Category House and Home

Why I hate Twitter and other things that annoyed me this week

Michael 16 Comments

Greetings fellow blog warriors. Worriers? Whichever. I had not planned a brain dump so close to the last one, but the pool is rising, and I must open the valves.

I am certain that I’ve mentioned this before, but I might have merely thought I had because it is a thought I think often and to be honest about it, as a thought it is pretty petty. And isn’t it something than pretty and petty by themselves conjure up such different emotions yet the only difference between the two is a lower case “r” and even that is one of the least interesting letters we have. English has so many words in it and they all come from different language sources, except for the ones that some social nitwits couldn’t find the right emotion to convey with 170,000 and some words we already have so they invent more like “talmbout” which according to dictionary.com is a shorthand version of “to talk about” and their example is “There’s a bear outside? What you talmbout?” (Personally, my favorite new word is “tifo” as “fevered impassioned support” of something, drawn from the Italian word for typhus. Yes, it started with soccer fans. How’d you guess?) Now where the aich ee double toothpicks was I? Oh right, uninteresting letters. With all those words from all those root languages, where are all the diacritical marks. [Sigh] Anyway, I was about to bring up something pretty petty.

I’m sure many of you know that I’ve had my lifetime of medical and physical challenges. One remaining idiot-synchronicity is a tendency to fall over at inopportune times, not that there are many opportune times to fall over. As a result, I always walk with a cane although I don’t always really need it. If I was able to tell when, then they wouldn’t be inopportune. Anyway, I also have a handicap placard that I sometimes take advantage of when I’ve been out for a particularly long time, or when I may be particularly tired and at a greater risk of imbalance and plopping. (Now there’s a good word I pulled out of the seldom used but perfectly acceptable section of the dictionary. You didn’t see me make up a new word for inopportune falling.)

The other day was one of those days and I had one more stop to make before I headed home. I pulled into the parking lot of approximately 24,000 spaces, about a couple of dozen or so signed pregnant women and new mothers (I never understood why not one for new fathers shopping with children, not that it matters to me because when I was a new father, there were no such spaces for either parent), two for veterans, and all of 6 handicap spots.  Technically I am entitled to a veteran space also, but I always feel I should leave those to the older veteran who now has to fend for himself or herself, and quite often forget that I am that older veteran fending for myself. But still, I stay out of them.

That day all 6 of the handicap spaces were taken, which is fine because we all need to accept what life hands out, right? But of those 6, two were occupied by vehicles (not cars, but my favorite rant-able vehicle (pronounced vee-hick-ul) that requires a step stool to climb into. That in itself irks me. If you can climb into a lifted Hummeresque veehickul, you aren’t handicapped. Least not physically. But these two were occupied by two youngish sorts, the types who don’t make up new words because they already know the basic top ten (I’ll have a beer. Where’s the freaking john? Yo babe!), idling their monster trucks, with handicap placards vibrating on the dashboards. Why were they there? They drove Grammy to the store and used her card to “park” in the designated spot while the dear old lady goes in and does all her own shopping. I know. I’ve asked. (Yes, I can exhibit a frightening lack of judgement when I get tired and cranky.)

Anyway, I find it irksome when people are parked in a handicap spot that aren’t parked. Drop Meemaw off at the door, and go park in front of the beer distributor. Or better still, park in her spot and go in with her and help her, you useless twit! (Another perfectly good word you just don’t hear any more)

Moving on to number two of this week’s annoyances is one that actually wasn’t annoying at all. In fact, it was funny as all get out. (No? Yes! Oh, get out of here! No, you get out of here!) Just yesterday my daughter and I were brunching together and complaining about our watches, specifically our Apple Watches, and specifically specifically the fitness app thereon. Our conversation centered around the seeming haphazard accounting of calories and active time. “I can go up and down two flights of steps carrying laundry both ways and got nothing. But sit on the floor with my head in the oven, cleaning of course, and it racks up the calories burned like I was running a marathon, which, by the way, when I did this year, I swear it counted only the first 4 miles.” Clearly that was my daughter’s contribution to the rant because I haven’t attempted any distance running for about 30 years. And to be fair, all fitness watches and bracelets and rings have their foibles (another underused word), but Apple turned it into a game with their darned fitness rings. Gotta close those rings every day. As my daughter put it, we’re the human equivalent of a Tamagotchi doll. And darned if she wasn’t right!

And what was the other. Oh yeah, Twitter. Elon sucks.

I’m sure now by next Monday I’ll be able to put together a proper post for you all. Have a good week!

When a child’s first toy is a kid-size tablet, we shouldn’t be surprised some basic life skills will be a struggle. But as we said in the most recent Uplift, if we keep our minds sharp, we can still allow computers to do the heavy mental lifting of the everyday without losing our grip on the basic. Read about it in “If you give a teen a penny.”

Blog Art 2

A Shocking Tale

Michael 10 Comments

Did you ever have an extended period of time where all things of the same ilk were happening. Little fiddlies that by themselves would be handled, maybe with aplomb or maybe with a little impatience, but they were handled. Put together, a handful of fiddlies go from, “oh, look at that,” to hmm, again?” then to, “oh come on now already!” For me, this has not been a good electronics week for me.

It started with the little car. How can a car, that was olde, much older than a really good Scotch, start a week of electronic discombobulation? How could a sweet little roadster kick off a week of a shockwave slinger’s version of hell. Three little words. Electronic fuel pump. These little babies can do their impression of the Energizer bunny for 100,000. The little car (Rosemary by name because she’s red but has more zip than any ordinary rose) has not covered even a third of that distance, but it is about to turn 26 years old and that’s old enough to have gone through two pumps by now and we’re still working with the original. Or we were. Replacement is pretty simple if you have the tools and the knowhow. I have tools and I have knowhow. Unfortunately, neither of them is the right type, and that’s why we have mechanics. Cost measured in hours and dollars. Just a couple hours. Lots of dollars.

A few days later, a classic summer thunderstorm rolled through. Very loud, very windy, very wet! One of those storms when a really lot of rain doesn’t fall but it all comes at once. According to the National Weather service, a little over a half inch fell in 12-15 minutes. Then it settled into a nice steady rain. All those rain drops made for an interesting weather report, but the wind was the real story. Wind not quite enough to cause widespread downed trees and power fallers, but enough to cross wires and cause intermittent outages. Living a lifetime with severe storms had trained me to regularly turn off power strips and unplug sensitive computer equipment. But, like the house servants in the Jazz Age (and every other age before and since), we all have workers we count on every day we never pay notice, like garage door openers.

I have a garage door opener that operates one huge double wide and double heavy door.  It is operated with the usual wired wall controller and 2 wireless controllers, one for each car, and an outside wireless keypad. They all work superbly, unless the electricity goes out. Then for no good reason I ever came up with, every time there’s a blackout, the head unit forgets it has wireless connections. Remember that storm from a paragraph earlier? Yep, it went out and the controllers turned into knickknacks. Not a problem. It’s happened before. I just teach it a new thing or two, hop in the car, and drive on out. Except this time, I was out when it happened and got home during those 12-15 minutes when the rain clouds were doing their imitation of Niagara Falls. Cost, no dollars, just a few minutes, a lot of fresh towels.

I took advantage of Prime Days and bought a sound bar for the bedroom TV. It isn’t used much but on those few occasions I watch television in that room I find myself struggling to hear with my aging ears. A sound bar on the living room television made all the difference and when I found a smaller model of the same brand for a significant savings, I thought it would make a nice upgrade. I anxiously awaited the delivery man. Okay okay, that was a little dramatic. I put the order in and a couple days later it showed up in the doorstep. As I emptied the contents of the packaging, I set aside the HDMI ARC cable knowing I couldn’t use that as my set has the old-fashion HDMI just like the living room television where I used the alternate optical connector. I knew I’d be able to do that because the two televisions are the same brand only one a little smaller and a year or two older. After wrestling the piece around so I could access all the little connection sockets, I discovered that a year or two made a difference. No optical connection back there! Ugh. Just a couple old fashioned HDMI doodads. Reading the instructions, the online forums, Reddit (which is vastly underrated for its comic relief) I confirmed, “gotta have” the HDMI ARC. And then I thought, but wait, how about Bluetooth? Confirmed…television. Bluetooth enabled. Yay! Sound bar? No Bluetooth. Sigh. Cost in time- longer than it took to change an electronic fuel pump. In dollars- net $0.

I was so disappointed I thought I’d spend a little time at the electric keyboard I have in the Swiss Army Room. (Yes, I finally gave it a name.) Actually, I wasn’t that disappointed, but just had some time and nothing pressing, and it’s always been a pleasant pastime. The Casio has been with me for years. More than a basic hobby electric, it’s a 61 key (fully weighted) MIDI keyboard with a piano tone so clear it sounds as close to a piano as you can imagine. I couldn’t believe my eyes way back when I spotted it on a shelf in a thrift store, this amazing instrument that when new cost as much as an electronic fuel pump. I’ve enjoyed playing the Casio for almost as long as I’ve been playing with Rosemary (you remember her, the little car). I toggled the switch and waited for the display window to come to life. And waited. And waited. Hmmm. I tentatively fingered a key hoping only the display went the way of many 20 year old electronic gadgets and life stilled hummed through its keys. Nothing. And I thought. No, I didn’t unplug it the last time I played it, two days ago, the day before the power failure, and maybe power surge. Costs in dollars- untold. In time- immeasurable.

This has not been a good week with electronics for me.

Blog Art 2

Children aren’t just adults in training. We look at how they can be models for adults who would do well to look at the world through a child’s eye rather than looking at the world as their playground in Growing Up, Older, in the latest Uplift.

All that’s write with the world

Michael 13 Comments

Yesterday I had my weekly meal with my daughter. We’ve been eating meals together for 30 some years, the most recent few years every Sunday, sometimes breakfast, sometimes brunch, sometimes lunch, occasionally dinner, alternating houses and hosting duties but with only a quarter mile between the two homes, it’s rarely the only time we see each other over the course of a week.

Yesterday was my turn at my house and I prepared a combination of our favorites. Cinnamon roll French toast bacon sliders. They were yummy! (Actually, yummy with about 27 exclamation marks.) Of all the meals I make, and I do all of the big three, breakfasts are my favorite, and I try to make our Sunday breakfasts when I’m making a Sunday breakfast something different. I like breakfast and said someday I should write a cookbook with just breakfasts. My daughter’s answer, “Why not?”

Easy for her to say. She actually makes a living at writing. Creative writing. I mentioned that to her and reminded her that I made my fortune (hahahaha!) as a hospital pharmacist, not as one of America’s literary giants. But then she reminded me I wield a quill as deftly as a pestle. (See. Creative.) And that made me think how much this “scientist” has put down on paper,  or pixelated the screen.

Last week I was re-reading most of the almost 200 ROAMcare Uplift blog posts as we decide which of them will work best in a compilation into book form. (If you’re interested, a couple of my favorites are Listening for Love, and Friend is Another Word for Love. Yes, there is a theme there.) Most of those posts are around 500 words and some of them have been recycled but we figure that’s abut 90,000 words written, and although a collaborative effort, I do the bulk of the writing.

Then there is this thing, the quote unquote personal blog, that I’ve been hammering at for 12 years, 8 months, and 4 days. Untold number of words, some intelligent. (One of my many favorites here is Good Things, Small Spaces, a real oldie and still goodie.)

I’ve written about a dozen articles for professional journals, a. short lived newspaper column on, yep, drug stuff (weekly for about 2 years), one novel currently getting more air miles back and forth to publishers than I’ll ever get on a real airline, one short story and a “self-help” book (I hate that descriptor) that I keep revising mostly because in all honestly, they aren’t that good, and one of what I hope will be my legacy.

That donation to society is trip through my life tentatively titled Long Shots and Miracles, based on a presentation I do that describes me battling 3 potentially life-ending conditions in the span of 20 years with the power of prayer (I let the doctors battle with medical know-how, I battled with prayer). To give you a flavor of that, this is usually how I close. ‘The doctors have their theories, I’ll stick with mine. But you tell me, what do you think. Am I just luckier than most or am I a living miracle, proof that prayers are answered. You have a 50/50 chance of getting it right. I’m sticking with the Miracle Worker. That seems to be the sure thing.’ Popular among church organizations and just breaking into “survivor” groups.

I also speak on other topics but before I do I write them out completely, as if they would be read. (I found it’s how I best edit myself.) Oh, and once I wrote a letter to the editor.

Is there a point to all this? No, not really. If you are reading this, you are a writer. If there must be one, I’d say the point is that everyone can be whatever they want to be, no matter when they decided to be it, nor what they started out to be. I think as humans, an area we lag the rest of nature is that of adaptability.  We spend much too much time and energy doing things that don’t make us happy or add to our contentment (yes, they are different things), and we justify it too often with “that’s what I’ve always done,” or “oh I could never do that.” The only things you can never do are the things you won’t ever do. (Oh, that would make a dandy sampler!)

So there’s my point. If I can do it, anybody can. Even if I’m not all that good at it. You might be better at whatever you decide you want to be after all this time.

Or then again, I could just be pointless. And that’s okay too.

Blog Art 2

Learning all we can for as long as we can prepares us for whatever the day may bring. And keeps us happy and healthy! Read why we say “we’re learning, to be happy” in the latest Uplift.

 

Lather, rinse, stop!

Michael 14 Comments

I started out in my mind to do an old fashioned brain dump. It’s been a while since I went through the cobwebs up there and I have things that need to be said. Like, I didn’t think I’d ever say a remote control for a ceiling fan is necessary. Get up and pull the chain or wire it into a rheostat switch on the wall. But the fan I got has one and I’m not going to use the fan just because it has a piece of hardware of questionable use. But I gotta tell you this. I love it. And the best part about it…it has an indicator to indicate (what else) the fan speed. No more looking at the fan and carrying on this conversation with yourself. “Is it off? Hmm, Maybe? One more pull? Yeah, I think one more pull. Oh no! Not back to high! Ugh!”

And then there’s that little mini-rant that’s been waiting to blossom into a full post but just doesn’t have have the legs to pull it off. That is, the TSA has been setting records for passengers screened since Memorial Day.  Who are all these people? Surely, they aren’t the same ones who are complaining that produce prices are just too high! “Screw inflation! We’re going to Disney!”

But actually, the one that could get me going for a full post is sort of related to that. It’s this new thing I’m reading about, upflation. Yep. Upflation. It’s the art of getting you to buy more of something you already buy so you have to buy more of it. The example most often cited is All Over Body Deodorant. Basically, the same stuff as in that stick or spray or roll-on you already have in your medicine cabinet, perhaps a little watered down or unscented, for all the places you don’t see when you raise your arms unless you happen to be naked.

The story goes that people finally figured out that 52 ounces isn’t a half-gallon. Even though they took those pesky ounces from your juice container an ounce at a time, eventually someone got around to ask, where did the other 12 ounces go and why am I still paying for them. “Shrinkflation isn’t working any more, we corporate management people need to come up with some other way of fleecing Americans. I got, let’s just convince them they need more of what we already have out there.” Thus, upflation.

It’s not just remarketing older products for new uses. Pepsi, the parent of Frito-Lay actively searches sites like TicToc for trends like uses Cheetos dust for chicken seasoning. People are already crushing perfectly good Cheetos into dust. Will that be on the shelf next? They have to do something with all the broken Cheetos that don’t make it to the bag. You say, it couldn’t happen? You know General Mills sells “Cinnadust” Cinnamon Toast Crunch (my personal favorite cereal) in the spice section. Can’t find it there? You can always order it online. And don’ tell me you haven’t thought about picking up some graham cracker crumbs at pie baking time  

Personally, I don’t know why I’m making a big deal out of this now that it has a name. They’ve always been working to get you to use more of what’s already out there. Does anybody not lather, rinse, repeat?

Thank you. That felt good to get that off my chest. Now, if only there was a special razor to get all this hair off my chest.

1070981C-95F2-42EC-BAFC-F3F02FB349C2

The Fourth of July is over, but feeling good about America should be an all year thing. America works because our differences are what makes us unique as a country. Check out the latest Uplift and see why we say America is at its best when we play together. (Go on, take a look. It’s even free!

Happy Summer

Michael 10 Comments

Happy July everybody! We’re heading into our first full month of summer, and it’s hot hot hot, and on fire with summer fun celebrations! I’d like to take the time revisit and few topics I previously revisit on a variety of Fourths of July. I hope you’ll take the time to read or reread them and if you do, that you enjoy reading or rereading them as much as I did when I wrote or rewrote them.  

Up north it’s Canada Day today. South of most of the Great Lakes in will be Independence Day on Thursday. Neither day is exactly when new countries were constituted and truly became independent. Nor did that happen in France on July 14. But they are all momentous dates in the formation of countries we still recognize and celebrate today. Throughout the world, 21 other countries took their first steps to freedom and self-control in various Julys. I wrote more on those eventful events in 2017. You can check it out here.

Here in my neck of the woods we do fireworks in a big way. But we seem to be slacking off on parades. Fireworks are nice but parades, especially the marching bands, get my heart pumping. I think it’s because to me, bands are microcosms of America. I felt that way strongly enough that naturally I wrote about it. In fact, I’ve felt so strongly that I have repeated the same post a few times. The most recent was just last year and you can find that here.

On the Fourth of July 2022 we were pretty comfortably making that return to “normal” that we knew we’d get to eventually. That day I re-visited a post I wrote in July 2020 when we were just starting to find our way out of lockdowns and venturing back out on summer vacations, but not by air or by sea, but by land. That reminded me of my childhood vacations, always by car, and someone always stuck in the middle of the back seat, suffering from Middle Seat Hump Syndrome.

I hope sometime this month, wherever you are you can celebrate, travel, ooh and aah at the pyrotechnics, or march on to your personal independence. And between all that, I hope you have some time to read, or reread these older summer offerings from me.

Happy July everybody!

Who we are depends on many external factors, but what we are is all us. We look at how we tell ourselves what we want to be as we live life in the latest Uplift!

Happy Birthday America!

 

Life in the Dark Ages

Michael 12 Comments

Except that my watch keeps track of the days, I’ve have been off by a few months recently. I’ve entered my dark period. No that’s not some reference to a Japanese magazine serial turned TV show turned movie, nor a description of my recent paintings, although they so seem to have a lot of black and gray in them.

My dark period is when I live with the blinds pulls and the curtains drawn, venturing into the daylight only for mail and the occasional provisions run to the local mega mart. Usually this is during the deep freeze the time keepers call February. It’s my desperate attempt at keeping as many layers of insulation between me and the elements when walking within five feet of any window may result in frostbite.

The current dark period began 7 days ago, when the temperatures never quite made it out of the 90s (F) — either high or low.  We’ve been on a sort of constant simmer. The windows coverings that keep the cold out in the winter months are this week doing an admirable job keeping the cool in.

I know, some of you would consider it a cooling off if your temperatures just stayed in the two-digit range. And when I was a younger version of me, I would be too. I remember those hot and humid August days when temperatures and “feel likes” cracked the century mark and thought nothing of spending the day in the blazing sun, often in a boat on water reflecting light and heat so we were basically sitting in nature’s version of a convection oven (or it’s countertop cousin, the air fryer).

The older version of me doesn’t do well with heat. Nor with cold for that matter. Sometimes even with the in between.  According to the National Weather Service, my little piece of the world typically sees average high temperatures in the 70s and lows in the 60s in June. According to me, I would typically like see those average temperatures any time now. But in stead I guess that means not seeing the world outside but through small openings in the window dressings is the price I pay. Well, that that the price of electricity. (Darn air conditioning.)

You don’t need to go to the moon to see different points of view. We talk about how our perspective changes how we see things in the latest Uplift.

Blog Art 2-2

Real life advice for real life

Michael 12 Comments

I would like to wish the fathers out there a belated Happy Father’s Day, those celebrating a Happy Juneteenth, and to everyone, the words of life advice from a father who has served many years of life.

I got this idea from last week’s post when I suggested one who serves food would be better received (and probably better tipped) if that one did not have a tattoo of a spider on the back of their hand. I realized then that I had a wealth of advice just waiting to spill forth from my brain and what better place for it to spill than on here? Just some morsels of common sense sprinkled over some of the nonsensical things I’ve lately noticed.

For example. If you own a bar, restaurant, bar and restaurant, diner, pizza parlor, sandwich shop, or similar, and you find yourself a little short staffed, don’t mount on the largest sign you can find “Servers, cooks, bartenders, dishwashers wanted” in the largest letters you can find and post said sign outside your main entrance door. You would be better served to post a sign that says “Please don’t come here to eat unless you enjoy waiting hours before being served.”

Likewise to the local auto repair shop owner with the sign “Mechanics needed” and is wondering why business has taken a sudden downturn.

I’m not sure anyone ever put “Spam Spreader” on their resume, but someone must write and distribute those aberrations to polite electronic mail correspondence. My advice to whomever it may be, don’t use flags, up arrow notations of urgency, or more than 4 emojis in the subject line. I can’t think of one legitimate email I’ve ever received that came with 🔈😮🔥🚨 as part of the subject that had me thinking “Oh my gosh, I better open this email before I do anything else or the world may end!”

While I’m thinking about resumes, if you should happen to think about applying for one of those open waitresses, cooks, or mechanics positions, leave “content creator” off yours. I’ve actually seen that on resumes and it didn’t impress me, and to honest, I’m usually quite impressionable.

Also apropos resumes, if you are employed as one who gets to send emails, text messages, or even real mail to potential job candidates and you start your spiel with “I found your resume on line and know you would be perfect for a position we are trying to fill,” please read the resume, or the next time someone wants to hire me as medical director at some hospital in a “world famous tourist location,” I may take you up on that, especially if you’re covering travel and expenses (including a plus one, naturally).

Finally, to those seeking a position in government like, I don’t know, maybe President, it’s in bad taste to put out TV, radio, internet, and mail ads suggesting your opponent is “dishonest” if you’ve just been found guilty of a few dozen felonies. Just my opinion.

Have a happy week everyone – and a happy federal holiday to those in states where it’s not illegal to celebrate it.

One way to survive in this crazy world is making the most of every hour. Not with a strict schedule and sticking to a to-do list. It’s implementing a to-don’t list. Yes, the secret to doing efficiently and effectively is knowing what not to do. We know  we said so in the latest Uplift!

Blog Art 2

 

A rose by another name

Michael 8 Comments

Last week I poked fun at “man fashion.” It’s only fair the women now get their turn. Specifically, inked up women. Full disclosure, I am not a tattoo person. Quite like golf, I know I am a minor minority in that regard, but I just don’t get the point. Specifically in women. Especially beautiful, well put together women. Which is like 99.7% of them. All women are beautiful, except the tattooed ladies. So the percentage of beautiful, well put together women is dropping but that’s life.

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this post, a work of advice to the tatted up broads, career advice. If you are in a field where you handle food or drugs, please don’t tattoo the back of your hand. In the last week I had a server set a plate in front of me with a hand on which she had a spider inked onto the back. And the cashier at the pharmacy handed me my prescription with her hand adorned with skull and crossbones. Can I just say, “Blech!”

Also in the last week I was at the service center customer waiting lounge at the car dealer. Yes, I was just there a few weeks ago.  Different car. I took a seat by the coffee pot because my knee was bothering me, and I didn’t want to walk very far several times an hour. A young lady walked up to the machine and admittedly, I stared. She was a very good-looking lady. Mind you, I have never been one of the crowd that says, ladies, if you don’t want to be looked at, don’t make yourself so look-able. But she was definitely look-able. And she sported ink.

So many people getting tattooed pick designs that mean something to them. Recently there had been a trend, especially among women, to cut through all the representation art and just put out there what they want to say with words, so now catchy phrases and famous quotes are appearing on human canvases. This lady at the coffee machine had taken that route and had words tattoos on the side of her foot, which was wearing a sandal, those exposing nearly all of the letters that made up all of the words. I had to stare so I could figure out what it said! She was not only look-able, she also had a sense of witty humor for on her foot she had emblazoned, “Put your best foot forward.” I kind of liked that. I wasn’t liking that she huffed and puffed at me about being some sort of foot pervert and to stop staring at her.

I remembered that advice later that same day when I was in the checkout line in the nearby Walmart, a place not known for instilling conservative dress and appearance in its customers. A lady in front of me was as look-able as the coffee machine lady, but for completely different reason. She also appeared well endowed with natural beauty, had well cared for hair and manicure. She seemed every bit a lady except that she was wearing basically swimwear and had a tattoo. Not a single phrase on the side of her foot, but a 2 or 3 inch wide thorny stem wrapping around her leg until it disappeared in her short, short bottoms and then reappeared wrapped around her exposed midriff and then ducking out of sight again under the bottom of her rather brief top. It did not continue up from the top of the top, but rather did a rose appear within her cleavage. Just a single rose although the corporeal vase easily could have held a dozen. Long stems and all.

But I didn’t stare. I’m not sure if I had if it would have bothered her much. I noticed she paid cash for the television and sound bar she was purchasing. I started staring as she carefully counted out her payment in one dollar bills.

Last week we celebrated “Start Over Day,” a day set aside to try again to master that which disappointed you the first time around. Learn from that disappointing experience and start over to make it better. We write how it can be the beginning of a new adventure in the most recent Uplift, Try, Try Again.

A hair-raising tale

Michael 7 Comments

I’m worried about humanity. Every day I see something more and more stupid than the day before. I don’t think we have a chance. You know what? I misspoke. Or mistyped. Not humanity. Humanity might be getting more stupid every day too, but I really mean men. If men had to promulgate the species by themselves, we’d still be in the Dark Ages. And probably in the dark as well. Especially if those men are, as almost all men will be sometime, starting to thin a little up at the hairline.

Oh my Heavens, you would think the world is coming to an end. As soon as it seems there is just a little creep backwards in the hairline, all aich, ee, double hockey sticks breaks out. “Frick! My hair is falling out! I’m not a man anymore!!” So genius that he is, he shaves his head. “Now it will look like a fashion statement, not that I’m bald.” Yeah, right.

But then, genius that he is, he knows how to use a computer and discovers testosterone is necessary for hair growth. Naturally he makes the connection, no hair means he has no testosterone. No testosterone means he only has his oversized red pick-up truck to prove he’s a man and he can’t take that to bed with him. What will he do?

Now this idiot remembers elementary school math and knows that 2 plus 2 equals something, so he adds them up and comes up with a solution. If he has to have hair to pick up women, then by gosh, he’ll grow some hair. But his head is off limits because he just spent a bazillion dollars on a fancy 17 head rotary razor designed especially for thinning and balding men to recapture their outer beauty by mowing away whatever hair might be left growing out of the top of his head. Next best thing to head hair? That’s right — facial hair! So he grows a beard. And not a sophisticated, well-groomed, trim offering like the debonair George Clooney. Oh no. He does the full on, don’t come near me with a pair of manicure scissors, scraggly, end of the world, manly man’s beard like ZZ and his friend, Top.  

Oddly, he still can’t pick up women, so since he is a genius, his first thought is that his truck isn’t big enough. A reasonable assumption. Everyone knows the larger the truck the more manly the man. Ask any used car dealer. So he goes all out, gets an even bigger, even redder, this time diesel pickup with bigger and shinier wheels and tires too. And takes the mufflers off to make certain his is noticed and not overlooked for some weeny in a Tesla. And he still goes home alone after spending all night at the bar. Now what’s the problem?

When he gets home he looks at himself in the mirror and decides he’d sleep with him if he had a chance. But even genius lunatic that he is, he sees something just doesn’t look right with a ZZ Top beard below a cue ball head. How can we fix that? Right! Get a hat! So the hext day he heads out to the fashion capital of the world, Walmart, and gets a hat. He’d like one with a pick-up on the front so he can double up on his manly man ride, but all he can find is one with a tractor on the front and a bull saying “Who farted?” and buys 3 of them so he’ll never run out. Remember, we are dealing with genius.

So now he has his manly man hat covering up his manly man bald shaved head above his manly man beard and he hops into his manly man truck and scoots on down to the local dive bar looking for a woman who can’t wait to be in the arms of a true manly manly man.

Just one problem. If he should find a female looney enough to match on him, he will have found her thus attired which means he can never ever never remove his hat except to shave his head, so he now goes through life with a hat on his head (a hat that says, “who farted?”) everywhere he goes, including out to fancy dinners, church and school functions, shopping, doctor appointments, job interviews, even when he goes to have his manly man truck cleaned up and made shinier where he can sit in the waiting room and share his manly man wisdom.

So if you ever run across a guy who looks like ZZ Top with a hat on climbing down out of big red manly man pickup truck, don’t try to pick him up. He’s taken. Mostly with himself.   

It makes sense that governments can’t take time to regulate everything in life, thus the unwritten law. But which is more powerful – the unwritten rule, or the desire to pursue life, full steam ahead?

The dedication of a lifetime

Michael 8 Comments

While you are taking time off today for Memorial Day in the US, try to remember why we remember.

I’ve written a few times of my disdain for spam, junk e-mail. There just seems something more intrusive, and more distasteful about it, than other kinds of unwanted solicitation. Recently, I started getting emails from something called “Patriotic Points.” It’s a poorly written, poorly disguised bit of campaign dreck spouting the lies we’ve all been on added with since November 2020. Normally I just click on the ”this is spam, keep it away from me” button and let the email client do its work, but this time I (foolishly) clicked “unsubscribe.” Within the week I was bombarded with a variety of ‘newsletters’ all with different names and subjects, but from the same email address each calling themselves American, Patriotic, Truth-seekers, but none of them living up to their self-acclaimed appellations.

I find something particularly sad about his year’s Memorial Day. So many people are calling themselves or others “patriots” who have never lived the word. It seems we’ve been too concerned Artificial Intelligence misleading us, we forget politicians invented the AI process. For 10 years I woke in a Memorial Day and dressed in uniform, not for a parade or a cemetery honor guard, but to report for duty. None of those years were spent in combat zones, but each day for all of them started not knowing that. Steadily, we performed our duties in training knowing that one day we could report for duty and be loaded into a transport plane for a point to be announced en route. We were not heroes, but we were and are patriots, as in the real definition of patriot.

So today when you see the parade pass by or see a flag wave, remember why we remember. “Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.” (Adlai Stevenson)

Happy Memorial Day

As we move through life, our needs change and so do the energy and interest we pay to activities and events.  As one interest wanes, another rises to keep the mind and body moving at the same energy level. It all works out.

SoldiersCross