On March 11, Bellefonte schools closed – first for spring break, then the following week on the Governor’s orders. Shortly after, county workers had to work from home. So my kid has been sequestered with her kid for two months in an attempt to limit contact with the virus and thereby ease the burden facing …
Author Archives: davidstong
latin banquet
After my mother died, my brother and I had to find time to clean out the house we grew up in- an old three story, full-basement brick almost victorian home in Pottstown. Over that spring and summer we’d each take several days off to drive back to Pottstown hoping to clear out the junk. Instead, …
folder icons
I just wasted a few hours. I’ve been irritated by labels on my computer- the File menu says I can add color labels but I just wind up with standard cyan folders with little colored text under them. See them in the top image? For visual display, I want the folders themselves to turn color. …
new direction
canned memories
This was on a shelf in my kitchen: An off brand, several years past the best by date, with touches of corrosion on the top. It used to sit on my counter with a wine glass standing on top of it, and now, I can’t throw it out. When my daughter came to pick up …
seven year anniversary
On November 30, today, I’ve been retired for seven years. Small problems, inevitable new problems, and obsolescence have me considering using fairly dear savings for a new 16″ Macbook Pro. It looks really good, but do I need it? Digital work is a lot of fun, sometimes I get to help friends, but looking at …
rubbish bin
What do I do with piles of sketches? In books, in folders, laying loose. When I moved to Bellefonte six years ago, I cleared out what I thought was most of it, but I keep turning up more. flickr does an interesting job of aggregating the stuff- sizing the images I uploaded so they fit …
Harriet Tubman
The Library of Congress just received a photograph of Harriet Tubman. Since her biopic is coming out, it’s appearing in a few places on the internet. Since it comes with no restrictions and the Library provides a large TIFF download (seriously large, 160 megs) I had to grab it so I could stare into her …
mccloud reading (old)
This re-post of my November 2010 Penn State blog features some of Scott McCloud’s work, just in case anyone misses the nature of the post. It’s a reaction to the NMR reading featuring a chapter of McCloud’s book, Understanding Comics. I took the first page from McCloud’s chapter “Time Frames” and inserted a two page …
blew it
This was a tough one. It started a year ago with an old friend asking if I’d be interested in contract work. Likely as much an attempt to throw me a bone as use grant money. The needs started with a decision tree, but that felt wrong to me. At the time, I couldn’t say …