Category Archives: Life

August 28, 2020

MLB BLM: Jacob Blake

Because of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin (the most recent in a horrifying long list of names), the Minnesota Twins postponed yesterday’s game until today, which is designated baseball’s official Jackie Robinson day — the day all the players wear #42 in honor of the great Jackie Robinson (it’s normally April 15th, but baseball didn’t start this year until the end of July).

Today would have involved a double-header, yesterday’s game plus the scheduled one against Detroit today, but the Twins voted to postpone both those games.

Baseball teams across the country are standing down in solidarity and support for Black Lives Matter.

The text reads:

“The Minnesota Twins remain committed to using our platforms to push for racial justice and equality. Therefore, we fully respect our players for their decision to not play tonight’s game versus the Detroit Tigers. The recent shooting of Jacob Blake, a mere three months after the killing of George Floyd, shows again that real change is necessary and far overdue in our country, and it is our responsibility to continue playing a role in efforts to affect meaningful reform. We stand in solidarity with the Black community and, as full partners with others in the Twins Cities and beyond, we are committed to creating the change we want to see in the world — where everyone is protected, safe and welcome. There is no place for racism, inequality or injustice in our society.“

Yes, yes, and yes!

Bravo and kudos to the Minnesota Twins and all those other teams standing up by standing down. I support them 100% in this (apparently not everyone does, which is pathetic).

The Twins also posted this in their Twins Diversity twitter account:

Which I thought was pretty cool.

Stay committed to racial justice, my friends! Black Lives Matter!

∇

7 Comments | tags: Black Lives Matter, Jackie Robinson, Minnesota Twins, Twins 2020 | posted in Baseball, Life

August 10, 2020

Hail, Yes! (redux)

By Wyrd Smythe

Way back when (over eight years ago!) I shared a picture of some wild hail. Last night another big boomer passed through the Twin Cities, and the hail was the biggest I’ve personally yet experienced:

Some folks apparently got baseball-sized hail. (I saw a picture in a local news article — hail stone side by side with a baseball. That would do some serious damage. The stones I was getting were plenty loud as it was!)

I just had to step outside (in my underwear) and grab a few of the bigger ones. Stuck them in my freezer. Maybe I’ll actually put them in a soda or something. (Or just take them out and admire them once in a while.)

For a couple of hours, it was quite a lightning show. No major ground strikes around me (and thankfully no power outages like a few weeks ago). I do love it when the lightning never stops — constant electrical activity!

I just love weather!

Stay safe, my friends! Wear your masks — COVID-19 is airborne!

∇

4 Comments | tags: hail, hail stone, rain storm, thunder storm | posted in Life

July 19, 2020

Happy With; Mad At

By Wyrd Smythe

In a previous life, when I had a small stepson, he asked his mother if she was “happy at him.” This prompted a grammar discussion that confused him because sometimes she was “mad at him” so why was “happy at him” wrong? It stuck with me as one of those out of the mouths of babes views of life.

It prompts a bit of thought about which emotions go with which propositions. We’re happy with, but mad at. On the other hand, we can be angry with or angry at someone, but only pleased with them.

We can also be happy, glad, angry, pleased, mad, or sad, about someone.

5 Comments | tags: anger, emotions, happiness | posted in Life

July 17, 2020

Looking Forward

By Wyrd Smythe

I was asked why post #1000 looked backward rather than forward. It’s a fair question; I’m generally not one for looking back. I’m not terribly attached to the past (certainly not bound by it), but that doesn’t mean I completely ignore it. (History repeats, in part, because we don’t learn from it.)

As with years, counting posts begins with 1, so the odometer number 1000 is the end of a count sequence (one-thousand posts), which makes looking back seem fitting. That post was also a blog birthday so all the more reason to review.

This post, #1001, is the first post of the next thousand.

27 Comments | tags: blog, blogger, blogging | posted in Life, Writing

July 4, 2020

Number Nine

By Wyrd Smythe

1000 posts posted!

July the 4th means it’s another Blog Birthday. 9 years of con carne (albeit one of them vegan) and 999 posts (not including this). It’s numerically kinda cool because the arithmetic mean is 111, another triple number. A more accurate average is around 125 posts per year, since I was on hiatus for all of 2017 (to recover from the shock of 2016).

There is also that 999 is what I call an odometer number, but that might take some explaining. Metaphorically, it’s the kind of number that makes you look at your odometer and say, “Hey! Check it out!”

Even little 9, as the last single digit, has some cool properties.

11 Comments | tags: Anniversary, blog, blogger, blogging, July 4 | posted in Life, Writing

July 3, 2020

Random Past Blast

By Wyrd Smythe

So this is my nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth post here on Logos con Carne (which turns nine tomorrow). I’ll talk more about that when I do the anniversary (or perhaps more accurately, the birthday) post. What I’ve been struggling with for days is what this post should be.

The celebration post, as usual, will look back at the past year (as well as the past nine), which leaves this post wanting a topic. Yesterday I was looking at some old photos and got the idea of looking back at my own (much longer) past.

I figure it’s gotta be an easier post to write than trying to explain a tesseract.

12 Comments | tags: blog, blogger, blogging, Christopher Walken, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Minnesota, New York City, Southern California, The Bronx, Wonder Bread | posted in Life

June 25, 2020

The Subtle Art

By Wyrd Smythe

A few weeks ago a friend loaned me The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), by Mark Manson. I just finished it, and — while I’m not a big fan of self-help books — I give this one an Ah! rating. Manson’s approach, contrary to our modern norm, is not about finding happiness, but about choosing the pain worth seeking (and letting the happiness come through our fulfillment).

The subtle part is that not giving a f*ck doesn’t mean one stops caring. The subtle part is learning to be selective about what matters to us.

The counterintuitive part is that chasing happiness leads to misery.

31 Comments | tags: Dave Mustaine, happiness, Hiroo Onoda, Joy, Mark Manson, Norio Suzuki, Pete Best, The Beatles, The Buddha | posted in Books, Life

June 23, 2020

Canadian Camping 1996

By Wyrd Smythe

Walleye: It’s what’s for dinner!

Well, that’s a surprise. My Ideas folder has a document I thought was a description of my first Canadian camping trip with my buddy (let’s call him) “Scott”. I’ve been meaning to post it one of these days. Having just told a story about my dog Sam, I thought maybe it was time to post some of the other memories stories.

The surprise is that the document is about a trip in 1996, the 10th (or so) annual pilgrimage we’d made. That first time we didn’t really know what we were doing and both under- and over-prepared. That was of a vacation with a lot of pain, but which engendered fondness in retrospect.

Enough fondness that we did it annually for over 15 years.

12 Comments | tags: camping, Canada, fishing, Lake Thompson, travel | posted in Life

June 21, 2020

Dog Tales: Memories

By Wyrd Smythe

Father’s Day, 1994

This post rises from deep in my Drafts Folder. I started it back in 2012 as a follow-up to the Sad Day; Perfect Day post. That one recalls a special 1994 memory about Samantha, my dog (who died a little before her time, in 2004). The second post would catalog various memories highlighting how much fun we had and how much she meant to me.

Two years later I did post a version of that eulogy: Dog Tales: Games. That post was actually the second beat to a post the day before, Sam’s Final Walk, which described the disposition of her ashes.

For Father’s Day, I thought it appropriate to post once more…

17 Comments | tags: Black Lab, Black Labrador Retriever, dog games, dogs, family, kids, love, Marriage, Sam, Samantha | posted in Life

June 20, 2020

Sun Sign

By Wyrd Smythe

The two Solstices are the only universal holidays I celebrate. There are many personal holidays, almost all anniversaries of whatever happened that day: births, weddings, deaths; the arcs of jobs and love affairs; graduations and engagements; all the milestones of life. (The trick is to avoid Marley’s chains and chests.)

When it comes to the world, I see only two true holidays whose meaning every mind on Earth shares; two that everyone can anticipate and appreciate. These holidays are defined by the star that gives us life. They mark our orbit as precisely as the numbers of a clock mark the hours.

In fact, there are four such star-marked days; two major, two minor.

13 Comments | tags: astronomy, four, moon, Ophiuchus, Sagittarius, Sagittarius A*, scorpion tail, Scorpius, solar system, Solstice, stars, Summer Solstice, Sun, three, twelve, zodiac | posted in Life