Ramblin' with Roger

Things you didn’t know you didn’t know

Inscrutable.

I was catching up with my blog reading when I discovered that LisaF over at Peripheral Perceptions had called me out in one of her posts with this challenge. So I’m giving it a try.

If you could go back in time and relive one moment, what would it be?
I suppose winning my JEOPARDY! game. I would have breathed, instead of hyperventilating.

If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be? Just one?

There are so many. I suppose there was a friend with an illness, and I didn’t realize how significant it was, and I should have. If I had, I would have gone there to visit.

What movie/TV character do you most resemble in personality?
I have no idea. At some level, I suppose it’s one of those characters on that show the Big Bang Theory – which I don’t watch because I just can’t stand the laugh track – who knows a few things but is socially inept. I’m not as smart as those guys, but not as much of a dweeb either. Or Drew Carey on the Drew Carey Show.

If you could push one person off a cliff and get away with it, who would it be?
I honestly don’t think I could bring myself to push anyone off a cliff unless someone was trying to push me off a cliff and it was self-defense. Or I was defending someone else. Yeah, I might be able to do that.

Name one habit you want to change in yourself.
Going to that negative place. there might be five great things and one bad thing, and guess which one gets too much of my attention?

Describe yourself in one word.
Inscrutable.

Describe the person who named you in this meme in one word.
Colorful.

Why do you blog? (In one sentence)
Can it be a really LONG sentence?
I blog because I have found it useful, even necessary to write what I’m thinking and feeling, lest I interrupt my mental processing with ‘noise’; yet I’ve found it more beneficial through the interaction that has evolved with other, usually distant, people, not occasionally more meaningfully than those with people I see on a daily basis.

Now I’m suppose to pass this on and share the brain-racking insightful fun. So, I decided on YOU. You know who you are; if you think it’s you, it probably is. If you don’t, it’s probably you, too.

Summer Song: It’s Summer by the Temptations

The song marks the last recording of Paul Williams, who would die the next year.

I REALLY loved the Temptations, and even more so after they stopped being primarily the background singers for David Ruffin, who left the group in 1968. They became more a five lead-vocal group, under the production leadership of Norman Whitfield, who, with Barrett Strong, wrote most of their songs in this period.

While primarily doing psychedelic soul at this point, the Temps recorded, on the 1970 album Psychedelic Shack the ballad It’s Summer [LISTEN!]. I’m not a big fan of songs that involve a lot of talking rather than singing. But I was a big fan of the bass voice of Melvin Franklin, so I rather liked this. It also appeared as the B-side of the #3 single Ball of Confusion.

After some personnel changes, involving the departure of Eddie Kendrick and Paul Williams, the Temptations released the 1972 album Solid Rock, which featured the re-recorded It’s Summer [LISTEN!], which obviously swipes from the Gershwin brothers. The remake had been released as a single back in the summer of 1971, where it only went to #51 on the pop charts. The song marks the last recording of Paul Williams, who would die the next year.

Maybe because I heard the Melvin version first, I still prefer it to the remake.

How Far Have You Traveled?

I was surprised to discover that San Diego is farther away from Albany than Barbados, which is practically in South America.

Our recent excursion around Lake Ontario over the past two weeks was about 1074 miles (1729 km). I haven’t traveled all that much: 30 US states, 2 Canadian provinces, a little bit of Mexico, and Barbados.

Using Mapquest, I’ve ascertained the farthest I’ve traveled by various modes of transportation.

By car: 1108 miles (1783 km) from Binghamton, NY to Memphis, TN when I was in high school. Among other things, saw the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
By bus: 768 miles (1236 km) from Albany, NY to Charlotte, NC in the late 1970s or early 1980s. I do not recommend this.
By train: Albany to Charlotte, which is much more civilized.
By plane: 2884 miles (4642 km) from Albany to San Diego, CA.

I was surprised to discover that San Diego is farther away from Albany than Barbados, which is practically in South America. According to this site, San Diego is 2445 miles (3934 km) away, while Barbados is a mere 2206 miles (3550 km) – road miles and air miles will differ.

What is the farthest you’ve traveled by various modes of transportation? My wife’s been to Ukraine (by air, of course) in 2002.

Ask Me?

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Once you confirm your interest and the domain is ready to ship, one of my transfer specialists will contact you.
Thank you and have a great day.”
No, thank you! I think I’ll pass, and yield it the guy with the logo.

MOVIE REVIEW: Buck

What I did come away with is that I’d like to know people like Buck, BE more like Buck.

The Wife and I left the Adirondacks on Saturday, picked up the mail that was being held. And since the Daughter was still in the mountains with her cousins (and their parents and grandparents), we took the opportunity to go to the Spectrum Theatre to see the movie Buck, which we had seen in previews.

Buck Brannaman travels the country for 40 exhausting months a year, usually without his family, “helping horses with people problems.” As Buck put it, “Your horse is a mirror to your soul, and sometimes you may not like what you see. Sometimes, you will.”

For much of the movie, one might mistake it for a laconic documentary travelogue. But interspersed with an early scene of how Robert Redford probably could not have made this movie “The Horse Whisperer”, based in large part on Buck, without the real Buck’s skills, and you realize that the man is genuine and no “one-trick pony,” as one critic suggested.

Then you find out, in a manner like peeling an onion one layer at a time, how Buck, and his older brother, were performers as children. Their mother died early, and their father – well, let’s say, Buck wasn’t his biggest fan. But the lessons he learned from that experience were what is remarkable.

It’s not a really dramatic film, except for one sequence near the end, which is quite so. What I did come away with is that I’d like to know people like Buck, BE more like Buck. You don’t have to be a big fan of horses to be a big fan of Buck.

Oh, you people who leave at the beginning of the credits: hear Buck’s foster mom tell Buck’s favorite joke before you depart.