… and other things.
Please watch your volume. I’m rather boisterous.
Respite.
So it is Friday afternoon and I am looking forward to the weekend. There are plans involving road trips and frivolity, but my body is apparently thinking differently. I am feeling some signs of impending bed rest and sneezing. I should be in Vitamin C shock by now with all of the juice and fruit and vitamin C tablets and Airborne. Better now instead of the weekend of the wedding I suppose.
Let’s see which set of plans for the weekend come to fruition.
Silly.
In an attempt be happy that I was up and the ungodly hour of 6:15 this morning, I made a silly remark to Earl. He laughed a bit as I told him what I thought my porn name should be. I’ve slightly modified the porn name in my head since I told him this morning; I will provide him with the updated nomenclature this evening.
I have decided not to share this name with others until I make sure that it’s available and has Twitter availability and the like, but it will be nice to no longer be known as Hogtied Cop In Trunk. What a relief.
It is at this point of the narrative where I share a common phrase heard in our home.
“Brown chick-a brown cow.”
Paradigms.
The QWERTY keyboard we all know and love as it allows us to communicate with our computer was designed to slow you down in typing speed. Did you know that? The reason the QWERTY keyboard is laid out the way it is is so that you don’t find an occasion to type letters that are next to each other very often and that you have to reach around a bit to type commonly used words. Using this design prevented early typewriters from jamming their strike bars as a result of speedy typing. The need for this keyboard arrangement is long gone, yet we continue to teach people this antiquated keyboard layout instead of adopting something new, like the Dvorak keyboard. I don’t have the nerve to try Dvorak keyboard as I’m probably one of the fastest typists you’ll ever meet (and I say that with the utmost confidence), but I hear that if I was able to learn the alternate keyboard I could be even a faster typist. My 43-year old brain has been using the same muscle memory for typing since I was 7. It’s the old dog, new tricks thing.
Imagine what the world would be like today if we had the courage to try new things. Perhaps we could more than two realistic (and I use that term loosely) choices for President of the United States. Perhaps we could elect a leader based on their merits instead of how much money they funneled into a campaign to be the brightest and shiniest.
If we took a leap out of our safety nets or a step outside of our comfort zones, we might find the courage to say “hello” to that stranger on the street looks like they’re having a bad day. Maybe I’d discover that I don’t mind eating eggs. Perhaps life wouldn’t feel so boring as we strive to grow by doing the same thing over and over again. It’s like leaping out of an airplane: trust the parachute and enjoying flying like a bird. You’ll eventually be grounded again.
At age 20, when I sat down at my first staff meeting as a brand-new employee of the second largest computer company in the world, I was told that we needed to shift the paradigm of computing. We needed to approach everything from a different angle. We needed to step back from our green screens and introduce users to a world outside of typing commands at a command prompt. Our job was to help people connect through voice, video and data. It was then that I was first introduced to the phrase “paradigm shift”. That meeting meant a lot to me both professionally and personally. The lessons live within me today.
I never thought I would see the day that I would be able to marry the love of my life. I never thought that my watch would be more powerful than the first computer I used. I never thought I would enjoy the off-key singing of Journey tunes coming from the car currently parked next to me in the parking lot. But I love all of it.
Opening your eyes, looking for a different angle and smiling through it all. Now that’s a concept I can get into.
Sunshine.
Some days you just have to sit outside and enjoy some sunshine for your lunch hour.
Life is good.
Waterline.
Things are finally drying out after the two rounds of flooding we’ve had courtesy of Irene and Lee. Our backyard is still quite squishy; there’s no way we can put a ladder up right now to fill one of the bird feeders because it would just sink right down into the lawn. Safety and all that.
During a geek-inspired ride yesterday (to see some new road signs awaiting delivery at a local sign manufacturing facility), I pulled over and took a picture of the trees along one of the roads that was heavily flooded. This particular area is notorious for flooding in even typical spring conditions so I wasn’t surprised to see the height of the flood water line, which looked to be about four feet above the road surface.
I find it ironic that this particular piece of land has a real estate sign on it, advertising it’s availability for residential or commercial development. The sign is relatively new. I imagine that interest in using this land for this purpose is rather low, buildings up on stilts are not all that common in these parts, even on land that is situated between the Mohawk River and the Barge Canal.
I hope the land doesn’t get developed simply because the animals might like to play along the shores of the water too.
Remember.
I still remember sitting down and writing this blog entry on Sept. 12, 2001. On Sept. 11 I couldn’t bear to sit down and write a blog entry; Earl and I had been glued to the television set watching the news and I wasn’t able to put my thoughts into words that would be coherent for anyone to read. The next day I was able to muster that brief blog entry.
I have said before that I had a weird sense of ‘something’ as I rode the elevator up to my office on the 16th floor. The phone rang as I got off the elevator, Earl called and said a small plane had run into the World Trade Center. I had a whole bunch of spidey-sense going; I didn’t know why but the best I can describe it is borrowing from Star Wars, there was a disturbance in the force.
As I entered the doors of the radio station I worked at, the satellite feed was switching over to an ABC News special bulletin. We soon quickly put together a makeshift antenna and hooked it up in the production room of the adjoining advertising business so we could watch the news and get a handle on what was happening. The rest is history. History that I hope will never be repeated.
Yesterday at the SU game was Patriotic Day. As we honored those that have served our country and the lives that were lost on 9/11 (and those living with that loss today), my eyes teared up quite a few times. I mourn the loss of life and I’m sad for the loss of the pre-9/11 USA. Sometimes it’s so weird to step back and see where our country has gone since this tragedy. An event that united us in it’s aftermath has ultimately turned out country into a land much more markedly divided than it was 10 years ago.
As I asked last year, please burn a candle of peace today. While we will always remember the events of 9/11/01, let’s continue to learn and find ways to come back together as a united people.
Orange.
Back in February I bought Earl season tickets for SU Football as his birthday present. We have been excited about the arrival of football season and since we always love a chance to go to the Dome, we acquainted ourselves with our season ticket seats yesterday. We are on the 20 yard line in row K. There were no nose bleeds as we’re on in section 115. The Orange played Rhode Island. We won, though it probably wasn’t as easy a win as it should have been.
I have always loved going to the Carrier Dome and I still feel the same excitement that I did when I first went to it back in the early 1980s. It was good to get back into football season and Earl seemed very happy with his birthday present. Now we’ll probably get basketball season tickets too.
Goodies.
I was able to drive home my normal commuting route yesterday for the first time in a while. With all the flooding and such that has been going on this week many of the roads have been closed. I was happy to see that the Amish Baked Goods stand was open.
Another car pulled up to the small building ahead of me. They stopped to talk to one of the Amish men before making their way to the items for sale. As I looked over the goods, I noticed that there was just one pie for sale. It was an apple pie. I purchased that right away, along with a plate of chocolate chip cookies. The girl working the stand was the same girl that has been working there right along. She isn’t much of a conversationalist, but she did look me in the eyes when she said the only two words spoken to me, “You’re welcome”. I was happy to hear that we had progressed to two words, last time it was just “Yes”.
As I made gathered up the goodies and started back to the Jeep, the other couple made their way to the stand. I heard the woman exclaim, “Oh, pickles!”
I hope the stand is open for a few more weeks. The weather is perfect for a quick stop there before the weekend.
