You Know You've Found the Right Person
Blog Posted by kitt at 09:39 on 8 July 2017When they can dork with you just fine...
Update: Except for that part where he paid for Grace's trip to London at the same time and lied to me about meeting up with her. I had to see her photo of being in London to even catch him. Meanwhile, I was battling the boys while he was "taking time for himself." Yeah. Thanks, Jonathan, for that one.
Mount Baldy
Blog kitt decided around 08:46 on 7 July 2017 to publish this:I wish I could remember who I was talking with when he mentioned Mount Baldy. We were talking about something or other and hiking in Southern California, Mount Wilson was likely in the conversation, too. Definitely something about the San Gabriel Mountains, and a non-zero chance we were talking about skiing in Southern California, since the mountain is the highest peak of the San Gabriel Mountains, as well as the highest point in L.A. (the county).
When we were chatting, there was a slight bit of discomfort in the back of my mind. I couldn't place its source until well after the conversation when I realized that, while I had been talking about Mount Baldy, California, I was really talking about Mount Baldy, Indiana. As in Mount Baldy located in the Dunes.
It's an easy mistake to make, what with one being snow skiing, the other being sand skiing. Both have hiking, too, what with one being actual mountain, the other being rolling sand hills.
The Dunes are one of those backdrops of a life that influence well beyond the time spent there. I hope that living dune stays alive, what with a couple hundred years of people tromping on it, doing their best to kill it slowly.
I think I just spent an hour trying to find my pictures of my trip to the Dunes with Jessica and Gaby. No luck. So, here, have one by Clint that took FOREVER to load.
What I'd Put Into A Conference Bag
Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 10:02 on 3 July 2017Last week, Claire asked our group for conference schwag suggestions. "What would be good to receive in a conference bag?" In today's ponder time, I thought about this question.
It's such a great question. So many times I look through a conference bag and just throw away everything in it. What a waste, all of it tossed into the trash. Someone might have thought some of the items worth keeping, but one size never fits all. I shudder thinking of all those pens I tossed away, along with the stress balls and plastic things no one knows that to do with.
To combat this, if I were doing a conference bag, I'd likely do a giant "build your own" conference schwag bag with bins of various things that each conference attendee could pick and choose among, taking the items they* wanted and leaving the ones they* didn't. This leads, of course, to my first requirement when considering what I'd want in a conference bag: "Am I okay taking 100 of these home with me and using them?" If I wouldn't be willing to have a hundred leftovers, and use said left overs, I wouldn't put it in conference bag.
Start with the bag itself. Of course a recycled or cloth bag would be the likely first choice. Really though, if I had the sponsorship, everyone would start with a Pacsafe Venturesafe 15L Daypack. I love this backpack. It is lightweight, fits a 13" laptop in it, has an RFID protection slot for cards, is easy for a small woman or a big guy to carry, has anti-theft protection, and is just perfectly sized.
If I didn't have quite that level of sponsorship, I'd go with an eQpd bag. Made from recycled materials, and rot-proof, the eQpd bag (pronounced "equipped") is easy to carry, great for bulk or awkwardly-sized items, and made in Twisp (which is where Claire and I found them).
Barring that level of sponsorship, I would go with the conference-common cloth bags.
What would I put in it? Again, I'd have a Choose Your Own Adventure conference schwag bag, and these in the bins:
- Shirts
- Nice nail clippers - this one sounds weird, but the best bag item I ever had from an ultimate frisbee event was a nice set of nail clippers. I'm partial to the Tweezerman brand at this point.
- A small, nice bottle opener keychain - most conferences have alcohol, though usually not ones that require a bottle opener. However, I really like the all-metal (not plastic with a metal edge embedded in it) bottle opener keychain I received at a conference. It is attached to my guest key keyring. Really like it.
- Fidget toys - these are all the rage, but a somewhat good reason.
- Nice notebooks - Notebooks are hit and miss. I prefer a 6mm-spacing, lightly-printed, lined notebook, but know many people who prefer the a dot grid. I LOVE Muji notebooks, the B5 and B6 sized, lined in particular, and would likely have branded ones at my conference.
- Wood brain-teaser puzzles
- Small stickers - can't stand big stickers
- Maybe a Hat - baseball caps, or a beanie if the conference is in winter.
- Notecards or cards - something lovely, letterpress maybe, that can be used or given away. With a stamped envelope to encourage light "thinking of you" letter writing. Moleskine has their Messages cards which would be adorable.
- Seeds for interesting outdoor plants - something easy, toss them outside, and let them go. See the flowers the next spring.
- Small keychain, medallion, something like a bracelet charm
- Chopsticks - these could be fun
- Water bottle - again, sometimes hit, sometimes miss. The advantage of a pick-your-own would be if you have enough water bottles, ignore this bin. The bottle would need to be nice, not plastic.
- Post-its - with subtle branding, unsure of sizes. I like the tab size ones, I understand I'm odd.
- Mini spatula - hey, some of us cook
- Pins - I like 1" round button pins, but recognize the fashion is currently enamel pins.
- Origami paper with instructions
- Small pieces of art - YxYY did this its first year, and I love my small piece of art. I still have it, years later.
- Coin purse - Blue Q has recycled coin purses that I keep using up and having stolen. I really like them. Yep, Abe's a babe.
- Facial tissues - in a small pack
- Sunscreen - I'm a fan of the stick kinds.
- Small pack of colored pencils, pens, markers - for the note takers in the crowd
- Battery pack - I received one at devObjective 3 years ago and I still use it. Doesn't have to be big. Mine is 3" x 1" x 1". It is light enough and carries enough juice to recharge my phone sufficiently to keep playing Pokémon Go, I mean, make a call home.
- Gift cards to local establishments
- Coffee or tea packs
- Camping spork - I really like the one I received for Christmas 10 years ago.
- Matchbooks - wooden matches with strike anywhere heads, not a paper matchbook, great for camping or lighting a wood stove.
If I were hosting an outdoor event, I might include:
- Sunglasses
- Lip balm
- Headbands
So, that's my list.
You know what I wouldn't put in my bag?
Overly wordy brochures.
Junk pens.
Stress balls.
Crap products.
If I'm sponsoring an event, I don't want to go cheap on the schwag. I am more likely to ask, "Why?" and toss something poorly made than think, "Hey, what a great sponsorship, let me see what this company does."
DrupalCon had pajama bottoms as schwag one year. THOSE WERE GREAT. I wore mine out. I was a walking f---ing billboard for Drupal in those bottoms.
Gosh, I miss those jammies.
Good schwag.
*Look at me, breaking a lifetime habit of matching pronoun count, ignoring gender, and using "he" for a group of people that contains at least one man, for the singular "they" of colloquial speech. Old dog, new tricks, f--- any unwillingness to adapt, and all that.
Russia House
Book Notes kitt decided around 16:41 on 2 July 2017 to publish this:Okay, so this book is in my stack of quick-reads-when-on-vacation books, one that I can leave where ever I am, and not worry too much about it, since I don't think I'd want to bring it home.
Aaaaaaaand, I was pretty much right.
The book is a spy novel, written in the end of the eighties during that Cold War stuff. I can always believe there will be some twist at the end with these spy books, which makes reading them somewhat odd because I'm always wondering who is the bad guy and when will he reveal himself, and not, say, enjoying the book.
This one got me with the whole "guy loves girl he just met" thing. Ugh. Yes, hormones and emotions, but a disappointed-in-life, heavy-drinker, life-sucks kind of guy being unable to shake this one? Come on, that's the definition of a tragic life.
Anyway, yeah, glad to have left it. Glad to leave it behind. It's fine if you like spy novels from the eighties. This one at least had books in it.
Proven Guilty
Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 19:05 on 1 July 2017, kitt created this:The trick about writing book reviews is to do them immediately after reading the book, so that the book is still fresh in your mind, the parts you like, the parts you didn't like, the parts you want to read again and again and again.
This isn't one of my favorite Dresden books (those are Dead Beat, Changes, and Skin Game, in that order). This one was, however, an enjoyable read. Yeah, we know Molly can be annoying, she's written fairly well as the angsty teenager going through changes and being defiant. And I see how the introduction of her into the inners of Dresden's world can be.
I found the reference to the Parable of the Talents to be frustrating. It goes:
“Three men were given money by their lord in the amount of fifteen, ten, and five silver talents. The man with fifteen invested the money, worked hard, and returned thirty talents to his lord. The man with ten did the same, and returned twenty talents. The lord was most pleased. But the third man was lazy. He buried his five talents in the ground, and when he returned them to the lord, expecting to be rewarded for keeping them safe, his lord was angry. He had not given the lazy man the money to be hidden away. He’d given it to the man so that he could use it and make his lands better, stronger, and ...
The third man RETURNED the funds. He didn't lose any. No, he didn't gain any, but he didn't lose it either. So he didn't make a rich man richer, he didn't make the rich man any poorer. I swear this is exactly the kind of sermon that people in power use to abuse the people under them: hey, YOU need to work harder to make ME more powerful. I dislike that story a lot.
This book, however, I liked, it's a Dresden book. Keep reading.
You can never tell how someone is going to handle power—not until you hand it to them and see what they do with it.
Page 34
There are violent bones in everyone’s body, if you look deep enough.
Page 53
And I saw something about the old man, too. Beneath the shoe leather and gristle, there were more shoe leather and gristle. And iron.
The old man had been badly beaten, but it wasn’t the first such he had endured—physically or spiritually. He was a fighter, a survivor. He was afraid, but he was also angry and defiant.
Whatever had done this to him hadn’t gotten what it wanted—not like it had with the girl. It had to settle for a physical beating when its attack hadn’t elicited the terror and anguish it had expected.
The old man had faced it, and he didn’t have any power of his own, beyond a lifetime of stubborn will.
Page 117
I came through the door armed for bear and projecting an attitude to match.
Page 128
This cracks me up.
“Her actions could have thrown enormous forces out of balance, to the ruin of all.”
“Her heart was in the right place,” Fix said, his tone mildly defensive.
“Maybe,” I told him, as gently as I could. “But good intent doesn’t amount to much when the consequences are epically screwed up.”
Page 140
I got an up-close look at the Scarecrow as the van slewed into a bootlegger reverse.
Page 230
Another short phrase that just cracked me up.
“You stole my coat,” I said.
“Borrowed,” he corrected.
“They never talk about this kind of crap when they talk about brothers.”
“You weren’t wearing it,” he pointed out. “Hell, you think I’m going to walk into one of your patented Harry Dresden anarchy-gasms without all the protection I can get?”
Page 232
Sometimes I thought it might be nice not to make any choices. If I never had one, I could never screw it up.
Page 244
“How so?”
“Power,” he said, waving a hand in an all-encompassing gesture. “All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose—it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action.”
“I guess,” I said. “So?”
“So,” he said. “You have more choices. Which means that you have much improved odds of making mistakes. You’re only human. Once in a while, you’re going to screw the pooch.”
Page 245
“Faith in what?”
“That things will unfold as they are meant to,” Forthill said. “That even in the face of an immediate ugliness, the greater picture will resolve into something all the more beautiful.”
Page 245
“That the good that will come is not always obvious. Nor easy to see. Nor in the place we would expect to find it. Nor what we personally desire. You should consider that the good being created by the events this night may have nothing to do with the defeat of supernatural evils or endangered lives. It may be something very quiet. Very ordinary.”
Page 246
“Then perhaps you should try to have faith that you might one day have faith.”
Page 246
I can get behind this one.
“Am I the only one who is starting to think that maybe Mouse is something special?”
“Always thought that,” I said.
“I wonder if he’s an actual breed.” Charity glanced over her shoulder and said, “He looks something like a Caucasian.”
Page 261
Hard to picture Mouse. He's a Foo Dog, yes, but most foo dogs are representations of the actual animals. A Caucasian dog you can find pictures of, go pet if you'd like.
Yes, she had the potential to go astray on an epic scale. Don’t we all.
Page 344
“But…” Her face scrunched up. “I don’t want to be a bad guy.”
“No one wants it,” I said. “Most of the bad guys in the real world don’t know that they are bad guys. You don’t get a flashing warning sign that you’re about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking.”
Page 346
“Children are a precious gift, but they belong to no one but themselves. They are only lent us a little while.”
Page 352
“Harry, I know you aren’t a churchgoing man, but God does help people who aren’t perfect.”
Page 381
“I know what it’s like,” he said. “There isn’t any way to make it disappear. But it gets better with time and distance.” He studied me for a moment. “If you had it to do again, would you?”
“Twice as hard,” I said at once.
“Then what you did was a necessity, Harry. It might be painful. It might haunt you. But at the end of the day, so long as you did what you believed right, you’ll be able to live with yourself.”
Page 385
“Children have their own kind of power. When you’re teaching them, protecting them, you are more than you thought you could be. More understanding, more patient, more capable, more wise. Perhaps this foster child of your power will do the same for you. Perhaps it’s what she is meant to do.”
Page 388
Life can be confusing. Good God, and how. Sometimes it seems like the older I get, the more confused I become. That seems ass-backwards. I thought I was supposed to be getting wiser. Instead, I just keep getting hit over the head with my relative insignificance in the greater scheme of the universe. Confusing, life.
Page 389
“Times are changing, Hoss. That’s for sure.” He polished off his beer. “But they always do.
Page 402