Changing Your Opinion

Mr. Dickie

Reading the words

of 

The Chief of Naval Operations

Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert

Before the Navy Band Concert

Remember that to change your opinion and to follow him who corrects your error is not a surrender of freedom. Your action follows your own judgement and understanding and keeps the course your mind has set.

(Marcus Aurelius, Meditation, Chapter VII, 16)

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Last night, 7 October 2014, Cyndi and I took the subway to the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, MD where we attended a "free" 80-minute concert by The United States Navy Band.  The concert entitled, America's Navy - On The Sea And Beyond, celebrated the Navy's 239th Birthday and the 200th Birthday of the Star-Spangled Banner. The program featured three of the six ensembles that make up the Navy Band: Concert Band, Sea Chanters and Cruisers.  We selected our own seats near the back and on the aisle on the 800-seat orchestra level.  There was a full house.  

I thought the program was wonderful.  I particularly enjoyed the first solo vocal of the Josh Groban song, Brave and the duet, near the end, of the Bill Withers song, Lean On Me.

This was our first visit to the Music Center which is a beautiful building with wonderful acoustics.  It's across the street from a Red line Metro stop and a Metro parking garage. The second level of the parking garage is connected to the Music Center by a fly-over.  The Center is the second home of The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

We took photos prior to the performance using Cyndi's camera.

Dick Henthorn

8 October 2014

National Book Festival

The person who understands what is occurring guides or controls the situation, and once you understand that ... [a person's] goal is to get your goat, then you are in a position of control instead of simply reacting.
(Sandra A. Crowe, Since Strangling Isn't An Option, p. 33)

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Yesterday afternoon Cyndi and I attended The Library of Congress, National Book Festival in Washington, DC. We drove to the College Park Metro Station where we took a single-tracking train downtown (continuing weekend track work).  We got off at the Mount Vernon Station.  When we came up out of the ground we were a few feet away from the entrance to the Convention Center. This was the 11th year of the National Book Festival and the first time we attended. This year they moved the event indoors. We each picked up a free green Festival bag.  Before we left we stopped at the welcome booth again and picked up the poster for the event.  Cyndi spotted empty poster boxes in the trash.  We put our posters in the box flat, rather than rolling them like everyone else.  An image of this year's poster appears with this posting.

Dick Henthorn
31 August 2014

Criticism

"To escape criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." (Elbert Hubbard in Chapter-By-Chapter Bible Commentary by Warren W. Wiersbe, p. 184)

Never criticize or condemn - or it will all come back on you. Go easy on others; then they will do the same for you. (Luke 6:37 (TLB) in Daily Guideposts - 1990, 7 December)

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Last night Cyndi and I discovered that I ought to purchased a Senior Smart Trip card for use on the Metro system so I can take advantage of the senior discount. I stopped at the check-out desk at our local branch of the county library today to buy the card. I'd been using a card that Cyndi gave me. The card works on the subway and the bus and at the subway parking garages.

Mr. Dickie
14/Jan/2011 18:09

Metro News

The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind. (Dr. Wayne Dyer, Staying On The Path, p. 185)

Neurotics are looking for problems. They want things to get worse. They want to be right. (Dr. Wayne Dyer, Staying On The Path, p. 178)

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The Metro subway system is trying to raise fares this week. They didn't mention that they were also changing the computer system that reads the plastic fare cards. The old system worked well. All it took to open the fare gate was a quick swipe of the card over the spot that reads the card. Yesterday there were problems at a couple of the stations. Some people had to take their cards out of the protective plastic covers they were using. Others had to lay the card down on top of the circular spot that reads the cards and then pick up the card after the gate opened. Some fare gates wouldn't read the cards at all. I'll bet management has already written the check to the contractor that installed the new system. Murphy's Law Rules!

Mr. Dickie
4/Aug/2010 8:47

Metro and the NTSB

Refuse to accept your limitations and those things you think you can't do, and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish. (Sue Monk Kidd in Daily Guideposts - 1986, 24 July)

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I let the grass get ahead of me. As a result I spent a couple of hours yesterday doing yard work. I used a full spool of cord in my weed wacker running out with about a square foot spot still untrimmed. There were four bags of grass ready for the Wednesday yard debris pick-up.

There's a front-page article in The Washington Post today about the release of the National Transportation Safety Board findings on the fatal Red Line subway crash last year.

"The NTSB found that nearly half of the 3,000 track circuit modules Metro uses could seriously malfunction and that a quarter of its rail cars, the oldest in the fleet, offer little protection in a crash, posing an "unacceptable risk to Metrorail users."" "...the board recommended that the troublesome equipment and old rail cars be permanently removed as soon as possible. The NTSB has no statutory power to enforce its recommendations..."

Some say there's too much government regulation and oversight of American business. Others say there is too little. We might even be lead to believe that an agency called the "National Transportation Safety Board" has the power to insure our safety during our travels. If you are putting your faith in the NTSB - Happy Trails to You!

Mr. Dickie

Something To Say

... we will be ... penalized if we presume in ourselves a perfection that simply is not there. (As Bill Sees It, p. 159)

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Yesterday I discovered that I can back up my Google blogs by exporting them to an XML file on my computer. Of course, I don't know anything about XML files. Apparently the main reason for doing the export is to get a copy of the blog when you want to move your blog from one place to another. I learned that I can read the downloaded file with Internet Explorer. To get started I backed up my Obituary file.

There have been several back-to-back days of temperatures in the nineties. It's so hot some of the weeds are burning up. Yesterday, for the first time this year, Melva hooked up a sprinkler to the backyard hose and we watered three different spots for twenty-five minutes each.

Today Cyndi returns from a sixteen day trip to Panama. This morning she called her mother several times from the airport in Panama. She will change planes in Miami and arrive at Washington National around 3:30 p.m. if all goes well.

Montgomery County, Maryland, where Cyndi lives, is just to the west of our county. They always brag about it being populated by affluent folks. Now one of the county leaders has announced that they have run out of money. They can no longer rent portable toilets for use in the parks. This reminds me of the old expression, "We were so poor, we didn't have a pot to pee in." This leader has suggested that citizens sign up to sponsor one or more porta-pottys. She stated that you can have a memorial plaque attached to the potty you sponsor. What would you like your plaque to say? I thought up a slogan for the sponsorship campaign, "Sponsor a Loo for a Poo."

Wages are down, jobs are lacking. In the Washington, DC area many people travel long distances on the busses and subway of the Metro system to get to and from low paying jobs if they have them. Starting today huge fare increases go into effect. Isn't this asking folks who most need public transportation to shoulder the burden of keeping this mismanaged and money loosing system running? Go figure!

We used the gas discount offer from Giant grocery and Shell Oil for the first time yesterday. After spending $200.00 at Giant we had 200 points. This could be used to get a 20 cents per gallon discount on a one-time gas purchase. I filled the Toyota Camry with $35.00 worth of gas and received a discount of $2.63. No wonder all eight pumps at the station were occupied. I wasn't too surprised when I wasn't able to make the system work at the pump. I went inside and the clerk didn't have any trouble helping me.

Mr. Dickie
27/Jun/2010 8:39