Jokes

Q: Why do my coworkers laugh at my jokes in person but not over Zoom?

A: They aren't remotely funny.

Grammarly

Grammarly auto-corrected Jacuzzi to Yakuza, and now I'm in hot water with the Japanese mafia.

Clickbait Unlimited

I wrote about this about almost two years ago, but clickbait seems to be ramping up if anything. I guess Google or whoever else is spying on my browsing habits knows that I like to watch Stranger Things, Mandalorian, Cobra Kai, etc. My issue isn't that someone knows I like those shows, because they are good shows and a lot of people like them. The issue I have is the amount of clickbaity articles being written about them.

I can't count the number of times I have seen a link to a story saying something about a new release date being announced for the next season of a show or that a new actor has signed on to play a certain character. You click into the story, and there is just a pile of garbage paragraphs saying something vague about how we don't know when the new season will come out but probably sometime next year and that we're not totally sure that actor is in the show but if they are then they are excited to see what character they are going to play.

So we've got a whole article written to say nothing more than that we don't know anything about the next season yet.

The other thing I have been seeing more and more of is the random cross-posting of the same old content over and over. An actor will post something semi-controversial or barely interesting on their Twitter account, and then it is screenshotted, copy/pasted, and linked to the post. At least that's what happens when there is a quick boring text post. But when there is a video or image or something that you really want to see, you'll see a full page article about how someone's performance at an awards show was bad or a famous person was acting rudely in public, you can click around forever and never find the actual video everyone is talking about.

I don't know if this is what we get for letting real journalism get eaten up by free news online. The actual newspapers are going under, being replaced by free material, apparently written by either AI bots or middle school students in third world countries to do no more than drive advertising and suck up personal information and habits.

Leadership

“In human relationships there are too many tacit, silent deals in which one person agrees not to demand full measure, if the other person will agree to mediocrity when excellence may be possible. In any event, the unwillingness of most leaders to set standards, to administer feedback when standards are not met, to praise clearly when standards are met, stands in the way of the development of excellence on the part of followers with inevitable loss in follower effectiveness and follower satisfaction. The leader who makes no demands of his disciples cannot really lead them at all. The sense of new excitement and new challenge generated by the gospel will be blunted by leaders who shield followers from the full demands of followership”

-Neal A. Maxwell

COVID19

March came in like a lion and went out like a tornado this year. The big news is the virus sweeping the world. We all were hearing about it back in February and how it was growing quickly in China and Northern Italy, as well as on a cruise ship. Even then, it wasn't taken seriously by anyone, as people I know still traveled to Southern Italy the first part of March and were still planning trips to Japan or other places near the outbreak.

Gucci, Prada, and other glamorous fashion clothing brands come from Northern Italy. They have outsourced much of their production to Wuhan, China. As the people in China have become rich off the Italian fashionista companies, they have started buying some of those companies and moving to Italy. The world truly is flat.

Bringing it home, some of the things we have had cancelled include: public school, university classes (all gone online), Sunday church services, school and comp soccer games (and practices), volleyball tournaments (and practices), piano lessons, scout meetings, weeknight church youth groups, going out to eat at restaurants, spring break trips, NCAA basketball tournament, dentist appointments, kids playing with friends, horse riding lessons, orchestra practice, and probably some other things I'm not remembering right now.

Some of the things that go on include: homework sent out virtually from teachers, piano lessons via FaceTime, hikes and walks around the neighborhood with the dog, getting takeout from restaurants, our first virtual scout meeting will be this week through Discord, one of the kids had a church youth group meeting through Zoom, I work remotely from home already, home church, orthodontist, kids playing video games, texting and social media to connect with family, grocery shopping, and snow well into Spring.

What does the future hold? In some places, it is more isolation. In others it is spreading pandemic. It is anxiety about the summer. It is fear about next year?

It is a change and a new normal. Some people claim there won't be a new normal - we'll be back to the old normal by the end of the year. I hope we have all learned something from this. Families, businesses, and other organizations will hopefully be a little more prepared, will have trimmed a little bit of the unnecessary, more people will be working from home, fewer people will live in big cities, and what else? Probably some things we still can't foresee. Hopefully we take advantage of the changes and make them be positive ones.

App Proliferation

I'm about done with apps.

Don't get me wrong - I like software on my phone that gives me useful functionality, such as being able to tune my ukulele or cello, send email, and take pictures.

I also like appetizers.

But what about all the apps that every company wants you to install? You have to install the Kohl's app to get the best discounts. You order Little Caesar's through their app so they can put your pizza in a special box that only you can open. Facebook lets you use their IM function through the browser on a standard computer, but if they see you're on mobile, they disable IM and push for you to install their Messenger app.

I saw an ad somewhere recently that was touting how amazing it now is that you can place your order through their app instead of online. Guess what - you're still going online. Try accessing the app when you aren't in cell coverage.

A well-designed mobile webpage in your browser can do everything you do in an app without installing the app, that is without giving every company access to all your contacts and whatever other permissions it asks for, and without taking up extra storage space or having to create a bunch of extra screens to store all the icons.

Discomfort of change; Comfort of known problems

Have you ever noticed that while we all have problems, we are generally grateful to not have the problems belonging to our neighbor? Growing up middle class but not necessarily on the upper end of the spectrum, we always talked about how we would some day successfully solve the challenge of not having enough money, looking forward to inheriting the problem of having too much money.

I'm still waiting...

But when it comes to actual, real issues that go deeper than simple first world problems, we will settle into a rut of wallowing in our current problem, without really trying to get out of it. We're just happy that we don't have THAT problem. Of course our friend or family member or associate who does suffer from THAT problem is probably subconsciously saying the same thing about ours.

Of course, if we actually solved our current problem, maybe a worse one will come along. Or maybe a better one will. Or maybe the real problem under it all is being averse to change.

Debt

I recently read two articles within a day or two of each other, both about debt. One basically went right for the throat and provided very little wiggle room (other than setting up a cash emergency fund) around the idea of paying off all debt. The other more or less said that if you feel that strongly about it, I guess, but you can make more money by investing the money in something else with a higher return than the interest rate you're paying.

Are we still debating this in 2019?

Pay off your debt...

If you look at a student loan with a low, tax-deductible interest rate or a similar situation with a mortgage, it can be tempting to want to invest the money you could use to pay down the principal to earn a 10% return, compared to the 3-5% interest rate you're paying.

There are a few problems with that. The first is that if you're investing in long term retirement accounts, you can't get to that investment for up to several decades when you actually retire without losing all that extra return and probably more. This puts you into a major cash flow crisis, where you have assets but no cash.

The second is that if you're investing in something like stocks and mutual funds that aren't part of a retirement account, you're going to be paying capital gains taxes on those returns, again eating away a chunk of your earnings.

The third is that with recent tax changes, much of the middle class is no longer itemizing, so the marginal tax savings for charitable contributions and mortage or student loan interest is not what it was. It was always a bad idea to hang onto a mortgage just for the tax deduction (spending $800 to save $200 makes no sense), but now even that carrot is largely gone.

The fourth is that when your house or car or any other large asset that you need is the collateral for a loan, you risk losing that item. The article in favor of keeping around your mortgage anchor basically said that peace of mind might be worth it to you, but you should really think hard before making such a poor decision. This isn't just peace of mind. This is your house. If you can get your housing expenses down to no more than utilities, taxes, insurance, and maintenance, you're still paying out of pocket monthly, but a doable amount that you can work through if there is a disaster of some kind.

The final item is a positive, rather than a negative. I know there are huge differences in what people are paying for mortgages or rent, but let's go with a nice around number of $1,000 per month. In most places, people probably pay quite a bit more than that. Ignoring for just a minute the idea of principal vs. interest, just look at the cash flow of $1,000 per month going out of your pocket to the bank. You can save up $1,000 per month to do whatever you want with it if the house is paid off.

If you have 120-150k in some account earning you 10% interest, you are going to end up with about 1,000 per month from that investment. But it all goes into the house payment. If you take that 120-150k and finish paying off your house, you aren't making the investment income, but your expenses also go down by $1,000 per month. Reducing your investments and your debt by the same amount also reduces the risk of holding that debt.

Choices

A fun thought-provoking question has been floating around the social media recently. Here's a screenshot of the image:

I will note that in different contexts with different people, I saw different choices being made.

But the one I was most surprised about was how many people chose the perfect credit score. When they did, every time, the explanation was that if they had that, they could afford all the other things. It's just a fun game that is not realistic, but I do wonder in this theoretical offer whether you are guaranteed to keep a perfect credit score or if it only resets now and could still go down later.

It sort of reminds me of Homer's monkey paw, where he would wish for something but always get some cursed side result that he didn't expect.

How many of those people wishing for good credit wish for it because they have bad credit? But why do they have bad credit to begin with? Well, that's a misleading question, as nobody starts with bad credit. You can start with no credit, but not with bad credit. The thing is, everyone can have perfect credit. You just have to be careful what you buy, and when you do buy something pay it off. If you had perfect credit and bought a bunch of stuff you couldn't pay for, you're just going to lose it.

The car and the house both end up on the same road as the perfect credit. If you're buying something that you can never sell, that's always going to be a bad deal, especially if you can't ever own another car? At all? Even if that one gets in a wreck? In 20 years?

Free rent for 6 months and $10,000 could end up being close to the same, depending on where we are living. I'd be tempted to have the 6 months rent be in Hawaii or New York City or Barcelona. I could totally live in Amsterdam for 6 months. But either of those would be burned through pretty quickly.

Free groceries for 5 years would honestly save us something like $60,000. By the end of the 5 years, most of the kids would be out of the house, and it would be saving us less.

I think the only options that make any sense are the two truly unlimited ones. Unlimited airline tickets would be more useful now, although could continue being useful even when we're old. Unlimited medical care would be less useful now while we're all pretty healthy, but it has the potential to skyrocket in the long run. It would take some self-control to choose the free medical care, since we don't spend much on it now.

If I didn't have the self-control to pick the medical care one, the best combination of options would probably be the brand new home, along with unlimited airline tickets. If the home is paid for, who cares if I can't sell it. I'm assuming there is some choice in terms of how big or nice it is or where it is located. If I have no house payment, and I can fly anywhere anytime I want, that's a pretty good vacation every 2-3 months, with free airfare and a couple thousand dollars to pay for hotel or a cruise, which is freed up from not having a house payment.

Yes, forget old me and my future medical needs - free house and airline tickets it is!

Clickbait

Is it just expected that everything these days has to rely on clickbait to get people into their stories? I understand the idea of writing an interesting or intriguing headline, but it's getting taken to an extreme lately.

Today while reading a newspaper online, there was a link that was something to the effect of a specific skill you have to have in order to be accepted into the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Of course, reading the article never stated a specific skill. It said something about how you would need to be a good singer, and they did talk about how just being a good soloist wasn't enough. They have classes to help learn what they expect. But what was the skill? I still don't know.

I have noticed on some newspaper websites that sometimes a page will load partially, and you can see most of the article titles, but then at some point while the page is loading some titles will change. Usually one version of the title will be fairly boring and the other one extra clickbaitish. Other times, you don't see the title change while the page is loading, but if you refresh the page or navigate around and come back to an article list, it will be a different headline than the last time you looked at it. I'm sure there's some type of A/B testing going on. That means the key to stopping the clickbait is to never click the link if it looks too good to be true.

Images

Just some random images I've saved over the last little bit, because I thought they were funny:

Humor Rules

A few random notes to remember from Scott Adams' podcast about humor:

Adams discussed what he called the 2 of 6 rule. The idea is that there are 6 elements to make something funny. For something to then be funny, it needs to have at least 2 of the elements. If it has even more, that's better. An excellent comedian will be able to hit 3 points. A 4 of 6 is rare. The elements are:

• Mean
• Bizarre
• Clever
• Naughty
• Recognizable
• Cute

That's why a sitcom will always have a small child or pet, since that adds an element of cute. Adams plays with Dilbert in the recognizable realm. When he has Dogbert (cute dog wagging his little tail) say something mean, that puts him at a 3 before he has even decided on the joke.

Some corollary principles have to be considered as well.

One is that about 30% of the public has no sense of humor. They won't know a joke even if it has 5/6 elements in it.

He also discusses punching up vs. punching down. The idea is that if someone is in some type of power situation, a joke is less funny and possibly offensive for the higher power person punching down at the people below them. He discussed a few examples of Donald Trump and things he said while on the campaign trail, which now seem like he was punching down, but at the time when he was yet unelected, he was punching up. Punching up makes it more funny, because you're getting back at The Man.

Another principle is that the funnier a joke is, the more you can get away with. I think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I think at some point they hit all 6 points, even if not all at the same time. There are some pretty raunchy things in there that they get away with, because the rest of it is so funny.

The final principle is what he calls the Uncanny Valley. This is where if you have something that is artificial, but obviously artificial, it can come across as cute - most of the droids in Star Wars fall in this category - BB-8 is cute, because it is nothing like a living thing. But if something artificial is almost realistic but not quite, it becomes disgusting or creepy. Think here of staying at a family member's house and waking up in the middle of the night and seeing a row of dolls staring back at you. Almost realistic, and very creepy! I think the main reason for this principle is that if you're going for cute, make sure you don't cross the line into creepily almost-realistic.

Next time you need to make up a joke, grab as many of the principles as you can, make sure you punch up, and don't be creepy.

The Message is Clear

Kids-in-mind is a great site for reviewing movies for various types of objectionable content. They give a 1-10 rating in several categories, plus a description of the reasons for the ratings. They also include a paragraph or so description of the plot.

My favorite part is probably the message, which is the last item given for each movie. It's just a short sentence or so and easy to miss. Unfortunately, Sharknado was a Made for TV movie, so not included on the site, but Snakes on a Plane takes the top place for my favorite message. The other messages listed below are somewhat randomly chosen and in no particular order:

• Snakes on a Plane: Snakes can really mess up a perfectly pleasant airplane trip.
• Nacho Libre: Doing things for the right reasons is reward enough.
• Gigli: Working past your fears holds the promise that good things will probably start to happen.
• I Know What You Did Last Summer: You should take responsibility for your actions.
• Mortal Kombat: You can't escape your destiny.
• Monsters vs. Aliens: Be careful whom you call a monster; you may just need help from a "monster" someday.
• Without a Paddle: Don't let anything stand in the way of doing what you want to do or you'll regret it.
• White Chicks: Relationships take effort from both parties.
• Face/Off: Keep your own identity.
• Three to Tango: Don't cheat to get ahead, and be honest about who you are.
• Napolean Dynamite: Being different is OK. We can find friendship and love in the most unlikely places.
• Hannibal: A good brain is a terrible thing to waste. Cannibals are people too.
• Deuce Bigalow: Even losers can find love if they will themselves to it.
• Madagascar: Keep your life fresh by changing the routine. Don't be afraid of change.
• Cabin Boy: Learn to respect others and they will in turn respect you.
• The Green Mile: Sometimes love can kill us, but we can also save ourselves and others with love.

Misplaced Modifier

Misplaced modifiers are one of the more fun grammar errors, since they can turn a normal sentence into something awkward or silly to those in the know but sound perfectly normal to others. Basically, the rule is that you want to have a modifier, such as an adjective or adverb or prepositional phrase, as close as possible to the word or phrase it is describing. If it's too far away with other things in between, it can be misunderstood to describe the adjacent word or phrase instead.

Just yesterday, a radio DJ was doing a trivia question. The answer went something like this:

One third of American children are forced to play musical instruments by their parents.

Can you spot the mistake?

The misplaced modifier above is the prepositional phrase "by their parents" which is presumably meant to add context to the verb "forced" since it is the parents doing the forcing. The way it comes across is that we don't know exactly who is doing the forcing, but it appears that they are being required to stand right next to mom or dad while practicing or performing. They're probably not being required to play their instruments right next to their parents but rather are being forced *by their parents* to play musical instruments. At least anyone who has had a budding band or orchestra student hopes as much.

Another good example is the following:

The doctors repaired the boy's leg that was broken during surgery.

So was the leg broken while in surgery and then later it was repaired? Or was it repaired during surgery after being broken elsewhere? If instead it was stated that during surgery the doctors repaired the boy's broken leg, that would clarify that it was repaired during surgery as opposed to being broken during surgery.

The biggest deal with this type of grammar error is that it doesn't seem like it's an error. In fact, from a syntax perspective, there's nothing wrong with it. It's the logical perspective that turns this type of unclear writing into a grammar issue.

More Disturbing than Donald Trump

Start spreadin' the news
I am leaving today
I want to be a part of it
New York, New York...

Such a great song. I hear it and I'm transported to Yankee stadium and Frank Sinatra playing over the loudspeakers after back to back home runs by Matsui and Posada to come from behind and beat the Blue Jays.

One recent disturbing trend to come out of New York, of course, is Donald Trump, but this is something perhaps even worse than that. This is something that, while it didn't necessarily come from NYC, could have drastically changed the classic New York theme song forever if it had been common a few decades ago.

The song above is correct, and I don't know that I've seen the lyrics themselves written incorrectly, but the error I've been seeing more and more of lately in many different places would change the third line of the song to "I want to be apart of it..." which results in the exact opposite intended meaning, that the singer is leaving old New York.

You still have to deal with a non-matching preposition, since it would make more sense to be apart "from" it, but the point is that there is a huge difference between "a part" and "apart" that no one seems to recognize. To be a part of something means you're a component of the whole, integrated into a well-oiled machine that you can be proud of. Apart means you're separate, distinct, different, non-matching, and otherwise not a part of something.

So next time you want to be a part of something good, remember old New York. Remember Frank. Don't be apart like The Donald. Be a part of what's good in America.

Easter

With everything going on around the world, our country, and even closer,

With wars and rumors of wars, attacks of the physical and verbal kind,

With disagreements, idleness, avarice, and overconsumption,

Isn't it great to know that He lives,

And because He lives so will we?

Holidays

Every month needs a holiday. Maybe I really mean that I need a holiday every month, but the months themselves need something to keep us all looking forward to.

Each month has its own personality. January is cold, but it's a fresh start. February is the short month. March is basketball tournaments and Spring around the corner. April rains a lot and kind of mushes into May. May is the end of school. June is kind of July's little brother. July is the king of summer with the heat and patriotism and parades, but June is not quite as hot as July, and kids are sometimes still in school, depending on where you live. August is when you realize the summer is almost over and you have to hurry to get in everything you thought you were going to do and then suddenly school is starting again. September is that cool edge to the air and football starting up again. October is leaves falling and having costume parties. November is finding the heavier coat instead of just a light jacket and planning for all the family parties to come. December is snow and presents and all those parties we've been looking forward to.

Many months have a holiday, but not all of them do. Some even have two.

• January has New Years Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• February has Presidents Day
• March sometimes has Easter but not always
• April rotates with March for Easter, but otherwise not much
• May has Memorial Day, marking the beginning of summer
• June has nothing
• July has Independence Day - the big summer peak
• August has nothing (but you can go to the beach every day)
• September has Labor day, marking the end of summer
• October has nothing
• November has Thanksgiving
• December has Christmas

Now, it's not that every month doesn't actually have holidays. March sometimes has Mardi Gras (alternates with February) which is big some places (Louisiana and Brazil) but not most places. March also has St. Patrick's Day, June has Flag Day, August has um...okay still nothing, and October has Columbus Day and Halloween.

But those are second and third tier holidays. The first tier holidays are the ones where everything is closed. Retail stores are always open, but that's a problem with the retail stores, not with the holidays themselves. Easter is in a strange boat, because it changes with the phases of the moon (literally - first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox), but the biggest part is that it's always on Sunday. So while personally I put it as one of the two most important holidays (with Christmas), there's no day off that is associated with it.

Columbus Day is a federal holiday, meaning no one gets it off except banks and the post office, and it's just a reason for a history lesson. Halloween is nice because you can wear a costume to work and there's candy, but it makes the second tier list because you still have to work.

So first tier holidays are ones where businesses close down, second tier holidays are ones where you have to go to work but there are fun parties and activities so no one is really working anyway, and third tier holidays are ones where everyone still goes to work and school and there is some type of educational component (Flag, Columbus). If you want to go fourth tier, it's the honorary days like secretaries day, grandparents day, medieval French literature day, and sushi day, which are more of a footnote than anything.

What we need is to bump up some of the second and third tier holidays to first tier holidays, and a few times a year there should be a platinum tier holiday that everyone gets off, including the retail workers who normally get hosed by having to work. Leap Day is a day salaried employees should not have to work (since you don't get paid extra for it...think about it).

• January - New Years Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• February - Presidents Day and Leap Day (every four years)
• March - Fast Day (Platinum)
• April - Tax Day
• May - Memorial Day
• June - Summer Solstice
• July - Independence Day (Platinum)
• August - Hawaii Day
• September - Labor Day
• October - Halloween
• November - Thanksgiving
• December - Christmas (Platinum)

Fast Day, as part of Lent, would be a day to do service, sacrifice, and donate to the poor. This could be combined with St. Patrick's Day as it fits well with the story of his life in several ways. The only downside would be its reputation as an indulgent holiday so it would need a makeover. It might make sense to have Fast Day in April. I like the connection to Lent, but doing it a little later into April would possibly make it a better day for getting outside and cleaning up neighborhoods. It could be a good connection to Tax Day, for those getting big tax returns if you want to get donations out of it.

Summer Solstice makes more sense than Flag Day in June, since Flag Day is just like Independence Day Lite. July 4 is flags but also cookouts and parades and fireworks - a super-sized Flag Day. We also beat the aliens that day. That said, Summer Solstice could be seen as Memorial Day Lite as well, since it's the start of summer, but usually Memorial Day is the de facto start of summer (a few weeks early). I don't know. June is a tough one. Perhaps Take A Hike Day, where people would participate in outdoor activities, races, walks, etc.

Hawaii's statehood day is in August, and I think it's a good one to expand to the whole country. Who doesn't like Hawaii? Being in August right before school starts, it would be a good day to go to the beach. It could also be expanded to a First Nations or Indigenous Peoples or Native Americans Day. With some controversy around how Native Hawaiians and other Native Americans have been marginalized, it would be a good day to celebrate those who were here before we were. There are movements to turn Columbus Day into such a day, but tying it to that to me sounds more like a slam against Columbus than a true celebration of native peoples, so it should be established independently to avoid that baggage.

Halloween gets its official bump up to tier one from tier two, where it belongs.

What am I missing? What other platinum tier holidays should we give to the retail workers? What do we do with June?

This Year

It's always fun to see how people access the blog, what they are looking for, and what they find. Or what they don't find.

Unfortunately, looking back at the past year, 90% of the hits to my blog show up as "not provided" which basically means Google isn't going to tell me what people were looking for unless I pay for advanced analytics instead of the free tools.

For the 10% of hits over this past year that I can see, some interesting patterns emerge.

A significant number of people found my blog searching for information about minimum password ages. It's the most popular post for the last three years since it's been there.

I have several posts about andragogy, and they come up quite regularly. A lot of people search for things like the difference between pedagogy and andragogy, how constructivism plays into andragogy, how to be a facilitator using an andragogical approach, and many different combinations of similar things. Oh, and a lot of people searching for information about andragogy are really, really bad spellers.

Interesting random things that people searched for and which ended up on my blog somewhere, which I may never understand include:

• beat with a shovel the weak
• ghost spam is free from the politics, we dancing like a paralytics
• rob barton brain
• syllabus is crap
• (^ᴗ^)丿¯\_(ツ)_/¯(•ิ_•ิ)(ಠ益ಠ)(ಥ‿ಥ)(ʘ‿ʘ)ლ(ಠ_ಠლ)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ヽ(゚д゚)ノʕ•̫͡•ʔᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅ(=^. .^=)

I think I like the one with all the faces the best. The little rhyming search thing was kind of neat as well. I choose to take the brain one as a compliment.

Of the items I posted during this year, the top ones were:

• Consistency vs. Transformation
• Properly Balancing Formative and Summative Assessment

My personal favorite was the Haiku post.

Cardinal Wolsey

When I am forgotten, as I shall be,

And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention

Of me more must be heard of, say, I taught thee,

Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,

And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,

Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in;

A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.

Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me.

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:

By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,

The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;

Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:

Take an inventory of all I have;

My robe, and my integrity to heaven, is all

I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell!

Had I but served my God with half the zeal

I served my king, he would not in mine age

Have left me naked to mine enemies.

Image "Cardinal Wolsey Christ Church" by Sampson Strong (circa 1550–1611)

Haiku

I jokingly told my daughter who is supposed to do a presentation of some type on the seasons that she should do it as a haiku. I was looking up the "rules" since I couldn't remember how many syllables were supposed to be in each line. I found a site that talked about haiku, with all the rules and a bunch of examples. There are some great ones on that page. I really like the Christmas one about three quarters of the way down the page.

The basics are the 5 | 7 | 5 syllables per line, and it doesn't have to rhyme. What I had either forgotten or not known is that it is supposed to be seasonal, even if not obviously seasonal. And it's supposed to have a twist of some kind. So there are two halves, with some change from one to the other that provides a new perspective. Of course she had to do it, because of the season thing, but I still couldn't convince her, so she's doing a boring poster with a sun and the tilt of the earth across the different seasons.

So I decided to write a haiku for each season. Since they don't generally have titles (which would be kind of cheating on the 17 syllables thing, I grabbed some great Creative Commons licensed pics from Flickr to accompany each. Sure, each pic is worth 1000 words, but no syllables, so here they are with my four haiku:

Frigid, wind-whipped, dark,

Sullen stillness, empty streets.

Introvert's blanket.

Golden flowers bloom.

Wildlife fills the savannah.

Dandelions roar.

She reclines in sand,

Ocean waves in the distance.

Aye, mocking mirage.

Final drops, warmth drained,

He leans into coming cold.

A pile of leaves. Fall.


Photos by: ldandersen | paullew | cleftclips | sixelsid