Our RV Adventures

First off, No, Nick and I did not coordinate our blogs yesterday. We just both know a lot of not very nice people.

I mentioned yesterday that 10,000 people had died from the regular flu since January 1st. Turns out that if you include the entire flu ‘season’ since early fall, it’s over 18,000. But then that doesn’t get the big headlines.

As of this evening, there have been 9 deaths in the U.S. so far. All of the deaths have occurred in Washington state, most were residents of a nursing home in suburban Seattle, and all had previous serious health problems.

Recently I saw this headline from CNN News.

Apparently over 50% of Amsterdam’s tourists say they are visiting there to experience the many Cannabis Cafes, and the city thinks they’re are getting “over-touristed”.

Of course, you don’t really need to actually ‘visit’ a ganja café. Instead you can just walk down the street.

When we were strolling along a waterfront street near the Anne Frank House we saw a display basket of lollipops right out on the street. Jan said, “Why don’t we get Landon some souvenir candy to take home to him.”

I laughed and said, “Read a little closer.”

Yes, those are marijuana lollipops. In Strawberry, Blueberry, and Purple Haze flavors. Not sure I want to know Purple Haze tastes like. Maybe it’s what your vision looks like post-lollipop.

And just so you don’t forget you’re in Holland, those are tulip bulbs being sold right underneath the basket.

And if a lollipop is not your choice, you can try an cannabis ice cream cone.

And No, we didn’t buy any treats, nor did we visit a ‘café’.

In a way I’ve always prided myself that as someone from my generation, I’ve never smoked marijuana. And apparently that’s a rarity. Or at least if seemed that way to the U.S. government.

Over the years, between working for the DOD, and later NASA, I’ve had more security clearances than I can count, or remember. In fact some of them were so secret that I was never even told the name of it. Just that I was now cleared to work on something.

And a number of the early ones included lie detector tests.

But I had a lot of problems getting though some of them. Because I told the truth.

When I was asked, “Have you ever used marijuana, or any other illegal drugs?”, I answered, “No!”

And when he questioned my answer, I told him again that I had never smoked marijuana, but I had inhaled deeply at a few concerts.

He didn’t really see the humor in that. They actually thought I was cheating on the test somehow. I mean, everyone in college in the 60’s tried marijuana, right?

Somehow, they finally figured out I was just a weirdo and not lying to them. And luckily I guess it got entered into my record because it quit coming up.

And one of the times I ‘inhaled’ was actually with Jan. In early 1968 when she was about 6 months pregnant with our son Chris, we drove from Tuscaloosa over to Birmingham to attend a Beach Boys concert.]

As we walked into the concert hall we could see a smoky haze hovering over the seats. I think Jan probably figured it was just from cigarettes, but as we got further into the hall, Jan sniffed around and said, “Why are they burning incense in here?”

Chuckling, I told my sweet little innocent wife that it wasn’t cigarettes, but marijuana smoke. Her eyes got real big and she said, “Really?”

And she was sound asleep within 20 minutes after the concert started.

I warned her not to inhale.

Thought For The Day:

School Reunion

(n.) A meeting where it takes only 20 seconds to realize why you haven’t seen those people for 20 years.

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First, A Viral Update:

According to the CDC as of this afternoon, 6 people in the US have died from the Corona Virus, all in Washington State. And all of them having previous serious chronic conditions.

But since January 1st, over 10,000 people in the US have died from the regular flu. This was from an infected population of over 30,000,000 since last fall.

And No, you can’t get the virus from Corona Beer.

I’m not kidding. That’s the latest rumor going around.

FWIW Jan and I have boosted our D3 intake from 2000 IU to 10,000 IU per day.

Back around the first part of February, I posted a blog called Before Its Time – This Was A Peloton Before There Was A Peloton.

At the end of that blog I mentioned the rest of that story, involving a hammer, a brutal murder, a psychotic doctor, and 25 years in prison.

I started working with Dr. Patrick Doyle in the late 80’s working on a number of computer-related projects out of his psychology office. At the time I was doing a lot of computer consulting utilizing Commodore computers, both the Commodore 64 and the newer, much more powerful Commodore Amiga.

I had started out writing software to allow the Amiga to control and record data from his Biofeedback machines. But my big project for his office was to build a machine to grade his Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) tests that he gave to patients. At the time,the testing service was selling a grading machine for about $6000, and this was in 1987 dollars.

These tests ran between 400 to almost 600 questions and were a real pain to grade by hand, you know, those tests where you use a #2 pencil to fill in the little bubbles. But after thinking it over for a while I came up with an idea.

I tore apart an old Epson dot-matrix printer, removing the printhead and replacing it with a photocell. Then I wrote a program in Assembler to move the photocell back and forth. stopping at each bubble to record light or dark at each position. Then it moves down one line and does it again.

By placing the test in the sheet feeder, it could grade a test in a just of minutes. I charged him $1000 plus the cost of the printer, which I believe was $200 or so, which he was happy with.

But during all my work with Dr. Doyle, I always thought it was strange that a person who specialized in Angry/Stress Management, among other things, would get so mad about some little thing that he would have to go off into a corner and mumble to himself for 10 minutes or so until he calmed down. And I saw this over and over, even when we were working at NASA a couple of years later.

10 years or so later, I was WebMaster for the School of Business at University of Houston-Clear Lake, where Dr. Doyle had been an Associate Professor for about 15 years or so. So it was not surprising that I would occasionally run into him in the hallways.

And in a way I was not really surprised in 2001 when another professor, who knew I knew Dr. Doyle, ask me if I had heard the news about him. When I said, “No”, he told me that Dr. Doyle had been arrested for a brutal murder up in Kentucky.

He had been visiting his mother in Bowling Green, got into an argument with his stepfather, and beat him to death with a hammer.

UHCL Professor Held in Kentucky for Slaying

It wasn’t until 2 years later that he pled guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Doyle enters plea in murder trial

He had been diagnosed as ‘vastly psychotic and suffering from several brain diseases”, and was considered a suicide risk.

And according to this, it looks like he could be getting out in a couple of years.

Offender Information

Guess I should be relieved that I never made him really mad.

Thought For The Day:

“The truth shall set you free.” Unless you’re in a court. Then you should probably shut up.

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