It’s amazing where some of my ideas come from...

My husband’s son’s 40th birthday is approaching quickly, and his wife is collecting “memories” from his relatives -- you know the kind: photos, anecdotes, videos, etc. -- to put together for him. I have no clue how she plans to do this, but heck, I can play along.

So, hubby describes a very vivid memory of one time when he visited Nathan at college. It sounded a lot like an XKCD comic strip (If you've never seen XCKD, you’ve got to go there now post-haste: http://www.xkcd.com) - just remember to come back to finish this post. I’ll wait...), and I decided to give it a go - after all, I am a graphic designer.

Here’s what I came up with:

Bonnes fêtes (if I don’t post again before the 1st of the year!).

Catching up (since May 2012)

Wow! Talk about being overwhelmed. I truly apologize for not blogging since last May. Life has gone topsy-turvy and business has boomed. I’ve likened it to:

• The proverbial long-tailed cat in a room fully of rocking chairs,
  
  
  
• Swimming in a 20-foot deep pool with cement shoes,
  or even
  
• Trying to corral snakes in a 1950s vertical bar playpen.
  

Needless to say, I’ve come across an article in The Guardian that was very interesting: “Skeptics, nerds and atheists are on the march across the US”. In it, Deborah Hyde talks about going to the 5th Annual Skepticon held at Missouri State University. Other than the eye-catching term “atheists”, I think the main reason I visited that URL was a promo photo for The Big Bang Theory.

To read the whole article, click here.

I rarely watch TV and I don’t have cable, but I hate missing some of my regular season shows (mostly on CBS), one of which is The Big Bang Theory. The last episode where Sheldon (Jim Parsons) doesn’t stand up for Amy (Mayim Bialik) really showed me how NOT inept I am at interpersonal communication. With that episode, I’ve validated the fact that I really don’t need to go through the Interpersonal Communications Advanced Manual. Hurray!

Well, as much as I’ve enjoyed writing, I really need to get going. Curtains for a newly renovated family/dining room/library open space room aren’t going to sew themselves.

Qapla'

Do you ever get overwhelmed?

You know, you have a good balance of things on your plate; everything’s going well. Then wham! You get hit with a barrage of things to do that really, really need to be done as soon as possible, but because you're only one person and you don’t know of anyone else who’ll be able to do things you can under normal circumstances (pride in your work rears its sinful head), you fall into a trance-like stupor and keep mumbling to yourself, “I have so much to do, I don’t know what to do first.” So you sit there for a seemingly endless period of time and say/do things that really don’t make sense to others around you (unknowingly getting those “let’s measure her for that beautiful and stylish white jacket” looks).

Well, I got sucked into that swirling vortex, and I’m finally getting a grip on things, chipping away at them little by little, even though I’m still suffering from a rather annoying Herbert Lom/Pink Panther eye twitch.

{Sigh!}

Well, I’d best get back to the grind.

Have a great day!

Don’t pick on us introverts...

My upcoming Toastmasters project includes asking my club-mates to go to a website and read something, then go to another website and post comments so that I can compile information and give a speech on it. Someone posted a thought-provoking graphic, which I’ve added here (I don’t know where it came from, otherwise I’d credit it properly):

I appreciate the time and effort someone took to create this. A good amount of thought was put into it.

I believe that Toastmasters could use many of these in their meetings, some of which include:

• Never embarrass them in public. - Even though Toastmasters recommends the "Oreo" approach to evaluating a speaker (something good - something to improve - something good), many people feel that oral evaluations are embarrassing. What if we gave the speaker the choice of being evaluated orally at the meeting vs. orally in private?
• Let them observe first in new situations. - Toastmasters recommends that mentors be assigned and new members be nudged into speaking immediately. There are many who would be willing to take on a supporting role and not speak, and some have done just that... not doing a speech for months or even years.
• Give them time to think. Don’t demand instant answers. - This could be aimed at Table Topics (where a topic is given and you have to speak off the cuff for 1-2 minutes). People are supposed to be given the choice to opt out in advance by the Table Topics Master. Maybe this should be enforced more often by the Toastmaster (meeting conductor).

Well, I must get going. My guests are arriving... Have a great day!

Mother Nature’s not just PMSing... Take a hint

You know, there’s only so much that someone or something can take, let alone Mother Nature. The human race hasn’t been kind to her throughout our known existence. Take the recent Texas twisters.

Ron Krienitz on FaceBook shared the image above from The Weather Channel showing lightning surrounding a tornado as it touched down in Texas yesterday. The state saw 18 tornadoes, with as many as 13 raking the ground. The storm system that spun the Texas twisters is slowly moving east and expected to continue spreading havoc through Friday.

See the whole story here: http://news.discovery.com/earth/texas-tornado-throws-semi-trucks-120404.html?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews#mkcpgn=rssnws1

The 1996 movie Twister had fantastic visual effects, but I’ll bet downloads and rentals plummeted due to being able to witness “natural fury” firsthand.

Is the human race so self-centered and selfish (akin to the description of “locusts” from the also-1996 movie Independence Day) that we don’t see what’s happening RIGHT NOW to Mother Earth? How long can someone or something be abused before it turns on its attackers?

I know I’m not perfect. I’ve got a long way to go, but I do know how long it took me to wake up. How about you?

Pondering About the Night Sky

Last week, the weather in the northeastern US was balmy and summer-like, bringing out the sunbather in all of us, and that got me thinking about that term, "sunbather". Yes, I'd rather be outside in the bright daylight, but what about moon "worshipers"?

Just this morning, while reading through my "morning paper" (a collection of, among other things, science-based RSS feeds), I discovered this:

Six views of the moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's Wide Angle Camera,
which captures almost the entire surface of the moon once a month.
Courtesy: NASA/Goodard/Arizona State University

Isn't that just a beautiful sight to behold? (To read the whole article, click here.)

After all the stress of the day, I just may take the time some evening (and the nearest telescope) and look upward.

After the unenviable return of winter temperatures goes away that is!

Have a great day (and night)!

Lesson(s) Learned

Yes, I know I haven't written in a while. Nothing to write about. Here's a piece of advice. If you ever see something you want at walmart.com and it says "available in store", order it with ship-to-store. You may save a lot of money. I just drove to the store and found out they won't match their own online price, so I'm killing time at the nearby Panera's where I've ordered it and am waiting for an email saying I can pick it up. A good lesson learned.