the old times

My Aunt Jeanette wrote in Fb:

We lived near Greensburg at the time and we would drive to Liberty to visit and watch TV. There were only 2 TV sets in Liberty then. Uncle Hayes had the 2nd one and his best friend bought the first one in town. The two families lived next to each other. It always looked like half the town was on that block. The TV was small with a round screen. The picture wasn't always clear but we didn't mind. We were watching TV!!! We always stayed late to watch Wrestling. Then we would drive home and Daddy still had to milk his herd of dairy cows. And we got up and went to Sunday School and Church the next morning. Special memories.!!!

foggy day at the beach

( two more )

Saturday

I had planned on mowing the lawn yesterday. Thought I'd get out there before noon. My mom called at 10:10 asking if I was coming over. Oh, yeah, a couple of weeks ago she asked if I could help her on this day, and I think we agreed on 10:30. I wasn't even dressed yet. A friend of hers built an entertainment center for her, and needed help bringing it over. I ended up staying for a while, to help reconnect her electronics.

I got home and was looking at Facebook while eating a sandwich and got a message. The Zoom link for our meeting at 1:30. Someone was teaching me how to do website things, for my Scottish org. I'm not sure who it would have been more annoying for - her, for setting aside time for me, or me since who knows when we could have connected again. Total coincidence that I got her message at that time.

So I didn't get out to mow the lawn until 4:00.

In the evening I spent some time with my new Mustang. I learned that Sport mode is a bit annoying. It says the acceleration is a bit better and the shifting is tighter, but the main thing is that the automatic transmission stays engaged while slowing down. Apparently race car drivers downshift to reduce speed, rather than burning out the brakes? I don't know but it's really annoying. They should save that for track mode.

It has a lanekeeping mode, that warns me when I drift, and actually pushes the steering wheel a bit. It doesn't have adaptive cruise control, which adjusts my speed to the car in front of me. It has a big touch screen, but it doesn't have onboard navigation. It does allow me to sync phone apps (including ones for navigation), and use them from the touch screen, but I have to find a compatible app. The car is keyless, and it knows where the fob is. If the fob is inside the car, I can start it. If it is on me when I walk up, it unlocks the doors automatically when I reach for the door handle. I never have to take it out of my pocket!

about keys

I never wanted to carry a lot of stuff with me. I'd keep the contents of my pockets to a minimum. As few keys on my keyring as possible, and no wallet - just cash wrapped around my ID and a credit card. Over the years, I got more and more stuff to carry. At some point I started using a moneyclip, and then graduated to a real wallet. And shortly entered the cell phone era. And then car keys went from simple metal keys to the fat electronic kind. And phones got a little bigger. More bigger stuff.

But then I got an app on my phone that can control the garage door opener remotely. My mom needed to borrow my front door key in May, to come in and water the plants. I got it back from her but didn't put it back on my key ring. I can open the garage door with my phone if need be, but I'm usually in my car if I'm coming home to a locked house. I used to always have a key to my mom's house, but now there's an electronic lock, and I know the combination. I always had a third key, but when I was looking at it, I realized I didn't know what it was for. So of my remaining three keys, only two were useful, and those only marginally.

And then, with the new car came not a fat electronic key, but a much larger fob. Here's a photo of my old keychain, and the new fob. See the metal chain thing? A friend made it for me when I got my first car, over 35 years ago. That's the one unnecessarily large thing I've carried around in my pockets. But now that fob is so big, I'm not putting the old keychain on it, or even any keys.



So I say goodbye to the old keychain.