Wow, is this guy ever going to write?

It's been a really long time since I've published. What with work being crazy, trying to do some drawing and painting, and scanning all my old sketchbooks into digital form, writing has been really far down my priority list. I'm going to start posting some sketches soon.

It's been raining almost every day for over a month. I lost track of how much we've had, buy my pond has been running over for a long time. We've just got out and mowed the pasture for the first time this year (still not finished - hay, just getting started) The flowering plants are as tall as the rear tire on my tractor in places, about 4 ft. or so. I was going to try to cut a dead tree off the back side of my tank dam, haven't been able to get near it. I think a machete and an ax are called for.

A friend of mine, Yarnmaven, turned me on to Mustang grape jelly, so I went out to the county road near my house and picked 4 gallons. We've made three batches of jelly.

Interesting

Your Life Path Number is 6

Your purpose in life is to help others You are very compassionate, and you offer comfort to those around you. It pains you to see other people hurting, and you do all in your power to help them. You take on responsibility, and don't mind personal sacrifice. You are the ultimate giver. In love, you offer warmth and protection to your partner. You often give too much of yourself, and you rarely put your own needs first. Emotions tend to rule your decisions too much, especially when it comes to love. And while taking care of people is great, make sure to give them room to grow on their own.

What Is Your Life Path Number?

Not Enough Time

There's never enough time to do all the things you want to do, plus the things you need to do, plus the things someone thinks you should do. Right now, my desk at home is piling up with bills and bank statements waiting to be entered. The cows need to be fed, the llamas need to be sheared, the hay man will be over in about a week, and dead wood is laying around my pasture. I need to catch some fish out of one of my ponds and transfer them to another pond, but usually it's too hot or I'm too tired. I've really gotten back into the flytying thing. I spent some time yesterday gathering up tools and door prizes for my classes. Saturday I spent some time at our local fair, and helped with a chili cook-off. That plus playing with our granddaughter, eating out Friday night, and watching a couple of movies, and it was a very full weekend.

As we get older, we realize how little time we have to do more things with less energy. There must come a point where we start to jettison some of our activities. It is a clarifying experience. I pity those who never reach that point.

Flytying class

On Wednesday I taught a flytying class for Camp Coca-Cola, to some 7-9th graders. Although teaching kids to tie flies is rather tedious and way less fun than teaching fly casting, it was curiously enjoyable. I think it was a combination of the drive, getting out of the office, the setting, and the young people. They were very nice.

I wasn't exactly late, but I wasn't early, and that cut into class time just for setting up tables, etc. I had planned to do some knot-tying, but skipped that. We finished one fly and then I rushed to give out door prizes. I think they all enjoyed it, and I got rid of some of my boodle. (Boodle - the stuff you collected years ago, and no longer have a need for. I don't know if that's a real definition, or I just made it up.)

The leaders of the camp were very nice, also, and after I signed out and was walking out the door, they gave me a "Camp Coca-Cola" baseball cap. I think I might do it again.

Save the Internet

I just wrote another letter to the FCC about the Internet. You can read my letter at http://www.savetheinternet.com/yourstory/280382. You should write one, too.

May happenings

It's been almost a month since I wrote. I felt that this might happen when I started this thing, but I will strive to do better. Since my May 4 post on disablism, I have:

• planted a lawn
  
• attended AccessU, two days of training in web accessibility issues
• held accessibility/usability meetings on a web application I've been developing
• had lunch with my old Tai Chi instructor, who has moved
• taught flycasting at a kid's fishing event at Palmetto State Park
• gone fishing a couple of times.

Many thoughts have passed through my mind, never to be recovered in their entirety. I've had a lot of fun with flickr. I've been a photo buff for many, many years, and this new thing is just a great way to share. I've got some great slides for my screensaver and my computer desktop, too. I don't feel that this is a misuse of the fair use doctrine for copyrighted works. I don't sell photos I've downloaded, and cycle them off my computer periodically. One of the great things about the Internet and flickr is that you never have to become bored with your space.

Disablism

A bunch of people were blogging against disablism on May 1. I missed it by a couple of days, but here goes. I'm not disabled right now, but you never know when something may happen and change that.

My pet peeve a few years ago was ramps. My college campus was very hilly, with stairs everywhere in the sidewalks. They had installed some ramps, but you had to go around the building to use them. They were only wide enough for one wheelchair at a time, and some had several switchbacks in order to negotiate the hillside. This meant that the ramp was one way at a time. The ramp to the library was way out of the way, but they did have a "basement" door which could be used if you were actually in a wheelchair.

At the time, I was an older student, taking computer science courses. Now, they make computer science books really thick and heavy. I couldn't walk around all day with a load of books, especially after the open-heart surgery, so I used a luggage cart. Thus, I was a regular user of the ramps. The aforementioned library door wasn't accessible to me, since I wasn't actually sitting in a wheelchair. It is in cases such as this where some provision is made for the disabled, but is not legal for all disabled persons.

Another pet peeve is the disabled parking. It is fine for persons with a sticker, hang-tag or special license plates, but what if you hurt your leg that morning getting out of the tub? It doesn't matter how far you have to limp to get into the store. But I have seen many individuals get out of a specially tagged car and walk into a store with no problems. Well, the system isn't perfect, and I don't want to have camera surveillance in parking lots (any more than we already do), but by creating more and more of these special slots, the stores (by government decree) encourage abuse of the system. And they don't all have to be the first ones in front of the door. Many disabled persons just need an extra roomy slot so they can get their scooter out of the car. The distance from the door is irrelevant.