Two weeks ago, my sister and her partner were driving from NYC to Sacramento and made a side trip to visit us for a while. I really wish they could’ve stayed longer but they were on a tight schedule and they only had enough time for dinner and a short tour of town.

We went to one of our favorite restaurants and then took the short tour; a good time was had by all. There were lots of photographs taken and we talked almost continuously the entire time.

She cracked me up when she reminded me of a time when we were kids and got into trouble. Neither of us could recall the initial offense but we both remembered the second and third offenses. Yes, this day, we hit the trifecta!

Our mother sent us to our rooms, which were separated by the hall. Our instructions were to stay in our rooms for some long forgotten period of time.

How were we to know that meant we couldn’t sit in our respective doorways and sing opera across the hall? It’s also safe to say that we had no concept of the acoustics in our house and just how horrible it must’ve sounded to anyone who had the misfortune of hearing.

Anyway, we got into trouble for the opera too and then for laughing about getting into trouble for the opera. Our mother found no humor in this for some reason!?!  It was just one of those days, I guess? 

It’s better than getting into hot water for say, ending a sentence with a preposition.  Oh yes, that only happens to you once or twice because inevitably, you get corrected in front of friends and the humiliation of sounding stupid washes over you like a 40 foot wave. You don’t realize until years later that your friends, at that time, couldn’t tell a preposition from a box of hammers. So much for age and wisdom…

Non sum pisces

Greetings,

This blog will not concentrate on anything specific; I intend to write at least one entry per month -probably more, about whatever I want to write about. Hell, I might even write about stuff I don't want to write about; sometimes, you just have to write...

So, for starters:

If you're looking for some free entertainment whilst on a road trip, it is useful to know that your automatic garage door opener will set off most radar detectors. Some detectors have more sophisticated circuitry that can distinguish between actual radar and other signals, these drivers will ignore you and continue flying down the road.  Don’t be discouraged, it’ll work sooner or later.

Safety first:

Don't be obvious such as pushing the button furiously while it’s attached to your visor, 'cause you might be dealing with a nutcase with road rage issues. Instead, be discreet and keep your opener out of sight.

I was sitting at a red light yesterday and there was a woman driving a huge SUV on my left.  I could clearly see her and the radar detector suctioned onto her windscreen. As I would hit my garage door opener, she would look at her detector. It was one of those, ‘HA! made ya look’ moments. Ok, after two times, this gets boring too and the only reason I even thought about doing it is because I’d just stopped a few minutes earlier and replaced the battery in my opener.

Later,

Brian