Given that Google has spent so much effort trying to reroute me onto slightly more efficient paths on all my previous days, I also decided I’d try this without its assistance. Like turned off. I mean, it looked pretty direct. How could I go wrong?
Read the whole story at Day 9. It’s Okay to Ask a Human for Help.
Today my music keeps getting interrupted by Google Maps. The app is experiencing ongoing frustration because I have chosen to take a slightly longer route and not drive through Chicago. Nothing against the windy city; it’s a great place but I don’t want to drive through it.
“We’ve found a route that is 19 minutes faster,” it chirps as soon as I’m on the highway. “Touch screen to accept.” It continues to try to route me through Chicago for the next four hours. An algorithm apparently cannot comprehend why I’d rather drive a few extra minutes to enjoy rolling countryside and less traffic.
Read more at Day 2. Rules of the Road.
Today, I face the fact that one of the reasons I write is to leave something behind.
“Oh, so you want to be immortal?” you ask. No. I’ve studied too much astrophysics to think anything in this universe will last forever, and enough history to know that few humans leave a noticeable footprint more than a few generations into the future.
The key word to me is noticeable.
Somewhere in my heart, I think if you leave something of value behind, it will affect others who will do the same and so on. Yes, I’m enough of a realist to expect the effect to diminish with time, and to recognize our life expectancy as a species probably isn’t all that long, anyway.
So? It’s not an influence that lasts forever I’m after. However, the idea of leaving a little of me here for awhile is something I’m driven to do. Like I said, individual tastes do vary.
Read more at Remember My Name.
(Read more posts about why I write at The Number One Reason I Write Books, My Eye-opening Second Reason for Writing , I write because it’s cheaper than therapy, Nothing cool about modest ambitions, I love to be loved and What’s the Point?)
On Sept. 26, 1983, Soviet computers reported the launch of five Minuteman missiles, according to the New York Times. There were only minutes to counterattack before they would strike Soviet cities. The man who was in charge that day was skeptical, partly because the attack seemed too small. So he alerted his superiors to a false alarm. He later recalled it as a 50-50 decision.
He had made the right choice. It would be discovered that a Soviet satellite had misinterpreted the sun’s reflection off clouds.
Read more about September 26 at When in doubt ….
I love to travel, and I do my best to embrace the types of joys my current journey has to offer. Last week, I went on what had to be an Alaskan king crab sort of trip.
That would be a journey in which one has to work to get what one is after. Long flights, language difficulties, bumpy roads or high seas can make this a kind of vacation that many would be loathe to take. But the reward is seldom seen beauty and unusual wonders, and sometimes, a sense of personal accomplishment.
Read more at Like Eating Crab.
(Read more about my trip to Kenya at Smiling my way across Kenya, Still a Sunrise?, Replacing me with … and Happy Peace Day, Chinese Person in Tent Number 59)
What I am is a worrier, among other things, and I know in my heart that it is tied to my story-telling abilities. If you want a mind that makes up exciting scenarios from everyday events, well then, you get a mind that sees exploding cars, intricate scams and paranoid plots around every corner.
Read more at Cease worrying when you can and write about what you know.
(Images shown are from the various victory images used at the World of Solitaire# website. They add an extra bit of fun to the game.)
(For a companion piece to this post, see Worry about those you love and write about what you know.)
I’m thinking about how wars start and how peace is made, how markets crash or don’t, how criminal activity succeeds or is uncovered, and how alliances are forged or broken. How many if-that-little-thing-hadn’t-happened components are there to any major world event? I’m thinking there are a lot of them, most of which we never know.
Read more at Solitaire and Nuclear War.
You teach your children every day. Not by what you say but by how you live your life. It is so easy to find yourself teaching them that life is drudgery, that marriage sucks, that work is to be avoided, and that you never get a fair deal.
I will never get to deliver the eulogy for my parents which I would like. But if I could – it would go something like this.
Read the entire post on my y1 blog at The real eulogy that I never gave.
“Just how effective a human being do you think you would be if you didn’t focus on getting something done?” it asks. “Performing the tasks that help you survive is what buys you the freedom to sit around and chant om and do this other shit.”
“Shhhhh!” I hush both voices, and then just when I finally have things under control, the yoga instructor joins in the conversation.
Read the post, the whole post and nothing but the post at Are you “performing,” or performing?
My friends always asked. Did he get you flowers? Take you out to dinner? Somewhere romantic? My answer was always a slightly sad no.
My friends would sigh. “It wouldn’t have hurt him to at least, maybe, bought you a single rose or something.” No, it probably wouldn’t have. But I knew that I was sending out mixed signals. I was one of those girls who was usually in a relationship, and with the kind of boy who thought Valentine’s Day was stupid. Not surprising, really, given my own independent beliefs. Still, why couldn’t he make one tiny exception and buy me some dark chocolate? Then I would have had had something to tell my friends. Besides, I like dark chocolate a lot.
Read the original post, written just after valentine’s day this year, at A feminist looks back at Valentine’s Day on my c3 blog.
“You must accept that not everyone is ready for qigong,” he says. No, I scream back in my head. Don’t use the word ready. Ready implies that there is only one way. As a Catholic child in a small Catholic town, I was taught that not all Christians were ready to become Catholics and we should help prepare them lest they be relegated to a lesser place in heaven. Later, evangelical Christians shook their heads at me when I argued with them about the narrowness of their faith, assuring me that I would come to believe what they did when I was ready. At least they hoped so, as they just hated the idea of my being tortured for an eternity. I wasn’t ready for Eckankar, or ready for EST and I’m still not ready for any organized religion that asks me to accept that it offers the only way.
.
Every once in awhile, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, one of us decides that the other just has to try something that we really enjoy. This bout of optimism occurs because we happen to genuinely love each other, so it’s understandable, even though it often ends poorly.
Read the rest of this post at Sharing the joy.
Think Too Much
Care Too Much
Get in Fights
Don't Say Much
Don't Keep Quiet
Don't Behave
Scare Them All
Save the World
See the Future
Explore Another Reality
Tinker with Time
Look Like Anyone
Become a Telepath
S. R. Cronin 