O-Dark-Thirty

It's a beautiful country with diverse forms of wildlife! A large portion of Costa Rica is set aside as Eco-parks, not available for development. There are more gorgeous birds in this small country than I've ever seen anywhere. It is a paradise for photographers. Darling loved it and even tried to capture a photo of a huge blue butterfly, but it eluded her the entire week. The terrain is mountainous and we enjoyed a week of meals on a veranda overlooking a fast-moving stream with (small) waterfalls. For residents of the Houston area, every small hill was a beauty and a challenge.  The people were friendly and helpful to us. We tried to speak Spanish, but it turns out we're only good enough to be polite. We tried at every opportunity, though. Darling and I both think that we should do our best to speak the local language. We even do that at home. The fruits and vegetables were delicious. We ate more healthy for those nine days in Costa Rica than we ever have. ...

Or I suppose I should say "Creo que no." Here's the background story. For years I watched Costa Rica through International Living 's magazine, as expats from the United States and other countries flooded there for the good weather and beautiful surroundings. For those who managed to get there a decade ago, they probably got some good deals on homes as well. Nadine Pisani recounts many of her adventures moving to Costa Rica in her books and on her blog post. You get a feel for what moving to Costa Rica is like and some good laughs as well, since she is a talented and often comedic author. The stories of her husband Rob are always funny. Nadine and Rob are creating a fabulous life in this little area of tropical paradise. The country is gorgeous and the people are friendly. I know a little Spanish, but enough to be polite, not enough to actually communicate. Speaking fluently in another language is a level of skill I just don't have. Still, a lot of people s...

I'm not running for office, but if I were, this is what I'd say: I don't want your money for my campaign. What I want is your vote. I'm saddened that politicians think the election must be bought. Maybe they're right, but I'd like to prove them wrong. If you are part of what is called the one percent, I'd love to have some money for the campaign. Let's be clear, though. It isn't to buy favors. You don't need favors - the other 99 percent do. They need help, for themselves, for their families, and for their communities. Help me get elected and I'll make sure that they get heard, and that you're part of the solution. That is, after all, what we all want. A stronger, better, more United States of America. Why don't I hear any of the politicians say that?

The huge Omnibus Bill just passed in Congress. A good man in Congress, a friend of mine, voted for it, calling it the lesser of two evils. He really did. Evil is still evil, my friend. Yeah, politics is a dirty business. They released the 2000+ page bill at two in the morning and gave the politicians less than 48 hours to read it. Here's what I think about bills.  Firstly, they need to be written in simplified language. Congress shouldn't care; they don't read most of these massive bills anyway.  Secondly, each bill should address ONE thing. For goodness sake, what is hard about that? The riders and amendments turn bills into monsters.  Finally, every provision in the bill should be subject to one simple question: is it good for the PEOPLE of the United States or is it only good for the government? We SHOULD be a government of the people, by the people and for,the people, but we aren't any longer. Our government betrays the common people at every turn and ...

Ever thought this? When we make a decision based on our inherent goodness and reason, it must be correct. Yeah, that's not Biblical at all, and it certainly doesn't align with my personal experiences over the last six decades. We're immersed in a society that teaches us our INTELLECT will guide us correctly, especially when it is paired with our EMOTIONS. The news services and the government seem to concur with the thought that repetition makes something true - so our WILL can govern our actions. In Grad school classes I interacted with a lot of smart people - and I liked them. Still, one of the basic arguments we had in every class was whether morality was absolute or relative. Most of the others argued for a relative morality. I always took (and still take) the stance that morality is, and should be, absolute. I will never forget the one comment after I said "For instance, we can all agree that murder is wrong." Another student said "Well, I t...

September swept in, surprising me in how quickly it displaced the months of summer. (I do miss the fall leaves the the sweet smell of the earth as it falls into winter slumber.) I retired in January. People ask me if I'm bored. No, not yet. In fact, I still have so many things on my list of to-dos and I keep adding to the list. What, for example? Story ideas, game ideas, reading books, taking classes on Udemy ... I wake up some mornings with story ideas. I write them down in my notebook. It's a standard spiral notebook with a hundred pages or so. I usually write on both sides of the page. Since January, the notebook is almost full of ideas and thoughts. I'll need a new notebook in a few weeks. That's okay. If you don't keep a personal notebook of your ideas and thoughts, you should. Jim Rohn , one of my favorite speakers, recommends it as well. He was the mentor of Tony Robbins . You can catch recordings from both of them on YouTube, and I recommend them....

I have a lot of data on my iPhone 4S. There are - literally - hundreds of solutions in the internet to capture and transfer the data. Some are more useful than others, but I didn't manage to successfully finish any of them. I made a complete backup of my iPhone on the Mac and traversed the directory to find the files. Without some sort of database schema, I'm lost at that point. Some sites said backing it up to the cloud from one machine and bringing it into the other machine via the cloud would work. I can see that working for the pictures, but I backed my pictures up manually. Just plugged the iPhone into my computer, opened the disk and copied each of the picture folders. In my opinion, it should be that easy for all the data on a phone. My picture history spanned a few years. I hope the pictures are captured elsewhere, but I don't know for certain. That's a future project (I'll put it on my list). The tricky part seemed to be the SMS text da...