travel

Bidets and Bemusements

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Mark Twain wrote in 1869: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness, and many of our people need it solely on these accounts. Good, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

It’s easy to read this quote and understand its practical, real-life application but it works metaphorically as well. Read on.

We have 232 American Athletes in Milan, Italy, for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Reports are that some of them don’t know what to do with an oval-shaped, probably porcelain, floor mounted, water spitting “accessory” on the floor of their Italian lodgings. Wonder how many of you readers know what a bidet is and what it is used for, mostly.

As with any device designed for one activity, it is never guaranteed the device will not find an alternate use.  In the case of the bidet and young people, especially young men, contemplating the alternate uses of the bidet will not happen, here. Do it on your own time.

Imagine the prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness being “wiped away” (Pun. Hope you get it.) by our athletes’ exposure (Another pun?) to this device. Keep in mind it might not be a learning moment if they aren’t instructed in the original intent of the bidet, and enjoyed its alternate uses, only. Let’s hope there is one responsible, experienced adult somewhere near the athletes.

There is an ongoing controversy about whether Hip-Hop* belongs in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Let’s forget for this discussion Hip Hope has its own Hall of Fame and ask: what is “Rock and Roll”? For once, AI has a great description: “It is a high-energy collision of cultures that defined the 20th Century.” It is a surprising remark from the usually staid and stuffy Ai but captures what this old man knew about Rock and Roll from its beginning’s way back in the 1950s: it’s a “Screw You, World” movement. Rock and Roll told us to have a good time while you can because the world is going to start trying to make sure you don’t. Fight it. Feck them all. We didn’t trust anyone over 30 and never imagined we would ever be that old. Until we were. Sigh.

What about Twain’s quote and the Hall of Fame Controversy? Hip Hop is an indirect descendant of Rock and Roll attitudes and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is correct in offering the Hall to anyone who wants to upend the world’s status quo.

But some old rock stars are disagreeing, hoping to exclude Hip Hop, and keep the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just…rock? No Roll? One 70 year old rocker said: “Hip Hop doesn’t speak to me. I’m not from there. I don’t understand its language.”** He essentially was saying because he didn’t have the same life experiences, he didn’t “get” Hip Hop. One has to wonder if he had travelled to the urban areas, the inner cities, and outer cities where Hip Hop happened, would it have made the Rocker think differently?

Twain was informing us just because something isn’t part of your life, doesn’t mean it has to be bad, dangerous, or unworthy. Once you get to know someone or something, your mind may change. Even better, do not let YOUR ignorance*** of a “thing” get in the way of knowing the truth about it.

Sounds a lot like the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Drama.

*If you don’t know what it is, google it. Add The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to your search.

**Cherry-picked paraphrase, not a word for word quote, so no attribute. I like the guy who said it and feel he may see things differently, eventually.

***The good, “accidental” Ignorance we all suffer from before we know or learn. Not the bad, purposeful ignorance of not caring enough or being curious enough to learn.

One Miscellaneous Note and a Rant about The Rich

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Last post, the font WordPress uses in published posts was unknown. It appears my beautifully clear Calibri ruminations were published by WordPress in Times New Roman with serif feet and flourishes, everywhere. It can’t be said for sure, because there are several other fonts available that use feet and flourishes, but if it looks like a flourish and smells like feet…

A new report was online this week about Dynamic Price Modeling (DPM). I’ve talked about it before under its old name: Price Modeling. Adding “Dynamic” makes it sound less stodgy, more, well, dynamic. First, a reminisce about pricing from the days of old. In pre-DPM times, a business looked at the costs involved in making a product. First are “Fixed costs (FC)” that don’t change no matter the quantity of product the business produces. These are rent, insurance, things you need for one product or one million. “Variable Costs”( VC) are the things consumed during production like raw materials, energy, shipping, labor, etc. Businesses total these costs for a certain period, then divide the sum by the number of products produced and find a “total cost per item”. Businesses use the total cost per item to decide the selling price of the item, its Retail Price. It is an important step because too high a Retail Price will limit total sales, but too low a Retail Price causes lower profit, and lower profit means business failure. We used to call it “Cost Plus Pricing” and it was a complicated and ongoing struggle to reach the perfect price for sales success and maximum profit. Most often Cost Plus Pricing did not yield a Retail Price of $100 for an item with a total cost of $1. Supply and demand market forces kept Retail Prices in line with total cost and businesses survived with modest profit.

Imagine a New Pizza Shop (NPS) making the best pizza in your area.  They sell pies for $15, make a nice profit and are happy. Then, a new pizza place realizes they can make a similar pizza and sell it for $12. Or a different new, newer pizza shop opens and sells their similar pizza for $16. Eventually local pizza eaters (The Market) will figure out the best pizza for the best price and that company will survive. Using Cost Plus Pricing, most pizza shops often “find” the perfect price through trial and error.

Now imagine NPS is using DPM. It offers pizza for $15 and immediately learns * The Market is buying $12 pizzas. NPS now has to make a decision about lowering its price. But what if through DPM, NPS learns almost the entire “Market” is buying pizza from NPS. DPM suggests NPS keep raising prices until they learn The Market will no longer buy NPS pizzas. All this happens instantly in this day and age.

Lowering prices, in my opinion, will almost never happen because of The Rich People. In our pizza shop world we assume The Market will work efficiently and reward the best pizza shop the most business. The Market will end up with the best pizza at the best price.

But with DPM, NPS eventually “corners” The Market with their best pizza at a decent price. Under DPM, NPS will eventually realize more control over the pricing than The Market has, and prices will rise and soon be out of proportion to a “total cost plus” formula: profits will soar.

Now add The Rich People to The Market, with unlimited disposable income and no correlated sense of affordability: DPM driven prices and profits will soar for NPS and non-rich people will no longer afford a pizza without taking out a loan. DPM can lead to the old school, black-hole monopoly, where only the very rich can afford anything as retail prices break free of “total cost” and rise to whatever The Market—and The Rich–will pay. It’s happening already in real estate and retail commerce. There are many markets where the same item from the same factory with the same total cost is sold for a different price. Eh, still okay, right? But what happens when a company realizes selling their product at a 15% profit in Market A is not worth selling it there because they can make 50% in Market B?

I’ve run out of space, but the point of the post is Dynamic Pricing Models are already eliminating non-rich people from some markets**. Where and when will it happen next?

*The local pizza market is not a good example, mainly because there isn’t enough profit in local pizza sales to justify the cost of Ai and the energy needed to maximize DPM. But car sales, real estate, Walmart, all are using DPM in the pursuit of maximum profit.

**The DPM market effects are not new. The speed at which they now happen, is. In the past, gaining control of The Market took time and often was constrained by slow communication systems. See the “Robber Barons” of the past, DPM pioneers.

Why I am So Cranky…Maybe

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In 2023 The Calamities forced me to contemplate moving from beautiful North Carolina and The UNC Medical Hospital System, to rural, upstate New York. The move was to make it easier for my NY family to deal with possible death or aid in a hoped-for recovery. A factor in the move was a YMCA with a pool for rehabilitation when all went well. The Upstate City I moved to was going to build a new one (opening in 2025) less than 200 hundred yards from the apartment complex chosen for my residence. Serendipity, right? Nope. Project was ended two weeks after I arrived due to lack of funding so I drive 3 miles to the old YMCA. Very old YMCA. But at least it’s there: glass half-full.

My morning swim starts at 5:30 at the YMCA. Some people work out on machines and some swim. During those painful, disabled, pre-surgery days, one of my co-conspirators was a young man who is frequently there the same time as me. We arrive, strip naked (for all you female readers), and get into our relevant workout attire.  He then goes into the shower room and turns on the water in the ADA* shower. (Unmarked ADA shower, another story. Grrr.) Then, he goes to work out.

He does this every morning I see him.

Is he turning the shower on for himself, me, or someone else? I assume he does it all the time unless he is very considerate and is helping me.  I go into the pool area and swim for 45 minutes. When I come out to shower, the hot water is still running in the still unmarked and empty ADA shower stall. Grrr, again.

After showering I shut off the water to dry and dress. The stage is set, so here is the scene one morning when the young man re-enters the locker room after his workout:

Young man (YM): “How’s the water?”

Me: “Which one?” (Pool or shower? But I know..)

YM: “The shower. Nice and warm?”

Me: “So you turn it on and leave it on.”

YM: “Yeah.”

Me: “You know how much water that wastes?”  (The YMCA has no catchment system.)

YM: “Not much, it’s only on about 10 minutes.”

Me: Nothing. I am not ready for a fight, need to at least get pants on. Or offer him my watch.

YM: “Besides, they don’t care about money. What do they do with it all?” He is gesturing around the dirty, worn out locker room.

Me: Again, nothing. Grrr.

YM: “This place is just as corrupt as the city.”

Me. “Yep, everything is corrupt. YMCA. City. Biden. Might as well kill ourselves.” (Imagine an extremely pissy tone, to match his MRPGM** vibe.)

YM: “I don’t really care. As long as I have enough to enjoy myself and my two trucks.”

He said the last line as if dropping the mic and repeated it as he passed me on his way out. “My two trucks.”

And…scene, and yes, he did not even use the shower.

It’s easy to think he was smart enough to be making a point. But the scene revealed an attitude prevalent in America, a variation of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) labeled GMGA for Got Mine Go Away. It is the mantra of the MAGA movement.

And it’s okay. GMGA has been around since caveman days.

But that is the point: we are no longer cavemen…and cavewomen. Back then it was about survival, LIFE survival. Now, it’s about STATUS survival. In caveman days you had to eliminate threats to your actual life. Now, MAGA wants to eliminate threats to their lifestyle. Trans, Gays, Illegals, Non-Whites, and specifically those not in sync with the MAGA groupthink…not welcome.

All this because of an encounter at a YMCA?

Yeah, Sounds bad. Petty. I may be wrong about the young man and wonder if I was the same way at his age, with cars and motorcycles. Was I MAGAn 50 years before MAGA?

But even if I was, it makes the point clearer: we should grow out of it. NIMBY and GMGA, both.

As my personal guru, the estimable Steven Wright says: “Experience is something you don’t get until right after you need it.”

*Americans with Disabilities Act, signed into law July 26, 1990 by Republican George H.W. Bush, a war hero and all around good, conservative man.

**Modern Republican Party Grievance Machine. See old posts.

An Undeniably Senior Observation

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It isn’t fair, but as we age things get difficult. We know this intrinsically, but I have proof: A Google Watch connected to a Fitbit App on my Samsung Smartphone. Out of curiosity, I stopped the google watch one time after monitoring my calories lifting weights, running, or swimming. Then I restarted it for showering, drying, dressing, and walking to the car. The result? More calories were burned after workouts while getting dressed than when lifting thousands* of pounds or swimming scores* of laps. Odd. But when you consider the “Activities of Daily Living” (ADLs) and “The Instrumental Activities of Daily Living”(IADLs)** the reason getting dressed burns more aclories than the workout becomes obvious: difficult things like lifting weights are still difficult, but easy things—like putting on pants—have become very, very difficult. I’m working out hard, now, to get in good enough shape to put on my pants!

The first thought was The Calamities were responsible. Arthritis, for example, made putting on socks an adventure in stretching, tugging, and twisting leaving me breathless after just one foot, and needing a short break before attacking the other. (No, the “assistive devices” on the internet were not helpful, except for the addictive “Reacher”, as chronicled earlier.) And the drive home is usually with socks twisted and bunched inside my slip-on shoes because there was no longer a desire to see just how fast my heart could beat. Google “orthostatic imbalance”.

Pants. Let’s talk about pants and their*** sadistic cousin, the swimsuit. The Calamities made dressing standing up next to impossible. Think about it, healthy people: putting one leg at a time into pants or a swimsuit while upright. Even putting either on while sitting is an exercise in hope, combined with several side-shifts, strategic tugs, and covering the sitting surface with a towel that has a life of its own. Getting pants off is a breeze until you have to pick them up off the floor. Same with a wet swimsuit, and you always hope the floor is clean. Aren’t they all in fitness centers? To summarize: off go the pants, on goes the swimsuit. Stop for breath, Go swim. Return from workout and off goes the swimsuit and on go the pants. And unless it’s summer, The Socks, too. (Capitalized for effect.)

It doesn’t help to have odd-shaped feet and fast-growing toenails. My feet (and hands) are tapered and are beautiful in their form, slanting down to each side from a higher, central middle digit. Very pleasing to look at, but when trying to slip such a foot into a pant leg or the genital sling of a swimsuit, that taper guides fabric right to the small toe, where no amount of trimming can keep a nail from growing just enough to catch that fabric and require a formally athletic and aerobically fit male to have to bend and tug and hope the fabric will release in time to prevent a stroke. Again: orthostatic imbalance.

Wow. Look at this post. Whine, much? I’m not sure how so much time and typing got wasted on dressing but for some reason I feel better about life, as if letting the world know how hard it is to get pants on makes my life so much easier. Cathartic posting?

The need to whine is over. The Calamities have been pretty much tamed and their return or advancement is not anticipated. Most of the arthritis was surgically removed and replaced with titanium and something akin to Teflon. So…when will life return to normal, with easy on and easy off attire?

Is there any reader out there over 70 years old who knows the answer? There’s no surgery that can help old age. No drugs to stop it in its tracks.

It appears the last 3 years have been a blessing in disguise, then, as my settling into old age “normalcy” is way better than dealing with those dastardly afflictions. I’m ready for anything life can do, now.

Yes, my glass is half-full. What about yours?

And since this venting felt so good, get ready for the next post where you will learn about the effects Image Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) can have on your digestive system. IGRT is an Ai guided procedure performed by a linear particle accelerator and you will read a harrowing tale of focused sub-atomic star-wars beams, loose stool, tattoos, unexpected gas, and…cliffhanger!

*Really? Thousands and scores? The mind…

** If you’re wondering about getting older, or are old already old and wondering what’s happening to you, google these two, ADL and IADL

*** Apology for the needless anthropomorphism. It’s a fun word and concept.

Labor Day Labors, Senior Version

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This isn’t really about any senior issues, but being a senior amplifies these problems everyone of us faces. Hopefully.

First, a complaint about my cohorts and their relationship to idiocy. Possible relationship. As retired seniors, we can do anything we want, anytime, anywhere, as long as it is within our physical and mental capacities. Experience taught me (firsthand and with observation) young people sleep late. Using genetically-gifted logic, I plan to do what I want, anytime I want, when said young people are still asleep, or recovering from the sudden shock of waking up. This planning allows free run of most fitness centers, grocery stores, and other retail or public places. Get in get out, go back to sleep, all before the motorcycles roar, the muffler-deprived cars cough to life, and general silliness ensues simply because there’s more humans moving about, causing chaos. So here is my latest conversation with an old friend about going to lunch. Me: “Let’s meet at 10am when they open.” Friend: “No. I’m not awake that early. Let’s do lunch time.” Me: “Ok. Applebee’s”? Friend: “No, it’s too busy there.” (Insert rimshot* here.) Note: many late-arising friends scoff at early morning activity. Yes, they actually scoff***, as if it is an insult. It’s okay, even fewer people getting in the way.

So I called the local fitness center Sunday since their website says they are “Open” on Monday, Labor Day, but “subject to holiday hours”. My call was during business hours Sunday and was not answered by a human but a “phone tree” offering an option to find out about “Holiday Hours”. After selecting the alleged option, it instructed me to call “the local branch for more information.” To their credit, the local branch called me back seconds later, apologized and listed the hours. Bless them, for they know not what they do. Actually, they did, so we can save Luke23:34 for the next Labor Day misadventure.

My favorite grocery store’s website also listed Monday Labor Day hours as “Open, Subject to Holiday Hours.” A Sunday call to their phone number informs me “There will be signs in the store about Holiday Hours”.  As an effort, that is a good thing but why say it over the phone? Do we drive there, now, to find the Holiday Hours for tomorrow? (Second rimshot.) Oops, being patient and waiting a little longer the phone tree offers “Press Option 2 to hear Holiday Hours for your store.”. Ever the optimist (sarcasm), I pressed 2 and got this: “Call your local store for Holiday Hours that will be displayed on signs in the store.” Let’s not use one rimshot here but give them an entire drum solo. As a coherent finish to this anecdote, in a visit to the store on Monday I looked for signs about “Holiday Hours”. Go ahead, guess. I won’t insult your intelligence.** For real, this time: Luke23:34.

It’s not clear how much of these last two stories was caused by Artificial Intelligence, but we can be sure “Real Intelligence” was AWOL.

*Drum: “Ba-dum-tss”, phonetically. Also called a sting. Google it for fun.

** Apologies if inferring the obvious is also insulting. It’s a holiday: Happy Labor Day!

*** A very powerful word. Look it up.

Benign Bemusements

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After years of complaining about drivers’ inability to understand and use a well-known and researched free life-saving safety device, blinkers, it is time for empathy, time to walk a mile in their shoes. This past Monday, the 13-mile, mainly four-lane highway drive from my home to the Fitness Center at Turning Stone was the time and place. I intended to drive the entire route without ever touching the turn signal arm. It is a drive of very few turns so…and it was performed at 4:30 AM so there were few witnesses…and victims…but…

The first 12 miles were glorious: the sheer audacity and freedom was intoxicating. I changed lanes on a whim. I made my one right turn onto the highway with total abandon and when the two lanes narrowed to one, I shifted over with a youthful, carefree exuberance. That joy filled my soul and I lost myself in it until in anticipation of a left turn into the parking garage, my now-unattended brain fired the nerve(s?) of my left arm. The left hand fell off the steering wheel, my eyes dropped to watch, and the left-hand fingers descended perfectly onto the turn signal lever. Could I catch myself in time to prevent disaster or was I doomed to repeat the past? Would the turn signal lever be strong enough to resist? Would it count if the light bulb was burned out and never flashed? Is Trump ruining the entire world?

I’ll try, again, on the way home.

Speaking of Trump, is it strange he decimates social, educational, medical, and scientific services in the name of “balancing the budget” and then spends billions on immigration deportations, domestic military policing, and parades? The American Public is (are?) the idiot(s) for allowing this to happen, and by electing him in the first place. Will we do anything about it?

Immigration reform is needed, but if we assume 1 in a 10,000 Americans is a criminal, it’s safe to assume 1 in 10,000 immigrants is a criminal, right? So we are deporting them all? Indiscriminately? Court cases alone will cost billions. It is a classic case of mismanagement made sadder by the hurt it is causing innocents. And is a perfect example of baby and bathwater. It is proof we need experienced professionals running our government who understand nuance or at least are willing to learn. HHS Chief RFK firing all 17 members of an advisory board to the CDC? He don’t need no stinkin’ advice.

Political doublespeak and the attendant physical contortions are not unique to the Republican Party, or to this day and age. Democrats are participants, too, as well as being quick learners. But I just watched Republican Representative Loeren Boebert in a US House hearing perfectly detail the causes, actions, and repercussions involved in an “insurrection”. Finally, I said to myself, someone on the Republican side sees it. Finally. But she was talking about Los Angeles. Find it on you tube and watch. It is the perfect example of political…umm…selective memory? Ignorance? Oblivion? She was innocently outraged, positive about all facts, and sure anyone who didn’t agree with her was stupid, unpatriotic, and un-American. Plus, she was shrill, one of her unique skills.  Unfortunately, I cannot remember a Democrat display so completely tone-deaf and absurd, but there probably is one, someplace. It is what politicians do and we reward them for it. Let’s vote them all out next time. All new for the future.

There are so many odd, sad, funny thoughts and things happening to us old people. This post was supposed to be about those things. But Ai is ruining everything, including my brain. Politics is an ear worm, now. Anyone know a cure? Maybe if politicians stopped being stupid and self-serving…?

See? Funny things.

Trump, no more

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Yep, it’s true. These are the last, few sentences I’ll write about Felon47. It isn’t because he’s stopped lying, whining, and doing bad things, but everyone is starting to take notice. Finally. You’ll hear all about it in the coming months. My words aren’t needed, anymore.

So…what do we talk about, now?

My little town in upstate New York was thrust into the “Lake Effect Snowbelt” these past few weeks. It is a phenomenon unique to the states east of The Great Lakes (google them). Cold winds coming from the west, northwest flow over the still warm lakes and suck up huge amounts of water, which gets deposited over land as the wind sweeps off last lake. It doesn’t get deposited as water, but as snow. It snows so much and for so long it’s hard to believe each snowflake is different. AI says each flake is different because “each snowflake follows a different path through the air, experiencing different conditions.” I call bull$%^& and need to see some proof: they all look the same when you’re shoveling.

Historically, the Lake Effect drops snow bombs farther north of my city, dumping as much as 30 feet of snow, annually, on small towns and farms whose denizens are veterans of the flaky onslaught. They relish it. Local parking lots are not filled with cars but snowmobiles. The Tug Hill Plateau region holds the (unofficial) New York State record of 77 inches of snowfall in 24 hours. Each flake unique, beautiful, and fragile. Right. How many unique flakes in 77 inches spread over acres and acres? Bull%$#@. Imagine someone looking at each flake…

How many flakes? I finally understand the concept of “infinity”.

The last two weeks a wind shift has pushed the lake effect south…to me… and I’ve been in The Chair watching it from the warmth and comfort of my second-floor apartment. (And sharing it with my friends in the south, garnering immense pity.) Most days there has been some form of legal restriction on travel: states of emergency, weather advisories, warnings, and often things are just closed so there is no reason to venture out. But some do, with hilarious consequence. Maybe they’re checking the uniqueness of flakes? Or just like to move snow around.

As noted in an earlier “complaint” about snowfall in upstate New York, humans are the best entertainment in bad conditions. We are fun to watch.

The complex I live in has a sense of humor, too. Imagine trying to clear a parking lot full of snow when the parking lot is full of cars. And the snow never stops. Management tried to get us to move our cars in concert during the first snow blast last month. About 50 per cent of us did, which you can imagine, made it worse. So when the next management notice came about moving cars to clear an area no one moved. Now that’s progress.

It’s the end of February so the big lake effect snows may be over, but after a strange, 10 months of unusual weather highlighted by a rare summer tornado and rare lake effect snow, it can only mean I owe the lifetime residents an apology for moving here last April.

For more than that reason, I am truly sorry.

But: Spring is coming! And MAGAns are turning against…oops…almost said that name.

California Dreaming…

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If you are from anywhere in the world and you’ve spent any time in Southern California you can understand the love/hate relationship we non-residents have for the state. Sunny, dry, oceans, beaches, skiing, natural beauty, movie stars, Venice Beach, all co-exist with high prices, bad traffic, wildfires, mudslides, and the looming, lurking, specter of The Big One.

In these days of political polarity, California gets another rap for not being conservative, as if The Redwoods and beaches were destined by our creator to be marxist-liberal phenomenons.

So it’s understandable the response of some MAGA and conservative idiots to the devastating wildfires. Idiots, includes you-know-who who’s name can’t be mentioned because of a New year’s Resolution. No sense in wasting time talking about the idiots. God will settle that score.

But the time I’ve spent in California was more than wonderful, it was joyous: sun every day, no humidity, gastronomical assortments unrivaled by any location, and scenic views to die for. By my calculations California’s pluses far outweigh it’s minuses, and I do not not move there simply because they do not have a winter with snow so great it confines me to my apartment for days…maybe I should reevaluate.

My guess is a lot of California hate is similar to homophobic hate: people don’t want to admit they might like it if they tried it, and they’re afraid of the temptation.

No matter what your beliefs or your political idiocy, no one deserves what is happening to Southern California, these days. Most residents are life long residents, all with transplants somewhere in the generations past who found California a great place to live and raise a family. Over–sometimes–centuries they built a web of family and locations, all under the constant welcoming sun.

My family’s generations are in the Northeast, but I wonder how it would feel if all homes, all records, all memorabilia, all traces of the past were incinerated to ash in 5 minutes.

For some reason, Nature or God or some unnamed creator decided to visit our earth with disasters of wind, rain, snow, fire, or shaking ground. It happens all over and it will continue to happen.

And every time it does, we should thank our lucky stars it didn’t happen to us. If we can’t roll up our sleeves and offer help, we should shut our pie holes and hope for the best for those suffering.

And stop the looting!

To all who feel the urge to pile on to a disaster, whether it be in Florida or California or Iowa or Texas or New York or Hawaii, beware. Karma is a bitch.

Comfort Zone vs Intellectual Curiosity

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The Comfort Zone (CZ) has been talked about a lot, recently. A Major League hitter looking for a pitch in “his comfort zone”. A politician setting up soft interviews so he can stay in “his comfort zone”. But what is a CZ, really? Lets ask google: “a psychological state in which things are close and familiar to a person and under their control, enabling low level of stress and anxiety.”

Now this from google about Intellectual Curiosity (IC): “a genuine interest in learning about a wide variety of topics and ideas.”

Does it appear to you, readers, CZ is the opposite of IC? Can IC and CZ coexist?

It is logical CZ can be a dangerous place, despite its definition. A cave man in his CZ after eating a rack of mastodon ribs, might not realize the aroma of his meal will lure sabre tooth tigers for an epicurean investigation of their own. In this case, IC tigers will affect the CZ of the caveman.

In analyzing successful contentmentors (sic, and pronounced content mentors) in my own unscientific way, most seem content because of something learned, investigated or revealed to them. In my essay, good Customer Service was an example. Contentment was introduced, accepted, and enjoyed. Yay. But it was a process of intellectual acrobatics, and the resulting CZ was free of outside tigers.

Plainly, there is nothing wrong with a properly investigated and supported CZ. But it is the result of active and purposeful IC. Modern politics is an example of improperly constructed CZs unnecessarily resulting in Tribe Over Truth (TOT). How many Democrats/Liberals watch Fox News? How many Republicans/Conservatives watch MSN? Everyone knows the answer. When talking with a conservatives I usually get the Fox News spiel, and when questioned, my conversational partner suddenly realizes he/she/them is/are being lured outside their CZ, and retreats to a “lower level of stress and anxiety”. It is probably the same for Liberals when questioned by good, IC Conservatives.

A conclusion: we cannot be IC with out leaving our CZ. Why?

A purposely blunt statement regarding the good of this country and our future: Blow up your political CZ! Don’t be a caveman inviting tigers to eat our future.

If it helps any, politician know all about IC-resistant CVs, and how to take advantage. All of them know. Let’s get THEM out of their CZs. Let us be the Tigers.

Problems, if anyone cares

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My new favorite spot is The Turning Stone Resort and Casino, ten miles down the road. It has a beautiful fitness center with a pool on the third floor of the resort’s Tower Hotel. Since moving back to New York, I swim three times a week and then stumble down to the casino floor to sacrifice $5 each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For “fun”.

The Problem is I’m not losing. It’s hard to lose big on penny slot machines at 50 cents a play, but for years in the past, when an infrequent out-of-state visitor, as soon as the $5 was gone, my casino day was done. But now, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the inscrutable Asian/Japanese slot machine closest to my walk to my car, who’s directions I can’t read, with the big, comfortable seat, has decided to do something different. It has paid about $15 a day, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, after two or three 50 cent bets. And I cash out. Am I being set-up? On candid Camera? Being Punk’d? Should I stay longer? Play more? Bet more?

There’s an elevator in my beautiful apartment building where I live in my beautiful apartment on the second floor. My Problem is every time I take the elevator, either up or down, some one always tries to get on before they see I am trying to get off. Like the elevator is their personal conveyance. I’ve ridden elevators all over the world and never saw this type of behavior anywhere else. At least I don’t remember. And why hasn’t this happened with the beautiful, too-young-for-me blond from the third floor?

I park my car away from other cars-if possible-when visiting hospitals, etc. Three times in the short 3 months I’ve been back in NY, someone else has parked so close to my driver side door my entry was impossible. Again, I’ve parked all over the world and never seen it as bad as here, in upstate NY. (I have pictures.) So, my Problem is not really how to get into my car, but how much damage to inflict on the stupid vehicle next to me. Last time, last week, I emptied a water bottle in the front seat through a cracked open window. Banging into the new plastic doors of some of these new cars doesn’t do anything, these days. Hm. Bet the seat dried before the stupid driver got back.

One last Problem, promise: Buffalo Chicken Pizza. $4 for a one large slice, or $28 for an 18 inch pizza with 6 large slices? The Real Problem? There is nothing like hot, fresh pizza of any flavor. But an 18 inch would take a few days to eat, leaving the last few slices to be cold, reheated, refrigerated pizza. But it’s there, ready, anytime. Not ordering, driving…um…this might take some time.