All Thumbs Up

Hi Carolyn,

I'd forgotten that you had a second digit operation coming up and didn't realize that it was smack dab at the end of the year. What a way to launch into 2015! Hang tough.  In a few months you'll be ( yes, pun intended ... ) all thumbs again.



BTW, I remember  The Great Race  movie fondly, too. It did include a kick-derriere fight with foodstuffs. It was a piefight, rather than a foodfight and I must make this distinction since I discovered, courtesy of those folks at Wikipedia, that "pieing" has a long and distinguished lineage both in cinema and in politics. People around the western world have even gone to prison for hitting political figures with pies. It's an Emperor's New Clothes kinda thing that deflates pomposity instantly and effectively.  







 Non-specific food fights, by comparison, are  so lowest common-denominator. It's like checkers vs chess or 8-ball vs billiards or whiffle ball vs tennis. I guess I'm down there too, because I like them more. There are  many more weapons to choose from.





I've decided to recycle herein one of the stocking stuffers I got over the Yuletide. It was a Mark Twain desk calendar with one of his witticisms for each day. So for the next while, at least I'm gonna include the best quote from the week or so since the last blog. Since we're a couple of weeks into the new year already, for the sake of completeness I'll start with two from Mr. Clemens :


"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."

"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."



Yes, this will be the last blog from Canada for the next couple of months.  On your behalf we will attempt to appreciate the tropical climate even more. Your bi-polar ( pun sort of intended ) weather that you spoke about last time sounded not too far short of bizarre.

The last few days have been devoted, in part to getting ready for a two month relocation. Packing has included:

- one pair of socks

- one pair of long pants

- one long sleeved shirt

- one lightweight hoodie

 

And all of those items will be worn on the trip there and the trip back only.  The remainder will be T-shirts, shorts, canvas shoes and the like. Even so, it`s a bit of a challenge to keep the checked-in suitcase under the 50 pound limit. 



Actually, that last sentence reminded me of something I discovered while shopping for new luggage recently. The word `suitcase`has  disappeared from the luggage universe. Small suitcase and large suitcase have been superseded by a plethora of terms like upright, carry-on, tote, duffel, hardsided spinner, quilted spinner, co-ordinates and, of course, hybrid. My new suitcase prefers to be known as a hardside, 20 inch upright spinner, doncha know!


So now that I`ve dated myself with the `suitcase' reference let me predate myself further with this next bit.




My younger sister is an E-bay entrepreneur. For the last decade and a half she has derived a good deal of her income from offering collectible items online. She`s done fairly well with it, too. In the process she`s become a haunter of various places where such saleable stuff can be found from time to time. Her Christmas gifts are always interesting. For example, one year she sent me a bunch of monthly magazines she had unearthed all of which were published in October of 1950, my birthday month. It was pretty cool.






Anyhow, this years Christmas goodie bag included an issue of Starlog Magazine from February, 1985. The date has no particular significance. It was in there just because she knows that I`m a sci-fi person and thought I`d get a kick out of it.  She's right, of course.



Well, I've had a chance to leaf through it a bit, and it's packed in my "suitcase" to take to Mexico and I'm gonna deliver a full report once I've gotten all the way through. It's most interesting, from a perspective standpoint , to see where we came from. So stay tuned.





Well, this brings me to the end of this here blog. I expect, at this point to be back next week but it all depends on the connectivity situation once we get down there. Carolyn, I hope your second recuperation goes even more "weller" than the first.


Continue having fun.


Don




Images sourced from Google Images

Fig. 1 - www. theruthlessmonk.com

Fig. 3 - neosoulcafe.com

Fig. 4 - www. Weimar.com