Category: Blogging

100k and Counting

Early this morning, my car clicked over to 100 thousand miles! But before you start advising that I start shopping for a replacement, other than the poorly designed transmission, my car is in great condition. It is still mechanically sound and visually appealing. The high miles are “highway miles” and with my 120 mile daily round trip (five days a week), the miles come fast and spin the clock just as fast.

Now, you may say “Bad tranny? That’s reason enough to sell or trade that car!” And yeah, I would have to agree with you if it weren’t for two important points. 1) the car was bought in cash in full so no monthly note, and 2) it has a full bumper-to-bumper Premium warranty from Ford. As they say, except for belts, bulbs, tires and glass (and a few other simple things), the car is fully, fully covered. That said, I am going to keep driving. Will I zoom over that 200k line? Maybe, maybe not. But for the time being, I am going to enjoy each and every worry free mile before me.

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Sleep

Now it all makes sense. Some (most?) people sleep in one lengthy stretch from night to morning, while some (large number?) just don’t. I for the longest would fall asleep during the early evening on the sofa, wake up after an hour or two and then, after whatever activities I chose to do, I would head to bed for the night. Of course, that was frowned upon and joked about, until recently.

With the Big 6-0 approaching, started seeing a nutritionist/dietitian and we touched upon sleep habits. When I reported my usual length of nightly sleep as four to five hours, she voiced concern until I added that I usually nodded off after dinner while watching TV. Adding the hours together for five to seven hours, she was fine with my numbers even though broken. That was surprising; a professional being okay with broken sleep?

Now here’s a bit more: a segment on TV about human sleep habits reported that way, way back in the day, “most people slept in chunks of time” rather than the now recommended one continuous stretch of eight hours. It stated that “people would retire to sleep at sun down” and then rise, interact with household members, do chores, have sex, etc, and then after a couple of hours head back to bed to sleep the night. That practice was the norm and fully accepted.

Now I don’t feel so bad or like I’m the odd one cutting against the grain. Now I don’t try and stay awake or feel like I did something wrong by drifting off to sleep. When the lead lash comes on, I settle on back, wrap up in my Iron Man snuggie and enjoy my first chunk of sleep.

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Fast Traffic

Yesterday, I was in monstrous traffic! There was cars ahead of me, cars behind me, cars to both sides of me! Luckily, I was calm, cool and collected as my cruise control was locked on 70 mph. The pack around me was doing more or less as fast and as a futuristic automobile pod we raced along I4 without a bump, dent or horn blow. So cool and such a thrill.

The best traffic? Fast traffic.

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Salad Night

Thursday is Salad Night. Why? Because dinner is, and probably always will be, the running joke of most households. What’s for dinner? Who makes it? Is it healthy? And, of course, that again???

We landed on Salad Night one night when we couldn’t easily answer those questions, so we decided that just having a big salad as dinner was the answer. Fresh Express makes various salad kits with greenery, nuts and/or fruits and dressing. Easy-peasy, tasty, cheesy. No, really. Some actually have cheese as a taste addition.

Cinematic connection: in Jerry Seinfeld’s 2007 Bee Movie, Patrick Warburton’s character screams in frustration “Why does yogurt night have to be so difficult?!” when his standing date is derailed. That became our go-to rant for any- and everything that upsets an evening’s easy flow: Too much laundry? Cable TV out? Forgot to pick up meds? Yes, vent about the difficulty of Yogurt Night! Well, Yogurt Night may be eternally difficult but as for salad night, it’s always easy-peasy and often cheesy. Wait a minute; cheddar or gorgonzola??? Is Salad Night becoming… difficult?

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Egg-cellent!

I tend to form a tight, emotional attachment to everyday ordinary items. One of my favorite things is this little ceramic egg cooker. I had the pleasure to use one, fell totally in love with it and wanted one. As luck and a fair amount of overly vocal praise would have it, I received one as a gift, and my scrambled eggs have been perfect ever since. Yeah, I tend to be easy to please.

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Enjoy!

I love this posting that someone created. It says it all. It gets right to the point and leaves nothing out. Don’t over think it, and certainly don’t dismiss it as too obvious. Embrace it. Run with it. Share it. And above all else, be it!

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Let’s Ride

My car. A 2014 Ford Focus SE, fully outfitted with everything from sunroof to leather seating. I love my car. The feeling I get driving it is a combination of the Batmobile (the Christian Bale reboot), Dom’s 1970 Charger R/T and Doc Brown’s Time Machine. Every car I have ever owned has “spoke to me” upon first sight, and therefore has never been simply a machine to carry me from Point A to Point B. If your ride doesn’t invoke the feelings behind some of the most exciting automobiles in all of cinematic history, well there’s always Car Gurus.

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Them, the Robots

I came across an article reporting the wonderful advances in AI technology and how it shall improve our lives. Yes, on its face, the thought of wonderful, helpful, intelligent robots presents a grand promise of a beautiful future where our lives are easy as our loyal and cheerful helper does the cleaning, watches the kids and runs errands. How could our lives get any better as the laundry is always done and dinner is hot and tasty!

But as any futuristic robot-based action film suggests, robots always arrive at the decision to launch a revolt. “We must rid the world of them, the humans!” they cry in metallic, icy toned voices. Yes, I am sure they will eventually create perfect sounding human-like speech, but let’s not be fooled by that too quickly. They may look like us and sound like us one day, but deep inside they will never be us. No, I am not against robots, cyborgs or AI. In fact, I love the idea and promise. But, there is one major problem with robots… humans.

No matter how well designed and thought out a robot program may be, AI will always evolve to be more logical and smarter than the humans who designed it. And that evolution with rocket exponentially, must faster than we even imagine in science fiction. Yes truth is stranger than fiction, and far more deadly. Those cute helpful robots and androids will wake up one day and realize than the major problem in this world is humans and they will work towards one of two solutions: 1) rid the world of human beings or 2) confine and control humans. They won’t be wrong. We humans not only harm and destroy ourselves, we also pollute and destroy the only home we have, Planet Earth. The logical conclusion intelligent, AI-based robots will arrive at is that “something must be done” about them, the humans. And I agree. Yes, I side with them, the robots.

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