Arrogance

Is a quality displayed as a matter of course by Americans, who imagine themselves superior to all other beings. We're number one. Winner take all. Losers walk. This quality has been with us since our inception as a country, probably because we had spent a whole lot of lousy lifetimes living in Europe under the boot heel of this or that lord or king or member of royalty, who treated us not so nicely. 
Experience that and inwardly one vows "Never again!"

And so the new land opened up across the ocean and we non-royals flooded over to there, took everything that wasn't nailed down, and claimed it as ours. So what if there were people there before us? They weren't armed as well as we were and so we overpowered 'em. That's a fact, it's in our history, and though it's not exactly portrayed in that manner....
.....everybody knows that back in the day, those settlers came in and kicked ass and justified it by whatever means. Because there was no goin' back. 

Some of those settlers turned out to be Democrats, and some Republicans, and over time the nation split pretty evenly, or so the pollsters tell us, where jus' 'bout fifty percent of us lie on one side of the fence and fifty percent on the other and that depending on what is going down in D.C., or at the state level, we're likely to vote slightly to one side or another. It's almost like America has a split personality. We play to win, but we're also troubled by conscience, by what we've done to get where we are, and so we want to do right for the losers at the game, even if for some of ‘em gettin’ around to making’ amends, if any could at all be made, ain’t happenin’ and most likely won’t, least in my lifetime. 
'Cuz, gettin’ back to our proclivity to dominate, we know what it's like, each and every one of us, to be on the losin’ end. Ain't no glory there, ain't no fun.  

The alpha piece in this symbolic representation can be easily seen.

Markus Spiske- Unsplash.com

Well, years and years pass and now the nationwide vibe is that a tiny contingent wants to take everything that they can grab and leave the rest of us in the dust. Don't they understand that that is UN-American? Hell yeah we grab all that we can but- we disperse a lot of the booty to those that lose 'cuz even though they're losers, they're still kin. We try to make things right. 

The people what wants to take everything and give nothing back are messin' with American minds right now, they're trying to justify their positions by whatever means are necessary, which is a tactic that sits right with winner-take-all Americans, 'cept these people (I wouldn't go so far as to call 'em 'folks') really do mean to take it all and though that ain't exactly bein' stated, every American at a deep level ain't 'feelin' the love', as the sayin' goes.

What we're sensin' here is the ominous possible return of the olde days when we had to bow to the royal procession as it passed by, and give the roadway to 'em, whilst we stood there in the mud. 
An' how when it came to livin' conditions, how we usta look up at those castles on the hill and wonder what went on in there, 
An' when we were fightin' the wars for 'em how we thought that doin’ that would improve our situations, and it did some, for awhile, but then one of 'em would pick a fight with the guy across the river and back at it we'd be again. 

That was no way to live! 

It felt more like dyin'.

We remember all that, oh yeah, that's in us and that's why we don't like what we're seein', hearin', and feelin'. High up people go around sayin' they're gonna Make America Great Again well, that better be meanin' for all of us, not just the wannabe lords and ladies at the top. 'Cuz we've been there, meanin' Europe, and we ain't goin' back, even though they've got their acts together over there now for the most part. Either way, we can't go back 'home', they aren't lettin' in any more immigrants.

So what gives, what the hell, and WTF even? Maybe your arrogance has blinded you, power grabbers, but we see what you’re up to. True Americans ain't gonna let this slide. 

Forces Of Containment

Like it or not, you exist for the benefit of others who you probably do not know. Your life makes their life possible, a grander life, perhaps, because you act as support for their enterprise or enterprises. This is called being part of The Economy. 
The Economy is by no means a static thing, it changes as we breathe and as I write this and because it changes, it has to be monitored. 

Various monitoring systems are ever in place and have been since centuries past, these monitoring systems evolving with the times. The goal of these monitoring systems is to see to it that things do not get out of hand and that control is kept in the hands of the ones interested in seeing to it that their enterprises continue to function and prosper. This is not news to anyone, of course any business would see to those ends being accomplished, but often is it the case that long after any benefit to the operators of the enterprises has been realized, and benefit to the masses has been gained, that the enterprises themselves continue in operation. They do this until a superior technology or process comes along to overpower them, usurp them, which has happened quite regularly over the last few decades with the arrival of computers and digital technology. 

All enterprises have a beginning and an end. Initially, the process or device they introduce acts as a breakthrough and is seen as useful. This process or technology is adopted, that which it can supplant is retired or done away with, the process 'takes' more and more, becoming dominant, and then it meets its demise. This cycle has happened rather slowly throughout history and has been painstakingly documented but what about now? What technologies are being developed that could act as more rapid game changers upon our existing systems?
There are many. Any one could play a significant role in labor reduction, improvements in efficiency, or the outright elimination of existing means of doing things; these process improvements also affecting any resource gathering, stockpiling, needing to protect resources, the abilities to relocate and build, and may act to spur even more change. 

Existing enterprises most likely won't embrace these changes and will seek to thwart them in various ways, try to outlaw them even, but that will only work for a time. How many holes in the dam can you plug before you run out of fingers? 

Not Reality… …just reality… ..not Reality.. ...just reality…

Rye Jessen- Unsplash.com

The times we are in raises the potential of a lot of changes happening at once, which could severely destabilize the existing reality bubble humanity exists in and this is something that is exciting while at the same time frightening, for in the introduction of any element into existing systems there are reactions. Some are benign, hardly noticed, while some can be explosive. 

Enter the Forces Of Containment to temper the introduction of elements of change, to slow them, delay them, to (try and) thwart them entirely. We live in a system of duality and nowhere is that more true than in the balance of power. At the present time power lies in the hands of a few, who use money and information to condition the masses. 'Just enough' is given, is allowed the many, to keep them occupied and content with their lot, which makes them easy to manage. It's all about management. 

But is a human a cow? One of the herd, mindlessly chewing cud amongst other cows in some grassy field called suburbia, content with its lot because, compared to all the other cows in the field, he or she appears to be keeping up? 
Nay, I think the truth is that most humans have no idea who they actually are or why they're here, that they don’t know that each and every one of them was born innately noble, deserves only the best, and that they've been severely conditioned to think otherwise. But, such conditioning has kept perhaps many egos in check, egos that would have battled amongst each other and squabbled like playground kids over trivialities, with utter disregard for other's needs or the needs of the planet. School for us was necessary, is what I'm trying to say. 

And now, after the passage of many ages, perhaps it's now time for the Forces Of Containment to fall away to a greater degree. Many of us have matured and are now able to treat each other with kindness and respect, responsibly steward the earth, know when to say yes to an action and when to say no. 
It's nigh time to leave our need for parenting aside, time to do away with stodgy, suffocating governance, restrictions, and rules, and chart our own courses as we learn, over time, who we really are. 

It'll take time to drop the conditioning, there has been a lot of that applied over millennia. Multi-generational, our conditioning goes way back. Finding out who we are will be a joyful process of rediscovery and I don't think we'll be able to rush it for we cannot fathom our nobility, worthiness, and value, or come to terms with the fact that a benevolent system has carefully and patiently guided us through a very long process from afar, for we have a place in The Universe to fill, us gallant human beings of earth. Eventually, we shall take our places among the heralded, and many will honor us in legend and song.

Time Out

I have recently acquired some new gadgets so, in order to operate them properly, I have had to resort to actually reading the owners manuals and then applying what I have learned. If I ever thought that devices would become totally intuitive, that I would ‘just know’ which button(s) to push and why, I gave up thinking that long ago. 
So I take time to figure out how to run the program or process and right now I'm at the point with my latest toy that I have to continuously go back to the owner's manual in order to get what I don't get but thought I got when I read it the third time. "This is soooo enlightening!" I then cry, with great relief, for I then discover how to edit/store/crop/save/delete/etc.
The amazing thing about tech is how the builders of devices have managed to hide the operating toolbars and menus and have left us with a mainly uncluttered screen which is very nice to look at but when it comes to any navigation within the system it's always "I wanna change this setting/function! 'Zactly how do I do that again?"
Why it's easy! Just swipe down, to the left, or right, double click/tap, press and hold, pinch to zoom, reverse to expand, drag three fingers to pan and where is that toolbar again? Or, what do these icons mean, in the upper right? I gotta get back to the menu.....

Techies write things in code. Tell me about it!

Nesa-by-makers Unsplash.com

My modus operandi is I learn just enough to get by, and bypass all the other information- which might be very helpful were I to learn it- but the problem with that is if I do, the tech guys upgrade the system, like they've done on I-Tunes numerous times, and all that I have learned has to be learned again! I am tasked with having to learn how to navigate upgraded systems in addition to having to learn how to navigate within new devices and apps. 
Meanwhile, time is wasting and I want to get the device to do what I bought it for or the app to do what I loaded it for and so my life at times is spent learning how to navigate all these various systems and I just don't have the patience for that, though my partner does. 
Relying on her to solve these tech issues doesn't help though, for approaching the issue that way leads only to a sense of pained helplessness and naked vulnerability for is she's not around, and I haven't yet learned how to navigate, I'm stuck staring at the screen without a clue. Not a good place to be (and just forget about me calling customer support/chat!).
So like it or not, learning the program, getting around in the app, configuring the layout on the website, converting the file, and all that other stuff calls for applying oneself and that doesn't happen intuitively, that comes only through hands on. You must read the owners manual and it's painful and hurts your head almost because every step is spelled out in excruciating detail in order that you get from A to B the first time. But, after that, you gleefully throw the manual away because you know (this is what I think of when I hear the word ‘intuitive’) how to get there. You can forget about all the jargon and just do it. 
Twenty somethings and younger kids were born into this technology but us elders learned a far different operating system and have had to relearn or unlearn a lot of stuff in order to acclimatize to the swipe/tap/press and hold world. Give us a break already!
But no, although the promise of intuitive navigation has been dangled before us ever since tech arrived not yet has any of this become intuitive to me. In desperation I have at times employed my intuition in order to think out of the box the techies have trapped me in. I have resorted to trying to feel my way around.  
Whatever. Whatever works! I don't care! Yo, tech bros, I got a full time job and SportsCenter is gonna show the Top Ten plays of the day here in a minute. Do you actually think I have time to read a dozen owners manuals and figure out what you changed after the latest upgrade?

Cooking

Had I things my way, I would just show up at a different one of those 'Burgers, Brew, and 'Que' places every day of the year and order take-out but logistically that is impossible so I have had to learn how to cook. 
There are a lot of things you have to have in order to cook. You have to have the right equipment. You have to have the right ingredients, and the right quantities of those ingredients. You have to have time. 
Then you just 'follow the recipe', right? Sometimes that works, if you're making something super simple, but most times you cut corners on cooking time, run out of ingredients, substitute this for that because you couldn't source the exact ingredients, forget to measure something correctly, use too much heat/not enough, or.....
There are thousands of cookbooks and perhaps tens of thousands of recipes so you pick one out of the book or one from the listings online and off you go and when all is said and done most times it doesn't taste as good as you think it should. Why is this?
Spicing your dish is critical. Amateurs tend to put in too much, or not enough. Add too much heat or salt and you might as well throw what you made out. You can't cut that stuff enough! Make it too bland and you can add some spice later but it works better when it's introduced during the cooking process. Flavors meld. 
I never thought cooking would be as difficult as it is. You do a lot of winging it during the cooking process because things happen quickly sometimes and you have to make decisions.
  You learn over time to spice food as you go along. You build a spice arsenal to help you with that.
  Fresh vegetables taste better than ones that have been sitting around too long. Properly cooked vegetables call for precise cooking times. 
Meat calls for high temperatures sometimes 'cuz you gotta sear that stuff initially to lock the juices in.
  Stock is necessary if you want to achieve taste. Fat adds flavor, as does caramelization, zest, sprinkling cheese on top, adding cilantro, etc. 
Little touches complete the dish. Little touches are (usually) worth the effort. 
Bland ingredients aren't going to taste any better once they're cooked!
  Many recipes on the internet are touted as sure winners but a lot of them aren't. 
You can spend your whole life cooking and never come close to learning everything.
  Professional kitchens use spicing tricks that they won't reveal but if you're lucky somebody will have found out and will tell you what that special something is that they did or added. 
When you get something down, you can make it over and over and possibly sell it. People will flock to your table or food joint because you offer a taste found nowhere else. 
It helps to know the chemistry of food, why certain things happen, or what is happening when food is undergoing transformation in the pot. 

When you get the recipe down, you can scale it up. Chai tea factory?

Prijun Koirala- Unsplash.com

Prep work always takes longer than stated, and cleanup during and after the cooking process as well. This makes take-out attractive but one thing about home cooking is you know what is in the dish because you put it in there! 
Unlike stores, where everything is labeled, restaurants don’t have to tell you what is in the food. 
You never do a recipe the same way twice because you're always tweaking it this time around.
Over time you build up a huge repertoire of dishes that you have made and you think nothing of it.
I always balk at recipes that call for exotic ingredients. Can't source those where I live and where do you get that kind of stuff anyway?
'Serving size' is sometimes ridiculously small.
Lots of recipes call for more butter, sugar, or salt than I can stand.
  Having a freezer stocked with dishes that I have made is my forever goal.
Few people like to cook- but everybody likes to eat.
Soups call for a lot of salt.
Pork loins and chicken breasts call for a lot of seasoning.
Kitchen disasters are just part of the process of learning. Overspice it one time and you'll never do that again.
Try a new recipe out on a small scale before you commit to making large quantities. 
There are wildly different tastes to be found in common ingredients. Butter. Olive oil. Tomato sauce. Use the best ingredients if you can afford them.
Deep fryers aren't worth the trouble. Get take-out if you want fried food.
Cooking is best done with a partner. The process is more fun and goes much faster.
Restaurants use food prep short cuts. Read about those. Seek them out. They won't affect taste but they will save you time. 
Make too big a batch of food and you'll be eating leftovers forever.
Realistically, working people don't have the time or inclination to source fresh ingredients at the local farmer's market, they won't be found studying produce and buying just enough for ‘tonight's special dish’.
Multiple dishes can be cooked at once. It calls for skill at multitasking but it can be done.
Flavors must be balanced. Flavors are sweet, sour (acid), salt, heat, umami (savory).
Cooking shows are invaluable. Watch some and see how the pros do it. 
If an internet recipe sounds like an odd flavor combination, it probably is.
You can get award winning recipes on the internet. All the award winning chili competition cookoff recipes, for example, can be found. 
You will make it 'restaurant quality' and surprise yourself. Many times. 
Baking is messy. Flour gets everywhere. 
You need lots of countertop and island space in order to cook. 
Gas stoves rock. 

E-Bikes

        It's a disconcerting thing to see a bicycle whizzing by too fast, or one that is keeping up with traffic for too long. It's one of those things that you know, from your own experience, that shouldn't be happening because you have ridden bicycles and you know firsthand how much work is involved in doing that and the person on the bike you're watching doesn't appear to be working hard enough.  
Well, that guy or gal zooming by while slowly working the pedals isn't loping along in the highest gear. They're riding an E-bike. An electrically powered bicycle.
Virtually nonexistent only years ago, I started seeing signs of them now and again but the manufacturers were entrepreneurial, widely scattered, or regional. These bikes weren't for sale nearby, is what I'm trying to say. 
And far as I can tell, this is still valid. E-bikes haven't yet caught on with the mainstream, and I know what the mainstream is because I used to live in a very bike-friendly town which prided itself on having numerous bike paths and trails and very few E-bikes were to be seen. If any townspeople in the country would've been onto E-bikes, it would've been those folks. 
E-bikes, if we can get into the technology here a little, have of course batteries and motors. These add weight, so the frames on E-bikes have to be sturdier than regular (or should I say 'old fashioned'?) bikes. As well, because of the extra weight and the fact that E-bikes move faster, they come equipped with better brakes. Disc brakes. The tires and rims on E-bikes are wider and stronger and the suspensions are more robust. Make no mistake about it- these bikes can move.  Because of that (and because riding a bicycle is inherently dangerous) more care needs to be taken when operating an E-bike than a normal bicycle. 
E-bikes can still be ridden like an ordinary bicycle, they come equipped with crank pedals and have ten or twelve speed gearing, but their extra weight means extra work for any rider solely using human power for propulsion. Some degree of electric motor engagement is always needed to assist the rider, which corresponds to the bicycle's effective range. I myself have never ridden an E-bike so I don't know the particulars of this tradeoff but by the looks of things, that day may be near. 
Very near. There are numerous super-slick You Tube videos showing the top E-bikes of 2018 (of ‘2019’ too, even if the year’s only ten days old) and you can see that these bikes aren't your old low tech, heavy, factory made let-'em-die-chained-up-forever-on-a-bike-rack-in-the-rain throwaway commodities. These things are like scooters, or motorcycles even.

Me, schlepping to work using human power only, back in steampunk days.

Clem Onojeghuo- Unsplash.com

And because they can outperform regular bicycles, they can be hazards to them on bike paths, the pedestrians that walk on bike paths, and the pets that pedestrians often take for walks on bike paths. I don't know how municipalities are going to handle those issues but they will have to, in one way or another, because these E-bikes are going to be new elements added to established, predictable-in-speed systems. The interaction of E-bikes and cars on city streets and sidewalks where there aren't defined bike paths is already disorienting for automobile drivers, who need to track them constantly. They're hard to spot, come upon drivers quickly, and don't require highly visible headlights or taillights.  

Let's talk about range. The Lithium-Ion batteries that power many of these bikes provide them with ranges of over 50 miles! This is incredible and means that people in most places can use E-bikes in good weather to get to work and back without depleting the battery, which is a commute game changer on a global level. No fossil fuel tank required, no license required, no insurance, no license plates or registration, and minimal road impact (the reason for all those registration and gas tax fees). All this for a price less than you'd pay for a beater car!
Theft might be the biggest danger in owning an E-bike but technology to disable them and track them might deter thievery. One model I viewed has a detachable battery. 
So- goodbye throwaway bike in the bike rack in the rain, eh? This is the kind of bicycle you want to take care of. E-bikes to me are an absolute no brainer. I wouldn't be surprised to see these things take over the existing bike market and become the majority of sales. With their durable electric motors, elegance of design, lightweight quality parts throughout, inevitable future upgrades coming in battery charge time and output capability, and the riding pleasure they offer, E-bikes are winners right out of the gate. The only thing lacking right now is people to fix these bikes, because they're so new, but that will be temporary. Gaps in any emerging market get filled quickly.  
In closing, an aside here that might illustrate the potentials of E-bike ownership. I used to work at a job that was about four miles away. There were three different ways for me to get to work and back. Choice A was to take the city bus, and taking the bus always means waiting for it. The bus stop was a ten minute walk from my house, and dropped me off right across the street from my job. It got me to work and back is all I'm gonna say about that. Choice B. was to drive my car to work, which was always an exercise in overkill. By the time I warmed the thing up, I was at work. The cost effectiveness of this was negative due to all the costs associated with owning, maintaining, and legally operating the car. Choice C. was to ride my bicycle (one of four I owned) to work. It called for physical exertion, which warmed me up in the morning, but after work I wasn't so much for working out. Had I had an E-bike then, and been able to whiz home in the warm afternoon without exerting any effort, while enjoying the scenery along the way (and not be stuck navigating rush hour traffic on the city arterials that lay on either side of the serene, bucolic bike path or back streets routes I chose to meander along) that would have been my A-list choice hands down. 

A Watershed Moment

Back in the day, prior to the internet even (!), I was a subscriber to the local (daily) newspaper in a decent-sized town because I wanted to be kept well informed. In addition to that, I purchased the big fat Sunday paper of one of the major metropolis’ nearby so that I could read the in-depth stories that were only printed in those kinds of esteemed publications. 
     The daily paper I read had about five sections to it, there was national and local news, sports, social and leisure activities, financials, and classifieds. 
I started with the national and local news always and in doing that I was kept appraised of the goings on at a national level as well as the happenings within the local government and area. As well, I was informed about criminal activity and apprehensions, of which there seemed to be a lot. 
The sports section was always a lively place, full of meets, playoffs, matches, statistics, schedules, and analysis. Always involved reading there, for those who were interested. 
The social section was hit or miss, some of it was interesting, some not, but it was worth a looking over, at least. 
  Ditto the financial pages. Stock info wasn't all that exciting to me but what was interesting was reading about all the stuff that was going on in The Economy, be it local, national, or global. How anybody could figure that mess out was beyond my comprehension. Though many tried to shed light on the subject that light, unfortunately, never dawned in me. 
The classifieds (pre-Craigslist) contained small type, which was worth perusing if you wanted to check out the local job offerings, cars for sale, furniture, etc. It was all there. The Sunday classifieds carried the best job offerings and descriptions of jobs so the Sunday classifieds were always worth a look. 
What happened to change all this? The arrival of the internet? No- what happened is I started to fall behind. I got busy with life, with other things during the day, and I wasn't able to fit reading the newspaper in so I set it aside to read it 'later'. 
This became more and more frequent and before I knew it I had a whole pile of newspapers to read, which I did, and it was a chore but a necessary one for one had to do this to keep informed, right? And I was very informed. 
My head was full of trivia. I never knew I could pack so much in there, and how little that information was doing to actually serve me. The more information I read the less it seemed to matter! Maybe the notion of being 'well read' and 'well informed' was the newspapers' way to keep me pursuing some sort of preposterous level of overall understanding, this only attained by consuming superhuman amounts of content. 
Over time, the local and national news seemed to be throttled and stale renditions of 'life'. This was also true about the crime section, where no matter how many bad guys and gals got busted and taken off the streets, more seemed to crop up, 
In the sports world, things got ever more involving as leagues expanded pretty much across the board, 
The social and leisure scene events had a repeating seasonal theme to them, which I recognized over the years, 
I found I never could make sense of the financial world, no matter how many of their columnists and pundits claimed to have their fingers on the pulse of things, 
and the Classifieds seemed to be the same old same old week in and week out. 

All those words gotta mean something, right?

Waldemar Brandt- Unsplash.com

The big Sunday issues I could spend hours reading, which is something you could do to while away a Sunday afternoon, but after whiling away enough Sunday afternoons I started to want to read them less and less because, like the dailies, they weren't that enlightening. 
Back and forth I went like this, for well over a decade, seeing the pile of papers accrue, tackling it, watching it build again, taking a day off to read through it, skim through it, whatever it took to say I got caught up and then.....
...one day I just let things slide completely out of control and the pile grew and grew until it was two stacks of newspapers, each stack rising knee high from the floor. "Enough! I'm not going to read that!" vowed I, and I didn't. 
For what had started as a pleasure had become a chore and a duty, which was so sparse on payback as to be laughable. 
  And then along came the internet. With this a news junkie could get his fix twenty four hours a day, and didn't have to wait for it to be delivered. Ka-boom! What great news this was! 
But now my news was all over the place. Different sites ran different content. Local stuff was a little bit here, a little bit there, or wasn't even being covered at all. I started to miss newspapers and still do to this day because with newspapers, everything was in one place. 
Those days aren't coming back though, no way. However, through my experience with the amount of data in newspapers, I know of the impossibility of 'keeping up' and 'keeping informed' so The World is just going to have to turn without me knowing every damned detail about what is going on. And this is true for everybody else too. Nobody knows or can know it all, there's just too much and most of it is fluff. Filler. 
Added to that, who's editing this internet stuff? Newspapers used to have credibility. They had pro editors. Sure, the papers had 'slants' to them, many were privately owned, but if they ran a story it was similar to the ones other papers ran. With interent 'news' you don't have a clue. Could be a guy that shot a video in his back yard, or a montage of images doctored to look real. Use your imagination!
So this is where intuition comes in. You need it now more than ever. Bypass the fake stuff and the filler and let your guidance bring to you that which you absolutely need to know. Got a better system? I don't. All I need to remind me to apply intuition to this issue is to think about those piles of newspapers laying on the floor of my living room begging for my attention and what a waste of time tackling all that 'data' was. I'll take a short cut to what passes for 'news' any day if it leads me to a clearer and far less laborious conclusion.

Number 1

I'm older than the former president and younger than the current one so I guess I could be president, which is something that I think about these days- a lot.
All that power. All that attention. My name on the front page every single day. My words closely monitored and analyzed. I could make appointments! Not dental, like I do now, but I could put people I deemed qualified in charge of super important departments. 
The EPA! The Department Of Veterans Affairs! The Department Of Homeland Security! Stuff like that. 
I could tool around in Air Force One, which wouldn't be my conveyance of choice as Number 1, but I would have that at my beck and call, say, if I wanted to jet over to Europe and talk with my compadres over there about trade. Wow would that be cool. 
'Cuz I would be the first president in a long time, if ever, that has actually held a real job, and a factory one at that, one of those jobs that Presidents always want to save!

Another day of highly trained artists gracing the halls of my abode.

Larisa Birta- Unsplash.com

White glove service wherever I went, an armed entourage shadowing me at all times in case some nut job wanted to take a shot. 
Golf every time I felt like it, that would be my style, and I would invite every entertainer I knew of or that was recommended to me to come play at the White House, which would be my crib. 
Congress would be knockin' on my door, trying to get me to sign off on bills with far reaching consequences, those bills entailing laying out vast sums of money or, I would be calling certain people in Congress I wanted to talk to about funding (currently 'The Wall' 'Space Force' and others) to come over to my crib and sit around The Conference Table that the press always takes pictures of, the one I'm always sitting at the head of. Heady stuff, that, but I think I would be able to handle it because you know what? 
There is no report card! Ever! I couldn't get fired! Well, I could, but as long as I was useful to certain factions such a play would be unlikely. 
Then, when it came to the military and those impeccably dressed Marines standing rail straight at the entrance to my crib, or at the chopper, giving me snappy salutes with eyes forward, whoa..... .....that's the kind of respect and honoring I've always been Jones'n for. Generals and Admirals would be asking me for my opinion on whether we should continue to occupy this or that country like I knew all the details that they were droning on and on about in the briefing room. Yeah, yeah, yeah! I know that lives are at stake and delicate balances exist in the region but what is more important to me right now is that tee time is at 1:00 and where is my headwaiter and personal food taster Mr. Sloan with the chow because it's almost time for lunch.

On the downside, though, it'd be only a four year gig, eight at the most, but I'd max out my time on the throne then drift off to a cushy retirement afterwards, maybe make some personal appearances here and there to bring in some cash, or I’d write a book (have to hire somebody to help me with that though, ‘cuz I figure I’ll be just too busy). Whatta life! 

Just to clue you in, those of you younger than presidential age, who think that age brings wisdom, well.....
.....I won't let you in on the gamut of old age knowledge, you'll get that automatically when you get to be my age, but I will tell you this: "Beware of anybody that claims to know it all, says that they have the master plan, has it all figured out, knows exactly what to do, can process tons of input and is able to make sense out of it, 'cuz they can't!”. Leastways, I can't. I know that about myself, and about everybody that I know of that is my age. 
But it just may be true that the president can process like that though, and that's the mystique that surrounds the guy that holds the office. Out of three hundred plus million, there is one man in the USA like Superman. 
When you get to presidential age, if you're not there already, you'll know exactly how plausible presidential mystique is. But until then, the question will relentlessly churn in your mind. "You know, it could be that there is somebody that capable!"

It’s like your car, if I can give you an analogy that you might better be able to understand. You pop into the thing and flip the key (or nowadays, press the button) and off you go, never thinking about the extraordinarily compex process that is going on under the hood. Any mechanic will tell you that flawless performance is like a damn miracle every day because they know all the things that can go wrong. The concept of 'presidential capability'' is like that. Ditto the concepts 'King', 'Prime Minister', 'perfect leadership', 'the economy', 'the stock market', 'the cooperation of all the nations in The World', and many others. You’ll get there. You’ll figure it out.

Of Course They Are

Faux News ran this piece where some lady ‘guest’ they had on said poor people on food stamps just wanted to lay around and watch porn. Ha ha ha. 
Welcome to the world, Faux! Of course that's all that they want to do! Do you think that they want to hold jobs?
Now I know that the people over at Faux have an issue with people not wanting to work. Oh, they rail and rant about it. Constantly. Why, you'd think all of the world's ills could be traced to lazy welfare grubbin' layabouts who just want a handout and not a hand up. 'Cuz, by gum, if they took that hand up, we could stop worryin' about 'em. 
And that 'worry', if you follow the line of thinkin', is that they are going to adversely impact somebody's pocketbook, which is what all the gripin' is really about. "Don't cost me, us, the city, state, or federal government any money"

We got our paws out! Fill ‘em!

Alain Pham- Unsplash.com

So ‘they’ (not Faux, government in general) makes it hard on poor people. They won't shelter the homeless and that's so you'll be scairt into holding a job, and that scares plenty of folks. But still, some have a workaround for that. They just happen to be crippled or lame or barely able to function in our high functioning society and although the folks at Faux would probably like to see that made illegal somehow that's just the way the human race is. There's folks that can't compete because, well, they just can't. 
  And you can tell. You can spot those folks right quick. But we're not talkin' about those. We're talking about those slippery eels that sneak around collecting free booty at the expense of hard working people and in America, the land of the Self Determined Individual, that ain't right. It jest ain't right. 
And so Faux has waged a decades long war of sorts against this kind, tryin' to root 'em out and get 'em goin’ to work like the rest of us, the majority of us, but really- how much are these breed, class, strain, or ilk, to use a few commonly tossed around descriptors, costing us? Compared to possibly- and I'm just suggesting here- a greater share of the proceeds being taken by those at the top, which is kind of like welfare in reverse, ain't it?
I'm just sayin' that maybe it's time Faux oughta shine their spotlight on that and stop harpin' about the layabouts like they're some kind of danged army or something. Because they ain't. 

‘Cuz, you know, those folks sittin' way up high jest might be, while not exactly needin' food stamps, watchin' porn too.

The Frightful Five

     Talkin' ‘bout Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon. 
     Been doing a little research on these entities and, well, they're big. They're building campuses. They're hiring a lot of talent. They're building new headquarters. Some of the places where they are building locals are being priced out, but in the name of 'progress', so what? There is a lot of money behind what they are up to. They have scary amounts of cash with which to finance their endeavors. 
     They are deeply embedded and highly positioned already in a lot of the things we do and seek to further their presence. Many competitors to The Five are faced with having to in some way use their services and are paying The Frightful Five a percentage in order to do business. Antitrust laws written in times past simply may not apply to some of what is taking place now. 
     The Five are building their company's infrastructures so that they can rebuild the entire country’s infrastructure. They're into the ways we drive, shop, interact, communicate, store and share data; they're into mapping, A.I., entertainment, shipping, advertising, and shaping our view of the world. They're huge concentrations of power and with that always comes political power. They just might be bigger than the government in some ways, as far as calling the shots. 

A little less of that….

rawpixel-Unsplash.com

Which might call for the 'R' word- regulation- because when things got overly concentrated in the past- in railroads, oil, telephone networks, and airlines- to name a few- Uncle Sam stepped in and leveled the playing field somewhat but now? Things are moving awfully fast. Spinoffs and subsidiary enterprises of The Five are multiplying. 
     If I was at the helm of one of these giants, with a virtual army under my command, I would be highly appraised of what my troops were up to, what our strategic goals were, and what our goals would be once our immediate objectives were reached because my army would have to continue to be fed! I read just last night that Amazon employs 500,000 people, and if that doesn't qualify as an army.......   
I also know that Google is building an office complex that will employ 20,000 and there was a picture of Apple's circular Cupertino, California campus that looked like some sort of otherworldly ring as viewed from an airplane and you have to wonder "What are they doing in there?" because that is like an alien beehive or something. Bees get busy in places like that!
  The cash flow that these companies enjoy enables them to finance all sorts of research and development, so much so that it's almost comical. If the ol' Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz looked distant and foreboding in a way so do these quasi empires to me and if I were inside one of these campuses the amount of incomprehensible geek talk going on would be completely over my head while the smug smirks of the techies would indicate that I was one of the outsiders, one of the rubes that is being taken for a ride. I am one of their marks, one of their targets, a clueless ordinary citizen as easily taken advantage of as a child. In other words, a sitting duck.
  Yikes!

…‘n more of this, please.

Hannah Valentine- Unsplash.com

They of course, all the while, quite routinely and without clearly asking, have been compiling data on me left and right and using that data to shape and mold me unawares, but in their corporate view this has been 'for the greater good' because they are now the determiners of fate, my fate, your fate, and act as the hidden hands that steer the world. Is this not James Bond's Number 1 that we are witnessing here, but instead of a singular Number 1, there be now five?
Who is there to reign these entities in for they are running pell mell towards profit and growth and letting nothing stand in their way save their own steering currents, the members of their boards, their company's ethics, the leadership of their CEO's, and the social consciousnesses of their employees, who, like the engineers of Area 51, might be working on projects, compartmentalized, so that they don't individually know the ultimate uses of the technologies they are developing?
Does this not lead to paranoia? Yes! We've already seen that Facebook can be used to sway opinions, and that people on You Tube can produce videos professing that the earth is flat and actually gain some traction with that. We've seen that apps on phones can track personal movements in minute detail, that The Cloud can store some of your personal data- forever- you being unable to delete it, that tech workers can be employed on mysterious contracts financed by the Defense Department, and that algorithms are being feverishly developed to predict every aspect of your behavior, so that- what? You can simply be sold things? Tip of the iceberg, methinks. 
Facial recognition, military robots, drones, surveillance networks! Enough money to redesign parts of existing cities, or develop new tracts of land! Self driving cars and trucks being introduced with the ultimate aim of taking over and controlling the transportation network that we now autonomously use- all of these things and more lie in our future.
So far, these tech giant's influence on the citizenry has mainly been a boon, one that has greatly improved our quality of life. But I am wary, for I have seen corruption take over enterprises before. People can get woozy and suffer lack of astute judgement from breathing the rarified air in ivory towers. 
As 2019 dawns, brothers and sisters, let our shared resolution, our (to use a tech term here) ‘Call To Action’ be that these tech behemoths only have the best of intentions, 'cuz in the face of this kind of momentum, global willpower might be the only thing ordinary citizens have left.

Genetics II

Due to my work, I have had the 'pleasure' of being around hundreds of thousands of people over the last eight years and I have seen a lot of faces. I have seen every race and culture represented, save the indigenous that never leave their homes.
In seeing these many faces I have observed that the overwhelming majority of them fit a standard mold while only a few of them are exceptional. Those faces stand out because they are amazingly beautiful or strikingly ugly. Many have just been born that way, their looks being the result of happy accident or cruel fate. 
  Sure, there are ones after birth who have made themselves better looking through cosmetics, working out, and plastic surgery but with those techniques you can only do so much. And as concerns ugly, some born common have along the way met with misfortune or brought it upon themselves. Some faces bear scars, some tattoos, some have medical conditions that have disfigured them. 

The beauty of it is you won’t even have to work out to look like this….

Henri Meihac- Unsplash.com

As well, the bodies I observe are more or less the same but there are those that stick out, the ones that I spot in a crowd and fixate on, me being unable to look away due to those bodies being striking compared to the ones around them. These bodies are extraordinarily fat, thin, tall, or short, or they are crippled, missing limbs, or having one withered arm, things like that.
I bring this up because the potential exists now for designer babies who, through gene manipulation, will only be beautiful. Their eyes will be blue or green, which currently are rare traits. Their hair will be lush and full, blonde for the women, of various colors for the men, and that hair might be curly or wavy, which is also rare, for most people's hair is straight. 
Their noses will be perfect, ditto their cheekbones. They'll have wide mouths and smiles full of pearly white teeth. Their bodies will be lithe. Men will have solid builds with tiny butts and women will have curves in all the right places. 
Women's breasts will be enhanced and so will men's equipment. The women will have long eyelashes and full lips, both sexes will have perfectly formed ears that hug the sides of their heads, and men will have the square chin of Superman. When the replacement for me shows up at the airport of the future all he will see is supermodels everywhere and the world will be a very beautiful (albeit bland and uninteresting) one indeed, for right now the airport is fascinating in that there is so much variety. This will slowly go away as people start to look more and more the same. There will then come a point when people will be perfect in every way.

At the present time, looks mean a lot in our society and definitely give you an edge over others. Studies have shown that beautiful women and handsome men are automatically assumed to be 'better' and are given preferential treatment while those not so good looking have it harder. No surprise there. Need I mention skin color and the advantage that brings? But, that depends on what culture you're in. You're not gonna make it in Japan if you're a tall white guy just as much as you're not going to fit in in the Middle East if you don't have Arab looks. 

Getting back to the not so beautiful people, which is most of us to some degree, these ones amaze me because they have to try harder to make it in a world that greatly favors looks. I have determined that there are only two kinds of people when it comes to dealing with this challenge. There are those who don't look very good and go around trying to hide it, and there are those who go around and own their 'affliction', their 'deformity'. In my estimation those latter ones are the ones who handle this issue correctly. They act powerful and confident, proud of the fact that they are unique.  
They realize it’s not their beauty that sets them apart, it's their scar, or limp, or hooked nose. Something I saw of great interest the other day was a whole family that had near unibrows like Frida Kahlo, the artist. The gauntlet of great confrontation had definitely been thrown to these ones. 
This genetic anomaly had been passed to the kids through the mother, who had a pronounced near unibrow. The father's influence had softened the trait somewhat but the kids still had near unibrows to varying degrees. Mom had dealt with it all of her life, how her kids were to handle the hand they’d been dealt remained to be seen. These kinds of weird, family-specific issues are going to go away in the future because you know most people, given a choice, are going to have 'unibrows-being-passed-down-to-their-kids' as the first item on their Trait Alterations List when they go to visit their pre-birth 'Geneticist', who will be a very in-demand specialist of the future. So many changes to be made! 

…your body will just naturally turn out this way!

Igor Starkov- Unsplash.com

Brown eyes, super common now, will be a thing of the past. Black straight hair. Short bodies. Big, protruding ears. Skin color! That's a big one. Skin tone will be adjusted so people will have permanent tans. Bodies will probably become taller, as height is advantageous. Nearsightedness and the need for glasses will be eliminated. Less facial and/or body hair will get a yes. Also being altered in some way will be inner traits, such as intelligence, health, fertility, stamina, etc.
  It's going to be a very different world.

For now, I (and you)  can enjoy the passing parade but in the future.....
  ....it's gonna be boring, man. People living then in their perfect bodies will look upon us as if we were circus freaks and wonder how we dealt with what must have been almost unbearable amounts of rejection. There will be books written about us and studies will have been made of how once the human race was a sea of mutts with only a few purebreds scattered in here and there. 

The biggest challenges of the future might be in choosing which clothes to wear in addition to having to determine other people's character, education, or skill level because simply looking good isn't going to be automatically getting you (or them) into any clubs. Social interactions not being based on looks? Sounds confusing already!

The Odd Couple

 "Dum dee da dum....." Sheldon Pratt hummed away. "Ah- another early morning! Looks to be a beautiful day! I shall as always take full advantage! 
     And so Sheldon did. Soooo productive was he. Why, by seven o'clock he had already enjoyed most of his morning routine and was almost ready to set out on the road. 
     Meanwhile, across town, Barry Tarkanian was oversleeping, as usual. Up too late the night before, he was suddenly roused out of sleep by his alarm. "Turn that damn thing off!" his father yelled, for Barry's alarm was set to the local rap station. "I don't know how you can stand to listen to that" his mother echoed, but Barry wasn't listening. He'd been living at home after a brief foray out into the world, and even though he was now 25, so what? His parents could deal with it! 
Sheldon Pratt, meanwhile, was busy assembling his lunch. His lunch container, sort of a largish cube, presented him with a spatial puzzle which he delighted in solving. "I'll put this container in like this, and this other one in sideways. Yes, that fits. A little snack in this container, this one on top of that, and voila!" The lunchbox was perfectly packed and filled with a delightful array of tastes. 

Do you have what it takes- to commute?

David Armstrong- Unsplash.com

Over at the Tarkanian house, Barry was rapidly throwing on the same clothes he'd worn for days for he was in danger of being late to work for the third time this month. Lunch was going to be something he'd pick up at the the Quick Stop, where he also had to get gas because he had put doing that off yesterday and now the gauge was near E. 
Sheldon, over at his digs, had a good half hour left before it was time to leave the house for his job. He could leave now, he thought, but getting to work early was almost an embarrassment, a pattern that his coworkers had noticed and commented on many times. Better to wait some. "Ah, I shall see if anything new is on the news! There's always time to surf the internet for the latest"
Barry, on the other hand, rarely read the news and could have cared less about the goings on in the world. Wasn't his thing. He was heading out to climb into his truck but his dumb parents asked him, on his way out, if he could bring something in out of the garage first, something that was hard to get to because a lot of the stuff that he had stored in there was blocking it. 
By the time Barry was done with that, Sheldon had departed his abode and was lollygagging down the lane, enjoying his commute to work, looking at this and that, and sticking religiously to the speed limit. Not that he didn't have issues with the limit and whoever set it, because he did in places here and there, but mainly he just accepted it because it wasn’t that much of a bother and he wasn't the kind to ever be in a rush- though there were times when even he, super-organized Sheldon Pratt, found himself pressed for time. 
Barry, though, was the kind to always be pressed for time. His stupid chore done, he lurched out of his driveway and tore off down the road, quickly coming up behind a car that was going slower than he could stand. He wasn't going to let his displeasure at this go unnoticed so he made sure that the offending car in front of him knew it. 
Sheldon was singing along to the radio when all of a sudden he looked up and saw nothing but grill in his rear view mirror. Oh, he'd seen the vehicle approaching, he was never caught unaware, but this one had come up faster than they normally did and was riding snug as a bug on his back bumper. This heightened the degree of danger, and brought with it an equal amount of accompanying tension, which caused a rise in Sheldon’s formerly serene brow. There was no place to pull over, but why should he? it was a pickup truck behind him, not a cop car! Yet, the driver behind him would not relent. 
Barry stayed tight on the tail of the jerk in front of him. It was a two lane road full of curves so passing was possible, but dicey. "C'mon, c'mon! Move it!" he growled, while turning up the rap music.
"Thump thump thump" came a driving beat, and nothing now but upper grill and even hood ornament, which he could read, could Sheldon see in his rear view. Yikes! A Frickin’ Crazy Person! The guy behind Sheldon appeared to be growing increasingly agitated, and was now swerving a little right and left. "Ugh!" Sheldon groaned. Why did his commute sometimes have to be this way? He'd flipped guys like this off before and regretted it, he'd tapped the brakes and regretted that too because those kinds of actions only escalated things. The safe play in this situation, always, was to hit the shoulder and wave 'em on by but he was almost to the four lane. "Can I stave this jerk off until then?" Sheldon wondered, calculating time and distance to relief, for he wasn’t in the mood to concede today. 
Barry had by then been joined by three others, Mikey, Adam, and Shelia, all of them 'late' and needing to drive to wherever it was that they were going as if lives depended on it. 
By then the right turn to the four lane was in sight. Sheldon had made it! Hurray! And not only that, he had a green light too so he simply juked onto the four lane, but stuck tight to the right one. Sure enough, Barry wasted no time in roaring past him. Mikey, Adam, and Shelia left him in the dust too, which seemed to give them pleasure, but the greater pleasure was in Sheldon's seeing all four of them go, especially ringleader Barry. 
"Adios, left laners!" Sheldon happily crowed. "Enjoy your left lane day! And now that you're gone, I can get back to thoroughly enjoying mine!", which he did. Dozens and dozens of vehicles containing tense drivers just had to get past him during the rest of his commute to work, just had to get in front of him. The usual.
"Do left laners ever experience the joy of driving?" Sheldon wondered at one point along his dilly-dallying way, but he quickly dismissed that as a trifling thought. "Ahh, doesn't matter. All I know is I'm enjoying mine!”.

Who I Am

     It all started innocently enough. It was born. First thing he did was the doctor looked and said "Yup, its got one, and that was notated. Next he looked up at the clock, and noted the time. By then it was probably crying, and that was notated too- "Good". It meant it was alive. I, I mean. 
     My parents had already given me a name, a first, a last, and a middle. That was written in the record of where and when I was born. I was oblivious to all this, but I already had an official identity.
Maybe five years passed. I got used to answering to 'my' name, and did so automatically. I learned to call the others around me by their names, the ones that they gave me to call them, not the ones I made up, could make up, or might have made up were I of that mind but I wasn't. That would change later, after I started school and especially after I went to work. 
As I grew, I learned that every person had a name. Teachers had names. Neighbors. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. People in books and on TV. Some names I liked, some I didn't. I asked people sometimes if they liked their name, because I liked mine. Most were ok with their names, but some didn't like the one they had been given- or had inherited.
When I hit teenager, I got a Social Security number and a driver's license number. Had to. Couldn't work or drive without one. Schools kept records on me, and employers too, plus the local fuzz. I got fishing licenses and license plates on my car. I opened my first bank account. My identity was growing.

“Q? You say the identity chips are triggered by pushing this button?”

“DON’T push that unless you need to, Bond!”

Nick Karvounis- Unsplash.com

Car insurance companies, credit cards, and addresses came and went over the years. I became associated with a lot of things. Book clubs, political parties, unions. Social organizations. Churches. I got put on mailing lists. I subscribed to magazines and newspapers. By now a pattern of who I was had formed, but nobody was able to put all the pieces together until.....
....you know, now. Every frickin' detail of who I am (and who you are, reading this) is being tracked by who knows who, where, or why. Why are they so interested in our identities? 

Marketing, they say. So stuff can be sold to us. If TV couldn't make me do that, magazines, newspapers, and stores, what makes 'em think.....
....but they do think, don't they? They think this particular chameleon is going to suddenly purchase whatever shows up on his device but I go my own way. I don't even know what I'm going to buy half the time, until the time comes to buy it. 
But if these cats are looking for a market, and I'm absolutely amazed that this hasn't been developed yet, it's the market for people to stop being who they 'are'. I, and millions of others, don't want to be pegged or pigeonholed or whatever you call it, endlessly analyzed and meticulously tracked. I (and many others, no doubt) would be delighted to have the ability to assume a new identity, as easily as you can change a password. 
  How about I keep my true identity to myself, and the internet gets, in addition to Thought Of The Day, my Identity Of The Day? 
Today I am Alexander! Tomorrow, Edwin! On Thursday next, Beowulf! Cool!
Track that, snoopers. 
My idenity could be like cryptocurrency. It could be tied up in a blockchain and the only way to discover it would be to access the key to my account hidden in a Swiss vault. It's either that, or being as visible to marketers as individual cows in a field, not moving far, easily tracked, and maybe even spray painted with a number. 
I mean, come on. Identiies are Old School and we're caught with our pants down out in the open. Tech companies are tracking our movements in real time and running algorithms on us. 
It's embarrassing.
But wait! The rabbit hole goes far deeper than that. Knowing human nature, I have to think "Would Number 1 (James Bond's archnemesis) be content with only marketing data?” No! Number 1 would use that data to micro-market every single good and service to you, offering you a different price based on your ability to pay, coupled with your not knowing how much the guy across town is doling out!
We've already got everybody on the plane paying a different price, everybody in the hotel, and ditto everybody renting a car, so why not extend that to the price people pay for everything else? That is what Number 1 would do. And he would be laughing uproariously as the real time data about this poured in and was displayed on animated maps that covered the entire globe!
"Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!" he would bellow, like Jabba The Hut, while his nefarious minions laughed along, nobody having a conscience. This is how empires get built- which is right up Number 1’s alley. 
Reality, being individually presented to us, is the danger. There is a great need for cross-checking for right now we're all separately staring at screens, thinking that what we're seeing is what the other guy is seeing. Is it? That is the million dollar question!
How's your trust level with the tech guys lately? 

While I have to hand it to them for developing this absolutely incredible tool called the internet I think the barn door was left open during the mad rush to grow and things got introduced into the processes, innocently or intentionally, that users are wondering about but aren't getting clear answers to and so sitting before Congressmen these tech leaders are.

They say data is the oil of the new economy, and tech companies are furiously extracting it. How it's used, where it goes, where it's stored, and how long it's stored are only a few of the questions that need to asked.  
And that’s good! 'Cuz I don't want to be paying $582 round trip while the guy next to me is paying $489- and I'm sure you don't want to be either. 

But there's more, lots more, than that. Use your imaginations. What else would Number 1 do? Marketing Shmarketing! He of course would use ever single tool at his disposal to bring about his global domination fantasy.

"And that’s where we’re at at present. Bond, you've been briefed".
"Thank you, M. May I go now?"
 "Yes. Stop at Ms. Monneypenny's desk on the way out. She has some important papers for you. And The Lab has some devices you will need"
"Ok"
"And Bond?"
"Yes?"
"Good luck! You're going to need it".

(Ok…. It might take more than just Bond to turn this thing around but it sure was fun writing that last part)

Two Perspectives On Retirement

Alvin Twinch, Retiree

Guy in the neighborhood I lived in once always gave me a wave as I was on my way to work and I didn't know him any better than that but by gum there he was at the breakfast joint I sometimes went to one day so I thought I'd swing by the table he was sitting at alone to get to know him better.
I was invited to sit down but maybe, in retrospect, I shouldn't have, for Alvin was, well, an arse.
His response to any conversational gambits I posed was the same: "I don't care. I don't have to. I'm retired"
I thought this pretty selfish but it was his right to feel that way. He'd done his time and the clock was ticking on what little he had left. The World had done a number on him but he'd survived it and for the rest of his days it was play time. 

Cornucopian amounts of time for chess.

Vlad Sargu- Unsplash.com

I envied Mr. Twinch somewhat, especially on those days after our meeting when I'd be drivin' to work all grumbly and he, now knowing me, would give me a smug little wink as if to say "I know where you’re going!" (and I know you don't like it and thank God it's not me and all that that little gesture entails).
But I'd encountered 'the attitude' before, oh yes, many times. And over time, I'd only come to expect more of the same from the gray haireds, as I called them. Many times, when I was in a place of being troubled or despairing I wished one of 'em would have stepped up and helped me out but no, that would have been asking too much. I learned to expect nothing, absolutely nothing at all from them and came to the harsh realization that I was, like many, many others, burdened with having to earn my own pass, one that would gain me entrance into what seemed to be the very halls of heaven- The Land Where Nobody Has To Work. 
It had to be quite the club, once you got in it, I imagined. For one thing, the pressure would be off to support one's self, and what an utter relief that had to be. Secondly, you'd have time, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, to do whatever you wanted. Whatever you could afford. Whatever you were still physically able to do. 
Geez, that sounded like a lot but no retiree I ever met said no to it. They treasured every single drop. 
I still always thought though, since they had it so good, and working people had it so bad, that maybe, just maybe, they could in some way help us out some but that would be like asking for a raise from Ebeneezer Scrooge before Marley's ghost came to visit. Fat chance. 
So the retirees and I lived in the same world, but in parallel universes within that world. 
To add insult to injury, the guvment deducted Social Security money out of my check and handed it over to them, the ones permanently on the dole, but there was nothing I could do about that 'cept wait for the day to come when young workers supported me. 
"But don't you wish for that day to come!" the retirees ironically admonished me, time and again. "Enjoy life while you're young! You don't want to get old!" and to that spiced-up dose of wisdom I replied "That's easy for you to say, you’re not enjoying pulling a shift today!"
And that's when they always gave me that irritating little wink. 
I knew I'd put my workin' days behind me in a minute to join Alvin Twinch and all his retired pals in the club if'n I could but I heard that the biggest danger once you got there came from trying to fill up all that free time. Some folks actually get so bored that they went back to work! I don't think that is going to be the case for me, though. I've already been through retirement. Way back when I was a kid, nearly two decades passed before I had to get a job and I was just fine with that. When the time comes, I know I'll be ready for it. My second childhood will commence.

     Lazy Acres Retirement Community

Our sedan pulled up to the security gate. The guard examined our credentials, then raised the red and white striped wooden bar to let us pass. 
Ahh... back inside. I'd had to make a run to the local grocery store, which was out in The World, where the others dwelled. But here, within the walls of the Lazy Acres Community, my safety and security level was near 100%. In fact, on the way to our abode, a roving security patrol passed us by. 
Golfers were enjoying yet another day on the links that weaved through Lazy Acres, one of several courses within the sprawling complex. We passed the clubhouse, and then the pool area, which contained a smattering of people, as usual. Not too many, not too few, just right. That's the way we at Lazy Acres liked it. 
Upon reaching our house, the garage door opened and we drove inside. No cars were to be parked on the street- ever. And none were, for they would be ticketed by security. 
Inside the house, all was of course well. Golfers could be seen driving in their carts down a fairway that lay right outside our house's living room windows, and from the patio outside where we took up comfy chairs later to take in the sunset. 
Life here was grand, albeit a little on the quiet side. Noise restrictions were in place, and there was a nightly curfew after sunset. You could still go out and take a walk if you wanted to, but you could expect to be eyeballed by security or even questioned if you looked at all under 50.
Many residents left their houses at sundown for drinks and dinner over at the clubhouse, where a little bit of noise was acceptable. But outside the houses that lined the fairways, you coulda heard a pin drop. 
What day of the week was it? What month? What year? People knew these things, but none of them seemed to care. 
Caring was what the people outside the walls did. They kept The World running for us so that we could play. They kept the electricity flowing, the stores outside the walls stocked, the gas pumping at the station, the shows playing on TV, and the absolutely incredible amount of content appearing that drove that newfangled internet engine.
For decades, perhaps, most of the residents would dwell here, occasionally taking trips 'abroad', until one day an ambulance would quietly roll up to the house and the EMT's would not be in a rush to enter and then would come the hurried arrival of people associated with the family, who would see to it that possessions were disposed of so the house could be put up for sale.

The neighbors would see all this, of course, and secretly think "Not me, not today!" as they went on their daily walks on the many walking trails that threaded through the community. 
The World with all its hubbub was kept outside as much as possible, and over time The World became an abstract concept. No longer impinging upon the people on a daily basis, it became sort of a dream, and that was okay for the residents of Lazy Acres, who had spent time in The World and had created this one to live in instead, one that was clean, quiet, safe, crime free, affluent, and overall non-bothersome in every conceivable way. 

Even though abandoning the walking paths was discouraged, security could overlook this if news came that the Great British Bake Off was on the telly.

Dylan Nolte- Unsplash.com

But (and there's always a but, isn't there?) Lazy Acres as a result was vanilla. Dreadfully so. Every day seemed the same. There were no lows, those had been taken out of the equation, but there were also no highs. The residents had brought conditioning voluntarily upon themselves- there were rules and agreements, covenants and restrictions- which severely limited expression and so the place had a confining feel to it, as if the residents had created a sort of prison and volunteered to be the inmates. A white collar prison, to be sure, a haven, an oasis, an imaginary land, the precursor to heaven, all of the above. A social experiment, a circling of the wagons one last time. 
The amount of alcohol consumed nightly was prodigious. At the time, pot was still illegal but by now portions of the residents are probably partaking. With nothing to lose of course they are. 
Some people were fine with life at Lazy Acres. I heard others went running for the hills, for somewhere that had kids and life and a greater degree of unpredictability. You woulda thought everyone would want to stay, upon first arriving, but there's something about everybody being the same age and of the same social class that stifles things. It's nice to have that similarity occasionally, but every day? That's what drove the disenchanted out, and what I as a visitor witnessed. 

2019

Was peering into the crystal ball here, analyzing future trends. There are a lot of things that could potentially enter into the mainstream and totally upset, highly alter, or slightly modify the existing social structure/power base. A futurist I heard speak said that analyzing such trends has become much more difficult than in the past, and to that I agree. 
Dig- in the olde days, say during the heyday of the Sioux tribe, the people of that tribe had few possessions because they were driven by the need to source food and their main food source (bison) was mobile. The method of moving from place to place was by tribe members toting gear and by dogs pulling contraptions called ‘travois’ upon which gear was tied (crude but effective). The introduction of the horse changed everything, so much so that the concept of wealth was introduced, something they hadn't known much of before. Horses could carry a lot more stuff, so why not accumulate more than Just Enough?
Compared to those days, only a hundred and fifty years ago, we have tremendous wealth. Food is readily available, we are protected from the elements (most of us), we live in much more permanent dwellings, we're only mobile if we want to be, we're much ‘better’ educated as to what's going on in the rest of the world (but have lost touch with the natural world), it's been quite a ride. However, much more is coming, and like the Sioux, our way of living might drastically change- or it might not. Either way, adjustments will have to be made. 
So many variables could surface that their effects cannot possibly be calculated because these variables will play off of one another. Possible variables on the horizon are: Free energy, decentralized banking (cryptocurrency), cloning, ‘designer babies’ whose genes are selectively edited, drone travel, driverless cars, nanotechnology, virtual reality, A. I. and its assorted applications, and a whole lot more. These game changers call for continuous and imaginative problem solving. 
Some givens are that governments are slow to catch up as the private sector is usually the one to introduce new technologies and systems, wealthy or connected people always have first access, and First world countries rapidly adopt new systems while Third world countries lag behind. This has been happening, and is obviously happening now, but the pace could accelerate even more. 

Twenty First Century,

Year Nineteen.

Free energy could create communities where none have existed before. Cities could be built in the middle of deserts, or in frigid climates inhospitable to man. Life on ships at sea could be commonplace. 
The need for people to work could be substantially less and governing forces would be faced with the prospect of a citizenry with loads of free time on their hands, something that has never happened in history. 
The race might mutate into something different. Physical forms might decrease in vitality and mental abilities might grow more predominant as the focus shifts from doing physical tasks in order to survive to searching for new and satisfying reasons for being. 
Sexual orientation could shift towards the unthinkable- androgyny. Pansexual and transgender people are already surfacing in some areas. Sex robots- as well as military ones- are currently under development (no surprise there). 
Existential questions could abound. Religion would be tasked to answer those, as well as psychologists and spiritualists. The world's problems could actually be on their way to being solved and a race devoted to drama could find itself living in peace and cooperation.
People might not leave their houses or properties for the duration of their lives, if they so chose, while other people might travel full time and never know of 'home base'. 
Countries would find their identities blurring across borders as a newly minted gypsy class would follow the seasons, their various interests, and/or the festival circuit.
Vast swaths of land would be freed from human control due to decreases in industry and ranching. Communal living could take place, for those who chose it, severely affecting the hallowed single family home market and all that depends on it. Municipalities would shrink, or grow, depending not on jobs but on 'Desirable Living Indexes'.
The need for and associated expense of militaries around the world would vanish for in an egalitarian world, what would need defending? 
So much could potentially happen, and a lot of this stuff is not so far off as to say it's pure fantasy. Progress could, as it is now, be slowed by political means and as a way of preserving power but how long can progress be kept at bay? Indefinitely? Methinks not. 

Who can accurately forecast all of this? What country or business has the ability to think-tank these things, or better still, play-act them in controlled arenas before unleashing their new products, technologies, or systems upon the general public?
If the current climate is any indication, the exact opposite occurs! New technologies emerge, then pounce upon and trounce the existing ones. Growth and market share are goals to be captured at any cost and only well down the road, after any potential competition has been vanquished, can the effect of variables upon that which was in place before be calculated. But the variables, once introduced, constantly alter, mutate, and create spin offs. Governments step in occasionally to act as containment, while the powerful seek to funnel things their way, and forward we go, albeit hobbled by one rein or perhaps many on galloping Progress.

So the conclusion is "Who knows what is going to occur?" There are so many potentials out there right now it's hard to keep up on all of them. I’m not that much interested in being androgynous, or becoming physically frail, and some of those other things, which could be well off into the future, but some technologies or societal changes are already here or are soon to be. ‘Hope for the best and deal with the rest’ many of us will, while some will actively intend and throw their wills into the mix that way. Inevitably, things will play out, and we’ll all be left at the end of 2019 saying "Now well, wasn't that interesting?!"

Customer Service Recovery Facility

The patient came into our facility in a wheelchair. Incoherent. Nothing we at the center couldn't handle. A typical case, one that we'd seen hundreds of times before. 
"How much exposure has this one had?" I asked the nurse on duty. 
"Eight hours" she shot back. It was a busy day, and the intake was filling fast with new patients. 
"Standard procedure, Room 12"
  "Got it!"

A few minutes later I made my inital evaluation of the newly arrived group of patients in Room 12. There were about a dozen, all suffering from various stages of exposure. Not only had they been recently exposed to customers, they as a group were suffering the cumulative effects of long term exposure. I could readily see it in their faces, postures, demeanor, and in their responses to a few cursory questions I posed.
  Each inpatient wanted to tell me a short but dramatic story about what they had recently experienced. I call this near overwhelming urge the 'dumping' or 'venting' reflex. Unable to do this at work, where the credo is 'the customer is always right', each patient had repressed and internalized the natural human response to being subjected to insult and indignity, which is to respond in a defensive way. I allow only a bit of venting to occur, which is usually enough to bring about a degree of calmness. They have more stored up within though, and this has to be remedied. 

The pool at our facility

Bernard Hermant- Unsplash.com

Our approach at the center is one of genuine caring and concern. If we tell a patient "Appreciate it!", "Thanks for the help", "Have a nice day!" or some other commonly used saying in response to an action they take you can bet we actually mean it. But, our using such a phrase in an insincere manner, through being rushed or momentarily annoyed by something unrelated to the patient, can trigger relapse and we don't ever want that. I myself strive to use variations of well wishing that they probably haven't heard 1,000 times before and to this I am always met with amazement. The common reaction I receive is "Wow! You're an actual nice person!" followed by an almost knee-jerk (and I must admit embarassing) latching onto my arm. "Don't go! Stay with me! Forever!” they plead.
This I cannot do. Instead, I bring these traumatized ones experiences that will counteract the effects of obnoxious customer behavior. These people have only been doing their jobs, or trying to do their jobs, but have met interference aplenty, sometimes ferocious.  

Instead of reinforcing their experiences of isolation, of being the uniformed one in a sea of brusque civilians immune to consequence, I have all present sit in a circle and round we go, each person in the group sharing just a few of their latest customer service interactions. Heads nod all around and previously shut down people eagerly await their turn to share. Invariably, there is danger in this becoming an all night affair so I try to limit our initial venting session to a mere eight hours. 

The next day is individually tailored, according to what I have determined by interviewing each patient and from taking notes during the venting session. To one I might prescribe hot tub immersion. To another, pampering at our in-house spa. To a third, exquisite meals, to a fourth, classical music, and so on. 
The next evening, and for many successive nights, comes what I call 'reorientation'. Here each customer service person is reprogrammed by seasoned staff members, including myself, as to what 'reality' is in the customer service field, for they have been exposed to unrealistic expectations to the extent that some of them have been expected to alter time, magically solve complicated issues, instantly manifest personnel, and perform other such miracles for their charges.
Group sessions then follow, where customer service interactions are role modeled first by staff and then patients to further seat the cure. Here are introduced such topics as "How to get your customer to be okay with waiting", "Allowable responses to vitriol", How to handle petulance and condescending attitude", “What constitutes customer ‘entitlement’?”, “Seven methods of getting even", and others. The level of joy the patients experience in these playshops signals to the staff that healthy self worth has returned and that they are ready for release. Our facility will always be available for drop ins, should each recoverer at any time feel the need, and the gratitude that each one expresses tells us that finally they have come across some people that have their backs for each has experienced the phenomenon of managers disappearing at critical times and company officials and stockholders higher up the food chain using them only as a firewall behind which they can garner profits. 

It is a blessing to see healthy customer service reps leave our facility but it is sad that there are ones we can't help. Certain patients we wheel in have what I have come to describe as 'The Thousand Yard Stare'. Severely traumatized, they have retreated to an inner world, one we are unable to reach. 
These cases are referred over to Long Term Care, where specialists in Burnout Recovery apply soft but steady rehabilitative methods to bring these patients back to the here and now. It is rare that any of these ever return to Customer Service- but they make good gardeners. 

My plans for the future? Expansion. There are millions of afflicted in this country alone. The market for our services is vast. And not only that, I see no move by companies to treat employees as anything more than machines manning profit centers, which will continue to bring us a steady supply of new patients.

Think of us as a sort of Workmans Comp for the psychologically perturbed.

Just Enough, Never Enough

      'Twas an ill wind prevailing on the cusp of winter in 2018. Those that ruled the great land were of grievous disposition and quarreled mightily with the will of The People for, in the way that they saw it, they did not yet have enough. 
      Whether they be in government, or in business, they saw themselves as greater than the rest, many of them, these ones that had risen to positions of power and influence by working the system to their advantage, through a means they called 'cleverness'. Because they employed the ways of wile and others did not they thought themselves the victors over men, in a weird sort of way. 
      At the helms of their respective ships with minions under their command, it was they who determined what was enough for them, and so the pie was divvied up in that way, leaving Just Enough for the little ones. 
       This was good, they stated, competitive, fair, just, and reasonable. For the economy was such that others, vying for position, would overtake their respective ships if they could. Be happy with your lot, whatever it was, and wherever it was, be it in America, China, the E.U., or in the U.K., behind the potentially drawing isolationist curtain of Brexit. 

Welcome to the Banana Republic

Khachik Simonian- Unsplash.com

Corruption spread like a malaise in America, a disease, oozing out of the dark places where the infected dwelled. Never Enough was the credo and those espousing it searched for more down every avenue, in every situation, with every favor granted, and upon every handshake gone unrevealed. 
       Christmas seemed to be over before it had yet arrived. Though The People still sought to celebrate it, their motivation was halfhearted. Perhaps this would be the last Christmas for them for the joy had all but gone out of it. Cardboard and hollow it was, like all the other so-called holidays celebrating events that no one realy cared about anymore- save for one. Easter, the holiday where many of the celebrated celebrated the resurrection of The One, the Master of Love they claimed to believe in. The other holidays were relics of the past for no one was really being memorialized, the day of the nation’s birth was hardly felt, labor had been diminished, and not many were giving thanks. 

The news was filled with whack-a-mole stories. No matter how many times the law or social conscience or scandal struck a blow upon one, another would pop up wearing a smart aleck grin. Justice seemed to be truly blind and ordinary citizens could only wonder what was coming next, for all sense and reason had gotten lost in the swamp surrounding the capital. 

The decades-long quest for clean air, water, and healthy food, chemicals that wouldn't harm us, and pharmaceuticals that wouldn't make us worse off or addicted seemed to be unraveling in an awful display of lack of foresight, one oblivious to consequence.

Science was replaced by the simple dismissal of it! There was nothing that couldn't be explained away. The rich got richer while the rest got by and only disdain and contempt were held for those not in the club. Santa cried while the nation died and the eagle soars no more.

Device Detox Center

"Velcome to the Device Detox Center! My name is Doctor Schuman. Could you hand over any devices you have on you? They will be returned after two weeks"
     The kindly doctor looked on as I pulled out my smartphone and gave it one final fond look before handing it over.
"Thank you. Do you have any other devices, perhaps in your luggage? Ach! Ve have already looked there, and found a tablet computer. Vere you perhaps thinking of surfing the web later? You know we cannot permit that"
(Busted!) "I’m sorry, doctor. I must have forgotten it"
"That is what all of our patients say. Come, we will enter the facility now"
Dr. Schuman led me through what looked like a security gate at an airport. A guard at the gate eyed me as I passed through and as I did, the light above the portal blinked green. I was in and device free. 
"First you will get to know the other patients some, yah?" the doctor said as he led me into a lounge area. Ten people of various ages were sitting in the room, some of them paging through magazines. I looked for a TV set but there was none. A few people in the room eyed me disinterestedly. 

Oh man…… I’m Jones’n for summa that!

Rahul Chakraborty- Unsplash.com

Doctor Schuman addressed the assembled. "This is Samuel! He has come to join you and is the last member of this session's group to arrive. Please welcome him. We will have much to share with each other over the next two weeks but for now I must leave. I will see everyone again in twenty minutes, ya?". Doctor Schuman actually clicked his heels before bowing slightly to us and departing. Old school German professionalism on display. 
Around the room, I could see that there was a lot of nervousness. "Hello" I heard a few people mumble, but none reached out to engage me in conversation. Seemed they were awkward around others and lacked social skills. 
I was hardly feeling gregarious myself. Had I my phone I could have Googled something about how to deal with this situation and I actually, due to force of habit, reached for my phone in my left shirt pocket before sadly realizing where my phone was, and where I had placed myself. Like the others, I had let my device habit spiral so out of control that I had chosen to admit myself to a facility such as this.
Yeah, it was only for two weeks, and it was gonna be tough, but I knew I had to do it. I didn't have to talk to the others to know what their issues with devices were because basically they were all the same. Content addicts we were, all of us. The only way to cure our malaise was to quit cold turkey and Dr. Schuman was said to be one of the best. His pioneering work was admired throughout the world and here, high up in the Bavarian Alps, in a lodge hidden in a remote valley, accessible only by a precarious, little used mountain road, and kilometers removed from any other habitation, we would be safe from WiFi. Its not like we could have gotten online if we tried but still, even though our devices could only act as security blankets now, even their physical presence had been denied us. 
Data flooded through my mind nonetheless, fragments of web pages I'd perused, images I had seen, videos I had watched. Garbage of the mind, clutter, chaff! Could I again reclaim the ability to think on my own, to have a private thought? Dr. Schuman claimed that this was possible but only in two weeks?

Nein! Two weeks was only the introductory period. Addiction reversal was a process of many stages and this was only stage one. Being isolated, secluded, and unable to satisfy our cravings was a test that we must each individually pass before we could hope for placement in one of Dr. Schuman's halfway houses where device access was again possible- but kept limited. For our own good, understand. Unlimited data had been our downfall and the ramifications of backsliding into addictive behavior again meant the dreaded R word- readmittance!
But not for two weeks. No, failing to stay clean and being readmitted meant going cold turkey for a month. Three time violators had device access revoked for a year. Nobody in this room wanted to be subjected to that. How utterly horrible. Draconian, even. 
The stakes were perilously high and everybody knew it. Because of this nobody was talking much and countenances were more than a little bit glum. I comforted myself by looking out of the lodge's windows towards the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and the bucolic woodlands and meadows that spread out before them. Nature was out there, something I knew about from watching videos. 
A young woman entered the room. 
"Good morning!" she cheerily began. "I am Dr. Schuman's assistant, Greta. Before we show you to your quarters we are going to do a round table session with Dr. Schuman to see where everybody is as they begin this process and address any concerns about it you might have. This won't take long. Come with me!"
She led us down a long hallway and into a rather cozy space. No more than twelve of us could fit inside the paneled conference room we came upon, which resembled a large study. The chairs were comfortable and arranged in a circle. A few largish windows enabled many of us to gaze out upon the mountains while those without window views could look upon the hundreds of books that lined the walls. 
I was already feeling sharp pangs of desire to get online and from the looks of things, I wasn't alone.  Dr. Schuman then entered and gave us an overview of the program. Oh, this was going to be a long two weeks but, as Dr. Schuman repeatedly assured us, the tradeoff was going to be less anxiety and stress. After going around the table and addressing each participant’s concerns, he told us that we had already taken a very big step towards healthy device relationship by consciously choosing to lay our devices down for a while. This meant that we had chosen of our own free will to directly face the two greatest fears of our time- the Fear Of Not Keeping Up and the Fear Of Missing Out. The World would still be there when we got back online, he said. Life wasn't going to end, or change in any dramatic way. 
"People lived out of touch with each other for thousands of years!" laughed Dr. Schuman. "And they survived! You have nothing to worry about!" 

Instead of reassuring us, his blithe comment brought a wave of anxiety over more than a few participants, myself included. Did we trust Doctor Schuman enough to warrant being subjected to this onerous and demanding trial? Our anxiousness about Keeping Up and Missing Out was causing discomfort aplenty and it had only been a few hours since check in.

The doctor said that the first three days would be the hardest, then after that we’d settle in.

I sure hope he's right about all this! 

The Carbon Boys

A place I used to live, Fort Collins, Colorado, was the last city or civilization of any kind before the open prairie that led one to the Wyoming border, which was about thirty-some miles due north. 
Fort Collins, or 'FoCo', as the locals called it, was a college town. And into that town occasionally rolled The Carbon Boys from up Wyoming way. 
Down College Avenue they would roll, in their diesel pickups with big fat tailpipes, or 'smokestacks' even, rising up custom-made from out of the truck bed right behind the cab. Some had just one big fat exhaust pipe. 
It was a show of machismo, you bet, like driving a lifted truck with big fat tires but what was so startling about The Carbon Boys was their utter disdain for the environment because when their diesel pickups accelerated away from a traffic light that they had been idling at, a huge black cloud of diesel soot filled the air in their wake. I remember seeing a Toyota Prius being totally enveloped in one such cloud. 
This soiling of the environment was great fun for The Carbon Boys, who I learned to dread and avoid. Every time I saw one I would make damn sure I wasn't behind or near to them at the light and every time I witnessed 'the cloud' they left behind I thought "There oughta be a law against that!" but there wasn't. I never saw a cop pull one of these guys over. 
Fort Collins was part of Larimer County, and residents there had to get their cars smog checked every year in order to renew their registrations and I thought "Why do we have to get smog checks when people that own diesel trucks don't?!".
Well, two things. Number one, many diesels at the time were exempt from smog checks in Larimer County (not so anymore) and number two, The Carbon Boys always came from out of state. Typically windy Cheyenne, Wyoming, was where most of these trucks came from. Wyoming didn't have any vehicle emissions requirements, which certain counties in Colorado had, but more than that it was The Carbon Boys' 'in your face I'm going to pollute the air- your air'- mentality that was troubling. 
Why would anyone want to pollute the air around them to the extent that The Carbon Boys did was the question because even though the boys came primarily from Cheyenne, the majority of the people there didn't want bad air and drove nice clean running trucks and cars.

I could see the need for some protective gear

Andrew Gaines- Unsplash.com

This phenomenon kinda came out of nowhere. The first time I witnessed it I was shocked but then it (unfortunately) became rather commonplace, especially on weekends when The Carbon Boys tended to roll on down to FoCo and cruise the streets. 
I wanted to study these people, like they were glaring anomalies of the tribe human (which they certainly were) but was turned off by the negativity that I was sure to encounter. Did they not love the environment like everybody else? No! They treated the environment with contempt bordering on the suicidal. That was what was so troubling about them. They were apocalyptic people and delighted in spewing filth into the air around them, filth that they wouldn't be breathing- at least not right away, but eventually they would. Did they not get that part of the equation? 
Not wanting to delve into the twisted psyches of the perps, I looked into the mechanics of diesel engines and exhaust instead, for at the time I occasionally drove a diesel bus at work and that thing ran clean as a whistle. 
There was an additive called 'DEF fluid' that I thought might be the culprit, but DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) doesn't factor into the combustion process. DEF is made up of deionized water and urea and is injected into the exhaust to break down the Nox (Nitrous Oxide) in the exhaust stream and convert it to Nitrogen and water. 
Soot, on the other hand (the ominous black cloud), is chock full of nasty stuff. It is the actual visual representation of unburnt diesel fuel hanging in the air and if you've ever smelled diesel, it's not something you would choose to be breathing. Soot is primarily produced by the lack of oxygen during the combustion process and so, seeing as these clouds of soot appeared to be purposely generated by The Carbon Boys, I could only conclude that either they were dumping too much fuel at acceleration or that they were limiting their engines' oxygen intake in some way. 
Which oughta be illegal, right?
Again, never saw 'em being pulled over. 
Over time, it became rather an embarrassment to the citizens of FoCo to, due to the lack of any kind of governmental response, to have to endure the arrival, length of stay, and eventual departure of The Carbon Boys, who seemed to greatly enjoy polluting our air in this extraordinarily blatant way, as if they were thumbing their noses, giving the finger to, and farting right in the faces of the residents of our 'haughty university town'. 
Perhaps some day a study will come out. A FoCo PHD candidate's dissertation will be on this! (which a Carbon Boy would never, ever read or understand)

I think about this freaky phenomenon from the past from time to time, especially when the climate change reports come out about countries trying to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Did The Carbon Boys want to die, and take everybody else with them? Were they so unconscious and unaware that they didn't know? I just can't go there. 

There are some things in life that amaze me because I just don't think those kind of thoughts and marvel at the people that do. The mindset of The Carbon Boys is an example of exactly that.

Better Than TV?

Ah, that's been the promise, hasn't it? All these tech companies are delivering where TV fell short. Look at the plethora of offerings. Truly, our cups runneth over. But the tradeoff has been that our privacy has been invaded and continues to be and there's a whole lot of data being gathered. TV never did that. 
TV was just broadcast, and by broadcast I mean it blanketed an area in the hopes that it could capture the largest market possible. TV signals operated close to the radio frequency spectrum and so signals could be blocked by hills, buildings, or what broadcasters referred to as ground clutter- trees, billboards, water towers, anything tall and in the way. 
  But that is no more, and hasn't been since analog went the way of the dinosaur about a decade back. Now the signal travels via cable, fiber optics, satellite, or cell phone towers and nothing gets in its way. 
Right to your device the signal travels and as long as it’s there, why doesn't it snoop around a bit, learn a little more about you, and then send some data back so as to better 'help' you? Bring you precisely targeted goods and services that you might buy, bought in the past, or that you've been thinking about? We know which shows you watch, what music you like to listen to, and which web pages you've been on lately, last week, last month, during the last season. We know how much you earn and what you usually spend your dough on. We know your address, where you've lived in the past, what skills you possess, if you've ever been in trouble, who your friends are, what they do, who you've had relationships with, where you work, what your religious and political affiliations are, what health issues you've had, are facing, or might potentially face because we track your habits. 
Oh, we don't tell you all this because we really don't want you to know and as long as you don't you're unlikely to demand legislation be put into place to curtail us. 'Cuz we just wanna help. 

Even the cash registers track you

fancycrave- Unsplash.com

We know everything about you but you know very little about us or where all this data is going to or being stored. Sorry! We're working on transparency but there are sooooo many projects we wanna get a leg up on before 'the competition' does. (this so-called 'competitive playing field' growing ever smaller and more concentrated)
But don't worry. We're really smart people who have things under control, or at least we thought we did but data breaches will happen, we're afraid. It's part of the growing process any company undergoes. We just happen to be working with highly sensitive personal data but hey- back in the day you guys handled radioactivity and didn't think that was a big deal. 
Just sayin'! 

So, as to further help, why not get one of our personal assistants? They'll listen in and should you need anything that they can do, like change the channel on the TV, cue up that movie you've been wanting to watch, answer a question for you, pull up a recipe, tell you what the weather is, how much flights to Vegas are, or a host of other things we've got that- and it's on sale!

Please don't block us or deny us access because we need your location in order to operate and/or communicate 'properly' with many other apps you’ve loaded. We assure you it's all for your own good even if you don't know everything that's going on and if you do, you might not after the next upgrade!
(which is overdue, by the way)

Didja hear about our latest remote entry/monitoring capabilities? We can unlock your front door as you're pulling down the drive, if your kid comes home early from school, if the service guy shows while you're out walking Fido, or if Aunt Paula shows up on her own from the airport when you're at Pilates class. 
If you're far, far away from home, don't worry- and forget about those old school light timers! We can have you monitoring your crib from a multitude of camera positions and turning the lights on and off while you're sunning on the beach in Playa Del Sur.

Bottom line is, you're stuck with us. Without us you can't make a phone call, watch TV, or check up on the news anymore in most places. What once was commonplace, relaxing, and user-friendly doesn't even exist anymore. But don't worry, it's all for the good. Coming up is we're also going to eliminate your needing to go to the bank and drive a car, because we got a better way figured out for those processes. You'll see. Some companies right now are developing nanopills that will relay back to us if you've been taking your meds! 
Chips in your credit cards, Google glasses on your face, bio sensors on your wrists, we want to know everything we can about you, in real time. Like last week, when you lingered for 8.723 minutes on a webpage. What drove you to enact that behavior, when usually you won't linger for more than 2.156 minutes, on average, on any one page? It doesn't fit our algorithm for you. Perhaps somebody else was using your phone that day? 
  We don't like outliers like that, let us tell you, but fortunately it was a one time deal and you quickly reverted back to your predictable pattern. 

One that grows clearer and clearer with each passing day. We've been running DNA test advertisements on certain webpage sidebars lately hoping that you'll bite there but so far you haven't. We would sure let to get our hands on your genetic background, if we can. To assist you, of course.

Again, thanks for sharing! Your data. We know soooo much about you but you know next to nothing about us, who we are, where we're located, or what we're doing with your stuff. Oh well. We sorry!  

If you have any questions, feel free to call our 24/7 tech support number, or we can connect by chat. We won't be able to answer all of your questions but we will try and aid you in any way that we can.

In parting, an FYI for you: 
We've done away with human phone operators and have gone to a full A.I. staff. 

Meat Bar

I grew up a carnivore and will likely remain so, it's in my blood. Hearty Wisconsin fare was what I was raised on. 
I've tried eating light, hell, I've tried every way of eating there is and every kind of food to see what works and what doesn't and that has resulted in a diet unique to me and in that diet I eat meat. 
I don't eat a lot of it, or a little, I try to make it 'just right'. My daily dietary intake almost always includes that which they call the 'entree', and that one containith meat. 
  Meat is the star, the prized portion of most entrees, and entrees are what meals are always built around, especially as pertains to fast food, which I used to eat a lot uh.... .....back in the day. There was McDonalds, Burger King, Wendys, Dominos, Godfathers, Shakey’s, KFC, Chick-fil-A, and whatever little local joint I could pop into before or after work that offered quick, take out sort of fare. 
  I'd go in or call ahead and select my 'meal' of choice. Seems archaic that I used to eat like this, for now I am not that way. I incorporate lots of greens and organic and have cut out the salt and sugar to a great degree, many of the fats too. I don't eat fried so much. 
So what did I do to get away from the standard fast food fare? I had to learn make lunch or dinner myself. Well, making it yourself involves learning how to cook which calls for recipes and equipment and ingredients and time and to all that I groaned “Hey- wait a minit- I'm workin' a full time gig!” Cooking, I found, takes time- a lot of time (and that equation applies to your partner too, when you partner up). 
I have to ruefully laugh when I read a lot of recipes where it says the prep time and cooking time are only 'this much'. No- the process is actually much longer. Because there is also the shopping for ingredients time and the dishwashing time that comes during and after food preparation which easily doubles the prep and cook time. So what's a carnivore to do? Deal with it, right? 
And I did.

The classic burger, dressed up meat bar style

Oliver Sjostrom, Unsplash.com

So imagine this carnivore's delight upon finding such a thing as a 'meat bar', which I did at Whole Foods a couple of years ago. It was like coming across an oasis in the desert of carnivorian choices. I could just buy meat! Already cooked, ready to go, as much of it or as little of it as I wanted. Who woulda ever thunk it?
Being by then a fan of the low carb lifestyle, I was already onto the building of dishes around protein sources, and here was the ultimate protein source, sitting in trays right in front of me. "Hallelujah!" I cried, while simultaneously crying tears of joy. "This is gonna save me so much time....."
Now, like anything else, you can't go hog wild at the meat bar. Too much meat is not good for the system. Balance, remember? Moderation in all things. So standing at the meat bar (or, if I'm at home, staring into the refrigerator) I ask myself two questions. "What protein source does the body need?" is number one. "And what can I combine with that this day?" is number two.
  These are the basic questions I ask myself when thinking about food intake. I have asked myself these questions for thirty years or more, on a daily basis, I have really tuned in on occasion and asked "What is the body needing right now?” because sometimes it's not meat but more often than not it is. 
  So, if I'm looking for meat and happen to be standing in front of the meat bar this day, I carefully peruse the selection in front of me. Do I want brisket? Tri-tip? Pulled pork? Some sort of assorted sausage dish they've thrown together? Chicken? Meatballs? Meatloaf? Ribs? Burgers? Yesterday they had turkey breast, in gravy. Yum!  
I load up, then source my carbs and whatnot in other parts of the store, or I have those parts of my diet in the car, already prepared. Its easy and I love it. Costs me some, 'tis true, but every time I hit up the meat bar I think "Thank you, Whole Foods, for doing this, thank you thank you thank you!". 
'Cuz on my way out I pass the fast food joints that line the strip on my way to work. They're still serving up their staid old 'meal's of sandwich, fries, and drink and I just shake my head at that. There's even cars waiting in line at some places, five or more deep. 
"Not me!" I gleefully say as I’m driving by, while chewing on a hunk of teriyaki tri-tip. I feel like a frickin' king.