I'm getting ready to get ready to go, in this case, to visit my folks and extended family in Lafayette, LA, for a few days. Have you ever noticed how an upcoming trip, or visitors coming, can be good motivators and prioritizers? If so, you'll understand why this entry is brief. I feel somewhat exposed at this point in my blogging "prowess," but I'm practicing these days the fine art of taking action, when appropriate, before I've got my act completely together.

I leave you with another thought from the collection:

"The good life is one guided by reason and inspired by love." --Bertrand Russell (this is my paraphrase; I don't know exactly what he said or wrote, but it was close to that. If you find out, please let me know. I think I've enabled this blog to allow for comments by any and all)

I’m currently engaged in a thorough reorganization of my “exploratorio,” the provisional name for my studio/office/library/room of my own that we added to the northeast corner of our home back in 1995. This is the first time I’ve taken/made the time to deliberately arrange my main working, thinking, writing, etc. space since I moved in. I’m also collaborating with my wife Andrea in doing the same thing for the whole house.
After reviewing and perusing a number of books on simplifying, organizing, streamlining, etc., I wound up with a few that I checked out of the library. The one that really clicked with us was Organizing From the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern. The book wasn’t available, so I got the video. One important aspect of her method is that it honors our idiosyncratic ways of categorizing and doing. There’s still a good bit of work to be done, and times when I and we sit and scratch our heads for a while. Still, I’m following her basic method and it’s working (with modifications and adaptations, which she encourages).

So, since the streamlining project is the main focus, I’m not reading or writing much just now. The following is another excerpt from my collection of quotes and observations that I’ve named “Worthwhile Words:”


You see, we are all ordinary. But a master, rather than condemning himself for his "ordinariness", will embrace it and use it as a foundation for building the extraordinary. Rather than using it as an excuse for inactivity, he will use it as a vehicle for correcting, which is essential in the process of attaining mastery. You must be able to correct yourself without invalidating or condemning yourself, to accept results and improve upon them. Correct, don't protect. Correction is essential to power and mastery.

-Stewart Emery


Answers to complex questions should end with semicolons, not exclamation points. --Daniel N. Robinson (Great Ideas of Psychology lectures)

“Does it matter where you sail if you’re uncomfortable on your ship?”
--Dave Fournet 6.19.03

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER

I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
I'd relax, I would limber up.
I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
I would take fewer things seriously.
I would take more chances.

--Nadine Stair,
85 years old.

(This passage is actually longer, but I’ll just post those first few lines) I’m planning to put the whole collection of quotes on my web site, probably after Thanksgiving.)

First, something possibly edifying:


 "" There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout:
This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me... or leave me. Accept me - or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don't fit your idea of who I should be and don't try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision.
When you are strong enough to love yourself 100%, good and bad - you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you."

--- Copyright © 2000 Stacey Charter"
http://en.thinkexist.com/

And then something....

borborygmus
grumbling of stomach, intestines, etc. Our dog Daimin has this in a big way. It showed up tonight just after he ate. I’ve never heard anything that loud coming out of any animal, humans included. At first, I didn’t realize it was coming from the dog. It sounded like kids talking outside or something. When I realized it was coming from him, and just about every five seconds or so, I got scared that he was going to let it rip any second, from one opening and/or the other. As I listened, the thought actually occurred to me that he’d swallowed some small rodent without killing it and that the little Jonah was yelling for help. With further listening and thought, I ruled out that hypothesis and went to get the leash to walk him.
He showed his usual elation at the first hint of going for a walk. We strolled around the block and he showed no signs of anything wrong apart from the car-wreck sounds emanating from his posterior half. There was no pooping or even flatulence, as best I could tell or smell. We got back home just as large rain drops began rattling the leaves. I put him out in the back yard as insurance against any untimely evacuation. He has a dry house that he uses and apparently likes, but he’s out there giving me his let-me-in bark right now as the rain abates. After I go chase my own tail on the stationery bike at the exercise center, I’ll give him a listen to see if the storm has passed, so to speak.

Borborygmus: Bowel sounds, the gurgling, rumbling, or growling noise from the abdomen caused by the muscular contractions of peristalsis, the process that moves the contents of the stomach and intestines downward. The plural is borborygmi.

Bowel sounds are normal. Their absence can indicate intestinal obstruction. Bowel sounds may also be temporarily absent after abdominal surgery.

The word "borborygmus" has been rumbling around the English language for some 200 years. Its earliest known use in English dates to 1796. The word arrived from New Latin, but traces its way back to the Greek "borboryzein," which means "to rumble."
[New Latin, from Greek borborugmos, of imitative origin.]


12:42 a.m. on the next day. Getting ready to shut down the electronics as the thunder rolls. Daimin the Noisy Dog came back inside soaking wet after his temporary exile, and was thankfully boroborygmus free.
This post is just what happened to get written today, apart from a few e-mails. I’m in the midst of the first thorough reorganization ever organized in our Shady Lane home since we moved here a dozen years ago. More on that, and the philosophical, economical, and taxonomical ramifications thereof, later.

So, I tell Gary Weidner that I'm thinking about creating a blog. He tells me it's very simple. We head to my computer. We bring up Google.com. >>more>>tools>>blogs. It looks simple. The page tells me that I can set it in 5 minutes. That was last night. Today I went back and set this up. Apart from this typing, it took well under five minutes, and would have even been faster had I not deliberated so long on choosing the template, the name, the URL, and such. I found those choices a bit uncomfortable, mostly out of concern that I'd do something that would look goofy, or dumb or something unfavorable like that. Pretty petty, but there it is. I've read that in various surveys public speaking ranks as the most feared thing amongst people in the U.S. I get nervous myself doing that, and right now, with not a soul in sight, and me typing rather than speaking, I'm still getting close to the edge of my comfort zone.

I'm planning to see if I might put things into the public conversation and inquiry that might actually encourage others, be useful to them, enlightening to some degree, etc.