Three Questions, January 30, 2025

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Michael Kane

Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe. ~ Sumner Redstone

Three Questions, January 30, 2025

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

This morning on my way too early walk, when I got out of the car there was a rose bush with gorgeous roses and the most amazing fragrance.

What did I learn today?

Today I learned all of the procedures for working through the suicide hotline in order to get a crisis team dispatched to help out someone in a mental health crisis. Not a fun day.

What made me happy today?

Well, I came home to the start of the construction project I’ll be dealing with for the next two weeks and my apartment was trashed, there’s a giant taped off plastic section, my mirror doors to my closet were leaned against my bed, they had plasticed off my bedroom/bathroom and didn’t leave me an entrance to the room. Worst part, they had plasticed and taped my router into the wall and I no longer had internet access. What made me happy was trouble shooting and fixing my router to get access back so I could do this post tonight.

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Three Questions, January 29, 2025

Posted on January 30, 2025 by Michael Kane

He who would search for pearls must dive below. ~ John Dryden

Three Questions, January 29, 2025

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

Found an old picture from about about seven years ago when I did a whale shark dive at the Georgia Aquarium, damn I’m gorgeous, lol.

What did I learn today?

Every Christmas since 1952, the US Air Force does a Christmas present drop in the islands of Micronesia.

What made me happy today?

One most people will not see coming, my dentist appointment. About a year ago I missed an appointment with my old dentist, they didn’t send the normal reminder. I called several times to reschedule but got no call back. Finally I went to their office and the office was closed, turns out my dentist had disappeared, no idea what happened. Maybe there will be a 48 hours episode someday that explains it.

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Three Questions, January 28, 2025

Posted on January 29, 2025 by Michael Kane

Three Questions, January 28, 2025

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

I woke up with a song in my head, J Geils Band, River Blindness. So the most beautiful thing I heard today was the Freeze Frame album that I played in it’s entirety.

What did I learn today?

In ancient Athens there was a process each year called ostracism. The citizens would vote each year for the politician they liked the least, and that politician would be exiled from the city for ten years.

What made me happy today?

Finding my parking space empty, unfortunately I’m about to be a morning person for two weeks which I truly hate, so it made me happy that my parking space in front of my place was available.

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Three Questions, January 27, 2025

Posted on January 28, 2025 by Michael Kane

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. ~ Harriet Van Horne

Three Questions, January 27, 2025

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

Oh it’s a silly thing, but after scrubbing my bathroom sink, that shiny what sink was beautiful.

What did I learn today?

Crows can recognize faces and actually hold grudges for years. I knew ravens could do similar things but didn’t realize crows could as well. These two species of birds are incredibly intelligent.

What made me happy today?

I made homemade chicken parmesan tonight and it was delicious, made me very happy.

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Three Questions, January 26, 2025

Posted on January 27, 2025 by Michael Kane

Three Questions, January 26, 2025

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I saw today?

Today I spent a little while kicking through the most recent James Web Space Telescope pictures. It’s really amazing the images that have been caught with this most amazing bit of technology.

What did I learn today?

I read a small biography of marine biology Sylvia Earle today, what an incredibly amazing woman.

What made me happy today?

Honestly, nothing made me truly happy today, it’s been a really long week. The closest thing to happy today would have been sleeping in, taking it easy in the morning and making a nice plate of nachos for dinner while the game was on.

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Three Questions, January 25, 2025

Posted on January 26, 2025 by Michael Kane

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming. ~ Pablo Neruda

Three Questions, January 25, 2025

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

Today while walking around San Francisco, I came up over the hill near Washington Street, and there before me on a pretty sunny day was the bay, shiny and blue with Alcatraz gleaming in the sun and sail boats out and about.

What did I learn today?

On my walk, as I neared Chinatown I saw huge crowds and learned today was the Lunar festival and parade celebration.

What made me happy today?

At the end of the growing season in November, I cut back most of my plants and let the green parts die. But one plant made it through, shot new sprouts and kept growing. So I have one decent size tomato plant still producing leaves and flowers. If it makes it a few more weeks it will be one heck of head start for the new growing season and the idea of potentially ripe tomatoes early in April makes me very happy.

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Three Questions, January 24, 2025

Posted on January 25, 2025 by Michael Kane

Three Questions, January 24, 2025

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

In a tough week it’s always music, listening to the Police, The Clash and the Talking Heads today.

What did I learn today?

Today I learned how to make a Pepper’s Ghost, it’s a really call way to create a hologram like projection using a plastic top and your cell phone.

What made me happy today?

I’ve been craving shrimp this week, what made me happy was making a huge shrimp cocktail for dinner.

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Three Questions, January 23, 2025

Posted on January 24, 2025 by Michael Kane

When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels. ~ Edward Dahlberg

Three Questions, January 23, 2025

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

Today on my walk I once again went up to the top of campus and looked out at the ocean. It was an incredibly clear day, our measure of super clear days is when you can see the Farallon Islands on the horizon, today was one of those days.

What did I learn today?

I learned a bad thing today, I learned something that I had already suspected, but today I learned that my bosses truly don’t have my back.

What made me happy today?

Today is the real test for this exercise. It’s been an awful fucking day. Started bad, went bad, got worse, ended absolutely horribly. Only to get home, have my parking space occupied by someone else, right now I have no idea if my car will be towed in the morning due to where I had to park. Got home, ate, sat down to write this blog and my old trustee laptop made a crazy noise when I opened it and the spine cracked, laptop totally fucked. So what made me happy today, honestly, I was really close to saying absolutely nothing. However, I posted a really frustrating post on Facebook and I got a really nice posting from an old colleague, a wonderful compliment and honestly it did make me happy.

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Three Questions, January 22, 2025

Posted on January 23, 2025 by Michael Kane

I don’t want to spend my time in hell
Looking at the walls of a prison cell
I don’t ever want to play the part
Of a statistic on a government chart

There has to be an invisible sun
It gives its heat to everyone
There has to be an invisible sun
That gives us hope when the whole day’s done ~ The Police, Invisible Sun

Three Questions, January 22, 2025

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

This afternoon it warmed up and it was a beautiful blue sky day, so I took a walk on campus and swung up on the hill that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. The sun shining on the ocean, lovely blue water and gentle waves was the most beautiful thing I saw today.

What did I learn today?

Today I learned that the James Webb Space Telescope found evidence of gravitational lensing around a quasar. This is really cool because once again, technology, nearly a century later, has confirmed another theory that Albert Einstein came up with, what an amazing human.

What made me happy today?

It’s been a bit of a nutty week and my sleep issues popped up earlier in the week, so I was pretty fried and stressed out this afternoon. So this afternoon, in a free half hour, I put on Ghost in the Machine by the Police, ate a couple of dark chocolate covered almonds and just relaxed to one of my all-time albums. This made me very happy!

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Three Questions, January 21, 2025

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Michael Kane

You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering. ~ Dr. Who

Three Questions, January 21, 2025

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

Today my niece got the birthday present I sent her and the picture my sister sent me of her smiling with her box of cupcakes was the most beautiful thing I saw today.

What did I learn today?

Today I learned that my favorite Doctor Who, Tom Baker is still alive and just turned 91 years-old. He played Dr. Who in the 80’s when I first discovered the show and was famous for a six foot long scarf that he wore. My mother even knitted me a Doctor Who scarf.

What made me happy today?

I’m a baseball card collector and a Pittsburgh Pirate fan. Last year, Paul Skenes, a rookie pitcher for the Pirates won the rookie of the year award. There was a 1 of 1 card released by Topps that featured a piece of his jersey. Skenes’ girlfriend is Livy Dunn, a famous college gymnast. So the search was on for the card because the Pirates wanted the card and are offering a 30 year set of season ticket seats behind home base, and the opportunity to bring 20 friends and have a private softball game at PNC Park, if you give them the card. Livy Dunn will also invite you to watch a game with her in her luxury suite at the stadium. So the whole thing has gotten a ton of press. I was afraid one of these dealers who use medical CT scanners to scan packs without opening them might find the card. But today, the card was found and it was found by an 11 year-old kid in LA opening a pack of cards. I was so happy that this really unique card ended up going to a kid.

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