Author: John
Wasted Effort
The Chappell Family Website was created circa. 2002. The domain was set up to utilize what was at the time a new Google feature that’s now called Workspaces. Everybody in the family was assigned their own “@chappells.us” account which they could log into for email (on the Gmail platform) and other features, as well as logins to this blog so they could post and share information, stories, pictures, and whatever with the family. I was interested in what the others were doing, for one thing, and also thought it would help to bond familial relationships which were, at the time, strained in certain respects. This was before the advent of Facebook. As time went by, the website’s creator was essentially the only contributor or visitor. When Facebook came along family members hopped onto it with their own pages. The Chappell Family Website creator briefly considered creating a family Facebook page to complement the family website, but the notion was easily dispatched as having no more potential for interest than the website.
One of these days I’ll be gone. Within a year after that happens the website’s hosting account will expire for want of anybody interested in renewing it, the domain registration will likewise expire, and the Chappell Family Website will be history. I suppose it may be preserved to some extent on the Internet Wayback Machine, should anybody ever care to look for it. So, one might ask, has it been a wasted effort? Nah. I’ll save it on a CD or something before I die and give it to the kids, along with the old-fashioned family photo albums. Then I’ll die and it will all be of no further interest to me. Maybe it was never anything more than a personal project of interest only to me. If so, I found the effort, and the product of it, to be personally very satisfying. Especially gratifying have been those occasions when “distant” relatives found the website and contacted me, especially since they nearly all reached out from the United Kingdom, whence my grandfather emigrated to the USA in 1895. He kept virtually all knowledge of his British roots and family to himself and, with the exception of a few letters, photos and clippings that I found more than 50 years after his death, took it to the grave with him.
As I find myself approaching the end of life, I take a kind of comfort in having learned what I could about the family and its history, and in having attempted to preserve and share it on this website, however futile the effort may have been. It occurs to me that the way the internet, technology, and AI (Artificial Intelligence) are developing, anything that has been on the web will, unless humanity destroys itself, remain there and probably become more accessible, rather than less. Descendants of my grandfather’s ancestors who might be curious about such things may well find find this website in the Internet Archives and enjoy, as much as I have, learning about the Chappell Family. I do regret, though, that I never visited England, never hiked about Hillesley, never met any of the U.K. relatives in person, never shared tea with anyone there. Well, who knows? Perhaps the next time ’round.
Signs of the Apocalypse
(1) First there was the election on Tuesday. Or, perhaps I should say, the attempted election. Because nobody got elected and, two days later, still nobody is elected. In itself that wouldn’t be especially significant. What’s scary is that each side has shown little to no respect for the proportion of the electorate represented by the other side, both showing unprecedented motivation to get out and vote according to their conscience. One side still refers to the other as thieves, one side still refers to the other as rubes. They may use different words, but the attitude and, more importantly, the lack of respect, for the other side has not changed despite each side’s showing of the intensity and importance of their beliefs and philosophies. In particular, half the country, most of the media, and all of those schooled in “fine arts” and it’s lesser school, “entertainment”, appears set to persist in treating the other half as misguided misogynistic racist red-necked un-enlightened un-sophisticated rubes. A small percentage may fit that description, the vast majority do not but are, rather, driven by perhaps old-fashioned but nevertheless fundamental and legitimate principles of conscience and morality. Their candidate may have been an unfortunate champion, but their principles are due equal respect to those espoused by the other side. Until such respect is manifested, on both sides, the Apocalypse can be seen poised on the horizon.
(2) Second, when we woke up this morning there was no electricity. They got it restored in about three hours. Not a major inconvenience. It happens two or three times a year.
(3) This afternoon the water stopped without warning. After calling the city and negotiating through the automated switchboard, we were informed there had been a water main break in the neighborhood. This was a relief, inasmuch as it didn’t fall upon us to call a plumber for repairs at our expense. But the anticipated restoration will be near bedtime tonight. So, all activities requiring water in the home will be on hold for several hours. Not a major inconvenience, except maybe with respect to toilets. In contrast to loss of electricity, loss of water hasn’t happened in years. In fact, we can’t remember it ever happening before.
None of the above by itself would necessarily signal calamity, except maybe #1 though I tended to be mostly entertained by the situation despite the survival of the country being at stake. I figure we all lose whichever way it goes. But, to then suffer loss of both electricity and water the same day, I think the coincidence of signs makes it quite evident. The Apocalypse is more than poised, it is nigh.
Vaccine Time
February 24, 2021
Life, News
Comments Off on Vaccine Time
John
We got our first Covid Vaccine shots today. We’ll do it again in three weeks, assuming they have enough vaccine then. I saw lines like this on TV, in Kansas City and Los Angeles. I told Becky I’ve gone more than a year without catching the virus, so why do I need a vaccine now? This got me a look that left no doubt we would be getting shots together. It looked like the whole city of Lawrence was there. They didn’t even hand out treats afterward, just a card good for another shot. We got the Pfizer version. The weather dropped a good ten degrees while we were waiting. Was nearly 70 degrees yesterday; I came home from office early and washed Becky’s car. Finished yesterday by watching KU lose another game. Did mine the day before. Now it’s back to winter. Now is also time for supper. Grabbed some yummy barbecue on the way home from shots. Signing off!
UPDATE Thursday, March 11, 2021: It’s been three weeks since Shot #1 and there’s no word about Shot #2. I checked the “system” and was assured our information was duly entered and our names and eligibility are duly registered. I heard on the radio this evening that the 2-shot doses come in pairs from the manufacturer. Officials were upset about people who didn’t show up for their second shot appointment, because their vaccine, having been thawed and made ready for them, had to be trashed, which was a waste. If the report was correct, our second shots have been sitting in a freezer just waiting to be thawed and injected into our arms. I suspect this report was not accurate. Maybe it’s accurate somewhere, or sometime. The supposed “everything there is to know about Covid-19 and vaccines” website doesn’t say anything about it. So, we’ll bide our time. I just don’t want to end up having to get three shots because they didn’t administer the second shot in time; or to end up being told that although everybody said the second shot was supposed to be administered within a certain time after the first shot it doesn’t really matter how much time goes by after the first shot. But I’m hearing about more and more people who’ve had both shots already. I’m becoming less dismissive of the radicals who insist that the whole pandemic thing has been a feint to mask a nefarious agenda, whatever it is. Well, it got Biden elected, got my livelihood trashed, made the border a sieve again, and made big tech companies a lot richer while small businesses went under. Meanwhile, censorship has become not only more and more acceptable, but deemed necessary to our national well being and development of our “wokeness”.
UPDATE Friday, March 12, 2021: That’s how it’s done! Post something critical and stir things up. This afternoon I got an email that I should sign up for a big vaccination #2 event on March 19. I immediately logged on and was advised, “Sorry, this event is full.” This was a mere 10 minutes after the email was sent. Not to be deterred, I kept trying. Since I was at the office I called Becky at home to tell her she should try to get online to make her appointment. Half an hour later they let me in, and I made my appointment, but Becky called to advise she was being rejected for some sort of imponderable technical reason. I tried to fill in a form for her, but at the end was informed she was already processed and I couldn’t submit a duplicate. Becky still couldn’t get in. I started to load up and shut down to go home and assist her there, when she called again to advise she now had an appointment. Well, okay. I decided that the system must have had us connected somehow, so that by logging myself in she was locked out; but one or the other of us had got her appointment made. Turned out they’d sent us both the same ID number; although our appointment QR codes are slightly different. Our appointments are 20 minutes apart. Well, we’re still going together in one car, and they’ll just have to deal with it.
UPDATE Saturday, March 20, 2021: First of all, HAPPY SPRING! We got our second Covid Vaccine shots yesterday. We didn’t have to spend as much time in the car on this occasion. They had things moving along better, and the line didn’t stretch all the way out of the fairgrounds and down Harper to 23rd Street. We got our shots around 10:30. By 5:00 I knew I wasn’t going to weather this shot as well as the previous. Today, I feel like I was recently run over by an 18-wheeler, and Becky has a fever of 101+. I seem to have avoided the fever, at least. Watching the KU game in NCAA tournament. Close one. If the ‘Hawks can pull off a win maybe we’ll feel better.