Potpourri

• When we discuss temperature, we use the words hot or cold and then modify hot with warm and cold with cool and place tepid smack in the middle. But when we discuss attitude, it’s usually in terms of optimism and pessimism.  But few people are optimistic or pessimistic all the time, so how should we describe attitudes as we do warm and cool?  Well, the English language provides us with two very useful words—meliorism, i.e. someone who feels things are generally improving or getting better and pejorism—a general feeling that while things are getting worse in general sense but are not cataclysmic.  So, are you melioristic or a pejoristic?
• I’ve long believed the best teachers are the ones who plant a little voice inside your head so that the appetite for learning persists long after the lesson is complete and the pressure for grades or graduation has vanished.
• It’s been said the key to happiness in life is creating a balance between work and love; but what the modern-day shamans don’t tell us is that work must be loved, and love must be worked at.
• How many “colorful concepts” can you think of? Green Thumb and Green Belts, Red Tape and Rednecks; Silver Linings and the Golden Rule, Blue Laws, Blue Chip, Blue Bloods and a Blue Moon.  Black Holes, Grey Matter, White Noise, White Elephants, White Papers and of course Red Undancy (Ok, we can skip this last one 🙂
• And while we’re on the subject of color, can a blue man sing the whites?
• Did you know that pearls are far more likely to be found in shells that have irregular shapes or whose growth has been stunted or honeycombed with parasites? So, it’s the “abnormal” oyster that provides the pearl we value so much, while the “normal” oyster does little more than just survive.  We shouldn’t find it surprising then that a person’s “defect” may serve as a source of strength for the total personality.
• Once Albert Einstein was looking for a paperclip while writing a paper on the General Theory of Relativity. Opening numerous drawers in his office, he could find only one, but it was too badly bent to use.  He then began looking in other drawers and soon found an entire box of unused paper clips.  And upon finding them, he began shaping one of them into a tool to straighten the bent one.  When his assistant asked him why he was doing this when he now had a whole box of new paper clips, he replied, “Once I set a goal, it becomes difficult for me to deflect.”  What a wonderful testimonial to the great scientist’s single-mindedness.
• Of all the high-tech science of Star Trek scientists feel the most far-fetched and unrealistic technology is the transporter.
• And speaking of Star Trek, the “Replicator” that can summon up “Earl Grey Tea, Hot!” shouldn’t be surprising because this visionary technology relies on the simple, long-known principle that all forms of matter are made of the same fundamental building blocks, i.e., protons, neutrons and electrons configured into different atomic combinations—the only difference is how they are bound together.
• On April 13, 2029, the asteroid Apophis will pass Earth closer than geosynchronous communication satellites, which is tantamount to a rifle shot passing between your shirt sleeve and your arm.
• And while we’re on the subject of space, sometimes I have a tendency to blow things out of proportion and when that occurs, my lovely and ever patient wife Bobbi reminds me that there are more stars in the heavens than there are grains on sand on the earth. And if that doesn’t give one a sense of perspective, I don’t know what will.
• Whenever I see an ad for the latest and greatest new consumer item that I simply cannot do without, I always think back to something I learned during my business career; Quality, Service, Price, pick two, because no product or service will ever deliver all three.
• There is one aspect of formal religion that has always seemed curious to me; how is it that the good Lord gave man the gift of laughter, yet there is a conspicuous lack of humor in just about every religion known to man?
• And lastly, I’ve been told there is a secret to successful relationships—the problem is, no one will tell you what it is.

Thought for the day:  Just for fun, the next time a stranger speaks to you when you’re alone, just look at them with shocked & quizzical expression and ask, “You can see me?”