Petty Observations

* The inappropriately low speed limit (25 miles per hour on a stretch that should be 35 miles per hour), on Alameda Boulevard between University and Cherry Creek South Drive in Denver is most annoying. So is a similar inappropriate low speed limit on 1st Avenue between Downing and University. Both strips of road are speed traps apparently maintained by the affluent neighbors can't handle the cognitive dissonance associated with the fact that an arterial road happens to run through their neighborhood.

* The capacity of noise cancelling headphones to eliminate low level background noise, the rumbles and hums of dishwashers, ceiling fans, distant trains thumping along train tracks, and the munching and crumbling in the background, that you weren't even consciously aware was there is quite miraculous. They really work better that I would have expected them to work.

* Why does the Cherry Creek farmer's market end when the harvest season begins?

* After several years with a smart phone, I am thoroughly sick of it. I want a dumb phone that does nothing but talk and text. For my druthers, I'd prefer it if it didn't have e-mail, internet access, applications, voice mail, call waiting, or conference calling either. In fact, voice mail and answering machines are, in general, inventions that tend to reduce the quality of modern life. Oh, how I long for the days when human beings put notes on little pieces of paper with only the essentials or gist of what they had to say.

* Why do people let their pairs of dogs go wild on soccer fields full of kids practicing on a weekday afternoon? They are so threatening. But, every dog owner I've ever met seems to be under the insane delusion that their perfect pet could never scratch, claw, bite or push someone, or the dog owner thinks that other people would appreciate it.