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Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Just outside Perugia @federica...a former monastery, now being used for Dzogchen retreats.
Your kin do a lovely drop of vino, and a superb coffee, but the tea ! Aaaaargh...
Specially weak Lipton's teabags for export.
Back to the same place in May..I am taking some Yorkshire Gold teabags.
0
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
edited April 2014
Yes. tea is not Italy's strong point....
You want what....? MILK?? Ma....scherzi?? But Perugia is very close to where my mother lived, in Umbria.... It's just glorious there..... Aaaah, I miss the place...I get quite 'homesick' at times.....
Fixed the washing machine. When will I be able to practice with all these distractions?
. . . wait . . fix the washing machine practice . . . not sure if I am on topic or off . . .
0
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
Went to the doctor (standard, normal 'old woman' check-up, nothing to worry about) and I was wearing my mala beads round my wrist, as I have been doing for the past 2 - 3 months.... She took a real interest, and asked me all kinds of questions about them, Buddhism, my 'practice'.... quite nice to be able to speak when asked to, without feeling I was pushing anything on anyone... the intended 15-minute appointment lasted 40 minutes (she assured me I was her last patient in the clinic for the day).... Her surname is Srivasteva, and she comes from India, so I guess the interest may also have had a cultural basis....
It is snowing. AGAIN. It is windy, and raining, and snowing huge clumps of heavy, wet, cold snow. And we're supposed to get up to 7 inches of it. There is still 3 feet of ice on the lakes. I think the ice age is coming. My son has a track meet tomorrow, and his prom is on Saturday. Poor ladies will need to be carried to the cars so their feet don't sink in the mud.
That's all I got for random announcements.
0
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
It is snowing. AGAIN. It is windy, and raining, and snowing huge clumps of heavy, wet, cold snow. And we're supposed to get up to 7 inches of it. There is still 3 feet of ice on the lakes. I think the ice age is coming. My son has a track meet tomorrow, and his prom is on Saturday. Poor ladies will need to be carried to the cars so their feet don't sink in the mud.
That's all I got for random announcements.
You're not in Streatham, London, are you....?
I can tell......:p
0
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
1 teaspoonful of dried yeast, per beer, stirred into yoghurt, before you drink, guarantees you will not get drunk.
Allegedly.
It must be true, I read it on the internet.:D
Each time you have a beer, have a teaspoonful of dried yeast, in a little yoghurt, before imbibing.
You could, apparently, have 10 beers and only feel the slightest sense of mild and almost imperceptible light-headedness...
Any crazy Buddhist guy ready to put this to the test for the causes and interests of science?
Saw five wild male mandarin ducks in Isabella Plantation (about 7000 wild pairs in UK) Richmond. The plantation is coming up to its finest period over the next couple of weeks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Park
Was very happy to take 'Sherman' (family car - don't ask) and crazy anxious sister for visit. Difficult to get her to go anywhere. So everyone was pleased. She enjoyed the flowers, deer and ducklets/ducklings. She missed the bunny, that briefly appeared.
Ref garlic bread: toast bread, spread with olive oil and garlic paste, add humous (or cheese and tomatoes and microwave) Food quick. Done.
Other trivia: my buzzed spring hair now growing . . .
I admit...the first sentence.....my thoughts started to run away. Plantation?? WTH?
I immediately called you everything but a child of cod...hahaha....then stopped myself. Wait a min....there are plantations in the UK?? After my 2 min research I discovered it
is a general word. How can I unlearn things? hahaha.
Oh well.....don't worry...it's all good in the neighborhood. .. .. My ignorance trumps your usage of the word...I promise. ..... now, back to being a child of cod.....
My son (who is 17 and in 11th grade) is at prom right now. I'm not really sure how we got from the "look, I don't have any front teeth!" phase to prom...
And would you believe their prom theme is Zen Garden?
I admit...the first sentence.....my thoughts started to run away. Plantation?? WTH?
'Plantation' in this usage refers to the plants, I am aware of its negative colonial utilisation as a place of enslaved labour. It is part of a Royal Park going back to a time when serfdom was the legal enslavement of the majority population to support the blue bloods. We have our historical nightmares too.
Isabella is being funded with new disabled access facilities. Us former serfs are allowed to cycle, walk, run amongst the 'royal' deer which are excluded by a fence running around the Isabella. It is gorgeous.
It went very well, they had a great time. Here, they can go as juniors or seniors, and even 10th grade can go if they are invited by a jr or a sr. I'm guessing a lot of that has to do with the size of our schools in this area. If it was only seniors, there'd only be like 10 couples, LOL. I think the graduating class this year has like 44 students. It's a fun time, it's nice to see them so grown up looking In some ways anyhow...
Just got back from San Francisco. Gf & I shared donuts from Bob's Donuts & Pastries for dinner while waiting at SFO and during our layover at Seattle. Had life-changing donuts from Johnny's Doughnuts the night before at Off the Grid.
All in all, an excellent end to a quick vacation.
(Yes, we're a bit gluttonous)
1
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
with do-nuts that good - who could blame you....?!
Sometimes you have to laugh at how ridiculous and time-wasting bureaucracy is. I've been sent a letter to be told I am in credit of £35.00 for my council tax bill - yippee. The letter states that I need to write in to request a refund :screwy: !
It costs them in time and money to post the letter; it costs me time and money to write and request the refund, wait for the cheque to arrive and then bank it. My £35 has probably devalued to £33, and I am probably going to face an increase in my council tax bill to employ more of these beggars to write me farcical letters... :grumble: ...
Hey just post the cheque and make me happy next time... ...
Yes I guess you are right. That barely covers half the cost of the parking penalty charge notice I got from them the other day. And I had a valid permit - am having to request to have that nullified as well; £33 now worth £31. The hoops these bureaucrats make us jump through eh :shake: ... Who's benefitting?, Royal Mail shareholders, that's who...
Good Job I managed to buy some lol.
Right enough distraction - or I'll never get the cheque.
@anataman said:
Yes I guess you are right. That barely covers half the cost of the parking penalty charge notice I got from them the other day. And I had a valid permit - am having to request to have that nullified as well; £33 now worth £31. The hoops these bureaucrats make us jump through eh :shake: ... Who's benefitting?, Royal Mail shareholders, that's who...
Good Job I managed to buy some lol.
Right enough distraction - or I'll never get the cheque.
Don't forget the postal workers who get to handle all that mail. And the bureaucrats themselves.
Well thats right - my job has been to service them when they became ill. They just deal with my mail, the council deal with my waste, its all for one and one for all...
Interdependent origination...
0
DaftChrisSpiritually conflicted. Not of this world.Veteran
If there was the possibility of a great opportunity, but said opportunity would cause you to temporarily drop out of university if it came into fruition, would you do it?
Said opportunity would also greatly help out financially and job-wise.
0
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
If the interruption was temporary, and you COULD return to your studies with no loss of value or qualification - why not?
@DaftChris said:
If there was the possibility of a great opportunity, but said opportunity would cause you to temporarily drop out of university if it came into fruition, would you do it?
Said opportunity would also greatly help out financially and job-wise.
These are the risks we take. University may lead to a job, but the competition and pay that postgraduates have to endure, make them sitting ducks and expendable, and long term may not be rewarding.
if someone has seen your potential and is going to shower you with money - and give you a nice long contract and make you appear competitive - well that could be good for you.
A friend of ours son, (his mum diesd of breast cancer when he was doing his exams and did really well in them as well, and was offered a prestigious university place was also offered a job in some London IT firm (don't ask me what it was , despite me having a little IT knowledge and can sort out my IT problems he was good!
He chose the non-university route and now has a central London property after 1 year... Well done to him
sometimes people make the right choices... Whatn does your intuition say?
1
DaftChrisSpiritually conflicted. Not of this world.Veteran
I also have to admit, even if said opportunity falls flat and goes nowhere, it had me thinking: "What am I doing with myself"?
I'm two semesters away from graduating, but I have no idea why I majored in what I'm majoring in. I thought I wanted to do ministry, but I'm having serious doubts about that.
Honestly, if I went back to a community/technical college and got a degree in Veterinary Technician studies or Human services, I would honestly be okay with that.
However, in the US, if you don't graduate from a 4 year University (and within the 4 year slot) then you are a failure.
@DaftChris I realized in my 3rd year (of 4) that I didn't want to major in what I was. But it was too late, in my mind, to consider starting over. Going to school on financial aid and loans doesn't allow you to just keep going because you want to. I have a degree I'll never use. But that's ok, the experience of being in college taught me A LOT that had nothing to do with my degree.
That said, 10 years later I quit my job, and now I don't work at all, and it's the best thing ever, lol. I think we are doing it wrong as a society/country.
As my son posted on his twitter the other day "Follow your dreams, otherwise you will get paid for helping someone else follow theirs." I don't think, generally speaking, we are meant to be slaves to a wage and working to make someone else rich, which is what a lot of our economy is based on. You only get so much time in this life. How much is it worth to give up so much of it to an employer in an attempt to keep up with a lifestyle you might not even want, but are every day being convinced that you need? (my thoughts, I don't mean to say they should apply to you entirely). They are questions I ask my oldest who is getting ready to go to college.
My topical random announcement: I got my sister's college grad announcement in the mail today. She will have to do a master's to make her degree worth even making enough money to pay off her $40,000 in loans. By the time she finishes that, she'll have more like $80,000 in loans. She's almost 40. She'll be paying them off for a while.
Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited June 2014
This might be useless to most people, but anyone using TrueCrypt full disk encryption software, they've apparently discontinued it with an ominous warning on their website (http://www.truecrypt.org) "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues".
The version they have on the site now, 7.2, is basically crippled (only allows for decryption and has lots of warnings about it being unsafe). As far as I know versions 7.1 and below still work, so it's a personal call whether anyone decides to stop using it for their encryption. There's really no word on what the issue is, just lots of speculation.
We know that Summer's here...the Dragon Boats are back on the river, 12 -year -olds at Scout Camp rowing up and down while beating drums...great stuff.
1
Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
"Today U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled against Wisconsin’s constitutional amendment banning marriage equality, making Wisconsin the twelfth state to see such a ban struck down in federal court since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its historic marriage rulings last June."
Dun-dun-dun... another one bites the dust... dun-dun-dun... another one bites the dust (damn I'm going to have that stuck in my head now):
Comments
Where, precisely in Italy, did you go? Being Italian myself, any talk of my heart-land is of interest to me....
Just outside Perugia @federica...a former monastery, now being used for Dzogchen retreats.
Your kin do a lovely drop of vino, and a superb coffee, but the tea ! Aaaaargh...
Specially weak Lipton's teabags for export.
Back to the same place in May..I am taking some Yorkshire Gold teabags.
Yes. tea is not Italy's strong point....
You want what....? MILK?? Ma....scherzi??
But Perugia is very close to where my mother lived, in Umbria.... It's just glorious there..... Aaaah, I miss the place...I get quite 'homesick' at times.....
Yes its beautiful. Didn't see much of the population but they seemed like good folk.
They is 'good folk'... very laid back, and extremely friendly.....
Coffee and so drugged that I am about to fall asleep.
Life is difficult right? WRONG! Life is easy, you suck
Fixed the washing machine. When will I be able to practice with all these distractions?
. . . wait . . fix the washing machine practice . . . not sure if I am on topic or off . . .
Went to the doctor (standard, normal 'old woman' check-up, nothing to worry about) and I was wearing my mala beads round my wrist, as I have been doing for the past 2 - 3 months.... She took a real interest, and asked me all kinds of questions about them, Buddhism, my 'practice'.... quite nice to be able to speak when asked to, without feeling I was pushing anything on anyone... the intended 15-minute appointment lasted 40 minutes (she assured me I was her last patient in the clinic for the day).... Her surname is Srivasteva, and she comes from India, so I guess the interest may also have had a cultural basis....
Oh, and I need a brain scan.
Just to see if I have one.........
Taking a break from cyber world. Probably a prolonged break.
Metta to all.
Be well, @Citta
It is snowing. AGAIN. It is windy, and raining, and snowing huge clumps of heavy, wet, cold snow. And we're supposed to get up to 7 inches of it. There is still 3 feet of ice on the lakes. I think the ice age is coming. My son has a track meet tomorrow, and his prom is on Saturday. Poor ladies will need to be carried to the cars so their feet don't sink in the mud.
That's all I got for random announcements.
You're not in Streatham, London, are you....?
I can tell......:p
1 teaspoonful of dried yeast, per beer, stirred into yoghurt, before you drink, guarantees you will not get drunk.
Allegedly.
It must be true, I read it on the internet.:D
Each time you have a beer, have a teaspoonful of dried yeast, in a little yoghurt, before imbibing.
You could, apparently, have 10 beers and only feel the slightest sense of mild and almost imperceptible light-headedness...
Any crazy Buddhist guy ready to put this to the test for the causes and interests of science?
Subway now has a roasted red pepper hummus.
Put that on their garlic bread veggie sub....and it will change your life. .......Slammin'!
Saw five wild male mandarin ducks in Isabella Plantation (about 7000 wild pairs in UK) Richmond. The plantation is coming up to its finest period over the next couple of weeks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Park
Was very happy to take 'Sherman' (family car - don't ask) and crazy anxious sister for visit. Difficult to get her to go anywhere. So everyone was pleased. She enjoyed the flowers, deer and ducklets/ducklings. She missed the bunny, that briefly appeared.
Ref garlic bread: toast bread, spread with olive oil and garlic paste, add humous (or cheese and tomatoes and microwave) Food quick. Done.
Other trivia: my buzzed spring hair now growing . . .
^^^ That's gorgeous!
I admit...the first sentence.....my thoughts started to run away. Plantation?? WTH?
I immediately called you everything but a child of cod...hahaha....then stopped myself. Wait a min....there are plantations in the UK?? After my 2 min research I discovered it
is a general word. How can I unlearn things? hahaha.
Oh well.....don't worry...it's all good in the neighborhood. ..
.. My ignorance trumps your usage of the word...I promise. 
..... now, back to being a child of cod.....
My son (who is 17 and in 11th grade) is at prom right now. I'm not really sure how we got from the "look, I don't have any front teeth!" phase to prom...
And would you believe their prom theme is Zen Garden?
'Plantation' in this usage refers to the plants, I am aware of its negative colonial utilisation as a place of enslaved labour. It is part of a Royal Park going back to a time when serfdom was the legal enslavement of the majority population to support the blue bloods. We have our historical nightmares too.
Isabella is being funded with new disabled access facilities. Us former serfs are allowed to cycle, walk, run amongst the 'royal' deer which are excluded by a fence running around the Isabella. It is gorgeous.
Morpheus, Matrix
@karasti...... It's gonna take me all day to get over the sweetness of those pics.
..
.. I love how you did the side by side. So....??? How did it go??
My oldest girl will be going next year. She's a Jr as well, but they only allow the Sr.'s to go to prom.
It went very well, they had a great time. Here, they can go as juniors or seniors, and even 10th grade can go if they are invited by a jr or a sr. I'm guessing a lot of that has to do with the size of our schools in this area. If it was only seniors, there'd only be like 10 couples, LOL. I think the graduating class this year has like 44 students. It's a fun time, it's nice to see them so grown up looking
In some ways anyhow...
Just got back from San Francisco. Gf & I shared donuts from Bob's Donuts & Pastries for dinner while waiting at SFO and during our layover at Seattle. Had life-changing donuts from Johnny's Doughnuts the night before at Off the Grid.
All in all, an excellent end to a quick vacation.
(Yes, we're a bit gluttonous)
with do-nuts that good - who could blame you....?!
Sometimes you have to laugh at how ridiculous and time-wasting bureaucracy is. I've been sent a letter to be told I am in credit of £35.00 for my council tax bill - yippee. The letter states that I need to write in to request a refund :screwy: !
It costs them in time and money to post the letter; it costs me time and money to write and request the refund, wait for the cheque to arrive and then bank it. My £35 has probably devalued to £33, and I am probably going to face an increase in my council tax bill to employ more of these beggars to write me farcical letters... :grumble: ...
Hey just post the cheque and make me happy next time...
...
They're probably counting on some people not bothering (or forgetting) to request the refund. Then they make out with £35.00!
Yes I guess you are right. That barely covers half the cost of the parking penalty charge notice I got from them the other day. And I had a valid permit - am having to request to have that nullified as well; £33 now worth £31. The hoops these bureaucrats make us jump through eh :shake: ... Who's benefitting?, Royal Mail shareholders, that's who...
Good Job I managed to buy some lol.
Right enough distraction - or I'll never get the cheque.
Don't forget the postal workers who get to handle all that mail. And the bureaucrats themselves.
Well thats right - my job has been to service them when they became ill. They just deal with my mail, the council deal with my waste, its all for one and one for all...
Interdependent origination...
If there was the possibility of a great opportunity, but said opportunity would cause you to temporarily drop out of university if it came into fruition, would you do it?
Said opportunity would also greatly help out financially and job-wise.
If the interruption was temporary, and you COULD return to your studies with no loss of value or qualification - why not?
Providing you DID go back, that is...........
These are the risks we take. University may lead to a job, but the competition and pay that postgraduates have to endure, make them sitting ducks and expendable, and long term may not be rewarding.
if someone has seen your potential and is going to shower you with money - and give you a nice long contract and make you appear competitive - well that could be good for you.
A friend of ours son, (his mum diesd of breast cancer when he was doing his exams and did really well in them as well, and was offered a prestigious university place was also offered a job in some London IT firm (don't ask me what it was , despite me having a little IT knowledge and can sort out my IT problems he was good!
He chose the non-university route and now has a central London property after 1 year... Well done to him
sometimes people make the right choices... Whatn does your intuition say?
Thanks @federica and @anataman.
I also have to admit, even if said opportunity falls flat and goes nowhere, it had me thinking: "What am I doing with myself"?
I'm two semesters away from graduating, but I have no idea why I majored in what I'm majoring in. I thought I wanted to do ministry, but I'm having serious doubts about that.
Honestly, if I went back to a community/technical college and got a degree in Veterinary Technician studies or Human services, I would honestly be okay with that.
However, in the US, if you don't graduate from a 4 year University (and within the 4 year slot) then you are a failure.
Little break over for now. Hello folks.
Hi welcome back @Citta.
You didn't miss much
......
Well I see you have a new avatar gal, most fetching...
Yes, it's my "Just you wait until your father gets home!" face.... and then I still whup you with a rolled up newspaper, for good measure :LOL!!:
I spent half an hour with my binoculars looking out to see for porpoises but didn't see a single one. I think they are avoiding me....
@DaftChris I realized in my 3rd year (of 4) that I didn't want to major in what I was. But it was too late, in my mind, to consider starting over. Going to school on financial aid and loans doesn't allow you to just keep going because you want to. I have a degree I'll never use. But that's ok, the experience of being in college taught me A LOT that had nothing to do with my degree.
That said, 10 years later I quit my job, and now I don't work at all, and it's the best thing ever, lol. I think we are doing it wrong as a society/country.
As my son posted on his twitter the other day "Follow your dreams, otherwise you will get paid for helping someone else follow theirs." I don't think, generally speaking, we are meant to be slaves to a wage and working to make someone else rich, which is what a lot of our economy is based on. You only get so much time in this life. How much is it worth to give up so much of it to an employer in an attempt to keep up with a lifestyle you might not even want, but are every day being convinced that you need? (my thoughts, I don't mean to say they should apply to you entirely). They are questions I ask my oldest who is getting ready to go to college.
My topical random announcement: I got my sister's college grad announcement in the mail today. She will have to do a master's to make her degree worth even making enough money to pay off her $40,000 in loans. By the time she finishes that, she'll have more like $80,000 in loans. She's almost 40. She'll be paying them off for a while.
I have been meditating daily. Can't you tell!?!?! j/k lol
Birds are singing, pre dawn. Sweet.
Just ate a delicious lunch of a portion of orange-zest-scented Thai rice, with kimchi, cottage cheese salad and a beet-pickled egg. My, that was lush!
I love cottage cheese ......with a mixed fruit plate!!
.......got granola?
Art is the only language I understand.
Then you're on the wrong forum.
Back to Italy tomorrow for the second part of the retreat.. see y'all.
Family - I... oh you know what I mean!
My cat is the best-est cat!
This might be useless to most people, but anyone using TrueCrypt full disk encryption software, they've apparently discontinued it with an ominous warning on their website (http://www.truecrypt.org) "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues".
The version they have on the site now, 7.2, is basically crippled (only allows for decryption and has lots of warnings about it being unsafe). As far as I know versions 7.1 and below still work, so it's a personal call whether anyone decides to stop using it for their encryption. There's really no word on what the issue is, just lots of speculation.
We know that Summer's here...the Dragon Boats are back on the river, 12 -year -olds at Scout Camp rowing up and down while beating drums...great stuff.
"Today U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled against Wisconsin’s constitutional amendment banning marriage equality, making Wisconsin the twelfth state to see such a ban struck down in federal court since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its historic marriage rulings last June."
Dun-dun-dun... another one bites the dust... dun-dun-dun... another one bites the dust (damn I'm going to have that stuck in my head now):
http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/with-federal-court-ruling-wisconsins-marriage-ban-becomes-the-latest-to-fal
You an' me both, thank you VERY MUCH - !!