I usually pick on the feds…and I will late in this video, but first, let’s visit a county in Virginia…
[powerpress]
Feb 232015
Feb 232015
It’s no big deal!
People make a big deal out of Spring but I‘ve decided it’s nothing special. There is no perfect season. I should know after all these years. The delights of Spring exist mainly in the imagination just like most all the other good things. Our fantasies are generally wishful thinking about the next season after putting up with the worst of the current season. We long for warm sunny days after the chill of winter. After Summer’s inferno, even winter cold seems appealing.
Then too, modern life makes weather largely irrelevant. With the exception of the occasional blizzard or hurricane, we can pretty much ignore weather. Still, we dream about the perfect Spring day hyped by newspapers, TV and radio. Even when the weather is perfect, we hardly notice. We live in a bubble these days, moving rapidly from one artificial environment to another enduring the brief exposure to nature with mild annoyance.
Sure sign of Spring – Robin – Bird (Photo credit: blmiers2)
Real weather is so lame! Each delight is burdened by some annoying reality. Breathe in the balmy, fragrant Spring air and spend the rest of the day stuffed up with allergies. Lounge on the soft Spring grass and end up with hundreds of bug bites. Take off your shirt to let the pleasant Spring sun warm your skin and end up with your first sunburn of the season. Imagination is much more comfortable than reality.
I prefer fantasy.
We ignore the reality and indulge the ideal. We remember those special days that reflect the best each season offers- the cool summer day after a rainstorm, the first day the daffodils begin to bloom, that Saturday when the leaves show their most brilliant color, the first snow on the mountains. Each of those days is special and makes a statement about the best each season can offer. Unfortunately there are very few of those days- some years not even one- and the rest are a disappointing mixed bag.
A further problem is that Spring is a transition between the cold of Winter and the heat of Summer, it a constant state of flux. What I always want in Spring is just enough warmth so that I enjoy being outdoors. It’s beautiful when the buds are bursting and the spring flowers popping but what I dream of is the balmy temperatures, 90 days of 70 degree days would be perfect. Ideally, Spring would arrive promptly in the early weeks of March with pleasant warmth and last until the end of May. Rain is ok so long as it comes at night leaving the buds and blossoms dewy and fragrant and the days sunny.
Of course, that’s not how it works. We don’t get 90 days of perfect weather. Spring begins with snow and ends with an inferno. At first, it is a tease. Glimmers of warmth, swept away by Winter cold fighting to retain dominance. Showers and sometimes even real thunderstorms come and stay for days at a time. Those perfect days are hard to come by. Then it gets worse.
Winter loses its hold but just when it seems that Spring can finally dominate, Summer engages. We start to get warm or even hot temperatures breaking into those balmy Spring days and as time passes, hot begins to dominate. What ought to be a perfectly delightful period of pleasant temperatures while everything greens up and begins to bloom is a battle zone where moderation first battles cold and when it finally seems to have control is attacked by Summer. It is a time of endless frustration.
Spring is a tease!
So I say down with Spring, that eternal tease that promises so much and gives to little. No wonder we live our lives moving from one artificial environment to another drugged up with antihistamines. With Winter and Summer you know you are going to get unpleasantness and discomfort. You expect to seek refuge in the comforts of your home indulging in the best artificial environments that money can buy. Winter and Summer are honest. Spring, that dewy innocent appearing season which promises so much and delivers so little is a dishonest tramp. That’s the way I see it and right now I can’t wait for the harsh realities of summer. I don’t want any more of Spring’s empty promises. How about you?
Feb 232015
English: Evidence of Logging. The photograph shows the main track through the woods on Houghton Moor (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I know I should channel my annoyances at my aging body into wonderfully articulate and cantankerous rants, but I am not sure I am ready for that. As if I need any more of this getting old stuff. We went camping this weekend for my 12 year olds birthday. Man oh man, I felt old.
Let’s just say that this trip I was glad to have a mattress to sleep on in the tent trailer.
I was glad to sleep in until 9 AM on 2 of the 3 days.
I went to bed before midnight.
I couldn’t get up the hill without falling and messing up my knee. Well, I probably would have done that anyway.
So here I sit. I feel like an old man when I move. I am slow to get going and tired all of the time. My body is betraying me.
But then, in my mind, I feel like a 14 year old kid who is going to be in trouble all of the time. There is not the place where I feel like the 38 year old man that I should be, well am in reality.
When do you actually start to feel the age you are? Where do you feel like the adult you should feel like?
Hell I have 4 kids, the oldest just turned 12. I shouldn’t feel like I am barely older than her. But I do.
Maybe I am just tired and the constant stream of caffeine is eroding my psyche, maybe I need a therapist. Maybe I need a big jug of rum.
Whatever shall I do…..I want to end up similar to Ralph, retired and cantankerous, living life how it comes, but right now, I am going to lose my mind and be running around the nursing home in a loincloth, waving my cane and flashing the old ladies. Ahhh Dementia….you minx you. When will you visit?
Anyway, what think you all? I want some constructive information on what to do, or you can just go and jump off the short pier.
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Feb 232015
- Image via Wikipedia
Ahhh Ralph has been eloquent the past few days with tales of airline travel and LA. While I believe there is a place for such things, Sometimes there need to be comment on things that we can do nothing about.
I am talking about how &*^%ing hot it has been the last few days here in Utah. Check your local listings, but it seems like September is not being the crisp fall month that I remember from my youth. Days where you actually needed a jacket in the morning and may be able to do without it by the afternoon.
This past week it has seemed like late summer here. All temps in the mid 90’s. This week is scheduled for more of the same. The air conditioner is still running and the kids are still wearing shorts. So today, I saying Down with Mother Nature and Down with the Heat!
Now there are going to be those people who say “What’s the big f’ing deal? It’s hot here too.” Same statement applies. I am not sure of Ralph’s climate but whenever I think of California it is nothing but sun and heat.
There may also be those who will give me the business about living in a basic desert state. It gets hot in the desert. My Grandpa used to live in the extreme southern Utah town of St George where the summer temps routinely hit over 110 and cool off to the low 90’s at midnight. That climate sucks.
Up here in Northern Utah we have seasons. Or we used to. Now it seems like it is just warm all of the time. Last December a flannel shirt and a Levi jacket were warm enough. “So Move.” Some of you will say. That is not an option. I would rather just bitch and hone some more cantankerousness. There is nothing to be done about Mother Nature and whatever PMS is causing this heat wave.
Is it global warming? I hope not, it will last too damn long for me. I can only hope that the thermometer bottoms out and we end up having to leave a faucet on at night so the pipes don’t freeze this winter.
All in all there is a climate for every one and you just have to deal with where you are. If you don’t like it, move. If you don’t want to move, bitch about it, no one will really care.
Feb 232015
Coping in the age of information is a challenge. Every day some incredible amount of new information is added to our store. There is much to know and explore and too much to retain. The trick is to organize that information and have a system to pull that information for review when you need it. In my youth there were dictionaries, encyclopediae and my favorite place, the public library where knowledge was available to anyone mastering the Dewey Decimal System and the card catalog. Back in those days we were dependent on physical documents: books, magazines, newspapers and the like. I used and appreciated the systems that made the information accessible. I highly valued the secretaries, librarians and researchers who developed filing systems and then used them to make the information accessible. But things change.
My filing system.
Today we still have those archaic systems to organize physical documents although they are dwarfed by the amount of cloud based information flooding the universe and made accessible through search engines driven by principles only understood by Google. I am awed by the Internet and the search engines that somehow allow me to find the information I need with a few keystrokes. I can use my computer to find information anywhere in the world. I can print it out, review and edit. I can create documents, spreadsheets and files. I can assemble information from many sources at my desk. It is efficient and convenient. It is what happens next that is my problem. I have never mastered filing. Continue reading »