Saturday, November 30, 2002
I saw on someone's page regarding the death below, them complaining that is was somehow perverse that people would care, and implied that the people leaving heartfelt statements were just making it up because they were death obsessed… I thought it was very sad to read that, and I really feel sorry for that person. I'll repeat here roughly what I said to them.
I think what you're missing is that for many people this is a community of extended friends; I think it's very sad that you see it so cynically; as just a collection of strangers.
The reason people who didn't know her are sad is the same reason people are sad when a classmate or a family member they didn't really know died.
It's called empathy, and it is very valid, and I'm not sure what gives you the right to demean that, just because you don't feel it yourself.
In all honesty, when a member of your community, especially someone that's young, lively, and full of potential, dies, it's kind of weird to not be touched by it, and even weirder to actually complain about other people are touched by it.
Very sad.
Friday, November 29, 2002
OK, we're back, and we have hardcovers, and they look great. Hopefully I served my purpose on the trip (blah blah blah blah to keep the driver awake). Anyway, check it out — they really turned out great:
They'll be shipping out first thing on Monday of course. After this experience, I definitely am sold on hardcover printing and will probably do all future projects that way. Oh, and to the person who'd asked me about getting them an unbound copy to practise on for their bookbinding course, drop me a line — I managed to snag a couple for you (sorry, I've forgotten who it was — but I will remember when you contact me, so don't think you can pretend!).
And thank you to Vanilla for the finely packaged teas. I'm drinking the maple flavored one right now.
Friday, November 29, 2002
First things first (entry below is actually from last night):
Happy birthday to my sister Ashleigh!
PS. Yes, she's in the scrapbook. The first scrapbooks should be arriving at people's addresses starting today — I hope those people will assist in building the online index since it's an awful lot of work (but worth doing I think).
Oh, and when I say “a beacon in the darkness”, I mean the satellite. As much as there are things I hate about it (latency and cutouts), there's a real romantic beauty to a piece of high end telecommunications technology strapped to an old barn and tying a little rural farm into the global grid. That said, with the snow coming down right now, I doubt I'll be tied in much longer.
Thursday, November 28, 2002
We took a closer look at the land down the street today. 100 acres, so it's nice and big. An all-season maintained road hits the one corner of the lot at a high point, perfect for building. It's got tons of hills and very varied terrain. There are some wide open fields (currently dotted with cedars, hawthorn, prickley ash, and the typical stuff). There's also some very large cedar and pine growth, as well as some giant oaks, maples, poplars, apple trees, and others.
The low lying areas have some swamp and marsh, and an all-year creek runs through the lowland. The far edge of the property is bordered by an abandoned railroad track that is now a maintained government snowmobile line. There are gigantic boulders that dot the property, and there are game trails everywhere so it's very easy to traverse, although it's easy to get lost because it's so up and down. The property is covered in birds and deer and is an absolute wilderness dream — with the kicker that it's just minutes off the biggest highway in Canada.
Here's some of the pictures I took today:
That's just with my video camera, so pardon the resolution. It was snowing and rather hazy so it's a bit desaturated… This is definitely one of the most impressive low-cost properties I've seen so far.
Thursday, November 28, 2002
It seems that no matter what I do, I keep getting really poor surface piercing photos sent in. While I'm glad to say that people are finally starting to come around to the idea that surface piercings need to be done with surface bars (although there are many piercers out there who use the word without knowing what it is), it doesn't do any good if they don't know how to use them.
The disturbing trend I've been seeing lately is piercers using surface bars, but using them very wrong so they don't work properly. Anyway, in the diagram below you see five potential surface bar placements. All five are variations I see regularly. Only the first one is a good placement. Here's why:
- The bar has tight bends, sits uniformly under the skin, penetrates at a perpendicular angle, and contains enough space above the skin to accommodate for minor swelling.
- The bars are not long enough, which means that there's no room for swelling to occur. The holes may enlarge, the piercing may be drawn up and into rejection (it may start to surface like #4), and it may not be able to drain as well. Note: Let me be clear that I've greatly overemphasized the lengths on diagrams 1 – 3. In #1, the balls may be gently touching the skin, and #2 is meant to show bars that are short enough to pull the bar up against the skin, and the ball down toward to hole.
- The bars are too long, so the piercing will get twisted constantly. This twisting leverages a lot of force onto the exit holes, causing them to enlarge and can easily start a rejection process.
- The bar was placed crooked and/or the placement is to long or short causing the bar to twist lengthwise. If one end surfaces healing will be no easier than with a straight barbell and rejection is likely.
- It's not even a surface bar. You can't just put bends in a bar. It will usually reject if you use such jewelry.