Hip Shots, Vier

August 6, 2009 · Posted in (Gene)ric Ramblings, (Gene)tic Rantings, Personal Observation · Comment 

¶ OK, Net typists, time for a few observations from the grumpy Gramps:

  1. Decide whether “ur” means “your” or “you are” and stick with it. Or, better, just type the extra letters.
  2. Take your time and be sure that you’re using “your” and “you’re” appropriately.
  3. Understand that “loose” refers to change in your pocket while “lose” refers to change you misplace. They are not interchangeable.
  4. “There” means not here. “Their” means not yours. “They’re” means “they are.”
  5. You may go “to” the store and buy “two” rolls of toilet paper, unless you think that is “too” much.
  6. Typos are inevitable and no one likes a pedantic blowhard, which may explain my (lack of) popularity.
  7. Carry on.

¶ I have been thinking about writing an autobiography, and have penned a few opening lines. I did not, however, make it off the first page before realizing I needed to change the names of some to protect the innocent, the names of others to protect the ignorant…and my own name to protect the idiotic.

Fiction is so much safer.storm

¶ Working as a catastrophe adjuster creates a moral dilemma. As an empathetic member of humanity, you don’t want anyone to suffer through a hurricane or a hail storm. But then…you need the work. I guess in that regard it is not so different from being a doctor. Sure, you want everyone to be healthy and happy and well, but…

¶ And then there was the sadist who cut off his own nose to spite his face, only to discover the masochist in him rather enjoyed the abuse…and he was just left with a noseless face.

HIP SHOTS: The random thoughts of a restless mind, thrown together with reckless abandon.

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Knee-Jerking My Way Through Georgia

April 23, 2009 · Posted in (Gene)ric Ramblings, Life Experience, Personal Observation, Travel · Comment 

Here are some observations from my first week in Georgia:

  • The word “Georgia” has no “r” in it; at least, not if you’re from Georgia.
  • If you eat out and you order “iced tea,” they don’t even bat an eye, just bring you sweet tea, as if there were no other kind.
  • If you order pancakes and there is no syrup on the table, the sweet tea is a fine substitute.
  • There are no one-syllable words in Georgia, and every word has an invisible “ey” or “ay” in it. Georgians have a lovely sing-song cadence to their dialogue.
  • The beds in Georgia are the rough equivalent of slabs of concrete in Texas. (Well, I have only slept in two: the first was in a cheap motel on night one, and I was thankful I did not have to shoot my way out the next morning; the second is in this somewhat aged hotel in the small burg of Rockmart, where the manager is a sweet, if slightly off-center, eccentric, old lady who routinely misses her upper lip by a quarter inch when she applies her lipstick.)
  • Southern hospitality is alive and well in Georgia.
  • Georgia home builders should be flogged for building the houses a mile off the ground and then putting a pitch on the roof that appears to be the most direct line they could draw to God’s heaven.
  • I haven’t seen a single peach. If I do, I plan to eat it.

In closing, a general observation about solo travel (especially if it is for work): Adventuring is less adventuresome when you are by your lonesome, but going it alone awhile does, I think, make you more keenly aware of the goings on around you. In other words, it turns you into a snoop when you go out to eat. You quickly tire of the conversations in your own head and begin to “overhear” the conversations of diners nearby…or even across the room.

Back to work.

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