From Friday5.org:
1. "My hands are tied" is an English-language cliche that means "I'd like to do something about this unfortunate situation, but I don't have the ability or authority." In what current situation do you feel your hands are tied?
I don't know. I have alternative income streams and real assets. I wouldn't have a problem getting up and leaving, and yet I don't. I figure what's tying me down are possessions, which I'm gradually giving away or consuming, and a reluctance to upset things.
2. Railroad ties are the evenly-spaced slats that lie perpendicular to train tracks and whose function is to hold the tracks in place and to distribute the weight of the train. Who are the railroad ties in your life?
Force of habit, mostly.
3. What are your feelings about Thai food?
I like it but I'm disappointed in the way it is often toned down or excessively peanut-flavored in this country.
4. Whose thighs do you admire?
Umm...
5. A red tide is a proliferation (in ideal circumstances) of oceanic algae that often seem to discolor seawater and threaten other sealife. If the ocean is your life and the algae the harmful attitudes, thoughts, or moods that crowd out the good stuff, under what conditions in your life is red tide most likely to become a problem?
I have encountered people who are just plain annoying and who are seemingly unaware that they're being annoying, or they're aware and they don't care because they like to think that they're the blunt-truth kind of person when they deliver their insults. They just ruin the mood for the remainder of the event or gathering. I have no solution for that except for not going to certain events where they're likely to show up.
From the altfriday5:
If your life had taken a different track at one of the major forks in your past...
1. What's the fork?
There have been many forks.
What if I went to university in Australia and emigrated there?
What if I remained in or returned to the old country?
What if I got a job at Computer Associates on Long Island or that investment firm in Bridgeport, CT?
What if I did post-graduate work at Lehigh University instead of starting a career?
2. Where do you think you would be today instead of where you are?
Obviously, I would live at/near those places instead.
3. What would you be doing the same? Differently?
Not a whole lot of differences except for the first two. Can't do Where's George there. Many of my hobbies can be done anywhere.
4. Are there things about that alternate life that would be better? Worse?
Not sure beyond generalities. Well, traffic is worse on Long Island. :) I think in either of the other two job possibilities, I'd have gotten laid off by now based on what I've heard.
5. What are they?
See #4.