Saturday, July 9, 2011

Nature's Wonders and other stuff...

This week I found myself literally "Over the Rainbow"! After a hard and fast summer rain, even in the inner-city, the beauty of Nature can be found. By the way, someone should tell President Obama that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is on Wall Street.

So enough of nature, what's on your mind?
The floor is now open...

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

(Random thoughts)

Nice photo! I'm still temping at the same company but now I'm working off-site on 3rd Ave. between 45th and 46th - nice area but my commute time for the next month will be doubled. I've started listening to podcasts on my phone during work. Kevin Pollak hosts a pretty funny one with celebrity interviews and a hilarious bit called "The Larry King Game." Language mostly NSFW!

And having said that, I'm currently applying to live in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry for 30 days. Winner gets $10000. More info here. To quote my mother: "Are you just trying to put off adulthood?" :-)

BevfromNYC said...

Scott, yeah, getting to Midtown on the eastside is a chore.

That Chicago Museum thing sounds fun! Good luck. It would sure beat laying in bed all day like your NASA gig. I think there was something like that at the NY Public Library, but it was a team effort with a treasure hunt. Okay,it was nothing like the Chicago thing.

Oh, and don't tell you mother, but my advice - put off "adulthood" as long as is humanly possible...it's not all it's cracked up to be. But then, I've put it off much longer than you.

And another "random thought" - What does "adulthood" mean anyway?

Anonymous said...

And another "random thought" - What does "adulthood" mean anyway?

I don't know. If it means "self-sufficient," I've been that for years.

I honestly don't have much else to add! I look at my friends, most of whom are my age or older and I see a guy flipping burgers, three people who still live with their parents, a bunch of classmates who are working in completely different fields than the ones they went to school for, and a few with spouses and kids where everything seems just fine.

I think the question is "What does adulthood mean in this day and age?"

AndrewPrice said...

Scott,

Adulthood means the adoption of responsibility. And just because a bunch of people have grown beyond childhood without doing that does not mean we should define adulthood down nor should we try to comfort them despite their failure by pretending that there is some modern definition of "adulthood" which they meet. They made their choices and their choices have made them irrelevant to the world of adults.

BevfromNYC said...

Yes, Andrew - Adulthood does mean Responsibility - Scott, you are both self sufficient and responsible. Just because you do not earn a living or live your life in traditional way, does not make you any less of an adult than someone who works a regular daily/lifetime job.

Living away from one's family is a relatively new concept. Multi-generational family units used to live together for lifetimes. The difference is that some of these "kids today" don't bother to work for a much longer period. It's easier to live at home and have Mommy cook, clean, and do the laundry than to have to soil one's hands doing menial labor outside one's chosen profession.

Sorry to sound so old, but "in my day" and even now, I would work at just about anything legal to pay my rent. (Okay, if my only choice were telemarketer, I would have to be homeless, but you get my drift.) Adults do what they have to do to survive.

Anonymous said...

Telemarketer, eh?

When I lived in Orlando, I bit the bullet(s) and interviewed for a telemarketer-slash-debt consolidation job - something I swore I'd never do. I didn't think the interview went well - I recall complimenting the guy on his desk chair. Sure enough, I got the job.

Fifteen minutes after I reported to work, I asked where the bathroom was, got in my car, and got the hell out of Dodge!

It all seemed very seedy. You had to answer the phone "Hello, Card Services" (yeah, that sounds legit). And there were such narrow parameters re: who could qualify for what so half the people we called got nothing out of it anyway. The boss aparently never saw me because, a week later, he called and asked when I was gonna report to work!

And Andrew, I'm not saying we should dumb down or redefine anything. But I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask what adulthood means in the greater context of, say, the economy or changing demographics, etc. (I could've phrased this much better. Or I might be confusing "adulthood" with another concept.)

T-Rav said...

Adulthood is increasingly coming to mean "not voting Democratic." Or at least that's how I see it.

AndrewPrice said...

T_Rav/Scott/Bev, Speaking of adults, check out this article from the Onion about the nation being odwn to it's last hundred adults:

Nation Running Out of Grownups

BevfromNYC said...

Andrew, that's a hoot! Or frighteningly true...I'll have to ask my Magic 8-Ball. So I've avoided having to know when to rotate my tires by not having tires to have to rotate. Does that make me bad person?

T-Rav said...

Andrew, when they say to only use the money they're leaving for us in case of a "real emergency," that includes stuff like buying tickets for awesome action-packed movies we just have to see, right?

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, The tire industry says yes, that makes you a bad person. Having no car is no excuse for not having a good set of tires.


T-Rav, Um.... yeah, I guess so. That or if you run out of beer.

BevfromNYC said...

T-Rav - yes it does mean exactly that. It's better to spend it all on one big thing all at once than let it sit there for weeks on end doing nothing. Really...

BevfromNYC said...

Did I say I didn't own tires? So by "rotate the tires", you mean I should move them from the back of the closet to the front of the closet, right?

What does a "water heater" look like?

AndrewPrice said...

Yeah, move them around in your closet are they'll get dusty and that lowers the mileage.

A water heater? I believe it looks like a giant bathtub with flames underneath. You probably don't have one.

BevfromNYC said...

I must have. when I turn on the hot water, hot water comes out...is it attached to that thing in my kitchen that shoots out round flames that I heat water and soup on?

AndrewPrice said...

I think water just comes naturally hot Bev.

By the way, I see Jeter got 3,000 hits.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Great pic, Bev!

"What does a "water heater" look like?"

A squirt gun. Badum-dum!

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Tap tap tap...is this thing on?

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