Stories, Thoughts, Ideas, and Other Musings…

Stuff I learned in Boy Scouts, but wasn’t in the official Scout Manual.  Please, no Catholic Priest jokes here, sad as that situation was (I was lucky and had wonderful troop leaders and a wonderful organization, along with wonderful fellow scouts).  And it’s very sad to have to open something like this, which is about some good memories, with a sentence like that.  Anyway… “Flaming Zit Zits”: This was a term that probably only people… Continue Reading Stuff I Learned in Boy Scouts

The English language is a wonderful and terrible thing, as are most languages.  It is both glorious and confusing.  A true reflection of human beings. It begs the question(s): What were they thinking?  Did they make this crap up as they went along?  And like most everything else in this world created by humans, the answer to the last question is: Yes, it was made up as they went along.  Knowing that helps it make… Continue Reading The English Language and Comedy

Recognition.  Finally.  In 2021, after almost a quarter of a century. It’s so nice to see that beautiful charging red, white, and blue logo in the headlines.  The patience and loyalty of the fans, the effort and perseverance of the players, the intelligence of the coaches, and the wisdom of the owners along with all of the other personnel in the front office, stadium, etc. are what make it possible. What about the foundation it… Continue Reading Let’s Go Buffalo!

Whether intentional or just an accident of technological development or some strange strategy that involves plausible deniablility, in the end it is a lie? What’s the lie? Answer: LinkedIn’s statement about posting links in posts. Here’s what they state (a direct quote): “When you share a link that’s longer than 26 characters, we automatically shorten it once you click Post, to make it easier to read.” Below is a snapshot of their article on this… Continue Reading A Lie or Half Truth

Where did providers come up with how much “bandwidth” is needed to watch a video.  Not to reference a “buried lede”…  It’s about money. Frontier says you need to purchase a 25 Mb/S to properly view a 4K video (AKA TV Show, movie, etc).  Comcast, AT&T, and most other internet providers say the same thing.  We’ll wait and discuss the content providers like Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, Apple, and especially AT&T / DirecTV, later. The first… Continue Reading Bandwidth Lies

One might not consider the word comedy in the same sentence as concrete block.  As it turns out, it is quite possible.  How you ask.  Well run down to your local HomeDepot.com web site and consider the humble concrete block.  Also known as the cinder block, top cap, etc. Let’s start off with the most useless 360° View of any product on the planet, except perhaps a rock.  Do a search on HomeDepot.com for a… Continue Reading Comedy with a Concrete Block

…but what about the other .1%? 99.9% is certainly a great milestone to reach in many instances.  It’s not so great if it is a percentage that indicates failure rate (and other things too).  But in terms of positive achievements, 99.9% is superduper.  Except for that last .01%.  That’s still a bad thing. Remember what the Lysol can says?  Kills 99.9% of germs.  Well, disregarding what a germ is (virus? bacteria? wheat?), my first question… Continue Reading 99.9%

A long time ago I drove a car that had a cassette tape player.  This player had a relatively new feature where, OH MY GOSH, it could play both sides of the tape without removing the cassette and turning it over.  It doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore with all of today’s digital media.  But back then it was cool.  Cool until it stopped working that is. To accomplish such a task, there were… Continue Reading Backmasking

Have you ever gotten something for free? I have.  Aside from all the gifts from parents and friends over the years, I have gotten a couple of things for free.  And I’m not talking about anything related to “sticky fingers.” The first thing that comes to mind is walking out of a local grocery store one evening.  After unloading the contents of my cart in the car I went to return the cart.  When I… Continue Reading Guilty Gift

I lost my Weightlifting Belt! The good news is that I got it back.  That part of the story isn’t even the interesting part.  The interesting part is belts history.  And it is quite a history, because it is an old belt.  It’s going on about 35 years that I’ve had it. Before losing it last week, there’s only one other time I’ve ever lost it.  That was when I was teaching a class in… Continue Reading Lost and Found

I have had a production question about Breaking Bad that I’ve had for almost a decade.  And here’s how the question evolved. I had occasion to watch many of the Breaking Bad episodes while I took care of my daughter when she was just a baby.  In order not to wake her, I would watch the show while listening with headphones. Listening with headphones is a whole new world.  There are so many subtle sounds… Continue Reading Breaking Bad – White Household

The Vast of Night is an interesting film worth watching. If you’ve seen it, have you thought about another movie that has almost the exact same premise? Here’s a hint: Substitute a bunch of autonomous self driving cars, trucks, and other motorized devices for the various insects and ‘monsters’ depicted in The Vast of Night. Still can’t think of the other movie? Well, take a look at the background image for this article. Beyond that,… Continue Reading Maximum Night

What better place to start than the beginning… The first day of the week is Sunday.  Simple, think about the word sun and add day to the end of it.  Easy. OK, next Munday.  Nope, Monday is spelled with an ‘O’, not a ‘U’.  Yes it sounds a little bit like MoanDay. Next is Toosday.  Again, it sounds different than it’s spelled.  Just add in an ‘uh’ without the ‘h’, instead adding an ‘e’ after… Continue Reading A Conversation with a Child on Spelling the Days of the Week

Have you ever wondered if your mind is playing tricks on you? That happened to me today as I was driving to the gym.  On a road that I’ve driven on hundreds, if not thousands of times over the past decade I passed a speed limit sign that proudly displayed 35 MPH.  I thought to myself, “That looks odd.  Isn’t the speed limit 40 MPH?”  As it turns out, it was.  Thank goodness I wasn’t… Continue Reading Slower

The Commodore 64 was NEVER more expensive than the TRS-80 Color computer or any other equivalent computer (the Sinclare ZX series was not as powerful).  This article is more about setting the record straight on Commodore than it is a criticism of the Ready Player One movie or book. Did you like the Ready Player One movie and / or book?  I sure did.  But there’s something I just can’t get past. Somewhere near the… Continue Reading Ready Player One and Price

What was it like to write something a hundred years ago?  A few hundred years ago?  And those aren’t even the right questions.  Steven King (yes that Mr. King) has utilized long hand on paper pads, typewriters, and word processors.  So we don’t need a time machine to figure those things out. But that’s his experience and probably not mine or yours.  He could tell us about his experience, but that is not the same… Continue Reading Typing

Boy, oh boy.  Man, oh man.  Girl, oh girl.  Woman, oh woman.  Whichever applies.  Have I got some thoughts about swimming pools for you today. In ground or above ground, those things are work!  Of course you might not be doing the work yourself.  Perhaps you hired someone to do it for you.  In either case, it’s still hard work. As an example of how a pool manufacturer (nothing against Intex, they actually sell good… Continue Reading Pool Disillusion

I have the bag of Kettle Chips used in one of the first takes of a scene in the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”. It wasn’t the bag that made it into the final edit because they wanted a larger logo for the product placement.  They used a different version of the bag with an alternate logo in the final cut.  Sponsors, go figure…

Most of the T-Shirts back in the day had it all wrong.  Frankie never said, “Relax.”  He said, “Don’t Relax.”  The exact lyric is, “Relax, don’t do it.”  See?

My last mortgage refinancing was about mid 2013.  The graph says it all.  OK, I can’t help it, “Can’t touch this!” (Except if I just paid cash for the house that is)

I heard a joke about a Panda the other day and decided to rewrite it a bit.  It is told from an third person direct narrative perspective as most jokes like this are.  I turned it into a “shaggy dog” story. A Panda walks into doughnut store and asks the clerk for two glazed doughnuts.  The clerk turns to the cook who hands him two fresh glazed doughnuts.  The clerk puts them in a bag,… Continue Reading Pandas

While editing several stories today I found myself mired in a quandary on how to present a series of events.  Should it be done chronologically or using the Inverted Pyramid method employed by journalists?  To warm up I rewrote a famous news paper article from the New York Herald detailing the events of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Below is the newspaper article as it was written in 1865;       This evening at about 9:30 p.m.… Continue Reading Today’s Writing Exercise

“Never Give Up!” is something I’ve been preaching for decades.  From all the 6 and 7 year old (under 8) kids I’ve coached over the years to my daughter today I say the same thing, “Never Give Up!“.  It’s a good lesson for anyone. A great example is a football game from a long time ago.  In 1993 the Houston Oilers came to Rich Stadium in Orchard Park, New York to play the Buffalo Bills… Continue Reading Never Give Up

It’s been a while since my last good deed earlier this past summer.  But that’s OK, because the good deeds seem to come in groups with quiet gaps in between. Here’s the story; Early on a recent Saturday morning I checked on the front yard sprinkler system.  The previous day I’d made some adjustments to it for a more efficient spray pattern.  After checking on it I went back inside, closing a large six foot… Continue Reading Good Deed for the Day

The opening line of the 1813 book by Jane Austen is: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”  What did she mean by that? It seems as though a million people, over more than a hundred years, have analyzed this line, its meaning, theme, etc.  But no one seems to have applied any true context to the statement.  So… Continue Reading Pride and Prejudice

I read some interesting stuff today about Kindle.  Since most of what I read is more appropriate for a “How to” article, it is posted here: Kindle, on my technical information website.

Weird day in regards to life and football.  I watched part of the Bills VS Oilers comeback game from the early 1990s in the morning.  The backup quarterback Frank Reich played the entire game for the injured Jim Kelly.  Flash forward to the evening and I’m watching a preseason Bills VS Colts game.  The Colts head coach is Frank Reich.  The Colt’s quarterback for the second half was Chad Kelly, nephew of Jim Kelly.  Jim… Continue Reading Flashback Buffalo

I was shopping for some stuff on WalMart.com and SamsClub.com today and saw something interesting.  There’s not much to write about, but I do have some questions. Are they stupid? Do they think their customers are stupid? Is it a combination of the above or something else? Here are some snapshots of their web sites.  First, the Wal-Mart example that initially caused me to ask the above questions.  Notice what they have noted as “BEST… Continue Reading Wal-Mart & Sam’s Club

I was driving on a small highway today that ran along the Sacramento River today.  I later found myself reading about the river on Wikipedia.  A familiar picture was included with the article that I recognized as the neighborhood I live in.  I was curious about the where the picture was taken and exactly what it was looking at.  Thanks to Google Earth I was able to pinpoint the location in about half an hour. … Continue Reading Sacramento River

I turned on the TV the other day and watched a few minutes of the animated Disney film, “Turbo” and noticed an ‘issue’.  The little snail named Theo, nicknamed Turbo, acquired his ‘super speed power’ when he was sucked into the ram-air intake of a supercharger on a Chevrolet Camaro.  The below frame from the action sequence occurred about 16 minutes into the movie. Here’s my question: If he got sucked into a supercharger, why… Continue Reading Turbo (the movie)

I was working on a project today for a client. It involved creating a website using the MediaWiki software as a foundation. The objective was to create a site that looked like Wikipedia. Its purpose was to support a book in the spirit of Issac Asimov’s “Encyclopedia Galactica” from the Foundation Series. Part of the project involved finding new “skins” / “themes” for the site to make it look a bit more modern. I remembered… Continue Reading WikiWand – An Abomination

I received a check in the mail for $539.00 from the state of California.  It was a tax refund.  But there’s a problem here.  I haven’t finished my taxes and sadly I’m not expecting a refund.  My address was on the check, but it was made out to someone else. I had no thoughts about cashing the check myself because, well, that’s not me.  Instead, I decided to return it to the state of California… Continue Reading Stingray and Good Deeds

I just finished my first complete, written from scratch article contribution for Wikipedia.  Since 2006 I’ve only done edits and other contributions for existing articles. The article is a “draft” until it completes the review process.  While it’s a draft, it can be found here: Charles Robinson Rockwood.  When it’s accepted, it will be published here: Charles Robinson Rockwood The writing and editing only took a couple of hours after Mr. Harriman turned the basic story… Continue Reading Wikipedia Contribution

I saw someone trying to break into a car in the grocery store parking lot today.  Luckily it wasn’t being stolen.  A guy locked himself out of his car.  I thought I could help, but my lockout kit wasn’t in the car.  I drove all the way home, found it and drove back.  I parked next to him, got out, introduced myself as an ASE Certified Master Auto Technician and told him I could have… Continue Reading Locked Out

Auburn University Tigers VS Purdue Boilermakers 12.28.18 – Nashville, TN – Music City Bowl Score; 63 – 14, Auburn winning.  With their second and third string players on the field, Auburn drives down to the Purdue half yard line.  2nd and Goal with1:04 left on the clock, Auburn University has the chance to set the all time record for most point scored in a bowl game ever.  Another touchdown and extra point will put the… Continue Reading Play Call of the Century

In a very odd circumstance a couple of months ago, I became curious about movie continuity while watching Back to the Future.  They did a fantastic job of coordinating all of the various clocks in the Delorian, the dance in 1955, the clock tower, and even the clock at the mall where for the first time Marty and the Delorian go back in time. The issue I had when verifying all the times was with… Continue Reading Delorian – Full Time Circuit Console Display

About a year ago, way back at the end of 2017, I called the city I live in to report a water leak from a water meter several houses up the street from mine.  It wasn’t a gushing leak, but it was profuse enough to make it so there was always water in the gutter going down to the street drain. The workers at city hall must have been really bored that day because there… Continue Reading Water Leaks and Google Earth

What happens when one invents a word to replace two others?  Apparently in the noughties and early teens of the 2000’s, we take a step back in our linguistics, and dispose of the new term. There’s a word for for went, gone, go, and goes (etc.) missing.  The word is disappeared. Actually it’s not about going back to an old term whose origins are in multiple words for describing a single word.  It’s worse than… Continue Reading Went, Gone, Go, or Goes Missing VS Disappeared

First, the problem, then a question, followed by a bit of context… During the month of December 2017, almost three quarters of the days Bel-Air was selling Duraflame logs, a ‘No Burn Day’ had been declared. So how come the Raley’s company is allowing their Bel-Air grocery stores to not just sell Duraflame logs, but actively pimp them out? It’s one thing for a business to sell something, but when they stack that product up… Continue Reading Spare the Air

The Admission I environmentally profiled someone today.  I’ve never done anything like that before.   The Back Story I had just finished some major repairs on a Volkswagen Tiguan engine and I began hearing things.  No, not voices, but subtle noises coming from the engine.  I’ve certainly heard the engine in that car before and always keep an ear out for unusual sounds, but I never had occasion to listen really closely to all of… Continue Reading Environmental Profiling

Subject; The Man in the High Castle.  An Amazon series based on the Philip K. Dick novel by the same name. The writers, directors, special effects people, cinematographers, etc. for this TV series have all done a fabulous job.  But they made a mistake in episode 8 towards the beginning where a main character is working on a gun replica.  The scene shows a close up of him boring out a gun barrel.  It was… Continue Reading Man in the High Castle – A Granular Issue

Where I come from tow trucks and rollbacks are all different colors, yellow, blue, red, white, green, etc., with white being the most prevalent color, but not the dominant color.  In California, hands down, yellow is the most predominant color, with white a distant second. How come? My first thought was visibility.  Possibly.  Likely even.  But then, tragically, I started to drift down that familiar rabbit hole of thought. Question; What is the most prevalent… Continue Reading How Come the Majority of Tow Trucks and Rollbacks in California are Yellow?

To all the writers of books, movies, stories, TV shows, etc., and to real life people in actual encounters where someone says, “I’m sorry.”; NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!  And in a similar fashion to how Roger Ebert’s quantified how he felt about really horrible movies, it has gotten to the point where I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate it when characters or real people say, “I’m sorry.”, when they’re not.  And they aren’t. Think… Continue Reading I’m Sorry