tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907800321362877112024-03-05T06:04:08.316-08:00Gryphon ViewsRandom observations, Not Necessarily of InterestGearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-10006786780339831682020-04-01T13:11:00.000-07:002020-04-01T13:11:25.465-07:00Priesthood Lesson 22 March 2020<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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Observations on the word “Repentance”<o:p></o:p></div>
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When I was arrived in Belgium in late 1964 for my Mission to France and Belgium, I had no language training, and I spoke no French. My first goal was to learn it so that I could teach the Gospel in French. <o:p></o:p></div>
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One of the things I learned while studying French, was that there were some concepts in English that could be translated directly into French very accurately – while preserving the meaning of what the words meant very clearly. But I also learned that there were some concepts in English that were very difficult to translate into French, because there were no French words that created exactly the same concept as the English words did. Also, there were some concepts in French for which there were no appropriate English words. The best that could be done in both cases was to describe an approximation of the concept in question by sort of talking all around it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For example, in French, there is no word that is equivalent to the English word “leadership”. All the French words (e.g., chef, patron) that have to do with leaders tend to carry a connotation of domination, which is not appropriate to the English word, so one has to describe what is meant by “Leadership” while trying to avoid all the French words that connote power and dominance. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There is a problem of translating INTO English as well. When I taught a lesson to the High Priest’s Quorum a few years ago, I brought to the discussion no less than seven Greek words that are all found in the New Testament, and all of them are translated into the English word “love”. Yet there are distinct and understandable differences between each of the seven Greek words, but none of those differences carried over into the single English word.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Similarly, there are two Hebrew words found in the Old Testament, and two Greek words found in the New Testament that are all translated into English as “repent”. The two Hebrew words distinguish a difference, and the two Greek words roughly distinguish the same difference, and so the two languages can be translated back and forth in an approximate equivalence to each other, but each of the four words is translated into English as “repent” or some variation thereof, and there is no second word in English to use to distinguish the differences that exist in the Hebrew and Greek usage.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">In the Hebrew of the Old Testament the two words that are used in the concept of repentance are:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">1. NACHAM - to lament, to grieve. This word is describing the emotions that are aroused when one is motivated to take a different course of action. It means to <u>see</u> that your present course of action is wrong in some way, causing a motivation to take action to change it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">2. SHUB - This word expresses a radical change of mind toward sin and implies a conscious moral separation from sin and a decision to forsake it (to turn away from it) and agree with God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">In the Greek of the New Covenant, the two words used which parallel the Hebrew usage are:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">1. METAMELOMAI - to have feeling or care, concern or regret which is akin to remorse. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">2. METANOEO - to have another mind; to re-think; to change – your mind, your approach, your habits, your goals -- to turn from the idols of sin and of self, toward God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">In both Greek and Hebrew one of the words refers to a simple changing of mind without any connotation of the kind of self-loathing or bitter sorrow that we often associate with the English “repent”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Because we use one word where Greek and Hebrew use two, it is worth our time to consider that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament was written (mostly) in Greek. There is a difference in meaning in how the two words are used in both the Old Testament and New Testament that can be obscured or even lost in the translation into English.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Now, it may be, on some occasions, that a grievous sin has been committed that justifies all the most negative aspects of the word “repent”, but I believe that a much more common situation is the simple realization that what we have been doing is slightly off course and needs to be adjusted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">When we drive a car, we are always adjusting our trajectory by turning the steering wheel – sometimes to make only very slight, <u>but absolutely essential</u>, changes in direction. It is just a simple change in direction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">Sometimes we have to make more dramatic changes, and sometimes we must make drastic changes in steering and moreover, use the brakes as well. This would be more akin to the meaning of “repent” with the full application of all of its negative connotations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">We are told to “repent daily”, and for many of us that “repentance” may be more akin to the slight adjustments we make while driving on a relatively straight section of highway. This kind of change would be more like the Greek METANOEO – to make a needed change in trajectory, because <u>not</u> to make the change, small as it may be, would lead to disaster in the long run. This kind of repentance is like turning away from the ditches along the side of the road and toward the center of our lane.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">This is the “repentance” that we should emphasize every day. We should <u>pay attention</u> to our daily lives just as we pay attention to where the car we are driving is heading. And, just as we see the need to make changes to our steering, we need <u>to see</u> what is happening in our daily lives and <u>make the adjustments</u> that are needed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;">This is what it means to repent every day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-3665477222863193642019-10-08T09:44:00.002-07:002019-10-08T09:47:03.264-07:00Handy Traffic Abbreviations<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Geary’s Handy Traffic
Abbreviations<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For Commonly Encountered
Traffic Conditions<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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CKU<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Can’t
Keep Up<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>In heavy
traffic, drives in left lane much slower than the car ahead, inviting cars to
pull in ahead of him and frustrating those behind him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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CMALT<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Can’t
Make A Left Turn<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Doesn’t seem to
know how gauge the traffic in order to turn left.<o:p></o:p></div>
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CMART<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Can’t
Make A Right Turn<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sits at a red light
until it turns green before making a right turn, even though ample
opportunities are available to make such a turn.<o:p></o:p></div>
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CPAB<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Can’t
Pass A Bus<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This person, driving at
or near the speed limit in the left lane, comes up behind a bus traveling in
the lane to his right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As he reaches the
bus, he slows down to match the speed of the bus so that his front bumper
matches the position of the back bumper of the bus, causing the drivers behind
him to have to brake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slightly
increasing his speed (by 1-2 MPH) he takes a long time to creep past; and then
accelerates again once past the bus, often increasing his speed by 15 mph or
more.<o:p></o:p></div>
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CPAC<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Can’t
Pass A Car<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This person slows down
to follow a slower car, never passing, but always blocking anyone else from
being able to get around either one.<o:p></o:p></div>
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CPAT<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Can’t
Pass A Truck<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Same as CPAB, only with a
truck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CPAT is more often encountered
than is CPAB because there are more trucks on the road than there are buses. <o:p></o:p></div>
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ITWGTWS<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If They
Won’t Go, They Won’t Stop<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Encountered
most often in city driving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This person
drives well below the speed limit, seemingly unaware that the approaching light
won’t stay green forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the light
turns yellow, he suddenly discovers that the light is no longer green, but he doesn’t
stop, but continues through the light even though there is ample time to stop.<o:p></o:p></div>
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ITWSTWG<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If They
Won’t Stop, They Won’t Go<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Same
as ITWGTWS, only in reverse – often the same driver suffers from both habits.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LCWL<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Lane
Change Without Looking <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>See TUA.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LCWS<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Lane
Change Without Signaling<o:p></o:p></div>
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LCWLOS<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Lane
Change Without Looking Or Signaling<o:p></o:p></div>
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LG<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Lollygagger<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Drives well below the speed limit,
as if sightseeing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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LLL<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Left
Lane Lover<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Drives in the left lane
only, often slowly, regardless of traffic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Same as PILL and WGOOLL<o:p></o:p></div>
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LTFRL<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Left
Turn From Right Lane<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>A
hazardous maneuver.<o:p></o:p></div>
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OTP<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>On
The Phone<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Pays
attention to his phone instead of to his driving.<o:p></o:p></div>
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PILL<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Parks
in left lane (lays claim to the left lane and never leaves it); same as LLL and
WGOOLL<o:p></o:p></div>
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POACAL<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pull Out
And Cross All Lanes<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pulls out
into the road, and immediately drives across all lanes to get into the
left-most lane.<o:p></o:p></div>
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POAGS<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Pull
Out And Go Slow<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pulls out into
traffic, but never quite gets up to speed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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RARL<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Run
A Red Light<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ignores yellow lights
and continues through an intersection even after the light has turned red.<o:p></o:p></div>
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RORWS<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Right
On Red Without Stopping<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ignores the law
about stopping before turning right on red – often doesn’t even slow down
before turning.<o:p></o:p></div>
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RTFLL<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Right
Turn From Left Lane<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>A
hazardous maneuver.<o:p></o:p></div>
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SILL<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Slow
In Left Lane<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Driving in the left
lane, but slower than the flow of traffic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>See CKU.<o:p></o:p></div>
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STD<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Slow
To Decide<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Takes a long time to
decide what to do.<o:p></o:p></div>
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STTA<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Slow
To Take Action<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Even after
deciding what to do, takes a long time to actually do it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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TLACAL<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Turn
Left And Cross All Lanes<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While
making a left turn, drifts across all traffic lanes to end up in the right lane,
creating a hazard for oncoming drivers who might want to turn right.<o:p></o:p></div>
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TRACAL<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Turn
Right And Cross All Lanes<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While
making a right turn, drifts across all traffic lanes to end up in the left lane,
creating a hazard for oncoming drivers who might want to turn left.<o:p></o:p></div>
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TWD<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Texting
While Driving<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A very dangerous
habit.<o:p></o:p></div>
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TUA<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Totally
Unaware<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pays no attention to events
outside of own car.<o:p></o:p></div>
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TPOH<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Trucks Passing On Hills<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The often observed phenomenon that although
big rigs slow down while climbing hills, this is where their contests of trying
to pass each other are most likely to take place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Truck speeds may be only 20-30 MPH, with
delta speeds in the 0-2 MPH range for very long distances, and may clog other
traffic for long periods.<o:p></o:p></div>
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WGOOTLL<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Won’t Get
Out Of The Left Lane<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Same as LLL and
PILL, but PILL is easier to pronounce.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To Be Corolla’d:
To be stuck behind a car that is in a CMALT, CPAT, ITWGTWS, ITWSTYG, LG,
LLL, PILL, POAGS, STD, STTA, or TUA mode.
Named after the Toyota Corolla because so often the offender is driving
a Corolla. Not restricted to Corolla
drivers, though.</span><!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-37382056329979876072019-10-08T09:23:00.001-07:002019-10-08T09:23:31.846-07:00More Driving in the USA
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial Black";">More Driving in the
USA<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I took another driving trip this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My route took me through Virginia, West
Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah,
Nevada, California, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spent 10 days driving all day, which gave
me ample time to observe other drivers, road conditions, and road signs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On this trip I was particularly struck by driver
awareness, “rules of the road”, and driving courtesy (or lack of it), and how these
varied in different states.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Example:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
driving north on highway 6/191 in Utah, north of I-70.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After crossing the summit at Soldier’s
Summit, which is 7,400 feet high, the road was a single lane in each direction;
one lane ascending, and one descending the hill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The speed limit coming down this side of the
hill is 65.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Large trucks, however, as
well as people towing large trailers, can’t really go that fast on the curving,
two-lane part of the road, so every once in a while there is an added passing
lane. I was just behind an 18-wheeler tractor-trailer rig followed by a pickup
pulling a large trailer with a car on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Both the 18-wheeler and the pickup pulling the trailer had difficulty
coming down the two-lane portion of the highway at even 50 miles an hour – they
just couldn’t go that fast on the curves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But when they came to a passing lane, they both immediately pulled away
from me right smartly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I decided to clock
both the 18-wheeler and the pickup pulling the car-on-the-trailer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were BOTH traveling <u>80 miles an hour</u>
in the passing lane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pickup wasn’t
able to pass the truck, and I couldn’t even CATCH either one of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought, “So much for the utility of
passing lanes on a road like this.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe it is exceedingly bad road manners to go slow when
passing is not possible, and fast when it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It shows that the drivers lack awareness of the plight of other drivers
whom they inconvenience, or don’t care, or both.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Example:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
driving in the mountains of California, heading west on I-80.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had just passed through Donner’s Pass at the
summit and had begun my descent of the western slope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this point I-80 is three lanes wide in
each direction, and, as a major east/west highway, was carrying a mixed combination
of cars and big trucks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The speed limit
was set at 55 mph.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ahead of me were two
trucks, both of which were in the right lane, and traveling somewhat slower
than the speed limit in a relatively steep downhill portion of the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trailing truck moved to the center lane
to pass the slower truck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked
behind me and, seeing that the road behind me was empty, moved to the left lane
to pass both trucks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had just reached
the truck I was passing – and so was now committed to completing the pass –
when my rear view mirror was suddenly filled with a rapidly expanding view of
the front grill of a very large pickup going very much faster than I was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hit the gas to complete my pass quite a bit
faster than I had originally intended, and got out of the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pickup accelerated past me and rapidly
disappeared down the road ahead of me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
estimate that he was traveling more than 80 mph – more than 25 mph above the
posted speed limit, and more than 45 mph faster than the slower trucks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Example:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
driving west on I-80 in California later that same afternoon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The speed limit was irrelevant, because
traffic density was so great that all lanes were completely full of cars and
the whole highway was traveling much slower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There were four lanes of traffic, and I was in the next-to-right-lane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I glanced in my right mirror to see a car
moving so fast that I concluded there was no way in the world he would be able
– even in a full panic stop – to shed enough speed to avoid rear-ending the car
ahead of him, who was both braking, and signaling, in an attempt to move to his
right into an exit lane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also braked –
there was no way to speed up or move over – and prepared myself to be a
participant in what looked to be a certain accident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fast car to my right apparently decided
his best course to avoid rear-ending the car ahead of him was to impact my
right front fender instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As he moved
to his left into my fender, my braking cleared enough room for him to just
barely clear the front of my car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
continued, with no decrease in speed that I could see, across my lane, across
the lane to my left, and into the left-hand lane of the highway where there was
a very short clear space, and then on and out of my sight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At no time did I see his brake lights or any
signal lights – I concluded he had both hands on the wheel and foot on the
gas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would credit him with driving
skills (as he didn’t actually impact anyone), if his judgment hadn’t been so
bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, I credit him with bad road
manners, lack of situational awareness, reckless driving, and endangering the
health and safety of other drivers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
he was also, I suspect, suffering from frustration.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nevertheless, these were two cases – in the same day (and in
the same state) – of driving at speeds that posed an immediate danger to other
drivers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I cite them as examples of lack
of common courtesy on the road; poor judgment; and a domineering “don’t care”
attitude toward other drivers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Example:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three days
later, in Iowa, traveling south on I-29, I watched the following incident take
place:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A car had pulled out from the right
lane to the left lane in order to pass another, (because they were going very
slightly faster than that other car).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After he was in the left lane, and just as he came abreast of the car in
the right lane, a car entered the highway from an entrance lane on the
right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The car in the left lane, seeing
this happen, braked, (thinking, perhaps, to allow the car in the right lane room
to pull over in front of him).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, when
he braked, he didn’t actually fall behind the car in the right lane – he just kept
pace with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The result was that the
car on the right also began braking, and the two of them were braking side by
side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The car in the left lane, by braking, blocked the car in the
right lane from having any way to maneuver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That car had no choice but to brake sufficiently to allow the car coming
in from the right to pull in ahead of him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Once that had happened, the car in the left lane pulled ahead
again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was perhaps a good intention
to brake in the left lane and thus slow the speed down, and so forth, but its
actual effect was that it eliminated any possibility of maneuver for the car in
the right lane, who then had to rely solely on his ability to brake to avoid an
accident.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are several things wrong with this scenario:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the first place, the passing car needs to
get his passing done and then get out of the way – he was traveling only
slightly faster that the car he was passing, and did not increase his speed for
the pass; in the second place, the car in the entrance lane needs to control
his entrance speed and timing so as to not interfere with the freeway traffic;
and in the third place, people need to be aware of hazards that are not
necessarily in their own lane, such as, for example, that traffic in the right
lane must deal with entrance ramps and may have a need to change speed, or move
to the left, on occasion. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since the 1950’s, modern multi-lane interstate highways have
taught generations of drivers that they can drive at their own speed in their
own lane, and other drivers will go around them – sometimes on the left (the
preferred option), and sometimes on the right (the hazardous option) – and that
they can exhibit this behavior in whichever lane they want. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This attitude is wrong on two levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, it is hazardous to force others to
pass on the right because it is harder to see cars overtaking on the right than
it is to see cars overtaking on the left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even with mirrors on both sides of the car, the visibility on the right
is just not as good as on the left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
possibility exits, and it is not just a theoretical possibility, that the car
being passed will be unaware of a car passing on the right, and may make a move
that will put both cars in danger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Second, it is appallingly bad manners to do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Safe driving depends critically on courtesy – the “manners
of the road” – these manners (not speed limits) are the PRIMARY reason that
travel by car is as safe as it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ignorance, or disregard, of these manners leads to sloppy and hazardous
driving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is dangerous, stupid, and
unforgiveable to be unaware of, or to disregard, such courtesy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I often drive on two-lane roads, and there I see the same lack
of awareness, poor passing techniques and bad manners that I see on interstate
highways. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On two-lane roads, however, lack
of awareness, poor driving, and bad manners are even more noticeable than on
multi-lane roads, because all the traffic is confined to the single lane, and
passing opportunities are much more limited.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Example:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Climbing
uphill out of Denver, westbound on I-70, there are multiple lanes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The right lane is obstructed by trucks that
have to gear way down while climbing the hill; the next lane over from the
right lane is obstructed by trucks that are passing the trucks in the right
lane because they can go slightly faster than those trucks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next lane over is full of trucks that are
trying to pass trucks that are passing the trucks in the right lane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of the “trucks passing trucks passing
trucks” phenomenon, all of the cars – ALL of the cars – want to drive in the
left lane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, what that does is take
four lanes of road and essentially reduce it to one lane where all the automobile
traffic now goes as slow as the SLOWEST car in that lane, and believe me,
between those people who want to go 20 mph FASTER than the speed limit, and
those people who want to go 30 mph SLOWER than the speed limit – and they ALL
want to drive in the left lane – it is REALLY exciting driving uphill in
Colorado.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Driving downhill is also exciting, because some drivers want
to drive downhill at or above the speed limit, and others want to go very
slowly downhill because, seemingly, they are afraid their cars will leave the
road and fly off into space if they don’t ride their brakes all the way
downhill. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I travel long distances, I prefer to stop for gas at
truck stops, as the rest rooms are better, and truck stops have convenience
stores that cater to travelers. The only problem with gassing up at truck stops
is that you are FOREVER behind big trucks, either exiting the highway or on the
streets leading back to entrances to the highway, so you’re always behind a big
truck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well – that’s a small price to
pay.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was traveling on I-70 towards St. Louis, from the
west.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About 50 miles away from St.
Louis, the speed limit was 70 and the traffic was generally moving at about
75.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I went slower than that, I got
passed a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I went faster than
that, I would be passing other people, so I didn’t go faster than that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I approached St. Louis, the speed limit
began to go down, first from 70 to 65, to 60 and then to 55.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it went from 70 to 65, nobody slowed
down – I saw only two people who did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But generally it was similar to driving before the speed limit changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then traffic density began to go up, as more
people joined the traffic going into St. Louis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The speed limit went from 65 to 60, and NOBODY slowed – NOBODY!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At 65, I was being passed on both sides by
people going faster than that – and some going a great deal faster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one point I saw, in the right lane, a
garbage truck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was going much slower
than the traffic, and had his flashers on so people wouldn’t run into him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Out of curiosity, I clocked him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was going 60 miles an hour, which was the actual
speed limit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But at that speed, he felt
that he had to put his flashers on, to warn people that he was going
slowly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At about the same time, I was
passed by a string of cars that sort of left me in the dust, so out of
curiosity I clocked them, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I clocked
them at 82 miles an hour, which is faster than ANYBODY went back when the speed
limit was 75. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the speed limit dropped to 55, traffic speed remained a
good 15 to 20 mph over the speed limit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I mean, I was being passed by <u>everybody</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NOBODY was obeying the speed limit. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(And virtually ALL of those cars passing me
had local Missouri plates, which gives some insight on the cultural habits of
the local drivers in a big city.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe that one of the problems that causes this
disparity in speed is that, out in the countryside, people are in it for the
long haul, and they realize it is going to take them some time to get where
they’re going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in the city, most
people aren’t driving all that far, and they’re in a big hurry to get
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have things to do, and they
have schedules to meet, and they’re frustrated with their inability to navigate
through traffic and get to where they want to go in a reasonable time –
reasonable to them, that is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, there
are two factors at work here:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>one is the
relatively short distance that people drive in and around cities; and the other
is that they are not in a “long haul” mentality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re in the “I’m in a hurry and these
people are in my way” mentality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another factor that causes people to drive fast in the city,
is that these are people who are very familiar with the roads they’re driving
on – they’ve driven them many times, and they are mixed in with other people
who may be coming through the city for the first time, who are long-haul
distance travelers, who are NOT as familiar with the roads – they don’t know
what’s coming up, so they may be more cautious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And, the people who have driven the roads before – here comes one around
me now on the right, having crossed three lanes without signaling, in order to
take an exit – aah, what was I going to say – the people in the city, who are
very familiar with the roads, and who know what’s coming up, where the curves
are, how fast they can take the curves, and so on, they’re just frustrated by
people who don’t know the roads as well as they do, and a high level of
frustration is one of the principle causes of bad driving.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, when you get near a city, the spread in speeds that
you encounter goes up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Out on the main
highway you don’t get much more spread than about five miles an hour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the trucks don’t go all that much more
slowly than the cars out on the main highway, so the spread in speeds is
relatively narrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in the city,
although speed limits go down, the speed spread goes up – it goes WAY up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People are now going 20 miles an hour over
the speed limit instead of five.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And even
when speed limits have dropped – in this case 15 miles an hour – there are a
percentage of cars now traveling faster than the original speed limit out in
the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the city you have
probably a 30-mile-an-hour spread in speeds, instead of just five.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is this disparity in speeds between
cars that causes city driving to be so dangerous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The greater the spread, the more dangerous it
is to drive, and in the city that spread is remarkably higher than it is in the
countryside.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For your reference, there are four states where the speed
limit reaches 80 mph.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are Kansas,
Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Speed limits
of 75 are common west of the Mississippi River, but are generally no more than
70 east of the river.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roads in the USA are terrible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the best of them degrade rapidly and are
in need of constant upkeep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Generally,
roads are supposed to be designed to last 20 years, but in reality they seem to
only last about 5 years before they need to be repaired, and when the repairs
begin, they never end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As soon as a road
is improved, it invites a heavier traffic load as drivers move to that road to
escape the more inferior ones they previously had to use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Road closures and repair zones are ubiquitous
throughout the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is best to
recognize this issue before leaving on a road trip, and include those delays in
your planning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-14392833380247796112019-10-08T06:55:00.000-07:002019-10-08T07:00:23.245-07:00<h2>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I like books</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Beginning in February, 2007 I began to keep track of the
books I was reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has now been 12
years since I began to keep track, and in that time I have read 766 books, for
an average of just over 63 books per year, or about one every six days or
so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I run out of books to read, I
slide into depression, which only gets worse until I go to the bookstore and
buy more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My method for buying (or borrowing library) books is
simple:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I go up and down the aisles and
look at the books as they go by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I
find one that seems to “call” to me, I pick it up and look at it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “calling” may be because I recognize the
author, or because of the cover, or because of the title, or because of the
subject, or for none of these reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometimes the book that “calls” to me seems to just stick out from the
others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I then read the blurb on the
back cover (or the inside, if it is a hardcover book).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the blurb has too many made-up words, I
reject it immediately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If not, I will
probably keep it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I skip over authors I
have read before and didn’t care for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
look for new books by authors I liked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
will pick out 6 or 8 books to take home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have a need to always have some in reserve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I get to the last one, I begin to worry
about running out of things to read. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I prefer female authors to male authors, as a rule, because
female authors tend to write more about the people in the story, while male
authors tend to write more about the events of the story, and I usually find
the people more interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I read all kinds of books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I used to concentrate on Science Fiction, because that was where I would
find the mythology was that was driving the authors to imagine “out of this
world” events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then Science Fiction
morphed to include Fantasy, and I liked them for the same reason, only Fantasy
was no longer mostly concerned with outer space, but also incorporated inner
space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I read non-fiction books mostly about science topics, and
especially alternate ideas about physics – a subject I studied intensely in
college, where I came away with the distinct feeling that my professors knew a
lot less than they thought they did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
keep thinking there should be an underlying philosophy of the world around us
that explains why it operates the way it does, but mostly I learned just the <u>rules</u>
whereby it operates, without any further explanation of <u>why</u> it should be
that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the most basic level of the
sciences I studied, I found that no one could actually explain what these
things were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one knows what an
electron actually IS, for example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All I
got were rules about how it functioned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No one knew what gravity actually IS, but only the “laws” by which it
operated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could compute how things
would work, so I could solve engineering problems, but I still didn’t know what
was actually HAPPENING at a fundamental level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So I keep searching.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have always been interested in things that no one could
explain, so those kinds of books seemed to “stand out” as I passed them in the
library, or the bookstore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used to
call them “weird books”, and they fascinated me, because no one knew how to
explain the things reported in these books – aluminum artifacts from before
aluminum was known, for example, or silver bowls found in a bed of coal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It all seemed to indicate that our view of
history was woefully incomplete, and that modern science wasn’t the first to
discover all the things it claimed to discover.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At college we had a saying:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Often in error, but never in doubt”, which was first applied to students
and faculty at other centers of higher learning – MIT, for example – but which
I later applied to many of my own professors, with, as it turned out, very good
reason.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I read historical fiction in preference to non-fiction
history because the fictional stories can spend more time providing a “feel”
for the time period in which it is set while still providing historically
correct dates for important events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
maintain that “non-fiction” history is still fictional anyway by reason of the
author’s choice of what to leave out of the narrative, and the writing style is
far less interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always wonder
what the author is leaving out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I keep
thinking of the saying that “history is written by the winners” and I wonder
how the book would be different if I could compare it to one written by those
who were left out of the narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
nothing is complete – even living through the events of the time is not a
complete experience of those events – so the history books can be a source for
events, names, and dates, but I like historical fiction for a fuller
“experience” of the time and place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I do have some favorite authors:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ilona Andrews</b>,
for the “Magic …” series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Magic Bites;
Magic Burns; etc. and the “Edge” series:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“On the Edge”; “Steel’s Edge”; “Fate’s Edge”, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Katherine Arden</b>,
for the Russian books in a fairy tale style:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The Bear and the Nightingale”, and “The Girl in the Tower”, and the
third installment that isn’t out yet, which I am looking forward to.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pip & Tee Morris
Ballantine</b>, for the hilariously funny stories:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Phoenix Rising”, “The Janus Affair”, “Dawn’s
Early Light”, and “The Diamond Affair”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Steve Bein</b>, for
the trilogy of Japanese sword novels, “Daughter of the Sword”, “Year of the
Demon”, and “Disciple of the Wind”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These are stories of lethal confrontation, but really well done.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Anne Bishop</b>, for
her series that begins with “Written in Red”, “Murder of Crows”, “Vision in
Silver”, Marked in Flesh”, and “Etched in Bone”; but not her books in other series,
which I didn’t much care for.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Patricia Briggs</b>,
for all of her books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have read 19 of
them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Susan Cain</b>, for
her non-fiction book “Quiet” on the value of introverts, because I am one.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jacqueline Carey</b>
for “Kushiel’s Dart”, which was very different from anything I had read
before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This one broke new ground, but
the follow-on books in the series didn’t keep up to the standard of the first
one.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Gail Carriger</b>,
for her absolutely delightful books called “Souless”, “Changless”, “Blameless”,
“Heatless”, and “Timeless”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were like
stepping out of my own life and into another one in Victorian London.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">S. A. Chakraborty</b>,
for “The City of Brass”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others are
coming out in hardcover, but I will wait until I can get them in paperback,
unless I break down and get them at the library.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Genevieve Cogman</b>,
one of my most favorite authors, who can’t write fast enough to satisfy
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her books are:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The Invisible Library”, “The Masked City”,
“The Burning Page”, “The Lost Plot”, “The Mortal Word”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you read these books, you MUST start at
the beginning and read them in order.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Julie E. Czerneda</b>,
a biologist who writes really good biologically oriented science fiction,
including:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“A Turn of Light”, “A Play of
Shadow”; “Survival (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1 of Species
Imperative</i>)”, “Migration (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2 of
Species Imperative</i>)”, and “Regeneration (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">3 of Species Imperative</i>)”. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Rod Duncan</b>, for
“The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter”, “Unseemly Science”, and “The Custodian of
Marvels”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Kim Harrison</b>, for
her long series (15 books) that begins (and you MUST start at the beginning)
with “Dead Witch Walking” and then continues with titles taken from all the
Clint Eastwood movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last three
books in this series exceeded my own rating system – I had to add another level
to cover them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Emma Jane Holloway</b>
has three good books:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“A Study in
Silks”, “A Study in Darkness”, and “A study in Ashes” about Sherlock Holme’s
niece.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Conn Iggulden</b>
writes very good historical fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
have read 7 of them, but there are more.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Erika Johansen</b>,
for her wonderful trilogy that begins with “The Queen of the Tearling”, and continues
with “The Invasion of the Tearling”, and ends with “The Fate of the Tearling”.
Each book is significantly different from the others.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Robert D. Kaplan</b>
is not a fiction writer, but travels a lot and writes very thoughtful pieces about
geo-political issues around the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ann Leckie</b> wrote
a really interesting trilogy:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Ancillary
Justice”, “Ancillary Sword”, and “Ancillary Mercy”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took me a while to understand the rules of
this story, but I found it fascinating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She followed with a book about a different location in space, where the rules
were different yet again, called “Provenance”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This book views the previous trilogy from outside that story, and sheds
light on the odd rules of those books as well as telling a new story
altogether.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Scott Lynch</b> wrote
“The Lies of Locke Lamora”, “Red Seas Under Red Skies”, and “The Republic of
Thieves” about clever people conning each other, with a love story embedded in
them as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now that they are all out,
you won’t have to wait years for the next installment like I did.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Devon Monk</b> wrote excellent
fantasy stories about Portland, Oregon, near where I grew up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have read 16 of these books.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Laura Resnick</b>
wrote absolutely delightful and very funny stories with mangled titles such as
“Doppelgangster”, “Unsympathetic Magic”, “Vamparazzi”, “Polterheist”,
“Disappearing Nightly”, “The Misfortune Cookie”, and “Abracadaver”, and I
enjoyed every single one of them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Michelle Sagara</b>
has a series of books that all begin with “Cast in …” that are intensely
enjoyable to read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She isn’t through
yet, and I wait anxiously for each new one to come on the market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She also has other series and writes under
more than one name.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Zecharia Sitchin</b>
writes alternative views of pre-historical earth events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People either love him or hate him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His views are mostly counter to the mainstream
historians of the pre-history eras, so they all hate him, but a lot of work has
gone into his take on history.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sherwood Smith</b>,
for his “Inda” series: “Inda”, “The Fox”, and “King’s Shield” which together
make up one really good story.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jodi Taylor</b>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will read anything she writes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I simply love her “Tales of St. Mary’s”
books, which are all about time travel (studying history in contemporary time) like
you never imagined before, and are the best rendition of time travel I have
ever read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These books are just fabulous
in the extreme:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Just One Damned Thing
After Another”, “A Symphony of Echoes”, “A Second Chance”, “A Trail Through
Time”, “No Time Like the Past”, “What Could Possible Go Wrong”, “Lies, Damned
Lies, and History”, “And the Rest is History”, “ and “Argumentation of
Historians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t <u>have</u> to
read them in order, but you will lose a lot of context if you don’t.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Will Thomas</b>, for
his stories about a rookie private investigator in old London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Very well written, and poor Thomas Llewelyn,
our hero, suffers injury in the line of duty in most stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Some Danger Involved” is the first one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first book that I read was about three
books into the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I recommend
starting at the beginning, because our hero progresses through the books, and
how he changes over time is the most interesting part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-65969725890381242382017-11-14T16:20:00.000-08:002017-11-14T16:20:53.354-08:00It's Ice Dancing Season!<div class="MsoNormal">
I have been watching the current series of Ice Dancing Grand
Prix competitions as it winds through the various countries:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Russia, Canada, China, and Japan, so far,
with France, United States, and Japan (for the final) yet to come.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am particularly fond of observing particular pairs of ice
dancers perform; especially with regard to the total impact that each of them
make.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The four couples that serve as
centerpieces for my observations are:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir (Canada)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gabriella Papadakis/Guillaume Cizeron (France)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anna Cappellini/ Luca Lanotte (Italy)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maia Shibutani/ Alex Shibutani (United States)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the three that I enjoy watching the most are the last
three on this list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are other very fine ice dancers, but these four are
the ones I enjoy the most, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for various
reasons:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->For some couples, it may be that I don’t like
the costumes, and Russia heads the list for bad costumes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are a number of Russian dancers for
whom the costumes – and this is particularly true for the ladies – are simply
awful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I especially dislike transparent
skirts on the women, and Russian dancers seem to use them a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What the dancers wear, and especially the
women dancers, should serve to present them in the most flattering way, and
often for the Russians, this just isn’t the case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Sometimes the costumes for the men are designed
to make them fade into the background, so that the women are featured;
sometimes they coordinate with the women’s costume, sometimes they are
neutral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like to see an effort made so
that the men and the women BOTH flatter themselves and showcase each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also find the modern trend of showing, or
appearing to show by using flesh-colored fabric, way too much skin, both
unnecessary and unflattering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
especially dislike costumes that are designed to appear that large bites have
been taken out of the material, making me wonder if the costume is something
left over from a shark attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same
for overly-slashed skirts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Sometimes it is the choice of music, which goes
a long way to lending mood and theme to the dance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good music greatly enhances the mood and
beauty of the dance; but bad choice of music can fracture the presentation into
separate and sometimes conflicting parts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Bad music makes me want to turn off the sound, and for me, the
performance is badly flawed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luckily for
these performances, however, music is not scored. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Sometimes the skaters just aren’t expert enough
in their craft to get beyond the technical aspects of the skating to include a
presentation of the total program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
very forgiving of the lack of technical skill, though, and I really enjoy
watching younger/newer couples as they begin their careers, especially if
costuming and music are well done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was just such a couple – the Shibutanis – that I began watching when they first
arrived on the televised skating programs, and who have now risen to the very
top of the ice dancing scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, on to my observations:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Virtue/Moir:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This couple executes – and I think “executes” is the right
word – a program that emphasizes the athleticism of the pair; and, they are out
to win. The emphasis is on the <u>technical</u> execution of the program, with
the goal of maximal point accumulation. It is hard to fault them in this goal,
since that is, after all, the point of the competition, but with them it is
more obvious than with other skaters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
a result, technical competence is very high indeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, there are some non-technical (and
non-scored) aspects to their program that could be substantially improved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is very little interaction between the
two of them, for example, and little if any interaction with the audience –
they are focused, and obviously focused, on the technical performance, rather
than the total presentation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither Tessa’s
costume nor hairstyle does anything at all to flatter her, (and it would be so
easy to flatter her), but rather the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It almost seems that it is unflattering on purpose. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Summary:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I appreciate
their technical expertise; but I don’t find them all that much fun to watch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In short, they get high scores, but I don’t
care whether or not I see their performance.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Papadakis/Cizeron:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This couple personifies the unearthly, ethereal beauty that
can be achieved through motion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many
times during their performance the commentators will fall silent, as awed by the
performance as is the audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Papadakis wears mildly flattering costumes that often include filmy,
dreamy, floating fabrics that contribute to the spiritual/ethereal content of
the program, and Cizeron is absolutely un-matched in the use of body motions to
bring, and sustain, the exquisite feeling of floating, peaceful, grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is one of the few men who draw the eye by
motion alone, without having to make any special effort to do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Music is expertly chosen to enhance the
feeling of the dance; costumes are chosen to complement each other; skating is
technically perfect; interaction between the two of them is focused on each
other continuously from beginning to end, with the audience put in the position
of an awed voyeur, which is obviously one of the major goals of the program.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Summery:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
performance by these two should be missed, ever.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cappellini/Lanotte:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This couple is the personification of the joy of dancing
together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are extremely engaging
people to watch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They interact with each
other constantly, smile often, and draw the audience into their performance as
if the audience were composed of friends that they knew personally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anna chooses modest (which I like),
well-designed costumes, with skirts that are of a proper length, opaque
(sometimes double-layered with contrasting colors), and that move continuously with
her and flare beautifully when she twirls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She uses her costume to enhance and project her feminine beauty and
grace, and it helps that she herself is breathtakingly beautiful. Luca’s
costume is designed to mesh seamlessly with Anna’s so that together they help
to tell the story of the dance, often with a hint of boy chasing girl (and both
enjoying the pursuit) in many of their programs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Music is well chosen to enhance the dance and
both are highly technically competent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Summary:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To watch
these two dance on ice fills me with pleasure.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Shibutani/Shibutani:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The word I keep coming to for these two is
“professional”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing is overlooked,
everything is in is proper place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maia
is a lovely woman and hairstyle and costumes are chosen to enhance every aspect
of her beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She chooses modest
outfits with skirts of exactly the right length, of exactly the right color,
and exactly the right consistency so that they flow and flare exactly right as
she moves on the ice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alex’s costume is
a muted complement to Maia’s costume. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Music and dance compositions are designed to
bring out and show off their strengths and talents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have watched them for years, now, as they
continue to get better and better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
work together beautifully, and they are very, very good.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Summary:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every
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Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-92214707663416216682017-10-19T15:17:00.000-07:002017-10-19T15:17:45.993-07:00On the Vagaries of Driving in the USAI have recently returned from driving from Virginia, through West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and back to Virginia. The bulk of this drive, although not all of it, was on interstate highways. The driving time was approximately 70 driving hours, covering nearly 4,500 miles. The drive gave me ample time to observe other drivers, road conditions, and road signs along the way.<br />
<br />
<b>ROAD SIGNS</b><br />
<br />
The first impression I had was that there was one overwhelmingly favorite road sign in all the states. That sign is: “Fines doubled”, for various reasons. The ubiquity of this sign, in all its variations, leads me to surmise the following:<br />
1. In general, drivers do not obey speed limits – especially reduced speed limits in construction zones, hence the desire to increase penalties in an effort to emphasize the need for safer behavior in these areas;<br />
2. There is a distinct tendency on the part of the state administrations, to believe that the average driver is not able to judge what is an appropriate speed, given the state of the construction zones, presence or absence of workers, the condition of the road, the density of traffic, and the weather that actually exist at the time of his passing. Hence drivers must be severely warned with highly threatening signs to adhere to what the state desires in these areas, rather than use their own experience and judgment based on the local conditions at the time of their encounter with the zone in question.<br />
3. The real reason for the “fines doubled” signs is revenue enhancement, as adequate penalties are already assigned for law enforcement purposes.<br />
<br />
The revenue enhancement purpose becomes more highly suspected when the “fines doubled” signs are attached to a zone labeled as “safety zone”. These zones are often (though not always) areas where the road is straighter and more level, and sometimes with additional lanes, all of which allows drivers to see farther and more clearly. Thus the zone is often already a safer zone, due to better road conditions. Why then ALSO increase the fines?<br />
<br />
Interestingly, I did not see any speed enforcement whatsoever in any of these “safety zones” on this trip, although I passed through a fair number of them. Clearly the state desires no increase of speed – and often an actual reduction in speed – in “safety zones” and simply uses threatening signs as the enforcement methodology of choice.<br />
<br />
Speaking of road signs, here is one unique to New Mexico: “Strong Winds May Exist”. What this sign means, of course, is “Winds strong enough to interfere with your vehicle’s stability can occur at this location, so pay attention!” but that is far too long to put onto a road sign, so the message has been condensed to the point where it is little more than a simple statement of fact.<br />
<br />
Other signs of note include warning signs for road construction zones (which multiply like rabbits in the summer and fall). Some construction areas are only a few yards long and don’t even ask for a reduction in speed (although nearly everyone who goes by does, in fact, slow down to a reasonable speed) even when no workers are present. Others can be miles long, with very long additional regions where speed must be reduced and/or lanes blocked off.<br />
<br />
In one construction zone, one lane was blocked off by barrels placed on a base – you know, the ones painted like traffic cones, only the size of 55-gallon barrels. But the barrels were placed so that the travel lane was somewhat narrower than usual. Ahead of me was a tractor-trailer unit. At first I thought the barrel and base that I found in the middle of the travel lane was just happenstance, but as I encountered more and more of them, I noticed that it was the truck ahead of me that was causing them to tip over. As the big rig passed each barrel, the wind of its passing caused the barrel to move. Some barrels recovered, but some did not. Some barrels tipped over and, because the roadway was not level, began to roll while still attached to their base. Others tipped over, leaving their base behind. Those with the base still attached rolled in a spiral, because the base was bigger than the barrel itself – well, the others did too, because the wind was blowing them around. In some places the roadway tipped away from the travel lane, and there the barrels rolled out of the way, but in some places “downhill” was into the travel lane, and there the barrels might pass entirely through the travel lane and into the median or they could stop in the center of the travel lane, creating a hazard to traffic.<br />
<br />
It just goes to show that there really is a need to increase attention and awareness in construction zones.<br />
<br />
Another construction zone I traversed was 17 miles long, with the speed limit reduced by 15 mph the entire way. Watching carefully throughout the whole zone, I saw exactly one worker standing in the median (well off the actual roadway) repairing a single post. For this, literally hundreds of drivers had to slow from 70 to 55 and maintain that reduced speed for the next 18.5 minutes even though the actual working zone was less than ten feet long, containing a single worker well off the roadway. During the time I was at the reduced speed, I was passed by every single vehicle that appeared in my rear-view mirror, no matter how far behind me it was when it first appeared. So, apparently, I was the only one who slowed down. I estimate that this single zone imposed an additional 100 hours of driver’s time each day on the vehicles that passed through – well, less for those who ignored the signs.<br />
<br />
Okay, this is an extreme example. However, it does illustrate that drivers will do what they believe is reasonable, regardless of the signs, and it highlights the tendency of Department of Transportation officials, and lawmakers in general, to believe that drivers are not capable of making reasoned judgments regarding a reasonable speed for such conditions.<br />
<br />
Also, one may suspect that the signs are more of a CYA so that the DOT is protecting itself from drivers who may want to sue the state rather than take responsibility for their own mistakes in judgment.<br />
<br />
SPEED LIMITS<br />
<br />
Speed limits climb as one drives from Virginia to Utah; from 70mph in Virginia to a maximum of 80mph in Utah (also in Kansas), with 75mph being common in the western states where traffic density tends to be substantially lower than in eastern states. The condition of the roads – we’re talking only of interstate highways here – also tends to be better in the west, which, coupled with lower traffic densities and longer distances between settlements, makes such speeds understandable.<br />
<br />
However, I noted with interest that very few drivers actually drive below, or even at, the speed limit. I encountered bad weather only once on this trip – low, dark clouds, rain, and poor visibility – and then the traffic did slow down, but otherwise not so much. Those who drive below the speed limit most often have special circumstances, such as trailers, vacation trailers, heavy loads, or the like. Most automobiles, however, exceed the speed limit by about 10mph up through speed limits of 75mph.<br />
<br />
At the 80mph limit in Utah (and also in Kansas), however, I saw far fewer drivers exceeding the speed limit; 80mph seems to be about as fast as anyone wants to go. There were exceptions, of course, but I didn’t see many, and those who did exceed that speed did so for only short distances. For long-haul drivers, 80mph seemed to be fast enough.
<br />
<br />
Several years ago I took a trip to Italy, where I rented a diesel-driven station wagon. I drove it all over northern Italy on the very good Italian super highways at 135kph (to go slower was to risk being run over), or about 85mph. At the time, I was one of the slowest cars on the road, and even large trucks passed me by. Such speeds, however, are not usually reached in America, even in Utah, where the speed limit out on the desert, at 80mph, is about as high as it gets.<br />
<br />
Besides, most of our roads are of such poor quality that they simply can’t support vehicles that travel at that speed.<br />
<br />
Judging by the behavior of the drivers I observed throughout this trip, the speed limits on the routes I traveled seem to be:<br />
1. Set for poor road conditions rather than for good road conditions. By this I mean that if it is set as a LIMIT, that means in plain English that it is not to be exceeded under any circumstances. But by my observations, it is routinely exceeded in good weather, by the great majority of drivers, which means that most drivers believe the limit is too low, and they choose to drive at a speed that they judge is appropriate to the circumstances at the moment, taking into account the time of day, the weather, the traffic density (this observation does not apply to people in cities), the visibility, and their own state of health; and,<br />
2. Largely unenforced.<br />
<br />
The effect of poorly set speed limits is that:<br />
1. The legislators create a situation by which they turn most (sometimes all) drivers into lawbreakers;<br />
2. They teach whole generations of drivers that the law (specifically speed laws, but by extension, all law) is unworthy of respect;<br />
3. Enforcement is random and arbitrary; and<br />
4. Law enforcement officers are their enemy.<br />
<br />
I would suggest that this combination of effects represents bad governance, and really needs to be corrected.<br />
<br />
In the first place, one effect is that nobody knows what the actual speed limit – what I would call the enforcement limit – actually is at any given time. It appears to the driver to be a judgment call: the enforcement officer’s judgment against the driver’s judgment, and we all know who will win that contest.<br />
<br />
In the second place, most of the drivers on the roads – not all, but most – are experienced, responsible, capable people whose judgment deserves respect. Most speed limits, by contrast, are determined by formulaic rules set by legislators at the various levels of government, and not necessarily by consideration of the actual conditions of the road for which the limit applies. Drivers on those individual roads, however, many of whom drive them every day, are much more familiar with the issues and considerations that apply to each individual road. These considerations may, in fact, be different for roads that otherwise would fall under the same formula as set by the legislators.<br />
<br />
I have observed examples in my own home area, for example, where similar roads have quite different speed limits, and vice versa. One road started out as a two-lane gravel road with a limit of 30mph, and hardly anyone went much faster. Now it is a four-lane divided roadway with a speed limit of 35mph, but most of the traffic moves at about 45mph.<br />
<br />
The point I am trying to make here is that speed limits should take into consideration the general consensus of drivers on each road, not by class of road, and not by the application of a formula. Furthermore, if the speed limit needs to be set differently from the consensus of drivers on the road, the drivers who use the road need to know what that reason is so they can take it into account.<br />
<br />
Well, that’s not going to happen any time soon, anymore than speed bumps will be removed.<br />
<br />
DRIVERS<br />
<br />
Drivers in different states seem to behave differently. In some states, for example, drivers seem to drive even faster than seems prudent (to me). After observing this tendency, I began to wonder why they did so. The thing is, I have noticed this tendency even when I encounter drivers from those states in Virginia; that is, when drivers from those states are driving in Virginia.<br />
<br />
After driving through those states, I concluded the following:<br />
1. The speed limits in those states are poorly set.<br />
2. The speed limits tend to be lower than the limits in nearby states.<br />
3. The speed limits do not adequately take into account the road conditions; when approaching a region where limits are reduced, they are reduced too early and are held lower too long after that region is passed. A case in point was one construction area where the speed limit was reduced a full three miles before actually reaching the construction itself.<br />
4. Drivers – especially drivers who encounter these situations every day – are frustrated and offended by these conditions that they are powerless to change.<br />
5. The end result is that drivers act on those frustrations by over-compensating (driving faster) when speed limits are finally raised, or by simply ignoring speed limits altogether.
In short, they are protesting against what they perceive as bad government.<br />
<br />
I first noticed this effect in Kentucky, but it was most prevalent in Illinois where it appears that NO ONE has any respect for the law as it applies to speed limits.<br />
<br />
TRAFFIC FLOW AND LAW ENFORCEMENT<br />
<br />
Another aspect of the speed of traffic is that it rises as you approach a city. One can drive for hours in the country at a speed that matches (or nearly) the speed limit, but when you approach a city, the actual flow of traffic speeds up by about 10mph whereas the speed LIMIT falls by about the same amount. At the same time, traffic density rises – there are far more cars on the road near a city. Usually it is safer to drive at a speed that minimizes encounters with other vehicles on the road, which means it is a good idea to match the speed of the flow of traffic. Approaching a large city, that flow becomes faster, but the speed limit is reduced! Suddenly you find yourself in the position of exceeding the speed limit (traffic speed went up; speed limit went down), so that now, while trying to drive responsively, with a view towards overall safety, you become, by fiat of the state, a lawbreaker. Law enforcement, recognizing the impossibility of actually enforcing the speed limit under these circumstances, is largely absent, in an attempt, no doubt, to not make the situation even worse than it already is.<br />
<br />
This tendency is starkly exemplified in my own home state, where there is a toll road adjacent to a non-toll road. The speed limit on the toll road is 65mph, and on the non-toll road it is 55mph. The limit is fairly rigidly enforced on the toll road, where the traffic density is very light, and driving at 70mph is likely to see you pulled over. But on the non-toll road, where the density is often very heavy, the flow of traffic often rises to about 70mph, with many drivers trying to go even faster. Enforcement is far less common on the “slower” non-toll road where traffic density is greater, and is essentially abandoned during rush hours. Thus we have the situation where exceeding the limit by even a modest amount on the lightly traveled road is enforced, but to exceed the limit on the heavily traveled road, even by a large amount, and especially during periods of very heavy traffic density, is not.<br />
<br />
This situation seems to me to be backwards, but there it is.<br />
<br />
And speaking of law enforcement, it is my observation that enforcement officers do no better than other drivers in respecting the speed limits. As with other drivers, some do and some do not. On the interstate highways, the actual speed limit can be taken as whatever a state police car travels at, which may be well above the posted speed limit. Most drivers, however, recognize that it is not a good idea to actually pass a police car that is traveling above the speed limit. Officers, it should be noted, often have the same frustrations that all other drivers do with following speed limits, as opposed to relying on experience, observation, judgment, responsibility, road and weather conditions, traffic density, urgency of mission, personal alertness and all the other factors that come into play when driving, to choose an appropriate speed. The unavoidable result, however, is to further degrade the public’s respect for the law. If even the law enforcement officers do not obey the law, then why should I?<br />
<br />
SAFETY ISSUES<br />
<br />
Driving a car is a serious business. To compare it to something most people can understand, a 30-06 rifle will discharge a 150-grain bullet at about 3000 feet per second, and will seriously injure or kill almost anything it hits. The energy content of this bullet is about 3000 ft-lb and is the equivalent of a 4000-lb car moving at less than 5mph. The same car traveling at 70mph represents just over 650,000 ft-lb of energy – more than 200 times more than the bullet from a 30-06 rifle. Such lethality deserves to be taken seriously.
<br />
The thing is, the handling of firearms is known to be dangerous – everybody recognizes this. Most responsible teachers place a heavy emphasis on the lethality of these items and the requisite need for close attention to the rules for safely handling them. Unfortunately, the same attention is not always given when teaching the operation of motor vehicles, which, just as a point of reference, are far more dangerous. In 2016, for example, deaths in motor vehicle accidents totaled 40,200 in the U.S., with more than 4 million people injured (note1). For comparison, unintentional deaths from firearms in the period 2011-2015 averaged 3,388 per year (note 2) . Most deaths from firearms are intentional – either suicides or homicides – tragic to be sure, but intentional nevertheless. Most deaths from motor vehicle accidents are unintentional (although there is the presumption that an unknown, but small, number are caused by what is termed “suicide by automobile”).<br />
<br />
My point here is that both guns and cars are dangerous. Both are known to be dangerous. But a very large number of people seem to be unaware of how dangerous cars really are.<br />
<br />
It takes all of the driver’s attention to drive a car. The slightest departure from this attention is a risky and potentially lethal act – perhaps lethal for yourself, perhaps lethal for your passenger(s), perhaps lethal for someone you don’t even know. It is something akin to firing a gun at random into a crowd – it may cause no real harm, but then again, it may result in something ranging from inconvenience to death.<br />
<br />
I maintain that it takes a whole brain to drive a car, but the number of brains that are actually in use is more like 1/N, where N represents the number of people in the car. Thus with two people in the car, only ½ brain is available for driving; if three people, only 1/3 is available for driving, and so on. It’s a ball-park figure; some people do better, some worse. My point is that it is a serious responsibility to operate a car.<br />
<br />
But I digress.<br />
<br />
On my trip I traveled safely, for which I give thanks. I saw wonderful scenery along the way, which I always find absolutely fascinating. I visited with people that I love, who I wish I could see more often. But I also spent a great deal of my time concentrating on driving, and thinking about what makes people act the way they do when they are behind the wheel – other drivers, with all their eccentricities and regional variations – that make driving so very interesting.
<br />
<br />
Note 1. This is a direct quote from http://www.nsc.org/NewsDocuments/2017/12-month-estimates.pdf<br />
<br />
NSC Motor Vehicle Fatality Estimates<br />
Prepared by the Statistics Department
National Safety Council<br />
Motor-vehicle deaths up 6% in 2016.<br />
With continued lower gasoline prices and an improving economy resulting in an estimated 3% increase in motor-vehicle mileage, the number of motor-vehicle deaths in 2016 totaled 40,200, up 6% from 2015 and the first time the annual fatality total has exceeded 40,000 since 2007. The 2016 estimate is provisional and may be revised when more data are available. The total for 2016 was up 14% from the 2014 figure. The annual total for 2015 was 37,757, a 7% increase from 2014. The 2014 figure was less than 0.5% higher than 2013. The estimated annual population death rate is 12.40 deaths per 100,000 population, an increase of 5% from the 2015 rate. The estimated annual mileage death rate is 1.25 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, an increase of 3% from the 2015 rate.<br />
<br />
Medically consulted motor-vehicle injuries in 2016 are estimated to be about 4.6 million, an increase of 7% from 2015.<br />
<br />
The estimated cost of motor-vehicle deaths, injuries, and property damage in 2016 was $432.5 billion, an increase of 12% from 2015. The costs include wage and productivity losses, medical expenses, administrative expenses, employer costs, and property damage.<br />
<br />
Note 2.
From Everytown Research; this note was in the form of a pie graph, which did not make the transition into the blog format. The graphic can be found at https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-by-the-numbers/
Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-20591771779646581472015-12-22T12:15:00.003-08:002015-12-22T12:17:57.839-08:00Thoughts of ChristmasThoughts of Christmas
22 December 2015
Christmas is here, and it seems appropriate to consider for a moment, some of the traditions we use to celebrate at this season of the year.
We use the colors red and green for Christmas. They both represent life; red, the color of blood, to represent human life, and specifically the life of Christ which he lived here on earth, and which he gave for us; green, the color of plant life, is the color of the tree that we decorate as one of the primary symbols of Christmas. The tree represents life, and because we celebrate Christmas at the winter solstice, it also stands for the renewal of life that will come with the Spring. Not just any tree will do, however – it must be an evergreen tree – so it represents not only life and the renewal of life, but also eternal life, just as the tree is eternally green. In Europe, no building is ever erected without an evergreen tree being fastened at the topmost portion of the building as it is under construction. It is not removed until the building is complete. This tree represents the wishes of the builders for a blessing on the building, for a long and useful life for the building itself.
We also use white at Christmas, the color that represents cleanliness and purity. We imagine that angels are dressed in white, for example, and we want the earth to be covered in snow at Christmastime so that the earth is blanketed in white and appears clean and pure.
We place either a star or an angel at the top of the tree, recalling the star that guided the wise men to the child, or the angels that visited the shepherds to announce to them the birth. We place lights on the tree to remember the lights that appeared in the heavens at the time of his birth, and we place gifts under the tree to remember the gifts of the wise men, and to celebrate the gift that God gave to us. In recent decades, Christmas has become heavily commercialized and we are bombarded with advertisements to buy, buy, buy – gifts not only for our families and others but also for ourselves at this holiday season, but notwithstanding such efforts, the idea of spending our resources to be able to give to others is still at the heart of this season, and we still remember the gift of His son that God gave to us.
We gather our families around us at Christmas time. Schools take a vacation so students can travel home for the holidays. We feel an increased love toward our family members, mirroring the love that God had for us and the whole world in sending his son to live among us, even knowing that he would be persecuted and murdered at the end.
We decorate the tree with ornaments, lights, and other decorations. We want the tree to look as beautiful as possible. We do this because in some way, the tree becomes a symbol of Christ himself, and we honor him by doing everything we can to honor and beautify the tree that represents him.
We sing hymns to remember the hymns that the angels sang when they came to the shepherds. Those angels sang for joy at the birth of the son, and we also sing for the same joy, in celebration of the happiness we feel because of the gospel that Christ gave us. In Christ the old law was fulfilled, and a new law was given – a higher law designed to raise the quality of life; to bring about a better civilization; and to enable us to become better individuals; and to improve our very manner of thought. Moses said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”, for example, but Christ said, in effect, “Don’t even think about it.” Moses focused on actions; Christ focused on attitudes.
Even though the secular world holds these symbols in derision, they are still powerful reminders of why we celebrate this season of the year. They are uniquely and intensely Christian in nature, and represent an immensely potent mythology that has vitalized people for a very long time. They still speak to us today. We still use them to remember and celebrate that Christ came to earth and lived a life among us, providing for us a long, continuous, living revelation of what God Himself is like. This is why he said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father”, and “The Father and I are one.”
Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-82877740461537595492009-12-07T08:54:00.000-08:002009-12-07T10:11:35.345-08:00Good GovernmentI see the citizenry as being divided into two broad groups. One group is comprised of people who were taught to believe that it is the responsibility and duty of every American to support, with a portion of their funds, the government that is needed to guarantee our access to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" -- call them the contributing group. The second group contains those who appear to believe that the government is the very source from which flows funding and access to happiness -- call them the receiving group. The contributing group would like to limit the size and role of government to those items that actually are necessary, because it is their funding that the government is taking and spending, and frankly, they would like to see it wisely spent. The receiving group, by contrast, would like to expand the role of government into as many areas as possible, primarily because <i>other people, </i>namely the contributing group, are largely funding those programs, but <i>they </i>will be the primary beneficiaries. This arrangement seems fair to the receiving group because, after all, the contributing group being taxed have more money, so those taxed can better afford to pay for these programs. <div><br /></div><div>This portrayal is overly simplistic, of course. And, not everyone falls cleanly into one group or the other (although quite a few actually do). But it illustrates that the fundamental emotion behind give-away programs is a negative one masquerading as a positive one: It is greedy and selfish to desire for oneself benefits that can only be obtained by taking money by force from someone else -- it smacks of envy, and also of theft. It masquerades as altruism -- to help and benefit those less well off than ourselves -- but altruism implies that the giver is not coerced. If coerced, it becomes not altruism, but robbery. One can argue that people pay taxes out of altruism, but more often than not, this is simply not true, and it is suspect in all cases because the tax rates are set by the government (heavier on the more wealthy, note) and are rigorously enforced. And when our representatives in Congress spend the money, that is not altruism either, because it is <i>not their money that they are spending! </i> If they want to be altruistic, they can spend their own money -- and I note in passing here that they are much more careful when spending their own money than they are when spending mine.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Ah", you might say, "but you did agree, when you elected representatives to the Congress that passed the laws setting up such programs." There may be room for this argument when those doing the electing are from the contributing group, or even largely from that group. The argument is less convincing, though, when the receiving group, which has the same voting power as the contributing group (one person, one vote, after all) begins to outnumber the contributing group. Then representatives are elected that seek to solidify their base by constructing programs that benefit the receiving group that elected them at the expense of the contributing group that opposed them. (See former blogs on getting elected as the number one priority of elected representatives.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Those who give are now at the mercy of those who take.</div><div><br /></div><div>Worse yet, many of our representatives are willing to spend not only all the tax money there is, but also money that has not yet been collected. <i>It is not their money</i>; but they incur no penalty for spending it, and there is no operative force to act as a restraint. But the contributing group is appalled, because it<i><b> is</b></i> their money, and the unfunded expenditures will eventually have to be paid for with their <i>future </i>money. The receiving group sees no problem. It is not <i>their </i>money. <i>They </i>won't have to pay for it.</div><div><br /></div><div>When my kids were in college, I seethed when my taxes went to fund scholarships for which my own children were not even eligible. I worked hard to pay for my children to go to college, and financially it was a difficult time, but not only did I have to pay college expenses for my own children out of my own pocket, but in addition, the government took even more so I could (altruistically, Congress no doubt thought) also pay for someone else. There was absolutely no benefit whatever to me, because my children were positively disbarred from these scholarships. It was a program that benefited a specific group of people at the expense of a different group of people.</div><div><br /></div><div>This brings me to the subject of what is the proper role and scope of government. This is a subject that varies all over the map, so I will give only my own views. When the government takes money from taxpayers, it should expend those funds for projects that will benefit taxpayers as a whole, and rigorously restrict itself from projects that take money from one group of people and expend it for the benefit of a different group. Further, it should maintain a high degree of fiscal responsibility for those funds. When funds are expended, it should be, in general, to <i>buy something</i> -- either that the government needs, or that is used for the benefit of the general citizenry.</div><div><br /></div><div>Examples of proper government funding include such items as roads, bridges, and infrastructure (benefits the expansion and maintenance of commerce, which benefits all people); defense (protects the whole country and ensures continuance of our way of life); law enforcement (protects all citizens -- even those not abiding by the law, most of the time); statecraft between us and other nations; treasury and fiscal policy; other needed government institutions that represent the citizenry as a whole.</div><div><br /></div><div>Examples of improper government funding include such items as "entitlement" programs or any other "spread the wealth" programs (money taken from one group and given to a different group -- violates the benefit taxpayers as a whole test and violates the "buy something" test); social security (a tax, run as the most monumental Ponzi scheme in history, that is masquerading as a retirement fund -- violates the "buy something" test, and egregiously violates the fiscal responsibility test); lotteries (persecuted as illegal when run by the Mob, but was taken over by the government when it saw how much money could be made and now run as a "stupid tax" -- encourages bad habits, does not "promote the general welfare", preys on the ignorant and poor); schools at the federal level (this a responsibility of the states); bailouts (violates fiscal responsibility test).</div><div><br /></div><div>There is a tendency for representatives elected by the receiver group to see tax money as a gold mine, limitless in scope, to be mined for the benefit of themselves and their supporters. And they are not alone: Every government agency also sees the tax revenue as a source for their own needs and tries to get as much of it as they can. The President sends a budget to congress each year that is full of items that are (in the view of the contributing group) unwise, unnecessary, unwarranted, and wasteful, and it is up to Congress to eliminated those that do not fall within the definition of good government. But instead, members of Congress hasten to add to the problem rather than the solution. They scheme and maneuver to carve out portions of the budget to favor their own specific groups or organizations. Each member believes that if others insert these "earmarks" into the budget, it should be called "pork", but if they do it, it must be good government -- after all, if it helps get them re-elected what could be better than that? It must be, by definition, good government.</div><div><br /></div><div>But in my mind it is clear: If a program or law benefits one group at the expense of another, it is almost certainly bad government, and if it does not apply equally -- including to members of Congress -- then it is almost certain to be bad government. Congress should be ashamed. </div>Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-77088307119425820432009-09-19T16:23:00.000-07:002009-09-19T16:36:19.666-07:00Intelligent Dogs<img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Geary/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg" alt="" /><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="State"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="City"></o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">At work there is a young woman – and by “younger”, I mean younger than me – who has a seeing eye dog.<span style=""> </span>This is her second dog since I have known her.<span style=""> </span>We held a retirement party for her first dog, “Penny”, and then she was gone for six weeks while she broke in her new one.<span style=""> </span>This one is a yellow <st1:place>Labrador</st1:place> called “Randy”, and he is young and energetic.<span style=""> </span>We all learned with Penny the do’s and don’t’s for seeing eye dogs and so everyone in the office knew how to relate to Randy.<span style=""> </span>We are not to feed it unauthorized snacks.<span style=""> </span>We are not to let it out of the office.<span style=""> </span>If the dog is “working” we are to leave it alone.<span style=""> </span>But there really isn’t much for the dog to do during the day, so often it appears to be bored out of its mind.<span style=""> </span>The dog is free to wander around the office as long as he is within calling range if he is needed.<span style=""> </span>There are a number of toys for the dog to play with in his owner’s office, but Randy keeps his place pretty clean so people don’t trip over his toys while walking by.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I have to walk past Randy’s office to go out to the soda machine, cafeteria, and at the end of the day as I go home, and I say hello to Randy, but I hadn’t actually spent any time with him.<span style=""> </span>But yesterday I was bored, so I walked to one end of the office where there are <span style=""> </span>windows that look out over the parking lot and the city.<span style=""> </span>Then I thought I would go out to the soda machine and get something.<span style=""> </span>I turned around and, looking down the path I would walk, I saw Randy, about 150 feet away, looking at me.<span style=""> </span>He continued to look at me as I approached, and then when I got close to him, he picked up a rubber ring – one of his toys – and offered it to me.<span style=""> </span>I took hold of it, and there ensued a tug of war for awhile.<span style=""> </span>Then I said, “Do you want me to throw it?” and immediately he let go and got prepared to chase it.<span style=""> </span>I tossed it down the way I had come and he bounded after it, catching it on the second bounce.<span style=""> </span>He brought it back to me and wanted another little tug of war.<span style=""> </span>I said, “Ready?” and he immediately let go and tensed for another run.<span style=""> </span>I threw it and he chased it down.<span style=""> </span>We continued for awhile as I threw the ring down the hall over and over.<span style=""> </span>Each time I would say, “Ready?” and he would get set for another run.<span style=""> </span>Finally he came back and did NOT offer the ring to me, but tossed down on the ground and flopped down next to it.<span style=""> </span>I said, “OK, we’re done” and rubbed his ears.<span style=""> </span>I started toward the door again, and his owner murmured in my ear, “Thanks.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I got to thinking about other dogs I have played with.<span style=""> </span>One of my daughter’s friends had a dog named “Seven”, a young golden retriever or perhaps yellow <st1:place>Labrador</st1:place>, who had more energy than anyone in their family could really deal with.<span style=""> </span>I was visiting one day because we had been invited over for dinner, when Seven decided he wanted to play.<span style=""> </span>I threw toys all over the house for Seven, until he was completely worn out.<span style=""> </span>Later I heard my daughter’s friend mention to my daughter that I was the only person who had ever worn Seven out.<span style=""> </span>She said Seven slept almost the entire next day.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then there was Barney, a mixed rotweiller/retriever, who belonged to a friend of ours.<span style=""> </span>Barney was a city dog who easily got car sick, but he liked to come out to the cabin, and after a few trips, began to get over his car sickness as soon as he figured out he was headed toward the cabin.<span style=""> </span>Barney had a herding instinct, I guess, because he was very conscious of the whereabouts of everyone in the family.<span style=""> </span>He would make the rounds of the house in the middle of the night to make sure that everyone was in their right place.<span style=""> </span>I would wake up with a cold nose in my face and reach out to pet Barney and assure him that I was all right, and my wife would do the same.<span style=""> </span>One night Barney came in to check on us when my wife had left the bed to go to the bathroom.<span style=""> </span>People say that dogs don’t really have different expressions, but I tell you, Barney did the most astonishing double take when he looked in the bed for Carol and didn’t find her there.<span style=""> </span>It was so human-like that I nearly laughed out loud.<span style=""> </span>Then Barney put his front feet on the bed so he could get up to see better and looked up and then down the length of the bed for Carol.<span style=""> </span>He was clearly just astounded that she wasn’t there.<span style=""> </span>Finally I said, “She’s in the bathroom, Barney.”<span style=""> </span>I believe he understood what I said because he immediately got down and walked over to where he could see the bathroom door and sat down to wait for her.<span style=""> </span>He waited until she came out and escorted her back to bed where she belonged before leaving to check on the rest of the household.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Another time my daughter came out to the cabin with a new baby.<span style=""> </span>Barney was extremely solicitous of both mother and child, and took it upon himself to monitor the health and welfare of the baby.<span style=""> </span>If my daughter took the baby into the house, Barney would escort her to the door and would be at the door when she came out again.<span style=""> </span>He followed the baby everywhere and sat next to whoever was holding the baby.<span style=""> </span>From time to time he would move to where he could see the baby’s face to make sure it was all right.<span style=""> </span>If the baby cried, Barney (his hearing was better than a human’s) would come right to the mother and move toward the house, looking back to see if she was coming yet.<span style=""> </span>You could almost hear him saying, “Come on, come on, the baby needs you.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Another friend came to the cabin one time and brought two German shepherds.<span style=""> </span>One was quite old but the other was more frisky.<span style=""> </span>She accompanied me out into the woods where I was working, but when I turned to go, she didn’t want to come.<span style=""> </span>I discovered that she had found what looked like a dead limb that was mostly buried in the leaf thatch that covered the forest floor, and had gripped it in her jaws and was trying to pull it loose.<span style=""> </span>She tugged and tugged at it, and each pull loosened it a little more.<span style=""> </span>After a bit, she finally got it loose and triumphantly hauled it into the meadow – her every expression and body language just shouted “gleeful”.<span style=""> </span>Well, it turned out to be a bit more than a “limb”.<span style=""> </span>It was almost 20 feet long, but she waved it back and forth to show everyone what a great hunter she was.<span style=""> </span>I tried to take it away from her, but only got into a tugging match.<span style=""> </span>Between the two of us, we finally managed to break it up enough to have pieces that were small enough to throw and fetch, which we did for the rest of the day.<span style=""> </span>Hmmm, she slept most of the next day too.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">These dogs were all astonishingly smart, but unfortunately not all dogs are smart.<span style=""> </span>When I was young, we had a <st1:state><st1:place>Chihuahua</st1:place></st1:state> named “Candi”.<span style=""> </span>This dog was smart and I loved her.<span style=""> </span>She slept in my bed with me at night.<span style=""> </span>She had a litter of pups, all but one of which were sold.<span style=""> </span>The one that didn’t sell was what I would call dumb – D. U. M.<span style=""> </span>When food was put down for them, Candi would eat all of hers and then go to the sliding glass doors that looked out over the patio and bark.<span style=""> </span><st1:city><st1:place>Chico</st1:place></st1:city> (the dumb one) would come to see what she was barking at, and would also start barking, which he kept up for awhile.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Candi went back to the food and ate his too.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think there is nothing so attractive as intelligence.<span style=""> </span>Dogs – people – intelligence makes them come alive, and that is so very attractive.<span style=""> </span></p>Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-31439843047438791822009-08-31T09:47:00.000-07:002009-08-31T09:55:33.166-07:00Still Another ExampleFor a very apro pro column on politicians and their innate need to look out for their own interests first, see the column by Tony Blankley in the Washington Times of August 25, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/25/iron-spine-cold-appraisal-needed/">here</a>. The subject is President Johnson and his turmoil over the Vietnam war, but the unintended point of the column is that politicians protect their own interests first and foremost.Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-76145136856932753912009-08-28T08:07:00.000-07:002009-08-28T08:14:16.488-07:00And Still MoreThis from Newt Gingrich, in the context of how politicians bungled the Cash For Clunkers program:<br /><br /> "They're not concerned with the long-term, just the next election." <br /><br />From his column:<br /><br /><div> <div class="article_headline"> Three Reasons Why Government Can't Run Health Care </div> <div class="article_byline"> by Newt Gingrich <br /> </div> <div class="article_postdate" style="padding-bottom: 15px;"> 08/26/2009 </div> </div>Read his column here: <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33275">http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33275</a>Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-1720476658842174162009-08-26T12:42:00.001-07:002009-08-26T12:43:10.935-07:00More on Election ScamsA reader sent me the following:<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:-webkit-sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><h2 style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reason/HitandRun/~3/LHY_T1086hs/135617.html" target="_blank">"I've come to be increasingly baffled by the high degree cynicism and immorality displayed in big-time politics."</a></div></h2><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; ">via <a href="http://www.reason.com/blog" target="_blank">Reason Magazine - Hit & Run</a> on 8/24/09</div><br />Liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias is apparently <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/08/political-lifes-mysteries.php" target="_blank">shocked</a> that liberal politicians would rather maintain their own power than work for "the public good." George Mason University law professor (and <em>Reason</em> <a href="http://www.reason.com/contrib/show/711.html" target="_blank">contributor</a>) Ilya Somin patiently explains to Yglesias how the political world <a href="http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_23-2009_08_29.shtml#1251127451" target="_blank">actually works</a>:<br /><blockquote>A politician willing to do anything to take and hold on to power will have a crucial edge over an opponent who imperils his chances of getting elected in order to advance the public interest. The former type is likely to prevail over the latter far more often than not. This is especially true in a political environment where most voters are often ignorant and irrational about government and public policy. Candidates have strong incentives to pander to this ignorance and exploit it in order to win elections. Those unwilling to exploit public ignorance because they place the public interest above political success are likely to be at a serious disadvantage relative to their less scrupulous opponents. Thus, those who value power above other objectives are more likely to succeed politically. As economist Frank Knight wrote back in the 1930s, "[t]he probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping master in a slave plantation."</blockquote></span></div>Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-24679732227868481642009-07-27T09:07:00.000-07:002009-07-27T09:14:32.333-07:00An Actual Election Scam!With regard to election scams, a real example appeared in the New York Times on 27 July regarding the Iranian "election" of Mr. Ahmadinejad. I quote, "Mr. Ahmadinejad had won support from government pensioners prior to the election by significantly increasing their payments. Those payments have since been reduced ...". Notwithstanding any judgments regarding the honesty or dis-honesty of the Iranian election process itself, this example serves to support my previous contention that THE FIRST PRIORITY OF AN ELECTORAL CANDIDATE IS TO GET ELECTED. In the case of Mr. Ahmadinejad, apparently any scheme that enhances his chances is countenanced.Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-17848916612627592802009-07-14T14:06:00.000-07:002009-07-14T14:35:04.051-07:00On Elections and Other Scams<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">When my first child was born, we had an old black and white television that was given to me some years earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was a vacuum tube affair, with knobs that wobbled loosely on their connecting rods.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I used to have to lie in front of the TV, on my back, and continuously twiddle the knobs with my toes to keep a picture on the screen.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I watched the first moon landing on this TV, and somewhere I have a picture of my son – barley old enough to stand by himself – standing in front of the set while on screen Neil Armstrong is taking his first step onto the moon’s surface.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">As my children grew up, we had fascinating conversations around the dinner table, and one of the things we did was to dissect the television advertisements, and discuss the use of the English language through the prism of advertising propaganda.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One of my favorite advertisements touted the ability to “… borrow up to $50,000 – OR EVEN MORE!”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I would say, “Well, that about covers it, all right.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My children thought making fun of advertising was hilariously funny, and joined in enthusiastically; but early in their life, they learned to distinguish how language was used not jonly to inform, but also to sway opinion.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">This tendency of mine to make fun of how our language is used and mis-used must be some hold-over from my own childhood because I can even to this day repeat verbatim, advertisements that I heard on the radio as a child – and can still sing those that came in the form of jingles, not to mention racy jokes shared with my friends about some of the products:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“DUZ does EVERYTHING!” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Dissecting the techniques used and the motives that drive how language is mis-used in advertising is both serious and entertaining – sort of serio-comical – but the ability to determine both techniques and motives becomes a serious requirement when it comes to politics, where, in part at least, it is my money they are talking about spending.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">In the United States, there are two broad views of government:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There are those who have been raised to believe that supporting the government with their tax money is part of the responsibility of being a citizen; that the money spent by the government should go to buying something that benefits the citizenry as a whole; and that the government should otherwise keep out of their affairs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There is another view of government:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That it is there to provide essential services to those citizens who should provide them for themselves, but don't, or can't; that the citizenry won’t provide this help unless they are coerced, hence the government needs to take the lead; and that other people than themselves – notably the “rich” who everyone knows have more money than they really NEED – should pay for them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">There are people with views, of course, that range all the way from the one end of the spectrum I have drawn, to the other end, but my point is, people have different views – sometimes radically different views – of what government should be and do.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Candidates who run for office have their own views of government, and during their campaign for election they want to present those views in the most positive light.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Their goal becomes not to inform, necessarily, but to get elected.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What they do, in essence, is to form a business, of which they are the chief operating officer, the sole purpose of which is to present the candidate in the most positive light.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In short, the candidate’s organization becomes a specialized advertising agency, with the candidate as its product.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In this light, our childish game of critiquing television advertising becomes a much more serious tool for choosing among candidates for office.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">The basis for advertising, whether for a commercial product or a political candidate, is information.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But there is information – a neutral rendition of factual content without “spin” (e.g., adverbs and adjectives); there is mis-information – information that is designed to mislead, either intentionally (e.g., innuendo) or unintentionally, even when the information itself may be correct, although it not always is; and there is dis-information – information that is deliberately false and/or factually incorrect.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>From these categories of information an advertising campaign is constructed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Remember, for a candidate the primary goal is not to inform, but to sway opinion to get him elected to office.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">The subject of the advertising campaign may be the candidate himself, or his views, for which usually information and mis-information is chosen, although dis-information may also be used:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I deny categorically that I ever said (or did) that!”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or, the information may be about his opponent, in which case the usage is almost always either mis-information or dis-information.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“My opponent says … (mis-information) …, but I say … (information or more mis-information) …”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or, “My opponent believes … (dis-information, always)”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These uses of information collectively form the techniques of propaganda.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Propaganda techniques have been studied for many years, but interestingly, they are not always recognized by the public.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In addition, it is not only the candidates that employ these techniques, but the media as well, all the while telling the public what good watchdogs they are.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Yellow Journalism” is not new, it is just that none of the journals admit to it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Here are some common techniques:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Assertion – an enthusiastic or energetic statement presented as a fact.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It may or may not be true, but it is presented as if it were.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Bandwagon – “Hop on – EVERYONE is doing it!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Stacking the Cards – Selective omission of information contrary to a position.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Glittering Generalities – Using words linked to highly valued concepts, whether they actually apply or not.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Change”, “good”, “honest”, “fair”, “best”, are examples.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Lesser of Two Evils – Presenting a proposal as the least offensive of the only two available options, denying that there are other options.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Ad Hominem – Rejecting an argument on the basis of derogatory facts (which may or may not be true) about a person. Attacking a person instead of his argument or views.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Name Calling – A form of Ad Hominem:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The use of derogatory language or words when describing the opponent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Straw Man – Ascribing a false position to a real or imaginary opponent, and then demolishing that false position.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Simplification – Reducing a complex issue to a choice between good and evil, or a “bumper-sticker” slogan.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Transfer – The attempt to link a negative (or positive) feeling about an object or word to the proposal at hand (e.g., presenting the proposal while standing in front of a flag to invoke patriotic feelings; having a spokesperson stand in front of a well-manicured bookshelf of important-looking books, to imply a scientific basis. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">False Analogy – Portraying two things as similar, even though they are not.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Testimonial – Using well-known personalities to testify on your behalf.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Plain Folks – Using a folksy approach or people to obtain support.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Faulty Logic – There are many techniques that deliberately misuse the rules of logic to support a position.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt; margin-left:.5in">Contradiction – Information that conflicts with other information within the same argument.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt; margin-left:.5in">False Cause – Because one event follows another, it must be the cause of the other event.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt; margin-left:.5in">Begging the Question – Circular reasoning:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Constructing an argument in favor of<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>a claim that amounts to making the claim in the first place.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt; margin-left:.5in">Evading the Issue – Answer to a question that amounts to changing the subject.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt; margin-left:.5in">Composition and Division – Arguing that because the claim is true for one, it is true for all, or vice versa.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Poisoning the Well – Blindly explaining away all arguments, no matter how absurd the explanations become.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Appealing to Emotion – Use of an emotionally-laden sob story or argument to help prove a claim.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Appeal to Fear – Unless you support my position, really bad things will happen.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“We can no longer afford to wait …”, “We risk a long-lasting and deep depression …”.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Even with these techniques in mind, it sometimes takes time to recognize them in practice.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Television commercials and political campaigns are two good places to find them and learn to recognize them because these two sources are so very rich in propaganda techniques.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">When we elect a politician -- especially to national office -- we not only elect that official, but in effect we also elect all those people whom that candidate will be authorized to appoint to government positions, and depending on the political office, this may be a very large number indeed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">A final thought to keep in mind:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The primary goal of advertising is not to inform.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is TO MAKE MONEY.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The primary business of newspapers and television news organizations is TO MAKE MONEY.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And similarly, the first and primary business of politicians is TO GET ELECTED.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Keeping the primary motivation in mind will be a substantial assist to decoding the propaganda they promulgate. </p>Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-20525596281910745812008-10-31T11:14:00.001-07:002008-10-31T11:14:57.373-07:00Personality Differences<o:p></o:p>Every time I take a personality test (I always want to call it the Briggs & Stratton test, but I actually do know that is not its name, and that Briggs & Stratton is an engine manufacturer), such as the Myers-Briggs test – in any of its myriad forms – I always come out the same way.<span style=""> </span>The first time I did this, my daughter – one of my favorite people in the whole world – supplied the test and had everyone in my family take the test and read the accompanying description of their personality.<span style=""> </span>No one in my family had any doubt as to which category I would fall into, and, of course, they were right.<span style=""> </span>The best part, though, was when they made me read out loud the description of my personality type.<span style=""> </span>That was a little creepy, and not only because they all laughed until they could hardly stand at every sentence.<span style=""> </span>The creepy part was that it sounded like a very astute description written by someone who knew me personally, and well.<span style=""> </span>The only two parts that I can still remember were that: 1) less than one percent of the population fall into my category; and 2) the phrase – which may not be remembered exactly correctly – “… is able to instantly recognize contradictions, no matter how far removed in time or space.”<span style=""> </span>It was creepy because I had no idea that there were other people not only like me, but apparently exactly like me.<span style=""> </span>Not only that, but there were enough of them that a very accurate description could be written of them as a class of people with personalities distinct from all others. <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Well, that was a long time ago.<span style=""> </span>I just finished taking the test again on line, and found, to no surprise, that I am still in the same class – heavily introverted, heavily intuitive, slightly thinking (versus feeling), and moderately judging.<span style=""> </span>(My family, I know, thinks I am heavily judging, but they are wrong.)<span style=""> </span>A phrase in the current description of this personality class contains the following eerily correct statement:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.”<span style=""> </span>From:<span style=""> </span><a href="http://typelogic.com/intj.html">http://typelogic.com/intj.html</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">When I was in college, I thought everyone thought the way I did.<span style=""> </span>For years this was a good working assumption because I was in a school full of engineers and scientists, and their thought processes were close enough to mine that communication was never an issue.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then I met my wife.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Needless to say, her M-B personality type is different from my own.<span style=""> </span>Another phrase from my personality description fits this situation:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“This sometimes results in a peculiar naiveté, paralleling that of many Fs -- only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness.”<span style=""> </span>From:<span style=""> </span><a href="http://typelogic.com/intj.html">http://typelogic.com/intj.html</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Reasonability and directness – is that too much to ask for?<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“… willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship …”<span style=""> </span>That was certainly true in my case.<span style=""> </span>When I saw my wife for the first time, she was 17, and I thought she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t five minutes before I was thinking of marriage, and I hadn’t even met her yet.<span style=""> </span>I was told she was going with someone, and I thought to myself, “There is a boy who is going to be terribly disappointed.”<span style=""> </span>She is still beautiful – she is beautiful in all the ways it is possible to be beautiful – of face and form, of personality and disposition, of spirit and adventure, in intelligence, and, especially, in her innate desire to help others.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It first began to dawn on me that our thought processes were not the same shortly thereafter.<span style=""> </span>This was a brand-new idea – one I had never had before.<span style=""> </span>The earlier description of my personality type included the phrase, “… feels no need to state the obvious.”<span style=""> </span>I knew this about myself already, having spent untold hours at work sitting in silent deathly boredom through meetings where people debated at great length and in excruciating detail some subject, only to eventually come to what to me was already an obvious conclusion.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, what is “obvious” to me is not always “obvious” to my wife.<span style=""> </span>This difference led to several instances of me going one way and her another, which got me to thinking, “What is going on here?”<span style=""> </span>I tended to feel that she was being deliberately obtuse, and she tended to feel that not only was I being perversely unfeeling and non-communicative, but also that her views were being deliberately undervalued.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Eventually I began to understand that our thinking processes were just different.<span style=""> </span>Mine were not necessarily better (or worse), but were just different.<span style=""> </span>Sometimes her conclusions were better than mine, which I found a bit confusing, because she had reached them by a path that I could not follow.<span style=""> </span>But at other times, and in areas where I had done what I considered a lot of homework, I knew what I knew, and thought my conclusions were better. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they <b>don't</b> know.”<span style=""> </span>From:<span style=""> </span><a href="http://typelogic.com/intj.html">http://typelogic.com/intj.html</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Well, now I know more about what I don’t know than I did before I met my wife, but one thing I still don’t know is how my wife’s mental processes operate.<span style=""> </span>Although she is a compelling attraction that I cannot ignore, she is still a great mystery to me.<span style=""> </span>We share a great deal in common, but in the matter of how our brains work, we are different.<span style=""> </span>Dealing with that difference, and trying to understand it, is, and has been, the work of almost my entire lifetime.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-62790553793717282132008-10-20T08:01:00.000-07:002008-10-20T08:02:23.015-07:00Hummingbird Wars<p class="MsoNormal">All summer long I have watched the hummingbirds that come to the feeder that sits just outside the dining room window.<span style=""> </span>First to arrive in the spring are the females.<span style=""> </span>They are a bit drab – green and gray in color – but are so delicate and small that they are a joy to watch.<span style=""> </span>The feeder will accommodate four birds at a time, but this is overkill on the part of the feeder’s designer because four hummingbirds will never, ever be feeding at the same time.<span style=""> </span>The reason is that hummingbirds are extremely territorial.<span style=""> </span>The one feeding will arrive, but before beginning to feed, will look all around to make sure she is alone.<span style=""> </span>Only then will she dip her beak into the fake flower to sip at the sugar solution that mimics the nectar.<span style=""> </span>She swallows at an extreme rate – about seven or eight swallows per second, so it doesn’t take long to fill up.<span style=""> </span>Even so, she will stop often and look around again to make sure she is undisturbed.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And often she is not undisturbed.<span style=""> </span>If another hummingbird arrives, the newcomer will take a higher position from which she can dive down to attack the resident.<span style=""> </span>This maneuver is often enough to make the resident abandon her perch and dive down and away from the newcomer.<span style=""> </span>If she has not yet filled up, she will take the high position herself as the newcomer tries to position to drink.<span style=""> </span>From her superior position, she will dive at the newcomer and drive her away.<span style=""> </span>This back and forth continues until one or the other gives up and retreats.<span style=""> </span>The action is very fast – almost too fast to follow with the eye.<span style=""> </span>If there is a dog-fighter among birds it is the hummingbird!<span style=""> </span>In less than two seconds they will have exchanged positions three or four times.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The winner begins all over again by perching – or sometimes just hovering – in front of the fake flower, to look all around for any encroaching rivals before beginning to feed.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">When the males arrive, a little later in the spring, things really get hot.<span style=""> </span>One male and one female MAY share the feeder, but often will not, and two males will NEVER share the feeder.<span style=""> </span>Females sometimes share with one other female, but I suspect these are nest-mates, as I only see them do so later in the summer and fall.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Battles between males are even faster and more violent than between females – and a lot more colorful too.<span style=""> </span>The iridescent green of the wings, and the almost blindingly bright red of the throat give off flashes of color as the sun catches the feathers just right during their aerial duels.<span style=""> </span>And, the body language, especially between males, is almost laughably human-like.<span style=""> </span>The newcomer arrives and takes the high position with a haughty pose that clearly says, “I don’t know who you think you are, but you are at MY feeder!”<span style=""> </span>The one at the feeder looks around and says, “Who me?<span style=""> </span>I’m just taking a drink here.”<span style=""> </span>But he eyes the newcomer suspiciously and somewhat nervously, and very carefully avoids putting himself at any further disadvantage like, for example, putting his beak back into the fake flower.<span style=""> </span>Sometimes the feeder just leaves at this point, but if he doesn’t, the battle is joined when the newcomer dives to the attack.<span style=""> </span>The winner perches at the feeder, and ruffles and settles his feathers, while his body language clearly states, “Well!<span style=""> </span>I guess I took care of THAT guy!”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Hummingbirds fly amazingly fast, and because they are so small, sometimes they just seem to disappear.<span style=""> </span>They’re here and then they’re just gone.<span style=""> </span>There is a <st1:place st="on">Bradford</st1:place> pear tree in the yard about 20 feet from the feeder, and often the hummingbirds go there after feeding or stage there before feeding.<span style=""> </span>Being even smaller than the leaves of the tree, the hummingbirds are nearly invisible once they reach the tree.<span style=""> </span>But the males sitting in the tree turn back and forth, and their red throats flash each time they move.<span style=""> </span>They are like bright red lasers advertising their presence.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now, in late October, the hummingbirds are gone.<span style=""> </span>They seem to leave pretty much all at the same time.<span style=""> </span>We won’t see them again until next spring.<span style=""> </span>One day we will see one come to the window and hover there, saying as clearly as if they had spoken English to us – “What happened to the feeder that used to hang here?<span style=""> </span>I’m back, let’s get with it, you humans.”</p>Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-12553298650802736992008-05-29T10:11:00.000-07:002008-05-29T10:33:54.559-07:00Life Comes At You FastWe welcomed our 12th grandchild into the family this month. It reminds me that when we stopped having children, I suffered a mild depression that no more little babies would be coming into our life. I dreamed that we had one more little boy, whose name was Michael. But after five births, and nearly losing her life over one of them, my wife and I decided we would do well to take care of those we had. <br /><br />I loved all my children with all my heart. They taught me that there is no limit to love, which can expand infinitely to cover all those it needs to. I loved my children at all the stages of their lives, and my best memories involve watching them play with each other, with me, and with my wife-- another person that I love with all my heart. <br /><br />When they grew up, I imagined all the bad things that can happen to a young person, and prepared myself in case any should befall my own children. Having lost one of them quite unexpectedly at age five, I was fully aware that life might not be all roses for them, and I knew the kind of heartache that comes when disaster strikes. <br /><br />But they grew up well. None of those imagined disasters struck. I watched them develop into mature, thinking, competent people who I am proud to know. <br /><br />And then, to my joy, the little babies began arriving again! I became a grandparent! Each little one came to bring joy to their parents, and especially (in my case) to their grandparents. I had not thought through this grandparent business, and wasn't prepared for the intense joy that it brings. <br /><br />They came one at a time, giving us all time to get to know them and to love each one of them individually for a time. Each one was so perfect when he or she arrived. Each one so fresh from the presence of God. <br /><br />Seventeen times this has happened to me! Once for each of my children, and once for each of my grandchildren. I sang to each of them as I held them in my arms -- nonsense songs and tunes made up just for each one of them. I don't feel foolish singing to the little babies, because I can see that the little babies look up at me and smile at my songs. Sometimes they will laugh -- that infectious baby laugh that is made up entirely of pure delight, and then everyone within hearing laughs along with them.<br /><br />I am more thankful than I can ever say to see the marriages made by each of my children. Each one of them has chosen well. Each one of them has prepared well to make a good marriage. Each one of them has brought into the family a person we have come to love as our own children. And, each of them has brought little babies into the family -- babies we have loved from before they are even born.<br /><br />Thank you, my children, that I have such joy in my posterity!Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-10938862346745574082008-04-27T17:26:00.000-07:002008-04-27T17:38:58.176-07:00More on my drawing classWe had a four-week break between classes, so our teacher filled in with four weeks of optional make-up-your-own-content classes. For something completely different, Carol broke out all the pastels we had in the house. There were about six boxes of pastels she had bought a long time ago on sale; there were some with Tona's name on them; and I had a few of my own. <br /><br />I discovered two things right away: It is a LOT harder to think in color than in black and white; and, I didn't have NEAR enough colors. So I bought another set to go along with what we had. Pastels are just the pigments that are used in watercolor and oil painting, but are used in chalk-like sticks. They go on dry, much like charcoal, and they have the same problem -- they get rubbed off easily. Also, as soon as you use one, you have some of the pigment on your hands, and soon you have it on your clothes and all over your "painting". Some authors regard pastels as drawing, but others call it painting if all the paper is covered, and drawing if some of the paper is used for one of the colors. Something I didn't know: many of the master painters did their work in pastels. I thought at first that all pastels looked sort of fuzzy because of the chalk-like softness of the dry pigments, but since then I have seen some portrait work that I couldn't tell were done with pastels. They were crisp, with colors very gently blended in a continuous shading across the face. <br /><br />MY paintings, as is easy to see, are the work of a beginner. I have a LOT to learn about painting. Well, I thought it best to start with drawing, since that is the foundation for all art, so that's why I was taking a class in drawing. But now I think I might like painting after all. <br /><br />In case you are curious, I am NOT posting any of my "paintings" yet. <br /><br />By the way, I took two of my drawings down to have them framed. This means they should be around for the next couple of hundred years.Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-15408089694541203942008-04-01T12:41:00.001-07:002008-12-13T04:45:09.889-08:00One More DrawingOK, for those of you who care, here is one more drawing.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo8HO8ezB5ooahVOriN-cxeu0x_E2R132KSb2ViIaJ98O1IhqXi3yGsoUVLKgF7pvEKtJSrzc5T2IVK6_Jep8AVvvv99cNGRh2SsnEumsSBhDCUJQKvGOi0pf8yuNaYiB4xvEQo03Cd-M/s1600-h/Geary.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo8HO8ezB5ooahVOriN-cxeu0x_E2R132KSb2ViIaJ98O1IhqXi3yGsoUVLKgF7pvEKtJSrzc5T2IVK6_Jep8AVvvv99cNGRh2SsnEumsSBhDCUJQKvGOi0pf8yuNaYiB4xvEQo03Cd-M/s400/Geary.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5184364762393899426" border="0" /></a>Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-19598065365577617122008-03-04T12:18:00.000-08:002008-12-13T04:45:11.573-08:00Geary's DrawingsOK. By popular demand (at least it was popular with me) I am posting some of my drawings.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimIN6gBno-6yTpdTmUmbigEHqfoCnFvWsvl9DE0hxYMjUD1pHf1vFudevTEaRVlftveKeEmJTzRVZ46OKLZn9ztO6YrjmX7PuJkoRXMiimOTNIn62GVCjoHnS2E_aeqHq1tff-wfPoBow/s1600-h/071001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimIN6gBno-6yTpdTmUmbigEHqfoCnFvWsvl9DE0hxYMjUD1pHf1vFudevTEaRVlftveKeEmJTzRVZ46OKLZn9ztO6YrjmX7PuJkoRXMiimOTNIn62GVCjoHnS2E_aeqHq1tff-wfPoBow/s200/071001.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173983897623501794" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />This first one is a drawing on Mi Tientes paper, which is a medium gray. Darks are added with pencil and the white highlights are made with a white pencil. The paper forms the medium value. This one was done about the third week after I started taking the class.<br /><br />The ne<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil-N4DBuInT-BU33RCkKsO4Q7pLkWB6ysQ2kR06Y0RhYkTTHfeotTQJ1AfHZ7cvXT6B66ow0s4dHmsJ-5d9Eb8vpNGkRCTk82PuPpyTTC7M2SeISZkZ0GlIiTesGHr4-UhKxS2UI-vSgc/s1600-h/071016.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil-N4DBuInT-BU33RCkKsO4Q7pLkWB6ysQ2kR06Y0RhYkTTHfeotTQJ1AfHZ7cvXT6B66ow0s4dHmsJ-5d9Eb8vpNGkRCTk82PuPpyTTC7M2SeISZkZ0GlIiTesGHr4-UhKxS2UI-vSgc/s200/071016.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173984567638399986" border="0" /></a>xt one was done a week later, using the same technique on the same kind of paper. Besides being able to practice drawing the shapes, the emphasis was on finding where the highlights were to go, and in visualizing how the medium value of the paper fit into the overall drawing.<br /><br />The next one is about a month later -- pencil on white paper. It<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVxwdE7WQlp-u9tm5mlUy86hCmjlX-AM5S7A-57QWOjXBiDbi6VVVeNqGnT2c-oJ3BAZB2xlrpXsuIbsFXugayQ5p8FzYp3SNDhrqGzGkLFbmPNGjOho3A_trzXlxutorjOlInjFwKBVQ/s1600-h/071120.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVxwdE7WQlp-u9tm5mlUy86hCmjlX-AM5S7A-57QWOjXBiDbi6VVVeNqGnT2c-oJ3BAZB2xlrpXsuIbsFXugayQ5p8FzYp3SNDhrqGzGkLFbmPNGjOho3A_trzXlxutorjOlInjFwKBVQ/s200/071120.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173993058788744322" border="0" /></a> just looks gray because the camera tries to make the overall picture register at a medium gray, and since most of the drawing is white, the camera renders it as gray. Our instructor seems to have an endless supply of objects to draw. The fruit is actually plastic, so she can use the same ones over and over. Here the difficulty was that the bottle was partially full, so part of the bottle is semi-transparent, and part is not. Plus, the plunger extends down into the bottle and there are lots of reflections.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXBbJJSOrHHwwincsXUDda07XknFu6MOyqkpRbrpi333ljvGjdqlYiUy6KjG-cHsQYvItkwG_dTEe1WdcvG087Bte8qpf14Igxoyt4l79RORKKNHp-uSg8LBNsc1VAd4-zIpBu6eUGNCI/s1600-h/071127.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXBbJJSOrHHwwincsXUDda07XknFu6MOyqkpRbrpi333ljvGjdqlYiUy6KjG-cHsQYvItkwG_dTEe1WdcvG087Bte8qpf14Igxoyt4l79RORKKNHp-uSg8LBNsc1VAd4-zIpBu6eUGNCI/s200/071127.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173986959935183890" border="0" /></a>This one is charcoal on charcoal paper, done last October. Here the paper is rubbed with charcoal dust (just using a paper towel to do the rubbing) to make it a medium gray, and then darks are added with charcoal and lighter areas are made by erasing the charcoal. The good part is that ANYTHING can be erased entirely and drawn over, or, if you want to start over, you just have to rub the entire paper with your paper towel and start all over again with what looks like a new sheet of paper. I spent most of my time on the cup and just sort of quickly sketched in the fruit at the last moment. I was very impressed with how easy charcoal is to work with. The downside, of course, is that any rubbing after you are done, and the picture tends to disappear.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMB4QtXEzHhV7XEaxVPQjzVWSvNzxdu9tDhb5pGctcxkSvmsS2fWNXrRLmlRRHfWAU6yVPrc-1yByD41CO2Yz4vEuYOuUH1_-VYdNXsvhCW8d3Wl1cHWkW0S1EGwCVPvV2p9ttFGPayrA/s1600-h/080226.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMB4QtXEzHhV7XEaxVPQjzVWSvNzxdu9tDhb5pGctcxkSvmsS2fWNXrRLmlRRHfWAU6yVPrc-1yByD41CO2Yz4vEuYOuUH1_-VYdNXsvhCW8d3Wl1cHWkW0S1EGwCVPvV2p9ttFGPayrA/s200/080226.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173992440313453682" border="0" /></a>This is the same cup, but with lemons piled inside (I mention that they are lemons, in case you can't tell). This one is pencil on paper, and done last week, but since it is the same object as in the charcoal drawing, I put it here so the two drawings can be compared. You can see how, or if, anything is better or worse for having been drawn three months apart.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH2eGcT4x-EK_7wfsaKaU23pUVMfCO2EmpRSeJ1Bsrxjaa7L4ISbH5PyOZxj24qDl3MZerL00Ek4SArqGCJxlmg2qgqfx99eLRDL8Tg3GAhy-1mUOLyeWPqBWk8d4J-9H6YBfoFWVJU3g/s1600-h/080112.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH2eGcT4x-EK_7wfsaKaU23pUVMfCO2EmpRSeJ1Bsrxjaa7L4ISbH5PyOZxj24qDl3MZerL00Ek4SArqGCJxlmg2qgqfx99eLRDL8Tg3GAhy-1mUOLyeWPqBWk8d4J-9H6YBfoFWVJU3g/s200/080112.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173991886262672482" border="0" /></a>This is my first attempt at a portrait, done over Christmas week. This is the third attempt to draw this one, and probably the best of the three. The girl is Eva Green, and the scene is from the movie "The Kingdom of Heaven" .<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The last one is of Lucy Liu, pencil on paper. I did this <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB59PzB1vY_u6C3ahDmdLiMNOxImQp_ev6GD62xs8jx-8mc06I5YPChF3TItXOWKyYLP7J6XocqdC6wpgFjTmIPQ0h-_g2CQ0QBcyV9wzVmKcxw2Byiz6zHkPZhB-heYzkE1W2BITetyY/s1600-h/080304.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB59PzB1vY_u6C3ahDmdLiMNOxImQp_ev6GD62xs8jx-8mc06I5YPChF3TItXOWKyYLP7J6XocqdC6wpgFjTmIPQ0h-_g2CQ0QBcyV9wzVmKcxw2Byiz6zHkPZhB-heYzkE1W2BITetyY/s200/080304.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173991495420648530" border="0" /></a>one today during class.Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-57580991994459266782008-03-01T16:10:00.000-08:002008-03-01T17:13:09.790-08:00Spring Classes BeginWell, the winter is over -- I imagine, that is -- and my drawing class is starting up again. I first took a drawing class many years ago when my oldest daughter wanted to take it, but she didn't want to go alone. I had to drive her to the class anyway, so I just signed on for it too, and we took it together. But then she went on to greater things -- becoming a major writer of history, for example, and inspiring younger women to follow her lead, and I sort of dropped out of the drawing business. I did generate all the artwork, however, for the quilting business that my wife and I had for about ten years, but that was more of a drafting effort than it was a drawing, so I don't count that period.<br /><br />But then last fall my wife talked me into taking her drawing class with her. I knew the instructor, because she came out to the cabin a couple of years ago, along with several other ladies from the class, and I found her to be enchanting, interesting, and vibrant -- and, perfectly able to hold her own against my verbal jabs during dinner. Besides, as it turns out, she is a wonderful artist, working mostly in pastels, now, but having worked other media in the past.<br /><br />So I went to class, taking Tuesdays off from work to do so. I was just going to take off a few hours, just for the class, but I found that somehow the whole day got taken up, what with the class, and then going to the art store, and lunch, and running errands -- by the time I was ready to go back to work, it was time to come home!<br /><br />I took the beginner's curricula, and it was a good thing -- I was in poor shape as an artist.<br /><br />But the rule is, after you have taken the beginner's curricula, you are no longer a beginner. However, I sort of moved only halfway out of the beginner's circle for the second term, working sometimes with the beginners and sometimes with the intermediate students. Astonishingly, to me, I found after a few weeks that my drawings actually had a distinct style to them, clearly recognizable as mine, and even looked rather like the still life models that she set up for us.<br /><br />Drawing the still life was both interesting and instructive, but what I really wanted to be able to do was to draw people -- faces -- portraits. I find people so INTERESTING! I spend most of my time observing them. I study their psychology both individually and as revealed in group dynamics, but what I like best is observing faces.<br /><br />We took a break from classes over the holidays because our instructor needed surgery on her foot and would be house-bound for awhile. During the break, I tried drawing a portrait. My first attempt clearly looked like A person, but not THE person I was using as a model (it was a print from a movie -- I had chosen it because the camera focused on the head, so that it filled the screen, the lighting was good for a portrait, and the emotion was clearly evident on the face).<br /><br />On this first attempt I learned several things: My ability to place items on the paper to match their placement in the scene is rudimentary at best; my judgment about the relative length of lines needs improvement; my judgment of angles is poor. Still, my wife could recognize the drawing as the same person, so I was encouraged. I put that drawing aside and started over.<br /><br />My second attempt was better, but still not what I wanted. I know, I know, every artist is his/her own worst critic. This is true in our class, too. We have one person who is really very good at portraits. It was from watching him work that I took heart and tried it myself. My second drawing had places where it was much better -- the nose was rendered both in the right place and the right size this time, and the shading was actually quite a bit better. But it still didn't LOOK right. The expression wasn't captured well, and, when I measured the original against my drawing, I could see that the chin was slightly too long. I put this drawing aside as well, and started over.<br /><br />This time I measured very carefully, and drew little rectangular blocks where the eyes, nose, and mouth would go. I went more slowly and took my time. I discovered that previously I had drawn the lips too narrow. By comparison it seemed that this time I was putting lips all over the paper, but when I stood back and looked at it, they looked much better. This drawing really did look like my model -- it was clearly the person I intended it to be -- and the expression caught the sadness so apparent in the original. I was actually pleased with this one.<br /><br />While my instructor was house-bound, my wife arranged to bring over dinner one day and then we had lunch on another day. On the day of the luncheon, I took my drawing over to show her what I had been doing over the holidays. She, of course, deflated me immediately by pointing out where I could improve. She was right, of course. No one can become a portrait artist after three tries. But then she began pointing out what I had done right, and loaned me her book that she used most for her own work. I felt so much better. I read the book while we were in Oregon for my father's funeral and it described exactly what I wanted to be able to do, so I ordered a copy for myself over the Internet so it would be waiting for me when I got home.<br /><br />So then class started up again and the first day was spent on a still life that was very similar to one I had done in charcoal last fall, but this time it was to be done in pencil. When I was finished, I pulled out the charcoal version to compare it with and was surprised to see how good it was.<br /><br />During the past week I have sifted through pictures of people to find one to work with. Actually I didn't sift through people -- I knew who I wanted to draw -- but I had to find a photograph that focused on the face, had appropriate lighting, and looked like something I could actually do. Yesterday I blocked it out.<br /><br />Our class last Tuesday was to be a two-week effort, continued next Tuesday, but I finished my drawing of that still life during the first class, so I can do what I want next time. I plan to take my blocked-out plan and begin to fill it in.<br /><br />I am having so much fun doing this! I am inordinately pleased when after a few hours work, I have a drawing that actually looks like the subject. I am doing so much better than I expected to. I hope I can learn to make faces appear -- faces that actually look like the subject -- out of blank paper, like photographs appear out of blank paper when it is placed in the developer. There is something magic about facing a blank sheet of paper and watching it slowly turn into a picture of a real 3-dimensional scene.Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-72999961023763400792008-02-20T16:49:00.000-08:002008-12-13T04:45:13.036-08:00On the Passing of my Father -- Part IIWe held the fu<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPO1YLK_IFvAcjdplQl9J6ot45JEhkpJbkoXqzrlqhqy1bO6EFNN_EKVaL5eKMEbko8Jy_xwe7Xu7_Pi_MuMmiQ0mrPmzBRbNogtEhmpGibem-R0rM_Ms7ru1Dc1bLdNxw4XuCfTxghYk/s1600-h/IMG_0492.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPO1YLK_IFvAcjdplQl9J6ot45JEhkpJbkoXqzrlqhqy1bO6EFNN_EKVaL5eKMEbko8Jy_xwe7Xu7_Pi_MuMmiQ0mrPmzBRbNogtEhmpGibem-R0rM_Ms7ru1Dc1bLdNxw4XuCfTxghYk/s200/IMG_0492.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169242055432587058" border="0" /></a>neral two days later. As my father wished, the service was a simple graveside ceremony. But first there was the viewing, a tradition that I have mixed feelings about. My father was all dressed up in one of his best jackets and tie, and, as usual for these viewings, he looked like he was sleeping in the casket. Mostly the people who came circulated around in the room outside the viewing room, although most came in at one time or another to see him. My mother sat outside the door most of the time, but she too came in for one last look. We all took lots of pictures of the people who came -- most of the family was there except my brother's two youngest children did not come up from California as they had school. Doug gave the family prayer there, and it was beautifully done.<br /><br />We got to the cem<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiaaolK9aC5T-JdyM41ptqJqZcpJgfbt1tlwEdWzOHXAxcVOYK0PhnmnyoqOsWBqp2B-_ChjRx3C5uPorUFJMxNLuPlxxv6_Kcc4BKRnXXuxTrzWoTrM3NvjP0oA1I4j7eBpIsDEJb_qQ/s1600-h/IMG_0495.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiaaolK9aC5T-JdyM41ptqJqZcpJgfbt1tlwEdWzOHXAxcVOYK0PhnmnyoqOsWBqp2B-_ChjRx3C5uPorUFJMxNLuPlxxv6_Kcc4BKRnXXuxTrzWoTrM3NvjP0oA1I4j7eBpIsDEJb_qQ/s200/IMG_0495.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169242261591017282" border="0" /></a>etery a little earlier than scheduled, but because it was sort of cold for Mom to be out in the weather, we decided to go ahead about 15 minutes before the advertised starting time. The ceremony itself was quite short: Roy read a poem, Pat thanked all those who helped, and I dedicated the grave in the Mormon tradition. We were through before the advertised 1:00 pm starting time, and after the ceremony was over, many people showed up to attend the graveside service. Many friends of Mom and Dad came, some of whom I recognized -- even some who didn't recognize me. We felt sort of bad that the ceremony was already over, but there it was.<br /><br />After the service the local Ward insisted on fixing a luncheon for us at the Chapel. The Bishop was also at the funeral but was careful to make us aware that he was not there in any official capacity. Since I hold the keys to do so, dedicating the grave was not an issue with him -- since he was not officiating, I was the senior Priesthood official for the funeral. The Relief Society ladies put on a very nice luncheon for us, and all the family members were there to visit together. It was very, very nice of the Ward to do that, and we all appreciated it.<br /><br />Doug took Mom to and from the service, so we said goodbye at the end of the luncheon. I told Mom I would come by and see her the next day.<br /><br />When I visited her the next day she was out in the "living room" of the home, sitting in her usual recliner chair. The door to Dad's room was closed. Mom said it was very strange to come by his door that morning, as she usually turns in there to be with him. Mom was in good spirits and doing well, as she had all through the funeral the day before. <span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />Mom talked about the one thing that she always wanted but never got: for Dad to take her to the Temple to be sealed to her. Perhaps she was afraid that he didn't want to be sealed to her, or perhaps she was afraid that it wouldn't ever be done -- it wasn't clear. She started a count of the days to when she can go and have the work done for him. I told her that in God's wisdom all thing would be made right -- something that I believe with all my heart -- but she was fixated on this one thing.<br /><br />I told Mom we would be leaving the next day to go home, and she was all right with that. She said again how glad she was that I was there. <span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10;"><span style="font-family: georgia;font-size:100%;" >Later my sister wrote to tell me, "Today Sofie said something to me that was really very touching. She said that some nights she goes into Dad’s bedroom, closes the blinds and says, “Goodnight, Doc” and closes the door. She says, “It’s still Doc’s room.” (It was difficult to hear her say that and it continues to be difficult even to type it. Very sweet!) Ted still isn’t around much these days – we hardly see him. Dad’s death has been surprisingly hard on him."</span></span></span><br /><br />We looked at the weather that night and decided to head south instead of east and t<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5tNmfC0ebeCCh4n6vp2rIsDAcGeshSJsZk6NyLaKFUNkvO4qB1i9uT__9J74aRvjOcKtuQUZzuyAPJ4jyOgqnte4BZW4WPw71lE-eIkgCEFecP7ZhIXzyfvPl2Cl2b_Iwyu_lqh4EYbk/s1600-h/IMG_0516.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5tNmfC0ebeCCh4n6vp2rIsDAcGeshSJsZk6NyLaKFUNkvO4qB1i9uT__9J74aRvjOcKtuQUZzuyAPJ4jyOgqnte4BZW4WPw71lE-eIkgCEFecP7ZhIXzyfvPl2Cl2b_Iwyu_lqh4EYbk/s200/IMG_0516.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169242669612910418" border="0" /></a>ake a southern route home. We left in the morning and drove south. Just south of Eugene it started to snow. The further south we went, the harder it snowed. There was enough snow -- slush, really -- on the road to obscure the lane marks, so traffic mostly stayed in the right lane. I finally decided to pick a large 18-wheel truck and just follow it. When it moved over to the left lane, so did I, and when it moved back to the right lane, I just stayed in its tracks. That worked pretty well, but at least once when we were in the left lane, trucks coming the other way threw huge waves of slush over the barrier. It hit our windshield like a ton of ice with a huge WHUMMP! Somewhat later I discovered a crack in the windshield that began at the bottom in the middle of the car, then turned and ran over to the driver's side a couple of inches from the bottom. I watched it grow a little longer each day. I'm pretty sure the wave of slush started it.<br /><br />When we got to the California border the clouds disappeared and the sun came out -- just like all the advertisements! We spent the night in Redding, and in the morning it was snowing again. We didn't go far, though, before the sun came out again and stayed out all day. We stopped at a place in the Imperial Valley to buy nuts, and passed mile after mile after mile of almond orchards in all stages of growth. At Bakersfield we turned east and spent the night in Barstow.<br /><br />The next <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi79vsf7HxUKIdAkJRKW5Y47-7aQZq72NPvRf3oBTt-I5JlCB979-qnfOqX9bYXYU_4H8Ub99Xcfgza63vkHobdjnvvwXOBY4VWQSzpOXa0nmKkq2_dIB9K43VP4w-SWH0-xldnlmyx11s/s1600-h/Geary+at+Calico.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi79vsf7HxUKIdAkJRKW5Y47-7aQZq72NPvRf3oBTt-I5JlCB979-qnfOqX9bYXYU_4H8Ub99Xcfgza63vkHobdjnvvwXOBY4VWQSzpOXa0nmKkq2_dIB9K43VP4w-SWH0-xldnlmyx11s/s200/Geary+at+Calico.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169239650250901250" border="0" /></a>morning we went to visit Calico, a partially restored mining ghost to<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDHa4Fns4vBxFt0u2N1AyUV5tS-HUPM_Acv_v8-esnCMB6EdYz2ghfpSdkE7DFDoyjSiRRdCnI9ZQCA9AFCr1AZjtv7vEq2rHmhOW_fm_Ec3dVcbo_0d5h__1on8Uuk4a9PvSsY9cWe54/s1600-h/Calico.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDHa4Fns4vBxFt0u2N1AyUV5tS-HUPM_Acv_v8-esnCMB6EdYz2ghfpSdkE7DFDoyjSiRRdCnI9ZQCA9AFCr1AZjtv7vEq2rHmhOW_fm_Ec3dVcbo_0d5h__1on8Uuk4a9PvSsY9cWe54/s200/Calico.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169240062567761682" border="0" /></a>wn a few miles outside of Barstow. We got there just as it opened and were informed that the shops wouldn't open for another hour. We didn't care about that -- we wanted to take pictures of the town without a lot of people in the shots. We spent about two hours happily hiking all over the town, taking digital pictures of everything that took our fancy. Digital photography is perfect for things like this because you can take almost unlimited numbers of pictures and know immediately what you got. The idea was to take pictures from which Carol can paint her watercolor pictures, and maybe I can do drawings. Whether that will actually happen has yet to be seen, but we have the pictures, anyway.<br /><br />We drove to Flagstaff, AZ that evening. Flagstaff is 7,000 feet high and was covered in snow and ice, and it was snowing again when we got there. We looked in the hotel guest book to see where to go to eat, and found an intriguing advertisement for Black Bart's Steak House that promised live singing entertainment during dinner at no extra charge. We looked at each other and said, "Why not?" Black Bart's is located in the rear of a trailer park, and it is easy to miss the entrance -- which I did. The live entertainment turned out to be the waitresses and waiters, all of whom were students at Northern Arizona University. Some were better than others, but it was a lot of fun to listen to them. Steak house or not, I had a nice salad with chicken on it.<br /><br />The next morning it was snowing again, but it quit as soon as we descended below about 5,000 feet. We visited three more "ghost towns" in Arizona and New Mexico, because they were located just off I-40 (also called "Historic Route 66" in many places) and easy to get to. Although they were n<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcxFz16f2zmXhgWp31iLa3WexsF3qXpGb0iDpgjBG5J80aBUUHxMhRp4FQ144muLrSXLbwB_QXBjYoD1dIdMSpY4Pb58d29ZbPiS23FkKW_j_98NWaMt4Y7U7HOdwaC4dsz28SyTe2GeY/s1600-h/Montoya+Tavern.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcxFz16f2zmXhgWp31iLa3WexsF3qXpGb0iDpgjBG5J80aBUUHxMhRp4FQ144muLrSXLbwB_QXBjYoD1dIdMSpY4Pb58d29ZbPiS23FkKW_j_98NWaMt4Y7U7HOdwaC4dsz28SyTe2GeY/s200/Montoya+Tavern.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169240732582659874" border="0" /></a>othing like Calico, some of them were very interesting and made fabulous pictures. Here's two taken in Foss, NM.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKlviPRdKBHdN0NaNWcOG8nIFREicwgmAhgQgYtq7i9mb7J-FAbUWs_BIh2l3XNYjToMSnNaNJJrNCFpWR-EW8WwQT4h7nrct6HPqmW4e4C-EFKPTYNhIbT5QsdLgLbL4kMhrGdpHYNU/s1600-h/IMG_0628.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKlviPRdKBHdN0NaNWcOG8nIFREicwgmAhgQgYtq7i9mb7J-FAbUWs_BIh2l3XNYjToMSnNaNJJrNCFpWR-EW8WwQT4h7nrct6HPqmW4e4C-EFKPTYNhIbT5QsdLgLbL4kMhrGdpHYNU/s200/IMG_0628.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169249490020976482" border="0" /></a><br /><br />After getting snowed on in NM, and stopping to replace a turn signal light, we also got snowed on in Oklahoma, and Arkansas. We came across these states just behind a big winter storm that had moved north. Along the way, he heard on the radio that the other routes I had considered taking had massive snowfalls -- up to 14 inches with road closures in places on I-80 and in Reno NV, another possible route home, and the route we took the last time we went to Oregon in the middle of the winter.<br /><br />Home again, we got the windshield replaced. The new one was so clear that I thought for a moment it wasn't there -- the older one was so pitted from stones, sand, rocks and cracks that it scattered a lot of light.<br /><br />As is typical for me, I had put my emotions on hold while there were things to do with the funeral and while concentrating on traveling. I knew they would come sailing back one day to catch me by surprise when I least expected it. I thought because I had lived so far away from my parents and siblings for so long -- more than 45 years -- that things would go on pretty much as before. So I was a little surprised to find that they did not. In my head, where my father was there is now sort of a hole. It will fill in eventually, but it hasn't yet. When I think of him, I see him clearly as he pointed at my ring, and smiled and nodded to me -- exactly as he always did -- sharing our understanding of how I came by the ring, and what it stands for without the need for words. Then I remember how he focused completely on me and shook my hand so firmly when I bent over to say goodbye. I knew he wasn't able to speak to me, and I wondered as I left him that day if it truly was goodbye -- the last words I would ever speak to him. And, as it turned out, it was.Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-22405647348950355492008-02-06T17:33:00.001-08:002008-12-13T04:45:13.233-08:00On The Passing Of My Father – Part I<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK8MsdbGOSxeu1H68g72X7H1oT0M-miSpFbut-MtEaUKZJ1KyMHUtsE1Z0KXxP4hfogpaIuZcYi2yNuMOOZ0tk_pFIdbQzDr7G0Pjp-G76svcT7rfK1RfUtg63G_yLX_OwPR8GMCoxwbs/s1600-h/IMG_0452.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK8MsdbGOSxeu1H68g72X7H1oT0M-miSpFbut-MtEaUKZJ1KyMHUtsE1Z0KXxP4hfogpaIuZcYi2yNuMOOZ0tk_pFIdbQzDr7G0Pjp-G76svcT7rfK1RfUtg63G_yLX_OwPR8GMCoxwbs/s200/IMG_0452.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5164063798782839234" border="0" /></a><br /> <p class="MsoNormal">My sister called to tell me that my father was doing poorly.<span style=""> </span>He turned 94 last November, and actually had been doing poorly for the past five years.<span style=""> </span>I asked if I needed to come right away, imagining in my mind leaving the next morning.<span style=""> </span>She said that I would have to decide for myself, which left me torn as to what to do.<span style=""> </span>I immediately thought of driving, because I hate to fly.<span style=""> </span>I have done enough flying to last me a lifetime, and if I never see the inside of another airplane it will be too soon.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But my wife wanted to come with me, and immediately assumed that we would fly.<span style=""> </span>I reluctantly looked up possible flights on the Internet, only to find that not only were there not any good choices, but all the flights that I could find were apparently full to the point where we would have to sit in different parts of the airplane.<span style=""> </span>This, coupled with the amount of material we would want to take with us, argued decisively for driving.<span style=""> </span>But driving would take five days in the best of times, and January would not be the best of times.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We didn’t leave immediately.<span style=""> </span>Instead, we packed up the car (<st1:city st="on">Toyota</st1:city> 4-Runner 4WD) as if we were leaving, but went to the <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">West Virginia</st1:place></st1:state> cabin on Friday afternoon, while we waited for further word from my sister.<span style=""> </span>On Monday I went to work as usual, but warned my colleagues that if I didn’t show up on Wednesday (I was taking Tuesday off) it would be because I had left for <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Oregon</st1:place></st1:state>.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On Monday evening we decided we would complete all the things we had planned for Tuesday, drive to <st1:state st="on">West Virginia</st1:state> to spend the night in the cabin, and then leave on Wednesday morning for <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Oregon</st1:place></st1:state>.<span style=""> </span>My sister was still telling me that I had to decide for myself when to come, but when I told her we would leave on Wednesday, she said she was so relieved.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">One of the reasons to go back to the cabin was to collect my laptop to take with us.<span style=""> </span>Having it along meant that we would be able to connect to the Internet each night to collect and send emails, and to check the weather along the next day’s route.<span style=""> </span>I had planned several alternate routes that we could take depending on the weather.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As it turned out, we left in time to move across <st1:state st="on">Kentucky</st1:state>, <st1:state st="on">Indiana</st1:state>, and <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Missouri</st1:place></st1:state> just ahead of a winter storm that moved in behind us.<span style=""> </span>Each evening we checked in with the family on the Internet to tell them where we were and examined the probable weather for the upcoming route.<span style=""> </span>I wouldn’t say I was driven, but I did have a certain anxiety to move right along, and it seemed that each day we were just marginally ahead of the bad weather.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Crossing <st1:state st="on">Kansas</st1:state> and <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Colorado</st1:place></st1:state>, it was sunny, but we were just a day behind a big storm with lots of wind.<span style=""> </span>We saw five instances of tractor-double-trailer rigs that had the rear trailer blown over by the wind, causing the rigs to end up in the ditch along the road, sometimes with the cab jack-knifed as well.<span style=""> </span>In <st1:state st="on">Wyoming</st1:state> we crossed the almost 9,000-foot pass between <st1:city st="on">Cheyenne</st1:city> and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Laramie</st1:place></st1:city> in sunshine, just ahead of a storm that dumped a lot of snow there. We crossed the 7,000-foot high <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Wyoming</st1:place></st1:state> plateau under sunshine, but low temperatures and lots of wind-blown snow across the road.<span style=""> </span>But because the snow was blowing, it gave us no problem, except for a few times that it blew so high that it looked more like fog.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Utah</st1:place></st1:state> was sunny.<span style=""> </span><st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Idaho</st1:place></st1:state> was sunny.<span style=""> </span>The Blue Mountains in <st1:place st="on">Eastern Oregon</st1:place> were terrible.<span style=""> </span>It was cloudy, foggy, and snowing.<span style=""> </span>This 150-mile section was the one I feared the most.<span style=""> </span>All the big rigs had to put on chains, but automobiles were allowed to go without. <span style=""> </span>The road was snow-packed and I was glad for the 4-WD of the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Toyota</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style=""> </span>We actually had no problem here because it was cold enough that the snow was not melting, so it wasn’t particularly slippery.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>After we got to Pendleton, it was sunny again.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We arrived in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Hillsboro</st1:place></st1:city> Sunday early afternoon (I had scheduled arrival for Monday afternoon, so we were a day ahead because we didn’t hit any bad weather).<span style=""> </span>I went to see my parents that afternoon and found my mother by my father’s bedside, where he was sleeping.<span style=""> </span>He looked very, very frail.<span style=""> </span>My mother hugged me and told me she was so glad that I was there.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On Monday when I went to see them, Dad was sitting up in his recliner chair, which had been moved into his bedroom.<span style=""> </span>Although he was sitting up, he was drifting in and out of consciousness – sort of drowsing.<span style=""> </span>Whenever my sister would talk directly at him, then he would rouse himself and look at her.<span style=""> </span>But he had great difficulty speaking – it seemed like he couldn’t move his lips to make the consonants, and his lack of breath control caused him to sort of huff out each vowel sound.<span style=""> </span>Pat seemed to understand him, though, having had more practice at it than I had.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I was sitting on his bed with my right hand draped over the end.<span style=""> </span>I looked up to see him pointing with his left index finger (one of the ones he had cut off) at the ring I was wearing on my right hand.<span style=""> </span>This ring is the one my mother gave him in 1958, and that he wore for 40 years before he gave to me on my 58<sup>th</sup> birthday, in 1998.<span style=""> </span>I saw him pointing at the ring, and looked up into his face.<span style=""> </span>He was looking at me and nodded.<span style=""> </span>And for that moment, he was fully present and powerfully THERE.<span style=""> </span>He was the father I remembered, with a little smile on his face, and intelligence in his eyes – I knew exactly what he was thinking.<span style=""> </span>He was telling me as clearly as words that he and I both knew the significance of that ring, just as he explained it to me when he gave it to me.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On Tuesday, we all went to visit them because it was Mom and Dad’s 70<sup>th</sup> Wedding Anniversary.<span style=""> </span>We took them an ice cream cake to share with all the people there at the home.<span style=""> </span>Again Dad was sitting up in his chair.<span style=""> </span>Because it is more tiring for him to sit in his chair, we were surprised to find him there again on Tuesday.<span style=""> </span>We thought he would be in bed instead.<span style=""> </span>He looked much the same as the day before, dozing and drifting, and from time to time responding to direct questions.<span style=""> </span>As we left, I reached for his hand and said, “I want to say goodbye”.<span style=""> </span>Suddenly he turned and looked me right in the eye, and again, suddenly he was fully present.<span style=""> </span>He looked at me and nodded, and gripped my hand in a very firm handshake.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The next day we had agreed that Pat and Roy would go in the morning to see them, and Carol and I would go in the afternoon.<span style=""> </span>Carol and I were going to the store when my cell phone rang and Pat told me that I had better come now.<span style=""> </span>We were halfway to their home already, so it didn’t take us long to get there.<span style=""> </span>My father was breathing like he had run a long way and was trying to catch his breath again – very labored.<span style=""> </span>I ached to see him like this.<span style=""> </span>For three days I had had a very strong feeling that I should put my hands on his head and give him a Priesthood blessing, and now I asked my mother if she thought that would be all right.<span style=""> </span>She said, “Oh, yes! I would like you to”.<span style=""> </span>I put my hands on his head and released him from the cares of this world.<span style=""> </span>I told him that he should not be concerned about my mother – that we would take care of her.<span style=""> </span>And, I told him to go in peace.<span style=""> </span>About 40 minutes later I heard a sharp change in his breathing.<span style=""> </span>Whereas it had been rather loud, it became almost silent.<span style=""> </span>I looked up from where I was sitting and watched him take one, two, three breaths and then stop.<span style=""> </span>I looked at my watch and saw 40 seconds go by.<span style=""> </span>Then he took another breath and stopped.<span style=""> </span>I counted 30 seconds.<span style=""> </span>Then he took a shallow breath and breathed it all the way out and stopped for good.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My mother dropped her head on her lap and cried bitterly.<span style=""> </span>I have never seen her cry so before.<span style=""> </span>When she could pause, I asked her if she wanted a blessing.<span style=""> </span>“Oh, yes.”<span style=""> </span>I blessed her that at a time of the Lord’s choosing – not now, but at a later time – she would understand why these events happened the way they did, and see the rightness of them.<span style=""> </span>I told her not to be concerned – the Lord held all things in His hand, and all would be made right in the end.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Finally my mother looked up and me and said she wanted to go to her own room.<span style=""> </span>She looked at my father’s body and said, “This is not him.”</p>Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-92075775742640731562007-11-03T16:48:00.001-07:002007-11-03T16:54:01.413-07:00Other Fun SentencesIt occurs to me that you can have a lot of fun, not only with the "buffalo" sentence, but also with other similar forms. For example, "Mississippi misses miss misses Mississippi misses miss", which is sort of self evident. Also, "Robbers rob robbers robbers robbers rob rob". Longer sequences can be formed in the same way that long "buffalo" sentences are formed, by forming categories and then having one category miss, or rob, another category.<br /><br />Have fun. Can you find other nouns and verbs that make long fun sentences?Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690780032136287711.post-20564209027079697712007-09-29T12:19:00.000-07:002007-09-29T12:20:10.813-07:00Happy Birthday DaveBy the way: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DAVID. This wish is only two days late, but heartfelt even so.Gearyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16432891838946907803noreply@blogger.com0