(no subject)

I've been weirdly busy lately. Not just busy, but busy in weird ways. I've been going to my stepsons' T-Ball/Baseball games, working on my MIL's house, working the dayjob, we all went to my nephew's baptism, Christey and I went back to St Pete last weekend, Christey and I both caught some nice redfish in our backyard (but not on the same days), we've been going to birthing classes, seeing the baby-doc, and I spent 45 minutes at lunch today switching out the starter motor in my car (it actually starts now without having to bang on the starter with a hammer).

In an hour or so, we're all going to carve pumpkins.

(no subject)

Robert Heinlein was one of the first science fiction writers of the Golden Age(TM) to blend space opera with politics, philosophy, hard science, and outright fantasy. He was one of those guys who may not have been the most literary of writers, but his works are very readable and entertaining, while breaking social conventions of the time. Some of his novels involved radical views on sex and politics when science fiction was still primarily about space ships manned by all-male, flag-saluting crews of the US military.

Some of this got him in trouble. Charles Manson was said to be a fan of Stranger in a Strange Land, especially when in came to "neutralizing" anyone who didn't fit in with the protagonist's utopian philosophical ideal. In reality, Charles Manson could barely read his own name -- a Mansonite once wrote Heinlein a fan letter, and the legend mutated from there.

Politically, in his writings, Heinlein was a hard-core libertarian. "Don't bug me and I won't bug you" could have been his mantra. Critics have said he was overcompensating for a brief fling with communism early in life, and Heinlein himself had said not to assume anyone can understand him just from his fiction. Most modern analysts of his writing, however, believe he wrote himself into each novel. The old, grouchy, philosophical, libertarian, self-reliant dude? That was Heinlein.

Longevity has always been a characteristic of his heros. Heinlein loved telling the tale (perhaps a family legend) of an ancestor who died accidentally at 99 years old, wrestling a deer on a frozen lake behind his house. The ice cracked, and ancestor and deer died before their time.

One of his most popular characters is Lazarus Long, a 2000+ year-old man (science, you know), who has literally seen it all. One of Lazarus' quotes that has always resonated with me was this:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

So, here's a poll. Of this list, which have you actually done? And, in the spirit of Heinlein, technicalities count.


[Poll #853291]