And Then There Was A Bang

To my commenters, especially TA and LL, I want to say I appreciate all the comments you have been leaving for the last few years. I always enjoy reading them, and sometimes I'm given a different perspective on what I have written. Thanks so much for taking the time to write them. I think both of you could write your own blogs. You both are very expressive and thoughtful with your comments.

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Nuria and I were sitting on the sofa this afternoon, about 5 PM, watching a movie when: BANG. The sound was unmistakable: it was the sound of two automobiles colliding. I went to a window and looked outside. Sure enough, at the intersection about 60 feet from my front door, two cars had collided. 

I walked out the front door and down to the intersection and talked to the drivers and some bystanders. And naturally, I snapped a few photos with my phone. 

One car had been coming down the road and another car pulled out in front of it. The driver of that car had been blinded by the setting sun which was shining directly down the road. She didn't see the first car and pulled into its path. The first car was driven by a young black woman, and she was very distraught over the accident. She apparently had just made some expensive repairs to her car. The second car was driven by a young white woman, and she was quite upset and was quick to admit that she was totally at fault, but explained that she couldn't see the other car because the setting sun was in her eyes. I felt bad for both of the drivers. Nuria was in an accident in December that totaled her car. We replaced her car, but there was a lot of paperwork, trips to the police station for accident reports, etc., and then the other driver's insurance company, Progressive, paid only 80% of the cost of replacing her car. An auto accident, even when it's not your fault, is costly. 

Taken from in front of my house.

Taken from my front porch.

One wrecked car was loaded onto a rollback tow truck, while the other car was towed by the same truck, front wheels off the ground. I would estimate that it took at least an hour to clear the intersection, but one man with one truck did the job.

Nuria and I returned to the house and Nuria made dinner, and then we continued watching the movie. Nuria liked it. I thought it was a little slow but, on the whole, I would rate it 3 out of 5. 

The name of the movie was "A Man Called Otto" and it starred Tom Hanks. Nuria told me that the actor that played a young Tom Hanks was actually Tom Hanks' son.

I used to spend many hours driving on Interstate highways, and I became a fan of Garrison Keillor's radio show, "The News From Lake Wobegone." The shows were funny, and Keillor's closing line for each show was, "That's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average." I don't have a closing line for my central Virginia town. Maybe something like, "That's the news from the Heights, where all the women are average, half the men are rednecks, and all the children are addicted to cell phones." It doesn't have the same ring as Keillor's closing, but it is probably a lot closer to reality.

To Blog or Not To Blog

The day before yesterday was Sunday. I was sitting at my computer when I suddenly swiveled my chair around to face the front windows. It was sunny outside, and I looked outside for a few seconds, then I looked over at Nuria sitting on the sofa. Nuria looked back at me. 

"What?" she asked.

"I think I'm going to quit blogging," I said.

Thereafter followed a discussion about what I just said. Nuria didn't want me to quit blogging. But I explained to her that I have been blogging for so long—for example, I began this blog in 2008. It has almost 2000 posts. And that count is for just this blog. I have five blogs. 

I love to write. I've been writing since I was a schoolboy. I still have some of those early writings somewhere in my house. I started blogging online in 1999 with a blog called the Applebee Chronicles. Writing it was an entertaining diversion. And to get material for that blog, I had to sit at the bar in my local Applebee's for many hours. I really didn't want to sip beer for hours and chat with pretty waitresses, but it was part of my blogging pursuit. So I had to do it.

The word "blog" dates back to 1999. It's a portmanteau of the words "web" and "log" contained in the word "weblog", itself coined in 1997. The word hadn't trickled down to my small city at that time. In fact, I don't think blogs were in the public awareness then; they were too new. I rented space on a webserver, I taught myself basic HTML (all HTML was "basic" at that time) and how to use File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and started writing a blog. Or rather, I started writing what would later be called a blog. It's still online. So are the other four but, at 15 years, this blog is the most lengthy that I've written. I don't even want to know how many hours I've spent writing blog posts. I think they would add up to be a fair part of my life. 

So I showed Nuria my other blogs and we talked and I made no decision about my blogging—to blog or not to blog. Like most of my life decisions, that decision has been postponed to an undetermined future time. Maybe next week, maybe next year, maybe...?  

Marjorie's Excellent Idea

Republican Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted that the country needs a “national divorce” between red states and blue states.

We need a national divorce.

We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government.

Everyone I talk to says this.

From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are… https://t.co/Azn8YF1UUy

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) February 20, 2023

“We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government,” Greene tweeted.

As a resident of a blue state (Virginia), I'm all for Marjorie's idea. Blue states are "donor" states. Their citizens are taxed higher than the citizens of red states. More federal money is spent in red states than is spent in blue states. If we split the country in half along red/blue lines, the red states will be the losers.

My opinion is—go for it, Marjorie! I'm sure the citizens of many blue states will be happy to have a break from supporting you guys in the red states.

Unfortunately, I suspect that Marjorie is being insincere about this national divorce. I suspect she is saying it just to rile up innocent bloggers (like VirtualWayne). Even so, even if she isn't being sincere about this national divorce, I think it's an idea worth exploring. Don't you?

Ash Wednesday

The amount of ignorance in some people's heads surprises me.

I've been seeing online posts (Twitter, etc.) from people who are laughing at Joe Biden for falling down. Some even say "Get out of the White House!"  They think he fell down because they saw a "bruise" on his forehead in news photos from Ukraine. 

I saw that "bruise" too, but I immediately knew what it was. This past Wednesday was "Ash Wednesday", a holy day in the Catholic church, and Joe Biden is a devout Catholic. As such, when he was in Ukraine he had a priest apply ash, in the shape of a cross, to his forehead. I don't think the ash has to be worn all day, but Biden appeared to have kept the ash on his forehead for hours, and as the ash faded with time and perspiration, it became a smudge and then a fainter smudge. In news photographs it might appear as a bruise to some people.

I'm not Catholic, but I know a little bit about their traditions. I know about Ash Wednesday, and I know that Biden is Catholic. It's not rocket science to add those two things and conclude that Biden was merely displaying his faith, as do many devout Catholics on Ash Wednesday.

I hope the "children" who made fun of Biden for the "bruise" on his forehead will one day grow up and learn something about the world. I call them children, regardless of their real age, because their actions—making fun of Biden—were the actions of a child. Mocking an elderly person because you think he fell and hurt himself is even less forgivable than mocking someone's faith. Not all of us will be Catholic, but all of us will fall down at least once in a lifetime. To those who mocked him, I ask this: even if Biden had fallen, why would you mock someone for doing something that you've done and will do again? 

Oh, well, maybe you never stumble. Maybe you're perfect. Frankly, I wouldn't know what that feels like.

Big Warm Coming

We've had a mild winter in central Virginia this year.  Yesterday, the high temperature was 75°F. Today, the high temperature is predicted to hit 84°F. It's been warm for weeks. Cold at night, of course, but only into the low 30s and occasionally into the upper 20s. 

They say the earth is getting warmer. I have no trouble believing that. Every year, I begin mowing the yard a little earlier. I have a "ski jacket" hanging in my coat closet. But I don't ski. There was a time when winters were so cold that I needed the ski jacket to stay warm. I haven't worn it in 20 years.

I have a hooded parka hanging in my coat closet. It's like something you'd see in photos of polar explorers. It kept me warm in snowy weather. Like my ski jacket, it's now unused for years. I'm sure I'll never need to wear it again.

The earth is getting warmer and it's not going back. We humans have sealed our fate. The earth will continue to get hotter, the ice caps will continue to melt, and the oceans will continue to rise. Croplands will turn to desert, rivers will shrink and dry up, and cities will become heat islands that are unfit to live in without air conditioning.

Is it impossible to turn the clock back? No, in theory we can do it. In theory, humans could make a Herculean effort to undo the damage we've done before it becomes permanent. But we won't do it. Because humans are very clever but not so wise. Humans are motivated by many things. Emotions like greed, lust, and hunger are on the list, but wisdom is not. Or perhaps wisdom merely ranks below the other drives.

This week, some parts of the USA are being battered by arctic temperatures and blizzards. "Where is the global warming?" one might ask. Those storms are merely weather. They're not climate. Climate is measured all over the world, in both hemispheres—not just in the US Midwest. Climate is what is happening in the long term, not what is happening this week. 

Ironically, winter may send my city a snowy day this Saturday, with a 50 percent chance of "wintry mix." It won't be cold enough for snow that sticks to the ground like a winter of old, it will just be a messy mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain that will be gone by the next morning. It will be a lame imitation of winters of old. It would be nice to have another deep snow before I pass into the next realm. But maybe they have snow there, too, along with all the things your heart desires.

No. On second thought, I'm fairly sure there's no snow where I'm probably headed.

America

There are two Americas. One is called the United States of America. It is a geographical place and a system of government. One can walk into the United States, and one can walk out of it. It's real, it's tangible.

The other is called, simply, America. It is not a place you can touch. It is an idea. It is a chimera, an unrealizable dream. The real place, the United States, is always less than the dream of America. America is the dream of what might be, of what could be. It is the dream of immigrants. It is a chance to succeed, an opportunity that immigrants didn't have in the country they left behind: "the old country."

The United States of America has many problems, but it also has many people who are determined to solve those problems. Those people want the United States to be better than it is. They want the United States to one day become as great as the dream of America. That may never happen, but I think that if it happens, it will be immigrants who make it happen. Immigrants have not lost the dream that brought them to these shores, to these mountains and plains, to these cities and towns and villages.

Many people who call themselves Americans, and who were born and grew up in the United States, have become disillusioned and embittered. They have lost the dream, because they have not lived their lives in the world beyond American shores. For immigrants, America has always been a goal as much as it has been a dream. They struggled to get here. Many risked their lives to get here. Many have died on that journey. Since 1998, at least 8,000 migrants have died attempting to cross the border from Mexico to the US.

There are people living in the United States who would like to change the country. They want to make it into a country that only people like themselves can fit into. I think those people should leave the United States and go to a country that they think is better. Stay there. Don't come back. To them I say, the dream of America is too big for you. To them I say, you will never be happy here until you are unhappy elsewhere. Then maybe you can understand the dream. Then maybe you can understand America.

American Experiment

There is a phenomenon that psychologists call "cognitive dissonance." It happens when a person holds two opposing beliefs at the same time. Such as, "I'm a patriot and I love my country—therefore, I must go to the nation's Capitol and murder as many duly elected legislators as I can."

Or, go to a pro-life rally and find someone carrying a sign or flag that says, "God Is Pro-Life." Ask them, "Didn't God kill every person on earth except for one man's family and some animals on an ark?" You may get a strange look, but you won't get an answer.

Okay, that was long ago and maybe God has changed. After all, He promised that He wouldn't do it again. But then, how about the 2,996 innocent people who died in the attacks on September 11, 2001? Where was God then?

I'm just asking. Because it's confusing.

Here's why it's confusing: it's that cognitive dissonance. It causes discomfort, so we seek to reduce the dissonance. One way that people achieve that is to simply choose to believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of all evidence to the contrary, regardless of the reality plainly in front of them.  

We have to get at the truth, whatever that truth may be. We may not like the truth, we may deny the truth, but what is true will still be true. You can't change the truth by refusing to believe it. Likewise, if something is not true, then believing and insisting that it's true won't make it true.

There is also a phenomenon that psychologists call "motivated reasoning." People are biased in favor of the things they want to be true, whether it's politics, UFOs, space aliens, stolen elections, or whatever. But these things require really, really, really good evidence. Claiming something is true based on bad evidence or, worse, based on no evidence, will ultimately not have a good outcome. 

I think America has been running a social experiment. What happens if you give people a sub-par education? What if the population decides to reject their education? Can they still think effectively? Will they still make good decisions? I think that in these current times, we're seeing the outcome of that experiment.

Popcorn

Nuria and I often split a bag of popcorn. Question: why does it take algebra to figure out how many calories we consume?

First, why is the bag defined as three and a half servings? It's arbitrary, so why not make it three servings or four servings? It would make the math easier.

Or, why not make the serving size 1 bag? Why make it 2 tablespoons? How many tablespoons of popcorn are in the bag? We don't know. We only know it's 3.5 servings.

So we have to do the math. 

One serving = 130 calories. One bag = 3.5 servings. Therefore one bag =  455 calories.

I eat about 60% of the bag of popcorn and Nuria eats about 40%. So I consume 455 calories x 0.6 which equals 273 calories. Nuria consumes 455 calories x 0.4 which equals 182 calories.

(Obviously, the company has decided that one serving equals 91 calories. But why? Why not 90 calories? Why not 100? They're the people who put the popcorn and oil into the bag. Are they just messing with us?)

It looks like the company is trying to obfuscate the number of calories we are consuming. Even at this point, I'm not sure I've done the math correctly. They don't need to print a calorie label on the box. They need to glue a calculator to the box. With instructions.

Just a suggestion.

Valentine's Day

It's appropriate that my previous post, one week ago, was about Valentine's Day. Today, a week later, is Valentine's Day. 

My partner Nuria walked into the living room this morning while I was at the computer. She carried a Valentine's Day card, an Olive Garden gift card, a jogging outfit (I wear them inside the house), and a pretty bag of Lindor dark chocolate strawberry truffles. 

I looked at them, then at her, and asked the obvious question. "Is it Valentine's Day?"

Really, I had forgotten all about it. I felt bad for a while. But that's typical of me these days. If I don't write it down, it goes into one ear and flies out the other ear. 

I'm sure Nuria was disappointed but she did a good job at hiding it. She's good about remembering to do little things for people. My friend Butch lives a few doors down the street. Nuria made him a plate of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. She also made cupcakes for his daughter, who had to go to the hospital this morning. Butch was at the hospital with his daughter, and on the way back home he stopped by our house (Nuria and I) with a bouquet of flowers for Nuria. That is so much like Butch: always doing something, when I'm kicking myself, to make me kick myself a little harder. He handed Nuria the flowers and Nuria handed him the two small containers of cupcakes. Thanks, Butch ... I wasn't feeling bad enough. Oy.

I found a pretty song that I want to share. It's called To Build A Home. 

Valentine Gift

It's Tuesday, February 7, 2023. A week from now will be Valentine's Day. So I wanted to pick up a few gifts for my partner, Nuria. I asked her about rings and necklaces and if she wanted to go with me to a jewelry store to look at some. She said no, she didn't want jewelry. 

So yesterday I drove to a store and bought three items I thought she might like. I was guessing, of course, but I had reason to think she would like the items I bought.

I returned home and presented the first item to her. "I just bought one of those," she replied.

I presented the second item to her. "I just bought one of those, too," she replied.

In baseball, three strikes and you're out.

I presented the third item to her. She loved it.

It was something for the kitchen, simple and inexpensive: a Ninja Fit blender. I would describe it to you, but everyone knows what a blender is and how it works. This one works very well. As it happens, I recently began a juice diet (a partial diet for now; I still eat some solid food) so the juicer will be used by both of us.

I know what you're thinking—"You bought her a cheap juicer? Cheapskate!"

My response is: "What did you expect me to buy her—a car?" Well, as it so happens, I did help her buy a car just last month, after her previous vehicle was wrecked by a driver who drove into her car. Insurance paid for most of the cost of the replacement car, but Nuria and I each chipped in a substantial amount to get the car she wanted. But that's another story.

Now, I don't mind spending money on a gift, it's just that I'm lazy and I hate shopping. And I have little imagination, so I can't imagine what a woman would want in terms of a gift. Plus, all women are different. And what man can figure out the female brain? Scientists can't do it. Ordinary men can't do it. As far as I know, only advice columnists can decode the female mind, and I don't know any of those. Advice columnists, that is.

But all in all, I'm thankful there is a Valentine's Day, or else I wouldn't have such a nice blender to make smoothies. I meant to say, Nuria wouldn't have such a nice blender. That I can borrow to make smoothies.

I purchased a blender for my kitchen a few years ago, but it's the kind that separates the solids from the liquid. I think drinking the peel with the juice is probably healthier than just drinking the juice. And the old blender takes longer to clean after using it. I have to disassemble it and clean each part with a brush, then let the parts dry, then reassemble it. Cleaning the new blender is basically a rinse-and-let-dry operation. 

But now I have to start planning. Nuria has a birthday in June, and Christmas is only 321 days away. I barely have time to think of her next gift before it's time to give it to her. I guess it's inherited. My dad was exactly the same way. Every Christmas, he would drive to a nearby drugstore late on Christmas Eve and buy my mother something simple like panties. I was just a kid and still I felt bad for my mother. She bought gifts for everyone. And wrapped them, and put them under the tree. She deserved better. But dad was a hard-working, hard-drinking man, who did such things as gift-buying at the very last minute. I think he knew better, and I can't believe he didn't feel some remorse over his last minute Christmas shopping.

I guess I inherited some of my dad's DNA. In fact, I know I did: half of my DNA is his. As for my mother, she was a worrier, and I inherited that. I worry about buying gifts. There should be someone I can pay to gift-shop for me. But then, they would surely end up buying the wrong things, and I'm already good at doing that.

1883

I'm watching a TV mini-series called 1883. It's a good show. It's about a group of settlers going West in a wagon train in (of course) the year 1883. There are ten episodes in season one, and thus far, six have been aired. I don't know if there will be a season two. That's why it's called a "mini-series." 

Watching the show, it brings to mind what my own family may have gone through, though they never went West. My father's family came from Florida and Alabama. Unfortunately, I can't trace them back further than the Civil War. Many courthouses in the South were burned during the Civil War, and records were lost. 

My mother's Virginia ancestry is more intact and I can reliably trace her roots to a man born in England in 1599. I can trace his roots even farther back, but the farther back I go, the less reliable the information becomes.

My mother, Alice, was born in 1916 in Sussex County, Virginia. My grandmother, Sarah, was born in 1890. Sarah's mother, Mariah, was born about 1855 and Sarah's father, John, was born about 1838. John would have been 45 years old in 1883, which, in my opinion, was a little bit old to make the trip west. It was a difficult trip and required very hardy folk. They had to cross a continent, the Great Plains, desert, mountains, and rivers, in horse-drawn covered wagons (not to be confused with the earlier Conestoga wagons pulled by bulls that were used to settle the eastern part of America). Many photos and drawings of the covered wagons are on Wikipedia here.

Imagine traveling for thousands of miles through wilderness in what was essentially a small farm wagon covered with canvas. If those settlers had known in advance of the hardships that they would have to endure, many of them may have reconsidered their trips west. They might have looked around and thought, "You know, this place where I am now isn't so bad." 

But many of the settlers going west had already crossed an ocean in a wooden boat with canvas sails to get here, and nothing was going to stop them from their goals. They were sturdy, determined folk. I think it likely that most of them were young. Young people haven't experienced so much of life's hardships. They still think anything is possible. Some of them were right. Their gamble paid off and they found a new and better life. Others lie buried along the thousands of miles of wagon trails. Though they lost their gamble, I respect them equally for trying. They were building a country in the most difficult circumstances, though most of them surely didn't think of it that way. For many living in the 19th century, hardship was normal, and moving West was just a different kind of hardship. If they continued living in the East, they knew what their future would hold. Traveling west was a gamble that a better future lay at the end of their long trek.

As I said earlier, 1883 is a good TV show. It shows us the hardships that settlers faced. I hope the outcome is as satisfying as the journey.

Dentist Visit

I went to the dentist yesterday. It had been three years since my previous visit. I used to go every six months, but then ... Covid. I don't care to have someone who might have Covid breathing at me 18 inches from my face, even if they're wearing a mask. But time passed and I decided it was time to go to a dentist, and I chose a dentist who has an office about 5 minutes walking time from my home. His office is less than one minute away by car. 

This was my first visit, so a young woman cleaned my teeth and took a lot of x-rays. The dentist did meet me and we chatted for a couple minutes. He's from Venezuela. He complimented me on the way I rolled the R in his name. I took Spanish lessons for two years, but that was sixty years ago. More recently, I tried taking Spanish lessons from Duolingo but the grammar and verb conjugation were too difficult and my brain was too old for so much new information. 

The rest of the day was uneventful. I went to bed around 10PM and, because I had not slept at all during the previous night, I went to sleep quickly. I awoke around 1AM with a toothache. I lay in bed for about thirty minutes and the toothache didn't get any better. I knew I was not going to get any sleep with it. So I got up and took a couple of acetaminophens. I stayed up another hour until the acetaminophen was taking effect and the pain was beginning to ease, then I went back to bed and fell asleep. I attribute the toothache to the dental cleaning. Probably a bit of water and maybe some plaque got pushed under the edge of my gum. Today, twelve hours later, the pain hasn't returned. I've got my fingers crossed that it stays that way.

After the dental cleaning I left the office with five new appointments. The first appointment is called a followup. The next four appointments were for filling new cavities. And though they're not scheduled yet, I'm supposed to come back for two new crowns. The crowns are going to cost about a thousand dollars each, which I think is a lot, but the dentist said that without them, those two teeth will fall apart. Actually, my teeth have been falling apart since I was a kid. My brother once told me, when we were kids, that my teeth were as hard as oatmeal. When I was attending college I couldn't afford to see a dentist. So when I graduated and had a job, I went to a dentist. He found three old fillings that needed to be drilled out and replaced, plus fourteen new cavities to be drilled and filled. He scheduled appointments on two consecutive days, about four hours each day. The impressions made by my fingers gripping the armrests of his chair are probably still visible. I recall leaving his office and getting into a taxi (my car was in a repair shop). I said to the taxi driver in my best novocaine-numbed speech, "I migglee yass ump to inruig coloomba." The driver looked at me as if I were a Martian. So I began pointing this way and that way, and he followed my hand signals and got me home.

I look forward to my five new dental appointments (more if I get the crowns). Don't you hate it when the receptionist looks up from behind her desk and says, "You again!?" At least the bookkeeper will give me a warm greeting.