people, places and things that have piqued my interest
Observation:
My wife has a monthly get-together with a few women friends. They’ve all known each other for over 20 years. They can just sit and talk for hours at a time.
Most men, on the other hand, seem to need to be either playing a game or watching one, when they get together to hang out and talk.
Why do so many little birds have such jerky movements?
For the most part, I crave silence. I love quietness, and I enjoy going somewhere remote where the loudest sound is the beating of my heart and the breath moving in and out of my lungs.
But there are sounds that I like. Wind whispering through pine trees. Red-wing blackbirds in cattails. The warning horn of a distant train. The cry of an eagle. Riffles in a river. The crescendo of lovemaking, followed by the softening breath of post-coital embrace. Crickets and frogs calling for a mate. Meadowlarks. A babbling brook.
For 2017 it seems like every conservation and environmental organization I contribute to sent me a calendar. And a whole bunch of other paper.
I wish they would stop sending unsolicited calendars, labels, bags, postcards, etc. etc.
This seems like a huge waste of both funds and natural resources and a big contribution to the waste stream. Yes, I recycle everything I can, but even that process uses and energy and resources.
Make the calendars and other things opt-in for those who want them, and otherwise use my donation for the purpose it was given.
I have to admit that I am usually dismissive of all the cat pics and kitty videos on Facebook and Instagram.
And then there are days like today that have been a challenge and the neighborhood cat sneaks into our house, jumps on my lap, and lets it be known that the most important thing in life right now is that I scratch him between his ears give him a rub under his chin.
I understand that Google needs to make money by showing me ads when I’m doing something online. I understand that advertisers want to reach people who are or might be interested in their products or services.
What I don’t understand is that I keep seeing the same ads, or ads from the same companies, for things that I searched for once a long time ago.
Over a year ago I searched for a particular hiking shoe. I still get ads popping up for that shoe. A couple of months ago I went to a stock photo website. Now I’m barraged with ads from one of those sites.
Google knows what I search for and what I’m interested in. How about a little variety in the ads, and stop wasting the ad money for advertisers that I’m no longer interested in?
It is amazing how much work you can get done by going somewhere with no cell phone reception and no internet access.
Intuit Online Payroll service periodically sends out an email, as required by the IRS, to encourage customers to enroll in the federal government’s Electronic Federal Tax Payment System® (EFTPS).
Once enrolled, you can make any payments due the IRS via this online service instead of writing a paper check and mailing it. I like electronic bill paying, so went to the EFTPS website to enroll.
Two things that piqued my interest in the “What You Need To Know” box:
“This EFTPS® tax payment service Web site supports Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows and Mozilla Firefox for Windows.”
Rather ironic that the IRS wants to respond to your enrollment in an online service by sending you a piece of paper via regular mail. What do you want to bet that the envelope will also include a notice about the Paperwork Reduction Act?
The EFTPS programmers might want to check their visitor stats, where they are quite likely to find that a large majority of enrollees are using Chrome or Safari as their browser, with Firefox and Internet Explorer way down the list (and IEx is about to be dropped by Microsoft).
To the credit of the IRS/US Treasury Dept., the actual online enrollment process was easy to navigate and well done.
What is it with people who drive a foreign made car plastered with bumper stickers like “God Bless America” and US Flags?
If they were really as patriotic as they want you think they are, wouldn’t you think they’d own an American made car and stop buying cheap Made In China stuff from Walmart?
What do you say when one of your teenager’s friends has been killed in a car accident?
My youngest son is a high school senior. In my email Inbox today was a message from the high school e-news person, letting parents know that one of the school’s students had been killed in a car accident over the weekend.
The name of the kid was a little familiar, so after school today I asked my son if he knew that boy.
Yes, he did: Classmate, something of a friend, someone he’d known and got along with for the past few years. My boy doesn’t have a large social circle, so I sensed right away this might hit him pretty hard.
I struggled a bit with how to keep the conversation going (the school email noted it was important to help students deal with the tragedy). I’m a bit impressed that my guy said he was annoyed that the official school news didn’t include the fact that the friend’s girlfriend was in the hospital, critically injured in the crash
This son, more than most his age, has learned that the actions one takes on the spur of the moment, or the choices that others make, have a huge impact on the future of many people.
I am ever so thankful that my son wasn’t in that accident. I’m ever so thankful that my son recognizes that an instant of poor judgement can result in tragic loss.
My son might not believe it, but I was a teenager once, too. I had a car. And yes, once or twice I did something pretty stupid, and reckless, as a driver. Perhaps it was only sheer luck that none of those lapses resulted in tragedy.
But in the meantime, I have a kid who needs to deal with an important loss, and whose world of fun, video games and hanging out with friends has been interrupted by a tragic event.
What advice do you have for teens, and their parents, when something like this happens?