Vehicular violence is not taken seriously.

Earlier this year a woman in Florida crossed over the yellow lines and plowed into a group bike ride sending 7 riders to the hospital. No real investigation. No charges. And now there are now no ticketed charges or fines. Cop couldn't be bothered to show up in court.
Perfect. No consequences for your actions.

https://www.wptv.com/news/region-s-palm-beach-county/delray-beach/driver-who-crashed-into-cyclists-had-citations-dismissed-heres-why

Earlier article. After which one editorial blamed the cyclists for riding abreast.

https://www.wptv.com/news/region-s-palm-beach-county/delray-beach/7-people-taken-to-hospital-after-crash-between-car-and-group-of-cyclists-in-delray-beach

With a recent shooting of a minority child by police

I found this little tidbit in The Economist from a couple of weeks ago.
citing research by Mendoza and Parks-Stamm.

"people who wore a police uniform during a video-game simulation designed to test reaction times were more likely than those in their own clothes to shoot unarmed targets."

Here is the paper. That conclusion doesn't habor good for people who are confronted by armed police.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334257580_Embodying_the_Police_The_Effects_of_Enclothed_Cognition_on_Shooting_Decisions

Fun brain stuff

Just had cataract surgery on my right eye. Historically I have been near sited. I'm about 48 hours post replacement. When the patch was removed yesterday things looked misty.
Now it appears that my brain is using the best eye for each purpose. My new right eye gives me better vision for distance and I now read with my left eye. The transition is seamless. I look up over my Kindle and the things across the room are sharp.
Fun stuff.
Another incidence was I could read before without glasses. So with the cataract my brain used the left eye. You know that when you relax your eyes you can get double vision. So while looking at a data table on my phone I relaxed my vision. I thought that one would be fuzzy and the other sharp. No. Both images were sharp. Surprise.

I've made a momentous decision.

TFG will now be called by me, Putin"s Whoopie Cushion.

Tiles and grafitti from an Oakland St.

In CA for some family stuff. My wife let me walk around a bit for good behavior.









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Mac and cheese Quiche

I got trapped in a in a long slow grocery line on Saturday. I ended up with a magazine of recipes landing on the food pile. This has quite a few different quiche recepies. Here is one slightly modified recipe for Mac and Cheese quiche. I added a bit more cheese and a bit of speck and onion to the mix before baking. The crust was fairly standard with cheese added and using an egg for the liquid.

Coincidence,

Way back in 1994, when my daughter played soccer, in the Stanford area the event organizers of the World Cup reached out to soccer teams in the area. They would line up and circle the track during the opening cerimonies of the first match at Stanford Stadium. She has a picture of her in her uniform, and some other memorabilia in a small frame.

Now, in Munich, a woman friend who's mother passed away a coiuple of months ago found an item that she thought should go to my daughter. It is a beer glass from a brewer in Rosenheim celebrating the 1994 Weltmeister, world master / world cup. Truely a surprise.

Tree on our dog walk

SUV front ends

This past week or so I rented a car in CA. I had asked for a midsize and they didn't have what I ordered so they upgraded me to an SUV. A Volkswagen Atlas. 7 seats, fancy seats. Pain in the ass touch screen controls. Surprisingly it got over 26 mpg the way I drive. Power from a 2 liter turbo 4 rated at 267 HP mated to an 8 speed automatic. AWD.

What bothered me the most was the front end. I'm 6' 2" tall and the hood line is at my waist. There is at least an 8 inch gap from the top of thefenders tothe top of the engine. See pics. The front end could be redesigned to lower the front and make it safer if you hit a pedestrian or cyclist. It would be able to view more of the road infront of you and probably increase fuel economy. These things don't matter when you want that tough image though.

This isn't the worst. Larger SUV and pickups have walls in the front. One vehicle I walked by would hit me at the shoulders to the knees.

Spargelzeit! Yes.

Asparagus time. It is now the season.
Now that I'm back from 2 weeks in CA dealing with family members I got to break out the Spargeltopf, asparagus pot.

Yes I have an aspargus pot. One more set of words that I have eaten. Who would buy a pot just to cook asparagus???? Well, me, it turns out. 10 euro and it doubles for small batches of pasta, not spagehti.

Spring has arrived.