Replacing Inadequate Public Transit with Worse

#34 was running late. If I bothered to get on I would have missed the #19 connection, the next one bringing me to church just as the service ended. Before october 2016 there was no connection; bus route 19 went straight through between St Pete and Tarpon Springs. If that was running late I would have boarded regardless. But Pinellas County replaced that and many other routes with inferior ones without as much coverage. WHY???

The Pinellas Green Light referendum was rejected by voters in November 2014. It would have meant significant improvement, plus light rail service. But most people didn't want a one-cent sales tax increase. Okay, I can understand that. Most people drive, have no need of public transit. They'd spend more of their hard-earned money for something they have no use for. I was going to say it has no impact on their lives but I'm not sure that't true. Greenlight Pinellas would have meant more people able to have jobs, and better life quality. Even if a car-owner has no friends that rely on the bus it would still make a positive impact on the community he lives in, right? Maybe not by much from his vantage, but we're all concerned about the health of our local economy.

So, we didn't get to improve it this time. Okay. But how the fuck does that justify replacing one of the most inadequate public transportation systems in the US with something worse??? When voters rejected a similar measure years ago in Arizona the county didn't make changes that would punish commuters! Are city council member here a bunch of vindictive assholes or what??? OR... the stupid in politics might make room for this.... Do they believe this will encourage people to buy cars instead of riding the bus?

Nowadays the transit system in Phoenix and surrounding areas is far better than it was when I lived there. Maybe there's hope for counties here in Florida.

I need to get a moped at least  \_( °~°)_/

a Violent Cat is a Happy Cat! ^ ••^

This time it's Ladybug chewing and slicing my hands n fingers. A nice father-daughter moment. Sure it's painful to me but hey, love hurts, right?

F*** the Pet Sematary!

As much as I love and miss my baby-boy cat Snowball, as much as I would love to have him back, I know I would not be tempted to bury him in the mysterious burial ground beyond the 'pet sematary.'
In this world created in Stephen King's novel the protagonist was in anguish over the death of his small child. But he had reason to believe that what will come out of that ground won't be his son, just as the strange and newly-feral family cat wasn't the same as before he buried it there. But he was tormented by the temptation to dig his son's body out of the town cemetery and inter it into that shadow-haunted patch of dirt deep in the woods. Once his mind rationalized that what comes back from under the earth will really be his son but with some mental or behavioral handicap, he gave in. That's the part of the story I enjoy, that human struggle we would all face in that hypothetical universe.
If I had a human child, would I have given in? Probably not. I want to say No but since I never brought another human into this world, I guess there's room for doubt.
But Snowball? It's not worth the risk of having a reanimated corpse instead of my precious child back.

btw the book was much better thanrecommende.
If you want to see an excellent movie about the struggle to overcome death, permanently, I highly recommend The Fountain. It's not in the same genre as King's novel- far from it- and it's a unique and unusual film. Enlightening even. Check it out!

Geothermal body-pieces proof

Okay, here's another one of those ideas that happens only before I'm fully awake:
You know how geothermal energy works, right? When water is injected deep into the earth, steam comes back up, used for turbines to generate electricity? Okay, so if it ever happens that bits and pieces of lizard-people body parts come shooting back up with the steam then I'll give that belief some people have of a lizard people civilization living under us a little more weight. But in the meantime I'm gonna still laugh scornfully at people that actually believe that shit.
Okay. I've got a little more snooze-time left. See ya.

Presidential nightmare

I just woke up. Omfg it was a horrible dream Idk how it happened but the president of the usa was Donald Trump instead. How anyone like that can get elected is unreal. Christ it felt so real.
It makes me feel even more thankful to have Bill Gates in the white house. I know he's gonna make America great again.

I gotta wake up... :-P

Perimortem nightmare

A short story from a graphic novel arises unwelcomed into my mind:

After his father passed away a wealthy man becomes obsessed with learning what people see at the moment they are about to die. His father had been screaming, horrified by the perimortem vision he beheld. Soon after he converted part of his estate into a hospice in an attempt to unravel this mystery. In a house of dying people he believed he would have his opportunity to learn from a patient at the right moment, demanding to know what that patient was seeing.

Soon the man got his wish. And spent the rest of his life locked away in a padded cell, endlessly screaming in horror at whatever visage the living should never know.

This story is unwelcomed because it surfaced from the subconscious depths of my mind as an explanation. A stupid and cruel explanation that any halfwit knows is fiction.

My cat Snowball, my precious baby boy did not pass away peacefully as I hoped and expected. Delirium took hold as he howled and struggled against some unknown phantom danger. I held him, spoke with a gentle voice full of love and reassurance that I'm here, his Daddy is here to love him like always. His breathing stopped, his jerking ceased. I held him close for a long time before wiping away his urine, then folding two of my shirts around him. (and no, I did not think anything supernatural happened)

If I had the foresight, I would have called Dr. Hillary Hart, DVM to come to my home the previous Sunday, hours after he he had purred playfully for the last time. She would have administered euthanasia before the full brunt of his illness overwhelmed him.

I find it amazing that I'm not tormented over "letting" my child suffer so much in his last minutes of life. The previous three years eight months of happiness I gave him saves me from that torment. Beautiful, uplifting memories for which I will always be grateful.

20mar2017

Under a beautiful tree

If my Snowie was still alive, then a small part of what I've reverentially buried this morning would instead have been deposited into the litterbox, to be removed and unceremoniously dumped in the garbage. In the weeks and months ahead, I would have scooped up my sweet baby boy, my beloved cat Snowball into a succession of garbage bags to be dumped and forgotten. But as it was, I interred a mixture of MeowMix, specially-prepared egg-yoke snack, some tapwater and a few cc's of 0.9% sodium chloride medical solution under one of the most beautiful trees on UUC property, the mixture itself having been lovingly wrapped in two of my shirts, which the mixture loved to nestle upon for its naptimes back when it was in a greater state of chemical disequilibrium. And yes I talked to it, crying a few tears as I was laying my precious, beautiful mixture of MeowMix, specially-prepared egg-yoke snack, some tapwater and a few cc's of 0.9% sodium chloride medical solution, to rest.

Life is beautiful, tragic, and more than a little weird.
-Erik Smits, 13march2017