Things Desi Hates............

This is a YouTube video created by my step-grand daughter whose name is Desirae. While some of her past videos have been a little bit on the irritating side (I mean lets face it, I am 40 years older than her and she sees the world totally different than I do), this video is worth watching, if only for the entertainment value. It is funny and I have to agree with most of it. Obviously her frustration is genuine. I can only wonder what she will add to the list over the next 40 years. Most excellent Desi!

Not A Resolution

...more of an experiment. Since most New Years resolutions have already faded from memory along with most of the 2011 Holiday season, now is the time for me to make a commitment. It will just be a test. A trial if you will. Since going off the grid a few months back (the wife and I don't watch broadcast media anymore) life has improved somewhat. Gone are the stress and anxiety causing commercials and news stories that were brainwashing us. Well, almost. Even online, the media reaches out to warp my sense of normalcy and correctness (I am still seeing pictures of the cruise ship Costa Concordia over a week after it happened!)

So I am going to try a 30 day experiment. NO NEWS. I am not going to read it, watch it, or listen to it until February 20th. This may be a bit of a challenge, considering how hard they try to get into our heads thru every possible medium. If I can make it, I think I will find the world in just about the same place that I left it. I'll let you know.

Tipping Point

I am struggling with this concept. When does working for my security (health benefits) start to degrade my health to the point that my job is doing me more harm than good? When is the correct time to say, enough is enough and just walk away to enjoy what remains of your time on earth? It seems that what remains of my most productive years is being squandered chasing something I no longer desire.

Impulse Buy!

I find myself more and more with online purchasing anxiety. This occurs when you hover your mouse pointer over the buy button on a website.

I have found that I am much more likely to make an impulse purchase online than if I have to pull out my wallet and physically pay for something.

Marketers and web designers must love this.

Pulling Staples

I am now writing this blog on an iPad. For the most part it is going to be short and sweet from now on. Not so much long winded rambling. That said, this device is making almost everything paperless. I am starting to see Steve Jobs vision of the future. Simplify everything. With that said, I find myself becoming more and more frustrated pulling staples and using paper clips. Let go of the paper people. The forest and the landfills will thank you for it.

A Life Too Short

A coworker of mine passed away yesterday. She was in her mid-thirties, cancer, the aggressive kind. She had been going through treatment for the past 2 years. We all knew this day was coming, she wouldn't be coming back. In the end, I wonder if she regretted not doing more reports and answering more office phone calls, or if she wished for more walks on a beach or holding hands with some she loved. It makes you stop and think.

Jefferson Would Not Be Pleased....

He feared the accumulation of riches and the growth of a large urban working class. The mobs of great cities, he said, are sores on the body politic; artisans are usually the dangerous element that make revolutions; workshops should be kept in Europe and with them the artisans with their insidious morals and manners. The only substantial foundation for a republic, Jefferson believed to be agriculture. The spirit of independence could be kept alive only by free farmers, owning the land they tilled and looking to the sun in heaven and the labor of their hands for their sustenance. Trusting as he did in the innate goodness of human nature when nourished on a free soil, Jefferson advocated those measures calculated to favor agriculture and to enlarge the rights of persons rather than the powers of government. Thus he became the champion of the individual against the interference of the government, and an ardent advocate of freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of scientific
Inquiry.

"from The History of the United States"

A Different Tack

...and now for something completely different. It is a new year and things continue to change, as does this blog. I will be back on here catching up on things but with a different twist. Stay tuned for more details.