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       # 2025-11-07 - Christina's November Questions
       
       Here are my answers to:
       
  TEXT Christina's November questions
       
       > Do/Did you do anything special for Samhain/Halloween/Dia de los
       > Muertos?
       
       I read a ghost story from Project Gutenberg:
       
   DIR Unhuman Tour
       
       I ate some chocolate-coated pecans that were a gift from a friend.
       
       My nephew and i had fun playing Scorched Earth in DOSBox.
       
   BIN Scorched Earth
       
       > Did a grandparent or great-grandparent serve in any of the World
       > Wars of the 20th Century?
       
       My great grandfather served in World War 1, and he wrote a memoire using
       a typewriter.  I have a printed copy.
       
       > What are you a "natural" at doing?
       
       I am a natural at learning and problem solving.  I also have an
       aptitude for navigation and for repairing things.
       
       > What has been your best work of art?
       
       At one point i knew someone who painted art cars and vans.  I
       couldn't afford it.  So i bought shoe paints and painted a pair of
       combat boots.  I painted ferns, flowers, snails, hearts, spirals,
       stars, waves, and things like that.  I received many compliments on
       those boots over the years and i believe i got just as much
       satisfaction out of them as i would have from an art vehicle.  I
       guess that feeling of satisfaction is my measure, and i would call it
       some of my best art.
       
       > What's something that amazes you?
       
       Natural beauty in hard times, like finding river access and a porch
       swing hidden in the trees, and having the place to myself, at a time
       when i needed solitude.
       
       Serendipity, when all the metaphorical traffic lights are green and
       my day flows along just as well as it possibly could, and at the
       end of the day i feel fulfilled and satisfied.
       
       I remember the first time i saw the milky way.  I used to think that
       the photographs were time-lapsed exaggerations or somehow doctored to
       make it more vivid.  I have been camping all my life and in some
       remote locations with no light pollution.  The stars never looked
       THAT amazing to me until finally, one night when i was over 40 years
       old, i saw a spectacular, awe-inspiring view of the milky way.
       
       Years later, walking through a creek in a Northern Californian
       wilderness, i was startled by a pair of eyes staring directly at
       me.  It was a Pacific giant salamander lounging on a rock in the
       creek. I had read about them as a kid, but had never seen one
       before.
       
       Amazement is relative to mundane day-to-day experience.  With
       repetition my experience becomes normalized and i lose perspective.
       I have many ways to regain fresh perspective, such as temporary
       deprivation or the study of history.  For example, people can write
       about my nation having the most expensive health care in the world,
       and the outcomes don't compare well.  While this perspective is
       totally valid, it is not the only option available to me.
       
       When i read about pioneer medicine, which was essentially the same as
       medieval European medicine, it helps me appreciate the good parts of
       modern medicine and not get stuck on systematic problems.
       
       When i read about famous computer scientists writing code on napkins
       because computer time was scarce even for the most privileged, this
       helps me appreciate that i am experiencing the polar opposite.  I
       live on the event horizon where i am limited not by scarcity but by
       abundance.  That same intensity of thought required to model code on
       a napkin also comes in handy when navigating the howling winds of
       distraction that blow through the barrens of the modern Internet.
       
       tags: bencollver,community
       
       # Tags
       
   DIR bencollver
   DIR community