Category Archives: general stuff

A Single Serving Of Alphabet Soup

Our government is great when it comes to making acronyms. I use a few myself, mostly caryover from my time in the Navy (CEFGW meaning “Close Enough For Government Work,”  as in “this bolt meets CEFGW standards” and DORD for “Department Of Redundancy Department,” where we actually had a rubber stamp made for our fun). There’s a couple I’ve been considering lately that I want to comment on: WMD and MAD.

Weapons of Mass Destruction is fairly recent (at least in general usage) being invoked in the interest of finding nuclear weapon development in the middle east. The concept, of course, goes back a long time and has been used in nearly every world war. Not limited to atomic weapons (although they provide the biggest “bang for the buck”), air-fuel bombs, white phosphorus weapons, jellied petroleum devices (NAPALM) and even the “carpet bombing” runs of conventional weapons could be considered WMDs based upon the level of destruction resulting from their use.

As terrible as these weapons are, I am actually more concerned in massively constructed weapons causing minimal (or no) destruction while causing extensive personnel casualties. Weapons in this category might allow an attacking force to take possession of a local essentially intact after taking out combatants and civilians in the area. Most of these weapons would fall into the CBW class (Chemical / Biological Weapon) of producing death. Toxic nerve agents, for example, could be dispersed and make an area impassable without total protection for weeks to months. Simply walking to your mailbox a week after surviving an attack could be lethal. Biological weapons may be slower but perhaps more insidious, as the amount of global travel could spread a pandemic weapon far beyond the initial deployment area. Again, going to the market to replenish supplies could bring home a bigger package than what has been purchased.

Switching gears for a moment to consider the idea of MAD. Mutually Assured Destruction was the principle device used in the cold war against Russia to prevent nuclear war. The basic idea was to provide a “second strike” capability such that when an enemy launched an initial attack, there would be (more than) enough weapons available to launch a counter-strike that would cause at least as much damage to the aggressor. The concept was to “persuade” a potential foe launching a preemptive strike would be futile as the resulting devastation from the counter attack would not be worth the projected gain.

Growing up in the 1960’s with the mandatory air-raid alerts and practice drills in the school hallways was a quarterly (occasionally monthly) reminder we were only a moment from horrific death from above.  That the launch never occurred is a (kind of) proof of the validity of the concept.

Today, I fear the concept no longer is valid. To have an effective projection of MAD requires both sufficient weaponry (and it’s staging) to make such an attack feasible, in fact virtually certain) and the determination of the highest members of government to make the call. I suspect America in 2015 fails on both accounts. The military has been substantially gutted in its size and power, and our leadership has given little encouragement to suppose a willingness to “pull the trigger” to deliver a knock-out blow to any conceivable enemy. Even a couple of decades ago we projected enough power to give any potential attacker pause, but today….

Even more disconcerting is the rise of terrorist attacks independent of an official nation-state sponsor. Should a massive attack occur (say, in September?) when there is no clearly defined enemy, where would we focus the MAD counterstrike? Even if there is a hypothetical devastating nuclear attack against a single target (the most likely terror strike) and the country of origin could be positively identified, what would be a “correct” response? Would it be rational to wipe a nation from the face of the Earth to retaliate against a single loss? Does a “tit for tat” destruction of one of their cities give a large enough incentive to cease forever making foolish decisions? Would 3 cities, or 10% of their population, or 30% of their national resource production capability? And would the powers that be make the decision?

I don’t know. I doubt if anyone does. But the concern of a WMD without the balancing effects of MAD lead ultimately to a WTF realization.

World Terrifyingly Frightening.

Phred

post 58 of n

Celebrating The (Bio)Rhythms Of Life

This week has been a rough one, both from a productivity and physical point of view. Starting early this past Sunday, I have had a severe bout of pain from my arthritis thingy. For the most part, I’ve been either in bed or on the couch every waking moment since, until today. Three truly bad days with little to look forward to. The meds weren’t doing very much, and as long as I was reclining I was fine, sitting in my wheelchair at the computer for more than 10 minutes led to the (near) impossibility of getting up and collapsing back on the couch.

Today things seem to be getting better. I can move around the apartment without the horrific pain of earlier in the week, and am able to spend some time at the computer (as this posting is proof). The week has not been totally non-productive as I have been able to view the blender documentation and tutorials on the TV (thanks to YouTube and the PS3 web browser apps), so the 14+ hours on the couch were not constrained to endless reruns of 70’s-80’s sitcoms or the Judge Judy marathon that shows up on the local Fox channel. Still, there is a limit to how much “book lernin'” you can absorb without actually getting your hands dirty. Today was a pleasant change of pace.

I know there are a number of reasons for the pain to wax and wane, but I have not been able to identify specific causes. Sometimes a change in weather will trigger a bout, as will an unusually diverse (and extensive) selection of goodies over and above my normal dietary needs. Historically I have been treated for gout, never in my big toe but my major joints (knees, hips, and shoulders). Since that’s what hurts it seems possible it exacerbates the symptoms. I am not convinced, based on 20+ years of experience. The kinds of activities triggering gout in the past were absent this last cycle.

For giggles, I powered up my Palm Pilot m130 to run a biorhythm program, to see what my cycles showed for this week. Surprise! Both my physical and intellectual cycles bottomed out this week (emotional critical day was Sunday as well).

Now, how reliable is this pseudoscience? The idea that our lives pass through cycles of ups and downs is pretty reasonable (ask a woman…). That there is different cycles for different life elements also seems like a valid idea, and that they have different periods is entirely possible. But did they cause a spike (or rather a crash) in my life this week?

I don’t know. I really don’t care. In my “younger” days I tracked my biorhythms closely and decided there was at best a slight correlation between the cycle and my daily functioning. The theory remarks that it is more significant on the critical days when a cycle passes through the “0” point on a chart than to peak or valley. These critical days are times when you can do either very well or really poorly, more than you might expect on either border day. On the rare occasions when two  (or more so all three cycles) were critical you were to be especially careful, lest a horrific “catastrophe” should take place. I did, and “it” never happened.

Do I believe the number of days I have lived have a direct effect on the mundane events of my life, more or less so if the number is divisible by 23, 28, or 33? Not really, I guess. I suspect it’s more coincidental than causal but it is fun to look at. Not that I would use it solely to make any life critical choices. And with an intellectual level at -100, I’m SURE not buying a lottery ticket today.

Not for at least another 16 days…

Phred

post 57 of n

49 Shades of Gray

I guess it was inevitable. I got a question from a friend about the use of the “strange” numbers in my book and movie reviews. Why not just use a 1-10 scale or something like that?

There are several reasons, actually, but it should not really be a surprise for anyone that has read many of my posts. One of the many reasons is that the odd values is just plain fun (maybe plane fun is more appropriate in this context). It has a kink, a twist that appeals to my sense of honor.

A more practical reason, though, is to dodge a (potential) flaw inherent in most surveys of this kind. For example, I went to the IMDB site to check out the Ex Machina movie before attending the other day.  It gives the movie a rating of 8.1 and encourages me to add my voice to the mix. However, My choices for rating the movie is to give it 1 star, 2 stars, and so on to a maximum of 10 stars. I presume the X.X rating is a mean average of all people voting for the movie (the total stars given divided by the number of people voting). And there is a subtle but important error in this method.

If we take a hypothetical example, sets say we think the movie is the worst in the history of cinema, that had Edison foreseen this abomination resulting from his invention he would have slit his wrists rather than allow this creation to come to fruition. It is clear this “movie” should get a rating of “1 star.”

Now, if we take the other end of the scale, rating the perfect movie, one so great that even divine intervention would be insufficient to add an iota of improvement to this masterpiece. The only movie showing for the rest of all time and yet no one complains or desires any other movie to even be considered for creation or playing. This automatically deserves (and naturally receives) a rating of “10 stars.”

All is well, so far. But what do we do with the movie exactly in the middle? A movie so nondescript that you are unable to think (or say) a single good or bad thing about it? A truly middle-of-the-road piece of cinema that deserves an average score, right down the middle of our scale.

It can’t be done….! The quick answer is “5 stars” and that is what most people would give it, but this is actually a vote for DESPISE the movie rather than ADORE it, albeit with only a slight degree of disgust.

Let’s make the example simpler. If you were presented with the three movies above and you were asked to chose between “ONE” = “BAD,” “TWO” = “EH,” and “THREE” = “GREAT” the choice is easy. If, on the other hand, you are only given “ONE” or “THREE” (there is no “TWO” option) it is impossible to honestly evaluate the third movie. You either have to declare it horrible or great when it is neither.

The problem is tn the level of gradation in the choices. The first (artificial) scale has an odd number of choices (1-3) and when you take the mean of all choices [(1+2+3)/{3)] you get an answer that is included in the answer set (2). You are really capable of making a “middle” choice.

in the second (really third on the page, but the second “simpler” example) survey, you still have a mean average of 2 [(1+3)/(2)], but this time you can’t vote for the average value. There is only an even number of choices so the mean value falls between two of the choices (the only two here, but the truth continues in the larger world). In the IMDB rating system, you CAN’T vote for “five and a half stars” like you want to. You need to lie and either like a movie you don’t or hate it more than you really do.

Not that this restriction of choice is necessarily bad. In some cases you really would rather have people expressing slight (but overall important) levels of satisfaction when gathering data. Example: your group (company, agency, family, whatever) is trying to determine if you should make an important change. If you give people a survey with a “hate…dislike…indifferent…like…love” scale you stand the chance of getting absolutely no information at all. What do you learn if everyone is indifferent?

On the other hand, if you leave out the indifferent option (a “hate…dislike…like…love” selection) you might still end up with a tie, but some must chose plus and an equal set of people would need to select minus to balance out. This is more unlikely than to allow indifferent people to express their inclination.

Of course you could just make the survey use a larger number of smaller units but the even/odd number of choices issue still raises its head. And for practical reasons computer surveys will use integer values for the choices (whether 1-10 or 0-1000) and not give you the chance to enter a value of 4.7 as a floating number (which adds its own level of inaccuracy due to floating math rounding errors). Expressing my thoughts as a ratio of two numbers allows me to include a level of precision with an acceptable degree of accuracy. This should apply in about 72 of every 77 times it comes up.

But the real reason for using iconic (ironic?) values is summarized in the last line of an earlier posting.

Phred

post 55 of n

Today’s Forecast: There Is A 100% Chance Of Weather

It is the third week of April in mid-Michigan and we are being “blessed” with congealed precipitation this morning. Making my way to my car to commute to the bi-weekly writing session with John, I noticed there were small chunks of icy crud on the wiper blades and in a crevice at the edge of the windshield. The sky was about half overcast and half deep blue, deceptive in it’s partially jovial appearance. Clear areas were breathtakingly beautiful, hinting at the delight of sunshine and short sleeved outerwear. The cloud covered segments of the sky were ominous, dreadfully reminiscent of the darkness of November, falling leaves guiding temperatures down to the cold, barren ground. Starting the car it was not apparent which segment of the sky would prevail.

Two hours have passed, It is time to declare the winner: ick. Either I overslept last night by about seven and a half months, or daylight saving time has expanded to move the clocks by seasons rather than hours. The sky is a mottled grey, darker where the daemons of despair have determined to drop daggers of dismay. Doh!

Somewhere there is a climatologist that will claim the late spring snow is a direct result of man-made global warming. Right…. Listening to the NOAA weather radio while in the shower, I could possibly accept some correlation for the lower than normal precipitation for the year (we are about 2.5 inches below the “average” for this year) but our local area is apparently not any warmer than usual. The accumulation of Cooling Degree Days (a measure of when the daily average temperature exceeds 65 degrees Fahrenheit) from the daily broadcast suggests we are 1 unit below the normal for this date. So we are actually cooler than “normal” this year.

The local TV stations compete for my attention when it comes to the weather forecast. There are two to choose from (there are about 6 local stations, but for some reason most of them piggyback on the two main reports), channel 6 and channel 10. Each has a staff including a senior forecaster and others to provide additional faces for the remainder of the broadcast day. Both stations claim to have the latest in Doppler radar and fancy doohickeys to help them provide the “most accurate forecast” ever. They are always similar, but hardly ever identical.

We have a weather station at the airport that reports to the national weather service. I can go to the National Weather Service web site and (in theory) get the same information available to the pros. There is radar, satellite images, hourly and daily forecast discussions and charts, and more data to download than I have storage space to hold.

So, if we are all playing with the same cards, why is there a difference in the information provided? One station might show the expected low tonight to be a couple of degrees warmer that the competitor while the other gives a slightly greater precipitation chance. Even the “current” temperature is often different. If they are using their local station sensors for the numbers a difference would be understandable (the stations are a couple of miles apart). But, when they show the values for around the state, they should both be showing the same data from the same sites, so they should match.

I have been to the airport in Charlotte (a small village south of Lansing and not the similar location several states away) and know exactly where the NWS station is collecting the data. So they should show the temp at the airport and it should match. Usually it does, but occasionally not.

Perhaps the weavers of the modern fiction that is the news broadcast really DO participate in the global conspiracy of spin, to present information filtered through the demands of the shadow government so we see the world as it is supposed to be rather than how it actually is. If this voice suddenly disappears you will understand why.

Newspeak declares rain to be white and crystalline in structure during certain months of the year. Welcome to Spring in [REDACTED].

Phred

post 52 of n

How To Get Ahead In Business

I have “discovered” there is three ways to get ahead in business (speaking now as an employee rather than an entrepreneur or independent contractor) that pretty much describes what you must accomplish to advance up the “ladder of success.” You advance by using PUSH, PULL, or SUCK.

Push is the idea of being promoted by your peers. Working well together in teams, sharing credit for success and accepting blame for your failings, your teammates insist that superiors move you upwards in the organization for the benefit of all. Often found while working in the presence of Leaders (rather than Managers, see Why Nobody Plays “Follow The Manager”) it is the most satisfying and least common method of rising in your career. Your advancement is based on what you do.

Pull occurs when you have a benefactor somewhere in middle or upper management and they have a vested interest in your career. (Note: “vested” may not mean “personal” interest. It is possible the shadow broker has chosen the pawn in play to enhance his own fiefdom rather than to benefit the victim’s career.) Not restricted to familial relationships (but a family “friend” is often a good source for this advancement method) a secret, closed meeting somewhere generates a ripple in space-time that propels the target’s career forward in a non-linear fashion, often to the dismay of more talented (and worthy) peers, who are left to try and understand why they were slighted for the promotion. Truth is many (if not most) people using advancement by Pull are at or near the event horizon of the Peter Principle (often it is the last Pull that truly demonstrates the effect has already occurred). Your advancement depends on who you are.

Sadly, the last method is the most insidious of all. Suck requires the person to prostitute their ideas, ethics, and actions to any and all members of the higher echelons of the company. They will polish apples, salute any and all flags run up flagpoles, follow any and all orders and declare their eternal “yesness” for any idea. They will “kiss” [REDACTED] as often as is necessary to be seen. Their motto is “it’s not what you know but who you blow” that get’s them advanced.Your career path depends on how willing you are to….

It would be funny (in a pathetic way) if it weren’t so demoralizing to see these leaches advanced over the people doing the actual work without getting the credit due. Even worse is to eventually be a subordinate of a person that successfully activates Suck as their preferred method of advancement. They often reciprocate within their circle of influence, providing potential proteges with the opportunity to skip vast amounts of effort, watching as their career launches into the loftier regions of the company. You can end up making (and fetching) a lot of coffee over the years.

Of course, you could also spit….

Phred

post 51 of n

Why Nobody Plays “Follow The Manager”

In a meeting this week we were discussing the idea of “servant leadership” and what it would look like. It got me thinking and I shared with the group my experience of the difference between management and leadership.

Managers work primarily with “things.” They hold the world view that problems are things that need to be fixed. Usually, this will result in the assignment of a person to take care of a problem with the idea “who can get this done in the best (fastest, cheapest, most efficient) way?” Making the problem go away is the focus and driver in decisions. A manager is threatened by the success of his subordinates, knowing if they get “too good” at their job they might be advanced to management, possibly sending you out to pasture.

Leaders work primarily with “people.” The paradigm in view is problems are opportunities to let others grow and improve. A leader will be directed by the thought “who can benefit the most (learn new skills, enhance existing talent, stretch self confidence) from working on this project?” Short term efficiency can be sacrificed for long(er) term growth and capabilities from the team members involved, resulting in a greater net value over time. A leader is encouraged and delighted in the success of his people. By building strong replacements it allows him to move into other areas to grow and advance the company even further.

This does not mean managers never work with people or that leaders don’t fix things. It is more where the driver for the actions come from. A core philosophy that views the company as the product or the producer, the cake versus the baker. Both are needed and valuable, just which is ordered first differs for each style.

In my career, I have mostly worked for managers. These were average, normal, even good jobs where I felt good after putting my 40 hours in, to enjoy my weekend and go back on Monday. I think most bosses in America fall into the manager slot.

A couple of times I had the incredible experience to be slotted under a true leader. These people were the ones where you would walk barefoot through burning glass shards to put in your 60 hour week, then despair of having to leave at all. There was no feeling of being a cog in a wheel in a machine. Rather you felt as if you were the most important element of the whole organization.

There was a recent news article about the CEO that cut his salary and raised the minimum wage in his company to $70,000 a year. Whether this is a good or bad decision is not the point in this blog. It is optically clear to me this man was a leader rather than a manager. He demonstrated focus on the people rather than the company (alone). This is the most extreme example I can remember, but it sure sounds like the kind of person I’d like to have worked with, long before this decision. I think a closer review would reveal other people-driver choices (as opposed to company-drivers).

It’s easy to follow a leader, they are out front encouraging you to get up there. Following a manager is not so easy, they’re likely at their desk pointing the way for you to go. If you are a high(er) link in the food chain of your organization, then you can determine what kind of supervisor you will be, one who leads from the rear, or from the front.

When you work for yourself, your choices are more limited, as it depends not only what kind of person you are as a director but what kind of person you are directing. In my consulting firm (BNI/SAR) I am required to manage, not to lead.

I have (am) the worst employee known to mankind…

Phred

post 50 of n

Patching Potholes On The Highway To Hell

I am fond of using phrases and proverbs incorrectly, usually with some kind of kink. For example, I am often heard referring to someone “running around like a head with their chicken cut off.” Proverbial phrases often carry a some kind of pithy saying that has a general or universal application or meaning. This post’s title comes (indirectly) from the saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I suspect that, with all the traffic on that road, there are a lot of potholes to fill.

One saying that bothers me is “it’s not the gift but the thought that counts.” The thought may have been intended, but the lack of thought is what’s visible. Buying a peanut butter ice cream cake for the birthday of my son (who has life threatening allergies to both peanuts and dairy) would not be a “nice thought” but about as stupid an action as it is possible to conceive. Administering epinepherine while driving him to the hospital might actually be a thoughtful intent after carrying out such a blunder.

The phrase that I find myself using more and more often these days (and it might be original, since I don’t remember ever hearing it in the distant past) is “just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” Most commonly it in in some interpersonal relationship context where a story is being told about an action taken by a third party (not currently present) having ongoing consequences that were unexpected or undesired. Often it involves one (or more) of the three drivers of rock and roll: sex, drugs, and rebellion against authority (or one of the country and western parallel vices: adultery, alcohol, or agitation directed against law enforcement).

I could say a lot more about this but…

Phred

post 49 of n

First To Win Sixteen Is The Champion

My team is in the playoffs. Now that basketball season is over, (I guess they are in playoffs, but living in Michigan the words “professional,” “basketball,” and “playoffs” appear together nearly as often as winning Mega Millions lottery tickets) maybe TV networks can start broadcasting sports for the rest of us. It’s hockey playoff season now and I have had the chance to watch two games today. I have a vested interest in both of them, but for different reasons.

The Red Wings (the Detroit team) lost and are tied at 1-1 for the series. I have a natural affection for them because they are the Wings! I have been following them as long as I have had a radio and could listen to WJR, the better part of six decades. Followed the Tigers for the same time and for the same reason, too.

Over the years, I have had the (dubious) pleasure of working various shifts and times, thus requiring commute travel throughout the day and night. During hockey season, there were times when my Wings were not playing (or at least not while I was driving) so I would scan the AM dial for other stations to see what was available. I eventually discovered WGN broadcast the Chicago Blackhawk games, KMOX sourced the St Louis Blues, and WBZ was the way to follow the Boston Bruins. Depending on weather conditions (thunderstorms were terrible for AM) and the sunspot cycle (something I only discovered halfway through my radio listening journey), I was able to listen to SOMEONE play hockey all season long. What joy!

One of my greatest disappointments in my military career was the too-late discovery that the Boston team played in Chicago the weekend I came home for Thanksgiving of 1975. I could have turkey just about anytime, but the ‘Hawks and Bruins together?

Today, since sports is such a money generator it is nearly impossible to follow games without paying for premium services. The “networks of NBC” are showing every playoff hockey game this playoff season. EVERY ONE! Except that most of the games are on the premium sports network channels on cable. Over-the-air broadcast in my area has two games today and these are the first ones from this series. Altogether there have been eight games played so far (or will at the end of the third period). They only showed half of the games from my local market and won’t show another until game 4 (maybe… I’m not sure they will even play that one). I can see more soccer from England than hockey from North America, and watch 6 hours of golf and 400+ miles of NASCAR every weekend (could watch in theory, they are broadcast every week). But only 2 hours of hockey on a special occasion (normally they might show a game every other week).

It’s not fair. Someday we will have the opportunity to have a-la-carte TV where we can watch what we want, maybe when we want. I’m not talking about DVR, either. I mean we can ask for television that meets our desires rather than some committee in a network headquarters that believe we need another sit-com aimed at a third-grade intelligence.  Delivered in a reliable format (digital over the air is NOT it… at least analogue signals could be watched at 50% signal strength, snow, hiss, and all; digital TV at 50% is mostly black screen and silence) at a reasonable price (preferably free, since the government supports public broadcasts).

And please don’t get me started about the recent trend to add “retro” TV broadcasts to the lineup. Most of the shows I see on the stations in my market rebroadcast programs that we didn’t watch when they were initially shown in the 60’s and 70’s because they were bad. They are not fine wine and haven’t improved with age. About the only thing that can be said for these shows is to prove to the grand-kids we didn’t have HD colour programs back in the last ice age.

Oh, I nearly forgot. I said I had a vested interest in both games today but failed no explain why the NY Rangers versus the Pittsburgh Penguins game would be “must see TV.” True, neither team falls into my favorites list, but if history is any indication of future events, then there is only about a dozen or so more broadcast games left this season to watch. Then a barren wasteland till September brings the 2015-2016 season start.

Any port in a storm…

Phred

post 48 of n

“Be Well, John Spartan”

[Movie quote: Sandra Bullock to Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man, 1993]

Today was a high pain level day. Depending on many things, my arthritis can range from annoying to debilitating. It was rather higher on the scale today than desired, so I stayed home. I was scheduled to work with my author friend, helping him to stay motivated while he writes his book. I sent him a text to not expect me to show up at the usual time. He responded with “feel better.”

While I understood what his intent was (that I should reach a point in life where I was in less agony) his choice of words offers just the opposite request. To feel “better” would suggest being able to feel more effectively, thus experiencing pain with more clarity and intensity. After all, when we express the idea of practicing a musical instrument (for example) to get “better” we desire to be more skilled and proficient in our playing. Since my friend’s desire was that I didn’t hurt so much, he would have expressed it more clearly by desiring me to “feel [pain] worse.”

No wonder English is so hard for people to learn as a second language. It has much that doesn’t make sense and has nearly as many exceptions as rules. My favorite is

I before E

Except after C

Or when sounding like A

As in neighbor or weigh

Or whenever it damn well feels like it.

(Technically the last line doesn’t belong, but I add it in ’cause it’s true!)

I found I never really understood English until after I had taken a foreign language for a while (Greek in my case). It was only after seeing how a sensible language worked that I was able to work my way through the morass of foibles that makes up my common tongue (I often claim English to be my second language, but I hardly speak gibberish anymore).

So, it seems highly unlikely that the movie quote request is for Stallone’s character to act as a source of oil, water, or natural gas as the words might suggest.

Although there IS a Taco Bell in the movie, so maybe the gas…

Phred

post 47 of n

Status Update: Struggles Of Writing

I am conflicted about posting this update. I am working on several posts in parallel (unusual for me, normally I just plow through a topic in a straight line from start to bend to twist to curve to blind kink to swerve to left ditch to right ditch to hard skid to skid recovery to bootlegger’s reverse to near miss collision to discovered destination to publish button) and have not been able to bring myself to work on anything for a useful length of time.

This week saw the birth and death of a close friend’s child.

As a parent (and a person, not necessarily in that order) I have been working through floods of emotions and thoughts that I want to share but can’t. At least not yet. When I try to sort through them in writing, I am distracted by trying to balance information and emotion, content and context. I don’t know what I want to say (or need to say, perhaps, is a better description) so what I do put down is constantly being revised and removed. I’ve written (and deleted) a couple of thousand words so far and don’t even have a title to show for it.

I committed to 3 posts a week… I still have a couple of days to do it. This one doesn’t feel like it should count, but for my followers I want to let you know I haven’t forgotten about you. [It’s strange, but just putting these thoughts down is generating another flood of emotion… be back shortly]

Anyway, I will try to either finish what I have started or to set it aside to simmer (fester?) and work on something else totally distracting for a couple of posts and come back later. If the next couple of entries are not up to their usual level of mediocrity, at least you have a clue why.

Phred

post 46 of n