Much That Is Hidden

.
Inspired by Miz UV and Sour Grapes:

O' Tim answers twenty-one questions

1. What was the last blog you left a comment on?

Miz UV’s

2. Favorite black and white movie?

Dr. Strangelove

3. What’s in your freezer right now?

Oh man: frozen veggies & fruit, veggie burgers, veggie chicken nuggets, waffles, lasagna, spinach & feta ravioli, two beer glasses, Stouffer’s alfredo stir-fry stuff, ice, and two really old popsicles

4. How many pillows do you have on your bed?

Five. The extras work great for blocking out the sun on those days I sleep until noon.

5. Do you regularly share your bed with anyone?

Else? No.

6. Do you sleep in Pajamas, undies, nude, or other?

Undies – I toss a lot so tops are uncomfortable

7. If you won $50,000, what would you do with it?

Upgrade one of our vehicles, get new flooring, carpet, some (baby) furniture, new deck, hot tub and save the $15,000 that’s left. Or forego most of that and look for a new house because it is a buyer’s market right now.

8. Something nice you did for someone today?

I let my wife go back to bed this morning to sleep off a bad headache.

9. Something bad you did to someone today?

Said that MIL’s boyfriend’s Jell-O salad looked like it had worms in it because of the thin slices of orange peel (it was really tasty and I said so later).

10. Hardest class you took in school?

Junior year algebra

11. Ever been in a car accident?

Yes – I was in junior high and mom was taking us to school on a snowy morning. A woman with her kids ran a stop sign and smacked us really hard, and she died at the scene.

12. What is one food you won’t eat?

Liver or kidney (organs in general, I suppose)

13. Why?

Because they filter crap from the blood

14. Would you ever eat dog meat?

Not if I could help it

15. What is something as a child you wanted to grow up to become, but didn’t?

A baseball player

16. Name one place in the US you haven’t seen but want to?

Crater Lake, Oregon

17. Name one place outside the US?

Any place in the European Alps

18. Favorite smells?

Eucalyptus, patchouli, skunk (just a whiff from a distance), grilled steak, fresh gasoline, orange, the upper palate of a good porter, the loamy earth of a hemlock forest, the air above a mountain stream, campfires and (inspired by Sour Grapes) a baby’s head.

19. If you could pick any game show to compete on, which would it be?

Jeopardy or One vs. 100 because it seems really easy.

20. Where did you go on your last real vacation and who did you go with?

New Mexico, by myself

21. Your best birthday was for which age?

Would you believe 21? In Lake Tahoe? And that I won money at blackjack? And that I got to see Carlos Santana?

I'm passing this meme along to the following four:

1. Whomever

2. Wherever

3. Whenever

4. Forever!

hee-hee

.

Labels: fun facts, life, me, memes

.
Mathman has tag-ed me.


1.0 Random Things About Me:

0.1 - I am fascinated by the "celebrities die in threes" thing.

0.2 - I restrung my guitar but broke the #6 E, so I salvaged the very dull old one and it sounded funny with the crispy new ones. All is well now except for having a pack of five strings.

0.3 - I dreamed about strangling W last night.

0.4 - Max giggled a lot today and it made me very happy.

0.5 - I wonder about what to do with all my cassette tapes.

0.6 - I don't worry about financial security but sometimes I feel that I should.

0.7 - I can't remember the last time I rode my mountain bike, or where I rode. That bums me out.

0.8 - I saw an old friend today and we're going to go mountain biking on Sunday. That makes me happy.

0.9 - I hate that W is a mountain biker.

1.0 - I am addicted to cheese


Normally I'm not a tag-er but I'm in the mood to find out things about: Cheezy , JennyJinx , Joe the Troll and my Bunches
.

Labels: facts, fun, fun facts, guitar, me, memes, random

.
Today’s episode of MTIH is brought to you by the number 42, which among other important things happens to be the number of years I have completed upon this earth as of 4:05 a.m. Chicago time today. What will today hold in store? Probably not the same fate as my so-designated "Rolling Rock" birthday nine years ago, wherein I attempted to imbibe the contents of as many as possible of the fabled “33” green bottles from Old Latrobe. That was a night to forget, and thankfully beyond knowing that fact, it is.

No, today will be spent with the boy doing all the important things we do between infant and middle-aged father. I would have to say my life’s chief goal in general terms is to live long enough for Max to make it to this age, if for no other reason than to compare notes and likely have him show me the several roads not taken that might’ve made my life a bit more satisfying in my first 4.2 decades. It is my rock-solid belief that anyone who claims to have no regrets in life is telling a bald-faced lie. Perhaps I should rephrase that – anyone who says that if they could do it all over again they wouldn’t change a thing is seriously deluded (never mind the fact that the opportunity for one to do so does not exist).

At this point the two strangest things that stand out in unison of sorts are that I do not feel 42 emotionally and that at the age I do feel (for simplicity’s sake let’s just invert the number) I looked at 42-year-olds as being some seriously old fuckers for sure. Maturity for me has come slow, and as my beloved spouse can affirm is still very much a work in progress. Ironically that has a sort comforting youthful aspect to it, which is more often than not just an excuse to misbehave I suppose. My cosmic recipe at this point is an addiction to fun and excitement mixed with an aversion to the mundane “hafta-dos.” Sprinkle in a spicy case of procrastination and you have a life full of mediocre accomplishments, anger, frustration and a mess of really great memories, I’d guess much like any man who lives in quiet desperation.

But don’t get the impression that I am unhappy, in fact far from it. Yearning to be happier, certainly, but even in that I am daily learning more patience, moderation and wisdom, the lessons of which seem to come in a concentrated form from the midst of my son’s smiles and giggles.

Enough public display of introspection, onto the celebration! A few fun facts about

It is the atomic number of molybdenum, which is an element of high end steel alloys used for things such as mountain bikes.

It is the number of teeth dogs have, so there are 84 of those in our house.

The eight digits of pi beginning from 242,422 places after the decimal point are 42424242.

The song So Long and Thanks For All the Fish, (from the original score of the film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) was one of 42 possible nominees in the 78th Annual Academy Awards for Best Song.

42 is one of “The Numbers” on the television show Lost, along with 4, 8, 15, 16 and 23

42 is the jersey number of Jackie Robinson, and when New York Yankee Mariano Rivera retires it will become the first and only number retired by all Major League Baseball teams.

42 is the number of laws of cricket.

In the ASCII character code 42 represents the asterisk* character.
*A handy indicator to have when discussing the Ultimate Answer.

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland has 42 illustrations. In Chapter XII, the king explains “the oldest rule in the book”: “Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.”

42 has some interesting parallels between Judaism, Christianity and Paganism:

It is the number of generations in the Gospel of Matthew’s version of the genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth.

It is the number of months the Beast will hold dominion over the Earth according to Revelation 13:5.

It is the number of youths which are mauled by bears that God sends upon them for mocking Elisha’s baldness 2 Kings 2:23 (Their God is an awesome God!)

It is the number of principles of Ma'at, the ancient Egyptian personification of physical and moral law, order, and truth.

It is the number of the “Forty-Two Lettered Name” ascribed to God in the Babylonian Talmud. A 3rd century source in the Talmud stated “The Forty-Two Lettered Name is entrusted only to him who is pious, meek, middle-aged, free from bad temper, sober, and not insistent on his rights.” (Well, one out of six is...pretty shitty)

In Japanese, 4 (shi) and 2 (ni) are together pronounced like “going to death.” Because of that they considered it a disastrous number. This happens in Hong Kong too, as 42 sounds like “easy death” in Cantonese.

Despite that last bit of superstition, my advice to myself today is




DON’T PANIC

Labels: Damn I'm OLD, fun facts, life, me, religion, superstition, Time

.
Word of the Day :

triskaidekaphobia \tris-ky-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh\, noun:

A morbid fear of the number 13 or the date Friday the 13th.

Thirteen people, pledged to eliminate triskaidekaphobia, today tried to reassure American sufferers by renting a 13 ft. plot of land in Brooklyn for 13 cents . . . a month.
-- Daily Telegraph, January 14, 1967

Past disasters linked to the number 13 hardly help triskaidekaphobics overcome their affliction. The most famous is the Apollo 13 mission, launched on April 11, 1970 (the sum of 4, 11 and 70 equals 85 - which when added together comes to 13), from Pad 39 (three times 13) at 13:13 local time, and struck by an explosion on April 13.
-- "It's just bad luck that the 13th is so often a Friday", Electronic Telegraph, September 8, 1996

Triskaidekaphobia is from Greek treiskaideka, triskaideka, thirteen (treis, three + kai, and + deka, ten) + phobos, fear.

In Christian countries the number 13 was considered unlucky because there were 13 persons at the Last Supper of Christ. Fridays are also unlucky, because the Crucifixion was on a Friday. Hence a Friday falling on the thirteenth day is regarded as especially unlucky.

Some famous triskaidekaphobes:

* Napoleon
* Herbert Hoover
* Mark Twain
* Richard Wagner
* Franklin Roosevelt
.

Labels: fun facts, superstition, words