Posts in the “personal” category

Doctor: Do you know why your triglycerides are high?

Me: The election?

Doctor: No.

Me: David Bowie’s death?

Doctor: No.

Me: *sigh* The cookies?

Doctor: Yes.

“Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”

~ Og Mandino

David Price has written a book titled, The Pixar Touch, and on his website he shares 22 tips about storytelling from a former Pixar employee. This image shows the first ten tips.

Sometimes when you’re working with doctors they’ll use the term, “idiopathic.” It turns out that’s just a fancy word for, “We don’t know.” I haven’t looked up the origin of the word, but I remember its meaning by thinking, “Idiot, we’re not telepathic.” (Supernatural fans: substitute “idjit” for “idiot.”)

As an example, there’s an illness named, “Chronic Idiopathic Uticaria.” Chronic means constant, uticaria is a fancy word for hives, so that phrase means, “Some people constantly break out in hives, and we don’t know why.”

I have this problem, but for me it’s no longer idiopathic. I now know if I stick to a diet of a small set of organic foods I won’t get hives, but if I stray from that diet I quickly get itchy, and if I keep eating that way I eventually get hives.

That’s my medical lesson of the day. ;)

Ever have one of those days where you wake up in a bathtub full of ice in a hotel room with one of your kidneys gone?

“The best feeling is when someone appreciates everything about you that someone else took for granted.”

(I don’t know the original source of this, but I like it.)

I’ll be driving to Mesa, AZ shortly to see my mom, so I’m working on a map. I did this once before, and as I remember, it is 6+ hours to Santa Fe, and another 10 hours from there to Mesa.

It feels good to be writing again, if only a little so far. This is what a fairly typical page looks like after one of my early editing sessions.

One last post about the 2016 Presidential election. This is from Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara of the Village Zendo on LionsRoar.com. The short, non-religious version is:

Listen > Learn > Act

I had two interactions with Chicago Cubs players in my youth.

When I was about 10 years old, Randy Hundley was the Cubs catcher and he came to speak to all of our little league players and parents at a large gathering. After he gave a speech we were allowed to ask questions. Even then I was interested in pitching, so I asked, “What do you talk about when you go out to the pitchers’ mound?” He answered something like, “Son, I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to use those words here.” (All the adults thought that was funny, but I was serious and thought, “Geez, why don’t adults ever take kids’ questions seriously?”)

Then when I was a senior in high school, Ron Santo came to one of my games, wearing his trademark leather jacket. Technically he went to his son’s game, but since I was pitching and we won, it was my game. ;)

“Some people, they just lose sight of what’s important in life. That doesn’t mean they can’t find their way again. Maybe all they need is a little Christmas spirit.”

From the movie “Elf”

Chicago’s Hamilton cast performs “Go Cubs Go”:

On November 2, 2016, the Chicago Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series by the score of 8-7 in ten innings. Ahh ... it feels good to say that.

(Image from this cleveland.com page.)

I now enter the next phase of my Scala Cookbook project, known as, “Good God, what happened to this apartment while I was writing that book?!”

(A Facebook post from November 3, 2012.)

This is a fake oil painting of Aroldis Chapman taking the ball in the 7th inning of Game 5 of the 2016 World Series against the Cleveland Indians.

Even on Halloween, remember to shop local. :)

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”

Happy Halloween from Millenium, and Revelations 6:8.

Bummer. This song is dedicated to someone who really let me down. This is Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word, by Elton John:

The Chicago Cubs won the 2016 National League Pennant on October 22, 2016, and are headed to the World Series, where they’ll play the Cleveland Indians.

This is a video of Tina Turner — yes, that Tina Turner — and a bunch of young people performing the “Peace Mantra.” Great to hear her voice again, great video.

(If you happen to know my mom, you’ll notice that there’s a young girl near the end of the video that looks like her.)