Travel Tuesday - Ireland Two Years Ago

We returned from Ireland two years ago today.  Right at the start of work from home, lock down, and all of this fun. 

 

There were a ton of posts two years ago about Ireland.  With time to reflect, it was a great trip in a weird time.  Dublin is a neat city, it is a very modern city, very welcoming.  Trinity college, St Patricks, walking along the river.  We were only in Galway a short time, the drive north from there into the countryside was spectacular.  Neat hotels, great service, nice space (traveling off season prices were low, I booked a suite in one hotel and it was wonderful to have the extra space.) 

The time down south in Kilkenny and Waterford was amazing.  We stayed at a golf resort, operated by Marriott.  The room was nice, the bathroom had a heated floor, I was in love with that.  We drove along the coast for a couple of hours, with a gale blowing in and heavy surf.  It was amazing.  

By the end of it, places were closing, restrictions were starting.  But we still saw and did a lot.  For us it was a wonderful time of the year to travel, no snow or ice, but not hot, not crowded.  If we had been a couple of weeks later going, we would have not been.  Grab the opportunity when you can.  No regrets (well except for driving, I didn't have an accident, others didn't do so well.)  

Details will follow, most likely after the trip, I almost never talk about being gone, before I am gone, I just booked an adventure for later this spring. A return to someplace I have been once and my only regret was that we didn't stay long enough.  Five nights this time.  I needed a passport to book it. 

Music Monday - Rod Stewart ft. Ron Wood - Maggie May /

There is something about this song, when it first came out I made fun of it, I thought it lacked elegance and beauty, "find myself a rock and roll band, that needs a helping hand" - I would mock "like the one you are in." But overtime, over decades it has grown on me.  It is a song about love.  And Rod Stewart, what an amazing long lasting talent.  

Sunday Five - A Connected Life

 While walking at the mall, being tracked by my phone, I stumbled across this refrigerator with an error code in it's internet connection.  I don't know as I want my refrigerator to know that much.  We looked at appliances for the kitchen the sales guy had to demonstrate a matched set that you entered the inventory of what was on hand and it would plan your menus and give you step by step directions.  I was horrified. 

1: Do you have a voice activated smart device in the house? 

2: What is your success level on voice activated devices? 

3: Do you let technology automatically reorder or refill for you? 

4: Have you ever done an online search, then been inundated with ads? 

5: Do you go into incognito mode before doing searches or visiting some webpages? 

My Answers:

1: Do you have a voice activated smart device in the house? There is a video Alexa box in the kitchen, and Amazon is forever suggesting cook books.  

2: What is your success level on voice activated devices? I have never made the voice option work on the GPS in the Benz.  NEVER or me, it only responds the master's voice.  

3: Do you let technology automatically reorder or refill for you? No, I don't need that much organization in my life. I ordered packing tape on Amazon and it asked if I wanted to put that on automatic refill mode, who uses that much packing tape?

4: Have you ever done an online search, then been inundated with ads?  Who hasn't? 

5: Do you do into incognito mode before doing searches or visiting some webpages? From time to time 

Please share your answers in the comments! 

The Saturday Morning Post - Getting Policial

Russia has passed a law, making it a crime to speak out, or report on anything in opposition to Putin waging WAR on Ukraine.  If you refer to it as anything other than a "special military operation" you can go to prison in Russia for 20 years.  It is a WAR, started by one side, Russia, it is beyond a human tragedy. I guess  I will never visit Russia, I just violated their "fake news law."  

The USA suffered for four plus years under he who must not be named, screaming that anything he didn't like was fake news. If he had the power, and if not for the Constitution, I am sure he would have passed a law making speaking ill of him and his actions a crime.  His rants against a free press, should be seen as an act of war on the freedoms that we hold dear.  I don't always agree with the press, but criminalizing the truth, and cutting off outside information in the name of power and control is wrong. 

Larry in PEI, posted a couple of weeks ago about the politics in Canada, and how freedom is conditional. His thoughts were much more eloquent than mine, it is worth finding and reading. 

The classic American example of a limit on freedom of speech is "you can't shout fire in a crowded theater."  Doing so endangers the health and safety of others as the rush for the exits will likely result in injury, not to mention the stress caused by the prank.  I laughed at the "Jackass" movies, but the stunts they pulled, often crossed the line from funny to a danger to others.  Looking back, encouraging them was a bad idea.  

Really the limit on personal freedom is when it presents a danger to others.  Getting vaccinated, and wearing a face covering is really as much about protecting others, as it is about protecting myself.  I have a professional license in Florida, I have had for 40+ years.  A few days ago I received an email from the department of business and professional regulation that I am now prohibited in Florida from requiring face masks in a business in Florida.  The CDC article they linked to was from 2020, and looked at research on the protection for the person wearing the mask, not the protection of others. DeSantis thinks we are stupid enough to read one-side, and not realize there is another side. Oh, and then there is Florida's don't say gay in the schools law - that should bring some interesting litigation. 

As a civilized society we accept a lot of limitations on our freedoms.  I can't drive off in my neighbors car, or hold a party in their living room, because doing so violates their personal property rights.  Thou shall not steal, is part of the implicit agreement of people living together in a society, if I respect your rights, and you respect mine, then I don't need to be prepared to shoot to defend myself and my property. In the era of "Values Education" we have focussed too much an abstinence and not enough on limit what you do so you don't hurt others. 

Sorry for the rare political rant.  There are others that do a better and more consistent job of this than I.  Sometimes, things just need to be said.   

 

Fabulous Friday - Shoes #5

 The routine things in life need not be boring.  Add some color, texture, scent.  I was disappointed recently when I was in the mall, at how much plain white boring mens' underwear was in stock. I assume it is stock because it is what people are buying.  Why?  How repressed, how boring.  

Why should shoes be only brown or black?  Come on guys, shoes can have color and style.  

Thursday Ramble - What am I up to?

I am working too much.  9 and 10 hour days, meaning even if I take a day off I end up working a 40 hour week, in four days.  I am worrying more that I did before, I have a staff of five including myself to keep employed.  

I am maxed out on vacation and paid personal days, I need to take about three days a month off, or lose time. We are meeting a friend in Baltimore this month and I added a day to that weekend to make it a long weekend. We are going to New York for a few days in early April.  

I scheduled a week off in May. Plans for that week?  We thought about obligation trips to see family and friends, and decided what we really want, what I really need is a few days with no obligations.  We are thinking about exploring places in the northeast we have never been.  I know I could lose my membership card for this, I have never been to Provincetown. I have a couple of Mayflower ancestors (along with an estimated 35-million other Americans) and I have never been to Plymouth, Massachusetts.  It will be early spring in that part of the country, after spring break, and before summer break.  Our kind of shoulder season travel.  

My office has announced once again (this is the third or fourth time) an official return to office date, in late April.  I am okay with that, I  do hope that the subway system starts to fix and return to service the 60% of the fleet that was having problems with wheels falling off.  

I participated in an exercise recently looking the future of work and offices.  The assumption is that we have proven that most jobs can be done, and done well, without going into our office.  There is some value in in-person meetings and collaboration, but requiring people to be there, just because it is something we have always done, is unproductive. That cheese has been moved and it isn't going back.  And office space is rather expensive in Washington DC.  The assumption is I would go in 2 or 3 days a week.  Either there would be an assigned desk that I used on my days in, and someone else used when I was not there, or no one has a permanently assigned space unless the job required them to be in the office full time, and when I checked in each day, I would be given the keys to an open space, kind of like checking into a hotel room.  It eliminates the accumulation of personal stuff in a workspace.  Nearly all of our files are already paperless, I can make the rest paperless. Anyplace I can access the file server, is my office.  The rest is personal junk.  Having not been in a "coffee shop" work culture, it would / will be a change in mindset for me.  Whatever I need to do my job, needs to be portable.  

When I took the job in DC, I left nearly all of my books behind in the other house.  I realized a couple of years later, that if I hadn't needed them in two years, I probably didn't need to keep most of them.  And I parted with them.  This shift in office will require that kind of shedding of personal stuff.  But then we have done the job for two years without all of it, why do we need any of it.  (I have one colleague who has not been in the office since March of 2020, another has been in twice.) When would we make a change? When we can get out of the lease on the space, that could be a few years, but now is the time to think about it. 

Things I would not want to own, shopping malls, and large office buildings.  They are going to be the same.  

The Way We Were Wednesday - the Blue Dodge

There weren't a lot of them, because they were utilitarian, used until they were no longer useable, but there were always pick-up trucks around when I was growing up. There was an early 1950's Ford, traded in 1965 on a red Ford, the early one I have no real memory of.  A yellow Chevy, bought used from a utility company. And the Blue Dodge.  It was the last one.  My father bought around the time my grandfather retired, my grandfather kept the red Ford, it was around for me to learn to drive in.  

The Blue Dodge was fun.  It had a massive V-8, it might have been a 440. My father bought it used, no one wanted it because it had a massive engine and got lousy gas mileage. He only drove it a few thousand miles a year and didn't care about the miles per gallon.  It was a handful on the gravel and unpaved roads, if you put your foot down you needed to be prepared to correct for the slide.  About a mile and a half north of the farm, I would turn right onto a paved road, put my foot to the floor and and rocket from a standstill to 60 miles per hour before the rear wheels quit spinning.  For decades I kept that my guilty little secret.  Late in my father's life someone mentioned the blue Dodge and I said how fun it was to drive. In his best deadpan, my father looked at me and said "I know, I could hear you on a clear afternoon, from a mile and half away - it was fun wasn't it?"