TMI QUESTIONS: PLEASE READ ME A STORY!

1. Describe your favorite place to cozy-up with a good book.

In My Bob Timberlake Leather Gentleman’s Chair in the living room.

2. What do you read when you're on the toilet?

Never read in the bathroom, but do occasionally play a game of Solitaire on my phone.

3. Do you read when taking a bath?

What’s a bath?  Haven’t taken one in years.  Only showers.

4. If you can, do you read when at the gym?

All my recent gym experience has been in the swimming pool, so no.

5. Do you still read newspapers and or magazines?

Newspapers are only read in e-versions, mostly on my phone in spare moments.  I do subscribe and enjoy a lot of magazines including  National Geographic, Smithsonian, Sierra Club and Our State (a magazine about North Carolina).

6. What are your favorite genres to read? 

Fiction from the 18^th and 19^th centuries, history (especially Revolutionary War), and biographies.

7. Do you read one book at a time or can you read several?

Mostly one book at a time, but occasionally two if they are different genres.

8. If you start a book, do you finish it no matter what?

Well, I try to, especially if it is a so-called “classic.”  But there have been a few that just could not be finished.

9. Did your parents read to you when you were growing up?

No, neither my father or mother ever read to me.

Greg reading to his nephew, Ian (my grandson) about 18 years ago.
Note the Leather Gentleman's Chair that is MY favorite reading place.

10. Have you read to your kids/nephews/nieces?

Yes, I read to both of my sons, but probably more to the oldest one.  Today, he is a voracious reader.  There is an age difference of 4 ½ years between my sons.  My older son read a lot to my younger son when he was little.  My younger son is also a reader. My grandson, who is a college sophomore, and the son of my older son, also reads a lot.

11. How do you feel about reading books vs. using electronic devices? Have your feelings evolved from one or two years ago?

I enjoy my Kindle more and more.  I can read longer without eye strain using the Kindle.  Also my muscular dystrophy is affecting my ability to hold a book (especially a large, bulky, or heavy one) more and more, so the Kindle is very easy to hold, often with only one hand, and turn the pages.  If the book has a lot of beautiful pictures, especially “coffee-table books,” then I want the real thing.

TMI QUESTIONS: THE WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES

1. In general (we'll get to the politics in a few) do you watch the Winter Olympics?

Yes, I do enjoy watching many of the sports.

2. Winter or Summer?

Both, but I like the Summer games better -- especially swimming and diving.

3. What are your favorite winter events? Do you follow any of them outside the game?

The ice skating in its various forms is my favorite; however, I do like a lot of the others such as the skiing, luge, etc.  No, I only watch these during the Olympics.

4. Which sport needs to stay and which one needs to go?

I like the new snowboarding sports.
I could do without the summer beach volleyball!

5. Which is the weirdest sport?

Several are weird especially Curling, but still fun to watch.

6. What is your POV on boycotting The Olympics by countries and or athletes?

I don't think I would participate or encourage a family member to go to countries where terrorism is a distinct possibility such as Russia.  Politically, I don't like Russia's anti-gay attitude.

7. Are you boycotting NBC or any Olympic sponsors?

No, but I think that Jim McKay and ABC were much better at broadcasting the Olympics.

8. Do you think boycotts are effective?

Generally, yes.

9. If you were an athlete what would you do?

I would not have gone to Russia this year -- see #6.

COMMENT:  I think the IOC should stop the bidding process for the sites.  In my opinion, the Olympics belong, where they originated in Greece.  Greece held them relatively recently and already has the venues, infrastructure, and a new airport at Athens.  Today, Greece is mostly non-political, and could surely use the income to improve their economy.  Currently, the games are much too expensive for the hosting countries and often add to the taxpayer burden, plus the added expense for security with the heightened risk of terrorism.

Hospitality Blues

Last week, we had a lesson on football by Professor Andy Griffith.

This week's lesson is from the same era of the 1950s by another UNC student named Doug Harrell.  Doug was a medical student at UNC and came up with these two songs on what it is like to go into the hospital for a "rest treatment" and what it is like to give blood.  Note that over fifty years has gone by since these 45 RPM singles were produced, but you may recognize great similarities, such as "waiting."

WHAT IT WAS WAS FOOTBALL! by Andy Griffith

This is for you, who claim to know nothing about football.  Just a short education before the big SuperBowl today.  If you have ever attended a game at Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, NC, this monologue will remind you of the topography.  For six years, I worked at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, which is right beside the stadium, and believe me, you did not want to work on home game day, because parking, even assigned parking, was no where to be found.

Andy Griffith attended the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and graduated with a bachelor of music degree in 1949. At UNC, he was president of the UNC chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, which claims to be America's oldest fraternity for men in music. He also played roles in several student operettas, including The Chimes of Normandy (1946), and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers (1945), The Mikado (1948) and H.M.S. Pinafore (1949). 

After graduation, he taught music and Drama for a few years at Goldsboro High School in Goldsboro, North Carolina, where he taught, among others, Carl Kasell. He also began to write.

Griffith's early career was as a monologist, delivering long stories such as What it Was, Was Football, which is told from the point of view of a rural backwoodsman trying to figure out what was going on in a football game. The monologue was released as a single in 1953 on the Colonial Records label, and was a hit for Griffith, reaching number nine on the charts in 1954. 

 ~~~~Wikipedia~~~~