Z– Recently, I had some personal cards made up. They show my website name, and email address. They also highlight my motto; OBSERVATIONS OF AN UN-OBSERVING WORLD. Last week in a grand gesture of un-observation, I grabbed one of the cards off the car dashboard, and mistakenly tried to jam it in the parking garage automatic ticket reader to open the gate and let me out; ……yea, it didn’t out work so well! File under; “Hero Takes a Fall / Jackass Ties Himself To Railroad Track.”

Z– In today’s day and age, if you’re lucky, getting “a touch of the flu” usually means being house bound for a few days, and an extra run or two up to the pharmacy. The influenza pandemic from 1918 to 1920 is estimated to have killed 50 to 100 MILLION people world-wide; a little more than just an inconvenience.

Z- I have never met my neighbor across the street, but if I happen to be at the Wednesday farmers market on the island of Madagascar, I would probably run into him; life just seems to work that way.

Z-The art work for the “hippie bus” that shuttled around TV’s Partridge Family was inspired by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s work from 1930 “Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow” (“Zulu, what is it with you and the Partridge Family?).

Z-And then God said; “It’s anticlimactic! Anti-climatic means you’re against the weather.” Joan of Arcadia

Z- If you’re only going to know how to tie one knot, make it a bowline; and know how to tie it around something.

Z- When I was in the second grade, our teacher; Miss Davis came in to school one Monday and said from now on, her name was Mrs. Cleveland. I didn’t get it, but when I was in first grade, I changed my name “on the fly” from Dennis to Bill. They sent a note home to my parents; ……….so unfair!

Z- In every foreign country I visit, I like to sample a Chinese restaurant; it’s the great equalizer.

Z- In the 1960’s, American’s first Taliban- Fascist Dictator, J. Edgar Hoover sicked the FBI on John Lennon, Martin Luther King, and the Students for a Democratic Society. The FBI sought to harass, discredit, and spy on those targets. Hoover, paralyzed by fear, was convinced these men, and groups would destroy the American way of life down to its core roots. Roughly 50 years later, the FBI, logging phone and data records is still spying on America, but now insists on knowing if people think Miley Cyrus’s recent odd behavior will jeopardize Hannah Montana DVD sales.

Z- My favorite beach used to be Nauset on the Cape, but with all the seals, and sea lions swimming around, the sharks think they’re at the Home Town Buffet. I might pass on the “dip in.”

Z- San Francisco has some steep streets, but lesser known are the Streets of Seattle, Pittsburg and Providence. Pittsburg has a unique ride competition on what some call the “steepest street in the world.” http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/12/the-steepest-road-on-earth-takes-no-prisoners/

 Z- When I sign my signature, I only scribble my first name; that doesn’t make me Madonna.