Tag Archives: musings

Do You Hear the Singing Swiss?

swiss flagLike it or not, the Swiss are in the news again.  And I know what you are thinking: Winter Olympics already?  It may come as a shock to many of my American readers, but I have it on good authority that some nations exist and do stuff even when the Olympics are not going on.  The Swiss are a perfect example.

Last week Switzerland announced a contest through which they will choose a new national anthem to replace their current “Swiss Psalm,” which in turn replaced the English tune, “God Save the Queen” in 1961 because they eventually realized that 1) they were not English; and b) they didn’t even have a queen. Continue reading →

Cracking Yolks About Frying Eggs

Well, we are seven inches from the midday sun here in Minnesota, which basically means that we stop rooting for global warming for a couple of days, hang out in the frozen foods section, and talk to each other about the weather without the awkwardness of feeling like we don’t really have anything meaningful to talk about.

At least it’s not stupid hot like it has been in the Southwest of These United States lately.  They have been under repeated heat warnings such that the deaths of everyone over the age of 90 are blamed on the extreme temperatures.  In fact, it has been so hot in Death Valley National Park that officials there have had to entreat visitors there to please not fry eggs on the roadside pavement.  And while I admittedly have a penchant for making stuff up, this story happens to be true.  I know this because I saw it on the internet. Continue reading →

Just Call Me ‘For Dinner’

If you had read this post earlier, you could have surmised from the book on the lower portion of the bottom half of my page (that is not there anymore so don’t bother looking), that I had just finished reading Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson, about a legendary mountain man of the Old American West.  What struck me most about this book is the extreme coolness of mountain man nicknames: Bear Claw, White-eye, Arkansas Pete, Hatchet Jack, Mad Mose, and of course the main character, Crow Killer, otherwise known as Liver-Eating Johnson.

This got me conTIMplating nicknames, where they come from, and perhaps most importantly, why I don’t have one.  Continue reading →

Time for a Graduation Innovation Conversation

Yesterday was Thing 1’s last day of high school, which means she graduates in the top 100% of her class this week and enters the ambiguous and limbotic state of a Phillip Phillips Summer; somewhere between “Home” and “Gone, Gone, Gone”.

Not unlike your typical middle-aged milquetoast who has survived such a life event as this, my emotive state is one of uneasy apprehension and terrible trepidation, not so much from the launching of a long-time household resident as from the requirement that I actually attend the lengthy and dreaded tradition that is the graduation ceremony. Continue reading →

Tim and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

I’ve had better weeks.

Perhaps you have heard the phrase, “First World Problems.”  It is a euphemism for such life difficulties as, “My lettuce turns brown too fast” or, “The escalator is broken again” or, “Which government agency should I use to harass my political enemies?”  I won’t say whether I have any of these specific problems or not, but I will say that after this week I am seriously looking at some lovely sand-front property in northern Mali.

Early this week I fought “The Battle of The Siding” which is a lot like “The Battle of The Bulge” except that nobody died and there probably won’t be a movie made about it starring George C. Scott, although one with someone like Bill Pullman is a distinct possibility. Continue reading →