It was 50o outside when I went to bed last night. This morning, the fire is gone, the box is cold and there are only two sticks of wood in the rack. Going out to get wood was miserable. 25o + 25 mph is much worse than 50o . So, units matter.
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Christmas movies can be sappy or overly sentimental. The good ones are not. In It’s a Wonderful LIfe, George Bailey is a man who is knocked flat by life, and kills himself. The dark is necessary for a meaningful journey to the light.
Klaus is a good Christmas movie that gives an explanation for Christmas traditions without a Christmas miracle.
Pluribus is currently the number one TV show streaming on Apple TV and is getting a lot of attention from science fiction fans. Vince Gilligan, the show runner, also created Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. The main character, played by Rhea Seehorn, crushed it in Better Call Saul.
The show sucks. I just watched the season finale, and don’t get why my nerdling friends rave about this series.
WSJ: Classroom Phone Bans Work. So Why Don’t All Schools Do It?
A large urban district in Florida saw an increase in student test scores. A smaller school district in rural California is experiencing a dramatic decline in student behavioral problems. The reason for both: the absence of smartphones in the classroom.
Public schools are administrated by political animals without the ambition or ability to run for office. Some care about education, but no incentive rewards that.
Parents don’t push for phone bans because they don’t care about their children. A flip phone with no data plan solves all these issues. Parents are so eager to be liked, they willingly put their children in danger.
Sparky said he wanted to thank Aunt Joanne for the Duck Recipe Gourmet Sausages she gave him for Christmas.
“Take a picture while I hold up the bag!”
When Sparky made that suggestion, I thought he was being very considerate for an autistic guy.
Healthline: How Long Does It Take for a New Behavior to Become a Habit?
Does anyone really do New Year’s Resolutions?
When we were young adults, we made absurd New Year’s Resolutions to parody the idea. Someone vowed to not shoot any polar bears eating marshmallows in snow storms. I don’t know why we thought that was funny. It was a simpler time.
Thomas Edison’s first wife, Mary Stilwell, died of “congestion of the brain”. That’s a phrase that shouldn’t have gone out of style.
Detroit Post and Tribune (1882): The First Electric Christmas Tree Lights
A former girlfriend told me that Martin Luther invented decorating Christmas trees. She was a good Luthern, but I was skeptical. She also told me that Martin Luther invented bowling. Who’s to say?
That wasn’t the flex that she intended, because putting tiny candles on dry pine trees, inside the house, has a Russian roulette feel to it.
The First Electric Christmas Tree Lights
from the Detroit Post and Tribune (1882)
Johnson’s glowing Christmas tree was visible through his home’s windows, and caused a stream of people to pass by his house, intrigued by this new use of electricity.
[It was described in an article by William Augustus Croffut, a Michigan newspaper reporter.]
“Last evening I walked over beyond Fifth Avenue and called at the residence of Edward H. Johnson, vice-president of Edison’s electric company. There, at the rear of the beautiful parlors, was a large Christmas tree, presenting a most picturesque and uncanny aspect. It was brilliantly lighted with many colored globes about as large as an English walnut and was turning some six times a minute on a little pine box. There were eighty lights in all encased in these dainty glass eggs, and about equally divided between white, red and blue. As the tree turned, the colors alternated, all the lamps going out and being relit at every revolution. The result was a continuous twinkling of dancing colors, red, white and blue, all evening.
I need not tell you that the scintillating evergreen was a pretty sight – one can hardly imagine anything prettier. The ceiling was crossed obliquely with two wires on which hung 28 more of the tiny lights; and all the lights and the fantastic tree itself with its starry fruit were kept going by the slight electric current brought from the main office on a filmy wire. The tree was kept revolving by a little hidden crank below the floor which was turned by electricity. It was a superb exhibition.”