He could learn something from Isaac Asimov. There are four stanzas.

One of my favorite bloggers, Eric at Classical Values has finally put Asimov’s essay “All Four Stanzas” online.

His reason for doing so is important. In his words:

Sometimes I have trouble sleeping peaceably in my bed at night because I know that rough men stand ready to do violence to quotations on the Internet.

As they say, read the whole thing. But if you don’t have time for the whole thing, at least read “All Four Stanzas“.

My youngest grandchild, Penelope, was born on April 6 and I think she’s beautiful! That’s a completely unbiased assessment.

Along with more photos of the baby and her big sister, I’ve got stories about my Amazon account being hacked, my car breaking down, a stinky motel room, a horrible hospital stay, rigid unreasonable health insurance rules, my husband’s 27 hour Greyhound bus trip. Let’s just say it was all interesting.

via DrugMonkey

I think Obama is declaring “war” on Fox because he knows he can’t keep “running” against Bush forever and this is the next best thing.

It’s a proxy war.

There is very little that Obama is “for” that does not meet with protest from the electorate. Actually, there is little that Obama is “for” unless one turns upside down language and accepts a negative for some as a positive for all.

But for me, it’s an emotional issue. He speaks of getting rid of perhaps 50-100 books, and how his children will not curse him for this decision. He is implying they will be grateful.

I left a comment there, expressing the comfort that being surrounded by books gives me… and expressing the discomfort I’ve felt after having sold books I wish I still had. I acknowledge obliquely that I am a packrat.

Whether I am the blessed recipient or helpless victim of items beloved deceased individuals have put into my possession… I’m not sure. I certainly can’t quite keep up with them even if they are so small as snapshots. When the items are furniture, machines, keepsakes, collections… there’s a space problem as well.

Books are a special problem for me. I have, without doubt, absolutely worthless books on my numerous bookshelves and in piles in various not-so-out-of-the-way places.

My fondness, love, attraction, addiction to these printed and physical items might be related to my love/hate relationship with digital everything.

While I have physical prints of my children and grandchildren worthy of framing that have been framed and which I cherish, there are those snapshots not necessarily worthy of framing which mean so much to me. There are the “action” shots where personality shines, but the composition isn’t ‘artistic’ or even pleasing. Yet, the expression on the child’s or adult’s face is timeless and worthy of remembrance.

Sometimes that snapshot captures an essence that ‘art’ does not.

So… where am I going with this post? Mostly, it’s that my children and grandchildren are going to have to deal with a lot of junk to get a 3-dimensional image of who I am. And… that while it may not be easy, it will be – I hope – enlightening in some way.

The mental clock was programmed by working for years in a 24 hour industry. Three shifts, and the last one started at 11 pm. Can we agree that it would be a mathematical and bookkeeping nightmare to be accurate and calculate the hours and pay spanning two different days rather than one?

So, a day — for minimal distress and the payroll bookkeeper’s sanity started at 7 am. Of course, a simple solution would be to start the work day at midnight, but… frankly that would be too damn simple and still confusing for the workers who headed off to work on the 2nd day of the month but didn’t clock in until the 3rd.

Also, it’s just best to not have shifts end at noon or midnight. There’s always that 59 minute question, is there not? Does morning end at 11:59 am? Does afternoon start at 12:01? Frankly, every 24 hour business would lose 2 minutes of work per day. That adds up to an entire 12 hour shift being lost every year per worker.

Business could not function under that loss, since it would be added to the 3 hours per 8 hour shift lost to surfing the internet and general goofing off.

What should be understood is whether I finally finish this post at 11:59 on Saturday, September 19 or 4:02 am on Sunday, September 20, it is still a Saturday night post.

This manner of time-keeping also comes in handy for those who have had instilled in them the idea that drinking on Sunday is a bad thing. Using this method, Saturday night parties can last much longer. An there’s no reason why one can’t drink until 2 or 3 am, then have a leisurely breakfast at Waffle House and still grab a few hours sleep before church.

Don’t think I can’t sense the rumblings of some of you disagreeing out there. Rationalization, you say? Hell yeah! Why else did we evolve big brains?