Been a while since I've been able to get back to MOBOT. It was a really nice day today. Even got my 15 minutes of peace at the unoccupied peaceful bench:
The plants at the waterline were the Lotus Flowers that I never got to see in full bloom. The flowers were all dead. But they leave behind these things, which are interesting on their own:
But the nicest part today I think were the water lilies, which are in several of the ponds around the gardens.
Speaking of corporate fuckery... did you know there's now a thing called a "mouse jiggler"? It's a little stand you put your mouse on that generates random cursor movements to trick corporate busybody software into thinking you're in front of your computer. For work at home people. Because corporate fuckwads can't stand the idea that you might be doing a load of laundry on THEIR time. Next they'll want your webcam active at all times.
So you're all for people collecting a 40 hour per work week paycheck while working only 2 hours a day?
Anyone who thinks they need a gadget to get around perceived "busybody software" is part of the problem as far as I am concerned. But that attitude is nothing new . . .
Has to be around 20 years ago at a previous employer, I received a call for someone whose first name is the same as mine. I said they had the wrong so-and-so and transferred the call. This happened a couple times. I was called again and the person asked where I sat. The person they were trying to reach had an office that I could see over the cubicle wall if I stood up. Yep, door is open, yep light is on. Maybe he isn't picking up his voice mails, would you please leave a note on his keyboard. Sure, no problem.
Next day, call from someone, did you leave the message? Yes, I did. Are you sure he was in yesterday? Well, I never saw him, but his light was on and there was a pad of paper and a soda on his desk. OK, could you please leave another message for him. Yes, I can. Could you please leave it somewhere you are absolutely certain he will see. Absolutely I will.
Next day, get a call. Hey, just out of curiosity, where did you leave the note for him yesterday? Well, I walked into his office, there was an open 20oz soda on his desk, so I stuck the sticky note to it. The guy starts laughing and said, "that explains it."
Turned out, that was this guy's MO. He came to the office in the morning, bought a soda, opened it and put it on his desk so that anyone stopping by the office would think they had just missed him while he was out goofing off all day. He admitted that to someone he thought he could trust that he was trying to convince to play hooky with him -- "It's just so easy." When he came back that afternoon to make it look like he had left for the day, he saw the sticky note on his soda, knew the gig was up, and quit effective immediately.
Since my lunch hour is up in 10 minutes, guess I'd better get back to work. 
"I didn't make it personal until he did."
and
"I don't see what I said that was in any way anything personal against him or offensive to anyone."
Sure. We can look at the isolated data points, but it misses the bigger context I'm getting at. No single straw is too much, but there's the proverbial one that breaks the equally proverbial camel's back. I concede that the context of this thread isn't nearly as "hostile" as the general context of FW, but given that he already left that environment, he had a low tolerance for it here at ICOM is my hypothesis.
I offer this as my last bit of evidence for my hypothesis. I recalled him complaining about conspiracy theories in the past in these forums. So I did a quick search and this is the result:
And these would only be the ones he actually used the word in his post.
To the original point of this post, you are looking at the details. I'm looking at context and environment. In my opinion, he simply chooses not to be in an environment that he sees as supporting or spreading "conspiracies" or non-factual data. Whether you or I think any specific point is true or not is entirely beside the point if GS himself simply decided the last straw had been reached.
I have no special insight into his mindset, just speaking from observation and trying to put myself into his shoes. You could try to do the same and see if you come up with a different conclusion. And if it makes you feel better to simply say, "GS is being unreasonable," so be it.
This is my last offering on the topic: I hear there is an e-mail address required to register, maybe someone knows an admin or something that could just contact him directly and ask instead of some random guy playing mind reader.
That may be, but you did say (paraphrasing) your mind was made up and no point in discussing it any further, regardless of evidence. Which was kind of the point of GS's objection in the first place -- he was hoping you would try to reason through these tidbits before spreading what could be a bunch of bunk. Instead, you're going to do what you want anyway, because your mind is made up. Perfectly your right to do if you choose. Perfectly his right to leave if that wasn't the environment he was hoping for here vs. FW.
Not casting blame on anyone, simply trying to offer a outside point of view of events. And just to be repetitive, hoping GS shows up to tell me how wrong I am. If, indeed, he doesn't return, I for one think it is a big loss.
I hope he didn't leave. But he left FW over a similar reason. He's trying to talk sense and facts, and in return he gets verbal barbs and emotional insistence that his facts are incorrect with no documented countervailing facts and not an iota of any self-reflection on the part of his accusers.
For example, Soth posts Geraldo saying he has zero symptoms but has Covid as if it is proof the vaccines didn't work. Fits Soth's worldview. Yet zero symptoms could be precisely because he had the vaccines and so his immune system is handling the infection without any symptoms expressed. Which is probably what the point really was in the first place. Which doesn't at all support what Soth thinks it supports.
But now that I've posited that as a possibility, I'm sure I'll be in forever labeled as some kind of vax apologist. Oh well.
Sometimes the noise isn't worth the effort anymore. If he was here to have conversations, there's no point in staying if everyone's mind is set and no one will actually converse.
My $0.03 (inflation), but feel free to continue to ignore the invisible man. I hope I'm wrong and GS shows up to tell me so.
Last set of pictures, like I said, they have some formal gardens as well. I guess because of that, they have reciprocal status with MOBOT, so my membership there got me free parking, which was nice. Unlike MOBOT, not much was labeled, so some of the more interesting looking flowers are still a mystery to me as to what the heck they were:
One disappointment for me on the outside was no Sherman tank. Ended up finding it on the inside.
I spent a good couple hours, but I read literally everything in the WWI and WWII sections. Oddly, though, the Sherman was the only thing I took a picture of. Guess I was lost in learning and forgot about the pictures.
Did have my daily proof of invisibility, though. While in the WWI section I was reading about one of the battles the First Division participated in when a tour of school-age kids came in. The very loud tour guide told them to line up against the back wall. Sure enough, the back wall was the wall I was reading, and suddenly all the kids were standing between me and the battle description I was reading. If they had been invisible, too, it wouldn't have bothered me.
I was glad I got there early and got to take the pictures before the park got busy. Only one of the photos below has someone else's children in it. By the time I was done with the museum itself, the park was mobbed and some tanks had disappeared under mountains of children.
Had to spend some time up near Chicago a couple weeks ago. Managed a visit to Cantigny Park in Wheaton. It was originally the estate of Colonel Robert McCormick, who was a WWI artilleryman and also owner/publisher of the Chicago Tribune at one time. The grounds have a few formal gardens, which were nice to walk around, and also has the First Division Museum. Outside the museum is a small tank park.
This scene completely ad-libbed by Will Farrell after the part where Mark told him he didn't like him and thought he was a fake cop. He wasn't even supposed to answer.
And Mark Wahlberg had to sit there and react - and then he ad-libbed tossing the coffee on Will Smith. Then will Smith reacted to that.
I watched that whole thing wondering when Will Smith was going to enter the scene.
Disappointed.
Jehovah's Witnesses do not observe Saturday as a Sabbath. That said, most Witness business owners I know take both weekend days off and use Saturday for field service. Sunday is for worship and rest.
Seventh day Adventist is a possibility, or maybe they just think there is less competition for Sunday calls vs. Saturdays.
Sad news, indeed. Heartfelt prayers for comfort.
The Mrs. had surprised me on Sunday by asking some friends to come to MOBOT with us. The Daylilies were blooming. Different Genus than the lilies above, but there is a family resemblance . . .
Matthew 6:28-30 :
Also, why are you anxious about clothing? Take a lesson from the lilies of the field, how they grow; they do not toil, nor do they spin; but I tell you that not even Solʹo·mon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. Now if this is how God clothes the vegetation of the field that is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much rather clothe you, you with little faith?
Did not go to MOBOT . . . decided to walk around the subdivision today to check out the new asphalt they've been putting down. Kind of glad I didn't make the trip over as it became uncomfortably warm in the sun quite quickly. Completely soaked through the shirt before I reached halfway down the street.
At the same time, it struck me how well many of the neighbors keep their yards up. It would feel odd taking pictures of people's houses/landscaping, but I did get a couple pics of the flowers close to the road. Probably half the neighbors have landscaped around their mailboxes to one degree or another - rocks, flowers, a trellis or two . . . One guy apparently really likes boxwoods, as they are all around the house, up and down his driveway, and all the way around back as far as I can tell. They are all perfectly shaped like two-foot-wide green marshmallows. Sorry, wasn't brave enough to click a pic of his house. That might seem creepy.
Nice, quiet day at MOBOT today. It was mid to high 90s all week, but today low 80s and fairly dry for this area. Not a lot of people about. But also not a very good picture day . . . didn't like how any of them turned out. So sorry for the lousy quality of the pictures below. First couple of Lotus blooms. You can see in the first one all the closed buds. When they all open it will look very nice.
I tried to zoom with the phone/camera, but it just makes it look all fuzzy.
Maybe I picked up Storch's phone by mistake.
the shithole called Illinois.
I keep telling you guys . . . I know nobody cares what I think, but maybe you'll listen to Meatwad.
I could do without the seagulls.
There's always the other side of the story:
"On Thursday, Tom Ford testified in the nonjury trial at Auburn Municipal Court that Hagans had placed a total of 10 planter boxes on the grave since May 2021, which the father either discarded or sent back to the man who would have been his son-in-law.
"The first box, when I saw where it was, I picked it up and it fell apart," Ford said, according to the Opelika-Auburn News. "It was a rotten piece of wood with some pictures on it, so I discarded it."
Ford testified that the cemetery has regulations on what can be placed at a gravesite. City Prosecutor Justin Clark noted that these regulations outline how "benches, urns, boxes, shells, toys and other similar articles are not permitted to be placed or maintained on any lot of grave in said cemetery."
Neither Ford nor Clark immediately responded to requests for comment.
Ford acknowledged in court that he "certainly did not" approve of the relationship between his daughter and Hagans, adding that he only found out about their engagement from other people. He said he had asked a friend to tell Hagans to "please not put [planter boxes] there anymore, that they weren't wanted, and that they weren't allowed by the city." When the seventh, eighth and ninth planter boxes were removed, Ford filed a criminal complaint with the Auburn Police Department. A 10th planter box was found after the complaint was filed, he said.
Sounds to me like the fiance is being intentionally antagonistic. He knows they are not allowed by the city, but he is doing it anyway in an attempt to get the father in trouble. Doesn't excuse the father for being such a jerk as to not allow the man to attend the funeral, but he's within his rights to make sure the authorities understand he is not the one responsible for the violations at the gravesite.
Neither have acted lovingly nor do they appear to have forgiven. That's a shame.
