The Truth

After I posted the previous article I sent everybody an email (via the handy Chappell Message Center form) asking if people wanted an email notification when new articles are posted. Not everybody copied everybody with their replies, so I thought I’d share some of the feedback — generally the answer was “not really” — and post some thoughts for posterity.

It seems family visits to the blog are few and far between, which was kind of what I thought. Nevertheless, for the time being, I plan to keep writing these things and providing pictures from time to time. There’s probably some element of gratification publishing stuff knowing the whole world could read it if they wanted. But for me the truth about these blog entries is they substitute for what I used to do with pen, paper, an envelope and a stamp. Actually, they’re more like the self-addressed stamped postcards mom sent me if it had been a little too long since my last letter or phone call. I still have a half dozen of them in a desk drawer, that I didn’t get around to sending back to her in time.

The nice thing about posting a blog entry instead of sending a postcard or a letter or even an email is it’s non-intrusive, there’s no pressure to acknowledge it, answer it, or even read it. People feel obliged to open a letter or an email; and with email people often feel even more obligated to send back a reply. Blog entries, on the other hand, as was pointed out in some of the email replies (see? my point exactly) can be left for a rainy day when there’s nothing else pressing. I should point out, though, I generally lock out comments to a blog entry after a month or so. Otherwise, I’d be deleting 100 to 300 blog spams a week. More about that in a future article, when I’ll answer one person’s question about “ermine” on New Year’s Day.

So, these are my little postcards, where I mostly write the kind of stuff mom used to like to hear about. I guess it was something unique about her. Now that I think about it some more, I think maybe these are really for her. I just don’t know where to send the ones in my desk drawer. I sure miss you, mom.

Fall’s A-Comin’

We went out for a little walk today, and fall was definitely in the air. People were still mowing yards, washing cars, and doing summer stuff, but the air had that “better than summer” feel and smell. Not to knock summer smells, especially the smells of flowers, freshly cut grass, sizzling steaks on outdoor grills. I don’t mind knocking the “feel” of Kansas summer, though. But, that’s not really the reason for this article.

Becky got new glasses a couple weeks ago. Kim wondered how they looked and asked for a photo. So, it seemed like a good time to take a picture for her. I figured, long as I was photographing Becky, we’d have her get one of me. It’s rare I don’t look goofy in a photo, but she caught a rare moment. Hers came out good, too. So, I put ’em together.

Can be seen at my Flickr collection, (really the best view) or you can click the little pic here to see bigger pic. One of us is actually flipped 180 degrees (mirror image). Can you tell which?

Cool Stuff from Scout Report

Today’s Scout Report had some great items I thought I’d pass along:

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project.
“On this site you will have the opportunity to find out more about the cylinder format, listen to thousands of musical and spoken selections from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and discover a little-known era of recorded sound.” I listened to a couple. Way cool!

The Eubie Blake Collection. “While jazz pianists such as Earl Hines, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, and others may be more well-known today, Eubie Blake predates them all.” I haven’t explored it yet, but it’s gotta be good.

Dioramas: American Museum of Natural History. I mention this one mainly because of the following sentence: “After a long period of decline, there was a recrudescence in these seemingly simple and straightforward pedagogical tools.” Say what?

Uncle Tom’s Cabin & American Culture. On the sitemap, I was intrigued by the first category of materials, captioned “PreTexts”. I never thought of the word in that context, but, it’s obviously corrext! Amazingly, I’ve never read the book!

Blackbird: An Online Journal of Literature and the Arts. The sort of thing that would’ve been required reading for English class at Country Day School.

TEDTalks. “TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and this acronym is familiar to those in the know as an annual conference that brings together talented persons from each of these fields every year to Monterey, CA. The price of attending the conference is a bit steep, but never fear, as this site will give users access to some of these provocative and enlightening sessions presented at their various gatherings.” Yeah, well, it might be interesting.

JetPhoto Studio 3.2.1. Looks like it could be a very nice program for cataloging and organizing digital photographs. Besides a nice list of features, it meets my first criterion for judging programs: it’s free. :thumbup: