We needed tough lessons as children. An occasional playground fight was expected as the norm, and if we complained to our mother that we were being teased, we were treated to this glorious aphorism: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” My mom used to say that all the time, one of the seemingly endless adages she had at her disposal to deal with any of life’s problems. To this day I think long and hard about the practical application that dogma had on my life.
The idea that you could actually choose whether or not to be hurt by words: that was huge for me. Even though it has been repeated ad nauseam for generations, “sticks and stones” really is a powerful bit of philosophy to a kid. That’s one of the great things about being a parent: you can spout nothing but clichés, and yet, to your child, you come off as one of the great thinkers in Western culture.
–from MEAN DADS FOR A BETTER AMERICA, by Tom Shillue
Heres a little travelogue- with focus on the travel part (i left my phone in my bag all weekend)
(OK the last post seemed like it had no sound.) Here's the headline video- as I said it's just me thinking aloud about what would make me want to click on a headline when I'm scrolling...
I thought I might beat Michael to this post. Look at this video how often do you do this? I recorded all our entrances including Greg and then I went around the panel to show all the people who are on tonight- then I pressed the button to stop but I wasn’t taping (i do this a lot)
Thank you for reminding me. I wanted to talk about our post-show hangout in Memphis and here it is:
“Day 22”
Of the 2026 Cavalcade
2890 miles
We stayed at the hotel yesterday. It was raining all morning, and there were heavy gusts of wind.
I asked GROK for a comprehensive weather report for our ride to Joshua Tree NP. Heavy rain, wind gust up to 50 mph.
GROK basically told me to wait until today.
So we did, of course yesterday, around 12:00 PM, the sun broke through and it was a lovely day.
I was a tad annoyed, we are in a ‘Marriott’ property and I’m a ‘Lifetime Platinum’ member, so I can wait to check out at 16:00.
We walked over to Costco which is behind the hotel, and saved some money on supper. On our way we found an historical marker here in front of the hotel. It’s for a small dilapidated adobe house just behind the hotel. It’s the oldest Adobe house in California, built in 1790.
My love bought some California Rolls Sushi, I bought a tray of Shashimi.
It’s currently 09:20, we are going to load up and leave by 10:30, as our checkin time at Joshua Tree is not until ...
