Toast for brekkie

Jet

Posted on May 26th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

I’m out the door to catch a plane so I’ll be quick: the storm has been further postponed by the untimely death of my PCMCIA slot. I should be back in business next week with a USB 802.11 antenna.

I hereby call on all Chicagoans to think back to their childhood days of hide-and-seek: ready or not, here I come.

2 comments.

Hallelujah!

Posted on May 22nd, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

SUCCESS! After two days of fiddling with safe mode, bootdisks, autoexec.bat, command.com, config.sys, and himem.sys it finally hit me: why not listen to what the computer is trying to tell you? When attempting a normal boot it kept giving a specific memory address as faulty and pointing to the XMS. So I tried a little hardware mojo and reseated the RAM. Voila! We’re in business! To top it all off, the poor little bent wireless card still works! Greg would be so proud.

Unfortunately after painting the living room and fixing this little computer problem I find myself at the end of the day and my bedtime. The rest of the blog entries will have to wait. Hopefully I can finish them up before my flight to CHICAGO in FOUR DAYS. WOO HOO!

Here’s to Toshiba for making such a robust product. You can drop the thing hard enough to loosen the RAM and it keeps on tickin’ (knock on wood). I may just be able to squeeze a few more years out of this puppy. Lord knows I need that long to save up the money for a replacement.

I promise I’ll take better care of you lappy!

3 comments.

Technical Difficulties

Posted on May 22nd, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

What happened to the monsoon? The short answer: I dropped my computer last night. I set it on a chair that happened to have a pillow on it. I watched in slow motion as it slid off and dropped onto the tile floor. The wireless antenna took the brunt of the damage (good thing I have a spare) but the poor laptop won’t boot up now. It says himem.sys is missing, even though it shows up in the directory (in dos prompt mode). I’m at a friend’s house right now for this update and to try to create a Win98 bootdisk to fix the problem.

I would use this as an excuse to get something newer than 6 years old, but I ain’t got the dough. Anyone want to donate a lappy?

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Ephemera

Posted on May 19th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Tonight I have been given a glimpse. Strange that a film some may consider naïve could be a catalyst. I’ll save my Episode III review (and the rest of the maelstrom) for the future. Right now my aim is to capture this epiphany before it slips away.

I must ask that you forgive my feeble brain and indeed the shortcomings of language itself. I promise this is my best attempt.

On the drive home tonight there was a moment when my imagination gave way to a greater reality. The sense of awe was overwhelming and my reaction could be nothing but gratitude. In one singular moment I experienced a host of realizations too large for me to grasp. It was like seeing the curvature of a planet after a life spent on its two-dimensional surface. In a wide sweeping arc I could see further than I have before; it was too much to take in. It was beyond me.

The feeling was much the same as a dream. Suddenly my eyes felt larger; my vision expanded to encompass a greater view. The purity recalled the first stirrings of my consciousness. I felt like a child, with knowledge of things unspoken, untarnished by the thing we call life.

As I descended back into myself I was able to cling to only two nuggets of wisdom. The first stems from my aforementioned gratitude; the second will smack of theodicy or even Zen, but that is only a result of my limited skills at communication.

In this moment, and I will most certainly suffer a lapse in this realization, I do not fear death. This can certainly be regarded as the first time I have ever said this with conviction. I apologize for my inability to precisely describe the nature of why. It is partly a result of profound gratitude for every moment I have lived. Not that I do not see a path for myself, and not that I wish for this existence to end. Only that it is enough. I have lived.

The second pearl is sister to the first: I do not resent the misfortunes in my life. On the contrary, I am thankful for suffering. Without it, there is no frame. In the absence of trials I would have no character. Is it not tragedy that brings out the best in humanity? It is the other face of the coin; it is the roots of the tree’s limbs. There is no separation, only coexistence.

It is impossible to explain the freedom of relinquishing control. Indeed, it was merely an illusion; I never had control in the first place. I must give up clinging to life to unshackle me from the fear of death. I must release my hope for happiness to end my suffering. It is my humanity that keeps these truths from being fully embraced. The struggle to the top of this hill has only revealed the path ahead, the mountains to be climbed. Now I must walk that path. Now I must die trying to scale those peaks.

This is the first step.

2 comments.

Hurray for Nurses

Posted on May 19th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Last week was Nurses Week, culminating Friday with the anniversary of the birthday of the woman who started it all, Florence Nightingale. Yeah, yeah, I’m late. But I have to give props to nurses everywhere, especially to my girl Mandar. Not only is she an ER nurse, but she was just promoted to charge nurse, even as her ER doubled in size. Stressful, yes, but if you want a job where saving the world is a tangible, everyday experience, that’s it. And I hear there’s a nationwide shortage of nurses and doctors. Med school, anyone?

Unfortunately it is now after midnight on a work night. That means I’ll have to take a temporary monsoon break here, and pick it up either tomorrow or this weekend. Consider it the eye of the hurricane. Coming up: more good articles, a music review, and some long-awaited pictures. Hopefully now you have enough to chew on until then. If not, keep your knickers on.

2 comments.

Old Man Hatcher

Posted on May 19th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

This is me. I live in a land where 18% of the people have circled the sun more than 65 times. The pace of life is such that I might as well be retired. Not to mention I’m sitting on the back porch right now. Dag nabbit! There goes my knee again. Must be a storm a-brewin’.

1 comment.

Blade Runner

Posted on May 18th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

You already know I’m a speed freak, regardless of the method of conveyance. Rollerblades are no different, and since moving here I’ve found a two-lane road paved sometime late last year that provides maximum level speed. Last week I was skating along this street when I was met with a happy surprise: new pavement! My route has now been expanded from 0.7 miles of smooth asphalt to 1.5. So instead of 5 roundtrips for 7 miles, I can do 3 for 9! Much less monotony, if that term can even be applied to this gorgeous stretch of tarmac. If you didn’t follow the math, don’t worry: the pictures say it all.

6 comments.

Brains

Posted on May 18th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

This is not the only evidence I’ve seen that points to a biological explanation of non-heterosexuality. I can remember reading about the “sexing” of the brain in the womb; that if the incorrect hormones are present (or if there is an imbalance) that the gray matter can receive one set of instructions after the body already has a different gender. Then of course there are homosexual displays in the animal kingdom, in every nearly every species from what I understand. And forgive me if I’m beating a broken drum here, but isn’t there a historical precedent for a number around 10% of the human population being gay? I don’t think the overall trend is affected by the fact that certain societies have forced that number higher or lower given their tolerance. Besides, sexuality is not black and white. More like a logarithmic curve.

I’m looking for any and all perspectives here, especially faith-based. Surely we can agree that all humans have the same inalienable rights regardless of the way they’re born. I’ll go one further and say that I have no authority to tell someone else what to do. But does society? Or religion? I surely wouldn’t want to have a 90% gay world tell me I couldn’t be straight.

1 comment.

Monsoon

Posted on May 17th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Get out your rain slicks and prepare for the deluge; the dry spell has ended. I haven’t forgotten about you, dear reader. In fact, much has transpired since the last update, but this is the first opportunity in over a week that I’ve had to blog.

The plan is a series of small entries so any comments you may have can be applied to the appropriate topic. Hopefully the bite-size chunks will make the multi-course meal easier to swallow. I have no idea how it will look in the archives, but if all goes as planned the downpour begins tomorrow.

As an appetizer, I offer two things:

1) I’m sitting on the back patio right now and
2) I’m glad to have lived another day.

Why mention these points? Because this is the first opportunity I’ve had to use this screened-in space and I owe that to my parents. They used their weekend vacation to paint the walls, install the furniture, and decorate. Now it’s downright tropical. Thanks Mom and Dad.

As for the gratitude, I was pondering the field of medicine today when it struck me. I’d thought about it before: for several reasons, the most recent being appendicitis (in 2002) I would not be here if it weren’t for modern medicine. I knew that fact, but took it for granted. Of course I’m here; it’s the 21st century. But today I understood: if not for doctors (and living in the US), I would be dead. You know what that means? Every day is a blessing. Even the worst day of my life is still a blessing. And the good days like today are icing on the cake.

P.S. My sister Caroline is visiting for the week, which also brightens my day. Oh, and I just had a fat bowl of overripe strawberries. YUM.

3 comments.

Birthday Surprise

Posted on May 8th, 2005 by George.
Categories: Uncategorized.

It’s high time I got around to posting this; I’ve been sitting on these photos for a week. Last weekend we surprised my friend Carol for her birthday. Her husband and my friend and coworker, Alfredo, took her out under the guise of running errands while Edsel, Vivi and I used the spare key to sneak in, decorate, and cook. It was a fabulous affair, filled with laughter, friends, food, games, singing, and of course dancing. I highly recommend surprising your friends; it’s becoming one of my favorite pastimes.

10 comments.

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