Archive for September, 2009

Your Mom

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Somehow I thought of the people who regularly visit this blog site when I saw this shirt. You know who you are. 🙂

What if education were not required?

Monday, September 28th, 2009

I was thinking this morning and wondered to myself “what if taking math were not required?” Would students take it on their own? Would parents make them? Of course math is important but a lot of people hate it. Same with English or history or geography. What subjects would students take if they were not required to take the “hard” ones? If school were not required would they even go?

Many would of course. Educated parents would especially make sure their children were educated. But could they keep pushing them there as they got older? Teens are notoriously poor decision makers. I think some would see the value and would continue but given how many students drop out in high school now I suspect even fewer would make it into high school if they were allowed to drop out earlier. This would be a societal disaster I think.

I’m thinking this would make an interesting book. Fiction I hope.

Pain and Priorities

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Normally I don’t think it is a good idea to blog while depressed, angry or in pain. But in pain may be the safest so I’m going to be careful and try it. I have a toothache. A painful one. In fact I am almost looking forward to the start of root canal procedures later this afternoon because it will mean the pain mostly goes away- check this link for more options. I am also planning to go to pain management doctors naples. Since yesterday I have been kept going by Advil – a great product –  but my doctor gave me a prescription for high dose Ibuprofen. It should help with the pain better, faster and without leaving me worried that I am over doing it with too many pills. He also gave me a script for an antibiotic which should help reduce some inflammation.

The pharmacy had a backup and I waited for close to a half hour. Normally I don’t mind. They are busy and everyone is waiting equally. But honestly I was sitting there thinking “shouldn’t people waiting for pain pills get moved up higher on the queue?”

Selfish? I’m not so sure. If I were waiting for something else and they said “you’ll have to wait a few minutes more because we have to fill a pain prescription” I think I’d understand. I think I’d say “do it” without hesitation.

In general it probably doesn’t matter if people wait a few more minutes or an hour extra. If time was that important the doctor would have given samples or sent them to a hospital. That’s true of pain as well but really I think pain relief should be a high priority.

Of course that is me in pain waiting for my Ibuprofen to kick in speaking. What do you think?

Toys

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

The problem with being an adult is that you can afford all the great toys you couldn’t afford as a child but you can’t really enjoy playing with them as much. Take this Nerf gun for example. Boy I would have loved that as a kid. but I’d have had games to play with it and friends with their own Nerf guns. But we likely would not have been able to afford it. Now I could afford it but just shooting it around the house alone would be boring.  I think this is what they mean by youth is wasted on the young.

Sports Fans

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

I saw a license plate last week that said NYYSTNK which I interpret as “New York Yankees Stink” based on sounding it out and the Red Sox stickers that were also on the car. I think that is just so very sad. Someone went a long way not to raise up their own team but to put down another team.

I feel the same way about those stickers in cars that show a nasty little boy urinating on product logs of cars or other companies. That’s just immature. What sort of message are people who do that sending? What are they saying about themselves? Are they bringing favorable impressions of the teams/products they like or unfavorable impressions? To me the latter. It just offends me. It is so different from what we say we try to teach children.

Praise and promote your team all you want. Wear their logos. Fly their flags. Cheer when they do well and cry when they do poorly. But avoid putting the other teams down. It’s about sportsmanship people.

Full disclosure: Having been born in NY and raised in Brooklyn I am a long time Yankees fan. But I’d have been just as disappointed in a plate that said RDSXSTNK. Probably more so because I expect better behavior from Yankee’s fans than Red Sox fans after living in New England so long.

Axe Gratia Artis

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Roughly “axe for arts sake.” What? Well following a Twitter link I arrived at the Best Made Company web site. They make axes. hand made and hand painted axes that are really works of art. Expensive of course. I’m not sure that I would use one if I had one. One can get a very reasonable axe for under $50 and these axes start at $200 and go up in price quickly. But they sure are pretty.

I wonder if they are really making a go of this as a business. I hope so actually. I like the idea of custom items that are appreciated as much for their beauty as their functionality. It’s actually the sort of business I’d like to be in. To me making things is the best sort of work. Not that their is anything wrong with other sorts of work like services for example. It’s all good. But there is something basic about making things that strikes me as right for me.

Custom work – art if you will – is especially interesting because it looks so easy but we know it is not. There is a talent for design and for creativity. Not just everyone could make a custom axe that people would want to buy and display. We need more of that sort of thing I think because without it we’d be too focused on need and not enough on want. The pursuit of happiness begins when people have what they need and can start working on what they want.