Have you ever posted an entry with the intent of communicating to someone an opinion or message? To the viewers the post looks like any other, but to someone else the context may have a different meaning? Have you ever then had the entry taken in the wrong way by many people? Did it ever influence your life in ways that you never intended?

I guess the first thing you have to ask is why you would do such a thing?

Is it cowardice? Is it cruelty? Is it as a weapon? Is it out of politeness? Is it to spare someone of hurt? Is it to hurt someone? Is it to be subtle? Is it a game? Is it psychological? Is it opportunistic? Is it frailty? Is it strength? Is it clever? Is it stupid? Is it an attempt to be civil? Was it on purpose? Was it on accident? Is it something else?

I have done this in the past, and you know what, I am never going to bother with this any more. The reason I did it was to be subtle and let someone know that I have moved on without having to confront the issue head on. The situation that was referred to in the post should have been self-evident but for whatever reason may not have been to the other person. Or if it was, it was not clear to me that it was clear to the other person. So the reasons for doing it may be all of the above and many more.

Secondly, you could ask if it worked?

I think that when you take the time to write like this it generally does work unless the person the secret message is aimed at is simply too dull to get it or is a guy. OK, I know I am going to hear it from some guys on this, but sometimes us guys need the message spelled out in bold letters to get it. We men do not read into messages the personal aspect that we as writer may want to convey subtly. We read it for what it is and ignore the deeper meaning.

Women on the other hand read too much into some posts. In fact, they read so much into it, it may not even be there to be read into. It makes it hard to please everyone.

So, did it work? That would be up to the poster to decide, and the results may not be what the writer intended.

Third, was it worth it?

Once again, we have a judgment call for the writer, but I can tell you that it does not seem to be the case for me. I see what I write, I know why I worded certain things the way I did, but others to not see it and thus the means get skewed. Plain talk, I guess that is what is needed. Subtlety, it is an imperfect art.

Secret messages, let’s leave them for Sunday Puzzles and decoder rings.

Serves me right. That will teach me. Short cuts are not worth the time saving. Never let other do for you what you should do for yourself. Re-useable code is only reuseable if will always work. A stich in time ain’t worth a dime.

So, what brought on all the platitudes? Simple, the hosting service did me a big favor and upgraded the versions of PHP and MySQL to newer and “more powerful” versions and left me with a code versioning issue. Turns out that much of the software is written for this site used a “shortcut” in the PHP language and when they upgraded the PHP version the PHP people fixed the shortcut. Oops. What does that mean? well some of the software no longer works correctly. This is a bad thing, both on Pmachines part (the people who make the software I am using to run the site) and the PHP people for closing a very useful shortcut and not telling people about it up front.

The shortcut in question is an “Assign By Reference” procedure that is used in most languages, but now not by PHP (or at least not assigning the results of a results function) and that is causing all kinds of problems. In the “Category Lister” plugin that I wrote I called the very assignment that is now illegal. I have fixed it, but there are other plugins using the same call and in a more complex way and I need to fix them as well. You will notice that the recent comments list is “Out of Order” right now.

Worse, the error logs for the site are going nuts, but the site is still working on many levels. I will have to wait for a new version of the software to solve many of these issues but for now it will have to do. You should not actually see a difference in the site operation, most of the errors are in the namagement modules. Oh well, I do it all the hard way for now.

Sometimes people seem to drift apart and there is really nothing that you can do about it. The situation is just such that the two of you must be apart and time together falls to nothing. Eventually, even the phone calls get to the point where there is little to say and even what is said is ring hollow.

What do you do in these cases? I am never sure. I know that I care a great deal for her, it is just that what was there is not any more. Does she become just one more friend in your life? Seems to me that has to be the case.

Oh well, no rush for anything, just “Alone Again, Naturally”

I am not this torn up, but going with my habit of adding song lyrics… here are some more:

Alone Again, Naturally
By Gilbert O’Sullivan

Alone again, naturally
Now looking back over the years
And whatever else that appears
I remember I cried when my father died
Never wishing to hide the tears
And at sixty-five years old
My mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn’t understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken
Leaving her to start with a heart so badly broken
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day
Alone again, naturally
Alone again, naturally

Of all the things that I have heard in the recent past, the Intelligent Design people are about the lamest excuse for slicking up the issue of Creationism that I can think of. After all why bother? Call it what it is, creationism in really cheap clothing. If you want to add creationism to your school agendas, be my guest, but let’s put in the right category, sociology.

Sociology is a the study of social systems and all that can involve. An integral part of that should be a survey of dominant religions and what they are all about, and creationism is part of that. Please, teach our children creationism, just do it in the right place and in the right context so as not to confuse the hard and fast facts of science with the unproven dogma of “Intelligent Design”.

Oh, and while you are at it, let us not forget all the other explanation for the creation of the world, and cover them in just as much detail and with just as much conviction. I see no problem presenting a child with the stories of creation in all it’s incredibly diverse andfascinating permutations. But put it all into the correct context, it is NOT SCIENCE, it is DOGMA AND MUST BE PRESENTED AS SUCH. Can creationism be proven? Not at all, there is zero evidence for it thus it can not be classified as anything other than dogma and must be presented in sociology class. Can evolution be proven? Well, there is a lot more evidence supporting Darwinian Evolution than creationism and thus it does belong in a science class.

I do not see where the two ideas need to be fighting. In fact, “Intelligent Design” would suggest that Darwinian Evolution is in fact correct. The only thing in question is whether it should be taught in a science setting. Here I have a problem, Intelligent Design is aphilosophy and needs to be classed with the softer sciences.

So that being the case, here is some fun to consider: Capitol Steps. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Today I had some free time, between naps, and I remembered there was a photographer that had inspired me when I was younger. Now seeing as I have this swiss cheese memory, it took a while for me to find him on the web. Now seeing that he was around a while when I was in high school, it was distinctly possible that he may not even be on the web, or even his books listed on Amazon. So I searched.

He was an artist of the darkroom before there was even such a thing as PhotoShop or Photopaint of the digital era. He was doing miltiprints and precision photographic masking before it became as commonplace as it is today. He combined unrelated subjects in an unique and intriguing way creating symbolism and meaning from nothing. Today we see this and we take it for granted, but he was doing it 40 years before it was in style.

It took me about a half hour to remember his name by doing some very detailed searches and finding that he was mentioned in an article about “Photographic Forgeries” called “The Camera Does Lie”. His name is (yes, he is still alive and living in Florida) Jerry Uelsmann and his work is unique to the world of photography.

The last entry I wrote uses one of his images as an example of exhaustion, and you have to remember that there is NO DIGITAL MANIPULATION used for the effect, it is all done in the darkroom. The book that started it was “Photo Synthesis”, a rare first edition that has been reprinted but not completely. Even with all that is on the web, I could not find the one that was my favorite, it may be long gone, who knows.

Here are a few other examples of his work that appeal to me:

I bet a lot of you were wondering (or maybe you’re not, oh well) why I have not posted in a while, even on my own blog. Well the answer to that is simple, I have been driving about 75 hours a week.

When I started this new job, I had no idea that driving was this exhausting. The job is not actually physically demanding, but it is mentally stressful, and that makes it physically tiring. So, I have not been in the mood to really write anything at all except for a few notes to special people.

On top of all the I have been writing, in my free time, a new story as I mentioned earlier (these juices are flowing, don’t know why). Generally I work about 8 hours on that on my day off, so as you can see, it does not leave much time for being creative. Then of course there is the daily routine, cleaning my apartment, laundry, shopping, yada yada yada that takes up even more time. Also, I seem to be missing my muse, she is not here and that does not help anything at all. I do so hate being alone, it leaves my mind to just wander and not focus. I want her with me. You know who you are.

I used to keep a pad of paper with me with topics for my blog entries, but for whatever reason it has been empty of late, the creative juices not flowing at all. I know that I want to get them running again, but I do not see how. All I can do is wait it out and eventually the ideas will flow again.

Once again we celebrate the yearly night where the vail between the lands of the living and the dead is at its’ thinnest. Summer passes into Winter and we hope that the work we have done in the last six months will see us through to the dawning of spring. We remember the friends and family that we lost in the last year and invite them to share with us in the forms that they can take or none at all.

We leverage the thin vail and ask for prognostication’s from powers beyond. We seek knowledge and pray for good tidings. We dance, we indulge, and sacrifice all in thanksgiving and return some of our bounty in that thanks.

We protect ourselves from the malign spirits by spreading sweet offerings for then at the edge of our town, leaving treats so the evil ones will not play tricks on us.

Masks and garb are adorn in honor of the spirits of the animals we have taken, the people who have passed, the one we fear and the ones we respect.

Halloween, All Hallows Eve, So-wen. We as humans have a deep need for this celebration and no matter how hard the powers that be want to eliminate it, we have always celebrated it. It does seem to be part of our natures.