I will leave for Yellowstone very early Friday morning... probably about 4 am. This park is one of my favorite places in the world. Crowded yes, but I have come to learn the minutiae of this place, come to know the regulars, the geyser gazers that spend their summers wandering from eruption to eruption.
I have enjoyed a meal with the Old Faithful Lodge potter who has spend the last 20 summers at Yellowstone working his craft.
I have watched Castle geyser erupt with a photographer whose book on the history of the park I was browsing only hours before in the bookstore.
I have wandered the turns of Slough Creek watching the trout wander in and out of the shady eddys.
I have stood at the most photographed spot on the Firehold river, fly rod in hand, and experienced the humbling experience of watching the trout wander past my fly and weave in and out of my legs, laughing at me I am sure.
I have walked the trails of the northwest corner of the park with pepper spray in my hand because grizzlies were sighted only hours before.
I have watched over the years, the eruption cycles of the geysers ebb and flow in their time and intensity. I have come to know their personalities and it is like visiting an old friend and discovering how he has changed.
I took a picture of my children in front of a stand of burned trees (from the great fire) and where there was a carpet of little saplings emerging from the forest floor. I have gone back over the years and seen those trees grow, now taller than me.
I have zoomed around Lake Yellowstone in a motorboat with my kids.
Late at night, under a moonless sky I have walked to Morning Glory Pool with trepidation at the thought of buffalo on the path.
I have spent my days listening to A. tell me the stories about the science of the park including the DNA bottleneck discovered in the human race - traced back about 60,000 years - roughly the same time as the last catastrophic explosion of the caldera that makes up much of Yellowstone.
Did I mention that cyclicly we are due for another. The caldera is starting to bulge. Something is due, maybe in the next 10,000 years:)
Yes, Yellowstone is a good place.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Monday, June 27, 2005
**The Supremes call the season with a big hurrah for the ownership society**
I haven't read the decisions themselves, but the Supremes handed down some biggies today:
1) Cable television providers do not have to make available broadbandwidth to competing companies. (Yep, keep chipping away at any notion of access to the wired delivery of brain candy).
2) You can have religious symbols on courthouse property but chat up the historical, import, not its religious significance and the Supremes will look the other way. (Let's just call it a day and burn the constitution. Oh, they will probably outlaw that along with flagburning this year.)
3) Grokster bad, record companies good, musicians fucked (again), i-Tunes the future.
1) Cable television providers do not have to make available broadbandwidth to competing companies. (Yep, keep chipping away at any notion of access to the wired delivery of brain candy).
2) You can have religious symbols on courthouse property but chat up the historical, import, not its religious significance and the Supremes will look the other way. (Let's just call it a day and burn the constitution. Oh, they will probably outlaw that along with flagburning this year.)
3) Grokster bad, record companies good, musicians fucked (again), i-Tunes the future.
**The scoop**
It was coming for awhile.
I am done with the on line stuff. It was deeply unsatisfying. And to add insult to injury, you can hide your information, but it appears not to be possible to completely delete your information.
That said, I am reinvesting my energy in the longest relationship I ever had. As is the tradition, I am off to Yellowstone on Friday to see what develops. Those of you who know me know the symbolic significance of this piece of technology:) I have been thinking alot about symbolism lately. Might blog on it soon.
I am done with the on line stuff. It was deeply unsatisfying. And to add insult to injury, you can hide your information, but it appears not to be possible to completely delete your information.
That said, I am reinvesting my energy in the longest relationship I ever had. As is the tradition, I am off to Yellowstone on Friday to see what develops. Those of you who know me know the symbolic significance of this piece of technology:) I have been thinking alot about symbolism lately. Might blog on it soon.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
**The muddied waters of student journalism**
On June 22, 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit delivered what appears by most accounts to be a significant blow to the college press. In order to understand the significance of this decision it is important to understand that the courts have, in the past, ruled that HIGH SCHOOL newspapers can be censored by school administrators because they are run as part of the curriculum.
Until now, it has been assumed that that college newspapers, even if funded by student fees, operate with far greater freedom and the content cannot be controlled by college administration. Most college newspapers are established separately from any department curriculum, although often professors or directors of student activities might be advisors and students might get course credit for writing for the newspaper.
Hosty v. Carter appears to undermine this otherwise autonomous relationship between a college newspaper and the administration. A dean at Governor's State University censored the newspaper, the Innovator, and the newspaper sued. The newspaper won at the district court level and the university appealed. It didn't go well. Here is the quick summary by Mark Goodman, director of the Student Press Law Center - my favorite .org outside of the ACLU. Those of you following this blog, know about what happened to my son and his job as editor of his high school newspaper and thus understand my love for this organization. If the law school gods smile on me, I will be their legal fellow someday. Mark stated in a recent listserv posting:
First, the court said that that the analysis of the Supreme Court's 1988 Hazelwood decision, which dramatically curtailed high school students free expression rights, was applicable at the college and university level as well. In essence, the court said that under Hazelwood, a court confronted with an act of student newspaper censorship by a public college official must first determine if the publication had been opened up as a "designated public forum" where students have been given the authority to make the content decisions. The majority said that the fact a publication might be extracurricular was not determinative of it's public forum status.
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Second, the court held that even assuming that the Innovator at Governors State University was a public forum, the dean who censored the publication was entitled to qualified immunity because she could not have reasonably known that the limitations of the Hazelwood decision did not apply to college and university student publications.
How I pine for the 60's when the courts focused on expanding First Amendment rights, not consolidating administrative power.
If you want to read the decision click here for the .pdf file to download.
Even those of you not interested in First Amendment issues (as hard as it is for me to believe it is possible:)) this does not bode well for the free flow of information. Sure there is lots of stuff in the student press that can be irritating, unpleasant and poorly executed, but it is an important training ground for learning the ropes - the most important being that people acting in official capacity should not touch content that isn't specfically illegal as defined by state or federal law (e.g. obscene, libelous, etc.)
I, for one, will be working on formally defined our institution's paper as a public forum, which seems to be the one remaining avenue of protection from administrative censorship.
Until now, it has been assumed that that college newspapers, even if funded by student fees, operate with far greater freedom and the content cannot be controlled by college administration. Most college newspapers are established separately from any department curriculum, although often professors or directors of student activities might be advisors and students might get course credit for writing for the newspaper.
Hosty v. Carter appears to undermine this otherwise autonomous relationship between a college newspaper and the administration. A dean at Governor's State University censored the newspaper, the Innovator, and the newspaper sued. The newspaper won at the district court level and the university appealed. It didn't go well. Here is the quick summary by Mark Goodman, director of the Student Press Law Center - my favorite .org outside of the ACLU. Those of you following this blog, know about what happened to my son and his job as editor of his high school newspaper and thus understand my love for this organization. If the law school gods smile on me, I will be their legal fellow someday. Mark stated in a recent listserv posting:
First, the court said that that the analysis of the Supreme Court's 1988 Hazelwood decision, which dramatically curtailed high school students free expression rights, was applicable at the college and university level as well. In essence, the court said that under Hazelwood, a court confronted with an act of student newspaper censorship by a public college official must first determine if the publication had been opened up as a "designated public forum" where students have been given the authority to make the content decisions. The majority said that the fact a publication might be extracurricular was not determinative of it's public forum status.
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Second, the court held that even assuming that the Innovator at Governors State University was a public forum, the dean who censored the publication was entitled to qualified immunity because she could not have reasonably known that the limitations of the Hazelwood decision did not apply to college and university student publications.
How I pine for the 60's when the courts focused on expanding First Amendment rights, not consolidating administrative power.
If you want to read the decision click here for the .pdf file to download.
Even those of you not interested in First Amendment issues (as hard as it is for me to believe it is possible:)) this does not bode well for the free flow of information. Sure there is lots of stuff in the student press that can be irritating, unpleasant and poorly executed, but it is an important training ground for learning the ropes - the most important being that people acting in official capacity should not touch content that isn't specfically illegal as defined by state or federal law (e.g. obscene, libelous, etc.)
I, for one, will be working on formally defined our institution's paper as a public forum, which seems to be the one remaining avenue of protection from administrative censorship.
**Musical Baton**
Very funny Becca:
Total Volume of Music Files on My Computer
2304 songs. God help me if they confiscate my work computer. Although the songs files stored on this computer are the least of my worries.
Last CD I bought
Almost bought James Taylor's Greatest Hits last night at Target, in an effort to use an electronics dept. store credit for an iPod adaptor I bought and needed to return after losing the receipt. But otherwise, I haven't "bought" a CD in a long time. Most recent iTunes purchase was a series of Ben Folds Five songs. Highly recommended.
Song playing right now
Pretenders, "Back on the Chain Gang" Love the shuffle function.
5 Songs I listen to a lot
Green Day, "Waiting"
Great song for finishing a round on the elliptical.
Ben Folds Five, "Luckiest" & "Brick"
One is powerfully romantic and one is powerfully sad.
Coldplay, "Scientist"
Haunting, as is all their music.
CCR, "Who'll Stop the Rain"
Classic
Death on Wednesday, "Simple Life"
No one will know this band or song. They did a two song sample CD release and my son found it. Don't know what has happened to them, but the song is great, especially for running. The drumming is incredibly rhythmic.
Don Henley, "End of the Innocence" and "Forgiveness"
Trained for a 5K and worked through a relationship at the same time listening to these songs.
and then stuff from the Cars, Pretenders, Coldplay, Dire Straits, Doors, Jackson Browne, Jet, Kinks, Santana all designed to keep my pace running. No way I can limit this to five.
I pass the baton to Miss Emily (another blogger-update-slacker) and.... Leann (if she has time before her vacation).
Total Volume of Music Files on My Computer
2304 songs. God help me if they confiscate my work computer. Although the songs files stored on this computer are the least of my worries.
Last CD I bought
Almost bought James Taylor's Greatest Hits last night at Target, in an effort to use an electronics dept. store credit for an iPod adaptor I bought and needed to return after losing the receipt. But otherwise, I haven't "bought" a CD in a long time. Most recent iTunes purchase was a series of Ben Folds Five songs. Highly recommended.
Song playing right now
Pretenders, "Back on the Chain Gang" Love the shuffle function.
5 Songs I listen to a lot
Green Day, "Waiting"
Great song for finishing a round on the elliptical.
Ben Folds Five, "Luckiest" & "Brick"
One is powerfully romantic and one is powerfully sad.
Coldplay, "Scientist"
Haunting, as is all their music.
CCR, "Who'll Stop the Rain"
Classic
Death on Wednesday, "Simple Life"
No one will know this band or song. They did a two song sample CD release and my son found it. Don't know what has happened to them, but the song is great, especially for running. The drumming is incredibly rhythmic.
Don Henley, "End of the Innocence" and "Forgiveness"
Trained for a 5K and worked through a relationship at the same time listening to these songs.
and then stuff from the Cars, Pretenders, Coldplay, Dire Straits, Doors, Jackson Browne, Jet, Kinks, Santana all designed to keep my pace running. No way I can limit this to five.
I pass the baton to Miss Emily (another blogger-update-slacker) and.... Leann (if she has time before her vacation).
**Summertime.... and the blogging is slowing**
Odd feeling... having much going on, but not really motivated to update the blog. Probably because most of the stuff that matters is still unprocessed.
School have been done for about three weeks. I am only now feeling like it is over. I remember it taking this long over Christmas Break and as soon as I slowed down, the semester started again. Here I am acutely aware of the fact that in less than three weeks the summer will be half over. It just goes too fast. And I don't expect to get much in the way of sympathy for those in the private and public sector who are operating on 2-4 weeks annual vacation.
My summer is not my own, however. In order to come up with the $12-13K for my son's tuition next year I have resorted to summer work for pay. I am producing 2, maybe 3 videos.
I am beginning to do some general interest reading for law school. The school (actually a particular professor) compiled a list of 100 books/articles recommended for reading. I started light with Scott Turow's One L. Made me think about reading some of the hornbooks before I start. Also, made me want to watch the Paper Chase again, but no video store seems to have it.
Mostly, though this summer I have to prep for a retake of the LSATs. In order to secure a much needed Dean's scholarship (effectively making law school free for me as a commuter), I need to raise my score about 6 points. Seems doable, although the thought of studying for that test again is highly unappealing. It will take some serious discipline. But I won't do the retake until October and don't have to put a deposit down for my admission deferral until this Sept. I should know in early spring if I have the scholarship. I may, if the LSAT scores are good, apply more widely and fantasize leaving my job for 3 years at some prestigious law school. Right. More realistically, if the scholarship plans don't pan out, I will table law school for good.
More discussions under separate headings to come.
School have been done for about three weeks. I am only now feeling like it is over. I remember it taking this long over Christmas Break and as soon as I slowed down, the semester started again. Here I am acutely aware of the fact that in less than three weeks the summer will be half over. It just goes too fast. And I don't expect to get much in the way of sympathy for those in the private and public sector who are operating on 2-4 weeks annual vacation.
My summer is not my own, however. In order to come up with the $12-13K for my son's tuition next year I have resorted to summer work for pay. I am producing 2, maybe 3 videos.
I am beginning to do some general interest reading for law school. The school (actually a particular professor) compiled a list of 100 books/articles recommended for reading. I started light with Scott Turow's One L. Made me think about reading some of the hornbooks before I start. Also, made me want to watch the Paper Chase again, but no video store seems to have it.
Mostly, though this summer I have to prep for a retake of the LSATs. In order to secure a much needed Dean's scholarship (effectively making law school free for me as a commuter), I need to raise my score about 6 points. Seems doable, although the thought of studying for that test again is highly unappealing. It will take some serious discipline. But I won't do the retake until October and don't have to put a deposit down for my admission deferral until this Sept. I should know in early spring if I have the scholarship. I may, if the LSAT scores are good, apply more widely and fantasize leaving my job for 3 years at some prestigious law school. Right. More realistically, if the scholarship plans don't pan out, I will table law school for good.
More discussions under separate headings to come.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
**free wireless rocks**
This is why the Internet should not be privatized. I can sit here at Portland Airport and blog using free wireless access that exists all throught the airport. No AT&T wirelss telling me that I am not a subscriber. In fact, Portland is loaded with free wireless sites - through the city, not just the airport.
While I am gone the kids will get settled into their jobs and I think I will be coming home on Wednesday to an empty house. Kind of gotten used to that although all the energy in the house - not just the noise, but the increased "life" has been nice.
Well, I am flying Southwest, so I am learning the ropes of no seat assignments. Not realizing this, I didn't stategically check in on line before heading to the airport, so I am in loading line C (the basement of SWA loading lines). When I asked the check in clerk what my seat assignemnt was, he chuckled and said, "The Lavatory." Line C. What can I say. I will be fighting for a middle seat apparently.
Time to protect my spot (second in line) in Line C.
While I am gone the kids will get settled into their jobs and I think I will be coming home on Wednesday to an empty house. Kind of gotten used to that although all the energy in the house - not just the noise, but the increased "life" has been nice.
Well, I am flying Southwest, so I am learning the ropes of no seat assignments. Not realizing this, I didn't stategically check in on line before heading to the airport, so I am in loading line C (the basement of SWA loading lines). When I asked the check in clerk what my seat assignemnt was, he chuckled and said, "The Lavatory." Line C. What can I say. I will be fighting for a middle seat apparently.
Time to protect my spot (second in line) in Line C.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
**The pack is complete**
In about 4 hours I pick up my daughter. She is coming home for the summer. Well almost home. She will live about an hour away at the coast doing acquatic research. But we will get to have dinner occasionally and she will come home on most weekends. So for a brief period I have my son, daughter and dog all in the same house with me. The pack is complete.
I will be taking off this weekend for a workshop in Tennessee. Goes until mid week. Two teenagers left alone in the house for the weekend. Ahh, the possibilities.
I will be taking off this weekend for a workshop in Tennessee. Goes until mid week. Two teenagers left alone in the house for the weekend. Ahh, the possibilities.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
**Still catching up on sleep**
The end of the school year really kicks my butt apparently. I have been sleeping increasing late in the morning. My last few days have involved the riveting process of scanning anything pertaining to my divorce, child custody and settlement agreement so that I can send it electronically to my new fancy FOUR HUNDRED DOLLAR AN HOUR attorney. I thought that since everyone and their brother in Colorado was a fucking attorney, the market forces would drop the cost a bit. Figures I would need to work with the one profession whose rates are not driven by market forces, except, probably when a newly minted attorney goes out looking for work. I hear that, given the way-to-many attorneys our there, attorney job market forces work with an efficency that would make libertarians proud.
This guy better kick my ex's ass.
So one of the lovely things I learned by pouring over court transcripts, returns and W-2s is that my ex dramatically under reported his salary before the court a few years back. I think I mentioned this in an early entry when I said "WHO DOES KNOW THEIR FUCKING SALARY?"
Of course the fall out of this meant that for 8 years my child support was set far lower than the court would have done if they had known his real salary. I remember that joyous day in court when he told the judge he was taking a "fellowship" (note that the quotes are to reflect my cynicism) and even though for the next 15 months his income would be $1,000 monthly, it was a great professional development opportunity which would lead to a much higher paying job (didn't happen). He only turned his pay check stub over to the court at the actual hearing. I looked at it and noticed the pay date range was EVERY TWO WEEKS. I alerted my counsel to this and it became quite clear that he was making $2000 monthly. Here is the new revelation: His W-2's from that job reveal that he didn't make 30K for the 15 month fellowship like he conceded, His W-2's show that he made $52,000. Normally, I would have caught this little tidbit, but my ex never provided tax returns for the past eight years until he was forced to as part of this most recent proceeding. There is probably nothing I can do about that now, except use it as ammunition to pressure the magistrate to give us more time for discovery since clearly we will have to carefully investigate my ex's income sources carefully. No easy task since he is working in the EU.
Well, back to scanning, then the gym.
This guy better kick my ex's ass.
So one of the lovely things I learned by pouring over court transcripts, returns and W-2s is that my ex dramatically under reported his salary before the court a few years back. I think I mentioned this in an early entry when I said "WHO DOES KNOW THEIR FUCKING SALARY?"
Of course the fall out of this meant that for 8 years my child support was set far lower than the court would have done if they had known his real salary. I remember that joyous day in court when he told the judge he was taking a "fellowship" (note that the quotes are to reflect my cynicism) and even though for the next 15 months his income would be $1,000 monthly, it was a great professional development opportunity which would lead to a much higher paying job (didn't happen). He only turned his pay check stub over to the court at the actual hearing. I looked at it and noticed the pay date range was EVERY TWO WEEKS. I alerted my counsel to this and it became quite clear that he was making $2000 monthly. Here is the new revelation: His W-2's from that job reveal that he didn't make 30K for the 15 month fellowship like he conceded, His W-2's show that he made $52,000. Normally, I would have caught this little tidbit, but my ex never provided tax returns for the past eight years until he was forced to as part of this most recent proceeding. There is probably nothing I can do about that now, except use it as ammunition to pressure the magistrate to give us more time for discovery since clearly we will have to carefully investigate my ex's income sources carefully. No easy task since he is working in the EU.
Well, back to scanning, then the gym.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
