The scenic route home

So, just for a change of scenery, I drove back on the old roads.  Picked up old US 1 off the Baltimore beltway.  In Maryland it's a two lane road, must date back to the 1920's.  It was Memorial Day, lovely weather, but the traffic was light, pavement in good shape, road signs legible.  Crossed the Susquehanna River/Head of Chesapeake Bay on the old Conowingo Dam.  It's old, but looks like it's still making juice, plenty of water behind the dam.   Crossed the Mason-Dixon line into PA.  In PA they had widened old US 1 into an up-to-date 4 lane divided highway built to interstate standards.  Probably did the widening in the 1960's.  Swung north on old US 202 thru West Chester.  The never ending construction mess at King-of-Prussia was finally ended.  The road crews had moved south toward West Chester and were tearing up a perfectly good 4 lane divided highway. 
   Stopped at the Mercer Museum in Doylestown PA.  Neato.  A guy named Mercer had some money, and got interested in early American artifacts.  He collected woodworking tools, kitchen utensils, horse drawn vehicles, whaling boats, guns, farming tools, gunsmithing tools, gristmills, spinning wheels, looms, everything.  He had the money to put up a seven story vaguely medieval looking museum to hold all his stuff.  It's still open to the public, and it's cool.  There is material in that building to write twenty books on period stuff.  Well worth stopping in. 

The VA

Amid the howls of outrage from all over the place, I have yet to hear a few important numbers.  Such as:
1.  How many employees does the VA have?
2.  How many of those employees are real medical personnel treating patients, doctors, nurses, physical therapists and the like?
3. How much money could be saved if all the non-medical personnel were laid off, their health care canceled and their retirements canceled?

"Chic artisan food court"

This is the Economist writing about UNION MARKET in DC.  I was there a couple of days ago, looking for a place to get some lunch.  It didn't even look open.  No lights on.  Big letters falling off the roof sign,  abandoned cars in the parking lot.  It looked so bad that we left and wound up getting burgers and fries at Five Guys. 

Nigeria's kidnapped girls

TV news claims the girls have been located.  Then they went into a long song and dance about how difficult it would be for the Nigerian armed forces to rescue them.
  What is going on?
  If we have a location, we load a couple of hundred experienced American infantry men in to helicopters and go get them.  Now would be a good time. 
   Boko Haram are terrorists.  We need to give 'em a lesson. 
   Sure, there is a danger than some of the victims may be harmed in the rescue attempt.  But their risks of death, rape, slavery, and never seeing their families again are very very high.  I'm sure every one of the captives would plead for rescue. 

Luxury Hotels in DC

Well, after a $700 bill for a three night stay, it clearly thinks it's a luxury hotel.  It wasn't bad, but there were odd little lapses.  For instance, no exhaust fan in the bathroom.  Which gives the second person thru the bathroom a hot, steamy, smelly experience.  The bathroom tub was some new glossy material that was slippery as glass.  I had to clutch the crash bar to keep from falling in the tub.  The voice mail system didn't work.  The red "you-gotta-voice-mail" lamp in the phone just would not go out, no matter how many times you picked up your voice mail.  Plus, the voice mail I did pick up was just a long dial tone.  Better than heavy breathing I suppose, but not too useful.  No TV guide channel on the TV.  You have to channel surf to see what's on.  I mean my cheapy cable company at home manages a TV Guide channel, why not a luxury hotel?  And the security scare is getting ridiculous.  The elevator demands you insert your room key/card before it will move.  And the architect...  It's a plain boring concrete block.  Front entrance is smaller than the Au Bon Pain, or the Five Guys burger joint.  No decent sign on the roof.  You can drive right by and it's just one more concrete block building, nothing to make you think it's a hotel.  You walk in, and you have to ride the elevator to floor two to check in.  Which gives the hotel two lobbies.  If you tell someone to meet you in the lobby, you only have a 50-50 chance of getting connected. 

The Hobbit, Desolation of Smaug

I didn't bother to see it in theaters when it came out.  Waited for Netflix.  Well, Netflix brought it to me, I played it.  So-so is the kindest word for it.  The sliced up the book into three parts, to make three movies of it.  This is the middle part, and there just isn't enough plot there to keep the movie moving.  So we have a lot of special effects.  Smaug goes on the rampage, knocks over priceless Dwarf works of art, and keeps on doing so forever. It's a long movie.  I kept hoping it would end.  Little dialog, little acting by flesh and blood actors, the CGI dragon gets the stage for most of the film.
   Too bad.  I have liked the Tolkien books for years.  This flick didn't do much for Middleearth.

Driving down to DC

Its about 600 miles straight thru.  I broke the trip by crashing overnight with an old old friend in Tarrytown NY.  I have done it straight thru in one day, but that was with a relief driver.  I looked at "infrastructure" on the way.  Except for New York, the roads were in good shape.  Fresh new asphalt in many places,  some road work going on here and there.  In New York, everything needed resurfacing, I84, I684, Palisades Parkway.  The New Jersey state line was noticeable for the improvement in the pavement of the Palisades Parkway.  Could it be, most of the media pundits leave in New York, and their constant cries for more infra structure spending are driven be the miserable state of New York roads?  The rest of the way, NH, Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware. Maryland, was good.
  The national motor vehicle fleet has some regional variations.  Upstate in NH and Vermont, there is still a good portion of pickup trucks on the road.  Less so as I went south.  Presumably $4 gasoline has pretty much limited the use of pickups to those that really need them for work.  Used to be, a lot of guys commuted to work in pickups.  Not so much now.  The two seater sports car is pretty much gone, I only saw a couple of them.  No hot rods at all. Every one is driving four door little sedans, either ecoboxes, or Bimmer wannabes.  My full sized Mercury Grand Marquis was pretty much the only one of it's type left.  Merc was running good.  Over the winter his gas mileage had dropped off to a measely 20 MPG.  I gave it a new engine air filter, pumped up all the tires to rated pressure, and I got 25 mpg all the way down.  Not bad for 100,000 miles and 11 years on the road.