Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/07/04/usa-christian-roots-faq/
“What of America’s Christian Roots?”
From what I can tell, the founding fathers were about as Christian as other Americans. Which means, some were plenty Christian and some were pretty open-minded, or minimalist, like me. I think this excerpt from The Week, June 10, 2005 explains our Christian Heritage fairly well: (more…)
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/07/03/under-god-faq/
You may ask: “what about ‘Under God?'”
When I was growing up, I recited the Pledge of Allegiance every day. “One nation, under God, indivisible . . .” at first, I just went with it. Then I began to wonder why an Atheist should profess to “one nation, under God” . . . if I didn’t believe in God, wasn’t swearing that my nation was “under God” dishonest? Really, didn’t saying “one nation, under God, indivisible” basically negate, for an Atheist, the entire pledge? Was I lying? Was I being disloyal? (more…)
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/07/02/i-atheist/
These days when America’s leaders are trying to make the place look more “Christian” I worry a bit because old-fashioned Christianity has from time to time endorsed the torture and murder of non-Christians. (more…)
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/15/tanstaafl/
I work for a small company. When I started, we all went out to lunch. And when the next guy started, we all went out to lunch. And today, the new guy . . . well, just the developers are going out to lunch. This is actually very sensible, but I was kind of looking forward to a free lunch. Today, TANSTAAFL – There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Fortunately, Yayoi makes me lunch every day. Mmmm, sandwiches!
And, today is pay day. For the first time in my life, I have a six months of rent in a savings account. I think we should probably keep adding to this stockpile, on the off chance that we some day discover some affordable housing to buy. I am also looking forward to getting back in to the 401k game.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/09/typing-names/
As recently observed at work:
(16:19:06) taras: for centuries, my clan has insisted on only naming their children with names that can be typed exclusively with the left hand, b/c we knew that one day we might be working with a left-hand-typing-only system administrator
For those who have never seen me type, let me tell you that the above is an apt description of yours truly.
(16:35:04) sara: dman: note that ‘sara’ can also be typed only w/ your left hand
(16:35:22) ***sara sucks up to the sysadmin
It’s good to be root.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/03/biked-to-work/
I bicycled in to work this morning.
Finally!
It is a very nice ride. Flat and scenic along a regional trail that on many maps still claims to the the Southern Pacific Railroad. In fact, when I got to Danville there was a beautiful train station with a Southern Pacific caboose sitting out next to it. Museum of the San Ramon Valley, it said.
The trip, one way, if I were in slightly better shape, would be nearly an hour. I got out the door late so it was more like an hour and thirty minutes.
I am no Joe Gross, but then he’s not dannyman, so I figure all is fair.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/01/2001/
Yayoi and I finished watching _2001_ last night.
“So he was kidnapped by black pillar.”
That’s as good an explanation of that movie as any other I have heard.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/05/30/memorial-day/
Every holiday
Punctuates the paragraphs
Of life’s narrative
Memorial Day,
Indentation, for summer’s
Long hot sentences.
Pause, and gather breath,
Reverence for those stories
Concluded early.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/05/27/heat/
NoCal has different summer heat than the Midwest. Here, we have a limp, dry heat. It’s just heat. No drama, just hot. (more…)
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/05/09/baseball-bicycle-bastards/
On Saturday we went to see the San Francisco Giants play at SBC Park. The Muni disrupted itself so we walked from the BART Embarcadero station. I am not a baseball fan, you could say, so I brought some books along. But we had some suprisingly nice seats where you could actually see what was going on, and when we got there, in the third inning, the score was 0-0 and the Nationals were walking Giants to fill the bases. Then J.T. Snow and Moises ALOU, whom I know primarily as a popular filler in crossword puzzles, went and scored a bunch of runs. (more…)
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/05/06/slacker/
When I began attending grammar school, I learned that I was the weird kid. In the first environment in which we keep score, I stood out as a failure. Sure, my grades were okay, but where it supposedly mattered – the esteem of my colleagues – I was outside. Once the weird kid works out some detente with the bullies, and settles down with the fact that people generally don’t care what you do, you can find some non-social activities that interest you and coast through your days as a slacker.
In time it was revealed to me that my failure was a consequence of my intelligence. I was eventually transferred to the gifted school, but I was still a weird kid, who had had trouble socializing, and even at the gifted school I remained weird. That I was weird because I was allegedly smart, yet even among the smart kids I was weird, taught me skepticism. Maybe I wasn’t really that smart, or maybe smart had nothing to do with it.
Being weird isn’t all that bad, as long as you have somewhere else to spend your attention. For me, where other kids had friends and a social life, I had books and model trains and video games. Throughout my life I have tended toward words and hobbies and puzzles while others spend their time calling friends, planning parties, and following gossip. (more…)
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/25/hello-samurai/
On Sunday, Yayoi and I made it to the Cherry Blossom Festival, which was fun. Yayoi had some takoyaki, but it was made with ground beef! (Tako means octopus, and she was impressed that she could get such inexpensive takoyaki, until the awful truth dawned upon her …)
Well, we took a lot of pictures. My favorite is of this older guy dressed up as a samurai, giving me a friendly wave.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/20/yayoi-warning/
I woke up Sunday morning from a dream in which Yayoi had just warned me, “if I were made redundant, I would become one thousand times an alcoholic.”
As my conscious brain began to mull this over, I noticed several problems with this vignette:
Otherwise, I totally feel her pain at being layed off . . . what was my subconscious mind doing?
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/19/flickr-schwag/
So, I recently bit the bullet and bought a Pro account on Flickr. They’ll store my images for me in high-resolution, with a pretty nifty, pretty zippy interface to manage them. The community-building features have been a pleasant ego surprise — one photo I uploaded from when I was flying in to London on September 11, 2002 was found by a guy who could see his house in the photograph. (more…)
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/06/kwiruto/
I recently caught myself typing the word “quilt” when I meant to refer to a “kilt” because Yayoi’s pronunciation merges the two together. They say that married couples eventually start to look like each other, but it is a bit different to have your language start morphing on you.
Which brings up a different anecdote. When I was young I overheard some British people refer to the process of “repatriation.” I later learned that this is because they were “ex-patriots.” It seemed kind of harsh that these people should be treated as ex-patriots simply for spending some time in a foreign country. (In America, “patriot” means Paul Revere, and anyone who becomes an ex, in need of re, is not someone you would respect.) I wondered if repatriation involved classes on the Monarchy and Parliament and other stuff to get the Americanness out of their systems, and if this was common for people returning to their countries — If I ever left, would I have to attend classes and re-take the Constitution test before I could be trusted to behave as an American again?
With time and an improved understanding of Latin word roots, I figured that they had been referring to the process of repatriating expatriates. There is no English word “patriate” but in Spanish and French the patria is the country-side, derived from Latin pater, for father . . . so, the land of your father. (The derivation of “patriot” is similiar.)
English is a twisted, gnarly language, even for native speakers, so if I should mistake a “kilt” for a “quilt” because my wife can’t wrap her tongue around the kw- sound, it is only fair.
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