Twitter    Archive    Xbox Live    Site Contents    Tumblr Faves    Stars

  Send me a message.    Ask me a question.  

A few modest contributions to the blogosphere from Andy Fluke,
co-founder of the National Coalition
for Dialogue & Deliberation.

Wed Mar 10

Confidence Building from "Talk To Me"

  • Petey: What if I ain't good enough?
  • Vernell: Hell! Every man I know ain't good enough, Petey! But even with all your shit, you the only one who is.
  • Petey: ...
  • Vernell: Now, come on! Look at you! You the man with the pants!
  • Petey: Yeah.
  • Vernell: The shit-talking, pimp-walking, good-Ioving man.
  • Petey: Oh, that's right.
  • Vernell: The mack that's the head of the Cool Cat Clan! Give me some!
  • Petey: Preach on.
  • Vernell: And you'll be damned if you take shit from any black, yellow, green or white man. Amen! Hallelujah!
  • Petey: Baby, did I tell you how good you look?
  • Vernell: I know!
Tue Mar 9
Sun Mar 7
Owl Pellet! Now that the snow has melted I can get in under the pine trees where our friend the owl is hanging out.  Discovered a bounty of owl pellets beneath the tallest. No intact critter skulls, but plenty of bones. Its clear he hasn’t had a problem finding prey in the small field behind out house.

Owl Pellet! Now that the snow has melted I can get in under the pine trees where our friend the owl is hanging out.  Discovered a bounty of owl pellets beneath the tallest. No intact critter skulls, but plenty of bones. Its clear he hasn’t had a problem finding prey in the small field behind out house.

Spring is sneaking in. A crocus is blooming in our front garden. Might be the first in our neighborhood as we saw no other when we drove to the park today.  This is the same crocus that blooms first every year.

Spring is sneaking in. A crocus is blooming in our front garden. Might be the first in our neighborhood as we saw no other when we drove to the park today.  This is the same crocus that blooms first every year.

Thu Mar 4
reblogged from nekoyanagi:

nekoyanagi’s 2nd birthday

Happy Birthday! Don’t get too close to the candles! They fizz the whiskers…  - Thumper McGee
(More birthday pictures: Holidays 2 years.)

猫柳 fan Thumper McGee!reblogged from nekoyanagi:

nekoyanagi’s 2nd birthday

Happy Birthday! Don’t get too close to the candles! They fizz the whiskers…  - Thumper McGee

(More birthday pictures: Holidays 2 years.)

Write one leaf about saying “thank you.”

I was a student of writing (and many other things) in college. I didn’t pursue a degree in it, however I took so many writing classes I graduated with enough credits for an associates degree. It was never my intention to earn a degree in creative writing. I just liked writing. But that was twenty years ago. Regrettably, I let a lot of things slide when we moved back home, most notably my daily journals. Vermont inspired me in a way central Pennsylvania does not. But this leaf is about saying thank you and I mention the above first simply because the “thank you” I wish to share goes to Terry Bain, the creator of the “Write One Leaf” website. Perhaps this leaf is a little inside baseball, but adding writeoneleaf.tumblr.com to my Tumblr dashboard has encouraged me to write creatively again, and kept me writing, both on my Tumblr and offline. In 2008, I returned to journaling, but to be consistent I dedicated myself to a daily, one sentence mini-journal. But it wasn’t the same. The enjoyment I have found with Terry’s leaves, the anticipation of my next “exercise”, has made me excited about writing again. Saying thank you is not just about showing appreciation.  It’s also a way to acknowledge to yourself that other people’s actions benefit your life. Like Terry’s website. Thanks, Terry.

(encouraged by writeoneleaf)

Wed Mar 3
reblogged from thedailywhat:

Flickr Set of the Day: Philip Bond’s portraits of female astronauts.
Above: Valentina Tereshkova — the first woman in space — who “orbited the Earth 48 times during her three day spaceflight in  Vostok 6 in 1963.”
[blort.]

reblogged from thedailywhat:

Flickr Set of the Day: Philip Bond’s portraits of female astronauts.

Above: Valentina Tereshkova — the first woman in space — who “orbited the Earth 48 times during her three day spaceflight in Vostok 6 in 1963.”

[blort.]

Cosmic Journeys

The moon as seen through the edge of our atmosphere.Discovered — and enjoyed — a series of videos on YouTube today (original productions from SPACERIP TV and Space.com) entitled Cosmic Journeys — described as cutting-edge stories about the origins of the universe, black holes, exploding stars, the search for ET life, and the nature of the planets.

Also on the topic of “Space”, I added the feed of the Tumblr site It’s Full Of Stars to my Dashboard recently and have been enjoying its content immensely.  Definitely worth the follow.

This video highlights gameplay from Rittai Kakushi E Atta Koreda (3D Hidden Images: Found it!), a clever bit of DSiware being released in Japan today.  No word if it will appear in the United States, but the use of English letters within the puzzles suggest a plan for broader release. So we’ll just have to be patient and hope we see this and Kittens’ House (today’s “so cute my eyes are bleeding” Japanese DSiware release) later this year.

(Read more about today’s Japanese DSiware releases at Joystiq.com.)

Playing around with Flipnote Hatena, today. Above is the first bit of animation I created with the DSi downloadable 4-bit animation tool Flipnote Studio a few months ago when it was released. I have since whetted my mini-animation appetite with a few more, but only recently did I check out the online sharing site Flipnote Hatena. It offers several things other than just movie sharing, but only Hatena Haiku, a mini-blogging service, is also available to non-Japanese speaking users.

Tue Mar 2
Mon Mar 1
Sat Feb 27

Write one leaf about your own name.

I love my name.  I’m not even bothered by the fact that my first name is sort of popular. I knew a few Andy’s growing up, but not enough to feel my name was commonplace. There were far more John’s and James’ around me. I rarely say my name out loud.  In fact, I sometimes catch myself after saying “Andy”. That’s my name? It sounds kind of weird, phonetically, I mean. Nasally, a little awkward sounding. No. Andy is fine. It’s not the name, but its initial I care most about. You see, I have the greatest last name in the world, or at least, the greatest last name to be preceded by the initial “A”. I realized I was “a fluke” very early on, but when I tried to express this to the rest of my family, I was always rewarded with blank stares. Was it that they didn’t get it? Were they ashamed of that meaning of our last name? As a kid I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. My friends names were boring and meaningless in comparison. I didn’t even mind the other definitions of “fluke”. Whale’s tail, cool. Anchor prong, whatever. Parasitic flatworm, now you’re talking. My name has influenced my attitude about the universe we live in on a fundamental, very rational level. Probability and chance have defined my interpretation of the world around me, and yet, I can’t help smiling when I think my name puts me on the upside of every coin. Although that’s completely irrational, of course.

(encouraged by writeoneleaf)

Looking for something?

Tiny Icons by FamFamFam   •   Subscribe via RSS   •   Powered by Tumblr