As I wrote here, Sara and I went to Germany for my son’s wedding. It was a wonderful trip but far too short. We left on a Wed. morning and got back home on Mon. eve.

We spent the first couple of days with my daughter-in-law’s parents in Fürth in the Odenwald. It was quite lovely and relaxing. My daughter, her husband, Sara and I took a 4-hour hike through a UNESCO GeoPark to the Lindenfels castle while there. On Saturday we (previously mentioned 4) moved to the Hotel Perkeo in the Altstadt of Heidelberg. My sister and brother-in-law were also staying in Heidelberg but at a different hotel.

The wedding was late Saturday afternoon in the Kappelle of the Heidelberg Schloss with pictures before that on the castle grounds. The reception was held at a Schützenhaus in the hills behind the castle.

Kaja and Jeremy

Sara and I were up fairly early on Sun. morning and went out wandering in a practically deserted Altstadt before almost anyone else was up, which was quite pleasant. We went back to the hotel for a short rest and second breakfast and then went wandering again. Sitting in the Marktplatz which was now full of tables, chairs, and people, dogs, bicycles and so on we relaxed and had coffee. I even had third breakfast!

More wandering, sightseeing and shopping followed after spending a bit of time checking out the Alte Brücke with my sister, brother-in-law, daughter, son-in-law and my ex-wife. Sara and I even climbed all the way to the top of the Heiliggeistkirche. We met back up with the family for lunch.

Sara and Mark on top of the Heiliggeistkirche

Later in the day, while Sara went shopping, the rest of us walked across the Alte Brücke, and climbed the hill to walk the Philosophenweg, then down the hill, back across the Neckar on the newer bridge and back into the Altstadt.

Later in the evening we all met back up with the newlyweds, Jeremy and Kaja, and had dinner in the restaurant in the Hotel Perkeo.

Late in the evening Sara and I packed up most of our stuff and at 6:45 AM a shuttle bus came to take us the the Frankfurt Flughafen.

It was amazing trip but far too short. Besides all of the tasty food and beautiful scenery we also picked up a lovely daughter-in-law and generous, bright and highly interesting (in the good way) in-laws.

Congratulations Kaja and Jeremy!

Thought I’d post a little update regarding my plans for fall. First, a quick update on where I am currently.

Update

My hours at the BCU library were bumped up to 6 (from 5) hours/week so I could take on a weeding project of my own. I had already cataloged the backlog and current acquisitions and I was removing bibs and holdings from our Sirsi catalog and from WorldCat.

About a month ago I started weeding the PZs. I began with the PZ7s and up, skipped the small amount of PZ5s for now (less than one shelf), did the PZ4s, and am now a bit over halfway through the PZ3s. This leaves the PZ1s, which are mostly sets, to do when I finish the PZ3s. So far I have weeded approximately 1000 titles from the collection. Many of these books have not circulated in 30-40 years (or more). Some, of course, had never circulated. A few were in lovely editions over 100 years old. But if they haven’t been checked out in 50-60 years and no one teaches them anymore (if ever) then our small library does not need them. Of course, I have also been removing the bibs and holdings for these.

The wife

The wife is keeping especially busy and is reasonably stressed; reasonably as in she has good reason to be, and also as in not breaking down stressed. All of this year’s incoming freshman at BCU are getting iPads, as are many of the graduate and some of the returning undergrad students, along with many of the faculty and staff. There will be another opt-in period for returning students who have not done so shortly after school starts. As the Director of Educational Technology, this project is kind of her baby. Other folks certainly have their own crosses to bear in this als0; like the head of IT and the hoops she’s jumped/ing through to get the campus wireless upgraded to handle ~500-600 wireless devices where before there were only a handful.

Added on top of that stress for the wife is that we are leaving the country for close to a week right before/as school starts. So she has spent most of this weekend on campus trying to do all that she can to make this all go as smoothly as possible without her direct input when it happens.

Wedding in Germany

We are heading to Heidelberg, Germany for my sons wedding! Both the bride and groom were born there so it is a particularly apt setting. We only wish we had a lot more time to spend in Deutschland; we both miss it dearly.

My fall semester

I am taking one class, which I was asked to take by the professor. Advanced Briar Cliff Review is a one-hour credit class in which interested students, primarily English and Writing majors, do much of the selection work for the short fiction that makes it into the Briar Cliff Review.

I will also be sitting in on 2 classes; Modern Grammar, and Classical Literature and Mythology. I was, as of a couple months ago, planning on sitting in on Shakespeare also but have decided I would actually like some sort of life. Shakespeare is taught regularly and frequently, so I hope to catch it the next time around. There are, of course, several other classes I am interested.  Most were winnowed out earlier due to scheduling conflicts but, despite freeing up some time, I see little point in rebooking that time.

I am looking forward to the upcoming semester. I’ve had a mythology class but this one will focus on myth through the classical lit itself, instead of being condensed versions of folktales, and I can use more exposure to classical lit. As a critic of orthodox grammar and linguistics I can definitely use a formal class. More importantly, I hope it will help me describe and discuss that which I have known at a deep and intuitive level for most of my life. I’m also looking forward to reading the BCR short fiction submissions. I don’t read much short fiction, at least not for a long time, and I look forward to discussing and engaging with it critically. Also, how often does one get asked to take a class by the professor?

Tomorrow morning we head halfway across the state for the ILA conference in Coralville, next to Iowa City. We are looking forward to it for assorted reasons, but a little networking is near the top of my list. What is at the top, though, for both of us, is checking out Iowa City. We got a ton of great suggestions from three friends. Thanks E, Mikki and Julia.

I am writing this on an iPad that I have checked out from the Briar Cliff University Bishop Mueller Library. Yep, my library has loaned me an iPad for the conference. See Sara’s post for more info on the BCU Library iPad loan program:

http://librarienne.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/update-on-library-ipad-program/

In penance for missing my poetry class I have to do 2x the work for this week. Thankfully it is almost done though, and I got a start (barely) for next week’s.

We found out Greg Brown is playing in a benefit concert in Iowa City Friday night so we decided to stay an extra night. Woohoo. This will give us more time to see Iowa City on Sat. AM also. And thankfully Iowa is playing in Michigan this weekend so no football traffic/crowds to deal with.

So far writing this blog post in the WordPress app is pretty straightforward, except I cannot figure out how to make a link. That is why that URL sits sadly naked and exposed above. I can certainly state that I would not want to write a normal blog post in this app but for shorter ones with little or no linking it works OK.

I have no plans to get an iPad any time soon, for assorted reasons, but perhaps I’ll have more to say about the experience of using the iPad in general, and also for conferencing. I am leaving the laptop at home. I am taking my Touch in case I need a backup for some reason and since my music is on it.

[This post title is, for me, multi-meta in that it refers to several things.]

It has been a long time since I’ve been here. Part of me is sad about this fact and part of me thinks that is just fine.

A lot has happened since I last wrote here:

I quit my job as a serials cataloger at the University of Illinois so I could concentrate on (then) upcoming weddings and our move.

Sara and I were married in late May in a small but wonderful ceremony amongst family and friends in a cabin on the banks of the Sangamon River.

At the very beginning of June I started prepping for our move to Sioux City, Iowa.

A couple of weeks later, my daughter got married in Oberlin, Ohio in an even simpler, but absolutely lovely and moving, ceremony to a wonderful young man that I couldn’t be prouder to be related to.

On the evening of 3 July we left Urbana, IL and headed for Sioux City. As of 4 July we are residents of Sioux City. This is a vastly different place  than Urbana-Champaign, in so many ways. We are still getting it sorted out but we will.

We had a good week and a half before Sara had to start her job and we made good use of it. Sara worked for 3 days and then we took a vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota to spend some time in a couple of cabins with some friends of Sara’s from high school and their respective significant others and children. On the way home we drove through the Badlands. I have a couple of pictures up but I have 100s more to be tagged, labeled, decided upon and uploaded. Suffice it to say that it was beautiful! And being the against much of pop culture fiend that I am, we skipped Wall Drug (unfortunately not the signs though), Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse.

Once back Sara got back to work and is enjoying learning the ropes of this vastly different, and vastly smaller, university. I got back to work on organizing the house, merging two large book collections, much of which was in storage, along with merging two large CD collections, of which all of hers were in storage. There is still a bit to do on all the house organizing fronts but it is definitely getting there.

Shortly after we got here we bought ourselves a 32″ LG HDTV with built-in netflix streaming so we’ve been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and some other things.

We’ve been taking an online class on HTML5 via SitePoint and in a few weeks will take one on CSS3. They were $9.95 each! So the last 2 weeks that is what we’ve been doing in the evenings when Sara gets home from work. (And, yes, I know the CSS3 course says it is $14.95 but by signing up for both at the same time we got a $5 discount!) I think that for the price they are quite good. As with any class it is (mostly) about what you put in to it.

Speaking of courses, Briar Cliff University has a 100% tuition remission policy for spouses so I’ll be taking a 1 credit class this fall called Madwomen Poets. About all I know about it is that it includes Sexton and Plath. But who cares what, if anything, else it might be? Who could ignore a class entitled Madwomen poets?

I know. I know. I’m supposed to be doing other things, “more important” things. And I am. But it is 50 minutes, 1 day/week. I figure it’ll help keep my mental chops in order. And at this point I still don’t know if I’ll be taking it for a grade or auditing.

As to that more  important stuff … I am ramping back up the work on my CAS thesis via several angles of attack. I am working on the paper proper and I am also working on a journal article, which will be highly related (as in with a little reworking can become a chapter), and I am thinking about trying to come up with a presentation for a conference in early December. The conference is “Semantics for Robots: Utopian and Dystopian Visions in the Age of the ‘Language Machine’. ‘The Language Machine’ is one of Roy Harris’ early books, of course.

As for conferences, I am really sad that I will not be able to attend ASIS&T in Pittsburgh this year. But seeing as we gave up about $40k in income with me not working there is little means of justifying the expense of travel and lodging. And, honestly, the registration cost is plain crazy for an unemployed non-student, non-retiree.

Sara and I decided that the Integrationist conference in Chicago in December, along with being far cheaper, is really more where I need to be right now. I need exposure to more Integrationists and Integrational thinking and I will get far more out of a small conference (as I always do) than a bigger one. Whether or not I can get something submitted (and possibly accepted) I am highly looking forward to it. Nonetheless, this will be the 1st ASIS&T I’ve missed since I started going in 2006.

And if any of my Chicago friends are reading this, I’d adore an invite to stay with you for a couple days in early December (2nd-4th, or so), especially if you are near the Univ. of Chicago.

Tomorrow night we are, thanks to a surprise from Sara, going to see Jackson Browne and David Lindley and the historic Orpheum Theatre here in Sioux City. I have been listening to (early) Jackson Browne for close to 40 years now. I haven’t really kept up with anything since the mid-80s or so but, nonetheless, I am stoked to finally get to see him live for the first time.

We also have a Super Secret Date night scheduled for Sunday night. Sara had that lined up well before we left Urbana. She offered me the chance to find out what it’ll be last night but I passed. I like the surprises! She’s done so well every time in the past. And it also makes me aware that it is past time for me to step up in the Super Secret Date Night scheduling department.

And in case anyone who cares isn’t aware of it yet, my son is in Afghanistan for his 3rd war zone tour. He left just days after we moved. Grrrr.

I guess I best end this for now. It is getting long and the simple shock of seeing a post from me is probably enough already. With any hope I won’t be gone as long before the next time.

a little “mouse”
grew up; became
a new house spouse.

wrote a little ditty
because he is moving
to Iowa; Sioux City.

I posted that little ditty to facebook and twitter several days ago to announce that I will soon be moving.

In the comments on facebook, I also wrote:

I’m going to Sioux City to be a househusband, scholar [write my CAS paper / defend], poet, part-time student perhaps, enjoying other parts of the country (and, I must admit, the Midwest), photographer of late 19th-century brick industrial buildings and ghost signs and real wildflowers and prairie and ….

I get my soul back.

… But I get my soul back. And maybe, eventually, some of my mind.

My lovely partner, and soon-to-be spouse, has accepted a job as the Reference and Instruction Librarian at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa. We will be moving in early July probably; after our wedding and my daughter’s wedding and ALA and ….

We are really looking forward to it. And, yes, I did go with her for her campus visit so I have seen Sioux City. Yes, we will miss many, many wonderful and some taken for granted things here: Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and the Krannert Art Museum and all of the wonderful, often free, programs put on at both, being able to walk (or easily bus, for free) to pretty much everywhere except major shopping, Crane Alley and other favorite eating/drinking haunts, the Arboretum and Japan House, and on and on. Even moreso, we will miss all of the wonderful people.

What I will not miss is alluded to above. As important as the work is that I have been doing the last couple of years, my job has been killing me. My spirit is completely gone and my soul is being forcibly ripped from my body.

Maybe it is the size of the institution (Library, specifically); maybe it is the myriad and serious problems facing the Library (many of which are not financial).

I really do not want to get into any details because that, as I am told, is unprofessional. Kind of ironic since that is the judgement I make of many here. Do not misunderstand me, please. There are many dedicated professionals in our libraries; professionals at all levels of staffing. Some of the issues derive from our massive size and/or decentralized structure, but by no means all of them do.

I do not intend to look for a job any time soon. But I am also not leaving the profession. There is the important task of writing and defending my CAS paper before May 2011. And I fully intend to do so. That task and being a proper house spouse providing all of the support that I can for Sara to succeed in her new job will be my main occupation.

Other than that, I look forward to writing some articles and conference presentations. I hope to re-engage on my blog; perhaps return to friendfeed. Also high on my list are writing some poetry inspired by the change of scenery, perhaps taking a poetry class [poetry prof was on the search committee and sat next to me at dinner]; learning to photograph the lovely late 19th-century industrial brick buildings that are all over Sioux City, along with the plentiful ghost signs, and real prairie flowers.

By going with Sara on her interview I added 3 states to my visited list; Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. I am looking forward to visiting Omaha, Sioux Falls, Ames and Iowa City and many other towns, from the small to the large.

Being so near to the Missouri River valley and bottom lands makes me feel very much at home. I grew up in the north suburbs of St. Louis near the confluence of the Mighty Mo and the Mississippi. In the summers we’d bike out to Missouri Bottom Road (named literally), especially when it was flooded. We also lived about a mile from a park on a big bluff along the Missouri.

It is a big adventure and we’ll be taking a massive pay cut to go on it. Sara is getting a small increase but it still means losing the vast majority of my salary. Thankfully I get a small bit for my Army retirement; wouldn’t be doable otherwise.

Looking forward to this with all of my heart. I truly am.

In Vancouver, BC for ASIST 2009 Annual Meeting: Thriving on Diversity: Information Opportunities in a Pluralistic World.

Today is the 20th SIG-CR (Classification Research) Workshop: Bridging Worlds, Connecting People: Classification Transcending Boundaries.

1st session, which I’m in now, is titled: Crossing Cultural Boundaries: Indigenous Knowledge Organization. Moderator: Hope Olson. Papers are: Language, Text and Knowledge Organization: One Native American Story by Cheryl Metoyer; and, Martin Nataka’s “Indigenous Standpoint”: Toward a Theoretical Location for Indigenous Knowledge Organization by Ann Doyle. [These are not listed on the website. See link above for SIG-CR for titles of other papers below.]

2nd session will be Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries. Moderator: Barbara Kwasnik. Papers by Szostak & Gnoli, Ali Shiri, and Xiaoli Huang.

3rd session will be Crossing the Boundaries of Convention. Moderator: Corinne Jorgensen. Papers by Amelia Abreu, Kwan Yi, and Gabel and Smiraglia.

4th session will be Crossing System/Searcher Boundaries. Moderator: Dagobert Soergel. Papers by Marianne Lykke-Nielsen, Jens-Erik Mai, and Joseph Tennis.

Seems the paper by Timothy Patrick will not be presented.

There are also a handful of posters, including one by UIUC’s Ingbert FLoyd, Thomas Dousa and Michael Twidale.

Looking forward to seeing a bit of Vancouver and seeing colleagues again. I have already seen 3 of my 4 co-panelists from last year. In fact, they are here at SIG-CR.

When we head home we will be taking the train from Seattle over to Chicago, and then another to Champaign. I am really looking forward to that bit of the trip, too.

* with a hat tip to Dorothea (see below)

In which I proudly proclaim and rant as if we were simply sitting here in my living room chatting as the friends we might be, if given the chance.

Jeremy and trip to central Texas

Again, thank you from the entirety of my heart to all who offered a place to stay, to contact family or friends on my behalf, etc. I seriously would have liked to act on several of them but the vertigo just added too much uncertainty to the trip to do so. Thank you all!

I ended up leaving here about 10 AM on Memorial Day. I still had the vertigo but, luckily, it did not bother me driving, even with whipping the head around to check the blind spot. Pretty much any other motion caused issues and it did not disappear until Thursday morning; well after the medicine had run out.

Spent the night in Joplin, MO which is about halfway and arrived in Killeen Tuesday evening. Found a decent coffee shop with wireless near Jeremy’s house so I had some connectivity while I was there.

Mostly my visit was pretty low-key but we did do a few things. [Photo set from the trip at Flickr.] We went to the new Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery, which sadly has plenty of room to grow. Did some shopping on post and otherwise. Saw the new Indiana Jones movie. Ate lots and lots of meat. Had a late lunch one day at Mission Taco where I also ate frequently when stationed there in 1996-1998. Eight tacos for $2! Not fancy tacos, mind you, but good quality ones. They simply cannot be beat!

We also went to Austin on Friday night-Saturday morning where Jeremy MCd at a party in a warehouse. There were 2 sides both playing loud music and laser light shows. It was an interesting experience and I think I’ll simply say that some Austin and surrounding area parents may have some parenting issues. Not that the kids weren’t well behaved mind you, but I also hope they didn’t leave the house dressed that way. I’ll leave it to you to see what I’m talking about by looking at the photos if you want.

I headed out at 2:40 PM Saturday afternoon and drove through the night to arrive home shortly after 7 AM Sunday morning. I wanted to surprise someone and I also knew I was taking Monday off of work to recover.

Jeremy heads out for his 2nd tour in Iraq next Tuesday tomorrow. As I said before, we’ve been very lucky that this is only his 2nd tour since his 1st was with the initial invasion. Nonetheless, that fact does nothing to relieve the horror I feel as a parent. So on behalf of all the parents, spouses, and children of all those who have been or will be deployed I want to say, “Thank you, America. We love you, too!”

I will probably have more to say on this topic tomorrow. And I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t like it. But. If you have no loved ones of your own who have deployed for this war then your opinion—which I support your right to have, with my life if need be—is not welcome here.

Girlfriend

Why did I drive straight through? What was my rush to get home? For the first time in a very long time someone—other than a boss or coworkers—was waiting for me.

Several weeks ago an amazing woman metaphorically knocked me upside the head. Seeing how clueless I was about these matters she almost had to physically knock me upside the head. No matter what happens I will always be grateful that she did.

I was divorced over 9 years ago and haven’t had a single date since. But having another chance for the possibility of a healthy, long-term relationship was one of my biggest hopes and dreams in life. Many issues involved in such were also my biggest terrors in life. Could I successfully love someone the way I wanted? Could I make it last? Had I learned anything from the ups and downs and ultimate failure of my marriage? Had it been so long since learning those lessons that I had completely forgotten them?

This incredible woman has simply dissolved all of those stark fears of mine. They just do not exist anymore. We have no idea where this is heading or for how long, but I am trying my best to keep my head about me, to enjoy every moment, to pay attention (and several women friends deserve better thank yous than I can ever express for allowing me to practice this skill with them—Miss Mo, Emily, Jacqui, and, yes, even Victoria).

Why are things so much easier than I expected? I really have no idea. I’d like to think that the effort I put into paying attention to a very few special women paid off. But mostly I think that perhaps I’ve just grown up. Mary and I were so very young and we never really got a chance to know each other. We had no idea how to talk to each other about important issues and when health issues arose and her doctor refused to discuss them with me that only made things worse.

My lady and I seem to be talking just fine; she makes me so comfortable. I have discussed things with her (even before we were actually a couple) that I have only discussed portions of with a very, very small number of people, or with no one else, ever.

I’ll kiss you on the brain in the shadow of the train
I’ll kiss you all starry eyed my body swingin’ from side to side
I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else…but you
Here is the church and here is the steeple
We sure are cute for two ugly people
I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else…but you

The Moldy Peaches : Anyone Else But You : Juno soundtrack

Blogging and blog spam

Based on a comment I tossed out recently, a friend wrote to ask me to not stop blogging. It is true that I am bored with much of what I’ve done recently and I see no solution or change any time soon. But that is something different from intending to stop. I may just slow down, which is what I seem to have already done. I recently renewed my domains for 2 years and while having my own domains doesn’t necessarily mean blogging I do not do much else with the space and have no present plans to do anything else with it.

As for last the 2 past week’s “Some things read …” post, I haven’t actually read much. I am reading the book which I will be writing a review of but do not think it appropriate to write about it here first. Otherwise, as Ani says, “I got distracted.”

There have been things that I really wanted to comment on here in the recent past but thanks to my bliss I haven’t bothered. Several news items really pushed me over the edge but a bit of grumbling to friends at hand saw me through.

For instance, the recent scientific report claiming that obese people are to blame for global warming and pretty much all of society’s ills is so far past offensive that I was practically apoplectic. I easily eat more calories per day than pretty much any obese person I’ve ever met and my son eats 2-3x as many calories as me. Easily. So clearly, all of society’s ills are our fault. Leave the fat people out of it. Seriously though, that report was missing so many contributing factors as to not even begin to qualify as science. There was another but I’m blanking on it at the moment. Again, I got a little worked up and then just let it go.

Blog spam has really increased lately. I used to go through every spam comment—at least a quick scan—but have pretty much stopped the last few weeks due to the amount flooding in. Thankfully Akismet is catching everything but I want to apologize if you have made a comment that never appeared. If you have never commented before I am hoping it makes it to the moderation phase. Otherwise, previous commenter or not, if you include too many links—not a high number, truth be told—then it probably got caught by the spam filter. Since my commenters rarely include more than one or two links I am taking it on faith that all caught spam really is spam. I hope I’m right.

Re the title of this post, as usual, Dorothea Salo is spot on. See her post on Context. This is my living room and that is what you get here. Sometimes I speak professionally, sometimes not. Sometimes I speak about professional issues, often not. And the respective clauses of those sentences do not necessarily go together either. Welcome to my living room. If you don’t like what I say in my own house I am sure you can find the door. No hard feelings and thanks for visiting.

Professional issues and frustrations

I was going to include some professional issues and frustrations here but decided to leave them for another post. Maybe it’ll be soon. Maybe not.

Happy Father’s Day

I want to wish all fathers a happy Father’s Day, but particularly any whose child is deployed/deploying. May it be a day of whatever peace you may find.

I’m wondering if anyone out there between central IL and central TX might be willing to put me up overnight on Memorial Day or perhaps the next weekend for the return?

As I think I’ve mentioned, I am going down to Fort Hood/Killeen, TX next week to see my son before he leaves for his 2nd tour in Iraq. It’s about a 14-15-hour trip if I remember correctly. I have folks and friends in St. Louis but that’s only 2-2.5 hours away and while useful doesn’t do much to break up the trip. And my long-distance driving skills and desires are not what they used to be.

My normal trip is to pick up I-44 in St. Louis and take it to Oklahoma City where I pick up I-35 for most of the rest of the way. I am willing to detour though as long as it isn’t way out of the way. I can route through Arkansas and Memphis I imagine, too, if needed.

Anywhere along I-44 in SW MO to Oklahoma City or just south would be perfect.

I’m really a much nicer person in person than I am here and I can provide references if needed.

I would act like a typical grown-up and get a hotel somewhere but things are getting tight. $500 to get the car tuned up today, I’m now working only for simple hourly wages, and since I’m not taking any more classes loans will come out of deferment soon. I’m happy to wash the dishes or take out the trash or something for a quiet piece of the floor to sleep on and perhaps some home-cookin’.

Can anybody help me out?

I went to Falls Church, Virginia to visit family and friends 20 – 29 December. I got home yesterday evening. Drove to Bloomington (1 hour) and flew through Detroit to Dulles and back again.

Going out of Bloomington vs. Champaign is about $150 cheaper round trip and parking is free, which is a substantial savings. BMI now has free public wireless! Yay! Champaign did already for UIUC folks since it’s owned and run by the University, but I read recently that they opened it up to all of the public. Bravo! Now if only the larger airports could get on board.

I was overjoyed to have wireless in BMI on the way out since my flight hadn’t arrived and I got an update from Orbitz before the airline (Northwest) even mentioned it. It seems our airplane couldn’t see well enough to land and got diverted to Champaign to refuel before coming back to Bloomington. Other planes were landing and taking off, though. We left Bloomington after my flight to DC from Detroit had left; many others on our flight missed their flights.

I used the wireless to get several more updates from Oribtz and found a phone # for NWA. They had me re-booked already on a later flight out of Detroit so
I got to DC a couple hours later.

Coming home, our plane in Detroit had maintenance issues and we finally got another plane scheduled for about 3 hours later. Not too bad, but it’d sure be nice if the airline had paid for wireless. I think free public wireless should be at all airports, for many reasons. But until wiser minds see reason and understand service it’d at least be nice of your airline would provide it once you have a delay. Oh well. Travel; it could’ve been much worse.

I had a wonderful visit with my mom, sister, brother-in-law, niece, son, daughter; and friends, Miss E, and Christina Pikas and her husband, Mark. Thanks all.

Saw several movies. Ate assorted cuisine, including Vietnamese with Christina and Mark. Also had great Chinese with E. Played games. Talked. Went to the Natural History Museum and Botanic Gardens. Helped figure out the audio wiring in a new house. Helped with the cooking, sometimes. Ate lots of tasty food.

I fear Christina’s Mark had to suffer through a goodly amount of librariana/grad school talk. Sorry, dude.

No idea what the mail state is since it’s been held since the 20th. Perhaps it’ll get delivered tomorrow; I believe that’s what I asked for. Online holding of your mail is easy, btw.

I have to say that I’m already feeling overwhelmed. So much to do. Bottom line, I put off a major decision until after this visit. Now, I’m back and facing a massive deadline on the 11th of Jan. I was ordered to leave it be until after my visit, so I did. If this does not go well then it’ll be decision time. I have only discussed this with an extremely small number of people; can only think of 2 at the moment and I did not bring it up on my trip. While I love and trust everyone I saw on my trip, I wasn’t ready to discuss this. Don’t really have the words to explain it anyway.

I did 4 loads of laundry this morning, which is a large number for me. Went to the grocery store. Trying to do final updates to several posts; publishing one. Need to reply to a couple serious comments. Changed the header images on a single post and the main Archives page with some slices of a couple photos I took at the United States Botanic Garden. Published another post [Sorry if I'm overloading you, Christina.]

Photos of Christmas presents (known, to date; see mail comment above). Red penciled the current state of my bibliography. Read some. Watched 3 episodes of the Simpsons Season 2.

I know this is fragmented and brief. So much more could be said about many things.

I relaxed while on vacation, while I did not end on a relaxed and rested note, since I was tired most of the time on my visit. I might ought to broach a serious topic with some other folks, but I have to focus on moving forward towards the 11th first. If I reach that OK then other issues may melt away.

I really did enjoy spending time with everyone I saw. I sure wish my niece had been less sick, though.

Perhaps I’ll write more about this year ending and the new one beginning tomorrow. Perhaps not.

This has been a very light week due to my visiting relatives and friends in the Washington, DC area.

Toolan, Michael J. 1996. Total Speech: An Integrational Linguistic Approach to Language. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press.

• Finish Ch. 1: On Inscribed or Literal Meaning (21-25 Dec)
• Ch. 2: Metaphor (26 – 29 Dec)
• Ch. 3: Intentionality and Coming into Language (29 Dec)
• Half of Ch. 4: Further Principles of Integrational Linguistics, or, On Not Losing Sight of the Language User (29 Dec)

Saturday, 29 Dec 2007

Diaz, Aaron. Enough is Enough: A Thinking Ape’s Critique of Trans-Simianism. Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that such a post-simian future is possible or even probable. Is it really a world we should want to strive for, where our very ape nature is stripped away in the name of efficiency? Technologies such as the bow and arrow already desimianize the act of hunting. While our ancestors were able to experience the pure ape feeling of clubbing an animal to death with a rock, we are left with the cold, sterilized bow that kills cleanly and quickly from a safe distance. This separation from basic daily activities is a slippery slope. What would happen if we no longer had to gather fruits and nuts, and they simply grew wherever we wanted them, or had drinking water flow right to our feet instead of wandering in search of streams for days? These seeming conveniences would rob us of what it means to be an ape.

Sent to me by Jodi Schneider.

Barreca, Gina. The Other Woman’s Holidays. Chronicle‘s Brainstorm.

Found at journey of a kitten by barbara ‘kitten’ trumpinski-roberts. See also Circulating Zen.