Hubbard's Cupboard has MOVED

If you have a bookmark for my blog, delet it and reset it to this: http://ruthhubbard.wordpress.com so you'll always return to the HOME page of the new blog (rather than to an outdated specific blog entry).

If you access this blog via an RSS feed, you'll want (I hope) to unsubcribe the blogger one and newly subscribe to the wordpress one.

I've been blogging on Blogger.com for a few years. I'd recently become frustrated by some of the limitations there which motivated me to look more closely at WordPress.com. After a bit of informal research and some dinking about (my way to describe what I've been doing to test this online software) I've decided to convert. Some of the features I'd hoped to have aren't possible on the FREE blog sites -- and for now, I don't want them badly enough to pay montly blog hosting fees or to spend the time it might take me to figure out my other options.

I will leave the old blog where it is for a while (at least) -- mayby longer. I think, for instance, that the images that migrated are dependent on the old blog for the time being. We'll see.

So, this will be here, but there will not be NEW POSTS here.

9.11

"Nine one one. What is your emergency?" 911 is the number you dial on the phone when you need emergency services. It is the promise of help. The beginning of a rescue.

September 11 is my mom's birthday. This has been a part of the rhythm of my life for my entire life. Labor Day/school starts and then we soon celebrate mom's birthday. Six weeks later it's dad's birthday followed by Halloween and my birthday. Soon after that is Thanksgiving and then Advent which leads to Christmas and New Year's. It has long marked the beginning of a long season of celebrations in our family.

Nine eleven is the day when terrorists flew commercial jets full of passengers into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and not into the White House (thanks to brave passengers who acted selflessly over Pennsylvania). Nine eleven is the traumatic event which has shaped American thinking and acting for almost a decade now. It is this generations' JFK assassination in a way.

I remember that one of my early reactions to the news as it was unfolding was a totally selfish anger that "they" had turned my mom's birthday into something else. That morning I'd woken up and wondered what it was going to be like for me, living through Mom's birthday without her. She'd died just over nine months earlier. Part of my willful response to the events of that morning -- my "you can't beat us that easily" rebellion was to continue on with our quiet celebration of Mom. Dad and I went to Ritter's and had frozen custard sundaes for supper in her honor. Inside I was sticking my tongue out at "those terrorists" with one of the ultimate comfort foods. I think we were the only customers Ritter's had that night. Most Americans had begun to hunker down already.

Three digits with multiple meanings. All depends on how you slice it.

Oh, and Porsche makes a 911 model -- but that is pretty far from my life experience radar. I only remembered it when I Googled "911" to find these images for illustration.

Twitter

Because I Twitter

I found out that there is an iPhone app I want with Fantasy Football season beginning this weekend. Thanks to Bycemaster who tweeted "@Ruthhubbard hey, did you see that there is a free app to track your yahoo fantasy team up in the app store?"

I was reminded that Northland's NOW gathering began this week -- and found out that I could view via the web if that was an option that worked for me when vrain tweeted "Join us online at Northland at 7PM for the launch of NOW! Web or iPhone www.northlandchurch.net"

I discovered that briggzay is not only dealing with a bit of a plague in his office, but has a sense of humor about. He tweeted, "my office has become a den of fruit fly iniquity. calling in the swat team."

I also know that Kouya has a new phone, jlhufford's son had a good first day at kindergarten, threadless was selling all of their T's for $9 each yesterday and Relevant mag was selling 1-year subscriptions to their mag for $9.99 for that one day only.

Do I need to know these things? Maybe not. Couldn't I find them out in different ways? Some of them...but some of them, no. Kouya lives in the UK and briggzay is from the Chicago area, for example.

The point isn't really the information -- or at least not the information alone. It is about the relationships. I know some people view these relationships on Twitter and Facebook as "fake." I'm not going to argue. I'll also choose to not be swayed by the nay sayers.

I'm glad that I know that my friends (abudigan and his non-twittering wife) will have a/c installed today and that Joy_B has some shopping to do before the baby arrives. I happened to hear these things via Twitter this morning and last night. I could have heard them at the office later today -- but may have miss those conversations because, well, the Wycliffe USA Board is gathering and we're all hands on deck for that.

Those who follow me on Twitter know that I'm looking at migrating my blog from Blogger to WordPress. And now, you know too. [Word Press has some features which I like and I'm trying to determine whether it's worth the work. The literal migration itself is automated and, actually, I've already pushed the button. But there are things that don't move (some embedded video) and there is a learning curve on the software. For the moment, I'm still a Blogger.com blogger.]

09/09/09

09/09/09

Cold Play: something about strawberries

This video plays automatically. The problem is, there is another in the post just below that will do the same thing. How annoying. I don't know what to do to make that not happen. I do know that if you click on the one you don't want to hear (or on both of them) it will pause the video. I guess I'll have to resist posting these more than every five blog entries -- or figure out how to change the settings. Hmmmm. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog...



My friend Nancy likes Cold Play. She has an advantage these days that keeps her connected to new music: offspring. As a single and childless woman of 47 years I have done my time lamenting both of those realities from time to time -- though mostly I'm good with both. And mostly for the past decade or two if I have had anything even akin to regrets about my state is has related more to specific advantages or disadvantages and not so much to the whole picture. I am fully aware that there are two sides to this coin.

One of the disadvantages of not having kids at this age in my life is that I don't have access to the music that seems to surround our nation's youth. Yes, I could be more intentional about it -- watch MTV or whatever it is I could do to change that. I could spend a boat load of money downloading things from iTunes when they tell me that this or that is a necessary addition to a complete collection.

For more than a decade -- while many of my peers were disconnected from the music and lost in a land of Barney and Wiggles and Christopher Robin -- I was teaching high school and was one of those "cool" teachers who actually liked the music that my students listened to. Well, most of it.

All of this is background. Context. Explanation to why I'm asking "where have I been?" as I explore Relevant tv and the music videos shared there. (David Gray and Cold Play. I wonder what's next?)

David Gray

According to Relevant TV, "If Chris Martin, Bob Dylan and Billy Joel had a love child, it'd be David Gray." That TWEET worked with me and I clicked to view and listen.

I liked what I heard well enough to post the video here and give you a link to his website so you can listen and consider for yourself.

Microwave Memories

Back in the day when I was living with my parents in Zionsville, I often found it helpful to suggest ways that they could improve their lives (and mine) through the purchase of some new something. By 1975 -- the year we moved to Z'ville and the year I started high school -- the popularity of microwave ovens in American homes had sky rocketed. I was quite sure that our lives would be significantly improved if we, too, had one of these appliances.

I am not sure when I began campaigning toward this end, but I do know that over time, my recommendations grew in their intensity and passion. The bottom line reason we didn't get one was budgetary. So, one particular Christmas when the church my dad pastored gave my folks a monetary gift, I was sure we'd finally get our microwave.

I was wrong.

My mom had her eye on a chair. An Occasional Chair, to be more exact.

One afternoon that winter my mom found me standing in the living room punching imaginary buttons on that chair and placing some sort of snack on the seat. She asked what I was doing and I told her that I was using the new microwave to heat up my food.

It was a few years longer before my parents had their first microwave and truly, I don't think our lives were in any way less meaningful than they would have been had that technology arrived earlier. In fact, I'm quite sure of it.

trying a new look

Blogger provides basic templates for their free blog service. Others create blog templates (more are created for WordPress than Blogger, from what I can tell) that they let people use (in exchange for a link to their websites and blogs OR for a price). I've found a few that I like a lot, but that require more HTML or XML skills than I even dream of having. The one I've used most recenlty is nice, but...maybe I just got bored with it. I've saved it incase I want to put it back.

I've resorted to one of the most basic templates that Blogger offers. I'm trying to add a header that I created in Photoshop (I've done that before) but Blogger.com is not cooperating. So, since the direct approach isn't working, I'm going to place the image here and then link to it from the header form. Maybe that will work. Maybe.

August Rush

I watched August Rush tonight. I picked it up at the library last weekend mostly because it looked like it might be interesting and, well, when it's free it's easier to take a risk on a movie that you might turn off in 10 minutes.

I did not turn it off. In fact, I watched it and then hopped on iTunes and downloaded the CD (not the soundtrack, the "music from" one).

I'm not going to try to tell you that the story is anything but predictable. From the opening stanza I knew where this had to go. The thing is, this story isn't about the what and what -- and it's only barely about the who. This movie is about the mystical something that we call music. And yet the moment we name it, it has slipped into a new thing that we can't quite put our finger on.

I found the movie to be affirming. Life-giving. Bright. True. And at had a good beat; you can dance to it. You almost have to dance to it.

At least that's how I hear it.

Michelle's Story

I've been waiting for a few days for this media to be available to share with you. Listen to Michelle's story and consider all that you can learn about God and about your own story when you listen to hers. I love that God created us to live and grow in communitiy, to benefit from each other's stories as we are all written into God's story.

Michelle's Story from Northland Media Design on Vimeo.

From August 30, 2009

After hearing Michelle's story, listen to the song which she shared at Northland immediately following the video this past weekend. (The guy who is playing bass and singing back up? That's her husband.)

"Sweet Sweet Sound from Northland Media Design on Vimeo.

From August 30, 2009

Let's NOT keep Christmas this year.

Instead, let's give it away.

1st Day of School Photo

Scott and Cat serve with Youth For Christ in Asia -- they live in Thailand. This year when their three youngest (handsome young men in the photo) went back to school, their oldest was in the States preparing to start University. For the traditional back-to-school family photo, she Skyped in. You can see her there on the laptop screen.

I've got a number of friends who have sent their first-born sons and daughters off to University in the past year or two. Many of them have sent back to the States while they continue to live and serve hither and yon around the globe. I've found myself praying more for MK's and their parents for these past few seasons because their reality is closer to me than it has been in the past, I guess.

The technology we have today (Vonage phones, Skype, Facebook, etc) makes all of this less of a relational disruption than in the past, but it's not without cost.

2 hot chicks in 1 hot car

Becky, my cousin, posted this photo on her Facebook page recently. I grabbed it and tossed it here on the blog both because it's just such a cute pic which I had to share and because it brought back memories. This may have been the first appearance of these 2 hot chicks in 1 hot car, but it was not the last.

Back when we were both in our 20-somethings (days when I was teaching high school in Indianapolis, Indiana and Becky was running a day care center in Council Bluffs, Iowa) Becky invited me to join her on a business trip. I was on summer break and visiting family in and around (mostly around) Omaha. Becky needed to make a run to Kansas City to get some supplies for the daycare. I could ride along.

Now, the fact that we got up rather early was carefully calculated. The plan was to get to the store when it opened, make the purchase, and then head to Worlds of Fun (was that the name?) for an afternoon of amusement park madness. It was a good plan.

There was one more factor that made it a GREAT plan -- Becky was the proud owner of a brand new Mazda Miata. It was the premier year for that adorable, speedy, convertible. We had way too much fun speeding down the highway turning heads. And the drive home that night...top down...gazing up at the stars (benefit of being the passenger) was spectacular.

Great memories.