Published by Michael Johnson
Quote: “illusion of progressâ€
I stumbled upon this qute tonight and it really struck me as indicitive of the way my life has felt this year. I can’t even explain exactly how I stumbled upon it. So I’ll simply offer it up and see how it strikes you.
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.
The quote is by Charlton Ogburn from “Merrill’s Marauders: The truth about an incredible adventure” in the January 1957 issue of Harper’s Magazine.
Blackraspberries are in
mjohnson16 posted a photo:
August 24, 2008 - We are starting to pick black raspberries from the back yard in Nobleboro, ME.
Summer winding down
Erica is picking blackberries in the backyard. They are delicious! I was afraid we would not have many as the bettles had eaten most of the leaves. I got a late start on getting rid of the bugs and couldn’t keep up through all the rain we had in July and August. But it looks like we will get a few quarts in the next week or so. In all likelihood they will be eaten raw or perhaps mixed into a batch of pancakes. Erica loves fresh fruit so much I doubt we will be able to freeze any for a future use. But that’s okay, I like them too!
July 16, 2008 - I spent the day at the Maine Highland Games at Thomas Point Beach in Brunswick, ME, helping out my friends presenting a timeline of soldiers of Scotland. I portrayed 7th Kings Own Scottish Borderers circa 1944.
Our very busy summer weekends are starting to slow down. Last week I spent a day out with the boys at the Maine Highland Games. This is the second year I turned out with Dave and Frank to help with the Soldiers of Scotland timeline. I had a nice time away from the family.
Deb and Erica were at the birthday party of Erica’s cousins. We all arrived home tired and worn out.
Erica and I have been fighting some sort of cold for weeks. Now we are really sick. Chest cough and sniffles. But we are suffering through.
Even sick we have not slowed down. We went to the Union Fair on Friday night and enjoyed some fair-food and rides. Neither Deb, nor Erica care much about the livestock. So I didn’t get much chance to walk around the barns.
We painted the house yesterday. Deb wanted something lighter than the slate gray it was. Now its a bit too electric blue for me. Turquoise is a good description maybe. Hopefully this morning we can start painting the trim and clean up the mess. Plus I need to mow the lawn.
The Windsor Fair starts today. I think we will head up one night this week.
We have a birthday party to attend next weekend. Then nothing planned until Fryeburg Fair the end of September.
Clone Wars was good
I saw Clone Wars on Saturday night. The short review is that I liked it and had a good time.
It’s fun and lively. The movie assumes you are a Star Wars fan and knows what is going on. Plenty of Clone on Droid action and battle scenes. Of course it’s all animated and still enjoyable but a bit too cartoon like at times. On a few occassions the combat is close quarters and becomes unbelievable, even for Star Wars.
I won’t get into critiqueing the plot. There is plenty of spoilers on the ‘net if that is what you are looking for. But I thought I’d post to say that I enjoyed it. If you are a Star Wars fan then you might as well.
2008 Maine Highland Games
I spent Saturday at the Maine Highland Games at Thomas Point Beach helping flesh out the Soldiers of Scotland timeline. I was portraying the 7th King's Own Scottish Border's, paraglider troops, circa 1944.
I had a great time. This is the second year I've gone. This year I bumped into Mark Rohman and family, Scott and Heather Scroggins and daughter, and Mike Pratt and Robbie. Sorry Robbie, I don't remember your last name. It was great seeing friends!
We had six different kits that Scottish soldiers have worn from Boer War to Falklands. Plus we were encamped next to some Revolutionary War reenactors and below us were some ancient Scots. I think a good time was had by all.
King's Own Scottish Borderers Living historian
mjohnson16 posted a photo:
July 16, 2008 - I spent the day at the Maine Highland Games at Thomas Point Beach in Brunswick, ME, helping out my friends presenting a timeline of soldiers of Scotland. I portrayed 7th Kings Own Scottish Borderers circa 1944.
New Harbor, Maine
Basketball Hoop for Erica
mjohnson16 posted a photo:
My dad heard Erica ask me for a basketball hoop on Tuesday. After finding one at a rummage sale for $3.75, Erica has one today. She is well loved by her grandfather!
South Ossetia War thoughts
Unless you have been under a rock this week, you are probably aware that the countries of Russia and Georgia went to war over a plot of land in The Republic of Georgia called South Ossetia. You can read up on the details at Wikipedia or Mahalo is you want the quick edition. There is certainly plenty of news if you want more.
But there are a couple of comparisons of scale that have struck me that I thought I would share.
The Republic of Georgia is smaller than the State of Georgia. In fact it’s smaller than 40 of our 50 states.
The Republic of South Ossetia is smaller than the State of Rhode Island. For a more granual comparison for my fellow citizens of Maine, South Ossetia would fit inside Hancock County. Or for those in southern Maine who aren’t sure how big Hancock County is, it’s about the same as Cumberland, Androscoggin, and Sagadahoc counties combined.
In other words, it’s small! The United States of America is a big country and often we forget that fact when we hear the news from overseas. That historically much blood has been shed on very small patches of land should also not be forgotten.
I don’t mean to make little of a war. Only to put some perspective on the area being discussed. Something I have not seen the mainstream media do. I also have some other thoughts but am still mulling them over so I will save them for another day.
Test by email
Sorting out how to get email to Wordpress to not post a new email as
pending but actually publish. This is test 3. Cron is working fine.
Wordpress is getting the email fine. But it is not publishing.
Summer update
It’s been a really busy summer around the Johnson camp. The week we spent camping in July was perhaps the best weather of the summer so far. It’s pretty much rained 90% of the time since we got back from Connecticut. But despite the weather we have still be going pretty hard.
If you visit my Flickr page, you can see some of the pictures and video taken from the week camping and from Gabi’s birthday in Connecticut. I have a few public pictures there. Most are limited to friends and family only. Add me as a contact, I’ll approve you and you can see more pictures if you are interested.
Some of the highlights from our week at Lake Pemaquid Campground were the 61 pounds of lobster we had on Wednesday. The great weather. Karaoke night with Erica and her cousins singing “Best of Both Worlds”.
We then zipped off to Gabi’s birthday party. And we returned to Maine absolutely exhausted. Frankly, I’ve not recovered since.
A week later we spent a lovely day at Pemaquid Lighthouse.
The training-wheels are off Erica’s bicycle and she is doing well with that. I really didn’t expect to have to do that until next summer. But she was popping wheelies in the driveway and that seemed like a sign that we needed to increase the challenge for her.
I’m drowning at work with all that summer in a public schools has to offer. But school will start weather I am ready or not. There is just too much to do and not enough people to do it.
Deb is also feeling the weight of work these dys too. He company is changing the backend software that runs everything and she is intimately involved with that. Looks like long hours are ahead for her.
The upcoming weekend is the only free weekend we have this month. Then you can find me at the Highland Games on Aug. 16 and Deb and Erica are going to a family birthday party wthout me.
Training Wheeels Are Off
mjohnson16 posted a video:
July 27, 2008 - Erica's bicycle lost it's training wheels today. Still a bit shaky but doing well.
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Wordpress iPhone App
I just added the Wordpress app to my iPod Touch. This is a quick test post. So far so good.
Attack survivors battle on
Attack survivors battle onSource: kennebecjournal.main...Will Guerrette talks about injuries to his left eye from a May home invasion attack during an interview on Tuesday afternoon. Because of a wound just below it, Guerrette said that he can't blink that eye. Popular Maine comedian Bob Marley to perform at benefit for the Guerrette family.Lobster is ready
Michael killing Lobster
Identi.ca review
A week ago, a new micro-blogging service sprang onto the scene. Identi.ca is like Twitter but with a very different theology behind it. Identi.ca is built upon the open source project Laconica. It hopes to allow for a distributed network of Laconica installed websites to share posting under an idea called federation. It hopes to allow for installation on most typical shared hosting plans. During registration you are even required to agree that all your posts be released under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. It doesn’t get much more open than that!
I don’t claim to understand what all this means yet. I haven’t spent any time looking at the underpinnings yet. But I like the goal.
What I do want to reveal is some pretty cool tools if you decide to try Identi.ca or if you decide to install your own version of Laconica.
If you know and love RSS then you will really like Identi.ca.
- You can visit and subscibe to my posts at:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/ - If you want a RSS feed of everything I am writing:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/rss - If you want to see just people who reply to me:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/replies/ - If you want an RSS feed of just people who reply to me:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/replies/rss - If you want to see me and everyone I subscribe to:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/all/ - If you want an RSS feed of me and everyone I subscribe to:
http://identi.ca/mjohnson/all/rss - You can even pull an RSS feed of search terms:
http://identi.ca/search/notice/rss?q=Maine
http://identi.ca/search/notice/rss?q=football
It supports Jabber so you can get notifications to and you can post from your GMail or other Jabber account. Evan, the developer, says SMS may be coming but has no timetable that I have seen.
So far I love Identi.ca! I still love Jaiku but since Google has closed it off with invite only registration I fear it will stagnant. The idea of an open platform feels much more comfortable. And Twitter is, well, not a reliable product and since it has turned off IM support is worthless to me.
If you are exploring micro-blogging or maintaining a presence online then check out Identi.ca.
