Thursday, December 15, 2022 - Retirement of a favored syndicated columnist
There is no columnist (or person, for that matter) with whom I have ever completely agreed - my being a dedicated contrarian. One whose weekly column I have long appreciated, though, is Leonard Pitts Jr whose column in this morning's The Wichita Eagle announced his retirement from writing his weekly opinion column. I'll miss his thoughtful approach to his subjects - and his humor. I hope that he enjoys the retirement on which he embarks. Mr Pitts announced his intention to spend more time writing books to add to the few that he has already had published, about which I was ignorant (or about which I had forgotten, at least.) The following excerpt is from this morning's column. I found the paragraph to be amusing.
"Thanks to a bunch of people – and so long! By Leonard Pitts Jr: Miami Harold"
....
"Thanks to Judi Smith. My former assistant retired in 2019, but still insists on proofreading the column. I will miss sparring with her over what does and does not constitute an extraneous comma. I wrote this, sentence just, for her."
The above newspaper clipping was affixed to a page in one of my mother's scrapbook - next to articles announcing births, deaths, weddings, and rustic yarns. The publication from which the clipping came is not identified nor did Mom write a date on the clipping. It is, however, surrounded by clippings that she dated in 1935-1936.
We are still complaining about the alphabet soup of governmental units that are, today, in place. Within my personal list of such organizations, accumulated over the years of my education, employment or volunteer service, are well over 100 such entries. Few of the entries in my relatively modern listing repeat units in the above listing. I did note that both FAA and FCC are still around and that the SSB was formed in August 1935.
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Below are the first and last pages of the listing of terminology that I kept at work - back in the olden days. The pages are from the last printout that I made - on April 17, 1997, our Wonderful GrandDaughter's 14th birthday. The pages are electronically trimmed to provide a more manageable display. (The paper version comprises a stack of paper over one inch thick.)
I carried the electronic version of a similar listing of pertinent terminology with me when performing volunteer duties on a disaster response operation. In that listing, about 10% of the entries were governmental agencies or departments. I was amused to note that, although the latest update was September 17, 2015, one of the included terms is VTC - Virtual TeleConference. We didn't even have COVID-19 in those days!
The image in A small puzzle was a part of a page scanned from Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, Volume 4; F.E. Compton & Company, Chicago IL, Printed in 1923. Below is a different cropping of that scan, providing the answer. (The article from which it comes is about inventions.)
Below is a scan (both sides) of the receipt given my grandfather when he bought the set of encyclopedias.
As children, my brothers and I browsed through Grandmother's encyclopedias, frequently. For the past 20+ years, they have been at my fingertips when seated in my reading chair. After all, much of what I look up has not changed since 1923. BTW: The purchase of the encyclopedias predated electrification of their house by about 10 years. Grandfather died in 1933 and I believe that Dad wired that house (and the wash house) shortly thereafter.
Stu sent an email that included an image, below, and a link, each having to do with the Dvorak keyboard layout - a layout that did not even occur to me during composition of previous postings and comments concerning typewriters and keyboards. Thanks, Stu. I remember the Dvorak layout, but I don't recall ever having been faced with that layout on an actual typewriter. If I cared to do so, I could probably find conversion software for my current Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard; but, I am no more interested in making the switch, now, than was I in the 1950s. 👎 I'm happy using QWERTY.
For anyone interested in refreshing their memories, or adding to their knowledge base, I supply a full-keyboard image, below, and a link to another Wikipedia entry - this one in English.
Royal Portable Typewriters for English Language Typing
Joared wrote in a comment to Roberta X made me do it of the keyboard layout of her Royal portable typewriter. I encouraged her to send me a photo of the machine and will post it if Joared has the time/energy/inclination to send one (or more). Until then, I am posting (below) a touch-typing guide that I found online, within an owner's manual. The manual is for a Royal Quiet Deluxe from 1952 which model did not include a separate key for "1" as does Joared's machine. (For those too young to know or to have used such a quaint machine, typists typed a lower case "l" in place of a "1" - which isn't too bad when using a font with serifs such as "l". I'm not sure whether Joared's machine includes that key because it is one year newer than the model addressed in the manual, or whether she bought a more expensive machine.
Typewriters for German Language Typing
Thanks to Stufor providing links to a couple of interesting German language typing websites. The photo, below, was found at Stu's link to his own website Eunoia, which posting has comments that include mine that predate some of the information in my own postings on typewriters.
Note the QWERTZ layout as Stu wrote about in his comment. (I note a difference in the "upper case" ß since, in the photo (above) it seems to be a colon rather than a question mark.)
Here in Germany, we have a bigger alphabet, the standard is QWERTZUIOP and the Y is bottom left. U Umlaut is to the right of P To the right of L we have O Umlaut then A Umlaut SZ which looks like a Beta is below the question mark.
During the Nazi era there were also separate keys for the SS and for the swastika.
BTW: To access "cut copy and paste" German alphabet letters such as the eszett (ss), ß, I used the GYPU website.
IBM Executive Typewriters for English Language Typing
Other than the Smith Corona portable, about which I wrote in the previously linked posting, the only typewriter that I owned was purchased (used) from a shop in Albuquerque NM during the mid-1980s. It, an IBM Executive (photo of a machine similar to mine, above), made really gorgeous copy! The look of the finished page was enhanced by the proportionate spacing of the letters ("i" took one space while "W" took five spaces, as I recall), by the sans serif font (illustrated in the image, below), and by the machine's using a carbon ribbon (photo below the font image) rather than an inked ribbon.
I really liked that machine; but, when I moved back to Kansas, knowing that it would be difficult to squeeze my household goods into Hunky Husband's already fully-furnished house, I gave the IBM Executive to Elder Brother and his wife who, at the time, lived in Santa Fe NM. He may/probably does still have it.
Other than Young Sheldon, The Kominsky Method, and Disjointed, I have seen and enjoyed (some to a greater, some to a lesser extent) Lorre's sitcoms. I still watch re-runs of The Big Bang Theory though I can recite the dialogue - without having the TV audio engaged - in most of the episodes. (I admit to deliberately avoiding several episodes that I find annoying - usually because of writing that presents characters Sheldon and Wolowitz in truly obnoxious ways. They are obnoxious enough without the extra effort that someone seems to think is required.) In addition, because of conflicts with my schedule or the TV schedule I missed most first-run presentations of Mom, I am now catching up on those presentations, in re-runs.
My complaints about Lorre's writing is his reliance upon cheap sexual innuendos that are most unfunny and his insistence upon keeping characters infantile beyond their years. That said, for the most part, Lorre's writing is still above the standards set by others in sitcoms that see the air on our major networks. I am a fan. Or, perhaps I am merely jealous of anyone who has discernible eyebrows?
Last Christmas, a family friend announced her second pregnancy via her daughter's tee shirt. The second child is about due, but I just received the photo. The friend shall remain anonymous.
It has been some weeks, now, since Blogger has let me comment on nearly any blog for which they provide service. Don't know what I did to tick 'em off. At first, I assumed my settings had changed and were to blame; but, I've been unable to find anything to account for the lack. Oh, well, I've never much liked Blogger's use of Captchaand its follow-ons.
Murr's most recent posting ended with, "Note to Uncle Walt: So long, and thanks for all the assfish." Among the 32 comments to that post that are currently showing, not one person noted the hat tip to Douglas Adams. Wow!
Life is tough enough without such huge disappointments. I shall try to slog through.
For the past two weeks I have failed to buy groceries because I had had a hard time getting to sleep on Monday night; thus, I fell asleep just in time to wake too late to get to the WalMart Neighborhood Market in the 6:00am-7:00am time slot on Tuesday during which, even though the store is not yet "open", old people are allowed access to do their shopping. Last night, I endeavored to get enough sleep that I would wake in time, this morning, to make it to the store at close to 6:00am.
"So, how did that work out?" I hear you ask. Not well. I fell asleep by 10:30 last night, but, awoke at 2:30am and have been unable to fall back asleep. Thus, I am at my keyboard - mostly, because I remembered promising Hunky Husband that I would send him a neighbor's (Excellent Hostess's) email address in order that he might send her a thank you email for the delicious dessert she dropped by Sunday evening.
Looking for something to read, I visited Bluebird of Bitterness(AKA b.o.b.), a seemingly frustrated English major. In her "About" page, b.o.b. writes, "One more thing: although I identify as a male bluebird online, in real life I identify as a female human. I was gender and species fluid before it was cool."
At b.o.b.'s website, I clicked on the top-listed bluebird’s greatest hits to find Bar jokes for English majors. If you love language(s) and communications, I think you will really enjoy b.o.b.'s blog - especially the bar jokes, of which I reproduce a sampling, below, as swiped by WyldKat's Lair in a posting of February 20, 2018.
Too good not to swipe.
A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”
A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
A question mark walks into a bar?
A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a war. The bartender says, “Get out — we don’t serve your type.”
Since we are waiting for Cecil to get out here to install our new dishwasher (item at bottom of page), I have been washing our daily dishes by hand - just before toddling off to bed. Last night I finished up a rather goodly batch and toddled down the stairs. Hmmm...what is the strange odor tinging the air as I reach the bottom of the basement stairs? I look around. Good grief! The kitchen sink had obviously met a clog, and taken the path of least resistance - flooding the bar sink, inundating the whole cabinet/drawers/doors/contents/carpeting with relatively clean water that had chunks of green floating about in it. Two hours later, the scene looked like that in the photo, above; but, my oh my what fun I had getting to that point - bailing with a quart measuring utensil into the waste basket that had been under the sink, moving stuff off and away, and sucking up water with the wet Shop Vac. I went over the wood and stainless steel parts with ammonia water, sopped more water out of the carpeting with towels, and set up a fan to (hopefully) blow away some moisture. And...oh, yes...I turned the air conditioner down to 76 degrees. It had been set to 78 degrees; but, the outside air temperature was 78 degrees (at midnight) and the humidity was about the same and I wanted the air conditioner to help dry out the area.
This (photo, below) is about 40% of the stuff I took out of the drawers and cabinets - stashed on a table at the other end of the room. (Bogie, is that your Monsster Energy Drink?)The only real use that the bar sink gets is when HH uses it to mix up a few quarts of Gatorade from powder every week or so. He keeps the Gatorade in pint-sized bottles in the basement refrigerator. When he goes for a run/jog/walk and/or works out with his weights, he re-hydrates with that Gatorade.
The one good thing to have come from all of this is that it convinced Hunky Husband to let me recycle a bunch of plastic bottles that he had been saving (forever) - photo, below - which comprised another 40% of what I removed from the cabinet.
What about the other 20% of the stuff I removed from the drawers and cabinets? It is in the sink or on the washing machine in the laundry room. I had neatly folded HH's bar towels and the towels with which I had soaked up the water from the carpeting after washing and drying them, last night. It was about 2:30am when I fell into bed. You can imagine my joy when, an hour later, I was awakened by HH standing at the top of the stairs yelling down to me, "[Cop Car!] Is everything all right?" He had been met with the sight in the photo, below, when he had gone into the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee. It was one of those mornings when he had awakened early. Not early enough to help with the cleanup, mind you - lol. At any rate, I had not wanted him to use the kitchen sink, causing another overflow of the bar sink. The plumber is due to be here between 4pm and 6pm, today. Just in time, since Cecil may install the dishwasher, tomorrow.
UPDATE of 7/17/2020- 3:12pm -
The Plumber arrived early. He had finished another job, early, so called to see if he could come on over. When I opened the front door to him, I asked him if he would like a mask (I was wearing one, of course). He cheerfully returned to his truck to retrieve his own mask, donned it, then used the hand sanitizer that I keep near the front door before donning his gloves. Thirty minutes later I paid him and sent him on his way. He did his job well and efficiently, and he was pleasant but not chatty. (I stayed upstairs while he worked in the basement, of course.)
Public health officials in Houston are struggling to keep up with one of the nation's largest coronavirus outbreaks. They are desperate to trace cases and quarantine patients before they spread the virus to others. But first, they must negotiate with the office fax machine. From a report: The machine at the Harris County Public Health department in Houston recently became overwhelmed when one laboratory sent a large batch of test results, spraying hundreds of pages all over the floor. "Picture the image of hundreds of faxes coming through, and the machine just shooting out paper," said Dr. Umair Shah, executive director of the department. The county has so far recorded more than 40,000 coronavirus cases. Some doctors fax coronavirus tests to Dr. Shah's personal number, too. Those papers are put in an envelope marked "confidential" and walked to the epidemiology department. As hard as the United States works to control coronavirus, it keeps running into problems caused by its fragmented health system, a jumble of old and new technology, and data standards that don't meet epidemiologists' needs. Public health officials and private laboratories have managed to expand testing to more than half a million performed daily, but they do not have a system that can smoothly handle that avalanche of results.
Today was interesting. Hunky Husband drove me to my appointment with an eye surgeon up in northwestern Wichita. My visit with the surgeon was delayed by my undergoing various types of scanning/photography of my eyes. Although it was my left eye that sent me there, every test/photo series was accomplished on both eyes. Having been given a heads up by Bogie, I asked to see the images of my floaters. The images were not at all what I expected: they were actually profiles of the retinas (see image, below, from Internet). There was a definite difference between the right and left retinas. In the image from the Internet, below, the "pinched" area at the center is a normal feature of one's retina; however, the other hills and valleys are peculiar to the individual eye.
The most interesting procedure was an eye angiogram (image, below, from Internet).
During an eye angiogram, the dye is injected into a vein in your arm. Once injected, it takes about 10 to 15 seconds to circulate through your body. As the dye enters the blood vessels in your eyes, a series of photos are taken to chart the dye's progress. More pictures are taken after most of the dye has passed through your eyes to see if any of it has leaked out of the blood vessels. Any dye that leaks out of the blood vessels will color the tissues and fluid in the eye. Filters in the camera allow the areas colored by the dye to show up in the photos.
Unlike other angiogram procedures, an eye angiogram is not an X-ray procedure, so you are not exposed to any radiation.
Fortunately, the technician warns her patients of an untoward side effect of the dye injection (other than 16 listed possible side effects). The technician said that the dye turns urine bright yellow. Had she not told me, especially since the effect lasted for at least 30 hours, I would have panicked - thinking that I had pancreatic cancer.
When I placed my online order for a dishwasher, on 7/2/2020, I shortly received notice that it would be delivered on 7/12/2020. I didn't even think about the 12th's being on a Sunday - especially since the email also mentioned that they were having a hard time filling all of the orders during these times (normally, I should have expected delivery within three days of placing the order.) This morning, I just happened to check my phone for voicemail - a rare occurrence. There was a message left yesterday that I should expect delivery after 3:00pm, today - perhaps as late as 6:00pm-7:00pm. Hmmm...
At about 2:00pm, as I was closing my eyes to take a nap, I heard a truck outside. Thinking that perhaps deliveries were running ahead of schedule, I peeked outside. A Lowe's truck was parked up-and-across the street - offloading a clothes washer and dryer. About 45 minutes later, when the two guys had loaded the old washer and dryer for hauling away and seemed to be ready to leave, I caught their attention, asking if they had a dishwasher for me. "I don't know. We do have a couple of dishwashers in there. I'll check."
They checked. They carried our dishwasher across the street and deposited it in our garage. I was happy to get the delivery and they were happy that they would save the extra driving that would have been required had they needed to come back. Who knew that the truck hadn't been loaded with an eye toward efficiency of travel. Amazingly unthoughtful of someone.
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