Thank You For Lettin' Me...

The world gets crazy.  Our brains get full of worry and what-ifs (ironically except for "what if I stopped worrying about what-ifs?").

Our blood pressure rises and before we know it we are starting our heavily caps locked social media posts with words like: 'RANT' or 'WARNING'.  Seems more like anti-social media at times...

What I'm trying to say is, we get caught up and we forget to say thank you.  I don't mean thank you as in 'please and'.  I mean we straight up forget or downright overlook the good stuff, which is just down wrong.  Am I right?

So, I'm going to say some thanks and hopefully you'll  see some of mine that apply to you too.

 Image courtesy of Felixco, Inc. at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Thank you for allowing a reasonable distance between your car and mine.
Thank you for letting me in front of you in line.
Thank you for picking up the phone.
Thank you for laughing at my awkward jokes.
Thank you for commenting on my post.
Thank you for the likes, shares, and pokes?
Thank you for accepting my pizza coupon that expired.
Thank you for the concern when I look tired.
Thank you for the extra napkins.  It's as if you knew what could happen!
Thank you for bringing chocolate candy.
Thank you for reading my rambling.
See how full of thanks we could be, 
Just by me seeing you and you seeing me?
Strange or familiar we're much the same
When we remove the busy and the pain.
Thanks for giving ourselves the chance
To see beyond our circumstance.


Happy New Year!!

Tell Me a Christmas Story?

You never know what you’re going to find at the library.  Stick with me, it's worth it... I recently checked out a book called The Solstice Evergreen: History, Folklore, and Origins of the Christmas Tree, by Sheryl Karas. (1)  It has been quite an enjoyable read!  My favorite story is a little gem called ‘The Two Pine Cones’.  The story comes from from Finland.  

Photo by Me and used with my own permission

The tale is seasonally appropriate and would be lovely to share with any miserly type one may come across *cough* Mr. Trump *cough*.  Perhaps he can find some young apprentice to read it aloud to him.  

And it summarizes a bit like this… 

An old weary traveling wizard needs a place to rest for the night.  He passes a small log hut thinking to himself that he couldn’t possibly ask the poor family for anything, since they have so little for themselves.  He proceeds to a large ‘well-kept’ home instead and knocks on the door.  He is insulted, threatened, and turned away.  He returns to the log hut to humbly ask for a place to sleep.  He is invited in, fed, and given the only bed in the household.  To repay the kindness the next morning, the wizard gives the woman of the house a pine cone, telling her it will help her prosper in her first task of the day.  The woman’s first task is to measure the linen she had woven the day before.  It took her three days to measure all she had, as it kept multiplying.  She had enough to last the rest of their lives.  

The story of the poor family’s luck spread and the well-to-do family anxiously awaited the wizard’s return.  When he did in fact pass through town again, the rich family invited him in and treated him luxuriously.  In the morning, he offered a pine cone in gratitude and the woman of the house accepted it.  Her plan was to count her coin purse and reap the magic benefits.  Unfortunately, she sneezed first, and went to retrieve her handkerchief.  She spent the next three days sneezing and running to her handkerchief.  

Bless you, Mr. Trump, if you get my meaning…  And a Merry Xmas to the rest of us!

(1) Karas, Sheryl. The Solstice Evergreen: History, Folklore, and Origins of the Christmas Tree. Boulder Creek, CA: Aslan Pub., 1991. Print.

Gig Bless Us, Every One...

Image courtesy of geralt at Pixabay.com

Once upon a time 

I traveled store to store.  Nowadays I one stop shop:  veggies aisle one, curtains aisle four.

When I lost my way I'd consult giant maps, which I never could fold, only wad in my lap.  

Now I can make calls or send texts, while I drive

Multitasking technology keeps me alive.

When I get where I'm going the car does its own parking.

It charges and self navigates each embarking.

If I get home late and it's past dinner time, I just send emoji and pizza is mine!

What's on tv I never need know, because magic devices record all my shows.  

For every desire there's most surely an app

All our wishes, whims, wants with simply a tap

Instant gratification is our new motto

With the time we're all saving, Oh the places we'll go!

I'd like to go camping but there's no wifi 

What good are pictures of a brilliant night sky

If I cannot tweet them or share them for likes?

No Snapchat of marshmallows?  Seems a bit trite.

Off I must go, I've no more time for typing.  While I'm writing this poem, I could be off Skyping.

Thank the batteries and chargers that make my life happen

And may gigs bless this grid we've so foolishly fastened.

A poem by Gen Clever

Are you breaking any laws?

So you think you live in the land of the free?  How free are we really?  I'm not talking about marriage equality or gun control.  I'm talking about if a tree fell in the forest and you were there, have you committed a crime without even knowing it type stuff.   How many ridiculous, antiquated, or just plain unenforceable laws are still on the books?  I went Googling and here are 7 of my favorites.

Image courtesy of Teerapun at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Leave Bigfoot Alone!  Washington State 1991, Bill 92-247 The harassing of Bigfoot, Sasquatch or other undiscovered subspecies is a felony punishable by fine up to $100,000 and/or imprisonment up to 10 years.  Copy that.  I certainly will not harass any species that is as yet undiscovered.

Drivers yield to everybody always.  Oregon law from 1983, Traffic Law 811.025 Drivers must yield to pedestrians who are standing on the sidewalk.  Failure to yield to a pedestrian on a sidewalk is a Class B traffic violation.  I can't even begin to understand how this works...

 Image courtesy of D Sharon Pruitt 

Don’t open your car door.  Okay now you can open it.  Okay hurry up and close it!  Also from the 1980s in Oregon, Traffic Law 811.490 says that a door on a car may not be left open longer than is necessary.  The law also specifies under what circumstances you can open a vehicle door.  Note:  if there are pedestrians on the sidewalk, the passenger side doors may NOT be opened.  Improper opening or leaving open a vehicle door is a Class D violation. Alrighty then.

No dice! (At least not fuzzy ones dangling from your rear view mirror.) Illinois (And possibly other states) Law 625 ILCS 5/12-503(c).2 prohibits a driver from operating a vehicle with any objects placed or suspended between the driver and the front windshield which materially obstructs the driver's view.  No pine scent, fuzzy dice, tiny disco balls, or Hawaiian leis for you good folks.

No humans roaming around off leash.  In Belvedere, CA (just north of San Francisco) there is a City Council order that states: “No dog shall be in a public place without its master on a leash.” Hehe

Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Common

No Silly String.  Southington, Connecticut banned Silly String in 1996.  Violators will be fined 99 serious dollars.

Sorry, idiots can’t vote.  My personal favorite, from New Mexico Article VII Elective Franchise clearly states that idiots may not vote.  “Every citizen of the United States, who is over the age of twenty-one years, and has resided in New Mexico twelve months, … except idiots, insane persons and persons convicted of a felonious or crime shall be qualified to vote at all elections for public officers.”  Can we just make that federal law?  Pretty please?

As Walter Sobchak said in The Big Lebowski, “There are rules.”  So while you’re safely enjoying some fireworks this Independence Day, appreciate those smaller freedoms you have as an American, because hey, your dog could be walking you!

Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Visit http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/oregon to see oh so much more! 
 Please note that some of these laws may have been replealed. 
 I do not encourage you to find out which ones, or maybe I do.

Are We Alone?

People like to talk definitively.  Wikipedia has empowered us.  We earthlings can speak on practically any subject and even spew valid facts after just a spot of research.  Library?  Pshaw!  Where am I going with this you ask?  If you read the title, you may have guessed that I’m going to tell you that aliens exist.   Your guess would be semi-accurate.  I’m going to tell you that aliens could exist, and we couldn’t know for certain if they didn’t. 

Image courtesy of Victor Habbick at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When we look up into the night sky, we are only seeing 0.000003% of our own galaxy.  Our galaxy (the Milky Way for those of you just joining us) is one of an estimated 500 billion galaxies in the universe.  Add to that the human eye sees less than 1% of the visible spectrum of light.  Visible light is only 2.3% of the whole electromagnetic spectrum, or 0.0035% on a linear scale.  That’s fancy science talk for ‘humans can’t see very much of what can be seen’.  See?

The technologies we’ve discovered and developed to help us see what's invisible to the naked eye are relatively new in the grand scheme of it all.  The median age of terrestrial planets in our galaxy is about one billion years older than the age of the Earth.  Earthlings are infantile compared to what’s out there.  How could we recognize aliens if we don’t understand their technology?  You don't expect me to get the jokes in a foreign film without subtitles do you?

Image courtesy of Comfreak at Pixabay.com

Thirdly, how do we know aliens want to be seen?  Perhaps Kathleen Madigan was accurate when she joked about Earth being 'the Alabama of the universe'.  Maybe they don’t want to be contacted by us. I mean, look at us!  If aliens are more advanced, wouldn’t it be pretty easy for them to ‘hide’ from us?  We on earth hide all the time.  We have camouflage, stealth technology, cloaking devices, whatever Predator does in those movies...

Finally, Dr. Frank Drake, the founder of SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence), says that digital technology is ‘hiding’ us from aliens.  We were once surrounded by a huge shell of radiation from analog TV, radio, and radar transmissions.  These signals are vanishing in the wake of digital technology.  We are turning ourselves into white noise in space.  If we ever did knock on an alien’s door, we are now hiding behind the bushes in their front yard.  We are silly stupid juveniles who don't even know what 90% of the universe is made up of. We just named it 'Dark Matter' and moved on.  So, are we alone?  I'm asking...

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2007-08/1188407794.Ph.r.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2523058/Camouflage-suits-make-wearers-impossible-see.html

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/02/invisible-extraterrestrials-one-of-worlds-leading-physicist-says-they-could-exist-in-forms-we-cant-c.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/7077464/Earth-becoming-invisible-to-aliens.html