Category Archives: Observations

Invasion

Check out Ruby Tuesday for more red from all over.

Is there DSL in Hell?

The World’s Biggest Lie

The World’s Biggest Lie is:

“One Size Fits All”

Two Week Underwear??? Why???

Just in case anybody is interested. Science has advanced to the point where there is now underwear that can be worn for two weeks.

If you are interested please let me know so that I can make it a point to avoid you.

My question for this product is why do we need it? Personally I like to wear clean clothes every day.

If you want to order here is their web site.

They have a little gender disparity going on with their web site. Here is the is the closeup shot for their women’s wear.

In contrast, the closeup of the men’s boxers is

So what’s the deal? Men are clearly disadvantaged. Women can see how the underwear would fit and men can’t. This is just another example of how men are exploited in this culture.

A Day Off

I work a 9/80 schedule at work. In other words I work 80 hours over 9 days. That makes for some long hours for the nine days but I get a day off every other Friday. I love it. Last Friday I had a day off. Sweetie and I did a little knocking around.

First we went to SuperPizzaBoy’s school for the big end of year of conference. Of course we were confused by all the testing results but assured that he is doing fine, they love him, and he is ready to move to Middle School. Ok…. Well darn it he may be ready, but we aren’t! He’s our baby.

While there we were looking at the stuff hung up in the hallways. I always check that out. Hey what’s this?

That is his picture, what’s this? Stories that the kids wrote. SPB wrote a story! Nobody told us? I told you we aren’t ready. He is supposed to tell us everything. He hasn’t. The story is pretty decent, I mean for a 6th grader. Teacher said that she had to shut him down or he’d still be writing. There you go, you can’t advance him until his parents are ready. I’m telling you I don’t care if he would be bored. We aren’t ready for him to go to Middle School.

I mean for crying out loud we are standing in the hallway reading his dad burned paper like ordinary passerby.

I guess that you can tell we are going to put the “H” in helicopter parents. Reminds me of these GenX parents. Supposedly at my employer, one of the new hires last year was upset about something his supervisor said about his work performance. His Dad called the supervisor to try and discuss the situation. I don’t know if its true or not, but you have to admit it makes a good story. Sorry I’m way off topic.

They also had dioramas that the student‘s ~~parents~~ made. I love dioramas and the other hands on stuff SPB has done this year. We didn’t have that 46 years ago wehen I started my elementary education. The only hands on we got was the unpleasant kind from the teachers. Here is SPB’s project. His was on the little brown bat. He really got into it, the diorama was of a cave.

I tried to teach him about stalagmites and stalactites and how to remember the difference using something my own mother told me, “The mites go up and the tights go down.” He didn’t quite get it. Probably for the best. I don’t know what his teacher would have thought of that.

Well after all that trauma and drama we went to Nordaggios to get a couple of coffee drinks. Not only are the drinks great but they are pretty.

I mean, how can you drink a work of art? I did though.

Not bad for a day off, right?

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande is a surgeon who has written this book about checklists but it is not a book on how to make checklists for shopping lists or planning weddings nor is it a book about productivity. This is a book on using checklists as a tool to deal with modern technology’s extreme complexity to avoid disasters and death.

This came to the forefront with the development of the B-17 Bomber in the 1930’s. The plane was very complex and difficult to fly under the best of conditions. When things went wrong pilots made very obvious mistakes that led to crashes. In response Boeing developed very simple checklists that when used cut down on the number of crashes considerably.

He also talks about modern buildings. The incidence of failure of high rise buildings has been ridiculously low. Much of that is because of the use of checklists during the design and construction of the buildings. Everybody knows that know one person can think of everything in such a project so they depend on codes and lists in order to ensure the safety of the buildings.

Dr. Gawande really blasts his fellow doctors for being so resistant to standards of care and checklists for even the simplest of procedures. Standards and checklists that have been proven to work if followed. The problem is the ego of many doctors to hand power briefly over to somebody else for the briefest of times in order to make sure that the procedure is to be done.

The problem, as almost everyone who has ever dealt with the medical profession knows, is that doctors are treated like royalty and everyone else, nurses, technicians, and other highly educated, trained, and experienced professionals and especially the patients, are there at the doctor’s bidding. I asked a nurse last year when a family member was hospitalized what her number one problem was in her job. She said that, besides the workload, trying to explain to patients and their family members that she couldn’t tell them anything about test results or treatment plans or anything else. They had to wait for the doctor to tell them that and then telling the patients that she had no idea when the doctor was coming by, that in fact he or she was going to come by when they pleased and not a minute before. Further, they could page or call him or her till the cows come home and it would not do any good. She said that the whole floor of the hospital was full of people wondering and waiting when the doctor was going to come.

She said it as pretty frustrating. I think that there has to be a better way.

What do you think?

Oh yeah, I rate this book 2.5 stars out of 4. I mean its a good book but it is still only about checklists. At least it was short. But really, isn’t 200 pages like a graduate degree in checklists?

The Birds and the Bees

I was invited to SuperPizzaBoy’s school last week to sit with my son while they received “the talk” from somebody from the county health department.

Who would miss such a thing? Well about half my son’s fellow classmate’s father’s, is who. I don’t get it? I hope you don’t either! Sometimes you just have to show up, no matter how busy or important you are. The school let us know a long time in advance. I bet you either Bush or Obama would have saved the time, if they had sons. (OK, how come Obama, Bush, nor Clinton had sons? Plot, plot, plot, I am on to something here!?)

Anyway kind readers, those with delicate sensibilities leave right now, because I’m about to get real. I mean real real.

I mean it!!

I really do!!!

I kept notes. You know, I thought I might learn something and I did. It is the fault of pituitary gland. Yep, the pituitary gland. I am ashamed to say, that I didn’t know that!

Here is the pituitary gland,

Yep, that’s it. It weighs 1/2 of one gram. Or about 1/900th of a pound. Man, does it cause a lot of problems! Its hormones trigger all the various changes in the body that turn boys into men and girls into women. It is right behind the bridge of your nose on the underside of your brain.

I kept notes on the rest of the talk. This is what was discussed. It was only an hour and that included a 17 minute video. The speaker was entertaining, informative, and blunt.

The Dad’s that showed up, we all had big ole grins on our faces. The kids, will the boys were a little embarrassed by the whole thing. The girls, with their mom’s were in another room, hearing their side of the story.

The speaker jumped in and we covered everything from testicles to wet dreams from hyperactive oil and sweat glands to American Idol, Zits to boners, broader shoulders to vocal cords, scrotums to morning wood, ovaries and eggs to federal income taxes, seminial vesicles to thinking about what kind of man you want to be, and prostates to deodorant.

Wow, I was worn out. The kids where shell shocked.

I give the talk a four on a scale of one to four.

Of course, this kind of thing is going to have to be revisited quite a bit. By the Dad’s. Not all jobs can be outsourced!

“This puberty is going to be a little harder than what I thought” is what one kid said.

Yea, no kidding. You have no idea. Its kind of like when prospective Dad’s at work who about to have their first kid say, “its not that big a deal.” Yeah, right dude, Your life is not going to change much. A couple weeks, you will be back to the same routine. No big deal.” “Hah, you fool,” you want to yell.

I feel sorry for the Dads who were too busy or important to come, and for their sons.

Spring is Here

Spring has Sprung in Tulsa

MIL’s Star Magnolia Tree is blooming

Forsythia on the Arkansas River trail

More Star Magnolia on the Midland Valley Trail (please never mind the wires and cables)

The pear trees are in bloom.

Sell your Block Buster Video Stock Now!

Remember Blockbuster. The video rental company. Sell your stock; do it now. We were in there yesterday looking for some movies for SuperPizzaBoy. Well they have really cut their selection down. I mean Redbox and Netflix have been kicking some major Blockbuster butt. But I have proof that the end times are near.

They are now selling books.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Yogi’s Online Art Academy – Still Life Part 1

Welcome fellow art fans. Today we start lesson one in Still Life series. Still Life paintings are a very important genre in art and you need a background in Still Life in order to understand anything else in art.

Here for your examination is: Still Life with Fruit