Texting While Driving

If local laws ban texting while driving, how does that affect my habit of writing messages/journal entries in a notepad while I’m sitting behind the wheel aiming a two-tonne machine on tires powered by an internal combustion engine through traffic?

Depending on the part of the world/country in which you live, you might have a preconceived notion about the driver of the vehicle below:

I don’t.  I have seen men, women, boys, girls, Caucasians, Asians, Hispanics, blacks, young and old behind the wheel of dubbed-up rim jobs like this rolling down the highway.  I’ve never seen a homeless type person or an Amazonian tribal member driving one, though.

Makes me wonder…

If we’ll spend fifteen thousand dollars on a set of wheels, would we spend fifteen large on annual healthcare or a ride 100 km above Earth’s surface?

I am a childless, dying person so I don’t have to worry about leaving a legacy behind.  I can say what I want and do what I want while deciding if I want to obey local traffic laws when scribbling personal observations and notes to remind myself to thank others for their kindness to me throughout the day.

There are 13,883 days to reach the next milestone.

Thanks to Shannon at Arby’s, Liz at Beauregard’s, Michelle at Dreamland BBQ, the busy staff at Gibson’s BBQ on the last free pie day of April, Nichelle at PVA, Joe and Jenn at KCDC, Irina and Julia, Hannah at Shaggy’s, Danny at Walmart, Jonathan at Anaheim Chili, Ian at the Rave, Lynn, Sarah and Dr. Pugh, and many more.

Pause for thought of the day.

On a personal side note, I’ve found that recent stress has greatly increased my desire for sex.  Very interesting as well as disruptive, as if I’m creating vast stores of testosterone in order to take on and conquer the world.  Makes me not want to look into a person’s eyes because I feel like all the lust inside of me is pouring out through my face.

Spending time on self-examination takes away from building scenarios for the story of our lives told in this blog.

For instance, my dreams have reached vivid proportions.

In last night’s dream, while my wife and I traveled through snowy country on a tandem bike, we topped an icy hill and were suddenly sitting in a car.  Topping the next hill, we happened upon a set of railroad tracks.

We stood by the tracks.  I was holding the reins of a rope harness attached to a cow.  The cow was pulling a set of railroad cars which had big wooden wheels like you see on a child’s playtoy set.

The cow was very tired.  It wanted to get into a hot tub.

I climbed into the hot tub with the cow so it could warm up its legs.  Sitting in the tub was a woman with orange hair and ivory-white skin covered with freckles.  She was a cow whisperer.

My wife asked the cow whisperer to interpret what the cow was saying.  The cow rubbed its head against me like a cat, making low mooing sounds like a cat’s purr.  The cow whisperer said the cow was weary of the ways of the world and wanted to quit pulling the railroad cars.

The cow, tub and whisperer disappeared.  I was standing by the railroad tracks with the rope in my hand.  My wife wanted to go on to the hotel/chalet where we had a reservation.  I pulled hard on the rope and finally got the railroad cars rolling in parallel with the railroad tracks.

We entered the chalet and walked the halls looking for our room.  I kept pulling the rope, wondering if the railroad cars would fit in the hallways and stairwells we walked and walked for a while.

Finally, we found our room.  Inside was a man who looked like the character of Mr. Ripley played by Matt Damon.  The man kept telling us one different story after another about why we had this particular room, including why I had the rope in my hand.  He promised to tell me if the railroad cars would fit in the chalet hallways when the phone rang.

I jerked awake.  The bedside phone rang, disturbing the cats sleeping next to me.  My wife had already left for work.

I answered the phone.  My mother was on the line giving me an update about my father’s stay at the VA.

My wife decided to interpret the images of my subconscious thought for me during dinner at Dreamland BBQ tonight:

  • The cow was my mother and the railroad cars were my father.
  • The man in the hotel room was my alternate egos.

While she told me her interpretation, TV screens around us featured talking heads analysing the recent suicidal death of Junior Seau, a former fearsome NFL player.

While I dreamt, a blind man proved he can change the course of history by standing between the governments of China and the U.S.

If a parrot can live longer than the average member of our species, then a dream can live longer than one civilisation cycle.

And texting while driving is a matter of interpretation.

Time to give my dreams impetus/motivation and transportation!

As Joggers Pass by the Cedar-Sided House in the Woods…

Working with my cadre of computer coders to gather data from (i.e., infiltrate) the apps most commonly downloaded by the hapless, in order to prepare a future of inexactitude.

The Chinese and [some] African national leaders say they are preparing a future that corrects the mistakes of Western foreign policies of the past.

Former enemies, the Brits and the Spaniards, approach a nearterm future of recessionary policy correction.

How long can we continue to suffer the pains of governments shrinking their influence upon the economy until the next breakthrough occurs?

Do we reword our headlines to say high unemployment rates are the goals we are achieving?

How do we prove to the restless youth that we’re encouraging them to think for themselves, outside the cereal box of toys and teeth-rotting sugary substances that drain their futures?

You are challenged to create the future in your own image.

You don’t have to depend on mass media portrayals of backyard BBQs, retirement accounts, jogging baby strollers and mobile phone technology implants because you need to communicate your thoughts before you think them.

Rushing into the future is no rush.  The highs get duller and duller.

Crime is a matter of perspective.

As joggers pass by the cedar-sided house in the woods, they burn energy, converting their sets of states of energy into portable heaters.

That’s the future you want to concentrate on.

The one that matters most.

After all, what distinguishes a natural-born member of our species from a cybernetic simulation?

Is it the jogger, the cedar siding, the house, or the woods?

A question posed 1000 years from now on a celestial body far from Earth.

That’s your future we derived from your app data.

Deal with it.

Two thoughts for your daily thoughtfulness

In an all-luring story that has rocked the boat of the sports fishing  industry, federal investigators, after years of infiltrating the deepest pockets of the business, were caught in a dragnet of controversy.

After spending millions of pounds/yuan/dollars in coordinating with international police authorities, our national team of crack crimestoppers, unwilling to let any criminal activity go unpunished, no matter how insignificant its effect on our general economy, finally revealed the information that freedom fighters have been requesting for decades.

Apparently, sponsors of major fishing tournament winners have long been paying locals to catch, raise and fatten prize fish, then releasing them just in time into secret spots that sponsors then suggested to their celebrity sports fishermen to call their own, thus ensuring their sponsorship money was not wasted and their winners won.

The shock that has rippled through the stream of the sport has turned many of the most diehard fans into temporary doubters, wondering if all that talk about the best bait and the most expensive, yet successful, fishing gear — including boats, sonar equipment, beer kegs and excuses to get away from family in order to catch edible foodstuff — has been in vain.

County, state and federal subcommittees have been called into emergency session to question fish and wildlife employees about fishery and hatchery practices.  Have they been reporting dead fish that were actually sold to locals?  Are they eating fish they killed and claimed as losses?  Are the stuffed and mounted fish on their trophy walls victims of “spoilage” reports filed in dusty government storage boxes?  How far up the government ladder does this go?  Did this cause the housing crisis in some obscure way that gets financial investment companies off the hook?

= = = = =

Quote for the day:

I hate to break it to you, but your $2,000 designer dog is a mutt.  Puppy stores and breeders have created these cute names like Morkipoos and Puggles, and now people are paying $2,000 for a dog they couldn’t give away at the pound ten years ago.  Whoever started the trend is a marketing genius.” — Dennis Leon, DVM (courtesy of Readers Digest, May 2012 issue)

= = = = =

Bonus puzzle of the day: I have a fellow secondary school alumnus who is a local state representative.  I have a fellow secondary schoolmate, an employee of a local newspaper, who endorsed a rival candidate running against the state representative.  One, should that affect my mental thought set about the two of them as friends/classmates?  Two, should newspaper (or any mass media) employees publicly endorse political candidates and if so, should they have to make it clear they speak for themselves and not the mass media company that employs them?

Both Sides of the Law

While an Arby’s Junior dissolves with curly fries in my stomach, topped with a Reese’s bunny-shaped peanut butter flavoured bar, NASCAR drivers prepare for their usual weekend gig and Brazil nuts grow in the jungle.

A friend asked me why we no longer debate the [de]merits of having a chief executive in the White House with no military experience.

Good question.

We spend many a minute examining the minutiae of business experiences of major political candidates, including the incumbent, but we fail to notice their lack of actual, on-the-ground, basic-training, in-the-bunker or sweating-in-the-field-tent combat training.

Because I live in a town that generates a lot of local tax revenue from government-based military operations, my perspective might be different from that of a city dweller where large chunks of the economy come from the financial sector, tourism, creative arts or academia.

Sometimes, I get so wrapped up in the dual-use aspect of government spinoffs, including rocket technology and outer space life support systems, that I forget other industries prop up our modern standards of living, too.

What about the global economy in general?  It would be easy for me to get lost in reports about our hyperconnected world but I’m interested in more than that, as you know.

The global military budget is about 2% of world economic production.  Now, ask yourself, do you spend more or less than two percent of your household budget (post-tax take home pay, that is) to protect yourself, your loved ones and your possessions from the desire by others to possess what you have?

Think about these examples: the locks on your doors and windows; home security system; computer antivirus software; gates, fences and other property barriers; insecticides and herbicides; curtains/drapes; wall/ceiling/floor insulation; enclosed heating/cooling system; paper shredder; file cabinet/safe; personal weaponry (guns, knives, etc.); apartment/flat doorman.

What about the knowledge that your neighbours having some of the things above, that you don’t, acts as an implied deterrent for you?

Today, my family received the great news that my father, who served in the U.S. Army, and was recently diagnosed with ALS bulbar option, will be able to spend time in a temporary skilled nursing facility at the nearby VA medical center to aid in his rehab and preparation for longterm care.

History says we are involved in fewer and smaller wars as the years progress in this current cycle of globally-connected subcultures (a/k/a the one-world civilisation/order).

Despite our growing civility toward one another, old thought patterns prevail, meaning there is still a need for protective services of one sort or another and, in the longterm, medical care for those who served and sacrificed their time, effort and lives for the rest of us, whether or not we served and/or paid for protective services ourselves.

Our family thanks many who helped my father regain his physical strength and helped us work through the paperwork to secure a place for my father’s continued medical journey — IPC (Heather, Carmen, Anna), HealthSouth Rehab Hospital (Jennifer, Ethan, Amy, Amanda and many others), and VAMC (Heidi, PJ, and more).

If it weren’t for the battery life…

If it weren’t for the battery life I’d keep using the resistive screen of the 7-inch Sylvania Android 2.31 tablet, which meets my basic needs for checking email, listening to Internet radio, looking at some of my favourite websites (as well as a few random ones for edification) and maintaining a daily blog.

That sums up the life of one mortal human being tied to the electronic social network as defined/updated by us in this moment together.

I believe we have arrived back at a blog entry in which the storyline we’d left where the reluctant leader steps back into the picture and tells us how things are going on the Committee, don’t you?

Either that, or release random ASCII character sequences that represent the latest cracked password of a heavily-guarded secret location and let the world of script kiddies have fun for a day.

Sold by Jennifer Nye — independent consultant — the wax of a block of Amber Road ™ Scentsy wax melts in a bowl atop a Morocco warmer which sits in the place where a spider web/dropping covered book by Paul D. Ackerman used to collect dust.

As the room fills with the hints of smells of an exotic bazaar, let us step into the shoes of the reluctant leader and see what’s going on…

Hi there!  Reluctant Leader here again!  Just the other day I was nibbling samples at a shoppe called Nothing Bundt Cake, remembering the scene in some Greek-themed film where a character tries to pronounce the word “bundt.”  In front of me, an eager man watched my every move.

You know the type, always gauging the customer’s desires, trying to meet the character’s needs, catering to the curmudgeon’s every whim, no matter how surly he may be while stroking his curly, unkempt beard.

That was me, the Reluctant Leader, in ordinary disguise, acting upon my urge to Manage By Walking Around.

You see, the Committee is back in crisis mode (is there ever a moment we’re not?).

As you’re fully aware, we coordinate the activities of people you would say are aligned with major political public business entities called nations.

It’s our policy to leave pretty much well alone the individual decisions of those who feel they have been destined to reach the highest offices of their politically-oriented business paths.

For instance, we could predict when the leaders have to use toilet facilities very easily but we’ve learned it’s best to let the leaders think they’ve decided on their own, unpredictably, when they feel the urge, regularly or irregularly (in fact, it was one of my predecessors who won a wager because he accurately predicted when and where George Bush deposited his meal in the lap of another dignitary).

Do you consider yourself one of those average citizens who is mentally engaged in silent conversations with or makes extemporaneous, expository speeches to the people around you about the goings-on of the elected or appointed officials in your geopolitical zone, and get emotionally involved in the actions of officials outside your geopolitical zone?

Chances are you will, if you don’t.

In addition to herding all seven billion of us toward establishing offworld colonies, I have the assigned goal of keeping you believing that world leaders are not actively talking to each other about the apparent rogue actions they take.

Some of you know better.

The Committee is composed of direct representatives of major trends in motion, including the most common sociopolitical movements about to change your life forever.

Because trends range in age from a few fleeting milliseconds to many centuries, the Committee membership varies accordingly.

Just the other day, I found an ancient-looking mummy propped up into a dark corner of the Committee Conference Center (sounds formal, but the room is really just an old cave in, at this time, an undisclosed location near some of you).

I started to ask if any of the Committee members knew where the mummy had come from when it spoke.  Turns out the mummy is an old member of a line of Celtic leaders who’d hope to take over the world a dozen or so centuries ago, but when the vote came up, the mummy had fallen asleep and did not awaken until I started poking around in his pockets for spare change.

He gave me some wisdom that I’ll share with you as soon as I translate the curse words he had for me into something more family-friendly.

Always trust your Mummy to tell you the honest truth about yourself!

Anyway, it’s getting close to lunchtime and I’ve got a few errands to run.  Afterward, I’ll sketch out the plots, subplots and false trails we’re planning to place in the popular news media to keep you clenching your teeth or nodding your head in your belief that subpopulations are out to get you or out to support you, depending on your mood we’ve set at the time.

It’s seems silly spending so much of my time making sure your idle moments are filled with what we want you to think, but if it gets us closer to permanent settlements on other celestial bodies, I’m game.

Does that mean I have to stop calling myself the Reluctant Leader?  It’s not like I completely relish all the fine details of putting subcommittees in action to plant ideas in blogs, tweets and street protests which inspire editors and producers to send their reporters out to fill columns and video screens with the news we want you to use and spread…

But I’m just a character in a blog and that’s my only choice, isn’t it?

“Customer Care – Incident Created”

In this day and age of multiple personality disorder — that is, our combination of official government identifications (driver’s licence, voter ID card, medical ID card, etc.) and online personalities (email address, social media identities (real and/or imagined)), etc.) — do we know who we are when we no longer know who we are?

While we work with medical professionals in private practice and public hospitals (a thanks to the folks at Holston Valley Medican Center and HealthSouth Rehab Hospital) to get my father on a track where he can have an acceptable, if not good/great, quality of life considering his conditions, my family works in the background to sort out my father’s multiple personalities.

For instance, my father kept Post-It notes of some of the usernames and passwords associated with his online personalities but not all of them, especially the most important ones.

His official government identification cards are up-to-date and don’t need fixin’, as we say around here.

However, working through the bureaucracy of getting help when help is needed most — a medical emergency — is just short of a nightmare for those of us able to sort through the payment options and insurance coverages that are written to accommodate as many diagnoses as are currently available in legible written form by the medical profession.

Woe be to those whose family members have symptoms that can’t readily be grouped into an official syndrome or disease.

I could wax and wane through many a lighted Moon cycle on the current state of the modern medical scientific community but suffice it to say that any view 1000 years hence marks this time, like all looks back into history, as rather barbaric, archaic and borderline misinformed.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a fast-forward button to take my father into a future where his conditions are rather curable by enlightened practitioners.

I have to deal with the training and knowledge at hand, such that it is.

Thank goodness, compassion, care and comfort are rather universal — human touch, in other words, is good for most of us, in one form or another.

My father responds well to communication with fellow members of his gender.  Guy-to-guy gatherings are his thing and he perks up when men ask him to perform manly tasks.

He does not want to be babied or treated weakly by women.

Otherwise, all is well that progresses well.

Me, I don’t mind attention by females in medical professional roles but I’ve noticed my father responds best when treated by men — doctors, nurses, therapists and specialists.

Probably a generational thing as well as social training — I am a child of the 1960s/1970s whereas my father is a child of the pre/during-WWII era, with other subcultural nuances thrown in for good measure.

Something the medical community should take into consideration when vocalising concerns about getting more people involved in seeking certification for jobs/roles in the medical field.

Healing is not just application of chemical treatments — treating people like desired monoculture grass lawns — it’s also understanding where the patient is coming from and wants to be treated.

The online world is no different.  How do we create a system so that when a person’s ability to recall important online identity tags diminishes, family members can step in and help without having to figure out the unique character set combinations the person’s brain created to protect online personalities, especially where bill payment and medical information access is critical to keeping the person healthy and out of financial trouble?

People to thank with more to follow: Benjamin, Amanda, Tina, Martha, Mary, Sue, Jennifer, Joyce, Glenda, Brenda…

Classmates/neighbours in office

Political news of the day:

I saw where one of my wife’s secondary school classmates, “Nobody doesn’t like” Sarah Lee Davis, was elected in yesterday’s election at Hawkins County, Tennessee, to the office of Clerk of Courts.  In addition, according to the Kingsport Times-News, another of my wife’s classmates, Hannah Boyd Bell, a former member of Reagan’s West (or was it East?) Wing staff, has a brother, Daniel Boyd, who was also elected uncontested to the Hawkins County Juvenile Court judge seat, receiving 5,189 votes.  I didn’t even know he was running.

More from Davis:

Davis said the first person to sign her candidate petition for clerk of courts was her father, Jackie Lee, who passed away five days later on Sept. 15. Davis, who received 3,932 votes ahead of Cradic’s 2,966, said she dedicates the victory to her father, who gave her the confidence to run for the clerk of courts office.

“I took the petition to him and he signed it, and he told me that when I started work there he told his wife that I would have that office someday,” Davis said. “He looked at me and he said, ‘I have all the faith in the world in you, and you will run that office someday.’ And I’m going to get that chance thanks to my dad for having more faith in me than I did myself. He was really my driving force, and that’s what carried me through it.”

Davis said she attributes the victory to hard work.

“I went door to door, and I didn’t buy one advertisement in the newspaper because I felt like I was asking the people of Hawkins County for a job, and when you ask someone for a job you do it face to face,” Davis added. “I would say I’m here for my job interview because I’m asking you for a job.”

When Davis takes over in September, she said her number one priority will be doubling collections. She also plans to cross-train every deputy clerk to do every job in the office so they can provide better customer service, and she intends to improve public relations.

. . .

Voter turnout for Tuesday’s election in Hawkins County was 7,985 out of the county’s 35,017 eligible voters, or 22.8 percent. As for partisan turnout there were 7,606 Republican votes cast and 379 Democratic votes cast.

How does parenting affect future adults?

Ahh…the parody, of the day, if not a lifetime: “Daddy didn’t hug me” photo series.

And a look back at military humour, just to show the progress of time is an illusion:

Like Jackie Gleason said, “Ten million comedians out of work and I’ve got to compete against the absurdity of politicians to get quality air time!  Who’s gonna think I’m funny after listening to them?”

A nod to humour everywhere, including Cairo.

Maybe a little ancient air-conditioning will cool off international tensions.

Back to raising the next crop of hackers to keep our species honest, whatever that means.

An Incompetent Education

In case you missed it, the Association of Comglomerates announced today that, going forward, all newhires at any organisation — corporation, sports team, quilting club, stamp collectors, etc. — must sit through a viewing of the film, “About Schmidt,” and then write an essay about why life must go on despite one’s useless Sisyphean effort to make a difference.

As an alternative, one may appear in “Death of a Salesman” or interview a person standing on a bridge about to commit suicide.

Major universities around the world are contemplating adding curriculum as the capstone course to all university degree programs.

Card-losing members of Apathetics, Anonymous, are confused about the situation — why the fuss?

Nihilists are rejoicing that they’ve won the day and will announce the proclamation of “The World is Nothing Day” during this evening’s news broadcast.

The World Trade Organisation has refused to admit defeat and will continue to closely cooperate with financial institutions to put everyone and every institution under heavy loads of debt, thereby confirming the futility of life unknowingly.