R E F L E C T I O N S

It's called a Peel.  Watch the videos: I think it looks like a golf cart, even smaller. Easy to park but it has to be dangerous. Test Drive I'd rather ride a bicycle.

I believe we have limited freedom, about 30% free and the rest is not under our control. It is not our choice about: ~how wealthy our parents are so they can give us the best and ensure our future, ~how the genes we inherited affect our health and intelligence, ~catching diseases, ~getting into accidents, ~marrying the wrong person, ~the religion we were brought up with and so on. Here's what scares me.  Besides not having the power to choose how our life is set up for us, some say we can't do anything  using free will.  Even our thoughts are not free. Some neuroscientists have said any decision you make is not truly free but actually determined by neural processes outside of your conscious control. It's like really being an android, not what we think of as human . The quotes below are from the link  Neuroscience and Free Will Are Rethinking Their Divorce "Luckily, for those who find this state of affairs philosophically (or existentiall...

My wife Lynette did a great job planning out the backyard. Here's the vegetable patch.  It's small but just for fun. The blue buckets are planted with tomatoes, Beefsteak and Better Boy.  I'm not sure what we will plant in the four pots, probably herbs and marigolds. Here's where we planted sunflowers.  Lynette helped me cut back on the pumpkin plants, which grew on their own from a Halloween pumpkin I threw in there last November. We put a wire screen over the patch to prevent birds and squirrels from eating the sunflower seeds.  These are the two pumpkin plants we kept.

A picture is worth a thousand words.  these illustrations come from a Russian site I just discovered: Here's the link:    Awesome - things worth sharing This article: 30 crushing illustration of an unhealthy dependence on the Internet. The frightening picture ... PRIVACY! BLIND TO REALITY!

Today is a quiet damp rainy day and don't feel like doing anything.  I hope you enjoy this silly post.  (Wait for videos to download. A larger screen and louder sound is sometimes better) Trampoline  A Musical Commercial The Harlem Shake This is if you really hate it.

I use google Calendar because I can set it to send me email reminders. Also, I print the month's calendar for a copy on my desk. To download go to google. ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Then I print a weekly schedule that I created from a spreadsheet.  It has the usual things I do like exercise, take trash to the dump, check when bills are due, etc. I pencil in appointments and other one time events. I know it's sort of obsessive/compulsive but at least I don't schedule the usual things I do; like when to shave, get dressed, have a snack or go to the bathroom.  That would really be strange. My main fear is that I'll lose control of my life if I don't somehow organize it. But the truth is how little control I actually have.  I guess I control maybe 30% of my life.  The rest is chance: accid...

Why do I want to make a to-do list?  I want to make better use of my time without becoming overwhelmed.  I can't do everything.  It's not worth trying to do too much and I want some slack time to do nothing, just relax. Now I'm not so busy that I need a complicated method.  An easy method for the best use of my time is what I want. I don't want to learn how to set up flags and colored stars to make priorities and whatever. It's Fun to make lists but I don't want to spend all my time and energy only making lists rather than actually taking action. My mistake was in not paying attention to the difference between a to-do list and a project list . A project could be something like "I want to keep the house in good condition" , which I can name as something like House Maintenance . But this doesn't explain how to do it. If I list the things I need to do for this project, Wunderlist calls them subtasks; I can now transfer them to my to-...

I'm going to indulge my fascination with wild plants/weeds again.  I think this would make a nice houseplant. I found it in this flower box left over from last year. I'll let you know after I transplant it. This past week I haven't posted much because I'm working on a project to make better use of my time.  Time is so limited and valuable that it's a shame to waste it.  I'll post my progress and ask for some of your ideas.

Apple Blossom Parade I've lived in this area for many years and this was the first time I attended the parade.  It was a good time with the family. Miles was with both sets of grandparents and some uncles and an aunt. We had a quiet barbecue together.  It was a great time. Some short videos of the parade: We bought Miles a t-ball baseball set which by coincidence our in-laws bought the same exact one.  Now he'll leave one set here in Virginia and take the other set back to Brooklyn so he can play at both places. Here he is with his Baltimore Orioles cap trying out one of the t-ball sets. Set Up Back Swing Hit Follow Through