Global

 

Toyota Venza and Toyota Crown Insignia

My wife and I have been living in East Tennessee since 1990.  In 2016, we were looking for a newer car and were in a Toyota dealership and test drove a Venza for the first time.  It was a perfect car for us, but our local prices were a little high.

We found a top of the line 2015 Venza with a moon roof that had been leased for a year with only 7,500 miles on the odometer that was being sold for several thousands of dollars less than a new one.  We drove to OHIO to pick it up.

Our Venza has been a wonderful car and a complete work horse when we recently downsized and moved.  Our Venza made a dozen trips to the landfill, fully loaded with items we needed to throw away.

Our 2015 Venza now has 88,000 miles on the odometer...  and we know it will last until 200,000 miles but we need a more modern vehicle with side mirror that warn you when a car is in your blind spot.

Newer Venzas are now hybrid and much smaller than our 2015 Venza which is not comfortable for me on long drives.

We don't want a hybrid because of the cost of battery replacement and the low resale value that hybrids now have,  The good news on hybrids is that gas mileage is doubled.

Toyota is now making the Crown Signia to be the replacement for the old style Venza SUV.  And, while we don't want to spend the money for a new car, we are going to have to wait until the 2025 Crown Insignias are a year old.  A brand new one starts at $55,000.

Friendship

 

Record Breaking Free Divers of Egypt

Dahab, Egypt – When the countdown began, Khaled Elgammal took one final, deep breath before descending without any breathing equipment into the ocean. One minute and 29 seconds later, still holding his breath, the Egyptian athlete had free-fallen to 102 metres (335 feet) – a national record.

But for it to count, he had to reach the surface again. He turned at the bottom of the line and began his ascent – focusing on deep relaxation and the feelings of the surrounding water. In all, he had held his breath for two minutes and 50 seconds.

Elgammal is Egypt’s deepest freediver, and his remarkable achievement set a new national record at the Sharm el-Sheikh competition in October 2023.

“When I came to the surface, it was bliss. It felt amazing,” Elgammal recalls.    READ MORE...

US Dominance in the AIR

 

Moody Blues

 

Unlimited Energy from Nuclear Fusion

We go behind the scenes at the world’s largest nuclear fusion device attempting to harness energy from the same reaction that powers the Sun and stars.

In the heart of Provence, some of the brightest scientific minds on the planet are setting the stage for what is being called the world’s largest and most ambitious science experiment.

"We are building arguably the most complex machine ever designed," confides Laban Coblentz.

The task at hand is to demonstrate the feasibility of harnessing nuclear fusion - the same reaction powering our Sun and stars - at an industrial scale.         

To do this, the world’s largest magnetic confinement chamber, or tokamak, is under construction in the south of France to generate net energy.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project agreement was formally signed in 2006 by the US, EU, Russia, China, India, and South Korea at the Elysée Palace in Paris.         READ MORE...

Friendship

 

In The NEWS

Senate negotiators reportedly made progress over the weekend on a suite of border security measures, working under a self-imposed Sunday deadline to reach an agreement. Lawmakers have tied the package to a larger $110B deal that includes support for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Angelo Becciu was found guilty of three counts of embezzlement and sentenced to five and a half years in prison Saturday, the result of a two-year trial into his and nine others' financial crimes within the Vatican City state. The 75-year-old Italian is the first cardinal to be tried criminally by Vatican courts since the Vatican became an independent state in 1929.

The head of Israel's Mossad spy agency reportedly met with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani over the weekend, looking to renew a cease-fire deal that would see hostages held by Hamas in Gaza released. The talks came a day after the Israeli military killed three hostages after misidentifying them as Hamas militants.


Texas tops Nebraska to win back-to-back NCAA women's volleyball national championships (More) | South Dakota State set to take on Montana for NCAA football championship series national title (More)


"General Hospital" and "The Kelly Clarkson Show" are top winners at the 50th annual Daytime Emmy Awards; see complete winners list (More)


NASA's Cassini spacecraft detects the presence of hydrogen cyanide on Saturn's moon Enceladus; the molecule, lethal to humans, is thought to be a key chemical in the origin of organic life (More)


Study suggests North America's first humans may have arrived 23,000 years ago via sea ice floating across the Bering Strait; timeframe is roughly 10,000 years earlier than current estimates (More)


Dow Jones, Nasdaq end up Friday (S&P 500 -0.01%, Dow +0.2%, Nasdaq +0.4%); Nasdaq closes at highest level since November 2021, all three indexes extend weekly winning streak to seven (More)


Biotech giant Illumina to divest cancer diagnostics startup Grail after two-year antitrust battle with federal regulators (More)


At least 61 migrants, including women and children, drown after their ship sank off the coast of Libya reportedly en route to Europe (More) | See numbers of missing and dead in the region (More) | Kuwaiti leader Sheikh Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah dies at 86 (More)


Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley narrows gap with frontrunner former President Donald Trump in New Hampshire presidential primary polls, trails by 15%; GOP state primary to be held Jan. 23 (More) | See nationwide polls (More)

Lumbar Vertebrae Fusion - 18 months Ago

Two years ago, I got out of bed one morning and my legs collapsed under me.  I grabbed the bed, to keep myself from falling to the floor.  From that moment on, it was difficult for me to walk and when I did, I walked with a limp.    A few weeks later I went to a Orthopedic Back Surgeon who wanted me to have an MRI but he suspected that I had a problem with L4/L5 disks.

I cannot have an MRI without being sedated.  My wife tells me I'm pussy but those comments don't bother me anymore.

My MRI revealed that my spinal stenosis was more advanced than first suspect and I agreed to spinal fusion surgery that fused L2-L3-L4-L5-S1 disks together.  It is considered the granddaddy of all fusion surgeries.

Many are opposed to a five level back fusion.

In 6 months, I was able to walk a mile in about 20-25 minutes.  My normal speed was 12-15 minutes.  I was able to walk without a cane but it took 6 more months of walking to eliminate the limp.

December 20 (tomorrow) marks 18 months since the surgery and I would assume that all 5 disks have finally fused together.  

• I can bend over and touch the floor with my
  
  fingers. 
• I can bend over and pick up stuff off the floor. 
• I still have a hard time stepping into my underwear.  
• I still have a hard time putting on socks.  
• My walking seems forced instead of natural.
• I can drive a car for 4 hours straight without back pain
• I have some difficulty stand up straight talking for over 30 minutes before needing to lean against something or sit down
• I still have no strength in my right leg to pull myself up steps - can descend fine.

Right after my back surgery, I was never in any pain which pisses my wife off whenever she thinks about it.  The day after the surgery I slept flat on my back in bed to sleep.

All in all, I would say I came out pretty good because if I had not had this surgery, then there was a high degree of certainty that I would have ended up in a wheelchair in the next few months for the rest of my life.

Therapy and injections would have postponed the surgery for a while, but surgery was the only permanent solution which is why I went with the surgery.

This is all part of growing old.

Quiet Lives

 

Time Travel Theoretically Possible

No one has yet managed to travel through time – at least to our knowledge – but the question of whether or not such a feat would be theoretically possible continues to fascinate scientists.

As movies such as The Terminator, Donnie Darko, Back to the Future and many others show, moving around in time creates a lot of problems for the fundamental rules of the Universe: if you go back in time and stop your parents from meeting, for instance, how can you possibly exist in order to go back in time in the first place?

It's a monumental head-scratcher known as the 'grandfather paradox', but a few years ago physics student Germain Tobar, from the University of Queensland in Australia, worked out how to "square the numbers" to make time travel viable without the paradoxes.

"Classical dynamics says if you know the state of a system at a particular time, this can tell us the entire history of the system," Tobar explained back in 2020.                 READ MORE...

Life After Death

 

Ghost Riders in the Sky

 

Largest Drone Helicopter

Rotor Technologies Inc., a firm engaged in the development of autonomous vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, has unveiled and commenced the production of what it claims to be the "largest uncrewed civilian helicopter on the market."

Termed R550X, the VTOL is derived from the U.S. firm's Robinson R44 platform and is developed as a versatile autonomous helicopter designed for multiple missions.

According to Rotor, R550X is capable of hoisting substantial loads of up to 1,200 pounds (lbs) — or 550 kilograms, kg —in diverse weather conditions, including night operations and situations with limited visibility. The vehicle comes in a ready-to-fly configuration for immediate flight and can be personalized with various mission-specific payloads and autonomy equipment.  READ MORE...

Itching

 

Pros/Cons of Being Retired

 CONS:

1. Less annual income
2. Potential boredom
3. Less activity
4. Less purchasing power
5. Limited mobility
6. More doctor's appoinments
7. Physically restrained
8. Indication of old age
9. Not much of life left
10. Friends are dying
11. Greater risk of illness
12. Not around people

PROS:

1. Don't have to kiss the bosses ass anymore
2. Have less opportunity for stress
3. Can sleep in as long as one desires
4. Open schedule for traveling
5. Can travel more
6. Spend more time with children/grandchildren
7. Have more leisure/recreation time
8. Have plenty of time for yardwork
9. Can focus on hobbies
10. Can save money on gasoline
11. Can save money of buying clothes
12. Have the opportunity to downsize

...CAVEAT...

One of the biggest hurdles one faces whether single or married is having enough income without working to retire.  Another hurdle is how much debt are you carrying into your retirement.

Sources of income once retired will come from:

• Savings
• Investments
• Social Security
• Company retirement programs
• Sale of a house when downsizing

In my case, that is to say my wife and I, we relied on savings and Social Security to retire and when we sold our house and downsized the profit that we made was just an added bonus.  We also put some of our saved money in a high yield CD for 18 months to generate more savings.

From 2015 until 2020 when COVID hit, we traveled at least every other month for a week; in fact, we traveled so much (at least for us) that we got the travel bug out of our system.  Now, we just go to Myrtle Beach, SC twice a year for a week.

We will soon stop our MB,SC trips in the next 3-5 years because of age.

My main hobby now is writing novels and in the process of writing novels I have to do research and that research helps keeps my mind active.  I also maintain two blogs daily which keeps me busy as well.  In the mornings, I watch FOX News for a couple of hours, but hardly ever anything else.  None of the shows, movies, or series interest me, so why waste the time, I tell myself.

Before my back surgery, I was walking around the neighborhood for about an hour or a mile whichever was less.  I did not walk fast but I did not walk slow like window shopping either.

I hardly ever sleep past 9:00 am, usually up around 7:30-8:00 am, and shower and shave every other day instead of every day when I was working.  I eat 2-3 meals a day, not large, just enough to be filling and I snack twice a day on Captain's Wafers (1 pack) or 2-4 Lemon Orea cookies.  I have coffee in the morning and SAM's water the rest of the day.

My wife and I go out to eat once or twice a week.  I usually eat half of what I order in the restaurant and bring the other half home for another meal the next day.

I fill up my 2015 Venza every other week as opposed to every 3 days when working. 

Finally, my wife and I were debt free when we retired which made a big difference with our decision.  Plus, my wife and I never needed to live anything but a simple lifestyle which also helped.

Transformation

 

Optimus Gen Two

Tesla has unveiled “Optimus Gen 2”, a new generation of its humanoid robot that should be able to take over repetitive tasks from humans.

Optimus, also known as Tesla Bot, has not been taken seriously by many outside of the more hardcore Tesla fans, and for good reason.

When it was first announced, it seemed to be a half-baked idea from CEO Elon Musk with a dancer disguised as a robot for visual aid. It also didn’t help that the demo at Tesla AI Day last year was less than impressive.

At the time, Tesla had a very early prototype that didn’t look like much. It was barely able to walk around and wave at the crowd. That was about it.  READ MORE...

Funny and Sad