Ponderings and Musings

One of the perks of working from home is that I have the opportunity to take a few moments to relax when I need a time out during the work day. I spent a few moments relaxing on the bed after lunch today and Truman hopped up to sit next to me.

It’s hard to believe that he’s lived with us for over six months. He has his routine and while it was disturbed a bit during our recent time away, he seems unfazed by the whole thing and is indicating expectation for his schedule. He’s not much of a cuddler as he prefers to sit nearby rather than on me or snuggled up with me, which is fine. I just needed to learn the ground rules early on.

As I relaxed on the bed with him alongside, he situated himself so he could see out the window and observe the goings-on on the rooftop patio next door. We had the windows wide open, as it was a glorious day in The Windy City today, and every time a train passed on the Brown Line, I noticed his little notice would go into action sniffing the air passing through the open windows. I don’t know what he was smelling, but his nose would jump around a little bit, almost as if he was using smell to read a newspaper. Come to think of it, that may be a way that felines communicate. Perhaps they rely on smell as much as we rely on sight.

When I was a teenager we had an orange and white cat named Waldo (named after the cartoon “Waldo Kitty”). One day he was laying next to me on my bed and I noticed that if I looked at him with one eye he had a more orange hue to his fur than if I looked at him with the other eye. It was like a green tint was removed and/or inserted to his fur color, depending on the eye I was using to look at him.

Forty years later and I was playing the same game with similarly-colored Truman this afternoon. As his nose wiggled, I switched back and forth between my left and right eye, the green tint in his fur coming and going depending on which eye was in use.

Closing and opening each eye individually caught Truman’s attention, and he turned away from the window for a moment to see what I was doing. I smiled and gave him some nice pets.

He commenced purring.

Relaxing on the bed is a good way to boost the energy in the midday.

Earl and I are on a 5-day getaway, currently aboard a United flight from O’Hare to Denver. This getaway is a focus on relaxation for the two of us, and I’ve been looking forward to this trip for a long while. Denver is not out final destination today.

There are many things I love about calling Chicago home, and one of them is the fact we live so close to a major airport. Not only can I watch flights on approach into O’Hare on a daily basis (something I love to do), but many of our flights out of the Windy City are a one hop experience (contrary to today’s flight). When we leave ORD I’m always excited to identify the landmarks I can easily identify as a private pilot. Here’s a photo fo KPWK, the home airport of one of the Flying Clubs I belong to and the airport where I’ve logged many departures and takeoffs in the Archer III.

I’m at one of the most happiest moments in my life, despite all the chaos going on in the world. Life is what you make it to be, always strive to make it the best it can be.

According to Apple’s spell check, “ponderance” isn’t a word. Betty White could never give enough clues to guess that Password.

That’s how I feel tonight: full of ponderance. There’s a lot to think about.

51. Not prime, but awesome. Some numbers physically look more awesome to me than others, and 51 looks awesome.

A health provider recently said to me, “you’re on the back nine, the best part of the game.” Yep. A great place to be.

NY Route 51 goes from Mount Upton to Ilion. It’s a nice, scenic drive. There’s ups, there’s downs, curves, and straight runs. Enjoyable all the way.

Back in my school days, bus 51 was driven by a woman named Jean. Not my regular bus, but word had it she could bounce two HS football players against each other while keeping one hand on the wheel. She was in charge.

There is no Illinois 51. There is a U.S. Route 51 in Illinois and it runs the entire length of the state. I’ve been on approximately half of it, and Earl and I will finish the other half before the year’s end.

I’ve never had “51” in sequence in any of my home or personal phone numbers, but my internal office number when I worked at Digital was DTN 251-1282.

I’m right where I was meant to be at this point, on this planet, in this moment of time. No regrets. I look forward with excitement of what lies ahead.

It is an absolutely divine evening in The Windy City. It’s 77ºF after 10:00 p.m., perhaps the warmest it has been at this time of night in 2019. Impressive thunderstorms passed through earlier this afternoon; I was called from my office to the balcony when I heard hail banging against the windows. When I looked out I couldn’t see the clock you see in the snapshot I just took a moment ago.

The weather cam on our balcony caught a bit of the storm.

Mother Nature may throw us some more storms throughout the night. Looking at the forecast discussion in my aviation weather apps, there’s probably going to thunderstorms on and off through the weekend.

I might not get to fly much over the next few days but at least Mother Nature is strutting around impressively. For the moment, I shall sit on the balcony, enjoy the summer breeze, and relax. It’s a good way to wind down for the night.

I notice things that many people don’t pay much attention to. I’ve always been this way; at age 8 I remarked to my mother as we were driving through town, that someone had taken down all the corner street signs throughout the village. As it turns out, the village had taken down the signs to have the cast iron signs repainted. Why they did this with all the signs at once was beyond my comprehension, but nevertheless, she said she would have never noticed that sort of thing and she felt I should become a scientist or something.

When we first started coming to Chicago to visit Jamie, I noticed that every electrical socket in his apartment was sideways. I thought this may have been just a quirk of the builder of the 1950s apartment building he was living in, but then I started looking at wall plugs everywhere we went in the city and aside from when the plug was sharing a box with a wall switch or something, the plug was always turned sideways.

By the way, by sideways I mean the “face” of a typical U.S. electrical outlet is on its side, rather than looking like two eyes and a mouth agape underneath.

A little research on this revealed that most Chicago-based contractors do this because they always have, and that’s how you can tell you had a quality electrician doing the work in your home. City codes also require conduit in the walls, and it’s easier to install wall boxes sideways when you’re working with conduit.

It is of little consequence as to which direction the plugs are oriented on our wall, except if you have a nightlight or something, because then the nightlight is pointing sideways. So if you’re particularly religious or something and have a nightlight featuring the Virgin Mary, she’s going to be laying on her side.

I talk about this today because I spent a few minutes replacing one of the outlets over the kitchen counter with a new receptacle that contains USB charging ports as well. Since I come from a family of building contractors, it seems that I am required to do this sort of thing on my own in lieu of hiring a handyman to do it, and of course I over-tightened the wall plate and cracked it, resulting in a trip to the local hardware store. Since this wall outlet shares a box with the switch for the garbage disposal, it’s one of the three plugs in the entire condo that is vertically oriented.

Regardless of the direction it’s facing, I’m pleased with the result of my work this afternoon. Now I’m going to take a few moments and lay on my side.

So this afternoon I stopped at a chain restaurant called Veggie Grill. This particular location is located on the Loop in Chicago. I’ve never been to one of these restaurants before, but the selection was good, I was able to make a healthy choice for my lunch, and the service staff was pleasant.

As I walked into the restaurant the first thing I noticed was all of the signs proclaiming that this particular location did not accept cash. They accept credit and debit cards only. The tech head in me assumed this also meant they accepted Apple Pay and the other contactless payment methods, but there were no payment terminals to be found; I had to pay with my credit card, and their point of sale system relied on the mag stripe on the back of the card.

A restaurant going cashless relying on 1950s technology seemed rather odd to me; especially when mag stripes have pretty much gone away everywhere else in the world and over the past few years the United States has been glacially moving forward to adopt better, more secure technology.

This cashless payment requirement got me wondering, why is this particular location cashless? The signs all over the store seem to indicate other locations in the chain accept cash. What made this store unique?

The location doesn’t seem to be in a particularly dangerous area of Chicago, after all, it’s on the Loop, and ultimately anything can happen anywhere, I can’t imagine that a restaurant proclaiming themselves as “Veggie Grill” would choose to locate in an undesired socioeconomic climate. Yeah, there’s always a chance someone is going to try to grab cash from the cash register, but it doesn’t seem to be anymore likely here versus other places I’ve been in Chicago.

Then I got to wondering if this was a way to keep homeless people out of the restaurant. A homeless person, if they’re able to purchase a meal to begin with, is most likely going to purchase a meal with cash. Those looking for handouts are going to look for handouts regardless of what the signs on the door say. Yet, I can’t help but think the cashless approach is a deterrent to receiving visits from homeless folks.

Maybe I should start handing out gift cards instead of packs of peanut butter crackers wrapped in dollar bills.

I’m the first person to want technology to take us forward in any way that it can, as long as for it’s for the good of the people, all the people. Technological advancements that are designed to segregate the haves from the have nots are rarely advancements in good faith.

I look forward to the day when we have replicators producing whatever we need for whomever needs it. In the meantime, let’s keep advancing technology to make it safe, secure, and convenient.

For everyone!

We often hear about Baby Boomers versus Millennials. But what about us Gen Xers? I’m solidly a Gen X and quite proud of it. Here’s a fascinating video talking about Gen Xers.