Stress Free Week

There seems to be a week set aside for everything. This week is put stress aside week. The picture caught my attention, but the subject stress is indeed a worthy one to address. Personally since my surgery most of my personal anxieties have disappeared. Of course job angst is a big one, but  health issues take center stage. I wish there was a magic pill to relieve us from all types of stress but of course we know there isn't. Some people handle it well some of us do not. Hope you're one of the former.

Painter George Ault

George Copeland Ault (October 11, 1891 – December 30, 1948) was an American painter. He was loosely grouped with the Precisionist movement and, though influenced by Cubism and Surrealism, his most lasting work is of a realist nature.
Ault was born in Cleveland, Ohio into a wealthy family and spent his youth in London, where he studied at the Slade School of Art and St. John's Wood School of Art. Returning to the United States in 1911, he spent the rest of his life in New York and New Jersey. His personal life henceforth was very troubled. He became alcoholic during the 1920s, after the death of his mother in a mental institution (Schwartz, 301). Each of his three brothers committed suicide, two after the loss of the family fortune in the 1929 stock market crash (Lubowsky, 7).
Although he had exhibited his works with some success, by the early 1930s his neurotic behavior and reclusiveness had alienated him from the gallery world (Lubowsky, 24–26). In 1937, Ault moved to Woodstock, New York with Louise Jonas, who would become his second wife, and tried to put his difficulties in the past. In Woodstock the couple lived a penurious existence in a small rented cottage that had no electricity or indoor plumbing (Lubowsky, 28). Depending on Louise for income, Ault created some of his finest paintings during this time, but had difficulty selling them (Schwartz, 302). In 1948, he apparently committed suicide by drowning. In his lifetime, his works were displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Addison Gallery of American Art (in Andover, Massachusetts), among others.
Ault worked in oil, watercolor and pencil. He is often grouped with Precisionist painters such as Charles Sheeler and Ralston Crawford because of his unadorned representations of architecture and urban landscapes. However, the ideological aspects of Precisionism and the unabashed modernism of his influences are not so apparent in his work—for instance, he once referred to skyscrapers as the "tombstones of capitalism" and considered the industrialized American city "the Inferno without the fire" (Fryd, 57). Ault painted what he saw around him, simplifying detail slightly into flat shapes and planes, and portraying the underlying geometric patterns of structures. An analytical painter and ultimately a realist, he was especially noted for his realistic portrayal of light—especially the light of darkness—for he commonly painted nighttime scenes (Schwartz, 300). Of his later paintings, such as January, Full Moon; Black Night; August Night; and Bright Light at Russell's Corners (pictured), The New York Times wrote:
“ The setting is the same in each case—a solitary streetlight, the same bend in the road, the same collection of barns and sheds—but seen from different vantage points. In them, Ault has summoned up the poetry of darkness in an unforgettable way—the implacable solitude and strangeness that night bestows upon once-familiar forms and places.

A glimpse of the beginnings

I’d choose to live in very early childhood, just at the beginning of discernment. There’s no time there, beyond the eternal rhythm set by meals at the breast and the oblivion of sleep, which comes as gently and immediately as the closing of an eye; there’s no place there, beyond one patch of sunlit grass, one fold of blanket, and the whole enormous world laid out for exploring.

In this time and place, poets tell us, dreams and waking are the same; we move easily from one to the other. We may still keep, as Wordsworth supposed, intimations of some ante-natal life, and know why we home like bees towards the song of a bird or the sparkle of sunbeams on water. With our small hands, we believe that everything can be grasped; with our small, soft mouths we try to eat it all, assuming everything we find will be sweet and rich as milk.

No one makes demands on us, and the world revolves effortlessly round no one but ourselves. Our griefs are soothed and forgotten almost before the tears fall. We are carried if we want to be, in hugging arms, but we can pull ourselves up, reach things, and creep away from where we’re put: every day more confident, stronger, keener-eyed. Slowly, like a shell, the world opens and light floods in. Any day now, we’ll stand to meet it.

Everything is new, unnamed, important, and belongs to us. A stone is new, and a blade of grass. We see their potential as unlimited, like our own. We make time for it. A puddle astonishes us. A piece of paper, blown by the wind, becomes a playmate, and the night-time tree a ragged monster. Coleridge once took his crying baby son out of the house to show him the moon; the moon silenced him, shining on his tears. It is good to be silenced by beauty. Too briefly we stay there. But infancy makes of everywhere the best time and the best place.

Thank You Mr. Engelbart

Born on January 25, 1925, in Portland, Oregon, Douglas C. Engelbart was a pioneer in the design of interactive computer environments who invented the computer mouse in 1964. He also created the first two-dimensional editing system, and was the first to demonstrate the use of mixed text-graphics and shared-screen viewing. He was director of SRI International's Augmentation Research Center in Palo Alto and founded Stanford University's Bootstrap Project. Engelbart died in Atherton, California, on July 2,

CONTENTS

Synopsis
Early Life and Career
Computer Design Pioneer
Later Years and Legacy
2013, at age 88.

Early Life and Career

A pioneer in the design of interactive computer environments, Douglas Carl Engelbart was born to Carl and Gladys Engelbart on January 25, 1925, in Portland, Oregon. He had two siblings: A younger sister, Dorianne Engelbart Vadnais (born in 1922), and an older brother, David Engelbart (born in 1927). After graduating from Franklin High School in Portland in 1942, Engelbart enrolled at Oregon State College (Oregon State University) in Corvallis, where he studied electrical engineering.

Drafted into the U.S. Army as World War II came to close, the future inventor worked as a radar technician in the Philippines for two years before returning to Oregon State. Not long after graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1948, Engelbart landed a position at California's Ames Research Center, a government aerospace laboratory run by the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (a precursor to NASA).

Computer Design Pioneer

Douglas C. Engelbart went on to earn a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1955. After returning to the school for a stint as an acting assistant professor, Engelbart began a career at the Stanford Research Institute (later renamed SRI International). Around this same time, he began focusing on an approach that he termed "bootstrapping," in which he asserted the fields of engineering and science would be greatly improved if computer power were shared among researchers.

In the early 1960s, Engelbart founded SRI International's Augmentation Research Center in Palo Alto in an effort to further research information processing and computer-sharing tools and methods. Soon after, Engelbart designed and was the promary developer of the oN-Line System, also known as NLS, a revolutionary computer-sharing system.

In 1964, Engelbart conceptualized and created the first design for the computer mouse. While Engelbart believed that the point-and-click computer device could be equipped with up to 10 buttons, the first mouse would have just three. The inventor went on to create the first two-dimensional editing system, and was the first to demonstrate the use of mixed text-graphics and shared-screen viewing.

Engelbart served as director of the Augmentation Research Center from its inception until 1977. The center was transferred to Tymshare in 1978, with NLS being renamed "Augment. In 1989, Engelbart founded the Bootstrap Project at Stanford University.

Later Years and Legacy

Engelbart received several honors throughout his lifetime, including the Coors American Ingenuity Award (1991), the Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award (1995), the IEEE John von Neumann Medal, the Lemelson-MIT Prize (1997), the Turing Award (1997) and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2000). Unfortunately, Engelbart never received any royalties for inventing the computer mouse, for which he's now best known.

Engelbart died of kidney failure in Atherton, California, on July 2, 2013. He was 88.
He was survived by his second wife, Karen O’Leary Engelbart; daughters Gerda, Diana and Christina; son Norman; and nine grandchildren. (His first wife, Ballard Fish Engelbart, died of ovarian cancer in 1997.)

UPDATE: WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH ME

Hello Readers,

I have not blogged in a while now. I have been recovering from surgery, but feeling better now. I am blessed with so many people who truly care about me and my well being. For those who have truly been understanding, caring and supportive I say thank you. To Haley Spencer, My daddy, Tony Landon, Andrea Lawson, Papa, Granny, Doug Wilson, Dana Wilson, Dylan & Dawson Wilson there is no way that simple thanks is sufficient enough because there is no way I could ever repay you for your caring and kindness. I will forever remain thankful to each of you.

When I was first released from the hospital I must say I did not follow doctors orders, but then I had to pay the price for it. Thankfully there are no long term problems resulting from my actions, but only I was not healing properly or as soon as I should have. So, last week I took my medicine as prescribed and slept for days. That was all I really needed to do in the first place, but I am hardheaded. =) My mind is clear and as sharp as a tack now. It became so hard to think clearly and I felt nauseated from the pain, but now the pain is starting to subside. I cannot wait to be back at 100% again. I am not there yet, but will be soon I am hopeful. I am the type of person that stays down for long, I pick myself up, dust myself off start over as if nothing has happened. I guess I can say that for all things in my life, except for losing Jason. Now that was the hardest thing I ever lived through and yes it still effects me today.

Everyday no matter how I feel I put a smile on my face and go out to meet the day. I give myself pep talks throughout the day and I try to encourage others in doing so. I hate to be around whiners ( oh poor me, no one loves me, I'm not pretty enough or handsome enough, smart enough, or I can't because I'm poor). Please people grow-up and take responsibility for your life, your actions and the situations you find yourself in because your action do effect others.I am sure that your family and friends are effected in some way, even if it is just having to listen to you. Listening to negativity will only bring you down so focus on positive things, positive people and you will feel yourself being transformed immediately.

I will be moving soon both in my career as well as my location and residence. I hate to move period! I do not mind so much relocating as I do packing and unpacking. I know for such a long move I will hire professional movers for the job I only pray they don't break anything. I won't say important, because I do not keep things unless it is important to me. When I receive mail for instance I look through it and throw out the junk mail right away. I put everything in containers and throw away boxes or bags when I get home from the grocery store. I so hate clutter. I like being able to see everything I have. I am actually looking forward to my last year as a peds fellow. I cannot wait for my life to really begin.

It should have been the first thing I did and not the last, but last but not least I thank God for his healing, his mercy and grace. I am truly blessed with such great people in my life, and the opportunity granted to make a difference in my life as well as others. I know that God never puts more on us than we can carry. I know that when I have stumbled he has always been there to catch me before I fell.I feel secure in the fact that he is still on the throne! I give him all the praise, the honor and glory for without him I would cease to be.  -AMEN!

     

Do It Anyway

This piece of truthful wisdom just seemed to grab, or resonate, with me today:

People are often unreasonable and self centred.

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of alterier motives.

Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you.

Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous.

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.

Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.

It was never between you and them anyway.

Mother Teresa, 1979 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Our Google Mind

Our choices bring us to the here and now

The paths we took, the decisions we made

Most happen as a natural flow

Shared decisions, or those dictated by our moral compass

But when we look back at the key, vital decisions

These choices set us on a definite road

If we view our personal map

Particularly the intersections of change

A diary of our decisions become clear

Look at the landmarks in time

How would a change in direction have affected?

Where would we be now? What if?

The brain sometimes works like Google maps

Plug in a memory and zoom right in

Change from road maps to street view

See all the intersections, the facades…

Drop into the scene, spin the perspective

It is all there – a snapshot in time

Yet even though we try to view differently

Things are still from our perspective

What we saw, how we heard…

The memory picture we took!

Oh, to be able to go back, see the other side

Would we be receptive?

So many pivotal decisions made quickly

Sometimes in the heat of the moment

Some moments, we need to pile on the justification

Obviously right because of A, B, and C

If we could see as an invested observer

Would we dare look?

Steeping Hearts Within a cup

A mother’s heart, a tea bag

Brew from heaven in a cup

Roses bloom, for china lips

Memories lingering in sips

Across the table she shines

Time twisted, moon twines

Hesitation in evening’s kiss

Never to part, never to miss

An envelope sealed in love

Leaves floating from above

To sit where angels rehearse

Poetry embracing every verse

Delicate, the moments in fire

All that destinies will inspire

A mother’s heart, a tea bag

Brew from heaven in a cup

Night Moves

When by the passing time unbound

When left alone to roam the night

When my own steps the only sound

When darkness fights gainst lunar light

When whispering winds the only noise

When my eyes naught but darkness seek

When all in spite resounds a voice

When I can hear my own mind speak

When nothing’s left to anchor me

When my own thoughts are all there is

When been cast out feels only free

When desolation seems like bliss

Then only can true colors show

Then no disguise weighs down my soul

Written By Amber Wilson 2013