We have flat panel tv’s for informational boards
I’ve been thinking about getting a 24-27″ TV for the guest room, something bigger than the 13″ SDTV that is currently in there. It would be nice to give people, especially during Halloween a chance to see what we have on our DVR while we watch horror movies in the basement. It’s not a purchase that is very high on my list, so I may not get around to it, but the idea is there at least.
Have you seen the price of gasoline?!?
A bear and a shark have arguably equivalent biting capacities, but the bear wins because of the sharp claws. Sharks just have fins. Bear wins.
Assessment
I’ve heard this word too much and now I hate it. It’s a way for academics to avoid talking about the real problems because they throw up an endless stream of straw men that they want to deal with first before discussing the real problems. It’s always “We should assess” which turns into “What can we do to assess” and that finally blossoms into a completely idle study of assessments. The real problem just disappears completely and the only thing occupying meetings are assessment tools and methods of assessment and ethics of assessment. The real problem has grown up, wandered away and eaten a bus load of school children while people are trapped in a meaningless committee arguing about assessment. This is related to the “Painting the Bike Shed” problem, in that a group of people spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about what color to paint the bike shed instead of what should be done with the 20 metric tons of nuclear waste adjacent to the bike shed. It drives me mad.
What this country needs is to retreat, to pull back on all our self-established commitments. Declare that we’ve won in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Korea, Japan, The Phillipines, and all the other places where we occupy land that isn’t our country. Tear down the fences and let whoever owns the land have it back. We need to let other countries and organizational units take over being the world police force. It’s time that China and the European Union take a whack at protecting the world. We need to concentrate on our own house first. We need to get out of debt, we need to stop being the John Wayne of Earth and realize that some things aren’t winnable, like a land-war in Afghanistan. Life could be so much more pleasant if we concentrated our efforts on our own continent instead of being spread along all the others.
Living in Kalamazoo isn't a permanent thing. This place is a waystation. You don't stay forever in a waystation. It will just take time to get to where I am going.
Do overs in your past are really thorny things to think about. Would you be in the place where you are now if you didn't have that experience? Would you be better off, or worse? And do you really want to risk it? The things that I've done, the things that I wish I could do over are mistakes that I've made that became lessons to me later in life. If I missed them, I would probably end up finding a way to make them happen anyways. One thing that I probably could do without, if I had a chance would be my relationships during college. One in particular which was very nasty I could probably do away with. But then again, I lacked the maturity and understanding to do it any differently back then, but now? Oh how I would erase all of that. I know exactly where and when I should have turned my back and walked away. The first fateful aborted meet-up, the one that fell apart because the person I was about to meet was a coward. I should have had more wits and saw that for what it really was instead of allowing a second chance and enduring what I had to endure.
But then again, that whole experience laid the foundation for where I am now. I enjoy my current life because I learned a lesson back then and grew because of it. Do I wish I could have skipped it? Sure. But if I did, I probably wouldn't be as mature now as I am having experienced that mistake. So there is a wish, but no will to carry it out.
My left hand is where I keep my scars. I've always thought it was because I'm very right-handed and so my left hand is a simple appendage. It doens't have the dexterity of my right hand or any of the motor memory that my right hand does. There are three prominent scars on the left. The two thin scars are from knives. One of them was an accidental cut with a swiss army knife, while the other was with a hunting knife. The most prominent scar however is one on my left index finger. When I was 16 or so, maybe I was celebrating Christmas with my family in upstate New York and the tree was too high for the room we put it in. The fix was easy, just lop off the topmost branch part and the tree would fit perfectly – about 3 inches of treetop. I grabbed a pair of scissors and I angled them just right and lopped off the branch. What I didn't notice was that this part of my index finger was also laying against the equally sharp sides of the scissors on my side of the scissor screw that held the two pieces of metal together. I had taken a thick notch out of my index finger. The rest, well, is the scar.
The only other scar I have that is noticeable is a surgical scar just above my knee on my left leg. I had to have a cyst removed and it required surgery to do it. That hurt a lot less than any of the others because I was put to sleep while they took it out of me and woke up stapled and bandaged.
I don’t eat in response to stress. When I feel stressed I tend to get very jumpy, then I get flushed, and then I start to itch. My patience with whatever is stressing me out shrinks to zero and I tend to lash out. I try my best to avoid getting stressed out as best I can and I find that at the very least if I go on a walk and get myself out of the situation that it helps me cope with whatever I have to walk back towards.
Worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair. You can expend a lot of energy but you never get anywhere doing it.
