Category Archives: Personal

20 July 2013

What? Men Are Hugging Each Other?

By Rick Ladd
Jordan Spieth Hugs His Caddy

Jordan Spieth Hugs His Caddy After Winning The John Deere Classic

I used to love baseball. Truth to tell, I still do though I seldom watch any longer. I haven’t since the World Series was cancelled in 1994 because of a labor dispute. I considered that act a stinging slap in the face of the very people whose money the players and owners were fighting over. It was also a blow to all the small vendors whose livelihood depended on the games played in the ballparks in which they labored. It was incredibly selfish in my judgement and I have yet to truly forgive the sport.

This post, however, isn’t about labor vs. management. Nor is it a discussion of the value of sports and entertainment. It’s about something a bit less dramatic but, perhaps, of more general and long-lasting significance. I’ll let you be the judge. I just want to share my thoughts, which come about after this week’s MLB All-Star game (the only baseball I’ve watched all season) and were additive to some I had at the end of the John Deere Classic golf tournament last weekend.

It’s actually a very simple observation, though it may have (I hope it has) tremendous significance historically and culturally. When I was a young man, it was unheard of for men to hug each other (with, perhaps, the exception of the swarm at the mound after a World Series victory). For the most part, men shook hands or slapped each other on the back. Later on, there was the high five, the chest bump, fist bump, etc. All of these were “manly”.

Lately, however, I’ve seen men hug after a victory or, in the case of baseball, even after a particularly important play. The hugs aren’t exactly what I would characterize as warm—as there’s still usually a little backslapping that goes along with them that, in my mind, signify assurance one is not being intimate—but they’re more frequent and less self-conscious. I’m of the opinion this is a good thing.

I think this is important, as well as reflective of a growing acceptance of homosexuality in our culture. I say this because I believe the reason men haven’t been able to hug comes from a deep-seating, acculturated fear of physical intimacy among men; fear that enjoying the sensual pleasure of a good hug somehow puts their masculinity into question. I find this fear a bit ridiculous, but I also believe it’s pervasive. I say ridiculous because, just as being gay is not something one chooses, neither is being straight. Therefore, enjoying a good hug with someone you like and whose company you enjoy and, especially, after an accomplishment you admire, does not mean you are suddenly changing your sexual orientation.

So it’s good to see men becoming more comfortable with hugging each other. I think it signifies a maturity that will, ultimately, result in unthinking and unconscious acceptance of our gay brothers and sisters and is another step on the road to accepting all our fellow human beings, even us atheists.

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8 July 2013

Golf and Cognitive Dissonance

By Rick Ladd
The 18th at Simi Hills
The 18th Hole at Simi Hills Golf Course – Simi Valley, California

I took up golf at the tender age of 46. My department at Rocketdyne was having a tournament and they needed bodies to fill up open slots. After a significant amount of badgering, I agreed to participate. To be fair, I had been introduced to golf when I was fifteen. My father had taken it up and he wanted me to enjoy it as he did. Unfortunately, he also wanted me to be right-handed. I’m not. He insisted I would be better off golfing right-handed and I tried, but it wasn’t to be. I felt incredibly awkward and didn’t want to put up with what I perceived to be an inordinately difficult effort to make the switch.

Couple that with the belief (this was back in 1962) that golf was primarily for old farts, and a strong desire to spend time surfing, and I didn’t last long at all. I guess, then, it’s not entirely correct to say I took it up at 46, despite the intervening 31 years before I handled a golf club again. Regardless, I played in the company tournament and spent a little time on the driving range and practice green in preparation. I was hooked—big time!

Golf Tourny Invite
Addendum: I thought this might be the flyer I put together for that first tournament but, based on the date, I don’t believe it is, because in July of 1994 I was 47 years old, not 46.

My uncle offered to have a friend make me a set of custom clubs for a very reasonable price, which I did. I quickly discovered, however, golf can be a very expensive sport, especially when you spend all your spare time hitting balls or playing. I could not afford to keep up the pace I was going at. In order to continue, I wrote and published a newsletter for the course I spent all my time at, Simi Hills. None of the articles were based on anything but my own fertile imagination and conjecture, but the General Manager of the course loved it and asked me to do it on a monthly basis, with real information this time.

In exchange for my efforts, he began allowing me to hit as many balls as I wished on the range and I took full advantage of it, frequently hitting hundreds of balls as I perfected my game. Soon I was invited to play with the head pro and the GM and, of course, it was as good as getting hours and hours of free lessons. I got my handicap down to 12 within a fairly short while, no mean feat for a man who was then pushing 50.

As I increased both my physical capabilities and my understanding of the game, I was soon approaching a single-digit handicap. It was then my wife and I decided to adopt. I wasn’t actually too keen on the idea at first, as I had visions of retirement, travel, and lots of golf. However, the desire to be a parent overcame my (very strong) desire to continue playing golf and, once the process began rolling along, it became harder and harder to play or practice. By the time we returned home with our oldest, in 2002, I was 55 and it became very difficult to fulfill my duties as a husband and father and still have time to play golf.

So, why am I telling you all of this? I still watch golf quite a bit and, lately, I’ve been playing a very realistic virtual game (World Golf Tour) online. Also, I have given a lot of thought to the role golf plays and how it jibes with my world view. I am aware there are numerous arguments for golf being a wasteful, indulgent sport of the rich. I am aware golf courses take up a lot of property for the use of, perhaps, not very many people. My best, somewhat informed, guesstimate is that the average full-size course is used by around 350 golfers a day. That’s not very many compared to the numbers using a municipal park or a National or State park. It surely explains why golf is so expensive, as it is a heavily tended and manicured environment.

Many courses, some suggest as many as 40% in the 1990s, were built as a part of a real estate development, and I’m not even going to get into the place Country Clubs play in terms of the exclusivity and expensiveness of golf. A large percentage of golfers are very well off. I suppose, comparatively, I am one of them. Certainly, when I was still employed in an excellent, well-paying job, I had the money to play a couple of times a month and practice several days a week when I wished.

There are, however, significant attempts to bring golf to the less-than-affluent, Tiger Woods’s “The First Tee” likely being the most prominent. Frankly, I don’t believe golf need be an “exclusive” sport. Furthermore, I think it has values to teach, as The First Tee does, that are difficult to find in today’s hyper-competitive environment found in many other sports. Inasmuch as I started so late in life, golf hasn’t taught me so much as it has reinforced in me many values I find important and useful, e.g. integrity, self-assurance, patience, calm deliberation, respect for others, etc. I also found on the golf course a place where everything else in my life melted away for a few hours. I was able to put my job and my responsibilities out of my head for a while; no mean feat for one such as I.

Tiger thanks a Marine
Tiger Thanks a Marine For His Service

There’s one other thought I had – and this whole post (which is somewhat off the top of my head, though I’ve thought about it a lot) was begun with this thought in mind – that bothers/concerns me. The military has long had a close association with golf (see this USGA history) and I have no problem with this. It does, however, lend even more credence to the belief that golf is exclusive because, historically, it has been primarily the Officers who had the time and money to play. That may be changing, but my goal isn’t to analyze the development of golf inside the military. What I am interested in understanding is what it means that every golf tournament now seems to have members of the military ceremoniously tending at least one flag on the course – generally the 18th.

I find myself wondering if this doesn’t, in some small way, signify our becoming more and more a military culture and also, given our penchant for honoring our armed forces for serving, yet never questioning how and why we ask them to serve, if this isn’t a bit backwards. What does it say about us as a society that we don’t seem to question how our military is used, yet now (post-Vietnam) bend over backward to thank them for their service? How do we justify asking them to do what many believe is not in our best interests, yet feel a heartfelt “thank you for your service” is somehow enough to justify our cavalier attitude toward the forces behind their service and sacrifice?

This leads me to other questions, such as are we becoming a sort of Sparta by proxy? Are we a nation that uses its wealth to prosecute wars that are unnecessary and only serve the interests of the truly wealthy and powerful, simultaneously insulating the average citizen from the sacrifices and costs involved? Are we asking the members of our armed forces to kill, fight, and die for no other reason than to preserve our position as the world’s largest consumers of natural resources, then showering them with just enough pomp and circumstance to obfuscate the ugly and horrific reality?

This is where I find cognitive dissonance. As I watched the end of the Greenbrier Classic yesterday, there were two service members tending the pin on the 18th. I am pretty sure I’ve seen this at just about every tournament I’ve watched this year and it seems as though it’s been only recently this has happened regularly. I really love golf as a sport, though I do wonder where it fits in the overall cultural milieu I live in. I hate to see it used as a propaganda tool but, truth to tell, I’m not sure that is what’s happening. What do you think about this? Am I crazy; being too ideological; reading too much into a genuine expression of gratitude? The dissonance is killing me.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Government & Civics, Personal

13 June 2013

A Wonderful Response to Hate

By Rick Ladd

When was it? A week or so ago? Remember that Cheerios video with the beautiful little girl and her interracial mom and dad? Unfortunately, cute and entertaining as it was, it brought out a vocal contingent of hateful bigots, prompting General Mills to suspend commenting on the YouTube video.

It even made it into the International Business Times, and is (as of this date) still being discussed extensively.

Well . . . a gentleman by the name of Kenji America has produced a video in response to those hateful people who, IMO, represent a dying breed spasming as they approach the demise of their narrow-minded, backward, disgusting ways. Check it out!

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22 May 2013

Out of The Final Closet?

By Rick Ladd

Atheism and the Earth

Our Real Common Bond is our Life on Earth . . . in This Cosmos.

In October of last year, I posted about a dilemma I was having with the possibility I would, at some time, be asked to give the pre-meeting invocation at one of my Rotary Club’s weekly meetings. I haven’t been asked yet and, even though there are no comments to the post, I have received a couple of emails from others who have dealt with the problem before.

As I said, I haven’t been asked and I’m not in the lineup for at least another month or so. Neither have I bothered to write anything. I will likely wait until it’s absolutely necessary prior to doing so. I need the actual pressure of a deadline sometimes to get things done. I do, however, think about what to say quite frequently, especially when I come across a story that touches on the issues.

Today, a friend shared a link to an Arizona publication that posted a story about a State Legislator – Juan Mendez, of Tempe – who gave a prayer-less “invocation” before a session of the Arizona House of Representatives. The story pointed out, as well, that he quoted Carl Sagan in closing. Here’s a link and, just in case you don’t bother to go there but would like to know a bit more, here’s an excerpt:

“Most prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads,” Mendez said. “I would like to ask that you not bow your heads. I would like to ask that you take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people in our state.”

He went on to say:

“This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of frustration. But this is also a room where, as my secular humanist tradition stresses, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we have differences. We share the same spectrum of potential for care, for compassion, for fear, for joy, for love.”

And closed with:

“Carl Sagan once wrote, ‘For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.'”

He said one more thing I think is especially pertinent to what happened yesterday (May 21, 2013) in Arizona. It also reflects how I feel about the importance of “coming out” for those of us who profess no belief in a supreme deity, and it’s something I’ve struggled with for years. It hasn’t shaken the strength of my convictions, but it has been a royal pain in the ass at times.

When I worked on the SSME program at Rocketdyne, I felt it necessary to be very careful about expressing my beliefs for at least a decade. When I first started working there (late 80s) it was practically a shrine to Ronald Reagan, and overtly identifying myself as an atheist I’m pretty sure would have been counter-productive, if not self-destructive :).

As an ordained Minister (in the eyes of the State, a “Church” is a corporation) I have performed somewhere around fifty weddings over the years. All of them have been non-religious, non-sexist ceremonies, using a combination of portions of The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran, descriptions of folklore and customs I had learned about, and the occasional poem written especially for the couple. I was pretty close to a lot of the people I performed the ritual for, including my brother and sister-in-law and my sister and brother-in-law. Crafting something especially for them was pretty easy. I usually worried, however, that someone’s parents would be offended though, of course, no one ever was. Come to think of it, Gibran uses the word “God” a couple of times in one of the pieces I used repeatedly.

Here’s the final quote I think is so important, in light of my experiences and those of so many others:

“I hope today marks the beginning of a new era in which Arizona’s non believers can feel as welcome and valued here as believers.”

The part of me that’s remains Jewish wants to say “from his lips to G-d’s ears”, but that would be just silly, right?

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15 May 2013

Dear Fellow Motorists

By Rick Ladd

Turn Signal Lever

Here’s a Depiction of That Turn Signal Thingy

An open letter to my fellow motorists. You know, you folks driving cars all around me . . . and each other. Apparently, a lot of you are unaware of some points I think it would be valuable for you to keep in mind. I’ll try to address them in a reasonably coherent order, so you won’t have any trouble understanding what I’m getting at.

  1. See that little handle-like thingy behind the left side of your steering wheel? The manufacturer of your vehicle put it there so you can use the handy lights generally found toward the outboard side of your fenders – front and back – to signal your intention to turn either left or right.
  2. Signaling your intention can be quite useful for other drivers using the same roads you happen to be using. By other drivers, I mean those people in other vehicles whose presence seldom seems to make it into your actual consciousness.
  3. I have a sneaking suspicion you didn’t receive a discount on those turn signals you apparently don’t know how to use, so why not take advantage of a bit of functionality you’ve already paid for?
  4. Contrary to what you may believe (and your tax accountant, if you have one, will probably back me up on this), your vehicle’s depreciation will not decrease as a result of never using those turn signals you didn’t get that discount on.

So here’s what I’m trying to get at – especially for you dunderheads and borderline sociopaths who seem not to be aware you share the road with others and a little common courtesy is both useful and welcome when you’re navigating these roads our vehicles were designed to drive on.

Driving continues  to be somewhat dangerous and people tend to be reasonably cautious when turning onto a street where there’s already moving traffic. They also depend on signals from others to inform them regarding the safety (or not) of the choices they make. Without those signals, traffic moves more slowly and, in some cases, accidents are probably more likely to occur. Why not be respectful of others? It doesn’t make you a Socialist, for crying out loud.

Bumpersticker

Yeah! Who Cares About Whirled Peas Anyway?

PS – An octagonal, red sign with the letters S-T-O-P means your vehicle should achieve a speed of zero miles per hour (MPH) prior to engaging the accelerator once again. Some of you clearly don’t understand this simple, yet useful rule.

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14 May 2013

An Unwanted Vacation

By Rick Ladd

Some of the Bubbles Alyssa Spotted

Some of the Bubbles Alyssa Spotted

About two weeks ago our youngest daughter was sitting on the couch in the family room and asked a simple question, “Why are there bubbles in the ceiling, Daddy?” Much to our chagrin, once we looked up it was difficult not to notice areas that were clearly filling up with water. We had a leak (another one, as it turns out, since we’d had one almost two years ago). We immediately fetched a couple of buckets and pierced the paint holding the water in to relieve the pressure. I also immediately called the Plumber, who fortunately was able to come out and fix the leak.

Stage one was complete. We’d stemmed the tide. Unfortunately, the ceiling was now ruined and – as Shane the Plumber pointed out to us, there was still a fair amount of water up there. Next stage – contact the insurance company and get someone out who can fix the ceiling and bring us back to status quo ante. Would that it were so easy.

More Bubbles

More Bubbles and Damage

Because of the age of our house, everyone now suspected there might be asbestos involved and we needed to have someone come out and test for both it . . . and lead, which might have been in older paint. Sure enough, asbestos was discovered but no lead <whew!>. So now we need to have specialists come in, completely seal off the room to avoid contaminating other parts of the house, and remove all the offending material.

One problem. The room has to be completely emptied and nobody says they expect me to do it on my little lonesome. Hint – there are items of furniture in that room most 35 year old men can’t move by themselves, let alone a 65 year old man. So the guys show up but the room is as it was. They get all confused and, ultimately, leave without saying a word. Thus begins a bit of a Keystone Kops routine of non-communication, mis-communication, and confusion.

A Panorama of our Family & Living Rooms

Family Room Empty – Living Room Stuffed

As of today, I’m pretty certain things have been worked out. The company I was referred to by Shane the Plumber came out and packed up everything and moved almost all of it into the living room. Tomorrow the remediation company is scheduled to show up, seal off the room, dry the attic, and remove any asbestos they find. Unfortunately, they will have no choice but to seal off the back of the house, rendering it unlivable. I’m waiting for the adjuster to get back to me and authorize our staying at a local residence inn for Wednesday and Thursday nights; they say we’ll be able to return on Friday.

In the meantime, the kids have school and life goes on. We get a two-day “vacation” I really don’t want yet have no choice other than to take. So . . . we’re off on a mini-adventure as of, well, as of now since we’re going to have to pack up and gtf outta here early tomorrow.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Family, Personal

21 March 2013

2013 Cajun-Blues Festival

By Rick Ladd

A few months back I became a member of the Simi Sunrise Rotary club. Our biggest fundraiser is a Cajun-Blues Music Festival. It funds nearly all of our other philanthropic activities. The lineup is set for both days, all day long and we just put out a new poster, which I thought I would share here. I will post more about this as the date approaches.

The Festival is held during Memorial Day weekend, this year occurring on May 25th and May 26th. Two whole days of Blues and Zydeco, plus lots of good food and drink. There will also be a Mardi Gras parade each afternoon and lessons in Cajun and Zydeco dancing. This is our 24th year of putting on this growing and popular festival. You can learn more on Twitter here.

Simi Sunrise Cajun-Blues Festival

Cajun-Blues Festival Lineup and Info

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15 March 2013

A Different Kind of Authorship

By Rick Ladd

Writer's Block

My Goal – Overcoming Writer’s Block

I have long wanted to write some fiction, maybe even some Science Fiction . . . which I used to devour back in the day. For reasons I can’t adequately express (even if I wanted to) I’ve seldom completed anything I’ve attempted. Since deciding I wanted to offer my services as an editor and proofreader, partially as a means of developing my writing chops by learning from others, I have determined to write as often as I can. I just finished a short story, which is a little over 1200 words, I’d like to publish here. Special thanks go out to my dear friend, PD Williams, who soon will be published and writes a blog called Over Easy – Notes from the Estrogen Files, for her advice. My plan is to try different styles and approaches as I work on developing my skills. This one is taken from an experience I had very recently. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. 🙂 It’s entitled:

TRANSFERENCE

James had been napping for at least an hour. His lunch with Daniel proved a little too much for him, as the salt content of the food made him uncomfortable and a little uneasy. Jewish soul food sure was comforting and tasty, but it would never be mistaken for health food. This was especially true if one had hypertension, like James, accompanied by a deep love of Matzo Ball soup and kosher pickles. He was pretty sure, now that he had no choice but to think about it, he’d ingested at least three or four teaspoons of salt. Although it was now the middle of the afternoon and there remained things to do, the sensations he was experiencing were unsettling and he felt he had no choice but to nap, even if somewhat fitfully. He lay in bed, drifting between different states of consciousness, at times dreaming comfortably and at others becoming keenly aware of what was happening elsewhere in the house.

His wife, Doreen, had come into the room earlier and asked if he wanted to get up for dinner, but James declined, choosing to allow himself a few more precious minutes of rest and relaxation prior to assuming the chores he had no choice but to perform. After all, the trash and recycle containers weren’t going to take themselves out to the curb and, since the kids were off from school the next day, he wanted to get it out that evening rather than arising early to make sure they weren’t passed up by the trash trucks that always came at daybreak.

Unfortunately, things weren’t working out quite as he hoped they would. He could hear his children arguing at the dinner table . . . and the volume seemed to be increasing dramatically. Suddenly, he heard angry footsteps approaching the girls’ bedroom across the hall, followed by a triple slamming of the door and loud screaming. He tried to ignore it. This, of course, was impossible and he was shortly fully awake. And upset.

He forced himself out of bed and popped his head into the girls’ bedroom. His oldest, Angela, was sitting propped up in the corner, sobbing uncontrollably. He wasn’t feeling sympathetic and fixed her with as menacing a glare as he could muster.

“How many times have I asked you not to slam doors? I’m not feeling well and you woke me up.”

He continued his glare. She seemed not to care, merely staring back at him with sad, tear-filled eyes. Of course, this infuriated him more. Fortunately, he managed to summon up his nurturing side; at least enough to realize he wasn’t going to help by getting angry with her. With a heavy sigh, he withdrew and moved into the family room. He sat down and instead trained his glare on the television which, to his surprise, also showed no sign of caring.

Doreen, seeing him now awake, began to recount—step-by-step—the events leading up to this latest drama. He didn’t want to hear it. Most of the conversation, arguing, and yelling between the kids had made it into his consciousness while he was struggling to ignore it and remain asleep; he had no desire to relive it all from her viewpoint, thank you very much. If he had been feeling better, he would have listened better. He wasn’t.

Ten minutes later, he could still hear Angela sobbing heavily in her room. James was finally convinced he wasn’t having a heart attack and now was becoming concerned for his oldest daughter’s anguish. He felt a little pang of guilt for having scolded her. Also feeling a bit selfish and narcissistic, he decided to do something about it.

Softly, he knocked on the bedroom door. There was no response. He knocked again and heard a quiet, somewhat surly “What is it?” He now had permission to enter the room and state his business.

James walked slowly over to her. She was still sobbing, not even looking up to acknowledge his presence. He gently sat on the bed and looked at his oldest. Her sadness washed over him and his guilt was replaced with warmth and the love he felt for this wonderful child he felt so privileged to have in his life. He took her hand. She looked up, somewhat surprised, and he stared directly into her eyes.

“Sweetheart, I’m very sorry I yelled at you for waking me up. I know you had a fight with your sister and you’re very upset.” She continued to stare at him, softening slightly from the stone-faced, hurt child he’d seen when he entered the room.

“I can’t stay mad at you, and it hurts me to see you like this. Is there anything I can do to help?” Her face again softened almost imperceptibly as he continued, “I’ll talk to Annie about teasing you and being so annoying. Would you like that?” The mention of her little sister brought Angela back to the feelings she had before he entered the room. Again she began to sob. James took a deep breath, wondering how he could make this better.

Seeing one of the great loves of his life this miserable was overwhelming and, as he looked into her eyes, he felt tears beginning to fill his own. He could not look away from her and, therefore, could not hide the fact he was crying. As she saw the tears in his eyes, the corners of her mouth began to turn up ever so slightly, and her eyes took on a slight twinkle.

“You know how much I love you, baby. Can you forgive me for getting angry with you? I really, really am sorry.” As he spoke, a tear slowly flowed from one eye and began running down his cheek. Angela’s eyes widened and she smiled at him with a look of both wonder and appreciation.

“Would you like to come out of the room with me and see what Mommy’s fixing for dinner?” he asked. She nodded, and continued to look lovingly into his eyes. James was filled with a sense of deep relief and not a little wonder at what had just happened. He’d entered the room hoping to merely calm his daughter down a little. Now he had unwittingly achieved something far greater and more enduring.

Somehow, his display of emotion had managed to suck the anguish out of Angela. Since he was much older than her, it was easy for him to deal with the depth of feeling he experienced and, in fact, once he saw her reaction he was filled with a profound sense of satisfaction.

He arose and held out his hand. Angela took it and stood up beside him. “Feeling better?” he asked. She nodded. He turned and led her out of the room—this magical room where something special had just happened. Mommy was making dinner and Annie was still Annie, lying in wait out in the family room. This moment, though, was very special and he savored it. He knew there would be more—perhaps even greater—battles fought between the two of them but, for now he was content to soak up the intense connection he had found in his short conversation with Angela. Life would, indeed, go on.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Entertainment, Personal

10 March 2013

In the Nick of Time, Siri to the Rescue

By Rick Ladd

Siri

Siri to the rescue!

Siri may be far from perfect, but she is proving to be a boon for me. To be fair, my last phone was an Android (an LG Optimus, actually) and it not only was capable of voice recognition, it also had Swype.

Why this matters to me has to do with the onset of a common malady it turns out ran in my family and is now affecting me quite a bit. I’m talking about essential tremor, which can manifest in several ways; for me it’s in my hands, which sometimes shake rather uncontrollably. This can make it both uncomfortable and time consuming when typing a reasonably lengthy message on a small, smartphone keyboard. Eating with a fork or spoon can be pretty interesting as well.

I used Swype quite a bit on my LG, but the shaking still made it a bit difficult to spell correctly . . . or even choose the correct word when I was presented with choices. The reason I got rid of the Optimus, however, has to do with it having far less memory than I wanted in order for the phone to be truly useful. That is, as a smartphone . . . far more than just a mere telephone.

Even with a mere 16Gb, my new iPhone 4S allows me to have all the apps I need to stay current with my social media friends and platforms. It also allows me to take lots of pics and even use some photo editing apps to mess with them if I like.

So, I find myself using Siri more and more to save time. I still have to make frequent corrections, but I’m learning to speak a little more deliberately as well. I fully expect the technology to continue developing, hopefully to the point where she will even recognize vocal inflection and add exclamation points and question marks when warranted.

Thank you, Siri. Thank you voice recognition developers. You have made my life a lot easier.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Health, Personal, Technology

3 March 2013

“Follow Me” Instagram Photos

By Rick Ladd

Follow Me

Follow Me Instagram Photo by Murad Osmann

So . . . I was sharing an interesting collection of photographs done by a Russian (Murad Osmann) who takes Instagram pictures in parts of the world he visits. Each picture is taken from the perspective of his girlfriend leading him by the hand. They’re each set up nicely to show off some aspect of the countryside, city, village, or familiar tourist location and his girlfriend’s clothing and hair are always different. I’m no fashionista, but it appears to me her hair styles are sometimes related to the location they’re in.

These are really nice photographs and you can see a collection of some of them here. Part of the reason, however, I’m posting this is because, as I was sharing (using a HootSuite widget that allows me to share directly from a web page to numerous social platforms) to Facebook and Twitter, I accidentally sent it here. I meant to send it to my LinkedIn profile. The way this widget shares with WordPress is less than adequate so, rather than just delete the reference, I thought I would share more fully. The pics are pretty interesting.

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