"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." ~ Abraham Lincoln

Good morning and welcome to Tuesday, April 262016. I am officially culturally out of touch. Yes. I do know who Prince is, or was. I do know he had something to do with purple. But, I couldn't hum or sing a line from one of his songs if my very life depended on it. It is sad anytime someone dies at such an early age. I first read about it on Twitter. Then it was on all the news sites. Then I heard about all the spontaneous memorials popping up all over the country and even some all night dancing to his music. And, bridges, walkways, buildings, and other structures were being lit up with purple. Okay. I get it. This fellow was popular and important to a whole lot of people. Last Friday when I clicked on Drudge to get the headlines for the day, bam! the whole shebang was in purple. One needed sunglasses. I heard an interview from a crowd scene gathered in Minneapolis where one lady said that Prince was her go to music that helped get her through college. Hello? I give that one a big ole whopping Wow! Like I say, I could have picked him out of a lineup because I was familiar with his appearance, but, after that, not so much. He obviously was beloved because folks are still talking about him days after his passing. I know. I said something similar about David Bowie. I suppose that's why us boomers have trouble communicating with subsequent generations. I bet most of them couldn't sing an Eddy Arnold tune or name any of the hits from the Mills Brothers. Gotcha on that one!

I was wrong. I made a bad judgment. Last year I purchased one of those supposedly most powerful 3-inch flashlights to use here at work. I ordered it off the internet. I think I paid $9.95 for it. It was one the military uses. When I got it I couldn't get it to work. I was fuming. I was saying bad things about the company I bought it from. No. I didn't want another one. No. I didn't want a refund. It was not worth my time dealing with it. I just wanted to blacklist the supplier for now until eternity ends, whichever comes first. Every time I saw one of their ads I relived this experience. How dare they? New. Defective. I did my part. However, just for grins, I had recently bought a package of new batteries and decided I would throw one of them into this piece of junk. You already know where this is headed. Yes. It worked great. Greater than great. That little dude lights up a huge area when I'm unlocking the buildings each morning. Here's what happened. I put in what I thought was a brand new battery. It obviously was not a brand new battery. It was a completely used up battery. It looked okay on the outside but it was deader than a door nail. (There's a long explanation regarding the origin of that phrase. Look it up. It is quite interesting.) At any rate, I will have to work hard to un-anger myself when I see that business advertising stuff. It had become habitual to me. It just goes to show you. Well, you can fill in the blank as you see fit on that one.

You may have read about the research into why people have troubling sleeping the first night they are away from home. The experts think they have identified at least one of the main reasons. They believe there is a part of the brain that stays alert when it is in new surroundings. A night watch kind of reaction. Because of this, a person may feel groggy the next morning after being in a hotel for the first night. At one time I traveled fairly often in the work I was doing. I have my own ideas about why I had problems sleeping away from my bed at home. The first was the fact that I like to sleep with the wife that God gave to me. The second has to do with my pillow(s). They are feather pillows. Three of them. Some of them are probably 30 years or older. They are not down feathered. They are stuffed with chicken feathers. That's right. These feathers came straight out of a chicken coop. When I was able to carry my pillows with me, well, the bed linens may not have been exactly to my liking, the night sounds might have been different, but, my sleeping with my own pillows made everything hunky dory. No. I do not need any comments about Linus and his security blanket. I'm way too sophisticated for that. You haven't noticed that when reading my stuff? (Example: I threw that hunky dory in as a literary device.) Well, okay then. Think what you will and on that note I'll just say so long for now and may God continue to provide. Amen. ....More later.