1) YMCA Mem­ber­ship
2) MARTA access

Plinky asked, “If pub­lic trans­porta­tion were avail­able in your neigh­bor­hood, would you use it?”

MARTA Bus Stop Sign

I do use it! It’s much cheap­er than main­tain­ing a car, when you con­sid­er the cost of insur­ance, gas, upkeep, etc. For those of us who don’t care to dri­ve (or whose health removes dri­ving as an option at times) or who want to “go green,” pub­lic tran­sit is a very impor­tant resource.

I only wish MARTA (Metro Atlanta Rapid Tran­sit some­thing) were extend­ed to cov­er all of metro Atlanta. Right now, it is real­ly only a viable option for reach­ing a small por­tion of the metro area.

Plinky asked, “Do you believe in fate?”

Your des­tiny

No, I don’t believe in fate at all. Fate implies some over­all pow­er or force in charge of the uni­verse that over­rides free will and human choic­es, and I com­plete­ly reject that notion.

Peo­ple’s lives are affect­ed by what hap­pens to them, by the genet­ic lot­tery and the envi­ron­ment in which they are raised, and by how they respond to all of the above. Sci­ence is show­ing that more than we ever real­ized is pre­de­ter­mined by genet­ics and things like your grand­par­ents’ diets and health, but if that were the whole sto­ry Barack Oba­ma would­n’t have grown up to be the Pres­i­dent.

1) Medicare
2) My scoot­er
3) Amelia (my cat)

Plinky said, “Name three advan­tages that kids born these days have over old­er gen­er­a­tions. What about dis­ad­van­tages?

Inter­net I

1) The inter­net. I can hard­ly imag­ine what it would have been like to have ready access to so much infor­ma­tion at an ear­ly age!

2) Ubiq­ui­tous con­nec­tiv­i­ty. Even for those like my daugh­ter who don’t remem­ber a time with­out the inter­net, being able to con­nect every­where is a new thing that kids born now will take for grant­ed.

3) Con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion. These kids are unlike­ly to ever walk five miles to the near­est gas sta­tion if they run out of gas, because they’ll have cell phones so they can call for help. There are few­er and few­er places with­out cell cov­er­age, too.

As for dis­ad­van­tages:

1) They’ll nev­er know a world with­out sur­veil­lance. They’ll be mon­i­tored con­stant­ly from cra­dle to grave, offi­cial­ly or unof­fi­cial­ly.

2) There are few­er and few­er wild places where they can go to get away and just be kids, run­ning around with­out a phone ring­ing or an adult mon­i­tor­ing them in some way. I spent many hours in the woods as a child, but it was­n’t safe for my daugh­ter to do the same thing.

3) The same inter­net that brings them such mar­velous infor­ma­tion brings them into con­tact with more peo­ple as chil­dren than their grand­par­ents ever knew, thus increas­ing the like­li­hood that they’ll encounter preda­tors. With­out care­ful mon­i­tor­ing, they can all too eas­i­ly become vic­tims.

1) Auto insur­ance
2) My cell phone
3) My daugh­ter

Today I’m grate­ful for MARTA, which allows me to get around with­out hav­ing to own a car.

I’m also grate­ful for my won­der­ful pain spe­cial­ist and incred­i­ble ther­a­pist.

Plinky asked, “Do you ever lis­ten to the radio any­more?”

Car Radio

I only lis­ten to the radio in the car. In fact, I don’t think I’ve got a radio at home any­where. If I do lis­ten, I almost always choose the local NPR affil­i­ate to lis­ten to. If it isn’t time for the one of the NPR broad­casts, I might skip around the dial to find music I like, but I’m more like­ly to lis­ten to Spo­ti­fy on my phone.

I real­ly enjoy the radio fea­ture on Spo­ti­fy, though. You choose a song you like, then choose the radio fea­ture, and it choos­es more songs that are some­how sim­i­lar to that one (basi­cal­ly Pan­do­ra via Spo­ti­fy).

1) My Dad­dy, and his (ongo­ing) recov­ery from surgery.
2) Every­thing I learned about music from J.D. Mardis and all the oth­er teach­ers over the years.
3) Easy access to a pool.

Plinky asked, “Who’s your favorite come­di­an? Is there any­one you can’t stand?”

George Car­lin May 12 1937 — June 22 2008

George Car­lin is the King of Come­di­ans as far as I’m con­cerned. He’s always hilar­i­ous. I love watch­ing old clips and read­ing his books. His death was a huge loss to the world and came far too ear­ly. It cer­tain­ly does­n’t hurt that he shared my lack of respect for reli­gion.

I see no rea­son to name come­di­ans I can’t stand and give them atten­tion, but pure­ly phys­i­cal com­e­dy leaves me cold, as does any­thing that involves pick­ing on mem­bers of the audi­ence.