January 30, 2011

·       Quotes of the week

1.      There are some men who turn a deaf ear to reason and good advice, and willfully go wrong for fear of being controlled. La Bruyère

2.     "If you set to work to believe everything, you will tire out the believing-muscles of your mind, and then you'll be so weak you won't be able to believe the simplest true things." Lewis Carroll, (books by this author)

3.      When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water. ~Unknown

·       Love letter of the Week

On this day 93 years ago, modernist fiction writer Katherine Mansfield (books by this author) wrote to editor and essayist John Middleton Murry, whom she'd been dating for more than seven years:
"It is ten minutes past eight. I must tell you how much I love you at ten minutes past eight on a Sunday evening, January 27th 1918.
I have been indoors all day (except for posting your letter) and I feel greatly rested. Juliette has come back from a new excursion into the country, with blue irises — do you remember how beautifully they grew in that little house with the trellis tower round by the rocks? — and all sort and kinds of sweet-smelling jonquils. The room is very warm. I have a handful of fire, and the few little flames dance on the log and can't make up their minds to attack it.
There goes a train. Now it is quiet again except for my watch. I look at the minute hand and think what a spectacle I shall make of myself when I am really coming home to you. How I shall sit in the railway carriage, and put the old watch in my lap and pretend to cover it with a book — but not read or see, but just whip it up with my longing gaze, and simply make it go faster.
My love for you tonight is so deep and tender that it seems to be outside myself as well. I am fast shut up like a little lake in the embrace of some big mountains. If you were to climb up the mountains, you would see me down below, deep and shining — and quite fathomless, my dear. You might drop your heart into me and you'd never hear it touch bottom.
I love you — I love you — Goodnight.
Oh Bogey, what it is to love like this!"

·       Video of the week

• Optical illusions by a mathematician

·       Song of the Week

Etta James, At Last

·       Websites of the week

1.      Hey there’s my niece, Hadley Seward, on the internet!

2.     Health Care Law Benefits in 2011 and Years to Come, Efforts to Repeal Reform

·       And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

Obama: Aside From All the Weirdos and Freaks around Here, The State Of The Union Is Strong

January 23, 2011

·       Quotes of the week

1.      The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. Not ordinarily do men achieve this balance of opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony. ~Martin Luther King

2.     If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing. ~Benjamin Franklin

3.     Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes a difference. Nolan Bushnell - Founder of Atari

4.     A boil on one's neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa. Dale Carnegie

·       Meditation of the week

Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.

• Author: Unknown

·       Poem of the Week

Voyager upon life's sea,
To yourself be true,
And whate'er your lot may be,
Paddle your own canoe.

Anonymous

·       Video of the week

See the joy of giving

·       Websites of the week

Openbook allows you to search through the status updates of unwitting Facebook users to prove that your information is more easily available to anyone on the web than you ever thought it was. The site is built on the Facebook API, so any information Openbook can find is available to anyone on the Internet. http://youropenbook.org/

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/2363/ (Thanks, son!)

·       And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

Found: Lost Pictures of New York Blizzard

pjanuary 16, 2011

·       Quotes of the week

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Thomas Paine

·       Meditation of the week

If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.
--Rollo May

Those of us who go around trying to be right and do everything right are likely to betray ourselves. We stifle our impulses and control our intuition because we can't be certain that we are correct. As a spiritual exercise, we could stop now and listen to our inner selves and state our own ideas. What comes out may break the illusion of perfection and free us to proceed with life.

We all have original ideas if we just notice them. What images come to mind while listening to music? What do our dreams tell us? New insights sometimes come by physical activity. Conversation with a friend can help lead us to our wisdom. Our growing strength in recovery requires that we listen to our own messages and then take some risks to express them.

Today, I will take risks by stating my ideas. I will stand up for myself by listening to my intuition.

·       Poem of the Week

Good Workers

by Gary Johnson

Let us praise good workers (you know who you are)
Who come gladly to the job and do what you can
For as long as it takes to repair the car
Or clean the house – the woman or man
Who dives in and works steadily straight through,
Not lagging and letting others carry the freight,
Who joke around but do what you need to do,
Like the home caregiver who comes daily at eight
A.m. to wash and dress the man in the wheelchair
And bring him meals and put him to bed at night
For minimum wage and stroke his pale brown hair.
He needs you. "Are you all right?" "I'm, all right,"
      He says. He needs you to give him these good days,
      You good worker. God's own angels sing your
praise.

·       Video of the week

Completely honest therapist

Completely honest Veterinarian

·       Song of the Week

It was on January 9th in 2001 that Apple Computers introduced iTunes. Since that day, more than 10 billion tracks have been downloaded from the iTunes store. Six years later, on this day in 2007, Apple unveiled the iPhone. Afterward, they made available a software development kit, the set of tools enabling a person to create a third-party application, or iPhone "App." There are now more than 300,000 iPhone Apps, with 7 billion downloads — helping people do things like learn Japanese, train for marathons, monitor infant diaper activity, access news stories, find cookbook recipes, keep time with a metronome, make espresso and boost productivity.

·       Websites of the week

http://demotivatingposters.com/

Wikipedia’s other projects here

http://www.dothegreenthing.com/shop

·       And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

Ridiculous fortune cookie fortunes

January 9, 2011

·       Quotes of the week

1.      As things now are, many masters are obliged to sail without knowing anything of their crews, until they get out to sea. There may be pirates or mutineers among them; and one bad man will often infect the rest... Richard Henry Dana

2.      A brave heart and a courteous tongue. They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling. Rudyard Kipling

3.      "It goes Christmas, New Year's Eve, and Valentine's Day. Is that fair to anyone who's alone? If you didn't get around to killing yourself on Christmas or New Year's, boom, there's Valentine's Day for you. There should be a holiday after Valentine's Day called 'Are you still here?'" Comedian Laura Kightlinger

·       Meditation of the week

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.
   – Swami Vivekananda

The ancestor of every destructive action, every destructive decision, is a negative thought. We do not have to be afraid of negative thoughts as long as we do not welcome them. They are in the air, and they may knock at anyone’s door; but if we do not embrace them, ask them in, and make them our own, they can have no power over us.

We can think of thoughts as hitchhikers. At the entrance to the freeway, we used to see a lot of hitchhikers carrying signs: “Vancouver,” “Mexico,” “L.A.” One said in simple desperation, “Anywhere!” Thoughts are a lot like those hitchhikers. We can pick them up or pass them by. Negative thoughts carry signs, but usually we see only one side, the side with all the promises. The back of the sign tells us their true destination: sickness and sorrow.
Nobody is obliged to pick up these passengers. If we do not stop and let them in, they cannot go anywhere, because they are not real until we support them. There is sympathy in the world: pick it up. There is antipathy in the world: don’t pick it up. Hatred destroys. Love heals.

·       Poem of the Week

In A Cafe

by Garrison Keillor

When Love is lost, the laughter's good and
gone,
The sun sinks down, the heavy fog rolls in,
Nothing is left to say and you know that no
good
Will ever come of this,
Life will never again be miraculous.
Tall dark woman in the café, I see
How the tears glitter in your blue eyes.
You drink black coffee for bravery
And weep onto the front page of the Times.
I had a love once too who now is gone, is
gone, she's gone. The waves roll along
The coast, the sweet summer rain blows in.
      If I knew you, I'd sit by your side and
sing:
      This world is not our home, we're only
passing through.

·       Video of the week

Homeless man w/golden radio voice in Columbus, OH (Thanks Rob)

·       Websites of the week

Messin’ with Sasquatch  and watch him tear up a guitar

·       And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

Amazing and unusual places in Google Earth