Just finished a BUNCH of "stuff" and decided to touch down on obinxs for a cuppa coffee. And randomly sprinkle some thoughts around.
Last week I got my cheque for $197.83 for doing my civic duty as Poll Clerk on election day, October 14th. That was pretty timely, I think - two weeks after the election? Kudoes to the Harper government. I like getting little extras like that. I was very pleased to find out this week that apparently our government is doggone stable in comparison to the rest of the world which suffered so much from the stock crashes. Apparently other governments were surprised at how sound our dollar is. Well, I have my own theories on that..... after all, there were a bunch of Scots that helped found this country, and they are verrrrrrry canny with their finances. I know. I'm one of them. Yes, I do have moths in my wallet. Being fiscally responsible is a GOOD thing, right? Except for INXS, of course. With INXS, the sky's the limit. Anything goes.
My rabbit is getting smarter and smarter as he gets older. Now he stands up in front of the television, just slightly to the left of the screen, so he can see better, and watches t.v. with me. He'll stand up like that for five or ten minutes, then when he gets bored, he hippity-hops away - usually over to where I'm sitting, to cadge a treat from me. I take little meals upstairs to my bedroom for him (I know, I spoil him) as well as leaving pellets, hay, and greens downstairs by his cage. I have a water dish upstairs, a little square dish where I put his "treats" (usually some Cheerios and/or a couple of Veggie Chips, maybe a Hoops and Honey for Bunnies), and a bigger dish with hay, and a small dish with pellets. Well, after all, rabbits are like humans, they like variety, don't you know. This morning, I found he had "stacked" his empty treat dish on top of the hay dish. I can only assume it was to hide the fact that there was hay, so I would fill the empty dish, or maybe he just wanted to bring my attention to the fact that the "treats" dish should be filled, regardless of whether there was hay or not, or he may have just been playing games. Downstairs, he has developed a Pattern of Preference for the Feeding of Treats. He will refuse treats until and unless I have them in the proper order. The problem is, he sometimes changes the order of preference. He will refuse a treat by dipping his head down to the floor, which I have found is his equivalent to "No, stupid!" So I have to experiment to see which treat he wants first. And second. And third. When I have figured out the correct order, he will then eat the item he refused at first. He also has a preference for petting. Several hours of petting from his nose to the ears is the best spot, and will cause him to gnash his teeth in bunny-joy, giving it an ecstatic shiver every once in awhile. He will only tolerate back petting for a short while, particularly if your hand strays to either side, so that you might possibly be thinking of perhaps picking him up. Not allowed. Not volunteered. Has to be commandeered through forceful means. When dcg and hubby and I took a little trip up north a month or so ago, I found a butterfly net with a long handle, and bought it to try and see if I can sneak it on him and stop having to play the catch-me-if-you-can games with him, that I always lose. Haven't tried it yet, but his nails need clipping, so maybe I'll have a go at it this week.
I recently bought a Dragon "Naturally Speaking" speech recognition package, to give myself a break from all the typing I've been doing. I sometimes find that when I'm writing, dialogue seems to me to be a trifle stilted, but not when I'm speaking it into existence. I figured out that the words are coming in this order - thought to brain, brain to fingers, fingers to keyboard, keyboard to computer, eyes checking for errors. Somewhere in there the originality of the dialogue is getting caught up with the eyes checking for errors. I seem to be concentrating too much on the editing instead of the writing. So I thought why not just close my eyes and speak the words into existence and let some robo-server do all the work, including the editing. Or, at least I can just go back over the written stuff and correct what I see AFTER it's typed, instead of before during and after, which is what I have been doing.
I've also been working on some presentations for my business. I always remember one of the ancient Greek philosophers apologizing to his friend for the length of the letter he had written to him. He said words to this effect: "Sorry for the long letter, Charlie -- I didn't have time to write a shorter one." So I've been trying for perfect presentations by chopping and chopping. Finally got one item down to about 1/3 of what it had been originally - thanks mostly to my beautiful daughter, who is herself very talented in writing. Hmmm - wonder if she would consider collaborating on a book or two with me? Without pay, of course, until the book is sold.
I recently found a book written by my great-grandfather, on my Dad's side. It was published in 1902, but because it was written about a specific area of Scotland, and included a lot of history of the region, apparently it has been used as a valuable reference book in England and Scotland, particularly in the genealogy area of history. The book was reprinted in 1996, and I have sent for a copy. My brother is also sending for a copy. The funny thing is my grandfather is his eldest son, and though he tells how many children he had (13) he doesn't name my grandfather, because Grandpa didn't take over his job, working for the laird of the land, handed down from father to son. To make matters worse -- he finally agreed that Grandpa could come to the New World, and arranged for him to go and work for a banker friend of his in NY City, and when Grandpa decided that wasn't for him, and took off across NY and PA and eventually crossed the border into Canada, well!!!!! that was it for Great Grandpa -- he wouldn't speak his name again. So his namesake is not listed in the book. He's the "invisible" 13th un-named child. And the funny part is -- he emigrated to Canada himself!!!! ha ha!! I also found out that I have two cousins - two of his most famous grandsons were Pipe Majors - William Ross and Alick Ross. Both were world famous pipers and composers. I also found out I have relatives in the US, Australia, as well as Scotland. Might be fun to start backtracking and finding out who and where. When I get the book I'll dig into the history a bit. Apparently the history of the family goes back at least as far as the Massacre of Glencoe, which was in the late 1600's, so it should be an interesting read.
Will fill you in sometime in the future if I find any relatives who live in the States who look like JD. Apparently the family was a good-looking lot......and they were musical as well as artistic (and manly, of course.) And with 13 children --- and my grandfather having 11 children --- well, I guess they kinda liked staying close to home too.......
Hope you all are having fun. And may I offer congratulations or condolences on the US election -- (take your pick). I want to cover all bases.
Last week I got my cheque for $197.83 for doing my civic duty as Poll Clerk on election day, October 14th. That was pretty timely, I think - two weeks after the election? Kudoes to the Harper government. I like getting little extras like that. I was very pleased to find out this week that apparently our government is doggone stable in comparison to the rest of the world which suffered so much from the stock crashes. Apparently other governments were surprised at how sound our dollar is. Well, I have my own theories on that..... after all, there were a bunch of Scots that helped found this country, and they are verrrrrrry canny with their finances. I know. I'm one of them. Yes, I do have moths in my wallet. Being fiscally responsible is a GOOD thing, right? Except for INXS, of course. With INXS, the sky's the limit. Anything goes.
My rabbit is getting smarter and smarter as he gets older. Now he stands up in front of the television, just slightly to the left of the screen, so he can see better, and watches t.v. with me. He'll stand up like that for five or ten minutes, then when he gets bored, he hippity-hops away - usually over to where I'm sitting, to cadge a treat from me. I take little meals upstairs to my bedroom for him (I know, I spoil him) as well as leaving pellets, hay, and greens downstairs by his cage. I have a water dish upstairs, a little square dish where I put his "treats" (usually some Cheerios and/or a couple of Veggie Chips, maybe a Hoops and Honey for Bunnies), and a bigger dish with hay, and a small dish with pellets. Well, after all, rabbits are like humans, they like variety, don't you know. This morning, I found he had "stacked" his empty treat dish on top of the hay dish. I can only assume it was to hide the fact that there was hay, so I would fill the empty dish, or maybe he just wanted to bring my attention to the fact that the "treats" dish should be filled, regardless of whether there was hay or not, or he may have just been playing games. Downstairs, he has developed a Pattern of Preference for the Feeding of Treats. He will refuse treats until and unless I have them in the proper order. The problem is, he sometimes changes the order of preference. He will refuse a treat by dipping his head down to the floor, which I have found is his equivalent to "No, stupid!" So I have to experiment to see which treat he wants first. And second. And third. When I have figured out the correct order, he will then eat the item he refused at first. He also has a preference for petting. Several hours of petting from his nose to the ears is the best spot, and will cause him to gnash his teeth in bunny-joy, giving it an ecstatic shiver every once in awhile. He will only tolerate back petting for a short while, particularly if your hand strays to either side, so that you might possibly be thinking of perhaps picking him up. Not allowed. Not volunteered. Has to be commandeered through forceful means. When dcg and hubby and I took a little trip up north a month or so ago, I found a butterfly net with a long handle, and bought it to try and see if I can sneak it on him and stop having to play the catch-me-if-you-can games with him, that I always lose. Haven't tried it yet, but his nails need clipping, so maybe I'll have a go at it this week.
I recently bought a Dragon "Naturally Speaking" speech recognition package, to give myself a break from all the typing I've been doing. I sometimes find that when I'm writing, dialogue seems to me to be a trifle stilted, but not when I'm speaking it into existence. I figured out that the words are coming in this order - thought to brain, brain to fingers, fingers to keyboard, keyboard to computer, eyes checking for errors. Somewhere in there the originality of the dialogue is getting caught up with the eyes checking for errors. I seem to be concentrating too much on the editing instead of the writing. So I thought why not just close my eyes and speak the words into existence and let some robo-server do all the work, including the editing. Or, at least I can just go back over the written stuff and correct what I see AFTER it's typed, instead of before during and after, which is what I have been doing.
I've also been working on some presentations for my business. I always remember one of the ancient Greek philosophers apologizing to his friend for the length of the letter he had written to him. He said words to this effect: "Sorry for the long letter, Charlie -- I didn't have time to write a shorter one." So I've been trying for perfect presentations by chopping and chopping. Finally got one item down to about 1/3 of what it had been originally - thanks mostly to my beautiful daughter, who is herself very talented in writing. Hmmm - wonder if she would consider collaborating on a book or two with me? Without pay, of course, until the book is sold.
I recently found a book written by my great-grandfather, on my Dad's side. It was published in 1902, but because it was written about a specific area of Scotland, and included a lot of history of the region, apparently it has been used as a valuable reference book in England and Scotland, particularly in the genealogy area of history. The book was reprinted in 1996, and I have sent for a copy. My brother is also sending for a copy. The funny thing is my grandfather is his eldest son, and though he tells how many children he had (13) he doesn't name my grandfather, because Grandpa didn't take over his job, working for the laird of the land, handed down from father to son. To make matters worse -- he finally agreed that Grandpa could come to the New World, and arranged for him to go and work for a banker friend of his in NY City, and when Grandpa decided that wasn't for him, and took off across NY and PA and eventually crossed the border into Canada, well!!!!! that was it for Great Grandpa -- he wouldn't speak his name again. So his namesake is not listed in the book. He's the "invisible" 13th un-named child. And the funny part is -- he emigrated to Canada himself!!!! ha ha!! I also found out that I have two cousins - two of his most famous grandsons were Pipe Majors - William Ross and Alick Ross. Both were world famous pipers and composers. I also found out I have relatives in the US, Australia, as well as Scotland. Might be fun to start backtracking and finding out who and where. When I get the book I'll dig into the history a bit. Apparently the history of the family goes back at least as far as the Massacre of Glencoe, which was in the late 1600's, so it should be an interesting read.
Will fill you in sometime in the future if I find any relatives who live in the States who look like JD. Apparently the family was a good-looking lot......and they were musical as well as artistic (and manly, of course.) And with 13 children --- and my grandfather having 11 children --- well, I guess they kinda liked staying close to home too.......
Hope you all are having fun. And may I offer congratulations or condolences on the US election -- (take your pick). I want to cover all bases.
