Longfellow

"Age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress
And as the evevning twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars invisible by day!"

(Posted by Rachel Roy by direction of her grandfather)

Yesterday I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer - life expectancy of 3 to 6 months.

Antibiotics have wiped me out - I will resume posting when I am able.

A Vignette

Life is not so well ordered - it comes in flashes like lightning:
--- A telphone call at 2:20 am
--- Rainbow from a drop of dew on a blade of grass
--- An unexpected smile from a total stranger
--- A bird call piercing the gloom of worry
--- What I should have said

"Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better."
(oxymoronica)

"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't."
(oxymoronica)

Sleep

We spend about one-third of our lives lying unconscious, but sleep is crucial to our survival. After one night without sleep we become tired and cranky - after two nights we suffer memory loss and diminished concentration - after three nights delirium sets in. Although we could survive without food for more than a month, we could die without sleep in less than two weeks.

Mike Dooley

"Have you discovered yet how some angels -- like the ones who heal with their smiles, who help light the way for others, and in whose path the flowers gently sway --- are actually disguised as people? And have you also noticed that some of them don't even know they're angels?"
(Notes from the Universe)

Mike Dooley

"What if it was true that you could make your own reality, and that your thoughts became the things and events of your life? What would you do differently in the next five minutes? In the next five days?"
(Notes from the Universe)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is doubtless a vice to turn one's eyes inward too much, but I am my own comedy and tragedy."

Supernova

Most stars die quietly using up all their fuel through nuclear fusion and fade away into dull celesial objects called white dwarves. But if it's big and hot enough, a star can explode, generating enough heat to create even heavier elements such as mercury, gold, silver. The potassium in your banana may not have had its beginnings on an island in the Caribbean but may have been created a long time ago in a supernova.

Daniel Boone

"I can't say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days."

Lucy Montgomery

"Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive ----- it's such an interesting world."

Josh Billings

"Life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up depends on the stuff he's made of."

Joseph Conrad

"Facing it -------- always facing it -------- that's the way to get through.
Face it!"

Emily Sargent Councilman

"Courage is a quietness, not martial music made,
Born of facing up to life, even when afraid."

Tennessee Williams

"Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going."

My tiny ipod is amazing - it has a capacity of over 3 gigabytes and since a gigabyte is 1 billion bytes its capacity is over 3 billion bytes - and it is smaller than a credit card and not much thicker - how could this be? !!

Will Rogers

"We can't all be heroes, because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by."

Charles B. Newcomb

"There are always two voices sounding in our ears - the voice of fear and the voice of confidence. One is the clamor of the senses, the other is the whispering of the higher self."

Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804)

"Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me."

I am great-grandfather for fourth time. New-born Kyle Mathew McGuirk has decided to check out our world.

W. Somerset Maugham

"The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it."

Helen Keller

"To keep our faces toward change, and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate, is strenght undefeatable."

Schubert was a typical romantic-era bohemian. In 1823, he started work on his "Unfinished Symphony". When he died a friend kept the manuscript hidden for 37 years. When it finally premiered in Vienna in1865 it was a great success.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Charles Dickens

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

Charles Dickens

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

The Golden Ratio

The Parthenon in Athens, the Pyramids of Gaza, even Nature's rose petals and the arms of a starfish, are all constructured around a number known as the Golden Ratio which is 1 plus the square root of 5 divided by 2 or 1.618033988------ an irrational number with decimals which go on forever without ever repeating in a pattern. Objects so constructed are visually pleasing to the human eye.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

"This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me ----
The simple News that Nature told ---
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see ---
For love of her -- Sweet -- countrymen
Judge tenderly -- of Me."

Stephen S. Wise

"An unshared life is not living. He who shares does not lessen, but greatens, his life."

Geoffrey Chaucer

His, "The Canterbury Tales" (1390) established English as a literary language when French and Latin were standard - even in England - at the time. Thus, he paved the way for Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and other giants of English literature.

Mike Dooley

"If you only knew just how literally true all of these Notes are - concerning your power, your strenght, and your divinnity, about the love, the magic,and the infinite possibilities ------- for the next few days you'd see the rest of the world ------- throught tears. And you'd never stop giving thanks.
Ain't life grand?"
(Notes from the Universe)

Mike Dooley

'It's your degree of faith, your belief in benevolent powers and events unseen, that summons the magic, either in huge gobs or in drips snd drops. Go for the gobs, it costs the same."
(from "Notes from the Universe")

Blaise Pascal

"All generalizations are false, including this one,"

Michel de Montaigne

"The Ancient Mariner said to Neptune during a great storm, 'O God, you will save me if you wish, but I am going to go on holding my tiller straight.' "

Michel de Montaigne

"The Ancient Mariner said to Neptune during a great storm, 'O God, you will save me if you wish, but I am going to go on holding my tiller straight.' "