Tagged: poetry
No More LifeGuard Babes
I don’t know if you saw, but the other day a nerd-bomber with a drone just spontaneously and brilliantly saved a person from drowning by flying out a rescue device. (Took two tries actually.)
For those of you who can read facts but struggle to draw conclusions correctly, allow me to help. This simple, lifesaving effort just removed all hope of me ever receiving CPR from a Baywatch-style lifeguard, a la Sandlot scheming.
Until this event, I have to say that I didn’t believe any single person’s actions could be more disastrous to life on earth than the first man to work through the siesta.
The future is bleak. And apparently limitlessly so.
Just Have To Smile
When you work at an airport and shortly after arriving see and hear a brightly colored colored biplane suddenly appear from behind your hangar on what, by altitude and position, must be its base turn, looking like it is the one that needs saving from the opening scene of Disney’s The Rocketeer, you just have to smile.
Reading Log 4.9.2025
Same for Vol 2 as I said about Vol 1, “Grant’s memoir was amazing and astounding on nearly every level. What a time to have been alive.”
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Re: Pilgrim’s Progress: I will share the text I sent to a friend.
“On another subject, I finally started John Bunyan’s famous ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’.
Four chapters in and I would say this book may be more valuable to Christianity than the Bible itself. One more entry in the matter of ‘what a shame that folks have dropped it out of vogue’.
If you want a copy, I can send one to you. It is part of our homeschool set.”
(Obviously I would need a GoFundMe account to accomplish this for the world’s population. But if you are serious that all you need is a copy to get you reading, my offer stands. Comment below or email me. We’ll get you one.)
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I have read tons of Mark Twain. Or it feels like it. But I had no idea about Mr. Wilson and the twins. Twain is ridiculous. I always thought he was hilarious, as evidenced here again, but these open the “ridiculous” description too. And watch out! The “n” word is on full display as he calls into question everything you have ever thought about life on earth.
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The reason you read Pascal is to see for yourself that these “greats” are impossible to justly or sufficiently summarize. The infamous “wager” is far more involved than how it typically is presented.
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The math essays don’t teach you particular skills, but they are interesting and do contain such marvelous sentiments, found curiously nowhere else, as, (paraphrasing) “We don’t need to think more. We need to think less. We need to accomplish as much as possible with as little thinking. That is true advancement.”
Oh, and if you want a single essay as an icebreaker, to test the waters, it’s Euler’s hands down. “The Seven Bridges of Königsberg.” See here.
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I like writing these updates. But I wonder if anyone will ever use them as intended. Time will tell.
My 4-Yr Old Recognized Beauty
She FT’d me as they were walking into the garage to leave for mega-church. The door opened, and the way she holds the camera it was difficult to not notice the barely cloud-speckled blue sky. Then I saw she did too. And without prompting she said, “It’s a beautiful day,” and faded almost into a hum, “in the neighborhood,” which is of course from Daniel the Tiger or whatever the name of the Mr. Roger’s-based show is called. (Not that she has seen it in several months since I tossed the TV, but I feel like being clear that she isn’t an abstract idea floating around in the aether, but a little girl.)
Anyhow, it’s true.
And that’s the point I want to make to all you anxiety-driven, suicide-prone, depression-claimants. Take a look at the lilies of the field. If my four year old can see them, then surely they are there.
We Must Do Better at Describing the Dead
Anyone else absolutely annoyed at the statements about the recently deceased pilots?
I have posted on this topic many times and my dander is up again, naturally.
There is a paradox. We seem afraid of telling a lie about a dead person, presumably because it would be unfair, and at precisely the same time, we have no sense of fairness.
“He was young.” Wow!
“He was an amazing person.” By golly!
“She was a bright star.” No shit!
“No one dreamed bigger or worked harder.” Truly!
Here’s my ask: please talk with people who may feel like describing you after you die. Give them some boundaries. I am not kidding. I have written out something and given it to my mom.
I refuse to believe this paradox and other difficulties are based on the whiny, “It’s uncomfortable to talk about.” No, it’s not. You’re just out of touch in the main and think you are somehow exempt from the only sure thing—another paradox.
In short, we mortals, all of us, live in a world where Michael Jackson and a lesbo DEI nut that crashed into an enormous and well-lit plane (located where every swinging dick on the earth would be right to always expect a plane to be ((final approach to a runway))) are both described as celestial matter. How ‘bout, no.
Quite the Troll
So a comment in this morning’s paper on the “DEI Employees Placed on Leave” article said, “How does he plan to determine which employees are DEI hires?”
The rest of the commenters (glass half-empty) lambasted the poor soul for not having read the article. But I (glass half-full) found it hilarious, found it to be quite the troll.
Running with the theme, I want to add that it is rather funny to me to consider that in all likelihood there were many DEI hires (those unqualified but hired) who are also unqualified in words and so honestly feared they might be going on leave today. Ha. Think of it. Like nature’s biggest gag. Just considering the time and energy it took to get to the point that a punchline was possible makes me chuckle. So funny.
Goldilocks and the Three Americans
Once upon a time, there was a family of the smallest of sizes, but perfectly intentioned, who lived in a neighborhood-
“That’s not how it goes, Dad!”
“I’m not telling the story we read, A-; I am answering your question about the noises the cameras make.”
“Oh.”
-Whenever these smallest of sizes, but perfectly intentioned, families went out from their house—whether to school or stores or restaurants—they worried about yellow-haired girls who they had heard about when they were children-
“Goldilocks has yellow hair!”
“That’s right, A-. That’s who the noises are supposed to scare aware. You see, Goldilocks is supposed to think, ‘I don’t want to deal with whatever those bears are up to. So I’ll find a house without cameras.’”
“This house doesn’t have cameras!”
“Good eyes, A-. That’s right. If I were Goldilocks, I’d try that house first.”
“You’re not Goldilocks!”
“I know. I’m just answering your question.”
“Oh.”
“You know, A-. I don’t mind sharing with you that besides adding talking cameras to the cornucopian display of my opulent wealth, that story is why I don’t trust any Yellow-Haired women.”
“Look, Daddy!”
“Okay! What? I see a truck.”
“Goldilocks is in that truck!”
“That’s right. I didn’t finish the story.”
-And no one ever saw Goldilocks ever again. But sometimes, when the light is just right, you can see Yellow-Haired women driving white trucks. So if ever on your camera screen you see a white truck in your driveway…hide your porridge!
The Right Kind of Start to the Day
Santa brought my daughter a prism for Christmas this year. Where’d he get the idea, I wonder?
If you guessed, “Who is Isaac Newton?”, then you guessed right! Of course, it wasn’t the legendary Isaac Newton who noticed apples, but the historical person Isaac Newton who recorded his thoughts and experiments for posterity, who painstakingly measured the wavelengths of colors with a prism and analogized gravity to a slingshot.
This morning my four year old daughter, A-, ran from the sunny window of my bedroom and promptly returned with the prism to try to make rainbows.
Naturally, no one needs to make rainbows with a prism anymore. This is because (despite morons abounding) to all important parties, color measurements—and even light measurements—are as solved as shoe sizes.
But the ability to see? That is truly rare. But my daughter has it. And who gave it to her? That’s right. Her very own Santa Claus, otherwise known as Dad.
It was the right kind of start to the day.
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Oh, and I finished that other EPIC COLLECTION(!!!) of X-Men I mentioned.
For posterity, one effect that occurred while reading these 450+ pages of comics was the ability to see the rather finite amount of “types” these stories can have. IE, after you exhaust good vs evil in the plain sense, you have to move on to plot devices like making a good guy character seem evil, but lo and behold it wasn’t really the good guy, but the bad guy all along through some obvious and ingenious use of their powers! And then they also introduced the concept of using an entire comic(!) for a character in the story to tell a (in this case bedtime) tale involving slightly altered characters etc. Is that called meta, but inward; instead of breaking the fourth wall? In any case, time for a break from the Uncanny X-Men! (Don’t worry, Strangest Super Heroes of All, I still love you guys.)
On Reading “The Divine Comedy”
Oh sweet Book, thou mantlest thyself with a smile, by what ardentcy dost thou require my time whose arrow, aimed right or left, loosed evermore sheathgone, anon to crawl, broken mirror upon, ever opening virgin wounds ere disconsidered more believable than metamorphastication of hell’s lord to heaven’s Supreme Good, be collected!
On Cold Showers
It’s been a year and a half and only lately have I not held myself to perfection. I have to admit that I lost a little motivation when Wim made the news for allegedly disturbing behavior vis-a-vis his first marriage. But I still enjoy the challenge.
In the end, if I’m feeling like a warm shower, I take one. But if I am feeling like “not a cold shower!”, then I force myself to take a cold one. And cold showers all other days too.
Oh, the dread.
At the “work house” I have pleasantly avoided the dread twice now, in two distinct ways. The first time was like this. I didn’t check the faucet selector valve and so was shocked that the water came from overhead immediately. Normally there is a slight delay from “cold water – on” to “feet cold – confirm” to “here goes” to “water traveling up” to “AAAAHHHHH! FREEZING!” And this is followed by a song, often a broadway hit. So the day of this first dreadless experience, I skipped all the middle steps and went directly from “cold water – on” to “AAAAHHHH! FREEZING!” and song.
The second time happened just tonight. While I had learned a valuable lesson from that first mistake, I apparently have not worked out all possible kinks—again the work house with its rotating occupants is tricky. Tonight I didn’t think to check where the shower head was pointed and so in the aforementioned sequence went from “feet cold – confirm” to “GAPING CHEST WOUND! FREEZING” as I immediately and simultaneously shrank down to take the brunt of the impact on my skull (the preferred option) as I reached to adjust the angle of the cold demon’s barrel.
Crisis averted.
And a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! to you, faithful reader.
God Bless the Master of this House
And Its Good Mistress too
And All the Little Children who round the table goo
And all your Kin and Kindred who dwell both far and near
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Captain’s Log 