Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, January 6, 2016

• This comment was posted yesterday and I wanted to share it in case it got overlooked. It’s raw and helped me gain some perspective and I want to thank the person for taking the time to write it. It was a response to Gordon Keith’s loss of his parents and my thoughts of being “orphaned” or without any living parents.
  • I’ve been nobody’s son for several years now, and both my parents are still alive. You spend a lot of time missing them, and I suppose that’s admirable in some ways, but you should spend more time being grateful for having had great parents. I realize those two emotions may be inseparable, and it’s not meant as a criticism. But for those of us who have had drunk assholes as parents, then spend a significant number of years trying to be the good son, then finally decide to cut the dead weight from our lives, it’s liberating. I’m not sure I will know when my parents die. I know for certain I won’t grieve for them.
• I too had to part ways with a close family member, one that I idolized as a kid and teen. And as much as I miss the relationship, I’m thankful I no longer feel like I’m walking on eggshells or trying to make it work. Sometimes you do have to cut the dead weight, and it is liberating.
• For those of you that have gotten a lot out of Netflix’s ‘Making a Murderer’, I think you’d enjoy the series ‘Rectify’ which is also streaming on Netflix. At least, give the pilot a try. In short, the main character, Daniel Holden, was imprisoned as a teenager for the rape and murder of his 16-year-old friend, Hanna. After 19 years on death row, new DNA evidence vacates his original trial, and he returns to his small Georgia hometown. The DA that tried him is now a senator trying to reopen the case with other small town politics coming into play, and you get to see Daniel try to adjust to a world which passed him by, by 19-years.
• Natalie Cole died on the last day of 2015 at the age of 65. I bet many folks would be surprised to her that her legendary father, Nat King Cole, died at the age of 45.
• I never knew that former President George H.W. Bush resigned from the NRA back in 1995.
• If you want to win a Ted Cruz engraved shotgun, enter for a chance to win at his website – TedCruz.org/l/gun-raffle/
• Nigerian email scammer faces 30 years in Texas jail
• Josh Hamilton must be devasted – Sherlock’s on Central Expressway closes as lease expires
• An interactive chart of causes of death in the U.S.
• Buzzfeed – This Mayor Had Been In Office Less Than A Day When She Was Gunned Down – Gisela Mota, 33, was in charge of Temixco, Mexico, for only hours before she was killed.
• According to this Dallas Morning News interview, a $510 million data center by Digital Lewisville LLC is going to be built in Lewisville.
• Shepherds pie is back at Costco, you have no idea how happy that makes me.
• WifeGeeding should know better than let me shop at Costco alone. I was asked to just pick up toilet paper, green tea, and protein shakes, and I left with much more than that.

Posted in Personal | 3 Comments

Something for the John Candy fan

Posted in Pop Culture | 1 Comment

Random Use of Tennyson’s “Ulysses”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCjnCHvpLiM

Posted in Pop Culture | Comments Off on Random Use of Tennyson’s “Ulysses”

Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, January 5, 2016

• Bag of Randomness should be posting at 2:00 AM CST but I’ve heard from someone that it doesn’t display when you go to the website directly, yet it will on an RSS feed. Anyone else see anything odd?
• When I was a kid in school, the hardest thing to do coming back to school would be to write the correct year on the heading of papers. I remember one teacher would knock off points on all papers that listed the previous year without any warning because the correct date was always displayed on the chalkboard.
• Years ago I read a book by a former George W. Bush speechwriter. In one chapter he wrote about a moment when he was alone on the Truman Balcony one night with the President, who was drinking a non-alcoholic beer, and stated how beautiful the “Washington Memorial” looked. The speechwriter knew the President referenced it incorrectly as it’s actually the Washington Monument, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment nor show any sign of disrespect. That got me to thinking how often I’ve often made the same mistake, and I noticed LiberallyLean.com made the mistake yesterday.  And despite looking at a source or two, I’m still unsure when one is used over the other.
• I just found out that TSA Pre-Check is only $85 for five years. It allows you to go into the “fast lane” at the airport and you don’t have to remove shoes, laptops, belts, and certain liquids. So if you only fly roundtrip once a year, that works out to $8.50 a flight for five years. Of course, you have to sign up for it before a flight, which means filling out an online form and visiting an office or airport for fingerprinting.
• Yesterday was black Monday in the NFL with all the head coach firings, which reminds me of something funny a friend once said that I’ll always remember, “Never underestimate a coach whose last name ends in a vowel.”
• The ‘Sherlock’ Victorian special that aired on New Year’s Day was exceptional.
• I watched the NFL Network’s ‘A Football Life’ on Alan Page about three months ago. After his NFL career, he went on to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court. Before the start of his last game there was a pregame ceremony and he quoted some lines from the poem ‘Ulysses‘ which made me look up the poem.  Every ten days or so I think of the poem, re-read it, and look at different reviews and interpretations.
  • Here’s a great summary of the poem – “Ulysses” details Ulysses’ intense dissatisfaction and boredom on his island home of Ithaca. The poem is a monologue spoken by him, where he not only expresses his discontent, but also describes his desire to keep sailing. He’s getting older and doesn’t have a lot of time left, so he wants to get busy living rather than busy dying. The poem concludes with his resolution to “strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
  • Interpretations (Wikipedia)
  • And a few bits of trivia
    • T. S. Eliot called “Ulysses” a “perfect poem”
    • It was read in the Bone movie Skyfall.
    • U.S. Senator Robert Francis Kennedy quoted the three last lines at the end of his speech “On the Mindless Menace of Violence” in America a day after the assassination of Martin Luther King.
    • The final line is inscribed on a cross at Observation Hill, Antarctica, to commemorate explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his party, who died on their return trek from the South Pole in 1912:One equal temper of heroic hearts,
      Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
      To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
• A new Texas law about school districts and time in the classroom –  A new Texas state law that counts the school year by minutes instead of days means local school districts could add extra days off for both students and staff by squeezing minutes into the school day.
• Texas college choice flow chart that excludes some schools like Rice and Hardin-Simmons.
• His credit score isn’t listed in the article though he says it’s almost perfect – Walter Cavanagh has 1,497 valid credit cards — all of which amount to a $1.7 million line of credit. Currently, he holds the record for the most credit cards and for the world’s longest wallet, which stretches 250 feet, weighs about 38 pounds and can hold 800 cards.
• Buzzfeed – Chick-Fil-A’s Only New York City Restaurant Closes After Six Violations
• GIF – Hat Hair
• The TICKET’s Gordon Keith lost his mother eight months ago and his father passed away at the beginning of the year.  He shared the following tweets:
  • @gordonkeith – My father was determined. “No child should lose both parents in the same year.” On the 2nd day of 2016, he left as I held him. He made it.
  • @gordonkeith – My mom & dad are both gone now. Lost them them [sic] 8 months apart to the day. As I left the hospital panic hit. Kept thinking “I’m nobody’s son”
• I remember on the drive home from Parkland after my mother died I thought that even though I’m in my thirties, I felt orphaned since I no longer have living parents; that I no longer needed them, but in a way I still did need them, and I’ll no longer have that parental support or encouragement that helped me through all my life. There was, indeed, a void in my life that will never be completely filled.
• I’ve been told by doctors and vets that a lot of people and animals die at the beginning of the year. People tend to hold on, keep that will to live for another milestone, and then let go. Pet owners tend to do the same before facing the task of putting a beloved one down.
• Four new elements to be added to periodic table – the seventh row of the periodic table is finally complete.

Posted in Personal | 9 Comments