BOIL AGUA

Boil Agua - two four letter words that should serve as a warning to my friends in some areas of Rockland and Westchester counties New York.

It is amazing how much we in the United States take clean water for granted. These days, it is only when there is a problem with our water that we think about what it takes to get clean potable water to nearly all our citizens. And so many of us turn to bottled water to drink.

Water is a natural resource, mostly renewable, but one that we still need to conserve and be aware of.

SOLO

Solo is a four letter word.

People often ask me if four letter words are supposed to be curse words. No... the truth is far more complex. A good four letter word is both a blessing and a curse. It is both good and evil. It shares the ying and yang.

Such is so very much the case with "solo".

On the dark side, it represents solitude... loneliness... instead of a partnership, one must go it alone.

And yet... one can be alone without being lonely. One can accomplish achievements by oneself.

LEFT

Left is a four letter word.

DARE

Dare is a four letter word.

I double dog dare you!

COLD WARM

Cold is a four letter word. But so is warm.

HAIR

Hair is a four letter word.

The two-year-old got his hairs cut this evening. He was not pleased.

TREE

Tree is a four letter word.

Today is Tu B'Shvat, the new year of trees, in the Jewish calendar. Hug a tree.

KING

King is a four letter word.

In the United States, we take this day to celebrate the ideas, words, and actions of Martin Luther King, Jr. Not only his calls for civil rights, his work towards labor rights, but also his actions against poverty and war. One can only hope that we can all share his dreams and work to make them come true.

MILK

Milk is a four letter word.

I'm watching my 2-year-old drink milk while eating a fresh pretzel and brown bread with butter from a local bakery. Now... if he would only learn to take bites instead of stuffing it in his cheeks.

"STOP! COME BACK!"

Four letter word conversation between my 2-year-old and the cat after the 2-year-old tried to pet him.

CHAO

Chao is a four letter word.

I have never studied Spanish. But back in High School, Senora Coffinet was one of the Spanish teachers whom everyone in the school knew of. She passed today after several months fighting for her life after an accident in Spain.

"Chao" is, apparently, commonly used in Spain and Latin America to say "goodbye".
Goodbye to a great presence in this world.

"MEAT BALL?" "TACO!"

Four letter word conversation with my 2-year-old.

STOP HURT PAIN

Stop. Hurt. Pain. Four letter words.

STAR

Star is a four letter word.

There are few things that beat watching the two-year-old put away his crayons while singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to himself.

SHOE

Shoe is a four letter word.

A haiku I once wrote:

Space, the final frontier.
Alas, I cannot go there.
Theres gum on my shoe.

OVER SOLD

Over sold - an annoying combination of four letter words.

Went to see "Tangled" this evening, and the theater was completely sold out. Ah well... perhaps I'll remember to see it when it comes out on DVD.

TRON

TRON is a four letter word.

I saw TRON: Legacy this evening. Although the original movie was somewhat cheesy, even when I think about it years later, there was still something so very... iconic about it. At a time when the term "cyberspace" was barely in existence, it was one of the first movies to actually try to visually illustrate what cyberspace might be like.

Legacy, however, lacked some of that. Yes, it did a good job with the 3D differentiating one world from the other - but it is somewhat ironic that the "real world" was in 2D while the virtual world (the one that is still very 2D in reality) was rendered in 3D. It didn't really try to represent what was "inside" a computer. As such... it lacked some of the connections that I thought were so brilliant in the original.

The best scene in my opinion? The Disney Castle logo... rendered in 3D.