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This Is Where I Stand, 2017
I'm Laurie Mann a feminist geek who used to maintain (and had moved) many Web sites. As of late 2020, we'd both retired and have enjoyed retirement despite some of the limitations of COVID-19. We've been hiking on the Mountour and Panhandle Trails quite a bit, particularly since 2020. I've done a little movie extra work. Our daughter, Leslie, does Web/database support work for an international shipping company, and has been there since 2006 (which sounds like a record for a GenXer).
I like collecting interesting quotes. I also realized that saving my signature history was not only a list of where I'd worked since the 1980s, but also showed that politics has changed pathetically little since the '80s other than the politics being much more devisive.
Jim and I had a very enjoyable 30th anniversary in 2007..
And, only 22 years late, I graduated from college in April 2001.
Jim and I edited books for William Tenn. Jim edited two fiction collections, and I edited his Hugo-nominated non-fiction collection, Dancing Naked. I also edit Tenn's Website.
Here are relatively recent photos of my family and me (probably time to upload new photos!):
| Jim Mann, 5/11 | Leslie Mann, 5/11 | Laurie Mann, 9/11 |
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| Jim Mann, 12/01 | Leslie Mann, 3/02 | Laurie Mann, 4/01 |
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My Dream House - Adapted. Well, actually, Jim and I bought our dream house in early 2006. It's way out in the country, but it is new, and it has space. It also doesn't have noise. But, after 14 years in the country, we moved back to a suburb close to Pittsburgh, within walking distance of South Hills Village but still on a quiet street.
25 Things About Me, 2009, updated in 2015.
My first name is increasingly less common (not that it was all that common in the first place).
I love the pseudo-psychological, pseudo-tests that tell you "what you are" based on a series of questions.
- 12/2: Twitter Big 5 Experiment - Strongest traits were openness and extroversion (surprise-surprise)
- The Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid says I'm To Kill a Mockingbird.
- Take the What High School Stereotype Are You? quiz, by Angel. I'm a geek, which should surprise absolutely no one. And I did pretty well on the Inner Geek Test (Major Geek)
- Which London Underground tube line are you? I'm the DISTRICT line!
- What Christian Theologian Are You? says I'm Karl Barth.
- Which Beatles Album Are You? says I'm Abbey Road.
It turns out my daughter loves these tests too.
And while I don't believe in astrology, I was fascinated by the details in my birth chart.
Jim and I made our long-planned trip to England in March of 2000. Ironically, we turned around and went again in December of 2001 (to use up a bunch of frequent flier points and attend our first foreign conference). Jim then went to Winchester for a business meeting on his own in the spring of 2002. We visited both Ireland and Scotland in 2005. We did a quicky tour of SF/Napa before going to ConJose in 2002. We visited Australia (Melbourne & Sydney) in 2010 and Alaska (Juneau and the southern coast in a smallish boat). In 2017, we visited Italy and think we stayed in an apartment over the bakery cafe Stanley Tucci visited in his Italy - Florence episode (we visited that cafe at least once a day). We visited Ireland again in 2019, hiked along the Dingel Penninsula for 3 days and attending the Dublin Worldcon. We had plans to visit New Zealand and Hawaii in 2020...but you know why we didn't. We hope to visit some rivers in Europe on a Viking river cruise in 2022.
Jim gave me a digital camera in 2000, which I've used to take pictures at the 2000 Nebula Awards, Boskone and at the Feminist Expo 2000...and many other places in the decades since then. While I still have a seperate digital camera, my iPhone camera is almost as good so I don't use it as much as I used to.
1999 was an extraordinarily busy year, between conventions, a hectic work schedule (and "oh the horror" - working for a company that purchased software for a major project that was buggier than most beta software), and managing the hotel and other local aspects of the Nebula Award Banquet that was in Pittsburgh in May 1999 (and 2017 and 2018). But, at least I learned XML and a little XSL, two languages which will be in wide use on the Web in the future. (2010: well, this has been taking a little longer than I anticipated! ;->)
Immediately after Boskone in 1999, I went to New York City for five days (two as a tourist, three as a person taking a class). I saw two Broadway Shows (Ragtime and Death of a Salesman) and ate at a couple of pricey but interesting Indian places and an inexpensive and excellent Thai place. While I wouldn't want to live in New York City, I enjoyed my visit there. We've been back for short trips a few times since then because we liked it so much.
I read an excellent book by David Brin on privacy in the computer age called The Transparent Society. I highly recommend The Sex Side of Life: Mary Ware Dennett's Pioneering Battle for Birth Control and Sex Education, an extraodinarily interesting book about this largely unsung American feminist who helped to topple the Comstock laws.
Jim and I have had a long-time relationship with the Star Wars movies. In 1977, we got married days before the first movie was released. Back in '97, I hit 40 while watching the re-release of Star Wars (and so did a bunch of other people that year). We attended a special showing of The Phantom Menace early in the morning of our 22nd wedding anniversary. And the another installment came out days before our 25th anniversary.
While I generally like the Pittsburgh area, there are some things about this area I don't like, and the Gammage case in the 90s pointed out that bigotry is still alive and well in the Pittsburgh area. Also, a minority of cops in the area behave as if there is a "devine right of police" or something, and that they don't have to account to anyone, especially not their "employers," the taxpayers of Allegheny County. The fact that the KKK has considered this area a hot recruiting zone isn't a good sign either.
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On a lighter topic, I met Patrick Stewart in person in '96, and can attest to the fact that the man has an even better voice in person than on TV. In addition to meeting him at the local Borders, we all went to see him perform with the Pittsburgh Symphony. He performed Shakespearean soliloquies, and the orchestra played pieces like "Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream" in between. Periodically Stewart stars in a one-man show of A Christmas Carol, a piece he immortalized on audio. |
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Among my hobbies - building Web sites, attending/managing conferences, reading, genealogy blogs and movies.
States I've Visited
visited 38 states (76%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Like this? try: Google Battle
Really loved visiting southern
Alaska in 2012.
Canadian Provinces I've Visited
Create Your Own Personalized Map of Canada
I saw much of southern Canada by train in 1968, though I've been to Quebec many times and to Ontario at least once
in this millennium.
European Countries I've Visited
Create your personalized map of Europe
I visited Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland as part of a multi-state high school chorus in 1974, and have been
to the British Isles and Ireland a few times since 2000.
Quotes
"...what would bug a guy from the Taliban more than seeing a gay woman in a suit surrounded by Jews?"
Ellen Degeneres, on
hosting the Emmys in November 2001.
"I would like to believe in God, but I just believe in Billy Wilder."
Fernando Trueba, director of
Belle Epoque, 1993 Best
Foreign-Language Film Oscar winner
I'm a big fan of Marian Wright Edelman's 25 Lessons for Life and Kent M. Keith's Paradoxical Commandments.
Thanks for being Web wanderer
to visit this site since 4/18/04. Counter courtesy of Pair Networks.
