Friday Wisdom – Easter Bunny

Posted on 04/15/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

Well it’s that time of year for me to be dualistic. I’ll be attending Easter services at church and doing some meditating on the meaning of Jesus’ life, but I’ll also be eating a chocolate Easter Bunny and jelly beans so here’s the fun stuff:

The Easter Bunny is really smart – a true egghead.

What kind of rabbit can’t hop? A chocolate bunny.

I found the Easter egg hiding, turns out he was a little chicken.

What happens if you pout boiling water down a rabbit hole? You get a hot cross bunny.

You can send a letter to the Easter Bunny using hare mail.

Don’t tell jokes to an egg – it might crack up.

Did you know you could make Easter easier? Just put an ‘i’ where the ‘t’ is.

It’s not widely known, but the Easter Bunny travels in a hareplane.

The Easter Bunny’s favorite restaurant is: IHOP

Did you hear the Easter Bunny got caught in a rain storm? It’s okay now, he just used a hare-drier.

Did you read that the Easter Bunny has decided to become a doctor? Yup, he enrolled at Johns Hopkins medical school.

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The Sky Isn’t Falling

Posted on 04/10/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

Often I just think up titles for these blog posts and don’t really have much more than that.  Titles can be fun.  When I was a kid we used to have lists of funny book titles and authors that we’d repeat whenever we could.  Kind of like these:

Making Weatherproof Clothes by Rainer Day

Laser Weapons by Ray Gunn

Monster-making as a Hobby by Frank N. Stine

When you’re 10, these were hilarious – now they’re just funny.  Ray Gunn … hehehehe

Do you remember those reading tests in grade school where they’d have you read a paragraph and then select the best title for it? I always got those wrong.  While I find titles interesting and fun, I’ve always had a problem connecting the title to the text that follows it.

I still have that problem and it doesn’t help with my blog writing.  I often think in titles, but what I actually write often has nothing to do with the title I selected.  Kind of like today.  What I was thinking about writing about was liquid air storage batteries, LAES or possibly compressed air energy storage CAES.  My readers really liked my post about thorium so I thought I’d follow that up with more energy related material.

While interesting, neither are really as interesting as thorium, but they do involve a lot of math. Well, more thermodynamics which is a really odd branch of mathematics.  Sadly, there aren’t that many good metaphors or jokes for thermodynamics.  Well there is one: “I found engineering school really hard — I’m not doing so hot in thermodynamics.”

Which brings me back to today’s title.  I have no idea what I was thinking I was going to write about with that one. It just seemed like a cool title. There were a few things I was thinking of writing about but all of them end up with me preaching at you. That wouldn’t end well — even though I’d be right.

Okay, first thing I was thinking about was the drought here in the west.  Rain and snow aren’t falling, hence the “The Sky Isn’t falling.”  A bit corny, but true, it’s not raining here.  I don’t just mean here in the desert, but just about every where west of longitude 100 is drier than it was 20 years ago.  Lake Mead is drying up and last year Lake Tahoe fell below its natural rim.  There’s a lot to say about the drought out here. There’s not a lot of water, but lots of words.

I’d like to say that there is an easy solution to the drought, but … no, it’s just bad news and the forecasts are even worse.  Not exactly an uplifting or humorous essay to write.  Not unless you go back into history and start poking fun at the original settlers of the west and their theory, “Rain follows the plow.”  Yup, it was a popular 19th century theory that if you moved somewhere dry and started farming the rain would just show up. The theory was that disturbing the soil would cause atmospheric disturbances that would create rain. Apparently, firing a canon at the moon also helped to disturb the air and bring rain. You didn’t need to shoot a cannon ball, just fire the black powder and the big boom would do it.

The pseudoscience was widely published and generally believed.  The belief was fueled by greed and desperation.  Get rich schemes drove people to pack up seeds and farming equipment, go west, get land cheep and wait for rain.

Thousands of farms were started and thousands went bust.  Then they diverted the rivers into irrigation ditches and lied to themselves about how much water is really available.  Which has brought us to having tens of millions of people living in a region that didn’t have much water to start with.

See — the whole essay becomes preachy and depressing, especially when the only real solution is to stop washing your clothes or moving to Vermont.

So, I decided to not write that.

The second thing I thought about writing was a general poke at the disaster of the day news culture we have and the general, “We’re all going to die!” feel of most news and social media posts.  Everybody, just chill, it’s not that bad.  Yes, there are a few really bad things, but one more Will Smith story and I’m going to scream.  One story about this was interesting, but now we’re on track to having a full documentary, books, etc.  People, really, how many times do we need to point out the bad behavior and consequences?  I think working on real drought solutions might be more productive.

See where we end up with these kind of conversations?  Just put the phone down and go out into the garden, enjoy the roses and sunshine. If you have water for your roses and the sun’s not too hot.

Which brings to why I’m not writing a post titled, “The Sky Isn’t Falling.”

It’s just not going to work.  Even a reference to Chicken Little can’t save the essay.  It would be doomed from the start.

Next week I’ll work on a better title and maybe I’ll be able to write a post for you.

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Friday Wisdom – Getting Older

Posted on 04/08/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

Happens to us all. Here’s what I know:

Aging gracefully is the polite way to say, “You’re slowly looking worse.”

As I get older, the earlier it gets late.

I believe in the here after. Every time I walk into a room I ask, “What am I here after?”

Being mature means walking around trying to remember what you’ve forgotten.

You know you’re getting old when your kids are reading history about things that you remember as current events.

You’re old when friends call at 8:00 pm and ask, “Did I wake you?”

Why does everyone my age seem older than me?

At my age, when I’m faced with two temptations, I choose the one that will have me home by 9.

Now that I’m getting older, I think about all the people I’ve lost along the way and think that I shouldn’t have taken a job as a tour guide.

Some Quotes:

When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of algebra. Will Rogers

I’m at an age when my back goes out more than I do. Phyllis Diller

At my age, flowers scare me. George Burns

You know you’re getting old when the candles cost more than the cake. Bob Hope

So far, this is the oldest I’ve been. George Carlin

By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he’s too old to go anywhere. Billy Crystal

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National Poetry Month

Posted on 04/03/2022 by Andrew Reynolds

April is National Poetry Month.  Started in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets.  The academy wanted to remind the public that poems and poets have and integral role to play in our culture and that poetry matters (see poets.org/national-poetry-month ).  Part of me is happy that someone decided that we needed to highlight the value of poetry in our lives.

Part of me is sad that we have to point that out to people and that it’s not just obvious to everyone.  The Academy of American Poets also list eleven specific activities you can do for National Poetry Month including: Sign up for the Poem-a-Day email list, get a Poetry Month poster, on the 29th join in the Poem in Your Pocket Day, and make a donation to the AAP.

Makes you wonder if this is about poetry or money.

Poetry and money normally don’t go together.  There’s an old saying, “The way to make a million dollars being a poet is to start with two million dollars.”

The same thing could be said of artists, musicians, and bloggers …

Now if you’re really motivated by poetry you could join in the annual NaPoWriMo.  Started in 2003, this National Poetry Writing Month encourages you to write a poem a day.  I’ve seen a few blogs doing this.  I won’t be – I can barely write a poem a month, a poem a day would likely burn out my brain and I’d have to be hospitalized or at least under go medical treatment.

It’s a bit like NaNoWriMo where you have write a whole novel in one month.  I haven’t written a novel after ten years of work. Doing one in a month … not happening.

Now part of me is happy that we have these kind of things happening to both highlight the importance of creative writing and giving people the encouragement and tools they need to get a body of work going.

The cynical part of me says, “Anything worth doing is worth over doing.”

I’m also amazed at the need we have to “raise awareness” of things.  I’m sure most people are aware poetry exists.  Some may not like poetry, but they are aware it exists.  

But, just incase you’ve been living under a rock or don’t have internet access here are a few other things you should be “aware” of:

There are two national donut days.  One on June 4th and the other on November 5th.  No one knows why.  It’s estimated that 95% of Americans admit to liking donuts.  The whole donut thing started in WWI when the Salvation Army sent 250 women to the front lines in France to feed soldiers.  They made donuts because they were fast and easy to make.  Also soldiers would eat a lot of them.  This tradition continued into WWII and these women have been hailed as heroes by our deployed troops.  My research has failed to determine why we don’t have a donut month.  I didn’t have time to see if there is a donut postage stamp.

Each afternoon I have tea and a cookie.  National Cookie Day on December 4th recognizes this.

Now, the British tend to refer to the cookie as a biscuit and are surprised to find biscuits and gravy on the menu in many southern states.  Despite that weirdness, the UK National Biscuit day is on May 29th. In my home, biscuit day is every afternoon at 4:00 pm.

I also like pizza and in our home Sunday is pizza night.  In America, National Pizza Day is February 9th, but again, why not a whole month?

Americans drink a lot of coffee so National Coffee day is October 1st.  Interestingly I discovered that technically coffee, the beverage, is actually a tea, that is an infusion of plant material in water as a beverage or medicine. Coffee counts as both – with or without milk.

And finally someone got this right and declared January as National Tea month.

Now that’s one I can really do.  I pledge that next National Tea Month, that I’ll make and drink a cup of tea every day.  I might even post daily pictures of me drinking tea.

Maybe I should drink tea and read a poem to help make people aware of the importance of reading while drinking tea. 

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