The time change is kicking my ass in a minor sorta way, in that I'm out of sorts and will remain this way for the better part of a week. Example: there are still two cups o' morning coffee to finish. That said, a week's worth o' body clock adjustment will leave me pleased with the "extra" Happy Hour time.
OTOH... I'm oh-so-glad I don't have to drag my old ass out o' bed and be somewhere tomorrow morning. The Spring-forward bullshit REALLY kicked my ass during my working years, mainly because I was always an early-guy, always in at 0600 or so. I saved the above photo as documentary proof, even though it's 13 years old. (Rochester, NY... c. 1998)
―:☺:―
As a public service... here's Buck's Brief Treatise On Writing: Not every freakin' noun needs multiple and increasingly obscure adjectives. The same relationship exists between verbs and adverbs.
"It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics."That is all.
Ernest Hemingway
A nice little shot or three in the morning joe will help with the transition. ;)
ReplyDeleteWe're waiting for Happy Hour, Anon... which is upon us just as soon as I get out of the shower. Where DOES the time go?
ReplyDeleteAgree completely on the writing advice. Eschew obfuscation.
ReplyDelete(Word verification: "pregeo".)
I wish they would leave the time alone as well. I think the original intention was to help the farmers when we were an agricultural nation, or something like that!
ReplyDeleteThe clock says one thing, and the old bod says another!
Daylight Savings Time. Oh God.
ReplyDeleteIt's been a mess throughout my life, and the rationale seems madness in the modern age.
And if you think Mondays were bad...for most of my adulthood I made a significant part of my income as a church soloist. Try adjusting to this insanity on Sunday mornings (i.e., 8 a.m. Mass.) I found myself an hour early as often as an hour late, and groggy always.
Buck, thanks for the explanation on the photo. My first thought was, "Dang, for a high tech guy, Buck sure has a POS monitor."
ReplyDeleteI made it okay this am...had to be in very early, and made it in good shape. But...around 1100 HRS, it started to hit me, and the older guy I partner with on Sunday AM. He admitted his tiredness...and after he finally did, I did, too.
Actually, I like CDST. Wish we'd keep it year 'round.
Ooops! It did post...and I screwed up CDT.
ReplyDeleteI suck.
Effective pic, good post. I'm tired too. Short is good. In writing.
ReplyDeleteMorgan: Ya left out the second and arguably most important part of yer quote: "eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation."
ReplyDeleteWe are ALWAYS the pedant.
The clock says one thing, and the old bod says another!
Yup! You make the point precisely, Ed.
Try adjusting to this insanity on Sunday mornings (i.e., 8 a.m. Mass.)
That would be an impossible situation for me, Rob. Not to flog the obvious, or anything.
My first thought was, "Dang, for a high tech guy, Buck sure has a POS monitor."
Need I remind you of the parable about the cobbler's kids, Andy? US IT guys ALWAYS got the good stuff last, at least in the organizations where I worked...
Short is good. In writing.
You, me, and Hemingway, Dan. Others? Not so much. But the smart ones come around. ;-)
God bless you for even knowing what an adjective is...
ReplyDeleteWhen I took German in high school, the old biddy started wiggling her ass on the chalkboard and diagramming sentences.
All the students looked at each other. Yes, indeed, one hour of English - followed by one hour of German - and neither teacher could give a crap that we learned anything.
Everyone in my row got an F.
Just as well, I wrote well enough in the sixth grade to get most of the jobs I've had...
Anon, anon....
ReplyDeleteI went to high school in the early '60s, and not only had one of a pair of sister Old Maid Schoolteachers for English, but we were expected (and graded accordingly) to submit neatly hand-written essays using a fountain pen with either blue or (for the advanced) black ink.
Unlike your assertion, it was very clear to me even then that my teachers cared deeply that we learned something. Like you, however, it's never occurred to me that any adult shouldn't be able to compose adequate English sentences and paragraphs to do any business writing that came up.
"Education," as it were - at, of course, the expense of social indoctrination about victimhood.
And yes, we diagrammed sentences - which was invaluable training in nested programming and the analysis of Baroque arias in later life.
My experience was the same as Rob's, Anon. Mebbe it's a generational thang, but my teachers were were both dedicated and highly qualified.
ReplyDelete...it's never occurred to me that any adult shouldn't be able to compose adequate English sentences and paragraphs to do any business writing that came up.
Heh. You must have never supervised coders who got out of college in the '90s, Rob. But, Hey... I got paid good money to collect their thoughts and translate them into readable, understandable English.
Sunday morning wasn't so bad with no place to be in a hurry. But this morning when Toby's alarm clock went off at 5:30 AM, I believe I cussed.
ReplyDeleteI like the KISS method of writing, and I taught that way - back in the day. Yet, my own writing is much like I speak - kind of long and garbled. I had an English teacher that rather than teach rules, would often say, "Why not write it the way you say it."
Lou - I cussed as well this morning, quite colorfully. It was still dark at 6:30am. I thought it was some kind of cruel joke.
ReplyDeleteGenerally I do OK with the fall back part of the year. The spring forward is a killer. And this week I have no time to be tired.
Grrrrr.
Lou: I've taken to writin' like I talk of late (note the dropped "G"). I think that started a year or so ago, mebbe longer. Speaking o' swearin' when one gets up... I did just that about a half-hour ago, as in: "Damn. The day's half-gone. Again."
ReplyDeleteKris: See above.
Rob, rob...
ReplyDeleteI went to high school starting in 1969. I often wondered what happened to these teachers that made them so uninspiring.
Through the magic of technology, I have found I am able to view yearbooks (some, not all) on Ancestry.com.
Sure enough, I found some of these teachers when they were young and in their first year teaching. Back then teachers seemed to stay at the same school forever. They looked so fresh and excited in the yearbooks.
Later in life, I kind of joined with their mentality: you get what you put into it. No one rides for free.
But at the time, I was really pissed. What kind of second language lesson plan would not start with conversational skills, and then move on to grammar. Grammar, to me, is best done after a session of inspiration.