Change all the time

​It is fun and it is easy to pin things down.  Harry is like this and pork is like that.  In real life, things are always changing.  That fact makes things more complicated.  It's easier to just fix things in our minds and leave them that way.  I wrote yesterday about visiting two small central Wisconsin villages.  Given changes in the weather, our purposes, and recent experiences and changes in the communities, we see again the value and applicability of the basic truth: Everything changes.

I use my two visit to Florence, Italy as a reminder of just how different two visits to a place or a  person can be. Here is my post from five years ago about two visits to Florence, Italy, 24 years apart.

Visiting two Florences

I visited Firenza, the city in Italy we call "Florence" twice, first in 1974 and then again in 1998.  Both visits were only for a few days but together, they make a great mental reminder of the individuality of life's experiences.

The first trip was my first visit to an old city anywhere.  It was extremely crowded on the main sidewalks and I had to shorten my steps to avoid the feet in front of me.  We stayed in a little rental up what I would have called an alleyway.  It seemed romantic.  I had bought a gorgeous loaf of bread in a stop in Assisi, but learned that bread made with no salt was not very tasty.  Up the alley from our lodging was a bakery and I felt so clever finding a way to ask if the loaf I wanted there had salt in it.  We were right around the corner from the Duomo, the cathedral church of Florence and I liked the striped building.  The famous Ponte Vecchio ("old bridge") is very colorful, a clearly old bridge with shops all along it.  [It is famous enough that 'ponte' into Google suggests Ponte Vecchio immediately.]

Twenty-four years later, guess what?  I was 24 years older!  I had been in my early 30's the first visit so of course, I had changed.  But the events, the scenes, the impressions were also quite different, different enough that in many ways it seemed like a different city.  For one thing, we came in quite late at night, using a different route and stayed at lodgings that were very different..  Coming into a busy city that is unfamiliar in the dark is no picnic.  We got a little lost and even managed to get our tour bus more or less stuck in an ancient and tiny street until we stood outside the giant bus and guided the driver in the dim light.  The next morning, we got a chance to see the enormous villa in which we were housed.  The entry hall itself seemed as big as an American high school gym.  It was out in the suburbs with an orchard beside it and had great views of the area.

If we hadn't seen the same cathedral and the same old bridge without leaving the city, I would not be sure that it was even the same city.  It wasn't the same me and it wasn't the same set of experiences.  That old Greek said you can't step into the same (totally unchanged) river twice and we found we can't visit the same place twice.

​

--

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

No fly-over country

Yesterday morning, we visited the nearby villages of Amherst and Iola, Wisconsin.  You may not have heard of either one.  We often laugh at the idea that some of the midwestern states are "fly-over country" since we found charming, interesting, memorable places, people and events in every locale.  The same goes for Amherst and Iola, Wisconsin.  Try them out and you'll see.

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

Lost keys

​Where could they be?  I always put them here but clearly they aren't here now.  They didn't fall down behind the stand and they aren't on the floor.  They are not beside the bed and they aren't by the computer.

When some sort of misplacing happens, you start to wonder if you might be losing it.  I often have trouble remembering what I did yesterday and when.  But then, I can recall searching for my glasses when I was six years old. I don't know if I have lost more things than most people but I do know I have spotty records of what was lost and when and why.  I am confident that my overall record extends from my grade school days.  Oh yes, I am the guy who carried two shoes to the shoemaker and found I had only one to give him to be repaired when I got there.  I was a 4th grader then.  I don't think I am losing it.  I might have been born without it!

You know how it is.  When you can't find what's missing, there doesn't seem to be much that can be done except retracing your steps and looking over and over for them.  Did I look carefully in those pants?  Really carefully?  Maybe I missed a pocket?  I'll try again.

The only reason I was looking for them at that hour was that today is a recycling day.  I can't get the recycling bin out of the garage unless I move one of the cars out first.  I didn't want to admit defeat and get the spare key to move my car but after several repetitious rounds of looking in about the same places, I went to the spare key drawer.  These days there is some notable expense to have a spare key for a car, what with the special computer chips and all.  But this was one of those times when I was glad I had a spare.  The instant i pushed the spare into the ignition, I remembered placing my keys in the bag on my bike yesterday afternoon.  Until that moment, I could not think of any place or activity that had been part of yesterday that could explain how those keys could have gotten away.

Putting my keys in the zippered bag was good handling.  I put them in a place where they were likely to be ok even if I had some minor accident.  I have taken tumbles on a moving bike and I know mishaps occur.  But after the ride was over and I was ready for something else, I didn't think of those keys still safely zipped in that seat bag.

When I am going around and around, looking in the same places and making zero progress in finding them, feelings of stupidity, negligence, unreliability, carelessness and their cousins are buzzing around me like flies.  I have some good records of achievement and I don't qualify as too careless most of the time.  I am old and experienced enough with those flies that I can keep them mostly at bay.  When I do find the damned missing keys, I am glad that I didn't yell at myself too much.

​

--

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

He has everything he needs

The other great-grandchildren were interested in shopping after having lunch at a place of their choosing.  But the five year old dismissed a chance to shop for toys or goodies.  "I have everything I need," he said.

He is right.  He is not cold nor dangerously hot.  He is not thirsty, nor hungry.  He has live, healthy, loving parents and other relatives.  He has a seat belt and wears it.  He gets to watch football games and read books he likes.

He is the shame of American marketing, of course.  Having failed to create a deep longing for a secret decoder ring or a smart phone or a superhero cape, it is clear that our economy is looking for a downturn when a five year old is content.  What we will hear from him when he is 20 years older and is looking to start a family or complete his studies, maybe both at the same time, remains to be seen.  It is possible that he will have everything he needs then, too.  

But it will be fine, and expected, if his needs develop.  His children, his profession, his country may be concerns.  He may feel motivated to save, to spend, to build, to learn, to create, to teach.  On the other hand, he may also be able to stay aware that actual needs are small and contained.

I have no fear that he will be overly complacent or lack ambition.  This guy is a living ball of fantastic energy.  He will want to provide his wife and family with companionship, love, material satisfaction and comforts.  So, don't worry about him being overly satisfied.  Just be happy that there are people, even children, who in this country, today, can say they have everything they need.

​

--

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

Complaints

I guess the evidence is clear: positive thinking is better for a person's health and friendships than negative thinking.  Still, once in a while I have complaints.

I don't have a smartphone and I don't use my cellphone much.  So, I don't get really important calls on it.  I am still of the opinion that getting a phone call is more or less a private thing.  I don't approve of people answering their phone in public and holding a conversation in a place and in a way that I am a part of it.  I want people to step outside, much like lighting a cigarette, or into a hallway or otherwise get away from the group and the public and me while discussing when Uncle Harry is going to land and who is going to pick him up.

I get newsletters from quite a few sources and many of the items use "c'mon on" headlines, equivalent to but not quite as dumb as "New treatment for beautiful skin from an everyday vegetable".  The titles are written as c'mon-ons, almost always a sign that the author didn't really have much to say.  I suppose some departments get credit for clicks and people opening an item.  Generally, if you have something to say, I recommend saying it, not telling me that you are going say something real important in a sentence or two, or on the next page. I suppose somebody has data supporting the idea that if I get you to click onto my web page, the extra ads on it will tempt you into spending money.  Firefox, and I guess the new Microsoft Edge, have features that seem to be doing a pretty good job blocking the extraneous stuff, ads, and attempts at enticements so that I can read a post with less distraction.  

Finally, I am irritated with some soundtracks in some tv shows and movies.  I suppose it might be possible electronically to keep the speech but kill or strongly depress the music.  Some sound tracks go on and on in what I take to be an attempt to set a mood but do so with perfectly ordinary scenery of a type that the viewer saw plenty of a minute ago, when things were not supposed to be scary.  When things are at a fever pitch, some films have the sound track playing at a high volume right while actors are speaking their lines.  Seems dumb to me.

--

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

Interview with a photo editor

I had an interview with a woman who just spent close to two weeks, working a couple of hours a day, culling and editing 649 vacation photos.  They are all digital and she uses Photoshop Elements, a more compact version of Photoshop.  

I asked her what was the most common thing she did to the pictures before putting them on Facebook and sending links to them out to friends by email.  Her most used tool is cropping.  The first need is to make the whole picture file smaller.  From her camera or iPad, a picture may

be in quite a large format. This picture of a salad is 1.4 mb.  By comparison, a file of the King James Bible for Kindle is about 2.3 mb.  

This 2nd shot of the salad is only .7 mb, about half the picture information of the one above and seems like a close-up of the important parts of the picture.

That is the sort of cropping and focusing (and eliminating some parts of the picture) that she does by the hour.  The software allows her to brighten or darken a picture, to increase its contrast and make other changes.  For this email, all my own changes were done in the editing part of Picasa, a Google photo service.

--

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

Trying to be normal

​I don't have good data but it seems that most people feel normal.  Even I feel normal but it keeps turning out that I am not all that typical.  I wonder if you feel like that, too.

At my 50th high school reunion, I found I had spent my life differently..  I went to an all-male public high school.  Going there was actually the result of a choice I had made to study Latin.  I had heard Latin was a basic language and I knew it was ancient.  I didn't know that 9th grade Latin could only be followed up for another year in a high school on the other side of the city of a million.  I spent long hours daily on public transportation.  Not a mistake, but not typical, either. That was just the start.  The other guys did not go into education.  I did not join the armed forces.

I thought yesterday's blog picture showed Lynn AT the center of the universe but it turns out, she IS the center.  I didn't realize that until this morning when she got me straightened out.  Here I have been married to the Center of the Universe for more than 50 years and didn't know it! She just informed me that she and our friend, who is also the center of the universe, have peacefully decided to share the center.

When I got a ticket from Officer Lopez in Texas and from Officer Hansen in Wisconsin, I made the same mistake both times in both places.  I don't like getting a ticket so when I get one, my impulse is to pay it off.  Right away!  In Texas, about 10 years ago, I was visiting and didn't have my computer.  I went in person, found the Pay Here window and was told I was too early.  They had no information from the officer.  Come back later or wait until later and pay over the telephone.  Now, today, in Wisconsin, I do have my computer.  I paid online.  A few days later, a nice lady calls to say the billing service is refunding my fine since they had been informed by the municipal court that they had no information that I had gotten a ticket.  Since I had my citation right in front of me, I was confident I had gotten a ticket.  I called and they took my information.  They said they would look me up.  Next day, they called and said they had found me.  And yes, I owed a fine.  See?  Again, too fast, too atypical.

I was a sergeant in the drum and bugle corp.  I can hear a beat, produce a beat and stay with a beat.  I know how to get in step and stay in step.  But, I am still not normal.  How can I move toward more normality, greater typicality?  Should I?  Google returns more than 1 billion, 800 millions results to the query "How to be normal?"  I intend to read them all and take them to heart, digest them, re-do myself.  You'll see. I can be just as normal as you are

​

--

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

Fwd: Whistler to the end

This is the final set of pictures Lynn has culled, edited and worked over.  Take a "YMT" tour of the Canadian Rockies with Camille as your guide and Gary as your all-important driver.  Then you can see the sights for yourself.

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lynn Kirby <lkirby39@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 4:00 PM
Subject: Whistler to the end
To: Lynn Kirby <lskirby@charter.net>

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10207020429525470.1073741841.1121815235&type=1&l=9c37ef25e6

I took 549 pictures on the trip, and Bill took about 100. Even though I've put a lot of them up on Facebook, there are hundreds I didn't post. Aren't you glad?

We took the train from Whistler to Vancouver. The next day we took the ferry to Vancouver Island where we went to Victoria and Butchart Gardens. And finally, back to Seattle the last day. The last pictures are from the area around the Seattle space needle, called the City Center. 

Overall, I enjoyed the trip, and there are places I would love to go to again. There were so many beautiful things to see, and I learned a lot, besides. But if I ever get back--we'll see.

Lynn

the center of the universe

​Roger Ebert, the famous film critic, opens his memoir with

I LIVED AT the center of the universe. The center was located at the corner of Washington and Maple streets in Urbana, Illinois, a two-bedroom white stucco house with green canvas awnings, evergreens and geraniums in front, and a white picket fence enclosing the backyard.

Ebert, Roger (2011-09-13). Life Itself: A Memoir (p. 9). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Which is odd, since Lynn and I just took pictures of each other at the center of the universe, which is in Wallace, Idaho

The center of the universe, like the answer to the question Where did we come from?, is one of those ideas that are clear: we clearly came from a great source, a wonderful place and wonderful ancestors.  And, we are clearly at the center of the universe.  Maybe there are multi-verses but the one that matters is the one we know and are in.  It is really the center, OUR center, if not your center.​

--

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

Fwd: Pictures from day 9-11

Here is a set of pictures from Lynn.

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lynn Kirby
Date: Sun, Aug 23, 2015 at 6:52 PM
Subject: Pictures from day 9-11

​Hi. 

These pictures don't have a lot of mountains for a change. We drove a couple of days to get to Whistler and spent a couple days there. The 2010 Winter Olympics were held there, and the town is still hopping. Lots of young people, biking and bikes everywhere, and wonderful shops and restaurants.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10207013950483498.1073741840.1121815235&type=1&l=5ac70d57c1

Lynn

 

​

a little weight loss

​I was surprised on our recent two-week bus tour that I lost a little weight, about 4 lbs. I am confident that 10 lbs. would be a better amount to lose but still, while eating out all the time, sitting in a bus, I am impressed with myself.

Some of it came from special circumstances. We sometimes had an especially long time to ride and we were not going to stop.  Ok, I don't plan anything elaborate, just want to avoid sharp hunger.  In such a case, I don't worry too much about proper nutrition or a balanced diet, which is a clue that for more than a week or two, the approach would not be good.  I find that mozzarella cheese sticks have high-ish protein, which definitely seems to matter for my appetite control.  The same high protein with relatively low sugar and calories also goes for Life Choice Protein Bars, which I buy at Wal-Mart or order from Amazon.  But the sticks and the bars travel well.  We have eaten unrefrigerated cheese sticks after a week or more of no refrigeration and they are fine.  Heat does make them sweat oil so they can be a little messy.

I had weight loss experience during high school and college when I needed to make weight for the wrestling team.  As usual, the problem is not being too light but if I were to weigh in and be too heavy, I would have to forfeit the match.  That never happened to me.  I did wrestle at higher weights whenever the coach needed somebody to go into a match to see if he could avoid getting pinned, just for scoring purposes.  A few pounds doesn't matter and I would sometimes do pretty well against an opponent in a higher weight class.  However, it is now 60 years later and I definitely don't have the same body or build.

I think practical nutrition and weight loss and body shapes and self-acceptance of our bodies, especially at ages of 60 and older is a very interesting set of subjects.  Since we need food and drink to live, it takes self control and self empathy to modify eating.  There is no dropping the habit of eating, just taming and redirecting it.

I have heard that most people in the US understand and appreciate the role of fiber in foods.  Fruits and vegetables definitely stave off hunger longer that prepared carbs such as white bread and cookies with high sugar content.

I was surprised to find obesity in "How We Die" by professor Sherwin Nuland as one of the major paths to deterioration and death and I thought of that book when I read about the lady of the house being ponderously overweight in one of Guy de Maupassant's early stories from the mid 1800's.  I realize that the female body is designed to save calories to be able to handle the task of eating for two (or more) in pregnancy.

The most useful ideas have been

• stop eating when I am full

• concentrate on fruits and vegetables

• avoid being hungry if possible but check for hunger honestly and clearly

• if a lovely food (doughnut, cake, tart, ice cream) is available, give it a SMALL try

​

--

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

Fwd: More pictures. Day 6

Lynn is back at her editing, culling and organizing pics from our Canadian Rockies trip.

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lynn Kirby <lkirby39@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Aug 22, 2015 at 12:06 PM
Subject: More pictures. Day 6
To: Lynn Kirby <lskirby@charter.net>, Bill Kirby <olderkirby@gmail.com>

Hi. 

Day 6 of our trip was mostly spent on the Icefields Parkway. We visited 3 lakes and 3 waterfalls and were in five different Canadian National Parks. The ground shook as we watched a train go in and out of a spiral tunnel. 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10207004347323425.1073741839.1121815235&type=1&l=bd17ef1fe5

We had dinner out in the evening with a group, did laundry, and had to change rooms due to plumbing issues. A big day.We spent the night in Revelstoke, BC. 

Lynn 

A nod or a word

It can be surprising what a word or two can do.  Saying Hi or "Nice to see you" may seem rather empty but the effects can be surprising.  If you say Hi to your neighbor every day, it is only natural for a slight change in the words or the subject to happen sometime.  Then, you hear about the bright kid or the new camera.  Even if you stay with a very repetitive greeting, your voice tone, your smile and your timing can show that you like the person and are likeable yourself.

An old friend might point to a time long ago: "Remember that game we lost 18 to 0?" and suddenly you are thinking about how you were, he was, the world was and the world is.  "What have you been reading?"  "Where have you been traveling?"  What is your next trip?  What is your take on Donald Trump?

I attended a presentation on Hallmark Cards a few months ago.  A young man, from Minnesota I believe, took two shoeboxes of postcards and sold them on the streets of Kansas City in 1910.  Mailing a letter or a note of condolence was already a custom but the modern birthday card or commencement congratulations was just coming into practice.  That company and many others know plenty about doing business with people's greetings and keepings-in-touch.  Plus the American inventions of Mother's Day, Father's Day and such holidays as National Pickle Month make it very possible to contact an old friend or a new acquaintance with a card, an ecard, an ebook, a link to a download of a song or a audiobook.

The rest of the world can snicker at our artificial "holidays" and semi-commercial hooplas but the pickle farmers aren't laughing.  It's not just us, though.  We woke one morning in Barcelona to men dangling from the trees outside the hotel.  It was St. George Day and the fire department was showing its stuff with ropes and climbing while tables below the trees were full of people selling books and flowers.  The custom is to honor someone you love with a book and a rose on St. George's Day.

--

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

Traveling all day

A week ago, we traveled all day from Seattle to Appleton, a distance in miles of 1938.  Google Maps says that we could walk the distance in 626 hours.  We didn't even try that.  We got a ride from our motel at 8:40 and just about 14 hours later, we were in our motel in Appleton.  We were gone about two weeks and paid for the room for one night, which we figured was cheaper than parking at the airport while at the same time, giving us a room close by to sleep in before the drive home. That motel, the Appleton Comfort Suites, does not charge for parking, just for a room.

Whether such travel is by car, plane, bus or other means, it feels to me like entering a special capsule for a while.  The Seattle motel van, walking through the Seattle airport, boarding the plane, walking into the Minneapolis airport, walking around until the next flight, boarding a 2nd plane, landing in Appleton, getting our luggage at the baggage claim, calling for a ride to the Comfort Suites, getting into our motel room - all of that is one steady experience of traveling from one big city to a smaller one, one unit of steady, focused transport.  That whole time, we were focused on our trip.

We could have used an airport closer to our home than Appleton but the only flights to them required leaving Seattle at midnight, disrupting the whole trip.  We have never had to travel for more than 24 straight hours but such a time requirement is certainly possible.  What was probably our longest continuous trip was central Wisconsin to Los Angeles, to Sydney, Australia.  The last flight by itself was about 15 hours but you know how it is, once you get used to tensing your muscles, reading, snacking and being part of the trip, it is not too bad. The flight out of LA was delayed and didn't take off until about 1:30 AM (or 3:30 AM by the clock used to get started).

We keep our whining and bad-mouthing to ourselves.  We realize something like 200,000 people have signed up for a one-way trip to Mars.  We aren't interested but respect the hardy pioneers willing to make such a journey.  We visited a ship in New Zealand where we stood in a small, dark room below decks where 40 people (men, women and children) would have lived together for two months to get from London to New Zealand.  The wind patterns make it necessary to sail from London to Rio in Brazil before starting east to New Zealand.  We talked with a woman in Hawaii who had been part of an experimental raft ride from Tahiti to Hawaii, research to see if Hawaii might have been settled by such a journey, a distance of 2626 miles.  The Pacific Islanders used rafts with little huts to protect themselves while carrying a few live pigs and dogs.  Unmatched sailors and explorers. Her experiment had a rough time finding a navigator who could guide the trip using only the stars, like the originals did.

If you are interested in long journeys, take a look at "Death Comes to the Archbishop" by Willa Cather.  The new archbishop of the New Mexico territory, 1850, is called to Rome: a long mule ride from New Mexico to St. Louis, a train ride to New York, a ship to Rome, several months to attend a meeting. Of course, equally long getting home.

--

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

This is a job for a woman

We watched a TED talk last night by Rana el Kaliouby, an Egyptian woman who studied computer science at Oxford in England and MIT in the US.  She was lonely so far from her husband and worked on an app that can detect emotions to try to communicate how they both felt more completely when talking together.  She presented several sets of data showing that human women are more expressive than men.  Not a big surprise but interesting to see data on the fact.

I just heard that for the first time, women are graduating from Army Ranger school, an advanced combat designation that women have been barred from in the past.  I am always hearing how this job or that job can be performed by women and that they should not be prevented from training and performing any job that a man can do.  Since I am a man, I am interested in the other side: jobs that are typically open to women, jobs we expect to see women in - can men do them well?  

Long ago, I read Jessie Bernard's statement that women can physically engage in sex more steadily than men can while at the same time, they can forego sex continuously longer and more comfortably than men.  Since men are often said to be interested in sex at all times while women are often less interested, her statement seems like a tip-off that even in areas of male interest, women may naturally be able to out-do them.  

I have no idea what the average number of children borne by a woman over, say, the last 70,000 years has been.  I am confident that it is a number greater than the number borne by men, regardless of what one sees in the movie Junior.  The picture of the tasks of nursing, educating, protecting, cooking, cleaning, and tending to a husband with some patience and good cheer is often used to show the need for natural and basic female abilities to multitask, to be both patient and assertive by appropriate turns.  I wouldn't be surprised if Bernard's formulation can be applied in other areas, such as a woman can patiently do nothing longer than a man while being able to work steadily at tedious tasks longer than a man.  I note that when the Iranians captured American diplomatic documents that had already been shredded, they got women to put the bits back together in readable form.

I believe men are likely to be better at living in a socially or militarily hostile environment than women, unless the women are convinced that doing so helps their loved ones.  I think I have seen a male advantage in pushing the envelope of an organization, which is related to the male ability and need to be prideful, boastful, in a socially approved way, of course.  I have been surprised lately when I hear a woman say she suspects a given man of being arrogant, when he seems quite everyday to me.

I have seen data that a woman is looked down on for behavior that is allowed men leaders.  But the most startling thing I have seen from women is very rapid alternation between cooing and quieting a child while interspersing that with sharp-tongued comments in a fight with her husband.  Both the cooing and the snarling seem quite genuine but take place in an alternating speed and yet with an authenticity that leaves men far behind.

--

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

Fwd: Day 6 pictures

This is Lynn's day 6 pictures.  She is naturally getting a little tired of organizing and editing.  She will probably pick some of the best of what remains even more rigorously than she has been doing.  She estimated that we have 250 pictures of our visit to the famous Butchart Gardens alone, a very beautiful place but even it has its limits.

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lynn Kirby <lkirby39@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 8:04 PM
Subject: Day 6 pictures
To: Lynn Kirby <lskirby@charter.net>, Bill Kirby <olderkirby@gmail.com>

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10206980236440668.1073741838.1121815235&type=1&l=f05c3ea9bf

We spent the whole day in Banff. In the morning we went up the tram to the top of a mountain. We poked around town and pretty much just goofed around the rest of the day.

A good day.

Love, Lynn

Fwd: Day 5 - Kootenay and Banff National Parks

This is Lynn's set of pictures from day 5 of our YMT Canadian Rockies tour.

Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lynn Kirby <lkirby39@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 8:04 PM
Subject: Day 5 - Kootenay and Banff National Parks
To: Lynn Kirby <lskirby@charter.net>, Bill Kirby <olderkirby@gmail.com>

Hi,

Here is the link to the adventures of Day 5. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10206966450176020.1073741837.1121815235&type=1&l=5dada8c82f

We went to Kootenay National Park, crossed the Continental Divide, and entered Banff National Park. We went to two lakes, Moraine and Louise; it was raining at the second one so I didn't get a lot of pictures there. 

The last picture is of a wildlife corridor, a bridge over the highway that animals use to cross the highway. It has trees and such on it, and apparently they do really use it. 

Love, Lynn

Facing my mind

We are such complex creatures that it is not easy to know all the bells and whistles we have in us.  It can be helpful to note as basic parts our muscles, our nervous systems including our senses like vision and touch, our conscious mind and our unconscious mind.

My friend says that she does qigong (kee-gong?) every day.  That approach is ancient and Chinese, like Tai Chi.  Other friends do yoga, which is ancient and Indian.  I try to do four things M, W, and F:

• some yoga stuff because of all my sitting,

• run half a mile with two interval spurts,

• walk 2.5 miles in my neighborhood (often with friends), and

• do a short routine with weights (squat machine, inner and outer thighs, overhead press, chinning with assistance machine, and rotator cuff including standing on a balance disk)

Is that enough?  Too much?  Who knows?  Probably depends on what I am trying to do.  I am not trying to be Arnold in his youth or even Arnold today.  I like being able to lift things I need to, like a suitcase or a heavy turkey. I got some good ideas from Gretchen Reynolds' book "The First Twenty Minutes."

But the most active part of me is my conscious mind.  There are many ways to work with my mind.  We both did the Brain Fitness Program of 6 weeks of daily computer exercises.  That has morphed into the Brain HQ site, which we pay $10 a month for and I never get around to using. The most valuable thing we have done for our minds is sitting with them.  We use a timer and sit for 10 minutes.  Facing what my mind throws out and quietly dismissing or postponing all thoughts for that period has given us more serenity, more self-awareness than you would think possible.  

We can face what we are and what we are becoming.  We realize we are tiny aging specks on a planet among billions of ancient heavenly bodies that we don't really know much about.  But we are proud of our speck-iness and are thrilled to accept our lives and our fortunes.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby

Peak experiences

Some of my friends are talking about peak experiences.  When looking into the subject, I found Abraham Maslow's statement of surprise that his students reported peak experiences using the same sort of words that famous mystics had used to describe life-altering moments.  Besides that, peak experiences were reported at both climactic moments such as reaching the top of a beautiful mountain but also while shaving or doing the dishes. I continue to be interested in the effect of meditation on our ability to notice what we are thinking and accept or reject our thoughts and their associations.

On our recent trip, I was checking email and became aware of a book by the historian Stephanie Coontz.  I had already benefited from her book "The Way We Never Were", comparing the realities of America's 1950's with myths and stereotypes.  The book "Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage" by Coontz hit hard in the first chapter.  I knew that marriage had for centuries been more about economics and wealth than about love between two people.  But Coontz emphasizes a different angle.  Today, we accord our leaders authority because they get votes.  But in many former places, the question was about parentage and therefore marriage.

So, I was struck by the realization that we use votes, which makes sense but we might have used "blood lines", real or alleged lines of descent.  It doesn't take many generations before we have only claims of descent, whether they are about human ancestors or claims of divine descent.

Prof. Coontz went on to strike me again: monogamy has its uses and its claims but some peoples have shown a preference for multiple wives for one husband and here and there multiple husbands for one wife.  She explains that when "blood lines" mean power and wealth and security, casting aspersions on an opponent's descent or the correctness with which his marriage or his parent's marriage was carried out (long ago, of course) can be an important political move.

She hit me again with examples of young women, sometimes as toddlers, being given in marriage, virtually as property, of course.  In other cases, young women who saw the disadvantages of being married (and owned) arranged to marry a man who was already dead.  Some managed to be officially married to a neighbor's foot or to a dog.

While realizing how many ideas, concepts and stories we humans have kept close to our hearts and believed in and lived by, I found this TED talk by the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, who emphasizes that 70,000 years ago, humans didn't matter much.  Now they matter tremendously and he characterizes the reasons for their emergence as their ability to believe in "fictions".

I have had a lot to think about.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Twitter: @olderkirby