Pay attention to history.
I sincerely hope we are a better nation than what tRump and his sycophants are attempting to do to our country currently… I sincerely hope so.
My Mossy Address Book – Revisited
“A rolling stone gathers no moss”
If you were to sum up my life in one phrase the above aphorism might just be it. I spent the first 18 years of my life more or less as a military brat. I literally had 13 changes of schools before I graduated high school. This includes one school that I was in for a single day. I have described the last 30 years of my working life as that of a computer gypsy, moving around to take different jobs in Information Technology. I did have a stable period in between (at least as far as physical location) when I lived in Arkansas and we were getting kids through school.
In such a life people come and go. It is just a fact of life that you get used to. I do not know how many times I have said to someone, “have a good life”, knowing I would never be seeing them again. I have on occasions tried to maintain relationships over time and distance, but this must be two sided and has very seldom worked out.
I have now reached the age where many of my relatives, friends and acquaintances are passing away. This is sincerely a sadness just in itself. If a person truly touches you, they take up residence in some part of your psyche. I have sometimes described this as feeling like I have ghosts running around my soul. At times it has felt a little crowded in there.
And now add an additional sadness due to this technical age. After the fact of someone’s death, sometimes much later, I will come across their information in one of my address books or contact lists. I have such a hard time deleting the information, it feels like deleting the memory of that person. Sometimes the address/contact card will remain in there for years. I just cannot delete it.
On the positive side, it does make you stop for a minute and remember the person when you stumble across it.
Sigh. We march on.
I originally published this 5 years . The “empty slots” in my address book just keep growing.
Keep well.
Face Off with A Robot
This is not the first time I have encountered a robot in the wild. Across the mighty Mississippi River, there is a sports bar I go to occasionally in Illinois as it is close to the golf course I go to most. If Señora is not around for dinner I may stop in there for a bite. For a while now, they have had a robot that brings the food from the kitchen in back to the waitress station in the middle. It always seems a little rickety to me, but I have never seen it spill anything. On the other hand, I am in this establishment less than a handful of times a year.
I was in a local grocery store, Schnucks, this afternoon. Señora had decided she wanted me to fix my infamous Continue reading “Face Off with A Robot”
Why Separation of Church and State IS SO VERY Important
Among all the scary s*** happening in this country and the world right now, this ranks way up there. Mike Huckabee is a true believer in the Armageddon / Second Coming of Christ fantasy. I had not realized until now that El puta pendejo naranja had appointed this whacko as ambassador to Israel. Truly the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of the State Department. His daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, current governor of Arkansas, is every bit as crazy as he is.
I would give them their religious delusions if they were not trying to push them on the rest of us…. much to our detriment. IMHO, their world view is delusional and draconian. Maybe it is a little over the top, but given half a chance, these “true believers” would make the Spanish Inquisition look like a cake walk.
God save us from the religious.
What Would Jesus Say About Donald Trump?
I am not going to comment (much) on this video except to say it echos how I feel about the current state of Christianity in the United States of America.
What I always say about religion is that life is tough, whatever gets you through the day. Of course, that is close to what I say about gender/sexuality identity. Life is tough, whatever gets you through the night. Of course, being religious is a choice. Gender identity is not.
Echos of Tardis
I do not pay any more attention than you normally would living on quarter acre lots in a suburban situation to the comings and goings of my neighbors. Perhaps I pay a tad more attention to the neighbor on the street perpendicular to ours as our backyards abut on a corner and their garage entrance is in the back of the house. If the weather is half way nice we are in the backyard for one reason or another.
The other neighbor I notice a wee bit is the neighbor directly across from us as it is almost a bee line from our driveway across the street to their driveway. Again if I am outside in front or inside in the front of the house I may hear a vehicle or car doors being shut.
All this changed a few months back after they bought a new Honda CR-V hybrid. When they turn the corner to our street the car has obviously gone into full electric mode. When they are backing out of their garage again it is in full electric mode. In this mode, the car makes a fairly high pitched , loud sound that touches several notes that tend to rise and fall repeatedly.
Initially I did not know what was doing the “singing”. For some reason the sound seemed to me to be the audio signaling I imagined an angel might make just before they suddenly appeared. As time went on my interpretation of the reverberations has changed. Now, for some reason, it reminds me of the rising and falling crescendo of sound Dr. Who’s Tardis generates just before it leaves or arrives.
I had been thinking it was the particular vehicle of our neighbors until recently. As I was exiting my vehicle in a shopping center parking lot a different Honda CR-V hybrid pulled in next to me… making the same music.
However, I am still waiting for Dr. Who to ring our doorbell. I am ready for an adventure on another planet at gawd knows what time period. To be gone for what subjectively feels like days, weeks or months only to return in time for dinner.
Childhood Memories of Emily Post
I was leaving the neighborhood in my pick-em-up truck when I noticed a middle-aged woman walking her dog. She was of what used to be call an average built, but now days would pass for skinny. What grabbed my attention was that she was wearing some very short shorts. She had bent over from the waist to clean up after her pet, and her derriere, encased in the bare minimum, was pointed directly at me. I waffled between staring and not looking.
This brought up a childhood memory. My mother had a book of etiquette in the house. There are several from that period, but for some reason I remember it as being Emily Post’s book, Etiquette. It may have well been another author, but that one pops to mind. They appear to have been fairly Continue reading “Childhood Memories of Emily Post”
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #8,390
yeah I know you did not ask!
You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.
Not that it really applies as I want to be cremated, but I can see me knocking on the lid of my coffin needing to get out for just a minute to go to the bathroom just one more time before taking the final exit ramp.
Of course, that thought came about as my OAB has been exacerbated by the current course of prednisone I am undergoing.
Gotta love this getting old gig.
No Kings Protest / USS Carr Hat
As I have detailed elsewhere on this blog my mother’s brother, my Uncle Paul, died heroically in the largest naval battle in history. You can read about it here: Paul H. Carr inducted into the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame. Besides being inducted into the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame for his heroic action he had a missile frigate named after him, the USS Paul H. Carr, FFG-52. There are several books of naval history that include his story. Obviously, having a Navy ship named after a family member is a huge honor, and all the family is rightly very proud of it. There is also a movement afoot to have one of the new class of missile frigates named after him. Hopefully, that comes to past.
I have several USS Carr hats, a couple shirts, etc. I wore them for years to honor my uncle. A few years past I stopped wearing them as it had become very fashionable to thank veterans. I became very tired of people coming up to me and thanking me for my service. More than a few wanted to shake my hand, something I am not comfortable with in the best of circumstances. Most importantly, I did not want Continue reading “No Kings Protest / USS Carr Hat”
Robert Reich: We Don’t Do Kings in America
I had a lighter posting queued up for today, but the world feels like it is spinning even more out of control thanks to the Idiot-in-Chief aka El puta pendejo naranja.
Robert Reich is my type of crusader.
Do your part – PROTEST!
What blows me away is that there are still folks out there happy that they voted for this incompetent, arguably mentally unhinged monster. This is an America I thought I would never see.
Various sources are estimating that the military parade will cost $45 million. Street repairs afterwards are estimated to cost $16 million. Whether that last amount is included in the $45 million I do not know. This at a time when the Republicans are hell bent on cutting services and benefits to the most needy among us, being the good Christians that they are.
As a reminder here is the famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me