The Genesee Valley Chorus performs this Sunday in Wellsville
By Chuck Wiser, I write the words to share what my eyes see and my heart feels
Despite some lingering pain from my ditch encounter a couple of weeks ago, my pain was completely absent as I sang with the Genesee Valley Chorus in our “dress rehearsal” at Trinity Lutheran Church in Wellsville last night. This Lenten season concert, directed by Matthew L. Purks-Morris and accompanied by Liz Crawford on Piano, will be presented this coming Sunday at 3:00 PM.
“The Lenten season is a 40-day, solemn Christian period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving preceding Easter, beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Holy Saturday. It signifies a time for repentance, reflection, and spiritual renewal, mirroring Jesus’ 40 days of temptation in the wilderness.” All are welcome! I apologize for the faintness of some of the lettering, as white print isn’t the most photogenic-copygenic.
The second phase of my getting ditched recently involved Dr. Mansour installing three screws in the ring finger Metacarpal bone. These were required as the bone had a misaligned (displaced) fracture. I won’t go into great detail, but I had a minor setback this past Sunday having somehow pulled the Ace wrap off my casted arm during my sleep. Without being too critical over the re-examination and re-splinting of the finger, the repair job could have been done a little better. Initially all I wanted was a re-wrapping, but hospital personnel wanted to examine the fracture before the re-wrapping. Thus, we went back to ground zero as far as the splinting went.
My next Dr. appointment is Thursday morning of this week, whereupon the surgeon (or his NP/PA) will remove the stitches and see how things have healed. Where it goes from there is unknown. I had been told that I would have to have the hand “splinted” for four to six weeks. We’ll see.
BTW, I was cognizant as to last Sunday’s date. I was aware that it coincided with The Ides of March. I guess that’s a salad of another style. While many will scratch their heads, convinced that Wiser is now Wrambling for sure, some, of the most intuitive will “get it.”
As a side note…Typing this will take about double the normal time as the edge of the splint, extending beyond my “pinky” finger, thinks it is being helpful by touching additional keys about 1/3rd of the width of the keyboard to the left of those desired. Choosing, and typing the fractional number 1/3 was prompted by the typing miscues which included the number 3 in addition to the letters that I had intentionally typed. March is being its own fickle self by tempting us with some daytime highs in the 60’s mixed in with others far below the freezing temperature. (32⁰ Fahrenheit). I can’t tell the difference between centigrade and centipede.
One of the inconveniences of the March thawing days is making the ground, now thawed or thawing, soft, squishy, and easily “rutted”. Having used that word “rutted”, brought a Grammar Grin to me as I wondered what significance the word rut, as in track marks in the lawn, and the deer breeding season, as also known as being “the rut” was. According to Wikipedia, “Deer mating season is called the “rut” because it originates from the Latin word rugire, meaning “to roar”. This term refers to the loud, vocal, and often aggressive behavior of male mammals (like deer, elk, and bison) as they compete for mates during the fall breeding season, characterized by high testosterone levels and increased movement.”
I have complained about the “autodefect” feature of word processing many times. MS Word was bad enough by itself until AI (Artificial Intelligence) really became aggressive and intrusive. Word suggestions by themselves aren’t all that bad but if you happen to miss the unwanted insertion it replaces what you type (or typed). I have been taken to task in the past for using quote marks too frequently. I have discovered that Word (driven by AI) will accept what you typed, intentionally even though it isn’t “Business Professional,” or not brief enough. MS Word absolutely hates my play on word smithing by the addition of a W to many words that start with the letter R. Wremoving the W, steals my witticism. It Wreally does. Sorry about that Wramble.
Robins (I WAS tempted to type Wrobins) are seemingly back to spring and summer time prevalence. Whether robins migrate has been a common “argument” at this time of year, here up North for many years and through many generations. I personally have seen robins even in January in the middle of a “January thaw.” Both sides of the debate are correct in a way. Following is the answer I got from Mr. Google.
“Yes, American Robins in upstate New York are considered partial migrants. Many move south, but large flocks often stay behind to winter. Instead of migrating, these northern wintering robins change their diet from worms to berries and roam in flocks to find food. According to the American Bird Conservancy.” Other sources of information suggest that they survive on the Sumac “berries” that are abundant throughout the winter. In any event a goodly number are now chirping away in our yard. This early March thaw has helped them immensely. I’m not sure if the ones now present have been around all winter but unseen, or if the innate instincts of those migratory birds have brought them home “to roost” so-to-speak.
When I used the term AI (Artificial Intelligence) above, I recalled seeing the term CI more recently. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of the expansion of the seemingly newer term CI compared to AI. As an aside, I was teaching the fundamentals of AI at Alfred State College in my “Automated Manufacturing” lecture series, so it is dated back well before the early 1990’s.
In the 1950s, computing machines essentially functioned as large-scale calculators. In fact, when organizations like NASA needed the answer to specific calculations, like the trajectory of a rocket launch, they more regularly turned to human “computers” or teams of women tasked with solving those complex equations long before computing machines became the modern devices they are today, namely, a mathematician and computer scientist. The history of artificial intelligence (AI) began with myths, stories, and rumors of artificial beings endowed with intelligence or consciousness by master craftsmen. I can’t yet begin to explain what the CI means in English.
Some Wramblings wreaders actually like these technical diversions of my usual nonsense, so with thanks to them and apologies to the rest, I will Wramble on. As I type this, and with my splint/cast helping, I am tempted to leave the entire document in what appears to be an alien code of hieroglyphics of some type. Any word needing the letters from the top line under the keyboard numbers are subject to this inadvertent code writing. Be forewarned…I may just leave the next such encounter unchanged to see if you can figure out what I typed. Part of the problem is 3the “r2ede1sign” and rebuild of my splint/cast. There…I did it. The easiest code breaker is to look at the word with the numbers ignored.
Being pretty much “one handed” the past couple of weeks, I have developed an appreciation, or lack thereof, for the Velcro ties, especially as they can be cut to random lengths off a roll. The recent downside has been that they have a special affinity for the “stretchy” elastic wrap that JMH uses. When I try to apply a wrap of the Velcro roll strip it wants to engage itself on the bandage wrap before I get it all the way around my wrist so that it can attach to the underside of itself.
I was going to discuss “Hexadecimal Codes” again but that’s pretty heavy when typing is a challenge to start with. 2⁰, 27¢ and 6² are examples of some of the short cuts that, knowing these codes, can make in typing if you use those numerical notations frequently. Yes, I know that some of those are available if you can find them in the drop down extensions under “Symbols” in the upper heading of MS Word. “2 alt D” (if memorized) is the easiest way to add the degrees symbol to a number. So far, I have only found that they work in a “MS Word” file.
We are almost three quarters of the way through the 2026 Lenten season, which begins on Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2026, and concludes on Holy Thursday, April 2, 2026. This marks a 40-day period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving for Christians. The season focuses on reflection and preparation for Easter, with Easter Sunday falling on April 5, 2026. As a young teen, not yet wholly committed “theologically” to any religion, I wrote a poem that came from my heart. What little I knew about theology was compensated for by a naïve faith that does not conflict with current religious beliefs but expanded in the mind of a teenager in the late 50’s. I end this now by sharing with you my award-winning youthful description of “What is a Church?”
If you have any comments, questions or concerns please feel free, and welcome, to email me at IM.Wiserdad@gmail.com.
