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Doug
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Doug
I’ve just spent the entire evening reading American Bungalow Style, a book by the editors of American Bunglow Magazine about Bungalow architecture. This was one of the best books I’ve found on the architecture of American homes during the Arts & Crafts period around the beginning of the 20th Century.
I find the architectural considerations and social issues associated with these homes fascinating. I was also unaware of the range of styles in bungalows. This book did a fantastic job covering all of that, as well as discussing both historical and contemporary decorating. It’s ironic that most of the people who purchased these very Arts & Crafts inspired homes couldn’t afford the furniture of artisans like Gustav Stickley, who were the primary proponents of the Arts & Crafts lifestyle.
The other thing I’m finding fascinating is home many of the furnishings we’ve bought and how much of the interior and exterior design efforts my wife and I have undertaken fit within the bounds of Arts & Crafts design. Most of what we’ve done we did well before we had the slightest familiarity with the idea of a defined design movement around this stuff. I guess we’ve always liked it, we just didn’t know it!
Today was matress-buying day for the new Mission bed we have on order. Matress shopping turned out to be a harrowing experience; I smacked my head a good one on a wire rack that was inappropriately positioned above a matress I was testing in one of the stores we went to. Not only did I end up with a temporary dent in the top of my head, but the comission sales guy would bugger off for even two seconds while we were looking. We most emphatically didn’t end up buying there. For some reason, very little annoys me as much as hitting my head on something. Combined with an odious sales jerk, I end up on the edge of homicidal mania.
Another excellent resource I’ve found if you’re interested in decorating with an Arts & Crafts bent is the web site of Craftsman Homes Connection. We’ve now ordered several items from these folks, and the service and quality is excellent, as are the prices. I find myself on the site two or three times a week now looking at items and coming up with ideas. Definitely recommended.
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Doug
Tonight’s the first time in about two weeks I’ve actually sat down and fully browsed my “usual” list of ‘blog links. There’s the usual great stuff out there from Alwin, Mark Woods, Tom & Dori, ken, Whump.com and Hal, of course. The diversity of views about the “current situation” in my usual reads is a good thing, I think, even with all the cognitive dissonance it provokes. I read some things I just don’t agree with. Agree with it all isn’t important, though (and not even possible). What’s important is that a diversity of opinion exists, and that people can read all this and think about it. Anyone who is marching in lockstep with any opinion or pundit right now scares me. Those who question the actions of American leadership right now aren’t, contrary to the opinions of some strident fanatics, in league with the terrorists, but rather are contributing to the effort to preserve a modern, democratic way of life. Those who have elected to use this world crisis to advance their own agendas, regardless of what those agendas are, are the ones I’m keeping my eye on. They’re the dangerous ones.
I do wish I had more time to write these days. I’m not sure I’d have much to add to the conversation, but I am actively concerned with and thinking about these events, and I’d like to weigh in.
Nearly all of my energy, though, is going into trying to turn a company around and save the jobs of a whole bunch of people. Manufacturing, which is really the field I work in, was having a difficult time before September 11th. Life since has been tough. Anyone who says that we aren’t in a recession must not actually have to work for a living.
The good news is that in just a few weeks of phenomenally hard work by one of the tightest-knit teams of people I’ve ever been a part of, I think we’re turning the corner. The staff that I work with is really an incredible bunch, and have risen to the challenge of changing our business model in a way that’s exceeded my wildest expectations. Nothing’s certain yet, but I think we’re turning the corner.
What time hasn’t been taken up with work has been devoted to home and family. Awhile back, I learned the cost of being a workaholic and not paying sufficient attention on the home front, and I’m not going to repeat that mistake. The truth is that the best way that I’ve found to survive the rigors of an intense work situation is to have a solid home life, and to lead a lifestyle that creates a refuge one can retreat to, away from the intensity and insanity of work and the outside world.
So, I’m burying myself in kid activities and Arts & Crafts stuff and redecorating and all the rest. Last week, during a business trip to Ohio, I took a few hours out to have lunch with my dad.
I’m deliberately not watching every minute of breaking anthrax news, and scouring the web for more and more information. I’m not bringing work home, and I’m not on the phone all hours of the night with business stuff. It’s not that I’m not interested and concerned; I am. I think a sense of perspective in necessary, though. These are all things that are happening in my life. They aren’t my life. I won’t have my life absorbed by them.
Such a life makes, I suspect, for a boring ‘blog. It makes for a pretty good life, however.
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Doug
Congratulations, Hal! I am so pleased that the birth went well and that the Rager family has increased in number!
There is nothing quite like watching the birth of your child. There’s nothing quite so nerve-wracking as being the father during a delivery, either. You can never successfully describe it to someone who hasn’t been through it.
Now comes the interesting bit. I can’t wait to read what he writes once it fully dawns on Hal and Audrey that the delivery, which I’m sure their whole lives have been oriented around for months now, is only the audition. The real fun starts today!
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Doug
It’s a blustry day here today; Autumn appears to be coming on with a vengance. Aside from the wind and rain, the leaves are beginning to turn. Another week or ten days should see peak color, I suspect.
I’ve been fighting a nasty cold the last several days, bad enough to make me miss a day and a half of work. Having a bad head cold during a nation-wide anthrax scare isn’t good for one’s piece of mind, to say the least.
As has become my habit the past several weekends, I spent most of this morning and part of this afternoon on my new hobby, Arts & Crafts decorating and design. Sometime toward the end of the summer, my long-standing interest in things Japanese and my budding interest in Frank Lloyd Wright collided to create this new hobby. It’s been eating time and money ever since.
If you’re not familiar with it, the Arts & Crafts Movement was a design and social movement that began in the latter years of the 19th Century and continued into the early years of the 20th. Essentially, it advocated a return to simpler lifestyles, and simpler design. In terms of design, it was somewhat a reaction to the highly ornate sytles of the Victorian Era. Socially, the movement grew out of a response to increasing industrialization and mechanization, and embraced the then new concepts of communism and socialism. Many people are familiar with examples of Arts & Crafts design, such as Mission style furniture, but aren’t that familiar with the principles of the movement that spawned it.
There’s a lot more to the Arts & Crafts Movement than that, but you can follow the link above and read more on your own if you’re interested. I’m less interested in writing about it right now than I am in living it. Both the philosophy and the design styles are very appealing to me. Moreover, as life becomes more complex and stressful, the more I’m finding refuge in transforming my home into an Arts & Crafts style sanctuary.
We’ll be selling this home in a few months, so for the time being we’re concentrating on items that will move with us. Adotpting an Arts & Crafts lifestyle is timely for us; during the years we’ve lived here we’ve accumulated a lot of clutter. Decorating in Arts & Crafts style calls for getting rid of a lot of that, which we’d need to do anyway to get the house in shape for showing. It’s really amazing how much stuff we’ve found we have just cluttering up the place that we’d learned to overlook, but subliminally was contributing to a cluttered, anxious feel to the place. So, while we’re acquiring a few carefully chosen pieces, we’re doing far more in the way of trips to Goodwill and just tossing stuff out.
The main piece we’re adding is a new queen-sized Mission style bed, all in quarter-sawn oak in a cherry-oak finish. We won’t see the bed itself for probably another eight weeks or so, but ordering it has launched a full-scale clean-out and redecoration of the master bedroom. Literally every wall in this room has been lined with bookcases, and finding a place for the books has been a challenge. We also need to replace all of the rest of the bedroom furniture, so today’s task was to locate an acceptable bedside table, which we’ll be ordering from the same place where we purchased the bed.
Beyond that, I’m accumulating little accent items that will complement the decor and hopefully enhance the value of the house when we sell it. The Craftsman Homes Connection is turning out to be a great place to pick up stuff like this. My experimental order from them includes a copper metal register cover, a Ginko pattern light switch plate in copper verde, and a Gink border stencil.
We’ll see how things turn out. I’ll post some pictures as things start coming together.
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Doug
During the last few weeks, I’ve been tempted to start my own political movement. I’m repelled by the right, because of their bigotry, intolerance, and desire to control everyone. The leftists annoy me with their arrogance, their intellectual laziness, and their tendency to absolve everyone of all personal responsibility, except the United States, in which case the sacking of Rome by the Gauls in 390 B.C. was either clear evidence of American expansionism or a forgivable act of oppressed indigenous people perpetrated against an American client-state. Seems to me that the world needs a party for people that have some sense of proportion and practicality, along with a genuine concern for people as people, rather than as elements of political will.
After thinking about it, I realized such a party would fail. Not because people are stupid and apathetic, or because practical, genuinely concerned people don’t exist, but rather because they’re all too busy being practical, being involved in their communities, and living their lives. These are people who view politicians and politically-minded people as a necessary nuisance; after all somebody has to do that stuff. These are people who put up with the hijinks and idiocy until it escaltes to a point where it becomes really bothersome, and then they up and toss the politicians out and try again. It isn’t a perfect system, but I guess it usually works.
Sometimes, it’s a good thing to be reminded of that perspective. Sometimes, it’s healthy to remember that what the politicians and ivory-tower types tell you is probably self-serving bullshit, and that on the whole, people are a lot smarter than they’re given credit for. I’m tired of hearing how easily people are manipulated - maybe the truth is that the general population has done a pretty good job of manipulating the pundits and the politicians and the pseudo-intellectuals and the marketing schmucks into doing what they want done, rather than the other way around.
So, I haven’t had a lot to say recently. I’ve been too busy living. I have a lot to do at work, some new hobbies, and things to do with my family. For a few weeks now, I haven’t even spent much time on the web, unless I’m looking for something related to a specific interest of mine.
I don’t really want to say I’m on hiatus, because I suspect I will write, at least occasionally. I’ll probably be writing about different things, however, than I have in the past. I’ll probably write about Arts & Crafts Movement sites, for example, and the progress I’m making in converting my home to Arts & Crafts Style. I’ll probably write about comparisons between Arts & Crafts Movement philosophy and free software - there are some interesting parallels. I may write a bit about the challenges I’m encountering in navigating a business through these difficult economic times (I’m now Executive VP of Operations in addition to being CTO, with the specific mission to try and turn a failing business around). It’ll be different, and probably boring to a lot of people. I never had aspirations of entertaining a large audience, anyway.
We’ll see what the morrow brings; these are uncertain times. What I am certain of is that I’m on a different path these days.
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Doug
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Doug
Rumsfeld just pretty much confirmed what I said below. The immediate goal here seems to be to set the stage to topple the Taliban, and allow oposition forces to take control of the country. Essentially, we’re wrecking the Taliban military so the Northern Alliance can go in and clean them up.
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Doug
Some details of the attack are starting to emerge. In addition to sea-launched cruise missles, CNN is reporting that the Pentagon has said that B-52, B1, and B-2 bombers and carrier based aircraft are involved. Attacks are on-going against Kabul, Kandahar, and several other Afghan cities.
It sounds as if the initial strikes were pinpoint strikes against air defense and C3 infrastructure, but the current attacks are targeting more general military units. Some of the attacks, specifically those from the B-1s and B-52s, appear to be carpet-bombing of troop positions in the field.
Afghan Northern Alliance units are also engaged in artillery bombardments of Taliban positions. Northern Alliance sources claim to be in communication with Allied commanders and are acting in cooperation with them. It is notable that at least some of the air strikes seem to be targeted at strategic location in the north of Afghanistan that have been Northern Alliance objectives for some time now.
My guess would be that the military strategy is to smash Taliban capabilities in the north and to allow Northern Alliance forces to drive on Kabul. If Mazar-e-Sharif falls, much of the north will fall with it.
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Doug
The balloon has gone up; the first strikes against the Taliban and the terrorists have started. So far, the operation looks very similar to the opening hours of the attacks against Panama and Iraq, at least from a military perspective. What we appear to be seeing at this point are attacks designed to supress air defenses and Command, Control, and Intelligence resources. The Northern Alliance ground forces also appear to be in a full-swing ground offensive.
I suspect there may be Special Forces units in-bound toward the terrorist camps for raids, though we haven’t heard anything yet. The Taliban murderers have of course ramped up their rhetoric about jihad. The worst possible thing they could do at this point is execute another terrorist attack. I doubt a single Taliban or Arab living in Afghanistan will be alive in a year if there are further American casualties.
Gods protect the aid workers that are being held as hostages by these fanatics. I grieve for them and their families, because I doubt they’ll be alive much longer. I grieve for any innocent Afghans that may be caught in the cross-fire.
As for the religious fanatics and fascists behind these atrocities, I feel no mercy. They have had their opportunity to join the civilized world, and turned it down. The Taliban is a regime of oppression, death, and fear that made the mistake of exporting their particular brand of religious fascism to the rest of the world. The time for recriminations over what we should have done in the past is done. After this is over, there will come a time when we must learn from that past and not repeat those mistakes. Right now, it is time to excise the cancer of religious fanaticism and totalitarian opression that has us all living in fear.
