Trekd

My wife is very smart, used to be a librarian.  Questions aren't any serious questions like "are you having an affair?" or anything like that.  It is the mundane questions that she'll keep repeating. I know she don't have dementia or alzheimers. 

I can give you a true example, yesterday as we're already done with dinner and I'm upstairs working on bills or whatever, my wife comes up and this is how it goes:

Wife: I'm going to make some soup, do you want some?

Me: No.

Wife: It's no problem.

Me: No, that's alright, I'm full from dinner.

Wife: I have mushroom soup, lentil, minestrone, and some leftover split pea.  Any of that sound good?

Me: No, that's okay.

Wife: Are you sure?  

Me: I'm sure.

Wife: It won't take long to make it.

(Now I'm thinking "Maybe she wants to talk or something" cuz she ignored all of my answers.)

Me: Why do you ask?

Wife: Thought I ask.

Me: Oh, okay.

Wife: So do you want soup or not?

Me: No.

Wife: We have plenty of 

Me: (cutting her off) No I said! Why do you keep asking?

Wife: Don't get mad at me, I'm just wanted to know if you wanted soup.

Me: Well, I don't!

Today, I come in from watering the plants, I got 5 questions on if I watered the plants.

So I snap and ask: What the hell is all the questions, which "no" answer didn't you like?

Wife: Don't get mad, I'm just asking.

And so on it goes.

So what's the deal?

Example 1: A refrigerator cannot have any empty space, needs to be occupied by some food or other, if there isn't enough food, you would buy enough food to stuff it. Same thing with the pantry or cupboard. Also have a tendency to hoard paperwork such as old paychecks from the 80's, etc. Keeping receipts for things you no longer have for fear of the store coming back to claim that you never paid for that toaster.

Also compulsion to hang anything on doors and doorknobs to the point you can't close or open them so that are hanging halfway.

Sort of like hoarding, but not with junk.

My friend and I were riding against the flow of traffic, driver drifted out of his lane, but we saw it and had time to jump off our bikes to get out of the way, we watched the driver run over our bikes before realizing the error and jerked the car back into his lane and kept going. This has happened to me quite a few times over the years.

Another time, in front of my house, two boys were riding WITH the flow of traffic and a driver went into their lane behind them and because the boys could not see behind them (as they can't watch behind them all the time) and could not hear my shouts over the traffic noise, the boys did not know of the imminent danger and did not move out of the way, one of them got killed.

The speed limit was only 35 MPH on both roads.

Why is it better to go with the flow of traffic? I've heard all the arguments before and it doesn't convince me, not with my experiences.

The old physics argument: If my bike was going 20MPH and the car was going 45MPH and traveling towards each other, the impact would be the same as 65MPH vs. the opposite direction where the impact speed would 25MPH and less chance of a serious accident.

My rebuttal: Whether its 45 or 25MPH, either speed could kill you regardless and what if its a large SUV or truck? You will go under it and the speed would not matter at that point, but tons of steel will and then that argument goes out the window. Also, you would see the car veering into your lane and now you got a MUCH higher chance of still avoiding the collision as my experiences have proven.

Next argument: You're going against the flow and cars making a right turn towards you would not see you because drivers are looking towards the left. My rebuttal: True, but I would see that he wouldn't see me and I would stop and wait for him. Besides, how often have these idiots pull out in front of you while you were WALKING against the flow of traffic? Pedestrians get hit and died in this very same circumstance, but they don't have to abide by the "safety" rule.

Argument 3: Its the law. Sure, but based on what? If its that effective, how come pedestrians don't have to walk with the flow of traffic?

Argument 4: Statistics say blah blah blah. I'm not against statistics, but there was never a study done on the probability was of jumping out of the way of visual imminent danger and surviving vs. Not knowing you're going to get run over and surviving.

One more argument: Since you are on the road with traffic, you ARE traffic. What about joggers or in-line skaters? If the road does not have the room, I don't ride my bike on it cuz you are just simply putting yourself in danger.

I would like to see valid thoughtful answers for and against what I am laying out here.

Also, I have a follow up question: I think that it should be against the law for bike riders to use "twist lock" bike shoes. Fine for the race course with no cars on it, but in city traffic? Its moronic to use this, I've seen riders crash in front of traffic because they hit a small rock! Even little kids learned to put their feet down to avoid falling over, but these guys, they fall over and crash in slow motion as they struggle to release their "Lance Armstrong" bike shoes from the pedals. Once I see that they didn't get run over, I laugh!

It never was this polarized before in history, but now it is. What people don't understand is that both democratic and republican stand UNITED against the states. By polarizing the general population into left and right, liberals and conservatives, it creates a scenario that enables both democratic and republican politicians to stay in office for decades! If you think the whole mess is caused by the left or the right, you are sorely misinformed and too lazy to search for the truth.

The messes is actually caused by the politicians of both parties (99.9% are lawyers) that have kept them in power for decades. No matter what president you vote into office, that person is controlled by powerful members of the senate and congress.

Why do you think term limits was opposed on the presidency? To keep a good president from gaining too much power, now why doesn't that same logic work for senators or congressmen?

Vote them all out and term limits for all!

It was my mother's maiden name and she claims her family is Polish, but I've bumped into numerous people from Poland and Russia and they all said that Kunas is definitely a Russian name. I ask my mother about it, but she got mad. I've asked her sisters about it and they've told me they were really a russian family that had to escape from Russian because of the revolution, but they whisper it like it was a secret. As children, they said their parents told them to tell the immigration officers that they are a peasant family from poland, but all of them spoke Russian, Polish, German, Greek, Latin, and eventually English.

I find it odd that a peasant family are fluent in all these languages, had to escape from Russia, my mom and her sisters are all in their nineties and they are still scared to talk about it.

All this happened around early 1900's.

Now assume that the spending stays the same.

At what point do we begin to stop blaming Bush for the cause of it and begin to blame Obama for the continuance or worsening of it? 3 months? 6 months? 1 year?

Bush left office with a 400 billion dollar deficit and now Obama increased it to 1,850 billion dollars and nothing to show for it? Other than a promised increase in our taxes?

Talking mostly of the southern Californians. They use hundreds of gallons of water per person watering all their non-native plants, grass, ferns, palm trees for aesthetic beauty when the whole region is in a desert. The whole process of transporting all that water uses large amounts of energy so it is also a vast waste of energy resources adding to the carbon footprint. What happens when those plants dry up and become fire tinder feeding all those fires? Doesn't that add to the carbon pollution as well?

Los Angelos and Hollywood are prime examples. The whole region is classified a desert climate, yet they drain billions of water from the Colorado river in several nearby states to water tropical plants in a desert. What about the delicate balance of those areas where the water is siphoned from?

Then they have nerve to say that the rest of the world should conserve energy, stop waste, and protect the delicate natural balance? If they believed that, then they should limit water usage to what they need for the native plant species only and shut down all sprinklers on every lawn and businesses.

I don't water my plants and grass as they are native species so therefore I don't waste water.

Capitalism is a free market that lets you keep what you earn. It lets you own things privately, things like houses, cars, land, etc.

Any other forms of financial systems, the government distributes your possessions to those who doesn't have it nor worked for it.

Allowing government to come in and interfere with capitalism is what is causing the problems we are seeing today.

What happening to the American car companies is an example of capitalism not being allowed to work. Instead of letting the car companies suffer a slight financial loss forcing it to improve upon itself and compete for customers, it relies on the government to bail them out for its own poor management and are now facing bankruptcy.

In the beginning, market studies shows that this car must sell at around $20,000 to be competitive and save GM.

Now the price has ballooned up to $40,000 by the time the car is on the showroom floor.

The Chevy Volt is not a hybrid, but a true electric car with a battery pack and a small gas 1 liter 3-cylinder engine that generates electricity only when the battery pack runs low, also called extended mode. While the car is in extended mode, the engine generates electricity to the electric motors AND charges the batteries. The engine itself is not physically connected to the wheels.

It does not have an engine/transmission drivetrain like any other car, even the Toyoto Prius has the traditional engine/transmission drivetrain (it just has a battery pack added on).

Here's the big mistake: The reason for the high cost increase is the battery technology is still in its early stages and very expensive.

Here's the big question: If the Chevy Volt gets 50 MPG while in extended mode, why not just skip the whole battery technology and make the car with just the gas engine to provide the electricity?

That would put the price well below the $20,000, reduces the weight of the car, adds more interior room, makes it competitive with the Prius, the little engine can be easily replaced if worn, swapped for a better cleaner one, or swapped for a diesel one that can run on biofuels.

The question: What do you think GM should've done?

Just for sake of fun and curiosity, what is the best, suave, heart skipping pickup line you ever heard? And what is the funniest or worse you ever heard?

I don't understand how one comparison to a monkey be considered racsist when Bush had been compared with a monkey for years?

Google "Bush Monkey Pics" and you will see hundreds maybe thousands of websites that have pictures comparing Bush to a monkey, then when the same thing is done to Obama its "Oh how horrible! What is this world coming to!? How despicable! WAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Isn't that hypocritical?

How about this one, remember the new "Planet of the Apes" movie? People thought for sure there was going to be riots, but not a peep.

Yet, when blacks got upset when Jar Jar Binks walking style was created to make fun of the way Black people walk? I never heard any white people make that comparison, only black people did.

I don't understand how some things are made to be racist when it doesn't conjure anything racist at all?

With those two examples I mentioned, what is racist? Is it only when its convenient or does the definition changes day to day?

By the way, I'm African and its my opinion that black people are more racist than whites. In my country, it isn't about race at all, its about religion or economic hardships and other things that affects EVERYONE.

Since it gets 50MPG in extended mode after the batteries runs down, removing that expensive part of the car's price can make it affordable enough for people to buy it. The small engine that drives the generator can be easily swapped out for any type of engine or alternative fuels. Too much common sense for ya, Detroit?