Big Brother Is Watching

There is an old saying that life imitates art. It implies that events in the real world are inspired by a creative work, be it a painting, a book, or a movie. I’m not sure about that, though I have been surprised a few times when something I wrote about in one of my books actually happens.

But then again, life also inspires art. I get a lot of ideas for stories for my books from reading and watching the news or true crime stories on television.

Another saying we hear a lot is that Big Brother is watching you. This comes from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and is about how people’s actions are being monitored by the government as a means of controlling the will of society. I think we are seeing at least a little bit of that these days.

Think about it. There are traffic cameras everywhere you go, security cameras in parking lots and on homes, and police have license plate scanners available that can tell them when a car has an outstanding warrant or is stolen, or things like that. Some people think that’s an infringement on their privacy, but I don’t know that I agree with that. If you have nothing to hide, what are you worried about? Just a couple of months ago a murderer was caught in one of the suburbs of Daytona Beach when a camera picked up his license plate and showed that it was a stolen car. Police quickly descended on him and got him off the street and to jail where he belonged.

And it’s not just cameras. My android phone has Google smart tracking and it can tell me everywhere I was for the last week, or month, or year. I don’t have anything to hide, so I don’t care. But it can come in very handy for keeping track of your teenagers, if you need to. You can also put tracking devices on their cars. That might have been uncomfortable back when I was a teenager, but now, what the heck? Find out if your kid really is at the library studying. Do kids even go to the library to study anymore?

All of this is leading up to the point of telling you that I was impressed yesterday when I had a package coming from Amazon. It was being delivered by one of those new Amazon Prime vans, and once I got a notice that it was out for delivery I could actually click on a map provided and track it from one stop to another, starting three stops away from my house.

And sure enough, just as the map showed the van pulling up, I looked outside and there it was! How cool is that?

We have had a lot of rain in the last couple days, which we desperately needed. Hopefully it will clear up by the time my kids get here on Friday so we can take them out and show them around this wonderful area where we chose to live when we left the fulltime RV lifestyle.

Terry had a dentist appointment yesterday, and while she was doing that I wrote a couple more blog posts, then went out in the garage with my Go Pro camera, trying to figure out the best way to mount it on my Old Town Predator PDL kayak. There are a lot of options to do something like this, I just need to study them some more and figure out which one would be best for my needs.

And finally, here’s another chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

It’s Thursday so it’s time for another Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of The Chocolate Labradoodle Caper, book three in Phyllis Entis’ Damien Dickens mystery series. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening.

Thought For The Day – Guys, if you are over 40 it’s time to stop chasing those young girls and get yourself a woman who recognizes the signs of a stroke.