“No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.” ~~ Ernest Hemingway
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Salman Rushdie Commencement Address to the Emory Class of 2015
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #7,667
yeah I know you did not ask!
I have a certain playful streak – well, certain folks say mean streak – that can come out at the oddest times.
Señora had an outpatient surgical procedure this morning. In preparation for this the nurse left us alone in the surgical prep room to remove her street clothing and to put on her the customary paper surgical gown. It was one size fits most, nearly dragging the floor on Señora, containing sufficient fabric to wrap around her a couple times, being the petite thing she is. As we all know, they tie in back. I had the damnedest urge to tie the strings of the gown in quadruple granny knots. Of course the surgical staff would not have messed with my knots for a nano-second, taking scissors to them without pause, but still…
I did pretend to be a grownup for that nano-second, and I managed to squelch the impulse.
Just saying… Or to whom it may concern
Anyone with a vague knowledge of computers has heard of binary numbers (base 2) – the famous 1s and 0s. Those of us who have programmed have used the binary system of numbers in our work. On a few occasions I have used the octal numeral system (base 8). Outside of the ubiquitous decimal system (base 10), count your fingers, the numeric system I am most familiar with is hexadecimal (base 16), sometimes referred to as hex. Before I switched over to Oracle systems, I spent a large portion of my programming career working with mainframes using COBOL, some Assembler, and rarely PL/1 programming languages (there were other languages I used, but I won’t bore you). Working in these languages on a mainframe platform it is mandatory to have an intimate knowledge of hex and hex math.
In case you are not up on your hexadecimal… the digits in this numeral system are: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 9, a, b, c, d, e, f.
Now scribble in a corner of your mind with disappearing ink that I was born in 1952.
In the year 2000 I started giving my age in hexadecimal, i.e. 30. I continued to use hex numbers until 2010. Somehow or another saying I was 3a left even a more perplexed expression on peoples’ faces than when I was saying I was 30 at the start of the new century. In 2016 I was able to switch back to hexadecimal and truthfully assert that I was 40, and I can currently, with a semi-straight face, claim to be 45.
And so it goes.
Schoolhouse Rock! playlist
When my kidrens were little –this was late 70s, early 80s – we used to watch Saturday morning cartoons together. Interspersed with the cartoons on ABC was an educational segment called Schoolhouse Rock! which covered themes of grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics. Their forte was creating earwigs such as “conjunction, junction what’s your function” or “I’m just a bill, only a bill”.
Something triggered the memory of the segment this morning, and I decided to create a playlist on my YouTube channel of those I could find .
Enjoy!
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Sister Lorie’s Tale from the Dark Side
Did you ever wake up and wonder what side of the planet it is? Well, I woke up and wondered what part of the universe I had been magically transported to. I’m a planner. I planned a trip to Oklahoma City. We have been going to this retreat for a few years now. We found a hotel close by the facility. Granted this hotel is not much, but it is clean and cheap.
I made the reservation on one of those on line places. You know the kind where you can see lots of lower rates for hotels… I won’t mention the name here. I found the hotel, made the reservation and like a flash they charged my card.
That same day, the hubby calls to tell me that ‘mail count’ is that same time frame. For those of you who are not familiar with USPS, mail count translates to going in early, working late and no time off except for your own funeral. Oh well, we can’t go, so I call the online company. Continue reading “Sister Lorie’s Tale from the Dark Side”
Word of the Day – Philoprogenitiveness
- Noun: Philoprogenitiveness
- Adjective: Philoprogenitive
- tending to produce offspring : prolific
- of, relating to, or characterized by love of offspring
- Synonyms:
- Profilic
- Fructuous
- Fertile
- Fruitful
- Usage:
- “Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural communities; therefore, and for other reasons, a kidnapping project ought to be better there than in the radius of newspapers that send reporters out in plain clothes to stir up talk about such things.”
- Encountered:
- While reading O. Henry’s short story, The Ransom of Red Chief
- While reading O. Henry’s short story, The Ransom of Red Chief
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God Bless Costco
Missouri is opening for business May 4th. Whether this is a good idea or not , will be seen. I am not sure what St. Louis County will do as we have been the worst hit county and city in the state. I’m unclear if they even have the option of going against what our wonderful Republican governor dictates.
I received an advertising email this morning from Costco. Maybe they have been sending them out during the quarantine, but this is the first one I remember receiving in a while. In it they detailed their guidelines Continue reading “God Bless Costco”
Bill Gates, Wuhan, COVID-19
This is how truly nutty the world of conspiracy theories is.
I study Spanish via Skype with several different individuals that live mostly in Central America and northern South America. I’ve never researched how much business China does in Latin America, but according to these folks Chinese products are huge there, especially technology items. Consequently, due to the business connections of Continue reading “Bill Gates, Wuhan, COVID-19”