One year of CT
So today marks the 1 year anniversary of our Connecticut house. 365 days ago, we were plunking down a lot of money for our new adventure here. Reflecting back, a lot has happened in that time. Here's a few tidbits:
First, there's the house.
Before painting (circa end of July):
Then after painting a few weeks later:
Declan started Kindergarten:
Then Fall came and we did things like apple picking:
And we had a tree come down:
Zandra became a famous radio personality:
And James actually ran a 5k (sick and totally congested the day after flying home from a business trip):
Our first Christmas in our new house:
And then it snowed:
And snowed:
And snowed:
And then the ice and water damage:
Thankfully, Spring did show up eventually and we now have a garden:
Declan graduated Kindergarten:
And we're all still here, in CT. Sane (for the most part), happy, and another year older and wiser.
What's next? Stay tuned to find out!
Comments
Decision Making by Social Networking
May 15, 2011 09:42 PM Filed in: Personal
Many I'm sure have heard about the saga of James Tate - the high school boy from Shelton, CT (two towns away from me) who was banned from his prom after coming up with an extremely creative way of asking his date to the prom.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/11/conn-teen-posted-prom-invite-barred-dance/
So while I happen to side with the teenager (and am happy with the ultimate decision to let him go to his prom) you have to wonder about this story in the context of modern social networking. Had this happened, oh, say 25 years ago, it probably would have gotten local TV coverage, maybe even national TV coverage. And a writeup in the newspaper. Certainly not the global, viral response (where approximately 200,000 people "Liked" the Facebook page dedicated to James Tate's cause).
I'm not sure whether this is good or bad.
Granted, this made what appears to have been an overly-inflexible policy and extreme reaction to an offense visible, and plainly obvious. (Obvious to everyone except the headmaster that is.) It probably allowed a creative, apparently upstanding person to attend his prom. It probably got an unfair policy overturned (even though there was possibly past precedent for the change). And, I think it allowed creative romance to bloom (you have to admit, it was a cute way to ask someone to the prom).
But it brings up the concern that now the world can micro-manage every decision made by people place in positions of authority or power. Sure, there are obvious injustices where social networking is going to allow the word to get out faster. But there are (and have been) much less clear situations where, truth be told, maybe the world didn't really need to hear about all the details. And the discussion turns into a bit of a free-for-all, with the person elected or appointed to make a decision getting really caught in the middle.
It's an opinion here that social networking and the increased speed and availability of information to people is becoming detrimental to the functioning of our government and other long established processes. We voted for - hired even - people to make decisions on our behalf and run entities on our behalf. We vote them in and out based on their records. But we also trust them to do a job for us so that we can continue to do our jobs. Social networking (and maybe the Internet in general) has allowed us to micromanage and critique individual decisions made by those in authority on a daily basis, objecting to every little thing we don't like, and probably putting many into "analysis paralysis": an inability to make any decision for the need to analyze every possible repercussion of a decision. Not to mention that less-than-clear decisions can now tend to become polarizing, resulting in even more disagreement, inaction, and paralysis.
There's no doubt that the increased visibility allows better accountability, but at a high granularity level that we now have, the "lose sight of the forest for the trees" seems to begin to apply.
I feel for the headmaster at the school. While I think her initial decision was incorrect, she's been convicted in the Court of Public Opinion, and will probably have what was otherwise a good career irreparably damaged.
My ears say it's broken
Having a fun time with the iPod interface with the wife's new car. I've discovered, through careful experimentation, that the iPod interface on the car seems to not play vocals and certain parts of music out of the left speakers. It's very odd. It's like someone mixed out certain instruments, tracks, and parts of the songs. Only the iPod playing through the digital MDI interface. Satellite radio, AM/FM radio, etc., all work fine.
Took the car into the VW dealer today, and they agreed it sounded wrong, but said it was the way I had ripped my music from CDs on to the iPod. Um....no. I would have noticed that problem years ago. And, it can't happen on iTunes songs and every single album we own. "But it's a digital stream and the diagnostics say the unit is fine." It's not the music. Here - let me interface the same iPod, playing the same song, to the same system, but play it through the aux jack of the car instead of the digital interface. "Hey, that sounds right." New MDI interface on order.
I do have to say, I agree with VW. I am perplexed because this is certainly a bizarre failure mode. I hope the new MDI unit cures whatever ills this system. And maybe I can get them to mount the unit differently when they replace it (it takes up a big chunk of the glove compartment, and I'm sure there must be space to mount it somewhere else....
Sigh. I hate technology.
Viral tag
No updates the last few weeks because we've been busy playing viral tag in this household. Not that that shouldn't be a surprise this time of year, and especially this year with temperatures swinging 40 degrees from one day to the next.
I'm hoping we're finished, with the beginning and end both being Declan. Traveling with a viral momento from Declan made my typical quarterly trip all the more tiring. Only to return to him having another one.
All I can say is, next week, during Spring Break, we better all be healthy!
Walk observations
When traveling, I often like to take long walks to explore. It's a form of exercise (to work off the extra calories from dinners) but it's also a chance to see the place where you are at a little more closely.
Traveling by airplane, you rarely see much of anything (except the seat back in front of you smashed into your face). Driving around in a car, you see more, but especially if you're driving, you still miss a lot of details. Walks are slow and you're not surrounded by steel and glass so you get to observe a little more. I think I observe odd things though....rambling thoughts below:
Walking a couple of blocks in Las Vegas (that's the equivalent of a couple of miles to the unenlightened) was kind of interesting, especially since I was a bit off the beaten track (I walked between Las Vegas Blvd. and Paradise Rd.). First the trash. Yeah, cigarette butts as expected. Soda cans/cups. Beer bottles. Then the more interesting things - used rubber gloves and a screwdriver? Socks? Hmmm....the same thought process that goes through my mind standing at the grocery store checkout applies here....the one that wonders what you make with the food that the person in front of you is buying....
It's also interesting to walk by some of the apartments near the Strip which advertise weekly rates. They look like converted motels (and they probably are). But they look relatively clean and neat. More interesting are the kids. Lots and lots of kids. Waiting for the school bus like anywhere else, except that they are in the shadow of skyscraper hotels. You have to wonder what the stories are. These apartments seem so out of place 1 block from the Strip. You would think most of the people who live there must work on the Strip.
Noticeably absent: pets. Maybe there were lots of cats inside those places (the signs for the complexes advertised "Pet Friendly"). No barking dogs. No pet waste laying around. Seemingly unusual. Maybe the wrong time of day - there's not much going on at 8am besides kids going off to school and the weird tourist taking a walk.
Abandoned buildings and properties. Notably, the ones with signs that say something on the order of "This property is the site of a future resort and casino". Half-finished buildings with permit dates that expired two years ago. All signs of the building bust that the town is experiencing. All within sight of the massive City Center project which barely finished.
Interesting town.