We’ve all been there. You enter a room with two people (family/friends) talking and you were too late in the conversation so you don’t know who/what they’re talking about. You ask but they keep talking. After you ask a couple times, one finally tells you.
Sure, you get a response, but you have to nag “Wait! What are we talking about!?” several times and it feels like a lot of work for so little payoff.
Well, it’s much easier to get an answer when you … Continue reading ‘Getting Answers’
This morning we experienced Black Friday for the fourth time. It became a family tradition quite by chance in 2004, when we happened to go in to OfficeMax on Black Friday for some paper clips and ended up bringing back a ton of stuff. Most of it free or nearly free after rebates. We also got a deeply-discounted LCD monitor—our first. Hot dog! The next two years brought a few more LCD monitors, hard drives, memory, a digital camera and MP3 player for Mama, and who knows what else (I don’t). Back then, I enjoyed the novelty of waking up at 5am and buying all those low-priced ‘toys’. This year, however, I wasn’t feeling the spirit.
After our Thanksgiving dinner we all gathered ’round and checked out the Black Friday ads. I hung around for a while, for tradition’s sake, but soon left after seeing no “outrageous deals” on anything I/we were interested in. Kyle and Papa, on the other hand, were all over it. They … Continue reading ‘Black Friday 2007: An Abbott Tradition’
Words smell? Well not exactly. But, there is a clear similarity between odors and words. Simply put, words are to humans as odors are to dogs. And the same applies to beliefs. In the biological sense of things belief take place in our most developed organ – the brain. The olfactory sense of reality in dogs is the same, functionally speaking. Beliefs, rites, and rituals in our species serves as ‘odors’ in the larger social sense just as actual odors do in many (most or all?) social animals, e.g., rats, dogs, ants, etc. Need I say more? I think not. I’d just ‘stink’ up the place.
(Yes, this is a long post, but there’s a lot of pictures so it’s a fun one.)
I’ve never fancied myself an artist when it comes to the visual medium. I can do a great stick figure guy, and a mean rectangle, but that’s about it. I figured I could learn, but I’d be starting late and I’m unmotivated, so what’s the point? I mean, look at these ducks I tried to draw for a bluegrass event poster:… Continue reading ‘I Can Draw! (Luke’s New “System”, Part 2)’
Ever hate it when you go to great lengths only to realize that you are either missing or don’t have enough of something you needed to do what you originally set out to do?
Well, today that happened to me. I went all the way to … Continue reading ‘Just a Little Too Short’
Years ago, Luke and I fished a lot on the wharf. However, that kinda petered out. Not just ’cause the wharf was over-fished, but I knew that I could never top the whopper I caught in 2003!
The younger minds tend to perceive difference more readily. Like looking out at life’s experiences through separate windows. I expect this is just a symptom of neurological processes. An older mind’s ability to perceive similarities rests in that biology as well. As we age the mind’s billions of synapses continue to connect in more numerous and subtler ways. Wisdom is, after all, the ability to see ‘outside the box’ of instinctive reactions and impulses. Eventually, every older mind should see the thread running through the way.
You’ve heard ‘em all say, “Never give up!” (though the next line, “unless you are looking down the barrel of their gun,” is usually omitted.) Well, we took that to the extreme today.
As you may not know, we aren’t huge Reality TV watchers, but if there is one reality show we do watch, it’s the original reality show, Survivor. We’ve only missed 2½ episodes since it began. Anyway, after the latest season ended, we heard that Mark Burnett (the producer of Survivor) was making a show that you probably haven’t heard about: Pirate Master. We decided to give the program a shot, only to find that it was a cannon with a short fuse. However, we had already seen a few episodes of it so we couldn’t stop.… Continue reading ‘Never give up’
Last week I found myself embarking on a journey of self-improvement. I was inspired in part by the dozens of blog entries I had read in past months about other people’s experiences, especially with implementing a system called Getting Things Done. Now, my first reaction to all this was, “Big deal, another fad for getting your life together.” I have had a few experiences with such fads; I’ve kept the odd time log and tried the to-do list habit here and there. Then I came across this set of photos: GTD with Index Cards. Index cards. Our little 3 by 5 friends. Every distinct item on a separate card. Non-linear. Wireless. Free-form. Edgy in a retro way. Could analog be the answer?
I was determined to find out. First, though, … Continue reading ‘Luke’s New “System”, Part 1: The Desk’