raymor

Hey everyone--I have a question or two for you all. 

What do you do w/friend requests from folks who have never commented on any of your photos and/or seem somewhat questionable (i.e. a 14 year old; an emo-addict etc.)?

Do you delete their request?  Add them? 

Just curious whether what I am doing (deleting) is what others are doing.

Thx!

B

Here are the rules:

1) Only list 8 facts.
2) You must then list 8 TAGS at the end of the post. This means you must name 8 people on Buzznet who now must do the same blog.
3) Then go comment on their profile and tell them to come read yours!  Thank Mark for adding some extra fun. 


1.  I was adopted at 8 days old.  Sometimes I wonder why I was given up, but don't regret that it happened.  I wonder if my birth mother thinks about me on October 22.

2.  I have an extra vertebrae in my spine.

3.  Jobs I have had from oldest to most recent:
Newspaper delivery boy (junior high)
Tacos Ole' "Taco Technician" (high school)
Taco Viva Assistant Manager (college summers)
AV nerd (college)
Room service waiter at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis (summer between college and law school)
Law clerk for Nashville law firm (law school)
Attorney--various firms in Tampa (seems like forever)

4.  Of these, my favorite:  room service waiter

5.  Number of times I was propositioned at this job or asked if I wanted to make an "extra tip":  5

6.  My favorite author is Flannery O'Connor and my favorite story of hers is:  Revelation.  My second favorite is:  The Displaced Person

7.  Number of times I have been truly in love in my life: 1 (but it is going on right now, so it's ok)

8.  I only have 24 teeth in my mouth.
 
I am tagging:  aliblu; nowthen; p3t3rt; csad2549; barilac; noopnoop; yoenlaplaya; and ghostgirl

Hopefully you were not recently tagged by someone else!

NANKING

My grandfather, Robert Wilson, (my mother’s father) was born in Nanking, China to American missionaries from the Methodist Church.  He later went to the United States and attended Princeton and became a surgeon.  He then returned to Nanking in the 1930's with my grandmother and was one of only a few Westerners in that city. 

World War II begain in China in the mid-1930’s.  China was very weak at this time and the Japanese were basically grabbing as much of China as they could.  The Japanese had previously annexed Manchuria and installed a puppet government in that province.  The Japanese then took Shanghai in September 1937 and had their eyes on China’s capital Nanking. 

My mother was born in Nanking but returned with my Grandmother for the safety of the United States when it appeared that the Japanese were going to take the city.  My Grandfather stayed.  The Japanese took Nanking in December 1937 and in the aftermath were brutal and savage to the defenseless civilians--days and nights of random killings, rape, and unspeakable cruelty.  The Japanese activities were later called "The Rape of Nanking" and rank among the worst atrocities in modern times. 

My grandfather was the only surgeon in the city and worked day and night for weeks trying to treat the many victims.  He and a handful of other Westerners set up a "Safety Zone" within the city for civilians.  The Japanese government had agreed not to attack parts of the city that did not contain Chinese military, and the members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone managed to persuade the Chinese government to move all their troops out of the area. The Japanese respected the Safety Zone to a great degree and many thousands of Chinese were able to avoid being killed.

Iris Chang wrote a book called "The Rape of Nanking" which was a bestseller.  My family provided her with archival materials (photographs, letters, and diary entries).

Ted Leonsis found the story of the Westerners in Nanking to be compelling and produced Nanking, a documentary movie which focuses on the Westerners (including my Grandfather) who remained in Nanking after the Japanese took the City.  The documentary recounts the selfless efforts of the Westerners to maintain some sort of order and deal with what was literally hell on earth.  The movie premiered Saturday January 20 at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.  My family was invited to attend the premiere and my Grandfather’s three children—my mother, my aunt, and my uncle—were present at the screening and were introduced to the audience when the movie ended. 

For more information about the film, check out:

http://www.nankingthefilm.com/

The movie was incredible.  It is grim and shocking but ultimately uplifting.  To borrow a phrase from the movie—“Even in darkness there is light. 

It was a great honor to attend this movie with my family.  My Grandfather was a great man and I am very proud that his memory is preserved in this film. 

I always have excuses.

We made him play dungeons and dragons,
Build our dog house, drive us to the mall and
Teach us things our parents weren't allowed to teach us yet.

What is this I hear of sorrow and anger, weariness,
Discontent and drooping hopes?

The old house has been demolished and an orange construction fence is up.  Soon
No one will remember that the old house was here. 

My house was always decorated with modern art until I moved into the rather difficult to decorate Japanese home that I live in now.

He allegedly performed the songs on the harmonica with
A female pianist at the bar he operated between August and September this year.

She was stuck baby-sitting my sister and me.

Once I was forced to stand up and declare that "China does not restrict access to any content.

Life is too strong for you. It takes life
To love Life.

My excuse is that I don't have one.

I wasted through the night.

I asked, "Why are you pinching me?

 

He greets me at the door each day.

We have broken all the blackboards.

 

They said: "Today's St. Patrick's Day

I think it's very mean!",

Which makes my parents glad.

 

I didn't clean the mess.

I watched TV instead--

I think that's pretty cool.

 

But now I am much happier, though

I'm sure my heart will break.

 

Could I have done my homework?

 

I didn't clean the mess.

I felt it on my ear.

 

I wasted through the night.

 

We have torn up all the math books--

Eight spider bites and hair loss,

And then I felt a third and fourth, and

All the lockers white.

 

School is closed now:

There won't be any more tests.

 

Dearest One
I am writting this letter with due respect and heartful of tears since we have not known or met ourselves previously. I am asking for your assistance to lead me to the right channel towards to be out of the critical situation i am now I went through your profile and i found you as some one whom ican trust and pray for God to give me a trustwhardy person who can allow and lead me to the right channel . I will make my proposal well known if I am given the opportunity.
I am introducing my self as Ms. Natasha Daniella , the only Dauther of late Chief and Mrs Desmond Yana Andani , I wish to request for your assistance in a financial assistance. , And I wish to invest in Manufacturing and real estate management in your country. E.t.c

I have sixteen Million Five hundred thousand united states dollars.USD($16.500,000) to invest in your country, and I will require your assistance in clearing the consignment Out from security company here in Cote Di Voire ( Ivory Coast ) / west africa, I will be gladly to give you 15% out of the total sum of the money for your kind assistance.

please it is very important you contact me immediately on my private email address:(natasha_dane209@yahoo.com) for further explanation on how we will proceed.

Awaiting your immediate response
Thanks and God bless.
Best Regards
Natasha

I bought a book of short short stories while I was at beach.  The book is Flash Fiction Forward and I believe that it was only recently published.  All stories in the book were limited to 750 words or less. 

Many stories were very good, but one was excellent--an absurdist, fantastic story that had to do with an orange ruling the world.   It is very short but full of meaning.  The author, Benjamin Rosenbaum, has published it on his web site with a Creative Commons license that allows it to be posted here as long as I credit  him as the author.  His website address is:

http://benjaminrosenbaum.com/

 Enjoy and let him know what you think of it!

The Orange
by Benjamin Rosenbaum

An orange ruled the world.

It was an unexpected thing, the temporary abdication of Heavenly Providence, entrusting the whole matter to a simple orange.

The orange, in a grove in Florida, humbly accepted the honor. The other oranges, the birds, and the men in their tractors wept with joy; the tractors' motors rumbled hymns of praise.

Airplane pilots passing over would circle the grove and tell their passengers, "Below us is the grove where the orange who rules the world grows on a simple branch." And the passengers would be silent with awe.

The governor of Florida declared every day a holiday. On summer afternoons the Dalai Lama would come to the grove and sit with the orange, and talk about life.

When the time came for the orange to be picked, none of the migrant workers would do it: they went on strike. The foremen wept. The other oranges swore they would turn sour. But the orange who ruled the world said, "No, my friends; it is time."

Finally a man from Chicago, with a heart as windy and cold as Lake Michigan in wintertime, was brought in. He put down his briefcase, climbed up on a ladder, and picked the orange. The birds were silent and the clouds had gone away. The orange thanked the man from Chicago.

They say that when the orange went through the national produce processing and distribution system, certain machines turned to gold, truck drivers had epiphanies, aging rural store managers called their estranged lesbian daughters on Wall Street and all was forgiven.

I bought the orange who ruled the world for 39 cents at Safeway three days ago, and for three days he sat in my fruit basket and was my teacher. Today, he told me, "it is time," and I ate him.

Now we are on our own again. 

My mom's neighborhood in Miami is changing. The small to medium size ranch homes on landscaped half-acre lots are being torn down or added on to at an alarming rate. I drove down to Miami to visit her for the holiday weekend and was very surprised to see the frame of a 5,000 sq foot castle (don't know what else to call it) added on to the original 800 sq foot Florida vernacular home that had been on the lot since 1947.

I'm reserving judgment on whatever it is that the owners are adding until they put in windows and doors, but I don't have a good feeling about it.

The small house with its lean-to roof was built by hand by Jim Merrick who bought 5 acres of land in this part of Miami-Dade County in 1945 for $2,500 back when it was considered so remote and wet that it would never be developed. He had to dig up coral rock to elevate the house since the summer rains would put standing water on the property for months at a time.

He sold off the land bit by bit as the suburbs arrived within 20 years.

The house was clean and kept cool because of all its windows. He never added air-conditioning to it. His remaining acre had a pond (where the coral rock was dug up to elevate the house), an orchid house and lots and lots of plants. It was a great place to explore as a kid.

His wife called me one summer morning in 1987 and told me that he had fallen. I went over there and could see that he must have had a heart attack. I called 911 and held his hand and told him he would be ok. He told me that I was a good kid and asked me to watch over his wife if anything happened. He died on the way to the hospital.

With land values topping $500,000 for a half-acre, I knew it was only a matter of time before this sort of thing would happen to his house.

Old Man Merrick's house is too dignified to sit next to the Castle. It should have been torn down. It hurts me to see it now.

BWH / 7-4-06

Kiley Gardens was a masterpiece of modern landscape architecture that was neglected and may soon be demolished.

Read the sad story here:

http://www.tclf.org/news/april_2004_kiley_asla.htm

There is a group that is seeking to restore the Gardens to its former glory. Here is their website:

http://www.kileygardens.org/

Currently, the park containing the Gardens is overgrown and now resembles a modern ruin, almost “cemetery” like. Astonishingly, the project is only 15 years old.

The Gardens serve as the plaza for a large bank building downtown. "The design of the Gardens and the bank building involve "Number Mysticism and the Golden Proportion. The Golden Proportion, including a logarithmic pattern know as the “Fibonacci” series, led to the conceptual proportioning in the design process. After analyzing the project site, it was observed that the footprint of the site, located next to the Hillsborough River, approximated to the diagonal of a 2 to 5 rectangle, in relation to the Tampa grid plan. This existing ratio correlated with two numbers in the Fibonacci series, which begins: 1,1, 2, 3, 5, 8 13, ….

The project’s program consists of a thirty-three story cylindrical office tower, two six-story cubic bank pavilions and a 4.5 acre plaza over a two-level parking garage. A tower ratio of 2 to 5 (diameters to height) was established by using 13-foot, floor-to-floor, increments. Multiples of 13 feet were used to establish the radius of the tower (78 feet) and the height and sides of the cubic pavilions (also 78 feet each). The tartan grid pattern of the plaza echoes the tower and pavilion elevation patterns. The garden is divided into parallel rectangular grass areas each 78 feet wide and of varying lengths, with 13-foot pathways between them. Sabal Palmettos line the pathways and six-hundred Crape-Myrtles are informally arranged within the areas to contrast the rational geometry."
--quoted from The Cultural Landscape Foundation
http://www.tclf.org/kiley_tampa.htm

Sun and Shadow: Frank Lloyd Wright's "Child of the Sun".

At Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida is located the largest collection of buildings on one site ever created by Frank Lloyd Wright, one of America's foremost architects. Wright's plan for the campus is the only tangible example of his community planning ideas, termed "Organic Architecture." His concept was to decentralize the city by distributing urban functions to rural areas and to utilize new technologies in the building trades. Wright insisted that the college's individual buildings reflect their environment through the use of "native materials all universally adapted to the uses of young life." Eighteen buildings, only seven of which were completed, were originally planned for the campus.

Wright referred to the project as his �Child of the Sun� and it was built on the campus of a small Methodist college nestled amidst the orange groves on the bluff overlooking Lake Hollingsworth in the city of Lakeland. Wright�s goal was to create a �great education temple in Florida� utilizing a "real Florida form� designed to ��help the indoors to go outdoors and the outdoors to come inside."

Intense sun and hard rain are ubiquitous to Florida and Wright designed his buildings and the campus with these in mind�one and one-half miles of covered walkways connect his buildings and many over the structures have overhangs to block the sun and create shaded areas.

Wright began work on a campus master plan shortly after his 1938 visit. He envisioned the "construction of an integrated complex of eighteen separate buildings...a circular pool or waterdome...and a network of 'esplanades' or covered walkways connecting the independent components of the plan."

The foundation for the first building, the chapel, was laid by November 1938. Construction lagged, however, due to shortages of money and skilled labor, and it wasn't until March 1941 that the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel was formally dedicated. It was the first Wright designed building to be completed on the Florida Southern campus. It was followed later the same year by the Carter, Wallbridge, and Hawkins Buildings, known collectively as the Seminars. These were a series of one story combination office and classroom buildings connected by interior courtyards.

President Spivey had hoped that the completion of the first Wright designed buildings would spur fundraising efforts and permit the rapid completion of Wright's master plan for the campus. Those hopes were dashed, however, by the U. S. entry into World War II. Construction slowed dramatically after completion of the Seminars. Although the foundation for what was to become the first Roux Library was laid in the spring of 1942, war induced shortages of labor and materials delayed its completion and dedication until 1946.

The Roux Library (now the Buckner Building) was followed over the next several years by the Administration (Watson-Fine) Building in 1949, the Industrial Arts (Ordway) Building in 1952, and the Danforth Chapel in 1955. A Wright designed waterdome was also completed in 1948 and the esplanades were extended as more buildings were completed. The final Wright designed building constructed on the campus was the Polk County Science Building, dedicated in 1958.

Several other structures included in Wright's master plan for the campus were never built. Among them were an amphitheater, a music building, and a fine arts building. Wright devised plans for each of these structures, but they were never realized due in part to tight budgets and in part to the retirement of Florida Southern President Ludd Spivey in 1957. Spivey had been the driving force behind the Wright designed campus and, with his retirement and Wright's death in 1959, the college administration began to move away from Wright' s master plan.

The campus is a must see if you are in the area. Orlando is approximately 40 miles to the East.