MTT is dead

I don’t know why I should write a memorial to MTT. Many others are doing it better than I ever could. I did know the man. I worked with him. We were colleagues, I suppose, although I’m not sure he would have seen it that way. I was part of his support system which he seemed to view as his natural right to have.

I told Sepi his death reminded me of Dad’s in that he had been ill for a long time. More importantly, both men had not really been themselves for a long time. I was surprised to find out that I had written of MTT just one year ago. Here is the link.

He was amazing, no doubt. Anyone reading this who wants more of my views on MTT should go to the Tag Cloud and look for MTT.

I haven’t written anything here for a long time. I’m a little miffed that he has broken the dam, so to speak, instead of others more worthy. Well, I’ll try to do better. He’s in a happier place. I’m getting to a happier place.

Apollo and other big peacetime projects

I often have insights for writing in the early morning hours. They don’t get translated to actual writing often enough. This is a hybrid, an idea that I don’t remember perfectly that I still want to flesh out.

In my mind, as a child of the 1960s, I have held up the Apollo moon landing program as a perfect example of the best a country can do for its people. Spending on the space program in the decade of the ‘60s was a significant portion of overall economic activity. What other activity with comparable spending – non military, very important – has the United States taken on in the last 100 years?

The money spent, to say nothing of the lives lost, on various wars and weapons systems in that time period I am specifically excluding from this discussion.

A few mornings ago in the wee hours, I had an excellent comparison but I can’t think of it right now. Grrr! The Interstate Highway system comes to mind at the moment but I think there is a better comparison. I am not writing a scholarly paper so you will see no research, statistics etc. This is completely off the cuff. I do remember thinking that this comparison might actually be worthy of a real dissertation, though.

Hoover Dam? The California Water Project? Hmmmm . . .

This will have to be continued . . .

site maintenance

I don’t know why I decided to do some site maintenance today but I did. I used to be into all the nuts and bolts of computers and operating systems. Now . . . not so much.

Worrying about updating my PHP version and making sure I had HTTPS enabled . . feh!

I did it all but it was difficult. There is so much you can do but, honestly, the site does what I need. I ran a backup and a couple of other things but that’s about it. Thanks to all those who read these posts.

two months!

Holy maroly, it’s been almost two months since I posted here. Is anyone still checking on me here? If you have been, thank you. I’m going to try to briefly explain what has happened.

Sepi and I moved into our new home Sept 1. It was her home for many years but she has only lived in a small apartment in the house for around 9 years. The larger part of the house has been rented to a succession of tenants. Our first day was spent ripping out the old carpet and hauling new flooring up to the main living area. Two weeks later, I moved myself out of my apartment. The floor wasn’t done so everything was provisional.

I worked on the floor as I had time but I was quite busy with work so it went slowly. It wasn’t until the first weekend of October that we cracked Sepi’s stored furniture in the garage and brought it upstairs

(draft from November 2018. Now I can let two months go by without writing about it. I still feel bad, but I don’t write about it.)

writing

So as soon as I put in the title of this post, I get what’s called a ‘permalink’ which seems to be the filename of the post in the mysterious mess which is this blog page(s). Today is ends in ‘writing-2’. Oh, have I used this title before? A quick search shows me that I have 15 instances of using the word ‘writing’ including once in a title.

Hmm. I was going to ruminate on writing in general, how a writer must write in a sort of vacuum for a long time before he or she gets any feedback as to the value of said writing. It shouldn’t be a surprise. Most public activities have thousands of hours of preparation before anything is seen by the public. Musicians, truck drivers, baseball players, secretaries

(draft from December 2016.)

single and double quotes

I wrote my previous post with the title Christopher. I’ve been thinking about it and today I decided to go back and put quotes around the title to better indicate that it is a verbal quote. Now it is ‘Christopher’. With single quotes.

Why single quotes and not double? I don’t know, except that I’ve been using single quotes in my writing for a long time now. It’s Continental, or at least British, which seems classier.

I put little lines through my sevens, too, like the Germans, although I still draw a 1 with one straight line instead of two.

Looking for examples, I found this article. It shows the various ones but not the sevens. It made me remember that I write my threes and fours a little differently sometimes.

But it says nothing about quotes. Here is the entry on quotes.

TMI? Perhaps. You can choose.

perfect is the enemy of the good

I’ve been busy lately, but the truth of the matter is that I just haven’t sat down to write posts much over the last few months. I realized this morning that I’ve been waiting for that perfect moment when I can clear my head and concentrate on writing something worthwhile.

I want to give my readers – few though they may be – value for their time. With very few exceptions, I am proud of the writing that I’ve put into this blog over the past 2 1/2 years. It may be that by writing in less than ideal circumstances I may not write up to as high a standard.

So, this is a try.

Dad is gone. Mom is alone in her – their – house. Sepi and I are going down today. There are some more insurance papers to work through but mostly it is just to hang. She is busy, she says, but the nights are the hardest. Last week I went down by myself and ended up staying to about 9 pm. At the point of leaving, the fact of her alone-ness at night in that big house hit me. I almost offered to stay, but I realized that she had already been alone for several nights since Dad’s death and it was a fact that wasn’t going to change.

It’s Presidents’ Day so no band tonight. SoundBox starts tomorrow. Life continues.

a new year

Well. Since the beginning of September, I find I have written only 5 posts on this blog. That’s four months, for those of you scoring at home. I will do better this year.

I think about writing often, though. Usually, it’s while driving to work. Since moving to Brisbane I’ve been taking a SAMTRANS bus into town some of the time. I get off at Mission and Ninth and walk the four blocks to Davies. At Van Ness, I usually have to wait for the light to cross. Cars and trucks whiz past seemingly at only an arm’s length away.

How fast are they going?, I think. 40 miles an hour? 50 miles an hour? 53? Sometimes I think about how it would feel if one of them swerved and hit me. I usually stand behind the traffic light pole just in case. The sidewalk is not very wide at that particular spot. I look at the drivers’ faces as the speed past. Often they are hunched over the steering wheels. Their tension is evident. Where are they going in such a hurry? Work, mostly, I think.

I am fortunate in that there would be no bad consequences if I was late to work – once in a while. Like once or twice a year. I generally allow enough time to get to work calmly. No work is important enough to have an accident.

two years

Sort of continuing my last post . . .

Originally, I was going to write about my last week and how stressful it has been making preparations for my wedding with Sepi. This is not a political blog.

I may develop that further but for now I want to acknowledge the second anniversary of my public writing here.

Two years and two weeks ago I put up my first post on this blog. This post is number 277. If I’ve done my arithmetic right, that’s a post nearly every three days on average. That’s remarkable especially since the last three months have been much less often than that.

Thank you to my loyal readers and commenters. You are few but very meaningful. I’m going to try to write another post tonight to bring my average up. (Just kidding.)

timeliness

I’ve often wondered what would be the best frequency for posting here. It’s not a news site so daily is a bit much, although I toyed with the idea for a while. In my head, anyway. In fact, long time readers know that I rarely post two days in a row and I don’t think I’ve ever posted three days in a row.

Droughts are more common. I’ve often gone a week without making a post but most months have had at least a half dozen. I’m not going to go back and generate statistics. I’m making a point about the last two months. Well, since March 1st, about 7 weeks. Since then, I’ve only written five posts.

The March 1st post hints at the upheaval in my life that occurred that week. Since then, I have been re-evaluating everything and writing pithy commentary on my life just hasn’t been in the cards. Next week, I’ll be going up to Washington to visit Jeremy and his family. I’ll also be seeing Peter and Nanci in Spokane as well as my cousins Dan and Nettie. I don’t have any high expectations that I’ll be posting from up there but I have hopes of breaking the log jam and being able to post more often when I get back

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Category Archives: Nuts and bolts