Life is Art

The irony part had me giggling.

There are bitter ironies, and there are evil idiots, and then there’s the Westboro Baptist Church.

Goodbye Steve Jobs. You left the world better and more interesting than you found it…

Thoughts on Steve Jobs' passing at my blog

wilwheaton:

I wrote my first story on the Mac 128 I got in 1984, and my second, and my third, and pretty much all of them until I got a color Mac II in 1988. I wrote on that for years, until I got my first Powerbook in the 90s. I used that Powerbook to take my first steps onto the Internet, using a VT100 emulator, a 4800 baud modem, and the mysterious ftp and telnet protocols.

Today, I own and use a Macbook Pro and an iPad. I have so many iPods, most of them just live in a drawer at my desk. My wife has an iPhone and an iPad — the first two devices that made it possible for her to embrace her inner geek and understand the one she married — and both of my kids have Macbooks. Anne has an iMac in her office that she uses every day.

Hearing that Steve Jobs died today hit me in the stomach, even though I’m not an Apple Fanboy, and I love to tease and make fun of Apple Cultists. I use a rooted Android and spend almost as much time in a Linux VM as I do in Mac OS… but the world I live in was shaped by Steve Jobs and the people he inspired. I got to find the person I am because Apple tools made it easy for me to take my ideas and move them from my head onto paper when I was a kid, a teenager, a twentysomething, and today.

I don’t agree with everything Apple does, but I feel like the world lost an important person today, and I feel like I lost a distant relative who I never got to meet, but knew everything about because for one reason or another his influence was everywhere I looked.

What is this all leading to?

I live for the most part by the motto: “if it isn’t broken, why fix it?”

I’m referring to the new Facebook changes for the most part, but there are plenty of other sites that apply.
I admit I am not good with change if I am completely content with the way things are. But I can adapt if I think the changes are necessary.

Are they really?

I try to read what I can about how we should be dealing with these changes. Maybe I’m not reading all I should or the appropriate articles, but it seems the articles I do read, all have warnings about privacy….serious privacy invasion.

I’m trying to decide if it’s my age, or the fact that I’m an introvert, or just a private person? But it seems going online is a double edged sword. You want to connect, but the price of your entire private life available for everyone to see is the sacrifice you must surrender to do so. I’m not embarrassed by anything I’ve done in life. I just don’t feel like my life should be up for broadcast, to people I don’t know or want to broadcast to.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been diligently trying to do things to my Facebook page to help cut down on what is being or going to be revealed. It seems strange that there is a ton of hoop jumping to go through to make sure that I still have some control over my own life. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I should be granting permission…right? Thank goodness I have a teesy bit of tech-savvy, I feel for those that are stumbling around their pages, or worse, completely oblivious to what is happening, and how to deal with it.
I hope they are fine with the changes, I really do.

Why is there such a need to reveal so much?
On the internet war room table…What is this leading to?

I’m waiting to see what the new changes actually bring. But my finger is hovering over the profile delete button.

639 days

I’ve never seen the 4th level of the obstacle course, but I will persevere. ~me

I was surprised. My Wii Fit was happy to see me. Wasn’t even upset that it had been 639 days since my last visit with it.

….OOPS!

I shall be clear. I don’t hate exercise…I hate being forced to exercise. Oh yeah, and I also hate to sweat, even though I sweat at work, even in the winter. I think that’s plenty of sweating. No?

Work kicks my butt every single time I’m there, and I’ve come to a reluctant conclusion that it isn’t all my jobs fault. I am just colossally out of shape. I’m not letting work off the hook completely though, my co-workers and I each do the physical job of at least 3 people every night. It’s never fun, and many of us have chronic physical problems because of this. I’m hoping, for me, being in better physical shape with better flexibility will stave off more problems in the future. I guess trying to not feel like I’m 90 years old is a goal.

I recently re-joined our local YMCA (if you consider a 3 year absence re-joining). It’s a brand spanking new building and sparkly new equipment and facilities. My main goal was to do Aquafit (Aerobics in the pool). My absolute favourite thing…a workout without sweating! WIN! They have other interesting classes as well and I’ve been slowly testing them. ’Fusion’ is interesting and it varies each class (which is a very good thing). It’s a combination of light aerobics, yoga and Pilates. I like it, but it is only once a week and I can’t always get to it. Apparently I’m going to be a ‘Zumba’ fanatic. I even leave aquafit early to make it to the beginning of this class. We have a great teacher and it’s very fun. I shall liken it to a cross fusion of Latin inspired dancing.

There are other classes available, but I am not ready to take classes like ‘Boot Camp!” Actually I don’t think I will ever be ready for a class like that. I’ll stick with Aquafit, Fusion, Zumba, walking the dog, and working towards the 4th level of the Wii Fit obstacle course. I think that’s plenty of exercise. No?

I’ve never wanted to hug a frog as much as I want to hug this one right now

I’ve always tried to present a positive view of the world in my work. It’s so much easier to be negative and cynical and predict doom for the world than it is to try and figure out how to make things better. We have an obligation to do the latter

Jim Henson

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

Elizabeth Warren (via caseystratton)

Butternut Squash Soup with Apple & Bacon - Fine Cooking Recipes, Techniques and Tips

It’s fall, my favourite season. I love so many things about fall besides the weather. Fall foods being one of them. All of a sudden many of the peeps I follow on Twitter and Facebook were posting about everything and anything squash and pumpkin, my craving for anything involving either became unbearable. So I shopped yesterday and got all the ingredients for a squash soup. 90% of the time I could probably live on soup, so it was a good call, and it turned out very well. I am enjoying a bowl as I type.

Yum!

glamour:

Ralph Lauren, Spring 2012.

OMG…want!

Here’s another collage. My thoughts have always been that, the back of a dress should be just as interesting as the front.