We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I am not equating those things, just noting the overlaps of hedonistic celebrations in history. I took the photo above at a lively Christmas party we attended last Saturday. Sheesh. Like college these days, good male to female ratio.
You can blame the Romans for blending the celebration of Christ's birth with the hedonism and rule-less Saturnalia. Then you can blame the pre-Christian northern Europeans for mixing up their paganism too.
The original lyrics for Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. A bit grim.Thanks, reader. Link to article here.
“Have yourself a merry little Christmas It may be your last Next year we may all be living in the past
Have yourself a merry little Christmas Pop that champagne cork Next year we may all be living in New York
No good times like the olden days Happy golden days of yore Faithful friends who were dear to us Will be near to us no more
But at least we all will be together If the Lord allows From now on, we’ll have to muddle through somehow So have yourself a merry little Christmas now”
Maybe. My higher education was darn rigorous. So was my STEM graduate education. I'm not overly smart, but very well-educated. We had 2 years of required courses, so there's that. Not many places now where you need a Music Theory course as a requirement. That was tough for me.
The SEAL youtube yesterday tells a lot about physical endurance. Sure, for the obstacle course (which SEALS in training run through many times) plenty of strength is needed too, especially grip. That guy doing the obstacle course was plenty strong but he flunked. Of course, the physical training for SEALS includes much more than that obstacle course but it's one component.
One of the things I've learned, even at my age, is that 60-75 minutes of workout daily does build endurance if only as a side effect. Strength is great, but for daily life endurance is what we want to maintain first.
What's the trademark Maggie's Farm 6-day/week fitness routine? Readers know: 2 hrs mostly pushing weight, 2 hrs cardio (real cardio), 2+ hrs calisthenics. Plus appropriate nutrition and one day of rest, "rest" meaning just walking etc.
A trainer (not mine) based at my friendly little gym is on vacation this week. Instead of sending emails to keep his clients on track, he left each of their prescribed routines on a blackboard: Mon, Weds, Fri.
While I often watch what other trainers put their clients through, it was interesting to see the lists because they were so individualized based on conditioning, goals, etc. Plus it was public, so that's a good incentive for those clients.
Ideally, we can all train ourselves but that doesn't happen with most people.
At Gay’s Harvard, if your speech supports the conservative position, the thinnest allegation against you can destroy your career. If you support the woke narrative, even the most explosive allegations against you can be buried.
I think Patrick O'Brian's The Ionian Mission might be the best of his historical fiction series. While Stephen is on a spying mission in Spain, here's Jack with his violin with something baroque:
Now when the fiddle sang at all it sang alone: but since Stephen's departure he had rarely been in a mood for music and in any case the partita he was now engaged upon, one of the manuscripts he had bought in London, grew more and more strange the deeper he went into it. The opening movements were full of technical difficulties and he doubted he would ever be able to do them anything like justice, but it was the great chaconne which followed that really dsturbed him. On the face of it, the statements made in the beginning were clear enough; their closely-argued variations, though complex, could certainly followed with full acceptation, and they were not particularly hard to play; yet, at one point, after a curiously insistent repetition of the second point, the rhythm changed and with it the whole logic of the discourse. There was something dangerous about what followed, something not unlike the edge of madness or at least of a nightmare; and although Jack recognized that the whole sonata and particularly the chaconne was a most impressive composition he felt that if he were to go on playing it with all his heart it might lead him to very strange regions indeed...
A daughter and her husband stopped by yesterday afternoon, while party-hopping. She inspired Mrs. BD to decorate the tree and all that. It's no fun without some youth around and The Little Dublin Singers on ye olde recorde player.
I told them about a friend I had in college from an evangelical family. His family did no secular Christmas - no tree, no presents, no decorations, no feasting, no carols, no Christmas cards. It reminded me of the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony where you could be arrested for baking a pie at Christmastime. The police were alert to the smell of mincemeat pie. All viewed as pagan, which is sorta right I guess.
I think my friend's family did have church on Christmas morning. When I was a kid, Christmas church was Christmas morning too. No presents until after church.
Mrs. BD gave me my early Christmas present. An iPad with a magic keyboard and all bells and whistles. Maybe I "need" it, but it's one more thing when I want fewer...goin mobile, I guess. I like stinky French cheese for Christmas, good wine, and caviar.
This year, one of my kids with fiancee will be in Cyprus, one in London, and we'll visit the grandkids and my in-laws on Christmas day. Sheesh. Not like the olden days with excited kids all around.
3:8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.
3:9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.
3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.
3:11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness,
3:12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire?
3:13 But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
3:14 Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish;
3:15a and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him.
Ft Collins CO Has the 
A daughter and her husband stopped by yesterday afternoon, while party-hopping. She inspired Mrs. BD to decorate the tree and all that. It's no fun without some youth around and The Little Dublin Singers on ye olde recorde player. 
Parenting In The '80