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Tired. Discouraged. That’s this morning. Yesterday things seemed good, and I would not say depression has returned. I did not sleep well (not uncommon). Woke up at 3:00 am and spent two hours drafting a letter to a contractor who refuses to correct mistakes he made clearing brush off our land (big fire danger here, so brush clearing is vital to keep the fuel away from the house). I wish the guy would just come and do the 90 minutes of work it would take to fix things. Instead, the conflict seems to be headed to small claims court. That’s one good reason for me to feel worn out.

Another is that I finally saw my site via Internet Explorer yesterday. It appalled me! So many glitches and errors! I have worked very hard to get the blog to look how I want on Safari and Firefox (the only browsers I normally can access). I knew there might be some IE issues, but I had no idea things were so bad. As a visual perfectionist, I feel awful that my ‘product’ has looked so crummy. I’ve been learning XHTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript in order to customize my site. For the most part, all I’ve played with so far are the XHTML and CSS codings, but obviously I’ve made major errors even with those relatively simple protocols. If you knew how much time I’ve spent fiddling with the appearance of WillSpirit, you’d understand why it is so upsetting to realize that things have looked so amateurish on IE this whole time. For the time being I’m just going to stick with this simple theme I’ve switched to, and not modify it. When I get a way to check the appearance in IE every time I change the coding, I will try to get things looking more ‘me’.

That’s my daily whine.

On the brighter side, the smoke from the Yosemite fire has cleared. So we once again have air. The managers who thought it a good idea to ignite a ‘controlled’ burn on a windy August day, with temperatures near 100°F (38°C), must be feeling pretty dismal. After several days of work by large fire crews and numerous aircraft, it looks like the fire might be contained. ‘Only’ a few thousand acres burned (maybe five square miles). If these had been private citizens making such a mistake, they’d be facing major criminal prosecution and civil damages. As it is, they only need to say “sorry”, and move on. Actually, I’ve not yet read a public apology, though perhaps I missed it. The fire did not get anywhere near our neighborhood, unlike last year’s ‘Telegraph’ fire, which came within a few miles. So other than a few days of choking, smoky haze, it did not have a big impact here. But people in Foresta (a community located within the boundaries of Yosemite National Park) had to evacuate, and I understand one or two structures suffered damage. At least no one seems to have been injured.

So the day is pleasant and clear. Not too hot. A good day to polish off some errands before heading back to the (San Francisco) Bay Area tomorrow. Maybe I can get a workout in also. I’ve held off for a couple of days because of the poor air quality; I was already having trouble breathing. Not getting exercise leaves me set-up for mood decay.

That’s it for today. Obviously, I am not in particularly philosophical or lyrical frame of mind. But I wanted to check in, apologize for how badly things have looked on Internet Explorer, and just do a little writing on the blog. I would have written a more interesting post, probably, if I had not wasted so much time crafting a detailed set of text and diagrams to mail to the contractor. I want to send a forceful and well documented argument without antagonizing the guy, and that takes a bit of finesse. I hope I pulled it off. I’d much rather spend time sending messages off into the WWW, so my readers could (hopefully) get a little enjoyment, instead of preparing a letter that will no doubt be upsetting to this man.

We all make mistakes. I messed up with IE. The Yosemite Park management started a wildfire. The contractor mowed down the wrong stuff. We are not perfect. The keys are to:

  1. Keep trying.
  2. Acknowledge mistakes.
  3. Make voluntary restitution where needed.

These sound like they should be easy steps, but if they really were, we’d have far fewer conflicts in the world.

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