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The obituary for Linda’s brother Charles is up at the Clovis News Journal online:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/cnjonline/obituary.aspx?n=charles-dean-widner&pid=133116221

I added the following memory of Uncle Charles at the site:

Linda Widner and Charles had a special relationship, and Charles was very protective of his little sis. When I started dating Linda Widner in the mid-80s, I was concerned about three things; offending God, disappointed her parents (the Bobs), and antagonizing Uncle Charles.

What I remember about Charles was his sense of humor, his ability to do practically /anything/ (I still remember the time we walked around the Bob’s home in Conchas Dam and nearly stepped on a rattlesnake sunning itself – we backed up real slow and careful-like, and Linda’s dad came and took off the head of the snake with a shovel. Charles skinned the snake and made me a belt).

In recent years, Charles drove truck over-the-road and stopped by to visit us in Wisconsin where we live. We met him at a truck stop on his way through and had a nice meal. We talked about laptop computers and his uncertain view of the future.

Not long after that, he suffered a physical ailment while driving his truck and nearly died. Family and friends flocked to his side but it was touch-and-go there for awhile. Later, as he slowly recovered, he squared things with the Lord. After recuperating with Bob and Bobbie, he was happy to get his own house in Clovis. I understand he enjoyed inviting people to go to church with him.

Charles called us a week ago Saturday out of the blue. We chatted briefly and I gave the phone to Linda. They chatted for thirty minutes. I haven’t seen Linda so happy in quite some time. Because we live in Wisconsin, Charles comically chastised me for not being out fishin’. He was intelligent, funny (in his own way), a heckuva cook, and as fierce an ally as a person could hope to have.

I never antagonized Charles with regard to taking care of his little sister—Linda and I celebrate our 24th anniversary this December. And I like to think that Charles is now in heaven, fishin’ with Jesus.

I used to read a lot. Voraciously. But I used to have neither television nor phone nor stereo, just a cassette tape boom box I got for High School graduation. Now, I have all these choices, and they all clamor for my attention.

This graphic is chilling. I realize the phrase ‘time management’ is a misnomer more correctly labeled as ‘self management,’ but the end result is the same. There are things I know I should change, but don’t currently know quite how.

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/17-08/by_media_diet#

Balance your media diet

For the record, I have not bought any videogames for myself yet this autumn, despite there being some really interesting ones hitting the market. Also, having a built-in one hour commute each way each day to work gives time to listen to podcasts. However, I think the real answer to why I’m not reading is simply that I’m not carving time out for it on my calendar, and that’s a crying shame. And I’m a lifelong reader! What’s going on for those people whom we’re trying to woo to become readers? Are we losing them, or should we find ways to put reading material in front of them in places where they already are?

What’s clear is that things are changing right in front of our eyes, and the publishing industry had better change with it or perish. So far, I generally like what I see from Tor.com (as distinguished from Tor itself as a dead tree publishing house). Baen led the way, but he died, and I don’t know if they remain as relevant in the wake of his passing.

In the process of making an eloquent argument for using fantasy as a way to play with a fictional character based on a real person, author Guy Gavriel Kay makes a fascinating observation. It is a throwaway comment issued on the way to making a larger, and different, point, but it caught my eye:

Do we value privacy in any real way? Thinking about blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace … all these suggest we value exposure rather more.

I wonder if one enjoys privacy at the expense of exposure, or vice versa, or if there is a way to segment one’s experience so that one may have both public and private components to one’s life.

For instance, I wear a wedding ring which is clearly observable in person or in pictures taken of me. That suggests things about me without getting into intimate detail. The current Judd Apatow film Funny People riffs on this same theme about the public and private faces of celebrities.

No, when I think about it, I think ‘exposure’ is the wrong word. I think the better word for public sharing via social networking is ‘community.’ In order for community to be successful, we have to put ourselves out there to a certain extent. That’s different than exposure (which, as a vibe, feels to me like the undesired publication of something private, a hurtful invasion of privacy). Rather, it’s more like ‘external presentation,’ something you put out there which is cleared for public consumption, and which is geared for community with others.

In other words, there is a time for personal privacy, and there is a time for publicly sharing something of yourself of which you decide the limits to, and neither concept is mutually exclusive. We can, indeed, be both public and private beings.

(As writers, I recommend reading the rest of Kay’s article, where he writes about how we can use Fantasy novels to write fictional works loosely based on historical people. He uses the example of how he based one of his characters on Spain’s El Cid figure for The Lions of Al-Rassan, a book I have started but not yet finished.)

E. and I left home around 11 am on Thursday, July 9th, from south-central Wisconsin to drive down to Chicago to meet SF author Cory Doctorow and see a stage production of his YA novel, “Little Brother.”

E. and Cory Doctorow

It was a great day for a trip. When we left town, I asked E. if he was interested in something to eat. He suggested McDonald’s. At just that moment, a semi with a McDonald’s logo passed us. We were amused. It would not be the last completely random timely circumstance of the day. Continue Reading »

I got this recipe (or a variation of it) from a co-worker at Parker Pen in Janesville, WI, in 1995. It’s been making my wife purr for thirteen years. She’s from the Southwest and really likes food that evokes the region.

What You’ll Need:

* Crock pot / slow cooker
* 4 to 5 lb. chuck roast (serves 4 to 6)
* 1 cup flour (for dredging, optional)
* 1 green bell pepper (sliced)
* Favorite seasonings (see suggestions)
* 2 to 3 tbsp. of olive oil
* 1 cup of water
* 5 beef bouillon cubes
* 1 box taco shells (we prefer white corn)
* 1 can refried beans
Continue Reading »

…and it was painless!

My full name is John E (for Elliott) Cook, son of John W. Cook. Some close family and friends called me ‘Johnny’ growing up. My career name is John Cook, and my casual name is Johne (with the middle E snugged up against the first name). It’s a deliberately ambiguous pronunciation which can be pronounced with or without the ‘e’ sound. Personally, I think of it as a silent vanity ‘e’, but I know some people who see it and resort to the Johnny sound, and that’s fine. It’s left up to the beholder.

You’ll note that whether or not you choose to use the vanity trailing ‘e’ in my first name, and whether or not you choose to pronounce it, there is no permutation where the trailing ‘e’ ever appears in my last name. There is no ‘Cooke.’ Ever.

That is all.

I bought some delicious seedless red grapes and was feasting on some in the kitchen yesterday while watching football, and my son, 14, came into the kitchen. I said, “Have you ever seen the grape trick?”
He said, “What’s the grape trick?”

I said, “Watch!” and smugly took a juicy, ripe grape, set myself, cocked my head back, and tossed the grape up into the air. It rose until it stopped in mid-air, and then fell in a perfect arc right toward my open mouth.

It bounced off my lower lip and fell to the floor. It bounced twice and rolled off to the side. One of my mini-dachshunds, McKenzie, trotted into the kitchen, wandered over to the grape, sniffed it, gingerly picked it up in her front teeth, strolled over to the rug until the kitchen window, and dropped it on the carpet. She applied pressure until she punctured the grape with her teeth, decided she liked the flavor, and knocked it back. She licked her doggie lips, sat her rump on the floor, and looked up at me.

“Are you done,” I said. She wagged her tail. “Don’t get used to it,” I said. “This will be the one.” She wagged her tail again.

Some people just have no faith.

I plucked another grape, got into my stance — one left forward, knees bent, head back — and gently tossed the grape into the air. Bounced off my mustache and hit the floor.

Kenzie hit that grape like a bass hitting a deerfly.

I tried again. The grape bounced off my teeth and flew into the sink. The next one rocketed toward the ceiling, rebounded hard, and hit me in the nose.

By now, Kenzie’s brother wandered in to join the manna from heaven, and started fielding grapes. I lost them off my cheek, my jaw, my elbow. Finally, I tossed a grape in a perfect arc, popped my head back even further, and the grape plopped neatly into my mouth. “See?” I said. “Nothing to it!”

My son was leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. “I see what you mean,” he said. “Doesn’t look so hard.” He went to the sink and plucked two grapes. “I think I see how this trick works,” he said. He held one grape in each hand. “Puppies, are you watching?”

They sat in unison — they were ready.

Ean juggled the grapes and then dropped both the grapes straight to the floor. The dogs darted forward and each grabbed one and trotted back to the rug.

I looked at Ean. He smiled at me. “Ta-daa!”

So my son is 14 going on 15 and has been growing like a fast-growing thing. Every day when I get home, he walks up to me and sketches out the difference between our eye-levels to see if he’s finally as tall as I am (I’ve been telling him for years that he’ll be taller than me). Tonight, he walked up to me in my bedroom, where I have a fan and a window-unit air conditioner going, and he was talking on speaker phone with his friend, so there was a lot of noise. He sort of saluted me and said, “I think I love you.”

I looked at him oddly, not because I had any trouble with the sentiment, but because he’s a teenage boy, a social creature not normally given to such brazen expressions of emotion. But, whatever. I said “I think I love you, too?”

He looked at me like I was crazy and started laughing his head off. Then he stepped closer and said, “No, I think I’M LEVEL WITH YOU.” He sketched the invisible eye-line again, and I realized we were comparing how tall he is to me, and not something else.

So I had to break out the song, “Wild Thing” at which point I said, “I think I love you.” He said, again, “I think I’m level, I think I’m level!” at which point I explained that’s the way the song went. He rolled his eyes in comprehension, said, “aaaahhh,” and went off to his room with his speaker phone and a confused friend, and repeated the whole story.

For the record, he’s still a hair shorter than me. But just a hair.

As a surprisingly content Vista user, I see nothing good coming out of this.

Microsoft’s new $300 million campaign (one of Redmond’s largest ever) is set to launch with a $10 million assist from “key celebrity pitchman” Jerry Seinfeld. Yes, Bill Gates will appear as well — the once maligned, rich corporate nerd turned adorable, rich humanitarian nerd. The campaign is said to be based on the idea of “Windows, Not Walls,” stressing the need to “break down barriers that prevent people and ideas from connecting.”

I have to think the real Steve Jobs is licking his chops. This campaign plays into his strength.

(Disclaimer: I want a full Mac Pro desktop running OS-X and XP through VMWare, but I have a wedding to pay for in May, so I get what I get, and I what I can afford is Vista preloaded on a cheap rig off-the-shelf from Best Buy.)