I didn't know her, but her dad is my godfather, and I toiled through his engineering physics sequence and a statics class. He was a great teacher.
Yesterday the three of us drove out to Minnesota & back to visit my grandmother. After 68 years in her house, next weekend she's moving into an assisted living apartment. She's not the type to dwell on difficulty – she's the sturdiest Great Depression survivor I've ever met – but she did confide that "I promised myself that I'd never live with other people again after moving out of that [nursing school] dormitory, so I don't know how this will go." I know it's probably the right thing for her, but she's been such a fixture in my life for so long that this feels like the gravitational field is shifting. I spent more time in the first four years of my life living in her house than anywhere else.
This morning I'm feeling pretty drained. I must be getting older; making that round trip in one day takes more out of me than it did even five years ago. I suppose some of it is emotional fatigue, too. I tell you what, though: it's awesome to see her and the Poissonnier smiling at each other. I hope she's around long enough that my little one can remember that smile.
Vaguely apropos, my parents were back in their hometown last week. They were making some arrangements at the cemetery, including getting bids to have a couple of headstones on family plots redone or replaced.
My grandfather died in 1977. At the time, they made the stone so that it would include my grandmother next to him, and prepped the stone to include a death date for her. It was pre-etched with a partial year, "19__". Oops. She died in 2005.
Also, they are planning to have my great-grandfather's headstone resurfaced or replaced. He was a civil war vet.
His stone is very weathered. But the bigger problem is that it is all nicked up. Apparently the cemetery now requires all headstones to be installed on a base, because their lawn mowers have damaged so many stones. Oy.
Yeah, I've heard that grounds maintenance is driving some of the headstone arrangements. We had to take those into account with Pops' headstone. I'm a little surprised they let us put a plaque on the back detailing his firefighter service; I think the regulations specify veterans only, though maybe I'm misremembering.
I get that cemeteries are probably operating on limited budgets and need to make the most of their laborers' hours, but it seems that historic areas of the cemetery maybe deserve some more careful attention than a huge riding mower.
I wonder if my grandmother's stone has a deceased year of 19__ on it or not. My grandfather died in 1989 and both of their names are on the stone.
his is an old marble stone. From this 2015 picture, it actually looks to be in pretty good shape.
My dad was hoping to have it refurbished and to add his grandmother's info on the back. Failing that, he's talked about repurposing my sister's stone for his grandmother (having it ground down and re-etched for her) and putting in a new stone for my sister with room for him and my mom.
Simple fix. Just make it say 19 + 1986.
"+ 1986" doesn't fit in two digits, which is all the space normally reserved
I'm guessing they didn't actually put the blank line in there.
And that there's probably a little bit of space between the end of two digits and the edge of the marker...
usually there is an unpolished rectangle where the two digits (or four) are later added, but I imagine it isn't done that way all the time.
I was certainly picturing without the unpolished boxes.
So. A buddy of mine, not religious, but we've talked about gravestones. He's memorized 200 digits of Pi. That would be a cool headstone, ey?
Perhaps of interest to the Nation's genealogy buffs: yesterday my grandmother gave me her father's original Army discharge papers (dated Sept 1920) and her parents' marriage certificates, along with my grandfather's last two passports. Even cooler, she gave me four 78s that my grandfather's band recorded, including a polka that was banned from radio play for its lyrical content. My mom had her copies of the 78s ripped a while back, so I have the songs as mp3s already (one was the very first song the Poissonnier heard), but I didn't know any more of the shellac discs were out there. Apparently my grandmother sent some other things for me with my mom earlier in the week, including her dad's Army footlocker (with uniform). I'm really hoping one of the quilts she & her mom made out of flower sacks in the early Thirties comes my way; I'd love to be able to hand that down to the Poissonnier some day.
I have quite a few oddities passed to me over time, like my father and his parents' WW2 food stamps books, etc. I really should put together that genealogy post sometime that everyone here expressed interest in.
Yes, you should!
I have a handful of things, including a Reelect FDR window shade (I haven't looked at it in years, so not sure which election) and a railroad "standard" pocket watch.
Yes!
I gotta say, I figured Molitor would be the only guy to have tripled for his 3,000th hit for quite a while longer (simply a nexus of the rarity of the event and the relative rarity of triples as hits). Ichiro was the perfect player to join Molitor in that club.
I figured he might have gotten it on an infield single.
Wasn't gonna be on a home run, that's for sure.
*/dazzled
He almost did, but Arenado is simply astounding with the glove (or his bare hand, in that case).
Especially since Molitor was Ichiro's batting coach when he set the single-season hits record.
Molior was able to get a message to Ichiro Suzuki to congratulate him for his 3,000th career hit. The two have been friends since Molitor was Suzuki's hitting coach in Seattle for a season.
And, like Molitor,. Suzuki got a triple for his 3,000th hit.
``That makes it kind of special,'' Molitor said. ``Kind of a little bond we developed 12 years ago,'' he said. ``We can stay connected with that triple as well.''
Ive got a big man sized throw back powder blue twins jersey that's free (ish) to a good home. Hit me up if you're interested. Postage will be cheap.
Any particular number on the back?
No number.
one XL or multiple Xs?
It's a xxl. I have an xl white Mauer jersey if you're interested in that one...
...does this mean you're done with the local 9?
Naw. Just cleaning house. And I can't wear sports related clothing at my current job...
Phew
Do you have a picture of it?
On July 1, the Twins were 25-54 & had the worst record in MLB. Since then, they're 20-12, which is 2nd in MLB to the Jays & have an MLB-best +49 run differential. They far and away have the most runs scored with 194 (6.1 runs per game). Rockies are next at 161. Still have worst record in AL but by only half a game to the Rays. They also have the same record as Arizona and are just half a game worse than the Reds. Atlanta is 4 games worse than the Twins now.
They're gonna have such a crappy draft next year, aren't they?
They should've salted away more losses between April & July.
It's worth pointing out, too, that much of this has come against some of the best teams.
1926 Yankees, but with the rookie at 1st and the veteran in the OF...
A team that finished 69-85, 28.5 games back and 7th in the AL (out of 8 teams)
I'm calling b.s. on this survey estimate that one in eight American adults (13 percent, plus or minus about 5 percent) is a current pot smoker, almost double the 2013 estimate.
this just, ah, smells a little high.
That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I would guess among my friends and coworkers that percentage would be a good deal higher.
They don't specifically define what it means to be a smoker in the question, so it's up to the individual survey taker to decide whether their use constitutes them being a user or not. So it could be that people define being a user more liberally than in years past, perhaps due to lowered stigma.
Could also be skewed higher if those partaking are more likely to answer a phone survey, too.
the survey distinguishes between smoking (implicitly, "current user") and "ever tried", although it's unclear what the question ordering is.
I still find the estimate to be implausibly high. The question wording is a bit vague, but would seem to bias in favor of regular users rather than over-estimating by including everyone who has ever tried a toke. I haven't been in contact with the stuff since college (basically, nobody in my grad school circle smoked either). While I know a few people who are smokers, this being California, I would venture to guess that the proportion amongst working-age adults who would call themselves pot smokers is very, very small. I just think they got a bad draw from the population in this particular sample.
To compare marijuana use among various subgroups, Gallup aggregated data from 2013, 2015 and 2016.
The results show that age and religiosity are key determinants of marijuana use. Almost one in five adults (19%) under the age of 30 report currently using it -- at least double the rate seen among each older age group. Only 2% of weekly churchgoers and 7% of less frequent attenders say they use marijuana, but this rises to 14% of those who seldom or never attend a religious service.
The pattern by age in ever having used marijuana does not show the same skew toward the young; instead, it peaks among the middle-aged. About half of adults between the ages of 30 and 49 (50%) and between 50 and 64 (48%) report having tried it. Despite being less likely to currently smoke marijuana, these older Americans could be more likely than their younger peers to report having tried it because they've had more years to do so. But this difference in their rates of experimentation could also reflect generational cultures and attitudes toward marijuana that have shifted over time.
I find it reasonable within +/-5 points. Particularly when the survey had just 2% lower last year.
How many 18-30 year olds do you know with whom you can accurately ascertain their usage?
I always figured nearly everyone in my cohort was cooler than me and toking (so their paranoia was accurate!).
Assuming that most that have kids stopped, that leaves ~10%? And I'm right in the middle of the second age band.
I was curious about the total (13%) compared with splits (12% of men and 7% of women), but the totals reflect 2013, 2015, and 2016 in aggregate.
Which is hella confusing when your headline is the increase.
Could also be skewed higher if those partaking are more likely to answer a phone survey, too.
I thought about that, but all the stereotypical jokes I could make about users skew the other way.
Engaging in long, drawn-out conversations with a total stranger? Sounds about right to me....
It would be interesting to see how legality in some states have affected usage. I'm not sure how long ago it was legalized in some states.
I figure that's got to be a part of the shift, and likely part of the reason usage is higher in the West than in the rest of the country, considering it's now legal for recreation in Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. (Though they also note the chicken-egg issue of whether it's more common in the West because it's legal, or if it is legal because it is more common.)
Plus, though it's not legal for recreation in Cali (yet; gotta figure it'll pass on the ballot this year...), it is really, really easy to get a prescription. $75 and a claim of one of numerous conditions that just about anyone would qualify for (anxiety, trouble sleeping, sleep apnea, etc.) gets you a certificate. And that's in the Inland Empire; I've heard it's more like $40 in Venice, for example. So, in practice it's basically legalized, just with a flat tax that goes to a doctor rather than the state.
Sleep apnea is considered a valid condition for an Rx card? Wow. Wooooowwwwwwwwww.
I think marijuana addiction is as well.
Talk about d@mning with faint praise:
Polanco reminds me of Punto. Great switch hitter, speedy, tough nosed defense, uses entire field. Love his game. @DerekWetmore@PhilMackey
Meanwhile, in Spamtown: you can go home again, at least to visit.
I didn't know her, but her dad is my godfather, and I toiled through his engineering physics sequence and a statics class. He was a great teacher.
Yesterday the three of us drove out to Minnesota & back to visit my grandmother. After 68 years in her house, next weekend she's moving into an assisted living apartment. She's not the type to dwell on difficulty – she's the sturdiest Great Depression survivor I've ever met – but she did confide that "I promised myself that I'd never live with other people again after moving out of that [nursing school] dormitory, so I don't know how this will go." I know it's probably the right thing for her, but she's been such a fixture in my life for so long that this feels like the gravitational field is shifting. I spent more time in the first four years of my life living in her house than anywhere else.
This morning I'm feeling pretty drained. I must be getting older; making that round trip in one day takes more out of me than it did even five years ago. I suppose some of it is emotional fatigue, too. I tell you what, though: it's awesome to see her and the Poissonnier smiling at each other. I hope she's around long enough that my little one can remember that smile.
Vaguely apropos, my parents were back in their hometown last week. They were making some arrangements at the cemetery, including getting bids to have a couple of headstones on family plots redone or replaced.
My grandfather died in 1977. At the time, they made the stone so that it would include my grandmother next to him, and prepped the stone to include a death date for her. It was pre-etched with a partial year, "19__". Oops. She died in 2005.
Also, they are planning to have my great-grandfather's headstone resurfaced or replaced. He was a civil war vet.
His stone is very weathered. But the bigger problem is that it is all nicked up. Apparently the cemetery now requires all headstones to be installed on a base, because their lawn mowers have damaged so many stones. Oy.
Yeah, I've heard that grounds maintenance is driving some of the headstone arrangements. We had to take those into account with Pops' headstone. I'm a little surprised they let us put a plaque on the back detailing his firefighter service; I think the regulations specify veterans only, though maybe I'm misremembering.
I get that cemeteries are probably operating on limited budgets and need to make the most of their laborers' hours, but it seems that historic areas of the cemetery maybe deserve some more careful attention than a huge riding mower.
I wonder if my grandmother's stone has a deceased year of 19__ on it or not. My grandfather died in 1989 and both of their names are on the stone.
his is an old marble stone. From this 2015 picture, it actually looks to be in pretty good shape.
My dad was hoping to have it refurbished and to add his grandmother's info on the back. Failing that, he's talked about repurposing my sister's stone for his grandmother (having it ground down and re-etched for her) and putting in a new stone for my sister with room for him and my mom.
Simple fix. Just make it say 19 + 1986.
"+ 1986" doesn't fit in two digits, which is all the space normally reserved
I'm guessing they didn't actually put the blank line in there.
And that there's probably a little bit of space between the end of two digits and the edge of the marker...
usually there is an unpolished rectangle where the two digits (or four) are later added, but I imagine it isn't done that way all the time.
I was certainly picturing without the unpolished boxes.
So. A buddy of mine, not religious, but we've talked about gravestones. He's memorized 200 digits of Pi. That would be a cool headstone, ey?
Perhaps of interest to the Nation's genealogy buffs: yesterday my grandmother gave me her father's original Army discharge papers (dated Sept 1920) and her parents' marriage certificates, along with my grandfather's last two passports. Even cooler, she gave me four 78s that my grandfather's band recorded, including a polka that was banned from radio play for its lyrical content. My mom had her copies of the 78s ripped a while back, so I have the songs as mp3s already (one was the very first song the Poissonnier heard), but I didn't know any more of the shellac discs were out there. Apparently my grandmother sent some other things for me with my mom earlier in the week, including her dad's Army footlocker (with uniform). I'm really hoping one of the quilts she & her mom made out of flower sacks in the early Thirties comes my way; I'd love to be able to hand that down to the Poissonnier some day.
I have quite a few oddities passed to me over time, like my father and his parents' WW2 food stamps books, etc. I really should put together that genealogy post sometime that everyone here expressed interest in.
Yes, you should!
I have a handful of things, including a Reelect FDR window shade (I haven't looked at it in years, so not sure which election) and a railroad "standard" pocket watch.
Yes!
I gotta say, I figured Molitor would be the only guy to have tripled for his 3,000th hit for quite a while longer (simply a nexus of the rarity of the event and the relative rarity of triples as hits). Ichiro was the perfect player to join Molitor in that club.
I figured he might have gotten it on an infield single.
Wasn't gonna be on a home run, that's for sure.
*/dazzled
He almost did, but Arenado is simply astounding with the glove (or his bare hand, in that case).
Especially since Molitor was Ichiro's batting coach when he set the single-season hits record.
Ive got a big man sized throw back powder blue twins jersey that's free (ish) to a good home. Hit me up if you're interested. Postage will be cheap.
Any particular number on the back?
No number.
one XL or multiple Xs?
It's a xxl. I have an xl white Mauer jersey if you're interested in that one...
...does this mean you're done with the local 9?
Naw. Just cleaning house. And I can't wear sports related clothing at my current job...
Phew
Do you have a picture of it?
On July 1, the Twins were 25-54 & had the worst record in MLB. Since then, they're 20-12, which is 2nd in MLB to the Jays & have an MLB-best +49 run differential. They far and away have the most runs scored with 194 (6.1 runs per game). Rockies are next at 161. Still have worst record in AL but by only half a game to the Rays. They also have the same record as Arizona and are just half a game worse than the Reds. Atlanta is 4 games worse than the Twins now.
They're gonna have such a crappy draft next year, aren't they?
They should've salted away more losses between April & July.
It's worth pointing out, too, that much of this has come against some of the best teams.
Everything’s waiting for you in downtown Woodland
I love civic boosterism.
I can't believe this happened at the Olympics.
wow, I don't even remember that in my 8/9 year-old house league
I am starting a curling team with some neighbors. Our goal is the 2022 Olympics. How tough can it be?
1. Establish Jamaican citizenship
2. ??
3. PROFIT!
It was a good week for Twins batters.
Hey! Maybe this is like the...
A team that finished 69-85, 28.5 games back and 7th in the AL (out of 8 teams)
I'm calling b.s. on this survey estimate that one in eight American adults (13 percent, plus or minus about 5 percent) is a current pot smoker, almost double the 2013 estimate.
this just, ah, smells a little high.
That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I would guess among my friends and coworkers that percentage would be a good deal higher.
They don't specifically define what it means to be a smoker in the question, so it's up to the individual survey taker to decide whether their use constitutes them being a user or not. So it could be that people define being a user more liberally than in years past, perhaps due to lowered stigma.
Could also be skewed higher if those partaking are more likely to answer a phone survey, too.
the survey distinguishes between smoking (implicitly, "current user") and "ever tried", although it's unclear what the question ordering is.
I still find the estimate to be implausibly high. The question wording is a bit vague, but would seem to bias in favor of regular users rather than over-estimating by including everyone who has ever tried a toke. I haven't been in contact with the stuff since college (basically, nobody in my grad school circle smoked either). While I know a few people who are smokers, this being California, I would venture to guess that the proportion amongst working-age adults who would call themselves pot smokers is very, very small. I just think they got a bad draw from the population in this particular sample.
I find it reasonable within +/-5 points. Particularly when the survey had just 2% lower last year.
How many 18-30 year olds do you know with whom you can accurately ascertain their usage?
I always figured nearly everyone in my cohort was cooler than me and toking (so their paranoia was accurate!).
Assuming that most that have kids stopped, that leaves ~10%? And I'm right in the middle of the second age band.
I was curious about the total (13%) compared with splits (12% of men and 7% of women), but the totals reflect 2013, 2015, and 2016 in aggregate.
Which is hella confusing when your headline is the increase.
Could also be skewed higher if those partaking are more likely to answer a phone survey, too.
I thought about that, but all the stereotypical jokes I could make about users skew the other way.
Engaging in long, drawn-out conversations with a total stranger? Sounds about right to me....
It would be interesting to see how legality in some states have affected usage. I'm not sure how long ago it was legalized in some states.
I figure that's got to be a part of the shift, and likely part of the reason usage is higher in the West than in the rest of the country, considering it's now legal for recreation in Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. (Though they also note the chicken-egg issue of whether it's more common in the West because it's legal, or if it is legal because it is more common.)
Plus, though it's not legal for recreation in Cali (yet; gotta figure it'll pass on the ballot this year...), it is really, really easy to get a prescription. $75 and a claim of one of numerous conditions that just about anyone would qualify for (anxiety, trouble sleeping, sleep apnea, etc.) gets you a certificate. And that's in the Inland Empire; I've heard it's more like $40 in Venice, for example. So, in practice it's basically legalized, just with a flat tax that goes to a doctor rather than the state.
Sleep apnea is considered a valid condition for an Rx card? Wow. Wooooowwwwwwwwww.
I think marijuana addiction is as well.
Talk about d@mning with faint praise: