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Found a pleasant surprise in my e-mail tonight: Ivan, a friend of longstanding (known since 1989, I believe) bought a Flickr pro account for me -- which, if I recall correctly, considerably boosts my monthly upload capacity. This should serve as motivation to actually upload more than once every couple of months. Said purchase was intended as a birthday present -- Ivan's one of the non-LJ folks who occasionally take a gander at my journal and, not knowing about the Ridiculous Time-Wasting Wikipedia Birthday Meme swallowing LJ's users whole, misread my recent post and thought it was in fact my birthday. Rather, Alison Krauss, Don Drysdale, Harry Potter (OK, Daniel Radcliffe) and I will have to wait until July 23. Today (OK, yesterday now) was ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mrgoodwraith's birthday, though.)
Ivan's one of those friends for whom geographical distance keeps us apart for years at a time, but whenever we meet (either physically or virtually, as in e-mail, Flickr and so forth) we're able to pick right up. We became friends over the course of a year co-editing Houghton College's student newsmagazine, The Houghton Star. (Filker Trivia Items: For insane Ookla the Mok completists, Rand Bellavia wrote a regular column called "That Man Behind the Curtain," musings on faith, philosophy, literature and general observations; andmrgoodwraith wrote a number of articles and a semiregular movie-review column. Randy'ss savaging of Predator 2 remains one of the funniest pieces of film criticism I've ever read.) It was an organically growing friendship, since at the very beginning of our working relationship, Ivan and I didn't really like each other; we were just banded in an uneasy partnership because it was easier pooling our time and talents than trying to go it alone. (Plus, it avoided having to campaign for the job -- yup, at Houghton publications-editorships actually are, or were, elective positions, due to some bizarre historical turn of events I never bothered looking up.) Ivan thought I was lackadaisical and incompetent; I thought he was self-important and humorless. As we came to work closely together, we learned how wrong each was about the other. (Or alternately, that we were both right but that we liked each other anyway. :-) Untrue, untrue. He was neither self-important nor humorless. The jury's out on whether I'm lackadaisical and incompetent.) We had many a filling conversation about religion, politics, social mores, Brazil (his home), the arts and many another topic. He turned me on to Kierkegaard and Gevalia's vanilla nut blend coffee. I turned him on to, among other stuff, Bob Dylan -- he became a fan solely on the strengths of Dylan's Oh Mercy album when he borrowed it from me over a winter break. We both try to forget a two-hour-straight punning session that started out centering on the Great Lakes (an Erie concept, that -- though at the time I thought it was Superior) but meandered into bodies of water, nautical terms, fish and other sea denizens, etc. For awhile we both contributed to a now-defunct regional magazine in upstate New York -- he was on staff and I was an occasional freelancer. And I was honored to serve as a groomsman at his 1993 wedding. (Good grief, 1993? We're old. Old, old, old, I say.)
Seeing a post devoted to himself will probably annoy him. Ah, well. :-) Thanks for your friendship, ITR. Someday we'll have to share some more vanilla-nut, or whatever beverage of choice comes to mind.
mrgoodwraith's birthday, though.)Ivan's one of those friends for whom geographical distance keeps us apart for years at a time, but whenever we meet (either physically or virtually, as in e-mail, Flickr and so forth) we're able to pick right up. We became friends over the course of a year co-editing Houghton College's student newsmagazine, The Houghton Star. (Filker Trivia Items: For insane Ookla the Mok completists, Rand Bellavia wrote a regular column called "That Man Behind the Curtain," musings on faith, philosophy, literature and general observations; and
mrgoodwraith wrote a number of articles and a semiregular movie-review column. Randy'ss savaging of Predator 2 remains one of the funniest pieces of film criticism I've ever read.) It was an organically growing friendship, since at the very beginning of our working relationship, Ivan and I didn't really like each other; we were just banded in an uneasy partnership because it was easier pooling our time and talents than trying to go it alone. (Plus, it avoided having to campaign for the job -- yup, at Houghton publications-editorships actually are, or were, elective positions, due to some bizarre historical turn of events I never bothered looking up.) Ivan thought I was lackadaisical and incompetent; I thought he was self-important and humorless. As we came to work closely together, we learned how wrong each was about the other. (Or alternately, that we were both right but that we liked each other anyway. :-) Untrue, untrue. He was neither self-important nor humorless. The jury's out on whether I'm lackadaisical and incompetent.) We had many a filling conversation about religion, politics, social mores, Brazil (his home), the arts and many another topic. He turned me on to Kierkegaard and Gevalia's vanilla nut blend coffee. I turned him on to, among other stuff, Bob Dylan -- he became a fan solely on the strengths of Dylan's Oh Mercy album when he borrowed it from me over a winter break. We both try to forget a two-hour-straight punning session that started out centering on the Great Lakes (an Erie concept, that -- though at the time I thought it was Superior) but meandered into bodies of water, nautical terms, fish and other sea denizens, etc. For awhile we both contributed to a now-defunct regional magazine in upstate New York -- he was on staff and I was an occasional freelancer. And I was honored to serve as a groomsman at his 1993 wedding. (Good grief, 1993? We're old. Old, old, old, I say.)Seeing a post devoted to himself will probably annoy him. Ah, well. :-) Thanks for your friendship, ITR. Someday we'll have to share some more vanilla-nut, or whatever beverage of choice comes to mind.
