morgan and byrne

Is the Internet endangered?

2008-10-05T12:55:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time since we blogged...well Its been a long time since I blogged. I apologize. I'll try and not let it happen again.
"Where have you been Morgie?" You might ask.
I have been down a rabbit hole that has no bottom. I have been traveling around the internet at the speed of light, I am Rocketman, and this is my story.
My journey starts out in Facebook.com, my newly adopted "home site." FB as I like to call it is a fast growing Social Networking site that was created by Mark Zuckerman from his dorm room at Harvard four years ago. It is simple to use but is quickly revolutionizing the way we use the net. Facebook.com uses associative links to create a fun and rewarding experience for users. Each Person's page offers associative links to comments, photos, groups, music and videos. Following these links can lead to a powerful feeling of discovery. The top two Social Networking Sites (SNS) in the United States are Facebook and Myspace
According to Time magazine article, Old Friends on Facebook, By Justin Fox . Facebook claims to be signing up 150,000 new members a day. MySpace says it's adding 250,000 members daily, but those don't all represent actual people (MySpace places no restrictions on how many identities one can assume), and there's a widespread belief--albeit one not yet backed up by much hard data--that Facebook is gaining ground. It's a belief shared by Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns MySpace. When an interviewer quipped in June that readers were abandoning newspapers for MySpace, Murdoch shot back, "I wish they were. They're all going to Facebook at the moment."
I started thinking about SNS and how they are different from the old static web sites. I know its not new...Web 2.0 has been around for along time. But what was web 2.0? Byrne has been talking about collaboration for months. Was that what web 2.0 is? I decided to start researching for my own understanding what 2.0 really means.

Web 2.0 means many things. Its not just one thing. The more I researched, the more rabbit holes I went down. I had started at Social networking soon I was looking at terms like folksonomy, participation, and convergence. According to Tim O' Reilly who coined the phrase Web 2.0, "Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."....Huh? An easier definition was Web 2.0 is a term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. I like that. So what I'm saying...

I guess the best way I have found to define web 2.0 is a word cloud with many of the 2.0 themes.

than I stumbled on this...

OurGirl: A Plucky Response

2008-09-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

my friend stew recently posted about growing up and playing by the rules of the game. this is a response post. i don't think i'm getting at what stew is talking about, this is just what i thought about when i read his post.
http://onstewsmind.blogspot.com/

i think my boy1, right now, may be plucky. he's in a football league where he's the youngest, smallest, and the lightest. he thinks all about protecting himself. i think about it all the time as well. use your black belt experience, i advise him. be quick and agile. then i cover my eyes. i also try to learn about the game from him. if there is anything a child—at least my child—diggs is to instruct an adult in something—anything.

growing up, i was in the athletic plucky category. i grew up in an anti-sport household. this proved to be a handicap in gym class. i really thought we were playing a game. but we were not. i approached a sport with a half heart about improving my game skills. i was just enjoying the game. i think i wasn't totally inept, but my lack of coordination and my goofy attitude towards the game kept me in the lower half of the picking order. which didn't bum me out—it was just a game.

then, one day the game changed.

my middle school gym teacher was a wildly popular teacher. she went by a her first name, not the usual ms. whoever, and all the girls were interested in being recognized by her in a familiar, pet-like way. so naturally, just floating along with my peers, i had the half-want of having this recognition, as well. but she had her own impression of me, so mostly i just smiled and tuned her out. i mean, it was gym. not a serious academic grade, so why bother? but as i said, the game changed.

it was time to pick teams for basketball. the gym teacher called out my name and another girl's name for captains for the teams. i grew uneasy. it didnt smell right. my unease was confirmed, because as i stood up, brushed down my gym shorts and stood next to the gym teacher, i heard her say to a pet girl in my class: "this should be good."

the other girl was asked to pick first. she played by the rules and picked the popular girl, who awarded her a smile. inside i was seething. teachers were not supposed to be mean. there was plenty of mean to go around. now she was adding to it.

i opted out.

i chose my best friend as my first pick—she was plucky, too, and i tend to be loyal. the other captain picked the next, popular, capable girl. as she did, the rebellion jelled in my mind: i would pick every girl that was always picked last. two vastly uneven, lopsided teams were being formed: the strong quick and popular girls headed by the most unpopular pick and my team: all of the pluckies of the class, with a dreamer, tuned out, turned-rebellious captain.

i remember standing there, miserable and angry at being used for sport. but the girls that were picked, for once, first—they were excited. they named the team using my last name in the name. why? i grumbled. why bother? i was so angry. my best friend said something about how i was captain and it should be part of the team name. i didn't respond graciously or act graciously. in a john hughes movie, my team—galvanized by being picked first—would rise up and kick the pants of that lousy, popular, capable team. in reality, we were spanked by the capable team. and spanked hard. we played and we played poorly. nothing changed as a result of my rebellion. i don't even know if the teacher had an inkling of my intent.

i know that really soured my perception of sports. later, in college, when i discovered fencing—and that i was somewhat more capable in fencing—i understood more about the importance of sports and the underlying principles and life strategies that the practice teaches you. but then again, it was a sport where you got to poke at people. i understood the value of that particular sport implicitly.

Morgan: Generation YouTube

2008-09-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity? Two weeks from everywhere!
- Brother where art thou."

This blog seems to have become a geographical oddity in that Byrne and I seem to have been slowing down. Which is understandable considering how busy we've been lately. She's waking up at 0430 and I'm going to bed then...just kidding. I don't ever want this to become a chore for either one of us. It should be Fun, Fun, Fun. And it still is.

With no encouragement from me, my son (Christopher) has begun to show an interest in something besides video games. His new found hobby is producing short videos, no doubt inspired by all the idiots on You Tube. Him and his friends have formed a production company Vertical Productions for the purpose of making films.

There first undertaking was a zombie film...Last of the Living Brian Hoeg was the director and editor, Christopher was assistant director on this film. Its about 4 minutes long, very suspenseful and well edited. I was impressed and Christopher seemed to have been bitten by the film bug.

He started researching filming techniques and even wrote a script. He found a video demonstrating the construction of a Track dolly Thats when he asked me for my help. I had been watching his interest and wanted to encourage him to continue...so we started a new project. The Track Dolly. The first thing I made him do was create a material list.

Material List
16 Skateboard wheels
32 Bearings
10 ft of 2" angled aluminium
8 - 4" 1/4 inch bolts
16- 2" 1/4 inch bolts
24-1/4 inch nuts
1 2'x4' piece of Plywood
10 ft of 1 inch PVC Pipe

We than went online and purchased 16 skateboard wheels ($40.00) from the SkateShed I should have just purchased the bearings there...but I overlooked that small fact. When the wheels arrived a few days later we decided to go to the Fairfax Surf Shop in search of bearings. It was a good choice as they had bearings...but not enough. We had to buy 3 different brands to get what we needed (32 bearings - $80.00) I made sure they threw in some cool stickers for free.

With all the materials purchased we began construction...oops. We had forgot to purchase the Angled Aluminum. I remember picking it up at Home Depot....hmmm, I checked the receipt. Damn! No Aluminum. We had to go back. $4.00 for gas. I borrowed a portable saw from next door neighbor Col Collins to cut the aluminum. Using my incredibly accurate graphics eye I calculated where to drill the holes.

Christopher said, "Dad shouldn't you use a tape measure?"
"Naaah." I replied, "I don't need one."

When I was assembling the wheels I realized the bolts were too long and I had to disassemble them all and cut about an inch off every bolt with our hack saw. Cutting 16 Bolts with a hack saw is no easy feat. I finished after two days of hacking. Felt like I was breaking out of jail!

Finally it was time for final construction. I couldn't find the 1/4 inch ratchet so I just hand tighten the nuts on to the frame and finally I attached the wheel frame combo to the plywood...sigh, time to take a break. This was a lot like work. I got to admit I was growing weary of the track dolly.

The next morning Christopher informed me that the Dolly was dragging on the track. What? My my wheels were placed to wide? My gestimate drilling was in error? I didn't want to take the track dolly apart...I thought, I would go back to Home Depot and get bigger PVC pipe. Finally I took the dolly apart again and redrilled the inside track, to much success. The dolly was ready for filming.

The next morning (Saturday) we drove the young Speilbergs (Brian Hoeg, Mike Flynn and Christopher Morgan) to the "filming set". They had a script, props, storyboards and the track dolly. I watched as they filmed their different scenes. Kept my eye out to make sure they didn't get run over as they were filming near a busy street. We got some weird looks, but overall everything went well. I haven't seen the movie...but Im sure it will turn out fine. I'm just glad the boy is doing something creative and not just sitting there playing Guitar Hero. I predict in the next five years, thousands of young film directors will be entering film school inspired by You Tube I wish them all good luck!

"Wall Doctor"

Here is another fun Vertical Production
Hey Video

And We'll Have Fun Fun Fun

2008-08-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

She loves to laugh
She loves to sing
She does everything
She loves to move
She loves to groove
She loves the lovin things
—Any Way You Want It by Journey

i run a hard and fast life. right now, that means up at 4:30am and back home at 9pm. that means my husband and i communicate with a phone call after work, a kiss with a plate of spaghetti before bed, and a groggy kiss buh-bye before i plug into my ipod for my morning commute.

but something different happened two days ago.

4:30 am and i blindly run my hands along the edge of the bed until i hit my husband's feet, and then its a matter of steps until my fingers hit his face, as always—but something is different. he's awake. and lucid.

so i sit down next to him and make some small chitchat thinking one, two, and i'm on to the workout. but he's being funny. and charming. at 4:30am, people. and after a couple of minutes, i realize—i don't want to work out. i want to talk to my husband. so i shrug, kick my overstuffed workout bag across the room and curl up next to my husband. and we talk.

about the progression of colour changes in kitchen appliances as we grew up.

ok, first of all, we were talking about growing up in the 1970s and i brought up the colour changes of that era: first there was goldenrod. then avocado (AVOCADO! my husband laughed. we had a green stove! that was avocado?) then came harvest, which was a pumpkin orange. while my husband spent part of his misspent youth as an artist, he could only take so much talk about '70s colour palettes.

so then we discussed weird cooking gadgets. like a counter top pizza cooker
or the really odd hot dog cooker someone gave us for christmas. it involved impaling your hot dogs on these electric prongs, which then cooked the hot dog from the inside out. it was also in the shape of a dachsund, this cooker—which just made it all the more slapstick. then it turned out that as a kid, my husband had made a hot dog cooker under the same premise for a school project—only with a wood board, and two nails that were wired up with a stripped down cut off lamp cord. weeeeee! we were roaring with laughter. then we discussed the salad shooter
what a concept! the physical improbability of being able to shoot out a beautiful salad from very different ingredients had us laughing. and then the jingo! salad shooTER! we tried to think of other really simple, two word jingos. we could only come up with: byyyyy MENNEN! which made us roar again. the conversation lasted about an hour. then i finally drug myself out of bed and into the shower.

i glowed for the rest of the day. i even hummed.

i had forgotten how much fun my husband and i can have.
even at 4:30am.

Morgan: Summer Heat

2008-07-20T11:59:00.001-07:00

I love the heat of Summer...feeling the hot sun on my head, sweat dripping off my brow. For the past couple weeks I have been playing basketball after work. The blacktop outside tower four radiates the heat like a frying pan. Almost to hot to be outside. But the lure of basketball overcomes the heat and pretty soon I'm drenched with sweat. My knees have been taking a pounding, and it has become extremely painful to jump or run. I recently started wearing a knee wrap which gives me a lot of support. I absolutely love playing there. Its never crowded, someone always wants to play, so we get a three on three game going, until someone has to leave. I'm not the best shooter, but that doesn't matter, I just love to get out there and play.

I had to mow the lawn today...It was the same sun, burning me like an ant under a magnifying glass. Thank god I don't have a big lawn. The novelty of mowing my own lawn wore off years ago and now it truly is a chore to get out there and do my duty every week. I used to bag the grass clippings, now I don't worry about that anymore. Its grass! probably good fertilizer.

Last week we drove up to Atlantic City, New Jersey on hot, humid Friday night. As we got closer to the shore all of the towering casinos glowed a neon red, beaconing all to come and try their luck. I did play poker until three in the morning but what really captivated my attention were the people. Atlantic City tourists are so diverse coming from all over the world, but the majority seems to be from New York City. I watched the People in the casino, People at my poker table. Old people dragging oxygen bottles and smoking cigarettes. Young guys with their baseball caps on backwards and gold chains hanging outside their unbuttoned shirts. Women of all types. Old women with buckets of coins playing slots. Young women with small slinky dresses stumbling back from numerous nightclubs, shouting drunkenly to each other. The next morning we went out to the boardwalk and I did a little more people watching. The glamor of the night before was harshly revealed under the New Jersey sun. People wore less clothing, shorts and tank tops, sandals and flip-flops as they traversed up and down the AC Boardwalk looking sleep deprived. The number of tattoos looked almost epidemic, most ugly designs faded into wrinkled sun burnt skin. Hundreds of Filipinos flocked outside the convention center which advertised a Filipino game show. I could feel myself beginning to sweat profusely, so we hired a boardwalk taxi. It is basically a hand cart that the driver pushes down the center of the boardwalk while attempting to not run over the other tourists. It felt very indulgent to hire the young man to transport us down the hot boardwalk...a guilty pleasure. We passed a group of African-Americans all sporting maroon t-shirts proudly proclaiming the Jones Family reunion of 2008. I noticed an older man walking hand in hand with a Beautiful young woman with decidedly strong Russian facial features, Mail order bride? But the most disturbing thing I saw was a 70 year old man with out his shirt, dancing provocatively next to an ancient boom box. "I'm to sexy for my shirt."
The boardwalk was to hot for me. I was glad to go home.

This morning my (hot) wife and I drove to Sterling, VA to attend the Buddhist Lent Begining Day & Abbot's Birthday Ceremony at the Wat Yarnna Rangsee Buddhist Monastery. Once again it was Hot! The sun was blazing down on a cloudless day. Thai Vendors had set up food stalls all around the outside of the modest Monastery. Thai people wandered from stall to stall sampling the various food delights. We sampled fried plantains, grilled chicken satay. We sat down and slurped a steaming broth of beef and noodles. Making small talk with the strangers sitting at our table. While just as hot as Atlantic City something wholesome about the simple Thai celebration made me forget the sweat running down my back. I leaned back on my little stool and listened to the bald monk singing "only the lonely " with a karaoke machine. Yeah It was hot, but not so bad.

OurGirl: A Few of My Favorite Things

2008-07-07T06:51:00.000-07:00

i've come to realize that while list posts are the lazy girl's fall back to a meaningful blog contribution, they are also indispensable when the lazy girl finds the inspiration isn't hitting just right. don't get me wrong, i have many, many topics to discuss—its just the trouble of finding a suitable post for this particular blog. you know, the OurGirl specialty: a rambling tangential post of eosteric minutiae, quirky, with a touch of the everyday mundane that keeps my end of the blog humming along in obscurity.

in order not to disappoint, here is a list of stuff that i am currently interested in:

im a big fan of this for-profit, world-wide microlender—the vineyard blog has had a widget posted on it since its inception, over a year ago. for each kid's birthday, we give them the needed $25 bucks and they sift through kiva's journals and find an the entrepreneur. we loan the entrepreneur the money and follow their journal. it gives the kids an understanding of how other people in different nations work towards improving not only their lives, but their families lives and their community. the kids have grown up inside one family business after another, but its cool to be able to provide them with a global view.

i'm a big fan of wikispaces. in my grad studies, i find it invaluable. we set up a wikispace, everyone joins, and instead of sifting through endless emails, we have a highly participatory repository of pages, links, uploads and discussions. we can even see the history of each page's edits, if so desired.

widgets are addictive. i've made widgets for my vineyard blog, my etsy shop, and for other people's websites. i find sproutbuilder really intuitive to use and post. experiment yourself!

Morgan: Creativity, it's a Mutha'

2008-06-26T18:53:00.000-07:00

Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.

- Mary Lou Cook

Wow! The 100th Post. Should I feel nervous? Is this one small step for this Man? One giant leap for who? I got to confess, I didn't think we would ever make 100. Writer's Block, Severe Climate Change and Mid-life Career Switches. We almost didn't make it many times over. I went on Sabbatical, Our Girl took a break. It's OK to take a break. The writing really has been a joy...sometimes. It's certainly therapeutic. So without further ado, Let the 100th Begin!

Creativity (or 'creativeness") is a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. Sounds easy right?

From a scientific point of view, the products of creative thought are usually considered to have both orginality and appropriateness. I like to think a little simpler, creativity is simply the act of making something new. Sounds easy right?

Although intuitively a simple phenomenon, it is in fact quite complex...sometimes it's a mutha'.

Creativity has been attributed variously to divine intervention, Cognitive processes, the social environment, personality traits and my favorite lucky chance. It has been associated with genius, mental illness and humor. Some say it is a trait we are born with; others say it can be taught with application of simple techniques.

Although usually associated with art and literature, it is also essential part of innovation and invention and is important in all professions.

I've always wanted to create...design, build something unique and cool. Before I joined the Air Force I wanted to be a Graphic Designer. During high school I took as many art classes as possible. I drew, painted and sculpted and slowly the idea began form that possibly, maybe I could do this for a living. But instead of going away to Art School...I joined the US Air Force. I didn't go to Texas unprepared, I took my porfolio and two letters of recommendation, with me. It must have helped the poor guy in charge of choosing our destiny, because 8 weeks later I was flying to Denver for a crash course in Air Force graphics. I had found what I was looking for. The Air Force appreciated what I did. My perspective was perfect for communicating their ideas visually. I did well and made a 20 year career out of it. As the years went by I rose through the ranks and with every promotion I got further and further away from my creativity, until finally the people I worked with didn't even know I could draw.
That's why I was so excited to get this job as a graphic designer, complete with a sobering pay cut. I was returning to my roots. I was going home. I was rusty at first...compared with my fresh young coworkers I was positively archaic. But I see myself getting better with each Job. Sometimes the initial idea stage is overwhelming...but I'm an idea guy. Now I just have to implement them.

So I ran across this pretty Cool Meme that helps with the creative process by making it random. I started creating CD Covers using the following rules, listed below. I think I'll use this process at work, it might just be a hit! Whats a meme?

About CD Cover Meme

Always wanted to be in a rock band?
Well here's your chance...sort of. Make your own CD Cover with the following steps and rocket yourself to mult-platinum status and start fending off the groupies.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

I did 11 covers, I think they turned out pretty good.
Tell me which one is your favorite.

OurGirl: Walsh's Despair 2.0

2008-06-25T18:11:00.001-07:00

walshie walked into the cubbie, sat down in his chair, dragged himself over to the pennisula and in reverent tones announced: "they did it again. they are genius. i don't know how they keep topping themselves, but they do."

i peered over my faux hand-thrown coffee mug with the word "inspiration" half stamped into it and asked, "who?"

"despair.com! they now have a whole do-it-yourself store. its genius i tell you. you can upload your own image, type in your own quote and make your own poster. genius."

i've posted before about walsh's love for despair.com. i even bought the "more people have seen this shirt than have read my blog" shirt and wore it in on casual friday, just to make the dude smile. my brother just shook his head. "i ain't buying that dork shirt."

"walsh—omg! they are having their users generate content for them!"
"even better. they will sell you the poster you make. custom poster!"
"wait—tell me they are keeping a gallery of their users generated content. that way, if you try to make your own content and you just aren't funny, you could then look at what others have made and then buy their posters. omg! then the user could get a cut of the action—a percentage off the top! tell me they are doing that!!"

walsh looked at me and said, "they don't have to. they are genius. check out the clown funeral poster."

so at home i look into despair.com. and i do have to tell you, the despairware grey t-shirt with with the words: "THE TIME FOR ACTION HAS PASSED. now is the time for senseless bickering" really speaks to me right now. but i tore myself away from the on sale shirts and checked out the DIY section. there are the posters—even the clown funeral one walsh had talked about. so i couldn't help myself. i uploaded an image, wrote a couple of quick lines and made a poster for walsh:

are you kidding me? that laughing you are hearing? that's walsh. monkeys are genius.

OurGirl: Inept Spirit Guide

2008-06-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

Sent a letter on a long summer day; Made of silver, not of clay; Ive been runnin down this dusty road; Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin; I dont know where Ill be tomorrow; Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin —Wheel in the Sky, Journey

so i'll be your spirit guide for these next two posts and then morgie will take on our big 100 post. buckle up, bette, its gonna be a bumpy ride.

art by li wei. visit www.liwei.com

i have a subscription to the Morning Newletter and i heartily encourage all to visit their gallery, in particular. they feature contemporary work and give an interview with the artists. i've mentioned a few of the artists before in this blog—but li wei's work takes my breath away. When i first saw his work i had flash backs to 9/11 and thought, no, no—this is just too soon. but i was struck by the image's terrible beauty and wanted to see more and understand more of this contemporary artist. i realize i see the art—and life— through my very human, very venial perspective first—and then i come to a larger understanding.

sort of like my friend, tony's video art of his real life struggle with cancer:

so, not knowing too many van morrison's songs (i get him mixed up with boz scaggs), i check into Tony's blog, see his video through my venial lens—here, put on my glasses: these are terrible images. cancer is no joke. its scary and its painful. tony is brave and i dig his sense of humor. so what i see is these terrible images juxtaposed against what sounds to my uneducated ear like hospital elevator music. so i think this is tony being brave and funny and i laugh in appreciation at what i perceive to be his black humor while my husband just shakes his head at me.

then i read more about li wei. and i listen further and carefully to lyrics in tony's video music.

did ye get healed? van morrison.
I wanna know did you get the feelin'?
Did you get it down in your soul?
I wanna know did you get the feelin'?
And did the feelin' grow?

Sometimes, when the spirit moves me
I can do many wondrous things
I wanna know when the spirit moves you
Did ye get healed?

wow. yes, i realize i'm a terrible bonehead. and i'm sure tony gets that, too. but the larger view is that a shift in perspective happened. take a look at something. then look at it from another angle. so this is how li wei sees how westerners perceive his work:

For Li Wei, 2003 was a prolific year, It was above all the first year that I managed to maintain myself as an artist, thanks to a number of exhibitions in Asia and the West, which increased the number of buyers~,. Before the last cup of tea melts, I point out that there is a kind of expectation in the art world of the West, an expectation that something new will happen and that the "new wave" will be from Asia, in particular China. Westerners are not acquainted with eastern culture and perhaps that's why you expect all sorts from us. Then, when they look at our works, even when they say they know ' China, if they don't see some "Chinese" element then they turn their noses up at theme http://www.liweiart.com/ART/liwei/Review.htm/200505PROTAGONISTI.htm

wei, i never saw anything 'chinese' in your art. i saw a familiar danger. i felt a wave of familiar sickening horror. then when i dug deeper into the series i felt relief at the photos of you returning to safety, and hope in the panicky face of the woman that embraces your return back to the building. because i'm american. and i love happy endings, right? and how many times are there happy endings in real life? in my western mind, i felt he's expressing that moment of panicky fleeing from whatever. but this is what he was expressing:

"The piece expresses a yearning for a happier and freer space of existence," Li offers, but he's dispensing with the backstory. His choice of location for the piece is significant. In 2003, the Jianwai SOHO tower from which he dangles was the latest in a series of real estate projects bankrolled by Pan Shiyi, the Donald of Beijing(almost literally-he was recently invited by Trump to takeover the boardroom chair in a proposed Asian edition of The Apprentice, but after negotiations, declined). Pan, who is generally credited with igniting the real estate frenzy that has resulted in today's Central Business District, is to many a visionary. His vertically-oriented, mixed-use micro-cities have become de rigueur for Beijing's property developers, ushering in a new era for Beijing's urban landscape and identity. In much the same way that Li seeks to alert us to the construction of reality by toying with the fantastic, Pan's efforts show us how not just dreams, but the basic structures of daily life-how we circulate and interact within social space-can be re-imagined and made real, The "freer space of existence" that Li speaks of can be viewed as an awareness of these social constructions and of their mutability.

a change in perspective, another letter in clay, not silver. please feel free to move about the country. amen.

Morgan: Big Ups to you Pops!

2008-06-15T16:39:00.000-07:00

One of my earliest memories is, I remember working with dad in the garage. I remember being his second set of hands, assisting him in whatever kind of odd job we happen to be performing that day, welding, plumbing,electrical work or carpentry. He taught me all the different names for each tool and what they did. "Go get me 5/8 wrench...no thats a 3/16" I remember hammering nails with dad and taking nails out to recycle the lumber...and the nails. He was always working...he had to support us. It must have been always on his mind. He would even work on the weekends. And I would travel with him for hours to help and mostly watch him work. I always brought a book and sometimes I would read to him while he worked.
In the spring he would till the earth as the rest of us followed and planted symmetrical lines of tomatoes, beans, corn and the list would get bigger every year. Sometimes we would go out to weed or pick overly ripen tomatoes in the failing light of the day...I guess we had been working and we had a little more to do.
I remember bringing my father his lunch. And he would sit down with us and eat heartily from a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, steaming bowls of potato salad and polish it off with an cold RC cola. He wouldn't tarry long and was soon back to his work.
My father's main occupation was welding. He had always been a welder. His father was a welder. All of his brothers were welders. It was a tough bunch of denim wearing men. My grandfather had followed the construction of gas pipelines across America and Canada after the war. He traveled with his whole family, wife and five kids in a motorhome...following the construction. They eventually ended up in Illinois and thats were Grandpa bought the 15 acres which would be known as "The Farm"
For a little boy the Farm was a magical kingdom of exploration, work, playing and work. My siblings and I would traipse through the cow pastures following the well worn cow paths. Down past the many gardens, past the old junkyard of abandoned trucks and cars to the river.
Dad didn't like us to go down there without an adult. We would have to go down there to turn the irrigation pump off at night.
Dad was always working on cars or trucks. trying to extend their life. We would scour junkyards looking or usable transmissions, axles or engines. When we had enough scrap metal we would load the truck up and take it to the scrap yard where they would weigh the truck and pay us for it. There was Pigs and chickens to be butchered. One time we butchered a goat...but I don't think Dad like that to much.
People respected him for his talents and knowledge. People from church were always asking him to do jobs, plumbing, electrical, carpentry. I don't know if he ever made money out of those deals or not. The local farmers respected him for his welding talents, for they were always damaging their huge 10 wheeled tractors. Dad would fix them.
We cut many trees down in those days as we heated our house with wood to save money. Dad always handled the chainsaw notching the tree just right. attaching the cable if he want to encourage the tree to fall a certain way. After the exciting fall of the tree it was more work. He would cut the tree up in manageable chunks and we would heave them into the back of the pickup truck until it springs could handle no more. We usually had to make a few trips to get all the wood home.
But for all his toughness and hard work ethic he always had time for us kids, a hug, a joke, a word of encouragement. And while some people would say he worked to much. I counter by saying he did what he had to, for his family. He did it because he loved us. Happy Father's day Dad.

OurGirl: Class of 2008 Commencement Address

2008-06-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

Sunshine go away today, I don't feel much like dancin'
Some man's gone, he's tried to run my life
Don't know what he's askin'

He tells me I'd better get in line Can't hear what he's sayin'
When I grow up, I'm gonna make it mine These ain't dues I been payin'

How much does it cost? I'll buy it. The time is all we've lost. I'll try it.
He can't even run his own life, I'll be damned if he'll run mine
Sunshine

Sunshine. lyrics by Jonathan Edwards

this past weekend, i attended a high school graduation. i remember my graduation being long and boring, but this attendance was quick and meaningful—this is most likely as i am older now and have less life to live. rimshot! but i have to say, its cool to be on this side of the fence and just be an observer of the day. very freeing not to be the grad, thinking about the future and decisions needing to be made. very freeing not to be the parent of the grad, thinking about their future and all their decisions needing to be made. the grad ceremony i attended featured a motivational speaker and he lived up to his title. pretty motivating. as i listened, i thought—excellent blog topic—let's give a commencement address. i've been running into troubles being inspired to post on the blog. stories about how i don't own a microwave or how my kids watch youtube instead of tv seem pretty lackluster. so i set up a rough draft of the blog and then googled some commencement speeches, just to check out the competition. after hitting some awesome speeches, i realized i had nothing particularly brilliant to discuss.

lackluster, even.

there is no way my life would be considered inspirational or even a cautionary tale. its not that i don't love my life—i do—its more along the lines of looking at someone who is at the start of their adult lives and thinking: "Yeh. I got nothing for you."

i have, however, plenty of advice for my son who is too young to graduate:

GET SERIOUS ABOUT KEYBOARDING. ITS A GPA BUILDER, SON!
DONT TALK BACK TO ME
TAKE A LOOK AROUND YOU, FOR PETE'S SAKE!
JUST BECAUSE THEY DO, DOESNT MEAN YOU CAN OR THAT I WILL LET YOU
THE CRANE MACHINE GAME IS FOR SUCKERS. PROMISE ME YOU WON'T GO TO VEGAS WHEN YOU GROW UP.

and on and on. but by the time kids reach the end of their high school careers, all that sort of talk falls on a closed mind. i can tell you from experience it falls on 11 year old closed minds as well.

so even tho most aren't listening, here are a few things i think would be most relevant to share:

don't be afraid to not commit to anything. i think whenever i look back, the areas of my life i'm not the most enthusiastic about are when i rushed into committing to a decision and then sticking to it. because i made a commitment.
don't be afraid to say: this is over my head or this isnt what i want to do. be brave to extricate yourself from any commitment you were foolish enough to take on.
don't be afraid to follow your passion. it will make you most happy, even when you aren't happy.
don't be afraid of expressing enthusiasm. its stupid, but people will look at you and think dork. but every once in a while, you'll find someone who shares that particular enthusiasm and then they are totally grateful you are sharing with them. and that feels good.
don't be afraid. i'm only added that in because i seem to be on an unintentional tear about being afraid. whatever.

here are a links to speeches better than my post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samantha-power/message-to-graduates-be-a_b_103886.html
http://www.commencement.harvard.edu/2003/ferrell.html
http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=3650
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/hindsights.html

A tale of two Princess brides

2008-05-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

My wife Colette has lead an interesting life and as she tells intriguing tales of her adventures, I listen...because I'm her husband. Recently she began telling another, as we sat in the kitchen she told me the story of two princesses and how she was close friends with one of them.

In the mid 80's my wife befriended a mixed African-Vietnamese woman about twelve years her senior and the two quickly became as close as sisters. Her name was Martine Bokassa. Martine and Colette met in Nancy, France worked and traveled together, even shared an apartment for a time. Martine was especially helpful during the birth of Colette's daughter Christine. One day Colette heard a very interesting rumor that her friend was actually the Princess of the Central African Republic.

Colette asked her friend "Are you the Princess?"

Looking shocked, Martine replied, "don't believe everything you hear."

She was very reluctant to discuss it further, but slowly her story emerged.

Her father, Jean-Bedel Bokassa joined the Free French Army in 1939 and took part in both World War II and the Vietnam War in the 1950s, and was decorated several times for his courage, with the Croix de Guerre. In February 195o her father, a sergeant in the French army in Indochina, said goodbye to his two-month-old daughter Martine and her Vietnamese mother, Nguyen Thi Hue and left Vietnam for good.
In 1961, Bokassa resigned from the French army and returned home to what is now Central African Republic. Within five years, Bokassa had taken power in a military coup and soon declared himself president for life.
In November 1970, after years of searching, Bokassa—now President of the remote little Central African Republic and the father of eleven children by his present wife—received word that the South Vietnamese government had found his first family. Martine, a shapely Saigon shopgirl, flew 11,000 miles to Bangui, her father's capital. Though she arrived at 4:30 a.m., a visibly moved Bokassa and thousands of his cheering countrymen were on hand to greet her.

But the daughter was an imposter.

In 1970 the Saigon newspaper Trang Den reported on this story very closely, The real Martine was intrigued with this fairy tale story and read everything she could. Studying newspaper photos she became convinced that the photos of President Bokassa was really her father. She tentatively went to a newspaper man with the story. In early 1971, the Vietnamese newspaper, Saigon Trang Den, revealed the sensational news that "Martine" was not Bokassa's daughter, but a fraud and that the real Martine was still in Vietnam living with her mother.

A few more weeks later, the real Martine arrived in Bangui; this time to no public reception and no media waiting at the airport. Bokassa was angry and accused France of planting a "spy" in his family. He threatened to deport the false Martine, but changed his mind after the French embassy in Bangui intervened, and instead adopted her as his own daughter on his 50th birthday in 1971. The real Martine was now called Martine Kota. She was a bit taller than her adopted sister. And, during something akin to a public auction, Bokassa offered both of them in marriage. Hundreds of young Central African men bid for the two girls. The eventual winners were a doctor and an army officer.

At a big, sumptuous wedding in Palacio de la Renaissance in 1973, which was attended by several heads of state, Martine Kota was married to the doctor, Jean-Bruno Deveavode, and the false Martine ended up with the army officer, Fidel Obrou.

Martine Kota had three children in this marriage; the first born was JB, while the false Martine had one child with her husband.

Three years later, in 1976, Fidel Obrou was executed for an attempted coup against Bokassa. As fate would have it, the false Martine was at the same time in a Bangui hospital giving birth to a son.

Two weeks after the birth, JB's father, the doctor Jean-Bruno Deveavode, killed the newborn with a lethal injection, apparently on the direct orders of the then President for Life, Jean Bedel Bokassa himself.

Then, on the first anniversary of Fidel Obrou's execution, the false Martine disappeared forever during a car ride to the Bangui airport, officially on her way back home to Vietnam. Two of Bokassa's bodyguards were alleged to have strangled her and hid her body somewhere along the road.

After the coup in 1979 that overthrew Bokassa, Martine Kota, JB and his younger brother and sister managed to escape to France. Martine's husband, Jean-Bruno Deveavode, was arrested and executed in 1981 after admitting that he killed the false Martine's child. While in France, Martine Kota and her children were forced into a new and completely different life. Together with her mother, Nguyen Thi Hue, Martine today runs two Vietnamese restaurants in France, one of them on the island of Corsica. And, rather wisely, she refuses to talk about her father. "For my mother, he was a husband; and for me he was a father," is all Martine will volunteer.

Colette lost contact with Martine in the late 80's. I started doing a little research and found Martine's son, Jean-Barthelemy Bokassa has recently published a book "Diamonds of Treason" about his mother's life story and we sent him a note asking to be put in contact with his mother.

Publish Post

OurGirl: Dear God, What is THAT

2008-04-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

that's a line from the Princess Bride:

Westley: I wasn't finished. The next thing you will lose will be your left eye followed by your right.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my ears, I understand let's get on with it.
Westley: WRONG. Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God! What is that thing," will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.
Prince Humperdinck: I think your bluffing.

i ain't bluffing, either. i've swallowed my pride and i've done it. i've created an etsy store called chesapeake street. and it sells shell art that i create. see right column.

very funny. shut up.

ok, first, shell art kept me sane during a career transition. anyone familiar with me knows my not so secret hobby that i would rather not talk about but feel compelled to, anyway. if you don't know, here's the bare bones.

me loves sailor valentines and 18th century victorian shell art. i own books about it. i even started making my own posies out of shells. and selling it on ebay. it helped keeping me sane and when i landed where i landed and made a ton of new friends and then the vineyard kicked in and i started grad studies so i lost time and the hobby went into hiatus.

but i still have the detritus and the desire to do more craft. no. i only own one cat. why do you ask?

so my brother pointed out etsy, but that was back in the day, so i went uh-huh, really trying to put that behind me, you know? and didn't act on it. don't want to be that crafty-girl. then my girl graciously accepted a little shadow box i put together for her birthday. and she hung it in her bathroom. and i dug that.

i started thinking. i've got to unload some of the pieces i've done. it would clear out space in my office/second living space no one uses. it would make my husband happy. we had agreed i would not cover the house in my creations. he did say that if i did go mad that he would donate my output to the american visionary art museum. i liked the idea it might sit in the same room as the throne made out of tin foil.

you know, its just one of those john-hughes-esque movie lines where the hard core chickie-boo that competes hard, talks big and works her heart out turns out to have a very soft nougat-ey centers that enjoys making tiny, tiny effete flowers out of seashells and adhesives. i'll learn to live with it and your comments. walsh, morgan and andy are not allowed to purchase anything from the store w/o prior permission as i think that will crush me to have those two separate worlds collide like that.

the rest of the world need not seek my permission for buying my stuff or for anything else they may need. just saying. heh.

Morgan: Rhino Trek

2008-04-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

What does a Rhino, an Iphone, a Canon Powershot SD400 and Macromedia Fireworks have in common?

Why the debut of the much anticipated, light hearted and whimsical travel blog Rhino Trek!

Before my trip to Greece, Byrne suggested that I take along my spirit guide and photograph him in exotic locales. Byrne always has good ideas...but the whole expedition almost never happened.
Weeks before the trip, I looked all over the Morgan household for my little friend. I fear that he met with an untimely demise. I was appalled, how could I have misplaced my battle standard before the big soirée? The weekend before the flight I went searching for a replacement Rhino. I went to Toy's R Us...but that was a dead end. "Do you have a rhino?" the blank look on the haggard employees face gave me the answer. Nooooo! I finally found Rhino V2.0 at Target. Yes! they have a whole aisle dedicated to Rhino fans and their assorted paraphernalia...who knew?

I put the little Rhino in my backpack and we flew to Greece. I forgot all about him. I was preoccupied with everything around me the sights, smells and food. The history, monuments and temples. Rhino almost never made it out of the backpack. Then one evening my wife was digging through the pack, probably repacking in her never ceasing workaholic frenzy. When she pulled out the Rhino and said, "What's this?"
"uhhh thats my Rhino", as I tried explaining the ambitious concept to her. She looked at me with raised eyebrows.

The next day I carried the Rhino in my pocket, looking for the perfect photo opportunity. When the moment came I was surprised to find I was a little embarrassed. Here I was a grown man on a tour of historical Greece and I was pulling a Rhino out of my pants to photograph. The majority of our fellow tourist looked at me with raised eyebrows. I shrugged my shoulders. How could I explain this?

For the next couple of days I would discreetly photograph my Rhino when no one was around. On the final day before departure, we traveled up to the Acropolis. It was a beautiful day, sunny yet not to hot and very crowded. I took all the obligatory normal photos, dreading the moment when I knew I would have to release the Rhino for his portrait.
"C'mon lets go! I've had enough of rubble, lets go shopping!" My wife declared.
"uhhhh wait a minute I need to take one more shot."
Swallowing my pride I stoically remove the Rhino from my pocket and marched down past throngs of tourists from all over the world. And with my back to them I couched down next to a block of marble, carefully positioned the Rhino just so. Bent down even further, I think my ass was higher than my head and took the perfect photo. When I turned around hundreds of tourists were staring at me, with raised eyebrows.

OurGirl: Notes From a Far Away Place

2008-04-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

no, i don't have anything to compare to rhino's quest for the primordial bellybutton of humanity and existence. i'm just kickin' back and enjoying that ride.

i have been having some larger than thou experiences, so i get what he's been talking about. mine are just of a smaller, more olfactory nature. smells are a powerful thing. each one of my boys had their own unique baby odor. im certain i could have picked my baby out of a crowd blind-folded.

my recent smell-experience made me weep.
[men, feel free to leave NOW]

the moment the top note odor hit my passages, i was transported back to being a child, in my paternal grandma's kitchen. yeh, proust covered involuntary memory, first. i know. but i was on my laptop, the smell hit me and suddenly i was profoundly grateful that my husband sent me back to my primordial bellybutton, my grandparents, both now gone.

and it may have been the flu i've been battling that makes me a little weepy, but even the flu struck an involuntary memory chord. what adult, in the grips of the dreaded flu, does not long for their mother's cool hand brushing back their hair? or the kisses that desire for nothing but for you to be well again? did your mother wipe your face with a cool cloth? those things were paramount in my adult mind, tuesday, as i shivered under my think goose-down comforter, waiting out the bug. being an adult can be miserable. my new toast: may you always have a comforting hand at your most ill. ok. i need to work on that. but you get my point.

for those still with me, here's the recipe to making your kitchen smell like my grandma's:

saute onion and garlic in a little oil
add something, anything, meaty.

then, peel and slice a cucumber.
for added authenticity, sprinkle vinegar over the cucumber.

want to play proust yourself? take this survey i found here.

Morgan: Grecian Perspective

2008-03-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking for weeks on how I could write about our adventures in Greece. Its hard to describe but our trip had a profound effect on me on many levels. Most people who travel to Greece are impressed by how old their ancient civilization is. However the opposite happened to me. I took along Carl Sagan's Cosmos to read on the plane and bus and before bed. It was an interesting coincidence that part of the book explored the discovery of Science on the the Grecian Isle of Io. The book is really great even though it was written 28 years ago. In its descriptions of the formation of stars and planets, which happened "billions and billions" of years ago I wouldn't say I had an epiphany but was very close to understanding how young humankind really is. Which was an odd perspective considering I was standing in the cradle of western civilization.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.
Carl Sagan
US astronomer & popularizer of astronomy (1934 - 1996)

I really did enjoy traveling with my wife and watching her learn and be awed by the the historical sites we visited. Ok I was impressed also. Our favorite place had to be Delphi situated in the mountains above the Sea of Olives. The temperature was perfect, cool and sunny as we climbed the mountain to the oracle of Delphi. There were not a lot of people that morning and as the sun finally peeked over the mountains, I could see past the ruins in front of us, back through time. I could see the temples and monuments as they used to be. I could see people gathering in the amphitheater to watch a play or hear a concert. Occupation of the site at Delphi can be traced back to the Neolithic period with extensive occupation and use beginning in the Mycenaean period (1600-1100 B.C). Most of the ruins that survive today date from the most intense period of activity at the site in the 6th century BC. Yeah, that means old!

I began thinking of how young we were as technological society. And how much we are changing the planet with our toxic emissions and consumption of resources. I began to wonder how much longer can we exist as technological adolescents, will we survive to maturity? or cause our own demise. These issues and questions are so much bigger than one man...or are they? Maybe I can recycle more, consume less, conserve energy.

Finally I just want to say what a joy it is to travel with my wife. To take a break from the everyday grind of life and do something so different is rejuvenating to the spirit and refreshing for the mind. Exploration of new cultures and ancient societies gives us an appreciation of where we came from and what we have. Our Greek adventure didn't change my perspective...It just gave me a new lense to peer through.

OurGirl: Purho's Petri Dish of Games

2008-03-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

i found out i'm currently receiving a A in managing public organizations (heh. dork.), but i feel like a total underachiever ever since i downloaded crayon physics from http://www.kloonigames.com/blog/

the blogs caretaker and feeder is petri purho, a 24 year old computer science engineer from helsinki. in his about himself bio area, petri explains:

The point of this blog is I try to crank out an experimental game every month. I was inspired by Experimental Gameplay Project, so I try to follow their rules. Basically this means that every game I create I have to make within 7-day limit, they have to made by me alone and they have to test some new form of gameplay.

gah. mind is slowing....calcifying...brain...waves slowing dowwwwnnnnnn......i feel so old. really, petri—an experimental game every month? show off. but petri, you are so cool—you are my 10 year old's new superhero. i would immediately adopt you, myself. what a great mind you have!

i downloaded crayon physics immediately on my mac but couldn't get it to work and then headed over to the pc everyone in my family disdains, but is really pretty useful, especially in times like these. i managed to play a couple of rounds before the family, unused to seeing momma at the pc, came running over to see what she was doing. that was the end of the game for me. it captivated everyone in the family. its simply elegant. petri, let us know when that full version comes out. we will be purchasing this one.

i think you should look at making games for the ipod, too.

for the rest of you not familiar with petri's work, here is the game on youtube.

Morgan: Layover In Amsterdam

2008-03-16T03:25:00.000-07:00

I'll have to check the archives but this could potentially beat Byrne as the First International Post on our blog...ever. I just got done with a week in Athens, and I have a five hour layover here in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Instead of leaving the airport and going into town we decided to kill the time here in the airport. First my wife went shopping, Chocolate by the kilo....I waited. Then she decided to shop for glasses...I waited, patiently holding fifty kilos of chocolate than we argued about me sighing....sigh. She don't like that. Than we had Irish stew and a beer at Murphy's restaurant. We got to get rid of all these silly Euro's before we come home. I got eight minutes left so I better post this before I have to pay another 6 euros for thirty minutes...or is that kilominutes, I'm not sure. I 'll write more later about Hellas and my observations of Greek culture...I'm running out of time! 00:03 minutes left ahhhhhh!

OurGirl: My First Intentional Playlist

2008-03-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

mark the date. 14 march 08.

why?

i've purchased and assembled my first music playlist.

yeh. if i was really motivated, i would have embedding the sound of crickets as well. or the sound of my boys' dramatic sound bite: da-da-da-daaaaahhhh!

but this is really something. i'm actually pretty jazzed to have music. dont get me wrong, i still loves me lectures, but i'm going a bit slower and trying to let my brain process a bit better, now that i know better.

also, i promise that this will be my last list blog.

so here is the playlist (wait til you get a load of this). and no, this isn't a definitive collection. this is just a few songs from my way-back machine that buoys my spirit. and i sing to these songs as well. so when you pass a certain car that girl in that car? could be me. and i'm singing along to:

somethin' stupid
nancy sinatra and frank
higher ground
UB40
Red, Red Wine
UB40
Come and Get Your Love
Redbone
Gimme Little Sign
Brenton Wood
Shambala
Three Dog Night
Black & White
Three Dog Night
Never Been to Spain
Three Dog Night
Dancing in the Moonlight
King Harvest
Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)

AND i've got my eye on a few albums. WAY! here they are:

philly soul—featuring the incomparable Me and Mrs. Jones; When Will I See You Again; and the most passionate songs, EVER, by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes: Don't Leave Me This Way and If You Dont Know Me By Now
Kiko: Los Lobos—Saint Behind the Glass; Whiskey Trail; Reva's House; Just a Man
The Very Best of Hall and Oates—Rich Girl; Sara Smile; Out of Touch; and the dreamy One on One
So Far So Good: Bryan Adams— yeh. another anthology. but really. Summer of 69!
Home: Dixie Chicks—Truth No.2; A Home; Long Time Gone
Aquarium: Aqua—You know it! Barbie Girl; Doctor Jones

OurGirl: His and Her Great Cinematic Speeches

2008-03-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

with rhino supertramping across greece, my husband—the irish king—graciously agreed to fill in. i work best with a blog muse. plus, this gets him out of the pruning post he is supposed to be working on for our vineyard blog, so he's happy to oblige.

ever since boy1 displayed his formidable laser-like intensity and indomitable will, the irish king has looked at his progeny and quoted theatrically:

....Well, one man came close. Went by the name of Homer. Seven feet tall, he was, with arms like tree trunks, and eyes like steel: cold and hard. Had a shock of hair. Red, like the fires of Hell.

so much for cinematic speeches. he just told me that was from the simpsons.

whatever.

his vote: quint's indianapolis speech from jaws:

so, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men came out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

her vote: octavian's marc anthony is dead speech, cleopatra

Antony is dead? You say that as if it were an everyday occurence. The soup is hot, the soup is cold. Antony is alive, Antony is dead."

his vote: office space, the bobs:

Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.
Bob Porter: Don't... don't care?
Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime; so where's the motivation? And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.
Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?
Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.
Bob Slydell: Eight?
Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

her favorite: jerry maguire, this used to be my specialty:

Jerry: Hello. I’m looking for my wife.

Dorothy: Wait…

Jerry: If this is where it has to happen, then this is where it has to happen. I’m not letting you get rid of me. How about that?

[beat]

Jerry: This used to be my specialty. I was good in a living room. And now, I just… Tonight… our little company had a very big night. A very, very big night. But it wasn’t complete. It wasn’t nearly close to being complete. Because I couldn’t share it with you. I couldn’t hear your voice. I couldn’t laugh about it with you. I missed my wife. We live in a cynical world. And we work in a business of tough competitors. I love you. You… complete me. And I just…

Dorothy: Shut up! You had me at “hello”. You had me at “hello”.

his n' her favorites: glengarry glen ross:

A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing, always be closing.

Put. That coffee. Down.
[pause]
Coffee's for closers only.

OurGirl: 5 favorite words i do not use

2008-03-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anaïs Nin

words i like but never use. its a curse to have a love of words and yet not care enough to learn how to pronounce them. ask walsh. i have a couple of acronyms i mangle on a daily basis.

unctuous: in this case, full, rich, buttery, oily
oeuvre: a work of art
perspicacious: acutely perceptive
contretemps: a dispute, an inopportune incident
halcyon: calm, peaceful, prosperous

Exploration and Discovery

2008-03-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

I believe the inquisitive mind is the elixir of youth. To bad I didn't realize this until midlife. I truly enjoy learning from people, experiences, and through my reading. Today at work a friend of mine, came by the cubicle. He saw what I was working on and made a few alternate suggestions on how to accomplish what I was trying to do. I'm not proud of my first response, which was to immediately go on the defensive and shut him out as a know-it-all, meddler. But I checked myself and quickly realized I needed to listen to his advise. Here was a true friend willing to share his knowledge and I almost blew it. I apologized and encouraged him to continue. 30 seconds of collaboration and my project looked 1000% better.

Its easy to become complacent in my daily routine. Get up, shower, schlep to work, go home and repeat the next day. Boring? I try to keep it lively, but all work and no play makes Morgan a dull boy! Thats why this vacation to Greece with my wife means so much to me. We are going on a great adventure to one of oldest civilizations in the world. We are embarking on a voyage of exploration and discovery. Of what? I don't know, but I'll share it with you when I find it.

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens...The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.
-- Johannes Kepler, Mysterium Cosmographicum

OurGirl: Affairs of the Heart

2008-02-26T15:40:00.000-08:00

confession: this is what i'm listening to on my 'pod.

Beach Walk 595 - Cranky Geeklt;/a>

i know. i know. i'm nearly whimpering as i type this. what have i become? i'm my own worst nightmare.

its like the green eggs and ham story and i'm that guy who has steadfastly refused the suspicious culinary delights of the green ovums and slice of the porcine. and then beat down, exhausted, and weary, i capitulate and try it.

and i relax.

and i feel better for the first time since...hmmm...shortly before harvest, this past september.

lets be clear here. i don't buy her. not the seemingly perpetual cheeriness or the wide open arms of acceptance...at any other time in my life i would just dismiss her.

now i need her.

its the lilting hawaiian music intro music. its the sound of her talking very positively, very assuredly. happy chatter. light. foamy bits of nothing. and then the sound of the rushing waves hitting the sand, pushing it forward and pulling it back into place like once giant therapeutic massage of noise. i don't watch her, i really find her distracting. but i do listen to her. if i have trouble falling asleep, i walk the beach with rox over and over until i get the sleeping part right.

did i type that?

i've made no bones about the fact i have great people involved in my life. there are a few people i know that are going through some shaky ground right now. i watch them real careful-like—the same way i watch my kids. a wait-ful watch. ready to fly at any threat, ready to fly to their rescue, but here, i am hopeless. they aren't my kids, these are grownups. most likely, i wouldnt be of much rescue or saving value, even if they wanted or needed the effort. things are a bit crazy on my end as well.

so i will settle for telling you, all my friends going through some scary stuff: i love you. and i worry for you. and when i give you a small loaf of my homemade bread, i'm telling you that i'm glad you've made it, glad you landed on safe ground—although it may not be the same ground that you were aiming to land upon. i was really scared. i'm glad you are here.

happy you made it.

Morgan: Visitors Welcome!

2008-02-23T21:35:00.001-08:00

I love looking at our ClustrMaps and speculating on whether our viewer in Irkustk is on a dial up computer, or perhaps using his laptop with a wireless connection on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Do they spend much time on our Blog or simply click through. Maybe language is a problem, afterall not everyone reads "American". That would explain why we have no viewers in Vietnam I know they have internet connection there, internet cafes abound on every street corner. I see we have a few viewers in Iran and wonder what other kind of sites are they reading. Or does their government restrict content?
I think it safe to say our main readership is from the US and Europe. I'm worried that no one in North Dakota is logging on, don't they have high speed internet out there? We really need to increase or hits in South America (Language issues again) and Africa. Do they surf in Africa? Well somebody is reading us in South Africa.
Maybe we should blog in Spanish. Byrne you've been studying spanish, wanna give it a try?

Every Monday I receive an Automatic e-mail from Byrne containing Google Analytics I love studying the data and trying to discern trends and patterns. We seem to be averaging 10 viewers every other day. What do we need to do boost hits? We use keywords, advertising, We have a Google search tool. How come no one but Andy comments? Only the Raj thanked Byrne for her blog. Oh well, I guess we blog for ourselves and the love of blogging. Visitors are welcome though!

Disclaimer: If the content of this blog seems eerily familiar, like a older blog that I have posted, the author claims full responsibility and will try to refrain from recycling old thoughts and promise to strive for more originality in the future. My sincere apologies. Blog recycling was unintentional.

OurGirl: uniformity and the love of rhinos

2008-02-23T06:51:00.000-08:00

i entered design school, a freshly-scrubbed, shiny-face young lass, without thinking about appearances. in my lee jeans and farm plaid shirts (many of them short sleeved!) i completely stood out in the crowd of very serious design students. it was a sea of multilayered thrift store chic, multicolored mussed hair, and multicolored pancake eyelids hidden under darkly slashed kohled eyes. everything smelled like patchouli and slight mildew and was held together with sashes of ribbons cut from pantyhose, old skirts, and safetypins. in the zoo of exotic design animals, i was the prairie dog exhibit. every once in a while, i tried to fit in but i always felt uncomfortable. prairie dogs in spangles are, well, prairie dogs in spangles...

the blog template is much the same way. it was a uniform, it fit, it was functional, i put it on and headed out the door without a thought.

but i get what my rhino says. and i love the banner photo, 'cause that's just what this blog is. a meandering commentary path in a series of topic hills. and i'm happy he's back. one more post on my domestic overlook trail and i would have thrown myself off the virtual overlook just to see if anything interesting happened. i like having the ability to play off his posts. i get inspired by rhino.

so i have a proposal for a greek photo blog:
rhino, what if you take that plastic rhino with you and take pics of the rhino in gorgeous greek settings—but have the rhino huge in scale to say, the acropolis. like an ala magritte change in scale. then give us a story of what you did that day.

here is a site: themorningnews.org i've been digging into for the last few days, purely for the visuals. like kent rogowski who takes stuffed animals and turns them inside out and he also buys puzzles from the same manufacturer and then combines the different puzzles to make new compositions.

Morgan: New Title Banner

2008-02-22T19:28:00.000-08:00

I got sick and tired of looking at our drab banner. We're Graphics for crying out loud, lets act like it!
Byrne, If you don't like the banner, I can change it. However I'll have to limit you to three changes.
Walsh you check the spelling and Andy, I would appreciate all the feedback you can muster.
Please route all communiques through the Customer Service Representatives.

Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart! - Bruce Campbell and the Army of Darkness

Morgan: The Prodigal Blogger Returns

2008-02-20T19:37:00.001-08:00

As our readers may have noticed I have been on blogging sabbatical. With numerous issues weighing heavily on my mind I thought it best that Byrne blog on without me, and she did. She wondered if I would return to the blog and I reassured her that I would when the time was right. The respite served me well and I feel the urge to blog again. Perhaps I should never have stopped writing as I find deep comfort and therapeutic value in sharing our thoughts online.
What I seek is Cosmos...I need to find order in Chaos. I feel the need to seek and know the truth. I need to dissect my existence and find my purpose. Do I feel lost? Yes, a little bit like flotsam drifting in a beltway sea of bureaucracy. I seek Inspiration...something to ignite the passion which seems always to elude me in this mental morass that has such a grip on me. Firm upper lip lad! Press on and all that! Even now I fear my stoicism is crumbling and caution myself to strengthen my brave facade.
One ever present fact that burns like a beacon at the end of a long tunnel is my Family is there, waiting with open arms. Shouting words of encouragement. They're there, and need me as much as I need them. They are my inspiration. I can't falter.

Maybe I just need a vacation! After all it has been over a year since my wife and I traveled to Vietnam and had such wonderful adventures exploring Saigon, Hue and Hoi An. So we prepare for our next great adventure in Greece! I have been researching all things Greece and eagerly look forward to the day when we climb the hill to the ancient citadel, the Acropolis and explore the Parthenon together. As a student of history nothing is as intoxicating as the anticipation of seeing and experiencing the Greek Isles. I will walk where Thales walked. Seek answers from Plato and Socrates, study the Spartans, Athenians and my favorite the ever questioning Ionians.

Maybe I should listen to Thales, after all he defined a happy man as...

“Who is healthy in body, resourceful in soul and of a readily teachable nature”

Halfway House

2008-02-18T14:04:00.000-08:00

To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture." ~ Pablo Picasso

my life has become a halfway house of projects and aspects of my life with which i need to reacquaint myself. it all stems from the desire to make 2008 all about BALANCE. take this past president's weekend—i did visit with my parents (check) and spent some awesome quality time with boy1&2 (check)—but the rest of my efforts? a work of art that is half baked and half-done in half-time. no, literally—take half-baked. in my efforts to rid my family of high fructose corn syrup, i'm taking up artisan bread in five minutes a day. i KNOW! BALANCE! but it IS about balance. i want to eat better. i want to reconnect with my family and feed them better. Zoe seems to make it work.

I mean really, how much easier can you get? im totally buying into it. i spend twenty minutes cooking a completely healthy dinner anyway. Why not have fresh bread? that's the half-baked part.

half-done: take your pick. no wait, i'll do it for you... working with boy2 heart's desire and mine are two different things, but they did come together beautifully this warm early evening. he played in the sandbox and i started prepping my raised garden bed. then together, we dug up the sprouting garlic, separated the sprouts and replanted them a fist apart. then we planted the shallots and red onions. its too early to tell if the blackberries survived the deer and winter and i found out its a little too early for my new canna bulbs, so the garden is half done. so is the zebra grass. about this time of year, i give my Miscanthus Sinesis "Strictus" a haircut so its ready for the upcoming spring. halfway done, the shears came unscrewed (!?!) and boy2 declared he was finished, so we went inside with the zeba grass thinking "what was THAT?" and why is half of me strewn about on the lawn. people! there are convenant laws here!

as i walked back into my halfway house, i was buoyed be a sense of wellness. could have been the three day holiday. could have been my husband, the irish-king would be coming home from work soon. could have been getting back in touch with all of the elements and aspects i love in my life. or it could just be the realization that i did very important, unfinished work today on the art of my life.

No Time Left for You

2008-02-15T19:32:00.000-08:00

walsh, is a watch-wearer.

i am not.

walsh is intrigued.

"you don't wear a watch," he asks. i toss off an nah, but when i turn from the keyboard and look, he's got his i really don't get you look about him.

granted, i'm used to seeing that look—not only from walsh—there is andy, my husband, and my brother on occasion, even though he quickly covers it up so he doesn't hurt my feelings... but walsh over not wearing a watch? and now you are thinking to yourself—
is this really a post?

well yeh. it is.... slow post day. sit down and scroll.

"what you wear one?" i shoot back.

"well yeah" so its totally clear who the freak is.... "how do you know what time it is?"

"i always know about what time it is, besides, since you have a watch, i automatically know what time it is. and if you aren't there, there is always a clock, somewhere."

"ok, but what if you are in an area where there isn't a clock around," he persists.

"what, you find someone that has a watch and you ask them what time it is," i'm befuddled. this subject both fascinates and repels walsh. and now i'm intrigued by how unfathomable it seemed to walsh. total failure of imagination over the carelessness of time. it seemed like he had just discovered a major character flaw of mine.

"you ask them... and they just tell you?"

"yeh. it makes them feel good: 'excuse me, would you be able to tell me the time? what a beautiful timepiece—thank you so much!'"

"jackball..." and we laugh. "...you've never worn a watch?"

"no, i used to wear a watch. but then, when i worked my first start-up, i was really concerned about time....how much time it took to design an ad, a brochure, a whatever. i was obsessed with timing myself, being better and doing more with time. then i started to noticed whenever i looked at my watch, my tummy would hurt. then it got to the point where my wrist would ached right where the watch was. one day i took the watch off and i felt better. i decided not to wear one anymore."

"and you haven't since."

"yep."

and then there was silence as we returned to hacking away at our keyboards. how long the silence lasted, i couldn't tell you. i'm not the watch-wearer. i wonder if walsh could tell you....

Let not the sands of time get in your lunch. ~Author Unknown

Happy Birthday, Abe!

2008-02-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

Hey Great Emancipator, happy happy birthday—although the big celebration is next year, when you hit your bicentennial birthday—so tonight we'll just birthday party like its 199.

early january, i finally picked up team of rivals—the truly thorough book of lincoln's rise to the presidency, his competitors' stories and how he chose his cabinet from his former competitors. i had been eyeballing it a while, but its a hefty book and even for a paper back, it was a bit hefty in price. i think i decided to purchase it on account of all the business lit books i've been reading for a book club. you know, who ate my cheese...fish..best ship in the navy...the secret—fred factor—it was like eating a lot of process food. yeh, it went down easy, it was in some instances (navy) interesting, it did fill my mind, but really—it wasnt very satisfying. too pat. too rote. too full of platitudes. too... too... too...

i blame it on standford's itunesu hannibal lecture series. the lecturer discussed how military leaders were taken with hannibal. how they studied him, trying to tease out secrets they could use in their real word situation. napolean even climbed the alps with a army of men, tracing hannibal's footsteps and causing havoc in swiss villages along the way.

history! i thought. so now i'm compiling a reading list of off-road business books. books that are about business, yet aren't on the stereotypical business lit map.

here is what i have so far:

Team of Rivals
Grant's Autobiography
Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions
Gates of Fire

what other books should i add to my list?

DANGER, Overload! Abort, Abort!

2008-02-10T15:06:00.000-08:00

i've fried my circuits.
granted, the magnitude of brain power is a little suspect under this gorgeous head of flonde hair—but while i may lack in deep intellect, i try to make it up with an enterprising and optimistic attitude and willingness to learn.

right now, though, service engine soon lights are blinking crazily and smoke is pouring out of my ears.

curse you, ipod!

in the beginning of my ipod craze, my girl laughed at me as i dizzily described an incredibly satisfying cast i had listened to before our workout—stanford u's guest speaker discussing the history of the monterrey bay in CA. "don't you ever listen to music?" she asked. ha-HA foolish mortal girl! i now hold immortality in the palm of my hand! i shall broaden my intellect at a far more rapid pace than ever possible! itunes university shall reside in my head! rah-hah-hah-ha!

my voracious appetite for the casts was unlimited and i indiscriminately downloaded all manner of subjects: how to paint baseballs or lemons? YES! how did hannibal cross the alps with elephants and which pass did he most likely use? LETS FIND OUT! cooking shows, inc magazine podcasts, wine cast, wine cast, wine casts! a whole course in organizational behavior. literary critique of virgil's aeneid! flash game university, coffeebreak spanish, human-computer interaction seminar, dirty jobs casts, surfing casts, the writer's almanac, havard business review ideaCast, cool hunting videos, costa rica pod casts and gardening podcasts.....

then the consumption. every spare minute. folding laundry, the daily commute—what, the girl didnt make it to the workout? get the pod! my husband considered starting up his own podcast in hopes of communicating to me. it actually sounded like a good idea to me as well, but man, there is a ton of free content out there and i really don't have much time, so if i don't get to it right away, just keep on casting and i'll catch up. he shook his head in disgust.

then it started happening. slowly at first....in the middle of organizational management...i found myself drifting off. couldn't. keep. focused. drifting. drifting.....

whoa. i shook it off. downloaded divefilm hd video and national geographic for something pretty to look at and then went back to consuming. but it wasn't joyous like before. i edited my casts down, got rid of a few that were like: why am i listening to this? but it got worse.

i was coming home exhausted and filled with ennui. i would turn on bravotv and watch endless episodes of the housewives of orange county. even rewatched previous episodes of project runway. the creative process at work was moving at the speed of light, projects were being managed, but i didnt feel the spark. i started feeling just grey. shhhhk grey. like tv snow grey.

i think i have a problem, i told my husband.

you think? my husband retorted incredulously. then he put the buds back in my ears, took the pod and dialed up this episode of zefrank [explicit]:

Why Cant I Get Over Teahupoo?

2008-02-08T19:08:00.000-08:00

in my heart of hearts, i think and feel i'm one of these gloriously bravado filled, prime of life surfstuds—stupidly drunk upon my sense of immortality—waiting watchfully for a sip of ocean energy. reality bitterly smacks me upside the head—wake up middle-age, overfed
girl! you've waited too long and put your energies into the wrong areas.

i've come to the realization the best i may do, in regards to surfing, would be to purchase a stint at a well-publicized chick surf camp—most likely in FLA—and maybe hit a 2' swell or two. call it a fantasy realized and scratch it off of my 43things.com. and that's if i can convince my ever patient husband that i must abandon the family in this pursuit to overcome deep seated water-oriented fears while answering my adrenalin lust. learning to surf, i worry, could be the a very satisfying drink of water that i'm pouring done the drain. even so, i still continue to pour. there are children to raise. there is money to raise to apply to the children to raise. there is a career, a vineyard, a husband. i live within this mountainous terrain. i live far, far from the coast of life.

yet, i hunt and feast upon images of teahupoo.

pronounced cho-pu, or, in english: broken skulls. teahupoo, located of the southeast end of french polynesia's tahiti. the chopes is a left-breaking reef but the outer reef also creates right breaks that those with boards must be cautious of when paddling out. the reef delivers consistent barrel waves best summed up in this really cool article:

ex–pro surfer and writer Matt Warshaw observes, “Waves as small as three feet can be ridden at Teahupoo, and at six feet it still has a reasonable shape and demeanor. Above eight feet, however, Teahupoo gets exponentially stronger, thicker, rounder, and more malevolent: each ride begins with a vertical entry; each wave transforms into a thick-walled cavern, which in turn collapses with enough force to send shock waves running through the still water of a nearby channel.”
Big Wave Surfing, Maura O'Connor

i think maura quotes one of the best descriptions as to why i'm taken with surfing:

...author Daniel Duane writes in Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast, “The climber never quite penetrates the mountain, the hiker remains trapped in the visual prison, but the surfer physically penetrates the heart of the ocean’s energy—and this is in no sense sentimentality—stands wet in its substance, pushed by its drive inside the kinetic vortex. Even riding a river, one rides a medium itself moved by gravity, likewise with a sailboard or on skis. Until someone figures out how to ride sound or light, surfing will remain the only way to ride energy.”

how long has it been since you've read a really dynamic paragraph like above?

let me ride energy, sound and light!

OurGirl: My Favorite Year

2008-01-21T17:29:00.001-08:00

My favorite year? hands down, 2005. i turned 40 and got married on the same day, on a sunny carribean island—just me and my husband. family an friends told me getting married on my birthday was a bad idea. i laughed and said i only wanted to get mad at him once a year. the dear had trouble remembering my birthday, so i didn't hold out much hope for the wedding anniversary.

my husband, much like walsh, has a twisted, nougaty-center. i, on the other hand, am bone-head thru and thru.

for the last three years, i have forgotten the wedding anniversary and barely grunted over the mention of my birthday. my husband, however has gotten ahold of the list of anniversary gifts. the traditional one.

first year: paper. bought me a book, the joy of cooking. me, zippy. he looked disappointed when i grumbled, why anniversary gifts?

second gift: cotton. i just quizzed him and he cant remember what he bought me that was cotton, but he is sure he did. i am too, because i remembering forgetting the anniversary again, and the sad look he shot me.

third gift? leather. heh. so it didnt help that i couldn't stop giggling when he told me this year's anniversary gift-giving ideas. but i had to applaud his originality. he was going to get me a leatherman. then he found out that once again, his wife disappointed him.

so i have another resolution for this year. i'm going to remember the anniversary way in advance. i'm going to make it THE anniversary year and catch up with ALL the years in arrears. oh yeh. then who is going to be the best spouse, ever?

Morgan: 43 things

2008-01-12T18:33:00.000-08:00

I've never been really good at following through on my New Years resolutions...So what I've been doing is participating in 43 things for the last year. 43 things is a wonderful community were people set their own goals and give encouragement to other peoples goals. Once you have achieved something you move that item to the I've Done This! list. I've found it very effective for achieving short term goals and listing long term dreams. Here is a list of 41 things that I would like to accomplish...I need to add two new things.

Morgan's 41 Things

2008 is here can you believe it! The years are flying by...Remember 1998? 1988? 1978? 1968? Well I don't remember much of 1968 as I was born in November of that year.
Lets take a little trip in my way back machine. Ok get in the seat next to me, and strap in. Here put this tin foil hat on...it will help. Let me make some adjustments to the control panel, so we return to the correct date....and Whoosh!

1998
January 17 - Paula Jones accuses U.S. President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.

January 26 - Lewinsky scandal: On American television, President Bill Clinton denies he had "sexual relations" with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

February - Iraq disarmament crisis: The United States Senate passes Resolution 71, urging U.S. President Bill Clinton to "take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."

February 23 - Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa, declaring jihad against all Jews and Crusaders

March 27 - The Food and Drug Administration approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.

April 22 - The Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World opens to the public for the first time.

May 26 - At 23 years of age, Bear Grylls became the youngest British climber to scale the top of Mount Everest and back down.

May 28 - In Encino, California, the wife of Saturday Night Live comedian Phil Hartman kills him and commits suicide afterwards

June 14 - The Chicago Bulls win their 6th NBA title in 8 years when they beat the Utah Jazz, 87-86 in Game Six. This is also Michael Jordan's last game as a Bull.

August 5 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq officially suspends all cooperation with UNSCOM teams.

August 5 - Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq officially suspends all cooperation with UNSCOM teams.

August 19 - Monica Lewinsky scandal: On the day of his 52nd birthday, U.S. President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

August 20 - 1998 U.S. embassy bombings: The United States military launches cruise missile Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical plant in Sudan August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

September 27 - Google is started. It becomes the biggest search engine and the second most commonly visited web site in history, following Yahoo!

September 29 - Iraq disarmament crisis: The U.S. Congress passes the "Iraq Liberation Act", which states that the United States wants to remove Saddam Hussein from power and replace the government with a democratic institution.

November 19 - Lewinsky scandal: The United State House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton.

December 16-December 19 - Iraq disarmament crisis: U.S. President Bill Clinton orders American and British airstrikes on Iraq. UNSCOM withdraws all weapons inspectors from Iraq.

December 19 - Lewinsky scandal: President Bill Clinton is impeached by the United States House of Representatives.

1998 was rough year for me as I started a new job at the Pentagon working in the Air Force Operations Group (AFOG) building the daily Ops briefing for Senior Leadership. I would arrive around 0300am and feverishly build, compile and arrange powerpoint slides as fast as I could, because our deadline was 0600 with the first dry run culminating in the final brief around 0800. It was very interesting observing many of these headlines unfold right before the decision makers. I worked there until January 2002 and never got a good nights sleep...but I loved it. That job taught me I could do anything! 1998 was also the year I met a good friend, Paul, who would later take over my duties at the AFOG. Paul and I still talk about the hardships we endured in the depths of the pentagon and we heartily agree, "We survived...and nothing will ever be as tough as our days as AFOGgers."

OurGirl: Rockin New Year's Eve

2007-12-31T14:53:00.000-08:00

10
9
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7
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5
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HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year, everyone! kick 2007 out on its ear. forget it! its time for fresh mistakes, fresh insights and fresh fruit. fresh fruit? oh yeh. i know your mad diet and exercise plan. i've been expecting you. i will see you wednesday, in the gym. you'll huff and puff next to me and the girl and we won't mind. you'll make us shiver in waiting for our turn at the shower stall and then we'll pester you for an electric plug. we'll keep this up until oh, about february. then me and my girl will have the gym to ourselves for the rest of the year.

'cause WE are serious. and this time, i actually am going to lose that weight. how am i so sure? oh please, A in Fiscal Management—need i remind you? because i totally can, you know. so sure am i that this doesn't even make my new year's resolution list, so here it is:

CONTENT OVERLOAD! oh, ive got the whole world in my hand with MY NEW IPOD CLASSiQUE! so completely sophisticated, this size of a cigarette case window to the universe can hold 80GB of content totally centered around BYRNE'S SENSE OF WONDER! i vow this year to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly download where many have downloaded before. itunesU? oh yeh! download the content, Scotty!
WRITE A WHITE PAPER. why not? See A in Fiscal Management
LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. probably spanish. i'm addicted to Coffee Break Spanish.com. i've already got the first ten lessons downloaded. i'm looking forward to practicing w/morgie, whose spanish is heavily accented with a heavy southern twang.
BLOG THE HARVEST, CRUSH AND FERMENTING MORE THOROUGHLY THIS YEAR. this is the second year in a row i didnt blog continuously throughout the year. ugh. that hurts. but i have developed a kick butt soundtrack for it through project playlist.
FINISH MY VINEYARD BOOK IN TIME FOR MY HUSBAND'S BIRTHDAY. Shhhhh. he has no idea i've even started the book. i found a great online resource: blurb.com. this book is going to be awesome!
FINISH MY FIRST SAILOR VALENTINE. yeh. finally. three-four years ago, i was honing my skill and getting better and better. to the left is a little ditty i created a long time ago... then i stopped, cause the new job got in the way. no more! i'm gonna finish at least ONE this year. for the girl's high school graduation. sailor valentines info here.
SEE MY PARENTS MORE.
COMPLETE ONE WEE HOME IMPROVEMENT THING A MONTH.
BE A BETTER MOM.
BE A BETTER WIFE.

Adios Amigos and Amigas! ¡Feliz Año Nuevo a nuestros lectores fieles!*
*courtesy of babel fish translation

Morgan: Merry Christmas Blog!

2007-12-25T20:27:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Before the day was gone. And give Byrne the chance to craft a really fancy New Years Blog. I spent the holiday at home with the family. My Daughter came home from Rochester Institute of Technology and we caught up with her life. She's studying criminal justice up there and we are real proud of her.

The Boy on the other hand is another story...just kidding. The Boy received Rock Band for his Xbox 360 and we have been rocking out. Boy on guitar the Girl on Drums and me (Dear old Dad) on the microphone. Very addictive game, we had a lot of fun. I scored a 100% on Nirvana's In Bloom. Really difficult to describe how much fun this game is. Here is a video of the boy playing Foo Fighters, Learning to Fly on drums.

Developed by Harmonix, Rock Band is an all-new platform for gamers to experience music, giving players the chance to rock in the shoes of the biggest guitarists, bassists, drummers and singers of all time – as a solo superstar or as part of a hard rocking band.

Rock Band delivers four music games in one – challenging rockers to master lead/bass guitar, drums and vocals or play collectively as a whole band. Built on unprecedented deals with top record labels and music publishers, the music featured in Rock Band spans all genres of rock and includes many master recordings from legendary artists.

Rock Band songs :

1970s

The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again" (master)

Mountain "Mississippi Queen" (cover)

David Bowie "Suffragette City" (master)

Black Sabbath "Paranoid" (cover)

Blue Oyster Cult "Don't Fear the Reaper" (master)

The Ramones "Rockaway Beach” (master)

1980s

Rush "Tom Sawyer" (cover)

Bon Jovi "Wanted Dead or Alive" (master)

1990s

Nirvana "In Bloom" (master)

Stone Temple Pilots "Vasoline" (master)

Weezer "Say It Ain't So" (master)

Foo Fighters “Learn to Fly” (master)

Metallica “Enter Sandman” (master)

2000s

The Hives "Main Offender" (master)

The Strokes "Reptilia" (master)

Queens of the Stone Age "Go With the Flow" (master)

The only bad thing is there is no Bryan Adams or Summer of 69. And there is NO Stairway to heaven...So lets not forget to say Feliz Complianos to Jesus Christo!

Speaking of JC, I ran across an interesting artist Mark Lawrence who paints contemporary art...with Bible Verse...don't ask. I thought you might appreciate the art if not the entreprenurial spirit. Amen.

Versevisions

OurGirl: WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!

2007-12-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

A
A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A

AAAAh. At last. oh, that squeal of astonished excitement you heard at 10:30am, thursday?

ME.

i saw the email. i leapt out of my chair and bounded out of the cubbie—WWWEEEEEEEE!! an A, i got an A! A! A! A! —AAAAYYEEE! — with such enthusiasm that i slammed into walshie as he rushed back into the cubbie, alarmed something was wrong. i grabbed his shoulders—an A, WALSH! an A in FISCAL MANAGEMENT! "OH MY GOTTS" walshie yelled. my brother poked his head out of the cubbie and we exchanged the pat morita/ralph macchio acknowledgement:

i did it mr. miayagi! i did it! and my brother looked at me with pride in his eyes and nodded.

i think somewhere birds may have wept.

i dunno. something over the top.

its the cinderella story, the small town girl living in a lonely world taking the midnight train going anywhere, the never-been-kissed drew barrymore waiting on the pitcher's mound and then it happen! i wished and worked really hard for the a, but told myself the b would be fine. i know now what my husband felt when he went back to school. i appreciate anyone pursuing a higher degree. it ain't for babies or the fainthearted.

the relief is great. supposedly, this was the more challenging of the courses. i can attest that i thought it was a tooth-puller for a girl with a BFA. yeh, quit laughing. i admit, the last paper i wrote was in 1818 english, high school, circa 1982. HEY. really. that laughter is starting to hurt my feelings...

i am now 1/10 of the way there in the pursuit of my ultimate goal. we will see if i will be able to continue—i'm as cautious about the ability to finish as i was about this class. but i do know i am able to get in there, work hard and see it pay off. 5-7 page cost-benefit analysis paper? i'm your girl! what's next? bring it on!

HEY WALSH—MORGIE—check it out.
POST #69!
SENDING THIS ONE OUT TO YOU TWO.

Morgan: The Great Procrastinator

2007-12-19T20:01:00.000-08:00

While Byrne draws inspiration from Gettysburg, I reflect on the great HBO mini-series Band of Brothers and think of how hard the Soldiers of the 101st Airborne fought against all odds. I recall one inspiring scene where Lt. Winters is leading his men across an open field in a bayonet fixed charge. He runs so fast he quickly out distances his men, climbing a steep dike he surprises a rather large contingent of German soldiers camped on the other side. He immediately opens fire and the sleepy Germans panic and try to flee, not realizing they have superior numbers. What results is described as a turkey shoot.

Another scene that is moving is during the Battle of the Bulge. Surrounded by a large counterattacking German Force, the 101st is tasked with holding the line. They dig into the frozen ground and with not enough ammunition or proper winter gear they do what they have to. Oh sure I'm sure there was a certain amount of bitching and griping, but that is every soldiers right. Facing bitter cold, fierce Germans, and a dismal Christmas, I can see them now hunkering down in their frozen foxholes peering through the dark trees...waiting. Persevering

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Shakespeare - King Henry V

Byrne was right when she described us as having our backs to the wall. Pressure mounting, we were faced with insurmountable odds...well at least I doubted my abilities to finish strong. Byrne is finishing up her masters degree and I was completing my last two classes. You see I have been pursuing my college degree for two-score years. While holding a full time job, working night shift at the Pentagon, fighting some of the worst traffic in America, and raising a young family may not be the same obstacles, they seemed daunting at times. I remember sitting in class pinching my hand, straining to stay awake when fatigue and sleep deprivation was sitting on my shoulders.

Entering this last class, Senior Seminar, I knew it would be my final challenge...it would take everything I had learned and the discipline of a Shaolin monk. It was to be an Online class. I prefer a normal face to face class, but this last class was to be fought in the virtual ethereal realm of the Internet. Upon reading the requirements I was stunned at the magnitude of what faced me. I felt like I was about ready to tackle Mt Everest with no equipment or Sherpas to help me. Damn! No wonder some people drop out of school with one class left...it was this class. For the first few weeks I treaded water, doing what was needed. I must have lost my focus or drive because by week four I felt myself drowning, and It paralyzed me with fear. I was going to fail. The paralysis only increased as the weeks went by. Why couldn't I just do what was needed. The time for withdrawing from the class was long gone and the Professor threw out another option of withdrawing with an incomplete. Was this how I wanted to go out? Finally in the last week something inside of me Clicked! I knew I had to complete this project for better or worse. It was OK to finish without complete mastery of the subject. I physically felt the need to finish what I had started 20 years ago. I sequestered myself in the basement surrounded by textbooks and shadows, and began the final push. Time was my enemy. The deadline loomed ahead of me getting closer and closer. I typed feverishly into the night, researching, rearranging, editing. I took off two days from work, unpaid. I could see the finish line right there on the horizon. I did finish. Printed my work and had it professionally bound, created a presentation and recorded audio defending my project and burned everything to a CD. Gathering up all the requirements I stuffed them into an envelope. I sat there stunned, my mind reeling thinking of what more I could have done. I hand delivered the package to the Professor that night. For a week I was petrified to look online for my grade. I felt my project was weak, could I expect a passing grade? What if I failed? Would I ever try again?

Tonight I logged on and went to the online grades...and there it was. A beautiful A.

I'm not sure whether to be ashamed it took so long or proud that I persevered and like a drop of water that never stops whittled away a mountain of courses to achieve my goal. I look back and with the gift of hindsight and think of everything I could have done differently, take more classes, study harder, try harder...and know that I did it my way.

OurGirl: I'll Fly Away

2007-11-27T19:58:00.001-08:00

for some reason, as i read morgan's blog, this song was playing in my head. i've been singing it this week because, old glory, when your back is to the wall, simple sweet songs about rising above your tribulations is powerfully comforting. morgie and i both have the wild eye wary stare-ies about us, but its only for two more weeks. after that, to quote the movie "gettsyburg"

its in gawd's hands naw.

the good professors shall see we receive our just rewards, gentlemen. quick step, my morgan. lets give them the cold steel of our determination!

which, have you seen that movie? gettsyburg is a favorite of my husband and mine. we howl at martin sheen's hammy southern accent as he plays general lee:

General Robert E. Lee: [Lee holds up his hand to silence Stuart] Perhaps you misunderstood my orders? Perhaps I did not make myself clear. Well, sir... this must be made *very* clear. You, sir, with your cavalry, are the eyes of this army. Without your cavalry, we are made blind. That has already happened once. It must never, *never* happen again.

you have blinded, me, suh! blinded me! poor jeb stuart in that scene! even though its shot really dark, jeb's beard looks awfully pasted on. we giggle that there were so many faux beards in that film the prop department had run out of the good beards when they got to jeb and just threw something together to shoot the scene. we also cheer chamberlain on during pickett's charge:

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: [Chamberlain is addressing his junior officers before the Confederate assault on Little Round Top] Gentlemen... the 83rd Pennsylvania, 44th New York, and 16th Michigan will be moving in to our right. But if you look to our left, you will see that there is no one there. It's because we're the end of the line. The Union army stops here. We are the flank. Do you understand, gentlemen? We cannot retreat. We cannot withdraw. We are going to have to be stubborn today. So, you put the boys in position, you tell them to stay down. Pile the rocks up high; get the best protection you can. I want the reserve pulled up about 20 yards. This is sloping ground, it's good ground. If you have any breakthroughs, if you have men wounded, if you have a hole in the line, you plug it with the reserve. How are we fixed for ammunition?
Capt. Ellis Spear: Sir, I think about 60 rounds per man.
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: That's good. 60 rounds. I think - I... yes, that's adequate. Any questions?
Young 20th Maine Officer: Colonel... seems to me the fighting's on that side of the hill.
Older 20th Maine Officer: Yep. Seems to me that we're the back door. Everything's goin' on at the front door.
[all but Chamberlain laugh]
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: Well, gentlemen, that hill is steep. It's rocky. It's bare. To come straight up it is impossible. No. The Reb army is going to swing around. It's gonna come up through that notch right over there. It'll move under the cover of trees, try to get 'round the flank. And gentlemen... *we* are the flank. Gentlemen.
[he salutes, and all the others return it]
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: God go with you.

god go with us, morgie. we are the flank. we cannot retreat. we cannot withdraw. we are going to have to be stubborn today. arm your keyboards and write like the wind!

enCOURAGEment can be effective, but at times, nothing suffices like comfort. i think that's why i'm drawn to stripped down, hooky music like "i'll fly away." another song i sing sometimes is "how can i keep from singing?" sometimes i listen to bluegrass/gospel music. check out "geographical oddity" located in the right hand column.

but when i really need comfort i pull out frank sinatra & antonio jobim's gem from 1967. this isn't brash full of himself frank. this is the only frank i've heard that i like—a quiet, sincerely intimate, pared-down frank—and, the only frank i'm interested in. blame it all on jobim. frank does, complaining in the liner notes how jobim kept making him sing slower and slower. i'm glad frank caved and let it happen. there is only ten songs on this cd, but each fits into the other, hand in soft glove. in many songs, i feel like i can take on that persona and sing those songs like my own. in this recording, though, i always feel like this man is singing to me. like irving berlin's "change partners":

Must you dance
every dance
with the same fortunate man?
You have danced with him since the music began.
Won't you change partners and dance with me?

Must you dance
quite so close
with your lips touching his face?
Can't you see
I'm longing to be in his place?
Won't you change partners and dance with me?

Ask him to sit this one out.
While you're alone,
I'll tell the waiter to tell
him he's wanted on the telephone.

You've been locked
in his arms
ever since heaven-knows-when.
Won't you change partners and then,
you may never want to change partners again.

i hear it and i'm holly golightly—fabulously, desireably intoxicating and sophisticated!—and there are warm lips brushing my ear as the equally fabulously, desireably intoxicating and sophisticated! unknown man murmurs the song in my ear as we dance, of course!

darling, can you smell the estrogen? its perfectly palpable!

"You know what's wrong with you, Miss whoever-you-are? You're chicken. You've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, 'Okay. Life's a fact. People do fall in love. People do belong to each other.' Because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness. You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well Baby, you're already in that cage -- you built it yourself. And it's not bounded on the west by Tulip, Texas or on the east by Somaliland. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself."

Morgan: Tribute to Alexander Supertramp

2007-11-26T18:02:00.000-08:00

Hang in there Byrne...I feel your pain. Life is hectic enough...all we got to do is hang on.

This weekend I went to see a movie by myself. "Into the Wild" Sean Penn's film adaptation of John Krakauer's book, the film is about a young eccentric man who disappeared, gave all his money to charity, had many adventures and eventually made his way to Alaska. I thought I was just going to see a backpacker movie, instead I got Christopher McCandless searching for truth and happiness. The movie was very well done changing time lines throughout and spectacular cinematography combined with an intriguing story had me hooked.
I was almost envious of Chris McCandless epic journey to Alaska. After graduating from Emory University in 1990 McCandless simply dropped out of society, hitchhiking across America, he became Alexander Supertramp. One part of me, would just love to throw the towel in and take off and follow in his footsteps...but thats not really realistic for me. I have obligations and family and I can't leave like that.

When I got home I started researching McCandless's life and was struck by many similarities between his life and mine. Chris would have been the same age as me, born a few months before me in 1968. He grew up in Annandale, VA where I lived for a few years. He graduated in 1986 (the same year for me) from WT Woodson HS were my son Chris now attends. He was on the cross-country team like me and was known for his endurance running. I don't know if he loved hiking or if it was a necessity for him, but he definitely appreciated nature and all its beauty. I have always dreamed of hiking Denali National Park and thats was Chris's ultimate destination also. I think Chris would have been the penultimate blogger...interweaving his philosophies and travels for the masses.

In 1992 he did just that, with little equipment he hike into the wild and for nearly four months lived in a remote part of the Denali National Park. He discovered an abandoned bus which he turned into his home. He was elated to be there. Inside the bus, on a sheet of weathered plywood spanning a broken window, McCandless scrawled an exultant declaration of independence:

Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.
Alexander Supertramp
May 1992

But the elation was overwhelmed by the reality that he was starving despite meager success at hunting rabbits, squirrels, wild birds. He made one attempt to return to civilization but was thwarted by swollen rivers. During this whole time he recorded every thought and hardship in a terse journal. Sick from eating poisonous berries and weak from starvation he wrote his last words.

I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!

Then he crawled into the sleeping bag his mother had made for him and slipped into unconsciousness. He probably died on August 18,1992 ...113 days after he'd walked into the wild, 19 days before six hunters and hikers would happen across the bus and discover his body inside.

The following is an excerpt from Jon Krakauer's celebrated book Into the Wild, which originally appeared in Outside Magazine, January 1993

I don't have a deathwish and I don't think Chris did either...maybe its the Call of the Wild, or an insatiable wanderlust. Maybe its the yearning for true freedom and the release of all fetters of obligation. To give up everything and just go...

OurGirl: Once in a Lifetime

2007-11-17T18:56:00.000-08:00

The Sphinx: He who questions training only trains himself at asking questions.
[the sphinx was played by edward james olmos in mystery men]

momentum of an object is defined as the the product of its mass and velocity.

an average working mother with two kids, one husband, a diminishing freelance business, a budding vineyard and a townie has decent momentum. she moves in sort of a straight-line and at a steady, constant pace.

for you physics fans, thats: P=mv

the average working mother had been operating under the fundamental law of nature, the law of conservation of momentum. the momentum of her closed system was constant and manageable.

One of the consequences of this is that the centre of mass of any system of objects will always continue with the same velocity unless acted on by a force outside the system. —wikipedia

when the average working mother with two kids, one husband, a diminishing freelance business, a budding vineyard and a townie then decides to take on a grad level course and then decides to write a white paper for an incredibly cool idea—well, bye-bye velocity.

this snail was the old me. my first question is: why is a snail trying to climb up a stick? then i thought of how hard i complicate my life, for no apparent reason, other than the sheer joy of exhaustion. fight the good fight! suck it up and go, snail, go!

lately, the inner snail in me has been feeling like this:

i got this image from
The little snail that could - Snails are faster than ADSL

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) is a form of DSL, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. —wiki

brings a whole new insight into snail mail. but it does make me think, "to what i am yoking myself?" right now, i'm thinking all that new knowledge i'm learning is sort of sitting on me as i'm struggling mightily towards the yummy green—here, lettuce. [for me, the metaphor would work just as well if the snail was struggling for cookies.] i want to check the box, MASTERS! but man, its weighing heavy on my velocity.

velocity is defined as the rate of change of position. It is a vector physical quantity, both speed and direction are required to define it. —wiki

in other words,

the density of my life is really getting to be a drag. heh. luckily, the class ends early december, at which point, the effects of the added displacement and approaching deadlines of time will diminish [am i getting this right? what am i thinking—i'm a graphic designer!] and my velocity will pick up.

until then, go snail, go!

Morgan: Mos Eisley Poker

2007-11-14T19:31:00.000-08:00

"You ready to call it quits?", Byrne asked me today. Oh crap, I thought she's breaking up the blog. She wasn't mad, or upset with me for not blog responding to the last post...She just wanted to know what the hell I was waiting for, probably because she has so much to say. I'm back. I really don't have any response to the last post. Wierd. Must be that new stream of consciousness blogging. Vanilla Sky? ughhh. I do like Philip K. Dick - Genius. I had to read it six times to understand what you were saying, but I got it eventually. Doh! I'm a simple man.
So I'm going to write about my latest obsession...No not Second Life.

If, after the first twenty minutes, you don't know who the sucker at the table is, it's you. ~Author Unknown

Last night I went to the local Carlos O'Kelly's in Fairfax, VA for my weekly poker tournament with the Stars-n-Bars Poker League I really get excited for this weekly game. As you may know poker has been pretty big part of my life the last couple of years. I don't play for big money. I play for love of the game. It hearkens back to my caveman DNA and this incessant need to hunt. When I step into that smoky bar something primeval triggers inside of me. Not only am I hunting, but I am being hunted by my prey. I have to be very careful...and bold.

I sat down at my table and looked around at my opponents. After a few weeks of assessing my victims I feel as if I am beginning to see some patterns which I might be able to exploit. We were crammed 10 people deep around a little rickety fold up table of green felt. The odd assortment of people are something you might see at the Mos Eisely cantina on Tatooine (Star Wars Reference) There was the big friendly Joker to my left who plays really well...I need to be careful of him. Next to him was a little old lady with grey hair reading a library book...She's dangerous, need to be careful of her. The man beast sitting next to her was as big and smelly as Jabba the Hutt, his chair strained to hold him up as he greedily shoveled tortillas and salsa into his maw...he likes to raise big and bluff. On his left is a young hispanic boy with a shirt and tie on...looked like a a young fish to me. Next to him is a grizzled old man with no teeth anxiously shuffling his chips, and chain smoking Marlboros...Looks experienced, better be careful. A middle age woman in a Virginia Tech sweatshirt talks to another woman sipping a margarita. Better not underestimate those two. At the end of the table was a stranger in dark sunglasses and black clothes with long silver hair, he looked exactly like the intense actor Edward James Olmos with his pockmarked skin. Although I usually play tight in the beginning, I got involved in our first hand with this intimidating man as he tried to raise me off the hand with a thousand dollar bet...As I had top pair, I cautiously called. He frowned at me, I couldn't see eyes, but I could see his brow furrow in frustration. He threw half of his chips into the pot trying to scare me off...my heart beating, the adrenaline rush was overwhelming as I showed him my winning cards. I scooped up the huge pot...thinking, I may look like a scared chubby white guy, but you guys better watch out, because I...am...SPARTACUS!

BLOG-OID Alert!

Gallup suggests that blogs are catching on with web users and their online activities.

Their latest poll, who surveyed 1,013 adults nationally, found that:

73% of Americans who use the Web
87% use email
72% check news and weather
52% shop
52% plan travel
28% use instant messaging
23% participate in online auctions
22% view videocasts
22% download music
20% consult blogs at least "occassionally" and "frequently"

OurGirl: Anatomy of a Post

2007-11-03T09:15:00.000-07:00

Note: scene contains obscenities

This was supposed to be a post where i talk about band aid approaches to life. the movie snippet is from vanilla sky. the character tom cruise plays has a group of experts working to restore the damages to his face. these damages done are largely due to tom cruise's character never fully participating in his own life—but instead, preferring to just sort of float on the surface of life and mutter sardonically about the obstacles and people in his life. here he totally flips out and is probably one of my favorite movie scenes. i think everyone has experienced that sense of helpless rage, the contempt for corporate/technical euphemisms, and the dawning sense of horror that maybe, had they just been a bit quicker, smarter, more empathic, or just more aware, this all could have been avoided.

as i write this, boy2 shoves two starbursts from halloween into his mouth. with a dreamy look on his face he softly, almost reverently whispers as he chews: "taste the rainbow. taste the rainbow."

i remember vanilla sky is based upon alejandro amenabar's abre los ojos and i do a search on wiki for the movie. my intent is to make an obscure reference so that my brother will grouse, "i dont know what to do with THAT." plus, remember my fondness for latin magical realism? oh, and by the way, they've made a movie about gabriel garcia marquez's love in the time of cholera. i will see that one.

boy2 now has my camera and he is spinning himself in a circle, randomly taking pictures as he spins. that's pretty cool. why didn't i ever do highly imaginative things like that when i was a kid?

on the wiki page, i see the spanish film's plot and themes are similiar to philip k. dick's Ubik. morgie loves philip k. dick. tom cruise starred in the minority report, another dick movie.

heh.

boy2 has now pestered me to take him to the farm at the same point his father has called me on the cell, asking me to come to the vineyard to help with post hole digging. evidently there has been enough blog post digging for content. it is time to take responsibility and act in my life instead of just floating and responding to my life in an online dream. and yes, before i realized that blogging was imitating cinema imitating books imitating life, i threw a little temper tantrum of my own and snapped would you give me five minutes of a free moment to just think and finish this task? which is a task about recording the events leading up to the temper tantrum.

open your eyes and taste the rainbow.

Morgan: Real Fear Relived

2007-10-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

Princess Bride was such a great movie, with excellent writing. How can we ever forget the Cliffs of Insanity or Rodents of Unusual Size. I really loved the "bad guys" Fezzik, Vizzini and the sword fighting Inigo Montoya. Its hard to believe that movie is 20 years old and still delivers every time I watch it.

This weekend I took my wife and son to the movies for her birthday...we decided to see a horror flick based off of a graphic novel, 30 Days of Night I'm not a big fan of scary movies, well because I get scared. This movie was based in Pt Barrow, Alaska and the town was preparing for their annual 30 days of night. Unaware that a whole posse full of zombie like vampires was about dine on them. Without spoiling the movie lets just say cut off from civilization the town gets devoured except for a handful of survivors. I was nervous and tense through out the movie and my wife was clutching my arm and hand the whole time, she claimed she was cold.
At the conclusion we drove home and critiqued the movie on the way home as we usually do. It was then that my wife revealed how scared she really was. She had even contemplated walking out of the theater. She said she was clutching my hand out of fear and wanted to know what was wrong with her. Normally she has enjoyed horror movies, yet this movie scared her so much, and she was wondering why? Was it because she was getting older? Was the Movie really that scary?
I told her I thought it was the hopelessness of the (movie) situation and how it may have been difficult for her because she's always trying to protect her family, and the characters could not.
Not to mention Pt Barrow has got to be the most depressing place in the world to live.

She started remembering her harrowing experiences in 1980 trying to escape Vietnam aboard a coal freighter. She described how they were put into a 12 foot cargo hold with 300 others. There was a total of 5,000 people on the the ship and as soon as they got off the coast, the UN informed them to return to Vietnam, they would not be accepting refugees from Vietnam anymore. They were stuck, no one wanted them. They had nowhere to go. Living conditions worsened daily, she described how she had to climb out of the hold to get 4 ounces of dirty water every three days. While she would be climbing up the ladder people would be climbing down. Chaos reigned. People started dying from dehydration and starvation. Every time someone would die they would ring the ships bell and dump the body overseas. She still considers herself lucky.

Sorry I know I have talked about this before. I guess we wont be going to any more horror movies for a while...

OurGirl: EHPAAAAHHH!

2007-10-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

Iñigo Montoya: You are using Bonetti’s Defense against me, ah?
Man in Black: I thought it fitting considering the rocky terrain.
Iñigo Montoya: Naturally, you must suspect me to attack with Capa Ferro?
Man in Black: Naturally… but I find that Thibault cancels out Capa Ferro. Don’t you?
Iñigo Montoya: Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa… which I have.

another life ago i fenced in college. at this point, usually someone asks, oh—what did you fence? did you ever get caught?

rim shot.

i fenced foil. it was one of those snap decisions i've made that ended up being the start of something really great. i think that whenever you have a immediate visceral reaction to something, you should not ignore that reaction, but act upon it immediately. i loved everything about fencing. i loved the drilling and the awesome legs that came from lunging up and down the gym. i loved the parry-riposte practice—the back and forth, quick-quick until someone's timing slipped and a hit to the chest would stop the drill. oh, and those hits. i loved, loved, loved holding a foil (italian grip), hearing salute, en-garde, fence and then starting that rhythm—that testing of each other with advancing/retreating, a feint or a quick beat attack. it was all about working the time and then striking with an off-tempo move—a disengage attack, a swift attack out of time or even a quick lunge, straight forward attack. and then, landing that sweet hit—sinking the pointy-end extension of your arm into someone's chest. satisfying? completely. utterly. satisfying.

the closest i get to that feeling now days is when my marine friend puts the arm guards on, holds his arms up either side of his head and allows my girl and me to wail away for a 60 seconds. that's our rest period and then we peel off the gloves and collapse into pushups or sprinting with kettle bells. hitting him as hard and rapidly as possible is very satisfying

but i digress from fencing.

often, when an experienced fencer lands a satisfying hit she/he exclaims, EHHPAHH! sort of a "it is there" expression. my second fencing coach, hassan, would shout: allah akbar! whenever he scored a satisfying touch. both of my fencing coaches were patient in their instructions, but during the drilling they would get bored at a certain point.They both would try this very tricky move where they would parry 7 my blade out and whip their blade back and out and over to touch a hit on my back. ugh. embarrassing. i learned to watch for the tell tale signs. it was hard to figure out a response to the parry. finally, one day, i figured out how to defend and then counter attack. Parry 7s are hard to carry off, so when i would see the blade start its vertical and across descent, the effective solution was to rip my blade up, pushing my coach's blade up and then quickly thrusting in to their belly. the defense worked a few times.

you should try it next time, to see for yourself.

Morgan: Civilian Life Observations

2007-10-15T21:08:00.000-07:00

Riposte? What is that French? Am I supposed to speak french now? ahhhhh! Non. I refuse. I don't remember that rule. Now we got rules...great. Seems like we weren't supposed to blog about work either...but Byrne seems to bend that rule.

Lets talk about work. The hardest thing is dressing myself in the morning. After 21 years of military life and the utilitarian uniform which I was proud to wear, now I find myself staring at closet and scratching my head each morning. What should I wear? Khaki's or dockers. Should I tuck my shirt in or wear it out? Why are these pants so tight!
After much criticism from my wife for being a casual Jeans and T-shirt guy for so many years, I find myself trying to dress better, but its very difficult to cleanup this farm boy. I find myself wishing for a fashion makeover. Then there is my local dry cleaners who seem very adept at shrinking all my shirts so small I can barely squeeze into them.

My Commute is a blessing...decreased by third of what I was driving this last year. I thank God every day my commute is so short! about thirty minutes both ways. Sometimes I even have time to stop for coffee.

Ah, sweet Coffee! the elixir of life, nectar of the gods...I'm definitely not a gourmet when it comes to coffee. I will drink anything 7-11, MacDonalds, Starbucks or Bobs Swill....Just give me caffeine.

Returning to work has been surreal. Like the prodigal son returning. Everyone has been very nice and welcomed me back into the family. I really enjoy Illustrating and doing graphics, I try to do a good job...I find the work very satisfying at the end of the day I can look back and say...I did that. Me.

PS unable to load pictures...will fix tommorow

OurGirl: Purposefully Loving Writers Blog

2007-10-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

mind you, walsh never reads this blog. he's too busy. really. however, somehow he divined enough information about my recent posting to point out i haven't been riposte blogging.

riposte blogging was a convention we set up at the beginning of morgan and byrne in order to weave some kind of threaded context between our posting. we could post about anything as long as it related somewhat to what the other had posted (i'd like to point out puns are accepted). that, and we would open with a quote and a pic and then end with a pic and quote.

note as time wears on we are wearing down and forgetting our basic rules. soon we will resort to ASCII art.

on second thought, that looks way too hard.
: P

my college course is fiscal administration. yeh. i want to talk about it as much as morgan wants to talk about senior seminar. i find the following blogs a source of comfort during long stints of searching OMB's A-11 circular (don't lobby congress for more money than the president want you to have. big no-no.) or the OMB site itself to determine the budget classification of the Fish and Wildlife Federation (Natural Resources and Environment [301]).

enjoy!

the benefit of work is the pleasure of knowing people like stew. the only thing better than reading stew is talking to stew. i'm glad he's on the mend.

love, love, love corporate self help books. its a sickness. but when you are immersed in grad studies, you don't have the time for the full read. penelope gives it to you in under a page. sweet.

seriously, clark aldrich. makes me want an instructional design degree and help bridge that gap between boomers and gen x&y, man!

as walsh says: giddyup.

Random thoughts...fighting Writers Block

2007-10-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

So I was surfing when I should have been doing schoolwork and came across this sweet deal. A deactivated missile base for sale. Only 1.5 million dollars! It has numerous buildings underground and thousands of feet of interconnecting tunnels. Think of all the things you could do with a missile base...and its infrastructure...OK never mind. Bad Idea, probably in South Dakota anyway.
http://www.themissilebase.com/home

Christopher (my Son) made a CD of music for me to play in the Grey Ghost...Plenty of ACDC, Metallica, and Ozzy. Every song was perfect...It was the nicest present I had received...today. Man I love that kid.

I'm taking my last class for my BS in Computer Networking. Senior Seminar is all about writing a fictional Proposal to design a computer network...gay, right? My proposal is to design a network for the Dunder-Mifflin Police and Fire department. Do you really want to hear more?
Its boring me as we speak. Honestly though I am glad its almost over...the one thing I have learned from all these classes, is...I am no tech person. Shame it took me so long to figure out.

My addiction with Second Life is officially over...something about Linden dollars...left me feeling empty. The constant crashes and slow rendering graphic became to tedious. I knew it was time to move on...Maybe I'll go back and visit my avatar occasionally. He did have some pretty cool dance moves. My latest vice is Stolichnaya Vodka. Not much, don't get alarmed, just a glass or two before bed...it really helps me fall asleep...go figure.

My other guilty pleasure is a online cartoon called Penny Arcade. Its the success story of two buddies drawing and blogging about the gaming industry and making money at it. Most of the content is beyond my comprehension, but I do admire their clean and fun style.

OurGirl: Walsh's Despair

2007-10-03T15:22:00.000-07:00

i know there are those of you out there that refuse to believe there is a Walsh. that's just a name we tack up on our masthead to pathetically make believe we are more than who we are. blogger morons! others of you check in periodically—hope and heart in hand—looking for a post, a comment, some sort of sign of the longed-for Walsh.

Walsh does exist, but he can't come to the phone right now. he's my BFF (knock fists together). we share common blood type (just found out today! wee!), love of howard stern, quote shrek, and have the same religious background. he, along with my brother, is a trusted partner in crime and the best audience for which anyone could hope. oh, i mean it. i've watched Walsh. he's truly fascinated with the stories all of us bring in. he never feigns interest and when he laughs (and he often does) you really feel you scored something. he really cares about people and works hard to coach them along. it works—we all try ridiculously hard to impress him. he's has that got it together/life according to plan/genuinely great guy air about him.

he also has a wickedly twisted sense of humor that i dig.

www.despair.com

he sings its praises. he revels in it. he truly gets the message and best of all wants to share it with others. however, walsh's life gets in the way. so i thought i'd help him out and post for him. check out the golf shirt copy:


		Executive Despair Logo Shirt From the celebrated Cubavera� family of executive leisure shirts comes this polynosic masterpiece- a silky soft microfibre sport shirt with birdseye knit collar. Luxurious almost to the point of eroticism, this shirt adorns the wearer in an invisible cloak of certain potency. TS-217 $59.95October Sales Special! Size: Quantity:


		Hipster Despair Logo Shirt What do you get when you combine the nation's premiere purveyor of fantastically comfortable hipster threads with the world's foremost commoditizer of cynicism? What are you, stupid? LOOK AT THE PICTURE ABOVE. That's what you get. What a beets. TS-216 $29.95October Sales Special! Size: Color: Quantity:

heh. invisible cloak of certain potency. thanks, walsh!

Bob Slydell: I'd like to move us right along to a Peter Gibbons. Now we had a chance to meet this young man, and boy that's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.

Rhino: Return of Masterchief

2007-09-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

Morgan and Byrne Mission Statement

Randomly Blogging about whatever the hell we want, from the strange to wacky, popular to obscure we will continue seeking out the stories that we're interested in. Writing about our lives and families, situations and events. We don't care to motivate, persuade or inform we just enjoy blogging. Our only rule is we NEVER blog about work. We do hope you enjoy reading or irreverent and occasionally entertaining blog and hope you return often and leave a comment (our girl loves comments).

May 24, 2007 - 1130 pm I found myself standing in line with 300 disheveled gamers awaiting the midnight release of the highly anticipated Halo 3 by Bungie. I was there to obtain a coveted copy of the game for my 14 yr old son who was soundly asleep at home. As I stood there choking on the second hand smoke of all the young gamers surrounding me, I was awkwardly aware I was the oldest person there. They were a motley group of long haired, slouching cross sample of America's youth...Was this America's future? As I inched forward toward our shared goal, I thought about how I had been playing video games before they had even been born. Shoot! I was the O.G. (original gamer)! I had cut my teeth on Pong and the early version of the Atari console. I remembered long hours of Missile Command and fighting aliens with the primitive graphics of Zaxxon. The anticipation of trying to get Frogger across the street and over the logs to the other side of the river seems like yesterday. I loved gaming and was only to happy to get a Super Nintendo entertainment system for my daughter...It was a good excuse! Because I got to play too. As a toddler, my son used to just watch us play, he didn't want to play. He was content to just sit and watch...I didn't know but he was learning. Each year the graphics would get better. We graduated to Sony Playstation and I became an expert at Gran Turismo Racing.
Play Station 2, Xbox, Xbox 360. Over the years I've found myself playing less and less. Slow reflexes and games so complicated I can't get through the Online directory have relegated me to watching my son play more often then not. Games can be very addictive and I have had to be very strict as to how much my kids play. Education and school are their main focus and I have had to control the privilege of playing, limiting them to only weekends. Leveraging game play into better grades was probably the best thing I could have done for them.

According to Microsoft, first-day sales of Halo 3 reached $170 million, making it the highest grossing entertainment product within 24 hours of release ever. The performance beat the previous record setter, predecessor Halo 2, which earned $125 million within 24-hours after its launch. Halo 3 has beaten other records as well. More than 1.7 million copies of Halo 3 were pre-ordered in the U.S., making it the fastest pre-selling game in U.S. history. The game also drew over a million Xbox Live members to play online in the first 20-hours, making it the biggest day for Xbox Live gaming in history.

Reality Bites

2007-09-23T06:28:00.001-07:00

yeh. while you see all that plastic prettiness in SL, here's what is really going on on the other side of the computer screen.

Aqua - Barbie Girl

2007-09-23T06:27:00.001-07:00

second life? aqua pretty much nailed it in 1997.

OurGirl: Come on Barbie, Let's Go Party!

2007-09-23T05:30:00.000-07:00

right now for me, SL has been nothing more than playing with barbies. take a look at my avatar in SL. she is so buff and taller than i am real life. i dig her noncorporate 'do, but i kept true to real life and gave her a good spanking of freckles. i also added a bit of bags under her eyes, since sleep is a premium for me in RL. one thing i cant figure out is the shirt length. SL loves the bippie top. heh. my avatar is pensively gazing out at the ocean in a stranger's mod home on some island. she wishes for land to build a scale shoestring vineyard, complete with a tasting room. my avatar would then have vodcasts of shoestring vineyard life to show the other avatars and would offer racks of wine to decorate homes--like this mod pad. or offer single bottles of wine with a glass and a script that would have the avatars swirling the wine glass, sniffing and tasting. she's pretty ambitious but doesn't know where to start.

sort of like real life.

right now my avatar is stretched out on a hammock...or blanket...or snoozing on a couch...or lounging on a bed of pillows in a tower somewhere. she gets more sleep than i'll see. my approach to SL is so dopey. i feel sort of responsible for making my avatar comfortable while i'm out. so i find her snoozing spots. people have been dropping off notecards with invites to clubbing in the evening. hah! puhleeze. with my schedule, there is no way this avatar will ever be able to go clubbing. i just started SL during a perfect storm of home, academic, and professional activities. ive been limited exploring different islands and experimenting with camping (ugh) for cash or even better--dancing! i gots me some mad russian dance skills, yeh. took me a while to figure out how to stop, though. picture the avatar walking around and performing russian kicks at the same time. comedy and chaos ensues! with my meager earnings i purchased a few tidbits i immediately regretted. the hottie school girl outfit? even my avatar feels she's mutton as lamb in that ensemble. oh, and hair! that's so crazy, man. you put on a bald cap and then try on the hair. i get it working right, but the styles aren't quite right for my avatar. then again, i wasnt much good at playing with barbies. all my barbies looked pretty much like how they came out of the packaging. i was totally at a loss with all that mad hair. do all barbies come from texas?

which makes me remember Aqua's song: Barbie Girl. ah, Aqua! how refreshing i find your effervescent euro dance music! nostalgia hit me and i utube'd the group. what i found is pretty much how i've come to think of SL. first, you'll see the group aqua. that's SL. the next utube is pretty much what is happening on the other side of the computer screen. real life isn't pretty or for the faint hearted, but damn its funny.

Morgan: Confessions of a Second Life Junkie

2007-09-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

Most of my friends are playing Fantasy Football...Not me, for the last week I have been exploring the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) virtual world of Second Life(SL). It was pretty easy to get started, first I registered and paid a small fee to participate. I than downloaded the software to run on my laptop. Our Girl had been talking about SL for a couple of days and I had been reading increasingly frequent stories in the media of people getting rich in SL, so my interest was already piqued. Last year I had read the highly acclaimed Sci-Fi novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson published in 1992 He was almost prophetic in descriptions of "the Street or Metaverse" a virtual world were people lived and conducted business. Like many postmodernist novels, Snow Crash has a chaotic structure that might confuse readers unfamiliar with the genre. It contains many references to history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, geography and philosophy. Set in a world with a political-economic system that has been radically transformed, the novel examines religion along with its social importance, perception of reality versus virtual reality, and the violent and physical nature of humanity.

Influence on the World Wide Web

While Stephenson was not the first to apply the Sanskrit term avatar to online virtual bodies (Habitat did that), the success of Snow Crash popularized the term to the extent that avatar is now the de facto term for this concept in computer games and on the World Wide Web.

Metaverse-like "worlds" in reality include There, Second Life, The Palace, Uru, Dotsoul, Active Worlds and Blaxxun (originally Black Sun prior to being sued by Sun Microsystems). Some massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) also resemble the Metaverse.

According to its creators, the computer game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst was inspired by Snow Crash. This does not refer to the story or content of the game (which is deeply rooted in the D'ni/Myst universe), but rather the format of the multiplayer environment, Uru Live.

Many virtual globe programs including NASA World Wind and Google Earth bear a resemblance to the "Earth" software developed by the Central Intelligence Corporation in Snow Crash. One Google Earth co-founder claimed that Google Earth was modeled after Snow Crash, while another co-founder said it was inspired by Powers of Ten.^[10]

Stephenson's vision of the Library of Congress or simply the 'Library' bears a striking resemblance to Wikipedia. In the story, millions of users are constantly uploading fragments of information to a searchable database. Stephenson's concept of the Library differs notably from Wikipedia however, in that users must pay to download most information.^[11] Indeed the novel refers to several people, including Hiro Protagonist, who pursue a career in uploading information in the hopes that it will one day be of value. Although it is unclear whether Stephenson may actually have influenced the development of Wikipedia he clearly predicted the concept.

So it didn't take much to convince me to Log on...I was already hooked. Now when I get home from my real job in my first life, I think...OK I gotta go to work in my second life and make some money. You need a lot of money in Second Life to own property...or build a home. I like the idea of building something of value in virtual reality...but right now I feel like a homeless person in Second Life drifting from Job to Job, Island to Island.

OurGirl: Confessions of a Magazine Junkie

2007-09-08T06:49:00.000-07:00

From the "I Want to be a Child that has the Right to Choose series," Juo Gin, China

I'm a terrible magazine junkie. i love, love, love racks and racks of printed publications and our local borders bookstore has a particularly satisfying book rack. Way back, about 1998, i was an avid reader of ARTnews. Its a magazine all about the art scene—trends, profiles, the ins and outs of the art world—really fascinating stuff and a world totally apart from my existence. i was flipping through an issue when i saw an ad placed by Flanders Contemporary Art, promoting the work of guo jin. i remember having a very distinct, gut reaction seeing his series, I Want to be the Child that has the Right to Choose. i decided right then I would own one of those paintings and that was an odd idea in contrast to my background. why where i'm from, people just didnt go around buying original oil paintings from the chinese advant garde movement. i remember my mom trying to convince me it would be a bad idea. she felt they looked like abortions. i couldnt be dissuaded. i would own one. i contacted flanders, spoke to a rep and they sent me photos of the work. among the images of little boys and girls, i saw her: a portrait of a remote little girl, dreamily contemplating a flower and dressed in historical garb. out of the four or five paintings they had in the series, she was mine. i scrapped, freelanced, used tax return funds and got the money to flanders. she came in a wood box, carefully protected and i refuse to have her framed. i prefer the apple green background to visually ooze out onto the wall. she has adorned a prominent wall wherever i have called home, safe from UV rays and sun bleaching. she is beautiful. i have never regret the purchase. after a while, i have tried to find a few of her brothers and sisters, but sadly, the prices are now far beyond my reach.

here is background information regarding Guo Jin, and his brother:

Guo Wei and Guo Jin, born in 1960 and 1964, respectively, come from Chengdu, a city in southwest China; both were educated at the Sichuan Academy of Fine Art in Chongqing. They are leading members of a group of Sichuan artists who have been at the forefront of recent artistic developments in China. Old enough to remember the Cultural Revolution, the brothers, like everyone else in China, have been affected by the one-family, one-child policy of the Mao era: the elder has made his only daughter's development a major theme in his art. Both frequently depict children.

Guo Jin says of his art that it is a “reflection and contemplation of man’s naiveté”, that in representing children as he does he wants to try to retrieve the “beauty of the idealism that we were unaware of but that once we had.”

Freedom is another important element in Guo Jin’s work. Freedom is expressed in this child subject matters, seen being very nimble and playful in their movements. Again, this also touches on the new freedom of creation which now exists in the Chinese artistic communities that Guo Jin can take Chinese icons such as the emperor, the PLA soldier, the Red Guard and Lei Feng (the model communist comrade widely used in propaganda campaigns), or western imports such as Zorro or Batman, and use them playfully. Misuse of national icons or use of foreign symbols could have resulted in severe repercussions under the unrelenting regime of the Cultural Revolution. This series of works is also about imagination and the freedom of choice facing a child, its freedom to choose what it wants to be, again a novelty in a country that until recently decided for its young what they should study.

Rhino: America's Melting Pot

2007-09-06T21:18:00.000-07:00

I recently watched a documentary of the trials of Ameri-Asians living in Vietnam. Thousands of young adults of mixed heritage have grown up experiencing poverty and discrimination in their own country. They are known as "children of the dust" Not being accepted by the Vietnamese has caused a lot of these individuals to emigrate to Europe and America, however many still live in Vietnam. While not entirely their fault, when the Communist took over in 1975, many young women abandoned these children fearing retribution from the government and communities.
The documentary really made an impression on me as my daughter and son are Ameri-Asian also.
However they are very lucky to have been raised under different circumstances. With the support of my wife and I they are growing up into fine adults (I hope.) When I first got married I knew that even though we were in America, we needed to live in a diverse community were they would be accepted and free of discrimination. Northern Virginia was the perfect locale to raise my "mixed" family. It had a sufficient cluster community of Vietnamese Americans to support my wife's needs. She was able to shop for Asian foods, purchase vietnamese videos for her entertainment and make and maintain friendships within her community. It was beneficial for my children also because they were exposed to both cultures and grew up aware of their heritage. Northern Virginia is so diverse with people from all over the world, making their homes here, my family didn't stand out as an oddity they blended into the American melting pot and were free of overt discrimination. My children have more opportunities and better education here than if we had chosen a more rural location in America to build our family.
I was recently made aware of this when a friend of my wife visited our home from a small town outside Syracuse, NY. She is of mixed heritage, her father being a French Officer in Vietnam before the Americans took over. But what really struck me was, how unhappy she was living in "white" community isolated from the very infrastructure my wife used. In a small community she has had trouble finding employment and the "american dream" has been more of a nightmare.
I thank God my family has been more fortunate than others, my heart goes out to the Diaspora and the plight of all Ameri-Asians.

OurGirl: Best of Boys, Vol. 1

2007-09-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

out on the road today i saw a deadhead sticker on a cadillac. a little voice inside my head said don't look back, you can never look back.

boys of summer, don henley

sons are surprising animals. they are rowdy, dirty lovers of fart and burping sounds one minute, then turn around, kiss you tenderly and declare you the most beautiful mother of doom (the ultimate 4 year-old compliment). I consider this even more tender due to the fact boy2 had just kissed me through the snotty, allergy-ridden haze currently polluting my immediate environment. allergies! i depise you as much as morgan despises poison ivy. to be a mother is privilege, enough; to be the mother of the boys of mine—heaven.

with summer ending, i find myself watching the boys carefully and soaking them in. a friend brought her mother over to the farmhouse this past weekend. even at 90 years old, she was observing my boys in that wistful, hungry fashion many women have when starved for little ones. the desire for babies never leaves a woman, so i want to have many, many opportunities to look back. recently, boy1 and i had the opportunity to eat lunch with the rhino, son of rhino, she who must be obeyed, bullfrog, and walsh. it was an event. i hope my boys grow up as close as the rhino&bullfrog. they make me laugh hard.

morgan gave you a top ten list of movies. here is my top ten list of all things boy:

10. dips in pools are considered baths.
09. if the deer in the creek is dead, poke the eyes. then make sure to tell momma what it felt like.
08. the ability to fall asleep in any position. this includes standing. right after they insisted they are NOT tired.
07. beverage of choice: a suicide. its a mixture of every fountain drink/slurpee flavor.
06. making forts out of all available bedding and every chair in the house.
05. fart/burping jokes. especially with daddy. he's the master. also, wrestling.
04. having momma fill up their mouth with reddi-whip in a can until they look like a donut and it comes out their noses 'cause they are laughing too hard.
03. home-made cards with poems
02. telling momma secrets and wild schemes
01. sticky/watery/bloody kisses while they are laughing/crying/angry. sometimes all at once.

i was able to stump my boys recently, of which i'm proud. they are pretty clever beasties and are quick with a retort. this is the question that stumped them:

which is better, ice cream or doughnuts?
are you thinking about it? you can't cheat and say beer is better.

Morgan: Son of a Itch!

2007-08-28T20:59:00.001-07:00

Not all vacations are fun. I did a section hike of the Appalachian Trail last weekend. I won't bore you with our trail of trials. you can read all about it on Mustangs of Destiny, however I'm here to tell you I got a very severe case of Poison Ivy that is kicking my ass. The rash started popping up immediately and now the incessant itching is driving me crazy with sleepless nights. I rubbed cortizone cream to relieve the itching but it just seems to spread further. I thought maybe the chlorine in the pool would heal me so I took a dip this afternoon, to no avail. I have a doctor appointment tomorrow and they will probably prescribe some steroids to clear me up. I started doing some research about global warming and a new strain of Super Poison Ivy and what I found was alarming. Ahhhhhh! I can't stop itching!

Climate Change Brings Super Poison Ivy

Researches Say Boost in Carbon Dioxide Has an Itchy Impact

By Kathleen Doheny
WebMD Feature

Climate change isn’t just increasing outdoor temperatures and warming up the oceans. It may also greatly increase your chances of getting a really bad case of poison ivy.

As the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, it's boosting the growth of poison ivy plants, two recent studies show. These elevated carbon dioxide levels are creating bigger, stronger poison ivy plants that produce more urushiol, the oil that causes the allergic reaction and miserable poison ivy rash. The urushiol isn't just more plentiful; it might also be more potent.

"Initial data suggests that there may be a more [powerful] form of urushiol being produced with increasing carbon dioxide," says Lewis Ziska, PhD, a weed ecologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Md., and a co-researcher of both studies.

In the last 50 years, Ziska says, the growth rate of the poison ivy plant has doubled. "The chances of encountering poison ivy and coming down with a rash are greater than they used to be," he tells WebMD.

The urushiol found in the sap of the poison ivy plant binds to skin cells when it comes into contact, says Ziska.

Touching the sap of the plant as well as touching something on which urushiol is present, such as garden tools, can result in an allergic reaction, according to the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD). Burning poison ivy plants can release urushiol particles into the air.

When the oil gets on the skin, it can penetrate in minutes, according to the AAD.

"Once it is absorbed, there is not much you can do," Ziska adds.

"Most people don't know they have come into contact until hours later or even longer, when they start reacting," says David Peng, MD, assistant professor of clinical dermatology at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles. He runs the contact dermatitis clinic at USC, and poison ivy rash is a kind of contact dermatitis.

Typically, there is itching, redness, swelling, and the rash, according to the AAD.

"It can take hours to days to exhibit the rash," says Ronald Brancaccio, MD, clinical professor of dermatology at the New York University School of Medicine and a practicing dermatologist at the Skin Institute of New York. A reaction usually occurs within 12 to 48 hours, the AAD estimates.

Mirroring Morgan in PA

2007-08-16T07:15:00.000-07:00

Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where—" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you walk," said the Cat.
"—so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough!"
—Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

i was just in pa, this past week. we took the boys to hershey park, a nice enough adventure. the small burghs remind me of st. louis and i get happy nostalgic but then i wonder: what's up with the roads? for such a pretty state, you've got some crappy roads.

that, and you make it really hard to get a bumper of beer. on the way back from hershey, we stopped at this store called the beer zoo. turns out the beer zoo only deals with large game—just cases of beer. so in pa, you can get cases of beer, but supermarkets are not allowed to carry beer. if you want a six pack, you go to a bar and they will sell you a six pack, but its expensive. curiouser and curiouser. wonder if only being able to purchase beer by the case has any bearing on the highway layout and condition?

the best part of the trip was when i didn't pay attention to navigating around york. i had to get us through the city as a consequence—and i did it! i was even able to tell by the position of the sun which way was north, so i felt pretty swell about my mad navigational skills. we were on our way to gettysburg, feeling pretty good and my husband sees a sign for the Haufbrauhaus
my husband says, how do you say that? and i say, oh? Haufbrauhaus? i've eaten there. and then we just looked at each other and laughed. we were in that part of PA by ourselves for the first time and i had just succeeded in getting us unlost.

you really ate there? said my husband. yeh. i think i did, my dad will travel for miles to eat at a German restaurant and i remember the name. just then we drove past the restaurant and i said yep. ate there. called my dad to confirm and then we laughed some more. its fun to travel with my husband.

about a month ago, boy1 and i had a you and me night and i took him to see Live Free, Die Hard. really great silly fun, but i had to have a talk about some of the terrible things the hero said of the villian's girlfriend. HEY HOLLYWOOD, I'M TRYING TO RAISE A MAN THAT RESPECTS WOMEN HERE. you give us a completely hot, hardcore if misguided chick that kicked willis' can several times and then you give him some dialogue that totally denigrates that girl. ugh. i give up wid you.

the movie still makes boy1's top 10 list. so did talledega nights. and troy. i know. his mother's child. he lives for those pg13 movies because he's so unfairly restricted from them unless his mother totally doesn't see that troy is R-rated. his father still hasn't forgiven me.

about movies, all i want to point out is that movie, A WALK IN THE CLOUDS? yeh. world's away from my vineyard experience. but when i'm sick, its my favorite secret indulgence. yeh. i cry. i can tell you, though, my husband and i never don glossamer wings and waft our way through the vineyards in our nighties, keeping the frost at bay.

image courtesy of imdb.com

WEEEEEEEE!!!!
ahahahahaHAAH!

Morgan: Live from Canada!

2007-08-08T11:40:00.001-07:00

Vacation Volunteer? I guess I volunteered to drive my wife to Canada to visit her mom. Ugh!
Every year we pile in the clown car and drive 9 hours to Toronto. There is no easy way to travel there from Washington DC, because of the near impassable mountains of Pennsylvania...but we persevere like pioneers and find the mountain passes and travel north. We never go in the winter, we only made that mistake once...brrrr, cold! This year we decided to spend the night in Niagara Falls, on the Canadian side of course. The poor Americans have no view or casino. We met our daughter who drove over from Rochester for dinner. It was nice. Without words she knew I had forgiven her for the terrible things she had said, during her last visit. The four of us eating in a Italian restaurant...this was our vacation, just like old times.
I snuck out of the hotel around midnight and went in search of a poker game. The Casino was right across the street and was calling my name...Jeeeef come play with us! Bring Money! I didn't get to play as the waiting list for a table was impossibly long so I went home around two. The next morning I went back to the casino around 11am. First I played in a North American Poker Championship WPT Satellite Qualifier...that didn't go to well. I went All-In with pocket Nines and some donkey called me with K-Q. After that I Played $1-$2 NL for 6 hours and I was Deliciously Aggressive and Dominated some poor Vietnamese guy until he would fold if I was in the pot. It was awesome...and I finish about a hundred (Hunj) up. I went all-in with Kings, Queens and 9-7. Then I played Roulette...which is a quick way to loose your money, but fun. They say, the French invented two ways to kill a man... the guillotine and roulette. I won about $150 on the wheel of death. Not a lot of money...but I love winning. I don't really know what Colette, Christopher and Christine did. Around seven I started feeling guilty so I quit.
We then made the final push towards Toronto, Family and Dinner. I was so hungry I had not eaten all day. It was Nice to see everyone and I was in a pleasant mood the rest of the evening. Awash with the glow of victory.

Destroy your enemy and see him driven before you --Conan

The Boy requested I make Top 10 Best Guy Movies List So here it is....feedback?

Heat
Kelly's Heroes
Rounders
Saving Private Ryan
Predator
Quick Change
Hell Boy
Hot Fuzz and 300
Star Wars allllll of them
Lord of the Rings allll of them

Vacation Resolutions

2007-08-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

i'm grateful for my new life, especially when it comes to taking a vacation. in my previous life as a small hunter/gatherer of graphic design business, vacations were a nerve-wrecking undertaking. i would have to prep my workflow--get everything done so i could leave and work hard to book projects so that the week off wasn't a damper on cashflow a month later. i had to prep clients and make sure they understood i wouldn't be available during that time. of course, i also committed business-owner sins during the vacation by checking voice and email. i also snuck in client calls as necessary. one beach vacation long, long ago, i brought my fax machine/printer, designed and coordinated a hot project during the first half of the precious break. that was before the internet had streamlined the design process. now, it is much, much easier. of course, having largely hung my business cap on someone else's door really contributes to the ease as well. I still need to coordinate my workflow, but i got a back-up team of crack designers to ease the transition.

mmm, vacations. i've taken two-week traveling vacations--one of my favorite types, where everyone piles into the car and you drive, drive, drive--sightseeing as you go. i've also done the sacred week long beach trip and unexpectedly had great fun just bumming around with no particular place to go. my weddingmoon was truly a vacation highlight--renting a villa on st. john, usvi, with a jeep, a future husband, a houseboy, watersports and rum, rum, rum. it combined the wanderlust/beach rental very nicely. last year my husband and i tried the all inclusive package style and went to cozumel. which was great in some respects. i did cry out in disappointment as i sat in a tourist bus awaiting the ruins. i looked out the window and saw a plucky girl with a lonely planet book in her hand happily gamboling down the side street. i had refused to do the advance planning i usually do on the trip--preferring to fully experience the all inclusive way of traveling. my husband patted my hand in sympathy. disney? got what i paid.

and now, without the weight of the business upon me and free to travel where my money and inclination could take me--now i think: what's next?

i'd like to do the following:
surfcamp, with my best girls
volunteer travel, with boy1
walking tour, spain! or anyplace mediterrean with my husband.

for the volunteer travel, i found these sites:
global village program
women build
voluntourism industry unethical?

i'm leaning towards volunteer travel, as i think it would be a good experience for my family. of course, my husband could suggest we volunteer travel every weekend, now.

Morgan: It is finished...

2007-08-01T18:37:00.000-07:00

Morgan(left) in basic training, Lackland AFB, Texas--Dec 1986

Usually cool and unflappable, I started having a mini-meltdown last night. Everything I did or saw was accompanied by the thought..."well that's the last time you do that in the Air Force"...Ahhhhh my hair is on fire! I think it was lack of sleep that drove me to the brink of madness. I've been laying awake at night thinking of the future and looking back, looking back. I feel as if I'm walking to Final Council by myself and pausing every few feet to pay homage to my fallen comrades who have been voted off the Island prematurely. I don't want to feel like this...this should be a time of joy. This morning I drove to work and out processed with DINFOS in about two hours. I met with the Commadant, who thanked me for "what-not" and gave me a coin, than I met with the Command Sergeant Major who did the same. Around 11:30 I told the class to go to lunch and that I would be taking a long lunch also...They knew what I meant as my box of crap was sitting on my desk...I choked up momentarily. I then took the long walk to my car by myself.

Mystery Men: The Waffler

2007-07-30T16:21:00.001-07:00

my favorite superhero. Golden crispy, bad guys are history!

if i was a superhero, i'd most likely end of a mystery men type of superhero--sort of dorky with an odd superpower that was more of a quirk than a power but with the best intentions at heart.

comedy and chaos ensues!

which, i figure is how this whole morgan retirement speech thing is going to shake out. there will be many seasoned military men there watching this small time chick dork her way through a quirky-more- than-powerful speech (although i do have the best intents at heart).

i've experienced a few humbling moments. they seem to fall into two categories:
byrne! you're inept! (i know! i know! what took you so long to figure that out??)

or

byrne! someone important in your life really digs you. (man. um. gulp. man.)

being asked by morgan to deliver his retirement speech stretches across both categories. i'm proudly terrified. i'm happily humble.

and i'm tongue-tied.
gaah.

Morgan: SuperPowers!

2007-07-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

Everyone dreams of having Super powers! C'mon admitted it...You've played the super powers fantasy game. If you could have any super power, what would it be? The Boy and I were sitting in our lair the other night watching the second season of "Who wants to be a Super Hero?" on the Sci Fi channel. Now I'll admit that the show's Corny factor is very high , however like a accident on Rt 66 I can't stop from slowing down and rubbernecking.

The Show's premise is pretty simple take Stan Lee (famous comic book creator) and audition thousands of geeks across the US. Stan’s superheroes are for the most part, regular folks who have superpowers thrust on them. For example, Dr. Bruce Banner, an ordinary doctor, transforms into the ‘Incredible Hulk’ and back again. Peter Parker, an ordinary teenager who is not sure what to do with super-powers, becomes ‘Spider-Man.’ X-Men, of course, are normal teenagers, but with mutant genes that gives them their super-human qualities...Back to the show! When you have ten ridiculous wanna-be super heroes enter them into a cheesefest of a quasi-reality competition for 1. A million bucks 2. Immortality 3. Personal comic book. They show up with homemade uniforms and fictious powers, acting heroic and taking it all to serious. We laugh and laugh at their stupid antics. Check out their website if you don't get the Sci-Fi channel http://www.scifi.com/superhero/

I guess I would want to be The Hulk because he's really strong, and I don't think he has the responsibilities of Superman. The Boy says he wants to have Super Gaming powers, for what? I don't know. I'm watching him play Guitar Hero II and his eye hand coordination looks superhuman to me. Man he's Good!

Maybe everyone has a special talent...an Uncanny ability that only a few people in the world possess. It's coming back to me...memories of abilities parading before my eyes through the mists of time. Yes...I have an uncanny geographic ability to draw a reasonable facsimile of any nation or state. My ability to read...no thats not unique enough. My incredibly insensitive, evil power to instantly saddle anyone with a nickname like Sawyer on the TV Show "LOST" I really do appreciate a good nickname...right Andy-pants? I'm trying to remember a third Uncanny Ability (UA) I guess it would be my Incredible Luck! Yes, I am Mr. Lucky. I'm lucky I didn't get a speeding ticket today! I'm lucky to have married my wonderful wife. I'm lucky to have great kids...don't ask me how that happened...I'm just lucky!

Speaking of Super powers, it took everything I had to go to Kimbrough Army Clinic the othe day for my retirement Physical. I was trying to get out of it, maybe sign an exemption letter and just be done with it. But everyone advise (Yelled) me to not bypass this one. Usually these retirement physicals are scheduled 120 days before separation...so with 4 business days left I went over to the clinic to schedule an appointment. When I convincingly explained my situation they decided to see me that very day! Lucky Me! Since I had recently had my first Physical a few months prior...most of the preliminary work was done...I was going to get this done, and beat the traffic home. First they gave me an EKG...and like the Tin Man I found I had a "good" heart. Next they gave my Super Lasic Eyes a test...which I passed by reading the second line to the bottom e-s-p-d-f-t. Easy-Peasy. Finally they sent me in to see this rather large black female doctor (Major). She went over my records, making comments, annotations, observations, she talked about making a Veterans Administration Claim. It was just more paperwork, a mere formality. We were almost done when she said,

"Ok! Take your boots off and all your clothes."

"Your shitting me!", I replied.

"No I'm not. We have to check your junk and then we're doing a rectal exam."

Mooooon River!.....happy place, happy place!

Running of the Bulls 2006 - runner's point of view

2007-07-21T16:54:00.001-07:00

weeeee! run, run run!!!

why does rrreealllly silly man,man,man,man behavior make me grin? that bull is crazy! those men are crazy! did you see that dude get totally stomped? one of these days, i really want to be there and do that.......

adrenalin rush. i think that's what it is all about. it could be riding the big top in las vegas, zip lining down a south africa mountain, running the bulls, changing careers midway through...that "dear God, why am i doing this" sick feeling. i feel for my brother riding his own change of life roller coaster. he's cresting that top of the hill climb, peaking over and thinking, oh man. and then things are gonna start zooming.

when boy1 was very little, i used to read to him, "oh the places you will go" by dr. seuss. i enjoyed that book as much as he did. i liked the candid way in which the seuss-meister handled rough spots that occur in life. like coming down from a lurch, the waiting place, being alone, playing useless games against yourself and then getting yourself unstuck—the man was spot-on.

so i salute you, morgan, as you scream by me in your personal rollercoaster with your hair on fire. i'm really proud of you. you're in my top 20 people that i know. you've done well in getting here and i bet i'll be posting the same sentiments 20 years from now:

So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3 / 4 percent guaranteed.)
KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
—Oh The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss

Morgan: Time Keeps on Slipping...

2007-07-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

As I get closer to my retirement, I have numerous song lyrics going through my head. Do you know where your going to?...Take this job and shove it!...Time Keeps on Slipping...I am feeling a little stress as I quickly approach that day. I'm running out of time! I have less than 10 days to finish my outprocessing and locate other employment. Stress? yeah a little. On top of the stress I'm on some kind of emotional rollercoaster that has me going from excitement to remorse in seconds. Yes I'm excited to move on, to the "next level" in my life. At the same time, I can't help but think about how much I have enjoyed the U.S. Air Force. It has been such a huge part of my life since I was 17, I am Air Force. What happens to me when you take that uniform away? 10 Days...wtf. I'm taking 20 days permissive TDY, 10 days Terminal leave and I'm selling 59 days of leave. I'm thinking about hitting the Appalachian Trail by myself for a week, I just want to be by myself. Colette says I should go someplace special...I don't know.

Work in progress...I need a break

OurGirl: a whine about wine

2007-07-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

For one thing, wine consumption in this country has nearly doubled in the last decade, while beer sales have been pretty much stagnant, growing less than 1 percent since 2000. Even more galling, in 2005 a Gallup poll revealed that, for the first time ever, Americans preferred wine to beer. This was an astonishing development, akin to Americans jilting baseball for bocce.
—Beer in the Headlights, Slate Magazine

First of all, after a super hot day toiling in the newly established eastern vineyard this summer—i've come back to the farm house and my beverage of choice?

Widmer Hefeweizen
I drank my first in HOTlanta this past june. and it was wiltingly hot in atlanta. but the hefe? it was so refreshing. it was clean and so, so easy to drink. i love the bready-wheaty flavor. i love the cloudiness of the beer. why do people prefer products filtered? like apple juice or cider—ever get the real stuff? the flavors are so much more complex. from what i understand, the hefe is pretty trendy. and the lemon slice—websites galore bemoan the lemon slice. whatever. i'm one of the dorks drinking the cool kid's beer. in late fall/winter til st. pat's day, though, i drink guinness stout with my husband's family. that's the extent of my beer drinking.

wine.

wine is all about the place, the food you eat with it and the people you are with when you consume both the wine and food. at least that's my current theory. to wit: my third date with my husband was an impromptu trip to new orleans. yeh. jezebel. so we eat at the creole kitchen (circa 1995), a literal hole in the wall restaurant with the dining set out in their cozy courtyard. i had a blackened filet mignon, a total food heresy. my husband had a fish dish. we drank a nondescript beaujolais and i fell so hopelessly in love with my husband i still sleep in the same bed with him every night. that's the power of place, food, wine and the person you share it with. here is another story about a less romantic setting, better wine, and a total recommitment of love.

people will tell you different. some will actually taste wine and then spit it out (this happens at a wine tasting, not at a meal). personally, i find this disrespectful of the grape. however, i am a wine novice and worse, an unrepentant one. i suppose spitting is inevitable at tastings. at a certain point, you could get a bit loopy. The oldman's guide to outsmarting wine has been a great reference book for me, you should check out mark's site. he writes about wine in a totally accessible way. i also enjoy reading michael steinberger's wine column @ slate.com. oh, and i can't forget jancis robinson!

bon appetit!

Morgan: Beer or Wine?

2007-07-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

Sommeliers are wine experts, right? They know everything to know about wine and make very educated recommendations about what wine is most appropriate with your fish or veal. But is wine the most popular beverage with a meal? I don’t think, I’m too far off the reservation, when I say no. Beer is the more popular beverage with meals. The fact is that real beer is a far more versatile beverage than wine, bringing a wider range of flavors and aromas to the table. Now you can say I have no class or I’m low class…that’s alright, you won’t break my achy-breaky heart. Let’s talk about beer, baby!

Making beer

Brewing is the process of changing water and grain into beer through a yeast catalyst. The quality of the water is extremely important. Hard water produces a bitter ale, soft water produces bitter lager. Barley or hops, or a combination of them, is used for the grain.
Getting dry grain ready for fermentation is called malting. The grain is steeped in water until it sprouts. The sprouting or germination is not allowed to end naturally but is interrupted either by drying or roasting in kilns.

Barley

Barley has been a grain of choice for thousands of years. The longer the roasting of the malted barley, the darker the beer. Barley, or wheat beers have a sweet taste.

Hops

Hops are herbaceous climbing vines and look like a cross between pine cores and artichokes. The bitter, dry flavour of hops counterbalance the sweetness of malt.

Yeast
Sugars in the malted grains are converted into alcohol by yeast. Different yeast ferment sugars into different flavours. For ales, top fermentation yeast is used, while bottom fermentation yeast is used for lagers.
The beer making process starts by germinating the grain, then steeping the resulting malt in hot water to get the wort. Base wort contents means the percentage of wort in the beer before fermentation. The alcohol contents is roughly one third of the base wort contents.The wort is boiled (brewed) and hops are added. After brewing, fermentation starts by adding yeast. After fermentation, the wort is drown into tanks where it is allowed to condition or age. Yeast and hops are sometimes added in a secondary fermentation process.

I’m no Brewmeister, but my taste buds are in perfect working condition. My Top 3 Favorites have to be…
1. Yuengling Traditional Amber Lager With its deep amber hue and mild hop character, traditional lager is a classic brew, reminiscent of turn-of-the century beers. This amber lager may also be characterized as an American Style premium lager that is a more flavorful medium bodied beer than just an American-style Pilsner. Each Brew has ruby colored highlights with a slight hop aroma and flavor. The degree of toasty sweet caramel-type character in the flavor and aroma results in a refreshingly balanced palate.http://www.yuengling.com/
2. Parkbrauerei Pirminator – Strong light bock originating in Zweibruken- Pirmasens, GermanyIt is known for its taste, which comes down to the particularly lengthy maturing process in the storage tanks.
3. Smithwick's Draut has a ruby red tone with a stable, but slightly thin head. It is produced using hops and special roasted, malted barley. Its texture is smooth and refined, with a bitter and complex finish. Smithwick’s was originally brewed in St. Francis Abbey Brewery in Kilkenny, known as 'Smithwicks Brewery' until c.2000. The brewery is situated on the site of a Franciscan abbey where monks had brewed ale since the 14th century, and has ruins of the original abbey on its grounds. It is Ireland’s oldest operating brewery, founded by John Smithwick in 1710.

Top 3 Interesting Beer Factoids
1. Worldwide, 20,000 brands of beer are brewed in 180 styles, from ales, lagers, pilsner and stouts to bitters, cream ales and iced beers.
2. Beer has been a popular beverage for a long time. Babylonian clay tablets show detailed recipes of beer making in 4300 BC. Beer was also brewed by the ancient Chinese, Assyrians and Incas.

3. An Egyptian text of 1600 BC gives 100 medical prescriptions using beer. A few years ago, the New Castle Brewery in England brewed 1,000 bottles Tutankhamun Ale from a 3,200-year old recipe found in the sun temple of Queen Nefertiti.

And malt does more than Milton can, To justify God's ways to man. A. E. Housman (1859 - 1936)
But if wine is your choice than you can't go wrong with Proof of Concept

Channeling TV history

2007-07-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

way back in the late 70s/early 80s, in the landlocked state of misery—excusi, meant to type the mighty, mighty missouri—our intrepid protagonist watched pbs television with her dad on sweltering summer saturdays afternoons. it was an amazing mash-up of topics where in an hour and a half you could learn to cook food from exotic lands, paint fantastic landscapes in oil paints, work in wood or renovate an old house. there was no other timeframe in the whole tv-scape at that time with such an eclectic line-up. yeh, way before cable, that's what i'm talking about here. here are a few of my favs:

Justin Wilson! Oh, ah gawruntee! even as a child, i understood justin was a great (most likely, dirty) old man. he cooked and consumed some sincerely homey cajun cuisine. he had a kitchen studio and a wife half his age. he told stories like my grandpa. as an adult, i make his potato salad. its like your standard american potato salad dressed with mayo and mustard, but justin makes it with onyun, chopped pimento-stuffed green olives and several liberal shakes of tabasco. ooooo-weeee!

Yan Can Cook! if yan can cook, so can you! thanks, martin yan. my parents bought a wok and experimented with stir frying straw mushroom (just like the dancing mushrooms in the disney movie, fantasia!) and tofu and canned baby corn. in missouri, that was a feat. my parents were very daring for the time/place/culture. yan could cut up a chicken in, like, seconds. you can see him now on foodtv, as a guest judge on iron chef america. now he's super hunky yan in a black leather jacket. the dude rocks.

This Old House. ok, you knew bob villa was a total diva. you couldn't wait for everyone to get tired of him and then they replaced him with that steve dude ( and you knew steve had never picked up a hammer in his life) and all the while, you secretly rooted for norm abrams (nice guy!) how happy were you when the New Yankee Workshop came out? i typed that sentence? well, yeh. i watched it 'cause my dad really dug it. plus, you got to like a guy who started off his shows reminding you to always wear these (point to the corner of your face) safety glasses. oh, and the total slavish commitment to joining biscuits? the workshop was a drinking game, but i was in middle school so i missed out.

The Joy of Painting! William Alexander! Bob Ross! Paint amay-ya-ya-zing moutainous landscapes with all sorts of coniferous and deciduous (remember, mother of a ten year old) trees (HAPPY TREES!) William, an exuberant prussian, would fire-in his trees with alizarin crimson! Ross, weirdly quiet when he spoke/whispered, was for me, one of the last of the hippies (for which i was profoundly grateful, having experienced first hand the early 70s, which i refer to as the great american hang-over. shudder). they both created paintings using alla-prima oil painting techniques. everyone else (excluding my father) painted trash. and i think they still do at what now passes for an art store. ever noticed they just don't make art stores—now they are just a bunch of really poor craft stores?

Morgan: General Tso's Chicken Wings?

2007-07-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

Finding topics to write about can be a daunting task. I know, I belong to Helium.com and get paid to write articles about various topics. It’s actually a competition with your peers rating you against other writers. I haven’t made any money as of yet. Each week I look at the topics and people contributing articles, and I seem to freeze with writer’s block like a rabbit in the road. It’s hard to explain the dread I feel writing and posting for other’s to review. However I feel none of that pressure here, on Morgan and Byrne. I just write and let that words flow across the page in a stream of consciousness. Occasionally I run up against a temporary writer’s block. I step back, think about it, and wait a day or two. I do a little bit of research on the internet, analyzing Google Trends and current events. Something of interest usually jumps out at me and before I know it, my two fingers begin pecking at the keyboard like two geriatric chickens. I rarely pander to the general public, but if they like my topics of Hooters and Baseball…That’s cool.

I know “Our Girl” doesn’t like it when I plagiarize, however I thought this was an interesting article on the state of affairs in China from the Financial Times (FT.com). China has executed its former head food and drug regulator for taking bribes to approve medicines, rapidly carrying out his sentence in an apparent warning to other officials following a series of scandals about the quality of products made in China. The execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, 62, was confirmed by state television and news agencies after the Supreme People’s Court approved the death sentence. Mr Zheng was convicted of taking Rmb6.5m in bribes from pharmaceuticals companies. Commenting on the case, a spokeswoman said, “China is a developing country and our supervision of food and drugs started late and our foundation for this work is weak,” said Yan Jiangying. “Therefore we cannot be too optimistic about the current food and drug safety situation.” The prosecution of Mr Zheng has also coincided with a number of safety problems with Chinese products in the US, including pet food that contained an industrial chemical, toys covered in lead paint and tires that lacked an important safety feature. He looks really young for 62! oops...sorry.

Bloomberg.com reports, “China, facing international criticism over the quality
of food and drug exports, said it will take five years to stamp out production
of fake medicine and that the trend in safety ``isn't promising.''

I find it ironic that China is executing anyone for bribery. Bribery in Asia is a way of life; however, I have been seeing increasing efforts to eradicate corruption from Thailand to China. Second point of interest, they executed a former government official…Hmmmm, he must have pissed somebody off. The third interesting point is the fact that Chinese exports to the U.S. seem to be taking a financial hit. Everything from pet food to Chinese medication seems to be suffering form poor quality control. With the upcoming XXIX Olympiad to be held in Beijing in 2008, China is aware that eyes of the world will be on the 5,000 year old culture and it looks like they’re cleaning house. Sorry no more China stories for a month. Cheers!

OurGirl: Get into the Groove

2007-07-08T06:51:00.001-07:00

aaaaaahhhhhhh!

i'm acutely aware my interest in topics and subject matter largely appeals to the 60+ elderly woman demographics. or circa mid 1970s 7-10 year old midwest suburban/rural young girl. occasionally, i strike it rich with the 4-15 year old suburban boy demographics, but i'm the mother of two boys, so that's pretty much cheating. all along, i've been gamely blogging along, watching the analytics on you people out there—hey blogger surfers. cut the girl a break and count to 50 sllloowwly before you hit that "next blog" button. yeh? well, you're bored anyway, pal. start counting.

clearly, you enjoy morgan's topics more than mine. i'm so jealous. hello? rajah of bourbon? the pathos! the intellectual curiosity! the ability to del.icio.us the obscure! can i get a hand, here? [crickets]

morgan posts about baseball? you people are all over it! analytics reports views spiked! ok. i understand what you people want!

hooters.
hot chicks.
mustangs.
America the Brave!
LIVE EARTH CONCERT!!!
Al Gore's son speeds in a Prius, for pete's sake.
hannity and somebody, FOX NEWS, CHENEY, NO SPIN, POKER, POKER, POKER

whew. i was channeling billy joel, there for a second. hey, we didn't start the fire, people. yeh. billy joel. i've come back to earth now, in my natural form. gah. somebody hand me my mom jeans.

so those of you who have now hit this page and have no idea why they are here? um. i just wanted to see you?

of course, they already left. so those of you that stuck through this post—THANKS, ANDY!—i give you another blog i'm pretty much hooked on these days:

http://theassimilatednegro.blogspot.com/
yes. i found it on blogger's blogs of note. while looking for one of mine to show up.

a girl can dare to dream, can't she?

oh, and baseball fans? this guy is the complete package. here is his other blog.
http://metsarebetterthansex.blogspot.com/
bon appetit

Morgan: 4th of July Grand Slam!

2007-07-05T15:28:00.001-07:00

I was wondering how to respond to "Bliss"...but I can't, I AM A MAN! We have different emotions and feelings than...girls. Yes. It's true! But we're not complete cyberneticly engineered emotionless robotrons. I think even I am a little different than....others. What makes me, a grown man tear up with emotion? One word....patriotism. Alot of people think patriotism is dead. They're wrong. I love this country, and I would, and have pledged an oath to give my life for it if necessary. Nothing pisses me off more than...an American disrespecting our flag or heritage.

I spent the fourth of July attending the Washington Nationals Major League Baseball game against the Chicago Cubs...what better way to observe the fourth of July than with America's favorite game. I met my brother and his family at the Vienna Metro and road all the way to RFK Stadium to see the game. I don't like the Metro...at all. Matter fact I hate it. Next year I'll do the more American thing and burn some fossil fuels, and drive the Grey Ghost. I missed the national anthem because we were 20 minutes late (riding the friggin' metro) but when we climbed the ramps up to our upper level center, field section and walked down that dark tunnel the sun nearly blinded us we emerged and the green grass of the field was electric and at that instant the crowd roared (because of a great play) but it felt like we had made a grand entrance...into the coliseum. A few innings later the crowd started singing..."Take me out to the ball game. That's when I teared up. How American! Everyone singing, waving their red hats, the Cubs fans waving their Blue hats. I was proud to be an American. Sharing the game with 39,456 of my closest friends....Here comes the wave! whhhhhoa!
Although my brother was disappointed that the Cubbies lost, we got to witness Dimitri Young Hit a GRAND SLAM! bases loaded, home run in the bottom of the fifth. I have never seen a MLB grand slam and it was very exciting, I feel like I really accomplished something...and now I can check off that box.

I just wanted to talk about one more great American Institution! Wall Street. I am by no means an expert investor I'm just excited that one of my stock picks is really performing well. I bought ctrp at $76.33 a share and today it was at $86.51 Unfortunately I only bought 19 shares...but isn't that exciting! Over time the American Stock market has always outperformed any investment vehicle out there. So when I heard a great tip that this ctrp was hot I went for it. I did a little research and found out that ctrp was China's number one travel booking site...as a matter of fact It is based off of expedia.com (stolen) ctrp has grown 55% annually for the last couple of years, and has barely tapped into the Chinese market. 20 Billion Chinese can't be wrong eh? How American!

"I was just glad that I didn't give him the day off, because that crossed my mind today."

-- Manny Acta, on Dmitri Young

OurGirl: Follow Your Bliss

2007-07-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

....as [Joseph] Campbell saw it, isn't merely a matter of doing whatever you like, and certainly not doing simply as you are told. It is a matter of identifying that pursuit which you are truly passionate about and attempting to give yourself absolutely to it. In so doing, you will find your fullest potential and serve your community to the greatest possible extent.
—Joseph Campbell Foundation

i have a post in draft form called Archetypes and Angels. Which I considered changing Angels to Angles. in my head, it was gonna be one charming rif. Archetypes and Angles. Heroes and Hipocrisy. i threw a bunch of crap in there, thinking one day i'd riposte wittily to a morgan topic.

but today aint the day to swing at a softball.

i have two heroes. both are my kids. resiliant. hopeful. passionate. forgiving. joyful. to type more adjectives would be trite. i won't do it.

if you are going to buy anything of campbell's—and you should at least get the joseph campbell companion—read it only in stolen moments. read it furtively. don't pay attention to the accompanying new age crap that gets attached to it. read it and then listen to yourself and be quick, that true voice is a fleeting thing. odds are, that's the closest most of us are gonna get to following our bliss.

and if that don't work. buy blink. thats a good read.

Morgan: Heroes

2007-07-01T10:01:00.000-07:00

I’ve known my Sis is ga-ga for Anthony Bourdain for some time. She made me watch all his re-runs and read his autobiography…twice. I don’t have nothing against Tony...He’s cool and looks like a fun cat. (Forrest Gump voice…but he smelled like cigarettes)

But It made me start to think of who, do we like, follow, or stalk and why?

Heroes, celebrity worship, someone you admire…Someone you want to emulate.
This used to be strictly the domain of the Church, people want to be more like Jesus, but in today’s secular society, people choose other heroes…And sometimes they choose the wrong ones. Can you imagine how distraught WWE Fan’s of Chris Benoit’s are today? This week Chris’s body along with his slain family was found by Georgia Police. He “allegedly” killed his family and than committed suicide. They had chose him as their hero, they thought he was superhuman…they chose poorly. The list of poor heroes is long and depressing. Not all of them are bad, everyone has a hero…I tried to think of some of mine. I blush now when I think of my first hero…and no I’m not gay. Arnold. I used to have such an infatuation with all things Arnold. I watched all his movies, I quoted him, impersonated him. I read his bodybuilding articles like they were the gospels. I admired his business instincts…OK I still do. I admired Arnold.

My Second Hero? I would have to pick my wife. Words aren’t enough….

Third Hero? I’m surrounded by them everyday, the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. As I get closer towards retirement I become increasingly aware of how much I will miss working with these people. The military is truly a cross section of our national DNA. From all walks of life, from the cornfields of Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico, they come to serve their nation. And here at the Defense Information School we have the crème d’ la crème. I often wonder how I ended up here. But I’m a better person, just by surrounding myself with excellence. It’s bound to rub off! The hard thing is…I can see I’m an example for these young students, good or bad I can see them watching me, assessing my actions, and sometime emulating them. I do my best.

MENU

And if 3 lbs of calamari leaves you, wanting more, try Five Guys.
Five Guy's has been voted "Best Burgers" for the past five years in Washingtonian Magazine, were rated number one "Bang for the Buck" in Zagat Survey and The Washington Post calls them "the Willy Wonkas of burgercraft." In addition, since expanding outside of the DC Metro area, Five Guys has won the Annapolis Magazine's reader poll for Best Fries, Richmond City Magazine's reader's choice for Best Burger and the Fredericksburg Star's Simply the Best Award for Best Burger. mmmmm!

I'm holding out for a hero til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero

OurGirl: No Reservations

2007-06-30T06:09:00.000-07:00

I sigh over fulfilling a long-time wish to complete the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage. i think my brother is working on his pilgrimage, when he walks the appalachian.

but anthony bourdain? he's smart. he gets the travel channel to PAY him to fulfill his pilgrimage. its a series called No Reservations. here is his intro:

i'm anthony bourdain.
i write. i travel. i eat.
and i'm hungry for more.

yeh!

tony is in my top 20 favorite people i dont know. i like a sly, self-deprecating man who knows more than he immediately lets on and is handy with a kitchen knife. i like a show that starts with view discretion advised, with a host that interacts with his video crew. i find a kindred spirit with his staccato-style rambling prose.

addendum: tonight I watched a little of bourdain on utube. i recommend the lebanon series. here is a link to the first of a series of five utube postings.

if you need a summer beach book, f' the latest chick lit--or worse, the secret. rosicrucianism? can we please proclaim we are over the da vinci code and all accompanying legendary esoteric orders? free yourself from the need to be special. you already are. problem is, so is the rest of the human race. that's why you aren't standing out. oh. and your daddy? he already loves you. stop trying to impress him. and the answer to the universe? i just found out that answer recently from my friend, stew. its deceptively simple. the answer to the universe is: ok.

my suggestion for the perfect summer read is to punch up ebay and pick yourself up a battered copy of cook's tour. yeh. i'm here to facilitate. get it shipped in before you head out to the outer banks, or the gulf, or carribbean--whatever your sandy destination is, you lucky, lucky reader. once there, scoop out a sandy hollow for your butt, plop down with a couple of chilled coronas and read until your eyes fry in the late afternoon sun or your family insists you assume your assigned familial duties.

that evening, make:

spicy, crispy calamari

3 pound calamari
(do yourself a favor and buy it cleaned, but it ain't no big thang to clean it yourself. cut it up into bite size pieces)
tempura batter
(follow the directions on the packet!)
hot oil in a deep pot to fry the tempura
coarse sea salt

essentially, you want to dip the bite-size pieces of calamari in the tempura batter, deep fry the calamari tempura til golden crisp, fish it out and sprinkle with the coarse sea salt. but you want to serve it at the same time with this:

5-6 green onions
chopped into bite size chunks
5-6 peeled whole cloves of garlic
chopped into small bite size chunks ('bout 3-4 pieces per clove)
chopped fresh jalapeno
hot oil in your favorite heavy fry pan

fresh chopped cilantro

here you just want to stir fry the green onion, garlic and jalapeno in the sizzling oil fry pan. then you serve it up, heaping with the crispy, salted calamari on a plate of size and sprinkle the fresh chopped cilantro on top.

make your company eat it with chopsticks and drink cold, cold beer with it. maybe even treat them to watching No Reservations while they eat the meal. show them you think they are special, even if they know nothing about the Law of Attraction.

its as good as it gets.
bon appetit.

Morgan: TCB, Baby!

2007-06-27T14:05:00.000-07:00

I really have to thank “Our Girl” for enlightening me with interesting topics. Before the other day I had never heard of “The way of St James”…I considered myself well traveled and a bit of a history buff, but I had never even heard of it…and people have been doing the el Camino de Santiago for over a thousand years. I started looking further into the strange topic of pilgrimage. In religion and spirituality, a pilgrimage is a long journey or search of great moral significance. Sometimes, it is a journey to a sacred place or shrine of importance to a person's beliefs and faith. Members of every major religion participate in pilgrimages. A person who makes such a journey is called a pilgrim. Apparently, St. James Way is one of three pilgrimages on which all sins could be forgiven; the others are the Via Francigena to Rome and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Hmmmm, all Sins? Not all pilgrimages were peaceful, during the middle Ages, the crusades to the holy land are also considered to be mass armed pilgrimages.

Pilgrimages are not limited to Christianity; it seems all major religions have their own special journeys. Pilgrimage to Mecca – the Hajj – is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. It should be attempted at least once in the lifetime of all able-bodied Muslims who can afford to do so. It is the most important of all Muslim Pilgrimages. I always wonder if a corn-fed white boy from Illinois would be welcome at the Hajj…Nah.
According to the Wiki, The second caliph, Umar, is believed by many Sunni Muslims to have expelled non-Muslims from the Hejaz (Western part of Arabia). Non-Muslims were not to visit nor to live in the holy land. There is much evidence against this claim, at least so far as it relates to the early centuries of the Islamic empire, but it is well documented that by the 18th and 19th centuries, there were small colonies of merchants in various port and trading cities as well as communities of Yemeni Jews. The prohibition was not so much imposed by the authorities as enforced by rioting crowds and was most strictly enforced with regard to the Hejaz, and the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

America has numerous tourist destinations, many of which can be considered mandatory secular pilgrimages. Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the Boston Marathon, High School field trips to the Smithsonian Museums of Washington DC. But the one destination that stuck out in my mind as The American Pilgrimage…was Graceland. Graceland is the name of the large white-columned estate that once belonged to Elvis Presley, located at 3734 Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Graceland receives approximately 600,000 pilgrims a year, and CKX, Inc the company that recently bought the estate has big plans on turning Graceland into a huge tourist destination on par with Disney World.

I think my personal pilgrimage would be to see Yakoff Smirnoff (Яков Смирноф) play in Branson, MO

OurGirl: Walking El Camino

2007-06-25T17:51:00.000-07:00

Santiago de Compostela. Saint james of the field of stars. its the capital of galicia in nw spain and the destination of the medieval pilgrimage, camino de santiago, the way of st. james. when my brother posts about his latest appalachian adventure, it makes me think of that 6 week vacation i'd like to take, walking the way of st. james.

over 100,000 pilgrims make the pilgrimage on foot, bike, donkey or horseback. they collect stamps in a passport from the towns they pass along the route and claim their certificate at the end.

here is a webcam of the santiago cathedral square. pilgrims arrive at all times of the day.
also, there is a pretty interesting web site featuring the main route, Camino Fances
looks pretty sweet.

one day, when i'm a robust old lady, i'm gonna walk the el camino, complete with a scallop 'round my neck. until then, i walk a pilgrimage daily in my head and try to keep up with the lessons that are handed to me.

Morgan: Appalachian Odyssey

2007-06-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today we (Bullfrog, Son of Rhino and Me) finished our fifth leg of our Appalachian Trail odyssey. We have now gone over 100 miles from Harpers Ferry to midway down the Shenandoah Valley.
The further we get away from home the more difficult logistics become. Thats why we decided to drive both cars to the start on friday night...er the finish. We arrived at Franklins Cliffs Overlook about Ten O'clock the parking lot was empty. So we decided to look for a trail head with flashlights and a few beers. We couldn't see anything in the dark so we just enjoyed the brisk evening. Bullfrog and I were drinking beers, not son of Rhino, and everytime a car would drive by we would hide our beers. We discussed setting up the tent or sleeping in the cars. Thats when a mysterious SUV drove up and parked near us. We stood by our cars...scared. All I could think of was the Zodiac killer gunning us down as we slept in the cars. After awhile when no one got out of the SUV we decided to risk it and go to sleep. Bullfrog got into his car and me and the boy got into the Grey Ghost. I couldn't sleep at all. I kept looking around expecting to see someone standing by my window. Around 0400 I fell asleep. The next morning we woke up and Boy said "Well were still alive!" We drove 20 miles south to Beahms Gap and began the hike.

Son of Rhino wasn't happy to be there, but I had been very adament that he go with us and experience this rite of camping. We started up Thorton's Gap which was nearly all uphill for 3500ft. I tried to take it easy on the boy, stopping frequently for water breaks. We eventually made it to the top, with its sweeping vistas and cool breezes. The boy enjoyed it...although he didn't want to admit it. We found a relatively flat grassy field and set up our camp. Evidently it was the home of three deer also, because they kept circling our camp all night. Sunday we woke up and started out on our last ten miles. I was really sore and my whole body was aching so I would go slow, the boy foraging ahead with unlimited stamina. We would catch up to him sitting on a rock sipping water. Wildlife was eveywhere, We counted 31 deer the whole weekend and half a mile from the car we saw a black bear ambling alonside the trail next to us. I took a few pictures before I left him, although he could have caught me. I was so proud of the boy and he finished right alongside me. He may never want to go again, but I'm glad he shared this hike with me.

OurGirl: Le Rajah de Bourbon

2007-06-19T15:22:00.000-07:00

photo from taipei times

the bourbons? colorful people. this noble house got its start in the 13th century, the family seat's loyalty was to france. soon they spread euro-wide, with monarches overseeing thrones in france, spain, naples, sicily, parma, basque and luxembourg. they even had a short stint in 18th century brazil.

they are the people proudly bringing you henri IV, louis the 14th, that ole' sun king and marie antoinette.

now they've expanded their territory yet again and would like to introduce you to their latest in line: Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon. or, as prince Michel de Grèce would like to call him, Le Rajah de Bourbon. he even wrote a book about the saga—not available in english on amazon, yet, so stay tuned. Mr. Bourbon divides his time between being a lawyer and a farmer. he's ready to take a DNA test, as the greek's book is based in fact, but more proof is needed.

so here are the pros and cons i gleaned from the guardian unlimited news article:
pro: the bourbon name gets you private castle tours—Mr. Bourbon's sister visited france, found the castle closed, but upon flashing her passport, snagged an insiders look.
con: well. beheading and revolution—general mayhem and bloody ends. not much in the family coffers, either.

see right for a great post from bhophal E: beyond the gas blog.

Morgan: We have Consensus!

2007-06-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

The fact that 75% of Americans are glad Paris Hilton is back in jail and serving out her paltry 45 day sentence is no surprise. However reading the blogs and comments attached to her news story is a eye-awakening glimpse into the dark heart of the merciless public. Don't misunderstand me, I was laughing with glee as I searched for one more photo of her crying in the police car. Why? Why did i get so much satisfaction, out of seeing her pay for her crimes. Was it because of her misdeeds, or the fact that this little rich bitch is finally doing something on her own...no I like the fact that she thought she was above the law...and she could get out of her sentence, with a doctor's note. The last time the public turned its back and rejected a beautiful, rich socialite was in 1793. According to the "wiki"...

...On Friday she trembled and cried quietly throughout the hearing, then brokeinto loud sobs when the judge ordered her back into custody. "Mom, Mom. It's not right," she wailed as she was led out of the courtroom. Her mother, Kathy Hilton, also sobbed.

On the morning of October 16, 1793, a guard arrived to cut her hair and bind her hands behind her back. She was forced into a tumbril and paraded through the streets of Paris for over an hour before reaching the Place de la Révolution where the guillotine stood. She stepped down from the cart and stared up at the guillotine. The priest who had accompanied her whispered, "This is the moment, Madame, to arm yourself with courage." Marie Antoinette turned to look at him and smiled, "Courage? The moment when my troubles are going to end is not the moment when my courage is going to fail me." Legend states that her last words were, "Pardonnez-moi, monsieur," (Pardon me, monsieur) spoken after she had accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot.[6]
At 12:15, Marie Antoinette was executed. Her head was exhibited to a cheering crowd. The bodies of Marie, Louis XVI and Madame Elisabeth (Louis' sister) were buried in a mass grave near the location of today's La Madeleine church and covered in quicklime. Following the restoration of the Bourbons, a search was conducted for the bodies. On January 21, 1815, more than twenty years after her death, her corpse was exhumed—a lady's garter helped with identification—and Marie Antoinette was buried at the side of her spouse in the crypt of St. Denis Basilica just outside of Paris, the traditional final resting place of French monarchs.

Captain Oveur: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

OurGirl: Not for Nothing-Girls Gap Analysis

2007-06-08T17:01:00.000-07:00

one of my favorite episodes of the sopranos has to be employee of the month. its essentially contrasts the behavior of two women: dr. jennifer melfi and tony's sister, janice. its a regular goofus and gallant cartoon:

janice steals svetlana's leg in order to get her ma's records back (so she can sell them on the internet).
melfi gets raped.
tony finds out what janice has done and warns her not to take on the russians. the girl doesn't listen.
melfi gets no recourse from the justice system. the men in her immediate family are ineffective in avenging her. she finds relief in a dream where a rottweiler, symbolizing tony, attacks and kills her rapist.
the russian mafi finds janice and beats the leg out of her—which she has stashed in a bowling alley locker.
as melfi recovers, she clings to the thought of revenge and struggles not to "break the social contract."
janice finds God at the hospital room. she asks tony to pray with her. tony notes whenever janice finds something, it costs him money. janice is perpetually looking for outside solutions when the answers can be found within herself.
at a session, melfi briefly loses it when tony tries to comfort her. he asks her what is wrong—can he help her? she looks at tony intensely and says, no. she learns. she masters self-control in the face of injustice. she keeps the social contract.

wiki posts this in regards: Series creator David Chase says "Melfi, despite pain and suffering, made her moral, ethical choice and we should applaud her for it. That's the story."

i write this post thinking of the events of today and a blog morgie sent to me. please to be contrasting the stories of the following two girls, and ask yourself—with whom are you more familiar:

Paris Hilton Ordered Back to Jail

www.samanthalarson.com

yeh, its a soapbox i'm on. i'll shut up and sit down now.

Ralphie: Gentlemen, what we do in life... Echoes in eternity.
Paulie: He's fucking obsessed with "Gladiator".
Ralphie: C'mon! It's a great fucking film: 'Strength and Honor'!
Tony: 'Scotch and Soda'!

Morgan: John 11:35

2007-06-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

Jesus wept.

OurGirl: Table Show

2007-06-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

so, im thinking: this is a dinner table top.

morgie, picture your poker night on this puppy!

Morgan: Rebirth of Victorian Blogging

2007-06-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

I've got to admit, I've gone through some serious blog phases after the last Bout of Blog. Admitedly I was baiting the bear with loaded blogshot and I shouldn't have posted one photo which I thought was innocent enough. When the rebuttal came I was shocked that we had been shutdown...I felt guilty and started questioning my actions. Then I felt angry, because I have always sucessfully danced on the sharp edge of appropriateness. And I was upset that I might have slipped and offended my friend. Then I reread the rebuttal, and slowly like a Rhino waking from long nap I realized "She" was more upset with her own actions...Then I got mad all over again for different reasons. I start formulating aggressive responses, like "I fear No Man!" and "whatever happened to freedom of speech!" and "Screw 'em all if they 'aint got a sense of humour" However, the seeds of doubt had been sown, and I was uncertain about any of my topics. So I waited and worked on other blogs, designing headers and new illustrations for Monday Artday. The longer I waited the more worried that I became that she didn't want to blog anymore. because I really do enjoy it. And then I tried to look at it from her perspective...and I began to understand, we had gone astray(in our writing)...and she had every right to be concerned, even if I didn't feel the same, I could empathize and change my style. If that's not enough I posted Streaming TV at the bottom of this blog, and Sudoku...scroll down and see whats not on TV or play Sudoku! I have removed the TV...Poor ratings.

Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no difference. The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed— would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper— the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever.

OurGirl: Fear and Loathing on Blogger

2007-05-31T18:32:00.000-07:00

Raoul Duke: You can turn your back on a person, but, never turn your back on a drug. Especially when it's waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eye.

>CENSORED<

i love the harvard business review. i picked up the latest magazine and saw this article:

We Googled You (HBR Case Commentary)


Publication Date: Jun 1, 2007 Availability: In Stock Author(s): Diane L. Coutu, John G. Palfrey Jr., danah m. boyd, Jeffrey A. Joerres, Michael Fertik		Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Number: R0706Z Language: English Length: 5p

Description:

As the CEO of Hathaway Jones, an American luxury apparel retailer, Fred Westen has spent the past four years struggling to revamp his company's stodgy image and boost flagging sales. He's just announced an ambitious plan to elbow in on China's fast-growing luxury goods market when he gets a call from an old prep school friend. Fred agrees to meet his friend's daughter, Mimi Brewster, to see whether she might be able to head up the company's flagship store in Shanghai. Fred is impressed by Mimi's CV, and the interview goes off without a hitch, but a routine Google search turns up information about her that could affect the company's performance in China. News stories and photos reveal that when Mimi was fresh out of college, she'd participated in nonviolent but vocal demonstrations--including one in front of China's San Francisco consulate--against the World Trade Organization. As the vice president of HR urges caution, Fred ponders hiring practices in the digital age. He knows that nothing is secret anymore--especially among younger people, who brazenly post the most intimate details of their lives for the world to see. If he hires Mimi, and her past conduct becomes widely known, his company's expansion overseas could be set back. But rising stars like Mimi don't walk in the door every day. Should Fred hire her despite her online history?

Commenting on this fictional case study in R0706A and R0706Z are John G. Palfrey, Jr., a professor and the executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; Jeffrey A. Joerres, the CEO of Manpower; danah m. boyd, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, and a corporate adviser; and Michael Fertik, the CEO of ReputationDefender.

Learning Objective:

This case depicts an executive who, through an online search, discovers information about a job candidate that causes him concern about her qualifications. The reader considers issues such as the legal implications of Internet searching practices, the veracity of information found online, and the wisdom of expecting job candidates to have spotless online reputations.

Subjects Covered:

Employees, HBR case discussions, Hiring, Human resources management, Legal aspects of business, Right of privacy.

>CENSORED<
>CENSORED<

Morganism: Blogger Burnout Beware!

2007-05-30T18:31:00.001-07:00

CENSORED-

To love another person is to see the face of God.- Victor Hugo

Blogging is a lonely activity, I know...I'm sitting here alone. However We're not alone!
According to Technorati, 1,75,000 blogs are being created everyday. Thats alot of Bloggers, and they probably have some of the same Blogger Block that Connie and I seem to be suffering from.
We're not doing this for the income, although that would be nice. We do this for the passion of writing and forming coherent thought and recording it here, we also enjoy sharing our viewpoints and opinions...and no one interupts with lame stories of (insert lame story here).
How can we combat this insideous malady?

Read More! If your drawing a blank, use the internet for inspiration or finding content
Start an Idea Morgue! This is such a great idea I'm starting mine today! If you come across something interesting make sure you bookmark it, or add it to your del.icio.us, so that you can draw inspiration from it later on.
Collaborate with other bloggers...which is exactly what we're doing.
Keep Improving your writing skills, grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Love your blog, add water and watch it grow it like sea monkeys

&amp;amp;ampamp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;ampamp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Free Blog Content

CENSORED-

I hope that after I die, people will say of me: "That guy sure owed me a lot of money."--Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey