man goes to the fridge
opens tuna, pop, yogurt
What he open first?
The tuna?
The soda?
The yogurt?
Or …
The fridge?
Sorry brain is sludgy today.
Category: Coffee, Waking Up
8.8.2020 – priorities straight
priorities straight
covid? money? election?
a good piece of toast!
In the book, WLT a Radio Romance, Garrison Keillor wrote a soliloquy delivered by Ray, the owner of radio station WLT.
Ray said:
“Don’t concern yourself with things you can’t change, I say.
It’s more important to make a very good cup of coffee and a very good piece of toast than it is to worry about Josef Stalin, because I can something about breakfast and I can’t do anything about Stalin, and I am sure he’s having a wonderful breakfast.
Five months of Covid and covid fatigue is very fatiguing and I can’t do a thing about it.
I do find no little satisfaction that Covid is still tossed out by the spell check.
I wear my mask but then what?
We are doing okay money wise but it looks and sounds like the country isn’t and if Congress and the President could … Okay, my covid fatigue is too great to even finish the sentence.
Then there is the election.
I know how it should end.
I know how to achieve this end.
And in the end, no one asks me.
So that leaves toast.
Not too light.
Not too dark,
Not too hard.
Not too much butter.
Not too much cinnamon sugar.
Concentrate.
Put some effort into it.
Put some heart into it.
And there it is!
A very good piece of toast.
Caring about something that I can care about and do something about.
Something to make it worth my while.
6.10.2020 – Iced tea? Sweet Tea!
Iced tea? Sweet Tea!
Drinking Champagne of the South
Glass of Summertime
I hit the big time today.
Well, for the Atlanta area anyway.
My friends at Atlanta & Company, seen on 11Alive in Atlanta, asked me about writing a haiku for National Iced Tea Day.
Happy to help, I composed and sent off two possibilities.
The one that was not chosen read:
glass of tea on ice
summertime to sip slowly
the taste of sunshine
The other was today’s haiku.
It was read ON AIR today so hopefully nearly six million people heard my haiku.
At least the potential was there to be heard by six million people.
Back in the day old Braniff Airlines launched their ‘The Flying Colors of the United States’ and had three planes painted by Alexander Calder.
At one time it was decided that these planes were the most viewed works of art in the history of the world.
That included anyone who happened to be in New York City when one of these jets flew overheard, I guess.
They might not have noticed the paint job, BUT the potential was there.
Neither here nor there but I understand the plane painted red, white and blue and dedicated by Betty Ford as a bicentennial event back in 1975 was blown up in making the movie, Bad Boys.
So much for flying art.
So the 6 million people of Atlanta had the chance to hear one of my haikus.
How cool is that?
Was I disappointed that my friend Christine did not recite the poem?
To be honest?
Well ….
YES!
I love Trent, don’t get me wrong.
But to have Christine reading my Haiku over the airways?
I already have her penciled in for the audio version of, “Live Happy! Go for the Bronze: The collected Haiku’s of James Aaaron.” (My pen name).
But that’s down the road a bit.
Though the hard copy version of the book is #3 in Germany right now.
Thank you all at Atlanta & Company for the moment.
I hope I did not disappoint.
4-22-2020 – control alt delete
control alt delete
where are the keyboard shortcuts
to reboot my day?
I love United States Space History.
The Right Stuff.
Project Mercury.
Balloon trip to the edge of the world.
Apollo.
One of the young technicians wrote of those days something along the line of, “We drank the wine at the rate they poured it.”
In my own small way, this was what it was like at the dawn of the WWW era.
Some folks refer to it as the wild wild west.
It was GREAT and I miss it, but I digress.
Back to the space race.
I love those stories of Neil Armstrong’s first words getting messed up by intereference.
I love how Gus Grissom wanted to name his second spacecraft, ‘[The Unsinkable] Molly Brown.
This after his first space craft sank after splash down.
NASA tried to hold the line and told Grissom that Molly Brown wasn’t appropriate.
Grissom said fine and that he would paint TITANIC on the side of his spacecraft.
NASA gave in but afterwards changed the policy of naming the capsules.
Possibly my favorite story is the one about 24 year old John Aaron and Apollo 12.
The gist of the story is that when launched, Apollo 12 was struck by lightning.
The power surge knocked out most of the data being sent back from Apollo to Mission Control in Houston as well as the data systems on the Apollo 12 spacecraft.
Mission Control watched the rocket go up and the data numbers go wacky.
They were about to abort the mission when John Aaron says over the communications circuit, “Try SCE to Aux and back.”
According both to legend and to the records (written and audio recording), just about everyone in Mission Control and on Apollo 12 said, “What is that?” or words to that effect.
Except for Lunar Module Pilot, Alan Bean.
Alan Bean had taken part in a simulation a year before with the self same John Aaron.
Bean reached out to the spacecraft control panel, located the SCE switch and set it to AUX and back.
The numbers being sent to Houston and the systems on the spacecraft came back online.
The mission continued.
John Aaron, age 24, was described as a steely–eyed missile man.
He had witnessed this problem on that simulation with Alan Bean one year before.
As he himself described it, by chance he was one the simulation at the time.
By chance he saw the error.
By chance he puzzled out why it happened.
And by chance his shift was in Mission Control during the Apollo 12 launch.
John Aaron was at a communications station when the lighting hit and he opened up his mic and said, “reboot”.
Of course he said it the language of the day and for his equipment.
“Set SCE to AUX”
Today he might say, “Hit CTRL ALT DELETE and reboot.”
Looked death in the eye.
Steely Eyed Missile Man.
It could be done back then in 1969.
I can hit all those keys on my computer today.
I can turn any of my so-called devices off and on.
Why can’t I reboot my day?
Where are those buttons located?
4.16.2020 -tired spot within
tired spot within
tired spot nothing touches
the spot sleep can’t reach
With the anniversary of his death, I must be thinking about Mr. Lincoln.
Many personal accounts of Mr. Lincoln quote him talking about how tired he was.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
How tired he was, but that he had a tired spot that sleep could’t reach.
A tired spot nothing touches.
One quotes him as saying, “nothing could touch the tired spot within, which was all tired.”
I am a tired man,” Mr. Lincon told one visitor. “Sometimes I think I am the tiredest man on earth.”
“It is a great relief to get away from Washington and the politicians,” Lincoln told his journalist friend Noah Brooks while reviewing troops before the battle of Chancellorsville, in May of 1863. “But nothing touches the tired spot.”
Another time Noah Brooks suggested to the President that he needed rest, Mr. Lincoln replied, “I suppose it is good for the body. But the tired part of me is inside and out of reach.”
IN NO WAY can I compare to myself to Mr. Lincoln.
All I want to do is latch on to his wording.
That tired spot sleep can’t reach.
That tired spot sleep can’t touch.
Right now I should be getting more sleep than I have in years.
My alarm clock is set to 6:45AM and not 5:15AM.
I am able to stay up a little later.
But that tired spot.
That tired spot sleep can’t reach.
That tired spot sleep can’t touch.
Even my old friend Mr. Coffee can’t get me on top of this.
It is the longest wait for the 2nd shoe to drop.
My old old pal anxiety is along for the Covid-19.
Again, I understand that this is stupid.
So I am anxious.
So what?
Who isn’t?
Why should I be anxious about things I can’t do anything about.
Why should I be anxious about things I can’t even understand?
But I also understand that not understanding why I am anxious is what makes anxiety anxiety.
