Yearly Archives: 2008

Random thoughts

Life

I really don’t have anything in mind about which to write, so I’ll just list some things I thought about today.

  • I awoke this morning expecting to hear bad news on the Hillary front, and was pleasantly surprised by her win in New Hampshire.
  • Didn’t get much work done today because I was working on the wrestling site
  • Pho is not my favorite food
  • Didn’t transfer the wrestling domain name because I was busy working on the site.
  • The good news is Joe has a URI Duh, I meant UTI, (good because otherwise it would mean he was going senile or something because of the various places he’s been relieving his bladder.)
  • Even though Paint Branch High School has a wrestling scoreboard, we still beat them
  • I don’t think I am going to finish Love in the Time of Cholera by January 24th. Or 25th.

Thoughts of Grandpa Green

Family, Memories, Photographs, ,

Last week I started to scan and upload to Flickr a collection of photographs I took from my mom’s house this summer. I know only one person in the batch I uploaded – my grandfather, seen below.

I cannot say how old he was in this photo. I thought it might be his graduation photo, but then I realized I have his wedding photo, and he looks a bit older here.

I’ve written extensively about my Grandpa Green, how he helped shape my character and helped foster a love of reading. And even how he wrote a poem about me when I was born. There really isn’t much more to say.

He was a quiet man who liked to read, play solitaire, drink beer and golf. He was a crossword puzzle wizard. He hated salads (said they made his nose wiggle) and wore a folded tissue under his wristwatch (to keep the ticks off, he said). I loved him. He was only 63 when he died – possibly an indirect result of his dislike of salad. I was 16.

Washington Post Article on local school email lists

Musings, , ,

The Washington Post featured a front page article about school email lists this morning. I thought I’d find it more interesting than it really was because of my long history with managing school email lists, first Bradleynet, then Pylenet; and because I now belong to a list that is mentioned in the article (and remember the discussion it describes very well as I am friends two of the debaters).

I’ve been a member of too many email lists to count, and they are pretty much all the same. You have people who think it should not be moderated. You have people who think it needs to be moderated more than it is. You have the entire spectrum of political correctness/incorrectness. You have people who threaten to unsubscribe if certain things are posted and those who get upset if certain things are not posted. At least the school lists don’t have the grammar police.

The article mentions a PTSA (past?) president who thinks the email list belongs to her and not the school. While I think she is very wrong, I know how protective I felt about Bradleynet. I had a hard time letting it go. So if that is the reason the woman in question thinks the list belongs to her, I’ll have to admit that I understand it, but somehow I don’t think that was the reason.

I don’t envy those names mentioned in this article. I think that this is one area that does not need news coverage. Email list managers have enough with which to deal without their schools and lists mentioned in the Washington Post.

The comments are almost more interesting than the article, and, in a way, mirror exactly what the article mentions. That with a few keystrokes a person can add to (or detract from) a discussion. It has nothing to do with elitism or unenlightened generations. It has to do with common sense and self-restraint.