The last few weeks have been… “intense” would be a good word. “Good” intense, as it were, goals to be met, dragons to be slain, sleep to be lost, but still.
This morning, scraping my sorry ass out of bed and preparing to meet the day, I froze at one point in my routine.
Something was off. I was fuzzy, couldn’t put my finger on it quite yet, but something was definitely off.
Hey, Siri! Tell me about dissociative disorders!
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Farce, Photography
Breathing is good.
Not like, breathing as opposed to suffocating and dying. “Breathing” as in, take a couple of minutes, watch the sunset, let your shoulders relax, unclench your jaw, and try to somehow get that stupid old Pet Shop Boys song that you hate out of your head on 24/7 repeat.
You know. “Breathing.”
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography, Sunsets
Coming up on thirteen years now. Our first convertible, this display and features were top of the line.
Now the list of features looks sort of shabby and second-rate compared to economy cars that cost half of what we paid for this lustmobile.
But still… Mash on the gas and the giddy up giddies right on up there! It’s comfy, it drives really nice.
The tunes still pump out nice and loud when need be. (I believe it was a little bit of Pat Benatar that was threatening my eardrums when this picture was taken on a whim while waiting in the drive-thru line at Carl’s Jr.)
And it’s paid for.
What could be bad?
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography
On all of my PC’s running both Windows 10 and Windows 11 the volume goes from 0 to 100 in steps of 2. Even numbers only. No way to set it to 17, for example.
Why?
Why don’t they set it to go from 0 to 50 in increments of one?
![[Image - 198362] | These go to 11 / Spinal Tap | Know Your Meme](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi0.kym-cdn.com%2Fphotos%2Fimages%2Ffacebook%2F000%2F198%2F362%2Fspinaltap.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=c829111e3c3b87c36fa01469a7b6211655b073a9ec450cf413b4eed1bc83dd65&ipo=images)
Does Microsoft think that their amps should go to 22?
Seriously, is there some bizarre limitation to the OS or programming reason that prevents there from being any prime number other than 2 being used?
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Silly Shit
What I really hate is the fact that I’ve started to have hazy, half-awake, falling asleep, drifting off, stress dreams about Excel. The spreadsheet program. The one that I’m using hour after hour after hour at work and at home, most of the time seven days a week, 365 days a year.
The usual sort of stress dreams, minor nightmares, only instead of not being able to find my car or get my camera to work or find the hotel front desk in order to check out, I can’t get something to work correctly in Excel.
More importantly, I have a serious question. Something that’s bugged me about the program for years and years.
In order to shield certain information from view, you have the option to “Hide” rows, columns, worksheets, and so on. When you want to reverse that and show those “hidden” areas, the command is “Unhide.”
“Unhide?” WTF? Was that even a word before Excel de facto made it one?
Why not use “Reveal?” Isn’t that already a real word that means the opposite of “Hide?”
Filed under Computers, Deep Thoughts, Photography
The point may vanish, the parallel lines converge, but the memories (a few good, a few more horrific) remain.
If I knew then what I knew a couple hours later, let alone what I know now, years later, would I have followed these rails? Or was the good worth it in the balance? Was the bad blown out of proportion? Maybe this was a sign (or maybe a portent) and I’m still not seeing the message?
That’s the problem with not having any gods, reliable oracles, or accurate psychics to lean on. Some answers would be great, but they’re nowhere to be found. The unknowns are winning.
Stupid universe!
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography
One thing I noticed in watching all of the news coverage of Hurricane Ian slamming into Florida as a Category 4 storm was the lack of color in most of the scenes. The clouds and rain are white and gray and the lack of sunshine makes everything that does have color seem washed out and pale. The sea not only turns angry and threatening, but it turns gray and black with the whitecaps showing up as the winds explode.
Colorful signs and storefronts and home turn to debris, brown, gray, black, with occasional splotches of color which are quickly spun away and scattered by the storm, to be sunken into the brown and black storm surge.
I think that’s a good analogy for the way our lives are going right now. We want life to be colorful, filled with blue skies, green fields, yellow sunshine, white clouds, multicolored flowers. Instead, some days so many things feel like a hurricane going through our lives, leaving everything broken and reduced to various shades of white, black, gray, and brown.
Keep the color in your life. Fight for it. Cling to it. Share it with others. And if everything’s gray and black and white and brown for you, ask others if they can share some of theirs.
Filed under Art, Deep Thoughts, Photography, Weather
Water. Heat. Steam. Biological chemistry. Seven small test subjects.
Will they survive the ordeal intact? Or will one fail?
Will it be quiet and subtle, a tiny crack, a weakening of structural inegrity but not a failure?
Or will it be spectacular, explosive, creating a mess and leaving an end result only vaguely resembling the desired result?
Some days you are one with the egg.
Intact, cracked, or exploded, do your best to do your best and know that at the end of the day, when the pressure goes away, know that you’re worthy and valuable, no matter the result.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography
There’s a drought, fourth year. We’ve got some significant watering restrictions outdoors. It’s been hot, pushing into the upper 90’s almost every day for weeks.
The lawn is turning brown. The dirt is hard packed.
Yet my little pal next to the driveway has found a way to thrive. (Assuming I can avoid running him over when I park.)
It’s hard out there for all of us. Politics. The economy. Inflation. Gas prices. COVID. Stress. Uncertainty.
Yet we do have the ability within us to be like this flower, finding a way to get up when the world knocks us down. We can bring the tiniest bit of beauty and joy to the world, even if it sucks. We can still make it better.
Even if you have to fake it. Function follows form.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Flowers, Paul, Photography
I think a lot about the contradictions in the human condition, in particular the way we can soar to immense heights and accomplish astonishing things, both as individuals and as a species, yet we spend so much of our time bogged down in the details of daily life and the petty nonsense that ties us to the ground far more than gravity ever will.
If there are an infinite number of infinite universes, you can’t even ask “Are we in one of the good ones or one of the bad ones?” By definition, there are an infinite number in which there are happier and better off “us” versions, and an infinite number in which the “us” there is worse off and suffering. A little bit more clarity and a better scorecard might be highly desireable, but we’re just going to have to live with uncertaintly and unanswered prayers.
I believe the time spent on prayers would be better off in getting off our collective asses and getting to work on the problems. But that’s at least 90% that midwestern, Catholic school, Republican, Protestant work ethic upbringing.
Damn it.
Work on soaring, not slogging. The view’s better, if nothing else.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography
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We Love The Stars Too Fondly 