Tag: family

Puzzling Times

A puzzle of fantasy tropes including a wizard with a staff blasting something with magic while riding a dragon and protecting a castle with a comet and a moon thrown in for good measure.

I had to end my post yesterday rather abruptly to run my Saturday morning errands. During my jaunt around Leavenworth, I stopped in at Wal-Mart for the second time in a week, which is very unusual as I avoid shopping at Wal-Mart. If I can’t get it at Dillons, my only other option in Leavenworth/Lansing is Wal-Mart, outside of places like Dollar General and large pharmacy chains like Walgreens or CVS. K-Mart/Sears closed over a year ago and is now a very large U-Haul dealer next door to Home Depot.

This week they demolished the Payless Shoe Source store that previously resided in the same plot of land as K-Mart. And the biggest development project of the year is wrapping up. Quik Trip is nearly ready to open where the Leavenworth Co-Op was for decades on the northwest corner of Eisenhower and Main Street (US-73/K-7). I’m not looking forward to the traffic headaches that configuration is going to cause especially in the mid-afternoon when all the people on Post head home (to Lansing from Fort Leavenworth).

The other large roadwork improvement project that was causing me inconvenience completed last week as well. My alternate route to Dillons using 4-H Road to DeSoto is now open and the northern half of DeSoto now sports a middle turn lane and wide sidewalks. The intersection of Eisenhower and Desoto (on the south) and Shrine Park Road (on the north) also got a complete makeover including left turn lanes and signals for all directions and right turns lanes in some directions. Traffic should flow better in the mornings and evenings now.

But back to my second trip to Wal-Mart.

Continue reading “Puzzling Times”

Summer Arrives

Summer Arrives

A Day Early and Sunshine Short

The last two to three weeks have felt more like Summer than today does. Yesterday, we had the first cloudy slightly rainy day since May and right now, outside my window, the clouds have come down to Earth. I’m not complaining, really! I needed a break from sunshine, humidity and mid-90s temperatures. But enough about the weather.

The flowers and plants I planted earlier in the Spring continue to bloom. I’m a terrible tender though and frequently forget to water early in the morning. When your commute is a matter of seconds from ‘home’ to ‘office,’ you (meaning I) tend to dive right into work. Despite evidence to the contrary, I remain extremely busy with projects and support for my employer, who is thankfully returning furloughed employees now. I even have plans to return to the office for a half day late next week; mostly because my laptop has decided to take an involuntary vacation so it needs a more permanent and reliable replacement. That and I have a major upgrade to perform so being on site means no risk of power or internet outages in the home office.

Continue reading “Summer Arrives”

Throwback Thursday Family Film Print Photos

My new desk arrived this morning, earlier than I expected. I returned to the spare bedroom yesterday evening to continue my decluttering and organizing. I spent way too much time on a box full of old print photos all over twenty five years old.

None of the photos I found were taken before we moved back north from the Wichita area to the Kansas City area. Once we relocated, I switched from taking photos to taking video in VHS-C format, at least for the next ten or fifteen years, until both our kids were in college. So all the sports, concerts and family vacations are locked up on video tape that I haven’t converted to a more current digital media format.

I selected a dozen photos from the dozens I sifted through and snapped quick digital versions of them using my smartphone. I can scan these with our multifunction printer device once I get my new office setup this weekend. But for the purposes of this post, I felt this method would suffice.

Terry (on the right) and me (taken at a wedding where he was a groomsman in August 1985)
Click the photo to see the other eleven photos in this throwback photo album.
Continue reading “Throwback Thursday Family Film Print Photos”

Christmas Surprise

In the midst of my second system upgrade of the week, my son called me to warn me they had changed their minds and were planning to drive up from Texas to visit us in Kansas for Christmas. My brain halted. Upgrade on hold. What?!?!

Our house, which we’ve lived in since February 1999, has never been baby or toddler proofed. In that year, 1999, you may remember, the one where everyone was panicking about Y2K, my children were in third grade and sixth grade (starting middle school in fact). So definitely no need to protect them from getting into drawers full of knives and kitchen utensils, nor from electric outlets and chemicals stored under the kitchen sink.

I’m really trying not to panic, truly I am.

My daughter flies in from Seattle next Wednesday at midnight. She will stay for ten days. That has been planned for weeks now. She was going to have the guest bedroom. Now, unfortunately, she will be relegated to an air bed in the cavernous great room or sleeping with me and/or her dad in the master bedroom. Terry and I tag team sleeping anyway because I am a morning person and he is a night owl. And we have a king size bed that all three of us could sleep in with room to spare.

So my son, daughter-in-law and grandson will have the guest bedroom.

Today I’ll shop for my daughter at Trader Joe’s because she has an alergy to corn. Fun fact (not so fun for her): Corn is in almost all processed and packaged foods and does NOT have to be listed on the ingredients.

Tomorrow I won’t be able to shop because we are under a winter weather advisory for 2-4 inches of snow from Sunday at 9 am until Monday at 6 pm. So I’ll have absolutely no excuse not to clean and baby proof my home.

Check back on Monday and I’ll post my progress.

Virtual Family Bake Off

I received a call from my son Thursday evening.  This is a somewhat unusual occurrence as the last time I spoke to him was on the occasion of his 31st birthday back in early February.  In our defense, we are both busy professionals working much more than your typical 40-hour work week, so we don’t have a lot of spare time for idle chit-chat.

Derek and Ton Ton
Derek and Ton Ton

We exchanged pleasantries and got caught up on the latest antics of their new pet Rottweiler, Ton Ton, when he popped the question.  You know, the one you always expect when your offspring call you because they never call you unless they … wait for it … want something.  But this time, my son surprised me.  He wanted my Italian Herb bread recipe.

Seriously?  This was too easy and too good to be true.

Continue reading “Virtual Family Bake Off”

Defining Philosophy Survey Results

As I promised in yesterday’s post on my Brain Upgrade Project, the following are excerpts from the email responses I received to the following question:

“Ask six friends what they think philosophy is.”

The study of critical thinking.
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. . . philosophy is the contemplation of our existence, sentience, and interaction with the universe and its inhabitants. I believe we as humans agree that our capacity to reflect upon our existence is unique. And that we are seeking  elusive knowledge for our propose through this process.
∞ ∞ ∞
Narrowly, philosophy is the love of knowledge. Broadly, it’s the inquiry into what is real, true, valuable; how we know it and what difference it makes; what is man, who am I, why am I here, what am I to do? It is the search of meaning and purpose in life.
∞ ∞ ∞
Philosophy to me is a general moral framework to help determine one’s actions and explain how the world works (or should work).
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After taking two required philosophy courses in college many moons ago, I decided philosophy is the opportunity for a professor to put forward his/her agenda and give you poor grades if you don’t agree with it-no matter how much you support your point of view.
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I guess I would define philosophy as the study/search for answers regarding, well, existence:  who we are, what things are, why things are the way they are, and how things should be (i.e. ethics and morality).  I believe (although I could be wrong) a lot of science has it’s roots in philosophy (if I remember correctly, it was one of the very early philosophers that theorized the existence of atoms).  You could almost say that philosophy is the study of questions.
∞ ∞ ∞

I would say philosophy is the study of thinking, the why we think, that we can think, the how we think ~ leading to our conclusions ~ which remain in a state of flux,  to a point!!

The importance of this should be that we understand the decisions we make, there is a trail or should be of how we got to that point.
∞ ∞ ∞

My answer to the similar question posed to my Philosophy class by our professor:

“How philosophy is defined? How would your define it?”

Philosophy means the love of wisdom with a goal to help us achieve autonomy, by making us more aware of our own beliefs and encouraging us to think through issues for ourselves.  Philosophy is also an activity, and not an easy one, but the struggle for freedom never is, especially when we examine our most basic beliefs and assumptions under the microscope of reason.  I would define philosophy as unrelenting curiosity and drive to ask, and attempt to answer for ourselves, the hard questions about our purpose, our place in the world and the universe, our mortality and our morality

Next post I’ll ruminate about my reading of the second chapter of my Introduction to Philosophy textbook:  Human Nature

The Case of the Vanishing January

Today is the 22nd of January and of 2016.  I woke up this morning to a bitter cold Friday, to the prospect of working through most of the weekend.  Not the best way to start your day.  A huge project I’ve been involved with for many many moons is finally rolling out.  So while I’m stressed beyond belief, I’m excited to finally be able to put this project in the completed bin come Monday morning.  Then it’s on to the next “Big Thing,” er, project.

Stressful work-life aside, January wasn’t a complete loss for leisure.  I’ve read a space opera that I liked, listened to an audiobook for a book club that was interesting, read my first graphic novel for another book club and read an ebook novella (click here to see what I’ve read so far this year).  Continue reading “The Case of the Vanishing January”

Happy Adoption Day Lexy!

Three years ago today, Terry and I rescued Lexy from a shelter in Parsons, Kansas.

She’s ready for her closeup now:

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She’s a little greyer on her muzzle, but she still bullies Porthos (who outweights her by almost 20 pounds) and keeps him in line.

We’re so happy she’s still with us and had a clean bill of health from the vet just last week.

Happy Adoption Day Lexy!

Remembering My Great Grandfather

My wallpaper on my work computer displayed a photo I took several years ago of my great-grandfather’s grave in Easton, Kansas:

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When I saw his date of death on the headstone, I realized that this summer was the 40th anniversary of his passing. So I went searching for his obituary, which a relative had posted on the Find A Grave web site. Continue reading “Remembering My Great Grandfather”

12 (or 13) Hilarious Reasons NOT to Get a Rottweiler

Great blog posting over at Rottweiler Life: “13 Reasons Not to Get a Rottweiler”

I can confirm that #1, #2, #4, #5, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12 and #13 are all true with respect to the Rottweilers we’ve rescued over the years.  Numbers 3 and 6 were the only ones I’m not sure about.  But wait, there’s still time and more Rottweilers.

Hope that put a smile on your face this fine Friday.