Butt I Hate You

People can smoke if they want to, but why do so many smokers think that any place they choose to throw their cigarette butts is OK. On the street, on the sidewalk, on the beach, or on the stoop of a beautiful old building that is now vacant.

Smokers - find an ash can !

The Kid in the Class

I am taking a short class at a the local community college on how to take better photos. The type of class is not really important except for some of the examples I will give below. In class, I got to thinking that the types of people in a class have not really changed from high school. Though everyone is out of those school years and most are well out of those school years, they probably have not changed much from how they were in high school classes.

Thus far, I have noticed the following types:

• "Know It All" - Thinks he knows a lot and needs to point out the things that he does know to the entire class. Uses buzzwords. Is not likable.
• "Innocent Questioner" - asks a lot of questions, but just trying to learn
• "Weirdo" - pretends to be taking pictures during class
• "Teacher's Pet" - puts her 5 picture exercise on a piece of poster board for "show and tell" and also takes lots of notes
• "Smartie Pants" - helps the teacher by "clarifying" the teachers answers for the rest of the class
• "Class Clown" - throws in the witty comments to break up the seriousness with which some people take themselves.
• "Sharer" - shares information about herself that no one really cares about such as "This is a picture of sweet potatoes and apples, I was going to make a mash with them" uh - no one really cares what you are making. Also " I saw this thing on the internet about small light room you can make with a cardboard box so I stole a cardboard box from work because they were going to throw it out" Again no one really cares where you got a cardboard box from - it's not some hard to find object that we were all wondering how we could possibly get our hands on.
• "Look at Me" - person who pretends to downplay her work and then proceeds to make the class look at 30 photos of a salad when we only really were supposed to show 5 max.

More to follow as the class goes along.

Untold Stories

My grandfather had a book of cards and looking through it, I started thinking of all the untold stories that he probably had and wishing I had heard some of them.


Lincoln Aviaries Premier Strain




Anchor Hotel Honolulu




Venzo Astrological Readings

I Wanted to Like Her

Well not like her so much as respect her intelligence. I didn't need to agree with her philosophy or principles. I didn't need to agree with her political affiliations. I didn't need to agree with her stand on foreign policy, economic policy or abortion. What I did need to know was that the person was intelligent. To know that all the issues were understood and that the stand that the person was making was based on knowledge and thoughtful consideration. As a woman, I needed to know that the female candidate could hold her own. That she could debate the issues with the best of them. That her knowledge and intelligence could not be questioned. Agree or disagree with Hillary - her intelligence and knowledge were not in question. Sarah Palin, is a "trophy candidate" who may look pretty at the podium but lacks real substance as a candidate.

The parodies with Tina Fey and Palin are humorous - but it makes me think "who would I rather have as VP ? Fey or Palin ?" I would answer Tina Fey because I think she seems smarter. That is not the choice I would have wanted to make.

Helpful or Not

Are people generally helpful ? This question can be contemplated through the following story about a minor problem.

A friend left his glasses in a golf cart after we finished golfing in a charity golf tournament. He asked the golf cart attendant if he had found the glasses when the cart was turned in. He said "No - the carts went back out on the course quickly and I didn't have time to check them". My friend remembered the cart number we had so he asks the cart attendant if he could check because the guy is headed back out on the course. He says " I guess if I see it, but you should probably just wait to see if the cart comes through the turn". We wait for a while as the carts come through looking at all the numbers, several carts go by - there's a #6. Then finally, we see Cart #7 and think luckily it hasn't taken that long and we think we have found the glasses. We flag down the cart but no dice - we find out there is more than one Cart #7 and we need to look for the new Cart #7. The woman who gives lessons at the course walks by and says "go check the barn where the carts are kept because the new ones are usually in there". So, we go to the barn and there are not many carts in there, but there is a kid who is washing the carts. So the story gets told again and the kid says - " I know what you need to do - you need to go look for the Cart that has a 7 on it". Thanks - never would have thought of that. Now we see an old man who is going out on the course to do some maintenance so we ask him to look for Cart #7 when he is out there. Then we see the golf cart attendant again and tell him that we still haven't found the glasses and he says: "now you have lost your regular glasses too" We say its the regular glasses that were always lost. He says" Oh I thought you just lost your sunglasses. Go ahead and go inside and get a cart key and go look for the cart on the course". Now we are getting somewhere. We go inside and ask the bartender if we can get a cart key because we need to go look for the glasses. He is skeptical, but since the golf cart attendant said so - we get the key. But what cart does it go to? Turns out every key starts every cart so we are soon on the course looking for the Cart with a #7 on it (Thanks to the kid in barn who gave us this advice about how to find Cart #7). We backtrack and check hole#18 first. No luck. On to hole #17. A guy in the cart at #17 has just noticed the glasses and we have success as we drive up he holds up the glass case. At the same time, the old course maintenance guy comes up in his cart - he has been riding around looking for Cart#7 for us.

To figure if people are generally helpful, here are a few questions:

Was the golf cart attendant helpful at first ? NO
Was the golf teacher helpful ? NO - she thought she could tell us something helpful, but she did not.
Was the kid in the barn helpful ? Well he did tell us that to find Cart #7, we should look for the cart with the #7 on it.
Was the old maintenance man helpful ? YES
Was the golf cart attendant helpful on the 2nd try ? YES, but reluctantly.

Answer to the question Are people helpful ? Inconclusive, but leaning towards not so much.

Can we do that ?

Sign found on a telephone pole in the neighborhood. "Watch the Ryan and Gerald Show on You Tube"

You have to admire the ambition of kids. They think - yeah we can make a show and put it on youtube and people will watch it. We will help it get viewers with some telephone pole advertising.

Somewhere on the path to adulthood, it seems a lot of people lose the ability to think "Yeah we can do that". And the ones that don't lose it - we often think are crazy.

Nothing of interest

Is it depressing that nothing really happened of interest today? Is there a way to make the ordinary seem interesting if you describe it well enough?

Today, I grilled a hot dog for dinner. I bought the dogs at a Ralph's, a little deli up the street, the kind that people used to go to before large grocery stores came around. They were a little more expensive than the grocery as was noted by the price written on a piece of masking tape attached to the package. These were the kind of dogs with a whole lot of fat in them. 100% beef - sorry vegans and vegetarians - but they were good. The casings got nice and crisp with just the right amount of char from the grill and some good old time hot dog flavor. Topped it off with a little white american cheese and mustard. Tasty.

Nope - it's still not interesting. Must not have described it well enough.




Now the world's largest hot dog at
196.85 ft is interesting and maybe also a bit
disturbing.




But not as disturbing as these guys who used to have the
world's largest hot dog (?) It was only 50.6 ft.