Letter Never Sent

…in a made for tv movie.

The Book: “Love You Forever” by Robert Munsch, Illustrations by Sheila McGraw Read it online… it’s short. My mom bought this for me several years ago. Aww.

I’ve been working on some Flash elements for the company website, which we’re redoing. I love trying to do stuff in Flash because I’m visual and it’s more like playing than the work I do in HTML and CSS, etc. I also love working in Flash because I always have to learn how to do something new. Here is a simple animated navigation I’m working on right now. I didn’t design the buttons, just the behaviors and how they animate. In other words, I don’t like the button icons.

(more…)

The 11-Year Quest to Create Disappearing Colored Bubbles “Kehoe grew up in a stoic Irish house, but Sherri came from a big, raucous Italian clan. During Kehoe’s first Christmas with his future in-laws, the grandmas and cousins and kids all gathered in the living room to play Pictionary. The game was boisterous and hilarious, and Kehoe couldn’t believe what a blast he had. That night he left with a new calling—to, as he puts it, “solve the problem of how to have fun.”

I love seeing my family and spending time with people I care about. I love the stress of it and the break from routine, the familial nosiness, seeing how everyone has changed over the intervening year. I love to see everyone laughing and teasing each other, my aunts and grandmother baking and cooking, and on the other side of my family, my dad and uncle cooking and roasting. I love playing dominos, drinking coffee, and watching movies, everyone packed in like sardines.

To everyone within shouting distance, have a Happy Thanksgiving. Spend time with your tribe.

Do you know where your surname comes from? Usually surnames are derived in a few standard ways, and up until a couple hundred years ago they were not fixed as they are today in our modern era of bureaucratic record-keeping.

Occupation surnames Before we had surnames, you might have been known by what you did in the community, like “Robert Stockbroker”.

1. Baker - the guy who makes the bread
2. Cooper - the barrel maker
3. Wright - one who makes something
4. Kellogg - literally, the guy who kills the hogs
5. Smith - the blacksmith, foreign equivalents for the same name: Schmidt (German, Danish), Ferraro (Italian)

Patronymics, using your father’s name as your surname This was popular in western europe until surnames became fixed, which is why it is popular today in western culture.

1. England: father’s name + son. Jackson, Jefferson, for example.
2. Scotland: Mac + father’s name. MacDonald, McCarthy, for example.
3. Spain: father’s name + ez. Hernandez, Rodriguez, for example.
4. French: illegitimate children were often given the surname form Fitz + father’s name. Fitzgerald, or Fitzpatrick, for example.

Toponymics, or place names Most people have surnames based on where their ancestors came from. This is actually the type of surname I have since at least one of my ancestors probably came from a place named Sybaris (destroyed by their neighbors) hence my surname, Sivori, or “one from Sybaris”. Other examples include:

1. Woods - from the woods
2. Heath - someone who lives out on the moores.
3. Thorpe - the guy from town

Descriptive surnames Let’s say you have red hair. In the old days, you may have had the last name of Reid, Ross, Rossi, Roth, Rousseau, Russell, etc. all of which describe you as being red or having red hair. Other examples include:

1. Grant - a tall man
2. Armstrong - a guy with strong arms
3. Brown - a guy with brown hair

I’m fascinated by the life of the truck driver. As an occupation, it is the modern equivalent of what being a sailor used to be three hundred years ago. Long stretches of time away from home and hearth, a crusty disresgard for landlubbers, and a life spent in unfamiliar places in the society of other rootless nomads. Instead of islands and ports, truckers have truckstops and loading docks. Like ships, their trucks are made for long distance and for living. At a modern truckstop, you will find all the modern necessities of life. When I stopped into the “Flying J” truckstop in Waco, I was amazed at how specialized the facilities were. There are private rentable shower rooms, sit-down telephone booths for private conversation, WiFi internet access, laundry facilities, DVD rental, and even a television lounge where you can sit and unwind (see photo to the right). You could live your life entirely on the road, especially these days with the Internet and cell phones. The only challenges as I see it, intense boredom and the need to sit for long periods of time.

The idea behind “Buy Nothing Day“:

For 24 hours, millions of people around the world do not participate — in the doomsday economy, the marketing mind-games, and the frantic consumer-binge that’s become our culture. We pause. We make a small choice not to shop. We shrink our footprint and gain some calm. Together we say: enough is enough. And we help build this movement to rethink our unsustainable course.

Yeah, man. Right on.

(more…)

At the risk of turning this into the adjunct Hollis-blog, another member from TM asked Hollis to be a guest blogger on his site because he too found his Armistice Day speech stirring. So, from the horse’s mouth, here is the full story as told by Mr. Baker.

Wordpress.com Free Wordpress blog hosting. Wordpress is the best, so now you need to try it out.

The warning label generator. Friggin’ sweeeet.