Try to remember this bit of wisdom…

• If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
• If you can resist complaining to and boring people with your troubles,
• If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
• If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
• If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you when, through no fault of your own, something goes wrong,
• If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
• If you can ignore a friend’s limited education and never correct him or her,
• If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor one,
• If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
• If you can conquer tension without medical help,
• If you can relax without liquor,
• If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
• If you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, sex, color, religion, mational origin, gender preference or politics,

THEN you have ALMOST reached the same level of development as YOUR DOG.

(an anonymous quote edited just a bit…. I remove OR CAT since I’m not sure cats live up to those standards…

The Most Beautiful Places

I guess I should post this for posterity… Beautiful pictures of the most beautiful places!!

TED – Riveting Talks by Remarkable People

TED is pretty kewl… These inspirational talks are given by truly remarkable people. I plan to explore further but so far I’ve checked out:
Arthur Benjamin He’s a Mathemagician.
Evelyn Glennie She’s a deaf percussionist.
Benjamin Zander He talks about music and passion.
Jill Bolte Brain study – WOW!

One cup of coffee is 4.5 ounces!!

I discovered today that the answer to the question, “how many ounces are there in a cup of coffee?” has a multitude of answers. I decided to use the scientific method and come up with an answer for myself that meets my needs (discussed below).

4.5 ounces = one cup of coffee in a standard carafe

I chose to use a standard which seems to be in place throughout the coffee maker industry. I used a standard coffee carafe, like you would find if you were looking to replace the one that came with your Mr. Coffee and somehow got broken. It takes approximately 55 ounces of water to fill the carafe to the 12 cup line. This means that someone thinks that a cup of coffee is supposed to be very close to 4.5 ounces. On the internet I found several instances where people define it as around 5 ounces so I’m going to assume they are wrong and use my painstakingly acquired measurement instead. My efforts were primarily aimed at finding out how many ounces of water a 12 cup pot of coffee would require since I was planning a trip and wanted to bring enough water from home to meet my needs.

It should be noted that many people consider a cup of coffee to be 6 ounces, and I won’t argue with that point since nobody really drinks a 4.5 ounce cup of coffee. Any cup that 4.5 ounces would fill would have to be considered by my estimation “dainty” and no self respecting male coffee drinker would be seen holding one in their hand. This means that your 12 ounce coffee carafe will hold very close to 8 cups of coffee….. I hope this makes the issue clear as mud…

Here’s Duggles

I suppose this should have been the first entry, but I guess it’s better late than never. I have another blog, but it is in association with a group I make music with and I hesitate to say all I might say if I were just speaking for myself. I also hesitate to post links to things that might not represent our group’s collective consciousness so…

inspired by how easy it is to use WordPress, I thought I’d open up this little spot for me to vent without fear of misrepresenting our group.

The group I refer to is Happenstance, and you are more than welcome to check out our website, on which you’ll find another “Duggles Stuff” blog. That’s where I try to post interesting stuff about our gigs and trips.