My strange ideas about driving

Japanese Anime Initial D

My kids (and my wife) joke about how opinionated I am about the other drivers on the road. My son even has a little song he sings about it when we're out and I start complaining about the other drivers. I've been driving for about 58 years in all kinds of situations and in all sorts of vehicles. I've seen a lot of different behaviors in other drivers in that time and even got special insights when I used to ride my bicycle thousands of miles a year on the side of the road and had to react to the drivers around me. I do have an overblown sense of how good I am at driving. But when I think back to when I was 16 years old and first learning to driver, it's a wonder I ever got a license in the first place. I'll tell you two ridiculous things I thought were good driving behavior from that time and let you wonder how I could think I'm a good driver.

I learned to drive with my parents. They were both good drivers and were very patient with me. They always took me out individually so there was always only one person at a time giving me instructions. I liked that. I still panic when there are two or more people telling me what to do. One great lesson I've learned in life is to always have only one person telling you what to do. If other people see something they need to get across to me, they need to go through the one person who is telling me what to do. This is a little side-track from my story so here we go with, "The Two Stupid Things I Thought about Driving."

Stupid Thing 1

I have no idea where I came up with this first stupid thing. I think it just popped into my head. I got the idea that when someone wanted to pass you and I saw that things were safe ahead for them to pass and I was ready for them to pass, I should let them know that by putting on my turn signal on the side they were going to pass on. I know you know that this is wrong but can you imagine that anyone ever thought that was a good idea? I remember that I was with my father when I was doing this but I don't remember if he noticed it and corrected me. When I think back to those poor people behind me at the time, I just shiver. Here they are about to pass me and I'm telling them I'm going to make a left turn - into them. The other scary thing about this is that I don't remember how I realized that this was bad. Did my father notice this and correct me or did I just realize this was not right myself? I don't remember so I don't know how long I did this before I learned not to do it.

Stupid Thing 2

The second stupid thing came from my misreading of the driver's manual. The manual said it was illegal to "drift" when driving down a hill. I put drift in quotes here because it doesn't refer to the practice of getting the car's rear end to slide around a sharp curve as in the Japanese illegal mountain road racing. I took this to mean that the car couldn't roll along without power. I assumed the car either had to be under power (i.e. accelerating) or to be braking (i.e. decelerating). I thought you couldn't take your foot off both the gas and the brake pedal and just let the car roll along. This mistake showed up when my mother was with me in the car and we going down a pretty steep and winding road (as many roads are in Western Pennsylvania where I learned to drive). My mother was always a little nervous when I was driving but this time she was jamming on the "brake" on her side of the seat more often than usual. I could also see her gripping the arm rest of her seat. We were going down the hill and I was still using the gas pedal. She asked me why we were going so fast and I told her you aren't allowed to let the car drift and I didn't think we were going fast enough to need the brake. She said, in a nice voice but she said it insistently, "Let off the gas pedal!" Later I reread the manual and saw that is said you couldn't shift the transmission into neutral to let the car drift while it was moving. That now makes sense because you need to be able to power the wheels when you need it.

So, how did I survive to this point in my life? Maybe I'll have the courage to list other idiotic things I used to think were true. Some of those could have killed me, too.

[The picture I have above is from the Japanese anime series Initial D about young men in Japan who race (illegally) on the sharply winding mountain roads there. It's a fascinating series and I highly recommend it.]

A Day of Sorrow and Apprehension

credit: Brett Sayles

Today, our country has a new President. I have grave concern that our country is heading in the wrong
direction. While I want to rally behind the leader of our country, I do not like the way his ideas deviate from the spirit and optimism we've always had. America was and is great. We do not need someone to "shake things up" to make it great. Our country was founded by immigrants and immigrants have helped make our country great. Other countries are losing population because of low birth rates and no one wants to move there. People want to come to our country and most of them want to pitch in and work hard. But we are now going to be more hostile to them so we will lose out on people who want to come here and work hard.

I am also concerned about our foreign relations. The new President antagonizes our allies but praises and admires autocratic leaders. He seems to admire dictators. I am afraid he is going to abandon Ukraine and allow Russia to profit from its aggression. I am afraid he won't work to keep China from putting more pressure on Taiwan. I'm afraid he will not push for a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. I am afraid that our country will no longer help poor countries in the world and leave them to be helped (and influenced) by China who will then have diplomatic influence with those countries.

I am worried about the environment and global warming. He doesn't want to cooperate with other countries to reduce human influence on CO2 levels but wants to keep pushing use of fossil fuels and cut back on switching to sustainable and renewable energy like wind and solar. He is against having incentives for people to switch to electric cars and to expand the charging network in our country. He claims he is backing what the automakers and auto workers want but what will happen is that we will continue to make out-of-date vehicles and will fall behind other countries who will progress in their manufacturing of them.

My biggest concern, though, is his influence on the Christian church. He and his people want to force people into acting like they are religious. He wants to push the rule following of religion without the loving of our neighbor as Jesus taught. He wants to have The Ten Commandments displayed in schools and courts saying we a Christian nation. The Ten Commandments are Jewish rules, though. Why does he and his people not want The Beatitudes displayed in the courts? Why do they not want The Sermon on the Mount shown in our schools? Because they do not want true Christianity. He and his people are Pharisees who want to study the laws and make their own interpretations of them. They don't understand that we follow the commandments because we love God and want to do what Jesus told us. We love God and love our neighbor. I am afraid this may be the beginnings of the Apostate Church (an official state church controlled by the government) we see in The Revelation.

I know God is in control and it will all work out but God allowed Ahab to lead Israel. He allowed Herod to rule in Jerusalem. This is a test. Will we follow Jesus or will we follow humans?

[The flag image is from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-showing-usa-flag-921259/ by Brett Sayles]

Thirty one years of marriage

Today is our 31st wedding anniversary. We both got started late (Cindy was 32 and I was 42) but it was worth the wait! At the wedding, I told the story of a friend in college who said he was praying for his wife. He wasn't yet married and wasn't getting married soon but was praying for the safety of his future wife - whoever she was. I thought that was a good idea so I started praying for my future wife, too. I was 19 and had no idea I was praying for a 9 year old girl (we didn't meet for another 12 years)! But it all worked out. As another friend said, don't rush into marriage like I did. Pray and prepare and grow wise.

[I edited this - Cindy was 32 when we married and I was 42]

New Year's Resolutions - or not

The best New Years Resolutions are the ones that are good for you (or others) and that you can keep. But I
think I've found an even better type of New Years Resolution. That is one that just happens. It is easy because it is something you just do naturally. It either is something you enjoy or something you do that is part of your routine. My best kind of resolution is that I have lost weight without having to think about it much. It all comes from my running around our yard with our dog, Asuna. I haven't had any posts about her since we first got her. Here is a link to that story. It turns out that the post I linked to was published just about this time eight years ago. She has been keeping us busy and active for those eight years but the exercise was hit or miss for most of the time. But about three or four years ago, I decided to make it a scheduled part of the day. We have a one acre lot that is completely fenced in. I can close the gates of our driveway and Asuna can just run loose. She loves that. There are many squirrels, rabbits and birds for her to investigate. She is running at you in the picture here. I have a plastic shovel waiting for her to poop so I can get rid of it.

One problem, though, is that she likes to bark at our neighbors and anyone who happens to walk by on the sidewalk. Actually, she is afraid of everything but in these cases, she barks so the people won't bother her. But that means we never leave her out unless one of us (90% of the time it's me) is out with her. That way, we can assure the person being barked at that they are safe and we can get her away or get her to stop. The good part of this is that I am forced to always be out with her and have to keep up with her. She goes out three of four times a day for about 15 - 20 minutes a time. Now, my weight has increased over the years so that I had weight 220 pounds for a long long time. I had tried to lose weight but could never keep it off. But since I have been keeping up with Asuna, I have lost almost 15 pounds. She is like my having a personal trainer. I have to go where she wants to go when she wants to go. She likes to inspect the whole yard and we have a hill she is happy climb and descend. I have no choice! I don't run but I do have to move along because I don't want to miss a poop or if she happens to start barking at someone.

I don't want to make this sound like it is hard. It is usually the highlight of the day for both of us. Lately, she is fond of sitting on the front porch watching the cars go by. She gets treats while we sit there (don't tell her but they are really just Science Diet Oral Care dog food nuggets that she thinks are treats). So, like I say, it is a resolution that is fun and has a good result.This continued resolution brings us closer together and makes us both more healthy. That's hard to beat.

Just when you least expected it...

Yes. I'm still around. I completely missed 2024. It's been almost two years since my last post. But since today is New Years Day, I got to thinking how I missed writing blog posts. I'm going to give it a try again this year. We'll see if I can beat the 15 I wrote in 2023. I've already beaten 2022 and 2024.

 I've learned a lot this year. I've read a number of books and I've seen a number of good movies. I've not been practicing the piano like I had hoped to do after I retired but maybe I'll start that again, too. My big accomplishment in 2023 was to read through the entire Bible. I've been reading the Bible (in pieces) my whole life but I had never read straight through it in one year before. It was a great experience and I would like to talk about that, too.

Look at it this way - here is a chance for you to feel better about yourself. Too many times, you see people posting things that make them look wonderful. You only see the best parts of other peoples' lives. It can seem like they are doing the most interesting things and going to the most interesting places. It can make some people feel inadequate because their own lives don't match up to all the interesting things bloggers and YouTube creators are doing and writing about. My stuff is pretty boring and my thoughts aren't particularly insightful. If I start posting again, you can say to yourself, "Well, I may not be very interesting but at least I'm not as bad as that 'Adventures in Engineering' guy."