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to this: http://ruthhubbard.wordpress.com so you'll always return to the HOME page of the new blog (rather than to an outdated specific blog entry).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.]