"The first thing you learn when you're blogging is that people are one click away from leaving you. So you've got to get to the point, you can't waste people's time, you've got to give them some value for their limited attention span." ~ Alex Tabarrok

I looked over yonder and what did I see? Turns out to be Wednesday, January 23, 2019. That might be a wee bit on the lame side for an opening, but, think about it. When you do this type of blogging some 2,990 times, well, it may all begin to begin seeming to be a little lame. My blogs have been landed on nearly 224,000 times. While that sounds like a lot, believe me, there are famous folks who can run into the millions on just about anything they post. I have never attempted to figure out how to get a wider audience. I let it take care of itself. I just noticed I have 4 followers. I didn't know that before. I guess a thank you for following my blog is in order: Thanks. I also send out my published blog each Monday through Friday via email to 38 recipients. I don't know if being a recipient is the same as being a follower but I do stuff their inboxes each day. It used to be over 40, but, some have dropped off the list by virtue of changing their address from this earthly realm to their new heavenly address. Those across the world, (blogoshpere), who have viewed my blogs, originated in a lot of different places. Here's the top-list breakdown, United States, Russia, United Kingdom, Canada, India, Germany, France, Australia, Philippines, and Ukraine. I have no idea what percentage were accidental, but, as I have said before, many of them were most likely searching for a phrase or image that brought them in contact with my blog. Hopefully, if they read it, there was something to encourage, inspire, or give them a smile. (About today's title. I thought it to be good even though I am pretty sure I don't always keep those things in mind. But, that's okay because as the title implies, the reader is always in control and only one click away from leaving the scene of the crime.)

The wife and I like a lot of the same foods. However, when it comes to candy flavors, we tend to go off in our own direction. I really like strong lime candy, strong cinnamon hot candy, certain forms of strong licorice candy and strong root beer candy. Notice the emphasis on 'strong'. She doesn't like any of those. She tends to enjoy candies that have chocolate in them. She likes peanut butter candies too. I can eat the chocolate but I typically pass on the peanut butter. If you read the science you will find the current understanding of how taste works. Some extracts: Along with sweet and bitter, the tongue distinguishes three other primary taste qualities; salty, sour, and savory. These basic taste qualities, in combination with the senses of smell and touch, allow us to recognize thousands of different flavors. Psychological factors add another layer of complexity to food perception. Children develop food preferences through exposure and association. When children encounter chili peppers early and often, for example, the chances are high that they will like them as adults. Similarly, a child who remembers eating a particular food when feeling sick, happy, irritated, or distressed, may associate that flavor with a specific feeling for the rest of his or her life. Are you confused yet? I have said before I may have developed a liking for black licorice because very few others liked it, and, I didn't need to share much of it. However, I do not like the rubbery licorice at all. Hard candy, okay. Jelly beans, okay. Rubbery, no thank you. That may have come from an incident in my childhood. I'll do some checking and if I come up with a plausible explanation, I'll let you know.

I know what some of you are thinking. Is it a good idea for a diabetic to be writing about his love for certain candies? That, my friend, is a very good question. I'll definitely take it into consideration in the future. I started to give the old catch-all: Everything in moderation. However, that would only put forth a discussion of how moderation might be defined. Then, that could lead to another rabbit trail seeking to find the elusive 'in the eye of the beholder'. Therefore, I'll leave it where it is. For now. Believe me, I do appreciate folks who are concerned about my condition. Including my diabetes. It's a joke. In fact, I take no offense when the wife or other concerned party asks me the pregnant question, "Is it wise for you to eat that?" That's when I pass to them the entire bag of rubbery licorice because I too can take a hint. As for as my childhood goes, I actually don't remember that much as it relates to us having a lot of candy at home. That's not to say if we had a nickel in our pocket we wouldn't go to the little store across the street from our school and buy five small packages of that sweetened Kool-Aid mixture. They were super sweet but ever so tart. In fact, they might just take the top of your head right off. Or, that's how I remember it. Okay. Enough about that. Let me close with something much more relevant and much more important, "Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never leave you; I will never abandon you." (Hebrews 13:5, from the Good News Translation of the Bible, GNT) Amen. ....More later.