Archives, mostly by month, since the December '99 inception of the blog. I suspect that many links within these pages have become stale. I know that images are spotty in places, too. I have grand plans to XMLize the entire set and do interesting things with it. The amount of text to go through has become daunting and other the call of other projects are quite compelling.
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An excerpt from the near-beginning. How far, or not, has it been.
I know now what this scratchy feeling in my throat really is. It isn't a frog. There was a wonderful show on PBS a few months ago. It was a multi-part show focusing on various aspects of the body and how it functions. The piece I am applying this morning is your body's method of fighting infection; in my case, the flu.
It turns out that the first reaction your body has to the presence of an invader it to go around destroying tissue in the affected area. It isn't pretty, or precise, but it serves to keep the virus in some sort of check until the real specialized anti-bodies are produced in enough quantity to wipe out the virus all together. So, this scratchy and hoarse feeling I have throughout my throat is really due to the loss of a great amount of tissue at the hands of my immune system.
I just thought that was pretty neat.
Did you see that Seattle declared a state of emergency and is enforcing a curfew of 7:00pm tonight (Tuesday)? Amazing. It seems people have broken into a couple Starbucks and a Radio Shack. I can't imagine why anyone would care enough about Radio Shack. It must have been convenient.
Back to my endeavor of reading something besides this screen and the daily news that floats across it. Though, I have to say that Seattle is making quite a bit of noise. By the time I get back there (in about a week), it'll all be settled down and quietly basking in seven hours of drizzled daylight which is the northwest winter.
I started Great Expectations about four months ago. Maybe it was more. This is the current title in the list of actual books I began reading in March. I consider this noteworthy only because I realized that I never read much; never a drop of Shakespeare or Twain or Plato. I had a teacher who loved Stienbeck, but that was as close as I came. It isn't as though I minded this then. But recently, I wanted to give it a try.
It started with a little book titled If you want to Write, by Brenda Ueland. I've been carrying this one around since 1991 where it was the assigned reading for a class. Eight years later I see why it was assigned. Brenda led a life of self determination, self awareness and a good deal of zeal. She convinced me to read Dostoevsky and Blake. If you want a recommendation, read Brenda's autobiography Me. It has been a wonderful experience to take time away from online news tidbits and interesting projects.
I hope it doesn't end with this Dickens guy. Come on ol'Pip, make something of yourself so I can get onto something a bit smaller.