Friday, September 19, 2025

Sometimes We Just Need to Laugh!

Today is a much better day than where I was week ago.
I spent the afternoon with four teachers, specialists,
and a teaching assistant from my former school, Sunrise Elementary.
We are all retired, and we get together in our book club.
I love it because I get to see them all again, and I read books I never would have heard of.


Today (Thursday) we discussed Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere.
What a fabulous book; what a fabulous discussion!
Motherhood from so many perspectives.

This week, after all the turmoil and distress of last week,
I just wanted to look at things that made me laugh.
There's no rhyme or reason to my choices for the memes I'm sharing,
other than they made me laugh when I really needed to.
So here are a few memes that I found in different places on the internet:


















































Every day it's getting a little calmer, and I am a little more together.
I hope things are looking up for you!

Have a good weekend everyone and a happy, carefree week to follow!



 Till next time ~
 Fundy Blue
 
Standing Into Danger                                    https://selkiegrey4.blogspot.com
 Copyright ©2025 – All rights reserved.

My next post will be 
Friday, September 26, 2025 🤞 

On the Bay of Fundy
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

 

Friday, September 12, 2025

When Will It Be Enough?

I didn't want to write this post!
I am both sickened and heartsick.
The assignation of Charlie Kirk yesterday was horrific,
and my heart goes out to his family and friends.

Charlie Kirk
July 2025

The murder of Charlie Kirk yesterday was another tragic event
in a long list of political motivated attacks and killings in recent years.
People on the "left" and the "right" have been attacking and killing fellow Americans,
because they disagree with their political views and actions.
Political violence is wrong, period.

When is enough going to be enough to promote change?
Are we going to continue to spiral down into worse and worse violence,
or are we going start reaching out to those who think differently from us
in an attempt to better understand each other better and to find common ground?
Guns and violence cannot continue to be the answer.
Our country is broken, and we need to find a way to mend it.

Tear gas outside the United States Capitol on 6 January 2021
Photo by Tyler Merbler ~ Wikimedia ~ License

Mostly lost in the atrocious news of Charlie Kirk's death yesterday
was the news of yet another school shooting in Colorado.
A high school student at Evergreen High School shot two of his classmates 
then turned the gun on himself.
The unidentified shooter died, and his two victims were hospitalized in critical condition.
One student has since been released, the other remains in critical condition.

When is enough going to be enough?
Columbine wasn't.  Sandy Hook wasn't.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas wasn't.  Uvalde wasn't.

I have written about school gun violence in the past.  Friday, May 27, 2022
I almost wrote about it again, after the heartbreaking shooting
at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on August 27, 2025.
As I see it, America loves its guns more than its children.
Actions speak louder than words.  


A common denominator in political violence and school violence is guns.
These aren't the only kinds of gun violence.
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's 
Center for Gun Violence Solution's
most recent report on gun violence in the US (2023) states: 
"27,300 people died by firearm suicide, 17,927 died by firearm homicide, 463 died by unintentional gun injury, and an estimated 604 were fatally shot by law enforcement. In addition, an average of more than 200 Americans visit the emergency department for nonfatal firearm injuries each day." Source 

When is enough going to be enough?
How many people have to die before we enact changes to our gun laws?
The October 1, 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, with its 60 dead, 413 wounded, 
and 394 injured in the gunfire-induced panic wasn't enough.

The Las Vegas Sign on The Strip, October 9, 2017, 
covered in flowers in the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas Strip shooting.
Rmvisuals ~ Wikimedia ~ License


Political violence, school shootings, and gun violence in our country
continue to shock and stun me.
Something has got to change!

We need to reach out and communicate with those who have different political views.
Not kill each other.

We need to address school shootings and find real solutions.
Not sit back and accept our children continuing to die.

We need to strengthen our patchwork quilt of state and federal gun laws
with some reasonable, research-based changes such as
universal background checks, waiting periods between buying and possessing guns,
firearms safety training, and secure gun storage.
Not wallow in the carnage and accept it as a way of life.

South L.A. residents rally to end gun violence.
Photo by Luke Harold ~ Wikimedia ~ License

I'm really discouraged right now.
Every time I think of Charlie Kirk, I literally feel nauseous 
from the horror, the senselessness, and the loss of his young life.
And I feel heartsick for his wife and children.
I didn't agree with him politically, but I would have loved to have conversation with him.
No one should be murdered like that!

I feel almost hopeless over the continued school shootings
and the unending gun violence in our country.
But I haven't given up.
I'll regroup and continue to stand up and speak about my beliefs.

I have faith in our country.
We've gone through very dark periods in the past.
I believe we'll get through this difficult time too.

Have a good weekend everyone!



 Till next time ~
 Fundy Blue
 
Standing Into Danger                                    https://selkiegrey4.blogspot.com
 Copyright ©2025 – All rights reserved.

My next post will be 
Friday, September 19, 2025 🤞 

On the Bay of Fundy
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

 

Wednesday, September 3, 2025

IWSG: Wednesday, September 3, 2025 ~ Am I an Old Fossil?




It's the first Wednesday of the month,
the day that members of the
Insecure Writer's Support Group
share their writing struggles
and writing successes
and offer their encouragement
and support to fellow writers.






To visit the IWSG website, click here.

To become a member of the IWSG, click here.

Our wonderful co-hosts who are volunteering today,
along with IWSG Founder Alex J. Cavanaugh are 

Stop by their posts and thank them for hosting.
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Every month the IWSG announces a question that members can answer
with advice, insight, a personal experience, or a story in their IWSG posts.

Or, the question can inspire members
if they aren't sure what to write about on IWSG Day.

Remember the question is optional.

This month's optional question is: 
What are your thoughts on using AI, such as GPChat, Raptor, and others with your writing? Would you use it for research, storybible, or creating outlines\beats?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy September, Everyone! 
I hope all is well with each of you.

I am conflicted about this month's question, after my experiences visiting 
all the casinos in Colorado with our friend Jon in late August.
Furthermore, I am not very knowledgeable about AI Apps like GPChat,
and I thought a Raptor was a dinosaur.
I have not deliberately used AI, but I know that I am using it unwittingly,
and I'm quite certain it has been using me.

AI is everywhere!  I google anything, and an AI summary pops up.
I thoroughly researched the origin of the gold deposits in Cripple Creek last week,
and now Google is interrupting on my iPhone with alerts about mining all around the world.

Actually Google's AI summary of the origin of the gold in Cripple Creek
is pretty good, if you can look past the fact that it changes slightly every time you ask.
(And, whatever AI puts together, you should verify with other sources).


And where do you draw the AI line?

I was struggling to smooth out a sentence for something for the IWSG a while ago.
It was late at night, I was wiped out, so I typed the truculent sentence into Grammarly,
and voilà!
A smooth sentence appeared, which I immediately used.
Then, recently, I discovered Grammarly uses AI, and it leaves a detectable footprint.
Now that sentence likely has been tagged for AI content. 😵‍💫
(Not that I mind.  It just never occurred to me that that was AI at work).  

In my IWSG post last month, I was convinced that using AI to create content was unethical.
Then our longtime friend Jon came from San Diego
to tackle the next state in his creative retirement quest, Hit 'Em All... 



 

Jon and Terry
Aurora, Colorado USA
August 22, 2025
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue. All Rights Reserved

I watched him create his Hit 'em All Colorado series
of four half hour vlog posts in four days as we traveled about
from Central City and Black Hawk to Cripple Creek and Aurora.  
I'm talking serious work:  photos and short videos of twenty-five casinos, 
brief videos of almost all his bets, a Dick-Tracy-like series of cartoons,
running commentary on the historic towns, critiques of various casinos,
and three or four original songs!  
Plus a cameo of moi and numerous glimpses of Terry trying to dodge his camera.

Jon and Terry
Cripple Creek, Colorado, USA
August 20, 2025
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue. All Rights Reserved





Terry and I traveled back in time, compliments of Jon and AI.
 Colorado, USA
August 2025
Original photo by Jon McGuffin

I quickly noticed two things.
Jon is not cursed with perfectionism,
and AI Apps helped his creativity and output immensely.
He got her done before he flew back to California on the morning of the fifth day,
and the first post was live on YouTube
when we arrived home from dropping him off at the airport.

A lightbulb went on!
Whose productivity is flourishing and whose is floundering?
Who's embracing the future and who's an old fossil?
Perhaps I need to be more open to using AI, such as applications like GPChat, and Raptor.

Olga Godim, a longtime and active IWSG member,
left a thoughtful comment on my IWSG post last month.
She wrote, "I think humanity is still floundering with AI. We are learning how to use it and how not to. It will take a while, I suppose. But AI is here to stay, in one form or another. We need to harness it to our needs."

Perhaps I need to harness AI to my needs more, rather than avoiding it.
Also, I definitely need to ease up on perfectionism. 😂

I wrote that Jon included original songs with his vlog posts.
As a former frontman for a band in San Diego for twenty years,
Jon is a talented musician and song writer.
He writes the lyrics, and has AI come up with a number of song versions.
Then he chooses the one he likes best for his post.

When he was doing his Hit 'em All Nevada series,
his daughter Tracy challenged him to write a rap song.
And, he did:  "Winnemucca and Me."
This isn't his best song, but it's my favorite,
because its catchy beat and clever words always put a smile on my face.
And I've wanted to visit Winnemucca forever!
If you'd like to hear this song, go to 11:04 minutes on this video:
Hit 'em All Nevada Compilation of Songs.
It's about two minutes long.

Jon McGuffin ~ YouTube

I'm looking forward to seeing how others respond to this month's question.

Have a healthy, happy, and creative September!
Take care!



Till next time ~
Fundy Blue

Standing Into Danger https://selkiegrey4.blogspot.com
Copyright ©2025 – All rights reserved.

My next post will be Friday, September 12th ðŸ¤ž 



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