Days of Yore: It's About Time, Part 1

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff."

- The Doctor
Doctor Who, "Blink"

As a kid, I loved getting the newspaper. We got the Stars and Stripes in the Philippines, and I went straight to the comics. One of the comic strips that I followed regularly was Dick Tracy. Tracy was a detective with a distinctive yellow hat and yellow trenchcoat. He solved mysteries and put the bad guys away, in part with the help of his state-of-the-art wristwatch that had a two-way radio built into it. I was amazed by everything his watch could do, and I wished there was such a thing in real life. I couldn't know that decades later, the smartwatch would be invented. Wireless Advocates, where I worked until recently, sold them at their kiosks. They didn't look like Dick Tracy's watch, but they could do some of the same things that may or may not be related to telling the time.

Image by XaMaps on Adobe Stock

Watch

When I was younger, I wore a watch on my left arm, which was how I remembered left and right. They were not connected to satellites at that time, so we had to get the time from the radio or other sources (such as a clock on the wall) when we were setting them. Sometimes, as a mark of our friendship, my best friend and I would synchronize our watches, or set them so they were exactly at the same time, down to the second. Because we had to set them manually, different people's watches were sometimes in disagreement, but generally pretty close to each other. Some watches were slower or faster, so we sometimes had to correct the time. My first watch had a traditional clock face, except that it had Mickey Mouse in the middle using his arms to tell me the time. As I got older, I graduated from a traditional clock face to a digital watch. Both kinds had the date (or some portion of it), and I liked to look at my digital watch at midnight every New Year to watch the year change.

These days, smartwatches can do a lot more than just tell time, and they are generally connected to satellites so we don't have to set them manually. As I have gotten older, my skin has gotten more sensitive, so I can't wear a watch any more. So for all the dreaming of Dick Tracy's watch being real, I don't have one now because I can't wear it if I don't want a rash. But I have other ways of telling time. (Fun activity: Try saying "I wish to wash my Irish wristwatch" or "Which wristwatch is a Swiss wristwatch?" ten times quickly!)

Pocket Watch

By the time I came around, most people didn't use pocket watches (such as the one in the picture above) any more, but they were pretty cool. Some people did have them in their pocket, which you could usually tell because of the chain dangling from their belt or button loop and extending into their pocket. They could take the watch out, open it, and check the time. I have an image in my head of someone wearing a monocle  with a matching chain while doing so, though monocles were long since out of use by my time. Some people also wore them to look tough.

Alarm Clock

We had a couple options for alarm clocks when I was younger. We had a small clock that I could put next to my bed, and set it to ring when I wanted to wake up. Alternatively, my watch had an alarm on it that I often used.

Holy Doctor Who, Batman!

Were there other ways of telling time?
Did my grandfather own a clock, and did it fit on the shelf?
Am I going to blog more about this, or have I gone cuckoo?
Do I even use my cell phone to tell time, or should my phone be confined to a cell by Dick Tracy?
Am I going to TICK another post off the list, or will you need to TOCK to someone else?
Will the pendulum swing to a new post?
Can the clock in my car take me Back to the Future?

TUNE IN TOMORROW!

    SAME BAT-TIME,

        SAME BAT-CHANNEL!

Hosanna!

Today is Palm Sunday, the day we remember Christ's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey. The people laid palm branches and coats on the ground to welcome Christ as Messiah and King. How soon they would forget a few days later when cries of "Hosanna!" turned to "Crucify Him!"

Hosanna!
Steven Sauke
Illustration

Many people believe Hosanna is synonymous with Hallelujah. It is not. Where Hallelujah means "Praise the Lord", Hosanna means "Please save us!" It is a cry for help. In this case it was still a shout of praise, but not in the same sense as Hallelujah. It was more of a "Hooray, our Savior is here! Do your stuff!" John Piper had some good thoughts on it here.

Days of Yore(ish): Social Media

I got my first electronic mail (e-mail) address in high school in the '90s. I used Juno at first, and I believe I may also have had an e-mail address on my high school's domain. As I covered e-mail in my post on mail, I will not go into it here. But I mention it here for an important reason.

In 2003, my good friend Tom Anderson co-founded MySpace. I call him my friend because he was everyone's friend, as long as they had a MySpace account. I don't recall ever interacting with him, but he had a very recognizable profile picture with a friendly smile (I've seen it called "the Mona Lisa of profile pictures"), and his posts were always friendly and welcoming. At that time, social media was a foreign concept to many, and he got the pleasure of introducing it to the world. He described it as "e-mail on steroids."

Photo: @myspacetom/Twitter

MySpace

MySpace opened a whole new world that went beyond what e-mail could do. You could still send messages to people, but at that time, when writing an e-mail, could you set up a whole profile with a welcoming background, things you liked, your heroes, a profile picture, even have a musical soundtrack on your profile? Nope! (You can do some of that on e-mail now, but you couldn't at the time.) Was the founder of your e-mail domain so personable that you considered him your friend even if you had never met him or interacted with him? I imagine some had, but for the most part, nope! MySpace still exists, but I haven't checked it in years. I wonder if my account is still there?

Facebook

In 2007, my second-cousin Aric and my friend Craig recommended a newer website called Facebook, founded by Mark Zuckerberg. It was supposed to be better than MySpace. It had a very different look and feel, and no music soundtrack (which I enjoyed on MySpace, but in retrospect, don't miss). I am still very active on Facebook, more so than other social media. But Mark doesn't strike me nearly as friendly as Tom. But as I've never met either of them, I can't say that for sure.

Twitter

Twitter came along as a much simpler place where you could post short messages, no longer than 90 characters. At first I didn't get the point, but as I got into it, it started consuming all my spare time as I had to catch up on all my friends' updates. I finally pulled back because it was too much. But I had a Twitter account until recently when it was purchased by Elon Musk and became too politicized for my tastes. I deactivated it at that time.

LinkedIn

My friend Jared, who I knew in the Philippines, introduced me to LinkedIn. It is more professional in nature, and has been a big help in connecting with friends, colleagues and others, as well as allowing a place for resumes. In my recent job search, I have also gotten into their online courses for work skills. It is a great tool. Up until recently, I mainly only used it for resume-related purposes, but lately I've been posting my blogs there, and I've also been encouraged by posts from former colleagues at Wireless Advocates, who have all been searching for work.

Instagram

A few years ago, I got into Instagram. It's a place where you can post pictures, and it also has filters and other tools that other social media outlets didn't offer. It was eventually purchased by Facebook and has changed over the years (introducing video at one point), but I still enjoy posting there.

Google+

I loved Google+. My brother Aaron introduced me to it, and it had amazing potential. It was better than Facebook. However, Facebook learned lessons and adapted in response to certain features of Google+, and it sadly never really took off. They eventually closed it down.

YouTube

YouTube offered a place to post videos. I have posted a few, but mainly I have used it to watch videos. It was eventually purchased by Google.

Vimeo

Similar to YouTube, Vimeo offers another place to post videos. I posted my movies and animations from my design classes there.

Pinterest

This is a place you can post pictures, either that you upload, or that you found online and liked. Many people also use it to post recipes and other things. They call their posts ideas, which you "pin" in Pinterest. I use it to post my artwork.

Behance

I learned about Behance in my design classes. It's a place where you can share art, in a more professional manner than Pinterest and others. In some ways it's a bit like LinkedIn for artists, though more for portfolios than resumes.

SnapChat

SnapChat was yet another place to post videos, but there was a catch: they had to be short (only a few seconds), and the videos only stayed up for a day. I enjoyed it for a while, but eventually lost interest and deactivated. I would rather my posts stay up longer than a day. It's possible it's changed since then, but I don't know.

FourSquare

Maybe it's just me, but this one creeped me out. It was a place where you could check wherever you happened to be at the moment. You could even be declared the mayor of a certain place. I never set up an account because I didn't really feel like telling the world where I was at a given moment. (You can also do this on Facebook and other social media, but it isn't the main point of those sites.)

Dribbble

Yes, that is spelled right. The letter B happens three times in that word. I just recently learned about this one. It's a similar idea to Behance, where you can post your art and design portfolio.

Social Media Concepts

Between social media outlets, there are several common threads:

• MySpace, Facebook and others have friends. You can friend and unfriend people. Friendships go both ways automatically, though you have to accept friend requests.
• Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and others have followers. Typically, you can follow people, and they have the option of following you back. Depending on your settings, you may or may not have to approve followers. (You can also follow people on Facebook, but it doesn't give you as much visibility as being their Facebook friend.)
• Hashtags offer a way of grouping concepts on multiple sites. You start with a hash mark (#) and type a word. I feel these can be #overused, but some people use them all the time. When you click on a #hashtag on sites that use them, you can see a list of people who have posted on that #subject. When I was younger, the # symbol was called a pound, hash or number symbol. Now most people know it as a hashtag.
• Most sites start profile names with @. (For example, I am @stevobaggins on most sites that I use. In a couple cases I'm @stevensauke where @stevobaggins doesn't seem professional enough.) Clicking on someone's @ name generally takes you to their profile. (Google+ used + instead of @.)
• In case you are wondering, the movie of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001, shortly before I joined MySpace. Being a Francophile, I ordered the French version of the movie on video from Amazon.ca as soon as I could. Frodo and Bilbo Baggins are Frodon Sacquet and Bilbon Sacquet, respectively. Sacquet sounds very similar to Sauke. It was a little freaky hearing the Ringwraith coming into the Shire and whisper sinisterly, "Sa - cquet!" What? What did I do?? Anyway, Stevo was an attempt at making my first name sound hobbity, and Baggins is due to the way Sacquet sounds like Sauke.
• If something is trending, it is being discussed or shared by thousands of people at once on a given social media outlet. Things generally only trend for a short period of time. Generally subjects or #hashtags tend to trend.
• If something goes viral, it is shared quickly and widely, sometimes by hundreds and thousands of people. It spreads like a virus, though some would prefer to go viral online to doing so by spreading a disease. Pictures, articles, videos, blog posts (hint, hint), and any number of things can go viral. The musical Dear Evan Hansen involves a video of a speech by the title character going viral online.
• You can "like" posts on most social media sites. Some sites, such as Facebook, offer other options like "love", "care", "angry", "laughter", "sad" and others. Used well, these can be an encouragement to the poster. Used poorly, they can be hurtful, so I recommend being careful with them, particularly since it's easy to accidentally select the wrong reaction. LinkedIn has a different set of reactions.

I put "ish" in the title of this post because social media is still new enough that I don't particularly consider it "yore" (though I imagine some of the kids today might disagree with me on that...now I feel old)...but it has changed enough over the years that I felt it fit in the theme.

I leave you with my favorite YouTube video on the popularity of social media. Though some sites have come and gone, the popularity has continued since then.

Self Portrait in the style of Aaron Douglas

In high school I did a report on James Weldon Johnson, a preacher who put a bunch of his sermons in his book God's Trombones. I love Johnson's style of preaching. He was a great storyteller, and he had a way of presenting biblical narratives in a contemporary and fresh manner that held me spellbound just reading them. At the time, I was intrigued by the illustrations in the book, but as my research was on the author, I didn't look into the illustrator.

In my drawing class while I was studying design a few years later, the assignment for our final was to pick an artist from a list supplied by our teacher. Aaron Douglas was on the list. I wasn't that familiar with him, but when I started to research him, I recognized the art from God's Trombones. 

Self Portrait
Steven Sauke
Marker, Pen, Sharpie on Paper

Part of the reason I was studying design was because I was pondering what to do with my life. (I'm still figuring out what I want to do when I grow up.) I've always loved art and design. As I pondered how to go about art in Aaron Douglas' style, I decided on a self portrait as his art involved silhouetted people. The palm tree represents my past in the Philippines. The Space Needle represents my present in Seattle. For years I have dreamed of living in France someday, so I put the Eiffel Tower in the middle to represent a possible future, as well as a nod to my study in France in 1999. I'm in the foreground wondering and praying, shrugging and looking up to heaven to ask God what His will is. None of Douglas' drawings that I saw featured someone wearing glasses (as the ones in God's Trombones depict characters in the Bible), but I was pretty happy with the way I adapted it. He did eyes the way they are above, but I extended the line farther back to approximately where the ears would appear, were it not a silhouette.

This art is my Google avatar, and I have also used it as a Facebook profile picture in the past. It was not my only foray into the styles of artists of the past, as I also painted Mt. Rainier in the style of Claude Monet, as we have seen. I have also used that painting as a cover photo on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

"I'm Tired"

This was inspired by my friend Tyler as he was helping me with my workout in early April 2013. (As of April 9 of that year, it was "last week.") They had big tires in the gym, and we were doing squats and other exercises on them. It occurred to me that I was tired out, and then I was amused by the irony of being tired next to tires...and I thought of a monster truck. Those trucks have huge tires (about the size of the ones they use in the gym), and they work them so hard. If they were alive, I'm sure they'd get tired on their tires. I guess, as they say, Tyler, see you in the funny pages!

Illustration
Steven Sauke
April 9, 2013

With Tyler, later in 2013
Photo by Ton Sridi

Days of Yore: Chores

"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and SNAP! The job's a game!" 

- Mary Poppins

Growing up, I had a list of chores that I had to check off every week. It was covered in clear plastic and I used a dry erase marker to check each one off as I did it. Once we had squared everything away, I could wipe it off and start a new week on the same sheet. How many chores I had done made a difference in how much allowance I got. Chores have never been my favorite thing, but they are a fact of life, and I have learned it's best at least to try to make them somewhat fun. How we do them has changed over the years, for some chores more than others.

Photo by Tomasz on Adobe Stock

Trash

Sorry for the trash talk. (couldn't resist) In the Philippines, I took the trash out to the back and burned it. It was interesting watching it burn, but I was not a fan of smelling like smoke when I was done. After we moved to another house, a garbage truck came around, so we didn't burn as much. We hadn't had that at previous houses. This garbage truck played the same tune loudly every time, so we knew it was coming and to bring the trash out. (I could still sing the tune for you, though I don't know what it's called.) Back in the US, we have taken the trash out and set it in front of the house for the garbage truck to pick up. Toward the end of his life, that was my dad's job. I wasn't a fan when I helped out, but I was surprised after losing him that I no longer mind it so much. Funny how losing someone you love and miss terribly changes your perspective on things. Prior to that, the only time I really enjoyed it was when I was in college and we took our trash out to the big dumpster that sat open. It was huge, and there was a platform with steps leading up to it. My roommate introduced me to cool garbage bags that had a plastic drawstring to close them. The drawstring was a new concept for me. Between the cool bags and just tossing the bag over the railing of the platform into the dumpster, suddenly it was fun! (What can I say? I'm easily entertained.)

Dusting

No, I don't mean a dusting of snow. We didn't get those in the Philippines. (We did occasionally get a dusting of puns, though.) We have used a variety of items to dust. Featherdusters, fancy dusters that they sold at the fair, rags, water, Lysol, Clorox wipes, and others. I have mixed feelings about dusting. Not always the most fun thing to do, but there's something satisfying about dust just wiping away and something shiny (to varying degrees of shiny) being revealed underneath. When I get into it, sometimes it's almost exciting.

Photo by Wayhome Studio on Adobe Stock

Sweeping

Some of the most amazing brooms I have encountered were in the Philippines. They have two main kinds. One kind looks more traditional, with a handle and soft bristles. They're softer than the bristles on the average American broom, but they often work better. The other kind is much more stiff. It's like a bunch of long and thin sticks bound together. They are also very useful, as they can get things that the softer broom can't. The stiffer ones are especially helpful on cement. Like dusting, it's satisfying to see things get swept away. Probably best not to make sweeping generalities, though.

Vacuuming

Vacuuming is similarly satisfying to sweeping skillfully and safely. The biggest difference being that it's a lot louder and it sucks! But in this case it's a good thing that it sucks! As my dad's ears got more sensitive as he got older, we had to do the vacuuming when he was out, although it helps that our current vacuum is quieter than previous ones. He wore earplugs when he did the vacuuming. Some things just can't be done in a vacuum. Some people have a Roomba that they don't even need to push.

Cleaning the Bathroom

[Note to self. Let's avoid the puns here. Some things just don't need that kind of potty humor - AHHH! I had one job!] Anyway, not a lot has changed as I recall in the area of cleaning the bathroom. I have used spray in cleaning the sink, counter and tub (often using rags or toilet paper), swept the floor, scrubbed the toilet with spray and toilet bowl cleaner and a special brush... I also once cleaned a colony of angry fire ants out of our showerhead just by turning it on. That was a painful experience. Cleaning the bathroom is not my favorite job, and I think I'll leave it at that. [Don't say it.] Sometimes I just get that [Steven, I'm warning you] sinking feeling talking about it. [sigh...]

Washing Dishes

I hope I didn't dish out too many details in that last section. We washed our dishes by hand in the Philippines. One thing I liked about returning to the US was that we could use a dishwasher, which saved a lot of time. Having grown up washing dishes by hand, my dad tried to conserve as many dishes as possible. He often commented that there was no sense dirtying another plate. When we had a dishwasher, we sometimes liked pointing out sarcastically that there was no space in the dishwasher for yet another plate! Of course, not all dishes can be washed in the dishwasher, so we still have to wash pots and pans and other things by hand. Also, some things can't wait until the dishwasher is filled up. So I guess it's a wash. On the rare occasion our dishwasher is out of order, we sometimes use paper plates that we can just throw away.

Photo by dglimages on Adobe Stock

Washing the Dog

This was my brother Tim's job in the Philippines. As we haven't had a dog since moving back to the US, I'm not sure if things have changed, but when we were in the Philippines, we had special dog shampoo that Tim used. After spreading it over the dog, we had to let it set and do its thing for 15 minutes. Sadly, our dog Butch was not known for his stellar obedience skills, but he was a big fan of digging holes in the dirt, which he wasn't allowed to do—but he didn't always see the point of letting that stop him. I do not envy Tim having to re-wash the dog after he (Butch, not Tim) decided to dig up dirt while covered in shampoo! I sincerely hope dog shampoo has made improvements since then so it is no longer necessary to let it set! Otherwise, that has got to take a lot of dogged determination! Thankfully, Butch's successor was a good deal more obedient, though he also had his interesting quirks.

Walking the Dog

Though I did not generally wash the dog, I did often walk him. It was an interesting challenge keeping Butch away from cats (he was a very gentle dog, except with cats...pity the poor kitty that got in his way!) and keeping his successor Killer away from other dogs (he came with the name, and it was too late to rename him when we got him...his name was perhaps the biggest misnomer I have ever encountered, as he was a very kind dog—though pro tip: If your dog's name is Killer, it's best not to yell  his name loud enough to wake the dead when he is snarling at a cute little dog that a neighbor is walking). At times the dog walked me. I loved our dogs, but they were interesting.

Feeding the Dog

In the Philippines, we generally fed our dogs rice, and sometimes we put other stuff in it to make it more interesting. When we had to give them medicine, we had to get creative in hiding it in their food, as they tended to eat around it. We sometimes ended up opening capsules and spreading the powder on bread. After Butch contracted heartworm, my dad ended up having to force him to take the pills because he refused otherwise. Butch wouldn't hurt a fly (though cats were another matter), but his reflexes didn't agree with my dad's hand, and let's just say my dad ended up having to get rabies shots just in case. Butch eventually had to be put to sleep...but that's another (heartbreaking) story. In feeding the dog, we would set the dish in front of him and tell him, "Wait....wait...wait...OK!" He had to sit nicely while we told him to wait, and as soon as we said OK, he could start eating, which he did with gusto.

Washing Clothes

In the Philippines, most of our houses had washing machines, but not all of them had dryers. We sometimes washed clothes by hand, but usually we were able to wash them in the machine. (Pro tips: wash light and dark colors separately, and remember to take pens out of your pockets before putting them in the wash!) We usually had to hang clothes out to dry, so we had a clothesline in the backyard. Now we usually dry things in the dryer, though I do still have a few things, such as socks and masks, that I hang to dry. Personally, I preferred hanging out with friends to hanging clothes out to dry. I have a dream that someday, we'll have a third machine where we can throw all our dried clothes in, and they will come out all folded and neatly stacked. (Come to think of it, we were promised in the '80s that we would all have robots to do that by now! I want my money back!) When the washing machine has been unavailable, we've occasionally used a laundromat, but that's very rare. (I also find that the Cleaners is a bad place to take someone on a date. Not that I've ever dated. Maybe that's why?)

Photo by Kyle Arcilla on Unsplash

Mowing the Lawn

Most of our houses in the Philippines didn't have a lawn, and if they did, it was pretty small. Cutting the grass wasn't my job in the Philippines, but the person who did it often used garden shears. In the US we have used a lawn mower. I'm not a huge fan of pushing a lawn mower around, but like with sweeping and dusting, it is satisfying to watch the tops of the grass disappear as rows of fresh-cut grass are revealed. The smell of grass was refreshing as a child. I have mixed feelings about it now. I could elaborate further, but perhaps it's best to cut this section short.

Cleaning My Room

When I was little, I had this lovely idea that it was impossible to have a messy room if you didn't have toys to mess it up, so you were always having to put them away. Sadly, I proved myself wrong as I grew older. I enjoyed toying with that notion while it lasted.

I have had other chores as well over the years, but those are the ones that come to mind. What are your favorite and least favorite chores? Do you like to try making them fun? 

Self Portrait

In one of my art classes in 2011, we received two related assignments. Our professor told us up front there was a second part of the assignment, but she purposely wouldn't explain part 2 until after we were finished with part 1. Probably just as well, as these would look very different had she explained both parts up front!

For part 1, we were to cut bits out of magazines, newspapers, or anything we found online and printed, and make a self portrait collage. We could get as creative as we wanted—in fact, the more creative, the better—and we needed to pay attention to shapes, shading, and other aspects. Having grown up in the Philippines and loving their coral reefs, I decided to go with that theme. I was very happy with the result:

Self Portrait Collage
Steven Sauke
2011

Had I known the next step, I would not have made it anywhere near as intricate and exciting.

For part 2, we were given the three primary colors of paint (red, blue, yellow) and a canvas. Now we were to paint the collage! Using only those three colors, we had to mix colors and get it as close to the collage as possible. Though it turned out to be fairly complicated, I was proud of the result:

Self Portrait
Steven Sauke
Acrylic on Canvas
2011