OPC

Other People’s Children

I’m thankful today for other people’s children. I don’t have kids of my own, and I am generally very pleased with that choice. But I do like to spend time with kids and do kid things, on occasion, so I like that other people have them.

I get to do things for and with them. I get to hear about their adventures and the funny things they say. Sometimes, I get to go to piano recitals and plays and softball games. Aquariums and circuses recur more often in my life than they would otherwise do. (I prefer the elephants to the jelly fish. I’m just sayin’.) As the kids get older, I get more Facebook friends.

Years ago, I borrowed a friend’s two-year-old daughter so that I could go to the Children’s Museum in Denver. Adults were not admitted unless accompanied by a child. I’m not sure about the child, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.

These days, I enjoy my nieces and nephews from afar and my cousins’ kids closer at hand. It has been years, in fact, since I carved a pumpkin, but I got to do that last Halloween. (Okay, other people did the carving, and I did the foam faces that remind me of Mr. Potato Head, but the idea is the same.)

I was thinking of all that this week, because I am crocheting a knight’s helmet for one of my nephews. (It’s a secret; don’t anybody tell him.) And, I was thinking this is not an experience I would ever have any other way—since no adult would ever need a crocheted knight’s helmet (Rennaissance Faires typically occurring during the warmer months).

I’ve enjoyed the crocheting, and I’ve enjoyed the composing of the letter to accompany this gift for Sir Wynn. One must have a suitable letterhead, after all, on one’s parchment.

So, other people’s children are a challenge to my creativity—always a good thing. Plus, I get to visit with them—and I get to give them back!

Maybe not the best—but a lot of good—of both worlds!

Do what you love?

The money may or may not follow.

But, at least, you’ll be doing something you love.

Here’s a thing I wonder:

Why, in my entire life, have I always worked harder for free than for money?

Part of it, of course, is that I am an artist and very few people ever get paid for art. So, okay, if you really love what you are doing, it makes sense that you would expend a lot of effort regardless of money.

But what about when I’m doing things I don’t love so much. Sometimes, I’ve done computer kinds of work—which is what I used to do for money (with mixed feelings of satisfaction and annoyance)—and now do, occasionally, on a volunteer basis. I’ve noticed that the stuff for which I’m volunteering—I just keep at it until I figure it out and finish it—where the stuff for which I was getting paid? I would go home at the end of the day. I would take a lunch hour. I would take a vacation.

So what is it that makes me work harder when I’m not getting paid? And resent it less?

My mother says I was frightened by a paycheck when I was young.

Which makes me laugh, but is…you know…silly.

I think it’s something complicated about responsibility and expectations and autonomy.

If you’re not paying me, I don’t really have to do it—so, maybe, I just have an underlying sense that I’m doing it because I want to and that makes it more fun?

If you’re not paying me, I’ll do my best, but I can’t be blamed if it doesn’t work out and that makes it less onerous?

If you’re not paying me, I can do it my way, because, really, what are you going to do about it and that gives me more control? (Except I’ve always tried to make the client happy even when the client has no $—so that’s probably not it—or not much of it, anyway.)

I don’t know. But I certainly wonder about it.

Safer surfing

Don’t click before you look.

Most of you know that it’s not a good idea to click on a link in an email from somebody you don’t know.

Many of you know that it can also be a mistake to click on a link in an email from somebody you do know. Hackers sometimes manage to break into your friends’ and colleagues’ email addresses and send spam out to everybody in their list of contacts.

In some email software, just hovering over the text of a link will cause the URL to which it is actually going to send you (not always the same thing as the text) to pop up at the bottom of your screen. That’s one way to tell if the email that looks like it’s from Microsoft offering you an urgent security patch is really sending you to Microsoft (unlikely) or to SomeFakeSpammySite.com

However, there’s one kind of link where that won’t help you—and, you guessed it!—the spammers have figured this out.

There are sites out there which will take a long link and shorten it into something that will fit on Twitter or display better in an email. This is a very useful thing when used for legitimate purposes, but it can mask the identity of a site you don’t want to visit.

It turns out, however, that these URL-shortening sites have got you covered.

This excellent information is brought to you courtesy of Hmm…, the owner of which has given me permission to link to this page, http://www.hmmm.ip3.co.uk/twitter/short-url-check-they-are-safe.shtml.

I encourage you to go to that link to read more and to see the examples. Meanwhile, a brief summary appears below:

You can add a + sign to the end of a URL that begins with bit.ly to go to a page which displays the real URL and some statistics on page visits, etc.

You can stick “preview.” in front of a URL that begins with tinyurl.com. So it would read preview.tinyurl.com/WhateverTheShortCodeIs, and you will go to a page which displays the real URL.

Google’s URL shortener lets you add “.info” to the end of the link to get to a page showing the real URL. You recognize those shortened URLs because they start with goo.gl.

(When I say the URL starts with these text strings, I mean after the “http://” part.)

It’s a really good idea to use these tips any time you encounter a shortened URL.

And many thanks to Hmmm… for helping us all stay safer on the Internet!

Lifelong learning

Or, you know, for however long you want.

One of the things we forget when we’re using our computers and phones to tweet and facebook and skype and look at lolcats and YouTube videos is what an incredible educational resource we have now.

Just last week, somebody shared a link to 650 Free Online Courses, and I got a little ambitious.

Right now, I’m taking a course in Computer Science and Programming from MIT, Astronomy from Penn State, Shakespeare from UC Berkeley, Real Estate Finance from Columbia, Marketing from Texas A&M and Chinese from Cambridge—and I don’t have to leave my living room. I don’t even have to leave my pajamas.

Granted, I’m not going to get course credit or a diploma from any of this, but I’m going to learn some things. There’s another 600 plus courses to go when I finish these. And that’s not even counting the online resources of software tutorials, websites on how to crochet or knit or play guitar or lay brick. Plus, you can find DIY info on almost anything you need. (I once saved $150 bucks by repairing a DVD recorder myself with the help of an online forum, a $15 soldering iron, and $5 worth of capacitors. I was amazed the thing didn’t blow up! But it worked for another five years, and I’m going to try to repair it again as soon as I figure out which capacitors have blown this time.)

My point here is that there’s a miracle here. Maybe not quite the full sum of human knowledge, but an awful lot of it is available 24 hours a day. A little initiative, a little discipline, and you could design yourself the most amazing Independent Studies curriculum in all of history.

We are rapidly approaching the point, if we haven’t already passed it, when we have absolutely no excuses for not stretching our brains and our skills. Our worlds are bigger than they have ever been.

Have a ball!

What would he think?

About gun violence today?

Another Smith with timely relevance is Horace Smith, one of the founders of Smith & Wesson. S&W are firearms manufacturers, in case you’ve never watched television or read a book or otherwise seen any reference to any of their products. They are one of the usual issuers of firearms to law enforcement agencies.

Horace has been out of the gun business since 1883, and if he were still alive, he’d be really glad, I think.

The company that bears his name was severely punished by the NRA during the last round of discussions about gun control with a boycott by its members because S&W tried to do the responsible thing and voluntarily incorporate some safety, design and distribution standards.

I think Horace, whose estate established a fund for scholarships, would be appalled by what’s happening with guns just now. I hope so anyway.

A challenge

No names, no pack-drill

This is a challenge without consequences. No prizes, either. But it’s Silly Saturday, so…..

Take a look at this Monty Python sketch

The challenge, of course, is to develop your own silly walk. Start small. Try not to trip over your own feet or fall downstairs or pull a muscle or anything. I also suggest that, unless you live in a houseful of kids, you work on this project in the privacy of your own room—and, unless you are feeling very brave and devil-may-care—that you leave the results there.

But silliness and the exaggeration that comes with it carries in it somewhere the seed of creativity. And it’s probably only when we are willing to be silly in public that we, as artists, begin to succeed.

But it’s okay to start small. And only fair. After all, you don’t think I’m going to show you my silly walk, do you?

Is there anybody

who would say no to success?

If you were asked, do you want to be a success, would you—any of you—say “no?”

I realize that some of you may be holding in your head some idea that “success” means vulture capitalist-type wealth—which we’d probably all like—and vulture capitalist-type behavior—which, I assume, if you’ve stuck around this blog this long, you wouldn’t like. In that event, you may be shaking your head and thinking, “I don’t want to be a ‘sucess’.”

Of course, one of the more useful lessons I’ve learned is that we each get to define success for ourselves. It doesn’t have to be for you what it is for me. It doesn’t have to be, for any of us, the generally accepted idea of success. (I will grant you that going with the generally accepted definition makes it easier to know when you’ve achieved it, but that isn’t necessarily a good enough reason to go chasing after something that doesn’t make you happy.)

However you choose to define success, though, you might get a lot of use out of The Success Principles by Jack Canfield.

Now, let’s be clear. This book does tend to define success in the time-honored way as succeeding at acquiring things. And it is true, as some of the reviewers on Amazon claim, that much of this information is not new. It is also true that one of the keys to success for people like Mr. Canfield is to sell you a book that offers to give you the keys to success.

All I know is that the information is compiled here in a way that is clear and straightforward and compelling. It’s a big book—64 principles don’t come in a pamphlet—and you can choose to read it in snippets or all at once.

I keep it handy. Periodically, I dip into it again. I never do that without being reminded of some helpful idea.

Some of them are inconvenient truths. The idea that you are 100% responsible for your own life—that’s not an easy one. But it’s useful to consider it, just as it is useful to look at the concept of the Breakthrough Goal or the Thirty Things Lists.

So, I suggest you take a look at it. You can check it out of your local library before you buy it. Make sure it’s going to contribute to your success and not just its author’s. There’s a good chance you’ll want to have your own copy eventually.

Too much love.

Dietetically speaking.

So, it’s Valentine’s Day, and what I am thankful for is that it only comes once a year.

This is not out of some cynical dislike of Hallmark holidays or the grumpy bah-humbug-ness of the broken-hearted. It is because I would otherwise not survive the sugar shock of those Conversation Hearts.

You know the ones I mean, right?

The little pastel colored candies with the cryptic messages printed on them?

The thing is, I love those Conversation Hearts. Not the sour ones, or even the fruit-flavored ones. I like the originals, made by the New England Candy Company, in the traditional NECCO® Wafer flavors.

Yum!

It’s no use asking me to just not buy them. I have a certain amount of will-power, but, you know, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. A person should be allowed some small vices.

Obviously, there may come a time when I will not be able to eat Conversation Hearts. Diabetes does run in my family, so I try to be a little bit careful. But, in the meantime, I do indulge around Valentine’s Day. As I said, though, I’m glad it’s just once a year. (I know you can order the hearts year-round, but I let their availability in stores assist me in keeping my candy habits under control.)

I understand that NECCO® ran a contest recently to determine some new sayings. Things like “Tweet Me” were in the running. As something of a traditionalist where treats are concerned, I don’t know that I approve of that. On the other hand, it’s a little piece of sugar.

Do I really care what’s printed on it?

As long as the sayings are not racist or sexist or otherwise offensive and as long as the candies’ flavors remain the same mild sweetness with which I grew up, I’m good.

But, hey, you know—go ahead and Tweet Me.

Is it the humidity?

Or is it the heat?

I’m not talking about that old thing that everybody says—especially in Florida—about how it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.

I’m talking about this inability I’ve encountered to find a comfortable temperature inside my house. Generally speaking, it is either too hot or too cold for much of the year.

The reason for this is the mild climate, I think. In the high noon of summer, the air conditioner runs. While there is some variation from room to room, the house generally maintains a comfortable coolness. In the day or two of actual winter, the temperature is a little less even throughout the house, but it’s not bad.

But when it’s 70 outside, it’s not hot enough for the A/C and it’s not cold enough for the heat. And what happens then is that it can be too cold inside to wear short sleeves and way too hot for long. In the space of minutes, I go from shivering to turning on fans.

I’d think I was having hot flashes, except that it truly only happens during these interim months. And it doesn’t happen when I travel to other, less humid, places.

So, I’m wondering if it’s the humidity in some way. I do know that the dampness in the air tends to make cold feel colder and heat feel hotter. I just don’t totally understand how it can make both happen within minutes.

Frankly, I’d like an explanation for that.

Well, who are we kidding? What I’d really like is a solution to it. I’m fairly certain, however, that there won’t be one—at least, not one I can afford, anyway—so I would make do with an explanation. Just so I can stop wondering if I’ve suddenly contracted malaria. In the meantime, I keep throw blankets handy for temperature control.

I found something!

Better De-leafing

Earlier this month, I was wondering if there was some special technique to leaf blowing.

Well!

I haven’t found a special technique for blowing of the leaves per se, but I have discovered a slightly better way to pick them up. Familiar to all leaf blowing peoples of the known world, probably, but new to me. (What can I say? I’m slow.)

Use a tarp.

See? Once I say it, it seems self-evident, doesn’t it?

Just use the leaf blower to move all the leaves onto the tarp. Then, pick the tarp up (carefully), and dump the leaves into the bag or bin or whatever.

Now, I will tell you that this method does have some limitations. If your tarp is not big enough, you will, basically, just blow the leaves over it. If you don’t do something to weigh down the edges…goodbye tarp. If your tarp is too big, dumping the leaves becomes an interesting exercise in wrestling with the tarp.

To be honest, I have thus far found it to be easier to proceed thusly: Use the leaf blower to create piles of leaves. Then, put the tarp beside the pile, and use the rake to move the leaves onto the tarp. Then, proceed to wrestle with the tarp as necessary.

The thing about this new (to me) discovery is that picking up the leaves has gone from being the hardest part of the whole business to being one of the easiest. Not counting those times when I just decide to mow the leaves, instead. Or those future times—probably never happening but occasionally dreamed of—in which all the trees have been removed by my most amazing tree guy.

One of the reasons this is not happening is that my most amazing tree guy is reasonable but not cheap.

Plus, I have neighbors with trees, and the wind is no respecter of property lines.

Plus, I like trees.

I just would prefer it if they would drop their leaves all at one time—or during the same season, at least—instead of from October to March. Six months of leaves is too many.

And don’t get me started about the sweet gum balls!

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

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