Since fighting the Red Plan in the years 2007-10 I got precious little sleep. I began worrying about that and obsessing about my Mother’s Alzheimers and my possible proclivity towards the same was not out of order. This was especially true because sleep deprevation and dementia were already well documented. For the past six or seven years I’ve had a fit bit type wrist band that claims to read how long and how well I sleep every day that I don’t forget to keep it powered up. Deep sleep and REM sleep are the two primary objectives and I get little of the Deep sleep usually and my dream sleep REM is rarely very high. If I can believe my fit bit I got well over 3 and a half hours of dream sleep last night. That is well over double the amount I’ve ever gotten before. Don’t know what to make of it because I often doubt anything my wrist band reports to me.
I’m filing this under Harry’s Diary.
I wrote a ton yesterday and I translated my recent Reader article into French for a blog entry. My French Pen pal found it and was enthusiastic telling me Deep L did it justice. She only wondered what a Jayhawk was and I sent her the logo with an explanation about state mascots. Today I’ve gotten a late start on writing and I decided to translate the French version back to see what that looked like or how it read. Here’s the beginning of my column in English. My English reading readership will have to wait until the Reader is published thursday or friday to read it in its entirety. I will note I put L. Frank Baum’s L initial in the middle incorrectly so my editor seems to have fixed that mistake.
Note the red-tied witch flying over Harry Welty’s Emerald City.
Ten years ago, on the night my mother died, I watched the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz with my grandsons Tanner and Jacob to honour the passing of their great-grandmother.
Over the last forty years, I’ve made around a hundred snow sculptures. My latest is far from the best, but none has ever been closer to my heart than the one that stands in my garden today. I’m a Kansas boy at heart. Although I only spent my first 12 years as a Jayhawk, the next 62 years in Minnesota didn’t erase my memories.
I see little here that varies from what I recall writing except that the British spelling of honor (is not what I recall writing). Later in the column I joke about Trump’s war against DEI and Deep L translated that back as the explosive IED. Not bad.
I read French slowly and have a hard time with conversation. For that Duolingo is not nearly as helpful as a couple other things I’ve been leaning on. Ditto reading long adult oriented French writing. I recently downloaded a French reader reading the book Le Petit Nicholas which I have struggled to finish since my daughter gave it to me seven years ago as I embarked on French studies. It is wonderful to listen to its short chapters read while I hold the French language book in my hands.
I have been thinking about writing a book in French about my family and America’s falling out of love with democracy. I think I could explain to the French about as well as any Know it all American why we seem to be going to hell in a handbasket. To that end I am writing it in English and will be using Artificial Intelligence to translate it into French. It will be also be a good way for me to better learn French.
Artificial Intelligence does not yet frighten me although it is very sobering. The recent Chinese development of a cheap low energy usage AI device has struck panic into Wall Street and frankly has me rooting for the Chinese to teach Elon Musk a lesson in humility. Its funny how the Trump years have reminded me of the Chinese character for “Crises”. It is formed from two other characters one of which is danger and the other opportunity. This is a link to my first webpage long before I fought the Red Plan Wars.