Youtube has been throwing old episodes of “To Tell The Truth” my way lately. I vividly remember the show from my early childhood. Kitty Carlisle always seemed so regal and Peggy Cass seemed like such fun. The theme song was boppy. I don’t really care for the latest incarnation of the show; it’s just too vulgar. (God I’m sounding old).
I don’t remember Peggy Cass sounding like such an encyclopedia, but apparently she was well read.
My husband rides along with my various diet requests on an ever changing basis. This was my enjoyable breakfast this morning. I probably eat too much bacon and would eagerly switch to a vegetarian substitute if I could find a said substitute that cooks as crisp as regular bacon. I don’t enjoy a chewy bacon experience. I have tried various vegetarian bacons over the years and while they taste almost too bacon-y, I find them a little too close to a jerky substitute, which I don’t enjoy.
I’m happy my husband doesn’t find me to be a jerk with my every changing diet requests. I’d cook my own meals from time to time but things aren’t that desperate and even in this huge house with a big kitchen, I’m not allowed in the cooking area.
Our new home has nite lights wired throughout the hallways and stairwells. These little lights have LED bulbs, are fit into a standard-sized outlet box, and have downward pointing shades so the walkways are illuminated. When we moved in they were all wired to standard three or four-way switches.
There’s three circuits of these lights. The third circuit illuminates the stairwell that goes to our guest room. I was going to replace the switch this evening; when the project was completed then all three sets of lights would be controlled by home automation.
Except the stairwell bannister passes directly in front of the switch in question. There is a one-inch gap between the wall and the bannister. I decided tonight was not the night to tackle this. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need to take the bannister off the wall to swap out this switch.
There are several interesting design choices in this house and this is one of the examples. At times we’ve found the wiring to be equally creative, but we’re getting that part figured out.
I just don’t understand why someone would install a switch and then place a bannister directly in front of it.
I have an ironclad memory. I’m known as the guy that remembers everything. I can tell you the bell schedule from high school (which I graduated from 35 years ago). I can tell you every home room number, every bus number, and I can give you SKU numbers from Ames Department Store, which closed in 2003. Magazines? 02730021. Greeting cards? 81230013. Candy bars? 67235515.
I can tell you very little about our drive a month ago from Chicago to Tucson.
It’s all about impact. The drive down made little impact. We drove through St. Louis. No big deal. It’s St. Louis. We drove through Kansas. It’s flat. It was our first time driving through the panhandle of Oklahoma. There’s nothing there. Our cat Truman settled down, we ate fast food, and bam, we’re living in Tucson, Arizona. We had very little interaction with the public, we didn’t see any friends between points A and B and I probably filled the tank on our 2016 Jeep Cherokee six times.
It was uneventful and for the first time in nearly 53 years, the ride did not make an impression on me. At all. I remember little about it.
I’m ready to make memories again. Our new home is a delight and we’re getting settled in, but I’m still not quite on my game. Things are not locking in as I would expect them to. Am I overwhelmed? I don’t think so. I’m missing my structured schedule. I’m still finding that structure. I like structure. It’s comfortable.
And when I’m comfortable, things make an impact. And that’s when the memories are written.
I need to find my comfort.
I was feeling particularly introspective during my morning walk today. I don’t know if it’s the arrival of spring (however that’s defined in our new home) or the magical sound of the wind sweeping across the desert or the presence of nature all around us again, but something had me pondering life and I’m better for it.
I am happy. I’m actually very happy and am thankful for this blessing of life. I try to never take things for granted and I realized it could all be taken away in nearly an instant, so I strive to treasure each moment, each thought.
For some reason I was thinking of my high school friend that passed on from cancer a couple of years ago. We were close friends in high school, lost touch with one another, found each other on the streets of Boston, connected again, and then he became ill and passed on to whatever lies beyond. I enjoy that he was always a calm one with a dry sense of humor. Now that I think about it, many of my high school friends were rather calm. Maybe I was the high strung one of the group.
This led to me to thoughts about death, and my eventual passing (it happens to everyone, you know), and how I’m very likely well beyond the half way point of this life. I’m not afraid of death. I fully believe without hesitation that something lies ahead on our path and it’s beyond our comprehension as to how wonderful it is. What we call life is just a part of a much larger journey. A sixth sense, a flirtation with death as a youngster, it all just makes sense and is part of a universal truth. I just know these things to be true. I need no proof. I need no reassurance. I just know it to be.
Where am I going with these thoughts? Forward. That’s it. They’re probably mere ramblings written down buy some middle aged guy in a blog of little consequence or impact.
I’m thankful to be able to share them.
Earl and I went shopping at one of the many locations of The Home Depot in Tucson today. There were a lot of people milling about doing their Saturday chores. The vast majority of them were wearing masks, as required by Pima County and The Home Depot (despite what the governor says).
A few folks were not wearing masks and I maintained an extra amount of distance from them and gave them an eye roll. They probably didn’t notice, they were too wrapped up in their false sense of importance in this world.
Even though I was wearing a mask, maintaining distance, and on the vaccination path for COVID-19, I still feel a great deal of anxiety when out in public. Every person I see, masked or not, is a walking petri dish of God knows what and I have not desire to sample their sickly soup. As a society we have too many people that can’t be bothered to park in one parking space let alone take care of one another by wearing a mask during a global pandemic.
I hope that I’ll be over this anxiety by the end of the summer so we can enjoy all our desert home city has to offer.
Right now I’ll just maintain my distance.
My body seems OK with getting up at 5:30 AM Mountain Standard Time for my weekday schedule. Truman stays quiet and still on the bed until I show signs of being awake. My husband doesn’t get up until later, but I tip toe around the room, do my business in the washroom, and then throw on yesterday’s clothes so I can tackle the early morning team meetings.
I wonder if my colleagues notice that I’ve showered, shaved, and changed clothes between my first and second meetings of the morning?
My mood has been surprisingly pleasant with early rising. I’m starting to feel this new routine and it’s not a bad feeling. I’m pretty sure I can do this morning thing for as long as necessary.
Someone just hook up a device to my Zoom meetings so I can be jolted awake.
Actually, I’m kidding. The only stumbling block I have with these early morning meetings, other than being unshowered and unshaven, is my speech patterns. Speaking coherently and trying to keep my mild stammer this side of outrageous in the early morning can be a bit of a challenge. Like President Biden, I have little tricks I use to try to keep things running in the same direction, but once in a while my words and phrases and such can go in six directions at once with a repetitive stammer.
I’m like Bob Newhart without the groovy theme song.
Once I get the cylinders firing on all thrusters, though, I’m in my element and not feeling any bad effects from being up so early. I used to think getting up early was a thing grandparents did.
I’m now shocked to realize I’m the age my grandparents were at when I thought these things about getting up early.
I’ve been messing around with to-do lists, email programs, and other related fun and frivolity in this technological world. As a Mac and iOS user, I tend to lean toward “it just works” and go with stock Apple applications when I can, but sometimes they just don’t seem to be enough.
I’m a little paranoid about online privacy, so anything that squelches tracking is preferred in my book. Apple’s Safari web browser does the vast majority of this with features baked right into the experience, so I like that. However, Apple’s Mail app does not block hidden pixel-trackers in email messages. For those that aren’t aware of these things, many mass email outfits like to put a hidden element in their marketing emails so they know if you’ve read the email or not and confirm the validity of your email address. I never respond to “Wanda has requested a read receipt” prompts, so I really don’t want hidden elements tattling on my email management habits. So I’ve opted to use AirMail on my devices because it automatically blocks this pixel-based reporting back to the sender.
My other struggle is with my to do list management system. For over a decade I’ve used OmniFocus, but I’ve never been comfortable with the locking of data into the OmniFocus platform. I’m relying on their syncing between devices, their file format, and their addition and deletion of features. I like being able to automatically schedule tasks, for example, telling my to do list “I have a flight on Saturday”, and it builds all the tasks, and times them appropriately, for everything that’s needed to get ready for the flight. As I get older, the holes in my Swiss cheese brain get bigger and I rely on my productivity app to keep track of my life. OmniFocus let’s me automate, but it’s not the smoothest experience in the world.
Lately I’ve been bouncing back and forth between OmniFocus and plain text ToDo.txt, which I can control, read, and automate with ease.
The bouncing back and forth takes more personal bandwidth than just getting things done.
I need to make a decision and stick to it. I’ll have to put that on my todo.
Wherever it may land.
April Fools’ Day is my least favorite day of the year. I’ve never been a fan of the frivolity others find in pranks, lies, and other foolish things to celebrate the arrival of April. Even back when I was a kid I would dread the day because it just seemed unnecessary.
Now, this is not to say I haven’t found anything associated with April Fools’ Day to be amusing. Way back in the early 1990s, a local radio station started running ads and announcements that the United States had converted to Metric Time. They had ads from businesses announcing you could bring your microwave or VCR in to be reprogrammed for Metric Time. I thought that little campaign was clever. There’s probably been a couple others I’ve found amusing over the decades but since the Internet destroyed took over the world it seems like April Fools’ Day has just ramped up and amplified stupidity and idiocy.
I always look forward to April 2.
This has bothered me since the “Downton Abbey” movie came out in 2019 and when the trailer was suggested on Youtube today, it finally hit me.
The did something with CGI to Dame Maggie Smith’s eyes in the final cut of the movie.
In the official trailer, Dame Maggie looks like Dame Maggie, as regal and glorious as ever.
In the same clip in the actual movie, they modified her left eye a bit.
Subconsciously I knew something had changed but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Not that I would put my finger in her eye or anything, but I’m happy I’ve resolved this little niggling in the back of my head.
And I wish they’d do another Downton Abbey movie.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!