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Perspective: The Best Day Ever! · 29 October 2022

When you put it all in perspective, today is the best day ever.

We were on a plane recently when my kids overheard a person say, “I got to ride in a car, on a train, and now on a plane! This is the best day ever!”

Of course, it was a kid who said it. Yes, my adult children were having a little fun at the expense of the kid in the story (long after we had deplaned). And yes, we all laughed. But we also talked about what a great perspective it was. Or at least my wife mentioned it. Which of course, made me think about it more.

Children give us a great perspective about life. They are innocent and excitable and full of wonder. I think that is one of the reasons Jesus likes them so much. It is certainly the reason I like them so much. I know. Children can also be loud, obnoxious, and tiring. But for the most part, their good points outweigh their bad. Which may or may not be the reason people keep having them. And none of these points says anything about perspective.

At any rate.

Children have a great way of pointing out the obvious things in life. Like how truly exciting it is that we could ride in an automobile to get to the airport. Then while we are at the airport, we get to ride in an underground train. Then, best of all, we get to ride in an airplane to go to sunny beaches! When you really think about it, all those things are truly amazing. Planes, trains, and automobiles are wonderful creations. And yet we adults take them for granted. Leave it to a kid to point out the obvious.

When we really think about life, riding in an automobile, then a train, and finally a plane really ought to be the greatest day of our lives. These modern conveniences of life should not be taken for granted. They are truly amazing. But even more amazing is just living each day. That is the part that the kid really got right. He hit the nail on the head and drove it home. Each day really is the best day of our lives. After all, each day is all we get. As some wise person once said, “Treasure today, for it is a present.” Or something like that. Each day is truly a gift. And since we only get to live in the present, we ought to treasure that gift as the best of all presents.

I am not sure what that child did down in the sunshine. He could have visited the beach or gone to a theme park or maybe visited relatives or maybe all of those things. But whatever he did, I am sure that each day was the best day ever. And that is as it should be. We should each look at life with that same children’s perspective. Life is a gift. Each day is a present. And today is the best day ever!

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Prompts · 22 October 2022

I think I am going to try something new. I think I am going to grab pictures as prompts for my blog posts.

I am a boring person. Really. I know that sounds hard to believe, but I do not live that exciting of a life. I read. I write. I go to work. I eat. I try to exercise each day. And I spend time with my family. That is about it. Pretty boring to many folks. Just normal for others.

Oh life was not always like that. It just seems to have slowed down. It seems that when the kids are older, they are not as active. You do not need to go see their concerts or their games. And since our kids have no kids (yet), there are no grandkid activities to be a part of either. Which means that we do not need to (or maybe get to) go out much.

Do not get me wrong. I do not mind not going out. I get out enough to do my things. But not getting out much means that I do not have many opportunities to find humor or something interesting in what we are doing. In other words, not going out much means that I do not have as many opportunities to make blunders and have something to write about.

Which brings me back to my original thought. I am going to grab pictures and write about them.

Now, if you have been reading my blog for very long, you will have noticed that I have not had many captions on many pictures for a few years. That just means that the pictures I have been using have not been from sites that I need to give credit to. Or that I have taken the pictures or created the art myself. Which has been great.

Those pictures that I have not taken are part of a service that I paid for a few years ago. I have access to royalty free pictures. All I do is logon to the service and put in my single keyword and look for pictures. Sometimes there are lots of pictures. Sometimes a few. Sometimes none. It has been great. I just figure out the word that is going to get me the best pictures and voilà. I have pictures to go with my blog post.

Now I am going to do it the other way. (At least sometimes.) I am going to get those pictures first and come up with the story behind them. My blog post will match the picture perfectly because it will be about the picture. I am excited about the prospect.

One of the reasons I am excited about this new adventure is because I had a similar experience a bunch of years ago with my friend across the hall at work. Tim was trying to teach me how to write screenplays. So he would get out his trusty dusty wheel of prompts and give me one a day. I would write the 60 second short in my head on my commute home, and then put it on my computer when I got there. It was great fun. So much fun that I have a book that is a collection of those short movies. (I even published it on Amazon.)

For those of you who have read my blog for years, do not worry. I will still write about my own foibles and follies. I will surely not run out of those. After all, I am human. So of course, I will err.

Well, I hope that you enjoy the coming blog posts that originate from picture prompts. And if you have an idea for me to write about, put it in the comments. You never know. I might write about something that you prompted me to write.

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Wordle and Worldle · 15 October 2022

If you have not tried Wordle and Worldle yet, you should. They help you keep your mind active.

I like puzzles. All kinds of puzzles. Rubik’s cubes, jigsaw puzzles, Jumble. Just about any kind of puzzle. Which is why I like Wordle and Worldle. They are puzzles on the internet.

To be sure, if I could only do one puzzle to do on the internet, it would be Wordle.

Wordle is a word guessing game. All the words are five letters, you have six guesses, and the answers are never plurals. At least not plurals that end with the letter S. There are other rules, but these three are the most important.

When playing the game, each letter that is in the word but not in the correct place turns yellow. Each letter that is in the correct place turns green.

Wordle is really the old Mastermind game using words instead of colored pegs. Instead of 10,000 combinations, there are over 2,000 possible words, but there are over 10,000 other words that are accepted as guesses (at least according to towarddatascience.com). Wordle is rather ingenious and somewhat addicting.

I sometimes take too long trying to figure out the solution for the day. No. I am not one of those people who needs to come up with the best strategy to find the word in only three guesses or anything like that. In fact, I have an option set to make sure that if I guess a letter that is in the solution, I must use it in all subsequent guesses. Supposedly, that is a more difficult way to play, but it was the way I was playing when I started playing anyway, so I just flipped the switch and the game makes me play that way.

At any rate, I do like to play the game (even though the ad on top of the site when I play on my iPad is quite annoying). And I play it before I get to work lest anybody tip me off to the word of the day.

Worldle is another game I play on the internet.

In reality, I should really hate Worldle. After all, geography is my worst subject ever. I could not tell you that Burkina Faso was a country let alone where it was. At least not before I started playing Worldle. Now, I can at least get in the general vicinity of several African and European and Asian and South American and even North American countries. (By the way, did you know that Central America is really just part of North America? I think I knew that before, but I keep coming back to it like it was new to me.) Oh. And if you did not know, Burkina Faso is one of the many countries on the continent of Africa.

Regardless of my geographic prowess (rather, lack thereof), I enjoy Worldle. In fact, I am actually learning from doing the game. I can now tell you that there are more tiny islands in the world than I ever thought possible. I can tell you that there are several nations that are landlocked in other nations. And I can tell you that geography is still my worst subject ever.

I could probably talk about puzzles for a lot longer, but I will just leave you with one last thought. Keep your mind active. After all, the mind is like a muscle. You need to keep using it to keep it strong. And as the old ad used to say, “The mind is a terrible thing to waste.” So whether you ever try Wordle or Worldle, keep using your mind. Keep thinking.