Going Sinker

By lex, on July 20th, 2010

Hate doing this to you again – I do so enjoy our little chats – but life has this habit of getting in the way of hobbies. I’ve got some serious stuff to work through on the home front, and it may be a little while.

Please feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

For the Anglicans in the crowd, BCP  Prayer #56 is solicited.

 

Back To The Index 

Friday Open Thread

By lex, on July 23rd, 2010

First, thank you for all your expressions of concern and interventions with the Big Guy/Positive Energy. It’s very much appreciated.

Second, I realize that the previous post is a poor place to leave an invitation for the community to “talk amongst themselves.”   So here, hopefully, is a more congenial place for the regulars to chat about issues of common interest while I attempt to decide what it is I want to do with this space going forward.

48

By lex, on November 9th, 2008

From Wikipedia:

48 (forty-eight) is the natural number following 47 and preceding 49. It is one third of a gross or four dozens.

Forty-eight is a double factorial of 6, a highly composite number. Like all other multiples of 6, it is a semiperfect number. 48 is the second 17-gonal number.

48 is the first number of the form (24.q) and is in abundance having an aliquot sum of 76. It is the lowest composite number to fall into the 41-aliquot tree having the 7 aliquot number sequence,(48, 76 , 64, 63, 41, 1, 0). 48 is highly abundant with an aliquot sum 158% higher than itself.

48 is the smallest number with exactly ten divisors.

There are 11 solutions to the equation φ(x) = 48, namely 65, 104, 105, 112, 130, 140, 144, 156, 168, 180 and 210. This is more than any integer below 48, making 48 a highly totient number.

Since the greatest prime factor of 482 + 1 = 2305 is 461, which is clearly more than 48 twice, 48 is a Størmer number.

48 is in base 10 a Harshad number. It has 24, 2, 12,and 4 as factors.

48 is the atomic number of cadmium.

Ups and Downs

By lex, on October 18th, 2008

Three flights today, and the weather was nearly perfect. The great blue bowl of sky permitting one or two low clouds to linger in solitude on the margins, just to make us grateful for the rest of it. Like the dark blot on a canvas that serves only to emphasize how very white the thing itself is. Because otherwise we might forget to notice.

The first flight was a father/stepson team bracketed by a generation on either side. Grandma as game as a lady of her years could possibly be, wives of the aforementioned gentlemen and two striking young ladies. The whole gaggle laughed and grinned through the briefing, so clearly in love with each other and entranced by the moment that you felt grateful to be a momentary part of it. Because love and joy are also beautiful things, even if sometimes they seem to stand out in relief to all the rest of what the world holds for us. Like that dark spot on the canvas, or the scudding clouds on the coast, only in reverse.

Sundaze

By lex, on April 6th, 2008

Woke early, couldn’t sleep. Restless, head filled with half-formed thoughts and shapeless anxieties. Things which you stuff away in a box in the course of the day, but which peek out and steal away in the early morning hours when the guards doze at their posts. Sometimes I can stuff them back away and return to lethe. Mostly I buckle up and greet the day. If you can’t get by on five hours sleep, well: You’d better learn to.

There’s a sound the world makes just before dawn. A stirring in the darkness, the birds sense it first. There were many times back in my youth when I’d be out in the tree stand or duck blind waiting for those first rays of sunlight, feeling in my chest as much as hearing the whirr and rustle of things moving cautiously about, some seeking their rest, others readying for their day. All of them aware in their primitive way that Something Else was among them. Potential danger. Even mortality, as best as a wild thing can grasp that concept.

Saturdaze

By lex, on March 15th, 2008

Apparently I was not to fly today, although the weather would have supported it: No customers, and eventually I’ll figure the system out. Call ahead.

Drove up anyway, and met a young chappie in a G-1 leather flight jacket with a VAQ-139 patch, leather name tag and the haircut to go with it and taking it all together I knew him. I introduced myself as “Lex,” and your man took a double-take before asking, is that “Neptunus Lex?” and I had to admit that yes, yes it was. Not having the heart to say no, simultaneously alarmed and flattered.

Brothers in Arms

By lex, Sat – March 6, 2004

As promised in the previous post, I went golfing today.

I spend my working week planning, thinking, organizing, managing. When the weekend comes around, I put away planning things.

I don’t plan my golf, it just happens to me.

There are some advantages to this. I meet different people every time that I play. A twosome or a threesome is already formed, and I get to join them, and observe their dynamic. It is a fascinating insight into the human condition, especially in that one will always be tested in a game of golf. It brings out the best in people, and the worst. It is a kind of war: a war against the course, against one’s playing partners, against oneself.