A Riddle in Prose
Inspired by Mottel’s riddles, I decided to write one of my own, but in prose. (Here’s Mottel’s latest poetic quiz).
Someone is coming to visit me today. Someone I once interviewed for this blog. The name is in my Twitter stream.
• • •
In other news, the jury duty I mentioned in my Twitter stream got called off. I called last night, and my number was higher than the ones that had to show up. I felt like I had won the lottery. I could write a whole post on jury duty, but I don’t think I want to commit some of ideas to writing. I feel un-American if I say I don’t like the idea of a jury. Really, it’s that I don’t like the idea of my having to serve on a jury and listen. Besides, I have too many other responsibilities to be a good jurist. I think next time I get called for a jury, I will work on the elderly father excuse. My father (finally) got a new computer; I set it up for him on Sunday, and every time he touches it he has another tech support question.
And my brand-new 75-300mm Canon Lens had to get returned to Adorama yesterday, because I was getting an “err_99.” Taking a pencil eraser and rubbing the gold points on the lens did not do the trick. This was the lens that allowed me to captured the robin and swallow in my Nature Notes this week. I hope a new lens comes, without any error messages appearing soon after I get excited about how wonderful the lens is.
• • •
And in yet even more news, #themethursday this week is Typography. You don’t have to have a Twitter account to benefit. Go to http://search.twitter.com and put #themethursday as your search term. Enjoy the typography links! Love well-done typography. Something I’ve always wanted to learn in greater detail.
Robin says
What a shame about the lens, I hope the replacement arrives quickly.
Have fun visiting now that your jury duty's been called off.
Ilana-Davita says
It's a big responsibility to serve on a jury and I feel I'd be obsessed with whether I was doing the right thing or not. In addition local juries are very depresing, lots of incests and drug dealing around here.
What you write about your father sounds very much like mine. But I must admit that he has improved.
Leora says
Ironically, he spent all of his working life in the computer industry, working as a programmer and then as a technical writer.
He likes to do everything just right, so he questions everything he does. He's the opposite of my middle son, who takes the plunge into things without worry. But his short term memory isn't what it used to be; forgetting a password two minutes after one enters it makes computer life complicated (even if you write it down, you have to remember which one is which and for what).
Ilana-Davita says
My father uses the same password (my mother's nickname) for everything!
Leora says
Here's a post on how to create a secure password:
http://www.techthunder.in/2009/01/how-to-create-tough-password-that.html
Unfortunately, that means one that is easy to forget. But he does have some good ideas.
It's easy for a hacker write a program to break a password with only alpha characters.
Ilana-Davita says
Great link!
Leora says
When I worked at MIT, there was a grad student (he's probably a full professor somewhere by now) who had written a program to figure out who had unsafe, insecure passwords. Unfortunately, my job as tech admin for my group was to inform people that their dog's name was not a secure password and could they please change it. Nowadays some programs won't even let you submit an insecure password.
Mottel says
Not sure who's coming . . . but thanks for the link! It looks like the riddles have become a bit of a Meme - as E also put one up on his blog.
phyllis says
i haven't got a clue who's coming....but i like the riddle idea:-) bummer about your lens but yay about the jury duty!
Ilana-Davita says
Klara?
Leora says
Yes, it was Klara! She and her husband left about an hour ago. I so enjoyed meeting her in person. She made me a miso soup with onions and brussel sprouts; I had brown rice already made, so we added shiitake mushrooms and broccoli rabe from my garden. And radish leaves from my garden.
I showed her my garden; maybe next year I'll grow kale, because she told me how wonderful it is to have fresh kale in your garden.
If any of you haven't "met" Klara (she's not a blogger, but she runs a Yahoo group for macrobiotics based in Israel), here's the interview I did with her last fall: http://www.leoraw.com/blog/2008/10/interview-with-klara/
Ilana-Davita says
I love kale. I wonder if it's easy to grow.
Leora says
Ilana-Davita, if Klara can grow kale in dry Israel, you can grow kale in rainy France. You might want to start after Pesach next year, however. It's a cold weather crop. Unless you want to try it in late August and see how long you can nurture it until frost. I don't have good luck with fall gardens; frosts come too soon.
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