Tag Archives: writing

CAUTION! Shopping on Amazon. Com Can Become Very Habit Forming

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Many moons ago I saw my first ad for A projector that could be plugged into a computer What a wonderful thing I thought. Two things kept me from buying it on the spot. There was no way I could afford it and there was nothing I could legitimately use it for. I would have had to invent one, and believe me, I did try.

That was years before Amazon. Since Amazon, I pseudo window shop entirely too much. Since then, I have purchased many things by Amazon. I willingly admit, too many and a few I regret.

This morning, in spite of the known hazards, I went wading through some of the dangers of Amazon ads and I was again about to be pulled in by the undertow. There on my monitor was a beautiful picture of one of those projectors.

Of all things, the picture showed a couple watching a movie using the one of those projectors. Of all things, they laid in a bed and they were looking at a huge 100 inch image on the ceiling.

NOW that was too much, really. I burst into laughter as I considered how it would be for my wife and I. I wanted that projector. Moreover, all I would need to do to afford it would be to give up eating for two weeks.

I was saves from pressing that make believe button by one fact. It would not work in my house. In the middle of each of my rooms is a light fixture and fan. I considered pulling one of them. We really don’t have a real need for all of them anyway.

Besides, the projector had five lasers. That is important for better skin tones. And then I saw one that contained its own battery. Now, I could imagine myself out in the woods, swatting bugs while watching my copy of Kelly’s Heroes. Yep, that’s right. I would visit our wild animal friends just so I would be able to use my new projector.

Then the reality hit me. I do like to eat. Besides, I have seen Kelly’s Heroes at least ten times. I guess the projector can wait. So I purchased some really comfortable socks instead.

You Can’t Take It With You

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Not only is it true. It is one of the most well known statements, maybe in the world. Even so, it would seem there are those who have tried. The pharaohs certainly made their try at it. With all the power at their hands, they left it all, every bit of it. In spite of all their efforts, it didn’t work regardless of their beliefs.

Jack Benny had his famous theory: he said if he couldn’t take it with him he just wouldn’t go. That didn’t work either. Truth be told, I suspect he was well aware it wouldn’t work, he did make a good try at it. Though he always claimed to be 39, he was 80 when he finally left his worldly things behind.

There are fakes the world round who try to sell wonderful potions and promise many of additional years of life. My MD prescribes for me drugs that hold my blood pressure down and very expensive pills that keep blood clots from forming, there is nothing mystical or magic about them. However, I must admit, they do seem to provide me for a few more years. However, I have no illusion about it. One day, any day, any time, I too will cease to breathe.

However, I do have, for sure, one argument with the old saying. You see when I go on to be with the Lord, I will bring many of my friends and relatives with me. Some have or will go on before. Some will follow.

Now of all we ever had, wouldn’t it be horrible to find out our most precious of all, that is our children, our friends, our relatives will never ever join us.

Indeed we can take our loved ones with us. However, if they never accept Jesus as their savior, they will remain forever separated from us.

It just might be a good reason to make sure they understand the plan of salvation, without delay.

Then again, the opposite would also be horrible, for them to go on to heaven without you.

You can take your most precious ones with you. My advice, make sure you do.

The pharaohs failed to take their gold and treasure. We have the ability to take that which is more precious than gold with us.

Ads, Ads and More Ads

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When they first started making cigarette ads illegal, I wondered what they were going to replace them with. As an old man I remember seeing them, it seemed continuously they spoke of all lies. We all knew they were falsehoods, but so many of them were so ‘cute’.

Many of the quips and jingles, if I quoted them today many would turn and look at me in remberance. I must admit, as much as I disliked smoking, those advertisers could come up with some winners, the type you could actually enjoy.

Not that I am in favor of smoking and all the problems it brought, but sometimes I miss those old commercials. Many were actually entertaining. I suspect that might be one of reasons they wanted to rid the airways of them.

They not only went after the actual commercials but also the subtle ads. In the movies they actually paid to have smoking sequences to make it appear the natural and normal thing to do. It was rare to see a movie where such methods were used.

Today, they continue to use the same methods, but not with tobacco. Today it is alcoholic beverages. Today they show people in bars wrapping up things after the big law case. I mean it is what they all do in real life, right. And for sure, which is worse, tobacco or alcohol. You likely have your opinion. However, I’d much rather see ads for cigarettes than booze. Isn’t it just wonderful seeing those Clydesdale horses pulling those huge wagons piled high with beer.

Certainly, alcoholic beverages have helped pull up the slack. We now have far more entertainment being sponsored by far more drinks. And, by the way, let’s remember, those pictures are far better quality today. That takes expensive equipment don’t you know. And those selling alcohol are more than willing to provide the ads.

However, might I remind you that, according to a PSA, Public Service Announcement, thirty percent of fatal accidents are caused by people under the influence of alcohol. I haven’t seen any stats on those that are injured, maimed or permanently disabled, but I would expect those numbers too are far more than they should be. Might I also suggest that spouse and child abuse is likely almost always accompanied by the spirits.

If they had reason to stop tobacco ads, they have far more reason to remove alcohol ads. But then, if they did that, who would pay for the commercial television?

Well, I do have a partial answer, all those part C Medicare advertisers. Come this time of year, they are on every commercial break, sometimes twice. They keep those things up and I’ll start begging for them to bring back the tobacco ads.

From My Prediction Department: No More TVs

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Generally, I steer clear of predictions. That said, this one feels different—I’m confident enough to stake my reputation on it. Here’s why: part of it is already unfolding. So let me walk you through the evidence backing my call.

For those unfamiliar with the industry, today’s radio broadcasters operate in an increasingly competitive landscape that spans nationally and globally. I can search for nearly any station online and stream it within moments, no matter where it’s located. With sufficient time and resources, many stations could conceivably dismantle their transmission towers and shift entirely to internet-based broadcasting.

I pause and consider television, wondering: why couldn’t the same approach apply? We could eliminate transmission towers across the nation, and potentially around the globe.

Consider this possibility: no more television sets, just a computer connected to the world through the internet—perhaps even via satellite. Imagine the freedom from cable bills and service contracts alike. Naturally, you would still have an internet bill.

Will there be a charge for this from the stations? Consider this carefully. Would you pay a dime to listen to station A when station B offers identical programming for a nickel? Perhaps station C provides it for two cents—or free of charge.

So nobody will buy a TV anymore—just a computer. With AI built in, you can simply talk to it and stream your shows right on the screen.

My TV recently malfunctioned—or more precisely, partially failed. Although I can still feed it an HDMI signal and enjoy regular viewing, streaming internet programs present a different experience altogether. Compared to traditional network and local station broadcasts, these offerings simply aren’t equivalent. While I haven’t fully investigated the reasons behind this disparity, I remain confident that this limitation won’t persist indefinitely.

I ordered a converter, and it performs excellently. I connect it to the antenna and then to the HDMI port. It brings back memories of the 1960s through 1990s, when dedicated audiophiles invested in component audio systems. We purchased a tuner, an amplifier, a turntable, and a tape deck. Enthusiasts often owned dual turntables for record playback. Premium speaker systems regularly commanded five or six hundred dollars.

After purchasing a tuner, I discovered an impressive upgrade for my TV setup. Originally, my television demanded an amplified antenna to operate effectively. Now, this compact device delivers pristine picture quality through a standard indoor antenna alone—eliminating the amplifier requirement entirely. Beyond that, the included remote proves far more intuitive than my previous one. For just $35, this tuner spared me from replacing my TV with a lower-quality picture.

Reflecting on my experience, I’ve concluded that I’ll never need another television. Should I start fresh, I’d pursue a component-based system instead—acquiring a tuner, monitor, and antenna separately. Not only would this setup outperform a smart TV, but it would also cost considerably less. Moreover, if any component requires replacement, I could simply swap out that individual piece rather than purchasing an entirely new television.

If I decide to get cable, the basic monitor should work even better. Most monitors don’t need remotes anyway, so there’s no risk of interference with cable remote controls.

My Opinion of Airports

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Daily writing prompt
What’s the best and worst airport you’ve been to?
View all responses

I am not a well-traveled person, but I have been through a few airports. Obviously, the one I have been through the most is Memphis, now Fredrick W. Smith. The first time I saw that airport was as a Marine private flying in from LAX. I must admit, considering the size of the city, I was surprised at the size and the cleanliness of it, back in 1967. I found out later that it was relatively new and the one it replaced is now for general aviation. Since that day, I have gone through the airport more times than I can count. Unfortunately, I don’t think the airport has truly kept up. I wouldn’t count it as the best or worst. It might be better than average.

It’s been over a decade since I last traveled through LAX, yet it remains my gold standard for operational excellence and strategic planning. The airport processes an impressive volume of passengers and aircraft while maintaining a remarkable track record of avoiding negative publicity. What’s particularly impressive is their commitment to continuous upgrades that keep operations flowing seamlessly. That said, my experience is somewhat dated, so current conditions may well have evolved.

I’ve been through there about ten times without any issues or unexpected delays. They have a nice restaurant right in the center with a great view. The area has developed quite a bit, so the view has diminished somewhat over the years. But when I ate there, I enjoyed excellent food at a surprisingly reasonable price.

Chicago O’Hare is a hectic hub, as you might expect. One particular visit stood out as especially chaotic. I was scheduled to arrive from Memphis at 7 p.m., but severe weather caused significant delays. We circled overhead, waiting for clearance to land. Upon leaving the baggage claim 12:30 am, I found vehicles—primarily taxis and limousines—queued two-deep along the curb.

Still, I won’t call it the worst airport. It was the exception, not the rule. Besides, it features a smart design: you step virtually from the plane onto a train. (Or visa versa). If you know the city, that’s a major advantage. I haven’t seen that anywhere else. New York might offer it, but I only passed through New York on a connection. I’ll reserve judgment on that one. Besides, I don’t know which airport it was.

When connecting through DFW Airport, brace yourself for a challenging experience. On three separate occasions, I barely made my connections, coming dangerously close to missing my flights each time. The gates consistently closed just as I was boarding. This proves particularly problematic when transferring between domestic and international terminals.

Atlanta receives my lowest rating, primarily due to my personal experiences there. While I acknowledge that worse airports likely exist, I haven’t visited them to compare. Every time I’ve traveled through Atlanta, my plane has been positioned at one of the terminal’s furthest gates. Adding to the frustration, my luggage consistently arrived even later than I did. Thankfully, I no longer have occasion to fly into Atlanta.

Speaking of Coincidences

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A few days ago, I wrote a response to a prompt on coincidences. Then my wife and I went to the doctor. It was a bright, hot muggy day. Not a cloud in the sky. Well not one I could see anyway.

After waiting the better part of 2 hours, we were called back to an exam room. Within minutes, I heard a familiar noise.

Now let me pause to explain. In the waiting room, there were big windows through which I saw big blue clear skies. It was with confidence that I entered the totally enclosed exam room.

It was why I doubted my ears when I heard the little noise. A few minutes later, there was no doubt. I ran to the main entry door and realized it was to late. It would be useless at this point to raise the windows. The interior of the car was very likely soaked. To run out there would only make sure I was good and soaked too.

If we could consider rain an intelligent thing of life, I could say it did it on purpose. It had something against me or was taking a vengeance out on me. The rain poured down hard! The lightning flashed repeatedly. The sky was dark before night.

I suppose I could voice a conclusion that God was angry with me for some reason. He might have been, I guess. However, I’m more apt to write this one up to coincidence. Frankly, at the time, I was beginning to wonder.

There is no doubt in my mind that God can and does use what seems to be natural to chastise us. It is for our benefit. Certainly, it is a bad idea to ignore the chastisement of the Lord. The Jews did it dispute the warnings of the prophet, Jaramiah and they suffered dearly for it. They were told their punishment for abandoning God’s word would be 40 years of captivity and they suffered because of their unbelief. They chalked their problems to coincidence.

History does tend to repeat. Today, there are those that don’t believe in God’s punishment. They believe the problems of our country are nothing but coincidence.

For the time being I’m calling this thunder storm a coincidence. However, if coincidences as this become more frequent, I’m going to start reconsidering.

I Admit I Would not Be Good Policeman

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As a child, I had a desire to be a policeman. I really liked the idea of putting the bad guys in jail. Naturally, in my youth, I was very pretty idealistic. You know, I figured I’d always catch the bad guy and he’d be soon incarcerated.

Unfortunately, things don’t always happen that way. I wish they did. In general, most of the TV shows try to make things a little realistic, but I can’t have but think they really bend things for the sake of drama.

Perhaps, one of the most common situations in the shows is the hostage situations. I don’t know exactly what the actual procedures are but I can’t believe that a police officer should ever surrender his weapon to save a hostage. If he does, the bad guy suddenly has two hostages.

Moreover, the one holding the hostage is foolish to kill the hostage. If and when he does, he immediately looses any advantage he might have. Even more, the officer is completely justified in shooting the bad guy.

The fact is, I’d likely never be a good policeman. I’d shoot the hostage taker the first time I had a clear shot. I don’t guess that’s procedure either. However, I’d do it for three reasons. First, I think I just might stand a chance of saving the hostage. Second, the bad guy would never take another hostage. Third, if word got around that the department quickly killed hostage takers, there would be far fewer hostage takers.

I have never discussed this with an official and I would guess none would discuss with me. Nonetheless, I suspect my ideas would not be readily accepted. As I sliced to before, I would not be considered a good policeman. If I confronted a kidnapper and he was hiding his captive, I would use whatever means to get the guy to tell me.

Naturally, it would only work once and I’d be unemployed. They might even toss me in jail for a day or two. But the way I look at it, I will have quite possibly saved a life. And that kidnapper, the one that did the kidnapping, he would continue to carry around and a few permanent injuries to remember me by, though he’d likely never be convicted. And, maybe some other would be kidnapper just might reconsider.

So, aren’t you glad I never became a policeman, me and people like me. Especially if you are one of the bad guys I am referring to.

Define Coincidence

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I saw a sign that defined a coincidence as God working undercover. It is a thought. Many times we mark things up as coincidence that might be miracles. On the other hand, I suspect there are things we claim God did that were really simple coincidence. Just because God foreknows a thing does not mean he caused it. To be sure, sometimes when things happen, I become convinced that it is because God is punishing me. The truth is, mostly I don’t know.

I am very fascinated by the concept of coincidence, both in my personal life and in history. The D-Day invasion, if you closely study it, is a long list of coincidences. Or, perhaps they are caused by the hand of God, beginning with the weather. Had it not cleared on 6 June, the whole thing might have been a total disaster. I suspect Gen Ike would be one of the first to call it an act of God. On the other hand, most of the German leaders would fuss it was a horrible coincidence.

Certainly, I have had my experience with coincidence. I guess, for the most part, they were to my benefit. Some were perhaps to my benefit though I thought not at the time. must admit that God has been very good to me.

I guess there was one weird time that made me seem like the smartest computer field engineer on earth. They had been working on the thing 4 days and the customer was threatening to tell our company to just take it out.

As I was in route on the plane, there all sorts of things going through my mind, wondering what the problem might be. I was not told in advance of the symptoms so I suspected I would not do any better than the 4 previous engineers.

It is a long technical story, however, the sort story is, I told the engineers on sight to use a screwdriver to tighten some screws instead of hand tight. They objected. They logical, I had to admit, to this day.

They tightened the screws snug and 3 minutes later the computer came to life. The truth is, I’m not a genius, though I certainly appeared to be. The truth was, coincidentally, I saw the same problem a couple of weeks earlier. I knew how to fix the problem because I had fought for hours with the same problem for many frustrating .

The hitch, as I think back over the situation, I should have faked having a bunch of trouble fixing it. A. It would have made me look smarter, because I made the problem look too simple. I never even picked up a tool or a piece of test equipment. I mean, if it was that easy to fix. I didn’t need to be so smart. B. It made my predecessors look bad. I fixed the problem in three minutes. Why were they unable in four days. Actually, the bunch of them were likely better engineers than me and quickly they had egg on their faces, which, in a way, made my company look bad. C. I really wish they would have described the problem to me on the phone. I could have given them the solution more quickly and they would have been the heroes.

As mentioned before, I do have a curiosity about coincidences. The Bible speaks of many that I will like to discuss firsthand when I get the opportunity. And also there are the ones that occurred during the Revolutionary War, and WWII. It has increased my curiosity over the years.

Because of this curiosity, I have written a book that explores the idea of coincidence. It is called, “The Coincidence Theory,” in which a pair of Los Angeles detectives try to solve crimes while dealing with seemingly impossible coincidences.

If you would like, you can order the book from Amazon.com. Just look up Ben Rhodes and The Coincidence Theory. I won’t mind if you look at a few more of my books too, more than 35.

Daily writing prompt
What’s the weirdest coincidence you’ve ever experienced?
View all responses

My Prediction of the Year

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I seldom predict things, mostly because I am not that good at telling the future. However, occasionally something will come along that is just almost obvious.

Ever since they went to digital broadcast TV, it has continued to drift that way ever more strongly. Today, few people in this country watch radio frequency transmissions. I perceive the only reason they Will continue to produce TVs that pick up RF is that there is likely some kind of rules requiring it. If a TV did not need the radio signal circuits, it would significantly decrease the cost of modern TVs.

If you observe, as I have, most TVs only begrudgingly include the radio signal circuits on their TVs that they sell. Give them the option to stop including them, and it would immediately happen. The TVs would cost less and they would still make more profit.

And so, it is only a matter of time, they gradually decrease the percentage of units that have tuners built into them. The tuners would be sold separately, as an option. Then as the number of tuners being sold decrease, they would stop offering them for sell at all. Then, with no tuners, why build, maintain or operate lesstransmitters.

I am predicting in fifteen years, the number of transmitters will begin decreasing. The number of broadcasters will continue to grow. They just won’t need the radio transmission. That decreases operation costs and likely a lot of government regulations as well.

Those frequencies currently reserved for TV can be relinquished to other things, maybe cell phones. That way, it makes it easier for people to watch our favorite tv show on our car phone while our self driven cars take us wherever we want to go.

The world of TV will be totally different. That part is easy to predict. What I’m not so sure about is, is it all going to be so good?

Protection Rackets

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Whenever I hear certain advertising on TV/radio, it does remind me of the depicted rackets. If I pay their protection fee, they provide a guarantee that no one will steal my identity.

I don’t know about you, but I remember seeing movies, shows, about organized crime outfits referred to as protection rackets that would insist that businesses pay “protection.” The plain promise was that if they paid, no one would hurt them. The implications were that if they didn’t pay, bad things very well might happen to them.

I’m sorry, but it does cause me to wonder. I have to consider, does the one thing have anything to do with the other? Of course not. No reputable business would do something like that, right?

Regardless, kind of works the same way. If I don’t pay the company, I pay the crooks. Only, truth of the matter is, I could end up paying both. That is to say, if the company is unable to recover my losses, all I have is the guarantee, which is what. Perhaps I get my money back, if that much. Honestly, I know not.

The better solution is to put teeth with the law. You steal my money, regardless of your methods, you go to prison, a long time. Hopefully, you return my money too.

Some would suggest it is senseless and impractical. So which is worse. Someone uses a knife to steal that dollar ninety-eight from me… Or the hacker who uses that computer to steal that million from my bank account. (I only wish I had that much in my account)

Nonetheless, I do believe it is to the benefit of one and all to prevent any kind of crime rather than attempting to recover it after it’s gone. The best way to prevent it is the threat of twenty years in a prison, without TV, radio, or anything resembling a computer.

If you don’t believe it will work, let’s just try it for a little while and see. I say it’s better to pay law enforcement instead of protection rackets.