What if I were a caterpillar?

"Creepy, Crawly Caterpillars" is how channelcincinnati.com titled a story about the large number of caterpillars currently spreading all throughout the Tri-State. It sounds a little dramatic to me. I don’t think the little one inch bugs are really creepy or crawly. Maybe “Cute, Inching, Caterpillars”, but I guess that wouldn’t be a catchy title or something worth reading about. Nonetheless, they are actually pretty fascinating and reading this article reminded me how just last night while golfing, was imagining myself as a caterpillar and asked "What if I were a caterpillar?"

As I approached the 16^th green, my ball, having settled within 3 feet of the cup, I noticed a little caterpillar working its way across the expanse of the green. I thought, wow, if I was that small, getting across this green would be a day’s work. As my father-in-law setup for his putt from the fringe, I squatted down to look at what my putt had in store, but I was quickly distracted again by the little caterpillar. It was approaching the cup, inch by inch, and immediately I could feel myself in its place. I imagined myself heading out to take a look at the one of the natural wonders of the world, the Grand Canyon, a place so special it requires capitalization of its name, but in this case it was just the hole on the 16^th green. I wondered, “If I were a caterpillar, what would amaze me?” With humans walking around everywhere, towering trees looming overhead everywhere, gigantic buildings everywhere, and automobiles whizzing by everywhere, would I even recognize these large objects as something special. As humans we often take large wonders and recognized them for their size. Do caterpillars do this?

After arriving just to the rim of the cup, the caterpillar turned and headed toward me. My father-in-law hit his putt and was still away, so he began to setup again. I began daydreaming again about caterpillars. It was inching toward me and continually getting closer. It went right up to my ball, almost inspecting it. I thought how for the caterpillar, looking at my ball is probably like going to Disney’s Epcot Center. It made me laugh to myself. I wonder if it thinks anything of my ball being in its path. Does it wonder what it is? If I were a caterpillar, would I wonder what it was?

He hit is putt and made it, leaving me with my 3 footer to bogey the hole. I set myself up and looked down and the caterpillar was right in my line. On any other day, I probably would have hit it out of my way with my putter, but today was different. This caterpillar and I had a connection. I gently placed my putter right near it, it crawled up on it, and I moved it to another path, closer to the edge of the green, a place where if it continued the caterpillar could be on its way, to its next adventure; to the rainforest lying just beyond the fringe.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar - another great tool from our friends at Google. It seems like just when you think they have not released something new in a while, you are hit with another very handy tool.

What I like so much about this, and all their tools, is they are released with so much functionality in beta and only improve based on user feedback from there. This tool was released with multiple, shared, and public calendars making it useful in so many new ways. It has literally changed the way I think about a calendar. I personally like the "quick event" feature allowing you to enter an even in sentence format rather than clicking days times, etc. Another nice feature built right in is the text reminders - very useful! This tools is quick, reliable, and so far has met all my needs.

I recommend everyone giving it a try. If there is something you don't like about it, let Google know. If other people agree with you, most likely, you will see it implemented in the near future.