Although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling.
Thomas Merton
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16-Fest
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12-Baph
Meteorological
How much energy could be harvested from this string of lightning strikes?
On March 27th, 2021, a series of severe thunderstorms crossed middle Tennessee, causing widespread flooding and putting on an impressive lightning show.
While most of the lightning stayed up in the clouds, the occasional bolt went to ground, and “cloud crawlers” put on a spectacular display every so often, too.
Which famous son* of a famous father preferred to spend the night of his old man’s celebrations brawling in a bar five hundred yards from the party, rather than hobnobbing with his family?
Our spies tell us a punch was thrown, and his faithful assistant was unable to Hold It Back. A father-son competition for publicity? Dad definitely won this round.
*As Hold It Back was the name of one of Jonny Rokeby‘s albums, nobody could really be in much doubt which father and son were in question.
Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith
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11-Pulp
Oceanography
(1st published 1953 England as The Kraken Wakes)
In this novel forty-one million Englishmen die, but it is only suggested through the hardships of one couple.”
Richard H. Tyre – emphasising that effective writing involves understatement.
Men will gain infinitely more knowledge, insight, and eventually more products, from mastering the depths of the sea than from spending billions more trying to achieve conquest of sterile space.”
Jacques Yves Cousteau [all wet]
Haunting the seas from Norway through Iceland and all the way to Greenland, the Kraken would attack vessels with its strong arms, and having a taste for human flesh would devour the ship’s entire crew at once.
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09-Even
Mountaintop
Flag Hill 2
Several visits to a beautiful wilderness area.
46 photos · 12 views
Flag Hill 3
Approaching the cliffs from below.
20 photos · 11 views
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05-Ount
Witchcraft
Halloween Will Be Here Soon
EDGAR
Come on, sir. Here’s the place. Stand still.
How fearful and dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air show scarce so gross as beetles.
GLOUCESTER
Set me where you stand.
King Lear (Act 4, scene 6, by Shakespeare)
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03-Cast
What does it mean?
Found this diagram in some library book.
Re: “termite castle” culture – Swarms of termites build castle-like structures without supervision or a centralized plan. Working independently without communication or a leader, they proceed using environmental cues.
Back in 2012, as we drove south on the Mulligan Hwy in Australia and got down on the valley floor, we must have passed thousands of little termite castles.
Unfortunately, my environmental cues were not strong enough to make me stop the car and take a picture of any of those many interesting insect homes. Not one closeup photo; sad.
Mulligan Highway
Everlasting Impressions of Australia
16 photos · 11 views
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01-Hoof
Winding
“Then came the Autumne all in yellow clad …“
“Then came October full of merry glee …”
The Faerie Queene (1590) by Edmund Spenser
Suffer no exceptions to the program, and maintain momentum. It’s critical to know what motivates, how to push that extra mile.
Stick to a regimen. To stay engaged, new challenges are needed. Repetition or comfort means it’s time to find a new target for one’s energy.
Garry Kasparov
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30-Loat
Perspective
Cross your eyes to overlap images and see 3-D.
Humanhood stands somewhat aghast before #soul; stands awe-inspired in fear and reverence, while it communicates with #conscience as being very near. It understands conscience who is soul’s agent or moral representative.
The Word by Beardsley
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29-Spin
Circularity
Not darkness, for that implies an understanding of light. Not silence, for that suggests a familiarity with sound. Not loneliness, for that requires knowledge of others. But still, faintly, so tenuous that if it were any less it wouldn’t exist at all: awareness.
WWW:WAKE by Robert Sawyer
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28-Punt
Percolation
Walk a fine line between flexibility & consistency. A strategist must have faith in his strategy and the courage to follow it through and still be open-minded enough to realize when a change of course is required.
Garry Kasparov
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27-Dart
Outer Space
What you can do or think you can do, begin it.
For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it.
GOETHE (Mehr Licht!)
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26-Mile
Momentous
Everything is condensed into one single moment. It decides our life.
FRANZ KAFKA
Be Aware of Your Routines
Then Break Them
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25-Lift
Gathering
Live on, survive, for the earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention.
Salman Rushdie
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24-Tune
Astronomy
On this night in 1846,following the marvellous calculations of Le Verrier of Paris and Adams of Cambridge concerning the celestial phenomenon known as the perturbations of Uranus, Herr Gaulle of Berlin discovered the existence of a new planet, one of the greatest triumps of theoretical astronomy. The planet was named Neptune“
Book of Days by Elizabeth & Gerald Donaldson
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23-Nuts
Seasonal
Spend some time in your mind. Sit down, close eyes, palms upward on knees. What an empty cavern! Fill it with the realization that without your mind, you would be just another sack of shit. Then think of something else.
2 + 2 = 5 always gets me
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22-Outh
Skyscraper
Human thought is still best described by metaphor, poetry, & other literary devices to express what we do not fully understand. Experience is a matter of sensibility & intuition, of seeing & hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments.
Garry Kasparov
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21-Gamp
Conversation
Affirmation mode requires saying something positive, whereas an affirmation format produces a positive affirmation no matter what you put in the blanks.
Fill in the blanks with a negative expression:
I love everything about ______________________.
e.g., I love everything about “waiting for answers”.
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17-Post
Reconnoiter
Time of great explorers has passed but there are still precious territories to discover. We can explore the boundaries of our own lives. But before we go exploring we’ll need a map telling which areas of mind are still uncharted.
Garry Kasparov
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16-Land
Routine
Banana Public
Explorers:
How Life Imitates Chess by Garry Kasparov
- Plan the route
- Marshal resources, discarding any excess
- Maintain a sharp tactical eye, never back away unless certain
- Remain alert for dangers, aware of changes in environment
- Energize with new confidence and inspiration
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15-Leap
Exploration
Jojo was a man
who thought he was a loner
But he knew it couldn’t last.
Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona
For some California grass.
Get back, get back,
Get back to where you once belonged.
Get back, get back,
Get back to where you once belonged.
Get back, Jojo.
“Is Tucson in Arizona?” John checks with Paul as The Beatles write “Get Back” – New Yorker cultural-comment
What’s at LunarData.com?
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13-Look
Transportation
Two of us riding nowhere
Spending someone’s
hard-earned pay
You and me, Sunday driving
Not arriving, on our way back homeWe’re on our way home
Two of Us by The Beatles, Let It Be (1970)
We’re going home”
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12-Dirt
Archaeology
You and I have memories
Two of Us by The Beatles, Let It Be (1970)
Longer than the road
That stretches out ahead”
385 million years from now the world will be vastly different again as well, while the universe, during the same time period, will have changed insignificantly (in comparison to its totality, of course).
The point is: you don’t have to move all that far from where you are now to experience expanded consciousness. Merely step outside. Go to the beach if possible.
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10-Jack
Contemplative
Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
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09-Tent
Extraterrestrial
Newyorker.com attention-people-of-earth
Note : make sure you read down to the part about alien sex.
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08-Orth
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07-Fuse
Future Memory
Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do.
Srategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do.
SAVIELLY TARTAKOWER
A Frequently Changed Strategy Is the same as No Strategy
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04-Down
Rooftop
Part way into the third DVD you can sense how intensely the Beatles have their feet to the fire. But, Paul pulls it together, so diplomatically:
The movie’s director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, says, “Tomorrow, with the nine cameras, if we do tomorrow, there is a kind of, ‘Something will happen’.”
Paul replies, “No, it’s the best bit of us, always has been and always will be, is when we’ve got — when we’re backs against the wall and we’ve been rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing.”
Paul then glances over at John, “And he knows it’s a take on the dub. And he does it great.”
The Beatles: Get Back (2021)
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01-Tine
Listening
GOOD
BAD
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26-Trak
Framework
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire–why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express & admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals–and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
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22-Push
Underground
Work is the way you occupy your mind and hand and eye and whole body when they’re informed by your imagination and wit, by your keenest perceptions, by your most profound reflections on everything you’ve read and seen and heard and been a part of.
You may or may not be paid to do your work. Work is a world apart from jobs. –Alice Koller, quoted in Sun Magazine
Work Is When You Put Off Playtime
twitter.com/ggarchar
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21-Gear
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20-Rock
Takeoff
Thousands of operations are performed before the rocket can leave the launch pad, and dozens of engineering cameras track these operations.
This is also a good preview of NASA’s super heavy-lift launch vehicle, the Space Launch System (SLS), mankind’s new vehicle for the next trip to the Moon.
The first flight of Artemis and the full Orion spacecraft is scheduled to launch on SEP 05.
Update: The launch date was actually Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 6:47 AM (UTC).
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18-Step
Journey
- Get a big idea.
- Build an advantage.
- Improve it.
- Swap it out for a new one.
- Move quickly, see what happens.
- Make a new plan.
- Move again.
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17-Hold
Uvas Canyon
Winding backroads to Morgan Hill and Gilroy along Calero Reservoir south of San Jose are fun for motorcycle riders, and across the water are trails ideal for mountain bikers.
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15-Yomi
Representative
Judy Woodruff: There are a lot of Democrats who are changing their registration.
Tamara Keith: There are not enough Democrats in Wyoming to help her win. That said, she has the Cheney name and is unlikely to disappear from the political scene, certainly.
Amy Walter: And a lot of Democrats nationally are writing checks to her. She has a very big bank account right now. She’s not going to spend it all down even in this primary. You can’t spend that much money in Wyoming.
Voters are pissimistic about the economy and think that Biden and Democrats aren’t doing a good job and believe Republicans would do better. That’s what you make the campaign about.
The more the campaign is about Donald Trump, January 6, abortion, the better it is for Democrats. It becomes really a choice election, instead of a referendum.
And even if it is a referendum between Biden and Trump, that’s probably pretty good for Democrats, not very good for Republicans.
13-Pain
Nourishment
Hunger is the first element of self-discipline.
If you can control what you eat & drink, you can control everything else.
03-Ealt
Judgment
health • impact • joy • love
vocation • wealth • wisdom
WORDS are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
–LORD BYRON
24-Risk
Often Focused
Drinking at least two cups of coffee a day could decrease the risk of death from cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.
Coffee is rich in polyphenols, a group of compounds with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity which can be divided according to their chemical structure into flavonoids and non-flavonoids.
22-Seat
Reflection
If the space terms predominate in the expression for the interval between event-points, the interval is said to be space-like, since it is then possible to select a co-ordinate system–belonging to an observer with an admissible velocity, in which the events appear simultaneous, and therefore separated only spatially.
If, however, the interval is time-like the events cannot be simultaneous in any co-ordinate system, but there exists a co-ordinate system in which the space terms will vanish entirely, so that the separation between events will be purely temporal, id est, occurring at the same place, but at different times.
A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1959)
20-Tool
Resolution
Channel fear into action (paradoxical intention); Energize Fear:
- Fear of sickness.
- Fear of damages.
- Fear of regrets.
- Fear of remorse.
- Fear of guilt.
- Fear of grief.
- Fear of irrelevance.
- Fear of death.
Let the channeling begin: ACTION!
16-Trug
Turbulence
Success is measured by the opposition you encounter, and the courage with which you maintain the struggle against overwhelming odds.
–Marden
Eschew sidewalks and low hanging tree branches; walk in the middle of the street, and listen for the notes of traffic.
06-High
Fort Myers
Forward – If, in this annual, the staff of ’36 can help to cast a backward glance over many pleasant, carefree hours spent in M.H.S. and cause us to live again those happy days of youth, we have reached our goal.
Fort Myers High School
19-Rush
Drainage
Perception of time will eventually condense into an infinite now. Until then, observe the rush of random thoughts as they travel downstream.