10 Things I learned from Gilligan's Island

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale.  I never remember seeing the first run of Gilligan's Island, but I watched the CRAP out of that show in syndication.  One of the best 1/2 hours on TV.  The best thing about watching the Island is that I learned a lot about life from that show.  These lessons presented themselves to my subconscious to be revived at a later time.

1.  If you can act, you get what you want. - Ginger Grant. When I was a wee lad of tender years, Ginger just scared me.  That kind of magnetic attraction was clearly more than any red blooded male could withstand.  Since I mostly Identified with Gilligan, I found his reaction to Ginger very understandable.  He was usually more scared than flattered.  But now that I'm older, I find the rest of the men's response to gingers raw sex-appeal to be even more interesting.  The only time Ginger didn't get what she wanted was when she tried to use her feminine wiles on Gilligan and they would backfire.  The rest of the men on the island would always look at Ginger with a look that said 'That's Ginger, doing what she's doing, and I know it's gonna work'

2.  You don't have to be the smartest in the world, just the smartest on the Island - One of the most underrated characters of Gilligan's Island was the Professor.  Roy Hinckley was actually a High School Teacher.  He was the internet before the internet was invented.  ANYTHING they needed to know was right there with professor google.  The interesting thing is, if you are the smartest person on an island of 7 people, they will look to you as though you are a viable replacement for the Internet.  Random not professor person: Hey professor, how you do make a strong glue from what we have here on the Island?  Professor: 'Well, I don't know Let me look it up in this organic chemistry reference book I just happened to bring on board my 3 hour tour'  Translation: I want to look up how to make glue on Instructibles, but it would be easier if my smart friend did it and made me some glue.

3.  Necessity and Bamboo are the mothers of Invention - Everything on that island was made of laminated Bamboo.  The kind you find decorating parts of a Pier 1 Imports.  The professor's equipment, the huts, some of the dinner ware, golf clubs.  What was great was that anything they needed, they could fabricate out of the islands more than plentiful resource next to sand and salt water. Bamboo, ostensibly found on the other side of the island, Is the best thing for inventing since Lego.

4.  Tropical Islands are bad for losing weight - The skipper was the meat & potatoes member of the group.  He was big and burly and had sometimes inhuman strength.  He also must have had a stash of Oreo's or something hidden on the island to maintain his rather generous weight.  If you are only eating what a tropic Island can afford you along with some radio-active vegetables, it seems that everyone on the Island would drop more than a few pounds.  That's why most tropical islands worth visiting now have good restaurants.  Gilligan's Island apparently had enough fat and protein in the air, that what they ate didn't matter much.

5.  Just because you don't like where you are doesn't mean you will like where you go. - Sure the castaway's were stuck on the Island.  Of course they all longed for their lives at home.  But honestly, I have complained in the past about places I've worked only to find subsequent employment to be even worse.  The grass is always greener as they say, but it seems to me that Gilligan loved the island and that's why he would feign clumsiness in order to keep everyone there.  They later would find through return trips to the Island that they really never had it so good.

6.  Anything can exist in a place you haven't explored. - The other side of that island was some kind of alternate quantum universe. If you run out of things to write about, you just go over there and there will be a castle on a hill, there might be some Russian spies, or maybe even a pirate, you never know.  The only thing you DO know, is plot complications come from there!

7.  Meaning well IS enough to keep you out of trouble - Nobody really has ever screwed up things as consistently as Gilligan. He is always forgiven because he is the Islands Namesake.  The funny thing is really nobody has ever been BLAMED for things as much as Gilligan.  At least half of the time Gilligan would find himself the target of everyone's ire just because he mentioned something about what the skipper did wrong.  I'm not sure how it worked, but it did.  It's kind of like when someone passes gas and someone else mentions it.  That person is the top of everyone else's suspect list based on the smelt-and-dealt precedent.  Everyone that is except the CULPRIT!

8.  Corporal punishment doesn't work. -  How many times did Gilligan get smacked in the head with Skipper's hat?  So many times that you would think that by now Gilligan would learn to not mess things up.  Clearly it doesn't help.

9.  Money buys everything - Mr. and Mrs Howell ended up with the hut with the french doors and the lovely bamboo furniture.  Their money was worthless to them on the island and yet it STILL bought them what they wanted.  Rich works even without money.

10.  Battery Technology should be a lot better than it is. - The multi-band radio that the cast-away's had was their lifeline to civilization.  They could listen to everything all the time on it.  That marvel was powered by what could only be atomic batteries.  They only had to be recharged once with agitated salt water.  I'm convinced that the Skipper got these batteries just after his tour of duty with the Navy off of the Bikini Islands.  They were experimental military prototypes and the government is now hiding that specific technology.  I don't know why, but I do know it's true.


Just join me here, 2 weeks my friends, you're sure to get a smile, from 10 little items that I thought up, Here on box of my stuuuuuuf!  No it doesn't Rhyme, but it vaguely matches the song.  Thanks!

10 first impressions and second thoughts

Some folks call it your gut, others call it instinct, and finally some have combined it to be the redundant 'Gut Instinct'.  It's the thing that tells you stuff that you normally ignore unless it told you to do something and it would have turned out correctly.  Many times our gut tells us things that are completely wrong and so over time we tend to ignore it.  Our gut also speaks to us when things happen to us and we have an initial reaction that we quickly ignore.

Second thoughts come from the same place and are nearly as useful.  These are things that you think well after something has happened and you kind of change your mind about it.

Here are some of both...

10 - It got stolen -  This is the reaction when you have lost something of some importance.  Often vocalized by kids it is still thought by many an adult when something has become lost.  For some reason, the gut has not told you that you misplaced something or that someone else has inadvertently moved whatever it was you were looking for, it always goes straight for the felony conviction.  Grand Theft.  Sure the item might not be monetarily worth that much, but to you it was priceless.  Of course a day later you find your sunglasses in the crack of the couch under that blanket you 'put away'.  Unless you happen to live with a scurvy pirate in which case you may in fact be right.

9 -  I've been hacked! - This reaction is the first thought after something strange has happened on your computer no matter what it was.  If your mouse is a little wonky and seems to have a mind of it's own.  You're being hacked.  If the colors on your screen go different sometimes.  hacked, possibly a virus written by hackers.  All you need is a good dose of movies between 1990 and 2005 and they will tell you that you were probably hacked.  Of course just because you are reading this doesn't mean you WEREN'T hacked ;)

8 - Did I close the garage door? - This happens just out of eyesight of your garage door.  It's a small compulsion really.  You leave home and BAM.  You wonder if the garage door is open, the house door is unlocked, you left the water running, you locked the cat in your bedroom.  All the things you didn't check specifically before you left will haunt you all day with this second thought.  Most of the time you will be dead wrong...most of the time.

7 - I'm being audited! - Any letter from any government agency that you are not used to getting will pull up the thought that you are being audited by the IRS.  Thanks to the 16th amendment our own elected federal government has had the power to tax the incomes of it's citizens for the purpose of funding the civil war.  It was a flat tax of 3% over 800 dollars way back then.  Ever since then, the federal government has seen fit to extract money from us and in return give us less than what we purchased like some kind of casino.  They ALWAYS have a reason to take money and spend it.  No matter the reason, once a government decides to tax you, they assume it's their money, not yours.  When they do that, the public becomes very concerned when they get audit notices in the mail.  Because the IRS has near unlimited power when it comes to confiscating property of citizens who are SUSPECTED of avoiding taxes.

6 - I'm BUSTED! - When you see those red and blue lights flashing behind you, that's fairly near the first things you hear your gut tell you.  Your gut of course will get louder if you happen to have a body in your trunk.  Just act natural...JUST ACT NATURA...yet      h-hello officer...

5 - It's a Ghost! - Something strange happen in the house?  If it didn't happen to your computer (which would be hackers)  It's a ghost.  I don't believe in ghosts.  I wish I did, because they are a lot of fun.  Anything that is going on in your house, especially if it is old, is because of a ghost.  If the wind slams a door closed in the house, it is TOTALLY a ghost, and it is probably mad.

4 - It's a UFO - How often do you look up in the sky just to look?  Let me refresh your memory, never.  At least not since you were about 8 and your teacher told you to look up in the sky to experience what was happening in some poem you were supposed to memorize.  When you look up at the sky in adult life it's usually in reference to something you were watching here on the ground initially.  A kite, or maybe a plane or something of the sort.  When you happen to look up and see something that you don't quite recognize, it's a UFO.  Then you look at it a little more, and it's probably a Cessna.  On the other hand, if you can't identify it anyway, it still IS a UFO.  HA!  But it's probably not little green men come to examine your prostate.

3 - I have cancer - Any irregularity in bowel or skin will immediately cause you to think 'I've got cancer, I know it'  If you are a man, that's where it will end.  If you are a woman, you may go see a doctor and actually ask about it.  In either case, you'll look it up on the internet just to convince yourself you actually have some kind of cancer.  This also works for chest pains and heart attacks.  The medical community would suggest that certain symptoms would garner a doctors attention.  I think better safe than sorry.

2 - Someone is dead - If you get a phone call after 10 O'clock at night.  The first thought is that someone is dead or injured.  If they aren't, then you can think of at least one person that should be ;)






1 - I'm getting fired! - When your boss calls you into his office, that's one thing.  When you have a scheduled meeting.  That's something else.  When your boss calls you in and asks you to close the door behind you and you see an HR representative sitting there...well there aren't too many other thoughts to think.  Once you've had this happen to you, even once, you really believe in it's ability to happen again.  It becomes a first thought.  Hopefully you can eliminate it over time.  Firing someone is usually just a little bit better than being fired, and not by much.  Unless you are a real jerk, then firing you is almost cathartic.

A fortnight ago, I was wondering what to put in today's blog.  Now we both know.  Thanks for reading!