Geeky Bob

In honor of March 21st being the International Day of Forests, I thought I'd share the following anecdote:

When my wife and I bought a house in Seattle many years ago, we had a single Maple tree in our backyard that was surrounded by towering Pine trees, which were, of course, blocking out the sun and clearly causing the lone Maple undo distress.

After a day of working in our yard to clear out some underbrush, my wife asked me how my labors were progressing, and I replied:

Oh, sure - any self-respecting Rush fan could probably see that joke coming a mile away, but still - how could I resist? (IYKYK)

PS - My wife, who is no fan of the Triumvirate from Toronto, responded, "That's from a Rush song, isn't it?"

In the wake of the "Gulf of America" renaming debacle, I think that Mexico should rename the "Gulf of California" to the "Gulf of Mexico," and California should rename "San Francisco Bay" to the "Gulf of California."

Meanwhile, "Cape Cod Bay" should be renamed the "Gulf of Ireland," the "Black Sea" should be renamed the "Gulf of Ukraine," "Long Island Sound" should be renamed the "Gulf of England," the "Red Sea" should be renamed the "Gulf of Saudi Arabia," and all the "Great Lakes" should be renamed the "Gulf of Canada."

While we're at it, the "Atlantic Ocean" and "Indian Ocean" and "Mediterranean Sea" should all be renamed the "Gulf of Africa," and the "Pacific Ocean" should be renamed the "Gulf of Antarctica."

I think that takes care of just about everything.

My granddaughter is obsessed with the children's superhero "Dog Man" these days, but I have to admit - every time she mentions him, I can't help but think of this song:

That's pretty much the same thing, isn't it?

I believe I've stayed at this hotel on more than one occasion:

A friend of mine posted the following image from Twitter (with the actual names removed to protect the innocent):

I responded that I like to mess with people who are that scientifically illiterate by saying things like, "You realize that when you compare a woman's XX chromosomes to a man's XY chromosomes, there are 8 branches in a woman's DNA and only 7 for a man, which means that women have 12.5% more DNA than men, and that extra branch is where DNA stores all the building blocks for intelligence and logic, which is why most women are smarter than you."

Yeah, sure - that statement about DNA isn't scientifically accurate, but it doesn't matter - because whoever the illiterate idiot is, they've already proven that they're too dumb to know better.

Today my wife and I celebrate our 40th anniversary, which is no small feat by any stretch of the imagination. Together she and I have faced more than our share of triumphs and tragedies, prosperity and poverty, happiness and heartbreak. This year we joyfully greeted our fourth grandchild, while bidding a tearful goodbye to my wife's brother and aunt and my father. When my wife and I both said "I do" all those years ago, we were mere children ourselves, blissfully blinded by the stars in our eyes from the realities that lay before us. Side by side we survived eight years of Cold War deprivations during my time in uniform, followed by almost 30 years of my wife's career as a nurse and my never-ending adventures and misadventures with Microsoft. Through it all, however, she and I have trod the path before us hand-in-hand, and words cannot do justice to how much my wife makes everything better in life.

Perhaps the great Irish poet, Thomas Moore, expressed it best when he penned the following verses:

I saw this image and it reminded me of an actual advertisement that I saw on a bulletin board back in the early 1980s in Tucson's Guitars Etc:

"Drummer wanted for band.
NO RUSH TYPES!!!
Drummer must be able to keep a straight beat."

IYKYK

My heart has been shattered into a million tiny pieces, and I have wept more tears than I thought I could carry; my keeper, my mentor, my father, and my friend has left this life, and the world is a profoundly poorer place in his absence.

Please forgive my brief rambling... I'm just a fatherless son who's aimlessly adrift between the "bargaining" and "depression" stages of grief.

Oh, and f*ck cancer.