Still On Schedule

Posted on 21/10/2023 by Grumpa Joe

Every year, I set a goal to read four books per month, and I am happy to report that I am still on schedule. The most recent is titled “Life in Five Senses” by Gretchen Rubin. Ms Rubin is a remarkable writer with a vocabulary she is not afraid to use. Yet, her writing is completely readable, understandable, and entertaining. In this work, she does an outstanding job of reporting the results of her research to explore her five senses. In one experiment, she sets a goal to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art daily for a year. In another, she visits five delicatessens with her daughter and mother-in-law to explore different tastes. This is an easy trip for her because she lives in New York in Manhattan, where everything is in her immediate neighborhood. For me, this would be an all-day adventure involving driving over a hundred miles to five different towns near me. The same goes for visiting the Chicago Art Museum, which requires a forty-five-minute drive and a twenty-dollar parking fee. Nevertheless, I enjoyed her narrative of the many experiments and descriptions of how she involved her five senses. She also makes a great point that we too often overlook the small things in life that make it more exciting and enjoyable.

I recommend this book if you want to know where you stand in paying attention to your five senses.

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Step One To See Like An Eagle

Posted on 23/10/2014 by Grumpa Joe

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Yesterday, I underwent the first of two surgeries to remove cataracts from my eyes. For some reason the idea of having my eye cut open spooked me beyond belief, and I was nervous going into it. The experience from home to home took about three hours, but the experience in the operating room about fifteen minutes.

I awake partially coming out of sedation and could see and feel the surgeon poking about in my eye. When he unstrapped my head and announced “its all over” the first words out of my moth were “everything is fuzzy.”

This morning, I had to see the surgeon again, I think he forgot to sign his work and wanted to check to see if he did. He told me the story about what I said and I told him the disappointment I felt about not seeing things sharp and clear. He asked if I were an Engineer. “I am,” I answered. “That explains it. Engineers, and doctors all like to see things sharp and well-defined.”

He told me to put my chin on the machine and my forehead against the strap. I did, and he began flipping lenses and asking which one is better?  After a few minutes of this he reported to me that the astigmatism in my eye before surgery measured 250, and with the new lens it is now at 100. So I guess I’m stuck with some astigmatism for the remaining few years of my life. He informed me that I could have chosen to go with new lens designed to end astigmatism at an out-of-pocket cost of $1450 extra per eye.  Of course I chose not to get an experimental thing like that with such an exorbitant extra cost.

He lectured further and told me that as my eye returns to its normal dilation things will get better. By then I will be complaining about the right eye as well. In the meantime, I now have a situation where I don’t need glasses for my left eye, but I need them for my right eye. I guess I have to cut my old glasses in half and try a monocular vision correction.

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“Shining City Upon the Hill”

Posted on 27/10/2009 by Grumpa Joe

Ronald Reagan inspired me with his speeches. None excited me more than the image he painted of the “Shining City Upon the Hill.” My heart swelled with pride as I envisioned our great country pictured as a beacon of hope and opportunity.

Barack Obama inspires me also; to move to Australia. He is chipping away at the concept of the shining city as rapidly as he can. He has employed several czars (32 to be accurate) to change policy in every conceptual institution that the shining city is built upon.

I sat in church this weekend and listened to a great priest who was “begging.”  His job was to travel from parish to parish around the country and tell the story of homeless babies in the Caribbean countries like Haiti, and in South America where a million children a year starve to death. The organization is called “Food For the Poor.” They are a volunteer organization. With their efficiencies in place, 96% of the money collected is converted to food and necessities. I thought to myself, what a great bunch of people to create and run such an effort. As I sat and thought about what they do, and what my pledge will be, I began to wonder what future the kids who are being saved from starvation will grow into.  Currently, I don’t see the government of  Haiti providing for their own. Yet, I bet the leaders of the country all live in some opulent housing and are not starving as their people are.  They do depend on “Food For The Poor” and similar organizations to do it for them. What is that government doing to create the “Shining City Upon the Hill,” for their children?

Here in America, I see the new government spewing rhetoric about the need to re-distribute the wealth. Who will they re-distribute it to? Like in Haiti, I see our own leaders living in opulent housing, being driven by chauffeurs in very nice bullet proof sedans,  to even more opulent dinners. While we the tax payers sit in squalor waiting to be thrown a bone. I see the leaders tearing down the fabric of the Shining City to make life for the masses so much harder. I see tax dollars going into government departments that do not have a ninety-six percent efficiency, but less than fifty percent efficiency. In the meantime the number of  fat-cat government positions  increase and they  become the recipients of the re-distribution. 

Come to think of it, I’ve never heard  Barack Obama’s vision for his country, have you?

POTUS and His Army of Czars

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Monet Vision

Posted on 10/05/2008 by Grumpa Joe

Grumpa Joe Looks at FlowerMy vision of the new garden is a Monet painting. Lots of soft muted colors with textures, and rooms galore. The vision began as a single idea. I won’t afford a house on a lake, so I built the lake in my backyard. The lake is a pond. By making a pond, I can look at water views all year long. Right now the pond is still void of plantings. A large baby step occurred this week,  I went shopping for plant materials with my garden club.  Yesterday another baby step, I dug out a few Rose of Sharon shrubs from a friends yard. Together we unearthed a ten foot tall shrub. It was a joy to stuff the root ball into the trunk of my meticulous Avalon, the shrub hanging out over the end of the bumper. Yesterday’s baby step also included planting the shrubs into their new home around the pond. Today, the baby step was to spot the 13 perennials that I bought on Wednesday. I also planted a miniature  spruce that my deceased wife bought over ten years ago. I planted it into the pot for her. The tiny tree had a place on our patio. Today, It became a permanent part of the pond-scape. Slowly, ever so slowly, the vision becomes more of a reality.

As I place things into the ground, new details of the vision emerge from the depths of my sub-conscious and the garden expands. I will continue  to purchase plant materials all summer. Each plant will find a proper place in the vision.  Eventually, with many baby steps, the garden will evolve into a mature picture of beauty, and solitude.

 

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Picture it!

Posted on 03/04/2008 by Grumpa Joe

See it clearly in your mind. Think in color and exact details. Make mental image of your goal, then make a physical image. Create a collage of your vision. Use photos from the net, magazines, wherever you can scrounge them. Paste them together into the vision you are trying to achieve. Place the picture on your mirror so you can see it first thing every morning. Make a copy of the dream for your pc. Put it next to the screen where you can see it all day long. Whatever the goal is, a car, house, vacation, job, picture it in your mind.

Visioning is a powerful tool. Many men have advised that

 “If you can see it, and believe it, you can have it.” I have used mental visioning many times very successfully. In my career, I used visioning when I had to make a presentation before the CEO and the president of the company. I saw myself giving my report in a confident, knowledgeable way. I rehearsed the report over viand over again in my mind. I could see myself overwhelming these powerful leaders with my confidence.  When the time came to report, I was prepared, nervous, but prepared. Each time , I received kudos from the CEO and the president.

In my private life, I see my goals clearly and keep them in front of me all the time. As the goal becomes more and more clear, the reality of achievement steps in and the vision of accomplishment takes over to finish.

You too should use visioning to “see” your goals. “See” the benefits you will receive after you complete the goal successfully. In other words, “PICTURE IT!”

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