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Part of the last several weeks, I volunteered to help my brother move out to Arizona where he starts his new job. Driving a U-Haul across the country (1400 miles) is not a big deal, but it does take 3 … Continue reading
Deep Thought by Koth Handy:
Twitter is a bunch of people on the web answering one simple question: What are you doing? How long before one gets bored of reading “I am typing letters into Twitter.”? If I “twitter” to people, would that make me the “twit”? ❓
Last night, after a long day packing, I took a different route home. Instead of the freeway, I took a more leisure rural route. It was a nice night at 67F with a slight breeze so I had all the windows rolled down. I love to drive and exploring a rural route at night on a windy, unfamiliar road was a thrill I haven’t experienced in quite a while. Along the way, at a junction a few miles out from my home yet, I stopped and wandered in a nearby field. Cool night air with a hint of moonlight sifting through the cloud layer above lent a light just bright enough see, but still holding on to that mystery complete darkness. The night was alive with the crickets and toads and their various songs and as I gazed out over the vast field, a mysterious spark of white light would appear and then fade as my gaze would shift over to focus on it. Intrigued, I watched as several such little sparks appear and disappear. The Bell Witch is rumored to play such tricks upon travellers and she supposedly haunts the area I am in*. My imagination immediately gets to work as my curiosity leads me to close in on a nearby light by a tree. After several minutes of observation, I realize these tiny little blue-white sparks are merely fireflies, though they aren’t giving off the golden drop of sunshine kind of light I am used to. Could it be a trick of the moonlight or is this a variation on the normal firefly, I wonder. Growing up in California, fireflies are magical creatures to me as they don’t exist where I grew up, so everything about them is a new wonder to me.
I stay in the field for a while longer enjoying the scene and taking in the night song of the wildlife. It’s soothing, apart from the few interruptions of passing motorists with their headlights on bright and their music turned up quite loud. Having grown up in a city, nights like this were few and far between and hardly ever without someone pestering me to get going somewhere. Letting your mind wander in such situations can be quite fun. I can easily see these blue-white lights being mistaken for Will-o-wisp luring people deeper into the night taking them on some adventure. The barks of a farmer’s dog being that of something far more savage prowling the night. Coyotes and deer do actually wander around this area and I have no doubt some of the rustling in the bushes I’d heard that night might have been one of them.
After some time, I head back to the car and make my way home. I feel more relaxed and less stressed. I breathe in deeply of the night air glad to have taken the long way home this night. Since I’m still recovering from my illness, once I do get home, I crash in bed as soon as possible, but it is a one that is less exhaustion and more of a natural sleep cycle (handy since mine’s been disrupted for many days).
*The Bell Witch of Adams county, Tennessee is by far, the strangest “ghost” story I’ve ever read about. It follows none of the usual conventions of a typical ghost story and is one of the very few that have made it into historical record. It is currently the only known case of a death certificate in the U.S. being issued as caused by a spirit. A short summary can be found here, but if you’re really interested, getting a book from the library on it would be the best way to go as the story and events of the town surrounding it during the haunting are quite interesting.
Now that spring is upon us and more and more days see sunshine and warmer weather, the BBQ’s are being readied for some grillin’. There’s a really simple way to add a little flavor to whatever you are cooking on a covered BBQ. Just follow these steps for putting a bit of kick in your grill.
This technique works best if you close the lid to the BBQ during the grilling process as an open grill won’t be able to capture the steam to add any flavoring. In addition to giving your grilled dish some added flavor, you will also add some moisture to the process so that it won’t dry out as much. Try experimenting with different alcohols, each one adds a slightly different flavor.
As we grow up and learn new words, sometimes the words we hear are not spelled quite like we imagine them. I’ve always been an avid reader of fantasy and sci-fi as our family bookshelf at home was stuffed with my mother’s large collection of the stuff. I was reading Tolkein in grade school and Ray Bradbury in middle school. Along with the territory came a lot of large words that sometimes required me to pull out the 50 lb, foot thick Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary that we had. I hated to pull that out often, so many times when I ran across a big word I didn’t quite understand, I took the context of the word and made a “best guess” and continued on. While most times I found this method worked quite well and allowed me to expand my vocabulary immensely, it backfired a few times.
My favorite example of an English word that sounds nothing like it’s printed (because it’s French): rendezvous. When I first encountered this word in print, I couldn’t pronounce it and wasn’t in a position to look it up (remember kids, this was before cell phones, internet and even personal computers). I pronounced it as “rez-a-ven-dus” for that was as close as I could get. In looking at the context of how it was used, I guessed the word meant “ron-day-voo”. A word I knew from TV and movies, but not one I ever encountered before in print. For many years, I read that word as “rez-a-ven-dus” and used the meaning for “ron-day-voo” until in high school when I finally had that word on a vocabulary test. I was surprised to say the least. 🙂 To this day, I still read that word as “rez-a-ven-dus” if I am trying to read quickly since that is how I learned it.
Another one that gets me tongue-tied every time is Worchestershire sauce. I look at that word and my natural inclination is to say “wor-ches-ter-shire”. No one understands me if I pronounce it that way though since everyone knows it as “wur-ster-sher”. I can’t bring myself to say that though. Closest I get is “wur-chester” and just leave off the last bit.
On another note, my oldest niece made me laugh because she couldn’t say C3P-O’s name correctly last year (the gold humanoid robot in Star Wars for those ignorant of the movies). At one point, she was teasing her younger sister about spelling words she got wrong and I put her in her place by asking her to spell “c” “3” “p” “o”. She came back with “c” “p” “3” “o” and she got all red in the face trying not to laugh (she’s a good sport most times). It stopped her teasing while the rest of us had a good laugh to boot.
A tale from the “strange, but true” section of my career, which at this moment is a cross between small, independent computer consulting and searching for a decent company to provide a more steady income.
On my way to the office for my final interview on Wednesday, I received a call wondering if I can move the meeting up a half an hour. Apparently, the big wigs in the company called a last minute, all partner meeting and my interviewers wanted to make sure there was enough time to go ahead with mine while still being able to attend the recently called meeting. I had left home early to make sure I got there in time, so this schedule change was no problem for me to accommodate.
The final interview goes well. The company seems fairly well run and everyone I had met were both professional and friendly. All that was left to be done was to go over the fine points of the contract to make sure everything was clear and equitable.
The next day, the headhunter agent that arranged for everything called me up to let me know that the position I was applying for had been eliminated due to budgetary constraints. This was a direct result of the big meeting that occurred right after my final interview the day before. So instead of going into the office to sign on the dotted line, I had been furloughed. The company asked for my permission to keep my contact details so they can call me up and see if I’m still interested and available when the position opens back up — but that could be another quarter or two.
Some of you might have noticed that last week I spent nearly all of my time in Classic WoW, keeping mostly to myself in chat as well. I wanted to do something mind numbingly boring to keep my mind off of worrying for my missing cat, Raja. I found myself constantly looking out the back door hoping to see him wanting inside. It was also a good choice since my latency is between 200 and 500 constantly, making serious combat a bit difficult. When doing ultra lowbie quests, though, it wasn’t something for which I needed to pay much attention.
Yesterday, I learned of Raja’s fate and now understand that he will not be returning to me. He was struck and killed by a vehicle on a nearby road. No longer will I feel him play-attacking my hands and feet. No more napping on my shoulder as I play WoW or nuzzling my neck. Only memories of him playing with his toys remain, especially his favorite of chasing the laser dot. I only had Raja for a year, but in that year I made sure I always gave him the attention he wanted and never let a chance to spend time with him go by. He was my fuzzy buddy and spent his time with me whatever I was doing. He was always close at hand when working out in the yard, in the house, or on the computer – sometimes trying to “help out” by batting my tools or pouncing on my hands. He attended company whenever I had any and enjoyed my young nieces playing with him. I used to break off bits of my cheese when making a sandwich for lunch so that he could eat it. I loved Raja and will miss him dearly. RIP my fuzzy buddy.
Raja can sleep in the oddest places
Raja sleeping in my favorite chair
Sgt. Dick Beaver, a member of the same Army company as my brother. He’s quite a character!
Gottfried Gottfried XVI, also a member of my brother’s company. Not only is it unusual, but there were 15 generations before him back unto the American Civil War. He did not name his son Gottfried, thus breaking the line and causing him to be disowned by his family for it.
Latawata Rd. (sound it out loud) is the first offramp after a very long bridge over a lake along I-40 near Checota, OK.
One of the long, main, back roads through town is named Needmore Rd. At about the halfway point, there is a very short connecting road named Needless Rd.
A small neighborhood being constructed nearby named Camelot Hills and it’s only street is named Arthurs Ct.
A year and a week goes by and now my new heating unit went boom and has stopped working. The freezing rainstorm going on has made travel near impossible, knocking over trees and powerlines due to the added ice and now my heater decides to die now that a week as passed since it’s warranty is up. Time to light the fireplace for the next few days. I best bring in some of the wet, ice encrusted firewood from outside so it has a chance to thaw and dry before my small stack in the garage runs out.
At least the sight outside has it’s own beauty to witness, even though one of my pine trees broke a main branch under the weight of the ice.
Ice coats my backyard.
I’m lying in bed this morning slowly realizing my dreams have faded and the day has begun. The fact that the house is still silent means my radio alarm has not gone off yet and I do not stir to get up – no need to rush out of bed. My mind drifts over the fading dreams and I start mentaly singing one of the pop songs my neices love to listen to – not necessarily a great song, but it’s played so often it gets stuck in your head. What is strange is that when my radio alarm turned on while I was stretching off my sleepiness, that very song was being played and it was exactly on the spot where my mind was replaying the song as if I was just listening to it before it switched on.
*sigh* Time to go upstairs and paint. Weee.