Technology. Gotta love it.

5/17/11 UPDATE* 

It appears that I'm screwed. The last message from Blogger is: "Update (5/15 10:55PM PST): Blogger should be back to normal for the vast majority of people affected by this issue -- if posts are still missing, please check your drafts (you may need to republish)." 


If anyone has suggestions on how to pull out of my laptop the history of what I wrote please let me know. The draft that is saved is about 1/4th of what I published.



5/13/11  For those who are looking for the 50/50 post from Wednesday: 

This is what I've learned from the Blogger blog:

We’ve started restoring the posts that were temporarily removed and expect Blogger to be back to normal soon.

— latest update on Friday, May 13, 2011

To get Blogger back to normal, all posts since 7:37am PDT on Weds, 5/11 have been temporarily removed. Blogger is in read-only mode for now. We expect everything to be back to normal soon. 

— latest update on Friday, May 13, 2011

Random Stuff 2

Car Design:

There have been some wonderful car designs come out of Detroit the past few years. The Chevrolet Malibu, Camaro and Cruze are just a few of the top of my head. GM finally got away from the bland body styling that made it nearly impossible to distinguish one GM product from any other.  Ditching three divisions didn't hurt GM either, although it was disheartening to see Pontiac tossed away.

Chrysler, well they still chug along. The 300 is a styling masterpeice leading the charge back to large muscular Detroit iron.  The Sebring/200 though... yeesh! I've not driven the 200 yet but anything would be an improvement to what they last did to the Sebring. I owned a 2000 Sebring and loved it. Of course that model was based on the Mitsubishi Eclipse.  And while I can certainly see the inspirations for the last Sebring coming from the Crossfire, the translation to a four seater convertible was a disaster only surpassed by the four door hardtop model. Awkward styling, horrible finish materials and sluggish performance. Thank God I didn't have to drive it much as a vacation rental car.

Ford also continues to surprise with each refinement of the Mustang and Fusion while missing the mark with the fat ass on the Taurus.  The tail lights on that monstrosity, while elegant in their own right, are way too small for the caboose they rest upon. Now Ford has just introduced the restyled Focus for 2012. I'm not sure if the stylist was aware of their inspiration or if it was a quirky accident but I think if you get the car in black instead of

white you'll truly be able to see who it's father is.  Is it Darth Focus? Or Ford Vader? The Focus does have a pretty neat function where the grill shutters close to  make the car more aerodynamic. Just don't be surprised if you find yourself with a John Williams score running through your head whenever you approach it from the front.


What's in a Name?

I work for a company that I can't talk about. It's a national company and we as employees see confidential information as a matter of routine. The company is so sensitive about confidentiality that I'm not even allowed to look up my own information through their systems. But that's not what this is about. Instead it's about the names that cross my computer screen from time to time. I'm not able to give you specific examples but think of those childhood name gags we all laughed about: Seymour Butz, Ima Pigg, Dick Trickle and Jim Shue. Yes, the last two are real. Mr. Trickle is a famous stock car driver from 1984 to 2001. The last one would be a not so famous small town Hoosier boy. What I can say is that my co-workers and I get a chuckle or two everyday with some of the names we see.

I'm just constantly surprised by the names parents foist upon their children. There was a unusual name in the news here in Indianapolis a few weeks ago... a woman with the name Sparkle. If the first image in your mind was of a stripper I wouldn't be surprised. I have no idea what her profession was, but I'd almost guaranty most people will assume something besides attorney. What may sound like a cute name for a child turns out to an awful adult name. I'm imploring parents to think of how it's going to sound when their daughter is being called Desire' when she's 80 years old.

The final thing I have to say about names? Stop with the "unique" spellings. Dhe'bee is just wrong, wrong, wrong! You're just asking for your child to have a lifetime of correcting people. Or if they're smart, they'll change it as soon as they're legally able to.

Winter's Hearth

Oh! The neglected blog and the guilt that goes with one. The following passage was started w-a-y back in January. I got stuck with the notion that finishing it would hurt some people who shouldn't. This is the crux of my "writer's block", letting go of making people from the past feel bad. At the end of this post I'll talk more, but for now here's the slightly delayed post.

"Winter is the time for comfort - it is the time for home."
-   Edith Sitwell

Oh, if that were only true. Since Thanksgiving I think we were only home once or twice on weekends. The weekends we were around we were busy doing the normal holiday things that most families do. It's only been the past two weekends that we didn't have much on our plates. So my apologies for being absent these past two(!!!) months.  

The above quotation is true though in the fact that in the winter we seek the comforts of home which I think is why people try so hard to make the holidays like the ones they used to know. Or think they know.  Memory can be a tricky thing and can seem a little rosier over time. Plus most of those memories are from the view of a child when everything is new and magical. 

I think I've stated in previous posts that I don't like nostalgia. I have no use for it. I believe it stems from not having an idyllic childhood (but how many people do?) It would be too easy and futile to list all the ways things went bad for us.  It would be equally futile as well to list all the people who by either being active participants or just by their absence allowed my brothers and I to live in a manner that no one should live in. It would also be easy to live my life dwelling on everything that went wrong with our childhoods and feeding the resentment that would come from all that.  But I choose not to live like that.  There is way too much beauty and love in my life to allow that darkness back.

Every now and then something comes along to remind me of what was and what may have been.  Recently I finished reading a remarkable book by Daniel Woodrell called Winter's Bone. If you get the chance to read it, do so.  It's gritty, horrifying and all too real.  The story takes place in the Ozarks and is told from the point of view of Ree a sixteen year old girl who is put in a major predicament by her father who disappears leaving her to raise two younger brothers and care for her mother ~ a mother whose "...mind broke and the parts scattered and she let them go."  It's a world involving meth cookers, small towns and people who in some way or another are related to each other.  


It stands as a reminder of a world that could have been different for my brothers and myself. That's where the dislike of nostalgia comes into play. I think books, movies, and stories sometimes remind me of just how fine of a tight rope we sometimes walked.  The reading of that book also coincided with the reading of a journal page that my brother gave me, one that he wrote in high school.  Reading it broke my heart imaging the pain and loneliness that he experienced growing up in a house where our mother had checked out years before. My heart ached and I sent a copy of the pages to a friend of mine who told me I was reading the wrong things on them. She said I needed to concentrate more on the comments his teacher had made. A teacher who shared a part of her past to connect with him and to encourage him to do well and prove all the people wrong who said he'd never amount to anything. 

My friend also reminded me that none of us, my brothers nor I, are bound to that place anymore. We have our own families now. She reminded me that I am a husband and a father and that in no shape or fashion am I the same person I was. For a while there, I think I was drawn back down into the past. What I really wanted her to know is that I'm amazed that if it weren't for the caring and support of a few significant people at certain moments in our lives... well I just don't think our lives would have turned out as well as they have.


Now, back to the beginning of this post.  For a while now I've wrestled with the idea of taking this blog anonymous on a different site but decided that would be somewhat dishonest on my part. I don't want to hide behind a shield of anonymity. Doing so would take away a certain responsibility to be honest about what I write.  So I've decided to stay right here in plain sight.  

But at the same time I can't be responsible for what someone may feel from reading my blog. I don't mean that to sound flippant but I can't worry about anyone but three people in my life: myself, my daughter and my partner. That's where my responsibilities lie. And really, if someone feels guilt, sadness, remorse or whatever about what I write, then they need to ask themselves why and what did they do or not do to make themselves feel that way.