Skip to main content

Road Trips

I have a few observations from my recent road trip to St. Louis:
~     Billboard advertising, especially along the I94/I80 corridor consists mainly of advertisements for strip clubs, truck stops, casinos, personal injury/bankruptcy attorneys and McDonald's. 
     The strip clubs are often referred to as 'gentlemen's clubs' and I wonder why because I don't think the men glaring at nearly-naked young women and shoving dollar bills down the dancer's g-strings, are gentlemen. According to Webster's the definition of a gentleman is "a chivalrous, courteous, or honorable man".
      And truck stops are at nearly every exit along this corridor- some offer showers. Maybe to shower off after a visit to the 'gentlemen's club'? 
     Casinos - there  were billboards for three in Northern Indiana, six in the Chicago area and four in Michigan. I'm not very good at math, and used a calculator to check my addition, but that's 13 places to lose your money and 13 is not a lucky number! Some of the casinos offer alternatives to gambling that include spas and shopping- and some even present themselves as glamorous. One casino advertised senior days, another an opportunity to win a car every Wednesday in April (or something like that, I don't remember the details).
    Attorneys billboards were mainly personal injury or bankruptcy. I found the latter interesting when it was next to a billboard for a casino- a place where people lose a lot of money! Another attorney billboard advertised personal injury and divorce, it was located near one of the strip clubs. Interesting placement indeed!
   And then there are the McDonald's billboards. Again at nearly every exit there is a McDonald's. And that's why I found it interesting- if you're at nearly every exit why so many billboards? 

 ~  Exceptional drivers all along my drive to and from St. Louis. I'm not commenting on their driving ability so much as on their exception to the law that reads, "left lane for passing only". At one point on our way home Sunday, the only vehicles in the right lane were the trucks and the really slow drivers or us, trying to maneuver along a two-lane interstate. (And we weren't one of the slow drivers!)

 ~   Construction season has begun! The orange cones and signs are everywhere. And while that also means warm weather will soon be here in Michigan, it also means delays & detours.

Comments

Post a Comment

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

Francis of Assisi would run away from home if he lived here!

The title might be a bit extreme - Francis might just go to his room and shut the door and put a pillow over his head to silence the 'noise'. I have done that on occasion. And not because I have toddlers, or a kid that plays the drums or even really loud kids - it's because I live in a house where there is one lawyer, one law school student, and two more potential lawyers. And me - the one singing "Let there be peace on earth . . ." The other four Piggins family members enjoy debating. Sometimes, I think for the sake of the debate. John, Michael, Matthew and Delaney seem to really like these 'discussions'. For instance, we were watching a television show recently - I cannot even recall which one, but it seemed fairly bland - when one of the barrister Piggins made a comment that inspired disagreement from another barrister Piggins. That inspired another from another. And then one more from another until the four of them were debating on some point that wa...
Post a Comment
Read more

You don't know me . . .

I stopped blogging for awhile. I know some might think that I was being lazy, or overly-involved in some community or school venture or in the middle of some really good books or projects. While all of those are true, that's not the main reason. I stopped because it felt strange to be somewhere and have someone refer to something I wrote. It was like they knew a secret about me (though secrets are not usually published on the Web) that I hadn't shared with them. Though in reality I had shared because I wrote it on the blog.  Truth be told, I don't know who reads this - I have a smattering of followers but a lot more readers. Blogger lets me see how many page views for each posting and I can even tell the referral site. The most I have had for any post was 152 and I've had readers from as far away as New Zealand (thank you Gretchen) and Alaska. Most readers are referred through Facebook. I know that if I were more diligent, I could market the crap out of the blog ...
Post a Comment
Read more

WWJD?

What would Jesus do? I love to ponder that question when faced with a difficult or challenging decision. Like many of you, I had one of the WWJD wristbands and it worked as a great visual, moral compass. In situations like: "Should I start swearing at the driver of the car going 55 in the left lane of an interstate with a posted speed limit of 70 with the three little Piggins in the back seats of my mini-van?" First, even though Jesus never had a mini-van or children for that matter (unless you read or watched 'The Da Vinci Code' and follow the story line of Mary Magdalene being the wife of Jesus ... boy did I digress!), I'm pretty sure in this case, Jesus would not have sworn and certainly not thought awful thoughts about some idiot that didn't know that the left lane was for passing ... or how about a situation like this: You're in the express check out lane at the grocery story with the granola bars you promised to bring to your son and his team...
Post a Comment
Read more