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When I last did a wheels blog I was in love with love !


What type of car / 4x4 / bike / etc do u drive ?

(and)

What would u like to drive rather ?

They keep moving the goalposts. At this rate I will be 102 when I can finally totter off to a well-earned rest.

If I promise cross-my-heart I will only claim a pension for a maximum of 10 years, could I quit work now?

I looked up retirement age in various countries - according to Wiki, it is currently 66 for both men and women in the US - in China women can retire as young as 50. Some countries as late as 68, some jobs (like the armed forces) much earlier, some jobs, like judges or cardinals, 75-ish.

Not everyone wants to retire.

Some want to pack it in at 50-something with a sigh of relief.

Some want to become US president at 70-something (both candidates were over 70).

Hands up those who love their jobs so much they would be happiest dying at their desk

Huge chunks of the world I haven't seen yet, so much to do, there's a lyric I heard on the radio tonight - I'm getting paid by the hour and older by the minute.

YES

LET ME OUT OF HERE

How long does bubbly last, anyway? I found six, count them, six, bottles (so far) waiting to be packed. I don't even remember who gave me the first few, or when.

Anyway, hell with it. They're too heavy, and the stuff is cheap where I'm going. Opened one, poured a glass and poured rest down the drain.

Repeat.

Shnot a washte if you drink a glash, ri'?

Can't drink alone, thatsh not nishe. Sho here I am. Cheersh.

Glash a bubbly? Theresh plenny.

In UK and now in Spain, I can buy my groceries at an automated teller, with one human employee monitoring about 12 machines
I can draw cash at an ATM, pay bills, transfer cash, without going into a bank
I can fill my car up and pay the pump without going into the shop
I can phone almost any big organization and be helped by the robot on the phone - in fact, reaching a human being can be quite a mission
Assembly lines in factories are increasingly automated, with artificial intelligence taking on more of the key decisions

Why?

I would understand if we had a shrinking population and jobs had to be automated. We don't. There are more people being born every second, the international population is the largest it has been in recorded history. So why are there fewer job opportunities with every passing day?



I teach English online as a second language and the bulk of my pupils are Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. Most are already in jobs and wanting to improve their prospects, but some are kids. I don't have a child at school, haven't had for a good twenty years, so it was a shock to learn what is expected of kids these days - playing sport, learning musical instruments, studying foreign languages, doing so many extracurricular activities that finding time to be a child is pretty secondary. I mentioned it on FB and it's everywhere, the pressure is on kids all over the world to excel.

Is this so they can hope to stand out in the crowded future, when only one in ten youngster entering the workplace could hope to find even a basic job?

Why?



I know blogs aren't supposed to ask questions but they hopefully can invite opinions. I have a class, will be back later.

Last time I commented on something I found original, interesting, and a little controversial, I found myself adding a disclaimer to fend off the nasty comments I might (MIGHT) get in response. Uh no. Deleted my disclaimer. IF someone wants to take issue, and IF I happen to notice them taking issue, time enough to react.

When did we let those ghastly old muppets Statler and Waldorf take over and ruin the fun? Back to the balcony with all hecklers! Bring back friendly chat please please bring back banter!




My new year resolution (took a while, I know) - I will try, on all social media, to just comment. No disclaimers. No explaining. No preaching. No apologising. No heckling.

Ïn effect, "I found this interesting, I'm reacting because I'm glad you posted it" .

The average new year resolution lasts what, 3 days? Oh well. This one starts right after this disclaiming explaining preaching apologetic (but at least non-shouty) blog. My next blog will, I hope, be interesting enough to provoke chat and banter. Just preparing the ground here.

(Heckling has so become the norm anyone who wants to practice normal comments feel free to add a completely random comment at any point.)

I live about 60 miles from this city. A few months ago I heard about the lead problem they had with their water. In 2014 they switched over from getting their water through Detroit, which came from the Great Lakes, to getting their water through the Flint River. Because the water was different from the new Flint River source, it needed to be treated. However, the city never treated it. What happen was this Flint River water began to erode the lead in the city infrastructure's pipes and in the pipes of homes who have not updated their pipes from lead, usually homes that were built in the 1960's and older.

About 4 to 6 months after the water source was switched, residents of Flint started to complain about the discolored water coming out of their faucets and the bad smell. There were doctors and other water professionals who had actual tests that showed the water contained high levels of lead in it. Some people's blood was tested showing that they had 3x the toxic level of blood in their system. This was all brought to the government's attention which lead to nothing being done about it. In fact, there were high level state government officials, in mid-2015, that held meetings telling the Flint residents to "calm down" there is nothing wrong with your water.

When hearing about this on my local radio station, it was a highly frustrating situation to hear. Who was going to be held responsible for this? Why did this go on for so long before anything is being done about it? How could this happen in the first place? How is this problem going to get fixed?

Now this is a national story....THANKFULLY! Essentially, the whole city of Flint's water supply is unusable. When questioning our Republican governor when he first heard about the lead problem, he says he cannot remember. Even to this day, the governor is still dragging his feet on correcting this problem. Many people have no source of clean water to drink.

con't in comments

I cannot help but wonder, what sort of person was I really with for 13 years? Not that I really care but if they are completely a different person, ...like I said, it makes me wonder.

I do not follow what my ex does. I only wish her the best in life. However, I do talk to her from time to time (primarily around special events like birthdays and holidays) and we are still friends. So I hear a little about her life that way. In addition, I am originally from a small town where everyone knows what color crap you did and at what time.

When my ex and I were together, we raised her son, visited the families, and did vacations. I think that is what most normal families do. She seemed like a nice lady throughout those years.

She did come from a broken family where it seems that she was the least liked. Her only other sibling was a sister whom was spoiled. Not to get into too many details, my ex was kicked out of her home by her mother and step-father. But today, they have overcome those differences are now on a friends level.

Now to the part where I wonder what sort of person I was with. I remember her telling me that she could not understand why people would get tattoos and she would never get any. Well, today, she has tattoos. When we were together, if we drank once or twice a year, that was heavy drinking. Now she drinks every weekend. To top it off, she is now good friends with a biker gang and hangs out with them on a weekly basis.
I also heard from friends of mine that she has a restaining order out against her from the father of her second child.

Hmmm.....what???....who?? I never would have guessed she was that type of woman.

anyway...

I bring this up because I just heard another story that is similar to mine. I had a close friend who was a cop. He caught his wife texting several different men and that was the extent of the information he wanted to tell me. They ended up getting a divorce. I know a friend of his and we met up when I was on vacation. He told me that the cop's ex-wife is now dating an ex-prisoner. The ex-prisoner was recently caught stealing people's lunch boxes at work for their prescription pills. I guess people put their pills in their lunch boxes.

But anyway....I thought it was interesting. How well did you know the person you spent a lot of time with and found out different after you broke up?

The world is a dark and selfish place, Society creates unrealistic demands on us and these drive us to become pro-solitude.

Society tells us who we are and how we should live, but solitude shows us who we are and who we want to be. We like being alone but not lonely, we can think for ourselves and be ourselves without being judged on our race, religion or education.

Ellen Burstyn said “What a lovely surprise to discover how unlonely being alone can be”
I think the vast majority of people here on CS and the blogs are pro-solitude but never lonely here.

What do you think?

PS Cows don’t feel pain when you milk them.

Why do men date beautiful girls bang them but never marry them?,i'm not married and when i look around in the streets or wherever i go i see ugly women with nice looking guys like me holdings hands walking together pushing their babies in strollers,has anyone of ever asked him/herself why do guys opt to go for ugly women when they decide to settle down?!!.

I started 2017 employed and living in Scotland but knowing that the Scottish offices of my company were closing and we were being made redundant in April. I'd been offered a transfer to the English offices but wasn't at all sure I wanted to move back to England. So I went on holiday in February to Spain to think about it, to cheer up, to get some winter sunshine ...

Result - I fell in love with a house long on potential and decided to buy it, despite not speaking Spanish, or knowing anything about refurbishing large dilapidated 100-year-old rambling Spanish townhouses. Returned, put my house on the market, did a TEFL course and started teaching English online and found I loved teaching (phew). Income sorted, at least in theory. Sold the house in Scotland after 2 false starts, packed up and bought a super-cheap camper (never been a camping enthusiast) to get myself and my pets to Spain.

Problem - when it came to the crunch, because of the falling pound I could no longer afford the house in Spain, but went anyway because what else could I do? I'd sold up, turned down the English transfer, burned my Scottish boats. Plus I wanted to get over in time for a bloggers meet in September with a particular special visitor from Malaysia I had wanted to meet for a couple of years And wintering in a campervan in Spain would be warmer than Scotland (that turned out to be a very good decision, Scotland is having a stoater of a winter, brrrr)

Made the meet with barely a day in hand, then started some serious house-hunting (there have been blogs ) which ended when the house I had originally wanted dropped its price into my price range and wintering in the van was no longer required - luckily, since it is colder than usual here too, days around 16 to 18 C degrees, nights occasionally dropping as low as 8 degrees. The van was a wonderful stopgap but 8 weeks of living in it was an elegant sufficiency.

Since moving in, I have been bossed mercilessly by #1 CS buddy (building expert of note) into stripping old walls of dead paint and plaster, stripping down old wooden beams, doors and windows, treating walls then painting them, and even carrying 25 kg bags of building materials, albeit not very far or very fast. With his priceless help my shabby elefante blanco has become a stripped carcass, slowly growing room by room into a home and, hopefully, a self-funding future.

Writing has ground to almost a complete halt, and teaching has been on hold while the extremely noisy Spanish builders are in situ. My hands are calloused, I am semi-permanently paint-freckled, my hair stands on end 90% of the time, and my biceps are becoming alarming. As we are now working on the upstairs levels, my leg muscles are becoming steel springs. As you can imagine, after reading that, #1 CS buddy is not a romantic entanglement My Spanish-speaking CS buddies have also been worth their weight in gold.

I’m not quoting any names - against blog rules, for one thing. They can identify themselves, if they see this blog. However, this whole change in my life is pretty much a direct result of joining CS a few years ago and being lucky enough to make some quality quirky friends here. Funny how life works out.



It has been an interesting year. 2018 promises to be even more interesting. I use that word deliberately - I’m told there is a Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times”

Feliz año nuevo to all and may 2018 bring you happiness in the things that really matter.

I'm leaving comments open, would be great if you talked about your 2017 if you do comment or that this will spark other blogs about the year gone.