Thanksgiving — as a secular holiday that draws a veneer of theological justification thin enough to deny if anyone objects to it — doesn’t exercise much power over the Adam family imagination. That doesn’t mean we aren’t thankful; just that we’re blasé about the state’s efforts to gin up an ambiance of spirituality in the civic context. On the other hand, we try to practice gratitude (eucharistia) more daily.
So first, I want to give thanks for all the love and friendship that’s come this direction from online. I’m thunderstruck every time I stop to think about the vast difference between what I expected when I started writing online (almost two years ago, now) and what has turned out to be the case. Our recent visit with Jenna and Jeneane and John was just a lovely instance of what’s been a general phenomenon. Y’all have been wonderful and fascinating and invigorating. Amazing!
Second, I’m thankful for the opportunity to spend another long weekend at my absolute favorite conference hotel in the world, the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta (Mark Goodacre didn’t like it, thinking it “soulless,” though I find it hard to regard the Marriott as less soulful than the standard-issue halls-and-rooms block-construction alternatives). My fondness may derive from it having been the first conference hotel I ever stayed at, back in 1986 when I roomed with Richard Hays — but even apart from nostalgia, I think that the Marriott has many features that set it apart from its tiresome competitors. On the other hand, it was expensive this year, and when I called this morning to retrieve the cell phone charging cord, the Marriott’s security personnel had trouble with some relatively basic functions (such as transcribing the troublesome number “638”). Whatever. This year’s conference was quite satisfying, and Margaret really tore up the pea patch, which was loads of fun to see.
Third, I’m thankful for Margaret’s delicious enchilada dinner, our annual tradition for this meal. Several years ago we prepared enchiladas as a complement to a great community feast with my mother’s side of the family, at which banquet a come-along guest found our (vegetarian) entree a source of ceaseless lackwit mockery; his condescending disdain only confirmed in us the sense that this would be our Thanksgiving Day fare from that day forward.
Fourth, I’m thankful for a day to recuperate from the hustle and bustle of the SBL meeting by noodling around aimlessly at the end of the dining room table.
Fifth, I’m thankful for our wonderful children, and I’ll be even more thankful if they let me take a picture or two of them before Nate heads back to Rochester. Nate and Pippa, this means you!
Sixth, I’m thankful for whole boatloads of other people and circumstances I’d have to take days and days to list — which is why we support daily eucharists. I do pray for you and give thanks for you as near to daily as I can. Grace and peace be with you.
Posted by AKMA at November 27, 2003 05:07 PM | TrackBackAnd also with you, AKMA.
Posted by: Pascale Soleil at November 28, 2003 05:12 PMAKMA, I remembered you in my Thanksgiving Day homily, quoting you from Greek I:
"eucharisto means - to cook with lard"!
And so began my gleanings at the feet of the master teacher, now Full Professor, Adam. And I am thankful for all that means.
Peace
Glad to hear you had a good time. As I read through your thanksgiving litany, you wouldn't be insinuating that the current structure I call home could be considered "soul-less," would you? (He said with considerably more than a smirk on his face)
Posted by: Todd at November 30, 2003 07:42 PMOur next line looks familiar, except it starts with an asterisk. Again, we're using the star operator, and noting that this variable we're working with is a pointer. If we didn't, the computer would try to put the results of the right hand side of this statement (which evaluates to 6) into the pointer, overriding the value we need in the pointer, which is an address. This way, the computer knows to put the data not in the pointer, but into the place the pointer points to, which is in the Heap. So after this line, our int is living happily in the Heap, storing a value of 6, and our pointer tells us where that data is living.
Posted by: Lucas at January 13, 2004 01:27 AMThis code should compile and run just fine, and you should see no changes in how the program works. So why did we do all of that?
Posted by: Newton at January 13, 2004 01:27 AMA variable leads a simple life, full of activity but quite short (measured in nanoseconds, usually). It all begins when the program finds a variable declaration, and a variable is born into the world of the executing program. There are two possible places where the variable might live, but we will venture into that a little later.
Posted by: Barnabas at January 13, 2004 01:27 AM