Andrew's View of the Week

Random Writing

Posted on 05/08/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

I’ve thought about what I’ll write today, but then it started snowing and my brain sort of froze.

Yes, it’s currently snowing in the desert. Here we say that the month of May is so named because it may snow, it may rain, it may be hot, it may be windy … So far we’ve had everything on that list except the heat. Don’t worry, next Sunday it’s predicted to be sunny and 85 degrees.

Personally I’m blaming Heather for the change in weather – just this week I caught her pulling out her summer clothes. I try to keep the weather calm by never washing my car, so far that’s not been working.

Whenever there is wind here in the “Greater Reno-Carson City-Miden Area” the locals often remind each other what Mark Twain once wrote on the subject:

“It was two o’clock, now, and according to custom the daily “Washoe Zephyr” set in… a Washoe wind is by no means a trifling matter. It blows flimsy houses down, lifts shingle roofs occasionally, rolls up tin ones like sheet music, now and then blows a stage-coach over and spills the passengers; and tradition says the reason there are so many bald people there is, that the wind blows the hair off their heads while they are looking skyward after their hats.”

Personally I think Mr. Twain understated the case. I’ve often wondered how much unsecured lawn furniture gets blown over the Virginia Mountain Range and ends up in Fallon.

It’s also Mother’s Day. Not the best weather for it. The local National Weather Service office did officially apologize to all mothers on their Facebook page and promised to have better weather next year. It wasn’t too long after that post that the California Highway Patrol announced on their FB page that there are now chain controls over I-80 and the first weather related accident should happen before sunset.

On the Mother’s Day front, I managed to have my card presented to Heather before breakfast and I’ve ranked the kids based on the order in which they called their Mother today (just because they’re all over 40 is no reason to not call them “kids”). Turns out the one on vacation in Florida was the first. I was going to discount this slightly because of the three hour time difference, but because the next child to call was six hours later, our current number one child is the FL vacationer.

I did read a Mother’s Day poetry book today. Just last month Robert Okaji over at robertokaji.com announced his chapbook was on sale, so I bought a copy. The title is My Mother’s Ghost Scrubs the Floor at 2 a.m. I waited till Mother’s Day to read it. It’s good, go buy a copy.

Yesterday when it was just windy and not snowing, Heather and I went to a book launch event for Michael P. Branch and his new book, On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World’s Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer. We bought a copy and got it signed. It’s nice to be able to attend events like this again. This is a book you’ll want to buy. It’s a great combination of humor and serious and helps support one of our Nevada writers.

Before it started snowing I was thinking of rewriting one of my past posts, “How to Get Me to Read and Like Your Blog” Okay, I wrote that one in 2015, but after seven years, I think it could do with an update. I just reread that post and yup, it could use an update. I think I’d revise it to make one major point: If I can’t figure out what you are saying within 15 seconds, I’m out. I generally rank blogs I’m thinking of following on this scale:

Wow, love it! Follow, like and comment.
Maybe, I’ll follow for awhile.
Good but I don’t follow women’s fashion blogs.
No, I’m not buying whatever you’re selling.
OMG, I hope no one ever finds out that I clicked on that link.

Now that I’m older, it does take a lot more to get my attention. I mean, I’m starting to see the calendar pages fly by faster and faster so you’ve got to do something to really get me to click a link. Except for poetry, woodworking and kitty pictures blogs – I just click on those without thinking.

It has stopped snowing for the moment and my brain isn’t feeling as frozen. Sadly, it’s also time to go make our Sunday pizza so I have to stop writing now. Hopefully next week I’ll still remember what I was going to write about this week.

Posted in General | Tagged Book recommendation, humor, mother's day, Poetry, stream of consciousness | 26 Comments

Friday Wisdom – Committee

Posted on 05/06/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here, but I am the Webmaster for the American Marquetry Society. Last night was our regular quarterly board meeting and I got assigned to the contest committee so naturally, here’s what I know about committes:

All meetings have to natural time limits: your laptop’s battery charge and the size of your bladder.

What do you get when you cross a cat with a wild boar? They pull your grant and you get a call from the ethics committee.

A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

Every person assigned to the committee was named William or as we like to call them, the billboard.

You can learn a lot during a meeting. I learned you can bend a paperclip in to an “S” with just one bend.

Committee: A group who individual can do nothing but as a group can determine that nothing can be done.

How many committee members does it take to change a lightbulb? This is a topic continued from last month, but because there are still outstanding action items will be continued next month.

We can to disband the horse committee – too many naysayers …

We tried have a horse on the committee, but he just kept voting “Neigh.”

There’s a new political action committee to project the rights of wine drinkers. They call themselves The Bacchus Caucus.

The Senate Intelligence Committee – I hate when I put the punch line in the title …

Posted in General, wisdom | Tagged committee jokes, humor, wisdom | 12 Comments

Wednesday Work – Irrigation, Drawers, and Cats

Posted on 05/04/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

The weather here is finally good enough to allow me to start on this year’s garden infrastructure projects. First up is irrigation. Living in the desert means irrigation systems are required for gardening. Water doesn’t fall from the sky here. This year I’m adding new watering zones to better manage water usage:

I made progress on my pull out shelves:

And now, a few kitty pictures:

Well that’s it for this time. I’ve got a big project about to start, so there will be more soon.

Posted in General | Tagged cat pictures, garden project, irrigation, woodworking | 16 Comments

I’ve Been Thinking

Posted on 05/01/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

It’s dangerous, but I’ve been thinking about stuff lately. I mean about important stuff and not just trivial things. You know world changing things like should I get a hair cut or finally let it grow long enough to tie in a pony tail. If I did that, what kind of tie-dyed tee-shirts would I wear? Should I get ones with big yellow swirls or maybe some red and blue blotchy ones.

I guess I’d have to make my own if I wanted to do it right. I’m just not sure what to do with the left over dye – is it okay to just let it go down the drain and let the water treatment plant deal with it? I could dig a hole in the backyard and pour it in there, but that might kill my plants. What would happen if I poured the old dye near the tomatoes and then I eat one of those tomatoes – would it be deadly or just make me sick?

There’s a lot to think about, when you think about it. Like, how much of myself should I reveal on this blog and how do I not start every sentence with “I.” It’s a personal essay blog so it’s easy to say, “I” and “Me” a lot. Well, given that I write in first person that is. Maybe I could write this personal stuff in third person – that would stop me from using “I”. Well, no, that might be too weird.

Weird is one reason why I don’t talk about certain personal things on this blog. I know many of you have this idea that I spend all day writing, quilting, working in the yard and building stuff in my workshop like some modern hyper-enlightened renaissance man. I just wonder if you’d be shocked to learn that I put almond milk on my cereal, eat popcorn when watching TV and that I don’t eat ice cream. I used to eat ice cream, but then I stopped and politely refuse any ice cream people want to serve me. This includes whipped cream, I don’t eat whipped cream. Do you eat or drink or slurp whipped cream?

This isn’t to say that I don’t like ice cream or whipped cream – well that’s not true, I don’t like either anymore. Ice cream upsets my tummy and whipped cream is just weird. I don’t make a big deal out of it or demand that ice cream factories be shutdown. I know that I should be involved in the mission of all hyper-enlightened renaissance men to seek justice, awareness and accommodation for ice cream-free people everywhere. I know I’ve been falling down there as I’ve not even filled a lawsuit against Starbucks for that time when they put whipped cream on my hot chocolate after I said, “No whipped cream.”

I know, you’re all now disappointed in me and will likely stop following this blog.

Now, in the name of full disclosure, I should mention that I cut my finger in the workshop last week. Yeah, a perfect woodworker, following all the safety rules shouldn’t cut a finger, but I did. I’ve compounded the failure by not posting a long video about it on YouTube or calling my lawyer to get the product liability lawsuit going or at least post on Nextdoor about the dangers of using power tools. I did think about posting a picture of the wound here on this blog, but sadly my camera just doesn’t have the magnification to show anything that small.

I was going to write a serious post about important stuff I was thinking of, but that got sidetracked when I found that my barber doesn’t have an appointment opening this week and I’d have to go at least another week without a haircut.

So, I promise, after my haircut, I’ll be back to share with you how we’ll save the world and create universal love and a peace on earth that will last until we colonize Mars.