| Funds For Fac, Cards for Mark
Sunday 7 June 98 5:05 pm
The
Reunion is very important to me, and it's still very iffy whether I
can go or not. But I got this word today from Serendipitous about
a beloved member of the Active
Worlds community and the pinch
he is in:
Hi Everyone...
Many of you know facter. He's the owner of the world *Pollen*, Peacekeeper
#26, is active in many areas of AW and is generally always known to *speak
his mind* :))))
Facter was very excited about The Reunion right from the start and thought
he would be able to attend. Unfortunately, his finances changed somewhat
and made his *dream* of attending The Reunion disappear.
Last week I received a message from someone asking me to find out how
much money facter would require for his trip. I established that $1,200
US$ would get him here. Now here is the situation:
His original *benefactor* will donate up to $500 US I have decided that
I will donate up to $100 US
That leaves a total of $600 (US) that we need to raise *very quickly*
so that facter can get his plans *moving* to attend The Reunion. I really
do think that this is a *wonderful* thing to do and I bet he's *well worth*
meeting.
I'm asking you people to buy in to facter's dream and help fund his
trip to North America.
The remaining $600 required can be broken down in many ways: 40 donors
@ $15.00 each; 20 donors @ $30.00 each, 10 donors @ $60.00 each. 1 donor
@ $600.00!!! When split up it really doesn't come to much at all........even
we got 5 donors at $60, 5 at $30 and 10 @ $15.00 we could *do it* :)))
Think about it people....if is there any way you can raise the money
among your *peers* or help out yourself.....when we talk about The Reunion
and our friends......it will sure be nice to know that we were able to
*help* at least one person who couldn't otherwise make it...............
Because of the time "Factor"...I need to know as soon as possible if
you can assist. Please email with the amount you would like to pledge to
donate or *raise* on facter's behalf.
If you aren't in a position to help out for *whatever* reason.....that's
ok....no worries....but.....I would appreciate a response just to let me
know you received this! BTW...I also totally understand that this type
of thing doesn't appeal to *everyone* and of course will respect your opinion
as I know you will respect mine ;))))
Depending on how things go for me the next few weeks,
I'll chuck whatever I can into the hat as soon as I can. It all depends
on how things go. I know most of the people who come here aren't
into AW, but for those who can understand the need of a group of longstanding
friends to meet one of their own who has been such a valuable contributor
to the community, I hope they find the desire and means to help.
Seren is the contact person on this
issue.
I was also stunned to get this one from Chloe:
I was devastated to hear this :((
I love ya 3D!!!!
I hope sincerely that you recover fully and quickly!!
Hugz
With Great Affection,
Chloe
To everyone who received this please fwd to your mailing list.
Telegram from Indigoflight3, sent Fri Jun 5, 1998 5:18 AM: 3DMark had
a stroke last wk.. ....He thought he was having a migrane till he lost
feeling in his left arm+started losing his sight.Hejust got home today+
eyesight has returned+partial use of his arm..I put aside an area 4 hisl
cards AW 5550N 5530E for us
Come on people, lets all show him how much we miss him :))
--
Dthknight
Dthknight Central: AW 1875N 2225W
Home Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~dthknight/
"But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily
vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing..." - Kate Chopin,
"The Awakening"
I realize that to the uninitiated, this looks like spamming,
but it isn't. It's another example of how people pull together in
times of crisis. It was this way for Kaci's funeral, it was this
way when my sister died. It''s been this way for every major life
event I've heard of since joining AW. These are real people in a
real community, separated by miles of physical distance, but connected
by the heart. Seren, facter, Indigo, Dth, Chloe, 3DMark are wonderful
people, and there are a lot more, in cyberspace.
I posted these without permission, beg forgiveness
if I have done wrong thereby. But these are important messages.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a get well card to post.
Lunch in Bethesda
Saturday 6 June 98 6:27 pm
The class went ok. I was nervous, stammered
some as has been my tendency when uneasy for the past couple years.
There used to be nothing wrong with my speech, so it dismays me to get
hung up repeating a syllable or saying a word bass ackwards.
Sunday 7 June 98 7:58 am
The puter crashed last night with a lot of this
entry still unsaved, so here we go again.
The class went well, despite my speech problems.
There was this one guy who had some hands-on experience with Project already,
so naturally his questions tended to fall into the realms we won't be entering
until class two. I am sure he got tired of hearing me say, "We'll
get to that later." Of course, day one was just the basics, so I
hadn't gone into all the advanced features yet, even on my own exploration,
so he was asking me questions I just didn't know the answers to.
Otherwise the students seemed satisfied with what
they were learning and how they were learning it, and that in turn pleased
me.
The Mayor
of Bethesda Avenue and I have intended to get together for lunch ever
since the Aquarius Party, and I emailed him this
week that now is prolly the best time to arrange one, as I'd be roughly
in the area doing that class. In his reply he suggested that he bring
the Gus along, which was
a fine idea by me, so I told him so and asked for recommendations where
we meet, offering as my own recommendation Krupins on Wisconsin.
I told him that if I didn't hear from him, the backup plan would be to
show up at Bethesda Bagels at
2:00. I emailed Gus to let him know this, too, just in case there
was any confusion.
I arrived on Bethesda Avenue a bit early, despite
my unfamiliarity with the area and the awkwardness of the roadblocked streets.
There was a children's festival going on called "Imagination Bethesda",
with fingerprinting and so on, and the extra traffic made the driving and
parking difficult. I walked down to the Barnes
and Noble in search of a restroom. Bookstores don't come this
big where I come from, or even in my current county of residence.
The B&N is three stories high and quite wide. I wandered around
with the little thrill of being surrounded by thousands and thousands of
books dancing lightly across the back of my neck. After doing what
I needed to do and then making a pretense of browsing the books, I went
back out to kill more time at the festival, mostly sitting on a bench,
chatting with a nice fellow mommy who was waiting for her crew.
I was back at the bagel place in time, and waited
for a bit, patting doggies and conversing with their owners. A decaf
frappe from Quartermaine's failed to impress me; guess I'm spoiled on the
Dunkin Donuts Coolatta, or else I suffer from unrefined tastes. Gus
then showed up and we lingered about making conversation while waiting
for the Mayor. He showed me his digital camera, and I was very, very
impressed. It's a slim little critter, more closely resembling, Gus
noted, one of those dictation tape recorders than any kind of photographic
device. Several times he innocuously captured people doing things
that seemed interesting. Just sitting there on the bench we saw a
kid with a firefighter helmet, two babies in a carriage that placed them
feet-to-feet ("Hey, look, Siamese twins joined at the feet." said Gus),
and a guy attempting to ride a bike with rollerblades on. Once we
decided the Mayor wasn't likely to show, we crossed the street for some
Chinese food. This was a big treat for me; the Huz nearly always
vetoes any suggestion I make for Chinese.
We talked about so much stuff, from people we know
to web design to how to encourage children with special talents, that I
can't possibly touch on everything. It's refreshing to talk to somebody
who'll discuss more than the Army, financial matters, and cars.
After that we had a look around the festival.
Gus was immediately attracted to an exhibit of birds of prey who had been
injured and were being tended back to health. There were several
kinds of owl, a raven, and a vulture there, although the lady doing the
talking pointed out that ravens are actually songbirds, the largest of
the songbirds, in fact, and that vultures are now considered not birds
of prey, but more closely related to storks. The raven looked majestic
against the backdrop of a nearby building, black feathers reflecting blue
in the sun, and Gus wouldn't be satisfied until he got a good shot.
They had snakes and turtles here too, but the birds in their calm observation
of the crowds were more riveting. Each of them was tethered to their
respective posts, and other than the red barn owl, who hid its head in
a crate, showed no nervousness or unease.
Another fascinating exhibit was the Discovery Store
booth, where a guy was somehow making beads on a metal ring vibrate, an
effect we didn't manage to reproduce. A kid was playing with a sphere
made of scissorlike plastic parts that allowed the beach ball sized sphere
to collapse to smaller than a soccer ball. It looked like an oversized
Koosh. There were some glasses that put rainbows on everything.
The keeper of the booth said these were part of "The Psychedelic Experience"
and could be used in conjunction with other items there. There were
some of those spinning laser disks that I used to have a couple of, and
these combined with the glasses made for some very nice visual effects.
Many of the other booths were being broken up at
that late hour, but we did get assaulted by a string of oversized balloons
flopping madly in the wind. I ducked into Chicken Out briefly to
see if this branch had the Stewart's Orange and Cream, but it didn't.
Then it was time to take off. Apparently neither of us does goodbyes
very well, so I repeated my offer of a place to stay while he is road tripping,
and he confirmed that he had my address and phone number, and with a "see
ya later" we took off.
Back at home, the Huz was mowing everyone's lawns.
I whipped up some sloppy joe and macaroni and cheese while the kids watched
a video. I wound up falling asleep in Boober's bed, getting up around
midnight into my own.
Wow. Day in the life entries can get long,
can't they?
Daddy
Friday 5 June 98 8:05
I'm drowning. Is this a cold, an allergy,
a sinus infection? I thought I knew earlier this week, but now I
neither know nor care. I just want it to stop.
Ever since sampling the stuff on Tuesday, I've been
craving a Jones Soda. No wonder
Brooklynguy and his partners have faith enough in this drink to found a
company to distribute it. The kind I had was called Vanilla Cola
and strongly resembled the flavor of a coke float, but not quite as sweet.
Past few days I've been stopping at nearby convenience stores looking for
something, anything, with some flavor in it. Last weekend I'd tried
a Stewart's Orange and Cream at the local Chicken Out, and that was almost
as delightful as the Jones. No wonder "microbrew" sodas are catching
on. Beside these lovely flavors, Coke and Pepsi come off tasting
like fizzy brown water.
Microbrews really aren't all that new, just newly
rediscovered. Where I come from, there is a brand called White Rock
which specializes in cream soda and root beer. My dad introduced
these to me with high accolades to their incredible "smoothness" some ten
years ago. Well, he's right. I don't know any other way to
describe the sultry way the cream soda slides across the tongue and caresses
its way down the throat. It's smooth.
Speekina dads, I love that new Ever Clear song although,
like with most music these days, I have no idea what the title is.
It's prolly called "Father of Mine" or "Daddy Gave Me a Name". It
made me cry, really, when it got down to the part where he has a child
of his own, "And I'm never gonna let him go!" That's the part, right
there. I was driving home from errands and that line hit and I just
bawled, right there in the van. I discussed this with the Huz, about
how the writer of the song suffered so much from the abandonment, about
how I never got the feeling my dad abandoned me, even though I didn't get
to see much of him when I was a lot younger. My folks divorced when
I was three, and I lived with my mom after that. But my dad went
all out to make me feel loved and wanted.
Seems like he was most comfortable expressing his
love through teaching me stuff, like how to tie jigs out of horsehair and
how to cast a rod, how to shell pecans and how to rework the wiring in
my ancient car. He pointed out things he noticed and told stories
about how things work. Every visit wasn't just a visit, it was an
adventure.
Times were kind of tense after I took off and came
to live with my dad, stepmom and sisters year round. Visiting people
you love and living with people you love are two different things, and
I had a whole new world to adjust to, but with the security of my dad's
love, I made the move ok, and I made the adjustment ok. And I discovered
some more of that peace Laurel Francis had showed me, peace in a house
with love.
Roadkill, Nearly
Thursday 4 June 98 3:37 pm
Oh wow how busy things are! I hadn't realized
how long it's been since my last entry, since life has been moving at the
speed of, well, life lately. I've been working hard on several short
suspense projects, including assisting with the newly created Dry
& Thirsty Beverage Distribution, Inc. Oh, don't go to that
link until the first week of July, please. That link is there for
posterity, heh, nothing there yet. Anyway, doing their website is
one of my new projects, along with any other job they need done.
I'm also preparing for the class I have to give
the good folks at U.S. Home Saturday.
They use MS Project 4.0 on a Win 3.1 platform, so finding materials at
bookstores and on the net has been a bit of a challenge. Then it
hit me - if it's old stuff, go to the place with all the old stuff.
So I went to the library, and sure enough, there were two books with all
the materials, including some practice programs, that I might need.
Now it's just a matter of customization. There are lots of features
to MS Project that these folks don't want, don't need, and don't wanna
know about. I'd rather teach the whole thing, but hey, they write
the paycheck.
I got run off the road on my bike today, took a
spill for the first time in years. The road was busy and crowded.
A semi truck was to pass me and nearly was past as I was running
out of space between it and the curb. The timing was all off, and
I couldn't stop. My head was full of what the mangled, broken, and
bloody mess my likely dead body would be like after going under that thing,
then my tire rubbed the curb and over I went, the grass rushing into my
face. Other than a bit of bruising on the hip and arm, there's not
much to suffer from. Nothing like what happened to the snake.
There's this tiny back road into my neighborhood,
and it's limited at 15 mph, but nobody ever does that, as it's through
the woods. I saw a stick in the road the other day and thought nothing
of it, until the stick suddenly moved just as I was going to pass it.
It was a black snake all stretched out in the sun and must have felt me
coming; the van went right over it. In the mirror, it writhed into
a coil on the center line, and I pulled up to my house horror stricken.
The Huz came with me to see if the snake was badly injured or dead, but
it had gone. I still feel horrible about it, especially going down
that road.
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