Month: October 2023

Monday’s Wandering Thoughts

Watching an NFL football game on television yesterday, I heard the analyst say about a running play where the team lost yardage, “He ended up with a negative loss.”

That spun my thinking. I’d never heard it before during a football game. Hearing it prompted me to wonder, can a football team have a positive loss? It seemed like a screwy way to express the results.

I can imagine some football fans trying to come up with a way to establish a negative loss. Like, not only did they lose yardage, but the clock kept running, meaning that they’re running out of time. That means, with the score as it is, they’ll probably lose because they’re behind and not much time to play remains.

That sounds like modern NFL football, convoluted and a little contorted, becoming more abstract by the week.

For instance, on a quarterback sneak, it looked like the player was stopped short of the goal line. It was fourth down, so that team turned it over on downs.

But wait, it looked like the quarterback fumbled the ball and another player on his team recovered it, so it’s a touchdown.

No, the referee explained: “Only the person fumbling the ball may advance it. Therefore, the ball will be placed at the point of the fumble, and possession has changed due to loss of downs.”

Got that?

That wasn’t the end. The team who didn’t score — the Eagles, BTW — threw a red flag to challenge the result. That ended with the Eagles having a touchdown awarded them. That’s because, before the QB fumbled, the ball crossed the plane of the goal line before his body was down. Officials in New York figured that out by using multiple sychronized television angles to determine exactly where the ball and the QB’s body parts were during which point of the play.

Yow. Watching resulted in a positive increase of confusion AND exasperation.

Imagine trying to use ‘negative loss’ in other ways. I know that in some emotional situations, people like to express positive loss and negative loss, trying to spin, for example, someone’s death in a positive way. I have done that: “At least they’re not feeling pain.” I think that’s positioning a negative event with a positive outcome.

Drinking my coffee. I suppose I could say, “I’m going to drink more coffee, which will result in a negative loss of coffee in my mug.”

I wouldn’t, though. That’s laborious. I’d just say the obvious, “I’m going to drink more coffee, so there will be less remaining in my mug.” I could even shorten that: “I’m going to drink more coffee, so I’ll have less remaining.”

Or, I could tell my wife that after shopping for groceries, we had a negative loss in our checking account.

I’m sure that would earn me a WTF look from her.

Why, though, would such a declaration be even needed? Isn’t it self-evident that there’s less coffee after I drink some? I think it is, unless it’s a magically self-refilling cup. As for whether it’s positive or negative, that depends on your outlook: is the mug half-empty or half-full? Are you a pessimistic or optimist?

I don’t usually think in terms of glasses and mugs being half-empty or half-full. I usually think, “I have some left,” or, “It’s gone.” Does that mean that I’m just a pragmatist? Or am I merely focused on the situation’s bottom line: I have some or I don’t.

I’m no doubt overthinking the turn of words, but I hope ‘negative loss’ doesn’t catch on. It probably will, the way that saying, “I literally died” is now acceptable to so many. Sure. Now that you ‘literally died’, you’ve returned to life. Are you undead or have you been resurrected?

I suspect some became zombies after they ‘literally died’. That might explain our state of politics. *rim shot* (Yes, that was snark.) The ‘literally died’ lost some brain cells during their experience, negatively decreasing their thinking skills. (See what I did there?)

It’s like hearing, as I so often do, “I was thinking in my head.” Well, where else would you be thinking? In your foot?

That’s like saying, “I was chewing in my mouth.” Okay. I’m glad you’ve mastered that. (Yes, that was more snark.)

Although, after drinking coffee just now, I had a positive gain in my energy and focus. BTW, I drink my coffee black, without cream. (Hello, it’s more snark.)

It’s kinda like saying that football team had a negative loss.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: unenthusiastic

Monday came in for me like a snail runnin’ the hundred meters. It’s October 16, 2023.

53 F now in Ashlandia, where the wine is local and the Pinot Noir is pretty damn good. An unrelenting, unhappy wind is assailing us under a dull gray sky. Rain is due. Fall is assuming its familiar form. Leaves changed color and now they’re dropping off trees, piling up again curbs and in yards, and zipping past windows on a zephyr motor.

Birthdays are pending. Cards and gifts must be purchased and sent. October is our family’s heaviest birthday month, with one past and eight due.

Mom’s birthday is one of them. I’m not sure what to get her. Sitting and conversing at Empty Bowls on Friday, someone mentioned something. I said, “Maybe I should get that for Mom for her birthday.”

Beside me, my wife brightned. “That’s a great idea.”

Neither can remember what ‘it’ was. We’re still working on pulling it out of memory. Sometimes it takes two minds to remember things. LOL.

Still sick. Stayed in from writing yesterday. Mostly read and napped, watched some NFL football.

Sore throat is gone; yea. Energy, though, is really tanked. Like someone siphoned it away. Headache was there and ears were hurting this morning. But I drank coffee to kick start my energy. Surprise, the head and ear pains fled. So hurray for coffee, once again.

Locking into my mood, The Neurons have positioned “Ridin’ the Storm Out” by REO Speedwagon into the morning mental music stream (Trademark ignored). The 1981 song emerged when I was stationed with the Air Force on Okinawa, Japan.

Okinawa is a narrow island and subject to typhoons/tropical cyclones. These were often endured with ‘Phoon Parties’. You tape over and board over the windows with what you can find. Then you raid the booze store on base and the Commissary to buy provisions. While the aircraft were evacuated, we prepared to survive a few days, possibly without electricity.

My wife and I were fortunate in our first three years. We had a tiny off-base apartment in a tiny apartment building. The landlords lived on the bottom floor, and a dozen US couples lived in the apartments. During a ‘phoon, we could visit each other via the inside hallways, so we’d play games like Uno, or Trivial Pursuit, or visit to chat and borrows stuff.

Time to light this Monday. Stay pos, be strong, and keep well. Here’s the music. More coffee, stat. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: unenthusiastic

Sunday, 10/15/2023. 66 F now, 74 F later, sunny, bluish and grayish sky with some bleak, skulking clouds, blustery.

Based on symptoms and energy level, I apparently have a cold, which is shorting my energy. Guess it’s a cold: tired, scratchy eyes. Headache. Sore throat. Some sinus congestion. Good appetite, though. Sounds like a cold, doesn’t it?

Yes, it could be something else. This all started last week, on Wednesday. I tested negative for COVID yesterday.

In honor of my physical condition, The Neurons are playing the 1977 10cc song, “You’ve Got A Cold”, carrying it on in the afternoon after starting it in my morning mental music stream (Trademark strained). They may have tapped into something, right?

Stay positive and be strong. Here’s the video. Cheers

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The Declaration

I'm an independent floof, 
and I go at my own speed,
No matter what you plan to do,
Nor where you need to be.
Whether you’re taking me for a walk,
Or waiting for me to pee.
Or I'm getting up from slumber,
And demanding something to eat.
Even if I'm coming to see you,
Or you're coming to see me,
I'll select the gear I'll use,
And establish the speed it'll be.
You'll soon learn from whatever I’m doing,
Whether it’s sleeping in sunshine or in bed,
Or getting petted or kissed,
On my belly or my head. 
Or sitting and chewing,
Or flying or swimming, 
Or brooding and stewing,
Or complaining and pooing.
Or staring and listening,
At scary things in the night.
Or walking and talking,
And chasing things in flight.
Or meowing and purring,
Or barking or squawking,
Or kissing and squirming,
Or running and stopping.
I can’t be ordered to make it fast,
Nor told to slow down to make it last.
You can try, but you can't change me.
And though you keep trying, you'll eventually see.
When it comes to living and dying and all in between.
No matter the activity or who gets involved,
You have no choice,
But to go with my flow.

So when I get going

— If I do —

I'll go at my own speed.
And you will, too.
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Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts

I’ve been thinking about spiders the last few days.

I don’t love or hate spiders; they’re another critter inhabiting the spectrum of our existence. I’ve been thinking abut them more because we don’t kill spiders in our household. We co-exist with a decent size population of them, including black widows. The biggest thing about all these spiders is that we end up with a lot of spider webs. I sometimes clean the webs away, which often displaces some. I don’t kill them as they run away from the cleaning, but I do apologize to them. No one likes being forced to move from their home.

Anyway, I turned on the kitchen light last night and headed for the sink. A windowsill rests just above the sink. A spider sitting on the window sill bolted away, as if I’d frightened them. About a quarter inch long, dark brownish with red legs, I don’t know what kind of spider they were.

Maybe the light spooked ’em, I thought, completing my task (which, not surprisingly, was washing the cats’ food bowls). Watching that spider tear along the window’s length prompted me to wonder again, how well does that spider see? I had the impression that despite eight eyes, they were running blind, maybe yelling, “Run away! Run away!”

Spider vision preoccupied me the night before. While cleaning away webs on the front porch, a spider dropped from the ceiling to the floor and scurried away. This was a ‘daddy long legs’. We have about seven hundred billion living around our house, I think.

That drop was about eight feet. Well, when the spider was dropping from the ceiling to the porch, did they have any idea of what was below them? Think about the courage that must entail. “Well, can’t stay here, gotta get out of here, so I’m just letting go. Wheee.”

Yes, I know that since they have so little weight and mass that they don’t have issues with gravity as we do, but still, dropping like that when you don’t know where you’re going?

Made me think of paratroopers in WWII.

Of course, on the other hand, spiders proably never learned to fear dropping to the ground. Not like us speaking before a crowd. Before we speak in a public gathering, we often absorb what people say about speakers. Lot of times, it’s mocking and casual insults. Listening to those things indoctrinates a fear of what they’ll say about us while we’re speaking, or how we might mess up and OMG, embarrass ourselves.

I conducted brief online research about spidey vision. Which reminds me; when Spiderman was created, why didn’t he grow eight eyes and eight limbs? How was he just limited to his spidey sense, making webs, and being a creepy crawler?

Articles I read about spiders confirmed what I suspected. Spider vision varies and often isn’t real great. Their hunting and nesting roles, along with their socializing skills and hunting style, guide their vision development and how the eight eyes generally function. (BTW, not all spiders have eight eyes.)

That spider may have kind of running blind, depending on those factors, but it was’t totally blind. Their running blind is more like if a human with vision problems who need corrective lenses might be running if they weren’t wearing those lenses.

Now I can imagine a spider with glasses sitting in a web, talking with another spider about how glasses improved their life.

Like other creatures, spiders present complicated and fascinating life form variations. I still don’t understand why they terrify so many people. Yes, they have venom and can bite and others can die from those bites but that’s not all of them.

I guess that’s another matter which I need to research.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: coffee-ized bubbly

Greetings to Saturday, October 14, 2023.

Although it’s only 49 F now, they point us toward a high in the mid to upper seventies.

It’s a pleasant morning. No wind. Light clouds blemish the blue sky. I’d checked early; here in southern Oregon, just above he California border, in Oregon’s southwestern corner, we’re on the edge of the eclipse path. We wanted to see that sucker.

Awaiting the annular eclipse, which was expected in Ashlandia (where the soups are hot and the desserts are delicious) at 9:18 AM. Sitting in my office, which is on the house’s west side, I noticed a darkening. Leaping up, I grabbed my eclipse classes and dashed out to check the eclipse.

Yes! It had begun.

I ran back in and yelled the news to my wife and scurried back out. The viewing spot was on the sidewalk in front of my house. Peering east by southeast between trees and houses gave us a satisfying view. At first, the moon rendered the sun into a fat but bright bottom heavy crescent moon. The moon’s journey over the sun kept thinning the sun crescent. Simultaneously, the sun began darkening, acquiring a burnt orange glaze.

As the eclipse progressed, my wife said, “That reminds me of the eye of Sauron.” She shifted into her best Golem voice. “My precious. Where is my precious coffee?”

We developed a routine. Watch for a few minutes, dash inside, sip some coffee, return. I modified my path, setting coffee over on the sidewalk, out of the way by the house, so no one would kick it over.

We didn’t notice any changes in birds or anything. Oddly, two trios of people walking dogs paid no attention to the eclipse as this all transpired. Both were younger middle age (the people, not the dogs). I wondered, did they not know, or did they not care? Were they anti-science people?

More questions which will never be answered for me.

Finally, at 9:18, we had the ring of fire, or seventy percent of it, as that’s what science declared we’d see here. The eclipse at this point reminded us of a black button with an illuminated ring around it. What would happen it we pressed it?

Throwing caution into the trash, we pressed it several times. Nothing was noted as different, but in some other part of the world, the sun could be blinking in and out. Or a fuse was blown or a circuit breaker thrown and nothing was happening. We couldn’t tell.

At its fullest point, we said, “Hello sun, hello moon.” Nice to address them as a couple.

As for the cats, they took opposite approaches to the eclipse, just as they do everything. They’re always a study in opposites. Papi, our sleek, short haired orange tabby, wants little to do with people and doesn’t show much interest in our food or activities. He doesn’t like loud noises and despises the wind.

Tucker, the black and white long-haired elder beast enjoys being with us and wants to be in on everything. If we’re eating, he wants to know how it smells and tastes.

While we were checking the eclipse, Papi shied away safe place in backyard sun. Drawing his legs in and curling his tail around his bod, he posed in a perfect loaf position.

Tucker stayed with us. If we went in for coffee, he came with us, going back out when we did, walking around by us as we looked up at the sun. He didn’t care anything for the sun; his focus was on his people.

The eclipse is dwinding now as the sun and moon say their farewells and part. We’ve come back into the house. One of us goes out every few minutes and comes back in to update the other. But it’s anti-climatic at this point, like a blow-out in a football game. We’re just waiting for the end.

The Neurons have come up with “Eclipse” from the 1973 Pink Floyd album, Dark Side of the Moon to mark the day. A terrific climax to a favorite album, it’s quite welcomed in the morning mental music stream (Trademark deteriorating).

And everything under the sun is in tune

But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

Clouds have covered the sun and dulls the sky. Time to press on. Stay pos, be safe, and be strong. Coffee has been drunk, thanks. Here’s the music. Cheer

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

Technology fascinates me. It has since I first read about microwave ovens and satellites in the mid sixties, when I was less than ten years old. That’s why I want to spread the word about the latest technology I’ve heard about.

Ever have confusion about what you thought was just said? For example, your wife suggests you go for a ride, and you think that she wants something fried? Or you hear something that sounds like a gunshot and she claims that she didn’t hear anything. Instead of sitting there, listening for a repeat of the sound, or wondering if she’s deaf or you’re crazy, you can access a small device and have the last ten minutes of sound repeated for your benefit.

Sounds crazy? Did to me but this help is being offered out there in the form of a new AI system I spied on a television commercial the other night. I’m seriously thinking about buying it.

This miracle device is called Whazaid. Here is a brief description. First, a control interface is downloaded onto a phone or laptop. A rechargeable device that’s about the size of a U.S. nickel will record everything being said around you. How far around you can be adjusted. It’s said to be so effective, Whazaid can capture the sound of pet kibble hitting the floor in another room.

That depends on where your put your Whazaid. It has a tiny clip that lets you put it on a shirt collar, hat bill, or a bra strap. Anything kind of fabric, really, like the top of your pants or a shirt or pants pocket. It can even be clipped to an ear lobe. The thing is, wherever it’s placed, its effectiveness is depended on not being blocked so it can pick up sounds.

The device can record 28 hours worth of conversations before it needs to be charged. The inventors say that’s about three days for most people but it can vary. Although it has a terrabyte of storage, recordings will stay on your device for thirty days unless otherwise marked by the control device. A subscription can be set up so that everything recorded is backed up on the cloud.

Whazaid’s AI feature has a smart filter that will separate sounds being heard. This is where the AI, which is based on IBM’s Watson, comes in. As the system records and identifies sounds, you can taylor sounds you want recorded. For example, you probably don’t want to record television shows or movies, and exclude them.

Then, the AI will learn your preferences and modify your settings for you, if you wish; that’s something set up on the control. Whazaid will also attach the speakers’ names and mark conversations with subject, date, and time. If you allow the optional location feature to be turned on, Whazaid will also mark the location.

Using Bluetooth hooked in your ear, you can also give the device verbal commands. So if an argument starts about who said what, you can tell Whazaid to playback a specific recording by subject, time, or speaker(s). It’ll play it back privately but can be mated with laptops or phones so it can be played via those devices and their speakers so everyone can hear the recorded conversation.

For example, my wife and I had a frustrating exchange about what was being said about plans for this Friday. The moment devolved into a classic he said/she said disagreement that left us both dissatisfied and irritated. If I had a Whazaid installed, I could have resolved it right there.

Another advantage, though, is that it can record lectures. A disadvantage is the danger presented to classified information, or comments confided to you in private.

Whazaid isn’t cheap at about eleven hundred US dollars, the early adopter price. But the technology entices me. I’m getting older and it seems like disagreements about what was said or heard are multiplying. So I am very tempted.

I might wait until it’s available at Costco, because they usually have better prices. If I do buy Whazaid, I’ll let you know how it goes. How ’bout you? Are you interested in Whazaid?

NOTE: Whazaid is totally fabricated. It only exists in my mind.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: empathetic

Friday is rocking our world in Ashlandia, where the winds are blowing and the trees are dancing.

October 13, 2023 Autumn is stepping it up. Showery and cloudy today, 55 F now, we’re looking for rain and a high of 64 F. Can you dig it?

I’ve started my coffee early. Gotta break out of the house earlier so I can help my wife. She’s part of the Empty Bowls support crew. She baked vegan cookies to contribute yesterday (thin mints, chocolate chip crinkles, and lemon somethings, yes all vegan). Ashlandia is home to a hefty vegan population. Some are so by philosophy while others arrive there for health matters.

Today, my wife and her friend, B, are creating the centerpieces. Yesterday, per pre-arrangements, was spent going around to several friends’ home to collect flowers and greenery.

I’m just doing transport and taxi service. After that, I’ll head for the writing groove. When I offered my services, my wife said, “But that’s your writing time. I don’t want to interrupt that.” She’s thoughtful in that way.

Going back to the date, it IS Friday the Thirteenth. I have no concerns about it, but realizing the date, I thought about luck and superstition. Getting into the spirit, The Neurons poured some songs about luck and superstition into my morning mental music stream (Trademark unlucky). There was “Lucky Man”, “Silly Superstition”, “Bad Luck”, “Luck Be A Lady”, “If I Ever Got Lucky”, and a few more.

Eventually, Daft Punk got lucky and their 2013 song, “Get Lucky”, took up residence. While it’s DP credits, Niles Rodgers is on guitar and Pharrell Williams contributed vocals and lyrics. It’s a jaunty tune and, a real mood-lifter, and a solid antidote to worries.

Stay positive and be strong. Here’s the music. I gotta take my coffee to go. Cheers

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