The puck-shaped plastic polymer is pressed, using over 100 tons of pressure into a groove-filled vinyl record.

Back when I was a kid in first or second grade, we had some neat things we did in school. I remember that we would have these drills. The teacher would be doing her thing. Us fresh faced kids were doing our best to live up to what mommy told us to do. And in the middle of all this teaching and learning, an alarm would sound.

Now this alarm wasn’t a fire alarm. If it were, it meant a trip “in an orderly fashion” to the outside where we would stand proudly, awaiting the Principals official okey-dokey that all was clear, this was only a fire drill and we all did a good job being good students. Nope, this alarm was more of a sustained warning bell followed by the speakers erupting with the message that we are having a civil defense drill.

All of us students would drop to the floor and quickly place ourselves under our desks. The teacher I had at the time did not have a desk, so she would grab a book and head for the closet that she normally would place her coat in. Taking a chair, she would leave the door open just a bit and read to us as we awaited the all clear sound.

At home, we had a closet in our house that had a whole bunch of things in it that I was not allowed to touch. Of course, being a kid did not mean that I couldn’t snoop. There were candy bars, cereal boxes re wrapped in cellophane, canned spam, evaporated milk and many jugs of water. We even had a large white box with a red “X” on it. That was our first aid kit that we made ourselves. I remember thinking that it had a whole hospital in it.

What you remember about your childhood, huh?

Well, I remember it today because we may be seeing the beginning of the exact same scenario we encountered in the early 60′s. What is taking shape in the middle east is not looking good. While I am not filling a closet with food and water, I am starting to doubt that we, as a people, are not being told everything we should know when it comes to the possibility of being “in the line of fire”. I do not want to sound alarmist, but it looks like we could be in for a very bad next ten years (oil prices not withstanding).

Back when I was a kid, we took the threat seriously. Today we go about our business as if there is no problem. And that’s OK. However, being ambivalent to the problem does not make it go away. That’s what has me the most afraid.

On September 11th, 2001, over 3000 people were thinking everything is OK when some zealot’s plan to bring death and destruction snuffed out their lives and altered how we went about our business for the next couple of years. That episode was stealthy, guerrilla like and cowardly in it’s execution. Today, a like minded zealot is openly telling the freedom loving and God-fearing people to mind our “P’s” and “Q’s”. The acidic rhetoric is about removing from the face of this earth a whole segment of human existence and the raining of death and destruction upon those that support those ideals regardless of the fact that large portions of his country would be turned into a parking lot.

Don’t think that this type of nihilistic thought process is unique. In 1962 during the Cuban Missile crisis, Castro wanted complete autonomy when it came to using the nuclear missiles placed on his island by Russia. He recommended their use, despite being sure that Cuba would be completely destroyed should nuclear war break out.

History repeating itself? Maybe not, but the saber rattling can be heard here loud and clear. Should you be concerned? I don’t know. Why am I concerned? I don’t know. I continue to ask myself, that on a world so small and so self-contained, how can anyone be so self-righteous as to want to destroy another country or harm the innocent who are just trying to live a normal life?

Is there an answer, a quick-fix? I don’t know. I keep hoping this whole thing is nothing more than a bad comedy skit gone terribly wrong. I now know why we haven’t been approached by the peaceful aliens of the galaxy…

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This is a dark, dark entry and I apologize… but it’s how I feel right now. I grow concerned, not only for myself, but for those I care for the most, those whom I have met and those I have not yet had the chance to meet. While the world may not be “on the brink”, it sure looks like it might be headed that way…

Until next week…

Jacques Nicot helped encourage and popularize the cultivation of tobacco throughout France. Nicot was so proud of his accomplishment that he named the dangerous alkaloid compound after himself.

I wonder where the city and county agencies get the high school drop outs that design roadways, set light timing and create massive malls with little ingress and egress?

You may or may not know what I am talking about. These are the fatheads that create traffic, cause insane amounts of fuel to be used going nowhere fast and make an already irritated driver jump straight to road-rage.

I’m sitting at a stop light. Across from me in the left hand turn lane are 34 (I counted everyone of those vehicles) cars trying to do a U-turn. Not turn left, they are doing a U-turn. As I watch all of this, cars are coming out of an industrial complex and falling in behind the left turn queue. I was amazed. All of this because the bonehead who designed the roadway, failed to consider that people turning out of the complex (and eighteen commercial buildings is a large complex) will need to get to the freeway on ramps… WHICH WERE IN THE OTHER DIRECTION. Hence 34 cars are tying to do U-turns. This isn’t counting those additional vehicles all falling into this queue lane. Once the light changed, the number of vehicles sitting and waiting their turn was over twenty.

Here’s a pet peeve of mine.

I, like most of you, sit at a stop light… engine running… patiently waiting for the light to change. In the intersection is??? NOBODY! Not one car is moving thru the intersection because there are no cars waiting to make turns or make their way across the intersection. The whole group of us sit… and wait… engines running… WASTING FUEL. And time. Why? Because some bozo has the light timing set to “infuriate”.

When a vehicle approaches an intersection, the sensors in the ground trip a relay in the light change mechanism. A timer starts for the light change. These are called “dumb” intersections (as opposed to uncontrolled and/or totally moronic). In the meantime, we sit and wait… and wait… and wait. It’s estimated that the number of consumer dollars wasted by sitting at these “dumb” intersections is close to 3.4 million dollars… PER MONTH! I am sure that a monkey with a laptop could do a better job of figuring out that a “smart” light system in an intersection could save everyone a boatload of money. “Smart” intersections know the time of day, the day of the week, the number of approaching vehicles, the number of vehicles in a queue and they can be programmed at a moments notice from any computer to adapt to atypical traffic conditions.

And now??? The major contributor to road rage…

As you move in and around your community, I am sure you know of one mall (strip mall or “under-one-roof” mall) where getting into and out of the parking lot is a major PITA. There is one such mall on the way to my favorite sporting arena. There are three left hand turn lanes to get into the lot, not to mention the right hand turn lanes spaced at four very easy access entrances. If you are trying to get out of the parking lot, there are two lanes. One turns left (and it’s a “dumb” light system – see previous pet peeve), and one lane turns right.

Are they serious? I made the mistake of entering that mall lot once. It took thirty minutes to get out of the lot and back on my way again. Thirty minutes! I will never do that again. Why did it take so long to get out of the lot? There was another light a short distance from the intersection I was trying to get out of… AND THE LIGHTS WERE NOT IN SYNC OR TIMED! Traffic would back up in the intersection (which, BTW you are not supposed to block an intersection and if you do, be prepared for a horn honking and a single finger salute) because the other light was red.

I am sure there are many more little traffic oddities that one could come up with. I’d like to hear yours… If you have a pet peeve or have noticed a traffic generating problem, place a comment after this diatribe. I swear, there’s no wonder that we have anger issues (road rage) with drivers.

Some of the mental midgets that designed all of this crapola must be out inhaling some of that Frenchman’s chemical concoction. It’s either that or they been smoking some of that ganja weed (for those in Rio Linda, ganja is a popular term for marijuana). It’s either that or the roadway engineer is getting ready to retire… and he decided that all those drivers who swerved to miss him because they wouldn’t “slow for the cone zone” can just kiss his ass.

Until next week…