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Judy, Valium, and an MRI

 They said my claustrophobe wife didn’t have to go all the way into the machine; they only had to put her knee in.  Yeah.  Right.  She’s not that tall.  To get Judy’s knee to the correct place in the machine, she went in the tube all the way up to her chin. They put her in.  We both got earplugs against the noise.  She got headphones and music.  I stood by and held her hand.  She practiced slow measured breathing.  She counted backwards from 100 to zero.  Several times.  She burned through 10 milligrams of Valium.  It took 21 minutes.  We made it to the end.  Judy survived.  The MRI machine survived.  The process was a success.  My wife is still a claustrophobe. We all went out for ice cream.  
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2,157 people died

 There is a sign over the highway that lists how many people have died so far on Texas roads this year.  (It’s warning us to be careful.)  The number I last saw was 2,157.  2,157 people died.  That’s a lot of people, but it’s just a sign over a roadway.  It’s just a number.  Minimal impact. A crazy person goes into an elementary school, guns down 20 children, and rips our hearts out.  20 innocent children.  It’s unbearable to ponder.  Still. There had to be at least 20 children killed in that traffic toll of 2,157, but somehow it’s just not the same.  It’s a mind boggling disconnect.  Of course the death of a friend or loved one has a greater impact than the death of a stranger, yet there is more to it than just proximity and knowledge.  The children killed in an elementary school on the other coast are no nearer or known to us than the nameless children killed in traffic right here in our own state.  Death is so absolute, yet at the same time so relative; the impact is relative and I don’t even know relative to what.  
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Long haul trailer odometers

 Followup. Do truck trailers have odometers to track miles traveled?  Turns out a lot of people knew the answer to this one.  There is a hub meter to track how far trailers have gone.  They need to know that for monitoring tires, brakes, and wheel bearings.  Not all trailers have them, but many do.