learning day?

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dad and young son

with balance bike

sunny day

park path empty

lots of room to learn

tipping over, getting up

getting on, pushing off

wobbling, hanging on

both smiling

i ask

is today a learning day?

dad answers

every day is a learning day.

“for the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”

– Aristotle,  The Nicomachean Ethics

lightin’ up.

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candle hack of the day:

light candles with uncooked spaghetti

new to me: if  you don’t have a match or a lighter, and you want to light a candle, or you’ve got a candle sitting at the bottom of a tall, thin jar, you may be wondering how to reach the wick to light it. grab some dry spaghetti from the pantry instead, which works beautifully as an extra-long matchstick. with caution, light the piece of spaghetti on the stove, then take the flaming piece of pasta and carefully use it to light whatever candles you so choose. voila!

note:  when i first learned about this hack, i started looking for examples, and it led to me down a rabbit hole, to a whole candle/pasta industry…

candles that look like pasta, pasta candleholders, candles in your pasta,  party candles shaped like pasta….hoo boy, it’s endless..

 

 

 

quotes from Reddit users:

“Either light some spaghetti. Or, get your shoes on, get in the car, go to the store, spend money on a thing, then come back and then light the candle. Brother that ain’t easier.”

“Tiny matches and flames scare me, so this keeps my fingers back and is so easy.”

“Once I didn’t have any matches to light my menorah, so I lit a slice of spaghetti on fire with my stove and it worked beautifully.”

‘Safety Skeptics’ responses/quotes:

“Lighting a candle with a spaghetti noodle is not recommended because spaghetti takes a significant amount of time to ignite.

“When the spaghetti finally lights, it can curl over, posing a fire hazard as it may drop on toes, pets, the floor, or into the candle itself.”

 

wear shoes, tell you pets to beware and choose your own adventure.

 

 

 

source credits: better report, anthropologie,south lake grills, reddit, etsy

pitching is not just for baseball.

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now that spring is in full bloom  and summer is almost upon us,

take a break from the heat with a refreshing winter story 

the world’s ‘coolest’ pitching contest in frozen Baltic Sea

to watch:

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0nl7c2d/watch

In Oulu, Finland, an annual winter competition is held in an inlet of the frozen Baltic Sea.

Here, competitors pitch their startup company and business ideas whilst standing inside an ice hole.

‘the only safe thing is to take a chance.’

-elaine may

 

 

 

source credits:  The Travel Show, BBC

beyond this point.

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Dad’s 1972 commencement address to Ithaca College graduates
(shared by Anne C. Serling)

night rain.

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Kasamatsu Shirō (Japanese, 1898–1991)

“Night Rain at Shinobazu Pond”, 1938, Woodblock Print

 

‘rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth without rain, there would be no life.’

-john updike

Shiro Kasamatsu (笠松 紫浪Kasamatsu Shirō; was a Japanese engraver and print maker trained in the Shin-Janga and Sosaku-Hanga styles of woodblock printing.

Kasamatsu was born in Tokyo in 1898 and apprenticed at the age of 13 to Kaburagi Kivokata , a traditional master of Bijin-ga, pictures of beautiful women. Kasamatsu however took an interest in landscape and was given the pseudonym Shiro by his teacher, which he used as a signature mark in his prints. Kasamatsu exhibited his paintings in government sponsored juried exhibitions. He completed his first woodblock prints in 1919 for Shozaburo Watanabe after the publisher saw his paintings on exhibit. Almost all the woodblocks were destroyed in a fire in Watanabe’s print shop following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Around 50 prints were published by Watanabe by the late 1940s. Kasamatsu began to partner with Unsodo in Kyoto in the 1950s and produced over 100 prints by 1960. He also began to print and publish on his own Sosaku-Hanga style and produced nearly 80 prints between 1955 and 1965.

one of these things…

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snoopy, human organ, snoopy…

 

 “one of these things is not like the others. one of these things just doesn’t belong.”

Sesame Street

we will remember them.

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thank you for your service and sacrifice

on memorial day and every day

 

 

 

 

text credit: excerpt from the fourth stanza of Laurence Binyon’s 1914 poem, “For the Fallen”, known as the “Ode of Remembrance,” frequently used to honor those who gave their lives in service.

image credit: facebook

we have a job for colbert in michigan.

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for those worrying about what colbert will do next 

michigan has the answer:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18dQPxPB1z

let’s go, colbert!

‘confidence is not, ‘they will like me’.

confidence instead is, ‘i’ll be fine if they don’t’.

-christina grimmie

Before Stephen Colbert made his debut on “Late Night” in 2015, he stopped by Monroe, Michigan, where he interviewed Eminem on the Monroe public TV show “Only in Monroe.”

During his final show on CBS on Thursday, Colbert alluded to that when he said, “Tonight is our final broadcast from the Ed Sullivan Theater. We were lucky enough to be here for the last 11 years, all right? Can’t take this for granted, though technically our first show in July of 2015 was from a public access station in Monroe, Michigan for an audience of 12 people.”

Well, on Friday, he returned to Monroe, according to LateNighter, where he hosted “Only in Monroe” once again.

This time, he was joined by Jack White and Jeff Daniels.

family in flagstaff.

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sharing treasures

 blue squishy sparkly frog

 tiny treasure chest

filled with coins and ‘jewels’

longtime town favorite hangout

meeting place

one dollar gelato night

most of the town showed up

swinging on the urban trail

relaxing at the end of a long day

towering ponderosa pines, mountain town charm, starry skies, 

active outdoor lifestyle, hight altitude mountain air

flagstaff family found there

 

flagstaff, arizona, usa – may 2026

flagstaff, arizona, usa – may 2026

flagstaff.

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  where route 66 took us

downtown full of color

day and night

along the way with cloud shadows on the hills

 

‘have gone to flagstaff. be back on monday.’

Vacation (1983), warner brothers film

 

 

 

flagstaff, arizona, usa, may 2026