My tourista Roma

Here are several shots  I have taken over the years visiting Rome. I'll never tire of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ragazzi...trei

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ragazzi...due

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ragazzi e fontana

Kids don't need our help to have fun...here's the proof!

 

 

 

 

 

An explanation?

I drive a lot and tend to either listen to peace and quiet or NPR. Yesterday was NPR. As a result I came away with some info that explains how much I can/do remember. The guest was an inventor/author from Massachusetts, Ray Kurzweil. His current book is about the mind and how AI will help your memory. We humans learn in patterns and there are somewhere in the three million in volume. So by age twenty our heads are full of these patterns. From that age on, in order to retain a new pattern of thought we must "lose" an old one. It's an unconscious act, nothing we can preordain. Usually the one replaced is a duplicate from our store of good memories. If you like gelato that memory might be stored over and over thus replacing one is no big thing. Likewise as  you age memories of youth fade because it is no longer an active part of your life. It makes sense. So I'll fly with it!

If you see me and I don't seem to recognize you, it's because you were a part of my distant youth and I've misplaced that memory...not that I would ever have chosen, consciously to do so. My apologies and let's start a new line of thought, totally disregarding the poor victims of my memory being crushed by doing so!

The author feels that in twenty years, give or take, research will permit us to use electronic implants to aid our memory banks...you know sort of like those chips we put behind the ears of our pets. Maybe we won't actually remember more, but the days of "Silver alerts" are numbered! 

So the next time you read something on this blog and you feel that I already wrote it elsewhere, this is "my story and I'm sticking to it"!!!

Yes...and no!

 Perhaps there is a better way to answer the question, but it was really a two parter! When Grace told Kathy and Laurie about "us", they wanted to know if we planned to retire and travel. Thus the answer as above.

Travel we have done.Retirement we have failed. Someday, on that one.Maybe!

But, travel let's see...

The first places we went to were much closer to home than what we now do. Bed and breakfasts in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Quebec, long day trips all over New England. Jazz festivals in Montreal and Rhode Island. A weekend in Washington. We were both antique nuts so if there was a flea market in the area we most likely were there. Decorated our house that way and Grace did a stint on e-bay selling the stuff we didn't use. North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Virginia also made our list.

We went through an extended period of down time while Grace recovered her health and then we were on the road again!

Our first long trip combined family, water, car, zoo and spectacular scenery. California, from south to north! My brother Kelly married a Valley girl and moved to California years ago. We still speak, so I started our trip by calling him and inviting ourselves to his place...we still speak! He lives near the mountains close to San Bernadino, so the logical first trip took us up into the mountains. My first experience seeing snow on the ground and looking down on the Pacific Ocean. Somewhere there is a photo of Grace in shorts in the snow. Guess I'll have to find that one. Old Town in Los Angeles was a great visit, with a lunch in the oldest restaurant in the plaza. Pickled cactus salad, sounds one way, tastes another. You must visit the San Diego Zoo, it is a law! Capistrano, of all the Missions I have visited (most) this is the most famous and it is a deserved fame. Well preserved and displayed with  a great location, oh and Beano on thursdays!
Palm Springs with Juli's family and up the funicular. Little brother grounded by his innate fear of heights! Juli joined us though! Women are always braver.

After a week with them we left to travel the coast road north.
The Big Sur, Monterrey, Pebble Beach, Carmel experience should be on everyones bucket list. But you have to leave some room for the entire San Francisco visit. I love New York...not as much as San Francisco. My favorite city in the USA. Tough to walk if you are out of shape. But you'll be in shape at the end. There are enough guide-books to walk you through a visit to the city by the bay, so I'll just mention one place.

The Muir Woods is a strand of Redwoods near Stinson Beach on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Jaw dropping gorgeous. So awe inspiring that the visiting bus-load of New Yorkers were silent! One nature spot to pick? This is the one in the city.

The flight back after that was pretty quiet. Most trips back are.

So, yes to the travel...to be continued re: retirement!

Were you dissed?

The English language is perhaps the most expressive language in the world. Continually evolving from it's roots in Germany to the currently most used language in the world. The shear immensity of words available, allowing expression of thought, meaning and nuance is astounding. Several sources give a low quantity of 250,000 available words and that number could actually exceed 1,000,000. The top end is expanded, almost daily by the inclusion of new discoveries from science and the streets among others. 

To wit, DISSED. Strictly from the streets. Think it's a contraction of disrespected, itself a non-word. You respect or you don't respect. None the less we have a new word to place at the apex, right beside ain't. Yo man, you dissin me? Ain't!
If all these citizens could spell, perhaps some of glorious addendum would be redundant. Wrong word, they are redundant. Superfluous right! If you can not spell, how do you know what something means? How do you know you were insulted? With so many words to chose from why corrupt through ignorance? 

So many bright, witty people live by using our language. Writers, comics, wordsmiths all. What is an aphorist? The first is purported to have been Hippocrates. Basically it is someone that tells concise definitions of a principle. Henny Youngman told one-liners...same thing. We have an enormous vocabulary and an outstanding tool in "spell check". Is learning "not cool"? At my age I certainly want the physicians and pharmacists to have the ability to spell. It's in my long term best interests...yours too, if you think about it.

Aphorist is not my parting shot, "spell check" is!