Life in progress

Category Archives: Cool Stuff


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What we make of things

They say some things in life only have as much significance as we give to them. I suppose you could say that about everything and everyone – the things and people we find dear to us are those that have a place in our hearts. A person can have significance to us because we relate to them, or because they’re family. An item can be meaningful for its monetary value (if money in general matters to us) or for the memories it conjures.

Then there are the things we make up meanings for; a recurring dream, the sighting of a black cat, or a ring around the moon for instance. For me, for the past twenty years or so, it’s a number sequence that keeps coming up. I think of it as maybe something that pops in once in a while to say, hey, I’m still here watching over you. The number sequence is 911. It doesn’t always have to be precisely in that order – sometimes it’s a whole jumble of 1s and 9s that gets my attention. Sometimes I even have to add up the numbers in a sequence to come up with it. Like this little gem I encountered the other day:

1111119999The 1s are obvious. But then 4+7=11 and for the 9s, 18 halved is two more. So out of this I got 1111119999. I think that’s pretty cool.

By now I predict you’re either you’re intrigued or your finger is hovering above the let’s-move-on button. But before you go, let me ask you; what have you invented a significance for? Is there anything? Or do you just stick to people, objects, or even places? Or hey, feel free to let me know if you think I’m just weird.


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Random Stuff – #SoCS

It seems the concert I came all the way to Japan to see was the stuff of inspiration. I started writing a new novel today. Only 1,333 words into it – not quite up to NaNoWriMo standards, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to finish my first draft by Christmas. Thanks, as always, go to this guy for his inspirational lyrics:

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Sakurai Atsushi

And the rest of the band for the awesome music:

The Mortal

The Mortal

Some of which you can listen to here:

(I’ll leave the video here for a limited time, so if you’re interested, listen to it soon.)

And so that’s most of my interesting stuff, at least the stuff I’ll disclose before I get back home to Canada. I have loads of fantastic sights to share and stories to tell. It’s been a trip for the books… so to speak.

This random update post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt here: https://lindaghill.com/2015/11/27/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-2815/ and join in!

SoCS badge 2015


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To Tokyo – #SoCS

If you look very closely, you can see Mount Fuji sticking up above the clouds.

Mt. Fuji, just below the engine.

Mt. Fuji, just below the engine.

I took another picture too – I took two – but this one turned out better.

Find Stream of Consciousness Saturday here and join in!

SoCS badge 2015


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NanoPoblano Day 18 – …okay, not really. But there’s coffee!

Saying it’s been a rough couple of days is an understatement of mammoth proportions. But the time’s finally here: I’m packed (almost) and just about ready to wake up to a day of traveling. By this time tomorrow night I’ll be a little more than half-way across the Pacific Ocean on my way to sunny (or actually, according to the forecast probably rainy) Tokyo. I’ve mapped out my route from the train station to the hotel this time, so no more wandering the streets until my legs threaten to fall off.

Since I won’t be around for a while, I thought I’d post this tonight. It’s something you can all discuss amongst yourselves in the comments. The subject is coffee. Who doesn’t love coffee? (That’s not what I want to discuss, but if you have to… just try not to get into any fights, okay? Some of us are pretty passionate about our caffeinated beverages.)

What I’m really interested in is how you all go about ordering coffee. In Japan you ask for “kohi” (pronounced almost like coffee) but I was warned that if I don’t want something I can suspend a spoon in, I should always request an “American kohi.” So there’s that.

Last time I was in London, I ordered a coffee and they asked me if I wanted it “black” or “white.” … coffee’s black, right? So I ordered black. The look I got when I asked for cream could have backed up a parked truck. I was told off that I should have ordered it “white” in the first place. Lesson learned.

Here in Canada on the other hand, we ask more for what we want IN our coffee than we actually order coffee. If you walk into a Tim Horton’s and ask for a “double-double,” they’ll give you a cup of steamy deliciousness with two shots of cream and two spoonsfull of sugar. There’s no question that what you want is coffee – everyone wants coffee! Right? Right. Of course Starbucks is a different story altogether. No matter what country you’re in, if you don’t brush up on your Italian at the door you can expect a tutorial before you empty your wallet.

What about where you live? Or where you’ve traveled to? Talk about it with each other and I’ll read all your anecdotes the next time I go online… IN JAPAN!!

See you on the flipside!

NanoPoblano’s a blast even if you cheat – check it out!

nanopoblano2015dark


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NanoPoblano Day 10 – The “To or Not To Tuesday” Edition

I discovered a fantastic new prompt from Deborah of Container Chronicles, and it fit in so well with my NanoPoblano post for today, I thought I’d combine the two. I’ll leave the links for both at the end of this post – don’t forget to click on them.

So I’m thinking about what I should do about NanoPoblano when I’m on holiday. I haven’t scheduled any posts at all so far (which is what I figured would happen) and I’m thinking that even if I do, am I going to be able to reply to the comments? Probably not.

To do it or not to do it? Perhaps I’ll just schedule a post for the three days I’ll actually be traveling and leave the ones in between to chance. I know from experience that I’ll have equally good internet access there as I do here, and I don’t go out very much at night, so I’ll be sitting in my hotel rooms on the computer anyway. BUT, I could be doing something productive with that time, like reading, writing, or editing… Perhaps I’ll play it by ear.

What would you do?

After you leave me your valued advice in the comments, please check out Deborah’s prompt at: https://myriad234.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/to-or-not-to-tuesday-week-2/ and join in today!

nanopoblano2015dark

And don’t forget NanoPoblano, where you can find lots of great blogs to read and follow. 😀


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NanoPoblano Day 7 – The Tour Guide

Perhaps because of my Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt this week, I thought of an interesting way to connect today’s Japanese lesson with a fascinating story. Please keep reading after school’s out… don’t worry, the lesson’s a quick one.

Neko (ne-ko). Translation: cat.

That’s that. On with the story.

Now I know I’ve written this story out before, but I can’t for the life of me figure out where. I can’t find it on my blog which leads me to believe that I wrote it in the comments. Anyway, if you’ve heard it before, I apologize.

It was ten years ago, the first time I visited Japan. I stayed in a little town called Onomichi. My hotel was right at the top of the mountain.

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See the white building on the right at the top? That was me. When I arrived in town I took a taxi up. (Note: I had to point. Luckily I knew from the internet what the place looked like because even in a tiny little place like Onomichi, unless you have GPS coordinates, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.) Once I was settled in, I decided to walk back down into town. And you got it – I got lost. The stairs down the mountain looked a little like this.

Actually, they look a lot like this. These are the actual stairs. So I was walking along, minding my own business when I realized I had been walking “along” and not “down” for quite some time. I stopped when I came across a cat, sitting on a waist-high wall. I stared at him and he stared at me, and I said to him, “I’m lost.” I figured he didn’t speak English but I thought what the hell. He’s just a cat. He regarded me for a few seconds more and then he got up and started walking along the top of the wall, back the way I’d come. So I did what any rational human being would do: I followed him. We took a few turns and a couple of times he stopped and looked back to make sure I was still behaving myself and I hadn’t turned and gone back the other way. He didn’t stop and sit down, however, until he got to the stairs. He stared at me, and then down the hill and back at me. I said, “Thank you,” and went on my way… sure enough, I went straight down to the town.

What I found really funny was this:

There’s a Cat Street View of Onomichi. Watch the video – you’ll see the stairs I walked up and down ten years ago. Apparently the neko know best.


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Under the Category of…

…things one thinks about at one in the morning after a couple of glasses of wine…

Something the people who have met me in person know that most of you cannot is that I have a slight English accent. I acquired it from my parents, even though I was born and raised in Canada. I used to say I was born with an accent – I was teased relentlessly as a child for it. Most of it has disappeared but…

I was talking to myself at one this morning after a couple of glasses of wine (did I mention that?) and I said to myself, I wonder if I think in Canadian or English? And then I got to thinking.

What accent do we think in? Do we think how we speak? Or is there a language of thought?

In the immortal word of Bill and Ted on their excellent adventure, Whoa!!

bill_ted_whoa


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Let me share with you

Do you ever experience something when you’re alone that’s so incredible, you just have to share it with someone else? It happened to me the other day, kind of. I was strolling along the waterfront trail when came across an elderly man who was sitting on a bench facing the water. He turned to me and I smiled and he said to me, “Do you want to see something?”

I said, “Sure,” and walked over to where he was sitting.

He pointed at a heron, standing close by on the rocky shore. “They don’t normally let you get this close,” he said to me. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

I agreed and then I respectfully oohed and aahed; I hadn’t the heart to tell him I’d been even closer to one of the huge, majestic birds just a few days before. When I walked away I felt good that I had been the one to share his wonderful discovery with him.

Here’s the first heron I saw:

heron

Isn’t he beautiful? 😉


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A Strange Experience

I don’t want to call it an out-of-body experience because I didn’t feel like I’d floated out of myself, nor was I looking at myself from a distance. What happened was, I was sitting in the small audience of fifty people at the writer’s Masterclass last weekend, and had finally gathered the courage to ask a question. I was shaking in my boots. (Not literally: I was a bit nervous and I was wearing running shoes.) About half way through my question, I noticed I could hear myself as other people might. I actually remember thinking to myself as I spoke that I could hear my voice, and I had time to wonder in amazement that I didn’t stutter or screw up what I was saying as I was saying it. It was kind of surreal. Like mentally multitasking.

Has this happened to you? If so, what were the circumstances?


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The Sadly Neglected Eclipse-Eve

I wasn’t able to get any photos of the whole blood-moon eclipse thing, but I did get some pretty spectacular pictures of the almost full moon on Saturday night when I was in Kingston.

Pictures from the Waterfront Trail, taken with my phone, untouched but for a little cropping. Click on the images for a bigger picture.

Can you see the critter?
It’s a chipmunk.