I just got back from my second and last major on-the-road trip of the year, this time it was to the New England States. It was fun and I will certainly be posting quite a bit about it in the coming weeks. At the very beginning of RJsCorner in 2008 I used to post daily during these trips, but now use the time to pay … Continue reading The Day-To_Day Stuff…
My brain seems to be constantly filled to overflowing and just doesn’t have room for anything else. I wonder how much I am passing by because of that condition? So, when I came across an article lately about decluttering your mind, it managed to crowd its way into my thoughts. The article told me that what I have is called brain fog. I guess that … Continue reading Sometimes There Just Doesn’t Seem To Be Room For Anything Else…
Let’s talk a little today about folklore. As the definition here shows, it is something passed down through generations by word of mouth. Having some Native American blood in me, I have always been fascinated by that version of folklore. Things like We are not the owners of land, we are merely the caretakers for a brief period of time. I am particularly drawn to … Continue reading About Folklore…
The Will Rogers “Quote of the Day” as shown in the chalkboard area of the header above basically says that we should take the time to learn from those who were much wiser than us so that we can keep from making the same mistakes. In previous generations, that is before technology increased to hyper-speeds, we looked to our grandparents for worldly advice. I still … Continue reading Lessons We Need To Learn…
I came across the words above when I was recently watching an early TV episode of “Mad About You” for the 1980s. That brought to mind the often quoted idea that after being married for decades, old couples can practically finish each other’s sentences. That never happened with my wife and me as we were so very different people. Even in our last conversation before … Continue reading If I Tell You Now, We Won’t Have Anything To Talk About When We Are Old
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth recently died, and now her 73-year-old son has taken over as the patriarch of the Windsor royalty. I have to be candid here, and tell you that I simply don’t understand the 21st century significance of inherited royalty. I know Britain is full of Dukes, Duchesses, Earls, and such and for some reason they embrace this type of thing. It is said … Continue reading The Queen Is Dead, Long Live The King…
This might seem like a strange title for a post in my retirement community life category, but I kinda think that as a result of 2+ years of COVID, it likely describes the current sit-down dining option in many retirement communities. For all you city folks, I will let Wikipedia describe just what a feedlot is. That is kind of like what happens when retirement … Continue reading RetComLife – Feedlot Dining
For this Sunday’s “Every Picture has a Story”, I chose the one above. It was taken towards the end of 1988. Except for my wife’s death last year, this was the most traumatic year of my life. When this picture was taken we were finishing up our 2nd year of marriage, and were attending a wedding of one of the countless nieces and nephews I … Continue reading EPS#4 – 1988, What A Year!
I chose this photo for Artsy Saturday because of its simplicity. It was taken at Fort de Chartres State Historic Site in southern Illinois. It was just a simple storeroom but somehow attracted my attention. Continue reading Beauty In Simplicity
With this post, I am going to introduce you to Feedly. No, it is not about feeding the world, but it kinda does feed my world. Feedly is an RSS app that you can use to see what your favorite blogs or other type websites are putting out. Before I get into how to load and use Feedly, I need to give you a little … Continue reading Here’s To You, Feedly
Yesterday, I posted one of the reasons I have been writing on this blog for the last 14 years and that is to get you to “Think For Yourself, Question Everything, and Never Stop Learning”. Today, I want to give you another central reason. That reason can be described in one word. Simplify All my life, especially my life in the corporate world, I have … Continue reading Why I Post…”Simplify”
Most of my posts here at RJsCorner come from what I have read. Many times the article is several thousand words long, and my task is to glean from that the most important lessons that I might pass on to you, my readers. Over my lifetime I have loved psychology and philosophy type things. Some really grab my attention, but then there are others that … Continue reading One Of The Foundations Of RJsCorner
First of all Socrates was a thinker, as most philosophers were, but perhaps primarily he was a person who questioned everything. That got many people upset, especially when they didn’t know the answers. One of the critical things he showed us is that the truth is not something you choose to believe. You can’t simply pick a truth and consider it fact. That is primarily … Continue reading Philosophy of Life – A Different Path
Everyone’s got a story. A big part of my story is my logo above. The current dilemma is: What format and media should I use to tell my story going forward? To the right is the definition of a blog from WordPress, my blog provider: When I started RJsCorner in 2008, the majority of blogs were personal in nature. Hence, the “diary-type” commentary. Since that … Continue reading Everyone’s Has A Story… About The Future Of RJsCorner
I know I am only at the very beginning of my sketching project here on RJsCorner, but I need a break. That feels like a cop-out but, I promise it isn’t. With the trip to the New England States beginning next week, I have been busy with all the planning required for it. From my 6,000-mile South & Southwest trip this Spring, I learned that … Continue reading It Feels Kinda Like a Cop-out But…
Ok, I have been in my RetCom** over a year now, but I had yet to join any regularly scheduled activity. I did try to start up a support group that would help hearing challenged folks here have a better life, but that was a bust. Hundreds of folks here wear hearing aids or have little hearing left, but few are interested in learning new … Continue reading RetCom: Fitting In – Grumpy Old Men
I have been a history fanatic for most of my life and do enjoy visiting many of the sites I have read about. But, I want to make it clear that I don’t want to relive history. I study it so that I can learn about how others have, or haven’t successfully lived their lives. As the old saying goes History doesn’t repeat itself, but … Continue reading I Love History, But I Don’t Want To Relive It…
I really don’t know the personal answer to the above statement. I still kinda feel like a boy even in my 70s. I know there are a lot of answers about life that I still haven’t learned. I don’t go as far as Socrates and say “I know nothing”, but I realize that there is infinitely more I don’t know than I know. Speaking of … Continue reading When Do Boys Quit Being Boys?
I am a list maker and certainly require my routines. That seems to be at the core of my being. I mostly blame that on my Aspie traits, but I don’t know that for sure. Certainly, my Aspie traits are part of what makes me who I am, but they are not EVERYTHING I am. 😵💫 Anyway, getting to the topic of this post, over … Continue reading Sometimes I Am Just Not In The Mood.
I have always been entranced by graffiti art. Some of it is so complex and beautiful. When I recently visited Switchyard Park in my hometown of Bloomington Indiana, it linked my memories of graffiti with some local history that means a lot to me. When I visited the park for the first time I discovered that a now derelict building was a critical part of … Continue reading Every Pic Tells A Story – Graffiti Art And Hoosier Cabinets
So far in my studies to become a sketcher I have learned about how to anatomically draw lines, shading, and other such things. Liron suggested that I should pick something around the household to practice on. That brought to mind something that I have been thinking about for some time. Why not take a photo from my 22,000 piece portfolio and trace it using what … Continue reading Artsy Fartsy – Sketching – Practicing Strokes
Here is what the dictionary says about “thin skin” a tendency to get easily upset or offended by the things other people say or do He has such a thin skin that he can’t even take a little good-natured teasing. I admit that I just can’t take criticism without being offended. But lately thin skin has come to me literally. I didn’t realize that my skin … Continue reading I Have Thin Skin, Literally…
Here is part 2 of my 2013 interview by Bob Lowery. See yesterday’s post if you missed part 1 ======================================= 4) During a typical day, are you constantly aware of your situation or does it take something out of the ordinary to remind you, “oh yeah, they don’t know I can’t hear them.” When I spend the days here at the homestead I rarely think … Continue reading An In-Depth Story about One of My Disabilities…Part 2
My paper copy In-Box is always overflowing, much of it with now useless stuff. Recently I decided to clean it out. That’s when I came across a copy of a March 2013 post from my friend Bob Lowery at satisfyingretirement.blogspot.com. The post was an interview about my life as a deaf person. As I scanned the copy, it came to me that I have never … Continue reading An In-Depth Story about One of My Disabilities…Part 1
Except to investigate the possibility of being officially diagnosed as an Aspie, I have never been to a psychologist or therapist. But, I kinda do the same thing here on RJsCorner. I talk about what makes me depressed and how I am handling them. I talk about things that get me out of bed in the morning, that I am ready to tackle. Blogging, especially … Continue reading Blogging Is Therapeutic…
To officially start out this new project of the Philosophy of Life I need to set a few things straight. I have no intention of giving you a dissertation on philosophy. You will not learn the many branches of philosophy, nor will you be exposed to many of the terms used. Instead, I will give you a down-to-earth lighthearted Will Rogers style look at the … Continue reading Philosophy of Life#6 – Getting Started With Socrates
I used to have a round To-it, but I seem to have misplaced it. But, I do have a crystal ball, as shown above. It is part of my collection of glass orbs. I am simply fascinated by the art of glassblowing, so I have visited many such sites around the country. But, this particular ball came from Amazon. Of course, you know they have … Continue reading EPS#5 – A Round To_it & A Crystal Ball.
I have been busy lately with my trip planning and other such things and just haven’t had time to do a sketching lesson! Shame on me! I promise to get one done next week. So, how about just an artsy picture for today. This one was taken during my trip across the Gulf Coast States a few months ago. I have no idea what it … Continue reading Artsy Saturday – Just A Pic??
I simply don’t know what the world will look like, even in five years time. Given the “pitchfork” mentality that has struck so many of us in the U.S., I kinda wonder if something that happened starting about 200 years ago will do a flip-flop. Will people start migrating back to Europe to escape what the U.S. will soon become? I know Europe is facing … Continue reading Reverse Migration…
I don’t know specifically why Mystic Connecticut got on my life’s bucket list, but I think it has something to do with the 1988 movie Mystic Pizza. I was in my second year of marriage to my lovely bride, and still couldn’t imagine why she loved me as she did. My dating life bordered on tragic. Then she came along and loved me for who … Continue reading On-The-Road: Fall of 2022- Mystic CT
Henry Ford’s assembly lines certainly accelerated the age of automation and expanded the middle class to a level unheard of before its invention. That was a good and a bad thing at the same time. It increased the number of goods available to almost every one, but it also created a mass of people who were basically turned into brainless machines who did the same … Continue reading Blame It All On Henry Ford
I don’t think there is a chef alive that doesn’t welcome a new recipe. In that vein, I want to share some of my personal favorites with our RetCom chef. I will be doing that over time. I don’t want to flood him with them all at once. So, in the first post on this new subcategory “Making Things Better”, I give you and my … Continue reading RetComLife: Greekish Salad
Before I get started here, I guess I should say a little about the title of this post. It comes from a song in a 1966 movie and is about the most basic questions in life. It was sung by many artists including Dionne Warwick, Cher, and others. If you are currently bored with what you are doing or just want to see the lyrics … Continue reading Philosophy of Life#5 – What’s It All About, Alfie…
This might seem like a strange picture to base a story on, but it has a lot of memories for me. A couple of weeks before our 32nd wedding anniversary in 2018, my wife proclaimed that she wanted to go see Punxsy Phil. In case you forgot he is the groundhog that determines whether we have an early Spring. It had been a couple of … Continue reading EPS#4 – Going To See Punxsy
Let’s set up a common format for these sketching posts here on Artsy Saturday-Sketching. Just giving you the lessons I covered during the week would be, well, BORING. So, I want to spice it up a bit with some artful meandering stories of whatever pops into my mind while composing each weekly post. Also, I have decided to skip the numbering of the posts. If … Continue reading Artsy Saturday – Baby Steps
The title is the most fundamental part of life for all of us. But, what we do with that middle part is mostly up to us. My sagely wisdom after 75 years of life is to appreciate everything that comes along, both the good and the not-so-good.☺︎ Too many of us go about living our lives focusing on the high points. Yes, they do come … Continue reading You’re Born, You Live, And Then You Die
RJ's Corner 