WILL WE ALL DISAPPEAR?

SWMBO, the BRD, Beau Jack and I shared a meal and conversation the other day.  I had forgotten until I read Tom's post today about one of the conversational topics that came up.

It began with SWMBO relating how her novel-in-progress is based on a series of letters written by a far-off uncle of hers before and around the beginning of the 20th Century, i.e. the 1890's and up.  It is quite amazing that she was able to acquire the letters, that they had been kept in her family for over 100 years and that she was able to make transcripts from them.

This led to an admittance by Beau Jack that he had thrown away many letters and papers of his father's when he passed away.  SWMBO was appalled at the loss of this history and BJ acknowledged that he had kept his father's diary.  He also noted that he had kept a diary himself for a couple of years in his youth and he still had it in a filing cabinet.

But this conversation then led, on SWMBO's part, to the Internet and all of the blogs and photos that exist only on the Internet.  In the cloud world, I suppose.  She contended that some day all of these things will disappear - poof - as the Internet collapses or turns into something else.  And all of those digitally rendered images and words and thoughts will be lost for all time.  Unless they have been printed out and kept on paper.

I have read speculations about the death of the Internet or the World Wide Web as some new technology comes along.  Let's face it - these communications technologies, as we know them, are less than 30 years old.  And the amazing growth in technology and development is hard to grasp.  I can remember my first computer, a Commodore, I believe.  I thought I was in hog heaven when I had figured out how to hook it to my ham radio.  How long ago that now seems.

I recently began streaming data onto a television set and was somewhat surprised to find a Picasa program that had hundreds of pictures I had used over the years.  Many of them were worthless, used only to illustrate a long-forgotten point.  But there were others, too, of friends and family.  Photos that, for reasons of posterity (?) I would not want to lose.
  
But SWMBO and the others made me think - will that magical POOF happen while I am still alive or later?  Will my blog and photos live on after me until the great dissolve?  Will my handprints on the cave of existence be there years and decades and centuries later?  Or not?

And finally and somewhat wistfully this thought - will any one really care?  

SUNDAY RAIN

The weather forecasters have been predicting for days that this weekend would be filled with tropical rain and thunderstorms.  Something like this, I supposed.

About 3:30 Saturday morning, I was awakened by a fierce clap of thunder. With anticipation I went to the window.  I saw some heat lightning to the west but no rain falling.  I went back to bed expecting to be lulled into blissful slumber by the falling rain at any moment.

That was it for Saturday but the weathermen had promised that Sunday was really going to be the day for rain.  And it came.  I know that because I was out on the patio counting the drops.  Literally.  Not enough to dampen the ground even.

It has been cooler.  It appears today's high will top out at around 87, easily 20 degrees cooler than the other day.  The skies have been grey.  Or gray. (I never can remember which is which.)  But rain?  Never anything more than those random drops, so far.  This is the alleged height of our "Monsoon Season".  Not too monsoony, if you ask me.

But I will continue to have hope.  After all the football season is nearing and everyone knows one can only truly play real man's football in mud.

T.G.I.F.

Even after all these years, even after a week of perfect idleness, even after losing my car manual, even after losing an expensive pair of sunglasses, I still love Friday nights.  I don't know exactly why.  But there are indications the weather is changing for the better.  There's a better than half possibility of rain, maybe even a thunderstorm or two this weekend.  When that happens the temperature drops even as the humidity rises.

In the news, the mayor of San Diego is finally resigning.  Syria is becoming more of a problem for Obama, with chemical weapons warfare breaking out and the opposition a hodge-podge of groups who don't agree with each other or with us.  Senator Ted "Crazy" Cruz of Texas wants to shut down the government unless he gets his way at defunding the Affordable Health Care law.

So there's really no reason to feel good right now but still . . .

So turn up the volume on your speakers, get into dancing mode and rock into Friday night with this song.

WEDNESDAY WOE

It was sprinkling here awhile ago.  I went out and stood in the back yard.  I could feel an occasional drop but there wasn't enough to get wet.  Maybe this weekend or so the weathermen are proclaiming.

My yard men are now here cutting the grass.

It's only 98 here now as it's been overcast all day.  But now the sun is coming out.

I'm bored with this long hot summer.

HEH-HEH-HEH

Don't blame me.  This is a food truck in Houston.  The picture was sent to me by a (to be kept anonymous) friend.  Thanks, Frank.

With that, I'm flyin' West.

(In my mind, anyway)

FUN WITH CATS ON THE INTERNET

O.K.  So most of you know by now that I love cats.  Well in a period of intensive scientific research web surfing while bored this afternoon, I found a few cat pictures from the web that I like.

Like this one.

Or this one.

Anyone who has ever had a Christmas tree and a kitten in the same room must be familiar with a scene like this.

There are some pictures that are sort of intellectual.

By the way, you'll notice the spelling isn't all it could be.  It's difficult for those furry little creatures to type correctly all the time.

So there's just a sample of what's available via the World Wide Web. 

But wait!  How about THIS fearsome prospect?

APPLES OF MY EYE

Stephen, of the Chubby Chatterbox, has been a great influence on me with his great story-telling and absolutely marvelous illustrations.  I've already got the story-telling down (though not as good as Stephen) so I decided to try my luck with the paintbrushes.  Here's my first attempt.

So what do you think?  

Still life with apples.  

Not too bad, is it?

I think I did well with the sheen of the fruit, and the light reflections.

Not to mention the thatch of the basket.

Stephen?

Can you give it a critique?

Oh, all right.

So I lied.

That's part of story-telling.

Here's the original, before it was dealt with in my PHOTO-editing software.

Yup, it's just a photograph.

Actually, I prefer one I took with a little less light on the subject.  It seems to bring out the deeper reds.

So, there's my "story" for today.

And apologies to Stephen, a REAL artist.