Dogsitting2, originally uploaded by love not fear.

“No human relation gives one possession in another… every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship and in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.” Kahlil Gibran

Dogs, however, are a different story.

PhotoBooth “fisheye” effect enabled.

Crocuses, originally uploaded by love not fear.

Have been insanely busy at work as we near our Friday deadline, so I’ve let some things slide. Wanted to take a minute to smell the flowers, though, today.

…and I forgot to post. here it is, a day late…

Creative Commons license upheld by court

Good news indeed. And just in time for my Tuesday photoset.

(Click for slideshow)

Lina hid coyly when Kade arrived in his truck to take her home. She’d spent all afternoon with us and had said very little. I was not surprised, as I sat in the rocking chair on the porch, (badly in need of paint) when she peeked her head round the lamppost near the shrubs at the side of the porch.

Kade spoke in quiet tones to Mother and Lina watched from behind the pole, twirling the frayed yo-yo string in her tattered fingers, endlessly fraying it further, so that if it were attached to a yo-yo it would never return the toy to its master’s hand.

Father’s footsteps sounded on the porch above me, the one that was only accessible from his bedroom. Kade and he had spoken only twice since Lina had come to stay with us, and I could smell the smoke from his pipe merge with sweet huckleberries as he paced the wooden boards above my head.

I tried to pay attention to the deer near the wood’s edge as they hovered near the dark. A mother and her fawn had rushed into the wood when Kade pulled up, but had cautiously ventured back out into the clearing to slowly make moves toward Mamma’s lettuce and tomatoes.

The deer where not enough to hold my attention, so that I became restless, playing with the change in my pocket, loosening my tie, rocking and sucking ice from the empty glass which was once full of Mamma’s homemade lemonade.

She (Mamma) became suddenly shrill. I heard her say to Kade that Lina would not be leaving this house in her condition. Not today, not ever, until Kade came to his senses.

Sunlight glinted brightly off the wing of the plane. Passing over the Rocky Mountains, I could see the ugly cuts of road made in the forests by the logging companies. The Blackfoot River snaked lazily beneath me, and clouds hovered without intention above the now still-green and untouched forests of the Bob Marshal. Snow still clung to some of the higher peaks, but the moisture was scarce this year and many of us were sharpening our Pulaskis in anticipation for a bad fire season.The plane was half-full according to the woman at the ticket counter, but it seemed less so than that. The pimply red-faced girl with the too-new maroon hoodie had removed her shoes and curled up across two seats with a blanket. I couldn’t stop looking out the window at the clouds, the mountains, and the land – acre upon acre of dull green and brown, hungry, it seemed, for fire.

Clouds a blanket of cotton-white shielding us from the chaos below. Could almost feel the angry heat burning through the cumulous.

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Not a full flash fiction today. Wrote this little bit the last time I flew. Figured I’d post something today, as I promised I would post on Mondays, but also wanted to slack off a little, as I want to take it easy on my birthday.

El Jefe started it. Now it’s an addiction almost as bad as laying it in.Greater Than.

Then FuBar starts up something just as great, Retro Greater Than.

In that spirit….

nocturnal>daytime
Universal>Rosetta*
Bookmarks>del.icio.us**

*Mozilla recently released Camino, which is the new Mozilla browser for the Mac, and it’s Universal (I have an Intel iMac G5, for those of you who forgot, or for those of you who don’t come around here much). I figured I’d give it a whirl. It’s faster than Safari. It’s not as robust as Firefox, but then it never claimed to be. I’ve used it to get my bookmarks organized**, but will ditch it after tonight.

**While I love the idea of tags and social bookmarking that del.icio.us supports, I really like being able to organize things into folders locally as well. Maybe I’m just not a savvy del.icio.us user. The reason I need to organize my bookmarks is that I’ve had about 4 bookmarks.html files sitting around on my local machine as a result of CNTRL-D-ing instead of del.icio.us-ing over the course of the past year since my laptop crapped out on me.

AFFINITY

Before I rant too hard, to be fair, we should take a look at the Usage Note Dictionary.com provides:

Usage Note: In the sense of “attraction,” affinity may be followed by of, between, or with. Thus one may speak of the close affinity of James and Samuel, or of the affinity between James and Samuel, or of James’s affinity with Samuel. In its chemical use affinity is generally followed by for: a dye with an affinity for synthetic fabrics. One might want to avoid using affinity as a simple synonym for liking since 62 percent of the Usage Panel rejects the example [emphasis mine] Her affinity for living in California led her to reject a chance to return to New York. Nevertheless, the more sophisticated tone inherent in this use of the word can lend an archness to certain contexts, as when Barbara Tuchman writes of Kaiser Wilhelm’s‚“affinity for coarse physical jokes practiced upon his courtiers.” This may be why 65 percent of the Usage Panel approved of this quotation when it was presented as an example.*

*WTF? Their sample base can’t be more than 100%, yet 62 + 65 = 127. Something’s wrong here. Language people ain’t mathematicians, eh?

Fair enough. That being said, most folks who use this word are trying too hard to sound smart. Have a look at the definitions and see if you agree with me.

ALAS

No one uses this word in speech without a hint of sarcasm. Not anyone I know. People who use it in writing, again, are trying to sound sophisticated in the sense of

so·phis·ti·cate: To make impure; adulterate.

They are watering down the language with unnecessary verbiage.

ANYWAYS

From the Cajun World Dictionary: “Anyways” A Yat word meaning “And, then” or “and, so”.

I don’t know many Cajuns. What people mean to say is ANYWAY. What they should do instead is remain silent, as often the word is a filler for an uncomfortable silence in which they have nothing to say.

/RANT