Keep on writing!

I've said either here or on Facebook that for me, writing is therapy. It's a great way to express thoughts and feelings, especially for someone who is on the quiet side, like yours truly.

There's no doubt that many of my friends would agree that I am possibly the quietest person on the planet. My teachers in school certainly would. Progress reports had comments about me like, "I don't even know he's in class." Or, "Needs to participate more in class discussions or we'll have him bronzed and put on display near the auditorium." No teacher ever had to write, "If he doesn't shut up, I'm going to [insert violent act] him." Or, "He talks so much that he won't learn anything and will end up stealing cars for a living."

Few would believe that at one time, I despised having to write a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. School assignments like 500-word essays about a particular topic were among my most dreaded. Given that I write a blog and have done some writing as part of my day-to-day work, I've turned a corner. The quiet kid who hardly said anything can actually write, and apparently enjoys it.

But he still doesn't say much. That's because he had the benefit of some parental teasing (now there's a blog post I need to write at some point), from which he learned to keep his big mouth shut, lest he be subjected to some snark-alecky (blend of "smart aleck" and "snarky") comments. He simply existed, silently taking in activity around him. When did he go from dreading writing assignments to enjoying them? (And when did he start writing in the third person?) If I had to pin it down, I'd say it might have been in the late '80s.

I've mentioned previously that for nearly 20 years I kept a journal, beginning in 1989. Most people who keep journals express thoughts and feelings about the goings on in their lives, but mine was merely a record of what I did. Fortunately, the timing included a bit of life before Diana came along as well as the first 15 years of her life. I stopped when I got sick in late 2006. (Read about that here.) My journal goes from those blank Hallmark books to printed sheets done on a long gone word processing program (Multi-Mate, anyone? I know... [crickets]) to Microsoft Word. There's some good history in that mess, and I hope to put everything together in a more organized format at some point. Watch for it on the bestsellers list, he said sarcastically...

In the late '90s, I began working for Teague, the first military contractor that I worked for. My boss sent me over to the base at Port Hueneme to observe a process for the purpose of producing a formal document describing how to perform that task. It was challenging, but a challenge that I actually enjoyed. Not only was I responsible for getting the process into words, but I also got to take digital photographs or do some technical illustrating with AutoCAD to enhance the written part of the document.

Turns out that my boss was happy with my work and was very complimentary about how everything turned out. Between my journal and this work, a spark was lit...

Three years after my journal ended, I crash landed on Eric's Planet. Or it fell on me when I was out walking—not sure which. But it doesn't matter. I found an outlet for my writing. Next year will mark the tenth anniversary of this crazy planet, and I hope it's still going strong at that time. By comparison, I managed to write a mere seven posts in all of 2017. I'm almost to that point now in 2018. At that pace, I may hit 30 or 40 posts this year. I could get lucky and have Terri send me another 30-day writing challenge like she did in November 2015, and that'll really increase the number of posts for the year. Those posts are still up, by the way. Use the index to find them.

When all is said and done, the number of posts I write isn't important. I'm not going after any records, title, trophy, cash award, free vacation or anything like that. Though a trip that involves a flight would be nice. It's been so long since I've been aboard a plane; I've heard they have jets now. It's about quality. A few years ago, I was writing some ridiculously stupid posts about how I didn't know what to write, or that I really didn't have anything to write about, so here's a free blog post telling you what we both already knew. I'm not going to do that anymore. If I can't think of something to write at any given time, then I won't write until I do have something.

Writing, writing, and more writing. It's been a godsend, really, and so far my friends seem to be enjoying what I put out. I haven't expressed it, but that makes me feel pretty darned good. Not many people have followed me directly on my blog page, but I know that my friends do read it when they can.

Time marches on, and maybe...up

Here we are in 2018 already—the 19th year of this century. (Or 18th depending on whether you think the 21st Century began on January 1, 2001.) Do we have flying cars yet? No, but we do have those so-called hoverboards that "hover" on wheels. That's like saying we'll have flying cars if we attach wings and "flew" down the highways at 100mph. It's all in the hype.

But we are making progress. It won't be long before we can get into our car, push a few buttons or insert some kind of media that will start the car and take us to our destination while all occupants sit and look out the windows, take a nap, hop in the back seat and...well, I'll leave the rest of that last one to your imagination. The self-driving cars that have hit the road in recent times are just the beginning.

Occasionally, we hear or read about a plane that makes an emergency landing on a highway. Like anything mechanical, aircraft do have mechanical problems. If your car overheats or starts making a weird noise, you can just pull over to the side of the road. If your plane does that, you'd better find a place and a way to land or else...

When cars start flying, possibly within our lifetime, will they drop out of the sky? Sad to say, I think they will—and often—until some kind of safety device or system can kick in and bring the car down safely to a place that's off to the side and out of the way to avoid disrupting others. There's more flexibility in a three-dimensional space than on a two-dimensional highway. As with the cars we drive today, a lot of engineering will be done over time to make improvements.

Will these vehicles still be known as "cars," or more formally, "automobiles" or will there be a new terminology? "Aeromobiles?" "Aircars?" "Aerocars?" We won't know till these vehicles appear.

An interesting thought is that there will no doubt be rules and regulations governing every aspect of the vehicles, the rules regarding right of way and operation of these aerocars, how they're equipped, and so on. If a driver/pilot breaks the rules, will some sort of flying police car take off and fly up behind them with red and blue lights going, meaning that they'd better land to receive their citation? Or will there be elevated platforms for this purpose? It will be interesting.

There will be some advantages to flying cars. No more pedestrians who will jaywalk and make us slam on our brakes, no more trains to wait for (until those start flying), no more potholes, no more puddles. We'll get to where we're headed much faster. Watching the scenery go by now can be interesting, but now we'll see everything from above as well, adding a new dimension to sightseeing.

There will be some disadvantages to flying cars. Mid-air collisions—sort of a new twist on the classic traffic accident.  Running into tall buildings in a single bound. Dropping things or throwing them from way up high. Of course there will be the idiots like we already see every day, only now with a new means to terrorize the highways. (If you think people do stupid things while driving now, wait till their cars fly!)

I will likely not be around when cars are flying. Maybe Diana's generation will see flying cars. We won't know till we get there. But I'm sure that the automotive and aerospace engineers are cooking up something.

Chocolate

For me to not have written anything about chocolate is flat out cuckoo to say the least. Or it's cocoa—you be the judge.

I've always liked the tasty brown stuff. In my childhood, I preferred milk chocolate. At the time, the dark chocolate that was available was Hershey's Special Dark or that horrible Brach's candy-like substance you got when you went out trick-or-treating. And to me none of that was very good. See's was good, but didn't hit the spot as far as I was concerned. I wanted sweet. Apparently my tastes have grown up because these days, I actually prefer dark chocolate, and there are so many different brands out there. There are good and not-so-good dark chocolates, and after tasting a lot of different brands, I've found Ghirardelli and Lindt to be my favorites, especially the bars with the percentage of cocoa in the 75-85% range.

Don't start me on white chocolate. At one time, I really liked it, but for some reason over the years, I've actually lost my taste for it. It's WAAAY too sweet (yes, I meant the three As in "WAAAY"), and, honestly, it's not really chocolate—just a sweet confection with a few characteristics of chocolate, but not the taste.

Then there are the people who tell me, "But you're diabetic and shouldn't be eating chocolate." Those people are full of another kind of brown stuff that I won't discuss here. In moderation, dark chocolate is actually healthy to eat, even for those of us who need to monitor our blood sugar. The idea is "moderation." Not entire bars, but just a few small pieces. Many bars are molded into segments that can be broken off. That makes it easy to ration out a few pieces for a snack. M&Ms come in five or six colors. I just take two of each color and call it done. That's only 10-12 pieces.

But I have to say this: there's nothing like European chocolate. It's just...better. They use premium ingredients and most of the chocolate made there is creamier without any bitter aftertaste. When Diana took her trip to Europe a couple of years ago, she visited Switzerland and brought me back some genuine Swiss chocolate. It just doesn't compare to most of what's made here in the U.S. Sorry, Hershey, Mars... 😩

There have been a few things written about what the future holds for chocolate. Not that they're going to stop making it, but that the world supply of cacao beans is...dwindling. Those beans are the primary ingredient of chocolate. We humans are eating chocolate faster than they can grow more beans to replace what we put in our bellies. Shortage of beans means limited availability and higher prices. (Shortage of anything results in limited availability and high prices, but for the sake of this post, we'll stick to cacao beans.) It's hard to imagine that something we've taken for granted may become a rare and expensive treat. We're going to have to depend on a limited source of beans from overseas unless the U.S. suddenly develops a large crop of cacao beans. And that's unlikely because cacao beans grow primarily in areas close to the equator. Even Hawaii isn't close enough to the equator, though the climate might be right. But they'd have to bump the pineapples...

Regardless of what happens with the world chocolate supply, I'm still going to enjoy it, sparingly if need be.

But stop eating it? NEVER!