Today is the second day of Teacher Recognition Week, and I was a little surprised that teachers had a whole week, whereas most public recognition is confined to a 24-hour span. I had thought that this was a case of mission-creep, expanding from one day to a week, and, because most teachers are public employees of some stripe, perhaps a case of Government-bloating.
Well, surprise, surprise, surprise. Teachers aren’t the only ones to have staked out a week for themselves. Over at the National Today site, one can find a truly staggering list of Appreciation Days. Whatever wildly-inflated number of such days you thought there were, you are almost certainly low. Very low. Today, 7 May, is Beaufort Scale Day, National Avery Day, National Foster Care Day, National Packaging Design Day, and Poem on Your Pillow Day. It is also the second day of Donkey Week. Given the general political inclinations of teachers, there is maybe a pithy observation somewhere in there.
Besides teachers and donkeys, other week-long May-specific recognitions are:
Youth Week 4 May to 10 May. New Zealand only.
National Correctional Officers Week First full week in May. What, not 5 to 10?
National Tourism Week 5 May to 10 May.
Pet Appreciation Week 5 May to 11 May
Public Service Recognition Week 5 May to 11 May
National Salvation Army Week 13 May – 19 May. Originally observed 28 November to 4 December.
National Police Week 15 May – 21 May
International Coaching Week 17 May – 23 May
Public Works Week 19 May – 25 May
British Tomato Fortnight 20 May – 2 June. A period of two weeks, but more than a day, less than a month.
And that is just May. For spins and giggles, I looked at my birthday. It includes National Baker Day, Redhead Appreciation Day, and World Reflexology Week. I notice that the day prior is International Day of Radiant Peace, and the day after is Bluebird of Happiness Day. What the hell? I feel like I was born on a rather inauspicious day, a sort of Valley of the Shadow kind of thing. Well, I can claim the First Day of Autumn. Some years.
Random Images
The second reason people don’t like sports car owners. The first, of course, being driving without regard for public safety. If one looks to the right, and behind, one will see an entire shopping mall worth of parking, with an abundance of empty stalls. If desired, you can easily park far away from other cars. There is no reason whatever to park directly in front of product, outside the owner’s dumbassery. They may not want to risk door dings, but here are a couple of realities: 1) if you drive your car in the real world, you have to accept the possibility of real-world damage. 2) If you look on the bottom edges of the fenders and rocker panels, you will see many small chips and dings from the wheels throwing up debris on the road. Every car has them. The car is not flawless.
I was hoping someone would need fertilizer, and ‘accidently’ have one split open on the car.
Imagine my surprise when I flipped on the bedroom light, and saw I had a visitor. Picked it up by the tail, opened the door, and tossed it back into the woods.
We’ve had cars and animals, now a bit of both. A couple of Jaguars in front of my local, recently. Honestly, that’s more class than this place can stand.
I was reading an article in which the author was complaining about the quality of their car’s phone connection. This is a subject on which I have zero experience. Only one of my vehicles has provisions for a phone connection, but it is old enough, and the manufacturer’s reputation for legacy support is poor enough, that I have never used it. I hooked up my phone to a rental car once, just to see how it worked. I never actually used it while driving.
While folks uncounted use their phones as the vehicle’s infotainment system, and to conduct all manner of business, my vehicles are no-phone zones. This has created problems in business, and with a couple of bosses. I am not talking on the phone while I am operating a motor vehicle. Passengers give me side-eye as my phone rings away, unattended. “You gonna answer that?” “Nope. I’m driving. They can go to voice mail.” As I pull away from the light on time.
This is an entirely personal choice, and I would not want to interfere with other people’s choices, but there are some considerations. When you are driving, you are operating a vehicle that may weigh over two tons at highway speeds in tight quarters with people of unknown ability and vehicles of unknown maintenance history. Professional race drivers can operate at the speeds and clearances they do, because a racetrack is a tightly-controlled environment. Standards for everything are very high, and everyone involved must meet them. Public roads are the exact opposite. The extant standards are designed to be as inclusive as possible while maintaining some reasonable assurance you will get to your destination alive. Fairly low, in other words.
So, the environment demands more than the usual attention. If you are driving in an area where pedestrians, bicycles, and motor vehicles are all moving at about the same speeds, demanded attention is greatly increased. And if you are doing this in a foreign country, where an incident can easily turn into a nightmare, you should probably be fully attentive. None of these scenarios seems ideal for distracted driving, but people will blithely chat away. The argument that mandated hands-free comm reduces the distraction factor is true, but does not address the primary cause of distraction. While not having a hand-held device relieves the brain of having to pay attention to the thing, that’s just the passive part of the situation. The active part, holding, and thinking about, a conversation, is the primary distraction. This is proven every day, and I bet you have, in the very recent past, been around someone on the road who is having an animated conversation. You think they are paying attention to their driving? There are legal implications, too. If you are at fault in an accident, the police are going to check your phone records, and God help you if you were on the phone, hands-free or not.
Some of my opinion here is shaped by how I look at my phone. It is not a device to make me accessible to the world; it’s a way for me to access the world. If I am otherwise undistracted, or have set aside time for business, phone away. Otherwise, it’s voicemail for you. And, I like driving. Whether company vehicle or my own. I like paying attention to how the vehicle is interacting with the road, how fast I can (legally) take a curve, timing traffic light gaps to minimize braking, safely exploiting traffic, like that. There’s driving excitement in traffic if you are paying attention, which can’t be enjoyed if you are conversing.
There’s the social responsibility aspect, too. Driving is held to be a privilige, and that legal argument has been made. But, as they say, with great privilege comes great responsibility, and in the US, at least, that isn’t emphasized on the street. You drive a vehicle, to an extent you assume responsibility for the lives of everyone around you. American history and culture put this responsibility more on the person than the society, but it is a responsibility, nonetheless. I suspect no more is made of this, because the Whining Class is on the phone, too. But, really, even Hollywood has acknowledged the dangers of phoning and driving. Remember how Stephen Vincent Strange ruined his hands?
Playoff Sportsball
I have been listening to the NBA and NHL playoffs on internet radio, so I can listen to the home announcers for games. The NBA blacks-out home games, so you have to listen to the visitor’s broadcast crew. I have long preferred local broadcasts to the national ones, because the best team broadcasters are homers, as is their job, making for a more involving experience. Former Portland Trailblazer play-by-play guy Mark Wheeler was the definition of homer, and his broadcasts were highly entertaining. It is educational listening to how different people handle the same job. It’s also shown me that the NHL Seattle Kraken announcers could use significant improvement. Somehow, other announcers get a lot more game detail into the play-by-play than the local crew. It’s also fun listening to ‘foreign’ market commercials. During Dallas Stars games, one firm touts, “One State. One Team. Texas Hockey”, which sounds hilarious.
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