Instead of limiting guns in America, last time I checked that was protected in the Constitution–let’s do something else. Now I need to say that I sympathize with her loss of her husband and understand her motivation. In fact, I honor it. I’m working on Veronica Galaviz’s project Living To Share for some of the same reason. But you don’t mend madness with more madness. It’s kind of like sending the head of the FBI to Arizona yesterday. Other than symbolism, did it really do any good for America’s lead crime fighter to be in Arizona?
Nut Control Legislation
How about we introduce a bill that says Nut Cases can’t have guns? The reason we don’t is because it’s not enforceable. The sad fact is that a mentally depressed person intent on doing something mad like Saturday is almost always going to find what they need to carry out their madness. I worked with state troopers when I was in the governor’s office years ago. Their greatest fears weren’t a car with mercenaries unloading on them. Their worries were if one goofy nut like Jared Lee Loughner got close enough with the intent to do what Loughner did yesterday.
So Mrs. McCarthy will have her soapbox and so will the rest of the anti-gun lobby. Maybe they could all fly out to Arizona, too. It’d make as much sense as sending Robert Mueller out there.
As you may recall, there was a post here on DaddyClaxton.com 371 or so days ago was entitled: Why I cut 3,300 peeps from my @Twitter account and feel all the better for it. This year, I only cut 3,119, but it was time for a cleansing of the tweeps who I was following who either weren’t kind enough or who were too important in their own minds to be following me back. There was a smaller group, like of about 350 or so, whom I cut because they haven’t used Twitter like since the days of smoke signals.
It took me about three days again, but this year I had help. I used a couple of UnFollow Twitter sites. And using Firefox and a plug in that lets me check boxes on pages where the TwitterAPI no longer will allow programmers to build it into a page, I zapped roughly 1,500 peeps a day, by the categories mentioned above. The site I used for the purging was ManageFilter and I have to say, it worked really, really easy. Of course, I didn’t cut everyone it recommended, but it did clear a lot of fog. Because really, who wants to get a bunch tweets from someone you can’t really carry on a conversation with?
I used ManageFilter most of all because it didn’t cost me anything. I began with another site, Untweeps.com, and although they were kind enough to tell me of the Firefox plug-inCheck-Fox, I couldn’t figure out how to use it. It’s sort of tricky, but it goes like this.
On a Mac, you hit Control+A at the same time you’re right clicking on your mouse.(I think it’s the same for a PC, but if you have a PC, you’re probably more worried about if it’s going to work in 10 minutes than the number of Twitter followers who aren’t following you.) This works on pages where there are check boxes for miles and you don’t have the patience or the extra hour or so of time to click down through say, 1,500 boxes. Because I didn’t know that Untweeps.com, would only cut 500 non-followers at a time, I wasted the time to highlight the 1,500 I wanted to get rid of, only to click delete and for it to tell me it had a limit. So, I wasted about an hour and a half time, total, and largely decided I was not happy. I then downloaded the Check-Fox add on for Firefox, logged back into Untweeps.com to use it, and then it said my three FREE attempts were all used up and I could pay $1.37 or some crazy-assed amount to use it for three days. I sent Untweeps.com‘s developer a Tweet saying how disappointed I was. His response was to get the Check-Fox add on. I decided for the time I’d already invested with them, there was no way I was going to pay $1.37.
Twitter 2011
Like last year, I want to commend Twitter for how it’s really worked to clean up the spammers and those tramps trying to sell sex sites.
But I also have to say that I’m not real crazy about their new layout. It’s frustrated me, and maybe that’s more so because I’m now 45, but here’ what I did last night that I didn’t want to do.
I sent a DM to someone I didn’t want to send a DM to. I clicked in the messages portion I guess at the top center of the new Twitter screen and sent them a message. Well, I was so tired when I sent it, and frustrated that I was having to use new Twitter that I didn’t realize until this morning that I’d sent the DM.
So, for those of you out there who might be struggling with the new Twitter to figure out how to send a DM to someone, you click the MESSAGE space at the top. Now the screen it takes you to to me feels like it’s a Timeline screen, and that’s where I made my error.
So, person who got a DM from me last night asking why you’ve not been on Twitter the past few days, I didn’t mean to do that, and I’m glad you replied this morning to one of my normal tweets to you. Like I promised when you began following me, I plan to continue to be judicial in how I send DMs to you, as the last thing I want to happen, is for you to unfollow me.
It’s time to dig into the Mason Jar Christmas gifts from my daughters again. My heart is now warmed for the day.
Today’s messages: La La Looking Good! I love you enjoy music. And then I enjoy spending time with you.
I share these messages because I encourage you to think about the same project with your own kids. My girls each got a Mason Jar with words of wisdom. They each gave me one that has special messages from them. When I need an extra lift in my day, these have been worth all the Christmas presents I’ve received in the past 45 years combined. Well, there was that one year … I’m kidding.
Today’s thing to thing about is quite simple and straight forward: You don’t miss what you’ve never had.
It was said long ago by George Elliot. He more poignantly stated it as: Them as ha’ never had a cushion don’t miss it. For some reason, I’ve always thought it was “He who hath never had a cushion doesn’t miss it,” and for some reason I’ve been going about since my high school days thinking it was Benjamin Franklin who had copied it, I mean, adapted it.
In the 1990s song “I Wish“ by a band called, “King Missile,” (Their best known song was“Detachable Penis.“) in a random series of lyrics that mostly make no sense at all, the singer laments that he wishes he could “Return to the life I never knew.”
But that’s the paradox of it all, and I think that was mainly the point of the song, you can’t long for something you don’t know exists. Or can you?
I have about a dozen sketchbooks around the apartment now. In them my imagination runs wild. My hand draws images of what is and what could be. I draw word maps. I sketch. I do SWOT analysis. I learn a lot by actively thinking and writing this way. It’s great to be able to instantly see what you’re thinking about with a few strokes of a pen.
I’ve had one with me most of the time since probably the middle of 2009. One day my girls are going to go through them and get a better idea of who Dad really is/was/etc. At least that’s my hope and so sometimes I do leave them Easter Egg-type thoughts and notes.
My favorite sketchbooks right now are ones you can buy at Half Price Books. They’re hardcover with a spiral and have a good 100-200 sheets of the prettiest, most inviting white space one can imagine. They’re only about $8 and one of my greatest fears is that they’re going to quit carrying them. (If you’re ever in there and want to pick me one up, I’d be happy to fill it up for you, though, I’d also encourage you to keep it for yourself and go exploring.) I’ve tried the ones for my Mac, or the iPhone, and thought about the one for the iPad, but to me there’s nothing like writing in one in pen, or pencil or marker, or pastel, or charcoal. Yes, you can do that on a computer now, too, but I think I’m going to stay Old School; at least on this one thing.
A Gift From My Mom
One of the things my mom gave me for Christmas was another sketchbook. It wasn’t like my HPB books, but it has something I’m left to ponder.
And as I sat dining this morning over my bowl ofLifecereal and eating an English muffin, I looked at the cover and began to ponder what’s written, actually pressed, into the cover of this one.
It says: Some people dream of success, while others wake up and work hard at it.
What Does That Mean?
Ok, so here’s the question. In a sketchbook, where I share my dreams, aspirations and often strategic thinking, am I actually working hard at it, too?
Or is it commenting about dreamers who sit idly by and write something down in the book instead of going and doing something about it?
All I Know About Everything
Once one of my uncles at Christmas gave my late grandfather, Andrew Sheptak, a similar book. (Grandpa was an artist. He was born in Czechoslovakia and had emigrated to America before WWII, I think. And oh, was he ever opinionated.) The title on it was: All I Know About Everything. The family joke was this: when it came to what all grandpa knew, the book appropriately was filled with blank pages. (I can still hear Grandma telling me about it over the phone.) The corollary to the first book was a second book, this one entitled, “More About What I Know About Everything.” And yes, it was blank, too!
Of course, Grandpa Sheptak thought where ever he was was a sketchbook. In my youth I watched him sketch scenes on the bark of Birch trees in Northern Michigan, and write on the walls of the garage and basement of their house about what the temperature was that day, that my mom had come to visit, or that he’d seen the first bright red cardinal of the season contrasted by the white of the snow still on the ground.
His notes are in dozens of art books I still keep on my shelves. I may never get to some of the art work in the books, but I have made a point to scan through them to learn more about what Grandpa “knew about everything.” Because it’s in a sketchbook, that answer often becomes quite apparent–the person writing in them oft confesses more about what they do not know than what they presently or maybe ever will understand.
Maybe I should write a one act, one sketchbook play on such. Now what would be the most appropriate thing to call it? Sketchbook? Or All I Know About Everything?
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