oh noes … snakes on a plane

One of the good, or maybe bad, things about working from home is having CNN on in the background. I’ve been listening to Michael Vick stories most of the day, but just now CNN is doing a snakes of a plane story, all about how dangerous critters are shipped as cargo on passenger planes.

 Of course, no story about airplanes could not get the terrorist spin. That dangerous critter flying as cargo could just as easily be a terrorist. Which I guess qualifies as a dangerous critter.

 Oh well, back to work. The homescribe is training from home on Live Meeting on Monday. Today is Friday. And the homescribe has to find time to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sometime over the weekend.

 Must go buy more coffee!

check out my new blog

I created a new blog today, True Stories of Spellcheckers. It started when I heard about a hysterical substitution that Microsoft Word tried to make to an employee’s name. Next thing I knew, I had a new blog. Please come visit and share your spellcheck stories.

lolcats

I just made my first lolcat. It’s based from a conversation that I was having with a good friend about the disappearance of bees, sometimes known as Colony Collapse Disorder, where bee hives are suddenly found empty and abandoned. It’s a serious problem that could have a major effect on agriculture if it continues. My friend made a joke that maybe they had been raptured. We’re always making rapture jokes with each other and are both fans of the bumper sticker that says “When the Rapture happens, can I have your car?”  So, it’s only fitting that my first lolcat has a rapture theme. I’ve submitted it to the wonderful lolcat site, I Can Has Cheezburger, another WordPress blog. But here is your pre-hopefully-publication preview:

 Yes, I know, time to get back to writing my mystery novel.

sometimes too cute is good

I’m not much for cute things, but baby animals can help relieve some stress. If you need a quick dose of cute, check out the daily puppy web site. A new, cute puppy each and every day.  Toooo cute.

Jamestown, Virginia: the 400th anniversary

Time magazine came this week with the cover story of the 400th anniversary of Jamestowne Virginia.

One of my hobbies is genealogy, and I was rather interested to learn some years ago that I had a Chiles ancestor, Walter Chiles, who was one of the original settlers of Jamestown. He was a merchant, tobacco farmer, and a member of the House of Burgesses.

He was also, as were many of my southern ancestors, a slave owner. And I have had a difficult time in reconciling my interest in my past with the knowledge that my direct ancestors took part in such a reprehensible practice. Of course, they weren’t alone. Slavery built the United States and a great many great Americans were slave owners: Thomas Jefferson, for one.

I do take some solace that a descendant of Walter Chiles, Manoah Chiles, became a Quaker and was a member of the first Society of Friends to speak out publicly against slavery in the mid 1700s.

I do believe that my personal anguish over the role of slavery in my family’s past relates directly to the guilt and anguish of many Americans who also descended from early settlers. I cannot understand today how any one could conceive of owning another human being. Yes, life was different 400 years ago and then many people did not regard African slaves as human. Alas, there are whackos on the fringes that still believe that. Thankfully, as a society, we seem to have become more enlightened.

So, I find this 400th anniversary a bit of a blessing and a curse. I could, if I wanted, join both the Daughters of the Revolution and the Jamestown Society, but those of you who know me personally will certainly understand why I choose not to join such societies. I did have a lesbian primary care physician who was also eligible for the DAR; we used to joke about forming the DDAR: Dyke Daughters of the American Revolution.

I am both proud and ashamed of my heritage. It’s a good thing that I’m one of those people who see many shades of gray in life.

car

And now, car.

I haven’t had a car for a year and a half. I had an old junker that lasted me well during the troubles (the years of the tech recession). But it finally died and wasn’t worth what it would cost to fix it.

But it hasn’t been a problem until Job came up. Flexcar has a car parked at my apartment complex, which is almost like owning your own car. I was either working downtown, easily reached by public transportation in 10 minutes or less, or working from my home office, easily reached by foot in 10 seconds or less.

Job, however, is out in the suburbs of Portland. I can get there by public transportation. The am commute isn’t too bad, as it only takes an hour. The pm commute, though, takes an hour and a half. And, online training for east coast customers will start pretty early Pacific Time.

So, I decided I need to buy a car. There is a wonderful high-end used car dealer across the street called LuxeAuto, so I began looking there. I fell in love with a 2001 Saab 9-3 convertible. But, logic got the better of me, so I transferred my lust to a 2001 Audi A4 with a V6 engine. It’s a great car and drives very well.

If I were really sensible, I’d buy a nice Toyota Corolla, but I just want more this time around. The Audi is sweet and has a terrific Bose sound system. No iPod link, though, which would be a necessity. And maybe XM radio. If I am going to commute, I want to commute in style.

I still love the Saab convertible too. Talk about un-sensible. It’s a sweet, sweet car.

Saab or Audi?  Dunno. Either one would make me very happy, though.

 Stay tuned …

dear readers

I do apologize for my long absence. I have been very busy at work. In addition to my normal technical writing duties, I have taken on two special projects. And, on top of that, YAR (yet another reorg) which has resulted in a new manager, and we all know how hard it can be to train a new manager.

Other than work, all has been well. We’ve had some beautiful Spring preview days here in Portland … no rain, highs near 70. Absolutely glorious.

The cats are doing well, though with the higher temperatures come shedding. They shall know my by my slicker brush.

my favorite sporting event

Even though I am a cat person, my favorite sporting event is the annual Westminster Dog Show, which is shown each year on the USA network. The dogs are absolute champions and I’m thrilled each year to see so many wonderful dogs. My only complaint? I’m getting really tired of the standard poodles winning the non-Sporting group each year.

First night favorite: This sweet little Dandy Dinmont terrier from the Terrier Group named Ch Hobergays Fineus Fogg aka Harry. Here’s a picture of this little champion:

Best of Show went to a beautiful English Springer Spaniel, Ch Felicity’s Diamond Jim aka James, who is quite the looker:

James is seven and is retiring.

And, even though poodles reigned in both the Toy and Non-Sporting groups, neither poodle was Best in Show. I like poodles, but the extreme grooming and blow-dry hair styles really put me off.  My friend Mike has a wonderful poodle, with really great curly hair (not fur) and Beau is fabulous!

Here a nice video from the New York Times on the judging of the show.

Enjoy!  Can’t wait until next year.

very low tech

I’ve used computers for writing for over twenty years now. I also have half a drawer full of lovely mechanical pencils, my favorite being the Pentel TechniClick 0.5.

But lately, I find myself in love with wooden pencils. I recently unpacked a box and found an old, but still working well, battery-operated pencil sharpener and a single Dixon Ticonderoga 2.5 wooden pencil. And I’m finding that I much prefer the wooden pencil to  any mechanical pencils.

This fondness for pencils led to a web search and I found a couple of interesting pencil sites. The first is a pencil blog: Pencil Revolution. Lots of information and done with love and caring. The second is an online store for pencils, called Pencil Thing, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I placed an order with them yesterday. A dozen of the Dixon Ticonderoga 2.5 pencils and a dozen pencils from England that were highly rated on the Pencil Revolution.

For my technical writing, I’ll always compose on the computer. But for my fiction writing, I like slowing down the process a little bit, at least in the first draft stage. I have some time to think of words that aren’t the first words to pop up. I like that.

thank you time magazine

Thank you Time magazine for the honor of making me  the Person of the Year.

Are you guys on crack or something?

I was hoping for the Axis of Stupidity: Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld for screwing up the war so badly that the world is on the brink of World War III. Can there possibly be any thing more important in the world, much less the United States, that what is happening in Iraq?

Not to denigrate all the bloggers, you-tubers, and my-spacers out there. What’s happening on the Web these days is fantastic, but let’s be real here.