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Moleskine

PenséesIn July I discovered Moleskines, quite by accident, due to someone mentioning them casually in a blog post about something unrelated. I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for an attractive notebook, but for the most part they tend to get a few pages used, and then languish on a shelf for months or years between uses.

I picked up a Moleskine large plain notebook on the way to Paris, and used it extensively while there, taking notes, writing observations, poems, notes to myself, and using the pocket to store ticket stubs, receipts, and other sundries. I came back with a wonderful memento of the trip, but also continue to use the book almost every day.

Since then, I’ve also acquired a pocket notebook from my Beloved, and this weekend picked up some of the cahier style notebooks for daily scratchpad use.

While it may seem a little silly to obsess over what notebook I use, I find that having a beautiful notebook – not to mention a beautiful pen – makes it much likelier that I will actually write something every day. And having something that fits in my pocket means that I always have it with me. In a very real sense, it is my voice.

It’s ironic that although I always have at least one computer with me, and often have two or three, and I have at least three different blogs (betcha didn’t know that, hmm?) it takes something analog to get me to actively journal.

LiDE 30 and the Mac

I have a LiDE 30 scanner, which is actually a fairly recent acquisition. It’s a nice scanner, in particular because it is entirely powered by USB, and so doesn’t need a separate power supply.

A few days ago I tried to get it to work on my Mac, which I assumed wouldn’t be difficult. I think I burned about 30 minutes on it total before giving it up as a bad job. There were a variety of different packages that claimed to do it, but none of them seemed to do much of anything, and none of them successfully recognized the scanner.

Anybody know of something that will get this working? It’s one of the new Intel Macs, and this actually seems to be the problem. I vaguely remember getting it to work on my pre-Intel Mac, but I just can’t remember for certain.

Crème Brulée

It seems that for the last 2 or 3 years, I have not had time to cook. There’s always something else to do. And cooking anything worth cooking takes time. So I’ve contented myself with simple fare, and dreamed of a day when I had enough time to cook the things that I really wanted to cook.

Things like crème brulée.

As a wedding present, we got a crème brulée kit, which included recipes, ramekins, and a torch, which is a miniature flamethrower. And who doesn’t like flame throwers, that’s what I want to know.

About a week ago, I made crème brulée for the first time, and since then I’ve made it twice more. It’s simple, fun to make, and so very yummy. And I get to use a flamethrower. What’s not to like.

And we made it once with dark chocolate lining the ramekins. Mmmm. Next I want to try raspberries. And white chocolate.

svn ci

Roughly 10 years ago, I was given commit access to the documentation of the Apache HTTPd Server. At the time, this was, in my opinion, one of the highest honors I had ever received. To be a contributer to a product used on more than half of the web servers on the planet – even at a time when hardly anybody had heard of the web – was indeed high praise.

Since then, I’ve become a member of the Apache Software Foundation, and that has replaced the commit bit as the highest honor received. I wear the badge of ASF membership very proudly, and there’s always a touch of hubris in introducing myself as “Rich Bowen, from the Apache Software Foundation.”

Each time I type ‘svn ci’ and make a change to the Apache docs, there’s a surge of pride that *I* am a part of *that*, and that the things that I do will help, quite literally, millions of people. I figured it would wear off after a few years, or get worn down by the politics and personalities, but, no, so far, it’s still there.

More about the rings

As I am wont to do of late, I’ve written something to explain my take on the meaning of the ring:

Tears from Africa
06-Aug-2007

How many of my tears come from Africa?

One thing I remember,
tears cried in a warm monsoon rain
are hidden, and can be denied,
attributed to God
as He waters His earth
in the deluge of His tears.

This one precious tear,
captured by my Beloved, and returned to me,
precious as the rarest tanzanite
entangled in the knots of our lives,
even as our lives are entangled in one another.

This one tear, as I was saying,
a reminder of all the others
cried in warm rains on a Turi hillside
for all the things lost –
things that seem so small in the distance,
but were so large, so heavy,
so chilled my hands as I held them up to warm
in the tears, overflowing from the
compassionate eyes of Mungu.

And now, glorious now,
someone to cry with,
someone with whom to be entangled,
some one with whom I may be one,
and this precious tear,
falling forever towards me,
close enough to taste.

So, there you have it. She wrote a poem about it too, back when she started designing it, but I won’t presume to post her version of it. Meanwhile, as long as I’m posting about this ring, I might as well tell you about the other one, too:

Grass
03-May-2007

A single blade of grass
here
wrapped around my finger.
This is what has been saved
from the years that the locusts have stolen.

It is enough.

And look,
suddenly,
there is grass everywhere,
even where there was none
before the locusts
ravaged everything.

Almost everything.

They left
this one blade.