I've been busy, and haven't been updating.

Fortunately, this time it has nothing to do with being sick.  I just have had a lot going on at work, etc.

I'm fairly tired, but everything'll be okay in the end, I'm sure.

I feel normal again.  If only normal were better!

Ah well.  My sister's birthday is tomorrow, and she's doing really well.  She's now principal at the well-regarded private school she taught at in Tacoma.  It still sometimes feels weird that we don't live closer to each other.

I'm not sure what to talk about today.  I really don't have a thesis.  Nothing's really caught me on fire today.  I suppose I'm about done, then.

It's nice to feel a little better.

When you feel tired and your head is stuffy, but you've lost the draining down your throat and the achy feeling, your outlook vastly improves.

Actually, I slept a lot last night and today, and while I'm not over my cold, I'm feeling better.

The sinus issues are still there, but the achiness is receding, thank goodness.

Better still, I have my weekend off starting tonight, so hopefully that will help aid my recovery.

I'm sick again.  I hope this one doesn't last three weeks like the last one.

Some of the symptoms are similar.  I'm draining down my throat, and feel awful.

Headline:  teens increasingly interested in material things, wealth

Nice to know that, like old jokes, you can pull out old headlines and rerun the story after a few years when everyone's forgotten.

Designer clothes?  Spiffy new cars?  The latest gadgets?  Gee, we heard about this in the 1990s, the 1980s, the 1970s...I'm pretty sure every generation sees the new one as too interested in material things.

After all, old people have what they need, for the most part.  If they want more, they're often resigned to their status.  Plus, the older you are the likelier it is you're an irrationalist and given to bashing the "base material things."

Conversely, younger people are still looking for their niche, which includes "how wealthy will I be?"  And they're more open-minded, not automatically given to bashing things not of the fake, spiritual plane.  Most haven't learned to bury their inadequacies with sour-grapes religiosity.

What's next?  Complaints that kids play their music too loud, which is filled with messages that are bad for them?  That they have too much of a sweet tooth?  That they walk across old peoples' lawns too much?  I look forward to the next cliched, recycled news headline.

I speak of the future.  Specifically, of autos.

There's no way around it.  With the 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians increasingly turning to the automobile, the world will have to find a way to make useful electric vehicles to cut down emissions.

But don't many electrical plants burn hydrocarbons anyway?

Yes, but many do not, specifically dams and nuclear plants, plus that tiny but growing bit of solar and wind.  Also, if the plants are the ones producing the power, it means you only have to worry about making one big exhaust pipe cleaner, which can be done.  Look at all the older cars on the road belching blue smoke, and I think you'll see what I mean.

I could use an electic car.  I rarely put more than a hundred miles on my car in a day.  If it had a range of 150 miles or so, I'd be perfectly content.

As I've written before, I was a long-time skeptic of global warming.  I had studied it as part of a class way back in college about 1990 or so.  At that time, there were some theories, but it had not been widely disseminated in the media or politicized.  But the science wasn't yet clear.  Now it seems increasingly clear that we modern humans are a major source, if not the only source, of the increase in global temperatures.*

I'm turning down my thermostat, and thinking about this a while.

*  There were, and to a lesser degree still are, a few scientists who believed the world is warming, but put the cause as other than human sources.

But Medicare will cost as much or more over the next 30 years.

According to the (cooked) books of Congress, the federal deficit was a little over a half a trillion dollars.

Add in the future costs of Social Security and Medicare, and it's a few trillion dollars more.  Because Congress 1) doesn't take the future costs into consideration at all, and 2) it spends the Social Security surplus.  There is no little box that old folks' Social Security money is being put away.  It's all a promise to pay.

But don't worry.  Today's money is backed by nothing, so there's nothing preventing them from printing up enough money to pay the bill.  Of course, it will make inflation explode, but hey, no system's perfect.

Or they could fix Social Security.  And Medicare.  Never mind that no one in the two parties currently in power show the slightest interest in fixing either program.

So strap yourself in.  The next few decades, as the Baby Boomers retire, are going to get interesting.

The temp's a little above freezing, but cloudy weather and a few degrees means most of the snow's still here.  And it may refreeze tonight.  Fun for us who have to drive in it.

There's an outside shot temperatures may stay just above freezing tonight.  Let's hope so.  Every little bit helps.

It was supposed to be a light precipitation day.  Instead it snowed for hours in the morning, and is starting up again now.  There's about three or four inches of snow.

And I've gotta work in it tonight.  Fun.