Cody Writes at Night
Man has always been inspired to build. Whether it was a simple hut back in the stone ages or a modern office building, we want to make things newer and better. The latest addition to man’s ability to build will blow your mind.
Formerly, the tallest building in the world was 2,717 feet tall. The good thing is that plans are underway to build a skyscraper that reaches the astounding height of 3,281 feet. The building will be built in Saudi Arabia and be called the Kingdom Tower.
The U.S. Postal service has announced that it could soon default on its debts. With the advent of E-mail and online bill pay, the rate of people using the service has dramatically dropped. This has led to a massive shortfall in profits for the service.
The Post office wants congress to step in help make up the shortfall. The post office wants more ability to cut services for failing offices as well as cutting Saturday services. I guess we’ll have to see what the future brings.
A Florida sheriff announced today that he plans to end the practice of giving each inmate five free pairs of underwear when they are incarcerated. Sheriff Grady Judd plans to save the taxpayers about $45.000 dollars a year with the move. He hopes to keep one more law-enforcement official with a job.
The sheriff also said that inmates who want to wear underwear can still purchase the needed items from the canteen. They will sell boxers as well as briefs.
There seems to me that there is a problem with the traffic cameras that are in place in my city. I believe these cameras are triggered way too easily. I recently received a ticket for supposedly running a red light over a month ago. I have no recourse but to pay the fine and it really makes me angry.
I am a safe driver and have never knowingly run a red light. While it’s possible a light may have turned yellow as I approached it, I have never placed anyone else in danger. I think that as more and more people receive these tickets, the more unpopular they will be.
Some people are just not too smart. Sometimes not being smart can end your life. One such person was 55 year old Philip Contos. He was riding his motorcycle in an organized protest ride against a law that requires motorcyclists to wear helmets. During the ride, he lost control of his vehicle and crashed. The crash resulted in a fractured skull that caused his death.
If this idiot had been wearing one of the helmets that he was protesting, he would probably be alive today. Some people just don’t have any sense!!
In Denver this week, the only known surviving picture of Billy the Kid was sold at auction for $2.3 million dollars. A private collector named William Koch bought the tintype picture for his own collection. The piece was the most expensive that was ever sold at that show.
I can see why the man bought the picture. Billy the Kid has been a huge part of American folklore and will probably always be. The picture is thought to have been taken in 1879 or 1880 at the fort summer in New Mexico.
One issue that comes up from time to time is the issue of doctor assisted suicide. This is where doctor helps a usually terminally ill patient cause their own death. One of its chief proponents was Jack Kevorkian. He assisted as many as 130 people to cause their own death via a suicide machine that he built.
Kevorkian spent the last years of his life in jail as his effort to legalize the practice failed. He did spark a large amount of debate on the subject with some saying he was a savior and others saying he was in spiritual danger. He died from a blood clot naturally at the age of 83.
If you speak only English, how do you expect to function in a world that is becoming increasingly small? Not in physical size, but in terms of communications and awareness of the quality of life experienced by all our brothers and sisters who share this planet with us.
Now that I have time to cruise around the internet and discover new web sites I have been discovering more and more wonderful sites created or maintained by people in other countries. This is not an issue when the other country uses English, although there are many different uses for words in England and Australia that we recognize.
For sites in countries where English is not the common language, I have discovered how helpful an online translation service can be.
Want to read up on current events from a French perspective? You will be surprised at how the French view situations very differently from an American perspective. You can read a French newspaper or other online media using service de traduction.
Want to learn more about what is going on in Germany? Use Übersetzungsdienst to read a daily German newspaper. Not the big ones in the major cities like Berlin. Find a small one in the little communities scattered around the region.
This is how you get a slice of life from people around the world. It is eye opening and humbling to learn that others live such a different life from what we know here in America and take for granted every day.
The local channel that carries Oprah is our NBC channel. I don’t know if that is true in other cities, but I believe it is the same across the country. So now that Oprah has quit and this is her last week of shows, I was wondering what they would find to put in the empty time slot. Not that I watch Oprah. I’m just telling you like it is. And besides, I am almost never home at 4:00 in the afternoon.
Anyway, it turns out the our local NBC station is going to expand their news coverage and add an extra hour to their newscasts. So now we have the news at 4:00, and at 5:00 ad at 6:00, then again we have the late night news at 11:00. I think that is crazy to have so much news every day. There is only so much going on that needs to be reported!
Remember how I said that most of Texas is having problems with wildfires? Well, it turns out that my high school buddy, who lives in Austin, is having problems with this exact thing. He works for Dell computers, which is in the Austin area. Actually, it is up in Round Rock, but that’s part of Austin. And the smoke from the fires is causing problems for everyone – besides the threat of having your house or ranch or business torched to the ground.
A really big problem for homeowners and landlords is cleanup after a fire or dealing with smoke damage. Smoke gets on everything – even dishes and food stored inside kitchen cabinets. It covers the walls, the ceiling, light fixtures, curtains and gets in carpet really bad. He’s going to have to get to come out and help clean up his house after the fires are put out for good.
He says th smoke damage is so bad that he can’t even sleep in his own home. He had to go get a motel room for a couple of night. Now, that is really bad if you can’t even sleep in your own house. If it were me, I think I’d take a week off and go somewhere else. But he says that he can’t take off any time right now because its the start of the second quarter and they have to make their numbers. When its safe to go back home, he’ll get Carpet Cleaning Round Rock to come get his carpets cleaned while he scrubs the rest of the house with Dawn dishwashing detergent to get rid of the smoke film.