| Your Birthdate: April 15 |
| With a birthday on the 15th of any month, you are apt to have really strong attachments to home, family and domestic scene.
The 1 and 5 equaling 6, provide the sort of energy that makes you an excellent parent or teacher. You are very responsible and capable. This is an attractive and an attracting influence. You like harmony in your environment and strive to maintain it. You tend to learn by observation rather than study and research. You may like to cook, but you probably don't follow recipes. This number shows artistic leanings and would certainly support an talents that may be otherwise in your makeup. You're a very generous and giving person, but perhaps a bit stubborn in ways. |
cold, sad and lonely
Added two polls to Trekweb: Who's your favorite Captain? and Who's the best Batman?. (To view, you may need to register with the Trekweb forums.) I've spent most of today trying to heal, taking Nyquil and Extra Strength Tylenol as well as my regular vitamins.
I've been a little down in the dumps lately. A little lonely. A huge part of me wants to wipe the slate clean and start afresh with relationships and acquaintances I've formed over the years.
In particular, the friendship that I once had with Sheila bothers me - we used to be great friends, maybe more (I'm not sure) - but one day, I know I got frustrated and I sent her some e-mails that definitely changed the dynamic. I was trying to be honest, and I don't even remember exactly what I said, but it upset her so much that she thought I was a horrible person. 2 years later, I don't even care who was right or who was wrong, it doesn't matter but it does hurt when I hear from a friend of mine who met her, and when they talked about Kwantlen and who they knew from Kwantlen when he asked do you know Steve and she answers unfortunately yes, that hurts. In the end, I think she is an amazingly smart, bright, fun, exciting young woman who I respect a lot - in spite of whatever words we had so many years ago.
And the student association has had such a long history of people backstabbing other people and saying horrible things about other people without trying to find the good in each person - the good that each person who gets involved in the student union of just wanting to do things better for students. I know I've been involved in that back and forth and I regret some of the things I've said. And it pains me that some of my closest friends have had some really horrible, cruel things said about them - and for what purpose? To what end? Definitely in never helped improve things one bit for any student.
I don't know why people have to be cruel and vindictive towards each other.
Why can't people get along better?
Maybe I'm being very naive now - I dunno, but I just want to try and improve relationships in my life, for what is right, for what is good. Even my relationship with my Mother feels strained today cause she wants my room cleaned up and I'm feeling like crap still because of my week long battle with the flu but she keeps nagging me about it. Why do mothers always have to nag? How do I make something positive out of that? I tell her to not worry about it, to just leave it alone, that I will organize it and clean it up but it doesn't matter to her.
anyway, I am going to try and start working on cleaning up my room - I got a new hard drive the other day, going to install it as the primary master and make the old one, that is giving me issues again - the secondary slave and just format it and hopefully it will not give me anymore issues. I also got some new Monster Cable which I will install in my room today so I can finally get some TV back going in my room and do some video editing. I had hookedup my room with Monster just after Christmas but then wanted to hookup our living room with Monster so I took all the stuff from my room and used it in the living room, and never bothered to replace what I'd raped from my own room. While I do that I can get in behind my desk and dust and really clean that all up, in behind all the components, etc. Then hopefully my Mom won't nag anymore. So wish me LUCK on the install of the new drive - hopefully it won't go awry. It takes a good day to install Windows and all the programs I use...
bleh.
BLEH
Rebuild the Twin Towers!
I've been following the WORLD TRADE CENTER RESTORATION MOVEMENT, as I personally feel that the towers should be rebuilt as they were and to do otherwise simply lets the terrorists win. Today I'm posting on my blog copy of an Op-Ed column from the NY Times that was on the pro-rebuilding side -- the first they've ever printed -- that was only in the regional City section distributed within the five boroughs. It can be found here:
Build It Again
By GREG MANNING Published: June 12, 2005
"THE need to move the Freedom Tower set off a wave of dissatisfaction with the plans for ground zero that I hope builds until it sweeps away not just the tower, but also the "Reflecting Absence" memorial and the surrounding sloped-roof skyscrapers.
Why? Because the current plans for ground zero are flawed. They have nothing to do with 9/11. They recall a tragedy that occurred in the sky by focusing our memories on a hole in the ground. After three years spent seeking alternatives, the most appropriate way to commemorate the tragedy at the World Trade Center is, as Donald Trump suggests, to rebuild it.
I say this as someone who, along with my wife, Lauren, worked in the twin towers. I was with Euro Brokers on the 84th floor of the south tower, and Lauren was a partner at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the north tower. I was late that morning, so I was not there when the second jet tore through our trading floor. But Lauren was engulfed by the fireball that blew out the lobby of the north tower after the first plane hit. She managed to run outside, where a bond salesman helped extinguish the flames and start her on her grim battle to survive her burns.
Hundreds of our friends and colleagues died in the attacks. So for us it has been frustrating to see officials make redevelopment choices that do little more than finish off the demolition of what used to be.
Daniel Libeskind's design was dominated by the 16-acre void he saw on his first visit, an artifact not of Sept. 11, 2001, but of eight months later. He gave significance to the slurry wall, an architectural plumbing feature not visible until long after the destruction. His Freedom Tower mourns the lost New York icons with a spire that mirrors Jersey City's Exchange Place Center across the river; and the sloped roofs of the other buildings highlight the emptiness.
The memorial, "Reflecting Absence," is similarly misdirected, sending waterfalls tumbling to reflecting pools in underground chambers. The design and its revisions - among them repatriating Fritz Koenig's sculpture "Sphere for Plaza Fountain," which once proudly anchored the Trade Center plaza, only to bury it below ground - miss the point by forcing mourners into a subterranean warren.
When my wife and I visit or pass by the site today, we may gape at the emptiness but our gaze is drawn upward. We imagine things as they were, the dead and the injured still living and working above. Many bereft families view the footprints as the sacred repose of their loved ones, yet with the greatest tenderness and love for those lost and injured, we suggest that to return to the sacred space, we need to return to the sky.
It would be infinitely more poignant to visit memorial gardens on the rooftops of paired and rebuilt towers, to feel the winds that made the towers sway, to stand literally where our friends and loved ones stood, see the same sky they saw, the same twin panoramas of a glorious and vibrant New York. To share the context that filled their lives, not the earth that marked their deaths.
And rebuilding the towers liberates us to place the memorial park where it belongs: where the old World Trade Center Plaza used to be, with the sphere above ground, restored to the center. The sculpture's scars are real, not metaphorical. It honors not only the deceased, but also the injured survivors. And the circles of walls and benches that once surrounded it suggest a memorial that gives equitable tribute to all the brave people who died.
The firefighters, policemen and emergency technicians were courageous, but they were not alone. My colleague Jose Marrero helped another colleague to a floor in the 20's, then climbed back up to assist others and died. The bond salesman who helped save Lauren - and who survived - was one of the first rescuers on the scene.
We can never know the full heroism of those trapped in the towers, but we can extrapolate from the actions of the survivors of 2001 and the 1993 bombing. The 9/11 rescue workers ran into danger, and that distinguishes their sacrifice. But the memorial can't leave unremarked the fortitude of people whose character can be known only through the remembered courage of their lives.
The old plaza suggests a way to honor them all: low, concentric walls, the outer walls permitting access to the inner ones, with each circle a step higher, to remind us of the burial mound. The polished granite top of the outermost ring could be engraved with the names of all who died at the World Trade Center - workers, airline passengers and crew, uniformed rescue personnel - listed alphabetically. The next ring would carry the names of the rescue workers, listed by unit.
The innermost circle would form a ring with an inscription: "To the Courage of the Heroes, Known and Unknown, of Sept. 11, 2001." At the center, the restored fountain, anchored again by the sphere would draw our eyes to the rebuilt towers and their rooftop gardens.
Let us have the courage to rebuild the World Trade Center, remembering that the real story of Sept. 11 is about climbing and looking to the sky."
Greg Manning is the author of "Love, Greg & Lauren: A Powerful True Story of Courage, Hope and Survival."
bleh
go figure, I had to get sick. I've been fighting the flu over the last few days - very sore throat, mild fever that goes from 97.8 - 99.4 degrees F, one moment super hot, next cold, super tired, yet can't sleep, and did I mention my damn itchy throat? THAT and I have a crapload of homework to do.
and i miss moncton.
bleh.
anyway, it's 6:20am, I woke up coughing up a storm, spent some time brushing my teeth in the bathroom then had some toast and cereal with a banana. I took my multivitamins and 2 extra strength tylenol, and made a nice hot cup of tea and refilled my water bottle.
it looks like it is going to rain today.
bleh.
was supposed to be organizing pancake breaky for tomorrow but I am going to call facilities and postpone that a week. I can't be sick and be making pancakes and the way I want to do them is fresh, from scratch and I am the only one with the recepie. Plus I haven't gotten my expense cheques back yet --- so I have no $$$$ to get my wet ingredients with yet... and on Friday, I hope we can get a 2nd coffee pot and maybe a 2nd grill (depends on how much $$$ I have left after the wet ingredients are purchased).
I going to crawl back into bed now.
bleh.
- Steve