Personal
Personal reflections, comments about things I've been doing, etc.
The latest meme
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 07/24/2007 - 12:06Yesterday, Shine With Grace tagged me with the latest meme from JohnCow.Com.
It is the typical mailing list, ponzi scheme type meme. Copy the original list, which should include your blog already, if you’ve been tagged, and then add five more people to the list.
As I noted in a different list, if you get in early, your in good shape, but the meme can only go around six or seven deep before everyone in MyBlogLogs is reached. Also, as I’ve noted elsewhere, I’m not a big fan of copying the instructions. The more text that you have which is the same as on other websites, the more likely you are to be tagged as some sort of spammer and have your links denigrated.
Another thought about these sort of memes. Not only will this would increase your subscriber rate, which is probably a good bragging right, but doesn’t do much else for you, but it is also likely to raise your Technorati rank. My Technorati rank climbed considerably when I participated in the viral tags meme. However, the downside is that when you try to find who is linking to your site, all you find are the meme related posts, and you don’t find a lot of valuable content. Some people think this helps Google Page Ranks, but I don’t really think it does.
That said, I’ve been tagged and I want to honor that. So, here is the original list:
- Subscribe to JohnCowdotCom
- Subscribe to BobmeetsWorld
- Subscribe to LifeisRisky
- Subscribe to TheKingKongBlog
- Subscribe to My New Hustle
- Subscribe to GadgetTastic
- Subscribe to Life of Browie
- Subscribe to Disregard Me
- Subscribe to Everybody Go To
- Subscribe to Brian Vaughan
- Subscribe to Fuery
- Subscribe to Sam Breadstone
- Subscribe to Christy’s Coffee Break
- Subscribe to Behind The Page
- Subscribe to Shine With Grace
- Subscribe to A Great Pleasure
- Subscribe to Slingshot Thoughts
- Subscribe to TheNextPost
- Subscribe to Project Armannd
- Subscribe to Made To Be Good
- Subscribe to Necessary Skills
- Subscribe to Orient Lodge
- Subscribe to Chris Garrett On New Media
With that, here are the five people that I’m tagging:
- Subscribe to mard
- Subscribe to America in 08
- Subscribe to Cat on My Head
- Subscribe to Jafabrit
- Subscribe to My Life Starts at forty-two
I would encourage you to copy the list of sites and add your own five sites. That said, write your own thoughts about the meme. You will probably find it easiest to copy the source of the html and paste that in. If you have questions, let me know.
Lots of stuff
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 07/23/2007 - 12:57Health
I had another appointment with the allergist today. In a nutshell, I’m allergic to shrimp and dust and should avoid them. If I have a strong reaction, antihistamines should be fine. Kim’s Lyme disease has been acting up and she’s back on antibiotics. Miranda sprained her ankle playing ultimate Frisbee at camp. Fortunately, it was the day after the first dance. I spoke with her last night and her arms are sore from the crutches, but she is in good spirits. My mother will have knee surgery in about a week. One of my friends has a bad infection which she had a year ago, and it has returned. Another is going in for a hysterectomy in a week. A third friend lost her mother to cancer this week.
With many of these cases, there have been issues one way or another with insurance and how things get paid for. All of this provides a good setting for me to go see Sicko. The Working Family Party in Connecticut has a great idea. Ask your State Legislators to go see Sicko with you. It would be good to get more of the Legislators to see the movie. At the same time, it would be good for more people simply to learn who their State Legislators are. I remember when Kim ran for State Rep and I heard a statistic that 85% of Americans don’t know who their State Rep is. Do you? Have you ever gone to a movie your State Rep?
Technology and the move
Most people get in touch with me via an email address that comes as part of my Internet service from my cable company. I’ve had this email address for many years. I’m on many mailing lists and in many address books with this email address. I’ve also used it for signing up for many social networks. We expect to move during the month of August, probably to an area served by a different cable company, so my email address of many years is about to go away. So, I’m starting to change as many subscriptions ahead of time as possible, and get as many people using a new email address.
I’ve had email addresses at Google and Yahoo! for years and I check them from time to time. You can use those addresses by simply changing the name of my ISP to yahoo.com or gmail.com in email address. The college I went to provides email addresses for alumni and I check that address from time to time. For that, you can use my first initial, my last name and the year I would have graduated at alumni.wooster.edu
However, I am encouraging most people to contact me at an email address I’ve set up to go with this blog. Simply use the domain name of the blog, and add my firstname, a dot, and my last name as the beginning of the address.
Unfortunately, this morning, my domain was down because of a hosting problem. It has since been resolved, but it gave me a scare.
Technology and social networks
As part of the email address transition, I updated my profile at Plaxo. I was pleased to see that they now include OpenID. I’ll see what I can do with that a little later.
I’ve also added my new email address as a contributor to my ”blogger” blog. At some point, I’ll update that blog to use the new templates.
I’ve also started kicking around new, at least to me, social networks. One is Blogcave. You’ll see my recent readers widget on the right near the bottom. So far, I haven’t seen anything that Blogcave does that MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog and BumpZee doesn’t already do. I figure sometime soon we will see a shake out in this space similar to what we saw with click exchanges.
I’ve also added OthersOnline. Again, it is similar to MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, BumpZee as well as BlogCave and Criteo. It works primarily on tagging, so is a little closer to having something unique. I’ll search some of the links they come up with.
Lijit is an interesting site that I’ve stumbled across. It does web searches based on what you’ve found interesting in social networks. Think Rapleaf for searches. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get their widget to work properly. I’ll kick that around more later.
Travels
On top of trying to figure out my next job and moving, I’ve got a bunch of traveling coming up. This Thursday, we’ll be going up to Falcon Ridge for the weekend. It is a folk festival we’ve gone to for years. The following Thursday is whenYearlyKos starts. Like Falcon Ridge, it will go from Thursday through Sunday. I’ll probably attend it in Second Life.
However, starting on that Sunday, is the National Conference of State Legislatures annual conference. It is up in Boston and I’ve applied for press credentials. It goes through Thursday. However, Wednesday I am planning to speak in Connecticut about blogging. Once that is all done, it is back home to deal with packing and moving. I’m hoping we’ll have some friends and relatives around to help with that.
Getting rid of stuff
As we prepare to move, we are going to be getting rid of a lot of stuff through many different venues. Some stuff we will give to charities. Other stuff we will try to sell online, perhaps through sites like eBay and Craigslist, as well as some specialized lists. Some stuff we’ll give away through Freecycle, and in the end we may have an estate sale, and/or just get some junk removal company to come take things. So, if you’re interested things from the house, let us know.
Other Stuff
My latest graph of MyBlogLog surfing is up on Flickr. Stop by if you’re interested.
I’ve also recently added a bunch of sermons that I’ve received via email to the Stamford Independent site that got set up a long time ago, but never really gained traction. There’s some good stuff there if you like reading sermons.
So, that’s it right now at the Hynes household. Lots of stuff.
The connection has timed out
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 07/21/2007 - 09:17It seems like yesterday
But it was long ago
One of Random Magus’s favorite books is Siddhartha. She has a great blog post pondering the metaphor of the river in Siddhartha and her own struggles against the tide.
She writes:
Yet I have always found myself opposing the river, maybe some of the disquietude in my soul can be blamed to not relinquishing myself to the the flow of things and letting things happen the way they are supposed to be.
I added a comment there, which I’m incorporating into this blog post. Siddhartha has long been a favorite book of mine as well. I've read just about everything Hesse has written as well as authors that were influential to Hesse, like Gottfried Keller.
I remember reading somewhere, but I don't remember where, that Hesse said you should not read anything he wrote before he was fifty, and you should only read it after you were fifty.
Siddhartha comes close. He wrote it when he was 45. I'm now 48 and I understand the longing to stop striving.
Against the wind
We were runnin' against the wind
We were young and strong, we were runnin'
Against the wind
It's interesting, just before reading this, I was over at Kellyology's blog where she did one of those online quizzes about burnout. She scored 74%. I hit 90%.
I'm sure that plays in there somewhere.
Back to the image of the river, I've found that there are times that I feel like flotsam on a river. Tossed about, sometimes getting stuck in an eddy behind a rock, sometimes drifting through slow water, but always moving.
The years rolled slowly past
And I found myself alone
Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends
I found myself further and further from my home
And I guess I lost my way
There were oh so many roads
I was living to run and running to live
As I read Random Magus’ post, Bob Seger’s song, “Against the wind” wound its way into my thinking.
Against the wind
A little something against the wind
I found myself seeking shelter against the wind
Today, we are going back for a second look at a house about three minutes from Kim’s father’s house. It is a small house in the woods. It is a family house. The family had lived their since probably the fifties, and it still has a lot of a fifties feel to it. Both Kim and I saw things in and around the house that reminded us of the houses we grew up in.
Well those drifter's days are past me now
I've got so much more to think about
Deadlines and commitments
What to leave in, what to leave outAgainst the wind
I'm still runnin' against the wind
I'm older now but still runnin' against the wind
Well I'm older now and still runnin'
Against the wind
When this move is all done with and we are settled in where ever we end up settling in, hopefully the stress will decrease. Perhaps I will be more like Siddhartha. At the beginning of the book, we find him In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the riverbank near the
Boats.
After all of his travels Siddhartha finds his way back to his childhood friend. Siddhartha tells him, "I'm travelling. I was a rich man and am no rich man any more, and what I'll be tomorrow, I don't know."
Siddhartha settles by a river ferrying people across. Where will the river lead me? Random Magus? Kellyology? Others that I’ve met in the blogosphere? How does this relate to parenting? How does this apply to the political process in our country today? What will we be tomorrow?
It was getting late into the night and time to head off to bed. But before I did that, I followed one more link.
Firefox responded with its message, “The connection has timed out”
Insider/Outsider Politics in Connecticut
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 07/19/2007 - 15:31Over on MyLeftNutmeg, there is a post about an upcoming gathering of Young Democrats in Stamford. The attendees include several notable political figures from the area and my good friend Sal observed that it looked like a lot of insiders there.
This spawned a lengthy discussion about how easy it is to become an insider in blogs and in Democratic politics in Connecticut. It was noted that Sal is the State Coordinator for a Presidential campaign and is in many ways very much of an insider himself.
To me, it felt that some of the people who had crashed the gate and become insiders were defensive about their role on the inside and dismissive of those who remained outsiders. There was talk about the insider/outsider dichotomy as being divisive. This is unfortunate. There is nothing wrong with being an insider or an outsider and ideally we should embrace the insider and outsider aspects that we all have.
I am very much an insider. I am helping with the technology for Jim Himes’ campaign. I was Ned Lamont’s technology coordinator. I was John DeStefano’s blogmaster. I was campaign manager for my wife’s campaign when she was one of the first Dean Dozen candidates in the country. I was a very active volunteer with the Dean campaign and have been ask to write chapters for various books about the Dean campaign. I was credentialed to cover the Libby Trial in Washington this year, the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004, and numerous other events. Yeah, I’m very much the insider these days. I’m proud of what I’ve done and hope to continue doing it.
At the same time, I feel a tad uncomfortable. You see, I’ve always been an outsider, the outcast, pariah. I wasn’t one of the popular kids in high school or college. I never intended, nor particularly wanted to be an insider. It happened by accident. At the same time, even today there are special gatherings of bloggers that I am not invited to. There are ‘true insiders’ that I feel uncomfortable around and would say that I’m not a ‘real insider’. They dismiss whatever I say as self-aggrandizing.
I guess it is a good thing. I think it helps me keep my edge, my perspective. You see, I believe the most significant political moments have occurred when the outsiders and the insiders meet. What matters is the moment of crashing the gate and the mixing of ideas and energy that happens in the moment. Political groups often talk about their insider/outside strategies, and I think we need recognize the importance of these strategies.
Yes, it is very easy to become an insider here in Connecticut and within blogging. We need to keep it that way. We need to be aware of barriers we put up, intentionally or unintentionally which keep out people who feel like outsiders.
This is some of the reason I like to focus on non-political blogs. I like to visit, get into discussions and get ideas from people who are much further outside the political process then some of the self-professed outsiders in political blogs.
The Internet has broken down many barriers to communication, but many more barriers exist within each one of us and our interactions with those around us. Let’s take our gate crashing seriously, not to get inside, but to make it easier for everyone to get inside.
Farmers’ Market Redux
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 07/15/2007 - 20:16A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about our trip to a farmers’ market. Because we have signed up with a Community Supported Agriculture farm, we go back every week to get our basket. This week, Kim wasn’t feeling well, so Fiona and I went alone to the farmers’ market to pick up our box of produce.
Last time I was there, we picked up some fresh picked peas, which we ate on the grass surrounding the farmers market. The peas are gone now and string beans are in season. We got a nice bag of string beans in our box of produce and Fiona and I ate many of the string beans fresh, as we walked around the market. Later, we snacked on them at home. There were also four very fresh ears of corn, some nice tomatoes, more basil, and plenty of other great vegetables.
We signed up not only for the vegetable box, but also for fruit, and there was a basket of blueberries and several lodi apples. Lodi apples are one of the earliest apples to be available. King Orchards describes the lodi apple this way:
The earliest apple of the season, Lodi is an old-fashioned transparent-type apple. It is cross between Montgomery and Yellow Transparent, introduced by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva in 1924. Green to light yellow in color.
Like our previous visits, we stopped and bought some locally raised meat. This time, I picked up a kielbasa which would be part of our dinner. There was a man selling lemon aide and brownies to raise money for Discovery to Cure, a program at Yale to help fight ovarian cancer. I picked up a magnet for the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, as well as brownies and lemon aide for Fiona and I to have for our picnic on the grass.
Raspberries are starting to come in, but they were pretty expensive, so I skipped the raspberries. However, on the way home, we passed some wineberry bushes that were loaded with berries. I pulled over to the side of the road, and Fiona and I hopped out of the care and picked a bunch of berries. As we continued home, we passed a few other wineberry bushes and hopped out to pick those berries as well.
We didn’t get enough wineberries for a wineberry pie, but we did get enough to be used with the lodi apples to make an apple and berry pie.
So, for dinner, we had fresh corn on the cob, locally raised kielbasa, some pasta with the tomatoes and basil, and a little cheese thrown in, and ended off the meal with the apple and berry pie.
Like the previous trip to the farmers market, this ended off a close to idyllic day. After Fiona had gone to bed, I sat down and tried to get a little closer to catching up on all my unread emails. Over on a mailing list of folks interested in media education, there is a discussion of how U.S. media covers Food, Fashion, Fitness and Finance. One person wrote:
Food is intensely political... By political I mean it directly affects our lives, human decisions in centralized bureaucracies of corporations and government shape this effect, and above all: we can together take action that influences these decisions or even moves the decision-making power into our hands... Food, fitness, and finance, meanwhile, are important parts of health, sustainability, opportunity, independence, freedom, and justice.
In a different part of the email, the person wrote, “It's not that these four Fs are covered, it's how they're covered.” He’s right. We need more discussions about how our food relates to our health; how we can live more sustainable lifestyles be eating more locally. It would be good to see more people talking about this. Until then, I’ll probably keep putting up blog posts here and there about the importance of eating locally, not only in terms of health and sustainability, but also in terms of how wonderful it can be.
