DO THE MATH

My job has a lot of basic arithmetic involved, basic stuff.

I love it because there is nothing so absolute as numbers. Two plus two is ALWAYS four. Ain't no way around it, and not even a slick lawyer can change it. Even if he tries with smoke and mirrors, all you need is a cheap Wal Mart fan and the truth comes through.

Math is one of the few things you can count on.

Over the years, there have been a few arguments over things that have been done, and I have successfully defended myself simply by saying the magic three words:

Do the math.

It's a double-sdged sword. If I don't do the math correctly, it becomes pretty obvious fast. If I do it correctly, it is a pretty good defense that I did somethin right. If I don't, it becomes pretty obvious where I made my mistake.

Of course, there are another million and one ways a guy can screw up out here, but that's another subject I will save for a later time.

I wish there were a lot more things in life that were as cut and dried as basic mathematics.

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Crazy is OK, as most of us out here are a little dingy, anyway. Eliminate crazy and there would be nobody out here to do the work.

Ignorance is no problem. We teach you and you're no longer ignorant. It's the simplest thing we have to deal with out here, and the most rewarding.

Stupid is altogether a different problem. Send us someone out here that's stupid and we're truly screwed. We can't fix stupid no matter how hard we try.
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You have to look at things for what they are and not what they should be or what you want them to be. It sometimes takes giving something a cold, hard look.

Take my house, for example. It's a basic, simple Cape Cod.

There's a lot to be said for simple. I have it set up in a basic, simple, fairly easy to maintain layout that fits my needs. It's fairly spartan, really, but there are quite a few homey touches.

Mrs Pic fought that house for well over a decade trying to turn it into some magical thing that it isn't. When she moved out, I had the place operational in about a week.

The first thing I did was to get rid of the junk and fad items that had been amassed over the years and make things simple. I got rid of stuff like the pair of four foot high tables and bar stools that she tried to redecorate with.

That kind of stuff belongs in a huge 8 bedroom house with, say, cathedral ceilings or a house with a huge great room.

It's a basic, simple house, and it needs a basic, simple layout for a basic, simple lifestyle.

There's one hell of a lot to be said for the Keep It Simple, Stupid school of thought.


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Tonight I posted the 'Seeing Eye Cat' stories in another blog, titled 'sailboats and Seeing Eye Cats'
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Thus ends another epistle from the Gospel According to Piccolo