our very own wizard…fixed it on his way to church. Poof! We have a page again.
We had a little glitch this morning, but Chuck…
by CJ | Nov 4, 2018 | Journal | 35 comments
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Thank goodness!Though I did wonder if that was your kitchen behind those potted plants.
Wonderful! I was starting to get nervous it was me!
At first the page was totally blank, and I feared my phone was objecting to your security level and therefor refusing to show your page at all. A few hours later the page had two nice new pictures, but the html in the left sidebar that should call up the links to the posts was between square brackets, instead of the greater than & smaller than triangular signs. I thought that was probably making it be shown as text instead of being executed as instructions, but I didn’t think of Rasean’s good idea of putting a response on a Projects page. I’m glad Chuck resolved it!
I’ve been wondering how you two have been doing, healthwise and familywise?
Did you take Jane out for a nice birthday steak? I wanted to congratulate her but as nobody mentioned it I thought perhaps I’d mistaken the day. Or were you both too busy with book writing and revisions, and basement windows, and getting the garden and the pond ready for winter, and getting the cats to settle down and get acquainted? I can understand that writing on the blog needs to take the back seat to all the more important stuff going on in your lives 🙂
I have an off-topic question for the potters who visit here.
Yesterday, our staff association – is that the right name for a voluntary organisation of employees of the same employer? That one can join if one wants for a small monthly fee (supplemented by the employer to promote a sense of friendship within the organisation), that organises fun stuff to do together that has nothing to do with work, like a monthly cardgame competition, a yearly long weekend trip to visit some European city, a trip to a musical or special concert, an evening of making Christmas decorations, and each year some new creative activity as well; one can choose which activities one wants to join, for a much reduced price.
Well, yesterday they had organised a trip to a pottery workshop, where we all got to make 2 small pots/bowls/vases on a wheel, and try our hands at one handthrown bowl/dish. We each got to select our two best objects to be fired and glazed, and in a few weeks time the potter will deliver them all to our employee lunchroom (with their little name labels) so all our colleagues can admire them (and probably laugh at them too), and we can pick them up and take them home.
I had great fun with making my first little pot; though it’s not a useful shape for me, the potter lady said to leave it be before I ruined it as it was a nice and regular cylindrical shape, and just try again for another object. The second was a better bowl, but I ruined it by trying to cut off the top to make it straight. Luckily there was enough time at the wheel for a third try, which turned into a good porridge bowl.
All my tries at making something by hand looked awfully uneven and lumpy, not much better than a firstgrader’s efforts for mothers day – most people’s wheel pots were a lot better than their handmade efforts, if you valued neatness, smoothness and symmetry. Trying to build up a pot by winding clay sausages for the sides kept turning into a floppy lopsided plate when I rubbed the sausages together into supposed-to-be smooth sides, so it was a good thing the teacher had made me keep my first little cylindrical pot-shaped pot. I tried to decorate it (very lightly and carefully) with a stamp of a feather repeated around the outside – the clay was too wet to press firmly, so it’s a very shallow surface print, and I wonder how that will turn out.
Now after all this stage-setting we finally come to my question. The potter is going to dip all our work in transparent shiny glaze, so the pots we get to take home will be a pale biscuit colour. As I much prefer blue or green, could I glaze over the transparent glaze with another colour, after I get my pots home?
If you have access to a kiln and glaze, you could reglaze your pots, but most times when you do that, it’s suggested you do it with a lower firing glaze so as not to change the structural integrity of what you have; if you are using a metallic overglaze, for example, usually it’s put on after the initial glazing and fired to a lower temperature. Could you ask the potter if they have a bit of unused blue or green they could use on your pot? Do you know what cone they are firing the clay to?
If you didn’t have more than a couple of hours for the workshop, it’s not surprising your handbuilt clay items turned out rather droopy. Usually if you are trying to build up a dish by pinching or coiling, potters let the clay rest for a few hours between bouts, either in a form to support it or on its own, to allow some of the moisture to leave. This stiffens the clay some, so you can continue to work with it carefully and your original shape doesn’t collapse.
When I first started my throwing efforts, the instructor had us make a series of cylinders with some surface textures so we could use them for glaze experiments. He referred to mine as ‘nuclear cooling towers’; they pinched in in the middle and had some finger grooves around the top to show how the glazes might break in thin and thicker layers.
Thanks for your advice.
I like Tommie’s idea that the glaze might help distinguish the feathers, even without added colour.
The potter lady said she usually brushes on any colour glaze she uses, it’s just the transparent shine that she can dip the pots in quickly. As she had 28 of us (in three groups, as she had 5 wheels set up and could alternate with half the group at the worktable for hand claying, so we all had an hour at each), that means she has to fire, glaze and refire 56 pots just for us in the coming weeks. She explained that she didn’t have time to glaze them all in colour, and so we all get the same transparent glaze.
I think that might indicate, together with your explanation, that the transparent shiny finish may be a final finishing touch sort of glaze, not fired at a very high heat. That would save her some heating costs and some cooling time too, on so many pots.
In that case, adding a colour glaze later that might need a higher temperature to set (if I could find someone with access to a kiln), would probably not be a good idea.
I’ll just have to be content with however they work out, unless I can find paint for ceramics that can be applied in an ordinary home oven – I remember using that once or twice as a young teen. It’s not as strong as true ceramic glaze, but if I wash my porridge bowl by hand it might work, at least on the outside, if I really don’t like the natural colour.
It is probable your potter is firing your work as she woud regularly fire with a sturdy useable glaze, you might want to ask. You might be able to glaze over the clear but its a pain in the neck at best requiring another kiln firing. Its impossible to be sure without knowing more about her process and materials. The oven cured paint options are NOT safe for surfaces you will use for food, so I would make sure to include that in your plans. Sounds like you had fun! ☺
Jane and I are doing very well. I finally got in to see her sports medicine therapist, and after one session, I spent a day without pain for the first time in 5 years. Guy is great.
Meanwhile, we are letting Tanner come upstairs while our guys are inside, and there has been air karate and mighty yowling, but no contact—we rush to stop it, and so far so good.
Wish I could answer your glaze question, Hanneke, but to my knowledge, once the transparent glaze goes on that may be it.
And, let’s see, what else? We are now redoing the basement, so the house is STILL a mess, because the basement was storage. Now it won’t be, much. But we are making progress getting rid of stuff.
Hi CJ, I’m very glad to hear Jane’s therapist did good work, I hope the improvement lasts. Can you go back to him or her regularly, until it sticks?
I made a physiotherapy appointment three weeks ago, when my right hand and arm and shoulder had been stiff and sore for a few weeks. Meanwhile I’d been very good about mousing lefthanded, not playing the GW2 computer game in the evenings, and even getting Dragon software to turn spoken language into text – that works better than I had expected, so I’m only shutting my laptop down once a week to stretch out my five free logins until next month, when I’ll be better able to pay for it (this month the car needed work unexpectedly).
All the precautions helped, and by this week the arm was hardly sore at all, so I thought it might not need much. But the therapist pushed and prodded and moved my arms and neck etc., and showed me that the right shoulder and neck and upper back are still very tight and limiting my movements. Over the years, I’d gotten so used to the limitations I’d stopped noticing them and learned to compensate for them. Now I’ve got exercises to start to loosen the neck and upper back vertebrae – once those gain some room to move we can start to work on the stuck shoulder, and maybe I can one day stand relaxed upright but not stooped-shouldered again.
And to think I almost thought to cancel the appointment, as my arm didn’t really need it anymore!
I just want to say, even with things that have grown so gradually that you hardly notice it, sometimes it’s still worthwhile to put in the work and the time and money for appointments, and you can still get structural relief from that.
I really really really do not want to get one of those painful “widow’s hump” spine deformations like a great-aunt had, when I get old and get osteoporosis!
Does Tanner still spend part of the time belowstairs, when you don’t have time to supervise? Does he yowl less on the basement steps, now he knows what – and who – awaits him upstairs?
The glaze will tend to gather in the pressed design, giving the feathers on your pencil holder a rather stronger color than the rest of the pot. You might try overpainting with a transparent, colored nail polish to get the effect you want, but a second coat of glaze and the re-firing afterwards might not be a good idea.
Something I didn’t miss…I was offline for several days. And now I have a new computer.
I saw the same blog hiccup that Hanneke did, only on a Mac desktop. I knew it had to be a glitch in upgrading, and I’m sure glad it’s fixed! (Or repealed and due to be fixed.)
That pottery sounds very fun. The try at a pot I did in 7th grade art class was overworked and the clay started out too dry, so it was a mess, lumpy, uneven, strange. My mom kept it for sentimental reasons, not for any artistic merit I could see. I didn’t know what to think of it. I was almost proud of it, despite how it looked, but wanted it to look better. (We never got a class for me, though my mom thought of doing it too and didn’t end up getting a kiln.) The strange little shallow bowl survived many years, but didn’t survive a move, and I was disappointed when it didn’t. It was not perfect or all the pretty, though it was (haha) unique and visually…puzzling, unusual, and I’d made it, and my mom had liked it anyway. I was sorry to see it arrive broken in its wrapping and box. Either rough moving or temperature changes must have gotten to its weaker structural points.
So I’d have fun sometime trying pottery like Hanneke and her co-workers did. I admire other people’s pottery.
I was down with a bug the last half of the week, over by the end of Wednesday, but lingering fatigue since. — I think a too-hot-and-spicy store-bought meal combined with super-high stress and fatigue and slammed me. I don’t think it was more than that. — I did a little each day, but not nearly what I thought I’d get done, and I’ve been worn out each day/night. I think I’ll be fine. But nearly everything from my kitchen is in unsealed boxes because I still need to use things daily, until it’s time to seal things up to move them around, or for fumigation to happen. — Hoping it’s resolved before Thanksgiving, but I’m expecting it’ll be just me and the two cats, so no biggie if it’s not perfect.
Goober is now officially 12, as of Halloween, when I got him. He was around 6 to 8 weeks when I got him. Smokey will be 8 at the end of the year. — Halloween night, I almost ended up with a temporary kitten. There are strays around the apt. complex, and this little guy/girl was in the cold rain outside meowing for mama. He or she was dubious and wary about me, and didn’t appear from wherever he/she was hiding, despite a few tries standing in the cold rain around midnight, hah. I haven’t heard the kitten since. I wouldn’t have tried to keep a third; I would’ve had to find a home for the kitten, but it would’ve worked temporarily. So I’ll keep an ear out for him/her. — I think we’ve only gotten below 50 once or twice so far, so we’re OK on that. It’s going to be in the 80’s againn this week. In November. It should be anywhere from the low 70’s on down to the 30’s or 40’s, depending on the weather, for our winters. No idea if this bread a record here. But we could be close to it. Tommie is probably getting about the same thing where she is, the next state over.
I had an appt. with a lady for a cleaning service to get a quote, and a friend had referred two others to me so I could compare quotes. The two others didn’t call me, and the lady skipped the appt., but I will call her after the election to get another appointment.
Inkjet cartridges arrived, so tomorrow, I should be able to update my address on my ID. My voting precinct may have changed, but I should still be registered. Hoping I can get a cab or friends for a ride to vote.
The whole kitchen has had a first pass for cleaning, and so I have the rest to do and a second pass on what I did first. I’m counting this as winning a battle, haha. Still catching with laundry, but now all of it is current, no thanks to the dryer vent still needing clean-out. So things are ongoing but improving slowly.
I’m going to rest tonight too; watch a movie or TV episodes — or read. Leaning toward reading. (And I’m still not used to Doctor Who coming on Sundays, haha, so I don’t get the ep downloaded until Mondays.) — So probably readingtonght.
Oh! I discovered C.J.’s The Dreaming Tree is newly available in audiobooks from audible.com. Looking forward to listening.
BCS: local politicians, Get-Out-The-Vote campaigns, etc. likely are picking people up and delivering them to the voting sites. You might try calling the campaign office of a politician you like (esp. one with a major challenger) and see if they will pick you up and take you to the polls.
It has been cool here, in the 50-60’s and down to near freezing at night. Chili weather!
I guess I’m going to have to issue a pamphlet called “The Foreigner Shawls” — to “Malguri Morning” add “Najidama Bay” in a colorway called “Ocean,” no less.
https://theowlunderground.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/keeping-tabs-on-tabs/
It’s a garter stitch body with a knit-as-you-go ruffle around the edge, kind of like surf on a long flat beach. Still not happy with that point, but don’t have time to work on it now. I’ve been gestating a long rectangular one in my head with a leaf pattern (!) that I want to name “Tirnamardi”, but I have a question about the famous lilies, C.J. Are the more like calla lilies or Easter lilies, or lily of the valley?
I’ve always seen them as looking rather like the Madonna lilies that grew in one special field in the forest high in the Swiss mountains, where we used to go for our holidays. Except those all have 6 petals – would Atevi abhor that, or see the center they are ranged around as making seven?
WOL, I really like the edging along your new ocean greenblue shawl. I’m still not progressing beyond legwarmers in my own knitting, finishing a few pairs each winter to replace old worn-out ones. I use a few different stitching patterns, but only easy ones, preferably with some stretch to them.
None of the stitches in Najidama Bay shawl are very complicated at all, just knit 2 together, slip-slip knit, and yarn over/forward
@WOL, slip-slip knit means slide two stitches from the old needle onto the new needle without stitching, then knit the third stitch?
I won’t have time to knit a whole shawl anytime soon, but I still like to learn the terminology, just in case 😀. At the speed I’ve been knitting, just 4 or 8 rows on my legwarmers each Wednesday, I’ll need all my knitting time to replace my old legwarmers when they wear out. They add a lot of comfort in winter (I wear them over my socks under my trousers), and are quite impossible to find for sale anywhere.
I’ve got two lovely shawls, a warm synthetic one knitted by my mom, and a dainty silk one knitted by a colleague, and those don’t wear out – so making more shawls doesn’t have the same urgency.
Sadly, all mom’s lovely knitted white shawls (including one that I knit myself, a long time ago) are real wool and hamper my breathing and make me itch, even through the fabric of my blouse, so I can’t use those.
Ahh, welcome back! I was getting a white-only page, now we’re back on track.
If it were white-on-white, it would be very stshoshi. 😉
I’ve met pages that were either white-on-white or charcoal on black. I don’t know why the colors, but they were definitely hard to read. (My technique is to use the mouse to select a screenful of text, read it, then scroll down as needed and repeat until done.)
My inkjet printer and I have had a parting of the ways. It is now disconnected and about to go to the dumpster, along with the ink cartridges that do not fit, despite saying they are the right model. (Old printer, but those are supposed to be the cartridges, I checked.)
So — Amazon had a fancy new HP Color LaserJet Pro. I could’ve bought another inkjet to drink ink like candy (hmm, really something wrong with that simile) and I could’ve gotten a black / monochrome laser printer, and the toner and inkjet cartridges might work out cheaper. Or I could get the color laser printer and maybe not waste cartridges.
The printer is not pricey. Heck, I remember when both laser and inkjet printers cost more, esp. laser. I’m astonished how affordable that a color laser printer is now. There are regular or high-yield cartridges (4, one for each color), that are pricey (the cost of a new printer), or there are third-party cartridges for a more sane price. I noted the printer comes with an “introductory” printer cartridge, so I bought the first set of (4) 3rd-party cartridges.
Now we’ll see whether it goes to the apt. mgmt. office or to my door like it’s supposed to. It’s due (whoa) Wednesday, or at least this week. Spoil me, why don’t you?
So — I didn’t want the expense, but right now, I can afford it, and I am frelling tired of buying ink cartridges and fooling around replacing them in a printer that loves to jam and loves to try to reset in the middle of replacing said cartridges. So — bye-bye, wretched old printer. I will not be sorry to see it go. — I am very glad I can afford this, but, well, dang, that’s about $600 I could’ve used on something else. Nuts. The savings in wasted time and aggravation and wasted ink may be worth it, though. So, I’ve done the deed and I’m not too sorry. Grr.
Tomorrow, if all goes well, I will be marching off to vote with my ID still as-is, awaiting change (has to have an oh-official printout) and a bill showing proof of residence, and hope for the best. I did vote in the last presidential election and I’ve been registered since 18. (Be it noted, I was outvoted by the Electoral College. I didn’t vote for the current guy; I voted for another lady. Was shocked the current not-gentleman won. No, I won’t go further into politics, because, ugh, the situation is like sewer muck and a dumpster fire combined into one right now.) — There is a contender for a congressional seat who I hope will replace the incumbent, who needs replacing badly, IMHO.
So, well, new printer, I hope you are all I could want in a printer. — The thing offered to do everything but cuddle in bed and, ah, other “fully functional” types of things. I would have been dubious, let’s say. Haha.
A few years back, I went in to get new ink cartridges for the printer I had at the time (an HP – and the color cartridges would dry up in 6 months). I found a Canon multifunction printer that was cheaper on sale than the HP cartridges. So I bought the Canon printer and took the old one to an electronics recycling place. I’ve been much happier with it.
I had the same problem. My HP remains as a pure scanner. I got a pure color printer from Brother–no extras. (I’ve had pretty good luck with an old Brother multifunction monochrome fax, and I am through-for-life with those gods-rotted ink cartridges that dry out and probably HP.)
A friend who’s a purchasing manager claims you should never buy an ink or toner cartridge–just get a new printer. I’m not sure he’s right if you just need black, but he’s certainly close.
Uhmmmm; it’s not candy, it’s brandy. I can see where the confusion comes in, though.
I have seldom been so glad to get rid of any computer electronics / printer. Oh, there was some great joy in heaving it into the dumpster. — My apt. complex does no recycling. Every day, they generate more unsorted trash than I ever did in a year, and I was so proud of how I set things in the big recycling bin for the house.
Moved things around to have a sturdy base for the new printer. Went through a couple of boxes and threw nearly everything out, and cleaned the stovetop again. Progress.
Also ran across a copy (not the one I had as a kid, it’s still somewhere) of The Iron Cage by Andre Norton, and want to reread it.
I am now up to current laundry. There is some chance I may catch up entirely this week. Dryer vent still to fix, or I would’ve been finished in 1/4 the time.
Friends are supposed to pick me up tomorrow a.m. to vote. Yay.
Yay! I voted! — With my old ID and with proof of residence at the new address. At least where I live, this meant either I would’ve had to go downtown and fill out a form and have proof there, then (presumably) get to vote, or else, the route they agreed on, was to go from the new polling location (one district) to the old district location (different than where I used to vote, it changes periodically), then sign a form to prove residence, then vote. So this was doable, just took a bit extra to accomplish.
For the first time, I asked for a proctor to assist me in reading the ballot and checking boxes. Aha! This made a big difference with the new, very dim lighting, and the change in my vision. So glad I asked for this. Previously, despite asking for a chair, this has meant standing bent halfway over from the waist, hard on your back and knees and legs, because they couldn’t think to get the silly chair. (Plenty of chairs, it’s typically at a public school.) — So having someone read helped a great deal. To ensure fairness, they have one person from each of the two major parties along, and they both read, so one or the other reads and the other confirms, they alternate, and so on. This, yes, means reading each race and potentially each candidate / opponents, my choice, and down through the list. This is more time-consuming than you might think, the delay between reading aloud for each race. (In my case, I typically vote straight-party, then override for specific races, or choose in races if a candidate from that party is not available.) A few of those this time, though I didn’t override for the other major party this time. Then after voting for candidates, there are the usual few propositions and amendments and so on, to read through and decide upon, with sometimes-tricky or tedious language to read through. These were actually simple this time, not many, and all local (city or county; where I live, city and county are more and more synonymous). One was needed despite the cost; another, why is this even a thing? The third, I was neither here nor there about.
In other words, it was typical, except for having someone assist me with the ballot, reading. — One change: Now, they look up registrations on a computer tablet instead of a cumbersome, large printout of 11×17 ledger paper, like always before. Progress, maybe. (I am still not thrilled by the setup for tablet voting, but it remains what it’s been, with software and security updates, since being put in many election cycles ago.)
All in all, hurray, not bad at all. I must have lucked into the right time, because there was only a small line. Understand that for my city, it is not uncommon to wait in line for hours to vote. — When my parents were working, they typically waited until after work to vote that evening, and when I was a kid, the location had been my old elementary school. It later changed to various places.
I’m very relieved and now awaiting my printer tomorrow. Also awaiting cleaning quotes this week, sigh. But, progress.
Oh — from what was said, even if I’d had my temporary ID, rather than the permanent ID, I still would have had to go through this, back to the old district. My state issues a temporary ID card when/if you change your address (etc.), and you keep it plus your old permanent ID until the new one arrives. That is a separate process from voter registration cards. So, my new voter registration card should be due whenever they get one of those round-to-its. (Anywhere up to four to six weeks, apparently.)
The last time I’d updated my ID (driver’s license), it took less time than I’d expected to arrive, but it was still a few weeks with the temporary ID on a very typical change.
Note: one of the gentlemen proctoring the voting got himself very tangled up in courtesy over what is, to me, a non-issue. He was trying to be polite. Now, I will say that other handicapped folks might get upset, but most, like me, would not see it as any problem at all. It’s only a fact of everyday life we deal with, like anyone.
So, the man asked for my driver’s license, then thought he’d made a faux pas that would upset me, by calling it a driver’s license, and he didn’t know what the ID might otherwise be called. Now this man was a “regular guy,” with some level of education and professional experience, and possibly a teacher or school administrator, clergy, or businessman in his daily life. So being polite and well-spoken was normal and expected, to him.
He got flustered over calling it a driver’s license, and didn’t want to annoy me. In what is, to me, nothing, just an everyday term I’ve lived with since I first got an ID in high school, at 18. — It is technically a state identification card, but it is also your driver’s license. Everybody, me included, calls it a driver’s license. The poor man thought I might be bothered by the use of the term, since I can’t drive. Haha, I felt bad for him. He was trying to be nice, over such a small point. So I tried to explain this, and he was still a bit flustered. I guess he’s not used to dealing with legally blind folks, or he’s had someone get highly offended over some little something before. My impression, the guy is a nice, decent guy, a regular guy, someone I’d be happy to deal with in business or as a friend, social contest, whatever. Understand, I was born this way, though my vision has changed and I’m still not used to the new level. So therefore, I grew up with this. It is not news to me that I can’t drive, haha. It’s a pain in the posterior, absolutely. And sure, some things can get me aggravated or feel down or what have you. But I’m again, used to that too. It goes with the territory. (It is possible for kids or adults alike to be intentionally or unintentionally cruel. It is also possible for them to be so-so, or to be friendly, helpful, curious, sometimes overly curious or overcompensating.)
So…well, I hope the poor guy will take it easy next time and not get so flustered. — I look at it as sort of humorous but also typical, and a learning opportunity.
And…well, I can still be a well-mannered and functional adult, out in the world with other people living a normal life. My vision has changed just enough that I’ve been nervous about how well I’m doing. Today showed me areas where I’m not doing well, and other areas where I’m doing just fine still and needn’t have worried over how I’d do. It was reassuring to know my old skills are still there like always. I can be in polite company and function just fine. I just need a little help with navigation, a guide, more than I used to, because yikes, that’s not nearly so good as I used to function. (And I realized too, whether a person has any training or idea how to do this makes a difference, as does my feedback to them. I need to adjust my feedback some. I have always tended to be too stubbornly proud and give mixed signals about that. Time for me to quit that and do better, so anyone helping has a better idea from me what I can and cannot see and do for myself, in terms of mobility, navigation, orientation, things most people take for granted. (There’s a step up/down coming up in two paces, or right in front of you; turn left/right here, handrail, see that door? and so on. — And one that got me today that I would never have expected it to: “See that woman in black, sitting over there?” (In the dimmer light now typical of public buildings, stores, etc.) Oh…uh, no? Hmm, wow, did not expect _not_ to be able to see a lady in black sitting over there at that distance. Yikes again. (A very ordinary woman, black pants suit, black lady, doing her job checking voters’ ID’s for registrations. Helpful, but who then had two people telling her differing things on what to do with me, due to my eyesight and my address change. A woman trying to be patient and friendly and courteous. She did fine, too, but I didn’t envy her that minute.) — And I was surprised to have trouble seeing her across a room in what is, for me, less than half light these days. I think if public buildings were still lit brightly like they used to be, I would’ve identified her fine, as “woman in a black pants suit across the room,” and yes, as “a black lady, typical citizen, clerk, neighbor, etc.”
So, all in all, the outing was informative. I now know better how I am doing, objectively, and got done what I wanted and needed.
Other stuff today before I can relax, and a busy week. — I realized, the past three weeks have been the most like I was truly back in a business environment or a typical daily living personal life, in a long time. Busy, scheduled, active, making progress in a hurry. This is good. I’ve missed it, and I didn’t know I’d gotten too used to a slower pace. I could do with a slightly happy medium, but this is good now, getting stuff done. It tells me I need to step up my game.
I had a funny personal realization this morning. The new friends are in their mid-30’s, and I’d thought hey were slightly older than they are. Cool. But the realization was — They are the same age, almost, as the twin boys a family friend had the year I graduated high school. So those twins are now in their mid-30’s. I knew that intellectually. I didn’t know it in my gut, in my memories, where they are still 10 when I last saw them in person, and around 16 to 18 when I last saw and talked to their mom. I haven’t heard from her since between the time my mom died and my dad died; we lost touch then somehow, me grieving and not in contact, I think. So even though I’ve known, each birthday, they were getting into their 30’s, this morning, it really got me on that instinctual level, hey, your new friends are the same age, almost, as the twins. Those twins are now older than I was when my parents died. (And I’ve lived over a third of my life now without my parents, and nearly 7 years now, in a couple of weeks, since my grandmother died.)
I have, a couple of times, tried to find contact numbers for the twins or their parents. I may look again. I don’t know if we could reestablish a friendship, but it might be worth a shot. — I have no idea of how they turned out. I expect they’re fine, typical, out in whatever career they chose after college. One may have gone into the navy or another branch, if he was accepted into one of the academies. The other, I don’t know. I can’t remember their middle names, so I only have first and last names and their parents’ names to go by. But they might still be in town.
I have thought of trying to look up a few other old friends or their kids, now grown. But they have names so common that without anything further, I don’t know how I’d find them. (I looked once for another friend from high school, very common name. Literrally thousands of results. The last I knew, in our 20’s, he was still in town, and appeared in an overnight local TV ad for a store, speaking good Spanish.)
So — Back to work. — Oh, and today, I got to wear real clothes, not grubby work clothes, but real, go out and meet people like a regular person! clothes. (Translation: business casual, chino pants and button-down shirt, casual shoes.) It feels so good I don’t want to change. I’ve got two appointments, so no cleanup work today. I get a legit reason for a break. I feel like I’m playing hooky or on holiday. Haha.
Just discovered I didn’t reset my watches when time changed Sunday. I changed my clocks and my computer and phone updated automatically. wow, now I’ve gotta change my watches. Duh. Good thing I didn’t fool myself!
Great that you voted, BCS; I hope you all in the US manage(d) to do so today, and not just for the top spots. A new attorney general who doesn’t believe in debtor’s prisons, or a school board which doesn’t push for Creationism in schoolbooks can be just as important in local lives.
Off topic, just for BCS: I just encountered this tweet thread about “advanced Dutch”, or rather, the funny short double words used to expess a lot of different sentiments… https://mobile.twitter.com/Lyangelo/status/1057287771369492481
I thought you might get a laugh out of that – most of the answers I saw were quite true as well. Dutch is (apparently; though not obvious to me as I’m used to it) very prolific in the use of these inherently not very meaningful short words which still set the tone very effectively.
One of the answers explained it like this:
This is actually a special case of a very hard to master Dutch feature called modal adverbs which are adverbs which don’t actually have a concrete meaning but rather express the attitude of the speaker on the observed fact.
English has some of them like “just” in “That just isn’t true.” but Dutch has a lot of them, where often omitting them makes the sentence sound rude or weird and their meaning is often very hard to explain like “Je bent geen kind” literally means “you’re not a child” but:
“Je bent toch geen kind.” -> implies the speaker is surprised by your childish behaviour and reminds you that you’re an adult
“Je bent nou eenmaal geen kind.” -> implies the speaker states a fact and is not wiling to further debate it; it’s just true and you have to accept it
“Je bent geen kind toch?” -> implies the speaker is not entirely certain of the stated fact
“Je bent geen kind toch.” [without rising intonation] -> implies the speaker is surprised that the listener is not aware of the stated fact
“Je bent geen kind hoor.” -> implies the speaker is mildly annoyed at your childish behaviour
“Je bent echt geen kind.” -> implies the speaker is observing right now evidence of the stated fact
And there are like a tonne more; German has a similar list; English has way less.
One caveat: The president and Vice President, and all senators and congressional representatives are voted into and out of office by the people (citizens), and the electoral college intervenes in choosing the pres. and v.p. But Supreme Court justices and many people in the executive branch, such as the cabinet (also the atty. genl.) are appointed by the president and vetted by congress for approval.
So we have to wait for the attorney general to be replaced, for example, rather than to vote him out directly. Likewise for the secretary of education. — But yes, it’s those very problems, prejudice and ignorance of science, sometimes willfully so, that are dangerous. (A great many other issues at present, too many to get into without risking sidetracking the discussion or upsetting everyone.) — I don’t always vote in midterm elections. I think I’ve promised myself to change that. — I seriously hope this election and the next presidential election will improve things. In the past two years, I have seen things I never wanted to see in my country, and towards other countries. I heard things like that when my parents talked about WWII and the McCarthy era. (My parents were young pre-teens and teens in WWII, over here in the USA. But they knew the news.) — Phooey, I don’t want to get started on it. — Hanneke, I agree on what you said.
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About Dutch: I keep waiting until late in the evening, instead of setting aside time for language learning. Yet I want and need to review my Spanish and learn more, to refresh my French, and to pick up more for other languages I’ve grown curious about. Because I love that, as well as for the practical need to be able to talk to people in Spanish, for instance. I’ve decided I’ve got to make the time, because it is not getting done fast enough this way.
Those differences in how wording changes the meaning so much, structure and intonation and all the subtle, wonderful things about language, that’s great stuff. It’s what makes languages so interesting; that, and how they relate to each other, how an American and a British viewpoint differ a little, a Dutch viewpoint differs a little more, Spanish and French, more again — and yet there are ways they overlap or agree, as much as disagree or simply see things from a slightly different angle.
It still fascinates me how one language sees the world in one way, a cousin language sees it in a slightly other way, and an unrelated language sees it in a third way. They all have some things they see almost the same. They all have areas where they see things differently, sometimes very differently, sometimes only subtly.)
How that shapes our thoughts, how our thoughts shape our language, that back and forth, how it all changes over time, that’s really something.
And yes, folks, please go vote while the polls are still open. Whatever your opinion on how things should be; your vote is your chance to have a direct say in who is elected and what they do, and your chance to vote them out if you don’t like it, or vote to keep them in if you do. Volunteering is also good. People are talking a lot about the issues. People are voting. Great! But beyond that talk is actually volunteering or hiring on to do the work that’s needed, to solve those problems that need fixing. The present crisis has helped me see more of a need for grass-roots efforts to solve problems, and what can go wrong if elected officials don’t work enough to solve things, or go about the wrong solutions to the wrong problems.
In the US, if you have not already voted, for heaven’s sake, please do so! Even on the East Coast, you still have a couple of hours to hit the polls.
Yes, please—everyone in the US who is able and eligible to vote, please do so!
Delighted that you were able to vote, BCS, although sorry that you had to do so much traveling to accomplish it. I’m proudly wearing my “I voted” sticker right now, having gone to the polls (an elementary school relatively near us) before I went off to the dentist’s this morning. The poll volunteers greeted us warmly (they know us well at this point: we are consistent voters, even for the tiny, town elections) but we were pleased to see that 7 of the 12 or so polling booths were occupied and they said it had been pretty busy. Sometimes we’re the only ones for quite a while.
Interesting that the voting rolls are on tablets for you, BCS— they are still the big, green & white computer printouts here in Malden, Massachusetts, which they tick off by hand.
I served as an election judge in my small town in the Shenandoah Valley yesterday. It was a very long day, up at 4 am to prep the polling site at 5 to open at 6. Polls closed at 7 pm and we were mostly done by 8:30 when we were released. I got home and almost immediately collapsed into bed.
I ran one of our two polling books (computers with the listing of registered voters) for about half the time that we were open, so I saw about a quarter of our 2000 voters (we probably set a record for a mid-term election in my town with over 50% turnout). Virginia requires a photo ID (from a reasonably long list of possibilities) and I saw 3 passports, two high-school IDs and all the rest were drivers’ licenses or the non-driving state equivalent. So I’m not at all sure that all the furor over voter ID requirements is really justified. That said, we’re not a major city with ready access to public transportation and a driver’s license is pretty much a requirement to get around, but there are plenty of poor people in my town and all those that I saw had valid IDs.
I was impressed by Virginia’s voting system security. We used paper ballots that were tallied by a computer that lacked all Internet access, so impossible to hack without physical access to the machine. It produces a paper record of the vote totals and the actual ballots are stored in a vault in sealed containers if a recount is needed. Similarly the poll book computers are offline so the registered voter rolls can’t be altered during the election.
Many thanks for everyone who did go out and vote.
And thank you, Sturmvogel, for putting in the long, hard hours to ensure that people have the opportunity and protected “facilities” to vote!!! Very glad to hear your ballots are so protected from hacking. We too have paper ballots that each voter slides into a sealed ballot box after filling out the sheet(s; our ballot was 3 long pages this time around, with several referendum questions in addition to the candidates).
I would love to volunteer to staff at our town’s polling station, but have been put off by the fact that you have to volunteer for the full day or nothing (plus a training half-day) and I need to work at least part of the time. Some day I will do it, though.
The changeover to electronic voting here was, hmm, sometime prior to Pres. Obama’s first term, if I recall. The changeover to tablets instead of the paper printouts for voter roll registration lookups was new; for the 2016 election, it was still by hand / printout. I don’t know if it’s state-wide or just within the city metro area or county. (My city is the vast majority of the county by population, and these days, almost by land area, but not yet truly synonymous.)
After all the brouhaha, it looks like we had so much voter interest that the two parties ended up almost tying, for several positions, or a flip in some despite high turnout from both major parties. — One candidate won handily in another state, and I hope she will kick butt and take names. 😀 But she is brand-new, inexperienced, so we’ll see how she does. — In my state, Ted Cruz still got 51% of the vote to Beto O’Rourke with 48%, with a tiny percentage to other, 3rd-party candidates. So it was close to a tie, but not enough to declare a tie and a runoff election. Beto O’Rourke did something extraordinary in visiting all (254, I think) counties in Texas, in neighborhoods that are often overlooked and under-represented. Early, it looked like he was going to win by a good margin. He did this like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, without corporate donations, and with a lot of hard work. — I’m disappointed he didn’t win, but after some thought, it leaves him open for 2020 and beyond, to run for another position. Oh, I hope he’ll do something. Ted Cruz got 6 more years.
I would love to see a finer breakdown of percentages for voting by Texas counties, as to how close it was for Cruz and O’Rourke. The win/lose tally shows Mr. Cruz won nearly every county except those along the Rio Grande border, where Mr. O’Rourke was solid. But that doesn’t show a finer grain of detail on how close it was between them. That is, how much support was there for both candidates or for the third-party candidates? I think that would give a much fuller picture of what chance Mr. O’Rourke would have and how divided the state is between Republicans (Cruz) and Democrats (O’Rourke) and whatever third-party candidates there were (Libertarians, Green Party, etc.). I never saw/heard anything for those third-party candidates, but didn’t research it. I did hear both Cruz and O’Rourke. Given the early voting results were high for Beto O’Rourke, it might tell a lot to see a more careful map. — Voter turnout was higher, and my state and local demographics are changing toward a younger and more racially / ethnically diverse electorate, citizenry. My own city has always been very diverse as a major seaport and airport, but has become more so. Whites are somewhere around 48% to 51% still, with around 1 in every 8 people who are black, another 1 out of 8 are Hispanic, and the percentage of Asians is (IIRC) between 2% and 5% or so. Note that how Hispanics are counted has varied, and how multi-racial people are counted has varied even more. Recent changes have tried to account for the mosaic, but it makes reading the figures confusing. (For example, Wikipedia’s pages don’t give a very clear breakdown, even on the same page, much less between several pages.) But that is our future; the trend is towards a blending of this as more people don’t care about the racial / ethnic differences, and intermarry. That was a factor for the racists, xenophobes, and religiously prejudiced people to motivate them to vote too, unfortunately. So results tied on that as well. — I am still shocked and discouraged that racial and religious scare tactics worked so well, that there are so many Americans who still are so prejudiced, even when they may not realize they are.
But, on the whole, it means there was some real change in Congressional representatives and in state governors and other positions, and that may work (I hope) to breakup the log jam of hot air and not doing things, in Congress and elsewhere. And maybe it will have a positive effect on making the executive branch take more positive actions, instead of negative or doing little or nothing. (My opinion.)
So — Change can be good or change can be bad, but I think on the whole, we got some positive change, and possibly both sides will be happy with what they got. (OK, so maybe not so much.) — I am trying to look at it as, it wasn’t as much as I wanted, but OK, it’s a step in that direction, to build upon for 2020 and after. Rather than getting discouraged, I thin it means, hey, keep on keeping on, it’s not over yet.
I view the high turnout as very good. People have been talking about things, charged up about what they want done. That’s good. The divisiveness, the wide gap in sides, is not good, and still needs a lot of work, between sides that have little in common on some issues, diametrically opposed. — Why is it that, for so long now, both major parties want to demonize the other guys, so that any chance for seeking common ground to work together is ruined? (That trend is not just in political debate.) — But it still concerns me that we are so divided on opinions, and that is so volatile. It bothers me that some people are so hostile, or advocate violence or prejudice, as we’ve seen too much on the news. — I am very tired of the fear mongering and demonizing. That needs to stop. There has to be a path past the current administration. There also has to be a path past some of the unhelpful nonsense from both major parties, I think. It seems to me that the Republicans are getting more extreme and the Democrats are divided among an old guard who have gone more conservative (and big money) and a younger guard who are more progressive / liberal, to the point that there might be a shift or a split. (I had thought for the last three or four major elections, the Republicans might split. Now I see it as, they did by attrition, by extremism, and so now the split or shift is likely within the Democrats. And we haven’t seen any big upswing in any third party to replace either of the major two. So I guess we will find out as things go on, what will happen.)
Hah, I never liked my political science course in college. Too cynical. Too predictable. I was still more of an idealist / dreamer with too little real-world experience. I wish I’d gotten more out of the course and retained more in memory. — I loved the history courses, though. I didn’t care for trying to memorize dates or names, but what interested me were the trends, the changes, the stories, and how things could go in cycles or repeat patterns. So I got a good deal more out of my history courses and wish I’d had more, such as European, Classical and Medieval, or World History, or European history.
In my adult life and experience, I’ve found that even though I may not care for politics, it still has an effect, and it’s more necessary to pay attention or be knowledgeable than I had thought as a new young adult. I wish high school and college kids would get more of a practical and clear message that it is not some esoteric thing that has no effect on them, or that they cannot influence, but that local grass-roots efforts, volunteering, working at their jobs or within the community, working to put forth alternative solutions and solve problems, on that very real and practical level, has an effect; often far more than the remote speeches from the federal level. — And just as in this election, sure, I voted and I was outvoted by others, so one of the major candidates I wanted didn’t win this time. But he might win in another election down the line, and there was movement, change, a little, toward what I’d like to see. (Maybe. We’ll see how it goes.) — So I wish there were a way to get across to young folks that their vote counts and their support and their efforts do count. What they do at work counts. How they volunteer if they do, counts. — And this is something I have to remind myself of when I do get down about things and think my vote or my actions and opinions don’t matter. I am having to remind myself of that, some.
But the larger voter interest and turnout, particularly among younger voters and a more diverse cross-section of people, ethnic / racial, religious, economic, education level, etc. — That was very good. I hope they won’t be too discouraged and give up. — I do have to remind myself periodically not to get too down about things.
I’m glad so many people went and voted! More people getting involved is good for democracy.
We still use paper ballots, to provide a checkable and not easily falsifyable result. It takes more time to count, in front of any interested spectators.
But it avoids the kinds of mistakes I’m hearing about some of the Texas voting machines today, which if one chose to vote straight Democrat ticket and then clicked on Next to change some individuals, would automatically change Beto O’Rourke to Ted Cruz… Voters had to be really alert to check back before pressing Vote. It apparently depends on the kind of machine, and the exact sequence in which one pressed the buttons; but it was a known fault of those machines and neither corrected nor were voters warned to be aware of the possibility and check back before pressing Vote.
Or in one place I heard of, many people voted before the polling station officials figured out the machines weren’t plugged in and so not recording the votes. A paper ballot and red pencil avoids many problems and doubts later, even if handcounting is more work…
Oh and BCS, the elected AGs I referred to were the state attorneys general, who from what I read decide policy about whether poor people can be put in jail for months while awaiting trial for minor offences that normally would get one a fine (or two days in jail or so), because they can’t pay the standard bail, if judges set bail without taking the person’s financial circumstances into account. That’ll cost them their job and the roof over their head, which doesn’t improve their chances of paying whatever got them in court the first time… it starts a vicious circle that it’s very hard to get out of, if one has limited financial reserves in one’s support group (family or friends). I read a long piece about the difference one new AG was making, but I forgot where, and then I saw John Olivers piece about them, which is why I mentioned them specifically.
Yes — state attorneys general and local judges (or district, county, etc.) can vary what the bail amount is, or the jail time, considerably, and this can be steep and harsh for poor / working class folks and middle class, or it can be light. It seems to depend somewhat on the judge’s temperament, as well as ideology or a given person’s record, or perhaps perceived attitude. In other words, although the ideal is all right, the actual results can vary considerably, and can be sometimes still very harsh or not so fair for some people, or potentially for classes of people, such as poor working people, street people, or minorities, or people with minor offenses. I’ve seen some discussion, but not the article you mentioned. Our system has room in many places, judicial and legislative and executive, for improvement. Our American democracy isn’t perfect.
I like that other countries have voting choices like, “none of the above,” or rated priorities for first, second, third choice for a candidate, for instance. I could see that as being very useful when I know enough to make an informed choice, and at least a check-and-balance when I don’t know much (or anything) about some candidate and yet have to choose.