Picture from wikipedia entry on Z's

I saw an oder model Z in the Century City parking lot.  It was definitely a 70's model and it looked a lot like the FairLady in the picture above.  I am not an enthusiast enough to know what stage in restoration the car was but I know I was quite taken by it.  I walked around the car admiring it.  My age was in the one-digits in the seventies but I remember this being one of the more prominent cars of the time.  By prominent I mean seeing it often.  I think the design easily rivals a car that was dramatically less accessible to the average consumer; the Porsche 911 was around at the same time.

The Nissan looks a lot more sleek, I think.  The shape communicates function better.

I think I'll leave car critiques to experts.  But my point is that I might just walk by the latter but stop and awe at the former.

Have a nice week!

 

angels and ambiguities

It is starting to get cold.

What are you looking at?

So I took this great picture of wind chimes in front of a setting sun:

It is an angel praying.  I used a flash to defeat the backlighting unfortuneately the formats on this blog do not flatter the pic.  So I attached the pic to my invitation in case you are curious.

Not much going on here.  Working a lot.  I realized that I am getting a bit lazy in terms of self-edification.  So I took some steps toward fixing that.  First off I went to the library and checked out a book.  I was originally going to check out Ben Franklin's autobiography but I started reading the first page and skimming further and realized that I have too long been removed from literal pursuits.  I then caroused to the fiction section and found the Vonnegut area.  Satirical sci-fi is a good genre to start my pathway towards the land of the Litteratti.  Just not ready for anything to heavy right now.

I also bought a Nintendo DS and a couple of their brain games.  I hope those synapses are still firing.

But essential to any progress will be my engaging more physical activity.  And for that I have to limit my time in front of the television and, alas, the computer.  I will start scheduling more workouts and walks.  One can only hope.

Ambiguities?  I was listening to a radio commercial the other day and at the end a disclaimer stated that the product was " not available in all states."  Why advertise at all then?

Time Article

Anyone else intrigued by the cover story in Time the week of 10/28?  I was, so I bought a copy.  I learned something.  Did you know that Shirley Maclaine and Warren Beatty are siblings?                                               

I didn't. 

The article is really quite fascinating to anyone who suscribes more to "nurture" than to "nature" in regards to social development.  I wouldn't want to hurt Time sales by paraphrasing the article here, but I would like to mention one point the article made that struck a chord with me; that elder siblings "(enjoy) on average a three-point IQ advantage over the next eldest-probably a result of the intellectual boost that comes from mentoring younger siblings and helping them in day-to-day tasks."  I have always believed that you better comprehend things when you have to explain or teach them to someone else.  It is the difference between comprehending a process and doing it by rote or mechanically.  When I was going to school whenever I couldn't really get a grasp on something I would pretend that I needed to teach it to a class of my peers the next day.  That would help.

Real fun article.  There are some examples from the animal and plant world of parental prefference geared towards elder offspring.  Fun facts, fun facts, pick up the issue. 

  Some week huh?

All the smoke in the air made it possible for me to take this picture of a setting sun without the use of filters.  Unfortuneately, I didn't have a tripod so there is a little bit of tracing above the sun caused by my pushing the shutter button. 

I hope anyone whose life was affected by the winds and fires will soon be able to put things in order.  Maria, Milo and myself had to go stay with my parents because the power was out for two daysat our place.  But, most wicked of all, I had to cancel any outdoor activities on my day off because the smoke could damage my eyes and lungs.  That hurt!  It brings to mind how much we take for granted the fact that 95% of the time our lives are pretty much okay.

  Take care!

October already!?

Wow, it is October!  The scary thing is we don't know how Curious George got up there. 

Sometimes at night I hear little feet scrambling in the living room and I think I know why now.

I haven't been able to play with "sono in transito" lately and I feel bad.  Even right now I feel the same as when I come home tired and obligate myself to play with Milo; who waits for me at the top of the stairs cause the dead air which escapes the space between the steps forbids him from coming down.  He has no problem going up the stairs though.  Back to my point, I feel like I am forcing it.  I enjoy writting, contemplating the most precise use of diction and syntax to convey meaning is an activity I have been drawn to since I was a child.  Not unlike the artist trying to capture his world and mind through paint on canvass, I feel a pleasureable release of energy when an idea has been most-effectively communicated.  Yet it is hard for me to make time for it.  I am not blaming my busy schedule cause if you really want to do something you do it whether it is five minutes you can squeeze in in-between obligations or in the middle of the night when you have sacrificed an hour of sleep towards this activity which you realize enriches your soul.  You just do it. 

And so, as the clock continues forward and warns me that I only have 30 minutes to walk Milo before getting ready for work, I wonder if the sacrifice has been worth it.  Was what I said meaningful or pertinent?  You tell me.  I will see it as a mental warm up, a way of re-affirming processes of the mind much like you would movements of the body.

"YOU'RE GIVING ME DOG FOOD!?"

Milo is having a problem eating anything that doesn't come from a human's plate.  He is spoiled and I can't help but spoil him cause of his charming demeanor.

                                          

He is a great dog though.  We definitely feel blessed to have him in our lives.  Having something to take care of really kicks meaning into life.  This might sound corny or melodramatic but I sincerely feel an obligation to make the world a better place so that Milo will be safe and happy.  Those are definitely the relationships you want to nurture in your lives the ones that make you a better human.

 

It always catches my eye

There has been a whole lot of home improvement going on in North Atwater, Los Angeles.  This is just one of four homes within 100 feet of each other being re-built.  I am hopeful for the area because of this because it shows a willingness by the village's inhabitants to stay. These are people building homes not turning a profit.  No one makes money tearing it down and building it up again.  It is too much of an investment to make a financial gain in the end.  Flippers make small repairs and cheap cosmetic fixes.  Flippers are the gypsies of the modern real estate market.  Kudos to those who buy houses and invest their heart and soul to the betterment (never thought I would use that word) of a home and neighborhood. 

I gave myself some advice a few moments ago; "If you want people to remember what you say, don't say much.  Most people don't have great memories."  It is kinda like ninth grade English tautology concerning writing; KISS! Keep It Simple Stupid!

The pictures?  I love the way a wall looks when it's surrounding walls and ceilings are no longer there, especially when there is a window.  It is a window that lets you see what you can already see but frames it for you.  There is something deep in that. 

Post Script.  I used Gypsy in a derogatory fashion earlier.  I used it generically as a reference to people who migrate from place to place using thievery to maintain a morally questionable lifestyle.  In no way did I mean to offend any true Gypsy or person with origins tracing back to a certain ethnicity.  Gypsy is not always negative.  Fleetwood Mac has a song called Gypsy describing a 'poetic soul'.    "Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison (the best song EVER!) has the lyrics " I wanna rock your gypsy soul" I don't think that was meant in a negative tone.  Finally, there was a movie called Chocolat some years back where Johny Depp plays a very cool and good looking gypsy who helps the protagonist discover her bohemian nature.  Gypsy is not always negative.

Wow KISS is hard to maintain. 

BTW 'gypped' as in "he gypped me" is derived from the word Gypsy. So every time it is used it is insulting a certain ethnicity.

Have a Good Day! 

 

childhood friends

My photographic theme the last months has been Our World as Interpeted through Fences.  Do we see through fences or is the fence part of what we see?

Walking by my old elementary school, I think about how much it has changed since I left it in June of 1980.  There are many more bungalows and the playground has been re-configured.  The handball court revives many memories.

Handball was always a fun game.  We of course played it with an inflatable rubber ball the size of a woman's volleyball.  It was one on one, one set was played and the winner went on to play the next person in line.  Simple and orderly as children's games should be.  There were times,when supersvision was (how do you say) not up to par, we would then play a game called Suicide.  Suicide involved everyone (usually about 12 boys) standing in the court while one boy threw a tennis ball at the wall.  The tennis ball would bounce back from the wall and someone would try to catch it.  Catching it meant you got to throw the ball.  There was a caveat involved, in its bounce back from the wall if the ball touched you and you did not catch it everyone was obligated to hurt you until you made it to safety by touching the wall.  There were so many ways to make someone drop the ball.  Conspiracies arose like the one where one child would stand in front of someone and without warning deflect the rebounding ball onto that someone.  The deflector would be able to reach safety since all the other kids would have focused their blows and energies on he who last touched the ball. 

Oh, the HUMANITY! 

When we were forced to, my friends and I would play Suicide.  We never admitted that we didn't like it; not out loud anyway.  But we did have a game we played when it was just us that was similar to Suicide.  It was called Tags Up.  It possessed the same rules except that the person who dropped the ball was merely tagged out.  No physical pain was involved in our game.  My friends and I were not tough kids.  We lived our lives pretty safely. 

Today the inventor of Tags Up turns 39.  I want thank him for all the fun times in our youth, he always knew how to turn bland times into fun times.  Happy Birthday and my best to you and your family!  Though it is rare we see each other, things like a handball court or a Mitsubishi Cordia ("MITSUBISHI CORDIA!") always bring you to mind. 

Childhood provides our 'a priori' experiences.  The rest of our lives we sort out our moments according to those of our early years.  I thank God for giving me such happy tags to organize my folders with.