Snow Day

I am looking out onto Third Street watching the snow fall to the tune of nearby church bells and enjoying the fact that it is a snow day, despite having come to work in the wee hours anyway. If you would call 730 the wee hours, which I do. Even though the day isn't even that much different than usual, I think just knowing it is a snow day makes it doubly fun!

Also, I made blueberry muffins from scratch at midnight last night for my coworkers, and I wasn't sure how they would taste because this particular recipe seemed not-quite-right. But they are incredible. Thank you, Alton Brown.

I'm also appreciative of the fact that people with large vehicles did not drive maniacally whilst the owners of two pound cars like myself kept a steady 20 yard per hour pace.

Representative Murray just ate a muffin and he asked for a second.
Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

drilling, water, and photog, and table computers

I'll start off by saying that I'm always torn between including a comma before the "and" when making a list of more than two items. For example, the title of this blog. I have always done the extra comma and it has made perfect sense to me for years, but lately I'm inclined to omit. No one does it anymore! There is a crew outside The Beach blocking the entire road in order to fix a broken pipe. This requires the water being shut off for at least four hours, I'm told in a "breaking news" style email from management this morning. I don't mind the water thing, or the loud drilling, or the violent tremors caused by the drilling, but I am concerned. I raise the question: What is a Beach without water??? Alright. We just had a long weekend, and at some point, I happened upon Flickr, which I had known about for a while but never really looked at extensively. This is because I don't really feel the need to share all of my photos with people I don't know. And when I do want to share photos (and make the time to upload them, I might add) I just put them on Facebook. However, I've recently become something of a Google nut. I use Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar (not primarily, mostly just for reminders, since it's linked to my phone), GoogleDocs, and Google Sites. (I've used another comma before "and." Classic? Yes. Classy? Definitely.) I like using these things not because they make my life easier, or because they make me any more organized. I don't think I like having everything organized planned for every minute and recorded into my GoogleCrap so I can remember it all. So why all the technology all of the sudden? Frankly? It's fun. And I'm vastly intrigued with the different ways we can store information. For example, if we have an office filing system and we want to convert it to digital and get rid of paper, how much better is our system really going to be? Is it going to be any less cumbersome? Probably not. What are the ways that we manipulate our information to make it easier to find? What things are better left as a hardcopy? These questions seem to constantly pop up at work, where records retention isn't just for fun, it's the law. And then there's always the challenge of making any kind of online system as intuitive as possible. And safe. It reminds me a lot of some issues that came up in a lesson at the Archives last year in a History class. (Nay, a fantastic history class.) The archivists were introducing the topic of information management, and the problems associated with any type of storage technique. Paper takes up too much space, but lasts almost forever, depending on the care of storage. Analog is more compact, but its lifespan is significantly shorter. Digital is obviously amazing, but easily lost. Hardcopies like compact discs and hard drives? Delicate. Easily manipulated. And on the list goes. It all brings on feelings of angst and hate. Why can't everything we need not just fit into a small filing cabinet? What are these mysterious folders everywhere? Surely they have no purpose! I love it at work when D announces that she wants to store a load of files. I happily pack fifteen or so boxes and carefully label them for the Historical Society, then send them to the basement without a backward glance. Someday, someone might make use of them. Whoever that is, God bless his heart. Or hers? So back to Flickr? I like GoogleDocs because that way I can access a few things online when I'm at school, and not have to email myself papers all the time for printing. So I guess Flickr is just like GoogleDocs, except for pictures. Which is cool. But totally unecessary for my purposes. But this weekend I was thinking about how much I love Columbus, and how I want to enjoy it as much as I can before graduating. I'm not sure yet where I'll be living, it depends on graduate school acceptance, really. So it just makes me grateful for the time I've had here, because I really love Columbus! Some people think that Ohio is pretty lame all around, but I think it's a great state and that Columbus is the best city in it. It isn't perfect, and goodness knows every city is shady in one way or another. But I like the fact that it has a functioning downtown. I love driving to work in the mornings and seeing everyone walking to their offices or getting coffee. I love campus. College in general is frustrating sometimes, and there are moments when I wonder at the tedious and pointless, fiery, circus-style hoops we have to jump through to get the diploma. But I can't deny that I've learned a great deal and that I've become an adult here. So this weekend, whilst just appreciating Columbus, I found myself admiring some of the picturesque locales. There isn't always a lot of time for exploring. And it is freezing cold at the moment. But I would like to try and see more of Columbus while I can. And I'd like to take a bunch of pictures of it all! And I want to put them on Flickr. I can at least start putting impromptu phone pictures on something other than just my phone. I was inspired by the amazing photos that people take of the places where they live, including some Columbusites / Columbusians (?), as well as by possible plans for a photo shoot that have been put off by quite some time. I have no idea if I'll actually do this. But it'd be fun! And break up the monotany of winter, at the very least. Lastly, I'd like to tell a brief and embarassing story about table computers. First, you have to understand what a "table computer" is. Now, you have to understand why table computers are funny. This is all somewhat related to the question of when use of technology is actually necessary, and when it becomes completely far out and ridiculous. (Awesomely ridiculous? Bien sur!) Now, for the story. I'd wondered what had happened to the Microsoft Surface, as I've never seen one and haven't heard any buzz for at least a year. Touch screens aren't really new any more, and HP makes a rather nice touch screen monitor now. Presumably for far less than a table computer. But a few days ago I went to one of the libraries to study and noticed in a separate digital room that there was a coffee table that looked strangely like a computer. I didn't gaze at it for very long, but I was certain that this was the fabled Microsoft Surface. And that the university had purchased one simply because it can. It made perfect sense, considering that this "digital room" is basically a special room in this library with a bunch of the more high end technology for student projects. Anyway, I decided to return later with D(bag?) and check it out. We went upstairs and entered the digitalesque room to play with the table computer. It appeared to be on the same screen saver that I saw it on earlier, which was like watching an underwater scene with coral and starfish. So I started touching it, waiting for it to work, but it didn't feel like a screen, it just felt like plexiglass. This is the moment when my companion turned to me and said, "It's not a table computer, it's just a table." We left promptly. I can't believe I thought that a coffee table was a table computer. I have to say something in my defense, though. Why would anyone put a coffee table in a room full of expensive technological equiptment where beverages aren't even allowed? And don't even tell me it's for laying out papers and books during group discussions or for studying. People are drawn to the room for its super computers, which offer them the ability to map the genetic makeup of a new species they discovered at Stone Lab, or to analyze the night movement of country fowl in Maine. More importantly, why would one ever make a coffee table with a screen showing coral and starfish moving under the sea?! I rest my case. Maybe I should start my photog'ing with a picture of the starfish table. Cheers.

clocks

I have recently placed two new clocks in my apartment. One is a large pocket watch styled clock that sits on my coffee table, and the other is a large clock hanging on one of the walls. While hanging up the larger one with J after dinner this week, she commented that I should put the pocket watch in the kitchen so that the two different tickings wouldn't bother me in the night time. But I never noticed the ticking, and figured that neither clock made noise that I could hear, and so they sit in the same space. When I think of clocks ticking, I think of my grandparents' house. They have a grandfather clock that they purchased to commemorate one of their wedding anniversaries, and a small metal plaque on the inside is inscribed with the year and their names. That clock ticks so loudly, I can hear it from the kitchen. But I love it, and when it chimes, it's like hearing the past ring. My cousin has asked to be left the clock, and I don't blame her. It's beautiful, and kind of haunting. While home for Christmas, some guests at my grandparents' house remarked on all the clocks, as they have two others in the same room as the grandfather. They hang on the wall and are extremely old - one of them is over a hundred years old and came from Germany with my family. I listened to my grandpa talk about how the clock had hung in his father's workroom on the farm, and how my grandma always admired that clock. So my great-grandfather told his daughter-in-law that she could have the clock when he was done using it. When he passed away, it came to belong to my grandparents. Apparently there are a lot of other time pieces in the family, all old and sturdy and German. One of them is a beautiful mantle clock and it sits in our house, actually, though it is very temperamental and has to be tuned up fairly often, so it usually sits in silence. But when I was in high school we ran it all of the time, and the ticking was just as loud as the grandfather clock. These days, if I'm trying to count out seconds or think of timing for music, I can find it pretty quickly just from having listened to the tick tock of that clock for so long. Clocks clocks. I'm happy to have just realized that the clocks in my apartment, though they are not antiques and were not made in Germany, do tick. They tick on the off-beats of one another, and I love it.