Time once more for:
What are your favorite quotes about love?
Time once more for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge. This week the prompts are:
1.) Ask A Dad! Write a letter asking your husband for advice regarding any issue you might have and record his answer.
(inspired by Three Bay B Chicks)
2.) Describe a situation that forced you to confront a neighbor.
(inspired by Jori-O)3.)Tell us about Grandpa.
(inspired by Heather at The Extraordinary Ordinary)4.) Which appliance in your home would you most miss living without if you had to live without.
(inspired by Amy at Escape Into My Thoughts)5.) What are three things we would love to know about you!
(inspired by Live. Laugh. Pull Your Hair Out)
My answers might be short and sweet tonight since I started with the radio show this morning, traveled the 125 miles to Denver to spend the afternoon in meetings with lawyers and then traveled back just in time to spend the evening in the EMS committee meeting. It will depend on how long I can keep my eyes open how much I write.
#1 – An easy one! Since I am a Dad, I can ask myself.
Q: Why does it take longer to clean up after cooking than it takes to eat?
A: I don’t know – that is why I asked! Dummy!.
#2 – Many years ago when L and I lived in a suburb of Chicago, in an apartment complex. One Saturday night there came the sound of a woman screaming desperately for help in the hall. I stepped out the door just in time to see her pulled back into the apartment across the hall followed by the distinctive sounds of someone smacking someone else hard and whimpering cries for help. I sent L to call the police and knocked on the door, The man opened the door and told me to go away, he was busy. He then slammed the door in my face. A seemingly endless amount of time later the police arrived. The woman refused to press charges, so there wasn’t much they could do. Needless to say, relations were a bit strained thereafter when I saw either of that couple in the hall.
#3 – I have talked about my grandfathers before at some length. Please check out Grandfathers.
#4 – Do you mean level 1 appliances or level 2 appliances? For level 1 appliances it would be a real toss-up between the stove and the refrigerator. The stove so I can cook and the refrigerator so that I don’t have to buy my food within an hour of cooking and eating it. I kind of like cooking on my schedule and being able to store and preserve food. At level 2, I have to say the microwave. The speed and convenience of preparing food, especially leftovers in a microwave cannot be beat. And of course we wouldn’t want to forget such conveniences as hot tea and microwave popcorn and …
#5 – Well, that is a tough three. How about:
Just to illustrate, here is a recent picture of me from the local paper as I addressed the Rotary club. Note the gray hair and beard, the farmer tan so evident on the right arm, and the Hawaiian shirt (muted to save your vision).
I was tagged by Christy over at LIVE and LEARN! for the viral meme floating around. So here goes.
First the rules:
1. Respond and rework. Answer the questions on your blog. Replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, and add one more question of your own.
2. Tag other people.
Now the questions:
What are you wearing today? Khaki’s and a summer shirt. I have city council meeting in a bit and can’t look too casual, otherwise it’d be shorts and a golf shirt.
What’s for dinner? A couple of turnips (raw) and a salad with lettuce, onions, radishes, carrots.
What would you eat for your last meal? That’s a tough one. There are so many foods that would all taste good that it is hard to narrow it down. Probably a BBQ steak, a brat, a green salad, and some fresh fruit and melon.
What relaxes you most? Hard physical labor and spending time snuggling with L.
If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would it be? Probably Antarctica. It’s been hot here for days and the blast of cold might be refreshing for a few moments at least.
What language do you want to learn? Another tough one. Foreign languages seem to defeat me. I have tried Spanish, Russian, French and Latin; all I have to show for it is the ability to count to 100 in each of them. Computer languages come easy to me; I know about 40 fluently and another 30 or so to the level I can read and understand someone else’s program written in them. I guess I’ll say Spanish so I can try to watch the Spanish language channels on tv.
What do you love most about where you currently live? The rural agrarian life style and the friendliness of the community. I also love the definite seasons and how they remind one of the rhythms of life.
What style is your current home decorated in? American eclectic? You can judge for yourself from the pictures in this post.
If you were a time traveler what era would you live in? There are several periods that would be interesting to me. Ancient Rome might be interesting, the 1920’s have a definite attraction, but I guess I’d say the 1940’s and WWII as my current choice. That period was a time of intense scientific development and a time when whole countries were pulling together in the same direction trying to ensure their very survival. The experience would be intense.
What is your favorite color? Blue. Or Red. Or Green. Maybe I’m just color agnostic?
What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe? Shorts (and golf shirts).
What were you doing ten years ago? Working on several start-up companies. There was period in there where I was even listed on the masthead of Working Women Magazine as the CTO of their internet arm.
What are you going to do after this? City council meeting.
What are your favorite films? I have too many to list them all. Instead I’ll list the first film that left me utterly awestruck and madly in love. That film was Dr. Zhivago and the love was Lara. The time was Jr. High School.
What are your favorite books? Almost anything by Asimov or Heinlein. Most any hard science fiction. Thrillers and Who-dunnit’s. Philosophy. I guess just about any book since I read 2 to 4 novels a week.
Do you collect anything? Books and old computer equipment.
What makes you follow a blog? It piques my interest. That can be because it is humorous or because it talks about subjects not a part of my day to day life or because it is a techie blog or just because the viewpoints expressed are different than my own.
What was the most enjoyable thing you did today? Went for a walk.
Ann’s Question: What makes you comment on a blog? The topic is something I feel I can contribute to. Reciprocation (I.E. you commented on my blog so I owe you a comment and vice versa.)
Amy’s Question: What is your favorite thing to do when you have free time? Spend time with my wife L, walk the streets and parks of town, golf, program computers, and read.
Tonya’s Question: What is a talent you wished you had? I sometimes think it would be neat to read minds, at least at a superficial level. On the other hand, it might not be too neat to hear what people really thought about you.
Noelle’s Question: If you could go to heaven, who would you see and why? This may be controversial answer, but I’d have say God. I’d like to ask him what he was really trying to do with free will. If the question is what formerly living person, then I’d have to say my grandfather P.
Vickie’s Question: Who is your favorite actor? Probably Harrison Ford or Johnny Depp. They seem to be able to play a role in a totally convincing manner.
Kitten’s Question: Other than Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, etc. what are your most frequently visited websites? Slashdot. Since I don’t Twitter or Facebook, I spend my time on techie and news sites.
SeptemberMom’s Question: What was your favorite subject in school? Science and math.
Christy’s question: As a child/teen how did you envision your adult life? Pretty much as it happened up to middle age anyway. The last 5 years were nowhere in my envisioning.
My Question: How much time do you spend on your average blog post? Between 15 and 25 minutes on average. Sometimes as little a 5 minutes.
Now that I’m done, I’ll tag
to carry on the infection.
You knew it had to be true, but now there is now scientific evidence that cats control their humans. From the July 14 issue of Current Biology as reported by the news services, cats control humans by their purr/cries. For the full LiveScience article, click here.
I don’t know if anyone is really surprised by the findings given that previous research that showed the similarities between cat cries and human infant cries. Couple that with the seemingly limitless ability of humans to not ignore the cries of infants and you have a pretty strong method of control if dear old pussy adds the right sonic triggers to her cry. And that seems to be exactly what the cats have learned/adapted to doing. Lead researcher McComb said she thinks this cry occurs at a low level in cats’ normal purring, “but we think that cats learn to dramatically exaggerate it when it proves effective in generating a response from humans.”
So now we have cats learning to control us by sonic means, dogs learning to control us by making goo-goo eyes at us, and our infants doing both. Ever wondered if you are the last person to catch on to the fact that everyone and everything in the world is out to influence you? I certainly have.
Now the question is if this research can explain the cat lady phenomena. There must be some reason for the existance of cat ladies. I’m begining to think it is all a plot by the cats of the world. What do you think?
Have you ever been gobsmacked by the emotional power of music? By that I mean that the music that is the soundtrack of your life is somehow imbued with the power to evoke the emotional feel of the events that were happening when the music was playing. Confused enough yet? I suppose a more succinct way of expressing my thought is that music has the power to act as the trigger to recall emotions and feelings with a fidelity that normal reminiscence lacks. And those trips down memory and mood lane can be quite vivid and rewarding.
Tonight I have been listening to the music from my “neighborhood” in last.fm. By virtue of whatever algorithm last.fm uses to associate my musical tastes with a neighborhood, I get to rediscover a lot of music that was a big part of the soundtrack of my life at various stages. The interesting part is that the music is not necessarily what I would choose on my own. I am pretty much a creature of my formative years with some later influences. Thus my normal selections might have a lot of Jefferson Airplane/Starship, Led Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead, Iron Butterfly, Cream, Eric Clapton, etc. But at the same time, artists like Norman Greenbaum (Spirit in the Sky) and The Everly Brothers (Dream) and … all are capable of pulling up memories and events. Without something like my last.fm neighborhood, I might not hear them for years.
Via the power of the neighborhood, I listened to Tommy James and the Shondells (Crimson and Clover), The McCoys (Hang On Sloopy), Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin doing insane things with her voice), Vanilla Fudge (You Keep Me Hanging On), and even some {*gasp*} Archies (Sugar, Sugar). Each and every song brought forth a stream of events and feelings and emotions that at times was overpowering and yet rewarding and comforting.
So as I head back into the emotional cloud of my neighborhood, I’ll leave you with the questions:
A parting gift of the map of musical island interrelatedness for your perusal from last.fm – if you click it it will take you to their playground and some references as to how it was built.
