First Blog

Always have hope! Hope is like a tiny battery deep inside you that must not fail. If it fails, you fail. Did you wake up this morning?   Have a little breakfast? Have a home to live in? Have a few dollars? Have some family?   Be thankful.   It could be a lot worse. Many a reporter is concerned more about constructing a complete sentence than about what’s in it. Politicians are concerned about neither. Is it true those with the greatest capacity for hate also have the greatest capacity for love?   Hmm.

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” -Henry David Thoreau Happy Thanksgiving to all.   This is the day of the year where we often eat too much and watch too much football. It is also a day to give thanks.   So, before the turkey is served, and before the games begin, I count the many blessings in my life.   First, comes my family.   With me or without, my family is a wonderful group of folks.   All are good people doing good things, working to be better, sacrificing for others, and helping their friends. It is my honor to be among you.    I am always grateful for my parents, both good people who helped me no end in those early years, pointing me in the directions of good works, morality, honesty, and strength of character. The second is my life, as in I still have one. Because my dad died so young, I thought the same would be my fate.   But now decades later I’m still here, and with a detour or two have my health – which I do appreciat

It is the holiday season, and you wish to celebrate properly.  For your family, you want nothing but the best. For example, you think a bottle or two of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1937, a so-so, medium  Bordeaux, would be suitable for the occasion.  Yet, at $2500 a bottle, you want to be sure you’re buying the real thing.  This is a serious testing problem.  After all you can’t open the bottle to peek inside. Nope, the bottle is sealed.  Then what? Ask an expert?  Until recently, that was all you could do. But now, with many thanks to atomic physics, you can test what level of radioactivity from Cesium-137 is present.  This isotope of Cesium is manmade, not occurring in nature.  The first quantities were produced in 1952, and is now present in most wines produced after that time, owing to nuclear disasters such as the 2011  Fukushima nuclear  power plant accident.   So, if your Chateau Lafite ‘37 tests positive Cesium 137, you know it’s fake.  I, for one, will never be so f

The latest telephone scam.  I’m not sure what their profit was to be, or how they would use information, but here is what happened to me.   A call came in on my cell phone.   The caller told me that someone (and gave a name) was trying to set up a separate account on my cell phone charges.   What I needed to do was give her the security code from T-Mobile to prevent this. Presto, the code was sent by text to my phone.   Do I give the code number to this voice? Note, keep in mind the voice was muffled, and I had trouble hearing everything she said.   So, I said I would not send any info.   I asked for her name. It was Marie Homhs. When I asked for her phone number, the line went dead.   End of call. Conclusion? A scam - for sure.  Probably, I would be authorizing a new account, and this scammer would be making possible thousands of calls on my account.  It pays to be circumspect about giving information. To anyone. For anything. Online or by phone. ----------------

Forgive or  Forget? All of us are hurt, injured, or harmed by others in some way.   The teachings of some religions are to forgive your transgressor and move on.   If you can do this you’re lucky.   Many cannot, no matter how much hard they try.   The best alternative is to forget .   This is not easy if you are the type who dwells on the injury.   The best method is to forget by subjugation.   This means don’t dwell, but rather keep engaged in living, continually filling your mind with new “stuff.”   By and by, the injury slides to the back-burner, and then, hopefully, off the stove.   Forgive?   Forget? Two pathways toward peace of mind.   The third pathway of vengeance or pay-back is another, though usually not the wisest choice.   Trick question: Can you forgive but never forget?   Well, yes and no.   We better get the psychologist, clergyman, or counselor in on this one. Our court systems offer all three.   Payback to the criminal is prison or a fine.   Th

When I was young, all there was just plain old intelligence , then measured by the IQ test.   The test has survived, flawed as it is, and continues to affect lives.   Its very existence proved to be a challenge to the many other forms of intelligence. These days we have emotional intelligence, and lately, artificial intelligence.   All are significantly different. More forms have been identified including… Emotional (empathetic +) Naturalist (nature smart) Musical (sound smart) Logical-mathematical (number/reasoning smart) Existential (life smart) Interpersonal (people smart) Bodily-kinesthetic (body smart) Linguistic (word smart) Newer forms of intelligence include... Artifical (algorithmic and programming) Information (mining and correlating) Entertainment (artificial living smarts) Medical (diagnosis smart)   Older but still valid forms include... Teaching (showing how smart) Mechanical (engine smart) Hunting and tracking (outdoors smart) Pl

We live in an era of poker game politics where the only bet allowed is “all-in.” Hedge? And you’re dead. Compromised? You are ostracized. Monopoly? Every day’s homily. Control? The only goal. Trash? You get more cash. A gamble of the first order is “all-in.” You bet. You bluff. You hope. All on the play of cards.

P-sports and E-sports?   There is little difference aside from broken bodies.   From the October 29, 2019 New York Times*, we see the headline, “But Mom, Video Games Are My Job.” Thus we have the current valuation of many millennials and those younger about their future prospects.   To make money by playing games.   Any why not?   Prize money for E-sports contests are in the millions.   Multiple millions of the younger set play these games, generating revenues for producers, often exceeding intake by movie theaters and professional sports. These days fully 170 colleges offer e-sports competition.   It is a mere blink of the sports-clock before full scholarships for e-sports combatants are offered.   Oops, that blink has blinked, and now multiple colleges are offering scholarships to play such games including Overwatch and   League of Legends .   This new cadre of e-sports semi-pros is paying real dollars to watch others play the game, naturally hoping to cash in themselves

 Do you own Alexa or one of those home-assistants?  If no, don't buy one.  If yes, read on.  Did you know cheap laser pointers can access your home assistants, e.g. Alexa.   It can turn on and off your lights, open your garage, turn on your car.   Whatever Alexa can do. It can be done from hundreds of feet outside your home.   Apparently, the laser light, modulated from within a computer, can be used to mimic sound. A solution is available:   A. Get rid of these devices. B. Keep them covered such as with a tea cozy. C. Certainly keep them out of window view.

You want to learn?  You want to achieve?  You want to know?  Go to school, say the educators. Sometimes schools feed information and learning; sometimes schools teach how to learn. The how is what you need, and these are most important ways to learn.         First, we learn from reading books or being taught in the classroom. We learn by solving given problems. Practice and repetition, this is the role and scope of all school teaching. Occasionally, inspiration occurs.           Second we learn from examples and experience. Seeing many examples, some working and some not, and knowing why helps. These build our knowledge and intuition of reality.  Knowledge is a pathway to solving problems, while intuition provides a pathway to innovation.  More simply, we learn by doing.  Attending the school of hard knocks is an expression of this.         Third, we learn from mistakes*.  Make no mistake about it; this is a key way we learn.  How many times have you and I learned this or that of

Did you know that cere wax is the main ingredient in deodorants but is also used to give clothing that “wet look.”   Example: raincoats. Did you know that our word “candy” comes from the Arabic word “quandi,” meaning sugar cane? Of course, you do know the words “algebra” and “algorithm” also came from the Arabic. Even the word “coffee” comes from the Arabic “ qahwah .” Did you know it is still unknown whether sugar is addictive to humans? Read the book “1493” by Charles Mann for more information on this. Did you know that 70% of all olive oil is counterfeit?   That is, much of the   olive oil you buy is a blend with other vegetable oils, with flavoring added.   This is much cheaper to produce. It is virtually impossible to detect blends, even by experts; a chemical lab is needed.