Robert Pence

My alcohol consumption decreased markedly as soon as I became legal. Now I'm completely out of practice - one or two beers and I either fall asleep or get unruly. There's no way of predicting which will happen; either way I guess I'm not what you'd call a cheap date - at least not a fun cheap date.

Great views of a Cleveland the tourists never see. The heavy-industry landscape can be very dramatic.

Wonderful old-school beach resort, with local enterprises and not a lot of chains (other than the ones the bikers wear). The cabins look pretty nice. I camped once at the state park, after labor day. I was one of the few campers there, and enjoyed it a lot; the shore is most interesting in stormy weather.

Very sweet small towns, in good condition with active downtowns. I'm impressed that they have local pharmacies and hardware stores, and the historic structures look well cared for.

Good Stuff!

I only know of one way to stop getting older. :-)

Thanks for all the happy birthdays. I think I'll keep on having them for a while longer. :wave:

Verizon for close to 4 years. No complaints.

Don't listen to him. You might not like to hear what I have to say, but I know it's for your own good!

You're just jealous over the spanking! :-P

Thanks, MTS! I sure hope I don't get a spanking for my birthday. :angel:

"... my partner and I ..." Of all the forumers ... :roll: :wink:

I wanna' move to Florida! Bunch o' retired northern geezers still harboring their aggressive driving habits, eyesight and reflexes long gone, maybe some tremors and dementia, with guns tucked in beside the center consoles of their Cadillacs. I'd want an armored automobile, or at least bulletproof glass.

To follow this digression farther off-topic - I agree. I was a loyal fan of Kodak films until they discontinued the ones I liked best. I had a 24x36 print made from a 35mm Royal Gold 100 negative shot with a Nikon FM and very sharp 35mm wide angle lens, and it was crisp and virtually grain-free. I learned about the discontinuance when I tried to buy some at Central Camera in Chicago. The salesman suggested some others to try, and that was when I established a new love relationship with Fuji Reala 100. For transparencies my favorite became Fuji Provia 100F; in 35mm I think it sort of mimics the old Kodachrome 10 (pre-1962) - strong saturation and fine grain. I like it better in medium format; the contrast seems a little more manageable than the 35mm, and it handles reds beautifully. Scanned and converted to grayscale, it makes some butt-kicking black and white prints, too. The grain is so fine that medium format Provia 100F prints as nicely as 4x5 TMax 100. I'll shut up now, so y'alls can get back to topic. I still have a vivid mental image of stopping by unexpectedly at a house I rented to some students, on a Saturday night. The first thing I saw was a guy on his hands and knees, headed for the bathroom as fast as he could crawl and not making it. I had major repairs after that bunch moved out. The living room and dining room floors sloped two inches toward the center of the house. How do you crack an 8x8 sill that supports the first floor? What they called "dancing" amounted to fifty or sixty people jumping up and down in time with a beat. It's a wonder they didn't collapse the house.

It's a wheelbarrow. City kids. Sheesh!

Speak fo' yo' self, girlfriend. I try to bring enough poor redneck white-trash values to the table to even things out. Now, you two settle down and play nice before I order you to kiss and make up. :-P

No. That's a big part of the problem. :roll:

Born in the city, raised on a dairy farm, moved back to the city at age 19, but 50 years later I still don't have all the manure off my boots. I still go back regularly and enjoy the fields and the woods and antique farm machinery.

69 Tomorrow. The age, not the act. :angel:

You mean we can't? Oh. :oops:

Not necessarily. Just yesterday, I saw a woman reading a newspaper and talking on her cell phone while driving. I've seen people reading, eating, drinking, fixing their hair and/or makeup, even shaving while driving. :-D It's terrifying! :-o

I'm pre-WWII. Into the 1950s in many cities traffic signals were on posts on the street corners, and usually they were painted black or dark green, not yellow. Drivers really had to be paying attention. Around 1962 I visited Erie, Pennsylvania. On some of the residential streets the traffic signals were two-color, red and green with no yellow. In one direction the red was on top and on the cross street the green was on top. Only two bulbs and a simple switch were required to display all signal aspects.

I first saw the West Side Market in 1978, and it's been on my must-visit list ever since, every time I go to Cleveland. On one of my early visits, I was taking photos when a woman charged up to me and shouted with a strong East European accent, "No Pictures! No Pictures! I break you camera!" All the while, she was hitting me. I had to go outside and sit down and regather myself for a while.

Good idea; I hadn't thought of that. If the AC heating element had sufficient mass, it could continue to provide heat for a little while even when unplugged. People seem desperate to hang onto the concept of private auto transportation by any means possible, like battery power, hydrogen fuel cells, etc., when the real problem isn't the on-board energy source. Excessive dependency on private autos is the root problem, and many other issues stem from it. Batteries have to be charged somehow or energy has to be expended to isolate hydrogen. Manufacturing automobiles and their tires, and paving roads where they can be driven and spaces where they can be parked for most of their existence consume tremendous amounts of energy and create chemical and heat pollution of air and water. As automobiles become more technically sophisticated, they become more expensive, and efficient cars are least affordable for the people who need them most. More efficient cars don't address the social inequity that results from bad land policies that result from or are even required by excessive use of private autos. Sorry. I'll stop now. :oops:

Amazingly, some "conservatives" still rant against taxpayer money for passenger rail while ignoring the massive assistance that continues to pour into the collapsing commercial aviation industry. Airports are virtually all municipal entities that don't pay property tax on their buildings, runways, etc., thrusting additional tax burden onto homeowners and private businesses. Municipalities build and maintain airports with local tax revenues and federal assistance, and charge the airlines far less than cost-recovery rates to use them. The federal government spends billions of dollars annually from general fund revenues (your taxes and mine) to provide air traffic control for commercial and civil aviation, and pays for security. Most Amtrak trains travel over freight railroads that pay property tax on the land and improvements in their infrastructure. A portion of the property tax they pay is reflected in the fees they charge Amtrak. Railroads pay for their own traffic control systems (dispatching and signaling), and again, part of those costs gets passed along to Amtrak. Commercial aviation benefits much more from subsidy money than does passenger rail, and airlines' cost-cutting, failures and financial crises, often bailed out by taxpayers, are rampant. The combination of deregulation and taxpayer-funded infrastructure has led to this current situation. Municipalities provide terminal facilities at below cost to airlines who are free to add and cancel flights willy-nilly to cherry-pick the market, and undercapitalized startup carriers jump in and survive just long enough to keep ticket prices below levels necessary to sustain the industry. If airline deregulation is to continue, the industry should be privatized. An airline should have to buy into the capital costs of an airport it wants to serve and pay an allocation of the airport's operating costs on a monthly basis. If it decides to discontinue service at a particular airport, its only option for recovering its investment should be to sell its share, preferably to another carrier. Failing that, it should have to recognize the loss on its shareholders' report. Reimbursement by airlines for FAA costs like air traffic control should be phased in over a period of time. If we're going invoke a free market and privatization for one transport mode, let's privatize them all and give the much-vaunted market forces a chance to shape a balanced national transportation system. </ :speech:> That sounds fair to me. If they're going to base fares and fees on the cost of service, why should I, at under 150 pounds, pay the same fare as someone who weighs upwards of 300, and then pay the same extras for baggage? I think they should weigh each passenger and his/her baggage together, and then allocate fuel costs to each passenger based on the aggregate weight of all the passengers and baggage. And for snacks they can put vending machines in the gate area so that passengers can buy their snacks before boarding. Then they can ditch the heavy cart and possibly one flight attendant, and have room for one or two more paying passengers. I didn't spend 16 years as a manufacturing cost analyst for nothin' :-D