On either side of our driveway are two large trees. On the right is a sycamore tree that towers above our two story house. On the left is a sweet gum tree, tall for its species, with an impressive canopy. One thing I have always liked about this arrangement is the shade they give our principle vehicles. With the garage being filled with kayaks and my baby – Li’ Blue – aka a certain Mazda MX-5 Miata, the other cars cannot find a home inside. Of course if you are going to have tree limbs over cars, you will have the occasional avian calling card on your vehicle. This has been an infrequent and bearable problem… Continue reading “Revengeful Robin…”
Double Takes
La Señora and I were driving on the north side of the St. Louis metro area when we passed a bar with a sign in the parking lot that read: Karoke – Vaccine Event. Why not?
That same day driving home we passed a van advertising mobile windshield and chip repair. You guessed it… the windshield of the van was cracked.
And so it goes
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #6,811
yeah I know you did not ask!
When I was a kid in the middle of last century, we bought our gasoline at a “gas station”. It was a business with gas pumps outside, awful snacks and cold soda pop inside, frequently with a garage attached to do minor repairs. These “gas stations” have all but disappeared, I cannot think of one anywhere near our suburban St. Louis home. Now days we purchase our fuel at a convenience store that has gas pumps outside, and not infrequently, a small tunnel car wash somewhere on the property.
I bought gas the other day at such an establishment, and needing to spend my anniversary present, I went in to buy a lottery ticket. With laxer alcohol regulations in Missouri, many convenience stores are mini liquor stores. Just about everywhere convenience stores are known for their large coolers full of beer and soda pop. Other big profit centers for these businesses are tobacco products, lottery tickets and other associated gambling games, practically any type of unhealthy snack food you could imagine, impulse buys of such things as a packet of vitamins for an outrageous sum, in short nothing that you absolutely need or frequently should even buy.
Given that, perhaps we should change the name of this type of store from convenience store to con-VICE store.
And so it goes.
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #3,356
yeah I know you did not ask!
I visit with people via Skype to practice my Spanish. Two of the countries I “Skpe” to are El Salvador and Ecuador. The official currency of both countries is the US dollar. This came about mainly because it was the most common currency on the black market and the governments gave in to a fait accompli. Because so many transactions are for smaller amounts of money, the US dollar coin, the Sacagawea coin that was so unpopular here, is very popular there, as the coin is more durable, All of which got me connecting random dots in my brain.
Canada as far as I know does not have a $1 bill; at least all I have seen when I was there were $1 and $2 coins.
Stay with me I am about to get there…
It has been a while since I was in a “Gentlemen’s” club, but when I was last in one, it was a common practice to place $1 bills in whatever apparel was still left on the performer’s body, or barring that, throw the money onto the stage.
Thinking about this made me worry about the exotic dancers of our Canadian neighbor. The loonies – Canadian $1 coins – certainly would not stay inside a g-string strap, leaving tossing them at the ecdysiast as the only option. Bruising must be an occupational hazard.
And so it goes.
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #4,906
yeah I know you did not ask!
I realized a long time ago that for most of the big questions of life I would never have a good answer to or for… I’m okay with that. I’ve accepted that big portions of this existence are just a mystery, and the best thing to do is accept it as so and live your life.
BUT – There is one thing I do want to know the answer to – Where the hell do socks go to, how is that I end up with so many un-mated socks?
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!
Ernest Hemingway on Buddhism
Not really… but the following quote from Ernest Hemingway’s short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place made me wonder. Nada is Spanish for nothing. In my mind I was making a connection with the Buddhist concept of no-self or emptiness and of the concept of suffering. In actuality Hemingway’s character was speaking of the anxiety or the despair of loneliness (suffering?). But it did give me pause. In any event, I just love the pattern and sentiments of this excerpt.
“What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread, It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not in to nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.”
Om mani padme hum