Category: Life | Page 6 | Shiny Bits of Life

August 9, 2016August 19, 2016

Assumptions

escape “Escape from your already fabulous life.”

That’s an assumption a luxury hotel chain made about all of us. Or maybe they are pitching to the group of readers who feel that they do have a fabulous life and don’t care about the rest. Or maybe they want the rest of us to think, “Well, my life isn’t fabulous – but I do like it!”

If your life is fabulous, why would you want to escape? I guess that living a life of ease, where everything is catered to and all wants met, gets boring.

We all need change. Kittens don’t stay small forever. God created seasons for a reason.

Embrace change. If it’s a hard change, see what you can do to find the beauty in the pure white snow. Even when it’s freezing outside.

June 28, 2016June 22, 2016

The beer can net

When I was a sophomore in college, I was counseling a very young freshman about the ways to decorate a dorm room.

“Some people hang a net from their ceiling and fill it with beer cans. But that’s really tacky.” (I don’t know what word I used to say “tacky.”)

Less than a month later, I passed by his room and saw just such a net hanging from his ceiling.

Somehow he missed the part about “really tacky.”

Moral of the story – listen to all of what someone tells you.

May 31, 2016May 29, 2016

Other people’s lives

hand-written grocery list My sister and I share grocery lists – other people’s. We find them on the pavement outside grocery stores, because people discard or lose them.

It’s interesting to get that tiny glimpse into others’ lives.

Highlights from this one are Plastic Limes and Kick Starts. The other side featured Lay’s Truffle Chips.

We enjoy the variety of handwriting and selections of household items. I have yet to find a computer-printed list.

April 26, 2016April 25, 2016

What once held value

Adobe Creative Suite, circa 2004 In 2004, I bought this Adobe suite of software. At the time, it was the full complement of software that the world’s best graphic designers would use to create their artwork.

(The current cloud-based version still fills that role.)

I paid something like $700 – and at the time, the regular full price was north of $1,000.

Today? That software is useless. It’s not worth a penny.

The computers it would run on have long since been retired.

And even though the core functionality of that suite of software hasn’t changed, no one would buy that old version.

At least we still hold value when we get older. Our core functionality isn’t that much different, though there are newer faster versions.

April 20, 2016April 20, 2016

You can’t say that

don't talk illustration American culture has become extremely polarized. If you are even slightly on one side of a fence, it’s very hard to say anything about your issue without getting shut down by voices from the opposing side.

This current political season has made the polarization much worse. Political candidates from both sides of the aisle are harsh and often unreasonable in their criticisms of their opponents. A climate of combativeness has sucked much of the American public into that same negative vortex.

Thankfully, I have become so tired of pre-election politics that I lost my desire to voice any political opinion. I hardly listen to any news, as so much air time is devoted to the same verses being iterated in some hardly-new direction.

I’ll be glad when November 9th hits, no matter who wins.

April 5, 2016April 2, 2016

Seasons

car parts in a snowbank It’s that part of the year when I am totally ready for warmer weather.

Last week, we had a huge snowstorm. The white stuff accumulated so much that cars’ underbodies left bits and pieces all along the roadways as they unsuccessfully tried to be snowplows.

Days went by without sunshine. (And in Denver, we’re used to “about 300 days [with] at least one hour of sunshine sometime during the day.”) When you get used to seeing the sun, it’s hard to live without.

My brother lives in San Antonio. He trades not having snow for putting up with long summers of intense heat. As Americans get older, many move to warmer places. I understand that now.

But I do love the seasons. And the beauty of a new snowfall – before car parts start collecting in snowbanks.

March 1, 2016

Let’s go outside

During my frustration with this political season, it’s nice to go outside and take a few deep breaths. (There’s something bigger than politics.)

I took that photo with my phone a few weeks ago.

February 23, 2016February 24, 2016

King of the World

Before you start reading this one, you need to know that my big brother, Bill Merrill, wrote this as a guest post. The views expressed here are not necessarily my views. But it’s certainly a fun road to go down. If you’ve read this blog very long, you already know some of the things I’d change…

crown On the ego continuum of “Mother Teresa to Mr. Trump,” I rank myself somewhere in the middle, but I do have occasional fantasies involving things I would mandate if I were “King of the World” and everyone would have to follow my commands. The list has evolved over the years. For example, I’ve dropped one I wished for during my apartment dweller days, now that I’m a homeowner. It was “Anyone arriving home after 11PM and making enough noise to awaken anyone else in the apartment complex will be subjected to severe punishment.”

I’m about to give you a partial list of the current “K.o.t.W.” rules, but first these notes: (1) Obviously if I had the K.o.t.W. power, I would try to establish world peace, end poverty & hunger, etc. This list involves selfish stuff I would require after those altruistic things are taken care of. (2) All matters of practicality and popularity are hereby put aside. I’m sure if most of these rules were implemented, they would lead to great disasters, chaos, and/or a mass uprising, but so be it. (3) The “severe punishment” for breaking these rules would be much worse than thirty lashes with a wet noodle, but the exact nature is left to the reader’s imagination. Be certain that it would be very dire indeed! (4) These are my rules. You can make your own if you become K.o.t.W. / Q.o.t.W. Also, any resemblance to Bill Maher’s “New Rules” is strictly coincidental.

Rules:

No chewing gum. This is simply because it ends up on the bottom of my shoe and sometimes in other undesirable locations (ex., under desks & tables).
No TV network or station (or online viewing source) will ever be allowed to repeat the same commercial within a single program or broadcast. A violation will result in the immediate loss of broadcasting rights.
The manufacturers of leaf blowers must redesign them to be much more quiet. Sale and ownership of noisy leaf blowers will be forbidden beginning one year after I ascend to the throne. Violators will receive extremely harsh punishment.
In a city where I live or am visiting, no tractor-trailer rigs will be permitted on the roads during morning and evening rush hours.
No recording artists or music producers will be allowed to use the sound effect of a police siren in the recordings they make. This is because if I’m driving my car and music with a siren comes on, for a moment I think it is an actual siren, and I briefly freak out.

Image credit: Southeastern Star, Creative Commons licensed via Flickr.

January 15, 2016January 15, 2016

Spectrums

Spectrum 1:

Pleasure seeking: Some people put pleasure so high on their priority list that they are willing to die for it (heroin addicts and canyon-jumping motorcyclists).

Pain avoidance: Some people are so averse to the idea of pain that they refuse to leave the safety of their bedrooms.

Spectrum 2:

Ideology: Some people believe in their cause so much that they are willing to die for it (Muslim terrorists).

Lack of beliefs: Some people are so open to worldview that they don’t believe anything.

Spectrum 3:

Chaos: Some people are willing to have thirteen children and let the crumbs fall where they may.

Neatness: Some people wipe the table under their guest’s plate before they have gotten up.

Spectrum 4:

Germs: Some people never wash their hands.

Sanitation: Some people wear gloves in public.

I think everyone has tendencies to fall on one side of the center in each of these spectrums. (Note that I am using extreme examples. Humanity is like a bell curve – most people fall into the middle.) We all move around on spectrums during the course of our lives – or in the course of our days.

A beauty that lies at the extremes is that some of those people push the envelope of human experience – and that can benefit everyone.

Psychologists sometimes dump various spectrums under blanket names such as “autism” or “OCD.” But the human experience is enriched by people living off the center of spectrums.

Footnote: I know that some say the plural of “spectrum” is “spectra.” But “spectrums” is also acceptable English, these days.