Thoughts on writing, living, and believing…
From the Land of Sky Blue Waters,
From the land of pines’, lofty balsams,
Comes the beer refreshing,
Hamm’s the beer refreshing…Hamms!
No that’s not right. Lemme see…
Oh yeah
The bane of greens-keepers everywhere, those pesky Golden Gophers burrow into Spartan Stadium tomorrow. Luckily Max and the boys have set some traps!
Bonus video below!
Continue reading “University of Minnesota”
Let’s leave the evil that is Facebook alone for a minute to focus on another time-waster, LinkedIn.
I am astounded by the sheer volume of mail I get from LinkedIn on a daily basis. So many people spending inordinate amounts of time gilding their particular lilly, and shouting about it to the world at large.
“So-and-so has a new skill in the Application of Technology to Rodential Pet Marketing!”
That’s a skill?
“So-and-so has endorsed you for a new skill!”
Oh? What is that pray tell, and how do they know I’m good at it? Are there cameras in my office? I’ve got to get a thicker tinfoil hat!
“So-and-so is now Regional Vice President of Ratco Inc. Congratulate So-and-so on their new job!”
Weren’t they just named District Manager of Amalgamated Hamster last week?
“See what your connections are up to!”
From the look of it, their on LinkedIn 24×7 wasting company time looking for affirmation, new friends, a new job, or all of the above. Based on what I can see, LinkedIn is just Facebook in a pinstripe suit, and with half the inappropriate pictures and personal anecdotes.
I’m sure you’ll say that blogging about social media is at best ironic and at worst hypocritical. Hey! Wait a minute…Ironic Blogging. That’s a new skill!
See you later. I’ve gotta go update my profile!
Comic courtesy of userfriendly.org
One year ago, on Thanksgiving Day in fact, my father had carotid surgery which led to a stroke. For him it was the last straw. He spent the next year in and out of the hospital, rehabilitation, and finally home with hospice care, where he slowly succumbed to the congestive heart failure that took his life.
This past Monday was my father’s birthday. He would have been 89. Because his birthday normally falls so close to Thanksgiving, our family has always celebrated the two together. The crowning event of the feast is when Dad has his birthday mincemeat pie. I’ve written about this before.
This Thanksgiving we won’t have our father with us at the table, not in person anyway, and I’ve been struggling not to feel sad about it. After all, this is a day specially set aside for counting our blessings.
Well, there is one thing that I’m especially thankful for this year…
Continue reading “Happy Thanksgiving?”
Nestled on the western shore of Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago, is a picturesque little campus covered in purple.
There’s a famous old NU joke that goes something like this:
MSU Student: “We’re gonna beat the crap out of you in football Saturday!”
NU Student: “Oh yeah? Well you may beat us on Saturday, but you’ll be washing my Bentley after we graduate!
Hey, when you can claim Moses as an alum, you must have something goin’ on!
The Spartans visit the snake-bit ‘Cats this Saturday. Here’s hoping there’s no divine intervention on their behalf!
Continue reading “Northwestern University”
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
The bronze gentleman at the right is Titus Bronson, founder of Kalamazoo, Michigan.
He stands guard in the downtown park named for him among what used to be large, majestic trees, now reduced to a pile of splinters.
Bronson Park was one of many casualties of the tornado that swept through Kalamazoo in May 1980.
Yesterday, Illinois saw several such tornadoes. So far the death count is at six. Washington, a little town near Peoria seems to have been the hardest hit.
Continue reading “Help Please!”
