The View From The Ocean's Edge

Is it just me... or is the idea of hackers organizing just WRONG?

And if they're not organized, how can they disband? and....

OW...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/06/26/lulz-disbands.html?ref=rss

You say that right it sounds almost as pseudo-curse as "Dag Nabbit!"



As you know - one of James and mine great loves is movies. Spend Sunday in bed watching old 1934 classics? With lots of coffee and fruit and plenty of toasted english muffins.... but I digress.

Love, love, love the Thin Man movies, Dashiell Hammett but with a little less of the dark heavy Maltese Falcon feel (not that I don't absolutely adore Humphrey Bogart). Nick and Nora Charles are a romp and the films absolutely work - and are largely timeless - thanks to the wonderful chemistry between William Powell and Myrna Loy.

So inevitably the question comes up; with such a timeless film, if Hollywood were to remake it today - who would play Nick and Nora? Oh no doubt Hollywood would try to turn it into an action film rather than the clever witty thing it is. They'd do another Mr and Mrs Smith or something. But let us forget for a moment how we expect Hollywood would mess it up and why they shouldn't do it; instead lets hope for a moment they could get it right.... who would be the right Nick and Nora for you. There aren't in my mind a lot of actors or actresses who could pull off these types of roles well now. I can think of some, (much as I'm not a fan) George Clooney could probably pull off the slightly a laze about, self effacing Nick Charles, and I could see a Sandra Bullock doing Nora's combination of sophistication and down to earth no nonsense; but then would they have that chemistry? It almost calls for a well practiced comedy team, but the film isn't really a comedy either.

Could it be done? Who do you see as Nick and Nora Charles?

I love autumn, it's always been my favourite season. For those who know I suffer from SADS this may be a bit confusing. I do tend to largely mood shift in the fall moving into winter.

But the truth is that it all seems very much part of a natural cycle for me. The depression, is more a melancholy introspection at this time. Coming up on Samhaine, much is thought about, much is returned to it's roots, there is a mental pruning of the spring and summer growth goes on, and while there is sadness in it - it's a natural and (I believe) healthy part of who I am.

I write in the fall - this is the time for ruminating, and for homemaking, and for all sorts of things that DO fill me with joy - it's just a different kind of sadder joy.

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One conclusion, that's been difficult to come to, we need to get Buddy neutered. I am absolutely committed to spaying and neutering ones pets, always have been. You don't work 5 minutes in animal rescue without becoming fully committed to that. But, Buddy was different. All my life I've wanted a Newf, or a Saint. Cleo when I had her was my joy, and when the ex made both our lives hell, I'm glad I was able to get her to somewhere happy and wonderful and safe. When I got Buddy - well honestly, he's just such a beautiful gorgeous wonderous specimen of all that is NEWF. I had thought somewhere in the back of my mind that maybe one day we'd add a female and I'd have one litter of puppies. That's part of the thing with rescue dogs - you rarely get puppies. Anyway - I wasn't then, now, or EVER interested in being a backyard puppy mill. I just wanted a litter of Newfs, a team of drafting dogs, etc.... I know it was silly.

The reality is - we have 3 dogs, and even now that's an odd mix that doesn't always work, adding another female into the household - almost impossible. Then a litter of pups? Well you're talking something around 5-7 Newfs in the house, along with Kilo, and Pippin and lets not forget the 4 cats... Yeah that'd be a disaster. I can't keep the house clean now. I may have pie-eyed dreams some days, but I'm not totally lacking in sensibility. But we waited, not sure how exactly things would work out, or what we would want to do. Buddy is so magnificent, and the decision so final - I didn't want to rush it. Even so, even if I had decided to get a female... well frankly Buddy is a gorgeous dog, but he has no papers, and the community would heap a load of shame on my head, and rightly so. There are too many unloved and unwanted dogs needing homes out there. Even if Buddy had papers, I'm so not interested in doing the Dog Show thing, championships and conformances and... *uggh* it's not me. Working titles - yes that's something we'd love to do - but there aren't as far as I can find any Drafting groups or competitions in Newfoundland. So we work out on our own. So as the 'ONLY good reason' for a dog to have puppies is as part of a Registered and full time working kennel breeding programme and I'm not sure I even agree with that. There are inevitably dog people on my list who will wonder why in the name of heaven's making the decision was a trauma for me, but there are people who won't understand why making that same decision for myself 10 years ago was a trauma either. In the end I'd largely agree with all of the reasons a lot of people would heap shame upon my head for not having Buddy neutered, and I've got issues enough already with the neighbours so... Anyway the reality is - is Buddy ever going to father puppies? Not bloody likely - so yeah we get him snipped.

Ahh yes, the neighbours.
James and I have been working furiously at trying to get some more major jobs around the house done to 'bring it up to '2010', a) because it needed doing and b) because we will in all likelihood sell it in the spring. I think we can make enough off the sale here to move further out get more land and a smaller house, and still maybe have enough left to live on for a while. Yeah the whole being without a job thing sorta sped up that plan. But I think we'd have done it anyway. 1.75 acres, and the house set back from the road DOES give us a lot of privacy. But the fences haven't kept the dogs in, for which the neighbours now hate us still - even though we went to great efforts and expense to deal with the situation we were 98% successful. Buddy has still gotten out 3 times in quick succession in March, and once in September. I mean we didn't let him roam the streets - in each case I was running right behind him. But no excuses - little behaviours in BIG dogs are BIG problems. And people don't forget, once he's seen as a 'bad' dog, or a 'problem' dog - they'll never see him any other way - no matter what we do. So my dogs can't run in their own woods - without the dogs out there with me, I don't enjoy the property as much anymore. The woods here were lovely - but I ache for my poor animals who can't have that.

If the property in Western Bay sells, we could afford to re-fence the whole 1.75 acres and the dogs could run again. Maybe the fences, and woods, would be enough of a buffer between us and the outside world, and we'd have some cash to live on. But I'm not sure it still wouldn't be a little spoiled for me. On a practical level, the house really is a bit bigger than either James or I enjoy cleaning. So likelihood is, we'll sell up and move on. Can we find something that meets our future desires as well as this one did 2 years ago? I hope so. I don't think I could forgive myself if this move ends up being a step backwards for James.

I still worry and fret about the money situation. Things have not gone as well as we'd hoped. The business is still pretty much on hold thanks to the home renos. I've got some irons in the fire - but there was no job come out of Washington - and I don't know how things will go with CDO, and ... Too much to think about, too much going on, too much uncertainty. James needs a business partner with a marketing degree, and I need a job. Things aren't critical yet - but it could be a very long cold winter. Truth is, part of it is just my autumn melancholy - I want to retreat, I don't want to DEAL with difficult people, I want to be home and nest, and a few warm safe people around me. I'm feeling a bit abandoned by the world - no one is answering their email or returning phone calls, things that should have been simple are suddenly difficult and I'm tired and a little fragile and I don't want to face difficult people.

Welcome to autumn - we're battening down the hatches.

So I was reading back through the last 3 years of a friend's journal (why? because I'm a nosy thing and was wondering something I couldn't quite remember clearly)...

I came across the comments in this post discussing the Aussies' reputations of being generally speaking happy go lucky blokes - which I've found for the most part to be true.

This led me to thinking on a study I read of some time ago that Canadians are the most hearty people in the world. And that this is in part because of the climate.

Do sunny climes breed sunny people? And harsher conditions breed a stronger people? It would seem, in my general limited experience and probably stereotyped perceptions, to be so.

(and no 2 hours and 3 years worth of posts later I still didn't figure out what I was wondering)

Not really,
I find myself with not much to say these days - one thing I'm noticing is with my husband home (and gosh he's been home 2 years now - as of Wednesday), and a lovely home - been in the house 17 months now, and my promotion - which was 21 months ago now...

Well lets just say life settled into a rhythm - sure it's got it's ups and downs and there's the ongoing dramas of being a middle manager at a regional airline - there's the ongoing struggle of bills and household management, and we still haven't really gotten settled in and all the little projects that need doing

But it's pretty mundane

The dogs came along, and that added a new drama a new dimension to our lives - I oughta post more doggie pics and video (James has a good dog hockey video I'm waiting for him to upload - cause I don't have firewire *I think*)

So we watch lots of House and Republic of Doyle, and we have our weekly Pizza and a Movie night, and the dogs go to school every Tuesday, and are getting better - I think we want to get Buddy a harness and cart

I like my life - just blogging it is kinda well ... boring

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Along with house stuff and kids starting college stuff, and my job ate my life stuff - we've been talking and musing and wondering more over our retirement plans - James IS retired - but we need to get his stuff and life organized so he can enjoy the stuff he has going on. And well we planned I'd retire no later than July 26th 2015 - but I keep thinking it might be nice to do that sooner than that. The possibilities exist for it - depending on the house and the land in Western Bay selling, and lotsa little type details...

But if we decided to go Outport we could probably do very comfortably for ourselves out of what we'd walk out of this place with..

We've kinda re-examined the whole B&B / Country Inn idea - we don't like people enough for that. We love our friends, we love having company, but we also love our privacy, a B&B would be a bad idea - but what we loved about the idea was the excuse for a big old manor century home - something quirky and special, and I loved the idea of having people on which to bestow my culinary experiments etc - maybe the whole country gift shop seasonal tourist crafty thing is a better idea - between the things I want to be playing with, and the things James is playing with with the laser - having a retail space attached to the house is a brilliant idea. Of course not sure what the tourist traffic is like that way ...

There's also Winterton, or another one in North River

They don't look like much - but they're lovely traditional homes - and at the price they're at we'd be well set to do some really top notch refinishing.

Bonavista - we could buy 4 tourist type rental places AND a big property for ourselves for what we'd walk out of here with - also not a bad idea.

Of course I fell in love with this place, it's got the land AND the water frontage and a very pretty LITTLE house, it would be perfect, Bay Bulls isn't a bad tourist area, but we'd need to find very handy retail space cheap - and it's outside of the budget we might be able to afford this year.

We could afford this gorgeous place in Carbonear - it's just a really lovely house and property, no real room for ponies, but I could be raising the doggies - I just really like the house and grounds.

Of course one of the things we've talked about, is that living even in Seal Cove - going into town for an evening isn't really do-able - cabfare home after a night on George Street is pricey. Even worse if we go further out. We'd like to do a traditional row house in the downtown core - 2 apartments - one rental paying for the place, and one we leave open as 'our place in town'. We could probably do that very reasonably priced ... but we couldn't do that AND a new place out of town.

Anyway - until the kids are actually IN college, and until the land in Western Bay sells and we get this place tidied up, this is all just wish listing, musing and considering the possibilities - eventually we'll work out the perfect plan - and then end up doing something completely different when the time comes...

(did I mention Melbourne?)

I posed a question the other day, one I'd been thinking on for a while, and I got a lot of interesting answers back. Thoughtful, and thought provoking answers. And now, amongst the much loud gnashing of teeth over the White House's current turn of tack with NASA, I might get branded a heretic for saying so, but....

I don't think they're wrong.

From where I'm looking at it all the reasons people have for wanting to go back to the moon make sense.

The advances in science that projects of this kinda magnitude create are vastly important
The need for the human species to reach out beyond the next hill is part of what makes us human.

So why? Why would I agree with the idea to scuttle the next attempt to put a man on the moon?

Because from what I can see - they're not saying scuttle putting a man on the moon, they're scuttling the WAY it's being done. Because, NASA, like most government organizations has become so mired in it's own bureaucracy and politics, that it is no longer capable of seeking out innovation.

"...[W]e are proposing a cancellation of the Constellation program at NASA even while making other investments in long range [research and development] there, which again is a significant step," Orszag said in response to a reporter's question about the tough choices Obama faced in drafting his 2011 spending plan.

The key elements of Constellation include the Orion crew capsule, its Ares 1 launcher, a larger rocket dubbed Ares 5 and the Altair lunar lander. Obama's top-line spending proposal for NASA is expected to increase slightly over the 2010 appropriation of $18.7 billion and would including some funding for an alternative means for transporting crews to and from the international space station."

Face it, whatever the vehicle you put on top, strapping a guy to the top of a zillion pounds of rocket fuel and using 10,000 year old mathematics to make sure he actually hits his target - well it isn't new folks. We've done that.

The moon isn't what's next. We've done that. NASA is repeating itself, it's relying on the same old science it dredged up in a big hurry in the 60's so they could beat the bloody reds any damned way possible... but it was never really good science, and it ain't gonna take us to Mars, or beyond or colonize anything. Best case scenario - we get a really good telescope built up there.

Honestly, I'd be all in favour of throwing a lot more money at NASA (and $18.7 billion - per year - ain't chicken feed folks) - if there was actually a chance of something NEW, exciting, innovative, REAL science gonna come out of it - but as it stands right now - give the extra 1.3 billion a year this adds to NASA's budget to Burt Rutan - we might see some fireworks then.

Five words from uncut_diamond, and what they mean to me...

Animals
I'm not entirely sure what to say here... Animals just are, they've always been there, have always been a part of my life. There is a connection on a spiritual level - as a shamanist witch I find lessons to be learned from them, in their patterns and their behavior and their instincts. Whether its the smalls cats I live with, or the large cats that are personal totems, from the daily trials of trying to turn 3 vastly different dogs into a pack, or trying to take this hodge podge of a family and make it a pack, the animals (especially as a small part of the natural world as a whole) are always there with me.

Love
Love? Love is easy. I used to fall in and out of romantic love at the drop of a hat. Enjoy my company? Want to spend time with me? That's enough reason for me to love you - and it should be. For really in the end - there really is only one basis for love - whether it's familial love, or friendship love, or romantic love, or even parental love. Enjoy my company and want to spend time with me. I know that there are cases - especially in the familial and parental love categories where those two statements don't necessarily apply - and this is where love becomes complicated. Where you don't enjoy their company, and don't want to spend time with them - but there was once a time when those things did apply or love could not have existed - but something has come to interfere with that. That's when love cuts and hurts and can become a sick and destructive thing. The learning comes in how we each chose to deal with that moment in our lives.

Marriage
Love is easy. Marriage is hard. Some people will tell you that love and marriage is about putting another person's needs before your own - and that's wrong. You cannot subvert yourself. Nor is it about having your own wants and needs met. Although obviously it must meet some need. Really it's a tricky diplomatic mission - the constant working in tandem and deciding who's needs best serve the whole - for a relationship has it's own life - at any given moment. In a strong relationship, given a little time and experience together this constant give and take balancing act happens seamlessly and almost unnoticed, but even in the strongest of relationships there will be the odd moment when you both get hauled up short and have to take that moment to stop and listen and work out - what happens here that will in the end best serve the needs of the whole? Watch out for those moments.

Leadership
Leadership is only possible with care. You must CARE, and you must care about a multitude of things. The job at hand, the people and the power that you answer to, the people who answer to you, and the power you wield. With care, you will find respect - I don't believe that you can honestly and healthily care about something without respecting it. So with the care you bring respect. Now the trick is to find the balance in all of those things you care about. I've often likened my leadership as much to being a parent.... as a parent you go off to the schools and the meetings and the groups your child deals with - and you fight tooth and nail for the best opportunities, respect for their abilities, and the best possible service, and then you go home and you tell the kid he'd better pull up his socks and buckle down and study. Perhaps that sounds a bit patronizing - but I don't think it is. I fight the management for the best possible solutions to the needs of my staff, and I push my staff to get the best possible job I can out of them. But non of that would be work or be worth a damn if I didn't care - about the quality and integrity of the work, if I didn't believe in the work we do, if I didn't believe in the management I work for, and if I didn't care for the people who work for me.

Serenity
Woah... there's a mouth full. I'm not sure I've found serenity. I have a friend - we once talked about how he was not satisfied but he was content, and how I was satisfied but not content. Or as another friend once put it to me "OE, you've always GOT to take the hard way, it's like you don't believe in the value of something you've accomplished if it was too easy". And they are both right - I have everything I ever wanted - I should be content and at peace and serene. But nope. I am a driven person - I must have a goal, I must have something to reach for to strive for, if there isn't stress in my life, I'll create it. I keep looking working building towards this imaginary goal of 'serenity', of a place where I can kick back and sleep in all day and never worry, but I know, for me, that place is a myth, but hey it's a good thing to keep striving for *grins*.