“You Got to Go With What You Got” is a central tenet
of baseball philosophy

one of the great things about it is that each word is
short, simple and awkwardly placed

also, its grammatically incorrect; and at first, you’re
not really sure what it refers to

it seems like something the great baseball philoso-
pher Yogi Berra might have said - a Yogiism

and therefore you sense that there is some deep
meaning hidden among those simple and jumbled
words

in baseball, “You Got to Go With What You Got” is
often applied to pitchers

each pitcher has a repertoire of pitches; for example,
a fastball might be his best pitch - his strikeout pitch

he may also have a decent curveball and slider,
pitches he can rely on

but one of the mysteries of baseball is that on any
given night, one, two or all three of the pitches in
his repertoire may be ineffective and -

he gets knocked around in the early innings

you might hear the TV play-by-play announcer say,
“He just doesn’t seem to have his fastball tonight.”

to which the color commentator will respond,
“Yeah, he’s just gonna have to go with what he’s
got, his curveball and slider”

and all this is part of the greatness of baseball,
part of its philosophy; a philosophy we can apply
to our daily lives

you and i may not have a repertoire of pitches
per se; but we have repertoire of skills and assets;

and we rely on these when we “take the field”
each day to go up against challenges at our place
of work

your “best pitch” might be the love that you bring
to the job

or maybe your best pitch is smarts - your
intelligence and experience

then again maybe it’s will - persistence and
determination to see things through

but whatever the repertoire of skills; whatever your
chief skill or asset happens to be -

some days you just don’t got it, it just isn’t there;
you are without your best pitch, and maybe another

like the savvy, veteran pitcher, you have to make do -

You got to go with what you got.

Henry and Edsel Ford

Photo Credit: Plan59.com

we have all heard of the archetypal story of the son
who follows in the footsteps of his highly successful
father

for the hero of this story, there are benefits; but
there are burdens and pressures as well

many men and women have lived this story: they
followed the paths taken by a successful parent;
and they managed to do quite well -

some becoming great successes in their own right

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, for example, followed in
the footsteps of a father who is one of the greatest
composers of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach

the younger Bach is now known as a founder of the
Classical style and his works continue to be recorded
and performed to this day

there are, however, many instances where those
who followed a successful parent have not fared
well; and some have been nightmare scenarios

perhaps the most infamous and unfair of them all is
the case of Edsel Ford (1893–1943)

Edsel was the only child of Henry and Clara Ford

the life of Henry Ford, of course, is perhaps the
quintessential American success story

Henry was a prolific inventor; credited with 161
U.S. patents

he founded the Ford Motor Comapny, introduced
the Model T automobile in 1908, revolutionized the
American auto industry and became one of the
richest and most well-know men of his time

Henry Ford’s success was so great that a word
was coined in his honor - Fordism, a word pertaining
to Ford’s mass production methods, the high wages
paid to workers and the effects of these on a
nation’s economy

Edsel Ford, who was the President of the Ford Motor
Company from 1919 to 1943, also had a word coined
bearing his name

this word has nothing to do with great success,
but rather, with spectacular failure

the failure was that of the Ford Edsel (1958-60), an
ill-fated automobile that Edsel’s successors at Ford
had named in his “honor”, a car that is now known as
“the wrong car at the wrong time”

the Edsel lost Ford hundreds of millions at a time
when a million dollars was quite a lot of money

oh, with respect to the word bearing Edsel Ford’s
name; if you go to Dictionary.com and enter Edsel,
you’ll find - something useless and unwanted

if you check out his bio, you’ll see that Edsel Ford
deserved a better fate; but history isn’t always kind
or fair to those who follow in the footsteps

if your are in the mood to shudder and cringe,
check out the TV ad below - it proudly introduces
the all new Ford Edsel

Does Pluto have an atmosphere? is a simple
question with a not-so-simple answer of:

Yes, and No

the dwarf planet Pluto has a kind of an “on-again-off-
again” atmosphere; a cyclic atmosphere

and this is so because of its atypical orbit

unlike the eight planets which orbit the Sun, Pluto’s
orbit is not a near-circular ellipse; rather, it is egg-like
in shape

consequently, Pluto’s distance from the Sun varies
widely in the course of its 248 year orbit

at some times it will be 30 AU from the Sun and at
others, 50 AU; with an “AU” being a unit of distance
approximately 93,000,000 miles, the distance of the
Earth from the Sun

at those times when Pluto is closest to the Sun,
the frozen gases on its surface (98% nitrogen, with
traces of methane and carbon monoxide) will under-
go a change

in the video below, this change is described as
follows,

Pluto’s pockmarked surface undergoes a transformation as it orbits near the Sun. Under the additional heat, some of the frozen gases evaporate to form a temporary atmosphere.

As Pluto recedes from the Sun, the gases freeze again and fall back down to the surface.

the above is an excerpt from the History Channel’s Universe series

psychiatrist Carl Jung contended that dreams about
houses are essentially dreams about ourselves

for Jungians, a dreamed house represents the
dreamer; with the house’s various rooms repre-
senting the various aspects of the dreamer’s body
and psyche

for example, the general condition of the house
may reflect the dreamers sense of his own general
condition;

a dreamed house that is messy may reflect the
dreamer’s sense that in some way he is in disarray
and needs to get things back in order

as noted above, the various rooms of the house
may reflect the various aspects of the psyche

a dreamed basement, for example, tends to repre-
sent the unconscious and those painful feelings,
thoughts and memories that have been buried there

exploring a basement in one’s dreams often reflects
the surfacing of painful issues that had been repres-
sed

anxiety and unease is often the feeling tone of
dreams about basements

exploring an attic is analogous to exploring the
contents of one’s mind; contents such as “stored”,
nonthreatening memories

dreams of exploring an attic tend to occur at those
times when the dreamer, in waking life, is thinking
back to earlier times

the dreamed attic may also represent knowledge,
expanded awareness and the development of a
sense of connectedness or spirituality

lightness, openness and expansion is often the
feeling tone of dreams about an attic

finally, dreams about discovering and exploring
new and unfamiliar rooms are often the most
pleasant dreams

such dreams may reflect personal growth and
sensing newly developed aspects of ourselves

a sense of wonder often pervades dreams where
the dreamer discovers new rooms; and such dreams
tend to occur at those times when the dreamer
is becoming comfortable with developmental tasks
such as establishing independence, taking on new
responsibilities, becoming intimate with another or
becoming a parent

As I walk among the various rooms, I reflect: ‘now I
ought to find out more about this house in its entirety.’

- Carl Jung, Memoirs, Dreams and Reflections (1961)

we know the look of love

we know it when we see it on the screen and
we feel it when we see it in someone’s face -

someone close by, just a few feet or inches away

we also know when it’s on our face and we try
to hide it -

hide it because we know everyone can see it,
everyone is seeing it and we have become a
conspicuous beacon of love

the look of love is not the raised eyebrow, “I’m sexy”,
“come hither” look that we see everywhere in the
media

rather, it is a wide-eyed look, a look with a half-smile
that just won’t quit, a look that radiates joy, wonder
and a sense of unbelievably good luck

it’s a look that seen from any direction is pleasing
to behold

but when it is directed squarely at us, it’s a look
that sets off a chain reaction of explosions from our
eyes to our brains to all parts below -

and we can barely maintain control

Google “the look of love”, and you will be
disappointed

you won’t find it at Google Images because it
can’t be faked for the camera

it’s not a camera/model thing; it’s a
person to person thing, and a rare one at that

The Look of Love

written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, performed
by Diana Krall