Forget the dollar, the yen or the euro. The new unit of measure for determining something’s value is a tank of gas. Car dealers are telling you how many tankfuls of gas you can buy with their rebates. Electronics web pages are advertising pages of items that cost less than a tankful of gas. And some office workers are comparing pay increases and salaries for other jobs by how much more gas they can buy. Sad is the employee whose annual merit increase doesn’t even equal one tank of gas.
It won’t be long before social engagements are judged on whether or not they are “gas-worthy.” Will a wedding or other celebration rate two or three gallons of gas? Will sports teams gain or lose attendance based on the “gas-worthiness” of their win-loss records? And exactly how many gallons of gas can that NBA superstar buy with his salary?
I envision single people rating their dates on the gallon scale, with no one wanting to be rated as a one-gallon date. Movie ratings will switch from stars to gas cans, and 4-star hotels will become 4-gallon getaways.
Once, the gold standard was used to determine the value of things. Today, it’s the gas standard, a truly liquid currency.
So, how "gas-worthy" are you?
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
What are some doctors up to now?
Check out my recently published content on AC:
"Concierge Service" in the Doctor's Office - Is This Where Medical Care is Headed?
"Concierge Service" in the Doctor's Office - Is This Where Medical Care is Headed?
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Dealing With Leftovers
She’s not even my cat. In fact, she’s no one's cat, being part of the gang of feral cats whose population has exploded in my neighborhood. She isn’t a nice looking cat either, in fact, she is a crazy quilt kind of cat, her fur a wild combination of every other cat in the area. Around her neck she has puffy orange fur that is a combination of an orange tabby cat and a long-haired cat, her back end is more smooth and is gray and white striped, while her face has the white and brown spots you see on a calico cat. She’s odd-looking, wild and for some reason, won’t stay out of my yard. In my mind I’ve started to call her “Lefty” because she really looks like she was put together from leftover parts.
I have a dog. A fairly big dog. A dog who considers cats, squirrels, birds and toads as fair game. When she is in the yard, she is on a chain because I can’t trust her not to run off, chasing critters. One unfortunate incident is all it took to show me what can happen if she actually catches something. It is quite possible that Lefty was actually a witness to that incident, as it involved another female cat, and several kittens who had gotten into the habit of sleeping on my lounge chair on my back deck. One morning they didn’t move fast enough as I was bringing the dog out in the yard. During the ensuing unpleasantness, I seem to remember one of the kittens looking like it was wearing a coat made out of leftover cat parts.
All winter the lounge chair was off the deck, the cushions stored away, and I eventually forgot about how it had been used as a cat bed. Cats continued to drift in and out of the yard, sometimes teasing the dog by standing just out of the reach of her chain, making her bark furiously. Mostly, they just seemed to be passing through. I have some neighbors with severely overgrown yards, so I figured the cats had moved on to more friendly domains.
Two days ago, my dog started getting extremely agitated every time I put her outside. It is spring, and squirrels are darting loudly and clumsily in the maple trees at the back of my yard. My dog gets a sight of them and just won’t quit. Sometimes they run along the fence and down the driveway, driving her mad. But this time, she was directing her bark back at the house, toward the deck, especially on the side where I have a small lawnmower shed.
After wrestling her back into the house, I decided to take a closer look at that area of my yard. And then I noticed, there on my deck, perched on the back of the lounge chair was a single, defiant kitten. The kitten looked at me calmly, then jumped down from the deck and dashed behind the little shed.
I followed the kitten and then found, to my surprise, a veritable carnivore’s den between the back of my shed and the wall of the house. The remains of several birds, reduced to mostly feathers, and an obvious fresh kill – a pretty substantially sized squirrel. I wondered if this was some sort of super hunter kitten who had taken down all these animals. A kitten who defiantly sat on my deck the entire time the dog was out there. A kitten to be reckoned with, I thought.
It was a weekday morning, and I was dressed for work, so I planned to return later that afternoon and clean up the carcasses. In the meantime, I sprayed the whole area with an organic repellant spray, hoping the kitten would be turned off by the stench and leave.
At the end of the day, I steeled myself for the distasteful job of cleaning up a dead squirrel. I approached with a rake and a shovel held in gloved hands. A bandanna was tied around my nose in case of foul odors.
The squirrel was gone. Completely. Just as if it had suddenly gotten up and run away. I thought that perhaps the kitten, after encountering the stinky repellant spray, grabbed its meal and moved out. I was wrong.
The kitten had grabbed the squirrel alright, but only dragged it around to the far side of the shed. And there it sat, calmly, with its little white paws tucked beneath it, next to what appeared to be now about a quarter of a squirrel. Did this kitten eat almost an entire squirrel that was almost twice its own size? Again I though, a kitten to be reckoned with.
A noise by the deck startled me. There was the cat I had been referring to as Lefty, multi-colored tail swishing. In an instant both she and the kitten were gone.
I brought the dog out again, happy that the squirrel remains were out of her line of sight, and decided to leave what little was left for the cats. This weekend I am going to cut the grass very short around that shed and see what I can do to make the back of the shed less hospitable for Lefty and her kitten. I’ll store the lounge chair cushion and turn the chair upside down. I’ll put the dog outside more often during the day to emphasize that this is not a cat yard.
I hope it works. But I just saw now Lefty strolling down the walkway in the front of my house, her scent drifting under the screen door right into my dog’s flaring nostrils. I had to close the heavy front door to get her to calm down and stop barking and scratching at the screen door and trying to get out.
I think it’s going to be a long summer.
I have a dog. A fairly big dog. A dog who considers cats, squirrels, birds and toads as fair game. When she is in the yard, she is on a chain because I can’t trust her not to run off, chasing critters. One unfortunate incident is all it took to show me what can happen if she actually catches something. It is quite possible that Lefty was actually a witness to that incident, as it involved another female cat, and several kittens who had gotten into the habit of sleeping on my lounge chair on my back deck. One morning they didn’t move fast enough as I was bringing the dog out in the yard. During the ensuing unpleasantness, I seem to remember one of the kittens looking like it was wearing a coat made out of leftover cat parts.
All winter the lounge chair was off the deck, the cushions stored away, and I eventually forgot about how it had been used as a cat bed. Cats continued to drift in and out of the yard, sometimes teasing the dog by standing just out of the reach of her chain, making her bark furiously. Mostly, they just seemed to be passing through. I have some neighbors with severely overgrown yards, so I figured the cats had moved on to more friendly domains.
Two days ago, my dog started getting extremely agitated every time I put her outside. It is spring, and squirrels are darting loudly and clumsily in the maple trees at the back of my yard. My dog gets a sight of them and just won’t quit. Sometimes they run along the fence and down the driveway, driving her mad. But this time, she was directing her bark back at the house, toward the deck, especially on the side where I have a small lawnmower shed.
After wrestling her back into the house, I decided to take a closer look at that area of my yard. And then I noticed, there on my deck, perched on the back of the lounge chair was a single, defiant kitten. The kitten looked at me calmly, then jumped down from the deck and dashed behind the little shed.
I followed the kitten and then found, to my surprise, a veritable carnivore’s den between the back of my shed and the wall of the house. The remains of several birds, reduced to mostly feathers, and an obvious fresh kill – a pretty substantially sized squirrel. I wondered if this was some sort of super hunter kitten who had taken down all these animals. A kitten who defiantly sat on my deck the entire time the dog was out there. A kitten to be reckoned with, I thought.
It was a weekday morning, and I was dressed for work, so I planned to return later that afternoon and clean up the carcasses. In the meantime, I sprayed the whole area with an organic repellant spray, hoping the kitten would be turned off by the stench and leave.
At the end of the day, I steeled myself for the distasteful job of cleaning up a dead squirrel. I approached with a rake and a shovel held in gloved hands. A bandanna was tied around my nose in case of foul odors.
The squirrel was gone. Completely. Just as if it had suddenly gotten up and run away. I thought that perhaps the kitten, after encountering the stinky repellant spray, grabbed its meal and moved out. I was wrong.
The kitten had grabbed the squirrel alright, but only dragged it around to the far side of the shed. And there it sat, calmly, with its little white paws tucked beneath it, next to what appeared to be now about a quarter of a squirrel. Did this kitten eat almost an entire squirrel that was almost twice its own size? Again I though, a kitten to be reckoned with.
A noise by the deck startled me. There was the cat I had been referring to as Lefty, multi-colored tail swishing. In an instant both she and the kitten were gone.
I brought the dog out again, happy that the squirrel remains were out of her line of sight, and decided to leave what little was left for the cats. This weekend I am going to cut the grass very short around that shed and see what I can do to make the back of the shed less hospitable for Lefty and her kitten. I’ll store the lounge chair cushion and turn the chair upside down. I’ll put the dog outside more often during the day to emphasize that this is not a cat yard.
I hope it works. But I just saw now Lefty strolling down the walkway in the front of my house, her scent drifting under the screen door right into my dog’s flaring nostrils. I had to close the heavy front door to get her to calm down and stop barking and scratching at the screen door and trying to get out.
I think it’s going to be a long summer.
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