Thanks to Chuck Wagon BBQ and the many volunteers at the company picnic on the grounds of the Huntsville Botanical Gardens.
Author Archives: treetrunkrick
Mimicry is the best part of flattery
‘Smart skin’ hope for touch sensor http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22302487
Sweet and sugary
Thanks to Celeste and crew at Panera Bread.
Warwalkers vs. wardrivers — can you tell the difference? [eom]
Film for the day
More translation fun:
When you want to love a sport but it wants you to hate it, be a good sport and say goodbye!
Growing up, I was taught to be a motorsports fan and NASCAR was the motorsports of choice in my family.
My father took me, as a child, to “minor league” NASCAR races at the local track on Friday.
My grandfather turned the TV to national NASCAR races on Sunday after church.
As an adult, I attended open-wheeled racing events with Dad but NASCAR was still a common topic between us.
However, somewhere along the way, the people who run the show at NASCAR have turned me into a NASCAR hater. I really dislike watching the event on TV and have grown tired of the noise at a live race.
I used to enjoy rooting and rallying enthusiasm for my favorite drivers but then, somewhere along the way, the fans started yelling at each other and booing their least favorite drivers.
It was enough to turn me off from the whole show.
Then the NASCAR organizers decided to up the hate even more, pretending the races were some kind of real sport and technological regulatory nightmare in return.
So, I stopped watching.
I was glad that Richard Petty, Alan Kulwicki and Jeff Gordon were my favorite drivers.
Now, it doesn’t matter.
The headlines that pop up showing yet another female driver being a “maverick” on the racetrack or the attempt to create another non-stock-car variant of racecar turn me further from even thinking about paying attention to the driver standings or watching the races.
But they do get me to comment about my lost childhood and the joy of cheering for both local and national drivers.
C’est la vie, NASCAR. Adios. You oversold the concept of bland racecars and pretty-boy/girl drivers — the empty seats show that those of us with limited incomes have more interesting things to do with our time and money than support your infighting and pretense with setting your rules and then proving your worth by punishing innovation within your ranks.
Richard Petty was right. The stock car died a long time ago and would eventually take NASCAR down with it.
I laugh in your face and spit on your so-called sport. Ptooie!
Is AT&T losing customers to Verizon in north Alabama?
The pulsing migraine headache that has dogged me from the moment I was born is pulsating “louder” than ever today.
I am screaming in my thoughts in order to be heard, using alliteration as method to contain the contagion of madness that wants to spread into the rest of my body.
Using old tricks of my youth to hide my insanity from the rest of the world — running through vocabulary words in any language to keep myself connected with the society into which I was born and am expected to communicate in a legible manner.
The litany of voices I hear and read wants to repeat itself here through the funhouse mirror/brilliant cut crystal ball of a writer.
…the dance instructor I just met who tells me her whole life story in a few minutes — married, divorced, miscarriages, births, lack of silliness, not a girl, not interested in guys, Western Swing dance champion who prefers Balboa dance style, etc., like she has been through this interrogation by strangers a million times and learned to push people away quickly, or…what?
…on social media: the animal rescue posts — please rescue this dog/cat before it’s euthanised, pitbulls aren’t dangerous, found a cat with kittens in a back alley that need to be adopted, etc.; the gun owners who feel threatened by government regulations and must let us know their fears through LOUD STATEMENTS EVERY DAY; the people who claim they are loving devotees of their religion but they relentlessly post hateful comments about others (Christians against Obama, Buddhists against overcrowded cities, etc.).
So, in my mental confusion, I put a paper bowl filled with water, oatmeal and ground-up flax seed in the microwave oven, set the timer for 20:00 instead of 2:00 and, after taking a shower, I returned to find I had made dried oatmeal/flax seed cakes instead of a bowl of hot cereal.
Happiness!!!
The universe entertains me constantly, poking me in the side and saying, “See? Isn’t life beautiful? You didn’t burn oatmeal, you made yourself the handheld dried oatmeal cake you’ve always dreamed of eating on the commute to work for years, didn’t you?”
Despite the boring moments between eventful events, while setting up the next scenario to snag the snaggle-toothed snagosaurus, life is, indeed, beautiful.
Surprising, no?
The drunk guy who wore a lamp shade as a hat to a fashion show and won
There are, in the course of a river of jokes, ways to misdirect your audience so that what they think is the punch line was actually a line to the hors d’oeuvres. Or a line to the bathroom.
At my age, I have played roles that featured in bad office Christmas parties (walking in on the guy who just vomited all over the hotel lobby bathroom floor) and business training videos (hosting an international meeting on my cell phone, making sure we were all respectful of cultural nuances in conversation, while I was sitting a few feet from the family waiting for me to join them for a sumptuous Christmas dinner).
What I have discovered is that…well, what have I discovered?
First, there was little reward besides a comfortably stuffy office environment, great healthcare coverage and worldwide travel expense accounts for working in an office job. I only had to pretend to be a serious grown up for a number of years to reap my reward.
But then I got bored with the ways of the Jedi boss adult.
Ultimately, I found the whole acting job just that — a big act.
The people I met in upper management were focused on goals I did not desire, such as bigger house/car/vacation/empire/recognition/influence. Some were moving along their paths of perceived destiny in the world playground, simply finding more interesting things to talk about, looking forward rather than repeating their past mistakes and triumphs.
If all of us are acting, then I am going to act the part of the laughing hermit who wasn’t good enough to die young and goes on talking to himself here to verify his theory that all else is illusion until my babbling becomes completely incoherent and I die at an old age of natural causes, everything being natural, of course.
Exclusive new video footage of Boston bombing suspects!
After shaving his head, an alleged Boston bomber posted the following video:
treetrunkdings 