Thursday Vibes: Three Words to Live By

by | Aug 8, 2024

A few thoughts for today by Joe Farace

Three little words
Oh what I’d give for that wonderful phrase
To hear those three little words—Nat “King” Cole

As some of you may know from some of my past writings here, there are a bunch of reasons why I am no longer on Facebook and haven’t been in several year. If you’re interested in what I’m up to beyond what you read on this blog, you can always follow me on Instagram. My wife Mary, however, is on Facebook (OK, maybe addicted to it) and showed me a world jumble of apparently random letters with a concept being that the first three words you see are what a person can expect from in the coming years. And since this Magic Eight-Ball test was on Facebook, you know it has to be true, right?

When I took the test, here are the first three words that jumped out at me: coffee, blessed and strength. What’s my take on this combo of words? Here goes:

Coffee: I don’t drink coffee mainly because I don’t like the way it tastes. I also don;t like coffee flavored food, even ice cream.I do enjoy a cup of tea. (If you enjoy today’s post and would like to buy me a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here.)

Back to the subject at hand, here’s what I think it might mean: I will be attending more Cars & Coffee events during the year. This will allow me to make more photographs of cars and write more car-related posts here and on my car photography blog/website where I now only post occasionally. The time demands of photographing and writing for two sites is one of the reasons I started #wheelswednesday posts on this blog. I’m hoping that attending more shows will be an opportunity to meet more owners of interesting cars that can be featured on that blog. I also hope this means that sometime during 2024 and 2025 I can restart my series of Coffee and Cameras meet-ups, at least I hope so.

How I made this photo: This photograph is an underhood shot of a hot rod that was made using a Panasonic Lumix GF3 with an Olympus 17mm f/2.8 lens. The Program mode exposure was 1/1000 sec at f/2.8 and ISO 200. And to answer your question: Yes, she posed for the shot.

Blessed: I am not a deeply religious person but do believe in a higher power and think that I have been blessed with the career that I’ve had writing books, magazine articles and even all of these posts. I’m also blessed by having a a sponsor who has helped keep this blog, afloat. That’s why a big thank you goes out to LensPen for all of their support they’ve given me over the years and been a sponsor of this site/blog since its very beginning. I’ve been a happy, satisfied user of LensPen products for more than twenty-five year, long before I had any website or blog.

Strength: Mary really has all of the muscles in our family but I think (and hope) that this word refers to any inner strength that I might have. In the past I have been challenged by several life threatening health problems starting when I was younger and diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. During those challenging times, I think it was some kind of inner strength along with support from loving members of my family and extended family and maybe just more a little luck—maybe with a few blessings—that I survived. As I’ve gotten older I’ve faced other health challenges—and am still facing some—but I’ve been blessed by having Mary’s strength and encouragement to help me get me through all those difficult times. Just as important, is the ongoing support from my friends and readers of this blog—who I also consider friends—that help me, as they say “get through the day.

So are coffee, blessed and strength just some buzzwords that might have come from social media? Do they mean anything or as Humphrey Bogart said in Casablanca, “the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” I dunno. Do you?