"Do you have a cell phone? I'll pay to use it."

Tonight I caught the return bus home to meet a friend and his delightful kiddos at a restaurant to have dinner. It worked quite nicely and we had a good time with his kids talking about their inventions and such.

The boy had an idea for a robot that was like Wall-E, but it was going to be named something else: Trashbot. Then he went into a detailed descriptions of how waste would be scanned for its content and blown around by a series of fans into places underground where it would be crushed and then burned down to microscopic particles, but not microscopic, "this size" he demonstrated by holding up his finger and thumb circled to show about something the size of a dime where it would then be blown into the atmosphere. Then he said his teacher didn't like that and his lab partner said he'd put garbage into egg shells and smash them into the ground. The discussion continued and we got to the point where we were asking about maintenance and how much it would cost per cube of waste to be crushed and hydraulics oil and the fuel used to burn off some of the trash which, I'm told would be burned with the "Blue Rhino" stuff (Blue Rhino Propane) and we all had a great laugh. Then I asked him about his other invention but he said he'd need to go into outer space to get the DNA of an alien for his next invention and we broke out in laughter again. We were having a great time which led to the discussion of the possibility of home recycling capabilities where you'd have bins that you'd load with your recyclables and you'd be able to treat your own waste and either be able to form it into other products or containers yourself or into resalable materials to drop outside for pickup by local raw materials merchants.

Ah to have the mind of a child again. Kids keep us young.

I rode my bike over to a bus stop I'd never caught the bus at before and it seemed to be running behind by about 15 minutes or so. A woman wearing a Sonic polo shirt asked if I had a cell phone and could she borrow it. Said she'd pay to use it. I offered it to her, took her 20 bucks (just kidding) and she called whoever and told them she'd be running late and to wait for her. The bus finally arrived and there was a bike already loaded in the frontmost rack, so I had to work my way around it to get it situated properly. The bars were touching and it delayed me and the bus for almost twice as long as I usually take. The bus was quite loaded but there were a few seats left, so I could see how it may have been delayed.

I felt like I was in a comic book as tonight's bus was filled with people of very distinct character and features. There was a large fellow wearing a black shirt watching his personal media player, an older man wearing cycling gloves and shorts and a backpack along with a guy from McDonalds who'd just gotten off his shift and a gentleman that looked like a more haggard version of Stephen King with huge wads of packing tape wrapped around his earpieces to keep them together.

I finally got to my stop and extracted my bike from the rack and to my chagrin, the chain had fallen off the big ring so I had to reseat it. Not sure what caused it but probably the jerking motion of the bike caused it to flex and pop off. As I was riding away, the frame pump fell out of it's insecure nest along the bottom of the top tube and clattered into my pedal and chain area. I'm glad it was night time and no one could see my plight. The rest of the ride home was inconsequential and no deep thoughts emitted from my brain other than how lazy this bike was making me. I did speak to the folks today about the hurricane and what their plan of attack was, wished them well and told them I loved them like any good son would. I hope to report that all is well tomorrow as the latest spawn from the Gulf of Fury rolls in to kiss the shoreline. I may find myself being walked to work by Edouard tomorrow, I just hope he doesn't take my milk money. And just in case you didn't know, some insurance companies stop writing insurance policies ANYWHERE in the state of Texas once a storm hits Category 3.

And while we're on the subject, here's some information on how to prepare for a hurricane.

http://www.redcross.org/news/ds/0305hurricane/