The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Blanket Two
I just finished the second blanket for Project Linus. For my “records”:
Caron Soft Yarn – Lt. Country Blue, Country Blue, Dk Country Blue
(My mother says it reminded her of the Dallas Cowboys.) Project Linus makes a point that they always need blankets for older kids, so this was pretty large. They also ask for neutral colors, which I decided just means No Pink. Oh, darn.
I decided to work in strips, so that each piece would be portable until I put it together at the end. I used a much smaller hook than I normally do, and while it worked fine for the yarn, it took forever and snagged more often than made me happy. I don’t think I will do that again.
Twelve strips crocheted together, and then I did two finishing rows around each end. Being all careful not to make rounded corners, because my mother doesn’t like that (rolls eyes).
This took me from just before Christmas until right now. That’s too long, I think.
The big, painful thing that I learned is that it doesn’t matter what the label says, the skeins are not the same. I ended up having to add rows to each piece (meaning all but one) at the end to make them come out even.
However, I also learned that I can make stuff up and it turns out ok. Even when I only know how to do one stitch. And I am nearly through my second audio book, too.
Using the Library
So I was just saying that as much as I support my local library, I don’t use it effectively. (Read as: I really have to buy my books.) However, I checked out some stuff today that reminded me there are several reasons why I appreciate it:
- Research. And not just the Reference Library kind. The “check out 10 books on the subject” kind – for work and school.
- Travel books. There is no reason under God to spend $22.99 on Frommer’s Hawaii 2011
. Unless you are moving there. Maybe.
- Children’s section. I can’t tell you what a kick Alex gets out of having his own library card and borrowing his own books. And kids outgrow books as quickly as everything else. I know because I just bought him two Scooby Doo books at two different reading levels because I don’t know where he is. I think I will tell him, “One for Daddy to read to you and one for you to read to Ainslie!”
- Audio books. Because listening to books is awesome, but they are way too expensive for my habits. You can’t find Books on CD for a dollar. And the library has so, so many. I stopped at two.
Of course, now I have to lug this bag back to my car.
BTT: Heavy
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=leartojugg-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0071474072&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrThis week’s Booking Through Thursday Question was:
What’s the largest, thickest, heaviest book you ever read? Was it because you had to? For pleasure? For school?
It seems like it is the one I am currently using to study for an exam: The Complete Guide to Executive Compensation. That is a mother of a book. And not even really interesting. But it is still a text book, and I am not sure that should count.
I have read War and Peace, which seems to be the Gold Standard of Big Long Novels. And The Winds of War, which I have lately seen sold in two volumes. For crying out loud. And The Thorn Birds was a big, fat epic. And The Brothers Karamazov last year (OMG). Oh! And The Cancer Ward was quite the tome. That was Solzhenitsyn. Those I read for fun.
I’ve said that I like to read a good epic every summer. But I think I may be avoiding the Russians this year.
Audio Books
It occurred to me that since I started getting serious about contributing to Project Linus, I haven’t been reading enough. (Yeah, yeah. Define “enough”.) I watched a season of Mad Men. I am a good way through that French History course on Academic Earth. But the reading has been slow.
Then I was watching Diggnation and Kevin Rose said that he had signed up for audible.com, a company that sells audio books that you can download. There is a monthly fee – $14.99, I think – and you can download one book per month. Well, you know I don’t pay $15.00 for my books these days. But a seed was planted in my little head.
So I was in Half Price Books and decided to check out the audio book section. OMG, are they expensive. $20.00 for a used copy. Expensive, and I am kinda squeamish about putting strange disks into my computer. Then I was in Barnes and Noble. I forget what I touched first, but it was $60.00.
$60.00 for a set of CDs of someone reading to you! $14.99 a month sounds rather less crazy.
I remembered that I had gift cards left from Christmas, so I found two on sale at BN and The Zahir was a new-in-plastic copy at Half Price Books. So that is the experiment.
The Zahir, by Paolo Coelho
I was home sick today, so it was a good thing I had just bought an audio book. More on that later.
Paolo Coelho is the author of The Alchemist
But it is really a spiritual/philosophical tale. What is the nature of love and what does it mean to be alive and what makes us happy or unhappy. There were several interesting points and theories, which is not to say that I bought them all. For example:
All unhappiness is created when the people we love don’t love us back (or enough, or in the right way).
Well, right now I am unhappy because I am sick. And there are people far more sick than I am in this world. Which reminds me that other people are starving and living in war zones and blahblahblah.
I have obviously missed the larger spiritual point.
There was a moment when the narrator remembers his wife saying that the words, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” are killing her. Apparently he said that regularly when they got into it over something. That struck a nerve.
According to Wikipedia, Zahir means, “the obvious”, but the narrator describes it more as a Presence. That which filled his life in a thousand ways, but was a sort of elephant in the room once she was gone.
Coehlo likes his symbolism, and you knida just have to follow him. And there was less of a climax and more of a fading out toward the end. But that might have just been me.
Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
My colleague, Dave, introduced this book to our department last month and my boss thought we should all read it. That might make you groan, but I am just the sort of nerd that would appreciate the idea. Switch is a change management book for people that don’t have a lot of budget or authority. The theme, borrowed from The Happiness Hypothesis, is the image of a Rider and an Elephant. The Elephant is the emotional side, that can power your forward, or positively refuse. The Rider is the rational side. Think, analyze, direct, etc. If there is a conflict, the Elephant wins. You get the idea.
Heath and Heath write in anecdotes, which is a good thing, because I don’t care how good your analogy theme is – the subject has been done. They have put together stories, similar to Freakonomics or Blink, that illustrate their points about engaging both our rational and emotional sides and then managing our environments.
My favorite point was early in the book – Find the Bright Spots. The idea is that when people analyze situations, we tend to focus on what the problems are. Instead, we might try focusing on what is right and try to replicate it. The story was about a guy who had no funds and six months to attack malnutrition in Vietnam. He looked at families in one village, found the most nourished kids, and figured out what their parents were doing differently. They were all simple things that most families could do themselves.
Another chapter was on concise instructions. The idea was that people are more likely to do what you want if you tell them, in detail, what that is.
Of course, I like a good story. But there are also enough studies and statistics here to make the numbers people happy. All in all, pretty good for an Office Pick.
Touring
Weekend Assignment # 354: Tour Guide
Do friends or relatives from out of town ever visit you? If so, do you take them sightseeing? Where?
Extra Credit: What is the most interesting place you ever went sightseeing while visiting someone else?
Well, you can’t really call this “sightseeing”, but it tells you something about my family:
A a couple of summers ago, my Aunt Jacquelyn and Uncle Mike got in their RV with their youngest son, Matthew, and drove across the country. This was my aunt and uncle’s third trip, but Matthew hadn’t done it before. They chose their routes and destinations by a book based on the Food Network show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.
Aunt Jacquelyn called us one day, out of the clear blue sky, to say that a restaurant in Glenview, Hackney’s, was on the list. They wanted to try the famous blue cheese burger.
Hackney’s is an institution in Glenview. And the burgers are great. But to come to Chicago just to eat at that restaurant in Glenview? And anyway, I’m not sure I appreciate it being referred to as a “Diner” or a “Dive”. But there it was.
So at the appointed hour, they parked their RV at the forest preserve across the street and we had Hackneyburgers. Some involving blue cheese. And the famous onion rings. We caught up for a bit, and then they got back in the RV and headed north to some other landmark eatery. And the Jelly Belly Factory.
Putt’s Pet Portraits
My mom’s friend Miss Gayle is a semi-professional artist specializing in pets. She just launched a website
so I thought I would give her a Shout Out. This is the piece she did several years ago of my Late Great Dog Dallas:
It is particularly precious to me because Dallas died far too young and I don’t have many pictures of her at all. It is painted on a wooden plaque from a digital picture that my mother, Kay, took and e-mailed to her.
Side Note: Kay wants you to know that you will not find this work featured on the web site because it was Miss Gayle’s First Commissioned Portrait. Christmas of 2004, I believe it was. As though I should put it in a vault to sell when she hits the Big Time.
As if I would ever sell a portrait of my dog!
I think the better point there is that if you think this is good, you know that six years later her work is even better. Now if only Kiwi the Grey would sit still for five seconds…
BTT: Periodically
The Booking through Thursday question was:
“What magazines/journals do you read?”
These days, I get my dose of celebrity gossip rags at the allergist’s office. I subscribe only to Vanity Fair, and it has been three years since I didn’t have a back pile of issues to read. There are at least four right now. I imagine it is because I spend so much time online.
Wow. That was more stuff than I thought.
For Anyone Griping about Recruiters
This is the pile of applications I received for a recent job post. No wait – this was only the “No” pile:
You might think I am evil, because I will size up a résumé in ten seconds or less. You may think I am short-sighted, or insensitive or generally stupid. But I am telling you, it is an HR survival skill. In this pile, I was amazed by those that:
- Did not come close to fulfilling the minimum requirements.
- Did not follow the application instructions.
- Did not include a cover letter.
The Next Dark Age 