Travel is not only broadening, it's thickening

The licensed engineer, former scientist and language fanatic, tends to look at physical objects as having length, width and perhaps, thickness. Speaking of the human body, its length is called the height, width is largely dependent on bone structure, but if one thinks of the German excuse for not having dessert, "Er macht dicke", we see that a trip to Vienna may indeed make the torso thick. Thus, travel may greatly improve ones knowledge and broaden perspective, but one is well-advised to limit exposure to cream sauces, Belgian waffles and "Das Beste von der wurst"

The name is NOT the thing

I understand that General Motors is seriously requesting that their lowest price full-size car not be called a "Chevy any more, but the whole word, with adopted French pronunciation "Shev-ro-lay". One can somewhat sympathize or understand the thrust of this plea. Calling a boy who named James "Jimmy" is a well-known diminutive, emphasizing the boy's immaturity or lack of importance. GM shoould grow up and acknowledge Chevy's history; in 1955, they put a gasoline-hungry V-8 into some Chevrolet's and sent a shudder into the souls of Ford-lovers who began to lose drag-races. "My Chevy can take your old (Whatever) and day of the week gave no hint of minimizing the power of the GM product.

It is in the area of politics where the art of sloganeering achieves its most pernicious use to disguise real consequences. It is commonplace for Republicans to characterize Democrats as "Tax-and-Spend Liberals"; this implies that spending on highway buildup, the military or public education wii continue, financed by mortgaging more of the national treasure to China.

I guess I find that the deception of many without consequence which saddens me most is the practice of pregnant women who wear T-shirts with the abdomen emblazened, "It's a baby, not a choice." This implies that the choice to have unprotected sex has been sanctified by t rumping the entire gamut of unanswered questions: how will the unborn child be fed and otherwise cared for, educated in the human necessities to speak, bcome part of society, become part of society, work to continued feeding and growth to eventually pay taxes. Americans, like too many people of the world, need to be more aware of the consequences of their acts.

Late Mother’s Day thoughts

How do you celebrate Mother’s Day? Would your mother be proud to see you in a motorcycle caravan of 50-100 machines on I 80 just west of Lincoln NE on Mother’s Day Eve; the oncoming lane had more headlights than many funeral processions. I know the mother to whom I an (still) married would not be very thrilled to know our son was so involved. I am confident that outside of our observation he has been involved in many activities that would take us aback if we had timely knowledge. He has only admitted about two things that have caused us to shake our heads in retrospect. After an Ultimate (Frisbee) competition in Boulder, CO, a carload of athletes had 20 hours to get back to Santa Barbara via Santo Cruz. They needed to do a lot of 100 mph, so they agreed they would share the speeding fines. They got nailed once (not our son) in barren Nevada,of all places.

The other alarming incident (that got reported) came when he and buddies went surfing in the Sea of Japan with the waves whipped up by a distant typhoon. His board came floating in without him and the current girlfriend pleaded with his friends to paddle back out and look for him. Before she could convince them to go, he came swimming in. Later inspection of the board, which clobbered his head smartly enough to crack the board, showed hairs of his head imbedded in the crack.

` As those of you with daughters know, their exploits are less alarming. Ours is wanting to hear from us daily from the highway, lest she call out the Parent Police to check on our progress from our trek from San Francisco to the little finger of lower Michigan. We just found out this morning that the vaunted AT&T 3G network lacks coverage for most .of the state on Nebraska. Hope you had a happy Mother’s Day.