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Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Well had a skinny dip this morning after the jolk...On my way up the track I spotted a swimmer quite a distance out (looked like around a km out from the shore)swimming across the bay (23 seconds in middle of the screen) and closer to the shore was another swimmer doing the same..(14 seconds in close to the rocks on the left)
And I just read on our local community page, there was a shark sighted in little Oneroa and another at little Palm beach "LITTLE PALM BEACH" around the same time I had been skinny dipping there...mind you I wasn't far from the shore, unlike the two swimmers who were way out...
BTW A couple of weeks ago when I videoed the dolphins jumping in the water at little Palm beach and on the way up I videoed what I thought was a loan dolphin going across the bay and back, well after checking the old video and this one, I now think the loan dolphin was not a dolphin but was one of those swimmers in a wetsuit...
I wear glasses but didn't have my normal glasses with me at the beach, I had an old pair (which are good for driving ) which I normally take to the beach ( I don't want to ruin my good pair) ...Well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it....😉😉
Walked into the village via the beach this afternoon to one of the local op shops...Some parts of the beach the sand was hot to touch with bare feet...I had to get out of my place for a while as next door was spraying herbicide, throughout the vineyard... tomorrow I'll spend time at the beach because they will be spraying fungicide, they start between 6 and 6.30am..and finish around 1pm... I took this the other morning , there was a clear image of Buddha in the clouds sitting in meditation-centre of photo
However it was rapidly becoming not two ...
4
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
I discovered an excellent open-source 3D program yesterday, it’s been fun just dipping my toe in the water, I haven’t played with any 3D renderers for years. It’s called Blender, and it’s pretty full-featured and sophisticated.
There are many vineyards on the island and the wine growers association is a powerful organisation...and as you know...money talks...
And it's all about making money/a quick profit @Jeroen...Spraying pesticides is a quick fix and cheaper...Environmental concerns and human safety come second...
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It reminds me of Sri Ramana Maharshi. He had a tumor on his arm, cancerous, and when he was told he should have it surgically removed he said, “does not the tumour have a right to live?” The tumour stayed and soon afterwards he died of cancer.
Now that is living by your principles.
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
@Jeroen said:
It reminds me of Sri Ramana Maharshi. He had a tumor on his arm, cancerous, and when he was told he should have it surgically removed he said, “does not the tumour have a right to live?” The tumour stayed and soon afterwards he died of cancer.
Now that is living by your principles.
No, that's idiocy. A cancerous growth isn't an independent organism, and cannot think for itself. It's a sub-part of your own system and as such, he should have asked the question of himself.
Did he ever have a haircut, or trim his nails? The same logic should have applied to the tumour.
I don't find that a sensible principle at all. It's misguided, and narrow.
3
Fosdickin its eye are mirrored far off mountainsAlaska, USAVeteran
My wife was meditating quietly the other day when a mouse ran up her arm and onto her shoulder, begging for instruction no doubt. Wife reacted badly, mouse fled the scene. Back to the kitchen I imagine.
Never underestimate the capacity of animals to respond to calm and over reaction/emotional turmoil Mrs @Fosdick
No one is perfect, not even a mouse, Buddha or non-existence …
Thus have I heard …
0
Fosdickin its eye are mirrored far off mountainsAlaska, USAVeteran
edited December 2021
@Jeroen said:
It reminds me of Sri Ramana Maharshi. He had a tumor on his arm, cancerous, and when he > was told he should have it surgically removed he said, “does not the tumour have a right to > live?” The tumour stayed and soon afterwards he died of cancer.>
I'm thinking that the fellow's meaning might have been more like this: "I've made my decision, I intend to stick by it, and you people can stop bugging me now." My mother made a similar decision, but left a more straightforward commentary.
I have talked to anti vaxers who have shared similar views related to body autonomy that was peculiarly selective on what was natural & pure and what was not. I think it is spiritually
prudent to always ask oneself when contemplating an action whether the end result will be a intensification or a softening of ones identity.
It reminds me of Jain martyrs starving themselves to death over similar compassion/ego confusions when a simpler focusing of the illusive barriers between self and other might have resulted in a less destructive outcomes.
3
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
Yes, except if you starve yourself, you only damage one person. Anti-vaxxers are potentially dangerous to a lot of people. There's a difference between selfless, and selfish...
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@Jeroen said:
It reminds me of Sri Ramana Maharshi. He had a tumor on his arm, cancerous, and when he > was told he should have it surgically removed he said, “does not the tumour have a right to > live?” The tumour stayed and soon afterwards he died of cancer.>
I'm thinking that the fellow's meaning might have been more like this: "I've made my decision, I intend to stick by it, and you people can stop bugging me now." My mother made a similar decision, but left a more straightforward commentary.
Along the lines of ‘bugger off’? I can totally understand where she is coming from.
@federica said:
Yes, except if you starve yourself, you only damage one person. Anti-vaxxers are potentially dangerous to a lot of people. There's a difference between selfless, and selfish...
Anti-faxxers are like Doris The Johnson (our beloved party animal US born UK PM), too stupid to recognise their own incompetence.
In a similar way as @federica mentions, people are not allowed to drive on pavement because no one is there and it is more convenient. Doctors regularly give Jehovah Witness children blood transfusions, not allowing parents to kill them. Buddhists who set themselves on fire are not an inspiration but a wasted opportunity … etc etc etc
We may get to triage situation with the NHS where anti vaxxers are simply not treated or imprisoned for endangering life … we do live in interesting times …
Too real
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
There has been legislation introduced in some places that anyone who catches covid but hasn’t been vaccinated has to pay for the cost of treatment themselves, ie without insurance cover.
So, we have had a pleasant surprise after the rough time we had recently.
A week after we had Smokey euthanized, our neighbour was at a park and a stray cat came and approached her. He obviously had been socialized to humans and is quite well-behaved. She did not want to leave him there. He would have been at risk of all kinds of things.
She took him home and kept him there in a bedroom overnight as she has a cat of her own. But her own cat, a senior, was getting stressed with just the presence of another cat in the house. Another neighbour suggested she ask us to take him in until she could take him into Animal Care and Control (you need an appointment to drop an animal off nowadays).
So we took him in. He's a beautiful black boy, probably about 7 months old.
Mrs Walker posted about him on a local Facebook group for lost and found pets, but we never did find his owner. Neighbour filled out the page twice for an appointment with ACC, but they never did respond to her request.
He fit in so well with us that we have upgraded his status from temporary houseguest to family member. We had him neutered, vaccinated and chipped on Monday.
We were planning on adopting another cat sometime, we just weren't expecting it to happen so quickly.
We are still grieving the loss of Smokey, but this little guy has taken some of the sting out of our sadness and pain.
His name is Onni, a Finnish name meaning happiness and luck.
Thanks @Walker - no stress. Don't go to any trouble on my behalf.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It’s funny, during the Black Friday sales I bought a Samsung T7 solid-state hard disk, and when the courier came the next morning the package was so small and light that I thought there was nothing in it! I was expecting something like a hard drive of the old school, a 3.5” spinning magnetic platter affair that weighed a couple of kilograms. But no, it was the size of a credit card and as light as a feather. Things change…
Drove into the village to post some Kiwi chocolate off to my sister who lives in Spain, then visited the vaccination centre to book my booster shot for the end of January ...On my way home I was taken by the dark clouds moving slowly across the sky..
They look quite threatening, but may only produce a drizzle....
The other night the tail end of Tropical Cyclone Ruby paid the island a visit (it's cyclone season)...I slept right through it, however when I left for my morning jolk, the landlord's trampoline was in the driveway, the wind must have picked it up and carried it around 50 metres, the trees stopped it travelling further, there were a few branches broken off some trees, but not much other damage...
My next door neightbour said the strong wind kept her awake, she was worried the whole building would take off...
• Wombats can grow to about 1M long and weigh up to 40kg.
• Their closest relative is the koala.
• Their backsides are their main form of defence against predators. They could crush a predator’s skull, just with their butt.
• A wombat could almost beat Usain Bolt in a short distance race. Despite their short legs and chunky bodies, some wombats can run at a speed of 40km/h over short distance.
• Baby wombats look weird.
The track up from the beach has been neglected by the council, which is a good thing for Mother Nature ...
At the beach this morning it was like I had fallen down the rabbit hole...
First there were a couple of guys (locals) in the water and I overheard one say "This is not a conspiracy theory....I think omicron is manmade and was released on purpose" and if that wasn't enough, then two women (locals again) arrived and were about to go in the water when the same guy ( a friend of theirs) started to tell them about his CT, I could see the women nodding their heads in agreement...
After they had a dip, they were lying down sunbathing when another guy (a local and also another one of their friends) came up to them,, and started on about the 'evil government' and how it wanted to take away all our freedoms blah blah blah...Then what really convinced me I had fallen down the rabbit hole was when one of the women said " I wrote new words for our national anthem,...would you like to hear it?" then she started to sing quite loudly about the evil PM to the tune of Aotearoa (NZ's) national anthem...
There was a family of non locals sitting close by, I guess this just confirmed for them what many Kiwis already think about Waiheke locals ...What a bunch of weirdos...
• Wombats can grow to about 1M long and weigh up to 40kg.
• Their closest relative is the koala.
• Their backsides are their main form of defence against predators. They could crush a predator’s skull, just with their butt.
• A wombat could almost beat Usain Bolt in a short distance race. Despite their short legs and chunky bodies, some wombats can run at a speed of 40km/h over short distance.
• Baby wombats look weird.
It reminds me EXACTLY of a little elderly lady- right down to the expression - I used to visit in a retirement home... she often came into the common/sitting room, where the telly was, completely stark-bollock naked... and she would plonk herself in a chair, at which point, the assistants would hastily amble over, cover her with a blanket, and lead her back to her room, to the strains of "oh my dears, you're so kind, I thought it was a bit chilly!"... she was always completely unfazed, unlike some of her fellow gentlemen residents, who were in a right fluster for the rest of the day...
Lying on the beach this Xmas eve morning looking up at the clouds...
There's something about clouds and their formations that the eye (or I ) consciousness is drawn to...
Like giant random brush strokes across the blue sky....breathtaking...
It's hot and sunny today...and the holiday makers are out in force on the island, soon the popular beaches will be popular...
On the southern end of a Canadian Island that's just south of the 49th parallel we had about an inch of snow on one night that was mostly gone by the morning. A minus 7 C is predicted for next week sometime so perhaps I'll yet have a couple of driveways and sidewalks to shovel.
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
We had -6 C last night but that’s the coldest it’s been, it hasn’t been freezing consistently and so there has been very little snow, just a little freezing rain and frost on the ground.
Comments
I dunno @federica ... Boris the Badger not one to be messed with...
Well had a skinny dip this morning after the jolk...On my way up the track I spotted a swimmer quite a distance out (looked like around a km out from the shore)swimming across the bay (23 seconds in middle of the screen) and closer to the shore was another swimmer doing the same..(14 seconds in close to the rocks on the left)
And I just read on our local community page, there was a shark sighted in little Oneroa and another at little Palm beach "LITTLE PALM BEACH" around the same time I had been skinny dipping there...mind you I wasn't far from the shore, unlike the two swimmers who were way out...
BTW A couple of weeks ago when I videoed the dolphins jumping in the water at little Palm beach and on the way up I videoed what I thought was a loan dolphin going across the bay and back, well after checking the old video and this one, I now think the loan dolphin was not a dolphin but was one of those swimmers in a wetsuit...
I wear glasses but didn't have my normal glasses with me at the beach, I had an old pair (which are good for driving ) which I normally take to the beach ( I don't want to ruin my good pair) ...Well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it....😉😉
Walked into the village via the beach this afternoon to one of the local op shops...Some parts of the beach the sand was hot to touch with bare feet...I had to get out of my place for a while as next door was spraying herbicide, throughout the vineyard... tomorrow I'll spend time at the beach because they will be spraying fungicide, they start between 6 and 6.30am..and finish around 1pm...
I took this the other morning , there was a clear image of Buddha in the clouds sitting in meditation-centre of photo
However it was rapidly becoming not two ...
I discovered an excellent open-source 3D program yesterday, it’s been fun just dipping my toe in the water, I haven’t played with any 3D renderers for years. It’s called Blender, and it’s pretty full-featured and sophisticated.
Well today I had two choices.... either stay home with this going on next door...
Or this...
I chose the latter....
Good choice @Shoshin1 - what are they spraying?
Fungicides @Bunks , using an air blaster on the back of the tractor to pump out the fungicide... yesterday they were spraying herbicides...
Hmm makes you wonder what the poor fungi and herbs had ever done to them… everybody should switch to bio-organic farming.
There are many vineyards on the island and the wine growers association is a powerful organisation...and as you know...money talks...
And it's all about making money/a quick profit @Jeroen...Spraying pesticides is a quick fix and cheaper...Environmental concerns and human safety come second...
It reminds me of Sri Ramana Maharshi. He had a tumor on his arm, cancerous, and when he was told he should have it surgically removed he said, “does not the tumour have a right to live?” The tumour stayed and soon afterwards he died of cancer.
Now that is living by your principles.
No, that's idiocy. A cancerous growth isn't an independent organism, and cannot think for itself. It's a sub-part of your own system and as such, he should have asked the question of himself.
Did he ever have a haircut, or trim his nails? The same logic should have applied to the tumour.
I don't find that a sensible principle at all. It's misguided, and narrow.
My wife was meditating quietly the other day when a mouse ran up her arm and onto her shoulder, begging for instruction no doubt. Wife reacted badly, mouse fled the scene. Back to the kitchen I imagine.
At least she allowed it to stay long enough for you to get a nice sketch
Never underestimate the capacity of animals to respond to calm and over reaction/emotional turmoil Mrs @Fosdick
No one is perfect, not even a mouse, Buddha or non-existence …
Thus have I heard …
I'm thinking that the fellow's meaning might have been more like this: "I've made my decision, I intend to stick by it, and you people can stop bugging me now." My mother made a similar decision, but left a more straightforward commentary.
I have talked to anti vaxers who have shared similar views related to body autonomy that was peculiarly selective on what was natural & pure and what was not. I think it is spiritually
prudent to always ask oneself when contemplating an action whether the end result will be a intensification or a softening of ones identity.
It reminds me of Jain martyrs starving themselves to death over similar compassion/ego confusions when a simpler focusing of the illusive barriers between self and other might have resulted in a less destructive outcomes.
Yes, except if you starve yourself, you only damage one person. Anti-vaxxers are potentially dangerous to a lot of people. There's a difference between selfless, and selfish...
Along the lines of ‘bugger off’? I can totally understand where she is coming from.
Anti-faxxers are like Doris The Johnson (our beloved party animal US born UK PM), too stupid to recognise their own incompetence.
In a similar way as @federica mentions, people are not allowed to drive on pavement because no one is there and it is more convenient. Doctors regularly give Jehovah Witness children blood transfusions, not allowing parents to kill them. Buddhists who set themselves on fire are not an inspiration but a wasted opportunity … etc etc etc
We may get to triage situation with the NHS where anti vaxxers are simply not treated or imprisoned for endangering life … we do live in interesting times …
Too real
There has been legislation introduced in some places that anyone who catches covid but hasn’t been vaccinated has to pay for the cost of treatment themselves, ie without insurance cover.
Work has started on the new meditation retreat centre at NBM. Expect it to take 12 months and accomodate 24 people initially.
I’ve booked to stay at NBM for five days over the Xmas break.
So, we have had a pleasant surprise after the rough time we had recently.
A week after we had Smokey euthanized, our neighbour was at a park and a stray cat came and approached her. He obviously had been socialized to humans and is quite well-behaved. She did not want to leave him there. He would have been at risk of all kinds of things.
She took him home and kept him there in a bedroom overnight as she has a cat of her own. But her own cat, a senior, was getting stressed with just the presence of another cat in the house. Another neighbour suggested she ask us to take him in until she could take him into Animal Care and Control (you need an appointment to drop an animal off nowadays).
So we took him in. He's a beautiful black boy, probably about 7 months old.
Mrs Walker posted about him on a local Facebook group for lost and found pets, but we never did find his owner. Neighbour filled out the page twice for an appointment with ACC, but they never did respond to her request.
He fit in so well with us that we have upgraded his status from temporary houseguest to family member. We had him neutered, vaccinated and chipped on Monday.
We were planning on adopting another cat sometime, we just weren't expecting it to happen so quickly.
We are still grieving the loss of Smokey, but this little guy has taken some of the sting out of our sadness and pain.
His name is Onni, a Finnish name meaning happiness and luck.
Very good news @Walker
Onni sounds cute.
Nice @Walker - I’d love to see a photo but no pressure 😊
Here's one of him sleeping in the window.
I've got some more but the website isn't letting me import them. File size too large?
I'll try to upload more later.
Thanks @Walker - no stress. Don't go to any trouble on my behalf.
It’s funny, during the Black Friday sales I bought a Samsung T7 solid-state hard disk, and when the courier came the next morning the package was so small and light that I thought there was nothing in it! I was expecting something like a hard drive of the old school, a 3.5” spinning magnetic platter affair that weighed a couple of kilograms. But no, it was the size of a credit card and as light as a feather. Things change…
I haven't been doing much lately...Well in fact, I find myself busy doing nothing...
feel a song coming on...
Drove into the village to post some Kiwi chocolate off to my sister who lives in Spain, then visited the vaccination centre to book my booster shot for the end of January ...On my way home I was taken by the dark clouds moving slowly across the sky..
They look quite threatening, but may only produce a drizzle....
The other night the tail end of Tropical Cyclone Ruby paid the island a visit (it's cyclone season)...I slept right through it, however when I left for my morning jolk, the landlord's trampoline was in the driveway, the wind must have picked it up and carried it around 50 metres, the trees stopped it travelling further, there were a few branches broken off some trees, but not much other damage...
My next door neightbour said the strong wind kept her awake, she was worried the whole building would take off...
The Jaffas are coming, the Jaffas are coming by the boat loads
It's the start of the Summer holidays here...the island's population quadruples over Summer...
Shock! It rained - in Southern California!
But girl, don't they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours
My walk this afternoon to the back of the property...
Beautiful view, but I had to run the pesticide smelly gauntlet of a vineyard to get there...
Facts about wombats
• Wombats can grow to about 1M long and weigh up to 40kg.
• Their closest relative is the koala.
• Their backsides are their main form of defence against predators. They could crush a predator’s skull, just with their butt.
• A wombat could almost beat Usain Bolt in a short distance race. Despite their short legs and chunky bodies, some wombats can run at a speed of 40km/h over short distance.
• Baby wombats look weird.
What a little cutie @Bunks ...Has ms wombat just had a manicure ?
The track up from the beach has been neglected by the council, which is a good thing for Mother Nature ...
At the beach this morning it was like I had fallen down the rabbit hole...
First there were a couple of guys (locals) in the water and I overheard one say "This is not a conspiracy theory....I think omicron is manmade and was released on purpose" and if that wasn't enough, then two women (locals again) arrived and were about to go in the water when the same guy ( a friend of theirs) started to tell them about his CT, I could see the women nodding their heads in agreement...
After they had a dip, they were lying down sunbathing when another guy (a local and also another one of their friends) came up to them,, and started on about the 'evil government' and how it wanted to take away all our freedoms blah blah blah...Then what really convinced me I had fallen down the rabbit hole was when one of the women said " I wrote new words for our national anthem,...would you like to hear it?" then she started to sing quite loudly about the evil PM to the tune of Aotearoa (NZ's) national anthem...
There was a family of non locals sitting close by, I guess this just confirmed for them what many Kiwis already think about Waiheke locals ...What a bunch of weirdos...
Well we just had Buddhism on the beach...Discussing the Heart Sutta in one form of another...no pun intended...
After the discussion we decided to do some walking mediation..
Are the waves making the sound or is it the mind ?
It reminds me EXACTLY of a little elderly lady- right down to the expression - I used to visit in a retirement home... she often came into the common/sitting room, where the telly was, completely stark-bollock naked... and she would plonk herself in a chair, at which point, the assistants would hastily amble over, cover her with a blanket, and lead her back to her room, to the strains of "oh my dears, you're so kind, I thought it was a bit chilly!"... she was always completely unfazed, unlike some of her fellow gentlemen residents, who were in a right fluster for the rest of the day...
Happy Solstice!!
Wassail, here comes Saturnalia! Eat, drink and be merry!
Just assembled and moved a large and heavy cupboard — sweating like a pig, but it’s in place.
STOP PRESS...
Pigs don't actually sweat.
Lying on the beach this Xmas eve morning looking up at the clouds...
There's something about clouds and their formations that the eye (or I ) consciousness is drawn to...
Like giant random brush strokes across the blue sky....breathtaking...
It's hot and sunny today...and the holiday makers are out in force on the island, soon the popular beaches will be popular...
Season's greetings
Christmas day at the beach... One could say a white Christmas, well white sands that is, none of the other white stuff about....
I'd be more than happy to send you some of that other white stuff, I've got way too much of it.
Best not to put it in the mail with her address on it…….Ohhhhhh! You mean snow!
I was talking to two my sons, the one living in Berlin said not much snow so far this year,., and the same goes for the one in Budapest Hungary...
Have Northern Hemisphere members had much snow in their neck of the woods ?
We've had a couple good dumps of snow so far this winter.
Cold, cold, cold for Christmas this year. -27C, feels like -34 with wind chill and humidex
On the southern end of a Canadian Island that's just south of the 49th parallel we had about an inch of snow on one night that was mostly gone by the morning. A minus 7 C is predicted for next week sometime so perhaps I'll yet have a couple of driveways and sidewalks to shovel.
We had -6 C last night but that’s the coldest it’s been, it hasn’t been freezing consistently and so there has been very little snow, just a little freezing rain and frost on the ground.