Cool! A fellow oboist!! I selected oboe after watching a Leonard Bernstein Young Peoples Concert about 1965 ish. I started on clarinet and began oboe about age 12 ish. I had a couple lessons only. I practiced with Schaums (?). Sometimes 6 to 8 hrs a day. Maybe 2 years before 10th grade (HS was 10-12). I was quickly sat as 1st chair.
I made my own reads after a few months. I made both the V and W style depending on tone for particular pieces. Still have Oboe and kit. Havent played in a long time.
Ms Pinki said I sounded like an asthmatic duck !!
My wonderful conducter deliberately chose many pieces that highlighted oboe and English horn. Overtures like Egmont, Lohengren, Willam Tell. Also a Telemann Oboe Concerto.
In the tri state, Andre Previn conducted us in Pittsburgh.
Alas still, I didn't think I was good enough to ne great. Maybe passable professionally. More alas! I discovered I was far from passable as a top wizzicist!!! business young man!! Plastics and polymers!!
Those Leonard Bernstein shows were marvelous. I looked for them on youtube one time, without success. My mom got me two books of his: "The Joy of Music" and "The Infinite Variety of Music." He had a gift for teaching and simplifying.
PS I checked again on YouTube and the Young People's Concerts are there.
Nah. Just a curious always driven to do things kid.
You may have also played English Horn. Here about 46 minutes in is the lovely flute and English Horn duet before the famous brass come in for William Tell.
Hard to remember after so long. I was too shy to enjoy solo opportunities. My memories are of playing in the high school ensemble and tootling my part in between counting rests : )
Some may recall I sat principal oboe in HS, WV state, tri state and a bit in college. I was offered scholarship to WVU and possibly entrance to the nice NY school of music. Alas witch's took me to Boston.
I've been to many classical concerts in Boston and elsewhere. Notably last, was Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the SF symphony and chorale in Beethovens glorious 9th. It's so long, it usually is the only piece for an entire concert.
There is a fabulous Disney Channel "John Williams" documentary. Arguably the greatest musician of the last half century. I'm biased. He creates Mozart/Beethoven/Schumann quality scores. Hand written every note. As quick as McCartney creates. The documentary is an amazing tale of his creation.
It also features my friend's Heckel bassoon. Sad story he passed freshman year at WVU. Dave LeClair played bass in our 90 piece Orchestra. His sister, Judith LeClair asked Tom's parents to buy his bassoon. Heckels are the Stradivari of bassoon.
Judith LeClair at about age 23, became the principal bassoon under Leonard Bernsteins NY Philharmonic for the the last 40 ish years.
I mention this, as Williams describes his transition to writing concerto and pieces for the best instrumentalists. He wrote a bassoon concerto, discussed in the documentary for Judith.
He also wrote the score for Spielberg Schindler List. The methodology was to see the silent movie and write the score.
John Williams cried. He told Spielberg that he would need to find a better composer than (11 time Oscar winnner) himself.
Spielberg said, yes I know. But they are all dead.
Williams enlisted his friend the great Itzak Perlman and wrote this tearfully sad compelling them for Schindlers List. He's coming to Tucson and this is on the menu.
I never knew that about you! I love the oboe, played until college then gave it up to focus on piano. During high school, someone introduced me to Harold Gomberg of the NY Phil and I visited his home in northern NJ, not far from where I lived. He was very friendly & encouraging and showed me how he made his own reeds.
I remember silly things like keeping s shot glass full of water near the music stand; it was how we kept the reed from drying out. Besides using spit.
Unfortunately, Rick couldn't make it to midnight, so I rang it in by myself...though many neighbors were letting off firecrackers too...
I think he is making me kielbasa and sauerkraut ( pork, if not pork roast of which I am not a fan anyway) before he goes to meet his mom, brother, and sister at Red Lobster for dinner at five.
He was going to take the tree down today, but, his hands are really bothering him, so probably not.
Will be hard getting back to work after so much time off...Friday is my 4th eye shot...
Ms. Pinki and I are have been nursing 12 yr old Gumbi back to Health. He had an oral abscess bleeding. Looking bleak before Christmas. Oral surgeon set for Jan 6th.
But I was able to persuade my Vet to prescribe a broad spectrum antibiotic, an Amoxycillin- Potassium Clavulanate.
It was shocking how quickly this worked. His oral bleeding stopped. Swelling went down. Appetite and eating interest returned.
He'd been on Peak Therapeutics 0.001% THC best around CBD for pain management. I know them.
Also we changed Gumbi diet to...mostly human. All dairy he loves. So keep those 8 maids a milking Cynthia! Gumbi loves
Milk in bowl
Butter - we call this quality check
Sour Cream
Yogurt. Greek with plenty of blueberries
Blueberries
Breyer HandMade style Vanilla- 2 for 1 sale
Ice cream cones
Costco pumpkin pies. I've bought 6
Kirkland whipped cream
Scrambled eggs with delicious ham
Deli ham
We also do "Daddy and Dog" Pancake Saturdays. Which sometimes happen on a Wednesday! Like this morning. Both butter and milk need QC checked by Gumbi.
Ah yes. Gumbi is our 5th dog. Our 2nd rescue. He's an American bulldog mix Pointer. About 80 lbs. We worked to keep his weight lower a bit ribs per AAHA and others.
Just a thought, but as of today, all Boomers are now 60+ years old. And Gen X is slowly joining in, a day at a time! 😳
Did you known Kamala Harris would have been the 2nd boomer POTUS had she won? To date our only POTUS has been Obama. The silent generation (Clinton, W, Trump, Biden and now Trump) are leading boomers 5-1.
My mother's birthday is tomorrow; she would have been 95. My father would have been 98 this year.
My Mom's mother would have been 126 this year. Microsoft Excel cannot calculate her age directly, since the days of the century starts 1/1/1900, and she was born in 1899.
There is: I was actually 18 1/2 as his birthday is in April ( he was born on Easter that year) and mine was in October, he was definitely a surprise baby and it was a rough delivery for my mom, this was her tenth pregnancy and her uterus was literally in shreds according to the dr, they removed it and he was a C Section, she had a stillbirth and a miscarriage between him and my next youngest sister who was 11 years older than him...she was 38 years old at this point
She had two other miscarriages between me and my next sister and then one after that sister was born.
She often had difficult pregnancies, almost died after one, a breach birth, etc..she was a really tiny woman, about 4' 11", and maybe 110 lbs..
She was in the hospital a lot, and we weren't allowed to visit, plus the Catholic Hospital she went to followed: if there was a choice to be made, they would pick the baby, which as a young girl scared me to death.
Though I think some of it was natural, this experience definitely made me terrified of being pregnant for sure.
My dad used to joke that he just looked at her and she got pregnant,,,sigh, like it was her fault
And when Joe Biden leaves office on January 20, he will immediately become our oldest former President (after the death of Jimmy Carter), older than Clinton, GW Bush and Obama).
Good morning and best wishes for 2025 to all of you. I’m having a tough time accepting that it’s been 25 years since we weren’t sure the lights were going to come on at 12:01. I worked for a computer company (Compaq) at that time and we sold a ton of equipment leading up to it, no doubt much of it driven by fears of CIO’s doing everything possible to be prepared. Unfortunately one consequence was that we hardly sold anything for the next couple of years and the company no longer exists. Interesting history but I didn’t mean to start off the new year as a downer. 2025 will be different, normal and better. I just know it.
I worked for a large computer software company at that time. I was on call that night, so I was able to enjoy myself, but some of my colleagues had to be on site with customers. One of them spent his New Year's Eve in a large data center that was partially enclosed by barred walls. He later remembered nervously waiting for 12:00:01 to see if anything stopped working. As he recalled: "It was midnight on New Year's Eve and I was in a cage ..."
I always thought that would be a great first line for a novel.
I had a compaq luggable at work. 35 pounds. You could tell the real travel warriors: their right arm looked liked "Ahnold's", while the left looked like "Diary of a wimpy kid".
I started there in ‘85 and my first PC was one of those “portables.” It was 40 pounds and carrying it left a callus on your knee from banging against it so much. Now we have tiny phones with 1000x more power. What a ride it’s was.
We used to measure "clock speed", and the original IBM pc was 4.77 mega hertz. My laptop today has an older chip that only runs at 3,400 mega hertz. Fast.
Actually today's smartphone has 10 Trillion operations per second vs Compaq portable 1983 100,000 operations per second.
I think today's cell phone has more computing power than existed in all the world of 1983.
Today's modern smartphone, like the iPhone 12, can perform 11 trillion operations per second, or 11 teraflops. This is more than 5,000 times faster than the CRAY-2, a supercomputer from the 1980s.
The first Compaq Portable computer, released in 1983, had a computing power of approximately 0.1 megaflops (million floating-point operations per second).
My husband made an easy paycheck being on call that night. We were expecting our first child so partying was limited to going downtown to see the fireworks.
I remember seeing an exam light in a doctor's office with a sticker indicating it was Y2K compliant.
I did a sermon on Y2K. We handed out milk crates, asking the attenders to fill them with winter essentials. Then, if Y2K wasn't an issue, to keep them through the winter. Come the week before palm sunday, bring the milk crates in and we'd donate them to a food pantry.
I bought 20 milk crates at a target. The cashier asked why. "Getting ready for Y2K". She seemed nervous. Katie flicked my ear, and explained the sermon's purpose, and she relaxed...a little bit.
My husband told me that there is snow in our 10-day forecast. "I'll have to keep an eye on it, in case we have to stock up!"
I suggested that, today, he could buy whatever he felt we would need if it snows in the next ten days. That would avoid being at Walmart at the last minute with 800,000 of his closest friends.
Today's special animal friends are an unspecified number of Cows being a-Milk-ed by Eight Maids. The cows were probably Holstein-Friesians descended from stock imported from the Netherlands in the 17th century. The same breeds were introduced to North America in the early colonial period, 1621-1664.
It takes 8 maids to milk a cow? That must be a big cow! 😳 I wonder how long it takes 8 of them to milk a cow? The really efficient ones, I am told, are minute maids.
My daughter loves cows; so we buy her cow stuff. A cousin bought her a phone case that has cow print. She has a dozen or so phone cases, changing them several times a week.
Reminds me: This game was fun in a large mixed group. Even with our 90-year-old Frenchman who speaks only French and German (and other players who could translate).
We skipped a couple Qs by general consensus. Things that would be too culturally American, such as having to do with TV shows or things of that nature. But the game worked great for seven people ranging from 11 to 90 years of age. It inspired a lot of laughs.
ETA: Qs about TV shows didn’t work for kids: They haven’t grown up watching TV!
One memorably funny Q was: “What’s the biggest fruit you can fit into your mouth whole, without having to cut it up?”
We sipped some Cincoro tequila, turned down the lights, played some rave music while the SIL entertained us with a glow in the dark zip string show (lots of laughter!) That was after enjoying rib eyes cooked over the wood fire by the lake. Great start to 2025!
I used to get bronchitis after a cold. I always took an expectorant with guaifenesin as the active ingredient to prevent it turning into pneumonia—which I had happen once as a result of the phlegm buildup. It makes you cough more, but it’s a more productive cough—at least in my personal experience. YMMV, as they say.
I've downed an entire bottle of Mucinex, half a bottle of G-containing cough syrup, daily prednisone and am holding off on the Z-pack for at least one more day. Today the cough is pretty dry. Progress.
Happy New Year! We had a galloping thunderstorm last night, and if predictions hold, will have snow in 4 days. Or 10 days. Nobody sent us a calendar, not even the Park Service or any other charity. Boo!
Which half? Jan. - June or July - Dec.? Or maybe April - Sept.? Anyway, shouldn't there be a hefty discount for that big of a flaw? Considering how far off I am, I know I'm being almost completely discounted most of the time.
You are going to be jealous: I got a calendar for Christmas from my daughter. 😀 It is a Peanuts calendar. January has Peppermint Patty and Franklin ice-skating.
I always need a lot of wall calendars, for home and work, so everyone gets me calendars...I got 5 this year...one with cats, others with cool scenery, but, no cartoon ones this year...or the Thomas Kincaide Disney calendars that are so pretty, I don't like to actually use them....lol
I ordered my William Morris wallpaper calendar (there are several brands, it's a thing) late this year, so it's not going to be delivered until tomorrow or Friday. I think I can keep track of what day it is for that long. What I wonder is if the new one will show holidays for just about every place on earth except the United States, like the old one did.
Oh, I loved those Demotivator posters back in the day. I depended upon their satire of the kind of propaganda being dished out to us through HR (they made us read Who Moved My Cheese, for pete's sake) to help me remember that I wasn't the one out of touch with reality, it was our corporate overlords.
I just got done browsing through their current "best of" edition. What a hoot! My favorite there... a picture of a smashed keyboard and hammer...
"When all else fails, look to the healing power of brute force."
Back in my working days as a Toolroom Machinist, I can't count the number of times I had a hammer lying around in close proximity to a CNC lathe or mill control when having a serious problem with a program I'd written. Still amazing to me that in a few particular instances over the years they somehow remained intact. Probably because there was a wall handy that could easily absorb the punishment of a hurled 5-pounder.
That, and I always knew after a "crash and burn" machining incident that eventually - with only two or three exceptions I can remember over the years - I'd discover the flaw in the program. And it would again be a case of, "Yep. The @#$%^&*!!! thing did *exactly* what I told it to do." :-)
You're welcome. Here's another new one that is thematic! It's funny to think that I've been listening to the Bellamy Brothers since I was in junior high.
Cool! A fellow oboist!! I selected oboe after watching a Leonard Bernstein Young Peoples Concert about 1965 ish. I started on clarinet and began oboe about age 12 ish. I had a couple lessons only. I practiced with Schaums (?). Sometimes 6 to 8 hrs a day. Maybe 2 years before 10th grade (HS was 10-12). I was quickly sat as 1st chair.
I made my own reads after a few months. I made both the V and W style depending on tone for particular pieces. Still have Oboe and kit. Havent played in a long time.
Ms Pinki said I sounded like an asthmatic duck !!
My wonderful conducter deliberately chose many pieces that highlighted oboe and English horn. Overtures like Egmont, Lohengren, Willam Tell. Also a Telemann Oboe Concerto.
In the tri state, Andre Previn conducted us in Pittsburgh.
Alas still, I didn't think I was good enough to ne great. Maybe passable professionally. More alas! I discovered I was far from passable as a top wizzicist!!! business young man!! Plastics and polymers!!
Sounds like you were a real prodigy!
Those Leonard Bernstein shows were marvelous. I looked for them on youtube one time, without success. My mom got me two books of his: "The Joy of Music" and "The Infinite Variety of Music." He had a gift for teaching and simplifying.
PS I checked again on YouTube and the Young People's Concerts are there.
Nah. Just a curious always driven to do things kid.
You may have also played English Horn. Here about 46 minutes in is the lovely flute and English Horn duet before the famous brass come in for William Tell.
https://youtu.be/53TbMRE3R94?si=IHftBk7E2A2EUdm8
I think all of the Bernstein concerts are here-
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU0HyYmOgH8Xn06fDThwLDh95igfZpurQ&si=umQjl5rvxCmN1eZZ
One movement in Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique has a great English horn solo, mimicking shepherds piping.
I hadn't recalled that! Which means I probably never played it.
What do recall enjoying playing on your oboe?
Hard to remember after so long. I was too shy to enjoy solo opportunities. My memories are of playing in the high school ensemble and tootling my part in between counting rests : )
I was pretty shy as well. Playing oboe helped give me some confidence
Some may recall I sat principal oboe in HS, WV state, tri state and a bit in college. I was offered scholarship to WVU and possibly entrance to the nice NY school of music. Alas witch's took me to Boston.
I've been to many classical concerts in Boston and elsewhere. Notably last, was Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the SF symphony and chorale in Beethovens glorious 9th. It's so long, it usually is the only piece for an entire concert.
There is a fabulous Disney Channel "John Williams" documentary. Arguably the greatest musician of the last half century. I'm biased. He creates Mozart/Beethoven/Schumann quality scores. Hand written every note. As quick as McCartney creates. The documentary is an amazing tale of his creation.
It also features my friend's Heckel bassoon. Sad story he passed freshman year at WVU. Dave LeClair played bass in our 90 piece Orchestra. His sister, Judith LeClair asked Tom's parents to buy his bassoon. Heckels are the Stradivari of bassoon.
Judith LeClair at about age 23, became the principal bassoon under Leonard Bernsteins NY Philharmonic for the the last 40 ish years.
I mention this, as Williams describes his transition to writing concerto and pieces for the best instrumentalists. He wrote a bassoon concerto, discussed in the documentary for Judith.
He also wrote the score for Spielberg Schindler List. The methodology was to see the silent movie and write the score.
John Williams cried. He told Spielberg that he would need to find a better composer than (11 time Oscar winnner) himself.
Spielberg said, yes I know. But they are all dead.
Williams enlisted his friend the great Itzak Perlman and wrote this tearfully sad compelling them for Schindlers List. He's coming to Tucson and this is on the menu.
https://youtu.be/cLgJQ8Zj3AA?si=SwXV3c6e0bdzVMTO
Didn’t know that about you, either, Doug. Amazing. Nice description of Williams—as well as the bassoon makers.
I never knew that about you! I love the oboe, played until college then gave it up to focus on piano. During high school, someone introduced me to Harold Gomberg of the NY Phil and I visited his home in northern NJ, not far from where I lived. He was very friendly & encouraging and showed me how he made his own reeds.
I remember silly things like keeping s shot glass full of water near the music stand; it was how we kept the reed from drying out. Besides using spit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnj74qBpXzc&t=2s
We saw this invasive plant, Berberis mahonia, on our walk in the woods with the Wildlife Federation group.
A neighbor planted some years ago and it has spread.
Japanese knotweed is the invasive newcomer around here. Berberis I think is outside our hardiness zone.
It's always something. I'll see if the Scouts want to do another invasive plant removal activity in the spring. There's always more to be removed.
I don't think I've ever seen it but it wouldn't appeal to me as an ornamental, though according to the man in the video some people must like it.
May all have a Wonder - filled 2025!
I'm planning to write more articles about weird sea animals.
Thanks, but I am trying to cut back on carbs so less Wonder bread for me! 😀
Happy New Year's Day!
Unfortunately, Rick couldn't make it to midnight, so I rang it in by myself...though many neighbors were letting off firecrackers too...
I think he is making me kielbasa and sauerkraut ( pork, if not pork roast of which I am not a fan anyway) before he goes to meet his mom, brother, and sister at Red Lobster for dinner at five.
He was going to take the tree down today, but, his hands are really bothering him, so probably not.
Will be hard getting back to work after so much time off...Friday is my 4th eye shot...
eyes are a small target, hopefully they hit it this time! 😉
Ha, they haven't missed yet...lol
Happy New Year all.
Ms. Pinki and I are have been nursing 12 yr old Gumbi back to Health. He had an oral abscess bleeding. Looking bleak before Christmas. Oral surgeon set for Jan 6th.
But I was able to persuade my Vet to prescribe a broad spectrum antibiotic, an Amoxycillin- Potassium Clavulanate.
It was shocking how quickly this worked. His oral bleeding stopped. Swelling went down. Appetite and eating interest returned.
He'd been on Peak Therapeutics 0.001% THC best around CBD for pain management. I know them.
Also we changed Gumbi diet to...mostly human. All dairy he loves. So keep those 8 maids a milking Cynthia! Gumbi loves
Milk in bowl
Butter - we call this quality check
Sour Cream
Yogurt. Greek with plenty of blueberries
Blueberries
Breyer HandMade style Vanilla- 2 for 1 sale
Ice cream cones
Costco pumpkin pies. I've bought 6
Kirkland whipped cream
Scrambled eggs with delicious ham
Deli ham
We also do "Daddy and Dog" Pancake Saturdays. Which sometimes happen on a Wednesday! Like this morning. Both butter and milk need QC checked by Gumbi.
Add blueberries.
It's a good day.
Enjoy each day, sunrise to sunsets. And back.
I presume Gumbi is a dog? What kind? Healing vibes to Gumbi, when a pet is sick the entire house feels it.
Ah yes. Gumbi is our 5th dog. Our 2nd rescue. He's an American bulldog mix Pointer. About 80 lbs. We worked to keep his weight lower a bit ribs per AAHA and others.
Indoor only.
Calvin and Twiga rule outside
Happy New Year BikerChick!!
Same to you, DougAz!
Thanks!!
Just a thought, but as of today, all Boomers are now 60+ years old. And Gen X is slowly joining in, a day at a time! 😳
Did you known Kamala Harris would have been the 2nd boomer POTUS had she won? To date our only POTUS has been Obama. The silent generation (Clinton, W, Trump, Biden and now Trump) are leading boomers 5-1.
Silent generation was my parents 1928 - 1945
Great Generation was Ms Pinki's
Her father would be 111 this year. Imagine
My mother's birthday is tomorrow; she would have been 95. My father would have been 98 this year.
My Mom's mother would have been 126 this year. Microsoft Excel cannot calculate her age directly, since the days of the century starts 1/1/1900, and she was born in 1899.
Mom's parents were born in 1905 as was Dads biological dad. His mother was born in 1895. His adoptive dad in 1894
1965 was the cut off then, that is what I remembered...though I have been 60+ for 7 years now....lol
I've seen both 1964 and 1965 as the cutoff, so I don't think it is exact.
Yeah, me too
The boomers were born in the years 1946-64. My siblings and I are all boomers, 1962, 63 and 64!
Yeah, I roughly knew after WWII, and then in the mid 60's, I was born in 57. My youngest sister was 1965 and my youngest brother was 1976...lol
a 19 year age gap? There might be a story there.
There is: I was actually 18 1/2 as his birthday is in April ( he was born on Easter that year) and mine was in October, he was definitely a surprise baby and it was a rough delivery for my mom, this was her tenth pregnancy and her uterus was literally in shreds according to the dr, they removed it and he was a C Section, she had a stillbirth and a miscarriage between him and my next youngest sister who was 11 years older than him...she was 38 years old at this point
She had two other miscarriages between me and my next sister and then one after that sister was born.
She often had difficult pregnancies, almost died after one, a breach birth, etc..she was a really tiny woman, about 4' 11", and maybe 110 lbs..
She was in the hospital a lot, and we weren't allowed to visit, plus the Catholic Hospital she went to followed: if there was a choice to be made, they would pick the baby, which as a young girl scared me to death.
Though I think some of it was natural, this experience definitely made me terrified of being pregnant for sure.
My dad used to joke that he just looked at her and she got pregnant,,,sigh, like it was her fault
Wow. It's amazing what she went through.
Youngster!!
ha
RE: the *silent* generation (Clinton, W, Trump, Biden, and now Trump)
Who said irony is dead?
And when Joe Biden leaves office on January 20, he will immediately become our oldest former President (after the death of Jimmy Carter), older than Clinton, GW Bush and Obama).
Is that individually or all added together?
I don't wanna say he is old, but I think they found his handprints in the Arabian dessert, back when it had water. Something about 11,000 years ago.
🤣🤣🤣
Best wishes to all here for a very happy and healthy 2025, and may your good luck be good enough to far outweigh any bad!
Amen
It is a new year
The dogs don't understand that
They just want petted
Okay, it's not the best haiku, but it's a start.
I enjoy bad jokes
I add them to your comments
Phil shows me the door!
I don't object to bad haikus.
Good morning and best wishes for 2025 to all of you. I’m having a tough time accepting that it’s been 25 years since we weren’t sure the lights were going to come on at 12:01. I worked for a computer company (Compaq) at that time and we sold a ton of equipment leading up to it, no doubt much of it driven by fears of CIO’s doing everything possible to be prepared. Unfortunately one consequence was that we hardly sold anything for the next couple of years and the company no longer exists. Interesting history but I didn’t mean to start off the new year as a downer. 2025 will be different, normal and better. I just know it.
I worked for a large computer software company at that time. I was on call that night, so I was able to enjoy myself, but some of my colleagues had to be on site with customers. One of them spent his New Year's Eve in a large data center that was partially enclosed by barred walls. He later remembered nervously waiting for 12:00:01 to see if anything stopped working. As he recalled: "It was midnight on New Year's Eve and I was in a cage ..."
I always thought that would be a great first line for a novel.
I remember Compaq
I helped Compaq with their case materials. Met the founders. Mid 80s. Had the large luggable with a real CRT and drive.
I had a compaq luggable at work. 35 pounds. You could tell the real travel warriors: their right arm looked liked "Ahnold's", while the left looked like "Diary of a wimpy kid".
Looking at me. I traveled all over with it. Mostly metro Detroit auto land, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana suppliers
I started there in ‘85 and my first PC was one of those “portables.” It was 40 pounds and carrying it left a callus on your knee from banging against it so much. Now we have tiny phones with 1000x more power. What a ride it’s was.
We used to measure "clock speed", and the original IBM pc was 4.77 mega hertz. My laptop today has an older chip that only runs at 3,400 mega hertz. Fast.
The knee banging made up for the mega-hurts, though!
Oh, I get that now.
It would appear this has been posted at a frequency to which Phil is not attuned.
Actually today's smartphone has 10 Trillion operations per second vs Compaq portable 1983 100,000 operations per second.
I think today's cell phone has more computing power than existed in all the world of 1983.
Today's modern smartphone, like the iPhone 12, can perform 11 trillion operations per second, or 11 teraflops. This is more than 5,000 times faster than the CRAY-2, a supercomputer from the 1980s.
The first Compaq Portable computer, released in 1983, had a computing power of approximately 0.1 megaflops (million floating-point operations per second).
All that computing power on our smartphones, yet all that many people use it for is to watch cat videos.
Cats are just so cute
they lower our blood pressure
and they say meow
My husband made an easy paycheck being on call that night. We were expecting our first child so partying was limited to going downtown to see the fireworks.
I remember seeing an exam light in a doctor's office with a sticker indicating it was Y2K compliant.
Amazingly, the worries over Y2K were 25 years ago! It seems like yesterday!
I did a sermon on Y2K. We handed out milk crates, asking the attenders to fill them with winter essentials. Then, if Y2K wasn't an issue, to keep them through the winter. Come the week before palm sunday, bring the milk crates in and we'd donate them to a food pantry.
I bought 20 milk crates at a target. The cashier asked why. "Getting ready for Y2K". She seemed nervous. Katie flicked my ear, and explained the sermon's purpose, and she relaxed...a little bit.
My husband told me that there is snow in our 10-day forecast. "I'll have to keep an eye on it, in case we have to stock up!"
I suggested that, today, he could buy whatever he felt we would need if it snows in the next ten days. That would avoid being at Walmart at the last minute with 800,000 of his closest friends.
He just got huffy.
Time seems to move faster the older I get...
My great aunt used to say "Life is like a roll of toilet paper - the closer you get to the end the faster it goes."
Ha, that is true
The Year
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of a year.
Today's special animal friends are an unspecified number of Cows being a-Milk-ed by Eight Maids. The cows were probably Holstein-Friesians descended from stock imported from the Netherlands in the 17th century. The same breeds were introduced to North America in the early colonial period, 1621-1664.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxiwDXnrzu4
(I realize the cows are an obvious choice, but nothing else came to mind that wasn’t inappropriate.)
COol cows
Since when did we not like inappropriate...lol
Just as well you went with cows...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Ih3zRKFW0
It takes 8 maids to milk a cow? That must be a big cow! 😳 I wonder how long it takes 8 of them to milk a cow? The really efficient ones, I am told, are minute maids.
My daughter loves cows; so we buy her cow stuff. A cousin bought her a phone case that has cow print. She has a dozen or so phone cases, changing them several times a week.
Reminds me: This game was fun in a large mixed group. Even with our 90-year-old Frenchman who speaks only French and German (and other players who could translate).
https://www.amazon.com/Herd-Mentality-Udderly-Hilarious-Family/dp/B093HBBMPT?th=1
That does look fun...
>"If your answer is in the majority, you win cows. If you’re the odd one out, you’re stuck with the pink cow of doom."<
Sounds like a lotta' bull to me. Everyone knows the Cow of Doom is *not* "pink"...
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/60587557475161587/
We played that at a friend's house recently. It works across generations. The nerd in me likes to note age and profession biases in the response.
We skipped a couple Qs by general consensus. Things that would be too culturally American, such as having to do with TV shows or things of that nature. But the game worked great for seven people ranging from 11 to 90 years of age. It inspired a lot of laughs.
ETA: Qs about TV shows didn’t work for kids: They haven’t grown up watching TV!
One memorably funny Q was: “What’s the biggest fruit you can fit into your mouth whole, without having to cut it up?”
So, if your "friend" Donald from yesterday had been playing I guess his answer would've been watermelon?
It's possible that the eight maids are milking 40 cows.
Good morning. Happy New Year! I can’t believe we are a quarter way into the 21st century!
And Merry Eighth Day of Christmas! <searches for piece on eight maids a-miking>
We sipped some Cincoro tequila, turned down the lights, played some rave music while the SIL entertained us with a glow in the dark zip string show (lots of laughter!) That was after enjoying rib eyes cooked over the wood fire by the lake. Great start to 2025!
Did your bronchial ailment relent? Sounds like you’re convalescing.
The cough is lingering. I’ve felt OK just a lot of coughing.
I used to get bronchitis after a cold. I always took an expectorant with guaifenesin as the active ingredient to prevent it turning into pneumonia—which I had happen once as a result of the phlegm buildup. It makes you cough more, but it’s a more productive cough—at least in my personal experience. YMMV, as they say.
Yeah, I am hoping I am past the turns into bronchitis stage myself.
I've downed an entire bottle of Mucinex, half a bottle of G-containing cough syrup, daily prednisone and am holding off on the Z-pack for at least one more day. Today the cough is pretty dry. Progress.
RE: YMMV
I would expectorant you to say that.
(That is a special New Year's present for Phil, since I can't remember at the moment if I got him anything for Christmas or not.)
Coughing is nothing to sneeze at.
You probably think that's as catchy as a cold, don't ya'?
I'd say it snot, but actually, it ain't half bad.
Happy New Year! We had a galloping thunderstorm last night, and if predictions hold, will have snow in 4 days. Or 10 days. Nobody sent us a calendar, not even the Park Service or any other charity. Boo!
It has already snowed here today, but just showers, not scary ice and snow storms, like we have experienced several times up here over New Year's...
The Snow Leopard Trust calendar is half off:
https://snowleopard.org/snow-leopard-facts/
Then click on "Shop".
Wild cats are just so cool, and snow leopards are one of the coolest...I would love that calendar and those snow leopard ornaments, but, bad timing
Which half? Jan. - June or July - Dec.? Or maybe April - Sept.? Anyway, shouldn't there be a hefty discount for that big of a flaw? Considering how far off I am, I know I'm being almost completely discounted most of the time.
Well played.
The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen.... excellent book. Brilliant, in fact.
Yes, it is ... but not up to date on the latest research and conservation news.
A MacGuffin...that's what it's called. The Snow Leopard is the MacGuffin.
47 year old books tend to not be up to date on the latest research.
It's not about Snow Leopards, anyway. They're just the device...I forget what the type of device is called. It's about everything else.
You are going to be jealous: I got a calendar for Christmas from my daughter. 😀 It is a Peanuts calendar. January has Peppermint Patty and Franklin ice-skating.
I always need a lot of wall calendars, for home and work, so everyone gets me calendars...I got 5 this year...one with cats, others with cool scenery, but, no cartoon ones this year...or the Thomas Kincaide Disney calendars that are so pretty, I don't like to actually use them....lol
I ordered my William Morris wallpaper calendar (there are several brands, it's a thing) late this year, so it's not going to be delivered until tomorrow or Friday. I think I can keep track of what day it is for that long. What I wonder is if the new one will show holidays for just about every place on earth except the United States, like the old one did.
I am jealous. Though my favorite of late has been the demotivator’s calendar.
You've got to love the name of the company... Despair, Inc.
My 2025 favorite: "Destiny" (figure on a mountaintop staring up at starry sky)
"Born too late to explore the world, born too early to explore the stars, born right on time to explore unemployment thanks to A.I."
2nd Place: "Security" (figure standing alone in a warehouse aisle between floor-to-ceiling racks of endless shoeboxes)
"Don't worry - your job is way too dehumanizing for us to ever ask a robot to do it."
https://despair.com/products/2025-demotivators-wall-calendar
Empty shoeboxes? What good is that?...lol
You can't say from the picture whether the boxes are full or empty.
No, you can't, I was just making the joke anyway, and it seems like they were empty In my mind...lol
Oh, I loved those Demotivator posters back in the day. I depended upon their satire of the kind of propaganda being dished out to us through HR (they made us read Who Moved My Cheese, for pete's sake) to help me remember that I wasn't the one out of touch with reality, it was our corporate overlords.
I had never heard of them,,,cool
I just quoted my favorite demovitator saying yesterday, "You're unique, just like everybody else."
I just got done browsing through their current "best of" edition. What a hoot! My favorite there... a picture of a smashed keyboard and hammer...
"When all else fails, look to the healing power of brute force."
Back in my working days as a Toolroom Machinist, I can't count the number of times I had a hammer lying around in close proximity to a CNC lathe or mill control when having a serious problem with a program I'd written. Still amazing to me that in a few particular instances over the years they somehow remained intact. Probably because there was a wall handy that could easily absorb the punishment of a hurled 5-pounder.
That, and I always knew after a "crash and burn" machining incident that eventually - with only two or three exceptions I can remember over the years - I'd discover the flaw in the program. And it would again be a case of, "Yep. The @#$%^&*!!! thing did *exactly* what I told it to do." :-)
One of my favorites shows a bear catching a trout in a stream, with the line
"Sometimes the journal of a thousand miles ends very badly"
I've had several of those. I have 3-4 of their posters in my offices at home and at UD.
I used to have a creativity assignment where students had to create their own Demotivator poster. Students didn't like the assignment.
Humor is dead.
I hope not, we try to keep it alive here, maybe it is contagious
Happy New Year to all!
So far so good.
That Bellamy Bros. tune was a great start to the day. Thanks Cynthia.
You're welcome. Here's another new one that is thematic! It's funny to think that I've been listening to the Bellamy Brothers since I was in junior high.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=456jQVxJbOI