Untitled

Posted on 03/13/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

I thought I’d write a blog post this week. Then I thought, “Daylight Savings is killing my creative sprit so I think I’ll skip it.”  Then I thought, what the heck, maybe I just rewrite an old post and publish it as if it’s something new.  I’ve been posting here since 2011 which is … just a second … yup, 11 years.  Of course, if you’re reading this in 2023, then it will be 12 years … I guess you’d add a year for every year after 2022 – unless I didn’t post anything in that year …

No, I can’t figure it out.  Math.  That’s the reason I switched from a degree in engineering to one in English.  Now give me some credit, I did manage to pass calculus 1, after the third attempt, with a “C” while I was getting mostly “A”s in my English classes.  Well, except that one English class where the professor insisted on correct spelling and grammar – seriously, in an English class.  Go figure.

It’s true, simple math I get, but I’m just one quadratic equation away from total brain failure. Now, fractions I’m a wiz at and that skill is likely due to my years of woodworking where everything is in quarters, eighths or sixteenths of an inch.  Okay, you could avoid the whole fraction thing by switching to measuring in metric where fractions have been outlawed, but exactly how long is 30cm and how much does a teaspoon weight in grams? Now don’t start with that, “teaspoon is volume while grams is mass” thing and I don’t want to hear your lecture about the difference between weight and mass.

I did take a physic class once that I really liked where everything was measured in metric and I learned that acceleration due to gravity is 9.81 meters per second (in real measurements that is 32.174 feet per second), which means that a fall of just one second can really, really hurt.

My physics teacher suggested I might do better in the English department or perhaps theater.

Still, I’ve found my math education has helped me to better understand some things.  It hasn’t helped me understand daylight savings time.  The biggest question is, why?  And more importantly, why do it when almost no one likes it?  Shouldn’t we all get to vote on this?

I’ll stop there before I enter into an unwise political rant.

Which is something I’ve stayed away from in this blog.  It’s not that I don’t have political ideals or vote in certain ways that match my personal value system, but it’s something that I decided early on in writing this blog that I’d keep in a different area of my life.  Now don’t think that I have a clear plan on what I post here.  Nothing like that, but I do have a few things I don’t write about here – politics, nuclear physics, calculus, advanced theology, sex …

I have written 1099 blogs posts and I’ve managed to avoid discussing sex, politics, and even sex in politics.  Even though the later likely happens far less than is reported in the news.  Come on, have you seen pictures of politicians?  One of those images will keep your mind off bedroom activities for at least a month.

Getting back to numbers, I found out today that I now have over 4,000 followers.  At the time I checked, there were 2 more than 4,000, but still, that’s over 4,000 (learned that in math class).  Of course you bloggers out there know that the total number of followers is somewhat meaningless as a lot of those, “followers” don’t ever actually read your posts.  The better measure of your blogging success is if you enjoy the writing process.

Which I have to say is why I really keep posting here.  I like writing stuff, except for the above mentioned topics.  What’s really cool is that most times 40 or 50 people go out of their way to press the like button on a post and between 10 and 20 will actually write a comment, which is the most valuable blogging gift I can think of.  Thank you so much to all of you who stop by with a nice comment about what I post here.

Now, not everybody is completely positive about what I post and I’ll apologize for this right now.  The thing I get the most complaints about (two so far) — yes, I have not been posting enough pictures of my cats lately.  Sure, I showed you their new outhouse, but the actual cute furry critters have not been photographed much lately.  I promise to work on that.

So while I’m too depressed about daylight savings time to do a post, I thought I’d at least check in and let you know that I haven’t forgotten about you.

And that I have been thinking about my list of topics I won’t write about.  I’ve been thinking lately that I should start expanding my range and maybe being a bit edgier, a bit more risqué, and perhaps a bit more adventurous in my writings.

Yes, you know exactly what that means.  Next week I’ll be writing about thorium nuclear reactors.

About Andrew Reynolds

Born in California Did the school thing studying electronics, computers, release engineering and literary criticism. I worked in the high tech world doing software release engineering and am now retired. Then I got prostate cancer. Now I am a blogger and work in my wood shop doing scroll saw work and marquetry.
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32 Responses to Untitled

  1. Pingback: Lollygaggin or just Dilly-dallying – my life | rfljenksy – Practicing Simplicity

  2. Sheila Landry Designs says:
    03/16/2022 at 2:04 pm

    I find it interesting that people feel they get “less sun” or “more sun” in relation to Daylight Savings Time. We get the same amount of sun no matter what we call it hour-wise. It is just here at a different “time” because we renamed the hours. Me – I roll with the changes. The cats don’t like it either way. they don’t read clocks and for a while in the autumn, we are “late” with their food in their beautiful eyes. I guess in our world these days, I have been thinking of other things to worry about.. 😉

    Like you, I am not close friends with complicated math equations. I do “ok” but nothing high-level. I do like it better here in Canada where I use centimeters more often. But they are still confused here because you got to the store and buy meat and sometimes it is labeled kilograms and other times pounds. They haven’t made up their mind yet, I fear. (I have been here 16 years now and it is still the same)

    Keep blogging, Andrew. and yes – more cat pictures are always good for filling in. I always enjoy your posts. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • Andrew Reynolds says:
      03/17/2022 at 9:42 am

      The time change never made much sense. The big thing that bothers me is having to change all the clocks in the house and not understanding the benefit to doing it.

      Cat picture will happen.

      Like

  3. Itching for Hitching says:
    03/14/2022 at 3:08 pm

    Yippee, nuclear reactors!

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Diane Henders says:
    03/14/2022 at 1:19 pm

    The switch to and from Daylight Savings always drags me down, too; but at least you got a blog post out of it. And four thousand followers is impressive! I wonder what kind of creative math I’d have to do in order to get that many… 😉

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Dave says:
    03/14/2022 at 12:26 pm

    “The better measure of your blogging success is if you enjoy the writing process”. Amen, brother! We’re kindred spirits. As for math, I think the Pythagorean theorem is the most practical calculation of all time, and they could’ve saved us years of classes by leaving out all the other stuff. Finally, I can deal with DST just fine but time zones always turn my brain around. When I travel I can’t seem to calculate the start time of a meeting in another zone. Always come up with later when it should be earlier and vice-versa. Missed a few meetings for that very reason.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Andrew Reynolds says:
      03/14/2022 at 1:13 pm

      Yes, time zones can fry your brain. I belong to one national group that meets on zoom and I’d hate to report the number of times I’ve been, late, early, not shown up …

      Like

  6. Mama's Empty Nest says:
    03/14/2022 at 9:51 am

    For a post about “nothing,” you covered a lot of ground here. And I agree with you on it all. I definitely stay away from certain subjects on my blog too, but believe me, opinions…oh yes, I have opinions on those topics! But math?? Math?? Gosh, aside from being able to do basic math which I can, it’s like a foreign language to me. And that is why I was an English major in college and only had to take one fundamental math course. Thank goodness!!!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Andrew Reynolds says:
      03/14/2022 at 11:17 am

      I made a bit of a mistake by going done the engineering path in the lower division because when I switched after two years, I found that I needed to take one general ed math class during my upper division. Most of my fellow English majors took business math, but I couldn’t take that because I’d already passed Trig and pre-calculus and they wouldn’t let you take a “lower” math course if you’d passed pre-calc. It felt weird walking into the math department telling them that I need Calc 1 to get an English degree …

      Like

      • Mama's Empty Nest says:
        03/15/2022 at 6:47 am

        Ack! I can’t even imagine that! I never would have made it through that. Even though I was placed in higher math in high school, I finally put my foot down when the guidance counselor told me to take Calculus. No way! I squeaked by with B’s and C’s in Geometry and Trig, but I hated them. Fortunately, I did not pass my aversion to mathematics to my children. They all excelled in math, particularly my son who had straight A’s even in college and became a mechanical engineer. Must have been a recessive gene! 😉

        Liked by 1 person

  7. Catsandcoffee says:
    03/14/2022 at 8:36 am

    Awesome Post! I don’t write about Politics either although rarely I state how I feel about it. As for Math? That’s why we have Calculators and Measuring Utensils.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Baydreamer says:
    03/14/2022 at 8:23 am

    Hi Andrew,
    Thanks for skipping politics, and can’t wait for thorium nuclear reactors. 🙂 Great post!

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Elita Sheen says:
    03/14/2022 at 8:06 am

    Aversion towards math class is one of the reasons why I’m blogging here.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Andrew Reynolds says:
      03/14/2022 at 8:19 am

      I did okay in the lower math classes, but at trig and calculus, it exceeded my ability to understand, so I started writing more. Turns out I’m a better writer than mathematician.

      Like

  10. Jacqui Murray says:
    03/14/2022 at 7:28 am

    Thorium nuclear reactors. That’s topical. I thank you for avoiding politics. There’s no way to discuss it anymore without heads blowing up. Your physics experience was my chemistry experience–moles defeated me.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. joynealkidney says:
    03/14/2022 at 3:48 am

    Thanks for entertaining us!

    Liked by 1 person

  12. jfwknifton says:
    03/14/2022 at 12:44 am

    Like you,we change our clocks twice a year, and absolutely nobody seems to like it!

    Liked by 2 people

  13. River Twin says:
    03/13/2022 at 10:24 pm

    Always one step away from Quadratic … can so relate to this 😅

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Ray V. says:
    03/13/2022 at 8:36 pm

    Good “ nothing”;post. I agree with your comment about followers…I have thousands, but maybe two dozen (is there a metric equivalent?) that interact. Thanks for being one of them

    Liked by 3 people

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