12 Sunday May 2013
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures, Family and Friends
The winners* of the Bush Sr. Pink Socks’
Caption Contest enjoy the results of their
victory.
Much thanks to Gavin Lee for the photos.
*The third winner has yet to receive his prize, but I am hopeful he will send a picture once his pair arrives.
07 Sunday Apr 2013
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures, Family and Friends
The pictures below and the ‘slides’ you can see by clicking on the link at the end of the pictures on this page come from our recent, return trip to Sicily to complete a previously interrupted visit. We ‘encamped’ in Taormina and ventured out each day.
As usual, Ellen’s eye and photography skills capture it.
01 Monday Apr 2013
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures, Family and Friends
Tags
Bronte, Caltigirone, Cantania, Castelmola, Messina, Paterno, Sicily, Taormina
While we await Ellen’s photos from our trip to Sicily (she has more to sort through than most of us take in an entire lifetime), I thought I’d offer a short quiz about our trip (and avoid a boring travelogue).
There are ten questions below, and three extra credit ones for those over achievers among you. You can put your answers in the Comments section or send them to me at Samesty84@gmail.com.
The prize of some wonderful pistachio nuts from the heart of pistachio growing area in Sicily, Bronte, to the winner.
Note: Many answers of the possible answers sound plausible. Find the Best answer (as defined by yours truly).
1. How many pictures did Ellen take over the six day period in Sicily, including both those with her new camera as well as her iPhone?
15 Friday Mar 2013
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, Family and Friends
The Admirable Tuosist Life Style
By David P Stang
For foreigners and urban blow-ins the way of the men and women of Tuosist, an important parish in County Kerry, Ireland, may take a long time to comprehend. At least for me it took many years. Some of the facets of the Tuosist life style in contrast to big city life are fairly obvious while others are far more subtle and difficult to detect.
03 Sunday Mar 2013
Posted in Family and Friends
Uh, oh.
Apparently grandparents are becoming obsolete.
According to this survey, we’re being replaced by technology.
No longer are we the ‘go to place’ for answering our grandkids’ questions, a traditional role played by grandparents. Instead, Google, Wikipedia, and YouTube are replacing us, at least in the role of passing on knowledge.
It seems that if a question can be answered on the Internet, 90% of the children will look it up there rather than come to us.
Hmm. Sounds bad.
But then there’s this Oxford University study that found that those grandchildren “with a high level of grandparental involvement displayed fewer emotional and behavior problems.”
So, bottom line:
The little kiddies may not be coming to us to learn things they can find out on line.
But if their parents are smart — as most of them are — they’ll be sure to keep us in their kids’ lives.
(Plus, we need those little wonders to help us with our computer and Internet problems. And without us, who will teach them why the 2-1 count is so important in baseball or what are the three toughest outs?)
12 Tuesday Feb 2013
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures, Family and Friends
05 Tuesday Feb 2013
Posted in Family and Friends
My daughter Annie sent me these pictures the other day of her two-year old’s first haircut.
I was reminded of something I thought, and probably said, years ago as I was observing one of my own daughters at a comparable age:
“Somewhere out there a little boy is out running around, maybe playing soccer or reading a book, and has no idea what is in store for him in about 20 years.”
11 Friday Jan 2013
Posted in Family and Friends
The other day I was asked to ‘help out’ with Abby for an hour and a half while her parents Annie and Danny kept an appointment.
“Sure,” I said.
“After all, how bad could an hour and a half with a two-year old be,” I foolishly thought to myself.
09 Wednesday Jan 2013
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures, Family and Friends
Tags
"Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking", Extroverts, Introverts, Susan Cain
A couple of weeks ago I noticed something that seemed strange at the time, but now I think I’m beginning to understand it.
As one of my on going interests is reading, I am a sucker for the end of the year lists of favorite books. One list that I saw was quite surprising. Goodreads, the online site that focuses on what its reading members list and like, had as its top nonfiction book of the year a title that did not appear on any of the usual lists of the year’s best books that I had seen.
26 Monday Nov 2012
Posted in Family and Friends
(My eldest nephew has some how gotten to be 50 years old, which seems surprising as I am not much older than that myself. Anyway, the following email was forwarded to me by my sister, his mother.)
13 Tuesday Nov 2012
Posted in Family and Friends
Abby had her second birthday on Sunday.
Eli will be four in January.
It’s going fast.
30 Tuesday Oct 2012
Posted in Articles & Books of Interest, Family and Friends
(Tues., Oct. 30, 12:30 PM – The post below was written and sent to me just now by David P. Stang, long-time friend and faithful MillersTime reader.)
That malefic millibar drop spooked the cats. Their eyes rolled around without focus. The hair stood up on their backs. They’d suddenly hiss and leap into the air then run crazily. Bounce off walls. Climb under quilts. Curl into fetal shape and quiver.
In cat consciousness the careening millibars portended Armageddon. This was before any local precipitation. Before rising winds. Before the sky darkened. In fact, two days before disaster descended they saw Sandy’s eye.
They must have foreseen life support systems shutting down. Hospitalized geriatrics choking to death. Subways, tunnels and roads flooding. Sewers barfing out millions of drowned rats. Megatons of trees down. Bridges closed. Thousands of automobiles underwater. Public transport shut down. Transformer stations blown up in explosions of blue light. Millions of residences and businesses without electric power. Communication systems destroyed. Even the New York Stock Exchange became a battle casualty. Governors and mayors dishing out situation reports while Presidential candidates disciplined themselves not to exploit Sandy’s gift. Still fear and panic reigned.
The cats saw it coming. Feline foreknowledge was spot on.
Whistling winds, crashing down cloud bursts wailed like banshees all night long. Sandy’s eye, however, passed over like the locusts did in Ancient Egypt. Who survived? Who thrived? And how?
The survivors did so with reliable shelter by merely eating, drinking, defecating, sitting, standing, sleeping, bathing and dressing.
The survivors who lived on to thrive did so with education, training, skills, courage, vision, discipline , tenacity and some luck.
But of all the thrivers and survivors who ended up living meaningful, joyous lives? Those receptive to insight. Those with compassionate and loving hearts. Those who prefer giving to taking. Those whose mainstay is gratitude.
Yet in fairness, all these good results require higher millibars. Accordingly, without drooping millibars cats can’t help you as portenders. Their foreknowledge runs only on low millibars. Only then do they roll their eyes, let their hair stand up, make hissing noises, run crazily, bounce off walls, climb under quilts and go totally fetal.
04 Thursday Oct 2012
Posted in Family and Friends, Go Sox
If the Nats win it all, the Millers stand to win $1,040.
The proof?
As you can see from the two pictures above, on Jan. 6, 2012, when no one was predicting the Washington Nationals would make the playoffs, yours truly was in Las Vegas with younger daughter Elizabeth. As any good father would do, I purchased some Pennant and World Series bets.
Actually, I purchased four tickets, two for Elizabeth and two for myself.
So, if the Nats win the NL Pennant, both Elizabeth and myself will each collect $160.
Then, tho unlikely, if the Nats win the World Series, we each stand to win an additional $360.
Total between us would be $1,040, $520 each.
If you subtract the cost of the tickets, that’s a ‘profit’ of $1,000.
Additionally, I bought a World Series tickets for both my Atlanta nephews, and they stand to win $200 each should the Braves make it from the Wild Card spot all the way to winning the WS.
Then, I threw in another $10 to buy my so-called Baltimore O’s friend a WS bet/ticket. I don’t know how much he stands to win if they go from their Wild Card spot all the way to win the WS. But it probably doesn’t matter. It seems NR (true initials) can’t find his ticket. Typical O’s fan, I guess.
(Full Disclosure: Because I am a loyal Red Sox fan, I also made bets for then AL favorites, two for the Sox winning the AL Pennant and two for them winning the WS. That was $40 down the drain.)
Anyway, my total outlay?
$110.
Any questions?
20 Thursday Sep 2012
Posted in Escapes and Pleasures, Family and Friends
Curious how one thing leads to another.
The other day a friend sent me a link to an article by NY Times writer Michael Winerip, When Stars Were Just a Stamp Away.
Knowing that I love both baseball and good writing, HS sent along this article as he does others routinely. I loved it.
I’d never heard of Michael Winerip (how come?) and initially thought the article was simply another example of the wonderful intersections of good writing about baseball, family, and life.
But as I reread the article and the comments on the article (tipped off again by HS), I found myself curious about the author and began thinking about what he wrote at the end of the article, about why he and his father (and maybe his son?) write:
“I think that’s why my father wrote, and why I write, and the reason maybe my son will. We hope to create something more than what we are, something that might endure, even though in the end, it may just be a clever one-liner.”
16 Sunday Sep 2012
Posted in Family and Friends, The Outer Loop
I have a long time solicitor friend, Dave Stang (now retired), who is planning a course on “The Five Big Questions.”
As is his wont, he has solicited me, and others, on how we would answer the questions he will present and discuss with the group he and a colleague are ‘conducting’ in October.
So, I thought I’d throw out these questions to MillersTime readers to see if any of you would be willing to take a shot at answering one or two of them, or even all five. I have just sent him my answers to his “Five Big Questions.”
Even if you don’t want to answer these questions, you might have some suggestions for articles, books, films, etc. that Dave might include in his syllabus that speak to one, or more, of these five questions. I’m sure he would appreciate any suggestions you might have along those lines.
If you are interested, I suspect Dave would be willing to send a link to his syllabus, once he has completed it, to any MillersTime reader who wants to see it.
You can write Dave directly (davidpstang@cs.com) with your answers, suggestions, ideas, and/or request for a syllabus.
The Five Big Questions:
1. How do I know what I think I know is actually true?
2. Where did I come from?
3. Who am I?
4. What is my life’s purpose?
5. What happens to me when I die?
Thanx.
Richard Miller
