Sunday Bells Issue 19 Harold

National Geographic Vol. 2 Review

The 1890 National Geographic is something of a dry read but I found a few gems in the old pages like fish-fat being made as butter and an explorer throwing things at a walrus. However, I think even National Geographic knew back then that it had to step up it's game and the plan they laid out in issue 5 of volume 2 was to publish more frequent shorter volumes rather than four long ones.

I have to say I agree with that plan. 

Who should read this book: Lovers of history. 

Total Books Read: 13 of 5,000

Pages 339

Total Pages Read for 'The 5,000 Project': 2,459

Loose Lips - Russian Proverb

 

The Old Machine

1^st February 2015

Dear Cassi,

       

I recall I once told you of my first computer. I cannot recall if I mentioned the events leading up to the fail of my word processor which was an old silver gray thing with a blocky body. In short it broke and needed fixing in length it wasn’t worth keeping around, but an important part of this was my depression.

       

It took me forever to do anything at the age of fourteen. I could hardly lift my hands to type and so it would take me all day to write anything. A great question is ‘why I lived my life as a cold sack of meat?’ and I haven’t any real answer. One possibility is that I had a vitamin deficiency, another that I was just depressed, but the question is irrelevant now.

       

There was an assignment over the summer, the first assignment of high school English, to read ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens and then pick out quotes to talk about in a paper. I remember having to build a fort of books to get this done. I couldn’t lift my hands far enough to type and so made a structure that would permit my hands to rest on the keyboard while I was lying down.

       

Now the old word processor was a hand me down from my two older siblings and it should have been a few years past its life expectancy. It didn’t take well to my slow workings and all that time running and conked out.

       

My homework was trapped on the proprietary file format of that old contraption, and we had to get if fixed. I did try showing my teacher the disk and having him try to open it, but that proved fruitless. We had the machine repaired, and I got my work turned in but the word processor failed a second time.

       

It was at this point I pushed for a computer and got Alan’s normal response ‘now is a bad time, there’s too many new things coming out.’ I looked at him and said ‘there are always new things coming out’. In a week I had a computer.

       

As an odd note, he took the word processor to be used by my step siblings and I never saw it again. Good riddance, they had a computer but it was rather old and, as I recall, had no hard drive.

Never fear change, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Room with a Smell

 

A Broken Friendship - English Proverb

A Promise - Irish Proverb

A Man Prayed - Soren Kierkegaard

Fourth Grade Rats by Jerry Spinelli(Book Review)

'Fourth Grade Rats' is a novella written for fourth graders about Suds, a kid who loves the bathe so much he got a nick name out of the practice of bathing.

Suds has just entered Fourth Grade and is now a rat thanks to a poem or chant created by the children. Now as a rat his friend Joey is teaching him how do rat and misbehave.  

Given that this is a scholastic book we all know how this is going to go and its not good. This book shows Suds as a pushover who does what he is told by others and I dislike that so little attention is place on him trusting himself and not others.

Being a rat should just be a dumb song and he just goes along with what other people tell him to do which gets him in trouble.

In the end, I found this book to be forgettable with very little that stood out. I understand that this book was designed to get kids to read but it isn't trying very hard.

Who should read this book?: People looking for a quick read.

Total Books Read: 12 of 5,000

Pages: 84

Total Pages Read for 'The 5,000 Project': 2,120

An Innocent man

I said this yesterday on YouTube and it left an impression. Let's all remember that we are all family in the end.

 

"An innocent man has no wish to be reminded of the crimes of his brother and all humanity comes from Africa. Remember that when you speak of the ills of man, brother, for we are all branches of the same tree no matter the color of our skin."

The Chair

I never finished or mailed this letter. I had been harassed by my work until I was so angry I took the chair I talk about home and filed a report regarding my back problems making them buy me a chair that worked.

I worked at a homeless shelter and so I wanted to make my work place worth working at without costing money to the homeless. Little did I know that management was putting that money in their pockets and getting angry with me for helping the homeless.

In the four years I worked with these folks it became clear that they wanted the problem of homelessness to be as bad as it could be because that was good advertising for them.

Well, they had to replace my chair but they eventually terminated me. I guess they win in the end, but at what cost? Is my life better for not working at a place that gave me trouble because I gave them a chair? Yes, I guess it is.

25^th November 2013

Dear Cassi,

       

A point you may recall about a year ago is my going to the doctor to see about my back. I felt that the doctor blew this out of proportion, but I had to pick up a few things to make my life a little more ergonomically sound. Among these was a chair I took to work.

       

Now mind you that this chair was in my home when my kittens were very young and they made a few dents in it before I could take it to my work station. It didn’t make much difference as the chair they brought me bent at the stock and so was unusable. So I made a donation of a fine office chair with good back support with a few scratches to my work.

       

This by nature was a bad idea as the chair soon felt the hard use of inconsiderate folks and sometime last month began having issues. A bolt had come loose on the left arm rest and needed to be tightened. Rather than do this the folks at my work wheeled my chair into the printer room and I believe intended to toss it before I took it back home.

Private Person’s Arrest

24^th October 2013

Dear Cassi,

Today I made my first private person’s arrest. It’s a funny thing about that, you see, I made this arrest on duty as a security officer when the person was clearly guilty of trespassing.  The police knew that my company would never press charges, but the person in this case had laid hand on me.

       

It started with the common event of someone coming to the front door of the building and looking like they needed help. As the intercom system is out I could do little, but let him in to communicate but as he was shirtless and rather grubby I thought he had been in a fight and needed help. When I open the door he said he needed the police and I said I would call them. He then asked to use the restroom, and I said I couldn’t let him in. Management had made a stink about that lately and they felt mercy took second seat to safety. I can’t argue the point.

As is often the case he got agitated and, feeling entitled, started screaming. This happens. When you deal with the client population that I deal with things like this are just par for the course. I’m not sure if this man was just crazy or if he wanted to spend the night in a jail cell. Jail cells are more comfortable than the street and he needed a bath so bad that getting locked up wouldn’t have been as bad as his smell. 

He reached over the partition and smacked me on the chest prodding me do let him in, and I said if he did not leave he would be arrested.  We argued verbally until the police came and cuffed him.

It was a hell of a thing to watch, he said he called them, they told him to tell it to the judge and then asked if I wanted to make an arrest. I said yes and the Officer took paperwork out of her shirt and filled it out. I signed it and they took him away.

Keep yourself, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Seen Teaches - Ralph Waldo Emerson