Why.

We really have some poor choices available to us in this here 21st century. You know, our telephone calls in the 20th century were of a better voice quality than what we have today? That’s right, when we “let our fingers do the walking“ and we talked to friends and family over 20th century telephone equipment, the reliability of a connection and the quality of our speaking voices was better than what we experience today, even if we are still using a land line and a corded phone.

Progress?

Society has also shifted to social media for things far beyond sharing little bits of life like “I just had the most awesome hamburger!”. Government officials use Twitter to declare war. Family members have moved their entire lives to Facebook. Geeks used to talk about their geeky interests on Google+. If there’s late breaking news you’re most likely going to read about it on social media first and then let the news media fill in the details (hopefully).

Yesterday I tried to stop reading Twitter. I didn’t delete my account because I was still working on downloading my data but I told myself if I could go one month without touching the platform I would probably delete my account.

Didn’t even make it a day.

We live close enough to the CTA tracks to be able to hear announcements to the platforms when we have our windows open. Even though I haven’t ridden a train in over a month, my spidey-sense knew something was amiss and then I heard an announcement. The trains were stopped for a sizable chunk of the line and mumble mumble mumble. I instinctively turned to Twitter to see what was going on, because as a Chicago I follow the CTA Twitter feed to see what’s going on with the trains.

Now, there’s other places I can see what’s going on with the CTA, however, the fastest response is usually on their Twitter feed. It’s not like I’m looking to ride the train but in these idle, lockdown times, I was curious as to what was going on.

So I fired up Twitter.

It was then I saw several tweets about airplanes from my pilot friends and I also saw why the trains were stopped and I caught a couple of nifty little musings from folks amongst the 600 or so accounts I follow on Twitter.

It was a beautiful day in Chicago, it would have been a great day to fly, but the airplanes are grounded for non-essential flights. It was good to see aviation stuff from aviators.

I believe Twitter has been a major contributor to the negative conditions we are experiencing in the world today. I think the basis of why the platform was created is sound, I just think it was ahead of its time. While I have major concerns with the uneven application of Twitter’s Rules of Conduct policies, I also believe American society was not equipped to handle Twitter, and much of the other technology we have available to us today. The evolution of technology has outpaced the evolution of our society. This leads to bad actors, weaponization, and general misuse of the tools we have at our disposal.

So I went back on Twitter via Tweetbot and am tweaking it again to make the best of it.

It is my intent to share my displeasure with Twitter’s uneven application of their Rules of Conduct whenever and wherever appropriate. Without users Twitter would have nothing. Without loud voices trends can never be changed.

In the meanwhile, I’ll know what’s going on with the trains and I’ll be able to chat with the friends I’ve made on the platform.

I’m in a mood. So here’s a picture of an airport from space. It’s in Ohio.

My husband and I walked down to the local Trader Joe’s in search of a loaf of rye bread. St. Patrick’s Day is Tuesday and we’re going to celebrate by enjoying a couple of reuben sandwiches. If we can find some Guinness we’ll have one or two at home, since all sit-down restaurants and bars are closed in Illinois until March 30.

There were a total of ten loaves of bread left and none of them rye. My husband said he can improvise with what was available and he picked up a loaf of bread.

There wasn’t much else to choose from. All canned goods, dairy, frozen foods, meat, and produce was gone. We did find a bag of potatoes, so we grabbed that and there was a decent amount of chocolate chip granola bars left.

As we checked out of Trader Joe’s, a person at the door thanked us for stopping by and offered us a rose. I appreciated the gesture.

I still don’t get the insane hoarding that’s been going on but I use the activity as a barometer for what the general American public is really like at the core. As I quipped on Twitter, imagine the reaction if extraterrestrials made their presence known.

People would really go crazy for toilet paper then.

And we come to the end of Daylight Saving Time in 2019. The next time 1:59 AM rolls around, the clocks will then advance to 1:00 AM. Tomorrow, “noon” will be that much closer to when the sun is at its highest point in the sky for this part of the country at this time of the year.

We will no longer be faking extra daylight by moving the clocks artificially ahead.

I find it much easier to adapt to Standard Time. My body will be in sync by the end of the day tomorrow and the feeling of jet lag I’ve had since DST began last spring will quickly subside. While others complain about the “early” darkness, I will feel energetic and centered.

There are some studies that find our bodies are looking for a 25-hour day on a planet with 24-hour long days. Moving the clocks around to fake us into thinking are days are longer is not the answer. The cows don’t like it, the farmers don’t like it, and it doesn’t save us any energy.

I pray that I’ll see the day when Daylight Saving Time is a thing of the past within my lifetime. Judging by the idiocy that’s accepted as normalcy these days, my hopes for such sanity are quickly fading.

At least I can sleep in tomorrow morning without losing an hour.

My husband comments frequently on my expressions of frustration while driving around the greater Cook and Lake County areas of Northeastern Illinois. His frequent comments are probably a result of the frequency in which I share my feelings about the drivers and society in general.

I fully believe we have an up front, first row seat at the drastic dumbing down of American society.

My biggest frustration with driving on the roads of the United States is that everyone is forced to the lowest common denominator for everything. Speed limits are set for people that can’t handle anything faster. Drivers have to constantly guess if a vehicle is turning in front of them or not because that driver can’t be bothered to use their turn signal. Motorists love to camp in the “passing” lane because they think they’re living life in the fast lane. The list goes on and on but you know all this.

The latest trend I’ve noticed is pulling over to the left side of an expressway with a broken down vehicle instead of the right shoulder like we all used to do until about five or so years ago. We can be in the middle of Iowa, hardly any traffic around, and a driver will get a flat tire and pull over to the left side of the expressway instead of the right side. This is most likely because they were camping in the left lane (the passing lane) instead of being in the right lane (the driving lane) where they should have been in the first place.

Left side shoulders are generally not as wide as the right side shoulders along American expressways and freeways. Unless there’s a grassy median (and not a concrete or steel barrier) with plenty of room in between the travel lanes of a high-speed roadway, you shouldn’t be pulling over to the left side of the road.

Another thing that makes me crazy here in Illinois is work zone speed limits. IDOT and the Illinois Tollway Authority love posting low work zone speed limits, which in theory, should increase safety for the workers. If a roadway is obviously under construction and workers are present, I’m all for lowering the speed limit. But lowering the speed limit for the duration of a project, even though the paving is done, the stripes are in place, and the new signs have been installed, and there’s not a shred of evidence of a construction zone aside from the “WORK ZONE SPEED LIMIT 45 $375 MINIMUM FINE” sign in a normally 70 MPH roadway, endangers workers in real construction zones. It minimizes the impact of these work zone signs and motorists just start ignoring them everywhere.

So little common sense these days.

Sometimes common sense takes effort to implement and unfortunately American society is becoming more and more lazy. Common sense is hard. Apparently it’s easier to just waver between lanes while catching up on Instagram and drinking a cup of coffee.

I’ll just stick to flying where the majority of pilots make a concerted effort to follow the rules.

Several states in the union have legalized the use of marijuana. As a Gen-Xer that grew up completely without a clue (I never knew why people a classmate “Weed” until I was about 30 years old), the legalization of pot is a direct 180 from the “Just Say No” mantra drummed into our heads in the 1980s. If we did weed our brains were going to fry like eggs in a sticky pan and our lives would be ruined.

I don’t care that people want to do pot. As far as I’m concerned there’s nothing wrong with it and I equate it with a night of drinking. A couple of edibles = a couple of shots. But just as I ask myself while I’m drinking, I’m always curious about the impetus that drives on to drink or do recreational drugs.

I’m thoroughly convinced that when historians start looking at statistics during the Trump administration, they’re going to see an increase in all sorts of inebriation. It feels like more folks are dulling their perceptions of reality. My view may be skewed, as we moved to Chicago within a year of Trump taking office. We live in a very craft beer friendly neighborhood. There are pubs everywhere. So I see a lot of people drinking.

My husband is always telling me there’s not always a “why” to every decision. I respond, “why is there no ‘why'”? Every decision is driven by something. It doesn’t just happen. There’s a reason I choose to wear a blue shirt or grow a mustache or jump in a pool or get slammed with multiple alcoholic drinks.

So I’m curious as to why more people are looking to get recreational with their niceties. Maybe there isn’t a reason; perhaps the government is just legalizing to increase revenue. We all know the current administration is capable of spending money like a drunk sailor in a whore house.

I probably waste too many cycles on wondering “why” all the time. Maybe I should take my husband’s advice and just enjoy the ride.

I’ll drink to that.

I’m big on technology, but you knew that. One of the frustrating things about owning a 2016 model year vehicle is the technology in the touchscreen is trapped at 2016. Vehicles are different than smartphones, you’re not going to upgrade every year, and buying a new vehicle to upgrade the touchscreen seems rather silly.

Vehicle manufacturers need to come up with a better way to address this.

There are some hacks to swap the radio/touchscreen out for a newer model but I don’t believe it is sanctioned by the dealer. Back in the day I didn’t mind pulling out the Delco AM radio from my father’s 1978 Impala and replacing it with an FM radio with digital display, but I could accomplish something like that in less than 30 minutes. Today, it’d be well over a grand and take a considerable amount of effort to swap out the “smart display” in our dash.

I’ve mentioned before the updating the software for our car takes about an hour of running the engine, not touching anything while you sit inside, shutting off the car a couple of times. Waiting 90 seconds. Opening and closing the door and then restarting the car again. We’ve had to do the whole “open and close the door three times” to get the car go back into park when computer decided to spazz out, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it takes nearly three parts of a weird incantation to upgrade the software.

Democratic presidential contender Marianne Williamson would be proud.

All I want is a touchscreen that can be upgraded like moving from Mac OS 10.15 to 10.16 or from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Is that too much to ask for?

Nevada Route 375 near Area 51. Not my photo, but I have a very similar photo in a photo album somewhere.

I’ve been reading bits and pieces of the latest social media movement, this time folks want to storm Area 51.

It seems to me this would be a great way to get shot.

Earl and I ventured right up to the Area 51 border back in the early 2000s. We were driving a rented Subaru. There was a dead cow in the road at “the mailbox”. We followed the dirt road until we saw signs proclaiming lethal force. There were technology-related devices on poles in the desert and in the distance we could see trucks or SUVs of some sort driving around. Logic dictated the lethal force would be administered through one of these things I just mentioned.

We decided not to risk it and we turned around and resumed our drive through the Nevada desert. Not too far away a military jet of some sort when whooshing over the road in front of us, just a few hundred feet above the ground. It was pretty awesome.

Area 51 is where the aliens and/or alien technology captured by the United States is kept. Ironically, since 2017 I’ve come to believe that Area 51 is more and more of a conspiracy theory since there’s no way the idiot in the White House could ever keep his mouth shut about such a thing. He’d be proclaiming we have only the greatest of aliens. The biggliest. And he’s smarter than them.

On the other hand, I can’t help but look up at the night sky and wish all the intelligent life out there would stop by and help us get our act together. That would be quite something, wouldn’t it? Sentient beings from another world coming to Earth and telling us some secrets of the Universe. Some thing the only reason these beings would come to our planet would be as a conquest and for destruction. I’m sorry, but if intelligent beings traveled vast distances to meet their neighbors, I’m pretty sure they would be evolved beyond the concept of war and destruction. I can’t help but feel in the very core of my being that all this death and destruction and chaos and craziness is an entirely human construct.

The arrival of such beings would really turn the world on its head. Imagine, your religious beliefs, nullified as quickly as Thanos snapping his fingers in an Avengers movie. How incredibly humbling would it be? I fully believe that we have been visited by those from another world on countless occasions, and they do it secretly because of compassion: if they revealed themselves there would be mass suicides across planet Earth because the human ego can’t handle the humility of it all. I’m reminded of a lyrics from an Abba tune, “I’m nothing special, in fact, I’m a bit of a bore”.

How glorious and yet how fully humbling that event would be.

Imagine if humans were to find out that we are all the products of a genetics-related science experiment! A little bit of our stuff was brought here from elsewhere, mixed with some stuff from a caveman type and voila, humans! How will countless cultures survive on one rock? What will happen when they mingle? How will they handle that?

I’m sure parts of the map are failing miserable at this. I’m looking at us, my fellow American.

I can’t help but think extraterrestrial travelers to Earth wouldn’t be bound by physics as we know it. Faster than light travel, artificial gravity; it’s almost like the visitors would have to travel “in between the seconds”, much like Jodie Foster’s experience in the late 1990s movie “Contact”. If it’s going to happen, I feel like that’s how it will happen. Those among us will step aside from traditional Earth believes, educate ourselves to a higher understanding, and evolve enough to find that missing piece in the equation.

And then we’ll be able to visit with those traveling between the seconds.

Until then, a bunch of hoo-haws are going storm Area 51. Go for it, folks.