“My bodyguard shows her revolver to anyone who asks
And yeah she comes to attention when you come up to me too fast”
I attended a CA this past weekend. Two things our new DO said stuck out to me:
1. Brief well prepared comments prove you don’t have to say a lot, to say a lot.
2. You will try to do things and will fail. But don’t let that make you fail to try.
I also learned today that principles are actually laws. But maybe I’m just dense and it takes a long time for stuff to sink in.
Mp3 players are a fantastic invention.
I watched PBS last Friday night for the first time in years. I had originally intended to set up the drums in my garage, but I couldn’t find the stand for the snare drum so I was reduced to watching TV. However, PBS had some awesome shows on. When I turned it on it was half way through a BBC America show about the differences between men and women and their brain sex. Which apparently is quite different and less clear cut than physical sex. I learned some really cool stuff.
One item of interest concerned speech. Women use both the right and left side of the brain to interpret speech. Thus, if you put headphones on them, and play two different made up words, one in each ear, women can hear both words and repeat them out loud. Men however, only use one side of the brain ( I think it was the right side) ergo they can hear that two words are said, but can only comprehend one of them and repeat it out loud. Cool huh? So women can actually listen to two conversations and comprehend both of them, or at least they have the potential to do so, I suppose not all of them have honed that skill.
This other point was a test with four couples to measure levels of testosterone during competition:
What was the competition? Go-Kart racing! What a fun experiment right? So it went like this, guys vs girls. The women’s testosterone levels stayed almost exactly the same during the race. Some were better drivers than others and that was reflected in them ranking at different places during the race, some progressing and some lagging behind. But testosterone wasn’t kicking in and giving them an edge. The men however, showed a distinctive increase in testosterone and this apparently was an advantage. Why? It caused them to take more risks in an effort to advance. I know, sounds dangerous right? More risks an advantage? In moderation. One woman commented that during the race she saw opportunities to pass someone, yet she said she would hesitate and then the opportunity would pass and so she didn’t advance in ranking. The men would take those risks because of the testosterone. One of the men’s testosterone levels absolutely skyrocketed though. He was second place in the race when this happened. Up to that point the testosterone had been giving him a real advantage. But then it skyrocketed, way above even the 1st place racer. He was a total hothead! His testosterone was way too high and he started taking bigger and bigger risks, eventually he spun out and ended up finishing 5th place.
In another show they were studying “love” and its longevity in four couples. One had been married 70 years and was still happy. One had just got married and were totally enthralled with each other. One had been married for 20 some years and had not divorced after the husband had two consecutive affairs, but now were considering divorce since they argued all the time. The fourth couple were split up recently since the husband had an affair, but had been married for 14 years had three kids and wanted to work things out. (They noted that infidelity is the No. 1 reason why marriage ends in divorce. Sad.) I found the results of one test in particular to be hilarious:
The husband from the newly wed couple was put in a brain scan machine of some sort that measured what parts of his brain were active. He was then shown a picture of his wife. As he looked at the picture, his brain started shutting down certain parts while other parts became very active. Curious which ones? Critical thinking, what do you think, turned off or very active? Turned off! Totally shut down! The part of his brain used to reason and make decisions totally shut off when he looked at the picture of his wife. While the rewards system in his brain started feeding him reward chemicals that made him feel great. Hilarious! The scientist commented that is a good indication of why phrases such as “Love is blind,” exist.
One last thing I’ll share is this:
Even just hours after birth, female newborns prefer to look at human faces. Male newborns will look at anything, human or not. The conclusion? Females like people. Males like things. Now that can change later on in life according to environment and all that jazz but I thought that was pretty interesting.
The above seems to be rife with grammatical error.
Played tennis last night. Fun stuff. Three on two was a new one for me, but hey gotta let the little kids play too right? Everyone wants to have fun. Kids are so funny sometimes. One little girl seemed kinda sad and was just sitting on the ground holding a racket, so I asked her if she wanted to play. It was funny how frustrated she was with herself when she would mess up. But she got better. After playing for awhile she was in a better mood and decided to be the photographer on hand. Her goal? Action shots! I thought it was really sweet that when she was leaving she said thank you to me and gave me a hug. I had thought I was probably annoying her before, but I guess we’re friends now. Being nice is a reward in itself. However playing tennis while being fun results in sore calves! Some how I had all sorts of energy last night. While I kept moving around that is. It’s so fun to run around and just hit the ball. I love it when I can return shots. Although, I have a horrid backhand. Trying really hard to hit the ball also tends to result in very funny jumps and swings. But hey it’s all about having fun, not looking cool. I learned how to keep score also. I never do that. It’s hard to keep score playing three on two. Always confusing.
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
-Albert Einstein
It can truthfully be said that Einstein understood some things.
The cl book is great for listening.
Baritone, that’s the term I was looking for last night. Although, technically I would of been incorrect if I had found it.
(backspaced) hahaahahah
I found a Death Cab cd I’d lost last night.
You ever get ripped off? I hate finances.
I have to agree with Robert on this point: “The further away I get from the things that I care about the less I care about how much further away I get.”
This is the best month since last May. For myself at least.
Ask me why sometime, in an appropriate setting.
Slate Blue has been replaced as my favorite color by Forest Green. For real.
How, you may ask, did I arrive at such a conclusion? After putting on a forest green striped sweater and looking at myself in the mirror, I knew it was true. It’s not that I don’t like Slate Blue now, nor is it that I didn’t like Forest Green previously. However, it is clear that I have grown enough since picking Slate Blue to appreciate Forest Green for what it rightly is. I should add that it is perhaps not strictly a Forest Green but a medium between Olive Green and Forest Green. What an amazing thing it is to have a new favorite color. I really am amazed. How exciting!
When someone is laying on a couch twenty feet behind you and talking gibberish to themselves a breath louder than a whisper, it’s incredibly hard to concentrate on anything but how crazy they are and how sad that is.
I heard the most adorable sounding Chinese sister give her experience. I think heartfelt joy expressed in a Chinese accent is probably the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. Quite endearing.
If I ever grow old, you will hear about how there is no footing in this muck!
Psalms is amazing.
Little Women, in real life. What a riot!
Getting joshed by spanish roofers is pretty fun. Those guys are hilarious. I on the other hand, just show up.
According to common diagnosis, I have anxiety issues which are upsetting my liver. I find that both ridiculous and worrisome. So I guess the big question now is, what’s gonna get cut out, the issues or the liver?
Anxious care in the heart of a man is what will cause it to bow down
Today I received some absolutely great phone calls. I love days with good phone calls. So many positive things were communicated through the phone.
One of said phone calls was from my fragrance promotion boss, he called to say “You’re laid off.” I was so happy. Seriously. I liked somethings about that job but I didn’t like the time I had to work it (Saturday afternoon) because it really interfered with my being able to have that as a long day in service. So that was just great.
Another call I received was to inform me of an upcoming HVAC+R project. Well that is fantastic. I have been itching to build a KH lately. Such great news. Just in the nick of time too. June was looking kinda boring. Not anymore. I can’t wait to start driving scissored lifts into things and pretending to know what I’m doing. The joys of volunteer construction. The greatest ability is availability and now that I got laid off, I’m available! Joy of joys this will be a humdinger for sure. Why it was December the last time I worked on a real KH project. None of this fake remediation stuff. Build build build . That’s the good stuff. Not to mention it is very close to my brothers abode which I frequent almost never. So that is a proximity plus if I’ve ever seen one. Toot sweet, I can see my niece!
In other news I got some sleep today and I feel super. Sleep is amazing. I should really watch the debt I build up because I tell ya I’ve been sleeping every night this week and have barely made a dent, but this morning I forced some extra, now that paid off. I was so talkative today. Me talkative!
Industrial Photography, so much I never knew.
The word to describe yesterday is sweat. Mighty Delicious and the sweat glands.
I’m afraid I must hasten to the laundry room/garage. Musty clothes and unprecedented humidity await me.
I put up pictures from Alice’s play. What a great kid! I just forgot to tell everyone. So here you are. Jolly Rodger and the Pirate Queen
“I’ll come to your wedding if you’ll be the bride in mine.”
I love quotes.
Meetings are so much fun sometimes. It’s totally what I make of it. What an amazing program of instruction, truely amazing.
Humans and their creative expression. It’s just so important. I wonder if angels have a desire to be creative. There is probably an answer to that question.
I met this wonderful girl at Macy’s. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
Steven Wright
I believe the above captures the tone of my mood rather well.
This morning I was loading some new music (Neil Young, Belle & Sebastian, Morrissey, Howlin Wolf, The Weavers etc) onto my mp3 player, when all of the sudden I received a message that I had run out of disk space on said mp3 player. 20Gigs! Full! I should of went with the 40Gig. I guess it’s a little unreasonable to want to carry around the NWT, 4 gigs worth of talks, and my entire music collection, not to mention half of the greatest man book on mp3. I’ll have to thin out the music, or take the some of the Bible off. I mean it’s not like I listen to the whole thing every day. I was really loving being able to just load stuff on there like nobodies business though, never having to worry about space. What will I do when my Drama cd’s come in?
I listened to Howl Howl Gaff Gaff today and was just all sorts of astir with gladness that I had picked it.
I hate the WB’s line of shows. No offense I hope. Ever since they took Felicity off that is.
I’ve resolved my coffee filter issues.
Have you seen those new driver’s licenses? I just updated the address on mine (four years later) but I didn’t go get a new picture taken, it’s hilarious. I have a new license with a 5 year old picture on it. How great is that? I’ll be young forever!
Well I’d better stop procrastinating and put some flesh on this skeleton and breath life into it.
in the stupor of morning
as fresh java i intended to make
to the bean i called a warning
“prepare to brew and to wake”
for paper my hands searched
behind the grinder they perched
no perforated cone was known
none could be produced, as searching had shown
for no matter how i tried
there would be no coffee brewed
and thus I sighed
and thought “how rude”
So the mail came.
SERVICE RULES!
I must say, I do appreciate those who have been engaging in service long enough to understand that a certain level of nutty banter is required to keep things on the positive. It’s hard when you have to be the person that keeps things grounded. But I do love it when I’m with a group that you don’t need to moderate at all. It’s just fine to cut loose and be a nut, without worrying service will get neglected due to the goofing off. IT’S A RIOT!
So anyone get any hickeys lately? oh if you only knew how old-fashioned I am.
I meet people at times, and hang out with them and it’s really hard. I meet other people and hang out with them and it seems like they would never get annoying. Hmm, I think both of those are unbalanced.
Isn’t it great when people slap you in the face with a deadpan honest assessment of how you have acted and you just have to accept that they are right and you have been being a moron? It’s so hard to do, but what a great feeling when you find truth and can move on.
3/8 inch to 1/4 inch male to female reducer. Hard to find.
I took my camera out in service today. Didn’t take a single picture.
I read a fantastic article about contentment. How great is that? It’s absolutely amazing how solid some stuff is. Never subscribe to negative thinking, it’s demonized.
Double-speak, I wonder if I am making it up, or it’s really double sided. I should just stop analyzing stuff and apologize if I make a mistake.
I got this book today, it’s a listing of what different floral arrangements mean. So it will have a type of plant/flower and then what that means. Or you can look up a word and it will tell you what flower/plant means that. It’s neat, but seems totally impractical since I doubt many people have studied up on that. It’s not so useful having codes if no one else knows them.
I feel so inspired!
