Month: October 2007

What happens when parents blog?

A few months ago I began encouraging my mother-in-law and my father to blog. Both are great writers and have interesting experiences that I felt would make for good blogs. Although it’s been a slow process I finally convinced them both by offering to setup their blogs on WordPress off my domain.

My father lives 900 miles away and my mother in law about 1200. I see them maybe twice a year. We instant message and have the occasional phone conversation. But there is something personal about their blogs that I’m not able to experience through other means of communication. I’ve learned surprising things about both of them. I feel as though I’ve been given a secret door into their lives that I didn’t know existed till now.

I hope both will continue to write so that my kids will have that record to look back on. My grandmother moved into a care center last week which my father blogged about. I’ve thought about how much better I would know my grandma had blogs been around in her day. Sure, I spent a lot of time at her house in my younger years, but I’m certain I would have learned a lot more had I been given the same insight into her life that I’m now getting with my father and mother-in-law.

–Link to Dave Nordquist’s Blog

–Link to Edna Henke’s Blog

The Purpose of the OS

Dave Winer nails what I’ve tried to explain to friends since Vista arrived on the scene:

An OS is still just an OS, the purpose of the OS is to stay out of your way until you need ithandraised

This explains perfectly why I can’t stand Vista. It’s like the annoying kid in class  who raises and shakes his hand to every question the the teacher asks. Vista constantly yells, “HEY, LOOK AT ME!!!” It’s in your face when you don’t need it.

Down boy, down.

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Running on Empty

It had big gold hinges. The outside was light brown and the inside was orange portableand black. It weighed about 15 lbs and was about the size of a smaller piece of luggage with the cover on. It was the first portable music device I’d ever seen. It was a portable record player. When I say it was “portable” what I mean is that it could be moved from outlet to outlet quite easily. This was a time before the iPod, Walkman or portable CD player. The year was 1977. 

And it didn’t belong to us. My father would bring it home from the school at which he taught which meant we were able to jam out to tunes during the summer months and over the occasional weekend and holiday when school wasn’t in session.

But it was a magical time when my father would show up with it in hand. I’d take it from him, run into the living room and pop the cover off and plug it in. I’d keep a stack of 45s in my room just waiting to be played. runningonempty

And my favorite 45, the one I played over and over until it wore out was “Running on Empty” from Jackson Browne. It was my favorite song that happened to have the coolest cover. I’d play it over and over. I loved the beat and the drums at the beginning and the crowd applauding at the end. It seemed like the perfect rock song to a 10 year old. I’d crank the volume as loud as a mono speaker could go until my mother would tell me to turn it down. If I was lucky she’d be in the basement doing laundry and I could get in a few songs at top volume. Had I been thinking I should have asked my dad to “borrow” a set of headphones from the school too.  

Nearly 30 years later, Running on Empty is still one of my favorite songs. But now I listen to it on headphones at my computer or on my iPod. The song is still relevant today. And that cover and drums are still pretty dang cool. “Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels…”

A few other favorite Jackson Browne songs of mine are The Pretender (YouTube) and The Loud Out/Stay (YouTube).