Category: Information

Just Sayin’

Feeling mad as a hatter, Skip bought a brand spanking new car. To his friends, it was a bolt out of the blue.

Checking it out, Clyde said, “What’s the four-one-one, Skip?”

“Yes,” Penelope said. “What, d’yer win the booby prize? Give us the straight skinny.”

“It’s my new jalopy,” Skip said, at one fell swoop gaining jaundiced looks. “I bought it, cash on the nail. I could only afford it by the skin of my teeth.”

Milly said, “You’re such a crack pot. Did you have to cook the books?”

“To coin a phrase, I think it’s a blot on the landscape,” Parnell said. “It’s the mutts’ nuts.”

Nodding, Tucker said, “Right on. Did you forget to use your loaf, Skip?”

“What’s with the third degree?” Skip wondered as Hester said, “I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but gag me with a spoon.”

“Fer sure, you’re barking mad, Skip,” Ethel said as Horatio said, “You’re such an airhead, Skipper. You bought a pig in the poke.”

Beaming, Skip replied, “Well, I think it’s the cat’s pajamas. It’s really groovy.”

Tucker rose. “That’s all well and good, but I need to catch some zzzs. I’m gonna skate.” Looking at Skip, he said, “Drop a dime when you’ve come back to earth, space cadet.”

“Word,” Ethel agreed as Clyde said, “Peace out,” and Milly said, “Mic drop.”

Watching his friends troop away, Skip said, “Well, I didn’t mean to upset the apple cart.” Leaning back in front of his ride, he took a selfie. “I’ll share it on the Cloud, and Facebook it, the whole shebang. Then, when people Google me, they’ll see my wheels.”

But first, he texted it to himself, and then went to veg out, pleased as punch. It was a new day, and the sky was the limit.

 

2

Future Me

I read a recent article about how we see ourselves. The article’s essence was that a study showed that people could readily see how they’d changed, but didn’t think they would change in the future.

That’s an odd conclusion. Looking back on how and why I change, I can appreciate how the world changed, forcing me to change. Mentors, friends, and family members have died. Their influence remains, but it’s faded.

Sometimes, I think of it like dominoes. I’m in a long row that’s been set up to fall over when tapped, part of a pretty design. Matters that tap me over include my changing body. My hearing is damaged and my vision has lost its acuity. My metabolism has slowed, as has my physical energy, and my muscles are weaker. My joints are stiffer, and my athleticism and coordination have diminished. My sleeping patterns have changed. I endured illnesses and injuries which changed my trajectory. I’ve gained weight and developed gluten and dairy reactions.  I mostly bloat. Before I bloated, I didn’t understand what people meant when they said, “I feel bloated today.” Now I understand.

Our food chain has changed. What impact that has on me, I probably won’t ever know. I was introduced to new foods, and dishes from other cultures, and I was introduced to better quality food, increasing my awareness of what quality means, and how it influences me.

Technology has advanced, enabling me to hear more music, inviting me in as a witness to more amazing events and moments. I usually have a laptop or tablet nearby to keep me connected to others. I’ve never met many of the people who are in my circle of friendship. Science has advanced, giving me more to think about. Researchers, psychologists and sociologists have gained insights into how our bodies, societies, and civilizations function. Engaging TED Talks and blogs help socialize new information. Big data analytics keep expanding on what we know, or what might be going on.

Our society and government have changed. Events like 9/11 changed us. I make more effort to understand the world than I used to make. After traveling and living outside of the United States, I became more watchful about politics, equality, justice, and our environment. As our politics have changed, and groups like white supremacists and Nazis have grown, I’ve been forced to question what I know. Likewise, revelations of sexual assault, news of murders, and lies by politicians and others sharpen my desire to know the truth and understand.

I’ve read many more books since I was young. I’ve written books. Both activities encouraged thinking, and from the thinking has come change in my views, approaches, appreciation, and understanding.

My brain has changed, apparently from triggers built in at some genetic level. I’ve become more impatient. Lessons learned through betrayal, resentment, success, and failure have fostered changes to my behavior. I work on improving myself more than I used to, when improving myself meant working out or taking classes.

I’ve lost hair on my head. My hairline recedes and my baldness expands. My hair thins and grays. Meanwhile, the rest of me becomes hairier. With my aging and changes, I became more invisible to a larger segment of population.

Or maybe that’s just me and my perceptions. They can change.

I can extrapolate some ways that I’ll probably change. I think I’ll be more withdrawn, speaking less, and enjoying small talk less. I hope to be writing and publishing more, but that’s a hope that I’ve been nurturing for over twenty years. My future diet will probably be more limited, I’ll be less active, and pop culture will seem more alien. I’ve always disliked talking on the telephone, and avoid it when I can. I suspect it’ll be hard to get future me on the phone.

I’ve been fortunate that I’ve escaped being caught in disasters. That luck can change. It feels, sometimes, like the hazardous air from the wildfires of the last few years have changed me. Certainly, that smoke, combined with the blazing heat, increased my depression, depleted my energy, and sapped my will. It certainly changed my summer and expectations.

Then, there are the other people in my life. Their changes, illnesses, success and failure will change me, too. That’s one constant that’s not likely to change.

All these variables will cause changes in me. I don’t know what I’ll be like in the future, but I don’t think that who I am now is who I will be.

2

Whine #7,635,499,117,006

Sometimes I think, TGFC. Yes, thank God for coffee, a.k.a., thank God for caffeine. Coffee helps me cope when the friggin’ world seems determined to be the pebble in my shoe.

First, the wildfire smoke has returned. Grrr. Yes, the smoke isn’t as bad as the actual fire, nor the many accidents, disasters and true nightmares that others are enduring, you know, like being a refugee without a home — or country, any longer — or being torn away from your family and sent to another place, or raped or shot. I’m far from starving or being financially insecure. That’s why this is a whine.

Second, the bloody Internet connection is sooo…damnnn…slooowww…tooo…day….

I was at home first experiencing this. What the hell? Who knows, at that point. But now, in the coffee shop, it’s OMG time. Task Manager and all the security apps said there’s nothing wrong here. I tend to blame Google Chrome. Hasn’t been working right since that update.

Again, not big stuff, first world complaints.

Which took me back to Dr. Dinardo’s post, “Shifting From Anxiety to Excitement”. Her salient point:

Did you know that fear and excitement share the same set of neurotransmitters, including dopamine, glutamate, and acetylcholine.

  • Opposite emotions. Identical neurotransmitters.
  • Same neural activity. Different cognitive appraisal.

And the best way to shift from performance anxiety to excitement is to say one sentence on repeat.

Her information can be applied to multiple situations. It’s about changing your  reactions, right? So, as I walked, I worked on changing from feeling negative toward something on the spectrum’s positive side. While doing that, I thought about how Dr. Dinardo’s point is directed toward the first world. Her focus is on helping her students. The lessons can be applied to others (like me), but imagining myself leaving one of the world’s war-torn, disease-ravaged countries without any idea of where I’m going, it would be difficult for me to try to change my cognitive appraisal to be more upbeat.

It’s not a slam against Dr. Dinardo (although some might think, that sure read like a slam). It’s a slam against the world and the many ways that suffering is forced upon others, how slowly change takes place, and how impermanent it often seems. It’s a slam against people who think, let’s go back twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred years, to when times were simpler and life was easier. I consider that simplistic, narrow, and short-sighted, perhaps as simplistic, narrow, and short-sighted as my whining about the wildfire smoke and a slow Internet.

Yes, I understand that I’m simplifying cognitive appraisal and its mechanism. Hey, I’m only on my second cuppa. I’d need one or two more cups of coffee to go into it more thoughtfully.

I’ve read — and I’m dubious about projecting these things — that climate change will eventually affect our coffee supply. I’m dubious because projections are based on the known, and there often turns out to be many things that aren’t known that affect the projections. I’m also hopeful that a woman or man will arise, unite us, and say, “Enough with this shit. It’s time for a change,” and manage to rally everyone around them to change the world for the better for all, and save coffee.

It’s probably a naive hope. Meanwhile, I have coffee, time, a secure place, and a working computer. I’ll take advantage of the here and now, at least how it applies to me.

2

Snark Alert – Firewise Edition

As the weather has grown hotter and dryer every year, wildfires have become a frightening threat to our southern Oregon community. To help improve the chances of our structures surviving wildfires, Ashland participates in the Firewise USA program. Besides offering assessments on your property, the program offers building and landscaping tips to improve the chances that your property will survive.

One tip is not to have a wooden fence that attaches to the house. I mentioned that to friends as we visited with them on their back deck. “We don’t have wooden fences attached to the house.”

We were sitting on a moderate-sized wooden deck attached to their house. “What about this deck? It’s attached to your house.”

“It’s not a fence.”

Oh, I see, yes. The wildfire will burn through the wooden fence surrounding your backyard and across the trees and grass, but then will come to your wooden deck and say, “Wait! That’s not a fence. That’s a deck. We better leave this alone.” Thus their home will be saved.

Honestly.

5

Beyond Politics

Beyond politics (like Russia meddling, Brexit, immigration, Black Lives Matter, #Metoo, refugees, and votes of confidence), I’m trying to follow other stories. They’re mostly natural disasters.

I follow the fires out west, naturally. These directly affect me via the smoke polluting the air. I’ve notice a normalization trend emerging. Although the AQI is unhealthy today, people think, “It’s better than yesterday.” They also go without masks because they didn’t feel anything from their exposure yesterday, last week, and last month. Many don’t seem to understand the long-term impact of breathing air loaded with particulates.

I’m following the Puerto Rico recovery because they’re humans, American citizens, and they’re suffering. I’m following volcanic eruptions and earthquakes in several areas, and flooding in the U.S. and India. Our technology allows us to visit disaster scenes. I’m not certain that this is healthy.

I’m following the job situation and housing market in the U.S. Many don’t recall that the way that unemployment is tracked was changed under Dubya in the early years of this century. The change created a rosier view of the economic. Unemployment is declining, they claim, but then note that real wages are slipping for most Americans, and most Americans can no longer afford a home.

I’m following generational differences. The latest generation hasn’t been given a name yet (perhaps that’s their name, temporarily – the Nameless Generation, a reflection of how unknown they are beyond the basics), and we’re still discovering Gen Z’s trends and tendencies. It’s fascinating to see how they compare with the previous generations in their buying habits and preferences. I encounter Gen Z regularly because they’re usually the ones working in coffee shops and restaurants. They seem just like you and I, but this is also a college town, and most of them are white and come from middle-class to upper-middle-class families. I don’t think they’re necessarily representative of the rest, but I don’t know where to draw the line.

I’m following space developments (no, not the space force, thanks), and the discovery of water and exo-planets, etc. Naturally, I’m also following some cultural develops. Some cultural news seeps into my awareness without trying. It’s hard to avoid it, here in America. I’ve also been reading a lot of interviews with authors, and essays about writing. (I’ve also been contemplating other novels to write. I can’t help myself.)

What about you? What are you following?

12

Floofotechnic

Floofotechnic (catfinition) – a display of cat-oriented artworks and information.

In use: “Wealthy with floofotechnics, the CFA Foundation & Feline Historic Museum is devoted to collecting and recording the history of the cat and the cat fancy.”

0

Saturday’s Theme Music

While driving today, I heard the end of a song, “Don’t You Want Me”, by The Human League. When the song ended, Casey Kasem came on and told us that was the number song in America, according to Billboard, for the week of July 10, 1982.

The station went on to mention that it had been a digitally remastered recording of the recording that was made in 1982. All this fired multiple memories: July, 1982. Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan. American Top 40 was played every Saturday. Broken neck with my head immobilized in a halo device. Hot and humid summer. A wonderful cat named Jade we inherited from another family, and another, a sweet little Bombay Black named Crystal, also a gift from another family.

I’d broken my neck on the previous Memorial Day weekend. I was freed from the halo after three months. Crystal died in 1995, taken by cancer. Jade passed away when we lived in California twenty years after she started living with us. She earned the nickname Pokey because she liked to dawdle, but she was a damn smart feline, definitely the smartest cat we have ever known. She was infinitely smarter than the four who live with us now. Casey Kasem died in 2014. The Human League still rocks on.

It’s all life.

3

Heard On the Radio, Read on the Net

A radio announcer said she’d read a survey of millennials between twenty-one and thirty-seven years old. The results said that fifty-three percent of them expected to be millionaires and the average millennial expected to retire by age fifty-six.

I read today that millennials are the worse tippers. Ten percent of them don’t tip at all when they eat out. Their average gratuity is fifteen percent.

Guess they’re saving up to be millionaires.

2

A Failure

I failed yesterday.

I’m one of those optimists who believe they can do anything, if they think, work, and try hard enough. I believe this despite my multiple failures at doing everything that I’ve tried, or coming up short. I’m just a freaking optimist.

Yesterday’s failure involved my wife’s Macbook, specifically her Retina A1398 15″ Retina edition. Her touchpad started malfunctioning. Her cursor would freeze and become unresponsive, or act like a crazy trapped bee. It’s been going on for a month.

I’ve fixed computers before. In my mind, fixing a computer is like replacing the points and plugs in a car. (Remember when cars had points and plugs?) Hell, I said, it might just be a new touchpad is required. Let me buy a new one and try to replace it. It’s only a few dollars.

Sure. Why not?

I ordered and received the part, opened up the Mac, disconnected the power, and attacked the battery. 

I should say, the damn battery.

I’d read stories, but scoffed at those others who tried and failed. I AM MICHAEL, right?

Well, I couldn’t remove that battery, either. Nobody was exaggerating when they noted as Apple glued that sucker in there. It’s a fascinating solution, essentially six packets of different sizes glued into place along the leading edge and behind the touchpad. However, it’s also disturbing because it’s not easy to replace that battery, which means those Macs probably get trashed because their batteries failed and can’t be easily replaced. That means more toxic trash will be put into our environment, even though the computer still works. More depressing is that other manufacturers will probably follow this course because they can design smaller and lighter machines.

So, I failed. I don’t mind. As with every failure, I learned quite a bit. I just can’t worry about failing, or I wouldn’t try anything, right?

The kicker is, after I put the computer back together, her cursor worked fine, and has since that time. We rationalize that it must have been undue pressure on the touchpad, and that I’d relieved and shifted that pressure when I disassembled the computer.

I’m sure this story isn’t over yet.

1

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