I’ve taken a lot of photos since my blog has gone silent. So….RANDOM PHOTO TIME!
Random
Blog Garden
Greensboro, NC has a nature preserve called the Bog Garden right in the heart of the city. Both paved and wood planked walkways let you shamble about an area that has a marshy part and a small lake. It’s a lovely little place that lets you see area flowers, plants, and some wildlife. I’ve gone there a few times and here are some pictures from my last visit.
Win A Pen!
When I was younger a year seemed an eternity. The summer would end and the long winter would creep along as I waited for warmth and fun to return. Now that I’m much older the moments seem to run through my fingers like sand. Yes, an overused metaphor but it’s the first thing I found at the metaphor lending library. Now I’m struck dumb by the fact that I started blogging a year ago today. I’d say, “where did the time go?” but I’m pretty sure there isn’t a temporal reservoir that holds the flow so I’ll forgo doing that.
Looking back and ruminating on the process of writing something and putting it up for people to read I find I’ve only accomplished some of what I wanted to do. Many people share a bit of their souls in blogs giving readers insight into their lives and personality. That’s the one thing I thought I might do but really never did. In the end I did what came naturally to me and wrote about things or events that I thought were interesting.
I feel that a blog is a lot like the old-fashioned vanity press publication in practice and I mean that in a good way. It’s a nice feeling to be able to get ideas out of your head and present them without obstruction. Since I’m not very vain, and when I am it’s in spurts and about silly things, that may explain the lack of more meaningful content over the year.
But there are a lot of good things that came of this endeavor. I managed to keep creating content even if it wasn’t as often as I wanted. Writing is hard for me and I thought doing it more often would make it easier. Well, it didn’t and struggling with that and mostly overcoming it has been a win. Also I think I put out some valuable and semi-interesting information for people who have the same odd interests as I do. Technically it was fun learning how to set up a blog and customize my WordPress theme a bit.
Initially I didn’t tell more than a few people I was blogging and felt odd about promoting my ramblings. I’m mostly over that now and I’m happy to see that both friends and strangers have peeked in and read a bit here. In appreciation I’m giving something away as an anniversary present of sorts: A circa 1941 green Parker Vacumatic. This is a full size double jewel model that was made in Canada. The nib is somewhere between fine and medium with a hint of flex to it and some of the original silver plating still intact. It’s in working order so all you have to do is add ink and go.
Now you are saying “this sounds too good to be true” or at least “what’s the catch?” Well, the pen isn’t perfect. There is a transverse crack in the barrel that doesn’t go all the way through but I’ve stabilized it and it’s not easy to see. The feed is missing a couple of the comb’s teeth and there is a touch of brassing. The filling unit is a plastic one from a later pen and not the aluminum speedline that should be there. Overall this is a user grade pen so don’t expect a museum piece.
In order to win this pen I’m going to do the usual: count the comments and use a random number generator to choose a winner. However there is one additional requirement: In your comment tell me what the first sentence is you would write with this pen if you win it. That’s all you have to do to be eligible to win! I’ll pay postage anywhere in the world but realize if you are far away from the U.S. it’ll take a while for this to get to you via normal mail. I’ll pick a winner one week from the date of this post. You’ve got 48 hours to respond to the “you won” email or I roll the random number generator again for a new winner.
Thanks very much to all of you for reading my blog over the last year (or just looking at it and grunting). Additionally thanks to all my friends who provided support and so many great comments. Some of them have blogs (better than this one) listed to the right. This here blog certainly has not contained any deep philosophical content or life changing information but maybe I’ll steal some for posts in the second year. A few ideas never were pursued or lived beyond an initial post so perhaps I will revisit them in the upcoming months. Of course any suggestions are always gracefully accepted.
Update:
Here’s a tiny writing sample of the Vacumatic to look at.
Happy Holidays
The weekend before Christmas a storm struck the East Coast and SW Virginia was in the thick of it. It dumped the most snow in over 10 years on much of the area here. We went up to the house of some friends so if snow bound we could at least keep each other company. Two days later we got dug out enough to head back home.
I spent enough of my life in heavy winter snow to hate a white Christmas nowadays. To share the joy of a cold nose and wet feet with the rest of you I captured it in pictures.
My Christmas was spent in the quiet of home for once. I received a wonderful surprise as some of my Filipino friends sent Christmas ornaments and other goodies from distant Metro Manila. Below is a picture of this year’s tree dressed up with those new duds.
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I send hugs to all my friends close and distant and my best to those who I do not know.
Ondoy
Like many people sitting here in the United States I’m exposed to the news of the world day in and day out. We see disasters and tragedies on a macro and micro level all the time. Most of it bounces off of the layer of callousness gained to protect ourselves from the emotional devastation we’d feel if our empathy was unchecked. It is when events touch you on a personal level that they creep under the barbed wire we’ve unrolled around our emotive centers and grab the ends of those neurons and twist.
What’s twisting me currently is tropical storm “Ondoy” which recently hit the Philippines with a vengeance. I know people in that country and specifically in Metro Manila and other storm affected areas where the devastation of the flooding is just starting to be dealt with. Currently there are still people waiting for help on rooftops. Newly rescued people are cold, hungry, and dehydrated while they wait to go home and see what ruins they will find. It seems there was woefully too little government response and as usual aid agencies like the Red Cross are doing their best to provide help and comfort.
It’s too easy to play the numbers game and say that there were too few deaths or too little devastation to make a disaster worth noting. “It’s not the Sichuan earthquake or the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004” some would think and dismiss things. Beyond viewing people as a cumulative grouping they are individuals and a small car accident can affect one as much as if a volcano erupts nearby. We can’t help every person nor financially support all relief programs in the world but contributing to recovery efforts in smaller disasters means that you will have a larger impact on helping people in need. Don’t forget those in distress because they are not getting the lion’s share of the news cycle.
For individuals here in the United States we can’t easily get clothing or food stuffs to the Philippines so it seems a monetary contribution is the most expedient method of providing disaster relief. I found two ways for us here to quickly contribute to The Philippine National Red Cross which is working hard to help out in this crisis:
This link takes you to their website and will allow you to contribute via credit card.
This link takes you to site that has a PayPal link for contributions. You’ll want to read the post before you choose this and judge for yourself if it’s trustworthy.
Update 9/26:
This link is for the GMA Kapuso Foundation which is currently collecting funds to help the victims. It’s a credit card donation system but takes U.S. dollars so does not require currency conversion.
This link is for a blog which is putting together a group donation via PayPal.
Update 9/28
This link is for the UNICEF page to donate to help the children who are victims of the disaster. This online form works with credit cards.
Update 9/29
Now that several days have passed I see many options popping up for people in the U.S. to donate to the relief efforts. If you google you’ll find some charity or organization to suit you preferences I’m sure. I’ve got one more link to post here and it probably will be my last one.
This link goes to the The Ayala Foundation which is a nonprofit development organization of the Ayala Group of Companies. This takes donations via credit card but in pesos so you’ll need to convert.
If you can’t help in this way I hope you spare a few seconds to think some good thoughts for all those who are rebuilding and trying to get their lives back to normal in the Philippines.
I’ve not mentioned in this post yet how I donated. The first day of the flooding I sent money to The Philippine National Red Cross. A day after that I did the same to UNICEF. As they say every little bit helps and I really hope that’s true.
Wrap and Roll
This is the first entry in a series that could be called “nice things people have given me and I’m guilty about.” Getting a gift throws me off guard since I’m probably unworthy of the kindness. That doesn’t mean I’m not both appreciative and moved when someone thinks well enough of me to send something.
In this case one very generous friend hand made two pen wraps and another was considerate enough to ship them the great distance to me. If you don’t know what a pen wrap is let me explain. Let’s say you have a lot of pens (and I do) and transporting them somewhere is your goal. There are a few choices: You can put them loose into a container which could damage them (bad). Maybe you could fill your pockets with them (worse). If you have a lot of little one or two pen cases you could slip your pens into those and put the lot into your backpack (me).
Actually, the last time I needed to bring numerous pens with me I rolled them into an old stringy towel I had. That concept is really quite like a pen wrap where you have pockets that pens fit into, a flap that folds over the top, and a ribbon to hold it together when rolled up. I’ve never had a pen wrap…until now.
And what lovely wraps they are! Hand made out of some neat materials in lovely colors. As you can tell I was thrilled and remain so. I have used one already to take some pens on my recent trip to Chicago. This weekend I’ll use both to cart even more pens to the Washington DC pen show.
Thanks, May, for taking the time to create these totally unexpected wraps for me. Ack! The guilt! I don’t deserve them. I’m going to try and make the level of guilt unbearable for me by showing some more gifts in future posts.
Insert Lithp Here
It’s odd how the internet can extend your reach. I can buy goods from places I never heard about as a child. I read people’s thoughts from lands I didn’t expect to glean insights from. I see images taken minutes, even seconds, after events extremely remote to me. Beyond all that what still strikes me as the most unbelievable is I have friends on the other side of this planet whom I’ve never actually met.
How that happened is a long and rather boring story. Logic dictates that the underlying reason is that my likability is directly proportional to the distance you are away from me (Overfield’s law). If I lived on the moon the entire world would love me. What all of the people I know overseas have in common is using and collecting that odd throwback I love: fountain pens. Forming a small (but rapidly growing) group centered in metro Manila they meet for food, friendship, and fountain pens (is that the “3 Fs”?) How do I know this? After corresponding with one of the members I started following these gatherings online via Jenny Ortuoste’s blog or photos sent directly to me by people such as Leigh Reyes (blog plug). Now I can supplement that with quite a few picture galleries put up by attendees on Facebook. This happy band calls themselves the Fountain Pen Network-Philippines or FPN-P for short.
The reason I like this group so much (besides the fact that some members will actually put up with me) is their enthusiasm and camaraderie. It always looks fun when they meet at someone’s home, get a room in a tasty looking restaurant, or even take over a whole coffee shop to see pens, talk pens, use pens, and eat (not pens). Often they go out for sightseeing and pen paraphernalia hunts afterward. I’ve been at pen meets that were barely alive by comparison. The people are all ages and from all walks of life including a broadcaster, an award winning novelist/playwright, an advertising executive, professors, business people, creative professionals, writers, students, etc. etc. Certainly it’s a diverse and interesting group of folks. Seeing young people interested in what some think stodgy like fountain pens is rare, but there are some here. I never thought I’d use the term “young people” in a sentence…I am getting old.
This is leading up to my mention of another ritual they have at the meets: raffles. Members bring in items and all are raffled off to attendees for free. Last time they met there were so many items a second round of drawings had to be made. Everyone (or nearly so) seems to come away with a nifty doodad given out of the goodness of another person’s heart. Pens, notebooks, inks, and even panda shaped pens are put into the great redistribution pool. Next month is the meeting that will mark their one year anniversary and the raffle is sure to be bigger and better than ever. Also, odd as it might seem, I’ll be sending a couple things 8,000 miles for it as kind of a thank you for enjoying a bit of the fun remotely and being able to meet so many good people at the same time.
So….all gaze upon RAFFLESTEIN and his trusty helper PENCIGOR!!! (um…at the top of the page.) A more monstrous pair has never been seen in the pen world. I found just enough leftover parts for what may be my last Frankensnork class pen. It’s green, brown, and blue which I think is a nice color combination. The barrel comes from a desk pen since Sheaffer never made a brown pocket pen. Finishing it off is a Palladium-Silver triumph nib (fine) which has the script identification on it I find so charming. Pencigor has a top from a tuckaway pencil contrasting with a generic bottom assembly.
So congratulations to my friends in the other hemisphere on their 1 year anniversary. I hope there are many more. Oh, and whoever wins this owes me some adobo if I ever visit. 🙂
A Trip To The National Arboretum
Despite the fact that nothing ever grows for me but weeds I do like some green things. Odd and unusual plants that aren’t part of my everyday experience really get my interest. In California I’ve been to the Los Angeles Country Arboretum and the Huntington Library Botanical Gardens and both have an awe inspiring variety of plant life to see. Because of the climate they have an incredible array of flowers, trees, succulents, grasses, etc. from all around the world. Going from a Japanese garden to giant cacti in a short walk is really fun. Oh, and the LA County Arboretum has peafowl running around loose.
It’s really hard to top those places and because of that I was a bit let down by the National Arboretum in Washington D.C. It’s still a wonderful place but it’s populated by plant species far more familiar to someone who lives in the Eastern United States. Nonetheless it is pleasant and park like with people picnicking and laying about enjoying the green space.
We went there on “azalea weekend” which is when they come into bloom. It was impressive to see color blanket areas during the walk around the azalea gardens. I didn’t know how great the variety of sizes and hues were for those flowers till that point.
I was very pleasantly surprised to see that the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum was there as well. Bonsai trees are fascinating and their miniature intricacies kept me enthralled. These perfectly proportioned dwarf trees are amazing pieces of living art. Penjing is the Chinese art of miniature landscape. It involves trees like Bonsai but often creates the impression of a small natural area. It can also emphasize parts of the tree like the trunk or branches through manipulations.
I hope you enjoy the gallery of photos below which show some bits of the trip. Click the thumbnails for a bigger image and description.