Sunday, December 31, 2017

Just a quick note

Here it is - the last day of the year. I am going to start writing in this blog again in 2018. This past year has been a bad year in many ways but some good things happened, too. I hope to write about the good and the bad, the progress and the set-backs. I have learned a lot in the past year. I hope to write about that in the coming new year.

Happy New Year to anyone who happens to find this.

Saturday, January 07, 2017

How I'm going to get rich - part 3

I've had a few other ideas for getting rich (here's one and here's another)  but this one is a sure fire way to do it.

Yesterday, I noticed that the air freshener in the men's room at work is called Lavender Embrace (see the picture to the right - I'm not making this up). What a manly fragrance! What guy wants to walk into a small room and smell that?

My idea is to produce a line of room sprays for real men. I'd call one Greasy Garage for the man with grime under his fingernails. Or how about Winning Locker Room? Then there is Bacon in the Morning. Ah, I can smell it now.

Yes, I know. There are many women who like to work on their cars and women have winning locker rooms, too. But I'll bet the winning women's locker room doesn't smell like a men's locker room (not that I would know - but I can imagine). And yes, women like bacon too (just ask my daughter). But women could use these air fresheners, too - if they'd like. It's just that men have few choices. We've had manly colognes and after shave for a while (although none like I'm proposing). It's time for air fresheners to catch up.

Don't forget - you heard it here first.

Wednesday, January 04, 2017

Our new puppy

It had been two years since our dog Charlie died. We missed him so much but it seemed like it wasn't the right time to get another dog. But the time was right in October 2016 and we brought Asuna home. That's a picture of her to the right. She is a Vizsla and she is wonderful. In case you don't know about Vizslas, there is a nice write up here. If you're wondering about her name, it comes from a character named Asuna in the Japanese anime Sword Art Online.



Asuna is a wonderful dog. She is very affectionate and quite smart. We knew she was going to have a high energy level but I don't think we were prepared for how high was high. We need to give her a lot of exercise and walk her a lot. She loves to play ball with us but at this point that mostly means that she keeps the ball away from us. "I've got it and you don't," is her usual way to play. But she is getting better. We have her in training classes but I think they are mostly for us. Asuna knows what she is doing and is waiting for us to catch up.

In case you are wondering, the picture on the left is the "original" Asuna from the anime.She has bigger eyes than the "real" Asuna.

Sunday, January 01, 2017

My Annual Apology

It seems that every year I need to write an apology for not writing more in this blog during the past year. This year is no different. I only wrote 48 posts last year but, on the bright side, that's more posts than I wrote annually in the previous three years. 35 posts in 2013, 26 posts in 2014 and only 22 posts in 2015! So, things are improving a bit.

The strange part is that I enjoy writing these blog posts. And I enjoy reading them later after I've forgotten that I wrote them. I do have to be careful not to repeat posts because I come up with ideas and start to write them down and then find out I've written about the subject before. But most times I'm able to add a bit of new thinking to the subject so it's not all that bad.

I have lots of ideas for posts. I just need time to write them so that they are understandable, offer some interesting information and are written well. That last point is more important than you might think. One of the original; reasons for starting this blog was to help improve my writing. I have a long way to go but it has definitely helped me in learning to organize my thoughts. As any writer knows, it's a long, hard trip from ideas in your head to a well written article. One of the harder parts of writing a post is finding a picture that helps illustrate the main theme for the post. Notice there is no picture or graphics for today's post.

There are many subjects to write about. The Pastor of our church continues to give insightful and entertaining sermons. I want to write about some of those. I continue to learn more about my faith in Jesus Christ and want to write about that, too. I continue to learn more about programming computers and would like to share some of the things I've learned. I've read some wonderful books I want to write about. I've seen some movies and TV shows I want to write about. I want to write about trying to get my piano playing abilities back and I want to write about the trials, encouragement, disasters, triumphs and ultimate sadness of helping my Mother during the last few years of her life. I think a lot of the things I learned while helping her may be helpful to other people who are going through similar things.

This could be the greatest year ever! There are reasons it might not be the greatest year ever but we won't go into that right now. I'll probably write about that, too.

Happy New Year.