Pickabar Blog

The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. – Bertrand Russell

Everybody knows that everything would be great if only everyone else wasn’t so self-centered and unwilling to sacrifice for the greater good. –Pickabar

Yeah, I just quoted myself.

There are always good excuses for not getting stuff done! The people who get things done do it despite the great excuses they have.

Inaction is a form of action. Silence is a statement.

Dear Self-

You’ve wasted so much time waiting for a special moment, an external change or some other magical event to make your life change for the better. That’s not going to happen. You need to remember to look inside of yourself and not to the outside world for motivation and encouragement. You need to rush forward towards any opportunity to push your boundaries. You need to rejoice in the pure joy of effort for it’s own sake.

p.s. You are looking sharp. Nice t-shirt!

Get at it people!

Sarah’s Dad is a renaissance man. He read my little winter poem and responded in the comments:

The Snow Is Also

The snow is also blanket to the seed,

out of sight but waiting to be born.

As is the name upon a stone,

no longer close but never far,

beneath the snow,

in each of us.

I took the liberty of titling it. Goals shortly.

By the way, David is also a painter. He painted the painting on the right behind him in this photo.

Spooky painting, I know.

He’s also one of the fathers of storm chasing. I’m serious. He even founded the first storm chasing magazine Storm Track. This is just a random sick drawing from the magazine.

He also took a photograph that was used for a stamp.

I could go on, but I won’t because I’m a little jealous. I think I need to make him a Wikipedia page.

So soon!

Too soon.

Just as my gloves were finally adjusted
as I had tightened my belt just so
I realized that the game had already ended
spring’s fecundity buried dead beneath the snow.

And though I searched and searched for anyone
to challenge with my appeals
I finally dropped my bat at last
unable to halt the one

true

unceasing

wheel.

Too soon!

"No matter what anyone says, no matter the excuse or explanation, whatever a person does in the end is what he intended to do all along."

- Cus D’Amato

Jim Breuer hits the ball with the good part of the bat in this quote from WMMR:

It’s like being in love with an alcoholic. It’s like you constantly defend her:

“Dude, your alcoholic friend is a mess.”

“Nah, you just don’t know her like I do.”

How soon until opening day 2010?

Power may justly be compared to a great river. While kept within its due bounds it is both beautiful and useful. But when it overflows its banks, it is then too impetuous to be stemmed; it bears down all before it, and brings destruction and desolation wherever it comes. If, then, this is the nature of power, let us at least do our duty, and like wise men who value freedom use our utmost care to support liberty, the only bulwark against lawless power, which in all ages has sacrificed to its wild lust and boundless ambition the blood of the best men that ever lived. -Andrew Hamilton

The trial of John Peter Zenger was a pivotal moment in the history of the United States both because it represents the long tradition of American belief in the importance of a free press and because it represents one of the first glimmers of the idea of American-ness as distinct from British-ness.

I’d never heard about it until yesterday, when someone wrote an aside about the trial in a post to a baseball forum.