Post random thoughts, observations, and events of the day...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20081128/sc_space/spectacularskyscenemondayevening
I like a starry night.

(well, some things, anyway. the other things, I am pushing them aside. they will have to wait their turn in line like everyone else.)

it was summed up nicely on a site I saw today, so I’m just copy/pasting. any revelations I come up with or, well, any havering I do on the matter will come later. ;)

Quote:

Happiness is a creative, fecund experience that leads to sharing that happiness. Misery is selfish and solipsistic, thinking about itself and its wants. True hedonism is unselfish. Being uptight is a form of self-abuse, taking too much unto oneself, losing the calmness and humour that are really at the centre of helping others.

A few tips for a good life:

• Learn to forgive, because anger will harm you.
• Be brave, because courage is the strongest weapon.
• Be flexible. Stubbornness is often related to stupidity.
• Know yourself, and other knowledge will come to you.
• Learn everything you can. Knowledge is freedom.
• Listen to your heart. Your body and your feelings have wisdom they are trying to share with you.
• Be aware. See the wonder.
• Be at peace with yourself, which will make it possible to be at peace with others.
• Be kind.
• Remember that words are less important than the meaning or intent behind them. In most cases, the important thing is unspoken or unseen. “What is essential is invisible to the eye,” is how Antoine de Saint-Exupéry put it in The Little Prince.
• Cultivate freedom – your own, and others. Other priorities will fall into place.

From “In Memoriam” in Rosslyn Chapel, in Roslin, Scotland: _{here it is again!}

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous.” Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to manifest the glory that is within us. It is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

- Clifford Innes (1955-2000)

Bloody Baskets … Mumbai is one of my favorite cities …. shit this like makes very angry.

I know Rusty promised to expose a certain detail about my life, and I know that was two weeks ago. But things have been insane! Karadi and Mae already know, as I’ve told them of course, but I’ll still post it just in case others are reading this and wanting to know.

A couple of weeks ago my mother sat me down at the dining room table and explained that I have a biological sister. Her name is Amy and she’s 14 years old. My parents gave her up for adoption when she was born for several reasons that I don’t feel the need to go into. Amy’s been trying to gain contact with us ever since she learned how to write, but Mom has stuck to her wish for a closed adoption.

However, my persistent sister took the situation into her own hands and found my (our?) brother via Facebook. After she contacted him and told him who she was, Matt went to our parents and thus the secret was exposed.

Things are great, now. We’re all as happy as can be. Everyone around us knows and they have been very forgiving toward my parents, and very happy for us. I met Amy last weekend and she is absolutely remarkable. I’ll be seeing her again this Friday, as well as many times in the future. :)

So please know that I am doing very well. Oh, and so is Rusty. ;)

What Geithner brings to the job

Often described as brilliant but modest, Geithner, 47, has held for the past five years one of the most powerful, if little known, jobs in the country as president of the New York Federal Reserve. He is typically cited as one of the few people on or off Wall Street who can begin to untangle the murky and unregulated market of credit default swaps, the so-called “side bets” that felled AIG. He has pushed for greater transparency and the creation of a central clearinghouse where credit default swaps could be recorded and secured. And, according to Fortune, he has gotten informal promises from banks that they would participate.

His is an international background, which would come in handy at a time when G-20 governments have pledged to coordinate efforts to dig out their economies and markets. Geithner has lived in China, Japan, Thailand, India and East Africa. He got his bachelor’s from Dartmouth in government and Asian studies and his master’s in international economics and East Asian studies from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Indeed, during his years at the Treasury, he played a central role in the agency’s handling of international crises. A profile of him in The New Republic asserted that without his influence “the ‘90s might have looked very different … [His role made him] Treasury’s first-responder to foreign-currency emergencies, like the kind that plagued East Asia throughout the decade.”

The American Dialect Society seeks 2008 word-of-the-year nominations

Posted: 20 Nov 2008 02:32 PM PST

The American Dialect Society is now accepting nominations for the “word of the year” of 2008.

What is the word or phrase which best characterizes the year 2008? What expression most reflects the ideas, events, and themes which have occupied the United States and its residents?

Nominations should be sent to woty@americandialect.org.

They will be considered for the American Dialect Society’s 19th annual word-of-the-year vote, the longest-running vote of its kind in the world and the word-of-the-year event up to which all others lead. It will be held in San Francisco on Friday, January 9, 2009.

The best “word of the year” candidates will be:

—new or newly popular in 2008
—widely or prominently used in 2008
—indicative or reflective of the national discourse

Multi-word compounds or phrases that act as single lexical items are welcomed, as well.

Sub-categories for “word of the year” include most useful, most creative, most unnecessary, most outrageous, most euphemistic, most likely to succeed, and least likely to succeed.

The vote is informed by the members’ expertise in the study of words, but it is far from a solemn occasion. Members in the 119-year-old academic organization include linguists, lexicographers, etymologists, grammarians, historians, researchers, writers, authors, editors, professors, university students, and independent scholars. In conducting the vote, they act in fun and do not pretend to be officially inducting words into the English language. Instead, they are highlighting that language change is normal, ongoing, and entertaining.

Past winners can be found here.

Wow, it feels good to be at work with no work :)

Random Thought: There is an upside to procrastination. It is all levels of procrastination.
Observation: People rate what is the least thing they want to do and then find as many other things that they could do before they have to do that one thing.
Event: I hate cleaning my bathtub. I can never get the right temperature of water it is always way too hot or not hot enough. Sometimes it just seems like such a chore to do but then something worse comes up such as writing reports at work and all of a sudden I have to clean my house and then christmas decorate and then write a few blogs and then pet my cat and of course clean the tub. After that well those reports can wait another day since I did clean the house and tub!

A look at items lost in space.

_{And we are just clumsy in earth}

Pirates hijack Saudi tanker loaded with oil.

I wonder if pirates on 43T are aware of this exciting development in the ocean?