The City Mouse in the Country

One of the first items that Sue and I bought as a couple all those years ago was a grandfather clock.  We used to snuggle under the blanket and listen to the chimes on the hour, the sound filling our house with a warmth and resonance.   That clock is nothing special, being simple in its design and technology.  It's accurate because of the beauty of physics and math...and is a lost art form in its own right. I thought a lot about time and place as we traveled this week.  I thought a lot about place.   Sue and I finally took a brief vacation recently.  Due to circumstances beyond our control, every plan we had made to get away earlier in the year came to naught.  My father became ill and ended up in the hospital which we decided to stay home "just in case."  He ended up in the hospital at least three times this past year, and I decided to spend what time I could with him. Family, after all, is what brought us back to Pennsylvania. We had planned on visiting friends in Tenne

**Several months ago I had a bit of an argument with someone on Facebook.  That promoted this article.   I've decided to republish it due to the city of New York recently purchasing over 1000 all electric Police cars and replacing most, if not all, of its gasoline fleet.  You can read about that here .**   One of the reasons I write this blog, is because I believe that knowledge is useless unless it is shared.  Someone that reads this may disagree with me or my conclusions and that's fine.   However they can't say that they didn't learn something. Facts and Reality are not something we get to choose.  Nor can we ignore a fact that does not fit our world view.   Example of an EV Fire Truck Even though I do try to keep politics out of the blog, this post and the last were inspired by a political debate about disaster relief in the future.  Or the mistaken belief that somehow hybrid vehicles or electric vehicles (EV) will never replace gas powered emergency vehicles. Or th

       As I am writing this, the country of South Korea was dealing with the aftermath of the Typhoon  Hinnamnor.   It pounded the southern cities of Korea with anywhere between 1 meter (39 inches) to 104 cm (41 inches) of rain, high winds and destroyed much of the infrastructure in the area.  The death toll however was kept to a minimum due to early warning, evacuations and preparedness     Still though, cars were submerged, people were trapped and lives were lost.  The roads into and out of the city in some areas were simply washed away due to flooding and others were blocked by debris.       What I found so interesting about this story however is how it fell along the "green power vs traditional power" in America on a few political discussion sites.   South Korea will recover from this relativity quickly.  They are the forth largest economy in Asia and the tenth strongest economy in the world so there was very little discussion about foreign aid.       It's also intere

     Lately everything is on "hold."  My garage is filled to the brim with appliances and tile waiting to be installed for the updated kitchen.   We have a new front door ordered, windows sitting on a loading dock somewhere and lightening ready to be installed.     We are waiting on our contractor to finish one job and start ours.        I started a new position at work in late August, where I am working nearly exclusively with "high touch" customers and agents that need to have their needs fulfilled yesterday.  I feel for them, I've been an insurance agent for eight years now and have owned my own independent delivery company (one of those jobs that I fell into - much like insurance) for roughly 15 years.  I've spent nearly my entire working career in sales.  You always want to under promise and over deliver. Due to 1001 reasons a lot of those requests and desires simply can't be fulfilled.       Holding patterns.      A long overdue vacation is also pl