more attention span

My normal morning proceedure is to get up, turn on the coffee maker, take the puppies for their morning walk, turn on the TV to Fox news, and then sit at my computer to get caught up with what's happening in cyberspace. Part of that is to create the day's blog post. Of course there is always pressure to make the blog informative and entertaining, and hopefully educational as well. After all, if we don't learn, we don't progress, which brings to mind one of my favorite lines, "if the opposite of "pro" is "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?? ( http://www.instantrimshot.com/ )

Ok, moving on, while sitting here, and watching the news, Geraldo mentioned that we as a nation have a short attention span, when it comes to national politics. I think he was referring to our lack of ability to remember what our national leaders do in the conduct of their jobs, particularly when we go to the polls, thus confirming that my favorite malady affects our national politics as well.

On a totally different subject, it is right now, ten degrees BELOW zero in Bismark N.D.!!! Why does anyone live there? I can't figure it out when they could be here in the beautiful sunshine.

But, we digress (another symptom) from our rambling ruminations. (Look that one up!!) It is Friday and we need to plan out the weekend. The weather forecast may not cooperate with waxing the motorhome so we may just curl up around a good book.

One final thought on a Fox news bit: they were just talking about a new phenomena appearing in the Florida real estate market known as "home managers". As I understand it, a home manager is hired to live in a home which is for sale in the very depressed Florida market. The reason being that a lived in home typically sells more quickly and for a higher price than an empty one. The home manager typically pays the utilities and about 30% of the going rent which is cheap for the property they are living in. Down side is that you never know when you are going to have to move. Thus.........yep, you guessed it, have a short attention span and all is well.

Shifting gears

Today we're going to shift gears and spend some time pondering a recent event that has captured the imagination of much of our country. I'm talking about what has been dubbed, "the miracle on the hudson", or more specifically the crash of U.S. Airways flt 1549 on January 15. You don't have to be a pilot to appreciate what the crew of this flight accomplished that day, and much has been written about the event. In this age of ego and "me first", it is refreshing to listen to the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, testify and describe the event. In my mind, Sully is the kind of guy I would like my kids to have as a hero. He is obviously an accomplished pilot, but he is also modest. A combination seldom found in the aviation business. Sully has also demonstrated a keen insight, both of himself and the aviation industry. I don't know what his politics are, but I wish more people like Sully would get into the political arena. It is certainly easy to see why this event has impressed the public so much. First, it had a happy ending with no lives being lost. Second, the main character is so likeable, and so capable and modest. I have no doubt the story will be made into a movie soon and I hope Hollywood gets this one right, no "superheros", just a super hero.

What prompted me to write this was that this morning I received the attached photos from a street in E. Rutherford N.J., in an email from a friend and wanted to share them with you. Just imagine waking up to an airplane driving down your street! Pretty impressive. I wonder if this one will end up on NatGeo and Mega Movers?

An update.......

Today is Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2009. I’m sure most of you already know that, but I have to put it in for my benefit! Today I’m planning to kind of sum up our stay here at Encore Campground in beautiful Bradenton Florida. We arrived here about the middle of the month. We set up the essentials including electric, sewer and water and then settled in to wait out the existing cold weather. Now I know I will be subjecting myself to criticism for talking about cold weather when it really wasn’t cold compared to the weather our family and friends are experiencing up north. I recognize this and the only defense I can propose is that our reaction to the weather is a relative thing which is framed by our expectations for Florida. Psychologically we expected sunny skies, and mid 70s when we got here. Instead we got low 60s for highs and sometimes it was down to below freezing at night. When you add to that the winds, it was a pretty miserable experience. Keep in mind that a camper can get really, really small when it is cold outside and you might be able to imagine our state of mind.

Not to belabor that point, let’s move on. The weather here has gotten better and we typically have mid 70s and sunny during the day and mid 50s at night. This is certainly a LOT better than what we have had. Again, I am not minimizing the miserable conditions up north, and I feel badly for those folks and what they are going through.

During the several weeks we have been here, I have been busy taking care of some maintenance items on the motorhome. I had to rebuild the commode to eliminate a bad gasket. I will leave it to your imagination to determine how important that one was. I also fixed a shower head hook, am working on the icemaker, replaced a broken basement door latch and did some cleaning on the exterior. The porch light was burnt out and when we first got here the chassis batteries were bad so I got new ones and replaced them. Additionally we got a screen room to install outside to add to our living space and I am in the process of installing that. I also had to beef up the bracing on the picnic table here on our site so we would feel safe sitting on it.

Shortly after we arrived here I noticed the front brakes on the Jeep were very hot and even smoking. The next day I noticed that the transmission was leaking fluid and finally the steering was, to put it mildly, scarey! So, it was off to the repair shop to have things corrected. Now, before you start “tsk, tsking” me, everything described above was stuff I had fixed just before we left for Florida. Now I had to get it fixed again. The repair shop had our car for three days and when I picked it up the steering was still not right so it was back to the repair shop for another day. Finally it was close enough that I was able to adjust the toe-in myself and I finally have a car I feel safe driving.

Now, we don’t want to forget about the puppies. As anyone who knows us will attest, we love our pups, and value their company. However, shortly after we got here, Larry Jr. noticed they were showing signs of the return of the giardia parasite they had when we first got them. So it was off to the vet for more treatment. That seems to have gone away now, thanks to the medication.

Of course we can’t forget about Linda’s knee. A while back she tore some cartilage in her left knee and it was not responding to treatment and was quite painful. So, Larry jr. introduced us to a local orthopedic surgeon he works with and Linda scheduled her arthroscopic surgery for last Wednesday. Unfortunately her progress hasn’t been smooth and we went back to the Dr. yesterday for a recheck. Linda is having a lot of pain and some other problems but we are hoping that it is just a matter of time before she is doing a jig as she runs around the campground.

I don’t mean to complain, and please don’t take it as complaining. I just wanted to get everyone up to date on happenings in our little family.

On a bright side, our campground here is beautiful and I have included some photos to show that here. We are enjoying the time we get to spend with Larry and Krista and their pups, and also the time we spend with Mom and Dad Hodson.

We will get back to more pleasant topics tomorrow, and in the meantime, here are some photos for those who prefer visual input!

Attention span: Goldfish

While I was researching my book about attention span, it became apparent that there is a fairly large sub-culture that exists which concerns itself with the attention span of goldfish! Yep, it’s the truth. Don’t believe me, check it out!

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/bscienceb-schoolboy-bowls-over-goldfish-memory-myth/2008/02/18/1203190696599.html

There are actually groups of people who have done studies to determine the attention span of goldfish, developing elaborate scientific experiments to determine said attention span. As best I can determine, the results of these experiments and studies have concluded that indeed, goldfish DO have an attention span and as near as they can determine, it is about 4 seconds.

Now, I don’t have a problem with this. If that’s what they determined, so be it. Actually, I can’t dispute it because I don’t want to go to the trouble of checking it out myself to see if it’s accurate. Besides, what are the real consequences of an inaccurate measure of a goldfish’s attention span? I don’t see it creating havoc on the highways, or resulting in some foreign war being fought. So, I will accept what I hear and move on.

Except…….I really have to wonder if there isn’t some better, more useful and productive activity these folks could involve themselves in, better than attempting to determine the attention span of goldfish.

And finally, we have a very nice video of our puppies playing with their Florida "cousins" DJ and Kasey Kahne. Talk about attention span.......................

Attention span Feb. 20, 2009

It occurred to me that in order to write anything at all about a subject, one should be somewhat familiar with the subject. In the case of attention span, it would probably be a good idea to have an attention span. However, if the subject focuses on a short attention span, it might be helpful to have a short attention span. Now, psychologists tell us that a persons attention span generally increases as the person grows up, with estimates of 3 to 5 minutes for each year of age, which probably means I am about 3 years old, despite my outward appearance, and the fact I recently started receiving social security.

In order to resolve this conflict, I resorted to the good old standby of testing, and found an “attention span” test on the internet. If you are interested, here is the link:

http://psychologytoday.psychtests.com/cgi-bin/health/transfer_health.cgi?partner=pt&test=attention

I scored a 56 out of 100, which I guess indicates I’m a little above average, which doesn’t say a whole lot about the rest of you. However, if you have managed to stay with me this far, you aren’t doing too badly. If you are concerned about your attention span and want to do something about it, there are exercises you can do to improve it. I’m told this only works on single men as married men are too far gone and their attention span has attritted beyond hope.

Webster

Webster is my puppy. Webster is a West Highland white terrier who, at the time I wrote this, was 8 months old. Now I ask you, what better topic is there to include in a book titled “Attention span”, than an 8 month old terrier? Talk about short!! Maybe non-existent. Actually there is one thing that manages to hold his attention for more than the famous “New York Minute”, and that is food. I mean this puppy defines the phrase chow-hound. You name it, he has eaten it. Sticks, twigs, bugs, small birds, toads, and other sources of non-traditional protein are all on his menu. Despite his proclivity for unusual dinner fare, Webster is loved by me and Linda and his antics make us laugh. Attention span? I don’t think so. One white bundle of fun? Absolutely!!

Attention span

I’ve always wanted to write a book, but the biggest problem I’ve had thus far is coming up with a theme or idea that would last long enough to be a book, and of course, make it a giantic best seller. I have really, really great ideas, but they only last about 2 to 3 minutes. Then I forget them or give up on them. So, one day, while driving along in our motorhome I decided to write a book consisting of a bunch of short ideas, events, stories, and philosophies. I plan to call the book “attention span”. The book may be long, the stories however, will be short, just like my attention span. Since I have this blog going, I am going to experiment here with some of my attention span ideas. Every once in a while, the concept of attention span hits me as I travel through life. When it hits me, I will try to share it here with you. Stay tuned, if you have a long enough attention span……………

Get to know the PDGA!

Ok, study subject of the day is the PDGA, otherwise known as the Professional Disc Golf Association. If you clicked on the videos above, you have some idea what I am talking about. We had the opportunity this weekend to play some disc golf and found it to be interesting and a source of good exercise. Some of you might have heard of disc golf by another name as it is commonly refered to as "frisbee golf". However, since frisbee is a copyrighted name, it cannot be applied to this sport without permission. So, someone designed discs which are very similar to frisbees and markets them to be used on a public area set up as a disc golf course. This is a very elaborate proceedure since there are discs for every purpose on the course, similar to a bag of golf clubs. There are distance drivers, fairway discs, and even putter discs. The "holes" if you will, are actually elaborate contrivances consisting of a tray, over which there is mounted an assemble of chain link strands. The chains serve to absorb the energy of the disc when it arrives at the hole, causing the disc to drop into the tray, thus completing the hole. Strokes or slings of the disc are counted as in golf with all holes being a par 3. As I said, good exercise and the price is right, free.

My studies led me to the PDGA website, http://www.pdga.com/, which explains the rules and proceedures of the game. In addition, there is a list of disc courses throughout the USA. I found it remarkable that there are soooooo many of these courses around. Until recently I didn't even know they existed. If you have been paying attention to the news you may have heard that part of the new federal stimulus bill, just passed by congress, included funds for construction of at least one such course. Apparently congress is ahead of me on this one. :)

Just one more subject to add to your storehouse of knowledge.

The Question Ends Here

The following dissertation is from http://incompetech.com/gallimaufry/care_less.html and covers a topic of great concern to me. I have had this discussion with some of my more erudite friends and despite the evidence at hand, there are "some" who still disagree with me about this.

"I could care less" vs. "I couldn't care less"

When one usually states "I could care less", they usually mean "I could not care less". [e.g. "I could care less about linguistics."]
In order for one to "care less" about a subject, they must first care about it somewhat. Saying "I could care less about ... " does indeed imply, nay dictate, that there is some degree of care.
I've put together a handy chart to help visualize...

And so, I'm certain this should be the final discussion regarding this subject. As the title suggests, "The Question Ends Here". But there are some stubborn individuals who will continue to say it wrong. But, you know what? I couldn't care less! And I mean that!

Settling in

I think I am beginning to comprehend the meaning of the phrase, "settling in", as it applies to retirement living. Mind you, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a difficult adjustment. I mentioned a few days ago about the difficulty in keeping track of how long I have been retired, albiet somewhat tongue in cheek. (BTW, this is from Wikipedia: Tongue-in-cheek is a term used to refer to humor in which a statement, or an entire fictional work, is not meant to be taken seriously, but its lack of seriousness is subtle. The origin of its usage comes from when Spanish minstrels would perform for various dukes in the 18th century; these dukes would silently chastise the silliness of the minstrel's performances by placing their tongue firmly to the side of their cheek.)

Anyway, the settling in process includes the somewhat difficult attempts to keep track of time, and the mental and physical adjustments to retirement. For years I have trained myself to keep emotions in check when difficulties arose. This was necessary in a business where difficult situations were our stock-in-trade. Now those emergencies are gone and the normal day to day emotional highs and lows have settled down and I am having to adjust. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if this is going to make me more sensitive, or less sensitive. I guess only time will tell.

BTW, the above explanation of "tongue-in-cheek", is one of the new features of this blog, and I am going to try to provide some new topic each day to review and discuss in my efforts to educate the world. Hope you enjoyed it.

Larry

P.S. stay tuned tomorrow for a clear cut explanation of a commonly used (misused) phrase.

I think warm weather is finally here

It was beautiful here yesterday, and it is going to be beautiful here today, and tomorrow, and the next day...............you get the idea. We are finally starting to experience what we came here for!! Yippee!!

Yesterday was a busy day for us. Before leaving for Florida, we took the Jeep in to have it serviced. We had the transmission fluid changed and the brakes replaced. Well, over the weekend I noticed transmission fluid on the ground and sure enough, the transmission was low on fluid. Meanwhile I had also noticed that the new front brakes were sticking and getting hot. So yesterday we took the car in to have it serviced. We got a rental car to use while it was in the shop overnight. Just got off the phone with the shop and "we have three of our best men on it" was the response. Ohhhhh boy!!!

One reason we got a rental car was because Linda had a Dr. appointment yesterday to have her knee checked and we needed transportation to get there. Long story/short, Linda has an appointment to have her knee surgery next week on Wednesday. Hopefully this will cure her knee problems.

Today I am trying to get up the nerve to tear out our commode in the motorhome. It seems to be leaking a little. Should be a bit of a job, but time will tell.

More tomorrow.

Took the weekend off

Although, how I knew it was the weekend, I just do not know. One more thing that retireees have to endure. We don't get to look forward to sleeping in on the weekend. EVERY day is a Saturday!! But I digress. Today is Monday and Linda is getting ready for us to walk to the clubhouse for free Monday morning coffee and donuts. Temperature today is supposed to be 78, and of course there is the usual Florida sunny and blue sky as well. Had a nice weekend puttering around, spending time with Larry and Krista, as well as Grandma and Grandpa Hodson. My mantra is "relax, relax, relax"

Today I am going to spend time waxing the coach and maybe working on the Jeep. Saturday I did redo the caulking on the bathroom sink, so it is not all just fun and games here. There are important tasks that need done.

Hope you enjoy the photos. See you tomorrow.

Larry

Friday, Feb. 6, 2009

Today is Friday and what a glorious morning! When I first went out to walk the pups, there was frost on the ground, but within 5 minutes of beautiful sunshine it was gone! Today the temperatures are going up to mid 70s and it will be 80 here within a few days.

Under the subject of future activities, I have been watching the progress of the next shuttle launch which was originally scheduled for next week, on Thursday. However, it has now been postponed until the 19th of Feb. My hope is to be able to travel over to Kennedy Space Center to watch that event. Other than the Columbia and the Challenger, shuttle launches have gotten to be sort of matter-of-fact, but it still inspires me as a massive accomplishment, harnessing that power in a positive direction. I have always wanted to witness a shuttle launch (actually, I have always wanted to participate in a shuttle launch, or even be a passenger!) and this may be the only chance I will ever have.

If you have been paying attention to national news lately, hopefully you have been following the inspiring story of the US Airways plane landing on the Hudson river. Most recently the cockpit voice recordings of the conversations between the pilot and departure control were released yesterday and to listen to that conversation was, to me, chilling. Having done a bit of flying myself, it is still difficult to put myself into Captain Sully's seat during this emergency. To say he was cool under fire would be to dramatically understate the circumstances.

Today I am going to set a goal of getting some better pics of the campground where we are staying, and hopefully I will be able to share them with you. This is truly a very nice place that is well maintained, not to mention our site is very nice with the lake in our back yard.

Have a wonderful day!

When will it get warm here?

Today is (in addition to being Feb. 4th, and the 35th day of my retirement) college football letter of intent signing day. This is the college equivalent to the NFL draft and sets the stage for college football's national championship for several years.
Having said that, I am happy to report that Professor Tressel at THE Ohio State University showed up on signing day and has captured 7 of the top 100 national prospects so far, leaving OSU with one of their best recruiting classes under Coach Tressel, and one of the best in the nation. Players signed will fill holes left by departures to the NFL from last years Fiesta Bowl champions and will keep the Buckeyes quietly in the hunt for yet another national championship.
Moving on to less enjoyable subjects, it is cold here in Florida today. I'm not saying cold, like in Ohio cold, cold like in Florida cold. It won't get about 58 today, and there is a strong wind blowing. It is supposed to go below freezing tonight and be cold again tomorrow. I know, I know, I am not going to get any sympathy from my friend up north and that is as it should be. Just to let you know I am NOT laying on the beach, sucking up rays, but rather, sitting in the motorhome trying to keep warm.

The opening photo is kinda neat. You may remember that Larry and Krista took us to a concert last week. This is a photo of them standing in line to get our tickets.

Until next time, stay safe.

Super Sunday is over

Thoughts on the game: Exciting and enjoyable, but, the wrong quarterback won the game. Oh well, what can I say? One interception made the difference. However, the representatives from the Buckeye state showed up and certainly made a difference. Santonio Holmes from "The Ohio State University", James Harrison from Kent State, and of course Big Ben from Miami of Ohio. We leave this NFL season as we have so many in the past, "wait until next year". The Browns have a new coach, a new setup in the front office and the NFL draft is just around the corner.

It is raining here in not so sunny Florida. According to the National Weather Service, it is going to rain all day. The good news is sunny tomorrow, but not real warm. There is an interesting mental disconnect going on here. I know there is snow and cold up north because I see it on the news. But being here makes it seem so distant or unreal. Then when we look out the window and see rain, we are sad that it is not nicer, failing to consider what we could be in at home. Just a thought. Haven't quite figured it out yet.

On a lighter note, I am going to try to upload some video of the pups. We will see what happens.