MobyD's Soundings

Three New Books in Best Sellers Top 10

2011-04-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

This week's update of my Fiction Best Seller lens on Squidoo.com shows at least two of the new books in last week's top 10 of The New York Times best sellers list for Combined E-book and Print Fiction were one-week wonders. One of the new ones fell completely off the 35-book list.

New in the top 10 are Jean M. Auel's sixth and last "Earth's Children" book, The Land of the Painted Caves; J. R. Ward's vampire novel Lover Unleashed; and Jonathan Kellerman's 26th Alex Delaware novel, Mystery.

It seems to be a requirement of vampire novels that a bare-chested and very buff guy is featured on the cover. Ward's cover is a bit more restrained than some of the vampire novel covers below the top 10. One is left to assume that the main audience for vamp lit is not male, or at least not straight males.

While Diary of a Mad Fat Girl, Stephanie McAfee's self-published e-book only spent two weeks on the combined list, it's on the e-book-only list for a fourth week and this week went up to 16 from last week's 23. Amazon.com is offering a free excerpt of the book this week, and that's where the link will take you.

Hop - Start of a New Niche?

2011-03-31T21:01:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start doing lenses about movies, mostly ones that are about to open. I was looking at one lensmaster's lenses. She's got a lot of lenses about movie soundtracks and they appear to be doing very well. And that's just for the soundtracks. When I started looking for lenses on the movies, however, I wasn't finding much, which surprised me. It was a pleasant surprise, though, because that meant I wouldn't be competing with other lensmasters if I started making lenses about new movies.

I probably still need to refine where I'll be going with this, but I think I'll start by doing lenses about movies that I think will both be popular, and also ones I might like. Of course, I don't actually have the money to see all the movies, but there's a lot of information out about them, so I should be able to put together some useful information.

I started with one that's opening Friday, April 1: Hop, and since I expect to be doing more lenses I called it 2011 Movies: Hop.

Hop is a live action/animated film which gives a whole new take on the Easter bunny legend. Santa Claus has the North Pole for his magical workshop. The Easter bunny has, where else, Easter Island, where all those giant brooding heads stare out to sea. Of course, you've probably never heard anything about it, but that's because the magical workshop is underground - and besides, it's magical.

Of course there was plenty of information at the official website (part of the URL address is "iwantcandy"). There were several movie trailers available, but I only used one. There were nearly a dozen movie tie-in products, with several books for very young readers or books to read to those too young to read. There were news feeds and Twitter feeds and interviews with several of the stars.

The movie stars the voice of Russell Brand, an English comic who strikes me as England's answer to Robin Williams, at least back when Williams was Brand's age. He's the voice of E. B., the teenage rabbit on the verge of becoming the Easter bunny when he decides to take off for Hollywood to become a famous rock drummer. Starring as Fred O'Hare (great last name for a movie where the main character is a rabbit, naturally) is James Marsden, who played Cyclops in X-Men: The Last Stand. Kayley Cuoco, known to most as Penny in the TV comedy The Big Bang Theory, plays Fred's sister Sam.

The movie opens tomorrow, and I got so interested I just might go see it. A good reason to go is that I can write a review after I get back.

Sarah Vowell at the Bagdad Theater

2011-03-29T21:47:00.000-07:00

Sarah Vowell, subject of one of my Squidoo lenses, first became known to the American public through her appearances on the National Public Radio program This American Life. She has a voice that's instantly recognizable, one that was carried to many non-NPR listeners in the animated movie The Incredibles where she did the voice of the teenage Violet.

Tonight, Tuesday, March 29, she appeared at the Bagdad Theater (yes, that is how they spell it) on Hawthorne Street in Portland. She's on a book tour for her latest, Unfamiliar Fishes, which is about Hawaii from the time of the arrival of the missionaries in 1820 to its annexation by the United States in 1898. I was a bit undecided on whether to go because in order to get in, you had to buy the book at list price, $25.95. The ebook version is $12.99.

I didn't buy an advance ticket and while I was always leaning toward going, I didn't really commit until after 5 o'clock. Doors opened at 6. I ended up getting there just before 6. The lobby was full and the line was growing out the door. It was a mixture of ticket holders and those who didn't have them yet. As I was waiting, I overheard a woman talking to the couple just ahead of me. She said she was going to be joined by a friend who had an extra ticket. When the friend showed up and spoke about her extra ticket, I immediately said I'd buy it from her. She said she'd sell it to me for $25. The handling fee for buying online, which she had done, was $6.44, so I saved over $7. That paid for a couple of slices of pizza once I got in.

I almost had a problem. I was hungry and concentrating on the food booth ahead. There was a guy who marked off my ticket. What I didn't realize at the time was I should have turned from him on my right to the books on my left. Instead I just went toward the food booth, realized the line was a lot longer and got at the end. I got lucky because a guy came up to the end of the line where I was and said he had a few slices of pizza plus drinks at another little booth and I ended up being his second customer.

It wasn't until I was about halfway through eating my first pizza slice at my seat near the front that I looked around and noticed everyone else had the book. Uh oh. I finished the slice, and went back out to the lobby. I told the woman behind the book display I hadn't picked up the book on my way in. She noticed the guy had marked off my ticket printout, but when I explained I'd walked by, not being used to the setup, she didn't give me any trouble, so I got my book and went back to eat the second pizza slice.

The light wasn't that great, but I did a little reading, which I probably shouldn't have bothered with because when Sarah came out, after a brief bit of introductory talk, she began reading and of course, most of what she read was what I had read only a short while before. Oh well, I always enjoy listening to her.

During the question period following the reading, someone asked her about her formal education. She mentioned going to Montana State and then doing graduate work at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her graduate degree is in Art History. She told of how she really didn't care for the reading assignments and how that influenced the way she writes. She felt most of the people she had to read often were just very obscure and she wanted to write clearly. I think she succeeds in that quite nicely.

She mentioned she'd lived in Portland about 22 years ago and used to work in the coffee shop across the street from the Bagdad at a time in her life when she really wasn't too sure what she wanted to do with her life. She spoke of the lady whose coffee was never hot enough and the college students who were never straight enough. She said it was really nice to be back across the street from where she'd worked, only this time with her name on the marquee outside and she had a podium inside.

Someone asked her to share an anecdote of having dinner with the people from This American Life and that kind of stumped her for a bit because well, these folks, to her, are just coworkers and it wasn't like they got together as a sort of modern-day Algonquin Roundtable. She mentioned how the last time she'd gotten together with Ira Glass they'd ended up talking about The Book of Mormon - not the religious text, but the show. She also mentioned the time she'd gotten a new lamp and just couldn't figure out how to turn it on, so she called up David Sedaris, who came over, looked at the lamp, figured it out, turned it on, said, "See ya!" and left. So much for the glamor of public radio stars.

Sarah said she doesn't think of herself as an historian but rather as more a journalist who happens to write much longer stories. One thing she liked about doing the book about Hawaii was that she felt that the people she was talking to while she was doing the research really felt involved in the history of Hawaii. There are still some native Hawaiians who still resent the takeover of the islands by the United States. She hadn't felt that sense of involvement by ordinary people when she was working on her previous books.

One thing I like to do while reading one of Sarah Vowell's books is to read it with her voice in my head. She has a unique outlook on her subjects to go along with her unique voice and it just wouldn't seem right to read it without hearing her voice. If you need to refresh your memory on the sound of her voice, my Sarah Vowell lens has five videos including the newest one near the top in which she talks about that Hawaiian institution, the plate lunch. And of course, you can order Unfamiliar Fishes or any of her previous books from the lens.

The photo at the top of this entry isn't from tonight. I took my camera, but we were told no flash photography and lighting was dim. So the photo is from when she appeared at Powell's in Beaverton in October 2009.

Coloring Pages & Books: Castles

2011-03-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

My newest Squidoo lens is Coloring Pages & Books: Castles published today (Saturday). My other coloring pages lens, Coloring Pages & Books: Ireland, published about two weeks ago, has been doing fairly well, having move up well into the second tier of lensranking (2,001 to 10,000). It appears coloring pages lenses do pretty well. Other lensmasters have coloring page lenses up in the top tiers so it's incentive for me to create more coloring pages lenses. The tricky part is finding a subject that hasn't been covered or at least hasn't been covered well.

Originally I thought I'd be doing a coloring page lens on Scotland, and Scotland has some castles. That led me to look up castle coloring pages and there seemed to be enough for a lens in itself, so I put the Scotland lens off for a while.

I looked up a lot of castle coloring pages on the Internet and found about a dozen. Putting them all into one module as links was one of the easier parts of making the lens. I also found four Dover Publications coloring books on Amazon. Adding them took more time as I had to write blurbs for them and the lens template I used still has some old coding that had to be modified.

Some of the reviews for the books indicated using colored pencils instead of crayons might be a good way to use the books, so I added one of Crayola's offerings to the lens along with the crayon and washable markers modules copied over from the Ireland lens.

I haven't done any coloring myself since a brief time in the '70s, but at least that experience told me it's not just for kids. Quite a few of the reviewers for the Dover books on Amazon indicated they enjoyed it and recommended it for older kids and adults even though three of the four books gave an age range of four to eight and the other range was nine to twelve.

Fiction Best Sellers Updated

2011-03-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

My Squidoo lens Fiction Best Sellers has been updated to reflect sales ending the week of March 19, 2011. Things were pretty quiet this time around, with only one new book in the top 10 and only one or two new books in the rest of the list.

I had developed a new button-looking thing (actually a very short paragraph with rounded-corner borders) for the lens I did for Wendy Rule earlier this week. With a little minor tweaking it works just fine for books as well as CDs. I had noticed that any text I created below the boxed text descriptions would start under the CD image on Wendy's lens, so I used that little feature to get the button under the book image as well. The only catch is the description box has to be longer than the book cover image, otherwise the button ends up below the text. So sometimes I need to put in some line breaks to make the description box long enough. I think it looks pretty good and draws more attention to the Buy now from Amazon.com link.

Diary of a Mad Fat Girl

The self-published first novel and ebook-only Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee, which appeared at #31 on the list last week is still on the list this week at #32. Amazon has given it their Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and Stephanie says she's getting communications from literary agents that are not rejection letters.

As one of the last of the big spenders, I decided to risk a whole 99 cents and just bought the book for my Nook from Barnes & Noble. It'll probably be a fun read even though it's not my usual fare.

I still think it's pretty cool that a self-published ebook only first novel has made it to one of The New York Times best seller lists. It's not an easy thing to do.

New Squidoo Lens - Faerie Music: Wendy Rule

2011-03-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

Wendy Rule is a vocalist and songwriter from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia who draws upon her love of nature and her experiences as a practicing Pagan Witch to create mythical mystical journeys through soundscapes that call to mind worlds seen and unseen.

She has released six studio albums since the mid-1990s along with several side projects. She has toured in Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. In the US her music has been used extensively in the pagan community and she has been a guest of honor at a number of pagan festivals. She will be appearing at Faerieworlds in Eugene, Oregon June 17-19, 2011. She was scheduled to appear last year, but last minute problems getting into the US prevented her appearance as it did with the Mediaeval Baebes.

With the completion of this lens, I've got all the main stage musicians for Faerieworlds 2011 represented in either separate lenses or in my Faerie Music lens which includes performers who have released three or fewer CDs.

I have separate lenses for:

Other 2011 performers included in the Faerie Music lens are:

Delhi 2 Dublin
Trillian Green (just recently added to the lineup at Faerieworlds)
Brother

I've also created lenses for past performers Faun and the Gypsy Nomads who appeared last year, Alexander James Adams who has appeared solo and with Tricky Pixie, plus a lens for the Mediaeval Baebes who, as mentioned, were scheduled last year. While I wasn't aware of it at the time I created a lens for Solas, they appeared at Faerieworlds in 2004, two years before I started attending.

The Faerie Music lens also includes performers who appeared at Faerieworlds in the past back to 2006. I may break out Brother to their own lens since they appear to have more CDs available through Amazon than last year when I included them in the lens.

The Faerieworlds folks have said there's going to be a major musical announcement tomorrow, Tuesday, so we'll see if that leads to another lens. The Faerieworlds lens needs a major overhaul for 2011 in any case.

New Faerie Music Lens: S. J. Tucker

2011-03-21T20:31:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, March 19, I created a new lens about S. J. Tucker, who is a petite gypsy vagabond who has been on tour pretty much continuously since 2004 singing her mystical, mythical music influenced by Celtic magic with a good dose of rock and some punk thrown in. She's also part of Tricky Pixie, a group formed at Faerieworlds in 2006 when the Fairytale Minstrel, Alexander James Adams, asked her if she wanted a fiddler. As she tells it, "When this one asks if you want a fiddler, the answer is 'Yes!'"

S. J. had already been working with Betsy Tinney, who appeared regularly at Faerieworlds as part of the Gaia Consort (now known as the Bone Poets Orchestra). The three got together when Tucker was in the Northwest and their first show at Soul Food Books in Redmond, Washington in July 2007 was a resounding success. They appeared at Faerieworlds at the end of that month, where they were enthusiastically received and they've been back every year since and will be there this year as well. S. J. will also be performing as a solo act.

When not appearing as part of Tricky Pixie, S. J. is on the road appearing solo as the Skinny White Chick and also as part of the trio The Traveling Fates. She has a devoted following among the pagan and fae communities nationwide.

She takes some breaks from touring to record albums and she has also collaborated on two albums with author Catherynne M. Valenti that have centered around Valenti's The Orphan's Tales.

Amazon and Me

2011-03-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before that I'm an Amazon Associate. What that means is that I get to put links on this blog, on my Squidoo lenses (I have 125 at the moment and it'll grow), or anywhere else I'm allowed to put them, such as my signature on Delphi Forums where I link to the Kindle page. See that Amazon search box over to the right? That's one example of a link that will help me out. More on that later. By the way, the Amazon.com logo above this paragraph is not a link.

The links, if clicked on, take you to Amazon.com or in some cases to Amazon.co.uk (you'll probably use the UK links only if you're in the UK or Europe). Usually the links take you to a specific product page on Amazon. If you buy the product, I'll get a commission. That commission does not increase your cost. It's built in to all of Amazon's prices as part of their promotional costs.

What if you go to Amazon through one of my links and change your mind about what to buy? As far as Amazon's concerned, go ahead and buy something else. I'll still get the commission. The commission isn't so much for getting you to buy a specific item, it's for getting you to go to Amazon in the first place. So go ahead and click on a link for a paperback book and end up buying a digital camera instead. I'd love that, in fact. Or click on a link for a digital camera and buy a paperback book instead. OK, I'd love that less, but at least you bought something and that's good.

What if you go to Amazon through one of my links and don't buy right away, but you return within 24 hours and buy something? As long as you haven't visited Amazon through someone else's link, I'll still get the commission. But if your second visit is through a click on say, The New York Times website for best sellers, I don't get a commission even if your first click through to Amazon was from my Fiction Best Sellers lens on Squidoo.

If after 24 hours you visit Amazon by just entering Amazon.com in your browser or click through from another site, I don't get a commission. If you view this blog or one of my Squidoo lenses and then just enter Amazon.com into your browser, I don't get a commission. So if you'd like to help me out, keep this blog or my Squidoo lenses in mind and enter through Amazon links on either of them.

The best and simplest way is through this blog. Remember I mentioned the fairly big Amazon search box at the top right side of this page? (If you're not seeing it, you may need to turn off your ad-blocking software. Please do, at least while you're here, then turn it back on later.) That search box is keyed to my Amazon Associates ID. Use it to enter Amazon.com, buy something, and you've helped me out a bit or maybe a lot if you're on a shopping spree. Whether it's only a few cents or a few dollars, though, I really appreciate it.

I'd appreciate if you'd bookmark this blog in your computer's browser your work computer's browser, your iPad or other tablet's browser or your smartphone's browser. Did I miss anything? Bookmark it on that too. Then use that bookmark any time you think of Amazon. It's an extra click, but that extra click helps someone who's trying to keep on paying the bills.

Thank you to any and all who use my Amazon Associates links. Every little bit helps.

Celtic Music's Big Stage Shows

2011-03-03T11:22:00.000-08:00

Three years ago I started a series of Celtic Music lenses on Squidoo. I concentrated on performers I was personally familiar with to begin with. Some are no longer recording, but their CDs are still available, others are recording and making a living, probably a modest one in many cases, from playing smaller venues like pubs, small halls and clubs. A few, like Enya, Loreena McKennitt and The Chieftains, are doing very well.

The sense I've gotten about these performers, from the obscure to the ones people who aren't necessarily Celtic music fans might have heard of, is that to start with they had a great love of the music and a joy in playing it. It comes through very clearly in their music. To me, the heart of Celtic music is in these people and they share that love with their audiences. They do it for the love and joy, with money only being a means to the end of sharing the music.

Over the years I've gotten a fair number of reader comments on my Celtic music lenses and even though I hadn't done lenses for them, Riverdance, Celtic Woman and Celtic Thunder got mentioned now and again. People mentioning them often said they hadn't heard much about Celtic music beyond those shows or maybe they knew of Enya, maybe Loreena McKennitt or The Chieftains, but not much else. They were finding out more through my lenses.

Since the big stage shows have influenced people to do a bit more exploring of Celtic music, it seemed only natural that I should create lenses about them. I was most familiar with Riverdance, having seen it on video and heard the music on CD. It's a spectacular show for the big stage, with extremely talented performers. And it grew out of the more modest Celtic music scene. Composer Bill Whelan was at one time a member of the Irish group Planxty and along with fellow Planxty member Donal Lunny, had put together a piece called "Timedance" as an interval act for the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest, hosted that year by Ireland. Out of that idea grew the interval act for the 1994 contest, again hosted by Ireland and that went on to become the Riverdance stage show. So I started with Celtic Music: Riverdance earlier this week.

Once I got that done, it seemed a good idea to quickly move on to Celtic Music: Celtic Woman, which I started late on Tuesday and finished on Wednesday. It took a bit longer than I thought it would because I included some solo albums by Celtic Woman performers in addition to the CDs and related DVDs by the group. I finished and published that by late afternoon.

Next I thought I'd get the Celtic Music: Celtic Thunder lens at least started, planning at the time to finish it up today. Instead I just kept going throughout the evening and published it.

Once I'd done all that, then I went to the Celtic Music: Lenses lens and added a new category, "Stage Shows" plus descriptions and links for the three lenses.

I probably should have then done this blog entry last night, but since publishing also means sending out Twitter tweets, Facebook entries and Squidcasts (notes to my Squidoo fans), by the time I got the Celtic Thunder lens published I was a bit tired of typing and was finding myself typing "Cletic" and "mucis" a lot more than usual.

Better Late Than Never

2011-02-28T19:44:00.000-08:00

A couple of hours ago it occurred to me that a Squidoo lens called 10 Best Movies for Grownups might be improved considerably by adding movie trailers. I'm so used to writing lenses about books and I used the module design I use for books when I made the lens. But movies aren't books. Books don't have trailers. Movies do. So I added the ten trailers and published the lens, tweeted, put a note on Facebook and wrote a Squidcast, which is a note about a lens sent to fans on Squidoo. I just realized something when doing that - I have 300 fans.

So I was doing some other stuff when it occurred to me that there was this certain special event on the telly last night known as the Academy Awards show. Hmm, seemed like a good idea to go to the Academy Award site and see if any of the pictures, actors, actresses, etc. mentioned in my lens won anything.

Yep, The King's Speech won several Oscars, including Best Picture, and was nominated for several more. Several other films were winners and others were nominated. So I added mention of those wins and nominations to the lens and tweeted again, added a comment to my Facebook note and fired off another Squidcast. Normally I wouldn't do a second round like that, but the addition was significant, being the Oscars and all.

New Video for Music at Matt Molloy's

2011-02-25T19:16:00.000-08:00

Just after my last post I noticed I had a new comment on my Squidoo lens Celtic Music: Music at Matt Molloy's. In the course of checking it out, I discovered the session video I'd originally included had gone missing. That happens with YouTube videos and the older a lens gets, the more likely it is to have a missing video.

Fortunately I was able to find a new one from a session at the pub recorded on 6 September 2010, which tells us the sessions are alive and well nearly 20 years after the CD was recorded.

The new video's pretty decent and worth dropping by the lens for a look and listen. You might want to get yourself a Guinness first, though.

Fiction Best Sellers Updated

2011-02-25T18:09:00.000-08:00

I've updated the Squidoo lens Fiction Best Sellers to reflect sales for the week ending February 19. I also added links to Amazon.com's top 100 best sellers in Literature and Fiction and a couple of Kindle top 100 best sellers, one for paid ebooks and one for free ebooks.

This version of the list is easier to update than the one I did in 2008 and 2009 when I included covers and blurbs for the top 15 books. Now I'm just doing that for the top 10 and only one had to be changed this week. The listing of books 11 to 35 is also pretty easy since I just have to look up the book on Amazon, create the text link, paste it in and add the author's name. This week was easier than last week since I only had to look up books that weren't on the llist last week. I think there were only three or four I had to add.

I'm hoping folks will not only look at the lens to get ideas but actually click on the lens' links to buy the books from Amazon.com so I get commission on the sales. It's not much, but it adds up.

By the way, Water for Elephants is #4 this week, up from #7.

10 Best Movies for Grownups

2011-02-23T18:59:00.000-08:00

My latest Squidoo lens is 10 Best Movies for Grownups. It was inspired by an article in AARP The Magazine, which has been giving out awards for grownup movies for ten years. In addition to naming the 10 best movies, the magazine also gives awards in other categories such as best actor and actress, best director, screenwriter, best foreign film and several other categories. The lens lists these awards and the seven additional movies related to them. Many of these movies from AARP's awards go on to win Academy Awards.

This new lens is outside of the subjects for which I've usually created lenses. I like Celtic music. I like it enough to have made 48 lenses about it. I like science fiction and have made 16 lenses about it (more, actually, but I combined six lenses about the Hugo Awards into one). I've got over a dozen lenses about authors outside science fiction, and several lenses about Faerieworlds and music associated with it.

The one thing about all of those subjects is that while they are great lens topics, they're not always something most people have heard about. Most people aren't familiar with Celtic musicians outside of perhaps Enya, Celtic Woman, Celtic Thunder or Riverdance. Most people tend to think of science fiction in terms of movies or television shows instead of books. Even when people do think of books, they're likely to see the science fiction/fantasy section of bookstores crowded with sword-and-sorcery, monster and vampire fantasy. Much of the actual science fiction is often dominated by Star Trek and Star Wars books.

So this new lens, along with my next-to-newest lens, Fiction Best Sellers, is an attempt to attract some traffic for subjects that might have broader appeal. I am interested in these new subjects, otherwise I wouldn't do lenses about them.

"How to See Faeries" - New Brian Froud Book

2011-02-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

Brian Froud has teamed up with New York Times best-selling author John Matthews in How to See Faeries, an interactive guide to those in search of the dwellers in the land of the Fae.

Brian Froud is well known for his many books on faeries, beginning with the classic Faeries with Alan Lee, first published in 1978. He was also the conceptual designer for the Jim Henson movies The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. His art inspired the annual celebrations Faerieworlds in Eugene, Oregon and FaerieCon in Baltimore, Maryland.

The new book will be available on Amazon.com on April 1, 2011 and is available for pre-order before that date.

I hope you'll consider ordering the new book either from this blog or from my Squidoo lens about Brian Froud. I also have created a lens for his wife, Wendy Froud and for Faerieworlds, the annual summer celebration in Eugene, Oregon where the Frouds appear each year. The festival was inspired by the art of Brian Froud.

How to Write a Check - My #1 Lens

2011-02-19T20:14:00.000-08:00

My Squidoo lens How to Write a Check is by far my most visited lens. I have 120 lenses and that one lens often accounts for about half of the visits to all my lenses.

Generally I'm more interested in doing lenses about Celtic music, science fiction or humor. I never would have considered doing one about writing checks except that back in July 2008 when I made the lens, I was a new Giant Squid (50 lenses considered to be quality lenses by those who determine who gets to be a Giant). I'd signed up to follow a blog by Seth Godin, Squidoo's founder. One of the things he did was toss out a whole bunch of lens ideas and asked subscribers to pick at least one for a lens. Somehow the one about writing checks appealed to me, so I did some research and published the lens on July 30, 2008.

For quite a while it didn't attract a whole lot of attention, but I noticed around January 2009 that the number of visits began to increase. They've climbed pretty steadily since then and last month there were 5,000 visits. Squidoo counts unique visitors, so if someone goes back to the lens the same week, it doesn't count.

It was all a bit surprising because I'm not that great about promoting my lenses, something I'm trying to change. Over time I've tweaked the lens a bit and tried adding related products. Since it get so many visits, I've also added links to my other lenses.

Snowflake Photography - Video Added

2011-02-19T08:50:00.000-08:00

I've added a YouTube video clip from CBS Sunday Morning to my Squidoo lens Snowflake Photography: Kenneth Libbrecht. There's some very beautiful snowflake images to be seen. Dr. Libbrecht talks about photographing snowflakes and is shown at work in subfreezing temperatures working without gloves.

This lens, which I created at the end of December, is a complement to my lens Wilson A. Bentley - The Snowflake Man. Bentley was farmer in Jericho, Vermont who pioneered the art of snowflake photography.

Fiction Best Sellers: A New Squidoo Project

2011-02-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

For a while until around August 2009, I did a lens based on the New York Times best seller lists, updated weekly. After not seeing sales for many months, I deleted the lens since it took about 2-3 hours every week to update it.

When I resumed activity around Thanksgiving 2010, I realized I'd made a serious coding error that prevented sales with affiliate links from being credited to my account. Now I'm going to try again, this time with correct coding. I had been getting some sales until I started using the bad code.

Instead of using the hardcover list, I'm using a new list the Times started earlier this month that reports combined print and ebook sales. Since ebook sales at Amazon.com are now larger than hardcover or paperback sales, this appears to be the best way to reflect what people are actually buying.

Alone is #2 on the latest New York Times list of print and ebook fiction best sellers.

TALOIGA

2011-02-18T17:35:00.000-08:00

Things went downhill after the Neverworlds Masquerade in Eugene on the 29th. While walking around, I noticed some pain in my left foot like I'd strained a muscle. I must've done a pretty good job of straining it because when I got up on Sunday I was really hobbling around. Every other step was painful, and it took several days for it to fade.

Just as that was getting better, I got a case of TALOIGA (my acronym for There's A Lot Of It Going Around). I have a big suspicion I picked it up in Eugene, since I started getting sick about 48 hours or so after I got back. It was probably a dose of the flu - I somehow skipped getting a shot this season. "Taloiga" sounds a lot more exotic than "flu."

Mostly it seemed to be a nagging cough that was persistent enough to sap my energy so I just haven't felt like doing anything that requires much thought or much stick-to-itiveness. After more than two weeks the cough finally seems to be subsiding.

One thing I have done is read up a bit about Redgage, a social networking site where you can post blog entries, photos, etc. and get paid. The folks in the Squidoo forum called the Chatter Box have been saying it's a good place to make backlinks, so I plan to start doing short blog entries about my lenses. Some will be about lenses I've recently blogged about such as the Discworld lens, the Grand Masters of Science Fiction, the Hugo Awards, etc. but I want to write something new for them.

I could just write something new on Redgage, but by importing material from this blog to there I get the advantage of two backlinks. I'm hoping this might make for at least a little increase in traffic.

I was in Costco earlier and took a look at Laura Hillebrand's new book. If money wasn't so tight I'd buy it, but it's still penny-pinching season and it will be for a long time, I suspect.

The Neverworld Masquerade

2011-02-01T11:55:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday I went down to the McDonald Theater in downtown Eugene, Oregon to the Faerieworlds Winter event, the Neverworlds Masquerade. The theme was "Faeries vs. Pirates" and I went as a pirate, or perhaps more accurately as the Thief of Time since I wore my clock hat.

I got there way too early. Another time I'll get there about a half hour before the doors open, not more than two hours before. But although I've been around Eugene now and then since I started going to Faerieworlds in 2006, I'd never been in the downtown part of it. I wasn't sure how parking would work out, especially since a performance center close to the McDonald was presenting Itzahk Perlman that night.

It turned out that parking was extremely easy. I'd checked out Google maps and had a printout, so once I got off I-105 I got right to the city-operated parking garage, which is free on Saturdays and they had plenty of spaces.

I had my camera and my little prop sword with me, and eventually I took them back to the car when I realized the sword was considered a weapon even though it's not at all sharp and it was tied so I couldn't pull it out of the scabbard. Just before the doors opened, someone from the theater saw a guy with a pro-level camera and told him he needed a photo pass. So I figured photos just weren't allowed even though I'd seen photos from past Winter events at the theater.

Once inside, I realized plenty of people had cameras and I could've kept mine with me. The only thing being restricted was flash photos inside the auditorium part. Photos in the lobby and lounge were no problem.

There were a few vendors set up in the lobby with some interesting things, but since money's so tight I didn't spend much time looking. I did talk briefly with Mark Lewis, who was in his "Dirty Jack" pirate outfit and was one of the emcees along with "Green Man" Billy Scudder. I told Mark I was there as the Thief of Time, and his response was, "We have ways of making you tock."

There were three musical acts for the evening and the first was Manoverboard (yes, it's all one word). They've been to several Faerieworlds Summer events on the Village or Neverworlds stage, but I'd only seen them in passing. It was good to see them for their whole set. It was very energetic and a lot of fun.

Scott Huckabay, who's a real guitar wizard, was the second act. He's also been to the Summer event at least once that I know of. I'd gone into the lounge between acts to get a drink and ended up spending all of the time Scott was performing there talking with a few of the Circle of Merry Folk people. The lounge had a video feed from the auditorium, so I didn't completely miss out. That feed was also going out on the Internet via UStream (they also carry feeds from LiveIreland, the Internet radio station).

Of course, the headline act was Woodland, Emilio and Kelly Miller-Lopez's band. They were in great form with plenty of new material and Emilio got to play the hurdy-gurdy he'd gotten a few months ago.

Back during one of the Full Moon gatherings at the standing stones out at Mount Pisgah, I'd heard Kelly playing a Loreena McKennitt tune on her harp. I think she said she was just learning it. The band has worked up a full arrangement of the tune and it sounded great.

While I'd originally booked a motel room, I canceled it earlier in the week - a move spurred by the higher cost of getting the car's oil changed plus having the fuel filter replaced. So after the show, I headed back home. Since it was after midnight, traffic was very light. Even with a bit of fog developing toward the end of the trip, it only took a bit over two hours to return.

Discworld: The Monstrous Screwup

2011-02-01T11:21:00.000-08:00

Terry (not Terrry) Pratchett

After seeing things going pretty well for my six-page Squidoo lens Hugo Award Winners: Novels, I decided to consolidate my five Discworld lenses into one. It was mostly a matter of tedious cutting and pasting, although a bit of writing was needed and I had to create a set of links for people to get from one page to the others.

I spent about three or four hours on that last evening (Monday) and published the lens, Discworld Novels by Terry Pratchett, or so I thought. What I'd really published was "Discworld Novels by Terrry Pratchett" with three "r"s in "Terry" instead of the usual two. The problem occurred as the second step of creating a lens after clicking the lens builder link - naming the lens. Typing in the title creates the URL. I was careful about spelling "Pratchett" but didn't notice a finger stutter on the first name.

Of course, it was one of the first things I noticed after publishing. That was way too late, since the URL is set once the button is pushed to create the lens and open the workshop. Once assigned, a URL can't be changed. My only option was to recreate the entire five-page lens, which is what I did this morning and it took about three hours. I did spot a few errors to correct and I made a few tweaks, so overall things are better on this newer version above and beyond fixing the title/URL gaffe.

Grand Masters of Science Fiction Lens

2011-01-27T18:49:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess that'll teach me to resume not writing about works in progress. Last Saturday I wrote predicting my lens on the Grand Masters of Science Fiction would be published on Sunday. It took a bit longer. Longer as in I just published the lens this evening (Thursday).

The lens is much better for the extra time. If I'd published on Sunday, it would have been a lens mostly made up of links to authors' pages on Amazon and links to books on Amazon. The extra time mostly went into writing up semi-brief blurbs about each author, and there are 27 of them. Just today I realized I'd left one author off the list, so I was able to correct that. Writing those blurbs went a lot slower than I would have thought. That's only partly because I ended up reading most of the Wikipedia entries and referring to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Then, of course, there was writing up a few paragraphs about the SFWA and the award.

I couldn't find free-to-use photos of all the authors, so for those I couldn't find, I used book cover images from Amazon. I did find photos for most authors on Wikipedia, and most of those didn't require attribution, but I provided it for those that did. The photo of Robert A. Heinlein is the only one, I think, that I got from Amazon. It was only after I'd placed the photo that I recalled that the term "Grand Master" is also used in chess.

It's a relief to have the lens done and published. Now on to the next big or maybe not-so-big idea.

Merging Lenses, New Idea

2011-01-22T22:31:00.000-08:00

I've started merging about eight of the Celtic music lenses with their corresponding video showcase lenses. Since I made the video lenses in 2008, Squidoo added the ability to make lenses with more than one page. I decided to cut down on the total number of lenses by putting the videos on page 2 of the main lens and delete the video showcase lens.

I started out with Celtic Music: Altan because it's the first one on the Celtic Music: Lenses lens. I deleted all but one video on the showcase lens and added a note with links to the main lens. I was going to do another one, but went out for a walk instead because it was a nice day, i.e., not raining.

While out walking I got an idea about doing a lens about science fiction grand masters. The Science Fiction Writers Association, which gives out the Nebula Awards, has been awarding the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award since the 1970s, although they didn't name it for Knight until after he died in the '90s. It seemed like a good way to make a lens with lots of links to Amazon for the all-time best writers in the science fiction field.

I got a list of all the Grand Masters in a text file and added links to their Amazon pages if they have them or searches on their names at Amazon if they don't have a page. Then I decided to make it more interesting by adding links to their books that have won the Hugo and/or Nebula awards. I managed to get through to 2000 and I'll most likely finish it up tomorrow.

It's still just a text file now, but I've found that by doing a lot of this type of lens with multiple Amazon links as text files is easier than working in Squidoo's lens workshop. I did find the Hugo Award Winners: Novels lens very helpful since I've already created the links to both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in that lens, so I just copy them over to the text file.

I'm hoping to be able to find photos of the authors either on Amazon or Wikipedia with Creative Commons licenses so I can use them. Also I'm hoping I can get the lens published tomorrow. Usually I don't write about stuff in progress just in case something changes. Occasionally I'll start a lens that seems like a good idea, then get bogged down. If I don't say anything before publishing, nobody has to know. But this grand master lens looks like it's definitely going to happen.

New Squidoo Lens - Celtic Music: Kíla

2011-01-20T21:40:00.000-08:00

When it comes to my Squidoo lenses, Celtic Music: Kíla can also be put in my category of Faerie Music since they'll be headlining at Faerieworlds in Eugene, Oregon June 17-19, 2011. But they are first and foremost an Irish group, performing with plenty of spirit and energy all over the world. Faerieworlds folks eagerly await this years event for the chance to see Kíla live and dance up a storm.

Kíla's members are much more than just players in an Irish band. They're all involved in many other ventures in music, theater and film, and most have recorded solo albums.

I'm really not too sure about that Klingon nose trumpet, however.

Squidoo Gives Hugo Award Lens a Purple Star

2011-01-18T17:32:00.000-08:00

Less than 36 hours after I published my Hugo Award Winners: Novels, it's received a Purple Star from Squidoo. Purple Stars are given to lenses nominated by other winners of that award. They are awarded for lenses that the nominators and Squidoo staff agree are of top quality. Getting one so quickly is, I think, somewhat out of the ordinary.

This is my third Purple Star. Not long after the program began I got one for my lens about Mount St. Helens. Late last month I got a second one for Spoonerisms, which had also been named a Lens of the Day in 2008. And speaking of Lens of the Day, I got a second one of those awards in 2009 for Celtic Music: Lenses which lists all of my lenses on that subject.

One thing they ask you to do when you get a Purple Star is look for someone else's lens that you think is worth the honor. I was just looking around and found Shakespearean Insults, which I thought was funny and deserving of recognition, so I nominated it.

My Discworld Lenses on Squidoo

2011-01-17T12:25:00.000-08:00

Before I got caught up in the massive project that was the Hugo Award Winners: Novels lens that I published Sunday evening, I had another big project: Discworld.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, which started in 1983 and really got rolling a few years later, is one of those series I was aware of, but I just didn't think I was a big fan of fantasy. On the other hand, I kept reading about him being compared to Douglas Adams, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy guy, and I'm a big fan of Adams.

But I'm not a really big fan of fantasy, or at least I wasn't. To me it just seemed like too much of it was sword and sorcery and all of it was taken much to seriously. It turns out that's pretty much the feeling Terry Pratchett had in mind when he started the Discworld books. He basically looked at the genre and stood it on its head.

Pratchett's got a madcap sense of humour at least as far out as Adams had. His main wizard character, Rincewind, isn't very good at wizarding, although he does have this way of surviving. Unseen University, the place wizards go to learn their trade and often remain, is peopled by a faculty and staff that's gotten very complacent and fat, enjoying six hearty meals a day and not doing much magic at all unless it's something involving plots against wizards higher up in the hierarchy, and the results of the plotting can be fatal to the plottee. The university is in Discworld's largest city, Ankh-Morpork, a sprawling disorganized mess of a place where, Pratchett says, all roads lead from Ankh-Morpork, not to it. It's just that some people, those headed to the city, are going the wrong way.

There are witches, including grim Granny Weatherwax, jolly Nanny Ogg, and young Magrat Garlick, who is pretty much a parody of modern-day New Age influenced practitioners of the occult.

There's Death. Death SPEAKS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and rides a pale white horse. The horse's name is Binky.

Everyone lives on a flat round and highly improbable world that's carried on the backs of four huge elephants who, in turn, stand on the back of The Great A'Tuin, a 10,000-mile long turtle swimming through space. Since the world is flat, if a ship at sea disappears from view like it's falling off the edge (as people on Earth used to think), it's because it's falling off the edge. Water from the ocean cascades off the edge, yet Discworld and it's oceans never run dry.

It all sounds wildly fantastic, and it is, but Pratchett has a way of telling great and very funny stories about the world and the characters in it. There are plenty of references to fairy tales, Shakespeare, movies and other bits of culture from our world to make Discworld seem sort of familiar in its weirdness.

There are currently 38 books in the Discworld series, with several major categories. Someone had previously done a Discworld lens about why they shouldn't be read in order. I decided to make a lens listing them all in order starting with The Colour of Magic, which some say isn't the best place to start. Pratchett has said it wasn't until several books in that he discovered this wonderful thing called "plot." But I started reading that book and, being used to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, didn't have any problems with it. I just continued on with The Light Fantastic and kept going. I'm currently between the 12th and 13th books, taking a break to read other things.

The lenses I made are:

Discworld Novels 1 to 10
Discworld Novels 11 to 20
Discworld Novels 21 to 30
Discworld Novels 31 to 40

31 to 40? Well, yes. While there are only 38 published books, plans are in the works for at least two more. If I'd named the fourth lens Discworld Novels 31 to 38, I'd have a problem when the next books came out. This way no renaming is necessary and if Pratchett goes on past 40 I can put those books in a new lens.

There's a fifth lens for Discworld books related to, but not part of the series:

Discworld: Related Books

This lens links to the mapps, the Science of Discworld books, art, folklore, a companion, and even a children's book that grew out of the City Watch commander's reading to his young son.

Not having read past the 12th book, I had to rely pretty much on plot synopses I could find online. Some were way too brief, others were way too wordy, with some of the latter being the length of short stories. I just wanted something short, but enough to generate interest. Using a graphic online Guide to Discworld, I color coded the borders and backgrounds of each book description to relate to the categories defined by the guide: Rincewind, Witches, Death, The City Watch, etc.

I'm having a lot of fun reading the series. I just wish I hadn't waited so long to start reading it.

A New Squidoo Lens - Hugo Award Winners - Novels

2011-01-16T20:45:00.000-08:00

I just published my newest Squidoo lens Hugo Award Winners: Novels. It's a rather large project in that it combines the six lenses I'd previously made about Hugos. I decided to use the Page Break module to get it all on one lens, which I think will help with lensrank on Squidoo and page rank on Google.

The lens not only links each title to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, it also includes other awards won by each title. It's the other awards that took probably half the time in creating the lens. I think including those awards is important because I don't think there's many other places on the web where you can get a list of all the Hugo winning and nominated novels plus reference to other awards.

If you decide to take a look at the lens, let me know if you find any errors. In a project this size, even though I spent a good couple of hours looking over the whole thing (and finding missing links, misspellings and other cleanup stuff) there's probably stuff I just didn't see.

Thanks for looking and if you leave comments or hit the like button, thanks for those too.

All the book title and book cover links are through my Amazon Associates ID, so anyone clicking on a link and ordering something earns me a small commission which doesn't cost the person ordering anything extra. I'm using my own Associates links more and more on Squidoo, hoping to get enough orders in a month to kick the commission rate to the next level and also start making enough money to actually help pay some expenses.

I'll be doing more and more blogging about my efforts to make some income online. I really need to do a whole lot more promoting of the Squidoo lenses I've already made and will be making in the future. I might even change the name of this blog or perhaps start another to focus on that.

Computer Brain Transplant with Linux

2010-09-10T05:05:00.000-07:00

Last April I became a volunteer at Free Geek in Portland, Oregon by signing up for their Build program. In a series of four-hour shifts, volunteers go through several stages: Hardware Identification (which is only 2 1/2 hours), System Evaluation, and Build.

Hardware ID is pretty simple and teaches volunteers to recognize various computer parts, especially memory. In System Evaluation, volunteers pick newly-donated computers from a stack, then, following a series of flow charts, check out whether the computer will be sent to recycling or whether it will be saved to be refurbished. The refurbished computers then are either donated to schools and/or non-profits, sold in the Free Geek Thrift Store, or given to volunteers in either the Adoption or Build programs.

In the Build program, volunteers assemble five computers and get to build a sixth computer which they can keep. Building isn't all that complicated. It's not like starting from scratch because one starts with a computer that has no hard drive or memory and which may not have the right CD/DVD drive. Builders just follow a series of steps to add memory, add a drive, swap the CD/DVD if necessary, and test things along the way. The work gets checked out at the end by one of the staff assistants. Later, another volunteer does a quality control check on computers built by another volunteer. Quality control actually a volunteers first task in the Build area, and after QC'ing a few systems, the volunteer then moves on to build machines.

Soon after I started volunteering, I took advantage of the volunteer discount in the Thrift Store to get a system. Of course, it's several years old, so it's hardly cutting edge, but I was getting concerned that my refurbished HP machine I'd bought from Frys about five years ago could start having problems. The one I bought from the Thrift Store was about on the same level as the HP although it had a bigger drive - 300 GB instead of 160 GB - and more memory - 2 GB instead of the 1.5 GB (about the only thing I'd done with the HP was to upgrade memory from 512 MB).

Last Thursday was the day I built my take-home computer. I went into the warehouse part of Free Geek and looked around for a computer in the Freek Box area. I found an HP Pavilion a1473w Mediacenter machine, which was introduced by HP about 16 months after the one I'd gotten from Frys. Specifications only allowed me to install 512 MB of memory and the hard drive was limited to 80 GB, but it was a SATA drive. I should've gone to the Thrift Store to get 2 GB of memory and test it, but it was late in the shift and I had an errand to run afterward. But I did get signed off on the machine and took it home.

I got more memory the next day, but they didn't have two maching 1 GB sticks. When I put them in, the new-to-me machine would only recognize one of them no matter what combination I tried. Both sticks worked, just not together.

The next thing I tried was installing an ATI video card with outputs for DVI and HDMI that I'd gotten for the older machine but which hadn't worked. But it did work in the new machine and I hooked it up to my monitor using DVI. It was very nice to finally get use out of the video card.

All the hard drives installed in the Build program already have Linux installed on them. Free Geek is now using Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, a distribution that will be supported for three years from April 2010. Nothing special has to be done when a hard drive with Linux already on it is put in a machine. Just install it, plug it in, turn on the machine and it'll boot into Linux. It's very simple. If it were Windows, it would be another matter. Windows checks hardware and if it's not the original motherboard that particular copy of the Windows OS was installed on, it won't work without going through some complicated software fixes and even then it could still fail.

I got to thinking it would be better if my already set up Linux Mint 9 Isadora I'd put in the machine I'd bought in April was in the newer machine I'd built. I also thought it would be worth a try to see if the memory sticks from the older one would work in the newer one. If that were the case, I'd have the best components combined into one machine.

First I swapped the memory. The two matched sticks from the older machine worked just fine in the newer machine. When I put the sticks I'd bought last week into the older machine, I was pleasantly surprised to see that machine recognized both sticks, so I have 2 GB in each machine, the maximum I can put in them.

Next I swapped the hard drives. Fortunately both machines have SATA hard drives. The switch was simple. The newer machine booted up off the 300 GB drive and the only difference I noticed was the Linux Mint boot screen only shows the five dots that change from white to green as the system loads. The dots are bigger than they were before and I don't see the Linux Mint logo. That concerned me the first time, but the boot was successful and everything else looks and works fine.

One thing I haven't done yet is swap the CD/DVD drives. The machine I bought in April has a drive that will write both CDs and DVDs. The one I built could only have one that will read and write CDs and only read DVDs. I expect zero problems with the swap.

I've really gotten to like Linux since first putting it on the older HP machine last October. That machine can be booted into either Linux or Windows XP. Everything else is Linux. Linux is not only free, it's a lot easier to deal with when moving components around.

Faerieworlds: 5 Days, 0 Drama

2010-08-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

One thing that's struck me about Faerieworlds is how nice it can be to be in the presence of a large number of people gathered together to share the experience of an event like Faerieworlds. From late Thursday morning until Monday afternoon, my main focus was Faerieworlds and having a good time there.

I traveled to and from Faerieworlds with Jason, a friend from Tribe.net's Circle of Merry Folk. He lives in LA but wants to move to Portland, so he flew up a week early. We got together a couple of times, one of which was for the purpose of checking out a few apartment possibilities. I picked him up in the city at noon on Thursday and we headed down to Eugene where I'd booked a room at the Motel 6 just a few miles from Faerieworlds. We went to the screening of Mythic Journeys on Thursday evening at the Red Lion Inn where Brian and Wendy Froud were there along with Steven and Whitney Boe, the directors, writers and producers of the film.

Jason and I pretty much agree on the idea of making plans and trying to stick to them. We agreed to be at the Faerieworlds gate at 7 a.m. Friday morning. We left the motel right at 6:45 for the 10-minute drive. Along the way I thanked him for getting up so early so we could get there and I noted that it was the last thing we had to schedule together. His flight back to LA on Monday wasn't until late in the day, so we had plenty of time as all we had to really be aware of was being out of the festival site by noon.

From both adults and kids during the whole time I saw very little unhappy behavior aside from the occasional flash. I'm not a kid person, but I thought the kids were much better behaved at Faerieworlds than I'm used to seeing in the more mundane world. Everyone wanted to have a great time and I'd say the folks I saw succeeded. I sure did.

I'm starting to upload photos to my Flickr Faerieworlds 2010 set. As I write this, there's a few pictures of my steampunk hat I wore on Saturday, Bad Faeries Day, a few from the Frouds' book signing at Powell's on Wednesday, the film screening on Thursday, and a couple of photos another photographer took using my camera early on Friday. Unfortunately I didn't get similar pictures on Saturday but I've been looking for other photos showing me on Saturday both on Flickr and elsewhere. I'm sure the faeries will eventually lead me to some since during the festival I was stopped often by other folks who asked to take my picture and I know of others who just snapped as I went by or was posing for others. While it was nice of those who asked for pictures, I didn't mind a bit if others just got candid shots of me. One reason I didn't get a picture or two on my own camera of me on Saturday was that I was reluctant to ask anyone because getting the hat off then getting the camera off without dropping the hat was a bit involving. Since nobody offered, I didn't want to put anyone out.

One thing I did discover during camping at Faerieworlds: my days of using a tent I can't stand up in along with an air mattress on the ground are over. Next year I'll either try to scrape up money for a motel (the Motel 6 only 10 minutes away is a good possibility) or some sort of screen house or canopy with sidewalls, either being big enough to accommodate a cot for the air mattress. All the bending and stooping was uncomfortable, but it was a temporary inconvenience and didn't diminish my overall enjoyment.

I was extremely glad I remembered to pack earplugs. I expected things in the inner circle camping area to be a little noisier than I'd experienced last year in the outer grove area and it was, but inner circle meant far less walking. Jason and I were probably 100 feet from one of the gates between camping and the Realm itself and that gate was very close to the main stage. The earplugs bore the very appropriate brand name of Hearos.

So there's a few impressions of my best weekend of the year. I really haven't said a whole lot about the music, food and vendors, but as I get the photos up, I'll probably have more to say about that.

As I get back into the more mundane everyday existence, I'm finding I'm not so eager to get back to the political forums I visit on Delphi. I guess I'm just not ready yet to deal with what is often a lot of negative energy. Also, while I've usually watched Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on weeknights, I didn't tune in last night or tonight.

Faerieworlds 2010 Summer Celebration

2010-08-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

I'm back from Faerieworlds and the weekend exceeded my expectations, if that's possible. I gave a ride to the festival to Jason, who attended his first Faerieworlds, and first festival of any kind last year. He's disabled with a bad leg so it's a little tough for him to get around, but he said he did more walking during the festival and the week before checking out Portland - he hopes to move here from LA - than he'd done in the previous six months. We went down on Thursday to see the film Mythic Journeys and met a few new folks there that we saw at the festival, including a couple from Hawaii.

On Friday, Good Faeries Day, we got there early to set up camp, then hung out until the festival opened at 2. With the new setup, we were very close to one of the two gates from the inner circle camping to the Realm, which cut down on walking a lot. The main stage was close to that gate as well. The costumes on other people were fantastic. My wizard hat got a lot of compliments and I kept getting stopped by people wanting a picture. Good thing I was in no hurry to go anywhere. The music was great and the set by Tricky Pixie was the best I've ever seen them do. Alec, a member of that band who I'm acquainted with, later told me things really came together to make for a powerful, high energy set. The audience was certainly enthusiastic, but then, they usually are at Faerieworlds.

Saturday was Bad Faeries Day. Instead of Friday's grey robe, I wore a black robe with silver leaf trim that I'd gotten last year. Instead of the wizard hat with all the good little faeries (six of them) and about 15 butterflies (faeries in disguise), I wore the top hat with the four clocks, Slinky Jr., miscellaneous gears, sundial and sextant. Again I was stopped frequently whenever I walked around. Folks were amazed to discover the clocks all worked and were set to four different time zones. It was a heavy hat, so when I wasn't walking around I usually held it or set it in Jason's chair if he was off somewhere. Each day we had good seats right next to the sound booth. I did my best to see at least some of all the main stage acts. There was another stage, newly christened the Neverworlds Stage, at the far end of the Realm by the food vendors, but I didn't make it down there very much, which is kind of too bad since one of my Circle of Merry Folk friends was stage manager.

Early in the day on Saturday I changed back to the wizard hat to go to a workshop called Connecting with Your Faerie Guides. It seemed only appropriate to have my little faerie friends along. Then I changed back to the clocked hat but kept the wizard hat with me because there was a costume contest soon after. I held the wizard hat up by grabbing the styrofoam cone that sits on my head and keeps the hat from flopping over. At the costume contest they had a kids' division and an adults' division. There were three categories for each with rather silly names. The one I remember is "Most Mythological." One reason I remember that is because I won in that category. I think having both hats helped, and my rather crooked and decorated staff added to the overall look. My prize was a poster of Brian Froud's "The Magician," which is one of the cards in one of his two oracle decks. It can be seen on this page - scroll down to the sixth print. The music was the best of the festival since Saturday is the biggest day. Faun from Germany and Woodland, the band featuring Emilio and Kelly Miller-Lopez, two of the Faerieworlds producers, did powerful sets. On both nights there were very nice lighting effects adding to the magic.

Sunday was Family Day. I wore the wizard hat and grey robe again. The faeries on the hat were glad to be back in the Realm. They weren't too happy initially about staying in the tent most of Saturday, but they overheard when someone on the stage said, "Bad faeries kick good faeries butts!" Since my little friends, both faeries pretending to be figurines and the butterflies are all good faeries, they didn't mind being in a safe place. Sunday is the short day, but there's still lots of great music, lots of activity, and of course the vendors, of which Faerieworlds has about 200. I was wearing a very nice T shirt with butterflies all over the front and back which I'd gotten from Alec of Tricky Pixie. His wife Kore (pronounced like Corey) had brought a few things along from an estate and wanted to get them sold instead of carting them back home. I asked her how much it cost, expecting to hear as much as $20, which I would have paid because it's so nice and goes with the wizard hat so well. Needless to say, I was flabbergasted when she said, "A buck." Also needless to say, I couldn't get my wallet out fast enough.

Performances ended at around 8:30 Sunday night with a wonderful group, Stellamara, doing the last set of the day. A lot of their music is based on Middle Eastern and Eastern European traditions, although they closed with the American tune "The Cuckoo," which is an old song that came across the Atlantic with early settlers who moved to the Appalachians. It was all over too soon, it seemed, after so much anticipation starting with the end of Faerieworlds 2009.

One interesting thing that happened was when I was approached by Robert Gould, the third member of the producer team early on Saturday. I'd been posting a lot of answers to questions people had been posting of the Faerieworlds pages on Facebook and Tribe.net. Many of them were related to camping, which I'd done last year, plus some general questions. I only answered, based on my prior experience, when I was sure of my information. I figured, quite correctly, the Faerieworlds staff had their hands full with last minute preparations, especially since Woodland had done a short tour in England a little over a month before Faerieworlds. Robert thanked me for the help I'd given folks and asked if I'd be interested in making it a more formal arrangement where I'd get more behind the scenes information so I could post more informatively and authoritatively. (Several times in my posts I'd included disclaimers that I was not on staff but just an interested participant sharing my experience.) Robert also shared some of the vision for future Faerieworlds events and other events, some of which might take place at the Mount Pisgah Arboretum. One idea was for a Harvest Festival in October. Emilio later mentioned that from the stage, but there were almost no specifics, so I'm not sure if it'll happen this year. But with the installation of a Stone Circle between the main gate and the main stage, it appears that the folks at Lane County Parks & Recreation, which run the area the festival is held in, are liking what they're seeing with Faerieworlds. Robert also mentioned seeing if vendors might go for the idea of having double-decker booths so people could use the upper level to watch performances on the main stage.

Later I mentioned that idea to the folks running Oberon's Three-Penny Tavern, an alehouse much like those at Renaissance Faires. I'd gone for a beer soon after things opened on Saturday, early enough that the Oberon's staff started a short meeting/pep session soon after I sat down at a shady table away from the bar. They said I was welcome to stay, and it was interesting to see a bit "behind the curtain." The guy in charge mentioned the roof over the tavern was strong enough to hold a person, something I'd seen early on Friday as I walked through before the gates opened. They liked Robert's idea, and I suggested maybe they could wangle a location for the tavern that would give a better view of the main stage, since Oberon's was off to the side and a few booths down from the stage.

Campers were allowed to stay over on Sunday night, which I was glad to do because I'm usually kind of wiped out by the end of the event. The inner circle was similar in some ways to last year's party camp. There was a fire pit in the middle of the area. There was no fire Friday night, but there were fires the next two nights. Several drummers gathered around and drummed pretty much nonstop until dawn. Also, I'd learned Thursday night that Jason is a world-class snorer. There's a brand of earplugs named "Hearos" and believe me, they are well-named. They blocked out the snoring from Jason, about ten feet away in the tent I'd used for many years at Old Songs back East. A bit more of the drumming leaked through, however, but I did my best to ignore it. But I still found myself awake with only a few hours of real sleep followed by just lying still for quite a bit.

This morning, Monday, August 2nd, I checked out the tent window at dawn to see if there was any ground fog, since today is Ground Fog Day. I didn't see any, so it looks like there will be six or seven weeks more of Summer. Conditions for ground fog were pretty close, though, with no clouds overnight, unlike Friday and Saturday nights, and very low temperatures. The dew was heavy, though, so I was in no hurry to take the tents down too quickly. We didn't rush and were still out by 10:30. Along with a stop for gas and one for food at Carl's Jr. in Eugene, we were finally on the non-stop leg of the trip up I-5 and then I-205 to the airport, where I dropped Jason off. Strangely enough, although I've lived here for ten years, it's the first time I've done that.

As of now, I still need to empty the car, which includes retrieving the USB cable to connect the camera to the computer. No, scratch that. I have a separate card reader attached to the computer. The last time I tried putting in an SD card it wouldn't read it, but this time it is. Cool. The car can wait until it gets a little cooler outside (while the cooler in the car gets warmer, but that's OK). Yikes! 529 items! I've got some serious sorting to do! I'll share some pictures here and more on Facebook and Tribe. Also, I'll be updating my Squidoo lens, Faerieworlds Summer Celebration.

Trimming the Robe

2010-06-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

After I got my new wizard robe yesterday (Thursday) I went out to the local Fabric Depot store and looked at trims. I didn't buy any then. Back home, I looked up a few other fabric stores in the Portland area. Today I visited three of them, then went to Fabric Depot which was on the way home. There wasn't much that inspired me at the first three, and once again I just wasn't inspired enough by Fabric Depot's selection although it has by far the most extensive choices.

Just a few minutes ago after doing a Google search for "renaissance trim" I found the Calontir Trim website. It's run by Steve Boyd, who says he's a Latin teacher during the week and he's involved with SCA on weekends. He's got a very extensive selection that can be searched in several different ways. After looking around a bit, I decided on a silver metallic trim called Saxon Knot.

I ordered 11 yards, which will go on the hood, the front, the bottom, around the sleeve ends and from the neck down each sleeve.

I think it'll look pretty nice once it's applied. This is something I'm getting good at since I've added trim to two vests for my Renaissance and pirate outfits and also to the black wizard robe I got last year.

Shipping on the trim should be no hassle at all. It's by mail, so one day it'll just show up in my mailbox. It'll be sent from Fayetteville, Arkansas. It should come reasonably soon, although since it's Friday evening, I'll assume he's off to an event over the weekend. But I've got plenty of time.

Normally I check out more than one place online, but after looking at trim in several shops, I could see Calontir's prices are reasonable. The Saxon Knot trim is only $2.00 a yard. So it really didn't seem worthwhile to go looking all over.

For only the second time I've used PayPal to pay for something ordered online. It seemed the way to go since Boyd offers that method and I've got a couple of months worth of Squidoo payments in my account.

No Faerie Mischief This Time

2010-06-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

I'd been wanting to get a new wizard robe for some time. The first one was OK, but fairly cheap. I added some trim to it last year, but the results weren't great. An Internet search for "wizard robes" led me a couple of months ago to a site called Garb the World. I liked what I saw there. Mostly they do custom orders, but they also have some items in stock, although the selection can be limited.

One thing they had in stock was a grey wizard robe with a hood. It looked fairly basic, yet more substantial than the one I have. I don't really need a hood, but the price was right and it gives me an option. I recall when I looked a while ago they mentioned they had one robe that had an antique clasp and the first person who requested it would get it. I figured it was most likely spoken for. At that time, though, I didn't place an order.

This past Monday morning I decided to take another look into getting a robe and went back to the Garb the World site. The grey robe was still listed as in stock and on sale (same price as last time, even) and the offer of the one with the clasp was still there. So I figured it was time to place the order, and just in case, I'd request the clasp. I had intended to have it shipped by USPS, but also checked the cost for UPS. UPS was four bucks cheaper, so I figured I'd choose it. I've had reasonably good luck with UPS as long as I can be home when they arrive.

I placed the order around 10:30 Monday morning and got a confirmation email about three hours later. Then, somewhat to my surprise, I got a notification and tracking number from UPS at around 3 p.m. Following that up, I saw it didn't mean the robe had been picked up yet, but still, it was very promising. Delivery was scheduled for today (Thursday).

On Tuesday I saw by way of UPS's tracking site that the package was on its way, leaving Baldwin Park outside Los Angeles late Monday night. It arrived in Portland Wednesday morning. Today I expected to see on the UPS site that it was out for delivery, but that notification never appeared. I didn't know what to think, but I was strongly suspecting something was amiss. Given my experience a few days ago with the Amazon order, who could blame me.

Often in past UPS deliveries, packages have arrived around 2:30, which had sometimes caused problems when I was working. One time I had almost given up receiving a couple of CDs after some attempts at delivery, but then one day they showed up. This time 2:30 came and went, and the "out for delivery" notification on the web site still never showed.

I was pretty much resigned to having to spend another day waiting and hoping, when right at 5 o'clock there was a knock on the door and as I approached, I heard, "UPS."

Huzzah! I signed for the package, got it opened and saw that I'd even gotten the robe with the clasp. Perhaps the faeries had decided I deserved a break this time. It looks good as is, although I really think I should try to lose a little weight so the front falls a bit better. (Incentive!) Also, I probably should have gone for the next larger size since it's just a little tight across the shoulders. That surprised me because the black robe I'd gotten in Newport from a little shop near the aquarium had been marked "small" yet it fit me fine. Even the woman who'd made it was surprised.

Next I'll head over to the Fabric Depot after doing a bit of measuring to see what they've got for trim. I could've gotten a robe already trimmed, but being on a tight budget I figured I could do the trim myself. Besides, it makes it more "mine" than something straight out of a vendor's stock.

This was the first time I've ordered from Garb the World, but I'd certainly recommend them. If ordering something that's in stock, it looks like it will be on its way pretty rapidly.

A Lesson from the Faeries?

2010-06-06T16:35:00.000-07:00

In early May I wanted to order a couple of computer things to go with Rhiannon, my "newest" computer. I put that word in quotes because she's a refurbished computer from Free Geek here in Portland where I've been doing some volunteer work aimed at refreshing my computer-building and getting a free computer after going through their build program and putting together five machines for their use. I get the sixth one.

I wanted to get things quickly. After looking online, my best bet looked like using Amazon.com. They offered a 30-day trial membership in their Prime program, which includes free two-day shipping. I placed my order and had the stuff on time. The plan was to cancel Prime before the 30 days were up, which was yesterday.

With the end of the trial approaching, I decided to get some items by Brian Froud. I've got a fair number of his books that I've bought since deciding to go to Faerieworlds in 2006. I decided to get The Runes of Elfland, which is written by Ari Berk and illustrated by Froud. I was also interested in The Heart of Faerie Oracle written by Wendy Froud and illustrated by Brian. Then I decided to add The Faeries' Oracle, written by Jessica Macbeth and illustrated by Brian. Each of the latter two are books that accompany oracle decks, similar to tarot decks.

I placed the order late Wednesday night, hoping for a Friday delivery. Initially the order appeared scheduled for a Saturday delivery by a shipping company called OnTrac. I'd never heard of them, but upon looking into it, I found out Amazon has been using them for about a half-dozen states in the West.

On Thursday I began tracking the progress of the package. Amazon has a distribution place near Reno, Nevada (Sparks, I think). The package got to OnTrac's facility in Reno that morning. Later that day, or early Friday morning I noticed the arrival was scheduled for Friday by 5:00 p.m. So much the better, although from what I'd read, I wasn't holding my breath for that time because some people writing at The Consumerist website had said things had been delivered later on the day promised.

5 o'clock came and there was no package. I figured there would either be a knock on my door or I'd hear it being dropped off outside the door. I still expected it would arrive at some point that evening.

I kept checking the tracking page at the OnTrac website. Finally, around 8 o'clock, I saw something unexpected. The site claimed the package had been delivered in good condition at 7:36 p.m. I hadn't heard anything and I wasn't playing any music or watching any videos, just reading stuff online. Usually I hear someone coming up the stairs and I hadn't. But I checked anyway, of course.

No package. I checked downstairs but there was nothing there either. So I called OnTrac and told them about the non-delivery that was at odds with what their page said. The person I spoke with said she'd try to check with the driver and would call back. She did not too long after, but really only to tell me they'd have to check on Saturday morning and would get back to me Saturday.

I went out and checked with the apartment complex manager. She said she hadn't seen any delivery people. My window overlooks a parking lot where many delivery trucks come, and I hadn't seen anything either.

I called Amazon, or rather, I went to their help page and chose "Phone" and exercised the option to have them call me, which they did within a minute or two. I let the person know what the problem was and that I'd called OnTrac. I was advised that since it was getting late, there wouldn't be much they could do and I should see what happened on Saturday.

What happened Saturday was nothing. OnTrac never called. By the end of the day I was very displeased with them.

On Sunday morning I got back in touch with Amazon to let them know about OnTrac not calling. The person I spoke with said Amazon would check with OnTrac on Monday morning and if the package was lost, they'd arrange to get it sent again promptly.

Around 2:30 today (Sunday) I was in my bedroom to change the bed. I heard the door downstairs open and very quick footfalls sounded on the stairs, followed by a THUMP! which was right outside the door, then the sound of a quick retreat downstairs. I looked and saw someone looking like a delivery person headed toward the back of the parking lot and most likely a vehicle in the back lot around the end of the building where there's access to the street that's in my address. I park in another lot that leads off the intersecting street.

Sure enough, it was the package from Amazon. I don't know it the delivery guy just wanted to avoid a confrontation over the late delivery and phony delivery time on the website or whether he just had to keep moving to fulfill other late deliveries. Probably the latter. But just over 45 hours after the promised delivery time, the faeries had arrived.

I checked the package to be sure the contents were in good condition just as OnTrac had claimed. They were. Then I contacted Amazon again to let them know the package, while quite late, had arrived. I mentioned that if it had truly been lost I probably would have been just as well off, delivery-wise, by simply choosing the SuperSaver option. That's true, since it probably would have been Tuesday before a replacement would have been delivered. I've noticed when Amazon ships out of Nevada, a package will often get here in no more than four or five days even through the US mail.

It wasn't essential that what I ordered get here any quicker than SuperSaver would have gotten it to me. I just figured I'd use the Prime trial offer once more. One thing I learned was that having stuff shipped by OnTrac could mean disappointment. Another thing I realized was that if stuff is shipped by a means other than the USPS, it's best if I'm home when it arrives. That means not going out until then. Sure, the delivery person might just drop it by my apartment door, but there's always the slight chance someone might notice and help themselves. I've never lost anything that way, though.

It's rare that I'd really need anything ordered from Amazon or anywhere else very quickly. Mostly I can wait a few days. It's just that sometimes when I do order something, I'd like to start reading/using it sooner rather than later. But the USPS is, for me, the best way because items get put in a locked box below my small mailbox if it won't fit, or I'd get a notice to pick it up at the post office if it were too big for that, or the mail person might even walk it to my door and knock.

I have to say I don't have a literal belief in faeries, although the more I read about them the more I'm intrigued. I certainly like the idea of faeries and other denizens of their realm. There's a rich mythology that has developed about faeries, pixies, gnomes, goblins, etc. It's all rooted in the land my ancestors came from: England, Scotland, and probably if I could trace the Scottish half of my ancestry far enough back, Ireland. For me it goes very nicely together with my interest in Celtic music and English folk music.

Brian Froud is an excellent artist who has given life to the inhabitants of the Realm of Faerie through his drawings and paintings. I've taken a look at each of the cards in both oracle decks. They're quite wonderful. Many of the images are from his other books, but at least as many are different. So many of his artworks feature not only a main character but a whole host of others who live in the Realm. Sometimes looking closely without being in a hurry reveals more faeries, pixies, etc. than first seen. I'm looking forward to exploring the books and decks further, and when it's time for Faerieworlds, they'll be going along with me to be signed.

So this whole episode may have just been yet another time when ordinary things took a slightly unexpected turn involving a bit of aggravation. I've sometimes said if I have a guardian angel (and I don't believe in angels!) then his name is Murphy. Or maybe, like Spider Robinson has said, there's a guardian idiot. This sort of thing seems to happen often enough in my life that I almost expect it.

Or maybe some pixie just decided to play a little prank. Yes, things didn't work out as well as they should have. But then, today, when I was expecting to have to wait at least another day, probably two, to get the package and I wasn't expecting anything further to develop for the rest of the day, suddenly there's hurried footsteps, a THUMP, more hurried footsteps, and everything's back to normal. Well, normal for me anyway. Pixies can be like that, or so I've read. Things get messed up, but in the end, there's no real damage done.

The Road to Strathgarry House

2010-04-18T12:59:00.000-07:00

I've been watching a BBC Four series from a few years ago called The Transatlantic Sessions. It features Celtic and country musicians from the UK, Ireland and the US performing in an intimate setting with just the musicians, the BBC crew and the recording equipment. It features Aly Bain, a great Scottish fiddler, and Jerry Douglas, an American dobro player, along with other performers such as Phil Cunningham, Donal Lunny, Bruce Molsky, Julie Fowlis, Cara Dillon, Michael McGoldrick and more. It's wonderful stuff.

The show always opens with scenes of the surrounding area showing lakes, streams, rivers, bridges, etc. It's very scenice. I found out it was filmed at a place in Killiecrankie, Scotland. That's a little village north of Dunkeld, which is north of Perth, which in turn is north of Edinburgh. More specifically, it takes place at Strathgarry House.

I decided to track that down on Google and found some listings for "strathgarry house killiecrankie". One site had a Google Maps view, although I didn't look that up right away. Instead I decided to use Google Maps' Street View to take a little trip.

I started out in Perth, where I clicked on the little orange person and dragged it onto a road in town, then switched to Street View. I wasn't all that familiar with Street View, having used it only occasionally, so it was a while before I realized I could get a full-screen view. I have a large monitor - it's really a 32" flat screen TV - so the view is really nice.

It's a great way to travel to someplace I'll most likely never get to visit in person. The views are limited to what the Google car crew recorded on roads they covered, but they really covered quite a lot. It's not the quickest way to "drive." Killiecrankie is about 30 miles outside of Perth. By using the up arrow to advance the view, it took me about two hours to advance to the town. At that point I hadn't narrowed down the exact location, and since it was getting late last night when I did that part of the tour, I settled for getting to the town.

This morning I watched another episode of The Transatlantic Sessions and paid special attention to the intro, which I ran a few times before going on to the program. Then I did the Google search I mentioned earlier. I went to the point in Google Street View that's on a one-lane road that goes past Strathgarry House, then I "drove" back down the road and over the bridge into Killiecrankie where I recognized places I'd seen last night.

Much of the architecture in Perth and the countryside is distinctive, of course, but there were many modern places that looked not all that different from stuff you see here in the US. Even some of the companies are the same, or almost the same. TJ Maxx in the US is TK Maxx in the UK, but there's the familiar golden arches of McDonald's and I spotted a house for sale with a ReMax sign in front.

The countryside reminds me quite a bit of northern New England and upstate New York. The major road, the A9, is sometimes two lanes and sometimes a dual carriageway. I discovered part of the way through that I could switch the side of the road I was seeing. A lot of the way I was actually traveling backwards up the right side of the road because I'd figured the car only made one pass. When I found out I was wrong, I was not only switching sides of the road but also seasons. In one direction it was the middle of Summer, in another it was late Autumn with cloudier, occasionally rainy weather. After leaving the A9 to go through Killiecrankie, the season was Autumn.

A few days ago I'd taken a shorter trip from Kyle of Lochalsh across the Skye Bridge into Kyleakin. I think I'll be going back there to explore more of the Isle of Skye.

It's not perfect, of course. I don't get to visit museums, distilleries, B&Bs, etc. but I can at least view the countryside, stopping at any point to pan around in a circle. Also, I don't need a passport and I don't have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for the trip.

More about the Snow

2009-12-30T13:00:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure the snow ever turned to rain. We ended up with about an inch of snow, enough to cover the parking lot and roads except where cars were constantly traveling. The temperature got down close to freezing, but not below according to my thermometers which are at second-floor level.

The snow is melting. It's mostly gone from the roofs I can see. It's been pretty easy to see where all the rafters are under those roofs, which probably means they're not well-insulated. The parking lot has a little slush left and there's more on grass and dirt, but it's very slushy as well.

The temperature is 38F now. I think most of the snow should be a memory by dusk tomorrow. With a forecast of rain tomorrow, that's pretty much assured.

Snow?

2009-12-29T15:15:00.000-08:00

According to the Intellicast metro radar, it should be raining right now, but instead it's snowing. So far it's just big fluffy flakes and the radar's showing the precipitation in whatever form shouldn't last too long. It might change to rain, but for now, it is snowing. Unless we got a little very light snow at night back when it was very cold, this is the first snow of the season. I went out on my little deck and took a picture with the camera aimed north and zoomed in a bit to mostly crop out the apartment complex buildings:

Then I pointed the camera at the fir tree between my building and the one about 20 feet west. Since the tree is dark, the exposure blurred the flakes:

There's been enough to accumulate a bit on the bush outside the window beside the computer:

It's been maybe fifteen minutes since I noticed the snow, which was just starting as I looked out while coming back to the computer with my coffee, and already it has nearly stopped. That's fine with me, and it would also be fine if that's all we get here this winter.

There's been at least one winter where we got a mini-blizzard for about an hour in mid-December and that was it for the season. Of course, it had to hit just as I was getting off work at the call center about 2 1/2 miles away and down the slope toward the Columbia River. The road got a bit slick but fortunately everyone was able to keep moving in spite of several traffic lights.

OK, it's picked up a bit once more, and it might keep snowing until the precipitation stops. The radar is still showing rain, but the mixed area and snow is creeping closer (the red dot is where I am):

Rolling Along

2009-12-23T11:35:00.000-08:00

What are those things? They're called snow rollers, formed when wind and snow conditions are just right. Phil Plaitt, creator of the Bad Astronomy blog, explains it all.

In his book Death from the Skies, Plaitt explains different ways the world could end. They include an asteroid impact like the one that did in the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, a poisonous atmosphere, and several others. It sounds scary, but Plaitt presents the science behind it all, and notes the very low probabilities of each deadly scenario.

If you like science blogs, Phil Plaitt's Bad Astronomy blog is a good one to add to your list.

(I learned something about adding these Amazon links: write the text first, then add the link, otherwise any attempt to start a new paragraph beside the link results in the cursor jumping to a point below the link, leaving empty space beside it.)

More Lights

2009-12-22T08:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I decided to get another set of lights to put around the 6' x 4' window next to the computer, so I made another trip to Walgreen's. It was late afternoon when I started putting them up. I turned them on before stringing them, and I thought they all worked, but perhaps not. When I finished and turned the lights on, only half of them worked. There's two tiny fuses in the plug, but changing them didn't help, so I pulled them off and stuffed them back in the box. As I did, I noticed someone had written an "R" on the front (or back) of the box. Although the lights looked like they'd never been unpackaged when I opened the box, it's possible someone had returned the set.

Back at Walgreen's it was easy to exchange them, then I made sure the new set worked before I started stringing them. They still worked when I finished.

By then it was dark enough to turn on all the lights, then I got the camera out and took some pictures. I was using the monopod on the camera and when I took a picture from the parking lot of the porch and computer window I only took one shot. I also took a picture of a neighbor's lights.

Back inside I took a look and realized the one shot of the porch and computer window was blurred. I was in a hurry because I had only had a few minutes before Keith Olbermann's show started.

This morning I went out again and took a bunch of shots without the monopod, figuring at least one would turn out to be sharp enough. At least one was.

Bedroom window:

Neighbors:

Window and porch, taken this morning:

The camera you see to the left of this text isn't the camera I own. It's the one I would like to own. Amazon and Google recently partnered with a way for Amazon associates to easily add links to products to blogs. Since I've been an Amazon associate for a while I thought I'd give it a try.

Normally I have some ad-blocking software running on Firefox and I have to turn it off in order to see the results of adding a product link.

A couple of years ago I got a Canon Powershot S3i. It's been great, compared to the old Kodak digital I'd had since 1999, but it would be nice to have the T1i. Probably by the time I can afford it there will be a newer model out.

Holiday Lights

2009-12-21T08:47:00.000-08:00

The Winter Solstice occurs today at 9:47 a.m. Pacific Time (17:47 UTC). That's a little over an hour from now as I start this post.

I've lived in this apartment since February 2002 but I never put up any lights. This year I got the urge to do it when I was getting something at Home Depot earlier this month and saw light sets that didn't cost a whole lot. But I'm trying to spend very little, so I didn't buy any. Last week I thought about it again and went out looking, but Home Depot, Loew's and Fred Meyer only had clear lights and I wanted colored lights, so again I didn't get any.

Then yesterday I recalled seeing a sign at the Walgreens only a few blocks away about lights, so I stopped in. They had colored lights in sets of 100 for $3.99. I looked at the length and figured I could use one set to outline my 8' x 3' bedroom window and a couple of sets would probably go from my porch light, up to the rafter ends behind the gutter, then down to the railing and back to the light.

Besides the lights, I also needed a little plug outlet that screws into a light fixture. There weren't any at Walgreen's, so I ended up going to the Home Depot, a six-mile round trip for something that cost $1.72. That trip was made only after making sure there wasn't one in my overflowing toolbox.

It was raining and dark when I got back, so all I did last night was tape up the lights around the bedroom window. I put the porch lights up this morning. The lights for the bedroom window plug into a power strip I'd freed up while rearranging stuff on my computer desk a while back. So with the porch light, all I have to do is flip a couple of switches to get everything lit up.

The Moon Outside My Window

2009-12-03T20:26:00.000-08:00

This morning around 8:45 I happened to look out my window and saw the moon, which is just past full. When I look over the apartment buildings, the view is dominated by a few Douglas firs, one of which has a split top. The moon was getting near them and I decided to take a few pictures. I would've liked to have gone out on my small deck, but then the building next to mine would have gotten in the way. You can see a little bit of its roof in the lower left of the first picture. I had to settle for shooting through the window, making sure the camera's autofocus didn't focus on the window frame instead of the moon and trees.

I didn't have time to get out the tripod since the moon was getting close to the trees, so I had to try to be as steady as I could while shooting. Fortunately I have a lot of practice doing that. The camera has a 12x optical zoom and I rarely go beyond it to use the digital zoom. This was one of those times. The really zoomed shot isn't all that fantastic. A tripod really would have helped, but I tried anyway.

Because of the extreme zoom, not all of the moon got in the frame. I tried again and did get it all in the frame, but the first extreme zoom shot was clearer. Then I noticed a jet getting close to the moon, so I shut off the digital zoom and took another shot at 12x. Getting the zoom right meant the jet was past the moon, but considering I only had seconds to work with, it's close enough and I like how the contrail just intersects the top of the moon.

Here's another image of the same shot with the jet, cropped to make the moon, contrail and jet a bit larger.

The view outside the window, which is in the dining area off the living room (I've never had a dining table - it's my computer area instead) isn't all that great, but at least I can look outside and see trees and sky. Once in a while something interesting happens out there.

Questionable Content

2009-12-01T22:54:00.000-08:00

OK, maybe some folks my question stuff I've posted here, but the title really is also the title of a webcomic by Jeph Jacques from Northampton, Massachusetts. He started Questionable Content in 2003. It's a slice of life/romantic comic about a group of friends in that town. There are a few odd things, though, since it's set in a sort of alternate universe where there are little AnthroPC robots and some people are already living in orbit and they're not just astronauts.

The characters are all 20-somethings living in the alternate Northampton. Marten Reed is the main character. Early on he takes in Faye Whitaker, whom he had just met. She managed to burn down the apartment building she lived in thanks to a toaster mishap. She works at Coffee of Doom, a shop run by Dora Bianchi where much of the action is set. Marten has an AnthroPC named Pintsize who's always up to something nefarious and occasionally destructive. As the strip develops the cast grows larger. Some of the additional characters are decidedly odd and relationships among the characters can be rather complex .

I found out about QC a month or so ago from a mention in Danielle Corsetto's webcomic Girls With Slingshots. After reading for a while I decided to go back to the first strip and read all the way through to the current one. That takes a while since Jacques has done 1,547 of them so far. It was definitely interesting. Jacques has been making a living from doing the comic along with a line of merchandise, mostly T shirts. He was so successful at marketing T shirts and stuff (at one time he posted a note about going off to buy $1200 in postage for sending out shirts) that earlier this year he joined a group of other webcomic artists who market their merch through a company called TopatoCo.

TopatoCo also markets things for Wondermark by David Malki (he was at Wordstock at the Portland Convention Center several weeks ago) and Christopher Baldwin, who did Bruno, the first webcomic I got interested in. They've got 34 artists overall.

I Only Missed One Day

2009-11-30T23:23:00.000-08:00

I'd hoped to post something here every day as part of National Blog Posting Month, aka NaBloPoMo, but I missed a day in the middle. It was kind of silly to miss because I was posting "Sundancer's Fairy Tale" and all I had to do was a little copy, paste and make a few words italic. Oh well, I did post the other 29 days, and I did better than October when I missed three days.

Sometimes, especially after I finished the story, I found myself stuck for something that intrigued me enough to blog about it, especially these past few days (except for Saturday, when The Thistle & Shamrock was such a good show).

I'd thought using StumbleUpon would make it very easy to come up with something each day, but a lot of what I see tends to get repetitive. Lots of photo collections, humor that isn't always that funny or intelligent, just less than I thought I'd find, I suppose. Also, I haven't wanted to get into politics or religion.

I guess I'll come close with politics on this one, though. It's Sen. Al Franken doing a freehand drawing of the United States, and he does pretty good at it. He does it state by state and it all fits together quite nicely. I have always loved maps and could probably do a fair job of it myself, but I doubt it would look nearly as good as Al's.

Now that I've gotten through November, I'm still trying to decide whether I want to keep up with posting every day or just when something truly interesting comes along.

A Little Extra Cash Would Be Nice

2009-11-29T23:27:00.000-08:00

I was chatting with a friend earlier when he asked me about being an Amazon Associate. At first I thought maybe he was thinking of becoming one, but really he wanted to know how it worked, then said he was thinking of buying something somewhat pricey and if he gets it through Amazon he'll click on one of my links. I let him know that clicking on any of my Amazon links doesn't commit you to having to buy the item the link takes you to. Once you get there, anything you buy counts.

I've seen some pretty strange things show up that I've gotten commissions on both in my Associates page for stuff that are direct links from me, and also on some of my Squidoo pages where some of the items, all of them on some pages, er, lenses, and none on others are links that mean Squidoo gets half the commission and I get the other half. That actually works out better for me most months because I don't get all that much action on my links and half of Squidoo's commission is a little more than I'd make if I put in one of my own links with my Associate ID. The more items an Associate sells in a month, the better the commission, and Squidoo of course makes top commissions.

So, if you're thinking of getting anything from Amazon, I'd appreciate it if you used one of my links here in this blog. This link to Amazon.com will take you to their main page and you can take it from there.

You should know it doesn't cost you anything to get to Amazon through my links. You get the same deals, same prices, everything is the same as if you'd just gone there on your own. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it in mind.

Thanks.

The Thistle & Shamrock

2009-11-28T19:39:00.000-08:00

I just listened to this week's program of The Thistle & Shamrock, the NPR program hosted by Fiona Ritchie. While it was probably one of the least Celtic shows, it was one of the more memorable ones as Fiona traveled to the home of Pete Seeger, who spoke of his life and music. Fiona interspersed his reminiscences with songs he wrote and/or made famous sung by people such as Dick Gaughan, Nanci Griffith, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Bruce Springsteen and of course Pete himself.

There's three possibilities for listening. One would be to catch it as it airs on your local NPR station. Another is to check the ThistleRadio website to find it's list of streaming radio stations to find when you can listen online at a time convenient for you. The third is to check back to the website's main page and click on the Listen Again link.

Pete Seeger turned 90 last May. He's a living link to the history of American folk music from the 1940s on to the present day. I had a chance to see him live once when he appeared at a benefit for some workers in Gardner, Massachusetts in the 1980s.

If it's at all possible for you to catch this edition of The Thistle & Shamrock, I think you'll find it's an hour well spent.

A Town by any Other Name

2009-11-27T23:52:00.000-08:00

...probably wouldn't be as interesting.

I've always been fascinated by places with odd names. This site tells about 21 of them. Of course, I know of quite a few more, and I was pleased to see at least one favorite: Lake Chargogagogmanchaugagogchaubunagungamog in Webster, MA.

I live not far from Boring, Oregon. One of these days I'll have to find out how it got its name.

My friend Dick Ford lives in Mize, Mississippi, which isn't all that far from Hot Coffee.

I've wondered if there's a trash disposal place in Pahrump, Nevada. It would be the Pahrump Dump.

Up in Washington along the Puget Sound there's Pull and Be Damned Road. I encountered the name during one of my phone jobs and later looked it up on Google Maps.

Linux: It's Not Windows

2009-11-26T15:45:00.000-08:00

OK, that title seems to be stating the obvious, but a lot of people seem to expect Linux to be so much like Windows as to make no difference. But of course, Linux is quite different. For one thing, it's free open source software, so you don't have to pay for it. For another, it was not developed by a for-profit corporation that provides paid technical support.

Recently someone in the Go Firefox! forum on Delphi linked to Linux Is NOT Windows, written in 2006. Since then Linux has gotten easier to use for people who aren't all that geeky.

I'm a little bit geeky in that I did take a couple of courses at Boston University ten years ago for building computers and Windows NT. As part of that, I ended up learning quite a bit and did installations from DOS up through Windows XP. I can often figure out things, or at least find web sites that will explain stuff when I run into problems.

But there are limits to my geekiness, so when I decided to try Linux again I looked for something that would pretty much work right out of the box. Of course, there was no box, so I did have to know how to download an .iso file and burn it to a disk so it would boot, and I had to do that using Windows.

The article does a very good job of explaining the differences between Windows and Linux without getting overly technical. So many people have grown up with Windows that they may expect Linux to be very Windows-like without appreciating why is isn't and why the differences are good things. The article explains, again without getting overly technical, how Linux started and how and why it was developed and why the open source way of doing things is better once you accept certain things.

Realizing that open source software like Linux and the many applications that run on it are developed by volunteers who don't owe users anything is pretty important. If you have a problem, you can ask for help, but you have to realize people aren't being paid to help you, so it's best not to expect or demand instant gratification. I didn't have any problem with that in part because I'm used to the helpful information sharing I find on Delphi Forums and other places. Delphi's Go Firefox! forum is a place where people can ask for help with problems and people volunteer their knowledge to help solve them, but nobody's getting paid to do that.

I have to disagree with some points made in the last couple of paragraphs of Linux Is NOT Windows, and that probably has a lot to do with improvements in Linux over the past three years aimed at newer users. The author suggests if you want an operating system that does just about all of the heavly lifting for you, stick with Windows and make sure you've got a good firewall and good security software in place, or get a Mac and use OS X. Now three years later I'd be willing to bet that many people who might not have been good Linux candidates then would do very well with Linux Mint. At least, it was my choice. There are other versions out there that other people may find more to their liking, especially if they like playing around with geeky stuff more.

Linux Mint 7, aka Gloria, is the most up to date official release as I write this, and Mint 8, aka Helena, should be released very soon. I found that right off the CD Mint worked just fine for me. One thing I had to do was install a Dreamweaver substitute, Quanta Plus, so I could make some changes to my home page, a graphical web page of linked icons that resides on my computer, not on the web. I had to learn a few things to do that, but to me they didn't seem too terribly geeky. Anyone willing to search and follow instructions could do it.

I Was Ahead of the Bad Astronomy Blog

2009-11-24T17:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's entry here was about a site that shows the Solar System to scale, with one pixel equaling a thousand kilometers. Today while checking my Bloglines feeds, I saw that Phil Plait, the astronomer who does the Bad Astronomy blog on Discover Magazine's website, featured it.

Of course, Plait has something I don't: thousands of readers every day. It's a pretty interesting blog if you have any interest in space and science in general. The site is called Bad Astronomy because Plait often takes to task people who misuse astronomy or just get it wrong. Needless to say, he thinks, correctly, that all the nonsense about Dec. 21, 2012 is a bunch of hooey.

The Solar System to Scale

2009-11-23T12:43:00.000-08:00

I think I've found what just might be the widest graphic on the Internet. It's the Solar System with the Sun and all the planets shown in a scale of 1 pixel = 1,000 km. It's not just the Sun and the planets out to Pluto (I think this was made before Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status). It includes all the space between as well.

To get some idea of how big this is, I started on the left side and began scrolling by holding down the right arrow. At first it didn't look like anything was happening after the Sun scrolled off the left of the screen, but eventually a small image slid into view. It was Mercury and since it's to scale, there's not a whole lot of detail. I kept going and eventually Venus slid into view. More patience, then Earth and later Mars. After Mars I had to pause while I listened/watched LiveIreland.com with Klara McDonnell.

When I got back to the Solar System and resumed scrolling, I figured it had taken about 20 minues scrolling time just to get out to Jupiter. That's only about 1/7th of the way across, meaning it would have taken close to two and a half hours to get all the way over to Pluto. WikiAnswers says Pluto averages 328 light-minutes from the Sun, so that would mean the scrolling speed on my computer is about twice the speed of light. I guess that's pretty close since WikiAnswers says Jupiter averages 43.8 light-minutes from the Sun.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about space:

"Space," it says, "is big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

When you spend 20 minutes scrolling at twice the speed of light to get from the Sun to Jupiter, you begin to get an idea how big the Solar System is, and that's far less than peanuts compared to the galaxy, which is immensely tiny compared to the universe.

It would take over two years of scrolling at the scale of the Solar System graphic to cover the distance to Alpha Centauri, by the way. I think my finger would get tired.

Memories of a Disaster

2009-11-22T10:46:00.000-08:00

While using StumbleUpon, I came across a little page showing a brief online chat conversation between an AT&T customer and a customer service representative. I spent a little less than a year on the phones as a Cingular/AT&T CSR, a time that went wrong pretty early on.

I have a blog over on Delphi Forums that I started about three years ago. I pretty much stopped using it last May since for some time I'd been writing posts here and copying them over to the other blog. When I started blogging here again in late September after a few months of not writing, it didn't make much sense to just copy stuff over, so the only entry I've made there since starting up again is one explaining I'd only be using this blog.

Delphi changed things around at the beginning of November and since then their My Forums page, which shows an index of the forums I've visited and includes the blog, has been showing I have over 300 blog entries, including "25 new to me," indicating I haven't read them. For the forums I visit, all I have to do is read a message on a forum, then when I go back to My Forums I'll see the number of unread messages has cleared.

That hasn't worked with the blog. As with forums, I thought calling up the blog page and reading would clear the "25 new to me." It didn't. Even the post about not posting didn't clear it. So yesterday I looked back at all the messages I'd posted on that blog right back to the first post in 2006.

There were a lot of posts about my time at AT&T in there. Let's just say I can sympathize with Darlene.

Avoiding Apostrophe Catastrophes

2009-11-21T08:01:00.000-08:00

Apostrophes are handy little marks that are usually used with possessive nouns and contractions. The rules seem deceptively simple at first. Then you run into the exceptions. Once you realize there are exceptions, it's easy to get confused.

For instance, I just used "it's" as a contraction for "it is." That's simple and follows the rules for contractions: if you leave out some letters, replace them with an apostrophe.

Then there's the word "its" without the apostrophe. "Its" is a word that is used as the possessive form of "it." Usually when indicating possession, the normal rule is to write the noun and make it possessive by adding an apostrophe and an "s." The word "its," which shows something that belongs to "it," is an exception. To show that "it" possesses something, you leave out the apostrophe. This confuses a lot of people, and I used to be one of them. Then I got tired of being confused about using or not using an apostrophe with "its" and "it's" and looked up its proper use.

People get confused about the apostrophe and "s" when indicating possession, especially when the noun is plural, like "men." You'll see signs in some establishments indicating the "Men's Room." Some establishments with that sign have a corresponding sign for the "Ladie's Room." "Men's Room" is right; "Ladie's Room" is wrong. Many places have signs that just say "Men" for one and "Women" for the other, avoiding confusion, but a few places still like calling women "ladies" so they have one sign that says "Men" and another that says "Ladie's." Nice try.

Then there's our way of writing about decades using numbers. Possible choices are "the 60s," "the '60s," "the 60's," or "the '60's." The second one is correct. The apostrophe takes the place of "19" and the "s" indicates the plural nature. Of course, you could avoid the whole thing and write "the Sixties."

Recently, while using StumbleUpon, I saw a page that lays out the proper use of the apostrophe. It's a handy page if you find apostrophes confusing. It was long after high school before I felt confident about using ~~apostrophe's~~ apostrophes correctly.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 19

2009-11-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 18

2009-11-19T09:56:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 17

2009-11-18T09:49:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 16

2009-11-17T14:10:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Not My Day

2009-11-16T14:38:00.000-08:00

One of the first things I realized this morning was that I'd managed to not post to this blog yesterday, which means I'm out of this month's NaBloPoMo competition. Blah! I was doing so well, too, posting a new bit of "Sundancer's Fairy Tale" every day and occasionally something else. Guess I'm too easily distracted by stuff on the computer sometimes. OK, maybe a lot of the time.

So I was reading the Bad Astronomy blog this morning and today's shuttle launch was mentioned. It was set for 14:28 Eastern time, or 11:28 Pacific time. Great, I thought. I'll watch Klara McDonnell on LiveIreland.com from 10 to noon (6 to 8 p.m. GMT) then tune in an hour and a half later for the launch.

You see the problem, of course. I'd misread 14:28 as 4:28 p.m. so I thought the launch was two hours later than it actually occurred. I never realized it until around 1 p.m. when I went to nasa.gov and saw immediately that I'd missed out. Double blah!

Oh well, at least I got LiveIreland's stereo feed set up on Rhythmbox Music Player on Caristiona, the second computer, so I can listen and see the song titles just by turning my head instead of changing windows to Rhythmbox and back again.

A few days ago I'd moved Caristiona out of the bedroom back to where the computer cart had been for years until I decided to try setting up a computer in the bedroom by running two 50-foot cables, which required taping cable across the rug at the bedroom door and again at the entrance to the two closets that flank the bathroom entrance, along with hiding the cable in a couple of cord covers that gets the cable for TV across both entrances to my little kitchen area.

It was a nice little experiment and it worked, but I realized with a little reorganizing I could put the computer cart back, this time without all the junk it had accumulated, with Caristiona all set up.

In the process of moving the cart around, I did a lot of rearranging. I realized there were a whole lot of things that had sort of accumulated, accreted, grown, etc. on top of and behind my main computer desk. I had power strips all over and had lost track of what was plugged in to where. There were several power transformers still plugged in for stuff I no longer used and two or three computer power cords plugged in to the strips but not into computers. Once I started looking at that, I found so much stuff to unplug that now only two power strips are left. One of the emptied power strips was plugged into an extension cord that has three outlets. Rather than get rid of the cord I plugged my Vonage box and the phone into it.

Sileas, the main computer, used to be on the floor at my feet under the desk next to Caristiona, with enough space for me to put my feet. I moved her up to the top of the desk's hutch and discovered she had accumulated an awful lot of dust while sitting down there. With that cleaned out she should last a bit longer.

I've got a big upholstered chair behind where I sit for using the computer. The idea in putting it there was to have a more comfortable place to sit while watching videos on the monitor. The trouble is, a chair has horizontal surface above floor level, and with me that means junk tends to accumulate. Working through those layers is a little like archeology as I discover stuff unseen for months. I came across some CDs I decided to put in my 300-CD changer. While messing about with that, I realized my dual-cassette tape recorder hadn't been plugged into the stereo receiver for a long time because I rarely play tapes any more. So I plugged it back in and discovered that a 24-year-old tape of the Short Sisters (Kim Wallach, Faye Baird and Kate Seeger) still sounds OK even after sitting in the car for several years. It was nice to hear them again.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 15

2009-11-16T09:21:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 14

2009-11-14T12:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 13

2009-11-13T11:46:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Star Wars Meets The Godfather

2009-11-13T08:25:00.000-08:00

Help me, Obi Wan Cannoli, you're my only hope.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 12

2009-11-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 11

2009-11-11T11:16:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 10

2009-11-10T11:55:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 9

2009-11-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 8

2009-11-08T12:34:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 7

2009-11-07T11:18:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 6

2009-11-06T16:52:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

The ThinkPad Lives!

2009-11-05T21:44:00.000-08:00

Just for fun and because I've heard Linux can work on older machines, I tried installing Linux Mint 7 on my ancient ThinkPad 1400 from 1999. It has a noisy fan, but it does run, although I need to use AC for power. Mint didn't work. After chugging away for a long time, it finally told me the kernel needs "cmov" and my CPU doesn't have it. I don't really know what it is. All I know is it's needed and the ThinkPad doesn't have it.

I looked that up online and found I'd have to look for a small distro that works on older machines. After some research, I tried SimplyMEPIS 8, but that needed the cmov thing too. After more research, I downloaded Puppy version 4.3.1, the latest one. This looked more promising. It didn't take nearly as long to go through the black screen and it allowed me to make some choices for language, country, time zone, etc. Eventually it got to a graphical desktop, which looked quite nice except for one thing. The mouse pointer wouldn't move.

I dug out a trackball and plugged it in, then tried again. Same results. I was using a PS/2 adaptor on the trackball, so I took that off and connected to a serial port. Unfortunately, that didn't work either. Back to the intertoobs, where I saw a post on a Linux forum where someone had chosen "test" for video. There was a "change mouse" option and I chose a serial mouse. This time, on the very primitive screen that came up, the mouse pointer moved, so I went on. Got to the desktop once again, and the mouse pointer wouldn't move.

More research. This time I read about someone saying things changed between versions 4.2 and 4.3 regarding mouse choices. So I downloaded version 4.2, burned it, and stuck it in the CD drive on the ThinkPad. This time I went through everything and when I got to the graphical desktop, the mouse pointer moved. Success at last.

I ended up burning three CDs from downloaded ISO files and Mint's CD burning software, Brasero, made it so easy. The download window allowed me to chose to save the file in the burner software, and then I was informed that because the file was an ISO file, it could be burned right to disk without a lot of fiddling around. It was so simple. I was initially skeptical because I've made wrong choices with ISO image files in Windows and ended up just burning the file to disk instead of creating a bootable CD, but that didn't happen this time. They burned and they booted.

Usually I don't need a laptop, having two desktops that run fine, but now and then I might be able to use it. It would be handy to look at pictures I take at Faerieworlds next summer. All I'd need is someplace to plug in the ThinkPad and I'd not only see the pictures much larger than they show on the camera viewscreen, but I could share the viewing with friends there. I'll have to take a few pictures of something and see how feasible that idea is.

Moving a Computer

2009-11-05T16:34:00.000-08:00

About a week and a half ago I rearranged my bedroom, and it created more space at the foot of the bed, which is now in one corner of the room. I have a rolling computer desk about four feet wide and a 19" CRT monitor. I hadn't been using either and the desk was cluttered up with all sorts of junk.

I went to Frys on Monday hoping to pick up some super cheap stuff to resurrect one of the older desktop boxes, but didn't see stuff as cheap as I'd hoped and decided against getting components. Instead I got to thinking about moving Caristiona, my older machine, into the bedroom. So I got a new trackball for Sileas, a card reader that can read SD cards and Compact Flash along with other types, and a network cable coupler. I knew I had two fifty-foot cables around and while it would have been better if one were a 25-footer, I didn't want to buy another cable.

This morning I began cleaning junk out of the rolling desk, then I got it moved into the bedroom. Next I had to figure out which wires went to which set of speakers and get the speakers separated from the tangle of wires that's proliferated over time. I also took out the KVM switch because I'll only have one computer in the main area which is usually used as a dining area. I also needed to find different outlets for some stuff because I wanted to take one of the uninterupptable power supplies to plug Caristiona and components in. In the course of all that I spotted several wires for stuff I'd once had but wasn't using any more. There were things like USB cables, wires to power transformers that weren't being used. In short, a mess, but now it's a little simpler.

Eventually I got all the necessary stuff into the bedroom and hooked up except for the network cable. The computer worked, although I had to reset the date and time. Then I ran the cable, which included taping it down where it crossed the bedroom entrance and the entrance to the bathroom. The network setup didn't work right away. I had to unplug the router and plug it back in, but once I did that, Caristiona connected to the intertoobs.

My next project is to try and get a version of Linux on my old IBM ThinkPad 1400 from 1998. It still runs although the fan is noisy and it needs to be plugged in to AC to run. But it does run, so perhaps I can find uses for it if I can get stuff set up with Linux. I've learned I need to find a distro which doesn't use something called "cmov" which is not on the ThinkPad's CPU. I'm thinking I might be able to use it to look at photos at Faerieworlds next year.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 5

2009-11-05T16:26:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 4

2009-11-04T11:38:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Ashokan Farewell

2009-11-03T05:23:00.000-08:00

More than once in "Sundancer" and "Sundancer's Fairy Tale" I mentioned "Ashokan Farewell," a fiddle tune by Jay Ungar. It's very familiar to anyone who has seen Ken Burn's great documentary The Civil War, where it was the major theme. It's also the only modern piece of music Burns used in that miniseries; all other music is from the 19th century.

In this YouTube video, Jay Ungar talks about how he came to compose the tune, then he plays it accompanied by his wife Molly Mason.

Here's a version played by Mairead Nesbitt of Celtic Woman:

I'd heard the tune before it was used in The Civil War, most likely at the Old Songs Festival in Altamont, New York, which is perhaps an hour's drive north of Ashokan. Jay Ungar probably played at that festival, since it is local for him, although I don't specifically recall. I went to Old Songs every year except 1988 from 1985 to 2000. It's where I got my first bowed psaltery in 1987. I've learned to play "Ashokan Farewell" on it, although I'm sure I subject it to considerable folk processing. That's a fancy way of saying I don't play it exactly the way Jay Ungar wrote it, although if you heard it you'd probably recognize it. I sometimes think of my version as "Ashcan Farewell."

After I first posted this entry I clicked on the link for the Old Songs Festival just to be sure the link went to the proper place (it did). I spotted a link to a review of the 2008 festival by Nova Scotian Jeff Doran. There were a number of things I liked about his review aside from the memories it brought back. Like me in 1985, he got lost trying to find the festival site. He mentions doing a capella versions of "What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?" to the tune of "Greensleeves" and vice versa. (Yes, it really works.) He also mentioned you can sing Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" to the tune of "Hernando's Hideaway," something I hadn't encountered since it was mentioned a long time ago in one of the Whole Earth Catalogs.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 3

2009-11-03T05:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 2

2009-11-02T19:20:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer's Fairy Tale - 1

2009-11-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

Brewer, who runs the tavern in Sunrise Harbor along with his mate Weaver, has written the story of my first cycle (two and a half Earth years) on Dahroona, the planet I wanted to call home. The story’s name, "Sundancer," is my name too, of course. I think he did a pretty good job of it, and if you haven’t read it, you probably should before you go on with this story. He tells how I came to Sunrise Harbor on the southeastern Quastrana coast, became a part of that community, then almost lost it all to keep one of my lovers alive.

The day I was told I could remain on Dahroona was both a very happy day and a sad one. I was happy because I would be able to go back to Sunrise Harbor. But before I could return, I’d have to sail halfway around the planet, and I’d have to do it solo aboard my sailboat Wind Dancer. I knew I could do it, especially with the help of my star cruiser Sileas, but it was going to take around sixty days, and that was sixty days without the company of Harper and Midnight, my two dahroonae partners. I would sorely miss their love and their music. I loved dancing to their harp and whistle at sunrise and sunset, loved playing fiddle with them at Brewer’s tavern in the evenings, and of course, I loved loving them. I knew they’d miss their Sundancer, but at least they had each other in my absence.

Judge Bluestar, who had presided over the hearing on the Orbital Tower and who ruled that I could stay on Dahroona, was very firm. I was allowed to return Brewer, who had been the only Sunrise Harbor resident to be at the hearing, back to his tavern, but I could not set foot on the planet at that time. After the hearing, Sileas took us to Sunrise Harbor, which was on the opposite side of Dahroona from the Tower. Part of the reason I’d chosen Sunrise Harbor to live was because it put the whole planet between the Tower and Sileas, who took up a geosynchronous orbit south of the town. We flew in low at close to midnight local time so Sileas could transport Brewer into the patio area at the back of the tavern. It was a beautiful night, with Brin, Dahroona’s larger moon, high in the sky. My heart ached at seeing Sunrise Harbor and knowing I couldn’t go down there.

“We’ll see you soon, Sunny,” Brewer said as he hugged me. “I know you’ll get back here as soon as you can.”

“I will, Brewer,” I said, trying hard not to cry. “Tell Harper and Midnight I love them and miss them. I’ll miss you and Weaver too!”

I stepped back from the transporter pad, Brewer straightened up, and Sileas activated her transporter. Brewer faded out, and on the viewscreen that showed the tavern patio, he faded in. He waved, then went inside. I’d told Sileas not to include sound. Harper and Midnight were playing in the tavern. Hearing my loves’ music would’ve been too much for me.

“We should go, Sunny,” Sileas said. “The sooner we get over to the area off Marathoona, the sooner we can get Wind Dancer in the water and you can start your voyage home.”

“Of course, Sileas,” I said, tearing my eyes away from the screen. “Let’s do it.”

Sileas rose as quickly as she could without breaking the sound barrier and disturbing the folks in the town. As soon as she’d gained enough altitude, she headed off toward a point off the coast of Arralta near the Orbital Tower where it was close to highsun. The plan was that we’d put Wind Dancer in the water just over the horizon from Marathoona, and I’d sail in and pick up some supplies. Marathoona was an old port town - it was old long before Dahroonans went into space and built the Orbital Tower. The tune “Leaving Marathoona” was the one Midnight had first played on a whistle when Harper, Brewer and I had taken her to Luthier’s instrument shop in Sunrise Harbor. She’d played it so wonderfully everyone within earshot stopped to listen, and Harper and I knew we’d gained a new musical partner. After my stop in Marathoona, Judge Bluestone’s plan was for me to sail to the Candara Isles and spend a few days there. Then I could really do what I’d claimed I’d done a cycle ago - sail halfway around the planet solo to Sunrise Harbor.

When I had first arrived in Sunrise Harbor aboard Wind Dancer, nobody knew I was from another planet. When I left Earth, I was a short green-eyed redhead with an artificial human body. My body looked, felt, and, to outward appearances at least, performed like any human body, but people knew it was artifical, and there were a fair number of people who had a problem with that, just as they had a problem with the T’Gungans, the aliens who had intervened in human affairs to keep us from totally screwing up our planet. Those humans also had a problem with the Peacekeepers, the young humans who had been selected by the T’Gungans, partnered with star cruisers, and helped make war into a nonviable option.

One of those Peacekeepers was Rhiannon Davies. Rhiannon was a six-foot, two-inch redhead who had just graduated from the University of Vermont with a journalism degree and was about to start a job as a reporter in Burlington, Vermont when the T’Gungans, in the person of Niaria, showed up and recruited her to go off to T’Gung and return as a Peacekeeper. As part of the partnering process with the star cruisers, the T’Gungans wanted to make a copy of each Peacekeeper’s mind in case of any problems. Rhiannon volunteered to be the first of the humans to undergo the partnering process, known as Integration. The T’Gungans weren’t expecting any problems and thought the copying process was just a precaution. But they’d never copied a human mind before, and while Rhiannon remained in her own brain, the copy, stored in a T’Gungan computer, gained awareness.

That copy was me, and let me tell you, my first few mirns (a mirn is a Dahroonan measure of time roughly equivalent to a minute) of existence separate from Rhiannon’s brain were no picnic. I was totally deprived of any sensory input. Even though I, as Rhiannon, had never believed in an afterlife, I thought I was dead. Scared doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt. I’ve been told the T’Gungan technician monitoring the computer I’d been fed into was pretty alert and was able to provide me with rudimentary sight through a lens, hearing through microphones, and speech through a speaker. She did it within mirns, but it seemed a whole lot longer.

*****

[Edit November 29, 2010] Originally I went on to post the rest of this story. I've removed the other posts because I'm interested in publishing this story, along with "Sundancer," possibly with Amazon for the Kindle and Barnes & Noble for the Nook and other .epub devices. At this point I'm not sure how long it will be before that actually happens, but I didn't want to leave the story here for free when I'm hoping to make at least a little money by e-publishing it.

A Quiet Halloween

2009-11-01T09:36:00.000-08:00

For the first time in several years I got some candy to hand out in case any trick or treaters showed up. There's never been a lot of activity around here. There are a lot of apartment complexes on the road I live on (the MAX light rail runs along it and limits street crossings). I live on the second floor of a two-story building.

The city of Gresham was promoting 3:00 p.m to 5:30 p.m. as the time for trick or treating - daylight, in other words. I didn't even know that until nearly 5 o'clock. Heck, I didn't even start getting things ready until nearly 5. I decided to wear my wizard costume from Faerieworlds, the one with the black robe with the silver leaf trim, plus the wizard hat with all the stuff on it. I wrapped a red T shirt around a small lamp with a compact fluorescent bulb that doesn't get too hot. The light was near the door. On the bookcase behind the door I burned a stick of incense early, then lit a couple of apple-scented tealights set on upturned coffee cups on the bookcase, where I also put the little sitting faerie figurine that's usually on top of my monitor. I had my wizard staff by the door and the candy was in a basket.

I cued up my collection of Faun, the German Celtic/medieval band that was at Faerieworlds. At 6 I switched to The Thistle & Shamrock on public radio, then played more Faun for a while. After 7:30 I didn't think anyone was going to show up.

After the first group of three kids at 7:50 another group of three showed up abut 20 minutes later. That was it. I'm glad I bought candy I like because now I have enough bite-size Milky Way bars to last for several weeks.

NaBloPoMo for November

2009-10-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

I'm on the blogroll at NaBloPoMo, aka National Blog Posting Month, for November.

Now all I have to do is be sure to post here at least once a day. I tried that in October but managed to miss two or three days. Still, it was good practice for this month. Originally NaBloPoMo was intended to be for November only, but some folks who'd joined wanted to keep things going, so it is now possible to sign up for any month. November is the month for which prizes are awarded. Each month there's usually a theme. For October it was "Haunted." According to the site's home page, "The theme for November is there is no theme for November."

I'll be posting my second Sundancer story "Sundancer's Fairy Tale." While "Sundancer" was told in first person from tavernkeeper Brewer's point of view, the second story is told from the POV of Sundancer. Originally I thought it would just be about Sundancer's trip halfway around Dahroona in her sailboat Wind Dancer and possibly some events after that, but early on the story took a turn when someone showed up.

In Open Office Writer, the story takes up 46 pages. I'll be breaking the story up into approximately two-page chunks depending on how it looks for breaking up the story. Overall it's about the same length as "Sundancer" or maybe a bit longer. "Sundancer's Fairy Tale" will start tomorrow.

In other news, after trying various different ways to get computer #4 back in operation, it looks like it's not going to happen. Although I know the CD drive works (discovered by switching the ribbon cables of the hard drive and CD drive and seeing the machine boot the Super Grub Disk) it appears the machine simply won't see there's a keyboard attached. I may attempt reseating the CPU, which is in a strange vertical holder that for some strange reason was a little too small for the socket, but I was able to keep it in by jamming some pieces of toothpick in the sides. Sounds odd, but the machine did run for several years without problems. If that doesn't work, I'll just put the 120 GB drive into Caristiona for extra storage.

I had another bit of strangeness occur on Sileas, the main computer a few days ago. When I use the keyboard/monitor/mouse switch to go from one computer to the other, the mouse often does crazy things and stuff gets opened without my input. At one point when I tried to access messages in Delphi Forums all I got was a mostly blank screen with the forum title bar in the middle. I could get into forums using Caristiona, so I knew it had to be something affecting Sileas only. I posted about it in the Firefox forum and got no response initially.

Then I added a bit more detail after I tried deleting cookies with no change and also discovered I could get to messages by changing part of the URL from "delphiforums.com" to "prospero.com." Then someone asked if maybe I had AdBlock Plus installed, saying it's possible the mouse craziness might've added a filter. Since the time I'd switched computers was a time when Delphi Forums was open on Sileas, that sounded logical. I checked filters on AdBlock Plus. That took a while because I block a lot of big signature graphics on Delphi through it, but eventually a filter blocking the forums showed up. It died a quick death upon discovery. Now I can read forums on Delphi again.

Be sure to tune in again tomorrow for the start of "Sundancer's Fairy Tale."

Halloween on LiveIreland.com

2009-10-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

There was a special show on LiveIreland.com today with Klara McDonnell, who usually does a show from 6 to 8 p.m. Dublin time on Mondays. As you can see, she was in costume and had a good time.

I had fun playing with the screenshot app in Linux Mint, which makes it easy to take shots not only of the whole screen but also of selected areas of it. That's how I managed to take these shots. It's not the easiest thing because for each shot I had to go to the Mint menu, choose the screenshot app, then chose to take a selected area, click on "Take Screenshot" and define the area, then hold the mouse button down with the area defined and wait for a good moment to release it. It's releasing the mouse button that determines when the screenshot is made. It took a couple of tries before I realized that.

She had her friend Linda in the studio with her and at one point they did a little Irish dancing. I did get a shot of it, but webcams don't have very fast shutter speeds, so that shot came out pretty blurry. A couple of times she showed off the vampire bite marks on her neck, but that happened too quickly for me to go through the steps to catch that in a screenshot.

The studio has undergone some renovations lately and it's looking good. Daithi, who does all the techie stuff, says there's more to come. He's upgraded the main computer in the studio and there either are or will be more webcams.

From the VID Blaster logo in the upper right corner of these shots, it looks like they're trying out something new in software as well. Before Klara came into the studio today there was a screen showing four different views including one of Crow Street and a couple of different studio shots. After Klara's show the view went back to the more usual shot of the street.

And Another Thing...

2009-10-29T20:54:00.000-07:00

It was only a few weeks ago that I learned there was going to be a sixth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Before he died unexpectedly in 2001 at 49, Douglas Adams had talked about doing a sixth book. The 30th anniversary of Hitchhikers is this month, and in August of 2008, Adams' estate contacted Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series about a teenage criminal mastermind. It's Die Hard with fairies, according to the author. People are always asking Colfer (whose first name is pronounced "Owen," by the way) why he was chosen to write the book. He says it's because Douglas Adams' widow and daughter thought he was funny.

I'd decided I'd get the book, And Another Thing... in the near future, then I learned he would be appearing this evening at Powell's Books over in Beaverton where I'd seen Sarah Vowell a couple of weeks ago. I didn't feel like paying full price for the book, so I made a trip to the nearest Barnes and Noble, where it was 20% off and started reading. Then I drove over to Powell's, leaving early enough so if traffic was heavy I'd still be there in plenty of time. That left me plenty of time to continue reading, and by the time the event started I was up to page 99.

All the regulars are back: Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian and Zaphod Beeblebrox. Marvin the Paranoid Android may not be in this book; so far I haven't seen him. It's a bit into the future and while everyone's still going, they've had some help, since it's mentioned at one point that Trillian, who has had a successful career as a galactic reporter, is 105 years old. Even so, she has a child, Random Frequent Flyer Dent who is a teenager in this book. She was introduced in Mostly Harmless. Trillian had gone to a galactic sperm bank and since Arthur was the only donor of the same species, he's the father. From what I've read so far, And Another Thing... is worthy of being the sixth book in the series. There are frequent references to characters, species and events from the previous books, and the humor is just as offbeat and crazy as anything Douglas Adams ever wrote. If you liked the first five books of the series, you'll like this one.

Colfer didn't do a reading, choosing instead to talk about how he came to be the one to write it, which including talking about how he and a group of friends read the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy back around 1979 and loved it. When And Another Thing... was launched earlier this month all of the group of friends and their families were at the launch event. He also took questions, but I couldn't think of anything intelligent to ask, so I didn't.

This event was a bit different. You needed a free ticket for the signing and people were called up in groups of ten according to the ticket number. They also had a raffle. There was a $10 gift certificate, a large poster on foam board that stood in front of the podium, 20 small black towels with the book title and "Don't Panic!" on them, and about the same number of small books containing reviews of each of the six books in the series. People filled out slips of paper with their names and emails which then went into a box. I almost never win anything in these raffles, and tonight was no exception.

Normally I'd have a picture, but I managed to leave the apartment and get almost to where I get on I-84 before I realized I'd never even thought about the camera and by then I didn't want to turn around.

Nice Try, But...

2009-10-28T15:49:00.001-07:00

I've had a three older computers sitting around not doing anything, so I thought one or more of them could be set up to run Linux. Things did not go well, unfortunately.

I started with the least old one. I'd previously installed Ubuntu on it but never really used it much. An attempt to try again by installing Mint instead did not get far thanks to a loud SNAP! which may just mean the power supply went out.

The next oldest one would not boot from the disk like it's supposedly set up to do. Booting into Windows got me to the screen where a password is required, but it wouldn't take any password I tried. After trying to find ways around that, nothing was working, so I decided to take the C: drive out and put it into my second machine.

Once it was in the second machine, I put in the Mint install disk and installed Mint on the drive. Then I moved the drive back to it's original place, where it promptly failed to boot. I messed around some more, even pulling out an older HP machine I hadn't run in a long time to see if I could install Linux on that, but that hard drive made ominous clicking noises and never booted. Putting the hard drive with Mint on it in that machine didn't work either. So now I appear to have only two working desktop machines, although I will see about that power supply. If that's the problem with #3, that'll be good, especially if I can switch the power supply from #4 into #3.

Most of that messing around took place last night and this morning. Then I discovered another problem. When I'd installed Mint onto the disk from #4, I'd messed up the boot file on Caristiona, the second machine. That's how I found out about GRUB, which is somewhat like the Master Boot Record on Windows machines. I did some looking around the internet on Sileas. I found one site that gave simple instructions for fixing GRUB, but it didn't work.

Fortunately, in my looking around I found references to something called Super GRUB Disk. So I downloaded it, burned it to a CD and stuck it in the CD drive on Caristiona. At first, I just chose to boot, and found out I could get into Linux and everything was still there and working. But when I took the disk out and rebooted, I got the error again.

The next try was to put the SGD back in and look around a bit. From reading help files, and trying a few things (carefully) I eventually managed to select the right options and got a message that SGD had succeeded in putting things right. I restarted, popped the disk out, and Caristiona booted into Linux just like before. Just to be sure, I rebooted and confirmed everything's OK.

While I did eventually find out what I needed by reading some Linux forums found in Google search, I had to read through a lot of verbiage. Many people, instead of just presenting a solution, seem to have a need to berate people for things like not giving enough info or for being dumb enough to mess things up in the first place, and then threads tend to digress. So it took a fair amount of searching around.

With all that messing around, I'm essentially back where I started except #4 no longer has Windows on it. That's not a big deal because Windows is not in my future. Linux is the way to go and the price is right. Also, I do now have Super Grub Disk in case I have any future problems.

Sundancer - Page 13

2009-10-27T15:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer - Page 12

2009-10-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer - Page 11B

2009-10-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer - Page 11A

2009-10-24T13:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

More Linux

2009-10-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to make my second computer, Caristiona, into a Linux machine without Windows at all. I wasn't having any success getting it to boot from the Mint disk. I thought there was something wrong with the CD drive until I put a different CD in and it was visible. I wasted some time by downloading Mint again and burning a second disk, then I discovered I had the computer's boot sequence set wrong. It was set to boot from a floppy first (yeah, this one's old enough that I built in a floppy drive), then the hard drive, then the CD-ROM. I reversed the order and it booted from the CD.

My 120 GB drive was partitioned into two equal parts, but the stuff on the D: drive just barely fit onto a second 80 GB drive. Once I'd moved stuff, I did the Mint installation so Linux occupies the whole C: drive.

One thing I've noticed it I can now run both Sileas and Caristiona without the network connection dropping, so I can access the internet from both computers. Under Windows, the connection would drop within a half hour of starting up the second computer, and it didn't matter which one I started first.

Network connections seem kind of off and on, so I probably need to learn some stuff to make it more reliable. I wanted to copy over the files for my home page from Sileas to Caristiona, but couldn't make it work. So I copied the files onto my 160 GB Seagate USB external drive, unplugged it from Sileas and plugged it into Caristiona. Then I copied the folder onto the 120 GB drive and set it up as my Firefox home page. That saved me from having to edit things so all the icons show up because I'd already fixed it.

I'm finding that I'm not going back to Windows on Sileas very much at all. I suppose I'll keep the Windows partition on that machine for a while. I do have some programs that might prove useful now and then.

One very nice thing about Linux is I don't have to be concerned about viruses. Overall, I'm pleased that I finally got to making the switch on a computer I normally use. I may be using Caristiona more often too. I'm writing this post on that machine, for instance.

Several years ago when I bought Sileas, I didn't really need another computer, but she's faster and the price was right since she's a refurbished HP machine. Caristiona, one I built, was only about two years old at the time I got Sileas, so I expect there's a lot of life left in her.

The name Caristiona comes from an album by George Jackson and Maggie MacInnes. It's the title track from the album which came out in 1984.

Sundancer - Page 10

2009-10-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer - Page 9

2009-10-20T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sometimes Things Go Right

2009-10-20T14:14:00.001-07:00

I got my Comcast bill in the mail on Saturday. Often I don't open bills because I do most payments online, but I opened this one. I noticed I was being charged $15.99 a month for HBO, something I don't recall ever having ordered.

After some checking, it appears the charges started back on June 2nd, the day I called to change my cable plan to one that cost less. The HBO was free for three months from that day, so after seeing the amount on the next bill in July was lower, I didn't pay much attention. I guess I didn't actually look at either the printed bill or the online bill for the details. Not a good idea, obviously.

After calling up enough bills online to see just what had happened, I gave Comcast a call and got connected to Steven. I told him I didn't recall ordering HBO. He confirmed to me when it had been added and the time I'd actually been billed for it. Then he said, "Let me do some math here." After a few clicking calculator sounds, he said the amount I'd been charged was $41 and some change and he'd credit that amount. He also explained that the current bill for the period which started yesterday would still include HBO, but the next bill would reflect the credit, including for the current bill. Also, he discontinued HBO.

It was that simple. I was prepared to argue, although it's not something I enjoy doing, so it's good it never came to that. I suppose it's possible back on June 2nd I'd gone along with an offer of three months of free HBO, in which case it would've been smart for me to note the date and cancel it before the three months were up. On the other hand, I was trying to reduce my bill, so saying yes to such an offer seems unlikely.

I'll be sure not to accept any such free offers in the future unless I'm prepared to pay for the service after that time is up.

Mint Condition

2009-10-19T23:12:00.000-07:00

I've been interested in Linux for some time and now I've finally got it installed on my main computer, Sileas (both the computer and the star cruiser in "Sundancer" get their name from the Scottish harp duo of Mary MacMaster and Patsy Seddon).

The other day I downloaded Mint 7 and burned it to a bootable CD. Originally I was going to put it on another computer that already had Ubuntu. I never got too enthused about Ubuntu, and for some reason strange things happen when I have more than one computer running on my little network. For one thing, the router keeps dropping the internet connection. For another, some of the mouse and key functions get wonky.

I was getting set to install, but when I rebooted the computer, there was a rather loud snap, and the monitor showed only a dark screen with the message "Out of range." That snap must have been something on the video card.

Next I thought I'd try the disk on Caristiona, which was my main computer before I got Sileas four years ago. But even though it should've booted from the disk, it didn't. It's probably something simple to fix, but since I wanted to try it out, I decided to put the disk into Sileas's CD drive.

When a computer boots, the monitor flashes the screen resolution. It usually reports several before it reaches the point where the resolution I've set shows up. The monitor will show a resolution of 1360x768, but with Windows that's not an option for some reason. For a while I'd run it with 1024x768, then changed to 1266x720. While the wider screen was nice, it was 48 pixels short of full depth and there were black bars of 47 pixels on either side of the screen. And when I first switched, there was dark screen burn on the right side, although that faded in a couple of weeks.

Sileas accepted booting from the Mint disk and as it finished booting, I got a pleasant surprise. The final screen resolution that flashed was 1360x768. I'd thought the limitation was due to the video card. I'd looked into replacing it, but any decent video card would have required more power, and Sileas' power supply is on the puny side, so it would have meant replacing the card and power supply - more money than I can spend on computer right now.

Suddenly I knew I would be installing Mint on Sileas, which only has one built-in 160GB hard drive, although over time I'd also attached a couple of USB drives. One is also 160 GB and the newer one is 1 TB. I'd freed up a lot of space by moving stuff over to the 1 TB drive, and earlier today I moved even more stuff and deleted several programs I'd installed and then hadn't used much, plus I got rid of Microsoft Office, which like so many Microsoft programs, ate up a lot of space. I've been using the much smaller (and free) Open Office.

Once I'd move stuff and deleted, I had about 88 GB free space on the C: drive. But when I began the installation, I found the choices a bit confusing. I unplugged the two USB drives, but once I'd done that, I wasn't comfortable with editing the partitions within the Linux installation procedure.

I backed out once again and located a free disk partition program online. It allowed me to partition the C: drive into two partitions, and appropriately enough, the program told me the new partition would be L:. It took a long time to partition the drive - about three hours.

Back to the Linux installation program and this time I saw what I wanted - I could set up the L: partition without bothering Windows on the C: partition. The instructions I'd read weren't terribly clear about the swap partition, but I went ahead and the installation program eventually gave me the opportunity to carve out space for that from the L: partition. Once that was done, it did take about 20 minutes for Linux Mint to install.

So far I've gotten Thunderbird email set up, although there's more to do there, but at least I can get mail with it. Also, I figured out how to copy over the files for my home page on Firefox, which is on the computer, not the web. So I'm able to get to everything online I'm used to getting, including this blog.

It looks like finally I've found myself on Linux and I'm hoping as time goes on Windows will fade. I'm already thinking I may take Windows off Caristiona and just have Linux on it. It'll be interesting to see if the networking between the two works.

Now I've got to get this posted - it's less than 15 minutes to midnight!

Sundancer - 8 of 13

2009-10-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co.

2009-10-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

I've been following the webcomic User Friendly for several years now. One of its features is a Link of the Day. People send in links to interesting and odd sites, and Illiad, the strip's creator, choses one each day. Today's link was to the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. While I don't think I need any superhero supplies, it seemed like a fun link to check out and it is. I don't think everything listed is actually for sale, but I'm not exactly sure how much is for sale and how much is just listed for fun.

When I clicked on the "Manuals" link it led me to some of the writings produced by the 826NYC group (these items are really for sale). It's a program for 6- to 18-year-old students interested in creative writing. The unusual name rang a bell. It didn't take long for me to recall it's a group Sarah Vowell is involved with, and a little looking around the site confirmed that. She is on the board of directors. I'd included a video about 826 National in my Squidoo lens about Sarah.

Sarah Vowell at Powell's Books, Beaverton, OR, Oct. 14, 2009
From MobyD's Soundings

It's interesting this came up because just this past Wednesday I went to Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton where Sarah was giving a reading from The Wordy Shipmates, her latest book just out in paperback. She told us she was trying something a bit different with this reading, so she read from the section of the book about the Pequot War in the 1630s.

Sarah Vowell's approach to writing about history is quite different from that of many other historians. She frequently mixes in her own personal experiences and makes frequent references to modern events that are related in some fashion to her subjects. Also, she's not afraid to interject her wry, offbeat humor. It makes reading her books much more interesting. She reads all the dry, sometimes difficult source material and presents her results in a manner that makes it both informative and fun to read. In putting together my Squidoo lens about Sarah, I saw quite a few videos, plus I've heard her on This American Life (mostly through online recordings). Now, having also heard and seen her in person, it's easier to imagine her style of delivery as I read her books.

Sundancer - Page 8

2009-10-16T19:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer - Page 7

2009-10-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Vowell's at Powell's

2009-10-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

I'm heading out soon for the Powell's Books store at Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton where Sarah Vowell will be appearing to promote her book The Wordy Shipmates which just came out in paperback. I'm leaving early to avoid as much of the rush hour traffic as I can, then I'll get the book and use the large amount of time to start reading it.

I considered taking the MAX and/or the bus, but it really takes a lot longer that way since going through downtown Portland eats up a lot of time. Also, I'm taking my camera, and I feel a little safer driving. I've ridden the MAX in the evenings, and some of the characters I've seen are ones I'd rather not see again.

The link up above (and here) is to my Squidoo lens for Sarah Vowell.

Sundancer - Page 6

2009-10-13T19:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer - Page 5B

2009-10-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

A Vegetarian Spider

2009-10-12T13:16:00.000-07:00

I spotted a story at the UK site TimesOnline about the discovery of the first known vegetarian spider that lives in Mexico (which, in spite of what the article's author says, is not in South America). One of the first things I noticed when reading the article was the spider's scientific name: Bagheera kiplingi.

If you're a little rusty on Kipling, Bagheera was a panther in The Jungle Book. I'm not entirely sure why a vegetarian spider in Mexico would be named for a carnivore from India, but it is kind of interesting.

Q: Do you enjoy Kilping?

A: I don't know. I've never kipled.

Sundancer - Page 5A

2009-10-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Richard Dawkins Is Not a Pirate

2009-10-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

I had been planning to go to a fantasy festival put on by the Seattle Seafair Pirates and the Seattle Knights up in Washington today, but changed my mind. I'd gotten up very early yesterday to watch the L-CROSS moon mission on NASA TV. The impact was scheduled for 4:31 a.m. Pacific Time, and they started broadcasting at 3:15. There wasn't much to see other than increasingly large views of the targeted crater. No debris plume was visible as had been expected. But they say they got good data. That left my sleep schedule screwed up, so last night I decided not to go to the festival which is about 170 miles away. Also I was still feeling the effects of either a muscle cramp or slight pull from a couple of days ago, so the idea of tramping around a field for several hours was less appealing.

Rachel Maddow had Sarah Vowell on her show last night because Vowell's latest book, The Wordy Shipmates, is just out in paperback. I'd meant to check it out on Amazon and Powell's but forgot until this morning. While checking the Powell's site, I learned she's going to be at their Beaverton store next Wednesday, so I'm planning to go.

While looking around, I also found out that Richard Dawkins was appearing at Wordstock, the annual book fair at the Oregon Convention Center at 3 p.m. He's the author of several books on evolution and also wrote The God Delusion, which I'd read a year or so ago. There'd been some discussion about evolution on a Delphi forum I visit in which reference was made to another of his books, The Blind Watchmaker. I got that last weekend. I decided not to pass up an opportunity to see and hear Richard Dawkins in person.

In order to see him, it was necessary to buy a ticket for $22, which also included a copy of his new book The Greatest Show on Earth. That's less than the $30 cover price, but more than the $16.50 Amazon sells it for, but of course with Amazon I wouldn't see and hear him and the book wouldn't be signed. I couldn't buy a ticket online and when I called it was suggested I get a ticket soon because there had been quite a few calls about his appearance. So I got down to the Convention Center just before 11.

There were still tickets, and there was plenty of time to wander around and see all the booths. Shortly after noon I stopped by a talk being given by Scott Westerfeld, who has a new book, a steampunk novel called Leviathan. It's an alternate history set in 1914 at the beginning of World War I. In his world, Darwin discovered DNA and scientists began making all types of weird animals, some of which were used for military purpose. The "Darwinists" as they were known, developed their war beasts in England, France and Russia. The Central Powers, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey, developed war machines using mechanics, except their machines were very different from what was developed in the world we all know. The Leviathan of the title is a huge 1,000-foot-long sperm whale that creates hydrogen and is used as a huge airship. I was interested enough to buy the book and get it signed.

There was an online comic strip artist, David Malki, who uses bits of illustrations from Victorian-era publications to make his strip. His website is Wondermark.com. It's strange, but in a good way. He also had a few bumper stickers. One in particular I had to get: "I was an honor student. I don't know what happened." (I was and I don't.)

After an overpriced lunch - I didn't quite have enough time to leave the center to go to a nearby place for lunch - I got in line fairly early for the Richard Dawkins event. Some of the time was spent reading a bit of Leviathan. The doors were supposed to open at 2:30, but that got pushed back as Richard was still busily signing books. I was able to get a seat in the second row on the aisle so I could get some pictures. There was a bit more delay since there were so many people. They ended up opening up more space by sliding a movable wall at the back and getting more chairs. Richard even carried a chair from the stage to the back for someone to use. I suppose it was the Richard Dawkins Chair in Evolutionary Studies.

Eventually things got underway with readings from The Greatest Show on Earth, a book which Dawkins describes as a "missing link" because while his previous books on evolution explained the theory, this one presents the evidence about why evolution is fact. The readings were from various parts of the book, even including the last chapter. He read an interesting and humorous anecdote about the famous neo-Darwinist J. B. S. Haldane who was once confronted by a woman after one of his lectures. She doubted that evolution could have created a human being with all it's complicated structure, trillions of cells, miles of blood vessels and nerves, etc. from a single cell. Haldane replied, "Madam, you did it yourself in nine months."

After his reading, Dawkins answered about a dozen questions. A few were about The God Delusion, then he gently reminded us he was here to promote his latest book. After that, there was an opportunity for people who hadn't had their copies of The Greatest Show on Earth signed to get them signed, along with copies of his other books. I should've brought the copies I have. But I did go up to him and say I'd always thought evolution made sense and thanked him for providing me with good material to work with if I get into conversations with people who don't want to accept it as fact.

It was an interesting day in which Darwin, the Victorian era, evolution and steampunk fiction all mixed in. Even before I found out about Wordstock and Dawkins, there was a hint of things to come when I listened to Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac before I looked up Sarah Vowell's book. He said (and this is from the website):

It was on this day in 1881 that Charles Darwin published what he considered to be his most important book: The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms. At the time, most people thought of earthworms as pests, but Darwin demonstrated that they were beneficial, important for soil fertility and consequently for agriculture.

Darwin had published The Origin of Species in 1859, but he thought that this work was more important — and in fact, during his lifetime it sold much better than The Origin of Species, more than 6,000 copies its first year.

The Disappearing Post

2009-10-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

Maybe my blog is haunted. I really thought I had posted yesterday (Friday) but there's no entry. Maybe somehow I went through all the steps but somehow managed to not hit the Publish Post button, but I thought I'd looked at the blog afterward. This means next month I'll have to really double check everything to make sure there's an entry for every day, and the time to start double checking everything is now.

Anyway, page 4 of "Sundancer" is sort of longish for one part, but I couldn't find a good place to break it around the middle.

Also, I went to Wordstock, a book fair at the Oregon Convention Center, to see Richard Dawkins. I'll be posting about that right after I get this posted and check that this entry really did post.

Sorry, but I've deleted most of this post because I'm interested in publishing "Sundancer" electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer - Page 3B

2009-10-08T19:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.

Sundancer - Page 3A

2009-10-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I've deleted this post because I'm interested in publishing this story electronically and offering it for sale.