Olympics 5

There are sports that are exciting and there are sports that bore me to sleep. Badminton is one. To watch a badminton game is one of the most boring thing in the world. It is on par with curling. Badminton is a combination of tennis and volleyball but in a much slower environment.

Chinese seem to be very good at it. I guess they play a lot of badminton over there. To me that is a picnic game to be played when a bunch of friends get together but not a sport to be in the Olympics.

Many years ago, in the early days of the modern Games chess was on the program. But I guess the games were already over and the players were still thinking on their opening moves. Eventually it was removed.

I am curious to see what new activity they will introduce at the next Olympics since all idiotic sports are in already. 

Some people say that ballroom dancing is a sport, called dancesport, and for years they were trying to have it included in the Olympics with no success. I think it would be more interesting than badminton and. it would force those women in the back countries to rethink their attitudes. 

Health

I had an older cousin, unfortunately he passed away last year, who was a fantastic brain. I loved him very much and regardless of the distance, he lived in Hungary, we were very close. He was afraid of flying. He wouldn't have flied if his life had depended on it. Because of that hw gave up many travel opportunities.

His favorite saying was, when they build a bridge over the Bering Strait, from Russia to Alaska, he would come to the US by bus.

Anyway the last stop in his legal career was the Hungarian Constitutional Court. This is similar to our Supreme Court. When he was elected I congratulated him and told him that now he had a lifetime position. He informed me that in Hungary there were no lifetime appointments, at age 70 there was a mandatory retirement from the court.

In discussing this he said he was against lifetime position because at an advanced age the person is developing all kinds of health problems and that makes it very difficult to concentrate on important issues. Now that I have to look back at 70 with a pair of binoculars I kind of agree with him. Some Supreme Court justices hung on to their jobs until the very end. They were ill, they were in and out of hospitals yet, refused to resign.

I am not too bad off, outside of some minor problems, but I can not see myself sitting at a desk 8-10 hours a day or listening and concentrating on very important issues on a daily basis. I know that work keeps a person going but it seems to me that sticking to the job is very selfish.

Maybe in a private professional practice a person can keep going where the hours are not that strict and the workload can be chosen but in a job of national importance not resigning seems to me is a very selfish thing. 

I am sure it is not the money that keeps them going.

 

Olympics 4

 I was always a fan of the Olympic games. The variety of the sport events, the international talent and the (sometimes false) image of enthusiasm that accompanies each performance was always interest to me.

Watching the Opening Ceremonies I couldn't help but admire the women athletes from countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern Muslim countries as well as Afghanistan and others where women are not treated as equals. These women must overcome discrimination and other hardships to succeed at their chosen sports. 

Even though they know that they do not live in a perfect system they still chose to represent their own country and march proudly under their flags. That is what sportsmanship is all about.

Many years ago, when I lived in Hungary I could not comprehend the meaning of professional athlete. I could not understand how can one get paid to do sports. Even though back then they had athletes who received help from the government. This help was in the form of job with all the time off to train or a military commission with all the time to train.

It was not an accident that the best athletes and teams came from the club that was affiliated with the military. This is how it was in the Soviet Union and also in all the countries under their control. But, they never admitted that these people were professionals.

Now things changed. People get into sports to make money. The more popular a sport is more money can be made. Look at tennis, golf, baseball, basketball and soccer (football). The amount of money these people are getting paid is obscene!

Why go to school when with a normal job one can never make these amounts?     

Olympics 3

American media always glorifies athletes in various sport events before their performances. Maybe other countries do the same and it could be understandable since everybody want to win. But the Americans go to all lengths to start celebrating even before the event happens.

This leads to enormous pressure on the athletes and false hope to the rooting public. And, huge disappointment in the case of loss that happens frequently. 

Case in point, Simone Biles star gymnast. She won gold medals in the previous Olympic games, made a name for herself, turned pro and made a bundle of money. She made the Olympic team for Tokyo but was not able to present stellar performance as accepted and hyped. She withdrew from the team competition, and gave a chance for someone else to take her place.

This was the fair thing to do. We all have to realize that she is human and not a gymnast machine. Similar things happen in other sports. Baseball for instance. This is a typical American sport yet, on the international fields other countries are better than the US. Cuba is a baseball powerhouse and so is Japan. And where are the Americans? Nowhere! And so is the story with basketball. 

I can understand that the expensive professional club players are not taking part where in the Olympics because they don't want to chance injury and to their owners the club victory is more important than the Olympic games, but where does that leave the American prestige? 

 

Olympics 2

I have been watching quite a bit of the Olympics. There are two channels that show full time and one that show part time the events, so there are enough to watch. Unfortunately, because of the 13 hours difference there is really no live broadcast. They are are 13 hours ahead and here on the East Coast they are playing catch up.

Also understandably, here they are showing primarily where Americans are involved. I'm sure in Hungary they show where Hungarians are involved. But regardless interesting sport competitions are always good to watch.

Every Olympic games introduce some new sport events into their programs. Events they claim became popular and events some country is pushing because they are very good at it. This is a list of sports that are included in this year's programming or were previously already included:

surfing

sport climbing

3x3 basketball

trampoline gymnastics

golf

artistic swimming

skateboarding

trampoline

To me none of these are real sports. Some of them are limited to be involved in and some of them I see no sport value at all. Some are practiced by a few some are practically unknown except to the ones whom practice it. I like to see good sport events, but I am not really interested to see people trying to climb a wall and hanging by their fingers. Or skateboarders making funny jumps. Artistic swimming reminds me of Esther Williams movies. Then it was interesting now, not. This is not a sport one can see people freely engaging in at pools.

Golf is another joke. Golfers are in it to make money. Less strenuous than tennis but money is there to make. I can not see athletes from Saudi Arabia or Congo or Yemen or Mongolia taking part in the golf tournament.

Maybe I am a cynic but this is my opinion. 

 

Sunday

 Today is Sunday and I decided to take the day off. Tomorrow is another day!

Olympics

Friday night  they showed the opening ceremony of the 2020 (in 2021) Summer Olympic games from Tokyo. It was long and boring. First hour they showed stuff I don't think anybody cared about. These tv people are in love with their own voices. They talk just for the sake of talking.  Anyway, the ceremony was held in a totally empty stadium with no spectators except VIPs including the emperor of Japan and Lady Biden. The ceremony looked more like a rehearsal than the opening of the games.

The entertainment portion was something I did not understand. It was interesting but I think it was too Japanese. They probably did understand it. The only interesting part was the marching out of the various countries with their athletes. These athletes were young, vibrant, happy to be there and eager to get down to "business".

Interesting observation I made. With the exception of the Middle Eastern Muslim countries the racial mixture of the athletes were notable. Black African countries had white skinned participants while traditionally white European countries had black and oriental members. This proves that the world is shrinking, there are no distances any longer. Living and working in an other environment is becoming more and more popular.

Interesting facts.                                                                                                                                            There is a soccer goalie for the Japanese national team by the name of Daniel Schmidt. Not a typical Japanese name. Was born in the Us toa German American father and Japanese mother and was raised in Japan.                                                                                                                                                    There is a Hungarian fencer by the name of Aida Mohamed. Not a typical Hungarian name. Was born in Hungary to a Syrian father and Hungarian mother and she was the flag bearer for the Hungarian team at the opening ceremonies. By the way she is married to a Canadian fencer. Their kids will have difficulties to figure out who they are. 

Weird world we live in!

  

The Book

We are living in the 21st century where nothing is impossible. That is what we are made to believe but it comes down to the details one finds out the multitude of roadblocks. 

My wife wrote a book. That alone is a major accomplishment. The book's original language is in Hungarian but it was also translated to English.

Hungarian language is weird. Its vowels are filled with special accents, without those words lose their meanings. The American keyboards have no such keys to show the accented letters. And, that makes a book written in other than English a curiosity. There are a few publishers who accept such a manuscript but they do not guarantee the correctness of the printing.

The book was not printed in Hungarian for local publishing but wanted it to be available if needed. Even though publishers require a downloadable script they are still having problems with the presence of accents.

We found a Hungarian self publishing company in Hungary who at first said they have no problem printing a book even if it was put together in the US. Ever since then they have one issue after another, European size even if off by 2 millimeters is not the same as the US size. We had to reformat the pages, the pictures and thus the entire book to please them.

Interestingly, when we called them at the start they were very positive about this book's publishing. Later as time went by they came up with more and more excuses. And every excuse had a price tag.

It is a shame that just because we are on the other side of the ocean they make it look like we are living in a different world.

 

Summer

So far this Summer has been pretty lousy. We had a few record hot days but mainly the weather was unpredictable. Storms, rain lightning and thunder. I remember when we used to go to the beach several times a week and were able to enjoy the sun and surf. 

Ok, now I am paying the piper for the sun but in hindsight it was worth it. This sounds stupid and childish but for years I had great times being out in the open. Thankfully, I don't have sensitive skin and I was able to stay in the sun without any problems. In later years my skin changed and little things showed up. According to my dermatologists they were the results of sun damage.

If I look at the years mathematically like good times versus restrictions, I had much more good time years than restrictions. Actually, the sun restrictions (voluntarily) only started a couple of years ago. Meaning, I had 80+ years without any problems. I doubt that I will have another 80 years where I will have to restrict myself from enjoying the sun. If I do I'll live with it!

Space Trip

I can not understand the social value of yesterday's space trip. A billionaire went on  10 minute space trip and took a few people along. I don't know if he did it for kicks or there was something important about this.

To pay for this for Bezos it is like for me to pay for a subway fare. It is lunch money. They went up, experienced weightlessness, jumped around like kids and returned to earth. What was the meaning of this if not just plain publicity? Is Amazon planning to use this as a new delivery system?

Three billionaires are in competition to see who gets to space first. Virgin Atlantic's Branson, Bezos and Musk are  racing against each other to see who will win. Maybe all three will and this will create a space traffic jam.

After this flight they all talked about their space experiences. What experience? At least the billionaire space tourists in the past who went using the Russian rockets stayed at the space stations and worked with the real astronauts up there. And stayed more than ten minutes.

Maybe I too much of a cynic but I see nothing tom  cheer about this. Now, if I had gone up there it would have been different.

Doogie Howser

Do you remember Doogie Howser, M.D.? This was a tv show in the late 1980s about a genius kid who became a licensed doctor at age 14. 

He was smart, he knew everything, he was a genius. Today's kids suffer from the Doogie Howser syndrome. Unfortunately, not all of them are on genius level even if they think they are.

To live 60-70-80 years in this world a person will gather some life experience, and knowledge willfully or just because things do happen. It is human nature to share one's experiences with others. Some will accept it some will resent it, and that is also human nature.

In the case of our children we try to instill our experiences and knowledge, hoping they will come handy in their lives. Sadly, these attempts are frequently rejected. They are rejected with the responses that those things happened long time ago and this is now, and you are old and you have no idea what is happening now.

They never realize the intentions of goodwill. They think that by trying to help them out we are exerting control over their lives. But when all else fails can they stand on their own feet to solve their problems? The answer is no! First ones to turn to are the parents. And if we say I told you so, they get insulted.

These kids should realize that Doogie Howser was a fictional character. There is no Doogie Howser in today's world. 

Smart Kids

We are living in a very lucky time period. On the other hand, this might have been the norm in other times, too.

We are surrounded with kids who are sooo smart! There is no problem, domestic or worldwide that they have no solution to. They have an answer to everything. They know everything better than anybody older than they are. If they carry this enormous knowledge into their future the fate of the world is...

Whenever we have an issue at home and are trying to make a suggestion or advice based on knowledge or experience there is always a retort based on the internet or God knows what. That is why they all walk around with their smartphone glued to their hands because that is the great advisor.

In our house Abigail regularly checks the expiration dates on everything in the refrigerator. A day over, and it is not edible any longer. It does not matter if we explain that the particular item will not turn bad like clockwork on the expiration date, she will not eat it. She claims that she knows better.

In health related issues mom does not know better. The internet does, and that rules out the use of long accepted home remedies.

But when a problem arises that they can not solve where do they turn first? Mom!

Abigail

Abigail has many friends. Most of her friends are from the middle school and high school days. Some friends she is very close to some are just there. There is this girl she is very close to because they know each other since middle school. 

It seems that when Abigail started middle school she did not know anybody there. and this girls was one of the first to approach her and be nice to her. Thus, a friendship was born and is going strong for about six years now.

That is nothing compared to some of my friends who keep close to each other for over 65 years already, but it is a start.

June 2 was old Abigail's birthday and as a present this girl and her family invited her for a weekend at their (I think timeshare). She was there in previous years but in those years she had to pay for her food and entertainement. This time is a present and all costs are covered. 

They left Friday afternoon and we will pick her up this afternoon. Unfortunately, she has class Monday morning so, she can not stay any longer. She didn't call much and we guess that she is enjoying herself. Right now, the weather is pretty crappy but I hope it has no effect on their good time.

As far as me, I am enjoying the peace and quiet. Whenever Abigail goes away, the first thing she asks of me if I had missed her, and my answer is always: no. But in reality, I do miss her. It is very quiet here. Even Robin misses her. He doesn't understand what is happening, why she is not here. But I think he got used to it. But when she will come home Robin will be in total ecstasy. 

So today we are looking forward to a trip.

Netflix

Netflix is bottomless pit of programming to watch. I got hooked on watching foreign tv series with English subtitles. Some of them are pretty good.

I just finished watching a Turkish tv series that had about 200 episodes. I didn't watch it in one day but usually watched a few episodes every day. The other day I got into a Mexican drama series called Monarca. I watched one episode when my wife joined me and literally got hooked on it. We started seeing three to four episodes before turning off the set. Yesterday this thing bgot so intense that we watched it until 2 am. Walking Robin, shower, by the time we got to bed it was 3 am.

Today we finished this story and are ready for the next one. She is standing behind me and saying: not me! We'll see.

Me

I am not obsessed with old age, but since I am surrounded with it (my own) this is a major subject for me. It is a psychological phenomena. I sit on the sofa (lately a lot), and watch TV. Looking at various physical acts happening within a given storyline I keep telling myself that I can do those (just because I used to be able to). 

Then reality hits in. I have to get up, let's say to go to get a drink, and I realize that I can barely walk. Sitting in the car for an extended period of time makes walking difficult until my bones/muscles get used to it. At the start I waddle like a duck. Normal and painless walking takes a while, and I still have to use a cane for balance.

Now, in my book this is old age. I don't believe marathon runners at my age. They probably use some muscle builders that will over strain their systems, but they are doing it just for show. I believe our bodies are telling us it is time to slow down at by this time.

Thanks to Robin, I do walk enough but unfortunately sitting on the sofa is a primary occupation. I never had a sharp mind, so I can not tell if it is dull or just duller. There are names I can not remember until I hear it or read about it but then I have no problem with association.

The bottom line is that I don't want to see the end of the road. I have plans to be with my family for quite a while without being a nuisance to them.

Not Happy

Anno, long time ago when I left Hungary I corresponded with my parents through weekly letters. Every single week I wrote a long letter telling them how my life was taking shape in this new country. In return my Mother and Father also wrote weekly letters.

There was a time period when my Mom filled her letters with information about what neighbor, acquaintance, somebody I barely knew passed away. I complained and asked why was she writing so much sad events. She responded that these people were old and sick that that was the way of life. I expected this response even though in those years I had no clear understanding of old and sick.

This leads up to what I want to write about. 

My wife is very distraught these days. Yesterday she talked to a childhood friend of hers who lives in Canada and found out how sick she was. We knew she was not well but always hoped that she was going to get better. Contrary, she unfortunately is not. She is a very nice person, I know her and she does not deserve to be like this. Lost a lot of weight, in and out of hospital, several complications. It is terrible to hear such news. And, she is not even old.

Another close friend of hers lives in Hungary and she has a tumor in her brain. Very sad. This is a very bright lady, not old at all, tries to function as much as possible. So far no serious effects are shown but it is there. Another friend of my wife has leukemia.

These are all younger people, not yet 60.

I have a friend who walks with a cane another has Parkinson's and an other who has Alzheimer. These are older people but that does not make it permissible. 

  

Cuba

Something is stirring in Cuba. And what do the American politicians do? Shoot their mouth off. Words are cheap and bear very little responsibility. Good old Biden is rooting for the demonstrations. Some politicians say we should help the dissatisfied masses. Typical. This country has a great reputation getting involved on the wrong side.

I remember October 23, 1956, the day of the Hungarian revolution. People picked up weapons against the Soviet Union and its Hungarian representatives. There we fighting on the streets and people died from both sides of this short lived war.

And what did the great USA did? Sent messages saying keep fighting, help is coming, help is on the way. With hope the freedom fighters kept fighting and dying until they realized that there was no help coming from anybody. This country's leaders decided while the people were dying that it was not worth risking a war with the Soviets. This just proves that words from politicians are cheap and are rarely to be believed.

I hope the Cubans have a good sense to know that this country with the exceptions of words and news articles will not move an inch toward giving a helping hand. 

Film

Abigail is the person responsible for our social programs and entertainments. When we do things together it is always something that she likes. That does not always turns out exactly to our likings. And this time was just that.

My wife and I don't go to the movies frequently. First it is expensive, second there is never a film that we really want to see. The American  film industry is not known for creating tasteful movies. They create movies that sell, and that does not spell tasteful.

Sunday we had the misfortune to go and see a terrible movi by the title hof  Te Forever Purge. Seeing this film will certainly assure that we will not go again for a very long time.

The story in short is that in a future society the US government allows once a year a 12 hour time period when any crime may be committed without penalty. In this movie after gthe 12 hour period is over this lunacy continues. Their aim is to kill anybody who is not a real American, like Hispanics. And, they are doing in a most disgusting ways.

This is a franchise with four previous films of similar subjects. For the fans of this kind of entertainment there will be a sixth one coming.

The movie was loud, distasteful and had I known it I would have stayed home. If this is the masterpiece of the American film industry, they should be ashamed of themselves. 

The film is good for the hard of hearings because it is so loud that the total deaf could also hear it.

Forever Purge

Sunday

 As the Good Book says, Sunday is a day of rest.

Thinking Loud

I figured out a while ago that to have an intelligent conversation with anybody, the best candidate is myself. That prompted me to start frequently talking to me Actually that is a safe way to have a conversation. I usually agree with myself, I never argue with myself. So, the converations are always pleasant.

But it can lead to embarassing situations. One day I was sitting in the car waiting for my wife. To while the timde away we (me and me) started a conversation. But since I was alone I was talking loud. Not loud loud but with voice.

Suddenly I realized that somebody was knocking on the window. It was my wife. I lowered the window and asked what was wrong. She asked who was I talking to, because she saw my lips moving. I told her it was my best conversation partner. Naturally, she was slightly insulted, and called me a crazy old man.

I am not crazy, I have not split personality. I just like to think loud and thus I express my thinking. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today is Saturday. The girls are at the hairdresser because Abigail decided to have her hair cut a little, and also put some highlight into the hair. I am sure she will look fine.

But I wonder why women always think of what to do with their hair what they have some spare time. Men never do that. I never thought that should I have hippie style hair or crew cut or mohawk style or should I go bald even though I have lots of spare time. I'm just glad I have hair.

More Vaccine

We are still amongst the living. Yesterday we all got shot no. 2. It went very smoothly. This injection is given with such small needle that I could barely notice it. I only saw my dermatologist to use such small needles.

I had so far no aftereffect of any kind. Abigail had some headaches but my wife feels more uncomfortable. She is left handed so the injection was administered in her right arm. Now she can not lift her right arm because it hurts. She also had some headaches.

I hope these symptoms will shortly go away. We all received certificates, certifying receiving theNoe we are three more statistics in Biden's list. He must be very happy! I am waiting for his call to congratulate us.

Vaccine

I have to admit that life is not without events. Desired or just happening without any planing.

Yesterday the refrigerator story, today we as a family are going for our second vaccine shots.

Honestly, because I do not trust the system, I am a little apprehensive about it. Will any of us get sick, will we have some unnecessary aftereffect? I hope not.

The peculiar thing is that the rules are changing daily. We make certain arrangements and by the time we try to do what was required it turns out that it is no longer necessary. This puts a lot of confidence in the entire system. The president has no clue, Fauci mysteriously disappeared. Institutions are changing their rules at whim.

I noticed that at stores the mask policy is not being enforced. A few months ago if I went into a store and forgot to put my mask on a panick stricken employee warned me to correct my error. Now, nobody seem to care. Now, if this is official or just people are getting tired of all the rules, I don't know.

But normalcy is trying to come back, and it is about time. 

Fridge

Every household have some unheralded members, ones who get no credit, no respect and no attention. But when they are no longer at their full potential that is a great loss.

That is the kind of loss we just suffered. A dear and quiet member of our family left us. Our refrigerator has died. It went to refrigerator heaven. I always maintained that refrigerators are the most unappreciated appliences in a household. We take them for granted but when they give up it is very sad.

We have two fridges in our apartment and the smaller one just gave up. Warm beer is only liked by the brits but warm soda is totally unbearable. We started to look around and you wouldn't believe that there is a refrigerator shortage. At least for the kind we wanted. And when we found one, delivery time varied between a week and a month. Totally unacceptable.

My resourceful wife looked and looked until she found a solution. Home Depot had the refrigerator we wanted but witha one week delivery time. But if we bought two, next day delivery was doable. So, she ordered two. Fortunately. our apartment is large enough for all these refrigerators. We drink an enormous amount of water and other drinks and were not able to store them properly. Now we will be.

Home Depot gave us a delivery window between 6 am and 10 am. So we got up early to wait. It is 10 am now and there is no trace of our stuff. They sent a notice that says they are on the truck and the delivery window is now has been extended until 8 pm. Ridiculous, no? We are just sitting around, doing nothing just waiting for the refrigerators.

Why didn't we call a repair service?

Ps: 11:30 the delivery showed up. All's well that ends well.

Tennis

Having a lots of time on my hand I became an avid sport event watcher, and observer of facts. I intensely watched the Australian Open, the French Open and now the Wimbledon tennis tournaments, and I came up with some conclusions.

When I was at the age of selecting something to do with my future, the choices were technical, health related, general academia and whatever else looked promising.

Now, it seems to me that at least for Eastern Europeans and for former members of the Soviet Union tennis is the primary goal. The names of the majority of the men's and women's players end with ...ova, ...vich, ...enko or similar, indicating that they all are of slavic origin even if they are swiss, german, austrian or any other wester european country's citizens.

When I had to choose a future nobody asked me if I wanted to be a tennis player. Maybe I did, and then I could have become a wealthy person. I have nothing against this. I just find it interesting how certain nationalities can excel in certain sports.

Hubgary used to be like that in soccer, but that was eons ago and now they are nowhere in the world. Now that professional sports rule the world, Hungary also has some players who play for clubs in other countries but when they try to put a national team together they can not perform.

Those were the good old days, and they are now just vague memories. 

Off

This is the long holiday weekend, when people enjoy peace and quiet. Because of that I will take this one day off and try to get ready for a "busy" week ahead.

The Fourth

Today is the middle of the Fourth of July weekend. Since the Fourth falls on Sunday, Monday is an official holiday. The government does not want to shortchange the poor workers so it was declared that if a holiday falls on Sunday the next day is also a holiday.

When I still worked I used to love these long weekends. Now it doesn't make any difference. My life is nothing but a long weekend. That is what's called the ultimate retirement. Yesterday it was cool, in the 60s and raining the better part of the day. Today, Sunday it is dry so far but not summery hot. Typically, tomorrow, the last day of the weekend promises to be the best of them all. Tough luck for the working class.

We don't have any special plans for this event. Life goes on as usual. Abigail is in constant studying mode and the results are showing with very good grades. She is studying chemistry and calculus 1. 90% of what she is studying I have no clues about. Fortunately, she is not asking for any help because that would be very embarrassing (for me). We are very proud of her.

Happiness

Yesterday I had a very good day. My wife and I had a lots of things to take care of and were kind of busy outside our home. Abigail was home studying the better part of eevery day now. So, totally out of character we decided to eat out.

I have to admit that since this pandemic nonsense started I don't think I ate out more than a half a dozen times. So this was big event for me.

We decided to go to a nearby barbecue restaurant were we visited several times in the past. The girls had chicken wings while I had a half rack baby back ribs. I love these ribs and I always order them without any smear, sauce on them. They always taste very good.

Since we were in a happy mood, my wife ordered two Texas size frozen raspberry margueritas. We like this drink. Actually we like any kind of margueritas, frozen or not. The drinks true to the name came in  humongeous glasses. I drank mine before my dinner was finished. My wife was only able to finish half of hers, and I as a good husband helped her out.

From then on my happiness knew no limits. I giggled, said stupid things and plainly just acted like an idiot. It was good thing that I was not driving because if I did this blog would have not been written. I never realized this drink was so strong. But it tasted oh good!

When we got home after stumbling left and right I sat down and immediately fell asleep. It turned out that I slept for over three hours. According to Abigail and my wife I smelt alcohol. I didn't think I was drunk I was just happy. Everybody is entitled ro a little happiness, right?

Longevity

 I had a haircut the other day. Thank God I still have hair and it seems to grow very well. They say that reflects good health. I hope so!

My barber is an older russian gentleman who does pretty good work. His work matches the american styles.

Anyway he told me that the other day he had a costumer who was born in 1916. Can you believe this? My first (obnoxious) question was did he have hair? He said the man was healthy, wears no glasses, walks without aid and also walks fast. He was a doctor and only retired about five years ago.

I inquired about his nationality and was told he is american. According to my math this guy was 106 years old. Unbelievable!

I am convinced that I can not live to that age because my wife forbade it. I am not sure I can drag it out to 100 because my better half is convinced that if I live that long (or longer) I will certainly ruin her life.

I will let you know at 105 how things turned out. I hope Social Security will still be around. 

Non-metric

This country has the most confusing and unique one of a kind measuring sytem in the world. The inches, feet, yards, ounce, pound, Fahrenheit, pint, gallon, etc. are so complicated that people who come to this country have real difficulties to grasp it. 

Years ago the Federal Government decided to go with the flow and introduce the metric system. Well, that did not receive a warm welcome from the populous. This is interesting because this country is filled with immigrants and they are the ones who have to familiarize themselves with these idiotic measuring systems.

One would expect that at least they would have welcomed such change, but no. Everybody's urge is to become as american as apple pie and baseball so even the metric conversion met with cold shoulders.Years ago the federal government requested that contractors use dual measuring systems on plans, on designating material sizes. They also wanted road signs to show distances in kilometers. Automobiles had to have the odometers in miles and kilometers. Weather reports showed temperatures in Celsius instead of. Fahrenheit.

Confusion ruled the day. In my line of work, engineering, we didn't which way to turn. But once they realized that this was not a good idea everything quetly stopped and we all went back to the good, old , confusing american system.

This was not the only stupid idea the government ever had. But at least this was not political, I hope.

 

Coca Cola

On June 15 of this year Hungary played against Portugal in the soccer European championship. The game was played in Budapest front of a full house of fans. That alone was a very refreshing site in these pandemic times. I think this was one of the first such event held fronf of a huge audience.

Even though Hungary lost still, it was a good game. 

What was very interesting to me was a small event that happened afterwards. As usual at such events there was a press conference where the potuguese coach and Cristiano Ronaldo the world famous soccer player (who kicked the third goal) were present.

Sitting on the dais there was the coach and Ronaldo. Front of these two people there were two bottles of Coca Cola, I guess since they are major sponsors. Ronaldo took the two bottles and pushed them aside, out of camera angle from front of him, and raised his water bottle indicating that water is preferred and not Coke.

According to business reports the next day Coca Cola values world wide dropped about 3 billion dollars just because of this move. The business world is very peculiar. I don't understand the significance of such a move has on the value of a merchandise. Is Rolando a merchandising god who can alter values with one swipe of a hand?

He is worth over $500 million which makes him pretty rich, and I am sure he does know something about business or he is just plain lucky. But still, with a swipe of hand to change the financial picture of a major company is very interesting.