When you become a seasoned/senior/old citizen - tack your pick - one of your favorite activities is...sitting. I sit a lot. I'm very good at it.
But I have a problem in that regard. I suffer from SBS. Skinny Butt Syndrome. Unlike other areas of my body, I simply have no padding to cushion the rest of my less-than-skinny body while seated. So, typically, I sit in the recliner for a while, then get up and sit on the couch for a while. Rinse and repeat.
Of late, I spend a LOT of time sitting in front of my computer, recording and editing audio books. Even there, I switch back and forth between a non-creaky wooden chair and a softer, but noisy office chair. I have discovered that the same thick foam squares I use for sound-proofing can also be used for tush-cushioning. But there's a limit to how high you can stack your pillows/foam without falling out of your chair.
So I invested in a gel cushion. You know, the squishy stuff that's promoted as the solution to SBS. I say invested, because you almost have to take out a mortgage on the silly things. But I'm desperate. And I am happy. The 2-inch gel cushion outperforms the previous stack of pillow and foam by a wide - and shorter - margin.
I say all this to share with you an interesting test promoted by the manufacturer of the gel cushion. The egg test. In the packaging, a large flyer urges you to place a raw egg on your new cushion - and sit on it! You can't make these things up, folks. To be fair, they suggest you put the egg in a zip-lock bag "just in case."
And this reminds me of the old "you can't crush a raw egg in your fist" stunt. If you nestle the egg in your palm, and apply even pressure, it won't crack. Or so they say. I'm not going to sit on an egg, but I confess that I once tried the egg-in-palm stunt, and in fact I couldn't - or didn't - crush it!
This took place at our house when we were hosting a small group and several other people tried and failed to crush the egg. Then I handed it to Chris. Chris is disabled and uses crutches to get around. Chris has developed incredible arm strength. There was egg yolk on our kitchen ceiling for years, until we got around to repainting the house.
Monday, May 21, 2018
Monday, May 14, 2018
MondayMeanderings - 5.14.2018
I have mentioned this before. I participate (from behind the sound desk) in many of Anderson High School's academic events - Trustee Awards, Baccalaureate and such. Each time I do, I come away with a renewed sense of trust in the younger generations. Friday night I watched as about 400 students were recognized for a wide variety of awards and accolades. And this scene was repeated in high school after high school.
Last weekend we were at Lipscomb, proudly watching Jericho and a host of his classmates graduate with their own awards and accolades.
There is cause for hope, folks.
After Jericho's graduation, the family gathered for a celebratory meal at Monell's - a very popular family-style restaurant. Located in a stately home built in 1905, there is seating in a number of rooms for a dozen or more at each table. When your party is seated, the remaining places are filled with folks from the wait list. A variety of home-style southern comfort-food dishes were passed (the server kept repeating, "Pace yourself!"), and a good time and a good meal was had by all.
I couldn't help but remember a story told us by an optometrist friend of ours. He had received his medical degree from a university in the Atlanta area and was back on the campus several years later for a seminar. He and a couple of classmates decided to go have lunch at a boarding house near the campus - a favorite back in his starving-student days.
They joined the crowd of folks at the dining table, and proceeded to help themselves to the home-cooked dishes at the table. Well into the meal, the person seated beside our friend leaned over and said, "Are you gentlemen staying for the funeral?" And it was then they realized this was no longer a boarding house!
Last weekend we were at Lipscomb, proudly watching Jericho and a host of his classmates graduate with their own awards and accolades.
There is cause for hope, folks.
After Jericho's graduation, the family gathered for a celebratory meal at Monell's - a very popular family-style restaurant. Located in a stately home built in 1905, there is seating in a number of rooms for a dozen or more at each table. When your party is seated, the remaining places are filled with folks from the wait list. A variety of home-style southern comfort-food dishes were passed (the server kept repeating, "Pace yourself!"), and a good time and a good meal was had by all.
They joined the crowd of folks at the dining table, and proceeded to help themselves to the home-cooked dishes at the table. Well into the meal, the person seated beside our friend leaned over and said, "Are you gentlemen staying for the funeral?" And it was then they realized this was no longer a boarding house!
Monday, May 7, 2018
Monday Meaanderings - 5.7.2018
Busy weekend. We made a quick trip (just over 24 hours) to Nashville to see our oldest grandson graduate from Lipscomb University. Mind you, this was just a few days after watching him graduate from high school in California. He breezed (from our perspective) through a double major of Engineering and Mathematics in 4 years, gathering honors and accolades in the process. Now he's going off to change the world. Well done, Jericho. Well done.
There are amazing young people out there. If you have followed this blog you know that I do the sound for the Central Texas Medical Orchestra. Last week's concert featured guest violinist was a young woman named Haeun Moon. I don't have words to describe how well she played. She was staggeringly, jaw-dropping good! A few minutes into her performance every one was checking her bio in the concert program, expecting to see items like. "...Julliard School of Music" and "...studied under so-and-so at at such-and-such Conservatory." Instead, it said Haeun was fourteen years old and a Freshman at Mid Way High School in Waco!
My normal breakfast is a chocolate protein drink. Mix it up, let it chill in the freezer a short while and I'm good to go. The other morning I had a fasting, nothing-by-mouth Doctor's visit and from there I was headed to another appointment with no chance for a breakfast stop, so....
I decided to mix my protein drink, chill it and put it in a Yeti cup to keep it cold-ish, and enjoy it between appointments. I don't know about all protein mixes, but I discovered that if an hour or so passes, this particular mix sets up like cement. Tilt the cup and... nothing! It's all congealed in the bottom! I did save the day by pulling through a Starbucks and patiently stirring in hot coffee to make a Chocolate Protein Mocha that became drinkable. Could have opted for breakfast tacos instead, but I was afraid if I didn't act quickly I would never get it out of my Yeti.
Ya'll have a good week.
There are amazing young people out there. If you have followed this blog you know that I do the sound for the Central Texas Medical Orchestra. Last week's concert featured guest violinist was a young woman named Haeun Moon. I don't have words to describe how well she played. She was staggeringly, jaw-dropping good! A few minutes into her performance every one was checking her bio in the concert program, expecting to see items like. "...Julliard School of Music" and "...studied under so-and-so at at such-and-such Conservatory." Instead, it said Haeun was fourteen years old and a Freshman at Mid Way High School in Waco!
My normal breakfast is a chocolate protein drink. Mix it up, let it chill in the freezer a short while and I'm good to go. The other morning I had a fasting, nothing-by-mouth Doctor's visit and from there I was headed to another appointment with no chance for a breakfast stop, so....
I decided to mix my protein drink, chill it and put it in a Yeti cup to keep it cold-ish, and enjoy it between appointments. I don't know about all protein mixes, but I discovered that if an hour or so passes, this particular mix sets up like cement. Tilt the cup and... nothing! It's all congealed in the bottom! I did save the day by pulling through a Starbucks and patiently stirring in hot coffee to make a Chocolate Protein Mocha that became drinkable. Could have opted for breakfast tacos instead, but I was afraid if I didn't act quickly I would never get it out of my Yeti.
Ya'll have a good week.
Monday, April 30, 2018
Monday Meanderings - 4.30.2018
Blogger graciously reminded me that tomorrow, Tuesday, May 1, marks my 11 year "blogaversary." Huh. Never thought I would still be at it for 11 years. Still, it keeps me occupied.
And speaking of occupied, I have a new book to narrate. By this, I mean a new Audible.com book (I always have a learning Ally book in the works). I'm moving up in the narrating world - this contract is with a publishing house. The author has written some 30-odd (and that may be a true statement) books on World War II. Evidently, he has decided to move on to another conflict and this is his second book about events in the War between the States; specifically the siege of Vicksburg - as seen from the Confederate side. The author lives in the South, and has no love for Yankees. It's interesting.
This book brings a unique set of problems. Audio book narrators "prep" their manuscripts before recording them. In addition to actually reading the material, they delineate characters with speaking roles and decide how best to "voice" them. They read for places that need particular emphasis and mark their scripts accordingly - and they look up words unfamiliar to them.
In a book about the siege of Vicksburg, there all sorts of names of actual geographical places; towns, rivers, church houses, plantations, bayous, bogs, roads, etc., and a lot of them are not well-known (at least to this Texas boy) and not intuitive as to how they are pronounced. For example, who knew that the Coosawhatchie River is pronounced "koos-uh-HATCH-ee." The manager at the KOA located just a few miles from the river did - and he told me when I called him and asked.
Usually, I look for a library in the area I'm researching and asked for the reference desk. Yes, there are still reference desks in libraries, or there are kind ladies who have lived in the area all their lives, and they are delighted that I'm interested in General Beauregard (BOH-ree-gard) and their General Mackall (MAKE-awl) and they go out of their way to help me. And I just love to hear their Southern accents.
The KOA guy? I consider that one of my research wins. A Google search of the Coosawatchie River turned up a reference in a Yelp post that said, "There's a nice KOA about 6 miles down the road in a town whose name I have forgotten, but that gave me a phone number and that got me to the manager, and that got me to "Please, please don't say, "Coo-sah-WATCH-ee."
The people are harder. There are few definitive sources for the correct pronunciation of the countless citizens caught up in this event. Some known only to history because they perished in a battle, or were minor players in a grand event. Today I need to call the Tourist Center in Vicksburg (they all know me by now) and ask about the "Balfour" House and then call the Yulee Florida library to ask about the General the town was named after. How would you handle Cadwallader Colden Washburn? Can't get a handle on him - but I bet there's a sweet-talking librarian out there who knows. If I can just find her.
And speaking of occupied, I have a new book to narrate. By this, I mean a new Audible.com book (I always have a learning Ally book in the works). I'm moving up in the narrating world - this contract is with a publishing house. The author has written some 30-odd (and that may be a true statement) books on World War II. Evidently, he has decided to move on to another conflict and this is his second book about events in the War between the States; specifically the siege of Vicksburg - as seen from the Confederate side. The author lives in the South, and has no love for Yankees. It's interesting.
This book brings a unique set of problems. Audio book narrators "prep" their manuscripts before recording them. In addition to actually reading the material, they delineate characters with speaking roles and decide how best to "voice" them. They read for places that need particular emphasis and mark their scripts accordingly - and they look up words unfamiliar to them.
In a book about the siege of Vicksburg, there all sorts of names of actual geographical places; towns, rivers, church houses, plantations, bayous, bogs, roads, etc., and a lot of them are not well-known (at least to this Texas boy) and not intuitive as to how they are pronounced. For example, who knew that the Coosawhatchie River is pronounced "koos-uh-HATCH-ee." The manager at the KOA located just a few miles from the river did - and he told me when I called him and asked.
Usually, I look for a library in the area I'm researching and asked for the reference desk. Yes, there are still reference desks in libraries, or there are kind ladies who have lived in the area all their lives, and they are delighted that I'm interested in General Beauregard (BOH-ree-gard) and their General Mackall (MAKE-awl) and they go out of their way to help me. And I just love to hear their Southern accents.
The KOA guy? I consider that one of my research wins. A Google search of the Coosawatchie River turned up a reference in a Yelp post that said, "There's a nice KOA about 6 miles down the road in a town whose name I have forgotten, but that gave me a phone number and that got me to the manager, and that got me to "Please, please don't say, "Coo-sah-WATCH-ee."
The people are harder. There are few definitive sources for the correct pronunciation of the countless citizens caught up in this event. Some known only to history because they perished in a battle, or were minor players in a grand event. Today I need to call the Tourist Center in Vicksburg (they all know me by now) and ask about the "Balfour" House and then call the Yulee Florida library to ask about the General the town was named after. How would you handle Cadwallader Colden Washburn? Can't get a handle on him - but I bet there's a sweet-talking librarian out there who knows. If I can just find her.
Monday, April 23, 2018
Monday Meanderings - 4.23.2018
The local PBS station aired Ben-Hur the other night - the venerable, much-decorated movie from way back in 1959. Barb tuned in at about the midway point (the movie is 3 1/2 hours long) and we watched for a while, then taped the rest for an earlier viewing slot.
I'm fairly certain that my children - and certainly not my grandchildren - have ever seen this movie. And that's a shame. With a budget of $15.175 million - a staggering sum in that day - and a cast of more than 10,000 extras, not to mention 200 camels and 2,500 horses used in the shooting of the film, the film defined the term Block Buster. It garnered 11 Academy Awards and is considered to be one of the greatest films ever made and was elected for preservation by the Library of Congress for being a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" motion picture. Phew.
As a freshman in college, I was so impressed with this film that I convinced my parents to drive 60 miles to Abilene one evening to see this movie. If you knew my parents, you would know how remarkable this was.
I read the book back in high school, and it is perhaps a more remarkable story than the movie. Written by a former Union Army General while he was whiling away a couple of years as Governor of New Mexico, Lew Wallis did not profess to be a Christian himself, but his book is considered to be the "most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."
I'm fairly certain that my children - and certainly not my grandchildren - have ever seen this movie. And that's a shame. With a budget of $15.175 million - a staggering sum in that day - and a cast of more than 10,000 extras, not to mention 200 camels and 2,500 horses used in the shooting of the film, the film defined the term Block Buster. It garnered 11 Academy Awards and is considered to be one of the greatest films ever made and was elected for preservation by the Library of Congress for being a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" motion picture. Phew.
As a freshman in college, I was so impressed with this film that I convinced my parents to drive 60 miles to Abilene one evening to see this movie. If you knew my parents, you would know how remarkable this was.
I read the book back in high school, and it is perhaps a more remarkable story than the movie. Written by a former Union Army General while he was whiling away a couple of years as Governor of New Mexico, Lew Wallis did not profess to be a Christian himself, but his book is considered to be the "most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."
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