Methinks I will make a chili dog.
¿Como se dice “snoring at the lap top?”
Distraction Free Writing. What a concept!
Here I am with just a large white screen o’ nothingness. Just a man and his computer white board.
This is part of my new updated Word Press site. I can click the screen, well, maybe press Escape, and it’s all gone. Really, it just ends right back to the dashboard. Then I click on this box of arrows, configured into an “X.” and it takes me back to the world of distraction free writing. Well, at least it is distraction free on the computer screen. I have millions of other objects to distract me in my peripheral vision.
Isn’t this fascinating? ¿No es este fascinante? I’m still taking advantage of my free Spanish lessons on Fluencia. One receives about 15 free lessons in Spanish before you have to pay. So far, the site has, at the very least, reminded me of what I learned in two semesters of college Spanish. That time wasn’t all that well spent but I did get a bit of good from it. I believe both of my Spanish professors are deceased so I shall not speak of them to avoid speaking ill of the dead. I suppose that sentence alone may offer a hint as to the esteem those people were held in my estimation.
Fluencia only pokes gentle fun at me when I get a word wrong.
Well, it looks as if I am back to “distracted” writing. I suppose it doesn’t make any difference to me. But what does influence me is my nearing sleep at the keyboard. I seemed to get plenty of sleep overnight. Six hours or so. I think a lot of the sleepiness comes from sitting at the computer all day.
Also, I went to my first physical therapy session yesterday for rehabilitating the knee. It wasn’t too bad. But I am sore. Sore and sleepy. Until next time.
Chop-chop goes bye-bye; sheriffs to have a fried egg sandwich sale?
Divers searched Friday for a high-tech drone belonging to a suburban Houston sheriff’s department that crashed into a lake.
Deputies from the Montgomery Co. Sheriff’s Department said a search had begun after the quarter-million dollar “ShadowHawk” unmanned aircraft went missing in Lake Conroe, northwest of Houston, according to news reports. The money for the drone came from a Homeland Security grant.
The drone, built by Vanguard Defense Industries in nearby Spring, Texas, can be used in military and public safety settings. Or, so it would seem, both. But one use for the now water-logged craft not used is surveillance, said a law enforcement spokesman. It is used for “operation overwatch” such as in SWAT operations. That wouldn’t be surveillance now would it?
The sheriff’s agency headquartered in Conroe created quite a controversy, a.k.a. “shit storm,” after it was purchased about two years ago. One must now wonder if the department will hold a fried egg sandwich sale as a way to dispose of all that egg which must be accumulating on their collective faces?
Okay, you may have guessed by now I am not a big drone fan. At least I don’t care much for drones outside of a military setting. I am likewise not so sure the unmanned aircraft should be used as widely as they are in defense and intelligence. I am concerned about potential abuses by law enforcement and other government agencies such as with spying.
Also, I just plain don’t want the sky filled with the damn things.
Businesses have said they want to use drones for home delivery of products. What? And do away with all those great legs in UPS and postal service shorts?
It just seems the potential for a lot of nuisance, like swatting mosquitoes.
Science does it again
Sometimes it seems that perhaps the medical industry and the media could just keep a lid on research until all the hypotheses and postulations on a particular study was a bit more well-developed.
For instance, I read today where younger adults with exposure to marijuana might have a higher risk of serious heart disease. This was based on a study by something called the French Addictovigilance Network. Really?
Now right away you might be suspicious of something called the “Addictovigilance Network.” Don’t think they’d have an ax to grind would they? For that matter, something starting with “French” … oh well, just a little friendly, fun French bashing. We still love the French here in America. You know, the French fries and French dip and French’s mustard.
The studies on major medical issues that surface each week reminds me of that old bit about “The News” George Carlin did in which he read “news headlines” such as:
“Scientists say saliva causes stomach cancer. (Pause) But only in small amounts over a very long period of time.”
Now I really don’t want stories about health breakthroughs quelled, being the semi-retired journalist that I am. Just, I don’t know, wait awhile before reporting on such a story to ensure the studies are well documented. Otherwise, you are destined to end up within a week having a headline that says: “Doctors say smoking a fatty each day can cause lengthy lives and perfect, white teeth.”
World goes mad in Georgia. Stay away.
Oh. This can’t be good.
Lawmakers in Georgia have passed what the NRA calls “one of the most permissive gun laws in the nation.” Talk about permissive. The law, that Republican Gov. Nathan Deal intends to sign, would allow guns to be carried in bars and churches. The legislation is a virtual “Guns Everywhere Bill,” according to those who oppose it.
Okay, once more. I am not a gun opponent. I have owned guns for a good portion of my life. I enjoy target shooting, specifically, if it involves blasting the hell out of cans. Take that you damned polluters.
But — and it isn’t just quasi-liberals like myself or just plain liberal anti-gun people — many people believe guns should just not be welcome in some places. Allowing guns in bars and churches is like inviting folks back into some Old West movie.
It doesn’t take a sociologist to know that the nation is politically divided at the moment. People who are getting hammered in bars may sometimes particularly get prickly when discussion of political issues get out of hand. Bar shootings are certainly not novel. The same goes for churches. Inflamed passions also may erupt when some preachers get on a tear and start calling a sinner a sinner and a who is a what’s it. Shootings in churches are not something that never happens. Even more is that true when someone has a bug up their ass about certain religious faiths.
Stay out of Georgia is on my agenda and should be on the minds of others as well.
Around my area, here in Southeast Texas, the big thing is promoting open carry of guns. We’re talking mostly long guns — rifles and shotguns, assault-type weapons — but maybe pistols too. The whole shebang locally started when a man who had a gun store in our local mall was detained by police for walking inside the mall to his store with a so-called assault rifle in plain view. Some nervous people made several calls on the man to police because he was exhibiting the weapon. That makes perfect sense in light of several mall shootings in recent years, both in the U.S. and in foreign countries. It wouldn’t have hurt anything if the man carried his rifle in a case, bag or box.
People thought nothing of it when, as kids, we would walk through town with our guns going hunting in the nearby woods. But that was then and this is now. I have thought that perhaps open carrying of weapons, as opposed to concealed carry, might make sense if you were in a frame of mind to pseudo-license handguns. I no longer think that is a good idea. Why? It’s partly because of seeing these men, women and children marching up and down the shopping area sidewalks carrying their rifles and shotguns. I don’t think it does anything other than upset folks. And when you have people with inflamed passions … well, see above in churches and bars.