Everyday Women

I've started a new project. I haven't finished the last 3 dozen I started, but no matter.

I haven't got this narrowed down yet to a movie, a book, or a television series, though I'm leaning to TV.

It seems like there is a proliferation of television shows about women who are t0o skinny, too successful, too rich, too-too to believe. I can't relate to those women. I find them shallow, self-gratifying, self-centered, self-serving, slutty, and silly. Who told the television executives that we want to watch that crap?

In the real world there are women who actually contribute without charge. They're us or your neighbor, your mother, your aunt, your daughter. Just everyday women.

They're funny, dramatic, ambitious, adventuresome. All the stuff that a good TV show should have. Or a movie, or a book. I haven't decided yet.

On the Western Front

Some of you know I love Westerns and try to watch them every afternoon on our local religious TV channel. It's an hour's worth of wholesome entertainment that you don't get in the evening on the national networks.

Though I do wonder sometimes about the religious channel showing shoot-'em-up action, beer-guzzling cowboys, and saloon gals with big hearts and scanty clothing (relatively scanty clothing - my goodness, they display bare arms and flash naked ankles and knees with wild abandon.

Anyway, a couple of scenes caught my attention recently that I wanted to bring to your attention

First scene:

On Gunsmoke, some really nasty bad men were holding Miss Kitty, Doc, Sam, and Louie (the town drunk) in the Long Branch as a trap for the marshall. Marshall Dillion gathered his deputies and commanded, "Festus, you go in the side door, Newly, you go in the front, and I'll go in the back."

Uh, "I'll sneak in the back" and "Newly will go in the front" where all the guns are pointed, didn't seem quite fair to me.

(I'll tell you about Louie some other time.)

Second Scene:

On Bonanza, Pa told a cowboy with a patch over his left eye, "Keep an eye on things up there and let me know if any of Bradford's boys cross into my land."

I thought it was rather thoughless of Pa to tell a one-eyed cowboy to keep "an eye" on things.

"And in my mind's eye, I rode with [her] in every scene" ... Ride Off In The Sunset, Bill Anderson

January

I just looked out the winter to see how the day was progressing. It's bright and sunny, no snow, no rain, not even a cloud.

Then I looked at the temperature: It's 6 degrees with a windchill of 2 below freeze your butt off.

Some days are golden.

and some just suck swampwater through a straw.

Some days I just want to take a nap. Like today. I got up, I got dressed, and I went to work. As my favorite quote goes, "I got off my butt and tried."

In retrospect, I don't think today was worth the effort.

When you stop learning, you might as well give up and be old.

I'm trying to learn more about Microsoft Access - again. It's not the easiest MS application to master so I'm reviewing several free on-line tutorials and some books off my own bookshelves to supplement several courses that I've already taken. I can put together a simple database with forms, queries, and reports, but there is so much I don't know. I seem to be pulling a few new tidbits of information from each tutorial and wondering why it's not all in one place.

Today I was reading an article by Andrew Comeau entitled "Where do I go from here?" I want to share the last section with you because it says the same thing I've said a hundred times - and I love people who agree with me.

A final piece of advice: Every day that you put off learning increases the chance that the knowledge won't be there when you need it. That time might come when you have to admit to not knowing something that you realize you should have taken the time to learn a year ago or when you don't meet the requirements for that great job you really want and you know you could have if you'd been more attentive. This is a lesson I've learned the hard way more than once."

At the top of a really, really, REALLY big mountain

Sir Edmund Hillary, the New Zealander who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers, died recently at the age of 88.


Hands up, how many of you were surprised to find out that he was still alive in 2008?

How many of you knew he was from New Zealand?

So much to know,
So little brain.

An Electrifying Election Year

Have you been following the presidential candidates? It appears that this is going to be an interesting year, politically speaking. Of course, it's only begun and things could go downhill quickly, but for now we have viable non-white, non-male, non-protestant candidates all over the place.

There are so many candidates that it may be hard to make up your mind. Here's a game from USATODAY.com that can tell you which candidates come closest to your way of thinking.

Candidate match game*

2008

This is my first entry of 2008. Are you excited about the coming year? I know many people who are praying for a better year than 2007. I don't think it's that 2007 was so very bad, it just wasn't that good.

Just for fun, I checked out my horror-scope on a Chinese astrology site this morning. It said that for me this is the year of the tiger. 2008 is a year of mobility for the tiger, which indicates that I will be doing a lot of moving around this year. It could be either by way of traveling to far off places, moving to another home or office or experiencing some kind of life-change. The site claimed I can definitely look forward to traveling a lot more than usual, whether it is for business or pleasure.

Hmmmm.....

• I do plan to move to a bigger residence this year.
• There's a chance I will be out of a job before the year ends due to a pending re-organization in my industry.
• I don't like traveling - I'm at a spot in my life where it's not worth the effort, but I was eyeing an African safari ad a few weeks ago.
• Some kind of lifechange? My life needs a change. Hopefully, it's for the better.

Unfortunately, the site claimed that those of us born in the fall won't have many good times this year. We should just tough it out though because it won't last forever.

I checked some other astrology sites too, just in case I found one I liked better. The first site said it's likely that I'm going to find another job or career this year - but not one with more money. It also said that I'll travel more and that 2008 would be a good year for me to go on a diet as long as I ate foods high in minerals.

I couldn't understand what the second site was saying. It's probably good to be ambiguous when forecasting the future. At the end of the year, you can re-interpret the forecast to match the actual events.

The third site hinted that I would have changes/moves to look forward to. Romantically, it said that I might meet someone well-traveled. (I suppose that would explain why I need to travel more in 2008.) It also said "You should strenuously avoid antics involving iron, sharp edges, blunt objects, firearms, machinery or verbal exchanges." Antics? I think that means I shouldn't run with dull scissors or argue with policemen. My manager is an ex-cop. (That might be a harbinger of the cause of the career change.)

Oh, well, life happens.