6.10.2

monday morning. if i can finish living maintenance chores today i plan to hibernate for a few days. i've been on the go since last fall when sally my ex-wife was diagnosed with lung cancer. she died early january. my mother died early april. i spent 3 weeks in arizona with my father. a visit to Baba Center was much needed relief. then my daughter was victim/witness in serial-rapist trial. that was over last week. today i want to finish watercolor for my dad (father's day). then i'll hide under bed for a few days.

very useful link for bibliophiles like me:
The Internet Classics Archive: 441 searchable works of classical literature

and some internet pizzaz for you high bandwidth folks:
theculture-simon tyszko

6.9.2

having a nice quiet sunday but did manage to spend the whole day in front of the computer working with songs. here's one:

another interesting link, a little heavy on tech, but something real interesting about old maps:

"...about some stone maps that have been found in China that may date to some 120 million years ago. The map appears to be a topographical relief map done on a scale 1 : 1.1 Kilometers. To blockquote:

The map indicates the use of civil engineering to
create a system of channels about 12,000 km in
length and 500 meters wide, and 12 dams that are
300-500 meters wide.

Their work is being peer reviewed in the scientific community, so there is some hope and reasonable possibility that this is not a hoax."

kuro5hin.org || technology and culture, from the trenches

6.8.2

seen on highway 40, heading west:

"the best things in life
aren't things".

6.7.2

after a long and exhausting trip i am ready to drive back to aville. i visited friends jim and marsha/doug, my children and grandchildren. truck towing and repair was added bonus.

but i spent most of the time in a hillsboro courtroom. serial rapist dwayne edwards was convicted yesterday. my daughter was one of the victims and a witness.

the wait for a verdict, the reading of the verdict, and the sentencing was highly emotional and brought tears to many eyes including my own. the other victims, their families, the assitant DA and his staff, the detectives, and the ladies of the rape crisis center were all great people who went beyond the call of duty in the interests of justice. the judge said the system worked. it would not have worked without these folks

story

6.2.2

after a long day yesterday of phone calls and waiting 2 hours for a tow truck, i said let's do it tomorrow. i didn't feel well at all during the whole day, reckon it's from the 2 or 3 preceding days, too much exhaustion, even tho i've been sleeping well.

woke up early and painted a watercolor i would very much like to finish because i've got another to paint right after it.

truck towed to tim's auto shop, they've already got the clutch fixed, it was the master cylinder so i guessed right on that. but it won't turn over, starter motor is asleep. i think it has something to do with electricity, not the starter motor. but then doesn't everything?

6.3.2

the content of this blog suddenly shifts (again) (no pun intended) today to the personal foibles of yours truly. truck quit at eli's out in the country, had it towed into the urban remainder of chapel hill usa yesterday. i think the clutch master/slave cylinders, or at least one of them, is kaput. no loss of fluid. trying to monkey with it early sunday morning i somehow activated the do not start if not in neutral or clutch depressed interlock so now it won't turn over.

as soon as i sign off here i begin the find-a-shop-to-fix-it routine. breaking down on the road has it's own quality. it could be worse, i unloaded all my camping gear and toys (guitar, shortwave radio, watercolors) which are temporarily housed in daughter nicole/husband doug's garage. trial in hillsborough plods on. if i am still here when final arguments, summations, whatever they are called take place i'll attend. meanwhile it's off to the world of auto repair.

6.1.2

sunday evening, parked under a tree at my son eli melissa, and grandaughter lily's. big rain storm finally got here, i hope it cools the sultry weather. i am experiencing some kind of clutch linkage problem, will look carefully at it in the am when i can think (i hope). big decision coming as to whether to nurse it back to asheville or (shudder) try and get it fixed in foreign country (chapel hill usa).

i am here because my daughter is a witness, along with two other women, in a rape and assault trial. spent some of thursday and a lot of friday at trial. the defense is hitting on the police procedures:

"you mean you didn't keep your hand written-notes after you input them into computer??!!"

answer i hope is given next week:"no, i am trained to take notes and create reports from them".

the defense objected non-stop to the reading of any police report that quoted anyone unless it was corraberating (i'm on the road - don't know how to spell this) someone's testamony. the judge sustained these objections.

i'm not a lawyer but i play one on tv. why can't a police report, filed on a certain date, be read in court, presented as what it is, a police report, a"snapshot" of what the police thought was going on at the time?

anyway to see a lawyer doing his business picking apart methods of work on a highly technical and arcane basis instead of dealing with the suspect's guilt or innocence is a sorry sight indeed. he is a public defender and "just doing his job". see article in durham herald.

5.31.5

i'm at jim c.'s typing this and the keyboard is doing strange things. jim says that taking typing is what makes going to high school worthwhile. this is about word wrapping or word rapping so it just keeps going.

5.30.2

i'm at eli, melissa, and lily's. overcast heavy day. will visit with nicole this afternoon i hope.
meanwhile been looking at this site with ie/windows. definite problem with quictime (even after updating it. what's wierd is sometimes the midis play and sometimes they dont. and picture below (hill.jpg) doesn't show. will fix the latter, hum a little about the latter.

5.29.2

i'm off to chapel hill for the next 7 or so days. hope to visit a lot of friends. my 3 children, -in-laws and 2 grandchildren are all going thru a lot of changes and i hope to have some quiet time with them all.

here's a quickie i did early this morning. some mornings the quickest way for me to get going is to work with the muse:

and here's a midi file i just did. will switch to mp3's soon; this will take a lot of the guesswork out of what you hear.

now i gotta get outa here, i'm running late.

5.27.2

pleasant afternoon at the reilys. i don't have much to say these days so i'm dipping into my collection of random scribbles. here's one i found today.

"you cant have your question and answer it too.
i knew too far when i knew it was you.
three am madness weathers the storm.
already gladness is fading a form.
i walk without magic without a care.
because if im here you must be there."

5.25.2

memorial day weekend - heading out to party at john r.'s. i've been dinking around with blog archive formatting all morning. still isn't making any sense. for such a "laid back" guy i must have a touch of compulsevness because simple curiousity could not drive a person to spend so long tapping at the keyboard with such a beautiful day waiting outside.

5.244.2

now here is a home page that is to be admired. check out the stuff on the working world.

"a platform for self-expression"
analyticalQ presents self-expression, world travel, flexibility

5.24.2

here's an item i stumbled across; something we all already know i guess. wonder why it's news?

ABCNEWS.com : Hippie Culture Just Keeps Truckin' On
"The truth of the matter is that there are literally millions of people in this country who still live with and are interested in the ideals of the counterculture."

maybe the interesting part about this item is how we as a culture recycle the past, usually turning it into a cartoon in the process. time keeps movin' on.

5.222.2

interesting item:

from Letters to the Editor, The New York Times, May 21, 2002:

To the Editor:

It was perceptive of President Bush to discover that "second-guessing"
the president is "second nature" in Washington (front page, May 18).
It's called presidential accountability.

The Constitution gives every member of the Senate and the House - not
merely the members of the toothless intelligence committees - the right,
even the responsibility, to question, censure and criticize an unduly
arrogant, incompetent or secretive president, to advise him, to investigate him, to subpoena, debate, denounce, impeach or even second-guess him.

After President Richard M. Nixon sought to be above all that, James
Mann, a South Carolina Democrat, warned his colleagues on the House
Judiciary Committee considering Nixon's impeachment, "If there is no
accountability, another president will feel free to do as he chooses."

If Congress fails to second-guess the president, the press will. That's
also in the Constitution.

TED SORENSEN
New York, May 20, 2002

The writer was special counsel to President John F. Kennedy.

5.22.2

i got back from the Baba center last night. delightful, extrordinary visit, the first in over 30 years that i have made. i was asked repeatedly why it took me so long to come back and all i could say was "time". i finished the watercolor above while i was there - it is not of the center which is a very beautiful place; i hope some of the photos i took while wondering around i can turn into watercolor. i met a lot of new and old (sometimes both) friends there.

meanwhile i gotta do laundry.

5.17.5

leaving for a 6 hour drive to the Meher Baba Center in myrtle beach sc. i'll be back monday.

meanwhile here is an email fowarded to me by tucker clark. pay attention:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr. Gephardt,

Today's news says you are about to convene inquiry into what the Bush
administration knew of possible terrorist plans before September 11.

To which I say, Finally! Thank goodness someone in Congress is waking up
enough, and summoning enough courage in the face of seriously slanted
polls, to start questioning.

While you're putting together your questions, you might consider these
points:

1. the Bush family-Bin Laden family connections

2. the Bush family (father and son) and Carlyle Group connections

3. the Bin Laden support for Dubya's first job in the oil business

4. Bush hosting the Taliban in Texas in 1995 in an effort to gain
approval for a trans-Afghanistan pipeline

5. the Unocal connection, including Karzai

6. Bush's continued support of the Taliban right up until early
September

7. the recent announcement that Unocal is, after all, going to be able
to build a pipeline across Afghanistan, now that there is an amenable
government in Kabul

8. the real question: what deal went so wrong that Bin Laden wants to
kill a lot of people for it?

No, I am not a black-helicopter conspiracy theorist, but I do read the
news from sources other than the very narrow reporting of the Washington
press corps, and I put together the pieces, and I ask questions.

Millions of other Americans are asking these questions, too, worried
about where their government is headed and why their civil rights are
being abridged. If the Dems are going to be anything other than a lapdog
for Bush and Ashcroft, they'd better start asking tough questions, as
well.

Sincerely,

Mary Grace Butler

5.14.2

a look at the (possible) self-organizing principle that may happen in the weblog world. like so many things on the web today, this involves google:

"The bloggers have the potential to do something far more original than offer up packaged opinions on the news of the day; they can actually help organize the Web in ways tailored to your minute-by-minute needs."
Salon.com Technology | Use the blog, Luke

and another google wrinkle:
net art : adwords happening

5.13.2

here's a pen and ink and watercolor i did recently while in arizona.

here's a huge and (to me) interesting site, lots of odds and ends, james hillman is highly visible, probably needs to be taken in small doses: Archetypal Psych Talk

5.10.2

had a great morning and a dark, moody afternoon. what's up? i got to thinking a little about jung's typology and the myers-briggs personality test. the personality types that jung posited are not set in concrete, and he was the first to say they represented just one useful way to look at personal temperments.

i have taken the Myers-Briggs test over a 30 year period, and the results are always the same: INFP. so what?

well "know thyself" seems to take all the time in a liftime, besides it can be kind of fun to decode this information; almost none of the attributes mean what you think they mean.

whole lot of stuff about this here: The Psychology of C.G. Jung Body and Temperament Types of W. H. Sheldon.
5.10.5