Life In The Pacific Northwest
It’s not often I see a graphic that does a good job communicating something, anything. I spend a lot of time looking at graphics in presentations that either try to communicate too much, or not enough, or nothing at all. This one really is exceptional. Great use of color, white space, image size, etc to tell many components of a story laddering into a larger point. Edward Tufte would be proud.
(Graphic from The Global Sociology Blog. For full size, Click Here
Earlier this week I read a rather disturbing story, Michael Finkel’s “How I Convinced a Death-Row Murderer Not to Die”. Now, I dimly remember the story from early in the decade (it happened in Oregon). Interesting, from a sociological point of view. However, for me, the story went into some depth on the murder (the subject, Christian Longo, murdered his whole family). Those sorts of details tend to disturb and haunt me. Gladly, I read the thing in early afternoon, giving myself some time to disconnect. Otherwise, my night’s sleep would’ve been disrupted (as has happened after reading/hearing other such stories). This is why I generally don’t watch the news in the evening, and defiantly late at night. If I’m up in the dark of night for insomnia, I avoid both the news, but also “true crime” shows which are so popular. And I avoid all the “mystery” shows, as well as any of the crime-based dramas.
Now, some would say this is due to my liberal, bleeding-heart tendencies, or some such rot. No, the core is the that this has come to close to me. Back in 1980, my best friend, Adam’s, father murdered Adam’s mother. We came home from school to see the coroner sitting in his driveway (he lived right across the street from me). Adam disintegrated before me, and never recovered. And, really, neither did I. To add to the ghastliness, I was with Adam when he was allowed to go back into the house (on a furlough of sorts from the mental hospital he was assigned to). It was supposed to have been cleaned up, but they hadn’t disposed of the bed where his mom had died. That still haunts my dreams.
A writer I admire, Chuck Sigars, posted a piece about the people who passed this year that he will miss. I thought I would craft my own. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, just those that strike me.
I must start with Mary Travers. As a livelong Peter, Paul and Mary fan, her death deeply saddens me.
Patrick Swayze
Dom Deluise
Eunice Shriver
Walter Cronkite
On a final note, I was struck by a story I heard on NPR this evening about the very brief life of Baruch Levi. The story of his 10 minutes of life, his mother and the photographer who came to capture those precious minutes deeply struck me.
Reddened eyes stare back at me from the mirror. Pale glare from industrial lights accentuates my weariness. My child’s disrupted sleep disrupted mine. Finding responses more eloquent than grunts challenging. Evening now descends, sunlight reflected from the building across the way. The excessive caffeine coursing my veins somewhat obliterates my fatigue while adding a strange, surreal quality. Which combined with a demanding bladder adds to this unfocused day. Hard to point to accomplishments, yet they exist. Simply put, an unfocused and distracted day. One nicely viewed from the rear-view mirror of life.
I’ve been taking a PhotoShop class (properly Digital Art and Design) this semester. Exploring all the different elements of PS has been both eye-opening and exhausting. I’ve fiddled with prior versions of PS, but never done much more than the very basic. Now, we’ve spent the better part of three months diving deep. And the main thing I’ve learned is how little I know.
This was a silly thing I zapped out, considering the season. It was fun to make, if a bit cheesy. (For some reason, the animation is not showing up in the blog post. Click on the link and you can see it in it’s full glory.)
A friend of mine and I developed a rating scale for puns. Rated 1-10 where 1=mild groaning, 10=potential internal bleeding. This warrants at least an 8, and should come with a surgeon general warning. And, of course, it delights me.
Just in time for Christmas, here’s your link to my Amazon’s Wish List. My family is pretty big on Christmas lists, so this should be a decent tool for them. With this button, you can upload non-Amazon “stuff” to the site as well. Thusly, you have a comprehensive database of all your desires, available to your most fervent fans, 24/7. Now everyone will have the ability to delight you with items that align with your tastes and sensibilities. The universe is now gloriously aligned. You may return to your regularly scheduled shopping.
Ages ago, it seems, I started exploring FriendFeed. I started messing with it after Robert Scoble sang it’s praises. (Perhaps you’ve noticed the FriendFeed badge on the right hand column of my blog?) I like the notion of consolidating the various social network streams, as well as the ability to combine the comment threads into one place. Currently, My FriendFeed combines my Twitter feed, my Flickr stream, my Delicious bookmarks and this blog. One challenge I’ve pondered regarding the plethora of social media sites is keeping this mess organized. Heck, I’ve been wondering how I can avoid neglecting any of them. By smooshing the different threads together, FF provides that common place to follow your work. So far, so good.
I wonder, though, if there is an iPhone app, like Twitter has? It would be nice, if addictive, to have access to these threads remotely. Eh, who needs this “life” stuff, anyways.
From my friend Digitalzen over at Digital Dharma. (I LOVE Leonard Cohen! Especially Hallelujah).
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
~ Leonard Cohen
Ms. Vasilakis, one of the presenters on Classical Destinations here performs Bloch. Lovely, simply lovely.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8cJn36r1L0&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
