#art – The Corrigan Encore

It’s the small ones really

February 15, 2023 John Corrigan

Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.

“Your desk is interesting.” “My kids love start wars and Legos too.” Those are polite ways that people tell me that my desk at work looks like a childs desk would. My desk is full of pop figures and Lego structures that, I built all by myself.

I sometime mention that every thing on my desk, other than the actual work equipment is a gift. I have gotten gifts from family members and colleges and they have been evicted from my home office of the years and now reside at work. I love receiving gifts I can look at them and tell you who got that gift for me and when. I can look at the gift and know that at that time in life they were thinking of me.

For my birthday last year my wife bought me and her tickets to see the Beyond Van Gogh experience. The experience was pretty incredible and we truly enjoyed ourselves.

This was one of the best gifts I have received. Not because I am a big Van Gogh fan. I do admire the talent and think that it was tragic that he could not overcome his mental illness. His bother seemed to try and help but still Van Gogh’s story ended in tragedy and should not have played out that way. No one should be to ashamed to ask for help mental health is just health.

The gift was special and amazing because it was time with my favorite person doing something new and unique. If the experience is near you you should visit it was pretty incredible.

Time spent with my wife is some of the best times I have ever had. Family matters and the best gifts I have ever received are those experiences with my family.

They didn’t get Alcatraz but…

February 9, 2023 John Corrigan

If you live in the United States of America chances are high that you are not a descendant of the native Americans that lived on the north American continent prior to Chris Columbus and the subsequent genocide and colonization, which resulted in the United States of America. The exact percentage of people in the United States that are not descendants of Native Americans is 98.7.

Native Americans only represent 1.7 % of the population of the United States. Being such a small minority has many issues with it. Native Americans growing up in the United States of America are strangers in their homeland. The conquerors have killed most of their family and poisoned their land.

Native Americans are near extinction however there is a spirit in the population that makes the voice of less than 2 million people sound so much larger. For 19 months on the island of Alcatraz in San Francisco bay native Americans occupied the that island between November 20, 1969 – June 11, 1971.

In April of 2016 Native Americans protested the building of and operation of the Keystone pipeline. The pipeline was built but it was shut down and abandoned and emptied of oil after only two years of operation.

The Native Americans have and are not enduring but thriving in a climate that has been and continues to be hostile towards their existence.

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There is a movement in US politics in which education about the history of the United States is taught to not include the native Americans. This is a foolish and dangerous movement!

Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Winston Churchill

Genocide is a sin that should never be committed and yet, right now there are nine state led genocides happening, and 10 non state led genocides happening. The number one tool against genocide and human failings is education. Through education society becomes better. If anything, the United States should be working towards a better and more robust curriculum that certainly includes the genocide of the Native Americans not the opposite.

My hope is that we will all work together to teach our children the truith and make the world a better place. This topic kind of remind s me of a great song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Enjoy the vide and learn as much as you can today

Again and again and again but….

February 2, 2023 John Corrigan

Today is Feb 2nd 2023. Today is Feb 2nd 2023, and it is Groundhog day. The Groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil will be brought out of his den and if he sees his shadow he will retreat back into his den and we the people will experience 6 more weeks of winter. It’s all true this tradition has been going on in the United States for 136 years. The first groundhog day was Feb 2 1887.

There was a movie in 1993 called “Groundhog day” in the movie the meteorologist is cursed by his ex girlfriend to relive groundhog day until he can find true love. Groundhog day has been repeated for 136 years and will continue to be repeated. In computer programming there is a technique called recursion. Recursion is when you repeat a process and break that porcess down each time you repeat it. As you repeat the process the process becomes bigger or smaller until you have accomplished your task. An example would be, a program that takes the phonebook in a user phone and goes though and calls everyone until it has called all phone numbers in that users phonebook.

When I was 9 years old a school teacher told me that there were simple machines and complex machines and that complex machines were simple machines grouped together to perform a task. To my fathers chagrin I became obsessed with machines and took apart anything I could get my hands on. My grandmother understood me and bought me encyclopedias. I enjoyed the encyclopedias with the illustrations the most. I loved to learn how things worked and didn’t work. Everything in life was a simple machine connected to another simple machine it was great.

Recursion is a technique that can help when solving some complex issues but it has to be done right. We have to repeat all but a few things every time or we could find ourselves stuck in an infinite loop.

Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.
Vince Lombardi

When faced with complex tasks that we must repeat we would do well to learn and grow by evaluating each iteration and improving on how we perform the iteration. The wash rinse repeat and reform is how we grow.