Month: July 2014

As I walked out on my front porch this morning, coffee in hand, I turned on the sprinklers to water the front yard. As I looked at the yard I spotted a few places where the grass just refuses to grow. I’ve made several attempts to grow grass in these areas and I have failed. Somehow this got me to thinking about the (GOP) grand old party, the Republican Party. Since I was eligible to vote the majority of my votes have been for Republican candidates and issues. I have on occasion voted for a Democratic candidate or even an independent candidate. And through the years I have watched the ups and downs of each political party. In the past it always seemed to me that no matter what the issue was, there was a time to put it to bed and go on to new and important issues.
That does not seem to be the case today. The Republican Party is talking about suing the President over Obama care. Seriously, that train has left the station. Let it go, get over it and start accomplishing something new in the Congress. It seems to me that the grand old party is shooting itself in the foot as it can’t get over losing the vote on Obama care, healthcare. This is such a huge issue that was debated and debated over and over again. There is nothing new to say about it. The leadership of the Republican Party just can’t seem to get over losing that issue. It is getting to a point of real embarrassment to the people like me. The fact that the Congress cannot get along on any real issue almost seems to be the rule in the past years. Luckily, it appears that one issue will get some attention after both houses of the Congress agreed to sweeping changes and funding in the Veterans Administration. Hurray, both the parties actually agree on something. I would rather see the debate and the agreement or disagreement on any of the new issues rather than go back to rehash Obama care.
Maybe it’s the tea parties influence on the Republican Party. Or is it that some old dogs cannot learn new tricks. Most of the representatives in Congress right now have been there for years and years. And maybe it’s because they fear losing their jobs that they continue to revisit the healthcare issue. What are they going to do after Pres. Obama leaves office? If you are going to hammer the President do so on a current issue of importance. No president is perfect and I believe that any person in public office should face the issues and answer for their views. But the Republicans just can’t get over losing on the issue of Obama care. At this point I wish the Republican Party would get out of the blame game and present some candidates who can relate to the Republican platform and still want to work with the Democratic Party to accomplish something while in session.
I don’t care if you want to blame the Democratic Party or the tea party or the Republican Party. Stop the blame game and start working on getting this country back on its feet. I think we have little to no pull when it comes to getting other countries and governments to work with us on their problems. My thought is to let those countries work it out. And whoever surfaces as the winner of the conflict, we the United States will work to establish communications and relations with that winner.
We need the views of the different political parties to help this country move forward. But forward doesn’t seem to be the direction of where were going. I hope that the grand old party will let go of the issue over Obama care and focus on the current issues. I would hope that the conservatives in the party start looking at the budget and concentrating on the programs that need to be discontinued. Not because those programs were unworthy when they were initiated, but that their issue has been addressed and the programs are no longer effective. The platforms of the Republican and Democratic Party as they are now written don’t really seem that far apart. So I look at the candidate and then their party affiliation. But the GOP has the same old candidates and their inability to let failures go and move on to current important issues makes them less likely my choice or my vote.
I know that my one vote is unlikely to change the result of any election. And I know it’s the Electoral College that elects the president not the voters. I also know that there are upstart political parties trying to make a difference. New parties like the Tea Party and old party’s like the Libertarian party. It may shock you but there’s even a Communist Party of the United States. I do not believe that any of those political parties have a chance of knocking out one of the bigger established parties, the GOP or Democratic Party. But I do believe that at the grass roots of the Republican Party there younger and less bias candidates who if selected could bring the Republican Party back into the mainstream of America. Currently, I believe that the GOP, Republican Party, is falling apart. And I think that those rich Americans that fund the Republican Party may find that they are looking for a new place to put their money.
So my thought today is that the GOP, Republican Party, should just let it go on the issue of Obama care. You fought a worthy battle, but you lost. Live with it, and down the road, try another approach. But right now you look like a bunch of babies crying because they did not get their way. Please, stop the crying and get back to work on the other major issues facing this nation. It may not bother you that you’re losing my vote but I think I’m somewhat a representative of the baby boomer generation that plans to be around for years and years and usually we are the kind of people you get your funding from.
Let it go, let it go, let it go.
Pops

As I walked out on my front porch this morning, coffee in hand, the clouds covered the sky and stopped the sunshine from reaching down upon the forest floor. Although this is not the way I like to start my morning, I am happy to see the cloud cover. Yesterday got up to 99° with 90% humidity. It was brutal and it caused me to stop working several times during the day causing me to come inside and cool down. While taking time to cool down I watched the news. I started out by watching professional golf on TV and fell asleep. Then I went to the velocity channel and watched some old versions of a show called Fantomworks, where they take old wrecked cars and make them look brand-new. So it wasn’t long before I ended up watching the news.
In the news was an article about a prison’s problem of executing the death penalty. As I watched there were those people who were upset about such an inhumane treatment. This is where I shake my head and think, you got to be kidding. It’s death and there is nothing humane about it. The people who receive the death penalty are not lightweight criminals. Usually the crime involves the taking of another person’s life. And the way they take a victim’s life many times is less than quick and painless. Yet there is no cry of how inhumane their crime is. To hear people say that they do not like the way the convicted criminal was put to death makes me shake my head and ask,” you do know that they’re putting the person to death”? Is the way that the death penalty is carried out supposed to be anything but a serving of justice. When there is a crime where a small child is sexually violated and then killed by the criminal, there seems to be no outcry of sympathy for the criminal. There shouldn’t be, those individuals are sick beyond repair and should quickly be put to death. The criminal justice system usually takes 15 years before executing the death penalty. This is even after years of the many reviews of the case thru the appeals process. During that time the criminal is given access to medical attention and the law library. If the criminal has health needs the state or the federal government provides the needed attention during all those years of being in jail and waiting for the execution date.
Lives are taken every day by criminals. Many times lives are taken by the very people that know the victim. What seems to be a “senseless crimes” such as gang violence continue to produce those candidates for the death penalty. I have been through the gambit of the legal system. It is not easy or automatic that a person who is the perpetrator of a crime which results in another person’s death is convicted of a crime. Usually there are several steps before there’s any real testimony taken from a victim or a witness to the crime. Many of the witnesses can be bullied by the defense attorney in the changing just a part of their statement as to what happened. Many times crime happened in just seconds and to absolutely have a clear-cut version of any circumstance is unusual. The use of forensic science to identify a perpetrator can also be challenged by the defendant’s right to have a forensic professional of their own to challenge the evidence. This professional is paid by the defense and can usually be found to dispute any evidence. Not because the evidence is not correct, but rather to put some sort of question in the mind of the judge or the jury. By the time a person has exhausted all the appeal processes it is probably 15 years from the date of the event. I’ve often heard that witnesses recant their statement. Usually it is because their memory has faded and a defense lawyer uses that as a part of the reasonable doubt defense.
I know there were people that had their convictions either pardoned or reversed. Not all are because the person did not commit the crime but because there was an error in the actual court proceedings and therefore the verdict was reversed. Usually by then the witnesses are nonexistent or are unable to clearly recall the event or the prosecuting attorney’s office does not want to spend the time and money that it would take to retry the case.
I think that once the death penalty has been adjudicated and pronounced, the sentence should be carried out within a three-year period if not less. So it does not matter how somebody is put to death, the fact is that the result should be death. If they suffer during the execution then that is part of the death sentence. Dead is dead, it is not injured or diseased they can be treated. The criminal is sentenced to the death penalty and the fact that there might be some pain during the execution seems irrelevant.
The person or persons that were killed by the criminal did not get the consideration of how humanely they died. Certainly the person that killed them and was convicted of the crime should not get the consideration of how they are put to death.
Whether you agree that the death penalty should exist or not, is another issue. But since the death penalty does exist in the issue of how humanely somebody is put to death is ridiculous and not relevant.
I do not like to talk about negative events in the world. But I was a policeman for many years and I had to deal with the families who suffered the loss of a loved one and the criminal who took the life. Usually the criminal is only sorry after he is convicted in court. The family lives on with the pain and emptiness of not having their loved ones around to enjoy life. The family of the criminal also will mourn the loss of the freedom of the convicted criminal and eventually his death. There are no real winners when a life is taken by a criminal act. But I strongly believe that those that commit the crime that takes a life and they are convicted of the crime that results in their receiving the death penalty, should be put to death within a three-year period. How they are put to death does not really matter. Death is death.
Pops

 

As I walked out upon my porch, coffee in hand, I was greeted by the low glow of light finding its way through the cloudy skies giving a kind of eerie appearance to the forest. Yesterday, I celebrated my 67th birthday. It was a grand day which included a fine breakfast cooked by my wife, a dairy queen desert at lunch and a delicious dinner at night. During the day I got to visit my favorite places like the Home Depot and Tractor Supply. I also received calls from my many family members congratulating me on my birthday. As corny as it may sound it does make me feel good when so many people take the time to call and wish me a happy birthday. During several of the conversations with my sons I stated that I did not feel like I was 67 years old. The image in my mind while growing up of somebody in their 60s was a very gray haired and somewhat physically impaired person.

I thought about why I had such a vision. I think that I might have somewhat of an answer to it. When I look back to the 20th century, let’s say 1910 in 1920, the life expectancy of most men was usually below 60 years old. If you look back at the century before that and a century before that the life expectancy of a man was even shorter. When they were pioneers traveling across this great country to find their new homes, the life expectancy there was just in your mid-30s. So I think that when I was a young man or even before that, a child, I did not see or hear of many men who live past the age of the 60s. There was always the occasional news article about someone reaching 80 years old. But many of the men who served during the World War II era had a much shorter lifespan. I think one of the big reasons was that everybody smoked cigarettes. It was a sign of growing up and being accepted by the adult environment. I would watch commercials on TV, movies and television with celebrities smoking a certain kind of cigarette. It was also during the 1940s up to the end of the century that the medical community made such great strides in the advancement of medicines that would extend life.

There was a life before computers and it included everything from; coal miners digging out coal from the earth, steelworkers forging steel to men walking precariously on metal frames of high buildings. Buildings in every school and business had asbestos and its walls and ceilings which exposed all children from the early age of kindergarten on to the end of a career. As the horseless carriage went away and was replaced by the automobile, more lives were taken on the highway than in many wars. After the era of prohibition it seemed like every working man would come home to drink some form of alcohol or and smoke a cigarette. Men and women both suffered from heart attacks due to clogged arteries without any real warnings from an attorney general. I believe life was so much harder, physically and mentally, for the men and women of the 20th century and those in the 21st century. I imagine this has been the story since the beginning of man’s time on this earth. And for my generation, the baby boomers, we witnessed that a senior citizen would be lucky to make it to the age of 70. And so I believe that is what created the image of a man in his 60s.

I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. When I talk to men and women of my age they also seem to say they can’t believe that at this age they would fell this good. While visiting my friend in Sacramento who is in his early 90s, he also found it hard to believe he was in his 90s and feeling so good.

The culture we live in today starts putting out the black balloons on your 40th birthday, sometimes on your 30th birthday. Although most of the time it is done in jest, the black balloons represent death. On many occasions I have received canes and walkers. When first receiving my AARP card I was taken aback by the fact that I’ve become a senior citizen. The humor associated with such gifts as black balloons is not received well by the person receiving the gift. I spoke of the bias against age in an earlier blog. And it certainly exists in the working world where your age will make you retire or leave your job. Pilots of commercial aircraft are usually made to retire when they turn 60. It is not because they show to be mentally or physically unable to perform the task, but some groups some where set the standard. There are other jobs that prevent you from even applying because of your age. It wasn’t until recently Los Angeles police department allowed a 60-year-old man to join the force.

I believe that most of this is happening because those standards and limitations were established many years ago. With the growing number of centurions living amongst us the focus should be taken off of the number of years that I have survived and put upon my existing capabilities and mental capacity. In the middle of the 20th century many men were expected to join the company and stay there for some 30 or 40 years. In today’s world the professionals are more likely to spend 2 to 5 years at a location before moving on. So rather than looking at an employee that you want to get 20, 30 or 40 years out of you can expect to get two to five years out that person. That to me puts the senior citizen back into the equation.

In another perspective of celebrating a birthday, it is a time to appreciate all those things that you’ve done to reach this age. I enjoy hearing my relatives sing happy birthday to me and I enjoy singing to them on their birthdays. Although I am surprised that I’ve made it to 67 I look forward to making it to 68. Happily when I’m 68 I look forward to making 69 and so on.. I believe that birthdays should be celebrated. I may find it hard to believe I am 67 but I’m in no rush to stop at 67. I know that when I was 21 I didn’t think I’d make it to live to be the right old age of 30. And then from 30 to 50 the years pass by so fast that they are almost a blur. These are the years you are usually raising a family and developing a profession to support that family. I don’t know what I expected originally when I turn 60, but I was still working at that point. I have celebrated my birthday in all types of styles and fashions. The one thing that seems to be constant as that comes way too fast and yet it is very much appreciated.

Happy birthday to the many other Leos out there, enjoy the day.

Pops

 

 

 

As I walked out on my porch this morning, coffee in hand, I was greeted by the morning sun as it shined upon the leaves of the trees with pieces of the sun just touching the forest floor. It is the end of July and the temperature is hot and I am reminded that I’m about to turn a year older. The temperature will be close to 100° today and I plan to be out in the sun and in the shade to enjoy the day. With the heat going up to 100° I am reminded of my recent stay in Las Vegas. I think the temperature there outside was around 105°.

What amazed me about Las Vegas is that it is still a busy and thriving business that draws the spectrum of people living in America and beyond. I have made comments in earlier blogs about the age and the sex of the people in my local casinos. In Las Vegas there were people of all ages including children walking through the streets and casinos. One of the first things that caught my eye while I was people watching was the large number of wedding parties. I witnessed the excitement of many young men and women as they were dressed up preparing for a wedding ceremony. Many of these groups walk through the casino floor on their way to the ceremony site. In the entourage that followed the wedding group was the many moms, dads, grandparents and grandchildren. I think that weddings are more for the women than the men. The women wore some beautiful gowns and usually in high heels. The men like the many penguins up in the North and South Pole, usually dressed in a basic black and white with shiny shoes. The grandparent in me just smiled as a group would walk by laughing and smiling without really noticing the many people around them. The man in me noticed that the women of all ages and sizes were wearing high heels. It must be painful to wear those shoes but it makes the women look great. Usually the younger women wore some very high family heal shoes. And it appears that some of the moms and grandmas wore a little bit lower thicker heel shoe. It was entertaining to watch the women who probably don’t wear such high heels to negotiate the long walk through the casino. The traditional white dress for the bride appeared to be the most common selection. And just like in days of old the women would gather in a flock as they walked out in the Promenade of the casino and then the men walked in a group separate from the women. Later in the evening many of those same young men and women were at the casino playing tables. Some of them had changed into different clothing while other seemed to be comfortable still wearing the dress and tuxedo.

I viewed all of this while I was staying at the Paris hotel casino. It is somewhat like a theme park inside Unlike many of the other casinos who were just about the business of gambling. Maybe this is why I also witnessed so many families with children as they walked along the edges of the casino gambling floor. They all seemed to notice the bright lights and noises of the casino floor, just like I do as an adult. I was also impressed that the average age of the person walking by me was probably in its early 30s. My wife and I did walk through several other casinos as we usually do when visiting Las Vegas. The sidewalks and crosswalks of the street of Las Vegas were filled with people going from one point to another. If nothing else this told me that our economy is doing a lot better now than it used to. I do not think that most of the people that I saw worked in Las Vegas, so they were there to visit and spend money. While driving into Las Vegas I could not help but see all the many homes and small businesses that align the outskirts of the strip of Las Vegas. It is the scene like those of any major city. The homes and businesses on the farthest outskirts of the town were new and beautiful. Many look like they were master-planned community which meant many of them look the same from the outside. And the closer you get to the large casinos on the strip the houses get older with many of them having bars on their windows and doors. This seems to be the same type of progression of any community. The newer suburbs are well kept and as you get closer to the center of town the houses are old and usually there are bars on the windows and doors. Usually when I think of Las Vegas my thoughts are concentrated on the many sights and sounds of the business area. But this time because I was driving into town with my truck I could see all those homes and communities. There are still families going to church and playing in the public parks. They’re still grade schools, middle schools, high schools and colleges being attended by the many people who live in the Las Vegas area. I know that when I was retiring from the Los Angeles Police Department, many of my fellow retirees were moving to Las Vegas. One of the reasons is because of the large boom of the economy and the low price of a home compared to those homes in Los Angeles. An there were a lot of golf courses. Second many went to Las Vegas because of the dry air. While living in Los Angeles the air was an orange brownish haze filled with chemicals. The area of Las Vegas seemed to be a clear air which helped the many people with allergies.

My thought this morning was about looking at the complete picture of an area rather than just focusing on one element of the area. No matter where you go there is more to the place you gone to then meets the eye. You may go to Niagara Falls to watch the massive water fall over the edge of the cliff and then find that the falls is both in the United States and Canada and each as a community that supports the falls. Those communities have the same issues of a city that Las Vegas has. When you go to New York City and you seem to be constantly surrounded by people on all sides and you wonder how they even exist in such a way that appears to be chaotic condition. Take the time to look at little deeper at the businesses and the parks, look at the schools and the condition of each section of town. You’ll probably find that there are many common issues and problems that plague big cities. There are certain parts of the city that you probably do not want to walk down by yourself. Sometimes I think the same thing of some of the many small cities or towns that I drive through. They all have traffic congestion, decaying infrastructure, homeless and crime. Yet each one of those areas seems to continue to exist. So I started to focus on the good things that seem to happen. Look at the many attempts to clean up the main street to make it look nice and bring business to the old businesses along the main drive. I people watch looking to see if those walking by are families or senior citizens walking by themselves. This means to me that the area is safe. I now look to see the shapes of the schoolyards in the public parks. Even though I was a policeman I much preferred to see an area that doesn’t require a police cruiser up and down the streets all hours of the day. How do I get to these thoughts from my trip in Las Vegas? Las Vegas is like any other area, it has a decaying infrastructure and its population continues to to grow. I’m sure it does not want to become another Atlantic City where the casinos are closing along with all the small businesses that rely upon those casinos to exist. I see the same issues that confront the small towns and businesses that also confront a giant city like Las Vegas. And in my mind today is that they are all surviving and the economy is turning around to support their existence.

My final thought for today is that when you go to a location, look at all of the location not just an attraction. The economy is doing well and I hope it continues to do so. And as a man I think women of all ages look good in high heels.                                            Pops

 

As I walked out on my front porch this morning, coffee in hand, I watched as the sunlight flowed through the overcast clouds and brightened up the surrounding forest. I always enjoy the start of the day when there is sunshine piercing through the leaves of the trees hitting the forest floor.

I have been home now for a couple days since my three-week journey across the western United States. While on the journey I rarely watched the television or listened to the news. I was focused on just getting from one point to another while enjoying the ride and the changing landscape views. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to one of my favorite stores to buy some items I needed to continue work on several of my projects. As I went to the checkout stand I noticed that there was no one at the cash register. Within seconds a young Hispanic woman hurried around to her position at the cash register saying that she was sorry for the delay but she was translating for customer. This young woman seemed so full of life hidden behind a great smile. I responded to her by saying that that was no problem and it reminded me of my time on the Police Department when I had wished I had a translator working with me. I mentioned to her that when responding to a call in the community where the language spoken was not English usually resulted in my using the children of the adults to translate in a conversation. I also mentioned to her that when there is an emergency or some chaos around the situation the language spoken usually is in the native tongue of the person calling the police. This would lead to some poor exchange of hand signs to try to discover what the emergency was. Most police agencies now recruit many different minority language speaking candidates to help with this problem. In Los Angeles there were many different languages that dominated the streets of the city. It went from Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Russian and Spanish. Whole sections of the city, like Chinatown, echoed in the traditional language that represented where those living there came from.

The woman at the register looked at me and asked how I got here from Los Angeles. After my answer I could see that she, like many other people, wish that they could go to the many different places in the United States. Since moving to this area of Texas I’ve noticed a lot of people have been born and raised in just this small area of the world. This was the case of this young woman at the register. I told her that she should at least go to the many major cities in the United States. Places like; New York City, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas. Each one of those areas has many different cultures that approach the same issues that we approach here in Texas but with a difference. Many times while listening to the news I heard someone talk about the use of common sense. Well it will not take long to find out that common sense in one area is not necessarily common sense in another. If you’re walking down the street in West Hollywood California you would think that is a common sight to see gay couples walking hand-in-hand representing the norm for that area. If you’re walking through the Federal housing section of New Orleans you would see street sales of narcotics being openly conducted and that would seem as the norm for that area. If you walking in certain areas of Los Angeles and you observe multiple spray painting on almost all buildings, whether it was gang related or just tagging, that would seem like the norm for the area. If you are visiting New York City and you would look out the window at the traffic, you would see a sea of yellow cabs and a swarm of bicyclists buzzing in and out of traffic and that would be the norm for that area.

If you are on the East Coast of the United States back in 1800s you might witness the large outpouring of immigrants of the ships from the many different areas of Europe and beyond. They would pour off of the ships and their first year in the United States should be one of the five different neighborhoods developing in the underprivileged areas of New York.

In this year if you live along the southern border of the United States it would seem normal to see the many different immigrants and drug traffickers making their way across the border with little or no difficulty. Unlike the immigrants in the 1800s who were fully documented this new flood of immigrants are undocumented and completely out-of-control.

Does this mean that we want to seal off our borders and stop anyone who is not already here from gaining entry into our country? No, I feel that we still open arms to those who want to enjoy the freedoms that we do here in America. There is a mechanism that allows this to happen, using the existing immigration laws. The current flood of immigrants from Central America, include a large number of children traveling alone. Anytime you put the word children or child in front of an issue many people’s hearts go soft because it is a child. They do not wish to apply the existing laws. And so those areas that are along the border are taxed with balancing the issue of a child versus the overwhelming cost of handling such new immigrants.

I think this issue has not been a very important issue to the rest of the United States because they do not feel the impact of this new immigration of undocumented aliens with so many of them being children. I think that if this was happening along the borders of Virginia, Washington DC, New York City or New Jersey their outrage would find a quick fix to this problem. It is ironic that places like New Jersey take such pride in its different ethnic backgrounds. But when it comes to the issue of illegal immigrants from South American countries, the Eastern states really don’t appreciate the problem.

In this week’s news that focuses more on a civilian airline that was shot down in the Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza. I think we should just leave those issues to those people that are involved. The fact that there was one American on the airline shot down, who had dual citizenship, is not a good reason for the United States to get so involved in this incident. If the government thinks that they’re going to somehow shame or push Vladimir Putin to do some kind of apology, they’re wrong. If the government thinks that they can get the Palestinians and Israel into some kind of peace agreement, there are wrong. Let those governments and their people spend their energy and money on their problems. Let’s get focused back on our problems in the United States. The disgrace and mismanagement of the Veterans Administration has not gone away. The issue of increased deaths from heroin and methamphetamine has not diminished. The love ones that we lose every day from diseases, such as cancer, has not diminished. The current issue of children of Central America walking across our open borders to our country has not diminished.

I call for the divided Congress and the President United States to refocus on those issues that are still current and active here in the United States. I’m not concerned with who will run for the presidency in the next election, I am concerned that the current Congress and the President of theUnited States has somehow lost focus on the issues in their country, my country.

America the great is the place of great promise and wealth. A place that promises that the only limitations are those you put on yourself. A place should not try to be the world’s policeman. It is a place that is beginning to run out of patience and understanding. It is a place that on its west side is running out of enough water. It is a place where the natural resources like oil are running out. It is a place such great cities like Chicago that its infrastructure are deteriorating and falling apart. The USA is a place that had such a demanding influence on the rest of the world and is now facing a diminished and dwindling influence.

My thought is that we need to refocus on our own lands and people. We need to spend our energies and intelligence as well as our monies on many issues that affect us directly. The rest of the world does not need the United States to tell it what to do a lot of their lives. I lost faith in the Congress of the United States and the many state and local government agencies that are obliged to follow the lead of the Congress. I think a move back to the states having more power is appropriate at this time. The national government must continue to exist but it is lost his focus and the state governments are more likely to focus on the issues at home.

How did I get to all of this thinking from just going through a checkout line and talking to the person behind the register? Because I see the hope and the wonder of a new generation and in this young woman’s face. I see that she has adjusted to the surrounding community while still paying respect to her culture. I see her desire to leave the comfort of her home town and learn about the many different cultures of this country. She is not consumed with the many issues that I’ve just mentioned. I truly wish that she will not have to be confronted with the issues that I mentioned. I see the nation’s future in this young woman’s face. So I believe it is my part to express my thoughts on the issues I believe will affect the future.

Pops

 

 

As I walked out on my front porch this morning, coffee in hand, I gazed upon the site that I have not seen in three weeks. Although the skies were overcast with clouds stopping the sun from shining through the forest, a recent rain increased the green appearance of the forest. My wife and I have just returned from an 18 day trip through the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, California and Nevada. The trip was designed to stop at the many different casinos on our way to and from California. We attended the 80th birthday party of my wife’s father, which was in Southern California. We then traveled to Northern California to visit our son and his family and then into Central California to visit our son and his family. We drove to Lake Tahoe and then to Las Vegas. It was a great trip and a long trip. We drove about 4000 miles mostly along the freeways and highways of the different states. The good news is we enjoyed each other’s company through the whole trip. But in visiting each one of our stops I found some thoughts that I intend to share during the following months.

One of the first things I thought of was the amount of 18 wheelers on the road every day. I found them to be the better drivers on the road and also an irritation on the road. On the freeway where the land is mostly flat the 18 wheelers seem to drive the speed of the posted signs. The irritation was the quick movement of 18 Wheeler into the passing lane to get around another 18 Wheeler. Some of the drivers must think there driving sports cars to make a lane change so quickly and without consideration of the space between an oncoming vehicle and the back of their trucks. It was also irritating to notice when passing the 18 wheelers I saw them texting or looking at a device instead of looking straight ahead at the road. The worst experiences were when I got into the mountains and got behind one slow-moving truck trying to pass another slower moving truck. Other than that I know that this nation depends upon the service of the 18 wheelers to get the goods we need to the many places we buy them at. It seems to me that the size and the shape of 18 Wheeler has not changed much in the many years they been on the road. No matter what the make and model of the 18 Wheeler they all seem to have the same height and width that demands more fuel through the wind. My thought is that the complete redesign of the 18 Wheeler is necessary. Much like the redesign of vehicles for the European market, I think we can redesign the 18 Wheeler. I’m not sure why the height and ground clearance of the vehicle has to be so tall. I realize that many vehicles may have to go on rough roads to pick up their product. But I also believe many of them only drive on pavement. The cab of the 18 Wheeler usually has some kind of resting quarters attached, it seems a little bit too wide. I do not see a lot of vehicles with two people in the cab. Since pushing the big rigs through the wind is such a fuel consumption issue, they sould be shorter and wider. If there has to be a second seat for the cab why can it not be behind the driver much like the attack helicopters and jet plane seating arrangement? I realize that there are height limitations to the trailers. This seems like there’s a lot of wasted space between the set of wheels that can be utilized, much like many of the modern RVs on the road. I noticed a lot of air dynamic add-ons to the bottom of the trailers, so the issue clearance does not seem to be there. By utilizing the space between the wheels you cut down the height of the cab and the trailer and still carry the same amount of product. I also believe that the 18 wheelers in the United States base can be a little wider and a little lower to help avoid the 18 Wheeler from being blown over by the wind on the highway. The last issue is about the 18 wheelers ability to knock down the amount of spray that comes from the wheels during a rain. For me as a driver, when I decide to pass an 18 Wheeler in the rain I realize I’m going into a totally blind situation with the hopes that the road doesn’t change drastically before I pass the 18. I have noticed that commercial transportation buses and large RVs seem to have knocked down this amount of spray considerably. The current day 18 Wheeler should be redesigned to increase in safety and fuel consumption.

Another issue along the road is the availability and the cleanliness of the restrooms. As I get older it gets harder for me to go a long time without needing to use the restroom. And certainly while traveling across I -40 or I- 10 I had to keep a close watch on where there was an off ramp that will provide restroom facilities. I follow some kind of unwritten rule that if you stopped and use the restroom facilities you should spend some money at that facility, either getting gasoline or buying some coffee or food products at that location. To my surprise the rest stops and welcome centers located along the freeway in each of the states were clean and well kept. It was the private gas stations or restaurants that seem to vary widely in their conditions. I did not expect really sanitary or clean conditions in non-major company locations. But I did expect them at the different major brands that were along the highway. Whether be companies like Shell Oil, Exxon Mobil oil, Phillips 66 or TA Love’s stores, the conditions were unpredictable. I know that there are state agencies that check the gas pumps and are not responsible for the restrooms. I think those major brands should use some kind of mechanism that we checked the restrooms especially along the major freeways. There were times that I was under so much pressure to go to the bathroom I ended up walking into the wrong side of the restroom area. Upon quickly realizing I hit the wrong door I turned around and with great embarrassment went to the other side. Then those few seconds that I looked into the front area of the restroom, it seems like the women’s side of the restrooms were cleaner than the men’s side. I did notice some kind of unwritten rule about waiting for an open spot in the men’s restroom. First of all if there are more than two urinals open you never walk into the urinal next to someone else that’s already using one. I walked to the farthest urinal so that there space between me and the other person. Second, if there is a line waiting to use the urinal you, calmly walked to the end of the line and keep from speaking to anyone in line. It seemed like the men’s room was usually out of soap or towels to clean your hands. So there was always that awkward moment after washing your hands you realize that there’s no hand towels to dry them. In those moments your shirt in your pants were used as a towels.

During the journey I used a GPS device and to help direct me from one location to another. This is usually a great help except when the GPS device uses the name of the street rather than the number of the road to give you directions while driving to a city area. I am a typical male that does not like to ask for directions and I use terms like North, South, East and West with I ask wife which way we should go. The problem with that is that I should’ve been asking questions way earlier and my wife has no concept of North, South, East and West. Each time that I seem to get off course (not lost) I would turn the negative feeling into a positive one by claiming they were just on another adventure and would eventually get to our location. One of the scary adventures was while going through the state of New Mexico. The plan was to stop at a local Indian casino off of I- 40. During the preparation for the trip I used the address of the casino that appeared on the Internet site. After hours of driving along I- 40 my GPS device advised to get off of the freeway and use the frontage road to get to the location. As I drove down the frontage road I noticed that there was nothing but wide-open desert on both sides of the freeway. Then in a surprising announcement the GPS device said, you have reached your destination. I looked around and there were no buildings, no information signs and no signs of actual life. This is a scary moment, there was nothing there. I cannot imagine a time before cell phones that I would have any hope of finding the location. But a quick call to the casino discovered that the location that we were at was the Indian nation casino mailing address. I did not see any PO Box or mailbox. There was nothing there but wide-open desert and a pole for an old telephone line. The person on the phone at the casino informed me that this is just a mailing address and that casino was 20 miles down the road. So after returning on the surface road to get back onto the freeway and driving 20 miles down the freeway I found the casino standing alone in the middle of the desert.

In the beginning of our trip my wife and I had decided that we would not just eat fast food. We wanted to experience the different restaurants along the way. But the reality was we did not see what appeared to be a nice restaurant near the exit ramps. And we did not want to spend hours at each exit ramp trying to find one. So we ate at every different brand of fast food restaurant along the way. It was only when we were at casinos that we ate any good food. What I was not prepared for was the effect of so much fast food on my digestive system. This brings me back to the issue of restrooms. To say that I ate fast food it demanded that I paid attention to where the next restroom facility could be.

The other surprise I found along the trip was the different prices for the same products. First of all gasoline that was priced around $3.50 a gallon in Texas cost $4.50 in California. The farther west we went the higher the price of fuel. Another surprise was the price of Dairy Queen ice cream. The price I paid in Texas doubled by the time I got to northern California.

My final thought in this blog was the condition of the areas. I enjoyed the green colors and East Texas as my trip started. As I traveled farther west the green disappeared into a desert setting. By the time I got to California it seemed there was nothing but dried out and brown surroundings. Even while going through Flagstaff where the green pine trees seem to line the road, everywhere the ground below the trees were brown and dry. The condition of the country on the West Coast is in bad shape. Even as the cities grow and the traffic gets more congested, the lack of water would seem to limit that growth.

I’m sure that all of you have experienced the excitement of finally getting to home sweet home. No matter what your home looks like where it is on this earth, home is a special place. To be welcomed by my dogs as I walked in the front door or going to sleep in my own bed home is sweet home. As exciting as the adventure was, coming home was wonderful.

I tried to write a few blogs while I was on my trip but I left my computer at one of the hotels and so that didn’t happen. Now that I am back I intend to express my thoughts on a regular basis and enjoy the freedom of living in this country and the warmth of being at home.

Pops