Middle Season #15 - 2026

 

Wild ginger blooms, irises in Fullersburg Woods, Ghost Flower (?) in FB - also has another name - they have no chlorophyl, and my ninebark blooming in the back of the yard

image, add daily notes

MS 15

1. Spring chorus 4:59 wakes me up
2. 5:29 2 HBs at once. First one threatened by second who perches for a bit before sipping
3. HB feeder constant like a McDonald’s drive through
4. HB sitting while slurping. Too tired to fly. Just drink
5. 4:06 stringing Cardinal, then sparrow and HB at once. 
6. A single feather is out of place on HV’s sleek coat while perching a bit by feeder for a moment
7. Crane flying over the 600 students in red in silhouette 
8. Several released balloons into the increasingly biting wind. 

Ingvar Kamprad, entrepreneur and founder of IKEA, on making mistakes:

“Only while sleeping one makes no mistakes. Making mistakes is the privilege of the active — of those who can correct their mistakes and put them right.”

Source: The Testament of a Furniture Dealer (1976).

Friday May 22

1. At McDonald’s Lillie’s are blooming
2. Along 294 there are areas of grasses in the field and the grasses have flown and there’s a purple Hayes near the seats
3. Several black birds with bluish head feathers
4. Red breasted, gross beak wobbling Vero eastern warbling Vero
5. Eastern phoebe. All of these on the island. 
6. The sound of the breeze in the cottonwood trees reminds me of water flowing
7. Great crested fly catcher. 
8. Geese in water with line of fuzzy babies. Not small. Football sized babies. 
9. Aerobatic Bird with white chest tan top blue on the shoulders flying back-and-forth along the rapid area on salt Creek
10. The salt Creek is at least 4 feet down based on where it overflows into the Bluff area flood plane
11. Baltimore Oreo, northern house Ren by shelter number seven
12. Two birds in camouflage with big lenses
13. Big bird being chased by two smaller birds followed by a couple minutes of Strnad Jay’s screaming
14. By the little creek pretty yellow iris. 3 main petals
15. The small two leaf of ephemeral is now turning yellow and brown in the forest floor
16. Snowy egret off hunting in middle of salt creek
17. Old man with two disabled middle-aged sons in bathroom with one of them sent the other one back to the car. He’s looking very old in the spring.
18. One flowered broomrape aka ghostpipe.  A parasitic forest plant. 

Sat may 23

1. 4:15. The half moon. Over the roofline. 45* up?
2. Tied up massively blooming wild blue indigo
3. Dogwood still blooming
4. Around town it’s lots of irises. 
5. Most of the radishes didn’t get fat in my garden box. And spinach is already bolting without getting large. 

Wednesday may 27

1. These tiny red leafed shrubs unloved and scraggly. Look handsome in this low 7:14 sunlight. The tops lit up. 
2. 7:26 starling bath time. 

Friday

1. Smell of new cedar fence. 
2. Pretty tiny Lillie’s in neighborhood 
3. Japanese lilac in Gilbert part filled with flowers
4. Lighter yellow maple. On Clausen. Making pretty leaf sounds. 
5. Chipmunk bucket
6. Blooming Wild ginger. 
7. In AM chipmunks won’t shut the ficknup. Alarms drill into head 
8. Birdsong ringing my headache. I close the windows. 

Saturday May 30

1. One of starlings sounds is like a car alarm. Another is Sonora like rhythmic single note. Another cycle — like turning over a drum filled with bingo cards. Another first two notes of a cat call. One is like that kids toy you blow in that must have a spinner inside. It revs up then down. Another is the sound of a rasp going over rough surface. 
2. Blue Jay calls 3x.  Pause. Returning call from South 1x. 
3. Robins at the beginning ripening service berry
4. Very red house finch pulls strands from Coconut hanging basket liner
5. HB has puffy ball on beak… struggles to get it off bc his sword is so long. Can’t drink bc of it. 
6. Brown edged dogwood petals strewn on front lawn
7. A lawn in DG that is almost completely filled with basswood/linden tree petals

Sunday May 31

1. One oak leaf hydrangea blossom is almost ready to open

Report on 3x10 #15 -2026

basement

garden

Dave's Dinner with Andre

Sue G's retirement party today.  20 teachers together making small talk which consists of two questions: how's your family and what are your summer plans.  This is when I hear that teacher X is doing a surprise trip for husband. Dropping kids at parent's summer home and flying to Stowe, Vermont, where several friends will be and she's ordered a chef to cook for them!  She's booked a beautiful house for the week.  Another recently retired teacher is flying back from Italy just in time to meet 5 other women at her second home in Tahoe.  Another teacher complains that teacher X's summer home in New Buffalo is bigger than her own second home in New Buffalo.  

How do you want people to see you?

Madame X (Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau)

John Singer Sargent American

1883–84

At Henry's graduation from 8th grade, the (too long) speech from the principal talked about character in general and specifically asked "how do you want people to see you?"  It's an interested way at getting speaking about how do you conceive of yourself.  

It reminds me James Clear's identify based habits.  It reminds me of The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo where you ask yourself "who am I?" 20x.

James Clear says these additional things.... if you start with an outcome (lose 20 pounds, become a doctor), you can continue with asking "who is the type of person that could get the outcome that I want?"  Then you get something about discipline or attitude, which you can then think about actions.  

I ask AI about this, saying, if you start with "being a friend," is there a middle step about defining what a "good friend" is?  And it comes up with the business terms "job description" or "list of standard operating procedures."  

What is the job description of being a good husband, teacher, reader, gardener, home owner, middle manager, etc?  Defining those over some time seems like a good idea!

Gamify your intellectual life

 

threads person @erinmerylstudy shares the idea of gamifying your intellectual growth.  Aim for 10 points per day.

• reading 10 pages 2 pts 
• watching long form and intellectually - 1 pt
• reading academic paper - 1 pt
• writing 200 words - 2 pts
• explaining something you learned today to another person - 1 pt
• staying off phone 90 _ 30 1 pt
• staying off online 60 mins - 1 pt
• short form cardio - 1 pt
• 8 hours of sleep  -2 points

This reminds me of the profile many years ago of the New Mexico governor who had a point system of physical fitness.  It was based on The Dr. Kenneth Cooper Aerobic Points System is a fitness framework introduced in 1968 to quantify exercise by assigning numerical point values to activities based on their oxygen consumption and duration. The primary goal of the system is for an individual to earn a minimum of 30 aerobic points per week to achieve and maintain optimal cardiovascular health and a "training effect"

 Here's a chart for aerobic points from Cooper's book.  BTW and back is 6.5 points.  My normal pace for 2 mile walk in 30 mins is 5 points.

Novos Homo

  Novos Homo

from webster's 

new man : man newly ennobled : arriviste

Today, the phrase or its direct translation (new man, sometimes arriviste) is occasionally used in modern English to describe a newcomer to a particular elite social, political, or financial sphere who has achieved rapid success independent of their family background or pedigree.

from Oxford University Press

Novus homo (“new man”), term used in the late republic (and probably earlier) in various related senses: for the first man of a family to reach the senate, where he normally remained a “small senator” (BAfr. 57); in a special sense, for such a man actually to rise to the consulship; and (although in our sources less frequently) for the first man of a senatorial family to reach the consulship (e.g. Cic. Off. 1.138). The first of these achievements was not very difficult, provided a man had at least equestrian standing (see equites), some military or oratorical ability, and good connections. The last was also far from rare: it was in this way that the nobilitas was constantly reinvigorated. But few men rose from outside the senate to a consulship, and the most frequent use of the term in fact characterizes this unusual achievement. It took unusual merit and effort and either noble patronage (e.g. that of the Flacci for M. Porcius Cato (1)) or a public emergency, as in the cases of C. Marius (1) and Cicero.

Make people excited to see you

 from reddit, stumbled upon..

How To Make People Excited To See You

For the longest time I wanted to make friends, but not just normal friends. I wanted the kind that would run to hug me the second we spotted each other.

I wanted to make people excited to see me.

After a few years of practicing I achieved it, here’s my top 3 tips I use to achieve this consistently when I meet new people.

1. People are just mirrors, give them exactly what you want back.

I wanted people to be excited to see me, so when I met people I started with a simple smile.

The second time I saw them I recalled something funny that happened between us and got a bigger smile.

The third time I see them I’m basically grinning ear to ear.

Then they begin to reflect my happiness to see them back to me, until we’re both like, “HEY ITS YOU!”

Important note, start with gentle happiness. If you come out excited out the gate people will think it’s just you, not that you genuinely like them.

2. Don’t interrupt.

Nothing says, idgaf about you more than cutting someone off mid sentence.

When you meet people, ask things that genuinely make you curious.

Say: “Hey I’m curious how did you get into…how did you choose… why did you…”

Then actually listen to them.

This excites people because there’s few good listeners in the world.

3. Highlight similarities

When I meet people after I ask things I’m curious about, I will focus the conversation on what we share.

You like skydiving too?! My favorite place is over Honolulu, what’s yours?

Then people will feel like you naturally understand each other.