Google Brian Quigley

Google Brian Quigley.

   I went into a jewelry store on Black Friday. That whole sentence is ludicrous.

  I rarely shop after Thanksgiving (or before it), NEVER brave the elements the day following it, and have no holes in my body screaming for a new diamond. With a medical alert bracelet on one wrist and a cheap watch on the other, I don’t participate in robbery from either side of the counter in jewelry stores. The most expensive piece of decoration I’ve ever worn doesn’t get to five figures, even with the decimal point.

  This year, I broke all of the rules and followed the love of my life into one of them. A half an hour later I walked out without having spent a dime, despite the efforts of the soft sell ex-used car salesmen. My distrust of anyone who wears a suit or really nice dress anywhere except at weddings and funerals continues unabated.

  I did, however, have my first ‘I’m thankful for …’ item for next year’s holiday table. Off to the side, clearly away from the jewels protected by glass, was the most valuable treasure in the store. He was dressed in clothing that might be passed over on a Black Friday in a Goodwill store. Those and the apron he wore over them were ready for the wash. So were his hands. All were tinted with the gray of a jewelry maker.

 I imagine most large jewelry stores have one of these people. Many are probably better hidden than this one was. They are probably seldom noticed and even more rarely approached. He attracted me like a lug nut to magnet. Then again, I gather round kitchen knife and bird whistle salesmen. The experience always proves more valuable than the merchandise.

 The things he made were nothing I’d wear, even in drag. Nor would my lady. They were good enough to place highly in competitions though. Brian Quigley showed me the award that had just arrived by mail that day. He said there were over 3,000 competitors, thirty of whom were invited to the award ceremony where twelve winners received their hardware. He got a second in silver jewelry design. He’s won other awards as well.

 All started in response to my usual ‘where the hell did that come from?’ type of question. This time I wanted to know if there was a lapidary supply shop in town. The suits and dresses knew that their store sent their stones out to be cut somewhere but had no useful info other than a suggestion that I check the internet. I never thought of that.

 Brian knew there wasn’t one and also didn’t mind if I watched him work for a few minutes. I’ve never been silent that long. One thing led to another, and another, and another. I know a lot more about a guy who struggled through high school but has a son who splits atoms. I was reminded about how things of quality are made too.

  Showing me the necklace that won his latest award, he explained how the heavy piece of steampunk jewelry (Google that … no .. really .. Google it) started with the pieces on the ends that connect at the back of the neck. He showed me how each link, about an inch long, followed the contours of the human body in a matter that prevented the centerpiece from ‘popping a wheelie’ on the wearer’s chest. The explanation wasn’t long but it reminded me just how much attention to detail went into making something that worked right.

 Given the right weather, I’ll take the same care in making a bottle of maple syrup for him next year when the sap flows. Given the reminder, I’ll apply it to my books as I write. If those do as well as his jewelry I’ll buy a piece of his work, even though I may never wear it. Right now, to get the rest of the picture, I’m going to Google ‘Brian Quigley’.

 

I'm Goin' Abroad

I'm Goin’ abroad …

For those who may have read some of my earlier blogs, this is not about womens. The squeamish may continue reading. And, to really come clean from the start, I admit to a lie almost as big as the one I’m dealing with here. I ain’t goin’ abroad.

I ran into a discussion that began with the question of whether ‘you’, which I took to mean me, agreed with a Harvard study which concluded that people who travel abroad are more creative, better managers, have better luck starting businesses etc. Not wishing to travel even as far as Boston, I didn’t chase after the study and read it. I’d much rather shoot from the hip at a blurry target with a large load, hoping I might graze part of it and chase it away.

In the interest of saving time for those who are only hanging in here long enough to find out what my answers is before they do something constructive; NO, I don’t agree. There. The rest of you might consider getting a real life. Until you do that, you might want to examine the quality of my load.

My first inclination, and all of those I’ve had since, is to presume this is a poorly constructed study of an atypical population. I rawthah (Harvard thing, you know) presume this is a study designed to make the children think there was a reason to go abroad other than to chase (or be chased by) feriners and probably drink un-American beer. Most of the young have not learned to appreciate the finer rotguts yet, nor has the novelty of unshaven legs and armpits, on womens, worn off.

Having seen through the base purpose of this thing, it’s my pleasure to desiccate the finding, whether real or made up. If I’m wrong, a remote possibility, then the project is worthwhile, we should use government money to send everybody abroad, and we wind up with the greatest country in the world. It might work out even better if properly selected individuals were sent abroad with one-way tickets.

As to the creative thing, of course people who travel the world are more creative. Dummies wouldn’t think of going abroad, or even to St Louis. Those who are smart enough not to need to be creative are staying home too. They’ve pretty much got everything they want right here. The most creative ones of all are the parents who have figured out how to get the kids out of town so they can finally have a peaceful summer.

I’ve traveled abroad quite a bit and there are few who describe me as more creative (of anything good) than before I went, or maybe any kind of creative at all. Yeah, that’s the smart ones again. Point proven without grant money.

As for being better at starting a successful business, let’s face it; it’s not about foreign travel. Those who can afford plane tickets to someplace there is really no good reason to go, also have a little bit more startup money. The pauper ain’t getting on that plane and he ain’t developing the credit line to go spurs a flying into anything much bigger and a lemonade stand or a franchise for Lucy’s 5 cent advice.

I’ll grant that the rare observant traveler might realize that, when he goes home, he can pack slugs in snail shells and sell them to France. Or it might be obvious that he can pack anything, even ball bearings and hamsters, in beer and sell them to Germany. On the other hand it would be clear that anything tasteful, or flavourful, isn’t going to go over real big in England, unless you boil it, including ball bearings and hamsters, for several days.

The last conclusion that I bother to remember is that the time spent in Paris or Bolivia isn't going to create a better manager. Unless were talking soccer coach here, or maybe in the latter case, bribery, this is mainly wishful thinking or bait from a travel agency. Since this is a proper discussion about something from an Ivy League institution, I’ll relent and call it sushi from a travel agency.

Those of us who have any concept of the annual review system know better. That is where a group of peers or bosses get together and decide who the best managers are. You will rarely see a token representative of the managed asked for input. Jealousy and politics play a much bigger role than performance. Because those who have money will more often have the college degree which definitively predicts how successful a manager is, they are most like to rise, like cream, to the top. Those are the same fools who went to Europe or Bangladesh. By the way, when selecting that school, it’s best to remember that Harvard trumps a satellite campus of Southern Appalachia State Community College around the old review session.

Most of what you have just worked your way through is most of what showed up, wanted or unwanted, in my response in the discussion. I’m not sure how it went over since I was either the first or the only participant. Either that or nobody had anything better to add. I may get drunk enough someday to go back and check.

   Two boys, who had just read some of my writing for the first time, were impressed enough to want to ask me questions about it. That’s a pretty good indication of how young they were.

   One of them remarked on my use of metaphors. His eager face did not match his friend’s which had the same confused look as mine did. I was already starting to like the second kid more than the first. He added to the favor by saving me embarrassment by asking “what’s a metaphor?”

   Even though I had no idea what he was talking about I lied like a Mafia lawyer. I re-engineered the conversation by explaining that metaphors were like skunks. They are pretty, but to make anything useful from them is not worth the effort.

  Unimpressed, the first kid charged on asking “Didn’t your English teacher ever tell you about them?”

  Rescuing my new friend, to whom I hoped the question was directed, I allowed as maybe mine probably could have and might have even tried to when I wasn’t paying close enough attention to block the attempt. Anyhow, it didn’t matter. My know-it all English teacher had never written a book. I had a couple under my belt and will likely have a couple more as soon as I can sneak them past the attendants.

   Boy #1 shook his head in disgust, probably at the newly appreciated fact that English class wasn’t all it was pumped up to be. I hated to see him so disappointed so I told him the only thing a writer really had to know was how to tell a good story and what a decent sentence sounded like.

   Boy #2 was smiling again. He figured he had ignored enough English teachers to be well on his way to a good career in writing. I fueled his hope when I told him that things like metaphors and adjectives were just there because they fit. It would be up to the legions of unpublished English teachers in the future to explain anything more detailed than that.

   That’s the way it is with books and teachers, and even some writers. Unable to produce anything original they make careers out of dreaming up stuff the author never even thought about.  They make authors seem smarter and deeper than God made them by being dumber than God hoped teachers were. We, of course, know better, in both cases.

    There are more books about how and why Shakespeare wrote his plays than the old Bard ever wrote in producing his collection of works. Mainly he just stole a lot of common old stories and changed them just enough to fit the times and get a few laughs or tears. Don’t tell that to the experts who have explained all of the inner meanings of them.

   I can comfortably continue pecking away knowing that, maybe someday, my books will be accredited to a brilliant wordsmith who could say ‘this’ by saying ‘that’. The less effort and thought I put in the better I’ll do. Can you imagine how many theories I can kill if I write “The toast was burnt until it was completely black.” Instead of “the hunk of charcoal on my plate was inedible.”? I’m going with the charcoal, and will continue with every vague or broad sentence I can conjure.

   Like it or not, considerably better than ninety percent of what is written, anywhere by anybody, is going to be totally forgotten in a couple hundred years. There just aren’t that many Bibles or “Iliad’s” being written any more. How long do you suppose people will continue to struggle through ‘War and Peace’ or anything Dickens ever wrote?

   The best I can hope for is to, for a short time, catch the interest of some teacher who has run out of real homework and decides to burden her students with the task of explain what Porter Starr Byrd was really saying when he wrote his greatest book. I’ll be interested in finding out myself.

   Boy #2 won’t care and, by not, will be a couple hundred years ahead of his time. Boy #1, with his attitude, won’t matter.

  

ATACK !!!

  The world has become too complacent for its own good. Surprise. There may be more than one area where this is true, but I can only point at the falling sky in one place at a time. Right now it is your lawn and garden. You are in grave danger from a sneak attack.

   In the past I may have outraged some of the ancestors of the new enemy. Once I even fantasized about a revenge attack from them but I thought it was all impossible until a few days ago. They have come to deliver a nightmare. Probably in violation of the Geneva Convention or some other set of regulations the foe has attacked someone very close to me. I could have tolerated a similar onslaught against me but it is clearly against the rules of feuding to take it outside of the families involved.

   All I can do, aside from intensifying my efforts, is to warn you. Perhaps in doing so I can enlist your aid in trying to wipe out the whole slimy lot of the bad guys, along with fire ants, cockroaches and mice. This is our target.

    If I polled any group of people as to whether these things bite, my result would lean heavily toward laughter at even the thought of the possibility. Guess who is having the last laugh. In fact, they can kill a dog with one bite. They can make humans quite uncomfortable. Given a few hours, they can sneak up on you and wreak havoc.

   These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now … no, wait .. that one was used up back in 1776, but you get the idea. We must join together and face down evil

   Before you enter the fray you must, like me, fortify your home and property against the certain counter-attack. I’m building a six inch high copper wall around the whole place. Inside that will be a six inch deep beer moat. The latter may require my hiring a security guard to control other types of pests but it will be worth it to know my family is safe.

   I warned you about your pets. To be a little more specific, some slugs carry lungworms which may enter your dog’s body though the wound and make him stop wagging his tail … forever. They too must be protected. I wash mine down in salt water every day now. While salt does not necessarily kill slugs they do avoid it. The dog is not much fonder of the new procedure, but he hasn’t bitten anyone I like yet and I’d rather face him down than a slug.  One of those has bitten someone I like. Here is pictorial proof.

 

  

                                  

   How far this war may escalate, I’m not sure. The slug, along with its cousin the snail (which also bites) is a gastropod mollusk. That puts them in cahoots with clams, oysters, mussels and such. Proactively I am going to increase the frequency of appearance of those guys on my dinner table, and not as guests. Escargot is another story. I’ll leave that to the French and the idiots, which may or may not be distinctive groups.

   Aside from moving to the Sahara or Arizona you are going to have a hard time ignoring this one. There are places that do not have slugs and those that do not have snails. Those that have neither have cactus, poisonous snakes or, worse yet, camels. They will soon be full of refugees from this conflagration too.

   For the rest of the story, you’ll have to wait for the end of this conflict. History will be interpreted, as always, by the victors. Whether this one will be written in ink or slime remains to be determined.

Building a Better Mouse Trap

 

    If you have never heard some version of “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” You are … well … young, and aren’t reading this blog either. When is the world going to stop escalating the war against small rodents?

   There are other good questions too. “How do you unload the damned thing?”, “How much of your personal economy are you going to involve in wiping out a source of amusement?” and “What if I fail?” are three that come to mind. I’m not prepared to offer answers to your own problems but I do have a few thoughts or I wouldn’t be sitting here using up my valuable time. I’d be out on another mouse hunt.

   If I put up a likely collection of effective tools on the table, like maybe these:

You would probably just end up breaking furniture and making repairmen wealthy. Of course there is a chance that a mouse or two might laugh himself to death.

    What we need is some thinking outside the box, and I don’t mean one of these:

   It’s time for the good old American ingenuity, the kind of thing that has gotten us through world wars and filled our houses with things we don’t really need. I’ve brought along a good sized bag of that. It was on sale and I had a couple of extra dollars that day.  

First of all, we must understand the enemy

and consider some of the things that have failed to bring him to his knees in the past. Here are some of the collections of weak attempts that haven’t wiped out the rodent population yet.

     

  In my house the average mouse is about four inches long, not counting the tail. I know because I have seen plenty of them. Oddly a lot of them were floating in a bucket of water I left outside the back door, preventing me from trapping them. They don’t all play fair.

   They run, but not very fast. They zig and zag just enough to cause me to have flat feet after years of trying to stomp them out of existence. They don’t really bite or scratch aggressively, unless you pick one up, (still working on better lines in hopes of doing that) and they lack the talents of a skunk or an armadillo in the unusual defense department. The only thing they really have going for them is multiplication. It seems to work.

    Of note, things other than traps have been tried but they have not solved MY mouse problem. I refuse to spend money on an electronic gadget that says right up front that it doesn’t do anything detectable by humans. I suspect they are merely collection of obsolete computer parts that have been soldered together in an impressive manner that don’t really do anything, detectable or not.

    Mom won’t let me play with poisons or explosives. I think they might work, or at least be a lot of fun. I’ll never know. I’m still searching for that guy with the magic flute but secretly believe that, if I find him, his music will sound like acid rock or heavy metal. I’m not looking very hard. Most recently the experts have discovered that mice don’t like mint. I suppose all I have to do is entirely enclose my house in a giant mint flavored garbage bag but I’ll have to work out the entrance and egress problem that might be as difficult as inventing the perfect trap. I suspect within a generation or two they will acquire a taste for mint anyway. 

   Once I do discover the perfect trap, I’m going to sit on it until I need a couple of million bucks, kind of like the automobile companies are sitting on the perfect engine that goes a thousand miles on a drop of water.

   We also know what they subsist on. They will chew up and make a nest out of anything valuable and not stored in a lead box surrounded by a very short electrified barbed wire fence. As for food, the preference is anything that is convertible into tiny black turds.

   Common sense says we should be able to use what we know about them against them. Unfortunately, mice don’t have much common sense and don’t want any. They avoid such traps. Just south of 5000 patents to get the job done are on record.  

Of course there is one open source thing we KNOW works

which is pretty much the benchmark for building a better mouse trap. If you get one though, you will have merely exchanged one small furry pest for a larger one.

In the end, I suspect the only reason we really need a better mouse trap is an ego thing. We are not quite ready to admit that we will probably go extinct before they do

Mothers and Bricks

   There is one of those motivational or inspirational things, maybe both, running around the internet right now. It tells a touching story and is worth forwarding elsewhere but it makes one slight mistake. It asks me to send it on to seven friends, making the assumption that I have seven of those. As happy as I almost was, now I am crushed by the reminder.

    The story is of a man who is driving his expensive car through a neighborhood, carefully but a bit fast.  Suddenly a brick comes flying out of nowhere, putting a decent sized dent in his precious car door. After stopping and getting out he is able to catch the boy who did it (mainly because he is not running).

    Crying, the boy apologizes and tells him that it was the only way he could think of to make someone stop and help with him with his brother who has fallen out of his wheelchair and is too heavy for him to help back into it.

   The story goes on to remind us that God has given us special things and loves us all of the time. It comes back to the start of the parable, reminding us not to go through life so fast that He has to throw a brick at us to get our attention.

    It’s a good story and is worth passing on. Kind of makes me wish I had seven friends. Instead I am reminded that, on at least one day of the year, I do need that slowing down thing. That day is Mother’s day, this coming Sunday as I post this.

   

    The brick only leaves a mark when Mom isn’t there anymore to say “Happy Mother’s Day” to. Of course she’s always there, but she won’t always be there in a way that allows you to hug or kiss her, according to what your family custom is. Sometimes it is just a quiet little thank-you.

   

      Before you get hit in the side of the heart with that brick, make sure you slow down and take a little time to appreciate the gift you have been given. Make it a special day for her. Everybody has his or her own definition of that. Make sure yours includes both a verbal thank-you and some demonstration of one. It’s rare that a few words and some flowers and maybe even a breakfast are going to be enough for you in hindsight. Don’t let yourself regret that ‘last year’ you could have done a bit more and ‘this year’ she is not here. Pay attention to that little parable I led off with.

    The thing about moms is that they are not going to remind you that you could have done better. You’ll do it for them. Any little thing you do on that day is enough. They know that you care. The person that is going to stone you is yourself. A careful but quick trip through the neighborhood is not enough.

    If I sat you down with a sheet of paper and asked you to write a list of the ten best things Mom ever did for you, you would, or should, have a hard time narrowing it down. Now, write a list of the ten best things you have done for her on Mother’s day. List is a little harder to complete for most of you, isn’t it. Work on improving it starting this Sunday.

   If like mine, yours has already passed away, take the same time and effort to do something nice for someone in her memory. Make it worthy of being on that second list. She’s watching. I know she is. I mean I really know she is. She’ll appreciate it as much as anything she ever got from you along with a kiss or the flowers or the breakfast. There will come the day when she tells you that.

The Importance of Having Periods

   I could have titled this “The Importance of the Comma”, or “The

Importance of the Apostrophe”, or perhaps even the ‘The

Importance of the Colon”. Usually ‘”The Importance of the Colon” attracts only small audiences and questionable celebration parties. The period gets right to the point and is so … so … so final. Yes, it is once again National Punctuation Month.

  To demonstrate the need for good punctuation, I’ll continue the rest of this blog without using any. I’ll pile up the unused hardware below and you can slip them back into place where they belong if it’ll make it any easier to read. Hell, I’ll even throw in a few extra commas in case you like to over-punctuate.

…………………………,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,’  ‘ ' ' “”””()

   When I was younger periods were much more important than anything else Each one put an end to a thought Over the years they became less and less of a concern almost always showing up when they were supposed to sort of ascthetically Im sixty-four years old now and rarely think about them anymore

    I noticed that there were a lot of times when a period wasnt there and a question mark took its place Those would usually cause me to think Since that was not always a situation I wanted to be in I avoided them whenever possible but inevitably they were around

       Commas can really help when used properly For instance The cowboy enjoyed the tryst with his boots on the floor and The cowboy enjoyed the tryst with his boots on the floor can convey very different thoughts Inserted properly the comma can prevent some embarrassment later

       Colons and Semi-colons are a good alternative to commas but require a little wider understanding For that reason many people dont use them very often If you are interested in the colon I am sure there are entire books out there that go much deeper into them than I am going to

    As you progress you may want exclamation points to emphasize feeling or thought While there are some places where they are inappropriate for me it was always rewarding to find the right places to for them

    Slash and back slash not nearly as popular before computers always reminded me of a trek through the jungle Together they are one method for separating the bush and making a clear path for the prize the trophy

    The dollar sign indicates an amount of money to pay for something There are often better alternatives like barter and begging that can eliminate the need for purchasing what you want For instance a good bottle of liquor sometimes even a cheap one or box of chocolates can be traded for something you want The dollar is a last resort

     Asterisks are used when you are not really sure what you want or how to clearly state it up front In my opinion they are a poor substitute and I seldom use oneThere is nothing really wrong with their doing so however and many people enjoy using them

   Though Ive never been to one a punctuation party might be just the thing for group exploration I’m not sure it would become a fad since many people would rather not display their shortcomings in group settings but I think it would be worth a try to host one You might even try a little game of punctuation swapping and see the differences that makes

   Good punctuation is clearly something that most people appreciate and this is the month to do it Really every month is good for that but it is nice to have one set aside like this where it is encouraged Practice practice practice and you will soon find better and better ways to do it Your efforts will make your work much more enjoyable for others