Monday Morning Musing

So what was your favorite Super Bowl commercial? Which one(s) would you give a thumbs down to? For me, some were easy to dislike, like the GoDaddy one that had the couple kissing. Sorry, GoDaddy, I like your site, but that commercial was awful.

I liked the Doritos ad that featured the man and the goat. Maybe I related because I have a goat, and I could see her plotting to kill me if I stopped giving her treats. But the commercial that I loved was the Dodge Ram commercial celebrating farmers, narrated by the late Paul Harvey. I know that one resonated with me because I play at farming here on my little piece of East Texas, but I have also loved and respected farmers my whole life. They are in my family and my circle of friends. The ad told of all the reasons "God made a farmer," and it was very poignant.

Inspired by the commercial, I went out and planted potatoes and peas in my garden this morning.

I'm not even going to join the debate about the half-time show, as I did not watch it. I don't care for that style of music, so I cleaned up my kitchen while the show was on. This morning I discovered that there has been some backlash from folks who did not think the show was family-friendly. Well, not much in our pop culture is anymore.

Oops, I just joined the debate. Sorry.

On another note, my publisher for Play It Again, Sam, Uncial Press, has partnered with Untreed Reads for a special sale event, offering books for a 30% discount through February 14. Click on the title link to take advantage of the sale. To see all the novels offered by Untreed Reads, click on their link. 

BLURB: Life as she knows it ceases to exist for Samantha Rutgers when her husband of twenty-plus years decides he no longer loves her. The challenges are myriad. Can she build a life without him? Will her daughter always blame her? Can she ever trust a man again?
    And what is she going to do about sex?

Need Directions? Just ask a Farmer

The other day I was in the local donut shop - yes, sometimes I do treat myself to something decadent and delightful - and as I ate my old-fashioned cake donut, I listened to two farmers talking about meeting up to go hunting. This is roughly how the conversation went:

"How 'bout meeting at the old Franklin place?"

"Where's that?"

"Well, go out 11 to the Greenwood road. You know the one I mean?"

"Yeah. The one that goes to the Greenwood church."

"Okay. Turn left then go a couple of miles, then turn left where you see that big old oak tree on Lloyd's place. Another half mile and there is that old barn that burned last summer. You'll see it on the right where the road takes a Y. Follow the curve to the right and go another two miles 'til you see the windmill on the left. That marks the beginning of the Franklin place."

"Is that before or after the railroad tracks and the dairy barn?"

"After. The dairy barn belongs to old man Foster."

"I thought that was the one. Just didn't know it came so close to Franklin's place."

"It's not that close to where you want to turn. The drive back to that hunting cabin is almost another mile down the road. You'll pass a historical marker, then the turn into the drive is right there."

Listening to these two men I thought, "Who need electronic gadgets when you have farmer GPS systems?"

Helping A Friend

Here is another offering from my friend, Slim Randles. Enjoy.... 

When the world dilemma think tank gathered this morning at the philosophy counter, the main topic of conversation was Marvin Pincus’s problem with the county.

The county wanted him to stop counseling people on love and tying flies to go along with it. Well, they didn’t mind the fly tying so much, but the counseling was to stop unless he had a college degree and a business license. There was general outrage and frustration there in the truck stop.

There were solutions to Marvin’s problem suggested, of course. They varied from 1. finding something else Marvin could do to enjoy his retirement (from Doc), to 5. declaring war on the county up to and including seceding  (from Jasper Blankenship).

Numbers two, three and four weren’t really workable and referred generally to impossible anatomical feats to be performed by certain county employees.

“Marvin’s hearing is next week,” Doc said. “I plan to show up and give them an earful. Ol’ Marve isn’t hurting a soul.”

Dewey hadn’t said much, nursing his coffee and sweet roll. It’s like that sometimes with deep thinkers. It takes time for an idea to ripen, to blossom. Finally, the king of the valley’s one-man fertilizer distribution system smiled.  “Got an idea,” he said. “I’m willing to sacrifice some labor and profits here … for the cause.”

“What’s the idea,” Dud asked.

“What would you think if I donated an entire pickup load of product to the front door of the county building?”

When the laughing died down, Doc said, “I believe I’d bring a shovel and help out.”

“I don’t know,” Jasper said. “I’m not sure they’d think it was out of place there. If I was younger …”

“If you were younger … what?”

“Well, I believe I’d go down and rearrange some county physiognomies.”

He sighed. “But the truth is … I never was as young as I used to be.”
 
                                                           ------------------

Brought to you by Slim’s new book “A Cowboy’s Guide to Growing Up Right.” Learn more at http://www.nmsantos.com/Slim/Slim.html

Daylight Saving Time - Who Needs It?

This coming Sunday is the day most of us in the United States are to turn our clocks back one hour as Daylight Saving Time (DST) ends the first Sunday of November.

There have been many reasons for establishing DST, some factual, some not so factual. One I always heard was that it was established to give farmers more hours of daylight in which to work. However, that never made sense to me as farmers work from daybreak to sunset, no matter what time it says on some clock.

This morning I decided to check online to see if I could find some verified reasons for the time change, and I found this on Wikipedia:

Modern DST was first proposed in 1895 by George Vernon Hudson, but the practice is controversial. Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours, but causes problems for farming, evening entertainment, and other occupations tied to the sun.

 Traffic fatalities are reduced when there is extra afternoon daylight, but its effect on health and crime is less clear. Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, formerly a primary use of electricity, modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited or contradictory.

DST's occasional clock shifts present other challenges. They complicate timekeeping, and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, recordkeeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Software can often adjust computer clocks automatically, but this can be limited and error-prone, particularly when DST protocols are changed.

 In a letter to the editor in The Dallas Morning News, Jim Watt, who works for American Airlines and handles takeoff and landing slots at European and Asian airports, wrote that the difference between the U.S. and European time changes creates havoc for the airline industry. In the European Union, their version of DST - Summer Time -  begins and ends at 1:00 a.m. Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time). It begins the last Sunday in March and ends the last Sunday in October. In the EU, all time zones change at the same moment.

The result, Watt wrote, "Are airline schedules that are compromised because most large European airports are unable to accommodate the one-our shift of our schedules required to maintain the normal departure and arrival times in the States."

I'll admit I am not a huge fan of DST, but do remember appreciating the extra daylight hours at the end of a workday when I had a 9-5 job. It was also easier to adjust to the changes when I was a bit younger.

What about you? Do you like DST? Is it easy for you to adjust? Do you think there should be a global schedule that has the time change on the same day and time?