Why.

I’m fortunate. I have been in all 50 states, and aside from Seattle and Denver, I’ve driven in all the major and many of the smaller cities in the United States. Not to focus on the negative, but the worst drivers in my encounters have been found in Omaha, Nebraska. Driving that city is maddening, because it’s like the folks there have been given a bunch of freeways and don’t know what to do with them.

Denver, Colorado comes in a close second.

Denver has a myriad of freeways throughout the metro area. One of the big trends in the area is toll based Express Lanes. Instead of HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes found in most major cities, the Denver area charges a toll to use these “express lane”, which is just a striped off lane from the rest of the freeway. The tolls change based on popularity.

This is not what makes driving Denver freeways maddening.

The growing trend of “camping in the passing lane” is gaining steam in the area. Drivers will hang out in the second to left lane (because they don’t want to pay the toll) and then shoot across the remaining lanes to get to their exit at the last minute. Or motorists will bang on their brakes for no reason. There’s no one in front of them. There are no exits coming up, but for some bizarre reason, Denver area drivers like to randomly bang on their brakes.

The Colorado Department of Transportation, like many other states in the United States, believes that only Interstate numbered freeways should have numbered interchanges. If you’re on a freeway that’s carrying a U.S. Route Number, there’s a good chance you’re not going to know how far it is until your exit if you’re not using GPS because the interchanges are not numbered to the mileposts. It’s only when you’re a mile or less from the interchange that you realize you need to start moving to the right. That’s when you discover that folks will continue to bang on their brakes in random fashion.

Another thing I noticed is that folks either strictly adhere to the speed limit (which changes quite a bit) or they are wildly ignored. The ones adhering to the speed limit tend to stick to the passing lane as an act of defiance to the rest of the world, deluded into thinking they’re doing some sort of public service by crunching up traffic behind them, all the while bang on their brakes at random intervals.

And don’t get me started on whatever they’re trying to do with this Peña Blvd. taking you to Denver International Airport. But as a quick aside, I will never understand why airport authorities like to design the road signs on their property to look as completely different from standard road signs as possible. I want to get to Terminal West, not enjoy the creative design of some bored designer throwing road sign symbols around in Microsoft Paint.

Yes, Denver, you are not the worst drivers I have encountered. That title solidly belongs to Omaha, Nebraska. But wow, do you come in a close second.

Take your foot off the brake and drive on.

When we live in a society that no longer prioritizes verifiable facts and the actual truth over rumors, fear mongering, and outright lies, we no longer live in a functioning society.

I’ve been tapped out of the news and most of social media for a while, so I was unaware of the idiocy firing around the Internet around Hurricane Helene recovery efforts. I should have known better, it is election season with Donald Trump running again as the worst presidential candidate in history.

FEMA has created some webpages addressing these lies, rumors, and other disinformation. FEMA is trying to do good things.

It’s a shame the MAGA crowd is trying to countermand their efforts with their disinformation campaign.

Here’s the link.

I’m not a fan of commercialism rushing or overtaking the holiday season. We went shopping at our local Kohl’s last night and I was very confused by their holiday display, which was a mix of Halloween and Christmas decorations. Personally, I feel like Christmas decorations shouldn’t be sold before the 1st of November and establishments should be decorated for Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but then again I don’t want those pesky kids on my lawn.

One of the reasons I’m less enthused about the Christmas holiday season in general is because of the commercialism of it all. Every time I see Charlie Brown mention it during the annual Peanuts TV special, which was produced in the 1960s, I want to yell back at the screen, “kid, you have no idea how bad it’s going to get”.  Granted, Charlie Brown had to deal with aluminum trees but he also got to enjoy tinsel, which has turned into something we don’t do anymore.

And now I’m talking about Christmas decorations on the 1st of October. I need to end this blog entry. Now.

I deleted my last Twitter account yesterday. I hadn’t been using it, other than pushing the YouTube channel releases as appropriate and tweeting at a particularly awful local politician once in a great while.

I kept the channel around for storm chasing oriented notifications as well, but as I get to know more storm chasers, I’m discovering that quite a few of them are probably not the type of people I want to be around. Also, since Space Karen took over Twitter, the quality of all content on the platform has dropped to incredible lows. While I’m sure we can all agree that we live in a society in decline, I prefer to believe that Twitter is no longer a snapshot of society but only an amplification tool of the worst of us.

I don’t know if that last paragraph makes sense but I hope it conveys the thought I’m trying to share.

Two things happened this week that made me say, “hey, I don’t want my name associated with any of this” as I gesture around the dumpster fire called Twitter, or X, or whatever the heck it is.

1. Space Karen appears to want a Civil War in the U.K. His constant tweets (Xcrements?) on the subject just became too much to see when they were forced into my feed for my viewing when I took a look at the content.
2. Linda Yaccarino, CEO of the dumpster fire, made a video highlighting why Twitter is suing the advertisers that no longer advertise with them because surprise, surprise, there’s just something inherently bad about Disney not wanting to advertise next to tweets full of race hate for Kamala Harris or informational tidbits around conspiracy theories that the Holocaust was faked to get more money for the space race that never happened.

The stilted, overly dramatic, awkward video from Linda Yaccarino was the last straw for me. Along the lines of Katie Britt, the kitchen woman that delivered the awkward response to President Biden’s latest State of the Union speech in a weird baby like voice that occasionally oscillated and contrasted with her overly dramatic crying and aggressive “anger” voice, Linda delivers one inane comment after another as to why people and companies not advertising on Twitter are a threat to freedom of speech.

I’m convinced Linda Yaccarino would also be using that weird baby voice, which I’ve learned is called “FBV” or Fundy Baby Voice, if her vocal cords were built for it and her accent was a little less harsh. Perhaps she can go for Baby Voice Elocution Classes after raking all the advertising money they’re now going to rake in because why wouldn’t someone advertise next to videos of a person gesturing awkwardly and making weird noises and looking like a hostage held by Space Karen.

I decided to pick myself up by whatever moral foundation I have and say, “I’m not associating with this. I don’t want my name associated with this. I have no interest in this.” Besides, we all know Space Karen is doing this because he wants to swing the news cycle away from the successes of the Harris-Walz campaign. Muskrat is not getting enough attention.

I know, I know, for a man with no interest I sure have written a lot of words to say why I have no interest. I could go on and but honestly, it’s best for everyone involved.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

I’m going to start this blog entry by stating it right here at the top: I really enjoy Michelle Yeoh.

Paramount+/CBS/All Access/whatever it’s called these days has released a trailer for “Star Trek: Section 31”, to be released on Paramount+ in 2025. If it wasn’t for the “Star Trek:” in the title and a few mentions of a Vulcan or something else, I would have absolutely no idea this trailer depicts a movie in the “Star Trek” universe.

This feels like some sort of cyberpunk sci-fi cuss mess that does NOTHING to contribute the original vision of “Star Trek”, and that’s when humanity gets beyond itself and into a prosperous, harmonious, future. NOTHING in this trailer invokes hope. Like most things branded as entertainment in the 2020s, this seems to be about strife, anger, and a dystopian future.

Bleh.

I am a Trekker from long before “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. I fairly enjoy “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier”. I haven’t been as invested in the franchise since “Star Trek: Voyager” was canceled in the early ’00s and I could never get into “Discovery”. I enjoy “Strange New Worlds” to a degree, mostly because I hope at some point we’ll see Anson Mount shirtless in front of a mirror shaving around his awesome Starfleet sideburns.

“Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” is one of my least favorite of the ‘classic’ series because back then it was straying too far from the hopeful future once ever present in the Star Trek universe. That’s where the concept of Section 31 was introduced to the canon, but from what I can tell, this Section 31 is nothing like what was introduced back on DS9.

A few years ago Paramount+/pick your name brought fan films in the Star Trek universe to a complete stop, as they had their own vision of what should be shared in the space going forward.

They should have left it to the fans to make their own films.

I’ll pass.

Dave over at Blogography recently featured a YouTube video by an astute observer who points out the fibs, deceptions, and lies found in many YouTube Influencer videos. If you have 38 minutes and feel invested in the topic, here’s the video:

The video highlights all sorts of things, like illogical positions of the sun in the sky relative to the supposed time the video is being recorded, inflated rankings in marathons, and inattention to details like digital clocks showing the real time, etc. This woman has the receipts. You’ll see those too.

Influencer culture is rather gross. It’s an extension of the Reality TV generation conflated with rampant consumerism where you should buy what these influencers are saying you should buy. Their lifestyles are amazing because their videos show just amazing they are. But they’re not.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to get more people to notice my little videos about hiking, storm chasing, and aviation. Honestly, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest. Maybe I should just admit that I’m a boring middle aged man. I’m going to keep making my videos because I enjoy the creative outlet, but I’m realizing I’m doing one thing very wrong.

I’m being truthful. The truth does not begat engagement.

During the storm chasing trip I featured a segment in one of my videos where I show myself in the shower, getting ready for the day, checking out weather websites, etc. Being the “Bewitched” nut that I am, there are a couple of little “witchcraft” segments where I pop on my shoes and magically change my shirt. I’m here to admit right now: those two little scenes were staged. But me getting out of the shower? I put the camera up before I got in the shower, took my whole shower, and then the camera captured me getting out of the shower. Same with the shaving, and the brushing of the teeth, and the packing up my belongings to vacate the hotel room.

Note that at no time did I show a shot of me getting out of bed. Because I was traveling solo, there was no one there to film me getting out of bed and I wasn’t about to set up the camera, set the alarm clock back, get back in bed, wait for the alarm, then get out of bed, and fake waking up. I’ve told many tall tales in my life, but that poor habit was solidly in my youth and something I quickly grew out of. I can’t bring myself to “Survivor” or “Big Brother” my way through the day, taking multiple cuts of the same shot to pick the perfect shot. Maybe it comes from my days of radio, but I tend to grab things live.

Yes, there are times when I’ll say the same phrase multiple times because I stumbled over my words while talking to the camera. Yes, I will hike up a trail, put up the camera, go back down the hill, hike up the hill again, and then grab the camera after I passed by, so I have a shot of me hiking up the hill. I’m actually doing twice the hike for those shots. But I’m not going to be claiming it’s before dawn with the sun beating down on me, or bound out of bed with a sure shot of energy when I’ve already gotten out of bed, set up everything, gone back to bed, and done it for real.

I do my best to represent who I am, where I am, and what I’m doing. And apparently that does not please the YouTube algorithms. OK, fine. Then it’s no engagement numbers for me.

We all know Influencer Culture, and those embroiled in that scene, are tacky. I like to think that some of them are doing it for the creative outlet, much like I do with my videos, but for the most part, they’re there to make money off residuals from you buying what they’re selling.

I guess there’s not enough money in selling the truth.

“Self Checkouts are awesome!”

We’ve been hearing this from retailers for well over a decade. The epitome of customer convenience, by making the customer do the work of a dedicated store employee, customers can fly through the checkout experience and exit the store faster than OJ can fly through an airport to a car rental company counter. I know, he’s dead now.

In reality, eliminating store employees and having all the customer do the checkout work, retailers thought they’d save tons and tons of money. Somewhere at this moment there’s a big box corporation CEO rolling in their millions of parachute money before Jeff Bezos takes it all away.

Except, here’s the thing. No one wagered on the amount of theft that would occur in the self checkout process. Intentional or not, retailers are losing more money than they anticipated and they are subsequently starting to see the hit to their soaring profits.

This does not amuse the stockholders.

Personally, I never had a problem with self checkouts until they started completely removing the manned checkout lanes altogether. Our local Walmart store did this, for the most part. The customer service counter has been relocated to a legacy-style checkout, and four of the original 30 checkout lanes remain; the rest have all been converted into a corral of self checkouts, where folks can mingle in very close quarters with very large carts and do things like exchange body gases and other COVID-19 transport mechanisms.

We live in such wonderful times.

The Walmart in question robbed their store greeter position to install a receipt checking sentry at the door, but I have always bypassed that person at this particular store. “Sir, I need to see your receipt!”

On the few occasions I have actually heard this I have countered with, “I’m not an employee, no need to check my work”! I then wave my receipt in the air. It might be a car wash receipt or a Starbucks receipt or even something from a Kmart back in 1998. As long it’s printed on chemically dangerous thermal printer that’s going to fade in the Arizona sun within the next couple of months, I don’t think they really care. I’ve been on camera the whole time. They saw me give them a one star rating at the end of the transaction. They shouldn’t ask for my opinion.

Target has been removing self-checkout lanes in their more theft-prone areas because they’re losing too much money and that makes the folks in Minneapolis nervous. Our store hasn’t removed their self checkout corral, but now we’re limited to the number of items we can bring into the corral. Their self checkouts have been converted to “10 items or fewer”.

Luckily, Target still has a dozen or so traditional lanes and usually two or three of them are actually manned.

Here’s a fun tangent. In the very early 1990s I worked for Hills Department Store. I have come to realize that apparently I was one of the few cashiers not stoned at any given time, and that’s probably why they always put me on the express lane. This was before the chain had adopted scanning and we were still keying in the Dept/SKU/Price on every item. The IBM 4683 cash registers felt kind of cheap when compared to the original system from the late 1970s (NCR 255s) but they worked and I could move quickly, even on register 16, which was at the very end of the network loop.

During the Christmas rush, this Hills store would open 15 out of the 16 checkouts and even process regular sales at the nearby jewelry counter. Why 15 out of 16 and not all 16? Because register five was reserved for “administrative duties” by a usually sassy woman named Trish who was dubbed “head cashier”. I really liked Trish, she was a lot of fun. And she could watch everything we were doing, keystroke by keystroke, from register five. The monitoring software has been there for well over 30 years; even the old NCR 255s from the 1970s could monitor the keystrokes of any cash register at any given time.

So I don’t know why I’m suppose to show my receipt to the less than friendly “exiter” at Walmart.

I’m wondering how long it will be before the local Target removes the self checkouts completely. They’re already locking things up like toilet paper and band aids. It’s only a matter of time.

Every year we pay a little extra in health insurance for vision care. The vision care company is quite well known and it’s not a huge expense, but in these weird financial days every penny counts, so I’m aware of what we’re paying per month for eye care.

The other day I received a flyer in the mail urging me to get my yearly checkup. Last year I went to our local Target Optical department, and while the eye exam was free, the glasses were not. My glasses with progressive lenses were well over $300 AFTER insurance coverage. I ordered a second pair from Zenni Optical for just shy of $120 WITHOUT insurance coverage.

This makes absolutely no sense to me.

When we lived in Chicago I had an eye exam and picked up a pair of glasses from Warby Parker for a forgotten sum of money, but I remember that my insurance coverage plan wasn’t particularly fond of Warby Parker so they only contributed $50 to the whole experience.

Like many of my fellow Americans, I’m really getting tired of the health insurance shenanigans constantly in progress, and as I get older I just know it’s going to become more and more of a factor. One of the reasons my husband and I keep pushing out my retirement date is due to health coverage and the associated costs around health insurance. There’s a part of me that figures I’ll be dead and buried before I’m able to retire.

In the meanwhile, I’m sticking to cheaper, online sources of eyeglasses. Our current vision insurance coverage plan feels too much like a scam.