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Sly Comments

Author:	Emory Schley	Created:	10/4/2006 3:15 PM
Readers are invited to comment on any of the items or discussion seen below, or any matter of concern here in Beautiful Marion County!

Gotta keep those passions under control!
	By Emory Schley on 2/28/2007 12:00 PM

When I was a teen-ager, I was inspired to take up portrait painting, for some strange reason. I guess I just thought it would be a neat thing to learn. I eventually acquired all the tools of the trade: Linseed oil, turpentine, an impressive assortment of brushes, a palette, an easel, a mahl stick, pencils, erasers, a diminishing glass, canvas, stretcher frames and canvas pliers and lots of tubes of oil paint. My first attempts were kind of amateurish, looking more like cartoon characters than actual people, but as I persevered, the paintings started improving dramatically. When other teens were out playing football or stickball, I was cooped up in my bedroom pondering the “Magic ...

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Adding some depth to the blog... !
	By Emory Schley on 2/27/2007 5:54 PM

Did you know you could look at those 3D picture pairs that normally require a stereoscope and if you do it just right, you can see them in full stereo, without the stereoscope? It’s called “freeviewing.” It’s true, this is not a joke. Lots of people know how to do it. If you remember the old Magic Eye® cards and posters from a few years back, you can use the same approach on real stereoscopic pairs. Each photo in a stereo pair appears to be an exact twin of the other, but they’re not. A 3D camera has two lenses, just like you have two eyes. Each picture is taken from a slightly different viewpoint, and in comparing the two images, your brain measures those tiny dif ...

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Life could be great – if only . . .
	By Emory Schley on 2/26/2007 2:02 PM

Sometimes, I think it would be quite nice if life and its various responsibilities could be recorded, just like on a DVR, and stored away until we get around to facing up to it. I can just see those old chores still waiting to be done piling up sky-high right now, filling up one hard drive after another, until they reach the ceiling, then it’d be time to start another stack! Responsibilities, commitments, promises, marriages, dreams, deaths of loved ones, goals – so many things that fill our lives could be stored away until we were prepared, both time-wise and emotionally, to face both the rigors and the pleasures that life can bring our way. We could put off anything that bothered us, and then, if we wanted to anticipate some expe ...

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Looking forward to a hot time!
	By Emory Schley on 2/25/2007 3:07 PM

The weather has warmed up considerably, and I suppose it’s just about time to start planning those gardening duties you may have been thinking about over the winter. I’ve already purchased my startup supplies for another little mini-garden of Thai peppers. I LOVE Thai peppers! I’m thinking about planting them in pots this year so that I can retrieve them from the outdoors in case we get a late cold spell through our part of the state. I keep a compost pile in the back yard, where I toss grass clippings, leaves, banana peels, coffee grounds and egg shells. I’ve found that by growing peppers in pure compos ...

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So many projects – so little time!
	By Emory Schley on 2/24/2007 12:03 PM

There are waayyyyy toooo many distractions in life, don’tcha know? I’ve been trying to write a little book for several years now, and I go at it hot and heavy for a few weeks, then I take a breather to do something else I’m also interested in. That “something else” can take many forms: Ham radio, stereo photography, guitar pickin’, manipulating photos on my computer, surfing the Internet, reading a book, discovering some new practice I’m interested in. My list of Muses seems to grow with each passing year. And I haven’t even gotten around to building a website yet, in fact, I know little about it, so when that day finally dawns, as it inevitably will, I’ll no doubt find myself ...

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Just 'Googling' around...
	By Emory Schley on 2/23/2007 1:02 PM

If you ever wonder about things like the price of rice in China, or how many drops of water are in a gallon, or how many grains of sand are on the world’s beaches, then the Internet represents a rich source of materials. It can act as a balm for a fevered, curious mind. Knowing how to find the material you’re looking for is an important strategy in using the Internet. If you go to www.google.com or to www.yahoo.com, or any of dozens of other Internet search engines, you truly stand at the doorway to vast, inconceivable knowledge. The trick is in knowing how to properly use the search engine, and in being able to d ...

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Is the sky REALLY falling? Probably not
	By Emory Schley on 2/22/2007 11:50 AM

The weather earlier this week seemed to be seriously out of alignment with the Global Warming crowd’s “The sky is falling” predictions. Someone sent me an e-mail saying, in effect, it’s a good thing we’re “suffering” with global warming, else all of Beautiful Marion County would have turned into an icicle by now. Good thought! By the time you reach my age, you generally have developed a healthy skepticism toward whatever the latest, breathless "crisis" is. In my print column, I mentioned a number of times that the then-impending Y2K was going to be a bust, and my predictions proved true. &nbs ...

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NO! Say it isn't so! Not TWO of me!
	By Emory Schley on 2/21/2007 11:55 AM

What’s in a name? Old Billie Shakespeare is not the only one to ever contemplate that question. I came across a Web site the other day (I’d tell you which one, but I’ve forgotten it. Hey, I’m an OLD guy!) that purported to tell you how common your name is in the United States. So, curious as to how many other Emory Schleys might be wandering around loose and unsupervised, I typed in my name. Mr. Computer ground away for a couple of moments, crunched some numbers, accessed its disk drive, did something on the Internet, then reluctantly reported that “Emory Schley” is so unique that the probability of another person with this exact name in the United States was “exceedingly remote.” &a ...

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Looking for a little loophole...
	By Emory Schley on 2/20/2007 12:44 PM

I got an interesting letter from a reader of my newspaper column, Bits & Pieces, not long ago. Those who read the column are probably aware that I insist readers whose names appear in the column, go out and buy 50 extra copies of the Ocala Star-Banner, unless their names appear in boldface, then they should buy 100 extra copies. And, I might add, their names ALWAYS appear in boldface! I justify my stance by proclaiming it’s my job to sell newspapers – and that, of course – is quite true! Well, now that the background is out of the way, let’s go back to that letter I recently received. In it, the writer details some of her favorite pet peeves – a subject that pops us frequently in the print column – which include newspaper advertisements, radio commercials, ...

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In our future: A cyber-President?
	By Emory Schley on 2/19/2007 5:33 PM

Have you ever wondered what life might be like 500 years in the future? It’s almost impossible, of course, to predict with any accuracy what the future holds, but if science fiction TV shows and books are to be used as a guide, then perhaps we can get a little bit of a peek, no matter how dimly the picture through the keyhole might be. Computers, of course, will manage the world, and perhaps even human beings as well. If they are not the absolute rulers, then they will be at the very least, absolute regulators, overseeing traffic, medical care, work routines, government, health issues of all types, research, space travel, entertainment, and heaven only knows what else! Those same computers will make it possible for many people to work at home through the Internet. Indeed, many workers are doing that today.

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The biggest bargain in Central Florida!
	By Emory Schley on 2/18/2007 2:42 PM

This is the time of year when outdoor treks are ideal for those wanting to exercise their walking muscles. There are lots of places here in Beautiful Marion County to accommodate you. North, east, west or south, there are trails aplenty all over the county just waiting for you to set foot on them. Dunnellon has Rainbow Springs State Park to explore, then there’s Sholom Park, Freedom Park, and half a dozen Florida Greenway trails scattered around the area. In Belleview, you can go to Lake Lillian for a leisurely stroll around the lake’s periphery. Another trail behind the Sheriff’s sub-station on 441/27 can acquaint you with some of Florida’s history, and in the eastern part of the county there are enough trails ...

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Trying to keep it all in perspective
	By Emory Schley on 2/17/2007 12:42 PM

Whenever I get to feeling kind of blue and despondent, I try to think back to a time when I had real problems – so I can appreciate how well off I am today in comparison. I’ve got a lot of memories to think back on, too, one of the advantages I guess, of having piled up so many years behind me. One of my more excruciating experiences was algebra class in high school. I cannot begin to tell you how much I detested algebra. I was actually pretty good at arithmetic – y’know, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division – but when I got to that point in school where they started substituting letters of the alphabet for numbers and the ...

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No room for black and white in a world of color
	By Emory Schley on 2/16/2007 12:40 PM

When I was a kid, I used to love going to the Saturday morning matinees at the local movie theater. For a mere quarter, you could buy a ticket, a small bag of popcorn and a small cola to wash it down with. The Saturday movie was almost ALWAYS a Western, starring Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, Sunset Carson, Lash LaRue, the Durango Kid, Tex Ritter or any of a vast array of cowboy stars. The good folks at the theater always threw in two cartoons, a newsreel, an episode of a multi-part serial, and a bunch of coming attractions too. I especially liked Roy Rogers’ movies because his movies were always in color, or Technicolor®, as they called it back then. The cartoons were always in color, too. Gene Autry&r ...

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So you want a little magic in your life, do you?
	By Emory Schley on 2/15/2007 12:07 PM

Have you ever wondered what might happen and how your life would change if you crossed paths somehow with a magical Genie who granted you three wishes? I think the most difficult part of the process would be in trying to decide exactly what to ask for. If you ask for tons of money, you would of course increase your tax liability dramatically. Then friends, relatives and people you’ve never known would begin pressuring you for money. Some would swindle you, some would borrow but never pay back, and some would just outright steal it from you. After a few years, you could probably classify everyone in the world into two broad camps: those who got some of your money, and those who did not. But one thing you can be sure of, NEITHER of those groups wo ...

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A lovely day in the woods
	By Emory Schley on 2/14/2007 11:57 AM

Last Sunday, I ambled on over to the Marjorie Harris Carr Greenway for a little hike to the I-75 Land Bridge. It’s been about a year since I last ventured to the span over I-75 to wave at the traffic, and to gain a true appreciation for just how many drivers are speeding through Beautiful Marion County. I was with a group of hiking enthusiasts being led by a couple of members from the Florida Trail Association. We hit the wooded trail from the Land Bridge Park there at CR 475A at about 12:15 or so, and quickly picked up a pretty hectic pace through the woods and out to the Land Bridge. After resting a bit at the bridge, we ventured across and made our way to the old excavations that comprised the Cross Florida Ship Canal back ...

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Starry, starry night sparks deep thinking
	By Emory Schley on 2/13/2007 12:36 PM

Sometimes, when I gaze up into a clear dark sky, alive with the twinkle and glow of millions of stars and a magnificent moon, my thoughts wander back through time, and I marvel at how many humans before me must have looked into the same sparkling depths of darkness and dreamed of other worlds, alternate realities, and what does it all ultimately mean? One reference on www.wikipedia.com says there are about 80 billion galaxies in the observable Universe. Each of those galaxies theoretically contains millions, perhaps even billions of stars. But no one knows for sure if the observable universe is the entire universe, not even our astronomers. What we, and instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope, can discern may be like just a g ...

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Getting something more from life than just more aches and pains
	By Emory Schley on 2/12/2007 2:20 PM

I always thought that with old age came a certain degree of wisdom, like in meaning you become smarter. My own actual experience tells me that you don’t necessarily become smarter, but you DO tend to be more cautious – a LOT more cautious! Tasks I would not have hesitated to tackle as a younger guy now draw a somewhat measured response from me, as in “Do I REALLY want to do this?” And the answer that often springs up somewhere from deep inside is usually, “No, you idiot! Don’t you know you’ll hurt yourself?” Mental tasks that I used to toy with in my spare time now find their way to completion at a much more plodd ...

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Look what's been poppin' out lately!
	By Emory Schley on 2/11/2007 2:06 PM

I’ve long been a fan of 3D movies. I was “hooked” at the tender age of 12 when I first saw “House of Wax,” with Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy and Phyllis Kirk. Then, other 3D films came along: “It Came From Outer Space,” “Hondo,” even a couple of “Creature From the Black Lagoon” films, which were partially made in Ocala. There were a flurry of 3D movies, but they quickly disappeared from the mainstream, or pretty much so, but I was hooked for life by then. There was a mini-revival of sorts back in the 1980s with the “Comin’ At Ya” series, but for the most part, most of our movies remained flatties. I&rsq ...

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Who said kites and sleds don't mix?
	By Emory Schley on 2/11/2007 1:25 PM

Do you know what a sled kite is? No, I didn’t either until I read an article about one. A sled kite has two main support arms, parallel to each other, much like the runners on a sled, hence the name. There’s a couple of crossbars as well, as I presume a sled has (I wouldn’t know for sure. I’ve never seen a sled in real life.) Can you tell I’m from Florida – born and raised? :-) DuPont makes something called Tyvek, which is a fiberglass-like material wrapped around a home’s framework during its construction, which provides a degree of strength, waterproofing and insulation to a dwelling ...

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"Guaranteed" to irritate
	By Emory Schley on 2/10/2007 1:08 PM

Something that really bugs me is all those ridiculous Service Contracts that sales clerks try to sell you when you purchase an electronic item or an appliance. Generally, the so-called experts recommend against buying those contracts. They point out that most products come with a guarantee of at least several months, and that most electronic items – if they work when they come out of the box – will generally work reliably for years to come, thereby eliminating the need for a service contract in most cases. But running counter to the advice from the experts, most stores and sales staff still try to talk customers into adding, if not hundreds then at ...

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