No, not for me. For the kids. Today is the end of school and therefore the start of summer. So I am celebrating by taking tomorrow off work.
We can all sleep in, be lazy all morning, play in the sprinkler in the afternoon, eat popsicles outside, then stay up late and catch fireflies.
Then they get to repeat that as often as they like during the summer. Or something like that.
I have seen that nothing is better than that man should be happy in his activities, for that is his lot. For who will bring him to see what will occur after him?
Ecclesiastes 3:22
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I was reading a Frazz collection and one of the story lines had to do with the famous quote from Thomas Alva Edison :
Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. It bothered me because it is wrong.
By wrong I don’t mean misquoted. By wrong I mean Edison was mistaken when he said it.
Here is my recommendation for improving the quote :
Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
Really, think about it – genius can be apparent without effort. And I think Edison was thinking about success when he said it. He probably saw success and genius as one and the same, because he was successful.
I’m not convinced he was a genius though. I’d apply that label to Nikola Tesla. He was a genius, but he was not successful. At least not as successful in the business world as Edison was.
Another vote against Edison’s being a genius is that he spoke about genius-ness. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, if you have to tell people you’re a genius, then you’re not.
By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”
Genesis 3:19
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I bought a car.
First, a description of the old car, a 2002 beige Buick Regal with 164,000 miles.
I wanted to keep driving it, but the transmission does not cooperate with me anymore. It will let me drive for about 30 seconds at a time. And then it waits until the car is shut off and restarted before it will work again. Since it would lengthen my commute time considerably to drive in that manner, I bought a replacement car while I decided whether to put more money into the Regal.
(more…)
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I have mentioned this topic before (in my PSA about pedestrians and traffic), but another incident happened so I feel like writing about it again.
The main argument for having pedestrians travel in the opposite direction of traffic (i.e. facing oncoming cars instead of going with them) is for situational awareness – being able to see the nearest danger.
But this time I was driving instead of running and realized another reason for it – it’s better for drivers too.
In this case, I was driving up a hill on a dirt road. The jogger was on my side of the road, going the same direction. Being a conscientious driver, I was going to move into the other lane to go around her. But this was a dirt road, which is about 1.75 lanes wide. So if I swerved at all to go around her, I would be in the other lane. Directly and completely facing oncoming traffic.
And that was the problem. Because we were near the top of a hill. So I couldn’t see if there was oncoming traffic. Anyone who has read Bill Peet books (specifically Jennifer and Josephine) will know that one of the worst things to do just before the top of a hill is to swerve into the other lane. So I idled along behind the jogger until we crested the hill and I could see that there was no oncoming traffic.
What was the problem? Her presence in my lane unnecessarily delayed me.
If she had been in the other lane, like she was supposed to, then I could have travelled at a decent speed (faster than the 4 mph that I did while trailing her) without bothering her. It would cost her nothing to be in that lane instead of this. She would be safer from traffic. And she could have gone jogging without wondering why some car is following her very slowly.
Do not go out into the field
And do not walk on the road,
For the enemy has a sword,
Terror is on every side.
Jeremiah 6:25
Posted in Sports | 2 Comments »
Here are a few images of Michael Buffer plus something other than boxing.
You may not know the name Michael Buffer (I didn’t either, before I started this), but you probably would recognize him. He’s the “Let’s get ready to rrrrumble” boxing announcer guy. And if you’re not a fan of boxing, you may have seen him in a car insurance commercial.
I thought about setting this up as a quiz, with the final word omitted until you got through them all, but I decided not to spend that much time on this, so you are on the honor system to scroll slowly and try to guess what these people or things are getting ready to do.
Ready?
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Posted in Humor | 3 Comments »
My son asked me when summer begins and my answer, which is a good lawyerly answer, was “It depends.”
My definition of summer is June, July, and August. So to me, summer begins June 1. But that wouldn’t work very well in the southern hemisphere.
So I told him that, but I added some other definitions.
To some people, summer runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. But that wouldn’t work very well outside the US.
To other people, summer runs from solstice to equinox – June 21 to September 21. My problem with that is that June 21st is the peak of sun so it should be the middle of summer, not the beginning. Go ahead and lookup “when is midsummer?” and you’ll see.
The other definition I could think of relates to farming. In that case, summer would be the time between planting and harvesting.
What do you consider to be the start of summer?
You observe days and months and seasons and years.
Galatians 4:10
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I haven’t written too much about roundabouts, but I am a fan of them. Most of the arguments for them, as I see it for our neck of the woods, is that they keep working during a power outage and don’t make people stop unnecessarily when there’s no other traffic.
But a situation yesterday reminded me of another benefit: they remove ambiguity.
In this case I was at a 2-way stop. What happened was that the person across from me was there first, but he was waiting for traffic to clear so he could turn left. Then I arrived, intending to head straight across the intersection. I knew the other guy was first, so I was waiting for him to go before I tried to cross.
He, unfortunately, was trying to be nice and so he didn’t go, in order to let me go first. What happened was that no one went and both of us missed the clearing of traffic.
After that, he waved his hand to let me know I should go first. That happened at the exact same time that I waved my hand to let him know he should go first. So not only do I have to watch for cross traffic, but at the same time I have to negotiate with the opposite car for who wants the other car to go more.
What is good about roundabouts is there is no negotiation with other stopped cars. There is only you and the oncoming traffic. If you see an opening, take it. No indecision, no wondering if the other car is going, no misunderstandings of who was there first and whose turn it is.
Roundabouts make life simpler.
He did right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of his father David and did not turn aside to the right or to the left.
2 Chronicles 34:2
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This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
