Weird how subpar is unacceptable or below standards for so many things, but it’s pursued as a good outcome in golf.
Words. I’m telling you, they’re literally fascinating.
Friday’s Wandering Thoughts
I think I better understand the expression, “Mind the gaps.” Although originating with trains and subways and the gaps between train and platform, or between cars, it’s found other life as an expression. For me, minding the gaps is about recognizing the gaps left by change. Like, a friend is gone, and suddenly, there’s a gap shaped like them in your life. Gaps emerge from favorite things being discontinued — television shows, products, foods.
If those gaps get too large or too many, we can just start falling right through them.
Another Wysocki Jigsaw Completed
I enjoy these Charles Wysocki puzzles. This one was comfortably challenging and fun. Working alone in the evenings, I finished it in four days. One thousand pieces, the pieces fit well, and the colors variations enlivened the process. Sorry it’s poor photo. Hope you can still appreciate it. Cheers
Friday’s Wandering Thoughts
Two lanes in each direction with a turning lane, Ashland Street is one of our little city’s busiest main streets. Besides connecting to the southern Interstate exit and entrance, it’s home to four shopping centers, a fire station, college dormitories, five gas stations, a Starbucks and another coffee shop, along with several other businesses, motels, and restaurants. Connecting to our main drag, Siskiyou Boulevard, which leads to downtown, Ashland Stret is divided by median stripes and cement dividers in numerous places.
The city has added white stanchions alongside the bicycle lanes on Ashland Street. Some call them bike lane delineators. A couple inches in diameter, they’re tubes which stand 36 inches high and help separate the bike lanes from motor vehicle lanes, making it safer for bike riders.
Questions have arisen from the people. Like, how are cars supposed to pull over to the curb to let emergency vehicles pass? Second question that everyone wonders is, how will the street sweeper handle the stanchions? There’s no clearcut answer for that, they say. As for pulling over for emergency vehicles, people insist that they can’t.
Except: I noticed that these stanchions or delineators are spring mounted. They bend over. I believe cars and street sweepers can go right over them. The question is, will drivers do that?
You know how it is with change. Some have a harder time with it.
We’re waiting to see what transpires next.
Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts
I dreamed that I was discussing the mathematical order of operations with several other people. Of all of the subjects, events, and worries I can remember dreaming about, this seems like one of the strangest. Sitting, I kept saying that it’s a matter of precedence and you start with things in parentheses or brackets first, as if that was in dispute.
Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts
My wife and I met with friends for coffee at 10:30 this morning. I ordered espresso with ice cream: an affogato.
My companions were appalled. “Ice cream, at this time of day?” they asked.
“Why not,” I retorted. “It’s time to do away with the provincial idea that ice cream can’t be consumed in the morning. I’m retired. WTF not eat ice cream in the morning with my espresso?”
So, Chipotle
I won’t be eating at Chipotle restaurants for a while, if ever.
The Guardian had an article that mentioned Chipotle by name.
“As inflation shot to its peak around mid-2022, Chipotle’s prices also rose, pushing up what customers paid for burritos and bowls by as much as several dollars. Since then, the fast casual restaurant’s costs have broadly fallen. Prices have not.
“Chipotle’s decision to maintain high prices helped boost profits 110% in recent years, while its executives boasted to investors that they raised prices higher than inflationary costs.”
There’s a list of companies and their profits in the article. Like Cheesecake Factory, with a fat 471% increase. Won’t be going there, thanks.
TBH, I only visit three of these places and it’s not that frequently. My exception is Starbucks. They’re one of my regular Ashlandia coffee haunts because the local places that I loved are gone. That just sucks.
Meanwhile, as you prepare to vote and you hear people complain of inflation and high prices, mention this article. Also mention that energy companies have seen record profits as well.
And let’s not forget grocery stores.
Face it, boys and girls, as voters scream about inflation and corporations complain about wages, regulations, and taxes, corporate executives are becoming stupidly rich.
All at the nation’s expense.
Friday’s Wandering Thoughts
So, it’s a mini-rant on a subject tapped before. I don’t understand some drivers.
Followed a guy along city streets today. I don’t know if it’s germane but the Santa Cruz truck which he drove sported Oklahoma plates. Rental, student, visitor, new arrival who hasn’t registered their vehicle yet? Couldn’t say.
In the 35 MPH zone, they slipped along at 30-31. Okay, they’re cautious, I thought, Maybe looking for something.
The speed limit plummeted to 25 MPH. They cruised through, pulling away from me.
And that dichotomy is what manufactures my ire: why do they go below the speed limit in one area and above the speed limit in another. That’s so contradictory to me. It’s like, and I don’t know if this is what they think, “I’m just going to establish my own speed limit and adhere to it no matter what the local signs say.” Or maybe it’s something they picked up from their parents. Perhaps it’s an Oklahoma habit.
As I said, I don’t understand some drivers.
A Wysocki Completed
Another jigsaw puzzle was completed last night. I worked this one alone. Started last Saturday night, I finished Thursday evening. It was fun and easy. I enjoy his stylized simplicity, how he minimally incorporates shadows and textures as lines. It’s such a contrast to my style was I was painting and drawing. Somewhat like my fiction writing, I always focus on the interplay of shadows and uncertainty. It reflects my personal philosophy that most life is part of a large band of gray confusion.
Apologies that my photo isn’t sharper and clearer. Those are pumpkins on a wagon above the hat store on the right, and white chickens in the road.
Many more Wysockis were available at the library of things. I’m passing this one on to a friend because I think he’ll enjoy it, and picking up another.
Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts
I ordered a new knob for my gas range. It’s the third one I’ve had to buy for the GE Profile range. The range is about six years old. Quality, right? Headshake.
Anyway, I’m tracking the knob. They said it shipped. I looked up the details.
After being picked up by the carrier, it arrived at the carrier facility, and then arrived at a carrier facility, and then arrived at a carrier facility. All the carrier facilities are in Arkansas.
It’s like, such strange progress. But then, another part for something else last week left California, south of us, and arrived at Eugene, north of us. Then it went further north to Portland. The day after that, it came back down south to Medford, basically northwest of us, before being delivered.
I suspect the folks behind these shipping processes are the same people who are always shouting, “Do more with less!”
Michael Seidel, writer 