Author: cdwan

Low and slow, that is the tempo.

It’s in the mid-60’s today. The ground is waking up. I plan to plant rhubarb tomorrow, and peas if at all possible. People are walking around in bare feet and t-shirts, blinking in the sun and squinting at each other.

My mind is working slowly but with great momentum. A cement sphere, 20 tons at least, rolling ever so slowly across a parking lot.

From Overlap; Ani DiFranco

….I build each one of my songs out of glass
You can see me inside them I suppose
Or you could just leave the image of me in the background I guess
And watch your own reflection superimpose…

Somehow, another week has gone by. Wow. Woosh.

Yesterday, I spent the whole day in the machine room untying a gordian knot of power and network cables. The tricky bit was to do this without accidentally taking down any of the machines. I think I succeeded, and it’s considerably (a) simpler (b) cleaner.

Set up a fan this morning to provide the all important air motion as my seedlings develop. This helps prevent mold, and also makes them stronger and less spindly. They need to be toughened for their eventual move outside.

I can already tell that today will be a day where I work all day on support, and end up with more open tickets than I started. Frustrating.

Once again, I present to you excepts from Friedman’s NYT Column:

When Iraq was just violent, but the political situation seemed to be stumbling forward, it was possible to believe that a decent outcome could still be achieved. But when Iraq is increasingly violent, with ethnic and religious rivals murdering one another and the politicians squabbling endlessly, there is no reason for optimism. U.S. forces in Iraq can’t be held hostage by the notion that Iraqis may have a civil war if we leave. They are already having a little civil war, and if they are determined to have a big civil war, I prefer that they have it without us. But we need to make one last big push to find an alternative.

Mr Nasty, Brutish, and Short-tempered

I’m having a strange customer day. This guy is being nice to me.

Thanks for the clues, it is a wonderful project to work on. I will play
with it today and see how it goes.

He continued:

You guys really have crafted a pretty solid process here, I am
impressed.

I sense a trap. My axe is at the ready. Still, somewhere in the core of my dark, cold heart …. a spark of light flickers. Could this feeling be, no, not *happiness*?

According to The Register, Google is planning a world takeover involving orbital mind control satellites. Here’s the proof. Reminds me of a picture of _earthshine_‘s whiteboard.

Big thanks to my mom, who sent two new books: A complete translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, edited by the translator for the current Dalai Lama, and a book by said Dalai Lama titled The Universe in a Single Atom, the convergence of science and spirituality. I’m currently making my way back through The Art of Happiness and finding lots of good stuff in there that I didn’t notice before. Spring must be a good time to read philosophy.

In other news, my seedlings are sprouted. We’ve got cabbage, marigolds, tomatoes, and other stuff springing out of the dirt in my little peat pots on the porch. It makes me deeply happy. The cheapo-test that I performed indicates that I’ve got basically no nutrients in my soil. So I got some 10-10-10 and spread it all over the lawn and garden today. Also picked up some “home plant insecticide spray” to hopefully keep down the population of jumping tiny-bugs that are leaping around on the seedlings. I’m not a fan of the jumping tiny-bugs.

The cats are very affectionate today. One is sitting between my elbows as I type, and rubbing her head on my chin. It’s cute, but in an irritating sort of way.

Poem: “Grass” by Ruth L. Schwartz
from dear good naked morning © Autumn House Press. Reprinted with permission. Blogged without permission.

Grass

“You can put this shipping tape on your packages and your airplane luggage. Every time I fly, my luggage gets a card in it telling me how ‘for my protection’ they have searched it. Now, when they open my luggage, they will have to literally slice the 4th amendment in half in order to do this.”

This is what it’s like when I play Halo 2 online:

Under this link, there is a comic with a dirty word in it

New essay is up. Short. I’m tired. The 10,000 year plan.