Glenn McDavid

As I suspected, I could not let go of this. I did some more research on the subject of my previous post about this. Then I made a slightly different change to the keyboard section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

( code behind cut )

This way the left windows key is simply a toggle between the two keyboards; I do not have to hold it down while typing the accents. I got this from the Gentoo Wiki( Table behind cut )

I could change the line

	Option       "XkbLayout"  "us,us(intl)"

to

	Option       "XkbLayout"  "us,us(intl),ru"

which would include a Russian (Cyrillic) keyboard in the toggle rotation. This is about 40 years too late. When I was taking Russian back in college I often wished I had a Russian typewriter. I am sure that my professors, who had to contend with my handwriting, also wished that I had had one.

"The Seventh the same, and clean out the stable."

( cleaning )

( work )

( Other activities )

A Virtual Slide Rule.

I have several real slide rules at home, and I still know how to use them. I could not afford an electronic calculator until 1976, when I got an HP-21.

Via Slashdot.

Chicago Reader, RIP. See also Chicago Reader sold to Florida publisher. Via Planet Carleton and Elizabeth Tamny.

My Carleton classmate NA has been undergoing treatment for cancer over the last few months. At her latest exam the doctor (A cancer specialist) said:

....he sees "NOTHING"! No tumor, no lymph node involvement, no new bogies!

He's a surgeon so you just know he wants to slice and dice ... but he's going to see me again in six weeks (the radiation's still at work for a few more weeks) and then six weeks after that. Somewhere in there he may do a biopsy, depending on what I'm doing with my blood thinners. He says there's no reason to talk about surgery for months, in any case, and possibly never!

....We're not out of the woods yet, but the path we appear to be on is a pretty one inhabited by lots of lovely living things. Including ME! <grin>

( Friday )

( Saturday and Sunday )

... but I think I did everything I really had to. mia_mcdavid is on her way downtown, where she will pick me up and we will drive to Northfield for my 35 Year College Reunion weekend. Yesterday I was in a bit of a funk, what with stress from work and other activities, and not feeling quite up to this. But going through the motions of packing, browsing the on-line schedule, and getting a good night's sleep have changed that, and I am ready.

On the schedule I noticed that Boiled in Lead is scheduled to play tomorrow night. I wondered briefly how the College managed to arrange that, but the answer is simple: One of the members is a graduate. Connections....

Division Street in Downtown Northfield (Minnesota) was nominated as a Great Public Space.

haddayr and I were pleased to see two of our friends from our Irish Class stop by colgaffneyis camp. We introduced them and showed them around. c_nocturnum showed one of them how to wear a greatkilt, and bullettheblue sold him a bonnet that twolodge had made.

Another visitor was a computer consultant I know from work and his wife. Recognition was delayed a second because of unfamiliar dress: I had never seen him in shorts and T-shirt, and he had never seen me in a kilt. One of those "he looks familiar..." moments, then I recognized the corporate logo on his shirt.

I also saw one of my Carleton folk dance connections, who came by with his wife and child. He works for the college now, but Farmington is at least as easy to reach from Northfield as from the Cities.

From a Carleton classmate:

....big news from the Arb! M spotted a short-eared owl twice this week in the arb. This is a fairly big deal – he’s a pretty fair birder & has only seen one once – in Hawaii! He says that they are really ungainly flyers. He said it looked like it was flapping two ironing boards.

It looks like the restoration efforts are paying off – they’re beginning to see the return of new & fairly uncommon animal species.

( Irish workshop, with a Clann Tartan connection )

( taxes )

( music party )

( Sunday )

Carleton's Biggest Nerd, Episode #1

"Be responsible. This is not a popularity contest--it's a nerdiness contest"

With mia_mcdavid at her weaving class again today, I went to Church alone. Rather than go back to St. Christopher's, or to one of the other local churches Mia has been writing about, I drove down to Northfield, for the Palm Sunday liturgy at All Saints Church. Our former Senior Associate Priest at St. Christopher's is now Priest-in-Charge there. She has her own show now.

....And she is doing a great job. The church was quite full. It was evident minutes into the liturgy that she is quite comfortable, more relaxed and happy than I had seen her at St. Christopher's for years. It quickly became clear that the feeling is reciprocated. They love her there. Next time I visit I am going to downplay the fact that I am from her former parish....they don't want any suggestion that a connection from the cities might draw her back.

It was the best worship experience I have had since leaving St. Luke's/Evanston, back in '97. In fact, it seemed like a minaturized St. Luke's--this is a much smaller church in physical size. But there was lots of sung liturgy, including sung prayers, and superb music. It was a fine Anglo-Catholic liturgy, without the misogynist and homophobic baggage so often associated with that wing of Anglicanism--again, just like St. Luke's.

I noticed another friend there. One of the choir members, who was the narrator for the passion Gospel and later led (chanting) the prayers, is a Carleton friend. He graduated 20 years after me, but was also a Carleton folk dancer. We met at the '97 College reunion, where some of us old farts from the early '70's dragged out the old folk dance records, and found ourselves joined by these dancers from 20 years later, who told us that the Carleton folk dancers had survived, and had records and pictures going back to our day. Since then folk dancing over all the decades has been a regular Carleton reunion feature. Generally growing old sucks, but being treated as a tribal elder is kind of neat :-)>

... by a college classmate at 72 dpi.

M is down at the Mayo Clinic. All of us in colgaffneyis are worried.

Today I received bad news from another side of my life: One of my Carleton classmates was diagnosed with colon cancer on Friday. Not a really close friend from the old days, but someone I like and respect, and with whom I have been happily working on alumni business in recent years. I e-mailed her last week asking for a favor on behalf of another friend, and was wondering why she had not replied. Now I know.

Otherwise, this was actually a good day ("Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?").

In Irish you don't count people in the same way you count things. In particular, "two" as in "two people" is beirt rather than dó or dhá. This came up in class last night, and for some reason it stuck in my mind.

On my way home from work I remembered that long (35+ years) ago at Carleton I had learned an Irish dance called Siamsa Beirte, which we were told translates roughly as "play for two". A quick check in an Irish dictionary this evening showed that siamsa means "amusement". Close enough.

So now I understand the name of the dance and the tune better than I did way back then. It has taken a while :-)> Still, I am pleased that I could make the association.

I have forgotten the dance--I don't think I ever did it after graduation in 1972. However, I clearly remember that it was fun. I would like to learn it again.

Sister Edith Bogue, blogging nun or 'Monastic Musings': The Blogging Nun. See also Sr. Edith's comments at Musing on Musings in the News.

Faith Lessons from Knitting. Sister Edith is one of my oldest friends--I think I met her back in 1967. She is a classmate from both High School and College, and was a fellow folk dancer at Carleton.

My brief note last night concluded with a physics joke; perhaps my subconscious was looking ahead to the next day.( Read more... )

I just learned that one of my favorite professors at Carleton died on Saturday. In a small department at a small college there is a lot of student-faculty contact. Mike was one of the people who really shaped my life. I have posted the e-mail about him at 72 dpi.