All posts by djones

Molly, rabies, walk, weather

Multi-topics

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Tonight’s post comes to you as a collection of disjointed ramblings. Welcome to my mind. {*grin*}

Topic 1:
After an enjoyable Easter weekend, L headed back to the mountains this morning. Of course, that meant that Molly was in a sad and inconsolable state. I thought about adding a picture, but decided to be kind to Molly.

(I lied, Molly got pictured anyway.) This evening, I convinced Molly that a walk would be a fun thing. It seems like a lot of people we knew were out and about. In the course of walking 6 miles, Molly and I saw (and walked for a bit) with at least 5 groups of people and dogs we knew. It perked Molly up a bit. I suspect that she will be back to her chipper self by tomorrow.

Topic 2:
I suspect all of us remember the music of the Bangles from the 80’s and 90’s. When they broke up, I didn’t follow any of the members solo careers. I was not even overly enthused by their reunion for the Austin Power’s soundtrack song “Get the Girl“. So I was pleasantly surprised to find this duet by former Bangles lead singer Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet. Her voice has matured and she now reminds me a bit of a cross between Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin. Enjoy.

They got together to do an album of hits from the 60’s with startlingly good results. I encourage you to dig the tracks up (The album is “Under the Covers, Vol. 1“) and take a listen.

Topic 3:
Easter was a nice day. Good conversation, good food, with mom and L’s mom and friends, and then a nice long walk in springlike weather. And the weather wasn’t quite so nice that I had to work on the yard or get started in the garden. Laziness with no guilt, what more could one ask for?

Topic 4:
Back to writing a monograph (not really, more a series of press releases and radio spots) with the enthusing working title ‘Rabies, Your Pet, and You’. There has been an outbreak of rabies in skunks and muskrats in the area in the last month that has resulted in several attacks on humans and their pets, so it is time to remind people to make sure their pet vaccinations are up to date and to avoid possibly rabid animals. Most dog owners are pretty good about staying up to date on vaccinations, but many cat lovers fail to realize that cases of rabies in cats have become more prevalent than in dogs in recent years and so fail to keep their cats vaccinated. Back to the salt mine.

political humor, weather

Thoughtless Friday

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Today was a typical spring day on the high plains of Colorado – cool temperatures and howling winds. L barely made it out of the mountains for a meeting in Denver due to the snow and wind. Then she had to battle the wind all the way out here. Needless to say she was a bit frazzled by the wind when she got here this evening. The wind and breeze heralds a temporary cooling down and maybe even some moisture. We can but hope.


Today I was reminded of some of the better political symbolism I have seen in recent times. One of the high points of my day. I do have to wonder if the wind today wasn’t caused by all the political hot air flowing between the political parties. Election season is going to be really ugly given the early start to all the TV adds. I think they should just run the funny name change and call it good. Enjoy!

mama kat, writer's challenge

Ten Alternate Realities

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Time once more for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge. (Which I wouldn’t miss in spite of my scarcity earlier in the week.)

This weeks topics:

1.) List of 10 things blogging has taught you.

2.) “Oh please make this a topic for Writer’s Workshop. Pick your favorite song and record your own personal bathroom concert series. I’ll totally do a concert series, I bet I could get my hubby or brother to join in. Now I just need a song… (inspired by Kerri from I’m Just Sayin)

3.) “Sometimes when it’s hard to see with the eyes I’ve been given, I strap on my camera and pray for new ones. I did that yesterday. It helped.” (inspired by Emily from Chatting At The Sky)

4.) “let he who hath no sin cast the first stone…” Is there anything you have judged prematurely, only to find yourself walking in the same shoes later? (inspired by Stephanie from This Blessed Life)

5.) List your top 10 “Spring Trends”. (inspired by Tricia from Desperately Seeking Silence)

#1 – Ten Things Blogging Has Taught Me

  • Bloggers come and go; rare is the 3+year blogger.
  • Newbies are always welcome.
  • A touch of graphical panache helps the words go down.
  • There is no predicting what will be popular with readers.
  • Taste is a individual thing.
  • Subject matter can compensate a lack of writing skill, at least temporarily.
  • Interesting blogs (to me) feature lives and interests disjunct from my own.
  • Blogging takes a back seat to life and work for most of us from time to time.
  • Blogging is addictive in the sense of feeling guilty when you haven’t written for a few days.
  • Powerful blogs are emotionally raw and uncensored. The rest of us have to be amusing or erudite to make up for lack of raw.

#2 – Bathroom Concert

Given that I am not even allowed to sing in the shower here by myself, there is no chance of me singing and exposing the world. I want at least some people to remain amidst the living to read this blog. {*grin*}

#3 – Camera Eyes

My approach is a bit different. When I can’t see with the eyes I have, I put on a new pair of eyes in my imagination and look at the world in a new light. I find that is usually very helpful. With a camera, you can only look at what is really there in a different way; with your imagination you can look at what isn’t really there in a way that illuminates what is really there in a different way. One might say that they are two different means to reaching the same end – a different way of seeing reality.

#4 – Getting Stoned

I don’t know if I have ever cast the first stone and then been stoned myself, but I have certainly had moments of utter non-understanding and cluelessness towards others. There is one judgment that lingers powerfully; friends and I have discussed it several times over the years.

When we were young, we often thought of some of our classmates/friends as weird, wild, flighty, or just plain out there. This judgment was often made without much deep thought or attempts at understanding. Now more than 40 years later and with additional information in hand, we realize that many times they had home and life situations that made them the way they were.

Somehow you always assume that everyone has a life like yours, free of abuse and exploitation. Unfortunately, that isn’t always true. I doubt that it would have changed anything, but I rue making those judgments and not being able to spot the underlying problem. Even one understanding friend could have made all the difference in dealing with the problem they faced. It might have kept those who took their own lives amidst the living.

At least there is hope that it *is* getting better.

#5 – Spring Trends

Fashion advice? From me? I don’t think so.

campaign, skinput

Two Completely Unrelated Topics

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This evening was interesting. The county Republican caucus is Saturday, so it was time to finish calling all the delegates to see if they had any questions for me. That is one of the things you get to do when you are running for a partisan office. L joined me in calling the ~150 delegates over the last two evenings. The hard part for me is not to talk too long: most people enjoy talking. I suspect a lot of that is because we all know each other out here in the rural west. That makes it just neighborly to ask how the wife and kids are doing and if the fields are looking good and …

On a completely different topic, I saw an article on the skinput system today and cannot decide whether the idea is brilliant or just plain spooky. For those too lazy to read the article (and/or too spooked to watch the video therein), the basic idea is to use a body mounted projector and the sounds produced by tapping on your skin to turn your body into the latest version of the touch screen. As a physicist I was intrigued by the applied science of using longitudinal and transverse propagation of waves in and on the surface of the body to deduce the point of tap. Amazing.

So what is your opinion? I still much prefer the direct skull electrode readers, but then I am a closet fan of Frankenstein too.

My idol!

book review, compromise, fashion, marriage, singing

Failure To Be Asked and Compromise – What a Mix

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This weeks topics:

1.) Ask someone who loves you what one of your weaknesses is.
(inspired by Summer from Le Musings Of Moi)

2.) “I need all the help I can get and if repeating something healthy and inspiring to myself several times a day helps, then I’m going to do it!” -What affirmation makes you feel better? WELL THINK OF ONE.
(inspired by Shanna from Smiles, Miles, and Trials)

3.) I Wanna Be MADE! You remember the MTV series where nerdy high school kids are made to be popular and what not? If you could be MADE into anything…what you be made into?

4.) I’m reading a book about dogs and kids…it says you may need to compromise some of your dog standards when choosing a dog that will fit every family member’s needs. I think that’s like marriage. What did you compromise when you married?

5.) Why didn’t they ask you? Write a list of 5 or 10 sentences that begin with the words ‘No one ever asked me’; then, write about one of them in detail, or use them all in a poem, or use several in a personal description of yourself.
(writingfix.com)

I’m going to go with #4 and #5 this week.

#4 – What did you compromise when you married?

I like to listen to music, preferably loud, as I drift off to sleep. L on the other hand is one of those people who requires near absolute silence to fall asleep. (Once asleep, she is impervious to most noises). You can see where this is going. It was one of the bigger compromises of married life for me to accept the no-noise-of-any-sort-at-bedtime rule.

Even now, more than 34 years later, I still miss listening to music at bedtime. There is something so soothing about listening to Led Zeppelin or Pure Prairie League as you drift off to the land of nod. Any Jackson Browne ballad acts as a soporific for me. Just about any tune to stop the continuous running of the brain is a great sleep aid for me. Call it the primitive power of music if you will.

Now it is an entirely different battle for silence at night. The combination of L, Molly (the dog), and me snoring is enough to wake the dead. There is nothing worse than waking up in annoyance at someone snoring only to realize that the snorer is you. Add into it the occasional bursts of night time flatulence from Molly and you can truly enjoy a premier sleeping experience at our house.

Maybe I can convince L to let me listen to music just to drown out the snores at night? It’s worth a try! (Of course, it won’t do anything to the olfactory effects from the dog, but as they say: half a loaf is better than none. Maybe Bizarro got it right in reverse.)

#5 – No one ever asked me

No one ever asked me …

… to be the centerfold in their magazine.
… to be the cap-person on their human pyramid.
… to join their ballet company.
… to serve as their fashion consultant.
… to run the anchor leg of the race.
… what I wash first in the shower.
… if I have ever crawled through a window.
… to retrieve something fallen into a narrow crevice.
… to sing for them.

We can eliminate the interest of some of these right off the bat. Regular readers already know why no one asks me to sing. (The curious might want to read this entry.)

Retrieving things from a small area is out for the simple reason that my hands are large. “How large?”, I hear you ask. Well …

I have never been asked if I have crawled through a window because unless it is a patio door, it isn’t going to happen. I have been asked numerous times to hoist someone up to the window – does that count?

I wash my head first in the shower, then the body, and then finally shampoo the hair (what there is left of it). Just seems like the logical way to go. I almost always shower rather than use a bathtub. Might have been too much exposure to the humor of my dad’s railroad work colleagues when young. They were fond of asking the semi-rhetorical question “Why would I want to wash my head in the same water as my @**?”

The rest of the failures can be traced to one simple fact: I am a really big klutz. When you are 6’5″ and 300lbs, you get asked to play football and rugby, not dance on stage or pose for the centerfold. {*grin*} And when you wear size 16 shoes, your ballet career is over before it even began. Likewise, unless it is a strongman competition, you are not going to be asked to tread and kneel atop anyone.

Finally, I am noted more for my sense of anti-fashion rather than fashion. After all, I have been seen in public wearing these:

I think that explains it all!

P.S. If you have ever wondered how those review blurbs for new books come about, venture on over to Eos Books – The Next Chapter and see how my review of BRAINS yesterday was blurb-a-tized. I have never seen so many ellipses in my life. {*grin*}