Friday Four

Friday, September 07, 2012

1. I'm on the mend. The baby got sick during the last couple of days of our recent house-hunting trip to St. Louis. By coincidence -- or so I thought -- I came down with a cold the next day. Whatever it was, it wasn't your average cold: I felt awful all day yesterday and ended up having to nap for part of the time my sitter was here. I had a fever last night, but it has broken. I'm not 100% yet, but feel much better and am counting my lucky stars that I avoided the trifecta of (1) travelling with a baby, (2) the baby being ill, and (3) being sick myself. I now think that I contracted whatever virus the baby had.

2. One day, I hope to make the trip to Old Blighty to see Arsenal play. Needless to say, an account, by another supporter who did the same, made me smile:

At the ground you follow the advice of the supporters club. Arrive at Arsenal tube stop and walk past Highbury, visit the shops and vendors, hit up the pub, buy a new kit at the armoury to commemorate the visit, check out all of the history around [Arsenal Stadium]. Ok, people are entering the ground, you're too excited to wait. You push against the people in front of you as if you are going to miss kick-off, which is in an hour. A steward gives you a look as if you are an annoyance, rather than just a rookie, inexperienced like the first time you bed a woman.
My wife's of Irish descent, and a trip to see her relatives in Ireland is inevitable. Perhaps, while we're so close, we'll make a side trip to England.

3. Some time ago, Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic posted a "family portrait" of the Mars rovers, Sojourner, Spirit, and Curiosity. Madrigal goes on to elaborate on the relative sizes of each. It is interesting that our first rover weighed only 23 pounds and traveled a total of 330 feet, while the current rover weighs a ton and is designed to last at least 23 Earth months.

4. Scott Berkun offers some interesting thoughts about different kinds of writing. Among them:
Some bloggers confuse publishing with keeping a diary. It's not the same. No matter how open a blogger is about what they will share, they will write about those things differently if they are writing for other people (blog) vs. writing just for themselves (diary). I've kept a diary for over 20 years. It's where I go to safely explore my own thoughts and feelings free from judgement by anyone else. If I wrote those entries knowing other eyes would see them I'd write differently, and lose some of my intimacy with myself.  While working at WordPress.com I was writing so much in so many different places, including keeping a separate journal with notes for the next book, that I didn't write in my diary often. I missed the power I got from just writing for myself.
It's tempting to call his blog post an "anti-blogging manifesto", but it isn't, any more than sprinting is "anti-marathoning". That said, writers who blog would do well to consider what he says in relation to how blogging fits in with their other writing.

-- CAV

8 comments:

Steve D said...

Resistance is... (Insert appropriate adjective with a possible adverb modifier here). Eventually you will become allergic to Missouri like the rest of us (no kidding; I had a doctor tell me that, once).
Several years ago when my son was about 18 months, I had gone over five years with nary a cold or flu or anything except a poor night’s sleep. I was getting pretty smug, in fact – feeling invincible you might say – I felt like a teenager, all over again. Then my wife found a job and my son went into day care. I spent the next 18 months as sick as a dog.
My preliminary conclusion: Day care makes you sick.
But it passed. I’m feeling much better now. And getting older just means you get sick less often (due to accumulated immunities to life’s little parasites.

Gus Van Horn said...

Houston, being subtropical, had all manner of spores and pollen that many people would become allergic to over time. That never affected me beyond occasional phlegmmy-ness during spring or fall.

But daycare? I know I won't catch everything, but I dread that if I have to use it.

Dismuke said...

So, with your upcoming move, have you decided yet whether you will be voting against Liawatha's (a.k.a. Fauxcahontas) bid for Scott Brown's seat - or whether you will hold your nose like you have never held your nose before and vote for the gaping primate running for Claire McCaskill's seat because it might just be the one needed to take the Senate majority away from the Dems and make it more possible to repeal Obamacare? Or, because of the timing, will you even have a choice between the two states?

Gus Van Horn said...

Good question. We're registered in Massachusetts and according to InfoPlease, we'd have to be registered in MO to vote there by the fourth Wednesday before the election.

Where we'll physically be by then is in some doubt as Mrs. Van Horn doesn't start her job in Missouri until December and I may or may not have a job there to start as early as September. Depending on Missouri's registration requirements, we could end up having to vote in MA regardless. Assuming we could meet their requirements (e.g., we just need proof that we have a place there, or something easy like that), we could well have a choice.

Anonymous said...

Dismuke wrote;

Liawatha's (a.k.a. Fauxcahontas)

LOL. Of course that does imply that her sexuality is somewhat ambiguous, yes? LOL again!

c andrew

Dismuke said...

Sorry, c andrew - but unfortunately, that kinda went over my head.

Liawatha and Fauxcahontas (nicknames which I think are cool but, unfortunately, cannot take credit for originating) refer to the assertions she has made for decades that she is 1/32 American Indian - a claim that has since been completely demolished.

As to her sexuality - not sure I get it. Does she come across in a Janet Reno sort of way? I am afraid I never watch television so the only impression I have of her demeanor and how she comes across is through brief YouTube clips posted on various blogs. Based on those, the impression I have of her is that she reminds me of a girl I knew in elementary school who was a somewhat annoying Miss Goodie Two Shoes type.

Anonymous said...

Dismuke,

Regarding the sexual ambiguity remark, I was referring to Hiawatha being male and Pocahontas as being female.

Thus in addition to her ethical and ethnic confusion we could add sexual confusion.

Bad joke on my part. But I'm used to that because, well, I can't help myself. I love puns. So any other form of humor is a step up from there.

c andrew

Dismuke said...

c andrew -

Oh, ok. Now I get it. I was trying to figure it out by focusing on the wannabe senator rather than Hiawatha being a male.

But we have to be careful when we say bad things about her. She might send her taxi cab driver over to beat us up.