The Most Advanced 3rd World Country on the Planet

Japan.

I’ve witnessed/experienced, many examples of this.  The latest is from wife unit, who is back in Japan for a couple of weeks on family business.

One of the things she has looked forward to is watching when she has a spare moment, Japanese TV broadcasting, but when she tuned on the TV at her mother’s home, there was no reception.

Why?  because the rooftop antenna wires has broken.  Rooftop antenna???!!  Given the proliferation of cable TV in the United States, I can’t remember in recent memory a house that still has a rooftop TV antenna on it, especially not around this area.

Wife unit calls the area where she grew up, the sticks, but actually  it is now more of a now bedroom town, sandwiched  between the cities of Nagoya and Toyohashi. An old town to be sure, but not 田舎.

Japan touts itself as developing world-class, cutting edge technologies, and yet, there are still rooftop antennas.

 

The more I talk to son unit about tech, the dumber I feel and in a way, feel less at ease.

There is one road between the cities of Georgetown & Lexington Ky,, New Circle Rd,  which becomes a daily clusterfuck  during the local rush hours.  You’d think after the Toyota factory opened there in 1988 and now the local government would have figured a way to iron out this traffic kink by now, but…..

So on  Friday night,  after son unit retuned from his business trip, I picked him up at the rental car agency and then took  him into Lexington, Ky, where his car had been left for repairs.

Going back and as son unit still isn’t all that familiar with Lexington, Ky, he used his Google app for driving directions back to his apt. I used the directions provided by my own vehicle’s inboard navigation.

I followed him and about ten minutes into the drive back and then he tuned his car off the road, I kept going and after I had arrived, he  said he arrived about 15 minutes before I did.

The 15 minutes is not that big a deal to me, but the reason why is. He explained to me that Google navigation is real time, based on how fast it senses the myriad cellphones which use it/are connected to it  are moving and thus can provide a driver with less congested and in this case, quicker alternatives, which my OEM navigation cannot.

Cool in one sense, but disquieting in another.  Google can reach out and “touch” even the most mundane of our daily lives.

 

You are Where You Are

An illustration of the differences of where I am now and where I live, listening to the local news and weather forecast,   this morning, for Sunday here, the forecast is for snow. The timing framed by the local meteorologist with the words”… by the time you go to church…”  Cannot only imagine the uproar that would follow if a  TV news meteorologist used that in a Sunday weather forecast??

Son unit’s business trip ends today, Hooray! Would  like to linger Saturday, but church or no church, I’m gittin’ across the mountains on Saturday and back home.

Human Company

Apartment/pet sitting for son unit has allowed me to do whatever, whenever I want, but it definitely has its downside. Outside of the cats and rather crappy (Time Warner) cable, the walls can close in for me at least6,  quickly.

So here I am again, at the nearby Starbucks, which at mid-morning is absolutely humming, to have some decent coffee and immerse myself in human interaction.

Haven’t kept myself cooped  up;  visited 2 bourbon distilleries, one Buffalo Trace was really enjoyable in what we were shown and learned  e.g. GMO corn is not used as we were told it does affect the taste of the final product), the other Woodford, was comparatively  antiseptic and a bit of a let down. But the Woodford distillery product was more pleasant to my palate. There are many other distilleries here to visit; was told at one time, Kentucky had over 1800 bourbon distilleries, many of them fell victim to one of the most stupid, self-righteous attempt by the federal government to regulate how we live, Prohibition.

Son unit’s vehicle, which refused to start on the day he picked up his rental car fro the business trip he is on, needs more, extensive work, like $2,400 worth. I question putting in that much money into a car that is now 13 years old (but less than 60 k on the odometer) Brakes and drums need replacing (had a hunch about that)  All the fluids need replacing as well as the work needed to make the car run right.  One way of looing at this is  in the 13 years this vehicle has been on the road, some of the basic maintenance was never done and the chickens have come home to roost so to speak.  Still, with the other issues he has had with this VW Golf, I believe this will be the last Volkswagen son unit will own.

The pull of where I call home is strong; need to get in touch with wife unit too, who is in Japan now, and I am looking forward to son unit returning tomorrow and me driving back home the following day.

 

Breakfast at Starbucks

Thought I’d give myself a break from the alternate cold cereal & milk/eggs and bacon morning regimen I’ve followed so far, and walked to a nearby Starbucks, against the express orders of son unit as part of the walk involves a stretch with no sidewalks.

This outpost of the Evil Empire sits slightly off of I-75 and frankly, at this hour of the morning, 08:00, I expected it to be humming, but no.  But what’s notable to me about this one is that it is not staffed by somnolent, sometimes surly, people who give the impression the job is beneath them, but by 3 young, perky women, who may not want to be up and working at this hour on a Sunday morning, but at least they don’t show it.

Spent at the recommendation of a local,  most of the day at one of the many distilleries here in Kentucky, called The Buffalo Trace Distillery. A nice trip learning about some cool stuff in the making of whiskey and of course there was the sampling of the wares afterwards.

Not really much a bourbon/whiskey person making me not overwhelmed by the tasting experience, but hey could have spent the day less productively.

 

Hanging with the Cats

 

Son Unit’s cats that is.  He’s now away for perhaps 2 weeks on a business rip, so as I haven’t much else to do at home,  apartment sit , save him some money on cat sitting fees and have someone he knows look after his apt.

Been here since Thursday and there are things I don’t ;eave unattended, ignore – like cleaning/cleanliness ( which is subjective)  he does- but have to remind myself I need to respect that he’s paying the rent, its his place, so barring something extremely over the top….

What am I going to do to keep myself occupied?  Well, he’s got a Netflix account, but see the selection is very limited; movies I’ve seen before, multiple times and others which I wouldn’t subject my eyes and brain to.

There’s an unfinished Halo Reach game I could try and complete.  If ever this end of December weather decides to turn for the better,  plan to go on some whiskey distillery tours.  A day trip to the Flat West Virginia (aka Ohio) to visit my last surviving aunt,….and there are the cats to be kept fed, litter box clean and entertained.

 

 

Vile

Yet again another post-shooting incident ritual has started.  Again from the left, renewed calls for gun control/confiscation (their end game)  before the facts of yesterday’s horror have yet to be found/made public, before the victim’s blood can be washed out from the crime scene, all for political gain.  Vile, vile, vile. And then there are  those on the right, standing on an absolute right to own firearms.

From my experience in industry and dealing with the government and the  so-called “advocates” and regulation, I’ve come to  realize the left in this country believe that a  government with the untrammeled power to enact laws and regulations, administered  by Solon-like bureaucrats, will lead us to a paradise on earth. This is a fallacy.

Yes, law and regulations serve to correct wrongs and protect us, but they can never ever make our lives risk-free as the left and the mainstream media would have us believe in the debate over guns. A government and its laws and regulations will not coerce the lion to lay down with the lamb.

As long as there are the angry, the disgruntled, the disturbed, the ideological zealots who believe no amount of blood spilt for their cause is too great,  and the evil, we  will still have mayhem.

Whether such people have or do not have access to firearms is irrelevant. A baseball bat, kitchen carving knives, hatchets, hammers, a motor vehicle, even a pen or pencil, etc., etc., etc.,  can turned into lethal weapons.  Yes, the casualty  list would probably be much lower, but there would still be casualties.

Like the fallacy that laws and government will  lead us to our paradise on earth, there is also the fallacy that a solution is one-dimensional. More effectively dealing with the disturbed, like the individual in Colorado, now facing charges for murder, is one step towards doing something besides bleating for gun control. But this the left continues to ignore.

Another thought is that in this country, we have be told for generations to rely on our government and as individual citizens not to take matters into our own hands.  To a point this is sensible and keeps our society functioning. But there are times, and this is in no way meant to minimize the daily contribution law enforcement makes to keep our lives safe and protected,  such as our parents when we were only children, that our government and its laws, our law enforcement people cannot be with us all the time to protect us from danger. That we need  when the occasion calls for it, to act less as sheepeople.