____________________
My friend Anthony has posted some pictures of California scenery. The photos, although they speak for themselves, have been enhanced by Anthony's captions.
photos
__________
Saturday, May 31, 2014
California Photos
My friend Anthony has posted some pictures of California scenery. The photos, although they speak for themselves, have been enhanced by Anthony's captions.
photos
__________
Friday, May 30, 2014
A Three Dog Night
____________________
It was an interesting night. Eva's two sleep-over visitors taught me a few new tricks for getting sleep.
Today I once again marveled at the speed with which these three dogs presently under my care can scarf down a scoop each of dry dog food. They are able to focus on the single act of feeding and completely shut out all other happenings of the moment.
I wish I could focus like that.
It is a warm, sunny morning here in the Tucson area.
A nice day.
__________
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Tuesday Morning 5-27-14
____________________
I do not feel like offering an opinion on any of the week's happenings. All the news items (shootings, hurricanes, etc.) stimulate temporary emotional responses but none sufficiently to get me to seek out the intellectual heart of the matter. And write about it. Who cares what I think or say about anything?
I do not even care.
Not deeply, anyway.
__________
Monday, May 26, 2014
Memorial Day 2014
____________________
Today is Memorial Day, 2014.
(Commentary to follow later, perhaps)
__________
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Sunday Morning
____________________
Still keeping busy in the real world.
(No commentary today.)
__________
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Saturday Morning
____________________
Keeping busy in the real world.
(No commentary today.)
__________
Friday, May 23, 2014
Happy Birthday Mike
On this day in 1960 my son Michael was born . . .
Happy Birthday, Mike!
_____
This evening I will be going out to Mike's domicile to spend (while he and JoAnn are away) a little more than two weeks caring for Eva. I predict there will be some Earth-shattering changes coming about in this blog before I return.
It's about time... right?
Thursday, May 22, 2014
5-22-14
____________________
Tell a man there are a billion stars and he will believe you. Tell a man there it is wet paint and he will have to touch it..
--Anonymous
_____
Did You Know . . .?
Oktoberfest started off as a wedding reception for a prince in Bavaria in 1810 and the newlyweds enjoyed it so much they suggested making it an annual event.
_____
HISTORICAL EVENT
_____
WORD FOR TODAY
gibbous
adjective
1. (of the moon or a planet) more than half but less than fully illuminated
2. having a hunchback; hunchbacked
3. bulging
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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
(born May 22, 1938)
Richard Benjamin is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of well-known film productions, including Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Catch-22 (1970), Westworld (1973), and The Sunshine Boys (1975), written by Neil Simon.
(born May 22, 1967)
Brooke Smith is an American actress. She is best known for her role on the TV show Grey's Anatomy as Dr. Erica Hahn and for her role as Catherine Martin in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs. She has also had roles in Homicide: Life on the Street, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order, Criminal Minds and The Hunger.
(born May 22, 1974)
Sean Gunn is an American actor, most famous for his role as Kirk Gleason on the television show Gilmore Girls (2000–2007).
(born May 22, 1979)
Maggie Q, is an American actress. She achieved international fame starring as the title role on The CW's action-thriller series Nikita that aired in 2010-2013. In 2014, she began portraying Tori Wu in the film adaption of Veronica Roth's bestselling novel, Divergent, and will star in a Kevin Williamson CBS drama series Stalker as Detective Beth Davis.
__________
Success is a journey, not a destination.
--Anonymous
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
5-21-14
____________________
In 1964, 76 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing "just about always or most of the time "; today, 19 percent do.
--George Will
_____
Did You Know . . .?
A month after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, a massive typhoon hit the city, killing 2,000 people.
_____
HISTORICAL EVENT
Also on this day, the German firm IG Farben set up a factory just outside Auschwitz, in order to take advantage of Jewish slave laborers from the Auschwitz concentration camps. As time passed, the Western powers broke the company up into three separate divisions: Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF.
_____
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
(born May 21, 1951)
Al Franken is an American politician who is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota, where he has served since 2009. Prior to serving in the Senate, he was a writer and performer for the television show Saturday Night Live (SNL) from its inception in 1975 to 1980 and from 1985 to 1995.
(born May 21, 1966)
Lisa Edelstein is an American actress and playwright best known for playing Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the medical drama series House M.D..
(born May 21, 1957)
Judge Reinhold is an American actor, known for co-starring in movies such as Beverly Hills Cop, Ruthless People, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and The Santa Clause trilogy.
(born May 21, 1974)
Fairuza Balk is an American film actress. She made her theatrical film debut as Dorothy Gale in Disney's Return to Oz. Balk also made appearances in Valmont, The Craft, The Island of Dr. Moreau, American History X, The Waterboy, and Personal Velocity: Three Portraits.
__________
"Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig."
--Stephen Greenblatt
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Life goes On
____________________
"When people have tried everything and have discovered that nothing works, they will tend to revert to what they know best -- which will often be the tribe, the totem, or the taboo."
--Christopher Hitchens
Had a good birthday yesterday. My little brother phoned in the late afternoon from Indiana and we talked for a couple hours. He has no computer and doesn't especially want one so the telephone is his choice as his main method of communication. I hadn't talked with him for a few years and was surprised to find that he is now fully retired. He's 68 years old.
He told me his wife, Darlene, has a tablet and I gave him my email address to give to her, and she sent me an email last night. I replied with the picture of Mike, Tim, and myself taken after Tim's graduation and Ph.D presentation. I'm so glad that this new form of communication with them is now open.
I don't know how much longer I am going to be able to walk my minimum of two miles a day. Yesterday after arriving back home from walking my right hip and upper right thigh began hurting pretty badly. A two hour nap took away most of the pain but left in its place a dull ache. It's still there today but I intend to go out and walk again in a few minutes. I hate to think of not being able to continue my daily walk, as it has become a goodly part of my life.
_____
Did You Know . . .?
The mouth of a jellyfish is also its anus.
_____
HISTORICAL EVENT
_____
WORD FOR TODAY
kith
noun
1. acquaintances, friends, neighbors, or the like; persons living in the same general locality and forming a more or less cohesive group.
2. a group of people living in the same area and forming a culture with a common language, customs, economy, etc., usually endogenous.
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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
(born May 20, 1927)
David Hedison is an American film, television, and stage actor. He is most famous for his role as Captain Lee Crane in Irwin Allen's TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
May 20, 1946)
Cher is an American singer and actress. She became prominent in 1965 as one-half of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher.
(born May 20, 1960)
Tony Goldwyn is an American actor and director. He portrayed the villain Carl Bruner in Ghost, Colonel Bagley in The Last Samurai, and the voice of the title character of the Disney animated film Tarzan. He stars in the ABC drama Scandal, as Fitzgerald Grant III, President of the United States.
(born May 20, 1983)
Michaela McManus is an American actress, best known for her portrayals of Lindsey Strauss on the television series One Tree Hill and A.D.A. Kim Greylek on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She recently starred as Tara on NBC series Awake.
__________
"The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease."
--Sengcan
NASA TV
Monday, May 19, 2014
Today Is My Birthday
____________________
"Two things happen when you get to be old. One, you gather experience and knowledge. You learn from your mistakes, and thereby offer wisdom to others. The second thing that happens is that you grow forgetful, ornery and senile, and when you offer advice, well, you sometimes just don't know what you're talking about."
--Camron Wright,
Actually, I never thought I'd make it this far. I remember that, for most of my teenage years I often swore (loudly and boastfully) that I would never see 30. And I sincerely believed that to be a fact.
Born in Rensselaer, Indiana in 1939, around the time that Adolph Hitler decided to invade Poland, I grew up to become a real wild child - a young, careless, thrill-seeking, authority-hating, and extremely dangerous mush-brained rebel... who was stupidly granted at the age of 16 a valid but potentially lethal driver's license.
Statistically speaking, I should never have survived my teen years.
But, somehow, I did.
WOW!
_____
Historical Events
The agreement was yet another step toward limiting nuclear weapons. In 1959, dozens of nations, including the United States and the Soviet Union, had agreed to ban nuclear weapons from Antarctica. With the action taken in May 1967, outer space was also officially declared off-limits for nuclear weapons.
_____
Word Definition
hygroscopic
adjective
absorbing or attracting moisture from the air.
_____
Other People Born May 19th, 1939
(May 19, 1939 - January 28, 1986)
Dick Scobee was an American astronaut. He was killed commanding the Space Shuttle Challenger, which suffered catastrophic booster failure during launch of the STS-51-L mission.
(born May 19, 1939)
Nancy Kwan is a Hong Kong-born, biracial American actress (Flower Drum Song, World of Suzie Wong) who played a pivotal role in the acceptance of actors of Asian ancestry in major Hollywood film roles.
(May 19, 1939 - 12 Nov 1988)
Tomasz Sikorski was a Polish composer and pianist.
(born 19 May 1939)
James Fox is an English actor. He first appeared on film in The Miniver Story in 1950. In 1964, he won a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for his role in The Servant (1963). He had roles in films such as Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), King Rat (1965), The Chase (1966), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Isadora (1968), and Performance (1970, alongside Mick Jagger),
Another Person Born May 19
(but not in 1939)
(May 19, 1795 – Dec 24, 1873)
Johns Hopkins was an American entrepreneur, abolitionist and philanthropist of 19th-century Baltimore, Maryland. His bequests founded numerous institutions, including Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
__________
"As my late mother famously observed, the one thing to be said for growing old is that every year there are a few more things I don’t have to give a rat’s ass about."
--Lawrence Block
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Guest Blogger 5-18-14
The Month of Medical Miracles
I had my ultrasound and x-ray as scheduled. The x-ray was first, and I stretched out on a hard not-metal table under a huge machine which looked like it belonged in a science fiction movie. The x-ray tech positioned me, then ran behind a large room-sized shield to zap each picture. Position my Gumby body, scurry, "hold your breath," zap, "breathe." Then she'd come take the x-ray plate out of the table and put it into a digital what-not on the side of the room. A few clunks and a whirr and my bones appeared on the monitor. Guess what? I have hips!
And vertebrae. I'm sure she had a set number of them to show, and she stood there, counting my vertebrae. One, two, three, four... as her finger touched each one on the monitor. When she finished counting I asked if I had them all.
"What?" she replied cleverly.
"Never mind."
Then ultrasound, where I had more how-to-breathe instructions. "Hold your breath," the ultrasound tech said, as she rubbed something that looked like an old-style vibrator across my belly. "Breathe," she said, as she moved that thing to another place. And again. And again. And finally she was done. She pulled the vibrator head off my skin, switched off her machine, and said, "Hold your... oops. Breathe normally."
The behind-the-counter tech smiled at me as I left. "Your doctor should have these results in about three days." I went on to work, and when I got there I wrote down in my planner to call my doctor in three days.
I didn't have to. When I got home from work, I had a call from the doctor's office. "Please come in and see the doctor." Ack. So I went. They'd gotten the results back from the ultrasound (already?? talk about same-day-service!) and there was a possibility of a mass in my liver. The next step was having a CT scan done. That, of course, requires insurance approval, so we waited.
Each day I called, only to be told "No approval yet." Finally I decided to skip days and wait a couple between calls. On the 10th, they said they had approval. So I called the CT scan place, and they said, "We have an opening tomorrow." What is it with me and tomorrows?
Surprisingly, it was the same spot that did the ultrasound. On the 11th, I had the CT scan and today I got the results.
The doctor says I appear normal. (He doesn't know me very well, does he?)
So the momentary apprehension is over and I'm back to the grind. However, my back still has a tendency to ache, so I suppose I should go in and see him again, eh?
Copyright 2014 Michelle Hakala
http://www.winebird.com/
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Ph.D Pie
____________________
"When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, "There's just something about you that pisses me off."
--Stephen King
Went over to Mike's yesterday evening and had some tasty grilled salmon. Mike manned the grill.
The meal was awesome!
Dessert
Can You Read The Message In The Top Crust?
Random Photo
Natasha Warning Me
(about what I do not know)
Natasha Flew In From Los Angeles
For Her Cousin Tim's Graduation
_____
Did You Know . . .?
When the Arctic Monkeys started their band, none of them could play instruments,
_____
HISTORICAL EVENT
The Brown v. Board of Education decision served to greatly motivate the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and ultimately led to the abolishment of racial segregation in all public facilities and accommodations.
_____
WORD FOR TODAY
rive
verb
1. To rend or tear apart.
2. To break into pieces, as by a blow; cleave or split asunder.
3. To break or distress (the spirit, for example).
riven
adjective
1. past participle of rive
2. rent or split apart.
3. split radially, as a log.
_____
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
(May 17, 1936 - May 29, 2010)
Dennis Hopper was an American actor. As a young man, He appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). During the next ten years, Hopper appeared frequently on television in guest roles, and by the end of the 1960s had played supporting roles in several films. He directed and starred in Easy Rider.
(born May 17, 1973)
Sasha Alexander is an American actress. She played Gretchen Witter on Dawson's Creek. She also acted in feature films such as Yes Man (2008); and He's Just Not That Into You (2009). Alexander also acted as former Secret Service/NCIS Special Agent Kate Todd for the first two seasons of NCIS. She currently stars as Maura Isles on the TNT series Rizzoli & Isles.
(born May 17, 1956)
Bob Saget is an American stand-up comedian, actor and television host. He is best known for his family-friendly roles as Danny Tanner in Full House and the original host of America's Funniest Home Videos.
(born May 17, 1965)
Paige Turco is an American actress, best known for her role as April O'Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. She also known as Terri Lowell in the CBS series The Agency, and well for roles in American Gothic, NYPD Blue, Party of Five and Person of Interest. In 2014, Turco is starring as Abigail Griffin in post-apocalyptic drama series The 100.
__________
"People who believe in absurdities will eventually commit atrocities."
--Voltaire
NASA TV
Friday, May 16, 2014
Ph.D In Physics
____________________
I spent a lot of time yesterday sitting in a huge darkened room watching University of Arizona graduates get their diplomas.
It's official - Tim is now Doctor Chambers.
Mike, Timothy, And Me
University of Arizona - May 15, 2014
I'm taking the rest of this day off, too.
_______________
Thursday, May 15, 2014
5-15-14
____________________
"Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
—E.L. Doctorow
I'm taking this day off.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
5-14-14
____________________
In the Catholic church, teaching on contraception is disregarded by the majority. In no other area of church life is the gap between theory and practice so wide.
--Kathy Galloway
_____
Did You Know . . .?
More people worldwide suffer from obesity (1.3 billion) than hunger (900 million).
_____
HISTORICAL EVENT
The crews of Skylab spent more than 700 hours observing the sun and brought home more than 175,000 solar pictures. They also provided important information about the biological effects of living in space for prolonged periods of time. Five years after the last Skylab mission, the space station's orbit began to deteriorate faster than expected, owing to unexpectedly high sunspot activity. On July 11, 1979, the parts of the space station that did not burn up in the atmosphere came crashing down on Australia and into the Indian Ocean. No one was injured.
_____
WORD FOR TODAY
groin
noun
1. the depression or fold where the legs join the abdomen
2. euphemistic the genitals, especially the testicles
According to Wikipedia: "In human anatomy, the groin (the adjective is inguinal, as in inguinal canal) areas are the two creases at the junction of the torso with the legs (thighs), on either side of the pubic area."
According to the Holy Bible:
When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one approaches to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, you shall sever her hand; you shall have no compassion.
--Deuteronomy 25:11–12
_____
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
(born May 14, 1984)
Mark Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one of five co-founders of the social networking website Facebook.
(born May 14, 1983)
Amber Tamblyn is an American actress. She first came to national attention in her starring role on the prime-time series Joan of Arcadia. Her feature film work includes roles in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Grudge 2, The Ring, and 127 Hours; she had an extended arc as Martha M. Masters on the main cast of the medical drama House M.D.. She currently stars in Two and a Half Men as Jenny Harper.
(born May 14, 1944)
George Lucas is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist adventurer character Indiana Jones.
(born May 14, 1985)
Sally Martin is an actress from New Zealand. She has appeared in a range of television series, including The Strip, Shortland Street and in Power Rangers. She has also worked in several other shows such as Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby, The Killian Curse and in the TV movie Murder in Greenwich.
__________
Anything you make forbidden gains sexual attractiveness. Would you be particularly interested in women's breasts if you lived in a society in which they were displayed at all times?
--Isaac Asimov
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