September 15, 2007- Part 2

The photo of me that i now use here on this page, was taken in August to put into a brochure about all the people working on our project at work. I say all of this because I don't really look that good most of the time. I hardly wear makeup, usually wear my hair pulled back in a ponytail, and generally look, well, frumpy-but comfie!

Digging around in the drawers of my computer printer stand I found some old picture negatives of me taken when i was in Europe, and some from several years ago, when we were on vacation.. I miss the way I looked then.

No lines on my face, no body parts sliding earthward- crud, i even had thicker hair, which over the last 20 years has turned fine, which is OK by me when I see my brother, who looks like a cue ball...thank my stars I don't have to deal with that!!! So I was looking at the pictures, and then I looked at myself in this large wall mirror and sort of realized, I look somewhat like mom when she was my age..being a wide assortment of ethnic backgrounds, dominated by Germanic and Celtic ancestry, its no wonder I have the features i do.

My doctor once told me i have physical traits common among northern European background people- I get a skin burn in no time, have had skin samples taken off my face to see if it was cancer(thankfully no- but now i do wear face makeup that is SPF 20) and like my mom, I am tall. I am a little over 6 feet tall, mom was 5' 10" (although now in her 70's I think she is 5' 7" maybe). My brothers are both tall- one is 6' 3" and the other 6' 5".

Trust me, it was no picnic growing up being tall and skinny like a twig, which changed after age 30, and now i fight the weight monster like everyone else i know. As my friend Angela would say, this is getting to be TMI-Too Much Information...

Bored?? OK, look for something more entertaining in my next entry; i have to go fix dinner now anyway...

September 15, 2007 - Memorabilia (or more about age)

I was cleaning out the drawers of a nightstand i have in my home office, which i use for a printer stand and has a large compartment on the bottom in which i put technical magazines (aka Microsoft Technet, Networking, ISSA Journal,etc.) and came across a ticket to a Grateful Dead ticket, circa 1972. OK, so i think about this a minute- New Riders of the Purple Sage and Dead in Sacramento. Hmmm. I went online and found a poster-yep, seems familiar. I remember going with some friends to see a concert, and I do remember seeing the New Riders, because I remember singing along(not well mind you) to I think the song was Panama Red...Yes, I remember the auditorium, and since we were in the upper balcony, we had to look at the stage through a fog of smoke- OK, now i remember. I think because of the smoke( wacky smoke if you know where i am coming from) we got sorta high and then my friends must have started smoking a joint. At this point all recollection is speculative. Hey, i was a sophomore in college, and this was a while ago. Give me a break. Still, having absolutely no memory of the headliner act is a little disturbing....I think afterwards we all went to a park by the river and likely partied...I wonder if this is the time the cops found us making out in the back seat of the Studebaker??

I hope my daughter doesn't read this, or I am going to get one of those "Did you REALLY do that, what were you thinking" emails. Kids...

September 13, 2007 - Ursa Major

My friend Joe inspired me to take advantage of the clear night sky, and look for the celestial body I have always been fond of, the one I can readily find - Ursa Major, or in most part of the US, simply known as the Big Dipper. Although living in even a small town there is enough light pollution to make finding this difficult, and on trips to places to L.A . (and i am not referring to lower Alabama either) it seems all the lights in the sky are moving.

I sit on my patio, gazing heavenly to see the stars, and ponder the lights on the horizon- I wonder, is that Venus? Mars? What amazing alignment, I had no idea the planets were aligned like that tonight..."Honey, come look at the planets all aligned, quick, get the telescope" Yes, I have a telescope, I think we ordered it from the Discovery store or something, and rarely use it.

After some struggle, I get the thing aligned and steady on the tripod, and fix my eyes on the first of the planets I see, "Oh look honey, its all red, it has to be Mars" My significant isn't buying this, looks on and sighs "but I didn't hear about any big alignment and the news is always babbling about this stuff?" Quickly running in the house and looking up a sky chart on the computer, I run back outside and try to orient the chart to the night sky...where was Mars? It has moved? No, I must have been mistaken, but then what planet is that, and how did I miss it? "Look honey, three planets!" I giggle. Honey, bored, goes back in the house. I retreive a stool from the kitchen , and park myself scanning the stars. I install the optional thingy that allows me to attach my camera to the telescope; I am going to record this moment in digital photos!

Carefully using the binoculars, I find my target, and now steadily align the scope. I can see it!!! Its reddish glow, I know its Mars!! I notice another brighter light to the west, and slowly focus on it...Whats that I wonder? To the naked eye, its a ball of yellowish light, but now in my telescope, its more whitish, slowly it comes into view...what the ??? Change eyepieces, and OH NO...Its a big happy Eskimo! What? I have been gazing at the lit tail of an airliner?? I zoom out a little and see the blob I have been tracking now has headlights, oh lord, and then I realize I have been tracking Alaska Air, coming in. Shifting to the horizon (how appropriate) is Horizon Air, probably several miles behind. Is that reddish glow there? is it Mars? Sadly, no its Southwest airlines (which are kind of reddish orange planes). The "planets" were actually three airliners, coming in to the airport several miles away...I slowly bagged up the telescope, and went back to looking up, at Ursa major...with my eyes only...

Patriot Day, 2007

36 U.S.C . § 144. Patriot Day

(a) Designation.— September 11 is Patriot Day.

(b) Proclamation.— The President is requested to issue each year a proclamation calling on—

(1) State and local governments and the people of the United States to observe Patriot Day with appropriate programs and activities;

(2) all departments, agencies, and instrumentalities of the United States and interested organizations and individuals to display the flag of the United States at halfstaff on Patriot Day in honor of the individuals who lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks against the United States that occurred on September 11, 2001; and

(3) the people of the United States to observe a moment of silence on Patriot Day in honor of the individuals who lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks against the United States that occurred on September 11, 2001.

I will always remember flying from Denver to Newark on Continental about 20 years ago, and looking out the window as we were coming in to see in the distance the twins towers, silver with a golden glimmer from the setting sun. Although the images of 6 years ago are seared into my mind, I chose to remember the view I saw with my eyes that summer day from a plane rather than the horrid nightmare that visited my country less than a decade ago.

While on this subject, i wanted to quote a column I read today, from Anna Quindlen:"Remember how we said we would never forget them? We forgot them. ...How American. ..."

Maybe I am a minority, so be it. I haven't forgotten. All i need to do is close my eyes, and visualize what I saw on TV- a low flying airliner plunge at nearly mach 1 into a tower as the other burns; people holding hands as they plunged 100 floors to avoid burning to death; the absolute feeling of unbearable sadness. Crying so much my eyes hurt. Being unable to sleep, and crying some more. The changes it brought.

Being met at work the next day by armed police, who wanted to search my bag, where previously the unarmed security guards had been. I have not forgotten. And I resent being told that...

9/10/2007 - Two subjects- Serious and not serious.

Two subjects- Serious and not serious.

First, not serious: As the uber connoisseur of beer, Homer Simpson says "A woman is like a beer; looks good, smells good, and you would run over your own mother to get the next one."

Now, back to reality...I was think today about what the day will be like tomorrow. I know at work there is going to be a commemorative moment in the AM. My cousin was in WTC that day, and managed to exit the place. He was mentally messed up afterwards though, lost his job as a financial adviser, and ended up leaving everything, the house , the vacation cabin, his wife, to go back into the Army. He is still in, getting these gigantic bonuses to stay in. I haven't heard from him in over a year, although his mom and mine write so I think I would know if something had happened. Last time I talked to him in person, he distant, like that main character in Apocalypse Now ...Captain Benjamin L. Willard. He had been to Afghanistan, back, Iraq, back, Iraq again, back, and was going to Fort Irwin in the southern California desert to train soldiers survival skills for fighting in Iraq.

For all i know he is part of Bush's surge...be safe cousin...

Back to not serious- Mt Angel Oregon is having their Oktoberfest September 13-16, yet in Munich (München in German) September 22 to October 7...now THATS a beer party.

I went to Germany in 1977, spending time in Heidelberg. I made side trips to Berlin (once) and to Munich and southern Bavaria numerous times. In the autumn, a bunch of my friends said lets go to Oktoberfest, and off we went. i think i went with like one change of clothes and a tooth brush. One of the weirder things was they had these fences made of like spruce limbs arranged in a square, which were the restrooms. After drinking a 1 liter of beer, i didn't care who saw what anymore, so peeing in semi-public was no big thing. It was walking in to this soggy bog you know was wet from beer pee that was gross...sorry, i know, too much info...

September 05, 2007- Memories...old and new

I was reading the comments left on my blog, and it started a lot of memories coming into my head. This is something i think we all hopefully will experience, the ability to say " Why i remember 30 years ago..."

Thirty years ago, (actually more, but who's counting) my parents threatened to make me move home in college when my dad came to visit me. He was not pleased to find me "shacking up" with a guy and his sister; he asked me if we were some sort of commune or something. Yeah, dad, we're all hippies, dancing in the streets, baying at the moon, high all the time(well much of it anyway..heck it was the early 70's) But we were all just friends, and worked and went to school...

College - gee, quarterly fees were about $75, books were cheaper used(although someone elses study notes in them was not cool). BUT living away from home, especially with friends was like a really long vacation...more later.

Today..well first few months ago, one of my pals got a well deserved promotion. She had worked with me a few years ago, and we had enjoyed it immensely; she has a lot more knowledge about programming than I do, I tend to be more a taking a concept to design person. Part of our team included Jane from China who kept saying goofy things like she had a accent because she was in this country "ten year only", until you pointed out her American born daughter was 13; she was and is an excellent programming analyst, absolutely hard working and fun to be around. So now that Char is a Server Resource Manager, she sent me an email asking if I knew of any programmers she could contact for a new position she has, and i recommended she call Jane...blah blah blah, Jane is pretty much a lock for the job. Networking can work sometimes...although if some guys did this, it would seem like the"good ole boy " thing. So today Jane invited me to meet her and Char for lunch, which was nice. We ate outside at a cafe and Char was surprised how i had shed the hippie look for the "more professional look". I was wearing a neckline a little lower than usual, which she says caught the eye of our waiter. I doubt it, but still, its nice to think I look OK, especially when i consider I am approaching "retirement" age......

September 04, 2007

Well here we are in September! Yesterday was Labor Day in the USA, which meant a lot of people didn't have to work, and a some did. Holidays in the USA are kind of like that-some people will have to work no matter what, like the police and fire, some work because their employer requires it, and other get every holiday on the 'official holiday list' which fluctuates a little by your location.

Over the weekend I was shopping online, and click on a 'Try a new hairstyle NOW' link. I had to create a user account, for a women's magazine, and now my inbox is full of junk..oh well. I did get to upload a picture and try several style...which led me back to having bangs, which I had been growing out. Only the thing is, my hair is fine, and as the hair in front got longer, when i was say at a cafe eating outside and the wind blew, i would experience a stray hair finding its way to my mouth , more than once or twice. Besides being gross, it got to be embarrassing, pulling hair out of my mouth with yuck stuck to it...i mean food yuck..Sometimes I think this weird stuff must only happen to me, because none of my friends ever seem to have had this happen to them.