Tara's blog

The most perfect apartment ever, in pictures.

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 17:16:20 -0500

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Portland Times 2

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 16:08:01 -0500

Well, it took about ten hours from St. Louis, but I've finally made it to Portland. I can honestly say that it feels a little weird. Not bad weird, but still, weird. I know I have a habit of flitting off to places I've never been before, where I don't know anybody, but this is the first time I've gone somewhere with the expecatation of staying for awhile without having any job or school and money lined up already. And I know someone already here. I haven't had a chance to really see the city yet, at least not in the daylight, but it seems good so far. It seems like the sort of city I'd have visited before and thought that it'd be a neat place to live, without actually considering living there. But now I am! And there's something about mountains and pine trees that triggers some kind of strange nostalgia I can't quite put my finger on. Anyway, now step two is to get a mobile phone, get a job, and get an apartment.

2005, My Turn

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 17:10:14 -0500

We've only just passed the Chinese New Year, so I it's not too late to do my 2005 year end post now, is it? Actually, I'm not usually one for the year end reviews, as a good friend once said, the new year will be coming again and again. It is not strange. But, this new year was shortly preceded by my much anticipated return to the US, after nearly a year and half living in Thailand, and three years living overseas. So it seems like this event deserves some reflection. Or, it deserves reflection recorded in public place so I can gain validation by the little reads counter below.

I must say, that 2005 has to have been one of my better years yet. But not so great that I'll be left reminiscing about it and wondering where things went wrong. Which is good. The year started off pretty well, within the first two weeks I got molested by a stranger in a horror house. Unfortunately it wasn't the only attempted molestation of the year, and let me just say that my tolerance for inappropriate behavior from old and/or drunk men has run out. 2006 will see an increase in violence in response to such situations.

All About The Robots

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 14:06:03 -0400

What is therobots.org? www.therobots.org is a multi-membered blog (or web log) that serves as a public writing forum for its various human authors (or robots if you like). Every robot has a different rhyme and reason for which they post new entries. Some post to keep distant friends and family updated with what's going on in their lives. Some post to fill future gaps in memory with the tidbits one might otherwise forget. Some post to inform the public of travel locations, music, books, films, websites, political opinions, etc. that they feel the world needs to know about. The underlying reason behind it all is simply that we just enjoy it. If you are new to the site, welcome and enjoy! More Robots...

Two weeks and counting...

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 04:15:41 -0400

I decided several months ago that I would return home at Christmas. As much as I love Chiang Mai, I was quite happy with this decision, and I felt I left myself plenty of time to plan my strategy for leaving. Because it does take a strategy, as much as I'm sure that for all appearances I seem to be operating according to no plan at all. But leaving, and saying goodbye to people and places is a complicated process, the only advantage of which is that it is a fairly predictable process. There's a certian range of emotions one has to go through, from being excited about going, and seeing new things, (or old friends), to falling in love all over again with the place and the people you're leaving behind. In between of course, are all the feelings of sadness and guilt at having to say goodbye to people you care about. But, I find that if you plan in advance and give yourself enough time to manage all the emotions of leaving, makes it easier to say goodbye without any regrets. Having time makes it easier to deal with the emotions one at a time.

Lake Vieng Tong

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 12:55:11 -0400

Goddamn river went and flooded again. I've had enough cleaning to last me a lifetime. But at least we didn't lose anything. We put our mattresses and bedding and the TV over on Bob the neighbor's second story. We pre-sandbagged and locked up, then left before the water came. The sandbags might have worked if we could have piled them higher, but, oh well. Too late now. Wanna see?

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I still love you...

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 13:16:40 -0400

Well, for all that I seem to be the only one posting at the moment, I still haven't been writing much. I still don't have a job, but I've been busy with other projects, like my new blog, the Burma Underground. I'm proud of it, so go read it. I'm starting a newsletter and email community as well, and it's for a good cause (supporting indigenous activists and civil society organizations from Burma) so if you're reading this, and you know me, you're morally obligated to join and support me in my endeavors. If you're reading this and you don't know me, join anyway, because helping people will give you a warm fuzzy feeling.

Dear Ping River,

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 04:24:27 -0400

Puh Lao! Enough! I know it keeps raining on you, but for the love of Buddha, stop flooding! Really, this is all starting to get old. I'm sick of sandbags and I'm sick of detours. Perhaps this is some sort of macho "I'm a mighty river", thing, but it's just not necessary. We love you just the way you are - inside your banks. Last I heard you hadn't made inside our house, and I appreciate that, I do. But its stopped raining now, so I think its time you went back down. Sitting around and waiting to see if we'll be flooded again is a bit tiresome. We've just painted the house after the last flood, we have all new beds, and the stinky water smell is all gone.

Woot!

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 06:22:02 -0400

I made it to the top of google for "Tara Horn"! Bwahahhaa! That makes me way cooler than all the other Tara Horn's with their pansy 'scholarly recognitions' and their 'doctoral research' and their jobs. Take that, slackers!

Rewind

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 07:49:07 -0400

We’ve officially moved back into our house after the flood on August 14. Karen and Lowey returned from their Borneo / Malaysia trip on September fourth and immediately started the cleaning up and sorting out of their flood soaked and stinky stuff. I’d already cleaned up the worst of the mud, with a bit of help, but some things were still damp and muddy, and there were a few of her dresser drawers I couldn’t even get open; they’d filled up and swelled shut with the water. The mattresses had to be disposed of, they’d only gotten wet on the bottom, but seemed to sprouting poisonous mold spores. You couldn’t spend five minutes in the house without your throat burning. But luckily the wardrobe, bookshelf and entertainment center were salvaged, a bit worse for wear, but scrubbed out and usable at least.

The leaders of the world

Sat, 27 Aug 2005 13:12:02 -0400

It seems that leaders all over are losing it. We already know Bush is crazy. The Burmese Junta is building sercret underground bunkers. Looks like the Thai Prime Minister is also edging his way into the chasm of craziness. He started using a buzzer to let the press know when their questions were 'not constructive'. "Why are you systematically destroying the pillars of democracy in Thailand?" ....BUZZZ...."How about that new 'cuddling babies and helping old people' initiative?"....BING BING BING!! Actually, a buzzer might not be a bad idea for Mr. GW Bush. It would save everyone time, and we wouldn't haven't to see that terribly constipated look he gets when he's struggling dismiss an uncomfortable topic. We all know we won't be getting a 'constructive' answer out of him.

On the Metablogging Bandwagon

Sat, 27 Aug 2005 03:40:01 -0400

Admittedly, its a bit behind most, but I've finally lowered myself to blogging about blogging. But only to mention this site, Committee to Protect Bloggers. They run alerts on bloggers who are being persecuted, harassed or otherwise picked on, as well as petitions for freeing bloggers who've become prisoners of conscience. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, really, a few of the cases highlighted are happening in democratic European countries. Those are cases involving police harassment, as opposed to the shameless lawsuits that you might see in the US. But then, they also have this case about a woman in England being asked to remove a potential copyright violation by a newspaper. It seems pretty fuzzy to me, and the 'I'm chronically ill and can't handle stress' argument seems a bit whingy. If the blogosphere wants the same rights and protections afforded journos, then they should fully well expect to respect the same rules as journos, and they should fully well expect to have to deal with legitimate conflicts over copyrights like mature adults - regardless of who's right. Right? Whingers shouldn't be blogging about contentious issues, and sick people don't get to break the rules.

A Fun Excercise.

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 11:06:10 -0400

This is like one of those 'what if' games, like, what if your house is burning, and you only have time to save one family member - who do you save? Except, this one is, "What if your house is slowly flooding, and you have to evacuate before it gets dark - what do you pack?". So, you have time to put stuff up high, and time to pack. But you have no idea how high the water will actually get. What do you take with you? Here's my list:

What's up,

Sat, 13 Aug 2005 08:23:00 -0400

with those blogs that aren't blogs, but completely useless aggregations of keywords and articles plucked from the net? How do they even do that? Its not like they have RSS feeds, they just get random links and bits of articles with certian keywords in them. They have no original content, and they are obviously being run by a computer working for a corporation somewhere. They're like google spamming. Competely useless, pain-in-the-ass sites that clog up your search results. Technorati needs to figure out a way to have them blocked.

A Riddle

Sat, 13 Aug 2005 02:52:17 -0400

How many species can you fit in one Thai house? Actually, that's probably not a riddle, really, I could just sit down and count how many we have here, but I don't think I have enough fingers and toes.

Living in Thailand and living with nature pretty much go hand in hand. Even the more squeamish among us, (I'm sure they're there somewhere), get used to it eventually. Coming from Missouri, I'm really quite used to living with bugs, so long as they stay out of my cereal. Geckos are my own, and most people's, favorite by far. Apart from serving the vital function of mosquito eating, they are incredibly cute and fascinating to watch. They don't make messes, and they keep to themselves. Ants, well, I could do without 'em, but since their nest is actually inside the walls here, they aren't going anywhere. I like to sweep them out the door occasionally, though, especially when they try to move their eggs into a different hole. Spiders are actually pretty rare. Maybe because of the geckos. Mosquitos are really no worse than in summertime back home, the problem is you can't keep them outside. I have an electrified tennis racket for zapping them. Its good fun.