Quoth the Raven

Poe's "The Raven" was first published 161 years ago.

I do not claim to have any vast knowledge of poetry or any detailed knowledge of the mechanics of poetry, but I consider this poem to be one of the best in the English language. I had thought that I was going to copy the entire text here (it's GOT to be in the public domain, right?) but I thought I would conserve space and provide a link.

See The Raven at WikiSource

Tree identification help???

Does anyone know what this tree is? I have been curious about it. I saw it at the Washington Park Zoo, and I would guess that it is probably NOT a native plant. At least, I don't remember having ever seen one while hiking out in the woods.

It stands no more than 12 or 15 feet tall, but I don't know if it is a mature tree or not. I would guess that, given where it is, that they intentionally planted something that doesn't grow to be huge because of the shadows it would cast and the pain it would be to fell it if it ever became diseased or threatened to fall on any of the exhibits. If it weren't off the trail I would have gotten a better shot at the bark. As it was, I was already a couple of steps off the path, and I felt rather conspicuous, being at the zoo.

I am in San Francisco

I am in San Francisco this week. I have just finished putting in two long-o days. I don't have any photos to post right now.

The new job (well, new as of July) is still going well. I get to do lots of different kinds of things, so I don't get bored, as I would if I were just doing AutoCAD all the time or if I was doing nothing but looking through file boxes for documents for lawsuits.

My views on current issues facing the world, particularly our official policy in the War on Terrorism, can be fairly well summarized by the following site:
http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war52.html

I especially love the first one on this particular page, although the strips make a good Saturday afternoon read when the kids are taking their nap.

The holidays are over

We are just getting ready to ditch our tree. I am going to trim the branches off of it and probably chop up up into mulch with the blade of a shovel, and the trunk I will either use for a project or cut up and give to Emily for firewood (she recently bought a house and is the only relative in town with a working woodstove right now).


The kids really enjoy this easel, shown here on Christmas morning just after getting unwrapped. (Thanks to Thinh!) It is nice having a station where they can just go and make some art in the house whenever they feel like it. The creative pursuits are better for the expansion of their minds than just sitting around watching cartoons.

Lucy was home sick today, and since I didn't have much going on at work I brought some work home and I have been watching the kids today. Lucy was upset that she missed pre-school, but she and I went and picked up some things at the store while Noor was gone.


This is an image that I thought was funny. The day after Christmas we took some Christmas money and bought ourselves a Zoo membership, the family plus one membership. We can take a friend or relative with us each time we visit the zoo, so if anyone wants to come get in free just let me know and you can help me chase the kids.

Anyway, we visited the Lorikeet Landing exhibit, and Nena bought two cups of bird juice for us to hold and feed these birds. One kept landing on Nena's bun and I think Lucy was afraid that some bird was going to land on her so she covered her head the best she could with her little hands.

Yo, DPR is in full EFFECT!

After years spent in blog-less bliss I have finally given in to the lure of easy picture sharing and story-telling... all in a format where viewers have selected to be here so I know that if I am boring them it is their fault for not switching over to a more entertaining site such as watchingpaintdry.net or potatochipart.com.

I make no promises to post something every day nor even every other day nor even once a week. The way this sort of thing seems to work is that the more I have to say at a particular moment in life the less time I have to sit down and write about it.

Please feel free to make comments but please play nice. I can take a slagging but not everyone else who comments will be able to, so keep that in mind.

Arrghh!