Archives for 2015

In the bar there was an ancient car parked to one side of the long zinc counter. The car was converted into a seating booth.

The patrons were a mixed crowd and few ever used the car as their place to sit.

When the successful Formula 1 racing driver Flip Corner came in one night with his entourage, everyone suggested he sit in the car. He did not. Nor did any of his entourage.

But this particular night a historian, who as historians go was famous, accompanied by his girlfriend and her brother’s brother in law, visited the bar and decided the car was just the thing.

The car was historic and the historian had the keys to it.

Deciding what is worth doing oneself because it adds to our life, can be a subtle game.

It seems OK to get laundry done, letters mailed – if you still do that at all, meals cooked and other such things, by someone else. If you are busy then the other things seems more important and perhaps they are.

But throwing out the experience with the bath water can be done all too easily. Meaning, what seems like an irksome task may actually be an emotional nutrient in disguise.

Many in the past, have chopped their own firewood, which helped to scatter annoyance and wayward thoughts to the wind, yet many now would buy pre-chopped timber…ready logs. You lose the beneficial part of doing a task.

Just goes to show, it could be worth learning to drive a stick shift manual transmission car and steer and maneuver it yourself, before self-driving automatic transmission pods become the only game in town!

A mirror image of the houses and the steep, craggy cliff was reflected in the lake.

Nobody knew how the lake came to be there. There were stories of “before the lake….”, told as if a forbidden secret were being revealed.

In the summer people from the town came and rented houses at the edge of the lake for huge sums. Some local people moved out of their lakeside cabins to benefit from this healthy market for holiday accommodation.

The light, for it was so special, so different to that found anywhere else, was considered to be the main draw.

The children just saw water and splashing and swimming opportunities….that was enough.

Darting in and out of the trees, it was a valuable way of learning better coordination.

Part of their military training was, in the early days, based on dodging paintball shots. Anyone coming out of the woods with blotches of color on their uniform was considered to have failed that exercise.

But when they sprayed paint in the workshop a few kilometres away, there was a different purpose and the paint was not only meant to hit its target, it had to.

The cars came out gleaming, either restored to their previous glory, or when the color had changed, with a new identity.

Paint is not often seen as having so many purposes….the preparation for war and the restoration of pride in the driveway, being just two of so many more.

Displacement of water.

When you dive into a swimming pool some of the water splashes out over the side.

Your body – no this is not a comment upon your shape or size – needs the space, so the water has to move out of the way.

That’s why concrete is not a good substitute for water in a pool….aaagh!

And, that is also why we need superheroes like NanoParticleMan who can dive right through solid objects.

Especially true if we want to sell solid swimming pools successfully….