Monday, September 28, 2015

philosophy of ca-caw


Tonight, I attended the post-Philo Cafe discussion at Chili's, as I have done for a couple of weeks now. Cedric and Connie were there, of course, as was Kevin, a younger fellow working as a psychologist for one of the military bases. I admit, I have been enjoying his addition to the group. We most def needed an influx of new blood! When I'm the youngest one there, the energy lags a little!
Not the conversation, mind you. With three chemists 'in the house', the talk is bound to be lively, but maybe not as current as at other tables.
Anywho, tonight's discussion concerned the use of Ninja ducks to denote whose turn it was to talk. Seriously! Kevin administers to 'precious snowflakes', as he calls the children, and the toy is useful.
We also talked about the Periodic Table, as I had mentioned last week that I have a fondness for them. How nice of him to remember!
He even had a question for me about whether other planets might have elements which were not on our current version of the Periodic Table. Of course! The Table is not completely filled with known elements just yet! Plus, it has room for so many others that we have not yet found or synthesized. For example, the lanthanides and actinides mark only those elements with electrons in the 4f and 5f sublevels. The Table has seven periods. That means we simply have not yet found elements with ground-state electrons filling the 6f and 7f sublevels. Those could easily be added when the time comes.
I think Cedric was rather amazed by my line of logic. Truth be told, I was, too! Sometimes, I just sit back and let my mouth talk about things I didn't know I knew. Pretty amazing stuff!
We also talked about peace. You know, how the world would have less war if people truly listened to each other, keeping in mind that we all have different educations, different genetics, different experiences.
I have been preaching that message for many years.
It was also the message in yesterday's sermon, "An Understanding Heart". I'll have to find Kevin on fb so I can share that link with him...I think he'll enjoy it.
Okay, to bed I go!
Tomorrow, my car gets its third master cylinder!

2 comments:

faustina said...

Curious about that title?
You can thank the psychologist for that.
His way of attracting a waitress' attention - as well as that of other diners - is to call out "Ca-caw! Ca-caw!"
It actually works quite well!

faustina said...

One more note: Period 8 elements have now been synthesized! The problem is this: they don't exist long enough to do anything with them.
Now, then, if our gravity was different...

Oh, and about "Ca-caw". That is straight out of the "Kung Fu Panda" movies. Crane says it, as well as Monkey.
I had talked about the upcoming "Kung Fu Panda 3" with Kevin, so I'm sure he started saying the phrase to see if I would pick up on the correlation. Guess I'm a bit slower than I used to be!