Geophone Sensors---rather alarming in a growing list of identity markers

 It was not my intention to begin this post with a title that made a pun. However,  as it turned out, it is probably more alarming that I first thought.  Since, Geo sensors can be as small as a small spool of thread, their latest deployments are being used as home alarms. That's not a bad thing. The bad thing is that they can detect a person walking across a floor. That is not even a bad thing. The bad thing about them is that they are so sensitive that they have been found in research that every person has a distinct walk and is identifiable to a specific person, much like a fingerprint. In short, another way for government to track a person and invade privacy. Yes, that even includes all the so-called "goodie two shoes" that, while holding their cocktail in their hand talking about every one else, because they are that perfect individual are unaware of anything outside of their little world.

One must remember that :

 "The measure of anyone's freedom is what he can do without."

~~~L.M. Montgumary

An speaking of shoes

 

    Yes, they can sense the difference  of  individual workers on a job site like this one.

 For sure, it is something to think about in the growing era of infringements. First there was fingerprints,voice patterns, then DNA, camera, license plate readers, facial recognition profiling and now footstep sensory. I still remember my first two wake-up calls. The first:  the first time I left this country, my homeland. When I returned it was a shock to notice just how spoiled Americans really are while waiting in line at customs at Miami International Airport. The second wake up call was talking to a TexDoT. supervisor on the LBJ-635 upgrades between the High 5 and IH-35E. When I ask him how much technology was going into the project, he explained that there was..." more than people really want to know about". He went on to say that: "...what people see is construction going on.What they don't see is the really hi-tech stuff that was a good time to install because they would all associate it with an upgrade making their drive better. People in Dallas are asleep  at the wheel." Since that second wake up call, I really started to pay attention. The supervisor was absolutely, correct.

Overheard catchy phrases from platform conversations, line standing and sitting on a park bench on an urban trail.

1. A Buddhist with an ulcer.

2. Not A bland old man.

3. St. Georges Day is upon us already.

4. ...and God made a farmer. 

5.  Every one has a vein of creativity in them. It is just that some missed the chapter on putting a little hole in their creativity bucket so that it would leak out a drip at a time all through their life.

6. Yes, March is the battle of the winds in Texas.

7. Being Woke is a statement of awareness only achieved by those dumb enough to find injustice in everything except their own behavior.

 8. Spring in Texas in March is where you can have a blizzard in the panhandle, Wild fires in West Texas, tornadoes with 150 MPH winds in north Texas, hail, and hurricane force winds in the northern Gulf and Hill Country to the Piney Woods.

9. The Bach Boys: Johann Sebastian and Johann Christian, Carl Phillipp Emanuel.

10.When you must---you can.

11.Being a Force Multiply Person is when you can say what you want and place it in a blank outline of your state in 30-point type because your state is that big and you can say a lot.

12. Early Waves of Woe.

13.Flu Nona

14.Facebook. Haven't we had enough of it already?

15. My doctor told me that I could get a second opinion. So I did. That doctor, after his spiel said, "of course you can get another opinion." By the time I had stopped hearing the doctors tell me something other than I could get another opinion, I was on number 7!

Beautiful Tennison Entrance. PeoneyPoppies are coming up in porch flower pots

The Entrance Gate to Tennison's High course and Low course.Both are 18 holes. 

                                                                     Peony

Paeonia lactiflora 'Sarah Bernhardt'

A prized favorite for over 100 years

I have my fingers crossed that the seed I planted two weeks ago will produce four pots for my porch. The seed that I saved from two years ago is already coming up. The question is did I save the seed the right way. I love these blooms. These are more like a royal version of the carnation, but the demand to get them to grow is much harder than others think. So, they grow to 2-3 feet tall and will make for beautiful porch pots on either side of the gate. Stay tuned!

Downtown Plano Again. Lunch with my brother

 Yesterday, I  rode the Red Line up to Plano again. My brother had invited me to lunch at Fillmore Pub. I've been there before and I didn't even have to look at the menu. Their fish and chips are outstanding. The clock on the cover page of this blog sits on the sidewalk outside the pub. My youngest brother had the chicken salad sandwich. You can make a couple of meals out of that thing. Never-the-less it was a good time. By the time little brother got there at the appointed time, I had some 90 images in the camera. Trying to download them was something I found out later could not be done because of a cable that was broken from years of use. Found one. Ordered it. When playing with the old cable, I finally got it to work. Needed a new one at the time anyway. 

The 28th Annual Deep Ellum Festival

 The expansion of the area and the number of vendors was a total plus from the past years before the pandemic. Most of the vendors that I spoke with were from the regular arts rolling vendors that begin in Texas and move north to the Great Lakes  to where once, Ann Arbor was the grand finale. Since I don't live in the Great Lakes now, I can't confirm that Ann Arbor Street Fair is the same as I once remembered it. What I can say is that Dallas' Deep Ellum was every bit an Ann Arbor fair. It was a fun time today beginning with three young people that made the day. 

While walking both sides of Main Street looking at display, I say an amazing quality of merchandise, much of new technology in the arts. What I saw was outstanding. The new businesses were amazing and right on key to what I had predicted to a Fortune 50 company after spending six months walking the streets of Deep Ellum for a study that ended up with a presentation of a grant to the Deep Ellum Board for the Associations use. Hurdy and Michael, you would be impressed today after seeing how much this Festival has grown over the years and how the old painting of the School Bus and the old tunnels that now have a Dart train station sitting on top of them today is still a place of paint---old water tower.

These three great sports were so much fun. As I was walking this "wing" off the Main Street run, I spotted the guy on the left eating a sprinkled whatever. To the left  of where the three are seen in this image, I stepping into a vendor's tent. Telling her what I was up to with these three. I wanted to be a true paparazzo for once and waited until he started to eat another bite and swing around the corner and snapped the Blog's Number One Spot--the front page. He was totally caught by surprise and the expressions were well worth the effort. 

The guy in the back said that he would like to be in the image with his friends. It was totally possible because they were such good sports about the situation. Thanks to you all. I really appreciate being a paparazzo-in-action. If you read my website "about us" you will see that while we use the name (and how we got it) this type of picture is not the general rule. 

This is the image of all three when expressions were more back to normal.

                                                    No more posting links. Sorry.

Some people need praying for more than others in that hackers are so bold today, they leave a trail even when the site is under testing for such things. God bless them.

Some things just can't be explained about animals.

 My little buddy, Martin, always stops to listen when I talk to him. It is that pose, expression, that this post points out.