All posts by Dona

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.

Wrestling tournament hangover

Wrestling, , ,

This morning I woke up with a near-migraine complete with nausea. I was also dehydrated. Bright lights hurt my eyes. My back hurt, up in-between my shoulder blades. If I’d consumed copious amounts of alcohol last night it would have made sense, but all I did yesterday was hang out at a wrestling tournament. For thirteen and a half hours we sat and watched high school boys compete for medals.

I’m not sure if the headache was a result of having only drank one cup of coffee that morning, not drinking nearly enough water during the day, skipping dinner for the second day in a row, the set up during the finals (one large mat set up in the center of the gym with a single lamp shining down on the center of the mat and no other lights burning in the gym — it looked like a scene for a Rocky movie without the ropes and smoke), or all of the above.  I swear I drank no alcohol last night. I could barely make it up the stairs to fall into bed much less open a bottle of wine.

The team came in a distant second. We had three wrestlers in the finals, two of whom won first place. We had several others with 3rd through 6th place spots. Andrew got 5th place.

Lessons learned: drink lots of water and bring healthy snacks, not only for Andrew, but for myself as well.