3137 Crap. It's autumn.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

"Education... has produced a vast population able to read
but unable to distinguish what is worth reading."
-- G. M. Trevelyan --

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I have that heavy in the upper body weak in the thighs feeling that often means I'm fighting something off. I'd go to bed right now (7:35 pm), but The Amazing Race is on at 8 (or later due to football), and I want to watch that. It's times like this that I wish I had a TV in the bedroom (I do, but that one is analog only).

I left NJ last night without my cell phone. I called Daughter and asked her to check the new house for it. She found it on the outside porch railing. Eek. Maybe I was coming down with whatever last night.

This afternoon I went to Albany for lunch with Mensans. I may have passed whatever on to 14 other people.

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I am registered independent, and I always do split my vote. I don't think in 40 years I have ever voted a straight ticket. This year I think I will. One particular party has thoroughly pissed me off with their gloom, doom, lies, rewriting of history, and fear manipulation tactics, and I guess I have to send my small whispered message.

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Until about fifteen years ago I almost never exceeded the speed limit, and was mostly traveling with traffic on the highways. I've noticed the average speed on the NYS Thruwayhas been creeping up. When Jay and I were going to Albany for his treatments in the late '90s, 65-68 was the average speed. (You MUST move at the average speed, or you'll get run over, cut off, sworn at.)

When I started driving to NJ regularly to see Daughter in the early 2000s, and then more often to see The Man the past 4 years, it had been creeping up, and the past 2 years it seemed to have settled at 71-73. If you drove at 72, you passed very few cars, and very few cars passed you.

The past three weeks I've noticed a huge increase. The average speed now seems to be over 80 mph, with bursts of 85. The speed limit is still 65! Driving to Albany this afternoon, the entire mass of cars was moving at about 82. I stayed with traffic at that speed and didn't pass anyone. I tried to slow down, and had guys riding my bumper.

I really don't like it. Why are speeds going up? Where does it stop?

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Caught on NPR today: "...can be explained by three letters: QE2."

Um, that's two letters and a number, or four letters (Q E II), or five letters (Q E t w o).

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Ok, I've got a problem. In the old house, up a long driveway at the end of a dark dead end street, house not visible from the road, I haven't had trick-or-treaters in a dozen years. If it's still a custom in the new nighborhood, the new house is pretty much guaranteed to have many many. (I'll have to ask a neighbor for an estimate.)

I absolutely don't want to hand out pure sugar! What can I distribute that isn't sugar, isn't suspicious, isn't too expensive, and won't get my house egged?

I have NO ideas....
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