aberkvam’s Blog

Jamaica - Day Two

Dec. 28, 2007 — I learned my lessons well. I checked in the night before my flight using the Northwest web site. I also got enough sleep so I had no problem waking up in time. I took a direct route to the airport and found a parking spot in the ramp right by the skywalk.

I looked down at my heavy leather jacket and pondered carrying it all through my travels to Jamaica. It seemed silly. So I found a lightweight windbreaker (easy to wad up in a ball) in my car’s trunk and swapped it with the leather jacket. This would later prove to be a costly or brilliant choice, depending on how you look at it.
Continue reading Jamaica - Day Two…

Jamaica - Day One

Dec. 27, 2007 — I stayed up late preparing for the Jamaica trip. I set both of my alarms for 4 a.m. They finally pierced my slumber at 5:15 a.m. I was really out of it and ended up taking a shower and playing with my indoor/outdoor thermometer. I just wasn’t comprehending what time it really was.

Continue reading Jamaica - Day One…

A very short walk

I walked out my front door slightly after dusk with my iPod in my hand. I crossed the lawn. A rabbit unconcernedly stayed a few feet ahead of me. Fireflies winked on and off around me as I made my way deeper in the the dark underbrush. As I crossed the railroad tracks I met a few fishers who had just made their way across the bay on the tracks. I entered the small bayfront park and made my way to a picnic table. There was only one other person and her dog in the park. I heard the squeak of bats overhead feasting on bugs.

I slipped on my headphones and tuned to the local oldies station. The show was just starting; Madison’s annual Rhythm and Booms fireworks show set to music. I looked across the bay at the skyline highlighted by the capitol building dome only a mile and a half away. The larger fireworks blooms were just peeking out above the skyline.

The warm breeze blew by as I looked around at the fireworks, the skyline, the fireflies, the kids with sparklers running around in their yards…

After the show was over I walked the tracks back to the main street and went by the coffee shop, pet supply store, the art restoration shop (coming soon), and the other little shops until I got back to my front door.

Madison makes me smile in different ways like this almost every day. I don’t wish that I was somewhere else. I don’t feel like I should be somewhere else. It feels comfortable. It feels right. It’s where I am supposed to be.

Search Terms

So I ran a report on my web server log files. One of the things you can see is the search terms that people used to find your site. I had it give me the totals for the last six months or so. This is what I got (not including anything less than 10 requests):

reqs search term
38 stikfas
30 milwaukee skyline
27 halloween bondage
24 naked fat man
20 toe socks
19 high school bikini
18 freak on a leash
18 carved pumpkin
18 milwaukee zoo
16 gears
15 claustrophobia
14 lap sitting
13 merrill high school
12 halloween babes
12 lawn gnome
12 high school marching band
12 tickle
11 m schettl freight sales
11 under kilt
11 baked pumpkin seeds
10 tickle monster

I know how some of these came up with my site as a result but others just puzzle me. “naked fat man”?! Sheesh…

Knowledge

I had a quote on the wall of my cube back when I worked for the university. Even though it was an old quote, I thought it offered a lot of insight into computer and information sciences. I lost the quote when I left the university position and I have been keeping an eye out for it ever since. I finally found it again in, of all places, a copy of the 1931 edition of The Joy of Cooking.

“Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.”

– Samuel Johnson

As long as I am posting quotes, I may as well add this one. It really had a chilling effect on me when I first read it. It always makes me wonder when I drive through the back roads of Wisconsin.

“Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?”

“They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

“You horrify me!”

“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.”

     – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)

     – Sherlock Holmes in “The Copper Beeches” (Doubleday p. 323)

I hate AT&T

“If you would like further assistance, please press or say ‘one’.”

“One”

“Thank you for calling AT&T. Goodbye.”

Feeling better

I’ve had a cold since the Fourth of July and I just can’t shake it. I keep getting better but it keeps hanging on. Even so, I felt really good today, better than I have in a long time.
Continue reading Feeling better…

This is about right so far…

But I do have it in a frame, so that’s good.

I found this in the mail today…

Headed to Portland

I am off to Portland to visit my brother. I’ll be out on the west coast from Friday through Tuesday.
Continue reading Headed to Portland…