Hergest Ridge

Another day slips into the past, the list of tasks assigned to it not so. Breakfast, trip to the doctors, pharmacy, store, then another, and another. The whole town is stocking up on supplies, an event akin to those that precede a powerful storm.

It’s nearly September and the last long weekend of the summer. There are those that leave the city for the lakes and need things for the stay, and those that prepare for the coming school year. Across the stores, the combination plays itself out on epic proportions.

An ice cream truck broke down in the street below, or so it seems. The music box sound which the vehicle produces can sound pleasant, but only as long as it’s getting closer or further away. We’re multiple runs into the same tune at volume equal those before, and there still is no sign of it going away.

Before I take another trip across town to celebrate another special birthday, I wanted to leave a quick mark here to keep my writing habit going. One thing I find frustrating about journal like entries is the number of times the English language forces one to use the word “I”. You may have noticed my loathing for I, with recent entries taking a journey through words, phrases and sentence structures that don’t require the “I-columns” for support. Until the time when all my journal like entries can be presented in a style less dependent on I, I suspect I shan’t write many of this type. (There you have it again - two more in just half a sentence! How absurd!)

Happy Birthday, Larissa!

Out of the birthday poems read, some corny, generic, ga-ga, others cliché, stuffy, recycled, none fit. Perhaps that is befitting in itself, considering the occasion. Birthday wishes should be as unique as those to whom they are addressed, and there is very little uniqueness in a set of verses pulled from a book or website.

With most close to me, I have the opportunity to express the well wishes in small bits throughout the year - a method much preferred. But the August 26th birthday is different, as it bears much of the weight of time passed with little opportunity for regular, direct expression.

Of course, the situation does not lend itself to a method of catching up; making up for lost time. With that understanding, sending my best wishes and hoping that they find the recipient in ways unique enough to make up for the lack of originality in the presentation.

Happy Birthday, Rebecca.

Imagine one religion is how the World Church wanted the world to hear and remember John Lennon’s “Imagine”. “John told them that they didn’t understand it at all.” To this day, there are reports that some in the US are broadcasting the World Church proposed version of the song, or omitting the line all together.

From “damned to hell”, to “darned to heck” - it’s probably the best polite slap of reality in situations where the audience is too sensitive towards set and very specific combinations of letters, which, by the way, depend on the context of language (meaning that ass in German - translating to ‘ate’, as in ‘ate a cookie’ - is fine with English speakers so long as not surrounded by English words. Incidentally, the pronunciation and spelling of the English word “ash” is a German curse word, translating back to English as “ass.”)

So what makes a curse word? The set letter combination, or the language that surrounds it?

Nostalgia knocked on the door today, and I invited her in. Taking me to remote corners of the Internet we read about the Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) of the old days. The journey was limited to PCBoard, but years ago the experience stretched from Renegade, to VBBS to Wildcat! software.

Network 23 BBS was popular for the live chat - up to five could spend 59 minutes per day messaging in real time, then you were disconnected opening the phone line to the next computer calling in. Castle BBS had a lot of popular door games, Sound and Sight BBS a lot of files. Above the Rim was a warez community with Sysops a couple years older than most callers, thus a very cool place to hang out with the older kids - those with relationship and ‘real life’ problems we’d have traded our modems for.

Leaving home for the lake was more difficult the first year after joining the BBS world. The week long adventure came only a couple months after I had connected my first modem (US-Robotics, 14.4 Baud, 16550 UART) to my first PC.

Eventually, calling in turned to receiving calls with the start of my own BBS, Ghost in the Machine (GITM). The phone technician looked puzzled when asked to put in three phone lines, side-by-side, all with a unique number and a sole outlet in the basement. I met and stayed virtual friends with Jan-Ice, Dennis, Katherine, Kubes, Sue, Xavier, Brad, and others, none of which are around today but for that space where memories are kept. GITM BBS received over 54 thousand phone calls, with the daily reaching 111.

These early stages of computering led me eventually behind the scenes of the young Web and the Internet. And while I miss the days of searching for a better init string, adding new files for download, being Sysop paged, and making a new Main Menu… I think the PCBoard disks and manual will stay in the box on the top bookshelf, where they’ve been since the mid 90s.