My amazing, custom built, birthday cake ...
https://www.instagram.com/p/C5hohFcL6Jp/
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Monday, April 29, 2024
BBC 6 - Grief Garden
I think my garden is dying. Which is no great surprise. I have never been a terrific gardener, and, between us, Gloria and I managed to kill every living plant that anybody ever gave us. The girls gave us a Christmas Rose one year, and that managed to survive for a very impressive three years, but eventually I managed to kill that too.
The garden that I currently have is the remains of one of the five gardens that I had last year. After Gloria died, for some reason I was very emotionally involved in gardening. This was very strange. My baby brother remarked on it, wondering why I was gardening, since Mom had ensured that all of us really hated gardening. He's quite right. I hated gardening possibly more than any of my siblings, since, being eldest, most of the work of resurrecting Mom's neglected gardens, on the random occasions when she felt the need to do so, fell to me.
So, yes, I hated gardening. I'm no good at it. I have no knowledge or skills in this area. So why, in Delta, was I running not one, but *five* different gardens?
There was, of course, the facile answer. Gloria had died, and therefore I wanted to create something alive. I don't know. Maybe this is the case. I'd hate to think that it was a simple as that. And if it was as simple as that, why didn't I just feel that way?
When I asked the grief counselors, one said that gardening was terribly therapeutic. She loves getting her hands into the dirt. No, that is not my type of therapy. I do not like getting my hands dirty. At all. With anything. So no, I do not find grubbing around in the dirt, with my hands, therapeutic.
Most of the rest suggested that I didn't need to understand why I had this deep emotional need to garden, I should just do it! Well, that's all very well for those intuitive, emotional types. But I'm a guy. I primarily grieve in instrumental fashion. We don't go for "just do it if it feels right," and that emotional type stuff. We are cognitive. We need to understand why. I, particularly, need to understand why. So this business of having a deep emotional need to garden, without any understanding as to why, really bugged me.
I did do it. As I say, I managed five gardens. I wasn't particularly successful, in any of them. And, that was in Delta. So, of course, the only one that I could bring along, was my pot garden.
Yes, okay, I know you've all had a good giggle over my pot garden, and the implications of that word. I note that I initially called it the pot garden, because it was all in pots. However, I must admit, that the pots were a gift from my baby brother. And that he obtained hundreds of pots on the occasion when he was not sufficiently careful with who he was renting his house to, and they turned it into a grow op. So, yes, your giggle over the pot garden does have some validity to it.
As I say, my garden is dying. About half of the plants that I brought over with me, when I came to Port Alberni, have already died. The remainder are looking pretty sickly, although that may have something to do with the fact that it was the middle of winter when last I looked at them.
But, I'm gardening again. Well, not quite yet. But I now have a plot in one of the community gardens here in Port Alberni. And that seems to have rekindled the activity of gardening in general.
I was kind of wondering if the gardening had been restricted to Delta. For the ridiculously short period of eight months that I was there, I had five gardens. And then I moved to Port Alberni, and I had no gardens at all. Well, I had the pot garden. Or, at least, the remains of the pot garden. I still have strawberry plants that haven't died, and a couple of pine trees that haven't died.
And, having been out with the trail maintenance crew, I have I have harvested salmonberry plants which we were tearing out along the trails. And at least one of the plants seems to have survived the transplant. At least, well enough to put out one flower.
So, I have a little bit of a result from the pot garden, not all of which has completely died.
At any rate, I've now got a plot. And, actually, a fairly large plot, in the community garden. Which I had applied for shortly after I got here. (Having found that community gardens were almost non-existent in Port Alberni. And having gotten on the waiting list for a plot. And having almost forgotten that I had applied for it.)
But I've got it. And now I have to figure out what to do with it.
I have figured out how to grow tomatoes from seed. It's a fairly labour intensive process. If I want to put tomato plants into the community garden, I'll probably start with tomato plants. When I can find out where to buy them in Port Alberni.
I've been thinking a bit about seed potatoes. So I may try that.
I'm still keen on corn, even I had had a rather disastrous crop when I tried them in Delta. I'll probably try some squash. Not quite sure how well that will work. But it seemed to do well in the Deltassist garden. So I may see how I can do with that. I'm probably going to try broad beans again. Although I'm not quite sure why. They were pretty labour intensive when I grew them in Delta. And I'm probably just trying them because Gloria was so keen on broad beans. Broad beans are great but they're not exactly efficient.
I'll probably try some radishes because I had a lot of success with radishes. I'm not sure I'm really successful with carrots. Although mostly I'm remembering the weirdly mutant carrots I got out of the Sunstone community garden in Delta. I didn't have an awful lot of success with generating carrots in the patio garden.
I think I'll try snow peas again. I did have some success with them.
We'll have to see. And I should probably get started because, yeah, it's already more than halfway through April, and I should be starting some of these if I'm to have any success with them at all. I'd better get moving. It's a good thing that next week I don't have too many activities on the go. Although I definitely need to get some government work done ...
Yesterday was *supposed* to be an easy day, and, along the way, went completely crazy. But I *did* get some seeds into my plot in the community garden. (And turned the long-neglected compost bins. And pulled out a bunch of plastic that people had carelessly dumped into the compost bins. I'm really starting to *hate* plastic ...) And watered in the seeds.
And wondered when I was going to get a chance to get down and water again so that the seeds would actually have a chance to germinate and sprout.
Got a couple of cherry tomato plants, also put one of my strawberry plants into the plot, planted a few broad beans around the corn, sprinkled some bell peppers (may not sprout), two lemon seeds by accident (probably won't sprout), some brussel sprouts (we'll see), and some carrots.
As mentioned, for some reason, having the community garden plot (and the accidental discovery of some larger pots) has rekindled my interest in my pot garden. I have, just now, gone and gotten a load of dirt to augment what's left over in the pots. No, I didn't buy a bag at Walmart, I trundled one of the big pots down to the trail at the end of 16th. I also picked up some moss: I've got it placed around the base of one of the salmonberry bushes, so that the salmonberries will feel a bit more at home.
Okay, I'm still gardening. And I still don't know why I'm gardening.
Just having the community garden plot seems to be making me marginally happier. Okay, I've only had a short time, so the evidence is rather limited. But I am planting seeds, transplanting one of my strawberry plants, and even buying tomato plants. Nothing is growing, just yet, so there is no sense of accomplishment in what I am doing. There have been no results. And there won't be any results for some months, I would imagine. So why is the mere existence of the garden plot making me, even if only slightly, happier?
The closest idea might be that it gives me hope. If it is giving me hope, I am hoping against hope, and even against the evidence. Since, two years ago in Delta, despite having five gardens on the go, I actually produced pretty close to nothing. I got a couple of corn cobs, out of all of the corn seeds that I planted, although I suppose I did occasionally have a bit of a feed of snow peas. I got some radishes: I'm not terrifically fond of radishes. Not that I have anything against them, except for their being sharp and bitter, just they're not my all-time favorite vegetable. About the only thing you can say for them is that they grow easily, and you can eat them raw. I did get a few beets, but beets take an awful lot of preparation. I did get a fair harvest of broad beans, but broad beans take an *awful* lot of preparation. As well as a fairly large compost heap for disposing of the extra bits.
I did get some carrots, although the mutant form of the carrots was a bit off putting. As well as being difficult to deal with.
Last year, with my pot garden remains, the strawberry plants gave me absolutely nothing to eat. They did produce some flowers, and they did actually produce some strawberries. I figure birds got to the berries before I got any.
So, why does the garden give me hope? Why does the hope give me a sense of happiness, even if only a small one? I don't know. I don't know why a garden is therapeutic. I don't like scrabbling around in the dirt and the mud. I don't like having to wait. I get bored easily. I rather doubt that evolution has had enough time to build into us a sense of hope and therapy out of gardening. Yes, it feeds us. But for an awful lot of our history, it has been dull, dirty, slogging work. Why on Earth is it therapeutic?
Since I planted stuff yesterday and Tuesday (and got a couple more tomato plants), but I'm a bit sore today, it's nice that God is doing the watering for me today. And the forecast seems to indicate that it's going to rain for a good bit of the next two weeks.
Okay my dying garden is maybe a little less dead ...
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Shock therapy
The shrink is talking about shock therapy again. As someone who deals with technology, I should be more sanguine about the concept of "let's reboot the system and see if that fixes the problem," but, somehow, I'm not keen on the idea. I mean, I know it's not a threat, but it does sound an awful lot like, "You'd better get happy or we're going to put four thousand volts through your brain." Nobody seems to be concerned about whether or not that will improve the situation or make it worse. I guess, from *their* perspective, it doesn't really matter if things get worse: they don't like the way it is anyway. However, I *do* know that things can get worse. Things can *always* get worse. I'm a grieving widower. Of *course* things can get worse.
Friday, April 26, 2024
Volunteering
Last week was National Volunteer Week. One group decided to have us fill out a "Why do you volunteer" poster.
I have always volunteered. I started volunteering at a very early age. In a sense my parents modelled this idea and impulse for volunteering activity, although I don't really recall their being terribly involved in volunteer organisations outside of the church. But, nevertheless, volunteering was inculcated into me from a very early age.
I did do volunteer working for the church, but I also volunteered for a number of other organisations. Some were related to the church. I was on the board of the BC Area of Christian Camping International, and when I first became involved with the BC Youth Parliament, or Older Boys Parliament of BC, as it then was, it was at a time when it still had some tentative and tenuous links to its origin as a Christian boys organisation.
At one point, having built myself up quite a repertoire of volunteer work and positions, Physicians. I moved and lost all of them. This was rather unfortunate for me. I was very sad to to lose the positions, and the context, and even the work. But, such is life. However, I continued volunteering in some capacity or other over time. One of my volunteer activities was blood donations. In Canada we don't get paid for blood donations And I gave blood quite extensively. I have a relatively rare blood type, and so certain factors in my blood are useful to specific programs where they separated out those factors and and returned other components of my blood to me so that I could donate more often. So, there are various and sundry ways of being involved in volunteering.
Volunteering can also help you, and benefit you, in a wide variety of ways.
When I am doing career preparation presentations I always stress the importance of volunteering. It was volunteering that got me a chance to get onto the Internet, over forty years ago, before the Internet was even *called* the Internet, when the Internet was accessible only to a very few. I estimate that there were only a thousand people involved in the Internet at that point, rather than the billions that are now.
Volunteering teaches you many things. There are the tasks that you are being asked to do, but there is also the important experience of getting along with other people in a Cooperative work situation. Volunteer work is probably going to be different from your normal work. And it's probably also going to be different from the work culture of your professional or working life. As a professional, and as a consultant, I primarily work alone. (I remember an article many years ago about everybody insisting that their jobs involved high-tech. The author was making the point that not everybody could be involved in high-tech. And so there had to be a definition and distinction. His proposed distinction was that if your mother understood what you did, you didn't work in high-tech. Not only did my mother *never,* ever understand what I did for a living, but most of my *bosses* didn't understand it either. So, I worked alone.) This is fine. It's what professionals primarily do. But it is a bit lonely. So, working in a volunteer situation, on a crew with others, does make a nice change.
Much of my volunteer work is Community Policing (which is mostly about keeping people alive); and Emergency Support Services (which is mostly about keeping people alive); and the hospice society (which, in my case, is mostly about comforting people who are grieving because their people have *not* been kept alive); so it's nice to go out with the trail crew (currently removing sword fern and salmonberry to keep it from encroaching on the trails), and, legitimately, kill something.
I'm not just involved in the churches (good thing), but also with the Sunshine Club (the "old folks" activities in town; I'm already on the Board), Lazy Ass Hikers, the Jesus Film Festival, Reconciliaction, and a variety of minor side projects, such as security seminars, arts walks/seminars, a speaker's bureau/club, a computer club, grief guys, an experimental CISSP seminar, grief bibliographies, and writing sermons.
You can learn activities, you can learn skills, you can learn cultures, you can learn an awful lot about life and work by doing volunteer work. I always recommend it. I always emphasise it to those trying to plan their careers and their life path. Volunteer. It's a great way to figure out what you like to do, what you *don't* like to do, what you are good at, what you *aren't* good at, and how well, you get along in different types of work environments.
I shouldn't sugar coat it: it can be difficult. I'm facing a bit of burnout. Don't believe the Hallmark movies: nobody comes to a small town, and particularly a mill town, unless they want to make a lot of money without too much effort. Small towns sort of self-select for a lack of ambition and drive. Here in Port Alberni, organisations and groups want paying members, but don't want to put in any effort into getting those members. They don't want to produce pamphlets or easily accessible information that might explain *why* potential members might want to join (and how). The groups don't put any effort to finding out or advertising their presence. They want you to find them (and then pay for the privilege).
Volunteer work in Port Alberni is getting very tough. I am having difficulty with some of the activities in many of the volunteer groups because many activities require multiple members to be involved, and it's hard to get other people to show up (or sign up) even when we have a fairly large crew of volunteers.
I am involved with a number of volunteer organisations in Port Alberni, and all of them seem to be on the verge of imploding. Now, there are financial difficulties in the world (following the pandemic), and an awful lot of volunteer and charitable organisations are facing difficulties both with raising finances and with getting volunteers to put in work. But it seems to be very much worse here in Port Alberni. All of the groups that I'm working with can't get money, and are having trouble with their finances and budgets. Funding grants from governments and other bodies are getting tighter. But it's also true that it's getting really difficult to get volunteers to take on tasks. I'm getting a pretty much constant barrage of email messages from pretty much all of the groups, begging for people to perform various activities. Some of the duties I can take on, but I'm doing an awful lot of activities, and it's getting rather annoying as to how few of the other volunteers are willing to contribute to the activities. Yes, there are people who prefer certain activities over others. Yes, there are people who have preferred times that they will (or can) participate. But, overall, very few people in the organisations are doing very much of anything. Just simply knowing the number of calls that go out for specific activities; needed activities; *necessary* activities; activities that we should be doing as a matter of course; and seeing constant cries for help--well, it's annoying. Not the calls for help. But the fact the organisations *need* to put out those calls for help. All of the organisations are in trouble, and the organisations are in trouble because nobody will put in much of any work.
(Port Alberni also has problems in that you cannot do *anything* any differently than it has always been done in the past. Even if the needs have changed, even if the circumstances have changed, even if the situation has changed markedly and the activity needs to be changed or needs to be done in a new and different way, doing something new is a problem. You have to do it in the same way that it has always been done. It doesn't matter if the way that it has always been done, doesn't fit with the need. [The truism that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the very definition of insanity doesn't matter.] The fact that this is the way we've always done it supersedes what actually needs to be done. And if you find something that needs to be done, that hasn't been done before, Heaven help you. There is absolutely no possible way to do that.)
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Telus
So, Telus representatives have been calling and offering me Internet, TV, and phone service bundles recently. They keep on calling. What they are offering sounds like a good deal. Unfortunately, they won't confirm it. I asked them to send me details of the offer. They say that they will send me details of the offer. Instead, what they send me is a bunch of marketing bumpf, which doesn't provide the prices that they quote me over the phone.
I run into Telus people at trade shows. They offer me even better deals! They offer me the terms that the telephone people offer me, but while the telephone people tell me that the federal government forbids them from offering me these prices on a long-term contract, the people at the trade shows say that yes, they can offer me this pricing for a longer term! So I ask them to send me the details!
And they don't!
And there seems to be no way to get Telus to stop having the *same* people call me, and bother me ...
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Plans
I had a rough plan for today that involved a lot of walking. Since I've been sick, I've been short on walking time. But another event came along and made it difficult to accomplish the walking. So that plan was out.
I had another plan that included some trail work, but the trail crew has gone radio silent, so that plan was out.
So I had another plan based on getting some work done early, and then getting on with other things. And I even woke up early enough that I can get a start on it. But then, as I started up, there was something on Facebook to react to, and possibly develop. So I made a note and put that aside. But then there was *another* item to react to. And it seemed to be more important than what I had planned to post. So I reacted to and posted that, instead. And then there was another thing to react to, and so I've made a note of the things that I had planned to do, but didn't get done, because these other things came along.
And I'm probably okay with that. The things that I had planned aren't necessarily urgent, and I've made notes to myself, and I've got an awful lot of notes to myself buried in my email, but they're still there, and I may get to them eventually, but then if I don't, these other things may be more important.
Yes, I know that sticking to your own plans in the face of changing circumstances is foolish. Yes, I've learned that lesson. I've learned that what comes along, and is more important, is what you should do. It's a little bit more difficult for me, because, after Gloria's death, it was difficult to get myself to do *anything*. I had to set up some fairly rigorous structures, and plan my day, and plan my week, and even to a certain extent plan my months, so that I would do anything at all. And these plans were important, and still are important, so that I don't just sit and do nothing. But you have to recognize what is important, and what is *more* important. It's not so much that "man plans and God laughs," or that "life is what happens when you're making other plans," as much as there's a continuum of importance, and you are constantly faced with the admittedly difficult task of figuring out where the things that come up are on that continuum. And maybe the things that you had planned to do aren't as far along as what just pops up.
(By the way, I wrote this several days ago, and I'm only just getting around to posting it now ...)
Monday, April 22, 2024
Psalm 142:1-2
I call to the Lord for help;
I plead with him.
I bring him all my complaints;
I tell him all my troubles.
Viewing this QR code is perfectly safe
(Bearing in mind that I got my start in security researching malware, and know every *possible* way to trick people into running potentially unwanted software on their machines ...)
Saturday, April 20, 2024
Genesis 2:18
Then the Lord God said, "I see that it is not good for man to be alone. I will make the companion he needs, thus completing him."
MGG - 5.11 - HWYD - "The Chair"
I can't remember exactly when this happened.
At the time I wasn't working full-time in information technology work. I was going to all the trade shows and vendor presentations that I could come up with. I do not know how I happened on this one particular group. I did receive an invitation from them, and was interested in attending their event. There wasn't much of a program, but there were some interesting vendors involved with them. So I registered and went along.
It was fully as interesting as I expected. I was given a chance to talk in some detail with a number of vendors, and was impressed with the high calibre of the representatives from the vendors who were involved in this particular trade show.
As I went through the day, I heard various comments about "The Chair." I did know that there were some door prizes. One of the door prizes was a full entertainment system with a video camera, which at the time was impressively expensive. But everyone was talking about "The Chair." "Who do you think will win The Chair this year?" "I hope I win The Chair."
The door prizes were displayed in one particular area, and I noted that the chair was an armchair with a recliner and foot rest, but, as far as I could tell, that was about it. I stayed until the end, when the prizes were drawn. Greatly to my surprise, I was the one who won the chair. The chair was the first prize.
Then the organizers of the event got weird. There were problems with delivery of the chair. All of a sudden the group that had organized this event didn't want to award me the prize.
Even though they had invited me to this event, at this point, they decided that I wasn't really the type of person they were looking for at the event. They balked at delivering the prize to me, and started requesting all kinds of details of information about my business.
While all this was going on, I happened to receive a phone call from the shipping company which was delivering the chair. They asked to confirm my address and whether I would be home at such and such a time in order to receive it. I confirmed the address and the time. They delivered the chair. The next phone call I had from the organizers of this event, they were still loath to deliver the chair. I told them that the chair had already been delivered. That was the last I heard from them.
Well, once "The Chair" was delivered, we found out why it was so special. This was an early version of chairs that have subsequently become rather common, with back and leg massages and vibrations. This chair even had a radio combined with a cassette system, and shipped with a cassette of "relaxing nature sounds."
When one son-in-law tried it, he decided it was extremely comfortable. Until the point at which the nature sounds started playing the sound of a trickling brook. At which point he decided that he immediately needed to go to the bathroom.
I still have "The Chair," and it still works just fine. Visitors to our home, over the years, were introduced to it, and the grandchildren delighted in it. (The greatgrandkids aren't quite of an age to be introduced to it, yet.) It was Gloria's bed for several months when she broke her shoulder. (When she needed to get up to go to the bathroom, she couldn't get out of it unaided. So we made sure she always had the phone with her, and, when she needed to get up, she'd call my cell, and I'd come downstairs and help her to the bathroom.) It has to be on the order of thirty-five years old, so the engineering and manufacturing was pretty solid. I still use it every morning for my daily Bible readings, and sometimes sleep in it when my hip or back is acting up.
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-510-hwyd-church-business-analysis.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: TBA
Friday, April 19, 2024
Banana bereft
I have had a double shift with the Banana phone. The Banana phone (of which I have spoken elsewhere) is the emergency support services dispatch phone. The task is not arduous, but it is important. Therefore, when we are on shift with the Banana phone, we have to keep it with us at all times. The shifts are two weeks long, so, basically, I have been carrying the Banana phone for about a month. And, of course, I have been carrying it with me everywhere. It is the first thing that I put into the pocket of my dressing gown when I get up in the morning, and it is the last thing to be placed on the bedside table at night. It goes with me to the bathroom. It goes with me everywhere. It is in my pocket at all times, unless it is within immediate reach.
Now that I have finally turned the Banana phone over to the next holder, I am feeling oddly bereft. Now I am down to carrying only two cell phones in my pocket, neither of which is as heavy, or as bulky, as the Banana phone. I am no longer carrying an iPhone. That was struck home to me today, when I went to do some testing with newer phones, in regard to QR codes. I suddenly didn't have access to an iPhone for testing purposes.
So, my pocket is oddly light. When I go to change, or otherwise empty out my pockets, I feel like I'm missing something, because the Banana phone isn't there. As I mentally checking to make sure that I have everything with me, the Banana phone isn't there. It has been a responsibility, and somewhat of an encumbrance, in my life for the past month. And now that it's no longer a weight, and a drag, I am wondering what is missing ...
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
James 3:10-11
Blessing and cursing come from the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, it just shouldn’t be this way! Both fresh water and salt water don’t come from the same spring, do they?
MGG - 5.10 - HWYD - church business analysis
After I got my degree, my father was very interested in doing a business analysis, with me, of our church.
I should mention our church. I should mention Vancouver. It is a standing joke that nobody who actually lives in Vancouver was actually born there. I went to a job interview one time and as a little bit of small talk to brace the ice and make you feel more comfortable, they asked me where are you from. I said Vancouver. They said, no no, where were you born. Well, I was actually born in Vancouver. Not only that, but both my parents were also born in Vancouver. Not only that, but 75% of my grandparents were born in Vancouver.
Partly as a result of this, I am the fifth generation, of my family, to become a member of the church. This is not only unusual in our church, but in any church in Vancouver. The pin that I have attesting to this fact was given to me when I was five years old, before I was baptized, and therefore before I was a member of the church. But I did get baptized, around about my twelth birthday, and, thus, did become a member.
So, yes, both my father and myself were members of the church. And Dad, who was making a bit of a name for himself pioneering the use of computers in education administration in Vancouver, wanted us to do a business analysis of the church, with a view to getting the church involved in computers in ministry.
I foresaw a number of problems with this project. I was very hesitant to be involved. But Dad was very keen on the whole idea. So, I joined in, and, if I do say so myself, we did a bang-up job. Dad had the position, and credentials, in the church to get people to talk to us. We conducted more than 20 interviews, with people in a wide variety of ministry areas within the church. Dad took the lead in the interviews, as the person with the pole within the church. But I threw in the questions to find out what could, actually, be done in information processing in the various areas of ministry. I actually also wrote the report.
The final report recommended some twenty areas of ministry that could be assisted, and therefore some twenty computers, that would be needed, as well as a network, to tie them together, and facilitate the exchange of information between the different areas of ministry. We presented the report, and, predictably, the church created a computer committee to consider it.
If I had been loath to do the systems analysis, I was doubly hesitant about being on the computer committee. I saw it as a conflict of interest, a rather gross conflict of interest. Since it was considering our report ( which was, you will recall, primarily my report. ) But dad, again, jumped in with both feet. Nothing much happened. So, once again, Dad wanted me to participate in the computer committee, and, once again, I acquiesced.
I went to one committee meeting. The committee started to address the need for a church membership database. The committee got bombed down in consideration of whether the church membership database would have a birth date field. Some saw this as very useful. Others saw this as a gross invasion of privacy. I pointed out that this did not need to hold up consideration of the database as a whole, as a birth date field could be created, but then not populated until this decision had been finalized. No they had to decide about the birth date field, before they could go on with any other aspects of the church membership database.
I quit the committee.
The committee continued to meet. Sporadically. This went on for some considerable time. At some point, the committee did tender and RFP, a request for proposal, and sent it to a variety of computer and networking vendors in the Vancouver area. It was based upon the recommendations from my report. Roughly twenty computers, and because of the price difference between MS-DOS computers, and Apple computers, at the time, it was based on MS-DOS computers.
Eventually, Dad informed me that the church computer committee had come to a decision. He told me the company that the tender had been given to. I was confused,. The tender had been granted to a company which was owned by one of the members of the church, and a company which, I knew, sold Apple computers exclusively. I questioned how the church was able to afford twenty Apple computers for the tender. Oh no, Dad informed me. The church member had been allowed to look at the other tenders, and, even though he had reduced his company's tender, to the point where it was the lowest bid, they were providing Apple computers, and they were only providing five.
I objected. On two grounds. First, it was a gross conflict of interest, to allow the church member, to see the other vendors tenders, and then to retender for his own company. Dad didn't see it that way. Dad didn't see that this was a conflict of interest. Dad didn't see that this was a gross breach of business ethics. Dad just saw that a church member was getting the business, and the church was getting a better price.
But I also objected on the basis of the reduction in the functionality of the tender. The five computers that were now to be purchased, would be used only, and solely, for Church administration. No other areas of ministry were to be addressed. No other areas of ministry were to benefit from the use of a computer.
Dad didn't see this as a problem.
A few years later I got into the field of information security. Well, initially I got into the field of computer virus research. But it turns out that computer virus research is an excellent introduction to the field of information security in general.
At that time, Gloria was working as a Church secretary, at a different Church. But our church, got very interested in a church membership database, tied to a simple bookkeeping package, that allowed you to track donations. ( Anytime you mention money, people get very interested. ) Fellow who was selling this particular package was doing a presentation in Seattle. So Dad asked me to come with him and attend the presentation. I did.
We attended the presentation. We asked about security. Well, I asked about security. The developer said that the package was completely secure, since you had to use a password to access it. (He didn't mention anything about encryption.) Dad was very happy about this program, and ready to recommend it to the church computer committee, despite the fact that it required an MS-DOS computer, and the church only had Apples.
However, I had inside information, in a sense. I knew that the church where Gloria was church secretary used this church database and bookkeeping program. Gloria was not given access to the database and bookkeeping program. Only the church clerk (who deals with membership) and the accountant (who deals with the bookkeeping) had passwords and accounts to access the database and bookkeeping program.
But, I had been helping Gloria, at certain times, with certain computer programs and problems. In doing this I had found out a few things about the database and bookkeeping program. It was written in dbase. dBase has a standard, and fairly compatible, and accessible, database structure. I didn't need to run the database and bookkeeping program. I can figure out, from the file names, which parts of the database stored what, and for what purpose. And, I could read everything. I could, if I wanted to, read anything in the database, and anything in the donation files. I could look up any information the church had about anybody. I look good look up anybody's donations. I didn't, but I could have.
I informed the church committee of our church about these facts. I don't know what happened, and I don't know what any discussions were, but I do know that the church continued to use databases which they threw together themselves with simple user tools.
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-509-hwyd-masters.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-511-hwyd-chair.html
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Monday, April 15, 2024
Not listening
Even when he's doing something complimentary, such as thanking you for something, he still can't listen to you. Can't be bothered to take the time to listen to you, even if only for a few minutes. Why is that?
Job 16:2,3
I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you! Will your long-winded speeches never end?
Saturday, April 13, 2024
Even bannock is culturally invasive ...
So, he was speaking to a group primarily focussed on improving relations with, and the situation of, the First Nations, and he stressed the idea of bread, and using this idea to guide our discussions, because bread is so universal. All cultures have some form of bread.
In fact, not all cultures *do* have some form of bread, and the West Coast First Nations are one of those who don't, at least, not originally. I mean, I love bannock and fry bread, and they are delicious, but they are not original. They were introduced once we started trying to repair the damage we had caused by limiting hunting and gathering, and tried to replace that nutritionally diverse supply with barrels of flour. (It's probably a partial cause of the obesity and diabetes crisis. But we'll leave that, for the moment.) Bread is common in agricultural societies, but not in pastoral or hunter-gatherer situations. The west coast has no native cereal grains and, while it has some starchy root vegetables, they are primarily roasted, rather than ground into a flour.
So stressing bread as a universal, to this demographic, is ironic, and more than slightly culturally insensitive ...
Friday, April 12, 2024
Romans 8:38-39
Of this I am sure, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any creature, shall separate us from the love of God, in Jesus Christ our Lord!
MGG - 5.09 - HWYD - masters
After I got fired, I went and took a masters degree.
Oh, haven't I done that? Oh well.
I had, even before I got my first teaching job, being interested in computers in education. Not just teaching about computers, but using computers to teach, or to assist the education process, or processes. I had gone to the world Conference on computers in education. I had been exposed to some interesting aspects of the use of computers in education. As one example, the use of a computer; an Apple ][+ computer, no less; to grade, and mark, and even to tutor, students in composition for a master's program in music. This was being done in 1981. It's rather depressing to note the sorry state of the use of computers in education now, forty years later, when such things were already being done, with very minimally capable machines, in comparison to what we have now, back then.
I had subscribed to a magazine called The Computing Teacher. It was produced by a fellow who ran a masters program, in computer education, at the University of Oregon. I well remember one of the editorials that he wrote, in one of the issues, which said that, regardless of your skill or background in computer technology, you had the jump on 95% of your colleagues, simply because you subscribed to this magazine, and were therefore more aware of what was going on in the field.
So, when I got fired, I drove down to Oregon and talked to him. I explained that I had enough money to take the program for a contiguous year. Could I finish the program, I asked, in one year? Yes, he said, that was doable.
So, I packed up my stuff, got an education visa, and drove down to the University of Oregon. After a couple of false starts I found a place to stay. I got registered for the first semester, which was the summer semester. There weren't enough courses in the program for me to fill enough credit hours to keep going and finish in one year, so I was taking some traditional information systems courses. For example, I registered for a course in database management. I learned an awful lot from that course. One of the things that I learned, by taking the course ( it wasn't actually taught in the course ), was that every program, regardless of what it is, is either involved with database management, or with numeric processing. Or with both. I still suggest to anyone, taking any program in any field of information technology, to take a course in database management. It is one of the fundamentals, the absolute fundamentals, of information systems and processing.
When I came to the end of the semester, I suddenly realized that I had been lied to. No further courses were going to be given in the computers in education program until the following summer. So I went to the manager of the program, laid out this problem, and asked what I was to do. He said that I could take whatever courses related to information technology I could get into.
I had, of course, no prerequisites for any of the standard information systems courses or computer technology. So I found any courses that were even dimly related to the field, went to the professors, and begged to get into the courses. None of the professors for the standard computer technology courses what allow me into their courses without the prerequisites. The only ones who would let me into their courses, were those who are teaching non-standard courses, in topics which they themselves loved, but which were not, strictly speaking, part of computer technology and information processing as it was then seen. Therefore, I could only take these rather oddball courses. I took a course on human factors engineering. I took a course, taught by a professor from the physics department, and intended primarily for engineering students, on microprocessor interfacing and machine language programming. I took courses on artificial intelligence programming, of various types. ( And there are many different types of artificial intelligence programming. )
I made it through, just by the skin of my teeth, and got my masters degree. I have a degree as a Master of Computer and Information Science Education. I use this to justify my filling in the "profession" field on government forms as an "Information Scientist."
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-508-hwyd-accountant.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-510-hwyd-church-business-analysis.html
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Psalm 51:17
A broken spirit is my sacrifice, God. You won’t despise a heart, God, that is broken and crushed.
MGG - 5.08 - HWYD - accountant
There was one other interesting situation with regard to this particular company. Shortly after that event, they shut down that particular camp, as the falling have been completed, but the arrangement for the helicopter yarding had not been done. The accountant for the company decided that he wanted to be a programmer, and computer operator, as they were putting in a new accounting system. So, as I had been acting as a bookkeeper at the camp, it was decided that I would fill his position as accountant, at least in so far as posting payments to relevant accounts, in the head office in Squamish, while he drove every day to Surrey, to the head office of the company that owned the logging company, in order to play around with the computer.
This meant that rather than living in the logging camp, I was back in Vancouver. And I was driving from Vancouver to Squamish everyday, on the old Sea-to-Sky Highway. Now it was a lot of fun driving the old Sea-to-Sky Highway, before they ruined it for the 2010 Olympics, but it still took an hour and a half to drive. And, of course, there was the fact that they were no longer paying my room and board. So, noting all of these facts, and the fact that the secretary in the office in Squamish wanted to go to a four-day work week, plus the fact that they had a crew working in Squamish that needed to be sent off early in the morning and checked in at night, we worked out that I would count my driving time as work time, I would have three hours of driving time per day, and ten hours of office time per day, in order to cover the needs of the office. The secretary would switch from an eight-hour day to a ten-hour day, and work four days a week. We thought that this addressed a number of needs, and was a pretty good arrangement.
Unfortunately, while it worked out very well for several weeks, when the accountant was made aware of it, he decided that he couldn't stand the thought of somebody working only three days a week. However, he could see that it was unfair to ask me, in addition to losing room and board, to add all that travel time, and so my travel time was still to be included as work time. Unfortunately, this meant that there really wasn't an awful lot of time to cover the office for the secretary, and therefore she was back to working five days a week, and the company was back to not having anyone to send the work crew off in the morning, and check them back in at night. The inefficiencies caused by people who are looking to make work more efficient.
(While I was working as the accountant, I had to post various bills to various accounts. This involved a fair amount of detective work, since nobody ever noted what a particular bill was for. I therefore ran into the fact that the owners of the company were writing off an awful lot of personal expenses, that had absolutely nothing to do with the company's operations and business, and were hiding them in a variety of the accounts within the company.)
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-507-hwyd-copters.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-509-hwyd-masters.html
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Philippians 1:23
I long to die and go to be with Christ, and that is obviously the best thing for me.
MGG - 5.07 - HWYD - copters
At another camp, I actually had a guy drop a tree on himself. This was in a helicopter logging operation, where only the falling was going on while I was there: they hadn't started the actual helicopter yarding.
The fallers were taken out every morning by helicopter. They were dropped in their locations, and were basically out there alone all day, cutting down trees. Because of this, the procedure was that they had to be checked every hour by helicopter. So, once an hour, on the hour, the helicopter pilot would head out and check on them.
It was a fairly boring duty, so the helicopter pilot was glad to have me along for any of the check flights. (I love, and have always loved, helicopters, even though I know that fixed wing pilots define them as 50,000 random parts in loose orbit around an oil leak.) I would just ride along with him, enjoying a bit of a break and a helicopter ride, and we could chat a bit while he was checking out the fallers. The fallers didn't exactly cooperate with this process: for one thing they possibly couldn't even hear the helicopter when it was in the area, and so they didn't always come out and show themselves. Then there was the fellow that follow who decided to finish cutting his tree before coming out and identifying himself. Because the helicopter pilot couldn't see him he was flying lower and lower in the area where the faller was working, and when the tree finally came down, it fell right beside us in the helicopter, and missed us by less than ten feet.
And, as noted, one of the fallers managed to drop a tree on himself while they were doing this falling operation. This was reported by radio, and, of course, I headed out with the pilot to pick the guy up. He was not badly injured, and was even ambulatory, but he was very sore.
We headed out and picked him up. Having picked him up and secured him between us in the helicopter, we headed directly back to camp. As we were doing so, we came over a ridge and almost down onto the blades of another helicopter. Our pilot hauled up on the controls, and managed not to land on the spinning blades of the other helicopter. He was swearing at the other pilot, and when he cooled down sufficiently, thought that possibly the other pilot simply had not known the flight that we were on and the situation we were facing.
The other helicopter was, in fact, coming to visit our camp, and so we did find out a bit more of their story. They *did* know that we were flying in the area, and they did know that we were picking up an injured faller. They seemed to think that hiding behind a ridge, on the direct line between the camp and the falling area, was the best way to avoid a collision.
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-506-hwyd-first-aid-training.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-508-hwyd-accountant.html
Saturday, April 6, 2024
Friday, April 5, 2024
Isaiah 57:1
The righteous one perishes, but no one takes it to heart. Men of mercy are being taken away, but no one understands that the righteous one is being spared from evil.
MGG - 5.06 - HWYD - first aid training
In first aid, I never had to do deal too much with terribly disastrous injuries. There was the time that a fellow had a log dropped on the back of his leg, tearing the muscle tissue off the back of his leg, and necessitating a quite extensive bandaging job before he could be shipped out, but that was probably about the worst.
Other issues probably sound worse, but didn't involve a lot of treating or bandaging. Such as the time that a guy rolls a log over on himself.
No I'm not saying that it wasn't serious: it was. This is a major issue, and involved an immediate flight out, but it didn't involve an awful lot of treatment, on my part.
I got a call from the foreman, who sounded quite panicked. He didn't give me an awful lot of details, only that a log was involved, and that someone was unconscious. This was in a camp where there were two of us first aid attendants, so I went and got the other one, who was, in fact, under the weather and trying to get a bit of sleep, woke him up, and told him I was heading out to a situation in the bush. I took the ambulance and drove out.
By the time I got to the location, the foreman was looking a bit sheepish. He was feeling that he had overreacted, because the person who had rolled the log over on himself had woken up, and, in fact, walked himself back up the hill. The foreman was thinking that this was a minor issue, and that there was actually no problem. I had a look at the person who had rolled the log over on himself, and as soon as I saw that his pupils were unequal sizes, I knew that we had a serious situation. I got on the radio and reported, to the other first aid attendant, a possible case of compression. I put the patient down on the stretcher, strapped him in, and headed off. The foreman came along, still trying to assure me that he had probably overreacted and there was no need to go to all this furor.
By the time we got back to the camp, other first aid attendant had contacted a float plane for an emergency evacuation, had packed his own bags to accompany the patient, and the float plane had arrived. We bundled the patient into the plane, the other first aid attendant got on, and the plane took off.
The foreman was still of the opinion that this was much ado about nothing. He made some comment about the other first date attendant having wangled himself a free night off in town. I told him that it wasn't an overreaction. There was a significant possibility that something would happen on the flight out, that the other first day the tenant would have to deal with, and the pilot would be unable to handle things. For example, I said, the patient could lose consciousness again, he might vomit, and then the first aid attendant would have to clear his air passages, otherwise he would drown on the trip. The pilot would be unable to deal with any significant needs for the safety of the patient. The foreman obviously thought that I was just supporting my colleague, and equally obviously didn't believe that anything significant could happen.
As it turned out, there was another flight out to the camp that night, and so the other first aid attendant returned that evening. As soon as he landed, the foreman, obviously still of the opinion that this had all been a tempest in a teapot, twitted him about having arranged a free flight to town, and then not even being able to take advantage of it for even one night.
Oh, no, replied the other first aid attendant. He went unconcious, he threw up, I had to clear his airway, it was extremely difficult the whole flight. I just barely got cleaned up in time to catch the other flight.
The foreman looked rather confused. He obviously still thought that this was a put up job, and that I had just been supporting my colleague, when noting what could go on. But, he knew that we hadn't had a chance to talk at all since the other first aid attendant got off the plane. He couldn't figure out how we had arranged to have our stories agree so perfectly. The fact that we both knew the situation better than he did never apparently occurred to him.
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-505-hwyd-alcohol.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-507-hwyd-copters.html
Thursday, April 4, 2024
MGG - 5.05 - HWYD - alcohol
Over the years, I have worked on various work crews. I have worked on the railroad. I have worked for falling crews, I have worked for spacing crews. I have worked on trail building crews. This was when I was working summer jobs to get enough money for university. Latterly it was mostly first aid. Often bookkeeping tended to be appended to that. At one particular logging company, as first aid attendants, we were not only the bookkeepers and timekeepers, but also managers of the company "store."
Over the years, with regard to the various work camps, I have noted, quite frequently, that those who came in to work hungover in the morning (having been drinking considerable quantities of alcohol the night before), make the statement (almost inevitably), "I had a great time last night because," either a) "I'm sick as a dog this morning," or b) "I can't remember what I did last night."
I never understood the logic of those statements.
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-504-hwyd-obstetrics.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-506-hwyd-first-aid-training.html
Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Romans 5:3-4
More than that, we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
MGG - 5.04 - HWYD - obstetrics
In regard to first aid, I should possibly mention that I have taken obstetrics training. Well, that may be pushing the reality of it a bit. The obstetrics was not actually part of our first aid training, but, in later years when a professional association had been created, it was the topic of our first meeting. We had an obstetrician, who outlined the process, the possible difficulties we might face, and the fact that a breech birth is not the end of the world.
He recounted a story that has been told by the author of the "Doctor in the House" books. When he, the author, was taking his medical training, there was always one in every class. That is, someone who everyone knew was simply there to get the doctorate, but would not be endangering anyone by actually practicing. This would be someone from a wealthy, and possibly titled, family, and wanted to have a bit more to his name then simply the money and/or title. Everybody knew the way the game was played, the faculty marked his exams somewhat languidly, and the rest of the class helped this person to study, as a means of doing their own studying. Teaching someone else is always the best way to ensure that you know the subject. As I say, everyone was well aware that this person would never practice, and would therefore never endanger anyone.
But there was one thing that everybody, all medical students, had to do on their own. This was attending midwifery duty. Everyone had to attend a birth, but, equally, everyone knew that the midwife would be there, and that generally nothing untoward would happen.
So, the day approached. The others in his class asked this particular person if he wanted them to come along with him. No, he said, this has been happening for thousands of years, perfectly natural, normal part of everyday life, and, in any case, the midwife would be there. Okay, thought his fellows.
And on the specific evening in question, they again proposed that they attend with him. No no, he said, perfectly natural, normal part of everyday life. So off he went. His colleagues waited by the phone, in case there was a panic stricken phone call.
There was no phone call, and eventually this person returned, took off his coat, and sat down to the card game that had been in process when he had been summoned. "So, any problems?" his fellows asked? No, no, he replied, perfectly natural, normal part of everyday life, been happening for thousands of years. So, possibly the midwife took care of everything? No no said this person, and it was a piece of cake. The midwife didn't show up until everything was done and dusted.
So they shrugged, and got on with the card game. The phone rang again, and this time they didn't even offer. He left, and five minutes later there was a desperate phone call: "Come on you guys, I need you!" The person who answered the call couldn't help getting a bit of his own back. "I thought this was a perfectly natural, normal part of everyday life, and it's been happening for thousands of years." "That's all very well," said the person on the phone, "but this bloody baby's coming out head first!"
Head first of course, is the normal position for childbirth. It also means that the first baby had been a breech birth, and that this, the least well-trained of all his fellows in the class, had delivered a breech birth acceptably.
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-503-hwyd-racists.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-505-hwyd-alcohol.html
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Monday, April 1, 2024
MGG - 5.03 - HWYD - racists?
In nursing, possibly more than any other field, you tend to work with people from quite a variety of national and ethnic backgrounds. This was definitely the case on our ward. We had South Asian nurses, we had Chinese nurses and orderlies, we had Filipino nurses and orderlies: we had everybody.
Interestingly, on some wards we would see the various ethnic groups banding together into tiny cliques. This wasn't the case on our ward, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, we had a nurse who actually was Chinese, but, apparently, looked Filipino. The Chinese nurses wouldn't talk to her because she looked Filipino. The Filipino nurses wouldn't talk to her because she *was* Chinese. So, she had to hang out with us white folks.
The same was true of a South Asian nurse, who spoke English well, but with the thickest Scottish brogue you've ever heard. She was from a wealthy, high caste, family. Because they were wealthy, she had had a nanny, and the nanny had been from Scotland. Hence the Scottish brogue. She was high caste, so she wouldn't talk with any of the other South Asian nurses, who were lower caste. Again, she had to hang out with us white folks.
There was a Spanish orderly. (I suppose I should mention that there was also a Spanish nurse. When she found out that I was a college student, she insisted on calling me professore.) Anyway, the Spanish orderly (and he was from Spain, rather than just being Hispanic) was named Virgilio. Everyone else just called him Virgil, but I, knowing the various corruptions on my name that people address me by, tried to pronounce it correctly. Every time I did, he started speaking to me in Spanish, until he remembered who he was talking to and switched back to English.
I managed to get some specialized training, by working on specialty wards, at Shaughnessy. First of all, I did some time in isolation. I learned about gloving, and gowning, and cleaning wounds, and sometimes dressing wounds, although we didn't have terribly difficult cases. We didn't have any rare diseases, and in those dim and distant days we didn't have much worry about antibiotic resistant bacteria.
We did have some guys from the intermediate and extended care awards, who had developed bed sores, aka pressure sores or decubitus ulcers, from not moving frequently enough when lying in bed for long periods of time. If those wounds opened, and became infected, they ended up in isolation, and we had to be careful about dressing, keeping them away from other infections, and keeping other patients away from their infections.
One of the guys from one of the extended care awards was a bit of a joker. One day, when I came to get him up, he swung his one and a half legs over the bed, having previously put his prosthetic leg in the bed, and announced to me that he already had one foot in the grave. On another occasion, he told me that he was a veteran of two wars. "Oh," I said, in the full flush of my youthful ignorance, "the First World War and the Second World War?" No, he said, the Boer War and the First World War.
On isolation, we did, one time, get a rather non-standard patient: a young lady who had been riding with her boyfriend in an open sports car, and, when he had an accident, had been thrown from the car and suffered quite extensive brush burns, which meant she had large areas of open wounds, and was therefore on isolation to prevent them from collecting any infections. One day as I was walking down the hallway, I heard a loud yell of "No, no, no, no, no!" I realized that it was coming from her room, from which, shortly thereafter, the head nurse exited with a huge grin on her face. As we passed, she told me that she had been examining the young lady's wounds, and reassuring her that they had healed without much in the way of scarring. The young lady was quite relieved, since she had been concerned about having scars on her back side which might not look terribly well in a bikini. The head nurse had immediately replied that, no, she had seldom seen such a lovely rear end. But, being no particular expert in that field, she wondered if the young lady wanted to get an expert opinion, and offered to call the young orderly with the beard. (That would be me.) Hence the scream horrified scream of "No, no, no, no!"
Shaughnessy also got the spinal cord unit, the first time that the province had one. I worked a number of shifts on that ward, on a float basis, when they were short staffed. I had some interesting experiences, particularly shaving male patients who were having surgery in particular areas. I also picked up a lot of information about how to properly care for, and transport, spinal cord patients, which stood me in good stead when, subsequently, I had to rescue a camper, who had actually broken his neck diving into a shallow area of the lake, and transport him from the beach, to the hospital. At the hospital, the doctor on duty at the emergency ward, because the patient showed no loss of sensation or mobility, pooh-poohed my suggestion that he had, in fact, broken his neck--until they took an x-ray which proved that, yes, his neck was, in fact, broken.
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/03/mgg-502-hwyd-dead-patients.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-504-hwyd-obstetrics.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)