20161008 – Indio, Palm Springs, Mission Viejo & Laguna Beach

Saturday – hot and sunny.

TV lounge

Well were settled into our new home exchange for the next two weeks here in hells sauna – 102F / 39C today. It’s another awesome home – see pictures. 3,500 square feet of it. We’ve already wore out a pair of shoes just walking around it. It’s another gated community home. Our home backs onto the golf course, completely wasted on us.

Front parlour

Have a leisurely day. Lack of wifi is a real pain but at least we can get internet on our phones. Nip down to Starbucks to complete last weeks blog. Was going to walk or use the bike but it’s just too hot for either and the bikes obviously designed for a 7 foot basket ball player. If I ride that I’ll end up as a eunuch talking in a very high pitched voice.

Evening we watch some HBO. At least there’s no adverts. Who knows perhaps we’ll get to watch Bill Maher.

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13-year-old-google-prize-winner-released

Kitchen

A 13-year-old just revolutionized an age-old problem in medicine using a remarkably simple method.

Anushka Naiknaware from Beaverton, Oregon became one of the top eight finalists of an international Google-run science competition after she invented bandages that notify doctors when they needed to be changed.

Using graphene nanoparticles and ink, the bandages start to display fractal patterns when they detect that moisture levels have dropped. Bandages need to be dampened in order to properly heal wounds, but changing bandages too often can be harmful to an injury. This way, medical officials no longer have to rely on guesswork.

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Fairy Tales and Fables – The Quran

Master bedroom

If Allah is a supreme being, creator of the universe and all that codswallop, how come the so called religion of peace and understanding is so insecure that it believes that any apostate – someone who finally sees through the fairy tales and stupidity of it all and wants out – should be killed. Wow, that’s one hell of a way to ensure that everyone stays in your gang!

Sunday – hot and sunny.

A day out with Paul and Doris at Laguna Beach.

Up and out at the crack of sparrows for our drive down to Mission Viejo – no we’ve not suddenly got an overdose of religion – we’re visiting Paul and Doris for the day. They’re a by-product of fixed dining on our recent cruise. We did fixed dining on the cruise with a little trepidation but had a great group on the table and got on well.

Laguna beach

Have breakfast at their home and then they take us down to Laguna Beach, where we have a pleasant stroll and some lunch and a Foo Foo. What you may ask is one of them. Well now I can tell you. It’s a fancy girly style drink, as per Dell Boys tiple, usually served with colorful umbrella and trimmings. Entering into the spirit of this alcoholic perversion – I usually prefer my alcohol un-polluted – I try a pina colada tequila. I nearly threw a tantrum as I instead of an umbrella I got a slice of orange and a cherry. Have to say it was very nice. Goes down too easy, you could soon get rat arsed.

California beach life

Then we have a drive down the coast. All very lovely, sun, sea, sand, surfing and that most boring of pastimes paddle boarding. Typical California, expect the beach boys any moment.

Then it’s back to their home for wine, pizza (Round Table pizza, one of the best in America) and putting the world to rights. It’s what us old folk do best. We pass on watching the Trump & Clinton debate. Why spoil a great day.

Stay overnight.
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Laguna beach

Having had the pleasure, of the much misnamed, LA Freeways (they’re certainly not free of traffic), I came across this very apt article – see below – and web site http://trafficwaves.org/. Who knows it may help me retain my balance on that slippery surfboard of life.

When you’re caught in a traffic jam, you feel powerless. What you may not know is that you can actually have a big effect on the traffic around you.

There is a growing body of research finding that an individual driver, by preventing bottlenecks and maintaining a steady speed, can sometimes single-handedly ease or break up a traffic jam.

Paddle boarding – oh so boring.

The techniques are simple, though some of them—such as leaving a large gap between your car and the one in front and freely letting other drivers cut in—feel counterintuitive to most drivers.

Thanks to Seattle engineer William Beaty, a leading proponent of jam-busting techniques for individual drivers.
One Driver Can Prevent a Traffic Jam

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Crazy Alaska Laws.

California coast.

* Dog grooming is illegal.
* I believe this was made to keep owners from shaving their dogs fur off in the winter.
* A person may only carry a concealed slingshot if that person has received the appropriate license.
This law is related to the concealed weapon law. It is unlawful to carry anything hidden away on your person that you can and will use to maim or kill another person.
* It is considered offensive to push a live moose out of a moving airplane.
* While it is legal to shoot a bear, waking a sleeping bear for the purpose of taking a photograph is prohibited.
* In Juneau, Alaska owners of flamingoes may not let their pet into barber shops.
* Owners may not let any pet into barbershop, hairdressin shops, or any place that may contain food for human comsumption.

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Hotel doors and carpets

Dinning room

Has anyone noticed how well thought out hotels are. At least 50% of guests must have pull along luggage these days. Makes life oh so easy. Well at least until you encounter miles of corridors with shag pile carpet that deep you need a pair of stilts to avoid sinking in it.

Wouldn’t you think – think being the lacking word – that they’d tile the corridors.

Then you come to corridor doors, every 10 feet, that require the strength of a Russian weight lifter to open them. Then they spring shut like a giant mouse trap, whilst you’re still trying to navigate your wheelie case through. Just as you think you’re home and dry you’ve your room door to negotiate. By now you’ve lost the will to live, of course the key card needs at least 10 swipes and a rub down with your snotty hankie to unlock the room. This doors the final straw, so narrow that even a flat chested size zero model can’t get in without turning sideways; with a threshold plate you need a Sherpa to heave your case over; whilst at the same time wedging open the door open that has been designed to resist a nuclear blast.

Surely it can’t be beyond the wit of man to design and go on dragons den with an easy to use door opener. One that a sand in face 6 stone weakling can easily open with his pinkie finger and stays open for about 10 seconds.

Monday – hot and sunny.

Master bathroom

After breakfast we say goodbye and thanks to Doris and Paul as we head off back to our Indio home. Start the day with a Starbucks, getting into the swing of California. Call in at the Nixon Museum, but just my luck half of it is closed for refurbishment. Do what all Americans do in this situation. Go to the local Mall.

Rather than going back along the Freeways and Interstates we head back over Mount San Jacinto. It’s a typical scenic route over the mountains. Call in at the National Monument visitors Centre. Have a pleasant stroll around their dessert garden and Wendy’s rewarded with the siting of a Road Runner – awesome.

A full days driving, especially down the freeways of the LA area, wouldn’t be complete without being dragged around a supermarket – oh joy.

Paul and Doris and Foo Foo

In the evening we catch up with the Trump & Clinton slagging match on my iPhone – it’s the only Internet we have. They’re going at it like two fish wives having an alley cat fight; of course they don’t answer the questions and the moderators just let them get away with it; very little substance, mainly vitriol; God help America if either of these numpties get in, they’d be better off with a Typhoon Tea chimpanzee. I though our debates were bad, but they even make the Corbyn (an unelectable communist and if he was running in the US instead of Hilary, then Trump would win with a landslide) and Smith, leadership debate look like an intellectual Oxford Union debate. All part of the greatest pantomime on earth – the USA Presidential Elections. What a great time to be here with all this free comedy.

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Palm

Thanks to the volunteers at the San Jacinto National Monument who have created a lovely dessert garden and help run this National Monument. Awesome that people give of their time so freely. Very much an American thing.

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For our American friends here’s a basic principle they’d better get to grips with before November the 8th.

The lesser of two evils principle (or lesser evil principle) is the principle that when faced with selecting from two unpleasant options, the one which is least harmful should be chosen.

Tuesday – hot and sunny.

San Jacinto Mountain overlook

After being a freeway warrior yesterday we decide to have a lazy day today. Just relaxing and enjoying this lovely home and the road melting heat. Highlight of my day is a trip to Starbucks -muse rant below. meanwhile Wendy’s still chunnering on about knitting patterns.

Around tea time we have a walk down to the club house. I think I’m starting to acclimatise. The torrents of sweat seem to have subsided to mere rivulets.

After the delights of the debate and the rambling aftermath of mind numbing analysis I’ve decided to implement my balanced observation policy. After all when you’re riding the wave of life on your virtual surfboard it’s important you don’t lean too far to the left or right or you’ll fall off. Odd days I’ll watch Fox News and even days it will be MSNBC. Daily newspapers will be Wall Street Jouranal and New York Times.

Well as HBO seems to have disappeared from our screen we get 2 hours of Fox. Now I know what it’s like to hear crazy voices. Its certainly an alternative reality and enough to make one believe the multiverse theory. Perhaps East Enders might be a better alternative!
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After the gutter snipes tore chunks out of one another, a member of the audience, in a very respectful tone, bought some semblance of humanity back to the pantomime by challenging candidates to say something nice about each other. “Would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one another?”

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Computer sayings

Typical LA Freeway. That’s me silver car, right hand side, 4th lane to the left, about halfway up.

Web sites, computers and inane password demands seem to be the bane of my life. Especially web sites designed by morons who should never be allowed near a keyboard. How I wish I could ween myself of them – not at all likely. It seems these days that any numpties who can use a keyboard and has half a GCSE in computer studies is allowed to create a website, without a glimmer of common sense, and then to add insult to injury they put it live on us poor “users” (don’t you just love that way to describe your customers, only the computer industry could be so crass) without so much as testing or spell checking.

It was never like this in my day. I know how difficult it is to design good software and web sites. All programmers and web designers are the worlds worst testers. They should never, Never, NEVER be allowed to test their own work. But there’s no excuse for not passing it to someone else, hopefully someone with a skerrick of common sense, to test it before it goes live.

Well today the never ending health reporting industry has come up with the unsurprising conclusion that loosing your temper contributes to heart attacks – well who’d have guessed that. It therefore follows that the computer industry is responsible for more deaths than even Muslim terrorists.

Anyway some apt computer sayings:

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.

Computing is not about computers any more. It is about living.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

Computers, huh? I’ve heard it all boils down to just a bunch of ones and zeroes…. I don’t know how that enables me to see naked women, but however it works, God bless you guys.

After growing wildly for years, the field of computing appears to be reaching its infancy.

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Islam the fastest growing religion:

20161008 – Indio, Palm Springs, Mission Viejo & Laguna Beach

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