Category: Life in General

Another Weird Dream…

Posted on by chappyshi

I dreamt that my family was moving my Dad’s parents, who passed away years ago, to a new place. I can’t say where this place might have been but in the dream I thought it was some place like Dagestan or Chechnya. It was very third world and rundown but mountainous, and beautiful. The backyard had a fence running from one side of it diagonally across the yard. At the break in the fence near the back, you could see far off into the distance over a complex of lakes but there was a drop off of hundreds of feet right on the other side of the fence. Also, the fence was falling down near where it connected to the house and I was afraid that my grandfather would wander back there and fall through the fence off the cliff. I can see this all so clearly in my mind it is bizarre. Later as we were trying to settle in my grandparents, a group of military policemen pulled up in personnel carriers and started approaching the house. The last thing I remember was winding down a slope through a maze of houses and vegetable gardens trying to get away.

Letter to My Virginia Legislators

Posted on by chappyshi

Legislation, proposed by Virginia’s right-wing nut bag governor and passed by Virginia’s apparently right-wing nut bag Assembly, that includes removing our 17.5% gas tax, not changed for 25 years, and replacing it with a 0.8% sales tax increase makes no sense to me, probably because I am not a right-wing nut bag.  This is just redistribution of wealth to the wealthy and cannot help with Virginia’s transportation infrastructure problems nor can it help to reduce consumption of gas or vehicle created pollutants.

Read more here about the current state of the legislation:

Va. lawmakers give McDonnell partial win on transportation at session midpoint

Below is my letter to my representatives asking them please to not let this legislation pass:

Please don’t let this legislation pass.  I think about all the poor people who ride buses because they can’t afford cars.  Their environmental and consumptive impact is minimal thereby reducing long term costs to our environment and infrastructure.  They are the least likely to benefit from no gas tax and most likely to be negatively impacted by an increase in the sales tax.

On the flip side, those in the upper middle class and higher who can afford to and are more likely to buy and drive unneeded gas hogs including SUV’s and sports cars will certainly benefit from no gas tax.  They will then contribute less to minimizing the economic impact of pollutant spewing gas hogs and the degradation of our transportation infrastructure.  Lastly, since they have more disposable income, the impact of a 0.8% increase in the sales taxes is much less likely to impact their personal finances.

Why Is the Super Bowl Still Held On Sunday?

Posted on by chappyshi

Seems silly after all these years.  Here are some comments:

I am not spending a lot of time on this now.  I used DuckDuckGo and Google to search for “why is the super bowl always on Sunday.  The previous three links had better responses than I generally found.   ESPN and the NFL did not chime in.  Most response seem to think that since Sunday was NFL football day it was only natural that the Super Bowl should be held on Sunday also, no matter the consequences of the next day being a work day for many people.

Global Warming?

Posted on by chappyshi

I know a lot of people don’t believe that the earth is warming and, if they do, they don’t believe the warming is caused by humans, or gaseous cud-chewing quadrupeds for that matter.  I am not going to argue either case though I believe in both of them.  I will just state the facts.

It is January 30th.  I live in the mid-Atlantic states outside of Washington, DC.  I am showing 71 degrees on the thermometer on my balcony at 1620.  My heat is off, sliding glass door to the balcony has been open since last night, and the thermostat in my apartment reads 76 degrees.  Something doesn’t seem right in the world to me.