questions

* What are you sure of? 
Isn't that a great question?

I'm sure the earth is round.
I'm sure that I don't like mangos.
I'm sure that someone loves me.
I'm sure that smoking is bad for you.
I'm sure that it's impossible to pick ONE favorite movie or song.
I'm sure politicians don't care about me.
I'm sure that I couldn't live without sugar.

Here's another great question (I've asked before)
* How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?
I'd say, late 30's, early 40's.

* When it's all said and done, will you have said more than you've done?

* If not now, then when?!

Do you have a favorite, thought provoking question?

Guns

OK, now is a good time to start a conversation between the left and the right and the NRA. And keep talking about it. And keep talking about it! And keep talking about it!

Do you know what the full 2nd Amendment says?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

That's it. That's all of it. It's not 10 pages long. It's just one sentence.
All of that interpretation from one sentence.

The definition of Militia is;
* a military force that is raised from the civil population supplement a regular army in an emergency.
* a military force that engages in rebel or terrorist activities, typically in opposition to a regular army
* all able-bodied civilians eligible by law for military service.

My first question would be, why does this conversation have to be about the 2nd amendment? I think the answer is, it doesn't. Anything they can accomplish, even if they could work together, won't have anything to do with your right to bear arms. No one would stand for that. And they would accomplish more, if they just said that right off the bat! Sometimes I feel like the NRA is a little like the Union. It had a purpose once. Then, all that power and control went right to their heads and now they're just bullies. Do you know that 84% of all Americans, gun owners or not, believe in universal background checks? That means for everybody. Retail, wholesale and private parties. So why can't you all make that happen?? There isn't a national database? Really? If you're on a no fly list, you shouldn't be allowed to purchase a gun. If you've ever been convicted of a felony, you shouldn't be allowed to purchase or own a gun without jumping through some major hoops. I'm all for a waiting period too. If you're a law abiding citizen, it shouldn't be a big deal to have to wait a week to get your firearm. That doesn't  have anything to do with your right to own a gun. Wouldn't that be a good start? It was OK in 1986, to ban the possession of machine guns by civilians. That ban didn't infringe on your right to bear arms. It's like all the politicians and lobbyists are 15 years old and don't want to be told to get along or use their common sense. Remember when you were a teenager and argued about everything, just for the sake of arguing? Get your heads out of your asses!!

I don't know if changing the law could have prevented what happened in Vegas. But don't you have to start somewhere? Maybe we just need to be more concerned with what's wrong with our morals or our sense of right or wrong. Why is it so easy to talk about who gets to use the men's or women's bathroom, but not about violence or poverty, etc.

Las Vegas

To all those politicians, late night talk show hosts and news journalist, who uttered ONE SINGLE WORD about gun control yesterday, fuck you. Most of you don't care at all about any of those people and you showed that by promptly making it about your agenda. Shame on you. Would it have hurt you to wait 24 hours!?!?! Couldn't you just focus on the tens of thousands of people who's lives were changed forever Sunday night. What they need, what they went through, who they lost. All of these public figures/entertainers, who obviously felt very emotional about what happened, should have waited to voice their opinions on what needs to done or what should be done, about guns. It's disgusting. Hundreds upon hundreds of people, some waiting for hours, stood in line to donate blood yesterday. They care. In LESS than 24 hours, 44 thousand + people from all walks of life and all over the world, have donated $3,065,400.00 for the victims and their families. They care. It's incredible how deeply some people care. 
https://www.gofundme.com/dr2ks2-las-vegas-victims-fund

Yes, there needs to be a conversation about guns and violence. But did it need to start yesterday? And maybe, you'd actually get further in the conversation, if you waited until everyone's emotions weren't so raw. You're so gross. I'm gonna want to talk about it. But not today. Today, I want to be inspired by the generosity of the human spirit. Today, I want to applaud courage and selflessness. Today, I want to grieve for them.

Oh for heaven's sake!!

OMG! I swear. 

I read something yesterday morning, about the NFL players who chose not to stand for the National Anthem last Sunday...
Many other players also knelt Sunday in response to President Donald Trump's call for owners to fire players who refuse to stand during the anthem.
What that says to me is, we're going to kneel because, well, we don't like Trump. 
I'm pretty sure, and granted I don't pay a lot of attention to the news media, that you're supposed to be kneeling when the National Anthem is playing, to protest/bring attention to, police brutality against African Americans. Pretty sure. Yep.

I'm not going to talk about that anymore because I already have; 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/

If everyone would just get their collective heads out of their asses, you could actually be concerned with something important, like, I don't know, a decent education, skyrocketing health care costs, affordable housing, poverty, etc. 

Sigh

I will not be sorry or apologize because I was born white, in America. Period. 

me and quilling

It's so funny, how long it took for me to find something I love to do. I wonder if I would have loved quilling, say, 20 years ago? Where would I be with it, now? It doesn't matter, I know. But I question it. I always wonder if I'd have found something artsy that I love, could I have done it as a business?
I'm not really brave like that, to take that kind of risk. You  know, put myself out there. So I wonder frequently, if I could/could've. 

I discovered quilling in 2010. I saw this picture;

I don't remember where I saw it but I thought, ohhhhh, that's so cool! So I started Googling terms until I found it. Naturally I thought, I could do that! And I did. And I kept doing it. And I kept doing it. And I kept doing it!

A few times during the last couple of years I've had these thoughts;
What if...
Could I...
Should I...
Last year I thought, I should have an Etsy shop. Then, after I have those thoughts I think, what the hell Cynthia!!! Just do it! Good grief. But I don't. Grrrrr. 
Something happened over the weekend though. My fella and I went to one of our local art festivals. I found myself saying, "I could do this."  And then, for the first time, I found myself looking at their booths. How they were set up, what they had in them, etc. I discovered that most of them didn't really have a lot of art/merchandise in their booths. Hmmmm. How about that?! I don't have to have this huge inventory of stuff! I could do this. Yep. Pretty sure I can. 

Actually, I'm gonna give it a try! I'll keep you posted :-)

Happy Fall Ya'll (and other things)

It's my favorite season!

Of course, it would be nicer if it actually felt like Autumn. Today's high is 92! Finally, we're having summer. The year has sure flown by.

September is a busy month for my family. It's filled with birthdays. Grandson, brother, great nephew, great niece, great niece's dad. Yep, there are two new people in our clan! A baby boy AND a baby girl, 2 weeks apart. My brother is grandpa. OH! And my Mom is a GREAT GRANDMA!! Holy cow! She's decided she'd like to be called, G.G. You know, for great grandma. I like it. It's cute. 

I always think it's funny, what people want to title themselves. Some women want to be called Mimi. I don't know where that comes from? We have some family friends that are called Ma and Pa, by their grand-kids. Then there's granny, gramps, popi, pops, nana, memaw, and the favorite in the Midwest, mamaw and papaw. 

New people are exciting to have and I'm so happy for my family!

demographics

Do you ever wonder how many Catholics there are in the world? Do you ever wonder about languages and which ones are spoken the most? Do you ever wonder what country is the most populated? I wonder about those things, sporadically. So I looked it up :-)

41% of the worlds population is between 25-54 years old

25% of the worlds population is between 0-14 years old

31% of the world that practices some kind of religion, are Christian; followed by Muslim at 23% and Hindu at 15%.

All told, there are an estimated 7,100 languages spoken in the world today! A lot of them are just derivatives of the same language though. 12% of the world speaks Mandarin Chinese. 6% of the world speak Spanish and 5% of the world speaks English.

86% of the world, over the age of 15, can read and write. 2/3rds of the world's illiterate adults are women.

The world's population reached 1 billion in 1804(estimated) 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987, 6 billion in 1999 and 7 billion in 2011.

1.4 billion people live in China. 1.3 billion in India. 326 million in the US. 261 million in Indonesia.

The most densely populated nation in the world is Monaco with 18,713 people per square km -  Bangladesh is the most densely populated country - 161 million people there. Whoa! The least densely populated place on earth? Greenland. only .03 people per km.

Interesting, isn't it??

tiny things

I was thinking a month or so ago, about miniatures. I've built a couple miniature houses. They were fun and I like them. I have one, in the waiting so to speak. It's a really good one. The kind that could be a family heirloom, once it's done. Not that I have anyone to leave it to. Anyway, the first floor is a shop and the 2nd and 3rd floors are living space. The other super great thing about is, it has 4 sides and the front opens. My shop could be anything! A general store, a bakery, a craft shop! Cool, huh!?! It's a someday thing. I'm thinking that my fella should build it for me. He'd be a lot better at it than I would be. I'm not nearly as precise or straight. Plus, I like the decorating part better. Yeah, he should definitely build it for me. 💚

Oh, yeah, so I was thinking about miniatures...I wanted to do something small. So I decided I would do a room box. What I found instead, was this awesome little kit, for $20. A Christmas themed room. It came with everything in the picture. So I bought it. I just had a 4 day weekend so I spent all my free time, working on this little room. It's tiny though, 8x5x6. Much smaller than a real miniature house scale. 

Here is it;

See that little candle on the piano? A bead, a sequin and a rolled pc of paper

I had to upholster that sofa and fringe that rug

...and make the box (pan) the turkey sits in

...and put the hanging lamp together and the candle on the table and the lights on the tree

 see that little clock? that basket? I made those

 see those boxes? I had to make them.

 yep, it's lighted too!

There are a couple things I didn't do. They were just too tiny and they didn't really matter.

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