2017 Fall November 14 Tuesday

58 degrees this morning.  no walk, rain.

Light rain this morning. May not have walked anyway since I thought I may be developing a cold, but I think it was an allegoric reaction to something in the air, maybe someone burning wood (sniffles and sneezing started right after my walk yesterday morning).

At least I hope all it is is an allergic reaction.

When we were in San Antonio several weeks ago, we both stopped coughing almost as soon as we arrived.  That tells you something about what is causing our coughing!  Something in the air where we live now.

Speaking of air, I received several articles on a future “uber elevate” a planned “flying car” uber service, with air taxi service “on demand” at a reasonable cost, especially congested cities.

As happens with the internet, it set me off on a spree of research on “air taxis” and I really think it could be closer than we think.  I think security will be the biggest problem, the technology is already here, at least to some degree.

Of course, I thought 60 years ago, we’d have driverless cars by the late sixties also!  Certainly well before 1984!  Here we are, still driving basically the same car as we had 120 years ago!  (Perhaps a small exaggeration!).  

Obviously there have been substantial improvements, but the basic design is the same.  

I have always wondered if perhaps we shouldn’t have invented the wheel, maybe we would have been flying a lot sooner, maybe on a pocket of air or whatever!  

Kind of like a lot of countries that never developed wired phone capacity, now they jumped over that to have advance cell phones as their phone infrastructure.  At least, so I hear.

I think the “flying taxi” service may be here soon, and it could well be in rural areas without a lot of congested air traffic.  They are targeting congested areas, but I expect there would be a lot of demand in rural areas where long drives are normal, and a flying taxi may make as much sense as in large cities.  

I have recently noted what appear to be a huge increase in “homeless” or at least “street residents”, probably because of a change in my work area.  

While at the conference recently, I went to a session on dealing with the “homeless” people in a positive, “caring” (perhaps an overused word) way while still proven abuses of the system.  I was pleased by some of the programs cities have put into place.  

Oddly enough, Boulder Colorado and Fort Collins were two of the presenters, along with a city in the state of Washington, which are cities I wouldn’t have thought had a lot of homeless people because of the weather, but then I have relatives who love the Boulder, Fort Collins areas, so I assume there are a lot of people who like to live there including people who are homeless.  

They had a lot of innovative programs for the homeless.  Like a lot of things, the homeless will be there so I think it is good cities are thinking on how to deal with it, as well as how to deal with advances like a flying taxi uber service! 

Seems rather strange to be discussing both of these in one post!

That’s it for now, Tuesday, November 14, 2017.