Godspeed Neil Armstrong

31 August 2012, 4:22 pm by Giggles
Categories: Science & Tech

On Saturday Neil Armstrong passed away. The first man to set foot on the moon is now on a whole new adventure. A private memorial service was held for him today.

From a statement from the family last week:

For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.

Tonight is a full moon, a blue moon at that (only once in a blue moon does man step off this planet and on to another one). When it rises over the football field where we’ll be working our first game of the season, I’ll look up and wink.

Thank you for all the dreams Neil Armstrong. Godspeed on your new adventure.

4 Shared thoughts

Dropbox Sharing Tip

29 August 2012, 8:10 am by Giggles
Categories: How To, Science & Tech

I love Dropbox for a lot of reasons.

First, when my laptop crashed, all my files on it were in a Dropbox folder and so I did not lose any files.

Second, I’ve installed Dropbox on both of my computers and, when I had a job, my work computer. No popping flash drives in and out when I need to open a file on one computer and I’ve been working on it on another. And since all my files are available via web log-in as well, I loaded all the files I’d need for lectures to Dropbox and then I’d just pull them up in whatever classroom I was in.

Third, sharing files is great! I don’t need to compress twenty zipped folders to email photos to my sister when her family comes to visit. I just put them all on Dropbox and share them with her. My husband and I share a folder where we have documents we both need access to as well (like our exercise chart and tax documents).

There are a couple of different ways to share with Dropbox.

Share a complete folder. This means those you share the folder with can see everything that is in the folder, manipulate and change the files, delete files, and add files. When you share a folder like this the other person stores a copy of everything in their account as well. This is the perfect solution when you are collaborating on a project with someone.

Share a link to the file/folder. This means those you share them with can see them. And that’s it. They can’t manipulate, change, delete, or add. And they don’t need the space to store them either. It used to be you could only do this with files in your “Public” folder, but not any more. Now you can get a link to any file or folder and share it. You can even share it with people who don’t have Dropbox. Photos from a family vacation? Put them in a folder and share the link to the folder with everyone. Dissertation (someday soon)? Send out the link to the document because that sucker’s going to be too big to attach to an email (and then people can just read it, not rewrite it).

Here are two graphics for how to share a link to a folder (works the exact same way to share an individual file too):

Happy Sharing! And if you haven’t yet discovered Dropbox, what are you waiting for?

4 Shared thoughts

Perfectly Hung Quilts

27 August 2012, 9:40 am by Giggles
Categories: How To, Quilting/Sewing/Knitting/Crafting

I have some wall hanging sized quilts for different holidays (and I want to have them for all holidays) that I like to hang on the wall to decorate with. We even have the perfect little spot right next to our front door for hanging quilts. But I didn’t have a good method for hanging them. They have quilt rods and other things designed for hanging quilts. The rods require me to put rod pockets in my quilts, and I haven’t always done that. And the other methods were rather expensive. So I’d been using clear push pins. But that’s not exactly the best for the wall and it meant I had to eyeball it every time to see if the quilt was hanging level or not and it took a lot of balancing on two different chairs.

Not really looking for quilt hanging methods on the internet, I came across someone who was using a curtain rod and clips to hang their quilts and I thought, “I could do that!” I bought a rod and the ring clips for about $16, put some painters tape level on the wall to help me get the screw holes right, and now I can switch out my quilts super easy. Even better, the whole presentation looks finished now.

Now I just need to finish up all of my holiday quilts. Christmas is finished. I finished Halloween last November. The top for Valentine’s Day is completed. I have all the fabric for a fall quilt. And I have a beautiful idea in my head for a desert scene we can display on normal days.

4 Shared thoughts

Spot the Subjectivity

24 August 2012, 8:03 am by Giggles
Categories: Life, Politics

We got our September National Geographic and I like to flip through it and read the short little things out loud while Brett makes our Sunday waffles. One of the little blurbs was about the most “liveable” cities in the world (September 2012, pg. 18). It listed five of the several factors that the cities were ranked on: education, public health, censorship, mass transit, and culture. And that list caught our attention, particularly the third one on the list.

So we looked up the company that does the ranking to see what the other factors were that they listed. What we found was a pretty good contradictory paragraph, claiming objectivity but sprouting subjectivity like Medusa’s head spouts snakes:

Quality of Living, for the purposes Mercer’s survey, analysis, and city rankings, differs from “quality of life.” Quality of life may involve a subjective assessment or opinion about one’s personal state and circumstances in a given city, but Mercer’s criteria for Quality of Living are objective, neutral and unbiased. Our objective system measures the quality of living for expatriates based on 39 criteria grouped into 10 key categories. We weigh each category to reflect its importance for overall quality of living. We assess the degree to which expatriates enjoy the standard of living in each host location, factoring in the interaction of political, socio-economic and environmental factors in the host location.

For Mercer’s Quality of Living rankings, New York serves as the base city. All other cities are ranked in relation to it.

This table shows the categories and criteria that Mercer quantifies for each city:

Mercer’s Quality of Living Survey Criteria

Political and Social Environment

  • Relationship with other Countries
  • Internal Stability
  • Crime
  • Law Enforcement
  • Ease of Entry and Exit

Economic Environment

  • Currency Exchange Regulations
  • Banking Services

Socio-Cultural Environment

  • Limitation on Personal Freedom
  • Media and Censorship

Natural Environment

  • Climate
  • Record of Natural Disasters
 Medical and Health Considerations

  • Hospital Services
  • Medical Supplies
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Water Potability
  • Sewage
  • Waste removal
  • Air Pollution
  • Troublesome & Destructive Animals & Insects

Public Services and Transport

  • Electricity
  • Water Availability
  • Telephone
  • Mail
  • Public Transport
  • Traffic Congestion
  • Airport

Schools and Education

  • Schools
 Recreation

  • Variety of Restaurants
  • Theatrical & Musical Performances
  • Cinemas
  • Sport & Leisure Activities

Consumer Goods

  • Meat & Fish
  • Fruits & Vegetables
  • Daily Consumption Items
  • Alcoholic Beverages
  • Automobiles

Housing

  • Housing
  • Household Appliances & Furniture
  • Household Maintenance & Repair

Objective, neutral, and unbiased when they’ve decided New York is the base to judge everything else on? Objective, neutral, and unbiased decision on what counts as cultural experiences? Can you objectively judge the socio-cultural environment of a city? Looking at their top 30 list, those are all very liberal cities. The fact that they’re weighting the different factors means that they’ve subjectively decided which ones are most important.

You can objectively measure natural disasters. You can objectively measure monetary exchange rates. You can objectively measure crime rates (as long as they are being reported accurately). But I don’t think you can objectively say that one city is more liveable than other. Defining culture as restaurant variety and professional theaters misses a whole lot of culture and recreation out there in the world. It’s like limiting art to oil paintings and granite sculpture. You miss a lot of art with that definition.

I’m not against subjectivity. There are a lot of very good things in life we judge subjectively. Beauty, love, joy, are all judged subjectively. There is a lot of subjectivity in deciding how good a place to live is and you’re fooling yourself if you think otherwise. Or at least fooling those who pay you for your analysis.

2 Shared thoughts

The blessings of Job

22 August 2012, 8:23 am by Giggles
Categories: Gospel, Musings

I’ve done some thinking about Job the past few months. That guy had a rough life. He lost his crops, his livestock, his children, his health. And all at once. According to the “deal” made regarding Job, the devil could take everything from him except his life. Job had to be left to live through it all.

And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.
Job 2:6

There are a lot of wonderful verses in Job with his reactions to his trials about maintaining his integrity throughout when his friends and wife were telling him to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9). But before he got there, he went through chapter 3. In chapter 3 he does not curse God, but he spends the whole chapter cursing the day he was born:

Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?
Job 3:3, 11-12

That is not a happy man. That is a man who does not know all of God’s plan. He does not know what is in store for him in the future. He does not know that at the end of all this he’s going to be blessed beyond what he could’ve imagined before. He does not know that his integrity through his trials will save him. He does not know that his trials will serve to comfort countless others throughout history.

My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands.
Thou art not yet as Job; thy friends do not contend against thee, neither charge thee with transgression, as they did Job.
Doctrine & Covenants 121:7-10

Would Job have been as blessed if his mother’s knees really had squeezed him to death upon his birth? Would Job have been as blessed if he had been allowed to die when he lost what he thought was everything?

The trial Job went through made it possible for God to bless him more than before. The trials were simply the precursor to the blessings. Without the trial the blessings would not have been possible. The trials were part of the blessing.

Maybe I could start looking at my trials that way. I certainly don’t know how all of this will end up. But I can choose to have faith that my trials are preparing me for a blessing even greater than the ones I thought I had in the first place. I can choose faith that God is preparing me to help others through their trials just as Job’s trials continue to help people through their trials today. I can choose to let the trials I face be the vehicle for blessings from heaven.

2 Shared thoughts

Augusts

20 August 2012, 12:58 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education, Work

Ten years ago this August I stood in front of a classroom as the teacher for the first time. It was an almost surreal moment for me. I had dreamed of teaching for as long as I could remember. And there I was, a teacher, with a classroom I’d set up and students who were looking to me to help them get some knowledge. Students who were looking at me like I knew what I was doing.

I’ve often said that first year felt a lot like standing in the middle of a storm that was blowing all around me. The first year of teaching is hard. The next year I had my bearings and my feet under me and it really started to get fun. My first semester standing in front of a college classroom had a very rough feeling to it as well while I figured out the new bearings and new standing I needed. But I found it, and it became fun again.

I have stood in front of a classroom as a teacher every August since. Until this August. Ten Augusts of starting a new school year as a teacher. This August, not by my choice, I’m not. It’s strange. I miss it.

Today is the first day of what will most likely be my last semester of formal degree seeking education. Because of where I am at in my current degree I’m not even going to be on campus for classes (I’ve been doing independent study type credits while I work on my papers since Spring 2010 semester).

I’m good at what I do. I love being in a classroom. It’s energizing. I love the creativity it takes to work with each new group of students. I love finding new research or projects that will make my classes even better. I hope this forced sabbatical from formal teaching is not a long one. In the mean time, I plan to make use of every opportunity I have for the informal type. School is always in session in the classroom of life.

4 Shared thoughts

My funeral

16 August 2012, 12:30 pm by Giggles
Categories: Family, Featured, Life, Quilting/Sewing/Knitting/Crafting

A while back my mom was jokingly planning her funeral and handing out assignments. I’m in charge of making sure all the gladiolas at her funeral are crocked. Long-time inside family joke there.

Brett and I joke and talk about it too. It would really suck if one of us were to die any time soon, but we aren’t terribly afraid of it. As we’ve talked I’ve expressed a few firm opinions about a few things, subject to change of course as my life progresses. Because Brett says when I’m dead I don’t get a say in anything, I thought I’d share my opinions with the internet and see if you can’t hold him to a few of them (most particularly how I am to be referenced after I’m dead).

At my funeral drape a quilt over my coffin. Use the spool quilt if I’ve managed to finish it. But don’t bury the quilt. Before putting me in the ground take the quilt off. Use it. That’s what quilts are for.

Sing “Be Still, My Soul,” because that is the hymn that touches my heart more than any others. And while I know that there is still work going on after death, I’d like to think that my soul will have finally managed to be still. Also play “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” I’ve decided I really like the piano version of that as played by Chris Rice on “The Living Room Sessions.” So you don’t have to sing it, but it at least needs to be played.

In lieu of flowers, donate to the American Cancer Society (because with the family history I have, it just might be cancer that does me in), March of Dimes, the LDS Church humanitarian fund or perpetual education fund, or the scholarship I’m going to be setting up at some point. If you really want to do flowers, do potted perennials. I’ve never been a fan of annuals (except pansies) because it seems like such a waste to have to plant them over and over again every year, get something that will last and then make it last.

After I’m gone nobody ever better refer to me as “the late” Lisa. Because I promise you I will be more on time after I’m dead than I ever have been in this life. Call me deceased. Call me passed on. Call me dead. But don’t call me late. And hold Brett to this. This is the one he and I “argue” over the most. Although we’ve said he gets to go first because he really gets creeped out by cemeteries and I don’t want him to either get creeped out coming to visit my grave or feel guilty that he isn’t, so it might not even be an issue.

I’ve convinced Brett that if you’re going to put an image on our headstone, it should be clasped hands. You don’t see that on many headstones any more. It’s an old symbol and I really like what it stands for, and what it means to us. So put clasped hands between our names. And put the same stylized binary we had on our wedding invites along the bottom of the headstone, don’t forget to leave off the null terminator.

And definitely make sure there is a large variety of “funeral” potatoes for everyone to taste test after the funeral. I always laugh when I remember my uncle giving his critique of all the different types we had at Grandmother’s funeral.

What would you like to happen at your funeral? Any strong opinions people should know about?

19 Shared thoughts