Observatorio Del Nazas

Summer is just around the corner – in fact some people say that it is already here because it has been so hot. Usually I try to take a week’s vacation and go to the beach in the summer. It is a long drive to any beach and there are not cheap flights to any of them. So it takes some planning and some sacrifice to make it happen.

This year i am thinking about driving the 10 hours south to the Gulf of Mexico. I think the oil spill has pretty much stopped being a problem and that the beaches and seafood along the Florida and Alabama coastlines are safe and clean again. Hope so, anyway.

Wearing a helmet when you ride a bicycle or a motorcycle is a must. When your adversaries on the road are the idiot rednecks who drive around here, you need to protect your head and any other valuable body parts.

I swear the people here are ignorant and careless. They send texts, drinks beer and even read the newspaper from behind the wheel Don’t let these idiots who are not paying attention to their driving wreck your ride and kill your ass.

Drive defensively and protect your head. Wear boots to protect your feet and wear long sleeves, preferably a leather jacket to protect your arms and chest. No shorts – wear long pants. Smart people also wear some kind of face shield or eye protection so you don’t catch a bug in your eye at 60 miles an hour. Protection is important – your life and health depends on how smart and careful you are.

All of a sudden everyone I know is going out and buying electric cars. They say the price of gas being almost $4 a gallon is forcing them to sell their old cars and buy an electric one. The electric ones are not cheap. I wonder if they really did the math and figured out if they are saving on gas or just spending the same money as before – just driving a newer car wit less power and a bigger car payment?

My breaking point is $5 a gallon. when gas goes that high – and I’m sure it will some day – then I will switch to alternative fuel. But for now, my car is paid off and I don’t have a car payment – and I don’t want a car payment, either.

Something very strange must have happened to these trees about 20 years ago. This is a group of about 300 trees in Poland. I can’t find nay more information than that – I found the photo posted on Facebook and that is all I know about it.

If you travel and use a cell phone, you will appreciate the fact that a couple of companies do a much better job at service area coverage than others. Even though cell phones have been in use for over 20 years, there are still huge gaps in coverage across the country.

I was shocked when my Sprint cell phone did not get a signal at all for three days while I drove through parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania. This is a pretty populated area and I expected to be able to call business contacts at least from the hotels at night. There are still parts of Delaware that do not have wi-fi in the hotels.

This is 2011 people! Get caught up with technology!