My Picture

 

When you know you’ve had an idea for a blog post twice, and twice didn’t write it down.  And now you’re trying to remember it.  

Now we never write anything down.  We just take notes on our iPhones.  The most annoying thing is you can’t take notes though the Apple Watch, so I couldn’t conveniently make an Apple note while walking.  

I just remembered!  Somebody took a picture of me.

I was on my bike stopped at an intersection.  I ride a road bike and was standing there with one foot on the pedal and the other on the street.  I was half seated on the top tube.  Handlebars were tilted to my right.

Some dude with a camera, dropped into a half squat and took my picture.  Maybe he was taking a picture of something behind me?  But I was definitely in it.  I hope I looked cool.  I’m hoping that my coolness inspired him to take the picture.  Maybe it was just a picture of a fat old bastard on a road bike.  I wonder if I’ll ever see it?

“Flumps into chair”

“Flumps into chair” the subtitles read.  I was watching Better Call Saul.

“Flump, is that a word?” I asked myself.  Even now autocorrect is putting a red underline beneath it.

According to the Internet, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flump, “to move or fall suddenly and heavily.”

Suspicion said I could not trust the Internet.  I sought answers in my hard copy dictionary.  See photo below.  It confirmed that flump, is indeed an English word.

I guess a learned a new word from the subtitles in Better Call Saul.

You Never Forget Your First Concert

 

 

An 8 year old young man I know was taken to his first concert, Imagine Dragons.  This would not have been my first choice.  No surprises that there were many Instagram posts of him rocking out, or whatever one does at an Imagine Dragons Concert.  The caption was, “You never forget your first concert.”  It was mentioned in the comments a few times too.  

The funny thing is I forgot my first concert.

It was either, Rush, Black Sabbath, or Johnny Winter, all admirable choices for a first concert.  I think it was Rush.  They all took place around the same time.

We could go even deeper in my concert past.  My parents took us to classical music concerts as far back as I can remember.  No way I can remember which was the first one.

But even counting only Rock or Pop concerts, I don’t remember which was first.

The difference between this kid and I is that nobody was documenting anything in the 70s.  We just did things.  Maybe there were 12 or 24 shots on the Kodak Instamatic after a family vacation, but we weren’t taking flash photos at Alice Tully hall.  

The funniest thing is, while I don’t remember my first concert, I’ll always remember his.  

Two Good Things

At the beginning of our office meeting, my boss always asks for “Two good things!”  You know?  Two good things.  To improve morale.  To makes us think about how good we got it.  He never looks at me for either of these two good things.  

But I got two good things.  Two good things about 2024.  I saw two movies about a guy named Bob and there was a Godzilla and a Planet of The Apes movie.

Not Bad.

A Look Back at Our Second Covid Shot

I’ve created a new Scrivener document for my 2025 blogs.  One of my unofficial New Year’s resolutions is to post more.  There are a lot of drafts in the old Scrivener document.  This is one of them. 

Please see this post for a description of our first vaccine shot.  At the time of writing we had just had the second shot.

Living in a dystopia now seems normal.  

Last time we ate at Redd’s Restaurant and Biergarten.  We didn’t want to go back there because it was creepy, so we walked over to the American Dream Mall.  We ate lunch at the food court.  My fiancé was brave and tried Kelly’s Cajun Grill, which was actually Chinese.  Not wanting to take any chances, I ordered from Taco Bell. So far we have survived our meals and our shots; sore arms are our only symptoms.  

As far as shopping we got off light.  We bought a pair of baby Vans, for her best friend’s brother’s impending son.  We bought 3 bags of beef jerky from The Beef Jerky Outlet for 35 bucks, eleven bucks a bag, steeper than Jack Lin [5/4/21, 7:34 AM Found it!]  k’s, but much better.  

There are a lot of attractions at this mall.  We may go back some day.  But for now we are content to obey our overlords and wait for the long term side affects of this vaccine.  

Some Notes on Visiting the American Museum of Natural History

 

Here are some notes from my last trip to The American Museum of Natural History.

The Teddy Roosevelt statue in front is gone.

I am almost certain that there is no glass in the sperm whale/ squid display.  I wanted to try to test this hypothesis either by poking my hand in where the glass would be, or but throwing something in there.  I resisted, since I’m sure that’s not allowed and I respect the do not touch policy.

I learned that the blue whale swallows tons of water almost doubling his size and then pushes the water out.  The baleen in his mouth traps whatever krill he has caught.  I didn’t know it worked exactly like that.  

The most interesting realization is that being in the museum is just like being inside the best science/ picture book you ever had as a child.

Forgot one thing.  This may have been the case for a long time but I remember it from the last two times I've been.  They no longer. have the title metal tags you wear to prove you have paid to get into the museum.  It's just a paper ticket now.

2024 Book List

 

1.  Let the Right One In — John Ajvide Lindqvist 

2.  Rationality — Steven Pinker 

3.  Godzilla — Shigeru Kayama

4. Black Rednecks and White Liberals — Thomas Sowell

5. High-rise — J.G. Ballard

6. The Passenger — Cormac McCarthy

7. Native Son — Richard Wright

8. Freedom Evolves — Daniel Dennett

9. Try — Dennis Cooper

10.  A Death in Belmont — Sebastian Junger

11. Lucifer’s Hammer — Larry Niven and Jerry 

Pournelle

12.  Exorcist Legacy — Nat Segaloff

13.  Found: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror Stories -- Andrew Cull (Editor)

14. Bonding — Maggie Siebert 

15.  Chimera — John Barth

16. The Least of My Scars — Stephen Graham Jones

17. Stella Maris — Cormac McCarthy

18. The Three Body Problem — Liu Cixin

19.  Adam and Yves — Ed Cone

My favorite book was Stella Maris.  

Chimera was my least favorite.  I loved John Barth’s first four books, but I found this one tedious and didn’t enjoy it at all.  What a disappointment.  

Native Son took the longest to read.  It was slow in some parts.  Sort of.  I liked the beginning.  The first parts took place over the course of 24 hrs.  What I call a journey — they way a day can be a whole universe unto itself . . . .   But the trial part was annoyingly long.  Still an enjoyable read.

The surprise contender was The Three Body Problem.  I enjoyed the Netflix series,  and liked the book even more.  Cool ideas and characters.  I can’t wait to finish the series.  

So not a bad year for reading.