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Hurrying into the office

Short, young, round woman jaywalking across a 4 lane one-way street in downtown St. Louis.  She attempts to hurry with her feet hardly clearing the pavement and her knees barely bending.  If it were not for the feminine form it would look like an old man’s shuffle in high speed.  The curb appears at the end of her rush from traffic.  Somehow she manages to make the shuffle leap the six inches up, but this acrobatic maneuver  throws her center of gravity off forcing her body forward much too fast.   She manages to regain her balance. Her travel slows to a normal gait.  Surely she is heading into the office congratulating herself for beating the odds of against downtown traffic once more.

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Raw Okra

There is an unknown person at work who obviously has a garden.  Occasionally they will bring in product of the okraaforementioned agricultural endeavor.  Some of it is rather strange, a single banana pepper, a half a cucumber, a grossly misshaped  tomato.

Last week this incognito agronomic  benefactor brought in a small, yellow bucket of tomatoes.  Next day there was a sign on the table in the break indicating that the tomatoes were gratis and to be taken, but please return the bucket.  I laughed.

This morning there were a few “maters” and two stalks of okra on the break room table.  I commented to a young lady in there, “That is rather strange, what do you do with just two stalks of okra?”

Her rejoinder was, “You eat it raw.”

“Raw”, I said, “I’ve eaten okra fried, boiled and pickled, but never raw.”

The lady replied, “They are crunchy like potato chips, but healthier.”

I had nothing to say after that.  Anyone else ever eat okra raw?

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Impaled on my own self-effacement

Impaled on my own self-effacement1209026_10151613261694147_348947125_n

I had worked on some reports for another area some 2 or 3 months in the past. The young lady (39 years of age) whose area it is had moved all but one of the reports into production. She asked my help this morning in moving the last report. I replied, “I would need to refresh myself with the report, as being 78 years old I do not remember what I had for breakfast this morning.” She looked at me funny for a minute and replied, “You’re not 78… are you?”

Sigh.

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Egypt – The Withering of the Arab Spring

egypt As an outsider looking in at the situation in Egypt it is very confusing.  I am going to explore my thoughts via this piece.  It would be appreciated if anyone who  had thoughts on this would comment.  It just seems like awful conflict with both sides wrong.

First allow me to admit that most of my news comes from NPR.  While many folks rant about NPR’s “Liberal” slant I find it one of the few news sources without a large bias.  So many of the news sources of our time are more opinion than news and/or have a definite bias. Since I almost never watch TV news, my other source of news is the Internet, so much of which must be taken with a grain of salt.  I do tend to browse the more liberal news/opinion sites.  To counterbalance this I do browse the BBC site almost daily to get a point of view from outside the United States.  On very rare occasions I will look at Al Jazeera site. Like most folks I am stuck in my bias silo, but I do attempt to make the occasional foray into other arenas of thought.

I have a love/hate relationship with my country.  Continue reading “Egypt – The Withering of the Arab Spring”

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Amtrak Could and Should Do Better

I think I understand why Amtrak is having business problems.USA-superliner-train-seats

I would love to be able to take a train a lot of places I visit.  First and foremost, there are not passenger trains to many places.  If there is the travel time is much more than it would be by car and the real kicker is that the tickets are more expensive than driving.   At least that has been my experience every time I have checked for an upcoming trip.

We recently returned from a wedding that was held in downtown Chicago.  We took Amtrak from St. Louis to Union Station in Chicago there and back.  The tickets for the two of us ran around $245.  Gas for the trip would have ran from $100 to $150 depending on which vehicle we took and how much additional driving we did.   However overnight parking in downtown Chicago would have cost us at least $60 per day.   To the above figure add $120.  Because we were splitting cabs with other attendees to the wedding, cabs probably ran another $20 or $25 while we were there.   Double that if we had not split.

Our train was due to leave St. Louis Friday morning at 7:55 a.m.   The Texas Eagle was behind schedule.  Continue reading “Amtrak Could and Should Do Better”

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Hey Ted Nugent…Guns are not toys.

Dead-Nugent-1219x1200I will admit to liking one or two Ted Nugent songs, but on the whole I am not a fan.  My musical tastes tend toward Americana, singer/songwriter, jazz and classical music.  However, Ted Nugent as a political activist I categorically do not like.  It is an actually aversion.  I am a big supporter of free speech, but part of me cannot help but thinking in a sane society this individual would be receiving heavy psychiatric counseling.

My aversion to Mr. Nugent stems from his attitude towards guns and his support of seeming absolutely no gun control.

To state the obvious, guns are designed to kill, period.  They have no other function.   They are meant to either kill humans or animals.  Of course, there are effects that stem from this function.

They have been and are used for agents of gathering meat.  This use has limited functionality now, as most folks who hunt for food in the United States will readily tell you that it is not cost efficient.  While I personally do not hunt, I can understand the desire.  It is not something I would wish to take away from people.  Continue reading “Hey Ted Nugent…Guns are not toys.”