I’ve been having a bit of fun with a FB group called “The View From My Window.” And despite some snark from my model-railroading-cousin-in-Ohio (“Oh – you’re still on FB?”) it’s been a good ride, with people from all over the world posting pix that range from the breathtaking to the mundane-but-still-fascinating. A lot of sunrises and sunsets, plus plenty of late-spring-still-snowy shots from up north, all the way to late-fall-in-the-southern-hemisphere from New South Wales. The idea is to include a bit of window-frame, even if it’s only your car window on the way to/from work. I leave it to you to go to the site, here, for the latest and greatest. But I can’t resist this one I just saw: Gotta love that tongue-in-cheek.
The last known photo taken just as the meteorite hit the earth wiping out the dinosaurs. Thought everyone could do with a good laugh after all the negatives on the group of late.
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The poster’s comment about “negatives” is apt, as I’ve noticed a fair bit of complaining about a lack of actual window frames, about U.S. 2-letter state postal code abbreviations from folks outside the U.S., and this one, about, well… you can read it for yourself.
Why is this group turning more and more into a “look here is my cat in front of a window” or “hey look! This is a street, but not from my window” group….
My own complaint has more to do with the sheer volume of posts – many dozens a day – which is hard to keep up with, especially for those of us with a mild case of OCD. But be that as it may, here are a couple of selections from all around the world that I have NOT posted on FB yet, but likely will post eventually. I myself didn’t take all of them, and not all include actual windowframes. But the world could be a wonderful place if we’d all just lighten up a little. And you can say you heard it here first, folks.
Dunnottar Castle near Aberdeen, Scotland. Photo credit: KAW.
Downtown Denver from the hill behind our house. Framed by trees, not a window, but still…. “This view does not suck.” (DAH)
My realtor calls this “Urban Living At Its Finest.” I don’t know about all that, but I do call it “My Home Away From Home.”
Here it is folks: Proof positive from the inimitable New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks that even late-middle-aged UChicago grads can develop a sense of humor eventually, albeit under duress. Been there. Done that. And yes, thank G*d for tech-savvy offspring, without whom many of the arcane mysteries of WordPress would remain unsolved. (Thanks, @BenWolf!)
It is never easy to re-examine one’s fundamental convictions, but now I am forced to question my previous disbelief in the existence of Satan. I am compelled to confront this ugly possibility by the fact that from time to time my electronic devices seem to fall under demonic possession.
Now, I should start by saying that I am not someone with a natural animosity toward personal technology. I have been known to be completely reasonable when the supermarket self-checkout machines refuse to let me proceed until I place my last purchased item into the bagging area. I patiently explain, sometimes with dramatic physical re-enactments, that, in fact, I have placed the product directly in the center of the bagging area, and even into a bag itself.
Despite these kinds of sympathetic efforts, technology finds me wanting; I am disfavored within the silicon-based community, and the situation has become so bad that it’s brought to mind this possibility of a malevolent presence — Beelzebub, Lucifer, the Dark Lord, whatever you want to call him.
Let me describe the events of last Friday, when technology was especially mean to me. I woke up in Chicago to find that my phone, which normally charges through the port on the bottom, was no longer accepting charges from that entry point. I didn’t think much of it, assuming I could clean out some dust or something.
Then I tried to pair it with my earbuds, which it usually automatically pairs with. Nothing doing. This sometimes happens, so I tried connecting it with my backup earbuds, the ones that sound like they’re beaming music from the bottom of the Pacific. These devices also refused to be on speaking terms. I went to the Bluetooth page on the phone, and it was just a bunch of “not connected” readings.
I did what any master technologist would do. I rubbed the earbuds against my phone in a seductive circular manner that I thought might foster a rapprochement. I put them in my ears and grazed the phone against my cheeks with a pressure that was amorous and gentle, but also firm. Still, the phone and earbuds refused to sync. People talk a lot about artificial intelligence but not enough about artificial obstinacy.
As I rushed to the airport my Find My app rubbed salt in the wounds by telling me I had left behind the earbuds that my phone refused to recognize in the first place. At the airport it occurred to me that I might clean the charging port by using a suction technique. So if you were at Midway International Airport last Friday and a small child asked you, “Why is that man sucking on his phone?” that man was me.
I got on the plane, secure in the knowledge that Southwest has very reliable Wi-Fi service. But the flight attendant informed us that this time it wasn’t working, because, you know, Satan. I got home and found my home Wi-Fi wasn’t working, either. I fixed it by turning it off and on, a maneuver that shows, as the Silicon Valley types would say, that I am “tech savvy.”
While at home I had to print six documents. I used to have a printer that served me well until one day it decided my ink cartridges were “corrupt” and refused to do any further printing. I bought more cartridges from the printer’s manufacturer, but my printer still saw shadiness in all new cartridges — like QAnon members looking at national politics.
We bought a new printer, but it’s snooty. Asking it to print something is like applying to Harvard. It was willing to print out an essay from the journal Daedalus and an academic paper on aging, but it was unwilling to print four other documents from mere newspapers and websites. Like Bartleby the Scrivener, it would prefer not to.
You might be reading this account thinking that I’m the problem here. I’m just a technology idiot who doesn’t know how to fix things. I am open to this possibility. When I last went shopping for a car and the salesman started explaining the amazing electronic features on the new models, I was unable to follow him after 0.7 seconds. But I remind you of the central reality. Gizmos that were working for me one minute stopped working the next. I want my technology to have many capacities, but free will is not among them.
As I’m writing this sad tale my computer is alerting me that I have to shut it down for a vital security update, as it does frequently when I’m on deadline. For a decade, if I deleted an email on my phone it was also deleted on my laptop, but one day that stopped working, too. Every time I log onto my bank’s website, using the same computer each time, I get an email telling me a new device has been detected. And don’t even get me started on subjective security questions. How am I supposed to remember what my favorite pizza topping was 15 years ago when I opened that account? People grow and change.
I am thinking of finding a priest who can do a full-scale technological exorcism — like in that old Linda Blair movie. Before I do, let me just send this off to my editor before my computer crashe$^%#&*((@”+!%#.
Please stand by while I take a hammer to this +*&^%$#@ thing….
Two of my favorite Instagram accounts are @mommydrinkswineandswears and @cheerfulnihilism. Below are today’s selections. One is from each. But which is which? Only the shadow knows.
“I just saw on reddit that the opposite of “easy peasey lemon squeezy” is “stressed depressed lemon zest” and now I’m using that all the time.”
“why don’t you sit still for a moment and imagine that you are simply a little goose coasting on the breeze behind your friends, on your way home to eat clover & honk at strangers & commit goose crimes”
Welcome to today’s Boulevard Park hike. Where’s Boulevard Park, I hear you ask? Just east of Mansion Flats and north of Midtown in Sacramento. Why is it called that? Because all the north-south streets have a wide grassy median.
My walk was completed after Farmer’s Market on Saturdaty. Despite the forecast for rain, the sun came out eventually. There must have been a thousand people there, feeding their appetite for fresh produce. And for pastries too, of course.
O.M.G. Midtown Farmer’s Market is bigger and better than ever.I got there late, so this was the last wreath, the last salmon, and the last rye.There were, however, still plenty of oranges and flowers available.I told Anne maybe our house would sell quicker if we got a couple of lions for the front stoop, like this place in Boulevard Park.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Hey, it’s gotta be worth a shot.
