RobZerrvations
Musings from a Meandering, Mischievous Mind
Going The Distance.
When I was a wee boy and a beardless youth, I fell madly in love with a girl just down the street. Well, she would have been just down the street if her parents - who were besties with my parents - hadn't moved to Hermiston, Oregon. I would have probably never fallen so hard if it weren't for the annual treks her family would make up to Renton to visit their grandmother. It was during one of those summer visits that I met Lori, who, like most 14-year-old girls, was far more mature (and...
Quicher Bitchin’.
I've been thinking about choices a lot lately. I've made some great choices in my lifetime and some famously disastrous ones. I suppose we all have. The wonderful thing about choices is that in many cases, they can be improved upon or changed by the choices we make down the road. Our lives are never in a straight line. Rather, life is a long zig zag with plenty of double backs, switches and hairpin turns. At each juncture, we have choices to make. Some good, some bad, some simply don't matter...
What A Coincidence?
I went to the Alan Doyle concert Friday nigh. If you don't know who Alan is, well, how about lead singer of Great Big Sea? Newfie music? Kitchen party? O.K., so he may not be well known. But he does draw a rabid following of fans who love his songs of the sea and stories about life in Newfoundland. If you haven't heard him, give him a whirl. You may just find yourself questioning what you've been doing all these years without his music, just like I did when Great Big Sea first stepped into my...
A Couple Strokes Off My Game.
As Superman, I have been able to skirt most conditions mere mortals endure. As we all know, Superman's only weakness is kryptonite, and in his mild-mannered form, Lois Lane. You never see Superman taken away in an aid car, rushed to ER, connected to a slew of machines and run back and forth through an MRI. It just isn't very Supermanny. Well, this Superman, this man of steel and mirth, got taken for a ride this weekend. No, I didn't go faster than a speeding bullet. Instead, I lost my mind....
I Wanna Be An AstroNOT!
I was watching a great show about the space program the other day. It was a bit surprising since I can rarely find a show I haven't seen at least once. Even the crappiest documentary or movie will get my attention. In this case, the documentary was In the Shadow of the Moon and was filled with interviews of the astronauts that went to the moon along with some footage I had never seen before. There were some great stories in it. I'll share two of my favorites. The first was about the...
Low Resolution.
The end of the year is upon us. In contrast to my younger days, when years plodded along at a snail's pace, they seem to fly by these days. I have no idea where 2018 went. If it weren't for my iPhone's photo organizational skills, I couldn't sort one day or one week from another one. Such is life, I guess. Just when you start to figure it all out, there never seems to be enough time to do everything you still want to do. You come up with all these great plans for the year then whoosh! - it's...
A Bunch of Scaredy Cats.
As I've been doing research as of late on Ancestry.com, I can't help but think we're a bunch of pansies. My relatives marched across hostile country to establish farms in the Midwest, fought the British toe to toe at places like Yorktown and marched almost a thousand miles in the dead of night trying to find a better life in Russia. These days, people bitch about their Internet connection not being fast enough. Hardship is Starbucks not getting your latte order correct (Soy! I said Soy,...
Master Of None.
Like most professionals, I have a LinkedIn account. It's Facebook for the working class, a chance to network, share insights, and perhaps even find new work if you're in the market. For some, it's also a place to strut like a peacock. This seems to be the way of life for anyone under 35 on LinkedIn. Yes, there are those who are actually trying to post content that's actually useful – links to trends, news articles and other content that others may be interested in. But there are a ton of these...
Stuck In The Middle With Deux.
It's done. The elections are over (except in Florida). We survived another test of our democracy and it's a new day. Some people are jumping for joy. Others are angry. Now we move forward/backward as a country. That / is where I live. Call it what you will, a slant, a solidus, a stroke, or a virgule - I just call it home. This is where the Independents in this country live. We don't see the world or every political shift as being automatically good or evil. Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's...
It’s All Relative, I Guess.
As you probably know, I have a dysfunctional family. My brothers and I haven't talked since 1982, I haven't seen my nieces and nephews since they were little boys and girls. My parents are both dead, and I only have a couple aunts and uncles left in this world. As I often say, I am really an orphan. Don't get me wrong. I'm pretty good with it. I even had a half-brother in Nevada at one point, but he turned out to be something of a half-ass. He made the mistake of thinking that nature was equal...
The More Things Change…
I came across a great quote the other day. It was by Heraclitus of Ephesus, an early Greek philosopher. He said: "You can't step into the same river twice." This took a while to sink in. And then I realized its profound meaning, that is so simple, yet so lastingly true. Change, whether we like it or not, is constant and inevitable in our lives. While we'd like to think that change is happening at a breakneck pace in these times, it's really been happening at a fairly constant pace through...
Hello, I’m Mr. Fudd.
I grew up on Saturday morning cartoons. It was the best day of the week and I anxiously awaited my favorites. I freely admit, the Warner Brothers Cartoons were my favorite. Hanna-Barbera was O.K., but it was hard to touch Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the cadre of characters that regularly paraded across my TV screen. Yes, my TV screen. I had my own TV when I was still just a little kid. It's one of the few perks of having a dad who repaired televisions and radios for a living. Inevitably,...