3413 Swimming to Australia

Monday, December 5, 2011

It's impossible to learn what you think you already know.

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I think I was depressed for the past month or two. It happens occasionally. I never recognize it until it's passing. Not a clinical depression, if you know what I mean - a situational depression. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything. Even the grocery store. Didn't want to get dressed. When I ran out of stuff I'd stand at the pantry and wonder what I could eat instead. I haven't yet stowed away any of the latest load of clothing and trinkets I'd brought back from the old house.

I finally recognized it a day or two ago, when I noticed I'd been living almost exclusively in the internet. Reading long articles that don't really matter. Looking stuff up that has no meaning. Following Wikipedia links into the hinterlands. It really hit home when I realized my internet shopping was out of control. I do that when I'm unhappy - I buy myself gifts. They have to arrive in the mail, like a surprise, to be a gift.

The slide all started the first week in October, when Hercules was in Ireland, and Daughter's back went out, and I had to rush back from the old house to care for her. I took over the Nugget for a few days, and then when Daughter was able to lift Nugget again, my back went out from lifting Nugget, and being older, mine took longer to get happy again.

Then Daughter got that cold that was going around, the one with the sore throat and copious nasal and sinus congestion, and general raggedness. Nugget was sick, too. So for several days I had Nugget during the day so Daughter could nap, because Nugget was worse at night, so Daughter had been sleeping on the floor in Nugget's room and up and down with her all night.

Nugget and Daughter got better, but then I came down with the snots. It's bad only maybe two days, but my sinuses are scarred from an epic infection in the early '80s, and the sinus reaction goes on and on for weeks after a cold. No infection, just irritation that produces glop that requires horrendous snorts to clear when it thickens and catches on the soft palate, and it constantly sloughs down the back of my throat and makes me cough. And nobody can cough like I can. My coughs wrack my body. Every cough produces a mouthful of glop.

Naturally, my back went out from the coughing.

The Man has been working out of state, but would be in NJ during that time that Daughter was sick. He wanted to get together. When I mentioned the colds, he decided not, saying he catches everything that comes down the pike - which was just as well because the day he would have arrived, I was starting the sore throat and sniffling.

So, right now my back is still delicate. I can finally sit comfortably. No pain, but I feel that warning twinge every time I move. The coughing and snorting has lessened. And now I recognize how depressed I'd been.

I haven't been to the old house since early October. Winter is coming. There's so very much to do. Until I can get it on the market and actually sell it, it's costing me $1,500/month or more in taxes, utilities, and insurance. I can't go when I'm sick or when my back is out. It's so upsetting it has been causing nightmares and insomnia from a churning mind.

And I haven't seen The Man in ages.

I look at photos of me from just 12 months ago and compare them to now, and I have aged a lot. My weight is also creeping up.

Yesterday I sort of woke up a little. I actually did a few things around here.

We'll see....
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3412 Joke 2

Monday, December 5, 20011

He who votes does not have power. He who counts the votes has power.
-- Stalin ---

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How to Identify Where a Driver is From:

* One hand on wheel, one hand on horn: Chicago

* One hand on wheel, one finger out window: New York

* One hand on wheel, one hand on newspaper, foot solidly on accelerator: Boston

* One hand on wheel, cradling cell phone, brick on accelerator: California. With gun in lap: L.A.

* Both hands on wheel, eyes shut, both feet on brake, quivering in terror: Ohio, but driving in California.

* Both hands in air, gesturing, both feet on accelerator, head turned to talk to someone in back seat: Italy

* One hand on lap, one knee on wheel, cradling cell phone, foot on brake, mind on game: Seattle

* One hand on wheel, one hand on hunting rifle, alternating between both feet being on the accelerator and both on the brake, throwing a McDonalds bag out the window: Texas city male

* One hand on wheel, one hand hanging out the window, keeping speed steadily at 70mph, driving down the center of the road unless coming around a blind curve, in which case they are on the left side of the road: Texas country male

* One hand constantly refocusing the rear-view mirror to show different angles of the BIG hair, one hand going between mousse, brush, and rat-tail to keep the helmet hair going, both feet on the accelerator, poodle steering the car, chrome .38 revolver with mother-of-pearl inlaid handle in the glove compartment: Texas female

* Four wheel drive pickup truck, shotgun mounted in rear window, beer cans on floor, squirrel tails attached to antenna: West Virginia

* Two hands gripping wheel, blue hair barely visible above window level, driving 35 on the interstate in the left lane with the left blinker on: Florida

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Challenge to readers: Add one for your state in the comments.
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3411 Joke 1

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Don't worry about people stealing your idea. If it's original,
you'll have to ram it down their throats.
-- Howard Aiken --

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How many dogs does it take to change a light bulb? It depends on the breed.

• Golden Retriever: The sun is shining, the day is young, we've got our whole lives ahead of us, and you're inside worrying about a stupid burned-out light bulb?
• Lab: Oh, me, me!!! Pleeeeeeze let me change the light bulb! Can I? Can I? Huh? Huh? Can I?
• Border Collie: Just one. And I'll replace any wiring that's not up to code.
• Dachshund: I can't reach the stupid lamp!
• Toy Poodle: I'll just blow in the Border collie's ear and he'll do it.By the time he finishes rewiring the house, my nails will be dry.
• Rottweiler: Go Ahead! Make me!
• Shi-tzu: Puh-leeze, dah-ling. Let the servants. . . .
• Malamute: Let the Border collie do it. You can feed me while he's busy.
• Cocker Spaniel: Why change it? I can still pee on the carpet in the dark.
• Doberman Pinscher: While it's dark, I'm going to sleep on the couch.
• Mastiff: Mastiffs are NOT afraid of the dark.
• Hound Dog: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAP
• Keeshund: (Stands with furrowed brow for several minutes, then wanders off having forgotten what the problem was.)
  
• Chihuahua: Yo quiero Taco Bulb.
• Pointer: I see it, there it is, right there... there... there... see?
  
• Greyhound: It isn't moving. Who cares?
• Australian Kelpie: First I'll put all the light bulbs in a little circle...
• Old English Sheep Dog: Light bulb? Light bulb? That thing I just ate was a light bulb?
  

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3410 Frost

Friday, December 2, 2011

Never ever lie to your child or make promises you don't intend to keep.
It may be convenient at the moment,
but the child will never again trust or believe you.
-- Silk --

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The online weather reports say it's 37 F out there, but the extremely accurate darkroom thermometer I had tucked into the geranium pots says 0 C/32 F. Our first real frost.

It begins.

Yuck.

(It's 25 F at the old house upriver.)
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3409 Propaganda

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Insurance of whatever kind is supposed to be there in case something goes wrong.
It has been my experience that having insurance seems to prevent anything going wrong.
Let it lapse, and you'll find out....
-- Silk --

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Latest Nugget (yesterday):

We have one tooth breaking through on the bottom, and one on the top. And she's now crawling properly on hands and knees, and she's FAST! The cats are no longer safe.

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This article is short and interesting: http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/afp/healthpoliticsusbritain

To quote from the intro:

"Everyone knows that liberals and conservatives butt heads when it comes to world views, but scientists have now shown that their brains are actually built differently.

Liberals have more gray matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear, said the study on Thursday in Current Biology."

--------------------------------

At http://www.purewatergazette.net/propagandainamerica.htm, there's a good article entitled Propaganda: Nobody Does It Better Than America, by Paul Weber. It's a bit longer, but it's very good. I highly recommend a skim.

We all know that sex sells products. Fear and repetition sells ideas. Appeals to logic and fact sells nothing.

It's sometimes difficult to recognize propaganda - attempts to control your mind and how you think - especially when the propaganda is all you are given to consider, it's repeated over and over as if it's an accepted fact, and you are not given the real facts. Fear-based propaganda works especially well on the conservative brain.

Think about how our freedoms have been eroded over the past ten years, and how so many of us have been convinced that it's for our own good. And it's all based on fear.
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3408 Bah, humbug.

Monday, November 28, 2011

The ugliest furniture will be forgiven anything if it's comfortable and useful.
That goes for people, too.
-- Silk --

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Need another reason why I don't much care for the way Christmas is celebrated? Try this.

They stepped over him!
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3407 Be thankful for refrigerators!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

The fastest way to drop ten years in appearance is to smile, and make sure the smile lines near your eyes show. Those are the most attractive wrinkles.
Show them.
-- Silk --

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I am reading American Frugal Housewife, by Mrs. Child, "Dedicated to those who are not ashamed of economy." First published in 1833 by Carter, Hendee, and Co., Boston, now published by Applewood Books, Bedford, MA, publishers of America's Living Past.

Extensive passages on the preserving of meats and vegetables. When you read about how meats were packed in salt or brine, how long meats were kept (in a cool spot in the cellar), what a frugal housewife could do to freshen meat that was no longer "sweet", you wonder how they could EAT that stuff. And having eaten it, how they could live. And having eaten it and lived, how come their heads weren't blown off by their salt-induced blood pressure!

Most meats were cooked at a fast boil for hours and hours. I wondered how there could be any flavor left. Meat was then served slathered in butter - I guess because by the time it hit the table, it was dried out.

The other thing that struck me was how long vegetables were cooked. I don't see how anything was much more than unidentifiable mush.

We see the fireplaces in quaint colonial villages, and think about cooking over a fire as something like campfire cooking, but we don't have the faintest idea what was involved in getting the ingredients into the pot.

That part was seriously hairy.
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3406 I guess I'm not a nice person.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

If you have a dark cat, have light carpeting, and vice-versa.
The shed hair might show up more, but so will a sleeping cat.
-- Silk --

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I'm reading Dean Koontz's What the Night Knows (found it in a remainder bin). I'm about 2/3 through it, and already I'm hoping that the ending has the detective possessed and murdering his insufferable family and ending up raving mad in the state hospital he visited in the first chapter.
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3405 Stupid

Sunday, November 27, 2011

It always amazes me to think that every house on every street is full of so many stories, so many triumphs and tragedies, and all we see are yards and driveways.
-- Glenn Close --

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There are some Mensans who write compile and publish logical puzzle, brain teaser, and riddle books that are published with the Mensa logo and name on them. They're "approved and endorsed by" Mensa. I don't know what that means, whether anyone in authority ever read them, but I think many of them are an embarrassment to the organization.

When Jay was first diagnosed with the brain tumor, he was worried about losing logical function, so we bought some of those books to "test" him. We had planned to work through a bit every so often, and then maybe we'd be able to see or not see any loss of function, and it would be good mental exercise.

We got through maybe five pages in several books, and threw the damn things away. Puzzle after puzzle was poorly posed, so poorly posed that we came up with two or three possible answers that fit. For example, in one puzzle involving family relationships, the "answer" stated that blah blah blah, "because John was only 12 at the time and therefore cannot be the father." Duh? Many 12-year-olds are perfectly capable of fathering a child.

Others assumed without stating a 2-dimensional relationship, completely ignoring that fact that there were several other possible answers in 3-dimensions.

The books made us angry.

A few days ago, I found this: http://www.funny.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Funny.woa/wa/funny?fn=C2APC&Funny_Jokes=MENSA_IQ_Test. It bugged me, because it presents itself as a "Mensa test". It isn't. At best, it's a sampling of simple riddles from some of the books above, and repeats the sloppiness of those books. Yeah, it's a joke site, but ... really ....

I got so annoyed I tried to comment, but commenting required registering, and I don't register on any but commercial sites with good reputations (first step in avoiding spam and viruses).

And then today, a woman whom I know personally to be intelligent to the point of social disability posted some of the riddles on a Mensa social site.

My brain exploded.

Examples:

Captain Frank and some of the boys were exchanging old war stories. Art Bragg offered one about how his grandfather led a battalion against a German division during World War I. Through brilliant maneuvers, he defeated them and captured valuable territory. After the battle he was presented with a sword bearing the inscription "To Captain Bragg for Bravery, Daring and Leadership. World War I. From the Men of Battalion 8." Captain Frank looked at Art and said, "You really don't expect anyone to believe that yarn, do you?"
What's wrong with the story?

The official answer: It's a lie. The inscription wouldn't have been "World War I".
My answer: There's nothing wrong with the story. "After" is not defined. The sword could have been presented at the 40th reunion of the battle/battalion.

How many times can you subtract the number 5 from 25?

The Official answer: Once. Thereafter, you are subtracting 5 from 20, 15, 10, etc.
My answer: An infinite number of times, and I get 20 every time.

There were an electrician and a plumber waiting in line for admission to the International Home Show," One of them was the father of the other's son. How could this be possible?

The Official answer: They were husband and wife.
My answer: If this confused you at all, you are very naive. They could still both be men. In any other joke, one of them would be a milkman. (Or, these days, they could be a gay couple who have adopted.)

Yeah, I understand that these examples are poor choices because they're "Ha! Gotcha!" riddles, whereas the brain teasers in the published books are much more serious - but I don't happen to have any of the serious ones at my fingertips. My objections, however, are the same. They don't consider other views or out-of-the-box thinking.
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3404 Sadness

Friday, November 25, 2011

What happens in Vegas stays …
on the internet, forever.

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Daughter is sad today.

In, I believe, 1997, when she was working at a high-paid engineering job in Philadelphia, she bought a new silver 2-door Honda. It's still healthy, with 197,000+ miles on it.

Now the Honda's two doors make it difficult to get the 20-pound Nugget in and out of the infant seat in the back. So I gave her my 2003, 53,000 mile, 4-door Suzuki, a.k.a. Suzie.

Today, Daughter sold the Honda to George-the-neighbor's granddaughter. (I think she got $5,000 for it!)

Sadness.

We do tend to get attached to a car. We remember how dependable it was, how many wonderful places it took us, how sometimes it seemed like our best and only true friend. Selling a car is almost like finding a new home for kittens. You hope the new owners will love and care for it, and appreciate its unique qualities as much as we did.

(Yeah, I wish Suzie were a Hummer. Or a tank.)
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3403 Proportion

Friday, November 25, 2011

What is perceived is not always what had been seen.

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TV news this morning is full of shopping shopping shopping. Yeah, ok, maybe there are some deals, but at what cost? Are most of those people fighting over gifts, or (as I suspect in many cases) for stuff for themselves? If gifts, can't you give something you can ordinarily afford? If for yourself, aren't there other equivalent sales throughout the year?

I don't understand.

Maybe I'm just jaded by getting great deals in live auctions and online shopping. And I never feel that I absolutely have to have exactly what I want.

-------------------------------

I read something a few days ago that resonated with me, and explained part of my unhappiness with the new house: "A house could subtly abrade your nerves if the proportions of its rooms were wrong."

Yup.

The upstairs of this house is fine. It's pleasant and comfortable. The rooms feel "right".

The downstairs is wrong. It twists me inside. The hall and living room are ok, not perfectly comfortable, but ok. The kitchen, breakfast area, and dining room are "wrong". They are all connected, wrapping around a very shallow "U" (halfway between "U" and "[") , kitchen on the right, dining room on the left, and breakfast area between them. It feels wrong. Annoying. It's like one large oddly-shaped room with differing levels of formality.

I want to put a partial wall, columns, arch, whatever, something, between the breakfast area and the dining room to separate them.

Daughter doesn't like that idea. She says it will break up the sight lines and make the whole area seem smaller.

Uh, yeah, that's sort of the point.
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3402 Pork chops

Thursday, November 24, 2011

"Dry clean only" means it will make it through the washer and dryer,
or it won't,
and I'll soon find out which.
-- Silk --

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The kids decided not to make a big deal of Thanksgiving this year, which suits me just fine. Hercules gets a gift turkey from the office every year, and last year he and Daughter hosted a bunch of friends. This year, with the baby, it seemed like too much trouble, so the turkey went into the freezer, and they hosted me for a lunch of stuffed pork chops.

Finger food! Well, food they're letting me eat with my fingers...Makes good finger paint, too.

Here, Gramma, have some avacado:
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A few of the MeetUp groups I joined have more than 200 members. I haven't gone to anything with those groups (mostly singles' groups) because they have like 50-60 people at everything, and that's just too many people for me.

Well, I had hoped nobody would start it, but some idiot did, last night. I cringed when the first "Happy Thanksgiving!" email dropped into my inbox. Sure enough, in short order I'd received about 300 of the damn things.

I hope that someone has gratefully noticed that I am among the silent.

[Muttering, "...buncha grinning sheeple..." Bah, humbug.]
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3401 Parade?

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Can we all just agree to ignore Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

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I love me some marching bands, drums, high school kids strutting. I love me some floats (or in the case of Macy's, balloons).

I haven't watched the parade in years, so this is a serious question --- when did it turn into a series of ads for Broadway shows? Note I'm not talking about the TV commercials. I mean much of the "parade" is performances from musicals.

Has the definition of "parade" changed?
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3400 Turkeys (two kinds) and dust covers

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Bad decisions make good stories.

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Want to find stuff on eBay or other auction sites that no one else is likely to bid on? Misspell the search terms. Looking for tassels? Search for "tassles" or "tastels". The seller will be desperate because no one is bidding on their items. I found a beautiful "sweeter" with sparkly "sequence" on the front.

I'm serious.

Sequence.

Well, at least they tried spell-check, I guess.

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I got a notice of a new Meetup group, "...for whoever are annoyed by incorrect grammar, for whoever are annoyed by illogical arguments, for (etc.)...."

I sent a note to the organizer, that his "whoever" should be "whomever", and "whoever/whomever" is singular, so it should be "...for whomever is annoyed by incorrect grammar." (A better fix is "...for those who are annoyed by....")

I got a response from him. He argued with me. Sigh. I did not respond. But I don't think I'll be joining that group.

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The contemplative closer on Sunday Morning is usually some idyllic natural scene. This past Sunday it was wild turkeys strutting along the edge of the woods.

Now, Jasper never watches TV. He has never shown any interest whatsoever no matter what's on the screen. (Well there was that one time we were watching the "mare cam" on the laptop, a real-time camera trained on a horse in a stall. For some reason that did fascinate him. But nothing before or since, and never anything on TV.)

Anyway, a turkey on the TV gobbled, and Jasper's head shot up from a sound nap. Instant attention. He jumped off the chair and rapidly stalked the sixteen feet to the TV, belly to the ground, tail twitching, ears up, focused on the turkey on the screen.

The segment ended before he caught one.

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You know how hardcover books (except textbooks, reference books, and professional tomes) come with dust covers? The original purpose was to protect the hard covers from dust, dirt, and oily handprints. Then they became a vehicle for lurid eye-attracting graphics. (Are you old enough to remember when the dust cover and the hard cover underneath had exactly the same pictures and/or imprinting? When did the hard covers become so plain and cheap-looking?)

Eventually, in the used book market, a book with an intact dust jacket became worth more than another of the same condition without the jacket.

Then something weird started happening. People took the dust covers off to protect them! They'd put the dust cover back on, over the fingerprints and coffee stains, when they finished reading the book. And that book became worth more than a pristine book with a slightly worn dust cover.

I don't understand.

Of course soon and for a while this may be moot. Books are going out of fashion. The resale market is shrinking. But mark my words - just like vinyl records are coming back as collectors' items, in twenty or thirty years books will become eagerly sought-after treasures. I doubt that the condition of the dust jacket will matter.
.

Confess. Do you do protect the dust cover at the expense of the book cover?
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3399 What is this?

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Newspaper obituaries are a lot more interesting
when they tell you how the person died.

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When I went to bed Wednesday night, my finger and wrist were fine. When I woke up Thursday morning, the entire tip of my right index finger, from the last joint forward, was "dead". Numb, but tingly. I had fallen asleep doing logic puzzles and at first I thought I had slept on it funny and it was asleep, but ... it didn't wake up.

It stayed completely numb all day. I figured I must have damaged a nerve somehow. About midday I noticed this lump:I figure it's a bursa. Bursae are fluid-filled sacs between joints, that cushion the joint. Sometimes they slip and bulge, and when they bulge they can put pressure on nearby nerves. (It's not bursitis - there's no pain whatsoever anywhere near the lump, I have full range of motion in the wrist and the finger, and no pain when I move them. Just that very annoying numbness and "buzzing" in the fingertip.)

The lump feels very hard, but it isn't "bone hard", it dents when pressed with a fingernail.

The outer side of my finger tip regained sensitivity yesterday, but the inside edge, halfway around the finger tip, is still numb.

Anyone else ever have this? Will it go down by itself? Any guidelines as to how long to let it go before I see a doctor? Should I be taping it or something? Google isn't a lot of help on this....

Oh, that reminds me - Google "tilt", and let me know if your screen tilts!

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Later - a commenter has suggested it might be a ganglion cyst. I think she may be right. And if you haven't Googled "tilt" yet, do it! It might be gone tomorrow. (Use Google, not some other search engine.)
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3398 Getting better, I hope

Friday, November 18, 2011

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when
you realize you're wrong.

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My throat, which was hot and nasty yesterday, is all better today. But my sinuses and nose are bad. I've used up a box of Kleenex so far today, and poor Jasper is finally getting used to my huge loud sneezes.

Oddly enough, (TMI) my phlegm is clear. No color. No green, no yellow. I think that's a good sign, right?

I didn't bother getting dressed today because (more TMI) every time I sneezed I wet my pants. So I gave up on pants.
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3397 Around the web

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Perfect is the enemy of good.
-- Old French Proverb --

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I woke up this morning with a hot throat, and major sinus activity. I'm not surprised.

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If I ever participate in a protest, I want to find someone who's good with face painting, and do this:

I like their signs, too.


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This clip is incredible, the best I've seen. Go to full screen if you can.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.
[http://vimeo.com/32001208 - full description and credits are there.]

Shooting locations in order of appearance:

1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night
2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night
3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia
4. Aurora Australis south of Australia
5. Northwest coast of United States to Central South America at Night
6. Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean
7. Halfway around the World
8. Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East
9. Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East
10. Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night
11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay
12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night
13. Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam
14. Views of the Mideast at Night
15. Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea
16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night
17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean
18. Eastern Europe to Southeastern Asia at Night

The thunderstorms and Aroras are amazing, but when I see how lit-up the cities are, all I can think is "Burning hydrocarbons, how long can we do that? Do we really need all that?"
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3396 We's gots the miserys

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.
-- Amos B. Alcott --

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Daughter and the Nugget are both sick. Head cold, sore throat. Nugget occasionally bats at her right ear, so there may be something going on there, too. Occasional slight fever, not enough to worry about until she gets fussy tired, and that makes the congestion worse. She hates having her nose touched. Daughter is wrung out, but Nugget is nowhere near lethargic - she's still happy and active.

Daughter called early yesterday morning and asked if I could take the Nugget for two hours so Daughter could get some sleep. I ended up having the Nugget all day, until Hercules got home from work.

I have the Nugget right now while Daughter gets some sleep.

-------

As I wrote the above sentence, a little before noon, the napping Nugget woke up. It is now 6 1/2 hours later. She stayed with me today until about 4 pm.

--------------------------------

Flash: The idiot who shot up the White House abandoned his car a few blocks away - with his driver's license in it. Duh.

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The Nugget is 6.5 months old. For about three months now, she has been standing up to be picked up. You put your hands under her arms and with just balance help, not lift, she gets her feet under herself and stands up. She weighs 20 pounds now, so her standing to be picked up is a lot easier on adult backs.

Today I was shocked to discover that standing, she already comes up to the top of my thigh. That's amazing! She's a BABY!

In Mommy's papoose pack:
Napping today in Mommy's lap:
Oops, the click of the camera woke her:.

3395 Get the anger out, have some ice cream

Monday, November 14, 2011

To know what you don't know is the legacy of progress.
-- Howard Streicher --

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Pulled from comments here: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/11/11/jon-stewart-makes-a-point/

According to the grand jury, then, here is how McQueary’s eyewitness account became watered down at each stage:

McQueary: anal rape.
Paterno: something of a sexual nature.
Schultz: inappropriately grabbing of the young boy’s genitals.
Curley: inappropriate conduct or horsing around.
Spanier: conduct that made someone uncomfortable.
Raykovitz: a ban on bringing kids to the locker room.

Yeah, things get watered down. And

Nice article over at Scientific American talking about why the Penn State students behaved the way they did…mind you not a justification…just a good description of group membership.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=penn-state-students-rioted-defied-joe-paterno

The link is a good explanation of what I was talking about, where people will sacrifice individuals for the good of the group.

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I'm not sure, but it appears that in some parts of the country (here, for example) "60 Minutes" was only 30 minutes long last night. The missing chunk was a report on how members of Congress are allowed to trade on insider information - something that can get ordinary people 20 years in prison! Do you think it's ok that congressmen working on regulations that will affect a particular industry should be able to buy or sell stock in that industry just before the regulations go into effect? Or that they can buy up land around a to-be-announced government project? Ever wonder why politicians enter office sorta wealthy, and leave office multimillionaires? The pay isn't all that great, you know.

I wonder why 60 minutes skipped that story on the east coast, but played it in later time zones. Nah, it wasn't a late-running game. "60 Minutes" always runs late here when there's a game. "The Amazing Race" is often late because of that.

There's an excellent article on the issue at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323527/congress-trading-stock-on-inside-information/?tag=pop;stories. This one you REALLY have to read. Remember when the market crashed? Heh. Didn't affect them....

This was an "exception" I hadn't known about; I'd always assumed that members of Congress had to keep investments in blind trusts, and were not allowed to influence the trustees.

Not so.

It really pisses me off. It isn't just insider trading. They make laws that affect all of us, but they exempt themselves from those laws.

I WANT TERM LIMITS! I want congress to have the same medical insurance options the rest of us have. I want them to have to travel the same way we have to. I want them to have retirement plans comparable to the rest of us. I WANT THE RULES TO APPLY TO THEM, TOO! ALL the rules! Every damn one of them with no special privileges or exceptions!
.

3394 MeetUp rant

Sunday, November 13, 2011

A family is only as sick as its secrets.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I went to another MeetUp luncheon in the Princeton area today. There were 10 at table (a round table, which is always nicest). I'm enjoying this group. When the bill came, it got passed around the table and folks put their money in. The organizer was the last to get it, and when he did, there was about $9 more there than was required. His personal total was only about $12. He tried to give money back to others who had put a dollar or so extra in, but we all told him to shut up and put $3-4 in, and consider it his organizer privilege. I asked him if this was his first MeetUp group, and when he said "Yes", I explained to him that soon the CRAZIES will start joining, and he will EARN that few dollars. I didn't give him any details. He'll find out soon enough.

Ah, the crazies.

Like the guy in Rhinebeck who got furious with me and called me some nasty names because I scheduled a movie he wanted to see, on a Thursday night. He had a dog obedience class on Thursday night, and he acted like I had chosen Thursday purposely to exclude him.

Hey, if you don't like it, pay the $70 like I did and start your own group that goes to movies on Wednesday nights! Thursday is convenient for ME, and I paid to start the group.

Or the guy who was vegetarian, and blasted me because I had chosen a BBQ place for dinner.

Hey, if you don't like it, pay the $70 like I did and start your own group that goes to vegetarian restaurants! I like BBQ, and I paid to start the group.

Or the woman who wanted me to kick another guy out of the group because he was the ex-husband of a friend of a friend of hers (a woman whom she didn't know personally), and he had supposedly been physically abusive, and when I said I wouldn't kick him out on the basis of what amounted to a fourth-hand rumor (having worked in a family-law office, I know to take divorce proceeding claims with a large grain of salt anyway), she then castigated me in several screaming emails that smoked in my inbox, and broadcast emails to everyone in the group telling them that I condoned abuse and put everyone else in the group in danger, and therefore she was leaving the group and advised everyone else to also drop out in protest.

Hey, if you don't like it, pay the $70 like I did and start your own group that talks behind people's backs and blackballs people! I give people a chance to show who they really are, and I paid to start the group.

Or the woman who got pissed because she couldn't find me in the 4'x10' lobby of the tiny Rhinebeck theatre, even though she had my photo, accused me of ducking her because I didn't like her looks (um, bad blind date experiences, lady?), told me how nasty that was, and then didn't bother to apologize when I pointed out that she had the wrong evening.

Hey, read the listing! I paid $70 for the privilege of taking a lot of time to do all the research, write up the announcement, show up early to meet people, the least you can do is READ the damn listing.

Or the woman who apparently didn't read the part of the group description that said we would NOT be doing bars, booze, and bands, and then got angry with me when I repeatedly refused to schedule happy hour events at the Starlight Bar when her friend's band was playing there.

Hey, read the listing! I paid $70 to set up a group to do dinner out, street fairs, museums, and movies, period. I am not here to drum up support for your friend's band. The least you can do is READ the damn group description.

Or the people who RSVP yes, and then don't show up and don't cancel. How often can you reserve a table for eight and have only two show up, before the restaurant won't take your reservations any more?

Or the folks who consistently don't pay their fair share of the restaurant tab. Or, or, or....

MeetUp organizers PAY $70 for six months. They do it to get people together to do whatever it is the ORGANIZER wants to do, WHERE the organizer wants to do it --- NOT for the privilege of catering to the individualized and special needs of self-important people who seem to think that you have signed up to be their unpaid social directors.

Hey, it's MY group. Thursday happens to be most convenient for me! I happen to like BBQ! I don't punish people on the basis of rumor! If you don't like what I'm doing in my group,

SCRAPE UP $70 AND START YOUR OWN DAMN GROUP!

Oops. Sorry.

I'm still having trouble with it.

Because there are still people who want organizers to cater to them, and I want to yell at them.

The organizer today asked the table where they'd like to go next week. Nine people. "Oh, let's go to xxx." "No, I don't like xxx. They're too expensive. Let's go to yyy." ...and so on. He's set himself up, because now if he does decide to go to xxx, he's got at least one person pissed at him. "You KNOW I can't afford that place! I told you so!"

Hey, you are NOT being snubbed. You are free to join in or not, as suits you and your abilities and needs. You are NOT free to dictate what I can and cannot do.

After lunch a subset went for a walk along the canal in Princeton, and when the organizer was asking what people wanted to do, I told him he can't satisfy everyone, so he should just do what HE wants to do, and invite others to join him. It's the only way.

3393 The boys in the club

Friday, November 11, 2011

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same
time, will that it should become a universal law.
-- Immanuel Kant, the categorical imperative
Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals --

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Happy Nerd New Year! (11/11/11)

--------------------------------

I left a comment on Becs' post re the Penn State mess, and I decided to just copy it over here as a post. She wondered why that graduate assistant (now an assistant coach, I believe) is not being charged or fired, and what is wrong with people who allow things like this to happen.

Yeah, I wondered about the grad assistant, too. He's apparently the only one who actually SAW something. For everyone else, it was a case of second or third hand information, possibly watered down, easily denied by Sandusky. And yet, the grad assistant is the only one not in trouble.

BTW, there had been several accusations in the '90s. The local DA (who mysteriously disappeared a few years later) had investigated. Mothers (the kids were fatherless) had confronted Sandusky and participated in the investigations. But it was all dropped, no charges, because there was no proof. "He says/he says" kind of thing. That grad assistant's eyewitness testimony could have made all the difference. And yet, the grad assistant is the only one not in trouble.

As to what's wrong with people, when people (and particularly men) belong to a tight-knit group, they will defend the reputation of the brotherhood at all costs. Threats to the group are quashed. People also tend to see things through filters - there's a psychological term for it, "motivational bias" - such that things that don't fit our world view are simply not given credence, or are reformatted with excuses, or made to go away. We all do it, but fraternal groups in group think do it more.

The randomly generated green quote at the top of this post seems particularly apt.
.

3392 Awards I never got

Thursday, November 10, 2011

“I refuse to believe that corporations are people until Texas executes one.”
-- DemocraticUnderground's Earth First --

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a recent episode of "The Good Wife", the law firm received government documents with most of every page redacted --- just about everything crossed out with black magic marker. It reminded me of an incident when I was working in the litigation lab.

The Company was in litigation with a competitor, and the competitor was required to turn over documents to us, and vice versa, and in every document sent or received, much of every page had been crossed out.

We used "foils" in meetings. Y'all might remember them. You'd run a page through a machine with a heat-sensitive transparent plasticy sheet, and the machine "burned" the dark parts of the page into the foil, and then you could project the foil onto a screen.

It was the usual practice in our office to make a copy of the page from a stapled or bound document, and then burn the foil from that, and then the foil looked just like the original, redactions in place and all.

One day I had an unbound document, so I burned a foil from the original page. Surprise! Magic marker doesn't reflect enough heat to burn into the foil, but doesn't prevent what's under the marker from reflecting heat! The black marks were gone, and the redacted areas were as clear and readable as the day they were printed!

I went to my manager's office, closed the door, and silently handed her the original page with the black redactions and the clean foil. After she picked herself up off the floor, she called the headquarters attorneys. After they picked themselves off the floor, they told us that this phone call didn't happen. However, Company documents sent to the competitor from that day on contained copies of pages with redactions. And of course everyone in our office was shown this "secret" "neat trick".

The competitor never caught on.

This should have earned me a huge outstanding contribution award, but since no one could admit it happened, I got no acknowledgement. It didn't even go into my record.

--------------------------------

There was another similar incident.

We had a lot of data on the big disks (the ones about the size of a dishwasher) on dedicated mainframes under triple lock with video cameras and motion detectors and no remote access. Much of it was competitor's code. When a particular set of code was no longer in dispute, we were required to delete it from the disks. That had been going on for a few years, until eventually that particular dispute had been settled, and then auditors from the competitor were going to come to examine the disks and insure all of their material was gone.

In a department meeting a few weeks before the audit, we were reminded to delete materials. I had none of the subject materials under my control, so I hadn't been deleting stuff, so I innocently asked what the procedure was. It turns out they were simply issuing a "DELETE" command on those files.

I walked into my manager's office, closed the door, and explained to her what was wrong with that. When you delete a file, the data is not erased! Non-programmers, or programmers who don't know how the operating system works, were at that time unaware that when you delete a file, all it does is remove the pointer to it in the directory, and mark that section of the disk as "free". If you don't write over the file, the contents are still there. (Now, of course, everyone knows that because it's key to TV detective dramas, but back then it wasn't widely known.)

So those disks contained years of data that we had reported as deleted and that we were now illegally in possession of, and that the auditors would be sure to find.

After she picked herself up off the floor, she called the headquarters attorneys. After they picked themselves off the floor, they told us that this phone call didn't happen. However, we were to say nothing to anyone, just clean those disks immediately!

So for the next ten days I worked enormous amounts of overtime, alone, printing off directories, identifying all the free disk/cylinder/head/file etc. areas, and overwriting them all with blanks. All my other work was put on hold, and I got into a lot of trouble with a lot of people in product areas and at corporate for holding up deadlines, but no one could be told why.

I should, again, have got an enormous outstanding contribution award for pulling the corporate ass out of the fire, but since no one dared to mention the situation, instead my reputation took a hit. In fact, folks at corporate held up my next promotion because I was "unreliable".

Is it any wonder I retired as soon as a decent package was offered?

For the first ten years of my retirement I was barred from mentioning any of this, on pain of losing my retirement benefits. It is now twenty years later, and I doubt anyone cares any more. Statute of limitations and all that.
.

3391 My door

Thursday, November 10, 2011

"I am never gratuitously rude. My rudeness is carefully calibrated to the stupidity
and obtuseness of the people I am dealing with."
-- Adam Carr --

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wish they had a "Do not call" registry for front doors. I'm getting tired of people knocking on my door and trying to sell me stuff - always with the "gotta sign up now or lose the discount" line. I may have to print out and put up my sign. I had this sign posted on the door at the old house, and it was very effective:

If you are not here by invitation
Please
Read before ringing doorbell

Grizzly bear within. Hibernation times are not regular. Disturbing at the wrong time for the wrong reason can result in great bodily harm, not to mention a bad mood.

Sales folks
Mail us something. Thanks. G’bye.

Package delivery
If you need a signature, ring bell.
If you do not need a signature, leave package at door.

Kids collecting for school, scouts, sports
Ring bell. (Bears like kids. They are delicious.)

Political folks
Mail us something. Thanks. G’bye.

Religious folks
I’m sure you are very nice people doing what you think is right. You make nice neighbors. But we are quite happy with our choice of belief, and rather resent your assumption that it’s not good enough. Please do not disturb. Thank you.

It worked just fine until I missed out on Girl Scout cookies one year, because the little girl I usually buy them from was afraid of the bear ... as her father the Hairless Hunk laughingly reported to me later.

--------------------------------

"Several teachers at Lindsay Thurber High School in Red Deer, Alberta, reacted to a bomb-threat note found in a classroom by sending students out to search lockers to find the bomb, with one teacher offering extra credit to the one who brought it in." From Leland Gregory's book, Hey, Idiot! : Chronicles of Human Stupidity, 200+ pages to dip into when you feel that you need an image lift.

A little research uncovered the fact that the Red Deer high school gets a few bomb threats per year, all of which have so far proven groundless. The little rural elementary school a half mile from my old house in the Mid-Hudson Valley always got a few bomb phone calls per year, almost always on beautiful spring mornings. It usually resulted in cancellation of the rest of the school day while the cops scoured the building.

Neighbors suspected teachers, not students.
.

3390 More stuff I don't understand

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

You can fool some of the people all of the time, you can even fool all of the people some of the time, but you can always fool all of the fools all of the time.
-- Jeff MacNelly, "Shoe" --

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I guess I don't understand what the problem is with the health act's requiring people to have health insurance. Not sure how it can be "unconstitutional". If the Supreme Court decides it's unconstitutional, then please explain to me how the states have the authority to require that I register my vehicles, and that I must have automobile insurance to drive them.

Yeah, it's a good thing, but so is health insurance. Being a good thing is not necessarily enough to make it constitutional. How can requiring health insurance be less constitutional than requiring contribution to social security? Or selective service ("the draft")? Or a load of other stuff?

I don't understand.

---------------------------------

Daughter, Nugget, and I went for a walk yesterday and we passed several houses down by the water that had signs in the window stating that the premises had been winterized, and listing the dangers posed by antifreeze in the water pipes. Summer homes, I guess. Daughter says the signs are legally required, and must be visible from the street.

Huh? The township is worried that trespassers, thieves, and vandals might be poisoned?

I don't get it.

Nothin' like advertising to casual passersby that the house is empty and unlikely to be checked on before spring. "Break in here! Have a party! Redecorate the walls! Compliments of the township!"
.

3389 Opportunity to knock

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The most startling new ideas always sound trivial, even obvious, once expounded.
A week later, no one will remember who said it.
Two weeks later, everyone will claim they had always known it.
-- Silk --

--------------------------------------------------

I guess that big test of the national alert system is tomorrow? You know, if I wanted to wreak some major havoc somewhere, I'd do it then. Nobody would believe the alert to take cover until it was too late. Reverse "War of the Worlds".
.

3388 Natural art, garbage art

Sunday, November 6, 2011

“…those who wrestle with something and come out on top
tend to have a better understanding of that something
than those who merely submit to it.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My body is falling apart. My skin no longer fits, drapes in folds above my knees, on my neck, my jowls. I can't trust my knees anymore. I who used to sit on the floor by preference, and could rise straight up without using my hands or knees, now find it difficult to get my behind off the floor.

But I'm not dead yet. I am very proud of the fact that I can carry an 18-pound Nugget in a backpack carrier for at least a mile with no effort or effect. (I say at least a mile because that's the most I've done. I'm sure I could go farther.) Uphill is a bit difficult, but even without her on my back uphill has always been more difficult.

Very proud and happy.

----------------------------

This is amazing. A murmuration of starlings, recorded in Ireland. It starts out with a few stills, then goes to video. It raised my spirits.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

----------------------------

There's a story going around about a cleaning woman who damaged a 1.1 million dollar artwork by, uh, cleaning it. I got curious about what a one million dollar artwork looked like, and sniffed around until I found this story, http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/nov/03/overzealous-cleaner-ruins-artwork?newsfeed=true, which has a photo of the full installation, and also mentions several other artworks over the years that had been ruined by cleaning and janitorial staff.

The murmuration video above raised my spirits. The linked artwork story cast me down again. So many people want to ignore or destroy natural art, and exalt crap art. I don't understand.

I flat-out do not understand modern art. Frankly, I agree with the cleaning staff. Most of it is crap. The only art involved is the art of convincing someone that a) it's art, and b) is worth anything. Apparently if you have that talent, you can dump a bag of household garbage on the floor and convince someone it's "art".

(In fact, according to the story, someone did exactly that. The cleaner ruined that one by throwing the garbage out.)

Bull poopy. What's that old saying about fooling fools?
.

3387 Damned if you do and....

Friday, November 4, 2011

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature,
the heart of a heartless world,
and the soul of soulless conditions."
--Karl Marx --

----------------------------------------------------------------

I will reserve my thoughts on Herman Cain's sexual harassment problems, where the claims came from, who dug it up and why, whether it means anything or not, blah blah blah.

But listening to some of the arguments, I've concluded that in general, victims can't win.

If they report it to HR, they might get some money from a settlement, but it comes with a requirement that they can't ever talk about it. Companies often settle these claims because it's cheaper than the legal fees of fighting it would be. Almost all individual victims end up settling, because they'd be an individual fighting a company/corporation in court, and who's going to pay their legal fees if they lose against a corporate army? Companies often settle without the permission of the accused harasser, and a settlement is therefore not an admission of guilt.

The end result is that the accused harasser can claim that it never happened, that the accuser is a liar, and the accuser/victim, we don't know which, really, cannot refute that under the terms of the settlement.

Either way, settlement or go to court, the alleged victim will be either branded forever a money-grubbing liar, or face a high probability of bankruptcy.

If they don't report it to HR, if the victim realizes there's no way to win and it's a sure way to lose a job, and good luck getting a good reference when you look for another, then when she (or he) finally does report it, everyone assumes that it's obviously not true, because if it were true, why wasn't it reported earlier? Therefore it didn't happen, and the accuser is a publicity-seeking liar.

All accusers who can't afford to fight an army of lawyers in court become a liars, regardless of the truth.

It reminds me of rape accusations, back in the 50's. In most states the victim had to produce TWO witnesses to the rape, or a bruised and battered body she could have acquired in no other way, otherwise she was lying. Most victims never reported the rape.
.

3386 Too much light

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

"A friend is one before whom I may think aloud."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson --

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've discovered something else I miss besides the woods, and space, and quiet, and decent roads, and lack of crowding, and wild turkeys, and foxes, and deer, and cows (especially the calves).

I miss stars.

At the old house the sky was full of stars. Here there's a few. They are so few and so scattered that I can't find any of the few constellations I know. All my life Orion has been over my house, but I can't find him here. I can't find Ursa Major or Ursa Minor or the Milky Way! It's that bad.

I can't find Arcturus, the star that I'd assigned to Jay. Or the Pleiades.

I've missed the stars since I moved here, but I got especially frustrated when I saw a very bright star in the east (maybe a planet?), and tried to find some recognizable constellation somewhere so that maybe I could locate it on a star map and find out what it is.

Nothing. A star here, a star there. Scattered, far apart, and dim.

But at any time of the day or night, I'll see a minimum of three airplanes.

Not a satisfactory trade.

--------------------------------

Later - I found a website about stargazing (http://stardate.org/nightsky/weekly), and my mysterious "star" is Jupiter.
.

3385 Nuggetosaurus

Monday, October 31, 2011

Of course I know how to push your buttons. After all, I sewed them on!
-- Cathy Guisewite, "Cathy", mother to daughter --

---------------------------------------

She wasn't frighten by anything that came to the door.

Tired little girl.

Grrrr--rawr!
.

3384 A Little Relaxation

Monday, October 31, 2011

However you choose to keep score in the game of life (possessions, sexual conquests, etc.) it will impress only others who keep score the same way.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The tire place called. Hal's hips, legs, and knees are ok (slight dent in the rim, but it'll hold), and he's got another new paw. I'll pick him up tomorrow.

--------------------------------

So far I've had 20 trick-or-treaters. I'm handing out small packs of Twizzlers (the least sugary candy I could find) and bottles of bubble stuff. I bought the Twizzlers this afternoon only because I was afraid the bubbles wouldn't arrive in time, but UPS came through and they did. The kids seem to like the bubbles, especially the older kids, which surprises me.

--------------------------------

The Hairless Hunk called yesterday. The old house upriver has several branches down, and none hit the house. An old previously damaged black locust at the end of the driveway broke in half. He'll clean it all up.

There's no power, therefore no heat, and there might not be for a week or more, but I'm not worried because it won't be cold enough long enough to freeze pipes. The back of the house has a lot of glass, and it faces west, and the sun isn't that low yet, so it really does warm the house.

Next trip up I'll winterize the place. That means I'll have to carry water to wash and flush, but I can do that.

--------------------------------

This video is not safe for work. Remember the Thigh-Masters? This, the Tug-Toner, is sort of along the same lines. It's funny:

[http://youtu.be/R2ewsEKVJVA]
.

3383 Hallowe'en

Monday, October 31, 2011

He who controls the agenda controls the outcome.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a cute Hallowe'en card:

http://ak.imgag.com/imgag/product/preview/flash/bws8Shell.swf?ihost=http://ak.imgag.com/imgag&brandldrPath=/product/full/el/&cardNum=/product/full/ap/3125133/graphic1

Here's some goblins in space, from NASA (they're really there!):

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111031.html

And here's a scary story:
Yesterday I went to a Meetup lunch in Princeton. There were three others there. It was good. Nice folks.

On the way home in Hal, I took the exit off route 440 for route 9 south, and on the exit ramp (around the curve so it wasn't visible), I hit a pothole. There was a loud bang, the car jumped, and then it started shaking. The dashboard told me the passenger side front tire was "low".

As soon as I could, I stopped and got out to look, and this is what I found:
Low? An understatement.

Joy. That's the fifth potholed tire in eight months, at $400+ per tire and $200+ per alignment.

They're "run flat" tires, and it wasn't riding on the rim yet, so I drove to a discount tire place about 10 miles down the road, close to home, and left Hal parked in their lot, and called Daughter to pick me up. I drove Fred over there today, arranged for a new tire for Hal (that's one of the tires I replaced just a few months ago, and it may be under warranty) and asked them to check the suspension, rim, axle, and whatever else.

And if that's ok, I still have to call the BMW dealership and schedule another alignment.

I can't afford this! Not right now, anyway!

I'm beginning to think I can't afford New Jersey. (Becs, resist the impulse!)

(Which reminds me - when did no-name ordinary grated romano cheese go to $18 a pound?)

---------------------------------

I went online to find out how to report potholes. Surprise! This pothole has already been reported, 12 months ago! Sounds like a valid lawsuit to me....
.

3382 News Flash

Saturday, October 29, 2011

I guess I'm glad I didn't go upriver to the old house as I had tentatively planned before the tax crap hit the fan. This just in:

Dutchess County Executive William R. Steinhaus, in consultation with the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office, New York State Police, Central Hudson and New York State Gas & Electric, has declared a countywide State of Emergency for the County of Dutchess effective 7pm this evening (Saturday, October 29th).

County Executive Steinhaus said, “Law enforcement, public works and utility crews are all reporting treacherous weather conditions with downed limbs and power lines. To ensure public safety and allow crews to address hazards and restore power, a State of Emergency will be in effect from 7pm this evening (Saturday, 10/29).”

The State of Emergency declaration states: “all roadways in Dutchess are closed and traffic is prohibited except for: medical and health facility personnel, law enforcement and public safety personnel, first responders, utility, maintenance and public works personnel, snow removal sanding, salting and clearing operations personnel, facility operations persons deemed necessary for plant operations by their employers and public and government personnel involved in the emergency operations.”

The state of emergency is issued pursuant to Section 24 of New York State Executive Law. It is enforceable by local, county and state law enforcement agencies.

Leaves are still on the trees. Unfortunately, the trees are no longer standing. The last time this happened was about 1995ish, snow while the trees still had leaves. Jay and I lost 23 !!!! trees on our property - the old house. I guess I'll hear tomorrow (or whenever the power comes back up) from the Hairless Hunk how many trees I've lost this time. And how much cleanup will cost.

I hope none hit the house.

.

3381 Then

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Death is an alternate existence.

-------------------------------------------------------

Man, I write next to nothing here for months, and today you can't shut me up. Must be the snow....

Why is it that every time I connect with someone from the past on Classmates.com, they immediately put my email address on their broadcast list and start sending me those stupid cutsy-poo memes that everybody has been sending everybody else for years? Then I finally get annoyed and ask them to remove me from their forward lists, and they get pissed and I never hear from them again.

Well, today I got a forward of the "Remember Back When" genre. Then, coincidentally, Becs wrote about how different playtime is for kids today as compared to Back When. I started to write a comment on Becs' post, then decided it would be too long, so, Becs, here's my comment.

Yeah.

When I was in the 5th, 6th, and 7th grades, we lived in Ottawa, Ontario. We kids used to go everywhere in the city on the city buses and trolleys. A nickle got you on, and you'd get a transfer when you got off that was good for several hours, which you could use on any other bus or trolley, where you'd get another transfer, and so on. You could go anywhere, all day, on that one nickle.

No cell phones. We left the house in the morning with our nickle, and our parents didn't know where in the whole city we were, until we showed up again at supper time. We had another nickle in our sock for the pay telephone, in case we got sick or something.

Actually, we often left the city. We'd take the bus across the river to French-speaking Hull, basically the "other half" of Ottawa, to go to French movies. If we took the ticket stub to school, we'd get 5 points credit in French class.

We'd go for bike rides, straight out into the countryside, passing signposts that said "Ottawa 20 miles" (it was still "miles" then, pre-conversion) behind us.

Or we'd go to the Parliament buildings in the middle of the city, and watch the mounties and pet their horses. There was a hotel near Parliament with an indoor pool, and no one ever questioned our right to use the changing rooms and swim there. I guess they just assumed our parents were guests or members.

The Rideau Canal snaked through the city. It froze in the winter, and we would skate the length of it (maybe 4 miles?) and back. No adults herding us, just lots of kids on the ice.

We were 10, 11, 12 years old, but younger kids were doing it, too. Here, now, kids can't walk the 1/2 block to their home from the school bus until they're over 12. If a pre-approved adult isn't waiting at the bus stop, the driver is not allowed to let the kid off.

Kids are learning that the whole world is depraved. "Back When", we were pretty much set loose on the world. And, hey, we survived! Along the way we learned about weird people, and good people, and dangerous things and safe things. Getting lost and finding our way back again.

We learned about making independent choices, and dealing with the consequences.

-------------------------------

Hallowe'en. I don't want to hand out sugar, the state won't allow fruit (unless very expensively individually wrapped) and last year's kids didn't seem too thrilled with bags of salty corn or potato carbs. This year I ordered small bottles of bubble stuff. The supplier called yesterday (the order was placed over a week ago) and has promised that they will arrive by 3 pm Monday. They're being shipped UPS from a warehouse in northern NJ, so, maybe.

I don't know what I'll do if they don't arrive on time.

--------------------------------

Go to snopes.com and search for Halloween apples razor. There's only one documented nutcase. The rest seem to be hoaxes, or kids being "funny".

People overreact to everything, and I think it's because they've been "guilted" into feeling responsible if anything goes wrong.

That, plus the fear of lawsuits.

And the fear of not being politically correct. (Which, by the way, leads to a whole new topic: "Politically Correct" is gradually going from being a social thing to being a real political thing. People are being arrested for insulting the government or government employees. Death threats or real death are dealt for being "unpatriotic".)

Sheesh.

Really, truly, watch the video in the previous post.

...What if some stupid kid drinks the bubble stuff and gets diarrhea, and the parents sue me? See how it works, where it goes? In the current American climate, it could happen....
.

3380 Would you believe?

Saturday, October 29, 2011

The deepest despair is full of secret satisfactions.
-- Albert Speer, Spandau Diaries --

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Remember the quote above when you read "train wreck" blogs. Partly as it applies to the writer, partly as it applies to the reader.

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Would you believe it's 34 degrees F, and it's snowing, and it's sticking?

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Would you believe there are actually women who never touch their own breasts, and who act disgusted when you suggest that they do, to, like, check for lumps and stuff? Like you've asked them to do something "dirty". Really. There are women who have never seen themselves naked in a mirror.

I cannot imagine being so disconnected from and disgusted by one's own body. But they really do exist, right here in River City.

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Would you believe that I know a man (well, actually two men, although I haven't seen one of them in a decade or more) who is disgusted by everything his body produces. Even sweat. He's embarrassed to be seen with beads of sweat on his brow, let alone allowing anyone to actually touch his sweat. He showers at least twice a day, more often if he can manage it.

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The following video is Terence McKenna. Mr. McKenna died in 2000 of a glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a particularly nasty type of brain tumor. During his life, he, like Timothy Leary, was a proponent of psychedelic drugs as a means of opening the mind to other dimensions.

I do happen to believe that there's a lot more going on than we can normally perceive, that there is another dimension to reality, and that if you are open to it, you can catch glimpses, but I don't agree that magic mushrooms is the key to that opening. Rather, I believe that psychedelics just turn one's mind around into itself. A fractal mobius strip mirror.

Be that as it may, I do agree with Mr. McKenna's take on relativism and political correctness:

[http://youtu.be/7OX77Qv66qw]
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3379 Tax Shock

Saturday, October 29, 2011

One does not reject, dislike, or avoid pleasure itself because it is pleasure,
but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter
consequences that are extremely painful.
-- Section 1.10.32 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum", written by Cicero in 45 BC --

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I don't pretend to understand the green quote above, but for some reason it intrigues me.

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Latest hitch in my gitalong: The township has suddenly become aware that there's a house on my lot, and has raised the assessment. I get quarterly coupons to pay the real estate taxes, and I have dutifully paid them, to the tune of almost $3,000 so far for the first three quarters of 2001. That sounded about right to me, so it never occurred to me that there might be a problem.

My house upriver is technically larger than this house, walk-out basement, 2.5 car garage, deck and huge windows across the back, on 1.3 acres, on a ridge with a fantastic 20-mile view. This house is smaller, on a tiny lot (probably about 1/4 acre, over half of which I can't use because of a township easement), no basement, tiny 1 car garage. The taxes upriver are a bit over $5K per year, so a bit less than $4K here seemed a bit high, but reasonable enough.

Surprise! That was just for the land. Now that they've figured out there's a house (in addition to the mail box they'd been sending the coupons to, don't know what they thought the box was attached to), they've sent me a bill for the back taxes for 2011. By 11/10 I have to come up with an additional $5,198.75!

The total tax bill for this house is almost $8,000 per year! Holy Crap! I was not expecting this. Gonna have to have a talk with the assessor, I think.
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3378 Bits

October 28, 2011

Next to great joy, no state of mind is so frolicsome as great distress.
-- Henry James, A Most Extraordinary Case --

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From Criggo.com:

Sigh. I've seen this suggestion (left) many times before, elsewhere. I always wonder if the person is serious, if people are really this stupid, or if it's just a lame joke.

On the other hand, I've heard people say it, in all seriousness, regarding the deer crossing on route 199 west of Milan.

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I hate my latest hair trim. It goes straight across the forehead and makes me look a lot like Linda Hunt, especially as my face gets thinner. Don't get me wrong - I adore her - but I'm used to a different me in the mirror .

What's worse is that she and I are about the same height. The first time someone asks me for an autograph....

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The folks diagonally to the right across the street (the fire chief) have moved. I twice saw a large rental truck in the driveway, but I never saw them putting anything in it.

They also took the storage shed that used to be at the end of the driveway. I had suspected that the shed contained the source of that mechanical tree frog sound that had slowly been driving me crazy, either that or some kind of pump on the next street over. I haven't heard the sound since they moved, so I'm hoping that was it.

I am sleeping a bit better since they left.

Now I'm curious. What was making the sound? Maybe a freezer? Is it reasonable that a freezer would run at night in the winter when the temperature is well below freezing, but not during the day?

Now that the sound is gone, the curiosity is taking over the crazy-making duties.

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I got a cute birthday card from the Nugget. She had addressed the envelope herself (but they had to take the pen away from her when she started eating it). The card (one corner had been chewed) wished me a happy fourth birthday. I wondered about that for a moment, but the inside said that Gramma was so wise and knew so much she must obviously be old.

To six months, four is old.
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3377 A fashion education

Thursday, October 27, 2011

What bothers me about God is that he hates arrogance so much,
but doesn't seem to mind cruelty.
-- Paraphrased from Elaine May and Mike Nichols (actress and director) --

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I've been coming across references to"hipsters"and "hipster fashion". In my own head, with no evidence to guide me, I decided it had to be kind of like a 30s-movie relaxed preppie sort of thing, where one could wear what one liked without regard to what's "in".

I googled some images. Man, was I wrong!

It's more like a cross between grunge and hippie, but hippie that has discovered polyester and lycra, and has no sense of flow or beauty.

Bleck.

(Yeah, they wear neck scarves in June, but they HAVE to because they have NO BODY FAT to keep them warm!)

Images: http://forums.thefashionspot.com/f89/hipster-street-style-45811.html
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3376 An adult response

Thursday, October 27, 2011

One parent can support ten children, but ten children cannot support one parent.
-- Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz --

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"After 10 hours of negotiation, Europe may be on the way to solving their debt crisis. So that’s another way Europe is nothing like us. The negotiating. And the solving." (From http://www.shoeboxblog.com/?p=28121.)

3375 Sleep, ribs, headache

Sunday, October 23, 2011

One who considers himself a victim of circumstance
is more often a prisoner of his own decisions.

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This is a note for my own memory. Ignore.

Sleep - bad for several weeks. Disturbed by brain running in high gear. Fall asleep easily, but wake multiple times with cascading thoughts.

Headache - across lower back of head and neck. Often wake at very early hour and can't get back to sleep. One aspirin helps. Disappears when I'm upright. Neck creaks for a while when I move it after I get up. Headaches are very rare for me, so this is a worry.

Ribs - they hurt. Low, high, front, back, pain moves around. Definitely the ribs, not inside. About two or three weeks now. Also right hip, for about a month or more, moves around front, back, side, high, low.

Reasons? Heat blows on bed, on head, during night. Closed the vents completely last night, did sleep a little better. Still same bone pain, but headache less this morning. That mechanical tree frog sound from across the street disturbs me, causes tension in my neck. If things don't improve, try sleeping in a back bedroom. Can't hear it there. Bone pain - wondering if the kidney-protecting calcium reduction is causing it. I'm going to ignore doctor recommendations and add the magnesium back in. Maybe ribs hurt from leaning over the play yard sides?
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