Quick Thought

I had a quick thought while driving my car today.

New recent cars come with features that mine doesn’t, which I like, so far.  One of the new features in question in my thoughts today was the feature that ensures the vehicle stays between the lines of the road.

Since the onboard computer knows when to enable this feature while you are driving and give you a warning it must also know when you are changing lanes.  I think this could be a way to eliminate all of those lazy-ass people who do not use their signals when changing lanes or turning that everyone else gets so frustrated with, driving behind. 

Since additionally, lots of new cars are “connected” to the internet, why couldn’t there be a simple audible statement made indicating that because they didn’t use their signal, thus making an illegal lane change, that the alotted demerit points have been acrued.

In the movie The 5th Element, we see Bruce Willis driving his flying Taxi and when Leeloo falls in to his cab, the voice assistent in the cab automatically informs him that he has “XX amount of demerit points left…” after losing a few more for an aparent accident. LOL

This movie is science fiction but people, this could be a reality here!!!  Now!!

Imagine if you will, Shit-ass driver Bill is driving down the road, and as has been seen by most of us i’m sure, Bill just kinda drifts across a few lanes to eventually end up in the left-turn lane, without any hint of a signal being put on.  The automatic assistent in his vehicle would simply detect that this happened (changing lanes, signal switch is on or off) and if their signal was NOT on, simply contact the local DMV, remove a few demerit points from his drivers license for this infraction and of course inform him of this.

To expand on to the next logical step in this whole process, when Bill runs out of demerit points as most drivers like him will, the Police are contacted and again the car relays exact GPS location information to the Police so that he can be arrested for driving with an invalid license.  His car impounded and i’m sure a very expensive fine levied against him.

I think this sounds perfect for getting those kind of jackasses off the road.  All the pieces are available now, there just needs to be a way to put all of the necessary pieces together. Come on everyone, we can do this!

Just do it, again?

When I was starting my life, married young (22), my wife and I were given an opportunity to expand our horizons. To get a bigger picture of our world. Opportunity came knocking and we jumped.

With my wife, who was and still is a strong independent person, we packed up our short life together and literally moved across the country. We put the contents of our meager 2 bedroom apartment in the biggest truck we could rent. After getting gifts of furniture from our parents and grand parents that filled the truck from floor to ceiling we put my daughter and our budgie bird into the truck and off we went.

We had no ideas of what the future might hold for us but we just did it, together. Upon reflecting on that time years ago with what is quickly becoming that helpful sentiment that everyone seems to be posting about these days living through covid. That positivity, those life enforcing ideas.

I feel grateful that we did this and try not to dwell on all of the things we missed out on with regards to family but I don’t think I would ever want to do it any differently if I was to do it all over.

So, knowing what it takes to do something like this, I sit here reflecting on it all and am in awe of my son. Just prior to COVID my son decided to embark on a similar journey across this huge country of Canada to revisit his place of birth and start a new life.  To me this is amazingly powerful and brave of him to do as he did it alone. When I did it, my wife and I had each other. Together we could do anything. My son is truly the mixture of the both of us, her strong will to do something, to change and my ability to overcome adversity and persevere. He is doing it all!

I always thought that it was a parents job to be the one who inspires their children but I’m finding a lot of reasons to be inspired by my son’s actions. Ever since his open heart surgery at one year old I have felt inspired by him. He endured the surgery and was out of the hospital in a week sitting on my Dad’s lap. He was the one that pushed me to do a half marathon before I hit 50. We did it. It was an accomplishment for the both of us. Here he is now following in my foot steps.

Oh he’s had his struggles since he’s been out there aside from the whole COVID thing. He loaded up his car with everything important to him and using Google maps slowly made his way across the country. As a parent I wanted to do it with him and be there for him but I knew he had to do this himself. He did, dammit. He gave me regular text updates as he progressed across the country, taking routes I’ve never explored before, expressing very little of his experiences, just being more concerned about getting there and being ready for work as soon as he gets there. He arranged for a place to stay with an old friend that was living out there.

When we did all this, we had a huge support system, family lived out there that we didn’t even know yet. He knows a few friends and some people he was close with at the age of 4 who are now all grown up but of course is not close with. He’s had to do all of the regular things you need to do to make a life for yourself, things he hasn’t done for himself before. He’s now finalizing the start of a new career, of his own making. I have a sense of great pride for what he has become. He’s done some crazy shit in his life and has had struggles as a result but he’s figuring it out. He’s persevering.  I think that’s what I see that most impresses me about his actions. He seems to have a goal that he wants to accomplish and he is just making it happen. It was something we never had. We just took the opportunities as they were presented and did something positive with them. He has an idea of what he wants and a lifestyle he wants to endure.

As proud as I am of what my son is becoming I can’t help but also be concerned with him following in my foot steps. As I mentioned in a previous musical post one of my most heart felt songs that I have is ‘cats in the cradle’. The lyrics express how I feel my relationship transpired with my father so I thought I would be different with my son. Now it looks like he will have “grown up to be just like me”.

I miss my son.