IdyllopusPress Presents

The equivalent of putting together any of the Legos builds H.o.p. was so fascinated by when he was younger, this Christmas Eve was spent toiling over connecting his DSi to the wifi so he could procure the coveted Rayman game. First efforts were failures which led to me searching the internet on the issue and finding many many such disappointments. But eventually, thankfully success was had and that was reason enough for hearts and wearied nerves to celebrate.

Between attempts, on our way to pick up our yearly Chinese-American take-out, we drove neighborhoods in the rainy wet looking at blurry lights, there seeming to be not as many displays as in years past–not even the ordinary variety–which makes sense, so many houses up for sale in this area and more rental signs than I’ve ever seen, my assumption being all to do with the economy. Where we did find decorations they were most often little enclaves of two or three homes that had gone all out in similarly over-the-top displays for the touring motorists, a couple of other homes nearby satisfied with candy canes or icicle lights. With apartment buildings, there would usually be one festive window or balcony–much the same as ours. Our window is the only one I’ve observed lit up in our building. As with last year, we hung light blue lights and made large paper snowflakes to hang in the window beneath them, the effect being rather peaceful and serene.

At my insistence, we made two passes by a brick house on a hill done in strands of deep red and blue lights. Most lights twinkle and brightly illuminate. These did not. Despite the lights strung around the roof line, the windows, the stairs, the house was all dark shadow behind the lights, because they didn’t radiate, reminding me of some house displays I’ve not seen since the 60s, nor thought about, so it was a surprise to me that memory sprang forward, entranced by those dark lights.

We ate and opened fortune cookies handed out eagerly by H.o.p. who was a lead player and cohort with Marty in spreading Christmas cheer this year. His read he would have a change for the better. Mine simply advised me to take a walk in the park. Marty’s said he would soon be traveling the desert on a fun vacation. Later, H.o.p. offered another round of fortune cookies. This time my fortune read I would have talent and suitable recognition for it.

When we could have entertained ourselves with Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, we instead watched Christmas cartoons on Boomerang and the Cartoon Network because H.o.p. was having fun laughing over how bad they were, nearly all of them cartoons relying on old Looneytunes and Hanna-Barbera characters for viewer interest, and not an iota of wit or imagination to them.

And it was all good.

We had a blog disaster. After much ado, the blog is back, and I think most of it is intact, excepting images that were tucked away in the wp-content folder that I overlooked. And some old photo galleries from the first couple of years. I need to get those back up in some form and also check links here and there on posts to make sure they’re reading correctly.

Hacked! Yes, hacked. The blog was hacked, likely a while back, but I was stupid and didn’t realize that the drop to zero of search engine referrals signaled the hack. Discovery of it came about only because I paid attention to a peculiar search item that brought someone here, followed that, for some reason looked at the cached page of the search, and was surprised to see hundreds of obnoxious links sitting above my blog post, links that were never observed on the blog itself. That rude bit of information led to ditching of databases and assorted other maneuvers and many things acting weirdly and freaking me out.

Finally, the blog was back up, but there followed the discovery that my exported xml file of the text content was too large to import. Wpsplitter salvaged what remained of my sanity, enabling me to split the XML file into multiple files. An absolutely painless process and I’m fortunate that I found it.

Along the way I lost my blogroll. Kaput. I don’t know where it went but the links are no longer there.

I’m tired. I have spent nearly a week laboring at this and am not done yet. Issues are still being worked out, and I have some fiddling yet to do with the CSS. I switched over to the newest Comic Press theme and don’t care for the menu bar or the fonts. Have to get that worked out. And I’m being indecisive now about whether to do the big picture format at the top which I was using or make it smaller, which is the option I’m using at the moment. I’ll probably revert back to the big picture option as soon as I’m posting this.

2009 December Mountain Road

This 1958 Disney cartoon envisioned all kinds of fun things about the magic highways of the future. The weirdly graphic smear on the road, however, is deriving no more enjoyment from any of them. Thanks, Disney!

They like to burn trash in the mountains. We drove around some Chattanooga countryside yesterday and saw numerous “back yard” fires, probably leaves, branches and brush. I read there’s a burning ban from May to September and I guess after that one could torch their house if they were so inclined. But not during May through September.

I’m ever the fan of car window views and their reflections. This is Mr. Bill’s Restaurant up somewhere around a place called Soddy Daisy in Tennessee.

They put this up in 2008 at Atlantic Station, between the Publix and Ikea. $20 million worth of arch. And I’m still struggling to come up with the appropriate words. Must say that I’m glad it’s there. It’s confusing. It looks completely out of place. It strikes one as nothing more than an extreme gateway to Ikea. And yet I’m happy to have it there, maybe because it is so confusing.

Beautiful clouds preceded cooler air by the space of a quick meal. Someone with a view from a skyscraper would have gotten wonderful shots. Down on the street, I tried, but came up empty.

We went to the Gold Exhibit at Fernbank today, organized by the American Museum of Natural History.

Indeed, there were some lovely things on display, the most impressive being perhaps examples of natural formations of gold and quartz. If you are anxious to see old ingots lost in shipwrecks, purchase pirate hats and pan for gold for about $5 in the gift shop, you’ll not leave disappointed.

What ended up being interesting to me was the history on gold that was omitted. For example, in the section on the Black Hills gold rush, I pointed out to H.o.p. that they made no mention of the Black Hills gold find resulting in the bringing in of troops and theft of land confirmed as Dakota, Lakota, Nakota in the 1868 Treaty of Ft. Laramie. A paragraph was given on the 1874 Custer Expedition but nothing as to meaning, absolutely no historical context. Instead, a yard away there was a little fake bridge with a slab of plexiglass in the middle through which one could look down and see a fake stream bed with a few gold sparkles glimmering.

Yet in the Georgia Gold Room they did have history on the Georgia gold rush and the dispossession of Cherokee land, a long film there flatly speaking of the stealing of the land. This room was put together by Fernbank.

So, I left questioning why Fernbank made this allowance but the American Museum of Natural History didn’t even begin to approach the real history of gold.

Painted Desert Inn, Stairway to Old Hotel Room Entrances

Was watching a little of the movie in which Judy Garland plays a Harvey Girl and was reminded of the Painted Desert Inn, which was a Harvey institution during the late 40s through early 60s. I returned to those photos and worked on a few more, including this one of a small external stairway that leads past entrances to a few of the old hotel rooms. Intended to be viewed large. Loads of grain.

Painted Desert Inn, Back Patio

Painted Desert Inn, Dining Area

There’s interesting info elsewhere on the internet about the paintings by Hopi artist, Fred Kabotie, decorating the walls of the inn.

Painted Desert Inn, Stairway to the Lower Floor (where the old soda fountain was located)

Painted Desert Inn, Exterior Shot

Painted Desert, View from the Painted Desert Inn

It really is a beautiful, little inn and I envy those who were able to make use of it as an inn, or just a place to stop and get lunch or a malted at the soda fountain.