I mentioned this before, and decisions have been made. The Board voted to close one school at the end of next year, and another one four years after that. Naturally, the parents are furious. Board elections are just a week away, so the new members could change all that.

The elementary school that is scheduled to close next year has 55 kids and 46 adults - most are non-teachers. If the school is in operation, it needs cafeteria people, custodians, mental health, speech, reading teachers, ESL, etc. Everyone wants lower taxes, but parents want local schools.

This afternoon on Mother's Day (Sunday), I was flipping through the TV channels and stopped for a bit at 2 channels that had different USFL games. At times, they showed the stands which were virtually empty. Around the 50 yard line on one side, I could see about a dozen fans. In my estimation, the stands were about 99.99% empty. As this is a common scenario for the league, how the USFL can survive is a great mystery!

In addition, when viewing on the TV, they dubbed-in crowd sounds for a good play, and so by just listening, you'd think that the stadium was filled with cheering fans.

I share your pain. Many drivers seem not to know how to select lower beam but more likely just don't seem to give a dram! There seems to be a pervasive "you can't make me" attitude in our society these days. PLUS why do drivers feel they need these piercing high intensity lights in our well lit city streets? I see many driving with no lights at all because the streets are so well lit they don't need them to see their way. Headlights in most cities function simply so others can see you coming.

The article states, "Telly’s business model assumes people are ultimately resigned to giving away their data and complacently trading it for convenience."

While we Boomers may be aghast at this, I can see younger generations going for it. My kids, being a good example, have no problem with giving their credit and banking information to dozens of web sites and let's face it, their sense of privacy is totally different than ours; they have no problem sharing nude selfies and intimate personal information with anyone who cares to look on the internet.

The article also says there's a moveable cover for the camera lens and if not, a piece of black electrical tape will do just as good. I would guess there's some way to cover the microphone, too. As far as things like tracking user content preferences and length of time watching TV, I'm sure that's already being tracked by the cable and streaming companies.

Unfortunately, about 50,000 gullible people are going to sign up for this free, 55" TV from Telly. The purpose of the TV is twofold: 24/7 advertising; spying on you. The TV will have a camera and a microphone, and the company can turn on anything at any time. There is a separate screen below the TV screen, and that will show ads - constantly.

As much as we complain about what companies are doing, they're doing it because people are letting them do it. Lots of people think it's great that you can't replace batteries or other components in modern electronics.

https://www.wired.com/story/telly-tv-free-privacy/

There is yet another scare article filled with pointless information that honestly does little to help you with the security of your garage in this day and age:

Not all thieves are stupid! Informational…: Some warnings for us. Thieves can be methodical and masterminds...after all it's their 'bread and butter'. 1. LONG - TERM PARKING Some... (uglyhedgehog.com)

In practical terms, here is what you need to do to secure your garage. Go and look at your garage door opener, the machine hanging from the overhead structure. There you will find a rope hanging from the base of the device. You need to remove this "safety' release from your opener. With this poorly designed "safety" device anyone with a long flat metal device similar to what use to be called a "slim Jim" car door opener can open your garage door without code, or even electricity. The removal of this rope hanging from your device in no way interferes with the operation of the garage door opener.

Now for an additional "safety" device that exists on any and all garage doors, as you face the garage door from the inside look to the right hand side of the door, there you will find a steel slide that will match the opening of a slot in the doors guide steel runner. If you slide this steel slide into the slotted opening the garage door cannot open no matter what the statis of the garage door opener. The door will not move. If you care to, a pad lock can be substated for the opening slot so that the door cannot be opened until the lock is removed.

Because there are those who like to troll, let me state that the hanging rope that you remove ONLY removes a connivance, it does not eliminate the doors releasing feature. So, you will then need to use a step stool to reach the release device for the garage door, you have NOT defeated this feature, you have only created the need to have a connivance for you and anyone wanting to open the door (like unwanted individuals).

If you need to verify all of this, do not waste your time with the police nor the fire department, nor an EMS unit, they are unaware of this situation. The people to call is your garage door installer and garage door repair. These people are fully aware of this and in fact they will make and have on their service vehicles their version of door by pass devices. They use these to open your door to service the door when called. These are to go to people who know all about this option.

So now you know how to secure your garage door. At night as you secure your doors it is worth a trip to the garage to 'lock' your garage door against intruders. If you're going to be gone for any length of time, then you should secure the garage door with a pad lock.

I mentioned this before, and I'm mentioning it again. Making backups can lead to serious problems.

I wanted to check on a password, so I looked for my password file - File > Computer. The file wasn't there. I looked at my backup - not there either. I backup to three places, so if one drive didn't have the file, the others wouldn't either. I figured that I must have deleted it accidentally. Fortunately, I have a fourth drive that I don't back up to regularly. That's where I found the file. But that's not the end of the story.

The "Passwords" file was in the Files folder, not in the Computer folder. There was no problem after all. Still, if I had unknowingly deleted that file, backups would have done me no good. I have a printed copy of the passwords, but it's old, and passwords are added and change frequently. What I do with many important files is save another copy with a "2" added to the end. Now, I have "Passwords" and "Passwords 2."