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TGIF baby. In the middle of another damned heatwave, but at least that will encourage me to spend more time in my bedroom with my air conditioner and writing computer and get some work done. I've decided on a firm release date - Labour Day, Sept. 1. So I gotta get everything done by then.

Saw something amusing earlier today, figure you all might get a chuckle from it, too:

Screenshot_2025-08-08_174757.png
 
TGIF baby. In the middle of another damned heatwave, but at least that will encourage me to spend more time in my bedroom with my air conditioner and writing computer and get some work done. I've decided on a firm release date - Labour Day, Sept. 1. So I gotta get everything done by then.

Saw something amusing earlier today, figure you all might get a chuckle from it, too:

View attachment 424
Especially if you're not positive its an apositive!
 
TGIF baby. In the middle of another damned heatwave, but at least that will encourage me to spend more time in my bedroom with my air conditioner and writing computer and get some work done. I've decided on a firm release date - Labour Day, Sept. 1. So I gotta get everything done by then.

Saw something amusing earlier today, figure you all might get a chuckle from it, too:

View attachment 424

This reminds me of "Word Crimes" by Weird Al ... especially these lyrics:

But I don't want your drama
if you really wanna
leave out that Oxford comma


:)
 
We've already decided that I and my younger brother will be the drivers when we visit Ireland in the fall.

When we were in Scotland in 2012, I was the driver, and had no trouble at all adapting to driving on the left-hand side.

You just have to remember that as the driver you are closest to the middle of the road. Then, it all falls into place.
 
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That's cool that you were able to get used to the backwards driving. Reminds me of when I was a kid working on a mango farm deawn undah. I often had to drive this pickup truck around the farm and it had a standard transmission. I simply could never get used to it - I could only operate the vehicle if I used all of my concentration. Shifting gears with your left hand, what a concept !
 
That's cool that you were able to get used to the backwards driving. Reminds me of when I was a kid working on a mango farm deawn undah. I often had to drive this pickup truck around the farm and it had a standard transmission. I simply could never get used to it - I could only operate the vehicle if I used all of my concentration. Shifting gears with your left hand, what a concept !
That would mess me up too. The clutch is still on the left at least, right?
 
it took me a second to understand that you meant Australia! Wow, that must have been an adventure.
Oh yeah it was a wild time. Would love to go back someday. Learned so many things - including that I am very badly allergic to mango sap.

When picking mangoes from the trees, you need to use this long pole thingy with a claw that will hold and cut the stem of the mango by squeezing a trigger. Once you've got a nice pile of fruit to process, you start de-stemming the mangoes. You need to point the top of the fruit away from you, because when you snap that stem off, this vile, sticky, white sap will explode out of it. Then you place the fruit in a bath of some cleaning solution.

Despite my care taken in the de-stemming process, even a few tiny drops were enough to turn my forearms into red, bumpy, blistering horrors. At least I got to eat all the free mangoes that I could manage.
 
I used to get really bad allergies to weeds (is that what they call hay fever?) every June, in my 20s, 30s, 40s, but I don't have it anymore!

I've heard allergies can change as you get older.
 
That would mess me up too. The clutch is still on the left at least, right?

Yeah pretty sure the pedals were still the same,

Good God, people. Do you think we're savages? Left to right we have clutch, brake and accelerator, much like the rest of the world. If the rental is hybrid or electric (have a spare set of batteries on board), it will be automatic, meaning the middle pedal is removed and the brake switched to where the clutch should be. The accelerator stays put.

I'll mention that my vocabulary was greatly extended over my childhood in dad's car. Things such as: that fellow road user only wants one half of the road. My half.
Sometimes the same thing only the ending was "the middle half."

I would urge caution when driving in Ireland, particularly on country roads where there's farm machinery taking up the entire road just around that blind bend, while there's a pedestrian in camoflage gear and probably a few dogs chasing wheels. And cattle crossing. Most of all, watch out for Audi's.
 
The right hand drive was fairly intuitive, but standard transmission on a right hand drive was too much to contemplate, let alone attempt. We paid extra for an automatic.

Fifty years ago, a boyfriend used to buy older Peugeots in central California, spruce them up a bit, drive them to southern California, and resell them for twice the price he paid. One of the longest drives of my life ensued when I let him talk me into driving a right hand drive car with standard transmission down the coast through Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, and all those other Santa places where traffic was a lot more like hell than heaven. He drove the normal car, the rat fink.
 
I drove a stick shift from St Louis through Colorado, Vegas, on to San Fran and up towards Oregon, back through Yellowstone, on to Gettysburg and then Ottawa until leaving the car in the airport in Toronto with the keys on the wheel for my brother's sister-in-law to collect. A little Chevy Sprint. Got used to the awkward positioning of gears and driver's seat by the time we got to Ottawa. Trying to get onto the freeway in Vegas nearly killed us, just close the eyes and hit the accelerator. Nought to fifty in about fifteen minutes!
 
The Scottish Highlands had nearly incomprehensible unwritten rules about which car gets off when two cars meet on one lane roads. I had them down after the first day, bug darn if I can recall them now. Here, whoever gets to a wide spot in the road first pulls over. Not in the Highlands.
 
I drove a stick shift from St Louis through Colorado, Vegas, on to San Fran and up towards Oregon, back through Yellowstone, on to Gettysburg and then Ottawa until leaving the car in the airport in Toronto with the keys on the wheel for my brother's sister-in-law to collect. A little Chevy Sprint. Got used to the awkward positioning of gears and driver's seat by the time we got to Ottawa. Trying to get onto the freeway in Vegas nearly killed us, just close the eyes and hit the accelerator. Nought to fifty in about fifteen minutes!

Not being a USAian, I tried to work out (on google maps) how long that would take ... but the map stubbornly refused to tell me which St Louis you mean. ;) It shifted between St Louis (Missouri), St Louis (Michigan), and -- amusingly -- St Louis Park (Minnesota), St. Louis Lambert International Airport (also Missouri), and Saint-Louis-de-Blandford (Quebec).

Now ... I may only be a "darn'd old furriner" ( ;) ), but even I know that if you start in Missouri or Michigan ... much less Quebec ... it's a heck of a commute to get to Colorado or Vegas, much less San Fran. That's on the other side of the country. :oops:

Then I asked google maps for St Louis, California ... and that made a tiny bit more sense. :) Still, if you started in CA ... why would you go to Colorado and Vegas, then double back to San Fran, and then go back to Oregon? *shrug*

But if you start from St Louis, Missouri (the famous one) ... that'd mean crossing almost the entire continent to San Fran, and then going all the way back across the continent to Toronto. :oops:

I'm confused. America has too many St Louises and Saint Louises and San Luises ... ;)
 
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