R Blog

Blog Neglect

I've been neglecting R Blog lately spending most of my free reading time studying Peak Oil, sustainability and related subjects. I started another blog using my .Mac account (free with a .Mac membership and iLife 06). R Blog may disappear and be replaced entirely by the new blog called "Back to the Future." R Blog has been primarily a writing exercise but suddenly it seems like I have more important things to do than exercise my minimal writing skills on eclectic subjects. Readership is limited to friends and family anyway with only occasional spikes in interest from the salacious when sexual topics show up in the key word searchs.
This new blog, "Back to the Future", is really designed as a communication device for my extended family and I'm not putting it out there for general consumption. We are preparing to move to a rural location and the blog, ultimately, will note plans and actions to create a more sustainable setting and the thought processes that generate them. The new blog is password protected. There are lots of Peak Oil blogs but if you are interested in checking it out, send me an email and, if I know you, I'll give you the URL, user name and password.

The Only Novels You Really Need

The complete set of Aubrey/Maturin novels are on sale at Amazon  a price of $94. This set was $175. I've been waiting quite awhile to buy this set and was prepared to pony up the full amount and was pleased and surprised when I went to order that they were on sale. Procrastination sometimes pays big dividends. I wonder if they are getting ready to reprint as there were complaints of lots of typos in this edition. I've read from this set and the typos, though I noticed a few, didn't detract from my enjoyment. I'm on my third time through the twenty novels in this great series.

Artist’s Statement

From “How to Write an Artist’s Statement by  Molly Gordon.

“Think of your artist's statement as a nourishing stew. The rich flavors and inviting aroma will feed your spirit and summon wonderful people to your table. You'll want to make sure your stew is made from the freshest, finest ingredients and that it has been simmered and seasoned with care. Do this, and you will be proud to share your creative vision – your authority – with others.”

Artist of finger painting will write one when he learns to write. In the meantime, we will let the piece speak for itself. It’s called, “The Blue Tractor.”

Update: New finger painting

Live Blogging the Libby Trial

You will find the best coverage of the Scooter Libby trial on a blog.  Firedoglake.com is live blogging this extravaganza as I write. What does this mean? One of the Firedoglake team is sitting in the media room of the courtroom with a laptop and wireless connection and typing away as testimony is given. Mr. Libby, charged with lying to a grand jury, is on the stand with Tim Russert of Meet the Press scheduled up next. Russert is expected to drive the final nail into Libby's defense. Firedoglake is a blog started by Jane Hamsher, an activist movie producer. A Hollywood type, one might say, except she lives in Oregon. Ariana Huffington of Huffingtonpost.com arranged for the press pass. Firedoglake put out a call for funds from their readers (full disclosure: I contributed $25), Jane rented an apartment and several members of the Firedoglake team arranged to spend a week or two in DC covering the trial. In the blog world there are some considered experts on the Victoria Plame Affair. One of them is Marcy Wheeler, a citizen from Ann Arbor who knows so much about it she wrote a book, just published, called Anatomy of Deceit.
I'm halfway through and it's a very clear exposition of the case and demonstrates, as has the trial, that Patrick Fitzgerald, the Federal Prosecutor, should have been more aggressive in his charges. These people, led by VP Cheney, outed a CIA agent for political purposes—they wanted to destroy the credibility of Plame's husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, who had called bullshit on President Bush's lie about Saddam Hussein's alleged attempt to get uranium from Africa. It's a sordid story of abuse of power and one we should all being paying much attention to. The bloggers for Firedoglake aren't lightweights. Marcy Wheeler has a Ph'd studying citizen journalism in the times of heavy propaganda. Christy Hardin Smith, who covered the first week of the trial before having to return home to take care of her child is a former prosecutor. Jerrilyn Merritt is another attorney who has written extensively about the Plame Affair and Libby and VP Cheney's role. Jane Hamsher had surgery just three weeks ago for breast cancer but is in the courtroom this week looking bright and perky in a black beret. You can watch Jane and a guy named Swopa here. One of the real problems with the Libby trial is that so much of the mainstream media is carrying a heavy load of baggage having carried water for the Administration in the run up to the Iraq War and in the outing of Valerie Plame. Marcy Wheeler has written down the first half of the story in her book. The rest of the story is playing out in a Washington DC courtroom and the bloggers are on the job reporting what it means.

Apple Care

My screen was acting funky and the hard drive was extremely noisy so I decided to take advantage of Apple’s Apple Care warrantee and I sent my laptop somewhere to have it fixed. The express company with the yellow truck showed up with a special box. I did my back ups (or so I thought), and shipped the Powerbook away. It was back in four working days. Amazing really. Apple replaced the entire screen and slammed in a new hard drive. This means, of course, that all my information, data, photos, music, etc. was gone, hopefully hidden somewhere on my Lacie external hard disk, iPod, or in iDisk, Mac’s on line back up program. The first thing I noticed was that, while Apple had loaded an operating system onto the machine, it didn’t include a photo, movie, or DVD program, all of which are part of a suite Apple calls “iLife.” I tried reloading the software but still no photo application. This morning I called Apple and talked to a nice lady named Sabrina. She was in Niagra Falls and she was cold. 7 degrees up there. Sabrina tried to do a “workaround.” It didn’t work. So, on behalf of Apple she offered to send me a DVD with iLife on it. Getting this organized took another call and another fifteen minutes. But the Apple folks were universally polite and helpful. They are obviously well trained. Canada, it seems, is a smart place for the service center.
So, far I’ve been able to retrieve my document files and music. But those photos, old mail files, addresses and financial records are still in limbo. Linda didn’t sleep worrying our 7000+ photos (6000 of which are of grand kids) are lost. I discovered that other applications that I had purchased and downloaded can be quickly retrieved by going to the appropriate web site and proving one’s identity through email. One is given a new identifier and the application can be downloaded again. All in all this experience is the same as getting a new computer except you can’t dump from your old hard drive to a new one. I expect I will find that I didn’t back everything up properly though, hopefully, I will be surprised. I’m hoping to have a Mac genius come over to walk me through some of the protocols for retrieval and, at the same time, clean out all the crap I don’t need. So far today, I’ve spent eight hours on this little mess which could have been a real disaster without the backups I did manage to accomplish. These computers really save lots of time. UPDATE: Lenny Neimark The Mac Man here in Ashland put my computer back the way it was. I had backed things up correctly. Lenny shared this haiku with me: Three things are certain— Death, taxes and lost data. Guess which has occured. Fortunately for me it was taxes.