Duncan's Blog

Sometimes my brain is definitely out of the loop. We did a reading in Italian class with a fill in the blank and here is where I tripped up with my critical thinking.

"Gino and Dino are twins. Gino wears glasses. Dino doesn't wear glasses. Gino sees better than/worse than Dino."

"Gino sees better," I said.

"No," the teacher responded, "Gino wears glasses."

"That's right. He wears glasses and Dino doesn't. They're twins. So the one who wears glasses has corrected vision and sees better. The one who doesn't wear glasses just walks around with impaired vision."

"No, I think the sentence means one needs glasses and one does not."

"Oh!" It seems so obvious AFTER THE FACT.

Folks who know me know that I keep chickens in the front yard. It's an exotic thing to do in these parts of Los Angeles County... well, for a non-Latin anyway. I've got about 20 birds; Buckeyes, Cinnamon Queens, Auracanas, Silkies and French Marans. Most are from an Ohio hatchery. The silkies came from my local feed store.
One of the silkies has taken to crowing at sunrise. As the feed store owner would say, "He turned into a rooster." That statement STILL makes me laugh. Anyway, his days in my aviary are numbered because (a) roosters are illegal here, (b) he's been crowing at 6am and (c) I don't want to run the risk of having fertilized eggs. So back to the feed store he shall go. I don't know what his fate will be, but I surmise some Asian family will have a nice black-skinned chicken dinner.
Another unrelated but curious concern has popped into my head recently. I read a lot of personals ads. MANY MANY MORE than I would like to admit to and I am always amazed at the number of people who write about how they LOVE the outdoors. This is especially surprising when they live in places like Palm Desert. And yet... they keep running ads over and over again. Do these guys take their laptops with them and start composing by campfire in front of a pup tent?
I never make any such statements. Being outside is to get from one place to another. Or, when I have to actually do work outside (like toss around trash into a trash can) I might be out longer than normal. But in California, the unhealthy indoor man only goes outside to smoke these days.
I also marvel at people who are looking for companions (i.e. sex objects) that are 15-20 years their junior. Planning on having a built-in nurse somewhere down the line? Who knows? Maybe when I'm old I too might start cruising seniors from the high schools. . . NOT!

I had to write a letter to one of my union mukka-muks. I have no idea whether or not I have spelled the word correctly and this time--oddly enough--I don't give a rat's a**! The mukka-muk's name was "Jerry" and I wrote my salutation, "Dear Mr. F-------,"
In response, Jerry stated that she is a female. "I guess it's misleading and I'm sorry about that."
I was momentarily infuriated because in my opinion when you are in a position of authority you shouldn't do stupid things like using a nickname. The only time I would cut slack to over something like that is those poor folks whose parents gave them initials for a first name. "Jerry", I later found out, is NOT her Xtian name.
Just a little rant of the moment... of which I seem to have so many these days

My main objective is to be able to see my two feet again. Sounds funny no doubt, but it's not an unusual thought. If you've ever had a gut for any period of time, the thought that you would ever be able to look down and see your feet without an obstruction might have been a flight of fancy. It happened to me this past year. Then... the diet just sort of got blown off and only the toes were visible.
It seems--at times--quite disconcerting that a weight loss program might become a permanent lifestyle. As I age, however, I note how difficult it is for me to keep the kilos from piling up. I pray for strength and for determination to just say no to transfat.

I'm a 48 yo GWM at the moment and work in the healthcare field. One of my coworkers, a SBMF with four sons is also a nurse. She had heard that I raise chickens and wanted to know about them. So I told her that I have what I had thought were all hens. Turns out one showed the signs of being a rooster.
"So what does that mean?" she asked.
I told her that it had negative ramifications because (a) I didn't want fertilized eggs and (b) they were illegal pets in my town.
"What's the fertilized egg mean?"
"It means that if you go to crack open an egg for breakfast, instead of finding a white and a yolk you'll see the makings of a new chicken."
"How's that happen?" she asked.
"With the help of the rooster," I told her.
...
She honestly didn't understand ANY of it. THAT was frightening. Beware of you health care providers!