continued

My wife’s birthday is a week before mine so we celebrated them by staying at Jamala Lodge which is connected with the Canberra zoo. Some of the rooms have windows with zoo enclosures on the other side. You can take a bath with a bear looking at you. In the dining room there was a window opening on part of the lion quarters. A lioness saw all that meat sitting at table, realized she couldn’t get at it and went to sleep. A lumbering hulk of a man laughed at my jokes. Was disgusted at myself for telling the jokes and enjoying his laughter. Saw myself as also a lumbering hulk of a man and woke up yesterday resolved not to snack. Of course I did.

The guides who took us around the zoo were young women who were keepers and very enthusiastic about their work. They reminded me of my granddaughter Diana. I have a picture of her scrubbing a hippo at the Newport News Zoo. The last day we were there a guide took Marie and me into the meerkat area. The animals were quite curious and crawled over us. Quite exciting.

On my birthday I will probably have lunch at Torbas, a Brisbane restaurant specializing in eastern European cuisine

I also realise that I share some things with the people who disagree with me on olo.

Like runner I am devoted to my ideas.

Like Hasbeen I appreciate the lyric beauty of Queensland which he started a thread on today.

Like Yuyutsu I distrust governments and authority.

I could probably count the number of people who are influential to me on one hand and david f would be one of them. He would have to be one of the most rational thinkers on OLO and I'm grateful for his contributions.

Happy 90th, david f.

Happy birthday to you, David!

May you continue to enjoy many years of health, just as my father who is about your age says: "I don't want to live to 120 - I rather live to '100 like 20'".

I always enjoy your posts, knowing in advance that even if I am about to disagree with their content, I will for certain not be wasting my time reading them.

I consider you the most religious atheist I know - and I only mean it as a compliment.

Happy birthday David F.
Getting time to raise your aim from 90 to 100, or better to 110.

A wonderful milestone to win Davidf, happy 90th birthday :)
A sharp, analytical mind like yours is a pleasure to swap stories with.
Here's hoping you have many more years to bring a reasoning mind to this forum.
Cheers,
Suse.

Dear david f,

Here in Germany it is considered inappropriate to send birthday wishes before the actual day. Moreover, 31st October comes ten hours later than in Brisbane. So although belated, here are my wishes:

I have a hierarchy of other people’s views, in this ascending order of preference:

(1)  trivial (sometimes even offensive) points that I disagree with;
(2)  trivial confirmations of views I hold myself;
(3)  non-trivial confirmations of views I hold myself;
(4)  non-trivial views, opinions, theories etc that disagree with my point of view but help me to better understand/defend my own position;
(5)  non-trivial views, opinions, theories etc (that might or might not agree with my own point of view) which help me to improve, extend, amend my own position and views.

Here on OLO I have encountered contribution in all of these categories, however yours were always of the fifth (sometimes fourth) category, and I am indebted to you for that.

Happy Birthday David. May your extraordinary physical and mental fitness stay with you for many more years until the time comes, as it does for all of us, to cross the red line of existence.