Odometer Follies

Posted on 22 September 2023 by Isabel Gibson

99999.9

Back in the day, the point just short of this mileage saw everyone piling into the car to drive that last little bit, hanging over the back seat to get a good view as all the nines rolled upwards with a series of soft clicks (Did we really hear them, or just imagine them?), to be replaced by all-zeroes on the odometer. I mean, how satisfying was that?

00000.0

What a moment! It wasn’t like we were going to see it happen again anytime soon. And woe to the driver who missed the great rollover. Imagine glancing at the speedometer and catching sight of this in passing.

00000.2

Argh!

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Event Videos, Feeling Clearly, Laughing Frequently, Travel Videos | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Hold Out Your Hand

Posted on 21 September 2023 by Isabel Gibson

It’s been 112 years since 1911. In geological or astronomical terms that’s nothing, but in human terms? Man, 112 years is a long time. Things that have been around for ever were just getting started in 1911:

  • Chevrolet started making cars
  • J.M. Smucker started making Crisco®

It’s been 112 years since 1911, which is longer than all but a handful of lifetimes. It’s long enough to take us from newspaper accounts of the coronation of George V to the streamed-online coronation of Charles III, George V’s great-grandson. And yet, 1911 is potentially just one handshake away. How so? That takes some explaining.

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Posted in Thinking Broadly, Through History | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

GoFundMe

Posted on 16 September 2023 by Isabel Gibson

GoFundMe. Go. Fund. Me. I don’t quite get it.

I know what it means all right; I just don’t get why the communication works.

Why isn’t it ComeFundMe? I mean, where am I going? Isn’t the invitation to join someone in doing something? To come and be part of something?

Wouldn’t PleaseFundMe be more semantically correct as well as more polite? Heck, why is the first word needed at all? Wouldn’t FundMe communicate the same thing?

Could the punctuation be implied? GO!FUND ME! or even GO:FUNDME! Continue reading →

Posted in Language and Communication, Laughing Frequently, Wired | Tagged , | 18 Comments

A Farewell to Loons

Posted on 09 September 2023 by Isabel Gibson

A last-of-the-season fabulous boat ride produces less-than-fabulous photos of a family of common loons, in part because the birds and I bob up-and-down at what seem like different amounts/frequencies even though we’re on the self-same lake.

Always fabulous, notwithstanding distance, wave action, light, and (cough) shutter speeds.

Back on dry land, unencumbered by the complex wave-mechanics of Canada’s Shield lakes and untroubled by the shifts in the tectonic plates underlying the Shield itself, I turn my attention to a smaller-and-nearer photographic subject. My dragonfly-identification skills are not my strong point, but at least this time I know that I’m looking at one species. It is, after all, just one individual.

Male autumn meadowhawk? Pretty sure. Pretty fabulous.

 

 

 

 

Check out Ontario’s dragonflies and damselflies here.

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Laughing Frequently, Photos of Fauna | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Baseball with Benefits

Posted on 01 September 2023 by Isabel Gibson

It’s not what you’re thinking, but it was quite a night. The home team lost their final home game of the season, but the crowd left the stadium pretty cheery. Well, I know I did.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Built Stuff, Photos of Landscapes | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Not in Kansas Anymore

Posted on 26 August 2023 by Isabel Gibson

Getting out of town, even for a week, brings many new views and a few new perspectives.

Two views from one pier.

Rain isn’t all bad.

These are my choices?

Ahhhh.

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Feeling Clearly, Laughing Frequently | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Family Ties

Posted on 25 August 2023 by Isabel Gibson

37 – Participants
3 – Days on task

Back for almost a week from a family reunion, I’m almost back to normal.

76 – Age range of participants, in years
3 – Age of youngest participant, in months

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Feeling Clearly | Tagged | 16 Comments

A Little Less Talk . . .

Posted on 12 August 2023 by Isabel Gibson

We must dismantle white supremacy.
– Sign in window of Ben & Jerry’s Burlington store

I’ll get right on that. After lunch, world peace.

Somewhere along the long and winding road, the concept of “corporate social responsibility” took a weird turn. It morphed from taking responsibility for, you know, corporate actions, to beaking off about the contentious issues of the day.

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Posted in Feeling Clearly, Thinking Broadly | Tagged , | 16 Comments

Seeing is Believing

Posted on 05 August 2023 by Isabel Gibson

When I was merely middle-aged, to illustrate the relative size of China we used to say that 1 in 6 people was a Chinese peasant. We can’t say that now, for two reasons. First, these days we’d more likely say “a Chinese farmer” (even though 2/3 of China’s population is urban, so “a Chinese office or factory worker” would be more accurate if less catchy). Second, the number has changed to 1.4 in 8, which doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

All to say, it’s hard to keep up on several fronts. It’s even harder for me to grasp, after all my decades of thinking of China as the world’s population leader, that India is now the country with the most people. On the scale we’re talking about it’s just by a hair, mind you: India edged out China by a mere 295,631, or a city of about the same size as Saskatoon or Windsor. Pfft.

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Posted in Thinking Broadly | Tagged , | 14 Comments