I love the contrasting light at sunset here in Sonoran Desert. I’ll never tire of this.
Flipped.
My husband occasionally tells me I get too worked up with road rage as we’re navigating the roads, streets, and stravenues of Tucson, Arizona. For those not familiar with Tucson, as the city has grown the citizens have struck down any and every suggestion of building a crosstown freeway, eschewing the fast roadway experience for a consistent, “it’s a big city but still feels like a small town” experience. Instead of freeways we have arterials with plenty of traffic lights, lowered speed limits to make six- to eight-lane roadways “pedestrian friendly”, and folks driving quickly on surface streets because we don’t have freeways.
Now, I’m not an overly aggressive driver, but because I’ve done a considerable amount of college-grade studying in the whole civil engineering/traffic engineering arena, I know what the books say about highway design versus what the city of Tucson and Pima County have opted to do instead, and there’s a lot of weirdness out there. Add to this the fact that a sizable number of motorists don’t even know how to work their headlights, let alone pay attention to driving instead of using their cell phone like they’re talking into a pop tart, and the plummeting average IQ of the American citizen and I’m pretty sure we can figure out why I occasionally exhibit road rage behavior. It’s not that my husband finds I’m too aggressive, it’s that he has to hear my screaming when no one else on the road is aware of my screaming.
I’ve been doing my best to keep it inside lately. We are too far along our life paths to die in our sleep after listening to the rantings of a bald man.
The thing is, people are stupid, and driving forces everyone down to the least common denominator, especially without freeways. If someone is doing something stupid in front of you, you have to slow down and let them make their dull-normal decision to turn right from the very left hand lane. There’s never a turn signal involved with this, it’s just “oh the GPS just told me to turn right and even though I’ve been in the left lane for the past 65 miles, I’m going to dart across and turn right so I can get into the Walmart parking lot”.
I’ve recently discovered that if drivers can manage to turn their headlights on, they can’t figure out how to use their high beam switch, so in addition to these needlessly bright headlights on trucks that are too tall to begin with, drivers are navigating the stravenues of Tucson with their high beams on because no one knows what that stick on the left side of the steering wheel is suppose to do. Left, right, high, low: just ignore the switch and hope for the best.
Luckily, I’m one of the few remaining Americans that knows what this is.
For those unaware, the little switch hanging down from your rear view mirror switches the mirror from “day” to “night” mode or vice-versa. Night mode dims the entire scene displayed in the mirror so the $100K Ford F350 with a nuclear fusion powered headlight system of eight, ten, or twelve lights barreling down the ass end of your Jeep Cherokee isn’t burning your retinas completely out of your head.
Unfortunately, I live with a few people that don’t know what that switch does and they leave the switch in the night position in the day time and opt to just swing the mirror around instead.
And now you know why I might yell a lot in the car.
Caturday.
Truman is on wildlife patrol this morning. After sitting on his perch watching the back yard for wildlife for an hour or so, he moved down stairs to check out the gazebo area.
It’s a good distraction from constantly requesting food.
Frasier.
Today I learned “Frasier” is coming back to television. I wasn’t a huge fan of the show back in the day, but I’ve seen plenty of great moments from clips and this latest resurrection of an old sitcom doesn’t look too contrived. Since we pay a boatload of money for Paramount+ (Star Trek, The Good Wife), might as well give it a go when it comes out. It looks much better than when they tried to reboot “Murphy Brown” a few years ago, so we’ll give it a shot.
Onion.
Earl and I were talking about memories of days gone by and I mentioned a vague recollection of “Onion Nuggets” at McDonalds. My husband didn’t remember them but I did some digging around online and found a little bit of information.
McDonald’s Onion Nuggets came before the Chicken McNuggets. Introduced to select markets in the ‘70s, Onion Nuggets were around until the early 1980s.
I must have enjoyed them in one of the select markets back in the day. I can easily remember trying them and liking them, but I don’t remember where this occurred.
Time.
I figure I have about 30 years left in this life. Of course, that’s an arbitrary number subject to countless variables unaccounted for in this declaration, but it helps keep my sights on the future in perspective.
Of those 30 arbitrary years remaining, I’ll probably end up working a third of them. For those not quick with the maths, that’s 10 years. I plan on retiring at 65, if my company will have me for that long. If not, I’ll find another gig to pad out the arithmetic. I don’t know what tech company would want an aged team leader but I could probably bluff my way into something fruitful.
These thoughts of remaining time on my odometer are not morbid. They’re realistic. And quite frankly, my plan is to make these the best 30 years (give or take 30) of my life.
Wallpapers.
I found the new iPhone 15 Pro wallpapers online so you don’t have to. Right-click and “Open Image in New Tab” to see in full size.
Announcement Day.
Today was the day of Apple’s latest round of announcements, and following the lead established during the pandemic, Apple had a slick, pre-recorded presentation to spill the goods.
I cleared my calendar at work and switched my Teams status to “Do Not Disturb” so I could enjoy the festivities.
Today Apple announced the latest generation of iPhone, the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max. The fastest iPhones ever (why wouldn’t they be?), all models showed a decent spec bump and some amazing photographic capabilities. I am currently rocking an iPhone 13 Pro, which replaced my iPhone X back in the day. To secure this iPhone 13 Pro from the family budgeting department, I had to sign a document and place an entry on the family calendar stating I would not update for three years. So I see an iPhone 16 Pro Max on the horizon for next year.
Apple also announced WATCH 9 and their latest version of the WATCH Ultra, dubbed the Ultra 2.
I guess phrases like “Windows Vista” destroyed any marketing chances in the future of having something than iterative numbers attached to device names in the 21st century.
The Apple Watch upgrades boast impressive features and more iterative spec bumps. I’m not compelled to replace my WATCH Series 7 at this time; maybe I’ll go crazy a year from now and/or when we win the lottery.
As mentioned in my previous blog entry, the little skit around Apple’s initiatives for becoming Carbon Neutral by 2030 was my favorite part of today’s presentation and I’m really happy Apple is doing the right thing by focusing on a better environment. Sometimes it feels like the long way around to this goal; buying a new device the is friendlier for the environment than your current device, instead of just keeping your current device, seems like the long way around but with recycling practices and the like, it makes sense.
This!
I know most will not agree with me, but I found this segment of today’s Apple presentation to be the most compelling, and the most important.
There’s a lot of snark online about Apple and their devices and their features and all of that. I know, your flip phone could do everything plus bake a loaf of bread back in 1972. Your “blarrrrgggggghhh” tweets/Xcrements from your Android phone could wipe the floor with anyone and everyone that works at Apple. I know, I know, you need your superiority.
You know what’s superior? Taking care of the planet. Listening to Mother Nature. And Apple gets it right. And it shows, right here.
This was the most important message of today’s presentation. Let’s do everything we can to be carbon neutral, as fast as we can.
And let’s face it, Octavia Spencer is one fine Mother Nature.
Flag.
A few of our neighbors have American flags in their landscaping and/or front yard. All do the proper thing and have solar powered lighting to keep the flag illuminated during the night. The previous owner of our home had a flag hanging over the garage but I didn’t see anything indicated it was illuminated.
It was well into my adulthood that I realized hanging a flag like this was much more of American thing versus patriotic displays in the rest of the world. Of course too many folks take this to extremes and wear the American flag on their underwear, hanging off their car, etc. which I think is a bit too much, though I do have an American flag top I bought in 1990 from International Male.
I don’t wear it anymore since it’d look like a crop top today and it was never intended to be a crop top.
