Today's Roll Call

Raise your hand when I call roll!

Miki - raises hand and says here!

Snaps to attention. Shouts 'Here'. Well I was in the military onc‍

Quite but still here.

Waving frantically, jumping up and down, whistling a few times, stamping feet.... waving a bit more! Yes, it's me!!!!!

Huh? Did someone say something? Oh! Here!

Here!

*snorts as I start awake, peek my head out of the sett, and return to curl back up and listen*

Hey Tara, good to hear you are still around! Guess not much happening lately here, just a few of us posting... and

Hey Beth!!!!

Where ya been???? What's happening, you still playing guitar, bass wasn't it? And missing the aircraft photies..... Anyway.... hold that bus.... that's one, two, three.... tum-tee-tum.... seven so far.....

Celia xx

Celia Eriksson wrote:Hey Tara, good to hear you are still around! Guess not much happening lately here, just a few of us posting...

I haven't gone anywhere. Just lurking I suppose, until I have something to say.

I had a nice (meaning cold, tiring, and painful) 19 km/12 mile run this morning with what was supposed to be a small group of women. It ended up being 16 women, including me, as another group showed up at the same place. I did know most of them.

It worked out OK, as a mix of paces got us physically distanced very quickly. The lovely thing is that all these women simply accept me as another woman mad enough to get up early on a winter day for a long run.

Tara wrote:...until I have something to say.

Hey, Tara, we are a bunch of girls - we are supposed to always have something to say - doncha know that!

Tara wrote:The lovely thing is that all these women simply accept me as another woman mad enough to get up early on a winter day for a long run.

That is really, REALLY, nice - for you, and the girls you run with. Yay!

Well I haven't much to say well here anyway. Isn't that right C,?, But I'm here..

I lurk. I read. I see everyone behaving. I keep to myself.

I have recently, well, since July, absolutely fallen in love with the Airbus A320 family, in particular the A319, ever since Boeing pissed me off by putting profit before people with that 737 MAX disaster. And even tho my beloved 737-800 wasn't involved in that mess, my mind was expanded. And Airbus is, ultimately, more intuitive.

I also now have a fetish for semi-truck simulation. Both American and European. I have even learnt to drive on the left side of the road. Scania for the win.

I have been off drugs for 316 days, but am coming into my traumatic anniversary time of year. And am trying to cope with it without drugs for the first time in over 30 years.

The contractors fucked up our bathtub installation so badly that they suggested we fire them without pay. We are now trying to finish the job ourselves.

My estrogen is at 29 pg/ml and we have no idea why. I'm perpetually hungry. My teeth are rotting out because I have the hygiene habits of a schizophrenic drug addict (imagine that.)

And this has now officially become the most I have ever posted at one time in my entire history of being with TGB, this incarnation or the last. I have no idea why I prattled this out.

Just for you, Celia, approach to 9 Left at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport:

*both hands up* wooooo. Yay. Hi. I am here. Much love to you all. Peace out.

So we are eight, that is about how we have always been here, a nice little quiet place, but perhaps too quiet lately. We all have things to do and get on with I guess.

Thank you Beth for the picture of the airbus, my now retired elder Brother used to service those for BA, he always said they are better than the Boeings. I have to say though, I think I have never been on one, I don't know the difference though, but I am sure I have always seen in the magazine net in front of the seat that the plane, a pamphlet on how to get off in an emergency the words Boeing and then various three numbers with two sevens, like of course 747.

Japan have amazing semis, (well we call them artics, after articulated lorries), they cover them with lots and lots of lights! They of course, drive on the left like here. Careful driving on the left though! It's only the UK, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus that do, the rest of Europe drive on your side, which of course in actuality of factfulness is the wrong side!!!!

Celia xx

Trust me, I know. My base of operations in Europe is Birmingham. I got a job over to Amsterdam. Caught a ferry from near Felixstowe and emerged into Driving On The Right Side Of The Road In A Right-Hand Drive "artic." I drift left a lot driving on the right like that. And overcompensated to the right once....

Didn't Finland change from left to right driving overnight a couple of decades ago?

My best friend in school and his mother took at trip to visit relatives in Australia in the late '50s. He told me the car they rented had a big sign on the rear of the car stating "RIGHT LANE DRIVER ABOARD" even though the car was setup for left lane driving. He mentioned he was somewhat embarrassed with the strange looks and questions he got everytime they had to stop for fuel or food.

Hi Michaela and Beth,

Well Beth, that is quite a pickle!!!! I am always careful on motorways/highways passing RHD trucks from Europe, for they have a propensity to find it hard to stay in lane..... and Miki, it was Sweden that changed in 1967, I have included a picture of the event. They had discussed doing it for many years and finally bit the bullet. As far as i know Finland have always been on the right.

I remember my Brother telling me that he got pulled over by a patrol motorcycleman as he left Miami airport, he was on the left!!!!! But then I remember being with him in Cyprus many moons ago, when he was driving an automatic for the first time and leaving Larnaca, he suddenly slammed the brakes on by mistake!!!!!!

It is better driving on the left, especially with manual cars, for all the buttons, shift gears and handbrake are for your left hand whilst your right hand stays on the wheel, most people being right handed!!!



Celia xx

False news, Celia As I recall it went very smoothly. It being Sweden after all. Clue in the picture. Where's the Volvos? No Helga? I doubt it could be done these days. Far too busy. It was bad enough when we went to kilometre speed limits. Did you know the only countries left using miles per hour are the UK and USA? Japan and a few other countries are still right hand drive though.

Never really had a problem driving on the wrong side of the road except for the time I pulled out of the casino car park in Monte Carlo, yes in Monaco, (name dropper). I was happily driving along until my wife, calmly pointed out this was a one way street in the other direction. I calmly turned left or was it right?

On the other hand I did infuriate a few French drivers while driving our own right hand drive car in France. Well it's easy to infuriate French drivers but pulling out in front of them and at roundabouts is infuriating.

I agree Celia that driving on the left is better. I remember some Americans agreeing once they got used to it. But they could never could cope with tiny Irish boreens. I remember sitting in an IBM cafeteria in Vermont listening with amusement to one American advising another about driving in Ireland. Told him that he'd probably wipe out the passenger mirror on the wall at the side of the road. I'd be more amused if I hadn't done the same thing myself.

Joking aside, almost every year there's a nasty accident when tourists get it wrong for a moment.

I found it most scary in Italy even though the roads are fabulous.

So Kaibeth, it is probably your longest post. You don't give much away normally. I have no favourite Airbus/Boeing although my brother is an Engineer/mechanic on Airbus with Aer Lingus. Bad times for airline employees.

I'm well out of it.

Hi Marie,

Oh it did go smoothly, the writing on the photo is not mine. There were very strange junctions at the border that were like criss-cross roads, no customs of course for back then if you were in Scandinavia, you were there, so no controls between Norway and Sweden and of course they, (Sweden), were not in the EC/EU/EEC whatever then. On these junctions, vehicles from both directions had to give way/yield to opposite vehicles and take turns. Rather like a curled x, they worked ok then, but I doubt they would work today, too many vehicles.

There are of course no signs on cars here about anyone being from a country driving on the right, but a dear old friend of mine did get hit an American tourist on a quiet road near Hove a couple of years ago, he was very unfortunate, for it was on a brow and the man had just set out and forgot about driving on the left, but fortunate that he only suffered bruised ribs and shock. You would imagine the wheel being on the right/left would be a big clue, but people are very set in their ways.

If one was to go up to London, one finds written on every roadside, because of the high amount of tourists, 'LOOK RIGHT' in bright yellow paint, for the natural thing to do for Europeans and North Americans is to look left.

Anyway, I guess Miki really is our oldest member, as she recalls Finland changing sides from left to right..... coz it was in 1858!!!!!!!

A map: (Sorry it don't go bigger....)



Red: Right always

Blue: Left always

Orange: Was left , now right.

Purple: Was right, now left.

Green: Was a mixture of left and right within different parts of country, now right. Note Canada went right in '24, but I guess Quebec was always right.


Celia xx

Celia Eriksson wrote:...Miki really is our oldest member

Hey, ageism not allowed on this forum although I do resemble that remark!

Well crap! Seems I’ve got my very own kidney stone. My back started hurting yesterday morning and nothing I did improved it. Went to the VA ER and an exam, blood work, Urine had microscopic blood, that bought me a CT scan that showed a 4 mm stone in the left ureter. Damn thing is still there, pain has moved to my lower back/pelvis, so I’m hoping it drops into the bladder so I can flush it out.

~ Liz

I have never had a kidney stone, but I have a couple of small gall stones waiting for me to do something wrong so I can get punished.

While I have never had to suffer the effects of a stone - I have seen what can happen and I would just as soon as not, not have one to pass.

Feel better, Liz!

I had something once which might have been a kidney stone. It debilitated me for a while. Then it passed, literally or whatever. I was lucky but I have instant sympathy for anyone who suffers from it. It's agonising

I hope you'll be OK soon.

The days have trolled by, had a nephrology consult on Friday. Plan is to give the stone a couple of weeks to move. If it doesn’t, the it’ll have to a surgical procedure using an end o scope to go through the urethral and up into the ureter, crush the stone and flush it out.. I don’t have anything against the procedure, that should be a piece of cake. I just don’t want the covid related risk.

Pain has been manageable with norco. Tomorrow during the day gonna try using just aspirin. Aspirin works well for me for most things so we’ll see.

Not a lot to do around here this weekend, we got about a foot of snow Friday night - Sat morning, supposed to get note tonight. That’s a pretty good dump of snow for here, we rarely get more than 1-2 “ at a time, and that usually Mets by noon the next day.


~ Liz

I know someone who went through a similar process. He got through it but it was tough. Add Covid and........ Well best wishes.

We had a bit of snow here, long gone now. Nice and mild. But the sea is a twenty minute walk away. It never gets really cold here. If anything today was spring like. The daffodils in the garden are about to flower.