Earthy Endeavors

 

This is just one of those round up sort of posts. No deep thoughts going on here at the moment.

First, though, here’s a golf recruiting photo from Tuesday.

The course where friends and I play is in the heart of farming country. I pass endless fields of corn and others of tobacco (yes, weirdly, it’s a major crop here) and I’m sure this course was once the home of cows or corn.

 Now, though, it has open spaces (of course) interspersed with a meandering brook.

 I’ve lost more balls than I can count in its pools and deeper spots since it seems almost every hole has some body of water we have to get over. The scenery and soft breezes tend to cancel out most of my urges to fling my golf club into the shrubbery.

Today was the first day of my pottery class. My friend and I had gotten the bug this spring and had been hoping to find a local place convenient for the both of us. It turned out to be just the two of us plus the teacher and after a bit of conversation and a little time forming a blob of clay into a workable ball, we were soon all straddling a wheel. Sadly, with no Patrick Swayze behind us.

The rest of the class was spent trying to center the ball on the wheel (not as easy as it sounds) and then working it into a hockey puck, then putting a center into it, shaping the sides, raising the sides, and evening out the top. My friend now has a recognizable small vessel on a shelf there, waiting for its first firing. I, however, have exactly as much clay in my big bag as I began with, my maiden effort having collapsed into a sad brown pile. Probably just as well I don’t have a photo for you.

 

 

Me versus them

 I thought when every appliance in my kitchen but one went down the drain last year that with all these new shiny stainless steel friends life would be simpler.

Stupidity

 

As I’ve written before, on Sunday, I spent a good 45 minutes that I’ll never get back on the phone with “Cynthia”, a kind and patient lady from LL Bean’s Mastercard customer service. I’d received a letter asking me to update my information but when I tried to access my account online, I couldn’t get there.

Rebellion - Me and James Dean

 

Something about this last birthday pulled a trigger for me. I’ve finally realized at my advanced age, if I don’t want to do something, there’s often no reason why I should.

Cautionary Tale

 

(Back in 1936, when SS#s first appeared, people thought it would be a swell idea to tattoo them onto an arm. )

Susans and Tom

 

It seems like every year I’m newly pleased by my garden, as though nothing had ever bloomed there before.

AI: IB vs AP

 

No, my title isn’t in code. It’s a response to last week’s Boston Globe article by Simon Rabinovitch about the use of artificial intelligence in education.