The first time I read Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species that he published in 1859, a scant 150 years ago (more on that later) I was stuck with the simplicity of his ideas. He formed most of his theory’s at a young age, he was only 26 when he first landed on San Cristobal Island, that is part of the Galapagos archipelago, in 1835. His observations at the time included finches, now commonly known as Darwin's finches. The islands are home to 13 species of finches, all of which have adapted to their habitat. The size and shape of their bills reflect their specializations. Darwin noted the similarities and differences in his journal and organized the finches as part of his collection. Indeed it was the finches that got the whole thing started. Another fact that struck me was that he was invited on the trip when he was still a young university graduate, still planning a career as a clergyman. Imagine how much longer it may have been before someone else figured it out. He called the Beagle (the ship he rode on the 5 year voyage) "by far the most important event in my life," saying it "determined my whole career." By the time he returned, he was an established naturalist, he had reached rock star status in London for the astonishing collections of specimens he had sent ahead. This trip also changed him from a promising young observer into a probing theorist. That just goes to prove we should always be looking for opportunities, he was going to be a clergy and through sheer chance became who he was – NEVER close yourself off to chance opportunities!
So Darwin postulated about how, over time, species adapted to meet the requirements of their surroundings, habitat to live in, what food that was available and how could we eat it and so on. So that got me to pondering, what is the difference between real time, (our hectic lives) evolutionary time, (the time it might take to grow three more fingers to accommodate the new electronic gadgets) and geologic time, (that time that it takes to literally reshape the planet we live on). Two of these are somewhat constants, at least when compared to our fast paced and crazy lives and one if nothing more than our reaction to the other two. If you span back through time and follow the fossil record our genus, Homo, has been around for 2.3 – 2.5 million years. We have gone through several iterations of evolution since that time, it becomes obvious that the evolutionary time clock spins awfully slow. I mean just as a perspective early Homo was probably a toolmaker since handheld tools for cutting and pounding were most useful because the early humans were a smaller-toothed species and did not have the large incisors needed to rip flesh from other prey animals. Our early selves were actually some pretty ingenious folks, imagine that conversation, hey guys we have to make some tools, only until evolutionary time can accommodate some bigger teeth for us. The one talking that trash around the camp fire was indeed the village idiot, oh wait a minute the actual fire making techniques were developed by Neolithic man 7000 BC. And whilst earlier hominids would have maintained blazes caused by fortuitous ignition, Neolithic man ignited fires with friction producing tools such as drills or saws or with sparks generated from pyrite struck against flint.
So I hope by now you are getting the point that evolution happens on a relatively slow scale and that is what is what I find so alarming. Up until maybe 150 years ago most folks lived in the country and produced all that they needed. They grew crops and raised livestock and hunted wild critters. We lived in small groups in the cities and even smaller groups in the country, settlements they were called. Not many people lived in areas where there were no other families or people around. Our interaction with other people is a big part of who we are as humans. Besides that there was, and still is to an even larger degree, a complex web of interaction with others for our own well being. Think for a moment about all the people involved in you getting through the day. The guy milking cows and running chicken farms just for your breakfast. We need each other and we ALWAYS have in order to get by in this life. So what is different, think about how complicated things are now in this global economy, a great number of things directly impacting my life are tied to a peasant in the hills of northern China or some crazy assed dictator in a far away land with his hand on the controls of the oil valves. So tenuous are our lives and yet we tumble headlong into the whatever is next without much time spent pondering what does it actually take for us to survive in this day and age. I am just talking about the external relationships that have to operate correctly and have not touched on the human’s abilities.
So back to evolutionary time for a moment, over the last 2 million years or so we have not really evolved nearly as much as those little finches could and did in a much shorter amount of time. We have not changed the shape of our mouths, although we did eventually get better teeth, we have not changed our basic form, no additional appendages or that ever useful third eye. Our brain size has not really changed much and for the life of me I can’t figure out how we are going to make it at the current pace that humans are progressing. So since the industrial revolution the human track has accelerated at a pace that I think might just be faster than our evolutionary ability to keep up. We keep inventing new and better things, then marketing groups are tasked to convince us we can’t get through the day with this gadget or that diet pill or this television show. Speaking from the evolutionary perspective how can humans adapt so quickly to massive changes in such a short period of time, we have to keep in mind that intellectual knowledge does not change evolutionary fact. Could it be that us humans just think we can cheat the system, there is no other species that has successfully traveled through such a quick change in their surroundings. All of the dinosaurs did not go extinct on the same day, there was a quick change in the environment and they slowly died out (using our time and not evolutionary time) because of their inability to adapt quickly. There are many thoughts about how long that took but some believe it took at least one generation.
Now look at the last 100 years and ponder the next 100 years, some of the greatest things in human history have happened and I can only imagine what the next 100 years will be like. My concern is can we keep up evolutionarily speaking, I hope so but I am convinced that intellectual knowledge (how smart we are) will never trump the simple evolutionary processes at play here.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
What they will not tell you about Digital Television
So I wanted to talk for a moment to explain, from the broadcasters perspective, the recent shut off of the analog broadcasts. The conversion to digital was not our idea, it was our Federal Government. In 1997 the FCC gave broadcasters $70 billion worth of spectrum to broadcast digital alongside analog until 2006, which was the original time they mandated all broadcasts must be fully digital. PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox committed to broadcasting digitally in the top ten U.S. markets by November 1st of 1998. By May of 1999 broadcasters were required to have digital stations in top 30 U.S. markets. All broadcasters were required to be broadcasting digital as well as analog in May of 2003, digital has been around for a long time the recent changes only affected the analog broadcasts.
So with that history behind us I wanted to talk about what broadcasters actually had to do to get the beautiful, stunningly clear high definition signals into your homes. It was challenging to get the truly cinematic experiences to your home, the first hurdle revolved around the floating ground hypothetical decoder that employs spherical trigonometry to develop the degaussing levels for the transposed or inverted digital data according to a prearranged schema. The early selection of that schema has allowed the use of unique integer values that when associated with elementary streams break up the negative propagation conductivity throughout the low-frequency wavelength patterns normally associated with macro-blocking on the plasma screens specifically. Simple stated it has the capacity to use systematic dynamics to perform algorithmic phase inversion on the potential gradient and the 60,000:1 hyper-dynamic contrast ratio is increased by a factor of 7.5 percent. Using this holistic approach, we were able solve the second major hurdle that revolved around the 16x9 format ratio of the plasma and LCD displays. When the 3D Y/C chromo comb filters were added we were able to use the asymptomatic gain models of electronic oscillation produced by free-space vector modulation to offer the various display modes, such as 16x9, anamorphic, zoom and native. In order to actuate the blu-ray DVD’s we determined that if we were able to maintain a high order connection to the output of an encoder, using nyquist stability criterion, of course, we would be able to augment extensible web-readiness utilization by means of best-of-breed portals that literally incubate cross-media distribution platforms. You can only image what happened when we threw into the mix the out of QAM phase fired controllers of the Multi-junction cascade amplifiers, I can tell you from experience - it is not pretty.
After those initial hurdles were overcome the work got easier, much easier. For example, Our work in responsive adaptive, cutting-edge, jitter free, data dependant vertical blanking pulses has enabled us to utilize a horizontal chroma resolution of well under 12%, 12% was unheard of even 6 months ago. In other words, this has allowed us to enhance the integrated interfaces to broadband networks, basically allowing us to use the full capacity of the cable by microflangulating the real-time convergence parameters. I can not stress enough, the importance of that break through and reaching a horizontal chroma resolution of less than 12%. Then the HDMI connections had to be enabled by your local stations, we basically enabled companding bandwidth ulitization with lattice phase equalizers and that facilitated the use of turn-key off the shelf IT centric solutions to our horizontal network and we were also able to gain a differential phase variance of over 35% while keeping the differential gain well below 1.2 hyodial farads. As anyone with a television knows, those parameters are truly incredible and without that level of system performance we would never be able to bring you 720p, let alone 1080I pictures. What the Farnsworth plot clearly shows is the ability to monetize the content just by exploiting the intuitive nature of the systems that were created using a common besectional Sarnoff theorem. The local stations also were forced to perform quite a bit of work in order to bring you rich layers of audio in stunning 7.1 surround sound, even though 5.1 is more common your local stations can provide that audio in 7.1. Because of the inaccurate rendering of the acoustic image a relatively low digital sampling rate was able to overcome the antiresonance defractor pulse by using the 5th generation lateral divitrifacators on the third, fifth and nine harmonics. This also enables us to transmit many simultaneous signals without any signal to cross talk interference by generating differential virtual optimized integrated mosaics, these methodologies allow us to use real-time architectures, as clearly seen with the HD displays available after mid 2008.
In order to enable other feature of the digital broadcasts, such as closed captioning, V chip information and program guide we were presented with a few challenges, nothing like anything previous but there was lots of detail work. For the most part our attempt to extend hybrid technologies that target scalar convergence using multi-junction photovoltaic scattering parameters, well above the 17th harmomic, has proven wildly successful, well beyond our expectations actually. We have been able to bifurcate frictionless differential conductivity in a way that clearly provides a high level of Quasi Error Free depolarization of the sacrificial deplenatarian signals, they are in fact so clean that existing test equipment can not monitor the true discrete fracuscopic levels. It is clear to see the scalable compression techniques typically clean up the linear distortions and allow for up to 1.7 million separate bands of spatial and temporal data, thereby eliminating cross phase lateral amplitude distortion. With the introduction of orchestrated imbricate dichromatic compression algorithms the co-channel interference falls below a transport PID of 49. Specifically for the guide information we now use a combination of quadrature phase induced carrier waves and strict PID descriptor values to more closely align the packetized data transfer to achieve truly incredible data transfer rates with an accuracy rate of nearly 95.2 defordations.
So we also have incorporated some technology from the first gulf war used to predict the movements of enemy combatants and that is the ocular transducers running on vaporware inside the picture tube. The military was able to develop a system, that when broadcast to a television, will install vaporware into the vaccum of the CRT’s, Plasma and LCD screens. When we can apply a set of mathematical algorithm rules to the input of the television, we generally see the quasi quiescent wavelength drop through the magnetic intermodulation of the antenna aperture. Basically we can use adaptive flow mapping throughout the quantum efficiency range of the transcoding CODEC to actually watch the viewers at home from inside the television. The low level signals are then feed back into the electrical grid and as long as they are above the acceptable tentelometric ratio we can monitor them using the 600 terra flop interface on a polar-synchronous satellite. As bandwidth thresholds increase to internet 2.0 speeds, or 3g in the mobile world we start using granular reticulated infrastructures that broadcast bionomic prediction algorithms and all of that is accomplished using 100% hexagonal frequency multiplexors. The clarity of the return signals are very clean and nearly true HD when they are returned to the stations. By reusing the old quantizing diplexors previously used to propagate the non return to zero inverted optical couplers we have been able to watch and record each television in well over 500 homes in nearly real time. Of course no one is actually watching, when the computer systems see nefarious activity it pops a flag. Once that flag pops we engage a partnership with an obscure office under the office of Home Land Security and we immediately employ a 1.9 degree damping factor and apply that to the capacitively propagated charged couplings that allow the system to properly report the activity through the microfilaments prevalent in all telelvsions but especially the plasma and LCD flat screens. Another technology that is in its infancy is the blue tooth enabled television, we are able to send signals to the television and then, through blue tooth technology, we can not only update other appliances in the home but monitor all the other communications devices that utilize that technology. We are currently talking to all major brands of washing machines and dryers as well as some ovens. Soon all appliances will come “blue tooth enabled” and for the ones that do now we have full control of them already.
So with the demise of analog broadcasting and the beginning of the digital only television broadcasting I thought it was important for you, the viewer, to understand that no matter how hard you thought it was for you, it was far harder for us.
So with that history behind us I wanted to talk about what broadcasters actually had to do to get the beautiful, stunningly clear high definition signals into your homes. It was challenging to get the truly cinematic experiences to your home, the first hurdle revolved around the floating ground hypothetical decoder that employs spherical trigonometry to develop the degaussing levels for the transposed or inverted digital data according to a prearranged schema. The early selection of that schema has allowed the use of unique integer values that when associated with elementary streams break up the negative propagation conductivity throughout the low-frequency wavelength patterns normally associated with macro-blocking on the plasma screens specifically. Simple stated it has the capacity to use systematic dynamics to perform algorithmic phase inversion on the potential gradient and the 60,000:1 hyper-dynamic contrast ratio is increased by a factor of 7.5 percent. Using this holistic approach, we were able solve the second major hurdle that revolved around the 16x9 format ratio of the plasma and LCD displays. When the 3D Y/C chromo comb filters were added we were able to use the asymptomatic gain models of electronic oscillation produced by free-space vector modulation to offer the various display modes, such as 16x9, anamorphic, zoom and native. In order to actuate the blu-ray DVD’s we determined that if we were able to maintain a high order connection to the output of an encoder, using nyquist stability criterion, of course, we would be able to augment extensible web-readiness utilization by means of best-of-breed portals that literally incubate cross-media distribution platforms. You can only image what happened when we threw into the mix the out of QAM phase fired controllers of the Multi-junction cascade amplifiers, I can tell you from experience - it is not pretty.
After those initial hurdles were overcome the work got easier, much easier. For example, Our work in responsive adaptive, cutting-edge, jitter free, data dependant vertical blanking pulses has enabled us to utilize a horizontal chroma resolution of well under 12%, 12% was unheard of even 6 months ago. In other words, this has allowed us to enhance the integrated interfaces to broadband networks, basically allowing us to use the full capacity of the cable by microflangulating the real-time convergence parameters. I can not stress enough, the importance of that break through and reaching a horizontal chroma resolution of less than 12%. Then the HDMI connections had to be enabled by your local stations, we basically enabled companding bandwidth ulitization with lattice phase equalizers and that facilitated the use of turn-key off the shelf IT centric solutions to our horizontal network and we were also able to gain a differential phase variance of over 35% while keeping the differential gain well below 1.2 hyodial farads. As anyone with a television knows, those parameters are truly incredible and without that level of system performance we would never be able to bring you 720p, let alone 1080I pictures. What the Farnsworth plot clearly shows is the ability to monetize the content just by exploiting the intuitive nature of the systems that were created using a common besectional Sarnoff theorem. The local stations also were forced to perform quite a bit of work in order to bring you rich layers of audio in stunning 7.1 surround sound, even though 5.1 is more common your local stations can provide that audio in 7.1. Because of the inaccurate rendering of the acoustic image a relatively low digital sampling rate was able to overcome the antiresonance defractor pulse by using the 5th generation lateral divitrifacators on the third, fifth and nine harmonics. This also enables us to transmit many simultaneous signals without any signal to cross talk interference by generating differential virtual optimized integrated mosaics, these methodologies allow us to use real-time architectures, as clearly seen with the HD displays available after mid 2008.
In order to enable other feature of the digital broadcasts, such as closed captioning, V chip information and program guide we were presented with a few challenges, nothing like anything previous but there was lots of detail work. For the most part our attempt to extend hybrid technologies that target scalar convergence using multi-junction photovoltaic scattering parameters, well above the 17th harmomic, has proven wildly successful, well beyond our expectations actually. We have been able to bifurcate frictionless differential conductivity in a way that clearly provides a high level of Quasi Error Free depolarization of the sacrificial deplenatarian signals, they are in fact so clean that existing test equipment can not monitor the true discrete fracuscopic levels. It is clear to see the scalable compression techniques typically clean up the linear distortions and allow for up to 1.7 million separate bands of spatial and temporal data, thereby eliminating cross phase lateral amplitude distortion. With the introduction of orchestrated imbricate dichromatic compression algorithms the co-channel interference falls below a transport PID of 49. Specifically for the guide information we now use a combination of quadrature phase induced carrier waves and strict PID descriptor values to more closely align the packetized data transfer to achieve truly incredible data transfer rates with an accuracy rate of nearly 95.2 defordations.
So we also have incorporated some technology from the first gulf war used to predict the movements of enemy combatants and that is the ocular transducers running on vaporware inside the picture tube. The military was able to develop a system, that when broadcast to a television, will install vaporware into the vaccum of the CRT’s, Plasma and LCD screens. When we can apply a set of mathematical algorithm rules to the input of the television, we generally see the quasi quiescent wavelength drop through the magnetic intermodulation of the antenna aperture. Basically we can use adaptive flow mapping throughout the quantum efficiency range of the transcoding CODEC to actually watch the viewers at home from inside the television. The low level signals are then feed back into the electrical grid and as long as they are above the acceptable tentelometric ratio we can monitor them using the 600 terra flop interface on a polar-synchronous satellite. As bandwidth thresholds increase to internet 2.0 speeds, or 3g in the mobile world we start using granular reticulated infrastructures that broadcast bionomic prediction algorithms and all of that is accomplished using 100% hexagonal frequency multiplexors. The clarity of the return signals are very clean and nearly true HD when they are returned to the stations. By reusing the old quantizing diplexors previously used to propagate the non return to zero inverted optical couplers we have been able to watch and record each television in well over 500 homes in nearly real time. Of course no one is actually watching, when the computer systems see nefarious activity it pops a flag. Once that flag pops we engage a partnership with an obscure office under the office of Home Land Security and we immediately employ a 1.9 degree damping factor and apply that to the capacitively propagated charged couplings that allow the system to properly report the activity through the microfilaments prevalent in all telelvsions but especially the plasma and LCD flat screens. Another technology that is in its infancy is the blue tooth enabled television, we are able to send signals to the television and then, through blue tooth technology, we can not only update other appliances in the home but monitor all the other communications devices that utilize that technology. We are currently talking to all major brands of washing machines and dryers as well as some ovens. Soon all appliances will come “blue tooth enabled” and for the ones that do now we have full control of them already.
So with the demise of analog broadcasting and the beginning of the digital only television broadcasting I thought it was important for you, the viewer, to understand that no matter how hard you thought it was for you, it was far harder for us.
Friday, August 28, 2009
More answers from suggestions to the Oatmeal bowl
Topic #1 "Why is Polish (as in being from Poland) and polish (as in polishing your shoes) spelled the same?"
You can be forgiven if you find that the Polish spelling looks funny, some would even call it weird. It does certainly look different, even strange with all those funny apostrophes, tails and dots over letters. It is however, not as bad as it might seem, although, the Polish spelling is not for the fainthearted, difficult to master not only for a foreigner, but also for a Pole (another variation of the same word I might add, which again has more than one meaning). No wonder many Poles find it difficult to express themselves properly in writing. Mind you, it takes years for a young Pole to master the intricacies of the Polish written language. For us foreigners we will never become fully learned, we will continue to make painful, often awkward mistakes in our writing. On the bright side, since so many of the youngsters do not know how to spell, there is not much likelihood to be laughed at. To put it simply: the Latin alphabet sucks, that sucking is one of the main reasons the Cyrillic alphabet was invented in the first place. Although Latin is a straightforward language and is easy to spell using the latin alphabet It was never intended for use with somewhat more unique and strong Slavonic languages like Polish.
Anyway, I suspect you were anticipating a long drawn out explanation to this relatively easy question, I will make you wait no more. I bet you did not even realize that you have even given me the answer right up there in the question. Stop reading and look back up there and see if you can find it. While it is, I suppose, a technicality they are not really spelled the same. One must come with a capital letter (P) to mean "An adjective to describe something related to Poland" and, of course, the one without a capital letter (p) "To make smooth and shiny by rubbing or chemical action." If you consider that that the noun also describes the chemical product one polishes with an item with it, well then it obviously becomes crystal clear to all, and yes the “c” in crystal is not capitalized. And then there is the monkey wrench that if the word polish starts a sentence and has to be capitalized, well the context of the sentence will immediately tell you the meaning of the first word. Polish is no longer allowed to be used in conjunction with Slavic footwear for example and could still kind of go either way. Polish for the fine leather shoes was perfected by Kiwi, which was not a Polish company is much more clear and understandable.
I hope this succinct and detailed explanation helps you understand better the proper usage of the first letter of the word in question.
Topic #2 Does a walnut tree make weird sounds, or talk, while it is preparing to drop a walnut to the ground below?
This was given to me under the auspices of one of those “questions from a face book friend”, that is what I was told. I am not a professional psychologist but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night so I feel more than qualified to pass a bit of judgment on this psychological projection. Basically projection is the unconscious act of denial of a person's own attributes, thoughts, and/or emotions, which are ascribed to the outside world, another person or perhaps a walnut tree as is the case here. Projection is the most profound and subtle of our psychological processes, and extremely difficult to work with, because by its nature, it is hidden. It is the fundamental mechanism by which we keep our selves uninformed about ourselves. Humor has great value in any attempt to work with projection, because humor presents a forgiving posture and thereby removes the threatening nature of any enquiry into the truth. More on the humor part at the end. Paleoanthropologically speaking, this faculty probably had survival value as a self defense mechanism when we were still roaming the savanna’s of Africa. According to classical psychology, projection is always seen as a defense mechanism that occurs when a person's own unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed and then attributed to someone else, or some inanimate object such as a walnut tree. I got to thinking and realized that projection also reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted unconscious impulses or desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them, again more on that later. I for the life of me could not figure out why my friend would have these feelings about the walnut tree question.
After a bit more research I found another term, transference. That term was first used by Sigmund Freud to describe a process in analysis or therapy. Freud noted that many of his patients seemed at some point to begin to place certain feelings, like romantic love or parental love, onto the therapist, or in this case, perhaps it is a love of walnut furniture. And wanting to hear the walnuts drop signified the start of new life because, of course, a small little walnut tree would sprout from that nut thereby ensuring a healthy supply of walnut lumber well into the future. Perhaps with the walnut trees and thereby the walnut lumber, safe from harm, my friends friend could feel safe, perhaps. Perhaps there is some other deep-seated feeling about walnuts, could it be perhaps that my friends friend like to use the nuts themselves in baked goods. As I mentioned earlier I would come back to the humor part as well anxiety, well here ya go. As for “your friend” who asked the question about talking walnut trees, I believe, due to the simple fact trees don’t talk, that he or she has been busted smoking the weeds that grow up under that walnut tree. Which by way, I have heard, work miracles on both humor and anxiety and phenomenally it will also allow them to indulge in baked goods issue to satisfy the, sometimes humorous in it scale, munchies.
Sorry, except for the wizard oz movie (not reality), trees don’t talk and we should not talk to them for fear we may be confused with a Bogo on the Bluebell.
(see http://mroatmealsoratories.blogspot.com/2009/08/so-this-oratory-is-going-to-explain.html for an explanation of what that means)
You can be forgiven if you find that the Polish spelling looks funny, some would even call it weird. It does certainly look different, even strange with all those funny apostrophes, tails and dots over letters. It is however, not as bad as it might seem, although, the Polish spelling is not for the fainthearted, difficult to master not only for a foreigner, but also for a Pole (another variation of the same word I might add, which again has more than one meaning). No wonder many Poles find it difficult to express themselves properly in writing. Mind you, it takes years for a young Pole to master the intricacies of the Polish written language. For us foreigners we will never become fully learned, we will continue to make painful, often awkward mistakes in our writing. On the bright side, since so many of the youngsters do not know how to spell, there is not much likelihood to be laughed at. To put it simply: the Latin alphabet sucks, that sucking is one of the main reasons the Cyrillic alphabet was invented in the first place. Although Latin is a straightforward language and is easy to spell using the latin alphabet It was never intended for use with somewhat more unique and strong Slavonic languages like Polish.
Anyway, I suspect you were anticipating a long drawn out explanation to this relatively easy question, I will make you wait no more. I bet you did not even realize that you have even given me the answer right up there in the question. Stop reading and look back up there and see if you can find it. While it is, I suppose, a technicality they are not really spelled the same. One must come with a capital letter (P) to mean "An adjective to describe something related to Poland" and, of course, the one without a capital letter (p) "To make smooth and shiny by rubbing or chemical action." If you consider that that the noun also describes the chemical product one polishes with an item with it, well then it obviously becomes crystal clear to all, and yes the “c” in crystal is not capitalized. And then there is the monkey wrench that if the word polish starts a sentence and has to be capitalized, well the context of the sentence will immediately tell you the meaning of the first word. Polish is no longer allowed to be used in conjunction with Slavic footwear for example and could still kind of go either way. Polish for the fine leather shoes was perfected by Kiwi, which was not a Polish company is much more clear and understandable.
I hope this succinct and detailed explanation helps you understand better the proper usage of the first letter of the word in question.
Topic #2 Does a walnut tree make weird sounds, or talk, while it is preparing to drop a walnut to the ground below?
This was given to me under the auspices of one of those “questions from a face book friend”, that is what I was told. I am not a professional psychologist but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night so I feel more than qualified to pass a bit of judgment on this psychological projection. Basically projection is the unconscious act of denial of a person's own attributes, thoughts, and/or emotions, which are ascribed to the outside world, another person or perhaps a walnut tree as is the case here. Projection is the most profound and subtle of our psychological processes, and extremely difficult to work with, because by its nature, it is hidden. It is the fundamental mechanism by which we keep our selves uninformed about ourselves. Humor has great value in any attempt to work with projection, because humor presents a forgiving posture and thereby removes the threatening nature of any enquiry into the truth. More on the humor part at the end. Paleoanthropologically speaking, this faculty probably had survival value as a self defense mechanism when we were still roaming the savanna’s of Africa. According to classical psychology, projection is always seen as a defense mechanism that occurs when a person's own unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed and then attributed to someone else, or some inanimate object such as a walnut tree. I got to thinking and realized that projection also reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted unconscious impulses or desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them, again more on that later. I for the life of me could not figure out why my friend would have these feelings about the walnut tree question.
After a bit more research I found another term, transference. That term was first used by Sigmund Freud to describe a process in analysis or therapy. Freud noted that many of his patients seemed at some point to begin to place certain feelings, like romantic love or parental love, onto the therapist, or in this case, perhaps it is a love of walnut furniture. And wanting to hear the walnuts drop signified the start of new life because, of course, a small little walnut tree would sprout from that nut thereby ensuring a healthy supply of walnut lumber well into the future. Perhaps with the walnut trees and thereby the walnut lumber, safe from harm, my friends friend could feel safe, perhaps. Perhaps there is some other deep-seated feeling about walnuts, could it be perhaps that my friends friend like to use the nuts themselves in baked goods. As I mentioned earlier I would come back to the humor part as well anxiety, well here ya go. As for “your friend” who asked the question about talking walnut trees, I believe, due to the simple fact trees don’t talk, that he or she has been busted smoking the weeds that grow up under that walnut tree. Which by way, I have heard, work miracles on both humor and anxiety and phenomenally it will also allow them to indulge in baked goods issue to satisfy the, sometimes humorous in it scale, munchies.
Sorry, except for the wizard oz movie (not reality), trees don’t talk and we should not talk to them for fear we may be confused with a Bogo on the Bluebell.
(see http://mroatmealsoratories.blogspot.com/2009/08/so-this-oratory-is-going-to-explain.html for an explanation of what that means)
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Damn, it is good to be a Smith, my new Facebook group
I was talking with a friend of mine a week or so ago and I am not sure how we got to this but we started talking about Facebook and my Blog. He thought it would be funny if I were to start a group on Facebook called “Damn it is good to be a Smith, since Mr. Oatmeal’s last name is actually Smith. Well after our conversation I did not think anything else about it, until I saw on my Facebook someone had joined a group. I do not remember what the group was or even who it was but that prompted me to look into how to start a group. I remember asking another friend, Beth, how she set up her group, she was helpful and later that evening I started the group Facebook “Damn it is good to be a Smith”. As I was creating the group several things started crossing my mind, what is this for, why am I creating it, what is my purpose here? All good questions and nary a one did I have an answer for. Well as I was going through the setup it asks various questions to categorize your group, things like “what kind” of group. Under that category there was a primary and secondary tag I had to select, ya know the more detailed your tags the more easily you can be found by those looking for something like “Damn it is good to be a Smith”. My primary and secondary are “just for fun” and “totally pointless” respectively, after much consternation I selected those two because of my choices from the drop down menu they were the closest to what I was thinking about when I set it up.
So will those remain my purposes as we move forward? I do not know and have been thinking a lot about what I want to do with this new platform. I mean the blog is a pretty good platform but I just do not know what the plan is for this platform, YET. I have no doubt it will come to me and I am sure it will be something that I think is funny. I say something “I” think is funny because that is really what is important to me. So when I brought the group online I sent some invitations to folks to join, along with a request to pass along to any Smith an open invitation to join up. One of the folks I invited was my friend who suggested I create it in the first place. He called me up and could not stop laughing for the first few minutes of our conversation and posted on the wall “I wish I was a Smith”. And you know what, I really think he does. He again asked me what I was planning with the new platform and I told him I had not figured that out yet. I feel like I will have to spend a couple of sunrise’s at the beach before it comes to me. I was able to find a picture of the Alfred E Smith building and of course the Smith Chart and posted them on the page. I posted a link to my Blog and before long (same day) there were 2 Smith’s that had joined that I do not personally know, less than 4 hours in and the game is afoot.
I am looking forward to how fast and how big this group grows, who knows it may go no where but, maybe just maybe it might get big and I am hopeful that I have figured out what I want to do with it before then.
So will those remain my purposes as we move forward? I do not know and have been thinking a lot about what I want to do with this new platform. I mean the blog is a pretty good platform but I just do not know what the plan is for this platform, YET. I have no doubt it will come to me and I am sure it will be something that I think is funny. I say something “I” think is funny because that is really what is important to me. So when I brought the group online I sent some invitations to folks to join, along with a request to pass along to any Smith an open invitation to join up. One of the folks I invited was my friend who suggested I create it in the first place. He called me up and could not stop laughing for the first few minutes of our conversation and posted on the wall “I wish I was a Smith”. And you know what, I really think he does. He again asked me what I was planning with the new platform and I told him I had not figured that out yet. I feel like I will have to spend a couple of sunrise’s at the beach before it comes to me. I was able to find a picture of the Alfred E Smith building and of course the Smith Chart and posted them on the page. I posted a link to my Blog and before long (same day) there were 2 Smith’s that had joined that I do not personally know, less than 4 hours in and the game is afoot.
I am looking forward to how fast and how big this group grows, who knows it may go no where but, maybe just maybe it might get big and I am hopeful that I have figured out what I want to do with it before then.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Today’s pontification is a continuation covering the second two topics that were provided to me by my friend Phil.
Topic #3 - Should the three jewels of the Tao - "Compassion, Moderation and Humility"- be expanded to include a fourth = "Fun"?
First I think I need to elaborate on exactly what the three jewels mean. I am not a Taoist, I am a spiritual seeker and while I have practiced Taoism and believe in a lot of the Taoist principles I am not a Taoist so please forgive me if I misinterpret any of this. Very simply put the three Jewels are basically the key ethical guidelines of the Taoist tradition. Jewel #1 is compassion and this is the ability and willingness to empathize with the suffering of others. By being able to empathize with the suffering of others will lead to a strengthening of our courage. As our courage increases we will, when we see folks suffering, be moved into action to help ease their difficulties, or suffering. Compassion flows from an understanding that all things are one and interconnected, not unlike the mythical “force” from the Star Wars series of movies. When we realize that we are of the same substance as all things, our sense of identity naturally begins to expand to include the well-being of all living things. The second jewel is moderation, this is the commitment to avoid overindulgence and excess. In the Tao Te Ching we are reminded that moderation leads to generosity. In addition to the traditional meanings of the term, moderation in the Taoist sense promotes a modest, wholesome, and non-materialistic lifestyle. And the third jewel is Humility, In advising us to “dare not to be ahead of others,” we here the echo’s of the famous sentiment of Jesus, “many who are last shall be first.” Indeed the best way to lead is to remain humble and set an example from behind the scenes. This approach also reminds us stay out of life’s line of fire, which can help us reach our full potential without being cut short by misfortune. I have read numerous books on the Tao, including “The Tao of Willie Nelson” and while I am by far no expert on Taoist traditions I believe that if the three jewels and the rest of the principles are practiced in a meaningful and serious manner fun is already part of it, although not necessarily called out as one of the jewels.
However, I will try, in the Taoist tradition, to expand the jewels to include fun. So what would the forth jewel of fun look like? There are many types of fun, which is different than the original jewels which have somewhat fixed definitions and are not open to a lot of interpretation. I suspect that is why it was not included when the Chinese philosopher Tzu Lao wrote the Tao Te Ching. Anyway if you were to have a pleasant, enjoyable, and light-hearted activity or amusement that was not meant to make fun of or poke fun at to ridicule or tease others it might work out. Fun usually implies laughter or gaiety but may imply merely a lack of seriousness or ulterior purpose, it could be in jest which implies lack of earnestness in what is said or done and may suggest a hoaxing or teasing. Fun sometimes arouses laughter against someone, teasing begun in sport led to anger, the game of fun is close to sport and often stresses mischievousness or maliciousness. I will again use the mythical “force” from the Star Wars movie, fun has two sides, a good side and a dark side and it is way too easy to go over to the dark side, as Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) found out. The more I explore the possibility of adding fun as the 4th jewel I find that we are NOT going to be able to do that, the temptation for evil doing is much to great and would stray far from the original meaning of the Tao.
The Three Jewels of Taoism are the basic ethical foundation for a Taoist life. While no one can embody these virtues perfectly at all times, each Taoist should strive to practice them in daily life to the best of his or her ability.
Topic #4 - Sunrise vs. Sunset, similar yet dichotomous?
This topic I can speak to as I enjoy them both and for different reasons. As I have talked about before I LOVE to watch the sunrise, from pitch black all the way through the sun actually popping over the horizon. The Sunset is the same thing in reverse, from about an hour before it goes down until it is pitch black is quite a sight to see. The beauty about both of them is that due to the constant rotation of the earth they both happen about every 24 hours, not exactly 24 hours because we humans think we have a better understanding of time than the universe does. The one constant about a celestial body is that is runs on its own clock and that clock runs at an even slower pace than an earthbound geologic clock. For some bizarre reason we humans think we know all about it, even though it has been spinning around for about 14 billion years by some estimates. We humans have only been looking at the stars in a meaningful way for, and I will OVERLY generous here and say 50 thousand years and even if the early hominids looked up and pondered it would still only be about 2 million years. Even using the 2 million number that is a scant fraction of a percentage point. Or a miniscule amount of time and for some reason in the last 50 years think we have gotten the universe all figured out, bullshit I say and I wonder why we can’t just enjoy the celestial body’s for their stunning beauty and realize that something’s are not meant to be explained, for whatever reason. Sometimes the explanations take away from the simplest grandeur and beauty that we should just enjoy.
Anyway there is a great deal of symbolism surrounding the sunrise and sunset and they could mean vastly different things but I think we have to start with the sun itself. I do not think we could find a better symbol of long term perseverance, it has burned brightly for billions of years and will continue to burn brightly for many millenniums to come. As far as sunrises go they do signify the start of a new day, symbolically that new day could mean many things, a fresh start after some failure, or simply putting things behind you and starting over again. I could pontificate for days about the symbology of the sunrise as it relates to a fresh start but you can easily get the idea. As for sunsets there could easily be similar symbology, the close of a chapter of your life, or your life itself, he is in the twilight of his life. The hero always rode into the sunset, that was obviously symbolic. At the end of a western movie the white hatted hero, after sorting out all the bad guys rode into the sunset. The symbology of that is the changed way of life he has presented to all the cowering folks in the town he just saved. For the hero it signified the end of one adventure with this set of bad guys and on to the next set of black hatters. The notion is almost romantic when you think about it. Symbolism abounds around the sunup and sundown and I think most of it is just that – Symbolism, I think the more important conversation about the sunrise and sunset has to revolve around the perseverance of the sun itself, right? Wrong!
The reasons I love to watch the sunrise and sunset have nothing to do with symbology, I watch for the simple beauty and the fact that EVERY day they are different. Watching that process for a couple of hours just reminds me how small and insignificant I am in the big picture, that helps any issues I may be dealing with seem even smaller, and they blend into nothingness. Surprisingly I find the sunset to be equally cathartic and I agree with Rabindranath Tagore when he said, “Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher a storm, but to add color to my sunset sky”.
First I think I need to elaborate on exactly what the three jewels mean. I am not a Taoist, I am a spiritual seeker and while I have practiced Taoism and believe in a lot of the Taoist principles I am not a Taoist so please forgive me if I misinterpret any of this. Very simply put the three Jewels are basically the key ethical guidelines of the Taoist tradition. Jewel #1 is compassion and this is the ability and willingness to empathize with the suffering of others. By being able to empathize with the suffering of others will lead to a strengthening of our courage. As our courage increases we will, when we see folks suffering, be moved into action to help ease their difficulties, or suffering. Compassion flows from an understanding that all things are one and interconnected, not unlike the mythical “force” from the Star Wars series of movies. When we realize that we are of the same substance as all things, our sense of identity naturally begins to expand to include the well-being of all living things. The second jewel is moderation, this is the commitment to avoid overindulgence and excess. In the Tao Te Ching we are reminded that moderation leads to generosity. In addition to the traditional meanings of the term, moderation in the Taoist sense promotes a modest, wholesome, and non-materialistic lifestyle. And the third jewel is Humility, In advising us to “dare not to be ahead of others,” we here the echo’s of the famous sentiment of Jesus, “many who are last shall be first.” Indeed the best way to lead is to remain humble and set an example from behind the scenes. This approach also reminds us stay out of life’s line of fire, which can help us reach our full potential without being cut short by misfortune. I have read numerous books on the Tao, including “The Tao of Willie Nelson” and while I am by far no expert on Taoist traditions I believe that if the three jewels and the rest of the principles are practiced in a meaningful and serious manner fun is already part of it, although not necessarily called out as one of the jewels.
However, I will try, in the Taoist tradition, to expand the jewels to include fun. So what would the forth jewel of fun look like? There are many types of fun, which is different than the original jewels which have somewhat fixed definitions and are not open to a lot of interpretation. I suspect that is why it was not included when the Chinese philosopher Tzu Lao wrote the Tao Te Ching. Anyway if you were to have a pleasant, enjoyable, and light-hearted activity or amusement that was not meant to make fun of or poke fun at to ridicule or tease others it might work out. Fun usually implies laughter or gaiety but may imply merely a lack of seriousness or ulterior purpose, it could be in jest which implies lack of earnestness in what is said or done and may suggest a hoaxing or teasing. Fun sometimes arouses laughter against someone, teasing begun in sport led to anger, the game of fun is close to sport and often stresses mischievousness or maliciousness. I will again use the mythical “force” from the Star Wars movie, fun has two sides, a good side and a dark side and it is way too easy to go over to the dark side, as Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) found out. The more I explore the possibility of adding fun as the 4th jewel I find that we are NOT going to be able to do that, the temptation for evil doing is much to great and would stray far from the original meaning of the Tao.
The Three Jewels of Taoism are the basic ethical foundation for a Taoist life. While no one can embody these virtues perfectly at all times, each Taoist should strive to practice them in daily life to the best of his or her ability.
Topic #4 - Sunrise vs. Sunset, similar yet dichotomous?
This topic I can speak to as I enjoy them both and for different reasons. As I have talked about before I LOVE to watch the sunrise, from pitch black all the way through the sun actually popping over the horizon. The Sunset is the same thing in reverse, from about an hour before it goes down until it is pitch black is quite a sight to see. The beauty about both of them is that due to the constant rotation of the earth they both happen about every 24 hours, not exactly 24 hours because we humans think we have a better understanding of time than the universe does. The one constant about a celestial body is that is runs on its own clock and that clock runs at an even slower pace than an earthbound geologic clock. For some bizarre reason we humans think we know all about it, even though it has been spinning around for about 14 billion years by some estimates. We humans have only been looking at the stars in a meaningful way for, and I will OVERLY generous here and say 50 thousand years and even if the early hominids looked up and pondered it would still only be about 2 million years. Even using the 2 million number that is a scant fraction of a percentage point. Or a miniscule amount of time and for some reason in the last 50 years think we have gotten the universe all figured out, bullshit I say and I wonder why we can’t just enjoy the celestial body’s for their stunning beauty and realize that something’s are not meant to be explained, for whatever reason. Sometimes the explanations take away from the simplest grandeur and beauty that we should just enjoy.
Anyway there is a great deal of symbolism surrounding the sunrise and sunset and they could mean vastly different things but I think we have to start with the sun itself. I do not think we could find a better symbol of long term perseverance, it has burned brightly for billions of years and will continue to burn brightly for many millenniums to come. As far as sunrises go they do signify the start of a new day, symbolically that new day could mean many things, a fresh start after some failure, or simply putting things behind you and starting over again. I could pontificate for days about the symbology of the sunrise as it relates to a fresh start but you can easily get the idea. As for sunsets there could easily be similar symbology, the close of a chapter of your life, or your life itself, he is in the twilight of his life. The hero always rode into the sunset, that was obviously symbolic. At the end of a western movie the white hatted hero, after sorting out all the bad guys rode into the sunset. The symbology of that is the changed way of life he has presented to all the cowering folks in the town he just saved. For the hero it signified the end of one adventure with this set of bad guys and on to the next set of black hatters. The notion is almost romantic when you think about it. Symbolism abounds around the sunup and sundown and I think most of it is just that – Symbolism, I think the more important conversation about the sunrise and sunset has to revolve around the perseverance of the sun itself, right? Wrong!
The reasons I love to watch the sunrise and sunset have nothing to do with symbology, I watch for the simple beauty and the fact that EVERY day they are different. Watching that process for a couple of hours just reminds me how small and insignificant I am in the big picture, that helps any issues I may be dealing with seem even smaller, and they blend into nothingness. Surprisingly I find the sunset to be equally cathartic and I agree with Rabindranath Tagore when he said, “Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher a storm, but to add color to my sunset sky”.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Today’s pontification is a new animal, today I will cover the first two of 4 suggestions that were provided to me by my friend Phil
Topic #1 - Feeding hummingbirds with artificial feeders, Benefitting wildlife or exploitation for our entertainment?
Hummingbirds feed on the nectar of plants and are important pollinators, especially of deep-throated, tubular flowers. Like bees, they are able to assess the amount of sugar in the nectar they eat; they reject flower types that produce nectar which is less than 10% sugar and prefer those whose sugar content is stronger. Since nectar is a such a poor source of nutrients, like candy bars for us - sweet yet nutritionally bankrupt, hummingbirds meet their needs for protein, amino acids, vitamins and minerals etc. by preying mainly on insects and spiders, even more so when feeding their young. This is a good question and as simple as it seems on the surface there is quite a lot to consider here. I will start with the exploitation side of this first. By setting up the feeders we are screwing up their evolutionary path, they have, over time, adapted themselves to gather the nectar of certain flowers and the feeders are artificially providing something that is not found in nature. By providing a super sweet sugar water that is not naturally occurring it could be likened to enabling a heroin addict by providing him uncut heroin and if for some stroke of misfortune humanity were to disappear, we will have doomed the poor humming bird to extinction from withdrawal symptoms. Mainly because he will have evolved into a bird that only knows how to suck sugar water from an artificial feeder and when faced with the possibility of having to survive alone in the wilderness year around he will soon realize his kind are doomed. Even though their lifespan is short and that gives them the ability to adapt quickly, I think they would be hard pressed to make it.
So although I know lots of friends with those humming bird feeders I no longer think it is benefitting the wildlife at all and the artificial feeders, while enjoyable for us, is seriously exploiting the poor little birdies strictly for our entertainment and on top of that dooming them to evolutionary extinction.
Topic #2 - Should there really be speed limits on the German Autobahns?
NO! and here is why. If we go back to the beginnings of the automobile we find what is widely regarded as the world's first motorway as the one built in Berlin between 1913 and 1921. The 19 km long AVUS in southwestern Berlin was an experimental highway that was (and occasionally still is) used for racing. Adolf Hitler, when in power, saw the propaganda benefits of a high-speed road system as well as the immediate military and employment value, started a program to build two north-south and east-west links. The first of these Reichsautobahnen opened on May 19th, 1935 between Frankfurt and Darmstadt. At the end of World War II, the Autobahn network totaled 2,128 km. They build that road with all intentions of it being a high speed road. They are always at least two lanes wide but most often three and occasionally 4 lanes wide and the lanes are wider as well than the ones here in the US. A landscaped "green" median 3.5 or 4 meters wide (3 meters in urban areas) and a double-sided guardrail runs down the middle and blinders are often used on curves and more recent sections have concrete barriers instead of green medians for increased safety. Grades of 4% or less with climbing lanes are provided on most steep grades and gentle well banked curves help as well. Couple all of that with the constant minimum of 27 inches of freeze-resistant concrete or bituminous surface so as I see it there is just no real reason to have a speed limit.
Tomorrow I will answer the other 2 suggestions
Hummingbirds feed on the nectar of plants and are important pollinators, especially of deep-throated, tubular flowers. Like bees, they are able to assess the amount of sugar in the nectar they eat; they reject flower types that produce nectar which is less than 10% sugar and prefer those whose sugar content is stronger. Since nectar is a such a poor source of nutrients, like candy bars for us - sweet yet nutritionally bankrupt, hummingbirds meet their needs for protein, amino acids, vitamins and minerals etc. by preying mainly on insects and spiders, even more so when feeding their young. This is a good question and as simple as it seems on the surface there is quite a lot to consider here. I will start with the exploitation side of this first. By setting up the feeders we are screwing up their evolutionary path, they have, over time, adapted themselves to gather the nectar of certain flowers and the feeders are artificially providing something that is not found in nature. By providing a super sweet sugar water that is not naturally occurring it could be likened to enabling a heroin addict by providing him uncut heroin and if for some stroke of misfortune humanity were to disappear, we will have doomed the poor humming bird to extinction from withdrawal symptoms. Mainly because he will have evolved into a bird that only knows how to suck sugar water from an artificial feeder and when faced with the possibility of having to survive alone in the wilderness year around he will soon realize his kind are doomed. Even though their lifespan is short and that gives them the ability to adapt quickly, I think they would be hard pressed to make it.
So although I know lots of friends with those humming bird feeders I no longer think it is benefitting the wildlife at all and the artificial feeders, while enjoyable for us, is seriously exploiting the poor little birdies strictly for our entertainment and on top of that dooming them to evolutionary extinction.
Topic #2 - Should there really be speed limits on the German Autobahns?
NO! and here is why. If we go back to the beginnings of the automobile we find what is widely regarded as the world's first motorway as the one built in Berlin between 1913 and 1921. The 19 km long AVUS in southwestern Berlin was an experimental highway that was (and occasionally still is) used for racing. Adolf Hitler, when in power, saw the propaganda benefits of a high-speed road system as well as the immediate military and employment value, started a program to build two north-south and east-west links. The first of these Reichsautobahnen opened on May 19th, 1935 between Frankfurt and Darmstadt. At the end of World War II, the Autobahn network totaled 2,128 km. They build that road with all intentions of it being a high speed road. They are always at least two lanes wide but most often three and occasionally 4 lanes wide and the lanes are wider as well than the ones here in the US. A landscaped "green" median 3.5 or 4 meters wide (3 meters in urban areas) and a double-sided guardrail runs down the middle and blinders are often used on curves and more recent sections have concrete barriers instead of green medians for increased safety. Grades of 4% or less with climbing lanes are provided on most steep grades and gentle well banked curves help as well. Couple all of that with the constant minimum of 27 inches of freeze-resistant concrete or bituminous surface so as I see it there is just no real reason to have a speed limit.
Tomorrow I will answer the other 2 suggestions
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Phase two of the epic quest, the trip to Cedar Key
So after our morning trip to the beach to watch the sunrise we came home and rested in preparation for our 3 hour trip to Cedar Key. With Sunset happening about 8:41 we figured we would leave at about 4:30 in order to get to Cedar Key in time for the sunset. We are merging onto I10 heading west and I take out my camera, the Nikon S220, to take some pictures of the street signs. To my surprise the camera was going through its power on self test and it failed with a lens error, I was like you have got to be kidding me. I played with it for a few minutes with no joy, left the battery out for a while and still no joy. I called Bride and after giving her the model number, Nikon S220, and asked her to perform a bit of research on the internet. The return call did not take long with the bad news, evidently the lens error is a VERY common problem with the S220 as well as many other models and sadly it was not an inexpensive repair. With a 139 dollar camera I could not imagine spending over 100 to get it repaired. I was thinking that I would look for the warrantee paperwork when I got home. She did tell me that she found some actions to take that were successful for other people to get their camera going again. They ranged from grabbing the lens and trying to gently rotate it clockwise while it was going through the self test all the way to banging it gently on the lower left edge. All attempts to make the camera work were fruitless, I was glad I asked my Niece to bring hers and with a quick swap of the memory chip we were back in business.
On our way down RT 301 it started to sprinkle and then all of the sudden it started coming down so badly that we had to pull over and stop. As we sat and watched the rain come down I again called Bride and asked her to check the weather radar for the weather over Cedar Key, if the weather was going to be crappy we could turn around now and call the trip busted. I was wondering if my Bride was beginning to feel like home base for expedition the likes of scaling Everest, she is great woman I tell ya. We waited until the weather let up and we took off again, it rained all the way to Gainesville and once into town we ended up thinking we made a wrong turn and ended up stopping at a convenience store to ask for directions. When I asked the clerk if the road we were on was RT 24 he indicated no it was Archer road. I looked through the maps and they did not even have a map of Gainesville, that Shell station sucks! He then asked where we were going and I told him Cedar Key and he says he is not sure where that is. After some other idle chatter from him I hear him say he is new here and does not really know his way around. I remember thinking, that key bit of information would have been nice to have received right up front at the beginning of the questioning but there is no accounting for some folks. After a ride back a few blocks and after verified the road we were on was actually called Archer through town it was also RT 24.
We get into Cedar Key about an hour before the sunset and it immediately became apparent that my research was lacking, I had no idea where to go to watch the sunset. I guess I was thinking that is it just not that big of a place and that surely the place to watch would just appear to us, kind of like driving east until you hit the ocean. That was not the case on Cedar Key, we drove around for a while and we did find the Cedar Key School and learned that their mascot was a shark, which was evident by the gigantic fiberglass shark prominently displayed on the front lawn of the school. We started looking for someone to ask, where would be a good place to watch the sunset. It did not take us long to see someone and imagine our surprise, we have been in Cedar Key less than 5 minutes and we found our first BOGO on the Blue Bell. There he was innocently sweeping a sidewalk and as we pulled over to ask he did not even acknowledge our presence, we were less than 6 feet away in a 2000 pound car and until I said excuse me sir he did not even look up. I asked if this was the right road to follow if we wanted to go watch the sunset over the water. He slowly stopped sweeping, placed his right forefinger up to his right ear and froze for about 10 seconds before he said “yep” and went right back to sweeping. I asked again, just follow this road and pointed, without looking up he again stated - yep. His actions could not be mistaken for anything other than, this conversation is OVER so we continued on our way. After witnessing his very odd behavior we classified him as the get one free.
After driving around for awhile without finding the Gulf of Mexico, I know how hard can it be right, we found a small bridge that overlooked a channel and there were a number of people there obviously watching the sunset. Since it was getting close to time by now we decided that this would be our spot. We pull over and I quickly realize that I have also forgotten a key part for the camera tripod so my pictures of the sunset would have to be taken holding the camera. Oh well it was more about watching the sunset that photo documenting it. When we first start walking onto the bridge there are some folks who were obviously tourists to Cedar Key, just like us. They were taking pictures and I offered to take one for them so they could all be in the shot, the offer was accepted and I snapped a couple of pictures for them and they thanked me. There was also another couple a bit further down the bridge on the opposite side, we could tell they were locals and they would turn out to be our other BOGO’s on the Blue Bell. They were smoking cigars and watching the sunset. We said hello and little did we know how talkative they would turn out to be.
They talked about a range of topics, from the fact they stopped fishing on this bridge because they were using dynamite to catch fish and it ended up damaging the bridge so they stopped letting folks fish there. She was pretty sure that was the reason and was equally sure that his explanation of someone getting hit was not the reason. They talked about their 3 months of marriage and his moving here from Tennessee. They talked about a seagull that flew over and whether or not it was a hawk, he did end up convincing her it was a hawk in the end. They also talked about a pink albino pelican and at that point we realized they were even drunker than we had initially thought. We classified her as the buy one and him as the get one, mainly because of her dominant personality. We moved to the other side of the bridge to watch, it was truly an incredible sunset and it no longer mattered that most of our plans did not work out, we were here and we were watching the majestic transformation from day to night and it was COOL. As it started to get dark the bugs came out and that drove my Niece into the car, which we had pulled out onto the bridge by this time. I was able to brave the onslaught for only a few more minutes than her and if we ever go back it will be with some product that contains DEET, the mosquito repellent because I am pretty sure there were over 978 trillion of those little bastards on that bridge trying to literally kill us.
After a quick a stop for an ice cream, not Blue Bell, we were on our way back home, our quest for a sunrise and sunset in the same day more than successful. As gravy on the whole thing we also found 3 more BOGO’s on the Blue Bell – 6 in one day a record for sure!
On our way down RT 301 it started to sprinkle and then all of the sudden it started coming down so badly that we had to pull over and stop. As we sat and watched the rain come down I again called Bride and asked her to check the weather radar for the weather over Cedar Key, if the weather was going to be crappy we could turn around now and call the trip busted. I was wondering if my Bride was beginning to feel like home base for expedition the likes of scaling Everest, she is great woman I tell ya. We waited until the weather let up and we took off again, it rained all the way to Gainesville and once into town we ended up thinking we made a wrong turn and ended up stopping at a convenience store to ask for directions. When I asked the clerk if the road we were on was RT 24 he indicated no it was Archer road. I looked through the maps and they did not even have a map of Gainesville, that Shell station sucks! He then asked where we were going and I told him Cedar Key and he says he is not sure where that is. After some other idle chatter from him I hear him say he is new here and does not really know his way around. I remember thinking, that key bit of information would have been nice to have received right up front at the beginning of the questioning but there is no accounting for some folks. After a ride back a few blocks and after verified the road we were on was actually called Archer through town it was also RT 24.
We get into Cedar Key about an hour before the sunset and it immediately became apparent that my research was lacking, I had no idea where to go to watch the sunset. I guess I was thinking that is it just not that big of a place and that surely the place to watch would just appear to us, kind of like driving east until you hit the ocean. That was not the case on Cedar Key, we drove around for a while and we did find the Cedar Key School and learned that their mascot was a shark, which was evident by the gigantic fiberglass shark prominently displayed on the front lawn of the school. We started looking for someone to ask, where would be a good place to watch the sunset. It did not take us long to see someone and imagine our surprise, we have been in Cedar Key less than 5 minutes and we found our first BOGO on the Blue Bell. There he was innocently sweeping a sidewalk and as we pulled over to ask he did not even acknowledge our presence, we were less than 6 feet away in a 2000 pound car and until I said excuse me sir he did not even look up. I asked if this was the right road to follow if we wanted to go watch the sunset over the water. He slowly stopped sweeping, placed his right forefinger up to his right ear and froze for about 10 seconds before he said “yep” and went right back to sweeping. I asked again, just follow this road and pointed, without looking up he again stated - yep. His actions could not be mistaken for anything other than, this conversation is OVER so we continued on our way. After witnessing his very odd behavior we classified him as the get one free.
After driving around for awhile without finding the Gulf of Mexico, I know how hard can it be right, we found a small bridge that overlooked a channel and there were a number of people there obviously watching the sunset. Since it was getting close to time by now we decided that this would be our spot. We pull over and I quickly realize that I have also forgotten a key part for the camera tripod so my pictures of the sunset would have to be taken holding the camera. Oh well it was more about watching the sunset that photo documenting it. When we first start walking onto the bridge there are some folks who were obviously tourists to Cedar Key, just like us. They were taking pictures and I offered to take one for them so they could all be in the shot, the offer was accepted and I snapped a couple of pictures for them and they thanked me. There was also another couple a bit further down the bridge on the opposite side, we could tell they were locals and they would turn out to be our other BOGO’s on the Blue Bell. They were smoking cigars and watching the sunset. We said hello and little did we know how talkative they would turn out to be.
They talked about a range of topics, from the fact they stopped fishing on this bridge because they were using dynamite to catch fish and it ended up damaging the bridge so they stopped letting folks fish there. She was pretty sure that was the reason and was equally sure that his explanation of someone getting hit was not the reason. They talked about their 3 months of marriage and his moving here from Tennessee. They talked about a seagull that flew over and whether or not it was a hawk, he did end up convincing her it was a hawk in the end. They also talked about a pink albino pelican and at that point we realized they were even drunker than we had initially thought. We classified her as the buy one and him as the get one, mainly because of her dominant personality. We moved to the other side of the bridge to watch, it was truly an incredible sunset and it no longer mattered that most of our plans did not work out, we were here and we were watching the majestic transformation from day to night and it was COOL. As it started to get dark the bugs came out and that drove my Niece into the car, which we had pulled out onto the bridge by this time. I was able to brave the onslaught for only a few more minutes than her and if we ever go back it will be with some product that contains DEET, the mosquito repellent because I am pretty sure there were over 978 trillion of those little bastards on that bridge trying to literally kill us.
After a quick a stop for an ice cream, not Blue Bell, we were on our way back home, our quest for a sunrise and sunset in the same day more than successful. As gravy on the whole thing we also found 3 more BOGO’s on the Blue Bell – 6 in one day a record for sure!
So this oratory is going to explain what a bogo on the blue bell is and how it came to have its meaning.
As you know by now my Niece from Ohio has moved in with us and we have been getting along great. We seem to be two peas in a pod, for me it reinforces the new genetic findings that have recently re-opened the acrimonious nature versus nurture debate. I used to be on the other side of the argument believing that environment plays a bigger role than genetics when it comes to how people evolve into who they are. My Niece and I have never even lived within 1000 miles of each other and for some reason we have very similar senses of humor and outlooks on life and how to act, it is still a bit scary for me as the similarities continue to mount. I was truly shocked that of all the things I thought would change in my life with my Niece living with us, the very foundations of my understanding of life was not one of them. My whole life it has been environment, environment, environment and I believed, obviously falsely, that genetics had very little to do with who we are – WRONG! My Niece is living proof of my shattered understanding of how all the pieces of life’s puzzle fit together, like I needed that right now. I am very, very happy she is with us, it has forced me to reevaluate things in my life, starting I guess with the very core of my foundational understanding of building blocks of life itself, whodathunk it?
Last weekend I went over to one of my best friends home to affect some repairs and my Niece tagged along, lots of reasons for that but like always that is a story for another day. After a couple of hours and the home repair behind us we were on our way home, the trip had a planned grocery store stop in it so I had to decide which store I could hit on the way home. I am a creature of habit and the thought of going to a different Publix was initially a bit scary for me, where would they keep the Pirates Gold marinate? Would they stock the same kind of potato’s in the same location? I damn near said NO, I will go out of my way to my Publix but since this one was right on the way home and I had been in the facility previously I felt I could make it work. So we are tooling down Atlantic boulevard and I look up and low and behold I see a bill board with a Publix advertisement. OK, I remember thinking, this was the sign I was looking for to aid me in making the decision to stop or not. I was not expecting such a literal interpretation of a sign. Little did I know that this quick glance at a bill board zipping down Atlantic boulevard at 45 miles per hour would FOREVER change both our lives, in the most humorous way.
So for those who shop at Publix you know that they always have the buy one get one free shelves set up in various locations around the store, for those who don’t you get the idea. I am not sure who the advertising agency was that came up with a term bogo for buy one get one free but I have always thought it was catchy, I believe it was a shoe store originally but it does not really matter. Anyway I have used the term bogo for quite a while, bogo on peanuts, yummy, bogo on spaghetti and bogo on the spaghetti sauce, I like saying it and I like getting one of two items for free. So the advertisement on the bill board was for a buy one get one free on Blue Bell ice cream so I said, bogo on the Blue Bell, speaking of the deal on Blue Bell ice cream, which is very good by the way. I first tasted Blue Bell ice cream on a trip to Austin when we stopped in Brenham Texas and that was YEARS before they expanded and started selling Blue Bell ice cream nationwide. Anyway, after I said bogo on the blue bell my niece says that sounds nice, it rolls off your tongue and it should mean something that is commonly used, bogo on the blue bell. This is where we should have left it, but her and I both favor taking things just that one additional step.
We went through many iterations before the final definition, we initially thought it had to mean something good because Blue Bell Ice cream is so good. NO we decided, because that is just what they would expect us to do, we decided the antithesis of good is what we needed it to be. I can’t remember how many different ideas we came up with, I liked some, she didn’t, she liked some, I didn’t. I was beginning to think we may be on a fools errand and we should have left it well enough alone. Through the pandemonium I do not even know which of us came up with it but when it was spoken aloud we both immediately knew we had the absolute perfect definition, we had created a new definition for BOGO on the Blue Bell – and it had nothing to do with ice cream. Basically, it would be a way to describe a person who was doing something odd or bizarre and most importantly – it would be something that was memorable. Not just a little bit odd either but something so memorable that if by chance you were gazing over a crowd of over 1000 people the BOGO on the Blue Bell would be immediately apparent to even the most casual observer and anyone who knew the definition would be able to immediately pick that person out. It would require no more explanation, finger pointing or any other means of identification, everyone would know immediately who you were speaking about. We did not learn until later that once a BOGO on the Blue Bell was identified they also had to classified, What you ask, yes classified into either the buy one or the get one free, which by the way makes the entire process more enjoyable. So if you remember back to old crazy legs from my last oratory you can imagine that there would be NO doubt who we were speaking about when we looked at each other and said “BOGO on the Blue Bell” at the exact same instant, we knew and it was FUNNY.
So if you and I are ever out in public together and you hear me mutter the words “BOGO on the Blue Bell” take a look around and you will know immediately who needs to checked out for a humorous giggle and we can share the moment.
Last weekend I went over to one of my best friends home to affect some repairs and my Niece tagged along, lots of reasons for that but like always that is a story for another day. After a couple of hours and the home repair behind us we were on our way home, the trip had a planned grocery store stop in it so I had to decide which store I could hit on the way home. I am a creature of habit and the thought of going to a different Publix was initially a bit scary for me, where would they keep the Pirates Gold marinate? Would they stock the same kind of potato’s in the same location? I damn near said NO, I will go out of my way to my Publix but since this one was right on the way home and I had been in the facility previously I felt I could make it work. So we are tooling down Atlantic boulevard and I look up and low and behold I see a bill board with a Publix advertisement. OK, I remember thinking, this was the sign I was looking for to aid me in making the decision to stop or not. I was not expecting such a literal interpretation of a sign. Little did I know that this quick glance at a bill board zipping down Atlantic boulevard at 45 miles per hour would FOREVER change both our lives, in the most humorous way.
So for those who shop at Publix you know that they always have the buy one get one free shelves set up in various locations around the store, for those who don’t you get the idea. I am not sure who the advertising agency was that came up with a term bogo for buy one get one free but I have always thought it was catchy, I believe it was a shoe store originally but it does not really matter. Anyway I have used the term bogo for quite a while, bogo on peanuts, yummy, bogo on spaghetti and bogo on the spaghetti sauce, I like saying it and I like getting one of two items for free. So the advertisement on the bill board was for a buy one get one free on Blue Bell ice cream so I said, bogo on the Blue Bell, speaking of the deal on Blue Bell ice cream, which is very good by the way. I first tasted Blue Bell ice cream on a trip to Austin when we stopped in Brenham Texas and that was YEARS before they expanded and started selling Blue Bell ice cream nationwide. Anyway, after I said bogo on the blue bell my niece says that sounds nice, it rolls off your tongue and it should mean something that is commonly used, bogo on the blue bell. This is where we should have left it, but her and I both favor taking things just that one additional step.
We went through many iterations before the final definition, we initially thought it had to mean something good because Blue Bell Ice cream is so good. NO we decided, because that is just what they would expect us to do, we decided the antithesis of good is what we needed it to be. I can’t remember how many different ideas we came up with, I liked some, she didn’t, she liked some, I didn’t. I was beginning to think we may be on a fools errand and we should have left it well enough alone. Through the pandemonium I do not even know which of us came up with it but when it was spoken aloud we both immediately knew we had the absolute perfect definition, we had created a new definition for BOGO on the Blue Bell – and it had nothing to do with ice cream. Basically, it would be a way to describe a person who was doing something odd or bizarre and most importantly – it would be something that was memorable. Not just a little bit odd either but something so memorable that if by chance you were gazing over a crowd of over 1000 people the BOGO on the Blue Bell would be immediately apparent to even the most casual observer and anyone who knew the definition would be able to immediately pick that person out. It would require no more explanation, finger pointing or any other means of identification, everyone would know immediately who you were speaking about. We did not learn until later that once a BOGO on the Blue Bell was identified they also had to classified, What you ask, yes classified into either the buy one or the get one free, which by the way makes the entire process more enjoyable. So if you remember back to old crazy legs from my last oratory you can imagine that there would be NO doubt who we were speaking about when we looked at each other and said “BOGO on the Blue Bell” at the exact same instant, we knew and it was FUNNY.
So if you and I are ever out in public together and you hear me mutter the words “BOGO on the Blue Bell” take a look around and you will know immediately who needs to checked out for a humorous giggle and we can share the moment.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
An epic quest, which actually very quickly turned into a great adventure - which makes for a great story – which I will tell to you now
So last weekend my Niece and I decided, wouldn’t it be cool if we were to watch the sunrise over the Atlantic ocean here in Jacksonville and then drive over to Cedar Key and watch the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico. So this week we have been plotting our course, the times of sunrise and sunset and determining when we have to leave and all the other details that are involved. This morning we were up by 4:30am and left the house about 4:45 to head on down to the beach. Obviously, the first stop was at the Gate station for our morning coffee. I remember thinking as we pulled in that there seems to be a lot of vehicles in the lot for being so early in the morning. I had not had my coffee yet so I did not dwell on it for very long, I mean without coffee do any of us really operate effectively. So after we pay homage to Jaun Valdez and his coffee bean picking ass, and pay the clerk for the privilege, we are on our way out. The night shift was stocking shelves so there were boxes of stuff and personnel blocking the path to the door. After changing my path, I finally make it to the door, which I hold open for my Niece. As I am holding the door open I remember scanning the parking lot and I notice a well dressed and well groomed woman making her way in from her Mercedes to pay for her gas and probably pick up some goody from the shelves. I also notice a man pumping his gas into an SUV, he was wearing nice slacks and a golf shirt and looked to on his way to someplace important. Keep in mind that it was early and I had not yet had my coffee so when crazy legs showed up I was ill prepared.
Crazy legs you say, well let me just tell ya about that. I at first thought maybe he was handicapped, his legs were spread way apart and he appeared to be in pain and he was definitely having problems walking. His legs were rotating around in a way that I did not think the leg joints would allow and to me, seemed not only to defy simple physics but also defy explanation. It was one of those things you just had to see in order to actually believe, I was there so trust me when I tell, he had CRAZY legs. His shorts were a bright yellow and brown plaid kind of thing and they were flailing around at a speed that made them appear to me to be blurry, I am not sure even now if the pattern was blurry or not blurry. He continued his crazy leg shuffle out of the store and across the parking lot to his vehicle. At this point I was thinking what kind of handicap could make a person walk like that? I also noticed at this point that there was no handicap placard hanging from his rear view mirror, as required by law. Poor guy, I remember thinking what a challenging life he must lead as I got into my old jalopy. Once in the car my Niece asked if I noticed him, I said yes I did and she lets me in on a secret, his pants were actually precariously balanced right below his butt and he was having to perform the Elvis Presley like lower body gyrations in order to keep them from falling to his ankles. I was somewhat disappointed in getting this information so late in the game, I believe the experience would have been heightened for me had I known that information before hand. We did notice that he even had a belt on, I mean he had all the correct items, a pair of sporty and very flashy shorts and a belt but for some reason old crazy legs could not get it all put together correctly, poor guy. We laughed about old crazy legs most of the way to the beach and determined that while it was early for us, it was late for him and we decided surely he was still drunk.
So we get on down to the beach and make our way out with our chairs, camera, coffee’s, towels, phones, flashlight for my Niece and wallet – too much crap, but that is a story for another day. So we get all settled and are sitting in true amazement at the majesty of the vibrant blanket of stars twinkling in the sky. We see one planet, I am told by my Niece that it is a planet because it is so bright and does not twinkle, I seem to remember her saying it was Venus. Planets do not twinkle because they are so much closer to us than stars, which are WAY farther away. Another contributing factor for stars twinkling is they appear as tiny points of light in our night sky and the intensity of the light is small and even more of it is absorbed by moving air in the Earth's atmosphere. Anyway we were not there long, it was still very dark out, and out comes a shadowy figure, wandering what appears to us to be aimlessly around in the dark. After some time my Niece realizes he has a metal detector and is searching for hidden treasure that was surly lurking right below the surface of the sand. This fellow wanders around for quite some time in the dark, later we could tell he had on a set of headphones attached to the metal detector for more accurate metal detecting. Before long, it was definitely light enough for us all to see each other, he continues to wander closer and closer to our outpost. By the time I realized he was less than 20 feet away from us I had already picked up my 3 D-cell Mag-Light, I figure if he gets any weirder I may have to show him why the Mag-Light is carried by the police. The aircraft grade aluminum that is fashioned into a finely crafted and durable yet capable defensive or offensive weapon. He was acting bizarrely and with his lurking around in the dark it made us feel uncomfortable and he seemed even creepier than he may have otherwise seemed. Anyway, he finally moved off towards the water, I was rather irritated at him for distracting me from the splendor of the sunrise, someone that close to our space required me to keep an eye on him with a heightened awareness. During this period of heightened awareness on him I missed the lightening my camera miraculously captured – cool huh?
We were back to watching the sunrise without the distraction of someone lurking around the beach so close to us, I mean there are literally miles and miles and beach and here he is within 20 feet of us in the near darkness – what gives. More and more folks were slowly making their way to the beach the closer we got to the actual sunrise. Not much worried us about any of them, they all remained outside our personal space and seemed not so creepy. Our next funny thing was a woman who had obviously not finished the day before, 6 oclock was not early for her, it was nearly the end of what appeared to be quite a fine evening the night before. She was obviously drunk and still drinking something, although we could not see the label on the can that she persistently was taking sips from, I mean like a sip every 10 seconds. She has put down camp about 50 yards from our location and then removes her dress, she had on a shirt and shorts underneath and into the water she goes She is playing in the surf, apparently thoroughly enjoying herself, and before long she is waist deep and attempting to run south, yes while waist deep in the ocean. Believe it or not she actually does a fine job and make good time and distance towards the south. Before long we lose sight of her and we both get nervous, did she go under? Did she get pulled out by a rogue rip current? Was there a Shark week team from discovery taping a show? Just as we were about to leap into action we see that she has come ashore further down the beach for a rest, whew – we were both relieved to know she was OK. After some time she was back up to her area and she digs into her stuff and comes out with a Styrofoam cup and again with the rapid sipping from the straw. We were convinced that the can was a cola and the cup contained rum, we had no evidence but that is what we decided those content were.
So after the sunrise we are on our way home and we are taking pictures of each other, photo documentation of the trip, when I guy pulls up beside us and paces our speed exactly. He yells something and my Niece turns with the camera and he say s no, no and then makes a face, she snaps the picture, pasted below, and we laugh out loud. Ends up he was curious about the year of manufacture of my old Jalopy, which if you look closely you can see reflected in the side of his SUV. We were very happy about the start of our quest and realized that it was not even 7:30 and we had already seen three bogos on the blue bell. Bogos on the blue bell, what the hell is that you might ask? Well you will have to tune in to my next oratory to find out what that is and how it came to be.
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