Musing on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(I liked this one enough I decided to post it here as well as the GRRWG blog).

I didn't realize that my day to blog would fall on Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Perhaps that's because I haven't gotten this particular holiday off in over a dozen years. (Which isn't all that big of a surprise, after all my job is in IT and we typically do our biggest work on days when no one else is working.)

So, I started looking at some of his quotes. Everyone knows this one and it remains my absolute favorite:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

I was young enough when he was killed to not really get the importance of his death. Kids tend to be too self-absorbed to get some of the bigger events in their life. At the time I was more concerned about my math homework and recess than anything else. It wasn't until later on that I figured out how important he was.

This quote always gets me thinking about doors opening and paths not taken:

"All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are times when I'm involved in various groups that I wonder if Dr. King truly understood what he started for the rest of us. The Stonewall Riots came just a year later, helping bring the homosexual community together to take on the oppressive laws throughout the US (of which many are still on the books to my great dismay). Just two years later the first Gay Pride marches were held in LA, Chicago, and New York.

I believe our lawmakers have tried to make laws that will protect us all from discrimination, I'm just not sure they work well. Perhaps that's because some lawyers want to interpret the intent of the law, while others look for loopholes. Why don't we try simpler language? For instance: "A company is to interview all skillfully qualified candidates." (Already the lawyer in my head has a dozen questions). Can't we just use common sense?


The year that Dr. King died, women were given protections from sex discrimination by an Executive Order, and affirmative action plans were required for hiring women. A year later, my home state of California, adopted the "No Fault" divorce law, allowing divorces by mutal consent. In contradiction, men still had legal control of whether or not their wives worked and where they would live - in California of all places! Luckily that law has since been axed.  This was the year I started paying attention to women's rights as I had one grandfather who constantly told me what professions were "appropriate" for girls, of which a Veterinarian was not one, and another one who told me girls could be anything we wanted to and that my chavenistic grandfather was full of it.

"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
Martin Luther King, Jr. "

This quote always brings to mind several friends who are talented, outspoken people, many of who are Gay. While minorites and women have come a long way, the Gay community as a whole hasn't seen as much progress. And the sad part is, they've been there for the rest of us all along. It is fairly well understood that making progress for one oppressed group helps bring the other groups forward as well. I was quoted over the summer as saying something along the lines of "It is now our time to stand up for the LGBT community, as they were there for women in the 70's". I do feel responsibility to be an ally and to help move understanding of this community forward. And it makes me incredibly happy to see the current generation being more tolerant in general when it comes to orientation, skin color and gender.

However, I don't think we are quite at the point where people are judged for the content of their character. We seem to be sliding backwards on that one. Perhaps technology is to blame for as we put more and more focus on what people look like (regardless of skin color) and less on who they are. Televeision, YouTube, and the anonymity of the internet, have made instant judgements incredibly easy, without forcing people to take the time to truly think things through.  Bullying has skyrocketed and too many teens and young adults are committing suicide over violent vitriolic posts on social media sites.

Still, on this particular holiday I have great hope that someday Dr. King may be able to look down and smile upon a nation that finally accepts people as they are and for who they are. Even though we may be taking a few steps back, we are still miles down the road from where Dr. King started.

Blogger - is it an "Issue" or a "Feature"?

For some silly reason, Blogger won't allow me to respond to posts on my own blog.  Really?  WTH?!  So, if you're thinking I've ignored you, please don't.  I'm not, I just haven't gotten the folks at Blogger to get it straightened out yet.

I had someone ask me this question the other day and thought I'd share:  "How many passwords do you have?"  I had to get it clarified, because that question has a different meaning for different people on different sides of the IT equation.  It was not the one meaning how many passwords do I have "on hand" to rotate through when my password expires on any account I may have.  Instead it was more along the lines of: how many accounts do I have that I have separate AND unique passwords in use.

Easy: Well over 50. Why?  Because I know too much about how hackers work, how script kiddies work, and how easy it really can be to ruin someone's life or business by getting simply one password.  So yep, over 50.  And no, I don't rotate them through my other accounts.  They are complex passwords, not easily remembered.  And I make up new ones everytime one expires or needs to be reset (roughly every 90 days).  Which is why I have an electronic safe that keeps track of a good chunk of my more rarely used accounts and passwords for me.

Sure, it's a bit more work.  No, it's not foolproof.  But just like having very large, heavy, protective dogs with BIG teeth at home, it's just another obstacle in the way of whoever's trying to get at my stuff.

Although truthfully, I have no idea why anyone would want my data anyway.  My credit rating is pretty much crap, I don't have much in assets (unless you want to count all my books, vintage sewing machines, and unfinished craft projects) and my truck is older than all but one of my nephews and nieces.  And I'm still un-published.  Still, it's my crap and I'd kind of like to keep it mine thank-you-very-much.

Think about these: How many accounts and passwords do you have?  When did you last reset your email/blogger/Amazon/B&N/social networking/gaming/website passwords?  Are they all using different passwords?  Do you have all the security devices in place?  Example: gmail and Yahoo! ask for a primary email address to be able to send reset password requests to, and Facebook would like your cell phone for that as well.  Kind of like routine maintenance on air filters for your furnace and batteries for smoke detectors, you really should change them on a regular basis.

I've been baaaadddd....

I haven't blogged here in way too long. That's because I've been busy with my 2 other blogs (which I will eventually link here - but later). One's my techie blog, that acts as my purse for all my tech notes that I need for my day job. The other one is my new blog for my new etsy site, and which holds the clue as to why I've been bad here.

To be fair, I did get a huge chunk written on Collie's first book (25,000+ words - she was very chatty), I got editing done on Jess' first book, rewrote the synopsis for A Reluctant Psychic, and added some to Merie's story, so I've been busy.

Also, I have a new obsession which has resulted in a new character popping up, and a possible new series, revolving around an older, talented, gentleman who restores vintage sewing machines. He's in the back of my head telling me "Oh, lookie there, what a nice little machine that could be with just a bit of TLC and elbow grease". Great. Thanks. Just what I need, another vintage sewing machine. Aren't 6 enough? My Kenmore doesn't count yet, it's still in it's teen years.

Here's what I know about "The Scot". He's from the UK, I'm thinking Scotland, but I'm not sure as his accent isn't hugely thick. He's a widow, and I keep picturing him in the NorthEast, but I also see him in the UK, so he may be hopping back and forth. His wife got him into saving old machines, and he continues it as a labor of love for his late wife. She's a cute little thing, about 5'1', masses of red curls, with a touch of grey, fiesty, with a perpetual twinkle in deep blue eyes. He's about 5'10" now, a bit shorter due to age, salt and pepper wavy hair, with dark eyes, and BIG hands from years of mechanical work. Always with a twinkle in his eye and a quick smile, I'm not sure of his name yet either. He makes me smile like Merie makes me smile. He was a whisper in the back of my head when I got this little beauty home and out of it's trapped location inside a bent wood case with a bent lock.

The Scot popped in full force when I decided on a name for this old, neglected beauty that was my grandmother's and is now mine. I've named her Black Betty, and have dubbed her restoration project "The Black Betty Project" at which he let out a musical belly laugh. He's really quite charming.

So please forgive my lapses in posting here, I promise to try to get better at it. I have so much to do, machines to restore, pages to write, an agent to find, and a short story to get ePublished. Oh, and I've learned how to can, make jam and pickles, and next weekend I'm learning how to make and can salsa. It's a very good thing I'm a Gemini...otherwise I'd be a bit freaked out about all the people in my head. :)

Agents, Editors, and Publishers - Oh My!

Still no word from Agent #2, which is fine. My sister's taking a crack at editing the book for me, so it's just as well I guess.

I've been digging through the various references that MaryJanice wrote about and am finding it a bit overwhelming. So many editors and publishers and agents to try to sift through and take a "best guess" at who to approach next. I'm hoping the Sisters-in-Crime group can give me some tidbits on that. After taxes get paid, I'm paying my membership fees to be a full-fledged Guppy and see if I can get any forward progress on this thing.

I did take some time and do a second go-round on the short stories I have for GlimmerTrain and plan to get them submitted in time for the May contest. I'm not sure my writing is in their style though, so I'll have to wait and see.

My Aunt shared one of her non-fiction pieces with me. I can see we have the same typos style, but our writing is different. Hers is more fluid, and richer in nature, whereas mine is blunt, a bit more quick and not nearly as graceful. Ann Rice has a style that is rich and dense, a type of writing that makes you feel like you're eating the book in a most indulgent style. My Aunt's is a lighter form of rich, more like a nice rich dessert mousse. (I must be hungry for chocolate.)

I'm getting ready to dig back into Collie's book in the never ending round-robin of "tag, you have to write about me next". Maybe Collie will get published first, only God in her infinite wisdom knows for certain. In any case, the girls still clamor for my attention and I feel like I'm really starting to get back into the swing of it again. Perhaps because my workload looks very light for the next few months, so I have more time to dedicate to putting their voices to electronic paper. Oh, and I can't forget the boys as Paul just chimed in that I haven't put nearly enough work into his piece of the story.

Do all writers have characters that talk to them? And I wonder, how many people actually read my ramblings? I was surprised to find that someone I have great respect for has been following a tech blog I work on, and even more so when I discovered several others who read it but don't officially "follow" it.