The Death of Handwriting

A repost of friend Shelley's...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1912419,00.html?xid=rss-topstories-cnnpartner

I have to admit I always thought cursive writing was a big waste of time. Why in the world would we learn to print in kindergarten, only to re-learn the whole thing in 3rd grade? And let me tell you, mine was bad - partly because I broke my arm in 4th grade during some of our main handwriting learning time, but partly because I'm just bad at writing. The minute I wasn't forced to use it, I stopped. And the minute I learned how to type more than 10 words a minute, I stopped writing altogether basically. I sign my name. I occasionally write a phone number or a grocery list.

I used to occasionally go through and write the whole cursive alphabet just to see if I could remember it, if I was somewhere bored and had absolutely nothing else to do. I'd now see this as a waste of time over twiddling my thumbs.

So, I don't mourn the death of handwriting at all - I think we all still need to learn to write, but not to the point of obsession, and certainly not cursive!!!!

Home

While I could probably write pages and pages on the wonderful week's vacation Erin and I just returned from, I'll try to summarize :) This was a 2-part vacation, driven by the fantastic wedding of my friend John from college, and his (now) wife Lillian.

We started out last Wednesday evening driving to Roseville to stay with my wonderful cousin Cindy who always volunteers to be our bed and taxi service to the airport so we can save money on parking, extra flights from Rochester, and most of all sleep. We woke up at 4am and were at the airport by 5:15am ready for our 6:30 flight. After a short stop in Denver, lots of coffee, and another short flight to San Diego, we get there - and it's 10am Pacific time! The morning that never ends! Fortunately we had the whole day Thursday to relax, recover, and adjust to the time zone (we went to bed at 7:30). Friday was a wonderful day seeing all the arriving old friends, as well as new friends at the wedding rehearsal (I had the honor of being a "grooms-person" - there were men and women on both sides of the wedding party, which I think was SO cool). Rehearsal dinner at a great Mexican place in Olde Town called Cafe Coyote, and back to the hotel for some sleep for the big day. Saturday the weather was beautiful (really always is there), not too hot, and was just perfect at 5:15pm when the wedding started (preceded by the wedding party men sharing So Co shots in my hotel room). Reception across the street at the Museum of Conteporary Art in La Jolla, overlooking the ocean (the hotel, church, and gallery were all within 2 blocks - awesome). Great appetizers, dinner, cake, dancing, and then quite a late-night after party at Jack's - La Jolla night club, which was quite upscale - John's grandma even attended!

Sunday morning we got to have a leisurely breakfast with best friends John & Jen and their 2 kids at a little place called The Cottage - a hidden treasure of a restaurant in La Jolla. Our flight left at 1:00pm to San Fran, so we hopped on the shuttle and arrived mid-afternoon, picked up our rental car, and made our way through downtown to our hotel on Fisherman's Wharf. Had it not been for our Sonoma wine tour which we really had to drive to, I think a car would not have been necessary, as it really was harder to drive and park anywhere than it was to take public transit. We walked around and had sourdough bread sandwiches for dinner Sunday evening, and made our way to Pier 33 for a boat trip and tour of Alcatraz - quite cool - by the time we got there it was getting foggy and darker, which made everything just a bit eerie and authentic.

Monday, after breakfast at the IHOP which was attached to our hotel (Erin was VERY excited about this), we headed up the 101 across the Golden Gate Bridge - in the fog - which made it quite a cool experience. Weather was beautiful the rest of the way up, and really the rest of the day, for our wine tour in Sonoma. We had a small bus full of people and a great tour guide/driver and we managed to hit 5 wineries. I am now well educated in wine, and, sadly, probably very spoiled now, because I now know that the cheap $5 bottles of Yellow Tail just aren't the same as what we tasted out there - this wine was amazing. We even signed up for the Benziger Wine Club, which sends you 6 shipments a year of a couple bottles of their newest and finest. A short stop at The Red Grape pizzaria in Sonoma which had some of the best pizza I've ever had, and we headed back to San Fran, making a detour around the other side of the bay to pick up a friend of Erin's who was stuck without a car, to hang out and catch up with him.



Tuesday we slept a bit later in the morning and then realized we didn't really have time to figure out how to get to the Castro District for the Castro Tour we signed up for - so we drove - really probably not the smartest idea as it took forever to park and then it was 2-hour parking so we had to move the car. As it turned out it was ok, the tour was 2 hours, we moved the car, spent some more time walking around and eating lunch, and then headed back to the hotel via Golden Gate Park (really just drove through it, as we didn't have time to stop). Ghiradelli Square was on Erin's list of things to see, and 5 blocks from our hotel, so we went down to load up on chocolate-y goodness before dinner with some friends we met at John & Lillian's wedding in SD, at a place called Luna Park - this time we were smart enough to figure out the mass transit, which was much quicker and simpler to use than driving and parking!

Early plane ride out of SF (9am) which meant getting up at 5:30am to get there, ditch the car, and get checked in. Short hop to Phoenix, longer ride to Minneapolis, picked up by Cindy, and off to home (there was an accident on 52 which took us some doing to get around, but nothing too bad). I'm sure we were more excited to see the kitties than they were to see us but they were there waiting!

Annoyingly Apple

Saw this on Slashdot this morning:

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/07/apple_kills_pal.html

Now, strictly speaking, a company has the right to do whatever they want with their own software. But from a reality standpoint, there are two things wrong with this. First, this is the sort of "monopolistic" thing that gets Microsoft in trouble all the time. Second, and this is what really makes me wonder, it seems to me that Apple's revenue stream from iTunes and iPod is a lot based on selling stuff from the iTunes store. Yes, they probably still make a fortune on hardware (iPod and iPhone) but, it is doubtful that having the Palm Pre or other devices able to sync with iTunes would affect people's decision to buy an iPod or an iPhone - I have 3 iPods and I bought them because they're good quality devices. I wouldn't buy an iPhone simply because it integrates with iTunes - I would have bought a Pre regardless, especially since I'm not going to switch carriers from Sprint.

For me, this is more motivation to start buying music from Amazon. I'm sure Apple sees it another way, but for me they're going to lose business.

Harry Potter 6

Erin and I and a group of friends made the trek down to the theater last night at 11pm to get seats for the midnight kickoff of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince". I have to say the new Wehrenberg Theaters down south of town are really nice, and they were showing the movie in at least 4 theaters (maybe more I didn't count), and that no one had to stand in line, so it was a much more pleasant experience than some opening days I've gone to. The movie itself was very good - somewhat different from the book but overall I still liked it. It was 3am by the time we got home though which made for too early of a morning.

Your social/political awareness link for the day:

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/12048/i-outline-religious-right-distortions-focus-on-the-familys-stanton-responds

I really like the blog "Pam's House Blend" because there is such a wide mix of articles and posts - I wish I had time to read all of them but there are probably 50+ a day and that's just too many. But I can usually scan the headlines. This one was particularly interesting to me, as it talks about some of the myths about GLBT people that get perpetuated.

Software Version Numbers

Warning: Extremely Geeky Content Ahead.

http://technologizer.com/2009/07/14/version-numbers/

Working in the software industry, this is more than just geeky interesting to me - we have MANY meeting discussions on version numbering. Really. Yes. It's sad.

Two videos

Just saw these two things in the past couple days and since they're related I wanted to post them.

First is a Lifetime movie based on a book which is based on a true story called "Prayers For Bobby" about a boy who, in 1984, committed suicide because he was gay and couldn't resolve this with his family and his religion - the mom is played by Sigorney Weaver, the Lifetime website has several additional videos including an interview with the real mom, who is now an advocate for GLBT children who are contemplating suicide. Erin and I watched the whole movie and it is very powerful.

http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/movies/prayers-bobby

The second is a recent video about a Mormon guy who was going to commit suicide, thinking his family would never accept him for being gay - this one fortunately turned out a lot better (6:07):

Expired

I hate when things like food in the fridge expire, but bigger things are even worse - like car warranties and 10-year stock options.

Sunday, the stock options I got from IBM 10 years ago (which never actually reached their original strike price) expired. I guess I should look at it as an investment that didn't cost me anything - options are like having control of a bunch of shares of stock without actually having to buy them - so for example, if you get 1000 options at $100/share, and the prices goes up to $150/share, you could sell and make $50,000 (the difference in price times the number of options). But these never got above their strike price.

In the next day or two, my car will also go over 36,000 miles, before the car is 3 years old. I've had 4 cars now, and if you take out the one that was a 2-year lease, I have always hit 36,000 miles before hitting 3 years. I thought this time, given that I drive a lot less now that much of my family is in Minnesota, and my longer trips were flights or train rides, that I'd actually make it to 3 years, but not to be.

On the plus side, I sold my old phone for $90 on eBay. Given that my new phone cost $199 after all the rebates, upgrading didn't really cost too much (and I really like this new one a lot better). We also got some much-needed rain last night for the yard and the garden - we already have tomatoes coming in! Looking forward to dinner with the cousins tonight, and a fun weekend hanging out with friends. Only two weeks until we leave for San Diego/San Francisco!

Happy Happy

Twelve years ago today I started working at IBM. It was the only day I ever wore a tie to work (besides the one day where I had to go to a wedding right after work and I won't count that). My first workstation was an AIX RS/6000 300 MHz (we didn't start getting Windows PCs until a few years later, and not laptops until about 6 years ago - and I STILL have the same P200 model of monitor that they gave everyone 12 years ago!)

To recap 12 years - I have had 6 managers (actually quite a low number for 12 years), worked in 4 different departments, 2 different areas, and 2 different divisions. I've only had 3 different desks (that's an amazingly low number for 12 years compared to most people), and have had 2 promotions. The manager who hired me is now a 3rd line manager of an entire group. When I started in 1997, it was the middle of the .com boom, and my starting salary was raised 3 times between when I got hired and the day I actually started, because the industry was so competitive on hiring then (man do we miss those days...). I can't really count all the projects I've worked on, but they range from doing machine-level AS/400 programming to Websphere application development.

Honestly though, not a ton has changed in 12 years here. Sure, technology has changed rapidly - it's the industry I'm in. Some buildings have been remodeled, we've sold parts of the business off, bought some others. There's now a Target and a whole bunch of other stuff on 41st street in the area that use to be just an empty field owned by IBM. There's a frontage road that cuts through the site now. But all in all, it's still IBM.

Vritual Friday

It's probably bad that it already felt like Friday YESTERDAY, and that no one is here at work today (there is one other person in my department here I think). But, I'm getting a lot of odds and ends done.

I took my car in to Saturn today to have the key/ignition slot looked at. I am sitting at 35,700 miles, the warranty runs out at 36,000...if anything else is going to break, I hope it's in the next few days! I can't believe I'm already at 36,000 miles - I put on a lot of miles I guess, I've never made it 3 years on a warranty yet and I've had 4 new cars now. The Saturn guys keep assuring me that Saturn is going to keep making cars, I'm not so sure.

It is also Erin's birthday today - happy birthday Erin! He actually got up and drove me to Caribou and work after dropping off the car. We are looking forward to a fun evening of grilling with some friends tomorrow night, and then friends Trevor & Karli spending the weekend up here, ending with going to the "No Doubt" concert Sunday evening in St. Paul at the Excel Energy Center. The weather looks like it's going to be fantastic all weekend.

A safe, wonderful, and happy Independence Day to everyone and their families this weekend. One of the things I remember at this holiday are the countries where freedom and independence are still just concepts and not realities. We certainly have problems in our country but we're in a lot better shape than others. Let's hope that in the next decade the world makes real progress toward freedom and liberty for all.