Sparky has to solve a puzzle.
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February 6th, 2018, Elon Musk demonstrated that launching objects into orbit had become a mundane commercial activity. To make it interesting, the object he put in orbit was a Tesla Roadster that has since traveled over a million miles and made four laps around the sun. Where is the Roadster now?
As we left Maumee Bay State Park this morning, Sparky was in a mood.
Sparky is too low in the seat to be looking out the window. He doesn’t look out the window very often, but when he does, his front paws are up on the arm rest.
When Sparky heard the click from my phone, he looked my way. There is no joy in that mug. If he was a girlfriend, he’d be ‘fine’ in that bad way.
The body language was enough for me to know he didn’t want to talk about it. I can only speculate.
Sparky really liked Maumee. There were quite a few rabbits, some deer and plenty of brush for him to burrow into. We left at 8 am, so that’s kind of early in the day to be pessimistic about never coming back.
Around 5 am, a big storm blew in. Sparky says he’s not afraid of storms, but does go on high alert. It was enough to wake me up, and since I wasn’t going to go back to sleep, I made some breakfast and started packing up. Maybe he was just grumpy from not getting enough sleep.
Sparky didn’t sleep in the car, so maybe he’s like me. When we’re up, we’re up. I gave him some space, and by the time we got to the turnpike, he was feeling better.
Old dogs can learn new tricks, but are cunning enough to play dumb. Sometimes, they slip up.
At North Royalton, the Special Ed department would go around with some of their students to refill the pop machines. It gave the students a way to feel like they were contributing and helped them with practical skills.
One day, as I was leaving cafeteria duty, one of the differently-tarded students hailed me.
“Mr. Nestoff, do you want to hear a joke?”
He was given a joke book for his birthday, and was pretty happy about it.
“I really do. Tell me a joke.”
“What do you call a sick pig?”
I should be able to get this, but I was stumped.
With the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes in theaters, it seemed like a good time to watch the series of movies in close succession.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes, showing on Hulu, is the first movie in this series and has a theme entirely different from the original Planet of the Apes. They aren’t comparable. Which is good, because it’s difficult to beat the gravitas of Charlton Heston. He had some great lines and really sells them. The 1968 series has a racial tension theme, and while the first movie is enjoyable, the rest of the movies in that series are a weak.
For once, Sparky listened to me when I told him that I see a rabbit. I let him off the leash to chase it. He ran into the woods, and barked occasionally to let me know it was going well. Sparky was never in any danger of catching it.
This was an experiment because, in the past, Sparky has gotten out of the house and gone on a walkabout. For the last few months, he’s been good about coming when called, and I’ve been testing him off the leash. When I do yard work, he comes out on his brush anchor. If he wanders too far away, I call him, and he comes back. It doesn’t take him long to figure how far he can go. Sparky likes being outside and is good about chasing the quad when I go to the next tree or wood pile.
Sparky can get oblivious when he’s huffing an interesting scent trail. When he was chasing the rabbit, he came back when called. We aren’t going to repeat this experiment very often, but we’ve got rabbits so Sparky may as well run them down.
I don’t know, maybe it’s because Sparky’s cousin Ozzie just passed away, but I want Sparky to live his best life. When a storm is coming and Sparky isn’t feeling very confident, we reminisce about the time he almost caught a rabbit, and that always raises his spirits.
Every few years, I would get an exchange student. One year, it was a German girl. She was friendly, easy-going and got along well with everyone. It was the last day before Christmas Break, so just before the bell, I made my standard pre-break salutation.
Life after early retirement: the elephant in the room. What to do after the cruises, the skydiving, the teetering stack of books on the night stand? The main danger of FIRE is that you might be running hard away from something rather than toward it — that you’re propelled only by the too-nebulous idea of escape. And then, even for those who lay out a clear road map for decades of nirvana, the loneliness can eat at you.
FIRE means Financial Independence Retire Early.
The article is helpful for people who don’t understand money. Life works better if you understand yourself.
I haven’t watched The Acolyte because hate-watching a show isn’t appealing. It may not seem fair to judge a show without watching it, but the show creator, Leslye Headland, has made it clear in interviews that the show should be categorized as lesbian fantasy. Using the logic of the lead actress, Amandla Stenberg, none of the actors are like me. Representation is so important.