Pseudo Science
Hello World,
Happy June! Our first roses have just opened, as well as the flowering almond and mountain laurel, and pretty soon all of the summer flowers will be in full swing, so you know that we will be well and truly on our way to the middle of the year and no looking back. We finally had a week that was consistently warm and sunny the entire time, with no crazy temperature fluctuations or unseasonable conditions for a change, and a welcome one at that. Even a freak storm that came out of nowhere with its booming thunder, lightning, high winds and hail was mercifully brief, and soon cleared up as quickly as it had come. After the kind of funky spring weather that we've been having lately, it was certainly a nice change of pace to bask in the balmy sunshine and radiant blue skies that would be a sure-fire tonic for whatever ails you. Honestly, instead of wasting their time studying sub-atomic particles, the scientists should find a way to encapsulate spring into a pill form, because that would be all it would take to turn the whole world into a much more cheerful place. They could sign me up for a life-time prescription right now.
Monday was Memorial Day, of course, and a glorious day it was, too. Around here, we had the flags flying upstairs and downstairs, and the flag brigade even remembered to take in the flags later, which is not something that can be taken for granted, since the flag brigade tends to suffer from what we call at work "Sometimers" disease. That is, that sometimes you remember, and sometimes you forget, but when it comes to the flags, it seems to be forgotten more often than not, so this was a red-letter day for the flag brigade. Not resting on our laurels, the 30th is traditional Memorial Day, so we also flew the flags on Friday for all of the traditionalists out there, and our name is legion, at least around here, and I don't mind saying that I am unanimous in that. Once again, the flag brigade managed to both put the flags out in the morning, and bring them back in the evening, and since we require no more than that, it was another job well done, and twice in one week, almost beyond belief. Which is just as well, since the scientists are busy studying sub-atomic particles instead of inventing an automatic flag-flying device that puts the flags out on holidays and takes them back in again, so we have no choice but to rely on our flag brigade, however unreliable that may be, and no thanks to science very much not.
Of course, we don't want to just pick on science, because sometimes it's math that lets us down instead. Our friends at Quad Entertainment (please feel free to visit their web site at www.quadentmusic.com and see for yourself) distributed invitations to the 2008 Classic R&B Summer Fest at the County Center in July, with pictures of their featured artists to be appearing in the show. Included are such performers as Sharon Paige, Freddie Jackson, The New Stylistics and Touch of New York. I admit that I am not familiar with many of these acts, but then I've never been a big R&B maven, so I'm not a good judge of this sort of thing. I couldn't help but notice one of the pictures was for a group called Ray, Goodman & Brown, and you can call me a hidebound traditionalist (don't you dare!) but I was surprised to see four young men in this quartet, while their name would lead me to expect them to be a trio instead. Perhaps the fourth fellow is the "&" part of Ray, Goodman & Brown, but I consider it a dark day in music when people can't figure out that if there are four members of a singing group, they should either all be in the group's name, or change it to Ray & Friends or something a little more inclusive. I can't help but feel that poor nobody that they left out is going to get a complex, and probably give up singing the blues altogether. Next thing you know, he'll be studying sub-atomic particles with the rest of the losers.
If we're already at the last Saturday in May, whatever happened to my sister Linda's world famous Memorial Day weekend BBQ, alert readers may be wondering, and well may they wonder. The 36th annual BBQ went off without a hitch, and a fine time was had by all, plus beautiful weather for all three days. Dozens of friends and acquaintances from all over the world descend on the sleepy town of Stone Ridge in upstate New York, for the food and drinks, fun and games, not to mention, for old time's sake and a chance to recapture the memories of BBQ's gone by. I was there on Saturday with my sister Diane, having a wonderful time and enjoying the convivial company, and it goes without saying that I have the pictures to prove it. Of course, nowadays you can't believe anything you see in pictures anyway, because Bill could take that picture and make it look as if I was standing there in broad daylight with Paris Hilton and Orson Welles, not to mention, Bob Barker and Sasquatch, so in terms of credibility, these digital pictures are about on a par with used car salesmen or politicians. In fact, I asked my sister to "paste" me into the group photo that would be taken on Sunday or Monday when I wasn't there, so that I would be included in the official record of attendees, and not overlooked just because I was there on Saturday instead. It's perfectly alright, because there's a standard scientific principle that applies to situations just like this. I believe the technical term for it is "lying."
Speaking of technical terms, alert readers of the hospital computer system would have been in for a shock last week with the posting of this arresting message: "PLEASE SIGN OFF YOUR TERMINALS BY 7:00 PM. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SIGN ON AGAIN. YOU WILL BE TERMINATED." Boy, talk about "hasta la vista, baby!" Obviously, the minions in our computer department have had enough of us ignoring them all the time, and they're not going to put up with any crap from the rest of us anymore. In healthcare, we call this: Geeks Got Game. I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly know better than to mess with the Nerdinators, and they don't have to tell me twice to sign off and stay off, that's for sure.
And while we're on the subject of things we shouldn't mess with, we come naturally to yard work, where the Women's Amateur Landscaping Team (that's me, and please don't try to hire me, because I don't want to jeopardize my amateur standing) puts in long hours of hard labor in an attempt to make our property look more like actual respectable people live here, and not a bunch of vagrants in an abandoned building. I had already made some incremental progress on cleaning up twigs and branches, clearing out piles of debris left over from the winter, and sweeping up dead leaves stuck in the corners of our porches and steps. With the warmer weather, the weeds had really gotten out of hand, so I knew the time had come to take some strong measures, before the flower beds would be a lost cause. On the top walk is where we have our rosebushes, bird feeders and bird baths, and since the spring flowers had already died back, everything else there is pretty much weeds, making it easy to identify what needs to come out. So there I was on Monday, on my hands and knees with my trusty clippers, and I would just grab a handful of whatever wasn't a rosebush or left-over daffodils, and cut it off. It went pretty quick, and cleared out a lot of space between what was supposed to be there and what wasn't. I wasn't surprised to find our wisteria and porcelain berry running amok everywhere, but even I got tired of this scenario, where I would find myself saying, "I'll have this corner all cleaned out, once I reach that last little clump right over there ... say, where did that poison ivy come from?" After that, "Now this patch is finished, I can move over by the fountain ... by golly, it's more poison ivy." Then it was, "I can pull out everything behind this last rosebush ... oh, and of course, it's poison ivy." It was like a bad sitcom, where every time I cut out the weeds in front of something, it exposed all the poison ivy behind it, and no matter how many times it happened, it was still like a bad sight gag each time. I was half-expecting Fonzie to show up in this garden variety sitcom, although ALF would probably be more in line with what they're watching on the planet where my rampant mutant alien poison ivy comes from, I'm thinking.
Meanwhile at church, the time had surely come, in fact it was long since past, that we needed to have the pew cushions replaced, because they were all torn and tattered, with the buttons falling off and the stuffing leaking out all over the place. Mind you, this is with very light usage, because so few people come to our church that you would expect the cushions to look brand new, instead of something you might find in a Bowery flop-house. We got in touch with the company which made the cushions in the first place, and they agreed to replace them at a nominal charge, and although I had signed up to be the contact person and meet the truck driver picking up the cushions, unfortunately, they decided to do this while I was at the Metro New York Synod Assembly all day for three days, and so I couldn't be there to open the doors when the truck arrived. As a result, I was just as surprised as everybody else, when I turned up at church the following Sunday and found no pew cushions, and by golly, there's nothing like sitting for hours on rock-hard wooden pews, for all of us Calvinists trying to build character the old-fashioned way. (And here I mean, by suffering, although I suppose "from the bottom up" works just as well under the circumstances.) I can state without fear of contradiction that this is no way to attract people to your church, in fact, I would expect it to have the effect of keeping them away in droves, because you can't imagine how uncomfortable it is, and I don't mind saying, even with the pew cushions, it wasn't all that comfortable to start with. I have to admit though, even worse than sitting is trying to stand up, and one problem with liturgical worship is that you're forever sitting and standing and sitting and standing, it just goes on and on like that all morning, so you don't dare hold anything on your lap, or you'd be forever picking it up off the floor each time. Without the 3-inch cushion that's normally under you, trying to get to your feet from one of these naked benches is like climbing out of a low-slung sports car, and you keep looking around for a handle or something to pull yourself up with. This is no one's idea of church for sissies, believe me, and after a few more weeks of this, we'll all start to look like the Lutheran version of a lower-body workout video. We could call it "Heavenly Bodies," and "pew ups" would be just one of the many fitness routines available. No, please don't thank me, I'm just glad to be part of a world where we can all enjoy better living through science.
Happy June! Our first roses have just opened, as well as the flowering almond and mountain laurel, and pretty soon all of the summer flowers will be in full swing, so you know that we will be well and truly on our way to the middle of the year and no looking back. We finally had a week that was consistently warm and sunny the entire time, with no crazy temperature fluctuations or unseasonable conditions for a change, and a welcome one at that. Even a freak storm that came out of nowhere with its booming thunder, lightning, high winds and hail was mercifully brief, and soon cleared up as quickly as it had come. After the kind of funky spring weather that we've been having lately, it was certainly a nice change of pace to bask in the balmy sunshine and radiant blue skies that would be a sure-fire tonic for whatever ails you. Honestly, instead of wasting their time studying sub-atomic particles, the scientists should find a way to encapsulate spring into a pill form, because that would be all it would take to turn the whole world into a much more cheerful place. They could sign me up for a life-time prescription right now.
Monday was Memorial Day, of course, and a glorious day it was, too. Around here, we had the flags flying upstairs and downstairs, and the flag brigade even remembered to take in the flags later, which is not something that can be taken for granted, since the flag brigade tends to suffer from what we call at work "Sometimers" disease. That is, that sometimes you remember, and sometimes you forget, but when it comes to the flags, it seems to be forgotten more often than not, so this was a red-letter day for the flag brigade. Not resting on our laurels, the 30th is traditional Memorial Day, so we also flew the flags on Friday for all of the traditionalists out there, and our name is legion, at least around here, and I don't mind saying that I am unanimous in that. Once again, the flag brigade managed to both put the flags out in the morning, and bring them back in the evening, and since we require no more than that, it was another job well done, and twice in one week, almost beyond belief. Which is just as well, since the scientists are busy studying sub-atomic particles instead of inventing an automatic flag-flying device that puts the flags out on holidays and takes them back in again, so we have no choice but to rely on our flag brigade, however unreliable that may be, and no thanks to science very much not.
Of course, we don't want to just pick on science, because sometimes it's math that lets us down instead. Our friends at Quad Entertainment (please feel free to visit their web site at www.quadentmusic.com and see for yourself) distributed invitations to the 2008 Classic R&B Summer Fest at the County Center in July, with pictures of their featured artists to be appearing in the show. Included are such performers as Sharon Paige, Freddie Jackson, The New Stylistics and Touch of New York. I admit that I am not familiar with many of these acts, but then I've never been a big R&B maven, so I'm not a good judge of this sort of thing. I couldn't help but notice one of the pictures was for a group called Ray, Goodman & Brown, and you can call me a hidebound traditionalist (don't you dare!) but I was surprised to see four young men in this quartet, while their name would lead me to expect them to be a trio instead. Perhaps the fourth fellow is the "&" part of Ray, Goodman & Brown, but I consider it a dark day in music when people can't figure out that if there are four members of a singing group, they should either all be in the group's name, or change it to Ray & Friends or something a little more inclusive. I can't help but feel that poor nobody that they left out is going to get a complex, and probably give up singing the blues altogether. Next thing you know, he'll be studying sub-atomic particles with the rest of the losers.
If we're already at the last Saturday in May, whatever happened to my sister Linda's world famous Memorial Day weekend BBQ, alert readers may be wondering, and well may they wonder. The 36th annual BBQ went off without a hitch, and a fine time was had by all, plus beautiful weather for all three days. Dozens of friends and acquaintances from all over the world descend on the sleepy town of Stone Ridge in upstate New York, for the food and drinks, fun and games, not to mention, for old time's sake and a chance to recapture the memories of BBQ's gone by. I was there on Saturday with my sister Diane, having a wonderful time and enjoying the convivial company, and it goes without saying that I have the pictures to prove it. Of course, nowadays you can't believe anything you see in pictures anyway, because Bill could take that picture and make it look as if I was standing there in broad daylight with Paris Hilton and Orson Welles, not to mention, Bob Barker and Sasquatch, so in terms of credibility, these digital pictures are about on a par with used car salesmen or politicians. In fact, I asked my sister to "paste" me into the group photo that would be taken on Sunday or Monday when I wasn't there, so that I would be included in the official record of attendees, and not overlooked just because I was there on Saturday instead. It's perfectly alright, because there's a standard scientific principle that applies to situations just like this. I believe the technical term for it is "lying."
Speaking of technical terms, alert readers of the hospital computer system would have been in for a shock last week with the posting of this arresting message: "PLEASE SIGN OFF YOUR TERMINALS BY 7:00 PM. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SIGN ON AGAIN. YOU WILL BE TERMINATED." Boy, talk about "hasta la vista, baby!" Obviously, the minions in our computer department have had enough of us ignoring them all the time, and they're not going to put up with any crap from the rest of us anymore. In healthcare, we call this: Geeks Got Game. I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly know better than to mess with the Nerdinators, and they don't have to tell me twice to sign off and stay off, that's for sure.
And while we're on the subject of things we shouldn't mess with, we come naturally to yard work, where the Women's Amateur Landscaping Team (that's me, and please don't try to hire me, because I don't want to jeopardize my amateur standing) puts in long hours of hard labor in an attempt to make our property look more like actual respectable people live here, and not a bunch of vagrants in an abandoned building. I had already made some incremental progress on cleaning up twigs and branches, clearing out piles of debris left over from the winter, and sweeping up dead leaves stuck in the corners of our porches and steps. With the warmer weather, the weeds had really gotten out of hand, so I knew the time had come to take some strong measures, before the flower beds would be a lost cause. On the top walk is where we have our rosebushes, bird feeders and bird baths, and since the spring flowers had already died back, everything else there is pretty much weeds, making it easy to identify what needs to come out. So there I was on Monday, on my hands and knees with my trusty clippers, and I would just grab a handful of whatever wasn't a rosebush or left-over daffodils, and cut it off. It went pretty quick, and cleared out a lot of space between what was supposed to be there and what wasn't. I wasn't surprised to find our wisteria and porcelain berry running amok everywhere, but even I got tired of this scenario, where I would find myself saying, "I'll have this corner all cleaned out, once I reach that last little clump right over there ... say, where did that poison ivy come from?" After that, "Now this patch is finished, I can move over by the fountain ... by golly, it's more poison ivy." Then it was, "I can pull out everything behind this last rosebush ... oh, and of course, it's poison ivy." It was like a bad sitcom, where every time I cut out the weeds in front of something, it exposed all the poison ivy behind it, and no matter how many times it happened, it was still like a bad sight gag each time. I was half-expecting Fonzie to show up in this garden variety sitcom, although ALF would probably be more in line with what they're watching on the planet where my rampant mutant alien poison ivy comes from, I'm thinking.
Meanwhile at church, the time had surely come, in fact it was long since past, that we needed to have the pew cushions replaced, because they were all torn and tattered, with the buttons falling off and the stuffing leaking out all over the place. Mind you, this is with very light usage, because so few people come to our church that you would expect the cushions to look brand new, instead of something you might find in a Bowery flop-house. We got in touch with the company which made the cushions in the first place, and they agreed to replace them at a nominal charge, and although I had signed up to be the contact person and meet the truck driver picking up the cushions, unfortunately, they decided to do this while I was at the Metro New York Synod Assembly all day for three days, and so I couldn't be there to open the doors when the truck arrived. As a result, I was just as surprised as everybody else, when I turned up at church the following Sunday and found no pew cushions, and by golly, there's nothing like sitting for hours on rock-hard wooden pews, for all of us Calvinists trying to build character the old-fashioned way. (And here I mean, by suffering, although I suppose "from the bottom up" works just as well under the circumstances.) I can state without fear of contradiction that this is no way to attract people to your church, in fact, I would expect it to have the effect of keeping them away in droves, because you can't imagine how uncomfortable it is, and I don't mind saying, even with the pew cushions, it wasn't all that comfortable to start with. I have to admit though, even worse than sitting is trying to stand up, and one problem with liturgical worship is that you're forever sitting and standing and sitting and standing, it just goes on and on like that all morning, so you don't dare hold anything on your lap, or you'd be forever picking it up off the floor each time. Without the 3-inch cushion that's normally under you, trying to get to your feet from one of these naked benches is like climbing out of a low-slung sports car, and you keep looking around for a handle or something to pull yourself up with. This is no one's idea of church for sissies, believe me, and after a few more weeks of this, we'll all start to look like the Lutheran version of a lower-body workout video. We could call it "Heavenly Bodies," and "pew ups" would be just one of the many fitness routines available. No, please don't thank me, I'm just glad to be part of a world where we can all enjoy better living through science.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 7:11 PM
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