September can you kill, in the south. Having survived the languid, sticky slowness of August, you think September will be different. It is, after all, a month of change, when children return to school. The streets go quiet during the day, the parks and malls are bare in the mornings and stillness settles over the city, a held breath that finally begins to exhale around 2:30. With these shifts and changes, you’d think the weather would also change, that heat leave like an a guest who has over stayed.. You’d think.

But you’d be wrong.

You slowly realize that the heat and humidity has spent the summer making itself comfortable and it has no intention of leaving just yet. It stays on the porch, gently rocking in its chair and staring off into the sky. Occasionally, it will reach down and bring a wet glass to its lips and take a long drink and you’ll feel pieces of yourself melt away and it’ll turn and smile at you, the son of a bitch, and continue rocking. It paid for the full month and it intends to enjoy every moment of it and if you should go mad from the heat and humidity that doesn’t let up and seems like it never will, if you’re wake up everyday on the thin edge of reason praying please, let the heat break today, well, that’s just too bad, but it pay for the entire month, so it’ll be stayin’.

Simply put, it has not been a good summer, hence the silence here. I could list it all out, but really, I’d like to move past it all and instead, dream of flying

Our Facebook accounts have been reinstated, no real explanation given, just this short email:

Hi Brandon,

We have investigated the matter more thoroughly and have reinstated your accounts. I sincerely apologize for our error and the inconvenience you and your wife have gone through. I hope this will not deter you from fully enjoying the site in the future, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you experience any further problems.

Thank you,

Anjali
User Operations
Facebook

Much thanks to the Metafilter posse for their help, both in public and behind the scenes for getting this correction made. It’s great community of people.

and no, I doubt I’ll be spending much time on Facebook.

To all,
If you’re wondering why I may not be in your Facebook network or friend circle anymore, it’s because I’ve been using a fake account. It’s true, Facebook itself told me. Not only that, but Lisa has been using a fake account too.

Now, I know many of you knew me as Brandon Blatcher, the name I’ve had since birth, though ya’ll have certainly called me other names at times. But Facebook has uncovered the truth and now my shame is revealed.

This all started a few weeks ago, when I tried to log into Facebook, only to get this error:

Your account has been disabled by an administrator. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.

Naturally the link they provided didn’t contain any information or email addresses so I Googled around to find some sort of contact info. All I got was , which I emailed saying they were in error and could they turn my account back on. After a week they replied with the above notice, saying I was using a fake account.

I’m not sure where to go from here, as who I am clearly isn’t who I thought I was and then to find out that Lisa isn’t Lisa, well, I need a moment or at least a phone number to talk to someone over at Facebook and politely ask just who the hell they think they are and what they hell they’re going to do about this problem.

Update:
Facebook, please notice that this is the full, uncropped picture that was used in my Facebook profile.

Good article on visual thinking by Douglas Coupland. I’m definitely a sanserif thinker, but tend to think in variable widths as they give a lot of variety for tone. Oddly enough, it’s usually white text on a black background, or reverse, usually no color, as black and white have the strongest contrast and I’m all about the meshing point of contrasting ideas, shapes, etc.

via the excellently written and beautifully focused daring fireball.

On Saturday night, March 15th, a storm system moved through the area. It knocked out a transmission station in local county, putting most of Savannah in the dark and casting lightning throughout the sky. Me and Lisa watched from the darkness porch and resisted the urge to go driving around. That was smart as numerous accidents occurred and the city was put in mild state of chaos. It’s rare that the entire city loses power, usually it’s just a section or two.

I’ve always loved being in the midst of storms (I stuck around Savannah when Hurricane Floyd came through in 1999), there’s something gloriously alive about it, but ya gotta play it safe too. There were tornado warnings for surrounding counties, so we made sure we had emergency supply ducks in a row and just hung out on the porch watching the world go by. I too a few photos, which can be found over on Flickr, while cell phone video is below.

Much has written and said about the drought in Georgia and what it means. But hearing about the drought and then seeing the effects up close are dratiscally different.

Back in February, we spent a weekend at cabin in Santee, South Carolina, which has numerous campsites and cabins along Lake Marion, a man made lake. Though we had gotten a cabin on the lake, we had arrived late at night, so there was much to see. The next morning I got up and walked the 30 yards to the shorelline and was perplexed by the strange trees I saw on the shore, pictured below (yeah it’s crappy photo, but my camera’s light sensor seemed to go on the fritz, blowing out the highlights)


It took me a minute to realize that I was seeing the part of the trees that was usually under water. More frightening was that I seeing about 5-6 feet of previously hidden tree parts.

Then I looked around and saw just how bad it really was:


The previous waterline was visible all around the lake. Where I was standing had previously been underwater and now it was just…gone, with nothing left to replace it. And judging from how much water had gone done, it would be a long time, if ever, before the water levels returned to their previous state.

The house was getting electrical work done recently, so the power had to completely disconnected all day and I had to be home with the workmen.

It was odd to sit home all day and do without modern life for the most part. There was no internet, no computer, hell there was even a light a bathroom, though luckily I remembered where everything was. Lunch consisted of ordered pizza, a book was read, even a movie watched on the iPod, but it all felt isolating. The workmen were friendly, but busy as they scurried all over the house, no time to chat, they had deadlines see.

And with no internet, the disconnect from other people felt complete. Remember this was just a standard work day in length, nothing excessively long, but it felt extremely isolating, as if all connections with humanity were cut off, which is a foolish thought on one hand, yet on the other a recognition of the many human contacts I have these days via the net, usually through email.

Is it any wonder that now I’m lusting after a handheld Wifi device after that day? If you’re bound to one spot for most of the day, it helps to have a multitude of human contact.

Have signed up for a Flickr page, upgraded to the pro level and been busy uploading photos! Makes me want to take more photos…

I’ve thought about enumerating the various things I can give thanks for and it’s a pretty big list, all things considered. But to write it out, to tally it out, to be some sort of spiritual accountant, carefully weighing that things are important and by implication what things are not feels out of place this year. It smells of overthinking. In the end, any day above ground is a good one, so lets leave it at thank.