Red Cedar

I am struggling with some sort of mysterious bacterial infection that seems to be holding onto my insides despite the fact I am on my second round of antibiotics as of yesterday. I suspect that I perhaps had two different infections and only one has been treated properly, so I’ve got another appointment tomorrow to get things checked out. It’s making me tired and a bit grumpy, but not tired or grumpy enough to stay home from work. So I’m at my desk, have a meeting to speak at over lunch time and I’m hoping to drop my computer off at MacStation afterwards. Really I just want to curl up and feel sorry for myself.

And yes, I know people. It’s because I drive myself too hard. I don’t need the lecture. (Nor do I believe I would be sick less often if I did less. Really, it’s remarkable how rarely I get ill.)

The thing I hate most about being sick is how utterly destroyed my confidence is by it. Like I’m so defective because of this momentary health lapse that no one will want to listen to me speak, date me, or really come near me (leper!). Ridiculous, yes, but I have to make a real effort not to succumb to those beliefs when I’m not feeling well. Probably has to do with the fact so much of my self-worth is based on what I can *do*, and if I’m not well I’m not doing as much as I *should* be.

Oh. *Whine*.

Really it’s not that bad, I’m just sluggish and overwhelmed by the approaching holidays. This weekend is the one for getting gifts and also making plans for my party next Friday in terms of food and supplies. I’m also planning on going to Emily’s (MCEhawk) on Saturday night for her party, but I’m wondering if anyone is interested in going the Leaky Heaven event at the Russian hall partway through the night as well (short performances for very short attention spans). If you are, let me know because I think it might be a fun thing to go off to for a bit and it’s just down in Strathcona.

I had a post half-written yesterday when my hard drive started acting up. Acting up in such a way that I hit the reset button thinking that it was just some processor error that would correct itself upon reboot. Instead, I was faced with the white-screen-o-death (on PCs it’s the blue screen, but I use a Mac at home) and no amount of futzing with the disk utility would bring my hard drive back online. So yeah. Two months old and the hard drive has taken itself out – you would think I was abusing the poor thing!

Fortunately I hadn’t written anything that scintillating, so it was no big loss when the drive sputtered. Thank heavens for backups of almost everything else!

Some of you know that I’ve been kicking around the idea of some overseas travel for awhile… thinking that once I’ve completed my work contract and my bargaining commitment it will probably be time for a long holiday as far away from my cube as possible. Originally it was going to be the Camino de Santiago, an 800 km trek from France to Spain but more recently I’ve fielded a couple of invitations that have made me think more seriously about travel to the Middle East. Having flirted with this idea previously, I started doing a little research and well… the more I’ve read the more I want to go.

Istanbul to Cairo overland in March/April 2009 through Syria and Jordan. Sound like fun? Apparently you can take the train for most of it, and then ferry from Jordan to Egypt across the Red Sea. I’m not kidding people. This is the trip I want to take… and I’ve promised myself that the day we ink our new agreement (next fall sometime probably) is the day I buy a plane ticket somewhere.

I feel pretty lucky in that I have some friends living in the region, and some other contacts I’m going to try and milk for places to stay and travel advice – though I expect I will be mostly going it alone. I’m open to people who want to join me in parts – so if there is one of these places you’ve always wanted to travel to keep an eye here for my itinerary and let me know. I’m not looking for anyone to join me for the whole 7 weeks. As much as I fear being lonely, I prefer to do a lot of my traveling alone – hooking up with people along the way for bits of the journey.

The next year is going to be a hard go between work and the union – and this might just provide the light at the end of the tunnel to look on to. I am satisfied with my life in so many ways, but a little restless for a new adventure… nothing too dangerous, but nothing staid either. Any advice? Please feel free to send it my way 🙂

I just realized that despite the fact I work in a technology field, am a founder of a technology collective and have integrated many gadgets into my creative life – I never, ever blog about technology. I talk about it, indeed – and can trade geek jokes like the best of them – but the truth is that I don’t think about it too much unless I’m buying new gear. And I don’t get all that excited when I do. It’s just all the more software/hardware to be integrated into the routine.

A friend recently laughed at me because of my overly-large “purse” – an accessory item I never had a need for until I started wanting both my laptop and digital camera with me on a semi-regular basis. Fortunately my current bag also has room for my new Zoom device, so I can easy pack all my encased technology into one very stylish bag rather than some ratty backpack. Yup. For someone who never talks about technology, I am awfully obsessed with having the right tech at my disposal at the right time. I suppose that’s what I mean about integrated, when you have what you need and know what to use it requires less thought than access and understanding of the tools.

Two brand new tools in my life are Google Analytics and my new Zoom media device, both of which I’m delighted with and exploring for the first time.

Google Analytics came into my life a few months ago when a co-worker in Ottawa turned me onto its power for recording website statistics and mapping them in fancy charts and graphs. I finally got around to installing it on this blog a few days ago and I am just as impressed to see it in operation as I was at the demonstration. Much more accurate than the statistics software I was using before (which picked up all manner of robots and rss feeds), I am coming to realize that my actual site visits per day are much lower than I had been previously recording. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a respectable audience – but it is about a quarter of what had been recorded previously. By far the coolest feature is the map function which allows you to see the countries and cities from which people are surfing your site via a map overview. (Yes, Fhar, I even can see that I have one reader all the way over in Cairo). There is also a function for site overlay which brings up your site and shows the frequency with which your links out are clicked.

I suppose my one complaint is that because it doesn’t seem to be picking up on the rss feeds I have no way of knowing how many people read my blog offsite through an rss-aggregator. Then again it may be just that I haven’t had this running for enough days to get a complete picture of all readership either. I’m looking forward to having a month of data logged so I can get a real sense of how this blog is doing in terms of visitors. Then the question is – do I care if my readership is only 50 per day? Does it need to be more to be successful? How do you measure success when there is no profit being made anyhow? I suppose that’s fodder for another post in the future.

Which brings me to the second new toy – the Zoom H2 media device pictured above – which I purchased expressly to produce new and different content for this blog and other web forums. Again, I just received this two days ago and have had no time to really play with it – but am so far very pleased with what I have seen of it. For a $200 field recorder this comes loaded with accessories and recording options. Four microphones built-in front and back, easy to use interface, and from what I can tell so far – excellent recording quality even with the built-in mikes. It records in various WAV and MP3 qualities depending on how much room you’ve got on the SD card, and though I haven’t tried uploading any sound to my computer yet, I understand the process is quite seamless. The whole device is about the size of a pack of cards which makes it easy to tuck into the media bag or pocket on the go.

The last time I did any recording outside of a studio was about ten years ago in university where our field recorders were high-end Sony cassette decks that cost about $600 apiece with the expensive mike we used for ambient and interview recordings. (And yes, we transferred all our recordings onto reel-to-reel tape and did our editing with razorblade and patch tape). Given that it’s been such a long time I have to say that I am absolutely blown away by the ease of recording and editing with a digital device. I really did love sound design and I think learning manual editing methods were good for me, but I’m not at a point in my life where I have that kind of time. The Zoom device is a pretty easy capture and transfer device. I’m not sure how it compares with the minidisk recorders but at less than half the price I don’t really care either. (And given the rave reviews for this device I’m sure it will do everything I need for multimedia podcasting).

Anyone of you care to be interviewed? I’m going to start storyboarding some posts soon – but I might just go with a few simple podcast recordings to increase my own comfort with the device. I’ll let you all know how it goes – or you can tune in to hear all about it when I get the time to play more. Because that’s what the new tech is really about… playtime.

You know, I love my family… but sometimes they make me a little bit crazy which is why I don’t write about them here very often. Because it’s never a good idea to chronicle what irks you about a group of people in a venue where they might find it. I certainly would hate to find a list of what irks them about me posted on the Internet (and I guarantee you, I am a very vexsome family member at times; this is not one-sided dysfunction by any means).

So I’m staring down the holidays and I just talked to my mom on the phone. I’m a bit worried that she’s sliding back down the depression trail just in time for xmas… and she told me that my brother’s common-law wife (of eight years) has just moved out and left him…. plus one of my crazier aunts is coming to stay with us for the duration of the holiday period…. not to mention that my brother’s friend who lives in my parents’ garage (some of you might remember him as the paramedic who rescued me on the juan de fuca marine trail) has also split with his girlfriend over distance issues…. and my mother has additionally moved an old friend into her camper van behind the garage because he couldn’t afford to pay his rent (it’s just temporary).

Keeping track? Don’t worrry, it’s all a little dogpatchy up there on the hill… but we come by it honestly (refer to the song “Mostly Crazy” from Massive Folk Fist to the Man if you really want to know more).

I’m afraid my brother’s split will bring my mother’s focus on her need for grandchildren back to me. More than once recently I have been subjected to the “are you ever going to move back victoria and have a baby” conversation. This used to provoke a pretty profound guilt in me – but these days it just makes me feel bad for my mom. I know it’s not my responsibility to live my life according her needs, but I also understand that she feels that grandchildren would complete her in a way nothing else has. Persistent, she is always searching for that answer, that completion as though it will come from outside of her.

Upshot? I wish I could run away for xmas rather than go home. Not because I don’t love them all, but because I do and there is just so much sadness in my family at the best of times. Oddly this makes us all pretty compassionate to outsiders but not very much so to each other. Typical I suppose. It’s hard to be sympathetic when you’ve been hearing the same stories your whole life – and your father’s favourite lines really were “whoever said life was fair?” and “I’ll give you something to cry about”. (Who needs originality when it comes to preparing your kids for a hard world?)

Now on a brighter note – my brother writes me a few minutes ago to say that he’s looking forward to hanging out in Van more now that his relationship is kaput and he’s coming to my solstice party on the 21st.

It should be an interesting holiday season.