Posts from the “What I’m Doing” Category

Blow, snow & furious gratitude

Posted on April 4, 2016

Mother Nature (that sulky wench) sure planted us a facer this weekend. From going no-boots, gloves and scarf last week to hauling out the winter gear from storage and thanking my stars that my gnarly winter tires are still on my vehicle. Brrrr. March slunk into April, which is bashing us about the head with awful weather. I’m certainly not venturing outside today, so I have no excuse but to write. In Act III, scene II of Shakespeare’s King Lear, the maddened King wanders the heaths, raging to his Fool: Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white…

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Categories: What I'm Doing

Imagination/Illusion/Creativity

Posted on March 30, 2016

Have you seen this illustration? According to Wikipedia, “Friedrich Schumann is often credited with the discovery of illusory contours around the beginning of the twentieth century, however illusory contours are present in art dating to the Middle Ages. They evoke the perception of an edge without a luminance or color change across that edge. Illusory brightness and depth ordering frequently accompany illusory contours. It’s odd, but when I first Googled Friedrich’s name, the first hit was for a serial killer of the same name. I wonder if that had any impact on either one of them turning out as they did? In the graphic above, you ‘see’ a white triangle between the three black Vs and the Pacman-like almost circles. However, our minds fill…

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Categories: What I'm Doing, writing

Whip-it Wednesday (as in, I won’t)

Posted on February 24, 2016

Where does the time go? It’s hump day already. The thing is, when you’re ‘retired’, every day is pretty much the same. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. The results of the Republican Party primaries in the U.S. fill me with dread and disgust. Politicians continue to snipe and waste time instead of focusing on making their countries better for the people who elected them. War, pestilence, abuses to human rights, poverty – perhaps Dante was right. I’m totally uninspired. Think I’ll go cruise Ikea with Hub and buy myself a standing desk.

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Categories: What I'm Doing

Three things I’m pensive about today

Posted on February 4, 2016

At night, while the news reports/political shows are on television (400 channels, not much to watch), I read articles from Drippler and Feedly and FlipBoard. Many of them say that a catchy headline has to have a number in it, like 10 Ways to Curl Your Cat’s Hair or 4 new uses for a B.o.B (Battery operated Boyfriend). For the next week, that’s what I’m going to do with my blog titles. I came across this photo today and reminisced about being young, when life was simple. It was probably taken in grade 11 or 12. I think my girlfriend’s mother sewed part of the uniform. The hard plastic shako was heavy and after marching in the heat for a few hours, your hair…

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Categories: Modern life, What I'm Doing

Mondays, Odd & Blah

Posted on February 1, 2016

February 1st. One month closer to spring. The temperature has risen and the snow has melted from the back yard. The squirrels can’t figure out what’s going on. Time to order the garden catalogs and start cleaning up the seed starter trays. Hooray. Now that I’ve cleaned up my office and my closets and drawers, I’m still lacking inspiration.So much for the notion that purging excess possessions makes you feel lighter and energized. Got my new iPhone, which is a marvel of technology, but whenever I pick up that lovely rose-gold rectangle, I remember that it costs the same as a one-week all-inclusive vacation at a 5-star resort in a hot country. Hub is still carrying around a12-year old analog model that sounds like…

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Categories: Stuff, What I'm Doing