With that in mind, I’ll say that Spring has flung itself on central Illinois rather early this year.  The seventies are a magical temperature; one or two days of that warmth and little green sprouts appear everywhere.  In fact, this might be one of the only St. Patrick’s days I can remember where there was an abundance of clover on the ground.

In honor of the warm weather, I went for a hike in the woods, something I  enjoy immensely.  The pleasure of walking in the woods is hard to define: it’s not a feeling of solitude that fills me when I walk the narrow path between trees; on the contrary, it feels like I’m right at home.  The trees remind me of people, like I’m walking through a crowd.  Only these people aren’t doing anything; their only duty is to exist.  I think that’s what I like about them- if humans like me just tried existing for awhile, without appointments or distractions, without emotion, without thought, life might not feel so overwhelming.

So I tried it.

I tried to just exist in the woods- I didn’t talk, hum, sing, or create any other disturbance.  I also tried not thinking, but that turns out to be really difficult, since the act of willing yourself not to think takes a conscious effort.  Instead, I tried to only think about my surroundings, and forget about the past and future.  Emotion was out too, but that’s not as difficult to supress as thought.  Practiced meditators might be able to suspend thought and emotion, and verge on tree-like, but not me.

Instead, I tried to behave like an animal; not devoid of thought, but ignoring things that aren’t immenently affecting me.  For a couple of hours, I resigned from my responsibilities as homo-sapiens, master of the Earth.  It didn’t last, as you might have guessed, but it was interesting at the time.

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A bumper crop

It’s gumball season, and this looks to be a vintage year.  This haul is just from my front yard, and is therefore only a portion of the gumball harvest.  Soon we’ll be making gumball sauce, gumball cider, candied gumballs, gumbalaya, and much more!  The best part is that I don’t even have any Sweetgum trees in my yard- 3 gargantuous trees are planted in my neighbour’s yard, which means I get all of the gumballs and none of the pesky shade.

My legs are rather sore from bending down to pick the pointy pricklies from the damp soil, but getting to spend some time outdoors is worth the effort.  A little fresh air is a welcome respite from the glue-perfumed air of the house.

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Phase 1, as you may recall, was breaking open the wall between the kitchen and living room, and recessing the fridge into what was previously the pantry.  Phase 2 began even before the completion of Phase 1, with shocking results.  You see, Phase 2 was destined to be the replacement of our ugly stick-on vinyl floor.  Ape and I had our hearts set on the pinnacle of modern, responsible flooring, Marmoleum.  Sadly, our bank accounts can’t keep pace with our wishes, so we settled on a lovely bamboo remnant from a larger job (must’ve been very large, since the leftovers could easily cover our kitchen floor).  We took a sample home to make sure it looked alright, and decided that it looked nice, and we would sleep on it to be sure.

The next day, April called me at work to let me know she had a surprise waiting for me when I got home.  Perplexed as I was, it slipped my mind as the day wore on.  As I was getting ready to head home, a horrible stabbing pain seized the back of my left eyeball and refused to let go.  I laid out on the floor to try to relieve the pain, but no change.  I walked home in the rain, and by the time I reached my door, the pain was so intense I felt nauseous.  Unable to contain the surprise any longer, Ape reported that in the course of working on the kitchen wall, she’d discovered that there was a hardwood floor beneath several layers of vinyl.  Under better circumstances, I would have been thrilled; instead, I went and laid down on the bathroom floor.

The newly-discovered wood floor

I eventually made it out of the bathroom and into a bed.  After a couple restless hours, I fell asleep at about seven o’clock and didn’t wake until my alarm went off the next morning at 7:10.  Whatever had afflicted me so strongly the evening before was long gone, and I felt ready to properly celebrate the discovery of the wood floor.  Little did I know what lingering effect it would have on my circadian rhythm.

It turns out the wood is a perfect match to the wood covering the rest of our house.  Of course, there were some challenges to recovering the floor, not the least of which was a 5-layer sandwich of vinyl floors and adhesives covering the last 50 years.  Once the previous floors had been removed, there remained a layer of paper and adhesive.  For the next several days I labored with soapy water and a putty knife to peel off the sticky sh*t.  Everyday at about 8:00 I felt exhausted, and fell asleep well in advance of 9pm.  The natural sequitur to going to bed so early is rising early, and these last few days have seen me awake at 5 or 6 in the morning, an hour usually reserved for starting long trips.

I’m glad to say that the floor is now clean, and I’m slowly trying to slide back in to a more normal sleep schedule.  Here’s what I’ll be dreaming of:

The floor (not pictured: glue and other crap)

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To take advantage of the gorgeous day, I decided to jump on my Honda and go for a ride.  To my great surprise, I rolled over 1,000 miles on Saturday.  A foregone conclusion, of course, but to cross the 1,000 mile mark in February was surprising.

What was perhaps even more surprising was that I saw a peacock in the middle of the road.  Naturally, I didn’t have my camera handy when it was most needed, but I reckon I can track the peacock down again; it didn’t move too quickly.

Kitchexplosion 2009 update:

April and I may have found our new kitchen floor; a fllooring place in Eville had about 120 sq. ft. of bamboo left over from another job, and it just so happens we like the color.  Otherwise, not much has changed over the weekend- if things go well, we should complete Phase one this week.

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Taking a walk in snow engages so many senses.  When it’s falling, you can hear the steady patter of snow flakes hitting the ground- that’s my favorite white noise (no pun intended).  Watching it drift though the sky verges on hypnotic; it’s really the only weather sight I’d describe as beautiful.  Hearing, seeing, and feeling it fall is the most calming sensation I can imagine.

Of course, freshly-fallen snow is the sequitur to the above.  The crunch crunch crunch of your footsteps in a quiet spot is so satisfying. I think it fulfills some deep-seated need for attention.  After a good crunching, I immediately look at my footsteps and see how far I can jump, which isn’t very far when wearing longjohns and bluejeans.  Then I notice the sparkle- a lustre that seems to come from nowhere.  By daylight, it can be blinding.  But at night, the light from the houses gives it an elusive shimmer.

What might be the most interesting thing about snow (at least in these parts) is the effect it has on people.  They may hate to drive in it, but it’s a rare person who doesn’t sit and stare at it for a bit, or go out and play (something they might rarely do otherwise).  My guess is that for this region, the ephemeral and rather rare appearance of snow gives it an importance other folks don’t understand.

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For others, yes.  The inhabitants of more northern climes enjoy plentiful snow and skiing; folks down South lack the snow, but benefit from overall milder weather.  As  Illinoisans, we have the worst best of both worlds.  I really think the midwest must be one of the most profitable regions for electrical and gas utilities- we require year-round climatisation.

I manage to stay comfortable in most places, through a combination of forced air heat and feline convection.  The only concern I have is for the Junipers I planted in the front yard.  They were a lovely green when I planted them in November; now they’re a healthy brown shade.  How can I keep them out of Juni-peril?

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With the countdown to the 100th post (this one being #96), it became evident that I needed a new webhost.  Selecting a webhost is a major life decision, and I’ve been putting it off for too long.  I have high expectations for a hosting company:

1. Don’t nickle and dime me (looking at you, Godaddy)
2. Give me the tools I need to maintain a site, not some crappy tool developed just for your site
3. Give me something to believe in- I’m talking Green hosting or Open Source Software or something

3 simple needs, how hard can it be?

Real hard, as it turns out.

A lengthy search only left me with a few choices, all of which involved compromising one of my requirements.  Damnit.

I put it out of my mind for a few days, along with going to the doctor and getting my piano tuned.  While casually browsing the web yesterday, I remembered a colleague mentioning Dreamhost.  My only knowledge of Dreamhost was that they hosted 1-click WordPress installs, something I’d seen advertised alot.  This struck me as the Microsoft approach to software, and we all know how well that tends to work.  Still, I felt obliged to explore the possibility.

2 hours later, my Dreamhost account was established, including a new domain.  That left me with the task of migrating my WordPress database from a derelict desktop computer to the glitz-and-glam Dreamhost server.  It wasn’t easy, but I’ll say that my initial estimation of Dreamhost was way off- I had absolutely everything I needed to manipulate my Mysql databases, upload images, setup mail (which is handled by Google Apps), the whole works.

Expect more posts, more action, and more shameless self-plugs.

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I’m a big fan of finding the definition of tough words on google. So today, I popped this gem into a google search:

define: stultifying

And google, with billions in profits and an army of computer scientists, answered my query:

Definitions of stultifying on the Web:

Tending to stultify
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stultifying

Yes friends, even in the 21st century the actual definition of a word is quite elusive. Nor is there a link to the verb stultify, which would represent a great leap forward in dictionary world. I would have come to the same conclusion if I’d brushed the cobwebs off of the stultiest old dictionary in the world. When will we see the day that a person can find a definition of a difficult word that doesn’t include the incomprehensible word which sparked the search?

This underscores a pattern I’ve been noticing for the first time. The web is not, as is so often believed, an innovative thing. It’s largely a new manifestation of the old- and I happen to have the perfect example. For centuries, libraries have relied on paper cards stacked oh-so-neatly into a drawer which sits amidst dozens of other drawers. This represented the pinnacle of bibliographic organization- the card catalog, as it was known at that time.

Then came library automation, a term which to my ears sounds every bit as archaic as talking picture.

Automation relied on very primitive computers and a helluva lot of magnetic tape, which in time was transferred to more complex computers with magnetic platters (most still use this medium), and most recently, library catalogs on the internet. From the time of little cards up to the age of the iphone, libraries have developed dizzyingly complex system which allows us to search for any library material, anywhere, anytime we want. And we call it….the card catalog.

Should this surprise anyone? Not if you look at the information stored first in paper cards, then magnetic reels, then magnetic platters, and soon solid state drives. No, bibliographic information has scarcely changed at all throughout a period of unprecedented technological advances. Naturally, you’d assume it’s because your average librarian is a luddite bookworm, loathsome of google and the monopoly on information it has formed. But you’d be wrong.

At every level of our society, technology shapes our activities. What it doesn’t change is our habits/needs. If you think about it, it’s hard to prove that any technology has really changed what we do; it merely changes how we do it. Library catalogs contain the same information, regardless of what medium they occupy. Same with video- it went from reels to smaller reels (tapes) to dvd’s to blu-ray discs to the internet. But we still watch it, just the same. Music is nearly identical, if not much older example- we’re just as aurally stimulated by tribal chants as the Beatles music in the itunes store. Agriculture, one of the oldest activities our civilization has ever pursued, bears no resemblance at all to the pasttime our ancient ancestors (or even farming as our grandparents knew it, for that matter). And of course, the world’s oldest profession hasn’t changed a bit.

What then, constitutes a real change? I can’t say with certainty. I can’t even be sure that there is ‘real’ change. It’s entirely possible that time is circular, and we just keep reliving the same things in different settings. A very simple analogy is foliage- every year the trees grow new leaves, each one absolutely unique, yet almost indistinguishable from its neighbor. Every year they spend the season, change colors, die, and re-emerge. If you think about it on a larger scale, this yearly cycle might seem to never end. Left alone, our consciousness might not even conceive of linnear time, since every year the leaves experience the same cycle.

Our bodies give away the illusion- year after year, we change (sometimes imperceptibly, other times not). It’s most noticeable in children- they make change more quickly than the rest of us (or maybe we stay the same more than them). In any case, it would seem that this is definite evidence of linnear time. Naturally, I disagree. I don’t think we’re fundamentally different from leaves- we’re all unique, each with his own time and place, yet we’re bound to a singular existence- no matter what, we still do the same things as the folks who witnessed the turn of the first millennium, and we’ll still be doing the same things 1,000 years from now.

With that in mind, I fully expect many things to be different. We’re pretty screwed if 1,000 years from now we haven’t begun to spread to other planets, fly in air-cars and walk our dogs on automatic treadmills. But then, we’ll still be doing the same things, whether it’s in space, in hell, or somewhere in between.

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What’s that, shadowy conservative? He’s from the same city (population 9,000,000) as Obama? He’s probably a co-conspirator, that wily high yellow.* After all, you can’t spell ‘guilt by association‘ without ‘guilty“.

Lord, give us strength.

The real gem in this whole affair is listening to the raft of commentators attempt to prononce the name Blagojevich. Needless to say, his name suffered more than a sullied reputation.

*This term is apparently not nearly as racist as one might suspect- I’d never even heard of it, which might be why it doesn’t carry the stigma that other racial adjectives do.

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