It used to be that alarms went off only in my head, and that was bad enough.
“Did I turn off the iron?”
“Oh no, I forgot to put out the garbage.”
And listening to those alarms go off in my head would have caused me to have something like a panic attack. Maybe two on a scale of one to ten. But nevertheless, those alarms kept me from sleepwalking through life.
But now days, there is an alarm going off every five minutes or so and most of them aren't in my head.
I was making a list of the things that beep, buzz, whistle, bong, sing, or ring at you and me. There are cell phones, Ipods, all kinds of proprietary machinery, washers, dryers, irons, toasters, ovens, alarm clocks, cars, computers, printers, GPS devices, timers, cameras, cash registers, gas pumps, fish finders… Many of those devices issue a variety of sounds in succession, in rhythm or in a pattern. Some of them play music and some of them blink at you too.
Every beep has a different message for you. “Almost empty, my battery is dying, you pushed the wrong button, add toner, cycle done, you've got mail, don't burn the cookies, don't burn the house down, out of focus, out of oil, use the flash, and on and on.
The trouble is I don't speak Droid very well. In fact I am usually looking around for a Droid interpreter. If I get myself in a room with a bunch of Droid-speaking devices and they all start beeping at once, there will be trouble. What happens is that when multiple alarms go off and I can't take care of all of them at once, the stresses start to add up and soon I am in a ten-out-of-ten condition. I start to suffer from deep beep overload which I demonstrate by two-stepping jerkily from one device to another while I try to understand which is saying what and how urgent the various messages are.
Sitting down to take a deep breath doesn't help much either. What is that other squeak-squeek” sound I hear? I can't tell where it is coming from. Wait, that's my desk chair creaking.
Driving out on the road presents a possibility of running into beep overload as well. Try interpreting and processing in a split second more than one beeping sound while driving through the turnabout.
“Eeeek! (You will notice that I have begun to utter droid-like sounds, but that doesn't mean I am fluent.) Should I answer the cell phone, study the dashboard, or get out of that Volkswagen's way?”
Perhaps some people could do all three, but not I. First I would have to find my cell phone which goes to show you what beep overload can do to me.
One of the most unhappy devices ever to speak Droid is the desktop computer. Some days it will issue complaining noises at a rate of every twenty keystrokes. What ensues is a condition closely related to beep overload in some ways.
However, this condition is characterized by an outburst of actual, spoken, English words—words words like -bleep-bleep-bleep-.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Just some of the hazards
I hate to have to tell you this, but living is hazardous to your health. The National Safety Council published findings showing that most accidents occur at home, at work or at play. If you think about it, that doesn't leave a whole lot of safe time or space left over.
I can think of church. You are probably safe from auto accidents, skiing fatalities, and drownings in church, although you could get thoroughly wet at a baptism. I think I heard once, though, of someone who died of a heart attack in church.
One prevailing notion holds that if you are accident prone or feeling like you are overdue, you should stay in bed; but as one of my favorite fictional characters said when his wife tried to put him to bed to get over pneumonia, “I ain't thet big a fool… Ain't you ever noticed? Folks die in bed.”
So I can't recommend bed or church without reservation.
You don't want to be caught in an automobile, bus, airplane, or storm with or without a seat belt. You want to stay away from smoking sections in restaurants—if they have those anymore—especially if they serve food.
And don't be poor. Poverty is associated with increased risk of fire death. Stay away from football games; there were three football fatalities in 2009.
Just in case you were wondering what it is about skiing that is dangerous, I will tell you that is is “excess speed and loss of control, especially if they are complicated by contact with stationary objects such as trees, or rocks, or lift towers.”
You have the NSC to thank for such documented factual knowledge.
Well, back to our dilemma. Where or when is it safe? As for when, it's not August. Don't be around in August. September is better.
Show up then. Where? Not at a rock concert, not at a water attraction, not at an educational institution. (Good luck with the educational institution part unless you are well over eighteen.) And don't frequent banks; bank robbers tend to do the same thing.
Stay away from hospitals and senior citizens' centers. They are too much like staying in bed. Don't be caught in the proximity of washing machines, ironing boards, electricity or bears. And sweaters, you could accidentally hang yourself with your sweater.
Those are just some of the common everyday things. You also have to be aware of the exotic hazards like chemical wastes, nondisposable substances, dirt and germs. There used to be a concern about acid rain. Perhaps rain is more alkaline, lately—I haven't heard—but that can't be good either. Anyway, those things tend to jump on you or fall on you.
It is just my personal opinion, but I think that treadmills and haunted houses are also dangerous.
And now, don't let any of those things cause undue stress; that's also dangerous.
You may as well just relax and enjoy life. Another statistic I once heard: you have a one hundred percent chance that something will get you sooner or later.
I can think of church. You are probably safe from auto accidents, skiing fatalities, and drownings in church, although you could get thoroughly wet at a baptism. I think I heard once, though, of someone who died of a heart attack in church.
One prevailing notion holds that if you are accident prone or feeling like you are overdue, you should stay in bed; but as one of my favorite fictional characters said when his wife tried to put him to bed to get over pneumonia, “I ain't thet big a fool… Ain't you ever noticed? Folks die in bed.”
So I can't recommend bed or church without reservation.
You don't want to be caught in an automobile, bus, airplane, or storm with or without a seat belt. You want to stay away from smoking sections in restaurants—if they have those anymore—especially if they serve food.
And don't be poor. Poverty is associated with increased risk of fire death. Stay away from football games; there were three football fatalities in 2009.
Just in case you were wondering what it is about skiing that is dangerous, I will tell you that is is “excess speed and loss of control, especially if they are complicated by contact with stationary objects such as trees, or rocks, or lift towers.”
You have the NSC to thank for such documented factual knowledge.
Well, back to our dilemma. Where or when is it safe? As for when, it's not August. Don't be around in August. September is better.
Show up then. Where? Not at a rock concert, not at a water attraction, not at an educational institution. (Good luck with the educational institution part unless you are well over eighteen.) And don't frequent banks; bank robbers tend to do the same thing.
Stay away from hospitals and senior citizens' centers. They are too much like staying in bed. Don't be caught in the proximity of washing machines, ironing boards, electricity or bears. And sweaters, you could accidentally hang yourself with your sweater.
Those are just some of the common everyday things. You also have to be aware of the exotic hazards like chemical wastes, nondisposable substances, dirt and germs. There used to be a concern about acid rain. Perhaps rain is more alkaline, lately—I haven't heard—but that can't be good either. Anyway, those things tend to jump on you or fall on you.
It is just my personal opinion, but I think that treadmills and haunted houses are also dangerous.
And now, don't let any of those things cause undue stress; that's also dangerous.
You may as well just relax and enjoy life. Another statistic I once heard: you have a one hundred percent chance that something will get you sooner or later.
Creative Taxes
Creative tax plans are ingenious
Our government has been getting pretty creative lately with finding new ways to impose taxes —only they don't call them that. (I did an article a few weeks ago pointing out that whether you call a cat a “cat” or a “feline,” it is still the same animal. It meows and eats cat food. It has baby cats and may or may not catch mice. But changing the name does not change the nature of the animal.)
So any method of collecting money from you or me and transferring it to a government entity is probably a tax. Whether it is called something else like “cap-and-trade” or a “medical device surcharge,” by my definition, it is a tax. So when congress passes a law which costs money but is going to be paid for from “other revenues,” you might smell a rat—not a cat—a rat.
And this may look like an article complaining about taxes, but it's not. It's an article complaining about tribute monies. By the way, you may have heard that people who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women.
The tax czar has my respect. There are some innovative plans being talked about, and those backdoor plans have to be tricky.
For instance, someone developed this idea and called it healthcare reform: Congress will tax health care to subsidize people to buy health care that new taxes and regulation will make more expensive. Whoever dreamed up that plan certainly has my admiration. I don't like it, but it is creative. I could think for a year and not come up with that.
My grandkids think I am creative. They think I can make anything. Well I ran into a brick wall when I tried to think of some tax programs that could equal that one in ingenuity. I tried not to disappoint my fans though.
By using the same logic, I came up with the short list of my own. (There never was a long list.) I assume that what happens in Vernal stays in Vernal and will not end up on the tax czar's list of Possibles. He doesn't need encouragement.
1. Impose a crop tax on sagebrush growers to help pay for zerascape projects.
2. Increase the use fees at national parks to pay for visit-your-national-parks advertising campaigns.
3. Collect a consumption tax on milk to pay for the cost of methane gas reduction research.
4. Tax cosmetic surgeries to help pay for Congressional health care insurance.
5. Collect revenues from pet owners to help pay for homeless animal shelters.
6. Tax automobile manufacturers to fund the down payments for new car buyers. Wait. Someone already thought of that.
Okay, I don't have what it takes. I wish I could say that that is because everything has already been thought of, but I expect to see innovations in the kinds and quantities of tribute monies increase at roughly the same rate as the national debt.
The problem is that I don't dream up tax schemes for a living. I just spend my living on tax schemes.
Our government has been getting pretty creative lately with finding new ways to impose taxes —only they don't call them that. (I did an article a few weeks ago pointing out that whether you call a cat a “cat” or a “feline,” it is still the same animal. It meows and eats cat food. It has baby cats and may or may not catch mice. But changing the name does not change the nature of the animal.)
So any method of collecting money from you or me and transferring it to a government entity is probably a tax. Whether it is called something else like “cap-and-trade” or a “medical device surcharge,” by my definition, it is a tax. So when congress passes a law which costs money but is going to be paid for from “other revenues,” you might smell a rat—not a cat—a rat.
And this may look like an article complaining about taxes, but it's not. It's an article complaining about tribute monies. By the way, you may have heard that people who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women.
The tax czar has my respect. There are some innovative plans being talked about, and those backdoor plans have to be tricky.
For instance, someone developed this idea and called it healthcare reform: Congress will tax health care to subsidize people to buy health care that new taxes and regulation will make more expensive. Whoever dreamed up that plan certainly has my admiration. I don't like it, but it is creative. I could think for a year and not come up with that.
My grandkids think I am creative. They think I can make anything. Well I ran into a brick wall when I tried to think of some tax programs that could equal that one in ingenuity. I tried not to disappoint my fans though.
By using the same logic, I came up with the short list of my own. (There never was a long list.) I assume that what happens in Vernal stays in Vernal and will not end up on the tax czar's list of Possibles. He doesn't need encouragement.
1. Impose a crop tax on sagebrush growers to help pay for zerascape projects.
2. Increase the use fees at national parks to pay for visit-your-national-parks advertising campaigns.
3. Collect a consumption tax on milk to pay for the cost of methane gas reduction research.
4. Tax cosmetic surgeries to help pay for Congressional health care insurance.
5. Collect revenues from pet owners to help pay for homeless animal shelters.
6. Tax automobile manufacturers to fund the down payments for new car buyers. Wait. Someone already thought of that.
Okay, I don't have what it takes. I wish I could say that that is because everything has already been thought of, but I expect to see innovations in the kinds and quantities of tribute monies increase at roughly the same rate as the national debt.
The problem is that I don't dream up tax schemes for a living. I just spend my living on tax schemes.
Monday, July 12, 2010
A view of Bertha's logic
Premise number One: Hello! Old people take medicine. Just walk up and down the medications aisle in the grocery store. Just read Part D on a Medicare application.
Just watch an old-people show like Lawrence Welk on television and check out the commercials. No, you don't have to watch the whole show. You can click away from the commercials too if you want to, but just check me out. They advertise Boneva, and Centrum (sounds like “century”) and Celebrex on those shows for a reason which is: old people take medicine.
Premise number Two: Old people can't see. Just hang out at the optometrist's like I do, Just watch the old people shows like I do when I finally get my glasses adjusted. They advertise eye surgeries, eyedrops, and eyeglasses. Yes, the models for eyeglasses are all under the age of ten, but don't worry, they are just faking blindness. They also advertise Centrum for Eyes on those shows.
For some reason those advertisers actually think that their audience can see the commercials. Wait, that is why they also blast the sound on the same commercials—to make sure they can be heard if not seen. (For kids it is “seen and not heard.” For old people it is the other way around.)
Premise number Three: Old ladies cook. The generation of people to the left of center on a pedigree chart does not cook. They occasionally make cake from a box, and soup from a can. That is because their eyes are good enough that they can read the instructions. If it were as much trouble for them to read the labels as it is for old people, they wouldn't do it at all.
Conclusion: Don't you worry, those big companies know their markets well enough to sell their products. Notice that the company designer logo is plenty big enough for anyone to read. But once they get you to buy the medicine or the container of food, they are done with you. When it comes to figuring out how to use your Boneva or your cake mix, you are on your own because the industry standards for labels requires the use of microscopic type.
There must be some directive coming from the Consumer Protection Agency that reads like this: “Whenever designing labels that include instructions for use, drug facts, product ingredients, or nutrition information, do not waste container space by using a typeface that is larger than five points. The average consumer is comfortable with a font of that size or smaller, and lightface is sufficient.”
Okay, if they are selling Legos, or X-box games, maybe. Old people don't use those products anyway unless their grandkids force them to, in which case the kids have to be in the same room to show them how or they couldn't make them anyway.
Once one of my grandkids tried to make me play X-box. (He was in the same room.) Maybe it was War Games. I couldn't even maneuver my guy onto the battlefield. I ended up somewhere in a DMZ where there were high cliffs from which I fell and killed myself all by myself.
But if I walk into the kitchen with the intent of cooking something that requires me to read the instructions on the back of the product, all the grandkids will be gone. They have no desire to help me read the back of a bottle of aspirin either. They think that if I am careless enough to get sick that I will just have to take my medicine.
Well, I have news for the kids. It takes more brains to make cake when you can't read the recipe than it does to play X-box when you can see the controller buttons.
And I have advice for those who market medications and foods that have to be prepared. Discrimination against old people is punishable by law isn't it? I might have read that somewhere, but then the type was awfully small.
Just watch an old-people show like Lawrence Welk on television and check out the commercials. No, you don't have to watch the whole show. You can click away from the commercials too if you want to, but just check me out. They advertise Boneva, and Centrum (sounds like “century”) and Celebrex on those shows for a reason which is: old people take medicine.
Premise number Two: Old people can't see. Just hang out at the optometrist's like I do, Just watch the old people shows like I do when I finally get my glasses adjusted. They advertise eye surgeries, eyedrops, and eyeglasses. Yes, the models for eyeglasses are all under the age of ten, but don't worry, they are just faking blindness. They also advertise Centrum for Eyes on those shows.
For some reason those advertisers actually think that their audience can see the commercials. Wait, that is why they also blast the sound on the same commercials—to make sure they can be heard if not seen. (For kids it is “seen and not heard.” For old people it is the other way around.)
Premise number Three: Old ladies cook. The generation of people to the left of center on a pedigree chart does not cook. They occasionally make cake from a box, and soup from a can. That is because their eyes are good enough that they can read the instructions. If it were as much trouble for them to read the labels as it is for old people, they wouldn't do it at all.
Conclusion: Don't you worry, those big companies know their markets well enough to sell their products. Notice that the company designer logo is plenty big enough for anyone to read. But once they get you to buy the medicine or the container of food, they are done with you. When it comes to figuring out how to use your Boneva or your cake mix, you are on your own because the industry standards for labels requires the use of microscopic type.
There must be some directive coming from the Consumer Protection Agency that reads like this: “Whenever designing labels that include instructions for use, drug facts, product ingredients, or nutrition information, do not waste container space by using a typeface that is larger than five points. The average consumer is comfortable with a font of that size or smaller, and lightface is sufficient.”
Okay, if they are selling Legos, or X-box games, maybe. Old people don't use those products anyway unless their grandkids force them to, in which case the kids have to be in the same room to show them how or they couldn't make them anyway.
Once one of my grandkids tried to make me play X-box. (He was in the same room.) Maybe it was War Games. I couldn't even maneuver my guy onto the battlefield. I ended up somewhere in a DMZ where there were high cliffs from which I fell and killed myself all by myself.
But if I walk into the kitchen with the intent of cooking something that requires me to read the instructions on the back of the product, all the grandkids will be gone. They have no desire to help me read the back of a bottle of aspirin either. They think that if I am careless enough to get sick that I will just have to take my medicine.
Well, I have news for the kids. It takes more brains to make cake when you can't read the recipe than it does to play X-box when you can see the controller buttons.
And I have advice for those who market medications and foods that have to be prepared. Discrimination against old people is punishable by law isn't it? I might have read that somewhere, but then the type was awfully small.
It was a grand Fourth of July
How often does the Fourth of July come on a Sunday? Every six years? You may have noticed that the fact that the Fourth was in the middle of the holiday weekend made it possible for a body to celebrate it more than once.
First let me say that at least half of my family members think that Independence Day is the best holiday of the year. They love fireworks, fly-bys, and parades. They love barbecues, car shows and warm weather. And they love this country, so they were happy to celebrate all they could. Imagine that.
This year, the celebrations were all over the weekend. Some towns and cities had their fireworks on Friday, some on Saturday and some on Sunday. It was the same with parades and rodeos and all the rest of it.
By traveling between a couple of different cities and a few other destinations, one of our family members saw fireworks twice, took in a couple of barbecues and a roast beef dinner, golfed, shopped, went fishing, saw a car show, and caught a couple of parades. He wasn't quite fast enough to see the fly-by more than once though.
We all had some good times—some laughs, some proud moments, lots of oohs and aahs, good food, tired kids and family fun.
The city where I spent my weekend doesn't have a traditional parade. Instead they have a huge car show; and after it is over, the cars line up and they all cruise up and down Main Street for as long as they want to. They rev their engines, squeal their tires, honk their horns, and show off their cars in the sense of doing a lot more than just parking them at the fairgrounds.
Everyone else lines the streets and cheers and waves and picks their favorites. (What is more American than a Chevy or a Ford?)
Some of the vehicles are still “peeling out” on the city streets two days later. On Monday afternoon, we were visiting and enjoying the weather outside in the backyard when someone who was still celebrating the car show staged a five-second “burn-out” on the street out front. Even after two days of hearing rumbling engines and screeching tires, we all looked toward the street.
We couldn't see the car from where we were standing, but I pictured a red Pontiac GTX with yellow flames and wide mag wheels. Immediately after the screeching stopped, my ten-year-old grandson came flying around the corner of the house on his foot-powered scooter announcing loudly, “That wasn't me.”
On a more serious note, I have been reading some commentary about the genius of the Declaration of Independence and the incomparable foresight of the men who wrote it, as well as the courage of those who adopted it and signed it. The Constitution of the United States rests in the same category. There has probably been nothing to compare with it in all of history.
What I have concluded is that it was no accident that that many great minds were gathered together in one place and in one time—men of great mental capacity who also had the will, the ability, the tenacity and the courage to craft such a framework for governing a people.
And it doesn't seem as if there has been such a concentration of great minds anywhere in the world since, at least not in government. In some arenas there is just no point in trying to reinvent the wheel. The best legislators are probably those who are smart enough to realize “that wasn't me” and then get over it.
First let me say that at least half of my family members think that Independence Day is the best holiday of the year. They love fireworks, fly-bys, and parades. They love barbecues, car shows and warm weather. And they love this country, so they were happy to celebrate all they could. Imagine that.
This year, the celebrations were all over the weekend. Some towns and cities had their fireworks on Friday, some on Saturday and some on Sunday. It was the same with parades and rodeos and all the rest of it.
By traveling between a couple of different cities and a few other destinations, one of our family members saw fireworks twice, took in a couple of barbecues and a roast beef dinner, golfed, shopped, went fishing, saw a car show, and caught a couple of parades. He wasn't quite fast enough to see the fly-by more than once though.
We all had some good times—some laughs, some proud moments, lots of oohs and aahs, good food, tired kids and family fun.
The city where I spent my weekend doesn't have a traditional parade. Instead they have a huge car show; and after it is over, the cars line up and they all cruise up and down Main Street for as long as they want to. They rev their engines, squeal their tires, honk their horns, and show off their cars in the sense of doing a lot more than just parking them at the fairgrounds.
Everyone else lines the streets and cheers and waves and picks their favorites. (What is more American than a Chevy or a Ford?)
Some of the vehicles are still “peeling out” on the city streets two days later. On Monday afternoon, we were visiting and enjoying the weather outside in the backyard when someone who was still celebrating the car show staged a five-second “burn-out” on the street out front. Even after two days of hearing rumbling engines and screeching tires, we all looked toward the street.
We couldn't see the car from where we were standing, but I pictured a red Pontiac GTX with yellow flames and wide mag wheels. Immediately after the screeching stopped, my ten-year-old grandson came flying around the corner of the house on his foot-powered scooter announcing loudly, “That wasn't me.”
On a more serious note, I have been reading some commentary about the genius of the Declaration of Independence and the incomparable foresight of the men who wrote it, as well as the courage of those who adopted it and signed it. The Constitution of the United States rests in the same category. There has probably been nothing to compare with it in all of history.
What I have concluded is that it was no accident that that many great minds were gathered together in one place and in one time—men of great mental capacity who also had the will, the ability, the tenacity and the courage to craft such a framework for governing a people.
And it doesn't seem as if there has been such a concentration of great minds anywhere in the world since, at least not in government. In some arenas there is just no point in trying to reinvent the wheel. The best legislators are probably those who are smart enough to realize “that wasn't me” and then get over it.
The Basin mosquito surge
Luckily I am one of those people who is usually left unbitten by mosquitoes, so I may be out of line in asking; but there seems to be an over-abundance of them this year, doesn't there?
I have heard an inordinate number of complaints about them, seen an increase of puffy red welts on arms, legs and faces, and noticed that the repellent shelf in the drug store was nearly empty. I know, Sherlock Holmes and all that.
Being receptionist at the mosquito abatement office this week has probably been a challenge. You know we expect to have all of our problems solved and solved quickly in this day and age. Not only that, we expect a government agency to solve them too.
However, I don't know too many people who have a real solution for controlling those pesky (gross understatement) insects. I can't think of any overstatements since mosquitoes are at the top of the dangerous-animal chart and seeing as how they cause, (or is it spread?) deadly diseases. Deadly as in dead.
It's like plugging the hole in the Gulf. No one knows how to do it, and for sure things have been tried.
Repellent isn't much of a solution. Wearing extra clothing doesn't help much if a mosquito really wants to bite you. Citronella candles, Skin So Soft, and eating bananas just makes them more determined. As for mosquito netting, I have never seen any to buy, but I wouldn't want to show up at a barbecue wearing it.
There are instructions for a mosquito trap on line, but I am sure that for every one you trap there are fifty more waiting to take its place. It's not like they have staked out their own backyards and once you clear that area you are safe. They just fly around in a random pattern (nonspecific searching behavior) until they find someone to bite.
There are breakthroughs on the mosquito front though, Apparently what it is that makes the mosquito abort the random pattern and hone in on a certain target is the presence of that much-maligned, of late, carbon dioxide gas.
The carbon dioxide that is exhaled during the normal life processes of a human being and the animals is what attracts the female mosquito who is looking for a shot of blood which will develop the eggs she is getting ready to lay. The males are benign and only eat nectar and plant juices.
The mosquito isn't fussy about which kind of blood she gets. Animal blood is as good as human blood, but a lot of animals are protected by a coat of hair which is too dense for the mosquito's “stinger” to penetrate. Most humans aren't that well protected.
Mr. B. is one of those people who is especially attractive to mosquitoes. He does have a lot of hair on his arms, enough to protect them even though they are usually exposed at this time of year. The hair doesn't extend to his elbows or his knuckles though, which explains the red, raised, dot-matrix pattern on those two parts of his anatomy. He's learning to cover up better though.
People in other areas of the country complain about their mosquitoes, asserting that they are getting bigger and louder every year. Mr. B. complains that this year's mosquitoes are smaller and that he can't hear them coming. That may have something to do with his advancing age, but I might have noticed the same thing.
I have heard an inordinate number of complaints about them, seen an increase of puffy red welts on arms, legs and faces, and noticed that the repellent shelf in the drug store was nearly empty. I know, Sherlock Holmes and all that.
Being receptionist at the mosquito abatement office this week has probably been a challenge. You know we expect to have all of our problems solved and solved quickly in this day and age. Not only that, we expect a government agency to solve them too.
However, I don't know too many people who have a real solution for controlling those pesky (gross understatement) insects. I can't think of any overstatements since mosquitoes are at the top of the dangerous-animal chart and seeing as how they cause, (or is it spread?) deadly diseases. Deadly as in dead.
It's like plugging the hole in the Gulf. No one knows how to do it, and for sure things have been tried.
Repellent isn't much of a solution. Wearing extra clothing doesn't help much if a mosquito really wants to bite you. Citronella candles, Skin So Soft, and eating bananas just makes them more determined. As for mosquito netting, I have never seen any to buy, but I wouldn't want to show up at a barbecue wearing it.
There are instructions for a mosquito trap on line, but I am sure that for every one you trap there are fifty more waiting to take its place. It's not like they have staked out their own backyards and once you clear that area you are safe. They just fly around in a random pattern (nonspecific searching behavior) until they find someone to bite.
There are breakthroughs on the mosquito front though, Apparently what it is that makes the mosquito abort the random pattern and hone in on a certain target is the presence of that much-maligned, of late, carbon dioxide gas.
The carbon dioxide that is exhaled during the normal life processes of a human being and the animals is what attracts the female mosquito who is looking for a shot of blood which will develop the eggs she is getting ready to lay. The males are benign and only eat nectar and plant juices.
The mosquito isn't fussy about which kind of blood she gets. Animal blood is as good as human blood, but a lot of animals are protected by a coat of hair which is too dense for the mosquito's “stinger” to penetrate. Most humans aren't that well protected.
Mr. B. is one of those people who is especially attractive to mosquitoes. He does have a lot of hair on his arms, enough to protect them even though they are usually exposed at this time of year. The hair doesn't extend to his elbows or his knuckles though, which explains the red, raised, dot-matrix pattern on those two parts of his anatomy. He's learning to cover up better though.
People in other areas of the country complain about their mosquitoes, asserting that they are getting bigger and louder every year. Mr. B. complains that this year's mosquitoes are smaller and that he can't hear them coming. That may have something to do with his advancing age, but I might have noticed the same thing.
Birthdays—everybody has one
Perhaps I have already written on the subject that I am going to write about. I'm not sure. If I have and can't remember, I can be fairly sure that you can't either.
There are only so many things that I am qualified or unqualified to write about anyway. Maybe this is one of them.
One of life's greatest mysteries to me, right up there with how do bumblebees fly and where are all the lost socks, is this: why do we make so much fuss over birthdays?
First of all, the individual had nothing to do with getting a birthday. He didn't earn it, buy it, rent it, or study for it. He does nothing and he gets a party. He can't even remember the day he got it. Perhaps it all started with the parents having a party to celebrate a birth. Now they did something to earn a party. Maybe it was so much fun that they kept it up and pretty soon the honor transferred to the birthdayee.
Secondly, everybody has a birthday. We don't usually celebrate or take note of something so common as to be had by everyone. It's like having a foot. Do we celebrate having a foot? No everybody has one or two.
“Ha,” you say, “look at Joe. He lost his foot in the war.” Okay, Joe is different. He doesn't have a foot. Even then he doesn't call for a party—never mind that he most definitely did earn it.
But where's the distinction in having a birthday?
A retirement party I can understand. You worked for 35 years to earn it.
I can live with a housewarming party. You spent megabucks on that celebration.
A funeral I can handle. You probably got gray hair and wrinkles producing relatives to attend it.
A graduation party you suffered and studied hard for.
But you do nothing and you get a birthday party. And people bring presents. Sometimes they sing to you or put your picture in the newspaper.
Find me a guy who doesn't have a birthday, and I will throw him a party. I will send gifts. I will invite the neighbors.
Well, wait a minute. I just happened to remember that some people are shorted in the birthday department. Like my son, for instance. He is like Joe. Well, he has a foot, but he only has a birthday every four years. Now that is a distinction.
I think we may have thrown him a party every year that he didn't have a birthday. On the leap years we might have had a little celebration too. As for the future, we'll see about next leap year when it gets here.
In the meantime, anybody who wants to forget my birthday is perfectly welcome. I keep trying to forget it myself.
There are only so many things that I am qualified or unqualified to write about anyway. Maybe this is one of them.
One of life's greatest mysteries to me, right up there with how do bumblebees fly and where are all the lost socks, is this: why do we make so much fuss over birthdays?
First of all, the individual had nothing to do with getting a birthday. He didn't earn it, buy it, rent it, or study for it. He does nothing and he gets a party. He can't even remember the day he got it. Perhaps it all started with the parents having a party to celebrate a birth. Now they did something to earn a party. Maybe it was so much fun that they kept it up and pretty soon the honor transferred to the birthdayee.
Secondly, everybody has a birthday. We don't usually celebrate or take note of something so common as to be had by everyone. It's like having a foot. Do we celebrate having a foot? No everybody has one or two.
“Ha,” you say, “look at Joe. He lost his foot in the war.” Okay, Joe is different. He doesn't have a foot. Even then he doesn't call for a party—never mind that he most definitely did earn it.
But where's the distinction in having a birthday?
A retirement party I can understand. You worked for 35 years to earn it.
I can live with a housewarming party. You spent megabucks on that celebration.
A funeral I can handle. You probably got gray hair and wrinkles producing relatives to attend it.
A graduation party you suffered and studied hard for.
But you do nothing and you get a birthday party. And people bring presents. Sometimes they sing to you or put your picture in the newspaper.
Find me a guy who doesn't have a birthday, and I will throw him a party. I will send gifts. I will invite the neighbors.
Well, wait a minute. I just happened to remember that some people are shorted in the birthday department. Like my son, for instance. He is like Joe. Well, he has a foot, but he only has a birthday every four years. Now that is a distinction.
I think we may have thrown him a party every year that he didn't have a birthday. On the leap years we might have had a little celebration too. As for the future, we'll see about next leap year when it gets here.
In the meantime, anybody who wants to forget my birthday is perfectly welcome. I keep trying to forget it myself.
Political correctness is a fairy tale
I once read a book of politically correct fairy tales.
Actually I just now found a site that sells the volume on line. The author is James Finn Garner and the title of the book is Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. I know I have the right one because I remember the cover, however I don't remember all of the stories. If I am borrowing from Mr. Garner, I hereby give him credit.
I do think he updated Little Red Riding Hood, being careful not to call the wolf “bad” or any other derogatory names even though it intended to eat a little girl who was clearly on a humanitarian mission. I believe he decided further that he couldn't even call the animal “wolf” as that word has meanings other than that of a big gray carnivorous animal that lives in the forest.
I think he upgraded The Three Little Pigs also, being careful not to cast aspersions on their size or their eating habits.
The Three Bears was probably one of the stories Mr. Garner retold, but Goldilocks already had herself firmly planted in her politically correct feminist role, not being afraid to fight against the establishment for what she thought she deserved.
Mr. Garner's goal in retelling the stories seems to have been to point out that we, whoever we is (and I hope I don't qualify), have gone a bit overboard in our quest to be sensitive above all else—even forsaking clarity in the process. Perhaps that is why the legislation coming out of Washington lately is incomprehensible and over-inflated, as is most of the rhetoric also.
To illustrate my point, consider this example: The Chronologically Advanced Female Person Who Lived in an Unlikely Dwelling for the Extremely Monetarily Challenged. One has to think much harder to decipher the intended meanings, and really The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe is a lot fewer words. I don't even want to think about politically cleaning up the part about she had so many children she didn't know what to do, or what she gave them for supper, not to mention the spankings.
The Duckling That Was Judged on Its Physical Appearance Instead of its Personal Merits is another case in point. Perhaps you can amuse yourself with your own corrected versions of well-known tales. Maybe try fixing Rapunzel.
I would like to point out that no matter what an object is called, it still retains its latent characteristics. Whether you call a dwarf a “dwarf” or a “little person,” he remains the same in height, weight and person. Changing his name does not change him and therefore the label he is given sooner or later acquires the same meaning as the original object and is again no kinder or fairer that the original label. It is usually longer, fuzzier and harder to remember though.
Whether you label someone “lazy” or “motivationally challenged,” it means the same thing, so why not stick with something that is shorter to type?
I wish to point out also, that no matter how many ways you don't keep score at a soccer game, you will have to change the game if there are to be no losers. Maybe everyone could show up at the field (which could be much smaller) with their own ball and then just kick it all the way home. There would be no winners and no losers. There would be no goalies and no forwards. Everyone would feel good, and just think of the fun everyone would have.
There is one bedtime story that I don't remember our author rewriting. Perhaps the reason is that The Grasshopper and the Ants already is flush with liberal correctness and doesn't need much unimprovement.
Actually I just now found a site that sells the volume on line. The author is James Finn Garner and the title of the book is Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. I know I have the right one because I remember the cover, however I don't remember all of the stories. If I am borrowing from Mr. Garner, I hereby give him credit.
I do think he updated Little Red Riding Hood, being careful not to call the wolf “bad” or any other derogatory names even though it intended to eat a little girl who was clearly on a humanitarian mission. I believe he decided further that he couldn't even call the animal “wolf” as that word has meanings other than that of a big gray carnivorous animal that lives in the forest.
I think he upgraded The Three Little Pigs also, being careful not to cast aspersions on their size or their eating habits.
The Three Bears was probably one of the stories Mr. Garner retold, but Goldilocks already had herself firmly planted in her politically correct feminist role, not being afraid to fight against the establishment for what she thought she deserved.
Mr. Garner's goal in retelling the stories seems to have been to point out that we, whoever we is (and I hope I don't qualify), have gone a bit overboard in our quest to be sensitive above all else—even forsaking clarity in the process. Perhaps that is why the legislation coming out of Washington lately is incomprehensible and over-inflated, as is most of the rhetoric also.
To illustrate my point, consider this example: The Chronologically Advanced Female Person Who Lived in an Unlikely Dwelling for the Extremely Monetarily Challenged. One has to think much harder to decipher the intended meanings, and really The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe is a lot fewer words. I don't even want to think about politically cleaning up the part about she had so many children she didn't know what to do, or what she gave them for supper, not to mention the spankings.
The Duckling That Was Judged on Its Physical Appearance Instead of its Personal Merits is another case in point. Perhaps you can amuse yourself with your own corrected versions of well-known tales. Maybe try fixing Rapunzel.
I would like to point out that no matter what an object is called, it still retains its latent characteristics. Whether you call a dwarf a “dwarf” or a “little person,” he remains the same in height, weight and person. Changing his name does not change him and therefore the label he is given sooner or later acquires the same meaning as the original object and is again no kinder or fairer that the original label. It is usually longer, fuzzier and harder to remember though.
Whether you label someone “lazy” or “motivationally challenged,” it means the same thing, so why not stick with something that is shorter to type?
I wish to point out also, that no matter how many ways you don't keep score at a soccer game, you will have to change the game if there are to be no losers. Maybe everyone could show up at the field (which could be much smaller) with their own ball and then just kick it all the way home. There would be no winners and no losers. There would be no goalies and no forwards. Everyone would feel good, and just think of the fun everyone would have.
There is one bedtime story that I don't remember our author rewriting. Perhaps the reason is that The Grasshopper and the Ants already is flush with liberal correctness and doesn't need much unimprovement.
The day the microwave died
There are a couple of things without which I cannot function. One of them is the microwave oven.
Garrison Keillor tells about a Lake Wobegone housewife who kept her microwave oven in the carton under the bed. (She must have had on old-fashioned four-poster into which she climbed with a step stool after putting on her bed jacket and nightcap at sundown.)
My mother-in-law kept hers in the carton in the back room on top of the dryer/
I have had a hard time adjusting to some kinds of new technology, like texting and Facebooking, but when the microwave oven appeared in stores, I was one of the first in line. Microwave energy and I are totally compatible. I have warmed everything from playdough to ear drops in the microwave. Nothing that was still alive though.
We would have died of hypothermia last winter without those rice bags and hot drinks we warmed in the MO.
I was forced to try out deprivation once when our microwave oven died of overuse. Thirty times a day I opened the broken microwave's door, put something inside, and closed it. Not until I tried to set the time and temperature did I remember that this dead oven could not cook no matter how much I believed in resurrection.
After removing the item which would still be in one of several stages of cold, I had to go through a complex readjustment process:
“Okay, this is stupid. How many times am I going to put food in this broken microwave before I finally remember not to?”
After that reprimand, I still had to try to think of some alternate method to thaw, heat or cook the meal.
“Okay, dinner is going to be a little late today.” (Anything after 9:30 p.m. is considered late.)
I had to call up mental pictures of my mother or grandmother cooking certain dishes before I could go on with dinner.
“Now would grandmother have put this in the oven, in a pot on the stove, eaten it raw or just gone out for dinner?”
“Scratch that last option. They never went out for dinner…oh yes, I remember, they ate bread-and-milk on nights like this.”
“Well, scratch that too. No one under the age of 33 has ever heard of bread-and-milk. You could get reported for child abuse.”
Well, I turned into a mediocre cook overnight. There aren't many foods that you can cook on a range when they are frozen solid. And the rest of them take some planning ahead.
I think we mostly ate cold cereal during the three days that it took us to find, buy and set up the new microwave. (We didn't waste too much time deliberating.)
If you think that I was upset at the loss of our main method of cooking, you should have seen the six-year-old when he realized that the microwave could do nothing more than act as a temporary storage unit.
He sank down to the floor and began to cry.
“Now we can't make hot chocolate”
I was trying to think. “Now how did grandmother do that?”
Garrison Keillor tells about a Lake Wobegone housewife who kept her microwave oven in the carton under the bed. (She must have had on old-fashioned four-poster into which she climbed with a step stool after putting on her bed jacket and nightcap at sundown.)
My mother-in-law kept hers in the carton in the back room on top of the dryer/
I have had a hard time adjusting to some kinds of new technology, like texting and Facebooking, but when the microwave oven appeared in stores, I was one of the first in line. Microwave energy and I are totally compatible. I have warmed everything from playdough to ear drops in the microwave. Nothing that was still alive though.
We would have died of hypothermia last winter without those rice bags and hot drinks we warmed in the MO.
I was forced to try out deprivation once when our microwave oven died of overuse. Thirty times a day I opened the broken microwave's door, put something inside, and closed it. Not until I tried to set the time and temperature did I remember that this dead oven could not cook no matter how much I believed in resurrection.
After removing the item which would still be in one of several stages of cold, I had to go through a complex readjustment process:
“Okay, this is stupid. How many times am I going to put food in this broken microwave before I finally remember not to?”
After that reprimand, I still had to try to think of some alternate method to thaw, heat or cook the meal.
“Okay, dinner is going to be a little late today.” (Anything after 9:30 p.m. is considered late.)
I had to call up mental pictures of my mother or grandmother cooking certain dishes before I could go on with dinner.
“Now would grandmother have put this in the oven, in a pot on the stove, eaten it raw or just gone out for dinner?”
“Scratch that last option. They never went out for dinner…oh yes, I remember, they ate bread-and-milk on nights like this.”
“Well, scratch that too. No one under the age of 33 has ever heard of bread-and-milk. You could get reported for child abuse.”
Well, I turned into a mediocre cook overnight. There aren't many foods that you can cook on a range when they are frozen solid. And the rest of them take some planning ahead.
I think we mostly ate cold cereal during the three days that it took us to find, buy and set up the new microwave. (We didn't waste too much time deliberating.)
If you think that I was upset at the loss of our main method of cooking, you should have seen the six-year-old when he realized that the microwave could do nothing more than act as a temporary storage unit.
He sank down to the floor and began to cry.
“Now we can't make hot chocolate”
I was trying to think. “Now how did grandmother do that?”
What isn't getting spread around?
Well, I have figured out why there are 7,000 political writers/bloggers out there waxing daily on every imaginable issue or non-issue. If there isn’t an issue, they will manufacture one. All they have to do is hear about some event, pertinent or not, decide which side of it they want to come down on and start writing. Some political issues are good for six or eight articles or more. Some of them provide never-ending “fodder.”
I don’t seem to have that luxury—without entering the political arena, that is. I run out of themes for columns. Weekly I have to dig so deep to think of a subject that I sometimes end up trapped in a hole or, just as bad, wearing a subject out. However I don’t know why I should worry much about that given the examples that are out there in the media.
Oh-oh, you are thinking, Bertha is going to add her two-cent’s worth to the pile of material written about the Gulf oil spill, or the BP Oil Leak as it has come to be called. What little I have to say about that comes from a Uintah Basin perspective which may not have been addressed yet.
If that well had been drilled on land—say somewhere out south of Ouray—everyone would be hoping mightily for an oil leak. And if there were one, they would just drive up the trucks, load them up and drive them off again. They wouldn’t need a giant concrete bell, panty hose, or a series of pipes. Any amount of oil spilling on dry land really is a non-issue since without the addition of a large body of water to the equation, there isn’t a medium capable of spreading that oil around for miles and miles (as in south of Ouray).
The same thing cannot be said for all of the “information” and “opinion” circulating about it though. It gets a little oily in that medium, too.
Sometimes there is an issue that even I, agreeable Bertha, cannot resist commenting on. Another one of those issues would be one aspect of the Arizona Emigration Law fracas.
First, if Arizonans need to protect their borders and no one else is going to, they should be allowed to try some things, Second, I thought we were the United States, which should mean that we hang together when things are tough.
I think the best comeback on any level or in any arena that I have evcr heard is the one that the State of Arizona had for the city of Los Angeles in response to its boycott against them. It was just a pointed reminder in the form of a letter to the city council reminding them about the large quantities of electric power that their state provides to Los Angeles in the amount of 25% of their total usage. I also seem to remember that that city is particularly susceptible to rolling brownouts, grayouts or some color of outage.
In addition, if if I am not mistaken, a huge amount of water passes through Arizona on its way to somewhere in southern California as well.
Whether or not Arizona could in actuality turn off the lights, doesn’t matter a whole lot right now But it does matter that someone points out that the two states are a bit codependent and that Los Angeles might not want to be too quick to forget that.
Well, if by now you think that Bertha doesn’t know what she is talking about or she has fallen into a deep hole, you may be right; but you can be sure that she is in company with a whole lot of other writers/bloggers just like her.
I don’t seem to have that luxury—without entering the political arena, that is. I run out of themes for columns. Weekly I have to dig so deep to think of a subject that I sometimes end up trapped in a hole or, just as bad, wearing a subject out. However I don’t know why I should worry much about that given the examples that are out there in the media.
Oh-oh, you are thinking, Bertha is going to add her two-cent’s worth to the pile of material written about the Gulf oil spill, or the BP Oil Leak as it has come to be called. What little I have to say about that comes from a Uintah Basin perspective which may not have been addressed yet.
If that well had been drilled on land—say somewhere out south of Ouray—everyone would be hoping mightily for an oil leak. And if there were one, they would just drive up the trucks, load them up and drive them off again. They wouldn’t need a giant concrete bell, panty hose, or a series of pipes. Any amount of oil spilling on dry land really is a non-issue since without the addition of a large body of water to the equation, there isn’t a medium capable of spreading that oil around for miles and miles (as in south of Ouray).
The same thing cannot be said for all of the “information” and “opinion” circulating about it though. It gets a little oily in that medium, too.
Sometimes there is an issue that even I, agreeable Bertha, cannot resist commenting on. Another one of those issues would be one aspect of the Arizona Emigration Law fracas.
First, if Arizonans need to protect their borders and no one else is going to, they should be allowed to try some things, Second, I thought we were the United States, which should mean that we hang together when things are tough.
I think the best comeback on any level or in any arena that I have evcr heard is the one that the State of Arizona had for the city of Los Angeles in response to its boycott against them. It was just a pointed reminder in the form of a letter to the city council reminding them about the large quantities of electric power that their state provides to Los Angeles in the amount of 25% of their total usage. I also seem to remember that that city is particularly susceptible to rolling brownouts, grayouts or some color of outage.
In addition, if if I am not mistaken, a huge amount of water passes through Arizona on its way to somewhere in southern California as well.
Whether or not Arizona could in actuality turn off the lights, doesn’t matter a whole lot right now But it does matter that someone points out that the two states are a bit codependent and that Los Angeles might not want to be too quick to forget that.
Well, if by now you think that Bertha doesn’t know what she is talking about or she has fallen into a deep hole, you may be right; but you can be sure that she is in company with a whole lot of other writers/bloggers just like her.
Waiting for spring—oh well
You may have noticed that Bertha has shown remarkable restraint this “spring” by avoiding all mention of the weather. Weather is usually a safe subject anyway, at least conversationally, but I am not sure that anyone can talk or write about the weather this spring without getting a little hot under the collar, which is a good thing for the neck.
Well, I stood it as long as I could. Last weekend made me give it up. I am now ready to launch an attack upon the weather, which is sure to do some good.
Yes, I know we need “the moisture.” It isn't the moisture that I mind. Moisture is just water. It's when it presents itself in the form of snow, ice or hail that I get cross. And actually I don't have a problem with snow or ice either if it shows up during winter—you know, that three-month period between the middle of November and the middle of February.
One of the myths that is taught and perpetuated in schools and elsewhere is that there are four seasons of equal length I and that they march rhythmically on through the year without missing a beat. There are graphics around, on calendars and on the web and such, that romanticize each of the four seasons. Snowflakes for winter, colored leaves for fall, beach umbrellas for summer and flowers for spring, as if one for each season could organize things.
But we are getting swindled. We now see green grass and tulips, but they have snow on them. I don't have to tell you that snow is associated with freezing temperatures. Again, that would be okay in “winter” when people actually have their winter clothes and boots in the front of their closets and they prepare for bouts of cold weather. It just isn't any fun at soccer games, campouts and family reunions.
Up until now, I have been able to deal with the cold and over-extended winter weather because I sm an “oh, well,” kind of person. As in “oh well, at least I am not getting sunburned today.” I have been hard-pressed to find enough “oh wells” to improve my attitude this time. In case you want to know what I have been telling myself, and in hopes that it might help someone else cope with wind and cold, I have herewith written the Bertha Butterbean Oh-Well List for Long Winters. Oh well…
1.I look better in winter clothes.
2.The bugs are all gone somewhere else. So are the snakes and lizards.
3. No one has to wonder whether the lawnmower will start.
4. Basketball supplants baseball.
5. Turning on the air conditioner is out of the question.
6. Politicians give the global warming issue a rest.
7.I feel good about owning an SUV.
8.I can make soup for dinner every night.
9.Spring is sure to come sometime.
I thought I could come up with a traditional list of ten “oh wells.” I'm sorry, but I just couldn't finish it. To tell the truth, I was reaching for the last two or three.
You may also have noticed that until number 6. above, I refrained from making any sort of reference to global warming. Personally I was sad to see its demise and am looking forward to its retuurn, provided that can happen without it becoming a political controversy.
I have my own definition of climate change. The seasons have shifted around to later in the calendar year. Winter starts later and ends later than it used to. Someday we may have to use little snowflake graphics to denote spring. Oh well…
Totally not by the way, I read this joke online the other day:
First cave man to second cave man: "I don't care what you say. We never had such unusual weather before they started using bows and arrows."
I don't know how long this joke has been around, but to me it sounds like commentary on the climate-change issue.
Well, I stood it as long as I could. Last weekend made me give it up. I am now ready to launch an attack upon the weather, which is sure to do some good.
Yes, I know we need “the moisture.” It isn't the moisture that I mind. Moisture is just water. It's when it presents itself in the form of snow, ice or hail that I get cross. And actually I don't have a problem with snow or ice either if it shows up during winter—you know, that three-month period between the middle of November and the middle of February.
One of the myths that is taught and perpetuated in schools and elsewhere is that there are four seasons of equal length I and that they march rhythmically on through the year without missing a beat. There are graphics around, on calendars and on the web and such, that romanticize each of the four seasons. Snowflakes for winter, colored leaves for fall, beach umbrellas for summer and flowers for spring, as if one for each season could organize things.
But we are getting swindled. We now see green grass and tulips, but they have snow on them. I don't have to tell you that snow is associated with freezing temperatures. Again, that would be okay in “winter” when people actually have their winter clothes and boots in the front of their closets and they prepare for bouts of cold weather. It just isn't any fun at soccer games, campouts and family reunions.
Up until now, I have been able to deal with the cold and over-extended winter weather because I sm an “oh, well,” kind of person. As in “oh well, at least I am not getting sunburned today.” I have been hard-pressed to find enough “oh wells” to improve my attitude this time. In case you want to know what I have been telling myself, and in hopes that it might help someone else cope with wind and cold, I have herewith written the Bertha Butterbean Oh-Well List for Long Winters. Oh well…
1.I look better in winter clothes.
2.The bugs are all gone somewhere else. So are the snakes and lizards.
3. No one has to wonder whether the lawnmower will start.
4. Basketball supplants baseball.
5. Turning on the air conditioner is out of the question.
6. Politicians give the global warming issue a rest.
7.I feel good about owning an SUV.
8.I can make soup for dinner every night.
9.Spring is sure to come sometime.
I thought I could come up with a traditional list of ten “oh wells.” I'm sorry, but I just couldn't finish it. To tell the truth, I was reaching for the last two or three.
You may also have noticed that until number 6. above, I refrained from making any sort of reference to global warming. Personally I was sad to see its demise and am looking forward to its retuurn, provided that can happen without it becoming a political controversy.
I have my own definition of climate change. The seasons have shifted around to later in the calendar year. Winter starts later and ends later than it used to. Someday we may have to use little snowflake graphics to denote spring. Oh well…
Totally not by the way, I read this joke online the other day:
First cave man to second cave man: "I don't care what you say. We never had such unusual weather before they started using bows and arrows."
I don't know how long this joke has been around, but to me it sounds like commentary on the climate-change issue.
Camping and the gender gap
From time to time the topics of Bertha's articles have had something to do with the gender gap—the differences between the sexes—especially in terms of their approach to various activities and problem solving.
I remember writing about the differences in the way men and women orient themselves on this planet. Most men use north, south, east and west. Most women use landmarks.
Then there is the issue of the thermostat. According to my extensive polling data, men turn it down. Women turn it up. Of course, traditional clothing styles contribute to gender temperature disparity. At certain events, men are required to wear suits, some of them consisting of three pieces layered over a shirt or two. Those are the same events at which women wear strapless, sleeveless, backless, and other abbreviated clothing. What is up with that?
Well, those issues are weak when it comes to this one: how did girls and guys get to be so far apart on the proper way of getting in touch with nature? As we make plans for yet another girls' camp experience, I find myself wondering about that once more.
As you know, guys tend not to plan their outdoor experiences. They throw some food and gear into the truck and head for the great outdoors where they seem to feel comfortable wearing wet shoes and sleeping with bears.
Girls, on the other hand, bring along everything required to make the experience not only comfortable but also healthy, enlightening, civilized, educational, worthwhile and memorable. So they need (minimum) the correct food and equipment to cook it, field books, showers, journals, cameras, three changes of clothes per day, shoes to complement all of the above outfits, toilet paper, soap, towels, electronic devices such as cell phones and hair dryers, and table centerpieces.
Once when I conscripted my 18-year-old son into bringing his pickup truck to carry a load of gear home from girls camp, his patient nature was taxed when he had to help me carry many loads of stuff from the campsite to his truck. Even I, a girl, was embarrassed.
“What do girls do with all of this stuff?” he grumbled. I had a hard time explaining it myself.
However, only a girl would leave her hiking boots home and go on a five-mile trail hike in strappy sandals. And only a girl would bring the scallions and leave the matches home.
Camping has been described as something we all did before we discovered houses. And then there are girls like my sister who see absolutely no point in regression, individually or collectively, which attitude may explain the need for girls to make the outdoor experience as much like being at home as possible.
It was probably women tired of camping who invented houses. Then men feeling the need to go far and wide in search of game invented tents, and camping became a recreational sport rather than a way of living. Then someone remembered that the wheel had been invented and put those on little houses and almost everyone was happier.
But when youth groups go camping, they don't go in camp trailers. So we're back to square one. Girls just need more in the out-of-doors to make them happy than boys do.
This little story illustrates my point about the gender gap:
My outdoor-enthusiast son went through the process of bringing three offspring into the world without getting a son of his own. (I know, there is a bit of a gender gap in that whole process as well.) After waiting for about eight years to get a son to take into the wilderness with him, he gave up and invited his oldest daughter.
“Hey Sis. let's you and I go camping and fishing this weekend.”
She had an immediate response.
“Why?”
I remember writing about the differences in the way men and women orient themselves on this planet. Most men use north, south, east and west. Most women use landmarks.
Then there is the issue of the thermostat. According to my extensive polling data, men turn it down. Women turn it up. Of course, traditional clothing styles contribute to gender temperature disparity. At certain events, men are required to wear suits, some of them consisting of three pieces layered over a shirt or two. Those are the same events at which women wear strapless, sleeveless, backless, and other abbreviated clothing. What is up with that?
Well, those issues are weak when it comes to this one: how did girls and guys get to be so far apart on the proper way of getting in touch with nature? As we make plans for yet another girls' camp experience, I find myself wondering about that once more.
As you know, guys tend not to plan their outdoor experiences. They throw some food and gear into the truck and head for the great outdoors where they seem to feel comfortable wearing wet shoes and sleeping with bears.
Girls, on the other hand, bring along everything required to make the experience not only comfortable but also healthy, enlightening, civilized, educational, worthwhile and memorable. So they need (minimum) the correct food and equipment to cook it, field books, showers, journals, cameras, three changes of clothes per day, shoes to complement all of the above outfits, toilet paper, soap, towels, electronic devices such as cell phones and hair dryers, and table centerpieces.
Once when I conscripted my 18-year-old son into bringing his pickup truck to carry a load of gear home from girls camp, his patient nature was taxed when he had to help me carry many loads of stuff from the campsite to his truck. Even I, a girl, was embarrassed.
“What do girls do with all of this stuff?” he grumbled. I had a hard time explaining it myself.
However, only a girl would leave her hiking boots home and go on a five-mile trail hike in strappy sandals. And only a girl would bring the scallions and leave the matches home.
Camping has been described as something we all did before we discovered houses. And then there are girls like my sister who see absolutely no point in regression, individually or collectively, which attitude may explain the need for girls to make the outdoor experience as much like being at home as possible.
It was probably women tired of camping who invented houses. Then men feeling the need to go far and wide in search of game invented tents, and camping became a recreational sport rather than a way of living. Then someone remembered that the wheel had been invented and put those on little houses and almost everyone was happier.
But when youth groups go camping, they don't go in camp trailers. So we're back to square one. Girls just need more in the out-of-doors to make them happy than boys do.
This little story illustrates my point about the gender gap:
My outdoor-enthusiast son went through the process of bringing three offspring into the world without getting a son of his own. (I know, there is a bit of a gender gap in that whole process as well.) After waiting for about eight years to get a son to take into the wilderness with him, he gave up and invited his oldest daughter.
“Hey Sis. let's you and I go camping and fishing this weekend.”
She had an immediate response.
“Why?”
Kids on the move
Sometimes I have to reach way back into the past to come up with a topic for a Butterbean article. Our days are usually a lot calmer than they used to be. Writing about everyday life now could potentially put anyone to sleep.
So this story comes from several years back when I had all sorts of kids at home, and life was anything but calm:
"Last night my eight-year-old son had the nerve to tell me to quit wiggling. I was sitting quietly enough on the couch listening to him read a story, only it was a bad story so I was trying to get relief by watching a worse television commercial. Hence the slight rhythmic jiggling of my foot.
But my son didn't say, “Will you please stop wiggling?” Instead he took the oblique approach.
“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
This impertinence from the kid who is directly related to Tigger. He has springs in his feet, He swims in his sleep. He jumps hurdles at church.
For the past eight years he has been hopping, running, squirming, kicking, dancing, skipping, double-timing through my life, and he has the nerve to fault a little jiggling of my foot?
I suppose the average family has a blanket rule for conduct indoors. Something like “no running in the house” probably covers most of the eventualities. But that just won't cut it in the Butterbean family. Not inclusive enough, or I guess the right word be “exclusive,”
So here is the list of rules for behavior regulating motion in the Butterbean household: (They do kind of date us, but you only have to take a look at us and we are automatically dated anyway.
1. No break-dancing in the kitchen.
2. No sporting events in the house. (Covers sprinting, hurdling, high-jumping, long-jumping, pole-vaulting and throwing anything. Also covers dribbling, slam-dunking, sliding, serving, spiking, etc.
)
3. No Michael Jordan or Greg Loughannes impressions.
4. No karate.
5. No super friends impersonations. (Covers Spiderman, Aquaman, Superman, Batman, Tarzan and Geraldo.)
6. No sugar.
7. I reserve the right to enact new rules without prior notice and upon the discovery of hitherto unknown-or-thought-of anti-inertia forces.
At one time I advised this kid that his body would be less abused if he didn't run everywhere he went. I meant to imply that walking into door jambs is safer than running into them. He thought about that for a few seconds and then replied, “But Mom, running is my main thing.”
Just for your peace of mind, I didn't let the kid get away with checking on my bathroom habits. I invoked my right to administer punishment without prior warning. He had to run around the house twenty times. That would be the outside of the house.
He loved every minute of it. Oh well.
Looking back now, I am wondering how Running Boy and I ever happened to be sitting on the couch reading a book in the first place. I must have had more backbone and determination than I thought I did.
Looking back now, I am wondering how Running Boy and I ever happened to be sitting on the couch reading a book in the first place. I must have had more backbone and determination than I thought I did.
So this story comes from several years back when I had all sorts of kids at home, and life was anything but calm:
"Last night my eight-year-old son had the nerve to tell me to quit wiggling. I was sitting quietly enough on the couch listening to him read a story, only it was a bad story so I was trying to get relief by watching a worse television commercial. Hence the slight rhythmic jiggling of my foot.
But my son didn't say, “Will you please stop wiggling?” Instead he took the oblique approach.
“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
This impertinence from the kid who is directly related to Tigger. He has springs in his feet, He swims in his sleep. He jumps hurdles at church.
For the past eight years he has been hopping, running, squirming, kicking, dancing, skipping, double-timing through my life, and he has the nerve to fault a little jiggling of my foot?
I suppose the average family has a blanket rule for conduct indoors. Something like “no running in the house” probably covers most of the eventualities. But that just won't cut it in the Butterbean family. Not inclusive enough, or I guess the right word be “exclusive,”
So here is the list of rules for behavior regulating motion in the Butterbean household: (They do kind of date us, but you only have to take a look at us and we are automatically dated anyway.
1. No break-dancing in the kitchen.
2. No sporting events in the house. (Covers sprinting, hurdling, high-jumping, long-jumping, pole-vaulting and throwing anything. Also covers dribbling, slam-dunking, sliding, serving, spiking, etc.
)
3. No Michael Jordan or Greg Loughannes impressions.
4. No karate.
5. No super friends impersonations. (Covers Spiderman, Aquaman, Superman, Batman, Tarzan and Geraldo.)
6. No sugar.
7. I reserve the right to enact new rules without prior notice and upon the discovery of hitherto unknown-or-thought-of anti-inertia forces.
At one time I advised this kid that his body would be less abused if he didn't run everywhere he went. I meant to imply that walking into door jambs is safer than running into them. He thought about that for a few seconds and then replied, “But Mom, running is my main thing.”
Just for your peace of mind, I didn't let the kid get away with checking on my bathroom habits. I invoked my right to administer punishment without prior warning. He had to run around the house twenty times. That would be the outside of the house.
He loved every minute of it. Oh well.
Looking back now, I am wondering how Running Boy and I ever happened to be sitting on the couch reading a book in the first place. I must have had more backbone and determination than I thought I did.
Looking back now, I am wondering how Running Boy and I ever happened to be sitting on the couch reading a book in the first place. I must have had more backbone and determination than I thought I did.
I can't park here?
You will probably never believe that I am old enough to have a grandson in college. Okay, maybe you can. But the thing is he doesn't drive, so his parents have to take him to and from his classes. That is usually okay. It isn't far away, and he can arrange his schedule with classes one after the other so that driving isn't usually a hardship.
At least that is the case when his parents are dropping him off. They just drive up to the area in question and let him out the door. Picking him up is a different story, however, because they might have to park and wait for him to emerge from whichever building he is in.
This is a long-established university which means that when it was built years ago, there was no need for multiple parking spaces. I don't know whether there were any cars back then. Students probably lived on campus and could walk to all their classes.
That is no longer the case. You probably have heard more than one campus-parking horror story. Their main theme of them is that there isn't any—campus parking that is.
So the other night, my grandson was driven up to the campus by a friend, and his parents didn't know exactly where to meet him to pick him up. To make matters worse, the power was out and dad's cell phone was down.
Consequently, both dad and mom were at the college in separate cars trying to find and pick up their student without out the aid of phones or street lighting. It was the week before finals and the engineering building was full of students completing semester projects. Every one of those students had brought a car on campus, and every parking space was full. Unbeknownst to each other, both parents are circling the building trying to find a place to park so they can retrieve their son.
While my son-in-law was still circling in the Pontiac, in desperation my daughter drove her SUV onto the sidewalk. You have heard of speed traps? This was a parking trap. When there are absolutely no places to park, the parking patrol comes out. So the minute she stopped her car, a campus policeman drove up behind her and parked his vehicle in a red zone.
He got out of his patrol car and approached my daughter.
“Do you know that you are parked on the sidewalk?”
Do you know how many different and equally damaging replies there could be to that question?
Do you know how tempting it would be to utter one of them? My daughter is a comic and she had to pinch her lips to keep from giving voice to one of these:
“Oh, was that the curb I just ran over?”
“Well, I did notice that I wasn't in line with the other cars, but it is kind of dark out here.”
“Do you know you are parked in a red zone?”
After it was established that she knew she was parked on the sidewalk, the officer had another question for her.
“Why are you parked on the sidewalk?
Again, do you know how tempting it would be to give a smart-aleck answer such as:
“Do you really want me to answer that question?”
“I couldn't help it, my car is one of those that parallel parks itself and it insisted on this spot.”
“ I didn't have a quarter for the parking meter—oh wait, there aren't any parking meters without cars next to them within three blocks.”
Meanwhile her husband, on his next drive-by, noticed that she had been pulled over, so to speak. He quickly parked in a handicapped space and came running over to rescue his wife. When he asked what the problem was, he was greeted with, “Do you know that you are parked in a handicapped zone?” Presumably the officer noticed that my son-in-law was pretty fast on his feet and didn't seem to be handicapped, at least physically.
He answered the officer's question in a direct and respectful manner. “Yes, I do. I was just checking on my wife.”
“You need to move that car immediately, or I will give both of you a ticket.”
Reasoning that one ticket was better than two, he ran back to his car and drove away before the officer had time to open his citation book.
My daughter did try to explain her situation, but she doubted whether the policeman believed any of it. After all, she is pretty sure that she doesn't look old enough to have a son in college.
At least that is the case when his parents are dropping him off. They just drive up to the area in question and let him out the door. Picking him up is a different story, however, because they might have to park and wait for him to emerge from whichever building he is in.
This is a long-established university which means that when it was built years ago, there was no need for multiple parking spaces. I don't know whether there were any cars back then. Students probably lived on campus and could walk to all their classes.
That is no longer the case. You probably have heard more than one campus-parking horror story. Their main theme of them is that there isn't any—campus parking that is.
So the other night, my grandson was driven up to the campus by a friend, and his parents didn't know exactly where to meet him to pick him up. To make matters worse, the power was out and dad's cell phone was down.
Consequently, both dad and mom were at the college in separate cars trying to find and pick up their student without out the aid of phones or street lighting. It was the week before finals and the engineering building was full of students completing semester projects. Every one of those students had brought a car on campus, and every parking space was full. Unbeknownst to each other, both parents are circling the building trying to find a place to park so they can retrieve their son.
While my son-in-law was still circling in the Pontiac, in desperation my daughter drove her SUV onto the sidewalk. You have heard of speed traps? This was a parking trap. When there are absolutely no places to park, the parking patrol comes out. So the minute she stopped her car, a campus policeman drove up behind her and parked his vehicle in a red zone.
He got out of his patrol car and approached my daughter.
“Do you know that you are parked on the sidewalk?”
Do you know how many different and equally damaging replies there could be to that question?
Do you know how tempting it would be to utter one of them? My daughter is a comic and she had to pinch her lips to keep from giving voice to one of these:
“Oh, was that the curb I just ran over?”
“Well, I did notice that I wasn't in line with the other cars, but it is kind of dark out here.”
“Do you know you are parked in a red zone?”
After it was established that she knew she was parked on the sidewalk, the officer had another question for her.
“Why are you parked on the sidewalk?
Again, do you know how tempting it would be to give a smart-aleck answer such as:
“Do you really want me to answer that question?”
“I couldn't help it, my car is one of those that parallel parks itself and it insisted on this spot.”
“ I didn't have a quarter for the parking meter—oh wait, there aren't any parking meters without cars next to them within three blocks.”
Meanwhile her husband, on his next drive-by, noticed that she had been pulled over, so to speak. He quickly parked in a handicapped space and came running over to rescue his wife. When he asked what the problem was, he was greeted with, “Do you know that you are parked in a handicapped zone?” Presumably the officer noticed that my son-in-law was pretty fast on his feet and didn't seem to be handicapped, at least physically.
He answered the officer's question in a direct and respectful manner. “Yes, I do. I was just checking on my wife.”
“You need to move that car immediately, or I will give both of you a ticket.”
Reasoning that one ticket was better than two, he ran back to his car and drove away before the officer had time to open his citation book.
My daughter did try to explain her situation, but she doubted whether the policeman believed any of it. After all, she is pretty sure that she doesn't look old enough to have a son in college.
Watching kids' soccer is winning
In the spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of soccer. The balls come out of the closet and the kids, boys and girls, start to kick them around; they bring home the notes for soccer sign-up and before you know it, the soccer moms and their families are huddled up in the cold and wind watching kids in shorts running around trying to keep warm. Of course the parents are only able to sit and shiver helplessly.
That is just part of the fun of soccer. When weather isn't a deterrent, it can be quite entertaining. I will hereby recount a few of the more amusing incidents I have seen and heard of lately.
The story of this last week was about the game where one of the 8-year-old teams was short a few players and the other team had more than they needed when it came time to play. So the coaches put their heads together and evened things out by sending a couple of the players from the red team onto the blue team so everyone could have fun. The blue team must have been missing their goalie that morning because they put a transplant player into the goal.
It took three kicks on goal before anyone realized that the goalie didn't make a move when there was a goal kick. And it took a few more plays before anyone older than ten realized why. Sometimes the kids are smarter than the adults who just might be a few sides short of a pentagram, that is on any given day.
The week before that my grandson had the dubious honor of playing goalie in his game. He took one for the team when he fearlessly blocked a short goal kick with his face. Well, actually he didn't have time to get out of the way. His injuries included a looser tooth, a bloody nose, and a puffy face.
It turned out to be all for the good though since the loose tooth was one that had been hanging in that mouth too long anyway. Later that evening our movie, Sherlock Holmes, was interrupted in the middle of the “London Bridge” scene in order for us to hear a dramatic announcement.
The kid comes running into the room yelling excitedly, “pause the movie, pause the movie.”
“No, it's almost over.”
“But this is important.” He is now jumping up and down and waving his arms more energetically than he ever did in the soccer goal. We paused the movie.
“What is it?”
“I pulled my tooth.” The benefits of soccer.
Then there is the story of the goalie who caught a goal kick and duly trotted out to the front of the goal box. She faced the field and quickly dropkicked the ball. It was a pretty good kick if you discount the direction it took. It arched neatly up and over her head and rolled straight into her own goal behind her.
Finally, my daughter told me about a game which was refereed by young teenagers, two boys and a girl. One of the player's fathers thought he could make a difference in the score of the game, which wasn't scored anyway, by bleep-bleeping the referees and the other team's players.
The obnoxious father had been warned to clean up his language and be quiet, but he continued to blaspheme the name of referees everywhere. Finally the girl walked over to the mouthy dad and told him he had to leave. He refused and got a little louder. The two boy referees decided she might need a little help and came along to back her up.
“If you do not leave, I will call this game.”
“Yeah. What she said,” piped up the boys.
The father left. He didn't just walk away however. He ambled from his position in one corner of the field, across it to the opposite corner, before he was finally gone. The game continued peacefully for about two minutes until Soccer Man returned with his mother, who must have been the one who taught him to talk, and his wife. Three against three. So the ruckus escalated.
Miss Referee had put up with enough. She strode over to the three and told them she was going to call the game. The grandmother in turn called her a name, which is not fit to print, and said that furthermore she couldn't talk to her like that.
So, game over. The two teams cheered each other, and everyone went home; and that is where some people should stay.
That is just part of the fun of soccer. When weather isn't a deterrent, it can be quite entertaining. I will hereby recount a few of the more amusing incidents I have seen and heard of lately.
The story of this last week was about the game where one of the 8-year-old teams was short a few players and the other team had more than they needed when it came time to play. So the coaches put their heads together and evened things out by sending a couple of the players from the red team onto the blue team so everyone could have fun. The blue team must have been missing their goalie that morning because they put a transplant player into the goal.
It took three kicks on goal before anyone realized that the goalie didn't make a move when there was a goal kick. And it took a few more plays before anyone older than ten realized why. Sometimes the kids are smarter than the adults who just might be a few sides short of a pentagram, that is on any given day.
The week before that my grandson had the dubious honor of playing goalie in his game. He took one for the team when he fearlessly blocked a short goal kick with his face. Well, actually he didn't have time to get out of the way. His injuries included a looser tooth, a bloody nose, and a puffy face.
It turned out to be all for the good though since the loose tooth was one that had been hanging in that mouth too long anyway. Later that evening our movie, Sherlock Holmes, was interrupted in the middle of the “London Bridge” scene in order for us to hear a dramatic announcement.
The kid comes running into the room yelling excitedly, “pause the movie, pause the movie.”
“No, it's almost over.”
“But this is important.” He is now jumping up and down and waving his arms more energetically than he ever did in the soccer goal. We paused the movie.
“What is it?”
“I pulled my tooth.” The benefits of soccer.
Then there is the story of the goalie who caught a goal kick and duly trotted out to the front of the goal box. She faced the field and quickly dropkicked the ball. It was a pretty good kick if you discount the direction it took. It arched neatly up and over her head and rolled straight into her own goal behind her.
Finally, my daughter told me about a game which was refereed by young teenagers, two boys and a girl. One of the player's fathers thought he could make a difference in the score of the game, which wasn't scored anyway, by bleep-bleeping the referees and the other team's players.
The obnoxious father had been warned to clean up his language and be quiet, but he continued to blaspheme the name of referees everywhere. Finally the girl walked over to the mouthy dad and told him he had to leave. He refused and got a little louder. The two boy referees decided she might need a little help and came along to back her up.
“If you do not leave, I will call this game.”
“Yeah. What she said,” piped up the boys.
The father left. He didn't just walk away however. He ambled from his position in one corner of the field, across it to the opposite corner, before he was finally gone. The game continued peacefully for about two minutes until Soccer Man returned with his mother, who must have been the one who taught him to talk, and his wife. Three against three. So the ruckus escalated.
Miss Referee had put up with enough. She strode over to the three and told them she was going to call the game. The grandmother in turn called her a name, which is not fit to print, and said that furthermore she couldn't talk to her like that.
So, game over. The two teams cheered each other, and everyone went home; and that is where some people should stay.
Bertha gets her feet wet
It seems that I made a little ripple in the Facebook pond last weekend when I surprised my kids, who are now my friends, by setting up an account. They thought I would never take the plunge. I wasn't holding out because I had any issues, moral or otherwise, with Facebooking. It was just that I didn't see the point. Anything I wanted to say to someone could be typed into an email, and the recipient could then be called on the phone and told to read his/her email.
Signing up was a pretty slick process. Only took a couple of minutes and cost nothing other than what I send to my internet provider monthly plus the cost of a computer and a modem, a monitor, keyboard, mouse, camera, etc. etc. So nearly free; but since I am paying or have paid for all that stuff anyway, I reasoned that I didn't have much to lose.
I have never heard of it happening, but I suppose I could always get myself off Facebook pretty quickly also. However, I wouldn't recommend even five minutes of it for anyone in the government witness program.
After the quick initial setup , I found a perfectly nondescript boring picture of myself which I had to crop out of a group shot using a fairly cheap program—Photoshop, which I also did have anyway.
In the time it took me to do that, I had 41 new friends with messages from two of them which was amazing considering it was 11 p.m., Mountain Standard Time, and 1 a.m. where one of them originated.
They both said that they didn't think I would ever do it, and that they just about fell off their office furniture when they saw me on Facebook. If I were still waffling at that point, I gave it up when message number two informed me that if I had any doubts, I could let them go because being on Facebook was the best way to check up on my kids. It could be true. For the duration that I am “on” Facebook, my kids are my friends.
Well, to tell the truth, there actually was one small issue that kept me from getting my feet wet sooner. I didn't want to set any records for “least amount of friends on Facebook” or anything. My daughter had 431 friends as of Friday, and that is quite a bit of pressure there. However I have a big family and I could probably twist some arms if it got too embarrassing. But when I found I could collect 41 friends in fifteen minutes, I began to rest easier and enjoy the experience. Right now I have friends that I have never even heard of.
Wait, I do remember stories about people being defriended, hidden or blocked. I think that my other daughter was friends with someone for exactly two hours and four minutes when she was defriended. That is another record I might have to worry about setting.
So, I mentioned that my photo was unoriginal. I have some pressure in that area, too. One daughter has a cute cartoon for her profile picture and another one uses a photo of her laying on the pavement inside of one of those outlines that crime investigators paint around dead bodies. She was in New York City at the time. By the way, have I mentioned any sons yet? No? I didn't think so.
So the gauntlet has been thrown in the photo department. I do have an old photo of me on top of the Middle Teton. Yes, it's real. I already said it was old. Hey, some people put their baby pictures on there don't they? I can't think of anything else remarkable that I have photos of—well actually that I don't have photos of either, for that matter. Lately I have been more apt to stay out of photos when I can.
So when I get my wall page spiffed up and get my friends lined up, I will be all set. I will be all set to…to do what, I'm not sure. This is where “I don't get the point” comes in. If I post my status a few times, people will begin to understand why I went so long without Facebook. If I post too many photos of me in a rocking chair, they will know for sure.
And, I can only check up on my kids so many times in one day.
Signing up was a pretty slick process. Only took a couple of minutes and cost nothing other than what I send to my internet provider monthly plus the cost of a computer and a modem, a monitor, keyboard, mouse, camera, etc. etc. So nearly free; but since I am paying or have paid for all that stuff anyway, I reasoned that I didn't have much to lose.
I have never heard of it happening, but I suppose I could always get myself off Facebook pretty quickly also. However, I wouldn't recommend even five minutes of it for anyone in the government witness program.
After the quick initial setup , I found a perfectly nondescript boring picture of myself which I had to crop out of a group shot using a fairly cheap program—Photoshop, which I also did have anyway.
In the time it took me to do that, I had 41 new friends with messages from two of them which was amazing considering it was 11 p.m., Mountain Standard Time, and 1 a.m. where one of them originated.
They both said that they didn't think I would ever do it, and that they just about fell off their office furniture when they saw me on Facebook. If I were still waffling at that point, I gave it up when message number two informed me that if I had any doubts, I could let them go because being on Facebook was the best way to check up on my kids. It could be true. For the duration that I am “on” Facebook, my kids are my friends.
Well, to tell the truth, there actually was one small issue that kept me from getting my feet wet sooner. I didn't want to set any records for “least amount of friends on Facebook” or anything. My daughter had 431 friends as of Friday, and that is quite a bit of pressure there. However I have a big family and I could probably twist some arms if it got too embarrassing. But when I found I could collect 41 friends in fifteen minutes, I began to rest easier and enjoy the experience. Right now I have friends that I have never even heard of.
Wait, I do remember stories about people being defriended, hidden or blocked. I think that my other daughter was friends with someone for exactly two hours and four minutes when she was defriended. That is another record I might have to worry about setting.
So, I mentioned that my photo was unoriginal. I have some pressure in that area, too. One daughter has a cute cartoon for her profile picture and another one uses a photo of her laying on the pavement inside of one of those outlines that crime investigators paint around dead bodies. She was in New York City at the time. By the way, have I mentioned any sons yet? No? I didn't think so.
So the gauntlet has been thrown in the photo department. I do have an old photo of me on top of the Middle Teton. Yes, it's real. I already said it was old. Hey, some people put their baby pictures on there don't they? I can't think of anything else remarkable that I have photos of—well actually that I don't have photos of either, for that matter. Lately I have been more apt to stay out of photos when I can.
So when I get my wall page spiffed up and get my friends lined up, I will be all set. I will be all set to…to do what, I'm not sure. This is where “I don't get the point” comes in. If I post my status a few times, people will begin to understand why I went so long without Facebook. If I post too many photos of me in a rocking chair, they will know for sure.
And, I can only check up on my kids so many times in one day.
The return of, ahem, Frankenstein
I hate to admit it to the younger readers in my audience, if I have any, but I have lived long enough to witness the rise and fall of more than a few different items from cultural grace—some of them more than once.
One example that comes to mind is bell-bottom pants. Lest any generation try to take too much credit for them, I believe they were first worn by navy sailors. Which navy and how long ago, I couldn't say, but they did not just appear on the scene in the Sixties because Pierre Cardin had a light bulb moment.
It was the counter-culture Hippies who wore them first. First after the sailors, that is. They sometimes made their own by inserting triangles of colorful fabrics into the outside seams of jeans below the knees. So their pedigree (the bell bottoms') is a tiny bit tainted anyway. Don't worry. I wore them, because they soon made their way into mainstream fashion.
Before they left that scene, though, they had morphed into polyester bells, and then into the polyester leisure suit. Since polyester could be and was made in any wild color or pattern imaginable, it caught on in a hurry in that nonconformist
atmosphere. Too big a hurry. And it was cheap. Too cheap. All of that accounts for the sleazy connotation that goes along with polyester itself. I wore it too. It was a great invention—you didn't have to iron it. But by the late 70's only used car salesmen and great-grannies wore polyester anything.
The contemporary trend of “how low can you go,” low-riding pants may seem like a recent phenomena, but they are nothing more than over-the-top (yeah right) versions of the hip-hugger bell-bottom pants that were popular in the 60's and 70's.
And I was supposed to be excited about their return? And the polyester, too? Not only was the style stale for anyone over fifty, but I looked much better in it the first time around.
Colors schemes in dress and decoration are also wicked in their ability to date an outfit or a home. One that has come and gone is the mauve and gray color combo of the 80's. If there was ever any color combo that dated a living room, it is that one.
I am so glad that we didn't build a house in the 80's because I would have done that then, and had I done so, unfortunately I would still probably have mauve carpet today. I have noticed that it is making a comeback in some venues. Even so, I won't be getting mauve carpet. Everyone who has already lived through the 80's won't be that impressed.
I am not a fashion guru; I know that. Some of the fashions I see I don't even have a name for, and a few of the reruns weren't gone long enough for me to notice. But that makes them really old by now, doesn't it?
Lately, at least, designers have had the grace to put the word “retro” in their narrative somewhere instead of trying to take credit for a rerun.
My kids wonder why I don't get very excited about this or that fashion, or color, or new idea while they act like they invented the latest thing themselves. “I was the first one in Utah to have them; I know it.” (My daughter who lived in the “granola years” actually said that about her first pair of Birkenstocks.)
Whatever. That would be me. I had them the first time they came around, not the second or third. Only they were Dr. Scholl's exercise sandals.
One example that comes to mind is bell-bottom pants. Lest any generation try to take too much credit for them, I believe they were first worn by navy sailors. Which navy and how long ago, I couldn't say, but they did not just appear on the scene in the Sixties because Pierre Cardin had a light bulb moment.
It was the counter-culture Hippies who wore them first. First after the sailors, that is. They sometimes made their own by inserting triangles of colorful fabrics into the outside seams of jeans below the knees. So their pedigree (the bell bottoms') is a tiny bit tainted anyway. Don't worry. I wore them, because they soon made their way into mainstream fashion.
Before they left that scene, though, they had morphed into polyester bells, and then into the polyester leisure suit. Since polyester could be and was made in any wild color or pattern imaginable, it caught on in a hurry in that nonconformist
atmosphere. Too big a hurry. And it was cheap. Too cheap. All of that accounts for the sleazy connotation that goes along with polyester itself. I wore it too. It was a great invention—you didn't have to iron it. But by the late 70's only used car salesmen and great-grannies wore polyester anything.
The contemporary trend of “how low can you go,” low-riding pants may seem like a recent phenomena, but they are nothing more than over-the-top (yeah right) versions of the hip-hugger bell-bottom pants that were popular in the 60's and 70's.
And I was supposed to be excited about their return? And the polyester, too? Not only was the style stale for anyone over fifty, but I looked much better in it the first time around.
Colors schemes in dress and decoration are also wicked in their ability to date an outfit or a home. One that has come and gone is the mauve and gray color combo of the 80's. If there was ever any color combo that dated a living room, it is that one.
I am so glad that we didn't build a house in the 80's because I would have done that then, and had I done so, unfortunately I would still probably have mauve carpet today. I have noticed that it is making a comeback in some venues. Even so, I won't be getting mauve carpet. Everyone who has already lived through the 80's won't be that impressed.
I am not a fashion guru; I know that. Some of the fashions I see I don't even have a name for, and a few of the reruns weren't gone long enough for me to notice. But that makes them really old by now, doesn't it?
Lately, at least, designers have had the grace to put the word “retro” in their narrative somewhere instead of trying to take credit for a rerun.
My kids wonder why I don't get very excited about this or that fashion, or color, or new idea while they act like they invented the latest thing themselves. “I was the first one in Utah to have them; I know it.” (My daughter who lived in the “granola years” actually said that about her first pair of Birkenstocks.)
Whatever. That would be me. I had them the first time they came around, not the second or third. Only they were Dr. Scholl's exercise sandals.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
How to execute our modern roundabout
Who says Vernal is so far away from population centers that it is behind the times? Well, I may have said that myself once or twice. Actually it's not being remote from population that bothers me, it's being away from the centers. Shopping centers.
The list of things you can't buy in Vernal or anywhere else in the Basin is long and growing. I hesitate to itemize here because as soon as I do, an obscure place to buy those items will be brought to my attention. Wait. That would probably be a good thing.
But back to my original point—Vernal is definitely catching up with somewhere because we now have, right here in “River City,” a modern roundabout. And according to Wikipedia, what we have here is indeed a modern roundabout, which is not the same as circular intersections or spaghetti bowls, both of which have been around for a while.
The first modern roundabout in the U. S. was built in that model city of modernity, Summerlin, Nevada, in 1990. The world's modern roundabouts are particularly common in the United Kingdom, but over half of them are in France which has over 30,000 as of 2008. We have not only caught up with Summerlin, Nevada, but France as well. Sounds like pretty good company to me.
The modern roundabout is safer than the “what's-out” circular intersection because “steps are taken to reduce the speed of traffic, such as adding additional curves on the approaches.” (Wikipedia again.)
In case you have missed Vernal's own roundabout, it is out there in the field behind the new UBATC building. I think it serves to intersect the streets of Main and 2000 West. If you like curves, and who doesn't, you will want to try it out. Just head out south on the new road next to the college.
As you pull up to the intersection, your first visual impression will not be one of curves, but rather of road signs all over the place. Good look with figuring out which ones apply to you. After all, there have to be entrance, exit, roundabout, yield, and street signs times four, plus some speed limit signs which you will want to observe because you do have to make a tight right before you can begin to circle left.
For those of you who missed France, you just keep circling until you find the right place to get off. Of course “drivers may become confused and use roundabouts improperly, especially in areas where roundabouts are uncommon.” You can, however, go around, until you think you know where you want to get off. At some turn it becomes illegal to go round and round the roundabout. I know this because a friend of mine…
If you happen to exit onto Main when you wanted 2000 West, you are on your own. You may have to drive an additional couple of miles to get your car pointed in the right direction.
There are apparently some rules of etiquette that apply to driving in roundabouts, something about which lane to drive in if you are exiting in the first half of the roundabout which is not the same lane you want to be in if you are exiting in the last half of the roundabout.
The rules I did understand are: slow down and use your turn signal when you leave the roundabout. Or I guess it can't hurt too much to drive the way most of us from Utah usually do. Just remember—what goes around, comes around.
The list of things you can't buy in Vernal or anywhere else in the Basin is long and growing. I hesitate to itemize here because as soon as I do, an obscure place to buy those items will be brought to my attention. Wait. That would probably be a good thing.
But back to my original point—Vernal is definitely catching up with somewhere because we now have, right here in “River City,” a modern roundabout. And according to Wikipedia, what we have here is indeed a modern roundabout, which is not the same as circular intersections or spaghetti bowls, both of which have been around for a while.
The first modern roundabout in the U. S. was built in that model city of modernity, Summerlin, Nevada, in 1990. The world's modern roundabouts are particularly common in the United Kingdom, but over half of them are in France which has over 30,000 as of 2008. We have not only caught up with Summerlin, Nevada, but France as well. Sounds like pretty good company to me.
The modern roundabout is safer than the “what's-out” circular intersection because “steps are taken to reduce the speed of traffic, such as adding additional curves on the approaches.” (Wikipedia again.)
In case you have missed Vernal's own roundabout, it is out there in the field behind the new UBATC building. I think it serves to intersect the streets of Main and 2000 West. If you like curves, and who doesn't, you will want to try it out. Just head out south on the new road next to the college.
As you pull up to the intersection, your first visual impression will not be one of curves, but rather of road signs all over the place. Good look with figuring out which ones apply to you. After all, there have to be entrance, exit, roundabout, yield, and street signs times four, plus some speed limit signs which you will want to observe because you do have to make a tight right before you can begin to circle left.
For those of you who missed France, you just keep circling until you find the right place to get off. Of course “drivers may become confused and use roundabouts improperly, especially in areas where roundabouts are uncommon.” You can, however, go around, until you think you know where you want to get off. At some turn it becomes illegal to go round and round the roundabout. I know this because a friend of mine…
If you happen to exit onto Main when you wanted 2000 West, you are on your own. You may have to drive an additional couple of miles to get your car pointed in the right direction.
There are apparently some rules of etiquette that apply to driving in roundabouts, something about which lane to drive in if you are exiting in the first half of the roundabout which is not the same lane you want to be in if you are exiting in the last half of the roundabout.
The rules I did understand are: slow down and use your turn signal when you leave the roundabout. Or I guess it can't hurt too much to drive the way most of us from Utah usually do. Just remember—what goes around, comes around.
Guys are channeled in to run the remote
My daughter keeps telling me that men can't multitask. Of course she can do about seven things at once and do them all well, while her husband is the kind of guy who wants to finish one thing before he moves on to the next.
Usually, I am inclined to agree with her.. After all she can do more things at one time than I can, which makes her an expert of some kind. She could probably run the IRS which is now saddled with more than one task and Medicare besides.
But I want to know how many guys out there are just topting out? Perhaps they insist that they can't watch the cookies in the oven and watch the kids at the same time because they don't want to. One thing I have noticed—and I'm not alone here—is that they are capable of watching more than they admit to.
To prove it, I need only hand a guy the television remote control. Suddenly he can watch up to twenty channels of television at one time. If managing that many programs at once requires two or even three remotes, he is still up to the task. A remote control in the hands of a man is actually quite something to behold.
Men mullti-channel-watch by changing the channel the instant something boring happens, like for instance, two people start to converse. Women on the other hand are tuned in to conversations. They can pick up across a crowded room what a man couldn't hear said on his own TV with the volume at ----19----, simply because they are moving up the channel list faster than the actress can say “I've been meaning to tell you something….” They can punch channel numbers faster than a good stenographer can type “all goo
d men.”
Not only do all women like to hear a good conversation, they want to tune in to only one of them at a time. (Guys, that is what they make DVR for—so o you can record the channels you aren't watching at present, and thereby allow the rest of the family to have a television experience as well.)
Of course the guys in charge of the remotes are over-the-top remote-adept because they practice a lot. In fact there isn't a prayer that another member of the family, regardless of age or gender, will ever catch up in remote skills until he has “control” of his own television. “Control” is the operative word here.
A man with a remote in his hand is a control-freak. However, give him credit; perhaps he doesn't think about control in the sense that he thinks he knows what the rest of us should watch on TV. Instead, I think he has mental images of those twenty channel's incoming signals all zinging toward him at once, and he with his little brown box is able to sort, organize and manage all of them at once, something like catching bullets with his bare hands—no, more like a Ninja fighter brandishing his sword, uh, his clicker.
Women are not wired to produce those sorts of mental images, so they surrender the remote to whomever gets the biggest kick out of controlling it, which is why they themselves never learn to use it.
My problem is that once in a great while, my remote controlling guy is out of range, which leaves me alone with a panoply of remotes that I haven't the faintest how to use. I am working on it though. I bought my own “simple-to-use, big-numbers, glow-in-the-dark universal remote. I have been trying to program it for over a week though.
So, sisters out there, in order to get the guys to watch the cookies and the kids, you are going to need two more remotes. One for the oven and one for the kids. If any of you find a way to get them programmed, remember whose idea it was.
Usually, I am inclined to agree with her.. After all she can do more things at one time than I can, which makes her an expert of some kind. She could probably run the IRS which is now saddled with more than one task and Medicare besides.
But I want to know how many guys out there are just topting out? Perhaps they insist that they can't watch the cookies in the oven and watch the kids at the same time because they don't want to. One thing I have noticed—and I'm not alone here—is that they are capable of watching more than they admit to.
To prove it, I need only hand a guy the television remote control. Suddenly he can watch up to twenty channels of television at one time. If managing that many programs at once requires two or even three remotes, he is still up to the task. A remote control in the hands of a man is actually quite something to behold.
Men mullti-channel-watch by changing the channel the instant something boring happens, like for instance, two people start to converse. Women on the other hand are tuned in to conversations. They can pick up across a crowded room what a man couldn't hear said on his own TV with the volume at ----19----, simply because they are moving up the channel list faster than the actress can say “I've been meaning to tell you something….” They can punch channel numbers faster than a good stenographer can type “all goo
d men.”
Not only do all women like to hear a good conversation, they want to tune in to only one of them at a time. (Guys, that is what they make DVR for—so o you can record the channels you aren't watching at present, and thereby allow the rest of the family to have a television experience as well.)
Of course the guys in charge of the remotes are over-the-top remote-adept because they practice a lot. In fact there isn't a prayer that another member of the family, regardless of age or gender, will ever catch up in remote skills until he has “control” of his own television. “Control” is the operative word here.
A man with a remote in his hand is a control-freak. However, give him credit; perhaps he doesn't think about control in the sense that he thinks he knows what the rest of us should watch on TV. Instead, I think he has mental images of those twenty channel's incoming signals all zinging toward him at once, and he with his little brown box is able to sort, organize and manage all of them at once, something like catching bullets with his bare hands—no, more like a Ninja fighter brandishing his sword, uh, his clicker.
Women are not wired to produce those sorts of mental images, so they surrender the remote to whomever gets the biggest kick out of controlling it, which is why they themselves never learn to use it.
My problem is that once in a great while, my remote controlling guy is out of range, which leaves me alone with a panoply of remotes that I haven't the faintest how to use. I am working on it though. I bought my own “simple-to-use, big-numbers, glow-in-the-dark universal remote. I have been trying to program it for over a week though.
So, sisters out there, in order to get the guys to watch the cookies and the kids, you are going to need two more remotes. One for the oven and one for the kids. If any of you find a way to get them programmed, remember whose idea it was.
Who wrote that note?
No matter how advanced the world of communications has become, there seems to be a constant. The school note, at least for grade schools, is still the principal method of sharing information between teachers and parents.
I am all for written information, but the school note has its drawbacks, the main one being that there is no way for the teacher to know whether the parent actually saw the school note. In fact, there is no way for the parent to know that there actually was a note.
Do you know how many ways there are for a child to lose a note on the way home from school, or even between the classroom and the car? Do you think that a child can even remember whether there was a note?
I remember when notes were pinned to the child's shirt or jacket. That was okay if the child didn't climb any trees on the way home, or take off his jacket, or find a large dog to pet. (Dogs have an affinity for school papers whether they are on their way to school or from it.)
The preferred method of transporting notes these days, I think, is to put notes in the child's backpack or folder, which may be slightly more effective than using carrier pigeon. Who knows?
Not only is there a communication gap when notes don't get from school to home and back again, but there is also a gap when one or the other of the parties doesn't write what they mean or has forgotten what they learned in school, including how to spell, thereby leaving some notes open to multiple translations.
Here are a few of the kind that children bring to school that I have read online. You can decide for yourself whether they were written by a parent of a student.
“Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip. “
“Please excuse Pedro from being absent yesterday. He had (diahre) (dyrea) (direathe) the runs.” At least this parent knows what he doesn't know.
“Dear School: Please exscuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33.”
Speaking of excuses, sometimes the notes coming home from school have some issues with spelling and grammar as well. which is to say the least, inexcusable. And then, there is the content of some of the notes themselves which leads parents to wonder “who is thinking what at that school?”
A friend of my daughter's got a note from school last week informing her that this last Wednesday was school picture day and that the photographer's backdrop for the pictures was going to be green, so the children should wear any color but green for their pictures. My friend's little girl cried for two days because she wasn't going to be able to wear green on St. Patrick's Day.
Now I'll be the first to admit that St. Patrick's Day is about the biggest non-holiday there is, but there aren't any other appreciable holidays in the month of March, and who knows what holiday a kid is going to appreciate.
Another mother I know was presented with a two-paragraph note from school that went something like this:
“There have been a few cases of head lice among some students at our school. Please carefully observe patterns of cleanliness at home and don't allow your children to share personal items so that we may be able to minimize the chances of an outbreak at our school.”
The second paragraph of the same note reminded parents that the following day was “pillow and pajama day” and that the children could participate by wearing their pajamas and bringing their pillows to school.
I am all for written information, but the school note has its drawbacks, the main one being that there is no way for the teacher to know whether the parent actually saw the school note. In fact, there is no way for the parent to know that there actually was a note.
Do you know how many ways there are for a child to lose a note on the way home from school, or even between the classroom and the car? Do you think that a child can even remember whether there was a note?
I remember when notes were pinned to the child's shirt or jacket. That was okay if the child didn't climb any trees on the way home, or take off his jacket, or find a large dog to pet. (Dogs have an affinity for school papers whether they are on their way to school or from it.)
The preferred method of transporting notes these days, I think, is to put notes in the child's backpack or folder, which may be slightly more effective than using carrier pigeon. Who knows?
Not only is there a communication gap when notes don't get from school to home and back again, but there is also a gap when one or the other of the parties doesn't write what they mean or has forgotten what they learned in school, including how to spell, thereby leaving some notes open to multiple translations.
Here are a few of the kind that children bring to school that I have read online. You can decide for yourself whether they were written by a parent of a student.
“Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip. “
“Please excuse Pedro from being absent yesterday. He had (diahre) (dyrea) (direathe) the runs.” At least this parent knows what he doesn't know.
“Dear School: Please exscuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33.”
Speaking of excuses, sometimes the notes coming home from school have some issues with spelling and grammar as well. which is to say the least, inexcusable. And then, there is the content of some of the notes themselves which leads parents to wonder “who is thinking what at that school?”
A friend of my daughter's got a note from school last week informing her that this last Wednesday was school picture day and that the photographer's backdrop for the pictures was going to be green, so the children should wear any color but green for their pictures. My friend's little girl cried for two days because she wasn't going to be able to wear green on St. Patrick's Day.
Now I'll be the first to admit that St. Patrick's Day is about the biggest non-holiday there is, but there aren't any other appreciable holidays in the month of March, and who knows what holiday a kid is going to appreciate.
Another mother I know was presented with a two-paragraph note from school that went something like this:
“There have been a few cases of head lice among some students at our school. Please carefully observe patterns of cleanliness at home and don't allow your children to share personal items so that we may be able to minimize the chances of an outbreak at our school.”
The second paragraph of the same note reminded parents that the following day was “pillow and pajama day” and that the children could participate by wearing their pajamas and bringing their pillows to school.
March Madness with Bertha
Back when I was in junior high school, right here in Vernal, Utah, before the feminist movement and the passage of Title IX, girls played a game of basketball that was supposed to be consistent with their abilities, or lack thereof.
In case I am the only one who remembers that now-retired (thankfully) period in sports history, I am going to tell you how that game worked. The premise was that girls weren't strong or durable enough to play a game that required them to run the full length of a basketball court for 18 minutes without keeling over. At least, that is what my coach told me.
So they came up with a sort of half-court game where the players were either forwards or they were guards and neither of them could cross the half court line. The guards played defense They weren't allowed to score, not even if they had a good half-court shot. They had to pass the ball to the forwards who did all of the scoring.
It wasn't going to be very fair for there to be three forwards and only two guards (you know like “they got numbers”) all the time. Nor was it going to work for there to be three guards and only two forwards (sort of like never-ending double-teaming). So they added another player to the team so there could be three of each, which made it all warm and fuzzy for all the girls all the time.
I just about choked when my coach told me that we were going to play “girls' “ basketball. I grew up in a family of mostly boys who played the real game of basketball. Then when she told me I was going to be a guard, I had my first argument with a coach. I didn't really want to play a game of basketball and never shoot the ball.
You think I am making this up, don't you? No, I'm not; I played that game. I was a guard. I even traveled to other schools to play games against other girls. They were low-scoring affairs. But that was okay. The score of the first collegiate basketball game for girls was 5-4. True, each basket was worth one point, but still…. That game was played was in 1896. (No I didn't play in that game.)
In an effort to preserve goodwill, minimize competition and prevent any one player from taking over a game, (in other words to make it more suitable for what was the prevailing notion of girls' constitutions) the court was divided into three zones, and a team consisted of nine girls, three girls per team per zone. All of the girls had to stay in their zones and no one could dribble more than three times. (Like they would have room to dribble any more than that.)
So sixty years later when I played, the game hadn't changed much. We still played in zones, and we still had dribbling limits. Our games were low-scoring—not because we were girls and were unable to shoot, jump, run or pass the ball, but because they wouldn't let us do any of those things too much. Playing three-on-three basketball with only three dribbles before passing doesn't generate much offense. Besides, we were busy counting. And, oh yeah, also because they put all of the tall, long-armed girls on defense.
I don't know how the rest of the female world played that game, but it didn't take us too long to realize that the best strategy was to control the half-court line. We played a sort of 2-1 zone defense. One guard protected the basket, and the other two just held position on the line and didn't let the ball cross it.
We just patrolled the border, so to speak, and batted the ball back to the other end of the court whenever it came within reach. All we had to do was outreach the forwards. Any kind of a pass up and over the 2-guards could usually be controlled by a taller 1-guard. This strategy also maximized the importance of the guards which we thought was only fair.
No wonder the scores resembled those of soccer games and the play was more like keep-away. In case you haven't noticed, there is no equivalent to the NBA in keep-away. They just wouldn't have the fan-base.
I'm not sure when they began to allow women to play the same game men do. Probably some time just shortly after my illustrious career as line guard ended. And maybe they were playing that game in the rest of the world; I have never figured that out.
But, you know the game's inventors were partly right in their assessment of women and basketball. I just watched a girls' college playoff game, and you know what? Women can't jump. I think they are inclined to apologize when they foul an opponent, too.
In case I am the only one who remembers that now-retired (thankfully) period in sports history, I am going to tell you how that game worked. The premise was that girls weren't strong or durable enough to play a game that required them to run the full length of a basketball court for 18 minutes without keeling over. At least, that is what my coach told me.
So they came up with a sort of half-court game where the players were either forwards or they were guards and neither of them could cross the half court line. The guards played defense They weren't allowed to score, not even if they had a good half-court shot. They had to pass the ball to the forwards who did all of the scoring.
It wasn't going to be very fair for there to be three forwards and only two guards (you know like “they got numbers”) all the time. Nor was it going to work for there to be three guards and only two forwards (sort of like never-ending double-teaming). So they added another player to the team so there could be three of each, which made it all warm and fuzzy for all the girls all the time.
I just about choked when my coach told me that we were going to play “girls' “ basketball. I grew up in a family of mostly boys who played the real game of basketball. Then when she told me I was going to be a guard, I had my first argument with a coach. I didn't really want to play a game of basketball and never shoot the ball.
You think I am making this up, don't you? No, I'm not; I played that game. I was a guard. I even traveled to other schools to play games against other girls. They were low-scoring affairs. But that was okay. The score of the first collegiate basketball game for girls was 5-4. True, each basket was worth one point, but still…. That game was played was in 1896. (No I didn't play in that game.)
In an effort to preserve goodwill, minimize competition and prevent any one player from taking over a game, (in other words to make it more suitable for what was the prevailing notion of girls' constitutions) the court was divided into three zones, and a team consisted of nine girls, three girls per team per zone. All of the girls had to stay in their zones and no one could dribble more than three times. (Like they would have room to dribble any more than that.)
So sixty years later when I played, the game hadn't changed much. We still played in zones, and we still had dribbling limits. Our games were low-scoring—not because we were girls and were unable to shoot, jump, run or pass the ball, but because they wouldn't let us do any of those things too much. Playing three-on-three basketball with only three dribbles before passing doesn't generate much offense. Besides, we were busy counting. And, oh yeah, also because they put all of the tall, long-armed girls on defense.
I don't know how the rest of the female world played that game, but it didn't take us too long to realize that the best strategy was to control the half-court line. We played a sort of 2-1 zone defense. One guard protected the basket, and the other two just held position on the line and didn't let the ball cross it.
We just patrolled the border, so to speak, and batted the ball back to the other end of the court whenever it came within reach. All we had to do was outreach the forwards. Any kind of a pass up and over the 2-guards could usually be controlled by a taller 1-guard. This strategy also maximized the importance of the guards which we thought was only fair.
No wonder the scores resembled those of soccer games and the play was more like keep-away. In case you haven't noticed, there is no equivalent to the NBA in keep-away. They just wouldn't have the fan-base.
I'm not sure when they began to allow women to play the same game men do. Probably some time just shortly after my illustrious career as line guard ended. And maybe they were playing that game in the rest of the world; I have never figured that out.
But, you know the game's inventors were partly right in their assessment of women and basketball. I just watched a girls' college playoff game, and you know what? Women can't jump. I think they are inclined to apologize when they foul an opponent, too.
Oscars make us happy
It's a good thing they have the Academy Awards every year. I think that just that one event probably is a huge shot in the arm for the economy, at least in California where they could use the whole battery of shots.
Just think of what a venture in capitalism the production is. Aside from the actual movie industry which is a fairly good example of supply-and-demand economics and generates a lot of capital which goes who knows where, there is the actual event which puts a whole panoply of businesses to work.
I don't know whether they realize it, but the Hollywood libs are heavily involved in big business which makes them very rich, in spite of their share-the-wealth mentalities. They just want to qualify who is doing the sharing—anyone but them. Did you ever notice who they actually target when they do a save-the-world fund raiser for whomever in the world? They give their time, of which they have little to spare; we give our money which is scarce also. So it all works out, right? Fairness all around.
Okay, that is as political as I get, but just think of all the businesses who have a stake in the Oscars. There are the news media, the designers and manufacturers of everything from sets to clothing, producers, the food providers, the lodging and transportation sectors, the accessories designers and retailers and the florists, the speech and script writers, the hair stylists and the makeup artists, and the surgeons, not to mention the people who actually make the Oscar statue itself.
I have not intended to leave anyone out, but I have a very narrow perspective on the whole event, not having watched an entire broadcast ever and only going to the movies about once a year. I know, I am not really qualified to express an opinion, which is not the same as not having one.
But without the Academy Awards, how would we know what to wear for the rest of the year, how to do our hair and makeup, and which movies to avoid?
You have to give credit to the Motion Picture Industry for being a bit traditional (non-progressive) in the format of their awards presentations. I know it seems like it during the ceremonies, but they really don't give Oscars to everyone who competes. Just to the winners. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see participation certificates handed out all around, which would be a good way of injecting peace and harmony into all of that excessive and raw competition.
The whole event is all about competition. Who looks the best? Who has the most famous escort? Who paid the most for a dress? Who has most expensive jewelry? Who gave the best speech? It's no wonder all of the players need therapists and pharmaceuticals.
So my sister asked me who I was dressed as. Well, not Oscar and not the Mad Hatter. At the moment, it is something like Little Orphan Annie, or Little House on the Prairie at bedtime.
Just think of what a venture in capitalism the production is. Aside from the actual movie industry which is a fairly good example of supply-and-demand economics and generates a lot of capital which goes who knows where, there is the actual event which puts a whole panoply of businesses to work.
I don't know whether they realize it, but the Hollywood libs are heavily involved in big business which makes them very rich, in spite of their share-the-wealth mentalities. They just want to qualify who is doing the sharing—anyone but them. Did you ever notice who they actually target when they do a save-the-world fund raiser for whomever in the world? They give their time, of which they have little to spare; we give our money which is scarce also. So it all works out, right? Fairness all around.
Okay, that is as political as I get, but just think of all the businesses who have a stake in the Oscars. There are the news media, the designers and manufacturers of everything from sets to clothing, producers, the food providers, the lodging and transportation sectors, the accessories designers and retailers and the florists, the speech and script writers, the hair stylists and the makeup artists, and the surgeons, not to mention the people who actually make the Oscar statue itself.
I have not intended to leave anyone out, but I have a very narrow perspective on the whole event, not having watched an entire broadcast ever and only going to the movies about once a year. I know, I am not really qualified to express an opinion, which is not the same as not having one.
But without the Academy Awards, how would we know what to wear for the rest of the year, how to do our hair and makeup, and which movies to avoid?
You have to give credit to the Motion Picture Industry for being a bit traditional (non-progressive) in the format of their awards presentations. I know it seems like it during the ceremonies, but they really don't give Oscars to everyone who competes. Just to the winners. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see participation certificates handed out all around, which would be a good way of injecting peace and harmony into all of that excessive and raw competition.
The whole event is all about competition. Who looks the best? Who has the most famous escort? Who paid the most for a dress? Who has most expensive jewelry? Who gave the best speech? It's no wonder all of the players need therapists and pharmaceuticals.
So my sister asked me who I was dressed as. Well, not Oscar and not the Mad Hatter. At the moment, it is something like Little Orphan Annie, or Little House on the Prairie at bedtime.
Pinewood Derby—chapter two
In case you didn't remember or didn't care, Bertha wrote about the experience of making a Pinewood Derby car a couple of weeks ago. Well, she is going to get a little more “mileage” out of the subject. It got better as it went along.
I started on my car early enough, but it still took two weeks to get it finished, and we were doing the last minute things the day of the race. It is kind of like an art project. You never know when it is finished. But it got “finished” just in time to race it.
The delay was caused in part by the fact that my real car, the Grocery Getter, was experiencing some difficulties of its own while we were building the race car. It couldn't seem to make it up the hill to home without sputtering, and missing, and I do live quite a long way up the hill.
Mr. B. began to give the problem due recognition when it was his turn to drive the car over the weekend. He came home with renewed interest in fixing it. Since I had already been driving the car for a few weeks with the same problem, I gave it no more attention than I usually did. Consequently, the Grocery Getter with its problems was on Mr. B.'s mind while the Pinewood Derby car was on mine.
So with that background given and that stage set, here are a couple of our more interesting exchanges:
Me: Are you going to work on my car today?
Mr. B. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I hope I don't have to put a catalytic converter on it.
Me: I don't think it needs anything that fancy. Just a rusty air cleaner is all it needs, other than one of those flashing lights on the top. (I was trying to build a quasi-faithful replica of Tow Mater)
Mr. B.: What are you talking about? It already has an air cleaner which I already checked once. That isn't what it needs.
Me: Well where is the catalytic converter going to go? And what will it do? Take the place of the weights?
We finally established that Tow Mater did indeed need a rusty air cleaner, but we were still wondering about the needs of the Grocery Getter.
A couple of days later, Mr. B. switched roles on me. He sent me to the box store to find some parts for my car.
“You're sending me to buy a winch? I thought you didn't like to buy parts there. You usually make me go to the parts store to get them.
“I don't think you are going to find a winch at the parts store.”
“Well, what do we need that for anyway? I don't think I can find one at the box store.”
“Yes you can. Just go in the toy department and look for a little tow truck. We'll use the winch from it.”
The word “toy” was what finally got us looking for the same part in the same parts manual.
On the day of the big race, there were still some finishing touches to apply to Tow Mater. Mr. B. was going to add the flashers and the lead weights for me. So early in the morning, I woke my son up and asked for his help.
“Will you bring my car down to me when you come to town? Dad still has to drill the holes in it.”
“What? What is he drilling holes for?”
Now my son and his dad don't always agree on the proper methods for reapiring an ailing vehicle. In fact, quite often they each wonder what on earth the other is doing. But it certainly got my son's attention when he thought that his dad might, at that very moment, be trying to find his drill and his bits in order to drill holes somewhere in the Grocery Getter.
I started on my car early enough, but it still took two weeks to get it finished, and we were doing the last minute things the day of the race. It is kind of like an art project. You never know when it is finished. But it got “finished” just in time to race it.
The delay was caused in part by the fact that my real car, the Grocery Getter, was experiencing some difficulties of its own while we were building the race car. It couldn't seem to make it up the hill to home without sputtering, and missing, and I do live quite a long way up the hill.
Mr. B. began to give the problem due recognition when it was his turn to drive the car over the weekend. He came home with renewed interest in fixing it. Since I had already been driving the car for a few weeks with the same problem, I gave it no more attention than I usually did. Consequently, the Grocery Getter with its problems was on Mr. B.'s mind while the Pinewood Derby car was on mine.
So with that background given and that stage set, here are a couple of our more interesting exchanges:
Me: Are you going to work on my car today?
Mr. B. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I hope I don't have to put a catalytic converter on it.
Me: I don't think it needs anything that fancy. Just a rusty air cleaner is all it needs, other than one of those flashing lights on the top. (I was trying to build a quasi-faithful replica of Tow Mater)
Mr. B.: What are you talking about? It already has an air cleaner which I already checked once. That isn't what it needs.
Me: Well where is the catalytic converter going to go? And what will it do? Take the place of the weights?
We finally established that Tow Mater did indeed need a rusty air cleaner, but we were still wondering about the needs of the Grocery Getter.
A couple of days later, Mr. B. switched roles on me. He sent me to the box store to find some parts for my car.
“You're sending me to buy a winch? I thought you didn't like to buy parts there. You usually make me go to the parts store to get them.
“I don't think you are going to find a winch at the parts store.”
“Well, what do we need that for anyway? I don't think I can find one at the box store.”
“Yes you can. Just go in the toy department and look for a little tow truck. We'll use the winch from it.”
The word “toy” was what finally got us looking for the same part in the same parts manual.
On the day of the big race, there were still some finishing touches to apply to Tow Mater. Mr. B. was going to add the flashers and the lead weights for me. So early in the morning, I woke my son up and asked for his help.
“Will you bring my car down to me when you come to town? Dad still has to drill the holes in it.”
“What? What is he drilling holes for?”
Now my son and his dad don't always agree on the proper methods for reapiring an ailing vehicle. In fact, quite often they each wonder what on earth the other is doing. But it certainly got my son's attention when he thought that his dad might, at that very moment, be trying to find his drill and his bits in order to drill holes somewhere in the Grocery Getter.
Putting money where the mouth is
One advantage to being my age is that I have already passed through most of the phases of life that people have to go through.
Childhood diseases, my own and my kids', are behind me. I have lived through the sleepless years, when I had babies. And I have lived through the teenage years. My own were not nearly so hard on me as my kids' were.
Altogether, I have launched seven children into their teenage years, prepared or otherwise. They all made their first trip to the DMV. They all went to prom once or twice. They all went to a few concerts. And we have been to see the orthodontist approximately 353 times.
The concerts and prom I could handle, and I could cope with most of the other milestones associated with the teenage years. I still clench my teeth when I think about the orthodontics chapter of my life, though.
This is what kind of luck I had: the first three kids all had too many teeth for their mouths, or more precisely, teeth too big to fit in there. (Grandma called those kind of teeth butter paddles.)
When the fourth child came, I thought I had it made. She had actual spaces between her baby teeth. For her first six years, I thought I was going to get $2,500 ahead in life thanks to this child's big mouth. Not a chance. Her permanent teeth were tiny little chiclets which didn't begin to fill up all that space. Grandma didn't know what to call them. Besides that, some of them were missing. Just not there and never were.
In those days my car could find it's own way to the orthodontist's office. I knew which magazines he subscribed to and how often he redecorated. His receptionist was on a first-name basis with my dog, the only member of the family with straight teeth.
I think we missed something like twenty appointments during my time in the the orthodontic years, but my percentages were pretty good. And the orthodontist didn't complain. We were his bread and butter. In fact he probably had me to thank for that boat in his garage, and when he saw mouths five through seven he probably saw luxury cars and European vacations. Cruise tickets traded for tin grins.
For the privilege of living with teenagers who wouldn't smile, wouldn't eat in public and avoided half of the foods available for human consumption, I paid that kind of money. And those are only some of the disadvantages.
After the patient passes through the brace phase, he moves into the retainer phase of orthodontic treatment. Retainers are something designed to help keep teeth straight when the braces come off. You pay a lot for them and then keep them on the bathroom counter where they function as room decor, except for when you keep them in a pocket or on the floor beside the bed. The last two places serve to keep the retainer new as it will have to be replaced if it is sat upon, washed in the washing machine, or stepped upon. Furthermore, you simply cannot display a broken retainer on the bathroom counter.
I know where you should keep a retainer, but who am I? I only paid for them. Should I have taken the retainers to work or school or wherever the mouth in question was? Well, I couldn't tell whose was whose. How could I give a retainer to a teenager who already had one in his mouth? But don't doubt my commitment. I have been known to beg the school lunch ladies for permission to go through the garbage in hopes of finding a retainer that might have been scraped off a tray.
I used to wish that the Granola movement would gain enough ground that naturally occurring teeth placement would be more desirable than artificial alignment. But no, the movement got a little bit lost when it came to physical appearances.
I'm not sure I would want to be launching teenagers these days. Too many things could be out of alignment. However, if I were to be text messaging my kids about the location of their retainers, my reminders might look like this: :-)$$) ?
Childhood diseases, my own and my kids', are behind me. I have lived through the sleepless years, when I had babies. And I have lived through the teenage years. My own were not nearly so hard on me as my kids' were.
Altogether, I have launched seven children into their teenage years, prepared or otherwise. They all made their first trip to the DMV. They all went to prom once or twice. They all went to a few concerts. And we have been to see the orthodontist approximately 353 times.
The concerts and prom I could handle, and I could cope with most of the other milestones associated with the teenage years. I still clench my teeth when I think about the orthodontics chapter of my life, though.
This is what kind of luck I had: the first three kids all had too many teeth for their mouths, or more precisely, teeth too big to fit in there. (Grandma called those kind of teeth butter paddles.)
When the fourth child came, I thought I had it made. She had actual spaces between her baby teeth. For her first six years, I thought I was going to get $2,500 ahead in life thanks to this child's big mouth. Not a chance. Her permanent teeth were tiny little chiclets which didn't begin to fill up all that space. Grandma didn't know what to call them. Besides that, some of them were missing. Just not there and never were.
In those days my car could find it's own way to the orthodontist's office. I knew which magazines he subscribed to and how often he redecorated. His receptionist was on a first-name basis with my dog, the only member of the family with straight teeth.
I think we missed something like twenty appointments during my time in the the orthodontic years, but my percentages were pretty good. And the orthodontist didn't complain. We were his bread and butter. In fact he probably had me to thank for that boat in his garage, and when he saw mouths five through seven he probably saw luxury cars and European vacations. Cruise tickets traded for tin grins.
For the privilege of living with teenagers who wouldn't smile, wouldn't eat in public and avoided half of the foods available for human consumption, I paid that kind of money. And those are only some of the disadvantages.
After the patient passes through the brace phase, he moves into the retainer phase of orthodontic treatment. Retainers are something designed to help keep teeth straight when the braces come off. You pay a lot for them and then keep them on the bathroom counter where they function as room decor, except for when you keep them in a pocket or on the floor beside the bed. The last two places serve to keep the retainer new as it will have to be replaced if it is sat upon, washed in the washing machine, or stepped upon. Furthermore, you simply cannot display a broken retainer on the bathroom counter.
I know where you should keep a retainer, but who am I? I only paid for them. Should I have taken the retainers to work or school or wherever the mouth in question was? Well, I couldn't tell whose was whose. How could I give a retainer to a teenager who already had one in his mouth? But don't doubt my commitment. I have been known to beg the school lunch ladies for permission to go through the garbage in hopes of finding a retainer that might have been scraped off a tray.
I used to wish that the Granola movement would gain enough ground that naturally occurring teeth placement would be more desirable than artificial alignment. But no, the movement got a little bit lost when it came to physical appearances.
I'm not sure I would want to be launching teenagers these days. Too many things could be out of alignment. However, if I were to be text messaging my kids about the location of their retainers, my reminders might look like this: :-)$$) ?
It's Pinewood Derby time!
Once in a while, someone comes up with an activity that is so good that it is simply repeated until it becomes a classic. When it is that good, sooner or later it is going to spread to other platforms. Next week I get to compete in one of those great all-American cultural events, the Pinewood Derby. By the way, the first Pinewood Derby was held in 1953.
I have a box of Derby parts right here on the counter. I suppose it will take some creative force to turn those wheels, axles, and block of wood into a racing machine. I further suppose that creativity is one ingredient. However, the main element is speed.
If you have built more than one Pinewood Derby car, you have begun to realize that there is more involved than sanding, painting and pressing on the wheels. To get the picture, you have to understand that this event usually involves men, boys and wheels, a combination that is going to produce a compulsion to engineer the fastest car—on earth.
Boys are born with the ability to run, chase one another, ride bikes, scooters and skate boards and they never tire of doing it. When they become men, they find that running and bike-riding are a bit tiring after all, so they turn to buying or building cars that will accomplish the same thing with less effort. Sort of.
I suspect that Detroit has a complement of engineers who were Cub Scouts in their youth because they would then have been exposed early on to the kind of grit and determination that is required to compete in the world of building cars, of whatever kind.
At any rate, this is serious business. A reading of the Pinewood Derby Times (I'm not kidding), along with some other high-tech websites, can keep one up on the “sport.” I had already heard about the innovation of digital electronic tracks. I just recently learned about the latest remake of the wheels.
I don't know whether they were designed for maximum velocity or increased gas mileage, but their arrival on the racing scene apparently made quite a stir. In fact, when they were released, they could be purchased separately in case buyers were unable to find a car kit with the newer wheel package. The word on the street is that an axle change is in the works as well.
There is a thriving after-market parts business as well. In fact you can buy kits with a finished body. You just apply the wheels. However, you could do that with the standard issue BSA kit and do just as well, I understand from The Times. Apparently aerodynamics has little to do with it. It is the polishing of the axles and weighting of the cars that gives them the competitive edge.
Unveiling your own revolutionary and successful model car depends on planning and secrecy. If you have the design of the decade, you don't want someone else having it as well. So men and boys plan and scheme in cluttered shops. They melt lead ingots in tuna fish cans, weigh their cars on postage scales, mix paints on plastic lids and dream of trophies. (I honestly don't know how these cars pass EPA standards what with lead and paint in the same sentence.)
When they meet on the streets, men casually ask one another, “So how's your car coming? You got a good model this year? “
“Naw, I don't think the wheels will stay on.” This is derby talk for what the engineer really means which is something like “Just you wait. We are going to kick your trash this year. You will eat our dust.”
I tried to think of a funny story about Pinewood Derby racing, but there aren't any. I may have one or two to tell after the girls, moms and grandmoms compete in a couple of weeks; but like I said, this is serious business. A lost race can only be remedied by doing better the next year. But a whole year of ignominy is hard to bear. It's a good thing that Mr. B. and I are in this together. If the wheels fall off, we can console one another while we wait for the next Derby.
I have a box of Derby parts right here on the counter. I suppose it will take some creative force to turn those wheels, axles, and block of wood into a racing machine. I further suppose that creativity is one ingredient. However, the main element is speed.
If you have built more than one Pinewood Derby car, you have begun to realize that there is more involved than sanding, painting and pressing on the wheels. To get the picture, you have to understand that this event usually involves men, boys and wheels, a combination that is going to produce a compulsion to engineer the fastest car—on earth.
Boys are born with the ability to run, chase one another, ride bikes, scooters and skate boards and they never tire of doing it. When they become men, they find that running and bike-riding are a bit tiring after all, so they turn to buying or building cars that will accomplish the same thing with less effort. Sort of.
I suspect that Detroit has a complement of engineers who were Cub Scouts in their youth because they would then have been exposed early on to the kind of grit and determination that is required to compete in the world of building cars, of whatever kind.
At any rate, this is serious business. A reading of the Pinewood Derby Times (I'm not kidding), along with some other high-tech websites, can keep one up on the “sport.” I had already heard about the innovation of digital electronic tracks. I just recently learned about the latest remake of the wheels.
I don't know whether they were designed for maximum velocity or increased gas mileage, but their arrival on the racing scene apparently made quite a stir. In fact, when they were released, they could be purchased separately in case buyers were unable to find a car kit with the newer wheel package. The word on the street is that an axle change is in the works as well.
There is a thriving after-market parts business as well. In fact you can buy kits with a finished body. You just apply the wheels. However, you could do that with the standard issue BSA kit and do just as well, I understand from The Times. Apparently aerodynamics has little to do with it. It is the polishing of the axles and weighting of the cars that gives them the competitive edge.
Unveiling your own revolutionary and successful model car depends on planning and secrecy. If you have the design of the decade, you don't want someone else having it as well. So men and boys plan and scheme in cluttered shops. They melt lead ingots in tuna fish cans, weigh their cars on postage scales, mix paints on plastic lids and dream of trophies. (I honestly don't know how these cars pass EPA standards what with lead and paint in the same sentence.)
When they meet on the streets, men casually ask one another, “So how's your car coming? You got a good model this year? “
“Naw, I don't think the wheels will stay on.” This is derby talk for what the engineer really means which is something like “Just you wait. We are going to kick your trash this year. You will eat our dust.”
I tried to think of a funny story about Pinewood Derby racing, but there aren't any. I may have one or two to tell after the girls, moms and grandmoms compete in a couple of weeks; but like I said, this is serious business. A lost race can only be remedied by doing better the next year. But a whole year of ignominy is hard to bear. It's a good thing that Mr. B. and I are in this together. If the wheels fall off, we can console one another while we wait for the next Derby.
Passwords do deny access
If you think that a password is something Gandalf or forty thieves speak to the face of a stone wall in an effort to open up secret doors to mysterious caverns, you are having serious reality issues.
If you think that a password is a series of letters/numbers which when typed into the password space on an internet site will result in the immediate opening of websites for your use and entertainment, you are probably full-on schizophrenic. To your credit, if you are thinking in those terms, you may be allowed to use your name and “geek” in the same paragraph, but being geeky has nothing to do with it.
Typing any combination of letters/numbers invariably returns the same message, “the password you entered is incorrect,” followed by the line (in happy blue type), “forget your password?” You will also be reminded that your password is case sensitive which means that you will have to be in tight control of your caps lock key.
“Who me? Of course I didn't forget my password.” A second more carefully typed entry will return the same message 99 percent of the time. Occasionally, if you hold your mouth right, the Entry Nazi will let you in.
A third try works about half the time. If by the third try you are still on the outside, you may have to concede that you did forget your password. To remedy that situation, you probably begin to sift through all of your password possibilities.
Entering passwords in not only a test of your memory, but your persistence also. “Let's see, for internet shopping sites, I always use the name and age of my third grandchild. Or wait, was it my shoe size, or my hat size? Was that backward or forward? I'll try my hat size, 7-&-3-4.”
“No, I didn't think so. Okay I'll look it up.”
At this point you consult your cryptic sticky note collection which is inconveniently stuck to the bottom of your keyboard. Unfortunately the note you need is a little too cryptic or msising. The rest are the kind of notes that any kindergartner could use to rob your bank account and buy you a couple of high-tech Lego sets. Under your keyboard will be the second place he will look for your passwords, too.
If you are trying to get innto one of those high profile, high-security websites, like a bank site, by guessing the password, you are going to be in trouble. Three strikes and you are out on those sites. You will be getting a phone call to warn you that someone is trying to hack into your bank account. You will be feeling incredibly silly when you have to admit that it was only you.
If you think that using your own passwords is tricky, just wait until someone e-mails you a locked text file, which feat he will be able to accomplish without any real intent on his part. Try figuring out someone else's passwords. Maybe it's the name of his dog.
“S-P-O-T. T-R-E-Y. Okay, I'll call him.” Joe, this file is locked. What's the password?”
“What password? You need a password? How come you need a password? Try S-P-O-T.”
How do I know all this? I listen a lot. And I forget my passwords a lot. And no, they are not stuck to the bottom of my keyboard. They are stuck in the first place my grandkids would look.
One thing is in our favor though. Most people are too busy trying to remember their own passwords to want to work on ours.
If you think that a password is a series of letters/numbers which when typed into the password space on an internet site will result in the immediate opening of websites for your use and entertainment, you are probably full-on schizophrenic. To your credit, if you are thinking in those terms, you may be allowed to use your name and “geek” in the same paragraph, but being geeky has nothing to do with it.
Typing any combination of letters/numbers invariably returns the same message, “the password you entered is incorrect,” followed by the line (in happy blue type), “forget your password?” You will also be reminded that your password is case sensitive which means that you will have to be in tight control of your caps lock key.
“Who me? Of course I didn't forget my password.” A second more carefully typed entry will return the same message 99 percent of the time. Occasionally, if you hold your mouth right, the Entry Nazi will let you in.
A third try works about half the time. If by the third try you are still on the outside, you may have to concede that you did forget your password. To remedy that situation, you probably begin to sift through all of your password possibilities.
Entering passwords in not only a test of your memory, but your persistence also. “Let's see, for internet shopping sites, I always use the name and age of my third grandchild. Or wait, was it my shoe size, or my hat size? Was that backward or forward? I'll try my hat size, 7-&-3-4.”
“No, I didn't think so. Okay I'll look it up.”
At this point you consult your cryptic sticky note collection which is inconveniently stuck to the bottom of your keyboard. Unfortunately the note you need is a little too cryptic or msising. The rest are the kind of notes that any kindergartner could use to rob your bank account and buy you a couple of high-tech Lego sets. Under your keyboard will be the second place he will look for your passwords, too.
If you are trying to get innto one of those high profile, high-security websites, like a bank site, by guessing the password, you are going to be in trouble. Three strikes and you are out on those sites. You will be getting a phone call to warn you that someone is trying to hack into your bank account. You will be feeling incredibly silly when you have to admit that it was only you.
If you think that using your own passwords is tricky, just wait until someone e-mails you a locked text file, which feat he will be able to accomplish without any real intent on his part. Try figuring out someone else's passwords. Maybe it's the name of his dog.
“S-P-O-T. T-R-E-Y. Okay, I'll call him.” Joe, this file is locked. What's the password?”
“What password? You need a password? How come you need a password? Try S-P-O-T.”
How do I know all this? I listen a lot. And I forget my passwords a lot. And no, they are not stuck to the bottom of my keyboard. They are stuck in the first place my grandkids would look.
One thing is in our favor though. Most people are too busy trying to remember their own passwords to want to work on ours.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
We're not lost. There’s a 7-11
One of the tasks that guys are inherently incapable of performing is asking for directions. There seems to be only one reason for this incapacity which is a fear of admitting to being lost. Never mind that they are lost; that is irrelevant.
Why "lost" is such a problem for men is unknown. Even guys don’t know why they can’t admit to being lost.
But the unnatural phenomenon explains why men have such a fascination with Google Earth, GPSs and maps in general. It doesn’t explain why they are occasionally lost, however.
Guys don’t even want a girl who is with them to ask for directions. They will wander in circles. driving both counter- and -clockwise, past the same neighborhood convenience store several times and refuse to stop and let her walk inside to ask for directions.
Maybe they have heard women use that query as a pickup line a few too many times to let their spouse or girlfriend use it for locating an actual destination. I don’t know.
Also, I suspect that sometimes the guy doesn’t actually want to find the spot in question—like when it is the location of Great Aunt Polly’s 80th birthday celebration or the handbag store.
Nevertheless, men tackle the problem of being lost by driving around in circles, while women ask for directions. Of course women will want to know the answer in terms of landmarks, not in terms of GPS coordinates or compass points. Say "over by that Maverik station," not "west on 500 South."
So as I was looking for reasons for the behavior in question, I checked some online references and found the following news story:
BALTIMORE -- Baltimore City police arrested a Virginia couple over the weekend after they asked an officer for directions. WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team reporter David Collins said Joshua Kelly and Llara Brook, of Chantilly, Va., got lost leaving an Orioles game on Saturday. Collins reported a city officer arrested them for trespassing on a public street while they were asking for directions…
Collins said somehow they ended up in the Cherry Hill section of south Baltimore. Hopelessly lost, relief melted away concerns after they spotted a police vehicle.
"I said, ‘Thank goodness, could you please get us to 95?" Kelly said.
"The first thing that she said to us was no -- you just ran that stop sign, pull over," Brook said. "It wasn’t a big deal. We’ll pay the stop sign violation, but can we have directions?"
"What she said was ‘You found your own way in here, you can find your own way out.’" Kelly said.
Collins said the couple spotted another police vehicle and flagged that officer down for directions. But Officer Natalie Preston, a six-year veteran of the force, intervened.
"…the officer screeched up behind us and got out of the car and asked me to step out. I obeyed," Kelly said. "I obeyed everything -- stepped out of the car, put my hands behind my back, and the next thing I know, I was getting arrested for trespassing."
"By this time, I was completely in tears," Brook said. "I said, ‘Ma’am, you know, we just need your help. We are not trying to cause you any trouble. I’m not leaving him here.’ What she did was walk over to my side of the car and said, ‘Ok, we are taking you downtown, too.’"
Okay, alright. Maybe I will have to rethink my strategy for finding places. Maybe the fear men have of asking for directions has a completely sensible underlying rationale: what they really fear is spending a night in jaul, with or without their wives or girlfriends. I can’t fault that.
Why "lost" is such a problem for men is unknown. Even guys don’t know why they can’t admit to being lost.
But the unnatural phenomenon explains why men have such a fascination with Google Earth, GPSs and maps in general. It doesn’t explain why they are occasionally lost, however.
Guys don’t even want a girl who is with them to ask for directions. They will wander in circles. driving both counter- and -clockwise, past the same neighborhood convenience store several times and refuse to stop and let her walk inside to ask for directions.
Maybe they have heard women use that query as a pickup line a few too many times to let their spouse or girlfriend use it for locating an actual destination. I don’t know.
Also, I suspect that sometimes the guy doesn’t actually want to find the spot in question—like when it is the location of Great Aunt Polly’s 80th birthday celebration or the handbag store.
Nevertheless, men tackle the problem of being lost by driving around in circles, while women ask for directions. Of course women will want to know the answer in terms of landmarks, not in terms of GPS coordinates or compass points. Say "over by that Maverik station," not "west on 500 South."
So as I was looking for reasons for the behavior in question, I checked some online references and found the following news story:
BALTIMORE -- Baltimore City police arrested a Virginia couple over the weekend after they asked an officer for directions. WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team reporter David Collins said Joshua Kelly and Llara Brook, of Chantilly, Va., got lost leaving an Orioles game on Saturday. Collins reported a city officer arrested them for trespassing on a public street while they were asking for directions…
Collins said somehow they ended up in the Cherry Hill section of south Baltimore. Hopelessly lost, relief melted away concerns after they spotted a police vehicle.
"I said, ‘Thank goodness, could you please get us to 95?" Kelly said.
"The first thing that she said to us was no -- you just ran that stop sign, pull over," Brook said. "It wasn’t a big deal. We’ll pay the stop sign violation, but can we have directions?"
"What she said was ‘You found your own way in here, you can find your own way out.’" Kelly said.
Collins said the couple spotted another police vehicle and flagged that officer down for directions. But Officer Natalie Preston, a six-year veteran of the force, intervened.
"…the officer screeched up behind us and got out of the car and asked me to step out. I obeyed," Kelly said. "I obeyed everything -- stepped out of the car, put my hands behind my back, and the next thing I know, I was getting arrested for trespassing."
"By this time, I was completely in tears," Brook said. "I said, ‘Ma’am, you know, we just need your help. We are not trying to cause you any trouble. I’m not leaving him here.’ What she did was walk over to my side of the car and said, ‘Ok, we are taking you downtown, too.’"
Okay, alright. Maybe I will have to rethink my strategy for finding places. Maybe the fear men have of asking for directions has a completely sensible underlying rationale: what they really fear is spending a night in jaul, with or without their wives or girlfriends. I can’t fault that.
Cooling heels in the well house
I have a friend who was widowed a year and a half ago. She has always been a pretty capable person. She can sing and dance, act, and play a musical instrument and do several other things that are above and beyond the call of duty. Additionally, she can cook and clean, and pay the bills on time. She is literally a soccer mom and she manages a household of mostly girls.
So since she has started checking a different marital status box on her medical and banking records, she has had to learn to do a little bit different set of chores around the house. Things like hang the Christmas lights, and run the snow blower.
To say the least I am proud of her self-sufficiency. She uses the snow blower to clean the driveway, and the tractor to hang the lights, and not the other way around. In fact she uses that tractor for all kinds of chores. Hey, she could teach tractor classes.
So the other day she went out to change the filter on the pump in her well house. I am impressed. Some of you out there don’t know whether you have a well house, let alone where it is. Well, she does and she has learned to change the filter.
But when her late husband built the well house, he didn’t have his wife’s capabilities in mind.
First, it is a huge stretch of the imagination to call this structure a well house—about the same stretch we use in calling the old outdoor toilet an outhouse. There isn’t much “house” about this well house. I don’t think it even has four walls. It is circular in shape, and I know it doesn’t have a roof.
I haven’t actually seen this well house. Unlike the visible portion of the outhouse, it is about six feet underground. And it can’t be seen from the road, the sidewalk, or the driveway
Well, in order to keep anyone from accidentally falling into the well house, my friend’s husband made a heavy round lid for the top of it. He made it so heavy that no mischievous child would be able up and edge and put a firecracker under it either. (I am picturing an extra heavy-duty manhole cover here.) Needless to say, it is too heavy for my friend, as well as eighty percent of the rest of the world’s population to lift.
And so a neighborhood handyman modified the lid so that with her tractor and a chain, my friend can lift the lid with the tractor’s bucket and then do whatever it is people do in well houses, in this case, change the filter.
So on the day in question, she got one end of the chain on the tractor and the other end on the lid which she raised with the bucket. Then she climbed the ladder down into the well house. She had barely put one foot on the well house floor when she heard the rattle of the chain slipping followed by the clang of the lid falling right into its appointed place.
That was when my friend departed from her normal self-sufficient character and did what women usually do when there is danger near. First she began to scream. Second she began to hyperventilate and scream which caused her heart rate to be a consideration.
Next she thought “My gosh, what am I doing? I have to quit screaming and hyperventilating, I am using up all of the oxygen. I am going to die down here if I don’t scream, but I am going to die sooner if I do.”
I am glad to say that her self-sufficient nature began to reassert itself in a short time and she was beginning to have a rational thought or two by the time help arrived, which was quickly.
But in the event that you think you might react the same way in this situation, assuming that you have an underground well house and you need to change your filter, just understand that her initial primitive reaction was very helpful.
Her screams woke one daughter and the clang of the “trap door” alerted the other. The one with skills of her own flew out the door, and after upending in a snow bank in her hurry, reattached the chain and raised the bucket in time to narrowly avert the occurrence of death by whatever means imaginable.
So since she has started checking a different marital status box on her medical and banking records, she has had to learn to do a little bit different set of chores around the house. Things like hang the Christmas lights, and run the snow blower.
To say the least I am proud of her self-sufficiency. She uses the snow blower to clean the driveway, and the tractor to hang the lights, and not the other way around. In fact she uses that tractor for all kinds of chores. Hey, she could teach tractor classes.
So the other day she went out to change the filter on the pump in her well house. I am impressed. Some of you out there don’t know whether you have a well house, let alone where it is. Well, she does and she has learned to change the filter.
But when her late husband built the well house, he didn’t have his wife’s capabilities in mind.
First, it is a huge stretch of the imagination to call this structure a well house—about the same stretch we use in calling the old outdoor toilet an outhouse. There isn’t much “house” about this well house. I don’t think it even has four walls. It is circular in shape, and I know it doesn’t have a roof.
I haven’t actually seen this well house. Unlike the visible portion of the outhouse, it is about six feet underground. And it can’t be seen from the road, the sidewalk, or the driveway
Well, in order to keep anyone from accidentally falling into the well house, my friend’s husband made a heavy round lid for the top of it. He made it so heavy that no mischievous child would be able up and edge and put a firecracker under it either. (I am picturing an extra heavy-duty manhole cover here.) Needless to say, it is too heavy for my friend, as well as eighty percent of the rest of the world’s population to lift.
And so a neighborhood handyman modified the lid so that with her tractor and a chain, my friend can lift the lid with the tractor’s bucket and then do whatever it is people do in well houses, in this case, change the filter.
So on the day in question, she got one end of the chain on the tractor and the other end on the lid which she raised with the bucket. Then she climbed the ladder down into the well house. She had barely put one foot on the well house floor when she heard the rattle of the chain slipping followed by the clang of the lid falling right into its appointed place.
That was when my friend departed from her normal self-sufficient character and did what women usually do when there is danger near. First she began to scream. Second she began to hyperventilate and scream which caused her heart rate to be a consideration.
Next she thought “My gosh, what am I doing? I have to quit screaming and hyperventilating, I am using up all of the oxygen. I am going to die down here if I don’t scream, but I am going to die sooner if I do.”
I am glad to say that her self-sufficient nature began to reassert itself in a short time and she was beginning to have a rational thought or two by the time help arrived, which was quickly.
But in the event that you think you might react the same way in this situation, assuming that you have an underground well house and you need to change your filter, just understand that her initial primitive reaction was very helpful.
Her screams woke one daughter and the clang of the “trap door” alerted the other. The one with skills of her own flew out the door, and after upending in a snow bank in her hurry, reattached the chain and raised the bucket in time to narrowly avert the occurrence of death by whatever means imaginable.
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