Need a hint??? How about some choices:

A. U.S. Coast Guard

B. U. S. Forest Service

C. U.S. 4th Cavalry Regiment

D. U.S. Department of Agriculture

Tis a wonderful world we live in.  However, are we, as a people, growing up too fast?

Is technology coming at us faster than we can absorb it? Heck, NASA is talking about the new “suit” one can wear to fly to and from any destination.  Can you imagine what kind of chaos that will cause?  Hell, we have folks who can’t chew gum and walk at the same time.  Now we are going to suit them up to fly to work?  I hope I am long dead before I see that happen.

Cars are now going to voice command systems, heads up displays(HUD), collision avoidance, wend and weave notifications, drive by wire systems…  I’m afraid of looking at just what a HUD in a car would look like.

My new car's HUD

It would have to be simple… yet display all the info I need to make sure I select guns when I am too close for missiles.

Cells phone used to be simple.  Push a few numbers, press the green button and you were connected.  Now we are wired, geared, texting, twittering, calculating, gaming, posting, GPS’ing, checking e-mail, checking directions,  checking messages, playing music…

Uncle Marks early cell phone

Hell, it even takes your picture.  Do I know how to do all those things on my cell phone?  Puh-leeze…

I have a refrigerator that tells me I’m low on milk and the temperature is a tad bit high because I left the door open looking for something to snack on.  I had to call tech support.

Reboot? Its a fridge, ain't it?

The guy at the other end of the line said to just reboot the refrigerator.  (WTF?)

My furnace has a LCD screen on it which allows me to put in all kinds of info to tell my home when to heat up and cool down.  It’s supposed to save me a boat load of cash.  Now when I get home from work early, I freeze to death until “Merlin the Furnace Nazi” tells me it’s time to warm up the joint.  It saves cash alright.  I’m so cold I can’t even open my wallet to pay the paperboy.  Had to cancel the subscription.

In my zeal for new found trinkets, I thought about putting a biometric key lock on my front door.  You know, place your thumb on the pad and the door opens without using a key.

How many miles you get with this thing?

The very thought of my in-laws standing on the porch in the cold scratching their heads trying to figure out where to put the key so that they can open the door to feed the kitties while I am out for the weekend, just told me that it was not a good idea.

Somewhere on the web, I found a counter top food processor that microwaves, chops, dices, sanitizes and repackages.  And it was the base line model.  I’m scared to death to ask what the luxury version does. Maybe it will feed the kitties… Hmmm…

I’m not so sure that the world is ready for all these new fangled techy options.  You might have thought I was kidding about the people who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time?  I’m not.  I see these same people sitting in their Pontiac Super Chief doing 90 on the freeway.  Put that person in a new car with todays fancy doo-dads and you’ll have a train wreck involving fourteen cars, two 18-wheelers and a bus full of Alzheimer’s patients coming back from some place they can’t remember.

The argument that all these new ideas are for the younger generation holds only so much water.  This “younger generation” can’t even balance a check book without a computer (and even then it involves a software program and an external accountant).  Remember, these are the same folks who will be taking care of your heart surgery at Mercy General using a joy stick and game pad sitting in their office in Taos New Mexico.  Hell, I haven’t even been to Taos.

The point is this;  I am not so sure the world is ready for all of this new fangled gadgetry.  How do I know that we are not ready?  Let me ask a question.  Have you recently used something that is as simple as a kitchen butcher knife, but has more buttons on it than the button you have permanently attached to your torso?  Did it work right?

Hmmm…   Let me ask one more question.  You use a remote to control your TV, right?  Do you know how to turn off the TV or adjust the brightness… at the TV?

Point made.

I’d be very happy to tell you all about my feelings toward this over the phone.  But my hearing aid is the new digital kind and I haven’t gotten to the page that talks about programming it for use with a telephone.  I have it programmed for talking in a moving vehicle and for general conversation at a dinner party.  It came preprogrammed with the movie theater and the office environment settings.  I had to make adjustments for the quiet outdoors and doctors office settings.  However, I love the jet airplane and metro/rapid transit settings.  But the page on programming it for use around the house when it’s just me and the missus got torn and it somehow found the fire place…

Until next time…

P. S. The answer was “C”.

The tradition of using a baby to signify the New Year was started around 600 B.C by the ancient Greeks, who, at the start of a year would carry a baby around in a basket. The purpose of it was to honor Dionysus, the God of Fertility and symbolize his annual rebirth.

Fearless 2010 predictions:

1. Everything will stay the same for 2010… bad economy, bad employment listings, bad News, bad T.V… you name it, it will be just like it was in 2009.

That’s it folks… thank-you for coming… be sure and tip your waiter.

There are some good things… We have our health, our families, our friends… and all of that far out weighs the crapola that we will see, hear and feel in 2010.

In many ways I am glad to see 2009 slide into the rear view mirror. So much happened that wasn’t pleasant for many folks. Maybe the new year is just the right time to start thinking about things getting better. So maybe a New Years wish should be in order…

Edith Lovejoy Pierce
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called “Opportunity” and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.

Sydney Smith
Resolve to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment.

Aisha Elderwyn
Every new year people make resolutions to change aspects of themselves they believe are negative. A majority of people revert back to how they were before and feel like failures. This year I challenge you to a new resolution. I challenge you to just be yourself.

T. S. Eliot
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.

Benjamin Franklin
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each New Year find you a better man.

Vern McLellan
What the New Year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the New Year.

Michael Altshuler
The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.

Albert Einstein
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

Edward Payson Powell
The old year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The new year has taken possession of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!

Hal Borland
Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.

John Selden
Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it’s twice as onerous a duty.

Ogden Nash
Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn’t it, of a long line of proven criminals?

William Thomas
It wouldn’t be New Year’s if I didn’t have regrets.

and probably my favorite…

Anonymous
Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.

May 2010 see you happy, healthy and harmonious…

Until next time…

It was the first petroleum-powered vehicle and it was essentially a motorized bicycle. Built in 1885, it was a novel idea in Germany, and I guess you could say it was the founding father of todays BMW motorcycle.

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”  You know, maybe Howard Beale (Peter Finch) had it right when he galvanised a nation in the movie “Network”.  I am, as of right now, going to scream the same thing from the top of my lungs… and if you open a window, you may just hear my scream.

Wanna hear the story?  Sweet…

So, I’m in a Chain / Cheap / Chintz store… (3 C’s for savings… what BULLS%!*). It’s Christmas / Hanukkah / Kwanzaa… whatever… As I’m paying for my cheap stuff, I try and be nice to the clerk who is obviously underpaid / overworked / bored to death… In my best (get me the hell outta here) voice, I say, “Merry Christmas to ya!”… The icy stare would have frozen boiling water. “It’s not PC to say that you know. It’s Happy Holidays. Some people don’t celebrate Christmas!”

Ohhhhh Kaaaayyyy! Being rebuffed, I skate out the door.

I won’t dwell on that too much. After all, only two more stops… the next stop is a local big box store. I find my items, proceed to the checkout and pay for my goods. With the rebuff still ringing in my ears, I quietly tell the service cashier “Happy Holidays” in my most cheerful voice. Was I ever surprised when I got the “Yeah… Happy Hanukkah!” Now, as I oil my way towards the door, I’m thinkin’ “What the…???”

OK. So Happy Holidays is OK for some folks. Those of a different religious persuasion may need a different greeting as Happy Holidays may not be readily accepted. So, with that in mind, and I mull over this chain of events carefully, I work my way towards my specialty shop where I hope to get some of the best tastin’ Bar-B-Que ribs this side of the Mississippi. Well… at least, in my humble opinion, they are the best.

Pop into the store… I know right where to go… Grab up a small handful of basted and broiled greatness and press towards the checkout. Armed with what I have learned recently, I offer up the following liturgy; “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or Happy Hanukkah!” (I was almost ready to add an addendum of “or whatever floats your boat… but hey, this is Christmas). I am almost out the door, when the absolutely stunning female checker says in a very light accent “Happy Kwanza to your family as well!”

That did it… It put me over the top… I get to the car and unceremoniously heave my ill gotten gains thru the window of my car. I plant myself heavily and angrily into the drivers seat and POUND ON THE STEERING WHEEL. Political Correctness has gone too damned far. I am sick and tired of all this PC this and PC that.  Screw it…  Maybe I  should no longer wish anyone a Merry / Happy anything. I am just going to say, “Have a nice day!”

To which I will probably get some pimply faced response of, “No, it’s have a nice life!”

So here it is folks… My not so PC wish to you and yours.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a safe and sane New Year. May Santa bring you all the things you want and may 2010 be a prosperous New Year. Please… be kind to each other. Respect and cherish your elders, for they have been through more years of torment than you have up to this point. Remember in your offerings the men and women of our armed forces for they stand in the door to protect you as you sleep at night. I hope that each and every blessing that you offer comes back to you in many a different way.

At my Christmas dinner, I will raise a glass to you…  my friends…  and toast… “To absent companions…”

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Until next year…