Steve and Judy's Travels!

 

 

A really big bug.  Haven’t seen this one before so had to look it up.  It appears to be a Banded Hickory Borer.

 

It inhabits the southern and eastern U.S.  It likes hickory trees, but it will lay its eggs on oaks as well, and that’s what we have a lot of here, oaks.

 

 

…way back in the 1950s, there were two kinds of household refuse.  At our house we had trash cans and garbage pails.  There were two types of collectors.  There were big trash trucks, the ones with the big compression mechanism on the back, that took the dry trash, then there was a messier open bed truck that took the wet garbage.  We had trash men and garbage men.

 

So what was up with that?  Why was there a separation between trash and garbage?  Did they take them different places?  Why was it like it was then, but not like that now?  What changed?

 

 

 

I’m not studying Spanish.  I’m playing a computer game.  Every week, in this game, we get split into groups of 30 and earn points by doing simple Spanish lessons of our choosing.  We get points for consecutive-day streaks.  That’s where I am now; a 700 day streak.  We never have to study because it doesn’t matter if we learn any Spanish or not; we’re just playing a game for points, and at the end of each week the five players with the most points get promoted to the next level, and the five players with the least points get demoted.  (I’ve had a lot of promotions and not many demotions.)

 

But after almost two years of playing this game in Spanish, one would think I would have absorbed a little by now, pero no.  No aprendo nada.  Yo no conozco nada!  De verdad!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…Google Maps knows, and sometimes will ask us if we want to submit a review or a photograph we’ve taken with our phone.  Sometimes we do, but not with any special effort.  I found it amusing today when I got a notice back from Google Maps that over the years our reviews have received 32,000 views, and our photos 18,000,000!  A segue into my next career!  Reviewer, photographer, influencer!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did a lot better this week.  I got 9 out of 14 games right.  I only lost to Matt by 3!  Judy didn’t do quite as well.  She lost by 6.

 

We’re back home in the Valley today.

 

We don’t really want to convert a semi-truck to an RV.  But if they can build an electric semi-truck, surely they can build a bus.  That’s what we want.  A bus chassis is perfect to convert to an RV.  They’ve already done all the hard work.  All we would have to do is take out all the seats and build a house inside instead!

 

But thinking about electric cars, I realize a serious shortcoming.  Sitting at an intersection

Waiting for the light to change.  Idling.  Cars roaring by as they turn left across our bow.  Noise.  Fumes.  Imagining the clarity that would ensue if all these cars were electric.  Suddenly I realize how unfair it would be to the teenagers of the world.  What about their rite of passage?  A hot car.  Even if it’s not really a hot car, but you had done something to soup it up.  Loud exhaust.  You gun the engine.  Heads turn.  You floor it around the corner and with the roar of the engine, get a screech of tires.  The teenage rite of passage.  Who could take that away?

 

No.  There would have to be an exemption.  Even when internal combustion engines make no sense at all, there would have to be an exemption for teenagers.  They could have gasoline cars and make their statement.  Wouldn’t want a generation of lost boys…