There’s always a local angle on national news: The Salt Lake Tribune — Boy Scout decision disappoints LDS Church.
You know, if you’re going to support a an organization that discriminates against people, you’d better be prepared to pay for it yourself, rather than expecting subsidies from government or corporate entities that do not discriminate.
Waaah, I say. Waaah, waaaah, waaah.
Ben Saunders is on his way across the Arctic at last. Strangely, he’s got company, at least for the first few miles. There’s another expedition on the ice, and they were within sight of each other for a while.
He contributes a new word: “Shreezing.” It’s that cold up there, people.
I heard from an old friend today. Not via email, or voicemail, or textmail… I got an actual card in an envelope with postage. It seems she’s laid up after a foot operation and is convalescing at her parents’ house, and is feeling lonely and out of touch. I was talking about this tonight over dinner with David and Steve – we got together for some good old fashioned American comfort food at the Olive Garden (yes, yes, primitive irony). In a few minutes, I’m actually going to sit down and write a letter to her (or maybe I’d better type, my handwriting isn’t the best).
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Today a post in Caveat Lector sent me on a short excursion down memory lane.
Dorothea’s husband David is an expert in Sindarin (one of the Elvish languages), and consulted on the Lort of the Rings movies, as cited numerous places (but an interesting place is here.) She reports:
We’re hoping he can get the class list in advance, so that everybody can have a Sindarin name as soon as they walk in. This afternoon we picked up some chisel-tip pens (in distinctly un-Tolkienian shades of garish blue, orange, and pink, but they were the only real angled chisel-tip pens the place had) for everybody, to get started on calligraphy. I just placed Ebay bids on a couple of poster-size Middle-Earth maps with lots of juicy Sindarin place-names; plenty of fun stuff to do with those.
Back in 1977, I took a calligraphy class partly to improve my own handwriting, and partly to get the hang of working witih a chisel-point pen and improve my Elvish calligraphy. I didn’t make a linguistic study of the language at the time, other than puzzling over fragments of words and wondering if they were cognates with other fragments, and trying to work out possible translations (mostly guesswork, but fun with a decent “guide to Middle-Earth” handy).
Although I never did anything with using Elvish lettering for anything other than phonetically spelled “sekrit” messages on friends’ message boards in the dorms, it was a relaxing hobby, and much more challenging than ordinary italic calligraphy in English.
At the time, black chisel-point felt tip pens were just coming on the market, but Pilot fine-point felt tips were fine for some styles of lettering (for example, the lettering on the Ring inscription).
From the sounds of it, Dorothea and her husband may be using chisel-point highlighters – unorthodox, maybe, but easily embellished with black ink details here and there. The point (heh) is in getting the right angle, anyway. And that nice swooping line on certain strokes – very satisfying, once you get the hang of it.
Makes me want to dig out the calligraphy pen and ink set again; I’ve had several sets over the years. But in case I can’t find it, Michael’s and other craft stores carry the black chisel-tips.
And then, of course, for the third or fourth time in my 46 years, I’ll have to re-learn the letters, but this time there are a lot more resources besides the title page of LOTR and the tables in the appendix.
Not one, but two entries are up in September for the England travel journal. I’m slowly learning to work with images, with the help of the new book. I think I messed with one of them too much, and will fix it later.
A typical Sunday at Holy Moly. We had a substitute priest, as Fr. Lundberg is on the beach in Florida somewhere.
Our choir party-piece went off all right (a simple round: “When Jesus Wept”), although I blew the last line of the third repeat. However, I was singing third voice (of four) so I doubt anybody but Scott, the Ineffable Bass, noticed. Bob the organist played a variation on “Hylfrydol” by Ralph Vaughn Williams for the postlude – that seemed to go off well. After the service, he asked me to look into getting a small amount budgeted so he can buy some new music. This was a revelation to me – I hadn’t realized that lack of fundage might be the reason why he never tried playing anything relatively new. Seems he’s just been playing whatever music the previous organist left behind. I’ll mention it in the next meeting and see if we can get him a little extra something for buying new music.
We had about 40 people today – normal for us (frustratingly so). On the other hand, on Monday and Tuesday the Search Committee is conducting phone interviews with several applicants, so maybe we’ll have a new vicar in a few months. Yay!
A chore I’ve been putting off for a while is done – the website has been updated somewhat. I struggled with Front Page (ach!! ssss!! It burns us!) and got Photoshop Elements to do what I wanted with some little image-links that I needed to sharpen up. Gee, it helps to RTFM – in this case, to read a helpful resource book. I have one for Elements, but haven’t cracked open the one for Front Page (the inevitable “For Dummies” book, of course).
And yeah, I was inwardly thinking about how to accomplish switching the church website over to MT while outwardly appearing to listen to the sermon. Bad me.
Just now, David got a simple calendar program set up that I can use to show who is scheduled when for things like acolytes and Altar Guild… I think it might work for what we need to do. I have to tinker with it for a while.
I’m going back to bed. I went to bed really, REALLY early (it started out as an afternoon nap). I woke up a couple of hours ago; my back was hurting so much that finally I came downstairs for a sandwich.
As much as I liked our mattress when we got it, I have to admit I’m not getting the kind of back support I need out of it. It’s a pillow-top… probably should have gone with something firmer. Dammit.
On a related note, we went out and bought a new sofa and chair for the family room. It was the one I liked the best (also, the one with the best lower back support, so yay for that, too). Good deal on both – the price came down almost a thousand on each. They’re medium brown distressed leather, with big antique brass nailhead trim and “pub” backs – big soft leather pillow-like cushions on the backs, but with firmer cushions farther down. The armchair is super comfortable… wish we had room to get the matching ottoman, but we don’t.
They’ll be delivered Friday. With Scott’s help, we got the TV into the new entertainment cabinet last Friday, so the family room is substantially “done” except for getting some framed art and photos up.
Seen in “Get Fuzzy:” Rob’s wearing the livery of the Eye of Mordor.
In these post-movie days, if you want to make an obscure LOTR reference, it had better be something from the book that didn’t make it on-screen.
It wouldn’t be a travel agent’s desk without some wacky promotional cows, now would it? Here are a few from my personal herd, courtesy of Millennium Hotels.
They represent London, Los Angeles, and Beijing.
Why cows? Because Millennium’s code in agency computers is “MU.”
Via AKMA and others, the Church of England announces the formation of a virtual parish and is looking for a “web pastor.”
And just what is St. Sam’s? Chopped Liver?
(yes, yes, it’s the ANGLICAN mailing list, but their nickname is “The Anglican CyberParish of St. Sam’s)