Time to Fly South for the winter

It’s getting to be that time of year again! Happy Hanukkah, Have a blessed Advent, Merry Christmas and Happy new year! That should cover it! The other night I was reading some articles on AI, it was very interesting. There were a bunch of techies from major research organization from around the English speaking world talking about the future of AI. One of the biggest issues they were dealing with was bias. In other words how do the write the algorithms, so that are not biased?  There conclusions were very interesting. I will not get into that because 6 will defiantly show his bias. Because we all know the old saying bad data in equals bad data out (6 cleaned the real statement up, so people of all ages can ready this blog). What all this has to do with Christmas, well 6 will explain.

6 knows that he is old and there is probably no one who reads this story will have any idea about what 6 is talking about. One cold and snow Saturday morning, the week before Christmas, 6 had the task of doing his weekly collection( no not for the church). For those who have no idea what 6 is talking about let me explain. Back before the internet people would actually read something called a newspaper to get their news, every day just like the postman (sorry letter carrier) “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" the paper boy (ops did it again Paper delivery person) creed was just the same. The job of the paper delivery person, was much more difficult, because they had to go out and actually collect the money for the newspapers. If 6 remember correctly it was $1.25 for all 7 days and $.75 cents for 6 days. Some people were so cheap that they did not want to spend 25 cents on a Sunday paper. As 6 said this was the week before Christmas, so just like the mail carriers, and the trash men (One more time Sanitation Engineers) the people that they were serving would hand then a nice envelope which contained a fresh one dollar bill, if you were living right they would mix up the envelops and give yours to the mail carrier and instead of one dollar you would get a crisp $5.00! Bing Go!!!  6 digresses. By this time my body was frozen, but the joy in my heart over having a pocket of $1 bills, and the thoughts of sugar plum fairies (oh can 6 use that word) dancing in my head, made me want to treat myself. The next step was to go to the drug store (One more time Pharmacy) to see the soda jerk (6 know that is bias, but that is what they were called, google it if you don’t believe me). Now that 6 ponders this a little more if he were Al Bundy, he would have gone someplace completely different with all those $1 dollar bills! (6 guess that is also a thing of the past, look it up on the internet). Once in the Pharmacy, 6 made his way thru all the people to the soda bar, where he ordered himself a Large (Did it again Venti ) Peppermint float. That was always a special treat at Christmas. 6 sat there for well over an hour, talking to friends and listing too many tales told by the old folk (Sorry elderly) you know those old people were probably 30 to 40 years old,  sitting at the soda bar. What a great experience, sitting around talking to the town’s folks drinking a peppermint float. Little did 6 realize that in a few short years the same type of activity would happen only sitting at a table drinking a peppermint mocha from Starbuck’s IM’ing people and doing a google search on how many calories a Venti Peppermint mocha has, and trying to avoid at all cost any interaction with strangers (ops again other patrons) . I would then throw a nickel on the counter and tell the soda jerk that I was going to take a pickle out of the pickle barrel for the road. Today that would be so socially unacceptable, imagine sticking your arm in a barrel full of pickles and finding the one you want to eat, and no you did not have on rubber gloves, it was bare hand into a vat of pickle juice! 6 then made his way home knowing that 6 spent a whole dollar of his hard earned money, on a Christmas treat for himself (oh, once again so selfish of myself) ! Those were the days my friend! As one infamous person said “The most enjoying traditions of the season are best enjoyed in the warm embrace of kith and kin. Thith tree is a thymbol of the thpirit of a family Chrithmath.” You sure better get written permission before you do the warm embrace! 

In 20 sentences most of them run-on, one could find 30 biases, so how in the world would we think that we could create an algorithm that contains no bias. One thing that is for sure, times change my friends and ever since the first cave man (one last time Cave person) uttered the first word, bias began, for we were all created (ops did it again, evolved) with fee will, and choice, and as long as we have those things we will also have bias.

Does anyone have a bar of Soap?

Last evening 6A and 6 ventured out of the house, to leave the comfort of our humble abode and face the harsh realities of the mean cruel world. Only we noticed that old man sun was beginning his nightly slumber a few hours earlier than he did when we saw him on the beach. This could mean only one of two things: first he is getting old and can’t keep the late hours any longer, or second fall is approaching. 6 be thinking that is a little of both, 6 just like old man sun  is getting older and will take any extra minute of slumber, and fall starts on Saturday! Yes that means vacation is done, lawn mower race results are in the books, no more pizza night in short pants, drinking hot Rex. Now school has started, football is all we talk about (hey you Pitt fans, how about that Pitt Penn state game), the county fair, wine fest, cooler nights, rain every weekend, leaves to pick up, shorter days and finally shopping for thanksgiving dinner! 

6 realizes that none of you have the superior intelligence which 6 possess so you might find this difficult to imagine, but as 6 was in deep meditation in regards to hurricane Florence, a very interesting weather anomaly emerged. Every time 6 goes to the airport to retrieve a follow vacationer the trip is wrought with torrential down pours! Some of my more avid followers may remember 6 blogging about this oldy but goodie. Way back in the spring of 2013 4, 6 and 7 one early Tuesday morning were loading up the truckster for an excursion to the airport to pick up 4A. This was a special trip for 6 and 7 were going to be rewarded at the end of this trip by stopping at the Waffle House, to experience for the first time the wonders of this historic eatery.   Since we all know how much 7 likes to drive, he took the reins of the truckster and we began our journey. About the time we passed thru the roundabout leaving the island we could hear the rain hitting the car. No this is not a mistake, we could only hear the rain because the driver, felt no need to use the windshield wipers, which I could understand because they would have served no purpose, for the windows were so fogged up that you could not see if they were on or not.  Finally after about 30 minutes of this a lone voice from the back seat asked a simple question: Hey 7 why don’t you use the defroster so you can see where you are going? The response was…. Wait for it……I don’t want to waste any gas. God and 7 only know what that means, because to this day 6 cannot figure out why a electric fan on the car would use gas, on the other hand 6 does understand that the wipers will disrupt the air flow over the car causing ‘drag” which in fact would be detrimental to fuel economy. Over a 30 mile trip that could save enough fossil fuel to reduce the global warming by at least ½ a degree, and closer to home 6 calculated it would save almost a penny in fuel cost. The wisdom behind this is: We should all go out now and pull the fuse on the blower motor, and take those wipers and throw them in the trash! Oh excuse 6 the recycle bin, which is located behind the fire house on Kiawah Island. We eventually make it to the airport to pick up 4A, had an exemplary meal at waffle house and made the rest of our journey back to paradise with the sun shining bright on the happy vacationers. The next trip to the airport was last spring. This time 6 got the honor to have 7 &8 as passengers in the Hap Hap Happy truckster, on board to retrieve 4 form Charleston international. It was Sunday night, the rain was coming down like “cats and dogs”, BTW that saying makes no sense to 6 at all, does anyone know the origin of that dumb …… saying? This time the fan motor was on full blast, the wipers were moving so fast that we could hear sonic booms as the movement of the wipes would break the sound barrier. None of that seemed to help, the only thing that worked was following the lights on the car in front of us. As we all know that is not a very good idea. Just as with the first trip we had a secondary mission, we needed some low country key lime pie. According to Seri there were a few places along the way that had it, as we passed each one they were closed for the night, so we never accomplished our secondary mission on that trip! We finally made it to the airport with a detour thru Wall mart’s parking lot…. Still looking for key lime pie, but no one wanted to get out of the car to get it, 6 guess no one wanted to get their hair wet!  We found 4 thru her stuff in the car and headed back to paradise, when we passed Paul Cantrell Blvd (better known for the exit to total wine) the rain magically stopped, for the reminder of the trip to paradise all we need to do was to navigate thru the standing water. It was a good thing that 6 had the foresight to pack an extra penny to pay for the excess fuel but not good for the environment, for the ½ degree we save on the last time was consumed by this trip. As we motored our way back to the roundabout 6 made the statement that the drive sure would have been much better if 6 would have remembered to bring his glasses … you could have heard a pin drop for the rest of the way to the condo.  Ah.. Forgot the glasses but remembered the penny.. The most recent trip was this summer, 6 had to go to pick up 62, 62A and 621. For space reasons 6 had to complete this journey all by 6’s self. The plan was to leave before 6’s traditional gourmet spaghetti dinner, but because of rain in the north east their flight was delayed, all is good there, for 6 was able to enjoy the traditional first night dinner. Best of all, no clean-up responsibilities, for 6 had to hit the road right after dinner. This time it was really different, the rain had already started, I did have my glasses and did not have to worry about the penny. You might wonder about the penny, well as the story goes…… Does anyone know about the big dip in the road right about where the tunnel for the golf course on cougar is??? Well as it happens, 6 was cruising along and saw the water on the road, due to his glasses, but that puddle must have been 5 foot deep as 6 passed thru the puddle that car was comply submersed in water, as he passed thru the other side there was a very large circular disk hovering overhead. All of a sudden a large ramp was lowered and 6’s car went up the ramp and as quick as a flash the disk took off like a rocket! 6 got out of the car and was meet by a few little green men, and two people 6 recognized as Bert Campbell and Saul, now what 6 doesn’t know even as of today was it the real Bert or the clone, 6 guess only Mary knows the true answer? Bert did ask me what I was doing, the little green men could not speak English, and I told him, so they said that they would take me there. 6 proceeded to check the status of the flight and it was even going to be later, so the circular disk found the airplane and followed it to the Charleston airport, we watched from the disk as the plane land, and the next thing I knew was Bert crossed his arms, and snapped his fingers, he then disappeared, and 6 was sitting comfortably in a dry car in the parking lot of the Charleston airport. The rain was still pounding the pavement when 6 picked up 62, 62A and 621. We loaded the car, and when we started back to paradise, the rain had cleared leaving us with an uneventful tip to paradise. The bottom line was we saved another ½ degree as a result of not having to use the wipers, so the vacation carbon foot print is back to what it was when 7 made that fateful trip in the fog remember the fog was in the car not outside. We are saving the planet so that 621 can carry out the tradition of the family vacation long after 6 becomes worm food, which in itself will save the planet.

Words of Wisdom: One should never judge a person on action, deed, appearance or for that matter any human measure. One can denounce or praise these measures. for the true sense of person  is only found deep in one’s heart, and what is one’s heart we spend a lifetime trying to define ourselves.

The nerve of some people

It sure looks like Kiawah may miss the wrath of Florence that is ok, for the last couple have done nothing but raised the price of our rentals. 

As we all know, when 6 goes to the beach 6 really likes his personal space, 6 wonders is that is kind of like our family and hugging? . If 6 wanted to have people to the right side and the left side in front and behind him 6 would just go to Ocean City! There is a tremendous amount of preparation involved in minimizing the impact that “squatters” inflict on our good old family vacation. If you all don’t know here is the yearly process that 6 employees to protect your vacation. In early July, he pulls the tidal data from NOAA, and charts the effects that the tides will have on each day of our vacation. Once that is completed, early in August,   6 will then start watching channel 2 news, confirming 6’s analysis with the premier meteorologist Josh Mauthers. Once the trend is verified 6 will then start collecting actual tidal data each morning and then in the evening by utilizing the Kiawah beach Cam, this will ensure down to the minute when the tide changes. This is then even further confirmed by personal observation by getting up on every morning, prior to sun even peaking its head over the horizon and walking the beach taking measurements. At this point 6 knows exactly what time and where each of the chairs need to be set up in order to keep the “squatters” in their own space.  The bad part is 6 really thinks that all of these  efforts may be  in vain because over the years the family beach goers have just come to expect the serenity afforded them by all the work that 6 performs, in reserving their personal beach space. What do all-you-all think that 6 likes to watch Josh every day? 6 can tell you the weather forecast 365 days in advance for Kiawah Island. Next August it is be 96 degrees, 76% humidity, with a feels like temperature of 100 to 105, with a 40% chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon, and a low of 76 that night. Or do you think 6 likes to get up at O dark 30 to walk, the beach….. Doesn’t one need their sleep! Well enough of that!! The point of this is “The best laid plans”, this spring after doing all of 6 mandatory preparations, 6 grabbed the beach chairs from under the villa and made his way to the beach at the perfect time prescribed by the detailed analysis. To 6’s amazement there was not only a “squatter” in front of us, but this person actually had the nerve to pull the beach chair from under the umbrella and put her own personal chair under our umbrella!  Not knowing any better 6 took her stuff (BTW she actually took a towel from the villa she was staying in) and proceeded to move them off to the side of the umbrella. It was at this point when 4 told me that the things I just moved were not ours, but some lady that came down and just looked at 4 and began making herself at home in our space! The nerve of some people! Anyway to make a long story short the lady came back about 3:00 that afternoon and just sat down in her chair, and never said a word to any of us, after an hour or so, we just had to tell her to get the heck out of there because it was Rex Time! She gave us a nasty look and moved on, never to be seen again.

What is the message behind this blog? Should 6 give up all of the preparations, which result in a perfect beach experience? Should 6 have left the “squatters” chair and towel in place under our umbrella, possibly enhancing her vacation by being in the presence of 4,6,7,and 8? Or should have 6 just dumped her crap in the Ocean, and sent her packing?  

Words of Wisdom: We have all been placed on this earth to share in the bounty which has been granted to us.