Three Questions, December 26, 2024

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Michael Kane
The Triops

Research has shown that the best way to be happy is to make each day happy. ~ Deepak Chopra

Three Questions, December 26, 2024

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?

After a nine hour, all day drive the most beautiful thing I encountered was seeing my apartment and knowing that a very long day was over.

What did I learn today?

Today I learned in a radio piece about the Triops. Apparently this tiny critter lives in the desert and lays eggs that can lay dormant for decades until the area gets sufficient rain for them to come to life and repeat the cycle. Life is amazing.

What made me happy today?

I started out my long day of a drive really early and ended up driving longer than I wanted before stopping for breakfast. I was really hungry and when I stopped, even though I really dislike this chain, I stopped at McDonalds and I have to say that sausage egg mcmuffin and hash brown were really tasty.

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Three Questions, December 25, 2024

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Michael Kane

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past. ~ Andre Maurois

Three Questions, December 25, 2024

What was the most beautiful thing that I encountered today?

The most beautiful thing I encountered today was the service at Carversteak in Las Vegas. While the dinner was very good, the presentation, particularly the pork chop presentation was magnificent. What was really beautiful was the utterly professionally trained staff. If you saw this season of The Bear and you saw the one character train at a top end restaurant, learning what it really meant to provide absolute top level service, that’s what I experienced tonight. It was truly beautiful.

What did I learn today?

I learned that Jon Bon Jovi was married at a Las Vegas wedding chapel on Las Vegas Blvd. at least that’s what their sign said.

What made me happy today?

If you’ve regularly read the Ministry of Happiness blog that I write you know that I’m not a fan of Christmas. It’s the reason most years that I retreat to the desert for the holiday. This year I was also going to be in Las Vegas for Christmas and have good friends who live there. They graciously invited me to Christmas dinner with their family at Carversteak, it was a really wonderful Christmas dinner, good conversation, great company, fabulous food and wonderful service. It was a rare happy Christmas for me.

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Three Questions, December 24, 2024

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Michael Kane

Pizza makes me think anything is possible. ~ Henry Rollins

Three Questions, December 24, 2024

Three Questions, December 24, 2024

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

Today the most beautiful thing I encountered was a whole herd of Bighorn Sheep walking through camp this morning when I woke up. They came through in three groups, a group of five rams, followed by four females and finally a group of 15 rams, it was amazing.

What did I learn today?

What I learned today was that I had never stayed at the hotel I was staying at before. When I booked it I had assumed that I had stayed there before, but in fact I’d confused it with another property. Oops!

What made me happy today?

What made me happy today, after several days in the desert was the opportunity to have a really good pizza at Good Pie in downtown Las Vegas and to be joined by a friend for that pizza. And then get to hang out with my friends for the afternoon.

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Three Questions, December 23, 2024

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Michael Kane

Happiness is a direction, not a place. ~ Sydney J Harris

Three Questions, December 23, 2024

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

One of the reasons that I love Valley of Fire State Park is that Bighorn Sheep are all over the park. And unlike the other parks that have bighorn, in this park they are not afraid of humans at all. As such, you often wake up in the morning to them being in your camp or walking through while you’re eating breakfast. This morning I saw my first sheep as I was heading out to hike.

What did I learn today?

Today I learned that Valley of Fire State Park was the first official state park in the state of Nevada. It was officially opened in 1934.

What made me happy today?

What really made me happy today was hiking into the red wave section of the park early and finding a place that is normally full of tourists completely empty of people except for me.

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Three Questions, December 22, 2024

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Michael Kane

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit. ~ Hosea Ballou

Three Questions, December 22, 2024

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

Today it was my first views of the red rocks of Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. My home for the next several days.

What did I learn today?

Today I saw the biggest damn Road Runner that I’ve ever seen. I had no idea they could get this big. The Road Runner I saw was damn near the size of a turkey!

What made me happy today?

This one was easy today, getting my camp set up, hanging out in my hammock listening to music, sitting by the camp fire under clear skies and massive stars.

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Three Questions, December 20, 2024

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Michael Kane

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. ~ Epictetus

Three Questions, December 20, 2024

What did I encounter that made me happy today?

Today I’m doing something that make me very happy, hitting the road. I’m a nomad at heart and traveling and heading for new places always makes me happy. As I hit the road this afternoon I was driving while the sun set. Seeing gorgeous sunsets in the mirrors of my car was the most beautiful thing I saw today.

What did I learn today?

Today, due to some traffic issues my GPS gave me a new path from the 101 to the 5. It was a lovely change and even afforded me a quick rest stop where I could get something to eat.

What made me happy today?

As I mentioned above, what made me happy today was just being back on the road.

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Three Questions, December 21, 2024

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Michael Kane

Most folks are as happy as they make their mind up to be. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Three Questions, December 21, 2024

What did I encounter that was beautiful today?

The most beautiful thing I saw today is one of my favorite sights on the drive to Vegas. Just as you come over the hill before you leave California heading East is this tremendous solar field. This field uses a mirror towers to heat fluids to drive the power creation process. The light from the mirrors across the fields in the dusty desert air is gorgeous.

What did I learn today?

Happy Solstice Day! Today I learned where the term solstice comes from and now you will know as well. The word solstice from the Latin words sol, meaning sun, and sistere, meaning to stand still. The term was used by ancient astronomers to describe the day when the sun appeared to stop moving

What made me happy today?

One of the things I miss about living in Southern California is the prevalence of Del Taco restaurants. They have two items on their menu that I really dig, their egg and cheese breakfast burritos and their chicken soft tacos. Made me happy to snag to an egg and cheese burrito this morning.

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Three Questions, December 19, 2024

Posted on December 20, 2024 by Michael Kane

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in the mirror. ~ Khalil Gibran

Three Questions, December 19, 2024

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 experience I had today? What did I learn today?

Today, the most beautiful thing I encountered, and what I learned are the same thing. I was online and saw an image and a video of something called a sea angel. They are small swimming slugs who live in the Arctic Ocean. The normal foot of the slug has evolved into wing-like structures and these things are absolutely beautiful.

Sea Angel vs Sea Butterfly

What made me happy today?

So what made me happy today doesn’t make me the best person, but it was a bit of self-induced karma that led me to a bit of schadenfreude. I have to admit I love when karma comes around and bites someone in the ass.

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Three Questions, December 18, 2024

Posted on December 19, 2024 by Michael Kane

Research has shown that the best way to be happy is to make each day happy. ~ Deepak Chopra

Three Questions, December 18, 2024

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?

As I was leaving work today, the sun was setting over the ocean and lighting up a building on campus. It had this crazy glow from inside, made the building seem like it was coming alive.

What did I learn today?

Another day of digging around on the internet to learn something new. And today what I learned blew me away, I learned that a typical cumulus cloud weighs 1.1 million pounds. Once you think about it, it makes sense water is heavy and clouds are huge but the number shocked me.

What made me happy today?

Had tow separate colleagues today in different conversations comment on how much they’ve learned from me since we started working together. It was nice to feel like I’m making a difference.

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Three Questions, December 17, 2024

Posted on December 18, 2024 by Michael Kane

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit. ~ Hosea Ballou

Three Questions, December 17, 2024

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?

The most beautiful thing I saw today was the view from the top of our campus looking out over the Pacific Ocean. It’s absolutely one of the best things about my job that I have that view a hundred yards from my office.

What did I learn today?

I had to dig for this one, realized I really hadn’t learned anything in the course of the day. So one of the good things about this three question exercise is that it forces you to look for beauty and happiness and even to learn something if you didn’t. So I Googled some science facts and found a really amazing one. I would have bet you dollars to donuts that identical twins have identical fingerprints, they do not. Turns out that growth differences in the womb actually have an impact on how the whorls of your fingerprints develop. Absolutely blew me away.

What made me happy today?

This one was easy today, the kids from our child development center brought me a Christmas card with all of their smiling faces on the card, those kids are my absolute joy in my job.

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