trinacriabob

Boy, I'd like to talk about other things but it's really sad how we've so quickly moved to a culture of fear and helplessness. His love for "you're fired" continues, as I knew it would 8 or 9 years ago. It is really weird to see photos of the oval office with guys in baseball caps - the usual red one and now a guy who looks like he has marbles in his cheeks who wears a black one and who stands there like a Roman centurion. Two comments: I don't know what mechanisms are in place to stop overreaching in use of power. I think that as much as we are mostly a tranquil and pacifist nation (yes, there's violence in our cities), I fear something ugly ... I just don't know what. - - - - - We have the country's trailer parks and minority turncoats, neither of whom benefit, for this.

Ok, it's a lot clearer. The issue is now why that wing dipped. Some articles mentioned wind gusts. CRJs are quiet and nimble, for the most part. I don't like their wing swept back and I don't like the engines at the rear hugging the fuselage. It's noisy in the back. When it comes to this more commuter-like size, I now much prefer the Embraer 190/185 product. This tells me to keep that safety belt fastened tight. We've seen people get out quickly when the plane was right side up ... AF's Paris-Toronto A340 and the JAL A350 in Tokyo that collided with a commuter plane on the runway. Getting out when you're upside down must have been much worse. I'm thinking some of these folks will have PTSD from this. I feel for them.

What is this 10.5% sales tax and what are the extra add-ons funding? Unbelievable. You can find an $8 to $10 omelette at a dive in a nondescript part of Houston. Food there isn't ridiculously expensive.

I have been tuned out to politics for at least half of my life. I'm sort of apolitical. I sometimes get treated to a neener-neener on how it's one's civic duty. I have never liked or trusted most politicians ... and that's since I took civics in high school. The shocking things of the last 10 years have caused me to take note. However, for my sanity, I try to remain checked out as much as I possibly can. I prefer to dwell on reading, photography, archiving, health, budgeting, travel, dogs and cats, staying in touch with my friends, and, of course, CARS! - - - - - Back to planes: As if AA colliding with a helicopter at DCA wasn't enough, there was the Delta crash landing at Toronto. I don't know if there is footage, but I saw a YouTube simulation. That looked scary. It also looked potentially more lethal than it turned out to be. They were successful in getting the passengers out of an upside-down CRJ aircraft. There was snow and 40 mph winds at YYZ. I want to know how this could have happened.

When you put that together with high sales taxes in big West Coast metro areas and tips that (should) now start at about 18%, the picture isn't pretty.

My dad was heavy handed at times. In high school, he wanted me to take Latin. (That's an Old Word immigrant mindset right there ... you know, Mass for him when growing up was in Latin.) I took French because that's what I wanted to take. I aced it. I liked going to this class everyday and even stirring the pot because it was too easy. Little did I know I'd go to Quebec a dozen times and use it as an adult. In college, I took some Spanish electives. Then, I'd go to Cuban and Mexican school friends' houses and learn more. I sometimes use it to make my life easier. In some places, they (Mexicans) might feel patronized. In Houston and South Texas, they seem to appreciate it and the service is always excellent because of my doing that. Here I was, going into a WU location to load a travel card in a marginal Houston neighborhood and in a rented Tiguan SUV, and, since this was an atypical transaction for them (mostly it's money to/from Mexico), I had to explain to her how to process it and it went through. I guess it was trippy for the others in line to hear this token white American guy in their midst carrying on in Spanish with the teller. She remembered me, and the process, the next time. Bottom line: mostly, parents should stay out of trying to navigate or control their kids' interests if they are not up to speed with the variables involved.

So, Second Cup revenue up and Starbucks (Canadian) revenue down. When in Canada, I have tried to avoid Stbx, preferring Canadian chains and indies, and this has been for 5 to 10 years and unrelated to politics ...

Good morning. - - - - - Reaaallly? Ya think? I didn't even need the t-shirt as a clue! There's a short article about her on Today-dot-com that went with this photo. People can be so predictable and packaged bills of goods.

I like her spirited and sassy manner. Sicilians are sassy, so she'll gel with that. WTF with those Atlanta rent costs? Where in the ATL does she live? Weird that she picked a town in the hills and on the Palermo side. I don't like that side of the island. Her income is high relative to the average Sicilian. She doesn't need to be "sharing." I'd say that, of the Southern European nations that are popular, Portugal is the most resentful. Combine their economic EU position with a more difficult language (pronunciation) and slightly more reserved people. Smiley wealthy Americans and douchebag surfers? And not bothering to learn the local language? Who'd want that? I love the place and can conversationally bullshit with the regular locals, and they're nice to me; however, they're not asking me to stay. On the other hand, some Sicilians are asking me, "Why don't you stay?" and telling me what cities and areas to consider (since I can name 10 to 20 cities and towns on the eastern side of the island where I have or had relatives, including where my parents were born).

So, a 232 in-line 6, a 258 in-line 6, and a 304 V8. I believe the 258 was their most ordered. This is one glassy car. Great for enjoying the view outside. Challenging for heat gain. Expensive to replace some of the glass if need be. Appealing and spacious interior. Missing a console, which some had. No temperature gauge (could very easily be added prior to computerized emissions, but tacky looking). This car would have been a blast for a short- to medium-length road trip with college friends where you'd divide costs. When all else fails, "brougham" it up a little. Look at those painted hubcaps. This was called the DL model. A few less enlightened people used to say "Bro-ham" (yet, that could be a flight from Brownsville, TX to Hamburg, Germany ... funny)! Cars were goofier and more fun back in the day.

The AMC Pacer was a fright. However, I'd say people who drove them must have had a quirky kind of moxie. They looked like they could have been stable, and even quiet ... I believe they ran with a 232 in-line 6, without looking it up.

It is a very weird feeling when you get off a plane and leave the airport in L.A., or Houston, for example ... or somewhere in Italy, and they both feel "normal." This definitely was NOT the case 10 to 20 years ago. My mornings these days are looking like this: the old and the "new." Here's a major town church and a public school (wide angle view) in Sicily.

I thought I was dreaming. I looked at Google Maps and it does say Gulf of America. Half of the coastline is American and half of it is Mexican. Why even do this? It's capricious, like behavior from a silver spooned teenager. No, I don't think Musk is a happy person ... just an eccentric weirdo.

I just remain loyal to my hometown professional teams, with the exception of football. So, it would be the Lakers (NBA) and the Dodgers (MLB). The absence of professional football in Los Angeles, coinciding with my absence, led me to abandon any childhood/teen loyalties, so I now consider myself a Seattle Seahawks fan. In a Super Bowl like the recent one, where I have no opinion on the teams, I don't care who wins. The same would have been true with Chicago and Indianapolis in 2007. Who gives a rat's ass? I was on the hillsides of the Golden Gate Bridge with thousands of others watching the QM2 sail under the bridge with a slim margin and into the bay for the first and only time thus far. Most Super Bowl memories blend together over the years. San Francisco on February 4, 2007 doesn't fade. As far as college football goes, I don't like UCLA, USC, or Cal Berkeley. I would have not liked going to any of these schools. The same would hold true for Notre Dame. That would have been like pulling teeth. When it comes to Pac 10/12, I am a Huskies fan, for obvious reasons. That has led me to dislike Oregon. I have no loyalties from a past (tense) "Big 10" "experience," which was even more of a teeth puller. If you've moved a time or two, you'll run into locals who have never moved. They may know nothing outside of a 125 mile radius. You might encounter such a local who acts like the late Marge Schott or a Bubba (possibly under the umbrella of the "basket of deplorables") who asks you, out of the side of their mouth, of course, "How about dem (insert name of local team)?" It doesn't go over well that you don't give a shit because you have deep roots somewhere else and your loyalties won't be changing. You should see the completely disoriented looks on their faces.

Not a joke with a punchline, but a saying (even seen on a t-shirt) that I'm very fond of: Heaven is where ... ... the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, and it's all organized by the Swiss Hell is where ... ... the cooks are British, the mechanics are French, the police are German, the lovers are Swiss, and it's all organized by the Italians

Q: What is the difference between a Tesla and a porcupine? A: A Tesla has its pricks on the inside.

@A Horse With No Name Here you go. Anytime one sees her, she is gesticulating like this. How is she not exhausted from this? I have to flip the channel. Yet two men have married her and she has a couple of kids. She came to mind because, before crossing the pond, I was last in Houston. I drove up and down I-45, adjacent to UH, and tried to imagine her being a "peaches and cream" undergrad there. She is a UH grad in speech pathology and audiology. She went to law school later. For having gone to Rutgers (the State University of New Jersey), she has had teaching stints at Penn and Harvard. New Jersey obviously changed her! Her affect is Massachusetts all the way, yet she is an Oklahoman. She grew up lower middle class. She was at first a Republican. I dislike most politicians. Many politicians score highly on indices for narcissism. Some would score very highly.

The incomparable Bob Marley ... Instrumental transitions that really hold their own ... Freeway frisky ... Perfect for driving along the string of less commercial and more understated beach towns of the Algarve in 1996 ... https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=qeWioz-30-w&feature=share Life was good ...

On a very random level: Am I at liberty to say that Elizabeth Warren is an intense and annoying wench?

Wow, one can get Lime* Disease or Orange Disease * (Lyme, of course)

I find that at least 2/3 of the chat features on customer service pages of company websites are sort of worthless.

Thank you. You learn something new every day! I guess it depends on the Spanish speaking country. I see this works as well and probably more Latin American. I've always known them to be "billetes aereos" and even "billetes de avion."

This was the ride across the pond. I took a funkier combo of flights on a miles redemption to get onto this A340-600, actually the longest commercial aircraft in existence for at least a decade. I figured as much just looking at it. Here it is pulling up to the gate in Boston. Only took about 6:30 across, which went fast. It's obviously a stretched A340-300 with bigger engines. This thing barreled down the runway and it was "wheels up" in no time at all. I like the 2-4-2 seating in economy. There is not much of an economy cabin in terms of length. A lot of the interior space was surprisingly first and business class. With the fog and clouds, the view over Boston, which could have been spectacular, was nonexistent. I love quadjets. They look so regal, for lack of a better word. I miss them as there are fewer of them.

I'm "constantly craving" for videos like these. Thanks! I am in the lobby of my hotel doing some admin. stuff and having some snacks, and the k.d. lang-alike cocktail bar waitress has been real nice to me, which is rarely the case. But, then, I'm in a different country. My personal opinion about LGBT folks who like Trump is that it, if blue collar, it "butches them up" and, if white collar, it's "look at me, I'm mainstream." This is but the tip of the iceberg. A lot of the blame goes to "poor white trash" (I hate to use this term, but the shoe fits) who can be spoon fed or think that they can live vicariously through his wealth and "Camelot" life ... like that wedding at Mar-a-Lago. Add to that minorities who have no business voting like that. The Rio Grande Valley counties of Texas near Harlingen, McAllen, and such, have historically been blue, but have become more red. Translation: at least 85% of the population is Mexican or Mexican-American. However, Elon launches his rockets from the South Texas coast and has created "some" jobs. I was down there on S.P.I. for a couple of weeks, oblivious that there were launches from there. I happened to see the mid-January launch from the causeway, along with many others. (This is the one that failed over the Caribbean, which also sent air traffic controllers for commercial aircraft scrambling to divert planes.) You know that those Mexican folks in attendance with SpaceX baseball caps have gone red. The Cubans embarked on this a long time ago. It's thinly veiled cultural appropriation to be more "white," I'm sad to say. So, Agent Orange has not only divided the citizenry. He has fragmented religiosity. A lot of people who don't want to go to their long-time church because it's a PAC clique have switched congregations or have quit going. This is one very ugly chapter that could have been avoided. I am not blaming affluent and conservative GOP folks. They aren't that big in terms of numbers. I blame the "basket of deplorables." I hope we'll get through this.