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| With apologies to the 1961 American musical romantic drama directed by Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins |
Talk by Paul Clark
I tried to follow Goines’ thoughts, but I had something happen that felt “seizureish” while pondering Item #2 and fell out of my chair, which scared a cat and sent it running away squealing, which aroused me and brought me enough back to my senses to enable me to quickly move on to my next item of business...
But a few hours later, I went back to the piece for another try, so I need to talk some more...
OMG. It’s happening again. Who am I? Why am I here? Why have leap years so often? No further off than important matters would be after four years (important to humans anyway), why not have leap years every 20 years, or 40, or whatever? Would it really make that much difference? Isn’t it a bit like Daylight Savings Time? Why the obsession with the preordination of forced order if chaos is the true order of the natural world? If badgers don’t care, should people care?
My head hurts...
But I've started making my own cold brew nitro coffee at home. Bought a special nitrogen infusing machine, puts a head on a mug of coffee that makes it look like a draft beer fresh out of a real keg. Maybe I’m drinking too much of it...?
| Copyright © 2021 by Paul Clark |
Paul, please forgive me for inflicting Monday’s “Goines On” on you. If you will be patient until October 14, you can read an answer to your question about why not less frequent leap years – in my post titled “439 Years Ago Today was NOT October 14.” The answer involves Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII….
ReplyDeleteThank you for the warning. I will make a point to be busy October 14, with no time to spend online, so I don't risk injury by trying to sort out such with my definitely not Ivy League feeble brain.
ReplyDeleteModesty in a man of such accomplishments as yours is most charming!
DeleteI'm in the same boat as Paul, and it's sinking. At least my end of the boat is. These types of mathematical conundrums have always left me feeling utterly inadequate, as my grasp of them is, to be honest, non-existant. "If a train leaves Chicago heading west," I have NO IDEA where it will end up, or meet another train from the other direction, or go into the Mississippi River. I suck at math; I can't balance my checkbook. But I CAN spell "Mississippi".
ReplyDeleteYou can do important things. Poor Goines is stuck in the neverland of “pure thought.”
DeleteFor all of you living in the neverland of "pure thought" and who therefore (I hope) like to overthink, here's a question from my seven-year-old son's homeschool lessons last night. Please let me know if you come up with the answer.
ReplyDeleteA farmer has one rowboat. On one side of a stream he has a fox, a chicken and a bag of sunflower seeds. He has to ferry each to the other side of the stream, one at a time.
He can't take the sunflower seeds, because the fox will eat the chicken while he is gone. He can't take the fox, because the chicken will eat the sunflower seeds while he's gone. But if he takes the chicken, then goes back for either the sunflower seeds or the fox, disaster will ensue while he goes back for the other.
What does he do? Goines, Roger, anyone?
Come, come, Paul! Obviously the farmer takes the chicken, goes back for the fox, and then, taking the chicken along, goes back for the sunflower seeds. And then he goes back for the chicken.
DeleteCome on now, Paul, was I right? The farmer takes the chicken, goes back for the fox, and then, taking the chicken along, goes back for the sunflower seeds. And then he goes back for the chicken? What does your seven-year-old say?
DeleteIn case my solution might be misread as having violated the restriction that the farmer can take only one item at a time, let me be more precise:
DeleteThe farmer takes the chicken [across the river by itself], goes back for the fox [taking it across by itself], and then, taking the chicken along [by itself], goes back for the sunflower seeds [taking the bag across by itself]. And then he goes back for the chicken [which has been left for final pickup].
All I know is, if you're a frog, don't give the scorpion a ride across the river on your back. He will promise not to sting you, but he will. When you ask him why, that now you both shall drown, he will say "I can't help it. It's in my nature..."
ReplyDelete