I was reading an article about Mr. and Mrs. Hockey, Gordie and Colleen Howe if you really didn’t know, and Mrs. Hockey was quoted as saying, “Your family is really your legacy, and they should be coveted,” and she also said, “A family legacy is so important, more important than a hockey legacy.” Well put.
With Valentine’s Day just two days away from this writing and the Family Day weekend coming right up the Howe’s story is a story that ties the two holiday events together perfectly.
You see, Gordie was a great big shy 23 year-old hockey player from the Saskatchewan prairie, with his name already engraved on the Stanley Cup, when he saw cute little 18 year-old Colleen at the, aptly named, Lucky Strike Lanes bowling alley in Detroit where he was a star with the NHL’s Red Wings. Colleen didn’t have a clue who Gordie was and even though he was already a tough-as-nails hockey star and a force in the NHL it would take him weeks to work up the courage to talk to her.
Colleen was surprised and impressed by Gordie’s charming shyness which was rare in someone so famous and Gordie fell immediately in love with Colleen knowing at once that he had to marry her. Soon after they met Gordie went away on a fishing trip and being awkward and not very well educated he still managed to scribe love letters to her while he was away signing them “Love and stuff, Gordon.” Not exactly what you’d find in a Valentine’s Day greeting card but it was charming enough for the woman who would, until her death in 2009, be his wife for the next 56 years.
Their hockey story is the stuff of legend, of course. Gordie, Mr. Hockey, was breaking scoring and longevity records in a 25 year career with the Red Wings and later winning championships and more scoring titles while playing with his sons, Mark and Marty in the WHA. While Gordie was busy creating a hockey legend Colleen ran both the hockey business and the household business while raising the four children they had together, Marty, Mark, Murray and Cathy. It was a match made in heaven. Regardless of their very public life the Howe’s, and in particular Colleen, made a strong commitment to family and nothing, including hockey, was going to interfere with that.
In a world that is overly obsessed with celebrity and beset with “honour killings” the example set by the First Family of Hockey should be the ideal that we all strive for. What is life without family? Thankfully, I don’t think I will ever know what that feels like and I certainly don’t really want to know.
It was almost 32 years ago that I met the love of my life, and no, it wasn’t at a bowling alley, there was a more Saskatchewanian flavour to it…we began dating at a Curling Cabaret. Seriously, we did. Both my wife and I come from large families and as the two of us watch our family grow the words that Colleen Howe used have never felt more poignant-
“Your family is really your legacy, and they should be coveted.”- Colleen Howe(1933-2009).
Monday, February 13, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
TECHNOLOGY HATES ME DAY!
So here I was getting all settled in to start on a new column when I was interrupted and then I got distracted further and then I forgot what I was supposed to be doing and then I picked up The Citizen from last week and started reading it and then I glanced at my column from a week ago and noticed that something got lost in the translation somewhere between my computer and The Citizen’s pages. As I am a bit of a perfectionist it really bugged me to no end that what I had perceived as interesting reading fodder looked more like gobbledygook when some numbers didn’t print in the paper the way I had written them.
You see, during last week’s explanation regarding the significance of the number 100 I was unaware of how to type a cubed number so I clipped and pasted them from another source and when it was transferred from my Word document to the pages of the paper the numbers didn’t look cubed at all anyway. What should have read 1-cubed + 2-cubed + 3-cubed + 4-cubed = 100 turned out to look like 100=13+23 +33+43 which doesn’t make any sense at all! Further, the next equation was supposed to read 2-to-the-sixth power + 6 squared but ended up looking like 26+62=100, which, again, just didn’t make any sense at all. Does that help clear things up now? I hope so. This explanation probably helped me more than it helped you but I’m sure glad that we got that all straightened out, eh?
Speaking of technology snafu’s, the thing that interrupted my morning writing flow was that I was trying to download a cute little video of our granddaughter Ava from my Blackberry phone onto our computer. Simple task, no?...No. For whatever reason, quite possibly “operator error”, but I’m not taking ALL of the blame, the stupid thing wouldn’t let me download the video. Arrrrghhh!! An hour and a half later and somehow, some way, I got it to work. Or it worked by itself or whatever happened the video ended up where I had intended. But an hour and a half out of my Saturday?! C’mon. Anyway, if I could have found those Crackberry billionaire owners they would have gotten such a knocklevesh upside the cranium they wouldn’t have known what hit them! It’s probably not really their fault but you gotta blame somebody, right?
So, it turned out that “Technology Hates You Day” continued. After finally getting Ava’s video downloaded I started in on the writing again but for some reason our desktop computer was running slower than Dial-up internet on Valium so I moved to the laptop computer but my sausage fingers were hitting about four keys at a time and that was driving me nuts so I figured I’d better take a break from this frustration and get some chores done.
I pulled out the brand new vacuum cleaner and I was going to suck up some of that popcorn that missed my mouth the night before and do you think this expensive piece of technology would pick anything up? Yikes! If I have to bend down to pick up the little pieces of popcorn off of the floor doesn’t that pretty much eliminate the machine’s use? Huh? What the deuce!? How much did we pay for this vacuum cleaner that sucks but doesn’t suck?? Whatever it was, it was too much. Some other manufacturer could use a knocklevesh, too, it appears.
By this time there was only one thing left to do and I did it. I went for a nap. It was either that or borrow some valium from my computer so I opted for the nap. Good choice.
Maybe the common denominator is me. Could that be it?...Nah. I don’t think so. It’s got to be them. At the very least it sure gave me something to write about when I finally got around to doing it.
“Men have become the tools of their tools.”-Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862).
You see, during last week’s explanation regarding the significance of the number 100 I was unaware of how to type a cubed number so I clipped and pasted them from another source and when it was transferred from my Word document to the pages of the paper the numbers didn’t look cubed at all anyway. What should have read 1-cubed + 2-cubed + 3-cubed + 4-cubed = 100 turned out to look like 100=13+23 +33+43 which doesn’t make any sense at all! Further, the next equation was supposed to read 2-to-the-sixth power + 6 squared but ended up looking like 26+62=100, which, again, just didn’t make any sense at all. Does that help clear things up now? I hope so. This explanation probably helped me more than it helped you but I’m sure glad that we got that all straightened out, eh?
Speaking of technology snafu’s, the thing that interrupted my morning writing flow was that I was trying to download a cute little video of our granddaughter Ava from my Blackberry phone onto our computer. Simple task, no?...No. For whatever reason, quite possibly “operator error”, but I’m not taking ALL of the blame, the stupid thing wouldn’t let me download the video. Arrrrghhh!! An hour and a half later and somehow, some way, I got it to work. Or it worked by itself or whatever happened the video ended up where I had intended. But an hour and a half out of my Saturday?! C’mon. Anyway, if I could have found those Crackberry billionaire owners they would have gotten such a knocklevesh upside the cranium they wouldn’t have known what hit them! It’s probably not really their fault but you gotta blame somebody, right?
So, it turned out that “Technology Hates You Day” continued. After finally getting Ava’s video downloaded I started in on the writing again but for some reason our desktop computer was running slower than Dial-up internet on Valium so I moved to the laptop computer but my sausage fingers were hitting about four keys at a time and that was driving me nuts so I figured I’d better take a break from this frustration and get some chores done.
I pulled out the brand new vacuum cleaner and I was going to suck up some of that popcorn that missed my mouth the night before and do you think this expensive piece of technology would pick anything up? Yikes! If I have to bend down to pick up the little pieces of popcorn off of the floor doesn’t that pretty much eliminate the machine’s use? Huh? What the deuce!? How much did we pay for this vacuum cleaner that sucks but doesn’t suck?? Whatever it was, it was too much. Some other manufacturer could use a knocklevesh, too, it appears.
By this time there was only one thing left to do and I did it. I went for a nap. It was either that or borrow some valium from my computer so I opted for the nap. Good choice.
Maybe the common denominator is me. Could that be it?...Nah. I don’t think so. It’s got to be them. At the very least it sure gave me something to write about when I finally got around to doing it.
“Men have become the tools of their tools.”-Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862).
Sunday, February 5, 2012
# 100
Pop the champagne cork, or at the very least, twist the cap off of a beer, or something, because we’re about to celebrate. Yep, you’re reading the 100th version of the “In My Humble Opinion” column.
Thank you, thank you. It was nothing. Really. In appreciation, mail your cheques or cash to box number…
Anyway, I am not quite sure what to make of this milestone. Human culture has long had a fascination with numbers and, in particular, round numbers or numbers of significance like 10, 25, 50 and 100 so, yes, I am proud of the significance of having had 100 of these columns published in this paper but it’s tempered with the fact that so much time has had to pass by so quickly in order for me to reach that number.
What started as a “fill-in” for former reporter/columnist, Darcie Khounnoraj, two years ago, became a full-time gig for me when Darcie decided not to return to The Citizen with her pen and paper, or typewriter, or keyboard, after the birth of her last child.
As many a writer will attest, some days the words flow from the brain through the fingers and onto the computer monitor with no effort at all and then there are other times, like right now, when creating any kind of flow seems like it’s the hardest thing one could do. Thankfully out of those one hundred columns I had many more of the former situations than I did of the latter. I suppose you might find it kind of ironic that an opinionated motormouth like me would have a hard time finding something to say but, believe me, there are more than a few times when I struggle to find adequate words for a weekly piece.
In honour of the 100th In My Humble Opinion column I will now give you some facts regarding the number 100 that I bet, unless you’re a mathematics teacher, many of you wouldn’t know.
So here we go. The number 100 is the sum of the first nine prime numbers as well as the sum of four pairs of prime numbers (47+53, 17+83, 3+97, 41+59), and the sum of the cubes of the first four integers (100 = 13 + 23 + 33 + 43). Also, 26 + 62 = 100, thus 100 is a Leyland number which is a number of the form xy + yx , where x and y are integers greater than…oh, nevermind.
Moving on: On the Celsius scale, 100 degrees is the boiling temperature of pure water at sea level.
100 is the number of tiles in a standard Scrabble set for 19 different languages.
100 is the police telephone number in Greece, India, Israel and Nepal, the ambulance and firefighter telephone number in Belgium and the telephone operator in the United Kingdom.
It’s the number of runs required for a cricket batsman to score a “century”, which is a significant milestone.
It’s the number of points required for a snooker cueist to score a “century break”, which is also a significant milestone.
100 is the minimum distance in yards for a Par 3 on a golf course.
100 is the record number of points scored in one NBA basketball game by a single player, set by Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors on March 2nd, 1962.
I could probably list 100 items about the number 100 here but, as you can see, I just don’t have the room. In the past columns I have tried to enlighten, educate and entertain and I hope that I have done that on more occasions than not and my hope is that I will continue to do so at least another 100 times.
“Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.”-Rose Kennedy (1890-1995).
Thank you, thank you. It was nothing. Really. In appreciation, mail your cheques or cash to box number…
Anyway, I am not quite sure what to make of this milestone. Human culture has long had a fascination with numbers and, in particular, round numbers or numbers of significance like 10, 25, 50 and 100 so, yes, I am proud of the significance of having had 100 of these columns published in this paper but it’s tempered with the fact that so much time has had to pass by so quickly in order for me to reach that number.
What started as a “fill-in” for former reporter/columnist, Darcie Khounnoraj, two years ago, became a full-time gig for me when Darcie decided not to return to The Citizen with her pen and paper, or typewriter, or keyboard, after the birth of her last child.
As many a writer will attest, some days the words flow from the brain through the fingers and onto the computer monitor with no effort at all and then there are other times, like right now, when creating any kind of flow seems like it’s the hardest thing one could do. Thankfully out of those one hundred columns I had many more of the former situations than I did of the latter. I suppose you might find it kind of ironic that an opinionated motormouth like me would have a hard time finding something to say but, believe me, there are more than a few times when I struggle to find adequate words for a weekly piece.
In honour of the 100th In My Humble Opinion column I will now give you some facts regarding the number 100 that I bet, unless you’re a mathematics teacher, many of you wouldn’t know.
So here we go. The number 100 is the sum of the first nine prime numbers as well as the sum of four pairs of prime numbers (47+53, 17+83, 3+97, 41+59), and the sum of the cubes of the first four integers (100 = 13 + 23 + 33 + 43). Also, 26 + 62 = 100, thus 100 is a Leyland number which is a number of the form xy + yx , where x and y are integers greater than…oh, nevermind.
Moving on: On the Celsius scale, 100 degrees is the boiling temperature of pure water at sea level.
100 is the number of tiles in a standard Scrabble set for 19 different languages.
100 is the police telephone number in Greece, India, Israel and Nepal, the ambulance and firefighter telephone number in Belgium and the telephone operator in the United Kingdom.
It’s the number of runs required for a cricket batsman to score a “century”, which is a significant milestone.
It’s the number of points required for a snooker cueist to score a “century break”, which is also a significant milestone.
100 is the minimum distance in yards for a Par 3 on a golf course.
100 is the record number of points scored in one NBA basketball game by a single player, set by Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors on March 2nd, 1962.
I could probably list 100 items about the number 100 here but, as you can see, I just don’t have the room. In the past columns I have tried to enlighten, educate and entertain and I hope that I have done that on more occasions than not and my hope is that I will continue to do so at least another 100 times.
“Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.”-Rose Kennedy (1890-1995).
Sunday, January 22, 2012
SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE
Some of you may have read last week’s In My Humble Opinion column regarding the “End of Times”, or “Doomsday”, or “the Apocalypse” which is apparently looming in our planet’s very near future. Like, in fact, this year to be precise. Further to that theme, there have been many signs pointing to this inevitable outcome.
Some years ago the American sports magazine, “Sports Illustrated”, began their version of the “sign of the apocalypse” in every issue of the magazine as they would site a recent sports related event that could be described as a sign that the apocalypse is upon us. Events like: “A 102 year-old woman from Lincolnshire, England, posed nude for a calendar to raise money for a local soccer team.” Really? Yikes! Or more accurately …ewww. That’s just wrong. Or how about: “An eight-year-old girl was kicked out of a tennis tournament in New Zealand when she was discovered wearing a hidden earpiece to receive coaching from her father.” Again…eight years old! Stage Dads (and Moms)! Tsk, tsk, tsk, it’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad…and then there’s this one: “A Manitoba man was arrested for allegedly calling 911 and demanding that the police return the Jets to Winnipeg.” He did that in 2010…doesn’t seem so weird now does it? Maybe it worked. Or at least he probably thinks it did.
I am only attempting to throw a little humour onto what may be a very serious subject to many people, but as Erica Jong stated, “Humour is one of the most serious tools we have for dealing with impossible situations." So in that vain I will give you some of my versions of the “Signs that the Apocalypse is Upon Us”:
· Many other Canadians are beginning to realize that Saskatchewan is a province of Canada. Go figure!
· My Toronto Maple Loafs are this close to a playoff spot and have, not one, but two, players in the top ten in the NHL’s scoring race. And this is half-way through the NHL’s season not half-way through the first week of the season!!
· The Jersey Shore is the top-rated “Reality TV” show. Seriously, people, c’mon!
· Someone, somewhere…an actual executive at a TV studio no less… approved the airing of “Celebrity Wife Swap” as a series for network television.
· There is a website that you can go to so you can catch up on “Celebrity Wife Swap” if you missed it and forgot to record it.
· “Celebrity” is an adjective used to define “Celebrity Wife Swap” cast members-Rob Bonfiglio, Dee Snider, Tina Yothers, Niecy Nice and Flavour Flav?? Who are these people?
· “Mother gives 8-year-old daughter Botox treatments in effort to help in “Beauty Contest” success!” Stage Moms and Dads again! Mom must be thirsting for her child to become a “celebrity” so the child can have a more unusual upbringing while Mom lives off of her “investment”, then, said “investment” will become a child star who, then, years later, will turn up on “Celebrities Who Have Gone Wild and Swap Wives to Keep Themselves On Television So They Can Still Be Categorized As Celebrities and Show How Becoming A Celebrity Has Ruined Their Lives.” ‘Nuff said.
If there had been a Saskatchewan at the time Mark Twain made this statement he might have used Saskatchewan (according to the rest of Canada) instead of Cincinnati- “If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.” Mark Twain (1835-1910).
Some years ago the American sports magazine, “Sports Illustrated”, began their version of the “sign of the apocalypse” in every issue of the magazine as they would site a recent sports related event that could be described as a sign that the apocalypse is upon us. Events like: “A 102 year-old woman from Lincolnshire, England, posed nude for a calendar to raise money for a local soccer team.” Really? Yikes! Or more accurately …ewww. That’s just wrong. Or how about: “An eight-year-old girl was kicked out of a tennis tournament in New Zealand when she was discovered wearing a hidden earpiece to receive coaching from her father.” Again…eight years old! Stage Dads (and Moms)! Tsk, tsk, tsk, it’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad…and then there’s this one: “A Manitoba man was arrested for allegedly calling 911 and demanding that the police return the Jets to Winnipeg.” He did that in 2010…doesn’t seem so weird now does it? Maybe it worked. Or at least he probably thinks it did.
I am only attempting to throw a little humour onto what may be a very serious subject to many people, but as Erica Jong stated, “Humour is one of the most serious tools we have for dealing with impossible situations." So in that vain I will give you some of my versions of the “Signs that the Apocalypse is Upon Us”:
· Many other Canadians are beginning to realize that Saskatchewan is a province of Canada. Go figure!
· My Toronto Maple Loafs are this close to a playoff spot and have, not one, but two, players in the top ten in the NHL’s scoring race. And this is half-way through the NHL’s season not half-way through the first week of the season!!
· The Jersey Shore is the top-rated “Reality TV” show. Seriously, people, c’mon!
· Someone, somewhere…an actual executive at a TV studio no less… approved the airing of “Celebrity Wife Swap” as a series for network television.
· There is a website that you can go to so you can catch up on “Celebrity Wife Swap” if you missed it and forgot to record it.
· “Celebrity” is an adjective used to define “Celebrity Wife Swap” cast members-Rob Bonfiglio, Dee Snider, Tina Yothers, Niecy Nice and Flavour Flav?? Who are these people?
· “Mother gives 8-year-old daughter Botox treatments in effort to help in “Beauty Contest” success!” Stage Moms and Dads again! Mom must be thirsting for her child to become a “celebrity” so the child can have a more unusual upbringing while Mom lives off of her “investment”, then, said “investment” will become a child star who, then, years later, will turn up on “Celebrities Who Have Gone Wild and Swap Wives to Keep Themselves On Television So They Can Still Be Categorized As Celebrities and Show How Becoming A Celebrity Has Ruined Their Lives.” ‘Nuff said.
If there had been a Saskatchewan at the time Mark Twain made this statement he might have used Saskatchewan (according to the rest of Canada) instead of Cincinnati- “If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.” Mark Twain (1835-1910).
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
DOOMSDAY'S COMING!!
Well here we are half-way through January 2012 already. Time’s a tickin’, eh? So what are your plans for the last eleven months on Earth? You do know that this is the last year in the life of the planet we call Earth, don’t you? Can Nostradamus, the Mayans and Harold Camping (remember him?) and others all be wrong?
There is a lot of debate out there regarding the accuracy of Nostradamus’ predictions, one of which is the destruction of Earth in December of 2012. Many claim he was dead-on in many of his predictions and still others hail him as a charlatan. Either his predictions are eerily coincidental to many of history’s big events i.e. The Great Fire of London, the arrival of Adolf Hitler and the outbreak of World War II, JFK’s assassination etc. or if he was a cheat, he was a truly gifted and talented one. Imagine creating prophetic quatrains with no more knowledge about the future than just the fact that “history repeats itself” and the desire of people to believe in true prophecy. By writing the way he did, believers can interpret the quatrains he wrote in many ways, allowing them to see whatever they look for. See-World Trade Centre Attacks-9/11/2001.
Then there are the Mayan’s. The Mayans were able to accurately predict every solar eclipse for the last thousand years to the second! Their astronomy and mathematics were unsurpassed in the world during their time and some say that their Long Count Calendar really is the most advanced ever created and the fact that the calendar ends on the 21st of December, 2012, is evidence enough to predict that the world will end when the Mayan calendar does. What it doesn’t account for is that if the Mayan’s could predict the “End of the World” why couldn’t they predict the end of them? Somewhere around 900AD they mysteriously disappeared. Hmmmm?
I’m throwing 90 year-old Harold Camping in there, too, but he isn’t predicting the end of the world on December 21st 2012 like everyone else. You see, Camping is notable for applying numerology to his interpretations of Bible passages in an attempt to predict dates for “The End of Times”. He has previously predicted “Judgment Days” of May 21st 1988, September 6th 1994, May 21st 2011 and finally it was October 21st, 2011. I can imagine what it was like in his study while he was doing his calculating… “Oh, see here, I forgot to carry the two…tsk, tsk, tsk…stupid me (thunks forehead)…it’s not 1988 it’s 1994…What?...Oh my, I don’t understand that…let’s have another look…okay, whoops, sorry, no…wait…yup, it’s definitely May 21st 2011…yes…that’s it…Whadyamean?...oh, okay, hold it…hold it…(eraser noise-scritcha-scritcha)…goes into six…NOW carry the two…of course…THAT’s IT!-October 21st, 2011. Yup, for sure, I’d put money on it!” My, my, my…happy retirement Harold!
I don’t do numerology and I don’t have a crystal ball or a bowl of water ala Nostradamus, as it were…well, I do, have a bowl of water, that is, but all I see in it is…well…water… oh, nevermind…my view is that we should all be living everyday like it’s our last day on Earth anyway. Smell the roses, breath in the air, admire that sunrise, love your fellow man, live, laugh, love…embrace your life on good old Mother Earth for as Joe Cocker famously stated, “Who can say what tomorrow will bring, we’ll see.”
There is a lot of debate out there regarding the accuracy of Nostradamus’ predictions, one of which is the destruction of Earth in December of 2012. Many claim he was dead-on in many of his predictions and still others hail him as a charlatan. Either his predictions are eerily coincidental to many of history’s big events i.e. The Great Fire of London, the arrival of Adolf Hitler and the outbreak of World War II, JFK’s assassination etc. or if he was a cheat, he was a truly gifted and talented one. Imagine creating prophetic quatrains with no more knowledge about the future than just the fact that “history repeats itself” and the desire of people to believe in true prophecy. By writing the way he did, believers can interpret the quatrains he wrote in many ways, allowing them to see whatever they look for. See-World Trade Centre Attacks-9/11/2001.
Then there are the Mayan’s. The Mayans were able to accurately predict every solar eclipse for the last thousand years to the second! Their astronomy and mathematics were unsurpassed in the world during their time and some say that their Long Count Calendar really is the most advanced ever created and the fact that the calendar ends on the 21st of December, 2012, is evidence enough to predict that the world will end when the Mayan calendar does. What it doesn’t account for is that if the Mayan’s could predict the “End of the World” why couldn’t they predict the end of them? Somewhere around 900AD they mysteriously disappeared. Hmmmm?
I’m throwing 90 year-old Harold Camping in there, too, but he isn’t predicting the end of the world on December 21st 2012 like everyone else. You see, Camping is notable for applying numerology to his interpretations of Bible passages in an attempt to predict dates for “The End of Times”. He has previously predicted “Judgment Days” of May 21st 1988, September 6th 1994, May 21st 2011 and finally it was October 21st, 2011. I can imagine what it was like in his study while he was doing his calculating… “Oh, see here, I forgot to carry the two…tsk, tsk, tsk…stupid me (thunks forehead)…it’s not 1988 it’s 1994…What?...Oh my, I don’t understand that…let’s have another look…okay, whoops, sorry, no…wait…yup, it’s definitely May 21st 2011…yes…that’s it…Whadyamean?...oh, okay, hold it…hold it…(eraser noise-scritcha-scritcha)…goes into six…NOW carry the two…of course…THAT’s IT!-October 21st, 2011. Yup, for sure, I’d put money on it!” My, my, my…happy retirement Harold!
I don’t do numerology and I don’t have a crystal ball or a bowl of water ala Nostradamus, as it were…well, I do, have a bowl of water, that is, but all I see in it is…well…water… oh, nevermind…my view is that we should all be living everyday like it’s our last day on Earth anyway. Smell the roses, breath in the air, admire that sunrise, love your fellow man, live, laugh, love…embrace your life on good old Mother Earth for as Joe Cocker famously stated, “Who can say what tomorrow will bring, we’ll see.”
Friday, December 30, 2011
I'M BACK
Holy crap, it's been a month since I opened this blogsite. That's embarassing! Both of the people reading this thing are going to be disappointed that I haven't had anything new on here for a while.
Here's the thing, though, I went back to work full-time and I just haven't taken the time to get back at it here. Anyway, I am resolving, (for the sixth year in a row or something) to do more blogging. You can expect to hear more from me in the New Year. Happy New Year everyone!
Here's the thing, though, I went back to work full-time and I just haven't taken the time to get back at it here. Anyway, I am resolving, (for the sixth year in a row or something) to do more blogging. You can expect to hear more from me in the New Year. Happy New Year everyone!
YOU SAY YOU WANT A RESOLUTION!
Can you believe we are already into the second year of the second decade of the 21st Century? Me either. Another year has passed and, as always, time marches on. So now it’s resolution time again. Did you stick to your resolutions in 2011? Can you remember the resolutions you made a year ago? I know I can’t be completely positive about last year’s resolutions but I vaguely remember resolving to write stuff down more so I could remember more stuff but I can’t remember where I put the stuff that I wrote down, or even if I did it at all. Hmmmm?
Anyway, this year I am resolving to make my resolutions more manageable. It’s always admirable to set lofty goals but then you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment when you don’t stick to them. Out with that “make a million dollars” thing I’ve been resolving to do for a long, long time, then. And I’ve finally kicked the smoking habit so there’s another big one off of the list. Eat better, be kinder, lose weight, spend less-save more, enjoy life to the fullest, spend more time with family…those are all things that we should be striving for every day of the year not just in the first two weeks of January every year.
If you have ever read any of the “self-help” books they are always telling you to make smaller goals first and then build toward larger goals, you know, baby steps. And quoting Frank Ra, the author of the New Year’s resolution book, “A Course in Happiness”: Resolutions are more sustainable when shared, both in terms of with whom you share the benefits of your resolution, and with whom you share the path of maintaining your resolution. Peer-support makes a difference in the success rate with New Year’s resolutions.”
Now that makes sense, doesn’t it? Work with someone you’re close to and make your resolutions practical and something that both parties will benefit from, eh? What a coincidence, why just the other day I was mentioning to my wife Debbie that we’ve got a couple of resolutions that we should make this year and now I know it’s best if we do it as a team. So I thought of a few “attainable” resolutions to start the year off and then we can see what happens.
Like: I will resolve not to say “Huh?” or “what?” every time Deb says something to me if she’ll resolve not to talk to me if I’m more than four feet away from her. Speak clearly and enunciate!! Please.” Sidebar resolution: Yes, I will look into those hearing aids!
We will both resolve to synchronize our snoring so someone doesn’t have to move to a different bedroom halfway through the night. (Not sure how we’re going to do that but we’ll write it down anyway).
Deb resolves not to nag so much on the weekends if Perry will resolve to actually do something on the weekends. Who wrote this? How’d that one get in there?!
Debbie will resolve to try to not tell extremely important news and family plans to me while the game is on and I will resolve to at least mute the damn thing while the itinerary plans are being laid out to me while the important sports event is playing on the television.
That’s about it for now, I think. It’s a pretty good start and we don’t want to overwhelm ourselves now do we? Yes, I think that’ll do for now. Oh yeah, there is another thing that I’ve got to do…I’m just going to have to resolve, for the thirtieth year in a row, to get a handle on that procrastination thing that I do so well. Wait just a second. Hold on now. Maybe I’ll move that a little further down the list, or something. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that just yet. We’ll see…
“A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.”-Author Unknown
Anyway, this year I am resolving to make my resolutions more manageable. It’s always admirable to set lofty goals but then you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment when you don’t stick to them. Out with that “make a million dollars” thing I’ve been resolving to do for a long, long time, then. And I’ve finally kicked the smoking habit so there’s another big one off of the list. Eat better, be kinder, lose weight, spend less-save more, enjoy life to the fullest, spend more time with family…those are all things that we should be striving for every day of the year not just in the first two weeks of January every year.
If you have ever read any of the “self-help” books they are always telling you to make smaller goals first and then build toward larger goals, you know, baby steps. And quoting Frank Ra, the author of the New Year’s resolution book, “A Course in Happiness”: Resolutions are more sustainable when shared, both in terms of with whom you share the benefits of your resolution, and with whom you share the path of maintaining your resolution. Peer-support makes a difference in the success rate with New Year’s resolutions.”
Now that makes sense, doesn’t it? Work with someone you’re close to and make your resolutions practical and something that both parties will benefit from, eh? What a coincidence, why just the other day I was mentioning to my wife Debbie that we’ve got a couple of resolutions that we should make this year and now I know it’s best if we do it as a team. So I thought of a few “attainable” resolutions to start the year off and then we can see what happens.
Like: I will resolve not to say “Huh?” or “what?” every time Deb says something to me if she’ll resolve not to talk to me if I’m more than four feet away from her. Speak clearly and enunciate!! Please.” Sidebar resolution: Yes, I will look into those hearing aids!
We will both resolve to synchronize our snoring so someone doesn’t have to move to a different bedroom halfway through the night. (Not sure how we’re going to do that but we’ll write it down anyway).
Deb resolves not to nag so much on the weekends if Perry will resolve to actually do something on the weekends. Who wrote this? How’d that one get in there?!
Debbie will resolve to try to not tell extremely important news and family plans to me while the game is on and I will resolve to at least mute the damn thing while the itinerary plans are being laid out to me while the important sports event is playing on the television.
That’s about it for now, I think. It’s a pretty good start and we don’t want to overwhelm ourselves now do we? Yes, I think that’ll do for now. Oh yeah, there is another thing that I’ve got to do…I’m just going to have to resolve, for the thirtieth year in a row, to get a handle on that procrastination thing that I do so well. Wait just a second. Hold on now. Maybe I’ll move that a little further down the list, or something. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that just yet. We’ll see…
“A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.”-Author Unknown
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