June 1, 2010
The Sad Tale of Lloyd and Agnes Smithers
After the kids were grown, Lloyd had hoped that Agnes might take up something sensible, like crocheting, or perhaps acting in local theater productions, but she latched onto mixed martial arts, became a ninja, and all Lloyd sees of her anymore is this, her shadow of doom. "She now sleeps standing up," Lloyd added, "in the corner, behind the curtains. Is this normal? I'm serious. What the bleep happened to Agnes? Good god, I need help here." The end.
June 2, 2010
What's so great about history and the need to know it? Isn't history just baggage? Events of another time - and other people - dragged forward and shoehorned into today's values, culture and mores, basically as something to be exploited to support a current agenda. Yes? And you know why history continually repeats itself? Because the former history has no relevance to today's events. Why? OTHER PEOPLE LIVED THOSE EVENTS, created those events, and learned from those events, but only in those times. Life and learning are experiential. History, if not personally lived, is intellectual. So we think we're so modern, and that just by knowing the history it will somehow help us to avoid the same fate. But we end up recreating these same events, in our own time, regardless of who did what before us. We never learn history's lesson for ourselves, until we repeat it and live it for ourselves. So history continually repeats itself. But what if we didn't have this intellectual history? What if we woke up tomorrow without all the baggage of someone else's lessons in time? Wouldn't that be freeing, wouldn't we be more open, might we not have different experiences as a result? I'm just sayin'...
June 3, 2010
So I was spinning thoughts in my head and came up with an outrageous scenario for something that I've been working on. It's an amazing win-win-win plan, but it's so outrageous that no one would believe that someone would or could do this. Of course, I find that rather motivational, somewhat compelling, and um, so far so good.
Is it just me or have standards slipped? When your Rolls is this filthy, shouldn't you admonish/fire/torture the chauffeur? Is there no pride in the ruling class anymore?
June 5, 2010
One of the dogs got me up at about 3AM to go out to pee, but the most wonderous and surprising part was that outside, a songbird was singing! In the middle of the night! 'Twas perfectly lovely. This treat was so unexpected and charming, it was as if I was being wished a happy birthday from the universe.
June 6, 2010
I was up mowing walking paths in our field when I spotted a coyote that was inside the fence and unable to find its way out. On my way around I stopped at every gate and opened it so the little fellow could escape. Except what happened was, he started following the tractor and would walk right by an open gate. After he passed the 3rd opening to leave and didn't, I realized the only way to get him out of the field was to drive the tractor out of the field and hope that he followed. I did, he did. Then I drove back around our place and closed all the gates. Ah, the rural life.
June 7, 2010
I'm at the fence talking with one neighbor who starts gossiping about another neighbor and I have to put my hand up to stop him. "I don't care," I inform him. And it was 100% true. Unfortunately, my gossip refusal created a life threatening clot in my neighbor. Unable to spill the juicy details of his hearsay and innuendo, he looked like he was about to rupture from the inside out. His face got all red and his breathing was ragged and I could see that the unspoken would soon be too much for him to keep inside. He was ready to burst, so I excused myself before he exploded and made a mess.
June 9, 2010
Cresting a rise in our road the dogs and I encounter three matronly type gals in fake grass skirts walking in single file down the middle of the road. All of them have on these elaborate headdress thingies, and one is talking on a cell phone. The dogs, intrigued but also kind of spooked, can't stop staring at them. I'm not sure but I think I detect a limp from the cell phone woman who appears to be afraid of the dogs and tries to hurry past them using an edgy, broken gaited, awkward half-hobble, which only succeeds in heightening the dogs awareness of how weird this is. Because not a word is exchanged between any of us - grass skirts, freaky headwear, single file down the middle of the road - what to make of that?
June 10, 2010
Question: Given King Tut's appreciation of bling, if he didn't reincarnate as a king (and thus able to afford the real stuff), might he not come back today as a super cool instant rapper? For only $9.98?
June 11, 2010
Whoa, check this out! Look what was discovered this very morning by some guy at a Moncton garage sale - an original King Tut mask complete with diamond grill! I must be prescient! All the experts have weighed in and everyone agrees that he looks impossibly gangster. Now maybe people will listen a little bit more when I start to, you know, ruminate on stuff.
June 12, 2010
Do I draw these people to me? I was stopped by a tourist from Belgium who wanted to know where the best Chinese restaurant in town was. He told me that he could tell a lot about the place he was in by the Chinese food he ate there. Say what? "Oh yes," he let on, "a great Chinese restaurant experience is completely defining because they've been perfecting food for 5,000 years. So if I eat bad Chinese food at the best restaurant in town, I know that the town is underdeveloped, struggling, possibly even mildly retarded." Wha'? He went on to explain how Belgium has produced many free thinkers such as himself, Audrey Hepburn and Eddy Merckx. He threw in that the newly elected President of Europe was also Belgian, "and a guy partial to Chinese food, just like me! You can't plan something like that." Wow. I honestly don't know if my mouth was open or not.
June 13, 2010
The beautiful game is front and center in South Africa, the impact of which was apparent in the opening moments of the first World Cup match, when Africa, quite literally, introduced to the world a new buzz word: vuvuzela.
June 14, 2010
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIThe TUCKER & SOPHIE & MADDIE ChroniclesIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
It's time to go for a walk. Sophie decides she's not interested and stays home. Maddie, Tucker and I go up to our field. In our absence, Sophie starts to howl. The entire walk we hear her mournful call, which translates roughly into, Everybody's gone. I'm all alone... This breaks Maddie's heart and she wants to go home and console her sister. Maddie and Sophie reunite like they haven't seen each other in a decade. I rejoin Tuck up in the field to finish our walk. When we return, both girls are waiting for us at the gate, together again, happy again.
June 15, 2010
From happy dogs to this: the barometric pressure has dropped, the girls are acting high strung and nervous, thunder and lightning look imminent. I'm afraid I can't be my usual madcap self this morn as my attention is focused upon our emotionally heightened malamutes- drat! Did you hear that? The girls did; they're stampeding for cover. If you'll excuse me...
June 16, 2010
If you can look at a dog and not feel vicarious excitement and affection, you must be a cat. - Author Unknown
June 17, 2010
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIThe TUCKER & SOPHIE & MADDIE ChroniclesIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
I finished an out of town meeting and was on my way home when I stopped to pick up a guy hitchhiking with his dog. Arriving at my exit I dropped them off and returned home. Later that afternoon, I loaded up the beasts to go into town, but as soon as our malamutes got in the truck, they went crazy smelling the hitchhiker's dog. Their space had been invaded! Super excited, they kept sniffing and looking out the windows to see where the dog who made these smells had gone, but worse, all three of them had to fight the urge to pee in the vehicle to mark their territory - so much so that I had to unload them back into the yard to afford them the opportunity to say, This is Mine!, in an appropriate location. Done, they clambered back in the truck and the whole way into town kept an eagle eye out for the cheeky mystery pooch. It was, of course, so very cute.
Susan's spiffy new Tablet computer arrived. I spent a day and a half setting it up and then two more days messing with the wireless adapter. It was wonky, inconsistent and failed repeatedly. Finally, after nothing worked, I had to call tech support. It took 30 minutes to determine there was a corruption in the adapter, 20 minutes while tech support tried to figure out how to deal with it, 15 more minutes for me to copy down his instructions on the fix, and then once we hung up, another two hours on my part to implement the elaborate measures necessary to remedy the issue without sending the machine back to Asia. At midnight, I finally got it all to work properly. Yea me. I can truthfully say that my fingerprints are now all over Susan's new computer, both inside and out.
June 20, 2010
I was all outraged earlier, I can tell you that - buffoons! - but I'm down to a low simmer now, time heals, still, my indignation over suffering fools could easily erupt into a red hot boil should the occasion call for it. Frankly, I've no patience with the incompetent, the ridiculous, the superficial and the bureaucratic (the 4 horsemen of boobery). It's to these people I solemnly warn, Stand back! To everybody else, I'm in a pretty good mood actually.
June 21, 2010
We've all seen individual case mods that are creative,
crazy,
and beautiful,
so why doesn't a computer company search the Internet for the coolest ones, license them, reproduce them, and sell a readymade line of awesome looking cases to the general public who want something more than the ubiquitous black or beige computer box? There's only hundreds of millions of us using computers. Should be some interest, eh? I should write a letter.
June 22, 2010
I watched this aged woman and her aged golden retriever walking slowly, side by side, down the street. It was unbelievably poignant.
June 23, 2010
The Internet has been off and on all morning. When it's on, I'm a click away from all the others on this wonderous planet; without the Internet, it's just moi, sans compatriots, distractions, information, instant communications. Yup, just me, holed up by myself, in my office, working working working, by myself, all alone, without anyone else, all by myself. Frankly, it's just like the 1600s or something, without the Inquisition.
June 24, 2010
Is today Thursday? Really, already? Yikes. Susan is returning from a lengthy trip on Thursday, today, yikes. Two yikes because I'm looking around and am appalled by the sheer dishevelment - the laundry, the dishes, the vacuuming, the disarray. I glance outside. The lawn hasn't been mowed in...um...yes, there are signs of neglect everywhere. Sadly, these orphaned children of entropy will not fix themselves. I, the creator of all things messy, must roll the clock back to a neater time. Before thy wife arrives. We are not amused. Ta.
June 25, 2010
Plucky is not a word used often. Plucky is rare, like seeing a UFO, or a politician who doesn't lie and cheat and isn't a scumbag. That's really all I had to say.
June 26, 2010
I was in the grocery store, had forgotten to bring the shopping list, and couldn't remember a single item on it. I was standing at the beginning of an aisle scanning the shelves to see if my memory might be jogged, when a clerk asked if he could help me. I told him I was dithering. He laughed and said that in real life he had never heard someone use that word before. Jeez, in the last two days, plucky and dither. What's happening to me?
June 27, 2010
It was the darndest thing. John took this picture in North America and then flew to New Zealand,
and found that by the time he arrived in the southern hemisphere, his picture looked like this:
It sure was a head scratcher, but then John remembered that he wasn't a professional photographer or anything.
June 28, 2010
It's tourist season here in beautiful British Columbia. Usually they're just regular everyday folk, but occasionally someone with fame passes through. I know this because I was breathlessly informed by a grocery store cashier that Sarah McLachlan had passed through her till no more than an hour ago. The cashier demonstrated on me how she had actually touched Sarah's hand when she returned her change. It was amazing! finished the still breathless cashier. And to think that I had touched the hand that had touched Sarah. Wow.
June 29, 2010
I've a couple of different fights brewing today. One is about money and the other is about doing what's right. My opposition are entrenched. Though these two issues are not related, both engender equal parts stress and anxiety, and each has the real possibility of becoming a lose-lose proposition in the end. The worst kind. Times two. Sigh.
June 30, 2010
I want to run a Cat 6 Ethernet cable from a router to a fixed computer on another floor in another part of the building that Wi-Fi has trouble reaching. My choices are to drill into the ceiling, run the cable up through the attic, across it, and then down two floors into the specified room; or drill through the exterior wall behind the router, run the cable outside the building, and then drill back through the brick exterior wall into the designated room; or finally, drill through the floor into the crawl space, run the cable, and then drill up through the computer room a couple of hundred feet away. In examining my options, it appears that the common denominator here is to drill. Cool.
