Some Blog Site

There was a discussion in a nearby cubicle at work. They were discussing the start of winter. What drew me over there was that one guy was claiming winter didn’t start until Dec. 21st. This was about a week before Dec. 21st, and we had snow and temperatures below freezing for weeks already. In fact, he was arguing that it was not winter yet, and the temperature was about 10 degrees F with snow and ice all around.

I made my case that winter is a weather season, and it runs December and January and February around here. He said I was wrong because winter is defined as starting on December 21st. Who defines winter?

If you ask Google to define winter, you’ll get my definition. Another dictionary lists time from the winter solstice to the vernal equinox as the first definition, but also lists other definitions.

I stand by my assertion that winter is defined by the weather where you are. For example, I would argue that what makes winter in Michigan is different from what makes winter in Florida.

This guy was dead set on the astronomical definition of the winter solstice. I agree that the winter solstice is Dec 21st, but if anything that should be the middle of winter, since it is the lowest daylight. Consider it as the peak of winter. He argued that this would not be the case, because the coldest weather comes after Dec 21. That was amusing, because he was using weather as an argument against me, when he wouldn’t accept it as an argument against his case. I recognize there is a lag, but that’s due to thermal mass mostly; winter has started blowing in long before winter solstice.

To me, arguing that winter doesn’t start until the solstice is like arguing you’re not climbing a mountain until you’ve reached the peak.

FYI – this is related to the post about the summer season from a few months ago.

My wife took the kids to a nearby botanical gardens. Nothing remarkable about the outing itself – this post is about the title “botanical gardens”.

It got me wondering what gardens people have that aren’t botanical?

• mechanical gardens
• entomological gardens
• mineral gardens
• chemical gardens

I left “vegetable gardens” and “zoological gardens” off the list because those are actual terms that I assume caused the differentiator term “botanical” to be added to the phrase. Oh, and “flower gardens”, which should just be a subset of “botanical gardens”.

Yes today’s post is slightly related to last week’s post about mechanical kids.

What other kind of gardens would you most like to see? Other than botanical or zoological.

I overheard someone telling about his family. He said something along the lines of “I have 5 kids – 2 biological and 3 adopted.”

There must be a better way of phrasing that. For when he said “2 biological and”, my mind filled in “3 mechanical” before he could finish. Because if the adopted children are not biological, what else could they be? Maybe “spiritual” if they don’t have bodies?

I didn’t say anything to the guy, of course. If he has gone to the trouble of adopting multiple children, he needs to be encouraged.

What would be a way of saying what he wanted to convey?

• “I have 5 kids, 3 of which are adopted.”
• “We had 2 kids and then we adopted 3 more.”
• “I have 5 kids, 2 _________ and 3 adopted.”

Any suggestions to fill in the blank?

Quick question to ponder, inspired by a comic strip of my youth:

What is the opposite of “pronoun”?

Is it

• A. Con-noun
• B. Anti-noun
• C. Amateur-noun

?

I don’t have the answer, so I’m hoping one of you does.

Why is it that something opposite is called “upside-down” but something that is normal is “upside-right”?

Shouldn’t the phrase for something normal be “upside-up”?

Either that or the phrase for something opposite should be “upside-wrong”.

We need the terms to match. Either up/down or right/wrong.

I’m going with “upside-up”.

Just like “heels over head”.

My kids were remarking that my wife had her burger upside down. I was doing the same thing (assembling my burger opposite of what the restaurants do), so I asked the kids what made more sense. Now I will do the same to the internet.

Say you need to carry something of not insignificant weight. Could be a book, or a cat, or whatever. And you have a sheet of paper and a sheet of corrugated cardboard. Which will do the job better? What about with more weight?

It never made sense to me why the half of the bun that is least suited for bearing weight is the one that people assign that task.

And if I get a restaurant burger, I don’t rearrange it. I just flip the whole thing over and eat it that way.

I was reading a Frazz collection and one of the story lines had to do with the famous quote from Thomas Alva Edison :

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. It bothered me because it is wrong.

By wrong I don’t mean misquoted. By wrong I mean Edison was mistaken when he said it.

Here is my recommendation for improving the quote :

Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Really, think about it – genius can be apparent without effort. And I think Edison was thinking about success when he said it. He probably saw success and genius as one and the same, because he was successful.

I’m not convinced he was a genius though. I’d apply that label to Nikola Tesla. He was a genius, but he was not successful. At least not as successful in the business world as Edison was.

Another vote against Edison’s being a genius is that he spoke about genius-ness. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, if you have to tell people you’re a genius, then you’re not.