In case you haven't paid much attention to google today, go there now, and wait a little bit. The Google logo today is pacman. And you can actually play. I wonder how many extra hours were wasted on the google home page today.

April was an awesome month: no drama, no problems, no new enemies, and several new friends and bridge partners. It went by entirely too quickly.

May, while filled with much excitement from being involved in Drood, has been a bit rocky, and I don't understand why. I thought some friendships were going to turn sour again but they did not (well, maybe just one). New and possible more interesting work prospects have arisen. Facebook baffles me. The number of friends I have seems to fluctuate between 360 and 362 for no apparent reason. And my body has been yelling at me for not sleeping enough and drinking too much mountain dew.

Anyway, many bridge trips coming up in the next couple of months that offer virtually no potential for negativity: Minneapolis over Memorial Day, Covington sectional, and Greenville, SC for GNT the next 2 weeks, Atlanta sectional over Independence Day, New Orleans NABC, Montreal regional in August, Atlanta regional at the end of August.

Irregardless

This morning I heard someone on the radio use the word irregardless, and it's not like I was listening to some informal, non-serious show. This guy was supposed to be professional and this word really bugs me. It sounds so bad. But it is in most dictionaries now with a definition of: "nonstandard form of regardless." Some dictionaries even write "use regardless instead."

In some languages, double negatives are perfectly normal. In French, people almost always use 2 words - ne and pas - to make a negative statement. (Je ne sais pas = I don't know) But in spoken form, they frequently leave off the ne. In English, however, double negatives are frowned upon but have been used in spoken form for awhile. When I hear an American use a double negative, I can't help but see them as being not very bright. I guess with the word regardless, it doesn't sound much like a negative but the suffix -less is clearly a negative. It just has a not-so-harsh sound so people feel a need to add a negative prefix.

If you ever use that word around me I will cringe inside and probably use great restraint to keep from correcting you. I would definitely correct you if you were a close friend but I don't think you'd eve get to be a close friend of mine is you're a user of irregardless.

Address, Please

If you know me well at all or have been a reader for awhile, you know
that bad communication is one of my pet peeves. A negative response or
a response that you don't know or don't want to talk about whatever
was asked of you is better than no response, even if it's way after
the fact. No exceptions. While that hasn't really been the cause of my
frustrations, it has exacerbated many frustrations.

Anyway, I presently am in the office to get my CAC card renewed, where
I have been since 10:40. I knew it would be an inefficient process -
that's typical for a government service - but some things, like where
to and what to bring were just awful. The website says to sign up for
an appointment but once here, treat everyone like a walk-in. Also,
they never give an address for this place. It's a big base and the
building are not numbered in any particular way so building 767
doesn't help much, but that's all they gave. And maps of this place
with building numbers are apparently very hard to find. I'd even say
it's impossible to find a map if you're off base like I was this
morning when I got the reminder of this "appointment." so, you ask,
why not just ask a colleague. They don't know where the CAC renewal
place is, either, because it has moved so much.

This reminded me of a class I had to attend last year at SRC, again
with no address given or even a spelled acronym. My boss directed me
to the Smith recreation center on base. It turned out the class was at
Scientific Research Corporation.

Also, in some job applications I've filled out lately, they ask what
my current work address is and I have no idea. And can't find what it
officially is anywhere. My pay check is from Pensacola -everyone just
refers to my work place as building 226.

I tend to think I am extremely good at being resourceful and finding
information so if I'm struggling with it, it's a seriously flawed
system.
Sent from my iPhone

Expiration Dates

Everything in life has an expiration date – not just fruits and veggies and milk. And the expiration date varies from one thing to another. With foods, milk and eggs may be good for only a week or two, cheese may last 3 weeks in the fridge, juice a month or two, meat a few days in the fridge, while other things like peanut butter, jelly, and other condiments might last a year or more. And if you put something in the freezer, it will stay good for much longer, frozen meat might last 6 months or more in the freezer and still be good to eat later. Notice how lots of these things have a very short life span or a rather long one.

Now, this isn’t meant to be an article on food and when you should throw out stuff. I’m certainly no expert on that. I mean, I generally like to cook and think I’m pretty good at it, but it has been over 2 months since I’ve cooked anything that didn’t involve a microwave, and that doesn’t count as cooking.

So, what does an expiration date have to do with travel or relationships, the themes of this blog? Well, the various things that consume our lives, from our acquaintance to our TV interests, sports interests, travel interests, romantic interests, even sometimes work interests, all eventually reach a point where we’re no longer interested. Or at least, it reaches a point where the interest hits a plateau. We may not know when the interest actually fades away, for it may be in old age when we start to lose some of our critical thinking abilities.

Anyway, in life, not unlike food, if something is good enough to us or interesting enough to us to last a couple of months, it’s much more likely to last a lot longer. For personal interests, 3 months seems to me to be the cutoff between just getting caught up in the hype of something and genuinely wanting something/someone to be part of your life. I can’t think of many things that I’ve wanted to do for more than 3 months and not be stuck on it (or want to be stuck on it) for much longer. These passing interests and mild crushes tend to fade away within a couple of months.

Let’s take, for example, my various little computer/internet interests over the past few years. I’ve had a couple of blogs before that didn’t last. I once tried to write my own newspaper/newsletter to send out to friends and acquaintances, which lasted about 5 issues. I tried being an online math tutor, which lasted about 3 months. I got interested in online poker, which lasted about 2 months. I got interested in Scrabble Cubes on World Winner. For a couple of months, that took all my free time at home. I got interested in bejeweled for awhile, too. I got interested in scrabble online. That interest has come and gone for years. Interest in bridge online has come and gone a lot as well, but has basically been the only online thing that has been in my life for good for a long time. And this blog as well as my bridge blogs are getting to be close to a year old with very regular updates.

I could extend this with examples of personal relationships, friendships, food interests, travel fascinations, places I want to live. Basically, wait until 3 months have passed of trying something or thinking about making a big change before passing judgment. It is a fine line but I think 3 months is a good guideline for when you can tell the difference in a whim and a serious interest.

Quick Conclusions Often Lead the Best of Us Astray...

…the wisest move in life is just to wait

Otherwise, your galloping emotions run away

Like horses at the gate

…

Don’t fall back on your assumptions

Hasty presumptions might do you in

…

Sometimes having patience is as good as having brains

So take your bloody time”

Now, I have no interest in horse racing but the message in this song is wonderful. These quotes are from “Off to the Races”, one of the songs to look forward to in Edwin Drood next week. It’s gonna quite amusing.

People have a tendency to act hastily upon hearing some things or get too excited about something too quickly only to later realize that waiting it out would have led to a better outcome. This could mean waiting for a more thorough explanation or waiting until you’ve had time to think about the situation without being caught up in the emotions surrounding a situation. Our judgment is impaired when emotions are running high, whether it’s positive or negative emotions so we should postpone judgment until later, and maybe later, things will have already worked themselves out.

I used to think I was pretty good at not jumping to conclusions – I guess I still think I am good in that way, but I have been guilty of jumping to assumptions too quickly a couple of times and not being patient enough lately, and it has come back to bite me. And other people certainly have done their fair share of not having patience with me. But all is good.

It’s been several months since I started seriously considering moving and I still want to move to Montréal, at least for 6 months to a year, so it must be a real interest and not just some quick conclusion that would have led me astray. So, I waited and I am no closer or farther away from actually making that happen, but the fact that I am still interested must mean it wasn’t a bad idea. Must arrange a visit.