Author: Rev. Joe Dirt

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Strange sight.

I left work a little after 1730. I started to encounter traffic not far from the garage where I park. This is unusual as the garage is the last stop before the road next to the Mississippi River. Usually, what I see are tourists lost, not knowing where to turn.

Then THEY started to appear. First it was a stray pair or two. Then I started to see groups of 3 and 4. The groups began to coalesce into larger groups of a dozen or so. As I turned the corner and drove past the back side of the casino I saw more and more groups. What was scary was that they were walking far more rapidly than I was used to seeing. They were walking with a purpose! And not a one was walking head down, thumbs all akimbo, eyes lost in a micro-world of a smart phone.

As I approached the lights before the Edward Jones Dome the groups swelled to a tsunami. Everywhere I looked it was teeny-boppers with far too few clothes on. Yeah there was the occasional mother, and I did even see one teen boy of questionable gender.

It dawned on me that there must be a concert tonight in the Dome. So I looked it up when I finally arrived at the house. One Direction is playing tonight. To perfectly honest I have no idea who they are. From their website they look like the boy band de jour.

I’m under the opinion that for the most part women/girls dress for other females, except when they are obviously trolling. There must have been several thousand young girls, obviously trolling, with a fantasy that they would attract the attention of whoever their favorite of these boys de jour was.

Strange sight.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 4,575

…yeah I know you did not ask!

I’m not much of a sports fan. I used to follow college football some, primarily the University of Oklahoma. Mainly because it is difficult to live in Oklahoma and not follow them, like it is difficult to not follow the Cardinals when you live in St. Louis. However, I have noticed a trend the last few years… guys who are not interested in sports and who are not afraid to say it. It used to be that you were less than manly if you could not cite the latest win/loss record of whomever. What a nice trend.   There is more to life that sports.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 4,453

…yeah I know you did not ask!

Blondes – The ultimate public servants, allowing the rest of the world to feel superior.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 1,153

…yeah I know you did not ask!

I passed an AT&T company car this morning going to work.  I so wanted to get the driver’s attention, make the sign of phone by ear and then point at myself.  I resisted the impulse.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 8,331

…yeah I know you did not ask!

I do not know if this inability to observe and learn or an overestimation of one’s driving abilities and reaction times. 031212 carfailure

According to the State Farm website a safe following distance is the 3 second rule, 4 seconds is better.  That is when the car in front of you passes an object start counting.  You should be up to at least 3 before you pass the same object.  Rush hour traffic in St. Louis moves between 0 and 80 mph.  I try to get no closer than 2 seconds. Primary because at 62 going on 69 I know my reaction times are not what they were.  Even at this separation, I have folks pulling in front of me all the time, or trying to whip around me because I am going too slow.  Never mind that I maintain a constant separation with the vehicle ahead.

The percentage of all accidents that are rear-end collisions (termed a shunt in UK) is between 23 and 30%.  I drive 50 plus miles round trip commuting from Chesterfield to downtown St. Louis.  I almost never have a round trip without seeing at least one accident.  Frequently I see multiple accidents, and the accidents frequently involve more than two cars.  My estimation of the rush hour traffic accidents being rear-end collisions is in the high 90s.  Rear-end collisions are almost always caused by following too close.

Let’s get back to my opening statement.  I would think if you see this type of accident repeatedly happening a bell would go off somewhere.    I will vouch that it does not.  Tailgating is an awful problem in St. Louis rush hour traffic.  Maybe there is a reason humanity keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over, century after century.  Meanwhile I will maintain my 2 second separation and if you get too close to my bumper I will start slowing down.

 

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Daniel Boone Trivia

1190265-LTrivia for the Rush side of the family.

Natty Bumppo is the protagonist of James Fennimore Cooper’s The Leatherstocking Tales.  The books in this series are The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneers and The Prairie.

The Natty Bumppo character is generally believed to have been inspired, at least in part, by the real-life Daniel Boone.

Just as an aside… Daniel Boone’s last home is just outside of St. Louis in Defiance, MO.  It is an interesting tour.  Many things in this area are Boone this, or Boone that.

And another aside… Daniel is buried in two states. It is a tale I first heard when I toured his home in Defiance.  Here is an article on the controversy.  I do take umbrage at the author calling Daniel Boone a second tier folk hero though.

Boone’s Bones Brouhaha

 

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 1,234

…yeah I know you did not ask!

Definition of a politician:  An individual who spends inordinately large sums of money to get elected to a job for which they are not qualified.  Should they achieve this dubious goal the likelihood is that they will live up to the expectations of incompetence and/or corruption.

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Get a grip Dude!

I have a 2006 Mazda MX-5 (Miata) that I drive mainly on weekends when the weather is nice.  I bought the car from amaxresdefault fellow my age who was marrying a younger woman with two small kids. He needed a more family friendly vehicle.   He had had the car 9 months, and he was grieving about selling it.  I gave him $19,000 for a car that listed for $27,000 before his hormones kicked in.  It is the top trim line for this car, the Grand Touring edition.  Hang on, hang on….  I have a reason for relating all of this and it is not bragging.

To give you an idea of the performance of this vehicle I quote from Car and Driver’s road test:

“First, this new model is the fastest ever Miata-we know, we know, Mazda wants to forget about that name. It scoots to 60 mph in 6.5 seconds, continues through the quarter in 15 seconds flat at 91 mph, and doesn’t stop accelerating until it hits 131 mph. With the exception of the 91-mph trap speed, which was equaled by the turbocharged last-generation Mazdaspeed model, each of those figures sets a record for showroom MX-5s. And this performance is hugely faster than that of the original 1990 model, which needed 16.8 seconds to cover the quarter-mile and topped out at 116 mph.”

It is not a muscle car, but a whole lot of fun to drive.  It will hit 80 or 85 mph in 3rd gear (it has a 6 speed) before the car’s computer calls me stupid by shutting down the fuel flow before I blow a gasket. Continue reading “Get a grip Dude!”

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That noise you hear…

eagleOne of the courses I play regularly has a 417 yard dog-leg left par 4, as played from the white tees.  It is a very open hole so the wind affects the ball quite a bit.  About 200 yards from the green are two bunkers left of the fairway and one bunker right of the fairway.  If the wind is into me or still I just try to thread the needle between the two sets of bunkers.   If the wind is behind I attempt to carry the left set of bunkers as it leaves a short shot to the green.  Most of the time though when I do this my ball ends up in the rough, but I have a clear shot to the green.

Friday I caught the hole downwind, and I caught my tee shot well.  I might have tugged it just a bit.  Nevertheless I was in the fairway.  My handheld GPS unit told me I had about 130 yards to the front of the green.  There was a red flag on the pole indicating a front pin position.  I drew my trusty 8-iron from its scabbard.  I went through my pre-shot routine taking dead aim at the pin as there was room left and right.  I hit one of the straightest shots I had ever hit in my life. Continue reading “That noise you hear…”