OmegaMom

While the past year has seen me slacking off on the blog, slowly posting less and less frequently—the blogging mojo having vanished into the mists, the past two months have seen a drastic drop-off in the amount of posting.

Ah!  But I have excuses, you see!

First, there are Facebook and Twitter.  All the little snippets that I used to toss into a blog post now go into Twitter, and a certain amount of more “private” stuff has sashayed off to Facebook.  So, since I no longer have a reason to use a snippet to turn into the inspiration for a full-fledged post, where I actually delve into the ins and outs of a particular subject (at least for a few paragraphs), many posts have died a-borning.

Then, there’s the fact that this past year, frankly, was a bitch.

Just a friggin’ bitch of a year, folks.

Miserable, awful, horrible, no good year.  Bad year!  Bad, bad year!  No treat for you!

A lot of my energy was diverted to things that were just vastly more important to me than the ol’ bloggeroo.

The past month and a half, however…well, there were two specific reasons for the dearth of postings.

The first is that the OmegaFamily traveled to Arizona to join family to scatter Mom’s ashes.  I may post about that later.

The second reason…?

Ah.

Well.

It’s this:

This is not a picture nicked from the Amazon website.  Oh, no.  It is my very own, personal time suck device, photographed on a piece of poster board that was splayed across the downstairs coffee table.

I succumbed, you see.

I may never go back to paper books again.

Well, okay, I take that back.  Any book that has pictures that are necessary to its essence—a pictorial encyclopedia, a “Where’s Waldo” type book, kids books with illustrations, technical manuals—things like that are absolutely useless on a Kindle.

The cons:  It takes a one-second eternity for the page to “turn” on the Kindle.  If you’re a voracious reader, the battery charge doesn’t last too long.  Also if you’re a voracious reader, the ability to buy a book online and have it immediately available is a dangerous, dangerous thing to your bank account.

The pros:  OMG.  It is so lightweight!  Great big books that required a certain amount of wrist strength to read in bed while curled up on one side no longer leave me with an aching forearm.  I can load up boatloads of books onto this thing.  It has word games available, even!  (Though they gobble up battery charge.)

Anyway, I have been buried in an orgy of military science fiction (my secret vice) (I re-read all the Honor Harrington books, one right after the other) and fantasy (oooh, all five books of the Kencyrath, no longer scattered through the boxes of books in the garage!), a new Charlie Stross “Laundry” book, the conclusion to the latest Peter Hamilton trilogy, a few novellas by John Scalzi and others, and more…All of which has eaten into my free time, and my brain.

There are lots of inexpensive e-books available.  Science fiction publishers have gotten onto the e-book bandwagon big time, which is one reason why almost all my books (with the exception of some Jack-and-Annie [The Magic Tree House] books) are science fiction.

Anyway, I highly recommend the contraption.  Just don’t wallow like I did and drop off the face of the earth…

(Psst.  If you’re interested in buying one—or some books—you can always use the Amazon search box on my blog, and I will receive mucho dinero [okay, a small amount] for each purchase.  ;-)  )

(The dotter’s thumb is All Better Now.  Well, not quite; it still hurts if she puts pressure on it, but thank the Kozmik All she hasn’t needed any ibuprofen at all today, so I expect it will fade into a distant memory within the week.)

I’ve been busy, because two and a half weeks ago OmegaDad suddenly discovered he had a (very typical) middle-aged man’s problem that needed “routine” surgery.  My last blogpost was written while we were waiting for the “routine” surgery.  Need I say that the phrase “routine surgery” has become somewhat…um…tainted for me after the past year?  After all, my mom had “routine” pacemaker surgery, and my dog had “routine” abdominal surgery, and both died.

So it was amazing how the tension went out of my shoulders as soon as I got OmegaDad back home from the outpatient surgery and things went swimmingly well.

Okay, they went swimmingly well from my point of view, not his.  He is still not happy, because the healing is taking longer than a day or two, and thus he can’t do all his normal activities, nor can he sit for very long and veg out at the computer, wandering the twisty, turny passages of the Intartubes.

The nice thing about the whole affair for me is that it has kept me busy.  I’ve been cooking, schlepping out to the chicken coops, mowing the lawn, reminding about pain meds, washing dishes, in addition to handling the dotter’s affairs—all of which is normally split between the two of us (mostly on his end; OmegaDotter’s schedule keeps me plenty busy normally).  The busy-ness has made it so that mom’s death has been pushed into the background of my mind.  Oh, it’s still there, and easily ramps back up when anyone wants to talk about it, but it’s been pleasant not to be constantly feeling like there’s that black hole in the pit of my stomach.

In the meantime, there are two stories I want to mention here that have caught my attention in the past week.

First off, there’s the press-and-blogger viewing of “Wo Ai Ni, Mommy”, a documentary that follows an 8-year-old from China who is adopted by a family from the U.S.  The film will be premiering on PBS in August; this is the trailer:

When I first watched that trailer, many months ago, it broke my heart.  I imagined OmegaDotter—also 8 years old—in that situation, being taken from her family of four years in the U.S. (Faith was living with a foster family for 4 years) to be adopted by a family from China.  I thought about how she would feel, what it would be like for her, and watching Faith cry that she wants to go home to China just…well…words can’t say how much that hurt.

Two bloggers—Malinda and Peach—were invited to the preview.  While I think that the original plan of the documentary was to be a feel-good happy-happy adoption story, they got a different feel from it.  Read their reviews (linked on their names) and see what you think.

The second story is that of the hoo-rah at ScienceBlogs.  The gist:  ScienceBlogs is a collective blog about (surprise!) science, with a stable of about 70 bloggers from all walks of science, including science journalists, medicos, physiologists, professors, physicists, biologists, archeologists, mathematicians, etc.  It started in 2004 2006 and has gained quite a reputation as the go-to place for science on the web.  This week, however, a blog was introduced called “Food Frontiers”, which was an “outreach” of PepsiCo.  It was given the same prominence as all the other blogs (all invited to join), but was obviously a corporate thing bought and paid for, though not explicitly labeled as such.  And, interestingly enough, while previous semi-corporate-linked blogs had been introduced beforehand, this one hit the SB front page with no warning whatsoever.

Well.  The shit hit the fan.  The question of the firewall between editorial and advertising was debated far and wide.  A subset of the bloggers left the site in response, with pretty candid “farewell” posts explaining why.  A number of other bloggers said they were dubious, at best, and were considering leaving.  One blogger sniffed that it was all a bunch of hysteria over nothing in a very disparaging way.  The management (and, probably, PepsiCo) decided that this was a Bad Scene All Around, and removed the corporate blog in question.  All that’s left is the post mortems.

I watched this with great interest.  My immediate response upon reading the original “hi, there!” post on Food Frontiers was, WTF?!  This is an advertorial, damn it!  What’s it doing not being marked as such?!?!  Ewwwwwww!!!!

For those who don’t know, an "advertorial” is what publishing calls advertising posing as editorial.  In the journalism world, such things are (alas) often necessary to pay the bills, but definitely clearly marked as advertising, usually done in a totally different design than the remainder of the magazine.  Including an advertorial in the midst of the magazine, using the same design, giving it the same editorial weight as writing by the staff, and not marking it (clearly, plainly, obviously) as advertising is a big no-no.  I mean, it’s taboo.  Really, truly.  As someone who spent 10 years writing and editing in business journalism, I can tell you (and those bloggers and commenters who think the whole uproar is a tempest in a teapot) that no matter how you feel about journalists and the ethics of mainstream media, when I say “taboo”, I mean totally, utterly, absolutely, no doubt about it, this is a line in the sand, TABOO.  You do not do this.  And if you do this, and someone finds out, and you are called out about it, you lose serious credibility as a journalistic source.

Period.

It’s like, say, having sex with your sister, that’s how taboo it’s considered.

I was appalled, myself.  I guess I have that verboten written upon my subconscious in letters of fire or some such thing; it was such a visceral response.

(Interestingly enough, I think mom’s response would not have been that emotional.  She was very pragmatic and less likely to imbue the journalism biz with idealism.  However, she would definitely have thought it was a sincerely bad idea, and rolled her eyes at how stupid it was for the management at ScienceBlogs to take that approach.)

Anyway, here’s a round-up of all the ScienceBlogger’s takes on the subject, and various commenting from other sources, courtesy of BoraZ (one of the bloggers at SB).  Alas, it’s not in chronological order; every search I’ve done on various search sites hasn’t produced one, so…start at anything dated July 7 and work your way forward.

“I’m as mad as hell, and I can’t take it anymore!”

Ahem.

What prompts this, you may ask.

This morning, after doing my exercise routine and showering, I sat down at the keyboard and started my telecommute sign-in process.  First, sign onto the VPN (virtual private network).  Next, start up the Remote Desktop Connection.  Then comes Outlook and, finally, Microsoft Communicator–the corporate kin of Microsoft Messenger, which requires a log-in to the campus network.

At which point, Remote Desktop bings and tells me it couldn’t connect.

So I try it again, and start reading my e-mail.

Then Remote Desktop bings again, telling me it can’t connect.

So I try it again, and keep it up.  This time, I get through to my “your password expires in three days” message, click on “no” to changing it, and go back to my e-mail.

Then Microsoft Communicator bings at me.

Then Remote Desktop craps out again.

Then Outlook shows a little message that says it’s “trying to connect…”

I snarl.  I send a message to my co-worker, saying there’s a problem with the network.  I finish reading an e-mail.  Microsoft Communicator politely informs me that it was unable to deliver my message.  I snarl again, and disconnect the VPN, to see if the problem is with that…I pull up my browser, try connecting to my blog, and sit and wait.  It brings up the main article, but not the sidebars.  The little whirly circle keeps whirling.

I reboot.

I pull up the browser again.  Same thing.

At which point it became obvious that I had to pull myself together and attack The Unholy Mess of Wiring behind the TV upstairs.

The Unholy Mess of Wiring is hidden behind an end table that has the TV on it, sitting in the corner of the living room.  The dotter has long since appropriated this area for her…um…let’s call it a “creativity corner”.  Every once in a while the unsightly heap of scrids and scrads of paper, various small toys, pictures, beads, markers, and what not overflowing the table, the wiring, the carpet becomes too much for me, and I corral the dotter into cleaning it up.  It invariably turns into a Horrible Chore that takes forever.

This time, I was on my own.  This time, I went through the whole area from top to bottom.  I threw out a half a garbage bag of scrids and scrads (no toys), some loose beads, string, wrappers, the backing from old stickers–you name it, it was there.  Then I pulled the table out from the corner.  I swept.  I windexed.  I re-arranged.  I got some clear tape and a Sharpie marker, located twisty-ties in the Anything Drawer, pulled out a variety of power cords from various techno-boxes, and started de-tangling, identifying, organizing, and tidying up the strands of cords and wiring.

The whole affair, from start to end (with a break in the middle for some bagels and cream cheese), took four hours and twenty minutes.

The network works again.  I was unable to figure out what the problem was, but it works again.

I now know which cord goes to which box.  All the cords are labeled.  The extension cord is secured in a nice small bundle.  The various cords are no longer a knotty maze, but easy to follow from electrical outlet to box.

But what a bloody pain in the butt it was.  Grrr.

I am no longer “forty-mumble” years old.  Today I hit the official half-century mark.

I can remember years ago, when I hit twenty-five, having a phone conversation with my dad.  I told him I didn’t feel like it was possible that I was twenty-five.  At the time, it seemed “old”…He told me that he couldn’t imagine being in his fifties, and that all the time he felt like he was still in his 20s or 30s.  Now I know how he felt.

What has gone on in those years?

In no real particular order:  Sputnik.  The JFK assassination.  Martin Luther King Jr. being shot.  The Civil Rights movement.  The Apollo program and the moon landing.  The Summer of Love.  Riots.  Woodstock.  Kent State.  Watergate.  Gas lines.  Jimmy Carter sitting in the White House wearing a cardigan sweater.  Huge computer rooms filled with spinning tapes morphing into 8-1/4″ floppy drives morphing into boxy 10-MB hard drives morphing into the first Apples and PCs morphing into desktops and laptops and netbooks; cabling turning into wi-fi.  IBM Selectrics being perfected and then *poof* disappearing into the mists of time.  Reagan being shot.  The first shuttle take-off and landing.  Saturday Night Live.  The Iran hostage crisis.  Northwestern University, Loyola University, community college in Arizona, California State University.  The Blue Angels performing in Chicago, and San Francisco.  Three loves and one husband.  MTV.  A shuttle exploding.  Another shuttle exploding.  The Loma Prieta earthquake.  The Oakland Firestorm.  Usenet.  Mosaic.  Netscape Navigator.  The Internet.  Bulletin boards.  YouTube, Twitter, blogs.  The dot-com crash.  Bush I.  Dubya.  Clinton.  9/11.  Weddings.  Births.  Funerals.  Amazon.com.  Chicago, Arizona, the Bay Area, Lubbock, Arizona, Alaska.  The invention of in-vitro fertilization.  The Beatles, the Who, Jefferson Starship.  Heavy metal.  Punk.  Rap.  Hip-hop.  Grunge.  Us trying IVF.  Adoption from Korea fading, adoption from China growing.  Us adopting from China.  Gay rights.  The first black president of the U.S.  The Segway.  Hybrid automobiles.  Hubble telescope.  Katrina.  Glasses, contacts, LASIK.  Mini skirts, maxi skirts, the Marcia Brady look, tunic sweaters with legwarmers and straight-leg jeans.  Star Wars.  Cell phones as a status symbol turning into cell phones in the grocery store checkout line.  Mix tapes turning into Walkmen turning into iPods.  Sushi, tapas bars, Pop-Tarts and GoGurt.  The Food Network, Bobby Flay, Rachel Ray.  Congresscritters Twittering.  Three hundred and forty four extra-solar planets known so far.

It’s a weird, wonderful world.  I wonder what the next 50 years will bring?

My mom blasted me with a series of “happy birthday” YouTubes in my email today.  She was born shortly after TV was invented.  I have a seven-year-old; who knows what she will see in the years to come?

Fifty years ago, a long-distance phone call was expensive.  Yesterday, I was able to share a scary moment with friends across the world, and they were able to reply to me in seconds, minutes, hours. 

Or, alternatively, “Help me, Obiwan Kenobi!  You’re my only hope!”

What OmegaMom has been doing for the past two days, while sorting and washing laundry, is quickly becoming addicted to puzzle games on the computer.  Specifically, “hidden object” games.

Let’s back up a year or two.  At one point, OmegaDotter wanted (gag!) La Casa de Dora, a computer game.  We had a trial version, which lasted an hour.  So I signed up with BigFishGames–the “Jumbo Club” option–thinking that we would be downloading games on a regular basis, and downloaded La Casa de Dora.

Then I promptly forgot about my Jumbo Club membership.

So…OmegaDotter has gotten more mature, more able to figure things out, more deft with a mouse, and a month or two ago OmegaDad downloaded trial versions of some other games for her, specifically SuperCow, The Scruffs, and Feeding Frenzy.

Once again, the trial versions expired.

The dotter really liked SuperCow.  I really liked The Scruffs, a hidden object game with a sense of humor.  I decided–o brilliant idea!–to buy her these games for Christmas.

But when I went to BigFishGames, I tried signing up with my regular email address, and The Powers That Be told me I was already registered.

Whoops!

But!

But!

I now had 9 game credits!  Woot!

So rather than spending $10 per game (with the super-de-duper holiday game savings coupon), suddenly they were free!

I promptly downloaded the three games, and then spent hours the night before Christmas working my way through The Scruffs.

And then I decided I wanted another “hidden object” game, so I went to the game site and found “Mystery Case Files:  Ravenhearst”.

And then on Christmas day and the day after Christmas, I went through Ravenhearst.

And then I decided I wanted another Ravenhearst game (because I had seen it on the front page of the game site) and I downloaded it.

And I have been playing these damned games for days on end.

This is not good.  I need a magic word (like “Xyzzy!”) to transport me away from this sudden addiction.  Or I need a rescuer, like Obiwan Kenobi, to fight off the Dark Side of the Force.  I have a real life, dammit.  I have a dotter (who is enjoying working the puzzles with me, at least, so we’re doing a Family Fun Time Activity).  I have a husband.  There are errands to run.  There are stairs to shovel, because we’ve had a foot of snow on top of older snow, and 45-mph winds blowing the snow hither and yon.  We have a broody hen segregated in the garage (more on that later).  I still have laundry to do.

…but I still need to free the twin girls’ ghosts and find all the objects and figure out all the puzzles, and it’s calling me.  (Cue ominous music.)

I’ve been using email and the Internet (in varying forms) since 1992.

While I’m really not good about replying to emails, I’m very good about sending snippets out and about, to OmegaDad, to GrannyJ, to varying friends and relatives.  A link here (”Oooh.  This is interesting!”), a photo there (”Hey.  Here’s the dotter’s school pic.”), reminders (”Pick up some milk on the way home, and we’re out of cat food.”), a kml file (”Look at the aurora map!”), a YouTube video (usually a funny one).

I read the news online; I have the local blatt bookmarked, so I know what’s going on around Small Alaska Suburb and Big City, I have Small Mountain University Town’s newspaper bookmarked (though I haven’t been reading it much lately, which is an indicator of finally moving on, I guess), I have MSNBC and CNN bookmarked.

Every morning, I check out Nielsen’s daily Top 40 news stories and Technorati’s “Popular in News” listing.

I am on IM during the working day, so I can communicate with my boss and coworkers.

When we move into a new home, one of the first things I do is set up the utilities.  These days, Internet access is a “utility” to me, and it has been for years.

All of that said, read about another child of the connected age, being forced to isolate himself from his connections.

Think about it.  You’re used to the connectivity.  You’re constantly in casual touch with friends, relatives, coworkers.  You’ve even gathered together a community that spearheaded your election victory with “MyBarackObama” social networking.

And now…now…your security officials are telling you you must give it up while you are the president.

Ooog.

I couldn’t do it.  Give up my email?  My IM?  My blog?  No more quick dips into the Internet stream to see what the daily zeitgeist is?  No zipping over to Los Angeles news sites to see what the status of the SoCal fires is?  No link to the weather?

It’s one thing to turn it all off while on vacation; that’s just a week or two.  But for four or eight years?!  Ack.  No.

You’ll get my Interwebs from me when you pry it (them?) from my cold, dead hands!