~the white balance camera blues~

Stuff in No Particular Order of Importance, Relevance or Interest:

1. So I kept telling myself that I'd come across a snake in the mulch pile, but why then...did I jump a gazillion feet when it came up wrapped around my pitchfork?
2. And why, when I like playing around with my camera so much, won't I sit down for a consecutive period of time, an amount that is required most likely to actually open and read the manual?  Perhaps even to comprehend it?  Okay, so the white balance might be set wrong or the f-stop or whatever but I just want to turn it off and then back on (like a computer) and have everything work again like it used too.
3. So this whole developing a website/database/public access repository of coral-associated microorganisms might work after all.  Help has arrived, help in the form of a young man with a degree in Discovery Informatics and a University with computing...power.
4. Researching clinical trials for lung cancer is a lesson in frustration.  Actually - finding the trials themselves are easy, and the folks you call are helpful and knowledgable and they are really very kind.  However what I have yet to find is a clinical trial that also states 'your mother will be cancer-free after six months of pure hell' and all of this will be over and your father will be happy and your mother will be out in her garden once again, planning for another spring instead of calling her oncologist for a prescription of cough medicine.
5. Lingering areas of interest to the southeast coast - formations of clouds that seem to be oddly enjoying their location between the northeast coast of Florida and Bermuda - are annoying.  Okay, it's not the second Category 5 storm of the season aiming at me, so I'll quite whining.
6. I'm becoming noctural.
7. I want to find an old farm sink for my new home's kitchen.
8. I don't want to shop for an old farm sink for my new home's kitchen.
9. I heard today that the sister of a woman at work, a 46 year old sister, died of lung cancer last Monday.
10. Okay, I said I wouldn't rant again.  I did it once already.  But once might not be enough.
11. I get more pages to edit and review each day than I can possibly edit and review in a day.  I get further behind each day.  Yes, I need to learn to say...that word.
12. I have about 100 pages left in the latest HP novel.  I think I'm reading it slowly because I'll miss it when it's all over.  Or else I just read slowly.
13. The garden is waking up again after a hot and dry August.
14. In the time it took me to write this I could probably have fixed my camera, found an old farm sink on line, and reviewed something.
15. What am I doing here? 

Comments

[Carol]

I would probably have heart failure if I found a snake at the end of my pitch fork. I was digging out some shrubs this weekend and was afraid of finding a small snake in the undergrowth. But luckily, I didn't.

[Agricola]

Did you say Discovery Informatics? University with computing power? Please provide details for this aspiring DI major at your local college.

[layanee]

Snakes are good, snakes are good...I keep saying this but then there are few poisonous snakes where I live and they still scare the heck out of me. It is that primal fear. I need to take a camera course! The manual is a pain and unless you have a specific task, impossible to retain! You are reading HP slowly in order to savor the experience which much be a far cry from reading and writing grant proposals. My friend bought a soapstone sink for her kitchen which is quite old fashioned yet industrial looking at the same time. It came from a place in Vermont which would make the freight high for you but it might be worth it. Let me know and I can send details if you wish.

[jeff]

Well, that was quite a list. At least you weren't disappointed by "Lord of the Gourds". If a giant pumpkin doesn't make you smile, back to Dunleavy's with you!!!

[Pam]

Carol: You'd have heart trouble in my garden then, the snakes are out of control. I still haven't gotten used to them - especially those big poisonous ones.

Layanee: My very nice brother lives in Vermont (Stowe), so Vermont isn't out of the question - I would be interested in hearing more about the soapstone sinks. Thanks.

Jeff: I was mesmerized by the 'Lord of the Gourds' and am developing my own gourd-growing plan for '08 as I type this. They'd better not poke my gourd though. That would be offensive. And yes, if all else fails, back to DunLeavy's for me (which, considering that it is the unofficial official start the the (two) month of birthday, isn't such a bad idea.

[Pam]

Agricola: I emailed you on your gmail account about our DI hire - I really like him so far, and that's optimistic, don't you think?

[mss @ Zanthan Gardens]

I felt the same way when reading HP. I read it very slowly because I didn't want it to end. I just wanted everything to go on--leave it open-ended. (Very against my J-type need for closure.) Then I got to a section, which my husband refers to as the "non-put-downable" point of a book, and I didn't do anything else but read it.

When I got to the end, I just started reading it all over again.

[John B.]

It strikes me that most if not all of these bulleted items are the same sort of variation on the "immovable-object-meets-irresistible-force" moment: the recognition of but not acquiescence to the fact that there are certain things we wish we could will to our will but which won't change in response. Taken in turn, some of these are humorous or wry; their accretion, though, is humbling or melancholic, a reminder of our impotence to change certain things unless we change--or, for that matter, our impotence to change certain things, period.

I feel a blog post coming on . . .

[Pam]

MSS: Well, last night was finally my point of no return, and I've finished the book. I could probably read the last 100 pages again more slowly, but I don't know if I will. I'm not sure how I felt about the whole Dumbledore thing, but overall, the ending was pretty predictable. I guess that's okay.

John B.: I'm glad that something about my crazy existence at the present time inspires someone to do something. Yes, it's tough having things in front of one that they can't change - I'm used to trying to figure out ways to do things, resolving stuff, mapping ways to go around something if you can't go through it. Yes, humbling and melancholic pretty much covers it. You could toss a bit of inadequacy in there as well. I'll look forward to your post.