I think the Milwaukee Museum above is the most creative building I have ever been in. It looks out on Lake Michigan. Architecture was one of my early fascinations in life…. Continue reading In Search of Architectural Beauty
Rules are generally meant to keep us all acting in a certain way. That in and of itself is stifling to many of us. I have to admit that I am generally a rule averse person. I just don’t like someone telling me “DO THIS”, “DON’T DO THAT”. Constantly trying to look at life from a different angle means that I am often breaking rules, at least the stupid ones. There are too many rules that are in place simply to preserve the status quo. These rules are often called “tradition”. They are just the way we have done things … Continue reading Let’s Face It… Rules Are Stifling… But…
I never get tired of taking photos looking off our front porch. Especially with the crab apple tree in full bloom and the horses grazing across the street. Thank you Lord for giving me another Spring season to enjoy this view…. Continue reading In Search Of Beauty.
I have always liked to grow things and have had a veggie garden most of my life. This one from 1993 was perhaps my best. My garden this year is six tomato plants, a couple of zucchini plants, and the usual asparagus patch. Its meager but at least better than last year’s potted tomatoes on the deck… Continue reading I’m Dreaming Of.. Gardening…
On our way to Disney World this month we stopped by the Nashville store of the guys from the TV show “American Pickers”. It was in interesting place but much smaller than I imagined. I didn’t notice until I got home and saw the last picture on a larger sceen that all six people sitting on the benches had their cell phone in their hand. Even these surroundings couldn’t entice them to put them down for long. :) Continue reading American Pickers…
The nightly fireworks on the lake in Epcot at Disney World are the best I have ever seen. As usual when they do something they do it right. It is hard to capture it all in pictures but you kind of get the idea from this one. Continue reading Fireworks…
I think I heard somewhere that the U.S. has more than a thousand military bases throughout the world and I suspect many of them are located in the Middle East. We as a country seem to be so fixated on telling others how to live that we spend huge amounts of money and our citizens’ lives trying to do just that. Here are some words about that: Every year the United States seems to be torn between further retreat from the Middle East and deeper military involvement in it. Over the past four decades, America has bombed pharmaceutical plants in … Continue reading How America has waged an eternal war in the Middle East
The biggest part of racism is what you learn in the home especially when there is nothing to counterbalance it. I heard these words on a recent PBS Newshour and they immediately went to my notepad for future thought. When we are young children we know very little about the world outside our immediate home. We think of our parents as almost godly. They can do no wrong. By the time we are teenagers many turn 180 degrees in that belief but often the damage is already done. I admit that I grew up, like most of us, in a … Continue reading The Biggest Part of Racism…
The finger lakes region of New York State was one of those unexpected pleasures in life. I happened across it in the late 90s while exploring that region of the country. It is almost surreal in its beauty. It was wine country long before the California vineyards ever existed. Continue reading Finger Lakes…
I don’t have time for people who want things that I don’t want. I recently heard the words above during a TV show and they stuck to me. I admit that I am a very focused person. Once I get something in my mind I pay almost total attention to it. That makes me appear to sometimes be insensitive to others around me. It gets me in trouble sometimes, no, actually many times. After thirty years of marriage my wife has come to understand this in me and usually gives me room when I am in such a focused mode. … Continue reading I Don’t Have Time…
One of my many hobbies is to take a picture and then try to find a hidden story within the frame. The picture from which this was taken is of a small southern Indiana town street. Looking at this pic it might have just as well been captured decades ago. Continue reading Tells Its Own Story…
A big part of RJsCorner is trying to give some young people who might accidentally come across my blog some advice on life. I know that I did not face many of your current problems. I wasn’t afraid of being replaced by a robot during my work years but I downsized due to my job going off-shore. ISIS wasn’t around but I did see thousands of my brothers killed in Vietnam. The norm for my generation was a job with the same company for thirty years and then a pension for life after 65. I know that is now totally … Continue reading Talking to Old People…
Symmetry has always been the epitome of beauty to me. This picture was taken in the attic of the central dwelling building at Pleasant Hill Shaker Village in Kentucky twenty years ago and remains one of my personal favorites. Shakers were very much about symmetry throughout their communities. Continue reading Shaker Symmetry..
I have to say that Disney World does it right. They go out of their way to insure that everyone has a good time. One of those unique experiences was the McCaws at Animal Kingdom. A dozen birds seem to land on command so these smiling young ladies can tell us about them and of course so we can take pictures. Then a few minutes later they all take flight only to return a few hours later for more guests. Continue reading Blue McCaws
There is a big portion of our population who are just risk averse. They shutter at the very idea of risk or almost any other change for that matter. Risk to them is to be avoided at all costs. Most of these risk averse people are conservative in nature and politics. When I was in the corporate world I worked for such a company. They stated “We want you to take risks but just don’t ever fail!” I could never understand how they could not see the absurdity of that statement? Trying something new is basically going against the grain … Continue reading Risk Taking…
A good portion of my life was spent around someone who lived in a world of pretend. My mother was that person. She abandoned me, my brother, and her husband when I was about ten years old to marry someone much richer who could provide her with the luxuries she so wanted in life. I would not have any sort of relationship with her again until twenty years later when that husband divorced her to marry his much younger secretary. It was not until this re-introduction that I realized that she primarily lived in a world of pretend. Reality had … Continue reading The World of Pretend…
It seems I have been hearing a lot of background talk about the cable news anchors. Many seem to be troubled by all the young females who are now figureheads in that media. I don’t have a poll to prove it but I hear most of these comments coming from women. They just seem to be the most disgusted. Maybe its because too many guys just like watching the eye-candy instead of trying to listen to a knowledgeable source. I personally have never been that very impressed with any of the talking heads of news, even the network variety. The … Continue reading The Most Important People in Cable News…
My name is RJ I am an independent-thinking, pretty creative guy who is deaf and has had some unique views and challenges in life. They say that adversity builds character; if that’s true, I must have a lot of character! I am passionate about many things in my life. Writing, sharing my life’s experiences, and particularly blogging are included on the list. I blog about what gets me up in the morning and what excites me. Like all of us, I am a person who is composed of all my life experiences, and that is what I am about here at … Continue reading About Me…
I know that robots have taken over many of the repetitive tasks from us humans. Many see that as stripping jobs away from those who don’t care to otherwise be ready for today’s workforce. The mind-numbing jobs are being taken over my mindless robots and that is as it should be. Let’s take auto manufacturing as an example: Robots don’t make mistakes… They do the same thing over and over again because that is all they are programmed to do. Robots don’t know Monday from Friday…. They don’t take their eye off the task at hand because they are still … Continue reading When Robots Make Cars….
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He created the birds of the air and the fish of the sea and the beasts of the land. And then he created man, and it was down hill from there on out…. Forgive me that this is not an exact quote from any bible but for the purpose of this post you get the idea where I am going. The very first family that God made ended up with a murderer. One brother killing another. That wasn’t a very good start to humanity. It seems that the seven deadly … Continue reading In The Beginning…. And Then…
I guess you could say that folk music is an acquired taste and it seems to have fallen out of favor these days. In my earlier hearing years I almost lived and breathed folk music. One of the original founders of that music genre was Woody Guthrie and one of my favorite museums is the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa OK. The museum is small but packed with the archive of all his music. His most famous song “This Land Is Your Land” should be our national anthem. It relates more to the character of America than a naval … Continue reading I’m Dreaming About … Folk Music
RJ's Corner - Having My Say 