Today, I had a brief flash of concern when I left the book I was reading cracked open and went into the other room….

I was worried I would drain the battery…

The tagline for TED is “Ideas worth spreading”.  T.E.D. stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design.  More importantly, its a conference where people with brilliant, thought-provoking ideas come together to share them with other brilliant people - and the world.

TED has started releasing their conference talks on the Internet.  It’s like that rare, once-in-a-lifetime conversation you have with that stranger at a bus stop.  Times a thousand.  I think I’m going to start posting a talk here and there when one truly inspires me.  There are many to choose from, all amazing.  With no particular significance, I present this one as the first.

Sir Ken Robinson

Our re-incarnation factor is up to at least a gecko now. Perhaps even a tree frog.

I couldn’t pry one of Sarah’s books out of her hands as a contribution. She was, however, gracious enough (after thrashing on the floor is a tantrum screaming, “My books! My books!”) to purchase a lovely five book set of the Newbery Medal winning The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper.

Personally we feel this is going to be a much more rewarding gift than some of the other things the kids were requesting - nail polish sets, bratz dolls, razor scooters. But each book geek (or non book geek) to his or her own..

Since I really don’t want to be re-incarnated as a potato bug, I figured it was time for my annual karma boost. This years opportunity came while buying a hazelnut and white chocolate latte at my new favorite coffee shop, Zoka.

The red cards on the tree are for less fortunate children asking for gifts. Upon gazing onto it I saw a red sea of “Barbies”, “Transformers”, etc. This one, however, stuck out from the crowd. The mental image of a 12 year old being asked to pick “any” present he would like and him answering “a book” warms the cockles and sub-cockles of my heart.

So, later tonight we will wrap up a book or two (stolen from Sarah’s collection) and we’ll head down and place it under the tree for the so-called less fortunate child that loves to read. I see it as an investment in a literate society.

A local free newspaper has a column called “Uptight Seattleite“.. It’s supposed to be a parody of the overly conscious people here in the Northwest. However, I don’t find it funny, I find it SPOT ON… Guess I’m one of those Uptight Seattleites..

Dear Uptight Seattleite,

What’s with that creepy way people on Seattle streets look at but don’t really see one another? Where I hail from (hint: It’s the real “most liberal city in America”), people make eye contact, say hello, and smile. It doesn’t matter if they’re strangers or neighbors.

In Seattle, it seems like people passing in the street give the appearance of making eye contact, but never really look at one another long enough to establish anything resembling acknowledgement or communication. They glance furtively, then avert their eyes to avoid interaction, or mime a vacant smile while staring blankly ahead. WTFU with that? It’s pathetic and offensive as hell.

Not A Zombie

Dear Not,

Gosh, with your attitude, I’m really surprised you don’t have more positive interactions! No, but seriously, I’m a bit puzzled by your question. Seattle is a very friendly city, unless by “friendly” you mean the kind of superficial friendliness common in one of the West Coast states to the south of us (hint: It’s not Oregon). Like, “Hi, what’s your name? My name’s Chad! Let’s be best friends forever! Let’s swap wives!”

That’s not us, “bro.” The Northwest is characterized by its soulful reticence. Those people who avert their eyes on the street are not disrespecting you. They are granting you space. Space under our tranquil gray skies to be yourself, to be at peace, to just be. The suppressed half-smile is the emblem of the personal air space that has been granted to you, no matter how unappreciative you may be. “You’ve got your own thing going,” says the half-smile of the Northwest, “and so do I. Proceed as you will through life’s journey. Let’s not violate the subtlety of our understanding by crassly speaking out loud.”

Another:

Dear Uptight Seattleite,

I was leaving the Essential Bakery in Madison Valley a while back with two young children in tow when a man followed me out the door to point out, accusingly, that we were expected to bus our own tables inside. I had not done so but was taken aback by his pursuit. While I admit I transgressed, is it reasonable to police the busing behaviors of others?

Busted

Dear Busted,

Please help me understand. I assume there was some kind of emergency. Maybe one of your children, or both, were bleeding from their necks? In such a situation, yes, of course, it might well be understandable that you wouldn’t do a full clearing of your table (though you could have perhaps at least thrown away your trash).

Or was there some other reason that you mentioned the presence of your children? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn’t expect that the cafe, or society as a whole, would accord you some sort of special treatment because you made the choice to reproduce.

Let’s back up a moment and imagine this situation from the man’s perspective. He’s quietly going about his business—drinking his coffee, reading his paper, and watching you carefully from an adjoining table. Sure, he thinks, that woman may have children, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s insensitive about the larger footprint she therefore makes on the Earth. I’m sure she will, if anything, be even more diligent about her responsibilities. She certainly wouldn’t expect minimum-wage workers to clean up after her. Or so he thinks.

And then he sees you get up and leave your napkins, cups, and maybe a diaper or two all over the table. As if the words “please bus your own table” were not carefully printed in sun-faded marker and affixed with cellophane tape above the cream station. He could have simply shaken his head sadly and gone back to his soy latte. But no, he chose to take advantage of the teaching moment that was presented to him. Just as he took the higher path, I encourage you, too, to enlarge your view of the matter. It’s not every day that we are afforded such an opportunity to reflect productively upon our actions.

I guess it could be said that I’m a bit of a bibliophile. Lately it’s become evident to me that non-collectors sometimes have the misconception that collectors are in it for the “investment”. That the value of a particular book is measured in dollars and cents. While I don’t deny that money is a factor in the market value of a book, I truly believe that a book’s intrinsic value lies in the information it provides.

An antiquarian book is a piece of history. It was brought to life in a time when our little lives were not even yet dreamt of. It was held by hands and perused by eyes that have long since passed on. An antiquarian book has the ability to open doors we didn’t know existed. It can divulge little tidbits of history that have never been and will probably never be a part of any educator’s syllabus. It can tell us a little about the lives of people whose efforts and sacrifices have paved the road to the way we live today. We can find humor in customs no longer practiced, wisdom in truths that hold up even today in our modern world, and moments upon which to reflect.

As long as a book is able to impart its information to us, even if we do not necessarily agree with what it tells us, that ability to open our minds and bring ideas to life is its true value - its intended value. I do not believe that a book’s value lies in how much that Texas billionaire is willing to shell out just to have it sitting on his shelves. Those are the bibliomaniacs - possession seems to be their ultimate goal. The true bibliophile realizes that a book does not breathe unless it has been opened.

With this in mind, I offer the following:
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Even though that third button on the left makes reference to a bookshelf, this is one of our real bookshelves. There is another one just like it on the other side of the room. The button just tracks what books we are reading and have read - But you probably knew that, right?

Anyway, just picture the floor in rich, dark wood, and the walls in a soft garden green.. This room just might end up looking pretty damn good… Earnest thinks so…

Image by solitarysmagick on deviantART

Left work early today and napped. Woke up with a ton of energy and decided to get some actual house work done. First thing was to install the new garage door sensors. Did I mention the garage door hasn’t worked properly since the flood? I forgot how wonderful it is to not have to get out of the car in the morning before driving off… Also managed to partially clean the garage and mow the front lawn… Ah, domesticity… Er…

Anyway, read my quick review of Kim Harrison’s Dead Witch Walking…

(photo from VampHunter777 on deviantART)

Read my quick review on the book’s detail page here…

I was On-Call all last week and therefore earned this Monday, the 19th off.  Think I might use it to go to the bookstore and get something from a radically different genre.  Especially considering I have Dead Witch Walking on deck to read…

Finally was able to hack the “Now Reading” code to work properly.

I’ll discuss it in case anybody googles this page. I’m not positive if it was a bug in the “have_books” not taking the $nr_id correctly, or the “the_book” not globalizing correctly, and frankly, I didn’t bother once I saw that the meat of the call was to “get_book” anyway. Even with that call, the “The_book()” call didn’t work, which is only three lines of code forcing the return into a global variable. I then simply globaled it myself locally, and the rest of the page worked perfectly.

I replaced this:

<?php if( have_books(intval($nr_id)) ) : ?>
<?php while ( have_books(intval(nr_id)) ) : the_book(); ?>

With this:

<?php
$book=get_book(”$nr_id”);
$GLOBALS[’book’] = $book;
?>

What this means for you non-coders is simply that we have a working library plugin again, and will be keeping our current reading materials up to date.

Remember that you can click the books on the right to see a larger size picture of the book, with a link to Amazon.com to read the reviews or buy it directly.  Another great feature is the tags area, that once our collection grows, will allow you to easily link to other related books.  Finally, if you click the recent books section, you’ll (shortly) start seeing a rating system for the books along with a short review.