The one time my father was right

During my middle teens, the family sat down to dinner. I reached for the salt before taking my first bite.  My father commented that this made little sense, how could I know that the food needed salting before I even tasted it?  I stopped and thought about it and realized that even though he was my father, he was right: it didn't make sense.

Since then I have rarely salted food.  I have found that salt is one of those things where the more you use, the more you need.  If you use it sparingly then it has more effect when you do use it.  If something tastes dull then a little bit of salt can make the flavors pop.

I believe that this is the only time I listened to my father when I was a teenager.

Sleep is an opinion

An up-and-coming young composer wrote a piece of music and asked an established older composer to attend a rehearsal and comment on the piece.  During the rehearsal the older composer fell asleep.  The younger composer was mortified: "How could you fall asleep when you knew that I wanted your opinion?"  The older composer replied, "Young man, sleep is an opinion."

This story is variously told of composers, playwrights, poets, etc, sometimes with no names and sometimes with luminaries such as Carl Sandburg and Mark Twain as the older party.  This is how I heard it.

The point of this story is that I will comment on creative works that I didn't finish, or where I skipped or skimmed parts.  That's a legitimate part of the opinion as long as I disclose it.

A perfect example of shortsightedness

I was riding my bicycle down 3rd Ave NW one day.  As Seattle goes this isn't a hilly street, about a 5% grade, but it's enough of a downhill that I had no trouble keeping up with traffic.  There was a motorist behind me who was clearly annoyed at being behind a cyclist.  As soon as it was safe, I moved over to the side so that he could pass.  He hit the gas and zoomed around me.  Then he immediately slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of me.  The car which was preventing me from going faster.

What kind of person can't see past a bicycle to see a car in front of it?  This was a sunny day (one of the half-dozen we get yearly in Seattle) and the car was clearly visible.  Talk about not being able to see past the end of your nose!

Introduction

In today's world, there is never enough time to get things right.  Get them good enough and then iterate as needed.  This blog is practice in letting things go even if they don't feel finished, without making that last polish that winds up taking twice as long and loses track of the original point.  Posts are timeboxed to that end.  Should be interesting for me, even if not for anybody else.  And we're off!