That other blog

Wow, has it really been more than 2 months since I posted on this blog? I guess so.

Well, I suppose it’s time to make a renewed effort.  And given my current schedule, this probably as good a time as any.

So welcome to That Other Blog 2.0  (ewww, I hate when places and people do that….)  okay, so…. welcome to That Other Other Blog…. (no)….

how about just plain ol’… “hi. Good to see you again.”
Yeah, I like that too.

Contributed by: Scott Copperman

As you probably know, New Jersey is one of the 49 states to get snow in the recent snow storm. At my house we probably got 30-36 inches in total over a four day period. Ugh.

The skies have been clear for about five days now, and although there’s no snow in the forecast there’s plenty of it on the ground. So I’ve been drawing on the lessons I learned in Ms. McCarty’s 4th grade class at Driscoll Elementary.

There’s no way I’m hauling shovelfulls of wet, icy snow from one side of my driveway to another. Instead I’ve been simply throwing the snow into the street… onto the clear, black asphalt.  Warm, toasty, sun’s energy absorbing black asphalt. I flick the snow onto the street, kick any clumps into smaller wisps of snow and watch them melt almost instantly and flow back into the gutters.

By the time I finished my most recent round of doing this, all the snow had melted and I’d cleared another 54 cubic feet of snow from in front of my house. (That’s an 18 foot wide, 1.5 foot deep rectangle of snow extending two feet from the curb, if you’re scoring at home.)

It’s tiring and my back hurts from all the twisting and throwing, but I’m pleased to have been able to apply the lesson I learned back when we put a piece of black felt and a piece of  white felt on the snow and watched the black felt sink about a foot into the snow over the course of a day back in 1978.

Thank you Ms. McCarty (and “Gifted and Talented” supplemental instruction teacher, Ms. Safran), you taught me well.

Contributed by: Scott Copperman

I know it’s just a reality TV show/contest, and it’s hardly worth investing much thought in, but… it irks me (that’s right, I said “irks”… well, I typed it really, but you get the idea… I USED it) that they do not give equal airtime to all the potential finalists.

I know it’s a tough thing to do, but I think there’s an inherent advantage built in when the process is going to be handed over to the public and then not all the players have been given the same opportunity to connect with the voters.

I remember a few years ago, there was a woman who did not receive ANY air time until she made it to first week of voting America voting. We never saw her sing until the first week that the votes mattered, and … surprise surprise … she failed to garner enough votes to stay.

So, yes, I find it irksome (ohhh, there’s that word again, but in a different form) that they do not give equal air time to all of the potential top 24.

I do recognize they don’t have a whole of time, but you know what? They could cut down on the cutting down of genuinely misguided people who don’t realize they can’t sing. Some people are on there for a laugh, but some of those poor people really don’t know how bad they are. And they don’t realize the screeners have passed them through to the audition room to see them get humiliated.

We do so many things to protect people from their own stupidity, in this country. Shouldn’t we be doing that here too?

Contributed by: Scott Copperman

“snorple”

It’s a little bit darker than black, but a little lighter than white – snorple.

My kids and I debate the existence of snorple items all the time. They, of course, deny any such color exists. I, of course, say it does.

Yesterday, on the way home from the grocery store, I added in a discussion of a “spangle” (a shape with more sides than a rectangle but fewer than a triangle). How many sides does the spangle have? Why, “skezel” (more than 10 but less than 2), of course. Duh!

I wonder if they’ll torture their own children in the same way when they get older? My daughter will… I’m fairly sure. My son may look like me and want to be like me, but in terms of personality, my daughter is probably the one who inherited the greater share of the genetic contributors to personality.

Poor her (and her future husband).

Contributed by: Scott Copperman

I talked to one of my best friends on the phone for more than an hour last night. He had some updates on people I haven’t seen, heard from, or talked to in a while, but there were more than a few whom I have been wondering about quite a bit lately and about whom he had no info to share.

I don’t have a facebook account, and the big search engines are not so helpful for a variety of reasons : their names are too common, they don’t have a very large online footprint, etc., .

So, I decided to simply put their names here, in the hopes that while I haven’t been able to find them, they may stumble upon this site and (if interested) reach out.

[Note: if you’re name’s not here, it doesn’t mean I don’t care about or haven’t been thinking/wondering about you… I may already have gotten an update, or may be following another lead to get in touch with you, or a whole slew of other things could be factors… don’t take it personally, this is literally the tip of the “I wonder about ____ ” iceberg].

In no particular order, here’s round one of my reverse search attempt:

• Jon Greenwald
• Corinne Houser (formerly Corinne Reiser) and Jeff Houser
• Tim Lawrence
• Shannon Sommerville
• Dawn Hurley (formerly Dawn Gasparri)
• Greg Weiss
• Dan Spoust

That’s probably a good start. If you’re the Jon, Corinne, Tim, Shannon, Dawn, or Greg I’m looking for, you’ll know it. If you don’t recognize me, then it’s probably someone else I had in mind.

And, again, if you’re not on this list… but you know them and me and want to leave a comment or send an email, please do.

Like I said, there are plenty of other people I wonder about, some of whom I’ve gotten rough updates from Coll, Jess, Dave, Amy, Hayes, or even Tully.  And some I’ve stumbled on bits of news about online, but that’s no where near as good as getting an update from you yourself.

We’ll see how this goes.

Contributed by: Scott Copperman

Hmmm, since posting about the cookie I’ve gone on to make myself a bowl of chili. The cookie’s were just not satisfying, and I was starting to feel read bad about myself for eating so many.

What does that mean in the metaphor from my previous post? I assume it means you all feel badly about yourselves for being here and have moved on to read other content online. So I’m basically talking to myself.

…

…

…

Well, all right then!

Contributed by: Scott Copperman

I’m eating it right now.

I say “Oreo-type” because it’s actually a store brand imitation, but you get the point.

So, hello. It’s been a while. Happy New Year to you all.

I haven’t completely ignored this site… I’ve been logging in to clear out spam comments (I do have to say their grammar is getting better… 1 or 2 out of every 50 actually make me pause and consider if they might be from a real person) and monitor the stats. You’ve been a busy bunch of readers. I’m sorry there hasn’t been a whole lot for you to see. Well, there is a lot here… there are more than 140 posts in the site (wow, talk about bad grammar – that sentence had two different verb conjugations in it, but to paraphrase Elton, deal with it).

A few people come here and dig through the archives a little bit (it’s a fascinating thing to study the articles they choose to read… ) but most of you are just reading the one page. You pop in, take a quick look to see if there’s anything new… speed read it, maybe, and then pop out.

That’s normal I suppose.

In fact, it’s much like how I’m interacting with this faux-Oreo and it’s bretheren. I could go and take a handful, or the whole package of cookies: I know there are many other good cookies to eat, and in my heart I know I want more than this single snippet of cookie-ness. However, I choose to zip in and take one cookie then zip out. I’ll go back soon, sometimes many times a day for another cookie, but each time it’s a quick strike and I grab a single cookie… (you’re getting this whole cookie jar = thatotherpage.com/blog’s entire collection and each post = a cookie analogy, right? Good, except now I’m kind of stuck with where to go with it. The best thing would be for me to stop eating cookies and go make a sandwich or something instead. Where does that fit into this analogy? Should I be directing you to another source of content? And what about the faux-ness of my cookies?) … man, now I’m starting to feel bad about myself. I know I’ll go have a cookie.

…

Well, that sort of backfired. Anyway, I’m flattered that so many of you are interested enough to check in here. I will get back to posting more regularly. I’ve been very busy with life at home and work stuff and my college classes. There have been challenging times and some setbacks, but overall things are fine. Writing here is just not much of a priority sometimes.

I will say this, though, my son played an outstanding hockey game last night. After a string of games where he just looked lost (for a variety of reasons I wont get into here), he looked like the player I know he wants to be. He was so proud of himself and was beaming all night long.

I consider myself very lucky to be able to be there to see these moments in his life. Very lucky. He’s a good kid, and when he hurts, I hurt tenfold. Seeing him feel so good about himself made me feel great for a night as well.

So, did you give someone that one extra gift? Just ‘cuz Christmas is over doesn’t mean you can’t still make someone’s day. If you’ve never done something just because – do it, and you’ll be amazed at how great it feels. It can be something as little as giving someone in line that 10% off coupon you won’t be using or paying for the toll for the person behind you. Buy a magazine and put it in a mailbox. I dunno.

Last January, I used the little bit of money I’d received for Christmas to sponsor two people’s memberships in an online community. I don’t know the people, in fact I couldn’t tell you their names now. But, I knew the community organizer and I just told him to pick 2 people who said they wanted in but couldn’t afford it. I wished they would turn around and in return do something for someone else – I hope they did. That same month, I also gave away tickets to one of the Arizona Cardinals playoff games to some guy who said his dad has cancer and they couldn’t afford to go to the game. I never really heard back from him. I hope it wasn’t a scam… and I hope his dad is okay today. But, for all the things I don’t know about the recipients and what happened next (well the Cardinals won and went to the Super Bowl, but that’s not what I mean), it still left me feeling like a better person.

Enough rambling (and cookies, I’ve eaten 4 since we started this).

Contributed by: Scott Copperman

Merry Christmas, everyone. Happy holidays, enjoy the time with loved ones.

It’ll be a busy time here at my house, and you’ve all got much more importatnt things going on in your own lives than anything noteworthy I can post here. Plus, if I’m posting… then I’m not baking or eating cookies.

So… it’s gonna be quiet for a few days. But I’ll be back. In the meantime, go and buy one more present… nothing big, just one more present… and give it to someone random. Maybe you don’t want to give it to someone totally random, and that’s fine. Then give it to someone who is below your gift-giving threshhold. Just because. And while anonymously giving it sounds great, let them know YOU care… and put your name on it.

See ya in a few days.

Contributed by: Scott Copperman