Monday Meanderings - 1.9.2017

The weekend was an affirmation of why we choose to live in the south. Brrrr! Although the cold is a good excuse to stay in one's pajamas all day. Not that I really need an excuse.

A friend sent me a note the other day. The headline said "Self-Driving Cars Will Make Organ Shortages Even Worse"And the article went on to explain that "the oncoming fleet of driverless cars will change the way we live—remaking us all into passengers, rewiring our economy, retooling our views of ownership, and reshaping our cities and roads."

It will also significantly reduce the number of people killed in auto accidents, since some 94% of auto accidents are caused by driver error. Since auto accidents are among the most reliable sources for healthy organs and tissues experts predict already serious shortages will become greatly compounded. I guess that's a good news/bad news scenario, isn't it?

And I guess that I'm amazed that this didn't happen in Austin -
RICHMOND,VA.— Police say shoppers were mystified and alarmed when two young men wearing Donald Trump masks began boxing one another inside a Lowe’s store in Virginia on New Year’s Eve. Officers were summoned to the store Saturday afternoon because of a “disorderly display that scared customers.” 

Henrico police have said little about the incident. However, 59-year-old witness Michael Willis told the newspaper he saw the men hitting each other while yelling, “Donald Trump! Donald Trump!” The men fell and knocked down merchandise in the process, Willis said.

I have more evidence for my theory that parking garages play a large part in the "Missing Elderly" notices. You may remember that I posit that drivers of my generation enter a parking garage from street 'A,' circle around endlessly hunting for a place to park, circle even more on the way out and exit on street 'B.' The next thing you know we are in Lawton, Oklahoma, looking for a familiar landmark and our vehicle is on a TXDOT signboard.

My new evidence occurred the other day when I entered the parking garage that I frequent when visiting any of 3 of my doctors. I was healthily taking the stairs down to the street level when a door to the stair well opened and a man  peeked in and asked, "Are you familiar with this building?"

I responded that I had been there often, and how could I help?" He wanted to know "where Suite 310 was?" He had looked all over the place and was totally confused. I pointed out that the building with the office suites was actually across the street, and he would find suite 310  over there.

I'm pretty sure that man was in Lawton before the day was over.

I have begun checking books for Learning Ally, as well as reading them. It is something I can do from home; listen to what has been recorded on a project and mark those places in the file where there is a deviation from the text, or a mispronunciation. As much as it pains me to say, all the readers (and, yes, I include myself) make mistakes no matter how hard we try. It's the checker's job to listen and catch these glitches, and for many books it's booorrriiinngg!

However, over the holidays, I checked a book entitled "Charlie Bone and the Time Twister" by Jenny Nimmo. One of a series, it is a Harry Potter-like book that takes place in England of course. We have a reader, Graham Duncan, who was born in the UK, and he reads with a delightful English accent and pronunciation and he read this particular book - and I loved listening to him. Graham can handle all the "voices" in a book such as this with ease and flare.

In addition to this book, Graham recently did a marathon reading of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to make it available to our clients less than a month after its publication date. They made a short video about that when the book was finished, and I share it here, so you can get a taste of what I enjoyed.