President's Day Are You Buying It? With a Cherry On Top

                                            

Presidents’ Day—Are You Buying It?

So this week we celebrate Presidents’Day and apparently we honor presidents by buying things and not just certain things.. everything from suits to computers and subscriptions and memberships.  I wonder if John Quincy  Adam’s or Herbert Hoover feels honored  when customers get 30% off a touch screen all in one with 2TB solid state drives?  Now when I was younger we used to celebrate a couple of specific president’s birthdays but now we don’t have time for all that and we have learned some facts about presidents we’d rather not  spend time focused on like the fact that Jefferson  believed that all men were created equal and set about creating babies with all ethnicities just about equally.    Oh and now we are pretty certain that George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree nor then did he confess to his father he couldn’t tell a lie.  But alas the cherry  seems to have come through this okay as in this same week  we also have National Cherry Pie Day.   

So let’s transition between this cherry tree fake news to some real facts.  While we recognize cherry pie day… government  has abandoned the Washington  tale but not all states have cleared the books of cherry-related mandates.  In fact, Kansas  has deemed it illegal to prepare and serve cherry pie aala mode.    Okay let us move ahead shall we?

There are two basic types of cherries—sweet and tart.  Tart is the type we use to bake with and in the part of country where this entry originates  tart is the type that we are semi-famous for in a region less than an hour away.  If we travel less than an hour we can view the world’s fastest carry picking  process where tree shakers can harvest thousands of cherries in mere seconds.  In fact, a whole tree (7000 cherries) can be collected  in a quaint 7 seconds.  That’s probably enough cherries for  somewhere between 25 and 28 pies if you are generous with the cherries.  

But if pie is not your thing you can also get cherry wine, cherry cream soda, cherry jam, all types of cherries and chocolate and of course cherry BBQ sauce!

Travers City MI is known as Cherry City U.S.A. and it’s minor league  baseball team is the “Pit Spitters.”  This serves as a reminder of a saying from  several decades ago that has sort of gone by the way side…by the way which side is the “way?”  We all know the inside, the outside,  the upside  and downside, the left side and the right side and even the suicide .. and yet the “way side?”  

Okay let’s get back to the saying… Life is a bowl of cherries but sometimes it’s the pits…. And speaking of the pits… NASCAR is back and that means baseball  is coming soon… so we’ll wrap  things up with this… 

No matter if  life is the pits, it’s always time to step up to the plate in life and take a swing.   

So take your discounted laptop and hotel rewards membership go out and salute  Grover, Herbert, Tricky Dick and Old Hickory… and have some dessert  with a cherry on top  

Things Change

                                                                                            

 If you hear the sound of saws while you’re standing on a limb

Or fear the blurry  shadows as the light begins to dim

When  the buzzer says  it’s over as the ball bangs off the rim

As the waves consume the lifeboat and some aboard can’t swim

You can  choose to start believing that all  of life is grim

But  i say grab your Goblet and fill it to the brim

For Karma flips eternally and often on a whim

And your slice of glee and happiness is really not that slim

Things Change

What’s Your “IP” Address…relax.calm?

 Time to loosen your grip

take a shot from the hip

All the posing just skip

And your sweetness unzip

So what if you slip

Don’t let fear crack the whip

Take a gulp not a sip

From Your Grail called Life’s Trip

Live Now

Life/Math Hacks and String Theory

 Math hacks, Life, and String Theory?

Personal Note….

I have recieved a good deal of feedback about  my initial. Math/life hack post… mostly politely informing  me that “this nerdy” stuff  is better explained in person or in a one to one conversation… Well… I’m not sure about that yet the public can’t be wrong (Hitler? Trading Babe Ruth? Disco? The “New” Coke)… Having said this … I have a whole bunch of math hacks and a willingness to share  with anyone at almost any time.   You can find me on facebook, twitter, and all the major podcast and audio  platforms like Spotify, Amazon, libsyn, Google Play and on and on… For  now just ponder that 72 times any two digit number  will always  be that number times 100 minus 28 times that number… and to make this easy which math is let’s pick 72 times 28 which is 2800 - 28 squared  (784) giving us 2016 which  is of course the same  (remember the 25 rule from two entries ago?)  72/4= 18 times 100 plus 3 times 72 (216 and 1800 + 216 well you get the picture… Okay need help?  Want math to be fun?  Connect..

All we are saying here is that Math  and Life sometimes  are not “String  Theory”. Which brings me to some pondering about two matters… Kites and shoestrings.

In mid-January we recognize “International” Kite Day and just this week we celebrate National Kite day here in the U. S.  Two questions… do we here in the home of the brave really need a separate day? And are January or February  really great kite flying months?   Did Franklin “discover” electricity?  Are you trying to convince me that prior to Good ole’ Benny there was never static cling… These people wore wool in the winter time… Great Marketing Ben.  

There is something cool about running just fast enough and catching a breeze  to get a sheet of paper or whatever floating  up in the air until  its caught in the crabby ole man’s tree just up the street or wrapped around the electric wires (thanks Ben your “discovery led to the Kite killing  high voltage line currently capturing many kites  nationwide every year…. 

Now there are some great kite related  records (google it) but the most amazing is probably that a kite has been flown over 15,000 feet in the air.  Question: how long did it take to wind back in that string?   Did they just leave it in Kansas when they were done and start selling t-shirts for the “World’s  Biggest Ball of Twine?”  And if not why not? 

Shoestrings

Fastest  tied ever … less than two seconds Strongest… lifted  714 kilos —over 1500 pounds

So What in the world do these strings have to do with Seeking Peace and Joy?

Well simply some ties or strings are made quickly and some are strong some strings hold true  and keep things connected from some long distances.   Some strings and connections allow people and their spirits to fly while others just get tangles and leave people  and their lives hanging.  The point here is that life is a journey that presents a whole lot of choices about strings some you will choose to hold onto and others you may choose to cut.  Some will break and your kites that were so carefully constructed will drift away and leave you holding  just a ball of unwound experiences.  You may choose to leave that string on the ground or tie  it to something  else but don’t tie it to a key in a storm and claim you discovered  a naturally occurring  thing that’s been done.

In short kites in the winter don’t make sense and neither do some strings we almost always believe must be attached in ways that most people accept.  Be aware of the strings in your life and why you use them and how they connect you… Also remember some puppets are operated  using strings and they have a fancy name… but they are puppets on strings and by any other name they are not making choices… don’t become one of those…

Well I’ve strung you along  long enough … thanks for reading …tell me to go fly a kite.. if you wish