Saturday, April 08, 2006

Email: Personal boundaries [CH]

Yes, I read The Four Loves [by C.S. Lewis] in college. Have you read The Five Love Languages [by Gary Chapman]? Nurturing is good in a relationship once it reaches the proper mutual depth. I understand that is your “style” but there is a boundary for “taking responsibility” where neither [partner] should “own” or worry about the other more than is customary or appropriate. Married couples can go more deeply into that, but taking personal responsibility for things that are not yet “ours” is a boundary thingy.

Don’t worry about second-guessing yourself in a dating relationship. If you are “living in the light,” then (boundaries again) each person is responsible for his or her expression and response -- the actual, not imagined, expression and response.

I hope you don’t feel you are Grasshopper to my Master. (I’m no master.)

Don’t rely too much on book learning but on your heart to teach you. That’s why I point but let you find your own path. I respect you that much.

Trivia: Four things lists

Four jobs I have had in my life:
  1. Grocery bag-boy
  2. Delivery driver
  3. Newspaper reporter
  4. Magazine editor

Four movies I would watch over and over:
  1. Memento
  2. Life Is Beautiful
  3. Matrix (all four)
  4. Lemony Snicket

Four places I have lived:
  1. St. Paul, MN
  2. West St. Paul, MN
  3. Lake Elmo, MN
  4. Houston, TX

Four TV shows I love to watch:
  1. Ally McBeal
  2. 24
  3. Family Guy
  4. La Femme Nikita

Four places I have been on vacation:
  1. Lake Superior North Shore, MN
  2. Ft. Myers, FL
  3. Madrid, Spain
  4. Medellin, Colombia

Four websites I visit daily:
  1. Yahoo Mail
  2. Hotmail
  3. Blogger
  4. Netflix

Four of my favorite foods:
  1. Grilled cheese sandwich
  2. Omelet
  3. Rosemary lemon chicken
  4. Parmesan crab angel hair

Four places I would rather be right now:
  1. Colorado mountains
  2. Minnesota North Shore or Boundary Waters Canoe Area
  3. British Isles
  4. Glacier National Park

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Press: Pope became priest to confront Nazi culture - AP

AP - Pope Became Priest to Confront Nazi Culture:

"'There was the Nazi regime,' [Pope] Benedict said. 'We were told very loudly that in the new Germany 'there will not be anymore priests, there will be no more consecrated life, we don't need this anymore, find another profession.''

'But actually hearing these loud voices, I understood that in confronting the brutality of this system, this inhuman face, that there is a need for priests, precisely as a contrast to this anti-human culture,' he said."

Press: Five hurricane names to be retired - AP

AP - Five Hurricane Names to Be Retired:

"Last year's five is the most retired in a single year.

This year's hurricane names will be: Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine, Oscar, Patty, Rafael, Sandy, Tony, Valerie, William."

(So what about Achmed or Aliyah, Beren or Babe, Chester or Chuchi, Damon or Delilah, Erfert or Enya, Finlay or Fiamma, Giorgi or Griselda...? I could go on.)

Email: Hotmail Support

24 freaking spam emails in 24 hours?! Two months ago it was 2-6 per day. (No, I don't publish my address anywhere.) You people have got to do something about shutting down the spammers, not just funneling their dreck into a bucket (where four-fifths of it misses the bucket and still ends up in my inbox).

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Press: Ars Technica

Ars Technica seems to be a Reader's Digest-like compendium of science and technology news, all in one place. See articles of interest from Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures to vignettes on dinosaurs, genetics, and more.

Nostalgia: With names like these...

My very first clients (back in the mid-eighties, though I wasn't the liaison to them) were named Debby Fussy ("That's 'foos-y'," she would say) and Larry Lash. Really.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Web: Visual Thesaurus

(via Sophzilla) Try the Visual Thesaurus!

Monday, April 03, 2006

Typos: persectives (perspectives)

Every page header reads "supply chain persectives" in the 32-page March 2006 issue of PennWell's Supply Chain Perspectives.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Email: Off the deep end [CH]

I think women do not like it if a man jumps promptly into the emotionally deep end of the pool; it's unnerving when they are used to seeing (trained to expect) men as (to be) emotionally withdrawn and taciturn.

Email: Healthy competition [CH]

In Texas [and the South], they really get into beauty pageants and cheerleader competitions and so on. Yo-ow... Twilight Zone... Stepford Town...

Still I agree that, for emotionally healthy children [and parents], competition is the best way to promote healthy self esteem. It's only by knowing your capabilities that you can feel secure in them (as far as they go).

Musings: Rehearsal or groom's dinner

Before moving to Texas, I always heard the post-wedding-rehearsal family meal called the "groom's dinner" but have since heard it called the "rehearsal dinner." I wonder if this is a regional variant or if I am noticing for the first time that men tend to use the former term while women use the latter. Opinions?

Websites: Jerabek's New Bohemian Coffeehouse and Bakery

My sister's fourth-generation family bakery, Jerabek's New Bohemian Coffeehouse and Bakery in St. Paul, Minnesota, finally has a web site just before it celebrates 100 years of multiple-award-winning baked goods. I'm very proud of her for continuing the family traditions of old world excellence. As the St. Paul Pioneer Press began its review of all the chocolate cake-making bakeries in Minneapolis and St. Paul (8/8/97): "Nobody, but nobody makes a better chocolate layer cake than Jerabeks... It's a real doozy, the kind your grandmother would have whipped up for Sunday dinner: hearty, no-nonsense, oh-so chocolatey and utterly all-American."

Email: Strategic vs. authentic [AS]

Businesswomen often display "masculine" traits, just as artistic men often exhibit "feminine" traits. If I were to express the polarity in a pair of words, I'd say it's strategic vs. authentic, expedient vs. sincere, analytical vs. intuitive (true to the situation vs. true to the self). Yes, every person is unique, and we don't want to prejudge any person or group, but any group can be counted to find that a majority shares one trait or another. It's not saying any one trait is better than another, but it is what I call "paying attention to what is really going on."

While paying attention is usually about one's priorities, it's also about one's abilities -- and one's circumstances.

Email: Truly disgusting [AS]

I've [heard] about toad licking; I didn't know you had to piss off the frogs (not literally). I can see the t-shirts: "Poke a toad" and "Just say no to toad poking"... Sort of makes boot licking sound tasty, huh? [Yech!!]

Books: Sick Puppy - Carl Hiaasen

A trust-funded, self-styled ecoterrorist stalks and harasses a boorish, womanizing lobbyist who is helping a graft-ridden developer quietly bulldoze the home of an endangered species of toads, winning over the man's dog and wife in the process, to humorous effect.