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yeah I know you did not ask!
So I am walking out my building after a long, exhausting day of twiddling bits and bytes. There is a young lady from another office walking out in front of me. I say to myself, “There is something odd about that young woman?” Then it dawned on me what it was. She had a waist, a very petite waist. Definitely not something you see too much of these days.
I really surprised myself as how quickly I went from wandering around REI Christmas shopping to madder than a Baptist finding his favorite liquor store closed.
The REI here is St. Louis is in one of the richest parts of town. The parking lot is full of Beamers, Mercedes and Teslas in addition to the expected Subabrus, Toyotas and Hondas. We were walking towards the front of the store to check out. Robin never noticed him, but there was a young man, perhaps in his late twenties, walking around with a 45 strapped to his waist. He was obviously not store security. He did not look like a plains clothes police office in his Australian outback hat. I had to turn around and walk towards the back of the store as my impulse was to walk up to him and say, “Unless you are carrying a badge, you are one stupid mother f***er.
I do not want to live in a society where people can walk around with lethal weapons strapped to their bodies. I consider concealed carry laws an atrocity beyond words. I have lived 63 years and I can think of only one situation where I might have wanted a gun. Instead I turned around and confronted the man verbally which was enough. It is insane to have to worry about accidentally triggering some mental case with a gun tucked away somewhere on their body. If I verbally abuse you, flip you off, or cut you off in traffic it is more insanity to have to worry about a weapon.
My personal opinion is that anyone that is willing to carry a weapon, openly or otherwise, in a situation where the need for it approaches an infinitesimal small percentage is not sane enough to carry a weapon.
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.
I was walking out of a restaurant tonight when I overheard a boy of about 7 or 8 years say to his mother, “Do old grandpa men know anything?”
God bless his mother who said, “Yes they know a lot, they have a lot of experience.”
It does not seem that in this youth oriented culture the elderly are valued much. The mother went against the grain a bit. As I said, God bless her.
Note: At the bottom of this post you will find a link to view the Faces of Meth.
If you are walking at night and come to the edge of the cliff, the smart thing to do is turn around. If you take another step the result is not likely to be good. Many drugs fall into the same category. To start taking some drugs is like walking up to that cliff edge, only the results are not so veiled. There have been many folks that have gone before you that have crashed and burned on the rocks below.
In the early 70s I lived in Rhode Island. I was single, and occasionally would party with a group of folks. Usually it was beer drinking and some pot. I had an ambivalent relationship with pot. Sometimes it made feel nice and mellow. Sometimes, though, it made me feel depressed and paranoid. I can achieve depression all by my lonesome, and feeling paranoid is no fun. At some point I decided that I did not like rolling the dice with unsure results. So I quit smoking pot. One evening before I quit, I went to visit my party friends. I walked in the house and they were all sitting around the coffee table. Upon the table were needles, a tourniquet, and other heavy duty drug paraphernalia. Continue reading “Faces on Meth, A Disturbing Reality”
You are walking through a building and you see someone you know. You are approaching each other at right angles. You smile, wave, say hi; invoke some method to acknowledge their presence in the universe. They responded weakly in the same or similar manner.
As you pass each other you hear them speaking so you turn and indicate that you did not quite pick up what they just said.
They turn and look at you in an annoyed manner, indicating that they are talking on the phone.
Sorry, I did not see the Bluetooth tucked beneath your hair.
I remember several years ago when these devices first became popular. I was in the San Antonio airport returning from a job interview. It was the middle of the week so there were a lot of business travelers. It seemed that just about half of them had Bluetooth earpieces. As they walked around talking on these things the little lights were flashing. What immediately came to mind is from Star Trek: The Next Generation, “We are Borg, you will be assimilated.”
I think we are well on our collective way.
This is for the grandkids…
When my son was but a wee laddie, say around 4 or 5 I told him the following joke:
An American was driving in France. He sees a pretty, young French woman walking besides the road. He stops besides her, opens the passenger door and asks her Continue reading “Oui, Oui”
My girlfriend put on her Rosie the Riveter t-shirt before she went walking. This generated a discussion. Is Rosie the Riveter gay or straight?
My contention is that she is a very self-confident woman. She feels powerful and empowered. She may be doing what is traditionally a man’s job, but she stills feel confidentially all woman on the inside and men are her thing. She is not afraid to go after what she needs or wants, and this spills over into her sexuality.
My girlfriend thought she was definitely gay, and butch gay to boot.
What do you think?
Recently I was in Orange Beach, by gawd, Alabama on a fishing trip. After a nice and productive day of offshore fishing we decided to go to a nice restaurant for dinner, seafood of course. It was a fancy place complete with table clothes and starched napkins. Over to right of us were several tables pushed to together for what looked like a bachelorette party. There were about 30 or so pretty women in their early twenties sitting at the tables.
Before the food arrived I needed to go to the bathroom. As I was walking back I realized one of my table mates was behind me. The shortest route from the facilities to our table was by this bevy of beautiful southern belles. Continue reading “Reverend Joe wipes out a waiter”
A regular golf course is generally 6000 to 6500 yards long. That is 3.4 to 3.7 miles. If you are like me when you play golf, it is never a straight line. I am guessing that in a round of golf I probably walk 4 to 4 ½ miles. A reasonably healthy individual should be able to do that in an hour of brisk walking.
A round of golf usually takes approximately 4 hours. Theoretically you are walking at the blistering pace of 1 mile per hour. In reality there is a fair amount of standing around, and then brisk walking to your ball. I carry my bag, throw in some elevation changes, and you have a reasonable amount of exercise. The figures I have seen say about 7 calories per minute playing golf if you are walking and carrying your bag. That means you are burning up around 1700 calories as long as you stay away from the beer concession.
This is not the first time I’ve been asked, “Are you really going to walk all 18 holes?” This time it was by 4 young men in their late teens or very early 20s. These young men all looked in good health, and were not carrying the excess weight of many of their peers. We conversed a little, and they just could not imagine walking the course.
I walk because a) I enjoy the game more when I am walking. Buzzing around in a cart brings in a rushed dimension to the game I do not like. b) I love the exercise. I am in reasonable shape compared to many of my peers. Walking the golf course is one the things that helps maintain my fitness. c) I’m cheap and I like to play a lot of golf. Paying for a cart adds $10 to $15 to the price of a round of golf.
I knew one young man whose reason for not walking was he did not want anyone to think he could not afford a cart!!! What a load of baloney.
Some golf courses will not let you play during certain hours unless you rent a cart. I do know some walkers slow things down a little. I’m not so sure that is a bad thing. I’ve golfed with far too many folks early in day that acted like playing 18 holes was just another chore to finish. That strikes me a missing one of the key joys of golf.
I have frequently played with folks in carts while I walked. Unless they are extremely good golfers with the ball in the fairway all the time I keep up with them. Frequently I am waiting on them.
I will acknowledge that for many folks if they did not have a cart there would be no place to carry the cooler of beer. Golf in this case just becomes an activity to do while drinking. Oh well.
I just see so many folks that would benefit from the mild exercise golfing provides, yet they feel they must ride or they cannot play. Given the current obesity epidemic how wonderful it would be if a few of these folks jumped off their carts and walked.
Or at least they could at least quit acting like I was nuts for doing so.