time for another book review. I actaully READ-read this one as opposed to listening to the audio.
Dad has been reading Lee Child for a few years now, and he has given his books high recommendations. I had added it to my to-do list to read one, but what finally put me over the edge was this bit in a Warren Ellis newsletter back in August of 2015.
And so, that's two people that I respect a lot telling me to read Lee Child: my Dad and Warren Ellis.
I tend to steer clear of super popular novels with a few exceptions. The Harry Potter books were without a doubt deserving of all the hype. Also, I love Stephen King. He's often self-indulgent (IE. The Dark Tower) but so am I, so I can relate. But other stuff? Dreck. James Patterson? Terrible. I am all right with Dean Koontz as he has some skill. Not over fond of John Grisham. Well, you get the idea.
So I was wary of best seller list topper Lee Child. I did not try to plumb the depths and try to start with the first book. They're not exactly in a series, but they do relate to one another.
Personal was my first one, and I liked it. I agree with Warren. Child is a master carpenter. Tight dialogue, tight description, and the plot moves. For this one, it stalled a bit in the middle, but then, I read sporadically, and so it could have been my on for a night and off for three or four sort of slowness that made the book seem slow. Dad promised that main character Jack Reacher always sleeps with the female sidekick character, but not in this one, so I kept reading for the sex scene that never arrived.
So I liked it, but my feeling that this is not one of his best is echoed in the reviews: see Amazon link.
Warren got a kick out of it because of the local flavor. Me, not so much.
But I liked it enough to try another though my current reading and audio book reading stacks are very high right now. I will try another, but I am not sure when.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
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- Days ago = 239 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1602.29 - 10:10 ET (time stamp will show 7:10 today)
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
Happy Leap Day. February 29th. Only happens every four years. Seemed the appropriate time for this song.
When I came up with the idea for The Daily Bowie feature, the song that came to mind was this one, "The Laughing Gnome." I wondered how many people who know of David Bowie had heard of this song.
Okay, so two videos today because I cam across this video billed as Bowie's requiem for "The Laughing Gnome" and it's hilarious (and short).
I do not research much about these songs in advance, but if you have been following my feature, you see I post links each time, and often a great deal of text from the blog PUSHING AHEAD OF THE DAME, which has investigated Bowie's career song-by-song.
Most people consider Bowie's "The Laughing Gnome" to be one of his worst songs ever and possibly one of THE worst songs ever in the history of rock and folk. Others just see it as an embarrassment and a novelty gimmick that Bowie tried in the hopes of making the hits chart with some cuteness.
And so, I was happy to see that Chris O'Leary regaled it as a brilliant comic song and listed the seven reasons why it's such comic genius.
I am not going to repeat the text as I usually do. Follow the link if interested. But here's the key arguments for why "The Laughing Gnome" features Bowie's comic excellence:
1. It rocks.
2. The puns.
3. Credible dark interpretations.
4. Gnomic synchronicity.
5. The Gnome saved Bowie from a life of cabaret.
6. A bassoon is a lead instrument.
7. It’s a testament to a lost friendship.
(SOURCE: PUSHING AHEAD OF THE DAME: "The Laughing Gnome")
My favourite part is the ending, in which the gnomes (by then, two as the original is joined by his brother) are obviously cutting up, and Bowie is laughing at their antics. It's real, genuine laughter, and then he says "Oh Huey," as the original gnome, the actual Laughing Gnome, is clearly named "Huey" (or maybe "Hughey").
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #236 - Hey Mom, a blog recap
Hi Mom,
I am eating a fruit and nut medley.
I thought it was time for a blog recap.
Day 236 of the blog, which is the 238th day since you died, is not in any way significant. But I had some extra time on this Sunday, today, and I am caught up with the blog and almost caught up with grading, and though I have a computer program to write and no idea how, I thought this would be a good time to stop and reflect.
I try to explore good and quality content as much as I am able. I try to keep a variety of content on display here, though I always come to back to the reality of loss, Mom. And yet, I don't want this to be a blog about loss and grief. It's supposed to be a blog about life and living, about going on.
Some may perceive that what I am doing is holding on, that I am not letting go because I keep writing "Hey Mom" entries to you, Mom, making a public display of my grief over losing you, and my grief over losing David Bowie as I feature Daily Bowie entries with same frequency as daily messages to you. (BTW, I have no idea how many Daily Bowie entries I plan to do. So far, no end in sight is planned.)
But this activity of writing to you is not about how I cannot let go. It's actually putting on display the process of letting go. Am I going to write Hey Mom posts for the rest of my life? No. I have pledged to do 365 of them, a year, and then I am going to stop. This does not mean that I will never again write about you. I am going to think about you every day, feel this loss every day, for the rest of my life. But I decided to do a year of continuing our conversations. After a year, I will stop the public display of those conversations, but the conversations themselves--and especially the private stuff that I am too shy to share on this blog--will continue as well.
I fall behind frequently. I gave up the dedication to making sure I actually post something every day because with my schedule that is very difficult if not impossible, at least in terms of completion. I could post unfinished place holders every day, but that's not very interesting. And since Blogger allows me to post backwards in time, I can fall behind, catch up a week's worth over a couple of days, and still look like I have posted every day. This last week, I sacrificed variety a bit for catching up, and basically detailed my days narrated to pictures from my family archive. I am okay with those choices as the detail of my daily life is much like what I shared with you on the phone, Mom. But I do prefer more variety of subject matter.
And so variety. My life is rumble strip of pounding, hammering, work-mandated (or work-addicted?) mania, in which I have too much to do in too little time. I could spend every day whining about my work-work (jobs), my school work, my grades, the laundry, the chickens, the puppy, and never come up for air and breathe in a better and more interesting range of content. And so, I try to write about as wide a variety of things as I am able to do. I am sure I could go wider, but the topics are still filtered through what interests me at a given time, and though I am interested in everything, I am not always interested in writing about everything. But I want some diversity here because otherwise I might just write about computers, comic books, and Baseball. So I try to stretch myself. I try to learn new things. I try to focus on things that I care about. I strive to generate good content, to share well, to make connections, and to provide whatever insubstantial insight my time and energy allows.
And yet, I may be seen as circling the same subject all the time. I could write about how I miss you, Mom, every day. I could write about loss and grief every day. I do keep returning to those topics. I make mention of missing you frequently. I keep banging around the same subject matter because I expect to shake loose an essential truth. I feel like there's something I am missing in this experience. Something I have not understood needs to be unearthed, brought out of the dark, and targeted with bright, well-focused light. I do not know what this thing, this truth, this revelation is, but I keep yammering away and masticating it down to the nub in an attempt to find it, assuming this all makes sense to anyone but me, and, well, you, Mom, because you are so near to me all the time, now.
So that's the recap as it is. What's the essential truth for which I am searching? I have no idea.
Here's to another 129 days remaining in this blog year as I continue to search.
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1602.28 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only
matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent
You asked for the latest party
With your silicone hump and your ten inch stump
Dressed like a priest you was
Todd Browning's freak you was
Crawling down the alley on your hands and knee
I'm sure you're not protected, for it's plain to see
The diamond dogs are poachers and they hide behind trees
Hunt you to the ground they will, mannequins with kill appeal
I'll keep a friend serene
(Will they come?)
Oh baby, come unto me
(Will they come?)
Well, she's come, been and gone.
Come out of the garden, baby
You'll catch your death in the fog
Young girl, they call them the Diamond Dogs
Young girl, they call them the Diamond Dogs
The Halloween Jack is a real cool cat
And he lives on top of Manhattan Chase The elevator's broke, so he slides down a rope
Onto the street below, oh Tarzie, go man go
Meet his little hussy with his ghost town approach
Her face is sans feature, but she wears a Dali brooch
Sweetly reminiscent, something mother used to bake
Wrecked up and paralyzed, Diamond Dogs are stabilized
I'll keep a friend serene
(Will they come?)
Oh baby, come unto me
(Will they come?)
Well, she's come, been and gone.
Come out of the garden, baby
You'll catch your death in the fog
Young girl, they call them the Diamond Dogs
Young girl, they call them the Diamond Dogs
Oo-oo-ooh, call them the Diamond Dogs
Oo-oo-ooh, call them the Diamond Dogs
In the year of the scavenger, the season of the bitch
Sashay on the boardwalk, scurry to the ditch
Just another future song, lonely little kitsch
(There's gonna be sorrow) try and wake up tomorrow
I'll keep a friend serene
(Will they come?)
Oh baby, come unto me
(Will they come?)
Well, she's come, been and gone.
Come out of the garden, baby
You'll catch your death in the fog
Young girl, they call them the Diamond Dogs
Young girl, they call them the Diamond Dogs
Oo-oo-ooh, call them the Diamond Dogs
Oo-oo-ooh, call them the Diamond Dogs
Bow-wow, woof woof, bow-wow, wow
Call them the Diamond Dogs
Dogs
Call them the Diamond Dogs, call them, call them
Call them the Diamond Dogs, call them, call them, ooo
Call them the Diamond Dogs
Keep cool
Diamond Dogs rule, OK
Hey-hey-hey-hey
Beware of the Diamond Dogs
Beware of the Diamond Dogs
Okay, I am cheating.
I always said one picture and one video. And here I have many photos.
But it's "Diamond Dogs," and it's Sunday, so sue me. This one's a bit more elaborate.
"They’d taken over this barren city, this city that was falling apart. They’d been able to break into windows of jewelers and things, so they’d dressed themselves up in furs and diamonds. But they had snaggle-teeth, really filthy, kind of like vicious Oliver Twists. It was a take on, what if those guys had gone malicious, if Fagin’s gang had gone absolutely ape-shit? They were living on the tops of buildings…they were all little Johnny Rottens and Sid Viciouses, really." - from David Bowie, on “Diamond Dogs,” 1993. "Where I lived was with my dadda and mum in the flats of municipal flatblock 18A, between Kingsley Avenue and Wilsonway. I got to the big main door with no trouble, though I did pass one malchick sprawling and creeching and moaning in the gutter, all cut about lovely, and saw in the lamplight also streaks of blood here and there like signatures, my brothers, of the night’s fillying." - Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange. “Diamond Dogs” has never sounded quite right: a sordid, overlong Rolling Stones imitation, someone else’s nightmare inflicted with malice upon you. As darkly comical as it is menacing, it’s a “classic rock” song overrun by grotesques (amputees in priest’s robes, Tod Browning rejects, various ultraviolences). Audiences didn’t know what to make of it. “Diamond Dogs” was Bowie’s least-successful single since the Hunky Dory days, reaching only #21 in the UK, and going nowhere in the States. On the radio, it never seems to segue well: it burlesques whatever song it follows or precedes. Leading off the second side of Bowie’s hits compilation, ChangesOneBowie, it was a wide moat of a groove, taking up the space of two less disturbing songs (I often skipped it, dropping the needle on “Rebel Rebel” instead). The track sounds used, repurposed, as though Bowie found an old master tape and overdubbed slurs and noises onto it. The germ of “Diamond Dogs” came from Bowie’s father, Haywood Jones, who had worked at Dr. Barnardo’s Homes, a British children’s charity. Jones had recounted to his son stories of the Homes’ founder, Dr. Barnardo, and his patron, Lord Shaftesbury, who had gone around Victorian London finding bands of homeless children living on the roofs of buildings. Bowie transposed that image into his now-standard future dystopia, turning the Victorian “ragged boys” into”diamond dogs”: a pack of feral kids living on high-rise roofs, going around on roller skates, robbing and mugging, terrorizing the corpse-strewn streets they live above. A Clockwork Orange was again central (see “Suffragette City”), not only in Bowie’s droogs-like “Dogs” and their Alex-like leader, Halloween Jack, but in the song’s setting—a ruined, post-apocalyptic modernist building. It could be set in a more decayed Thamesmead South estate where Stanley Kubrick shot Clockwork Orange (or Alton West, which Truffaut used for Fahrenheit 451, or La Défense, playing a future city in Godard’s Alphaville, etc.). "Each day the towers of central London seemed slightly more distant, the landscape of an abandoned planet receding slowly from his mind." - JG Ballard, High-Rise. Watching films from the early ’70s, you can’t avoid the general sense of shabbiness, regardless of where the films were shot. Take one contemporary example, Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail, which is a guided tour of blighted Atlantic Coast America, from Philadelphia slums to New York whorehouses to empty Boston parks. It’s decay worsened by the knowledge that the run-down train stations, corner stores and row houses were once clean, stylish, even modern places. Enduring the Seventies meant living in the ruins of the postwar dream of general prosperity, particularly in the cities, which were more and more depicted in films and in the press as asylums, graveyards and prisons. But “Diamond Dogs,” set in appalling urban ruins, isn’t a despairing song in the slightest. It’s full of vitality, cheap loud tricks, carnival horns, vulgarities, hammering beats (take the way someone keeps thwacking on a cowbell for the nearly the entire track). It makes do with style, it makes playtime out of collapse. The elevator’s shot, so Halloween Jack swings by a rope, Tarzan-style, to reach the street. The song seems to predict JG Ballard’s High Rise, published the following year, in which residents of a high-rise apartment complex fall into tribalism and warfare. But the high-rise dwellers come to love their new condition: they stop going to work, devoting all their energies to feral pleasures, devolving into hunter-gatherers. It ends with one survivor watching the lights go out in a neighboring high-rise, which makes him happy. He’s “ready to welcome them to their new world.” Bowie was already there.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #235 - Sound and Vision, Introverts, and the Brain
Hi Mom, I am still catching up with things. I made a lot of progress today, Saturday, making seven posts -- four Hey Mom posts and three Bowie posts -- and I am still behind by a day. Grading happened but there's more of that to do, too. And I finished one computer project only to get another, also due Wednesday. Plus, somehow, tomorrow (Sunday, which is the day I am writing this), I have to find time for grocery purchasing and helping Liesel get something at Lowe's as well as some much needed rest and reading time.
Can it all happen?
I don't know.
But this is a good time for a t-shirt reprint. I really like how this one turned out. It featured a David Bowie song, but it also had some great videos on consciousness and introversion.
Enjoy.
More tomorrow.
T-shirt #161 - "Blue, Blue, Electric Blue, that's the Color of my room, where I will live..."
"Blue Blue."
Immortal words by David Bowie from "Sound and Vision" a track off his 1977 album Low part of the Berlin trilogy. Arguably, his best album. Definitely, the one I find that I keep coming back to and listening to again the most over the years; it was produced by Brian Eno.
When Bowie released his boxed set career retrospective, he called it Sound and Vision. He also named his 1990 tour "Sound and Vision," a greatest hits tour in which he intended to play his hits for the last time and then retire them. This has not happened, strictly speaking.
All of which I have shared because this shirt is blue.
Just a blue shirt made by InSport. Wicks moisture.
No logo or design. (Well, there is one on the sleeve but I decided to leave it off the picture.)
"Don't you wonder sometime about sound and vision?"
I spend a lot of time thinking.
This may surprise some people, but I am more introvert than extrovert.
It's true.
I can play the part of an "extravert" (to use Carl Jung's spelling), but it's playing a part, and it can cause me enormous anxiety. My base line state of existence, my preference, my natural state is solitude and quiet.
For example, for many years, I took solo vacations up north at the Neahtawanta Inn (as described best in T-shirt #85: Up North). Though sometimes I had a guest with me for a short time, the majority of the time I was alone. I would read, write, run, bike, swim, eat great food, and go see movies at night (sometimes two in one night). These vacations were just what I needed to recharge and prepare for the assault of another Fall-Winter college school semester of teaching classes.
Another example, I like to go to bed early and read. This is something that my wife likes to do as well. Though last night, I had the Tigers game plugged into one ear, for the most part, we had quiet, reading time in bed with each other and the puppy. I could have gone to the KUDL draft, but I was not feeling well, still not fully recovered, and I needed time at home, time alone with my wife and dog. This is what introverts need.
For me, time alone is crucial. My blogging all began during what I used to call "Bloggy Friday" when my parents would leave for my mother's beauty shop appointment (back when I lived them and later when I was there helping out while Liesel was at work) and I would have the house to myself. Peace and quiet and solitude so that I could do whatever I fancied. I liked this time best around the holidays when I could turn on all the lights on the Christmas decorations as the sunlight outside faded away.
I can be a social creature. I am actually a bit more of a social creature than my wife. But I crave alone time, and if I do not get enough of it every week, I start to go a bit bonkers.
Why am I writing about alone time and introversion?
Well, last night after dinner, my wife asked me to watch some videos with her. They are TED talk videos. If you have not heard of the TED conference and the TED Talks video podcasts, this is something very much worth your time. Do some exploring on YouTube. Or better yet, start with these three videos included farther below.
First, we watched neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor's talk on what she learned about the brain after the stroke she suffered, and the message she has for all of us about our brains. Later, we watched a second video by Jill Bolte Taylor on brain development and the teenage brain, but first, we watched a wonderful talk by Susan Cain on the power of introverts.
I am including all three videos here on today's blog, plus a video for "Sound and Vision" by David Bowie, as my blog always needs more music. I give my wife credit for finding the videos and sharing them with me. My wife is remarkable. This is also further proof that she is perfect for me.
All three videos are extraordinary and very enlightening. However, I was deeply touched by the Susan Cain video about introversion.
Blue seems the right color for quiet time and introverts. Susan Cain's video touched me deeply because I always feel that I am a misunderstood introvert. At one time, my wife teasingly called me "Mr. Aloha" because of my propensity to chat with cashiers or food vendors. But I am an introvert as my previous examples should illustrate. I prefer quiet time, and, out of my element, I tend to keep to myself. But I do like to spread the sunshine. I think that "farting around" and making connections with the people in our community is an important part of each day, or at least that's what I learned from Kurt Vonnegut.
The Jill Bolte Taylor stuff is fantastic for understanding the brain, especially the "Stroke of Insight" video with her description of the gap between right and left brain functions and the world of peace and tranquility she discovered when her left brain shut down.
Grading Robot is in full swing today and thinking a lot about brains and introversion.
I hope you have time watch these videos and think about these things, too.
If so, PLEASE share comments. I would love to have discussions about these ideas.
Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
Susan Cain: The power of introverts
JBT TEDxYouthIndy
DAVID BOWIE - SOUND AND VISION - LIVE TOKYO 1990
- chris tower - 1308.29 - 8:18
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Seeing more and feeling less Saying no but meaning yes This is all I ever meant That's the message that I sent
The Daily Bowie #38 - "I Can't Give Everything Away"
Oh, David... You left us too soon. I am having a hard time understanding what the universe is like without you in it. I am having a difficult time accepting that there will be no new Bowie music anymore.
Please give my mother a hug because that loss still does not make sense to me either.
I keep thinking about what Bowie music would have been like when you are 80 or even 90. How long could you have kept going? A clockwork orange.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #234 - His Day; My Day - Crieff - photos
Hi Mom,
Here's Warren Ellis' typical day. I don't have a typical day. But Today was better than the last few. I took Satchel to camp at 8 a.m. I finished my program, did some work, went to Calculus and failed a quiz, went to Fanfare, dropped my old back pack off to be repaired, went to the credit union to try to figure out where $300 went, bought soy milk, picked up Satchel, went to dinner with Liesel at Bell's, logged my comics, went to bed where I read some things on my tablet and two comics before losing consciousness.
I paste (with credit to the source) Warren Ellis' own day, and then I share a bunch of pictures of Crieff. I did promise some Scotland this week.
Crieff is special. You know, Mom. Your Angus clan relations are from there. I was there with you in 1986. I was back again with my wife almost 30 years later: full circle.
Mission Control, out here on the Thames Delta. Struggling to get out of bed before noon. Laying there half-alive and checking the overnight app messages amd perhaps the top of Instagram. Downstairs, fighting my way into winter clothes, launching the first of three or four espressos, consumed at my seat and table under a roof in the back garden, with a couple of cigarettes. Processing the overnight email, listening to the morning’s news podcasts, skimming the Guardian and BBC headlines and whatever breaking news alerts fired while I was asleep. If it’s warm, I’ll try and write a morning.computer entry. An hour or so later, I’m in the office with a bottle of water, answering the emails that I triaged over coffee, and then firing up Feedbin and TweetDeck, listening to either something soothing or something fast, depending on whether the coffee has worked or not. If there’s nothing in the newsfeeds worth decanting into my private newsletter, then this is when I try to take a walk — possibly into town for a smoothie or a burger and a cocktail, if it’s clearly shaping up to be that kind of day. Otherwise, I’ll wrap a news burst for my favoured entities and bots and listen to some more music first. Work starts after the walk, accompanied by a smoothie. I pre-prep leaves and fruits and put them into ziplock bags that then go in the freezer. Empty pack into blender, add water and disintegrate. Three or four hours of work takes me to dinner. If I were a real writer, that would be the end of my day. But no. Work recommences after food and continues to 2am, at which point I retire to bed with the Kindle Paperwhite and read for an hour – either a book or documents I’ve sent to my Kindle during the day. Rinse and repeat until you have some terrible neurological event that hospitalises you and leaves you with mysterious, frightening neurological and physical deficits that science cannot explain.
Okay, I know this is more than one photo. This is seven photos, but I have been good in following the one photo thing, and now I want multiple photos.
These photos are from our first day in Crieff during our Scotland trip. They were all taken May 24th or 1505.24.
The Kilt and Kelt photo next to a picture of our wine is misleading. The Kilt and Kelt was closed, as in out of business. We ate on the High Street at some Italian place. The views of the road are all from the intersection one block from our hotel, the intersection of King Street and Commissioner Street as seen in the map below.
I will caption the photos. But this one directly left is Liesel as I look down King Street. Commissioner Street runs off left and right. Just below the blue store front is the Victoria House where we stayed three nights.
The Victoria House Bed & Breakfast, Crieff 81 King Street, Crieff, Scotland, PH7 3HB United Kingdom
Very lovely place.
This is Liesel's common look through out Scotland: jeans, coat, boots, pack. She's a great traveler and a great companion.
wider view of photo above looking south on King Street
Up King Street, North
Commissioner Street, east
It looks cool but it was out of business
ah... wine and water, water and wine
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1602.26 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only
matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
“What tends to happen is that a thing like an issue or a policy manifests itself as a guide,” Bowie told Interview. “It becomes a character of some kind.” Bowie began with a Cheney-like caricature. “There’s this guy saying, ‘I’m goddam rich…throw anything you like at me, baby, because I’m goddam rich. It doesn’t bother me.’ It’s an ugly song sung by an ugly man.” He wrote the lyric in a half-hour.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #233 - One photo; snow day!
Hey Mom,
Guess what? SNOW DAY!!
I stared at this picture for a long time, as it took me a very long time to realize that it's backwards, like many of the slides my father has scanned. You will see it, too, Mom. This is the path Dad dug out to the front door (surely I helped some, but I am probably eight years old here, which would make this 1970 or very early 1971). That is the Owens house behind us, which, if looking at our house from the front is to the left, but the path, which would lead toward the garage would be to the right, which means, IPSO FACTO, that this picture is reversed (left and right are switched).
Maybe I am just tired, but it took me a long time to see that reversal.
Okay, so following up on yesterday's post, SNOW DAY!!!
I woke at my usual time and checked closings as soon as I got to my office. WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY IS CLOSED!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks Eclipse (who is the personification of chaos).
I needed a break and some extra time to get help on my computer program.
BTW, WMU's method for reporting snow days is AWFUL. I am pretty sure I signed up for alerts, and yet I received no alerts. And there was never a post on the university web site, the gowmu one we faculty and students use, about the snow day. I have always felt that the gowmu web site is one of the worst sites I have ever seen, and this is a new low for it's poor design and lack of usefulness when there's never a notification of the school being closed anywhere (at least no where clear and obvious) on the site. Given that I am learning to re-design and program things like this, WMU should hire me and my team to re-design gowmu and make it actually useful.
I tried to work on the program, but I was quite stuck. I did not know how to fix the previous null pointer error, and now I had a new one. So after I waited a bit so I was not texting at 6 a.m.. I texted my good friend and computer tutor, Colin MacCreery, to beg him to help me on a snow day, AND his birthday.
After a while, I was able to get a hold of him, and he agreed to meet me.
Since I was stuck on the program, and making no progress, I switched to work and banged out the Park discussion grades that I was supposed to do Tuesday. I also did daily work.
I met Colin at 1:30 at Bilbo's (BTW, their Internet sucks... FYI) . Within minutes, he had solved my null pointer exception errors, and so I enlisted his help finishing the rest, which was easy, and so we were done by four p.m. MEANWHILE, before I left, I emailed my TA and begged for one more day because of the campus being closed. Once I got home (after buying chicken feed). I checked my email, and the TA had granted me the extension through Friday, meaning I could watch some LOST with Liesel and go to bed. After one episode, she was "bored" with LOST, and so we tried to watch a Bergman film -- Through a Glass Darkly -- which was pretty tedious and kind of awful.
Then to bed, with plans to get up the next morning and finish my program and then try to do as much work as possible before going to Calculus, where I knew we would have a quiz.
But success! One of my strengths is interacting and building relationships with people as evidenced by how I managed this situation and succeeded.
Thanks for listening, Mom, and for your support, which means a lot.
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1602.25 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
Inspired by his and Eno’s trip to the Gugging Psychiatric Clinic in 1994 (from which Bowie took the image of the “Angel Man,” see above), Bowie chopped up a provisional lyric via his Verbasizer computer program, then crafted a run of lines that followed eddies of thought and made shotgun marriages of vowel sounds (“be real” becomes “before we reel”; “blonde” quickly summons “beyond”). The lyric’s perspective isn’t that of a madman as much as someone with romantic hopes of growing mad, with an undercurrent of masochism (“I’d start to believe…if I were to bleed,” Bowie sings, gently extending his long Es) and a few phrases suggesting that Bowie had been reading John Rechy again (“cruise me baby,” “the fist of love”).
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #232 - One Photo - Backyard Baseball
Hi Mom, Me again, Or rather, "Hello, it's me." Song lyric. Some of you may know it.
Baseball's spring training has begun in Florida, and so I pulled this picture out of the family archive.
Dad (the Big Guy) has it labeled as "Norm Cash Day 1971," but this is not right. The other photos in that archive show me at Tigers Stadium on what must have been Norm Cash Day in 1971, when I was nine years old and seriously into Baseball. This photo may be from 1971, but it cannot be the same day.
If you cannot spot me, look upper right, that's me. Farthest away, and it looks like I am pulling my pants up. This is the backyard of our Hazelwood house, and from this angle, there's nothing I can use to verify the date of the photo. But 1971 is probably right. I am not sure who all these kids are, but I do remember some backyard Baseball. In one instance, and I am sure you remember Mom, I hit a line drive come backer that nailed the pitcher in the mouth. I think it was Tom Owen, the next door neighbor. So these kids are likely all the neighbors: the Owens, the Wolfs, the Swansons, and Sue McCrumb, who is likely one of the girls we can see. I suspect that the girl leaning against the tree is Laurie Wolf, though I am not sure of the spelling of her name.
Anyway, this post is for Wednesday 1602.24 as I catch up. Same morning, early start time. My program has a null pointer exception error that I cannot figure out. I have done a work around, though, so instead of trying to fill the array from the number of records in the file, I just make arrays of size two because I know I have just two records of each type, book and periodical. The program simulates a library check out system. I know this is not the way to set up the program, but as I work, I am more interested in coding the whole thing and ensuring that it works. I can always go back and re-design. As I am trying to set up check out dates, I hit another null pointer error. There are NOT supposed to be null pointer errors in Java because there are not supposed to be pointers, but there are because the computer uses pointers. I know you have no idea what this all means, Mom (and many readers), but I just want to write it down.
I have Java lab at 10:30. Liesel and I decide Satchel will stay home because we're getting a huge snow storm, and Liesel does not plan to drive in it (and she would need to pick up Satchel). Plus. she's very ill with the cold, flu, sinus bug thing I have, but she is really hit with it whereas I am functional for at least 11-12 hours each day.
I go to lab, and it's another sprint to finish a crazily complicated lab report on a program I have just seen for the first time and do not have time to think about and digest. Afterwards, I slam some food in the cafeteria and then meet with my TA, who tries to help me solve the null pointer error with the arrays. She is unable to help, though she tries very hard. I manage to beg and receive an extension as the program is due tonight, Wednesday, freeing me to be a bit less stressed and actually work for my job.
I go home and blast like a rocket through daily work and half the CTU discussion grades(1;45-3:30), which are also due tonight, Wednesday. Then it's off to the class I teach (4-5), in which I instruct the students on thesis statements and get them ready for the essay they are writing for next week. I have been photographing the wipe board each day, so I may post an archive of those at some point just for fun. Class goes well, and despite the large amount of snow cascading down from the sky, all the students show up, all five of them.
After class I have a tutoring appointment with Anthony, but he's late, so the whole thing runs 5-7ish. We work derivatives to get me ready for the Calculus quiz on Friday. Liesel calls and wants me to go buy her Nyquil, as she feels crappy. I do so, but there's so much snow that when I try enter the Wallgreen's parking lot, I hit a divider that I cannot see as it's buried in snow.
Then it's home, slam some food, left overs, and to bed. In bed, I am PRAYING for a snow day tomorrow while trying to stay awake to watch the Pistons beat the 76ers. I fail to make it through the fourth quarter.
But as for that snow day, guess what....? (continued tomorrow...)
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1602.24 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
