Parenthetical Remarks

My wife—the lovely Beth Alyson—after reading my previous blogs, said to me, "You always write like that."

"Like what?" I asked.

"You always write with asides, making remarks that stop the flow of what you write. It can be very confusing."

Well, I thought about that for a while, and I admitted that she had a point. That's often the way I write. I have even been criticized for letting that kind of thing creep into my technical writing from time to time. Not often, but enough to earn me some demerits with certain of my managers.

I guess this is one of the (good) reasons I decided to start blogging: I can be as parenthetical and digressive as I like, and nobody can take exception to it, since I am writing for myself—and perhaps you, gentle reader. And even if someone does take exception to it, I'm not obliged to change it, or even defend it, it any way.

I have recently begun reading (and re-reading, in some cases) some of the "classic" works of literature, and I long thought that the record for the longest sentence in literature was held by one in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. I have since been disabused of this notion. I know very little French, and have only a passable knowledge of two other languages: Spanish and German. Any others I may have a smattering of a word or two, but not enough to get by should someone drop me in Tokyo or India, for example.

I have even endeavored to learn Mandarin Chinese, but my Rosetta Stone lessons (complete, supposedly) on this noble language still sit in the box, somewhere in my office, yet to be assayed.

I have much yet to read of the classics, and I don't have the facility of recall that some of the characters in literature have when they come up with exact quotations from anyone—especially in the original Latin or Greek—but I will start taking notes, I think, when I come across something I think worthwhile remembering.

In that vein, and since I have but recently finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, I'd like to offer the following quotation which I shared with my lovely wife as soon as I had seen it. In my imagination, she must say it to me, or have said it to me, or will certainly say it to me:

"Could I ever have loved you, had I not known you better than you know yourself?"

Such is the love of a good woman, whom I sometimes think I scarcely deserve.

Enough for now, my friends. It is late and I am tired.

Why Blog?

I'm sure that people write blogs for many reasons, which I won't even begin to try to delineate. What I know is that I write because I have a few things to say. I'm not certain what they all will be, but if you bear with me (or even if you don't), all will be clear, eventually.

I really enjoy writing. As a Technical Writer, my aim has always been to make my documentation and on-line educational efforts as clear, easy-to-follow and instructive as possible. I believe I have been successful in this, and I am looking forward to continue this pursuit as long as I am able.

But a blog, after all, is not technical documentation. Although it may be instructive, I think it should be entertaining as well, if not in totality. Opinions (I think) are expected and saying what you feel and what you like or dislike is de rigeur for blogging.

Likes and Loves

• I like good food, well prepared and well served. I also enjoy cooking, and I plan to post some of my favorite recipes on a parallel blog in the near future.
• I like to watch too much television, I'm afraid.
• I love music; most kinds of music (see below): Classical, folk, rock, Motown, new age, metal, et al.
• I love to read. Although I have traditionally read Science Fiction, General Fiction and Fantasy, I also love history; historical novels, in particular.
• I have recently developed a taste for "classic" literature, and you will be hearing more about this in the future.
• I love to travel, but have done far too little of it.
• I love to sing and to perform on stage (community theater)
• I love learning things—all sorts of things, useful or not. More on that later, as well.
• I love trivia.

Dislikes and (Dare I Say It?) Hates

• I dislike "easy listening" (elevator) and rap music. The former I consider pablum and the latter quite unmusical, for the most part.
• I dislike the way many people I encounter seem to be enthralled by their handheld devices to the extent of completely tuning out the world around them.
• I hate the way many ads (on TV) nowadays seem to have absolutely nothing to do with the product that they are supposed to be advertising.
• I hate the fact that, no matter how advanced we are technologically, our basic animal tendencies almost always overcome our better natures. Much more on this, I think at a later time.

Conclusion

I am certain I have left out many things on both sides of this equation, and I'm sure many of you, my readers (whoever you may be) will feel differently about many—if not all—of the things I have listed. You are welcome let me know your feelings. I hope you will have interest enough and take the time to do so. Life in front of a computer screen can be a very lonely and disassociating thing, you may know.

Thanks for reading!

Andy

OK, Let's start!

Shooting oneself in the foot

I've been a technical writer ever since I left the hardware store where I once worked over twenty years ago. I even did an internship in tech writing while still working for that store; thanks to the Berkoff brothers, Stanley and Marty for that.

But, as a tech writer, I am not allowed to make certain mistakes that might (or might not) be forgivable for any other person when creating my resume.

Well, I have been unemployed too many times in recent years to be sanguine about how quickly I will find myself a new position, but one must persevere, mustn't one? So I updated my resume and was quick to make sure the updated version was posted on the various sites where it might do me some good. I also sent copies to various recruiters and made online applications which included it—the whole nine yards, as it were.

Well, in my haste and in my mistrust of the spell checking facility built into MS Word—I rarely use it, except to furnish some laughs since the suggestions are often ludicrous, to say the least—I made an egregious error in the text which I did not catch for more than a week.

Shortly under the line which mentions my "meticulous attention to detail" I included a bullet point:

"Re-created and udated ... documentation..."

Well, I obviously meant to write "updated," but I'm afraid that all the people who downloaded and saw the erroneous resume were likely as not to laugh out loud and totally disregard me as an acceptable candidate for any technical writer or editor position.

Be that as it may, I still receive phone calls from recruiters and am filling out applications for new work, and my hopes have not diminished (at least, not much!) that I will find gainful employment, and soon.

All my respects to you, whoever you may be, dear reader.

Andy