Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 125
December 25, 2014
Merry Christmas!
For those who celebrate, Merry Christmas!
The video is of Celtic Women singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas. If you have a few minutes, please play it and enjoy.
The video is of Celtic Women singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas. If you have a few minutes, please play it and enjoy.
December 23, 2014
Bikes For Tots
Every year the employees at Delta Air Lines Technical Operations donate bicycles to Toys For Tots. (This picture is from last year. I forgot to take a picture of this year's bikes and we had even more than this!) In case you can't tell from this poor picture, the hallway is very long and it's lined with children's bikes.
This is a year-long fundraising effort. The bikes came in by the pallet and were assembled by volunteers. This year's totals were 540 bikes plus $25,000 in a check to Toys For Tots.
To me, this is what Christmas is about--helping and giving to those in need. For every horrible story of people fighting over a Black Friday deal, I try to remember walking down the hallway to my desk and going past all these hundreds of bikes. When I read the tweet collections about spoiled teens talking about smashing their new iPhone because it's the wrong color, I remember a group of children with Downs Syndrome being given a flight to the "North Pole" and how much it meant to them and their parents. Or the party for kids who lost a parent in the military.
Christmas, despite what the retailers want us to think, isn't about things. That it's become this for so many people is sad. Let's try to remember what the Grinch said, "Maybe, he thought, Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe, perhaps, Christmas means a little bit more."
December 21, 2014
December 18, 2014
Writing Prompts
I don't usually go seeking out writing prompts. I'm a slow enough writer already that I don't like to waste time on things that won't give me a story. Sometimes, though, people I follow on Pinterest post some prompts that are intriguing.
This week someone posted a prompt that went something like: Everyone has the date of their death visible on their arm. Your date was yesterday.
There was another I saw months ago that was similar: Everyone had the date they'd meet their soul mate visible on their arm.
Both things make me go hmmm. There are possibilities here and so many different ways a character could react to either thing. And there are questions that arise that make things more intriguing. What kind of society would exist if everyone knew when they'd die? What happens to that society when there's a glitch in that dating system? Does is shake the faith of the people?
I remember seeing a few minutes of Logan's Run on television when I was a kid and I wondered if they had their termination dates imprinted on them somewhere? I can't recall and TBH, what little of the movie I saw didn't impress me much.
These are some really cool writing prompts and make me think I should maybe reconsider looking for them online, but when I do, I inevitably end up finding the boring ones that don't interest me at all like: write about an easy decision you made. Really? I'd rather think about the first two prompts. Those could actually lead to a story either directly or indirectly. Most prompts, unfortunately, are more like the last one.
This week someone posted a prompt that went something like: Everyone has the date of their death visible on their arm. Your date was yesterday.
There was another I saw months ago that was similar: Everyone had the date they'd meet their soul mate visible on their arm.
Both things make me go hmmm. There are possibilities here and so many different ways a character could react to either thing. And there are questions that arise that make things more intriguing. What kind of society would exist if everyone knew when they'd die? What happens to that society when there's a glitch in that dating system? Does is shake the faith of the people?
I remember seeing a few minutes of Logan's Run on television when I was a kid and I wondered if they had their termination dates imprinted on them somewhere? I can't recall and TBH, what little of the movie I saw didn't impress me much.
These are some really cool writing prompts and make me think I should maybe reconsider looking for them online, but when I do, I inevitably end up finding the boring ones that don't interest me at all like: write about an easy decision you made. Really? I'd rather think about the first two prompts. Those could actually lead to a story either directly or indirectly. Most prompts, unfortunately, are more like the last one.
December 16, 2014
Adventures in Computer Repair
My 5-year-old laptop has had the fan blowing hard all the time and has had the heat cause it to spontaneously shut down. I knew it was because the dust build up was bad, but unfortunately Sony doesn't make it easy to get to the fan. I did some online searching and discovered that the Vaio has an issue with dust/dirt because of the position of the fan and vents.
Despite it being difficult to access, I decided I was good enough with computers to attempt to clean the dust out myself. Last Saturday was my scheduled day.
After clearing off some space and disconnecting everything as well as pulling out the battery, I opened my tool kit and found a YouTube video telling me what to do. I had little cups ready to separate the screws and a flashlight.
The first problem I ran into was that my screwdriver tips were not magnetized. I found instructions on how to do that--you simply run the screwdriver over a magnet. Hey, I even had a magnet...I just couldn't find it. Not immediately. Um, yeah, my office still isn't unpacked and it just gets worse since I dump everything in there. It took longer than it should have, but I did find my magnet.
Magnetizing was as easy as it sounded and the screwdriver was pulling the itty bitty laptop screws out as I lifted it. Perfect.
I had a few misgivings as I went along, but I don't want to buy a new laptop until Windows 10 comes out next fall/winter and I couldn't keep allowing the Vaio to overheat.
I forged on.
I was down to the final screw in the casing, then I'd be inside the laptop and the scarier part of the day's mission. There was one small problem, though. I accidentally stripped the screw head. Oops. I'd seen a work around on Pinterest--something about using a rubber band--and went in search of one that would fit in the small hole, but still be wide enough to work. It fit! But that particular life hack was a fail. It didn't work.
Finally, I had no choice except concede that I wasn't getting that screw out. I put all the others back into place and plugged everything back in. Put this in my Fail column.
Despite it being difficult to access, I decided I was good enough with computers to attempt to clean the dust out myself. Last Saturday was my scheduled day.
After clearing off some space and disconnecting everything as well as pulling out the battery, I opened my tool kit and found a YouTube video telling me what to do. I had little cups ready to separate the screws and a flashlight.
The first problem I ran into was that my screwdriver tips were not magnetized. I found instructions on how to do that--you simply run the screwdriver over a magnet. Hey, I even had a magnet...I just couldn't find it. Not immediately. Um, yeah, my office still isn't unpacked and it just gets worse since I dump everything in there. It took longer than it should have, but I did find my magnet.
Magnetizing was as easy as it sounded and the screwdriver was pulling the itty bitty laptop screws out as I lifted it. Perfect.
I had a few misgivings as I went along, but I don't want to buy a new laptop until Windows 10 comes out next fall/winter and I couldn't keep allowing the Vaio to overheat.
I forged on.
I was down to the final screw in the casing, then I'd be inside the laptop and the scarier part of the day's mission. There was one small problem, though. I accidentally stripped the screw head. Oops. I'd seen a work around on Pinterest--something about using a rubber band--and went in search of one that would fit in the small hole, but still be wide enough to work. It fit! But that particular life hack was a fail. It didn't work.
Finally, I had no choice except concede that I wasn't getting that screw out. I put all the others back into place and plugged everything back in. Put this in my Fail column.
December 14, 2014
Misconceptions About Houses
I knew some of these.
December 11, 2014
Language Geek
As a word geek, I've always had an interest in language and linguistics. I even took a linguistics class as a freshman in college. I've listened to several History of English books and podcasts, but recently I found a college-level linguistics class taught by a professor on Audible. There's actually a whole series of different lectures in different disciplines.
One of the lectures was about how languages change through semantic drift and vowels/consonants soften over time. A T becomes a D sound for example. What was really interesting to me, though, was when he discussed Shakespeare.
The professor said (and apologies because I don't remember his name and I'm too lazy to look it up) that if he goes to see a Shakespeare play at the theater without pre-reading it, he doesn't enjoy it and it's difficult to understand what's going on. He talked about seeing the faces of people in the theater at intermission and how so many of them didn't appear to be enjoying the experience. He said it's because the English language has had so much semantic drift from when Shakespeare wrote his plays to now.
As a Shakespeare geek, I'll confess this is true. I always pre-read his plays before I go to the theater because the professor is exactly right--the meaning of words has changed a lot.
The example he gave was Romeo and Juliet. That scene when Juliet stands on the balcony, Romeo on the ground below, and says: "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" He said that we take this as where are you, Romeo and we think it odd because he's right there.
But that isn't what she's saying. According to the professor, in Shakespeare's time, wherefore meant why. What she is saying is: Why are you Romeo? Which makes a lot more sense with the lines that came next about "deny thy father and refuse thy name." She's lamenting that he's a Montague and she's a Capulet, that their families are enemies, that they can't be a normal couple.
I ran into something similar in my Shakespeare class. In Hamlet, he tells Ophelia, "Get thee to a nunnery."
Of course, I took nunnery to mean convent and that made a kind of sense in context. Then I learned that nunnery was slang in Shakespeare's time for a whorehouse. That totally changed the meaning of that scene.
Even today, we see words change their definition. To my great dismay on some things, on others, I think it's a good thing. Like the word decimate. To me it means destroy, more than destroy. It means to all but wipe out the enemy or whatever. And I was corrected by someone who said decimate means to reduce by 10%.
Okay, maybe it meant that once, but look at dictionary.com now. That's a secondary definition, a signal of how the meaning of that word has shifted over time.
This kind of thing fascinates me--like I said, word geek--and I love regionalisms like pop vs. soda vs. Coke, etc. As you can imagine, I'm totally geeking out listening to this audio university lecture series and I have hours more to go. Yea!
One of the lectures was about how languages change through semantic drift and vowels/consonants soften over time. A T becomes a D sound for example. What was really interesting to me, though, was when he discussed Shakespeare.
The professor said (and apologies because I don't remember his name and I'm too lazy to look it up) that if he goes to see a Shakespeare play at the theater without pre-reading it, he doesn't enjoy it and it's difficult to understand what's going on. He talked about seeing the faces of people in the theater at intermission and how so many of them didn't appear to be enjoying the experience. He said it's because the English language has had so much semantic drift from when Shakespeare wrote his plays to now.
As a Shakespeare geek, I'll confess this is true. I always pre-read his plays before I go to the theater because the professor is exactly right--the meaning of words has changed a lot.
The example he gave was Romeo and Juliet. That scene when Juliet stands on the balcony, Romeo on the ground below, and says: "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" He said that we take this as where are you, Romeo and we think it odd because he's right there.
But that isn't what she's saying. According to the professor, in Shakespeare's time, wherefore meant why. What she is saying is: Why are you Romeo? Which makes a lot more sense with the lines that came next about "deny thy father and refuse thy name." She's lamenting that he's a Montague and she's a Capulet, that their families are enemies, that they can't be a normal couple.
I ran into something similar in my Shakespeare class. In Hamlet, he tells Ophelia, "Get thee to a nunnery."
Of course, I took nunnery to mean convent and that made a kind of sense in context. Then I learned that nunnery was slang in Shakespeare's time for a whorehouse. That totally changed the meaning of that scene.
Even today, we see words change their definition. To my great dismay on some things, on others, I think it's a good thing. Like the word decimate. To me it means destroy, more than destroy. It means to all but wipe out the enemy or whatever. And I was corrected by someone who said decimate means to reduce by 10%.
Okay, maybe it meant that once, but look at dictionary.com now. That's a secondary definition, a signal of how the meaning of that word has shifted over time.
This kind of thing fascinates me--like I said, word geek--and I love regionalisms like pop vs. soda vs. Coke, etc. As you can imagine, I'm totally geeking out listening to this audio university lecture series and I have hours more to go. Yea!
December 9, 2014
Anything Can Be Creative Inspiration
I get ideas from all over the place so that no two books really have the same spark.The vast majority of the time, it has something to do with the characters, but not always. And sometimes the blood starts pumping without any story or characters at all. Here are a couple of things I've had lately that have put my imagination in overdrive.
My guilty pleasure TV show--Ancient Aliens--always gets my brain spinning. Not with concrete ideas or stories, but just fired up imagination moments. I tell people all the time that I don't care if anything on the show is real, what matters is what it does for my imagination.
There are even weirder things that inspire creativity in some odd way. Sometimes it's just a feeling rather than mind-spinning excitement. For example, over the weekend, I saw a Mid-Century Modern home with furniture to match that period. And as I looked at the picture, I could feel this incredible optimism. Maybe that's what originally attracted me to this design trend--I can see the hope for the future, the brightness the designers must have felt to create these things/homes.
Which leads me to wonder when our view of the future changed from this 1950s, 1960s view to these dystopian apocalypses that we see everywhere now. It isn't new. This dark view of the future has been around at least since The Terminator. It makes me wonder.
And this is how creativity gets flowing: Seeing things (or hearing/sensing/smelling/touching) and the mind asking questions. Sometimes these questions lead to stories, but even if they don't, it's still a good thing because it causes ideas to flow faster when it is time to think about a story or scene or chapter.
My guilty pleasure TV show--Ancient Aliens--always gets my brain spinning. Not with concrete ideas or stories, but just fired up imagination moments. I tell people all the time that I don't care if anything on the show is real, what matters is what it does for my imagination.
There are even weirder things that inspire creativity in some odd way. Sometimes it's just a feeling rather than mind-spinning excitement. For example, over the weekend, I saw a Mid-Century Modern home with furniture to match that period. And as I looked at the picture, I could feel this incredible optimism. Maybe that's what originally attracted me to this design trend--I can see the hope for the future, the brightness the designers must have felt to create these things/homes.
Which leads me to wonder when our view of the future changed from this 1950s, 1960s view to these dystopian apocalypses that we see everywhere now. It isn't new. This dark view of the future has been around at least since The Terminator. It makes me wonder.
And this is how creativity gets flowing: Seeing things (or hearing/sensing/smelling/touching) and the mind asking questions. Sometimes these questions lead to stories, but even if they don't, it's still a good thing because it causes ideas to flow faster when it is time to think about a story or scene or chapter.
December 7, 2014
Mythbusting Life Hacks
Mental Floss took 30 life hacks that have been around online and tested them to see if they actually work. Now I know which hacks to use and which ones to ignore.
December 4, 2014
Why Isn't This Already a Thing?
In my house, I have flashlights that plug into the wall and also act as nightlights. They run on electricity until the power goes out and then it switches to battery. Already charged battery. I don't have to replace the batteries ever. They just charge whenever the power is on.
This got me thinking. Why don't smoke detector manufacturers build their equipment to do the same thing?
The smoke detectors are hard-wired into the house, but I still have to replace the 9 volt batteries because they start that incessant and horrible chirp when they get too low. It's like the most annoying thing ever, and because I have a fear of heights, this means I have to live with it until I can get the handyman to come out to change them.
It would just make sense that smoke detectors would use these rechargeable batteries like my flashlights. Can you imagine only hearing that chirp when the super long-lasting batteries finally needed to be replaced?
Can you imagine not having to spend a fortune on 9 volt batteries every year just to keep the smoke detectors from being annoying?
It would also guarantee that in the case of a fire, the smoke detectors would go off even if the power is lost because people disconnect them. When I was searching online for instructions on how to change the batteries, I discovered all kinds of information on how to disable the entire detector because people hate the low battery beep that much. Is this what we want to push some to do because of the stupid chirps?
Come on, smoke detector engineers! If my flashlight can work on a rechargeable battery, so can your device. This should already be a thing.
This got me thinking. Why don't smoke detector manufacturers build their equipment to do the same thing?
The smoke detectors are hard-wired into the house, but I still have to replace the 9 volt batteries because they start that incessant and horrible chirp when they get too low. It's like the most annoying thing ever, and because I have a fear of heights, this means I have to live with it until I can get the handyman to come out to change them.
It would just make sense that smoke detectors would use these rechargeable batteries like my flashlights. Can you imagine only hearing that chirp when the super long-lasting batteries finally needed to be replaced?
Can you imagine not having to spend a fortune on 9 volt batteries every year just to keep the smoke detectors from being annoying?
It would also guarantee that in the case of a fire, the smoke detectors would go off even if the power is lost because people disconnect them. When I was searching online for instructions on how to change the batteries, I discovered all kinds of information on how to disable the entire detector because people hate the low battery beep that much. Is this what we want to push some to do because of the stupid chirps?
Come on, smoke detector engineers! If my flashlight can work on a rechargeable battery, so can your device. This should already be a thing.
