I don’t allow anonymous comments on any of my blogs: Penny Arcade’s Green Blackboards (And Other Anomalies).
It’s totally true, I swear it.
Dana Cooks
I am very disorganized when it comes to planning meals, and I thought blogging about it might help me. We’ll see whether that proves to be true or not. At any rate, I’ll give it a try. You can check out my meal planning blog at Dana Cooks!
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Christmas and Swing
I went to my parents’ house for Christmas and had a chance to visit with my sister, brother-in-law and niece. It was a nice time. Maggie and Dylan had fun. Sarah had a good time, too. She spent most of the holiday with her dad and is still there. Sure does seem like a houseful when all the kids are together. My sister gave me the director’s cut of Amadeus, which I had been coveting. Sarah gave me her 100% Spanish test, all wrapped and everything. I also received some nice clothes and teacher things. The kids cleaned up. I gave my sister and parents copies of their family trees/family history books, and my brother-in-law and niece also received books from me. I hope all of you had happy holidays and will enjoy a good new year.
I finally managed to get into Odeo. I am frustrated by the fact that the bluegrass podcast I wanted to listen to sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks go Appalachian, but from what I understand, this is a bug that Odeo knows about, doesn’t plan to fix, and instead places squarely into the hands of podcasters. From what I understand, not all podcasters upload their podcasts to Odeo, but gathers RSS feeds from podcasts and puts them in one location. If you browse the site, you’ll notice that many of the podcasts are not “claimed.”
Just as many of you may not have known that I like Delta Blues, you probably also didn’t know I’m a huge fan of Big Band Swing — Glenn Miller in particular, but I listen to others. It started when I was in 7th grade. My band teacher let us join jazz band even if we didn’t play a “jazz” instrument. In the years since, I have learned that my flute is indeed sometimes used in jazz, though not as often as brass and sax. Anyway, we played a swing tune called “Tuxedo Junction.” I thought it was so much fun, and I began to listen to other big band tunes. I remember my college friends really scratched their heads over it. I wondered after swing music came into vogue again in the mid to late 1990’s if they remembered I had listened to it. I am so rarely ahead of the curve on anything. Of course, one could and probably should argue that I was not ahead of the curve; rather, I was behind the curve by about 50 years. Whatever. Who would have thought I would like the same popular music as my grandfather? Well, it’s true. I find myself tapping my toes and really wishing I could actually dance when I hear swing music. I found some great swing music from Radio Nostalgia Network via Odeo. You can listen to anything from swing music to old radio programs (including soap operas and radio plays). You can enjoy a big band swing podcast in the music player in the lefthand sidebar. Remember the recording is old and was broadcast over the radio in 1939, so the sound quality is not what we’re used to in 2006. Still sounds good, however.
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Inaccessible Sites
I have been trying all day to listen to some podcasts at Odeo.com, but I couldn’t access the site. I have learned a few tricks that I thought I would pass along (just in case you didn’t know them) if you ever notice that you are having problems accessing a site.
- Search for references to the site in blogs. A good way to do this is via a Technorati search. You may find bloggers have had problems accessing the site, too, and have posted about it. At least then you know you’re not alone, and it probably isn’t anything wrong with your own connection or computer.
- Try looking at Google’s cache. Search for the URL on Google, then instead of clicking the site, look beneath the description at the link that says Google cache. Click that. If you can look at that, the problem is possibly temporary (although it could also mean the site is being taken permanently offline and Google still has a cache).
- Try pinging the site’s server. Access your DOS prompt (I don’t know what you do if you have a Mac, but Windows has an MS DOS prompt. At the C:\> prompt, type PING website.com. In the case of the site I was trying to access, it would look like: C:\>PING odeo.com. If everything looks OK, then there is no problem with the server. This was the result of my ping to Odeo (click for larger version)
Don’t be bothered by the fact that I have a C-prompt that looks like C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>. That is due to the settings on my computer. If you looked at the image, you will see I hit no snags. There is no text that says “Response Timed Out,” which is what to look for. - Try to do a traceroute and see if there is something going on between the site’s server and it’s destination — your connection/computer. Once again, open your DOS prompt and type C:\>TRACERT odeo.com (or whatever the site is). If everything loads OK, and you do not find any “Request timed out” messages, then it’s back to the drawing board. I happened to discover this is not the case with Odeo’s path to my computer:
If you look at the image, you’ll notice right about number 23, I start getting “Request timed out” warnings. This means there is a problem with a router between my connection and the site’s server, and there is probably nothing anyone can do about it. Try this before you contact web site administrators to complain — they can’t do anything about problems like this. There isn’t much you can do except try later and see if the site route is clearer then.
All this means is that somewhere in between my connection and Odeo.com, there is a breakdown, and there isn’t anything I can do about it except wait. Dammit.
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A Christmas Carol
I have to admit to a lifelong love for Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Somehow, the Christmas season doesn’t seem complete until I have seen an adaptation of this classic. When I was a child, I used to enjoy Rich Little’s characterizations of all the characters. My favorite these days is 1999’s version starring Patrick Stewart as Scrooge (although the 1984 George C. Scott is good, too). Despite the fact that it is anachronistic, I love the part when the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge all the people singing “Silent Night,” especially the mine worker with the ringing tenor. Gee, I wonder why that would be?
I don’t care for modern adaptations of the story. There is something about the Victorian setting that appeals to me. I am watching Patrick Stewart as Scrooge being frightened by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come as I write. Working at a Jewish school somewhat dampens the Christmas season for obvious reasons. I need to work much harder to get into the spirit of the holiday. Watching this reminds me of the Star Trek TNG movie Generations, when Captain Picard is caught in the Nexus and imagines he has this lovely Victorian family surrounding him for the holidays.
I wonder what Christmas was like in Charles Dickens’ house?
Autism
I took Dylan to his pediatrician today to begin the process of evaluating him for autism. He has for some time been exhibiting symptoms that worry me. For instance, at the age of three, he speaks almost no words. He will learn words, then forget them; however, we know he knows some words based on his nonverbal responses. He seems to be unable to determine when someone is angry or upset. He lines up his toys and become extremely upset when anyone disturbs his arrangments.
In some ways, Dylan perfectly exhibits symptoms of autism, but in others — such as the fact that he is very affectionate and loves to be hugged — he doesn’t. Of course, autism is a spectrum disorder, and I have no fears that he is mentally disabled. However, his language delay is really my biggest concern. He will be starting school soon, and I want him to be successful. Especially because I see the light inside him, but I realize that it would be difficult for a teacher to relate to him.
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The Lord of the Rings
TNT is running all three Lord of the Rings movies back to back today. I know that my dad doesn’t like them, mainly because Peter Jackson chose to change or delete some of his favorite elements. I think they are much more successful than the Ralph Bakshi cartoons at telling the story in a serious way. I think my dad re-reads LotR every year or every other year. He recalled that his fifth grade teacher read his class The Hobbit, which I think awakened an interest not only in Tolkien, but also in fantasy literature. I tried to read it in the sixth grade, but I don’t think I was ready for it. I did not actually pick up the books until my sophomore year in college, at the behest of my friend Kari (who was my roommate the next year). I can remember finishing The Fellowship of the Ring about midnight, and just dying to begin the next book. Finally when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I went downstairs (I lived on the fourth floor of Reed Hall, and she lived in the basement) to see if she was awake. Thankfully, she was, and also thankfully, she was amused by my desperation for the second book.
I had never seen the final movie, Return of the King, until last night. The battle sequences were amazing (I loved the Oliphaunts!), and it was great to see Merry and Eowyn kick some Witch-King butt. You can still catch part of Fellowship and all of the other two movies if you tune in now.
Delta Blues
Something most of you probably don’t know about me is that I love Delta Blues. I cannot claim to be an expert, and some of you probably know a lot more about the various musicians than I do, but I do know what I like. I bought my first blues album on cassette tape when I was a teenager. It was a Robert Johnson album — King of the Delta Blues Singers. My introduction to Delta Blues was probably not dissimilar to that of most skinny white kids. I liked Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones. In all the various books, interviews, and articles I read, these artists all named the blues as their favorite music — the music that made them want to play. I took a guitar class in high school when I lived in California. My teacher, Mr. Ingram, used to play blues recordings, admonishing us to “listen to the guitar, not the lyrics!” Of course, that ensured that we would try to make out what that old bluesman on the scratchy recording was saying.
I never heard anything that sounded quite as desperate as Robert Johnson’s quaking voice proclaiming the hell hound was on his trail. While I can’t claim to own a lot of blues music, when I am flipping stations in the radio or on TV and run into the blues, I always stop and listen for a while. I guess my relationship with the blues is a funny one — I forget about how much I love the blues until I hear it; therefore, it doesn’t occur to me to buy blues CD’s when I’m shopping or to seek out blues music in other forms.
I have been looking for some time for a good way to play music from this blog. I used to have a Radio Blog here, and I still like those, but I wanted something smaller — and frankly, something that wouldn’t be such a pain to update. Whenever I wanted to change out music, I had to convert my mp3’s to files that could be played by the Radio Blog, then upload the music via FTP. It might not seem like a big deal, but it took quite a while due to the large size of most sound files. And to be perfectly honest, I never got much feedback that indicated any readers really listened to the music, so it was probably a lot of hard work for just about nothing. I think Radio Blogs are great if you don’t mind doing a lot of work to keep them updated, or if you don’t want to update often. In fact, I use them on several websites on which I have static music, such as the Great Gatsby activity, Zora Neale Hurston activity, and Romanticism activity I have created for my students.
I knew I didn’t want to put Radio Blog back on the site, and I wasn’t happy with the fact that Last.fm didn’t have streaming audio for blogs — I could link to songs, and listeners could hear snippets of them, but as good as Last.fm is if you want to somewhat personalize your radio, it isn’t very good for blogging purposes (or else I haven’t figured out how to use it correctly). I don’t like just linking to other sites. I wanted to provide content, maybe even introduce readers to things they hadn’t heard before. I wanted to share some music that I liked, that moved me. And I wanted to do it on my own blog, not by sending you elsewhere and hoping you’d go listen.
Every once in a while, when I thought about it, I would poke around looking for something that worked like YouTube or Google Video, only for music. In other words, I didn’t want to mess around with big files — I just wanted to share music. I found such a site today. Of course, I don’t pretend I’m sharing anything new. In fact, I’d be willing to bet a lot of you have already heard of Odeo. Odeo allows bloggers to embed players in their blogs. What’s more, they have several style choices, so you can pick the size and color that best matches your blog scheme. Since I had never visited the site before, I decided to browse the music before trying to search for music I liked by artist or song. Odeo’s sidebar allows visitors to browse by topic. I selected music (Odeo also has podcasts on lots of other topics). One of the featured channels on the main music page was Delta Blues Museum: Clarksdale, Mississippi. I browsed through their previous podcasts and chose an older one from last February featuring music about Dealing with the Devil. If you want to give it a listen, it’s in the player in the lefthand sidebar. I really enjoyed it, and I hope you do, too. I’ll try to update with links to other music and podcasts I enjoy fairly often, as updating is really painless with Odeo.
Next month I am chaperoning a trip with the 11th graders to Alabama and Memphis, Tennessee. It is a Civil Rights journey. On the way, we will visit the battleground of the Civil Rights Movements in Alabama along with an exploration of African-American roots music in Memphis. I am most looking forward to this part of the trip. We will visit Graceland and Beale Street. We are going to a real blues club to hear live music. I can’t wait.
My Way or the Hemingway
Online Friends that Drop Away
I have been writing online in some form for about five and a half years now. In that time, I have made several friends that I only know online — that I’ve not actually met in person. While that may be odd, consider how quickly and easily you can get to know someone through their writing online. Friendships between bloggers who see commonalities in each other can form much faster than offline friendships. Along the way, some of my online friends have decided (for various reasons) not to write anymore. Unfortunately, when they did so, they also dropped out of my life. Over time, their contact information changed or they never responded to my check-ins, or perhaps I lost their contact information. It makes me sad that my friendships with these writers ended not because one or the other of us was angry at the other or felt slighted or even felt the friendship had run its course (at least, I didn’t). It is my hope that some of my old friends might see this post and let me know how they’re doing — perhaps even where they are writing now so I can catch up.
Goewin used to write at Diaryland as Goewin and at Blogger’s Blogspot as bluemoonegg. As far as I know, she isn’t online. It has been some time since I received a comment from her. I don’t think I have her e-mail address anymore, either. She is the only online friend I’ve had that I actually made tentative plans to meet in real life, though it didn’t work out. She had family in the town where I used to teach.
Vickie used to write at Magnolia Glen. At first, she had her own .org domain, then she moved to Blogspot. A quick Google search yielded no results for either blog.
Trinity63 was very supportive of me at a time when I needed it, then she had some fairly heinous online troubles and absented herself from her Diaryland diary for good. I miss her.
Gingerbug wrote at Diaryland also. She participated in Diaryland Survivor and was raked over the coals there and on a forum owned by another Diarylander. She had quite an eye for design, and she was such an interesting person. She had some really creative ideas, too.
On the other hand, some friends I made early on have maintained contact in some form or continued writing online. Dana and Vanessa are such friends. This might creep them out, but I’ll go ahead and say that they may be two of my best friends. They know a lot about me, and they take the time to keep up with me. I’m not saying the others I mentioned didn’t do these things. It’s just that for whatever reason, we gradually lost touch. I wish we hadn’t!