Demolition Derby at the State Fair
Demolition Derby at the Indiana State Fair
links for 2010-08-22
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Once outside the concert, Smith and the other trainees were finally given an option and told to split into two groups: those who wanted to attend, and those who did not. Smith and about 80 others decided not to attend, even though they were obviously being "pressured" to do so. Smith and the others were sent back to their barracks on "lockdown," a punishment that Smith said withholds even basic freedoms like using their own electronics.
Repaired Stair
The finished stair. Nice and sturdy. Eventually, we’ll have Carl come back and repaint all the stairs in a color more suited to our walls.
What’s under the stairs
Once Carl had opened up the stairs, I realized there was a hidden space under them that wasn’t really accessible from anywhere else. Cool! Sadly, there was no secret treasure there.
More stairs repair
This time we’re having a stair in the main staircase repaired; it tilted forward and caused guest to slip and fall on the stairs. We were used to it, but it was a problem when we had people over. To fix the stair, Carl had to pull out out pull it out and build up the space under it.
links for 2010-08-19
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Allowing our brain to go on a diet – to step back from the endless swell of information – is critical to us being able to engage with people and ideas that are important.
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How bullshit travels around the web courtesy right-wing smear jobs. And debunking is hell, unfortunately.
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nice site design.
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On what hardware and software he uses for his work.
Broken basement stairs fixed – Carl Lenk
We had air conditioner repairman in today to work on our condenser unit – he replaced the fan motor and did some cleaning so the central air runs better. Since I was going to be home anyway for that, I scheduled a carpenter named Carl Lenk to come and rebuild the top two basement stairs for us – they were both soft and in danger of breaking, and it always made us a bit nervous going up and down the stairs. Stephanie’s dad has been nagging us to get them repaired for months.
Carl did a wonderful job, and pictures of the work will be forthcoming soon.
As he was working on the stairs, I was reading Neal Taflinger’s blog about Homespun – the new store in Irvington that features work by local artists and crafts folks. The Taflingers are the folks who created INDIEhandicraft Exchange that we’ve attended several times – lots of great local artists making cool stuff.
So I’m reading a recent post on Neal’s blog about an artist they worked with to create the painted logo above the register in their shop, and it turns out that it was Carl Lenk – the very same dude who was rebuilding our basement stairs. Turns out that in addition to being a handy handyman, he’s a mural artist and sculptor doing work around town – very gorgeous stuff. Cool. We know a popular local artist and stuff.
90 years of women’s suffrage
90 years ago today, The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women’s suffrage in the United States of America.
Well done, Sister Suffragettes.
Women have been able to vote throughout the US for less than 100 years. We still have a long way to go before women enjoy true equality. Some Schoolhouse Rock for those of you who grew up in the 1970’s.
Tails and Tales
Tim O’Brian In The Atlantic – discussing the sources of creativity and how to tell a well-imagined story:
My sons, Timmy and Tad–both fans of Winnie the Pooh–have taken lately to wearing tails. At our local Wal-Mart, and occasionally at church, the boys sport lengths of clothesline dangling from their trousers. They prowl the neighborhood trailing an assortment of ribbons, coat hangers, telephone cords, fishing line, belts, blankets, drapery tassels, and electrical extension cords. People notice. Things have gotten out of hand. Alas, we have become a family of tails, and, though I’m embarrassed to make this confession, even my wife and I have been persuaded to spruce up our fashion acts. Meredith jogs in a tail. I write in a tail. Yesterday, in a most undignified moment, I answered the doorbell having forgotten the Slinky jiggling restlessly at my buttocks. Imagine the judgments taking shape in the eyes of the UPS man.
Our household seems caught up in a kind of reverse evolution, tumbling backward through the millennia, alighting in an age in which the ancestral tail was both common and quietly useful. Like our tree-dwelling relatives, the O’Brien tribe has grown comfortable with its tails. We groom them. We miss them at bath time. We view their absence in our fellow man with pity and suspicion.
Now, as I sit here with my coffee at the kitchen table, I find myself wondering if something about this tail business might smack of the unwholesome, even of the aberrant and fanatical.
links for 2010-08-18
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Now every purchase I make comes with a second-guess: Do I really need this? Like really, really need this? In the past year, "impulse buy" has left my vocabulary. I found myself buying fewer things, but also nicer things. On the whole, it's led me to cherish my few purchases more.
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“[T]hinking too much” about strawberry jam causes us to focus on all sorts of variables that don’t actually matter. Instead of just listening to our instinctive preferences, we start searching for reasons to prefer one jam over another…. We assume that more rational analysis leads to better choices but, in many instances, that assumption is exactly backwards.
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