• goodbadi

    Meaning

    November 14, 2012

    My electoral relief in spite of my personal vote’s insignificance as only 1/1,191,420 of the Libertarians’ 1% that needed to be 5% in order to bring about any real change didn’t mean my computer problems went away. 


    In fact, the new monitor I ordered, as our old one had fallen into a state of compulsive self destruction, very quickly highlighted the fact that the video card I just installed to free my world of green tint doesn’t support high enough resolution, and isn’t really supported by my version of Vista, either: I’ve sent away for an upgrade to my video card upgrade.


    I’m also awaiting the new hard drive that I ordered as a replacement to one that I had ordered to replace my original; that first replacement, according to a computer lackey relative, seemed to be defective, so I coughed up the $2.80 to mail it back. Thankfully the price on Amazon for a new one had dropped enough so that even with having to pay shipping on the return, I’m getting a new one for, all told, a bit cheaper, by twenty-one cents. 


    And in the process of continuing to fiddle with my current hard drive, I realized that the original drive probably wasn’t very defective after all–I was able to recreate its most notable problem on my own, with just myself and my original drive, which I then had to restore from my backup for about the fourth time, twenty-hour process though it may be.


    In the midst of such noteworthy events, National Geographic sent us a ridiculously tempting offer to subscribe for a year plus freebies for just under $16, our now gravel-covered driveway courtesy of my grandparents makes coming to our house less an economic boon for the local Land Rover dealer and more cushy-cushy, and a furry little friend chose somewhere in our upstairs bathroom wall or ceiling to rest once and for all, perhaps knowing that only in such secluded death could its presence in our house be both noticed and unharassed. 


    Of course meaning in life comes less–if at all–from any such things, and more from moments such as these:


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  • goodbadi

    (Attempting) A Positive Spin on Our Lack of Progress

    January 18, 2011

    No wonder we never get ahead, someone pointed out to me recently after I complained that our current income is limiting our house remodeling: we live slow lives.

    In fact by some standards we live very slow lives. I commute by bike when, during these cold months, I could drive home in the time it takes me to change into my warm biking clothes. I limit work-related tasks that cut into evenings at home. M takes only minimal out-of-home employment. I prefer to preserve my summers off. We resist too many evenings away from home. We’re trying to turn off the computer by 8:30 at night.

    Keeping things slow, however, hasn’t dissuaded me from running a List: Put in new windows in the space of our future kitchen; build the future kitchen; re-floor our downstairs (and hey, why not the upstairs, too); turn the old kitchen space into a study; renovate the downstairs bathroom; build a deck/balcony; add a porch roof or two; develop our own water supply system; install a central vacuum; buy a Subaru, Jeep, minivan, shotgun, miter saw, new computer; and I’m only getting started. It’s a hopeful yet depressing endeavor, the List, since just saving towards projects is a long-term project in itself.

    But while our pace of life is certainly stunting our financial growth and house metamorphicating, slowness allows a certain accepting of the “fierce urgency of now” (I Have a Dream): Playing with and reading to N (for weeks some afternoons, it seems); singing with ourselves and a band; occasional writing; gardening; going to bed at a reasonable hour; eating home-grown food made from scratch; sitting in front of the toasty wood stove. And there are always free projects to do around the house, for when I’m needing tangible productivity. 

    I can only try to keep my dreams balanced between the part of me that wants to fix up the house at gut-wrenching speed and the other parts of my rich life that do     not afford financial progress yet are incontrovertibly priceless.

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  • goodbadi

    Watching TV

    November 28, 2010

    My parents raised us without TV, for which I am eternally grateful. That’s not to say that when I was a kid I didn’t crave television, and occasionally it becomes readily apparent–as it did at my parents’ this Thanksgiving–that my sister’s kids sometimes feel the same way:

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