Friday, 6th o September 2002
Olaia Studying for the Bar Exam
Olaia, the Attorney, or Why We Need Legal Counsel to Raise Our Daughter
By Laura
I am working at my desk, which is these days next to the living room so I am working at the same time that I am easily engaged in our daugher's day. At times I am there to remind her that Mommy and Daddy don't approve of "Ed, Edd and Eddy" nor of "Courage the Cowardly Dog". Sometimes we both dance and sing with "The Wiggles". I also ensure the TV is off, mind you.
On one such ocassion, it was late in the afternoon, roughly 3pm. Olaia surfaces from playing in her bedroom. She walks around our small house with a sense of ownership, knowing exactly what she wants and getting it. She walks over to the kitchen, opens the pantry doors, and gets a big canister of Export Sodas, soda crackers, and places it on my desk. "Mami, can I have a peanut butter jelly crackers?" she pleads.
"No, Olaia you ate a burger for lunch and said you were very full. Wait for dinner."
"Awww...", she whines and leaves hanging her head,feeling defeated. Oh, the rough life and melodrama of a 3 year old!
An hour later, Olaia, who had been watching Bob the Builder (in Spanish!), comes to me now with a little can of cashews. "Mami can I have some?". I am surprised my baby is looking for something to eat.
"She must be growing" I think to myself. Looking at the clock, i see it is nearing 5pm and say to her, "Olaia, Mami will start cooking soon, so no snacks, sweetie." TNT asks celebs, what is drama? Drama? Ask Olaia!
Again I hear "Awww...". Now I have cashew and crackers lining my desk.
I was about to finish my work day when Olaia comes to me and says, as she places her hand on the two containers, "Mami can I have this or this?"
"Sweetie, are you hungry? Mami will cook dinner soon." I turn to finish typing an email.
Then Olaia grabs my face between her hands and says sternly, "Mami, you DIDN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION! I asked you which one this one or this one?!"
Seeing as my distraction tactic did not work, I seek to sidestep the question yet again. I am feeling trapped, "must find a way out!". "Olaia, obviously you are hungry, what do you want for dinner? I don't want you snacking."
"Mami" she is now trying for a calmer approach, "Mami, you have to choose one, this one or this one."
"Perhaps all she wants is to play," I think. "OK, Olaia, this one" I point to the cashews.
"Thank you, Mom!"
I detect a clear cut sense of accomplishement and success in her. Hmmm, maybe she wasn't just playing. She leaves with her cashews, opens them and begins to snack.
Tuesday, 3rd o September 2002
I am worried about the current level of cynicism in today's generation. Their emptiness drives them to find something to make them feel. It brings me great sadness to see them and to know that there is nothing that can MAKE you feel, nothing that can bring feeling to your numbness, nothing that can come from outside. To feel you must expend your energy. It must come from within.
Monday, 2nd o September 2002
The Importance of Art and Fast Food
I've thought a lot about this subject, that is, the importance of art, high art and how it relates to fine dining and fast food.
Take, for example, the recent changes in NPR's Performance Today where they have cut back on commentary, history, and music appreciation in lieu of just more music. Just the facts ma'am. It seems that people just want some more drive time relaxation, mood music to which to fall asleep, or just to cover the naked backdrop of their lives with sonic tapestries.
A lot of people would call such an indictment pure snobbery, that classical music has long been a refuge of the rich, an inaccessible art form protected by high fences of academia, class, and prohibitive economies. Classical music becomes a talisman of protection from the unwashed masses. As a stone it is used more often to build walls than an inviting warm home.
I watch both sides rail against each other, especially with the most recent changes in Performance Today. Classical music snobs lament the dumbing down of the program, saying essentially that there are no more refuges in which to hide from the "...pop artists, many of whom don't deserve the time of day." Pop aficionados, offended at someone calling their art form less than art, react with similar negativity against the classical music community, calling it, "Music by dead people" "Irrelevant" and "Out of touch."
Well, I'm here to settle the debate once and for all. Now take careful notes here, because this is going to be the final word.
Classical music is to music what fine dining is to food, or what The Mission is to movie making, or what For Whom the Bell Tolls is to literature. Conversely, Pop music is to music, what McDonalds (I prefer Wendy's though) is to food, or Star Wars is to movie making, or Tom Clancy is to literature. It's that simple, folks.
Now, before you get offended let me explain. Before concluding from the above that I prefer or respect one genre over the other, let me just say that I eat "low art" food more frequently than I dine finely. Dining finely costs more, for one. $100 per plate is pretty steep, I'd say. However, for the creation of an accomplished chef, personally crafted for me, cooked to perfection, seasoned with skill, and served artfully, I'm willing to give of myself. But I don't just have to give monetarily. In order to appreciate the creation, I have got to know a bit about it. That takes experience, study, and refined palette. I personally am but a student, a worm, unworthy perhaps of the creation put in front of me, but I approach it with gusto, trying to soak all of the experience from the plate in front of me, tasting the history, the study, the preparation, the ingredients. Whew! It is an infrequent experience which leaves me exhausted and satisfied to the very depths of my soul. I am filled to an overflowing, babbling, quivering mass. To do it more often would seem gluttonous, a transgression upon the soul.
I think one of the most extraordinary movies I have ever seen is The Mission with Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons. It is a deep drama about Jesuit missionaries in Brazil in their quest to keep the slave traders of Portugal at bay. There is political intrigue, the Catholic leadership making worldly political decisions in contrast to the idealistic keepers of the truth, the Jesuits. They clash, and the obvious outcome is the destruction of a people and the death of the idealists. You finish watching this movie and are run over, depressed at the savagery of man, tired from the depth of sadness, and wishing fervently that the movie could have turned out differently but knowing it could not. How often could I watch such a movie without losing all hope for humanity? Certainly, I could not watch it more than just a few times. In fact, we own it, but it has been years since I have watched it. I am not ready, it is too rich, too bankrupting, too indulgent, too much to bear.
For Whom the Bell Tolls is by far my favorite piece of literature. In much the same way as I relish fine dining and fine movie making, Hemingway has crafted a setting, a time, a world that is at the same time compelling as it is repulsive. The drama of an American fighting for idealism during the Spanish Civil War, a prelude to World War II, his love, his politics, his sacrifice, draws me in and at the same time fills me with much sadness. I want the book never to end. When I reread it, I get progressively slower hoping that it would never end that I could preserve the literary reality forever. But alas, it always does end, Robert Jordan does indeed die, and the Fascists do take control of Spain for many years. Sigh, it's so real, it envelopes me, takes me away, soaks in to the depth of my soul and I must put the book down for for a time or risk losing myself.
So where do I go from here? I surely cannot dine on fine cuisine every day. I have not the money, time, nor am I willing to invest of myself so frequently so much. I cannot watch The Mission more than but a few times every decade, and I cannot read For Whom the Bell Tolls or run the risk of over nourishing and mineral poisoning my soul.
Most of our lives are spent eating "pop culture", consuming "pop" food, watching "pop" movies and tv, and reading "pop" books. Pop is this case comes from Popular, or in Latin, "of the people." These are the things that sustain us, folks. The are mostly fillers, things with which to fortify the body, mind, and soul short term. We cannot exist without them, I think. We must nourish ourselves daily without paying such a heavy price, either economically or spiritually. Sometimes a burger is just a burger, a flick just a flick, and a rag just a rag.
But neither can we sustain "life" based SOLEY on them. Without high art, we run the risk of blandly floating through existence, neither aware of its depth, appreciative of its dimensions, and never ever coming fully to our senses. It is this that I feel is the most important. Experiences that demand a high price of us cannot be consumed every day, but MUST be consumed at some point. Consider them the trace elements necessary for life and health.
Sunday, 1st o September 2002
Gulliver finds that it is quite easy to stand out among the Liliputians. It's just that their size can be so frustrating at times.
Wednesday, 28th o August 2002
Tips to Make Tech Support a Pleasent Efficient Experience
I found this on the Internet a while back. Sums up the trials and tribulations of doing ANY form of tech support. I added a couple of my pet peeves at the bottom. And truthfully, 85% of this stuff has actually happened to me. Why couldn't I have been a farmer?
- Never write down any error messages. Just click "Ok" or restart your computer. Jim likes to guess what the error message was.
- When talking about your computer, use terms like "Thingy" and "Big Connector."
- If you get a EXE file in a email attachment, open it immediately. Jim likes to make sure the anti-virus software is working properly from time to time.
- When sending someone your document via email, always assume that they have all the same software installed that you do.
- When Jim says he coming right over, log out and go for coffee. It's no problem for him to remember your password.
- When you call Jim to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and Popsicle sticks. Jim doesn't have a life, and he finds it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.
- When Jim sends you an email marked as "Highly Important" or "Action Required", delete it at once. He's probably just testing some new Email software feature, anyhow.
- When Jim is eating lunch at his desk or in the lunchroom, walk right in and spill your guts and expect him to respond immediately. Jim exists only to serve and is always ready to think about fixing computers.
- When Jim is at the water cooler or outside taking a breath of fresh air, find him and ask him a computer question. The only reason he takes breaks at all is to ferret out all those employees who don't have email or a telephone line.
- Send urgent email ALL IN UPPERCASE. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
- When the photocopier doesn't work, call Jim. There's electronics in it, right?
- When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at your home computer, call Jim. He can even fix telephone problems from remote locations too.
- When something is wrong with your home PC, dump it on Jim's chair with no name, no phone number, and no description of the problem. He just loves a good mystery.
- When you have Jim on the phone walking you through changing a setting; read the newspaper. Jim doesn't actually mean for you to DO anything; he just loves to hear himself talk.
- When your company offers training on an upcoming OS upgrade; don't bother to sign up. Jim will be there to hold your hand after it is done.
- When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently just disappear into the cosmos for no reason.
- When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all the printers in the office. One of them is bound to work.
- Don't use online help. Online help is for wimps. Right?
- If you're taking night classes in computer science, feel free to demonstrate your fledgling expertise by updating the network drivers for you and all your co-workers. Jim will be grateful for the overtime when he has to stay until 2:30am fixing all of them.
- When Jim's fixing your computer at a quarter past one, eat your Whopper with cheese in his face. He functions better when he's slightly dizzy from hunger.
- Don't ever thank Jim. He loves fixing everything AND getting paid for it!
- When Jim asks you whether you've installed any new software on your computer, lie. It's nobody's business what you've got on your computer.
- If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your dog, lift the computer and stuff the cable under it. Those skinny Mouse cables were designed to have 55 lbs. of computer monitor crushing on them.
- If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame Jim for not upgrading it sooner. Hell, it's not your fault that there's a half a pound of pizza crust crumbs, nail clippings, and big sticky drops of Mountain Dew under the keys.
- When you get the message saying "Are you sure?", click on that "Yes" button as fast as you can. Hell, if you weren't sure, you wouldn't be doing it, would you?
- Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about that computer crap." It never bothers Jim to hear his area of professional expertise referred to as crap.
- When you need to add paper to the printer, call Jim. Changing the paper is an extremely menial task, and both Hewlett Packard and Lexmark recommend that it be performed only by certified network administrators with lots of time on their hands.
- When you receive a 130-megabyte movie file, send it to everyone as a high-priority mail attachment. Jim's provided plenty of disk space and processor capacity on the new mail server just for those important kinds of things.
- Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks. God forbid somebody else should sneak a one-page job in between your 427-page Excel spreadsheet.
- When you bump into Jim in the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon, ask him computer question. He works 24/7, even while at Dominick's buying toilet paper and doggie treats.
- If your son is a student in computer science, have him come in on the weekends and do his projects on your office computer. Jim will be there for you when your son's illegal copy of Visual Basic 6.0 makes the Access database keel over and die.
-
When you bring Jim your own " no-name" brand home PC to
repair for free at the office, tell him how urgently he needs to fix
it so you can get back to playing EverQuest. He'll get on it right
away because he has so much free time at the office. Everybody knows
that all he does is surf the Internet all day anyway.
And I'll add a couple at the end here:
- When Jim is in your office doing an upgrade or tech support, leave promptly at Lunch or 5 PM. He loves feeling like he cares more about your work than you do.
- When Jim is in your office doing an upgrade or tech support, leave promptly at Lunch or 5 PM and tell him nothing! Jim doesn't rely on primitive verbal communication and human contact.