Rich’s Neighborhood

Sitting here at one of my computers last night, I turned around to get something and realised that the view across from my desk was a very good summary of my little world.  So, I took a photo.  And thought I'd share it with you. Welcome to my world (or at least a little part of it).

Things of note:  (from left to right)

Laptop:  this is my music laptop upon which many gigabytes of music reside and are played (almost continuously).  It's all legal, don't you worry, thanks to a combination of iTunes purchases and Napster subscription.

Chair:  very comfy, but also one of those colours that soils with as much a slight brush of air or an inopportune gaze, and it has a "leather" cushion on top.  I have quite a few "leather" cushions and square "leather" blocks for sitting on.  I'm not much into couches and sofas.  That's a lie, I simply don't have room.

Hi-Fi: an old Sony which works for me just fine, except for the mini-disc, which I've never managed to figure out.  Next to the hifi is a DAB radio and in front of it is my Zen player.  Dying plant on top shelf. Dying, I say.  Turntable underneath the hi-fi, records behind the chair on a shelf.

Old photo:  this is a scene from the Nottingham Lace Market in the early 1900s.  It shows all the female lace workers coming out of the warehouses.  I bought it whilst I was doing my PhD and really like it.

CDs:  loads of 'em.  And more in the boxes on the bottom shelf. 

Paint tin (shelf below speaker):  not quite what you might think.  It's the packaging for what was at the time a very unique piece of software called MetaCreations Painter and it came in this paint tin style container.  Cool, eh? 

Upturned Douwe Egberts coffee jar lid (top of speaker):  one of my many slightly crazy ideas which was to collect these coffee jar lids convinced that sometime I would find an ingenuous use for them.  So far, the only genuinely functioning idea reflects that they fit a nightlight size candle perfectly.

Guitars:  slightly hidden by the table and lamp, but they are there.  All five of them, four electric, one bass.

Expensive lamp:  bought by my parents from a very stylish shop locally.  It's one of my nicest bits of homeware (is that the right word?) that I have. 

Guinness Bar Mat:  purloined for me by the lovely Jane at my local.  She's a gem. 

Rubbery-Pot-Plant-Thingy (partially shown):  probably also dying.  I'm not good with plants. 

July 08 Misc 037

Facebook

Gimme a V! Gimme an O! Gimme an X! What's that spell? VOX!

What better way to tell the world how much you love Vox than to announce it on Facebook? That's right: Vox now has an official Facebook page! Become a fan of Vox.com on Facebook and let your friends know what you really care about: staying connected with friends and family through blog posts, photos, videos and comments.

Once you're a fan, you can also add photos and videos to the page, write on the wall, and connect with other Voxers in ways you may not have previously. Plus, it's a great opportunity to let people know about your Vox blog, or start discussion topics. To become a fan, just visit the official Vox.com Facebook page and click the "Become a Fan" button in the upper right hand corner.

Once you've joined, why not post a response to the current discussion topic? Just post a link (and a brief description, if you'd like) to what you consider one of your all-time best Vox posts.

What are you waiting for? Become a Vox.com fan on Facebook today!

It seems my blog posting has slipped a little lately.  This is something I am working on and hopefully will be resolving very soon. It's not that I have lacked ideas for posts, far from it, rather I have simply lacked time and energy to convert the ideas into something tangible.  Well, as tangible as pixels on a screen could ever be.  As it happens, it's usually this time of night/early morning (1:30am) when my mind seems free enough of other matters to write but often too taxed to be of any use for writing.  And there's the rub.  No, not there.  There.

My project of spatial re-configuration (a.k.a tidying and re-organising) has been going well.  So far I have moved a lot of things around, cleared out a lot of things, found quite a few things, encountered a few crawling things, and assembled a desk from a collection of things using a document laughingly referred to as "instructions".  One more desk to go and then I'm done.  And ready for Phase 2, which is the task of replacing my tower units with laptops.  All part of my intention to streamline my set up and gain some space back from... well, whoever has been filching it from under my very nose.

In other news, the village beer festival went well.  There were 100 real ales available.  There were some slightly unreal looking ciders available too - these had a rather "not of this world" glow to them and were available in three strengths, cunningly colour-coded as yellow, orange and red.  If I didn't think it immoral on several grounds, and therefore quite unlikely to be the case, one might think that the water used in these ciders had been specifically sourced from groundwater in the vicinity of a nuclear waste dump.  Much drink was drunk.  Many people were too.  My own favourite tipple was what can only be described as a liquid form of malt loaf (minus the sultanas, naturally) which I believe was called Hop Back or hopback.  After a couple of those, though, I was happy to return to my more familiar and reassuring pint of Guinness.  You know where you are with a pint of Guinness.  Although after one too many you may not care where that is... or know where you were meant to be... or be able to call a taxi.

In due course I shall share other news and views and hopefully something of a humourous nature as I think I probably owe it.  Who knows, I might even share some recipes, my tips for removing obstinate household stains and my all-time top ten list of favourite tunes from musicals.  These, however, are unlikely to figure in any future blog posts.  But for now, I'll rest my head and hopefully dream of laptops, blank surfaces and no creepy-crawly things...and a less cluttered mind within which to dream.

Summer Road Trip '08

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Although we typically post on Team Vox to let you know about things that are going on with Vox (to, uh, state the obvious), once in a while, we like to let you know about other cool things that are happening around the blogosphere. And we think the idea of four hilarious mommy bloggers traveling across the U.S. on their way to the BlogHer '08 conference - all the while blogging and video blogging the journey - is one trip you will not want to miss.

Four adventurous bloggers from the Silicon Valley Moms Group were selected to participate in the Summer Road Trip '08 and blog about their travels, hotel stays, media appearances, time away from their families, and life on the road. Six Apart helped them partner up with General Motors, who provided the blogging mommies with a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV to help make their journey comfy, safe, and a little more green.

In case you're not familiar with them, SV Moms is a group of over 200 bloggers who showcase the ups, downs, outrages, struggles, victories, and everyday humor of motherhood. There are currently nine regional and demographically tailored sites that give mothers from D.C., New Jersey, the Deep South, Rocky Mountains, L.A., and Silicon Valley a powerful voice and sense of camaraderie across the country. Whether you're a mother, a child, or just a person who enjoys a good blog, you'll really love reading the words of these amazing women.

Packed and Ready!

3 comments

The moms buckled into their Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV on July 11th and even got an encouraging message from Katie Couric to kick things off! They are currently somewhere in the middle of America making their way to San Francisco where they'll attend an SV Moms Group Party, as well as BlogHer '08.

You do not want to miss these entertaining and irreverent bloggers -- or their spontaneous contest giveaways! -- as they blog from the road. Experience the journey at MomRoadTrip.com.

And let us know about your summer road trip - or plane/boat/bus trip - in the comments! (I like to live vicariously.)

~daisy

Apologies for the paucity of my posting participation lately*. 

I don't usually write this kind of post. 
"Stuff" has been going down.  I blame gravity.
And I'll continue to blame it until someone steps forward to provide a better explanation for it all.
The upside of this stuff going down (if you can imagine that) is that it has provided an opportunity to reflect on where I am, what I'm doing, and why.

So I have been re-assessing things.  Re-evaluating.  Looking around myself, seeing what I can see.  I do that ordinarily as it is a good thing to pay attention to one's surroundings, particularly when crossing the road, extricating a path through the supermarket or otherwise trying any kind of manoevre.  This looking around was more of an evaluation of my space, both internal and external, a time of reflection on the physical and the emotional spaces that I occupy. 

The end result of these reflections:

1.  A somewhat re-organised and slightly more spacious environment.  The latter is quite an accomplishment, given that my cottage has the dimensions of a large phone box, albeit minus the vandalism.   

2.  Several bags of rubbish (separated into recyclable and non-recyclable, of course).

3.  A crate of stuff for the charity shops. 

4.  Two very unwieldy cardboard boxes, from which I hope will spring forth a new workstation and a new corner unit.  I say "hope" on two counts.  a) that those indeed are the contents of the boxes and b) that assembly will be straightforward.

5.  Surfaces!  Yes, I seem to have created some blank surfaces.  That is, surfaces with nothing on them.  How long that will last is anyone's guess. If you are anyone and would like to guess, please do so.  Run a sweepstake if you wish.  But, please remember, it's just for fun.

6.  A sense of achievement only slightly marred by a stronger sense that there is more work to be done, simply because I have started on it. It's akin to painting your skirting-board and finding that it outdazzles the ceiling, so you paint the ceiling, and now the doors look comparitively weary, so you paint those as well... and so on, until any notion of project management is anathema.

7.  All this physical upheaval has also made me think about the internal "stuff"  that I need to do something similar with.  It's not that I'm a mess or anything, just that I feel the acute need to process myself (my self) with the same approach that I have taken with my immediate environment.  Namely prioritising, focusing, cleansing and making changes.

Hopefully, less dust will fly.  And with a bit of luck, I'll be able to assemble myself with slightly more confidence than I have right now, eyeing those two big cardboard boxes with a mixture of suspicion and apprehension. 

* and apologies for that alliteration too!

Do you live in or around Cincinnati, Ohio? If so, you're in luck because Scott and the Queen City Voxers Group have organized a Vox user meetup!

Ault Park Map

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If you do attend the meetup, have a great time and please take lots of pictures and send them to me so I can post them in Team Vox for everyone to see!

Thank you so much to Scott for organizing this meetup. Wish I could be there!

~daisy

It's not pleasant to be ignored.  It's not nice to go unacknowledged.  It's even less pleasant and less nice when the act of ignoring or the absence of acknowledgement serves as a means to avoid having to care.

Because by showing that you notice someone, by acknowledging their existence - their basic presence - leads to a connection.  And a connection leads to conversation.  And conversation leads to awkward questions like:  "How are you?", "How is your day going?", "How did you end up in this situation?" and "What are your chances of changing the situation?".

And so it is, or at least that is how it seems, that the good citizens treat my friend who sells the Big Issue locally.
It seems that they avoid recognition of her, so they can avoid acknowledging her, so they can avoid conversing with her, so they can avoid being concerned with her, so they can avoid caring about her.

Not everyone.  But the vast majority of them (us).
Ignorance is bliss, unless you're the one being ignored.  It must be soul destroying to have so many people looking past you, through you, around you, at their feet, at anything else but you... anything else at all, just to avoid connecting, conversing, caring.
An acknowledgment doesn't have to be an invite into something that'll bind you like a rope or commit you like a solemn oath.
It's basic. And it's easy.  And it doesn't cost a penny.
Just look.  Just say hello.  Just smile.  Just stop for a moment.  Just notice.