Brown Motion

 I am 50 not out.  Five decades of living on this planet. In the course of this life I have gone through the natural aging process, starting as an infant, then toddler, then adolescent and young man, a single man to quite early tying the knot with who was to be my wife of over half that life to date. In doing so I took many trips.  Journeys.  First within the sub-continent that was India, my birthplace and then post nuptials a trip that took us to the United States of America. India is a vast country and our parents (the wife's family and mine) were both fond of taking the kids to new lands and places and check out what made it unique than our usual workaday place of residence. This adventurous spirit saw us visiting the western deserts of Rajasthan to the tea growing hill stations of Ooty in the south.  Later with my wife and kid we would go and see the Taj in Agra and the capital city Delhi. All this early traveling was on the Indian Railways.  No flying for us.  Could not afford

 This is not about a cheesy cartoon movie or a daytime soap.  This is my breakfast we are talking. Marie is a wheat /semolina based biscuit.  Khari is a filo dough fried in ghee edible that looks like the picture on the right. Both are dunk worthy items to be dunked in a hot cup of masala Chaha or Chai or tea. I grew up with this in erstwhile Bombay as a staple morning go to snack. What Wheaties or Corn Flakes may be to America few biscuits and tea are to many an Indian or an ex pat to this day.  A legacy partly of British making with the introduction of biscuits. Americans do not know about biscuits.  To them a biscuit is a southern delicacy, a sort of dense bread, flaky if made right and had with butter at dinner.  Not so in India.  A biscuit is a cookie equivalent if that in the sense of its ingredient list. But American cookies tend to be usually inserted with chocolate pieces, or a nut like pecan, etc. And they are bit too sweet for my taste.  A biscuit on the other hand (British

 A question that has been the inquiry of many a teacher, a parent and student alike for years.  Clearly yours truly has no professional background on the subject, but will attempt to dissect what I see in the following narrative. In today's world there are distinct styles of education based on my personal experience going through one and vicariously through our kid studying at an American University. The Asian, in my case Indian style of elementary and high school education followed by University level undergraduate and grad work all rests on the parameters of a one way traffic model.  Meaning the teacher or professor is in command of the board (black or green in our case written on with white chalk) all the time.  There is rarely an opportunity for dialog. There is not enough opportunity given for the mind to explore what ifs, questioning the written word or even read outside the curriculum too much.  This is rooted in culture and circumstance. Contrast it with the western model w

 In life whether day to day or corporate I have encountered people with a chip on their shoulder. Not because they are carelessly eating their fried veggies but in the sense of being narcissistic. This often stems from the person's sense of having seniority over the other party or as in my case over me.  Seniority is a strange term.  It is quite literally defined as " a privileged position earned by reason of longer service or higher rank". What is strange is that it is often a function of passing of time and therefore advanced age among those that use it as a crutch.  These individuals cannot see past themselves or their ideas or lack thereof. And frankly in corporate life there should be no room for how old you are. If you bring something credible to the table that helps solve the problem statement so be it.  But reality is far from it. Many so called folks with seniority lack maturity.  Maturity of thought and gained wisdom or experiences.  Because they spend most of t

It is time for America to get into a garment to be used only once in a lifetime and beg for candy.  Aka Halloween.  Said garment is identified as a costume and can be time consuming to procure and wear depending on the level of enthusiasm of the beggar.  Usually children; some adults who still milk this tradition hiding behind a mask. This time as before I have oft wondered about the idea of costumes.  I get when you are on stage in a play or a movie that costumes are integral to the framing of the story. You need Stallone to have lot of ketchup marking the spots he is bleeding and the shirt needs to be ripped enough to show his ripped rib cage else we cannot believe he just fought like a badass. But today when I read about the Pope appointing a first ever black American as Cardinal I was struck by the same question.  Especially as I read the story with some graphics and photos of the two. The Catholic religion as any other preaches the virtue of being human.  Above all be kind, be emp

 So said a recent complaint on a local community board.  Someone was peeved.  Apparently the poster was of Indian origin and having now invested in a property in an upscale neighborhood of the Bay Area was expressing his disenchantment with the setup. He was driving at dusk.  Some dude came walking down the road in a bike lane.  Walker was wearing dark clothing making himself almost invisible.  End result could have been  a crash as the poster was turning his vehicle into a side lane and crossing the bike lane. Why do folks not use sidewalks so well kept for walking?  The poster was mad.  Then I got to thinking about his predicament.  Turns out my neighborhood does have folks doing all manners of things that are not meant to be.  Riding bicycles on sidewalks.  Walking against traffic in the middle of the road and randomly crossing said road when no crosswalk is present.  Vehicles exceeding posted speed limits.  Vehicles parked at no parking signs.  And on and on. The offending parties

  Well not quite literally.  I am no poet and I do not think anyone thinks of me as one. So rather than an ode it is more a ramble.  Which I am quite proficient in I might add. But I got to thinking of Covid and its impact on society on a recent phone call with my mother half a planet away.  She is computer illiterate having grown up in a generation devoid of too much electronics.  That is to say she is not surfing the WWW or sending status updates on her gum lines to make believe friends and followers. Even electrical appliances were a luxury during her formative years and only recently did she send her first whatsapp message and still did not know what had happened. So back to this Covid and its implications.  Boredom comes to mind right away.  I mean to find the world forced into stasis in a domino effect of rules and regs that cascaded from federal or central governments of the land to the local; people suddenly found themselves in varying forms of imprisonment. So in tal

 Oh what does a covidised homebody to do?  Esp mua that does not partake in the omnipresent social activity of FB or IG or its ilk. Read or research or watch the telly of course.   In doing the aforementioned research on random things in the whole wide world using what else but the www I stumbled on a documentary produced by the BBC.   That docu series happened to be scratching me where it itches.  A passion of mine - perhaps inculcated in me by my late father who was a train buff and loved timetables - train travel. Thanks to a silicon valley invention called Youtube I can now board a whole bunch of train journeys without leaving my bed. They are broadcast under the larger brand titled ' Great Railway Journeys'  but are localized versions based on which part of the world the protagonist on the show is traveling. I have so far watched a few called -  BBC's Great Canadian Railway Journey Great British Railway Journeys  Great Continental Railway Journeys Great Indian Railway

 English has adopted some strange expressions which make no sense today.  I mean even when Trump takes experimental pills that are in design stage to demonstrate he is head and shoulder above Evel Knievel his doctors think he is not out of the woods yet. When was he in the woods I ask?  He was at Walter Reed Hospital, named for a Army Surgeon from early 1900s.  It is best in class care - I mean there were only 20 or so white coats at the press conference when he left the White House.  How many more were there at Walter Reed? Clearly nowhere near the woods. America is deemed to be in the woods at this time due to lack of transparency from its President.  I think that makes it tricky.  Millions of us in the woods.  Someone shoots something, anyone could get hit.  Hard to tell in the woods. I guess the cities we inhabit are the metaphorical woods.  After all lot of people are shooting at something and that something happens to be other people. So how does one get out of these proverbial w

There was and is no McKinsey or Harvard study out on how children in the mid seventies in 20th century Mumbai, erstwhile Bombay dealt with lack of space and resource to develop a wholesome life in the future. Yet we did it.  By that I mean as a sibling growing up in a four person household with less than 500 sq ft of space among us and sporadic electricity to aid our lifestyle we ended up alright. Many in my generation went through that experience.  Incomprehensible to me too now that I look back.  Take for example the idea that we did not understand the notion of 24 hour running water.  Forget hot water.  Bathing was an activity involving boiling couple of gallons on a stove top and then mixing that wok full of super heated water with a cold bucket in the bathroom.  From that point on you proceeded to use a coffee mug shaped vessel to pour the now semi hot water over your anatomy. Scrubbing the critical zones that required soaping (mind you that oppressive humid heat index outside was

 Let's face it.  Americans among all other living species on earth love to change things up a little.  Whether it is dumping a spouse of two years or returning a leased vehicle, change is always in the air. Many also afford to uproot and move. Physically.  It comes with appetite to explore anew.  Some less and some more.  From down the road to across the country.  Sell your old abode and move into a new one. Well if you think about it for 100's of years American presidents have been vacating their abode and handing the keys to the new one.  Said abode goes by the name of 'White House'.  It is like a Marriott extended stay (min four years unless you pop off or something). Now that Trump has the virus the whole house has to be hosed down.  Even though its White.  Cannot let a covid cause issues with the long term rentability of this mansion now can we? Maybe we can.  Who's to say that the next President might take offense at this old charmer on Pennsylvania and seek o

 WE live in a fractured world no doubt. Progress of an organization or community or a country for that matter is measured not just in GDP and crime rates and carbon footprints and so on but performance indicators of KPI for social mobility. While the concept is endearing the execution sucks.  It is the desire of the wise women and men that we humans, all of us, be treated equal. By that it is an extrapolation of what the famous American President said in the late 1800s .. a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Again part romantic language and part interpretation the reality or the devil is in the details.  What exactly do we mean by that phrase?  What are the real world problems and more importantly solutions? Ensuring each of us has equal rights to do the pursuing of life and liberty is a good catch phrase but no one wants to admit that a whole bunch of us are just born lazy.  We are dumbass couch surfers. To that breed why

 It is fascinating when people in corporate life and public servants make outlandish promises to sheep that they command or supposedly serve. California governor makes a public announcement to phase out gasoline powered vehicle sales by 2035. Really?  Genius?  How? Why? Never mind those questions.  He will obviously have moved on from his current job or worse be dead.  He does not care what he said in 2020.  Who would remember anyway? Covid is more front and center right now. See that is part of the charm offensive.  Say something outrageous and news bite worthy and rely on idiotic citizens to forget after the voting is done.  Clearly there are always distractions and memory is not what it used to be.  Besides with idiotic new distractions like the newest phone or fires or earthquakes who has time to dwell on who said what when. So go forth and set moronic goals that no one is likely to adhere to because there is no path to get there from here. Remember high speed rail and the billions

 The in thing in case you lived in rural Pennsylvania is electric.  As in electric mobility or battery operated cars and trucks or EV, short for Electric Vehicle.  As in I am never paying for gasoline again.  I am hip and I am green et al. To that end a business upstart created by a dude from South Africa took the EV business and turned it on its head.  Where no one thought this experiment would work he created some fancy automobiles that are the epitome of minimalist when you look at the interface between the vehicle and the passenger, and can operate after plugging into a 110 V outlet in your home. The product was branded after the famed inventor Nikola Tesla.  To be clear there are two upstarts one successful by Wall Street standards called Tesla.  That is the one that everyone in my neighborhood seems to like and then there is the truck maker called Nikola which is actually facing some heat from the same Street. Go figure. Nikola for his part is probably turning in his grave.  If h

 As I age I keep an eye on my surroundings to see how I am doing relative to others in my community.  There are number of these septuagenarians that I see walking about at all times of the day near my house. Some are regular as clockwork.  Some walk alone while some with what I would assume is their significant other.  These appear to be of Indian heritage and hence the implied assumption that the said significance arises out of prior matrimony. They walk together or few feet apart with the patriarch normally 20 yards ahead and the spouse trying to catch up.  Nonetheless they show a briskness to their business of perambulating.  Their routine constitutional is a must. With the California wildfires there was ash in the air.  But some persisted.  With the covid hanging out with prior dibs on the atmosphere there was a requirement to don masks anyway.  So some came out regardless and kept walking. I for one am noticing the certain degradation of performance in my own movements.  What used

 Used to be when hair raising tales made the news headlines.  These days it is about Hair Cutting tales.  Especially when they involved the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Nancy. This lady has her home in California.  And she grew sick of her hair.  So she went and got it cut or styled or whatever it is they do to women's hair so she can look 'Speaker-ish' on primetime TV. The barber or Salon or whatever outfit that did said styling apparently video taped the incident and put it online.  Boom.. we got ourselves a day time soap opera.  See the state Guv said no indoor hairy business allowed because we got covid spreading indoors. But Madam Speaker went ahead anyway?  She then defended and barber sued and then on and on and ...you get the idea.. bunch of morons all. The Covid has also done more to expose the human condition that when faced with a real natural calamity of gigantic portions keep doing what is preached - fake it till you make it.  Except here the fak

 This sounds like an Alistair Maclean novel.  For those that remember or know of the Scottish author who wrote some nail biting, suspenseful thrillers in the mid 1900s. Or maybe even a Robin Cook mystery. But of course it is nothing that exciting. I am referring to this scientific approach that was wisely designed but poorly deployed by world governments.  It involves locking up people for 14 days when they moved from one place to another during Covid pandemic. I know of many instances where this practice was brought to bear.  It is a result of how unprepared the world was to test for Covid and provide the outcome in under 24 hours.  They are collectively not there.  Not by a long shot. I think this is one of those situations where nature has kicked the arrogant Sapiens in its teeth once again and showed who is boss.  The cumulative hubris of nations was on display during the past 9 months and it has simply proven that while we invented sliced bread, put men on the moon and cured polio

 California is one big barbeque this summer.  It happens every other summer I suppose.  Some point to global warming.  Apparently the planet hit 130 deg F this past week.  Highest temperature in recorded history or so the tall claim said. And it happened in Death Valley.  Not far from our home - a couple hundred miles.  The earth is going to do its thing.  It has not rumbled big time for which I am grateful.  That burp would split the state. Literally.  In recent memory the biggest quake we felt was a 5.0 I think.  The burning flora around us reached some 6,700 individual events statewide.  People are losing homes again.  All this amidst the raging covid cases. So we do take out food.  I like grilled meat so I grab something quick - in the namesake 'In n Out' burger.  To me it looked like I was the only one In.  Felt special.  All others staying out. Quiet as a tomb inside as folks prefer to sit in their chariots and order in the to go line.  I can see that. I like the small in

Fresh is debatable but given it is my blog all adjective use is the prerogative of mua. So below is the said perspective (whose freshness is subject to the reader's frame of reference). Baseball - America's pastime. I identify it as a scam that benefits the enterprise that owns and operates a series of crowd driven events called games in a calendar (known  as 'a season') defined by aforementioned enterprise.  This enterprise is called MLB or major league baseball. Use of words like Major are used to lend themselves visibility and make it sound more important than what it is:  A scheme designed to fleece one of the below characters - hard working, gullible, simple minded folk,  crooked thinking, lazy and otherwise useless people with no logic of how to spend money,  those with unlimited sums who anyway will throw it at anything that looks like an organized event,  into spending their dough to attend an event called a baseball game.  This so called game is essentially an

 My last post postulated the onset of oldness.  On myself. Then I got to thinking - what with limited time to do that - thinking that is... when will that oldness condition translate to 'Dementia'. My best half has oft made innuendos that I am on the cusp.  But so far I have not heard that I have the full bodied version.  Of course my hearing is suspect but that is another matter. So then I decided I should jot down what I might use as a qualification criteria for onset of or complete dementia.  I will use footwear as a starting point.  Got to get out somewhere, somehow.   So before I head out if I was doing any of the below I would consider it as the early onset stage. 1. Wearing mismatched socks. 2. Wearing mismatched shoes. 3.  Wearing mismatched socks and shoes at the same time I step out. Further deterioration of faculties could lead to the below instance, which I am willing to consider as 'officially in dementia'. 1.   Wearing only one sock. 2.  Wearing only one s

This could well be the opening lyric of a country song. In fact it might have been.  But I am talking about me.  Pay attention.  Or not.  I don't care. I am getting old though.  I speak with the authority like I understand the exact stages of life.  Well see 12 hours ago I was on the cusp of entering 'the feeling of being old' and this morning it is full on.   And about seven years and five months and 13 days on I will be just 'old'.  But I suspect there are signs.  And I mean beyond the involuntary discharge of gases from many orifices,  some I did not even know were there.  For one - random body parts start hurting.  Bulges start appearing where there was no reason to.  The other day I found out I had grown a second liver.  Well it felt like it. Took a picture and called the doc.  Oh that is just a Lipoma he said.  Apparently they are common.  Well if you ask me I had not seen one before.  So clearly something goofy is going on. Another item on the list is vision.

More like chasing one's tail.  As in having persistence to keep going after it time and time again. This was a case where we literally wanted to go see the celestial body known as a comet. Why you ask?  Well for starters stuff on the planet seems passe.  So why not look up to something?  Literally. This one is a ball of ice and dust and seen streaking across our solar system for an observer in the northern hemisphere. Typical viewing times are in the month of July 2020, after dusk below the constellation Ursa Major (or Big Dipper).  Looking out on the NW horizon around 10 pm on the summer evening one might get lucky to see this faint blur of a comet dipping down toward the horizon. While only 3 miles at its core diameter, Comet NEO-WISE (so named as the acronym is part of a government funded survey for near earth objects), is about 0.66 AU away from viewer on earth at this point (1 AU is earth's distance from our sun = 93M miles). Below are a couple of pics taken from northern

America stands on a precipice. That is not hyperbole.  That is fact.  Ripped by political tension and growing inequality laid bare by a pandemic it is showing the age of an almost 250 year old republic. Add to that lingering racial prejudice and lack of empathy we are clearly at a crossroads of where to turn next.  One of those choices ends in complete disaster. Time to get Vegas odds?  No.   Time to think.  Yes. Exactly what I feel has been on the decline. Critical thinking.  Every man, woman and child needs to above all develop this faculty if not for anything then for self preservation.  Of themselves therefore their community and consequently of this species. The so called rapid pace of innovation and development is often making headlines but as well known historian Yuval Harari points out someone has to take the contrarian if not realistic view of what the unintended consequences of all this development mean for humanity. I would posit that even the intended consequences bear larg

Rarely in Hollywood is a production with two protagonists popular. The film titled 'The Two Popes' was produced by the silicon valley disruptor media company called 'Netflix' unlike the legacy studios with big budget blockbusters, and has two lead roles.  It is a biographical narrative into the lives of two of the contemporary Bishops of Rome, the Holy See or what are commonly called - Pope.  The leader of over a billion Catholics globally the papacy is a powerful institution. The film traces the arc of the era of a German born and controversial cardinal Ratzinger who became the Papa or the Pope after the death of John Paul II.  Then it moves into the parallel life of the Archbishop of Argentina Jorge Bergoglio who is visiting Rome to hand in his resignation to this Pope.  It starred Sir Hopkins, a popular Welsh name, playing the role of Ratzinger against a not so popular Welsh actor called John Pryce who plays Bergoglio. The real life story is interesting, complex and

May 31 2020. End of another calendar month in the year 2020.  Historic for a variety of reasons. After nine years the human endeavor to continue to devise ways to escape earth's gravity continued with a successful commercial launch of a rocket with a space module (made by SpaceX) the day before and the phenomenal docking with the International Space Station about 260 miles above earth. Bothe vessels were traveling over 17,000 mph during the time of docking. Simply amazing - requiring scores of staff working in close collaboration toward one single goal. Contrast that with the tragedy and travesty of what is unraveling on earth itself.  The same species but certain individuals with ideologies that are completely opposite of what made the victorious event possible. Potentially fueled by poor judgement and certain biases toward fellow man there was a death of a black man as the outcome of a police interaction in midwestern America. What followed was equally tragic with the expression

My wish came true. The society is back to using plastics. Lots of it. First the ego filled arrogant ones in our species all across America decided to tell me and folks who share my disdain for all so called 'green initiatives' that are not thought out, to not use plastic. So they decided to ban plastic grocery bags. Then the straws in restaurants and QSR. Next they kept at their charade to look important by banning it in all manners of packaging and the like. Enter covid. LOL. Now to drink with a mask on from a goofy childproof cup is a nightmare.  Perhaps plastic (sturdy) straws will come back (with a hole in the mask allowing the drinkee to satiate their thirst). Already stores are offering plastic bags at no fee to just get customers to not bring their own variety of germs (in cloth and other bags that who knows went where before). Plastic dividers to prevent sneezes and coughs and all the germs in the hot air blowing from the orifices of these loud mouths from infecting the

There was a funny comic cover that I remember from many years ago. That comic mag was MAD. Some foreign returned cousin or such had got a few copies and I happened on one. It showed a dunce (called Alfred E. Neuman) with a finger up his nose and the lady liberty staring down or a flag draping this dunce.. cannot remember much of the artistic detail. But the caption read - What me worry?  It spoke to the breakdown of American culture back in the late eighties inside the cover if I recollect.  The mag was written by a bunch of hilarious Jews and died a recent death after almost seven decades.  Fast forward to present time and now we got ourselves a pickle.  Not simply by the fact that MAD is dead. But a pandemic to be exact.  And the whole cause of this is Who? No I mean the answer is WHO.  As in the World Health Organization.  Not a rock band.  Not exactly. Now memory does not serve here as I forgot about the genesis of this world body but it must have come about due to some massive pla

AKA Entering Holy Matrimony.  Marriage.  And preceding it the execution of the 'Marriage Vows'. Whew! How on earth are terms like knots, vows, betroth part of an arrangement that supposedly guarantees to the betrothees and those assembled to view this ridiculous affair pretending there is something permanent here? This blog explores what a crock this whole vowing is.   To begin let us start with the basic plot / thesis or  vowing language as shown below in exhibit A. Exhibit A - I, ___, take thee, ___, to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith [or] pledge myself to you. First question - what is a 'thee'?  In today's day and age when most people only speak Emoji do we think that this Dickensian language is going to get any takers?  This would c

So far my phone lines seem to be working well.  As is my internet and cable. Ya that thing which snakes in through holes in the wall and plus into the large screen in the back.  And pushed mostly marketing messages any channel you choose.  That one.  It is providing a sense of comfort in these discombobulated times. So then what's the disconnect you ask? For America at least -  Wall street is not the economy.  They are two completely separate things at this time if one is watching the prints from both tapes. Government (of the people and all that nonsense) is not really the people or reality.  Frankly I do not think (or rather hope) that people pay much attention to the moron in the top spot.  Remember he still thinks this is a TV show. Number of toilet paper rolls and assholes - the ratio simply makes no sense.  The way an average American is hoarding it would appear they all adopted a country in Africa to support for the next year.  Eat that Jolie.

The amount of drugs pitched on American television stations is staggering.  Many come with so many side effects one would stagger if not already staggering from other issues. But this blog is about something else.   Side effects of a major event.  Not an iphone launch but something more profound like a pandemic. Below are some - Cleaner air and water in many parts of the world where people congregated in large amounts. Birds seem to be using different frequencies for courtship and people are actually more aware that there is something called nature just outside their working home office window. Some are literally breathing in a deep sigh of relief. In places like New Delhi, India they can actually see their family members across the hallway - no more polluting air obfuscating the view.  So much so that some folks actually realized that the Himalayas are not that far - one can actually glimpse them from some states. And finally, finally no more homeless bums shitting on streets and star

No this is not a new Jerry Springer wannabe episode but my observations about 'garbage out' portion of our lives.. 1.  Taking out the trash - at my home when I take my trash can to the curb I have noticed I am one of the few who has very little to throw out.  Small can and not all 3 cans each week.  But I pay my trash hauler the same.  Hmm I guess my way of donating to this faltering economy as the others help with their conspicuous consumption causing each can to flow over its max limit causing their lids to pop upward. 2.  White house press forums - pure Trash Talk.  No other way of explaining that shower from the podium. 3. All of our devices  - with stay at home the world's personal computing devices are now full of the same junk.  Some weirdo doing hand tricks or animals wandering aimlessly through malls, messages of hope and despair and rants from those that officially lost it.  Whose gonna clean? How about buying the latest and biggest and newest smartphone to deal w

I do not remember dates.  I was in America when George Carlin - one of my all time fav comic had died.  But I found out later. Today thanks to the stay at home condition and access to internet I read that Ben Stiller had updated us on his father's passing.  Apparently Ben did it in the bird kingdom called Twitter.  But that twit was picked up by NYT which I read and thusly found out that a close second in terms of comic genius to George Carlin (not Costanza) was now gone.  Jerry Stiller dead at 92. I may have seen him in a cameo here or there in film or television but I only came to know of him as a character and father of another comic (Ben) as I started enjoying Seinfeld.  As the eccentric and irascible father of Jason Alexander's character called George Costanza, he was a glue that carried the show about nothing to new highs. In many ways he was a perfect foil with his advanced age and mental blocks to the fast moving witty banter among the younger four stars. What a treat i

Before the readers panic I am referring to an event circa Oct 2019. Pre covid. Yours truly wanted to get a first hand taste of what the hype was all about.  Sure I have witnessed plenty of these new fangled battery powered appliances silently zipping across the bay area.  In fact my neighborhood might pass for a Tesla Show set (akin to the Truman show).   It appears every able bodied human is behind the wheel doing everything other than driving this thing. I had a chance to touch and feel the thing when they showed up at work one day too to promote green something or the other.  Whether that is marketing, fake news or what is another blog. But I decided it was time to experience this behind the wheel feeling of what had become a staple.  Typically (as the readers likely know) I am a reluctant technologist and in no hurry to familiarize myself with things that do not immediately hold appeal.  Let others bleed on the edge I say.  See if they survive.   Then happy to dip a toe or fingerna

As the famously smart Robert Fulghum would say - we need to be able to determine what is an inconvenience vs a problem. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference. As such with the advent of covid (almost sounds like a religious holiday lol) we Americans need to wisen up and decide what is really a problem.  Not everything is.  Not being able to get out and burn gasoline and buy things we did not need in the first place is not a problem.  May not even qualify as an inconvenience but hey to each his own. Agreed much of our so called normal life is at a standstill.  In that lot of the otherwise Aisle walking is out. No bride is walking down any Aisle anytime soon.  Zooming to get the vowing done is more du jour. No aimless wandering in a Walmart Aisle looking for a Star Wars costume.  Going down the Amazon route is it. And speaking of being grounded - no flying anytime soon so the wa

Lot has been written about the disconnect between main street and wall street as Covid rages on in this world. The political urge and seeming will to stem the negativity indicative of all that is wrong with the world and inherently the businesses that help run it is to bail out said enterprise. In doing so these tools in the arsenal are those with the federal governments of the world.  These bodies are the proverbial last stop where the buck stops.  Oddly this terminal feature gives me goosebumps.  This is to say that without these governments we sapiens as a species are F**D. And we all know how smart or not these so called governments are.  Some are more screwed wrong than others.  And to expect these clowns to actually step in as the last resort?  Caveat Emptor. Buying stock in companies because there asset values are cratering on the open market is a fool's errand.  To an extent it might serve as a bandaid as all manner of enterprises get a lifeline and put on a brave face hopi

Looks like the equities market already did it.  Full backstop from the Fed - nothing is off the table. Coddle coddle coddle. Everyone's a winner.  America continues to stick to the story line. But I am talking about the future of air travel. At the gate.  Line up six feet apart. Airlines will only board people with the clothes they are wearing.  No bags of any size and kind.  Period.  Forget laptops and purses.  And your disgusting phones.  Quickest boarding ever. Johnny listen to the safety announcement.. Please sit.  Strap up.  Shut up.  Masks will drop from overhead which you immediately strap on your ugly face. Do not help others.  If they cannot put their mask on we are going to eject them. We will pump antivirals and extra oxygen (more for those in business class) throughout the duration of the flight. Oh and one more thing ... this plane has NO restrooms.  So figure it out.  Piss before you get on planes or piss off. For our part we are not going to