Category Archives: Poietes

“I got this so I could grill on my way home. I found a way to rig up my Foreman grill so that I can cook a burger and bacon as I get home. It saves me 20 minutes of cooking every single night.” ~ From an Amazon customer review of the Wheelmate Laptop Steering Wheel Desk

From George Takei: “Friends, here is the Wheelmate Laptop Steering Wheel Desk, and the product created such an impression on me, I decided to review it:

16,769 of 16,846 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for an Starfleet Helmsman
My husband Brad always warns me not to try and update my Facebook page while I’m driving. “You’ll hit another pedestrian,” he says. “This isn’t the Enterprise, there isn’t a deflector array.” Then along comes a miracle product like this! I can now happily fly at warp speed down the streets of Los Angeles, laptop or mobile device perched right in front of me, so I can keep…

Published 1 month ago by George Takei

Here are some other great reviews from satisfied customers:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not so good as baby changing table
I read some 4 and 5 star reviews by those who used this device successfully to change a baby while driving. On that basis, I bought one. I put my baby on it and drove for over an hour. It did not change. Same baby. I am glad it worked for some people but I will be returning mine. (The steering wheel desk.)

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5.0 out of 5 stars My commute transformed!

This baby has totally changed my daily commutes. Before I got it, it was hard juggling the stuff I need to make my commute bearable. Now, its a snap!

Now, I just keep the cooler on the passenger seat next to me when I pull out of the garage. As I’m merging into traffic, I’m cutting the limes and squeezing the juice. I have room to set that aside and muddle the mint leaves before I tart filling the glass with ice, the juice, the leaves, the sugar, and the rum. Top it off with a little seltzer, and I’ve got a perfect good morning Mojito which will last at least until I get to to the I290/610 interchange!

On the way home, as soon as I pull out of the parking garage, I add some ice to the shaker, pour in the vermouth, drain the vermouth out the window into the mouth of Phil, the wino on the corner, pour in the vodka, and shake! I’m dropping in the olive just as I get back on the highway and my happy hour (or two, depending on Houston traffic) has begun! Now all I need is the rocket launcher and ejection seat (and the license to kill!).

This handy little surface gives me enough room so I don’t have to try to hold two or three bottles between my legs – I can’t do that and work the clutch at the same time!

And if its been a particularly bad day at work, I can line up the shots. I can pour a good dozen on this table and, as long as I don’t have any tight turns, not a drop is spilled!

Thank you Wheelmate! Now the commute is the most productive time of my day!

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5.0 out of 5 stars It is a beast

I got this so I could grill on my way home. I found a way to rig up my Foreman grill so that I can cook a burger and bacon as I get home. It saves me 20 minutes of cooking every single night. The only problem I have had is that if I am at a traffic light and my windows are down birds will occasionally try to get in on the delicious food I am cooking. Wheelmate needs to make a window screen so I don’t smoke myself out when I leave the windows up. How am I supposed to cook, eat, add condiments, fend off birds, roast the bun and mix my cocktails while driving with my windows up?

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3.0 out of 5 stars Obviously, not to be used while driving

Many of the other reviewers are clearly confused. This is not to be used while actually driving a moving vehicle. It was created for all those in IT whose once lucrative jobs have been eliminated and are now living in their cars. Tip: If you pull up really close to a Panera or McDonald’s with free wifi, you can connect and send your resume out without even needing to buy a coffee.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Driving Bananas

One of the best usages I find of this product is driving down the road writing my blog and at the same time, using my Hutzler Banana Slicer to slice those bananas for me! What a great product! I just wish those nice police officers weren’t always upset about all the fun I’m having while running over the populace!

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” ~ Terry Pratchett, from Reaper Man

George Seeley, Black Bowl 1907

“Black Bowl” (1907)
by George Seeley

                   

Two for Tuesday: From Light to Dark and Dark to Light

Within light there is darkness,
But do not try to understand that darkness.
Within darkness there is light,
But do not look for that light.
Light and darkness are a pair,
Like the foot before and the foot behind in walking.

~ Shih’tuo, a verse from the Sandokai

                   

Indistinguishable from the Darkness

The dark under the trees is filled with lightning bugs
and because I am in one of those strange moods
I start to think I have found one of the hollows
where the life of the world is created.  There is light
but in the dark circle of shadow under the oaks transformations
take place; small, accurate, invested points of light shiver
and rise wavering above the thin grass. I am in one of those moods
when I need this, this regenerative, tangibly formed
coinage, this dream or perception of the mixing vats
of the earth making out of nothing small light
that might continue to grow and change, become substantial.

The world of this field, sloping to a small black pond under trees,
is empty just now; on the side of the low mountain before me
the constructed lights of houses come on and shine like gold jackets
thrown up into the trees. It is spring and the breeze carries its mix
of summer and spring and the hint of dew that is not so much carried
as woven into the slippage of air; purplish clouds, thinned
nearly to haze, pile against the western rim. I have known
this mood before, and it comes sought but unbidden.
do not translate themselves into negotiable forms—a human
hand, the voice of a loved one. To become known
we must become unknown; the way out, I have learned,
is through. But I do not know
the names of the trees that are just now carefully laying
their long shadows across the body of the pond. The shadows
will lie on the surface of the water all night,
indistinguishable from darkness. It is not a matter
of being saved. I know this.

~ Charlie Smith

                   

Vincent Van Gogh, Four Cut Sunflowers 1887 oil on canvas

“Four Cut Sunflowers” (1887, oil on canvas)
by Vincent van Gogh

Tom O’ Bedlam among the Sunflowers

To have gold in your back yard and not know it. . .
I woke this morning before your dream had shredded
And found a curious thing: flowers made of gold,
Six-sided—more than that—broken on flagstones,
Petals the color of a wedding band.
You are sleeping. The morning comes up gold.
Perhaps I made those flowers in my head,
For I have counted snowflakes in July
Blowing across my eyes like bits of calcium,
And I have stepped into your dream at night,
A stranger there, my body steeped in moonlight.
I watched you tremble, washed in all that silver.
Love, the stars have fallen into the garden
And turned to frost. They have opened like a hand.
It is the color that breaks out of the bedsheets.
This morning the garden is littered with dry petals
As yellow as the page of an old book.
I step among them. They are brittle as bone china.

~ Thomas James

“This generation is never going to accomplish the things I know it to be capable of unless we stop thinking of each other in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’…Like it or not, we’re all in this together.” ~ Ted Chalfen, from his graduation speech

Ted Chalfen, Gay Colorado Teen, Thanks Graduating Class For Support In Speech

Most of the time, graduation speeches are pretty predictable. Generation of generation of young dreamers attempting to sound erudite, use their time at the microphone to plead for a cause or to chastise a neglectful element or to reflect on life. The latter always makes me smile because I can still remember how I thought I knew so much of life when I graduated from high school lo so many years ago. The speeches usually include some kind of inside joke that the parents won’t quite understand, or some sort of grand charge for the varied members of the graduating class. Sometimes the speaker reveals a genuine sense of comedic timing, but rarely.

I don’t know if there is some unwritten rule that graduation speeches should stay within the confines of being generic, but that usually seems to be the case. I remember who gave the speeches at my graduation, but I don’t remember a single word of what they said (high school, college or graduate school).  That being said, this particular speaker and his speech are worth listening to, if only because they reflect so well on his classmates, the school, the teachers, the administrators, and the parents.

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