Math is Hard

If Daisy pays for 40 pieces of minty goodness but the candymaker only gives her 33, why should Daisy continue to buy from that candymaker?

I admit, I have a bad habit.

Okay, I have more than one bad habit, but I'm going to discuss just this one, today: I chew a lot of gum. I guess you could say I'd be a pack-a-day kind of girl, if I bought it by the pack. Instead, I get a regular supply of these little cartons, in six-packs. They've been a regular thing, here, for a few years, ever since I discovered that strong peppermint helps keep my sinuses relatively clear during allergy seasons. But recently I noticed that, while I *always* pop into my mouth two pieces of this stuff at a time, I almost always wound up with a stray single at the bottom of the container.

Please note: the package says "40 PIECES", not "ABOUT 40 PIECES", and not some specific weight. 40 is evenly divisible by 2. There should NEVER, therefore, be a lonely single piece lying in the bottom as long as I consistently take out 2 at a time.

And so, out of curiosity, I decided to see, on the off chance, if I was getting a bunch of bonus cubes.

For the past few months, I've been taking a permanent marker and tallying every piece I popped into my mouth.

Only once did I come out ahead (41 pieces). Only once did I get the exact number of pieces (40) promised. The past 4 containers have come up short by one or two pieces, but this most recent package… well…

I may have failed at high school algebra, but basic arithmetic was never a weak point.

33 is markedly less than 40.

The Hershey Company may want to adjust their machinery to see why the current majority of my purchases come up short, adjust their labeling to reflect either weight or "about 40 pieces", and/or reexamine their ethics.

Bottom Line: What Are the Pusher's Responsibilities Toward the Addict?

 

For the past few days, there has been discussion anent RFK Jr's proposal, in the name of the nation's physical and fiscal health, to place strict limits on what can be purchased with food assistance subsidies.

I am in favor of this. Have no doubt about it, as a reformed citizen, a former recipient of the taxpayers' largesse, I can see much virtue in narrowing the so-called "junk food" highway to a single cow path.

However, it has been demonstrated that those convenience foods most despised for their empty calories are also laden with sugars and other additives which make them highly addictive. As in, the body develops a need for them, and deprived of them, will let its occupant know rather painfully. Converting away from a diet of cheese curls and Orange Crush to carrot slaw and orange roughy isn't like flipping a switch in your head. For many, it brings long years of literal, diagnosed food obsession, which impedes reasoned thinking and basic function as much as any other severe prolonged craving might. It's not a simple moral failing, it's a body and mind breaking down, which then will require healing and rebuilding in a healthier manner.

In the same parcel with Kennedy's proposal (along with amending the diet of the poor in America), is the demand for further public aid reform. 

The US government bureaucrats created Welfare programs, knowing full well people would become dependent upon them. That was the aim: a dependent population is a compliant population. Welfare was, and is, a powerful drug.

People who are addicted to that drug come in many shapes, sizes, and degrees of need. There are multi-generational addict families, and among them are those who act as though it is their absolute right to continue to take what had once been freely offered to their grandparents. The natural impulse is to cut off their supply of this drug, without compunction. It would feel good to slap the smug off their faces when they learn they're not the bosses. But then, along with the self-entitled addict is the one whose entire life has one soul-crushing event after another, all tied to family dependency. And the one who could not reach out for a chance at success, out of fear of the unknown. The people of low self-esteem, limited experience, and obviously limited resources to gain either do not deserve to be treated as pariahs, as moral degenerates, for their failings.

If we are to wean the dependent of the opiate that our own people – for three generations and more – have handed out like penny candy on Halloween, the process needs to be like any other detox program: customized as much as possible to the individual, and firm, but most of all, with compassion.

The last of these goes toward all, not because we necessarily believe that every Welfare addict needs it, but because of our own need for a free American society also to be humane.

Cascade Effect

Photo by Peter K. Kloeppel, ca 1977

It started out as just digging around for a few snaps I could use as subject matter for my Inktober sketches, which led to my being handed a stack of barn photos, followed by… The Family Albums [dramatic music, please] that Pop had tucked away, all desperately in need of digital preservation.

While not quite monumental, scanning Pop's photos is a rather daunting task.

His barn prints (just over 100 of them) are now digitized and available to view via Flickr, here.

Now, on to the next album: the negatives.

Unsurprisingly, many have suffered fading and other deterioration due to their age, so it will take some time for me to make those presentable via Photoshop Elements.  As I go, I will share some of them here, from time to time, and will be making the bulk of the photos available for viewing in a new album, once again, at Flickr.

photo by Peter K. Kloeppel, ca 1977

Barn of the Day

 

Photographer: P. K. Kloeppel
Near Roseville, IL, 2004

Scanning and sharing Pop's pix as I go through them. Full album can be seen at our Flickr pages, here.

Enjoy.

The Barn Dance Begins

I have been blessed with the task of scanning/editing/digitizing my parents' collections of snapshots. Bearing in mind that they were both born amid the Great Depression, and that Pop took more than just the usual "these are my kids on vacation" shots, this means they've amassed a rather substantial pile of images with which I will be working. And, because of the sheer number of photos he's handed me, my editing will initially be fairly basic (e.g., color correction, haze reduction, and contrast adjustment – I can leave scratches and flecks for later).

For now, I'm going through the past 2 1/2 decades' worth of his interest in documenting the barns of our region. Some of the structures he's photographed, being already roughly a century old and in disuse, no longer stand (thereby reinforcing his reasons for the visual archive).

The majority of his photos were taken in Warren County, Illinois, with occasional jaunts into the surrounding counties. It's our own cozy corner of Forgottonia, and worthy of sharing with anyone who enjoys a bit of 'Murica, so I aim to post some of my favorites here, as I go through the stacks.

We hope you appreciate it.

If you'd like to see more of Pop's pix (with whatever information Pop included about location/camera settings, etc.), you can check out our album on Flickr.

Fish Side Story

Featuring Odin as Tony and Idun as Maria…

Enjoy a moment of kitties and peanut butter…

 Odin and Idun get regular afternoon treats... usually a spoon dipped in peanut butter.

They seem to have a strong preference for the unadulterated organic stuff from Aldi.

 I can't blame them. Stupid "organic" label or not, it's pretty good peanut butter. But then, most of what we get from Aldi is darned tasty.

(in case something goes wonky with the video, here's a direct link to it)

Words, Words, Words…

following up on my last post about what you can't play in the PCH Word Find game, I have collected a further few verboten terms. Again, I'm assuming that most of these are excluded because whoever created the game didn't have a full-sized dictionary on hand, and so only allowed "common use" terms. Yeh, I know some of my choices are downright Shakespearean in their age, but they're still included in ye olde Merriam-Webster (I didn't bother do dredge up my OED Unabridged for the purpose. Not yet, anyway). Also, in most cases, they haven't been overly particular about whether one uses King's English or American English spelling for most. Except for one example.

That, and they won't permit anything which might make someone think of a double entendre.

So, in addition to the previous list, here are a few more words which are not recognized as… well, you know… actual words:


DRECK, PROD, TERRAN, MISO, OAST, SCUM SOUSE, HENGE, GLOM, POTTY, GRAIL, TEAT, BONK, HEMP, MOOLAH, GESSO, SCAT, NUDE, TUNG, SODDY, MUFF, SPOOK, LUST, LUSTY, RATEL, NONCE, ORGAN, ORGY, NINNY, GRIFT, SNOG, FANNY, WIDGET, REALISE, STRIP, LAIC, HUMP, HUSSY, SHOAH, NOCK, STOMA, TRET, SCRY, YENTA, VIXEN, YAR, SPOOKY, EDEN, KITED, NERTS, SPERM, FROW, DINK, TATTY, PRIG, TOFF, DYNE, TATAR, RESEAT, BIRDY, PIKA, GAM(S), GRUE, OVINE, CUBBY, ORGASM, REAVE, GROPE, HINNY, SCALER, SNITTY, TEDDY, CHAD, KILL, FEAL, LUGE, DINGE, NITTY, CANNER, CONNING, HOOCH, CHINK, MONAD, EGGY, KIVA.

I'm going to keep hunting for more no-nos, because it's actually more fun to learn what you're not supposed to say than it is to accumulate points.

You Can't Play That!

 For a few weeks, now, I've opted to waste my time playing an online word-finding game comparable to Boggle™. The general idea was to keep my vocabulary working for me, even when I was mostly vegging out at the end of hard work in a hot garden.

Well, that was the idea, anyway. It feels more like I'm making my vocabulary work against me. This game app (at the PCH website) doesn't recognize a lot of words that are not only used regularly by me, but can be found in any basic dictionary. I mean, sure, I'll dig out the Oxford Unabridged for some crossword puzzles, but for a 60-second word search, the simpler the better. So imagine my surprise to discover that words like "dirty" and "pawn" were rejected. Indeed, so many simple words weren't cleared for score that, after a week or so, I started writing down as many failures as I could recall, at the end of each game.

So far, aside from the above terribly dirty words I mentioned above, my list includes these: LOIN, BLACK TART, HOE, DAW, WAD, RIANT, GOD, HELL, ERECT, DIKE (yes, the thing that holds back water, not the pejorative for a "masculine lesbian"), OUSEL, AIT, WEED, HAJ, TED, RAJ, GAY, DARN (my socks resent this rejection), BONG, SPLINE, THUG, POT, HOLT, WOMB, CROFT, ZEN, KILL, BOOB, LINCH, COCK, TOOTS, VAIL, CRACK, MAGE, GAM, FANNY, NARD, WYE, GASH, NINNY, QUEER, RAREE, NAKED, PANSY, SHAG, RUMP, HUMP, BARM, EFT, REFT, RACY, SPADE, SLAG, SHAKO, PROD, NONCE, NENE, FAVA, CHAW, PRAT, STOA, GEST, SLUB, TURD (okay it's gross, but it's still a word), BONK, SIMP, CAVY, TWEE, ROTA, COIR, SCUT, SCUD, SNEW, CRABS (but the singular is accepted), KERN, GOLEM


I acknowledge that some of these words might be viewed as somewhat archaic, and a few are – technically – variants of more commonly accepted spellings. Nonetheless… seriously? I can't refer to the apple tart I ate after I used the weed eater to clear a crack in the sidewalk? Or the crabs I chased across the shag rug when they cut their way through a coir-lined container, that then I caught and cooked in the big stock pot?

If I had a proper desk, I'd be beating my head against it right now.

Causing a Stir in the Garden: Plant Markers on a Budget

 (Cross-posted from our family blog, Sketch Stitch Stretch)

Stick with me, kid.

A week or so ago, my cousin posted a set of photos on her social media page, showing off her brilliant work on a packet of plant markers for a friend. She took paint stirring sticks, wrote on them with a wood burner, and then trimmed them with some nice beads and twine:

My cousin is a LOT more artistically
detail-oriented than I am. And her hand
is steadier.

Naturally, I felt the need to steal her idea (albeit with my own variations, to meet my peculiar preferences). It took me a few tries before I settled on the format I liked, and now I'm better than halfway through the list of the perennial plants requiring identification.

Ours is a big garden.

At any rate, some paint stores will give away a stirring stick or two, so if you shop around, you can do this on the SUPER cheap, but I ordered a packet of 100 from one of those giant online retailers who shall remain nameless, and the sticks cost an average of 25¢.

It also helps to already have a wood-burning tool on hand, but if you don't have one, and you think you might take the craft up as a hobby, these are not particularly expensive gadgets, and you don't need a lot of added doodads to make it a costly addiction... unless you decide you need to start working on specialty wood, or suddenly "need" a laser cutter/burner.

A pencil and eraser, also, are useful for marking guide lines and text. Don't bankrupt yourself on high-end toys. Just grab what you have on hand and have some fun.

Color enhanced for clarity.
Really. It's just pencil markings.

I admit it. I'm a nerd. I need to include basic Linnaean taxonomy.
And I did this on both sides of each stick.
Because.

For the record, my wood burning tool is a multi-tool, for soldering, stencil-cutting, and wood-burning. I bought it several years ago at my all-time favorite place to shop, and this is the first time I've applied it to wood. It's a learning process for me, too.

And I may also dig out an old can of spar varnish from the basement & give these puppies a coat of it, for durability out there in the elements. We'll see.