Chasing After Wind

By Dan Roark

There are signs other than road signs. Posting on bulletin boards and other written paper notifications that are not permanent or near a road. Then the kind of signs that are simply sayings, texts, or whatnot – although we don’t know exactly what they are signs of. We’ll discuss it because, well, why not?

Today we’ll have one of each of two of the sign categories listed above. The first is the assumably permanent sign pictured here. As you can tell it was a cloudy day and there’s only so much you can do to a picture taken on a cloudy day.

Forget for the moment the fact that the sign above is technically on a hill to begin with. A smaller hill, but a hill nonetheless. The point I’m making is that you can see the freaking hill. You can’t miss it. You don’t need a sign to tell you there’s a hill.

What would be useful would be a sign telling drivers what is over the hill. Once you’re on top of the hill, it’s a little late to find out any changes in the direction of the road or see obstacles.

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I was checking my email the other day and came upon an email from Walmart. I frequently order online and then go pick the order up. So I opened it:

“Thank you for buying lunch meats and deli meats.  Our pick for you today is Smoker Pellets.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, I stand (or sit) before you, amazed and confused. It has been months since I have purchased either lunch or deli meats. We do, indeed, have a smoker. But it is old enough to precede the creation of pellets for smokers or grills. The three grills our family members own are charcoal so there is no grill attached to our name that uses smoker pellets.

I have, in fact, bought charcoal in an online order. So on what planet would you assume I would need smoker pellets? I wonder about the validity of their algorithms.

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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

PayPal.me/danroark

By Dan Roark

There are signs you see all the time, but ignore, because you either already know or it makes no sense. Then there are the signs you pass all the time, but don’t actually notice – or it doesn’t affect you (at least at the time you see it). So you quit noticing it.

We’ll begin with digital signs that may or may not change what it says. The picture above actually says “New Traffic Pattern.” I was taking J.D. – our youngest grown son – to work and back for a while. I took a picture with my android phone one day. J.D. took a picture with his iPhone the next day. The next day I had the 35mm camera.

What you see above is the best we got. That is not what we saw with our eyes. Since we could see what it actually said, it ruled out hackers. Hackers would change the message. It had to be a force that kept the correct message from being recreated in a picture. And it would have to be an electric/static force. Which would come from where, exactly? Certainly not the gas station across the intersection.

That is a rabbit hole we are not going down today. Take it at face value – New Traffic Pattern. Here’s the deal: in the numerous weeks we made the trip, the pattern NEVER changed. They did add a stoplight at one point, but the pattern never changed. It went on like that for weeks, not just the week we tried taking the picture. It alternated with Drive Slowly. Those that are going to actually slow down were slowing down regardless – whether there was a sign or not. Either way, New Traffic Pattern would have done the trick. If they weren’t going to slow down anyway, same difference. Whatever way you slice it, it’s using taxpayer money.

Every time I drive somewhere, I’ll see a sign (the electronic signs are relegated to high traffic areas in the city) that seems to be irrelevant or makes no sense. I think, crap, I need to get a picture of that. Then I remember that I’ve got signs on the list to keep me busy long enough to take the pictures. I just need to remember where they were.

Come along on the journey of stupid or useless signs. It’ll be fun!

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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark