Views of a Modern World

Everything else Rick writes

Where the bad moods went

April 24, 2013 by rickcolosimo Leave a Comment

Someone once told me that she hadn’t seen me in a bad mood. (It was after only four weeks of knowing me, so maybe there’s a sample size problem.)

 

I said that something had annoyed me the week before. Things still bother me, but not for long and not as much. Remembering things I used to know about how I think about, approach, and deal with the world.

 

In fact, as I write this…

 

I realize it’s not even that things bother me — it only bothers me when I’m not sure about my solution or course of action. Everything that is, just is. No being bothered by all of that: it’s not helpful.

I can feel the changes in me when something else is stressing me — that’s what leads to my less, um, constructive reactions to otherwise meaningless things. So, I focus my efforts on dissociating the two: divide and conquer. In fact, I think that recognizing and naming the stress makes it easier 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

World Autism Awareness Day 2013

April 2, 2013 by rickcolosimo 2 Comments

Today is World Autism Awareness day. My Facebook profile picture is my 8yo son Dylan, showing you, and me, what he thinks of autism. I imagine it’s something along the lines of “I just want to do what I want and have fun like every other boy. Sometimes it’s just hard.” Other times I imagine that’s it’s a hearty “fuck autism,” like when he’s scrambling up the rock climbing wall better than any 8yo in the place.

But he probably doesn’t think about it. He just moves through life, doing what he can and frustrated when his reach exceeds his grasp — just like the rest of us.

So, be aware, be supportive, and perhaps this year you’ll take some action, however small.

Awareness only gets you so far. I’d venture that Dylan is unaware that he has autism. He just acts.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: autism

Drying out a phone after acute water exposure

March 31, 2013 by rickcolosimo Leave a Comment

I was recently in a Starbucks, fand my phone was perched [a little] too precariously. It fell. Into water. I was right there, of course, and snatched it out in less than a second. (Of course, this is purely hypothetical.)

My luck was not all bad. There was an enormous high-speed dryer there (Dylan calls it a “trapezoid dryer” – I think there’s a trapezoid design underneath.

Graphite front

I cranked it up — high-temperature air at high speed, across every corner, curve, angle, and surface of the phone. I went for about two minutes, maybe three, until the phone felt warm to the touch and looked bone-dry from every angle. Luck was with me – no problems then or since.

So, add “restroom” visit to your list of viable solutions to water+phone problems. I’m thinking that home blow dryers would be just as effective. Good luck.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: careless, tips

For Nathan — Dad’s First Grade

January 11, 2013 by rickcolosimo Leave a Comment

 

Dear Nathan,
 
When I was in first grade, I was 6 at the beginning of school in September and turned 7 in the middle of the year. That was in 1974. I lived in a town called Spencerport, NY, with Grandpa Tom and Grandma Katie. (Uncle Jim was not born yet!). We had a black cat named Figaro — that is the same name as the cat in the movie “Pinocchio.” Grandma Katie picked his name.
 
Because my town was so big, I had to ride a bus to school. I would walk down the end of our driveway and then down about four or five more houses to get on the bus at one spot with all the other kids on my street.
 
My school was in a big building that had all the kids from the whole town in one building, even big kids in high school. But my classroom was not just for first grade. Because there were not a lot of kids in Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade, all three classes were in one big, big classroom, about three times as big as your class. So there were kids in my classroom who were younger and older than me. My picture of my whole class had everyone in it. I think it was about 25 kids all together.
 
I remember my teacher, Mrs. Hartman. She was the same teacher that I had the year before when I was in Kindergarten. Her hair was long, brown, and straight. She was very nice. When I was learning to read, I read books about Dick and Jane, just like the ones we have at home. They were in a big yellow workbook, but only the pages on the right-hand side of the book were for reading (the other side was upside-down). Then, when I got to the end of the worksheets, I flipped the book around and all the other sheets were now right-side up so I could do those worksheets. Reading was my favorite part of school.
 
When I was in first grade, I wore glasses too. One day, I was doing monkey bars in gym class. I fell down, and my glasses broke. A little piece of the glass cut me where my eyebrow is. I went to the hospital, and Grandma Katie came to check on me. I was okay, but I had to have stitches to make the cut small so it would heal. If you look super-carefully under my eyebrow, you might be able to see the scar from those stitches. I forgot about it until just now!
 
 
Love,
 
Daddy

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: biography, family, personal

And the children were nestled

December 24, 2012 by rickcolosimo Leave a Comment

And the children were nestled, all snug in their beds, while Daddy downed handfuls of greens and reds.

20121224-210522.jpg

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Bouncing off the bottom

July 24, 2012 by rickcolosimo Leave a Comment

Seth Godin notes that when the first thing you do is measure a new opportunity against the list of why you can’t, then the list is the most important thing in your life. An economist would call this revealed preferences.

 

 

Yep, my kids prevent me from giving up entirely when life seems unbearable, because quitting would be worse. There’s always a “worse:” know what yours is. I know it’s really freaking unlikely that I’ll ever be as broken down as I was walking up the damn TVD that day in Mountains, when I was reduced to setting goals of a few yards, then a few feet, then a few steps, and then one at a time.

 

For some, the “worse” is physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. But we all have our bottom lines. When you get close to that bastard, bend your knees and try to push off. Use yours like a trampoline, giving you energy and confidence and faith from remembering what’s important, from brushing up against the greatest part of your life. 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

25th Infantry Division – living insignia

July 1, 2012 by rickcolosimo Leave a Comment

Check out this fantastic pic of a living insignia version of the 25th ID “Electric Strawberry” (yes, I know it’s a taro leaf). It comes, from ~1926, via Retronaut.

 

Hawaiian Division

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Army

Rooney’s Law

June 28, 2012 by rickcolosimo Leave a Comment

I foresee another tribute to Clarke’s Law coming….

Sufficiently extensive experience is indistinguishable from cynicism.

 

No, Andy Rooney didn’t make that up; I did. He was the most curmudgeonly name that came to mind when I needed to name this post.

 
Comic for June 25, 2012
via Dilbert Daily Strip on 6/24/12


 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Can I spot fake smiles?

June 6, 2012 by rickcolosimo 2 Comments

Smiles popped into my head today. This paragraph (refs omitted):

Autism and Asperger syndrome are diagnosable developmental disorders, but autistic-like personality traits are continuously distributed in the non-clinical population. They are higher in males, in scientists (especially in the hard sciences and engineering) and in relatives of autistic-spectrum patients. Thus, individual differences in autistic-like traits may contribute to explain individual differences in smile recognition skills; people high in autistic-like traits may show reduced visual attention to the eyes, which in turn would limit their ability to detect felt enjoyment smiles. Consistent with this hypothesis, a study of face processing in subjects high in autistic-like traits showed that they made fewer fixations in the eye region compared to controls while looking at face pictures.

makes me wonder whether perhaps one version of the story is “I saw you smiling – WTF?” and “I was faking my happiness” and “I didn’t know they were fakes. (And who does that, anyways?)”

Anyhow, that spilled milk curdled a long time ago. The only thing that matters is what’s next. Here’s a usable online test for Duchenne smile discrimination. Can anyone point me to one that’s longer or more authoritative? What about a self-paced tutorial to improve recognition — does one exist? Is it possible? If my son can distinguish gross emotions, how will we teach him to recognize genuine smiles from the fakes?

Moving further along, does being an optimist inversely correlate with recognizing smiles? Do poor discriminators nevertheless identify other cues that lead to stress or other negative feelings that discriminators can consciously mediate? Yes, when I get to the point that I can whip out these sorts of tests in modifiable customizable webapp form, I’ll add this to the list.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Happy Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2012 by rickcolosimo Leave a Comment

Thinking about my day today….

Felt zero feelings for someone — where do those things go? I guess there’s no conservation of emotion (it hasn’t even all turned to hate, disgust, or sadness); Valentine’s Corollary to Newton’s 2nd Law: love fades?

But enough of that. I’m not a fraidy-cat jackass, afraid to buy a car just because I’ve been swindled once before.

Here are two songs that move me, beat-wise, emotion-wise, and all the rest.

 

Nicki Minaj -Super Bass (C’mon, who doesn’t want that feeling?)

 

Gym Class Heroes – Stereo Hearts (I get the line about the cracks….)

Filed Under: Uncategorized

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • …
  • 11
  • Next Page »

Search this site

Recent Posts

  • That Stupid FB Notice
  • Memorial Day 2020
  • House Rules
  • Lost Spring
  • Did not find

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Tags

aba Add new tag Army autism biography blogging business model character cool culture customer data dating decisiveness economics fear finance humor language law leadership marketing military networking objective orphan Orphan ideas orphans personal politics privacy productivity quote quotes rant relationships right view soapbox software bounty tips tools wisdom workflow writing Zero-based

Copyright © 2021 · Diligent on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in