Live Music!!!

It seemed a little like it's been a dry year for us, regarding concerts. Then, all of a sudden, BOOM! I've got several lined up! Whew. I was kind of missing it.

Last weekend was Alan Jackson. I wanted to see him once more before he gets older and not quite as good. I'm not one of those people who still wants to see their favorites when they're 70+. I'd rather have my nice memory of when they totally rocked! Also, I'm not spending a hundred dollars or more to see someone. I don't think anybody is worth that. Wait, I might amend that statement, if it were in the first 5 rows for someone whose music I LOVE...I would think about it. :-)

In October, I get to see Garth Brooks, TWICE! Pretty happy about that :-) Most likely, this will be the last chance I have for this.

In December, we get Trans Siberian Orchestra. The man in my life says, "I want to see them every time they come to our city!" Aaaaand, because I'm a fan of Christmas music, the Symphony Choir is also on the list, in December. 

Good stuff ahead!

My smartphone

How many apps do you have on you smartphone? 20? 100? More?
I have 54. No, really! Granted, some of them came with my phone and I can't delete them. But still, 54! How many pictures do you have on your phone?? I have 1015. Yep. 1 thousand and 15. I could probably delete about a 100 of them right now. After that, I might struggle. I love all my picture! Isn't it the coolest thing?! That you can take a picture at a moments notice and not have to have it developed in order to see it? You can carry around a thousand pictures with you. I want to try and not take that for granted, but it's hard. 
My phone tells me that they are all stored in the cloud. So. How do I get to the cloud? Can I download them from the cloud to my computer? How long will the cloud keep them? I love technology, but it's so weird!

Gen Con, 2017

In case you need a reminder from last year;
https://indyscootergirl.blogspot.com/2016/08/gen-con.html

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Gen Con. It's a 4 day convention. The Indiana Tourism agency says that this years attendance will be in the neighborhood of 60,000!!!!! I probably don't have to tell you what that does to downtown traffic!!! It's not the cars though. Because most people stay in a hotel downtown, so they can walk to the convention center. It's the pedestrians!!!! OMG! It take 3, 4, sometimes 5 signals if you want to turn! It's so crazy. And nerds? Whoa. Gobs and gobs of nerdy nerds. And mostly men. Interesting. Lots of squishy Wall-E people and basement dwellers too. Big fat guys w/fanny packs. Oh! And dozens and dozens of men walking around in kilts! You know I'm not a joiner so it's hard for me to understand. But I love it for them. Honestly, they look like they're having the best time!! I took all these pictures today, on my lunch walk, for your enjoyment;
(remember, you can click on a picture to see them larger!)

Let the games begin;

nerdy men

In the hotel across the street

There's a place to paint your own game pieces

There's robotics

Here's the Governor and first dog, getting into the act

nerds

attention whore

game enthusiast?

good stuff man

awwww

 This years 300+ page "program"

because gaming is stressful!

nerds

more of them

they're everywhere!!

some of them just sit along the halls and play

dude, your costume is sick!

A princess in a sea of nerdy men

alright...where are all the chicks??

those are all made of cards!!!

this is Georgia Street, in front of the convention center

is there a girl in there somewhere?

Ready for Halloween for sure!

whew!

Well, I officially started my my new job a couple days ago. Finally, I got to leave the ivory tower! Woohoo!! I'm pretty happy. OK, so I still don't have enough to do...but that's going to change. 

I also like my work space better, and a little less, at the same time. It was really nice to have a big desk, with a big comfy leather executive desk chair, out in the open. But at the same time, as an introvert, it's so much nicer to have a cubicle. Now, it's my own space, not everybody's space. I can buy myself some nice soft Kleenex, because no one is going to use it but me! No more cheap, crappy "company" paid for tissue! I can put all my favorite pens in my pen cup because I'm the only one who is going to use them! Gel pens. Colored ones. Yay! I put up my little bulletin board with all my family pictures on it, and it makes me smile. Now, I don't have to share all my stuff with strangers! It's awesome. And in the morning, whenever some other worker bee walks by, they say good morning! I like it. AND, I have a lot more to say when I get home because I'm not exhausted from having meaningless small talk with people I don't know and don't care about, all day! I'll just say it again...it's awesome! Yep, it's a happy little work space now. Whew. 

the times they are a changin'

According to a new study, young, single adults are going out on 30% fewer dates than 10 years ago because of smartphones.

The study found that a lot of young adults are happy to stay home and connect with each other over social media and their smartphone rather than go out on dates on the weekends. The same study found a decline in teens getting their drivers licenses for the same reason, no need to drive to your friends' houses when you can just connect online.

Really? Where's the physical contact in that? That's not bonding. Is it? 

I don't think not having a license is weird though. I didn't get mine until I was 22. One, because I didn't have a car to drive and two, all my friends had cars so I never had to drive anywhere. When I got older, I lived in bike friendly town with an awesome transit system; so I rode my bike everywhere or took the bus. I suspect that younger people are more sensitive to the environment these days too, so they're more apt to take public transit...or live downtown so they don't really need to drive anywhere.

doomed

According to this article, I'm doomed.

The First Warning Sign of Alzheimer's May Surprise You 

Maria Carter6/16/2016

This problem crops up long before any clinical diagnosis of the disease.

We've all heard the stories of the grandma who got lost on her way home from the grocery store, or the great uncle who relies on GPS for the drive to his weekly doctor's appointment, but now there's research to back up the anecdotal evidence that trouble finding your way around may indicate a much bigger problem.

Problems navigating new surroundings crop up before memory loss, and long before any clinical diagnosis of the disease, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. 

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis asked study participants to use patterns and landmarks to make their way through a maze on a computer, the Huffington Post reports. The individuals were divided into three groups: early-stage Alzheimer's patients, undiagnosed people with early markers for Alzheimer's (considered "preclinical Alzheimer's"), and a control group of clinically normal people. The study showed that individuals with preclinical Alzheimer's had more difficulty learning the locations of objects.

"These findings suggest that the wayfinding difficulties experienced by people with preclinical Alzheimer's disease are in part related to trouble acquiring the environmental information," said senior author Denise Head, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences.

While Head cautioned that the study has limitations, she explained that navigational tasks that assess cognitive mapping strategy "could represent a powerful tool for detecting the very earliest Alzheimer's disease-related changes in cognition."

I am one of the most directionally challenged people I know! When I come out of a building or even a store in the mall, about 1/2 the time, I turn the wrong way. I never know where I am. I've been like that all my life! Damn, I'm doomed!!

being part of something

I will be starting a new position at work, in a couple weeks. I'm REALLY happy about it. I've had a lot of jobs in the last 40+ years. I can't think of a single one that I hated or disliked intensely. But I can honestly say that I've never been happier to leave a job than I am about leaving this one. There are several things that come into play that I don't like about my current position, but one of them is not belonging. I'm not part of the team. I don't contribute and I don't feel like I have any value. Doesn't that speak volumes about the leadership? Hmmmm. But I digress...

Typically, I'm not a joiner. I've never been a member of a "club" per say. You know, one where you have to get together with other members and do stuff as a group. Eww. A few years ago, I joined the national quilling guild. Only because I read that you should do that if you think that someday you might become serious about your particular craft/hobby. They also have their own, members only, Facebook page, which I follow as well. Every year they have an annual conference. They've even had one in my home state. But I didn't go. A LOT of members do go. But I don't want to meet a bunch of people that I'm not going to be friends with. I don't want to share my stories with strangers. Not my thing. Is that weird? It must be part of being an introvert. I don't want to be completely lame though, so I actually do post pictures and answer questions on their FB page. Now, a couple of the members have sent me friend requests on FB. I deleted them. I don't want to be rude but, I don't know you people, we aren't friends, we aren't going to be friends and my personal life is none of your business. It makes me feel like such an ogre!!! I've even learned several things about quilling, because of the guild and the FB page. Really cool things too! But I don't want to be part of them.

I guess I'm conflicted. I want to be part of something but I don't want you to bother me.

sigh